As Far as You Can Go (8 page)

She can see Graham in the distance, sitting with his back against one of the trees, sketch pad on his knees. He’s wearing the unravelling straw hat he’s picked up. And she softens, glad about his talent. OK, have your
studio
then. If only he would start to paint again, to be serious about
something
. Their cottage is lined with his paintings, strange things, reflections, oily ripples. How can he be so talented and not want to paint? He says he’s stuck but – the way he can catch a movement in a single line. He doodles when he’s on the phone, one line he does, never lifting the pencil. With his long graceful fingers he’ll sketch a girl turning, the swing of her skirt, a bird taking off, a smile
happening
on a face. That last she’d noticed when he was talking to Jas once. A long and mumbled conversation during which she’d felt resentfully obliged to leave the room, though she’d been there first. And when, afterwards, she’d looked at the pad by the phone there was this
smile
, such a smile, amazing being only a line, actually infectious enough for her to catch it, despite herself.

Graham stops by the veranda steps. Cassie doesn’t see him at first, chin cupped between her hands, she gazes at what? The back of her neck gleams under her heavy ponytail. He lifts his own thick hair off his sweaty skin. She’s put the flowers in a vase and filled a glass jug with water, floating with lemon. The big tomato slices overlap on a plate, shiny with oil and green fragments of basil. Could be a composition, a painting there for him, not that still life is his thing.

‘Penny for them?’ he says.

She starts. ‘Don’t waste your money. How’d you get on?’

He grasps the sketch pad tighter under his arm. Nothing to show, just a few lines, a tree trunk, a horizon, the flick of a lizard’s tail. It’s too big to paint. He’d gone into his studio first but no good. So he’d wandered outside, sat under a tree, ready, the paper in front of him, the pencil raised – and nothing. The light had danced whorishly in front of him. What is the point of painting, it made him think, the point of making another painting? If you burnt every painting in the world, then – when the fire was out, and it was all a pile of ash – what then? What’s the point?

He kisses her. She tastes of tuna fish. ‘You were miles away,’ he says. ‘Where were you?’

‘Just waiting.’ She goes into the kitchen and comes back with
a plate of bread. A fly settles on it as she puts it down and she flaps her hand at it.

‘What’s up?’

She looks serious. ‘Please, Gray, we need to talk.’

‘We
will
talk.’ His heart sinks.

‘We’ve come all this way to talk.’

‘What about?’

‘Us, of course. What do you think? The footsie index?’

He takes a breath. ‘I’m
here
, aren’t I? That’s what you wanted –’

She pulls off a corner of bread, and nibbles, flecks of crumb on her lower lip. ‘Yes, you are, aren’t you?’ She smiles.

‘How’s the garden then?’

‘Great. Gray,
please
. Let’s just clear the air,’ she licks a crumb off her finger, ‘about us. Then we can forget it.’ She pauses, ‘You know that all I want is a proper monogamous relationship.’

He can’t prevent a groan.

‘Don’t
. What?’

‘You
know
. That word. The M-word.’

She bites her lip. He can see the almost invisible peach fuzz on her cheek, lit up by the sun. ‘I don’t want to go on and on about it,’ she says, ‘if we can just have
one
proper conversation, get things straight.’

‘It’s not the actual being –’ he searches for a word that he can swallow,
‘true,’
he says, surprised by the simplicity. ‘It’s that
word
. It’s like – monotony.’

‘It’s
not
the actual being true?’ She gazes at him. ‘What’s the problem then?’

‘No
problem,’ he says. At this moment that seems true, too. Her irises are crazed with tawny flecks in this light, more grey, less green.

She pushes her hair behind her ears.
‘So?
’
she says.

‘So, I will, from now on, be true,’ he says, finding that he likes
that word. That single simple syllable. Doesn’t
sound
as onerous as monogamy.

‘Not much chance of anything else here!’ she says. ‘Just so we can be clear, start off with a clean slate, will you tell me the last person you slept with?’

‘Will
you
?’

‘You
know
– it was Rod. And I didn’t really want to, it was only because of you. Only because you did. I never really wanted to. Though I have to admit –’ Her eyes go dreamy and he feels an unexpected kick of jealousy. She shakes her head. ‘Anyway, that was nearly a year ago. You –’

The door of the shed opens and Mara comes out, Larry behind her. Graham breathes out gratefully. How true is true exactly? Mara’s hair is a fat plait over one bare shoulder. Wrapped tightly round her breasts and tucked in to make a kind of sarong, is a thin brown sheet.

‘Are we ready?’ Larry asks.

‘Yes,’ Cassie says. ‘I’ll just fetch –’

‘A bottle of wine?’ Larry suggests.

‘Oh Larry, yes!’ Mara claps her hands.

‘As a welcome, a celebration of sorts.’

‘Yesss.’

‘That would be nice.’ Cassie goes into the kitchen to fetch the grub. Graham smiles at her retreating back. She never drinks at lunchtime. He likes it when she does though. And later, he flexes his fingers, bed. He takes his tobacco out of his pocket.

‘What’s for lunch?’ Mara walks with some difficulty, because of the sheet tangling round her feet, up the veranda steps.

‘Something with tuna fish, I think.’ He can still taste the kiss. He pulls out a Rizla and rolls up.

‘I like tuna fish,’ Mara says. She sits down on the nearest chair and looks into Graham’s eyes. Hers are caramel brown, darkly shadowed underneath. ‘What is tuna but a fish?’ she says. ‘You don’t say sardine fish or trout fish.’

Graham shrugs and speaks with the fag between his lips. ‘But you say dogfish.’

‘True,’ Mara says.

‘You have to.’ Cassie plonks the salad bowl on the table. ‘Otherwise it’s just a dog. Maybe you should smoke that
after
lunch?’

‘I, for one, would prefer it if you waited,’ Larry says. He pours red wine into the glasses Cassie meant for water.

‘Fair enough.’ Graham removes the cigarette from his mouth and puts it on the table beside his fork. He sniffs and sips his wine. Soft and peppery, the temperature of blood. ‘Excellent,’ he says. Even a small sip, even the
smell
of it goes right to his sun-baked brains.

‘You know about wine?’ Larry turns to him.

‘I’m no expert,’ he says, ‘but I do have some idea. My dad was into it in a big way.’

‘What do reckon to this – the grape?’

Cassie flicks Graham an amused look. He sniffs again and frowns, having no clue at all, despite Dad and his famous cellar. ‘Cabernet Sauvignon?’ he tries.

‘Shiraz.’

‘Oh yeah.’

‘Do help yourselves,’ Cassie says. ‘It’s hard in someone else’s kitchen till you get used –’

‘Don’t think of it as someone else’s,’ Larry says. ‘Think of it as yours.’ He raises his glass to her.

‘Cheers,’ she says.

‘Well, cheers. Welcome.’

‘Welcome,’ Mara says.

‘Thanks.’

‘Yeah. Cheers.’ Graham scratches his chin, not shaved for a couple of days and the stubble itches. He eyes the neat little tube of white by his plate, one ginger wisp of baccy trailing out.

Mara eats with hungry delicacy, dabbing her mouth on the corner of her sheet. Larry has a white linen napkin in a bone ring. He fetches it himself and with some flourish pulls it out and tucks it into his shirt. The rest of them do without. Graham’s mother always had a thing about napkins, linen. You had to roll them up after the meal, rolls of white. He eyes his fag again and looks away.

On the sheet under Mara’s thick brown arms scoops of sweat are spreading. The smell of her – impossible not to notice it. Repulsive or intoxicating, can’t make up his mind, but maybe the last is just the wine? Not like male sweat or sharp and salty like Cassie’s, which he’s getting used to lately. This is musky and cloying, even sweet – but that’s probably perfume.

‘You paint, Mara?’ he says.

‘I
can
paint,’ she says.

‘Mara is a splendid painter.’ Larry smiles at them all, his smile lingering on Cassie the longest.

‘Went to the Slade,’ Mara says.

‘Really?’ Graham says.

‘You sound surprised.’

‘Not at all,’ he says. Although he is. Hard to imagine Mara at the Slade – where he once spent a term. He’d started an MA but that’s when the rot set in. Hard to imagine Mara anywhere for that matter.

‘What are these?’ Cassie runs her thumbnail along one of the shallow, wavy indentations on the table’s surface.

‘Termite trails,’ Larry says. ‘You’ll see them everywhere. See –’ He indicates the door frame.

‘Termites.’ Cassie shudders. ‘Why does that sound so much worse than ants?’

‘A queen termite can be the size of a cucumber,’ Mara says. Graham blurts out a laugh but she looks quite serious. ‘Have you seen the termite mounds?’ she says. ‘They are amazing, aren’t they, Larry? That would give you something to paint.’

‘Where are they?’ Graham asks.

‘The nearest colony worth seeing is – oh – quite a distance.’ Larry drains the last of the wine into Mara’s glass and opens another. The cork rolls down the steps.

‘When’s Fred coming back?’ Mara asks, her voice colliding with Graham asking to see her work.

‘I don’t paint.’ Mara looks down and delicately forks together a sliver of tomato, a slice of bean, a flake of fish and puts it in her mouth.

‘I’ll explain later,’ Larry says.

‘No, you will not explain.’ A piece of bean pops out of her mouth. ‘Excuse me.
I
will explain. There is no need to explain. I paint and burn because I can’t paint – paint and burn, paint and burn.’

‘Calm down Mara,’ Larry puts a hand on her arm. ‘I had to stop her,’ he explains. ‘Fire risk.’

Graham swallows. ‘That’s weird,’ he says, putting down his fork. ‘This morning
I
was thinking that.’

Cassie looks up. ‘Thinking what?’

‘After lunch, a nice rest –’ Larry almost looks nervous.

‘Aborigines eat termites you know,’ Mara says, shaking his hand off. ‘But never the queen.’

‘You
weren’t,’
Cassie says.

‘The queen is sacred.’

‘I
was.’
Graham frowns. ‘Well, not exactly,’ he says, softening his voice. ‘Hard to explain.’

‘No need to explain here. There never is, is there, Larry? Let it be a rule.’

‘Mara,’ Larry leans towards her, ‘you’re getting overexcited.’ He turns to Cassie. ‘Shouldn’t have let her have the wine really. But special occasion –’

Mara laughs, her lips, despite the constant dabbing with the sheet, glistening with tuna oil.

‘Doesn’t mix with her medication.
Do
calm down, Mara.’

‘That is now a rule. I
am
calm.’ She holds up her glass: ‘I hereby declare it a rule. Rule number – I don’t know – that we never need to explain.’

‘Explain what?’ says Cassie.

‘Anything. No need to explain. It is illegal to explain. Or to ask someone to explain.’

Cassie stares at her for a moment. ‘Brilliant!’ she says, smiling at Graham. ‘Eh, Gray? What a brilliant idea!’

‘Yeah,’ he says. What a pity she doesn’t mean it. He catches Larry staring sharkishly at Cassie. Can’t blame him. Beside Mara – not that Mara’s ugly or even plain – Mara meets his eyes and he realises he’s been staring at the sweaty sheet and the squashed slopes of her breasts above it. Small dark scattering of moles like a constellation. He looks into her heavy-lidded eyes. That plait, it’s thick as a rope.

‘Would you paint me?’ Mara says.

‘Don’t do portraits as such.’

‘As such!’

‘Could you pass me the water, please?’ Cassie says. She nudges him under the table with her knee. He looks down. Her shorts have ridden up to reveal the very white skin there above the blurry edge of tan. Rightio then, he thinks, after lunch on that old bed.

Larry pushes the jug towards Cassie. She pours water and drinks, eyes closed with the pleasure of it. Graham watches the smooth swallowing motion in her throat.

‘What do you do?’ Mara says, suddenly jabbing her finger in Cassie’s direction. ‘He, he is a painter.’

Cassie wipes her mouth. ‘I teach part-time, adults. Gardening and stuff.’

‘She does all kinds of things,’ Graham says. ‘Mind if I light up now?’ He flicks his lighter and inhales the smoke. ‘She’s a great cook.’ He breathes out smoke. He feels suddenly good. Happy,
lazy, half-pissed. In the mood for sex. ‘A
great
cook.’ Great in bed, he thinks.

‘A terrifically useful person.’ Larry says.

‘Sounds like an obituary!’

‘But true,’ Graham says, putting his hand on her leg and squeezing. ‘A very practical person.’

‘And practically pissed too. Shall I make some coffee?’ She stands up and staggers a bit, catches her hip on the corner of the table. ‘Ouch.
Shouldn’t
drink at lunchtime.’ She begins to stack the plates.

‘Leave it for now,’ Larry says. ‘Go and lie down. I’m sure you’d like a lie-down.’

‘Well,’ she grins and holds on to the table as if for balance. ‘Yes.’

Larry meets Graham’s eyes and smiles.

Graham follows Larry’s eyes following Cassie down the steps and round the side of the house.

‘I wonder what it’s like to be blonde,’ Mara says. An iridescent green fly crawls at the corner of her lips. ‘I wonder if you see colour differently through different-coloured eyes? I’ve always wondered.’

‘There is no way of telling,’ Larry says.

‘No.’

They sit for a moment, considering this. Flies drag their legs stickily over the plates, making Graham itch. Rubs his chin. Must shave. He should have got up when Cassie did. Feels stuck now. He rolls himself another fag.

‘Smoke?’ Larry says.

‘Sorry, want one?’