Candelo (5 page)

When Vi pulled over for the second time, it was clear that she did not know where we were.

We all woke up, all of us except Evie, who stayed where she was, her head tucked into Mitchell's side as he leant forward to take the map from Vi.

Jesus
, and his mouth was wide open as he stared out the window, forgetting the map for one brief moment, as he gazed out across the black of the country to the sky,
look at them all.

I leant across Evie so that I could see, out past the reflection of his eyes in the window, to the thousands of stars now spread across the sky.

That's what it's like away from the city
, Vi told him.

No kidding
, and he shook his head in amazement as he spread the map out and traced the line of where we had been with the tip of his finger. I watched him as he paused for a moment, still stunned by the beauty of what he had seen, before telling us we were on the right road.
Shouldn't be much further
, he said.

And he was right.

It wasn't.

Candelo. Right around the next bend.

Anton was not my first lie.

But most of the untruths I had told before were small in comparison: white lies, telling friends I liked their work when I had slept through their performance, saying I was sick when I didn't want to go somewhere, breaking up with lovers and telling them I wanted to be friends when I knew, without a doubt, that this was the last thing I wanted.

These are the lies I tell.

These are the lies most people tell.

Marco, on the other hand, found it difficult to tell even these lies. He would say that he believed, always, in the truth; his eyes intent, earnest, the expression on his face one of utmost seriousness, as he explained what to him was an important principle.

But I would watch as his attempts at honesty led him into awkward complications and I would become impatient.

Just lie
, I would say.
It doesn't matter
.

It did to him. Or so he said. Because sometimes I cannot
help but wonder whether he clung steadfast to those small truths as a ballast against the greater lie that had grown between the two of us.

Simon, too, does not lie.

Once, we broke Vi's favourite vase. The tennis ball flying too high through the air, out of reach, it hit the table and bounced to the ground, the vase clattering after it.

The glue sticky beneath my fingers, I tried to put the pieces back together, to align rose with rose, thorn with thorn. But there was no point.

Simon told Vi as soon as she came in the door. And as he held it up to show her, she said that it was not the breakage that upset her, but my attempt to conceal it.

She was just trying to fix it
, Simon offered.

It was no use.

Simon was honest and I was punished.

With my brother, it is only ever truth or silence. And when he chooses silence he is stubborn, immovable.

My father, however, is a consummate liar.

One of the best
, Vi says, and she does not attempt to hide her disgust.

It was my father who got me the job I had at that time, the job I still have. A part-time position. Receptionist in a law firm.

Ursula is an actor
, he tells people proudly.
Excellent on the telephone. Excellent voice
, and when he suggests me for work, I usually get it. People know it is in their interest to do him a favour.

There is never a lot to do. I type letters, make coffee for meetings, order flowers, book restaurants and file. And in the
gaps between tasks, I try to learn an audition piece, to read, to do anything but just stare out the window and let the boredom seep in.

On my first day of work, I was told that I was not allowed to make personal calls.

You must be available to answer the phone after three rings only. Always
, and I had nodded to show that I understood. But it was rare that I kept to the rule. And on that day, the day after I learnt of Mitchell's death, I broke it, repeatedly.

In each quiet moment, I called Anton. Number by number. Hanging up halfway through as the realisation of what I would have to say hit me, catching a glimpse of myself in the glass doors and wondering what words I would manage to find.

Anton loves the telephone. When he is trying to work, he turns the volume on both the phone and the answering machine right down, and then covers them with pillows. When it rings, he runs his fingers through his thick curly hair and sighs impatiently, but it is obvious that he is listening, straining to hear the message, and just as the caller is about to hang up, he will lunge for the receiver.

Wait
, he would say to me.

I won't be long
, he would promise, his hand resting on my arm, asking me to stay.

And I would wait, stealing glances at Louise's half-read books, spines bent back and left lying open on the floor, each one discarded with the next one started, while I tried to listen to what he was saying.

Anton loves to talk, to tell stories. Stories about his travels, his impossible love affairs, the latest mess he has found himself
in, and with each tale he will shrug his shoulders helplessly as he says he doesn't understand, just doesn't understand, how it happened.

He would settle back in the chair, light a cigarette, and I would know that it wouldn't just be a matter of a few minutes. An ex-girlfriend, an old friend, a project officer from a funding agency – he would talk endlessly, his tales more elaborate with each telling. And despite knowing what he was, despite knowing that I, too, was another mess he had stumbled into, I could not resist him. I would keep going back. I would knock on his door and I would kiss him. Straightaway. Drinking in the warmth of his breath. The sea breeze through the open windows, sometimes gentle, sometimes strong enough to pull the door, slam, shut behind me, cupboard doors opening and closing, opening and closing, and the curtains lifting and falling, as I would tell him I had just come up to see him. That was all.

And he would look at me, helpless, charming.
I shouldn't be doing this
, he would say,
but you keep seducing
me.

I looked out across the city spread below me, still and distant, and I dialled his number again, this time right through, only to hang up before his telephone rang. I looked at the tulips I had arranged in the vase this morning and wished I had chosen another flower. They were already overblown, the tip of one leaf brown.

I wished I knew him better. I wished it hadn't come to this.

I wished I could trust him with what I had to say.

And I couldn't imagine how I would even begin to find the first word that I needed.

Once when I was in high school, I phoned a boy seventeen
times in one night, putting down the phone each time he answered. He had been my boyfriend. He had started seeing my best friend. His parents complained to the school that someone was making nuisance calls. They suspected it was a student. Could they do something about it?

The teacher made an announcement in class. A warning to the person who had been
pulling this stunt
that it was not on.
Just not on
.

Everyone knew it was me.

But I did not bat an eyelid. I did not flinch, despite knowing that each and every student in the class was looking at me, waiting to see how I would react. I just looked straight back at the teacher.

I had been furious with him, and I had felt completely justified in what I had done. It was, after all, nothing compared to what he had done to me.

But it was not fury that made me keep dialling Anton's number, hanging up two, maybe three numbers in, sometimes just before the answering machine clicked on to Louise's voice, and then trying again, in each lull during the day, knowing that the light on the switch had been red far too often for the managing partner's liking.

I'm sorry
, I told him,
about all these calls. It's my boyfriend
, I explained.
He's very ill and I've been anxious about him. He hasn't been answering
.

He looked at me with concern.

Perhaps you should go home?
he suggested.

I reassured him that it was fine.
He's probably just asleep
, I said.

When's the next audition?
he asked me, wanting to appear more friendly, more relaxed, because this is the image he likes to present and he is, after all, one of my father's best friends.

I told him it was the next morning.
Another junkie
, I said and he laughed. Like most people, he has only ever seen a short stint I once had in a soap opera. A slow death from an AIDS-related illness.

One day
, I said,
I will get to play someone who is together. Perhaps even glamorous, rich and powerful
.

Maybe even a lawyer
, he laughed.

Maybe even a lawyer
, I agreed.

Good luck
, he said.

And when he walked off, I left a message for Simon at the bus depot and I tried Anton one more time, closing my eyes as I listened to Louise's message, as I let it play right through, as I paused at the end of the beep, and then, faced with the silence, found myself without words.

I hung up.

I would go and see him tomorrow.

I would talk to him then.

A river cut the town in two. A river that wound its way through the valley, twisting across the only way in, slicing right through the middle of the small cluster of houses and shops, and then twisting once more so that you had to cross it yet again as you left.

Three bridges. All of which have flooded and will, no doubt, flood again.

The year before we went to Candelo, it was the bridge that joined one side of the town to the other that went. Swept away as the water rose, the river choking the banks as it crept up the wide trunks of the great elms planted at the edge, forcing its way higher until the pylons eventually collapsed under the strain.

Three years before that it was the bridge that took you out of there, onto the road that leads up to the high Monaro country, where the tufts of grass lie flattened by the wind and the gums pierce the sky.

And once all three went down. No way in. No way out. No way across.

Candelo.

Cut off from everyone else, and cut off from itself.

It was Mitchell who navigated the last stretch, directing us across the bridge that joined two shadowy ribbons of pub, general store, police station and houses, all circled by dense hills, into one.

First left
, he told Vi, following the road on the map in front of him, his hair illuminated by the single light in the roof of the car.

Are you sure?
she asked him, knowing she had given him the responsibility in an attempt to make him feel part of the family, but uncertain as she always was when she handed any form of control to another. She had looked at the map earlier and she was sure it had been right.

No, it's left
, Mitchell said and he passed the map to Simon for confirmation, their shoulders touching as they bent towards each other to look.

He's right
, Simon said, as Vi clicked the indicator on to right.

She paused for a moment and Simon leant across the steering wheel and flicked the switch back up.
It's left
, he said again.

True
, Mitchell nodded, clearly amused by the whole performance.

And Vi shook her head in resignation, as she turned in a direction that she was certain was wrong.

There was a shudder as we hit the dirt, and Simon told Evie she should put her thumb on the window.
Stops it shattering
.

She did as she was told, the warmth of her body stretched
across my lap, her other thumb still in her mouth.

It wasn't far. Ten minutes out of town. The scrap of paper Vi had brought with her, instructions from the people who had lent us the house, told us it was about five miles. But in the darkness, lost in the first folds of the hills, it felt as though we were miles from anywhere.