Candelo (8 page)

I closed her door gently and in the darkness of that hall I listened to each sound of that house. Each shift, each creak, each groan, each rustle of each leaf, each insect darting along each skirting board, and the slow click of another door, opening and closing.

Pressed against the wall, I watched him. Mitchell.

He was in his underpants and T-shirt, the gap between the two revealing the sharp line of his hip bones. He was looking at me looking at him. Seeing me, but not seeing me. Eyes open, but not awake. Walking towards me but not walking towards me.

Mitchell
, I hissed.

He didn't turn his head.

I reached for him and then I stopped. I had heard about
sleepwalking. Stories of people who walked miles, trying to find their way home, crossing cities, rivers, even state borders.

Vi
, I whispered, opening her door just a few inches, careful not to let too much light spill out, careful not to wake him.

She looked at me impatiently.

It's Mitchell
. As I spoke the words, she was up immediately, anxious that something was wrong, wrapping her cardigan around her shoulders as she followed me out to the hall.

See
, and I pointed to where he stood, rocking slightly, from foot to foot, down near the entrance to the kitchen.

She told me to get back to bed, but I stayed where I was, watching her as she took his arm and guided him, slowly back up that corridor towards the open bedroom door, her hand resting gently on his forearm.

The door creaked as she opened it a little more and he started.

Can't go in there
, he told her as she tried to lead him back in, and she jumped at the boom of his voice.
Spiders
, and he leant forward, serious, intent.
Thousands of them
.

As I started to giggle, she turned around and glared at me.

It's okay
, she told him, and she was stroking his arm awkwardly.

I listened as she pulled back the sheets for him, as she opened their window a little wider, as she came down the hall towards me. He stayed quiet.

He's all right
, she said.

Opening the door to our room, I could see Evie, there on the floor in the moonlight. The blanket still at her feet, her thumb still in her mouth, the slight flicker of her eyelashes as she dreamt.

I lay down on the mattress next to hers and I wondered whether Mitchell did this every night. Whether he got up and tried to find his way back to somewhere. Or whether it had just been a one-off. The strangeness of this place. The strangeness of us.

Vi rings me often, but never about anything important. She calls to tell me about a film she saw the night before, an article she read in the paper, a distant friend who has found out she has cancer.

I ring her for similar reasons.

Nothing of significance.

Neither of us ever really listening to each other, one of us ending the conversation abruptly, suddenly bored with it, only to call the other back a few hours later.

Every so often it irritates me.

I wonder why we bother.

But I do not stop. It is like a reflex action. A blank moment in either of our days and we pick up a telephone and dial each other's number. So much so that if a significant amount of time passes without us speaking to each other, I become anxious, distracted, aware that there is something important missing, out of place, but not quite able to pinpoint it. And then I remember. I haven't spoken to Vi.

Mari, on the other hand, never calls me.

And that is why when I came home from the audition and heard her message on the machine, my immediate reaction was one of alarm.

Mari and my mother met seven years ago.

On their five-year anniversary, Mari organised a party. Lunch in Vi's garden for thirty of their closest friends. She cooked for weeks, an extraordinary Italian feast, crowned by a magnificent almond cake, three layers high and covered with crystallised violets.

Standing under the crepe myrtle, Mari gave a speech. She told the story of their first meeting. It was a story I had heard before.

It all began
, and she tinkled her glass for full attention,
in a women's refuge
.

I looked across at my mother, expecting her to be uncomfortable with this public show of affection, and I was surprised. She was sitting at the end of the table with her chin resting in her hands. Her cigarette burned untouched in an ashtray by her side.

Her dark eyes were focused on Mari and she was smiling, just slightly, with a shyness I had never seen before.

I looked away, quickly.

Through the glass doors, I could see that the kitchen table was piled high with gifts and I wished I had thought of bringing something. I felt ashamed for not having recognised the occasion for what it was.

She was, I think, the only woman I had ever seen in that place with such ridiculously high heels
.

Everyone laughed. Vi loudest of all, cigarette-husky and deep.

But what made them even more ridiculous was the fact that we were all there to paint the place
.

Vi picked up her cigarette and waved her arm in the air.
It was the only way I could reach anything
, she called out to shouts of laughter.

I could see Simon on the other side of the garden, sitting on his own with his plate balanced on his lap, the only man in a sea of women, eyes fixed on the ground.

I remember
, and Mari smiled at my mother,
watching her balancing on that ladder, proselytising about the superiority of a pastel wall compared to the brilliant yellow the women had chosen, and thinking that she was truly something else. When she actually managed to convert the entire committee into choosing pale pink for the bedrooms, I knew I had met a force to be reckoned with
.

Vi clapped her hands and called out, but Mari continued:
Five years later and I still have no hesitation in calling her extraordinary, although I am thankful to say that the taste for pink has mellowed somewhat
. She raised her glass, and I watched as they all lifted their glasses in the air.
To five wonderful years
.

It was difficult to believe it had been that long.

I remembered when I had first met Mari and it seemed so recent. She had been sitting in the garden, wrapped in Vi's dressing-gown and reading the paper.

We had introduced ourselves.

I had been awkward.

She was unperturbed.

A week later, Simon had told me she was actually living there.

As in living with each other?
I had asked.

He had simply shrugged his shoulders.

I watched as they all called for Vi to respond.
Speech
, they shouted, and she eventually stood up, feigning reluctance as she took her place next to Mari under the thick mass of lilac flowers.

Even in her heels, she only came up to Mari's shoulders. Her black curls had just started to grey and I noticed for the first time that she was looking old, her olive skin pallid in the sun, her cheekbones sunken.

She produced a thick wad of notes to a loud chorus of boos.
Of course, I have something prepared
, and she smiled as she pushed her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose.
In fact, I wanted to use this occasion to speak about recent cuts to spending on women's health
, and she looked around the garden at the mass of amazed faces.

And there was, for one moment, a stunned silence.

It was hard to believe she could be serious.

But what was worse was that it was possible.

And she laughed.

I had you there
, she said, raising her glass of red wine.

And the relief was instantaneous.

Thank you
, she said and she took Mari's hand, holding it in her own for an instant, so brief it may not have happened.

She took her glasses off and put her papers down on the table.
All of you
, and she blew a kiss, her arms outstretched.
You are good friends
, and she looked down.

It was one of the few times I had seen my mother at a loss for something to say.

When I helped Mari wash the dishes later that afternoon, she told me she was glad I had come.

Of course I'd be here
, I had said, surprised by her words.

Red wine and lazy afternoon sun had relaxed her. She put the tea towel down and rested an arm around my shoulder.

We've never really become friends, have we?
she asked.

I did not know what to say. I laughed and moved away. I told her she was being silly.
Too much to drink
, I said.

But she was right. Mari and I have never really become friends. It is not that I do not like her. We have just kept our distance. But lately, I have tried harder. I am glad she is there. She loves my mother and she looks after her, and these things should not be taken lightly.

When I heard her message on my machine, I called her back straightaway.

She did not spend long asking me how I was, what I had been up to, before telling me she had called because she was worried about Simon.

From my window, I could see a storm was coming in, rolling in across the dark metallic grey of the sea.

Anton's washing was still on the line, flapping against the blackening sky. It would rain soon. Any minute. Heavy drops on the parched patches of grass that struggled to survive against the weeds.

I twirled the cord tight around my finger and watched the blood drain out, white.

Why?
I asked her.

Unlike the rest of our family, Mari is direct. She had seen Mitchell's obituary. Simon had clipped it from the paper. She had tried to talk to him but he had told her little more than he had told me.

You'll go with him?
she asked me.

The first of the rain had started to fall and I watched as Anton unpegged each piece of clothing, bundling them into his arms before they flew wild across the garden and out to sea. I could hear the windows upstairs straining against the sashes and I remembered. Lying in bed with him and hearing the crash. The entire frame ripped off its hinges and floating out, still, for an instant, before it shattered, a thousand pieces on the rocky path below.

I didn't want to talk to your mother about it
, Mari said.

And I was surprised. Because she believes in confronting, in tackling, head on.

It would only upset her.

But I wanted to make sure you would look after him. Check that he doesn't do anything stupid
.

I told her I had already promised Simon I would go. I didn't know if I would actually go to the service, but I would drive out there with him.

Thank you
, she said.

And as I hung up, I remembered, way out, in the stillness of the ocean, Anton swimming from one point to the other. Swimming alongside me. Crossing the bay for the first time. Pulling himself up onto the rocks on the north end, the moss spongy beneath our feet, purple, blue and green plants sparkling as the water lapped over them. Telling me that he had never done
this before, and I wasn't sure what it was that he was referring to. Kissing? Kissing someone other than Louise? Or swimming from one end to the other? Telling me he shouldn't be doing this. But not stopping. And not knowing why he was saying what he was saying because I did not, not for one instant, think of either of them. Louise or Marco. Showing him a starfish. Right there, pressed against the side of a rock and him not looking, just telling me he should get back, but kissing me again. And again.

And I had thought, this is it. This is what I wanted. And I have it, right here, right now, perfect for this instant.

I tapped on my window. I knocked on the glass. I forced it open against the onslaught of wind, and I called out to him.

Anton
, my voice ringing out across the garden.

He turned and he looked at me. The rain streaking down, heavy, hot, and the washing bundled under his arms.

He glanced upstairs, and then back at me, and I saw the fear on his face.

Anton
, I called again, determined now to finish what I had started.

And as he ran over to my window, he was shaking his head.
She's upstairs
, he was saying.
She's upstairs
.

I told him I needed to talk to him.

Please
, I said.

And I opened my front door and waited for him to come in.