Rose Leopard (20 page)

Milo taps me on the ankle. ‘I don't get it,' he says.

‘Wait,' I tell him. ‘Just a little longer'

She was very close to the Mother Star now. Outside the cloak, she could feel Dragmir's grip slowly loosening, then she coughed as a horrible burning smell invaded her nostrils.

She heard Dragmir cry out in a strange high-pitched voice, then there was a mighty explosion that shook her hard — and he was gone, vaporised to nothingness by the intense heat.

And now, she knew, now it was time for her to go too — for it was her Enlightenment and only hers that had the power to help the ailing Mother Star. She had to become part of the Mother Star, feed her light into it, donate her goodness and beauty and purity and everything else that shone from the Keeper of the Gardens of Replenishment.

The rose leopard paused for a moment and whispered a quiet prayer to her children. She asked them to look at the Mother Star every evening for the remainder of time, and to think of her well. Then, ignoring the intensity of the heat and the screeches of the Swicks, and remembering all of the wonder and grace that existed in the Bright Universe, she moved closer and closer to the Mother Star — until finally, she merged … and like ice melting into water, they became one, a beautiful radiant wholeness. Her Enlightenment was donated forever.

And down below, in the gardens and rivers, the mountains and plains, the deserts and forests, the light suddenly lifted. There was a newness and clarity to the world, and everyone stood taller and smiled — because they knew that the rose leopard's sacrifice had meant that the Bright Universe could continue to shine throughout Eternity.

The children are silent, Amelia and Francesca too.

Finally, it is Milo who asks: ‘So she died, right? The rose leopard is gone?'

Francesca answers for me.

‘No,' she says with a mother's calm confidence. ‘Not gone. She's — elsewhere. And she's lucky. She's lucky because she's part of the Mother Star, and we should be very proud of her.'

We sit in our tableau and consider this a while as the warm spangles of morning gather about us.

‘I'm going to miss the rose leopard,' says Otis in a funny voice.

‘There's no need.' I reach across, pull her small brown body to me, feel her skinny warmth between my hands. ‘Because she's here, with us, every minute of every day, every month of every year. Okay? She's here with us now.'

It is later that day when I realise that maybe the story is not quite complete. I leave the study, leave the glue and my diminishing pile of photos, disengage myself from the sticky labels and go to Amelia's door. I tap twice, answer her call to come in, expect to find her squeezing paint onto a palette but see instead that she is reading.

‘So, what's the book?'

She looks momentarily embarrassed then shrugs and holds it up by the spine so that I can see the cover.

Pears Amid Paradisio, An Allegory by Vincent Daley.

Pause for reflection.

‘Why did you call yourself Vincent?' she asks slyly.

Why indeed? Because it's my baptised name, the statistic that adorns my marriage certificate and driver's licence; or because Stu thought it sounded more grand and impressive, like someone whose professionalism entails writing exactly five thousand uncompromising words every day before breakfast; or because, as Kaz said, it looked scholarly and it said things, right things like: Hey world — take me seriously! Take my creations seriously!

‘I wanted to be taken seriously,' I tell her, trying not to sound sheepish. ‘See, authors with completed christian names are always taken more seriously than those without. It's an inevitable, though poorly documented, occupational hazard.'

She nods, grins, slides her fingers through unruly hair, plonks the book face-down on her quilt, stares at me a while.

Time to plunge. I frown once, maybe twice, lean against a window-sill.

‘You know how we're related,' I say to her.

She looks away for a moment then nods again.

‘Amelia, it's just … well, I'm not really your uncle.'

She barely hesitates.

‘You're my Dad, aren't you?'

Still air, still life, an absence of everything. Then: ‘You knew? How did you know?'

She shrugs, rolls over onto her back.

‘The numbers didn't add up. I was always told that I was something like eight weeks premature. The birth extract that I … borrowed from the back of Mum's undies drawer shows that I was way above normal size when I was born. Either I was a monster, or I was full-term. Besides, I knew that old Leo could never be my Dad. Have you seen the photos? He was ancient even then!'

‘Men who are advanced in age can still become fathers. We're biological marvels —'

‘Not this one. Check the photos. He was falling apart at the seams.'

We laugh together too hilariously. Eventually I cross the rug, old and congealed, and sit beside her.

I ask, ‘But how did you know it was me?'

She shrugs once more.

‘We look alike,' she says, with an acceptance of the fact that is endearingly uncomplicated. ‘Haven't you ever noticed?'

The eye of an artist, I reflect ruefully, knows no boundaries. It may even extend into the dim realm of family conspiracies.

Six

O
n a poet's lips I slept
… and am awoken around eight by the shrill come-hither of the telephone.

‘Vince?'

‘Stu, you slubberdegullion. It's Sunday morning. Normal, rational people are either asleep or thinking they should be'

‘Sorry. I'm an agent. You can't be normal or rational in this business. Either one would be counter-productive.'

‘Point taken. To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?'

He pauses, sucks in some breath.

‘Bad news actually. Rosalie O'Shannon rang late on Friday. Editorial at DataPage have rejected
Pears.'

He waits, perhaps in anticipation of the stereotypical writer-tantrum — long-winded claims that publishers are commerce-driven heathens to creativity, that as an agent he has the balls of a eunuch and the acumen of a gnat, that publishing is a miserable soulless industry where the phrase
quality manuscript
equates to a screenplay masquerading as prose with adjectives inserted via Microsoft Thesaurus.

‘And so they should,' I tell him eventually.

‘Pardon?'

‘If they've got any corporate nous, then they should reject
Pears.
It's not very good.'

Another pause, definitely more laden.

‘Are you … Vince, are you okay?'

‘Never better, O Long-suffering One. See, I know that
Pears Amid Paradisio, An Allegory by Vincent Daley,
is crap. Not just your average run-of-the-mill crap either, but full-blown crap. It's pretentious, self-satisfied, turgid, over-written and mind-screamingly uninteresting. Crap, crappy, crapped off. The book — my book — is a wank, Stu. Actually that's unfair; at least a wank feels good. In literary terms, reading my book is like having your stomach pumped. It's like being disembowelled with a hacksaw, like seeing your mother-in-law
en flagrant —'

‘I get the picture, Vince.' He sounds suddenly disconcerted, his perfect world inexplicably in ruins.

‘Then get this. Our problem — no, let's attempt a modicum of honesty here — my problem has always been that drivelling, babbling, dick-wipe of a book.'

‘Vince —'

‘Stu, I've been kidding myself all along. Just because I actually finished it, I thought it was automatically publishable. Just because there were two or three
nice
sentences within, I imagined sales of thousands. I finished it, sat back, congratulated myself that it was brilliant and life-affirming, waited for the royalties to roll in. And, on all counts, I was wrong.'

He considers, coughs politely.

‘Can I ask — why the change of heart?'

‘You can ask and I'll willingly tell you. I'm seeing things with a new clarity, Stu. And look, Kaz was always really supportive — but deep down, down in that place where self-delusion can no longer rule, I knew she was disappointed. Actually, my daughter tried to read it last night. When she couldn't, and then stopped wanting to, my suspicion was confirmed. The book is garbage.'

‘You let Sara read
Pears
?'

‘Otis? No, Amelia. My other daughter.'

‘Eh? Vince, this is very confusing —'

‘Not really. Not when you know the
real
story.'

There is a brief silence, then I hear the glimmer of a laugh in his voice.

‘You know what's funny,' he says. ‘I never even read it until after I contracted you. I was desperate for clients at the time, just went ahead without thinking, then I did read it and thought it was pretty awful too — but I got so used to spruiking for it, so down-pat with my whole presentation, that I started to believe otherwise. I convinced myself that it was somehow original, startling, courageous even —'

‘Wank words.'

‘The staple diet of salespeople, Vince. And that's all I am — a salesman with a fancy title. Funny, isn't it?'

‘Funny,' I agree. Then I put the phone down and think how lucky I have been, how lucky that Stu has been such a BIG , if occasionally misguided, friend to me.

Francesca says, ‘I'm taking Amelia and Alex and Sara to the beach. Is that okay with you?'

Of course it is. Beaches are fun. You can draw squiggles in the sand, brace your body against the scrolling waves, lie like a pancake and absorb the sun.

‘They want to collect some shells,' she continues. ‘Then we're taking them to the cemetery.'

She places her long, cool fingers into mine and shunts me gently towards her.

‘Why don't you come with us?' she asks. And after the initial run of panicky thoughts and not knowing how to respond, I pause, turn away, hide my face then realise: now it must become a question of sharing. In the sculpting of souls, pain dissolves best when it is lived as a common experience.

Francesca stands before me, arms by her side, waiting patiently.

‘Come with us,' she says again.

So I do.

Kids in the back singing barmy versions of sitcom signature tunes, Frannie smiling and cross-legged beside me. A tiny bald spider scuttles behind the dashboard as I clunk into gear. Beneath a milky sky we drive away from the farmhouse, veering through bushland and cutting across the pale shadows which slash the road. We drive for half an hour then the hills collapse into paddocks and we see brittleness, bare earth, cattle gathered in familial knots. The car slices through a postsummer landscape that is dusty and constricted; the grass grey and dolorous, occasional collections of trees looking like spider legs, thin and black, knotted.

‘It's so dry,' says Amelia. ‘Sort of colourless.'

It is, I think, but even in this drab, ordinary place, surrounded by arid plains and dark crusts of creek-bed soil, there remains a richness and serenity that can always be cherished.

Soon the coast is in view. We drive towards town, enjoying a wider smoother road which eventually becomes the main thoroughfare of Barilba Bay. Silent now, we keep driving; past warehouses and deserted building sites, past the public golf course, past over-priced land, until we hit the city centre, drive through coded plastic messages — the golden arches of McDonald's,
Yes We Have Vacancies
in welcoming neon,
Bargains Galore!,
an arrow to a
Drive-Thru ATM.
This is another Bright Universe, a gaudy place filled with cheerful people going about their everyday lives; purchasing, using, discarding, embracing the modern cycle. Then we are out of the shopping precinct, drifting into the suburbs, weaving between broken kerbing and uneven lines of houses. The sun pierces the cloud-cover and bounces dully from the steel rooves. I see verandas cluttered with children's bikes and wilting pot-plants, gargantuan metal sheds filled with upturned boats and workbenches and clothes driers. Signs guide us — John Street, Frangipanni Crescent, Oleander Avenue.

‘Australian street names,' I told Kaz once, ‘are so condescending. So dreadfully banal. Have you noticed: they're either Anglo-Saxon or Aboriginal. Nothing else. Nothing migrant or Asian, for example.'

‘Does it matter?'

‘No. I just thought you'd like to know.'

The beach curves before us like a slice of rockmelon. We disembark, breathe in the cleaner saltier air. The children rush before me, drawn magnetically to the sea like thousands before them. I walk along the top part of the beach over the white softest sand, look out and see a stretch of shells lingering in the wash of the Pacific. The children are gathering, picking up, inspecting then placing their trophies carefully into small plastic bags. It is a thoughtful, elaborate process. The shells are wing-shaped with funnelled ribs spreading from their hub. Spread along the sands, they remind me of a thousand dropped fans, leeched by salt and the gently rolling surf. They are perennial, a measure of the immutability of time. Channels of water will gush, currents will continue to splice in vectors, sands will shift and settle, land-masses will grind at each other like animal molars yet still the shells will remain; tiny ideals, perfect shapes, odes.

‘Why shells?' I ask Amelia. ‘Has it always been shells?'

Below us, the sea flows comfortably across our bare feet, swirls in circles and makes us sink slightly into the slush. Out in the ocean, away from sight and human sound, life teems. Amelia stares at the collection of shells in her hands, opens her fingers and allows the grains of sand to slip back into the water.

‘No,' she admits. ‘There's been flowers of course, but other things too. A little toy each, some hand-written messages, a basket of marbles and old buttons.'

‘Marbles and old buttons?'

She looks up at me. The beach wind plays lightly upon her face, makes her eyes narrow.

‘Anything,' she says. ‘We just took anything. They seemed to like doing that — and when we got there, it didn't matter what it was. It all sort of made sense, I suppose.'

Things do. The sun beats upon our backs, the cries of marauding seagulls interrupt us, our flesh takes on a familiar sheen, a new understanding of shared blood pumps through our hearts. Connections, disruptions: a lifetime of each awaits us all.

‘How?' I ask. ‘How did you do all that? When?'

‘Most weekends,' she says, gazing at the ocean. ‘Sometimes we caught the bus, but usually Delphine drove us'

‘Delphine?'

‘Yeah. She offered. It was nice of her, I thought.'

It is an oddly disquieting vision: my children with Delphine, bumping along towards their mother's grave while I remain at home, inward, self-absorbed.

‘But, why didn't you tell me?'

She turns and looks directly at me.

‘I didn't think you'd want to know,' she says simply.

We meander further along the smooth wet sand, watch the waves lift then roll into nothingness.

‘Did you ever skip stones?' Amelia asks. ‘When you were a kid? I love doing that kind of stuff.'

‘All the time.' I lean down, pick out a couple of flattish pebbles. ‘I was well-known as a champion stone-skipper throughout my formative years.'

I fling the first one into the waves. It jumps briefly before disappearing into the depths.

She grins, flicks her wrist and releases a stone. I count six skips before it sinks.

‘You're out of practice,' she grins. ‘We should have a competition some time.'

I am about to pick up another pebble when Francesca approaches, still perfectly coiffed despite the breeze.

‘They've finished,' she says simply. ‘It's time to go.'

Time to go? Time to leave this place, with all its glare and openness? Leave the whipping air and the balm of waves lapping, sand squeezing between our toes?

Sunlight dances on my hot mad skull.

‘Come to the cemetery,' says Francesca. And then curiously, arm around my waist: ‘There's a space for the story.'

Blink, blink.
C
EMETERY. SILENCE
.

It is neat, of course, a serene place that echoes with bird-song. As we walk the lawn between the plaques and stones, I feel transported. There is a subtlety of colour here for this is a world that is washed in pastel, muted hues to honour our families.

The children go before me. Despite the circumstances they are confident, practised. At ease, I think; there is a great comfort for them in this ritual.

I watch, fascinated, as they arrive at a newish stone in the landscape. It is faintly tinged with yellowness like an adult tooth. There they stand, hands clasped in front, heads bowed as their lips shape a silent prayer then they drop to their knees, begin to arrange the shells. Although they do not speak to each other, their actions show their togetherness. This, I see, is their mutual, habitual condolence.

It is time for me, their father, to participate.

I reach into a pocket and extract a photo. My favourite shot of Kaz, it was taken without her consent, on a humid March day when late-morning had turned murky. A troop-carrier of low pregnant clouds threatened, the sun was a thin mustard disc. At midday a severe electrical storm had smashed and flashed overhead, our power was completely cut and Kaz, writing feature columns at the time for a city magazine, had an impending deadline.

‘Leave it,' I told her. ‘They'll understand.'

Instead, she sat at her desk with two candles burning and wrote the column longhand, fashioned an impressive piece on our child-like reliance on technology: gadgetry, electricity, techno-wizardry. Then she put the paper into a sealed plastic bag, walked out into huge gusts of pelting rain, drove into town and paid for a courier to get it to Brisbane.

My photo captures her between the two candles, pen poised, face upturned as she searches for a phrase. The lambency from the tiny flames illuminates one elegant, controlled hand as it settles about her cheek, her lips are bunched and pensive, her eyes lifted to elsewhere.

I bend down next to my son, place the photograph carefully against the base of the stone, smile gratefully as my wife's hand rises gently from a scented garden of flowers and shells. Sunlight winks from the gilded frame. Radiance, elegance, the endurance of love: in time, I know, the photograph will fade and crumble, as people do, but it will be replaced, and then replaced again, and again. For a photograph is not a feeling but an expression of memory, and I have plenty of those to sustain me.

I stand, trace my fingers across the coolness of the stone. Just to touch it is comforting. My fingers find and follow the words:
Katherine Louise Daley, 1964–2002.
I explore further, feel nothing below the inscription but a polished blank rectangle.

There's a space for the story.

To which I might add some words — perhaps from e.e.cum-mings
(lovers alone wear sunlight)
or perhaps from myself
(so that the Bright Universe may continue to shine)
but that is a matter for later consideration. For now I look away, remove my own hands from the headstone and its quiet, intricate lettering. In the distance Otis is wandering, skipping beneath trees on a patchwork of grass as she reads other people's memorials. When she stops, briefly, she is framed against the wavering leaves and sky, like a child centred in a Tom Roberts landscape. The colours are all there, earthy and daubed; she stands amidst a swirl of ochre and brilliance, the wind teasing her hair, her elfin face turned to the light.