The Beloved (21 page)

She dropped her brush in a jar of paint-tinted water. ‘Come in.' The room was long and bright. A wide wooden bench ran around two sides of it. One side was covered in papers and account books, the other in brushes, paper and tubes of paint, all laid out according to colour. The sight of it made my throat ache. She wiped her hands on her apron which was creased and caked in paint, messy compared with her neatly arranged paints. I couldn't help smiling.

‘What's the joke?' she said.

‘You look like one of my paintings.'

She picked up a tube and screwed on the top. ‘I'll take that as a compliment.'

I twirled Stumpy in my pocket. ‘I haven't painted in nine weeks.'

She looked away. ‘That must be very difficult.'

‘I've been drawing though.' I pulled the sketchbook, crammed with drawings, from my satchel. There was a silhouette of a bird in a tree. No background, no foreground. ‘I'm not good at backgrounds,' I said.

She squinted at the picture. ‘Hmm, it lacks context. See here, you need darkness, Payne's grey below the horizon line. Hard to do without paints. You don't even have a horizon line.'

‘What's a horizon line?'

Her eyebrows shot up. ‘Where the sky meets the earth or sea.'

I had a sudden image of my mother at Ela Beach with her arms around her knees, her eyes locked on the horizon, watching and waiting for . . .

‘Most paintings have a horizon line,' said Mrs Valier, ‘even if you can't see it. Floor meets wall, wall meets ceiling. Everything in the picture relates to that line. To show your bird against the light, the horizon line on your picture should be low. Low or high but not in the middle. It chops the painting in half and makes it look like a child's picture. No tension. I'll get your pad and pencils.' She went through to the shop.

While she was gone I studied her picture: a gecko, perfect in every detail. He clung to a branch with round suckered feet, head up, eyes alert, skin scored with tiny lines.

‘He's a beautiful gecko,' I said, when she returned.

Her eyes roamed the drawing with the gaze of a mother. ‘Maybe,' she said, pulling out a piece of blank paper, ‘you could use a softer pencil and draw your bird like this . . .' She sketched some lines on a pad – a bird with a curved beak and a sweeping wing – then smeared the lines downward with her fingers, fluffing the feathers and softening its plump belly.

I sighed. ‘That's so clever.'

‘Thank you, but it's really only practice. I'll get you some of these pencils. My treat.'

I peered at my watch in the gloom. How much longer could it go on? Margot Fonteyn fluttered across the movie screen.
Die
. Obediently, she fell to the floor. Beside me my mother and Mrs Breuer heaved women-sighs and Stefi stared open-mouthed at the ballet. Ladies in frothy tutus and feathers dipped and swayed around the dying swan but still she jerked and writhed. So much for Saturday afternoon at the movies; I couldn't decide which was worse:
Swan Lake
or
Movietone News
with its boring cricket scores, boring President Eisenhower, boring Republicans and boring Cold War. Give me Cary Grant and Grace Kelly or Hayley Mills any day. Overhead giant punkah fans flopped backwards and forwards. The swan stopped struggling. Good. Now we could go . . . nope,
still
not dead. I started humming.

Stefi elbowed me. ‘Shush.'

Afterwards, sucking on a chocolate malted milk, she said, ‘What's wrong with you? Didn't you think that was beautiful? I wish I could dance like that. I'd love to be a ballerina.'

‘Why don't you?' I said. ‘You're the right shape.'

She shook her head. ‘Ballet dancers are beautiful.'

‘No they're not. Not all of them.'

‘Oh, Lindsay!'

‘What?'

‘You were supposed to say I
am
beautiful.'

‘You are,' I said. ‘I think you are.'
Inside
. ‘Go on, ask your mother.'

‘Ask me what?' said Mrs Breuer.

‘Stefi wants to do ballet. Will you let her?'

Mrs Breuer shrugged. ‘Why not?'

Stefi's ballet lessons were held in the school hall on Saturdays. There were always kids hanging about, watching or playing sports. I asked Mama if I could go and watch.

‘Sure,' she said. ‘Do you good to mix.'

I didn't go to mix. I went to draw. An extraordinary thing happened when Stefi danced. She really was beautiful.

‘You can't draw ballet,' she said, as I tried to capture her with my pencil. ‘It's a movement, not a pose.'

‘I know that.' I didn't want demure faces and fluttering hands. I wanted Stefi leaping and twirling, her hair streaked out in ginger ribbons. I didn't want to draw Stefi doing ballet but what ballet was doing for Stefi.

‘You can't want another sketchpad already.'

‘No, I've come to ask you something.'

She leaned against her desk, arms crossed. ‘What?'

‘I want to know how to draw movement. My friend Stefi is doing ballet.'

‘Ask your art teacher at school.'

‘I don't have an art teacher at school. Not until grade nine. Didn't you know that? I mean, because you sell school books.'

‘Yes, of course. I was thinking of Ela Beach School.'

‘Will you show me?'

‘No, Lindsay. I'm sorry, I can't.'

‘You showed me how to do the bird.'

‘Yes, but . . . no. That was just a moment . . .'

I felt my stuffing falling out. ‘Why not?'

‘You know why not.' She fiddled with the heart on her wrist.

‘Look.' I took the sketchbook from my bag and held it out. ‘Look what I did with the bird.'

She glanced at the picture. ‘Yes. Good.'

‘Please, Mrs Valier. I'll pay you. It'll be a business arrangement.' There was nothing personal in business arrangements. You didn't have to be friends and Mrs Valier didn't have to do me any favours.

‘No, Lindsay, it's not about money. Even if I wanted to do it, I couldn't show you in five minutes. It takes time to learn these things. A long time.'

‘I've got time.'

‘Practice. Patience.'

‘I'll practise. I'm patient.'

She plucked a tube of paint from the neat pyramid on her desk, examined it and tossed it back, upsetting the pile. ‘You need to know anatomy and understand how muscles work.'

‘Then teach me.'

‘No.'

‘Please.'

She picked up a coloured cardboard circle. It was divided into wedges with ‘primary colours' and ‘secondary colours' written on it.

‘What's that?' I said.

‘This? A colour wheel. It shows you how to mix paint. Basic stuff. Don't you know?'

‘Aunt Tempe showed me how to make purple from blue and red, and green from blue and yellow. But not all . . .
that
.'

Mrs Valier shook her head. ‘There's so much you need to know. I suppose . . . I suppose I could lend you an anatomy book. But what if your mother finds it?'

‘She wants me to be a doctor.'

‘Oh. Well. You might look at some cartoons too.' She thumbed through a paint-spattered magazine. ‘Here.'

I moved to her desk. That perfume again, a haunting mix of jasmine and lemon.

‘They use very simple devices to depict movement.'

I looked at the cartoon character. Circles around its arms made it appear to be falling. A frog had semicircles beneath its legs to show it jumping.

‘Degas' ballet girls,' she said, pulling a book from the shelf.

‘No,' I said. ‘I don't want to do Stefi like Degas' ballet girls, doing up their shoes and things. I want to draw her moving.'

She closed the book. ‘Then perhaps you'd better find someone else.'

‘There isn't anyone else.' To my horror my voice wobbled.

Mrs Valier sighed. ‘Well, then you're stuck with me.' She passed me an anatomy book. ‘Study this. Watch how people move and how they hold themselves. Try to see them as shapes rather than arms, legs and bodies. Get a feel for their passion for movement or their resistance to it. Stay alert, Lindsay, you have to be watching all the time.'

A fortnight later I brought her a drawing. A tulip. In the left bottom corner I'd drawn it closed; at the top right, open. On a curved line between them I'd shown the flower blooming in stages. I'd coloured the whole picture with chalk – pink, lavender, green and red.

‘You said to feel their passion, and that's what I kept seeing; Stefi as a flower.'

She nodded. ‘It's a lovely drawing, but what I see here is your passion, rather than hers.'

‘Is that bad?'

‘No, it's fine. But it's not Stefi dancing, it's Stefi loved.'

‘Then show me Stefi dancing.'

She let out a long
whoosh
of air. ‘Oh . . . what the heck. May as well be hung for a lamb as a sheep. You're one persistent lamb.' She pulled out a chair ‘Sit.'

Chapter Seventeen

I scooted down the hill on my bicycle trying to imagine Mama on a motorbike.

‘I'm sick of that darn jeep,' she'd told Dad one Sunday.

He'd stirred from his siesta and half-opened his eyes, like a koala bear.

‘I want a car with doors. I'm too old for that rattletrap.'

‘You're not even forty,' Dad said. ‘And we can't afford a car, we've just bought a house.'

He'd toughened up lately. It suited him. Not quite the sponge cake he used to be with Mama and he didn't look so lost. Maybe he was starting to forget Helen Valier.

‘Seven months ago,' my mother said. ‘And I'm earning good money. I want a car.'

‘A bike,' Dad suggested cheerfully.

‘A what?'

‘A motorbike.'

‘Very funny.'

‘Nice and cool. Economical. I can teach you how to ride.' He began to whistle.

‘You know what you can do with your motorbike.'

I pushed my bicycle behind the hibiscus bush at the back of Boroko Books and went inside. There it was, everything laid out for me: ceramic dishes, paints, brushes, water, rag paper and two tea towels – one for the front of my smock, another across my lap. Every Wednesday since that first magic afternoon when I learned you can make not only green and purple, but every colour in the rainbow with just three – red, yellow and blue.

Helen was on the phone when I went in. She nodded at me and went to the business end of her desk, shuffling papers as she talked. I sat down, tucked in the tea towels, picked up a brush – the next size up from Stumpy – and shut my eyes, planning. Painting was different now, more precious. Not just because I had only an hour a week but because I understood more. When Helen had taught me how to mix colours she'd remarked that I was a fast learner. On an impulse I'd told her that perhaps it was because I could see auras. She'd looked at me with envy. ‘What an advantage for an artist. I'm jealous.'

I wet the brush and drenched the top half of the paper, then touched a worm of Cerulean blue to the water and watched it speed through, firing into corners and resting in flowers. I hammered the floor with my boot. An hour fled by. I looked anxiously at my watch. It was my last visit to Helen before Christmas but this year I was in no hurry for the holidays. No school meant no Christopher Bright and no Wednesday afternoons. I said goodbye to Helen and pedalled home.

In my room, I took out the beautiful shoes. The day before, Mama had come home and handed me a box. ‘For the pantomime,' she said.

The Christmas pantomime. Everyone in Moresby went to it. This year it was a ballet-drama of
Tales from the Arabian Nights
and Stefi, who'd been dancing only six months, had a lead role. I'd taken the box from Mama and lifted the lid cautiously.

Shoes. Black patent-leather court shoes.

‘Mama!' I wanted to hug her but her arms were folded. ‘
Thank
you.'

‘You do realise your limp will be more noticeable?'

‘Yes.'

‘And you'll have to be extra careful that you don't trip.'

‘I know, Mama. Please don't spoil it.'

‘Okay. Sorry.' She sat down and patted the sofa. ‘Sit for a moment, Lindsay.' A flash of yellow whipped around her ears and disappeared again.

‘Why?'

‘Oh,' she shrugged. ‘I just want to ask you something.' She patted the sofa again and I sat on the edge.

‘I've had a letter from St Catherine's School in Sydney. A place has come up, only one, for grade eight next year. It's a fabulous opportunity. Would you consider going?'

So that's what the shoes were about.

‘I don't want to go to boarding school.'

‘You'll have to eventually, you know.'

‘Not until grade ten. You promised. Only for the last three years of school.'

Mama stood up. ‘Yes, I did promise. But I hoped you'd change your mind. I wish you understood what you're throwing away.'

On the pantomime's opening night I wore a new sleeveless red dress and my beautiful shoes. Tim was home from Melbourne and all of us were going. I desperately hoped Chris would be there; I'd never felt so gorgeous.

Mama French-braided my hair. ‘No wonder you can't manage it,' she said, wrestling with four hanks. ‘It's nearly to your waist. You need twelve inches off.'

‘Never.'

In a clinging white sheath and pearls, her black bob as shiny as patent leather, she looked incredible. At the theatre I saw Diane Rudge, smug and lacy as a five year old, and Chris sitting next to her. What
was
it about her?

The lights dimmed and Stefi began to dance the part of a slave girl imprisoned in a harem. In gauzy silver pants, a blood-red top and silver cap, she spun and dipped across the stage as light as a paintbrush. The audience thumped their feet on the floor, whistled and cheered. Tim stared at her.

‘Crikey. Little Stefi.'

Mama and Dad stayed back afterwards talking to friends. I hung about for a while, then went outside. Chris was sitting on a low stone wall, alone. He wore a tie. He was unbearably handsome. I felt a rush of love, an oceanic swell that gathered me up and swept me through the warm night air. As I went towards him, his eyes flickered down my body. When they reached my feet they stopped, and the million tiny muscles in his face went still. His smile, when it came, was not his smile and his voice was not his voice.

‘Hello Lindsay.' Strange, thick.

At home, I put the shoes in the box and the box at the back of the wardrobe and I stared at my naked, mortifying foot. Mama was right. Who did I think I was kidding? Clear as day; one foot sleek and straight, the other knobbled and twisted. The shoes were a joke.

On Christmas Eve, Dad took Tim and me aside. ‘Your mother's present.' He held up a set of keys. ‘A motorbike.'

‘A
what
?'

‘Shhh.' Dad said. ‘Tomorrow after all the presents have been dished out, I'll give her the keys. CP, I want you to take a photo.'

‘She won't like it, Dad.'

‘She'll love it.'

‘Where's the bike now?' said Tim.

‘Under the house. I'll bring it up early.'

The following morning Dad cooked a special Christmas breakfast of eggs and imported smoked salmon with dill sauce. We opened gifts and took photos and then Dad handed Mama a fat envelope. He kissed her cheek. ‘Happy Christmas, Lily May.'

She tore open the envelope. ‘Keys?'

‘Your present's in the driveway.'

Mama's eyes narrowed. She stood up and walked slowly to the door, pushed open the screen and went outside. Dad, Tim and I crowded along behind her. She stopped suddenly. We all stopped. In the middle of the driveway was a gleaming black and chrome motorbike.

Mama turned disbelieving eyes on Dad. ‘You've got to be kidding!'

He grinned and pointed. ‘Look. Up there.' On the road above the driveway stood a perky new Ford Prefect, iris blue.

‘Oh . . . oh!' Mama said. ‘Mine?'

‘Yours,' said Dad.

She ran up to the road and trailed her fingers across the car's glossy paint. ‘It's beautiful!' She smiled at Dad over the bonnet. ‘Thank you so much, Ed. But what about the bike?'

‘Mine,' he said. ‘A Velocette Venom, before I get too old. I can teach you to ride it if you like.'

Mama did let Dad teach her to ride, though she only took the bike to the bottom of the hill, and always carefully. Dad was careful too, compared with the way he drove the jeep.

‘Too old,' he said.

He wasn't. But sometimes he looked it.

Beyond the fly-wire, rain gushed onto the earth. I could hardly see Josie's boi-haus thirty feet away. Later, when the rain stopped – as it would, as sharply as knife through marrow – I'd go to Helen's. I hadn't held a paintbrush in over a month.

That morning Mama had flown to the highlands to photograph a sing-sing. ‘Come with me,' she'd urged. ‘Bring your camera and I'll show you how to make the most of it.'

‘I can't go where you go,' I'd said. ‘My foot.'

‘Handy sometimes, that foot, isn't it?'

The rain stopped. I got out my bike and rode a sluggish path to Helen's, steam rising from the road like a plate of soup. Sweat dribbled down my neck and under my arms and blossoming chest.

Helen was leaning on her desk when I went in, muttering over a drawing of a flying squirrel. A fan in the corner whirred. She turned as I went in.

‘Happy 1961, Lindsay. She picked up a glass of water and gulped it down. Let me get you a drink. I'm supposed to be doing accounts but it's too hot for numbers.'

I pushed my face in front of the fan. ‘I did a drawing using numbers once, a picture of my teacher. It got me into trouble at school.'

‘You've a habit of getting into trouble at school. I heard about the stolen paints. You could have asked me.'

‘It's more fun to steal,' I said.

She tried to look indignant. ‘Well! I was going to give you paints for Christmas but maybe you'd rather steal them?'

‘Maybe,' I smiled.

‘So, how was Christmas?' she asked.

I thought about Dad and the motorbike and the car but said nothing. Helen belonged to a different life. The only person who knew about her was Stefi and she'd been horrified.

‘It's not worth the risk. Your mother would kill you.'

‘What would you do if your mother banned ballet?'

‘She wouldn't.'

‘What
if
? I said.'

Stefi stared at her feet. ‘I'd dance, I guess.'

‘Christmas was fine,' I said to Helen. ‘Yours?'

‘Quiet. I'll have mine when you lot have bought all your school books and the new term starts. I'm closing the shop for three weeks and going to Canberra to visit my dad.'

‘Oh.' Three
more
weeks without painting! ‘Here,' I said, trying not to show my disappointment. ‘I did this for you.'

Helen took the sketch I'd done and spread it out on the table. It was a picture of kids playing marbles at school. A girl knelt by a circle ready to shoot and across from her another girl sized up her shot. Beside them a boy stood with his arms crossed, looking impatient while another kid whispered in his ear.