The Spell Book Of Listen Taylor (22 page)

Once upon a time, there was a physicist who thought he could invent a balloon. This was in 1783, and the physicist's name was Professor Jacques Charles. To his wife, the Professor made a promise: “I shall build a balloon made of taffeta, twelve feet in diameter, covered in India rubber, and inflated with hydrogen gas!”

“Oh!” said his wife, not understanding, until, early one rainy March morning, the Professor and his friends paraded the balloon through the streets of Paris on a wagon. They inflated it with hydrogen gas and let it loose. It rose to enormous heights, astounding a crowd, in the rain, on the Champ de Mars.

It is said that Benjamin Franklin (an old man at the time) was among that crowd on the Champ de Mars. Benjamin Franklin, as is widely known, invented such things as bifocal glasses, a urinary catheter, and a “long arm” for reaching books from the tops of bookshelves. Invention was an interest of his.

“What's the use in that?” exclaimed a passerby scornfully—meaning the balloon.

Ever wise, Benjamin replied, “What use is a newborn baby?”

He meant, Maude understood, that newborn babies grow up to be men, just as balloons would, eventually, grow up into jet-engine planes.

Maude Sausalito was sixteen years old, and the moon was just a sliver of leftover soap. She was jogging gracefully, her high heels in her hands,
stockinged feet on the damp, dewy grass of people's lawns.
The Mickey Mouse Show
chanted to itself from the window of every house she passed. A sharp piece of gravel glanced against her toe, and she slowed slightly.

She was not all that late. But her new boyfriend was coming to dinner at her family's place that night, and she wanted to make a potato casserole. Her favorite thing, at the moment, was to peel and slice potatoes and layer them with salt, pepper, and cheese, then bake them for forty-five minutes.

The little white moon, Maude noticed now, was actually tucked into the corner of a big dark circle of moon. She was not pleased about this: It undid the idea of fresh and changing moons; plainly, now, there was just one moon, presenting itself like a dull set of slides, in differing angles of light.

At present, Maude was saving to buy herself a piano. Also, she was growing her hair (which now curled up around her ears) because she wanted it to swish down to her shoulders. She expected this would keep her warmer on cold nights, like a cheap and never-lost scarf.

The new boyfriend's name was David. He worked in the novelty corkscrew shop next door to the bakery where she worked. He himself was vibrant, energetic, bouncy, and leapt about his life like the tail of a kite. But his
family
was remarkable. Stretching back to great-great-greatness and beyond,
every single one was an inventor.
Every surface in David's house bristled with patent certificates.

Although the family had not made any money, Maude and David were both looking forward to David's first invention. They wondered what it would be.

Maude herself was reading a lot about balloons these days, and secretly hoped that David might invent something balloon related.

Also these days, Maude was planning the journey in a hot-air balloon that she would take on her honeymoon with David.

David, once he had grown up and invented a thing or two, would probably become a diplomat. Then he would propose to her. Floating along in their honeymoon balloon, they would play chess for long, languid hours. As the sun set each night, David would mix cocktails, gazing at her over slow, careful stirring with the swizzle stick. He would bite his lower lip seductively, and then wink, surprisingly, once.

As for the Professor's balloon, it landed in a field, where peasants found it and poked it with pitchforks. Upon smelling the horrible hydrogen smell, they panicked and beat it to death.

Consequently, the French government issued a “Warning to the People on Kidnapping Air-Balloons.”
If you see a black moon in the sky,
said the Warning,
do not panic! It is not a monster, it is just a bag of silk.

On the first day of term after the holiday, Cath arrived to a brisk, blue sky day. She stepped over ridges of mud in the parking lot, and turned when she heard her name.

“Cath! Cath! How
are
you? How was your
holiday
? What about the weather! Were you cold?”

It was Suzanne, rolling down her window as she pulled into a spot. Cath waited as Suzanne spilled out of her car, and gave her a welcoming hug.

“Wasn't it
cold
!” Suzanne exclaimed, falling into step alongside Cath. “My big old house was just
freezing
! How about your apartment?”

Cath explained that her landlord had installed central gas heating, with a vent in every room, just before the start of the holidays.

“Lucky duck!”

“Hello there,” a deep voice moved against the back of Cath's neck, like slowly warming sunlight. They both turned and there he was, Warren Woodford, smiling down.

“Warren!” cried Suzanne. “How was your holiday?”

Warren explained that he had attended a K-2 Cognitive Learning Conference in Bowral for the whole two weeks, so it was not, in fact, a holiday. He then interrupted Suzanne's exclamations to ask after
her
vacation.

“Me? Oh, I spent a lot of time with Lenny, poor old Lenny—what was up with that anyway? They seemed so happy. I'm just
wrecked
about
that fight. Hey, I left my briefcase in the car!” Suzanne rolled her eyes affectionately at her own forgetfulness, and skidded back toward the parking lot. She held a hand flat in the air behind her, meaning they should wait. Obediently, Warren and Cath stood side by side watching her.

“Well,” murmured Warren, without turning his head. “I myself am not
wrecked
about that fight. I myself am fairly
stoked
about that fight.”

“You can't be glad,” said Cath promptly, eyes still on Suzanne, “about two happy people having a fight.”

“But I am. I'm glad they had a fight, because then Lenny had a party, and then I went to your place, and then—and look who's back again!”

Suzanne hurried up to them, grinning and waving her briefcase.

In her classroom, waiting for the class to settle down, Cath watched the playground through the window. A long line of girls in blue tunics were marching out of the Assembly Hall in pairs. What was that all about?

Of course! It was the seventh-graders from Clareville Academy, rescued from their flooded classrooms. She had forgotten all about them. And yet there was something
important
about them—something she herself had to do—what was that? She could not remember.

They began with News, so that everyone could tell about their holidays. It turned out that most of the children believed the snow had happened to them alone. While each child told an
amazing
story about waking up on the first day of the holiday and finding
snow
outside!, the rest of the class daydreamed quietly to themselves.

Cath recalled the first day of her own holiday, how she woke in a ruffled empty bed and looked for a single red rose.

“Well,” Warren had said, sitting on the side of her bed with one hand flat on her forehead and a takeout coffee in the other, “I promise I'll leave you a single red rose when I plan to say good-bye. But wild horses could not make me say good-bye. Let's say wild horses wanted to.”

Then they had run away together. They went to a K-2 Cognitive Learning Conference in Bowral. Warren was already going to the conference, because Breanna, it turned out, was at a psychology seminar herself. The strange weather meant there were plenty of cancellations, so it was easy for Cath to get a place.

They attended all the same lectures, sitting side by side and writing notes to one another in the margins of their handouts. They ate lunch and had coffees together. They walked the streets of Bowral, looking for the gardens and sweetshops that inspired
Mary Poppins.

They never touched in public, except for one afternoon when they were caught in a downpour and had to cling together, to share the umbrella, as they ran for the shelter of a café. At the café, a woman said sadly, “It's only rain.”

In the evenings, they said, “See you tomorrow,” in the courtyard, in the presence of other conference attendees. Then they went their separate ways to their own rooms. Warren's room was in the north wing; Cath's room was in the east wing. There was a laundry in the basement, which was accessible from all the wings.

Each night, Cath went down to the laundry room in her pajamas, and when there was nobody looking, took the staircase to the north wing. Each night she passed the same sign:

It was the sweetest, most emphatic sign she had ever read.

Cath smiled around her classroom, and decided she should listen for a while. Cassie Zing was standing out front, talking to the class about fairy penguins and ice cream. Also, she was explaining that her mum had let her keep some snow in the freezer at home. She opened the lid of her lunch box to show off a little pool of water.

Cassie's mum was
always
writing notes. Cath wondered if there would be one today—perhaps about the incident in which Cassie scooped snow into the lunch box. Perhaps it would say, “Sorry! I couldn't resist! Hope it doesn't spill all over the floor!”

Of course! That's why she had to remember the seventh-graders. She had been asked to keep an eye on one. Some kind of relative of Cassie's? One with an unusual name. What was that name…?

She and Warren had not discussed what would happen now that they were back in the real world. Breanna would be down for the weekends, and they would both have schoolwork to do in the afternoons. Perhaps it would all be over? Perhaps it was just a two-week interlude? But that was impossible.

Later that day, Cath was walking home from a dentist appointment at Round Corner when a rusty station wagon slid along the street beside her. She glanced over. The passenger door was opened from the inside.

“Get in,” said Warren, looking straight ahead like an undercover agent. Then he drove them to her place for the night.

Over the next few weeks they fell into a pattern. During the day they practically ignored one another, except for occasional acquaintance-friendly chats. But late each evening, Monday to Thursday, Warren found
his way over to Cath's place. He returned to his own home early the next morning. When Warren had a soccer match, he arrived muddy in his soccer clothes and took a shower while Cath made dinner. When Cath had a law class, Warren let himself into her apartment and got dinner ready for her return. He liked to wrap things in phyllo pastry—chicken, eggplant, goat cheese—and then bake it alongside a tomato. They watched movies, listened to music, and did schoolwork sitting side by side at the diningroom table. But mostly, they spent their time in bed.

Warren chipped a tooth slightly at Cath's place once.

They were cooking together on a Monday night, in Cath's kitchen, which was crowded with ingredients. She made him dance with her, to her favorite Suzanne Vega song, while the ingredients waited. They were sleepy, wearing bathrobes, drinking red wine, and eating occasional olives.

Cath was telling a story that included an impersonation of Billson, the school principal. The impersonation made Warren laugh so suddenly that he bit down on an olive pit and chipped a tooth.

Later that night, Cath made Warren look through her family photo albums. He was very obliging, and remarked on such things as the healthy fur of their family dog, and the resemblance between Cath's and her mother's hair coloring.

At that, Cath unlocked her secret box and explained that she had been adopted. She only had this one photograph of her biological parents: They had been killed in a fire that burned down their house in the outback. The photo was hazy, as if the smoke had seeped into its edges. Warren stared at it for a long time, and eventually said he could see that Cath's parents were in love.

The only other photo Cath had was one showing the firefighter who had rescued her, a sleeping baby, from the fire.

“Do you think we should stop?” Cath said occasionally in the early dawn light as Warren buttoned his shirt.

Warren always considered the question grimly, and always said the same thing. “You're right. We should stop. We should stop soon. But I can't.”

And in the silence that followed, they would think the same thing:

This affair has parameters. It's only the weekdays. It's only at Cath's place. It's a secret from everyone else. We have plenty of chats about
guilt,
about
marriage,
about
lost opportunities
and
fate
(“If only we'd met sooner!” “We're so
right
for each other!” “I never thought I'd do this kind of thing.”) This affair has an end date! Soon it will finish! The moment Breanna gets a job in the city, we will call the whole thing quits. But for now, why should we stop? The betrayal has already occurred: On the night of Lenny's party, the marriage was broken. If it's already broken, why stop? With parameters in place, why stop?

Two or three times, Breanna phoned Warren on his cell late at night, and he pretended to be at home. “Something's wrong with the home phone,” he explained. “For some reason I don't hear it when it rings. Don't worry though, you can always reach me on my cell.”

Then he and Breanna would talk as Cath waited in bed, staring at his naked back in the darkness of her hall. She could hear the chatter of Breanna's voice, saying things like, “Can't wait until the weekend! Oh God, I miss you!”

Afterward, they were both silent for a while. Warren sat on the side of the bed with his head in his hands. Cath kept her body careful and separate.

Eventually, Warren would say, “I'd better go home,” and Cath would say, “Yep,” and he would dress in heavy silence and go home.

Thursdays, they made mulled wine to say good-bye for the weekend. Warren had a crisis, and Cath agreed at once to end the fiasco. Warren always looked crestfallen and torn.

Then he decided. “No. Let's keep going until she gets a job in Sydney. Why stop now when we have come this far? When she gets a job in Sydney, we will stop. But until then, I just can't.”

Cath always said, “Are you sure?”

And Warren said, “Yes.”

Then Cath had her own crisis. What exactly did he think he was doing? He was cheating on his wife! And every weekend, he was cheating on
her
! But the worst thing of all was Breanna's voice. When she heard the voice on the cell phone in the hallway, it was as sharp to her as a paper cut. But imagine if Breanna knew he was allowing his
lover
to hear those conversations! That was the worst betrayal, worse than the physical part. Breanna believed her voice to be safe within her husband's home, safe within their private, married world—when instead it was here, on display, in the hallway.

He listened fiercely to Cath's every word, and agreed, nodding his head. She put special emphasis on the word
lover
in her attacks, embracing the word, loving it.

He listened, and then he explained, over and over, how sorry he was, how shocked he was at his own behavior, that he could not hurt his wife, that telling her would kill her. And Cath pounced,
“I don't WANT you to tell your wife, I don't WANT you to leave your wife, I've never ASKED you to leave your wife,”
and he said,
“Yes, but it's coming apart at the seams.”

It didn't have long, their marriage, he said, it was coming apart at the seams. Then she would relent, and they would look at one another and
say, “This is all so stupid, because you and I are
right
together.” And, “I'm sure that it's going to work out.”

Cath spent the weekends pacing her apartment, trying not to think of Warren and Breanna, the closeness of their bodies and hands. In the dark of night, she would wake in a panic of disbelief. In the cold light of day, she would shake her head in wonder at her own behavior. She had always been opposed to mistresses. She was a vixen, a villain, she was betraying her own kind. She was a home wrecker!

But she didn't really mean these lectures to herself, and quickly rallied to her own defense:

If she doesn't know, how can it hurt her?

I haven't told a single person!

If nobody knows, then it's not really happening!

Besides, I only get him on the weekdays—she gets the fun days, the weekend days.

Why should she get him, anyway, just because she met him first?

Anyway, I love him, so I can't. I cannot stop.

And all the time, she was really just waiting until Monday, and her heart was beating quickly and excitedly, because she
knew
that it would all work out. Somehow, it would all work out, and nobody would end up getting hurt.

Sometimes, of course, she worried vaguely about the job in Sydney. “I'll give you a rose as a poignant good-bye,” Warren joked, “the moment she gets herself a job.” What if she did get herself a job? But really, Breanna had been looking for work in Sydney for months. She was probably not trying very hard. She probably didn't even want to spend the weekdays with
Warren! Besides which, it
was
a joke. The idea of saying good-bye! It was funny.

Meanwhile, the weather grew steadily warmer, and the only remnant of the strange Sydney snow was the fact that ski poles occasionally washed up on Bondi Beach.