a savage denial: she did not understand, the Fourth was to be his signature piece, it would represent a life dedicated to music; to let it go would be to reduce his life to ash. Juliet said he was being melodramatic, but he simply shook his head and returned to the scarred and tattered pages of manuscript.
It had always been his method to work on at least two pieces simultaneously, each fed the other, each became larger under the influence of the other. Such had been the case when he began the Fourth; there had been a collection of tone poems for the piano, not his best work, but melodic pieces that were proving quite popular. He then had started a piece for flute and voice, something Anna had wanted him to do for years, which was when her absence started to grate.
Juliet sighs, Anna must return. She would write to her, and this time, instead of the lukewarm requests of earlier letters, would leave no doubt of the seriousness of the situation. Life with Anna had been torture, but, as much as Juliet has tried, life without her was little better. And she has tried, but it is Anna’s return he wants.
She looks up as he comes into the room, his face is blanched with the cold and he is coughing. She stands up, takes the letters from him and gives his arms a brisk rub.
‘That feel better?’ she asks.
He nods, smiles faintly.
‘I’ll bring you a jacket with your coffee. Where would you like it?’
‘In the music room of course, where else?’
She takes the letters into the kitchen to read while waiting for the kettle to boil.
Duncan looks up from his butterflies. More than a half an hour has passed and still no coffee. No jacket either, although with the room so warm he no longer needs one. He calls, and calls again, and when there is no answer goes into the kitchen. Juliet is seated at the table, her head resting on her hands, the mail spread before her. The kettle has boiled dry and there is a smell of burning.
‘What on earth are you doing, Juliet?’
She starts, looks up, grabs the kettle from the stove.
‘Is something wrong?’ he asks, and when she does not answer, asks again. ‘Is something wrong?’
She holds out a letter. ‘Anna’s coming home.’
TWO
The man rolled into a wedge of sun, his chest was bare and there was a gentle snoring. Anna glanced at him, then was staring, the man resembled Duncan, the man in the bed looked like her father: the same heavy brown hair, the same chalky skin, the same pulpy cheeks, the same ribbed forehead, and over it all the loosening flesh of a man in clear view of old age. She shuddered and swallowed and escaped the bed; how was it possible that on the day she was to see Duncan after an absence of twelve years she should first find him on her pillow?
It had been such a joyless night. She should have worked, or cleaned the house, should have done anything but pick up a stranger in a Hobart bar and go back to his hotel. She looked again; he had not resembled Duncan in the floury light of early morning, only now, as he lay sleeping, his body slack, his face in repose, did she see her father. Only now, with Duncan just a few hours away, did she feel the touch of her father’s mighty hand.
She turned away, tried the window for some fresh air, but it would not open. The excesses of last night were pressing on her; she grabbed her clothes, hurried into the bathroom and drank straight from the tap. Immediately, a flush of heat, slick and prickly. She peered into the mirror, she looked terrible; her pale skin was streaked with grey, her hair, recently renewed to a luscious orange, was a corroded mess, and her eyes had almost disappeared in the huge bruises of last night’s makeup. She splashed water on her face, inhaled two or three times, felt suddenly dizzy and sank to the toilet seat. The noise of crackling plastic had her on her feet again; the lid had split, three neat breaks and nothing she could fix. She threw a towel on the floor and sat down. She could hardly feel any worse: the stranger in the bed, Duncan with his expectant hovering, and a head corsetted by too much alcohol and too many cigarettes. Yet she had planned last night, had wanted to avoid any fretful and useless rehearsals of future woes, had wanted, in truth, not to think.
But with the midday plane to Melbourne to catch, could delay no longer. She dragged herself to her feet and started to dress. First to extricate herself from the stranger, a visiting businessman, or so he had said last night, in Hobart to buy hand-crafted furniture. ‘Although I’ve nothing planned for tomorrow morning, so we can have breakfast together, see in the day slowly.’ They had been walking from the bar to his hotel, he had given her a squeeze and winked in the night light. She heard herself groan, she’d had quite enough of his groping, all she wanted to do now was leave.
How uncomplicated sex used to be, but not last night. Rather than the oblivion she had sought, her fears were sharper than ever, and just when she needed her wits about her, she was exhausted and sick and saddled with a Duncan look-alike in the next room. She returned to the bedroom; stale odours fanned her disgust, his snoring too; she took one last look, then woke him. With his eyes open, the resemblance to Duncan fortunately disappeared; the man, however, was reluctant for her to do the same. He reached across the sheets, caught a hand, clutched at a breast. She pulled away, stood out of range.
‘What’s wrong with you? I told you I had the morning free.’ He reached for his watch. ‘Christ! You must be bloody crazy. It’s Saturday morning, it’s fucking seven o’clock and you’re up and dressed – ’
‘ – and must be off.’
‘Why in bloody hell didn’t you tell me this last night.’ He was silent and sulking and stubbornly supine. She left him to his moping and set about collecting keys and handbag.
‘Come here.’ The words oozed out of him. ‘Come here, darlin’, what’s the hurry?’ She shook her head and made for the door. His anger flared again and a nastiness about the eyes. ‘Going to your next bloke, eh?’
She left without another word, dropping the television remote control unit into his briefcase on the way out. In the lobby, she informed the porter that the man in room 253 was planning to leave without paying, had vandalised the toilet and stolen the television controls, then stepped into the late autumn morning.
Within thirty minutes she was home, and after a shower rang Raphe. Lily had settled in well, he said, although had not been much interested in sleeping. They had been up for hours, had finished breakfast by six, then Lily had organised a concert for the pets – ‘Your daughter will be running the country one day’ – and had been about to leave for the market when Anna had phoned. He laughed. ‘I feel as if I’ve put in a day’s work already.’
Then Lily was on the line, full of the morning’s activities and not in the least perturbed about being away from her mother. She told Anna about the concert and her plans for ‘something really cool’ later in the day. ‘I’ve rigged up some percussion for Raphe – he’s got no ear but plenty of rhythm – ’ there were protests from Raphe in the background, ‘ – and I’ll do all the rest. Of course the cats and dogs like different things which makes it a bit hard.’
‘And the budgerigars?’
‘They like anything but don’t really matter, they’ve got even less sense of a tune than Raphe. I wish we had some pets, Mum. How about a dog?’
Anna said they’d discuss it when she returned from Melbourne.
‘And you’ll be home on Monday?’
Anna
