The Painted Sky Page 4

  ‘I – um – is it always this dry?’ she asked. The weather. How original.

  He tore a strip of plaster off a roll with strong white teeth. ‘It’s been a tough few years, but this season’s good,’ he replied, fitting the plaster neatly over a patch of gauze.

  This is a good season?

  ‘There you go, right as rain.’ The pain was almost gone.

  Bach went up on his hind legs to paw at the tall stranger’s knees, tail wagging.

  ‘He’s a friendly one,’ he responded, ruffling the dog’s woolly ears. ‘What do you call him?’

  ‘Bach. Not as in woof-woof, but as in … well, there was a classical composer called Bach he’s named after.’

  ‘Never heard of him,’ he said and began to whistle the opening of ‘Toccata and Fugue’ as he packed up the first aid kit.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to –’

  ‘We’re not total philistines out here, you know.’

  ‘Of course not. I didn’t mean that,’ said Nina. ‘I don’t know what I would have done if you two hadn’t come by. Thanks.’

  ‘All part of the service. Take the car through and I’ll put a bit of wire on the gate to hold it shut.’

  Nina opened the car door and called to Bach. The dog hesitated, looked up at his new friend and then rolled on his back.

  The man laughed. ‘I can see you’re the boss, mate.’ He scratched Bach with his boot.

  ‘Bach, here. Now!’ called Nina. ‘He usually comes straight away.’ This was embarrassing.

  ‘Here you go, little fella.’ He scooped up the white fluff ball and handed him to Nina with a smile.

  Nina watched as he dropped the first aid kit into his saddlebag. The horse was magnificent. Glossy, black and huge. The man opened the gate for her. He was dressed in well-fitting moleskins and a pale checked shirt that emphasised the tan on his forearms.

  She smiled and drove through, saluting as she’d seen the country drivers do, hoping her face didn’t appear as flushed as it felt. She glanced in her rear-view mirror to find the man still holding the gate, clearly watching her.

  She churned up the dusty drive faster than she needed to. What was wrong with her, babbling on about ‘the famous composer Bach’? Idiot. Her face burned again as a vision of the two riders flashed before her. They looked as if they’d stepped out of a painting. So right in this landscape. Whereas she and Bach … She glanced at the small dog who was looking up at her adoringly, mouth wide open. Now there was a handbag dog if ever there was one. She smiled and shook her head. One thing Nina was sure of, her mother would have conducted herself with a lot more cool than she had just managed. Nobody made fun of her mum, nobody even tried.

  ‘Okay boy, we’re almost there.’ She passed the magnolia tree that marked the location of Durham House, the ruined mansion.

  When the tin roof of The Springs appeared, Nina slowed down and her weariness from the long day’s drive drained away. She pulled up and sat staring for some time.

  In the pink light of early evening it was beautiful, a low timber bungalow wrapped by a verandah. It grew out of the scorched earth, flanked by a tank stand and machinery sheds.

  The Springs. This was where her family had had their last holiday together. They had come for Christmas most years until she was eight. Here, Mum and Dad always seemed happy. In those summers, the days had run into each other. She remembered her father throwing his head back, laughing.

  She saw grey dirt and golden grass stretching to the horizon, a smudge of hills in the distance. The crunch of her boots on the gravel path was the only sound.

  However, as Nina got closer, her heart sank. From a distance it had seemed unchanged, but at each step the place showed more decay. Planks adrift, worn paint, a window frame dangling by one nail. The insect netting had been ripped by the wind and the verandah ceiling was draped with cobwebs. She opened the gate and walked up the cracked concrete path to the front door. A few struggling roses were miraculously blooming.

  Taking a deep breath, Nina gathered Bach into her arms, put the biggest key in the lock and prayed that this one at least would not cause her any grief. The latch turned, clunk. She pushed and the front door opened.

  Inside, the high, wide hallway gave onto rooms either side. Nina peered into the first door on the left, the large sitting room. Everything was brown with dust. Some of the furniture looked okay, but there were piles of papers and mouldering fabric – clothes, maybe? Or household linen? It was hard to tell. Stacked cartons, many open and spilling their contents, filled the corners. A smell. Mice.

  On the far wall was a familiar canvas. Fort Denison on a sunny morning, the bright blue water flecked with light. The apartment blocks of Kirribilli in the background, all different colours like a syncopated song.

  ‘Dad,’ Nina breathed. She knew this one. The water appeared to be alive, bubbling, churning. The scene glowed with optimism, joy. Harrison was right, so much talent.

  Bach wriggled from her arms.

  ‘You hungry, boy?’ Nina whispered, realising she was starving. She was also conscious of the fading light.

  But the pull of the house was too much. She had to see it all first. Built in the early 1900s, six square rooms were divided by the hallway one way and an intersecting breezeway the other. All had high ceilings of pressed metal with paint peeling, open fireplaces, and knee-high skirting boards. And like the sitting room, they were crammed to the picture rails with junk. How long would it take to search this place? To recognise something that might colour in the outline of her father?

  The Springs had never been like this when she’d visited as a child. Then, it had been almost militarily neat. A bachelor household run by men. Her grandmother had died when Jim and Russell were young. She remembered her grandad as a gentle man smelling of whisky and cigarettes. He’d kept the house almost exactly as his wife had – a way of keeping her alive, Nina thought now. The pretty crockery had been arranged precisely on the dresser, the rose garden neat and tidy.

  Now, in the room across the hall from the sitting room, a dining table was faintly discernible under the clutter. A family Christmas dinner when she was six or seven popped into her mind. One of those sweltering days where the heat was made worse by the consumption of mounds of turkey and pudding. Crepe paper crowns stuck to sweaty foreheads, staining the skin. Her father had co-opted the fairy wings and wand she had found under the tree and was humming Tchaikovsky’s ‘Sugar Plum Fairy’ as he danced around the room. She smiled.

  In a corner, Nina found an easel and a box of squeezed paint tubes. These were surely her father’s. Stacked next to them, a dozen canvases showed unfinished studies of bush scenes, The Springs, Durham House.

  One was of her mother looking over her shoulder with a half-smile. Another showed a young Harrison, clean-shaven, handsome, intense. Well, well, well. You again.

  Nina cleared the mantelpiece and propped the canvas of her mother onto it, her hands now grey with dust. I know what you’d be doing if you were here, Nina thought as she looked at her mother’s face. You’d already be set up for the night.

  ‘Come on, Bachy-boy,’ Nina called as she headed back to the car. She had brought the basics with her. Her camera, a sleeping bag, pillow, a picnic blanket, dog food and, thanks to Harrison, a large bottle of water, insect spray, a torch and batteries from the Wandalla supermarket. She had food too – the essentials: bread, ham, cheese, juice, chocolate and red wine. There was also that green shopping bag from Olivia’s mum. Nina laughed as she unpacked homemade biscuits in a sealed container, a thermos of tea, long-life milk, two toilet rolls, a small bottle of detergent, dish cloths, and, brilliant – magazines. ‘How come mothers just seem to know what you need and want?’

  It took five trips to the car, thanks to her throbbing hand, but soon Nina had everything inside the kitchen. She took in the great farmhouse table, the old sinks and fixtures. She turned on the cold tap. It spurted brown water which eventually ran cool and clean. Relief. Nina gulped thi
rstily with one hand and splashed the dust from her face.

  She fed Bach and then re-tied her hair into a ponytail as if pulling up her sleeves. She cleared the table and wiped it down. There, she thought. Done. By now it was almost dark. And quiet. Too quiet. She turned on the torch and positioned it in an old fruit bowl where it cast a comforting glow.

  Where to sleep? Or more importantly, would she be able to sleep?

  Nina grabbed the rug, sleeping bag and pillow and hurried back through the hall. Which room should she bunk down in? She had better make a decision before it was pitch black. She rushed to the door of Russell’s old bedroom, then – disaster. She lay sprawled on the dusty hall rug, grasping her ankle which had fallen right through a spongy floorboard.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ Bach rushed to her side, covering her face with licks. Slowly she extricated her foot from the hole and rubbed it. It wasn’t too bad. It could have been much worse. She got to her feet and took a breath. ‘Far out.’ What if she’d broken her ankle? Her leg? No-one would have been the wiser. She stepped gingerly towards the bedroom. This was madness. What was she doing here? She had no electricity and she was in the middle of nowhere.

  Harrison’s words came back to her: ‘You’d be better off staying at the Royal.’ He was so annoying. But he was right. He had expected her to – no – he had wanted her to stay away. She picked up her scattered bedding, nudged the door open and threw it on the bed. She could do this, she told herself. And then she imagined the look on Harrison’s and even Theo’s faces when they realised she had stayed out here. By herself. Yes. She could do this.

  Inside Russell’s bedroom it didn’t look too bad. Besides the iron bed, there was a dressing table, a wardrobe and lots of cartons and boxes.

  Nina’s eyes fell on the dressing table. Stuck on the mirror was a well-worn photograph of a young woman with puffy hair in riding clothes, posing stiffly with her hand on the bridle of a dappled grey. Turning the photo over she read ‘Hilary 1986’.

  She pushed open a sash window, struggling with her injured hand. Paint from the sill flaked off into her palms. She leaned out into the night. It was getting cool. She closed her eyes as she breathed in the fresh air, tinged with roses. Whatever dangers the night might bring, they couldn’t be as bad as the smell in this room.

  All her mother had told her about Russell was that he had never married and, that after Jim’s disappearance, he wasn’t really interested in his only surviving relatives – his sister-in-law and niece. For the first time it occurred to Nina that they hadn’t shown much interest in Russell, either. The place felt lonely.

  Nina shivered. All this stuff of Russell’s, it was too personal. She felt like an intruder. She headed back to the hall and peered into the second bedroom. This was more promising. There were fewer cartons and the smell wasn’t too bad. This time the window opened easily.

  Bach whined. ‘I know, I know. I’m tired too, boy,’ Nina said. She cleared one of the single beds and a narrow space around it, a space to call her own. But this is all my own, she reminded herself. Underneath her fatigue, something like nervousness or excitement started to bubble.

  Nina threw the picnic rug over the bed and placed her sleeping bag and pillow on top. Not too bad, she thought, yawning. She pulled off her filthy dress, put on a t-shirt and hurried back to the torch-lit kitchen. She sat at the table, reading a magazine, eating sandwiches and drinking tea. But soon her long day really started to hit home.

  She sank gratefully into her makeshift bed’s relative cleanness. Bach ran small circles one way, then the other and back again until he settled down on a dusty cushion in the corner.

  ‘Night, Bach.’ But he was already snoring.

  God, it was dark. What was that noise? That creak? Shadows on the walls. She wondered whether she should have some wine to settle her nerves but she didn’t want to leave her cocoon.

  Maybe a magazine would help. She turned on her torch and read for a few minutes. So tired, so tired. So tired.

  A knock at the door. She felt serene and alive. The old brass doorknob turned smoothly under her hand, and a rush of air from outside cooled her cheeks. The man from the fence stood in the doorway in the half-light of dusk, unsmiling, his gaze steady as a laser. She stepped aside to let him in and closed the door. He took a step closer. She could feel his body heat, smell horse dust and clean sweat, the cotton of his shirt. He picked up her injured hand, turned it, and kissed her palm, closing his eyes. Nina breathed out, every part of her body softening to his gentleness.

  He lifted his gaze to hers and took a breath as if to speak, but she swayed towards him so their bodies fit together. She lifted her face for his kiss. A look of despair appeared on his face as he cupped the back of her neck with his hand, the tension in his body like an electric arc. He tasted her lips.

  With a start, Nina woke. The darkness was so deep that opening her eyes made no difference. In the profound silence she heard the rush of blood in her ears. She could smell him still and the fading sensation of his warm breath on her face felt like a loss. But the pulsing between her legs was disturbing. She was never going to sleep in this state. Her undamaged hand slipped down her body and began a caressing movement that revived the intensity of his grey eyes as they locked onto hers, banishing the whole world. Now he picked her up, cupping and kneading her buttocks with his long fingers as their mouths devoured each other, hot and slippery. Her legs wrapped around his hips, her pelvis ground against the bulge in his riding pants …

  Stop. Nina cupped her hand over her mound, stilled by a strong feeling of wrongness. With an effort, she conjured an image of her first time with Theo, a scenario that had been a favourite since she’d met him. She and Theo squeezed into the front of his sports car parked in a dark alley behind a nightclub. In the fantasy, her clothes were much more provocative than in real life – her skirt short, no underwear, heavy make-up. She straddled him, taking control. Surprise and sweeping lust on his handsome face … But his eyes were closed, his face as remote as a mask. The moment slipped away from her, her caressing movement became mechanical, her desire faded. What was wrong? It had worked every time before.

  Nina sighed from the depths of her being and surrendered, allowing the image of the man’s penetrating eyes to dominate again; the scenario, this time, was the bedroom where she lay. Now they were miraculously unclothed, his long lean body crouched above her as she imagined his fingers in place of her own, their mouths suckling one another. She would place her hand gently on his scar, which would flex hard and hot as he pushed into her aching body at the exact angle and depth she craved, creating the slow rhythm she needed. Their bodies would clench together. He would pull his head away to look at her again, a look more intimate than a kiss. And finally, the surge of pleasure lifted her like a rag doll and deposited her into a dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER 3

  Noise. Nina opened one eye. A scratching sound, followed by a high-pitched whine. It was Bach whimpering at the back step. Hell. He must have pushed the flyscreen door open in the night.

  ‘Hold on, just a sec,’ Nina mumbled. ‘Just lemme sleep for one more minute.’ She yawned and turned on her side, squashing her injured hand.

  ‘Ouch!’ She sat upright, her wound throbbing. Where was she? Oh. Sunlight sliced through the window, creating a golden haze of dust motes. But it also revealed more clearly the contents of the second bedroom.

  She was surrounded by sloping walls of filthy, unidentifiable junk. Nina wrinkled her nose and unzipped her sleeping bag. Well, she’d survived. Take that, Harrison Grey. So much to do. She yawned. And there was something else nagging her. That dream. God. She grimaced. Bach whined again.

  ‘All right, boy, all right.’ Nina padded into the kitchen, her long brown legs stepping around the piles of junk. Sure enough, Bach was stalking a tiny lizard. ‘No can do, Bach-alicious,’ she said, scooping him up and depositing him next to his water bowl inside. ‘You have to stay put.’ She was pouring some dry food into hi
s other bowl when she realised there was a whirring sound coming from the fridge.

  Power! Thank you, Harrison. Things would be so much easier with electricity and she wouldn’t have to go through another night in the dark. But why had he connected it if he wanted to discourage her from staying?

  It all looked worse by morning light. The crammed rooms and musty odour made her feel claustrophobic. Bach, who had been eagerly snuffling in a corner, let out a series of yipping sneezes.

  ‘Exactly,’ replied Nina. ‘Let’s see what’s out the back.’ She threw open the screen door to the rear verandah and was confronted by a hillock of whisky bottles. The neglect suddenly made sense. Poor Russell.

  She looked down at the smeared, rumpled t-shirt she’d thrown on last night. This was bad, very bad. She was starting to fit right into this place. She didn’t want to have too much in common with Russell. The need to get clean was overwhelming.

  Leaving Bach to explore, Nina braved the dusty bathroom. The shower head performed the same spectacular ritual the kitchen tap had, eventually running clean and cool. How good it felt to wash it all down the drain – the dirt, her fears last night and the unsettling dream. Her visit officially started now. She combed her wet hair and put on some shorts and a red singlet.

  She wandered into the sitting room. Immediately, a hazy but happy memory of that same room surfaced. It was night and there was a fire roaring. She was sitting on her father’s lap in her sky-blue and white cloud pyjamas and he was stroking her hair. She remembered feigning sleepiness in order to stay right where she was, soaking it all up. Her mother was snuggled up next to them on the couch and she was stroking Nina, too; tracing and retracing a pattern on Nina’s back with the most divine feather touch. Everything had been just right.

  The fireplace wasn’t as large as she remembered. On the timber mantelpiece she noticed an antique dinner gong hung from a carved wooden stand. The hammer with a small head wrapped in cloth sat along the base. Nina remembered it well. She had loved it when she was little but was not allowed to play with it. Uncle Russell had told her that some old rellie had come back from the goldfields with it and that it was very precious. He had brought it down onto the coffee table once or twice and allowed Nina to strike it. She remembered the wonderful noise, which gave her tingles down her spine. She took the hammer and struck it. Sure enough, the loud, deep, mellow reverberations echoed through the empty house.