second-hand accounts. And his own few stories she had heard many times. He had used them up. He possessed fragments now, flashes of isolated detail.
He told her that their mother could speak Irish.
“She spoke it to me sometimes.” Ish misha Grey, he remembered. That was all.
He stood up and went to a red-painted tin chest in the room where Angela lay insensible between a bottle of bourbon and the same magazine full of aristocrats, film stars and business people she had flicked through at the service station. He returned to the living room and handed his sister a leather-bound quarto.
“Here,” he said.
“What is it?”
“It’s our mother’s. Grandma said this is her writing–a few poems and notes, but mostly lessons in Irish.”
Irene’s dark eyes ran across her mother’s handwriting. The writing was made at the same age she was now. She palmed a photograph that fell out of its place in the pages and onto the floor. The photograph was the same Grey always kept, that he had used as a bookmark since he began perusing the notebook without comprehension a fortnight ago.
“Do you think I follow her?”
“Grandma saw a resemblance.”
Irene ran her fingers around the rusty edge of the photograph then placed it back in the notebook.
“You have her smile,” Grey said at last. Then he felt he must be dreaming. As she knelt on the floor before him in the
attitude of study, he realized that mother and daughter were all but identical. She shifted her feet beside her, raised her face and furrowed her brow to ask what he was looking at. The vision did not vanish.
How had he not seen it before? Were he asked to describe their common features he would have been at a loss; besides the polarity of their hair colour, their mother’s eyes were blue where Irene’s were darkest brown; and where their mother’s skin was golden and perfect, Irene’s was pale and her cheeks were wind-burnt red. Yet for all that, he saw now there were certain habitual gestures–the eyes-closed smile, the furrowed-brow frown–gestures that recalled his mother perfectly.
She was attempting to pronounce the letters her mother had written as though they were Australian English letters. Then she affected an Irish accent. Grey was sorry that there was no one to teach her. He might have learnt once, but he had been lazy; when his mother had spoken to him in that language he had pretended not to hear her. Now he wished he had not been lazy. He imagined what it would be to speak with her in a language no one else, not Angela, not the town, not even their father, would understand. Such could never be a dead language. Irene looked up at him and made her mother’s frown.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“No.”
SHE WENT FOR a bath before bed and Grey sat on the rise behind the house. He had not slept and there was no point going to sleep now. He would walk soon to get Eccleston to drive him. The wind came through the leaves of the stringybark and lemon tree. He looked away, but then looked back through the glass where the orange bathroom lamp lit his sister. With her back to him she took off her dress. There was nothing without the window but sorghum fields and grassland and so no reason for shame and she never drew the blind. She coughed and let go the tie in her hair. He watched her undress and run the shower.
Her body glowed in the lamplight. Her body that had so long resisted time–as though informed by her innocent spirit–tonight was not quite the body of a little girl. She coughed again into her hands. Was she getting a cold, even in summer? With the thought an unaccountable tenderness came over him. He had allowed her to stay up too late. She stepped into the water.
He laughed at himself. He watched the night until the lights of the flats and hills gave no more perspective and he was sitting in a box of floating ornaments, earth and sky and he, all floating as in the fancy of a childish mind. Then came the dawn.
VIII
GREY
He told her that their mother could speak Irish.
“She spoke it to me sometimes.” Ish misha Grey, he remembered. That was all.
He stood up and went to a red-painted tin chest in the room where Angela lay insensible between a bottle of bourbon and the same magazine full of aristocrats, film stars and business people she had flicked through at the service station. He returned to the living room and handed his sister a leather-bound quarto.
“Here,” he said.
“What is it?”
“It’s our mother’s. Grandma said this is her writing–a few poems and notes, but mostly lessons in Irish.”
Irene’s dark eyes ran across her mother’s handwriting. The writing was made at the same age she was now. She palmed a photograph that fell out of its place in the pages and onto the floor. The photograph was the same Grey always kept, that he had used as a bookmark since he began perusing the notebook without comprehension a fortnight ago.
“Do you think I follow her?”
“Grandma saw a resemblance.”
Irene ran her fingers around the rusty edge of the photograph then placed it back in the notebook.
“You have her smile,” Grey said at last. Then he felt he must be dreaming. As she knelt on the floor before him in the
attitude of study, he realized that mother and daughter were all but identical. She shifted her feet beside her, raised her face and furrowed her brow to ask what he was looking at. The vision did not vanish.
How had he not seen it before? Were he asked to describe their common features he would have been at a loss; besides the polarity of their hair colour, their mother’s eyes were blue where Irene’s were darkest brown; and where their mother’s skin was golden and perfect, Irene’s was pale and her cheeks were wind-burnt red. Yet for all that, he saw now there were certain habitual gestures–the eyes-closed smile, the furrowed-brow frown–gestures that recalled his mother perfectly.
She was attempting to pronounce the letters her mother had written as though they were Australian English letters. Then she affected an Irish accent. Grey was sorry that there was no one to teach her. He might have learnt once, but he had been lazy; when his mother had spoken to him in that language he had pretended not to hear her. Now he wished he had not been lazy. He imagined what it would be to speak with her in a language no one else, not Angela, not the town, not even their father, would understand. Such could never be a dead language. Irene looked up at him and made her mother’s frown.
“You’re laughing at me.”
“No.”
SHE WENT FOR a bath before bed and Grey sat on the rise behind the house. He had not slept and there was no point going to sleep now. He would walk soon to get Eccleston to drive him. The wind came through the leaves of the stringybark and lemon tree. He looked away, but then looked back through the glass where the orange bathroom lamp lit his sister. With her back to him she took off her dress. There was nothing without the window but sorghum fields and grassland and so no reason for shame and she never drew the blind. She coughed and let go the tie in her hair. He watched her undress and run the shower.
Her body glowed in the lamplight. Her body that had so long resisted time–as though informed by her innocent spirit–tonight was not quite the body of a little girl. She coughed again into her hands. Was she getting a cold, even in summer? With the thought an unaccountable tenderness came over him. He had allowed her to stay up too late. She stepped into the water.
He laughed at himself. He watched the night until the lights of the flats and hills gave no more perspective and he was sitting in a box of floating ornaments, earth and sky and he, all floating as in the fancy of a childish mind. Then came the dawn.
VIII
GREY
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