The next morning Annie wakes up with her fingers still linked in Alex’s. They’re tingly and clammy, but it still makes her oddly sad to pull away. She goes into Jenny’s room without Alex stirring on the couch and strips the bed. Her back aches. Her hip aches. She eats an apple and puts the sheets in the wash and opens the windows.
She tastes ash in her mouth. As though the stories have brought the fires back to life.
In the daylight the room has lost some of its presence. It feels less like Jenny’s place and Annie is grateful for that. By the time Alex has gotten up, she has pulled most of Jenny’s clothes into bags and put most of the knickknacks into boxes.
Alex stands in the doorway, his face flickering into expressions Annie can’t read.
‘It’s amazing how much she’s managed to accumulate in a year,’ Annie says.
‘When you lose everything, it’s easy to start hoarding,’ Alex mutters, nudging an apple-shaped action figure with his foot. He paces around the half-packed boxes. ‘I don’t know what to do now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s different packing for Mum … I don’t know whether to unpack and sort out what I want to keep. Or just take it all. Everything she wanted.’
Annie doesn’t say anything and Alex sighs.
‘I think I just need some time to work it out. Thanks for staying, Annie. But now I need to be alone.’
* * *
Annie pulls up a little way from the house and goes inside, exhausted and hoping not to be seen. Hoping for just a few minutes of peace before Pip is on her, arms and legs and sweet, sticky breath. She lies down on the couch, listening to Susan and Pip outside, cooing to Luna. She lies on her back and stares at the ceiling. The hiss of leaves outside. Oh, Annie.
She can’t think of any other time when it was Alex asking her to go. They had always been alone, together. And then after the broken condom, they hadn’t been together much, at all. His hurt face. The curl of his shoulders as he walked slowly away. She thinks that he doesn’t mean it now. That he needs her, just as he always has.
She reaches for the phone and calls Tom. When Tom picks up, Annie’s fingers curl hard around the bulk of the phone. It’s Christmas Eve and everything is quiet. ‘So, when are you coming up?’
‘Annie, didn’t you get my voicemail?’
‘What?’
‘My car’s written off. Some idiot didn’t stop at the lights.’
‘Are you all right? Fuck!’
‘I’m fine. I’ve got a hire car lined up, but I can’t get it till after Christmas.’
Annie rubs at her eyes, suddenly teary.
‘Annie.’
She hangs up and draws in a long, shuddering breath. Thinking of Tom in a car accident. As quick and deadly as a fire catching and flaring. She breathes out hard between her teeth and closes her eyes.
‘Annie, you okay?’ Susan asks, coming in with her sunhat all askew.
‘Fine. We’re okay.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. I’m fine.’
‘Tom coming up for Chrissy?’
‘No.’ Annie lies back down on the couch and faces the wall. ‘He’s not. He has no car.’
‘You know that he wants to be here. Be with you both.’
‘He wants to be with us in the city, Mum.’
Susan brushes fingers along her arm. ‘How was Alex?’
‘Freaking out and sad and wanting to be alone.’
‘Is he okay though?’
‘How should I know? I haven’t had anything to do with him since I was a teenager. I don’t know him.’
‘You do, of course you do.’ She pats Annie’s arm. ‘Would you like anything, Annie?’
‘No. Thanks.’
Susan goes back outside. The house creaks. The branches outside move. Everything is unsettled. She hears the sighing. It is sadness, uncertainty. It matches hers.
* * *
Christmas has always been quiet and slow. Other people, particularly in the city, have complained about how hectic it is. But for Annie, Christmas has been a late sleep-in, tea on the verandah, presents on the grass or in the living room. Paper chains and seafood from the city. Uncle Len’s slow laugh. His hands spilling with gifted coins. Susan painting for everyone. A chicken. Sips of port and homemade custard. The smell of pine and the sticky feel of tinsel.
Christmas has always been gentle. Even after Pip was born, Annie was protective of Christmas, scared of it becoming cluttered and frantic. A rush of tinsel and wrapping paper. She needed Christmas to stay slow. And even Tom, who thought of Christmas as a mad dash of drinking and presents and too much food, let her have that. He helped her keep it gentle.
* * *
When Annie was sixteen, she and Gladys walked along the bush tracks, checking the lyrebirds when Len was sick with shingles that laced up one side of his back and onto his neck.
Annie was dreamy with Alex and sharply aware of year eleven.
‘Sometimes I think I should’ve been born a man,’ Gladys said.
Annie glanced at Gladys. Her long legs and narrow shoulders. Her powerful stride. Annie had never thought particularly of Gladys being a woman. Gladys was her own person, neither female nor male.
Annie can’t remember what she said. If she said anything. But it stayed with her. She wished she could’ve seen Gladys with her husband. Watched how they moved through the day. Whether they moved in tandem, or in opposition. Whether he orbited around her. Whether he was scared to get too close.
Maybe it would have made things clearer for her now. Measuring her own confusion against the confusion of others; of their relationships. The ways they match and spark against each other. She’s sure it would have helped.
* * *
Flies, banging against the glass. It always gets stuffy upstairs at Len and Rose’s. Even with the airconditioning loudly pumping. They are in the tight lounge room now. Squashed onto two-seater couches. There are Christmas crackers on the coffee table, but not one of them has made a move towards them. Annie is secretly glad. She doesn’t like the sharp sound of them. It reminds her of the fires.
Setting aside his glass of custard, Len leans forward, his weathered hands clasped around a wrapped jar. ‘This is a very special gift, Pippa.’
Pip stares at him, wide-eyed.
Rose nudges Annie. ‘He insisted on wrapping it himself.’
‘I’m good at wrapping!’ says Len. ‘Isn’t this well wrapped, Suse?’
‘It’s gorgeous, sweetheart,’ says Susan. ‘It’s the most beautiful present I’ve ever seen in my life. You’re a lucky girl, Pip. To have a relative who’s so wonderful at present-wrapping.’
Len glances doubtfully at the jar, which is wrapped like a pack of fish and chips. But Pip nods at Susan.
Len jiggles the present. The tinkle of metal. ‘Your mum gave me all these. She used to beg them off people.’
Pip bites her lip. ‘What’s beg off?’
‘Ask. I used to ask people for them so I could give them to Uncle Len.’ Annie turns to Len. ‘You saved them all?’
Len grins. ‘Of course!’
A flicker of a frown crosses Pip’s face. Thinking. Wondering. She clasps her hands in her lap. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Mum begged them off people.’
‘And she had no idea, but I saved every single one.’ He beckons to Pip and they start unwrapping the jar. Pip’s sharp little fingernails ripping through the thin paper.
Annie swallows hard. The jar is full of ten-cent coins. Hundreds of them. She can see the glint of lyrebird after lyrebird and she glances outside as Pip starts unscrewing the lid, wondering if they are out there.
The room smells like copper, although the coins are silver. Pip sits cross-legged and Len tips the jar and they spill into her lap. She giggles, waving her arms in the cascade of them. Everyone watches. For a moment those falling coins look like water. And all Annie can think about is rain and hot wind, about how Pip hadn’t brought her scarf. It’s the first time since the fires that she’s left home without it.
* * *
Back at home, at the broken house, Pip draws lyrebirds up Annie’s arms with connector pens. They look like exploded sausages, but Annie doesn’t mind. They talk to Tom on the phone, Pip barely letting him get a word in.
‘C’mon, darling,’ says Susan, holding her hand out to Pip. ‘Come look at your last pressie.’
Annie follows them outside. It’s cooler than it has been. Sunny, but not fiercely. Pip stands back and surveys the tent. The billowing walls; the pillows on the floor. She smiles at Susan and pulls her inside.
‘It’s awesome!’
‘It’s pretty neat, huh?’ Susan kneels down. ‘Do you know what’s most special about it?’
‘What?’
Susan drops her voice to a whisper. ‘It’s a truth tent. It means you have to tell the truth.’
Pip’s whole face, her body, lights up. Becomes suddenly animated.
‘Is Santa real?’ Pip asks.
‘No,’ says Susan.
‘Mum!’ Annie yells from the verandah, but Pip is grinning, rubbing her hands together. Suddenly flushed.
‘Could the fires come back?’ Pip asks, more quietly. Annie has to strain forward to hear the words.
‘I don’t know,’ Susan says. ‘Not any time soon, though.’
Pip nods, satisfied. Then she starts running laps around the yard, whooping and fist-pumping. ‘I love the truth tent!’
Susan wanders back up onto the verandah. ‘Well, think it’s a hit.’
‘Why’d you tell her Santa wasn’t real?’
‘Oh, Annie. She’d already worked it out. Did you see her face? She was testing to see if I’d lie.’
Annie scuffs her foot on the verandah.
Susan claps her hands together. ‘Presents! I haven’t given you your present yet! Wait here.’
‘Yeah, all right,’ Annie says, pouring herself a glass of champagne.
Susan comes back out with a present wrapped in dark blue paper. It’s flat, with perfect, sharp corners and raffia string tied around it.
‘Open it!’ she says, bouncing up and down on the spot.
Annie pulls the paper away from the present gently, prying the sticky tape so carefully that Susan rolls her eyes. ‘Annie, c’mon.’
It’s a canvas. But when Annie pulls it out, it’s completely blank.
‘Are you going through some sort of minimalist phase, Mum?’
Susan grabs Annie’s hand, all wide-eyed. ‘I’ve been trying to paint Pip for you. Pip dancing, with her scarf. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat down to paint it. Enough for Pip to do all those.’ She points at the wrinkled, warped pile of Pip’s paintings on the overflowing kitchen bench.
‘I can feel it coming back,’ says Susan. ‘The painting. And when it does, I’ll paint you the most beautiful painting I’ve ever done. Okay?’
Annie pulls Susan into a hug. Her mother’s sweet, honey smell. She doesn’t smell like metho and oil paint so much these days. ‘Thanks, Mumma,’ she murmurs. Feeling suddenly like a small child.