The unusually warm winter’s morning Sidney awoke to was a welcome relief after yesterday’s cold winds. After finishing her muesli, she decided against the more direct sandstone pathway to the gallery, taking the rough trail that circled the plantation. A brisk walk would do her good and she had time to kill. She watched her footing, knowing a misplaced step might wake a hibernating snake or send her skidding down the steep slope. With so many banana trees, a fall down the hillside had Sid picturing a marble in a pinball machine being shunted from obstacle to obstacle.
The view from the ridge, with its glimpses of mountain and sea, was truly spectacular this morning. For a moment Sid could even understand how some people, like Jake, loved extreme sports–throwing themselves off cliffs or out of perfectly good aeroplanes. The most reckless thing Sid had done of late was set off on this road trip with her younger brother.
She emerged from under a canopy of banana leaves, surprised to find herself at the rear of the smaller cottage, and not in front of the gallery as she’d expected. Not too far away, along a well-trodden path that cut through a grassy field, she saw a familiar figure in a black hat. Hoping she hadn’t been spotted, she stepped back into the shady grove to contemplate an escape route.
But what if he’d seen her already?
The man wore no shoes and no shirt, only baggy white pants flapping about his ankles and covered in more paint than his current canvas. Half-dressed and without the bulky coat he’d worn on the breakwall, he appeared smaller and much less intimidating than yesterday. Sidney decided to step out of the shadows towards him.
‘Good morning!’ she called.
Nothing.
No response.
No recognition at all. Not from him, anyway. Her slow approach did raise the ears of a small dog lazing on the chunky wooden bench seat nearby–an ugly, plain brown dog that could for all intents and purposes double as a possum.
And that’s being polite!
It suddenly occurred to her that she might have insulted her boss the other day by mistaking his best friend for a pesky possum.
You may have even said rat, Sid.
‘It’s a beautiful morning,’ she tried again, that wilful curiosity her mother was always carrying on about kicking in.
Obviously, the boss was having one of those crotchety days Pearl had warned Sid about. Or perhaps he was hard of hearing. Being ignored bolstered Sidney’s resolve. Having a disability didn’t justify bad manners. Maybe the man hoped his rudeness would make her give up and go away, but he was mistaken. No one could dig their heels in better than Sid.
Close enough to see the detail in his painting, the colours on his palette, the fine moth holes in the old felt fedora he’d pulled low over his eyes, Sid tried again.
‘May I look at your work?’ There was a touch of steel in her voice, more than intended.
Without startling, as though he knew she was there, and without stopping work or even giving her a cursory glance, he huffed and puffed cigarette smoke, looking like a grumpy old dragon. ‘You don’t have enough pieces to critique in the gallery?’
‘No, yes, ah, that’s not what I meant.’ She heard a tremor in her voice. ‘I’m not wanting to critique–’
‘Then why so curious about my work? Oh, yes, that’s right! Your inquisitiveness extends to your surroundings.’
‘I like art. And I like watching artists work,’ she said, refusing to acknowledge his barb. ‘I grew up surrounded by some great ones.’
‘Artists or their art?’
She felt the sudden whoosh of humiliation heat her cheeks, but kept her stare locked on his face, as if challenging a schoolyard bully to a fight. She could drop her mother’s name, of course, impress him with the galleries Natalie had managed over the years and the artists she’d discovered, but then, before she could speak, she saw it.
A movement.
A tiny curve of the mouth.
A smile? Okay, so, it was slight, short-lived, and most likely sarcastic, but it was a smile.
With one crutch supporting his left arm, he used the other hand to retrieve a packet of breath mints from the back pocket of his pants. ‘I’m trying to give up the smokes–again. Seems two crutches aren’t enough for me when times get tough.’ He looked awkward shaking out the tiny pellet of candy into a palm already occupied with a walking aid, but he managed and, as an afterthought, offered the packet to Sid.
‘No thanks,’ she said.
Taking the offer as an invitation to stay, she took a step closer. His work in progress was actually a watercolour, unexpectedly luminescent and brilliant. The subject matter also took Sid by surprise.
A landscape? Had she expected to see another painting of the same woman?
‘Not quite Hans Heysen or Arthur Streeton, is it?’ He delved a hand into another pocket and tossed something at the brown dog, making the animal jump off the wooden seat and sit obediently at the artist’s feet, probably waiting for more.
‘I don’t know about that, but I can tell you I like it. The colours are vivid and the style relaxed and loose. It draws you in.’
‘Well!’ He bowed, ever so slightly, but theatrically nonetheless. ‘Thank you very much.’
‘Do you like it?’ Sidney asked. Honestly, the man could not be more inhospitable if he tried.
He choked on the mint, coughing the words up, ‘Do–do I like it?’ There was an uncomfortable silence lasting several seconds, and then he laughed–a big, genuine guffaw from deep within his belly. ‘You are quite a perceptive woman,’ he said. ‘Or should I say persistent? You remind me of someone I knew a long, long time ago.’
‘Really?’ said Sid, still feeling belligerent. ‘And who might that have been?’
‘Hardly matters now. I’m sure you’re not the least bit interested in long-time-ago stories. I tell them much the same way I paint landscapes. Not well.’
The claws of curiosity dug deep and Sid was hooked. ‘What if I said I was interested in your old stories?’
When his shoulders fell and he looked away, Sid had an urge to reach out to him, to connect. Instead, she shoved both hands in the pockets of her jeans. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked awkwardly.
‘The weather is too warm for winter, don’t you think? Pablo does, don’t you, boy?’ He lowered his body onto the bench seat, rested his crutches to one side, and bent over to ruffle the dog’s ears.
‘I suppose it is warm, away from the water and out of that wind.’
The man donned his shirt and was buttoning it when he squinted up at Sid. ‘You’ll have to forgive my bad mood. Today I’m feeling the effects of too many losses, too close together. It happens.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Sid could tell him she understood loss, too, but before she could utter a word he was getting to his feet. Conversation obviously over.
‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘Come inside. I’ll show you I can be hospitable when I want to be. I can probably manage tea. You like your tea, as I recall.’
He may have apologised but he wasn’t going to let her forget he’d caught her snooping.
‘What about your work?’ Sid asked. ‘You can’t leave it out here.’
‘You asked me before if I liked it.’ He picked up his cigarettes, hesitated and returned them to the easel. ‘I don’t. Not at all. Come on, Pablo.’ He turned to Sid. ‘You coming, then?’
Minutes later they were settled in the kitchen, Pablo on the floor beneath David’s chair. When the kettle boiled, Sidney jumped up. ‘I’ll take care of it, Boss’ she said, not sure how he would manage a teapot and his crutches at the same time.
‘If you like and you can call me David.’ He sat back into the chair to watch. ‘So, what are you doing here?’
‘You gave me a job.’ She flashed a hint of a smile. ‘And you offered tea.’
To her relief, the cheeky response didn’t make him at all mad. On the contrary, David’s grin suggested he knew he’d met his match.
‘I meant, what brought you to a place like Watercolour Cove? Byron Bay seems to be the young person’s mecca.’
‘Umm . . .’ Not sure what to tell him, Sidney stalled by bending down and patting the dog. Pablo seemed to have forgiven her for mistaking him for a rat. ‘Someone broke my heart a little while ago and I had to move back home, to my mother’s place, but my mother and I . . . We don’t see eye to eye on much at the moment so I had to get away for a bit. And here I am.’
‘And you’re here with your brother? It’s rare to see siblings get on so well, in my experience.’
Steam rose from the kettle as she poured. ‘If I had to have a brother, at least I got a good one.’
‘You’re lucky.’
Sid thought she heard a bitter note in David’s voice and as he turned his head away he seemed to go someplace very dark.