I push the veranda bench against the wall, back into the shade. “In there’s where my mother died.” I motion through the window. Callie pokes at the fly-wire where it’s rusted through. The pane is greyed with webs, it’s dark inside. The shape of the bed is visible.
Dickie’s made a jug of Pimm’s with ginger ale and spears of wild mint he picked from around the underground tank. He brings it out on a tray, sets it down on the cemented arm of the steps and pours us both a glass. He’s forgotten we don’t drink.
He fills a taller glass for himself, stands at the bottom of the steps with his face in the air. Callie and I sit on the bench and look out in the direction of the road. Dickie pours again and takes his second drink for a walk. He walks like he doesn’t want to get dirty, crouches down at the stubble of the dahlia bed, then moves on. He props up the fallen trellis where the black-eyed Susan grew among the climbing roses.
“Dickie’s gone quiet,” says Callie.
I empty my drink on a dead geranium by the steps.
“This used to all be lawn,” I say. “There were agapanthuses down where he’s standing.”
Callie sips her drink. I’ve never seen her drink before. I lean back into the shade and watch her, the sun is hot all over the place. She’s got a clip in her hair.
“We used to play music outside,” I say. “Dickie brought a gramophone for my mother.”
I fish a bee from the slice of lemon floating in Dickie’s jug of Pimm’s.
“Leonie said your mother lost her marbles,” says Callie, “said she should have been in hospital.”
“Darwin kept her home,” I say.
One end of the clothesline, broken at the knot, still hangs from the veranda post just near me. There’s an old wooden peg in the dirt.
“When did you start drinking?” I ask her.
“When I was breast-fed,” she says and we laugh.
Dickie walks up to the far end of the veranda and puts his glass on the edge. He takes off his leather sandals and carries them in one hand. He treads barefoot towards Darwin’s bedroom window, each step careful so the boards don’t creak. He pokes his neck and chin, looks in from the side.
“What’s he afraid of?” asks Callie.
“They don’t get on that well,” I say.
The brindle dog growls loudly from inside Darwin’s room, then barks. Dickie withdraws, backs off the boards and onto the dirt. He grabs his empty glass and carries his sandals.
“Was that Darwin or the dog?” says Callie.
Dickie sits down on the bench beside me, folds his legs. He smiles, but he doesn’t think it’s funny. He leans down to refill his glass from the jug, sets it up on the bluestone sill. Callie and I watch the way he moves, it’s languid and graceful, and foreign. He has long wrists. He raises his hand to shade his eyes, squints through the fly-wire window and into the locked-up room.
“That’s the bed,” I say without turning around to look in with him. He studies it, his fingers on his chin. I look at his dusty brown feet. I wonder if he knew the bed had sides.