THE DUCK SET sail one morning. The water level had dropped, and she hopped carefully down to one of the lower steps, shook her tail, leaned forward to take a sip and paddled away. Later, when the water fell still further, Tess ran down and inspected the muddy, grassy area in front of the house. I half expected that, like the duck, she would keep going, but after sniffing around for a while she ran back up the steps and laid her nose in my hand.
The sun was out, and everything shone, even the receding brown water. Dev came out onto the verandah dressed only in jeans, towelling dry his long, black hair. He stood surveying the scene; with his smooth, brown chest he looked like a proud god. When Pagan arrived moments later, her face still bleary from sleep, he flashed a smile at her and said boldly, ‘Would you like to go out and take a look around?’
She went inside to get dressed, and came back looking perkier than I’d ever seen her. I noticed then the beauty in her face. Going down the muddy steps she slipped, but Dev caught her arm, and they both giggled. When they reached the ground, they turned to wave cheerily to me. They sloshed away through the mud together.
There’s always a feeling of celebration after a flood. People slide down muddy streets smiling at strangers when once they wouldn’t have even nodded to them. Dev and Pagan came back with excited stories – of cars stalled in the water, and soggy carpets and appliances piled up in the streets, and people pushing mud from their houses with brooms. They’d seen a trailer full of caged chooks someone had rescued; one of them had laid an egg as they watched. Dev held out his hand and opened it like a magician – he’d taken it! (More smiles and giggles from the pair of them.)
That night they went out to get a meal at a pub. They invited me, but I could see they didn’t really need company. I watched a little wistfully as they went off down the street again, their arms around each other.
Lil went out as well, borne away by a posse of friends who called for her in an ancient pumpkin-coloured Mercedes. So Hetty and Tess and I were left alone at Samarkand. It was so quiet I could hear the click of Tess’s claws as she followed me about the house.
I wandered around from room to room, not able to settle to anything. I picked at leftovers from the fridge, and made some mashed vegetables for Hetty, which she hated. Hetty had always liked real food, not mushy stuff for babies. She loved nothing more than gnawing on a piece of steak, and even though she had very few teeth at that stage, she gnawed with her bare gums.
There was no meat, so I placated her with a jar of baby custard and stewed apples, which we shared. Afterwards, I went to my room (Tess following with her bone) and flipped through books, reading the choicest parts from the ones I loved best. In between, I built towers of blocks for Hetty so she could knock them down.
And finally, desperate to occupy myself, I put on some music and danced.
I’m not a dancer. I’m self-conscious and awkward and I know I look ridiculous. But sometimes that is what you must do with music, or it seems pointless. It’s like seeing a shooting star and not gazing in wonder, or having a baby and not kissing it at every opportunity. Not moving to certain kinds of music is a crime against life.
So I danced, and Tess sat and watched me in a faintly embarrassed way (dogs are so conventional!). I picked up Hetty and whirled about with her in my arms for a bit. I danced for so long that I became breathless. Eventually, I became convinced that my dancing was graceful and wonderful and inspired. I ended up believing that I could dance.
I noticed that Tess was whining and shifting about, disturbed by something out on the verandah. The French doors were open, and I stopped dancing to see what she was looking at. In the puddle of light from my room, I saw someone standing outside in the dark looking in at me.
It was a woman in a long skirt made of creased grey silk, and a knobbly jacket. She was my height and build, with dark, crinkled hair worn loose to her waist. I feel sure I wore the same look of curiosity that she did, a kind of delighted recognition, because it was like looking into a dark mirror and seeing myself reflected.
The woman spoke first.
‘Hello,’ she said, and her voice had an edge of amusement to it. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m looking for a room. Is the manager in?’
I told her that I could help her, and she followed me downstairs. ‘How many nights would you like?’
‘Just one, for now.’
I selected a key and showed her to a room – one of the nicest, as it happened – that Lil had done up with freshly painted green walls and an old carpet of dusky faded red on the polished boards.
‘It’s perfect,’ she said.
When I went to the window and pushed it up, cold night air came in, and with it the stink of the flood. She went to the window and leaned out. ‘I love the night,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Don’t you?’
I didn’t reply, going out to the hall for the guest book to take down her particulars. She followed me, and collected an overnight bag she’d left at the entrance.
Her name was Maggie Tulliver, she said, smiling with what looked like practised charm.
‘And do you have an address? Or phone number?’ I asked, without much hope, as many of our guests don’t. We attract a lot of nomads.
‘None at the moment. I’m in transit. But I’ve been staying with people in Brisbane – I can give you their details.’
I took them down. I had Hetty on my hip, and while I wrote I noticed the woman frankly inspecting me. When I’d finished the paperwork she took herself and her bag off to her room.
I sat at the kitchen table with my chin propped on my fist, while Hetty crawled around on the floor. Tess sat at my feet with an awful, devoted, long-suffering look on her face that was already beginning to get on my nerves.
Maggie Tulliver had disconcerted me. I thought of the first impression I’d had of her. It was almost like looking at my double. We were both curvaceous women with long dark curly hair. But in the light, and on closer inspection, she wasn’t so much like me. She was a good twenty years older, for a start.
There were already strands of white in her dark hair.
I looked up when she came to the door in search of the bathroom; I’d forgotten to show her where it was.
‘What’s your baby’s name?’ she asked.
‘Hetty,’ I said cautiously, not wanting to give away too much about myself. I hate the way that living in a guesthouse can rob you of your privacy.
But something in me must have wanted to please her, and I offered her my own name soon afterwards without her even needing to ask. We were in the lounge at the time, and she had her head down inspecting the bookshelves for something to read. Coming up with a copy of On the Road, she threw back her head, tossing the hair away from her face in a gesture I knew well in myself. ‘Sophie,’ she repeated with satisfaction, as though I’d given her a gift.
She took herself to her room, and I didn’t see her for the rest of the night. But very late, when I was almost asleep, I thought I heard someone singing. Getting up and going onto the verandah, I stood and listened. I remember shivering in the cold, but I couldn’t go back inside, and stood watching the mist drift up from the river as the singing continued. The voice was beautiful, and arresting, but I remember most of all thinking how confident it seemed – to sing like that late at night, in a place where you were, after all, only a guest.
She was there at breakfast, but when I served her we didn’t speak, except for her to say, ‘Thank you.’
‘Someone checked in last night,’ I told Lil, as I took in her tray and whipped the curtains open.
‘Oh, love, the light! The light!’
I pulled them closed again.
‘I know. She was still up when I came in,’ said Lil. ‘She’s coming back in a few weeks – booked in for long-term stay.’
When I went out, Maggie Tulliver was standing in the hallway looking at the ads for taxis and takeaway food on the noticeboard above the phone table. ‘Oh!’ she said, reaching up and taking down the strip of photos that Kate had taken in the booth. ‘What a pretty girl.’ She looked at me. ‘Is this your sister? She looks so much like you. But everyone must tell you that.’
I took the photos from her. ‘Actually, they don’t,’ I said, pinning them back on the board. She was correct about us looking alike. Only you had to know both of us well to see it.
She left while I was taking a shower. When I went to clean her room I found the house copy of On the Road on the bedside table. She had pulled out one of the long, white hairs from her head and used it to mark her place.