The Midnight Dress(30)

He shakes his head.

He hasn’t really expected to see such a thing up here.

There it is, the burnt-out smear of a dwelling, just a little back from the lip of the gorge. A small place, a hut really, all hardwood and coloured glass, the tin roof collapsed across the charred stumps. The trees surrounding the tiny clearing are blackened too, but not burnt. Rain must have stopped the blaze.

Glass looks at the falls, at Waldron, who seems spooked by the place. He picks up a pink stone from the ground and holds it in his hand, thinking, then walks toward the ruin.





Patrick Lovell goes to work at half past five each morning, six days a week. Rose hears him, his feet hitting the floor, the scratch of his zipper, the rustle of his raincoat, the flick of his lighter. He pinches her as he passes. Ruffles her hair.

‘See you, Rose,’ he says. ‘Behave yourself.’

She turns onto her side and ignores him.

The cool blue morning light creeps into the little caravan window. It’s Saturday and she’s thinking of the hut in the trees. It’s the perfect type of day to go. She should get up right now, get dressed, start walking, but she doesn’t. When she thinks about the mountain and finding that place, part of her lifts, inflates, soars. She must try to push that part down. It’s like trying to fit a hot air balloon inside a tiny pocket. It’s a stupid idea, she tells herself.

Stupid idea, stupid idea, stupid idea.

She’s angry with her father. He’s not his normal self. Something has happened to him. He’s mad with not drinking. He’s permanently wired. Like he’s been electrocuted, his hair stands on end, his black eyes burn. In the evenings, when he fillets a fish, he says, ‘I’m the best banana picker this place has ever seen. I’m a gun banana picker, darling. I am a master banana picker, till now I’ve missed my calling in life.’ She knows where such sarcasm usually leads, but the words never come. There is no, ‘I’m just going out for a while.’

Whenever Mrs Lamond sees Rose’s father, she smiles at him, her face puckering up like the folds in a handbag. She smells of rubbing alcohol and fish and chips. She’s taken to wearing low-cut tops and leaning forward, ever so slightly, when she speaks to him.

But it isn’t just that. Rose is really angry with her father because of the problem with Pearl. She came to the caravan yesterday to work on their French project. Rose suggested they climb to the cove but Pearl said no.

‘Perhaps secret coves aren’t your thing,’ said Rose. ‘Perhaps you prefer small book exchanges run by dirty old men.’

‘He’s not a dirty old man. He’s not even old,’ Pearl protested. ‘He’s completely . . . cultured. He’s been everywhere.’

Rose closed her eyes and sighed.

‘Anyway, I’m très bored,’ Pearl said. ‘We really do need to make this guillotine if we’re going to pass French.’

‘A guillotine?’ said Rose’s father, hovering too close. ‘Now that sounds interesting.’

He collected cardboard from the back of Mrs Lamond’s kiosk and laid it out on the ground in front of the caravan.

‘Now, let’s think, girls,’ he said.

I wish you’d f*ck off, Rose thought.

Her father couldn’t stop looking at Pearl and Pearl was aware of it. She just kept talking and talking, though, in true Pearl fashion: ‘Did you know that Marie Antoinette was only fourteen years old when she was married to the dauphin, that’s younger than us, and when she became queen she was only eighteen, which is not much older than us, can you imagine that, just going to another country right now and becoming a queen and having everything you ever wanted, jewels and shoes and dresses . . . I think it’d go to your head, I mean, don’t you, Rose? What would you do if you were in that situation?’

Rose wanted to say something but she didn’t. It wasn’t a very kind thing.

‘Let them eat cake and all that,’ said Patrick Lovell, scratching his bare brown chest.

Rose closed her eyes. Her father’s eyes were coal black, about to ignite. She’d never seen him so interested in one of her school friends. He didn’t know where to look: his eyes settled on Pearl, he tore them away, they settled again.

But she’d never had a friend like Pearl, either. Not one with such a face, who washed her hair in the rain and read books in Russian and who constantly exploded with information, spewing it like a trail of stars, and who was so good and kind and utterly friendly. Rose felt like a thunderstorm beside her. Pearl just shone and shone and shone, and even after she left a room some of her light remained.

‘I think what we’ll do is cut two frames whole, then tape them together,’ said her father. ‘And into that we’ll put the sliding blade, we can use a bit of baling twine, and then we’ll get some silver spray paint.’

‘Love your work, Mr Lovell,’ said Pearl. ‘We knew you’d come up with something.’

Rose had never heard her father called Mr Lovell in her life. There was a pause. She could feel him thinking; he was going to ask her, she knew it, he was going to ask Pearl whether he could draw her, sketch her, paint her. It was exactly the same as asking to touch her. The sea sighed up onto the shore and out again. He said nothing.

Rose gets out of bed, brushes her teeth at the tiny sink, dresses, walks down to the beach. The sea is almost still, reflecting the clouds. The soldier crabs have left their sand jewellery on the shore. Hers are the first footprints, she looks back at them as she walks toward the rocks to climb to her secret cove.