Undine Page 5

  She could still feel the storm, every cell positively charged, coursing through her body like electricity. The hairs on her arms stood on end. It was an unsettling feeling, but not entirely unpleasant.

  Trout was asleep on the floor. Undine slipped out of bed, careful not to step on him, and went downstairs. It felt strange having the house to herself in the morning, no Jasper or Lou, or the customary morning cacophony, but instead just Trout asleep upstairs. The air in the house seemed heavier than usual. She felt suspended in the silence.

  She filled the fat brown teapot with hot water from the tap, swilling out leftover leaves, and propped it upside down on the sink, letting the last of the water trickle out while she fetched cups and the tea canister from the cupboard. As she put the kettle on, she thought about her father, turning the idea of him round and round in her mind, like she might examine a sparkling stone or a piece of colored glass in the light.

  It occurred to her that it was strange she had never wondered about him before. She knew nothing about him, but was it because Lou had never told her or because she had never asked? Sure, there had been a time when she realized parents usually came in sets of two and she had just the one. She could even isolate it to a particular day.

  She’d been about seven. She had been playing at the park with a girl she had just met. They had been climbing together, swinging on the monkey bars. The other girl’s braids had been so long they made patterns on the dusty ground when she hung upside down.

  The day shone with detail. Undine could remember the pair of brown corduroy overalls she was wearing, with the word grasshopper sewn into the bib in bright green thread. It must have been late spring or summer because the air was warm and sweet and citrusy, and, remembering now, she could almost smell the strong, oily scent of the sunblock Lou had smeared on her face.

  Undine couldn’t remember the face of the other girl, just freckles, the large, spreading kind, and of course the braids. Undine had never been the type to walk up to strange kids and make instant friends, but there was something about Undine that attracted other children.

  Undine could clearly remember the girl saying, in response to some forgotten thing Undine had said, “But haven’t you got a father?”

  Undine shrugged in response. “No.”

  “That’s stupid. Everyone has a mummy and a daddy. Even my cousins used to have one until he went away.”

  Undine was eager enough to please, but unable to deliver a father. “I don’t.” It had felt like failure.

  The girl swung off the monkey bars, landing with a thump on the ground, and ran off to her mother. She came back triumphant, standing directly underneath Undine, who was still sitting on top of the bars.

  “My mum says you do so have a daddy, anyway.”

  Again, Undine shrugged.

  “Why don’t you ask your mum?”

  Obediently, Undine unwound herself from the metal bars, with none of the same grace as the other child, and trotted off to Lou, who gave her a piece of watermelon.

  “Lou, do I have a dad?”

  Lou looked momentarily stunned, before replying carefully, “He died before you were born.”

  Undine returned to the girl with an extra piece of watermelon in her hand. “He died,” she reported, offering the melon.

  Then the girl’s mother had called her, and the girl had run off, dropping the watermelon on the ground. This too Undine could still see clearly, the bright pink and green of the collapsed melon against the dry, dusty gray-brown of the dirt.

  And then of course, a few years after that, Stephen came along, and he fitted so naturally into the order of things that it seemed it was always meant to be that way, that she had been made to be Stephen’s, that she was, in some fairy-tale way, Stephen’s true child.

  But surely, she thought now, it was strange that she had never wondered about her real father, wondered what he had been like, if he had been like her. Wasn’t it strange that she had never even asked Lou what his name was? Wasn’t it equally strange that Lou had never told her?

  She caught sight of her image reflected in the glass door of the microwave. She leaned in, examining her face. It had been a while since she had really looked at herself like that, noticing first the superficial, obvious features, and then the finer details: the pores in her skin, the slightly darker ring that circled her iris, the very faint crack at the corner of her eyes where she crinkled when she smiled, and where, when she became old, her skin would soften and droop, and she would wear permanent wrinkles.

  Which parts of her, she wondered, came from him? Her eyes? Her hair? Lou was there in the shape of Undine’s face, the same bone structure, her cheeks, her nose, her chin. Where was he? Could she locate him here, in her face? Or in the shape of her hands, her long fingers and thin wrists? She thought about the activity of cells inside her, the coded information in each one, made up of Lou and of him. Did he live there, in those cells, as information, a chain of numbers that translated themselves into parts of her? Did one of those numbers say she could make storms? Or was that a freak of nature, something she alone could do: an accident, a mistake?

  “Watcha looking at?”

  Undine spun around. Trout was standing disheveled at the kitchen bench, watching her study herself.

  “I was just about to make some toast, do you want some?”

  Trout blinked and nodded and sat down at the dining table.

  “Tea or coffee?”

  “Coffee. Please.”

  “Instant all right?”

  “It’s all we have at home.”

  Undine busied herself making breakfast, while Trout sat at the table watching. Neither of them spoke. Undine was surprised at how awkward she felt, including Trout in her early morning routine. It seemed so…intimate, especially with Lou and Jasper not home.

  So when Undine heard Lou’s key in the lock she was relieved. Lou raised her eyebrows at Trout looking shy and pink with sleep, sitting at the table, eating toast. Trout shifted miserably in his chair and examined the grain of the table, as if he might somehow be transported into the strange landscape of eddying wood and knots and splinters.

  “Good morning,” Lou said, her voice polite, but with an edge that Trout recognized.

  “Morning,” Trout mumbled.

  “Hiya,” said Undine lightly, and Trout was sure that Undine had not detected the edge. “Do you want a cup of coffee?”

  “Yes, please, Undine. Could you bring it to me in my room?”

  After Lou had left the room, Trout looked at Undine, his face furrowed. “I might go.”

  “But I’ve just made you a coffee.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” Trout took the coffee in his hands and gulped some quick scalding sips that nearly burned the roof of his mouth.

  Lou was lying on top of the bed with her jeans and T-shirt still on when Undine went in. The bed looked bare, and Undine realized that Lou’s duvet was upstairs.

  “Would madam like somezing eltz wiz ’er coffee?” asked Undine, in her French waiter’s accent. “Some toast wiz ze vegemite per’aps, or ze snail from ze garden: lovely, fresh…?”

  Undine placed the coffee on the bedside table but Lou didn’t smile.

  As Undine turned to leave, Lou asked coldly, “‘Did Trout stay the night?’”

  “Yes,” said Undine, immediately defensive. She didn’t like what Lou was implying. “So? Is that a problem?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be a problem, Undine? You had a boy to stay over when I wasn’t here. You took advantage of the fact that you had the house to yourself…which you wouldn’t have if you’d been babysitting Jasper like you were supposed to.”

  “But…but it’s Trout,” Undine said, knowing that that fact alone should be argument enough. “Hang on, Lou…what are you pissed off about, that I forgot about babysitting Jasper, or that Trout stayed over?”

  Lou raised herself up on her elbow. “Do I have to choose? Because the way I see it, I’ve a pretty valid reason to be pissed off about both
.”

  “But…” Undine was stunned. “But what on earth do you think I was doing with Trout?”

  “You tell me. Or don’t, because I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “That’s awful! You’re…perverted. I was sick, remember? Trout stayed to look after me.”

  “Well, you don’t look sick to me.”

  Undine felt her mouth drop open. “God, Lou. Why are you being such a cow? I’m sorry I forgot about babysitting Jasper last night. I’m sorry Trout stayed the night when you weren’t here to supervise! But—”

  Lou put her hands in the air. “I don’t want to hear it. As far as I’m concerned you betrayed my trust and you let your baby brother down in the process. We’ll talk about this later.”

  “Look,” said Undine, and her voice shook with anger and the threat of tears. “I don’t know what your problem is, but—”

  “I think it’s pretty clear that my problem is you, don’t you?”

  Undine felt her head fill with a thick fog of anger, which spilled over. “Just because you were stupid enough to get yourself knocked up when you were a teenager…just because you opened your legs…I mean, I’m not like you. I don’t have to have sex with Trout to…to…”

  “You know nothing about it.” Lou’s face wrinkled up, confused. Incredulous. “You’re making it up as you go along.”

  “No! Of course I don’t! Of course I have to make it up. You never told me anything. About him. About my father.”

  Lou recoiled as if she’d been struck. She went white. “What did you say?” she hissed between her teeth.

  “That’s right, Lou. My father.” She said the words, my father, with slow exaggerated enunciation. “You never said one word. How do I even know he’s dead? For all I know he could be…could be…”

  But she couldn’t finish. Undine felt as if her lungs were buckling in her chest. She breathed in quickly. Her throat constricted and she expelled a mouthful of air in a sharp sob. Lou was looking at her with absolute and unreserved loathing.

  “Just get out,” Lou spat. “I really don’t want to talk to you right now.”

  Following every impulse and instinct her body dispatched, Undine turned and ran, forgetting Trout completely. Away, her body said, away, away, and she ran out of Lou’s room and the front door and into the world and away.

  Trout watched her go. He had been obediently and mournfully sipping his coffee, trying not to listen to Lou and Undine fight. He desperately wanted to leave, but when he imagined himself sneaking out, he felt sly and mean, so he had stayed where he was and waited.

  And waited. Even after Undine’s sudden and unmistakable exit, he waited for her to come back. He sat as silent as he could, because he didn’t want to attract the interest of Lou, who was still in her room, with her door ajar.

  Trout had always felt intimidated by Lou. She was nothing like his own mother, who, though not unemotional, seemed to have only certain maternal emotions available to her. Or rather, he conceded, she was capable of containing her emotions, so that the only ones ever exhibited were the ones she permitted him to see. He could predict his mother’s emotional life quite precisely. He knew what upset her, what made her happy, when she would be angry, how she would be angry.

  Lou, on the other hand, seemed to possess an unknowable other self, some part of her not given over to mothering Undine. Trout knew it was unfair of him, to want to limit the possibilities of Lou because she was a mother, but he did not really trust this other side of Lou. It was, in a remote sense, dangerous, because her behavior could not be predicted.

  Trout lifted his cup to sip his coffee, but realized it was empty. How long ago had he finished it? How long had he been sitting here, waiting for Undine to come back?

  He was in the process of standing up to leave when he heard movement from Lou’s room. Before he had time to do anything, Lou appeared. He froze, and quivered like a rabbit. Ridiculously, he was halfway up and halfway down, bent at the knees over the table, a tableau of indecision.

  But Lou swept past and up the stairs to Undine’s room. She came back down carrying her duvet. Trout marveled that anyone could carry so large and voluminous a thing with such gravity and decorum. Lou wasn’t much taller than Undine but like her daughter she was capable of conveying a sense of great height when necessary. Right now she looked about twenty feet tall, giantlike, as if Trout could fit easily into the palm of her hand.

  She didn’t look at Trout, but returned straight to her bedroom. The air, which had become hurried and noisy with Lou’s passage through the house, settled again, like thick sand around Trout’s ears. He was still poised between sitting and standing, but he found himself compelled to sit again, unwilling to take responsibility for one course of action or another.

  So it was as he was lowering himself back into the chair that Lou stuck her head round the corner. “Hi, Trout,” she said, pleasantly enough. “Don’t you think perhaps you should go home?”

  Before he left—showing great restraint, because all he really wanted to do was sprint out the front door—he washed the breakfast things.

  Outside the light was bright, and the air had a hot, lazy drone to it, like the velvety bumblebees that hovered over the lavender at the front step. Trout blinked twice at the sun and looked around for Undine. He half expected to find her here, sitting on the steps waiting for him, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Undine had stopped running when she reached the Montmorencys’ front door.

  Usually when she fought with Lou, it was Trout’s bedroom she ran to, but that only worked if Trout was actually in it. She balanced on the balls of her feet, considering her options. She should go home and rescue Trout, but she couldn’t see how she could do it without making up with Lou and she wasn’t ready for that.

  Fighting with Lou was not unheard of, but it belonged to another time: after Stephen had died, when they had almost grown used to him not being there, when they were learning to accommodate the absence of him, no longer fresh and shocking but a constant dull injury.

  One day Lou and Undine stopped being kind to each other, stopped babying each other, and picked a fight instead. It was a strange, sudden, and temporary transformation. Later Lou had described it as a way of punctuating the grief, like a comma or a semicolon, a necessary transition from one stage to the next. Whatever the reason, they’d had some real doozies.

  Both Undine and Lou had taken turns running away. Undine had not been very good at it, always going to the same place—Trout’s bedroom—and never staying more than a few hours before Mrs. M sent her home. Lou, on the other hand, had demonstrated something of a talent for it, vanishing apparently off the face of the earth, and staying away long enough for Undine to be genuinely unsettled but not actually frightened. By the time she came home, Undine was so openly pleased to have her back that no apologies were necessary.

  Those fights had been empty of any genuine malice but instead filled with raw, exposed, identifiable feelings. The fights themselves had meant nothing. They had both needed to yell and scream, to hate each other for a while. They needed the large gestures and extravagant emotions so they could stop feeling so slight and brittle and fragile all the time. They had needed to stop grieving, but they didn’t know how.

  But this fight was different. There had been something so systematic about it, so planned. But not like Lou had planned it. It was as if the argument had been inevitable, out of Lou’s hands. That the argument had been waiting to happen, independent of Undine and Lou, and there had been nothing they could do to stop it. Instead they were forced to perform it. Undine was pretty sure Lou didn’t mind that Trout had stayed the night. Trout was more of an excuse. And while she had expected Lou to be annoyed that she had forgotten Jasper, she hadn’t expected…well, whatever that was.

  Her foot hovered around the bottom step, but she felt suddenly angry at the thought of going home. What was in there? Lou, ready to yell some more? Trout, wanting to examine her
, to dissect her like some specimen?

  “So no,” she said to herself, and she tried to insert some attitude. “I’m not going back. I’m going…” But where would she go? Who was she trying to kid? She’d go home. She always went home.

  Suddenly, the Montmorencys’ door opened. Richard appeared before her.

  “Oops,” he said, avoiding squashing Undine by lurching elegantly to one side. “What are you doing here? Trout’s at your house, isn’t he?”

  Undine didn’t know Trout’s brothers very well. They had always seemed so much older than her and Trout.

  “Um. Yeah. He is at my house. I kind of…abandoned him. I had a fight with my mother.”

  Undine immediately felt very young and awkward, as if fighting with her mother was something she should have grown out of.

  Richard still managed to be sympathetic. “Mothers!” he said expressively, and then glanced back over his shoulder into the house that held his own mother, as if scared she might appear. It was an unselfconscious gesture that made him seem for a moment sweet and vulnerable, so that Undine relaxed a little.

  He studied her face. “I’ve got to go to uni; I’ve got an early class,” he said. “Why don’t you walk with me some of the way?”

  “Oh, but Trout…”

  Undine had a sudden, horrifying thought that she might not be properly dressed, she’d rushed out of the house so fast. She glanced surreptitiously down. To her relief she was still wearing the same clothes from the night before, and she’d even managed at some point in the morning to pull on her sandals, so she was perfectly respectable. She felt almost giddy with relief.

  “I’m sure Trout will be fine,” Richard was saying. “If I know him he’ll be washing the breakfast things. Look, you don’t have to come. But walking’s a good antidote to fighting. It’s very logical and makes lots of sense if you don’t think too hard about how strange it is that we don’t just fall over. Sometimes I think walking disproves the theory of gravity—because one’s head is heavier than one’s feet, you know—but then I never finish thinking about it enough to decide whether or not that makes sense.” He frowned. “Sorry, I’m not doing a very good PR job for walking. I’m making it out to be a whole lot more complicated than it actually is.”