to go. I can’t think of anything more fuck … I mean more ridiculous … I suppose you did ballet when you were a kid?’
‘Me?’ Katie shakes her head. ‘No.’
Funny, I would have thought that ballet classes were par for the course in a family like hers. Soft pink leotards and sparkling tutus in her already crammed wardrobe, being dropped off to lessons in the family Mercedes, glittery end-of-year concerts with indulgent accolades from her parents.
‘Actually, I did want to do ballet,’ she elaborates, looking slightly bashful. ‘But Mum said I was too big-boned. Dancers have a more delicate physique, at least in her view, so she enrolled me in basketball instead.’ She casts a disdainful look down at herself. ‘I suppose she was right … My thighs would’ve looked horrific in a leotard!’ Then she laughs. ‘And I turned out to be a decent enough basketball player.’
She expects me to laugh too but I’m not amused. It’s cruel telling a child they’re the wrong shape. Cruel to have them believe their bodies are anything but perfect. Please God, I’ll never limit Isla in such a way, stop her from doing anything she wants to do, or make her feel she’s not good enough. Please God, even if her thighs are big, she’ll never know it because I’ve succeeded in making her feel beautiful and confident … I’m sounding like my mother now, with all this ‘Please God’ business.
Fishing a packet of chewing gum from my trouser pocket, I hold it out as a peace offering. ‘Want some?’
She helps herself, popping it in her mouth. ‘Thanks … Where are the ballet classes being held?’ she enquires with heightened — frankly suspicious — interest.
‘Oh. Just local to me. Probably in some dingy hall or other.’
I’m sorry that her mother said she was too ‘big-boned’, and even more sorry that I snapped at her earlier on, but suddenly I feel rather proprietary about these ballet classes. Imagine if I turned up next Wednesday night and found Katie standing at the barre, with thighs considerably smaller than mine, I suspect, and already bombarding the poor instructor with questions.
‘Better get back to work.’ I stand up, and send her a brisk smile before striding towards my desk.
I can’t help feeling mean, not giving her the details of the class when she is so obviously interested in it.
But competing with Katie at work is more than enough. Competing with her at ballet class would be taking things a step (no pun intended) too far.
Chapter 11
Louise
I have a searing headache by midmorning. So much so that I have to down tools and go outside to get some air. Unfortunately, headaches are something of a professional hazard for me. It’s the combined effect of the close, detailed work and the residual smell of the solvent I’m using to remove the varnish. The gallery spends a lot of money on fume extraction, and we’re told to take regular breaks, but the latter is easier said than done. Progress is very slow, and it’s natural to want to keep at the job until you can see that you’ve made some headway. Ever tried to remove a sticker from a pane of glass using your fingernail? It can take forever, but something keeps you there, picking away at those gluey fragments.
Clutching a takeaway coffee, I cross the road to Hyde Park. It’s a hot, airless day, and I sit under the shade of one of the fig trees that line the main walking avenues. Some lunchtimes I wear my runners and go for a walk. There’s plenty to see: the Archibald Fountain, Sandringham Gardens and ANZAC War Memorial within the park; the Supreme Court, St Mary’s Cathedral and the Australian Museum along the boundaries.
My coffee tastes good. I’m yet to have a bad coffee in Sydney. In fact, the coffee here is better than the coffee in London or New York. Who would have thought? My phone rings and vibrates in my handbag, muffled yet insistent.
‘Hello?’
‘Louise, it’s Dan.’
Dan? I quickly search my headache-afflicted brain for a Dan. There’s one in the photography department, I think.
‘Joe’s brother,’ the voice prompts, and immediately I have an image: the barbecuing journalist.
‘Oh, yes, Dan, hello.’
‘Joe gave me your number.’
‘I assumed that,’ I say drily.
‘I hope you don’t mind … I asked him because I think I can help you.’
‘Help me?’ I seem to be a step behind in this conversation. I take a sip of coffee in the hope that it will somehow help me catch up.
‘Find your mother.’
Oh. Now I understand. That kind of help.
‘I don’t work that far from you,’ he continues after a heavy silence. ‘I’m in Park Street. Maybe we can meet for a coffee. Or a drink after work.’
A drink sounds like the better option. Dutch courage. For some reason I find everything about this call quite unsettling.
We agree on a place and time — outside the gallery, Thursday at 6pm — and I hang up, scared, nervous, warily excited.
Never, in all the years I’ve been looking for my mother, has anyone offered to help.
Is this a sign that things are about to change? That this time my search is going to be successful? Quite suddenly, I have the strongest feeling that she is in this city, and that it’s only a matter of weeks before we’re reconciled. Once all the tears and recriminations have passed, we could meet for lunch. She’d wait for me outside work and we’d walk through this park with linked arms and wide, happy smiles.
Reality intrudes as my phone beeps, a diary reminder popping up: there’s a department meeting in ten minutes.
Draining the rest of my coffee quickly, I leave my fig tree and hurry back to work. The foyer of the gallery is dark and cool but my thoughts are still outside in the burning sunshine. I feel confused, off-kilter, as I take the lift.
My head is in such chaos I cannot even tell if I still have the headache.
Sydney sizzles over the next three days, and the media declares it the warmest week on record. This I can believe. Our apartment isn’t air-conditioned. Joe maintains that there’s only a week or two like this each summer and it’s not worth the cost of installing air-conditioning. This morning, after a hot, restless night, I accused him of being one of those horrible penny-pinching landlords, hiding behind the guise of a struggling novelist.
At least the gallery is properly air-conditioned: it has to be, as excessive heat and humidity can damage the artworks. We’ve had record numbers through the doors, tourists seeking reprieve from the blistering heat. At lunchtime I join the tourists ambling through the Picasso exhibition that opened last week. My first walk-through was a hurried one before the exhibition opened to the public. Today I can take my time. The technique is exquisite, but I try to blot this out so I can respond to the work purely on an instinctual level. Sometimes it’s better to know nothing at all about art, I often say to Emma. I truly mean this, even though she thinks I’m just trying to make her feel better about her ignorance. When we first look at a piece of art, we shouldn’t be analysing the technique or the supposed uniqueness or even the materials used. We should be looking for one thing only: an emotional connection.
The sun has dropped by the time I leave work, taking away the scorching, relentless heat and leaving behind a balmy evening. Dan is waiting outside, as arranged. He’s wearing a blue shirt — open at the neck, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows — and charcoal trousers. His skin is a shade darker than Joe’s, a light golden colour that’s particularly attractive against the blue of his shirt. There’s a slight sheen of perspiration on his forehead.
‘Maybe we should go for a swim instead of a drink,’ is the first thing he says to me.
‘Once you can find a corner of the harbour that doesn’t have any sharks!’
The