Let Winged Things Fly

He was at the pantry door when she asked him to get more sugar.

You have enough, he said.

She looked in the bowl, a pretty English china one painted with a scattering of flowers and leaves on a lattice background. Tiny pink, blue and yellow daisies danced in the bottom, clearly visible through the crystals.

She could almost count them but she didn’t argue.

She never argued now.

At the kitchen table he looked up from his regulation cereal.

You have left the TV on at the wall again, he said.

Her heart stopped. She jerked her head to see the telltale red light.

Another costly mistake.

Sorry, she said, as the phone rang. It was her sister.

Breakfast finished, he left the room but she could feel him through the wall.

He didn’t like people ringing. They—and she—went on and on.

She chatted briefly, her voice low for no particular reason.

They were being invited to lunch but she knew he wouldn’t want to go. Too many people. Too much talking. And everyone always interrupted him. He never got to finish a sentence.

Sorry, she said to her sister. We can’t make it today.

He came back into the room and looked at her. That look.

She made an excuse and hung up.

It was going to be hot again so all the curtains and blinds must be closed. Certain doors had to be left open, others had to be shut.

The blind over the kitchen sink was lowered to the sill. She could hardly see to wash the dishes. There was no question of putting the light on because it was far too expensive.

It was the same in winter. The new wood heater had never become a source of comfort let alone cheap heat.

The wood was wrong, he complained. As soon as it was lit it slumped and moved about. It burned too fast. He could not control it although he tried, lining up the kindling on the brick hearth in order of size and shape and assembling rigid little pyramids inside the fire box. It was a personal affront to see them collapse every night.

For half a century he had been a builder. Whole forests had fallen before him, whole cities had risen and bloomed.

Somehow, somewhere, she had lost him in the woods and the landscaped streets, the mighty timbers usurped by standing armies of Manchurian pear trees and reduced in the end to splintery sticks.

At night, as the flash of the flames struck the harsh planes of his face, she remembered other fires, sparks like stars and a young man’s arms, glowing and strong. 

There were tremors in his hands now and the fire was dying.

Today was Thursday, lotto day, and he went to get his exercise book.

The book was crowded with numbers. Sequences sprang diagonally from the top of each page and somewhere within this lacework of luck was the combination that would make him rich.

It usually took him a good hour to choose, making his marks carefully and heavily on the coupon.

This week he was certain, not only of the mystical power of these figures but of his absolute right to win. He had put in the work and he deserved to be rewarded.

The next day, numbers drawn, he would say, incredulously, 27? Fucking ridiculous.

Last Sunday their son and grandson had come for dinner.

It was a miracle to be grandparents at last.

She loved the little boy, a love she could feel like sunshine in her blood. He was Bernini beautiful and full of joy. He made her smile.

His grandfather resented him. The child was spoilt and demanding. He got far too much attention.

At the table the boy had been restless and noisy. If you don’t behave, his grandfather told him, you can never come here again.

She and her son had looked at each other, a looked that shared a history of such moments.

Outside the window a tree reared and threw bolts of jagged shadows into the room.

Above the fireplace a mirror stared blindly, reflecting nothing.

She knew they wouldn’t, couldn’t, come again.

No one came to the house now.

Over the years she had invited people for coffee or a meal but they were never the right mix.

On rare occasions they had been asked to a barbecue but he had found the conversation unbearable and they had left early.

That afternoon they were going into town. It was the same most days.

The careful locking of the house. The walk to the garage. The cursing of the birds who had dared to leave a mess on the footpath, or worse, the car.

Let winged things fly, she would think. She had found the phrase in Genesis when she had been looking at readings for her mother’s funeral.

He had never liked her mother.

At the supermarket he would go to the bottle shop while she shopped carefully, his voice in her head: You don’t need that. You don’t need that.

They then returned to the car which was always parked in the same place and preferably in the shade.

Back home he would start drinking.

Then he would play his records, always the same ones.

Then he would become strategically affectionate and want sex.

Hammer and nail. Hammer and nail.

At night beside him she lay listening.

His snoring began softly and built to a tortured crescendo until, abruptly, he would stop breathing. She waited in the long, blessed moments of silence. Then, as if surfacing from the deep, he would suddenly gasp for air and breathe again.

Next year would be their golden wedding anniversary.

At the bottom of the drive he stopped the car at the letterbox.

Across the road she saw a neighbour out gardening and waved to her. The woman looked up but didn’t see her.

Lately she had sensed her body fading at the edges. Perhaps, she thought, she didn’t exist at all.

They set off and came to the intersection.

For as long as she could remember she had been expected to tell him if there was any traffic on his left. It was the least she could do. She was in his way.

You’re right on your left, she would say. It was another mantra. Almost a joke.

She never drove now unless he was drunk. She was not a good driver anyway, he said, just as she was not musical or sexy.

He stopped and indicated to turn right. She turned in her seat and looked uphill to the left. There was a cement truck coming, its big pink barrel rolling slowly.

As if through a telescope she could see back through the years, and to all the years to come.

She remembered the day of the argument. How she had walked out of the room.

Yelling, he had chased her, a force she could feel gathering at her back, a tsunami of fury bearing down on her.

He had grabbed her from behind and, with his hands around her throat, lifted her until her toes barely touched the floor.

It had happened so fast.

A car was coming on his right and turned in beside him without using a blinker. This always enraged him and he started to rant.

The car filled with thunder. It smelled like burnt toast.

Well, he snapped. WELL?

He wasn’t looking. He couldn’t see.

Blazing, the bright day came up and, beyond, the soft green hills rippled beneath their flowing velvet cloak. Far away a mountain floated, her lavender peak crowned in clouds.

The long night no longer threatened but promised peace.

She was so very tired.

You’re right on your left, she said. And closed her eyes.

Kathy Hunt lives in Gippsland.