Playing with Keys. Julia Osborne

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      Today was the day. If she couldn’t go with Nick, she would go by herself. From the front steps of the Art Gallery, Sandra gazed across the velvety grass of the Domain. She and Nick had sat on this exact same step after they walked through the park that long ago sunny day when Nick had described his secret visit about studying architecture at university, and how he’d paid little attention to the real reason his father sent him. And Sandra had tearfully told Nick of her father’s transfer to Randwick.

      Ever since that day, she’d promised herself to return to the gallery and find the painting; stand in front of it one more time, re-live the moment when Nick had suddenly said, ‘Hold my hand and close your eyes ...’

      Her sandalled feet made barely a whisper on the parquet floor as she walked quickly through the halls. But not too fast, she decided, as people may be curious – although she badly wanted to run. There was hardly anyone around yet, so she would have the painting all to herself.

      With great control, she strolled past the old paintings in their gilded frames, pausing to stand a moment at Gruner’s cows in the early morning spring frost. ‘Dad’s favourite,’ Nick had told her. It used to be hers too, but now she had a new favourite ... one more room and she would find it ...

      She imagined Nick taking her hand again, her eyes obediently closed as they walked the few steps to where he’d already glimpsed the picture: seated beside a pool, a young girl threaded red poppies in her long fair hair, daisies in her lap, a golden girdle around her hips. Then he’d said, ‘Open your eyes and look at this painting. Who does she remind you of?’

      Unable to think of an answer, shaking her head, Sandra stared at the girl who looked so thoughtful, so beautiful, painted so perfectly as if the paint had been licked smooth.

      ‘She reminds me of you,’ Nick said. ‘Same pretty profile, same hair ... and if you wore a long dress like that ...’ She remembered how she had blushed, brushed off his compliment. It was nothing to do with the sad story of Ophelia, he explained, it was simply how John Waterhouse painted the girl. She could still see the painting clearly in her mind. If she could stand in front of it, feel her hand enclosed in his ... this was the room ... on the left side, halfway along the wall ...

      Where the painting had previously hung, there was a picture of a father with a sleeping child. Rapidly she went from room to room, anxious and tearful, but the painting of Ophelia had definitely disappeared. She recalled the little card had said ‘on loan from a private collection’ – so it must have been returned to hang in the home of its owner – vanished from the gallery.

      Outside, Sandra slumped on the steps. It was a stupid idea anyway. Why should the picture have been hanging there, months later? She was a stupid fool to think she could recapture that wonderful day with Nick. Stupid stupid stupid.

      It was hard not to cry, and her throat ached with unshed tears. She didn’t want to live in the past, as her mother chided her on bleak days when Sandra complained – but the past held her dreams, her memories of all that was lovely. She felt a tear run down her cheek and angrily wiped it away so strangers wouldn’t see her distress. Counting one-two-three, she breathed in deeply, tried to calm herself.

      More people were arriving at the Gallery, stepping around her where she sat. It must be nearly lunchtime. She stood, dusting the seat of her skirt. Across the road was a kiosk and she bought an icecream in a cone. She would sit there and figure out a melody to play when she got home. It will be a song for Nick, she decided, a song without words in a key full of happiness and hope.

      It might begin with morning at Wilga Park, a ripple of notes andante con brio like the wind brushing through dry winter grass and paper daisies, and high above, oh, maybe two swallows scooping up pieces of sky. She hummed some experimental notes. Perhaps the key might change ... a discord, a change in beat with the staccato stamp of horses’ hooves on frosty ground. She smiled to herself ... that might be the easiest part. And finally, a cadence for the peace of evening, the way she remembered shadows lengthening across the fields until daylight faded into darkness.

      Forgetting to lick it, her icecream had melted softly into the cone. So easy to say the words, to call her imaginary song Winter’s Day, but the melody remained elusive, the harmonies would not come.

      That night Sandra lay uneasily in her bed, cradling the pillow. So many times she had misted her bedroom mirror with kisses, whispered: I love you Nicholas Morgan. With her eyes closed she could imagine Nick. But it wasn’t enough – it was never enough. Was it wrong to want more of a person, she wondered ... when did it become possessive? Ideally we should be like two stars circling about each other, drawn together. A double star? But while Nick stays at Wilga Park he can only be a sun, with me spinning around him, alone on my own orbit.

      Five months since she’d watched over him as he lay bruised and sleeping in the hospital. Five months of far-away dreaming on her pillow each night, reliving the touch of his hand on hers at the gallery when she told him her family must leave Curradeen. I will write Nick’s song, she promised, and one day soon, I’ll take the score out of my handbag and I’ll say, ‘This is something I wrote especially for you,’ and push the pages across the table – yes, we’ll be in a café, and instead of picking up the pages immediately, Nick will look at me with so much affection, he’ll be so impressed that I wrote a piece for him... he’ll finally wake up that I love him, and he’ll feel it too, and he’ll take my hand and tell me, ‘Now I understand, it’s been in front of me all the time. I’ve been in love with you without knowing it, ever since we met that day at the polocrosse.’

      The dream was magnificent and Sandra allowed it to flow, Nick close beside her on the pillow, his lips in her hair whispering secrets, loving her, circling like a star, and at last she slept deeply, her arm curled around the pillow.

      15 Bentley St.,

      Curradeen.

      16 March 1961.

      Dear Sandy,

      I think you are real brave going to the art gallery by yourself, I would be scared stiff. I suppose you have been to Sydney lots and know where to go. I never went and would get lost on a bus for sure. Did you find your picture, what is it of?

      Maybe Mr. L’estrange is Italian like me. If you hear him again on the telephone tell me what he says. Italians say “pronto?” СКАЧАТЬ