On Brunswick Ground Read Online Free PDF Page B

imagine, in one or two of her photographs, a fleeting sadness around her eyes, belying her smile. These fragments, these vestiges left behind, have something to say to us.
    Sarah gets up and lays her hand on my shoulder. Thanks , her hand seems to say. She is not a touchy-feely person. You can sense it feels crass to her to loll in emotion or milk a mood. I get up and follow her to the door. She turns around on the threshold, smiling without moving her lips – a phantom smile.
    â€˜See you tomorrow, then.’
    I don’t know what to say. I have no idea what my presence can achieve, probably nothing. But I can understand her trying anything. I ask:
    â€˜What about her father? Have you discussed this with him?’
    Sarah’s face closes with a slam. I can nearly hear it.
    â€˜No,’ she says, ‘I can’t do that.’
    She waves and slides into her station wagon. In a second, she’s gone. I stand on the doorstep and look at the street. The trees are silent, not a rustle in the air. Spring is unnaturally quiet. And it is still cold.

4
    LETTER
    Next day at 11 am, Sarah is at my door. We walk to her car and we drive off. Just like that. I’m kidnapped, out of the blue, out of my morning. It’s coolish and drizzling. I clear my brain of any thoughts and just check the trees out of the window. Sarah drives with precision and gusto. She follows the road rules, but the ride has an exciting edge. We swerve around the bends and pound down the freeway.
    â€˜Have you had breakfast?’ she asks, and hands me a decaf coffee in a takeaway cup, waving away my thanks.
    She’s even remembered I don’t drink real coffee. Her eyes are firmly stuck on the road and silence fills the car as I cradle the warmth. The freeway leaves the suburbs in piles behind it. The sky leans in, swallowing a great gulp of void to make room for the planes. I cling to the cup and try not to wonder what I’m doing in this car. Sarah chuckles.
    â€˜What can we call you? A buffer, a chaperone, a decoy perhaps?’
    I don’t go so far as to believe she reads my thoughts; she’s just got this strange brand of common sense.
    I don’t know how I get myself into these situations. Was it the thunderstorm? It’s as if something slips and I slip with it. Sarah comes to a halt at Tullamarine and we sit in the lane for quick pick-ups. An airport official is about to move us on, when Mary appears. It’s easy to recognise her. She’s a blue torch among all the relaxed travellers. Sarah beeps her horn. As I jump out to help Mary with her case, I catch the glimpse of a presence through the grilled blue lattice and smile towards it.
    â€˜Hello, Mary.’
    She nods and gets in the car. Sarah grabs her arm and leans in towards her with her whole body. There is something desperate in her sudden intensity. Her reaching expression can clutch at nothing. The burqa reminds me of Bluebeard and his forbidden room, except that for Sarah, it’s her own daughter incarcerated in that blue room, a room to which she no longer has access.
    Her usually deep voice nearly breaks into a falsetto.
    â€˜How was the trip?’
    â€˜Fine, Mum.’
    Mary’s voice is young, Australian, certain. It has a healthy, no-nonsense tone. As I help her with her case, her hand, damp with perspiration, slips on the handle. I wonder if it’s due to the burqa or to nervousness. Soon a damp sheet of silence is also hanging in the car. Throwing myself on mute cliffs, I’m a gull, flapping around to find something to say. I cough and comment on the rain. They don’t answer. Sarah concentrates on her driving as if she were hugging a cliff road instead of a freeway. Wading still further into triteness, I ask Mary whether she prefers Melbourne or Adelaide.
    â€˜I don’t know yet. I couldn’t say. I’ve been back in Adelaide for seven years now. But I’ve good memories of