Patricia Grace - Small Holes in the Silence

Small holes in the silence

Short Stories by Patricia Grace

Patricia Grace

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

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First published by Penguin Group (NZ), 2006

Copyright Patricia Grace 2006

The right of Patricia Grace to be identified as the author of this work in terms of section 96 of the Copyright Act 1994 is hereby asserted.

Digital conversion by Pindar NZ

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

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ISBN 978-1-74228-819-2

Contents

For Hone Tuwhare.

busy lines

Waking in the early morning, waiting for daylight, there was just one star visible through an eye-sized gap where the curtains did not quite meet. The peephole was at the top of the window where the first set of hooks on either side fitted into the glides on the runners, leaving a triangular eye of black glass. Out in the dark one star had found that eye and put its own wink there.

It could be her husband looking in fifteen years since hed gone off to be a star and if so he would notice most of the furniture had gone. Piece by piece she had given away the big bed, the bedside cabinets, the tallboy and dressing table. It could be him. One small bed and a set of drawers were enough for her.

Others had followed her husband to stardom. Off theyd gone, one after the other as though he had left an irresistible tinkling trail for them, a plotted path out to that midnight-blue, crackling, spinning, fluorescent full bowl from where they all eyed down.

She listened this morning, as she waited for daylight under one star observation, for sea sounds, but there were none. There was no movement at all out there, the water being stretched to its edges, she thought, like a whole, black, drum-tight skin. She was certain there were fish in the weed and among the rocks but knew they would not cause a ripple on this still morning. There would be no one coming at daylight as there had not been anyone for months now, or was it years row, row in an aluminium dinghy to disturb and entice them, to snatch them and fry them.

If her husband spied about, finding other gaps in curtains in other parts of the house that he could eye through, he would take note of mostly empty rooms now, though she had kept the sofa and a chair. He would see that she had kept the appliances, knew she liked appliances. Appliances gave their lives to you, worked hard for you for as long as they lived. But even after they died no more hum, glow, heat, suck, blow they could still restore something, as though in giving up their lives they returned something of your own life to you.

For example, sweeping was good. After plugging in the vacuum cleaner one morning and stepping on the button to hear a silence which no thump in the heart of it could cure, she said goodbye to it and took up a broom. A broom was light and easy. It had no roar. It was a dancing partner with a gentle voice taking her from room to room, finding every grain of sand that had made its way in. She would pause to take the mats outside and flap them at the sea, having a good look while she was out there, to find out what the water and the seagulls were up to, then continue with her sweeping. With a broom you could dawdle away half a morning and before you knew it it was time to sit down with a cup of tea and a gingernut biscuit. A gingernut biscuit took a bit of time, was no easy swallow, and it was the same with double-decker cabin bread. She could gnaw away for some time on one of those, sitting in her chair by the window with the heater going in cold weather, or out on her step on warm days wondering what there was to think about or if anything was going to happen.

Sometimes in the mornings when she was talking to her broom or starting the washing machine, she would hear a scrape and shuffle on her doorstep, so she would wait-wait, become part of silence while listening for a tap on the door, a voice out there calling. After a while she would realise she was mistaken about what shed heard, but just to be sure she would go and open the door, look out and have a few words to say to the air out there. If it wasnt too cold shed leave the door open for the rest of the day.

The heater fizzled out one winter, which meant she had to scrape out her chimney so that she could light her fire. From then on it was necessary to go out along the beach with a backpack to collect firewood in the afternoons, making selections from among logs and sticks and branches that the rough seas had piled. It took time finding the right-sized pieces, but each selection gave satisfaction which is something she explained to the wind, holding each piece up for it to see.

In summer she went out collecting wood too, stacking it for when it was needed, remembering that all of this walking and finding and carrying and stacking was work caused by an old heater which had given up the ghost. She appreciated it. The winter driftwood often needed drying out on the hearth.

Sometimes on the way up from the beach with her backpack she would hear the telephone ringing but could never think who might be phoning her. She would hurry up to the house, leaving the backpack on the step, opening the door only to find that the ringing had stopped, or perhaps had never been. It was difficult to tell.

She had to boil water in a pot now that she had burnt out the jug element, and since the toaster had stopped working she had to make toast on a wire rack over the stove coil, or sometimes over scratched-up embers in the grate, but she was rewarded with richer tastes and flavours.

Anyway, even though she was fond of appliances she knew it was all stuff. Over the years you became crusty with stuff, and even though she wouldnt want to outlive all mod cons a good scrape-down did no harm. A starry eye would see that she still had television and the electric stove, and that, best of all, the old washing machine hadnt given up. Because of having a stamped-on, skew-whiff spine and hands like broken-legged crabs, she was pleased not to have to rub and scrub at a tub.

Most of the gear from the shed had gone, but any one of them looking down from out there, her husband, or any one of those following bunch of nuisances gone to stardom, winking, spinning, sparking, dancing out in the big forever, could see, even without eyeholes in curtains, that she had kept the dinghy and all of the fishing gear.