Free Rachael's Gift by Alexandra Cameron

stepfather left, we lived for a time in Far North Queensland. Our town was a backwater, with sugarcane fields where toads the size of turkeys sang beside the roads; fat and bloated, they popped like balloons underneath car tyres. Rainforests with giant trees, glistening and green, towered over underbrush seething with deadly snakes and spiders. Mile-long beaches, with sand as white and as hard as cut glass, held mottled creatures that shone in rock pools of crystal water.
    It was tropical and when it wasn’t a dry heat it was wet. As a child it never bothered me. Children don’t notice the weather. But my mother, she hated the heat. She was very fair and wore her blonde hair twisted up into a chignon at the nape of her neck. Wearing a floral cotton dress, she would sit on the sofa with a book in her lap, fanning herself. I would climb up next to her and begin to twirl the flyaway strands of her hair in my fingers as if she were a doll. When she had to leave the cool shade of our home she would wear a wide-brimmed hat to shield her from the sun. She would walk down the main street and the hat would brush the heads of passers-by, who would turn and stare. She would just keep on walking. Perhaps the heat dulled her senses.
    It was mostly just the two of us. In the evening, when it was too hot to sleep, she would read to me in French, her lips moving softly in this language I had come to recognise but not speak. Rather, it flowed over me, evaporating as it touched the heat of my skin. Then, when she was too tired to read, she would stroke my arm and I would fall in and out of sleep as she told me about Paris, and the home where she grew up.
    A large tanker distorted the faint line of the horizon. The bow of a lone yacht slapped over each peak as it went against the current. A shaggy caramel-coloured dog plodded up to me and smelt my ankles; its owner smiled in vague apology.
    I saw a patch of purple flowers, the petals like trumpets, and bent over to pick one. I snapped it from its base, without a stem, and the white sap leaked out. I was careful not to touch it. I sniffed but it had no scent; I had forgotten. The sky had grown light blue. Wolfe would be leaving for his morning surf. I turned around and began to head towards home.
    But in the bedroom Wolfe was still asleep. I crawled in beside him, pressing myself into his back. The map of moles I knew by heart. There was a new one, dark and raised like a pip. Or had I just forgotten it? The light fell across the side of his face, the soft baby fluff on the ridges of his ear. I pressed my teeth lightly into his skin, resisting the urge to press harder, to bite down. Two tiny imprints faded. We loitered on the vanishing point, swinging close and then far. Fighting for proximity. Running from it.
    ‘What time is it?’ he murmured.
    ‘Nearly time,’ I said, not letting him go.
    ‘Did you sleep?’ he asked, his eyes still clamped shut.
    ‘No.’ I brushed my leg over his thigh.
     
    *
    The office fan throbbed in the corner. Casual noises of life drifted about: the shout of workmen across the street, the screech of a tyre stopping abruptly, the tapping of the keys on a computer. Life went on. Someone died and it went on. Papers were printed. Milk was delivered. Buses choked into gear. Arguments were had. Secrets were revealed like the termite-riddled beams of an old house. Work was due.
    I flipped through my mail and saw an expensive envelope printed with the École des Beaux-Arts’ insignia. I prayed to my fictional deity in the sky and slit the letter open:
We are pleased to invite you to our general open day, Monday 29 October. We look forward to your confirmation
.
    It was just an invite to an open day. At least it wasn’t a rejection. The letter was dated 1 October; it must have been delayed in the post.
    An email popped up. Barry was chasing me:
How close are you? The client needs an update.
I replied briefly:
Work in progress – may require further investigation.