The Colour of Tea Read online

  As I pull off his tie, it makes a whishing sound, whipping around and off his collar. He unbuttons his shirt while I wriggle back off him to take off his trousers. I pull my shirt up over my head, and he unzips my fly. When I unclip my bra, he grabs my arms for a moment; they are twisted behind my back. We are frozen, half undressed and both still wearing our socks. Pete’s are short and dark, warm from being inside his shoes.

  “I …” he starts, but doesn’t finish. I can see from his face that he is aching to talk. A million unsaid things in his eyes. Silently, I beg him not to say anything now, and he doesn’t.

  I can feel him thick and hot against my underwear. In my head I try to remember my last period, when it was, wonder whether I might be ovulating. It is a habit. The thought falls away; it is no longer important. He lets go of my arms and drops his hands to my thighs. I pull down his boxer shorts and grasp hold of him. He lets out a moan, and his head goes back so I cannot see much of his face beyond his chin. I maneuver out of my pants and drop them on the floor. When I push myself down onto him too quickly, he sucks in air with surprise. He reaches up for my breasts, but I pin his arms by his sides. My nipples skim the hair on his chest as we move together. There is a dry pain, but I close my eyes so hard that I see stars, and that stops me from thinking much about anything. It feels raw and scorched and more wild than we really are. Pete cries out and comes loose from my hold. He grabs me like I am about to fall, pulls me tight and close to him. We make warm, wordless shouts into the dark. The shudder clashes our bodies together, and when it stops my face is buried so close to his neck I can smell the saltiness of his skin. How long has it been since we had sex for no reason at all? The thought is sad and angry all at once. He mumbles something into my hair, and I sink my teeth into his shoulder until he cries out. We fall apart from the grip breathless and panting.

  Later, when he is asleep, I stare at his mouth hanging wide open and taking ugly, ragged breaths. I look at his face in the dark, the face of the man I married in Bali so long ago that I can barely remember the smaller details of the day. My eyes wander from his mouth down his stomach, over his legs and back again. No matter how many beers he guzzles or burgers he eats at his desk during short lunch breaks, his middle-aged body works just fine. It makes me feel so bitter. Bitter and broken inside. I lie in the dark, staring at him. The hair on his chest, the softness of his belly. Then I think of a tomato tart. Warm and sweet. The one that we fell in love over.

  * * *

  I had escaped from London and moved to Melbourne. The skies were bluer in Australia, and I felt like I could finally take full, deep breaths. All of my own. I’d found myself a lover who lived in Northcote, in a flat right behind the Coles supermarket. His name was Dan. He wasn’t a great catch, but he was funny when he drank. To be fair, it didn’t bother me all that much; I wasn’t looking for the perfect man, just a half-decent kisser to be young and stupid with, and Dan was that.

  One morning, when Dan was still asleep and I was nursing a hangover, I decided to get something to eat. I walked to Coles wearing Dan’s tracksuit bottoms, a T-shirt, and a pair of old dark green flip-flops that I found behind the front door. The hangover made me ravenous but robbed me of my ability to make a decision. I don’t know how long I spent wandering about the supermarket creating meals in my mind. Hot roast chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches. Pizzas on crispy bases. Big, heaving bowls of spaghetti Bolognese. Crunchy, cheesy nachos with sour cream. I did a full circle and ended back in the fruit and veg section. Next to the peaches were boxes filled with tomatoes still clinging to their vines. The ripe tomato smell was almost sexual. It filled my nostrils as I lifted up a box. There were some slightly rotten ones near the bottom of the box, but the rest were just perfect, thick with the perfume of their green vines, fat and red. Someone had hastily scrawled a sign: BOX FOR $5.

  The scent pulled me back into memories of a tomato tart Mama had made one morning. I was about six, I think. It was still dark when I woke to the smell of roasting tomato and goat’s cheese bubbling and bursting under the grill. Singing drew me toward the kitchen, where Mama was wearing a purple cable-knit sweater she had made and her pajama bottoms. They had mud up the backs of the legs, and she was wearing one red sock and one black.

  “Miss Grace Raven!” she trilled, pulling the first glorious tomato tart out of the oven. It must have been five in the morning, but my mouth watered. The kitchen was warm, and Mama had a big smile on her face. When she’d put me to bed, she was simmering with a dark and stormy mood, so that smile held me still. I was waiting to see if it would last, making sure this wasn’t a dream. She flitted about the kitchen like a summer fly, grinning and chatting. I followed her with my eyes, bare feet glued to the spot.

  “Your mama has made a tomato tart for breakfast. A tart for the king and queen of this house. Which is you and me, darling girl. You and me!”

  Her smile was somehow a little too bright, but I watched as she showed me how she had scored the puff pastry and brushed it with oil. She got me to smell the thyme pressed between her fingers and thumb, and told me how good garlic was for keeping away colds. She preached about food and sang and laughed and baked until the light started to come in the windows. Then we sat and ate hot tart without knives and forks. She kissed my cheeks and smelled like garlic. I remember the hot cheese dropping onto Mama’s sweater and drying to a rubbery streak against the wool.

  I carried that box of tomatoes all the way from Coles back to Dan’s house. I thought of Mama while I prepared the tomatoes and crushed raw garlic, the skin around my bitten nails stinging with the pungent juices. I was starving by the time it was in the oven and must have looked pretty frightful—hair a mess, mascara loaded in the corners of my eyes from the night before, the old T-shirt hanging off me decorated with gruesome splatters of tomato innards. I was half drunk on the viscous perfume of pastry rising and sunk deep in my memories when a man came into the kitchen from the lounge room without his shirt on and smelling of sleep. Drowsily, he tried to move to the fridge, but my tomato box with a few rotten specimens at the bottom was in the way. He looked even worse than I did.

  “What the fuck …”

  Thick, curly brown hair fell over his eyes, slightly crossed-over teeth stuck out of his lower jaw. The top teeth were nice though. Nice and white and even. I assumed he was Dan’s flatmate.

  “Sorry, I’ll move that. Just tomatoes—I’m making a tart,” I apologized. Britishly. I wished I had put on my bra, even if it did smell of smoke and beer.

  “You’re making a what?” He turned to face me properly and looked me up and down. His eyes settled for a moment on my feet.

  “A, um, tart. A tomato tart. Sorry, that’s why there’s a box of …” I gestured feebly.

  He cocked his head and laughed.

  “Holy shit, that is a posh accent. A tart—like a pie or something, right?” He got to the fridge and yanked out a carton of orange juice. He checked the date on the top and frowned.

  “Well, no, it’s a tart. It’s different from a pie.”

  I knew I sounded prissy. My accent is not posh. It’s just English.

  His nipples stood upright amid small circles of dark hair. The only hair on his entire chest, ringed around his nipples. Could he put some clothes on, for God’s sake? He grinned at me with those teeth, so then I knew he had only been teasing. I’d forgotten that teasing was what Australian men do best. Like pulling a girl’s pigtails in class.

  “Okay,” he said a little more gently. He leaned on the fridge door and drank straight from the carton. Juice clung to his upper lip before he licked it away. He turned toward the oven.

  “Well, it does smell good.”

  “Thanks.”

  I could see him glancing at the mess I had made, red pulp covering the sink and knives and more than one chopping board. Hangovers are not conducive to being a tidy cook. My mess was even worse than Mama’s.

  “You can have some if you want.”

  He nodded.
/>   “I’m Grace, by the way, with um …” I gestured toward Dan’s room, as nonchalantly as possible. The door was slightly ajar, one naked cheek of his arse exposed where the duvet had slipped off.

  Dan’s flatmate looked where I’d gestured. “Oh, right.” He seemed pretty unperturbed by the nakedness. I guessed he had seen it before. “I’m Pete. Actually, yeah, I’ll have some if you’re offering.”

  We sat at the table in the lounge room and watched the news. The tart was heaven, Mama would have been proud. The enormous sheets of it took up two whole shelves of the oven. We ate the lot between us before Dan even woke up. Pete sucked at his fingers and moaned that it was delicious. He told me he was a pit manager at the casino and he’d been to university with Dan. He hadn’t finished his business degree because it wasn’t very interesting and he liked his part-time job dealing cards better. That was when he moved in with Dan. Pete reckoned Dan was a good guy, but he “got pissed a bit too often for his own good,” which was probably pretty accurate. Pete was going to move out in a few months, it was time; he and Dan had been flatting together for years now. I looked at his green-flecked eyes while he spoke in that low, strong voice, stared at the fringe of black lashes. We sat and ate and talked and watched the TV for a few hours. He told me my tart was the best pie he’d ever eaten. It felt easy, like being with family, if I’d ever had much of one other than Mama. And he pointed out that I was wearing his flip-flops.

  * * *

  Now, so many years later, Pete’s naked body is stretched out on the bed, those handsome eyes closed. He is right next to me, but he feels so very far away. I go to the shower alone. When the tears start, they are hot and full. I stand under the stream and let the water flow over my eyelids and nose and splash onto my chest. Suddenly too tired to stand, I sit down and curl my knees toward my breasts. I imagine Mama coming in and seeing me like this. Whatever mood she was in, and there were some bad ones, she would give me a towel. Tell me to get up and come have toast. She’d put the kettle on and fill a hot-water bottle, slide it into a brown woolen cover. She’d make tea. I wait, the shower tiles leaving an imprint on my backside, but no one comes to wrap me in a towel; there is only the sound of water falling.

  La Ville-Lumière—City of Light

  Parisian Crêpe–Inspired Banana with Hazelnut Chocolate Ganache

  Peace descends on the apartment after Pete leaves for work, a light and floating silence. Television news is switched off; taps have stopped running; shoes no longer clunk on the wooden floorboards. I lifted my head off the pillow once or twice to talk to him as he got ready, but as usual I didn’t know where to start. He has tried to start conversations for weeks now, and I have buried myself in this bed to avoid them. Eventually he stopped trying. I risk opening one eye again. The sunlight is piercingly bright. Spring bright. I sigh and open my other eye with reluctance, squinting and blinking, and get to my feet. Standing at the window, I can see Pete’s tiny figure walking to the office. It must be warmer now; he has his jacket slung over one shoulder, his attention firmly fixed on something in his hand. His phone, I bet. I urge him to turn around so I can wave. He looks up and I think he might turn and see me, might sense that I am standing at the window, hands pressed on either side of the frame. But he strides on.

  The sun pours through the glass onto my skin; I can feel the small hairs on my arms standing up to greet it. Good morning, sun. Good morning, morning. The clouds are fat and floaty, as if they have been plucked from the Sistine Chapel and slapped across the Macau sky. They rest against a sheet of bright blue, an unexpected pollution-free sky today. I lean my head against the pane and breathe in; perhaps the loveliness can be inhaled. I roll my forehead around to one side to look back at the island that is our bed. The sheets are tangled and need to be washed. There is a smell like warm dust and stale bread. I know I need to stop living like a hermit, but the effort of getting dressed and leaving the apartment seems too huge. I take a deep breath to give me resolve and search for my sports bra underneath strappy, lacy underwear I no longer wear.

  The doorman looks up when I get out of the lift dressed in tracksuit bottoms, T-shirt, and runners, rumpled but awake and moving. I wonder if he is surprised to see me at this time. Or at all. His gaze follows me as I walk out the glass doors.

  Despite the blue sky, the air smells of exhaust fumes and is filled with the noise of brakes and horns. The morning sounds of going to work and taking the kids to day care. Two destinations to which I will not be going. I long for a quiet English park or a sandy Australian beach as I walk past a woman still in her pajamas, slurping congee off a spoon. She looks up at me with a vacant, drowsy stare, then drops her head to concentrate on her meal. I’m relieved she is not interested in me. I can feel so self-conscious here. So pale and tall. Too foreign. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been growing more and more foreign over the years. Like I’ve been taking steps away from myself. First escaping to Australia, then back to London. Now here. China. I look at the shops on either side of me. None of them is open at this time; I made that mistake early on. They don’t open till around ten, if not later, and they close late too. You can wander into a shop at ten at night and the shopkeeper will still come bounding out from a back room, wiping rice and soup from his lips, ready to serve you. But at this time of the morning, the corrugated-iron shutters are down, like tightly closed eyelids. SORRY, WE’RE SLEEPING, I imagine the sign in Chinese to read.

  A few blocks away there is a school, a small playground in one corner. I try not to look, but I’m drawn to it. The playground is small, concrete and sad. It has a strange assortment of miniature plaster replicas of famous landmarks. There is an Eiffel Tower, a knee-high Sydney Harbour Bridge, and a lopsided London Bridge. Little pieces of my life, as if placed there just for me. I curl my fingers through the wire loops of the fence. The playground is empty, all the children now in class. Barren—no grass, no children, no squeals of laughter. I make myself walk on quickly, one foot in front of the other, trying not to cry.

  I pass the bakery on the corner, the smells hitting me before I reach the shop itself. They are thick and sweet. Cars are double-parked down our street, locals dashing from the passenger doors to pick up their breakfast. A long queue snakes from the entrance. Inside there are piles of pork buns, slices of dark honey cake, rolls topped with pork floss, bread with ham laid on top and stuck fast with melted cheese. It is a different smell from bakeries back home. I tried a loaf of bread once, but the slices were thin and sugary.

  A few blocks from the school I stop and take a long, slow breath. I am not crying. The moment has passed. I look around me; as if the urge or emotion might just be standing there, ready to surprise me. But there is nothing. Warm stillness. A breeze skates around the corner and lifts hair from my forehead. A taxi sails by; an old lady with a graying bob stares out at me. I realize I am only five blocks or so from Supreme Flower City. I can see it in the distance, iris purple, skewering that cornflower sky. In front of me, there is the building site for a new international school and a residential building in faded sage green. The sun is starting to heat up; I hear the sound of a drill making an effort. The construction site is not yet crawling with workers. There are a couple of men, but they are still rubbing their eyes, scratching their necks, and glancing around as if waiting for a supervisor to arrive.

  One of the men notices me from where he is sitting up on a piece of scaffolding, swinging his legs. He is shirtless and smoking a cigarette. I know now that it is okay to stare here, but it still makes me feel nervous. Those dark eyes are unapologetic, as if asking, “What makes you so special?” Below him a dog, covered in mange, bits of rice soup stuck to his snout, gives me a canine grin, lips stretched back from his teeth and tongue hanging out to one side.

  Mama might have gone to talk to the man. It wouldn’t have bothered her that he was half naked or that he couldn’t speak a word of English or that his dog looked like it was carrying a hundred different skin infections. She was a fund-raiser
for Greenpeace once. She’d carry her sign-up sheets and clipboard wherever we went. She could talk for hours about harp seals or nuclear testing. She could describe a Japanese whale hunt in such gory detail it was as if she’d been standing on the deck of the ship herself. Her enthusiasm was electric—exhilarating and, under the wrong circumstances, slightly terrifying. Men signed up more often than women. It was Mama and not Greenpeace that did it. Especially in warmer weather, when she wore her hair loose and her skirts long. She looked as pretty as a fresh autumn leaf just fluttered to the ground. The kind that makes you think of days with cool breezes and walking hand in hand with someone you fancy.

  I look back at the man on the scaffolding as he picks a piece of tobacco from his lips and spits on the ground below. His empty-eyed stare reminds me of Mad Martha. Mad Martha who used to wander outside my high school collecting soft-drink cans and muttering about Our Lord Jesus Christ. I don’t think anyone knew her real name. The girls teased her, threw their cans over the fence for her to chase, laughed at her woolly hair and wobbling, glassy eyes. She spooked me, and I didn’t go near where she usually was, until the day Jennifer Beasley came running up, an expression of urgency on her face.

  “Your ma is down by the fence with Mad Martha,” she said breathlessly, with all her fourteen-year-old lust for gossip. I knew before I got there it was going to be a scene. Girls were bunched up along the fence line—all high socks and giggles. I could hear Mama shouting. Something about being ashamed of yourselves and what would Gandhi do. I’m not sure my classmates knew who Gandhi was, but they were clearly amused. I peered over the shoulder of a girl with a blond spiral perm. Mama was holding Mad Martha in an awkward sideways hug. Her chin was thrust forward as she spoke. Poor Mad Martha looked bewildered, squinting out from Mama’s armpit.