Heat and Light by Ellen van Neerven Read Free Book Online

organised as best she could a foolproof ensemble of ingredients. The kitchen was her base while Irma and Pete were at school, Griffin was at work and Pearl was resting in the bath. She opened the limes, used the juice and skin, a scatter of macadamia nuts from the tree out the front, cream, avocado and honey. She set the tart in the oven. It had pale and mysterious energy, pulsing there. She watched it with great anticipation. She did not tell Pearl of her exact plans, but hoped her sister would start to smell the tart from where she lay, ridden in the bathwater, and a comforting mystery would take shape.
    While the tart was baking, June from down the road came to the door. Pete had a fever, June said. The school had rung, and they wouldn’t keep him there. With Griffin at work, Marie knew she had to walk the fifteen-odd minutes to get Pete. The tart was intended to stay in the oven for twenty-five minutes.
    Marie ran through the heat, sweat seeping into her eyes. Her feet ached in her poorly worn shoes. She thought about Pete, always getting sick. Griffin said he spent too much time indoors, doing women’s work. When she arrived, Pete was standing outside the school office, holding his forehead. She kissed him and held him to her.
    ‘I’m so sorry, my son,’ she said. ‘We’re going to have to rush home.’
    When they were children, she and Pearl walked everywhere, barefoot. They followed her father through the country. He showed them the dirt patterns. Pearl, her only whole blood sibling, didn’t look like her; she was darker, stronger-looking. They didn’t look alike even as children. Pearl had eyes that had been watching for a lot longer than when she was born.
    Marie and Pete made it to the house, bringing the heat in. She carried Pete up the stairs and he was asleep before he was in bed. She pulled the blanket halfway up his sweating, small body.
    She opened the oven and there the finger lime tart was, just ready, edges brown but not burnt. Her hand tingled from the heat as she pulled it out, but no worry – this speciality was for her sister and she had prepared it.
    She walked up to the bathroom, pushing open the door. The curtains had been pulled half over the window. The first thing she saw was Pearl’s stomach, floating above the water’s surface. Pearl’s eyes were shut. There was an arm of a different skin tone around her chest, below her large, floating breasts. Two people were in the bathtub. The two people, her sister and her husband, were in a terrible tangle or a struggle or some kind. Griffin was behind Pearl, half of his face showing behind her hair, his shoulders against the wall. He was moving, and the colourless water was running around them as if it couldn’t keep up. They opened up their eyes and saw her, but their bodies stayed where they were.
    Marie went downstairs and pulled out the knife to cut a slice of the pie, which was cooling on a rack next to the oven. She delicately transferred the piece onto a gold-rimmed plate and added a coin-sized dollop of fresh cream beside it. She waited. Griffin appeared, and said he was going back to work, his hair half-wet. The car roared out onto the street.
    In a few minutes, Pearl came down the stairs in her white dress. Marie put the plate in front of her. Pearl sat on the same chair she had sat on when she first came to the house, the chair that had become hers during her stay, a chair that had originally belonged to their mother. The room was full of family items. In a bowl next to Pearl were their father’s clapsticks, which he had made himself using unblemished, light wood. Pearl used her hands to bring the pie to her mouth, nodding in approval at the taste. There were no crumbs left when she handed Marie back the plate.
    After she finished, Pearl slid herself out the window to go for an afternoon smoke. Marie took the plate to the sink and put the rest of the pie in the fridge, with the knife resting on top. She reached over the bench to