Times Like These Page 2

  ‘Granny!’ Merren turned towards her grandmother folded deep into a comfy chair and basking in the sunshine. She nipped over and gave the old woman a peck on the forehead. ‘I totally didn’t see you sunbathing here in the corner!’

  ‘That’s because you were too busy following your nose in the direction of cake,’ her grandmother answered with a wry smile.

  ‘Well, true,’ Merren confessed. ‘But you have to admit, it’s a little hard to ignore.’ She patted her grandmother affectionately on the shoulder and headed towards the jug. ‘Sit down, Mum, and I’ll make us all some tea.’ She swallowed the saliva in her mouth. ‘And get us some of this cake.’

  ‘What about Suzette?’ Olivia asked.

  ‘Suzette is completely absorbed in her new flotation device,’ Merren replied. All three of them paused to think about that, shook their heads.

  ‘I don’t know where she gets it from,’ Olivia said. ‘The passion for the water.’

  ‘We did grow up right over the road from a rather lot of it.’

  ‘She just knows what she likes, and lucky for her,’ Naomi said. ‘All of you kids are like that.’

  The pause lengthened. ‘Well,’ Merren said, clearing her throat and putting the jug under the tap to fill. ‘I guess that’s true, except that I keep casting around for anything new and shiny.’

  ‘Pish posh,’ her grandmother said. ‘You’re interested in experiences as well as knowledge. Your horizons are always broadening.’

  Olivia picked up a pile of recipe books from the table by the window. ‘It’s true, Merren. And I think it’s quite an admirable thing. Although I don’t know how you fit it all in.’

  Merren set the jug on its element and flicked it on to boil. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I guess that’s true. I like being super busy – and there’s just so much going on, and so many things to fit in. I’m really trying to balance all the tech stuff, and the knowledge stuff, with…’ She thought for a moment, taking down the teapot with fruit painted on it. To match the cake. ‘Well, with the metaphysical philosophical thing, to quote my sister.’ She looked over at her mother. ‘I just want to live a full and meaningful life.

  ‘What sort of tea do you both fancy?’

  ‘Just some of the white tea, I think sweetheart,’ Olivia answered. ‘We don’t want to overpower the cake. I think the flavour of this one should be quite subtle.’

  Merren nodded and watched for a moment as her mother gathered up plates and cake forks and cups and saucers, setting them on the table like it was a special occasion. She smiled. Everything was a special occasion in her mother and grandmother’s house. That was just the way they lived.

  ‘So, Merren,’ Naomi said. ‘Did you do it?’

  ‘Yes, Merren,’ her mother added with a smile quirking at her lips. ‘Did you go through with it?’

  For a moment, the memory of posing unmoving that morning was a physical thing, and her limbs felt bare and heavy under the weight of the light in which the dust had danced like flecks of gold, and the gazes of twenty-something pairs of eyes. She nodded.

  ‘I did it, all right. It was extraordinary.’ The kettle came close to a boil and she switched it off, pouring hot water into the teapot and carrying it over to the table where there was a spot waiting for it. She went back for the cake, presenting it to the matriarchs of the family with a flourish.

  ‘This looks beautiful,’ she said. ‘Almost too good to eat.’

  ‘Tell us how it went,’ Naomi said, eyes set on Merren.

  Merren sat. ‘Well, you know why I decided to pose, don’t you?’

  Both heads nodded across the table at her.

  ‘It was pretty much like I thought it would be, really – only more so.’ She tapped a blunt fingernail on her tea cup, lost in thought. ‘Much more, actually. Things are always good in theory, you know? But until you actually test them out in practice…’ She trailed off, gave a self-conscious smile. ‘Are you sure you want to hear my blathering on about it?’

  The two pairs of blue eyes simply looked at her. She raised a hand in surrender.

  ‘Okay. Well.’ Merren dipped her head in thought for a moment, then nodded. ‘I’ve got this thing about experiencing, I don’t know, like, the human condition, right? And being as present where and how you are as possible, which is the only way I think there is to stay steady in amongst everything, with the world is changing so fast – just like you taught us, Mum.’ She stopped talking abruptly. Swallowed. ‘Being as present as possible in who you are, as well. Which, you know, includes your body.’

  Her mother and grandmother nodded.

  ‘Which includes,’ Naomi said, smiling, ‘your body in all its naked glory.’

  Merren laughed. ‘Well, yeah, it does. Which was the whole point of this crazy scheme.’

  ‘You are known for your crazy schemes, darling,’ Olivia said with an affectionately wry twist of the lips. ‘So, what did it feel like?’ She lifted up the teapot.

  ‘Weird. Brilliant.’ Merren shook her head and picked up her teacup, took a sip because her mouth was suddenly dry. ‘It was like this – there I was, totally exposed in front of a whole room of people who weren’t just sneaking glances but were really, actively looking at me, my boobs, my butt, my pudgy stomach – and in a matter of seconds it was either get real comfortable with my body or have a complete freak-out.’ She paused for another sip of tea, the cake forgotten for the moment.

  ‘I freaked out. A bit. Just for a minute.’ Merren widened her eyes and raised her hands, shaking them in the air and laughing. ‘Like, run screaming from the room freaked-out.’

  She tucked her hands back down on the table and shook her head. ‘There was a bit – quite a bit – of deep breathing, and I realised the only way to do this thing was to totally relax into both my body and the moment.’ Merren shook her head. ‘It was unreal. I did it. It took a bit, but I did it. I absolutely inhabited that space in my body, in that room, on that stool.’ Another shrug. ‘It was incredible, extraordinary. I’ve almost never felt more me, and yet absolutely part of everything else that was going on as well. I was so there. I noticed everything.’

  There was silence in the room. The teapot steamed gently on the table in front of Merren and she smiled at her mother and grandmother, feeling again for a moment that sensation of expansion, of being irrefutably herself, and just as irrefutably, part of everything.

  Then her stomach rumbled, and she laughed, pressing her hands to her belly.

  ‘Guess nude art models still need cake,’ she said, and her mother and grandmother laughed as well, and her mother cut thick slices of the fragrant cake and passed it around, sharing it between them while the sun filtered in through the window and a bellbird outside practiced his three best musical notes.

  Her grandmother leaned over the table and touched a hand to Merren’s wrist. ‘Are you going to do it again?’

  Merren nodded. ‘Once a week over the summer. I’m not planning to go away anywhere these holidays, so I don’t mind the commitment.’ She herded the crumbs on her plate with the small fork. ‘I think it will be a good experience, all in all. I mean, the point of life, besides trying to make the world a better place, is pretty much to experience stuff and learn and grow from it. Useful stuff, I mean; not just random junk.’

  Her mother laughed. ‘Heaven forbid you ever do anything randomly, Merren.’

  Merren laughed too, not minding the gentle ribbing. She knew she was just a little data-driven. She shrugged. ‘Well, you know how it is – the world’s a rapidly changing place. There’s no security in it for someone my age, either. We don’t know what sort of future it will be, what with all the changes happening – global warming, AI, Bio-tech, plus all the craziness around the world. I want to make the most difference I can, while I can. I want to help steer us into the future, from a responsible position.’

  Naomi cleared her throat. ‘I rather thought the point of life was to have fun.’

  A quick glance showed her grandmother’s
wicked smile over the rim of her teacup, but the eyes above it were serious, considering.

  ‘But I am having fun, Granny,’ Merren said.

  ‘Hmm,’ came the reply. ‘I don’t doubt you are, actually.’

  ‘I hear a but, Naomi,’ Olivia said, looking from Merren to her mother-in-law.

  ‘Well, I guess there is one, for all that,’ Naomi said, putting her teacup down and narrowing her eyes at Merren. ‘I don’t doubt you are having fun and learning very valuable things, in your methodical, intelligent, mature, and reasonable way. But tell me this – when are you really going to get your hands dirty?’

  ‘My hands dirty?’ Merren blinked.

  ‘The most vital of human experience, my girl.’

  She didn’t understand.

  Her grandmother ticked her points off on her fingers. ‘Love, kindness, growth, learning, pushing yourself, all of those you’re doing just fine with.’

  Merren leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. ‘Then what am I missing?’

  A slow smile spread over Naomi’s face.

  ‘Glory, my darling.’

  A frown knuckled itself into Merren’s brow. She didn’t understand. ‘Glory?’

  ‘Glory,’ her grandmother said firmly. Spread her hands in an all-encompassing gesture. ‘The great, messy, vulnerable experience of passionate love.’ She settled down with a smug smile on her face, looking at her granddaughter. ‘That’s what you need a good dose of.

  ‘That’s the next experience you need.’

  Chapter Three

  The watch on Merren’s wrist vibrated, startling her awake and blinking in her dim bedroom. She sat up, swallowing the remnants of her dream and registering the fact that sunlight swam between the gap in her curtains. She lifted her wrist, touched the watch, cleared her throat.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Miss Hardy?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s me. Who’s this, please?’ Scooting to the side of the bed, Merren threw off the blankets and stood up, stretching one arm above her head, the other sticking near her ear, waiting for the reply.

  It was the woman from the Art School, and Merren looked automatically down at herself. She was nude right at the moment too. Damn it, was this getting to be some sort of new thing?

  Grinning to herself, she padded through the house to the kitchen and stood looking longingly at the espresso machine, her pride and joy, and the first thing she’d bought herself when she’d started making money.

  ‘Whoa,’ she said, tuning back in to the voice speaking from the gizmo on her wrist. ‘You mean today? This afternoon?’

  ‘One o’clock this afternoon, if you can make it.’

  ‘Ah, yeah, sure. I don’t have anything else on,’ Merren replied. Nor would she at one that afternoon, apparently. She winced. The jokes in her head were getting a bit much. ‘Can you text me the address, please?’

  That at least was possible, and she ended the call, then checked the time. She’d slept in until ten in the morning. Running her hands through her hair, she looked around, seeing her laptop on the coffee table where she’d left it, her pink Moleskine notebook beside it. Another late night working. Nothing new there. Nothing she didn’t love doing.

  So, coffee, shower, breakfast. No, make that brunch, something more substantial than a couple pieces of toast. She’d need it if she was going to go pose for someone for a couple hours.

  Bemused, Merren went to the coffee machine, looked at it, then gave it a regretful pat and made for the bathroom instead. Loo, shower, brush teeth, dress, coffee to go, brunch.

  At five minutes to one, Merren stood across the road from the address she’d been given, mouth hanging open. Not because she wasn’t used to the big old houses that still stood on so many Dunedin streets, but because she rarely got to go inside any of the nicest ones. There were plenty, unrenovated and diced up into squalid little flats for the university students, and those ones she’d been inside, too often really – but this one, it was beautiful.

  She crossed the road, checked the address once more, making sure she’d got it right, but the street number on the text message matched beyond a shadow of a doubt the ceramic tile neatly plastered onto the brick wall, with the house number on it. Which was a nice touch, Merren thought, with its stylised kowhai flowers surrounding it. Suited the house, that was for sure.

  ‘All right,’ she told herself. ‘So, what did you expect, anyway? It’s an artist’s house.’ A quick glance up and down the road told her no one was watching her talk to herself. ‘Artist’s ought to have nice houses.’

  Yeah, but there was nice, and then there was nice.

  She walked up the curving driveway and the house revealed itself to her properly, like a goddess stepping out of an enchanted garden. It was a two-story Victorian, but it had been stuccoed, and the red-tiled roof gave it an exquisite country-warm flavour, especially sitting as it was amidst masses of unruly flower beds.

  The front door opened while Merren was still staring appreciatively at the stained-glass windows.

  ‘Are you the model from the Art School?’

  Merren turned toward the voice and nodded. ‘I’m Merren,’ she said, stepping forward to hold out her hand in greeting. ‘Renata Longwood called me this morning. Something about your regular model having had an accident.’ She smiled and tried to look like she hadn’t just been gaping at the house. And found herself staring at the woman instead.

  She was of medium height, with a willowy figure in a long, plain smock over dark pants, and touchingly, bare feet. Merren stared at her. Her face was in the shadows. There was dark hair, short, curling, a glimpse of sharp angles and pale eyes. One hand reached out to touch Merren’s, the fingers warm from where they’d been hugged around the woman’s waist. Merren shook the hand, feeling the touch unexpectedly like a graze of electricity and she dropped her fingers to her side, swallowed.

  ‘Yes; she broke her leg, unfortunately,’ the woman said, and gave Merren a sideways look, her gaze unfathomable. ‘Are you available through the summer?’

  On the phone, the job had just been described for the day. Merren had really only said yes because she was half-asleep, and half-asleep had thought well, why not? The experience in front of the class the day before had been a success, so why not today as well, in front of one, actual artist?

  ‘Ah, I thought it would just be for today?’ she said.

  The woman shook her head. ‘I need someone for the whole summer. I told Renata that.’

  ‘She didn’t pass on that information, I’m afraid, or your name either,’ Merren confessed. ‘Although she did assure me that you weren’t a serial killer or anything and that I would be quite safe coming to your house.’ The words serial killer weren’t actually mentioned, but Merren had appreciated Renata’s diligence in letting her know she’d be going to a safe place. Women needed to look out for each other like that.

  The woman on the step laughed, and Merren liked the sound of it. She shifted slightly closer. There was something drawn-looking around the woman’s eyes, and Merren thought maybe she didn’t spend enough time laughing. A glance at the house, and she wondered who else lived there. Suddenly, she wanted to find out. Everything.

  ‘I’m available all summer,’ she said, making up her mind. ‘If you think I’ll be suitable.’ Inwardly, she heard her voice saying yes to the proposition with some horror. This hadn’t been part of any plans she’d made.

  ‘If you can stand still for long stretches of time, you’re suitable,’ the woman said. ‘And I’m Bianca, by the way.’ She stepped down from the front door, and the sun caught her face, showing fine lines there, and lit a few silvery strands in hair that otherwise was almost black.

  Bianca was a pretty name. Merren dipped her head in acknowledgement, but Bianca was already moving slowly past her, down the path, arms hugged back around her waist again. Merren wondered if she was cold, although the sun was still out, bathing the city in the perfection of early summer.

  ‘The studio i
s in here,’ Bianca was saying. ‘I’m going to be doing a series of sketches over the next weeks, so I’ll be putting you in a different pose each time, most likely.’ There was a pause. ‘All going well.’ She opened a door to a conservatory built seamlessly onto the side of the house and beckoned Merren inside.

  ‘That all sounds good,’ Merren said, just to answer, and she smiled at Bianca, who stood in the middle of the space, hands clasped together. Her knuckles were white where she gripped them. ‘Is something wrong?’ Merren asked.

  The artist looked blankly at her for a moment, then turned away. ‘No, nothing. Of course not. I’m just…I was used to Penny, that’s all.’

  Merren nodded. Penny was the woman who broke her leg. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she said. ‘Just tell me what you want.’

  Bianca wasn’t looking at her; she was frowning around at the room instead. ‘There’s a screen over there,’ she said, waving a hand at one end of the lozenge-shaped room. ‘I put a robe there, so just get undressed and slip that on, please.’ Her voice was off-hand, impersonal, preoccupied.

  The screen was something out of an Edwardian boudoir, Merren decided, and slipped behind it stifling a nervous giggle. This was going to be different from yesterday after all. One pair of eyes, she suspected, might actually see more than twenty had.

  She shucked off her shoes, jeans, shirt, everything, pulling the loose robe around herself instead, shivering at the light, silken fabric against her bare skin. The situation wavered in and out of unreality for a moment, and Merren looked down at her arm, staring at her watch to ground herself. According to the device, her heartrate was slightly elevated. She slipped the watch off and put it in the pocket of her jeans, then tidied the pile of her clothes, her hands shaking slightly.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  The voice gave her a start.

  She licked her lips and stepped out from behind the screen.

  Bianca blinked at her. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Now I’m, ah, not sure I’ve got the room organised best as it can be for what I want to do, but we’ll just see how we get on, I suppose.’ Her voice trailed off, as though she were mostly speaking to herself, and Merren stood waiting to be told where to go, what exactly to do, concentrating on quietly breathing in and out, telling herself to be calm, take it easy.