Times Like These Read online

  But that was the least of her concerns. She pinched her fingers together in an even tighter knot and wondered what the time was. The clock on the mantel had chimed the quarter hour not long ago – she made sure to wind all the clocks in the house every evening. It was part of her night-time routine now.

  The half-hour must be looming, she decided. It felt like it was looming, at least, a spectral thing that almost had form – a dark cloud, perhaps.

  That made her shake her head and untangle her hands, although they simply crept around her waist to hug herself in futile comfort. She sucked in a deep breath and reached out to find the clock above the fireplace. Its little round face had a latch on it, and she swung the glass open, fingers delicately tracing the position of the big hand, small hand.

  Five minutes to go.

  She swallowed, pressed the glass back into place until she heard its soft click, and made herself smile. It felt like rigor mortis on her face and she let it fall away, aware of the tucked-up little frown that took its place, that must surely be habitual by now. Her fingers found the wrinkle between her eyebrows and pushed at it. There would be lines there now. New ones.

  Her hand dropped away, and she turned to peer back across the room, swimming in the diffuse light from the windows, wondering if she had enough courage to do what she’d decided upon.

  Five minutes to go. Probably four, or three now. Time was an odd thing, now that she couldn’t see properly. This was one of the things about creeping blindness that she’d been most astonished to discover. The rest of it – the physical difficulties, the anguish, frustration, depression – all of that she could have foretold easily enough, even if only without realising how bad it would all be. But time, that was something you expected to stay the same.

  After all, a minute was sixty seconds whether you could see your hand held out in front of your face or not. And an hour was still an hour. Sixty of those minutes. Three thousand six hundred seconds. It wasn’t many, really.

  And yet, it happened over and over now. She got lost in time. She could find her way around her house, weaving in and out of the rooms, skirting most of the furniture, clattering around in the kitchen, even venturing out to the garden, standing with the breeze on her face, seeing the bright smear of blooming spring flowers, but she couldn’t always navigate those bundles of seconds, minutes, hours. They would stretch out so that one hour felt like a whole day, or she would shake herself to blinking awareness, to find that an hour had passed in mere minutes.

  Bianca pressed her palms against the warm skin under the fabric of her shirt. She was still real, she reminded herself, unanchored sometimes, adrift in this shifting haze of light and dark, colour that had lost its intensity, the startling movement of things not quite seen, but she was still real. Her body was warm, her blood still flowed, she still thought, dreamed, wanted.

  She could still paint. She was sure of it.

  But could she trust? Her hands shook, and she wrapped her arms tighter around herself, then took a deep breath and dropped her hands to her side, shook the tension from her fingers and braced her shoulders.

  It was time. There was the crunch of tyres on the gravel of her driveway, or at least she thought so, tilting her head to listen. Where was the engine noise? The niggling little frown was back.

  A car door opened, closed, and Bianca pressed her lips together, clasped her hands in unconscious fists, and steered herself towards the door of the sitting room, out into the hallway and reached out to open the front door.

  She heard footsteps come closer, relieved that they were light, female. Tugging her glasses out of the pocket she’d shoved them into earlier, she unfolded them and put them on, turning sideways a little to better see the woman walking towards her. The glasses hardly helped since relying on her peripheral vision to see anything at all, they needed to wrap around her face like goggles.

  The thought made her wince. How unattractive that would be. Worse than the lines roosting between her eyebrows.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming back.’

  The figure nodded, face a blur under tufted dark hair.

  ‘My pleasure.’

  Bianca tried to smile. ‘It’s Merren, isn’t it?’

  The woman’s voice was just as rich and warm as it had been the day before. Bianca shivered.

  ‘Yep,’ the voice said easily. ‘I’m glad you called – or rather, got Renata to call me. I was afraid I’d done something to upset you yesterday.’

  That made Bianca pause before answering. ‘How old are you?’ she asked.

  This time the voice was puzzled. ‘Twenty-four, why?’

  Bianca gave a little laugh. ‘Come in, please. I’m going to make some tea and tell you what I want to do today – so we don’t have a repeat of yesterday.’ She turned and stepped back into the house. ‘Which, by the way,’ she said, swallowing, ‘didn’t have anything at all to do with you.’

  There was a brief silence then the front door closed, and footsteps followed her through the house to the kitchen.

  ‘This house is amazing,’ the woman, Merren said. ‘This is all your art work on the walls?’ There was a pause, then her voice turned low, admiring. ‘It’s absolutely amazing.’

  Bianca felt a wave of horror of only being able to see dim shadows and little more. She had to make an effort to sound upbeat. ‘The house is wonderful, isn’t it?’ she said, ignoring the comment about her paintings. ‘When I first saw it, I was brand new to this city, and hadn’t even realised that people could still live in houses like this.’

  ‘It’s gorgeous. How old is it?’

  Bianca trailed her fingers over the doorway to the kitchen, found the light switch and flicked it on. ‘It was built in 1876, by a doctor, I believe. When my partner and I bought it in 1996, it was already a hundred and twenty years old. I thought that was just astonishing.’ She laughed nervously, anxiety making her garrulous. For months she’d only had Rita and her mother from next door to talk to. She’d got out of the habit of talking to others. Especially others she was going to have to tell her secret to. Turning her face to where she thought the other woman stood, she tried to smile and remember what she’d been saying.

  ‘At that time, I hadn’t been overseas, and New Zealand has a very short architectural history.’ She gave a tight shrug. ‘I’ve always loved houses, interiors, the way we move about in them. The things we fill them with.’ She stopped talking and rubbed at a sleeve. ‘Anyway,’ she said, turning away and making her way around the table to the kitchen counter and the jug that she’d filled earlier in readiness. She turned it on for the water to boil. The teapot was ready too, teabags already in it.

  ‘Is tea all right?’ she asked, turning her head slightly towards the young woman.

  But Merren answered from the other side of the room, and Bianca spun around guiltily, hands gripping the counter for a moment, disoriented.

  ‘Tea will be fine. I try to limit the coffee.’ A pause. ‘Are you all right?’

  The woman was forever asking that question. Bianca moved her hands, pressed them against the cool marble of the counter, concentrated for a moment on breathing steadily in and out.

  ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘Please, sit down. The tea will be ready in a moment.’

  Obediently, a chair was pulled out from the table, and the woman sat down. Bianca moved her head slightly, so she could see her better.

  ‘Can you describe yourself for me?’ she said suddenly, impulsively.

  ‘What?’ Merren’s voice was surprised. ‘What do you mean?’ There was a slight pause, and when the voice spoke again, it was amused. ‘I would have thought you’d seen quite enough of me yesterday to be able to do that yourself.’

  For a moment, Bianca was perplexed. She blinked out at the blur of the room, then smiled. Of course, Merren was referring to the nude modelling. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That was a silly question.’

  She turned back to the jug, finding its switch and flicking it of
f before the water boiled completely. She lifted it up, while patting the air for the teapot, finding it, and holding her head up so she could see as best as she could what she was doing, pouring the hot water carefully into the pot. When it was done, she put the jug back, relieved, and patted the bench for the little lid to the teapot, hoping the woman at the table wasn’t watching too closely.

  Besides Rita and Patty, Rita’s mother, Merren was the first person she’d invited into the house since the ophthalmologist had delivered the – by then, quite obvious – news that she was losing her vision. How everything had changed in those few months, falling apart day by day over the winter. Or so it felt.

  The cups were already on the table. Bianca couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there – she’d been thorough in her preparations that morning after doing her few breakfast dishes. Now, she carried the pot carefully to the table and set it down, pulling out a chair for herself and lowering herself into it with a sigh of relief. Then the nervousness was back.

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘Will you pour in a minute when it’s ready?’

  ‘Sure,’ Merren replied.

  Bianca fiddled with a hangnail on her thumb for a moment, then tucked her hands away out of reach. ‘So,’ she said, and groped for something to say, to ease herself into the conversation she needed to have, hoping she was making the right choice. ‘How long have you been modelling?’

  Then she flushed. ‘Wait, I’m sorry. Renata told me you were completely new to it. I’m sorry.’ She wiped a hand across her brow, flustered. Which made her mad, then frightened – she’d never been the sort to get flustered before. Her hand tightened into a fist and she pressed it against the table.

  Neither of them said anything for a moment that felt to Bianca like one of those that would never end.

  ‘I think the tea might be ready now,’ Merren said at last, and Bianca was grateful for it for rescuing them from her tight, abrupt silence.

  There was movement, and the sound of liquid being poured into cups. The teapot was placed back down on the table, and then one of the cups nudged the air beside Bianca’s hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and opened her lips to continue, but the words were all strangled deep down in her throat. She couldn’t get them out, and she dipped her head, squeezing her eyes shut. This had been a lousy idea after all. She couldn’t do it. There was no point to pretending. She couldn’t make the leap. Not the one to translating her art from a process she could see to one she could barely make out.

  Nor the one that meant trusting some young woman she didn’t know.

  ‘The tea’s good,’ that young woman said, and with Bianca’s eyes closed, Merren’s voice washed over her like a slow flood of warm water. ‘How long have you had vision problems?’

  Bianca’s heart stuttered, and she turned her unseeing eyes to Merren.

  ‘What?’ she said.

  Chapter Seven

  Merren cleared her throat and winced. She’d spoken without thinking hard enough about what she was saying – that much was obvious by the startled look on Bianca Graves’s face.

  A look that shortly turned furtive. ‘What are you talking about?’ Bianca asked. ‘How did you know?’

  That made Merren shift uneasily in her chair. ‘It was just a guess, based on some of the things you’ve been doing.’ She almost wished she hadn’t said anything at all. There were hectic red spots in Bianca’s cheeks. Bianca. Ms. Graves. What was she supposed to call her, anyway? In Merren’s mind, it was already Bianca, but she mentally turned away from that one.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘Ms. Graves?’ She went for formal and swallowed. ‘I’m sorry if I was being forward. I probably spoke too soon. I have a bit of a habit of doing that.’

  Bianca’s hands unclenched, the fingers fluttering until they found the cup, then grasped hold of it. She took a sip of her tea, and Merren looked down at the table, giving her time to compose herself.

  There was a deep sigh from the other side of the table. ‘Please, call me Bianca. You might as well, since, as of this moment, you currently know things about me barely anyone else does.’

  ‘What?’ Merren looked over at her and frowned. ‘Your doctor knows, surely? You’ve seen specialists?’

  One of Bianca’s hands waved in the air. They were beautiful hands, Merren noticed. The fingers were long, tapered. Sensitive. She flushed and looked away, fought clearing her throat again.

  ‘Okay, so you have me there,’ Bianca said. ‘My doctor knows.’ She reached up and took her glasses off, rubbing her eyes with the hand that wasn’t holding the cup. ‘Doctors, really. Plural. What’s the collective noun for a group of doctors? A gaggle?’

  ‘A quackery?’ Merren grinned and shook her head. ‘No, that doesn’t do them justice. I’m being unfair.’ She thought for a moment. ‘An examination,’ she decided. ‘An examination of doctors.’

  Bianca pulled her lips back from her teeth in a humourless smile. She had nice teeth, as well as hands. ‘Well then,’ she said. ‘That’s what I have. A full examination of doctors. Who are all very aware of my failing eyesight. Who have been poking and prodding – or rather their needles have been – the whole of the winter. So too, have they been directing me here and there…’ She cocked her head to one side and a rebel curl draped itself over her right eye. ‘Giving me canes, and instructions, and more directions.’ She stopped talking, pressed her lips together.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said after a moment. ‘I didn’t call you here today to bleat at you.’

  ‘Please don’t mind me,’ Merren said, fighting the urge to reach over the table and hold Bianca’s hand. The one that was pressed hard against the table in…frustration, Merren imagined. Maybe terror. She’d be terrified if it was her losing her sight. She tucked her own hands safely around her cup of tea. ‘Are your doctors the only ones who know?’ She looked around the kitchen as if she’d find the answer somewhere in the air. ‘What about your friends? The people you’re close to?’

  Bianca opened her mouth as though to answer, then closed it again. Instead she gave a brief, impersonal smile. The sort, Merren knew, you gave when you were looking for a way out of a conversation you no longer wanted to be a part of.

  ‘No,’ Merren said. ‘Don’t answer that. Of course, it’s none of my business.’ She put her cup down and tried to keep her voice even, friendly, but professional. ‘Shall we go over what you want me to do today?’

  To her dismay, Bianca’s mouth didn’t relax. If anything, it grew more tense, and the fine lines around it more pronounced.

  ‘That’s no easier a conversation,’ Bianca said. She put her own cup down, then nodded. ‘But yes, let’s.’ She turned her face towards Merren, for all the world as though looking straight at her. Her eyes showed no outward sign of impairment, Merren thought, letting herself look at them. They were simply a beautiful, clear, almost silvery grey. With very defined dark rims around the irises.

  Beautiful hands, teeth, eyes. Merren dropped her gaze to the table before she could take inventory of the rest of Bianca Graves.

  Because that really would be inappropriate. The woman was a stranger. And employer. And much older.

  But the thought snuck in there anyway, crowding out the others in Merren’s head. Bianca Graves was awfully attractive. There was something about her that made Merren’s breath quicken. She wasn’t sure she knew what that something was, but she did know it wouldn’t be right to try finding out.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘What did you say?’

  Bianca blinked at her. ‘I was asking if you’d help bring in some things from the studio.’

  Oh. ‘Of course. I’ll do whatever you need.’

  A little frown appeared between the grey eyes. ‘Thank you.’ Bianca’s lips parted as though she was going to add something more, but she gave a little shake of the head instead and turned back to sip at her tea.

  Damn. Merren bit the inside of her cheek until it hurt, then let go. What an idiot! So busy daydrea
ming that she missed Bianca opening up to her. And it wasn’t like she could back track and say look, I’m sorry, I was just thinking I’d kind of like to kiss you.

  It was Merren’s turn to feel her cheeks burn. She covered them with her hands, then sat awkwardly at the table.

  ‘Ah,’ she said, after another long moment’s torment. ‘What sort of things do you need? What’s your plan, if it’s okay for me to ask?’ She winced and could have kicked herself. Talk about clumsy. And usually she was pretty good at keeping her shit together.

  She got a frosty look for her efforts, and she didn’t blame Bianca one bit. Sucking in a deep breath, she spread her hands out in supplication.

  ‘Look,’ she said, and winced again. ‘Listen,’ she said instead. ‘I’m sorry. I was rude, not paying attention to you speaking. I’ll do my best not to let that happen again.’ She was earnest about that, for sure. ‘I was thinking about how difficult it must be for you…’

  ‘Lots of people have issues with their vision.’

  ‘Yes,’ Merren said. ‘That’s true. But not all of them are painters.’

  Bianca’s face crumpled in a brief, poignant glimpse of anguish before she pulled herself together again. She blew out a breath between pursed lips.

  ‘Painting,’ she said. ‘I can’t not do that.’ She tapped a long finger against the table. ‘It’s more than just what I do – it’s who I am.’ Her gaze turned blindly towards the ceiling. ‘Every experience I’ve ever had is filtered through the lens of being an artist. It’s integral to the way I move through the world.’ She gave a shrug that still managed to be graceful even while it made Merren’s heart hurt with the pain contained in it.

  ‘I look at something – I feel something, and immediately I’m thinking how to translate that onto canvas.’