Skimming Stones by Maria Papas

Author:Maria Papas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2021-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

17

Beyond the city, the roads seemed to lengthen and widen. The kilometres clocked up, and so did the time, and then before I knew it, the highway opened into that part of my history where the trees were as tall as the sky. The radio station went from chitchat and a light playlist to scratchy white noise, and when it finally slipped out of range, it put me in mind of that first time my father and I had travelled back from the hospital alone. We had sat in similar white noise for kilometres before either one of us thought to turn the radio off. As an adult, that same sound assaulted my ears so much that it brought home just how numb we must have all once been. I turned the radio off and opened my window. Rushing wind filled my silence. Trees passed. I hit a hundred and ten, maybe a hundred and fifteen on the speedometer.

And then there I was, in amongst the streets I used to know. I was driving and not stopping, looking out of my window as if my window were a picture frame or a television screen. The streets were as vast as they ever were, and for a small moment, I had a sense of something lost. I remembered my long Christmas without Emma. I remembered the trampoline, the cigarettes and my yearning to find in Harriet something of the mother I already missed. Beyond Christmas, I remembered the regular turn of Friday nights, how I used to walk past Harriet’s house, watching through lit windows and open doors as she and Samuel prepared for their suddenly popular market stalls. I could still picture it—Harriet wrapping hand-kilned plates and vases in delicate ribbon while Samuel packed boxes in the corner of the carport and filled trestle-tables to the brim with scented soaps, salts, artworks and other ‘For Sale’ things.

Weekend after weekend they opened that carport to the world. People walked in and then back out carrying clay trinkets or seedlings potted in paper. On Saturdays and Sundays, I wandered the garden and garage as if I too were the child of any tourist now drawn to our town. I played on the grass and dangled from the smooth branches of a fig tree. I touched paintings while Harriet and Samuel mingled with a constantly shifting crowd.

It was a bright morning when Harriet finally found me in amongst her stalls. She said, ‘Grace, how are you all? How’s your sister?’ Then, when I couldn’t get my words out, she asked, ‘Would you like to work the counter today?’

From then on, I manned her register as best I could. People came to the table. I took their purchases and their notes. I rang the till and scooped out fistfuls of five and ten and twenty cent pieces taking extra care to place the change gently into the palms of my customers’ hands. It was nice, this incidental touching of people’s skin.

That was how it

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