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The camerarecording the scene had to be kilometres away, but it soon showed nothing butpurple-tinted white, and then there was a time-jump in the playback and theSpire began to appear again, looming out of the thi
Singing, slow andsultry. Madeleine shifted, then realisedshe'd dozed off, and reached for her mobile, murmuring a response.
"Maddie? Sweetheart,are you okay?"
"Dad." Madeleine sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Fine – I was just resting. Did you and Mum get home in time?"
"Don't worryabout us: we're all tucked up. Even gotthe animals in. Listen, you're going tohave to sit tight there, at least till it rains. Don't go out while that stuff's still allover the ground. And drink bottledwater."
"Lucky there'sa coffee shop here." Madeleine mutedthe television, hoping her father hadn't picked up on the noise, then poked atlaptop keys, trying to bring the screen to life. "How long till they know what the dustdoes?"
"That'sanyone's guess. I doubt a visualexamination will tell us anything – unless it's bacterial and alreadyknown. Smaller animals would react to itfirst, but of course not necessarily in the same way as humans." Her father, a devoted vet, sighed. "I have a great view of the Nguyen'sretriever. Racing up and down, showingno signs of anything yet. It's nothinglike so bad out here though – you can only see the dust on dark surfaces."
"But it blewall the way to Leumeah." Her familycurrently lived in an outlying Sydney suburb, more than fifty kilometres fromthe city centre. "Dad...I'msorry. I–"
"All thatmatters is that you're safe inside." Her father's voice had thickened. "Though once this is all over, you're grounded till you'retwenty."
Madeleine kept himon the phone, asking questions he didn't have answers to, then talked to hermother, making up more lies about the Art Gallery, and conversations she hadn'thad with Gallery staff. She'd been lyingto her mother too often lately, and usually felt quietly guilty about needingto, but was glad for the moment to concoct a reassuring fiction about a highlymilitant curator holding back any threat of dust with ingenuity and sheer forceof will. She was privately sure the ArtGallery of New South Wales would be full of dusty people – it was too close toHyde Park, and every jogger and lunchtime soccer player in The Domain wouldhave run for it as soon as the dust started drifting down.
As Madeleinefinally ended the call, the television switched from something about theOlympics which weren't likely to happen, to a diagram of Sydney, of the cloudspreading south and west, leaving much of the far northern and north-westernsuburbs untouched. But by then she'dopened her email, and was flipping through a dozen photographs sent by someonecalled Michael. Tyler Vaughn in a Huntergreen shirtdress and black jeans, his long auburn hair gleaming, makeupsubdued, lips berry-dark and perfect, giving the photographer a Mona Lisasmile.
Even against abackdrop of airplane seats he looked both inviting and untouchable, rich withmystery. It was Tyler's public face, andnothing like the image Madeleine had wanted to create. But there was a last picture, one obviouslycaptured earlier, of Tyler seated by an airplane window, lipstick chewed totraces, strands of hair caught by the weave of the seat's cover. He must have been staring out the window atthe dust, toying with a long topaz necklace, and just turned his head towardthe person seated next to him. The greeneyes which came from Madeleine's father's family were tired, lids drooping, andhis mouth was stern.
And Madeleine waslost to anything but the fragile skin beneath his eyes, the tangled hair, thechips in the polish on his nails. Thiswas just what she'd wanted, and she began sketching furiously, smallcompositions at first, and then a more detailed piece, before transferring thelines to one of the pre-prepared canvas stretchers.
The ArchibaldPrize, the focus of all Madeleine's recent ambition, required that portraits bepainted from life. Even if that wasn't arule, Madeleine would normally never consider painting from a flattened imageon a computer screen, and she would have aimed for four or more sittings. But this wasn't about proving a point anymore, was not about prize money, schools or careers.
It was just therest of her life.
ooOoo
Tyler had a fewthousand litres of hair product. What helacked was anything resembling food. Therefrigerator was empty, unplugged. Everyshelf of the tall pantry cupboard was packed solid with boxes of the same brandof shampoo, along with neatly-labelled boxes of junk Tyler had collected overthe years: clippings, ticket stubs, even a box dutifully inscribed "DirtyPictures".
At other timesMadeleine would have stopped to look, or at least smiled, but she only bit backa growl of frustration and turned to fling open the doors beneath the kitchencabinets. The hunger had hit her as anabsolute imperative. Notyou-haven't-eaten-since-breakfast pangs, but shooting pain, a frighteningurgency which left room for nothing but the need to fill her stomach. The cabinets offered only a token collectionof saucepans and more boxes of hair product, all of it the brand Tyler had donea commercial for last year.
The uppercabinets. Plates, mugs, glasses, half ajar of instant coffee. And sugar. A kaleidoscope of paper tube packetsadvertising different cafes, scattered any-which-way across the shelf. Madeleine grabbed a handful, roughly aligned,and tore them open, pouring the contents into her mouth. Again. Again. Struggling to swallow thegrainy bounty as discarded packets dropped to the floor, and then there were nomore, and she was scratching among the fallen paper, hunting out fragmentsshe'd dropped before fully emptying.
The kitchen floorwas a black slate tile, and specked across it were granules of white and brown,lost to her haste. Madeleine, on herhands and knees, contemplated the tiny crystals, then levered herself shakilyto her feet and ran a glass of water, then another, drinking until herbreathing had slowed.
A few dozen packetsof sugar weren't nearly enough, but now that the keenest edge of her hunger hadbeen dulled it occurred to Madeleine to pull out several of the boxes ofshampoo, revealing a small supply of packets and tins at the back of the pantrycupboard. It seemed Tyler didn't livecompletely on take-out.
"Thank you fornot making me lick the floor," Madeleine muttered, and wondered how manyplaneloads of people were arguing over their last packet of peanuts.
She ate a tin ofpineapple chunks while heating pumpkin soup, and drank the soup lukewarm whileheating a second can. It had stoppedhurting by then, so she poured the second serving into her mug to sip at a lessfrantic pace.
The still-mutedtelevision was showing a smothered road, cars creeping along, and one racing asif it could outpace the air itself. Slowor fast, they lifted a trail of dust. Madeleine had deliberately angled her canvas away from the screen, notwilling to either watch it or turn it off. Finding that feeling had not changed she unlocked the sliding door tothe balcony and stepped out into cool autumn sunset, the city skyline outlinedagainst crimson. The air itselfoccasionally caught alight, motes of glitter blazing fiery warning of theirpresence. She drank her soup and watchedthem drift.
Shutting the hushedworld back outside, Madeleine scrupulously cleaned up the mess she'd made inthe kitchen, then hesitated between canvas and TV. She would have chosen canvas, but thepresenter was holding up his wrist, his face stiff with suppressed emotion ashe unbuttoned his cuff and pulled it back, displaying what looked like an oldbruise, a flush of green beneath the skin. Then there were other people, men and women who usually stayed behindthe camera, leaning forward to show more wrists, green and blue, and theirfaces were the same as the presenter's – tight with distress and determination.