Seré Halverson - The Underside of Joy

‘But, Ella Beene? I’ve gotta tell you this: I almost drowned that day, and it was the most peaceful feeling I’ve ever had. I’ve been looking for that feeling ever since. And I think that in some peculiar way — and let’s face it, I’m peculiar in every way — that’s why I settled in this forest. It’s the closest thing I can come to being at the bottom of that river.’

‘You felt peaceful down there?’

‘Yes.’ He crossed his arms. ‘I know it seems strange, but yes, I did.’

I stared at his grey whiskered chin, his pale moist eyes. ‘Thank you for telling me that story,’ I said, looking away, glancing around the room, trying to keep from blubbering. ‘And this definitely feels peaceful here.’

He said his ex-wife couldn’t take the darkness. ‘“You’re an artist,” she kept after me. “Don’t you need a light-filled studio?” I guess I was just as stubborn about staying put, a barnacle on a rock. But I appreciate the light that has to push its way through. The contrasts are what interest me the most. I notice the light more here, how it pours down like an elixir. Darkness forces our focus on the relevant, while the irrelevant fades away. How’s that for artsy-fartsy talk? Here, Ella Beene, let me show you your map. I imagine this is what you came all this way for.’

I followed him, Petunia and Jerry out to his studio, which was more of the dishevelled shack I’d pictured him living in. There, on his table scattered with paints, old Orange Crush cans, and stuffed ashtrays, was the map.

I held it out before me: a fairy-tale-style treasure map to magical places, in colours and textures that were both natural and luxuriant. ‘This is it. This is going to make the whole concept of Life’s a Picnic work. ’

‘So you like it, then?’ He chuckled. ‘I can go ahead and make the copies?’

‘I love it.’ I hugged him, this old wizard who smelled of stale cigarettes and turpentine and knew enough alchemy to get inside my head and put on paper what I had blindly been working towards, who’d told me a story that had somehow made me feel better.

I left the golden warmth of Clem’s house, and my mind slowed to absorb the cool, still quiet, to feel and see it fully, as I hadn’t on the hasty walk up. Rusty pine needles carpeted the narrow road, muting my steps. The sloped land was a tangle of thick ivy, sword ferns, elk clover, redwood sorrel, blackberries, and poison oak. Bay trees and Douglas fir and tanbark oak looked more like bushes than trees next to the redwoods, which grew so high, I had to crane my neck back just to see the blue patch of sky floating at the top of this shadow world. Some of the houses were hobbit-like, clinging to the hill, glowing light from tiny windows in the noon darkness. Two shacks had slid with part of the hill, probably years ago; they had ivy growing through the siding, staking its claim. One house was recently burned hollow, charred black inside like the burned-out stumps of redwoods that still stood from fires long ago. Some of the places were lovely — older summer homes built at the turn of the century that had been kept up, while others were more modern, with lots of windows and skylights to let in the few shafts of filtered light.

Vines of ivy climbed and hung from the trees, almost like seaweed. It was dark and so quiet.

Like being underwater.

It had been almost three months. Three months! How was it possible? That I would never see him again, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand in the garden, grinning — or pointing his camera, his body curved like a comma as if to say Pause here and see this moment ? Or juggling oranges at the market? Did we have oranges at the new store? Did I forget the oranges? Joe would have remembered the oranges.

There was the way he’d pick up Annie and Zach in one fell swoop, one in each arm, their laughter, their delighted Daddy Daddy Daddy s. The way he’d swing them around the room and trot them on his knees, saying Grandpa Sergio’s old ditty: Giddy-up, pony, We’re on our way to Leonis, To pick up some macaroni, So don’t give me any baloney, Just giddy-up, pony… giddy-up! and right at that point, launch them into the air.

Was he somewhere, watching? Did he know about the store? Did he approve? Was he happy, relieved, pissed off? Had I freed him to go on to be reincarnated or reach nirvana or become an angel or whatever it was he was supposed to go do?

There in those woods, I understood why enchanted so often preceded forest. There is a sense of the mystical, of the otherworldly, when you’re surrounded by ancient living grandeur. When one beam of particled light looks celestial and another looks like it might be the product of a sorcerer’s experiment. The air smelled of bay leaves, of loam, of wood fires and pine needles and mist — even though it was a warm, sunny day out there… and way, way up there. I remembered reading that in the redwood canopy, scientists had discovered copepods — crustaceans that were part of the diet of grazing baleen whales. No one knew exactly how they got there, but anyone could imagine. The sparrows that flew by could have been a school of minnows. It was that kind of dreamy place; I could be walking on a sea-floor; Joe could come swimming by.

How long had it been since I’d passed a house? Where was I? I was fantasizing about my dead husband swimming through the forest, and I had a store full of food and relatives depending on my return, not to mention my sound mental health. I didn’t want to be the woman who got lost on her way back from picking up a map. But what was all this about, really? I’d spent months remodelling the store, a new beginning that was also trying to save some part of Joe. It had felt good to have a project, to be so busy, so distracted. To act the part of a redwood, towering above, reaching for the sun.

But some part of me wanted to hide here under the fern fronds. To sleep with the slugs.

A twig snapped and my head jerked up. Above the road, a black-tailed doe stared me down with her huge ink-puddle eyes. Another snap, and I saw her two fawns below me, their spots fading in the early autumn, their legs still as fragile as wineglass stems. I stayed very still while the mama deer held my gaze. I know how you feel, I wanted to tell her. We are one, you and I. But I realized she saw me as the intruder, the one in between her and her babes. I didn’t move. She must have finally signalled to them, because the fawns pranced across the road, right in front of me, so close I could have reached out to touch them, before the three of them bounded up the hill, disappearing into the forest.

I ran the rest of the way back to the store. Back to Annie and Zach.

The next morning, I lay in bed thinking about Clem’s story, when I felt Zach climb under the covers and let out one of his long, meandering exhales until I opened my eyes. He rubbed his cheek with Bubby’s ear and stared at the ceiling.

‘I miss Batman. And Robin. I want them to come to the big, big party but they CAN’T. And Daddy CAN’T. And I’m all ALONE. ’

‘I’ll be there, and Annie will be there.’

‘I mean boys.’

‘Uncle David? All your buddies?’

He sighed again. It seemed cruel that his favourite toys lay unnecessarily buried behind the coop when he needed them more than ever.

‘Well?’ I was winging it as I went. ‘Daddy died for real, so he can’t come. But Batman and Robin are pretend, so maybe, just maybe, they didn’t really drown.’

He jumped up, eyes wide. ‘Really?’ I nodded. He said, ‘But we sawed them. They were drowned for real.’ He fell back on the bed and buried his head in Joe’s pillow.