Relativity, page 16
“Stop that, Claire,” Rose said. “It’s not very elegant.”
A shop assistant approached them. “What a beautiful little girl you have! Look at that pretty blond hair. That size looks good. Do a little spin for us, love.”
Claire twirled across the store in the new pink slippers and took a small bow. Other customers and the shop assistants clapped. Her mother blinked, surprised.
“Good sense of rhythm. Natural. She’s got the body for it too,” one saleswoman said. “Right proportions.”
“Thank you,” Rose said, her eyes lighting up.
In the beginning, Claire found ballet akin to torture: blistered feet, her hair pulled into buns so tight they made her eyes water, bobby pins stabbing her scalp, hairspray stinging her eyeballs. But she did it for her mum; it made her happy. Every afternoon she drove Claire to lessons and rehearsals; every evening was a drill of stretches to improve her flexibility. Rose held her daughter’s legs over her head, pulled her heels off the floor, pushed Claire’s body down—degree by excruciating degree—until she could do the splits.
After being cast in her first lead role, there was praise: “You’re my shining star,” her mother said. “I love you so much.” But when the girl fell or tripped, she was punished. So Claire learned how to be perfect—perfect posture, perfect balance, perfect technique—to earn her mother’s love.
Eventually, Claire found her own joy in dancing. With every lesson, her passion bloomed. But there was something sour about it, that each jump and pirouette had to feed her mother’s ego. Rose’s dream of her daughter as a prima ballerina was so vivid that she lost sight of her child. No matter how hard she practiced, Claire still felt invisible, like the little girl hiding behind her mother’s legs.
Rose recorded each recital then forced Claire to watch the videos, making note of every wrong step, often pushing her daughter to tears. But Claire found refuge from the pressure in ballet itself. By the time she was twelve, she was taking fifteen lessons a week. At the barre, she decompressed; in the studio, she felt lighter than air. She enjoyed the hard work, the sense of accomplishment, the firmness of purpose.
As Claire’s stamina and strength grew, her mother’s currencies—beauty, elegance, grace—stopped having value. Claire discovered that her achievements were her own. Her ballet teacher recognized her talent, telling Rose that girls like her daughter made her job worthwhile. That if she got to teach one student like Claire in her entire career, she was extremely lucky.
When she was fifteen, Claire auditioned for full-time training at the Sydney Ballet School. On the day that the letter of offer arrived, Rose wept uncontrollably. Claire assumed they were happy tears but a few weeks later, her mother left. Moved interstate to live with another man. Claire watched Rose push her face creams and makeup off the dressing table and into a suitcase, before walking out the door. This didn’t make sense, hadn’t Claire done everything right, everything her mother ever wanted? She was meticulous, constantly evaluating and reevaluating her turnout, making sure her alignment was always correct. She’d been dedicated, focused, flawless, every step of the way.
So Claire channeled that confusion into ballet, practiced six days a week. She’d always had good technique and the right body—small head, long neck, long legs—so physically, she was a machine. But after her mother moved away, something inside Claire transformed. Emotions spilled from her fingertips and pointed toes, her eyes projected every feeling, there was a new intensity behind every frappe and développé. She wasn’t just dancing anymore; Claire was performing. Sweating and panting, the weight inside her chest would lift. Now when Claire stepped onstage, she no longer wanted to hide. It felt powerful—moving the audience, telling a story, turning her body into art. Suddenly she had presence and commanded attention. Claire wasn’t invisible. Performing felt like being loved.
Sometimes she’d speak to her mother on the phone—exchange clicks, switchboard songs, that dilated silence before the call connected over border-crossing wires. Rose never asked questions about ballet, and never came to see her daughter dance again. Long after her mother hung up, Claire would keep the receiver against her ear and listen to the binary music of the signals and tones.
It took becoming a parent for Claire to understand why Rose left. How motherhood could easily annihilate whatever came before it. Basking in reflected applause wasn’t enough; Claire’s success threw Rose’s lost dreams into sharp relief. They’d danced a dangerous pas de deux: she needed her mother’s love, but fighting to win it drove Rose further away. Parenting a shining star meant being overshadowed. Without realizing, Claire had eclipsed her mother but her mother couldn’t live without the light.
Ω
FOR A MOMENT, Claire was lost staring into Ethan’s drawing of a black hole. She blinked and looked up at the doctor. “Dr. Saunders,” she began. “This might be a stupid question. Are there any other ways people can become savants?”
“Besides autism, there’s always some underlying brain disorder. Developmental disabilities, meningitis, brain damage following premature births, stroke, seizure disorders. And of course, brain injury.”
“But is it possible that Ethan wasn’t actually a victim of shaken baby syndrome? That he had another underlying brain disorder?”
“Over the last few years, I’ve read reports that claim SBS was a fad diagnosis. I’ll be honest; we understand it better now than we did twelve years ago. Back when Ethan was a baby, we knew much less.”
“So you’re not 100 percent sure Ethan was shaken?”
Dr. Saunders stared at the wall. “There are lots of skeptics who say it’s impossible to shake a baby without breaking their neck. That SBS doesn’t exist, that the triad of symptoms is caused by something else. But I’ve worked at this hospital for thirty years. I’ve seen babies die from nonaccidental head injuries. There’s no question it’s real. Even with Ethan, though, I can never be completely certain of a diagnosis like that. I wasn’t in the room. I’m never 100 percent sure.”
Claire cleared her throat. “But mostly.”
“Oh yes, mostly. Brain injury almost always impairs rather than enhances. Even with Ethan’s abilities, he’s still been a very sick child.”
All Claire wanted was a normal childhood for her son, but it was already too late for that. It was true: Ethan had been a very sick child. And genius? Savant syndrome? That was loaded with more potential stress. Claire hated the idea of Ethan being under the enormous pressure she’d felt—to be gifted, to perform. But what if she held him back? What if Ethan really could see physics? Maybe his gift could make some difference to the world.
“So, what do you think about Ethan meeting these professors?” Dr. Saunders asked.
“Sure, he can speak to the physicists,” Claire said. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”
ENERGY
AFTER SCHOOL, Mum took Ethan to a meeting at Sydney Uni. They walked along Carillon Avenue, under the Moreton Bay fig trees, and through the sandstone gate. Across the campus, some students were playing rugby on the oval. As they threw the ball at one another, Ethan noticed how their hands sparked with kinetic energy.
“Mum, look!” He pointed at a street sign. “Physics Road. Can we please live here?”
“We need to find the Slade Lecture Theater.”
They stood under the sandstone archway of a long white building. Above the wooden door was a sign that said “School of Physics.” His mum led the way; she seemed stressed, fiddling with the strap of her handbag.
In the lecture theater, Dr. Saunders was waiting for them. He stood beside a woman and a man. The room had a high ceiling, rows of wooden benches and desks, and chalk-covered blackboards that reached all the way up to the roof.
“Awesome,” Ethan said, admiring the equations written in chalk.
“This is Professor Skinner,” Dr. Saunders said, gesturing to the woman beside him. “She’s a lecturer here; her speciality is astrophysics. And this is Dr. Thorp, he’s a cosmologist.”
The boy shook both their hands. “Cosmologist, cool. Like Stephen Hawking.”
“And this is Ethan, who I’ve been telling you about. He’s twelve years old. And his mother, Claire.”
“Hello.” Mum’s voice was small. She pointed at the benches. “Should I just take a seat back here?”
“I’ll join you,” the doctor said. “Let’s watch.”
Professor Skinner switched off the lights and turned on a projector. Pictures of planets were cast onto a huge screen. “Ethan, I thought we’d talk about the solar system today. Do you know much about it?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
“Great. Let’s start with Mercury.” The professor changed the slide. “What can you tell me about this planet?”
Ethan straightened his back. “Um, Mercury is only a little bit bigger than the moon. It doesn’t have an atmosphere; it has an exosphere instead. That’s why it’s hotter on Venus, even though Mercury is closer to the sun, because Venus has an atmosphere even thicker than Earth does. And a year on Mercury is 88 days, but a Mercury day is 58 days and 15 hours on Earth.”
The professor smiled. “Why do you think days on Mercury are so long?”
“It rotates on its axis slowly because it orbits the sun quickly. So from sunrise to sunset it’s already orbited the sun twice.”
“Anything else about its orbit?”
“Mercury’s orbit is elliptical but it moves slightly, it’s kinda weird. As it orbits the sun, the ellipse rotates. That’s because gravity bends space-time, and there’s more of it near the sun, so obviously that makes the perihelion shift.”
Dr. Thorp and Professor Skinner gave each other a strange look. They showed him more slides, of other planets and distant dwarfs, comets and asteroid belts. As they asked questions, Ethan rattled off everything he knew about the solar system, planet by planet: how seasons on Uranus last only twenty days, how Jupiter is like a cosmic vacuum cleaner and sucks things up, how asteroids can have their own moons, how Saturn would float.
After an hour, Dr. Thorp turned the lights in the lecture theater back on.
Ethan let his eyes adjust. “So, how did I do?”
Dr. Saunders came down from the wooden benches. “It wasn’t a test, Ethan. But I must admit, I’m sure everyone is pretty impressed with your very comprehensive knowledge of space. How come you know all this?”
“I read some textbooks in the library. But it all just makes sense to me. I don’t know.”
Professor Skinner smiled. “You know much more about how the solar system works off the top of your head than most of my students, even the postgrads.”
“Fascinating,” Dr. Saunders said. “Your brain is certainly very special. They do say there are as many neurons in the brain as there are stars in the Milky Way.”
“More than one hundred billion?” Ethan asked.
“I must admit I’ve never counted personally. Did you see anything interesting today? Like what happened with the ping-pong ball? Anything like that.”
Ethan shook his head. “Excuse me but I’m busting. I really need to use the toilet.”
“Hold on, I’ll go with you.” Mum came out to the hallway with him. “There’s a bathroom just around this corner.”
He gave her a funny look. “How do you know? Have you been here before?”
“No, never,” she said quickly.
But Ethan knew that even though those words had just come out of her mouth, the rest of her face was really saying yes.
Ω
CLAIRE RAISED HER FACE to the sun. After a stressful day at work stuck in meetings, the late afternoon light boosted her mood. Office workers spilled from buildings and into the city streets. Rush hour crowded the footpaths; pedestrians elbowed one another along the sidewalk as they hurried home. She walked from her office to her bus stop, through the narrow alleys of the Rocks. This old part of Sydney always reminded Claire of Ruth Park’s Playing Beatie Bow, how any moment she might wander down a cobblestone path and walk into the past. Follow the little furry girl along Argyle Street and travel back in time. The Harbor Bridge would vanish; the Opera House would melt away.
Claire walked down to Dawe’s Point Battery. Across Lavender Bay, the rosy-cheeked face of Luna Park smiled. She stood beside the chalky gray pylon and looked up at the arching iron of the bridge. Sea breeze hit her face. Traffic bellowed overhead, powering along the towering alloy. Her phone rang. She glanced at it vacantly, expecting it to be the office—she’d left a little early—or maybe Ethan’s school. But it wasn’t. It was Mark.
Claire held the phone to her ear and waited for him to speak. He didn’t say anything. She heard him breathe and hesitate; she could almost hear him think.
“Hi,” Mark said finally.
“Hi,” she replied.
“I just wanted to let you know my dad passed away. Early last week.”
“Mark, I’m so sorry.” She took a deep breath. “How are you doing?”
“I don’t know. I’m okay, I guess. Sorry, I probably should’ve told you sooner. Meant to invite you to the funeral. It was on Friday. I’d planned to get in touch. There was so much to deal with and I just blanked out about it.”
“Don’t worry, it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. Remember when my father died? I was a wreck.”
“You almost wore your pajamas to his funeral. You were literally about to walk out the door in your slippers.”
Claire smiled. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“What are you doing right now? Do you want to get a drink?”
“Oh, I can’t. I should go home.” She paused, thinking back to when her own dad had passed away. Of how supportive Mark was then, how caring and attentive—literally slipping her dress over her head, putting shoes on her feet—while she was immobilized by grief. But that was the past; she knew better than to be mindlessly sentimental. “Mark, I’m not sure it’s a good idea.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I’ve just felt really lost this last week. Thought it might be nice to see a familiar face, but like you said, it’s not a good idea.”
His voice was strained; he sounded upset. His father had died days ago. Of course Mark felt lost. Claire chastised herself for being insensitive. Perhaps he didn’t have anyone else to talk to about it; Mark was only trying to express his feelings. She felt a small twinge of pity. After all, he’d helped her through her grief years ago. One drink wouldn’t hurt. “Mark, I’m sorry. Let’s have a drink.”
He relaxed. “Where are you?”
“The Rocks.”
“Does the Lord Nelson still exist?”
“I think so,” she said.
“See you there soon.”
Claire hung up the phone. She wasn’t far from the pub and walked up the hill toward Argyle Place. The Lord Nelson’s façade had been renovated and stripped back, revealing chisel marks made by convicts on harbor-quarried stone. The pub had its own brewery and the heavy smell of malt and yeast filled the air. She examined the gray wall for a moment, thinking about the convicts who’d carved those grooves in the rock.
Inside the pub, Claire went to the bathroom and tried to fix her hair. In the mirror, under the tungsten lights, she looked so much older than she remembered—exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes. Mark hadn’t arrived yet so she ordered a glass of wine and sat at an available table.
“Sorry to keep you waiting.” Mark tapped her on the shoulder and she quickly stood up. He leaned in to give her a kiss but Claire twisted away. Their cheeks touched awkwardly. “Let me just grab a beer,” he said.
She found herself staring at him while he stood at the bar, admiring the shape of his back. He’d aged well, she thought idly. Men were lucky like that. As he returned to the table with his drink, Claire pretended to look for something in her bag.
Mark sat down and pulled his chair in. “Thanks for coming to see me.” He smiled.
Claire looked across the table at his hands—rough skin, bare fingers—and wondered what he’d done with his wedding ring. Her own rings were hidden somewhere in the farthest corner of a closed drawer. When she’d stopped wearing them, smooth white lines lingered on her ring finger for a long time—two ghosts who haunted her hands.
“You work near here?” he asked.
“Just down the road. At the Sydney Ballet Company.”
He sipped his beer. “You’re still dancing?”
Claire shook her head. “Haven’t danced since . . . well, since Ethan I suppose. I’m philanthropy manager. A professional beggar, essentially.”
“Oh, I’m sad you quit. You were an extraordinary dancer; you worked so hard.”
“It’s fine,” she said, quickly grabbing her wineglass. “What about you, what are you doing over in Kalgoorlie?”
“Bit north of there. I work at a mine. Not actually in the mine, in a lab. Metallurgical research.”
“Mining? You’re kidding.”
“Money is okay, I guess.” Mark looked at her, amused. “That’s right, I forgot about your angry environmentalist phase. How you went to those Jabiluka action-group meetings. Whenever we walked past any fast-food chain or bank you’d stop at the door and scream, ‘Capitalists!’ ”
“Come on, I wasn’t that angry,” Claire said, feeling a flush creep across her cheeks. “And it wasn’t a phase, I still care about the environment.”
“Bet you’re a stickler for composting and recycling.”
“Maybe.” She suppressed a smile. “So you really didn’t go back to physics. What about your PhD?”
“Got derailed, like everything else.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Well, cheers to us!” She raised her glass. “To approaching forty with unrealized dreams.”
Their glasses clinked. Claire felt a rush of fondness for him again; perhaps she’d demonized him too much inside her head. They’d had an overpowering connection once, been so in love. As she swallowed her wine, she forced herself to remember that this connection was only a memory.
