The First Year

by Genevieve Gannon

  Tonight she was going to Barred — a collection of restored caravans in a Collingwood laneway that served as an exhibition space and bar. She was going to drink red wine and get tipsy and not talk about law-firm politics and who’s-suing-who. She had a hankering to dance.

  ‘Andy!’ she called. ‘Have you seen my leather pants?’

  ‘Seen them?’ he yelled from his position on the couch. ‘They’re the reason I proposed. There’s a clause in the pre-nup that says I get custody of them if we break up.’

  ‘Yes, well, we’re still married for now so I should have full access. Do you know where they are?’

  She padded into the lounge room, barefoot, wearing only her bra and knickers.

  ‘I think you look fine as you are,’ Andy said.

  The leather-look pants were too dressy for every day, but not smart enough for law dinners or her critic-in-law, Millie. Saskia had tried them on a week earlier as they were getting ready to go to a play with Millie, Paul and his wife, but then pulled them off and fastened a boxy grey skirt that hung to her knees just as Andy came into the bedroom.

  ‘Wear the pants,’ he’d said. ‘Jules has a pair just like them.’

  ‘Not exactly like them. I bet your sister’s are real leather,’ Saskia said. ‘I hate giving your mother excuses to give me that look.’

  Andy had kissed the crown of her head. ‘You can’t tell they’re fake.’

  ‘Millie will be able to smell the polycarbons.’

  He chuckled. Millie Colbrook was sharper than Sherlock when it came to detecting counterfeit fashion and the real truth was they weren’t just fake leather; they were fake pants.

  Saskia had fallen in love with a pair of Anton Bruu designer faux leather leggings while shopping for placemats in Myer. She’d tried them on and lovingly run her hand over their smooth surface, then returned them and their five hundred dollar price tag to the rack and trundled downstairs to homewares.

  After she paid for the placemats, she passed the children’s department where she spied a Batman costume had the same rubbery surface as the Bruu pants. She felt the fabric between her thumb and forefinger. It was surprisingly thick and looked a lot like faux leather. The label said the costume was 80 per cent polyester and 20 per cent viscose — the exact materials used in the designer pair two floors up.

  She bought the Batman costume in the largest size, muttering something about a nephew, then when she got home she cut the bottom half off, took in the waist, and added a hitch to fasten them.

  Other than Andy, the only person she’d revealed the truth to was Randa, who complimented them when they met for cake the next day.

  ‘You never?’ Randa’s eyes bulged when Saskia told her she was one-half Dark Knight.

  ‘I did. I saved $483.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re paying for morning tea? I’ll order some baklava if you are,’ Randa said, signalling the waitress. ‘Batman’s uniform isn’t very forgiving, you’d better let me eat all of this,’ she said when the honey-drenched pastry was brought over.

  Saskia picked it up and took a huge bite. ‘No way. I’m trying to build up a tolerance.’

  *

  Bruce Wayne’s bottom half had held up well so far, but the costume wasn’t designed for daily wear. Saskia was paranoid the pants were going to split. She pulled them on and climbed up onto the edge of the bath so she could examine them in the vanity mirror.

  ‘Bugger,’ she said, noticing a tiny nick in the fabric on her left bottom cheek. Tell-tale grey material was visible. She clambered down from the edge of the bath and foraged through her drawers in search of black nail polish.

  She touched the tip of the brush to the flaw a few times, then blasted her backside with the hairdryer. After doing this she picked-up her hairbrush, clutching it like a microphone and addressed the mirror. ‘Well, Richard, tonight I’m wearing the bottom half of a boy’s Batman costume accessorised with Nars nail varnish in ebony.’

  *

  Andy sat with his feet on the coffee table and an iPad on his knees, scrolling through the menu for the local Chinese joint. He’d been pining for Kung Pow chicken all week.

  ‘Sas!’ he called. He was starving and wanted to order. He could hear her in the bathroom now, the hairdryer blowing.

  All those nights he’d been at his desk, his tie loosened and his shoes kicked off because everybody else had gone home, he had fantasised about being able to lie mindlessly in front of a film with his wife in his arms. Tonight that’s just what he planned to do.

  Saskia strode into the lounge room holding a long, black tassel necklace against her chest. The wreath cuff was curled around her ear.

  Andy sat up, letting the iPad slide from his lap and clatter onto the floor. ‘You look nice.’

  ‘You have to look the part for a gallery opening.’ She fastened the necklace.

  ‘Is that tonight?’ His face fell. ‘I forgot.’

  ‘Oh.’ She lowered her hands.

  ‘I was hoping we could stay in. We’ve both been working so hard lately.’

  ‘Just you, me, and your contract there?’

  There was a thick document sitting in his lap. The contract was complex and he was struggling to absorb it.

  ‘I was looking forward to us spending some time with my friends,’ she said.

  It was an innocent enough statement, but he knew it was a rebuke for all of the events he’d dragged her to since his promotion. He couldn’t say no to the invitations — not now when everything was so damn volatile. Thanks to those boozy gatherings, he knew HM&L was performing well below par, and that things were far worse than he’d been led to believe.

  ‘Who’s is this one again?’ he asked.

  ‘June Rein, AKA Sandra June Reinier. We were at TAFE together.’

  ‘Is she the one that does her paintings on animal bones?’

  ‘No, June’s work is more sculptural,’ she said. ‘Her jewellery’s made of blown glass with petrified flies and spiders inside. She dates Ziggy from my studio.’

  ‘I’ve been longing for a night in with you all week. Just you, me, and the Red Dragon’s Kung Pow chicken. Maybe a spy flick.’

  ‘Andy, I want to have fun with my friends.’

  ‘I’ll be at the next one, no matter what.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Saskia twisted her mouth. ‘Maybe you had better put that in writing.’ She slid her keys off the sideboard and into her handbag. Andy turned his face up to receive his wife’s kiss.

  ‘Have a good time,’ he said as she pressed her lips to his cheek.

  ‘I might go to the after party but I shouldn’t be too late.’

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  He watched as she walked to the door. The way the black pants clung to her bottom made him sit up straight. When he was young, a wife was a person married to his father’s friends who wore twin sets paired with ill-fitting capris and had short permed hair. None of his father’s friends had wives like Saskia.

  Stewing in guilt, Andy turned back to the document in his hand. But his concentration was shot. He tried to force himself to care about the contract but he couldn’t stop thinking about Saskia roaming the streets. Men drinking pints out the front of pubs would turn to watch her as she strutted past in those painted-on pants and high heels to the gallery off Smith Street where she’d be greeted by her artist friends — weedy men with goatees, who would look for any excuse to touch her. They would all devour her with their eyes, these theoretical men, and the thought made Andy angry and protective.

  He had trouble keeping Saskia’s artist friends all straight in his mind. They were a calamitous group of black-swathed, chain-smoking Marxists who smelled like hemp and always wanted to tell him how their paintings or papier mache heads were going to shake the system to its core. Just exactly what system they were referring to was never clear. He refrained from telling them he was certain capitalism was impervious to the power of papier mache.

  He wondered if that guy Frederick would be there. Frederick
was ostensibly German but raised in Glen Waverly. He wore a flinty goatee and half-glasses and always seemed to be lurking near Saskia.

  Andy chewed the end of his pen as he pictured Frederick laying his cadaverous hand on his wife’s arm. He flipped to the next page of his contract, and underlined the first sentence in a bid to absorb it.

  Vendor shall indemnify and save harmless customer from any suit or proceeding brought based on a claim or claims that the deliverables or any part thereof infringes or constitutes wrongful use of any copyright . . .

  He had to start the sentence again. He was exhausted and the words didn’t seem to have anything to do with each other.

  In her old flat, Saskia had poetry magnets that she arranged into little phrases on her fridge.

  Loose lying butterflies

  A lady languidly lazes

  Lusty lads look on

  Below them, single words were jumbled on the door. That’s what this contract felt like — words lumped together with no relationship to each other. He’d liked those miniature poems of hers, but she hadn’t kept it up at his house. The magnets didn’t stick to his stainless steel fridge.

  ‘That’s done it.’ He tossed the pages on the floor and went to see if there was anything in his wardrobe that wouldn’t look too preppy for an inner-city art opening.

  Within thirty-five minutes he was walking towards the scattered caravans that formed the gallery-cum-bar. He hung by the door until he spied his wife across the space.

  Saskia was standing in front of a podium that held what looked like a very small fish bowl. Her fingers were curled around the stem of an empty wine glass. From Andy’s vantage point she was in profile. Her lips were blotted red from the shiraz, and a patch of colour on her cheek told him it wasn’t her first glass. She stood alone and soaked up the work before her. The glass orb held three cockroaches.

  Andy leaned against an empty pedestal and watched her as a waiter arrived at her side and offered to refill her glass. Andy could see the skinny young student admire his wife’s body as she accepted wine from his bottle. He was attempting small talk. Saskia was polite but cool. Andy felt a throb of pride in his chest.

  The waiter moved on and she was joined by Frederick. Andy went cold with dislike. Frederick was taller than him. Almost six foot seven. His height made up for the ridiculous bob haircut he wore. Andy thought anyone who wore their hair in such an effete way didn’t deserve to be six foot seven. Despite his impressive height, Frederick couldn’t have weighed more than seventy kilos and as a result looked as though he could fold up like a collapsable ruler.

  Andy let Frederick leer and letch at his wife for precisely five seconds before he moved through the crowd towards the glass bauble of cockroaches.

  ‘It’s a wearable statement,’ Frederick was saying. ‘We’re all animals trapped by the invisible limits of society.’

  Saskia scrunched up her nose.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Andy came up behind them. ‘I think she just wants to shock people.’

  ‘Andy.’ Saskia turned and put her arms around him. ‘I thought you had to work. Frederick, you remember my husband Andy.’

  ‘Yes,’ Frederick said, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. ‘Although he wasn’t your husband last time we met.’

  ‘Well, I am now,’ Andy said. He cleared his throat. ‘Good to see you again, Frederick.’ He gave his hand a firm squeeze.

  The tall man looked like he wanted to correct Andy. He preferred for his name to be pronounced Free-derick, in the German style, but Andy deliberately chose the flat, English Frederick.

  ‘Good to see you too. And congratulations.’

  ‘I thought you needed to rest,’ Saskia said, leaning her head woozily against Andy’s shoulder.

  ‘I should have come with you in the first place. I said I would. Besides, I couldn’t concentrate after you left.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ He kissed her mouth.

  ‘Excuse me,’ Frederick said. ‘Sas, we must get together to talk about those new pieces you mentioned.’

  ‘Yes! I’ll call you.’

  After Frederick left them, Andy said, ‘Could he be any more obvious? He drools over you like a starved St Bernard sitting outside a butcher’s window.’

  ‘His mother might carry my jewellery in her boutique in Fitzroy.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with him?’ They watched Frederick pick the pimento stuffing out of some olives scattered on a platter. ‘Can’t you deal directly with the woman who owns the boutique?’

  ‘I will. But he only just told me his mother has a store. It’s called La Fayette. It’s very exclusive. If Frederick mentions me, it might improve my chances.’

  ‘I think the only chances he wants to improve are his own.’

  ‘You’re the one who taught me the importance of connections.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ he said, putting his arm around Saskia and moving to the next caravan. ‘Let’s see what other luminaries of the art world we can find.’

  *

  ‘Saskia!’ June Rein wobbled on tall cork heels over to Sas. She was wearing a blue satin corset and a top hat. ‘What do you think of the exhibition?’

  ‘It’s wonderful June. Really . . . bold,’ Saskia said. ‘Don’t you think, Andy?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I’ve sold five pieces.’ It was late now. June was scatty and high on triumph. ‘Oh, I love that thing on your ear.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sas touched the cuff.

  ‘Is it one of yours?’

  ‘It’s an idea I’ve been playing with since Rome.’

  Ziggy crashed side-on into his girlfriend. ‘Where’s the wine?’

  ‘They’ve run out,’ said June. ‘Zig, don’t you love Saskia’s cuff?’

  He leaned forward and tried to focus his eyes. ‘’S’much better than the testicles.’

  ‘I’ve always admired your practicality,’ June said. ‘You don’t get distracted by flights of fantasy. You make simple, wearable things that won’t scare people.’

  ‘Not everyone can smash the boundaries,’ Saskia said. June had a tendency to get carried away with her own revolutionary vision. Sas never let June’s pretensions bother her.

  ‘Come to the after party at Frederick’s. Let’s go now, in fact, there’s no wine left. Fred!’ June hollered. ‘Fred, let’s go!’

  Frederick raised his head and nodded, then began corralling the remaining guests out into the laneway.

  ‘I might ask to be pardoned from the after party if that’s okay.’ Andy said.

  ‘Oh?’ Saskia, rosy-cheeked from wine, was still eager to dance.

  ‘But you go, have fun.’

  ‘I will go. Just for a little bit.’ She kissed him.

  *

  Frederick’s place was one long white room divided into its different uses by scattered furniture. Couches, ottomans and occasional chairs claimed the front section for the entertainment area. Tucked behind the kitchen was a futon bed. A shower curtain in the back left corner offered privacy.

  Saskia took a seat in a butterfly chair. Others lounged on the cushions and oblongs of foam scattered across a tufted Turkish rug. On the coffee table a saucer overflowed with ash and cigarette butts. A year ago Saskia wouldn’t have noticed it. Now her fingers itched with a desire to empty it.

  ‘Sas.’ Frederick handed her a joint.

  ‘I haven’t smoked a joint in months.’ She tried to count in her head. The last time had been in Randa’s caravan on the coast. She’d just met Andy and was recounting their date. (‘It was good.’ ‘Nuns are good. Give me details.’)

  Saskia took a pull from the joint. It was strong. June, unofficial Queen for a day, took control of the stereo and turned up the volume.

  ‘Well, I think that was a huge success,’ she yelled, pulling Luna Portman up to a clear patch of ground, where they began to dance. Luna had rainbow-dyed dreadlocks. She kicked off her Birkenstocks and began to twirl. Her coloured hair mad
e Saskia think of magic spells. More couples joined in the dancing until Frederick’s warehouse had become a nightclub.

  ‘Look what I found!’ Frederick held up two bottles of absinthe. June whooped from the dance floor and waved her arm over her head like a lasso. ‘Light them up, Freddy.’

  ‘Sas?’ Frederick offered a shot glass of radioactive green alcohol to her.

  ‘Just one, I suppose.’

  Saskia took another drag from the joint before passing it to the person on her right. The world around her began to ripple. June took her hand and they danced to The Kinks. When they flopped back onto the couch someone passed her a pipe. It was metallic purple and had blackened pot stuffed into the end.

  ‘No, thanks.’ She waved it away. ‘Too much makes me queasy.’

  ‘Try this.’ Ziggy put something in her hand. It was another pipe, this one glass. There were crystals in its bowl.

  ‘Jesus, Zig.’ Saskia gave it back to him, then wiped her hands on her top as if the glass was toxic. ‘What is that?’

  He took the pipe but didn’t answer. He spun his lighter wheel and heated the bowl. The smoke that filled the chamber was a dirty white.

  ‘Take this will you, babe?’ He held it out for June.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ June said, passing it on. Ziggy was now lying back on a beanbag, his legs splayed and his eyes half-closed.

  June grinned bashfully at Saskia, whose eyelids were starting to droop. ‘Sas, I have to come and see you at the cafe one day this week. I’m simply enchanted by the clever little ear cuff you made.’

  Luna and her rainbow mane dropped onto the beanbag next to June. ‘I’ll come too. We can have a coffee on your break. I want to see the Chuck Close exhibition.’

  ‘What are we talking about?’ Frederick settled himself next to Saskia, two shot glasses of absinthe in his hands.

  ‘We’re going to go and visit Saskia at her cafe. The gallery’s hosting a Chuck Close exhibition,’ June said.

  ‘Actually . . .’ Saskia’s head was foggy, but she knew she had to swim through the haze and somehow explain her situation carefully. ‘I don’t work there anymore. But we can still see the exhibition,’ she added hastily, hoping that would be the end of the subject.