I don’t drink coffee, Antoinette. I decided I didn’t like it.
So she made him hot chocolate instead – which he did like, very much – and though she was curious about her things still piled untouched on the futon, she didn’t ask where he slept, or even if.
Antoinette puts the picture frame back together, white paper and all, folding the metal clips down with a careful thumbnail before returning it to the table. She tips the rest of her coffee into the sink and is rinsing out the mug when she hears a key turn in the front door lock, followed by the familiar creak of hinges and the stamping of boots on the doormat.
‘Greta?’ Paul calls, slamming the door shut. ‘Greta, that you?’
Antoinette squares her shoulders, remembering again the face he wore last time she saw him, blunt with anger and contempt, and she turns, steeling herself for the reprise, as he walks through the doorway and stops short, his mouth falling open in a round, startled oh.
— 7 —
Recovering, Paul throws her a scowl. ‘You might have called first.’ He’s carrying a plastic bag of what smells like Indian takeaway, one of the containers leaking orange.
‘I didn’t think you’d be here. Isn’t Monday your–’
‘I didn’t feel like it.’
‘Oh.’ She can’t help but compare the two of them in her mind, Paul and Loki, Loki and Paul; would like to stand them side by side, face to face, measure one against the other and see what has been changed, what has been kept.
‘Greta’s coming over,’ Paul says. ‘She’s downloaded the latest True Blood.’
‘I was about to go anyway.’
He puts the bag of Indian on the table. ‘Leave your keys, okay?’
‘What? Why?’
‘I don’t want you sneaking in here all the time, messing around.’
‘I wasn’t sneaking, Paul. I just needed some more of my stuff, and I thought it would be easier if I came by when you were out, that’s all.’
‘Sure, you did.’
‘I was going to write you a note, let you know I’d been by.’
‘Like you did yesterday, you mean? I must have missed that.’
‘I wasn’t here yesterday.’
‘When did you swap this over, then?’ Paul snatches the picture frame from the table and thrusts it towards her, its empty face a blank and glassy accusation. ‘And all that shit you left in the bathroom, ash or whatever it was? If you think playing voodoo is gonna get us back together, Ant, you’re more fucked up than I thought.’
She pushes the frame away. ‘I haven’t the foggiest what you’re on about.’
‘Those bloody rose petals. What did you do, burn them? Mix them with ink or something? It took me all day to clean that shit up.’
Rose petals. Bathroom. The dozen long-stemmed blooms he gave her on the first anniversary of their moving in together, the ones she so carefully plucked once they started to curl, drying enough to fill a tall glass vase which she kept on the windowsill, their fading scent bolstered by a few drops of essential oil every other week. And now they’re gone, burnt to ash, is that what he’s saying?
‘It wasn’t me,’ she tells him. ‘I wasn’t here yesterday, I told you.’
‘Then who? Fucking Cinderella?’
Antoinette glares at him. ‘Greta has a key.’
‘Greta?’ Paul snorts. ‘Oh sure, that makes a whole lot of sense. Christ, Ant, do you think I’m a moron?’
And no, it doesn’t make any sense, but yes, she’s starting to think maybe he is a moron – or at least he’s been acting like one – and she tells him this, tells him to stop acting like a baby, and then they’re fighting again, snapping at each other like maltreated hounds. The same old litany of complaints and resentments, the you nevers and the I should haves, voices pitching higher and louder with each fresh-aired grievance, until suddenly the picture frame is hurled across the room, slamming into the pantry door with a shriek of broken glass, and Antoinette jumps, a startled cry of her own caught in her throat.
‘Well,’ she says after a beat. ‘That was grown-up.’
Paul sticks out his hand. ‘Give me the keys.’
‘No.’ Anger simmers beneath her skin, a not entirely unpleasant sensation. ‘I’ve still got stuff here. You’ll get the keys once I’m done.’
His jaw clenches, eyes narrowed to hateful shards. The last time he looked at her like that, hovering over the innards of her shattered laptop, there was fear at the back of her throat, fear and dread and the incipient scratch of tears. Now there’s only the slow, clean burn of anger and, after a breath or two, not even that, just a hollow throb deep in the very centre of her. She stares at him, at the red flush of his cheeks, the pulse of a single vein at his temple. Was it only Saturday she spent so many wretched hours sobbing over this man, over the mess she made of their life together? It seems an age ago now. It seems almost . . . inconsequential.
‘I’m sorry,’ Antoinette says, and she means it, though exactly what she’s sorry for, she can’t quite define.
‘Get out,’ Paul growls. ‘You can come back for the rest of your gear later.’
‘Fine. I’ll just grab what I’ve already packed.’
He follows her into the bedroom, suspicious old fishwife watching her every step and struggle as she lugs the suitcases one at a time down the hall, not once offering to help, but also not demanding to inspect their contents, and for that she’s thankful – explaining why she has some of his clothes in her cases is not a conversation she feels up to dodging right now. Gritting her teeth, she heaves them in silence down the front stairs and into her faithful old Laser – one in the boot, one across the back seat – thinking how at least she’ll have Loki to lend a hand at the other end.
Paul remains at the front door, arms folded. The porchlight stains his skin jaundice, throws sharp and ugly shadows across his face. She doesn’t wonder what she ever saw in him – she knows what she saw in him – she just wonders where it went, and how.
‘We have to talk properly at some stage.’ Antoinette walks back up the front path, keeping her voice low. ‘Work out what to do with some of the shared stuff, take my name off the bills. That sort of thing.’
He shrugs, the barest hitch of his shoulders. ‘Whatever.’
‘So, I’ll call you? Next time I need to come over?’
‘Make it snappy, yeah? I don’t want your shit gathering dust here for the next twelve months while you mope around at your sister’s.’
‘Actually, I already have a place.’ An impulsive lie, unthinking, unplanned, but more than enough to wipe that condescending smirk from his face, and so she runs with it. ‘A friend of Jacqueline’s is backpacking through Europe for a while and they’re letting me take over their lease. It’s a great little flat in St Kilda. Dirt cheap rent, just around the corner from the Esplanade. I move in next week, so . . .’
‘Wow,’ Paul says, deadpan. ‘Jacqueline has friends?’
Antoinette sighs. ‘Look, can we just be civil about all this? I’ll get my stuff out of here as soon as I can and then we can both go on with our lives.’
‘Got yourself one of those as well, did you? A life?’
He’s such a fucking baby. How she managed to put up with all this for so long is beyond her comprehension right now, but she bites her tongue. Antoinette wouldn’t put it past him to simply toss what’s left of her stuff out on the street for the urban scavengers to pick through. Toss it out or else build himself a merry little bonfire in the back courtyard, invite Greta and Jai and the rest of their snarky, black-taloned clique around to toast marshmallows and burn white sage and generally cleanse the place of all things Evil Ex-Girlfriend.
‘Paul,’ she says. ‘Listen, I think we–’
But he’s already retreating into the flat, top lip curling into a sneer, and
when he slams the door in her face, Antoinette doesn’t think she’s ever heard anything sound so final.
Zane stomps up the front stairs to Ryan’s place, her rainbow-laced sneakers slapping hard against the bare wood. Jacqueline follows at a slower pace, a dozen careful steps behind. She feels tired, in a used up sort of way. A lingering effect of the drink-spiking, perhaps, or merely due to what little sleep she managed to scrape together from broken and dream-worried scraps.
It was the girl who picked her up that morning. Thumping on the motel door at quarter to ten and flicking a salute when Jacqueline finally opened it. Your chariot awaits, m’lady. A chariot littered with empty cans of Coke Zero and crumpled chocolate wrappers. Three small suitcases lay flat along its back seat. They reminded Jacqueline of old-fashioned school ports, or the sample bags of a sales rep down on her luck.
Zane carries them with her now. One in each hand, the third tucked beneath her left arm. The screen door is ajar and the girl snags the corner with her foot. Pulls it open enough to wedge a hip inside. ‘Ryan? You here?’ A male voice answers from within the house, words Jacqueline doesn’t catch, but Zane grins and bumps the door wide. Bustles herself and her cases over the threshold. Glances back with an impatient jerk of her chin. ‘You expecting a personal invitation?’
Ryan is in his studio.
The smell of oil paint hangs fresh in the air and the large canvas still sits on its easels. Still faces the mid-morning sun that streams through the windows on the far side of the room. It’s naked now, the cloth that once shrouded it crumpled in the corner. Jacqueline can feel her skin begin to itch. She wants to see that painting. She needs to see it.
‘Hey,’ Ryan says. He’s wiping a brush on a soft piece of rag. Green paint stains his fingers. ‘How you feeling?’
Jacqueline ignores the question. ‘You’ve been working.’
‘He’s always working,’ the girl says. ‘Even when he’s not. Can’t turn it off, can you, Ryan?’ She taps the side of her head. ‘Man’s a machine, for reals. Runs on pure imagination.’
Ryan snorts. ‘That’s enough out of you, little thing.’ He regards Jacqueline with red-rimmed eyes. There’s more paint on his chin. On his forehead. ‘Been up all night, trying to sort it. Too wired to sleep, too buzzed.’
‘A machine.’ Zane grins. ‘Like I said.’
Ignoring her, Ryan steps closer to Jacqueline. He reaches out, his hand almost on her arm before he seems to think better of it. Changes the gesture to a wave, motions for her to follow. ‘Look,’ he says, walking over to the huge canvas. ‘Just look and tell me what you reckon.’
The painting is another cityscape, another of Ryan’s ruined Brisbanes. The angle feels familiar, a tourist shot for a place no sane person would want to visit, with the river curving through the foreground, its bridges near to crumbling, and above it all the loom of long-vacant buildings. Except here there are signs of life, slight but certain. Green foliage spills from the balconies of abandoned apartments. Creeps like ivy over vertical concrete walls. Lush and vibrant, glossed with the gold of a rising sun. A reclamation at once relentless and, possibly, redemptive.
‘It’s only a start,’ Ryan tells her. ‘I’ve been messing with the light. Trying to get the balance right before I expand on it.’
‘More plants?’
‘Birds too, maybe some critters even, if it won’t look too naff.’ Absently, he shoves a hand into his dreads and shakes them. ‘’Cause this is what it’d be like, yeah? Take us out of the picture and everything doesn’t just stop. My perspective was wrong – no, not wrong, just not complete, if you get me. It was, I dunno–’
‘Arrogant,’ Jacqueline offers.
Ryan lifts an eyebrow, then nods. ‘Yeah, okay. Arrogant.’
She smiles, just a little. ‘This is really excellent work. Complex, considered. Dante will love it; he’ll call it transcendent.’
‘That’ll help me sleep at night.’
‘Ryan–’
‘I know, I know.’ He holds up his hands. ‘You need to ignore half what comes out of my mouth, most days. You really do.’
‘Because you’re an arsehole.’
Those straight, white teeth of his flash. ‘Because I’m an arsehole.’
‘Right.’ Jacqueline steps closer to the painting. Steps further away from the man who created it. There’s a scent about him, sharp and teasing and naggingly familiar. Something like eucalyptus but not quite. It makes her uncomfortable. Not the scent so much, but the way it snags at her. She wants to bury her face in his dreads and breathe deep. She wants to shove him from the verandah and hear him scream.
Her phone rings, muffled yet insistent, from within the side pocket of her bag.
Jacqueline fishes it free: Antoinette calling. She loosens a tight-held breath. Dante has rung three times since the weekend. Left at least a dozen text messages. She’s yet to reply to any of them. Later, she tells herself, when she has something to report.
‘You need to get that?’ Ryan nods at the phone in her hand.
Jacqueline shakes her head. Diverts her sister to voicemail with the flick of a thumb. Slips the phone back into her bag. Later, later. ‘How long do you need to finish the painting?’
‘A week or so. But I want to go back to some of the others as well.’
‘Do you think that’s necessary?’
‘Nothing heavy-handed. A bit of foreshadowing, a few hints to what’s coming.’
‘There’s not a lot of time, Ryan. There’s still the transportation–’
‘Yeah, I get it. I need to work fast. I can do that.’
‘The paint needs to dry fast, too.’
‘It’ll be dry. Not cured, not sealable, but dry enough to cart across country, you get people who know what they’re doing.’
‘It’s not as though we hire Mini Movers for these jobs, Ryan.’
He rubs at his chin, his eyes fixed on the canvas before them. His jaw clenches, loosens and clenches again. A vein pulses at his temple. Jacqueline takes a step towards him. Places her hand on his shoulder. The light cotton weave of his T-shirt is warm and damp beneath her skin.
‘It’s really good.’ She squeezes, feels his bones shift. ‘I mean it.’
Ryan covers her hand with his own, then lifts it, presses her fingers against his stubble-rough cheek. ‘Thanks.’
Behind them, Zane coughs. Scuffs her sneaker along the floorboards until Ryan turns to face her, Jacqueline’s hand still clutched within his own. ‘Zaney wants to know if you’d like to take a gander at her cases while you’re here. Only she’s too shy to ask for herself.’
‘That’s me,’ the girl retorts. ‘Shrinking fucking violet.’
Jacqueline considers the three suitcases stacked against the wall. One of them is the bright candy pink of Barbie doll boxes, the other two a more sombre charcoal. Vaguely, she recalls the photographs thrust into her hands at Merde. Those, along with the voracious expression the girl wore that night. The same one that’s tightening her face now. ‘I’ve already told you I’m not a commissioning agent for Seventh Circle,’ she says. ‘Dante’s the one you need to talk to.’
‘But you can take a look, right?’ Zane isn’t actually begging, but her tone is probably as close to it as she gets. ‘Come on, you gotta be curious.’
Jacqueline really isn’t. After three years of working with Dante, she knows there’s little chance he’ll give a damn about whatever it is the girl has tucked away inside those cases. Her boss prefers his art adversarial, his gestures grand and overly dramatic and – for preference – flavoured with a not insubstantial dose of testosterone. But she wonders again about the relationship between Zane and Ryan. About whether snubbing the girl would be likely to get the artist offside as well.
‘All right,’ she says. ‘But no promises.’
Wordless,
Zane marches over to her suitcases and lines them up side by side on the floor. Snaps them open and lifts their lids before stepping back, hands on hips. ‘They’re sort of a sequence, these three. You need to start from the left and work your way over. Or you don’t need to, but it’s better if you–’
‘Stop now.’ Ryan places a hand on the back of Zane’s neck. Squeezes, gentle as a mother cat. ‘How’s about getting us something to drink, eh? Let Jacqueline take her own time with these.’
Zane grins at him. Turns to Jacqueline with barely the scrap of a smile left over. ‘You want Coke? Or juice, I think there’s some left in the fridge.’
‘Juice will be good. Thanks.’
‘Put something extra in mine, little thing.’
Jacqueline waits until she can no longer hear the smack of sneaker on wood before approaching the cases. Hot pink flanked by grey. A wound within necrotic flesh. She crouches before the first one.
Inside, a female figure crouches as well, face tilted upwards. Made from some kind of flesh-coloured compound that looks soft and malleable. Able to be hurt. Silver fish-hooks sink into the figure, golden chains pull in opposite directions. Flesh stretches, skin draws taut. Breast. Hip. Throat. An elbow tugged akimbo. One hook remains unseen, swallowed between the figure’s thighs. The chains seem to float in space, not quite reaching walls which are painted a dark and clotted red. Jacqueline squints. Sees the fishing line deftly strung from the end of each chain to its ultimate anchor point. The entire inner lid of the case is a sheet of mirrored glass. When it’s closed, the figure inside will be forced to stare at herself.
‘She’s young,’ Ryan says. ‘Over-estimates the value of shock.’
The interior of the second case, the pink case, is covered with photos torn from magazines. A roughly equal mixture of pornography and high fashion, Jacqueline guesses. A collage of women, or at least their composite parts. Open mouths modelling lipstick or offering blowjobs. Hard to tell which. The case is filled with doll parts. Barbie dolls, baby dolls, Bratz dolls – all naked, all torn to pieces. Legs, torsos, arms, heads with flat, unblinking eyes but hair still long and glossy and smooth.
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