Black Painted Fingernails

by Steven Herrick

  The mothers all said hello to Sophie. Mr Gleeson was quick to offer her a freebie on account of Dave’s goal last week, the best he’d seen in two decades, and before she could say no, she was holding a roll with tomato sauce and onions and underneath it something burnt and dead. She held it well in front of her as she wandered off to sit in the shade of the fig tree, waiting for the only boy in town who didn’t like football.

  Cardigan Madrigal. Sophie grinned at the thought of such a name.

  He was the son of the hippies who lived in a two-room humpy out in the bush on Gloucester Road. They drove a Kombi with board racks and a painting on the side.

  A mural.

  In her town.

  Even then, five months after he’d started school, the kids still lined the front fence to watch the Kombi pull up, smoke billowing from inside as well as outside the car. Everyone suspected Mr Madrigal was off his face all day and had a pot plantation hidden somewhere in the bush on their property.

  Cardigan Madrigal.

  The teachers had spent a week arguing over what they’d call him. The science teacher refused to address him as Cardigan. Or Madrigal. He’d suggested Mad, but the principal said they should adopt an Australian solution: if it’s too long, shorten it.

  Cardy.

  Cardigan had no choice. Just as he didn’t have a choice in being born to hemp-wearing hippies. The only thing he did choose in his time at school was Sophie. And she accepted.

  She dumped the roll in the rubbish bin and looked across the oval at the two teams running out beside each other. Dave was leading, carrying the ball as if it was part of his body, an appendage he was going to share for a while with the rest of these bozos as long as they played fair and let him have more turns kicking it than anyone else. Dave without the ball was an animal on the loose, his arms like mallets looking for someone to strike. She wondered if he’d ever take out one of his own team. They sensibly gave him the ball at every opportunity.

  ‘It’s insane, hey?’

  ‘Cardigan!’

  ‘I went to the shops yesterday. Ten dollars each for a ball. If they want it so much, why don’t they just buy their own?’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

  ‘Maybe we channel?’ said Cardigan.

  ‘Pardon?’

  Cardigan sat down beside her. He was wearing gym boots, loose denim trousers torn at the knee and a green T-shirt. He’d drawn a spliff on the T-shirt in coloured stay-fast pens, with the smoke drifting up his chest towards his nose. To piss off the science teacher.

  ‘Channelling. Mum told me. It’s where you force your thoughts in one direction and someone else can pick them up, without you saying a word.’

  ‘Psychic?’

  Cardigan whispered, ‘I’ve got some of Dad’s stuff.’

  He tended to skip from one subject to the other. Sophie didn’t care. It always ended in smoking weed or kissing. She liked both.

  ‘Dad’s got a new hiding place. Took me ages to find it.’

  ‘Where do you want to go?’

  Cardigan grinned. ‘Your place?’

  ‘Not a chance, my brothers will smell it.’

  ‘We could do something other than smoke?’

  ‘Cardigan.’

  ‘Okay, let’s go to the creek. We’ll get the cows high.’

  When they reached the rise, Sophie looked down on the oval. Dave was being tackled into touch, jumping up and threatening to punch the opponent. Dad was waving his hat at the rest of the team, screaming at them to get back on-side. Brad was nowhere to be seen. The line at the sausage tent was lengthening as Mr Gleeson flirted with Pete Green’s heavily pregnant young wife. The town was expecting twins. Boys, with any luck. Pete had been a top footballer before his injury.

  Cardigan reached for her hand. Sophie let him lead her down the hill, dodging cowpats and stinkweed. Cardigan was humming. A boy who hummed and didn’t play football. Sophie wondered how long this could last.

  ‘I can drive, you know.’ Sophie looks at the soft glow of the dials on the dashboard.

  My fuel tank is half-empty. I should have filled up at the roadhouse. The boy and his bike made me forget.

  ‘Do you have a licence?’

  Sophie turns in her seat, her green eyes intense. ‘Let’s make a deal, James. Until you drop me off, we’ll both speak only the truth. An experiment, right here in your car.’

  ‘The truth is, if you crash the car my mother will kill me,’ I say.

  ‘Good, now you’re getting the hang of it.’

  ‘The truth is—’

  ‘James, you don’t have to say the word truth every time, okay?’

  ‘But . . .’

  ‘Now, are you going to deny me the chance to drive a car I’ll never have enough money to own in my entire life, or do I have to cast a spell on you?’

  As if on cue, there’s a petrol station up ahead. I cruise in and park alongside the bowsers.

  Sophie quickly pulls on her socks and starts lacing her boots. ‘This should be fun!’

  ‘Only for you.’

  ‘Think of it as the first step away from your parents, you rebel.’

  ‘I know what they’d say.’

  ‘It’s what you say that matters, James.’

  As I get out to go to the bowser, I hand her the keys. ‘Yeah, I’m a born anarchist.’

  Sophie jumps out, running around to the driver’s side before I can change my mind. She sits behind the wheel, adjusts the seat and fiddles with the electric mirrors. Then she hops out and cleans the windscreen, humming the whole time. She sees me staring and says, ‘I’m short-sighted – legally blind.’ She walks around to clean the back window.

  ‘Sophie, you’ve still got nutmeg on your hand.’

  ‘You could lick it off, if you like?’ She offers her hand.

  I bow towards her while removing a handkerchief from my back pocket. She raises an eyebrow as I take her hand in mine. Then I wipe the nutmeg with the hankie.

  Sophie snatches it from my hand. ‘A hankie? I bet it’s—’ She unfolds the hankie and holds it up for inspection. ‘Just as I thought, embroidered with your name!’ She can barely contain a smirk.

  ‘Mum buys them for Dad and me. So they don’t get mixed up, after washing.’

  Sophie drops the windscreen washer back into the bucket, then opens the car door and rummages in her handbag. She brings out a tube of lipstick and elaborately applies it to her full lips, then kisses the hankie, leaving a big red pout above my name. She hands it back to me. ‘Don’t wash it. Leave it for your mum. She’ll be . . .’

  ‘Horrified?’ I suggest.

  Sophie rolls her eyes. ‘I was going to say impressed.’

  She returns to the driver’s seat, looking at me through the side-mirror.

  After I’ve filled up, I walk to the roadhouse, aware of Sophie’s gaze. Or is she waiting until I’m in the shop before gunning the car and leaving without me?

  I push the door. It won’t open. I push again. Then I see the sign. Pull.

  The man behind the counter stands waiting, his beefy arms crossed. I deliberately don’t look out the window. The shopkeeper glances from the car to me and says, ‘You want anything else?’

  I shake my head and hand him the money. He points to the chocolates on display. ‘Two for four dollars. One for your girlfriend, one for you.’

  I shake my head. ‘She’s not my girlfriend.’

  ‘Doesn’t stop her eating chocolate, does it?’

  ‘She’s . . . on a diet.’

  ‘Yeah. Aren’t we all.’ He hands me the change. I’m careful to push open the door.

  As I adjust the passenger seat for more leg room, Sophie revs the car, just enough for me to look up at her glowing, round-cheeke
d smile.

  ‘The speedo goes up to two hundred and eighty!’

  She puts it in gear and slowly pulls away, her fingers light on the wheel. ‘If I cruised at top speed for three hours, we’d be home!’

  ‘No. We’d be wrapped round a tree.’

  I glance across to check: exactly 100 kph. She catches me looking. ‘Trust me!’

  ‘The shopkeeper just tried to sell me chocolates and I told a lie to avoid buying them.’

  ‘It’s okay – you can lie to him, just not me.’

  ‘How will you know?’

  Sophie gives me a look that says it all.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Sophie checking the mirrors, perhaps suspecting the police will discover her gliding along the highway in the sleek red M3. I have time to look at her closely.

  She enjoys driving; the creases around her mouth are deeper, more pronounced. Her hair falls in tangled dreads across her shoulders and down her back. Her skin is smooth and pale. Below her left ear is a slight scar, a thin pink line.

  ‘Why are you watching me? Don’t you trust me with your car?’

  The blood rushes to my face. ‘Your hair is . . .’

  She grabs a handful of locks. ‘. . . my crowning glory!’

  She slows for a semitrailer, checking along the side to overtake, flicking the indicator and pulling out, changing down and accelerating to pass.

  ‘My last boyfriend kept getting his fingers caught in it. He wanted me to cut it short. Can you believe that?’

  A farmer stands in a paddock beside a pile of blackened logs. In the distance is a windbreak of pines, bent on an angle from battling the westerly. Beside the track is a dam, puddle-empty, the soil cracked and eroded. The farmer wipes his arm across his forehead and tosses another log on the fire before heading for his ute.

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend, James?’

  I snort.

  Silence.

  ‘Truth, James. I won’t laugh, I promise.’

  ‘A few years ago . . . I kinda had a . . .’ My voice drifts, not wanting to remember.

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘You . . . you won’t believe it.’

  ‘Sophie? No! Please don’t tell me she was blonde.’

  I wince. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It was dyed.’

  ‘She went to the girls’ school on the hill.’

  ‘A rich blonde Sophie!’

  ‘Do you want to hear this or not?’

  She elaborately mimes zipping her lips.

  ‘The rich Sophie knew stuff I didn’t.’

  Sophie clamps a finger between her teeth, mocking me.

  ‘I know, I know – everyone knows more than me. Her parents’ house had a terraced garden all the way down to the harbour. She’d raid their liquor cabinet and her brother’s stash of dope.’

  She raises an eyebrow at me.

  ‘Yes, I coughed. In the week we were together, we got high every afternoon. I wondered what she saw in me. Maybe she mistook shy and bumbling for strong and silent?’

  ‘You’re . . .’ Sophie smiles. ‘Sorry, keep going.’

  I take a deep breath to get it over with. ‘One day it was just me and her walking down to their pool. She wore sandals, a towel around her hips. In the water . . . she kissed me. I almost . . .’

  Sophie purses her lips and says, ‘Romantic, very – oops, a vow of silence!’

  ‘We kissed and . . . I fumbled.’

  There’s a hand-painted sign near the highway. Fresh Fruit 500 metres. I picture ripe strawberries, apples and watermelons so crisp the juice would run down my chin. The fruit stand never appears. The sign was faded, on a crooked lean. The country is too parched and dry for fruit.

  Sophie coughs, theatrically, to bring me back to the story.

  ‘Where was I?’

  ‘In a million-dollar pool, groping.’

  ‘Fumbling. Groping implies I knew what I was doing.’

  ‘Come on, tell more.’

  ‘That’s it. Kissing in a pool.’

  ‘James. Remember our deal.’

  ‘Okay, okay. We went upstairs to the back deck and all the time I’m hoping something might happen – you know, she’d lead me to her room, or . . .’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She dumped me.’

  ‘The bitch!’

  ‘She fed me corn chips and guacamole dip.’

  ‘The doomed man’s last meal.’

  ‘Yep. Then she told me she was seeing someone else.’

  ‘The two-timing peroxide-blonde bimbo bitch!’

  ‘She said I was special – just not special enough. And that I should go home before her parents returned. She checked the bus timetable. At her front door, she kissed me the way you kiss a grandparent.’

  I’m embarrassed to have admitted so much.

  ‘Sophie was probably her middle name,’ Sophie says. ‘Her first name was Tiffany. Or Paige. Or Kristal. Something crass – she’s unworthy of such a beautiful name!’

  ‘So ends my sexual misadventures.’

  Sophie reaches across and touches my elbow.

  ‘Sex is always a misadventure, James.’

  Cardigan had a deep toke on the spliff. ‘It makes me randy.’

  ‘Randy? What a strange word!’

  ‘Horny. Excited. Dad giggles and eats too much when he’s high. Me, I want to . . . you know.’

  ‘The word is fuck, Cardigan. And we’re not doing it. Not yet.’

  As if on cue they looked to the paddock across the creek where the bull was stalking a cow, his tail flapping, his erection as strong as a . . . bull.

  ‘Is it rape, with animals?’ he asked.

  ‘Nah. If she didn’t want it, she’d just kick him. Imagine the power in those hooves.’

  ‘Hoofs?’

  ‘Definitely hooves.’ Sophie drew one last toke and flicked the butt into the water. It floated downstream towards the weir, where the town kids swam in summer – their own Bondi Beach without the sand, the shops, the pavilion, the bikinis, the skate ramp, the ballgames. Just country kids in daggy swimmers swinging from a rope and dive-bombing.

  ‘What’s the slang word for gay men?’ Cardigan asked.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Poof. Right?’

  Sophie nodded.

  ‘Two poofs does not make a poove. So it’s hoofs, not hooves.’

  ‘You should ask Ms Tranter in English. Use that example, I dare you.’

  ‘I’d end up at the principal’s office. My parents have been in twice already. I’ve only been here five months.’

  Sophie wondered if he’d stay long enough for them to get close, really close.

  Cardigan picked up a rock and tossed it into the creek. ‘I know what you’re thinking. You reckon me and my family will be leaving soon.’

  Sophie stayed silent. No need to admit it.

  ‘Even if we leave, I can come back when I’m older.’

  ‘To this place?’

  ‘Everywhere’s the same if you’re only staying awhile.’

  Sophie sighed. ‘I’ve been here my whole life.’

  Cardigan shrugged and picked up another rock. The bull wandered off, his tail swinging listlessly. Afraid of the hoofs. Hooves.

  Sophie looked at Cardigan’s hands, wanting to feel them on her body, wondering how long they’d have together before he left. She lay back in the grass. ‘Cardy, come here.’

  He glanced down at her and smiled, tossing the rock over his head, not caring where it landed.

  They closed their eyes and searched for each other’s mouths, pressing close, breathing in unison. Cardigan Madrigal had soft lips. He didn’t poke his tongue in where it wasn’t
wanted. He kissed like a girl, like Sophie imagined a girl would kiss.

  His hands wandered underneath her shirt and she was glad she didn’t wear a bra. His fingers were gentle. Together they held the kiss, but everything was focused on his hand, on the pressure between their bodies. Sophie wrapped a leg around Cardigan’s waist.

  How soon could they have sex?

  And where?

  She wondered what planet spun out of alignment and tossed a boy like Cardigan her way. He rolled away and she asked, ‘Where did you come from?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Before here?’

  He propped himself on one elbow. ‘Melbourne. A community squat in Fitzroy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘True. Guess how many stashes I discovered in one week? Four. I took a little bit out of each and mixed it together. It was like rocket fuel!’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I got so stoned it . . .’

  ‘No, why did you leave?’

  ‘Oh. Dad and a woman named Layla. The Buddhist with the breasts. That’s what Mum called her. Mum and Dad had the wildest argument. She threw a hookah at him, twirled it above her head with the hose pipe and then flung it. Deadly.’

  ‘But they’re still together?’

  ‘They decided the squat was too close. They wanted a farm, with goats and chickens. Dad bought a book on self-sufficiency.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The foxes took the chickens and the goat wandered off when I left the gate open. Now Dad’s looking at growing vegies. He reckons all you need is water.’

  ‘It hasn’t rained in months.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sophie rolled back into Cardigan’s arms. ‘If you stay until Christmas, we could give each other . . . a present.’

  Cardigan kissed her. ‘I’d like that.’