He nods and purses his lips. Cassie bends over her notebook, scribbles something pretend in the margin. There’s a long pause.
‘Sure you don’t want some tea?’
He clears his throat. ‘I hesitate to interfere between two people so clearly in love.’
‘Me and Gray?’ She blushes hotly. ‘Are we?’
‘Well, only you can answer that.’
‘No I mean are we clearly?’
He chuckles. ‘Though – am I right in thinking that Graham being here with you is a penance for something? Don’t be alarmed, I have a little – gift, shall we say, for reading situations.’
‘No! Not a penance!’ She tries to laugh.
‘Test, then?’
‘No! Whatever gave you that idea?’
She stares at him, startled, but he looks back only with kindliness. ‘Forgive my clumsiness. Shall we drop the subject?’ He looks embarrassed.
‘No, it’s OK,’ she says.
‘You’re still homesick, aren’t you?’
‘A bit,’ she admits.
‘Do you think you might feel better if you had someone to talk to? Confide in?’
‘I miss my sister.’ She’s embarrassed by the threat of tears in her voice. She swallows.
‘Now, now.’ He reaches over and touches her hand. ‘Don’t cry.’
‘I’m not, it’s just –’ She blinks and looks away over the veranda rail, past Mara’s shed to the stand of gum trees in the distance until the danger has past. ‘You’re right, I do – I so miss having someone to talk to. Patsy and I, we always, always tell each other everything. It’s like a kind of pain,’ she puts her fist against her heart, ‘here. That missing. And there hasn’t even been a letter. She must have written.’
He sighs. ‘I’ll get Fred to double-check. Look, I am sorry you feel like that. And I know I could never be a substitute but I am a good listener.’
She looks at him. He seems really concerned. It would seem rude to refuse to talk to him. And, what the hell, she has to talk to somebody.
He waits, head tilted to one side.
‘Well,’ she says, after a moment, ‘ – you’re partly right about me and Graham, some of the reason for coming here, as well as wanting a change and everything, is about our relationship. I want to, well, settle down. That sounds pathetic doesn’t it?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘Have a baby. Maybe even get married. Anyway, be a proper couple. You know?’
Larry nods.
‘You’re right, we are in love. Well I’m in love with him anyway, it’s hard to tell with him! But –’
‘He’s not the settling kind?’ Larry offers.
‘Well –’ She runs her fingers through her sticky, tangled hair.
‘What would you like to happen?’ Larry says. ‘In an ideal world?’
She gazes at him a moment. ‘I suppose I’d like him to be more – kind of stable, home-centred. Faithful,’ she says, looking down at her hands. Dirt under the nails still, splatters of paint, despite a good scrubbing. They’re rough as pan scourers. She feels such a mess.
Larry makes a sympathetic sound in his throat. ‘I hesitate to offer this –’
‘What?’
‘No, you wouldn’t like the idea.’
‘What?’ She half laughs, tantalised.
He folds his arms and puts his head back. She can hear a faint click in the vertebrae of his neck. His beard juts upwards so she can see the neat edge between his whiskers and his throat.
‘At least tell me!’
He looks at her. ‘Well, all right then. But listen, this is just a very tentative suggestion. Just a way of helping you to get what you want. If you don’t want, then –’
‘What?’ He’s enjoying the tease, she can see. His wiry eyebrows raised, his eyes bright but serious.
‘My work,’ he says, ‘is in pharmaceuticals. Pharmaceutical research, not so much the research itself as a collation of preexisting data, conclusions and so on, for a drug company. It’s one of the few types of work utilising my expertise that I can do in these circumstances.’ He pauses.
‘I really do admire that,’ she says, ‘that you’ve given up so much for Mara.’
‘It’s rather nice,’ he looks down at Mara’s shed, ‘to have the one you want all to yourself, is it not?’
She hesitates. ‘Well, only if they want to be.’
‘Of course. Now, this work allows me to lay my hands on a number of drugs – psycho-pharmaceuticals. I am ever hopeful, you see, of a cure for Mara. But there is a drug –’ He holds his hand up to stall any possible interruption. ‘It’s a behaviour alterant.’
‘Behaviour alterant? What does that mean?’
‘It has the very useful effect of making people settle, shall we say. People who have that wild streak, exciting yes but – they have within themselves a tendency – think of it as an internal saboteur which prevents them buckling down.’
Cassie laughs. ‘He’d never take anything like that! Not for that effect, anyway! Say buckle down to Graham and he’d zoom off into orbit!’
‘Quite.’ He taps his fingernails on the table.
‘You’re not suggesting that we drug him!’
He leans forward, eager to explain. ‘It doesn’t work quite like a conventional drug. That is to say it has an educative rather than a purely palliative effect on the psyche. If he took it for a month of two you would see an immense improvement. A sort of rewiring if you like. He would still be himself, you understand, just a bit less, hot-headed. More liable to settle down and be faithful. More able to concentrate on work. He would, you might say, grow up.’
‘No!’ She can hardly believe what she’s just heard. Drug him when he’s perfectly healthy?
‘That’s fine,’ Larry says. ‘Laudable even.’ He gets up. ‘It’s what I expected you to say. But, it’s the future, you know.’ He presses his hands down on the table and leans towards her. The veins fatten to blue on the backs of his hands. His nails are like perfect shells. How does he stay so clean? ‘Before long, people will be mending all sorts of minor personality disorders with drugs, with no more thought than you’d give to taking aspirin, say, for a toothache.’
She frowns. ‘But – it doesn’t seem right to me, trying to make people into what they’re not.’
‘No?’
She is startled by his implication. ‘I’m not trying to make him something that he’s not!’
Larry smiles, laces his fingers together. ‘Come, come, Cassie, I suggested no such thing! Let’s forget all about it. It was only a suggestion.’ He pauses. ‘But perhaps it would be better not to mention this conversation to Graham?’ He gets up and leaves her. The sun is thick gold between the shadows of the veranda rails. She should cook something, plenty of eggs, another bloody quiche? Behaviour alterant. What an idea!
The crow appears again, cawing as it flaps past, noise like a flying baby. She goes into the kitchen, stands cupping a brown egg in her palm. Was it a reasonable idea? If there was something physically wrong with Graham, it would seem reasonable. But there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just him. The conversation has made her feel a little sick. Is she overreacting? It is kind of Larry to want to help, though. He’s a kind man. And maybe it is the future? Maybe he’s right. If only she could talk to Patsy. She shakes her head, confused, losing her perspective.
Box 25
Keemarra Roadhouse
Woolagong Station
23rd?? November
(losing track!)
Dear Patsy,
Still no letter. After over a month. Hope everything’s all right, not like you not to write. Nothing from Mum either but that’s less of a surprise. Sure you got the address right? Full address on envelope. Check again.
Working really hard, lots of cooking – well, I like that but it’s too hot really. Gardening. Compost – though someone threw meat in and I had to fish it out. Maggots, disgusting. I even painted the kitchen. G’s painting I think, don�
�t like to ask, and he helps out a bit but you know him.
Still haven’t got through to Mara. Need some female company but she’s on medication for some mental thing, not sure what but surely it’d be better to talk? Like counselling talk, rather than be on her own all the time. Will have a go at Larry but he is so protective. He’s into pharmacuteicals (or however you spell it) in a big way.
I wish
Had a strange talk with Larry today. Have to talk to someone. What do you think of this, giving someone a drug to try and change their behaviour? He says it’s the future. Would you?
Remember that thing that Dad wrote in our autograph books when we were little? Be careful what you wish for. Remember? I still miss him, don’t you? Still feel Mum shouldn’t have sent us off to school straight after he died. Oh I know, change the record! Too much time to think here, that’s the trouble, too much thinking not enough doing. I just feel kind of – lazy and detached. Not me at all. Must be the heat. It reminds me of boarding school actually. Nothing like it really but – just that feeling of being cut off from everything. What’s going on in the big wide world???
Give my favourite (only) niece lots of kisses, missing her – can she walk yet? I’m so sad to miss that.
Miss you, please, please, please write soon. Stroke Cat. Cassie xxxxxxx00000000xxxxxxx
Eighteen
Graham pauses on the veranda and stretches, breathes in, right to the bottom of his smoky lungs. It’s early. Up before Cassie for once. Good to have a sense of purpose. This must be what it’s like to go to work. Nah. He remembers the one time he did have a ‘proper’ job, a 9–5 job. Shipping office, paperclips, forms, a collar and tie! What kind of life is that: a noose round your neck every morning? He’d gone out for a sandwich one lunchtime, ripped off his tie, and never returned. Stick that where the sun don’t shine.
He hoists himself up on to the veranda rail and balances. A white bird flaps by, high and loose against the blue. Gets a sniff of freedom, almost. He jumps down and goes into the kitchen. Larry’s already there, the air full of his poxy cologne, coffee, toast. He spoons a boiled egg from a pan.
‘Ah. Good morning,’ he says. ‘Want one?’
‘No ta.’
‘I’ve poured you some coffee. Milk?’ he says.
Graham looks at the scummy jug of reconstituted milk and shakes his head.
Larry spreads his own slice of crustless toast with Vegemite, cuts it into strips, soldiers. The egg sits in a blue and white striped egg cup. With the edge of a spoon, he slices off the top. Yellow bleeds down the shell, drips on to the plate. He dips a piece of toast into the yolk, sprinkles it with salt and takes a neat bite. His eyes come close to twinkling as he chews. ‘Small pleasures, eh Graham? Small pleasures. You surely cannot beat them.’
Graham’s belly rebels against the bitter coffee, the viscous sheen of yolk on Larry’s teeth. ‘Yeah. Mara up?’
‘Once I’ve finished, I’ll take her an egg. To go to work on!’
Graham takes a deep breath. ‘Listen, man,’ he says. ‘She wants us to work in her sh – her room – but it’s too hot and nowhere near light enough. Tell you the truth I get a bit claustrophobic. Maybe you could –’
Larry does not look up from negotiations with his egg. ‘Oh no. Could not presume to interfere in decisions of such an artistic nature.’
‘But –’ Graham gives up. Impossible to tell, sometimes, whether Larry is taking the piss or if he really is a world-class prat. He gets up and fills a glass with water.
‘But?’ Larry holds the eggshell between finger and thumb and scoops out a cusp of slightly jellied white.
Graham swigs the water, sloshing it round his mouth to rinse away the sensation of coffee grounds against his teeth. ‘Nothing. But you know how hard she is to – to reason with.’
Larry blinks. ‘You’re asking me that?’
Graham cuts a slice of bread. Can’t be bothered to toast it. Decides to take tea out to Cassie. The kettle is hot enough, he makes a pot.
‘How’s our Cassie this morning?’
‘Still asleep.’
Larry nods, dabs the corners of his mouth with his napkin.
‘Sure I can’t interest you in an egg?’
‘No.’
With a spoon Larry lowers an egg for Mara into the bubbling water and turns the timer over. ‘Don’t you think this is the most ingenious invention? So simple. And really rather beautiful.’ He holds it up to the light, eyes on the trickling sand.
‘Yeah, whatever.’ Graham puts his bread, the pot and two mugs on a tray.
‘About an hour, then?’ Larry says. ‘Mara will be ready and waiting.’
Cassie is asleep until he bangs the tray down on the floor beside the bed. The room smells stale and fusty. She always wakes first. Usually. But everyone seems drowsy here – except Larry.
‘God, you’re up!’ she says, reaching for her tea. Her face is printed with rumple marks and her eyes look tiny. She yawns hugely, and Graham looks away from her fillings and the furry whiteness at the back of her tongue. ‘Maybe we’ll get some post today,’ she says. ‘I bet there’ll be piles. Gray –’ she reaches for his hand. ‘I love you, you know, as you are.’
He pulls a face. ‘How else would you?’
‘Yes. This is stupid,’ she says, ‘but it niggles me you know, that we never finished that talk. The clean-sheet talk.’ She smiles. There are crumbs of sleep in the corners of her eyes. He notices for the first time her moist pink tear ducts.
Something whooshes hotly through his veins. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘Christ’s sake! OK, last person I fucked. You really want to know? Jas.’
She stares at him blankly for a moment. A twig squeaks against the window. ‘Jas,’ she whispers, a line of white, like a drawstring, tightening across her upper lip. She clears her throat. ‘But whenever I – You always say you’re just friends.’
‘We are.’
‘That’s not what just friends do.’
He shrugs.
‘When?’
‘Why do you want to torture yourself?’
‘When.’
‘OK. That day you went to London to arrange this magical mystery tour.’ He sees her flinch. ‘Right. I’m off.’ He gets up. ‘See you later.’ But when he gets to the door he turns. Can’t leave her looking so wounded. Even if it is self-inflicted.
‘Look, that was before we said –’
She nods. Eyes down, staring at her mug of tea. ‘Yes,’ she says quietly.
‘I won’t –’ he hesitates. ‘I will, I am trying,’ he says.
‘You certainly are!’ Her eyes when they look up have a glitter to them. ‘Not that there’s much chance of anything else here. Anyway –’ she hitches her mouth into a half-smile, looks at the door. ‘See you later.’
He goes out. Feeling dismissed. And does a backflip in the dirt.
But for the electric bars across the window showing that the sun is up, it could be the middle of the night. Holding his breath for a moment against the smell, perfumed with joss sticks but still like an animal’s den, a female animal’s, he waits for his eyes to adjust. He makes out Mara, slumped on the cushions. She is naked. Down boy, he thinks, though she’s not his type, no way.
‘Ready?’
‘Yeah.’ She sounds tired or dispirited.
‘Maybe not up to it today?’
‘I am.’
‘OK, then. Let’s go and sit on the the veranda. Or my studio – nice in there.’
The stuffiness getting to him already. All this for Cassie with the sleep in her eyes, the drawstring round her mouth. Is this some kind of test? Maybe cooked up with Larry? He shakes his head at himself. Get a grip, Graham. Talk about getting paranoid!
‘It’s important we stay in here,’ Mara says.
‘But – the light –’
‘Here are the paints,’ she gestures to a low table, ‘all laid out.’
‘Yeah. What do you want, Mara?’
‘You know.’
‘But you should be painting. We could go out and –’
‘No! Her voice rises. ‘Larry says you –’
‘OK, OK.’ He lets out a long stream of breath. Could kill for a smoke now. A nice quiet smoke out in the fresh air. ‘Are they body paints?’
‘Yes, Larry got them from a theatre shop in Perth. I like Cassie’s daisy. What about a daisy? A daisy, here.’ She holds out her arm and points to the skin above the elbow.
‘Why don’t you have a tattoo?’
Mara snorts and a bubble comes from her nose; she wipes with the back of her hand, then wipes her hand on the cushion beside her. ‘Tattoos don’t come off! If I had a tattoo how would I get rid of it? Cut off my arm?’
Graham resigns himself. Soonest done, soonest over. And the sooner she’ll get fed up with this daft idea.
As well as paint, there’s water, brushes, a palate, paper towels. All very organised. Thank you, Larry. Graham lowers himself down beside Mara. He crosses his legs, takes her heavy arm in one hand and prods the skin above the elbow. ‘Here?’
Surprisingly cool flesh. He selects a fine brush. Thinking of the delicate branching bones in Cassie’s foot, the daisy on the dry skin, he starts, a pointed brush, thick white pigment. Remembers when he first saw the daisy, how he’d longed to take her foot in his hand, to kiss it. Her cool, white foot. How it had seemed perfect and unattainable – but it wasn’t. Only a few nights later he had pressed his lips against the daisy and had caught the slight ordinary whiff of her foot.
Mara wriggles as he sketches in the petals. He grips her tightly round the wrist. Can feel the blood throbbing through her veins. Has to lean close to see, and breathes in her smell: sweat and heated skin, the sebaceous smell of hair, some sweet oil – coconut? Her stomach is rounded, a deep crease at the top of each thigh, can’t see beneath the curve of her belly from this angle. Focusing on the daisy, he loses himself for seconds at a time. He holds his breath with concentration and sweat trickles down the side of his face.
He mixes grey to shadow the petals, makes a yellow centre and a branching stem. Skin is an interesting surface, the fine greasy grain of it. He could paint on Cassie’s skin, that would be different, drier skin, almost blue-white in the places never exposed to the sun. On her breasts where the veins branch he could make river deltas, he could make her pale nipples a dark and luscious red. Mara’s nipples are dark, down-pointed, the bump in the centre of each big as a berry. Imagine that between your teeth, the rubbery nub of it.
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