“I guess. So we all went to his bedroom where I had to wait for another long time while Dad and he talked or fought. It was hard to tell. And then we left.”
“That was it?”
“Yeah.”
“No wonder you never told me.”
Safire heard her flop down on the blanket.
He rolled his neck, beginning a stretch routine, remembering . . .
The walls. Covered in paintings with carved gold frames and hundred-year-old grot. But their darkness didn’t hide the scenes of naked men and women, some holding cups but all in one humungous gropefest. In the loo, the taps were gold dolphins and the tub stood on lion’s feet but standing in the tub was a chrome-frame chair with a blue plastic toilet seat.
The walls of the bedroom were mangy red velvet. Its fur was sticky.
But it was the painting over the bed that Safire had dreamt about ever since that day. On a hill with odd trees like asparagus, a beautiful naked woman writhed on a cross. On her head was a garland of roses, their thorns cutting into her forehead, which streamed with blood. Her hair hung in thick dark ringlets, sprung also from under her arms and between her legs. A crowd of men reached up to her, some touching her feet. All of them looked up to her, their eyes shiny, their lips open, thick and shining with drool. You could only see the top portion of them, but enough to see that they were not all old and some were good-looking, but they were all leches.
For years he had nightmares, especially about that hair. But a week ago he had another dream about her—she was a pole dancer with red high heels. And he was in the audience.
He also didn’t tell Emrald that halfway through the visit, their great-grandfather of the imperious nose and noble head, took out his teeth. Then his mouth became a terrifying slash or hole And that his clothes were a white shirt and grey(?) pants that St. Vinnies wouldn’t accept. And his voice was rough and breathy, and he kept pressing a stained scarf embroidered with mermaids to his neck. And that Dad had said to Saffa after they left, that the reason for the scarf wasn’t that Great-grandfather was an artist or anything like that, but to cover the hole in his throat.
And he never told anyone that when Dad went downstairs to the loo just before they left, Dad’s grandfather told Saffa to come closer. And when Saffa managed to, the old man pressed a little box into his hand and told him to save it till he was grown-up and in the meantime, never show it to anyone. He never did. His pants pocket was too shallow, or the other stuff might have crowded it out. By the time he got to his room at home, he pulled out only a box of Smarties.
~*~
At the far edge of the blanket, Emrald woke and listened to Safire’s deep, measured breaths. The cloth jerked under her. Probably, Em thought, he’s doing another ab routine from Men’s Fitness. After what must have been fifty situps, he stopped.
“You asleep?”
“No.”
“I’m sorry about your violin.”
Em was sorry, too. She missed it already.
“You’ll never be able to play violin again, you know.”
Em sat up. That hadn’t occurred to her. “Why?”
“You’re too good at it. You’ll be recognised.”
He was serious. She grinned at him, not knowing if her face was a black mask. “This is the first time you haven’t called it stupid. But what about your tennis?”
“I’ve always hated it.”
That was a surprise, but then he’d been pushed into it from age three.
He stretched out and began counting pushups.
She lay on her back. They had not talked about who they’d find to be family. Who would not only want them, but be able to support them? Most important of all, who could they trust? She discounted type after type—the-more-the-merrier Christoids, friendly paedophiles, men cracking onto her as a babe. She considered hacking into some IVF registry, but dumped the idea when she remembered how so many of those ‘successful’ parents were like her mother–loving the idea of kids.
No one will want us. And we can’t trust anyone. She was lost–until gay guys!
She knew she’d have to explain it right, or Saffa would dismiss it with Poofters! But a nice old middle-age couple of say, 50, would be past their wild sex days. And besides, he could beat them up if they tried. As a stable couple at their age, they’d be smart and able to appreciate Wolf.
The idea grew on her as she thought of the couple. They’d be well off, cultured, so they’d love good music (I could switch to harp). They’d always been cruelly deprived of having a family—a family they’d always yearned for. Now they’d have the whole shebang including a dog (and all gays love dogs). She would of course be able to have them as friends. She smiled to herself as she imagined it all, knowing that the most important quality was in the bag. An old gay couple would have spent more than her lifetime keeping secrets, pretending they were someone else to the outside world.
There was only one problem. Would this beach that she could hear waves pound on, be the kind where old gay guys stroll? That could be a problem. At least it wouldn’t be Fishermans Paradise. Gay guys don’t fish.
She drifted off to sleep and within the hour, her legs as well as Safire’s were splayed anyhow over the hunting ground of countless creatures of the night.
~*~
A monster with wet lips was eating Wolf from the head down. The monster had Wolf’s shoulder in its talons. Wolf opened his mouth to yell for help but could only rasp—
“Wolf!”
Lovie’s lips tickled his ear. She’d worked her way into him till she was almost under his body. “Something’s coming to eat us.”
Not far away someone seemed to be practicing guitar, plucking one string—pobblebonk male frogs competing. That couldn’t be it.
She blubbered into his neck. “Shut up,” he said, sitting up, irritated and scared.
Something was coming. Something heavy, with a slithery tread.
Picking up Lovie as best he could, Wolf stood, trying not to make any noise.
The darkness ahead exploded in branch snapping, leaf rattling flurry. Then a long hiss dropped down to them from one of the trees ahead. He couldn’t tell which—when he saw the side of the closest tree change its profile, at about a storey high.
He lowered Lovie—she was too heavy—and pointed. “See that tree? Up there’s the big brother of my Mr Lizard.”
“Really?”
“Not only really, but you know how much Mr Lizard likes you to give him banana?”
“Oh!” she said. Her whole face transformed. Wolf loved her and hated her so much in that instant, that his breathing stopped. Why was Lovie when she was happy, Happy at a level that he could never hope to reach? Why did she make him want to kill for her? Why, when she didn’t even appreciate his love, and when she was going to grow out of being Lovie in when—a year? Two?
She took his hand—to torture me? Her disgustingly beautiful eyes looked to him with perfect momentary trust. “Do you think his big brother would like bananas?”
“He’d love them, Lovie, but not tonight. Now let’s go back to sleep.”
She surprised him by not becoming a problem, agreeing to settle down next to him on the blanket. But it was a while before he could sleep, and then it was another nightmare—Mr Lizard waiting fruitlessly.
Em woke first, scratching an itch. I smell disgusting was her first thought. Then she opened her eyes. Dawn had come and gone. She was facing Saffa, the zombie till noon. Wolf was also fast asleep, but woke at a touch. In fact, he was the one who really woke them up, as soon as he sat up.
“Where’s Lovie?” His stomach felt like it had dropped out onto the ground. That goanna. He hadn’t given it a moment’s thought, except to admire its mansize length.
No one could move. They were all too panicked. Emrald and Safire couldn’t look in each other’s eyes, let alone Wolf’s.
“Gooood lion. Lion hungry?” Lovie walked into the clearing, holding a little white and black dog. When the dog saw the
other three, it trembled against her.
“Shh,” said Lovie. “They won’t hurt you.”
~*~
The jack russell refused an orange that the rest of them shared, and lapped as much water as it could from Em’s cupped hands while Em held it. The little dog didn’t want to leave Lovie’s arms, but did allow Em to attach a makeshift leash to the red, dog-tagless collar. Em stroked the trembling body till the little dog licked her hand.
Em turned to the others, her mouth hard. “She’s a Christmas dump dog. And she’s just had puppies. Could have walked from the Fisherman’s Paradise turnoff. She’s starving and her teats are sore.”
So now they were five.
Wolf called to Lovie, but she ignored him, either playing with Lion or wanting to be cuddled by Em. That was always how it was with her and Em during the day. Then he didn’t exist. Only at night when she was afraid.
“I shouldn’t have stuck around,” he mumbled. “They’re never gonna be able to adopt parents now.” He pulled his books out of his pack. All from that library. All due a month ago, now technically stolen, since he hadn’t turned them in before the family’d moved.
“Ursula would have taken me.”
“Who’s Ursula?” Em said, sitting next to him.
“Nobody!” He filled his pack again and stood up. “Aren’t we going?”
“Going where?” Lovage looked to Wolf’s clouded face, and to Emrald.
“Let’s get a move on,” said Safire, sweeping up child and dog. “I’ll carry them.”
Lovie squirmed till Em had to catch her, and the dog jumped out of their arms.
Wolf caught the dog’s lead, but he didn’t need to. It was only waiting to rejoin Lovie.
“No,” she cried, sobbing hysterically. “Don’t!”
“She’s hungry,” said Em.
“Don’t what?” said Wolf.
“Don’t go home. Let’s play Wardrobe.”
“Why play Wardrobe?”
“We won’t get in trouble!”
“She’s not making any sense,” Safire said.
Em smoothed Lovie’s hair. “You wouldn’t either, if you were hungry and four. Let’s go!”
“No!!!!!” She fought being in Em’s arms, which made her sister hold her harder. Her screams must have been heard on the highway.
Wolf touched Lovie’s arm. “Hey Lovie, I’ve got an idea.”
Blessedly, the sound stopped.
“Let’s never go home again.”
The dog stood and peddled against Em’s leg, wanting up.
Lovie stared at Wolf. “Never go home again?”
“Never?”
“Not to Daddy?”
“Not to Daddy,” said Safire.
Out of Lovie’s line-of-sight, Em waved to Safire: Shut up!
“You mean Lion can come with us?”
“Of course,” said Wolf.
“And you promise Daddy’ll never find us?”
“How could he? He’s never gone with us before when we played Wardrobe, so how could he now, when we’re not playing?”
She considered, and it seemed to make sense to her. But then she remembered something.
“And Saffa and Em would protect us on our travels?” She reached down for the dog. “After all, Lion’s just a baby, and there might be a bad queen you leave us for.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” said Em.
“Shut up,” said Wolf. “Saffa and Em would protect us, Lovie, and look how much Lion already loves you.”
He nodded to Saffa who held out his hands to Lovie with I’ll take it from here assurance.
Wolf knelt and rummaged in his pack, hiding his tears. He felt stabbed in the heart.
“I could find us another daddy,” Lovage said to Safire. “A nice old man in a bathrobe.”
“Brilliant,” he mumbled. “A flasher.” But he was shaking his head and grinning at Em, who hadn’t heard.
She was watching Wolf. Sometimes! thought Em, I wonder if Lovie even has a heart.
NX 224798
CARRETT,
Selwyn Lovelace Wilde “Leary”
Passed away at the Sisters of Mercy Nursing Home, Sunday, January 9, 2012.
Aged 98 years young
Gone to God
Got new feet
Dearly beloved husband of the late Rose. Cherished father of Sister Mary Elizabeth, Nigel (dec’d), Maurine (dec’d), Ronald (dec’d), Cyril (dec’d), and of Silvia (nee Carrett) Pennycuik (dec’d). Beloved father-in law of Ethel (dec’d), Maria, and Cyril (dec’d). Loved grandfather and grandfather-in-law of Joan Carrett-Wong and John Wong, and Alexander Carr (ne Carrett) and Simone Dodd. Loved great-grandfather of Jack and Julie, and of Safire, Emrald, Wolf and Lovage.
A Mass Service for SELWYN will be held at the Sisters of Mercy Nursing Home Chapel, 2158 Pacific Highway, Tempe, on Thursday (January 12, 2012) at 11 a.m. On conclusion of the prayers following the Mass, the funeral cortege will proceed to Kurringah Memorial Gardens Crematorium.
Sydney Love & Care Funerals
Sans Souci All Suburbs
9538 9087 0413 879 733
The White-Face at Dawn
By Michael Kelly
SPIDER WOMAN
By An Inhabitant of Dim Carcosa
When twin suns descend, beyond Lake Hali
And black stars rise, to illuminate a dark alley
Night creatures scurry and scuttle along damp brick
And appears a pale spider-woman, it is no trick.
Beneath strange moons, she skitters and crawls
Her face pure marble, a frozen caul
To fall under her dark charms, you’d be remiss
Her benediction is a deadly kiss
A scarlet dawn breaches the thick gloom of the apartment. Slender pink fingers of thin light rouse me from another restless night, plagued by fever-dreams of dear Genevieve, and dreams of the curious tatter-king in yellow robes, a grey and gaunt being that clutches a sceptre of black onyx and wears a crown of tarnished jewels upon his thorny head. His is a face of dark cunning and sharp angles. Grave-worm tongue. It was he, I’m sure, who came for Genevieve.
A noise, as well, gave me fits through the night. A sound like thick clomping, as if the tenant upstairs had traversed their apartment in wooden clogs. Clomp! ... clomp! ... clomp!
I am on the small divan in the main room. The bedroom door is closed — the bedroom I had shared with sweet Genevieve and her eyes likes sunshine, skin like alabaster, lips like the ripest fruit. Her voice, her song, was like a choir of angels. All gone, now. Gone forever. Her outer beauty hid an inner weakness, a faulty heart. And now it is I who is stricken with the broken heart. Oh, Genevieve, my lost love. I have not had the courage to go back to the bedroom, our bed, our former life.
Rising up, blinking, the night’s unease slowly dissipates, leaving with it a taste of wormwood. I move to the window, throw it open to the rosy dawn and peer out into the cobbled square struggling to wake, like all the denizens of the starving city.
In the square, vendors uncover burlap stalls, their wares made ready. The grand marble fountain sits idle. Old women, veiled in black, waddle across the stonework like fat pigeons. The air smells of turpentine. A faint yellow haze hangs in the brightening sky.
Presently, movement in the square catches my eye. I lean out; peer across to the terraced balconies on the other side of the square. Shadows and shadows, dark upon dark. The dual fledgling suns will not reach these quarters until late afternoon. It is why I chose the westerly side — my best work is done in soft morning light.
Again there is furtive movement from the shadows opposite. Then I see it, and draw back alarmed; a white-white face, bright as bleached parchment and smooth as a mask of exquisite marble, wan and pallid, a frozen stoicism.
A white-face at dawn.
The visage unnerves me; blank and staring, an impassive and patient perfection, its simple lack of expression somehow conveying a terrible beauty. I am reminded of the work of young Bor
is Yvain, and I shudder and step back into the shadows of my room, away from that judging face.
I shake my head, trying to release the fog of night. Ah, Boris, I think. There is beauty in stone, but always the cracks appear. Boris himself cracked at the tender age of twenty-three, while in Paris. Like a Roman candle he flared brightly but briefly. Though American, I recall now that Boris Yvain must have been influenced by noted sculptor Vance, that dark artist who conjured stone from life. Boris experimented with chemistry, brewing a strange scientific concoction that when put into contact with a living thing, say, perhaps, a wild lily, a reaction occurred, as if a ray of sunshine, a spark of life, was pulled from the flower and coalesced around it, turning it to perfect stone marble. He felt his discovery would contaminate the world of art, and perhaps it would have, but years before, Vance had already corrupted Carcosa. Vance had no qualms about using his “gift” for darker purposes.
Banishing Boris and the white-face from my thoughts, I move into the kitchenette and make a meager breakfast of coffee, and toast smothered in marmalade. Work beckons, so I bring the meal into the drawing room and sit at my desk. Gazing at the closed bedroom door I see . . . something in the gap between the floor and the door edge, movement, a black fog, stirring. But then I blink and see nothing but a wedge of darkness seeping under the door. I shake my head and look back at my desk.
From the desk drawer I retrieve my tools — parchment, ink, and quills — and place them at the ready. I will create a masterpiece, something more magnificent even than The King in Yellow, that pellucid and unforgettable creation that enervates and terrifies me so. Mine will be the book that they snatch from the stalls and read at night by flickering lamplight, quaking, stricken with terror, yet unable to look away from the poisonous words. They will sing my praises and damn me. How, I wonder, has that creation remained part of the public conscience for so long? And yet ... yet, even know I am tempted to retrieve the volume and revisit the black world of the Yellow King and the Pallid Mask. Try though I might, I cannot hope to ever recreate such an incongruous work. The thought daunts me, fills me with a jealous anger.
Gazing up, my eyes drift to the corner of the room. The manikin, a remnant of my former life, stares impassively, judging. I smile, recalling many wonderful times when I would finish a garment on the manikin and then fit it to Genevieve; the dressing, then the undressing. Then, inevitably, to the bedroom where we would luxuriate in the silks, the satins, and our skin. Perhaps, I think, I should be rid of the old thing. It is but another arrow in my heart.
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