Indelible Ink

by Fiona McGregor

  ‘What do you really think of the Ned Kelly painting?’ Marie asked him.

  ‘Honestly? They’re terrific paintings, even the third series, which is what Jonesy has although he’s loath to admit it.’ David steepled his hands. ‘But in my humble opinion, he paid too much. He’d be better off collecting emerging artists, but Jonesy has a very conservative eye, bless his soul. He’s staunchly old school.’

  ‘They both are. They didn’t use to be.’

  ‘Jonesy and I argue all the time. We’re on opposite sides of the fence politically. He’s a climate-change sceptic, and he votes accordingly. I told him, “If polar bears are rendered extinct by this fiasco, I’m holding you personally responsible.”’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He laughed.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘He’s a good bloke. Warm-hearted, hospitable. Kindness’ — David looked Marie in the eye — ‘I’ve come to realise in my old age how important this simple quality is. You’ve known them a long time, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, we go way back.’

  ‘Do you want dessert?’ David put on his glasses and peered down at the menu.

  Marie ordered the citrus crème caramel with chocolate puff pastry. An icy jet of air-conditioning streamed directly against the back of her neck, and she pulled her shawl tighter.

  ‘I met the little grub,’ David said. ‘Louise brought her over on New Year’s Day.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘Wrinkly.’ David screwed up his face. ‘She looks like Jonesy!’

  ‘Isn’t it fabulous being a grandparent? I miss my Nell.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘My son doesn’t have a very good custody arrangement.’

  ‘Oh dear. They’re a bit hard on us men in that respect. Here. Taste some of my fig soufflé.’

  ‘... Divine.’

  ‘But that’s going to change.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Custody. Everything. When women become equal. Not long now.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘You should see my Rosie. She’s seven and the best in the soccer team. The boys are terrified of her. You should see her go! Fastest on the field, hardest kicker, tough as nails. She wants to play for Australia and she’s furious that she’ll soon be playing with girls only.’

  ‘That’s a nice idea,’ said Marie. ‘Equality.’

  As they came out of the restaurant, David said, ‘I don’t think Susan approves of us going out together. When I asked her for your number she said, “David I wasn’t trying to set you up!”’

  ‘She said that to me as well.’

  ‘Are we going to tell her?’

  ‘Tell her what? That you’ve been consulting me about planting?’

  They stood on Queen Street looking at one another shyly.

  ‘I have to get a taxi,’ Marie said. ‘I’m over the limit. Can I get one here?’

  ‘Of course. But what about your car? The parking inspectors will begin their rounds at nine a.m. sharp. They’re ruthless around here, you know, they’ll book you for looking in a shop window. Terrible for business; we’ve actually mounted protests with the council.’ David checked the street, clearing his throat. ‘You’re going to have to come all the way back into town at eight-thirty in the morning to avoid getting booked. You’ll have to buy over this side, won’t you. You can stay at my place tonight, I have a spare room. I’m five minutes away in Darling Point.’

  ‘Okay then,’ said Marie without hesitation. ‘Let’s walk.’

  Over the hill where the shops abated and streetlights were obscured by large old fig trees, the road grew dark. It’s my first real date in about forty years, Marie thought. And nothing has changed. We’re like teenagers, eager, naughty. She felt a prickle of renewal, the air heavy with low cloud, the scent of deadly nightshade filling the hot darkness. A splodge of moisture landed on her shoulder and she twisted, thinking it was bats in the fig tree but her shoulder was unmarked and David caught her eye, then hand, and held it with warm insistence as they walked down the hill to Edgecliff. She loosened her shawl and when they came out from beneath the figs felt another drop. A faint rumble passed over them. ‘I think your Raindance worked, David.’

  The rain began to fall more steadily and they hailed a taxi in front of the German embassy. Anxiety about what he would make of her tattoos lurked in Marie’s mind, though she wouldn’t allow herself to think that anything more than a cup of tea would pass between them, but he reached for her hand again in the taxi and when she looked over he was smiling out the window at the lights of Rushcutters Bay streaming past. He looked so happy. She smiled too. She leant forward as the taxi pulled up, elbowing her way past David to pay the driver.

  ‘I insist. You paid for dinner, I’m getting the cab.’

  ‘No, no!’

  ‘Equality, David,’ Marie said firmly.

  He chuckled.

  She felt him steal looks at her as they walked down the steps to his Darling Point townhouse, and expectation grew so heavy that she couldn’t speak, could barely hold her head up, could only wait dry-mouthed while David got out his keys. He kissed her just inside the door and she drank him in. How long was it since the touch of a man — at least two years, because Ross had been sleeping in the spare room by the end. Even then it was a bored, contemptuous, over-familiar husband, not this cocktail of new taste and smell, this never-before-felt, angular body. They passed through a room full of exotic figurines and bark paintings. Polynesian-looking cloths were draped over the couch. There was something optimistic about being in the house of a man open to other cultures.

  ‘These are beautiful.’ Marie touched one of the cloths.

  ‘Good for calling cards. A dime a dozen in Tonga. Shall we go to my bedroom?’

  He indicated a chair on which she could place her clothes, then went into the ensuite.

  She watched him from between the sheets as he went naked and unself-conscious from the wardrobe into the bathroom. He swallowed pills at the sink then climbed in beside her. She pushed against him for the warmth of skin the length of her body, the comforting swell of genitals against her mound. He rested his head on the pillow and she opened her eyes to see him smiling at her. He kissed her neck, her breasts, propped himself on his elbows, his mouth following his hand down.

  ‘Goodness, you shave down there? I find that so erotic,’ he whispered. He moved down her body then tensed. ‘What’s that?’

  She couldn’t see his face, just the shape of his head between her legs. He moved to let the diffuse street light fall through the window across her belly. His voice came out confused and wounded. ‘Is it real?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My god. Can I ask why?’

  He came back up to lie beside her. Fighting off a feeling of dread, Marie turned on her side in order to see his face. She remembered the moment of his head between her legs. Her memory could wash a facial expression across that silhouette; it could imagine anything.

  ‘I wanted it. That’s all.’

  The silence between them expanded, then into it trickled the sounds of the world — a rustling of Moreton Bay figs from New Beach Road, the swish of car tyres. A multitude of impulses charged through Marie. To leave. To slap or to reassure him. Then there was the impulse to howl with frustation.

  ‘I’m sorry, Marie. I have trouble understanding why people do these things to themselves.’

  ‘I love my tattoos.’

  ‘You’ve got more?’

  ‘Yes, four.’

  Marie felt like a blemish on these tasteful furnishings. The mushroom walls, scrolls of Chinese calligraphy, Egyptian cotton sheets. The long wooden body beside her, legs crossed at the ankles. She felt humiliated, and in the slipstream of this humiliation began to grow a brittle defiance.

  David’s voice came, thin and small. ‘Can I see them?’

  Marie didn’t really want David to see the tattoos now his unease was so evident. She didn’t wan
t to be judged or feared, but she had offered him her body and the tattoos were a part of that, so she didn’t feel able or even willing to take them away. David stared, reaching out to touch. As he moved, the sheet fell away. He tried to hide his erection.

  ‘Well,’ Marie quipped, ‘they can’t be that bad,’ thinking what a nice dick he had, angry with him now, angry with herself for thinking yet another compliment, for noticing this crucial factor and being unable to resist it.

  ‘It’s very ... um, beautifully drawn,’ he said.

  He leant back against the bedhead and she could feel the heat of his skin, the contraction of lungs and trickle of digestive juice along its ten-metre labyrinth to the bowel. The humble, diligent workings of his body, which continued in spite of everything, softened her, even filled her with a kind of awe. They also riled her with their imperviousness. What’s in it for me? she thought, feeling robbed. The rustle outside grew louder. ‘Rain,’ she said.

  Then David rolled onto his side and pressed his body to hers, cock twitching against the tender skin of her groin. Desire stabbed her. Viagra, she suddenly thought. Or was it just her? Who cares? She cupped her hand around his balls then bent to take him in her mouth. David groaned, running his fingers down her flanks, ‘Such soft skin.’

  She wiped herself with spitty fingers and slung a leg over his hips and drew him inside. From above, half shadowed, his face looked sad and wanting, and a feeling of compassion for both of them washed through her. She placed his hands on her breasts, closed her eyes and moved faster. She knew if she leant forward how quickly she could come. The rain was growing louder, an all-enveloping hiss, drowning them out. Marie reached behind to push him in deeper then felt a rush begin. ‘Slowly. Slowly.’

  He kept going for a while with her sated and relaxed, still on him. ‘I’m sorry, I couldn’t wait ... oh, it’s a bit uncomfortable now, David.’

  ‘That’s fine, he’s fine!’ David said, as though his dick was a person. ‘He’s had a very nice time.’

  Later, falling asleep, Marie became aware of frenetic movement. She realised that David was masturbating. He finished quickly and began to snore. She turned on her side and dozed with her back to him. Later again, she woke properly and lay there watching dawn percolate the sky. The Chinese calligraphy began to clarify. From outside, the cheep-cheep of a bird. Marie grew more alert with every passing second. It occurred to her that life was nothing but a series of fumbling endeavours, one after another, until you died.

  She went for a swim when she got home. Eight a.m., nobody around, birds quiet in the sullen heat. Across the harbour lay the tall buildings of the city, Renzo Piano’s acute angle dominant. The reserve was a dry yellow, the sky and sea a dirty grey, and all the yachts in the cove were still. The first bite of water around her ankles made Marie cry out. She stopped to adjust to the temperature, then submerged fully and rose stroking towards the harbour.

  Was the studio her opium den? A place of arcane, ambivalent pleasure, the drug administered through modern stainless steel? More prosaically, it had begun to feel like another home, containing another language and family. She loved the domesticity of the old terrace, the mysterious top storey keeping it aloof, the tattooed ladies on the walls of the front room. Often as she paid, she could hear kitchen sounds beyond reception, or encountered friendly traffic, like Rob, Rhys’s partner, a short dark man with a black beard of Rabbinical length.

  ‘I wanna get a photo of the flames before we begin today,’ Rhys said. ‘You okay if Rob takes it? He’s got a cracker camera.’

  ‘I’d love one.’

  Rhys lifted her chin and yelled behind her. ‘Rob!’

  Rob appeared, a chain clinking around the hip of his baggy, calf-length shorts. ‘G’day Marie!’

  ‘Hi Rob.’

  ‘Gotcha camera, darl? We forgot to photograph the flames — you didn’t see them, did you?’

  Rob went and fetched a large Nikon. ‘Can you stand next to that window, Marie?’

  Marie lifted her shirt and lowered her trousers. Rob pressed a button on the camera and the snout pushed towards her and opened its eye. ‘Great job. Looks fantastic!’

  The bell rang and two people walked in. Marie recognised the shop assistant and the doll-like woman she had met in the other tattoo parlour. His red-fanged goatee had been shaved off, the metal was gone from his earlobes. It was thirty-eight degrees outside, the hottest January on record, but the girl’s shirtsleeves were sharp as blades, her lipstick and hair perfect. ‘Christ, it’s hot,’ she said.

  Rob did the introductions. ‘Stew, Mel, Marie.’

  ‘What are you getting done today, Stew?’ said Rhys.

  ‘The Pud.’

  ‘Last session,’ said Rob. ‘Touch-ups ’n’ stuff.’

  ‘Well, hallo,’ Mel said to Marie, examining her flat black shoes and plain t-shirt. Marie felt very Mosman and very sweaty, and cringed from Mel’s stare. ‘So you found it. Good for you.’

  ‘Yes. Thanks for the tip.’

  ‘The boss know you’re sleeping with the enemy?’ Rhys laughed at Stew. ‘Stew’s an animator,’ she explained to Marie.

  ‘I’ve left the parlour!’ Stew thrust his head forward in delight. ‘Got a job at Fox.’

  ‘Gone over to the dark side, eh?’ said Rob. ‘They make you take your tunnels out?’

  ‘Murdoch or bikies, much of a muchness.’ Stew shrugged. ‘I can stretch ’em up again.’

  ‘They’re like little arseholes when they’re shrinking,’ Mel remarked, touching the loose rings of flesh that his empty earlobes had become. ‘Little ear arseholes. Quite cute really.’

  Stew had a tattoo of Felix the Cat on his left forearm and the Roadrunner on his right, delirious with another death. Captain Haddock fumed on a deltoid. Stew himself was like a cartoon character, or a sideshow puppet whose head was on a long stick inserted into the body cavity, bouncing when he laughed as though someone had depressed it. She wished Mel hadn’t said that about his earlobes. She kept thinking of things poking through the puckered holes. She tried not to look at them.

  ‘What are you getting done?’ Mel asked her.

  ‘A moth, on my back.’

  ‘Oh.’ Mel was nonplussed.

  Marie felt slightly offended. ‘It’s colourful, like a butterfly, it’s this big. It’s called a Splendid Ghost Moth.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Mel,’ said Rhys, ‘Rob’s gonna show you the ropes cos I’ve gotta pick up Travis from school, so I want to get started on Marie. Okay, Rob?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Did you mean the Magic Pudding?’ Marie said to Stew.

  Stew lifted his shirt.

  ‘Oh,’ Marie exclaimed, ‘I love the Pud!’

  ‘Isn’t it great.’ Mel gave his belly a little stroke. ‘It is so good.’

  The Pudding’s shading was still fresh, enhancing his livid countenance. He took up a large space, his currant nose Stew’s navel, spindly legs disappearing into the lawn of re-growth below. He had a fork stuck in his head that tapered off around Stew’s solar plexus. Stew and Rob shot one another a look then, to the surprise of the three women, broke into song:

  Eat away, chew away, munch and bolt and guzzle,

  Never leave the table till you’re full up to the muzzle!

  The Pudding’s furious face twitched as Stew sang.

  ‘Rightio.’ Rhys laughed. ‘Tatt looks great. I’m going upstairs.’

  ‘I’m trying to understand,’ said Mel, ‘this fixation with a pudding. I’m a wog,’ she explained to Marie.

  ‘It’s not common,’ Rob admitted. ‘You don’t have to be Anglo. I’m not.’

  ‘It’s an acquired taste,’ said Stew. ‘You’re a Pud fan too, Marie?’

  ‘I love him, I’ve still got my original edition. My eldest son played him in a school play. He insisted on the forked version, just like you.’

  ‘Did you make the costume?’ Stew said excitedly.

  ‘I couldn’t get the fork to stay upright
. I couldn’t persuade Clark to wear a bowl.’

  ‘Foam. And you use a plastic one and paint it silver.’

  ‘I’ll have to remember that. Clark was so cross with me.’

  ‘Clark,’ said Mel. ‘That’s a nice name.’

  ‘After Gable. We loved old movies.’

  ‘Little boys,’ said Rob. ‘They’re so vain. Travis takes like fifteen minutes to fix his Superman cape in the mirror. And that’s without the facial expressions.’

  Marie guessed Travis to be Rhys and Rob’s son.

  ‘How many children do you have, Marie?’ Stew asked.

  ‘Three. Clark my eldest is thirty-nine.’

  ‘Same age as Rhys,’ said Rob.

  ‘My god, I would have taken her for thirty.’

  ‘She’s got that beautiful Slavic skin,’ said Mel.

  ‘And, um, do you have any grandchildren?’ Stew asked.

  ‘Nell.’ Marie smiled. ‘Clark’s four-year-old.’

  ‘Gosh, you look good for a grandmother,’ said Mel.

  ‘You’ll have to introduce Nell to Travis,’ said Rob. ‘Travis would love that.’

  They stood there looking at Marie expectantly. Marie felt overwhelmed by their friendliness. ‘I’d better go up.’

  Clark had been about nine in the play of The Magic Pudding. Marie had dressed him in an old pair of Ross’s shorts. The huge brown shorts, stuffed with foam, waistband gathered around the boy’s chest, created a very pudding-like effect. She remembered her pride when Clark stormed on and roared the Pudding’s polemic to the audience, the fork immediately flopping horizontal. The sight of his vulnerable, skinny legs made her ache with tender protection. Ross bellowed with laughter, pinching the bridge of his nose. Marie began to laugh as well, leaning up against Ross, the vibration of their laughter mingling in her bones. ‘He’s a right little Hitler, isn’t he?’ Ross said, laughing again.

  Clark never lost his enthusiasm for the Magic Pudding. Fifteen years later, in his Honours thesis, he wrote about the character as avatar of colonial greed, prescient of end-stage capitalism. Marie was impressed by the fifteen-thousand-word document. To see her son’s twenty-four-year-old mind work with ideas was to watch a bird in flight whose wings till now had been clipped. He didn’t express himself like this in the family home — passionate, eccentric, overexcited, mildly pretentious — he assumed instead a surly world-weariness, originally as protection against a father who would have ridiculed such a thesis, but then it became a habitual attitude. With all of them, possibly the whole world, Clark had become bitter and defensive. Marie worried about her role in this, she worried she didn’t like him, she struggled to give him her approval. She found him so hard to talk to now. Hopefully the PhD would make him happier. And as she left the room containing three people the same age as her children, she remembered Christmas Day and how much she wanted Clark’s approval as well. Paradoxically, the longer Clark lived a non-career-driven life, the more curmudgeonly he became, as though he were anticipating the judgement of the world and pre-empting it by bringing it on himself, on everybody. Marie felt overwhelmed by how easy it was to talk to Stew, Rob and Mel. She felt that if she didn’t leave the room immediately she would want to stay there for the rest of her life.