Indelible Ink

by Fiona McGregor

  Marie rose. ‘I won’t have dessert, thank you. I’m going to the bathroom.’

  She was blooming, a dark flower, hot with colour. She walked past the diners feeling strange and raw and defiant, and into the palatial bathroom of granite and marble. The entire wall was a panorama of the Finger Wharf and South Head. She pressed her face to the glass. She could make out the swoop of New South Head Road, the restaurants of Rose Bay, large white houses and square apartment blocks. The whole headland sparkling and gay as a party. All that gravy. All that stew.

  She washed her hands and touched up her lipstick. David was signing a credit card docket when she returned. She collected her shawl and waited for him by the lifts. He stepped in after her, pressed the button and stood against the mirrored wall. The lift began its plunge.

  Then David’s finger was running along her collar, his voice was in her ear, ‘Oh, I can’t wait to get you home and get a better look at you.’

  Marie spun and slapped him across the face. David stood back with vacant eyes, hand on his cheek. The lift bumped to the ground and Marie walked out through the foyer. Behind her, David began to laugh. It came to her then that their waiter had been the man with the moustache she had seen at Rhys and Rob’s studio. She kept walking, the sound of David’s laughter ringing in her ears.

  For three days before the auction, storms lashed Sydney. Seven-metre waves from cyclones up north pounded the coastline. Even Mosman beaches were heaving, the sand at Sirius Cove thrown up across the reserve, and people surfing in the harbour. Marie loved it. She thought she should stay near the water in her move, close as possible to this wild weather.

  Clark and Nell arrived at the house at eight o’clock. Marie was in the kitchen taking a pot of coffee off the stove. Fatima was already here, cleaning the upstairs bathroom. From the patio where he came out with his mother to drink coffee, Clark admired Fatima’s gleaming hair and full high breasts as she flung open the window above the kitchen. She sent them a brief wave then continued along the sill with her cloth. The sleeves of her starched pale pink shirt were turned up over pale pink rubber gloves. A gold chain slooped out of her cleavage and glinted in the sun.

  ‘She’s so elegant,’ said Clark, aware he was looking at Fatima for the first time without imagining fucking her. Sylvia had obliterated every other woman, even the most tenuous fantasy, from his mind.

  ‘Isn’t she,’ said Marie. ‘She brings her own gloves you know. It’s all part of the look.’

  They went into the house. All the rooms gleamed, and when Blanche and Hugh arrived and Leon rang at the same time, Clark felt cheerful. It was the fact of family assembly as though there were a celebration, the momentousness of the occasion giving him a feeling of tragic importance. It was his mother and daughter playing together for the first time since before Christmas, and everything being okay. It was also his tryst with Sylvia the night before, the giddiness of love, himself as a giver and receiver of pleasure: occupying his body more fully than at any other time. He went out to the deck to gaze at the harbour glittering in the morning sun, and his eyes prickled with tears.

  ‘Big hug, Mum,’ said Leon on the phone to his mother. ‘You must be nervous. What time is the auction?’

  ‘Eleven. I won’t be here. Clark, Nell and I are going to walk to Clifton Gardens.’

  ‘That’s a fair way.’

  ‘Not as far as Obelisk.’

  Leon laughed, embarrassed. ‘The heatwave get the garden?’

  ‘It’s completely scorched.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘They wouldn’t notice it anyway.’ Marie was enjoying the cavalier person she had woken as today. She had barely slept and felt sharp and reckless, cut off somehow, unattached to anyone or anything. Blanche came out of the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s Mopoke?’ she mouthed.

  ‘Just a minute, Leon. Upstairs I think. I’ll put you on to Blanche.’

  But she did not feel immune to the soft, warm cat in the patch of sun on her bedroom floor. She picked up Mopoke and put her on a jumper on a chair then dragged the chair into a sunny corner, knelt and buried her face in the cat’s fur, not wanting to go downstairs. Somebody entered the bedroom. She could feel them standing behind her. It was Nell. ‘Come here, darling.’

  Nell walked over and fitted herself into the crook of Marie’s arm. She stroked the cat with both hands. ‘What about Mopoke? Will she stay here?’

  ‘No, she’ll come with me.’ But Mopoke might not survive the move. Marie was shocked by this possibility, and that she hadn’t even thought of it till now.

  ‘I miss the house,’ Leon said to Blanche. ‘I’ve been dreaming about it.’

  ‘Really? What?’

  ‘Weird stuff. Like I was coming out of my bedroom — here that is — and I kind of fell through the door of my housemate’s bedroom, down into this whole other house which turned out to be ours. It was supposed to be auction day but it was total chaos. There was a party in the rumpus room. There were cupcakes with like, um, tattoo designs on them. Butterflies … It was all kind of ’80s, like an advertising party. I was trying to plant a callistemon in the living room, kind of into the Persian carpet and Dad went off at me.’ Leon laughed quietly. ‘Mum was bonking Jonesy …’

  ‘Ri-i-i-ght.’

  ‘That was a bit weird.’

  ‘What was I doing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember.’

  ‘I got your email petition. About Africa.’

  ‘Oh yeah.’

  ‘Pretty full-on thing to get on a Friday afternoon after a long week and today to look forward to, Leon.’

  ‘Well, it is full-on. They’re raping babies because they think it’ll immunise them from AIDS. It’s a very real problem.’

  Blanche didn’t think it was the time to ask him about her loan, nor could she wipe it from her mind. ‘What difference do you think my signature can make?’

  ‘So we just sit back and do nothing?’

  Blanche looked at Hugh on the couch with the Saturday papers. He emanated solid calm. He sat with his elbows on his knees, scanning the main section with a frown. He was wearing the golden mallet tiepin Blanche had given him when he got his auctioneer’s licence. He flicked his left arm forward to glance at his watch, then continued reading. She could see Clark on the deck smoking a cigarette. When did Clark start smoking again? She thought he was on a fitness campaign; he had been looking much healthier lately. She felt a bit sorry for him in that tiny flat, back at uni, living on a pittance. It seemed such a thin life. His thesis made no sense to her: she thought of Beth and her impenetrable writing on Arte Povera. Postgrad scholarships to Blanche seemed like three years’ subsistence wages to wallow in solipsism. Entire art degrees were done in theory alone now. What was that line about people who talked the most about sex being the ones who had it the least? She listened to Leon with half an ear. Why had her brothers turned out like this? So untogether in so many ways. They’d been given everything. Hugh, on the other hand, had grown up in the Shire. Meat and three veg, public school, father sold lawnmowers. Hugh’s family gave her things like pharmacy moisturiser for Christmas, which moved Blanche for the gesture; her brothers gave her nothing. Yet Blanche could hate going to Hugh’s family gatherings for the same reason she loved them: the easy-going camaraderie that masked a profound indifference about each other and the world in general. The only thing they didn’t seem indifferent about was the fact that Hugh and she still had no children. She longed for that indifference: anything but this constant striving, and constant dissatisfaction.

  ‘I know what you were doing now.’ Leon was jubilant.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You were in the garden. You’d given birth to a cat.’

  ‘Great, Leon.’

  ‘It was actually quite gorgeous. You were in a white dress. It was really kind of … tender. Y’know?’

  ‘You hate cats! And I’ve never worn a white dress in my life.’

  ‘It’s a dream, Blanche.�
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  ‘Do you want to speak to Clark? I’ll hand you to Clark.’

  ‘Didn’t you wear a white wedding dress?’

  Blanche walked out to the deck and handed the phone to Clark. ‘It’s Leon.’

  Back inside, Hugh ruffled the paper and read out loud to Blanche: ‘Mosman in a recent poll topped the list of Australia’s best-paid areas with an average wage of $93,656 for both full- and part-time workers, more than double the New South Wales average of $41,407. When non-wage income was added it was $99,609.’

  ‘Very exact figures,’ Blanche remarked. ‘But they can’t have calculated properly if the non-wage earnings are only around the six-thousand-dollar mark. Even we earn loads more than that. Although they’d be expert tax evaders around here, wouldn’t they.’

  ‘That’s cynical.’

  ‘How else d’you think the woman from James Hardie avoided paying the asbestos victims?’

  Blanche was hurting. Discussing the opening bid on the way here with Hugh, the reality had hit. Nobody could afford these prices anymore except the unbelievably rich. She was locked out. She would be forty in a few years, she was successful and hardworking, yet she still couldn’t afford to live in the area she had grown up in. Her parents had bought this house when they were so young: it was so much easier for their generation. She seethed with resentment.

  ‘It was the company, not her. You sound like your brothers, pooky. We’ll be fine today is all I’m saying. Totally fine.’

  At nine-thirty Stavros arrived, and Hugh cleared up the newspapers then went into the kitchen to confer with his colleague. Marie had locked her wardrobe and placed scarves over the contents of her drawers. Fatima was crossing the open plan as Marie reached the bottom of the stairs. Fatima smiled and went into the kitchen to get her cheque from Hugh. Stavros was spreading the registration papers across the table.

  ‘You put out the sandwich board?’ Hugh asked him.

  ‘Yep. And a couple of signs up the street.’

  ‘We have to watch the guy next door. He’s touchy. We can’t put anything outside his property.’

  ‘The tall bloke?’

  ‘Got a couple of little dogs.’

  Stav, short and neat with slicked-back hair, was glancing in every direction, his eyes alive with excitement. ‘He’s loving it! He’s at his gate asking me a million questions. He’ll probably come.’

  Marie came into the kitchen. ‘In that case it’s about time we left.’ She shook Stav’s hand and went into the laundry for an old water bottle and filled it with water from the filter.

  Blanche followed her. ‘The house looks great, Mum. You’ve done a great job.’

  ‘How do you think we’ll go?’

  ‘Good. Hugh has seven registered. He’s optimistic.’

  Marie became aware of the smell of her own perfume in the enclosed space. She had also put on lipstick and dangly earrings, all for a mere bushwalk. It was her on sale here today as well, no matter how far away she was, but she wanted to leave the house before anyone arrived. Blanche was the perfect overseer in her crystal necklace. ‘You look nice. That’s a nice necklace.’

  ‘Thanks. How long do you think you’ll be out for?’

  ‘As long as it takes. We want to walk all the way to the Navy café.’

  ‘And Mo? Where is she?’

  ‘Upstairs on the chair in my bedroom. Will you look after her?’

  ‘I’ll make sure she’s not disturbed, don’t worry.’

  ‘Pat Hammet told me a story about this house when we moved in. Burrawong, I mean, the house that was here before. It was built in 1927, a few months after the Crash. It took two years. The owner was an architect and his wife was an interior designer and he’d built entire suburbs of Melbourne.’

  ‘They were developers?’

  ‘Burrawong was built as a luxury house for them and their daughter. And all through the ’30s when the Great Depression was on, Pat said the family was off on cruises, touring around Europe, giving parties when they were home.’

  ‘Were they here long? Why did they sell?’ Blanche asked.

  ‘I don’t think they sold till after the war. Because, I think, they wanted to go back to Melbourne.’

  Blanche looked at her mother, unsure why she was telling this story. She seemed weary, aloof, calm and guarded. Her hair had arranged itself in a lucky sweep around to one side. It was a sort of beauty, Blanche realised. A soiled, private beauty as though she had woken from a long night of illicit love-making. She suddenly saw her mother’s future as an open space and fervently wished for a beneficent population to fill it. ‘It’s exciting, Mum. It’s your new life!’

  ‘They survived the Crash,’ Marie said, oblivious. ‘Unlike my grandfather. Do you think it’s because they were property developers? I don’t think I’ll survive.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’ Blanche glanced down the passage at the men in the kitchen. ‘You’ll have enough to pay your debts, buy a decent place and even make investments. It’s not the ’20s, Mum. We’re not going to have another crash. Australia’s got one of the strongest economies in the world.’

  There was a knock at the front door.

  ‘Mum,’ said Blanche, ‘I need a definite decision. Do we go below the reserve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you sure? No limit?’

  ‘No. Sell. Sell no matter what. I’m taking my mobile. Ring me when it’s over. Where’s Clark?’

  ‘In the garden with Nell. I think they’re waiting for you.’ Blanche held up her hands with fingers crossed. ‘Fingers crossed, Mum.’

  They hugged, then Marie walked down the side path and through the garden, onto the bushtrack with Clark and Nell.

  The first people through the door were a couple in their forties. A tall athletic man, probably Lebanese, and his suntanned wife with a leathery neck and chunky gold earrings. The woman registered and the man picked up the floor plans. They spoke to Hugh and Stav on the deck then went down to the garden.

  Twenty minutes later, Blanche was at Hugh’s elbow. ‘Nobody’s coming.’

  ‘Be patient, pooky.’

  She went down to the garden but the couple had disappeared. She went into the rumpus room, heard the flush of a toilet, the woman’s voice in the laundry. She went back upstairs. It was ten-fifteen and the house was still empty. She went onto the patio, buzzed the garage door up, and saw her mother’s car was deeply gouged all down one side. Jesus. Drunk driving? Hadn’t she cut back? But the gouge was rusty … God, another expense. Hugh would be writing out cheques for months with this long settlement. Blanche stayed in the garage inhaling the rough, rich, comforting smells of oil and petrol till she was calm. When she went back into the house another couple had arrived. They looked like the Mosman lawyers, the woman ghostly pale in a crisp shirt and ironed jeans. ‘They’re the ones,’ Hugh said out of the corner of his mouth. Then Rupert and Celia Henderson were in the kitchen, consulting the floor plans, wandering across to poke their heads into the study. There was a Chinese man in black trousers who nobody seemed to know. A loud woman in a floppy white hat with a tall young man who looked like her son: she was registered. Stav flitted around chatting to everybody. Blanche watched the Hendersons. She followed them up the stairs, at a discreet distance, into the master bedroom. ‘Can I show you around?’

  ‘Thank you!’ Rupert turned. ‘Blanche, isn’t it?’ ‘

  Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t this a lovely room!’ Celia said. She was standing right next to Mopoke, asleep on her chair. Blanche moved over to stand beside her. Mopoke lifted her head.

  ‘Not much of a bird-catcher these days, are we now.’ Rupert pursed his bottle-opener mouth then indicated the door to the balcony. ‘May we?’

  ‘Of course!’

  She had never seen her mother’s bedroom like this. Packed away, fakely domestic, like a serviced apartment or luxury hotel room. Not so much as a drop of water on the bathroom sink, the washers folded in diagonals, crisp new hand towel. Her own
bedroom was a white void. Blanche waited for the Hendersons with her hand lightly touching the back of Mopoke’s neck. Just as they came back into the bedroom, the cat began to purr. She saw the Hendersons to the head of the stairs then went into the hall toilet. She slid a finger into her cunt then inspected it. Not so much as a hint of discolouration, and yet she felt just about ready to burst with PMT. As she rose, a cool slick broke out on her forehead and she turned quickly to heave into the bowl.

  ‘Auction Toilet,’ Hugh had said cheerily in the car that morning. ‘Watch out for that.’

  ‘What’s Auction Toilet?’

  ‘People get nervous and take a dump. Or even throw up sometimes. On-site auctions smell.’

  Hugh looked pleased. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she drove and he went through the papers in his lap, marking things with his Lamy, alert as a hunter, the energy sparkling from him infectious, intimidating.

  All morning he had been unusually unaware of her and that was attractive too, having to strive to get his attention. Hugh was in control, he was the dominant figure today, and it was she who was weak-kneed with the stress of it all, stinking out the toilet. She could hear Hugh’s voice raised in greeting and instruction to the people in the house. ‘Folks, have you all registered? Registration papers in the kitchen, don’t leave it too late, folks.’

  A woman passed Blanche on the stairs. ‘Is there a toilet up here, do you know?’

  Blanche held out her hand. ‘I’m Blanche King. The toilet’s down the hall on the left.’

  ‘Oh, you must have grown up here! Oh, it must be hard for you.’

  ‘My mother will be happier elsewhere.’

  ‘It’s a lovely house. Lovely.’

  About fifteen people were milling around the open plan. Hugh and Stav had taken up position against the living room wall, the harbour on their right, the kitchen on their left. The faint smell of sweat hung in the air. Blanche looked at her watch. It was eleven o’clock. Her stomach expanded and contracted like a bellows. She arranged herself between agents and bidders. Outside was complete stasis, a dense white light as though the sky had been covered with greaseproof paper. Hugh spoke up.