Indelible Ink

by Fiona McGregor

  ‘Mr Lawyer or Computer Whatever has just gone home to one of Tilly Devine’s old brothels. If only he knew. I think of her whenever I drink in here, screeching at her girls. All the sly-grog crims drank in here. You wouldn’t know it now. It’s so nice and clean.’

  ‘Now there’s an interesting chapter that I could certainly help you with: prostitution as crime, or not. Some of these houses are still brothels.’ Sylvia pointed to a terrace. ‘I worked my way through uni in that one for two years. It was called Sweethearts.’ She gave the name a flirtatious spur. ‘Then I moved to A Touch of Class. We all called it Touch Your Arse.’ She laughed. ‘And Sweethearts of course, became, Cheaptarts.’

  Clark sat shocked and silent beside her. A button had been pressed, a wall gone up; beyond it Sylvia was on her back, spreading her legs for the masses. The image filled him with lust and anger. A hot gritty wind rushed into the pub as a group entered the Palmer Street door.

  Sylvia was rubbing his thigh. ‘Come on, Clark, I thought you’d be fine with it. You talk about your Tillys with such affection.’

  ‘I am fine! I am!’

  ‘Can I get us another beer?’

  ‘That’d be great.’

  When Clark spoke of his own past, he wasn’t calm like Sylvia. He flashed over certain periods with an unresolved mixture of shame and accusation. He came away from their trysts intoxicated by all he’d learnt and all that remained to be disclosed, but suddenly the fact that she’d lived forty years without him filled him with despair. He would remain excluded from her past forever. He thought with bitterness how hard it was for them to find a time and place to make love, while all those others had just walked in off the street and had her.

  Once he had gone to a strip show in the Cross. On a drunken spree with schoolmates after the last HSC exam, he had followed a flashy spruiker off Darlinghurst Road. He remembered the stairs, the smell of cheap cleaning product, the pink-lit stage and scrawny girls, one of them older than the rest. She was the one he fixated on, her sagging breasts strangely arousing. Desire and disgust tangoed aggressively along his arteries. Then an elbow in his ribs and the boy next to him was yelling at the stripper, ‘Hey, Mum, Clark hasn’t done his homework.’ Clark joined in and they were thrown out for heckling. The stripper would have been younger than he was now. Sylvia returned with two beers. Clark drank his deeply, cringing at his snide, superior adolescent self.

  Sylvia took his hand. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘I’m worried about my mother.’

  ‘I thought you said the house sold. Won’t she get her fresh start now?’

  ‘It’s not that. She’s been having tests. Something’s wrong.’

  ‘You worry too much, sweetheart.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘Cheaptart.’ She nuzzled him.

  They said goodbye in their usual spot by the building site, hugging against the cyclone fence.

  ‘What are you doing to me?’ Sylvia pressed her face into his neck. ‘I want you so much.’

  Clark’s eyes stung. ‘I need you.’

  They called each other sweetheart all the time after that. Or, occasionally, cheaptart. They texted each other every day. What are you up to sweetheart? x. Sitting in the uni café quietly dying at the thought of my supervisor ... & yr hands down my pants. xo. Are you digging in those archives sweetheart? Wish you were digging in me. x. Sweetheart, I miss u. xo. Cheaptart where r u, haven’t heard from u in HRS. R u ok? xox. Terrible news sweetheart. My mother has cancer. Call me. xoxo

  WATER

  MARIE CARRIED HER SHOPPING down the path and left it by the front door. Six p.m. Already dusk. In one day, it seemed, the sun had swung further away from the earth. Cockatoos were making a racket down in the reserve. She uncoiled the hose and began to water the bed where Iceland poppies were waiting to sprout. The pointlessness of it mocked her. Why had she planted these seeds when she knew the house was going to be sold? Why had she clung to the idea of the garden outliving her? But now her stupidity might pay off, in a way she had never imagined. Like rounding the corner of an unknown road and suddenly seeing cliffs drop before you. Sometimes you were going too fast to stop. And here she was, watering the garden anyway. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Inside the house, she lit a candle on the coffee table. She picked up the phone to ring Clark but, feeling mute and disinclined to duty, put it back into its cradle. Six months, it was ridiculous. Two more months here, then where? And the oncologist delivering the news like a morning paper. It seemed too shoddy a story to pass on to anyone. Marie sat in the living room listening to the sounds of the house, sensing the bodies and food and conversation that had passed through it. She felt flattened and transparent, a woman of dusty air projected onto the couch.

  Her mother had lived for decades after her hysterectomy, eventually dying of a heart attack. Two years later, her father had died in his sleep of a brain aneurysm. Marie wondered now about her mother’s final hour, whether or not she knew she was dying. A moment of terror as she realised the pain in her chest was fatal, then the eternal dark. Unless in fact she had wanted to die. She had her God. Not for her, the eternal dark.

  Marie didn’t want to talk to anyone for fear they would blame her. She hadn’t looked after herself, she had drunk too much and eaten badly, she had held sadness and anger in her stomach all these years until they turned against her. She hadn’t gone to the doctor early enough, she had ignored her symptoms. She only had herself to blame.

  Nothing had changed, people were still the same. Every sickness was a curse, every dying a punishment. And every death a murder, or suicide.

  The garden at night was a cool, deep space filled with the sounds of crickets and one late willy-wagtail. Marie stepped across the lawn, lifted her nightie and squatted beneath the lemon tree. The moon slid from its veil, flooding her to the marrow, and everything around her lit up like a stage. She could see the crinkled furls of hibiscus, and high up in the angophora the lit cigarettes of a possum’s eyes. And so it might happen as she had originally wanted. The garden might outlive her.

  Leon didn’t know what to pack because he didn’t know how long he would be gone. His housemate’s girlfriend agreed to sublet his room for a while, so Leon pushed his clothes up one end of the wardrobe, ran the vacuum cleaner over the floor, and boxed some items out of the way. He didn’t know where his mother was with everything; she sounded exactly the same on the phone. They had talked about the garden, him automatically suggesting that he bring some cuttings, her automatically agreeing. He would realise the folly of this by the time he was collecting them but continued for the sake of palliation. His mother had the same voice, the same advice. Drive safely, Leon. He had driven just over the limit all the way down the Gold Coast then the sky closed in and the fender in front approached as bushfires near Grafton engulfed them. He wound up his window and slowed to a crawl. The acrid smell of burning stole through every opening in the vehicle. He reached back to touch the damp newspaper around the cuttings and found it rapidly drying. And what would happen when the two-month settlement period was over? Where would his mother go? The crack across his right boot dug into Leon’s foot as he worked the pedals. And how the fuck would he make money down in Sydney? Well, the house had been sold, and he would be helping his mother. So she could buy him a new pair of boots. Those Timbalands he’d had his eye on ...

  Blanche was sick too. ‘Vomiting a lot,’ she’d said on the phone. ‘I don’t know if it’s a bug or some twisted psychosomatic empathy thing.’ When Leon asked her how work was going, she told him she had lost a big account, her voice uncharacteristically strained with tears, enabling Leon to become even cooler, as though his feelings were drained into the dam of his sister’s grief. He let her run the conversation, dabbing it with the occasional murmur, like a lion absently patting a cub.

  What he felt deep down was a mulish resistance, everything charged by high alert. He was dreading the thought of his mother incapacitated. A cold alone could provoke imp
atience in Leon; the reverence and inertia of serious illness would be intolerable. He felt immensely irritated at having to leave Brisbane just when the business had got to its feet and the work season begun.

  And yet he chose this. More than anything he felt relief at being taken from the humdrum of normal life into a drama where he would play a main part. His mother had told him not to rush down and Leon had interpreted this as a plea for company. After her phone call, he paced around the house lifting things and replacing them, forgetting his movements like a goldfish after one lap. He smelt burning food for half an hour before realising it was his own dinner. He could have stayed in Brisbane a few more weeks, finished the job he was doing and waited for the bushfires to burn out, but instead he had left five days after the news. For an hour around Kempsey he was trapped behind a semi-trailer, the parched forest coughing dust against his windscreen, a bloody sunset seeping into the land. He drove into the night, wide awake with excitement.

  Yet here she was as though nothing had happened, in the garden in her old sunhat and gardening shirt when Leon arrived early the next morning. He walked down the side path and found her mixing up Seasol by the tap. He was astonished by how wiry and energetic she seemed. Her body felt so firm when she embraced him.

  ‘The garden looks fabulous.’

  ‘It was at its worst on auction day, actually. It’s recovering now.’ She held Leon at arm’s length and examined him. ‘Look at this beard. You smell of bushfire.’

  ‘I need to have a shower.’ He reached for the bucket. ‘Can I do that for you?’

  ‘No, no. I know where I’m up to.’ She looked at him again. ‘I like that beard.’

  Leon wandered around while she worked. ‘You don’t really need to be doing this, do you?’

  ‘Not officially. But my babies are hungry, so as long as I’m here, I may as well feed them.’ She pointed out changes. ‘I put a lilly pilly in place of the banksia. What do you think?’

  ‘It seems happy.’

  Looking up at the house, pain bore down upon him, and Leon rued not having been here for the sale. It had taken his mother’s illness to wake him up. He had sworn after his two trips to Sydney at the end of last year that he wouldn’t come back except in the case of emergency; he hadn’t regarded the loss of the house as an emergency, and he couldn’t believe that now. It made him glad to be here. The house stood above facing the morning sun, oblivious to the churn of his emotions. Marie saw his expression. ‘Yes, it’s so sad.’

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here now.’

  ‘You didn’t need to be. Clark and I weren’t.’

  ‘I mean here in general. In Sydney. I might not have seen any of this again.’

  Marie stopped by the door just before they went inside, and looked down at the harbour. ‘It’s so beautiful, isn’t it. You must miss it. I’m sure going to.’

  When she removed her hat and long sleeves, Leon noticed deep grooves in her forehead and alongside her mouth, the glitter of fatigue in her eyes. He was astounded by the brilliance of the vines coursing down her arms, and how comfortably she wore them. He couldn’t help staring.

  ‘Oh, look. You haven’t seen the moth.’ She reached over her shoulder and pulled back the cloth of her t-shirt. The moth hung before him, hypnotic, disturbing, cousin to his gift that was now displayed over the door to the kitchen. Even partly obscured by clothes, it seemed big as a kite, the wing shimmering silkily. He wanted to touch the luxurious green, every line careful as a Rousseau brushstroke, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. His initial joy at seeing his mother so light-hearted and capable was giving way to disconcertment.

  ‘I’m reverting, Leon. I’ve decided my mother was right: if you can’t say anything nice, then don’t say anything at all.’

  ‘They’re, um, the colours are amazing.’

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate the moth for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Clearly he had been privileged by this viewing. It sat heavily in his lap like an over-extravagant present, mocking the sympathy he’d been accumulating since news of her illness. She didn’t seem to need him except as an audience. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’m a bit overwhelmed, that’s all. I brought you a bottle of wine. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘It’s eight o’clock in the morning, Leon!’

  ‘I’ve been driving all night and I’m arse around with the time.’

  Leon felt queasy. He hadn’t eaten. He went out to the ute to fetch his bags, took them upstairs and had a shower. His mother was lying on the couch when he came back down, asleep it seemed. He went into the kitchen to make coffee and toast, and by the time he brought them out to the deck, Marie had roused and was sitting at the table, brushing the cat on her lap.

  ‘So what are the doctors saying? When do you start chemotherapy?’

  ‘They don’t know if I’ll have it yet.’

  ‘Why not? Don’t they need to act fast?’

  ‘The decision will be mine. I’m going in next week. One good thing about doddery old Mopoke, she’s very easy to brush now.’ Mopoke stretched her head out and the sound of her purr rumbled over to Leon. Marie flipped her around like a cushion and began to brush her stomach. Mopoke squirmed feebly. ‘She’s on so many pills now, poor thing. More than her mother.’

  ‘What are you on?’

  ‘Painkillers, laxatives, anti-nausea tablets.’

  ‘You have lost weight.’

  ‘I’ve been hearing that for months. It used to be a compliment.’

  ‘Are you in much pain?’

  ‘It comes and goes. It’s like bad indigestion. More irritating than anything.’

  Leon waited for more but his mother just cooed and brushed the senile cat. ‘Clark said something about six months.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Leon, I’m going to beat this. Your mum is tough as old boots, you know.’ She swung her attention to his tattoo. ‘When did you get this?’

  ‘When I got to Brisbane. We talked about it. It’s nothing.’

  He thought of the sauna and its parade of bodies, the guys who were desperate for you to see their tatts. How pointless it all seemed now. Or was it just her, barging in, shrivelling Leon’s fantasy land? He regretted his dumb tattoo. Did his mother think they occupied the same territory?

  ‘You should be careful about getting too much sun on this, Leon. Who did it?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘It’s a Dayak design.’

  ‘It’s just a tribal tattoo, Mum.’

  ‘You could have got a Celtic armband. You’re half Celtic.’

  She dropped his arm and left his hand in hers. Her clammy hand, like an amphibious animal. He hated her and hated himself for rushing down here. Of course she could beat the cancer; there were new treatments all the time, most people survived it these days, didn’t they? Did Clark have any idea what he was talking about when he said six months? Leon stared out over the dry listless garden. ‘I’ve never seen Sydney like this,’ he said wretchedly.

  ‘You’d be celebrating your mother’s side,’ Marie mused. ‘I don’t think your father has any Celtic ancestry.’

  And why was his room the only one with a bed left in it? He would have preferred to stay in Clark’s attic. Lying on his back, a feeling of holiday boredom engulfed Leon. He went to the window and, looking out at the harbour, the eternal blue sky and moving tree tops, he experienced a moment of disorientation, forgetting what time of day and even what month it was. It came to him that it was the end of March, but with the heat it could have been January, October even, the hot one of last year. Time seemed to be standing still. All the while the disappearing seconds sapped him. He could barely motivate himself to go to the toilet. He moved finally, throwing his dirty clothes into a corner then unpacking. Placing underwear in his old sock drawer, his fingers touched glass. It was an old Vegemite jar, full of dust. He rolled it between his palms in surprise. It was a childhood time capsule, once containing the decoy tails of skinks caught by Mopoke that Leon h
ad collected as little trophies of saved lives. He had considered it years later when packing to leave home, the tails by then brittle as burnt matchsticks. Now the jar’s contents were completely desiccated. He put it on the windowsill, letting light through it, wondering if his mother had deliberately saved it. His presence here didn’t make the slightest difference: he couldn’t save her.

  Susan rang when Marie was getting ready to go to the vet. ‘I’m sorry, Marie. I’m so sorry. First the sale of the house. Now this!’

  ‘That’s alright,’ Marie replied curtly. ‘It isn’t your fault.’ She wondered how Susan knew. The Mosman gossip mill gleely churning away, no doubt. She should have charged entry fees.

  ‘Do you have a good oncologist?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because I was going to recommend Dr Rossmann who looked after Delia Braithwaite.’

  ‘Delia died. And Rossmann is at the Royal North Shore.’

  ‘Of course. Where are you?’

  ‘The RPA.’

  ‘What on earth are you doing at the RPA?’

  ‘That’s where the referred specialist was. The North Shore’s no better.’

  ‘You’re not wrong there. Women miscarrying in toilets and so on. And are you eating?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sleeping?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are they going to operate?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When do you start chemotherapy?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No.’

  Mostly she was lying. The oncologist, Dr Wroblewski, was stiff and impenetrable. Eating was as difficult as sleeping. Chemotherapy as soon as possible was highly likely, and Susan could have done plenty. But it was true they weren’t going to operate. The cancer was too advanced. It clung like an epiphyte to the wall of her stomach, millimetres from her spleen and liver. It was buried in the very pit of her, yet she still could not accept it.