Indelible Ink

by Fiona McGregor

  He had noticed the cockatoo in the angophora early that morning as he drank coffee on the deck. It was clambering up the trunk with beak and claw, crest half open like a budding flower. From the depths of the house as he washed and dressed, Leon was aware of shrill cries over the phatic noise of the day, and when he entered the garden he saw a group of mynas attacking the cockatoo. The large muscly parrot stood its ground, lifting a leg to scratch behind its ear then hopping further along the branch. Standing below the great shirring tree, Leon saw it was joining its injured mate.

  Inside the shed, he rummaged through the tools on the wall till he found a tomahawk. Lifting it revealed a child’s handprint on the brickwork and below that a crude drawing of a warship. All along the wall a line of black warships steamed towards the door with autistic precision. This was his artwork. He couldn’t remember a childhood fascination with war. Maybe it was just a desire to get away. Leon hesitated in the gloom, running his thumb along the axe blade, trying to remember. His mind retrieved nothing. It kept returning to sex.

  He had seen the American warship come across the harbour at dawn, so big it nearly closed the gap between Curraghbeena and Sirius points, a sliding wall of gunmetal grey hefting its mass around to weigh anchor in Woolloomooloo Bay. Its arrival had dominated the news for days: the dock would be swarming with cameras by now. And the Prime Minister would be waiting with his television rictus, and all across the indentured suburbs girls would be primping themselves for the US Navy, Potts Point poofters hoping for some run-off. Oh yes, it would be a good time to hit the beats. Maybe later, when he had finished work. The sound of the bird war, even here in the shed, was all-pervasive and shook Leon out of his reverie.

  He picked up the tools and left the shed cursing the mynas. In just a few years, the little bastards seemed to have taken over the entire city. The cockatoos were waiting it out, two white dabs high in the tree. Monogamous animals, parrots. Leon found that unaccountably romantic. As the temperature rose, Leon packed his ute then drove to work at the Joneses’.

  The good thing about being a gardener was that you didn’t have to check in with your employer like an office worker arriving to start the day. The best jobs even gave you mastery of the domain; you could walk right in and start without seeing anyone. Unless your employer lived behind high walls, with cameras and intercom. If you were buzzed in with nobody appearing, as Leon was today, you knew it was one of the hired help, and the owner wasn’t home. Leon felt lighter for that: he drove in and parked behind a blue Mazda then took himself down to the garden. Susan, unfortunately, was there. ‘What are we going to do today?’ she said brightly.

  The Joneses’ garden was neat as a toy farm. Even the section of broken marble at the end of the path seemed just a manufacturing fillip, like a bleed of plastic from the seam of the mould. Leon had probably reinforced the perfection with his arrangement of rose bushes, but he’d hardly had a choice. There wasn’t much to do now except find a spot for the wattle once it had sprouted, and germinating those seeds was Susan’s little home-science project so he would have to wait. He scanned the garden. ‘Bananas could do with thinning. I’ll chop that one down and wrap the bunch so it can ripen.’

  ‘Terrific.’

  The banana palms did look terrible and Leon was pleased to have found a necessary task, rather than just trimming the plastic bleed. While he fetched tools from his ute, Susan went to the kitchen for watermelon. Leon knew that part of his job was to talk to her, and he walked back up to meet her on the terrace.

  She lifted the brim of her hat. ‘So Marie has gone back into hospital.’

  ‘Two days ago. She’s doing another course of chemo.’

  ‘And how’s it going?’

  ‘They haven’t started it yet. She’s doing tests first or something.’

  The harbour shimmered all around them, here in the toy farm, raised and perfect on the bluff. Middle Harbour was a mystery to Leon. He associated it with sharks therefore wildness, and at the same time a more secluded sort of luxury. Also, of course, his father, whose house was further in, beyond Spit Bridge. He associated it with childhood in general, as he did the Joneses. The lines on Susan’s face still had the capacity to surprise him, like the picture of Dorian Gray.

  ‘Your mother was talking about religion the other day,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’ Leon took the largest slice of watermelon and chomped into it.

  ‘They say a lot of people go back to it.’

  ‘She hasn’t mentioned it. She doesn’t believe in God.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Leon put down his rind in surprise. ‘No.’

  ‘I keep looking at properties for her on Domain,’ said Susan, changing tack. ‘There’s a semi in Avenue Road for just under three million, there’s a gorgeous three-bedroom flat in Mosman Bay for even less.’

  Leon felt guilty that he hadn’t looked at the listings that Blanche had sent him. He had never lived with such a definite prediction, nor at the same time so in the moment. ‘We’re just looking at stuff for her to rent for the time being, Susan, because we don’t know how this thing will play out.’

  ‘She said to me that she had less than six months.’

  Leon said nothing.

  ‘And here I am looking for houses for her to buy. There’s no point, is there? I don’t know what we’re going to do without her.’

  Leon also felt nothing. He said, ‘I’d better get to work.’

  ‘Well, I’m going out soon. So you just help yourself to anything in the kitchen when you have a break. Okay?’

  Leon walked down to the banana palms. They made him miss his Queenslander with its shambolic garden and scaly-breasted lorikeets. The tomahawk was blunt. He missed his own tools too, even the half-life he had left behind in Brisbane. As the cicadas swelled, his irritation grew at the massive inconvenience of his mother’s illness. Was it really as hard for them as Susan said? There was something so easy about it as well: it nominated priority and obviated choice. All the same, Leon couldn’t project beyond each day. He was positive his mother didn’t believe in God, any more than he did. Which meant that in a few months she would be in the ground, mineral and bone — was that the words to a song? — for the worms. He didn’t know what to feel about it.

  He blazed through the copse of banana palms for the next two hours, removing those going to seed and the one with a ripening bunch. He threw his whole weight into each blow, enjoying the violence of blade through fibre. His t-shirt became drenched in thin sticky sap and he removed it, enjoying the sun on his bare skin. He dragged the oozing trunks to the side fence then wrapped the green bunch in a plastic bag. He wandered around the garden poking a stick into the beds. In places sand was emerging. No matter how much compost and mulch was laid down, the sand was always rising.

  He was standing in the kitchen drinking water when the vacuum cleaner started up in the hall. He leapt with fright, then realised it must have been Fatima. He went out to greet her, but she had her back to him and couldn’t hear. When she turned and saw him, she screamed.

  ‘Sorry!’ Leon realised he still didn’t have a shirt on. ‘Didn’t you know I was working here?’

  ‘No.’ Fatima stood there with her hand on her chest, then she laughed. ‘You give me fright.’

  Leon climbed into his t-shirt. ‘I do the garden here. I’m a gardener by profession.’

  ‘You are good to help your mother.’

  Yeah. That’s for love. This is for money.’ He spread his lips in a smile.

  Fatima nodded politely. On the one hand, Leon wanted to put her at ease and let her know he didn’t think he was any better than her because he was the son of the woman who owned a mansion she cleaned. On the other hand, he didn’t want her to think he was just more hired help. He usually stayed out of her way when she cleaned his mother’s house. She had always struck him as a bit false in her perfect clothes and heavy make-up. Now he saw her skin was fresh, the black curve of her eyebrows quite natural. She was pr
oud, and she was also shy.

  ‘Are you due at Sirius Cove tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Because Mum’s back in hospital. But I’ll be there.’

  A look of concern crossed Fatima’s face. There wasn’t a single line on it, but Leon felt somehow younger than her. ‘She said chemotherapy was bad. She look terrible last time.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re giving her a new mixture. It’ll be different this time.’

  ‘Yes, it cured my sister.’ Fatima propped the vacuum hose against the wall. She nodded thoughtfully. ‘My sister have cancer. She was very sick in beginning, but now it’s all gone.’

  She smiled at Leon encouragingly. Leon felt a bit queasy.

  ‘The chemo’s just to shrink the tumours, Fatima. It’s not going to save her.’

  Fatima looked startled. Her face jutted forward. ‘She said she get better.’

  Leon said nothing, just shook his head. Fatima’s eyes darted around nervously.

  ‘Will you keep cleaning for us?’ said Leon. ‘Like when my mother moves house, when she gets really sick?’

  ‘Of course.’ Fatima crimped her mouth. She shook her head then looked back at him with emotion. ‘I’m sorry.’ She picked up the vacuum cleaner and went into the living room.

  Saying it out loud was like learning it afresh. Leon felt terrible when he left the Joneses’ later that afternoon. He still burnt with energy at Sirius Cove so he worked in his mother’s garden for another hour. He knew he was only tending to what would be destroyed. A garden was like a child: you could convince yourself it was for the common good and that you served it, but really it was the other way around. It was there to serve you. It was your therapy and your sustenance. When Leon walked through it after his swim, he felt happy seeing the evidence of his work. Then he noticed the xanthorrhea had scale. He pressed a spear between thumb and forefinger, feeling the squish. Christ, they were rampant. A breeze came over the headland and he turned in it to relieve his sunburn. He knew he would be spending another night at home. Sailors or no sailors, the drive into town was just too far.

  Marie’s last request to him before she returned to hospital was a complicated regime of pills and food for Mopoke. She had fixed him with her drugged blue eyes and exhorted him to be nice to her. The cat had grown more miserable each day and was howling outside Marie’s bedroom when he went upstairs. And she had pissed on the landing again.

  ‘Shut up,’ Leon cursed. ‘Shut up.’

  What the fuck am I doing here?

  After lunch, Marie came out to the verandah. There was a patient sitting down the end in the spot she usually chose, obscured by a visitor. Marie drew the blanket close, angling her legs to draw warmth from the sun, thinking it ironic how tortured she had been by its heat only recently. Apart from a burning around her rectum after another enema, the pain wasn’t too bad today, and she reclined in a pethidine dreaming, wanting nothing. Ten minutes after a shot, she could be sure of this blissful state of non-caring. The closest thing to it was the feeling of second trimester, after the sickness had worn off and before the weight had become uncomfortable.

  Voices floated along the verandah, one female, one male ... here a month and I’m still paying your bills ... I fucken tried ... your son not mine ... The visitor beginning to cry, the patient’s voice growling. Marie opened her eyes. The sun hurt. She could see the visitor’s back, comb marks carved into her greasy bleached hair. Jesus Christ, woman. It was Brian’s voice. I just wanted us to have a nice afternoon together.

  Marie shut her eyes, feeling sympathy for the woman, who left soon after. Marie imagined Brian had left as well. She felt content out here in the fading light even though her lunch, a ham sandwich on white, was still boiling in her oesophagus. Eating it had been a marathon. She could smell cigarette smoke. A burp rasped out of her body then Brian was shuffling down the verandah.

  ‘My son won’t visit cos he thinks I’m a loser.’ He snorted. ‘He’s probably right.’

  He slumped into the chair beside her and his hand brushed hers and, though she had no energy to placate him, Marie opened her hand to his.

  That night she found two miniature paperbacks of the Gospels in the bedside table, perfect for bite-size reading between nodding off. She had begun Susan’s novel but every time she opened it forgot what was happening and had to reread the previous page again. She opened the Gospels. Steps to becoming a Christian, she read. Admit to God that you have sinned. She shut the book crossly. She shifted around, trying to get comfortable. Increasingly, the best position was flat on her back. Over and over, she stroked the memory of Brian’s hand. Sleep eventually came.

  The next afternoon when she came out to the verandah, Brian was in their spot at the far end, smoking and reading his book, Stalingrad. He was wearing boardshorts and a Cold Chisel t-shirt. Without the hospital gown he seemed so much healthier. Marie sat beside him. As soon as he finished his cigarette, Brian cleared the ashtray and returned with a jug of water and two cups.

  ‘How sweet of you.’ Marie tipped some water into the dehydrated gardenias.

  ‘The least I can do.’

  They sat looking out across the red-roofed suburb.

  ‘Was that your wife who was here yesterday?’ Marie asked him cautiously.

  ‘My ex. My third ex. Ask any of the ladies I’ve been with, Marie, they’ll all tell you I’m a bastard.’ There was a note of pride in his voice, a sort of resentful challenge.

  ‘I’ve always had a bit of a thing for bastards.’

  Brian laughed.

  Marie felt embarrassed. Why had she said that? But it had gone down well. ‘It’s pathetic really. How did your tests go yesterday?’

  ‘I have to have another procedure.’

  ‘What sort of procedure?’

  ‘Dunno. Can’t make sense of it anymore.’ The sun was moving around the pylon, striking the terracotta tiling and making the whole verandah glow. ‘Nearly finished my book. Those poor buggers didn’t have a hope in hell. Freezing, starving. Doomed from the start.’

  ‘Do you read many war books?’

  ‘All the time.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘War makes the world go round.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘Well, what do you think does?’

  Love and money occurred to Marie, but they sounded too human to give the full picture. ‘Chaos?’ she said.

  ‘But that doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘No. Does war make sense?’

  ‘Blokes attacking each other. Genocide.’ Brian smiled, the black molars showing. ‘People taking land. Yeah, it makes sense.’

  ‘Rape,’ said Marie.

  Brian said nothing.

  ‘I’m reading these.’ Marie showed him the Gospels.

  ‘Oh yeah? I read the Bible in gaol. Can’t remember those bits. When’re you having your next chemo?’

  ‘Tomorrow. Doxorubicin.’

  ‘That’ll make your piss go red.’

  ‘I’m glad you warned me.’

  ‘They didn’t warn me. I thought I was pissing blood when it first happened. I thought I was dying.’

  ‘But you —’ Marie stopped herself, just as the nurse named Carla appeared.

  ‘There you are! Your afternoon tea is here.’

  ‘This is the life, eh?’ Brian hauled himself upright.

  The tea for some reason was in proper crockery today. Marie listened to the chime of spoon in cup, Brian slurping. So sore and vague she couldn’t speak. But you are dying, she had wanted to say. But what did it matter?

  Next thing she knew, Clark was beside her. He had a bag of peaches. ‘Sorry I’m late.’ Marie opened her arms to her grandchild. Nell moved awkwardly into her embrace then reattached herself to her father’s legs and stared at her grandmother. Marie introduced everybody, and Brian held out his hand to Clark. They shook firmly, looking one another in the eye.

  ‘I saw Susan downstairs in the cafeteria. She’s got a bunch of flowers this big.�
� Clark addressed them as a unit, explaining to Brian, ‘Susan’s Mum’s best friend.’

  Nell was staring at Brian. He caught her eye and winked, and she hid her face in Clark’s jeans.’

  ‘Hallo!’ Susan came down the verandah rattling a plastic bag of fruit, garnering admiring looks along the way. Clark dragged a chair over and introduced her to Brian. There was a boyish naughtiness behind Clark’s civility, Marie noticed, as though he were expecting scandal. It reminded her of David on their last date together and her eyes sharpened. Brian drew himself up: Susan gave his hand a quick shake and sat down, not knowing where to look.

  ‘Marie’s best friend, eh?’ Brian said to her cheerily.

  ‘Yes.’ Susan was pleased. She noticed his book and looked at him differently. ‘Stalingrad. I’ve heard good things about that book. What’s it like?’

  ‘A bloodbath. The usual story. I was telling Marie.’

  Clark took Nell’s hand. ‘We’re going to find a knife to cut up these peaches.’

  ‘I must read it. I took the liberty of arranging some flowers in your room, Marie. And I’m making you a little cap’ — Susan pulled out some knitting — ‘so you don’t catch cold. Feel how soft it is.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Brian.

  Marie touched the wool. ‘It’s cashmere. Thank you.’

  Clark returned with plates and a knife, Nell lugging another large bunch of flowers. Clark removed the card and handed it to Marie.

  The Chinese woman wheeled her companion out and smiled over at them. ‘Having a party?’

  The card read: Dearest Marie, All the best to you at this difficult time. Your bravery is inspiring. Thinking of you with much love, Gina and John. ‘The Tottis,’ Marie said out loud.

  ‘Good,’ Susan said with satisfaction.