Joyful

by Robert Hillman

  There came a strange time for me two weeks ago, chattering away here about something, the dwarf pomegranates that Trudy tends with such devotion it may have been, chattering to prevent my gaze resting on the wreckage of this young woman so pretty at Joyful, and each fifteen minutes tipping drops into the mess of her eyes as the nurse instructed. Then I realised that Francine was unconscious, eyes open but unconscious. At the same time, the policewoman had fallen asleep, not the birthmark officer but another, equally blunt and resentful; fallen asleep with her chin on her chest, arms still folded. I listened to the whistling sound of Francine’s respiration and to the broken snoring of the policewoman, Francine’s body spread out naked but for the dressings beneath a tent of filmy gauze. Metal masts of chipped enamel supporting calibrated bottles of fluid marked off not in imperial fractions but in millimetres, tubes running into Francine’s wrists. I sat silent and studied everything I could to avoid my thoughts, the painting that hangs on the wall above the bed especially, a scene of children at play on the street of a country town, the boys engaged in a cricket match, two girls watching. It’s a memorial for a girl of seventeen who died in the bed in 1948. I stared at the three vacant beds in the ward, the sheets and pale blue covers turned back neatly, the enamel paint on the metal frames chipped in the same way as the masts. I suppose the other patients were cleared out to keep them far from the monster. And read all the warnings to nurses—Wash your hands! Sterilise sterilise sterilise! Do not allow patients to smoke in bed! Empty bedpans frequently! Another painting by the same artist as the cricket match scene was hung over the bed beneath the window in memory, this time, of a woman referred to on the plaque as Nan. This picture was of a child, a little girl, feeding rabbits. I found myself imagining the artist popping in and out of the wards looking for patients on their last legs. The policewoman remained asleep, her mouth twitching like dearest sweetest old Lucy, Walter’s dog in Manchester when she was dreaming of the meadows. My gaze was drawn back to Francine, to the debris she’d become, and within seconds tears were running in rivulets down my cheeks and a great wooden stump sat horribly in my chest. I spoke to her then, not babble but real words, and I said Oh darling darling poor darling was it worth it, was it worth it at all? Your babies dead your husband charred and twisted like a bough on a bonfire, and you, will you look at yourself, will you just! When they found her dancing in the front garden in her overcoat of flame, I am told she asked only one thing between swoons once the fire was subdued—‘Is he alive?’ Not the babies, who were girls, but ‘he’, David. In this ruined figure before me there had dwelt enough passion to scorch the life from three people. But at another time, Francine would have protected those three lives with passion of a finer sort. I found I could pity her. Oh, of course I did. The pity reached everywhere, far beyond Francine, up and down the world and into the crevices of history. Poor us!—wailing and longing—poor everyone!

  I miss Mandrake. I’ll see Francine through this then swim out to sea.

  Leon put the photocopies aside. This woman, Francine, she killed Jennifer’s lover with flame? And her children? He made a half-hearted attempt to fashion a lesson from Francine’s passion and where it had led her, but his mind homed at every opportunity on Daniel and his tardiness. ‘Where in God’s name is that fool of a man?’ he said. For one hundred thousand dollars he couldn’t rouse himself from his sloth? He went into the house searching for a sanded surface he hadn’t yet covered. In a moment of inspiration he realised that he could purchase a machine and sand the floorboards himself. Could he not? If he had the right type of machine?

  He made an hour’s drive to the Wangaratta TruValue and listened closely to what the sales assistant told him about using a belt sander. He didn’t understand a word that was being said. Back at Joyful he worked into the night attempting to create the silken surface that Daniel Mikolajczyk had achieved. It was as difficult as the TruValue man had promised it would be. Unless you were skilled, you were likely to press down too hard and dig into the boards. And the small bag on the sander that retained the dust filled so quickly that barely five minutes would pass before it had to be emptied.

  Leon dispensed with the bag altogether and laboured in an amber mist that settled in his hair and on his eyebrows and sat like pollen on the stubble of his cheeks. It was after midnight before he’d managed to render the full length of a board in the library smooth enough. He slept on the floor in a bed of dust.

  And awoke feeling bruised. It was after three in the morning. He poured himself a scotch and sat by the naked floorboard with two fresh ballpoints.

  Your priest came by for no good reason. You’re only in his heaven because I insisted. Absurd that I should have made such an issue of it, as if that vain brute had any say. I don’t care for him beloved, I’m sorry to confess. Only if a man is to be a priest let him be faithful to his faith. I will never believe it of you beloved that you lay dying on your bed in the apartment with the piano pushed aside and for consolation as your body failed counted your lovers and orgasms as if your life and your beauty amounted to nothing more than a thousand sorry episodes of genital arousal. Who would want that, beloved? Who in the world at the end would say, ‘Ah my life was blessed by the grubbing of countless snouts’? And beloved who at the end would wish to depart with nothing left of her clouds of glory but the rags and tatters of trivial liaisons with polluted priests? I will rescue you love and in the heaven that matters you will, I promise, reign as queen and redeemer.

  chapter 27

  Sign

  THE PROFESSOR had purchases to make at the newsagency. By mid-morning, he was sitting on the side of the highway with a handwritten sign beside him supported by one of the KumfeeLite chairs from Carl’s Big Outdoors:

  ORSTRAYUNS!

  THE PROFESSOR WILL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS

  CONCERNING THE

  MOST GRUESOME AND UNNATURAL MURDER OF

  LITTLE COURTNEY!

  THE HAIRS ON YOUR NECK WILL STAND LIKE THE QUILLS

  OF THE FRETFUL PORPENTINE AS THE PROFESSOR

  SPARES NO DETAIL!

  Passing vehicles slowed but it was more than an hour before the first one stopped. Marge MacArthur and Connie Dillon, twin sisters in white on their way to a lawn bowls tournament in Wangaratta, peered at the sign from their yellow Jazz. Emmanuel called to them: ‘Ladies! Join me!’

  The sisters left their car and crossed the road wearing frowns as closely matched as their uniforms.

  ‘Mr Delli, what do you think you’re doing?’

  Emmanuel had been chastised by Marge MacArthur in the past, but he wasn’t sure which of the sisters she was. He asked if he should make a pot of tea.

  ‘How do you think Mr Singh would feel if he drove past and saw this? Or poor Mrs Singh? Have you thought of that?’

  ‘I’ve visited your country, Mr Delli, and met with nothing but kindness. Nothing but kindness. I was invited into the houses of complete strangers for a cup of tea and those little biscuits, what do you call them? Bill and I, two years ago. So I know you’re not typical.’

  ‘And what country was that?’ asked Emmanuel.

  ‘Pakistan. We went by bus up to Lahore and another bus up to Peshawar, before it got as dangerous as now. We met with nothing but kindness, Bill and I.’

  ‘But I am myself offering you tea, Mrs MacArthur.’

  ‘Dillon. Thank you kindly, but it’d choke me.’

  As the sisters returned to their car, Connie called out, ‘And you can’t camp there!’

  A second car stopped no more than five minutes later. A young man and a woman who must have been his wife or girlfriend took pictures of a cooperative Emmanuel beside the sign and offered a donation. Emmanuel accepted a two-dollar coin and signed their map—Historic Towns of Indigo Shire.

  chapter 28

  Bonfire

  ‘PORPOISE, ARE you dead?’

  Leon, face down in the middle of the driveway, made a sound that wasn’t a word and had to try again.

 
‘Who you?’

  ‘Too much whisky, Porpoise.’

  Leon stayed where he was. He could make out two shabby boots and a pair of long skinny feet in roman sandals. An empty Dewar’s bottle stood upright ten centimetres from his nose.

  ‘Mikolajczyk?’ he said.

  A car door slammed, gravel crunched at an unbearable volume in Leon’s ear. Another pair of shoes appeared.

  ‘I help you up, Porpoise.’

  ‘No,’ said Leon, but made no further objection when he was hauled to his feet by three sets of hands. He stood unsteadily in violent sunshine, conscious of the need to gargle.

  ‘Porpoise, you pissed yourself.’

  Leon looked down. The legs of his tan trousers were discoloured all the way to the hem. He couldn’t recall this failure to relieve himself more decently. On the other hand, he didn’t care.

  ‘Too bad,’ he said.

  Mikolajczyk clapped his hand on Leon’s shoulder. ‘Fuck me, Porpoise, first time I saw you, all beautiful in your clothes. Big difference!’ He gestured at Leon’s urine-soaked trousers for the benefit of Emily Williams and her husband, who offered no response.

  ‘Okay, sorry for me being late,’ said Mikolajczyk.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Leon, but it did. Mikolajczyk had phoned in the evening to say he was coming with seventy pages. Leon had waited in a state of tortured anticipation, drinking himself stupid, pleading with every god he could think of for the relief of Mikolajczyk’s arrival. And now, at this present morning moment?—well, just look at him. Sodden with urine, his wits in shreds, the whole night a black space in his brain. A rabbit had hopped past him. He remembered the rabbit.

  ‘Where’s your writing?’ he said.

  Mikolajczyk gestured towards the station wagon. ‘Don’t worry. Seventy pages. You know why I’m coming so late to you? Five pages I wrote again. All night Mikolajczyk is writing his fucking brains out, Porpoise. Ask her.’ Mikolajczyk jabbed his thumb at Emily Williams. ‘Tell him. All night I’m writing my fucking brains out.’

  Emily Williams looked as if she’d fallen out of bed in the red tracksuit pants and man’s striped shirt she was wearing. The careful finish she’d fashioned for her ambush of two weeks ago could scarcely be imagined. Her Adidas sneakers were unlaced over thick green socks.

  ‘He worked all night,’ she said in a sulky whisper.

  ‘All night, Porpoise!’ said Mikolajczyk. He threw his arms wide. ‘She’s calling out to me, “Mikolajczyk come to bed, Mikolajczyk come and fuck me!” I say, “Hey, I’m writing for Mister Leon!” So I tell this one to fuck her. “Go and fuck your wife!” “No way!” he tells me. Didn’t you? Yes?’

  Gareth Williams’ foolish smile remained intact. He pushed his long fingers through his dark hair.

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ he said.

  ‘No? I thought you said, “Mikolajczyk my friend, I am praying to Buddha, don’t disturb me!”’

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’

  ‘So, I get your seventy pages,’ said Mikolajczyk and strode to the station wagon. Emily Williams and her husband stood gazing at nothing. It looked to Leon as if Emily had been crying. Her eyes were too tender for the brilliant sunlight. Gareth Williams, as always, seemed either embarrassed in a disguised way, or lost.

  Mikolajczyk’s testament was handwritten entirely in Polish. Leon knew that the seventy pages could be anything, but he didn’t say so. It was Mikolajczyk himself who raised the matter.

  ‘Porpoise, this is my poem. This is for you. Like I told to you, I have to write poems in Polish. Okay? This is everything between Tessie and me. Everything! Come with me.’

  He took Leon by the shoulder and led him away from Emily Williams and her husband. Leon noticed Emily turn her head aside and bite her lip. Pity for her, for her ill-advised devotion to Mikolajczyk, came briefly to life in his heart as it had on the day of her visit. But of the two of them, himself and Emily Williams, he had no doubt that he was the more ridiculous. It pleased him. He’d been ridiculous all his life, but only lately had he been able to master his inhibitions and match his appearance to the contempt that was his due.

  ‘Listen to me,’ said Mikolajczyk. An intensity had come into his expression. ‘Okay, maybe this is what you think. Maybe you think, “Mikolajczyk writes in Polish any rubbish he likes, what he eats for dinner, anything he likes.” No. No. This is…you know what this is, my friend? This is the best writing ever I done in this world. The best. Okay, listen to me. In Paris ten years ago, in Paris, my poems are translated into French, collected edition, translated into French. They give me a prize, French Ministry of Culture, best poetry in translation since Neruda. You know what was the truth, Porpoise? Bullshit. My poems are bullshit. But this one is the best poem I wrote ever in all my life. Best ever. Do you believe me?’

  ‘How can I possibly know?’

  ‘Okay, listen to me. I am a lazy fellow, you know? That’s what Tessie used to say to me. “Mikolajczyk my darling, you are a lazy fellow, you waste your talents!” And what do I say? “Big deal!” You know the best poem in the world? When a man sits down with his piece of paper and his pencil and his head is full of fire and he writes nothing. Nothing! Same with painting. Paint nothing. Get up in the morning, have a bath, nice clean shirt, clean trousers, for breakfast some coffee and cake, maybe you eat an apple, orange, whatever you like. Brush your hair, clean your teeth. You go to your studio, big canvas waiting for you—then nothing. You look at the canvas and paint nothing. Two hours, three hours, nothing. This is the best painting ever you do. How many paintings I have done? Maybe two thousand, maybe more. Say two thousand. Bullshit. Every painting, bullshit. You know what made me stop being a lazy fellow this one month? This one month since you asked me to write? Not the money. Okay, maybe the money. But more important, much much more important. Do you know, Porpoise? It is you. You, Porpoise. Let me ask you something. What are you going to do with this poem of Mikolajczyk?’

  ‘I told you,’ said Leon.

  ‘Tell me again.’

  ‘I’m going to burn it.’

  Mikolajczyk let out a peal of delighted laughter.

  ‘It’s true?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Porpoise, my dear friend, one favour, okay? Let me watch.’

  Leon looked away. He was in a filthier state than Mikolajczyk. This might be carrying the self-disgust he was enjoying too far. He now recalled finishing the Dewar’s, a full bottle in a couple of hours. It hadn’t made him drunk, so far as he knew. He hadn’t, for example, attempted to speak to the rabbit.

  ‘You wish to watch me burn your story? Your poem?’

  ‘Yes, Porpoise. Let me watch.’

  Emily Williams was gazing at Leon like an abused puppy at a raised hand. What on earth did she hope for from him?

  ‘If you like,’ said Leon.

  Mikolajczyk snatched his Afrika Korps cap from his head and threw it to the ground. He danced a jig around it, one hand on his hip, the other held high.

  ‘Now?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Leon. ‘Now.’

  ‘Where, Porpoise?’

  Leon nodded at the ashes of the fire that had consumed Emily’s garments and mementos. Mikolajczyk rushed back to the station wagon and returned with a Spirax notebook and a manila folder. He stooped to pick up his cap.

  ‘This one is by Missus, and this one is by Mister.’ Mikolajczyk called Emily and Gareth over. ‘Hey, Missus, Mister, you join in!’

  Emily and Gareth took up sorrowing positions at the fringe of the ash bed.

  ‘Flossie first,’ said Mikolajczyk. ‘Get the shit out of the way.’

  Leon said no; he wanted the three of them to burn together.

  ‘This shit with my poem?’ Mikolajczyk howled. ‘Porpoise, no, I beg you no! Missus wrote this in two days—one day writing, two weeks crying, one day writing, two weeks crying! Listen to this shit. Listen.’

  Mikolajczyk flicked in a frenzy of disgust through the typed A4 pages o
f Emily’s story, stopping five or six pages in. ‘Listen, Porpoise. “When I heard Tess play Chopin I felt my soul rise into my mouth.” Into her mouth, Porpoise! You ever heard such rubbish? And here, here. “This was the time of my greatest misery. The baby was three months old. I had decided on a name, which was Golden Harmonious.” Porpoise, in Poland we lock up people like Missus in the place for crazy ones. And you want to hear what Mister writes? Even worse. Even worse, Porpoise. Tessie fucked him one time, just one time for paying me back for something, I can’t remember. This is biggest moment in his life for Mister. Pages of worst shit in history, pages and pages. Here, listen. “The destination of my life’s journey, Tess, kissing Tess is heaven made liquid, I drink her.” Fuck me! If I write this shit, I kill myself, I promise you. No way you burn my poem with this mountain of shit, Porpoise! No way. You want your money back, sure!’

  Leon waved his hand in the air, as if to rid himself of exasperation, chase it away.

  ‘Very well!’ he said. ‘Mrs Williams first!’ He took the A4 pages from Mikolajczyk and knelt over the ash bed, crumpling each of the twelve sheets into a ball.