When their parents were close friends and went out to dinners together (before her father ran away with Ned) Elmyra and Markus would stay behind at her house. Markus’d curl up on Elmyra’s bed with her mother’s atlas spread before him. She’d have rented old Monroe movies. She’d sit on the end of the bed and watch them, rewinding and re-playing certain scenes over and over. He, meanwhile, would chuckle behind her as he read out from the atlas place names that sounded like body parts.
It’s stupid to relive what’s dead, Markus says as he lies back down on her bed again. His shoulders ease into the doona. He rubs his eyes. Anyway. You look magnificent.
She sniffs. Please.
Please what?
Marilyn was magnificent.
A goddess.
Looking for her god.
It’s his turn to sniff dismissively. He says, There are no gods, only goddesses. He’s lying on his stomach now, fist propping up his chin. He tilts his head, trying to see around her body.
In her reflections, her powder brush pretends it’s missed a patch of skin, compensates, overcompensates, and creates a streak of deep blush. She asks, And how d’you figure?
Goddesses are the ones that give birth.
There has to be at least a god for the -dess to fall in love with. Didn’t Rene ever tell you about the birds and bees, Markie?
Don’t be silly. Goddesses don’t need love.
She is done with the powder brush, and she declares, Then how can there be either gods or goddesses if the two never meet? Her eyes are busy on the perfume bottles before her.
He says, You’re silly, and rolls onto his back.
She sighs. My party’s at eight. We can get Buff to pick us up from Grayson’s gig and take us out to the farm.
Yair. He did say he’d rock up to the pub before yours.
Oh, cool. Well, that’s if you want.
Yair.
And Cecily?
Markus blinks. Mm.
Will she come?
Dunno, El. But I guess so; she does cling to Grayson like a too-tight boob tube.
Elmyra laughs. I don’t think so.
She sees him every day.
They are a couple, Markie.
I’ve never seen someone look so desperate to, to …
Look what? Elmyra’s fastening a tangerine ribbon below the fringe wave of her Monroe hair. She runs the ends by her ears and ties off at the base of her head. The ribbon tails fall down her back.
He says, What does Cecily have that a million other women prefer not to show?
She says, Some people exaggerate because they don’t have a clear idea of themselves, others do it to make a point.
He looks at the way she’s moving her head, her hands, her lips: watching herself, fine-tuning. After a childhood spent closely together and a chaste period of ‘going out’ in high school, they’ve drifted from each other. Perhaps she has a molten core, bubbling and waiting to erupt through her surface. If she does, she’s hidden it well over the years.
She clears her throat before continuing. All I hope is that Grayson appreciates the effort.
Whose effort?
Whoever puts in the most in the way he wants; he picks pieces from people and the rest, well, you can just forget about. Elmyra sprays a perfume on her neck and then replaces the glass bottle.
He isn’t sure they’re talking about Cecily and Grayson anymore, which is why he wants to bring Elmyra down, to say something about her dressing as Marilyn — how it’s her own kind of picking, picking, forgetting — but her actions are mysterious, almost cabalistic. Except, maybe, to Cecily, which would explain Elmyra’s defensiveness and the air of conspiracy, founded or not. And maybe that’s a part of it, like the Monroe quote blu-tacked to Elmyra’s mirror: I am trying to find myself.
He steers away. He says, So you weren’t at the pool this morning?
Elmyra hums a reply.
Where were you? Markus suspects she was with Buff, but wants her to tell him so herself.
She’s twisting the perfume bottles, turning the labels away. The light from the setting sun shines into the shapely glass bottles and onto the myriad colours inside: robin egg, lavender, pistachio, yolk.
He says, I was there with Grayson. And Cecily.
Of course.
From the bed, he imagines how Buff might undress Elmyra’s body and take her silken-skinned breasts in each of his hands, how he might not draw breath until he kisses her, how the sheets might swish. He wonders: how does Grayson kiss? One thing leads to another, they say. A restless, gentle biting of lips, holding on to himself as his skin heats with rubbing and touching? He doesn’t know how it works. Wonders what it would be like to have Grayson push himself into him. To hold a few moments. Grayson’s body might be electric against his body, and he might have flapping excitement in his chest and stomach, and trembling in his arms, legs, and a thudding in his chest. He might understand himself. The anger might subside. He might be at peace. Wonders if this, too, is what Buff seeks in Elmyra, and even in Markus when he’d asked, Have y’ever? Wondering brings Markus no closer to understanding. It brings him no closer than acting out his imaginings might. He rubs his palm over his mouth.
Elmyra says, Was the water divine?
We were only there for a little bit.
Oh?
Yair, he says, Grayson had to leave to start getting ready for his gig.
I see.
He ended up going home and sleeping. Markus laughs.
Elmyra turns around. Are you sure your hand is okay?
What? He looks at the bandage, can’t explain. He remembers Cat’s teeth slicing through his flesh.
You ready? she asks.
There’s a while before the gig.
So? She steps up and takes his hand.
He mouths, La di da.
Everything’s forgotten when she spins him around. He bends to increase the volume of her music, a 40s song. Shirley Thoms, she says as if he’s meant to know. They dance. She sings. From the far end of the hallway they must look very grown-up. He holds her shoulders, and she holds his waist. He’s sure they’re doing it wrong. The music yodels, which catches Markus off-guard. He doesn’t want to laugh; doesn’t feel it would be okay. So he concentrates on Elmyra’s skin. There’s a smooth line from her chin to her neck, and to where her flesh disappears under her salmon-pink shirt. As they dance, he looks at a brown mole visible beneath her collar.
Markie. She laughs a little. My mum’s home. She spins away and lowers the music. We’ll disturb her.
That shouldn’t stop us.
What’s that mean?
I don’t know. He suppresses a growl and is astounded he felt like he needed to growl. We should go. Help Grayson set up. He moves backward and wipes his bandaged hand over his chest.
Markie?
He hates her calling him that. Hates everybody — Rene, Elba, Buff, Cecily — calling him anything other than Markus.
My name is Markus. My name is Markus. My name is Markus.
Markie, are you okay?
Her window looks out into the flat landscape. The sun dipping behind the cliff tops. The sky deepens in blue and more clouds are moving overhead. A flock of cockatoos float across the plain, coming in to roost. The Depression is quite creative in its ways of manifesting harshness; although, looking upon this scene, you wouldn’t guess so.
What’re you thinking? he asks.
She shrugs.
She asks what he’s thinking.
He hesitates. The cliffs, he says. It’s almost like the horizon’s been moved in closer and raised up higher.
Almost is most, she says.
Then I’m sure Narioka’s the end of the earth.
She smiles at him and picks up her bag. She suggests they go now if they want to make her party afterward.<
br />
He says he needs a piss. In her bathroom, he locks the door behind him.
What an odd thing for her to say. Almost is most. He has the second-last piece of Wrigley’s gum. Its mint flavour calms.
He cups water from the tap, wets his face, streaks his hair back with the leftover, and it stands in tufts around his ears. A mane. He sniffs his underarms to check if they’re still good. The mustard light in here is nauseating, and distracts. The sooner he gets to Grayson’s gig, the better. He checks his mobile. No messages. Nothing. The cunt said he’d ring. He sits on the dunny’s lid. The least Gray could do is send a smiley back to Markus’s last text. Markus jigs his legs. He steps across to the basin again. Fuck.
Elmyra makes him nervous, but even that word’s too loose. Her eyes are the problem, let alone what she says — what have we actually been talking about? Whatever. Her eyes: like she sees into his imagination. Can she see the version of Grayson that inhabits Markus? Fuck no. He hopes no.
He gulps water and wets his hands again. Droplets glisten and plummet from his lips. He rubs his fingers over his eyes, cheeks, and drags their pads toward his neck. Slippy skin. He runs his palms through his hair again; the mane remains untamed.
In year seven or eight, he used to poke a compass into his legs in an attempt to centre himself. Now he has this: Grayson’s gig. It has meaning. It gives him purpose. Not like his mind and its orange-underweared man — but he can’t help its currents, and he can’t slow or change its directions. Grayson had once observed that people force themselves on Markus, urging him to do what he doesn’t want to do. Like Buff wanting Markus to man up. And Elmyra wanting him to be, do. And Grayson. What is he? Markus will not be what they want him to be. He decides that he can’t stay here in the Depression and its endless paddocks. He puts his fingers on the mirror. Their tips run down beside his reflection. Some people exaggerate because they don’t have a clear idea of themselves, others do it to make a point.
The pub’s red bricks are old enough that some parts have begun to decay and, with the tin-roofed veranda running along its façade, the front, from a distance, looks more like an old man watching over his flock with his cap drawn low than a hub of the community. By the time Markus and Elmyra arrive, the sky’s spitting rain. Cool wind blows rain beads about as if snowflakes. Markus leans against a veranda post, whose white paint’s flaky and crumbles on his clothes. The white flakes fall to the ground. The windows behind him, which have tacky orange blinds drawn over their insides, give off apricot light. Two long trapeziums of it stretch right out to the angle car-parks lining the front of the pub. He can’t see if this light reaches the road. He lets rain swirl into his eyes. His hair must look as it had earlier today, when he’d risen from the swimming pool. He watches Cecily get out of a car that has pulled up, and, from the passenger side, Grayson. They’re dressed neatly. Cecily slams her door. When she steps away from the vehicle, the point of her shoe catches on the bitumen. Her trip sounds like a loud slap across the face. Grayson raises his head, lowers it. She reclaims her composure and her heels are resplendent in the empty street. Grayson stands with the top half of his body bent inside the car’s boot. Markus can see him outlined by the light from inside the car. Cecily holds her handbag aloft her head so her hair doesn’t get wet. Markus can’t bring himself to call it proper rain, like good-for-a-crop rain, even though it’s making things damp. (Not that he knows what a good-for-a-crop rain looks like in terms of its goodness for crops.) He’s becoming less aware of Elmyra beside him. Her weight shifting from leg to leg.
The pub’s carpet is worn. Beside the entry and opposite the bar, a wood fire heats the low-ceilinged room. A group of older men, including Brute Burrows, stand around it. Markus nods at Brute and wonders why Buff isn’t with him.
A short while later, halfway through a lemonade (or something stronger), Grayson comes over from setting up and kisses Elmyra on the cheek. You scrub up well, he says. Make this champ look half decent. He hugs Markus and pats his back. Says, Sorry I was a bit stiff before. Grayson’s voice vibrates on Markus’s chest as they hug.
By the end of their pots, the pub’s patronage has grown. There’s incomprehensible chatter and occasional bursts of laughter.
You coming to my party? Elmyra’s got her bag over her shoulder. She sits on the bar stool as if it’s not good enough for her arse. She could almost be squatting over it.
El, please, says Markus.
Grayson says, When is it?
Tonight. Eight.
Markus skols. Says, Grayson’s not played yet.
Time waits for no man, she says.
Grayson buys them another beer. Markus tries to say, No thanks, but Gray forces the pot into his hand. #YOLO. He lifts the glass, lets his legs fall butchly astride like the other men in here, and sips. He’s uncomfortable and spotlighted. Alcohol will ease him. Every real man’s at perpetual ease, their smiles ready for the next dirty joke. He’s not quite smiling yet, too anxious about the little barneys breaking out in patterns across the room. Better to quell them with bitter lager, for isn’t that why you come here — to get away from the blues at home and to drown the ones you meet? Grayson still hasn’t started playing. And at the end of their second or third beer, Elmyra pokes her nose into Markus’s hair near his ear.
She asks, Where’s Buff?
Markus, raising the pot ready for another swig, says, Buff said he was coming.
Grayson nods his beer at her and says, Never trust a man who gives a nickname the first time you meet him, fucken unreliable.
Elmyra fans her face with a stubby holder. Lots of things are, Gray.
You wouldn’t be talkin’ about Markus here?
Fuck off the both of you, Markus says. He goes to buy the next round.
Slumping in the mucky corner is old man McGregor with a yellow beard and yellow fingernails. He says, Been carting hay to the cattle this arvo; the weather forecast has me shakin’ like a dog shittin’ razor blades, so the pub’s as good a place as any to pass out. Maybe never wake, ay, he chuckles. His eyelids are red and weep at the corners. Can’t even see the colour of his eyes that squeeze with every word more than a syllable.
Markus pays and edges away. Down the bar a bit, he gives Grayson, who’s holding Cecily around her waist, the pot of beer. Elmyra and Cecily chatter. Grayson’s fingers press harder into Cecily’s hip’s flesh. And at seeing this, Markus says, I need a piss.
The toilet door wheezes closed. The sickly-sweet ammonium stench of urinal blocks floats through the bathroom.
Better make room for more. Grayson’s followed him in. Bloody expensive piss. He mentions staying at Markus’s place after Elmyra’s party. Ren won’t mind me a second night, ay?
So long as you don’t chuck everywhere. Markus laughs. He says, I wasn’t planning on going.
Yair way.
No way.
Yair. Way. Then Grayson says, Elmyra’ll be shitty if you don’t.
They re-zip their flies.
Markiss. Grayson grabs him by the shoulders. Goin’ t’her party doesn’t mean ya stickin’ with her. He leans in and muckily presses his mouth against Markus’s forehead.
Markus says, I’ll drive — you’re fucken half-in-the-bag.
Back in the bar, he and Grayson get a fourth (or fifth) beer before going to stand with Cecily and Elmyra.
You two took your time, says Cecily. She winks.
Markus feels a tug on his sleeve. Pulls away and it pulls back. His head swipes around and Elmyra, looking near the door, says she has to leave. He scrunches an eye at her and says, The fuck y’on about? His tongue liberated by booze. He doesn’t need to leave. He drinks. He’s anticipating how the plucking notes, which Grayson has not begun playing, will enchant him. He’ll stay in this spot. He has a slight smile now.
Elmyra pushes past all the hard-bitten maleness in order to leave through the frosted-glass d
oor.
Markus — making out like it’s his duty, but in fact, feeling guilt-ridden — quaffs the pot and picks a sweating spring roll from a plastic plate along the bar. He makes his way outside, feeding his face.
Wind blows Elmyra’s hair out of place as she stands by a bollard, tapping the screen of her mobile. One of the elongated trapeziums of apricot-coloured light from the pub’s window surrounds her.
It’s becoming colder with this storm. The moon lights clouds that’re yet to combine, and there’re twigs being stripped from the trees. He looks at the car park. The bollards mark a skinny path between this and the front of the pub. He lifts up a straight-ish twig, walks to Elmyra and pokes into her arm.
What’re you doin’?
Going to my party, she says.
He’s self-satisfied and whatnot, taller than the trees, taller than the clouds when rain falls. He taps the twig against a bollard next to hers. Phallic. He says, Who’re you texting?
She’s quiet.
He spots a small hole, under the size of a ten-cent piece, dug into the crumbling bitumen. He pokes the twig down, swivels and pulls back out. Attached to the end, with its mouthparts crushed, is a bardi grub.
Elmyra says, That’s fucken disgusting.
He says, You should eat it. You’ve had nothing. And offers the larva to her.
You should; it’s what you deserve, she says.
The sky’s chilled beads land on his cheeks; they’re falling harder. He tells her he had an hors-d’oeuvre.
They’re spring rolls, Markie, and you’ve killed that … thing, for no reason.
It was going to kill the tree. He uses the stick to point a tree out nearby.
They don’t do that, she says.
He might, never know with a wood-eater, he’ll chew right through the core.
I don’t have time for this.
He flicks the grub away. The twig follows.
She informs him that Buff’s coming to get her. Wind blows her hair wild. He’s taking me to my party. The one I set up.
Markus says, I’m waiting for Grayson.
You’ll always be waiting for him.
Moments before, he’d felt taller than trees and clouds. With a simple statement, he’s felled and sodden.
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