Paint Your Wife (19 page)

That morning I found myself staring at the vulva of someone called Robyn, admiring
its gentle rise and the sunlit ends of her pubes. There is something deeply unserious
about blonde pubic hair. There was not a single wrinkle on her face. I had an idea
it would be like marzipan to touch. Her mouth was heavily painted to the point where
it didn't really look real. The lips didn't even look fit for talking. I couldn't
imagine them biting into an apple or slobbering with curry. And her skin really was
too glossy. The shop lights are over the counter but even when I shifted the magazine
around, the page would not lose its shining reflectiveness. It's like when you try
and lock your eyes on something bobbing out to sea on one of those summer days of
dazzling white light. You squint. But instead of this bringing the object closer,
it disintegrates into bloodshot blurriness.

Her bottom though was perfect, architecturally speaking. In a smaller photo she sat
cross-legged, dressed only in thick black reading glasses. Presumably the book in
her lap was proof of ‘reading' listed under ‘hobbies'. In the full-page spread she
looks ridiculous. She holds the reins of her favourite horse. She's wearing a black
equestrian helmet and nothing else. Her vulva has gone back under cover, it's just
polite fringe, almost sexless really. Over the page and we're back to a full-face
shot where Robyn—and not the horse—is climbing one of the equestrian hurdles. Her
left foot is raised—the camera gazes admiringly, longingly it's fair to say. Isn't
it extraordinary to think of men in warm baths all over the globe right at this minute
thinking about Robyn, her name more recallable than
the Pope's or Neil Armstrong's,
her interest in ‘the environment' and ‘reading' noted but not really taken that
seriously?

I would have lingered longer with Robyn had not some old friend of my mother's, deaf
to the point of hopelessness, come in to ask if I would buy his dog. I told him we
don't do dogs but on he went deafly listing Chester's qualities—his loyalty, his obedience.
Then he ran through his pedigree, by which time I'd actually written a sign. ‘We
don't do dogs.' This took him by surprise and I wonder if the dog read the message
before he did, because suddenly Chester was wagging his tail and feeling better about
the day's prospects.

Possibly I was also feeling a bit down because our friends Kath and Guy Stuart were
off to Caloundra. Yet another export to Australia. I'd sat on the same school mat
as them. We'd stood on the shore looking for Bellinghausen's ship with Hilary. Alma
had painted our faces for the NE Paints picnic. I remember Guy and Kath squabbling
back then. Kath said she was a zebra. Guy said she was a bee.

I was thinking about this as I drove over to their house. Bee or zebra. You think
of these things and remind yourself, hang on, I'm forty-four, I'm the mayor and I'm
thinking about face painting when I should be thinking about drainage. There are
days when I question my ability to do the job. I am not a grave man; not nearly grave
and serious enough for the office of mayor. Tommy Reece never smiled; there must be
something in that—he was returned as mayor a record number of times. I should be
thinking up ways of saving New Egypt. I should be thinking sewage. Rates. Or even
the slightly more awkward matter of pricing Kath and Guy's household stuff. This
was going to be tricky. This was going to be awful in fact.

As I pull up the drive the Stuart kids aged eight and ten are playing out front.
There is something staged about the kids' play, I don't know, it is like they've
been sent outside in anticipation of my visit. I suppose Kath and Guy are just being
good parents. Who wants their kids to see their life's goods picked over by a man
with a clipboard?

I switch off the van and stay put for a moment. On the other hand, it is possible
Guy and Kath have not mentioned anything to their kids about the move across the
ditch. I make a note to be careful what I say to them, although when I get out of
the van I see something akin to upheaval register in their eyes. After that I don't
think there is any doubt that they know their world is about to change.

The girl clings to a well-thumbed Harry Potter book. The boy with his kid-sized cricket
bat plays a cover drive over the buttercups. That is interesting—Guy has let the
grass grow. The task of the lawns has been handed on. Emotionally the Stuarts are
already on that plane.

I pat the boy's head, say hallo to the girl and look up at the house in time to see
a shadow move behind the door glass. I am relieved it is Kath who comes out to the
porch. On his own Guy can be hard work. With Guy you have to make the conversational
running and be prepared to shift and move with his long silences, cruise them, enjoy
them even, but resist the panic to fill in the silence with a rush of whatever comes
into your head. That just makes Guy blink faster. At the shop I have a class photo
of us all at primary school. As far back as all those years ago the tension rising
in Guy's shoulders is plain to see; a feeling that whatever is happening will soon
pass and be replaced by something worse. Now he shows up behind Kath
and places his
big hand on her shoulder. In the same photo Kath is the little girl with the pigtails
and missing teeth sitting in the front row. Thirty years later she is also the good-looking
barefoot woman in jeans smiling at her boy practising the cover drive.

‘He lives for it. He's his father's son to a tee.'

Guy's face goes all rubbery and turns bright red.

‘Right,' he says and brings his hands together with a forced cheerfulness. ‘I'll
put the kettle on, shall I?'

I have an idea I will catch up with Guy when it comes time to look over the toolshed.

For starters we begin in the master bedroom. I follow Kath to the window where we
find the Stuart kids out front staring back, concern on their faces, wondering why
their parents are acting so weirdly. Why is their father so eager to please and at
the same time quick to remove himself? And what is the man from Pre-Loved Furnishings
& Other Curios doing inside their house with that clipboard?

‘I told them the mayor was coming around,' she says. This is the most hilarious thing
she can think to say.
I told them the mayor was coming around.
She starts laughing
then.

‘I hope they're not too disappointed?'

‘No. I told them what to expect.'

‘Thanks, Kath.'

She says she's told them they have three more sleeps. This morning she says she heard
them down the hall experimenting with the word Caloundra. It sounds like the name
of a shampoo or something from the lizard family. She looks past me for the window.
She says what a close thing it's been. For years they've watched the street empty
out. They could have been stuck
here. They could have died here. Of course it was
up to her. Guy with his big blond shoulder tied up in sheet and sleep. Next to useless
really, isn't he? She was the one who had to make the play and get Guy to apply for
the paint technician's job with a marine company. Left to Guy they would be in the
hold of a fast-sinking ship as everyone rowed away in lifeboats. She says they've
been careful not to buy any more groceries. All week they've been eating the fridge
back to its humming white panels.

‘It's been a good fridge but now along with everything else I guess it'll go to you,
Harry.'

She opens the window and yells at the kids to ‘scoot'. The girl takes off. The boy
stays nudging the grass with the end of his cricket bat.

‘Go on, Michael. Daddy will be out soon.'

Closing the window she says, ‘He's sad for some reason. Wonder why?' But she doesn't
wonder; she doesn't spend another second wondering. She has leapt ahead to the matters
at hand.

‘Well,' she says, with an extravagant wave of her arm. ‘All this we're leaving behind.'
I start itemising as Kath calls them out—the bed, the vanity, the rug, the bedside
lights. I tally them up and mention a figure. Immediately Kath looks away. She was
thinking of a different figure of course. This is how it is. This is how we will progress
around the house. I lift the duvet and test the mattress springs—this time when I
mention the figure Kath looks frankly appalled.

‘No. Really? Is that all? I really thought…'

I tell her I've got mattresses coming out of my ears. I can't give them away. People
are funny when it comes to beds. They
will scrimp and save on the other things. They
will settle for a secondhand bed frame and splash out on a new mattress.

‘Still,' she says.

I tell her, ‘You could give Skinners a go.'

But I know she won't. Why would you drive fifty kilometres down the coast on the
off-chance? I give her a moment to consider the option. The fluorescent patches on
the roadside posts flash in her eyes.

‘No. Take the damn thing,' she says.

This is an emotional business. People are often surprised to discover this. They
just don't realise how wrenching the whole exercise can be.

Now Kath has sat down on a corner of the bed to take fresh stock. The tips of her
hands dive between her thighs. She is looking up at a familiar print by an old Dutch
master.

‘You should take that with you, Kath. It'll be nice to have the memento in Caloundra.
Something to remember us by.'

But I see she's not looking at the painting with any affection. In fact she's not
really looking at it at all. In a dreamy voice she says, ‘I've promised the kids
surfboards. Guy says there's surf in Caloundra.' Her shoulders rise and fall with
this information. She looks back at the painting. ‘Nope. I don't think I want that
thing coming with us. I don't actually want to think about this place. I want to
make a clean break of it. I want everything to be new and without that old scene
nagging away at me from a wall. I don't want to be looking out the window at Caloundra
and then back at New Egypt on the wall. I don't want us constantly switching back
and forth between the two. I don't want any second thoughts or maybes, or “Jesus,
I wish we hadn't,” kind of thoughts.'

Her head turns. We can both hear it now. Guy is instructing his boy on cricketing
matters. Play with a straight bat. Eyes over your front foot…It's funny to listen
to because I don't recall Guy knowing that much at school. What I do remember is
his face tightening with concentration—he always wanted so much to succeed but his
body just wouldn't deliver for him. He'd get himself tied up. He'd dream of hitting
a six and end up falling back on his wicket. Guy was forever dusting off his dignity.
I follow Kath over to the window in time to see the boy play and miss. Father and
son look nonplussed, a hand on their respective hips as if to ask, how did that happen?

‘I realise it won't be easy,' says Kath. ‘But I'm not giving up without trying…'

As I turn away from the window I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look
like a man who may have been thinking about Ophelia's pussy.

‘The mirror, Kath?'

‘Like I said, our bags and clothes are all we want to arrive with. It's just more
junk, isn't it? And anyway, I told you Harry, I don't want our new life cluttered
up with the past. I don't want it to be cursed. I want it to be bright and new.'

Two days later I had finally found a magazine with an African nude. Piles of lion
and tiger skins for our Queen of Nubia to lie back against, the outside knee raised.
Mahogany-coloured breasts. Large dark nipples. Ophelia undressed back to her African
origins. I was completely buried in this stuff when a voice piped up, from the distance
of the door, thank God.

‘I can come back…'

It was Dean Eliot and he was nodding in the direction of the counter. He was too
far away to see. And yet he seemed to know. The knowledge crossed his face.

But if Dean knew, he didn't care. He glanced around, his eye climbing the floor-to-ceiling
pile of mattresses, and I slipped the magazine under the counter.

‘I'm after a bed. A
new
bed,' he added, but not in time to erase the vision of old
blankets and a hard floor.

‘Well, what you see is what we've got. King-size or queen?'

‘King,' answered Dean,
but again he'd left the blocks early and was forced to quickly follow up with, ‘they're
the same price? A king and a queen?'

They're not as it happens, but at that moment due to the munificence of the owner
I was prepared to offer him a special. ‘Same price applies to all,' I said.

‘In that case, I'll take this one,' he pointed at the Stuarts' bed. There must have
been thirty mattresses piled there and he'd found the one I'd just bought from them.
I felt an odd wish to deny him but couldn't think of a reason fast enough.

He'd come prepared. He had a length of rope in the boot of the orange Datsun. I helped
him wrestle the base and mattress on to the roof and held it in place while he roped
it through the open windows. It was unstable as anything. I mentioned the van—I didn't
mind running it out to the beach. Usually it is part of the service. And in case
he was thinking of an added expense I put his mind at rest. I should have insisted,
but Dean was determined to do it his way.

There was a call from Guy on the Saturday night. He was ringing to say the Caloundra
thing was off. The marine paints lab had gone into receivership. The manager had
phoned him
to explain. Apparently it was all a big shock. The manager hadn't known
anything until the security people showed up at the gates. He was like everybody
else at this point, pondering his future. ‘I'm sorry. This isn't the news you were
wanting to hear,' he told Guy.