Paint Your Wife (30 page)

In the sitting room Alma was packing his gear. He put his money under a saucer and
I put mine there as well. I poked my head into the hall and called out, ‘We're off!'
Alma was already out the door. As we went down the side of the house Violet came
to the window with her babies, one pressed against each shoulder. She looked scared
so I gave her a reassuring wink.

Alma was already in the car, strapped in, sullen. When I got in he said, ‘This isn't
working. You're going to have to find that Dean kid. Get him to babysit. Otherwise
we're wasting our time.'

17

Dean had got into the habit of sitting in the Garden of Memories. He liked it there,
surrounded by flowerbeds, and it was amazing how often someone would turn up and come
and sit next to him. If you sat there still enough, the world would wash up and share
itself in unexpected ways. And he had to admit it beat lying inside that wheel-less
house truck; for all the painted landscape it didn't really do much for him. It didn't
talk back. He didn't come away from it better for the experience.

Yesterday he'd been sitting there in the same seat as he sat now, when a man of indeterminate
age had wandered through the gates. A hawklike face had poked into different corners
of the gardens and then, on seeing him, had set off in his direction, an old-fashioned
leather bag swinging at his side. At a distance the man's clothes had been deceptive.
They had made Dean think the man was younger than he turned out to be. He wore a
white cheesecloth shirt with loose coloured threads of the kind that hang from sails
of yachts to measure wind speed, a black jerkin, glossy bits of it catching and shining
in the sun, black jeans and black boots. His hair was jet black. Too black to be
real, he saw as the man came nearer, and then, a deeply wrinkled neck, a turtle's
neck, heavily tanned, a face the same colour, sun-split and crossed a hundred different
ways.

He pointed to the space next to Dean just as that other fellow Dougie had, and because
that meeting had led to a job Dean thought, hell, this could be another opportunity.
So he moved over for the man to sit down.

It was only as he lowered himself that Dean was able to see that the man was a whole
lot older than he first had thought, and that probably he didn't have loose coinage
in those tight frayed pockets anyway, but again what the hell, he had committed
to this end of the bench.

The man felt the slats under him and only then did he risk the rest of his skinny
body and lean back to allow the park bench to collect him fully. His beaky face made
another investigation and glancing around, said how much everything had changed;
it was deader than he remembered. It was smaller too; he had been expecting that
since he'd been living in Queensland all these years and he'd still be there but
for a death in the family.

Dean said he was sorry and asked who. The man's gums trembled a bit when he said
it was his stepson, Dean, strictly speaking. And Dean had thought, no, this was like
hearing he was dead. This was like getting late news of one's own death. And he'd
blurted out halfway through the man explaining who this Dean was, blurted out that
his own name was Dean. At which point the man turned and stared at him a full minute,
at the end of which he said, ‘No kidding.' And, ‘How many Deans do you reckon there
are in the world, Dean?' He dropped his
eyes to his thighs. He said his Dean had
no legs, and more sarcastically, ‘So you must be all right. You must be alive, Dean.'

Eventually after that unpromising start they had warmed to each other. He asked how
come this Dean, the man's Dean, this half-son of his, this stepson, had no legs,
and the man told him it had happened in the war, though he didn't say much about
that. He said, ‘He was lucky to have lived as long as he did given the amount he
drank and smoked.' At this point the man had extended his hand and said, ‘My name's
George, by the way.' And Dean had seen no point in repeating what was already known
but did so to be friendly.

‘I'm Dean,' he said, and the man said, ‘Still?' And they had a laugh over that.

That's when he'd pointed down at George's bag and asked him what he had in there
and George said, ‘Oh, I'm collecting stories of human daring and folly. The whole
shooting works in there.' And he tapped the top of his bag.

‘Like what?'

‘Like what?' the man repeated as if it was an obvious question but one he'd put
up with in the interests of friendship. ‘Well, let's see, like whatever you want
to hear. Whatever you'd like to capture.'

That seemed a strange thing to say.
Whatever you'd like to capture.

Not everything had fur and feathers or scales on it. Dean had to think about it,
but after a while he'd gone with it and asked, ‘Capture anything?'

‘Anything. Sure.'

‘Absolutely anything?'

‘Try me.'

Warming to his task, Dean had glanced up at the landscape and said the first thing
that came to mind.

‘A hill.'

‘A hill. That's a good one. Well, in total I have in this bag about fifty descriptions
of how to capture a hill.' The man closed his eyes while he thought for a moment.
‘Okay, here we go. The first thing is and this is important…'

‘Yeah,' said Dean.

‘…first, turn your back. Don't let it know that you are interested.'

‘Well, that makes sense,' Dean said, playing along.

‘Next,' said the man. ‘In due course follow the track to the summit and keep climbing
to where the mountain narrows to a point no larger but small enough to enclose your
arms around it. Make sure your fingers touch—you don't want the damn thing slipping
out and making a fool of you.'

‘Hell no,' said Dean. He could have laughed at that point but something in the man's
manner prevented him.

‘And be sure to use your legs when standing up. No point putting your back out.'

‘Right again,' he said.

‘Mountain safety is everything. For example, you're at the top, scratching your head,
it's getting late in the day and you're liable to think, bugger me. What I want to
say is this. Stay calm. Do not panic. Remember you are the one with the brain. You
are the adult in this situation. The hill will still be there in the morning.'

Now Dean had to laugh and the man he was relieved to see didn't take it personally.
Not at all. He had a way of laughing and nodding himself.

‘What else?'

‘Well, there is a mountain in a northern country that stands on the edge of a plain.
Think of a man lying on his back, his head raised high enough to see his big toe.
The mountain can see you coming when you're still a day's walk away. Its gaze is
said to be unendurable. Of all the hill stories I have collected I have to say this
is the one I like least. My favourite hill stories tend towards the heroic end of
things, or ease the pain.'

‘Like?'

‘Like,' he said, closing his eyes to think. ‘Perhaps this will do. When Dean, our
Dean, was hit by leukemia he lay in bed dreaming to see a hill again. He'd decided
in his final days that he wanted to look upon a hill. It was a special request. He
wanted me to bring a hill to his bedside window. Not an ordinary request, granted,
but there is a history to do with this that I won't go into. Anyway, within a day
I had it worked out. In the morning I came into his room and told him I'd done what
he'd asked. I told him, “I only got it as far as the drive. But this afternoon, by
four or five, you will see its shadow cast in your window.” So later that day I got
my wife Victoria to switch on the Holden headlights to high beam and train them on
a big triangular-shaped piece of ply. With some juggling and manoeuvring of ply
and headlight eventually we got the distance right and the shadow of the hill settled
into the bedroom window of my crippled war veteran stepson.'

Dean replied, ‘That's a sad one,' and the man thought for a moment.

‘There's sad and then there is sad. I've got one, a true story, as it happens, where
the capture of a hill was passed off as a grand gesture of love. But I don't have
time to tell that one.'
With that he glanced at his watch and stood up in that way
of the elderly, as if they have forgotten how. And after the man had gone Dean sat
there a while thinking that this was one way of experiencing new things, one way
of feeling the world in all its changing texture and behaviour, to have it come up
and rub against you in all its many guises. And best of all you could do that just
by sitting still and silly as a tulip.

It would have been nice to have someone, Violet, say, to pass on that story to. His
own near-death, which is what it had sounded like he was hearing—he'd have to stress
that, and he'd even felt a shiver of proximity crawl over his skin, like it could
be him, that he was on his way out, or could have well been him, only this Dean didn't
have any legs and his last wish had been to see a hill in the window which, as far
as last requests go, hardly tips the scales to the extravagant end of things. It
wasn't much to ask for as you anticipated your last breath. Now that he related it
back to himself it didn't sound so convincing, and yet at the time of hearing it
had sounded the most reasonable request in the world. Of course you would want to
see a hill in your bedside window. What else could you possibly want? He thought
a bit longer on it, and decided maybe it needed that old man's way of telling, his
walnut-coloured face and shiny fairground vest.

He must have been sitting there in the sun a whole hour at least and was thinking
he might give up because no one else had come into the gardens under the Anzac gate
apart from two skateboarders and an elderly woman with a bag of breadcrumbs who
walked the length of the gardens with a flock of sparrows behind her and a funny little
smile on her pinched face. As far as Dean could see she didn't throw a single crumb.

He stood up to leave—he might as well accept the truth of good and bad fishing days.
But as he did so he couldn't think what else to do that was any better and that it
was silly in that case to wind in your line when you had nothing better to do; you
might as well hold on and sit tight. A sparrow hopped down off a branch onto the
grass and looked up at him. Something about it gave him the uncanny sense that he
was being watched. And sure enough when he turned and looked behind, who should he
see but the mayor.

The idea was to approach Dean, talk to him, and persuade him to come and see Violet
and her babies. I had left them sitting in the van over at the car park. Violet thought
Dean was probably embarrassed by his absences, but once they overcame that initial
concern things would quickly improve and she would explain the babysitting proposal
that would free her up to make some much needed money.

Unfortunately Dean saw me and some old game known to the pursuer and the pursued
came between us. He stood up from the bench and moved away in a sideways fashion,
one eye to his escape route, one eye on me which to tell the truth I found unnecessary
and embarrassing. I was there to help, not stick him in irons.

So I thought I wouldn't take another step. I stopped still and called out, ‘Dean,
all I want is to talk to you.' But it was like a starter's pistol shot had gone off
in his ear. He ran out through the gates. Stupid of course. Peculiarly mindless and
irritating. A conversation would be much to his and Violet's advantage, not to mention
two babies who were entirely blameless in the
situation they found themselves. All
I wanted to do was help. So when he ran it was an invitation for me to chase him.

I jogged to the gates. I knew he didn't have a car. A bike would make it difficult.
But looking right and left I saw him turn on foot at the Public Trust building on
to Broadway. Actually I hardly saw him at all—it was just a glimpse of his shirt-tail
lifting off his black T-shirt. By the time I reached the same corner Dean was another
hundred metres up Broadway. Soon he would pass the shop. If I'd had my mobile with
me I could have rung Guy. Dean wasn't running any more but walking—bouncing on his
heels like he might be feeling quite good about himself, having given the mayor the
slip like that. I called out to him and as he turned around I raised a friendly hand
in a gesture of, Wait a moment, Dean, you don't understand; he replied with a stupid
shake of his head and broke into a jog as far as Endeavour where he turned. At this
point he might have stopped to think for a moment, Wait a second, this isn't such
a large town that I won't ever see Harry Bryant ever again. You'd have thought that
would cross his mind and some rational acceptance drop into place. But no, Dean had
made up his mind. He was the hare and I was the dog. And a hare and a dog know only
one thing.

A cutting runs between the Lyric Theatre up the back of the shops, behind Pre-Loved,
and comes out three-quarters of the way up Endeavour, almost opposite the school.
I jogged up there with a big happy grin on my face. I was going to surprise Dean
with a bit of local knowledge. I couldn't wait to see the look on his face when I
squirted out of a blind spot to nail him.

I had turned into the dog Dean thought he'd seen.

He was still climbing Endeavour when he saw me. He stopped, puzzled. Once more I
raised the hand of reason. Once more Dean thought differently. This time I ran at
him. He went up on his toes. His eyes shifted to all points of the compass. The school,
he decided. He ran across the road, reaching the gates ahead of me, banging his knee
in the process which must have hurt because he swore out loud which I'm ashamed to
say was reason for joy; then near the playground equipment he tripped on something
and fell headlong onto the grass; two seconds later I arrived on top of him, forty-four
years of living as I prefer to think of my weight upon his thin scrawny frame. He
tried wriggling out from under me. I could feel the steam of his face near mine.
All of this was so unnecessary. I said, ‘I just want to talk to you, Dean. Now will
you cut this shit out.'