Paint Your Wife (4 page)

The thing about going away and coming back again is how much your own life has changed.
It is an illusion of course, but this is what you leave the terminal with, and how
little the world you left behind two weeks ago has altered. Things are out of whack.
Your smile is sunnier than others'. Even the way you walk looks slightly expansive,
which is to say, put on. The signs are all there. You have been out in the world.

My car was where I'd left it two weeks ago in the car park, unmarked, and with a
sort of dog-like humility that was almost touching. On the back seat lay the familiar
clutter. Boxes of books I hadn't had a chance to sort yet that I'd bought from the
sale of an elderly woman's estate. On the passenger's seat the faxed message to the
harbour master with its miraculous news of the impending visit of the cruise ship,
the
Pacific Star.

As I got in behind the wheel I could feel my old life crabbily demanding my attention.

On my mobile were twelve messages—three from Alice—so as I pulled out of the airport
carpark I called up my elderly mother. The conversation went like this.

‘How was Adie? Were you nice to him?'

‘Of course I was nice.'

‘He said you got drunk.'

‘That's ridiculous.'

‘And something about a black woman…'

2

Different people help out at the shop otherwise I'd never get away—our daughter Jess
when she comes home from university; Frances when she isn't working on her jigsaw
puzzles and up against a deadline. My mother, Alice, sometimes, but only if I am
desperate since I also have to accept that she will give stuff away to old people,
her cronies, and leave it to me to discover a hole in the stock. Usually it doesn't
amount to much, an armchair or a lamp, mostly things of a practical value, heaters,
light bulbs, that sort of thing, so Alice's days on are known in my books as ‘charity
days'. Her great friend Alma Martin is my most reliable ‘staffer' though he'd scoff
to be thought of in those terms. Still, it's some relief to know that he will act
as a handbrake whenever my mother's largesse gets the better of her. In his time
Alma has been many things—rat catcher, teacher, artist. Back in the heyday of NE
Paints he was one of the better colour technicians. Most of the colours slapped on
to the older houses around the district dating back to the late fifties are his creation.
The popular Bush Green and Mount Aspiring Grey are but two. He is often mistakenly
credited for Pacific Blue, the relief colour of choice that was all the rage around
the time the walls of every house found the need to display a large butterfly. But
by then he'd already fallen out with NE Paints' management over aesthetic differences.
The surprise is that it had taken so long.

The great value of Alma to me is that he couldn't care less what I think. The unspoken
truth
is
that he is infinitely more useful to me than I am to him. The tip face holds
no
horrors
for him. I imagine he also knows that were I ever to cut him from the
payroll
my
mother would be at my door in a flash. For as long as I can remember Alma
has
been
in my mother's life. For nearly as long she has sat for him. There are sketches
around
of
her pregnant with me. And even when Frank was still in our lives Alma was
drawing
Alice;
long before then as well, when my mother was married to George Hands.
He
still
draws—compulsively as ever. He draws the way other people breathe. Sometimes
I
think
he is one of those people who come into the world with prior knowledge—without
being
told
they recognise paper as paper and pencil as pencil. In a quiet moment
at
the
shop he will drop into one of the many second-hand armchairs, pull out one
of
his
tired notebooks which he carries everywhere, even to the tip, and draw customers.
He
appears
to work quickly; from the counter you can hear his grunts and the rustle
of
paper.
I've looked over his shoulder a few times. They're just sketches: a couple
of
vertical
lines and a horizontal slash here and there. The subjects of the sketches
are
none
the wiser. He even draws the sulky adolescent boys who come in to look at
the
soft
porn at the back of the shop. Alma catches their blushing uncertainty as
they
linger
around the cane fishing rods or pick up an abandoned basketball from
the
sporting
goods
section
and roll it in their fingertips. The moment the phone rings or another
customer
enters
the shop they take their chance. And I'll hear the retiring bounce
of
an
abandoned basketball, followed by the ripple of the beaded curtain that closes
off
the
magazine section from the mattresses.

On busy days they can get in and out without being seen. Or else I might look up
in time to see a figure dart from the door. What a strange business it is. Frances
wishes I'd dump the whole lot at the tip. She says it's not very becoming for a mayor.
My mother says it is a disgrace. She's embarrassed, she says, that a child of her
own would involve himself in that kind of thing. Frances wishes I could just stick
to the ‘curios' end of the market—the headhunter's knife, its hilt wrapped in human
hair, for example. Or the World War One bayonet. These things are infinitely more
acceptable. But it's the magazines and the endless recycling of glossy flesh that
provides the cash-flow. Every time I hear a moral riff from my daughter about the
exploitative aspect of these photos I am tempted to remind her of what pays her university
fees. For that we have the enthusiasts to thank. They're not lepers or broken souls
in filthy raincoats; all are exceedingly polite and none of them look for cover but
cross the floor purposefully and without shame.

I have a degree in paint technology—it seemed a good idea when we were the ‘paint
capital' but now all that's gone—and my mail sits in a Victorian pisspot. For company
there's the empty sofas and armchairs, the fold-up card tables, the rolled-up carpets.
It's not the sort of future I once imagined for myself, but this is the reef on which
I washed up more than twenty years ago, all this household stuff that men and women
once argued and flogged one another over, spilt blood for, badgered
and exhorted promises
and threats in order to have the sofa with
that
flower pattern. How important it once
was. How lightly it is let go.

On my first morning back from seeing Adrian in London I had customers by the dozen
and council papers to read and arrangements to make for the cruise ship visit. All
morning I heard the clacking of the beaded curtains while I dealt with a long line
of customers. To someone with a carton of hardbacks, hunting titles, celebrity biographies,
I casually mentioned that the hospital was always on the lookout for more books.
There was nothing there that I really wanted because to some extent what I buy is
what I'm forced to keep company with until I flick it on. On the other hand, ours
is a poor community and I try to make sure everyone leaves with something. The books
belonged to an older man. When I mentioned ‘hospital' he turned forlorn. He pushed
the books away (I suspected them all along of being a smokescreen) and produced a
lovely little thimble made in Holland at the turn of the last century. The silver
engraving was exquisite—a woman sewing with a needle. He must have been holding this
back in reserve, and naturally he was hoping I'd take the crummy books and he would
keep this family heirloom. I paid more for it than I needed to, and gave the hospital
another plug. He looked guiltily away and as he made space for someone else I saw
his bushy eyebrows lift for the magazine section at the back. He was thinking about
it, still thinking, and finally, with regret, no, another day perhaps.

A regular face pushed across the counter an old tin box. ‘That's a World War One
survival kit. Old but not used. It's
amazing. Everything's there. Take a look, Harry.
Fish hook. Needle. Cotton thread.'

‘Thank you, Raymond.' Unshaven this morning, he stood to one side while I recorded
the details in the ledger. ‘Raymond B. WWI soldier's kit.'

The line moved forward: an elderly man with a back strain who winced (a touch theatrically?
Perhaps…you have to be aware of these things) when he reached into his coat pocket
for a pair of Victorian scissors; he was followed by a very tall man with a wooden
aeroplane and a woman with a wax angel which she said shed tears. Further back, dear
old Tui Brown. I happened to glance up when she swung in the door. I caught her look
of surprise, and she knew that I had seen it too. As well as its descent into disappointment.
She slowed half a step then decided to brazen it out. Obviously she thought Alice
was still behind the counter and the tight-arsed son still in London. I will buy
her plastic ice cube trays out of duty and after she's gone biff them out.

I'm making these calculations when a face I've never seen before pokes in the door.
Then the rest of him follows cautiously—barefoot, torn jeans. He isn't a local.
There are a number of ways of knowing this. For one thing, he doesn't know where
to rest his eyes. It's the same with every newcomer. They bump their feet against
porcelain cats, stumble against the hunting dogs as they sort out a passage through
the jam of furnishings and ancient golf bags. As he comes nearer I pick him to be
around Adrian's age. His hair is dark, fine, like Chinese hair, and his eyes are dark
and liquid, more so from the effect of his pasty complexion. Jeans, barefoot as I
said, thin arms flapping inside a threadbare T-shirt. It's not a
survey I make of
everyone who comes into the shop. But he's here to ask after Alma. ‘Someone called
Alma…' is what he says, and he points to the ‘For Rent' notice on the board inside
the door. That notice has been up for more than five years. Once in a blue moon someone
asks after it but when they see Alma's old cottage on Beach Road they quickly turn
and run. Alma lives on the cut I give him from whatever is on-sold from the tip.
He also has a pension of some kind, a pittance I don't doubt, and my mother's lament
is ‘if only poor Alma could get a tenant for that God-awful dump of his out at the
beach…'

It's a Monday. Mondays are a big day in this business. The tips are transformed,
newly stockpiled by weekenders. And that's where Alma is, with the other tip rats,
combing the weekend goodies. I'm about to give directions when I have a better idea.
I have a favour to ask of Alma. I want him to paint something, maybe a mural of some
kind over the vacated shop windows in town. Something more pleasing to the eye than
the everyday ruin of businesses gone bust. When those people from the cruise ship
come ashore I want them to see us in our Sunday best.

I offer to run the newcomer up to the tip if he'll wait a few minutes.

‘I've got a car,' he says. His manner is impatient. He just wants the information
and he'll be out of there.

Alma, however, is in his seventies, and these days he tends to get flustered. Alice
would want me there.

‘What's your name?'

He hesitates, sets his face.

‘Okay. I'm Harry. Harry Bryant. The reason I ask is because Alma is an old friend
of mine.'

‘OK,' he nods back. ‘Dean. Dean Eliot.' Some colour enters his cheeks. He looks around
the shop as if expecting someone to challenge that.

‘Okay, Dean. Just hang fire a moment.'

The tall man with the wooden aeroplane is getting agitated. He pushes forward. ‘You
probably know,' he says, ‘there's only two of this model left in the country.' And
so on. He doesn't have to try so hard and sound so earnest about it. I hate it when
they underestimate my own knowledge of the market. And I happen to know the names
of at least three collectors who will drive any number of hours through the night
to buy this very model.

In the back office I write him out a cheque. He stands in the door holding his hat.
I hear the woman with the wax angel cry out, ‘Harry, I'm lighting the candles. You'll
miss the tears!' This is one of those times when I experience the unhappy thought
that what I do is not a serious job for a mayor. More often than not it is the nights
that I fear. After the last house light has been switched off the New Egypt night
is dark and final. You stand on the doorstep with the unpleasant feeling that you
are sinking down into the earth and there is nothing to reach up and grab hold of
but the glittering stars gathered around the rim of the abyss into which you are
fast sinking. At such moments I have been known to cry out. Then that's it. Over.
Done with. Frances will look up from her book. The mayor is experiencing another
anxiety attack. Day breaks with all the answers. Someone with a pair of fire tongs
to sell. Someone who wants to beat me down over an old carpet. Alma to run to the
doctor. A cut has turned septic. My mother blames the tip and me but not necessarily
in that order.

Dean Eliot is waiting for me. I go to the beaded curtain and clap my hands several
times and the under-agers fly out like frightened quail. I am about to lock up when
I see Tui Brown still standing in line. I take her plastic trays and give her a ten-dollar
note which she gazes longingly at (as well she might, at this miracle the day has
delivered). ‘Oh, Harry,' she says. ‘Isn't that a bit much?' And of course it is.
Far too much. I walk her to the door. Her eyesight is not so good these days. She
goes out into the day with her ten-dollar note in her hand. Her husband, Stan, is
waiting across the road, by his feet his old canvas bag with its empty sherry flagon.
Tui holds up the ten-dollar note. Stan takes his holstered hands out of his pockets
and looks suitably awed.