Rose Leopard (12 page)

Stu believes that he may well have had a bisexual experience in his youth, but he remains uncertain of this. He vaguely remembers a boy with soft wavy hair and a missing tooth.

Evelyn has a boyfriend called Tony. He is a gym junkie. He can bench-press over a hundred and twenty kilos. She says that he has pecs like dinner plates.

Kevin never shouts the patrons a drink because — ‘Do it for one and they'll all be after me.' This also amuses him. I tell him that he has a laugh like a bronchial goat so he calls me a ‘mouthy little shit'.

Giselle used to be in Direct Marketing but she resigned after her Buddhist initiation. She is thinking of moving into feline psychotherapy. This means helping people deal with repressed or aggressive cats. She tells me that ‘it's enjoying a major growth period in the private sector.'

Errol wants Delphine to suck him off every morning, just after he has woken up with ‘a stiffy as thick as your arm'. She did it once, nearly eleven years ago, and he can't stop thinking about a repeat dose. Delphine usually tells him to ‘grow up and get me a cuppa.' Then she reads romance novels about women who would never suck men off or behave like beagles.

Tony arrives. His pecs are not like dinner plates. They are like dinner gongs. He wants to punch Errol but Stu steps in and tells him a long, funny joke about a mate of a mate who had a pet dog called Fuckya, and how every afternoon he used to yell ‘Come here, Fuckya' across the suburbs. Tony's state of mind is ameliorated.

Kevin gives us a platter of chips and three bowls of sauce. One is sweet chilli, one is barbecue and one is tomato. No one has the sweet chilli.

Giselle leaves with a thin, bespectacled girl called Amber. They are holding hands and kissing. Errol is disappointed and says irritably that they must be ‘carpet-munchers'.

I tell Errol that if he maintains his current insistence that every woman is a potential sexual partner, then he will lose his capacity to be a multi-dimensional and therefore interesting human being.

Errol tells me to stop talking crap; he just wants a root.

Stu can't believe how lucky we have been with Rosalie O'Shannon and DataPage. He buys a bottle of Asti Spumante to celebrate. Kevin hears the story and asks for my autograph. In an amicable tone, I tell him to stick his head up a baboon's bum. Kevin calls us a cab.

Errol asks Evelyn whereabouts in Brisbane a man can, um, empty his, um, balls?

Tony punches Errol, left jab to the solar plexus. Errol goes
poossht
and looks surprised. Right cross to the side of the head. Errol falls down.

‘Humpty Dumpty,' I giggle,
schadenfreude
bubbling through my veins.

The cab arrives. It is number 462, driven by Majurindi Singh. He wears a pale pink turban and needs Stu's Brut 33. Errol keeps calling him ‘VJ.'

Brisbane is awash. Rain falls in thick relentless gushes. The shimmer of streetlights is radiant on asphalt. McDonald's wrappers and bourbon-mix cans flow down the gutters. There is a fecundity in the air which is dangerous; it frightens me. The city is wet all over, steaming. Here, I imagine, tempers could rise; there could be anger, screams, the mad spontaneous slaughter of innocents.

And so I long for my farmhouse on the hill, my sleeping children, my strands of jasmine climbing the walls, memories of my dead wife to cocoon me and hold me safe. Here, now, I feel somehow disloyal. I want to be where she once was, not in this foreign place, not in this teeming city where everything is mercenary, greedy, a disruption.

Stu directs Majurindi Singh onto Wickham Terrace, to an establishment that is quaintly known as a ‘gentlemen's club'. Inside is dark, loaded with testosterone. I sense something powerful, a disturbing aroma of violence and promiscuity. The walls have lamps that glow like fireflies. The waitresses are topless, clad only in sheer stockings and mulberry-coloured g-strings. The club logo — a circularised snake — is on the front of each g-string. All the customers wear jackets and Rolexes; some are accompanied by bored women who chainsmoke. I sense lawyers, investment consultants, technology fly-by-nighters. There are wine bottles on each table, plates of cooling tapas. I see grilled baby octopus, a partially consumed stuffed mushroom.

Errol leads the way enthusiastically, finds us a table, orders three schooners. In a far corner a girl is dancing on a table. There is a silver bar between the table and the ceiling that she uses to spin around, to rub against, to lean on. She too has a g-string. Customers sit at the table, watch her dance. They are mesmerised. I wonder at her magnetism, how powerful she must feel knowing that twenty-two men and three women are staring, transfixed, at the mound in her g-string, yearning for her to reveal her last jewel. Some customers lean forward and put ten-dollar notes in her garter.

‘Shit.' Errol's eyes are popping. ‘Whaddya reckon? How much for the beaver shot?'

‘Errol,' I slur at him, ‘your vocab continues to amaze me. I've never met anyone who knows so many synonyms for the word
vagina
. It is truly stunning.'

He ignores me. At the dance table, several young men have pooled their funds and poked a bundle of notes into the girl's garter. She nods, gyrates in their direction, sits on the table directly in front of them, spreads her legs, flicks at Velcro tabs, deftly removes the g-string. They screech with delight, zoo monkeys at feeding time. The girl shifts her hips in circular motions, simulates the roll and rotations of mechanical sex. Her grey eyes are listless, bored, her smile practised. The young men continue to screech, gape, lick their lips. One leans forward, is restrained by his mates. Piped music approaches a crescendo. Suddenly the lights flicker then drop out. There are gasps of disappointment; when the light returns the girl has gone. There is a brief, spontaneous patter of applause. The young men move away as another, older dancer with henna'd hair steps up onto the table.

‘How much money have you guys got?' asks Errol frantically.

But I barely hear him. In my mind I have slid elsewhere. I am dreaming of other places, other times: Kaz asleep in the morning light, a stray hair fallen across her cheek; us trekking through the bush, orange backpacks and wet sneakers and aching shoulders; shopping for a new shirt when she told me that she was pregnant; holding each other and listening for our heartbeats, wondering if we could ever time them to perfect synchrony; the garden where we married amidst bees and heat, bright snapdragons and a thunderstorm at dusk; more snapshots of our lives — birth, happiness, continuations, wonderings, the day she spilled cereal in the bath-tub, the night we thought we'd lost Milo, blue-faced and choking on a wedge of apple. I can hear Stu imploring me to ‘let go, Vince, you've gotta learn to let go, the kids need their father back, Vince!', Errol burping ‘you'll be right, mate' and ‘we gotta do this again some time' then the last thing I remember is the dancer with henna hair wearing Kaz's green ear-rings that are shaped like tear-drops, me lurching towards the table because I want them back, shouts of dismay as I reach upwards then nothing but darkness, sweet darkness, blessed … silent … a momentary peace.

Five

O
tis is washing her hands again.

Normally I would approve but it is the fifth time this morning. The digital clock indicates 8.32 a.m. Most people across the nation would have washed their hands once, maybe twice. Certainly not five times.

She's becoming obsessive.

‘Otis,' I say — gentle as the coo of a roosting bird — ‘I think they're clean.'

She offers me the insect-in-formaldehyde look, strongly reminiscent of her mother.

‘Listen dummy,' she says, ‘hygiene is important. Miss Chipp said so.'

Miss Chipp is her teacher.

‘Miss Chipp, eh? What's she like?' Kaz had just finished washing a lettuce, waved away the recently uncorked bottle of shiraz that nestled comfortably in my fingers.

‘What do you think she's like?'

‘Games, games, always he wants to play games! Okay, let me see. Chipp. A very short, strong, no-nonsense sort of name. Crisp and abrupt. Um, I see hair pulled up, body all sinewy. Late thirties or maybe early forties, unmarried — once engaged but tragedy intervened.'

I slurped eagerly from my glass. ‘An angry, overbearing father? Mr Shylock of the suburbs?'

‘No, more … more like Lord Capulet — had someone else in mind. Or perhaps it's simpler, perhaps her lover died in a bush-fire or an outback car-accident. Sort of alone but somehow noble. Anyway, as a consequence Miss Chipp is now emotionally repressed and totally dedicated to her career. She is a woman who loves the company of the children because she'll never have her own. How am I going?'

‘Mm …'

‘What else? Drinks lots of decaf coffee, does calligraphy and macramé at night. A traditionalist who prefers page five of the maths text over getting-to-know-you games.'

She looked at me expectantly but I remained silent, pulled a strand of carrot from the salad she was making and crunched it into tiny, gritty pieces.

‘Well? Vince? Am I right?'

I feigned disinterest then told her languorously, ‘Miss Chipp? Oh, early twenties, I'd say. Blonde, lissom, figure like a pumped-up Esther Williams. Low-cut dresses, legs that slither up to her armpits, breasts like ripening pomegranates —'

‘Give me a break!'

‘Eau-de-Cologne by Chanel. Seems like a nice enough girl — nothing too special.'

Kaz patted the lettuce dry.

‘Liar,' she said, with the conviction of someone who was well versed in my fickle ways.

‘Not at all. I tell you — Miss Chipp is the Elle MacPherson of the State Education system. She's Monroe reincarnated. Aphrodite with a whiteboard marker.'

Kaz chopped the lettuce, pushed the shreds into a glass bowl.

‘I'll have to see for myself,' she decided. And for once, I was deemed to be correct. Miss Chipp was — is — exactly as described. A lovely, quiet, photogenically delightful woman, worshipped with monastic intensity by all of her students, in particular one Sara ‘Otis' Daley.

Miss Chipp, I knew from experience, would never be wrong about anything. Never.

Unlike myself.

‘If Miss Chipp advocates endless hand-washing,' I tell Otis, ‘then so shall we wash. Milo, come forth and scrub your hands to lily-white perfection. Wield the soap, washer and pumice-stone with the same fervour as Arthur wielded Excalibur.'

‘Don't,' says Otis immediately.

‘Don't what?'

‘Don't make fun of Miss Chipp. Don't make fun of washing hands. It's not funny. You're not funny.'

I look into her blackcurrant eyes, see the roughened edges of confusion and perplexity.

‘Sorry,' I tell her, meaning it. ‘I'm … I'm just worried about you, that's all.'

She hangs the towel neatly on its hook. When I go to stroke her cheek she turns, marches stubbornly towards the bathroom door.

‘I know how to look after myself,' she says firmly.

Exit daughter, stage right. Father left alone, centre stage, feeling foolish and embarrassed.

Sometimes I wonder: do I know them? I mean, really know them? Not just their habits and idiosyncrasies but maybe some of the buried stuff, the thoughts and emotions and impressions that lap onto their minds like waves slapping a fertile shore. Do I know their construction of the world? Have I ever accounted for how they feel about their mother's death? Have I ever even cared — or at least looked like I cared?

What was it Kaz said? — ‘We can all see the outside and appraise it mercilessly, but the inside? That's much harder. That's where we need help … we need stories for the inside.'

Two nights ago we played Junior Scrabble. Amelia was painting — a rollicking rain-shower of olive, lavender and gold that she had tentatively called
Frisson.
(‘Great word,' I told her proudly. ‘One of my all-time top-ten favourites') I'd set up the Scrabble board then insisted that the children work together and play against me. I told them that they had no hope of winning as individuals but collectively they might perform better.

They hesitated, then —

‘Dad, you always treat us like we're exactly the same,' Otis complained bitterly.

‘But we're different,' Milo insisted.

I looked at them hard, wondering about the sudden collusion.

‘How are you different?' I asked. It was a serious, significant question that demanded, in my mind, a considered answer. I certainly didn't expect Milo to stand, shake his head and leave the room. Nor did I expect Otis to toss her letters back in the box, fold up the board and throw it at me.

I told Stu. Predictably, he disagreed with me. Just as predictably he said that they had behaved with perfect correctness, exactly as he would have done.

‘Why?' I puffed indignantly. ‘Jesus — I was trying to teach them the value of co-operation, of working as part of a team. What's wrong with that?'

‘Nothing,' he said. Carefully he poured a can of Guinness into a long thin glass, watched the blackness foam then settle.

‘Good idea, in fact. But they're individuals too, Vince. I mean, have you ever thought about them as individuals?'

‘Eh?'

‘Individuality, Vince. Have you ever shown each of them that they can do things alone too, because you — their father — are smart enough to recognise their … oneness?'

‘Of course I have! Don't be so bloody ignorant!'

He sipped at the stout, approved and guzzled half the glass.

‘Can I give you some advice?' he asked.

‘No. Piss off.'

‘Vince, the kids have needs too. They don't understand either. I'll bet you they're thinking about Kaz every moment, going to sleep late with bad dreams then waking up early to some lulu-land they can't work out. So, as part of being a parent, you have to help them make sense of what happened. You have to give them explanations, or at least some sort of understanding … because at the moment, they just don't know.'

‘How, Stu? How the hell can I do that? When I can't even make sense of it myself?'

‘I wish I knew. I don't — but you'll find a way. You have to, otherwise you'll lose them.'

‘Lose them! What garbage!'

‘No, it's not. Vince, have you ever thought about that? Losing your kids because you couldn't cope, or you refused to cope? Have you?'

I should have hit him. Should have stepped back, lifted lightly onto my toes and battered his crinkly eyes to a bloody pulp. But I didn't, because in the deeper, time-slipping subconscious of pre-sleep I had imagined the same cruelty that he was suggesting — then awoken with a pumping heart and an awful parental creed strangling my throat. In the midst of a thick, suffocating darkness it had come to me: our children are more perceptive than us, they speak the truth more often, and it is only through our modelled thoughtlessness that they learn to conceal their hurts from a prying world.

After tea — a potent mix of soy sauce, noodles and cut-up fish fingers — I call a family meeting. Kaz always favoured these on a monthly or even bi-monthly basis but I was traditionally less keen.

‘It's American TV hogwash,' I whined. ‘The mythology of the family sitcom. God, the agony of endless family meetings, swarming like maggots from the carcass of
The Brady Bunch'

‘It's a good idea!'

‘Yeah, right. Homilies, platitudes, win-win solutions … listen to your Mom, Junior, and let's love one another from now on. Bluck!'

‘You are impossibly cynical!'

‘Only when presented with a platter full of bullshit.'

A long sigh, the slow regathering of temperament.

‘It will give the children a sense of belonging,' she persisted. ‘They'll learn to appreciate each other's desires, and understand why we do what we do. They'll see how decisions can be made that are fair to everyone. I think it's crucial'

I moaned and groaned in my selfish way, but when she leaned over and patted my tummy, stroked my arms with those elegantly svelte fingers, I concurred immediately. There was too much else to lose.

At this, our first family meeting for over two and a half months, I speak expansively. I tell them that I have been a neglectful father but this was a temporary condition and I am now cured. Well, sort of. I tell them that I have always thought of them as uniquely individual, and I will endeavour to treat them as such from this point on. I tell them that I will never again cheat at Scrabble, nor will I regularly condemn them to soy noodles and cut-up fish-fingers. Otis may wash her hands
ad nauseam
, Milo may continue to don the groovy surf-shirt. I remind them that we are a family and we have to both respect and look after each other. I speak quietly but with a certain amount of passion, and I use words like
togetherness
and
bond
and
sharing.
I think to myself that Kaz would be proud because now I am being a truly pro-active parent, not just sharing the secrets of cockroaches and the thumb-numbing methodology with which one blasts away marauding aliens in Nintendo games.

Amelia twists and flexes her hands, watches a spot near her feet, maybe counts the scuff marks on the lino.

Milo watches another spot nearby. Once he looks up quickly, hopefully — then bows his head again.

Otis stares at me, perhaps resentful, perhaps bored — I am uncertain.

‘Well,' I say eventually, ‘that's me done. Anyone else want to say anything?'

Silence. Loooonnnnng pause for reflection.

Milo shrugs, seemingly uninterested.

Otis looks around for support then asks, ‘Does this mean you're coming to the cemetery with us on Saturday?' And instantly I see old sun-dried clumps of grass, cold stones splashed with moss and dribbles of lichen, rust-lines splitting the gold lettering. I see gnarled trees, a blanched sky, a lone crow glaring beadily at the middle of the graveyard where there is a hummock of freshly turned earth. Then, as if the soil has settled to shape, I see the long, thin outline of a woman, my woman, prone, stretched, as still and soundless as a fish laid out at market.

You bastards can bury her if you like. I never will.

‘No … no,' I stammer. ‘I — just … I can't.'

And so, as if it had never existed, our family meeting is concluded.

But I persist because, as Stu says, I have to. I supplant Amelia — a bloodless coup, the offer of more painting time for her — and begin to read the children stories again. We lie on the floor and wait for the lorikeets outside to stop squarking then I read about talking tortoises and a planet called Xenon where huge, tubular, epiphytic plants are sucking the seas dry. I read about laser battles between Gul-Ge-Don the Merciless and Princess Watimi — beautiful, bejewelled, aided by a deadly sorceress. I swim in and out of the worlds of Harry Potter, Deltora Quest and Animorphs. We laugh at the antics of Rave the Rambunctious Rocketman and worry when the FuFutons — tiny creatures from an underground city — are threatened by encroaching iron-ore mines. We gasp as Helic defeats Jull in the famed War of Twenty Eons, are mesmerised by Charlotte's Web, wonder if we could ever fly to Never-Never Land with Peter and Wendy. And slowly, after some initial hesitation, I find the children warming to me, moving closer, asking for more stories, briefly offering a telling hug. It is as if we are re-learning about ourselves and each other, refocusing our lives together through this saturation of stories.

Then, late one evening as we sip cocoa before bed, the question finally arrives.

‘Where's Mum?' Otis asks.

‘In Heaven, idiot.' Milo looks away, reaches for another Tim-tam.

‘Is she?' Otis turns to me. ‘Dad? Is Mum in Heaven?'

I consider. Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, Elysium, Reincarnation —it's my opinion that the after-life is confused by a myriad of mumbo-jumbo theories, all designed to hide the starkness of the real cycle. We die, they lament, we decompose, they drink toasts, we add nutrients to the earth, they forget. Plain, unencumbered actuality.

So, is this the truth that I tell my children? Is this what I want them to believe, what I want to believe about Kaz?

‘Dad?' Otis has shifted onto her elbows. ‘Is Mum in Heaven?'

Years ago, Kaz wanted the farmhouse because she knew that it would always be privy to space and a clear, resonant light. Even in a darkened hemisphere, she reasoned, we would remain free of oppression and enclosure.

‘Heaven?' I raise my eyebrows, smile encouragement. ‘Well, she could be. And that would be fine. Though personally, I think she's somewhere better than that.'

Now they are both gazing at me, drilling hard for a truth, any truth.

‘Where?' This from Milo — he sounds suspicious.

Maybe for dramatic effect, maybe just to usher the universe inside, I swish open the curtains.

‘Where?' demands Otis.

‘She's amongst the stars,' I tell them. Then, pointing vaguely: ‘Somewhere up there.'