Indelible Ink (12 page)

Marie began to sear the tuna.

‘Tuna instead of turkey this year?’ said Clark.

‘I couldn’t stand poultry,’ Leon said. ‘I pass a chicken farm when I go to my nursery on the outskirts of Brisbane. It’s this huge tin shed in a paddock, baking in
the sun. The bush stinks of death for miles around from the birds that die in there. They just leave them to rot in the cages with the living ones.’

‘Are turkeys farmed too? Or are they all organic?’

‘I don’t know.’ Marie served the tuna. ‘We used to see chickens slaughtered in Avalon, you know. There was a Chinese market gardener next door who kept fowl. We saw our
Christmas turkey slaughtered and plucked nearly every year.’

‘That’s good. We’re so removed from the animals we eat and how they’re killed, we don’t take responsibility.’

‘I didn’t take responsibility, Leon. I was a child sneaking a look through the fence.’

‘Witnessing is a form of responsibility.’

‘My mother hated us seeing it. She smacked us if she caught us. Me and Judy used to hide in the passionfruit vine.’

Clark ate, watching her. ‘So you liked seeing them slaughtered?’

‘I don’t know.’ Marie remembered Judy, three years older, digging her fingers into her shoulders to make sure she didn’t run away when the hatchet came down. She
remembered the spurting, jerking bodies. ‘Judy forced me. I cried.’

‘The tuna is great by the way,’ said Leon.

‘Market gardens in Avalon,’ said Clark. ‘Hard to imagine now, isn’t it.’

‘We’re fishing the seas to death too,’ Leon added mournfully.

Clark fussed over his mother, carving the ham, filling her glass. It was a still, hot day, and they ate slowly, hunched over the abundant table, the low liquid hum of the harbour all around
them. The sky wore a glary sheath that gagged the cicadas. From the zoo across the water came the indignant cries of peacocks, and from next door those of the Hendersons’ grandchildren
playing in the pool.

‘They use the pool much, Mum?’ Leon asked.

‘This is the first time I’ve noticed anyone in it.’

‘We should go for a swim after lunch,’ said Clark. ‘I’ve started swimming in the mornings.’

Leon moved his chair away from the table, arm muscles tightening. ‘Must be beautiful, Bondi in the mornings.’

‘Where d’you swim in Brisbane? D’you drive to the ocean?’

‘Not much. I miss it. I just keep fit gardening. Cabbage tree needs a haircut, Mum. You got a good tree surgeon?’

‘Another thing to add to the list,’ Marie groaned.

Clark tried not to look at his brother’s muscles and resolved to increase his lap count. When Leon put his hands behind his head you could see the edge of a tattoo around his left bicep.
Clark suddenly remembered his conversation with Blanche — how could he have forgotten that Leon had a tattoo? One of those pseudo-primitive things, all sharp curves. He believed Blanche about
his mother now, and wanted to see them. He dropped his napkin and took his time picking it up off the floor, but his mother’s feet were tucked backwards so her ankles were invisible. He sat
up and fixed his eyes on her while Leon talked on about cabbage tree palms. Clark couldn’t concentrate on the conversation; he burnt with a need for explanation and positioning. It was as
though things had been rearranged in his absence; he felt adrift. Marie looked over and saw him staring at her.

‘When’s the house going on the market?’ he said quickly.

‘It’s a miracle it’s survived this long.’ Leon was finishing a sentence. ‘Alone and unprotected like that.’

‘I’ll be talking to Hugh when they get home,’ Marie said to Clark.

Leon grinned and raised his eyebrows.

‘So you’ve decided on him definitely?’ Clark tried to sound neutral.

‘Yes.’ Marie gave him a flinty look.

He sensed she wanted him to challenge her but he wouldn’t allow himself to be baited. His mother didn’t seem to be drinking as much as usual, but he didn’t know what
she’d had before he arrived.

‘God.’ Leon patted his stomach. ‘Didn’t exactly scrimp on the food, did we? Can we wait till later for the pudding?’

‘I thought I was cooking less. Why don’t you stay the night, Clark? Watch the boats go out in the morning? And at some stage you both have to clean out your rooms and take your
televisions and the things I’ve left for you in the garage.’

‘
More
televisions?’

‘
Your
televisions.’

‘I never watch TV anymore,’ said Leon. ‘They must be ancient.’

Clark flicked through a quick inventory of what he could do if he stayed here. He could read, go for a swim, watch the test match tomorrow. He could get a look at his mother’s tattoos. He
ran his tongue along his upper lip and tasted sweat. He was too full to move right now. ‘Okay then.’

‘Look behind you.’ His mother pointed.

On the recliner beneath wrapping paper was a shallow wooden box, the size of a plate, with a glass top. Clark picked it up and gasped. ‘This?’ Beneath the glass was an enormous
butterfly, emerald green with jaffa underwings, almost as wide as his hand. The iridescent body was the size of his ring finger. ‘It’s beautiful!’

‘It’s from Leon. I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.’

Looking closely, Clark could make out the cruel speck of a pin’s head in the insect’s back. ‘You
killed
this? That’s not like you, Leon.’

‘I found it. It died after laying its eggs.’

‘Is it rare? What’s it called?’

‘I don’t think so. It’s a Splendid Ghost Moth.’

‘How did you preserve her?’ Marie asked.

There was a pause. ‘I didn’t actually. I didn’t know how. I guess it’ll kind of ... disintegrate.’

‘You should put it somewhere special.’ Clark held it up to the light.

‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to get a tattoo of it on my back.’

Clark put down the box. ‘Pardon?’

Marie was giving him that same look of challenge as when announcing that Hugh was to be the agent for the sale.

Leon snorted softly over his plate.

‘By the same artist who did my flames.’ Marie lifted her shirt to show him a portion of the tattoo.

‘Oh no don’t,’ said Clark in a strangled voice. He reddened and turned away. Blanche had only mentioned ankles. ‘Why?’

‘Because I want to. Why don’t you ask Leon about his?’

Leon remained hunched over his plate, not looking at either of them.

‘But Leon’s half your age!’

‘So what?’ Marie said cockily, looking over to Leon, whose eyes were widened in innocence.

What a stupid woman. She was acting like a teenager. She honestly thought it was funny. That sly look she got when lifting her shirt, like a little girl proud of pooing in her pants. The way she
tried to draw Leon in, god, the way she
flirted
with him. Maybe he was in on it. The tattoo looked like an open wound. The fact of its permanence appalled Clark. But, hey, it was her body,
like he was going to lose sleep over it? Really. An uncomfortable silence descended. Unable to contain his hurt, Clark began to collect the dirty dishes then walked into the house with them.

Marie followed him to the kitchen with more dishes. He stood over the bin scraping plates, barking when she joined him, ‘Leave it, Mum, please. I’ll clean up.’

‘For Christ’s sake, Clark. Calm down. It’s Christmas Day.’

She heard Mopoke miaowing and found her outside on the patio, looking expectantly at the house. ‘Oh my poor darling, locked outside on Christmas Day.’ Mopoke walked in a semi-circle
to the left then to the right, nudging Marie’s legs. ‘Come on, Mo, tuna for you!’ Marie took her into the kitchen and scooped the scraps onto her plate.

She left Clark sulking over the washing-up and tramped down to the bottom of the garden with the compost. God, he was such a little prig. It only made her want to lift her shirt higher and dance
on the table, just to scandalise him. He was like the nuns at school, or her parents. Why was he like this? Hadn’t she kept religion away from her children to avoid this very problem? Not for
them the lifelong injuries sustained by an upbringing in the torture chamber of the Catholic Church. Not that she hadn’t recovered. Still, it felt naughty lifting her shirt like that. It made
her laugh now just to think of it. She could see his figure at the window from down here. She had a schoolgirl urge to hurt him even more, then a schoolgirl guilt for her cruelty; then all she was
left with was the bitter aftertaste of their disconnection. And Leon who sat there saying nothing. Oh, fuck both of them. Sometimes, when she looked back at her past, all Marie could see was
childhood followed by marriage with nothing in between. So starved of adventure, so habituated to authority that she sought it in her sons.

She remembered Christmas in Avalon. She hadn’t cried because she didn’t want to watch the slaughter, but because she did. She was ashamed of her fascination, the distant thwack of
Win’s hatchet through bone, the bright red blood splashing onto the ground, the vital sense of ritual and how casual Win was with this momentous responsibility. It wasn’t how a little
girl was supposed to feel. Animals were being murdered, but their pain to Marie seemed subservient to a bigger force, beyond Win and herself: it was the force of human appetite stretching back
through infinity.

Clark didn’t want to move until he had digested so Marie and Leon set out on a bushwalk. It was low tide and the sand on the beach was laced with coal run-off. Marie took
a bag with her, filling it with weeds as they walked.

‘So you actually saw the moth laying her eggs?’

‘Yes.’

‘Moths and butterflies don’t live very long, do they? Long enough to reproduce, and become another animal’s dinner.’

‘They’re more useful as grubs. Splendid Ghost Moths are underground for years. They eat fungus from root systems. I’m always blown away by how beautiful these animals are when
they hatch. I mean it’s the shortest and least important phase of their life.’

‘Why does everything have to be measured in terms of usefulness? Why can’t we just have pleasure and beauty to know how good life is?’

‘I’m not saying there’s no point to beauty. If there was, it wouldn’t exist. It’s the Darwinian thing, Mum. Beauty attracts mates.’

‘I didn’t think
you
would say everything boiled down to procreation.’

There was a crowd milling at the entrance to the zoo. Leon made his way through it, ahead of his mother, and waited for her on the footpath beyond.

‘I know you hate my irises,’ Marie said. ‘But I keep them because they’re beautiful.’

‘They’re weeds. They get into the national parks and take over.’

‘I don’t let them anywhere near the bush. And there’s no point to their beauty. The nectar they give to birds and insects could be given in a much plainer package.’

‘We need variety. Nature’s the best artist.’

Past the wharf they arrived at the relief of bush. The track curled into a gully then rose up the ridge and entered a tall angophora forest whose canopy was shot with the nerve endings of dead
trees.

‘I wonder what sort of larvae would eat the fungus from the root systems of angophoras.’

‘Poor things.’

‘Would fire be a solution? A layer of carbon?’

‘Probably help. This sort of bush needs a burn every fifteen years or so I think. But I can’t see how they’ll ever manage it now with all the houses.’

‘Have you seen the mausoleums going up around Taylors Bay? I wouldn’t mind if they burnt the lot.’

The harbour unfurled below like rippled silk, cut by the white streak of a boat’s wake. They stepped to one side to let a family past. Marie felt reassured by this path worn over millennia
with the passage of human feet. How many had walked it in the same state, bellies full, sweating in the afternoon sun. Cold and rain, exposure and famine, seemed impossible today, with the sea all
the way to the city speckled by yachts, and one vivid yellow and green ferry. And on all of those vessels, parties, feasts, enough food and water and diesel for an army.

The path widened to nineteenth-century luxury with sandstone borders and an even gradient above a jetty. All that remained of the dancing pavilion was a foundation wall edging the lawn of the
old hotel. A couple of groups were gathering their things and walking up to the car park. Marie and Leon sat on the wall. Across the water, the CBD shimmered in the sun. Marie’s weeding bag
was full. She looked around for a bin. At the far end of the lawn was one overflowing. She got up and walked towards it. The pile of rubbish was moving. How bizarre. Closer, she saw it was rabbits,
scores of them, a twitching blanket of vermin rifling through picnic remains. She turned back with a look of distress. ‘Leon!’

Leon started towards her. ‘
Jesus
. When did it get this bad?’

‘I don’t know. I should dispose of these at home anyway. I’m exhausted.’

‘Give it to me. I’ll take care of it. I want to walk a bit more, okay? Maybe have a swim.’

‘Thank you.’

How small she looked walking away from him, how frail.

Alone at last. Leon went over to a tap and gulped down warm rusty water, then continued up the road. What he really wanted was to have sex. If he didn’t dawdle, in about an hour he could
get lucky in the bushes above Obelisk Beach. He could exhaust his stuffed body, cool off in the ocean and finally be rewarded with the eager mouth of a father escaping family Christmas. Afterwards,
he could ring home to be picked up. Yep, great idea. Excited, Leon peeled off his t-shirt, tucked it into his shorts, and walked up the path, the bag of weeds dangling off a belt loop.

He had found the moth, which he initially thought was a butterfly, in his room one night a month earlier. It was flapping between his bed and the wall, and from the weight of the sound he
guessed it was a creature of substantial size. He lifted his pillow to find the biggest insect he had ever seen.

He had shown it to his housemate, a local, who hadn’t recognised it. Leon had been surprised to see a butterfly active at night, but it was barely ten o’clock and this was the
tropics and everything up here was still slightly foreign to him. He walked out to the garden holding the insect, large, bright and heavy as fruit on his palm. He tried to put it onto a leaf, but
it was raining and it wouldn’t leave his hand. It had grown completely still.