Watercolours (12 page)

‘Hey?'

‘When you're a father.' She glanced up at him. ‘You can do it differently.'

He shrugged. ‘I guess. I haven't thought about it. It's still such a long way off.' Inexpertly he manoeuvred a prawn into his mouth. It was spicy and delicious. ‘You're right, these are fantastic.' He looked around. ‘This place is great!'

Camille was gazing at her plate, a strange expression on her face. Dom noticed she had put down her chopsticks. He frowned, concerned. ‘You okay?'

She looked up again and smiled but the warmth was gone from her eyes.

‘I've just had enough, that's all.'

It's Saturday morning and my father and I are at the butcher's picking up the pork for tonight. Back at home, Mum is rushing around like a cyclone because Mr Best is coming to dinner. She's all revved up about it. I feel a bit nervous. At least she's stopped worrying about me for half a second and has someone else to blast her attention onto.

After the butcher Dad and I jump back in the car and drive through town. We make a turn at the Chinese restaurant and keep going, past the caravan park, the bus depot and the water-tank place. After the spare block with the cranky Shetland ponies we turn at the Roper Centre and find a park right outside Sinclair's Produce.

Sinclair's is our Saturday morning ritual. It's like a great big barn and my father loves every bit of it, he can spend hours looking for stuff for the boat and come home with just a new mallet head or some sandpaper. Our visits always take ages but I don't mind. I like to walk around and smell things and run my hand along the shiny drums and the blade bits and look at the packets of tiny bolts and screws and punch my fist into the sacks of feed. There are so many different things for sale: tinned tongue and work boots, tool parts and toilet paper, fans and farm equipment, watering cans and teat sterilisers and much, much more. It's like a mini-Morus, the whole town here in one big shed.

Soon my father is having a Deep and Meaningful with the man by the power sanders and I am left to explore. First I head over to the sandshoes and gumboots because I like the smell of them. Then I wander among the slouched open bags of dried beans; they look like coloured pebbles and I plunge my hand in, right to the elbow, to feel the cool, dull clink of them. At the cow section I inspect the funny-looking pumps and hoses and stuff for cleaning udders and the medicines that you squirt from a metal nozzle over their slobbering purple tongues. The horse section is made up like a stable and I climb onto one of the saddles thrown over a hay bale and sniff the polished leather. From here I can see right down to the huge roller door at the back. Today the door is up and the forklift is shifting pallets of dog biscuits and potting mix and tinned tomatoes. For a while I watch the forklift zipping around. Hughie and I are going to get jobs at Sinclair's when we are old enough, so we can have a turn at driving it.

Eventually I jump down and make my way past the cleaning stuff, bright as milkshake syrup, and stop by the plastic bins of dry chemicals. I crouch down to read the labels, whispering their evil-sounding names:
ammonium sulphate, naphthyl methylcarbamate, glyphosate acid
. Onwards down the aisles I breathe the chalky fertiliser smell and the hungry turps and paint smell until I'm at the drums.

The drums are printed with strings of letters and numbers to tell you what's inside, whether it's for killing grubs or weeds or termites or fungus — just about anything you could want dead. Their names are more boring but they all have warning stickers in red and black and yellow with flames and skulls and exclamation marks. I lean close to one and knock softly, hear its thick reply. I always feel brave standing among so much hidden danger. I
move along to the black drums, which are my favourites. Their paint is so shiny I can see my face in it: nose stretched too wide, eyes squashed together over the smooth bumps in the metal. It's funny to see my reflection so deformed. When a voice says hello I almost jump out of my skin and bang my elbow as I spin around.

It's Mr Roper, who owns Sinclair's. He's leaning with his back against the shelf of motor oil, arms crossed, watching me like a shark lurking in the shadows. His eyes are grey and unreadable.

‘Hey, kiddo.'

He doesn't sound angry but my heart thuds in surprise. I stand stiffly with my hands behind my back as the cicadas flutter and chirrup inside my chest.

‘What are you up to?' He smiles, as though he only wants to be included in the fun. Then he thrusts his hands into his trouser pockets and wanders right over to me. He is big and tall and he knows it. He starts rocking gently on his toes, backwards and forwards, waiting for me to answer.

‘Nothing.' My voice sounds small and hollow against the drums.

‘You don't want to touch those,' Mr  Roper says. ‘They're poison. They can make you sick.'

Backwards and forwards, heels and toes. He's smiling again to show I'm not in trouble. Mr Roper has lots of different smiles. I don't trust any of them.

‘I was just looking.'

He stops still and frowns. ‘Where's your dad?'

‘Up the front. Getting stuff for the boat.'

Mr Roper's smile turns wide this time. ‘And how's that boat coming along?'

I hate him for the tone in his voice. ‘Great,' I say.

‘Nearly finished?'

‘Getting there.'

‘Yeah?'

Suddenly I'm not afraid anymore. I am angry. Big bubbles of rage clog my throat. I want to smack Mr Roper, punch him in the stomach and watch all the wind get knocked out of him. I want to see that smile wilt and drop off onto the floor.

‘It won't be long now,' I say, feeling hot. ‘We've got a new plan.'

Mr Roper raises his eyebrows. ‘What is it this time?'

I fall silent, feeling trapped.

‘It's confidential,' I say at last.

Mr Roper laughs. ‘Confidential! That's a big word.'

‘It means it's a secret.'

‘Yes, it does.' His eyes glitter as he watches me for a while. ‘How's your mum?' he asks at last and his face kind of melts at the thought of her.

I shrug. I want to get away now, far away from Mr Roper and his shark eyes and slippery smiles.

‘You tell her I said hello. Tell her I sent my regards.'

I duck past him, nodding. But I plan to take Mr Roper's regards and bury them in the mud on the riverbank, then dig them up and leave them to dry and smash them completely to dust.

 

Dom spent the morning in Morus Library. For the sake of Novi he had to get a grasp on some basic art terminology. For his own sake, too; he was desperate to gain a foothold with Camille.

The library was in the heart of town, opposite the council chambers, and a monument to fifties inspiration: beige, brick
and boxy. Inside it smelled of old pages, sticky plastic covers and the residue of a million unknown fingers. It was being upgraded slowly. Dom weaved his way through a mismatched collection of old veneer tables and new airport-style armchairs where elderly men sat hunched over newspapers, punctuating the quiet with violent exclamations of throat clearing. On the computer catalogue he found where the art books were kept and headed for the stacks. When he had a big enough armful, he settled down at a desk by the window, determined to put in at least a couple of hours.

Camille had suggested he take a look at some naïve art, a style similar to Novi's, she told him. He flicked through the first book, recognising the strong colours and crazy world order that he'd seen in Novi's pictures, and learned that a c
hildlike simplicity
displaying an
odd perspective
and
awkward scale
was characteristic of the genre. His mind strayed to the oddness and awkwardness of Camille. He just wanted to grab her, feel the tough, lithe shape of her and kiss her mouth. But he sensed something private in her manner that made him resist.

The morning passed slowly. Dom grew drowsy. Libraries always had this effect on him, it was something about their lack of oxygen and he found he had to go to the toilet with selfconscious frequency. He flicked through the pages of his books and watched people come and go, mostly middle-aged women clutching bags heavy with novels, and agitated parents trailing broods of small children. In the back corner a group of high-school students reclined in postures of mock studiousness, flirting viciously. The computer at the borrowing desk emitted steady beeps that made him think of hospital rooms and an ancient printer scratched and whined, spitting out receipts. Lulled by it all, Dom found
his thoughts wandering from the mysterious terrain of Camille to the timeline Novi had drawn. That snaking picture had told a story, but it also evoked a sense of place, something beyond the streets and houses and the landscape in general. After a while he set aside the art books to hunt for some information on the local area.

When he returned to his desk the group of teenagers was gone but their belongings were still scattered across the tables and chairs they'd vacated. He glanced out the window and saw them lurking in the garden under a couple of tall gum trees, smoking cigarettes with the concentrated ferocity of addicts. They looked both threatening and ridiculous and Dom felt suddenly grateful not to be dealing with kids that age.

He opened up a book on Morus, scanned the introduction and turned to the middle to study the map. The town sat in a basin surrounded by a crescent of mountains, explaining why it managed to avoid the sea breeze but absorbed the summer sun so mercilessly. From the few photographs he'd seen at the museum he knew that the town had a tendency to stagnate under floodwater during the wet season. Hardwood timber had been the initial drawcard for white settlers, with the river useful for transport. The sea was only about fifteen kilometres away, but Dom could see from the map why access was so difficult — the intervening terrain was mostly wetland, a convolution of rivulets and lakes unsuitable for development, apart from the sewage treatment works. The Lewis met the sea at Port Torft in the south, where a single road connected the town to the highway. In the opposite direction, another road came off the highway near the airport, a slightly shorter distance to the north. This led to a beach near a village called Banio. Dom's eyes followed the line
of dark blue shading with longing. Riding that distance just for a swim was out of the question.

Inland, west of the Morus foothills, sat a dramatic mountain range where the Lewis and its tributaries originated. Somewhere in those foothills lived the Lepidos. Dom searched the book for the relevant section and learned that these sun-catching slopes were dominated by orchards and vegetables, with some lucrative plantations of avocado and macadamia. It was also the heart of the area's wine production.

He turned back to the map. The Lepidos' property was just below the winery. It wasn't too far out of town. He decided he could make it on his bike.

At lunchtime he left the library and returned to his flat to discover someone had taken his clothes off the line. They were folded neatly in the washing basket by his front door and he was touched by the gesture. Across the hallway, Mavis's door was ajar. He knocked.

‘Hello?'

There was no reply, although he could hear a small commotion coming from the balcony. Warily he stepped inside, terrified of discovering her engaged in a bout of naked vacuuming or some such activity. With relief he saw that she was merely sitting outside with another old woman, both of them decently clad though sporting enormous bug-like sunglasses. They were trying to enjoy the afternoon sun despite a lawnmower growling ferociously in the garden beneath them.

As he advanced towards them, two Maltese terriers charged from the balcony, yapping. The women turned sharply. ‘Oh!' they cried in unison when they saw Dom. Mavis introduced him to her companion, Beryl, who scolded her dogs halfheartedly. The dogs
licked their lips in apology. Mavis lifted a plate of dip and crackers towards him. ‘Baba ghanouj? It's home-made. Bit spicy, I'm afraid.'

He helped himself. ‘Thanks for bringing in my washing.'

‘Oh, that was Roma, dear.' She lifted her glass of mulberry wine towards the balcony next door, where another elderly woman sat, crochet hook busy.

‘Thank you!' Dom shouted across to Roma, the mower crunching between the bushes below. Roma smiled and waved a Santa Claus tea towel half trimmed in red. Another couple of women on balconies further along also waved. Dom felt sorry for them, struggling so valiantly to relax in spite of the wretched noise. He heard the mower labour over a patch of hidden gravel, the blades gnashing in frustration. ‘How much longer is he going to be?' he yelled, glancing at the figure below.

‘Oh, a little while, I'd say,' Mavis replied with a patient smile. Beryl nodded, similarly unperturbed. Mad old bats, Dom thought; amid the racket they were the very picture of serenity.

For a minute they all watched the man working below. Long grass proliferated at the base of the trees where someone had failed to trim previously and Dom saw this guy was skirting it as well. He frowned at the sloppy work. They shouldn't let him get away with that. A thought occurred to him.

‘You know, I could do the lawns,' he offered. ‘It wouldn't take long.'

Mavis seemed startled by the suggestion. ‘God no! It's already taken care of. And I'm sure you're far too busy …'

‘Not at all,' he insisted. ‘It wouldn't be any trouble.' He was pleased at the idea of giving the old girls a hand, saving them all a bit of money. They were clearly being taken for a ride by this joker. But the women weren't exactly leaping at his offer.

‘I'd be happy to, really. I mean … this guy's pretty hopeless, isn't he?'

Beryl and Mavis shared an uncertain look. Beryl's eyes flickered to the lawnmower man, to Dom, then down to an invisible crumb in her lap. She whisked it away busily.

‘The thing is, Dom,' Mavis explained in her best silly-old-lady voice, a voice he didn't trust at all, ‘this Kane fellow has been coming for almost six months now.' The mower screamed in agony as Kane tried to feed it a tree stump. ‘We're one of his regulars, you see, every third Saturday. It's all arranged …'

Her voice trailed off as Kane idled the mower for a moment, giving them all some respite. Then he pulled off his T-shirt and used it to mop his brow before stuffing it into the waistband of his shorts. Bare-chested, he turned to grasp the mower again, revealing a hint of bum crack. Mavis and Beryl inhaled in unison. Roma's crochet hook paused above the tea towel. Along the balconies, nobody moved.