Black Painted Fingernails (12 page)

We drive past a grimy farmhouse outside of Sophie’s town, with chickens pecking in the dirt and a dog roaming to the extent of its leash. A welcome sign at the crossroads is pockmarked with bullet holes.

I reach across and touch her arm. She rubs her eyes, adjusts her seat to upright and nervously fingers the folds of her skirt. It’s stopped raining and a feeble light slopes in.

‘It’ll be fine, Sophie. Your dad will be happy to see you.’

My words fall in the space between our seats.

At the street corner, two girls lean against a concrete wall. The girl with the ponytail is texting. The other finishes a can of Coke and drops it in the gutter.

We drive slowly past abandoned shops with fading newspapers lining the windows. A rubbish bin overflows on the footpath, two dogs scavenging at the base. A man sits outside a bakery, tilting his pie to stop the sauce from dribbling out.

‘James, can you park just up ahead, please?’

The sign on the shopfront reads
Funeral Director
.

I swallow hard, my chest throbbing.

Sophie grimaces. ‘My father won’t . . . Dad won’t be happy to see me.’

‘You mean . . .?’

‘I’m sorry, James.’ She lowers her eyes. ‘If I’d told you, I know you’d have felt obliged to drive me home. I didn’t want you to feel you had to.’ She tries to smile, but can’t quite make it. I reach for her hand.

We sit in the car, staring across the road at the Majestic Theatre with its torn posters and wide front doors boarded shut. A boy bounces a tennis ball against the side wall of the old double-storey building. Sometimes he catches the rebound, sometimes he kicks it back against the wall.

What churns inside Sophie makes it harder for her to go into the funeral parlour, that cool, antiseptic chamber where her father . . . 

‘Soph.’

‘That’s what Dad used to call me. He’d say, “Come home, Soph.”’

A man crosses the road in front of us, staring at my car. He’s wearing shorts and a footy jersey and a trucker’s cap. He reaches down and pulls up his socks to just below the knee. They’re the same brilliant yellow as his jersey. I close my eyes so I can’t see him, can’t see anything.

‘Sorry, Sophie.’

It’s not enough, nothing I can say is enough.

The man reaches into his pocket for a packet of cigarettes and takes one out, then realises he doesn’t have a light. He steps towards the car, sees my face, turns away and heads to the pub.

Sophie and I stand at the front door, which has a sign that perversely reads,
Welcome
. She’s biting her lip and looking each way along the main street. ‘I’m scared I’ll meet someone from school and have to explain . . .’ she says. ‘Give me an hour. I’ll find you somewhere on the street. You can’t go far in this place.’

As she opens the door, two young women pushing strollers walk by. One woman checks on her sleeping child; the other looks at us and smiles feebly in sympathy.

Sophie steps inside and I trudge down the street. In the milk bar, an old woman mops the floor slowly while the radio plays talkback. Behind the front counter, a man sits on a stool reading the newspaper. A poster flapping on the window promises a rodeo in three weeks’ time.

In the TAB, a group of men in shorts and singlets line the back wall, eyes raised to the television. Suddenly the dogs on the screen begin chasing the rabbit lure and the men lean forward, cradling ticket stubs.

Next door is a pub with a dingy front bar and a television featuring a bikini fashion parade. A young woman in a low-cut top stands behind the bar, talking to the group of workmen in fluoro vests and shorts. They all look at me when I enter. The woman continues her conversation with the regulars for a few minutes as I wait at the far end of the bar. When she saunters over, I order a beer and take it outside to the long bench-seat near the front door. My lips curl at the bitterness of the ale, with its ripe smell of hops and fermentation. My mind is elsewhere, in a cool dark room with a coffin and a girl, my friend Sophie. Is the coffin open? Can she see her father one last time?

Empty road trains rumble down the main street as I sit there, finishing the beer. The barmaid fills a fresh glass for me even though I offer her my empty. ‘Health regulations. You might give yourself a disease you’ve already got.’ She smirks and keeps the change for a tip. I sit outside and watch nothing much happen in Sophie’s town.

My Year Three teacher, Ms Bramble, had a short blonde bob, just like the barmaid, that bounced when she walked. She called me ‘Jamie’, and I somehow thought it meant we shared a secret. When I won the maths competition, she called me forward to collect my prize in front of the class. She shook my hand and presented the prize: a hardcover book with thick pages ‘for autographs’. Miss Bramble bent down and whispered in my ear, ‘I wrote something, Jamie, on the first page.’

I walked back to my desk and cradled the book until the bell rang. At recess, I carried it outside and sat under a tree, my food untouched, as I stared at her beautiful handwriting:
I knew you’d win, Jamie.

I was eight years old, holding the book to my nose and marvelling at the crisp scent of the paper. I’d never thought of anything like death or despair or loneliness. I didn’t know those things existed.

A four-wheel drive pulls up outside the pub. From inside the bar, a loud voice calls, ‘Skipper!’ The driver jumps out and slams the door. He has curly red hair and a long ginger beard, and wears oil-stained overalls and steel-capped boots.

‘Skipper!’

‘Piss off,’ he calls as he strides into the pub.

Everyone inside laughs.

I was ten years old when my grandfather died. A tall upright man was reduced to this ashen body in the coffin, dressed in his only suit. His face was sunken and his expression set. I sat with Dad in the funeral parlour for an hour before working up the courage to touch Grandpa’s grey hair. I half-expected him to open one eye, grin and say, ‘Better me than you, hey?’

My grandfather used to fish for trout every winter in the icy streams of the Southern Highlands. He would stand for hours, knee-deep, casting a line, his eyes piercing the surface of the water, searching. When it rained, he’d slouch into a waterproof coverall and study the clouds for a break and the chance of another hour out there, in the rushing flow of his life well lived.

I touched his fine grey hair and wished him good luck, hoping against sense he was going to a place where the river was running and the fish were biting.

The following winter, Dad installed a wood heater: a slow-burner with a glass door. A truck delivered splintery red hardwood and Dad piled a stack near the shed.

Our house had gas heating. We didn’t need a fireplace.

Dad used his father’s splitter to cut the wood. He’d get up early on Sundays and work at the woodblock – my dad the surgeon, cutting hardwood with hammer precision. I’d fill a bowl with muesli and take it out to the verandah to watch. He’d wipe his brow and wave.

He would bend his knees slightly, with his feet well balanced and raise the splitter above his head. The blade would cut through the grain as the logs gathered at his feet. He’d pick up each piece and examine the cut, the symmetry of the incision. When he finished, he’d bring the splitter to the verandah, sit on the step and wipe an oily cloth across the blade. Sometimes he’d spit on the blade and rub the cloth in circular motions. Once I asked him why he polished it so much and he answered with a laugh: ‘So I can see your grandpa’s face in the blade.’

An old woman walks along the footpath. She breathes shallow and quick, and sits beside me, both hands leaning on her shopping trolley. She wipes her mouth with a clean white handkerchief, and I see the spider veins ripe in her long thin arms.

‘Every day, I walk into town to do my shopping and I stop here to rest.’ She motions at me with one hand. ‘You’re the first person I’ve seen sitting here in a long time. The drinkers prefer the television inside.’

I look up and down the footpath and marvel at how quiet the town is.

‘It’s a good seat. You can see the whole street,’ I say.

She turns to face me. One eye is glazed and grey with blindness, while the other looks keenly at my clothes and the half-empty glass in my hands. ‘People think life happens elsewhere. On television, in computers,’ she scoffs. ‘I enjoy my daily stroll. If my heart and legs were stronger, I’d keep walking.’ She looks down the street. ‘We get a lovely breeze in the evening. You can smell the desert. It’s not dust, it’s history.’

‘I’m waiting for a friend,’ I say.

She touches my knee and stands. ‘So am I. Trouble is, he died nine years ago.’

She nods goodbye and slowly walks along the footpath.

I reach into my pocket for my mobile, switch it on briefly and am pleased to see there are no messages, no missed calls. Mum has relented for a day.

Sophie’s voice brings me back. ‘The funeral is this afternoon, James. I wouldn’t have made it without you.’

She sits beside me and finishes my beer in one gulp. ‘My shout.’

When she returns I notice the redness in her eyes. She hands me a beer and walks to the gutter. Her voice is low and flat. ‘They told me he was in the kitchen, at the sink, looking out at his azaleas, his silverbeet, the plum tree. And then . . .’ She lifts the glass to her lips and takes a long swig. ‘I stormed out ages ago, thinking I was burning my bridges.’

Sophie walks back to the seat. I put my arm around her shoulder, drawing her near.

All I can say is her name, my voice like vapour.

Her hands clasp the tall glass. ‘Every time somebody dies, the world should pause, just for a minute.’ She clicks her fingers. ‘Another person gone . . .’ she clicks again, ‘. . . and another.’ Her shoulders slump.

The silence is as harsh as sunlight.

Skipper walks out of the pub and gets into his four-wheel drive, giving his mates in the bar the finger. ‘You bastards’ll keep until tomorrow,’ he shouts.

Someone whistles from inside and Skipper waves. He guns the car, reversing into the lonely street, toots the horn twice and heads west.

The television roars a football score, and a deep voice shouts, ‘You beauty!’

The barmaid walks outside to collect our glasses.

‘Another?’

Sophie shakes her head. The woman looks up and down the street and says, ‘Peak hour.’

There’s not a soul about.

‘Can we walk to Dad’s house?’ Sophie says. ‘It’s only a few blocks.’

We cross the street and pass the newsagency where the owner is strapping out-of-date magazines with twine and stacking them on the footpath. He nods hello. We walk down a side street where each house has a low wooden fence. There are gardens of roses and pansies in some, dirt and weeds in others. At the corner house, a boy plays in a sandpit, filling his toy tip-truck. He looks up as we pass and waves. We wave back.

‘I’m five!’ he calls out.

Sophie stops. ‘Yeah, you’re a big boy.’

He stands up, knock-kneed, as if to show her just how big. He runs to the fence, leans over and cups his hands around his mouth, ‘Mum’s having a sleep. I have to be quiet.’

Then he notices the colour of Sophie’s fingernails and reaches out to touch them.

‘Did you hurt yourself?’

I feel the shiver through Sophie’s body. ‘I’ll get better.’

The boy points to a scab on his knee. ‘I cut my knee.’ He traces a line down his leg with his finger. ‘Blood went down to here.’ He looks at Sophie’s fingers before adding, ‘I washed it off.’

‘This will wear off in time.’

The boy looks back at his house. ‘I gotta go. Mum told me to stay in the sandpit.’

He turns and runs, jumping into the sand, looking up quickly to wave us goodbye.

The door to Sophie’s house is ajar. We open the freshly painted iron gate and walk down the neat path. Yellow curtains billow from the front windows. Two tyre-swans guard the steps.

Sophie knocks on the door and pushes it wide open. A man stands in the hallway in singlet and shorts. His hair is dark and swept back. He holds a sheet of paper covered in coloured dots of red or blue. The hall mirror has a red dot in the centre. The telephone, blue dot, rests on the hall table, red dot. The glass-fronted sideboard has a blue dot near the keyhole. There are two dots, red and blue, on the plasma television in the lounge room.

The man looks past us to the street. ‘We were running bets on whether you’d make it.’

Sophie tenses, then steps forward to give him a quick hug. She turns and gestures at me. ‘This is James, my friend.’

I offer my hand and we shake quickly. ‘My name’s Dave. The eldest.’ He looks outside, expecting someone.

‘Where’s Brad?’ asks Sophie.

Dave attempts a laugh. ‘Picking up aunts and uncles we didn’t know we had.’ He turns and walks down the hallway, his thongs flapping on the wooden floorboards, calling behind him, ‘I’d better be getting ready.’

In the kitchen I sit at the oak table, red dot, while Sophie fills the kettle, blue dot.

‘You’ll get to meet Brad at the . . . you will come, won’t you?’

‘Sure, Sophie.’

Sophie pours the boiling water into a red-dotted china teapot and arranges matching cups and saucers on the table. Dave walks in and goes to a cupboard and takes out three placemats of a French café scene. He lays them near the teapot. Sophie ignores them. Dave stands at the sink for a few seconds, then lifts the teapot and slides a placemat under it. He looks at me. I lift my cup and saucer and move the placemat underneath. Sophie pours herself a full cup and puts the teapot back on the table, beside the placemat.

Dave walks out of the kitchen.

As I drink my tea, I remember Dad’s stories of sleeping in the same bedroom with his younger brother until he was ten. There were two bedrooms for five children.

Each kid had a chore and if it wasn’t done on time, he’d get no dessert for a week. Dad’s job was to carry the chopped firewood and stack it high on the verandah. ‘But it wasn’t my wood that kept the house warm. It was all those bodies.’

I’m an only child because Mum couldn’t have any more. Sometimes I see it on my father’s face, the desire for a family like his own.

One son.

One chance.

Dave comes back into the kitchen dressed in a grey suit. He tucks a handkerchief into the top pocket, pushing it firmly into a neat triangle. He pulls back a chair and sits down, looking from me to Sophie. ‘Do you two need a lift? I don’t see a car.’

Sophie shakes her head. ‘It’s in town. We’ll be fine. Is it at St Barnabas?’

Dave nods and smooths the red dot on the table, pushing down firmly with his thumb. He looks at the unused placemat near Sophie.

‘Red is yours, right? she says. ‘And Brad’s blue.’

Dave reaches to undo his top button and loosens his tie, already suffering. ‘Yeah.’

‘And I can have anything without a dot.’

Glancing around the kitchen, I see everything has a dot. Dave stands abruptly. ‘The solicitor made me executor of Dad’s will.’ He pronounces it exe-
cute
-ah. I correct him, without thinking.

A vein twitches in his neck.

‘What are you, a lawyer?’

‘A student-teacher.’

‘Well, I’m too old to learn anything, thanks, buddy.’

He heads out of the kitchen and a few seconds later we hear a car start and the screech of tyres. Sophie reaches for my hand and turns my wrist to look at the watch. ‘We’ve got fifty minutes.’

She studies my watch again. ‘The time, the day, the date . . . all accurate.’

My mum gave me this watch as a present before leaving. When I unwrapped it, she set the day, date and time, saying, ‘I know you’re never late, but whoever heard of a teacher without a watch?’

Sophie lets go of my wrist and rinses the cups in the sink. She stands at the spot where her father must have stood looking out at the garden: his silverbeet ready for picking, the neat hedge of lavender along the path to the clothesline, the plum tree in the corner, a bench seat underneath.

His garden was the last thing he saw.

We walk into the lounge room and I sit in a big reclining chair. Sophie looks through the CD stack and selects one, turning the music up loud. She goes into a bedroom leaving me to listen to Johnny Cash sing about cheating and lying and loneliness.

There are family photos along the wall above the stereo and arranged on the sideboard. In one photo, a younger Sophie sits on a chair in front of her brothers and father. Dave’s hands are in fists as though he had to be dragged in front of the camera. Her father’s hands are deep in his pockets. Brad is the only one smiling. Beside the photos are trophies from football and shooting and cricket, each inscribed with Dave’s or Brad’s name.

After a few minutes, Sophie walks in wearing a summer dress with bright geometric patterns. She does a showy twirl. ‘Dad thought this dress should be hung in an art gallery.’

‘It’s beautiful, Sophie.’

Sophie lifts the dress slightly. ‘Stockings?’

I shake my head.

‘Good. I don’t have any.’

She studies the photos. ‘I can smell his aftershave, his hair cream, even the stalks of lavender he kept in his wardrobe.’

She lifts the family photo and holds it up to the light.

‘He had the warmest hands.’

She places the photo back on the sideboard, and walks to the couch, holding her hand out to me, then pulls me to my feet.

‘Your hands are warm, Sophie. Like his.’

‘You say the kindest things, young man.’

As she leads me out the front door, I reach behind to close it.

‘Don’t bother. Let the house breathe,’ Sophie whispers.

‘Maybe someone will come in and steal all the dots.’

At the front gate, Sophie picks a pale yellow rose from the garden.