Authors: Fiona McGregor
‘The girl’s spitting it out,’ said Kate.
‘No.’
‘Truly.’
‘He should be shooting her in profile,’ said Lim.
‘Is there any chocolate up here?’ said Blanche. ‘I’m hanging out.’
‘We’ve finished it.’
Lim looked puffy in the face today, hungover maybe. Blanche realised that she didn’t desire him anymore, and she felt abandoned. Her BlackBerry beeped.
How is my precious pooky? A buyer
came through Sirius today but still no definite offers. What time are you coming home? x
Not too much longer hopefully
, Blanche texted Hugh. Out the window, the fading claw marks of cirrus stretched across the eastern sky. She could hear the women from the production company
gossipping below, Rachel the art department coordinator and one of the set designers, a horse-faced woman with lank white hair. They had gone outside to suck on their cancer sticks. Rachel had a
low, sexy voice full of innuendo, with a touch of sibilance: the sort of voice that drag queens emulated.
‘... the most indulgent display of spending. I’ve got about forty-seven thousand dollars in petty cash up there you know.’
‘The budget’s the same as
Bondi Boys.
’
‘Oh, more. Because you have to take into account ...’
‘... nuh. Going straight to video.’
I
’
ll let you know when we
’
re finished.
Blanche put her phone back into her bag.
‘I worked on an American ad for sleeping pills in November,’ said Rachel. ‘We went all the way to Perth to film one shot of moths flying in a window. Can you believe
it?’
Blanche sometimes wished she smoked. She wanted to go outside now, to get away from the monitor. She knew that ad. It was for Pfizer. Slated to play North America, Australia, the UK and Germany:
cinema, internet, print, television. Not exactly small fry. They just didn’t get it. Blanche wanted to land like a cat among the pigeons and be taken into Rachel’s husky, knowing
confidence, but if you didn’t smoke you looked suss hanging around outside, all lurkish intent and dangling hands. You looked like you were running away from a problem or desperate for
friendship or something.
Morrison was doing another take of the man putting chocolate into the woman’s mouth. She was peeling her lips back, her whole face contorting. Make-up came in and dabbed her face. The man
rose to stretch then stood there nodding at Morrison’s directions. He had thick eyelashes and a short dark beard, and Blanche couldn’t take her eyes off him. Oh yes, the ritual of
smoking with its imperative and relief was immensely appealing at times like this.
‘God, this country’s fucked.
No
money for film. I’m
so
over it.’
Blanche shut the window and left the room. She walked down the corridor to the toilet, where she sat for a long time leaning forward, chest on thighs, contemplating how scuffed her boots had
become from the scungy set. She should get some cowboy boots: Kate’s looked good scuffed, they looked good any way. Blanche reapplied her lipstick, left the toilets and dropped coins into the
chip machine for Twisties. She was reading the fat, flavourings and colourings she was about to consume when Rachel appeared. ‘Hi Blanche!’
‘Hi Rachel!’
‘He-ey, it’s gonna be great.’
‘Yeah, they’re a great team.’
‘No, really.’ Rachel nodded. ‘Good on you. It’s so classy.’
‘Thanks. You too. Want a Twistie?’
‘Okay! Oh no, actually, I
totally
pigged out at lunch.’
‘You sure?’
‘Absolutely.’ Rachel continued on her way to the toilet, turning at the door. ‘Hey, great job, yeah?’
‘Thanks, you too.’
Blanche went down to the set eating her Twisties. Amazing how fantastic these little twisted yellow things full of crap tasted. She’d been eating them since she had teeth. Who was it who
discovered that if you put the empty packets into the oven, they shrank to perfect miniatures? It provided endless fun after school. Did packets these days react to heat in the same way? Her wheels
began to spin. Why hadn’t anyone made a good Twisties ad? Little idiosyncratic battler of a cheesy snack thing that kept on keeping on. More to the point, why didn’t she have the
Twisties contract? Maybe they thought they didn’t need to spend money on advertising ... Never say never. She should get Twisties for her circus lust. She could kill it. There was activity
around the catering van and the crew looked as though they were packing up. Blanche remembered the organic carrot cake they’d been served for afternoon tea, and went and saved the last piece
from the bin. She gobbled some down then sidled up to Morrison and suggested the woman be sitting upright instead of lying in the man’s lap. Could they slot it into Monday’s shoot?
Morrison blinked thoughtfully. Blanche offered him a Twistie. He seemed about to say something when his mobile went off.
The man in the ad was on Blanche’s mind. That eagle tattooed across his chest, which she saw as he stood in the corner changing, aware of the eyes of every woman in the room on him. Pecs
like half rockmelons, a ring in one nipple. She caught his eye and he glanced away coldly, and it suddenly occurred to her that he was gay. It was a tragedy that she would never get to have sex
with the man with the chest tattoo. She walked up to the green room for her bag, throwing the Twisties and cake into the bin. She had nothing to complain about; she had a loving husband, was
steering another successful campaign, but she felt unaccountably troubled and dissatisfied.
She drove home with a knot in her stomach. It swelled into a painful psychic node beneath Hugh’s attentive hands as they made exhausted perfunctory love that night for the first time in
months. Blanche shut her eyes and imagined the trapeze artist’s chest pressing against her breasts, as she tilted her hips to receive him, Hugh, him. She dozed fitfully till dawn and woke to
the smell of coffee: Hugh padding into the bedroom with a tray and the papers.
The traffic into town was slow and the galleries had opened by the time they arrived in Danks Street. The first one was showing Tait Green, an art school colleague of Blanche’s.
Hugh, as usual, was discussing Sirius Cove. ‘I got the photos I took of the garden printed, which Marie loved. Even though they didn’t get used for the ad, they’ll be a good
record. She just wants people to appreciate it, you know.’ He turned to Blanche meaningfully.
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Two buyers now. I’m putting my money on the lawyer couple. They’re second-generation Mosman: her grandparents live in Kardinia Road. They’ve got two kids, eight and ten
years old, who play in the bush. They love the house. I don’t think they’ll pull it down, just a bit of reno. But the price isn’t ideal.’
‘Will you go to auction?’
‘I think so.’ Hugh moved along to the next artwork, a pair of trainers made from Blu-Tack, mounted on a plinth, enclosed in a glass cabinet. ‘I paid Fatima for her.’
‘Hey?’
‘Her cheque bounced, and I was there. Don’t worry, pooky, we’ll just put it against the sale.’
‘Oh, I’m not worried. Just don’t tell Clark. Okay?’
‘Course not. She must be getting them done quickly. She’s got one on her back. It goes right up her neck into her hair.’
‘I don’t want to know, Hugh.’ Blanche spoke in a low voice.
Behind the white desk in the white corner, the white gallery assistant was doing something on her mobile phone.
Hugh stared at the Blu-Tack trainers. ‘Amazing. Adidas. They’re
perfect.
’
‘Seven and a half grand. Jesus. What’s the point?’
‘He’s having a joke, isn’t he? Putting them in a glass cabinet like that? Isn’t he saying that it’s us who put our trainers and brand names on a
pedestal?’
‘Half the time I think that irony’s just a veneer.’
‘What for?’
‘Nothing. It’s a veneer for nothing.’
They moved to the end of the room where paintings covered the wall. Hugh continued talking quietly. ‘You know Pasadena? Just up the road from Marie? Not as well situated, but it’s
got a home theatre, Gaggenau, five bathrooms, pool, six-car garage with wash bay. Air-conditioned wine cellar. I mean she’s got pretty stiff competition is the thing. Stav’s handling
that property, and he reckons it’ll go for seven to eight.’
‘So the market
is
going down.’
Hugh crimped his mouth.
‘Come on, Hughie.’
‘Well, yeah, compared to the beginning of summer. But not compared to three years ago.’
Blanche nodded sadly. ‘The market’s going down.’
Hugh said in a loud whisper, mildly outraged, ‘You know Stav gets racist remarks sometimes? He’s like second-generation Australian. I think it’s outrageous. I mean, we’re
all supposed to be equal in this country. It makes me feel really ashamed.’
‘We
are
egalitarian. You should see Kate and Lim, they’re positively revered. There are stupid people everywhere, that’s all. It’s just ignorance.’ Blanche
moved alongside the air-brushed canvases of gridiron players, close enough to take in every detail. ‘I
hate
this stuff. It’s all surface, surface, surface.’
‘It depends what you want. Technically, he’s amazing.’
‘So are computers.’
‘Come on, pooky.’
‘Tait used to paint blue circles at college. That’s all he painted for three years solid. Blue circles. I’m not kidding.’
‘I should tell Stav about these,’ Hugh said to the gridiron players.
‘Why? I didn’t know Stav was interested in art.’
‘He’s not. He’s just looking for stuff for his pub. He’s decking it out as a New York bar.’
Blanche placated herself with the apprehension of no more than three blue dots on the walls around the room, on this, the last day of the exhibition. (She wondered when blue dots had replaced
red as sale markers; whether they were using them in Woollahra now as well, or just here in Waterloo. She wondered if it was an ironic comment on the blue genesis of Tait Green.) She couldn’t
believe that Tait, head nerd at COFA, was holding his seventh solo show in Sydney alone. She couldn’t digest the three-page
CV,
the words
Shanghai
,
Berlin
, and
grant
and
award
like drops of acid in her eyes. She steered Hugh towards the exit.
Outside the air was dense with coming rain. Dark cloud hung on the horizon. They walked past a row of terraces with pretty gardens.
‘God, it’s changed around here,’ said Blanche. ‘It’s so nice now.’
‘I still wouldn’t buy in Redfern.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’ve still got all the housing commissions down the road.’
‘But housing commissions give that authentic inner-city feel. People like that.’
‘Too many break-ins. If you don’t have a lock-up garage, woe betide your car.’
‘I heard that most of the Aborigines have been moved to the western suburbs.’
‘They’re still down near the station. You see them when you drive past. I know a bloke whose wife had her bag stolen at the lights there from the passenger seat of her car. They just
opened the door and took the bag. Completely brazen! Terrified her. And you never know when there’s going to be another riot.’
They headed down to the new bistro in Danks Street. Along the footpath, its umbrellas gleamed like mushrooms beneath the purple sky. At the end table were a man and woman in black. With her high
slanted fringe, the woman was definitely a curator. Definitely Beth, Blanche soon saw. She stopped to say hello.
‘Blanche!’ Beth grinned up through her sunglasses. ‘Long time no see!’
They introduced their husbands. James — Beth’s — smiled and folded the travel section and placed it on the seat beside him. He wore his watch loose like a bracelet, and black
thongs and long black shorts. The blonde hair on his forearms seemed to have been conditioned and combed. Blanche tried to remember whether or not Beth had been with him the last time she had seen
her. Their hands were linked beneath the table in a gesture of sexual propriety; they emanated contentment.
The Hillsong church on the next block was spewing its Diesel and Tsubi congregation out to the footpath while a line of Toyotas and four-wheel drives emerged from its underground carpark like a
series of metal turds. On the wall of the grey edifice in huge lettering were the words
JESUS Saves Us
.
‘Have you just been up to Tait’s show?’ Beth smiled at Blanche.
‘Yeah, it was really good.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘Absolutely loved it,’ Hugh said.
‘He works so hard,’ said Beth.
‘Yeah,’ said Blanche. ‘I was telling Hugh about the blue circles.’
‘Discipline.’ Beth nodded. ‘He’s totally zen. Did you know he doesn’t even drink tea anymore? No alcohol, smoking, drugs or coffee, yoga every day.
And
he
meditates.’
‘Amazing.’
‘Apparently they love his work in China. The art market is going
off
in China. Are you still with Huston Alwick?’
‘Creative director!’ Hugh placed a hand on Blanche’s back.
James smiled up at them from beneath his visored hand.
‘Wow! Blanche is advertising royalty,’ Beth explained to him. ‘Her father is Ross King.’
‘Oh right.’ James examined her keenly.
‘I
so
loved that No War ad.
Everyone
was talking about it.’
‘Was that yours?’ said James excitedly. ‘That was excellent.’
‘And are you making any art?’
‘All the time.’ Blanche laughed, adding, ‘You mean my own work?’
‘Yeah.’
‘God, no, I haven’t got the time.’
‘I know the feeling. Blanche was a great drawer at college,’ Beth told James and Hugh. ‘You
were.
Drawing’s making a comeback, you know.’
‘How about you? How’s it going at the MCA?’
‘Oh, you know. Bureaucracy. Dead wood. Permanent funding crisis. There’s one curator who’s an absolute
dream
to work with. But I hate my boss.’ Beth grinned.
‘I know the feeling.’
‘There are some good things coming up. I should get your email.’
The Hillsongers were heading towards them. Blanche shifted her bag down her arm and began to work the zipper to extract one of her cards. A waiter brought out two plates of eggs Benedict.
Glistening folds of smoked salmon scattered with dill slooped across the white china beneath Hollandaise sauce. The waiter placed the meals before Beth and James then pulled a giant pepper grinder
out from where it was wedged in his armpit. Blanche’s stomach growled.