Authors: Fiona McGregor
She smelt of the hospital. Of medication, antiseptic, piss, shit, bile. She could taste her foul breath. She was like a moonwalker, weightless in this wondrous alien world, crossing through the
ensuite past the texture of clothes, gargling Listerine, moving to the shower, claw hands clutching a towel. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a proper shower. Trembling,
she twisted the taps, and slowly adjusted them till water poured forth at the right temperature. The stench of chlorine filled the cubicle. They must be flushing germs from the low dams. She
stepped beneath the shower, soaping herself carefully. She emerged glistening and triumphant as an athlete. I’m here, she thought. I’m
still here.
She rubbed cream on the old bag of her body, struggling to reach her spine. Fatima had even left fresh pyjamas out. Bed, clean sheets, smell of white cotton. She had a day’s supply of
painkillers until Carla arrived. She drank a dose of liquid morphine, unpeeled a fentanyl patch and stuck it on her thigh. She climbed beneath the covers and sank into darkness. Goodnight,
goodnight. Outside, the sun was drawing below the horizon. Little patches of white glinting here and there in the garden were all that was left of the hailstorm. And the creaking of bark on deck,
water slapping stone, and the screeching, screeching cockatoos.
She dozed, aware of someone looking in on her, people at the door, then the clock’s hands moving past midnight. These were the hours of creeping fear. So little flesh left that her knees
scraped against one another like rocks. All night shifting a pillow between her legs, longing for her cat, longing for Brian. She sat up at one stage to take more morphine. Her neck hurt, her back
hurt, her knees hurt, and her belly screamed over everything the loudest hurt of all.
She woke to the light thud of a cat jumping on the bed. Footsteps delicate up the covers towards her, but she couldn’t move. She lay trapped and distraught in the dark. Then a last
desperate lunge and breaking through the weight she found herself alone in reality. She took two more tablets and drifted back into her memories.
Leon went to George’s to borrow a suit for his appointment with the barrister. He was surprised when the door was opened by George’s boyfriend. Linus was Dutch or something but had
been here since he was a teenager and spoke without an accent. He was a couple of years younger than George but almost bald, not particularly fit. He had a homely look about him.
He shook Leon’s hand. ‘Hey, what a bummer.’
‘Yeah, it’s pretty surreal.’ Leon entered the apartment shyly.
‘George is in the bedroom.’
Leon walked down the hall. Bruce was slumped against the wall halfway to the bedroom. ‘Bruce!’ The cat thumped his tail and Leon stooped to rub his knuckles along Bruce’s
throat to receive the soothing vibrations.
George greeted him with a hearty hug and back slap. ‘Fucking bummer, mate.’
‘Yeah. Back to the 1950s.’
‘Like, full-
on
.’ George smelt of garlic. He was dressed for work. He had his wardrobe open and a few items of clothing laid out on the bed. ‘You’re actually more
Linus’s size — you’re both a bit bigger than me. But I got these out anyway.’
‘Thanks, mate. I really appreciate it.’
‘You okay? You look a bit whacked.’
‘I’m not sleeping that well.’
‘I feel a bit guilty, to be honest.’
‘No. Why?’
‘Cos I kind of kicked you out.’
‘I kind of instigated that turn of events.’
‘Yeah, but, the drugs.’
‘It’s okay.’
More than the possession charge, Leon was worried about the one of indecent exposure. He didn’t want to talk to George about it: George’s sympathy was enough. In daylight, Leon could
see the details of the room: shoes that obviously belonged to Linus in the corner, a photo of the two of them on the dresser. He was glad he hadn’t had sex with George in this room. Anywhere
in the house, come to think of it.
‘You really need a suit for your appointment?’ said George.
‘No. But I can’t wear these jeans. And I’ll need a suit for court.’
‘Okay, go for it.’
Leon held the trousers against his body. They were probably too short. The suit looked intimidating, funereal or corporate, and he left it. He didn’t even have a suit in Brisbane but he
did have a pair of black trousers and black leather shoes. Still, even if he had brought everything down to Sydney, he knew that almost his entire wardrobe was composed of scungy gardening clothes,
or casual clothes. It made him feel insubstantial, an amoeba in the serious world of men and careers.
‘It’s the sort of thing I should own, isn’t it. I mean I’m going to need a suit for Mum’s funeral.’
‘I like getting into a suit now and then. Makes a man feel sharp.’
‘These brogues look spiffy.’
‘They’d fit you.’
Leon slipped off his jeans and trainers, angling himself away from George. The shy, chaste feeling that coated him on entry to the apartment lingered; he kept it on as protection. George, as
though in tacit agreement, rifled through a drawer up the other end of the wardrobe. Leon put on the trousers and found that if he slung them low they were fine. The shoes fitted perfectly.
Linus came down the hall to use the bathroom and stuck his head in the door. ‘Smart!’
‘A fine upstanding citizen, if ever I saw one,’ George agreed.
Leon turned in the mirror. ‘D’you reckon I should shave? I really don’t want to.’
George walked him to the door. Leon described Carla, and George seemed to think it was the same nurse he had worked with in Ward 17. ‘She’s great. Can’t get better,
really.’
‘That’s good to hear.’
‘Will you keep me posted?’
‘Sure.’
George watched Leon walk out of the building. ‘Hey, are you moving back or what? Have you decided?’
Leon turned. ‘I guess so. I guess I’m here now.’
‘Well, that’s great.’
‘I have to get a job.’
‘What about your business?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I’ll wind it up. Hey, you know what my fees with this barrister are? Fifty a phone call, three-fifty a meeting, and three and a half thou for a day in
court. Even if the hearing only takes ten minutes and the charges are dismissed, I still have to hire him for the day.’
‘Yep, barristers’ fees are like that.’
Leon shook his head. ‘Why can’t I charge that for a day in someone’s garden?’
‘Ditto, mate. But that’s what they cost.’
‘You need to tell me everything,’ Maurice Parker said. He looked like a guy called Rosten that Leon had gone to school with. Nutbrown eyes, skin of a rich paleness
that would tan if given a chance; a suggestion of voluptuousness although he wasn’t overweight. His manner was unperturbed. ‘You never know what they can bring up in court, so we need
to bring it up first if it needs to be brought up.’
‘What sort of things? I don’t have a record.’
‘Good.’ Maurice was taking notes. ‘Speeding fines? Parking fines?’
‘Um. Yeah.’
‘Paid up?’
‘I got a parking fine the same night, actually. Because I was in lock-up. I should send it to NSW Police.’
Maurice didn’t catch the joke. ‘Paid it?’
‘No.’
‘Pay it.’
‘Okay.’
Suddenly Maurice smiled. ‘When you get home.’
‘Okay. Sure.’
‘Habit of not paying your fines in general?’
Leon stroked his beard. He was pretty sure he’d skipped out on fines when leaving New South Wales. He sometimes visualised late-payment penalties floating into his old letterbox. Somehow,
a glitch in the switch to a Queensland licence had let the fines fall through the net. But, from time to time, he remembered them and wondered if they would catch up with him. Now they assumed
monstrous proportions. He began to sweat.
Maurice read his mind. ‘You can find out online if you have any outstandings. So what happened on the night. Let’s go through it step by step.’
‘I went to a mate’s for a drink. We had a few beers and, um, indulged a bit — my mate was celebrating the end of exams, you know; it was a completely spur-of-the-moment one-off
thing when he suggested to me that we indulge. I had no idea, really; I wasn’t expecting it.’
Maurice waited politely.
‘Anyway, George didn’t want to go out and he told me there was a party on, so I walked there cos I didn’t want to drive because I was over the limit.’ Leon hoped the
responsibility in this decision shone through. ‘And it was across the park so that’s why they got me there.’
‘So the drugs were yours.’
‘
No.
George gave them to me —’
‘They had come into your possession. They were on your person.’
‘But I wasn’t even thinking about it, and George has nothing to do with this.’
Maurice listened, twiddling his pen while Leon talked about his innocence, the paltry amount, how stupid it all was. ‘Leon, we’re going to have to plead guilty to the possession
charge. The drugs were in your pockets. Pleading guilty can make you look better in some circumstances. Section 10 — good citizen with no priors — you’ll have to get some
character references. Can you think of anyone who can give you one?’
‘Um. I know the head of Triage at St Vincent’s.’
‘Great. What’s his name?’
‘George Shehadie.’ Leon smiled. ‘The guy who gave me the crystal.’
‘Leon, when I said,
Tell me everything
,’ Maurice said drily, ‘I didn’t mean everything.’
Leon’s eyes travelled across the law books on Maurice’s shelves. There must have been hundreds, probably all in small print. It was like looking at an enormous factory from the
outside, hearing the grind of machinery through the walls, knowing you were about to be pushed in like meat into a mincer. Here he was, the son of a rich businessman, with the best education money
could buy, almost halfway through his life, and he knew nothing about the system that governed him. There were no shackles on his limbs: he could get up and walk out of here right now if he wanted.
But there was a shadow. And it had changed everything.
‘The fact that you were going from A to B is in your favour,’ Maurice was saying. ‘But if you were having sex with this man —’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘You’re being charged with indecent exposure.’
‘I was fully clothed.’
‘Did you have your penis out?’
Leon cringed. ‘I wasn’t doing anything!’ He remembered the man’s chest hair beneath his palm, his beautiful eyes. How pathetic he had seemed as soon as they got caught, a
total turn-off. A lot of what Maurice said was jargon or else it was Leon’s inability to concentrate. The photos on the desk were tilted so both Maurice and his clients could see his family.
A woman holding a baby. Maurice standing on a rocky coastline, holding a child’s hand, a fishing rod in the other. How alien it seemed and yet Maurice could have been Joel Rosten from Shore,
chewing his pen at the desk adjacent during the HSC. Every night and every day since the bust, Leon had thought of worst-case scenarios. That everyone would find out, and he would be shunned,
unable to work. That he would go to gaol.
But Maurice was saying something completely different. ‘You’re free.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You have no dependants. You said you were living between cities, didn’t you?’ Maurice capped his pen and straightened the papers on his desk.
‘Yes.’ Leon realised that the appointment was winding up.
‘I envy you that flexibility. Horticulture. That must be a
great
job. Have you always wanted to be a horticulturalist? What got you into it?’
‘My mother, I suppose. I grew up in a beautiful garden next to the bush. Plants were always kinda fundamental.’
‘So grounding, having your hands in the earth every day. I nearly became a horticulturalist, you know. It’s my fantasy job.’
‘Really? Why didn’t you?’
Maurice led Leon to the door. ‘Oh, you know, pressure from Dad to study law. Not that I don’t enjoy it. But if we have a recession here and my work dries up, I’m going back to
the garden.’
‘You won’t earn as much.’
Maurice smiled quizzically. ‘I’m not motivated by money, Leon.’
Marie started to get dressed when Fatima came upstairs to clean. The vacuum approached as she pulled on a clean bra. When Fatima knocked, Marie called out, ‘It’s
alright, you don’t have to do my room today.’ The vacuum receded down the hall. Marie was unable to close the clasp of her bra. Every time she reached behind, her hands lost strength
and dropped by her sides. A colossal weakness overtook her and when the bedroom door swung open in the breeze, all she could do was stay where she was sitting on the bed, trying in vain to pull a
shirt over herself before Fatima noticed her.
Fatima switched off the vacuum cleaner and came up the hall. ‘Can I help you, Mrs King?’
‘I can’t.’ Marie shrugged. Half naked, helpless and humiliated, she plucked at her bra.
Fatima’s expression was clear and unafraid. She stood behind Marie and fastened her bra, then held the shirt open and Marie put her quivering arms into the sleeves. Looking down at her
wrinkled tattoos and emaciated thighs, Marie didn’t care anymore abut her state. She was sick: this was how she looked, and that was that.
‘Do you like pants? Something from the cupboard? A skirt?’
‘There’s a wraparound skirt in there that I could put on.’
‘Yes, I know.’ Fatima fetched it from the ensuite, bringing out the cashmere hat as well. Marie stood up and let Fatima help her put the skirt on. She bowed her head to receive the
cap.
She descended the stairs with Fatima at her elbow. Something funny in her left knee, so that when she bent it the knee wouldn’t straighten again properly. At the bottom, Marie turned to
Fatima. ‘Thank you, I’ll be alright now.’
It was snowing in the mountains and an icy wind had swept over the plains into the city. Marie walked down the side path into the bottom garden. The mulch she had piled around plants before the
sale was still high. The blackboy, as Leon had pointed out, was dark with scale.
She drifted beneath a low, glowering sky. Along the northern fence, the wattle was in bloom. She attempted to pick some and it sprang out of her hand. She tried again, some yellow fluff
remaining in her palm. She walked across the lawn to where the view was open and gazed at the bush along the headland opposite. Beneath the lime tree she found Blanche’s fossil-fern
headstone. She released her handful of wattle over the grave, wondering about Mopoke’s death. Most animals hid themselves to give birth or die. Were they ashamed of their pain? In their
vulnerability did they expect attack rather than comfort from the pack? Did animals understand what humans so often denied: that all life was dispensable? We humans with our drama and ceremony and
paraphernalia. Marie thought of Mopoke’s difficult last months: she must have been relieved to die. ‘Well, Moey,’ she said to the grave, ‘I don’t think I’m going
to make it back to the bush after all. I’m just too tired. I’ll just have to look at it.’