Australia Day Read online

  I dread my visits to Dr Jayawickrama. He doesn’t deserve this. Lola adored him. Toward the end of her illness, he even made a few house calls—like a village doctor, complete with his bag of potions. But I can’t help it. For me, he will always be the man who diagnosed my wife with cancer.

  As I step inside the consulting room, I see the bed where Dr Jay used to examine Lola. My knees tremble—I’m relieved when he offers me a seat.

  ‘Your cholesterol results are a lot worse, Evan,’ he says, turning from the computer screen to me. ‘Are you taking care of yourself?’

  ‘Doing my best.’

  ‘I’m concerned about you,’ he says, his brow furrowed. ‘It’s been five years since Lola passed. And you look dreadful.’

  ‘Are doctors allowed to say that to their patients?’

  ‘We’ve known each other a long time. We’re friends.’

  I’m not so sure, I think. I look at the family photo on the doctor’s desk, but the people in the snapshot are strangers. Lola probably knew their names, probably sent them a handmade card at Christmas. He is confusing me with her.

  ‘If you want to talk…’ he goes on.

  ‘Thanks, doc. But I’ll be right.’

  And even the good doctor Jayawickrama knows when to give up a fight.

  I never asked Lola’s father for her hand. I choked. But Lola never knew. Nobody knew. Except me. And the professor.

  I had every intention of asking him. We were in the drawing room (I had never known people to have drawing rooms before) and he had offered me a glass of port.

  ‘How’s work?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Hardly life and death, is it?’ he said and passed me his cigar.

  ‘It’s money. For some people that’s more important than life and death.’ I puffed on the cigar, which triggered a paroxysm of coughing.

  ‘Can’t handle the good life, eh?’ he said and slapped me hard across the shoulder. ‘That will have to change if you’re planning on staying with my daughter.’

  ‘That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,’ I said, taking a large swig of port for extra courage. ‘Sir.’

  ‘Really,’ he said, and then, before I could respond, he added, ‘Because if you want my blessing, you can forget it.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no words would come. Instead, my stomach purged hot fluid through my lips and onto the fine Persian rug.

  Daniella. She’s crept inside my brain and her languid legs are dangling before my eyes. As I stare at my sketch on the wall, its imperfections taunt me. Soon all I can see are the faults. Her arms are too long. Her head is too small. I can’t take it anymore. I tear it down.

  Bea finds me in the living room with the torn paper in my hands. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here. It might have been an hour, or half a day.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asks.

  But I’m not in the mood for her questions. ‘I didn’t realise I needed your permission.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ She stands up to light a cigarette.

  ‘You know you can’t smoke in here.’

  ‘I can do whatever the fuck I like.’

  ‘Your mum wouldn’t like it,’ I say, and regret the words as soon as they’ve left my mouth.

  Our eyes lock. ‘Mum’s dead,’ Bea says. ‘Do you get that, Dad?’

  ‘You think I, of all people, don’t know that? What the hell’s wrong with you?’

  ‘What’s wrong with me?’ she snaps. ‘What’s wrong with me is that I’ve lost my mother and I can’t even talk to my father about it.’ She throws her hands in the air.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’ I say, gentler now.

  The tears are falling hard and fast.

  ‘Forget it,’ she says. ‘I don’t even know why I bother.’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the class.’

  ‘Just forget it.’ She scoops Shakespeare up from the floor. He purrs. He’s always loved Bea. ‘There are some groceries in the kitchen. I bumped into Dr Jay on the weekend and he said you could do with some good food.’

  This time I see it as it happens. She arrives in a cognac-coloured leather jacket and frayed blue jeans. Marcel greets her at the door and ushers her into the bathroom on the second floor, where there are charcoal handprints across the walls. We stop our chatter and take our positions, either at our easels or perched upon our favourite milk crates. When she finally removes her robe, she doesn’t throw it back like a cape, but steps out of it, slowly, covering the sprinkling of hair between her legs until the last minute.

  I know her curves now. I have a sense of her in my mind. This time I see different things, hidden things. Like the ladder of red lines along her forearm—it takes me a while to recognise them for what they are.

  Edwina isn’t here, and during the break I wander over to the window. I look out at the street below. An old man weaves through the traffic with a half-empty beer bottle in his hand. But I’m not really watching him. I’m wishing her to me. I am pleading with the universe to bring her to me. And it works.

  ‘You’re getting better,’ Daniella says.

  ‘Thank you,’ I reply. ‘I’m getting to know you, I guess.’

  ‘Are you?’ she says, hugging her robe around her and cupping a mug of coffee to her lips. She looks me straight in the eye.

  ‘No. I mean, I don’t know.’

  My nervousness pleases her. ‘You certainly noticed my battle scars.’ She lifts the sleeve of her robe and points to the scarlet marks on her arm.

  ‘They’re part of you. Your story,’ I say, and cringe at my own sentimentality.

  She cocks her head to the side. ‘It’s not as romantic as you make it sound.’

  The bell on the alarm clock rings. Our time is up.

  Nobody is waiting for me. Nobody will notice if I’m late getting home. Except a cat. And even he will find someone else to feed him. Her black knight isn’t here tonight. He hasn’t arrived on his gleaming black beast. I’ll just make sure she’s safe, I tell myself. There’s no harm in it.

  Daniella is the last one to leave. Marcel kisses her goodbye at the door. Two kisses, European style. She starts walking. She moves at a leisurely pace, stopping to look at a polka-dot dress and fix her hair in a shop window reflection. I hang back, unnoticed—an old man with a scarf wrapped around his ears, invisible to everyone. At the intersection she stops, places a cigarette between her lips and uses both hands to shelter the flame from a sudden blustering wind. She takes a long, slow drag, shutting her eyes and relishing the smoke as it warms her from the inside out. A car drives past and a man leans out.

  ‘Come home with me!’ he yells.

  ‘Fuck off!’ she yells back.

  It is a wintry Tuesday night, and apart from a few smokers outside restaurants and pubs, the streets are empty. Daniella’s boots tap on the concrete. The street she lives on is a quiet one, dimly lit. Her single-fronted terrace is shrouded in trees and shadows. The boyfriend must be out, I think. I see her walk up to the front door in the darkness. And then she’s gone. Consumed by the big black house.

  Bea insists on seeing my sketches. I shouldn’t be nervous, but I am. She stands back and squints before leaning in needlessly close. She moves as if to speak and then, at the last moment, stops herself. I can’t bear it.

  ‘So?’

  She turns to face me. ‘You’re better than I remember.’

  ‘Really?’ Her words give me more pleasure than I could have anticipated.

  ‘Mum would be so proud.’

  But now she’s ruined it. I think back to last night. Daniella’s house.

  ‘What do you like about it?’ I say, to change the subject. She could cut me down, but she doesn’t.

  ‘I like the fluidity of the lines. I like your sensitivity to your subject.’

  This is as close to a moment as we’ll get. I put my hand on her shoulder. ‘Thank you, Bea.’

  ‘This drawing stuff is
good for you. Therapeutic.’ She picks up her bag. She’s always in such a hurry—to do things, to get away from me. ‘Have you been back to see Dr Jay?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Such a nice man. Maybe you should pay him a visit.’

  But I give her the same answer I gave him.

  ‘I’ll be right.’

  Nostalgia distorts things. Like this photo I’m looking at now. It’s of Bea, sitting on a plastic unicorn in some park. Lola is standing behind her and they’re both smiling at the camera. It’s summer, and Lola is wearing a sunflower dress. It seems so perfect, I’m almost tempted to wish myself back there. But minutes after the photo was taken, Bea fell off the unicorn and knocked out a tooth on the way down. I don’t want to relive that. I don’t want to remember Bea’s howls and her mother’s bloodied hands as we sped down Sydney Road to the hospital.

  This is how I spend my time, now that I’m old. I stare at things—photos, paintings, trinkets—and I reminisce. When I was younger, I used to wonder what old people did once they retired. I’d imagine them playing a round of golf or having marathon coffee sessions with their friends—anything that was better than going back to my windowless office after lunch. But now I’m here, and it’s not the luxury I thought it would be.

  I wake up early. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found it harder and harder to sleep in. If I had one wish, I’d wish for the sleep of a teenager—a deep and restful nothingness lasting ten or twelve hours. As it is, I wake up at least twice a night just to go to the toilet. When I do, it takes me a lifetime to get the damn thing going, and then another lifetime to make it stop.

  In the mornings I make myself an instant coffee and a piece of toast. I feed Shakespeare. Later on I go to the milk bar to get some milk, or to buy the Herald Sun. In the afternoons I check the mail, and then sometimes, in the summer months, I watch a bit of cricket. Every day I pray for some variety, and then, when my prayers are answered, I’m seized with anxiety.

  Now I have an aim, a goal to set my sights upon. Tuesdays. My life is a countdown to Tuesdays. Even the remaining days seem less banal. On those days I visit art shops. Art shops, I’ve found, are wonderful places. The shop assistants let me spend a good part of the day in there, exploring the shelves, trying pens out on the tiny stacks of paper provided for that very purpose. There are blank canvases stacked like fallen dominoes against the walls, and brushes with fine, silky hairs. There are thick tubes of paint with evocative names like ‘midnight blue’ and ‘fire-engine red’ and ‘grass green’ and ‘mars black’.

  On this particular day I pick out a box of charcoal sticks and take them to the register.

  ‘That’ll be seven dollars eighty, thanks.’

  I hand over a ten-dollar note.

  The girl picks change from the mouth of the register. ‘You an artist?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes. Sort of. Not really.’

  She smiles and hands me my change.

  I’m riding high as I walk down Smith Street to the studio. I have my green Coles bag on my shoulder, and in it my sketchpad and new tools. I walk past the hipsters sipping their organic beer. I’m an artist, I think, and even they can see it.

  I bound up the stairs. Marcel says, ‘Hello, Evan,’ and I’m flattered that he remembers my name. He mustn’t remember everyone, I think to myself—only the good ones. I take up my regular spot near the window and look around the room. The Asian man is here again. I spot Edwina chatting by the urn to some guy with a nose-ring. She waves, and I wave back. There’s only one newcomer tonight. I can tell he’s new from the way he’s sitting. He’s unsure of himself, with no way of gauging how talented he is compared to the rest of us. He gives me confidence. I pour myself a generous mug of red wine.

  Marcel enters the room with a smile on his face. ‘Good evening, everyone,’ he says in a loud voice. ‘I’d like to introduce you all to our new model.’

  New model. I don’t hear much else after that. She’s much older than Daniella, and voluptuous, with a head of wild grey hair. Edwina smiles at me. She’s excited.

  Marcel goes on. ‘Peggy’s a very experienced model. And so very beautiful, no?’

  Peggy doesn’t waste any time. She immediately drops her gown and starts posing for the one-minute warm-ups. My confidence crumbles. The charcoal feels strange between my fingers—heavy and foreign. I rip out page after page, and the staccato noise of the paper tearing from the ring-bound spine attracts attention from others in the class.

  I can’t do it. The lighting is off. Her head is too big for her body. Her pose is stiff and unreal. My neck heats up under my collar. I feel ten pairs of eyes on me as I pack up my things and make a clumsy exit.

  Outside, the cold air is a relief. Lola used to talk about that feeling of not being able to breathe, but I’ve never understood it until now. A panic attack. That was Dr Jay’s diagnosis when Lola described the sensation to him.

  ‘Everything okay?’

  Marcel has followed me out.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. I need to come up with some explanation for my erratic behaviour. ‘I felt sick. All of a sudden.’

  ‘It can get a little hot up there sometimes,’ he says, pulling a packet of cigarettes from his pocket. ‘Smoke?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Good for you.’ He lights his cigarette, inhales. Smoke billows from his nose. ‘She’s a great model, no?’

  ‘Daniella?’

  He looks at me quizzically.

  ‘No. Peggy.’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ I nod. ‘She’s great. I’m just not in the zone tonight.’

  Marcel puts a hand on my shoulder. ‘It happens.’

  Weeks pass. I stop eating. I stop sleeping. Bea starts dropping by. She makes excuses each time she comes: she’s in the area; she’s found an old DVD I might like. But I can see the concern in her eyes. I can see what’s happening too. My face is becoming pale and wan beneath its growing beard. I’m starting to smell. My bones are jutting out as if trying to escape through my papery skin.

  I can’t believe it when it happens. In the five years since Lola’s been gone, it’s never happened before. I expect Bea to be angry, but she isn’t. Just goes to show how worried she must be. Lola’s birthday. The one day of the year when Bea and I agree to put our weapons down. And this year I’ve forgotten it.

  We usually pack a light lunch (with a few of Lola’s favourites, like blue brie and teacake) and drive down the Great Ocean Road to the exact spot—the fifth lookout point—where we scattered her ashes. Lola was born in Nice, in the south of France, and she loved the water.

  Thank God for Bea. She’s taken care of everything. The car is full of fuel and there’s a basket of bread and fruit in the boot. All I had to do was get dressed. We find a sheltered place to set down our towels, and then, between mouthfuls of rich cheese and gulps of cheap red wine, we take turns reading Lola’s favourite poems. Today, Bea reads ‘The Open Sea’ by Dorothea Mackellar. She takes her time, savouring the words, waiting for them to catch the breeze and fly far out to sea.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I say. I mean it.

  ‘I thought it was a good choice for today.’

  Why can’t it always be like this? I look into the foaming mouth of the ocean. It’s late June and there’s a chill in the air. I stand up. ‘I’m going for a swim.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Bea says, licking dip from her fingers and lying back on her towel. She thinks I’m joking, but I’m not. I’m overwhelmed by a sudden urge to go in the water. ‘Dad!’ she shouts as I run down the beach, shedding layers of clothing as I go. I’m not wearing bathers and I run into the icy water in only my boxers. It’s like a hard slap in the face, and it feels good. The sky overhead is grey and there are a few heavy clouds foretelling rain. A lone seagull circles above me, searching the choppy blue expanse for food. I’m waking up.

  Her house looks different during the day. It’s one of those single-fronted terraces with a corrugated roof. From the street you can see a red lamp in th
e corner of the window, and a bookcase, bursting with books, next to the mantelpiece. I haven’t seen it from the inside, but I imagine a respectable amount of mess—dirty coffee mugs, discarded scarves and mismatched socks strewn across her bedroom—and maybe even a few kitsch collectables like a lava lamp or a glazed clay ashtray in the living room.

  I’ve learnt a lot about Daniella these past few weeks. She doesn’t have a fixed schedule. Some days she doesn’t go out at all. Other days she’s up early and leaves the house with wet hair and a piece of buttered toast in her hand. She always sits on the left side of the tram, and on Wednesday mornings she does a pilates class at the YMCA. It’s rather amazing she hasn’t noticed me—just goes to show how invisible I’ve become.

  Tonight she’s looking at DVDs at the local video store. A pimply teen is shovelling microwave popcorn into his mouth as he watches the newest release on a television mounted above the door. I read his name tag: Jackson, Assistant Manager. I’m completely lost in this place. Bea brings me DVDs every once in a while, but I hardly ever get around to watching them. Just the machine puts me off. It always starts flashing instructions when I try to use it. Set time. Eject. Power off. Daniella knows what she wants, though. She’s already at the counter, waiting for the assistant manager to take time out from his movie and popcorn to serve her. I decide to make a move. I grab the first DVD I see on the weekly hire shelf and line up behind her.

  Daniella smiles at me over her shoulder. I smile back. She passes the DVD case across the desk to Jackson, and when he turns to fetch the disc, she speaks to me.

  ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

  ‘I was just about to say the same thing.’

  ‘Your face looks really familiar.’

  ‘And yours.’ I pretend to stumble upon a misplaced memory. ‘Did you ever do a life drawing class?’

  She blushes ever so faintly.