by Peter Carey
All right, he said, not listening.
I don’t play those games, she said.
OK, he said, and ducked away, leaving her breasts bruised and angry.
Gaby was unhappy, irritated with everybody, even Bree, whose birthday it was this coming Sunday and for whom she had decided to make a pair of happy pants. Celine had a treadle Singer and Frederic’s mum had some ’50s fabric, the planets Saturn and Jupiter on a black background, ten metres of it displayed in her Faraday Street shop. Gaby had walked to this window every day after school, always in the rain, her ankles sprayed by passing cars. “Back Later” the sign said. Gaby huddled against the door and the sign was still in place two hours later, and again on Thursday when she returned. It was early, before school, but there was a light inside. She knocked, without hope, but without relent, and finally there was Meg Matovic and a bald man in a dirty singlet.
Yes.
I’m sorry. I’ve got the money. I know what I want. She could hear Meg’s visitor peeing out the back, it was awful, on and on, he sounded like a horse.
Mrs. Matovic had not priced her fabric yet and did not want to sell a short length but finally she gave her two metres, and pushed the girl out into the rain.
At home that night her father was forced to light a fire although it was so warm they had to keep the windows open. The problem was the rising damp so the rain snuck up the walls like sap from the foundations. It bloomed in white and furry mounds on the painted hallway and, more seriously, in Celine’s built-in wardrobe. Sando was a “bush carpenter.” He had strung cords beneath the high ceiling of the little living room and all Celine’s clothes hung safe and dry, like sails above their heads.
Gaby’s bedroom wall was damp as well, but she had happy pants to make. By the time she was threading elastic she was called to set the table and found Celine removing the skin from chicken thighs which meant, twenty minutes later, short-cut coq au vin. She lit the candles.
Celine was in a good mood, translate as maybe stoned. She had actually AGREED to inspect a house in Coburg on the following weekend. All this was on her tape. She and Sando drank wine from long-stemmed glasses. They were “loose as gooses.” Sando got himself all folded in his chair. He had news but he held onto it, that was his way, to have treasures hoarded for a rainy day: he had got the funding for the day care centre for the migrant workers. You could see he was in love with them. His eyes caught the reflection of the candles. His mouth stretched along the coastline of his wobbly smile.
Celine was not competitive but she had good news as well. The Footlights Collective had been given a “development grant.”
They finished the bottle, Gaby said, and then they got stuck into the cask wine so it was time to leave them be. She returned to the elastic waistband of the happy pants. Downstairs everything continued chill. They were playing Astral Weeks. For God’s sake, find something new. Gaby read about Etruscan Mania and drifted into sleep.
On Friday morning a fresh mass of rainclouds were rolling across the Great Australian Bight but the serious rain did not arrive in Carlton until early evening. Then the fat drops hit the iron roof so heavily that they all had to shout. The rain made her happy, and safe, and the house filled with delicious smells as Celine reheated the leftover chicken. And everything felt like it was soothed and better until Gaby caught Celine cheating on the mashed potato. She was using water instead of milk. It’s healthier, Celine said. Translation: I am beautiful and you are fat.
Gaby returned to her room and locked her door and sat cross-legged making Bree’s wrapping paper, lettering with a thick gold Sharpie.
i’m skinny, so i must be anorexic.
i’m a girl who eats lunch, so i must be fat.
i wear black, so i must be a goth.
i’m into death punk, so i must cut my wrists.
i’m irish, so i must have a drinking problem.
i like brancusi, so i must be a poser.
i hang out with gays, so i must be gay too.
i’m a virgin, so i must be a prude.
i’m single, so i must be ugly.
i’m christian, so i must hate homosexuals.
i’m young, so i must be naive.
i don’t like the sun, so i must be an albino.
i’m intelligent, so i must be weak
i’m a westie, so i must be obese.
i like blood, so i must be a vampire.
i love kafka, so i must be a loner.
i don’t like to talk about my personal life,
so i must be having problems.
i have been to therapy, so i must be crazy.
i’m not like everyone else, so i must be a loser.
i’m a teenage girl, so i must not have a clue.
She returned to the kitchen. Celine criticised her for having gold paint on her hands, then announced that she had to cancel her visit to the Coburg house. She said the grant money had to be spent on a workshop over the weekend.
What a liar.
If we don’t spend it by Monday we have to give it back.
You said you got the money yesterday.
I just found out yesterday, sweetie. Apparently we’ve had it for a year.
Yes, this was a lie, Celine said on tape, but the point was: she knew Sando had gone and bought the house without her. She had found the account from the solicitor. She would not mention this for years.
Well, her husband said quietly, perhaps you could pop up to Coburg at lunchtime. And look at the house then.
You sneaky wilful bastard, Celine thought. The drag is, darling, she told him, I just can’t. The workshop is out of town. Of course there was no workshop but she already knew what she would do.
Sando laid down his knife and fork.
At Moggs Creek actually, Celine said, coming around the table to kiss his neck.
Sando stood, took one step around his wife, and scraped all his mashed potato into the tidy. Never mind, he said, staring deep into the bin.
No-one knew it but this was really the last day in the family’s history. It was then, exactly, that Frederic called through the window from the street. Gaby watched her mother with amazement. How pleased she was to see him all at once. Come in. He must come in. Celine was so completely false, but WTF: Gaby’s eyes were blurry as Frederic passed beneath all the hanging clothes. Her father finally lifted his foot from the kitchen tidy and gently helped the visitor escape his sodden coat.
Frederic’s black hair was like seaweed on a martyr’s skin. He was offered food. He accepted. He sat next to Gaby and did not look at her.
Thank you for bringing the ball back, Sando said. Gaby was relieved. Weren’t you baby?
We go to school together, Frederic said. His eyes hid behind his gluey lashes. You could see the candles deep inside his head.
Celine served him more mashed potato than she would ever give a girl.
You arrived at a historic moment, Sandy said.
Dear Jesus, Gaby thought, please do not embarrass me.
We have found a house to buy in Coburg, he said. (What the fuck was he doing?) Do you know Coburg?
My dad lived there for a while.
Sandy was thinking, oh shit, oh what have I said? His dad is Matty Matovic. He lived in jail in Coburg, oh shit.
And how was that? Celine smiled brightly.
Shut up, Gaby thought.
Frederic actually smiled at both of them. Where is the property you are interested in? he asked.
Patterson Street.
Patterson Street is cool.
Celine was acting “excessively delighted.” He knew Patterson Street? She could not stop looking at his lacquered nails.
They shot Jimmy Gifford there.
Shot? said Celine.
The film, said Sando quickly. He means they shot the film there.
I never heard of Jimmy Gifford, said Celine. Who was in it?
Gary Waddell, said Frederic, and it was, most likely, on account of this single brilliant lie that Frederic, in spite of
what he did, would remain golden in Sando’s eyes.
Frederic grinned like Vengeance.
We were going to look at the house tomorrow morning, said Sando.
Frederic was smiling blatantly.
We’re sad because we’ve just found out that Gaby’s mum can’t come.
I’ll come instead, said Frederic. Obviously.
Obviously? No-one really knew what to say.
I made a present for Bree, Gaby told Frederic. She was smiling too, could not stop.
You’re so social, he said.
Happy pants.
Show me, show me. He splayed his hands across his cheeks and made Celine smile, not because she liked or didn’t like him but because, clearly, she thought he must be gay i.e. no trouble here.
Can I show Frederic the present?
Frederic was a genius. He fairly danced up to her bedroom and no-one thought to stop him. They closed the door. They read the wrapping paper, kneeling side by side.
They hate each other, right?
It’s awful.
Is she having an affair?
No. I don’t think so.
She is, said Frederic. Take my word.
Gaby snuggled into Frederic’s chest and he kissed her cheek, and then, most particularly and delicately, her earlobe.
I want to teach you cool stuff, he said.
She did not understand him, but who cared? She took his hand and, seeking some unknowable transgression, slipped two fingers in her mouth.
ALL NIGHT the wind blew and her parents snuck out into the park to have their argument which was lifted and broken and thrown like cans and newspapers rattling in the laneway and Gaby played Tracy Chapman with the volume at the max.
She woke in daylight with the Walkman cord around her neck. Her parents’ bedroom door was shut. The stairs were sour and spilled and smoky. In the shivery kitchen, the remainder of the chicken shared its stale confusion with the sharp fresh slap of Celine’s perfume. Could she not have applied her perfume in the car? Which of course she took. Thanks Mum. Don’t worry about us. We’ll get the tram to Coburg.
Back in the front room at the top of the cold stairs she found Sando sleeping like a death scene, diagonally across the bed. When she spoke he turned to reveal a face cut with the red lines of crumpled sheet. He was bloodshot and sad. His handsome mouth was desiccated. I’m so sorry, Gaby. You don’t deserve all this. Et cetera.
I’m just going to get Frederic, OK. Then we’ll go?
We don’t have to go anywhere, baby.
Yes, to Coburg.
Do you really want to go without your mum?
Yes, I do.
He swung his big legs off the bed. He dragged her to him and he smelled like someone else, like dirty laundry and uncleaned teeth. She was squished and smashed and scared and she understood that she had, finally, done what she would never do i.e. she was on his side.
Is it really come to that? he asked and she could not be certain he meant what she thought he meant.
And Frederic, she said.
Of course.
I can cook you breakfast.
I’ll go to Johnny’s Green Room.
I’ll get Frederic.
The girl in the bathroom mirror had swollen eyes and a broken smile. She set out to brush her hair then flung the hairbrush from her. She showered and washed her hair and piled on the conditioner. She scrunched up her towel-dried hair with Protein+ and gel, and she used a T-shirt so it scrunched up really good, and then she let the gel dry and then she put on even more gel and then scrunched it again and listened to Tracy Chapman when her fair hair was like a dandelion in seed and it did not matter that her smile was hurt and bruised. She outlined her eyes with kohl.
Sando had already left for Johnny’s Green Room. She visited her mother’s wardrobe which was hanging from the ceiling. She chose an old blue Marimekko shirt dress with a Mao collar. Celine never wore it and anyway, so what? There were spotted bleach marks on the sleeve.
It was too big, but cool that way, and she put it together with daggy white socks and dirty sneakers. She tied on a red hair band but it was dumb and then she tried the old man’s hat she had bought at the Footscray market, and it was dumb too, because it would ruin the hair, but it would not be dumb if she never took the hat off.
The wind blew all the way to Parkville so she kept the hat in her hand until she was at the back gate at Frederic’s. She had never dressed like this in all her life, but she would not arrive at Frederic’s door looking like a high-school clone.
She had closed the corrugated-iron gate and was heading past a pile of huge sodden cardboard cartons and blocks of styrofoam, across the broken concrete to Frederic’s locked door when she was intercepted by a slender black-haired woman in a pink kimono.
Mrs. Matovic wrapped her arms beneath her breasts and the pale circles printed on her sleeves were very beautiful and strange like suckers on an octopus. She wore no shoes or slippers and her feet were remarkable with no veins, perfect straight white toes.
She was staring at the Marimekko dress, as if it were someone she knew or might like to meet.
Can I help you? she said, not friendly in the least.
I was looking for Frederic.
Why would that be?
I’m Celine’s daughter. You know me. I go to school with Frederic.
Mrs. Matovic lit a Marlboro, tapping her finger against the white cylinder, not to loosen any ash. At last she said, We’re a private family.
I thought other people lived here.
Yes, we don’t like people sneaking in behind our backs. Celine’s daughter should come to the front door and knock.
Can I talk to him now I’m here?
Just knock on the front door.
You mean now?
Sorry, darling, yes I do.
Walk out to The Avenue and come round the front on Royal Parade?
That’s it, she said.
Gaby had imagined she liked Meg Matovic and her interesting artful choices and her brave distinctive son but in fact she was a creepy thing that would squirt ink into your eye.
Thank you, Gaby said and walked to the back gate, holding her hat on her head like a girl at Sunday school. She closed the gate very carefully and checked the latch. She walked slowly along The Avenue, for as far as Frederic’s mother could see her, and then with all the dread of a bad girl being sent to see the principal, turned into Royal Parade. She did not know Frederic’s street number but only one of the houses had not been yuppied up. That one had peeling paint on its front door and this was where she knocked.
Frederic answered in white Indian garments, pyjama pants and a sort of shirt. He was like a waxwork dummy.
You better not come here, he said.
She smelled cigarette smoke and knew the squid mother was lurking back there in the dark. Sorry?
He could at least have made a funny face, but no. You have to call first, he said. Telephone ahead.
I didn’t have the number.
My mum will give it to you if she wants you to call. We’re pretty private.
Gaby mimed her outrage but he would make no sign to her, and he remained there like a great big pudding.
It’s all right, she said, I don’t want it anyway.
She returned to Royal Parade with her face already wet and her nose running. She got snot marks on her perfect hat. The stupid magpies went on carolling and the stupid sky was a cloudless blue and the stupid Sydney Road continued to carry its trucks and cars north across the dreary bluestone plains made in the days when volcanoes vomited across the future suburbs, and streams of lava ran like toffee, pooling in the hollows up to sixty metres deep. Liquid basalt spewed from her chest and rolled down the Merri Creek, boiling eels, and sending blazing wallabies to spread fire through bush.
At Macarthur Place she threw herself so hard upon the bed it broke. When the doorbell rang her eyes were bleeding black across her cheeks and she did not care to hide the damage.
There w
as Frederic: cruel, in stovepipes. She threw her fists to break his chest.
I had to say that, he said, finally grabbing for her wrist.
Let go. Your mother is just rude.
He released her and she hit him in the stomach.
Jeez, lay off.
She will decide to grant me her phone number? Jeez.
Quit it. Don’t hit me.
What if I knocked on the front door? How would you even hear me out the back?
Frederic could have said my father is a thief, mother is a fence. But he said nothing and she began to cry.
He lifted her wet hand and brushed his lips across her knuckles.
What did I do wrong? she asked. Just tell me what I did.
His dark eyes were unnaturally still, more like a nurse’s than a teenage boy’s.
I’ll get you your own key, he said and, with his index finger drew a line through the wet kohl on her cheek. That frightened her, the key. It was Saturday morning, not yet ten o’clock.
ON A RED OLIVETTI VALENTINE, the man known as Moore-or-less-correct reported that Gaby Sando and Frederic were on a Melbourne tram, travelling north along Lygon Street to Brunswick, past clothing factories, cyclone fences, faded signs for English lessons. They entered familiar Holmes Street. They felt the tram shake itself and do a dogleg dance and Gaby tumbled into Frederic who smelled of leatherwood honey.
Everything was fine and sunny: clouds the size of little farts. The tram rattled north, passed all the cast-iron verandahs that, at that date, had survived the council’s planned destruction of all memory. They got off at what was meant to be a posh street but the footpath was in Coburg and therefore narrow. Sando was bristly and bloodshot as if he had been playing pool all night.
The street had a snotty name but the trees were weedy, starved of love, survivors with hessian bandages. Gaby was shocked by the cracks in the concrete, the lonely quiet, the little houses shrunk inside their borders, alone, disconnected. They saw a malevolent cluster of boys like rats with mullets, operating on a Datsun 240Z, roaring, revving, sending oily smoke across the intersection. One lay on the mudguard, deep into the engine, his plumber’s crack shining at the sky.
