In a few days she was washing the pressed metal and wooden walls with sugar soap. It was an old building, but age did not preclude it from special treatment, in fact its age added to her grit to wash away the years of dirt and neglect.
Sugar soap was only the beginning; hot soapy water came next, along with a vicious-looking brush. Racing up and down the ladder she scrubbed a future into the walls whose paint under the weight of her determination gave way in places, revealing the dark brown jarrah beneath.
She scrubbed the old counter, the stairs, the window frames and sills. She scrubbed the floor at a punishing rate with both hands gripping the wooden brush; her body see-sawed as she pushed the brush away from her and dragged it back. She was like a demon possessed, and relished every broken fingernail and blistered callous. Her sleep, when she finally laid her aching body down at night, was deep and satisfying.
When she was done, the interior, now stripped of its wretched furnishings, looked cavernous. A great clean hollow, which she’d created in six days. Yet the cleaning frenzy continued for two more days as she hauled a hose into the building and like a fireman sprayed the whole interior down, dousing the flames of dirt for good. Water ran down the walls, down the stairs and out the front door onto the pavement. The building was dripping wet and would remain damp for days in the early spring weather.
Helen was elated. She had tamed the monster.
Vivian had never seen her so invigorated, so full of plans and ideas, so different. He hardly recognised his mother as she sent him off to buy the paint and brushes and buckets for the leaky roof, which they could not yet afford to replace.
*
Helen marched from one end of the shop to the other, then upstairs to the attic. She stood in front of each window in turn, admiring how clean the glass was, then bent slightly forward to appreciate the sweeping views of the side laneway and front street. She’d polished so hard, she was afraid she might have worn away the view.
She took in every blank room and exhaled satisfaction. She worshipped the walls that still showed the lacerating scars of her merciless cleaning. She walked barefoot on the spotless floors as if stepping on the finest carpets. And then, circling around each room, she paid homage to the fact there was nothing above her except what should be — a roof and naked light bulbs. She exalted in the lack of anything. She bowed before rooms full of nothing but the exquisite smell of absence. Cleanliness, pure air. She took in deep breaths through her nose, held them and then released them, repeating the ritual in every room.
The old building creaked, groaned and squeaked out in varying tones, pitches and decibels. Helen listened to the sounds, trying to interpret the building’s messages.
She beamed with happiness at the thought of how the shop and flat would be furnished and decorated. With Arnold and her sons, she had not been able to sustain one single feminine trait in the entire house. Surrounded by males it had been impossible. Her ‘touch’ had been crushed time after time.
Now, as she looked at the empty rooms before her she knew she could leave her fingerprints all over them. There would be vases of flowers, lace curtains, colour coordinated fittings and favourite pieces of porcelain on display. Lots of books, but not too many, neatly stacked in bookshelves.
*
After a week of fine weather the building was dry and Helen dipped the tip of her broad paintbrush into a four-litre tin of creamy paint. She wanted to hold this moment — the moment of sheer joy when you take a first step. Vivian was already painting, slapping the paint about with vigour. For once he was creating noise, and Helen’s joyous mood swung even higher.
Downstairs was to be green. Sage green with trims in an aubergine red. Her choice, Vivian agreeing without a whisper of protest. For now, only downstairs would be painted. Upstairs would have to wait and there would be no coverings on the bare floorboards either. As soon as the paint was dry Vivian began working on the bookshelves.
Hendel dropped in to chat and inspect the shop but before he knew it he’d been roped in to help. Not that he minded, in fact he was delighted. Vivian and Hendel spent seven days building the bookshelves.
Firstly, they built shelves running along the entire length of the side and back walls of the shop, leaving a gap at the back door, which led up the stairs to the flat.
It was when they were about to embark on the next stage, four rows of shelving in the centre of the shop, that Helen suggested a maze. ‘A simple book maze,’ she announced a little apprehensively. Hendel and Vivian could only stare back at her in surprise. ‘A simple maze?’ queried Vivian. ‘Isn’t that an oxymoron?’
Hendel held back.
‘A simple book maze,’ repeated Helen as she handed them a neatly drawn sketch.
Vivian studied the drawing, shaking his head. Sure enough, it was a simple design. Seven bookshelves spiralled into a squarish shape that turned four corners before reaching its centre.
‘Imagine,’ said Helen. ‘It’d be something really special and intimate. You could get lost in it, and then lost again, once you opened a book.’
Vivian glanced at his mother. Her face was pleading with him. He looked to Hendel who shrugged his shoulders and tilted his head, as if to say, ‘Why not?’
Vivian shook his head wryly. ‘It’s a crazy idea.’
‘No it’s not. We’ve got so much floor space. And if it doesn’t work … we can always change it. It’s easy, we’d just remove that shelf,’ said Helen as she pointed to her sketch.
It was true, thought Vivian, the maze could be modified into separate shelving without too much trouble. So he built the maze with Hendel, making sure that the passageway was wide enough for customers to pass each other without difficulty.
But he was fearful for what they were constructing and consequently the maze was made hurricane proof by hammering countless nails and screwing brackets into its wooden structure.
Hendel worked hard, and after the maze was completed he left Helen and Vivian to return to the pastoral duties he’d abandoned.
Helen, who was already painting the shelves, suddenly looked up and asked, ‘Where did you say the cheap books came from?’
‘I didn’t,’ answered Vivian, who’d been watching her.
‘Well, say it now, please.’
Vivian clapped his hands to his face, and groaned in concentration. ‘Shit,’ he said from beneath his palms.
Helen trusted Vivian to remember. He was gifted that way, and could usually dredge up lost dates, events, names, and places, given enough time.
‘Jim told me, I remember that much, because he called the supplier a dumb bastard who couldn’t read, write, or think, let alone sell books.’
‘Charming.’
‘Now, his name was …’ He walked around, looking for something to spark his memory. ‘He had a strange name.’
Helen knew better than to interrupt. Her son’s recall of information was a process best left entirely to him.
‘R … and it was a recycling plant. Got it! Razoo’s Book Recycling Plant.’ Vivian smiled. And his mother smiled back at the face where a smile was rarely seen.
*
Arnold faltered outside Gabriel’s bedroom door. The heavy metal music coming from his son’s room intimidated him; it broadcast the great generational divide between the two of them, so that what he’d rehearsed downstairs in the kitchen vanished in an instant. He hadn’t the courage to tackle him. To say, ‘Where are we now, son? Into September. Why Ella, she’d be sixteen weeks pregnant by now. Where is she?’
He turned and slowly lumbered down the stairs back to his safe haven, the kitchen. He put the kettle on, found a mug, and then stopped in his tracks. What was the point in behaving like everything was normal when it wasn’t? Helen was gone. And if that wasn’t enough, there was Gabriel’s deception. It was patently obvious there was no girlfriend, no baby. Gabriel didn’t even try to dress it up. It hurt him that his son should play him for a gullible fool.
And he was a gullible fool, to
fall for such a transparent lie. It was nonsense from the very start, and a part of him had known it even then. How could he have been so stupid? Was it that back then, in those dark days, he had been so utterly numb with despair that he’d have believed anything to keep his son by him?
He pulled out one of the old fence pickets from beneath the kitchen table and ran his hand over its surface. There was something comforting in aged wood. It was a constant. Unlike people. People were all over the shop. And one’s children, they were the worst! They could hurt you like nothing on earth.
14
Helen didn’t like it, but she had to swallow her pride. It was like swallowing offal.
They needed furniture. Initially, she had objected to Vivian’s suggestion of approaching Arnold. She argued for spending some of the money they had in the bank. But Vivian had insisted they needed to keep it for as yet unseen emergencies, like living expenses. And they needed to be into profit before ploughing money back into the shop.
Helen wondered where Vivian’s shrewd business acumen had come from. It had not been evident up in the mines.
He had also added, while staring determinedly at Helen, ‘Quit being so precious.’ And he had even threatened to shove her pride down her throat with a funnel and stick if they did not approach Arnold for furniture to put in the living area above the shop.
‘It’s time we left Astrid’s,’ he stated impatiently.
‘You ask your father. I can’t.’
Vivian did, and the next day Arnold, eager to see his wife again, delivered two wardrobes, two chests of drawers, four single beds and a bunk bed. He also brought a kitchen table, a coffee table, and an assortment of kitchen and lounge chairs, and helped Vivian carry the furniture upstairs while Helen, unsure of her ground, oscillated between whether to hide or confront him. In all the weeks living at Astrid’s she had carefully timed her movements to avoid him. She decided to face him. And instantly recognised the familiar smell and sound of her husband. He was shuffling uneasily before her. She looked at him and blushed.
‘Just give us a shout if there’s anything else I can get you,’ said Arnold.
Helen could hear the tremor in his voice. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
Arnold didn’t want to leave, not yet. He had missed her. Her leaving had created a deep ache within him and many sleepless nights. It was a joy to see her familiar face. He racked his brains for something perfect to say. ‘So this is the bookshop, hey?’ he ventured, turning around to get a better view.
‘Yeah,’ replied Helen tentatively, aware of what it must represent — her life without him.
The sight of it all surprised him. It was completely different from anything they had shared. She was moving on. And he was still rattling around in his old life.
‘It’s all coming together, slowly,’ Helen lied, not wanting to boast for fear of hurting him further.
Arnold walked up to the maze and ran his hand along the freshly painted shelf. What to talk about? Certainly not Gabriel’s non-existent girlfriend.
‘Well, you’re on a winner here,’ he said.
‘Thanks, and thanks for the furniture too.’
Arnold wanted to escape, not so much from Helen but from the wreck their marriage had become. ‘Better get going,’ he muttered as he turned for the door.
He left Helen feeling bewildered and saddened at the sight of this man who had been her husband for twenty-nine years.
She wondered what had made her hate him so much. Then it came back to her in a violent rush: his blind chronic hoarding had driven the wedge between them.
Strangely now, at a distance it didn’t seem so bad. Even Arnold didn’t seem so bad; in fact he could be a downright pleasant man.
*
Vivian’s bed had no sooner been set up than he crawled into it and lay motionless. The hellhound was back, returning with a speed that jolted him to the core.
Helen came in and put a pillow beneath his head and draped a doona over his thin body. In her own bed that night she lay mostly awake worrying her way until morning. Depression was an implacable enemy, dancing around Vivian like a boxer trying to land a punch. And when it did, the power of its blow always took Helen by surprise.
That he was depressed perplexed her. Wasn’t their new enterprise just taking off? Wasn’t the bookshop supposed to give him a reason to get out of bed?
Next day he was no better. Curled up like a seashell in his bed. Washed up, high and dry. Waiting to be collected and saved.
Come the evening, Helen knew she needed help.
She looked on while the locum examined Vivian before stepping away from the bed, and then saying, it appeared, to no one in particular, ‘Apart from being depressed, he’s fine.’
Depressed, and fine? What was he on about, thought Helen. ‘How can he be both?’
‘Listen, with all due respect Mrs Budd-Doyle, you gave me a diagnosis before I even had a chance to examine your son. You told me he was suffering from depression.’
‘Well he is. Look at him. It’s obvious.’
The doctor made some condemning sounds. His face seemed to be saying, ‘Why buy a dog and bark yourself.’ Helen stood still, feeling rebuked, then uttered a few words in a last-ditch attempt to gather some sympathy for her son. ‘He’s lost a lot of weight.’
The locum ran a finger across the top of his upper lip as if thinking, perhaps trying to assess the situation, before writing out a prescription for antidepressants. Then turning to his patient he dispensed a few words of advice. ‘Look at your problems, but don’t stare.’ Turning back to Helen, he offered her the script, saying, ‘Give me a call if he doesn’t improve.’ He left it at that.
Helen paced the floor, dumbfounded as she heard the doctor make his way down the stairs and out of the shop.
Vivian roused himself to speak. ‘Mum, you upstaged him. Doctors don’t like that. It pays to play dumb sometimes.’
‘He was an egotistical bastard!’ spat Helen.
Vivian was surprised to hear his mother swear. ‘Come on Mum, as if you like people giving you advice about books.’
Helen looked at him. He gave a weak smile. ‘I’ll try, Mum. Maybe he’s right.’
But she had dismissed the locum’s counsel. If anything, the visit had only served to illuminate the urgent need to get the bookshop going and Vivian out of his bed.
15
Helen’s car lurched along the lengthy potholed drive into Razoo’s Book Recycling Plant. It was situated on the far reaches of suburbia, way beyond the freeways, where bitumen gave way to scrub land. Her spirits, which had been hopeful when she left the shop, were dropping with each pitch of the car.
The property was scattered with wattle trees, banksias and jarrah, and some stands of salmon and lemon-scented gums. The book plant itself was a series of corrugated iron buildings in varying shapes and sizes fused together with pieces of tin, wood and good luck, each part having been painted a different colour. It was thus a striking configuration that wormed its way around a grassy paddock.
Stopping the car in a sea of mud, Helen swore loudly. She had her good shoes on. Searching the car park for a better spot she whimpered in dismay. There was nothing but mud.
She heard dogs barking. They sounded vicious, though her muddy shoes squelching their way to higher ground concerned her more. She made it to a firm patch of soil, and groped in her bag for tissues to wipe the mud off her shoes. She placed the dirty tissues on the ground, promising herself she’d pick them up on the way out, and looked around for some way of announcing her arrival. A ship’s bell was hanging from a wooden post, with a dog lead attached to it. She pulled hard on the lead and to her satisfaction it clanged loudly. The barking became more frenzied, and she wondered about creatures that could bark so loudly and discordantly.
A man’s voiced yelled, ‘Ah, shut the fuck up, ya fuckin’ bloody mongrels.’ And immediately the barking gave way to a mournful whimpering. A man appeared, a middle-aged man who on seeing Helen, opened his mout
h long enough to reveal a smorgasbord of rotten teeth before speaking. ‘Arr, suppose you’re wanting some flamin’ books?’
Helen went to answer but the dogs, two Rottweilers, started barking viciously again. They were wearing leashes of thick rope. The man had a hold of them, but they were moving towards Helen, dragging the man with them.
‘Ahh the fuckin’ dogs are going fuckin’ stupid. Excuse the French but it’s the only language I’m fluent in.’
She started to back away. But tempted as she was to jump in her car and roar off, Helen stood her ground, determined to get the books she had come for.
‘Lousy good-for-nothing dogs, sit. Sit. Bloody hell. Sit!’ He yanked hard at the leashes. Jerked to a standstill, and half choked, the dogs were forced to sit.
The man looked at Helen. ‘Don’t suppose you want a pup? The bitch is pregnant. Give it to ya cheap. Pure pedigree. Got the papers around here somewhere.’ He slapped the side of his baggy trousers as if they might be in his pockets.
Helen kept a steady eye on the dogs, remembering stories of Rottweilers mauling people to death. She didn’t wish to become another story. ‘I’m a bit transient at the moment. Another time, perhaps.’
Ignoring Helen’s reply, the man rambled on. ‘Bloody things eat more than I do. But for someone like you, woman on your own, I take it, they’d be good security. Know what I mean? Bloke wouldn’t touch you with a dog like this around. Hell knows why I need the security. Thirty years I’ve been in the business, and I can tell ya, nobody steals books, NOBODY. And you know why? ’Cause they’re not worth a bumper. I should have listened to my ol’ man. He always said, “If it ain’t worth stealing, it ain’t worth selling in the first place.”’
By now the dogs had settled and were sitting at the man’s feet panting, giving Helen permission to speak. ‘I’ve come about purchasing some books.’
The Bookshop on Jacaranda Street Page 9
