The Sea & Us

by Catherine de Saint Phalle

  Verity asks him: ‘Now, what is it you want?’

  I notice she doesn’t say ‘young man’ or ‘matey’ in a fake pally way, bless her.

  ‘Fish and chips.’

  ‘What kind of fish?’

  ‘She didn’t tell.’

  ‘She must have been in a hurry, I bet.’

  He nods seriously.

  ‘Well, I’ll give you my favourite,’ says Verity, nodding seriously in return. She’s got all the time in the world for this fellow. The queue behind him might just as well have vanished in the mist. But there are no signs of unrest.

  ‘May I ask you your name?’

  ‘William.’

  ‘Nice name.’

  ‘What’s yours?’

  ‘Verity.’

  He nods seriously again, as if wordlessly returning the compliment. He finally gets his order and pays her with a couple of woebegone two-dollar coins that don’t seem to fit the bill at all. But all she does is nod and put a paper cone of chips in his hand.

  ‘That’s for you to walk home with.’

  Luckily for William, it’s Bernard’s lunchbreak.

  ‘Thanks, Verity.’

  ‘You’re welcome, William.’

  Out comes the quaint nod again and he makes for the door. A man in the queue opens it for him. William flashes him a smile and exits, looking at Verity through the window as he walks down the street.

  The next guy is a hipster in tight jeans with a beard, smug as a bishop.

  ‘Can I have the same discount?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘The same as him.’

  She serves him and asks for the proper amount.

  ‘What about the paper cone of chips?’

  ‘That’s not included in the price.’

  He leaves with a shrug.

  At this point I move in behind her and ask if I can paint her stairs. She twists round to look at me.

  ‘I’ll knock two weeks off the rent if you do.’

  I thank her and run out, realising that I’ll have to do it tonight. The smell wouldn’t be good for business, but I can whitewash the walls and ceilings and buy odourless, quick-drying acrylic paint for the rest. I nip back in, hold up the bell to suspend the tinkling and sidle up to her again.

  ‘What colour?’

  ‘Blue. Would suit the fish.’

  Then as I’m walking to Bunnings I decide to do the landing too, and to throw out the vomitous carpet. There’s plenty of time. I’ve also a feeling that ministering to the first floor will be a minor exorcism for Verity. Going to Bunnings is always a pleasure. It makes me think of my grandmother, Maruška. She loved going there. She’d caress the paintbrushes, and marvel about the different shades and shadows of white – In Czechoslovakia there is only one white! She’d ponder the varnishes, handle and weigh the tools in her palms, and run her finger along the blades. She’d stand in front of the array of colours, each with its own card, as if she were saying a rosary, and stare in amazement at the electric paint shaker, or post herself at a discreet distance to observe the colour-matching contraption and circumspectly bend over the customer’s shoulder to check if the sales assistant had got the shade right. She would never talk to a sales assistant herself, but march through the aisles until she understood completely what she was buying and then send me to pay. My guess is that she didn’t want anyone to tamper with the wonder of it. Sometimes we’d go there just to check, just to look, just to enjoy the splendour of the place. I would bask in the reflected glory of her pleasure – even if, for me, it was just a hardware store.

  I carefully choose a blue that isn’t a drab sky blue, or a plush, boring royal blue, or a kitsch sapphire blue, or a nagging turquoise. I study the cards for a long time. I feel my way and I listen attentively to Maruška as if she were there, the shade of her bending over my shoulder, prodding me with her Czech finger, jutting out her rounded chin towards the right choice.

  After buying the paint, I drop in at Barkly Square – or Sparkly Bear, as some of the locals call it – to buy a quilt and some pillows. I then stroll back, replenished and ready, even if I have a few hours of painting to do before going to bed.

  As I walk down the street past the Brotherhood of St Laurence, something in me doesn’t want to bump into Ben. I’d rather avoid his unholy excitement about Marylou’s arrival – better settle her in first. But I do bump into him, of course, even as I quicken my pace past the Brotherhood.

  ‘Hey, dude! Harold!’

  ‘Ben.’

  His open smile makes me feel ashamed.

  ‘Are you painting The Sea & Us?’

  ‘Actually, I am.’

  ‘The whole place? A makeover?’

  ‘No, just the stairs and the landing.’

  ‘Good move, mate. Do you want a hand?’

  ‘Nah, it’s a quick job, and two could be a bit tricky on the stairs.’

  ‘I could help with the landing if you want.’

  ‘Nah, it’s all good. Thanks, though.’

  The truth is I want to be alone with myself before she comes. I want to feel out this decision, as inescapable as it is, as impulsively as it was made. I see the understanding on Ben’s face, even though he knows nothing of what’s going on.

  ‘A beer later on in the week?’

  I smile a yes, and just as he’s turning to go I find myself saying, ‘Ben! Marylou’s is coming. I’m painting the place for her.’

  ‘Marylou? The beauty?’

  ‘The very one.’

  His face collects itself as if he were reining in some whinnying horse.

  ‘Nice.’

  He shakes my hand and gently touches my shoulder with his other hand.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ and before I know it the Brotherhood has swallowed him whole. I must say I have a sneaking tenderness for the guy. I walk on thoughtfully and reach the shop. Bernard has his inevitable back turned and Verity waves. She’s serving a customer, a skinny, mournful woman in jeans, who’d be better suited to Victorian weeds. I take all my stuff up the stairs and go and lie on my mattress on the floor of my new room and fall into a dreamless sleep. When I wake up it’s 8 p.m.

  The rest of the evening I’m making the whole place Maruška blue for the steps and the hallway floor and Maruška whitewash for the walls and ceiling. In a stroke of luck, Placido has disappeared these past weeks. I have the feeling he would have been traipsing in and out, asking all sorts of questions. Verity tells me that he is prone to regular disappearances and pops back up again without any explanations. He always pays in cash and refuses to have his name on the letterbox. Verity seems to think that some people are the foxes of society and need dens to live in.

  I do a first coat, leave the acrylic to dry, and attack the landing, then go back two hours later for the second coat. Time walks out on me. I’ve finished the job in four hours. I clean the paintbrushes and then Verity materialises at the foot of the stairs. I realise how this paint changes the whole place. It’s more than a physical thing, like putting salt in the corner of a room to ward off evil spirits. It eradicates them. Or it could just be that we think ourselves haunted when we’ve been frozen into inactivity.

  ‘Well! Harold. That looks beautiful, entirely.’

  ‘I can’t understand why I didn’t ask you if I could do it earlier. Do you like the blue?’

  ‘I fucking love the blue.’

  I notice she swears when she’s happy.

  She drags me into her lair for a bowl of soup and I go up to bed at one in the morning. After a shower, I lie on my mattress as one dead, and sleep comes in a wave of whitewash. I start the next day at a more leisurely pace, then decide to buy more sheets and towels. I give my old bathroom a once-over and see to the new room – a Slavic mania for cleanliness has come over me.

  I haven’t been to the workshop for two days. After reading on my bed, I decide to go. The place is empty. It’s as quiet as a tomb. The duchess is at the counter, though.

  ‘Hello, Syn
– how are you?’

  ‘Fine, Harold. Want to work?’

  ‘Why not?’

  I wave at her ineffectually. I always feel I’m the gardener on her estate walking across the grounds while she’s having tea on the terrace. Then I’m back in the white, dusty place with the shy light of late afternoon streaming in. I work two, three hours and stop. I’ve made a bowl. I can’t touch it, or yet see what it is. It just feels full of Marylou’s arrival. I cover it, take it to the drying rack and proceed to rack off. Syn waves me away and I wave back. I return to my room at the shop and wash. Now it’s really time to go. I jump onto the first of two trams it takes to get to Southern Cross Station and then catch the bus to Tullamarine Airport. I allow plenty of time. Well, who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t try and get that kid out of there? I mean, you’d have to be criminal. I notice a mauve light in the city I won’t forget. It settles gently on the trees, the rooftops, seems to hear the air, muffle the roar of engines and the screech of brakes, it seems so companionable it has you thinking of Emily Dickinson. It’s funny how you notice things like that, right in the middle of when things are really happening.

  I swim into the terminal, baggage everywhere, windows everywhere, queues everywhere, signs everywhere. I swim towards the screen with the flight numbers and the arrival times and the late arrival times jostling for haphazard meaning. Then I alight on her KLM 2450 11 p.m. It isn’t late. I wait an hour before it’s announced, standing near the doors the whole time. At 11.15 p.m. they start to file out – an Indian woman in a sari with her little girl, a businessman with a face like Raymond Burr in Ironside, an overweight middle-aged female bushwalker type, a slim, blond, German-looking young man with a pasty complexion. They all walk by, and then I see Marylou. She’s one of the first to come out.

  She squeals when she sees me, even if I can’t hear her behind the glass. She’s dressed in jeans with that large mauve jumper I know so well. She’s got sunglasses on and a scarf over her hair, hiding part of her face. She’s not walking so fast. It feels strange. It makes me wonder how she managed to get out so quickly. I’m standing by the cordon and I open my arms like two barn doors. There’s no noise from her. Maybe I imagined the squeal. Maybe she’s just coming for a holiday, a break from Seoul. Maybe.

  ‘Myshkin. Old chum.’

  She disappears into my arms. When I hug her, she winces.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask, though I already know.

  ‘Long story.’

  I hold her away from me more gently, to get a good look at her. She has a wide smile on; her glasses are so big they hide half her face.

  I realise how happy I am to see her. It makes me blink like Toad of Toad Hall.

  ‘I’ll take you back in a taxi. Let’s get your luggage.’

  ‘No luggage.’

  ‘What? Nothing at all?’

  She points to her sunglasses and a small backpack, and then she picks up her breath as if she were lifting the heavy train of a dress streaming behind her.

  ‘I went to the airport straight after your phone call. I pretended to accept a client, then asked the guy to drive me to Incheon. I spoke of an ill grandmother. Ancestors always do the trick.’

  I frown.

  ‘So you’ve been at Incheon Airport since yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, it was the only way.’

  I can imagine her walking about, making herself scarce. Marylou scared, Marylou keeping a low profile in the toilets, brushing her teeth at a row of washbasins, combing her hair with an eye on the door, Marylou not even daring to read …

  ‘Well, I’m taking you to where you can have a good kip.’

  In the taxi, she drags a book out of her pack – Bosnian Chronicle, by Ivo Andrić. It feels like she’s lugging out a piece of timber.

  ‘The flight just disappeared into this.’

  We’re back on our natural footing. But what if she imagines herself only coming for a break of a few days? Something like fear seizes me. But I don’t say anything. I take her hand instead.

  ‘Glad to see you, old lady.’

  She nods seriously and reminds me of the kid in Verity’s queue.

  13

  Into the Blue

  THE SIKH TAXI driver, with a snow-white turban, gets us to The Sea & Us painlessly. But then Marylou cries out in what seems like pain as I help her out of the car. She climbs the stairs in front of me – that way she can’t see the smug look on my face as her feet touch each clean blue step. But something is wrong. Her progress is like a film in slow motion. She actually seems to have trouble reaching the top. I don’t comment. Always best.

  When she gets there at last and sees the room, she stands like a riverless willow, holding onto her elbows.

  ‘What’s the matter, Marylou?’

  ‘It’s just … so nice.’

  ‘Try the bed, it’s all yours. New sheets, new pillows, all for the Princess and the Pea.’

  Her body lowers onto it. It occurs to me that whatever is happening doesn’t make much sense to her anymore. I sense that behind her shades, as she calls them, she’s got that kind of look in her eyes that has the glimmer of a frown, as if the whole world has become a complicated form to fill in.

  I don’t know what to do. Should I stay, or leave her to sort herself out, maybe to have a lie-down or a shower …

  ‘The bathroom is the first door on the right. It’s all yours, and there are clean towels.’

  ‘This is more than watching my six.’

  ‘This is strictly watching your six.’

  She looks up at me.

  ‘Things have been a bit rough, Marlowe.’ And that’s when she takes her glasses off. I blink before I can take it in. All I can see are black eyes and bruises. So this is what it took. I look into her eyes, one of which she can hardly open. Then I kneel in front of her.

  ‘You’re not going back, right?’

  She shakes her head.

  It’s as simple as that. She won’t, I tell myself. She won’t ever.

  ‘Do you want a shower?’

  ‘I’d love a shower, old chum.’

  ‘Listen, Marylou, I have a very good friend downstairs – a woman. She’s in her fifties, she could help you. Can I call her?’

  ‘I’ll manage, Myshkin.’

  ‘Let me, then. I can help with the first bit.’

  I can feel by now that she’s hurt in every part of her body. This has happened before. But never anything like this.

  I peel her clothes off her gently until she’s in her bra and knickers. The rest of her is even worse. She’s so blue and green she could be a dolphin or some other creature, but not a girl, not a woman.

  ‘How did you ever manage to get yourself here?’

  She shakes her head as if I’d made a joke, then points to her bag.

  ‘I stuffed myself with painkillers.’

  We move to the bathroom slowly. I turn on the shower and test the temperature and leave her to it. I hope to God the towels are soft enough. When she comes back wrapped in one, I lower her onto the bed again and go and get her one of my shirts.

  ‘You can put this on.’

  I help her slip her arms into the sleeves and do up the buttons for her. Her fingers trip and stumble. Even if they’re the only parts of her that are free of any bruises, they don’t seem to get the messages from her brain. Then I help her stand and the towel falls to her feet. In the dearth of things I can do for her, I lunge to pick it up.

  I open the quilt and fold her in. That’s what it feels like, anyway. Then I realise her hair’s wet. I grab a clean towel in the bathroom and lay it on her pillow. She’s beyond smiling. She just stares at me.

  ‘Marylou, should I get you some painkillers, or Panadol at least?’

  ‘That’d be a little bit of all right.’

  She always comes up with these expressions out of nowhere. After a pause, she says, ‘I think I’ve used all my stash on the plane – the effect is wearing thin. Maybe there’s one left in my bag.’

  I
look around. Her black linen backpack is leaning sedately against the doorjamb. Inside it is a cemetery of blister packs without a single pill.

  ‘Right. I’ll be back. Don’t move.’

  This makes her smile.

  I go down the stairs and knock on Verity’s door. It’s one in the morning.

  She opens it almost instantly. Then I see that she’s still dressed. The faint sound of baroque music comes from her sitting room.

  ‘Not in bed yet, Verity?’

  ‘I’m not a good sleeper. What’s up?’

  ‘I’m sorry to bang on your door at this time of night, but do you have some painkillers? Marylou …’

  She seems to understand that something is really wrong. Without a word, she disappears and returns with some ibuprofen.

  ‘Do you want me to come and see her?’

  I stand there with an expression on my face that I can’t wipe off. I don’t know what I look like, but ‘worried’ would be an understatement.

  ‘Verity, I don’t know if I should call a doctor or not …’

  That does it. She’s tripping up there with me without any further comment. I turn around mid-stairs.

  ‘You right coming up here, Verity? You haven’t been up here for years, have you?’

  ‘About time I snapped out of it.’

  We reach the top. I knock on the door and go in first.

  ‘Marylou, my friend Verity has come to see you. Just to check if we should send for a doctor. Do you mind?’

  Marylou is still staring at me. About all she can manage. Now she’s in a soft bed she has come undone. With her wet hair on the pillow she has a drowned look, as if washed up by the tide.

  Verity walks into the room.

  ‘Hi, Marylou. I’m Verity.’

  She kneels by the bedside and takes her hand. Marylou stops herself from flinching. I can see it. Verity does too.

  She gently touches her face and pulls back the quilt.

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God. You poor child.’

  There is in the silence a realisation of complete hurt – a quiet animal thing that seeps out and stills the air. Verity pulls out some essential oil from her pocket. She’s just the type to carry a bottle of essential oil around in her pocket, or so it seems to me. Without being asked, I go to get a warm face cloth from the bathroom.