Perfections

by Kirstyn McDermott

  ‘It’s the most adorable little thing. An extensive repertoire of tricks apparently, and I thought it was so apt considering the change of emphasis in young Mr Jellicoe’s work of late.’

  ‘The change of emphasis?’

  ‘The jungle that’s taken over his canvases. Jungles, monkeys; what could be better? I’ve made the booking already but his trainer does need to pop by in advance to inspect the premises. Something about making sure there’s nothing which might startle the creature, put him off his game. Who would have thought primates could be such prima donnas?’

  ‘No.’ The word shoots from her mouth before she can stop it.

  ‘No?’ Susan Keyes echoes.

  Lina squares her shoulders. In for a penny. ‘This is an important exhibition, Ms Keyes. I’m not sure what impression you’ve gotten from the photographs, but I’ve seen these paintings in person and I can tell you, it’s very serious work. Ryan Jellicoe is going to be a highly significant artist not too long from now. You can’t undermine him with baby hot dogs and performing monkeys.’ She swallows, listening for the sound of marching orders in the distance. ‘Please.’

  Again, that raspy laughter. ‘Dante was on the level, then.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I thought he was merely skiving off on the Jellicoe show. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s allowed a personal clash with an artist to derail him professionally.’ There’s a smile in her tone now. An aunt speaking of a favoured nephew. ‘I needed to know you were up to the task, Jacqueline. Without meaning to offend, you’ve always come across as mousey rather than managerial.’

  Lina closes her mouth. Her cheeks burn.

  ‘You’ll get used to me,’ Susan Keyes tells her with a chuckle. ‘Now, send that catalogue over. I would still like to cast an eye over the final version before it goes to print.’

  ‘What about your notes?’

  ‘My notes, yes. You shan’t be needing those, I don’t think.’

  ‘Can I ask one question?’

  ‘Please do.’

  ‘What if I had said yes to the monkey?’

  ‘I never bluff, Jacqueline.’ There’s steel in that voice now. The sort of steel that builds empires, or breaks them. ‘If you had agreed to the monkey, you would have gotten the monkey. And it would have been the last time you ran so much as a stocking in any gallery of mine.’

  Sharon does stick around, or at least she keeps coming back. Rattling up in her old red Corolla each afternoon or early evening with a bag of groceries in one hand and a stash of burnt DVDs in the other. She’s a dab hand at making soup, it turns out, and even better at getting Antoinette’s mother to swallow more than a mouthful without pushing the bowl away in disgust. The three of them sit out the back and play cards, if there’s not too much chill in the breeze, or else hole up in the living room with the TV shows that Sharon sucks down from the web. Sally Paige rarely makes it through a single episode before losing interest – True Blood is boring; Mad Men too smug; Breaking Bad faintly ridiculous – but she becomes surprisingly enamoured of Dexter, and it pains Antoinette to contemplate the number of seasons and wonder whether her mother will live to watch them all.

  ‘You don’t have to keep coming up here,’ she tells Sharon one night while they’re washing the dishes. ‘You must have better things to do.’

  ‘Um, PhD student, remember?’ The girl takes a dripping plate from the rack, wipes her tea towel around its rim.

  ‘Still. It can’t be much fun, the way things are with Mum right now.’

  ‘It’s okay, I like your mother.’

  ‘No one likes my mother.’

  ‘Well, I don’t dislike her.’

  In a way she finds difficult to articulate, even to Jacqueline who calls every morning and who can’t for the life of her work out why the girl’s deceitful arse hasn’t been kicked halfway down the mountain by now – but Ant, she’s still Greta; or worse, she never was – Antoinette finds Sharon a comfort. It’s like stumbling across a bright new friend, one who miraculously understands her already, one with whom she doesn’t need to rehash the more tedious, tired details of her life. They’ve skipped straight to companionable silences and shared winks, to the easy familiarity of knowing that someone takes their coffee with one-and-a-half sugars, that they prefer boysenberry ice cream to butterscotch, and that they’d rather sit and stare at a blank wall for two hours than watch any movie with Seth Rogan in it.

  Besides – and this Jacqueline can and does absolutely understand – the idea of being alone in the house with only her mother and the brooding, cicada-heavy trees for company is not one that fills Antoinette with unbridled enthusiasm.

  Thursday night, once Sally Paige is asleep in her room and the aroma of spices and melted cheese won’t bother her, Sharon whips up some nachos and produces a sly bottle of Smirnoff from the depths of her backpack.

  ‘Prost!’ she toasts, clinking glasses.

  Antoinette smiles. ‘Hey, Greta-sketa. Long time, no see.’

  ‘Oops.’ Sharon lifts an exaggerated brow. ‘Old habits.’

  ‘Listen,’ Antoinette says after her second drink. ‘I have to go down and get my sister tomorrow. She’s spending the weekend. You know, a bit of family time . . . um, just the three of us.’

  ‘Just the three of you.’ Faint and wounded, the expression that slides momentarily across her face before she rallies, swigs a mouthful of vodka. ‘Say no more, I’ll make myself scarce.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t like having you here, but there’s things we need to, um, work out together and it’s probably best if . . .’

  Sharon places her hand on Antoinette’s. ‘It’s okay, I get it. Honey, your mum is dying, you don’t need to explain anything to anyone.’ Her index finger traces two of Antoinette’s knuckles in a sideways figure eight, an infinity symbol drawn ticklish and tender, then withdraws. ‘Maybe I’ll drop by Monday sometime? There’s this leek and sweet potato soup I’m hoping Sally will be able to stomach.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Antoinette says. And she smiles at the girl who simply sits there so still and contained, who doesn’t pull, who doesn’t tug or gnaw at her like a puppy cutting its teeth. And for the first time in a long time, it’s a smile that goes all the way through to her bones.

  — 22 —

  The final thing Lina does before she leaves work that Friday is call Ryan Jellicoe. Again. He actually answers his phone this time. His breath heavy and hoarse, as though he’s just run all the way up the front stairs to his house.

  ‘I thought we were past the incommunicado shtick,’ she says.

  ‘Sorry, girl, been out at Redcliffe most of the day. Amazing beach weather up here right now, you should see it.’

  An image of him, shirtless and tanned, sidles unbidden into view. Sand drying golden on his thighs. Dreads dripping salt down his spine. Lina pushes it from her head. Explains that she’s calling to confirm that his paintings all made it safely onto the truck yesterday afternoon. In her hand, the faxed manifest from the relocation company trembles slightly. She puts it down on the desk. Ridiculous. She doesn’t even care about Ryan Jellicoe, bare-skinned or otherwise.

  ‘Done and dusted,’ he is saying. ‘On their merry way south.’

  ‘That’s good, that’s great.’

  ‘Guy said they would land on your doorstep sometime Monday arvo.’

  ‘That’s the plan.’

  ‘So what time should I rock up?’

  ‘Any time you want to, really. Doors won’t officially open until six on Thursday, but we have the usual private viewings booked for some of our more exclusive clientele during the day, so I’ll be there if you want to–’

  ‘No,’ he interrupts. ‘I meant, what time should I be there on Monday?’

  ‘Ryan, your flight is booked for Wednesday afternoon.’<
br />
  ‘Yeah, I changed that. Thought we’d come down Sunday instead.’

  ‘We?’

  Him and Zane, he says, and Lina winces. Partly it’s the awful picture the name conjures up of that girl strutting into Seventh Circle behind an airport trolley piled high with suitcases – so, where do you, like, want me to set these up? – and partly it’s another of the stomach cramps that have been bothering her for the past hour or so. Lina rubs her midsection. Hopes it’s only the sushi she had for lunch.

  Zane has a mate down in Collingwood, Ryan is saying. Happy to put them both up for a few days and so, he thought, why the hell not? Zane gets to rabbit her way through the Melbourne gallery scene for a bit longer, and he’s on the ground to lend a hand taking his canvases off the truck. The promise of which, Lina should know, is gonna let him sleep a whole lot easier the next few nights.

  ‘So, ’ Lina says. ‘You and Zane . . .’

  ‘Already told you, she’s not my type of distraction.’

  She doesn’t even know why she asked. ‘Come by around ten,’ she tells him. ‘I’ll show you the space and then we can grab some brunch before your paintings arrive. Actual set up isn’t until Wednesday – we have professional hangers, of course, but I assume you’ll be wanting to drop in and, ah, lend a hand?’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’ He’s grinning. She can hear it in his voice.

  ‘We’ve been doing this kind of thing for a while now, you know, and we’re actually pretty good at it. Honestly, it must be weeks since we’ve lost an artwork, or even damaged one accidentally.’

  ‘Well, that’s a letdown,’ he says. ‘I was hoping for some ripped canvas, maybe a cracked frame or two. The whole upcycled-distressed thing, yeah? Hear that shit moves faster than crystal in a crackhouse over on Etsy.’

  She laughs. ‘I’ll see you on Monday, Ryan. Have a safe flight.’

  On the tram home, the stomach cramps worsen. Lina presses the back of her hand to her forehead, wonders if she might be running a fever. Then, as she climbs the steps to her apartment, a jagged pain knifes right through her middle and she gasps out loud. Leans against the wall until the aftershock fades. The fact that this doesn’t feel even remotely like her previous episodes is a small comfort. The pain is too physical. Rather than trying to pull Lina from her body, it grounds her intimately, terribly, within it.

  Still, it’s a reassurance of sorts: unless Sally Paige has learnt some vile new trick, this has nothing to do with her.

  Raised voices greet Lina as she opens the door. Ant is in the kitchen with Loki, arguing about books. ‘Jacqueline,’ her sister says as she walks in. ‘Please tell him, he doesn’t need to bring the whole state library along for two miserable days. Maybe he’ll listen to you.’

  Lina stares at them. Glaring at each other from opposite ends of the bench, arms folded over chests in a cranky, mirror-twin pose she might have thought comical under different circumstances.

  ‘Hey,’ Ant says. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Bad sushi, I think.’ Another cramp, not quite as bad as the last. ‘Excuse me, I need a moment . . .’ She hurries to the bathroom and locks the door behind her. Flicks the toilet seat back down with an irritated snap of her wrist. It’s not until her sister comes knocking to check that she really is okay – that she hasn’t, ha ha, fallen in – that Lina can tear her eyes away from the impossible red slick staining her briefs. From the darker, more clotted mess on the paper scrunched in her hand.

  ‘Jacqueline? Seriously, I’m getting a little worried out here.’

  She clears her throat. ‘I’m . . . I’m all right.’

  ‘You sure? You looked kinda wrecked.’

  ‘I think . . .’ Despite the fear and the pain, despite the wonder, Lina is amused by the words now perched on the tip of her tongue. Words she had long given up hope of ever needing to use. ‘I think I might need to borrow a tampon.’

  ‘Here,’ Antoinette says, coming into her sister’s bedroom with a glass of water and foil-lined card of Naprogesic she found scuffing around at the bottom of her bag. Most of the safety bubbles are broken and empty, but there’s enough left to tide her sister over until they can get to a chemist.

  Jacqueline places the sweater she’s holding into her overnight case. Punches a couple of the little blue tablets into her palm and subjects them to the kind of nervous scrutiny a poison taster might reserve for the meal of an especially loathsome monarch.

  ‘Do they work?’ she asks.

  ‘They do for me.’

  Her sister rubs at her belly. Swallows the pills along with half the water then hands the glass back. ‘Is it going to hurt like this every month?’

  ‘Mine aren’t that bad, to tell you the truth, but Tanja from work always swaps shifts if she gets rostered on day one, says she needs to knock herself out with enough codeine to cripple a horse.’ Antoinette shrugs. ‘This is one of those your mileage may vary deals, you know?’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘But hey, maybe it’s only so painful because it’s the first time your body’s ever done this. It might be like, I don’t know, teething problems or something.’

  ‘Teething problems.’ Jacqueline smiles.

  Antoinette grins back. ‘Or something.’

  Her sister rolls her eyes, retrieves her kimono from its hook on the back of the door and folds it into a neat, flat square. Antoinette recalls the taught, anxious expression on Loki’s face as Jacqueline finally emerged from the bathroom, and how swiftly it fell away when she told him what was going on. How he took her face in his hands and planted a soft, gentle kiss on her brow.

  Lina, my Lina. This is wonderful.

  How a new light flickered to life in his eyes, keen and bright and expectant.

  The same light which now clings to her sister as she finishes packing and zips up the case. Despite her still shaken appearance, her wan complexion and pursed-pale lips, Jacqueline somehow glows.

  ‘Hey,’ Antoinette says. ‘Do you think this means you might be able to . . .’

  ‘I’m not sure. I–I hope so.’

  And for one tender, heartbreaking moment, she looks like a little girl who has woken up early on Christmas morning to discover the best, the most magical gift she could ever have imagined laid out beneath the tree. A little girl who can’t bring herself to even touch it, lest the thing break or vanish altogether, lest Santa himself come rumbling down the chimney to sweep it back into his big red bag.

  Apologies for the mix-up, but this clearly belongs to some other child.

  ‘I wonder.’ Jacqueline sits down on the bed beside her. ‘She told you that we were infertile, right, that perfections were unable to, uh, breed?’ Her nose wrinkles at the last word. ‘What if that’s not strictly true?’

  ‘I’m not sure why Mum would lie about that,’ Antoinette says carefully.

  ‘She might not be lying. There might never have been a perfection who’s given birth to a child – or fathered one.’

  ‘Okay, but–’

  ‘But what if that’s because we’re only infertile around humans? What if we need another perfection to kick our reproductive systems into gear?’ Her hand moves in slow circles over her belly. ‘It makes sense, Ant, when you think about it. Loki comes into my life and suddenly – about one month later – my uterus decides to remember what it was built to do.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Antoinette says.

  But it does make sense, that’s the trouble. With any one person, according to the albeit cryptic doctrine of Sally Paige, unable to host more than a single mature perfection at any one time, and with the ability to create them in the first place so rare and jealously guarded, the chance of two compatible perfections being around each other long enough for sparks to fly . . .

  ‘This transfer won’t change anything, will it?’ Jacqueline asks. ‘It won’t mak
e this all go away again?’

  Antoinette swallows, pushing against thoughts of Loki and her mother that pick at her like wicked barbs. Please, Jacqueline, don’t hate me. It’s him, or it’s you, and that’s no kind of a choice at all. ‘It shouldn’t,’ she says. ‘If anything, it would make you stronger, healthier. But I can run it by Mum if you like, ask her if–’

  ‘No! I don’t want her to ever know about this.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I mean it, Ant. You can’t tell her.’

  ‘Okay, I promise. Just . . .’ She takes her sister’s hand, entwines those flush-warm fingers between her own. ‘I wish you wouldn’t set your hopes too high about this whole pregnancy thing. I mean, if it doesn’t work like that, or if Loki doesn’t . . .’

  ‘But it will work.’ Jacqueline’s smiling again now, glowing bold and certain with belief as she presses both their hands against her middle. ‘I’m right about this, I know it. Better, I can feel it.’

  The drive up to the mountain is quiet and, for the most part, conversation free. Her sister elected to ride in the back with Loki, which makes Antoinette feels oddly like a chauffeur but at least gives her time to think. Despite her promise, there are now some new and pertinent questions to raise with her mother. Because if at least one half of that pitiless aphorism Sally Paige spat down at her feet – girls don’t bleed, boys don’t seed – is demonstrably false, she wonders how many other long-held truths might prove to be little more than baseless assumption.

  Like maybe perfections don’t have to die with their hosts.

  Like maybe there’s a way to save both Jacqueline and Loki, after all.

  But no matter how much she shuffles the words around in her head, Antoinette can’t come up with a way to broach the subject without rousing her mother’s suspicion. And if there’s one aspect of this whole mess about which Sally Paige has been absolutely forthright, it’s her desire to see the family curse wither and die on the vine. Antoinette doesn’t know what her mother will do once she realises that Jacqueline might be able to bear children of her own – let alone what the offspring of two perfections might be capable of creating in their own right – but she cannot take the risk. Until her sister is safely anchored, until she feels the weight of a Jacqueline-stone shifting solid within her, Antoinette will say nothing.