by Phyllis King
Later, Douglas finishes the last of the red while Flora tidies up.
‘We should pay him a retainer, I think sometimes,’ Flora says, wiping the benchtop.
Douglas frowns.
‘Don’t say that. He’d be insulted.’
‘Do you think he’s content?’ she wonders absently.
‘Do I think he’s what?’
‘I mean, he lives alone, he’s obsessed with work, he’s so…contained.’ Flora has a sudden mental image of straw-haired James, loosening his tie by one degree as he sits, whiskey in hand. ‘I wonder if it makes him happy...’
‘I think James’ interests are in other things,’ Douglas confides.
‘What, he’s not interested in happiness? I know he’s not gay, so maybe, I don’t know, having a family, or at least a partner...’
‘You sound like my Aunty Vi,’ Douglas grins. ‘Not everyone wants a family, Flo. James’ loyalties lie elsewhere.’
‘Elsewhere? What are his loyalties, then?’
‘Pecuniary,’ Douglas says. It rolls off his tongue, like he’s tasting the word. ‘Leave him be. He has his own code.’
Flora leans on the benchtop.
‘It sounds a bit cold, I think. A bit mercenary.’
Douglas drains the glass, looks at the ceiling.
‘Does it?’
The story of soap was first told in 1000B.C. Women rinsing clothes in the river, below the place where animal sacrifices were conducted, discovered that clothes became cleaner in contact with the soapy clay oozing there, where the rendered animal fat soaked through the wood ashes and into the river water.
...so my hand is shaking even as I write this.
It was Wednesday evening, I remember, because Wednesday and Thursday were the days I didn’t open for business or do any preparation work. My mid-week weekend, Douglas used to say... He said he’d take the Sydney meetings from Wednesday to Friday. I wasn’t expecting him back until Friday evening. He undoubtedly wasn’t expecting me to enter the shop.
But we stopped there early on Wednesday evening because - oh Tunney - you had left Bear upstairs from the shop. Do you remember Thread Bear, dearest? We called him that because...
I’m stalling, I’m sorry. We entered the shop, and walked through the familiar dark colonnade, past the counter, toward the staircase. I remember wondering why I could see light under the workshop door, feeling that mixture of exasperation (it must’ve been me, I’ve left something on) and alarm (is anybody there?). When I slid the workshop door across, the rollers hissed, and you were both clinging to my pants legs, and I saw your father...
Douglas is standing near the centre of the workshop, in his business shirt and trousers. Flora’s hands remember holding the iron over that shirt; now she is only holding her keys. Douglas is holding a small blowtorch, a kitchen one, like you use to glaze crème caramel, like the one Flora uses in the workshop. It is the one she uses in the workshop - she recognises this somehow. In his other hand, Douglas holds a short-bladed Bowie knife.
Tied to a wooden chair in front of him is a man in a singlet and a pair of dark trousers. He has bare feet. Flora can see only the back view - the man’s sweaty black hair, his limp hands secured at the wrists, the bow of his shoulders.
The floor beneath the chair, beneath Douglas’ feet, is covered in thick clear industrial plastic, and there are puddles of dark red ooze spattered onto it. To the right of the chair is a blue shopping bag filled with bundles of paper money: yellow, blue, grey, more cash than Flora has ever seen in its raw form.
The whole scene is aglow, stark and blueish, lit up from the side like a diorama in the halo of the workshop desk lamp. It looks staged, filmic somehow. It is unreal. It can’t be real.
Rendering converts waste animal tissue into stable, value-added materials, and refers to any processing of animal byproducts or, more narrowly, to the rendering of whole animal fatty tissue into purified fats (lard or tallow).
Rendering can be done on an industrial, farm, or kitchen scale...
Flora is arrested there in the doorway, her expression frozen. She stares at her husband, at the whole scene, all at once, as though her eyes have widened so much that she can see everything in panorama, there’s no need for the eye to flit from detail to detail, her view is omniscient.
Douglas is not wearing his tie. His face is ruddy, a bit sweaty, energised - it is rather like the way his face looks after sex. This pulls Flora back: the way Douglas’ expression and dishabille convey the sense of adultery, only this is not adultery. This is something else. Flora returns to her body in a rush, feels the press of the children’s warmness against her leg. She blinks at her husband.
‘Flora,’ Douglas breathes out her name.
He is shocked, yes. Then his face changes, becomes paler, more still. His lips come together as he swallows. Flora recognises this: this is Douglas, composing himself. Possibly it is this tiny thing that tips her off, that clues her in. Douglas is composing his face for her. Only seconds after he says her name, he regains himself. He releases a switch on the blowtorch with his thumb. There is a zup as the blue flame goes out.
Flora feels realisation ignite as the blowtorch is extinguished. Perhaps it is the absurdity of it. How is it possible to put a composed face on this? But really, it is the speed of it, the rapidity of the transition in Douglas’ face. This is not a singular act. This is something he does a lot. He can change his face, alter his expression at will, he can control his emotions quickly to cope with sudden changes in circumstance. This is not the reaction of an ordinary loving husband, devoted father, corporate businessman. This is not the reaction of an ordinary person.
Flora understands.
...but please believe me when I tell you it wasn’t an easy thing to do. On any level. Physically, it went on and on, all night. Mentally and emotionally... I loved your father, loved him deeply.
What he did doesn’t really take that away. And what I did...
I could say that I reacted on instinct. But in a way, he did too...
She takes her eyes off Douglas only long enough to glance down at the child nearest her right hand.
‘Peter,’ she says in a low voice, ‘you and Tunney go upstairs and find Bear, please.’
Something, the frisson of energy in the scene they don’t understand, communicates itself to the children, like when Flora and Douglas argue. The children don’t complain or query. Peter takes Tunney’s hand, and says ‘Come on, Tun,’ and they head for the staircase together. Tunney has her thumb in her mouth.
Flora does not let herself think that she is frightened. She takes the one step down into the workshop automatically, relying on reflex, with her eyes back on Douglas. She rolls the door closed behind her. She keeps her face very blank, as blank as can be.
The most significant problem when rendering fat for tallow is the smell. Chandlers and soap boilers were often relegated to the industrial section of townships, on account of noisome odours, an unavoidable by-product of large-scale boiling of animal carcasses.
Keeping her expression blank, getting the children out of the way - it’s a miscalculation, she realises. It reveals something about her to Douglas; it reveals that she understands the situation. But what else could she do? When Douglas speaks again, she only starts because the tone of his voice is so familiar, so unnatural in this time and place.
‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ Douglas says quietly.
It sounds so domestic.
And she should say something, she should say ‘clearly’; or something like that. She doesn’t say anything.
Her breath is starting to come back in, short and tight. She mustn’t hyperventilate. She mustn’t scream, screaming is what you do when you have nothing left. She forces herself to just stand, hands at her sides.
Check the tankage unit at 10.15pm. She’s wiping sweat off her lip as she watches James prepare the buckets. She wishes her hands would stop shaking.
Oh god I need a fag, I wish I had a fag she whi
spers, and she hasn’t said ‘fag’ for cigarette in about 15years, but she s almost crying now she wants one so badly. It s like an ache in her chest, and James offers her a swig from his silver flask which helps some but...
With her omniscient eye, Flora observes the scene between the two players. The man in the chair is unmoving. She and Douglas are the players. The looks they direct at each other indicate that they have assessed each other correctly. All that remains is to act.
Douglas begins, he sets his face grimly and says ‘Flora, I’m sorry you had to see this’.
Flora still can’t trust herself to speak, so she just nods her head quickly, but before she’s finished the action she’s wondering what he means. When Douglas takes a brisk purposeful step towards her with the knife in his hand, she comprehends. He is apologising for what he’s about to do.
He moves fast and she can’t stumble back, there is nowhere to go. She makes a garbled cry, cringes as he swipes with the knife, she raises her hand automatically. She is still holding her keys. The knife clashes onto them with a sound like teeth clicking together - by some miracle none of her fingers is severed - and the force of the blow telescopes up her arm, sending her reeling off the step.
She bounces off the edge of the work table to her right, jarring her hip, twisting to see her husband. His face is unreachable, single-minded, and he has turned the knife to allow him to thrust down, make a clean plunge into her breast. She is half-sprawled over the table, pressed into the corner, and her left hand rakes the wall. She knows she is trapped completely and she feels her face, mouth stretched in horror, eyes gasping wide.
Flora’s left hand hits something leaning in the corner, something hard, she grabs for it as Douglas steps in. She rams forward with the hard heavy broach-handle. The broach is made of cast-iron, and shaped like a broom. At the base, where the broom’s bristled head should be, there are 12 five-inch metal tines.
The broach-handle slams into Douglas’ face with a ghastly thud, blood explodes from his nose. For a moment his robotic expression is cross-eyed, confused, and Flora almost makes a hysterical laugh. She pulls on the handle; as it comes away she can see the impression it has made in Douglas’ skin, in his skull. He stumbles back, raising a hand drunkenly to the indentation in his forehead. He looks alien and slow, so Flora almost lets her guard down. Then he lifts his eyes, and she only has time to swing the broach-base up - when he makes a lurching thrust forward, knife arcing high, she puts her whole weight into bracing, head hunkered down, shoulders hunched. The collision knocks her off the table, so by the time it’s over she’s semi-crouched over the handle of the broach, kneeling squeezed between table and wall, gasping, staring up into the ruined face of her impaled dead husband.
‘Why did you call me?’
‘Douglas always called you; in emergencies.’ She exhales, feeling white and shocked.
‘Yes, he did.’
‘This is one. An emergency.’
‘Yes, it is.’ James still looks confused. ‘And...you trust me?’
‘I can do better than trust you,’ she says. ‘I can pay you.’
She stays like that for a minute, blowing hard, then the demands of gravity kick in. She sinks forward, lets the broach, with Douglas’ body decorating the end, crumple to the floor. Douglas is half-on, half-off the step. His expression is one of total surprise. The tines of the broach have pierced him in four places across the heartline of his chest, and in one place on his right bicep, snagging the muscle there cruelly.
Flora’s arms are sore and shaking but she uses them to climb her way up to the tabletop, then she uses the tabletop to support herself as she steps over the broach and the body, stumbling onto the clear floor area beside the man in the chair. She’d forgotten about him.
She stands, holding the table and shivering like she has hypothermia, then her knees give way and she sinks in a shambolic fashion onto her bottom. Her arms flop, her breath is blowing in and out, she feels something building up inside her, the scream she couldn’t afford to let out before. But she can’t let it out now either. She drags her hands up to her face, pushes them hard against her mouth, so that the only noise escaping is the ‘ung-ungh-ungh’ sob of air, wheezing in and out of her nose.
She closes her eyes. Slowly her breathing comes under control until she’s just going ‘mmm...mmm,’ behind her hand. Then she can take her hand away, open her eyes, just sit for a moment. Her eyes move around: the scene, the bodies, the plastic she’s puddled on. Minutes pass. Then something clicks inside her and she heaves to her feet, staggers over to Douglas. Roots in one trouser pocket before pulling on his hips to access the other. She pulls out the mobile phone. Hesitates. Her fingers shake so she almost drops the phone, but she’s got it open, thumbing the speed dial clumsily. In the pause, she takes two deep leveling breaths, so when she speaks her voice hardly trembles at all.
‘No. This is Flora,’ she says, like her own name tastes odd in her mouth. ‘That’s all right. I’m at the shop. There’s a, a bit of a mess here, James. Could you come over? Ten minutes. All right. Come in through the back. Thanks.’
She closes the phone carefully and puts it in her pants pocket. Then she looks down and pats herself over, like pressing down creases. She rakes at her hair, takes another deep breath, steps over Douglas’ waist to get up onto the step, the door sliding, so she can go upstairs and put the children to bed.
...regarding the case of such absent (Missing/Lost) spouse, inasmuch as it has been satisfactorily established through evidence of circumstances approved by the court, that the ‘presumption of death’ rule may be applied, thus allowing the State to grant probate and obtain an adjudication of the issue...
He enters through the backyard into the workshop; he must have parked around the corner. He seems very calm, hair sticking up like he’s just showered, casual jeans, and he closes the door before turning around.
She sees the way he stands still, looks. He’s not shocked. She doesn’t find this surprising. His eyes move over everything, his face serious and without emotion, just assessing. She stands on the step holding one arm across her body with the other arm, her shoulders still throbbing.
The time she spent settling the children has made regular programming resume somewhat, and she feels a flare of panic. Suddenly she doesn’t know what possessed her to call him, or what he’s going to do.
Then he meets her gaze and holds it.
‘Okay,’ he says. He closes his eyes, opens them. ‘Okay.’
‘So if you’re thinking four hours for the tankage unit, we’ll...’
‘Shut up for a minute, I’m trying to estimate poundage,’ she snaps, and then she presses her lips. ‘Sorry. Sorry, I’m...’
‘It’s all right’
‘It’s not. I, I’m very sorry.’
‘Flora,’ he says.
She looks at the floor, rubs her fingers. He clears his throat.
‘Pounds. So it’s, what, the American unit?’
‘Yes. That’s right.’
‘So you just halve the weight. Is that right?’
She blows out a breath. ‘Yeah. Yes, I think it is.’
He starts moving immediately. Walks over and puts two fingers on the neck of chair-man, seems satisfied, goes through chairman’s pockets until he gets the phone, takes out his own phone, holds out his hand for Douglas’. She gives it to him.
He cracks them all open, takes out the SIM cards, pockets them, groups the phones on the workbench. He talks as he works.
‘You walked in unexpectedly.’
‘Yes.’
‘The kids?’
‘Yes. Upstairs. I’ve put them to bed.’
‘Think they’ll stay asleep?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Do you have a baby monitor?’
‘I’ve put it on.’
‘Oh. Okay.’
He stands for a moment, considering her.
‘You have very fast reflexes,’ he says finally.
> This is like a compliment, like telling her she was clever that time. She doesn’t know what to say to this.
‘I need garbage bags,’ he says, ‘gloves, buckets, bleach, cleaning gear. I need to get some things from my car.’
He is so efficient. He doesn’t offer comfort, but this efficiency is comforting. She thinks of saying this, doesn’t.
