PAINTED

by Kirsten McKenzie

  They’d been happy that summer. Mummy announced a new baby would come and Daddy gave her a pretty brooch to celebrate. For a while it was the happiest they’d been - Mummy, Daddy, all of them. But then one of Daddy’s friends, the young artist with the clever fingers, whispered something into Daddy’s ear which changed everything. The rest of the summer became colder than the long winters when she and her sister snuggled in bed together to keep warm. By the end of the summer, the adults flung vile words about the house with no thought where they’d land. Her parent’s arguments more violent than the waves in the ocean beyond the cliffs. That was when mother said the baby wasn’t his. His reply would haunt her forever — he replied he already knew, and that he’d considered it an act of charity to allow her to stay under his roof. The argument continued with her father suggesting that perhaps the new babe wasn’t the only child which he hadn’t fathered. It hadn’t been hard to figure out who he meant.

  The artist found her crying by the pond. Her imperfect face streaked with tears. Hers the only head in the family covered with mousey brown hair and eyes the colour of the earth staining her knees. He promised he’d fix her family. And she believed him.

  Snapping out of her reverie, head in her hands, she waited for the artist to wake. Why did his fingers get so pained? He’d been able to paint like lightning before, fast and furious. It was frustrating having these people in her house, destroying their carefully constructed life. She drummed her fingers against the window, enjoying the sound it made, almost like the grasping fumbling noises that woman had made on the stairs before the artist finished her portrait.

  She was tired of being alone, her memories of the other children tainted by her false father’s words but still, she missed them a little. Their portraits ruined now, faces smeared, and burnt, and cut. There would be no return to those halcyon summers of swimming in the pond and playing games on the lawn. She didn’t miss them, truly she didn’t. They weren’t her brothers and sister and the artist had been more than happy to paint their portraits when she’d asked. Her foolish mother had been happy too. She didn’t understand what would happen.

  Her nose flared when she thought of Mother — such a boring woman, it still surprised her Mother had been bold enough to dally with the artist, the one Father invited to join the family every summer. Such a silly thing to do, to invite so many strangers to summer at your house with your family there.

  How she’d laughed when her brothers and sister disappeared — three blue-eyed, blonde haired children, angelic in every way, and so different from her own brown-eyed mousey self. They’d found her by the pond, laughing at the water’s edge. If they’d arrived moments earlier, they would have seen her systematically stomping in the muddy shallows, in three different pairs of shoes, before hurling them all as far out into the pond as she could. They'd gone for a swim she’d said, in their clothes she said, but hadn’t surfaced she’d said. Childish laughter bubbled from her lips. They said she was in shock. She wasn’t in shock. She had her parents all to herself, which would make Father love her now.

  The memory forcing a smile from her lips.

  Chapter 46

  Callaghan had piled an assortment of food onto a tray — tomatoes, slices of cheese, the last of the loaf, some relish he’d found in the fridge and a limp carrot — peeled and sliced to make it more appealing. Walking into the lounge, he lowered the tray and picked up a tomato, biting into it like an apple, the flesh parting between his teeth.

  “Have some of this,” Callaghan suggested, a tiny pip caught in the corner of his mouth. He wiped it away with his stained hand before taking a second bite, juice dribbling down his unshaven chin. He seemed to morph into someone she didn’t know.

  Anita’s stomach roiled at the sight of the tomato juice. She couldn’t watch. It wasn’t normal to eat a tomato that way. Shaking her head, she turned away from her colleague, focusing instead on the glass of water he’d handed her. Sapped by events she only had a shadowy recollection of, she could see nothing beyond the windows, it were as if a black cloth enveloped the house; smothering her with a force she had no control over. There was no logical explanation for why she felt that way, but the sense of being trapped kept her cowering on the couch, avoiding Callaghan’s appraising gaze.

  “Where are the others?” she asked.

  “They’ve gone to town for provisions. I think they found a jeep in a shed. None of our cars would make it into town. That’s where they are, in town,” he said, as if it were the truth.

  Anita wasn’t sure she believed him. He’d looked away when he’d answered, eyes flicking over everything in the lounge except her. She sipped the water, the liquid barely touching her parched mouth, but the vile taste of tomatoes had tainted the water. She gagged, doubling over as coughing racked her body.

  Callaghan leaned forward and slapped her back. The heady scent of overripe tomatoes filled her nostrils. She flinched. His large hands felt like rocks pinning her down. The ingrained oils on his hands mixed with the earthy scent of the tomato gushing from his mouth, formed a familiar scent, one which visited her in never-ending looped nightmares where her attacker smothered her again and again, his hand covering her mouth, the other between her legs. A hand reeking of motor oil and tomatoes. No, not motor oil. Had it ever been motor oil? Or was it the heady smell of furniture stain, that peculiar marriage between linseed oil and mineral spirits.

  She looked at Callaghan with new eyes. He’d stepped back, eyes blank again. There was nothing concerning about him, a coworker. Her mind focused on him — the curve of his shoulders, his height, the inclination of his head. They’d worked together for over two years. Not side by side, but in the same office, doing the same things, attending the same meetings. He’d smiled, said good morning, all normal coworker type things, never inappropriate. He’d even dropped a group of them home once after an evening auction; he’d dropped four of them off, one by one, like a school bus service. There’d been plenty of laughter, and it’d felt natural sitting in his car. He hadn’t asked to come in and she hadn’t asked him to. That had been at the start of the summer, the summer of the attack. No, she told herself. Stop it.

  “When are they coming back?” she said, watching the back of his head.

  “No idea,” he turned to face her. “The packers will be here tomorrow,” he added.

  Anita frowned. She was so confused. She’d been upstairs, Yvonne too, but then she wasn’t. The picture fell into the fire, or the ravens pushed it in, but from here her mind grew fuzzy. She’d been in bed. There were no ravens inside, they were pictures on tiles. Her stomach turned queasy.

  “And Alan, has he shown up yet? Did you ask the farmer?”

  Anger crossed Callaghan’s face like a shadow. “There’s no sign of him, other than his car. I didn’t ask the farmer. Is that who the old man is?”

  Anita struggled up, trying to ignore the flash of anger across the other man’s face, realising she’d feel safer in the company of the old man than with Callaghan. A disturbing thought.

  “Is he here now?”

  “Who, the old man?”

  Anita nodded.

  “No, his dog found you outside, and I got to you before the old man did.” He smiled. “Isn’t it amazing how bodies react to stress?” The smile absent from his eyes.

  “I don’t understand?”

  “You climbed out a window. The infection in your foot sent you off on a wild adventure. It’s amazing you’re functioning at all.”

  Anita sank back into the folds of the couch, fragments of film running through her head — windows, people calling her, terror, children and ravens. Mostly ravens. Ravens flinging themselves at her head, her arms, her eyes. Squabbling over rotting tomatoes, their murderous cries as their clumsy feet knocked over tins of furniture stain. Stain which morphed into crimson rivulets dripping from a scarred wooden bench. The steady drip so loud it could have been in the room with her.

  “What’s that noise?” Callaghan asked, jolting her fr
om the dark place she’d descended into.

  “What noise?”

  “That dripping noise,” Callaghan said. For the first time his eyes took on a hint of interest. “Has someone left the bath running?”

  Anita shrugged, looking towards the ceiling for any sign of a leak. In the deepest recesses of her mind she wondered if the dripping was bath water left running, or the dripping of something else. “Should you go look?”

  Callaghan nodded, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and abandoned the slice of loaf he’d topped with thick cheese and a smear of red relish.

  The relief of seeing Callaghan leave the room tempered with unease from the steady dripping sound.

  Drip, Drip, Drip

  Callaghan had a mediocre fire going in the grate, and she moved closer, conscious now her clothes were damp. She’d climbed out a window? She had no recollection of that. In the fire’s glow, her hands looked more like those of a woman who’d spent the week gardening and not appraising art.

  The tray with the remains of Callaghan’s tomatoes lay next to her, complete with crumbs from the loaf and a sheen from the fire on the slices of cheese left for her to eat. Very Daliesque. She reached for a tomato, its flesh too pliable as if everything underneath the skin had turned to liquid. Much like she felt. The green stalk was dry and brittle and reeked of the plant it had been torn from. Out of season, stored in a blast chiller. Ludicrous to be eating tomatoes in winter. She brought the red fruit to her lips. Both were cold to the touch, the fire the only point of heat in the room.

  Mesmerised by the fire, she let it flood her and it filled the voids of her mind, coaxing out memories she’d repressed. Why wouldn’t she eat a tomato? She remembered eating them as a child. Thick slabs coated with dark pepper. Sometimes her mother would grill them — she’d cover them with cheese and slide them under the grill. She’d peer in and watch the cheese bubble up and the bright red edges blacken before pulling the tray out.

  She slipped one hand into her pocket, the other still gripping the plump fruit. Her thawing fingers flexed, entangled within the confines of the denim pocket. She yanked her hand free, bringing with it the wispy threads capturing her fingers. A lock of long blonde hair loosed from its unspooled ribbon. Gazing at the hair, she fought for a memory — the lock of hair from the frame she’d dropped. Letting the ancient strands fall through her fingers, they floated towards the hearth. A breath of wind nudged them into the flames, ensnaring the fine filaments. The hair shrivelled up in less time than it took Anita to take a breath. As the hair disappeared, she registered a childlike crying coming from somewhere in the house. A crying cut off as if a closing door sealed the sound away.

  The crying released her memories. She dropped the tomato, its overripe flesh splitting on the tiles, pulp oozing out. Juice sizzled on the grate, competing with the dripping sound reverberating around the room, and with the sobs emanating from Anita.

  Chapter 47

  A bird circling aloft would see the shattered ruins of the garden, concrete bones adorning the graveyard, a misshapen pond creeping towards the overgrown pathways. From above, the house looked like a child’s sandcastle, angles jutting out without sense. A turret plonked atop of the crooked gothic architecture. A film set laid out by workers from a dozen different cultures. No rhyme nor reason to the form. An estate designed by committee.

  The hound sniffled in the shrubs, his nose buried in the decaying leaf rot. Centipedes and other dark-bodied beetles scurried from the intrusion. The dog’s long claws raked at the damp earth. Sprays of soil exploded behind the dog coating the glossy holly leaves. Pausing, he inspected the cavity, paying no attention to the other creatures around him. There’d been a scent here, an exciting one, and he’d tracked it from across the snowy fields to this forgotten corner where stone memorials stood sentinel. No one remembered them but their scents remained, drawing him to this disturbed mound where nothing grew.

  His ears twitched back — he’d heard a cry, calling his name. There was no urgency to the cry. He dug deeper, pawing at the earth. A yelp; he skittered backwards, baring his teeth, growling at the hole. Sinking to his stomach, he whimpered, licking at the pad of his paw. He didn’t understand why licking his paw made the pain worse. He tried standing but his fleshy pad was unable to bear any weight. The scent was still there but he couldn’t dig any further. The filtered moonlight half exposed a glassy eye, a lock of hair, and a sliver of cheek. He whimpered. The scent increased, and he was desperate to dig it up, but the pain.

  His ears swivelled. He was being called again. Torn, he focused on the hole, and inched closer till he could stretch out and nudge the earth, one last effort to uncover the source of the scent. A tiny hand appeared. Five perfect fingers frozen in time. He seized the hand in his mouth and shuffled backwards, pulling the broken thing from the earth. A filthy ribbon trailing behind as he limped back through the bushes. The man calling his name more insistent, his calls more strident. Another whimper escaped from the back of his throat.

  “Ace, here boy, come here. Where are you, you damn dog?” The farmer stomped through the overgrown gardens. He’d done little about keeping the weeds back, didn’t seem to be any point. Old Kubin never came down here, just threw him enough money every month to keep his drive clear and the worst of the shrubs away from the windows. That’s what Kubin asked him to do and what he’d paid him for. Now he was dead, that extra income would dry up. Wouldn’t make much difference to his life, except he wouldn’t have to traipse over here every week. It’d give him more time to concentrate on his own farm.

  What wild goose chase was that blasted animal on now? He’d never had this trouble with the dog before. Should’ve left the dog at home, knew it’d been a bad idea after what happened last time. But an inner fear forced his hand and so he’d come out with his dog, to check for wayward stock, positive he’d heard a wolf or a stray dog. And then the blasted animal had taken off towards Kubin’s house again. Chasing rabbits, or something else. No point dwelling on what might be up at the house.

  Crossing Kubin’s gardens, he felt exposed. There were no lights at the windows, save for the one spilling from the turret. From this angle he couldn’t see anyone up there, which was fine.

  His rubber boots crunched through the crystalline garden, leaving giant footprints in his wake. He whistled, an ear-piercing shrillness which startled the sleeping ravens. They took to the air, their displeasure made obvious by their indignant cries. Stuff the buggers, the farmer thought, that was the only thing they were good for - home decor. He went to whistle again when the dog emerged from the undergrowth. The dog looked disfigured, misshapen in the twilight. With his uneven gait, he could have been a monster materialising from the bush. The farmer faltered, his hand coming up to massage the lump on his own head from where he’d fallen over carrying the girl. It was a passing moment. He wasn’t concussed. The whimpering from the dog marked him as his own.

  Kneeling on his arthritic knee beside the dog, he stroked the animal’s damp coat. “What have you got, Ace?” he asked.

  The dog dropped the dirt-encrusted thing and lay down, paw outstretched, whimpering, pleading with him to fix it. He cursed himself for forgetting a torch but he had a box of waterproof matches in the pocket of his old coat. You never knew when you might need matches or a small knife.

  The match flared, sulphur pungent in the nature-washed air. In illuminating the night, the match showed much more than nature intended. The farmer fell back, dropping the match, extinguishing the light. The image of what he’d seen could never be extinguished. Laying between the dog’s paws, perfect in so many ways but brutally damaged in others, was a baby.

  He turned and vomited, heaving until there was nothing left to expel. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Filled with revulsion, but doubting his own mind, he needed another look. He struck a second match, his hands trembling so much that the match snapped in half. A third match suffered the same fate. By the fourth match, with the painful whimpers of the do
g increasing, he forced his old hands to steady. The match lit and he lowered it towards the baby. Two perfect hands and perfect feet, one still clad in a black leather shoe. Moving the match he found the face, or what was left of her face. For it had been a girl, with a head of curly blonde hair. The whole side caved in now, a jagged edge left where her cheek, nose and chin would have been. The match spluttered and died as he reached out to touch the thing, the baby.

  As he touched the porcelain white edge of the girl’s face, realisation dawned that this thing wasn’t a real baby, but a doll, the twilight lending a realism he’d misinterpreted. What a fool. The dog whimpered again, pushing its hot nose into his hand.

  “Hey boy, I’m all yours now, what have you done?” He struck another match to check the dog’s proffered paw. Embedded deep in the pad was a shard of porcelain. He let the match burn down, and by feel only, he tugged it from the sandpaper-rough pad. “There you go, boy,” he said. The dog licked his paw, his tail thumping on the ground.

  “Come on now,” he said, standing. He slapped his thigh, but the dog made no move to join him. “Come on,” he cajoled. The animal looked up at him but continued with his ministrations after barely a glance.

  “Ace,” said the farmer, his voice rising with the command. He made to pick up the doll but a low growl from the dog stopped him. “Cut that out, come on.” The farmer pulled the doll away by her porcelain ankle.

  Ace snapped at the man’s hand, his growling taking on a deeper menace.

  The farmer stepped back, changing his grip on the doll, holding it now around its naked stomach.

  The dog stood up, hackles raised, his exposed canine teeth glinting in the moonlight.