Perfect Skin

by Nick Earls

  Your first patient’s here. When you get the chance.

  Thanks.

  I read through the email once more, click Send and it flies off to Kate. Or, to be more specific, to ktnflag – a username I haven’t yet decoded. Why do people get fancy with these things? What would have been wrong with something more obvious, like katiewatts?

  This exchange with Katie began a couple of weeks ago, after we’d talked at a barbecue at Wendy’s place. I’ve met her on and off for years, usually at things at Wendy’s place, and she’s never been particularly animated. More the kind of person you get used to saying ‘Hi’ to at kids’ birthdays, while you’re both fumbling a piece of brightly coloured cake around a paper plate.

  Email seems to suit her better, which is something I hadn’t expected. It seems too contemporary, for a start. Katie, we suspect, has a peculiar thing for the eighties. Which is partly about music, but mainly about hair. The music we can go with (just), but Katie has eighties hair and, as the years go by, it looks more and more wrong, and like something that could hold her back in life. It’s like the hair Meg Ryan had in one of the early parts of When Harry Met Sally, except of course it’d now be the hair from the movie When Harry Met No-one Because the Only Single Woman at the Party Had Eighties Hair.

  Oh god, as if I’d know why, Wendy said, when I once made a subtle attempt to put the words ‘Katie’ and ‘hair’ in the same sentence. And as if I could ask her. I think she thinks it’s okay.

  Katie and Wendy’s relationship hasn’t always been easy, but I think they’ve settled better into being sisters now that they’re both in their thirties. And part of that, perhaps, is knowing the questions you never ask.

  Katie’s three years younger, and Wendy used to treat her as a bit of a hanger-on. Which I don’t think she was. That might have started at school – their relationship low-point, apparently – back when Wendy was being a prefect and her fanatical ability to juggle many things with competence was starting to emerge. And Katie was being a rather clumsy fourteen and spending most of the time with bandaids on her knees and her hair maddeningly out of control, and the unwelcome challenge of dealing with a rather insensitive older sister who decided it would be fun to call her Mess. Something Wendy only gave up when Katie was in her mid-twenties, and the name came to reflect her life more than it did her appearance. They were going through their last bad patch when Katie got her PhD in clinical psychology. Apparently Wendy’s first response to the news was, I can’t believe how old I must be. How terrifying. Wendy got her MBA not long after and Katie apparently said to her, I can’t believe how old you must be, and told their parents there’d be no congratulations unless there was an apology first.

  But a second child (Wendy’s) and a couple more relationship disasters (Katie’s) down the track, things seem much better. Wendy still claims the big-sister turf, but more benevolently. I think she’s more protective than Katie would like sometimes, but she’s like that with everyone unless they stop her. She’s certainly like it with me. And I haven’t worked out how to stop her yet.

  At uni she had several years when she got to be sad that no-one seemed to want to go out with me, and she was around to cushion the blow just about every time. And you reach a stage when you need to move away from friends like that, but some of them just track you down.

  So what chance did Katie have? Maybe it’s no surprise she resorts to text-based conversation, and conducts it away from Wendy’s view.

  The part I still don’t get about it is her email address and, after a quick and unrewarding check for emails, it’s the bit I’m still trying to work out when Wendy comes into the kitchen at lunchtime.

  Katie’s email address, I say to her, figuring I might as well ask. The ktnflag part, what’s that about? Is it to do with someone she works for?

  No, she’s in private practice.

  That’s what I thought.

  Wendy flicks her tea bag into the bin. Say it carefully and you get it. K T N flag, Katie and Flag. Flag is her cat.

  Flag. As in bit of cloth up a pole.

  I did tell her it already stood for something.

  Why Flag?

  To which Katie’s answer is, why not? But forget that for a second. Have you noticed they’re sharing an email address?

  I think I was trying not to.

  She shakes her head. How is she going to turn things around when she does things like that?

  She’s not a football team having a bad season.

  Really? You think Katie’s okay? she says, missing the point.

  Sure. There’s nothing wrong with Katie, I tell her, but only because Wendy’s her sister and I know the lines you just don’t cross. Maybe she’s not looking for a guy, or human partner. Maybe she’s got things just the way she wants them. Anyway, I thought there was some guy . . .

  There always was some guy. There rarely is a guy. The guys don’t last. It’s the post-guy grieving periods that have the staying power. The last guy was months ago, and she’s back at that sworn-off-men-for-life stage again. You know that stage, that goes right up until she meets the next one? And then she zeroes in like a kamikaze pilot. She stalls then, realising she’s said too much. She stirs her tea.

  It’s all right. She bags the shit out of you in emails.

  Yeah. I never said kamikaze pilot, okay?

  Come on. I’ve been one myself. I think we both know that.

  Shit, Jon. Ages ago. Back in the eighties. Mid-eighties, even.

  Back when Katie . . . was too young to do herself that kind of harm, I manage to say, realising just in time that ‘Back when Katie got the hair’ wasn’t the way to go.

  Hmmm. I think she might be lining herself up for it again. Just from something she said a couple of days ago, I think her radar’s picked up something on the horizon. And why is it that that worries me? Why do I assume the next one’s going to treat her badly? There must be some okay guys out there. And Katie, in her own way, is quite a catch.

  Sure.

  It’s just going to take the right guy.

  You could say that with more conviction.

  K T N Flag. Katie is one of the smartest people I know, and she and a cat have gone halves in an email address. He’s holding her back, Jon.

  It sounds like you think she should drop him.

  Better off without him, I reckon. She spends far too much of her time talking cat talk. But you never heard that from me. Anyway, I’m notoriously anti-cat, apparently, so, you know . . . Katie’s okay though, really? Isn’t she? You’re a guy. She’s okay, isn’t she?

  Sure.

  I press the plunger, pour my coffee. And I’m most of the way to the door before Wendy says, Bags the shit out of me in emails? What do you mean she bags the shit out of me in emails?

  3

  Thursday night, with the teething-relief measures in place, goes better. Lily sleeps, I sleep, and we’re the first at childcare. All back to normal.

  Which means a run. I park in the usual place, and I notice that the student’s red Pulsar is in the driveway of number 176 and one of the windows of the house is open – probably a bedroom window, from the look of the curtain that’s hanging out of it.

  The student. I’ve forgotten her name already, and I think I’m only assuming she’s a student. Did she ever tell me?

  Her name was a noun – like Flag – that much I remember. Started with an A.

  Ash. That was it. As in short for Ashley, I suppose. I suppose, or was that something she did tell me? She told me. There by the space marked Designer Collection grey.

  It takes about three kilometres to work this out, most of my five-K lap around the uni campus, running unattractively in time to a jumble of 10CC songs. By the end of it I can see her saying it, saying her name. I can see neat teeth that I didn’t look at, blue eyes that I’ve borrowed from someone somewhere. She’s starting to look like someone on TV. Standing next to her car. Standing in Coles with all that sour cream. Standing in a film clip in a half-empty house, lo
oking straight at the camera and singing. By the four-K mark I have no idea what she looks like, but I can visualise a substitute version of her perfectly, dressed to pack things in boxes, standing there with the studio lighting glistening from her lower lip as she offers me guacamole in a rather disconsolate way. As though she has now lost heart when it comes to her theory on the universal applicability of sour cream.

  Most of this, definitely, is from TV, from watching late-night music shows during the Bean’s restless times. With the probable exception of the guacamole.

  I finish my uni lap and move on to the part of my run that is in my mind as ‘the street circuit’, as though I’m a Formula One car. But my mind is idling along again, wondering if the Bean’s tooth will come through today, wondering if there’s anything I’m supposed to do or change when it does come through. Wondering if Katie has no idea that Meg Ryan’s hair is now pretty good, and that Katie’s version was already from another era when they made When Harry Met Sally.

  Wondering what Ash the student is doing today, as I approach her house. And she runs past me. She waves without turning round, and keeps going until she gets to my car.

  You were being smart and warming down, weren’t you? she says when I get there, and I notice that her singlet top says ‘Gold Coast Half-marathon Finisher’.

  Not that I’m aware of.

  I get a bit competitive when I see someone ahead of me.

  Sure. I pass people sometimes. I know what you mean.

  I bet you do.

  Of course, some of them get a bit pissed off and take a swipe at me with their walking frames, but . . .

  She laughs, puts her foot up on her fence and does a hamstring stretch. She stretches with such ease that she’s probably one of those people who never really needs to. She takes her foot in both hands and leans forward till her head touches her knee. Which means I don’t stretch today, since I’m not one of those people. It’d be a mistake to mention walking frames and then struggle my way to my best quarter-hamstring stretch in front of her. But I’ve never been flexible. In fact, I’m better than I used to be. I’ve tested myself, and I’ve gone from ‘poor’ to ‘below average’ with all my work over the last few months. But I think that’s still something to keep to myself.

  She stretches the other side and says, Where were you yesterday? Did you run?

  No. It didn’t work out yesterday.

  And her teeth aren’t quite as neat as I’d imagined in the film-clip version of her, but her hair’s the same. Dark, naturally dark, black or close to it, straight and quite short, but irregularly short. Pushed back from the sweat on her forehead, and it’s her shiny, sweaty forehead that’s glistening in the sun, rather than a glossed-up lower lip catching studio lights. And she’s breathing normally, while my breathing’s still catching up from the run. She’s swapping her weight from one foot to another as she’s standing there, as if she isn’t finished, her lean and restless runner’s body maybe ready for another lap.

  Do you know if there’s any running group around here, or anything?

  Yeah, there are plenty, I think.

  But you’re not into that?

  Not really. I spend a lot of time with people, so I tend to run by myself. Actually, that’s not really it. I’ve only been doing it for a few months. Everyone I know’s gone to lard, so it’s really just about making sure I don’t. It’s pretty casual. Non-competitive.

  Groups don’t have to he competitive. I usually run with people. It’s not bad.

  So where are they?

  No, before. I’ve just transferred here. To do honours.

  Well, I’m not sure I’m a group runner. I don’t think I’ve got enough event-related clothes to wear. Plus, you’ve seen me. I look so not like a runner that on two occasions buses have actually stopped for me.

  You’re kidding, she says, and laughs, clearly not sure if I’m kidding.

  Well, one stopped. The other just hung around at the bus stop a bit longer than usual. But I waved him away. I wasn’t going to stand for shit like that.

  At work, the Window Weasel says:

  Hey Bud! We’re having fun aren’t we?? So go click YES!! I LOVE MY WEASEL!! and you can register to use Window Weasel for life for only $30! Click LATER to register later.

  I click LATER, send the weasel off and decide I don’t like much of the false bonhomie people program into automated messages. The weasel is a minor irritant. It is not my ‘bud’.

  There’s another email from Katie.

  Re coffee – another weak spot for the wok, by the way (and if you make it in a wok at your place, I don’t want to know) – my best breaks tend to be middle of the day, so how about lunch? Which I assume is at least semi-regular for you, too. So suggest a day, if feasible.

  And Monday would be feasible, since I start work after lunch on Mondays, so I suggest it.

  Today at lunchtime I go to Coles again. I’ve got nappies to buy. And, yes, disposables, even though I have cloth nappies at home. I’m very over them now. My baby book tells me to expect four thousand nappy changes before the Bean can get better organised sphincter-wise, and I have a serious attraction to convenience. No, a need for it. We’ve thought it through – the Bean and me – and we choose disposables.

  I know all about the landfill issue. I know that I’m responsible for a couple of cubic kilometres of it, and I know that the plastic parts of the Bean’s disposables might outlast us both by thousands of years, but that’s the way it is. Build on it.

  I imagine that I’m not the only parent in town who’s made this choice. And that in the outer suburbs, new housing developments are being built on quietly settling piles of grungy nappies, plus non-biodegradable packing material, betamax VCRs, lava lamps (from both times they were in), toasters that were fine until the catch stopped staying down, fungoid futons, coffee makers that seized up because no-one ever cleaned them.

  I can imagine aliens landing quietly by night, core sampling this in someone’s backyard and leaving, analysing what they’ve got and wondering if it’s a treasure trove or a very sad fallen civilisation (stricken by bad appliances and worse bowel control). And I’m thinking this while I’m gazing at the nappy shelves, imagining the aliens deciding that our planet sucks, and I’m quietly singing the Lemonheads’ ‘It’s a Shame About Ray’. Great song, but I’ve really got to lift my game.

  I pick up a couple of thirty-six packs, and go to meet the Bean at childcare.

  4

  On Saturday I take the Bean down to the uni lakes. I want her to see the ducks, but when we get there she’s less excited than I’d hoped. I’m not sure that she’s up to wildlife yet.

  There is one thing I like about that, though. An upside to her not giving a shit about the ducks. It shows that she can tell me apart from them. She looks at the ducks with a minor version of her straining-to-poo face, and she looks at me as though I’m one of the good guys. The reality-checking device, the one that’ll see her right. An entity she can trust. Of course, I’m not unique in that. I think she trusts Elvis, too, and while I’m tossing bread to the ducks he’s going insane about a medium-sized stick.

  Soon he’s flopped beside us, panting, since it’s simply too hot to keep up any reasonable level of stick madness today. He looks at me with his big eyes, checks all’s well.

  I think you’ve got them under control, buddy, I tell him.

  Then I talk more about the ducks, the trees, the buildings, as I hold the Bean in a standing position and use one of her hands to point. One day the content will count for something, and there’s plenty I’ll be able to tell her, all kinds of things to explain that she doesn’t understand yet. And about much more than scenery, when the time is right. But for the moment she’s just propped up there, bow-legged and pale and passively pointing. The Bean and her silly flowery hat and her perfect skin. Her chubbed-up pale limbs, yet to be shaped by any serious function. Soft all over, other than when she head butts. The Bean and that excellent musty baby smell.


  I try to mop up some drool and she puts my hand in her mouth and bites. There’s something tiny and sharp in there, and when she lets me look I can see the white point of a tooth coming through a raised, red bud of gum. I get a little excited, she thinks I’m an idiot, Elvis jumps up and comes back with a stick.

  I’ve brought the camera with me, so I sit her down and try to line up something that will capture the moment of tooth discovery. Even though I know it’ll probably end up as nothing more than a picture of a baby with spit down her front. But I guess you can never have too many of those.

  Smile. Smile, I say, and earn a look of great curiosity. You have to smile now, I urge her, but she reverts to the straining-to-poo face.

  No, smile. Just a quick smile first. Please. What can I do to make you smile? Okay, there’s three bits of string and they go into a bar . . .

  I lift up her top, blow a big raspberry on her front and get a whack on the face and a gurgly laugh. I get the shot – the gurgly laugh, the hand reaching out for a second whack, a big drool-string from the lower lip to the left shoulder.

  Nothing like physical comedy, is there? I say to her, and pull her hat over her eyes.

  She waves both arms, rolls backwards like a scuba diver leaving a boat. She’s not brilliant at the sitting yet, and visual input clearly means more to her than I’d realised. I’m near the end of the roll of film, so I take a few more photos to finish it off. I’ve taken far more photos of her over the last few months than I would have expected.

  There seems to be much more to photograph now than there was, but perhaps I’m also better at noticing it, more used to watching her. She seems to turn older almost every day. She amazes me sometimes. Not so long ago she was a pair of orifices with an unsophisticated mulching system in between, now she knows a thing or two about the world. Not much, but a thing or two, and more all the time. The Bean takes things in, sizes them up. I can tell. And I think she’s very clever doing that. Dote, dote. I think there’s part of me that genuinely believes I’m a co-inventor of the smart beautiful baby.