Black Painted Fingernails (9 page)

Michael rolls on his back and keeps snoring. Angela wants to reach across the Egyptian cotton sheets and hold his nose until he splutters awake. How can he sleep?

She gets out of bed and closes the bedroom door behind her, walks down the hallway to the kitchen and puts the kettle on. Her friend, Miriam, has given her some Turkish Apple tea for its soothing qualities.

Angela switches off the kettle before it whistles, pours the tea, takes the cup and saucer out to the back verandah and reclines on the outdoor chaise lounge. She looks up at the sky. Not even the lights of the suburbs can dim the stars tonight. A storm bird calls from high in the trees along the back fence.

The bird is wrong. There’ll be no rain tonight.

Where is James? She thinks of her son asleep in a motel, some hitchhiker prowling the room, reaching into James’s jeans pockets for the car keys, creeping out and making a dash for the car. James dreaming the night away and waking in the morning to find an open door, a missing wallet and a vacant space in the car park. She’s prepared to drive all day tomorrow to rescue her son, if need be, to bring him home.

Angela sips the tea, hot and sweet. So sweet! What is she consuming in the hope of relief? She tips it out over the box hedge and clatters the cup back onto the saucer. It seems as if nothing will wake Michael until morning.

She thinks of both men, husband and son, together. How alike they look. Their wild curly hair mocks Angela’s neat lacquered style. If she hadn’t given birth to James, she’d doubt there were any of her genes in him.

A cloud covers the moon and the storm bird starts up again. She laughs to herself, waiting for the first raindrop. Maybe she’s wrong about many things. You shouldn’t argue with nature or children.

The box hedge is in need of a trim.

Angela walks to the back shed, past the prostrate grevilleas, the native grasses and the lavender bushes. She quietly opens the door and switches on the light, to search for the hedge clippers, chuckling to herself at the thought of gardening in a silk nightie and padded slippers. She normally keeps the hedge immaculately neat. Perhaps she’s paid too much attention to the vegetable garden? The rows of tomato vines and lettuce heads are all ready for harvesting. She should have cooked up some pasta sauce for James to take with him.

She shakes her head.

James can’t cook, and he’s staying in a hotel room in Hillston – when he eventually gets there.

Where
is
he?

Damn! She’d stopped thinking about him then, just for a minute.

She shuffles in her slippers across the grass to the hedge. She takes a deep breath and settles down to work, hoping old Mrs Reynolds next door doesn’t hear the sound of the clippers.

She’d like Michael to wake and sit with her, for them to be together in the dark, the hedge trimmed, the clouds parted, that ghastly bird flown off to haunt somebody else.

She tries to remember when they last made love, and is surprised at herself for thinking of it.

It was over two weeks ago, on a Saturday night. James was staying at Pete’s house. Angela realises that the only time she feels comfortable and relaxed enough to enjoy it is when her son isn’t home.

She tingles with the memory.

Michael never pressures her. Most of the time it’s she who instigates their lovemaking. He often seems almost surprised.

She would like to make love to her husband right now, on the chaise lounge, in full view of the ripening tomatoes and the box hedge. To hell with the storm bird and approaching rain.

Sex would offer more relief than Miriam’s bogus tea.

She considers scratching her fingernails down the outside of their bedroom window, until Michael wakes. When he comes to the window, she could flash her bare shoulders and beckon him outside, slip off her nightie and lie on the lounge. He could hardly miss the intention!

Angela laughs aloud, then considers making herself a real pot of tea, Twinings, with a slice of lemon. She returns the clippers to the shed. After she locks the door, she stands quietly in the yard watching the moon reveal itself again. She knows this is the same moon James can see, from wherever he is, and the thought brings her comfort.

As she steps back onto the verandah, Michael parts the curtains. They stare at each other for a few seconds.

She beckons him outside.

A sliver of light wakes me in the morning. Sophie is asleep on the single bed, her fists tight under her chin, her long legs like flowing caramel, the sheet bunched at the foot of the bed. As quietly as I can, I roll over to face the window, leaning across to pull the curtain closed.

From outside comes the sound of slamming doors followed by a car starting. A young girl calls, ‘Daddy,’ and someone answers, ‘Princess.’ The child giggles. Car tyres crunch over the gravel.

Above the window, a huntsman spider gangles along the wall, all soft pudgy body on spindly legs. Huntsmen bleed yellow. If I threw my shoe, I’d squash him flat and put a hole in the wall the size of Queensland.

Sophie’s voice is drowsy behind me. ‘He’s harmless.’

I don’t turn around. ‘Repulsive.’

The spider creeps into a crack near the ceiling, one long limb hanging out.

‘He’s graceful,’ Sophie says. ‘Misunderstood, with those nimble legs.’

Sophie stands at the foot of my bed, the towel wrapped around her.

‘I didn’t dream, for the first time in years. Maybe it was the Scotch, the clean sheets or the quiet man sleeping beside me.’

‘In the bed next to yours.’

She tilts her head to one side, then walks to the bathroom.

There’s a knock on our door, harsh and urgent. Slipping on my pants, I unlock the door. The manager bustles past me, carrying the breakfast tray.

‘Good morning,’ I say.

She puts the tray on the fridge and stands with her hands on hips, looking at the Bible in the corner. ‘The Lord’s book does not belong on the floor.’ She walks briskly across to pick it up.

‘Thanks for breakfast,’ I say, opening the door a little wider.

The woman walks to the bedside table and places the Bible in the top drawer. ‘Check-out is at ten.’

I call to Sophie, ‘Darling. The nice lady has brought us breakfast.’

The woman scowls and checks both beds.

‘We took . . . we tried each bed.’

She bustles past me, leaving the door open.

I pour milk over the cereal and open the carton of orange juice. Sophie comes in, a towel wrapped around her hair, wearing a black T-shirt and long black skirt. Does she know any other colour?

‘Where did the clothes come from?’

She pirouettes across the room. ‘A girl’s bag is bottomless.’ As she reaches for some toast, she asks, ‘What did you call me, in the shower?’

‘It was for the Jesus-freak manager.’

Sophie raises her orange juice. ‘Hallelujah, brother! By the way, where did the Bible go?’

‘The woman rearranged
the room.’

Sophie licks butter from her fingers. ‘Did she scare you?’

‘I’m growing a backbone. Remember?’

She reaches across to pick up her boots, searching in her bag and removing a clean pair of socks. ‘I don’t believe in God.’ She lifts her foot and pulls on a sock. ‘Not in the religious sense. Maybe as a benevolent spirit.’

‘If God existed, would he see everything we do?’.

‘Oh Christ, I hope not!’

I stack the tray with our leftovers and place it outside near the doormat. I look through the window at Sophie, gracefully lacing up a boot, her hair a tangle in front of her face. She brushes it back and sees me watching. We stare at one another through the glass.

She blows me a kiss.

Neither of us moves for a long time.

Dave heard the shouting. He ran down the hallway and opened Sophie’s door. She was pulling on a T-shirt and pants, and Brad was picking up the pieces of the camera. Blood was trickling down his leg onto the floorboards.

Sophie’s breath caught in her throat. She moved to the wardrobe and pulled out her backpack, unused since the school camping trip in Year Nine. She dropped it on the bed. Dave stepped into the room.

‘What the hell is going on?’

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘At work.’

‘Tell him, Brad. Tell him.’ Sophie could barely control her voice.

‘She broke me fuckin’ camera.’

Sophie pulled her clothes out of the cupboard and shoved them into her backpack, the zip catching on a shirt. She ripped the shirt, tossing it on the floor; it was the wrong colour anyway. She walked to the dresser for the nail polish, checked the cap was on properly and slipped it into the outside pocket of the backpack.

‘Did you break it, Sophie?’

Dave was wearing singlet and shorts, his truck-driver uniform, except for his ugg boots. Sophie wanted to tell him he looked ludicrous. She was suddenly worried she looked guilty. For what? Waking up and finding that bastard filming her? Her lips curled in spite.

‘You’re damn right I broke it!’

‘Well, then, you’ll pay for it. End of story.’

Argument settled, Dave turned to go.

‘Ask Brad what
he
was doing.’

Dave stopped in the hallway and turned back into the room.

‘What?’

Sophie zipped up the backpack, reached under the bed for her boots – real boots made of leather, not woolly ugg boots. She picked up the socks from yesterday, they’d do. She turned away from her brothers and slipped them on.

‘What’s going on?’ Dave’s voice was angry.

Brad looked everywhere in the room but at Dave. Sophie stared only at Brad. Dave had his answer. ‘You asked Brad to film you?’

‘
What?
’ Sophie couldn’t believe this was happening. She wanted her brothers to go away and she wanted her dad here.

Brad’s voice wavered. ‘Yeah, that’s . . . what she did.’

Sophie picked up the backpack and strapped it on. The weight pulled her shoulders back and she stood erect, eager to leave this room, to breathe fresh air. The decision was made. She walked around the bed. Brad stepped back quickly but Dave stood in her way, not looking as certain as he did a minute ago.

‘Think about it, Sophie.’

‘Piss off, Dave.’

He stepped aside and she walked out. Before she reached the front door, Dave pleaded again, ‘What the fuck is going on?’

Sophie stopped in the lounge room, looking at the photos on the sideboard of Dad, Dave, Brad and her. She turned back to Dave. ‘Nothing. I was sleeping . . . now I’m not.’

They looked at each other for a few seconds until it all made sense to Dave. His face flushed, and the disgust was obvious in his snarl. Brad tried to step past him.

‘You’re kidding me,’ Dave spat.

Sophie didn’t say a word.

Dave grabbed Brad by the shirt and gave him a backhander across the face. Once was enough. Brad’s nose spurted blood over his shirt and he dropped the camera and yelped like a helpless dog. Dave was shaking so much Sophie thought he could kill. He grabbed Brad by the collar, standing over him.

Sophie opened the front door to a cloudless summer day. ‘He won’t do it again, Dave.’

She walked out and wished she had time to leave a note for her father. And she wondered how her brothers would explain the fact that she was gone.