Perfections (4 page)

Antoinette straightens, lays down her pen. Her right hand is a cramped, arthritic claw, the hand of a crone; her fingers all but scream as she flexes them. How long has she been writing? Long enough to have filled near half the notebook with her messy scrawl, long enough for the night to have slipped away, for the thin grey light of just-before-dawn to inch its way around the sides of the blinds. Long enough to write herself halfway to sober as well, her head swollen and heavy on her shoulders, her mouth parched. The heel of her injured foot throbs, the bandage is dark and damp to the touch, and there’s a bloody stain on the cushion beneath it. Clotted red soaked into fine cream jacquard; Jacqueline is going to kill her.

Cushion tucked under her arm, Antoinette limps back to the bathroom. She tries to rinse the blood out of the fabric, scrubbing at it with her short-bitten nails, but only succeeds in spreading the stain around. She swears, tosses the cushion into the shower for a later attempt. Is it salt that’s good for bloodstains, or baking soda? Whatever, she’ll google it tomorrow – today – whenever. Her foot is easier to clean, the wound not as bad as she remembers, not anywhere near as bad as it feels to walk on. It only bleeds a little after the dried and scabby crust is washed away, and this time she pads it with cotton wool before wrapping a fresh length of gauze all the way up to her ankle.

Good enough. She splashes her face with cold water. Glares at herself in the mirror. Enough, full-stop. Enough drinking and weeping and wallowing about in her own misery. Paul isn’t worth it. Time to snap out of it, girlie-girl. Time to get a life.

But first, she needs some sleep.

Her clothes and other assorted chattels are still staging their hostile takeover of the futon, and Antoinette is too exhausted to even contemplate its liberation. Across the hall, the door to her sister’s room is neatly closed. Behind it, there’s a queen-sized bed with a comfy mattress and fat, Euro-style pillows – a far more tempting crash zone than the small, cramped study – and Antoinette doesn’t have to think twice. The smooth metal handle zaps her fingers with static and she hisses, shaking off the charge as the door swings open to reveal a figure, solid and backlit through the half-drawn curtains, sitting hunched on the end of the bed.

Antoinette freezes. The nape of her neck prickles with sudden sweat.

He lifts his head, turns part-way towards her. Shadows move across his bare skin, and within the depths of those too-pale eyes.

‘P-Paul?’ Her voice squeaks. She clears her throat. ‘How did you . . .’

Faltering, realising her mistake even as the words die on her lips. Not Paul. Not
her
Paul. Or maybe now more hers than ever.

Then she’s running. No thought beyond getting herself to the front door,
through
the front door and out into the thin dawn light, the close confines of the flat too easy to be trapped within. But the security chain is still drawn, her fingers clumsy in their panic, and by the time she has it free his arms are around her waist, dragging her away. She fights back, or tries to, fingernails and elbows and knees the sharpest weapons at her disposal, and
stop it
, he says, and
please
. He pulls her down to the floor, both of them falling in a barely controlled collapse, his weight knocking all the breath from her body. She could laugh, she really could, to think that she’s always considered herself more than capable in the self-defence department, one tough cookie if it ever came to the crunch – because how bloody helpless does she feel now?

‘Don’t hurt me,’ she whispers. ‘Please don’t hurt me.’

‘Shhh.’ He takes her face in his hands, hands fine-boned but stronger than the world, and tilts her gaze to meet his own. Even in her terror, Antoinette marvels at those eyes, those black-rimmed irises of cool and pale blue. Arctic eyes, husky eyes, brilliant with unspilled tears. ‘Please,’ he echoes. ‘I’m scared too.’

Maybe it’s something in his voice, harmless and uncomprehending as a kicked puppy, or the gentle-firm way he’s holding her, pinning her moveless to the carpet the way you might keep a panic-struck bird from breaking a wing. Something in his voice, his touch, that makes her stop and look at him, really
look
at him, at that face which is so familiar, yet wholly new. The differences are subtle but definite: his features more finely wrought, their symmetry close to perfect; his skin beyond pale, almost inhumanly white, and flawless but for an inch-long scratch below his right eye, still beading crimson along its edge.

Antoinette swallows, the stale aftertaste of fear lying flat on her tongue.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asks, relaxing his hold when she shakes her head. A heartbeat later and he’s on his feet, his movements too quick, too fluid to follow. He reaches out an arm and she takes it, feels his hand close around her wrist as he helps her stand. Her sore foot protests sharply and she half-shifts, half-stumbles against him. ‘You
are
hurt.’ He points to the bandage which is bloody again and starting to unravel.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I mean, that’s not from just now.’

‘Come on, I’ll clean it for you.’ His arm slips around her waist, and she actually takes two dazed and limping steps at his side before asking him to stop, to please just
stop
and
wait
a second.

‘Is it bad?’ he asks. ‘I can carry you.’

‘No, it’s not that. I just need . . . please, just stop. Stop everything.’ She pushes him back, a gentle shove to arm’s length so she can see him more clearly, the whole of him. ‘My god.’ Not exactly the same, but close enough, more than close enough: they could be brothers, the two of them; stand them side by side and that’s what anyone would think, couldn’t help but think. One of them taller, cast from finer clay maybe, but undoubtedly brothers, brothers if not twins.

Paul and Not Paul.

‘What are you?’ A thought not intended for words but finding them anyway, just as her hands find the bare, milk-smooth skin of his shoulders, his chest, his hips. The flesh is solid and warm, and feels as real as her own. Only dimly does she register the fact that he’s naked, the observation devoid of promise or threat. What does matter are the marks which redden his skin: scratches that match the one beneath his eye, an angry carpet burn on his knee. Perfect, he was
perfect
until she went and injured him,
marred
him, idiot girl that she is. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, knowing it’s not enough but repeating it anyway as his eyes gloss over and he dips his head, blue-black hair falling like bowerbird feathers into his face.

‘I don’t know,’ he whispers. ‘I don’t know what I am.’

Antoinette wraps her arms around him and squeezes tight, a desperate-fierce hug to make it all go away. Because she doesn’t know what he is either, and for that she’s sorry as well. ‘It’s cold,’ she says at last. ‘Aren’t you cold?’

‘No, are you?’

He steps from her grasp and she almost falls, her vision darkening around the edges as the walls start to sway inwards and the floor tilts beneath her feet. Her hands shake and she pushes her knees together to stop them from buckling, bites her tongue in an effort to hold onto consciousness. ‘Little help?’ she murmurs, but he’s already there, one arm firm on her waist as he steers her back down to the hall to Jacqueline’s room. The bed has never seemed bigger and Antoinette curls up right in the middle, hands tucked close to her chin. He draws the curtains and pulls the doona over her. ‘Sleep now,’ he says, his lips brushing warm and dry across her cheek. Down near her feet, the mattress sinks beneath his weight.

Sleep, yes. She hasn’t felt so utterly wasted for ages, or maybe never; not even the nights spent clubbing till dawn – not even those nights when she managed to score a dex or two – ever strung her this far out. But how
can
she sleep, right now, with her own breathing, blood-bearing miracle perched at the end of the bed like something out of a trashy teen vampire flick? How can she . . .

‘Hey, Antoinette?’

She starts, the path to dreamland not so elusive after all.

‘What’s
my
name?’ he asks, as if the thought has only just now occurred to him. But the question feels too big, too complicated; nothing her poor, fried brain wants to ponder right this second, so she throws him an old scrap of a syllable instead, the first and last thing that comes to mind –
Paul
– and buries her face into the pillow.

Paul
, he might have echoed as she drifted away. And then,
no
, he might have whispered, scornful and proud.
No, I don’t think so.

— 4 —

Jacqueline wonders if she should have had the taxi wait. The address matches the details in her diary, but the place isn’t what she expected. More bungalow than house, its wooden boards are the pink of early dawn. The lawn is neatly mown. Flanked on three sides by colourful gardens. Small concrete statues, some partially painted, congregate in groups. Others peer out from beneath plants. Fairies and frogs. Mermaids draped dry over rocks. A baby dragon still emerging from its shell, a flower clutched between its paws.

An enormous loquat tree looms beside the front gate, its branches low and heavy with fruit. Jacqueline ducks beneath it. Follows the narrow path that takes her straight to the front porch. Plastic frangipanis are threaded unevenly through the patchy screen door. She steels herself. Resists the temptation to retrieve her diary and confirm yet again that she’s at the right house. Beneath her finger, the doorbell chimes the hallelujah chorus.

She chooses to read that as irony.

To read it
all
as irony, as one huge postmodern practical joke, because what other explanation can there be?

Then inner door swings open and a short, plump woman peers up at Jacqueline through the flymesh and flowers. ‘Yes, what?’ Behind fuchsia-framed glasses the size of beer coasters, her eyes have the suspicious squint of a sun-snared owl.

Jacqueline clears her throat. ‘Does Ryan Jellicoe live here?’

‘No, he doesn’t. Who are you?’

‘I’m sorry, I must have been given the wrong address.’ She reaches into her bag for her phone. To find out how on earth Dante managed to send her to Sunny Kitsch Central. Damn it, why hadn’t she asked the taxi to wait?

The woman opens the screen door a few inches. ‘I’m Ryan’s sister. He gives out my address a fair bit.’ She sniffs. ‘Like when he doesn’t want people to know how to find him.’

‘Oh.’ Jacqueline decides to let the last remark run free. Instead, she offers her name and where she’s from. Holds out a hand which is stared at but not shaken. Allows it to drop back to her side. ‘I must have copied the wrong details from our files. Ryan would definitely want Seventh Circle to know where to find him. We’re putting on his show next month and there’s still a lot to organise before–’

‘Yes, I know all about your little
show
.’ The woman smiles in a way Jacqueline finds impossible to read.

‘But Ryan knows I’m here to see him. I called last night.’

‘Talk to you, did he?’

‘I left a message. I’m sure he’s very busy.’

‘He’s always
very
busy.’

There’s a mocking twist in her tone that sets Jacqueline’s teeth on edge. ‘How about I just call Ryan,’ she says, brandishing her phone at the woman. ‘I’m sure we can clear this up here and now.’

Seconds roll slow and sullen between them. Jacqueline holds her ground. Finally the woman concedes that a phone call might be in order, but that she’ll be the one to make it. Ryan’s
her
brother; it’s
her
he’ll want to speak to.

‘Fine,’ Jacqueline says. ‘Thank you.’

The woman vanishes into the depths of the house, letting the screen door bang behind her. A few moments later, her voice drifts back out to the porch. There are no words Jacqueline can pick clear of the one-sided conversation but the tone is enough. Sharp, strident. Absolutely not happy. Jacqueline sighs. Pats at her forehead with the back of her hand. It’s not yet ten o’clock and already the temperature must be nearing thirty degrees. The air is thick and humid, iron lung oppressive. How people can live up here is beyond her. How they can even
think
in this heat, let alone get up every day and face the world–

Footsteps sound from within the house. The screen door swings open.

‘He’ll have you over.’ Ryan Jellicoe’s sister steps outside, keys jangling loose in one hand. ‘But don’t expect to be seeing any of his pictures.’

Ten minutes cramped in the passenger seat of the woman’s pokey red hatchback is enough to make Jacqueline queasy, even with the windows at half-mast. The heat, the confinement, the sweaty clutch of her blouse against her skin – all of it is too much. She presses a surreptitious palm to her thigh. To the cuts beneath her skirt. The pain is dull but immediate. A comfort, a focus. Jacqueline closes her eyes and nips at the soft, inner flesh of her bottom lip. Imagines the pain as a living creature – an octopus perhaps, or giant squid – some strong, sinuous beast with salted water in its heart. She can almost feel its enormous limbs unfurling themselves across her lap, curling about her shoulders.

Keeping her safe. Keeping her whole.

‘Here we are then.’

They’ve stopped moving. Jacqueline opens her eyes. For one absurd moment, as Ryan Jellicoe’s sister climbs out of the car and marches around to the passenger side, it seems as though the woman is actually intending to open Jacqueline’s door for her. But no, of course not. ‘You coming or what?’ she simply barks, waiting with hands on hips for Jacqueline to join her.

They’re parked outside an old Queenslander, the rickety wooden box perched high on stilts like an overly ambitious cubby house. Jacqueline follows the woman up the stairs to the huge, enclosed verandah that appears to encircle the entire house. The front door is really just a screen, dilapidated grey mesh framed by cracked and peeling woodwork.

‘Ryan?’ His sister rattles the door in its frame. It doesn’t open.

There are flecks of peeled paint on Jacqueline’s hand from where she held onto the stair railing. She brushes her palms together. Watches white scraps fall like dandruff to the floorboards.

‘Ryan!’ the woman shouts again. ‘Ryan, love, it’s me.’

‘Out here.’ The voice is close, coming from where the verandah turns to run along the far side of the house. Ryan Jellicoe’s sister glares at Jacqueline then leads the way, sandals slapping the soles of her feet with a damp, fleshy sound that’s almost obscene.

Her brother is slouched in a rattan chair. Three glasses of what looks to be iced water sit on the table in front of him. He has something small and round and green in his hands – a ball perhaps, or perhaps not. The way he’s playing with it, turning it over and over and over, Jacqueline can’t really tell. His fingers are long and tanned. They move with a juggler’s grace.

‘I’m Ryan,’ he says.

‘Good to meet you at last,’ she replies. ‘Jacqueline Paige. I’ve left some messages on your voicemail.’

‘Sure you have.’ He smiles, crows feet crinkling at the corners of his eyes. He looks older than she expected. Somewhere in his late thirties, wiry and well-worn, though some of that might only be the effect of the sun. His skin holds a tan that belongs on someone who works outdoors for a living. Blond dreadlocks hang down past his shoulders, swaying as he leans forward. ‘Lime?’

‘Pardon me?’

Ryan waves the green sphere. ‘For your G and T.’ He produces a folding knife from his pocket and flips it open. Cuts the fruit into thick wedges.

‘Thanks, but no,’ Jacqueline says. ‘Not in this heat.’

‘Best weather for drinking, you ask me.’ He winks, slow and lazy, then crushes a chunk of lime into each of the three glasses.

‘I’ll have hers, love.’ Ryan Jellicoe’s sister pushes past. Slumps into one of the empty chairs. A land-bound seal would possess more grace.

A scowl shadows Ryan’s face. ‘You’ve met Alice, then.’ He picks up one of the drinks and holds it out to Jacqueline. ‘C’mon, it’s not getting any cooler round here.’ The glass is sweating nearly as much as she is and almost slips from her grasp as she raises it to her mouth. The taste is too bitter, even with the lime. More gin than tonic and Jacqueline is used to neither. She grimaces. Returns the drink to the table.

‘Your knees broke or what?’ He nods at the third, still empty chair.

Jacqueline sits down and crosses her legs. Watches him watch her cross them. Straightens her back. ‘Ryan, there are some things we need to discuss.’ She smiles. ‘There’s not a lot of time left before your show and I have to tell you, Dante is worried. He’s concerned that–’

‘He’s
concerned
he’ll lose his dosh,’ Alice chimes in.

Jacqueline nods curtly at the woman. ‘The money is a factor, granted. Seventh Circle is a business after all, not a charitable foundation, and Dante has already invested a sizeable amount to see this show go ahead. I do think the finances are secondary, though; right now, he’s more concerned about Ryan’s reputation.’

‘
Ryan’s
reputation, yeah right.’ Alice stabs a pudgy finger onto the tabletop. ‘Listen to me, missy: we know how much his paintings are worth, as opposed to what Dante’s gonna give him. Your boss needs to be asking a lot more, or taking a smaller cut, one or the other.’

Jacqueline turns back to Ryan. ‘If you want to discuss pricing, I’m sure that will be fine. You need to understand, though, that the market is rather tight at the moment. Dante is trying to position your work–’

‘That’s not what we’ve been told,’ Alice says. ‘There’s a place right here in Brisbane would kill to have Ryan’s stuff on their walls.
And
they’ll represent him properly, the way he deserves.’

Jacqueline turns to the woman. ‘That might be problematic, Alice. We have . . . well, there are contracts in place.’

‘Contracts, yeah right. Our
lawyer
might have something to say about those
contracts
. I’m sure he can find us a loophole or two.’

‘You may be right,’ Jacqueline says. ‘But really, do you want to go down that road? Legal fees and courtrooms, dragging it out for possibly years. Dante won’t take that lying down, you know. He has lawyers of his own.’ Ryan is staring out over the road, his drink more than half gone. Jacqueline wonders when he stopped paying attention. ‘You don’t want to go through all that, do you? Ryan?’

His gaze snaps back to her, slips down over her breasts, her legs, then back up to her face. He grins and his teeth are straight and white like an American movie star. For a moment he looks all of seventeen years old. ‘Are you doing anything tonight?’

‘Ryan, be serious,’ Alice says.

Jacqueline resists an urge to throttle the woman. To throw her bodily down the stairs and watch her flail and sear on the concrete driveway below. With sister dearest out of the way, Jacqueline has few qualms about her ability to handle Ryan Jellicoe, thank you kindly. Casually, she reaches down to wipe a line of sweat from the back of her crossed leg. Her skirt hitches a little higher up her thigh as she straightens. She neglects to smooth it down again.

‘There’s this club in the valley,’ Ryan says. ‘Couple of mates doing a gig there tonight, thought you might want to come along. They’re good.’

‘I don’t know.’ Jacqueline curves her lips into a regretful smile. ‘I need to report back to Dante this afternoon. If there isn’t good news, he’ll most likely want me straight back on a plane to Melbourne.’

‘Good news, eh?’ Ryan scratches his chin. ‘And what do you reckon your boss’s idea of good news is, then?’

‘A reassurance that things are still on track. If I could tell him that I’ve seen your painting, the one that’s to be the focus of the show?’

‘It’s not ready to be seen.’

The man’s jaw tightens and Jacqueline calmly backtracks. Assures him that she understands, absolutely she understands. Perhaps some of the other paintings then, just the ones he’s happy for her to view? Anything at all, as long as she has something to tell Dante. Surely, he can meet her halfway?

Alice bangs her empty glass down on the table. ‘You won’t see squat till certain contracts get changed – take that back to Dante and see how he likes it.’ All the muscles in her face conspire to a self-satisfied sneer. ‘Time to go, my brother has work to be getting on with. You’ve wasted enough of his day.’

But it’s Ryan who gets to his feet. ‘Alice, zip your fucking lip.’ He holds out his right hand to Jacqueline. She takes it. Allows him to pull her up and out of her chair in a single, fluid motion. Sweat shifts between their palms and for the first time she notices the tattoo on the inside of his wrist, an elongated blue sun that ripples above the flex of his tendons. Finally, belatedly, he releases his grip. ‘C’mon then, girl, let’s you and me go take a gander at some etchings.’