Saltskin (16 page)

Davy sluiced his genitals, his cock abnormally large and
therefore practically useless for the thing could never fully
stiffen. He looked Angelo up and down through the eyes
of envy and saw long courtly limbs, a svelte physique that
held unleashed power, and he recalled, like a knife to the
stomach, the way Angie had looked at Angelo: as though
Angelo were food, a platter of delicious morsels, a feast
upon which she longed to gorge. And, the way a man who
kills once can kill more easily the next time, Davy let his
plan form.

It was simple and, overall, harmless enough. Get Angelo
out of the way by way of the bed of a whore or the poison
of booze, and Davy knew with a crude pride, with a zap of
will, that he would go even further to get what he wanted.

Who was Angelo Page anyway but a belligerent bellyache
of a bore? Angelo didn't even like Angie Swan — he
was so rude to her! reasoned Davy indignantly. No one
liked the demon-haired git; no one cared about him. He
was as good for company as a dead cat and far less funny.
Well, no, Davy told himself, he didn't really mean that
— no, Angelo was his mate. Wasn't he? For a short, sharp
moment he questioned himself. Then, just as swiftly, he
countered it.

Why couldn't Davy Mills have what he wanted in
life? He pushed his shoulders back, tufted out his chest.
Why always put his wishes last? Why couldn't he be a real
contender for the favours of Miss Angie Swan?

When pussy fever strikes, a man can be as cunning as
a shithouse rat.

The warm weather had been a precursor for snow. It fell fast
in fluttery drifts, unusual at sea level, making the silence
from inside the kitchen strangely muffled.

Martha leant against the sink and watched her cousin.
She wondered what had happened with the rock star
because Gilda looked different, like a fifteen-year-old, as
she sat at the kitchen table eating a sandwich.

Aunt Maggie swept in from outside, wearing her
mechanic's overalls, and washed her hands in the sink
before turning to face the younger women, triumphant.
'I've finished the lily. We're going to move it up the hill to
the new place.'

Martha put her hand on Maggie's shoulder in
congratulation, but it had the note of warning about it.

'What new place?' Gilda asked, alert to the
undercurrents.

'You dippy Dora. On the pink cliffs overlooking the
lagoon. They also want a set of fleur-de-lis tiles for the
hearth, which I am yet to even start. Gilda, I can't believe
you haven't noticed the construction site — do you never
look out your window? It's practically under your nose!'

Her aunt was talking too fast, all in a flap, the way
she always did when she was nervous, telling people off
irrationally. Maggie glanced at Gilda and what she saw
stopped her still. 'My God, you look radiant today.'

'I went for a run.'

'You went for a run in that dress?'

'I reckon children's teeth must be a good omen,' Gilda
said, changing the subject, pushing her plate from her and
making a show of dusting off crumbs. She wasn't ready
for interrogation yet. Mention of the teeth reminded her
of the attic, and the attic reminded her of the shell box
waiting for her. She stretched an arm over her head in an
agitated way.

'You may as well see things in the positive,' said Maggie.
'Aussie women used to grind milk teeth up and drink the
powder to give them strength. Like the elixir of youth.
Right. I'm back out in the snow. I . . . ah . . . want to have
a word with you, Gilda, but it can wait until later.'

'Tell me now,' Gilda said, but Maggie pretended not to
hear and bolted out the door, letting in a draught of snow
and cold air.

Gilda turned to Martha. 'Will you please tell me about
this mysterious man?
What
is going on?'

'The only man I want to know about is the rock star,'
Martha side-stepped.

'Oh yeah, Ben. Purely platonic.' She shrugged, glad
Martha wouldn't tell her, relieved to the point of exhaustion.
Maybe she was afraid, Gilda thought.

'Greek platonic? I saw him wandering the streets like a
lost cowboy — I reckon he was looking for you. Did you
love him and leave him?'

'Don't worry, I didn't do anything — not to my heart
at least.' Gilda reclined in the chair and put her feet on the
worn table.

Joel's words had set off a new line of thought. 'Martha,
do you think we've forgotten the peace that can be found
in love? Like a lost ritual or way of being? I mean, think
about all those soldiers in wartime. They returned and
settled with their sweethearts, made the best of what they
had, built a home and raised children and were happy and
tolerant of each other. They found peace — in love.'

Martha narrowed her eyes. 'That sounds sad, but it's a
different world now.'

'Where's the love?' Gilda said theatrically and they
laughed.

Martha touched Gilda's shoulder as she passed to slouch
in the chair opposite. She thought for a bit, chewing the
inside of her cheek. 'Sometimes I feel like a second-class
citizen. I had an argument with a young boy who visits
his nana in the rest home. He was trying to tell me boys
are better than girls, and talked about having the vote first
and finished with his trump card that God and Jesus were
both men.'

'What did you say?'

'I was flabbergasted, and I lost the argument because
there was so much wrong with his statement. Then he told
me he preferred blondes!'

'Well, yeah. We're raising a world of baby pimps and
sexpots. Everyone is so lost.'

'Men need to be the men, and women need to be the
women.' Martha nodded to herself as she spoke. 'Maybe
there is balance in that. Harmony? You know, the right
way up. It's yin and yang, isn't it? All things have an
opposite.'

'Where did you get that?'

Martha shrugged. 'Me really. I was talking with Joel —'

'
Joel
? So was I. What is with that guy?'

'Val was there too, and you know, he's not bad.' Martha
looked almost smug.

'Who's not bad, Val or Joel?' Gilda glared at her cousin
grumpily.

'What? I'm just saying maybe we need to help each
other — save each other.'

'God, Martha. Like we are ever going to get the
opportunity to throw a lifeline, like any sailors are going to
wash up on our shores. You know our track record.'

Martha considered her cousin as if she were weighing
up evidence. 'I think we need to get out of our own way.
Gilda, just because the past has been one way, that doesn't
mean the future has to be identical. It's in constant motion,
isn't it — the future?'

'So is the past.'

'So it's easier to just avoid it,' Martha said flatly.

'Avoid what?'

'Your dreams, these memories of yours — you won't
talk about them but we all see you churning in it.'

Gilda looked up at the ceiling. 'I don't have all the
pieces to the puzzle.'

'You need to find them and then you can have peace.
Then you can let someone love you before it's too late.
Like with your war couples.'

'Adam and Eve,' Gilda said, barely above a whisper.

'Well, it's not Adam and Steve, is it, or Eve and a good
book?' And when Gilda smiled weakly Martha made her
face where one eye goes cross-eyed and the other looks
dead ahead, and Gilda laughed and it petered away.

They were silent for a bit. The tap dripped in the sink.
'I think you deliberately scare them off. I think they are
afraid of you and your pitchfork,' Martha said, and slapped
the table.

'Oh, right, the fear theory. We are all just afraid.' Gilda
rolled her eyes.

'So simple it might just be true. We could package fear
and sell it to the masses. But if I had all the answers I'd
be in New York on my lecture tour.' Martha trailed off.
Suddenly it all seemed like theories that had no relevance
to them.

Simplicity. Gilda rolled the word around her mouth.
Her cousin was right about one thing: the dreams had
everything to do with the present. She wondered why
Martha was pushing her. Gilda had always carried the
weight that she was dreaming for the whole family. Like
a conduit. She had never known her cousin to fall for any
man, and it was Martha who had learnt alongside her how
to keep a heart out of reach while flashing your knickers.
Martha was as flippant about boys as she was; it was Martha
from whom she had learnt half of it, following her lead.
Their eyes locked.

Martha gave her cousin a futile grimace and shrugged.
Then her face went mischievous and she said, 'Hey, come
with me. I want to show you something.'

She took Gilda up to her bedroom. On the candlewick
bedspread was an open suitcase full of old photos. 'I found
it in the attic. I've been sorting them into strangers, lovers,
family. The stranger pile is high, probably because they're
someone's lover.' She gave a snort. 'The number of photos
of handsome men — it's like a roll-call for a modelling
agency,' she said drolly.

'They can't all be handsome,' said Gilda, sitting on the
bed.

'Well, maybe it's the unfulfilled potential of them, of
manhood en masse.' Martha picked up a photo and held
several more fanned in her hand like playing cards. Or
perhaps like Tarot cards, as if she were trying to divine her
own future from the images.

Gilda noticed her cousin's wistful expression and knew
instantly that Martha was stewing in her own juices. If only
she could decipher what the dreams were trying to say,
then all of them could move forward. And yet she had no
idea how, only that she was the one who had to roll back
the stone covering the ancient tomb. It was time to face
the ghosts. Yet the way was as murky and debris-strewn as
a city in flood.

'What about you?' she asked. 'It's not just me. How are
you getting on with this "no love in life" business?' Gilda
stretched her back to make the question seem more casual.
She watched the undercurrents of Martha's emotions as
she answered.

'The family curse? Oh well, I think: I'm nice, I'm sweet,
I'm funny, not completely thick and quite good in bed
so why won't anyone stay? Then again, maybe a string of
lovers makes for an adventurous life.' Martha smiled and
her eyes said, as they always did: Don't worry about me; let
me worry about you.

'Does it, though?'

'The women at the rest home are past the peril of
men and happier for it. Maybe we shouldn't take it all so
seriously.' Martha shifted uncomfortably.

'But it's about all of us. Why have none of us Page
women found love? What's the curse all about? How did it
even start? It's not just us; it's the whole female line.'

'Maybe it is just fate, luck of the draw. Maybe we need
to try harder.' Martha was distracted, digging in the case
and obviously looking for one photo in particular.

Gilda studied her. There was definitely something going
on. 'Maybe we should
stop
trying.' Gilda flicked through
the photographs Martha had discarded and then laughed.
'Why don't we just wear T-shirts that say: "If you like me
there must be something wrong with you"?'

'I actually would wear a T-shirt that said that — that's
funny. Hey, Gilda, look at this one.'

Gilda moved closer to see. Her cousin smelt of vanilla.
The photo was on stiff paper. A picture of a woman
walking naked out of the sea, her waist-length hair wrapped
about her in wet ringlets and festooned with shells and seahorses.
Over her body were draped strings of cockles and
mussels and crayfish; sea pods hung around her neck and
partially covered her breasts. Fishes were linked by their
gills through her fingers and seemed to twitch and pulse.
Squid sucked onto her abdomen and thighs. Her arms were
bent at the elbow and raised at her sides, her head tilted as
if she were giving a benediction. Her expression was regal
yet sad, and she was smiling just a little. In the bottom
corner was a child's sand-salted foot, the rest of her out of
shot — just the foot and a drift of white lace. The picture
heart-shocked Gilda.

'She looks like you,' breathed Martha.

It suddenly struck Gilda just how similar they were.
Someone had touched the photo up: a dab of white paint
on the eyeballs, a streak of colour in the hair, cerise lips.
After a beat Gilda said, 'Her name is Eve. She's who I
dream about.'

Martha was struck by how beautiful, how utterly
beautiful her cousin appeared in that moment. She spoke
slowly. 'So she did exist.'

'Do you believe in fate, Martha?'

'Do you?'

Gilda:

I fly, float and fly as if the sky is water. I have no body. I follow
them. For now they are undisturbed. It is not linear, this dreaming.
I worry they are about to fall. It all seems a memory to which I
know the ending but I can't remember the rest. For now, in this
space, it is sunshine.

They are in petticoats. Faith wears her mother's and it hangs
far too big on her slight body; the pleated satin of the bodice gapes
at her armpits and rustles like cellophane. Faith is cartwheeling
along the beach like a rolling star, her russet hair flying. She is
all petticoats and curly locks, like a blur of autumn leaves, and
she sings all the time and it sounds like a choir and it's just her
and I feel as she does, full of joy and something else. A fierce
independence: a readiness to scrap if need be.

Faith is always singing. Singing and swimming and love.

Faith sells the fish. She sings, pushing her wheelbarrow along
the filthy makeshift streets. Amid the mayhem and the chaos of
men with their missing teeth and ink scars on their bodies, even
though they are the nicest to her, an innocent among them. She
is not afraid of them; Faith knows her own power. They give
her honeycomb to suck, or vanilla sticks, and they follow her,
charming her with ballads in funny accents.

I see her through Eve's eyes and she is proud. Always in the
dream there is singing. The dream is about song. And now that
I am older I can put words to the feeling but I think then, when I
had no name for it, when I dreamed it as a child, then I believed
it more fully. I trusted. Yet her voice, for all its charm, is still
ordinary, as ordinary as water. Not like Eve's.

And now we are alone among the trees. Eve only sings when
she is alone. She is ashamed of it, as if her voice has been suppressed,
stilled. Stolen or forbidden. Way up in the mountains, up into
the muffling folds of the ferns and tangled bush, far up where the
only noise is the river and birds she sings, but she sings barely
above a whisper, and I am her and it feels like all the colours of a
rainbow swirling over me, a sound more than a sound, like the
fifth element, which continues on through death and birth as if it
always had and always would: a resonance that I taste and touch
and swallow and wrap myself in. Warm as fire.

That's what it feels like to hear Eve sing. There is nothing and
everything like a place where all inspiration stems. It changes my
chemistry, like a door to another realm. It is what it is. I don't
know why she hides. You ask me what it means, that I dream of
singing; you ask as though you know, and I wish you'd tell me.