Alex Palmer: The Tattooed Man

‘Paul? Are you here? You left the front door open.’

Grace’s voice startled him. There was the sound of the door shutting, then her heels clicking along the hallway. She walked into the kitchen carrying a bunch of Oriental lilies, a rich iridescent pink in the light. Flowers were something she often brought into his house. She was slender in her summer dress. The sight of her face, framed by her long dark hair and beautiful like the Madonna’s, occupied his mind for some moments.

‘Hi,’ she said, smiling.

Usually he would have kissed her. Tonight he was pinned in his chair by an invisible weight.

‘Where have you been? I thought you’d be here by now.’

Grace put the flowers on the table. She gave him a quick, sharp-eyed look, one that got under his skin like itching powder.

‘I was buying these flowers. How did it go up there? Not too good.’

‘Do I look that bad?’

‘You look like death. Your face is like white rubber.’

‘Did you cope okay after I’d gone?’ he asked, avoiding this.

‘Your sleazy nephew made a grotesque pass at me. His wife was standing right beside him. I couldn’t believe it.’

‘That’s Phil. He’d have a hard time finding shame in a dictionary.’ Harrigan tried to joke but the humour died in the air. He breathed deeply. ‘They said Toby had no brain when he was born. They said I should let him die. Look at him now. He’ll be at university next year. What did they know?’

‘You’re not talking about your sisters. They’re not like that. Who’s “they”?’

Cassatt with his jabbing voice, each word like a fist in your face. Put him away, he’ll die soon.

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does matter. It matters to you, that’s pretty clear.’

There was silence.

‘What’s going on?’ Grace asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing,’ she repeated with exasperation. ‘Don’t tell me that. When you’re like this, it’s like being locked in a room with no light and air. I can’t deal with it. Tell me what’s going on.’

‘Don’t drag this stuff out of my head. Leave it where it can’t do anybody any harm.’

He was back there at Pittwater in the unending sunlight with the seated dead. They were staring at him, willing him to sit down with them. Cassatt’s shrunken face and his living voice joined them in a mix of savage memories. You’re dead, mate.

‘I’m not dead,’ he shouted.

‘What?’

‘Get out of my head!’

He turned and threw his whisky glass at the opposite wall with all the strength he had. It exploded, spraying glass around the kitchen. Grace jerked around, bending away, shielding her face from the fallout.

‘I can’t breathe. I’ve got to get out of here.’

Harrigan was gone, outside to his yard, stumbling onto the thin grass. He turned on the garden tap, squatted beside it and tossed cupped handfuls of water into his face, trying to get some coolness into his brain. He stood up and drew in breath, stared down at the bay, all the connecting pieces of land and buildings on the opposite shore, everything that had been familiar to him since his boyhood. The scene settled into place; he had a grip on the present again. Wiping his face with his handkerchief, he heard Grace behind him. She was turning off the tap which he’d left running.

‘You haven’t walked out on me,’ he said. ‘Did I hurt you?’

She looked him in the eye.

‘No, you didn’t but you could have. Who did you throw that glass at?’

‘I didn’t throw it at you. I’d never do that. It was at ghosts in my head. I did hurt you. Look at your arm. I’m sorry,’

He’d seen a sudden splash of blood on her arm. A shard from the glass must have glanced her skin. In the shadows, the blood was almost black. She lightly touched the thin, moist trickle and then stared back at him. In the mix of darkness and reflected light, her face had taken on a blue tinge. He placed his damp handkerchief gently onto the scratch. She reached to take hold of it, her hand touching his briefly. After a few moments, she took the handkerchief away. The scratch had stopped bleeding. She looked at the cloth with its small concentration of blood and then at him.

‘Why did you do that?’

He slipped his arms around her. She leaned against him, shivering despite the heat. He put his hand on her hair.

‘I’m not sure myself. Don’t tell anyone you saw me lose it like this.’

‘No,’ she said, moving back and looking at him. ‘You tell me. Why did you do that?’

‘It’s what I saw up at Pittwater,’ he said finally. ‘I walked in on a massacre. Four people dead at a table out on a patio. Three of them had been shot. One of them was a nineteen-year-old kid.’

‘Then we find a way to deal with that. But you can’t do this again,’ she said softly.

‘It’s not going to happen again. I’m not going to let myself down like that. I don’t want to do that to you and I don’t want to be like that to myself.’

She was still standing back, looking at him.

‘In there, you said “I’m not dead”. Who were you talking to? I can’t deal with you when you’re like this if I don’t know what’s going on.’

The noise of the night insects, the distant sound of music, filled the air around them. He heard a fainter sound, waves breaking against the weathered sandstone retaining wall at the end of his garden, ripples generated by a boat passing the mouth of the bay.

‘Come inside and I’ll tell you,’ he said. ‘I need to clean myself up first.’

In the bathroom, she washed her cut and dressed it. He showered and changed. They came downstairs. He swept up the scattered glass. She arranged the lilies in one of his aunt’s vases.

‘Thanks for the flowers,’ he said, considering that in the scheme of things he was supposed to give such things to her.

‘Do you like them?’

‘I do. I always do.’

‘Good. It’s all part of having a bit of fun and sparkle in your life,’ she said, looking at him with a glint in her eye.

‘Maybe you should have bought white lilies instead of pink. White lilies in a wreath with a sash that reads Harrigan’s Career, Rest in Peace.’

‘What are you talking about?’

He shut the kitchen door.

‘I’m going upstairs to get something out my safe. It’s a tape and I need privacy to play it. Do you want to smoke? Go ahead. I’m having another whisky.’

He got her an ashtray. They exercised this unspoken tolerance towards each other’s vices. He had once smoked heavily and now loathed the taint of cigarette smoke. She had once had the choice between drinking alcohol and staying alive. These days just the smell of it made her ill. She kept beer in her fridge for him; he supplied her with ashtrays that had been unused for years. When he came back downstairs, he put a small audio tape on the table and poured himself a second whisky. She looked at the tape but didn’t touch it. He sat opposite her and watched her light up. No one else smoked in his house.

‘Have you heard any of the news coverage?’ he asked.

‘I was listening to it in the car. Four dead. Two were men but they didn’t give any names. The other two were Natalie and Julian Edwards. They said the minister found them. I thought Edwards didn’t have anything to do with his ex-wife. He didn’t want her reputation damaging his.’

‘He was seeing her about their son. One of those bodies was someone called Jerome Beck. I’ve never heard of him before. But I can tell you the other one was Mike Cassatt, dead as a dodo. Almost mummified. We couldn’t even tell how he died.’

‘You’re joking! What would he be doing there?’

Harrigan sat over his drink for a few moments without touching it.