Jack Cox - Dodge Rose

Paul didn’t miss a beat. Our commission is twenty two percent. We charge a service fee depending on the material, taken together. This is a charming estate, it would generate considerable interest. You can be sure you’d stand to make a tidy profit. It is a respectable venture. You know everything used to be sold by auction, groceries, the lot, down on the wharves. The first discount docks, better than the supermarket. Lawson’s has been there since the beginning. Now we deal in everything including the very best, the truly selective. We sold the Lloyd Jones collection at Rosemont Woollahra just last year. You’d be in safe hands.

When can we bring it all down to you.

Estates like this tend to sell well in situ. Buyers like to see the pieces in their original environment. It stimulates the imagination.

There was little to be gained trying to do with more at that stage what was already getting done with less. We made an appointment at the flat to discuss the procedure and finalise a course of action. He or his boss would be there. In front of the warehouse we ducked under a folding screen as it was lifted into the back of a truck, picked our way between the chairs waiting in farouche clusters on the footpath, then followed the sloping line of Moreton Bay figs and the dirt sillage of the slaughterhouse along the water’s edge in the coming Bicentennial Park to Geh I mean Glebe, the graveyard, the depurated, and the bus to Railway Square, which was quite indirect. From there we walked. What useless torture. I wrote this lying down. I’d start again but me’d derive sooner. Where’s my arca. By the time we got back we were both exhausted. It’s a relief to come home to a kept house. What do they call it, negative space. Empty crannies. Pure arrangement. Purple and green. Night and the nicht absolut gleich. We spread out in the relative void and napped until sundown, when, in what promises to be the last of the series reversions, I discovered the head planted at the foot of Eliza’s bed until my vertigo had dissolved with the neon light pulsating like a bad habit in the curtains, and that striking silence. Must have dragged myself there half asleep. I found Eliza almost hanging off the end of the settee snoring. Some bacon in a pan brought her round, then we went out to see if we could find a place to hole up at auction time. Having talked over Paul’s proposition we had not only agreed that it would be too dangerous to advertise an auction at the flat, we’d stuck to our assumption that the best thing to do, once the business was underway, was clear out altogether. After some trial and error we tentatively booked two beds in a backpacker’s on Victoria Street for the week we hoped we would need them. We began packing our bags.

Almost everything not for sale was soon assembled into one place. What else. The urn. Better empty it first. We should scatter them in the harbour. Could do it from here, save the trip. We put the clean vessel in the china cabinet next to the flower girl. Lucky it isn’t inscribed. Eliza shook her head and grinned far into her cheeks like my own mindless goss. You’re ruthless.

Nothing else we could help was to be left to chance. The night before our appointment Eliza drew a bath. She had found a jar of what appeared almost incredibly to be called Codex bath salts somewhere among the oozing and peeling mound of extinct toiletries we had piled in the sink to get rid of and the stale lavender perfume had already begun creeping into the furthest corner of the flat when I heard a cry, then a dull moan from the bathroom.

I called her name. There was no response, which will appear justifiably noteworthy, given the state of constant communication we always ended up in. It’s not like I wasn’t used to such noises, and not just from the bathroom. But Dodge never needed to be asked twice to expatiate on her keenings, and I must have supposed the niece, according to the famous theory of family resemblance, etc. I went over to the door, knocked and called again. I made a forced entrance. Eliza sat upright in the steam, her body already half turned towards the door, transfixed. Her eyes hardly flickered as I approached and when I put my hand on her arm, not a tendon flinched beneath her puckered skin. Droplets of condensation had collected on the erect hairs of her body, fusing where I touched her and trickling down her arm from under my hand. I forced her down into the bathtub. Her body went suddenly limp in my hands and slid under the water, her knees up. I saw then that she had cut herself, not badly, but where. She didn’t move. As the oily surface calmed, the image of her body merged again, stilled, her thighs, her shimmering pubic mound, the long curve of her stomach, her dugs, slightly floating, her frozen mouth, her eyes, open, the lashes thick with bubbles, her hair wreathing in and out of place. I leant further in. She blinked, the surface shattered and she shot up gasping, pulled at my arm with both hands blindly, then put her head down, coughed out a foaming mouthful of water and caught her breath. I helped her out of the bathtub to the sink and took her towel and wrapped it round her shoulders. She rubbed at the foggy glass before her then turned to me. What happened. But she only shook her head, her shoulders rising a little. Well. At least she no longer seemed to be bleeding. I left her with the towel hanging open in the living room while I dug out a jumper and pair of slacks from my wardrobe. When I came back she seemed to be in better shape. She thanked me, could not suitably have sensed the pelt on my arm bristle from the far side of her wrapping, and dressed herself. For form’s sake I inquired again, I inquire again.

I have no idea.

Before the night was out Dodge’s clothes had grown on her. She asked if I would lend her something attractive for the next day so we went to my bedroom and tried some things on. They were her size. She left the skullcap that matched her nictitating membrane where it was and chose a pair of brick red flannel slacks and a helio cardigan. I gave her some stockings and a pair of vamp Oxfords with buried welt stitch and bevelled edges I had been saving for a special occasion. We skipped dinner and slept in the same bed with the light on.

In the morning we went down to the liquor shop for a bottle of champagne. We took a turn around Fitzroy Gardens, where an old woman walking her dog smiled at us nostalgically if not altogether conspiratorially as she bent with a plastic bag on her hand, emerging from her supple fur covered with the spoors of late spring. Morning. Morning. I told you I intended to leave no stone unturned. We drew all the curtains but one, the better for a sense of depth. Promise. In uncertainty, at least, hope. Doing my best not to whistle too loud I twisted Eliza’s hair in plaits, wound them up into a bun, tried to show her how to step in heels. There are certain signs. Réveillent des faits anciens. When at last the doorbell rang I opened the door to the fattest man yet. He was panting. Lift broke. His name wasn’t Lawson but he was not, he said, unrelated. You’ve met my boy. A suave nod from over his boss’ shoulder brought Paul’s haggard face into the hall light for a moment. More than we were expecting. Came up by the Metro. Thought some air would do us both a service. I led them into the living room and the fatter man jumped at seeing Eliza standing behind one of the striped poplin armchairs. Hello, I’m Frank Masters. Frank.

Hello. I’m Eliza. Hello.

Hello.

I had positioned myself at the mouth of the corridor, so when Frank glanced behind him I had a clear view of what was unmistakably a gleam of pure terror. But he didn’t budge, turned back to Eliza to tell her what a handsome apartment it was, had never had the pleasure of being inside, admired it from a distance, the building, like every other local with any taste for the exceptional. He linked his fingers together in the small of his back. He wasn’t going anywhere. I went to get the champagne, then I called Eliza for a hand with the glasses. They’ve got the creeps, she pointed out. Be putty if we can keep them.