Indelible ink
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 13: The Next Big Thing
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Fiona McGregor
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Fiona McGregor's biography and other articles by this writer
She was fifty-nine, rich, divorced for a year, and out alone on a Saturday night. She told the taxi driver to head for the Cross; she wanted to do something different, and she decided on the bar where Leon had taken her as a treat the last time he had been in Sydney. On reaching William Street, the traffic slowed to a crawl and Marie looked out the window, fascinated by the gaudy scene. A woman as big as a man stood out from the shadows of a building like a fruit-vendor, holding her enormous breasts to the passing cars. A prostitute half her age and size teetered past in spike heels to a companion propped against a pylon, head lolling. They leant against one another like slivers of cardboard with fluff for hair, trying not to blow over in the wind. A group of English boys lurched down the footpath shouting drunken songs. All of this had to be endured like a thicket of lantana that had grown across the path, as the taxi struggled onwards. The rawness of the street not two blocks from that sumptuous bar with designer chairs and a billion dollar view amazed Marie. As the taxi paused at a red light, some Aborigines sauntered up from Woolloomooloo screaming with laughter then stopped to stare directly through the window at her.
Inside the bar, safely seated in front of the view, Marie ordered a Cape Mentelle white. It had been three hours since her last drink: she swallowed the wine quickly and ordered another. The man at the bar was staring at her. Tall and slim with thick grey hair, he was picking peanuts out of a dish and tossing them into his mouth with a languid precision that Marie found sexy. She sat facing the view, watching his reflection. She turned to catch the waiter's eye, meeting those of the man at the bar in the elegant suit.
She tried to identify the colour of his eyes, the curve of his lips as he turned away and exchanged a word with the barman. She moved into their meeting, the first touch of his hand, the shape of him seated in the chair opposite, as the waiter walked back to the bar with her order. She went with him into the first months, the initial electric offering of bodies, discovery, compromise, the unravelling of pain and history as they gently conquered one another's children. They argued and reconciled, the months settled into comfortable silence. All of this before her drink arrived, thinking so far inside a life together that she only noticed at the last minute that the man was placing money on the bar and leaving, shattering an ancient intimacy. She sat there humiliated, friendless, staring at the city lights.
Drunk, exhausted. Floating over to the lift, leaning up against the cool mirror, floating out on to the street. The fresh air slapped her back to herself and she began to walk as though she had a purpose, somewhere to go. But where was she anyway, where was the taxi rank? This was Leon's territory. Leon would be taking her arm, urging her to forget her car parked on the other side of the city and take a taxi all the way home. She walked faster down the hill past a lump of rags in a bus stop that she realised afterwards was a human. My god, was he dead? Was he a he? Aren't there any bloody taxis on this side of the street? What a waste of time having lunch with Susan and accompanying her through two furniture warehouses, buying more things she didn't need, only to be told just before they parted that Susan couldn't do the Spanish course. Susan's calculated contempt for Ross and his young wife hovering in her ears like a malign whisper. Well, all of you can go to bloody hell. Marie stopped to face the oncoming traffic, headlights glaring, a car slowing to a halt the driver leaning over. It wasn't a taxi – he wanted to hire her. Flattered and frightened, she left the edge of the footpath and pressed herself against a shop window.
She found herself looking through the window of a tattoo parlour then, pushing the door open, tinkling a bell. Eddies of flash flew around the walls blurring into an ugly miasma inside which she felt somehow at home like a leper rightfully sent to quarantine. There were more designs in folders on the counter. A sort of aggression was pawing inside her as though she had set out that night to hunt and the prey still eluded her.
She flicked through the folders quickly then, reckless as a teenager, she was past the counter and inside a small room on a padded vinyl couch. She was actually unbuttoning her shirt in front of a strange man, hiding her face, her fear and excitement. Her heart rose and inflated to a large throbbing ball inside her mouth. She kept it shut. Face down now, her right bra strap pulled aside, the shopping, the bar, Susan, her family, everything disappearing into the small black moment of this whirlpool. The burly bearded man pulled on latex gloves. She heard the rip of a packet and the smell of isopropyl alcohol scoured her nostrils, her skin icy clean. How long had it been since the touch of a man? No, this was like being at the doctor's. A sudden desire to laugh hysterically surged in her stomach, then he gently touched a transfer to her shoulder blade and her body stilled.
"Want to check before I start?" He angled a mirror behind her and she twisted to see herself. Calm down Marie, it's just a little picture.
"That's good," she managed.
"So what's the occasion?"
She would have seen a look of knowing bemusement on his face, but kept her eyes on the floor. She had to think. She looked at the pictures on the walls. Girl on a motorbike, Chinese dragon, rock band, some mass of green – maybe a rainforest. Photographed body parts livid with fresh designs like the offcuts in a forensics laboratory. She had walked through the looking glass, shattering everything she had known. Sliced and swooning, she tried to think.
"My freedom," she said. "I'm free for the first time in almost forty years."
"To your new life, then." He pressed a switch and the iron began to whir. "Ready?"
"Yes."
The needles entered her skin.