THE LOVE FEAST.
______________________ by Ned McCann.
Adam laid down his work bag. Shivering beneath his too thin T shirt, he moved into a patch of early morning sun angling across the lawn. He listened as Mrs Cosgrave, insulated between layers of body fat and a dressing gown the dimensions of a small bivouac, told him what she wanted doing to the Pergola.
“Scrape all the flaky stuff off. And give it three coats,” she said. “Think you can manage that?”
Adam cast his eyes over the hexagonal structure, he calculated was about three times as big as the cubicle he currently occupied at the Bella Vista.
“It’ll take a while,” he reckoned.
“Three working days,” Mrs Cosgrave decreed.
“Gotta be scraped, filled, then painted,” Adam countered.
“Four days,” Mrs Cosgrave said.
Adam looked the Pergola over again. “Closer to five.”
Mrs Cosgrave narrowed her eyes. “I don’t pay for no meal breaks,” she said.
Adam looked steadily at her. “I stop at twelve for a bite, same’s a horse,” he said. “’n’ don’t expect anyone to pay for it.”
Mrs Cosgrave humphed, as if to say ‘a likely story.’ If she had, Adam would have told her where to stuff her job.
Instead she said,”Twenty five an eight hour day. Fair ?”
Adam, knew it wasn’t, But twenty five multiplied by five was one hundred and twenty five dollars. if he did a moonlight from Bella Vista, it would be enough to get him out of this mean little town and back to the City. “It’s a deal,” he said holding out his hand.
Mrs Cosgrave looked at it as if he’d just cleaned out a sewer with it.”Don’t suppose you’ve any brushes?” she asked.
Adam said no.
“Mmm,” she said. “Well there’s some there in the shed,’ she pointed.”Beside the paint, it’s Brunswick Green. And mind you wash them out when you finish.” Turning from him, she waddled on the ground down heels of her slippers back to her big, old house with its’ windows curtained like blind patched eyes.
Adam called to her”Em,Mrs Cosgrave?”
She turned. “Yes?”
He was dying for a smoke, and a beer when he fnshed work wouldn’t go wrong either.
“Don’t suppose you could see your way to giving me an advance?”
“You suppose correctly,” she said. “I paid the boy who came to fix the fence in advance,” she said. “Look at it.”
Adam swivelled his eyes to where she pointed. A picket fence sagged from some obviously new posts into the Lantana.
“Any good at Carpentry?” Mrs Cosgrave asked.
“Done a bit,” Adam lied.
“See how you go with the painting, then. I pay when the job’s done.”
*
The sun was high, and although filtered through the Pergola’s frets,hot. Adam peeled off his T shirt, wiped the sweat from his chest and beneath his armpits with it, before hanging it on a nearby bush. He scraped some more paint, and now it was his jeans giving him trouble. They rode up his thighs, scratching between them like glass paper.
Adam turned at the grinding squeak of the garage door and watched as Mrs Cosgrave drove her Mercedes up the drive towards him. She gravel crunched to a stop. The window slid down at her touch.
“I have to go into town,” she said. “I’ll be gone most of the day.” Looking at what he had done she seemed to give it grudging approval. “But please,” she frowned at him. “Put on your shirt. The neighbours-someone-could see you.” Before Adam could say anything, the window slid up and she drove away.
Adam looked down at his almost concave belly. Some flakes of paint clung to the wisps of reddish, blond hair curling from the waist band of his jeans.
“What neighbours?” he said aloud. The house was two miles from town. At the end of a long, winding drive. Surrounded by Ghost Gums, and Oleander. “And so what, anyway?”
Adam sat down on the bench running around the inside of the Pergola. He pulled off his boots, and wrinkled his nose as he removed his heavy work socks. Standing up again, he wriggled out of his jeans, and clutching his penis he wiggled a jig with it at the drive where Mrs Cosgrave’s exhaust still hung blue in the air. Turning around, he did the same in the direction of the house. And only stopped when he noticed the slightest flicker from a lace curtained upstairs window.
The flicker could have been caused by a breeze blowing through the house. Nevertheless he reached into his bag and withdrew a faded pair of work shorts and thongs.
“Bugger you, Mrs Cosgrave,” he growled as he put them on.
*
When Adam reckoned it to be noon, he put down his scraper, reached again into his bag and took from it two slices of cold toast smeared with Vegemite, and an apple filched from the Bella Vista’s breakfast table. Before he knew, he had eaten and barely remembered the taste. Now he was thirsty, with nothing to drink.
There was a water tap beside the garage door. Adam could see the sparkle of its’ drips in the bright sunshine. As he went to it he saw again the merest flicker from the lace curtain and the shadow of someone behind it. Bugger it! There was someone in the house. Bending to the tap, he regretted his little exhibition. Whoever was spying on him would probably report him to old Cosgrave when she returned from town. Bang would go his hundred and twenty five, and he’d probably find himself up on a charge of indecent exposure as well... Unless the face behind the window had a sense of humour.
Adam turned to the window and gave a cheery wave. His heart lifted as a pale hand waved back. And lifted even further as the window was raised. The most beautiful girl he had ever seen leaned out and smiled a beckoning to him, as he imagined a princess would to a prince from a high turret.
Adam blushed as he went towards her, embarrassed at what she must have seen that morning. Yet her smile showed no censure, and her frank gaze no malice. Instead, her blue eyes shone with the glint of mischief and a hint of something Adam couldn’t even hope for.
Her sudden laughter tinkled her name at his asking.”Tomorrow?” Adam asked.
“No, no.” The blond vision laughed again, and at the sound of it Adam felt as if his soul had risen to lodge somewhere in the back of his throat. “Not tomorrow. It’s Tamara. You Australians have such cloth ears. Adam ignored the slight and rolled the name around his tongue until he was as familiar with it as he was his own.
“Adam,” repeated thoughtfully when he had given his in return.”The first man on Earth. How is your rib?” And laughed again as he looked down at his side in confusion.
“Do you take tea, Adam?’ she asked.
Adam could only manage a nod. His throat was dry.
“I’m just putting on the jug. Would you like a cuppa?”
Adam swallowed, and said he would, but glancing at the driveway, asked about Mrs Cosgrave.
“Oh, she wont be back for ages,” Tamara assured him. “Come up and have one.”
“O.K. “ Adam agreed. “But how do I get in?”
Tamara’s face clouded over. “Oh, of course,” she said. “Mrs Cosgrave will have locked all the doors.” Then brightened. “But there’s a ladder in the Garage. Use that.”
Adam went to the Garage. He took an aluminium ladder from the wall hooks, placed it firmly in the gravel, and extended it slowly, until it reached the window.
Tamara’s room was bright and airy. It looked and smelled as if freshly whitewashed with talcum. Before Adam came in, he took off his thongs, placed them on the sill and felt his feet sink into the softest of sheepskin. Lining the walls were shelves filled with the impedimenta of childhood. Broken limbed dolls, a monocular Teddy, a Golliwog, whose trouser legs flapped empty, and those decoupage boxes where little girls keep their secrets and mementos. In the corner, a large bed covered in a patchwork quilt. Above it an ivory Jesus with ruby,red droplets of blood oozing from its’ wounds. Flanking it in gilded frames, pictures of Saints in various attitudes of martyrdom. Tamara stood before a painter’s easel. Behind her on a marble topped table, an electric jug gurgled beside a tea cup from which dangled the tag of a tea bag. Again,Tamara smiled her smile reminiscent of a field of waving buttercups.
Again, Adam’s soul leaped at the sight of it. “Are you ‘nartist?” Nodding at the easel.
“Given the chance, everyone’s an artist, Adam.”
“I couldn’t even draw a straight line,” he said.
“But you do a pretty artistic jig.” And she laughed again.
“Ah, no! ” Adam covered his face in embarrassment. “You saw me!” He peeped at her through his fingers.
“Well, you did point,” she said, breaking into peals of laughter, so infectious, Adam could not help but join in.
“Watcha painting?” he asked, moving around to face the easel. Tamara quickly threw a paint rag over the picture before Adam caught the merest glimpse of what appeared to be a male nude suspended upside down against an azure blue sky.
“I don’t like anyone looking at my work before it’s finished,” she said. Her face clouded over, and Adam could have kicked himself. But then, he’d never met a temperamental artist before... or a girl like Tamara.
*
Tamara apologised for having only one cup. But they could share. And would condensed milk be O.K.?
Adam assured her that however it came would be alright with him.
Tamara made the tea and poured a lot of condensed milk into it.
Adam sipped on the hot, sweet brew.
“This is how they make tea in India,” Tamara said. “Do you like it?”
“It’s... different,” Adam shot her his Huckleberry grin. “I like it.”
Tamara took it from him, and he watched, lost in love, as her throat flickered while she sipped.
“Whose that?” Adam pointed to a multi armed statuette wearing a necklace of sculls dancing in a wall niche, smoke blackened from incense.
Tamara turned and looked where he pointed. “That’s Shiva,” she explained. “The great Mother. The giver of life.” She walked over to the niche, and lit a fresh stick of incense. The sweet fragrance of it filled the room. “And the great Destroyer.” Tamara blew out the match, and placed it in an ash filled bowl.
As Tamara glided back towards him, Adam heard a clink. He looked down, and it was then he saw the chain around her ankle.
Adam felt outrage as followed the chain linking her ankle to the bed leg. “Who the fuck did this?” He shouted, and slammed down the cup.
Tamara lowered her eyes. “Mrs Cosgrave,” she said quietly.
Adam’s eyes flashed anger as he tugged at the chain. “And who the fuck does Mrs Cosgrave think she is?”
“My keeper,” Tamara said. “And please don’t swear.” she looked over at the crucifix. “Jesus doesn’t like it.”
“Doesn’t Jesus?” Adam said, before striding to the window.
Adam slid down the ladder. He went to the garage and rummaged among the tool bench until he found a hacksaw, and climbed with it back to Tamara’s room.
“Oh, don’t,” she cried as he began to saw at the chain. “Mrs Cosgrave will be so upset.”
Adam sawed, and while sawing looked steadily at Tamara without answering, until the severed links lay at her feet.
“I may have cloth ears,” he said. “But there’s no way I’ll see anyone chained like a dog.” And with the half remembered strains of ‘Australian’s are young and free,’ ringing in his ears,threw the shackles from the window.
Tamara threw her arms around him. He felt her nails drag down his back, under the waist band of his shorts to clutch his trembling buttocks. And heard them rip as the tired, old fabric fell apart and fell around his ankles. The needle points of her breasts dug into his chest.
“My Hero,” she breathed.
Adam’s nostrils filled with a mixture of incense and Yardley’s English Lavender as he sank with her to the floor.
*
Mrs Cosgrave turned into the drive. She noted the empty Pergola, discarded tools. When she saw the lader at the window, she gunned the car down the drive, spraying gravel when she pulled up at the front door. Hurriedly opening it , she rushed up the stairs and slashed back the bolt on Tamara’s door.
Tamara, kneeling beside her bed saying the Rosary, looked up at her and smiled her Buttercup smile.
Mrs Cosgrave blinked in dismay at the stained walls and the heap of muscles, tendons, and still bleeding gobbets of flesh littering the floor.
“Not again, Tamara,” she sighed. “He’d hardly begun the Pergola, and never even looked at the fence.”
THE END.
Ned McCann.