When the man first appeared, Iris had been afraid. It was true that he was a long way away-beyond grey palings, beyond trees and tiled roofs-and that he did not seem to be coming closer. Stilclass="underline" a man floating in the sky. In all but the most jaded civilisation it was a vision to arouse trepidation and wonder.
He was large and shiny, with rounded limbs. When the sun was out, as it was that afternoon, his body ran with light. Then he was dazzling; Iris had to look away. Dull skies enabled her to see him whole, golden against his backdrop of lead.
She was waiting for her electric jug to boil. The teabag and two spoons of sugar were in the mug, the carton of milk was on the counter. This modest state of affairs took time to engineer.
That was, in its way, a blessing. Time is the great wealth of the elderly, and the spending of it, as with any fortune, poses a quandary.
The jug was too heavy for Iris to fill directly. She had to position a plastic beaker under the tap, lift it out of the sink when it held a cupful of water, ease it along the counter, then lift it again to tip its contents into the jug. All manner of daily acts called for guile. Iris lived by contrivance. There were gadgets, provided by her son, designed to twist the lids off jars or manipulate taps. Elsewhere she had arrived at her own arrangements, a cord looped over a handle enabling a drawer to slide open, bras renounced in favour of mercifully hookless vests. Certain objects defeated her: buttons, nail clippers. At the hairdresser’s, a hot helmet clamped to her skull, she looked into a mirror and saw a girl draw a rosy brush over a client’s splayed fingers. Iris would have liked a manicure herself, but Audrey could not be kept waiting. There was also the expense.
When her son was small, he had loved to sit beside her whenever she painted her nails at her dressing table. The instant her little finger was done, Tommy would lean forward, lips pursed. Iris made a fan of her hand. The child blew on her nails, moving his head this way and that. His eyes were turned sideways, to the fi fteen fi ngers fluttering in Iris’s triple mirror. He called it doing butterfl ies: their private game.
Iris found herself thinking about a nail file she had owned. It was made of silver metal and shaped like a stockinged leg. The rough grain of the stocking’s weave provided a fi ling surface, while the smooth, pointed foot served to clean under nails. This object, once unobtrusively part of her days, had slipped from her mind for years. She couldn’t remember which part of her life it had belonged to, nor imagine what had become of it; why or how their trajectories had diverged.
In the lavatory, lacking the suppleness required to reach around behind herself, she had devised a method for wiping while holding onto her walking frame and keeping her trousers from collapsing about her ankles. It involved preparing wads of paper in advance. These, when soiled, were placed on her walker until she had adjusted her clothing, twisting her knickers around, and her hands were free to grip the frame and turn herself with it to face the bowl. It was a disgusting practice. But what was Iris to do? It was a question of balance: the need to remain upright measured against animal necessity. Every day on a stage fitted with baby-blue porcelain, she re-enacted civilisation’s elemental struggle.
Iris had raised the subject of the floating man with Audrey, referring to him with calculated nonchalance as ‘that thing’. Later she sought a second opinion from her son. He confi rmed Audrey’s diagnosis: the man was connected to the car dealership that had opened on the highway. The name of the dealership was written across his chest, Tommy said, while Iris peered through her window. Her sight was much improved since she had had her cataracts done, but the man often had his back to her and she hadn’t noticed the lettering. He was ‘Like a balloon,’ said Tommy, and offered to drive her past the dealership one day. But he always forgot, making his usual left turn at the Dreamworld showroom instead.
Iris didn’t mind. Facts may reassure, even convince, and yet fall short of adequacy. Every time she saw the man her sense of his power was renewed. Now and then he disappeared for a day or two, which strengthened her impression that their association was not casual. Distance was integral to it. It was akin to her relations with talkback hosts: an intimacy predicated on detachment. Late afternoon sun, pouring into her kitchen, showed her a man touched with fire; caused her to fold her head, for she was mortal and might not look upon such splendour.
Brought up never to importune the Almighty on her own behalf, Iris sometimes asked him to heed the petitions of those striving to find a cure for arthritis. The safe return of a dog was a more straightforward matter. A dozen times between waking and sleeping she began, ‘O holy Saint Anthony, gentlest of saints, your love for God and charity for his creatures made you worthy when on earth to possess miraculous powers.’
This was the third day, and she knew the prayer by heart. It was a powerful incantation, to be used in extremis. Iris had never doubted its efficacy. Yet it was only now, in her kitchen with her eyes closed, that she saw. She had been granted a sign. Matthew Ho’s image had been hung in the sky to show that her prayers were heard in heaven.
Tom said, ‘I’m going to go see Jack. I haven’t thanked him for everything he’s done.’
‘Cool. I’ll come with you.’ Then, in response to his silence, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘What about Denise?’
‘What about her?’
As they walked down the track, Nelly was talking about the terrain around her house being unsuited to mechanised farming. ‘Cows do fine. Machines tip over. That’s what fi nished off the McDermots. Like imagine trying to get a baler around those paddocks.’
The Feeneys, farming at the bottom of the hill, had fared better. ‘Also Jack got himself a licence to dig tree ferns from the bush and sell them to nurseries. He did pretty well out of that.’
Tom asked, ‘Do you think Denise married Mick just so there’d be someone to help Jack with the farm?’
‘Sounds complicated.’ Nelly said, ‘He’s sort of sexy, Mick.’
At the sight of Tom’s face she burst out laughing.
The scrape of the gate sent invisible dogs crazy. Nelly raised her voice: ‘No hatchback, see? Tuesday evenings she’s got clinic.’
‘We’ve had no funny buggers with sheep.’ Mick Corrigan said, ‘If your dog was alive, he’d be after a feed for sure, eh? Nah, tell you what: he copped it from that wallaby.’
‘He’s a city dog. He wouldn’t make the connection between a sheep and food.’
‘Dog’s a dog, mate.’
The scent of sausages hung in the room. Nelly and Jack were by the window, which left Tom with sexy Mick. There was soundless boxing on TV; Mick’s gaze never left the screen. Now and then he tensed as if anticipating a blow.
Tom caught snatches of farm talk from Jack: ‘… fatten them up in about four months’; ‘… picking out the dry ewes.’
Mick sat with his arms crossed over his chest. ‘Best just get a new one, eh?’
But Tom had seen this: as Jack passed his son-in-law’s chair on his way across the room, he had picked up the remote and pressed the Mute button. He addressed no word to Mick, who made no protest. It was a thirty-second silent fi lm summarising what Mick Corrigan was up against.
On the porch, Jack said, ‘The bush was an open place when I was a lad. We’d go running through the trees on the way to school.’ He turned to Tom. ‘There were four farms along this road before the war. I’m the only one left now.’
The old man spoke with a survivor’s pride. But what he was remembering was the sensation of flight. He had emerged from the bush and gone racing down a hillside, unable to stop. He remembered the wind in his face, prickly grass underfoot. He shouted at cows and shocked trees. At the hurtling future.