Why bother to continue painting, now that I couldn't irritate Joyce? Guess I had something to prove. Having lost everything, I'd come to St Kilda with the intention of losing myself in my painting, now, even that failed.
To delay the moment when I had to face that accusing canvas, I fed the cat then heated milk for hot chocolate. Pangur Ban crunched with noisy precision on the tinned fish, while I rinsed a mug. The window above the sink looked out over the dawn sky. Beyond the Acland Street shop facades, the minarets and palms of Luna Park were just visible. I knew the view intimately - this was where I sat when the ideas wouldn't come.
'Who am I kidding?'
Pangur Ban lifted his great black head and regarded me with sulphurous yellow eyes. He yawned, revealing a perfect pink tongue and sharp little teeth.
'You're right,' I told him. 'Joe can talk about Paul Gauguin, but I haven't done anything worthwhile.'
The smell of boiling milk recalled me. I made the hot chocolate, then went to stand in front of my easel. Self-loathing filled me. Every painting I'd done since coming to St Kilda bored me. I wanted to burn the lot. For a heartbeat I considered taking them all downstairs to the incinerator and making a bonfire of my ambition. The thought of those leaping flames was very satisfying; except that canvases cost too much to trash, even the op shop ones I'd rescued. These could be painted over.
If only I'd found that little girl before St Kilda claimed her. My fist closed around the mug.
How dare Joyce and her dentist husband judge these people? It was all very well for them in their safe little world.
I felt a stab of guilt. I should never have taken that swing at the dentist. No wonder Jemima hadn't contacted me. Two months ago she'd convinced me to attend a family get-together for my grandson's first birthday. Where did the time go? It seemed only last week Jem and Garth had come to me. My poor Jemmy, pregnant at 17. Joyce was all for an abortion but they'd already decided to make a go of it.
Jem was lucky in Garth, he wasn't a dreamer like me. And they were trying to do the right thing by inviting the grandparents to Roddy's first birthday. It wasn't their fault it didn't work out. Joyce, ever ready to parade her rise in status, had been telling me about their new house. Then the dentist asked me what I was doing for a crust.
I told them I drove a taxi in St Kilda. Somehow I found myself talking about Laila, who was trying to break her habit while Sammy was being held on a break-and-enter. It was the second time Des and I had come to their rescue. The dentist began ranting about how these people ripped off the system. Why work, he argued when the government paid them not to? Joyce came up with one of her crackpot theories, claiming those kids should be left to sink or swim. She was trying to lay some kind of guilt trip on them for being in need of help. I lost my temper and Garth had to ask me to leave. Two days later Joyce rang to say the dentist's nose was broken and she had taken out a court order against me. I wasn't to go within a block of her. As if I wanted to.
Mr and Mrs Dentist would have been suitably horrified to hear about the nine-year-old girl, but it would pass like a mild bout of constipation. Frustration and anger churned through me.
How do you reach people like that?
I dumped the mug on the paint tray knocking the junk mail to the floor. An orange sheet fluttered like a wounded butterfly. The words Art Show caught my eye. I grabbed the page. The St Kilda Arts Festival was going to show local artists' work. The little hairs on my skin rose. I checked the entry date, next Wednesday. I had eight days if I wanted to get something ready. I would use the art show to expose the St Kilda everyone turned a blind eye to.
The suburb was becoming trendy. On the weekends the wealthy trendies slummed it, walking along the Esplanade, visiting the continental cake shops and galleries. It was their money the council wanted and it was the council who were staging the art show. If I painted a confrontational painting, would they hang it?
What the hell. If I didn't paint it, I'd never know.
I sorted through my op shop finds, discovering the perfect canvas right at the back. It was less than a metre high and nearly two metres wide. Someone had painted a truly awful landscape on it before I covered it with white primer. Since the canvas's shape was odd, it called for an unusual composition. I lowered the easel and dusted off the canvas. I wanted to paint the tragedy of the Street. What to paint?
I retreated to rest my hips against the sink. Pangur Ban prowled to his favourite spot in front of the heater. He stretched luxuriously.
'It's all right for you,' I told him, feeling an unfamiliar but welcome excitement. 'You don't have to worry about turning 40 with nothing to show for it but an ex-wife and a daughter who isn't talking to you. Talk about loyalty. And don't look at me like that. I've seen you creeping away to Mad Moll to wheedle another meal.' The cat yawned. 'You should look shamefaced. She's touched you know, claims she has the second sight. Why, only yesterday she told me St Kilda is hungry for the souls of innocents. She's forgetting it's filled with pimps and prostitutes.'
Pangur Ban began licking his balls. I snorted and turned back to the empty canvas. What to paint? A thousand images ran through my mind. The last year had really opened my eyes. God knew I was no saint but compared to some I was an angel.
Pangur Ban stretched and settled down for a nap. Something about the way the cat luxuriated in front of the heater reminded me of an afternoon in January. It was just after I met Dulcy, one of the street girls who wasn't totally damaged. We were walking down Fitzroy Street eating gelatis when we came across a boy of about 16, sprawled unconscious in the gutter.
It was a Sunday and the tourists were wandering up and down the wide footpath, dressed in their trendy outfits. The youth lay with his face turned up to the hot afternoon sun. How long he'd been there was anyone's guess. Dulcy and I checked him out - we guessed it was an overdose. Rather than drag him somewhere, Dulcy stayed to shade his face with her body while I called the police and an ambulance.
We sat there with our feet in the gutter while the tourists walked by. It was weird. Here was this boy who could have been dying for all they knew, yet no one even looked at us.
It took the ambulance seven minutes to arrive. We were still waiting half an hour later for the police; after another 10 minutes in the hot sun we gave up and went down to the beach for a swim. I never did find out what happened to the kid.
Tilting my head to study the canvas, I imagined Fitzroy Street on a summer afternoon, the footpath crowded with tourists all dressed up to contrast with the figure in the foreground. But I didn't want to paint the boy. It was too easy to sympathise with him. I wanted to confront.
Then I recalled the perfect person. I used to have trouble sleeping. Rather than go straight home after finishing work, I'd roam while the morning dew was still wet on the ground. My favourite walk was through Blessington Street Gardens. Not long after the break up with Joyce I'd been striding along, chewing over bitter memories, my heels crunching on the gravel when I rounded a corner and startled an old tramp. Thrusting off his blanket of newspapers, he'd staggered to his feet. When he saw it was only me, he'd glared and gone back to sleep. At the time I'd seen it as a warning. That tramp was me, if I didn't pull myself together.
I wanted to capture the tramp's defiant indifference. I wasn't trying for pity. Pity was easy. The bitter old tramp sitting in the gutter, glaring out at the viewer would be a stronger image than a youth who had so much to lose.
A thrill that was better than sex made my heart race. If I could pull this off, it would be the best thing I'd ever done. A long dormant surge of desire made me aware that my body was something other than a means to carry me around. This painting would give me purpose again. Today I'd skip sleep and get some references for the background.
At