Ceilings

Hepatitis turned my father’s skin and the whites of his eyes the colour of old butter. He journeyed out of the suburbs, away from his own father who wanted to put him in hospital, to the house of my mother and her German husband.

My mother and I inhabited a world of constant tea parties, where all the characters were feline. Down the long kauri hallway, tossing under flannelette sheets, my father did not know he was the Yellow Cat. He was grateful not to be in a sterile ward in the city. He often stared at the ceiling; the patches of damp were like the coat of a piebald horse he rode as a child.

For as long as I have known him, my father has camped out in his houses. He lived in one which filled with silt and river water every spring. There was little point in bringing things back down from the attic. Always, though, there would be outposts of civilisation at the corners and edges of rooms.

We have all talked of how to improve these houses. Once, my mother was laid up in my father’s house with chickenpox. The ceiling was a landmark, a point of reference in the parched terrain of her illness. It was white and peeling, but still ornate with roses and leaves. My mother wanted to paint it. Lapis lazuli for the background, dusty pink with a touch of cadmium yellow for the roses. We could both see these colours quite clearly. Only when her temperature began to drop did the colours fade, disappearing in patches like the welts on her skin.

I lie under white lace, wool next to my skin. I drink coltsfoot tea and suck whorehound toffee for my cough. I read about Vanessa Bell; murals she painted on the walls of her house, her mauve curtains with yellow lining. At the back of the book is a toothpick my mother must have marked a page with ten years ago. I think of her back then, in her kauri house before bedtime. She is picking her teeth and reading about Vanessa Bell while her bath heats. She doesn’t stop reading until condensation begins to form on the low kitchen ceiling. A drop separates and slides down her face settling in the hollow between neck and clavicle.

– 82 –

Just prior to sleep I shut The Life of Vanessa Bell and leave my mother about to hop into her bath. I lift slowly out of the blankets and am in the spare room at my father’s house. My forehead touches a cold plaster rose bud. I run my hands over the ceiling’s tightly ordered garden.

Salt

The woman with clocks and wrist watches on her stockings is sailing through a maze of islands. They are so close together and their edges so soft that the rudder of her boat slices pieces off in passing.

Every day she is gone he cleans a landscape of salt from her windows. Leaning against the refrigerater he is unsure about missing her. He eats a banana, enjoys watching his reflection in the flank of the kettle, the muscle working in his jaw. He would like to roll his body through each room like a carpet, richly patterned, resilient to the touch.

Outside he is the only one moving on an afternoon which has forgotten the time. He cleans the woman’s windows, alternately rough then gentle. Swinging the water in great arcs, then dabbing the pane with a sponge, as if he were removing a moustache of milk from around a mouth.