Damon’s concern for Esther grew, day by day, as the machines of the demolition crew ate voraciously, slaking their appetites on the pile of old buildings at the core of which was the old woman’s home. His concern found no match in her attitude to the process. ‘They come? I go. There is no worry. End of story,’ she spread her hands in the gesture that was now so familiar to him. ‘Goodness, boy, I have faced worse. Much worse. As I tell you, the weather warms,’ she smiled at him. ‘A park bench in a nice garden is as good a place as any and better than some!’
For all her brave words he began to sense a frailty in the old woman and he worked harder at bringing her odds and ends of food. Small comforts. If he had expected a measure of fulsome thanks he was doomed to disappointment. Damon suspected that most of the tidbits he brought Esther ended up in the belly of Tumbler the cat. The rolling, three-leg gait of the creature was increasingly an inelegant tumble! ‘Are you sure it’s a he and not a she?’ he asked Esther. ‘Could swear the bugger’s having kittens. Suppose you’ll expect me to knock them off, too?’ he grinned.
‘He is very much a male. Can’t you tell the difference?’
‘Not in all that fur and not without a closer look,’ said Damon. ‘You feed him most of the stuff I bring you, eh?’
‘Sometimes,’ said Esther.
‘What a helluva waste,’ said Damon. ‘Jeez! I even pay for some of it.’
‘I don’t ask you to bring me anything,’ said Esther. ‘I eat little,’ she smiled. ‘It’s kind of you. It’s very kind. However, I would rather the cat fatten than me.’
‘You need anything at all, you just sing out. Not just food. Anything you well, fancy.’
‘Save your money, boy.’
‘Who said anything about paying? Shit, I don’t often pay,’ and he spread his fingers and held them out towards her. ‘These fellers are good for more than bashing, you know,’ and he winked. ‘Only joking.’
‘Are you sure?’ she asked. ‘Thank you for your trouble and for your concern. Thank you for your generosity. Now, boy, tell me more about your face,’ she was blunt.
The grin on that face vanished. ‘No more to bloody tell. Don’t want to talk about it.’
‘Tell me,’ she persisted. ‘This time I am asking. You carry what appears to you to be a burden almost beyond bearing. It matters little that I tell you that I consider it to be of lesser importance than you imagine. What is to be done?’
‘Okay,’ and he spoke slowly. ‘Most of what is to be done has been done. They reckon I’m lucky they done as much as they did. Dunno about that, do I? A couple more years and the butchers are going to have another bash at it. After I’ve stopped growing so quick. They told us, Mum’n me, not to hope for any bloody miracle although they say they can make it look a bit better. But not much better,’ he was quiet for a moment and then fingered his scarred cheek. ‘It’s a bit of a bugger. They say they won’t ever be able to get this part to grow whiskers. Pisses me off majorly already, that does. Because I’m dark I’ve got a good whisker growth and I gotta shave now and it’d sure be cool as to have that sort of half-shave look like some guys have. Reckon it looks cool. Besides, a bloody beard’d sure cover this shit!’ he touched his face. ‘But me? Jesus, I gotta shave every day or it looks worse than ever. Don’t suppose you can understand that. You are a woman, after all.’
‘Oh, I think I can understand,’ said Esther, smiling very slightly. ‘Would you allow me to touch your skin, your damaged skin?’
He looked at her. ‘No one else ever has. Only doctors, nurses and my mum. Why the hell would you want to touch this shit?’
‘Allow me?’
Hesitantly. ‘Okay… if you really want to,’ and he bent forwards across the table. He closed his eyes. The touch of her fingers as she explored the scar, the wound, his burden, was both light and electric. She took her time, almost stroking his face with her long cool, dry fingers. ‘Satisfied now?’ Damon asked, as her fingers left his face. ‘Not a pretty feel, eh? My scar goes helluva deep, doesn’t it? You must’ve felt how deep it goes.’
‘Oh, yes. It goes deep in more ways than you fully understand,’ said Esther. She searched in a pocket of her coat and brought forth a small jar. She pushed it towards him. ‘Try this on your scar.’
‘I’ve tried everything on it short of cow-shit – and someone once told Mum I should be trying that! What is it?’
‘It’s an ointment. It is no magic potion and it is certainly not able to erase your scar. It may, I think, work to ease discomfort and tightness,’ she gave a short laugh. ‘Better, I think, than cow-droppings.’
‘Try it. Of no harm at all and, just maybe, of a little help, at least to the surface. You tell me there is little more that can be done? Surgery?’
‘I didn’t quite say that. There is… oh, shit, can’t we stop jabbering on about this? Please?’
‘Go on. Finish what you were about to say.’
‘There are a couple of places. There’s this clinic in America, Chicago. One or two places in Europe and in England. You see, I get everything for free here. I don’t have a shit show getting anything done anywhere else. You need big money, big big money for anything like that.’
‘I see.’
‘No. No, you don’t see. You couldn’t see. It is my dream. My dream is that I can be, well, sort of whole and okay to look at. We both save for it, my mum and me. But it’s only a dream. Bit like winning Lotto, eh? If that dream ever comes true I’ll probably be so old it won’t matter any more, so…’ he spread his hands in Esther’s own style. ‘What the bloody hell.’
‘Yes,’ she looked hard at him.
‘Yes what? You know that old old saying about pigs might fly?’
‘I’ve heard it.’
‘Well, they don’t. Poor buggers end up as bacon, ham and roast pork. I sure as shit know. I work in a restaurant.’
‘I do believe, Damon, that should you want something badly enough… hope and pray for something…’
‘What? It’ll come true? You gotta be joking, old lady. Dreams come true? Crap!’
‘Maybe yes, maybe no. One must be careful of wanting something so badly that everything else in life and living is shut out.’
‘The years passing, well, they have something to teach us all. I am no exception,’ she paused and looked hard at him. ‘I have had my dreams.’
‘When I was about seven or eight,’ Damon began. ‘Well, that was when Mum was first told there wasn’t much more could be done for me but that there were these couple of overseas joints that might be able to do things – at a helluva price! We didn’t have a hope then. We don’t have a hope now. Yeah. Reckon those bloody pigs do have a better chance of flying than I ever had.’
‘Your father?’
Damon snorted. ‘What about my father? Yeah yeah yeah. Told you a shitload of lies about him, too. I haven’t got a father like I pretended. Sure, my old man was a Greek. He was a Greek sailor. Here one day, gone the next – and look what the bugger left behind! See, Mum always tells me his name was Dimitri and I don’t go on about it. What’s the point? I think it makes her feel better to give the bugger a name. When I was little she used to tell me all this stuff about him.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Like about where he grew up. According to Mum it was in an olive orchard, olive grove place on the side of Mt Olympus just down the road past the Acropolis.’
‘Goodness.’
He laughed. ‘I never ever let on to her when I began to look up stuff for myself. You know, I don’t think she ever knew his name. Dimitri? Greek name? Yeah, right! I think she just wanted me to think that somehow, somewhere I had a family. Well, guess I’m happy enough with the little bit, the very little bit of family I’ve got. It’s sure a whole heap better than what my mum’s got – well, what my mum had. As I just told you, I was seven or eight, about that, anyway, when Mum first found out about these overseas clinics. That was the last time she ever heard from her olds. She wrote to them, see. They are truly as rich as. Didn’t lie about that. She wrote and told ’em about what happened to me. She asked for help. Weeks and weeks later she got a letter back. Not from her mum and dad but from some older brother. Only about five lines, it was. It said that none of them wanted to know about her problems and as far as they were all concerned she did not exist and she was dead. Didn’t exist! Dead! Now that was a bloody shit thing, wasn’t it?’
Esther let the cat in. She fed him. Damon watched as the animal wolfed down a rather nice portion of fillet steak. ‘That should do you, Tumbler,’ she spoke to her cat.
‘Better do the bugger! That’s your top steak, that is!’ said Damon. ‘They’re religious, see.’
‘Who?’
‘My mum’s family. They kicked her out when she told them she got knocked up by Dimitri the Greek and was gonna have me.’