Chapter Seven

 

Kevin Taggart lived in a brick bungalow between his two neighbours, Ashleigh Taylor who led a busy life and Rose Phillips who led no life at all. A redundancy package offered by his employer had seduced the former insurance assessor into accepting an early retirement which allowed him to devote what was to be the remainder of his life to his passion, landscape painting. He painted watercolors mostly, because he liked the soft hews of peaceful landscapes - mountains, seashores and small boats lying on their sides, cast adrift on remote beaches somewhere in his imagination. He thought of himself as a talented artist even though he had never had an exhibition. When he didn’t win a prize at the local community art show earlier in the year, he was disappointed; disappointed that he’d not at least received a highly commended award. However, he was convinced that it was only a matter of time, before someone, somewhere, would recognise his talent.

When Ashleigh Taylor moved into the neighbourhood, he was second in line behind the Blake sisters to introduce himself and welcome her to Eden Street. Kevin wasn’t sure what she did for a living, but he knew she worked long hours. When she left the house at odd hours of the night, he would listen to the moan of the garage door and the roar of the diesel engine of her Landcruiser as it turned over and reversed up the driveway. He waited for her to return. Sometimes it wasn’t until the early hours of the following morning when the sound of the roller door drifted across the side fence into his open bedroom window. Kevin didn’t mind the disruption, he didn’t sleep much anyway, he thought sleep was a waste of time, especially when he had so much on his mind and so much he had to achieve.

He had looked at her with an artist’s eye. Ashleigh was not beautiful in the true sense of the word, but she was well proportioned, had an open face, long limbs and a trim, toned body. She had the milky white complexion of someone who spent too much time indoors. Her thick, wavy hair framed her face and was the colour of chestnuts. He liked the way she tucked it behind her ears, and the way it bobbed against her shoulders when she walked. But what struck Kevin mostly about Ashleigh Taylor, were her steely blue eyes. When he first looked into them, he recognised that they were the eyes of someone who had seen too much or had seen things, most people would not want to admit to seeing. With her expensive and conservative clothes and her confident manner, Kevin was puzzled by the fact that she was living alone in a modest house next to his. He wondered if she was a sex worker.

 

*****

Kevin had an excellent memory. He was not a religious man although he recited biblical verses to himself as he painted, when his mind was lucid and his body relaxed. He made a point when visiting the Blake sisters, to recite a verse to them and they appeared to enjoy his ‘pearls of wisdom’ as they called them. He had warned the Blake sisters and Rose Phillips many times, that their stubbornness and pride would lead to trouble one day.

Kevin felt a strong sense of responsibility towards his elderly neighbours. He felt sorry for them, especially as they led such lonely and insignificant lives. With no family to speak of, he felt it was his duty to keep a watchful eye on them; he wanted to make sure they were coping with their lives and did his best to make them comfortable, just as he had done with Nora, his elderly mother.

Kevin Taggart had not known his father, he was absent from his life from its very beginning. His mother was a proud woman who strongly believed in the will of God. A religious woman, her flat, cold, eyes looked out onto the world with a great deal of displeasure. She wore a perpetual scowl on her face. Hers was a life filled with disappointments, the biggest disappointment being her son, Kevin, and she had never missed an opportunity to tell him so.

A personality disorder was suggested in hushed tones to Kevin by well-meaning people who tried to help him deal with his difficult mother. Kevin was with her, when in her eighty-first year, she suddenly died. He hoped for her sake that if there was such a place as the next life, that it would be a great deal more satisfactory to her than the one she had lived with him in Eden Street.

 

*****

Kevin’s studio, attached to the back of his house, was built when he realised he needed extra space after his bedroom and lounge-room disappeared beneath the clutter of his life. He spent most of his waking hours there and when he closed the door behind him, he tuned into his favourite classical radio station and turned the volume up loud.

Rose Phillips didn’t say anything of course about the studio when it was built without Council approval. She wasn’t the type of woman to complain about anything. The studio, unlike the rest of his house, was uncluttered and organised. A scrubbed oak table was pushed up against a wall and on it stood a large, empty, juice tin filled with cheap brushes. The assortment consisted of brushes of different sizes and thicknesses. Pencils and crayons were also on the table and were neatly placed, side-by-side, sorted by colour and size. A cheap timber A-framed easel stood in the middle of the room and a shaft of light streamed through a permanently opened window. The floor was covered with timber patterned linoleum; it was cheap, serviceable and easy to clean. The windows were bare; Kevin didn’t see the need for curtains.

Kevin Taggart found comfort and pleasure in his painting. It stilled his mind. He began attending art classes after his mother died because of the depression which had descended upon him after her departure from his life. He realised he needed something apart from prescription drugs to calm his shattered nerves. The walls of Kevin's house were covered with his paintings. His artistic style had changed recently from landscape painting and he was excited about the direction in which his creativity was taking him. He was experimenting, looking for ways he could bring more depth to his work. One of his completed works sat proudly on the easel in the middle of the studio. Satisfied with the result, he stood back from it now, admiring it from different angles according to the light. It was different from his usual landscapes, it was dark and menacing. Distorted faces of crone-like women emerged from behind grotesque figures, and unidentifiable shapes sprung from the dark shadows. Tufts of cat hair glued to the canvas were painted over with oxblood paint. A large red cross dominated the foreground.

Kevin’s studio was oriented towards Ashleigh Taylor’s backyard and from his window the side gate to her house was in full view. The back door slammed. Ashleigh was dressed in a black tracksuit with white stripes running down the side of the legs and runners which were too white not to be brand new. She wore a bright yellow ribbon which held her hair off her neck. Kevin squeezed two blobs of red paint onto his palette and as he mixed the paint, his mind began to wander. He imagined that Ashleigh must observe a lot on her walks, people coming and going, small children being called inside by their mothers after playing, people going about their daily lives, middle aged women hoping to shed weight delivering shopping catalogues, tradesmen fixing things, watching, silently observing. Similar to what he enjoyed doing. He liked to observe people, to feel as if he was part of their lives.

He was aware of Ashleigh’s movements and knew that she walked every day, but not always at the same time. He spied her at the shops, often at the patisserie in the arcade next to the news agency and wondered what type of pastries she liked. Perhaps he would surprise her one day and invite her in for afternoon tea.

Kevin’s thoughts turned to Rose Phillips. He knew that she had been someone who had a lot on her mind and far too much spare time to think. He had known of her pain and he wanted to help her deal with it. On occasions he spoke to her across the side fence hoping to bring some happiness to her life. He knew elderly people enjoyed a cup of tea and a friendly chat and he had invited her in for tea on more than one occasion, but she had declined his offers. There had been a falling out between Rose and her son, over some family matter. He never asked her the details, it was none of his business. Her daughter-in-law visited occasionally, he knew because he recognised her car, a shiny black Porsche. She looked a tough nut that one, Kevin thought. He’d met that sort before, done up to the nines in smart clothes with a slick hairdo. Thought the world owed her something.

Kevin saw much of what went on in Eden Street. He visited the Blake sisters regularly and enjoyed friendly conversations and cheap sherry which they served in crystal glasses. He carried out small handyman jobs for them. Last winter, he nailed their front window shut because Edi had complained of a draught. Kevin thought it was a good thing when you helped your neighbours and he knew that if you helped them often enough, something good would come from it. Edi and Rhoda bought one of Kevin’s watercolours to hang on their lounge-room wall. They were impressed by the painting and made a fuss of him when he showed it to them. They told him they thought he was talented and Kevin had been deeply flattered by their words of encouragement. The painting reminded them of when they were girls growing up on the far North Coast. They offered to pay him and at first he said it wasn’t necessary, it was meant as a gift, but when Rhoda went to her black purse she kept in the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out five, crisp, one hundred dollar notes, what could he say? Not wishing to offend them, he gratefully accepted the money and went straight out and bought a supply of paint and two sable paint brushes.