Fin appeared from her room, sleepy, her hair flat on one side and her lipstick faded. Darcy hung Aurelio’s black greatcoat on a hook behind the apartment door. The dog’s lead wasn’t there. How did it go at the embassy? he asked. She didn’t seem to notice the coat wasn’t his.
I didn’t get there in the end, she said. She was wearing her overalls with nothing underneath them and Darcy glanced at the curve of a small breast at the side of the bib and felt a sense of the ease with which she used her allure.
I didn’t get to paint either, said Darcy.
On the counter, a tomato soup can filled with flagging yellow flowers and a screw-top jar of water. Fin sat on the arm of the sofa, studying Darcy as he studied the jar. At first, there seemed to be small black fish sealed in it, but as he held it to the light he realised they were small floating microphones. We found them in the bowels of the couch, she said.
Darcy could see where the cushions had been pulled free. Who is we? he asked. She turned her eyes to the window, didn’t say. Her friend with the car, perhaps he brought flowers, swept the apartment for listening devices.
It’s normal, she said reassuringly, and Darcy remembered he too had a friend with a car, yet a bitter feeling ran through him, of being out of his depth, microphones nudging up from the cushion-cracks.
It’s not normal for me, he said.
Don’t worry, she said blithely, they’re not hydrophones, they don’t record underwater.
And the flowers? he asked.
They’re called yellow dogs, she said.
Who gave them to you?
A friend, she said, reaching down. Who gave you this? She held the dog’s lead coiled up into a roll.
I found it in a park, he said.
It’s winter. She said it cautiously. Why were you in the park?
Exploring, he said. He picked up a copy of the Guardian Weekly from a counter stool. LOSS OF CRUCIFIXES STIRS POLISH YOUTH. He thought of the church he’d just come from, the grey-painted walls, no icons or carvings, the crucifixes long gone. This guy followed me, he said. The one from last night, at the Bolshoi. He’s Cuban.
Fin let the dog leash unravel and looked up at him, ran her fingers through her short hair.
He took me to a wedding, said Darcy—some general he works for.
Fin scratched her neck the way she did when she was nervous.
When I told him I was a painter, he said like your friend, and then he laughed.
Fin blanched, her lips pressed tight.
He’s invited me to the country, said Darcy with false merriment.
You can’t just go to the country, she said, there are checkpoints, but Darcy knew it wasn’t just that—she didn’t want him finding friends of his own. Moscow was her city. You’ll need your passport, she said.
He said he’d arrange it, said Darcy. He sat on the barstool and leafed through the paper as if there would be news from home but there was only a photo of Nancy Reagan. He hated Nancy Reagan. He followed Fin’s gaze out through the smudged window into the misty afternoon. Svetlana in the stark box of light wore a scarf. From beneath it, bleached strands of a fringe sprinkled her face. The scene reminded Darcy of an Edward Hopper, the Soviet version. Then her light went off and Darcy envisaged her waiting until they were gone, creeping over to install replacement devices. He turned the jar upside down and the microphones floated upwards like a pair of Hercules beetles. Hi-tech and wireless, they bobbed inches from his eyes. He was about to quiz Fin about the money belt when her bedroom door scraped open. A man with a nest of thick dishevelled black hair. Darcy put down the jar. The guy was gypsy-looking, familiar, but with black-rimmed Elvis Costello glasses.
Hello, said Jostler darkly. He moved past Darcy and snatched the jar up from the bench. As he pulled on gloves he didn’t say more, just glared at Fin, a warning or a reprimand, and headed to the door. He seemed less swaggering but even more brooding. Darcy had imagined him up at Byron Bay, or Cairns, dealing weed to tourists, working in surf shops, not appearing here like some gypsy-intellectual.
His name’s Jobik, said Fin.
It wasn’t when he fucked you on the beach at Flinders. Darcy walked over and picked up the dog leash from the rug, rolled the leather around his narrow wrist. He felt Fin observing him, almost pityingly.
Be careful here, Darcy, she said.
And Darcy wished he hadn’t shared about the wedding. Was the money belt for him? he asked.
No, she said. It was for you. She picked up the newspaper and headed to her room.
Darcy snatched the yellow flowers from the soup can, to hurl them after her, but she turned. That’s what your mother would do, she said.
She’d throw the can as well, said Darcy. And then the toaster. They sniffed a laugh almost simultaneously then stopped.
She had a stroke, said Darcy.
The flower stems dripped water onto the floor. Fin said nothing.
It was only minor, he said. She just lay on her chaise pretending she was okay, her cigarette shaking, then she had a day in hospital. He thought how he’d visited her just once after that—to return her car. He’d told her he was going to Sydney.