Little Painted Lies

It was cold outside when he drew the dressing gown around his body. He sniffled and snatched the sodden newspaper from the gutter where water dribbled.  The sun had barely risen as he trudged to the kitchen, still half asleep, to begin manually grinding coffee. Twenty minutes and fifty clockwise turns later, the pot had only started to brew.

     Whilst pouring thick black coffee into the ‘think big’ mug, thoughts channelled in and out of his seven a.m. head. He mused about Adele, the woman he’d never given a glance when they schooled together from years seven to twelve. She had hay fever for Christ sake and another man, he thought as he smeared butter on warm bread. He could hear the fax warming up and then the sharp whirring sound. A fax? At this time? He asked himself. Stashing his coffee cup where he wouldn’t be able to find it, he ventured across the hall to his small, crowded office and waited for paper to roll out.

Douglas Hewitt
‘Think Big’ Project
Monday 2nd  April 2007
Second Floor, glass conference

     He read the fax with an equal measure of excitement and disdain.  Tuesday morning was only a day away. He shuddered and pulled a pin tack from the cork board and stuck it on display. Douglas paused and chuckled at the notice, a glass conference, he thought. It sounded like they were discussing the ergonomics of glass instead of the dynamics in sloping roofs and smooth edged walls. He shrugged and spoke aloud to the dim room, ‘It’s money, now get into the shower, you doof.’

      Smelling distinctly of heavy aftershave and soap, Douglas slid into his comfortable boat shoes and padded around the house searching for his pocket diary and incidentally, his lost coffee mug. He found neither, for the phone shrilled impatiently on the hall table.

     Douglas scooped the phone from its cradle and tucked it underneath his ear.
     'Hello Doug-' he began.
     'Douglas, hang on, I’m connecting Lindsay too,' the voice of his younger sister came smooth through the phone. Douglas shook his head in a bemused manner, but a small smile crept to his lips. A second later the phone blipped and static, classical music met his ears.
     'This is nice,' he whispered to himself sarcastically, his eyebrows raised. He thought he had an inkling of what this was about.
     The phone beeped again and the music stopped.
     'Well. Mum just rang.'
     He groaned simultaneously with his other sister, Lindsay, though the smile never left his lips.
     'Gathering?'
     'Tonight.'
     'I gotta start my new job tomorrow!'
     'Try telling that to mum,' Lindsay suggested.
     'She wants the three of us there. She's got just the right amount of eggs for all of us.'
     They groaned again.
     'What time?' he asked.
     'She said not to be later than six.'
     Click. Great.

     The rest of the day was spent mostly lounging in front of the television and occasionally picking up the first book atop his reading pile: Art and the Visual Perception by Rudolf Arnheim.
‘Roger de Piles, a French writer of the seventeenth century, said that if objects are arranged in such a way that all the lights are together on one side and their darkness on the other, this collection…’ Douglas trailed off, reading the sentence aloud in order to process its meaning. He knew he’d have to rush to make the five o’clock tram as his illuminated wrist watch flashed four thirty.

     His parent’s house was nothing special. Vines that his mother didn't seem to be able to control anymore crept up the red brick and over the veranda. When Douglas knocked on the front door he could already hear his sister's voices reverberating from within and claws skittering against the tiles.  
     'Is that you, Douggy?'
     'No, it's the mailman. Of course it is, mum...'
     Unlocking the door, she pulled him into her arms and seemed to assess his body weight as she did so. Pulling away, she said 'you're too thin.'
     'Good to see you too,' he said with a grin. He set the bottle of red wine he’d bought with him on their kitchen bench and popped his head around the corner to see Miranda, Lindsay and his dad sitting at the dining table.
     'Noticed the lawn needs mowing, dad.’
     'Yeah, well…you're the son. Shouldn’t you be doing it for me?'
     'Can't anymore dad, you should hire someone.'
     His mother came in, 'pish... Andrew can manage just fine!'
     'How're you anyway, dad?’
     ‘Ah! You know,’ he said with a feeble wave of his hand.
     Douglas had wanted to say well, actually, I don’t… but refrained.
     ‘We went to a lovely Easter service this morning at church, didn’t we, Andrew?’
     Andrew nodded curtly but didn’t seem to want to persevere with the conversation. Douglas noticed the look of weariness on his face; perhaps he too was becoming tired of their same routine. As much as he adored his parents he wasn’t interested anymore in ‘the church this’ and ‘the church that’.
     His mother, however, continued. ‘You remember the Robinsons, Lindsay? Remember little Christian?’

     The fork in Lindsay’s fingers shone as she held it between the thick fabric of her sandy coloured blouse. Douglas could tell she was tettering on the edge of boredom. Lindsay set the fork down, still somewhat distracted. ‘Oh, the boy who lived down the street, the one who got his nose pierced-’
     ‘No, no. Dear, the boy who lived beside us for a while.’
     ‘Oh, the one who always picked his nose in Church?’
     ‘Yes, him…’
     Miranda pulled a face, ‘Snot true.’
     Lindsay scoffed, ‘Only because you kissed him in the Church gardens and afterward, when I asked you if he tasted like boogers, you wouldn’t answer me.’
     ‘Well anyway,’ his mother interrupted. ‘He’s getting married in those Church gardens.’
     Lindsay raised her brows, ‘To what witch?’
     There was the scrape of furniture.

     Dolly Hewitt had long been immune to such bickering. The two girls bit back and forth every time they were placed in the same room. Though, Dolly had never expected them to change when they crawled from their teens and into adulthood. Still, she was reminded fondly of the many sacrificed dinners and it made her think: at least we are still together.  And then there was Douglas, the observer.

     She gathered her thoughts and turned on her heel. The kitchen became an aromatic cloud as she lifted the pot from the boiling eggs and another of soup. She stood waiting for that feeling to come; the one that tied every organ together in neat, bloody bows. It never came, though, she still wished it would.

     Lindsay sighed nonchalantly, turning to Douglas. ‘What time do you start tomorrow?’
     He felt his stomach flip as it was mentioned, he hadn’t thought about it since this morning. ‘Eight,’ he gulped and then nodded as if to reassure himself.
     ‘What’s this?’ Andrew looked up from his checkered shirt with new interest. He had been wearily observing its pattern moments before.
     ‘I’m sure I told you, dad. I’m starting the job with the firm, as their architect,’ he explained.
     ‘Tomorrow? You didn’t tell me about this.’
     ‘I’m positive that I did. Maybe I told mum,’ he shrugged.
     ‘Well you certainly didn’t tell me.’
     He knew it was pointless to argue, it seemed his father had totally forgotten the main thing; he was starting a new job, an important job. All his father wanted to argue about now was the fact that Douglas was wrong.
     ‘Do you really think that’s the job for you, Douglas?’
     Here we go.
     ‘Why wouldn’t it be, dad? I’ve worked my ars – studied for years.’
     Andrew leaned forward and seemed to be deliberating over his words. ‘I don’t necessarily mean architecture in general, I mean the big businesses.’
     ‘I need to start somewhere, dad. I can’t just – bang – open my own business and have employees flocking and begging at my shoes. I need a reputation and this company is going to give it to me.’

     ‘Dinner’s ready!’
     Dinner passed like every other dinner. Playful banter interrupted by the scrape and groan of metal against china and thoughtful sighs. Douglas paired his knife and fork together and got up to stretch. Dolly looked up nervously, ‘where you off to, dear?’
     ‘Bathroom, mum.’

     Dolly had always feared they’d leave. One by one they’d plucked their baby feathers out and left. Dolly had tried collecting the memories – tried to box them – only to realise that they were still there, their bodies grown and their heads clearer. Their paths different to her own. She hastily snatched the boiled eggs from their pot and settled them in a bowl. ‘Your paths will cross again.’ She could feel the silver crucifix, cold against her chest – saying so.

     Andrew watched his wife waddle from the kitchen, the bowl held like an offering. He didn’t care anymore – what a charade this whole act had become.  He wiped his whiskers and watched Douglas, his eldest seat himself. In Douglas, Andrew had always seen himself.  In the way he ran his fingers through his hair – the absent glaze he got when thoughtful and even the courteous smile he shone. The girls were more like Dolly – their bickering kept the family together and perhaps drew Douglas and himself closer – the unspoken blood bond.  

     Dolly brought the eggs to the table and set each egg into a green cradle. She scrounged around for the paints and set them on the table too, alongside paintbrushes. She grinned and wiped wet hands on her apron.
     ‘Just like old times – for the church.’
     Andrew began to speak, ‘But dear-’
     ‘For the church,’ Dolly repeated forcefully.
     Andrew rolled his eyes and was about to plunge his dessert spoon into the egg, but he looked up and met his wife’s eyes. Solid and sweet, the way they always were when she wanted something. Instead he reached for a paintbrush and obligingly dipped it in putrid green.

     At first there wasn’t conversation, just the tiny slapping noise that the paintbrushes made. Douglas looked down the table across at his dad, his brow furrowed with concentration – to Lindsay who bit down on her bottom lip – to Miranda, the way she blushed like a child caught in a wrongful act – to his mother acting as if nothing was out of place as if everything had been shelved neatly. Douglas began his egg decoration, for the sake of the ‘church.’

     ‘Starting your new job, honnie?’
     Douglas’ throat twisted and shriveled and he just nodded.
     ‘Where’s it at again?’
     ‘A firm, they want me to design them a large conference room. The project is called ‘Think Big.’ I get a nice office and people ordering latte’s for me.’
     Dolly nodded and returned to her little swirls, and then she spoke again.
     'How's your boyfriend... Mark?' she asked Miranda as she picked up her second egg.
     'Matt,' Miranda corrected her mother, not even looking up from her own egg which she was painting in perfect purple and orange lines.
     'Oh, of course... Matt. How is he? Must have been seeing each other a month now?'
Lindsay interrupted. 'Must be a new record,' she scoffed.
     'Be quiet, Lindsay. Let the girl speak.'
     Miranda gave Lindsay a look of contempt before she set down her paintbrush. 'He's good, and yes we've been going out a while, thank you.'
     'Is it luuurve?' Lindsay asked sarcastically.
     Miranda sighed and shook her head at Lindsay, but they all noticed how the blush crept into her cheeks. Everybody watched her for a minute until she picked up a brush and continued.
     'She's only twenty three,' Douglas pointed out.
     'Sorry, dear?'
     'Miranda. She's only twenty three, give her a break. She doesn't need to settle down and marry the first guy she meets.'
     'I never said-'
     'I know, I’m only saying,' he shrugged. 'Mainly to you, Lindsay,'
     Silence fell over them and Dolly looked particularly uncomfortable. She shifted her face into a smile and pretended to observe the other's eggs with interest.
     'Well, these are lovely, we- the church- will love them.'
     Douglas nodded and made an indistinguishable noise in his throat, setting down his third finished egg.
     'What time do you take these over to the church?' he asked.
     He noticed his mother's eyes flick to his father's, a look he had never seen before spread on her face. Though it vanished so quickly, her plastered smile returning seconds later, he thought he may have imagined it.
     'Just before lunch, maybe eleven,' she said after clearing her throat.
     'What does the church do with them, anyway?' He didn't take his eyes off his mother. He saw faint blush grow in her wrinkled cheeks.
     'They t- uh...' she stumbled and clasped her hands together in her lap, wringing them slightly.
     'Take them, and give them out to the kids. A gift,' Andrew intercepted, smiling softly. 'Maybe you should get a glass of water, dear?'
     Douglas watched his mother push back her seat and waddle to the kitchen. A thought occurred to him as he checked his watch and said it was time for him to go.

     Douglas thanked his parents, shook his father’s hand and kissed his mothers cheek. He pulled the coat high across his shoulders and shivered as the night air hit his face with vigour. He stood by his car, to bid his sisters goodbye until there was only the echo of their voices. As he stood next to his car, he smiled as he thought of the eggs. Fifteen little lies coated in pink and green swirls. The fable his mother had conjured, only to keep the Hewitt’s. It took only two people to construct a lie: the individual, who started the cycle only to rid the act of its reason. And the other who fostered the lie and built familial foundations atop, until it became the piece of thread attached to the needle – the needle which had sewn the seams of their lives.  

The smallest things morph from the biggest, until you crack open its shell and take a look inside.