The Life to Come

Thehouse by the riverbelonged to an old man whose relationship to George Meshaw was complicated but easily covered by "cousin." He had lived there alone, with a painting that was probably a Bonnard. Now he was in a nursing home, following a stroke, and George's mother had taken charge of the painting. It was her idea that George should live in the house until it was clear whether or not their cousin was coming home. She had flown up to Sydney for the day, and George met her for a late lunch. George's mother wore a dark Melbourne dress and asked the waiter for "really cold water," between remarking on the humidity and the jacarandas you would never guess that she had lived in Sydney for the first thirty-one years of her life. She bent her head over her handbag, and George found himself looking at a scene from childhood. His mother was on the phone, with the orange wall in the living room behind her. As he watched her, she bent forward from the waist, still holding the receiver. Her hair stood out around her head: George saw a dark-centered golden flower. He couldn't have been more than six but he understood that his mother was trying to block out the noise around herhe folded like that, too, protecting a book or a toy when "Dinner!" was called and that this was difficult because the room was full of the loud jazz his father liked to play.

Over the years, George's mother's hair had been various coloursand lengths, and now it was a soft yellow sunburst again, still with that central dark star. She produced a supermarket receipt from her bag and read from the back of it: "Hair Apparent. Do or Dye."

"The Head Gardener," replied George. "Moody Hair."

They were in the habit of noting down the names of hairdressing salons for each other. His mother said, "Also, I saw this in an airport shop: 'Stainless steel is immune to rust, discoloration, and corrosion. This makes it ideal for men's jewlery.'"

From The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser2018. Published by Catapult.