Bequest

Chapter 3

Luke visited his father out of a sense of duty. A parent shouldn't have a favourite child, but Luke is a child that has a favourite parent. And it isn't his dad. His father has disappointed, embarrassed and humiliated him since he was old enough to be aware that other people's dads were not like his.

He found his father still in his dressing gown, even though it was after lunchtime.

'Dad, why aren't you dressed yet?' he asked, trying to avoid the sight of his father's tattooed legs under the dressing gown.

'I didn't sleep well. There was a moth in here last night, it was bothering me. It was Darwin's moth, from the industrial revolution in England.'

'Dad, I don't even know what you're talking about. I'll make you a cup of tea. Go and get dressed.' He wasn't used to being bossy with his father, but as time went on, and his father aged and got muddled, this seemed to be the role he was forced to take on.

Luke made his father a cup of weak black tea in the kitchen. He wiped up dead flies from the windowsill and rewashed two mugs while he waited for the kettle to boil.

When they were both settled on the couch in the living room, his dad started up again. 'It really was Darwin's moth. I used to teach the year tens about them. You've heard the story, how the dark moths survived because of the soot.'

'I haven't heard the story.'

'It was just like this tattoo of mine.' His dad lifted his swollen ankle and pulled down the long black sock, exposing his calf. 'Just like it, I'm telling you.'

'Dad, it was just a moth.'

'It was Darwin's moth.'

'All right, all right. It was Darwin's moth. I believe you.'

'It woke me up.'

'Okay.'

'It was the white one, before they evolved.'

'Sure, sure.' Why can't you just talk about something normal?

'I went to X's opening. I gave her the form from the lawyer.'

'And?'

'She said she's over it. Can you believe it? She's moved on. She spent twenty years creating a work of art on my body and now she's moved on. She doesn't care if it gets buried with me.'

'Well, Dad . . .'

'I know what you're going to say too. It's time to give up. Well it isn't.'

'You've spent all your retirement money on that lawyer. You can't afford it anymore. If the National Gallery of Australia can't accept your skin, you shouldn't have to force it upon them.'

'But it should be part of their collection of X's work.' Luke could see his father's lips beginning to tremble; he knew where this was heading. 'It's like a gallery saying that they don't want a Rembrandt.'

Luke held back a groan. 'They've got to want it. And I've never understood what they are supposed to do with you anyway. Stretch your skin over a frame? Or put you in a display case?' His father went to speak, but Luke stopped him. 'No, I don't want to know. I don't want to think about all this. Really. It's always been beyond belief.'

He looked down at his own smooth arms and pale skin. He was a white child with a coloured father. But it wasn't that his mother had been unfaithful, it was just that somewhere along the way his father had become obsessed with transforming his body. A chance meeting with X at an exhibition opening, and his father had asked her to do a tattoo of a creepy Cold War gas mask from a Russian photograph he'd been fascinated by. But that first tattoo created an inexplicable thirst for more. He'd enjoyed the pain and the way his body needed to heal. Luke's mother had rubbed vitamin E cream into his father's skin twice a day. He'd had to avoid sunlight and swimming pools. He'd worn long sleeves to hide the tattoos from the teachers at school. It was his secret, inscribed by an artist that he had full faith would be famous one day. And despite everything, Luke's dad had been right. X, a simple artist, who paid her bills doing tattoos in the early days, had gone on to create major artworks that were in Australia's best collections. That art critic from The Australian had said she would be remembered as one of the top ten artists of her time.