The Knife Sharpener (44)

44.

Bohemian Bob lived in a small terrace off the Esplanade between two apartment buildings that were all modern curves and columns. Spotlights and fake marble. Almost completely empty of any residents. For lease signs all over the block.

            ‘They wanted my land. I told em to fuck off. Ministry pension got me this prime estate. I wasn’t about to give it up.’

            They had kept off the main roads as much as possible. Sticking to alleys and smaller streets. Careful to conceal their faces when they came near Ministry cameras. Nothing conspicuous. An itchy nose. A long sneeze. Coughing. Keeping close to walls and buildings. Any shadows.

            It still didn’t take them long to arrive at Bohemian Bob’s. Weaving between a few stray St Kilda bums and revellers trying to find the beach for a skinny dip. There was that classic St Kilda scent of dredged slime mud, rotted penguin carcasses near the jetty, and gently churned saltwater. Fairy titters bouncing around the night as they teased backpackers passed out on the sand.

Bohemian Bob’s dwelling was an almost quaint throwback to dockworker cottages and beach houses, but also classically urban Melbourne. Wooden floorboards and white, paint peeling ceilings edged with classically curved trim. A long central corridor into an open plan rustic kitchen, backed onto a living room. It was surprisingly tidy. Though not much lived in. Scarce furnishings. A few framed photos. A fridge stocked mostly with bakery pies and beer.

            Even dazed – scratchy, distorted image on repeat of the Biff going down before her trying to hold his throat together – Nichola knew it wouldn’t do much good to be here for too long. If the Ministry were onto them, they’d piece it together. From the woman who they’d left alive. Their actions had made them easy to trace now, even after trying to hide from the cameras.

This was merely a respite. Surely the men knew it too.

Bohemain Bob pulled out a few beers from the fridge and handed one to Helmut.

‘Sorry, love,’ he said. ‘Don’t have any cider.’

Nichola shook it away. She didn’t feel like a drink. There was blood on her shirt. Bohemian Bob skulled his beer in one breathing gasp. Then opened another.

She staggered around for a minute, aware that Helmut watched her closely. The knife was back in the bag. All the gore of the evening had washed off it as soon as the act was committed. As if it repelled human viscera.

The actual stakes of this mission – Nichola had never truly considered them. Never really thought her dad would deliberately throw her in harm’s way. He’d called her in his moment of desperation. Had faith in her. Spoke to her independence. Her belief in getting things done. Daughter like daddy. A singular focus.

Raised herself on toasties and two-minute noodles while dad was out being the tough guy at work. Her mom – who knew? Dad never mentioned her. She asked once but was met with resolute silence. The kind of quiet her father rarely deployed. A grandly threatening, all surrounding quiet. It told her enough. Don’t mention it. Don’t cross me on this. That’s the rule, the only one. Nichola let it go along with any desire to know. Emotions and memory let unmoored to drift away to nothingness. No empty slate in her mind waiting to be filled. Only complete, unquestioned absence.

She taught herself how to live. Make sense of her small, cloistered world.

They had a TV, where Nichola learned bits and pieces about her father’s legend in the ever-growing Ministry propaganda. His exploits in the Waste garnered glowing attention. Closely observed the tight, scarred faces of the always changing array of newsreaders. Until, one day, they were the same. Relaxed mouthpieces of Ministry media.

She learned to read – preferred it, in the end. It was a skill her father encouraged, a rare enjoyment they both shared. He would sporadically bring home armfuls of books. All of them indiscriminately grabbed from – Nichola knew better than to ask. They were sometimes new. Sometimes curled and pock marked with water. Sometimes missing pages. Sometimes manuals about how to assemble a cupboard. But they were all distractions. Gifts from her dad that she relished.

She found heroes in between the covers of those books. Clever, daring, independent, and dangerous. Beautiful, ugly, and plain. Loquacious and close lipped. Able to see the world in all its realist, surrealist, and abstract strangeness. Where actions spoke for them, their moral beings, and the significance of their decisions. And, mostly, it worked out all right. Though, she loved a sad ending, finding satisfaction in the simple truth that things don’t always go according to plan.

The characters of these books – Nichola lived alongside them. Chatted to them. Found company with them. And, even though she saw herself so clearly imitating the lonely clichés of the erudite bookworms she encountered in the same texts – that embrace of fictional worlds and people – she admired them for their lack of self-awareness.

Of them all, Nichola loved Matilda most. Read it cover to cover over and again. Finding kin, though not authenticity, in its heroine. The smartest kid no one knows about. Imagined a world where she could help her dad. Correct the petty slights of people. Help him realise the better world he constantly obsessed over. The kind of world Matilda eventually achieved through her single-minded devotion to justice.

Nichola tried to will herself to telekinesis, and, finding that a hopeless task, learned other ways to control her environment. Kept the house clean. Shopped for supplies. Maintained vigilance. Organized her dad’s papers and kept the fire stoked for whenever he started writing. Trained alongside him as he did his stretches and shadow boxing and HIIT exercises. Read when he went into a philosophical sinkhole. Nichola made it all as homey and normal as possible. Existed alongside him.

School came and ground on. She had no mother. No one knew who her dad was – he never picked her up, dropped her off, attended PTA or parent-teacher evenings. Her last name wasn’t even Otwey there. Rather, plain old ‘Smith,’ which she loathed. Her real name was feared and known. No one gave a shit about a Smith. She got through it. Kept mostly to herself. Never unkind or unliked. But always a little distant. Concerned with her own activities and missions. She studied widely and curiously. Whatever fuelled her interest. Rarely to any great depth. She had her father’s restless intellect, the need to perpetually be moving on. Teachers wrote in their twice-yearly reports that Nichola was a smart, independent kid. Not the most sociable girl, though. Could involve herself more. Her dad never read them.

Drama studies at university made sense. Not so much the performance side of it, though. More the analysis. She had been living with a performer her whole life. Nichola only wanted to understand the language of his spectacle. The face he felt compelled to present to the world. The mask he was forever cultivating and justifying. The metres and rhythms of his proclamations and rage.

There was forever the pall of threat. The dented, cracked, crimson stained cricket bat in the cupboard, constantly falling out.

She thought of how many people her dad had crossed. That if the knife were really connected with him in some meaningful way, it would only get worse as more players came into the picture.

She was no longer his secret. Finally. The irony nearly keeled her over in Bohemian Bob’s domain. She had her real name at last. And she thought how quick she was to destroy that Biff. Tear him to shreds in two clean slices from the shoulder, elbow, wrist. The violence handed down.

The knife itself was bad enough.

She held onto it and was watched by Bohemian Bob and Helmut. Both, she could tell, carried concern. She wasn’t sure if it was for her, them, or the knife. Maybe all the above.

And on a small driftwood coffee table she spotted her dad. In a photo with his arm slung around a version of Bohemian Bob she didn’t think possible. Not skinny, but comfortable. Fit. Hairy and no toupee, that even now he tried to adjust to sit properly on his sweat slicked cranium. Mouth split into that familiar smile, but less lopsided. Clear and reassured.

Her dad, too, was different. Younger. Maybe just after she had been born. Brown, wavy mane. Full beard carefully curated to appear wild. Bold shoulders and Biff shirt strained across his chest. Resting on the handle of a cricket bat. A slight, easy grin. An absence of the tension – the strain, crow’s eyes, grey hairs, slight stoop – that Nichola had grown used to. Eyes wide open and alive, as they often were when he wrote or spoke, and gave himself to his ideas.

Not closed or suspicious as they had grown to be.