Free Watercolours by Adrienne Ferreira

bras. He locked his bike up under the carport and took a moment to peer through the windows of a vintage white Falcon he hadn’t seen before. It was a beauty, in immaculate condition with a classic gear stickand bench seats in duck-egg blue vinyl. He pictured himself behind the wheel, cruising through town, barrelling down the coast road to the ocean. Then his father’s voice started in his head: A financial black hole, Dominic! Foolish, unless you have some mechanical knowledge. Dom didn’t have that knowledge. Reminding himself of his decision to save for something new, he turned reluctantly and headed for the stairs.
    On the second floor he made his way down the corridor. Today it smelled pleasantly of frying onions. His flat was the last one in the hallway, and when he’d entered it for the first time three weeks ago he’d thought he must have had the wrong place — he’d checked the number on the door again to make sure: number 9, definitely his. He’d stepped inside and looked around, experiencing the weird sensation of trying both to absorb and repel his surroundings simultaneously. Against one wall was a prim-looking sofa in faded rose upholstery and beside it a standard lamp with a tassel-trimmed pink shade. Across the room a small television had been positioned on a fancy cane stand and there was a coffee table covered in white crocheted doilies, topped with a basket of dried flowers that looked like it had been sat on. The four-seat dining table was draped with a plastic cloth of purple flowers, translucent from scrubbing. A short hallway led to the bedroom, where a low double bed was covered in apricot chenille. Next to it stood a chest of drawers and another lamp in a pink can-can skirt. The second bedroom was arranged as a kind of study, with a small wardrobe, a bookshelf and a child-size desk with horse transfers cantering across it. At a glance he could tell he’d have trouble fitting his knees underneath it.
    It was a demoralising array of furniture, the kind Dom had come across before in the holiday houses of family friends. Hehadn’t bothered to bring along any of his own gear; it was all hand-me-downs and Ace had most of it now, except his futon, which was stored at the factory. In the end his luggage consisted of a rucksack of clothes, a couple of boxes of linen and towels, his CD player and stove-top coffee-maker. At the time it felt liberating leaving home with so few belongings, appropriately intrepid. Now he wished he’d brought something to make the place his own, a pot-plant or a poster or two.
    Not that there was any free wall space. The flat was crammed full of art. Paintings were grouped together on every wall, dubious depictions of flowers in vases, blurry cottage gardens with distorted sundials, lifeless kangaroos chewing grass, native birds gnawing at unidentifiable shrubs. The work had a muddy quality that gave the impression of age, but when Dom looked closely he decided they were probably like that from the moment the last dull smear of paint was applied. Whoever the artist, he or she was prolific, and had spent a fortune having the work professionally framed.
    Dom was getting used to the flat, but his mood always dipped a bit when he first arrived home. Peeling off his damp shirt and tossing it over a dining chair he made for the balcony, suddenly desperate for air. A set of cream net curtains shrouded the view. He wrestled them back, slid open the glass door and stepped outside.
    The river was right there, a sharp crumble of bank the only indication of its previous might. Dom watched its viscous flow. He found it hard to imagine it full and rushing. The water was murky and looked too shallow for a decent swim; he needed to explore, follow the track along the bank until he found a better area downstream. On the grassy plateau below, the garden bedswere half dead from the drought, although a sparse planting of knobbly shrubs with red flowers seemed