The Piper's Son

by Melina Marchetta

  Beside him, Mohsin the Ignorer chuckles at something on his own screen.

  “What?” Tom asks, getting sick of the ignoring.

  Nothing. In the movies, the Mohsin guy would turn to him and say, “Oh, just something I am reading that amuses me, my friend.” The Mohsin in the movies would use the words my friend a lot. But circumstance stops Mohsin from saying those words. Some history that has nothing to do with Tom. He can imagine the story. It’s probably one of those tragic ones where Mohsin’s father was placed under house arrest in his country and then imprisoned and killed for something he wrote. The family probably had to travel across the world in a leaky boat and his mother probably spent time in Villawood detention center with her kids, trying to keep them sane. Regardless, it didn’t give Mohsin the right to ignore anyone who wanted to be friendly, especially someone who would understand the humor of what some sports commentators get away with. But nothing from Mohsin the Ignorer.

  When Tom’s done reading the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Guardian, and the New York Times from top to toe, he starts reading his mobile-phone statement online. The curiosity of his low phone credit on the night he ended up in hospital doesn’t become an issue until tedium makes it one. What he notices are the international numbers. The country code of the first one is 44 and the second is 670. The phone calls were made at 10:47 p.m. and 10:49 p.m. — sometime after his dive off the table. One of his ex-flatmates and their hangers-on must have taken his phone while he was flat on his face bleeding and rung two overseas numbers. How low can people get? It was probably their dickhead drummer, who was into some Swedish chick he met on the Internet. So Tom goes to the Google search and looks up international phone codes. Not Sweden. The first belongs to the UK, the second to . . .

  He chokes. His reaction must be loud, because everyone turns to look at him, except Mohsin the Ignorer. Tom’s eyes are fixed on the screen, and after a moment he fumbles through his backpack for his mobile, realizing that he left it back home being recharged. The countdown to three o’clock becomes an excruciating waiting game, and then he breaks speed records racing to the station, jumping turnstiles, taking the stairs up to the platform two at a time, and practically throwing himself into the train. He sprints out of Stanmore station so fast that one of the slacker skateboarders tries to race him.

  Back in Georgie’s attic, he yanks the phone out of the socket and begins scrolling down the names under dialed calls, praying to anyone who will listen. God. Baby Jesus. Saint Thomas the doubter. Saint Whoever, patron saint of losers. Praying, Please, please, don’t let it be true.

  The first name shatters him.

  The second makes his head spin.

  He hears the clumps of footsteps on the stairs, and then Georgie pokes her head in.

  “What?” she asks, alarmed.

  He can’t speak because his tongue gets stuck in the roof of his mouth.

  “Tom? You screamed.”

  “No,” he says listlessly.

  “You screamed. And swore. Like this. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.”

  He tries to recover for a moment and stares at her. “Stubbed my toe. Painful.”

  She squints with total disdain. “More painful than childbirth?”

  “Oh, so now everything’s going to compete with that one,” he mutters. “I’ve got to go.”

  He passes her and flies down the stairs and out of the house.

  He can only get his head around one thing at a time.

  That on the night he dived off that table, he rang Tara Finke in Timor.

  And he can’t remember a single word of the conversation.

  He walks straight to the back room of the pub, where Francesca and Justine are rehearsing.

  “You’re not on tonight,” Justine says, almost as an accusation.

  Ned the Cook walks in with some food he’s prepared for the girls and stops suddenly when he sees Tom.

  “He’s not on tonight,” he says. Accusation in his voice.

  It’s clear to Tom that he won’t be receiving employee-of-the-month badge at the Union.

  He sits at the table they’ve taken possession of, and no one says a word for a moment. Francesca puts her guitar to the side discreetly. He doesn’t know how he’s going to broach this subject without drawing attention to the fact that he is in desperate need of information only she can give.

  “I never thanked you for coming to the hospital that night.”

  Francesca stares at him. She’s not buying it, he can tell. She looks over at Justine and even has the audacity to shrug in front of him as if to say, I don’t know what his game is.

  “No, I really appreciate it,” he says.

  Still no words. Not even from Justine, with her rosy cheeks and perkiness. She’s a walking advertisement for clean living and an overabundance of endorphins. Except now, when she’s looking at Tom.

  “Ah . . . how did you know I was there?” he asks casually, trying to avoid Francesca’s eyes because they’re armed with bullets. He knows that if she really wants to play games with him, it could take hours to get information.

  “Tara rang us,” Francesca says.

  Unless she loves the idea of pain being swift and vicious.

  “You rang her and she rang Frankie,” Justine explains.

  In the words of his grandma Agnes, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

  “Wonder how that happened,” he said, trying to sound blasé. “Didn’t even know her number worked over there.”

  “Well, you rang her that night.”

  Ned hands Francesca the sandwich. “Bit extreme,” he says. “Isn’t she in Dili?”

  “No, actually in Same,” Francesca explains to Ned. “Up in the mountains. Same,” she repeats, in case he didn’t get the pronunciation of the word in the first place.

  “Same,” Ned says, making himself comfortable.

  “This is kind of personal,” Tom says, looking at him. “She’s a mutual friend of ours.” He waves a hand between him and the girls. “Probably won’t interest you.”

  Ned the Cook is going nowhere.

  Francesca sighs. “Look, Thomas, why don’t you write to her? She’s a long way from home and accepts letters from anyone. Plus she’s a great letter writer. She brings Same to life for us. She’ll respond, Tom. She’s never been petty and I actually think you both need closure.”

  Justine leans forward. “I think she’s finally gotten over the one-and-a-half-night stand.”

  When Justine says those words, she whispers them.

  Tom can’t believe Tara spoke to anyone about those two nights.

  “Send her a text message. She loves getting them.” Justine says this as if she’s reluctantly giving out information. Even Ned seems keen. So with nothing to lose, Tom takes out his phone and keys in the words.

  Dear Finke,

  How are things, babe?

  LOL,

  Tom

  He looks impressed with himself, and the girls look impressed back.

  “The whole one-and-a-half-night stand really upset her,” Ned explains, pissing Tom off when he whispers the words.

  “That’s pretty personal, and I don’t think she’d appreciate you knowing about . . . stuff.”

  “When she was here in March, we bonded while exchanging stories about our first time,” Ned explains. “We came to the conclusion that they were pretty similar situations.”

  “Why? Because they were both with guys?” Tom asks.

  “No. They were both with fuckwits.”

  Ned’s having fun.

  “She’s got a boyfriend, Thomas. He’s a peacekeeper over there, and I think that all is forgiven and forgotten,” Francesca says. “She’s a lot calmer than she used to be. Very Zen-like.”

  The phone alerts him to a message, and the girls clap with excitement. For a second, it’s like old times. He feels a bit of a rush, and his heart is hammering in the way it used to hammer back in the days when Tara Finke would walk toward him just before class began. Back then she’d piss him
off in an instant, but the adrenaline would still keep running for the rest of the day.

  “Read it to us,” Justine says.

  Dear Thomas,

  LOL? Laugh out loud? I’m in East Timor, dickhead! How much laughing do you think we do per day around here?

  And don’t call me babe.

  Tara

  The girls look a bit crestfallen, which surprises him, really.

  “Let me read it again,” Justine the Positive says, taking his phone from him. “Because Tara says they do heaps of laughing over there.”

  She concentrates hard as she studies the screen. “Look. She uses your name. Thomas, she calls you. Usually it’s . . .”

  She looks at Francesca, who quickly shakes her head to silence her. He can imagine what Tara Finke usually calls him.

  “Send her another,” Justine pleads.

  “Not on your life,” he mutters, walking out of the room and out of the pub.

  He’s had worse from Tara in their time. He probably deserves worse after what he did to her.

  “Tom,” Francesca calls out from the front step of the pub when he’s halfway down the street. There’s worry in her voice, and he knows she’s seen something in his expression. She’s seen the sickness he’s feeling inside. But it’s not as if he can tell her the truth or that it will make sense to her when it doesn’t even make sense to him.

  How can he explain that the international code 670 isn’t the issue? The 44 is. The U.K.

  Because five minutes before he rang Tara Finke, he had made a call to London.

  To his dead uncle.

  Georgie’s not home when he gets there, so he sits in the backyard with his guitar and alternates between playing it and taking out his phone and scrolling down to the dialed number beginning with the 44 prefix. He itches to ring it. Wants to hear the voice.

  Georgie pokes her head outside later.

  “It’s freezing out here, Tom.”

  He nods and keeps on strumming, and she sits down on the banana chair beside him. He has a strange need to be held. A hug would be great. He’d even go back to the flat and grovel to Sarah. Not just for the sex, but to lie beside someone. Francesca had always been annoyingly tactile when talking and Justine was a hand holder and Siobhan Sullivan was draped over him at all times. And Tara. Especially that night in her parents’ house when she stood in front of him and let him wrap her up in his arms.

  “On the night I got my stitches,” he tells Georgie, “I rang . . . Joe’s number.”

  He knows what’s going to happen. She’ll ring his mother or arrange for a counselor or something drastic like that.

  She keeps her eyes on him. He doesn’t know what can of worms he’s opened up with this one, but she’s silent for a while.

  “I write him letters,” she says calmly.

  “What?”

  She nods. “I write him letters.”

  “Where do you send them?”

  “To his e-mail address.”

  “What do you write about?”

  She shrugs. “I went for an ultrasound today and I’ve got photos, so I’ll probably write to him about how it felt.”

  “So you don’t think I’m crazy?”

  “You were concussed, Tom. By the sounds of things, you hadn’t slept for three nights, and don’t pretend that you were just smoking dope, because I know you took speed and God knows what else. Believe me, my nephew doesn’t turn up on my doorstep with ten stitches in his head without me going to that hospital to find out what happened.”

  He nods, almost to himself.

  “So I don’t think there was anything strange about you ringing him or thinking that you could talk to him.”

  “Who’s still paying for the account? His voice is still there. ‘Joe here. You know the drill. Leave a message.’ Remember, he used that East End accent just to make us laugh.”

  He sees it on her face, even in this half-light. Of course Georgie knows the message is still there. How many times has she rung Joe’s number to listen to it over the past two years?

  “Does it help?” he asks. “The e-mailing.”

  She nods. “A tiny bit. It’s strange. You’re writing a letter to someone who’s never going to read it, so it kind of frees you up a bit.”

  “Why not just write in a journal?”

  She shakes her head. “I need an audience. Someone who knows me well. Someone I’m used to talking to, who I don’t have to set up foundations with.”

  “Have you told . . . written to him about the baby?”

  She nods.

  “Do you want to see a photo of it?” she asks.

  “The baby? It’s not one of those blobs that you pretend has features and form, is it?” he asks.

  She laughs again, but he can see on her face that she has a fragile hold on her emotions.

  “Play it something.”

  “What do you want me to play?” he says with a sigh, not really in the mood but not wanting to say no to her at the moment.

  “Something that makes me feel.”

  He plays a Lyle Lovett song because he knows she’s seen him in concert with his parents. It’s a song about a boat and pony on the ocean, the only Lyle Lovett he ever bothered to learn. Ever since he was fifteen, he had been determined not to be too influenced by his parents’ taste in anything, although he had a secret obsession with the bands Devo and Big Audio Dynamite because of them, and he still listens to the Cure.

  Sam arrives, dressed from work. He’s holding fish and chips, and a beer.

  “Come and have something to eat,” he says quietly to Georgie. Tom notices that he does that a lot. Speaks quietly. It’s almost as if Sam believes that if he raises his voice, she’ll notice that he’s around and then she’ll remember the past and tell him to get lost. So these days, Sam speaks quietly. Tom feels awkward observing them. Although they handle silence between them well, it becomes awkward when another person is put into the equation.

  “She went for an ultrasound,” Tom explains, “and is trying to show me a photo of the alien.”

  Wrong thing to say. Sam looks cut. Georgie looks sad.

  “You didn’t mention you had an appointment,” Sam says. “I would have come.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “Is it okay?” he asks.

  “Perfect.”

  Somehow Sam doesn’t dare ask for the photo.

  “Pass the snapshot over,” Tom says.

  Georgie takes it out of her book and hands it to Sam, who stares at it and then hands it to Tom.

  “Can you see its little nose and eyes and legs?” she asks.

  “Wow. Yeah. That’s . . . that’s amazing, Georgie,” Tom lies.

  She looks relieved and swings her legs over the chair. “I’ll get the plates,” she says. He gets a sense that she’s going inside to cry.

  When she’s gone, Tom dares to look at Sam and then the ultrasound photo again. “You’ve fathered the elephant man. Someone has to tell her.”

  Sam is laughing as he reaches out for the photo to get another look, this time reveling in the freedom of Georgie not being around.

  “Could be the elephant woman,” he murmurs, staring at it.

  “Poppy, at the pharmacy, reckons it’s a boy, but Georgie says she feels in her heart that it’s a girl.”

  “Why? What did she say?”

  “I switched off after she mentioned breast pads and nipple creams.”

  Georgie comes out with the plates and hands them to Sam, who begins to divvy up the food. “You can have the photo,” she says, seeing it in Sam’s hand. “I’ve got a few. You too, Tom.”

  He asks Sam about his work. Not because he’s interested, but because he won’t be able to sit alongside them without talk. He’s scared that if no one speaks, the sadness in the air will suffocate them. Sam works with the Industrial Relations Commission and has that same manic look in his eyes as Tom’s father did when he used to get hot and bothered about a campaign. The fish and chips are good, and
in a way, so is the conversation. Sam and Georgie even have a mini argument about bully union leaders and lazy workers at one of the major car manufacturers, and for a moment there’s nothing more normal than Sam telling Georgie she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about. Not so quiet.

  “If productivity is down, Sam, someone’s obviously not doing their job,” she says. “All I’m saying is that there are two sides to the story. Dom would agree.”

  “Not in this case, Georgie!” Sam says.

  “Would your father agree?” she asks Tom. Tom doesn’t want to have an opinion, although he’s certain that there’s no way that his father would be critical of a trade union.

  “Dominic would agree with Sam,” he says, not so much reluctant to side with Sam, but more so not to talk about his father.

  Georgie leans forward in her chair to stare at Tom in a you-have-betrayed-blood-kin-beyond-comprehension stare.

  “Don’t involve me in your arguments and then look at me like that when I don’t side with you,” he says, taking a drag of his cigarette.

  “And stop smoking around me because that passive smoke is traveling this way and gagging my unborn child,” she says back.

  “For fuck’s sake,” Tom mutters, getting up and taking his beer and guitar with him.

  Later, lying in bed, he thinks of the words that have come to haunt him this past week. Talk to me, Thomas. They were spoken in a sleepy voice. He had awoken her, wherever she was in Timor. Same, Francesca said. Was she lying beside the peacekeeper? Just talk. He had heard the same tone in her voice on one of those nights they had slept in each other’s arms. The best week he could remember. It was after the never-ending eye contact and hand holding and three-hour nightly phone conversations where they couldn’t stop talking. Everything about Tara Finke triggered a reaction inside him. Like that time she walked in with the foil colors in her hair and he was rehearsing with the girls and he started strumming the guitar, crooning, “Danke Schoen,” because he knew she liked it from watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off so many times with him, and then she was smiling and laughing, and yes, Uncle Joe, it was time to STD.