by Tim Winton
The islands looked insubstantial as soufflés. The cement-works dredge ploughed on across the bank, pillaging shell for its lime, ripping sea grass up by the tonne, leaving a filthy plume in its wake. They’d recently secured another decade’s lease. Surprise, surprise. And a few hundred metres inland their stack rained particulates on the roofs of five thousand homes. With an EPA licence, no less. Business as usual. Democracy at work.
Mum, what’s the matter?
I was about to ask you, Tom.
You’ve lost me.
Faith called.
How is she?
You should know. You spoke to her last night.
Me? Last night?
She’s upset. So am I.
Keely felt a twinge of dread, said nothing. He had not called his sister last night. After seeing Gemma in the early evening he hadn’t spoken to anyone at all. Had he?
She said you were awful, said terrible things.
Keely had been sick all day. But not as ill as he felt this minute.
Tom?
I’m here.
What’s happening?
I’ll call her now.
She’s on a plane. Leave her be.
Shit.
What’s got into you?
I don’t know, Mum. I’ll fix it up.
She’s your sister. She doesn’t deserve this. You think because she works with money she doesn’t have a conscience? She’s a good person – you have no idea.
I don’t remember, he confessed.
That she’s your sister, that I’m proud of her?
Calling her, Mum. I don’t remember calling her.
Which speaks for itself.
Keely leant against the wall, took the sting right through him. He deserved it.
Have you cooked yourself dinner?
It’s three thirty-five, Doris.
Don’t dare take that tone with me.
Sorry.
I’ve got some mussels. More than I can eat. I should know better, but when you look at them in the shop, you see the handful it takes to feed yourself, it looks pathetic, like it wouldn’t feed a sparrow.
I know, he said. Cooking for one, it’s science over instinct.
Dreary, that’s what it is. No wonder all these Claremont ladies eat out. Divorce is the only thing keeping the hospitality industry afloat.
God, he thought in wonder. She’s moved on already. Like some sort of moral Amazon, she’s sucked the poison from the wound, wiped her mouth and resumed the fight; it’s bloody sainthood.
I’m sorry, he said. I’ll do whatever it takes.
I’ll be there at five, she said. I’ll call you when I’m outside.
Mum, I’ll catch the train.
No, I’ll be there directly.
He put down the phone and ran the shower. His face in the mirror was ailing. His cheeks were lumpy with ingrown hairs, stippled in places by shaving rash. He thought he preferred the preacher with the hurtin heart to the feeble wonk looking back at him. Doris probably hadn’t even bought the mussels yet; she’d be on her way to the Boatshed Market to get them now. What a rube he was; she was brilliant.
After he’d scraped his chin and dressed, while he waited for Doris to do her thing, he called Faith’s landline, left a message on the machine. His apology was heartfelt but after a few moments he could feel himself rambling. He sounded like a drunk, a loon. He tried to wind it up. But lost his nerve and rang off mid-sentence.
The moment he hung up he wished he hadn’t called. She’d think he was barking. He’d only made it worse. He stared at the carpet, felt the reflux of panic in his throat. When the phone rang he grunted and was relieved to hear it was only Doris.
Her back garden smelt of frangipani and citronella and in the evening light white cockatoos roamed in raucous packs above the treetops of the neighbourhood. On the sea breeze came the waft of cut lawns, barbecue smoke, leaf-blowers. The proximity of the river was like something on the skin, a pleasant clamminess that brought to mind tree roots, undercut banks, stranded jellyfish. The house’s rear deck was deep and broad. The little table hardly occupied a corner.
Keely sopped up the last of the tomato sauce with crusty bread and sat back, conscious of being observed. There was no wine on the table.
It’s a nice house, this, he said sincerely.
Still, you’ve always disapproved.
Not true.
In ten years you’ve never had a good word for it.
Working-class prejudice.
Oh, rubbish. That’s middle-class anxiety.
Probably.
You had a place just as nice yourself.
True.
In a street of old lumpers’ cottages – go on, say it, make the distinction.
Which cost about the same, I know.
Tom, love, you have such romantic ideas about the working class.
Oh, come on, Mum.
Really, it tickles me.
Annoys you, actually.
Well, yes. I’m not as sentimental.
You couldn’t get out of Blackboy Crescent fast enough. Could you?
I didn’t have a choice, if you recall.
Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound so judgemental.
Really? The further you got from Blackboy Crescent, the more you wore your blue collar on your sleeve. And I know that sounds mangled but you know what I mean.
Keely winced. Because he did. Also because it was true.
And don’t tell me about mixed metaphors – I am one.
Just never thought there was any harm in being proud of my origins, he said. State housing, state schools.
But why wear it like a badge of honour? As if it’s your achievement rather than the result of government policy? The way all these people here seem to think the state is swimming in money because they invented iron ore, planted it, watered it. It’s sheer luck. And it’s luck that got you to university free of charge. You’re the product of an historical moment, a brief awakening. Tom Keely: My Struggle – it doesn’t wash, love. You were generationally privileged. You’re just another sulky Whitlam heir.
Mussels were never so expensive, he said by way of concession.
I’m not saying you didn’t work hard.
Mum, all I was actually saying, if you remember, is that you have a nice house.
Well, it’s too big, and as you can see I can’t keep up with the garden.
Geez. People’ll think you’re renting.
At this there was an indulgent silence between them.
Sometimes I wonder if I’d still be there, she murmured. Blackboy Crescent. If things had worked out differently.
Really?
I don’t know. It was your father who was restless, not me. We would have travelled, I think.
Where?
Central America, the Philippines. The liberation theology thing – we were in that together of course. Couldn’t you just see him as a worker priest?
An evangelical with a wife and two kids – why not?
Well, everything smelt different then. A sense of possibility. Vatican II and all.
Think of it, he said. Nev as a Catholic, Billy Jack takes the Pope’s shilling.
They both laughed. It was good. Better.
Anyway.
It really is a nice house, Mum. You bought it with hard work, righteous work. There’s nothing to be guilty about.
I know that. I’m comfortable with that.
Okay. Good.
I’m just worried about you.
I know.
And I suspect you’ve come to enjoy the rewards of defeat. Shopping in despair’s boutiques.
The law degree I applaud, Doris. The psych thing has become a nuisance.
So I’m told.
He pushed his chair back. It growled across the boards.
I saw her yesterday, he said. Harriet, I mean.
Don’t try to sidestep me, Tom. Last night, along with every other vile thing you had to offload, you told your sister you were already dead, and that they’d be ste
aming you out of the carpet for weeks.
Fuck, he said, despite himself. No way.
Perhaps she imagined it. Maybe she’s lying.
He sat there.
And you don’t remember, she said. Or you’d rather not recall.
The sun was gone. Night had fallen without him noticing. Keely gripped his knees and let mosquitoes nip at his ankles.
Tom, I think we should talk about this.
Gemma’s got a grandson.
You said.
He lives with her. In my building. There’s something about him.
Tom, I’m talking about you. Right now there’s something about you, she said, sliding a business card across the sauce-flecked table. I’d like you to go and see someone. I’ve made an appointment. You can call my doctor in the morning and he’ll give you the referral.
You’ve been busy, he said.
Want something done, ask a busy person. This bloke’s good. No scented candles, no hand holding, no bullshit.
And, listen, thanks for paying the phone bill. I meant to say. You shouldn’t have.
I prefer you to be contactable. And you’re changing the subject. Will you go?
Look, I appreciate all these recommendations, Mum, but really.
I’ve fixed it. If it’s the money you’re using as an excuse.
Gemma’s boy, he’s very economical with his facial expressions. Almost affectless.
Tell me you’ll go.
I thought you were asking.
I am asking.
When an angel asks something of you, isn’t it kind of like a command?
What’re you talking about? Angels don’t have arthritis – or a thing for Leonard Cohen.
So. Guided democracy – that’s what it’s come to in the People’s Republic of Keely?
Just tell me you’ll go.
He nodded. He wondered if, strictly speaking, a nod was actual consent, whether it constituted a promise.
* * *
They washed the dishes together and cleaned up the messy remains in a wary détente. He could sense his mother stepping around him tenderly, soothing him however she could, compensating for her little moment of intervention. Keely tried to spend the intervals between neutral passages of small talk ordering his thoughts, attempting to unpick strands and settle upon one memory, one idea, a single resolution, but there was a rising, teeming noise of thoughts in him like the uproar in a rainforest at the approach of an intruder.
This boy, Doris was saying. Gemma’s grandson. How old is he?
Kai.
Kai?
I know, he said guiltily.
I spose he could be Jet.
Or Koby.
Listen to us, she said. What’s he like?
Strange, really. Smart. Very self-possessed, a bit withdrawn.
How old?
Six.
Maybe somewhere on the autism spectrum? Or just bright and lonely.
I wondered. You know, Asperger’s, something like that.
Or foetal alcohol syndrome, she said. But he wouldn’t be so bright. His mother?
Bandyup.
Drugs, I imagine.
He nodded.
The boy’ll have a caseworker, said Doris. He’ll be in the system, poor love.
He’s so serious.
So were you.
Yeah, and I turned out alright.
Has he fixed on you? This boy?
Imagine how it’s been for him.
She nodded. Please be careful, Tom. For his sake. And yours.
I am, he said. I will.
Suds splurged and gargled down the drain. Doris looked at him bravely, almost all her scepticism hidden from view.
Up close, where the sunspots and loose flesh showed, you could see she was an old woman. It never ceased to come as a shock. All the girlish hair, the sleekness and gravity. You forgot she wasn’t young anymore. She was older than, well … Julie Christie. And had she stayed in Blackboy Crescent she might have been a great-grandmother now.
Is she beautiful?
What?
Gemma. Is she beautiful?
Well, he sighed. You can certainly see she was.
Doris finished wiping down the benches and straightened the cloth too carefully for his liking.
Attractive, isn’t it, lost beauty?
Mum. Honestly.
Men like it. Gives them confidence. Then there’s the added frisson of damage. They can’t resist.
Are we looting old tutorials here or speaking from experience?
She glanced at him as if she’d been struck.
I’ll drive you to the train.
Keely got out of the lift, turned the corner and there along the gallery in a puddle of light outside his door was Gemma. He hesitated a second but it was too late. She’d seen him. And his moment of indecision. In cargo shorts and a singlet, she leant against the iron rail, sucking on a fag beneath a cloud of moths. As he tramped on towards her, she glanced up and scattered them with a savage jet of smoke.
Evening, he murmured.
She said nothing. Leant on her elbows and stared out towards the bridges. Her hands shook.
Everything alright?
On his doormat was the laptop they’d retrieved that afternoon. It felt like days ago. He gathered it up and unlocked his door.
Gemma?
Moths churned and wheeled above her. She blew them into disarray once more.
Keely went in, set the little Acer on the kitchen bench and opened the sliding door to catch whatever mucky updraught there was. He turned to see her stab the fag out against the rail and pitch the butt into the darkness.
You coming in or what?
She turned beneath her corona of moths, ran a hand through her hair and peered in at him. She came on in, but unsteadily. She was drunk. Or drugged. Or something.
Kai asleep? he asked.
I can’t get him off that bloody Nintendo.
What d’you want me to do with this? he said, pointing to the laptop.
I dunno. Set it up or whatever for Kai? Dunno nothin about em.
You want a cup of tea or something?
She shook her head.
You’re not working tonight?
What is this – quiz night? I called in crook, okay?
As she brushed by to flop into the armchair he saw how puffy her eyes were, as if she’d been crying.
Something’s happened, he said.
Let’s go for a drive.
Maybe you should tell me.
I feel like a drive, she said.
It’s late, Gem. I’m knackered. And what about Kai?
He can come too.
He’s got school. I don’t think it’s a good idea.
He’s comin, she said hotly. Don’t look at me like I’m some horrible slag. All I want’s a bloody drive in me car – is that a crime? Come or don’t come, I don’t care.
She blundered back out onto the gallery and up the way. He watched her fumble at her own door.
Leave us alone! she yelled back at him before stepping inside.
Keely retreated indoors. Alert to the prospect of a stormy return, he left the door ajar and tidied the kitchen, but she didn’t show.
He was brushing his teeth for bed when he heard Gemma’s angry shout in the distance. A door slammed. He went out onto the balcony from where a child’s wailing carried on the warm night air. Keely told himself it could be anyone’s kid. Every window in the building was open as residents courted the tepid breeze; the place was as porous as a birdcage – sounds you swore you heard next door actually boiled up from several floors below.
He went inside, uneasy but determined to get an early night. But another door thudded shut and then footfalls rang along the gallery.
Do what ya bloody told! yelled Gemma.
Keely stepped out to see her hauling the resistant boy by the arm and the sight of them struggling out there between the wall and the railing sent a ripple of fear through him. When he reached them they were both flailing
and tearful. A few doors down, from the safety of the darkness, someone threatened to call the cops. Gemma told whoever they were to get stuffed. But she gave up the car keys the moment Keely asked for them.
* * *
It wasn’t until they were past the Old Traffic Bridge and the container terminal that the boy’s rending sobs finally gave way to silence. Keely cranked down the window to let in a soothing rush of night air. He steered them along the coast, savouring the quiet, not knowing or caring where he was headed, his bewilderment and disgust gradually softened by the smells of limey sand, ocean air and saltbush. The road narrowed and wound through unlit bush reserves. The little car burped and rattled. There were sparks behind his eyes and that deep ache in his skull further back, but he tried to concentrate on the sweet feel of the wind rummaging through his shirt. In the mirror he caught the pale flutter of Gemma’s hair, the swipe of a hand blotting tears. She sat in the corner of the back seat cradling the kid. Kai seemed to have subsided into sleep.
Swanbourne, Floreat, City Beach. Gulls orbited the orange sodium lights of the northern beaches and above them the sky was starless, inky. The waterside car parks were scattered with vanloads of backpackers and partying youths hunting shadows. Every rocky groyne bristled with fishing rods and the shadows on the dimpled sand looked like moon craters.
At Scarborough he circled the roundabout beneath the ugly clock and wound slowly through the old terraces.
Christ, she said.
I know.
Why here?
It wasn’t deliberate, he said.
I’m just sayin.
I’m just driving, he said. I could be in bed, you know.
She said nothing and he caught a glimpse of her running a hand through her hair, gazing out at the old sights. Keely steered them past the tawdry strip of shops, the Norfolk pines, the kids sitting on the bonnets of their cars.
Saw a boy surfin a Torana here one night. The mudflaps were on fire.
I was there, he said.
Riot police and everythin.
Happy days!
Loved that show.
That too, he said, pulling up by the northern shower block where the coolest surfers used to hang and the stink of hash was often more pungent than the reek of piss. A couple of kids hacked up and down on skateboards. It looked desolate here now. But at this time of night perhaps it had always looked a bit bleak.
Carn then, she said. We come this far. Let’s check it out.
Check what out?
