by Ben Hobson
On the front doorstep William Kelly appeared more haggard than usual. His face fell as he beheld Vernon. ‘Bloody hell, mate.’ He stepped inside, put his arm around his friend’s waist and helped him back to the couch. Vernon’s first instinct was to shrug him off but he refused to follow it.
He was laid back on the couch. William Kelly walked down the hallway and there came the sound of a tap being turned on. He returned with a wet face washer from the bathroom. ‘Here. Get at your face a bit.’
‘Where do I need to clean?’
‘All of it.’
The warm water soothed a small amount of the pain. Vernon could feel, as he gently dabbed at his face, some of the pain renew. Droplets of fresh blood on the cloth. William sat beside him, looking at his face.
‘There’s a huge cut on this side.’
‘Yeah.’
‘She hit you?’
‘What does it look like?’
‘Ugh,’ William said, wincing like he’d eaten something foul. ‘It’s all purple, up to your forehead.’
‘It feels numb,’ Vernon said. He dabbed at his face again and then looked at William. ‘Where did you get to?’
‘Ah, mate. I fought to stay but she tossed me out. Forced me out. I kept coming back through the night to check on you, see if I could get in. Just saw her again this morning and she said she’d dropped you here. And she said I’d better look in on you.’ He shook his head and sniffed, wiped his hand across his nose.
‘You crying?’
‘Shut up.’
‘Big bloody girl.’
This made Kelly grin, laugh a little. ‘Least I wasn’t beaten by one.’
‘She gave as good as any bloke. She’s working for Cahill.’
‘Yeah,’ Kelly said. ‘I know.’
‘You knew?’
‘Of course she is. It wouldn’t surprise me if they all were.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Yeah. Yeah.’ Kelly put his head in his hands a moment. ‘You want me to call Doc Wilkie?’
‘I suppose you better.’
He didn’t move, though. ‘What do you aim to do?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are you going to go back out there?’
He nodded. Kelly held both his eyes. Vernon said, ‘I got nothing, mate. Nothing. They hold all the cards. The one thing I did have was that car and I didn’t even want it. I just want my boy left alone. They said they’d lay off him, but there’s no certainty to it. A promise from a thief’s as good as a fart in a windstorm.’
‘You still haven’t answered the question.’
‘What do I aim to do?’
Bill nodded.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Can I get you something?’
‘Can you go and call the doctor?’
‘Oh, right.’ His friend stood, went to the kitchen, picked up the receiver. Vernon looked at the empty television set and was struck by how normal his life had seemed just a week ago. A useless thought best left alone.
‘He’s coming now,’ Bill said when he came back.
‘What time is it?’
‘It’s about eight.’
‘He’s at it early.’
‘I have his home number.’ His friend grinned. ‘You know it’s Good Friday?’
‘Is it?’
‘Can I tell you what I think?’
‘Sure.’
‘I think you need to forgive the Cahills for what they did.’
Vernon winced. ‘I’m supposed to forgive them? For what they did to Caleb? For this?’ His hands swept up and down his body, pointed at his temple.
‘I know about this stuff, alright? You said it yourself: you don’t have any power here. So I’m saying you need to walk up there and say you’re sorry.’
‘And they’ll just forget? After what I did to that kid?’
‘I don’t want you hurt, believe me. But how they respond is on them. What’s more important, morally, is that you do the right thing.’
‘Even when nothing good will come of it?’
‘You doing something good, even if nothing good comes of it, is still good. It is.’
Vernon coughed a few times, which sent spikes through his temple again, and deep into the base of his skull. He groaned once more. ‘It’s all useless, mate. You’ve got it wrong. You said the other night that things have purpose.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘You did.’
‘No. I mean, I do think that. But I think I said that good and evil exist.’
‘Anyway. It doesn’t matter. Because they don’t. Just a bunch of awful things happen and then you die. That’s how it is. I do something good and my son still gets beaten? That’s not how it should work.’
Kelly said. ‘I’d do anything to stop that.’
‘Yeah, well, that’s what I tried to do.’ Vernon looked away.
‘You know what the worst thing is about good and evil existing?’ William said, his voice soft. ‘It means your actions have consequences. You don’t just exist unto yourself. You have a weight. What you do matters. You did, in your own way, exactly what Brendan did. He’s trying to correct your son with his fists. You tried doing it with your absence. You blame Brendan for his actions, yet never seem to turn around and look at your own. Can you blame him? I agree he needs a good wallop around the ears, but at least he’s trying. He’s trying to do something good.’
Vernon said nothing. Then, ‘Ministers shouldn’t talk like that.’
‘There need to be consequences for sin, mate. And don’t give me that. We too often just sweep things under the rug. Forgive does not mean the same as forget. Love can be correction, too. True love, not some simpering greeting card. True love fights for things. Brendan is wayward and he needs to be set right and the one thing that boy has felt all his life is a set of fists. He’s sticking up for Mel. He’s just doing it wrong. We need to show him a different way.’
‘So, not a literal wallop?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t want to show him anything.’
‘Well, there’s nothing else you can do right now, is there.’
Vernon looked his friend in his old eyes and said, ‘I have to make him stop.’
‘Yeah. You do. But you need to try something different. Look at you. Look at your son. Your ways haven’t exactly worked out for you so far, have they?’
‘I’m just an old man. I don’t know any different.’
‘Don’t give me that self-pity.’
‘Mate,’ Vernon said. He felt close to tears. ‘I can’t keep letting them hit him. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Tell you what,’ William said, leaning forward once more. His hands were clasped together before him and there was a wounded pride in his eyes that instilled something into Vernon. ‘If you go up there and apologise, you do the right thing, and Brendan still doesn’t stop? He hits your boy one more time? Then, when the time comes, I’ll be right there with you in the mud.’
SEVENTEEN
SHARON WORNKIN
Exiting the car, she found herself incapable of movement. Her shoes felt heavy, like they’d suddenly filled with water. She sank back into the seat, struggling to breathe. It felt like something was pinning her to the seat. Like a phantom in the back was wrenching on her seatbelt, constricting her lungs.
She looked at her shoes. Remembered them hitting the old man in his chest, the weight beneath collapsing with each kick. It hadn’t taken much. Like stepping on a snail, the old man’s old bones now much the same. There was nothing to him.
Vernon had had trouble getting up his steps. His walk had been awful. She almost cried thinking about it. Maybe he was dead. She’d have to send somebody around besides William Kelly to check on him.
With shaking hands, she gripped the wheel and rested her forehead on it. She pressed in hard, wanting to hurt herself. Her shaking hands shaking the wheel, her forehead shaking, her teeth were grinding. A low moan escaped her throat. She wouldn’
t have been surprised if the car transformed into some beast, her rage manifested in mechanical form. In her mind her rage was far more powerful than impotent. But impotent it was.
When she finally got out of the car the morning sun over the horizon welcomed her. She walked up the path to Jack’s house, which was just like the rest in Port Napier, the same dirt lining the pathway, the same flowers embedded beside the house, though his had seen better days. She knocked on the door. She wondered briefly what Roger was doing. Still sleeping when she’d left him. He wouldn’t be up this early.
Jack answered the door in his dressing gown, blinking in the daylight.
‘Yeah? What’s going on?’ he asked, his face still a clouded bruise.
‘I need you to come with me,’ she found herself saying. Her hands were still shaking.
‘Are you serious?’ he said, looking down at his dressing gown. ‘I just worked yesterday with my face and neck feeling like they were stepped on. I should be getting worker’s comp or something. And you’ve got me coming in again later on.’
‘You don’t even need to get changed,’ she said. Anger at herself for trying to appease him. For once she’d like to walk around and just feel good about herself.
Jack sighed, looked back inside his house. Sharon knew there was nobody to miss him, that Jack’s wife Ruth and unborn kid had left that day to visit her folks in Berrambool for Easter. He hadn’t shut up about it.
‘Why’ve you got your home car? And you’re not in uniform?’
Because she didn’t want people noticing her retrieving Ernie’s car.
Instead of the truth she said, ‘I’m not working right now, just tying up something.’
‘I’m bringing beer,’ Jack said.
‘Bit early, isn’t it?’
Jack scoffed, turned back inside. It took him a minute to put on some pants, the dressing gown still tied around his waist as he exited and locked his home.
It didn’t take long to reach the fork in the road, past the cemetery. Neither of them spoke. Sharon turned left, found the boat turn-off.
‘What’re we doing?’ Jack finally asked. He swigged his beer.
They turned down the dirt road. The boat ramp and the river before them a slurping mess of brown. Weed and debris floating the length of it.
‘We’re collecting the car,’ Sharon said. She drove slowly, looking for Ernie’s car.
‘Why?’
‘It’s stolen, Jack. Need to retrieve it, return it to the owner.’
‘Stolen by who?’
‘That old man I brought in yesterday.’
‘Vernon Moore? The woodwork teacher?’
Sharon nodded. She meandered around the boat ramp and soon found the car. Front all banged up.
‘According to the witness,’ she said. ‘And Vernon also confessed to it.’
She didn’t turn the engine off.
Jack said, ‘So I’m driving your car back?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
‘If I did, would it matter?’
Sharon made no response to this.
‘You have keys to this thing?’ Jack said, nodding in the direction of Ernie’s car.
She nodded. They both got out of her car and Jack walked around, sat in the driver’s seat. ‘Take it back to the station,’ she said. ‘I’ll follow you and then drop you home.’
‘I’ll wait to make sure you’re okay, then,’ he said, each word dripping resentment. He shut the door.
She got into Ernie’s car and reached over to the backseat. Opened one of the cardboard boxes, pulled out a tomato paste jar, found the weed. She kept her hands low but Jack didn’t seem to be watching. The product was probably all here, Vernon wouldn’t have taken any. She took a moment to check that all the boxes were full. The old man had been telling the truth.
You would’ve told the truth too, she thought, if you’d been so kicked so hard you’d been left bleeding. She wondered if his dignity had been hurt, her being a woman. Probably didn’t matter to him. Being made to feel completely powerless feels the same no matter who’s dealing the damage. That was the word too: powerless. She knew what that was like.
She started the car. Jack raised his hand to his forehead to form a visor. As she backed out, the sweeping arc of sun over the river made it look like it was illuminated from within, like a thousand luminescent fish had grouped together and spilled over onto the muddy banks. She drove up the dirt track and made her way back to the station.
Back home, Roger still in bed. He’d been in bed asleep when she’d returned home the night before. Still asleep now. She clenched her fists and winced at the sores on the back of them reopening as she stood in the bedroom. Had she struck the old man with her fists? She took off her clothes, returned to her pyjamas, put on her slippers, dressing gown, and went into the kitchen. No Aerobics Oz Style for her today.
She put bread in the toaster, spread the butter thick, the Vegemite thin. She was about to start eating when she heard a loud knock on the door. She hurried to open it.
Jack was on her doorstep. He was still in his dressing gown, though his face had changed. His eyes were rid-rimmed.
‘I got something I need to say to you.’
‘Keep your voice down, okay?’ she said, worried they’d be overheard. She heard Peter shuffling from his bedroom. Then his lethargic figure appeared.
‘Who’s at the door?’
‘It’s just Jack.’
‘You know your mum’s a liar?’ Jack asked, craning over to project his voice around Sharon’s body.
‘What?’ Peter’s eyes lost their lethargy as he focused on the man on the doorstep.
Having her son stand beside her gave Sharon no comfort. ‘He’s just joking,’ she said. ‘Aren’t you, Jack? Come on, let’s go for a drive and talk about it.’
‘No, I’ve been thinking, Sarge. I’m done. I didn’t know it for sure before, but I know it for sure now. That was Cahill’s car we collected. You think I didn’t see you looking at the little baggies in the jars?’
She felt her shoulders slumping.
Peter said, ‘What are you on about?’
‘You don’t have anything to say then?’ Jack asked. A wonder Roger wasn’t up with the noise. ‘I won’t dob you in, because I don’t dob on people. I’m not that sort of bloke. But I’m bloody tempted. I really am.’
She didn’t know how to respond to that.
‘Those blokes the other night making me spew on myself were part of it too, weren’t they. The blokes that did this.’ He pointed a finger at his purpled cheek.
So. He’d been made to feel powerless, too.
‘Let’s go for a drive,’ she said quietly.
But Jack just walked away. He had left his car running in front of the picket fence. He opened the gate and walked to it.
Sharon shouted, ‘Wait. Aren’t you working later today? It’s Good Friday, it’s all hands on deck.’
‘Do it yourself.’
Jack slammed his door and made a lazy half-circle. Sharon watched the car go, not daring to turn to her son. Jack had to stop at the end of the street to give way and in that moment she wanted to go after him, justify herself to him. But there was nothing to justify what she’d done. She could only watch as the car turned right.
Sharon shut the door. Peter was seated in his customary spot at the kitchen bench. Her forgotten toast cold nearby. She grabbed the plate, upended it into the bin, turned on the tap to wash it clean of crumbs.
‘What was he talking about?’ Peter asked.
‘He was just being an idiot.’
‘If you don’t want to talk about it you can just say so. But don’t treat me like I’m a little kid.’
Sharon didn’t feel like eating now. Didn’t feel like doing anything.
‘Ernie Cahill pays me to keep his business in Newbury to himself.’
Peter looked up. ‘Pays you what?’
‘A couple of hundred extra a week.’
‘Is that how Dad got hi
s new ute? And goes on those fishing trips?’
Sharon nodded. ‘A bit of it, yeah.’
‘And you what? Just don’t arrest him?’
‘Something like that.’
‘So, the weed and all that?’
Sharon was silent for a moment. ‘I thought you didn’t know about that. But yeah. Your dad thought it best to go along with it.’
Peter laughed then. The sound shocked her.
‘Dad has nothing to do with it.’
She went to defend herself, but the words wouldn’t form in her mouth. She knew how wrong they would be. No matter what had prompted her actions they had still been hers.
‘Yeah. Maybe,’ she said.
‘You really don’t care about anything anymore, do you?’ Peter asked.
‘I care about you.’
‘No, you don’t. You don’t even care about yourself. You’re just a sad woman who doesn’t care.’
The words pierced something in her, making her bleed internally, from a place long dormant, that she’d thought immune to wounding.
‘It’s like that exercise you do in front of the TV,’ he said, finishing his cereal. He left the bowl and spoon on the bench. ‘It’s useless. Just makes you sweat a little. But it’s just nothing. It’s not working hard.’
‘Come on, Peter––’
‘You know what? I’ll be glad when I’m out of here. You and Dad …’ He stopped, perhaps seeing the hurt in her eyes. Then, ‘You know I tried some?’
‘Some weed?’
‘Yeah. I smoked a bit with Cassie.’
‘Well,’ she said. ‘I guess you’re eighteen now, you can do that sort of thing.’
‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Peter said. ‘Shouldn’t you give a shit that I smoked pot, Mum? And not just because it’s illegal? Isn’t that something mums care about? Shouldn’t you say something? Lock me in my room?’
‘What good would that do?’
‘At least then I’d know you care.’
Sharon watched him go to the cupboard and retrieve the cereal, pour himself another bowl. She watched the milk dribble down his chin, burrowing its way through his patchy stubble. He wiped it off with the back of his hand and looked for all the world like his father. His hair longer than she remembered him liking it. It dangled near his eyes.
