Take a Life

by Phillip Gwynne

  But the de-questioner flew past my nose and continued on its way.

  I was able to twist my head quickly enough to see it hit its target: a huge glossy rat sitting on the top of a stack of crates. The rat squealed, staggered, and seemed to fall in slow-motion.

  Whoosh!

  Another knife – slimmer, sharper looking – passed my face, almost trimming my eyebrows, and skewered the rat just before it hit the ground.

  I turned back.

  Rocco Taverniti, standing behind his father, had this look on his face – he was pretty pleased with himself.

  And I couldn’t blame him – that was some throw!

  Old man Taverniti got off the drum, walked over to the rat, pulled both knives out and swiped them a couple of times on the side of his trousers, leaving the material smeared with fresh rat blood.

  He held out the slimmer of the weapons to his son.

  Taking the knife, Rocco flicked his wrist and this time I thought I really was a goner, that I was about to join the shish-kebabed rat on the stained concrete.

  But the knife didn’t leave his hand.

  Instead the blade disappeared into the handle with the tiniest of clunks, and he put it back into his pocket.

  He had a short conversation with his father in Calabrian before he turned to me. ‘He’s an old man, my papa. These days his tongue is loose.’

  ‘He only talks in Italian,’ I said, not wanting him to think that old man Taverniti told me anything – all the knife play had left me unnerved.

  Rocco smiled at that. ‘Calabrian, not Italian. But you’re right.’

  He then steered me back to our table, taking the opportunity to have his customary conversation with the parental units, the usual blah blah blah old-people stuff, before he went off to greet some other customers. But later, after dessert, Dad disappeared for a while and I caught a glimpse of him up at the bar, talking with Rocco.

  This conversation looked like anything but blah blah blah, however.

  As if the evening hadn’t been weird enough, later, as we drove home, Dad was in this strange, strange mood. He couldn’t stop talking; we were going to do this, we were going to do that. As we pulled into the main gate of Halcyon Grove, he even said, ‘You know what, I reckon I might even get that plane I’ve been promising myself all these years.’

  As we got out of the car I could tell from the looks that Toby and Miranda were exchanging that they had picked up the same vibe.

  But I had more pressing things to do than discuss our father’s weirdness with my siblings.

  I hurried to my room, where I transferred the mp3s from my iPhone to my computer’s hard drive.

  But how in the hell was I going to translate it?

  Yes, there was voice-recognition software available on the net, and lots of it, but I couldn’t find any that understood Calabrian. Especially not the Calabrian spoken by an old man, in a dingy lane, with cats miaowing like crazy in the background.

  I downloaded TalkTrans, an open-source program that translated spoken Italian into English and tried that, running each of the mp3s through it. And all I got was a single word: ‘gnocchi’.

  Obviously, in order to really get somewhere, I needed to find somebody who spoke Calabrian fluently.

  Dad?

  Yeah, right.

  And for sure anybody who spoke Calabrian on the Gold Coast would be connected to the Tavernitis somehow – they were that sort of family, like a mutant octopus, hundreds of tentacles creeping everywhere.

  SATURDAY

  IM-O-GEN

  Sleep; it just wasn’t going to happen. Way too much stuff going on in my head. PJ. Old man Taverniti. The final instalment.

  I tried counting sheep – that didn’t work. So I tried googling them instead. That didn’t work, either, but I sure got to see some really woolly critters.

  Then I got this idea in my sleep-deprived head that I needed to see Im-o-gen, she of the three syllables. Yes, the very same Im-o-gen who had sent me that terrible text message, and all those emails I’d been ignoring. I read the emails, and they all said basically the same thing: I didn’t mean to send that text message – we need to talk.

  So I tried texting her: hi im, you awake?

  There was no reply, but given it was after 2 am, that didn’t surprise me.

  Leave it, Dom, I told myself.

  But Dom, stubborn pig, wouldn’t leave it.

  Dom, stubborn pig, actually got out of bed, got dressed, and padded his way down the corridor.

  At ten past one in the morning you don’t really expect other family members to be awake. So when I heard noises coming from behind the closed door to Dad’s office I was pretty surprised. I was also pretty intrigued, intrigued enough to stop right next to the door and bring my ear closer to the polished wood.

  ‘I’m telling you, Roc, he’s a loose cannon,’ I heard my father say.

  There was silence, during which Roc obviously said something to my dad.

  ‘No, but something needs to be done.’

  Again silence, during which I assumed Roc was talking to Dad. There was quite a lot of silence, so there must’ve been quite a lot of talking.

  Eventually Dad said, ‘It’s for the best, Roc. Let Art take care of it.’

  I’d heard enough, and as I made my way downstairs and out of the house there was plenty to think about.

  Were they talking about old man Taverniti?

  Was he the loose cannon?

  When I reached Imogen’s house, dark and forbidding, I realised how stupid my original plan had been. Did I really think I was going to sneak into a girl’s house while she, and her mum, were sleeping?

  Hello, pervert anybody?

  I’d already decided that the best thing to do was just to go back home and go back to bed and try to sleep, when my phone beeped. The belated message from Im said: yes awake.

  I texted her back: can I see you?

  now?

  i’m outside

  ok, come through the back door

  That’s exactly what I did: ninja-ing along the side of the house, I entered through the unlocked back door. As I sneaked up the stairs, I was feeling excited. I hadn’t really seen Imogen for ages, and here I was about to slip into her bedroom in the middle of the night.

  Her bedroom with all its girl things, all its girl smells.

  I knocked softly on her door.

  There was a response from inside: ‘Come in.’

  I came in and Imogen was in her nightie, on her bed, the bedlamp throwing a soft blanket of light over her.

  And sitting cross-legged on the floor was Tristan.

  I’m sure I’d been as surprised as this before in my life, in my previous fifteen and something years, but I just couldn’t remember when.

  What the blazes was Tristan doing here?

  And more than that, what the blazes was he doing looking like he was always here, that it was normal for him to be in Imogen’s room in the middle of the night?

  And if Tristan was surprised to see me rock up like this, he certainly didn’t show it.

  ‘How you doing, matey?’ he said, reaching out his hand, going for one of those complicated sideways dude handshakes.

  I’m not sure who got it wrong, me or him, but we ended up clashing knuckles.

  ‘I’m cruisy,’ I said, not wanting Tristan to know just how cruisy I wasn’t.

  I noticed now that there was a huge version of that photo from her desktop, the one of her dad taken after the election victory, spread over the floor. And there were papers with lists of names, which I guessed was the stuff Joyless Joy Wheeler had sent her.

  The faces in the photo were highlighted in yellow or green highlighter, and I wondered what those colours meant.

  I studied them closer, and realised that I knew one of them – the green-highlighted man just to the right of Mr Havilland was a younger version of Art Tabori.

  Tristan must’ve noticed me looking, because he said, ‘We’re getting closer.’
/>   We’re getting closer?

  ‘Tristan’s been a great help,’ explained Imogen.

  There are certain one-celled animals that have more brain power than Tristan Jazy – how could he possibly have been a great help?

  If anybody had been a great help, it was me – I was the one who had blackmailed Joyless Joy into sending Imogen that material.

  There’s more stuff, I wanted to tell her. In fact I’ve got a hard disk full of it! But how to possibly explain that? Explain why I hadn’t sent it to her earlier?

  No, I needed something better, bigger, less complicated, more spectacular.

  ‘I know who that is,’ I said, pointing to the face I had recognised the blown-up photo.

  ‘Arturo Tabori,’ said Tristan. ‘Born in Siderno, Italy in 1952. Immigrated to Australia in 1974, and –’ ‘Yes, okay,’ I said, talking over him. ‘You’re obviously all over it.’

  Imogen gave me a look, a look I know well – Play nicely, you two!

  I scanned the faces again, concentrating on those highlighted in yellow. Something better, bigger, less complicated, more spectacular.

  But then Imogen yawned in a theatrical sort of way.

  I was the first to pick up on the cue. Looking at my watch I said, ‘Well, I guess it’s time to go home. We can talk at another time, eh?’

  Tristan also looked at his watch, but said nothing.

  Now I felt like an idiot – I’d just committed myself to leaving and Tristan hadn’t. But surely Imogen wouldn’t let him stay here, would she? It was almost 2 am!

  I stood up.

  Again, Tristan didn’t shift.

  Surely.

  I thought about saying something, something along the lines of: We better let Im get some shuteye, or Tristan, old chap, there’s something private I’d like to discuss with you on the way out.

  But they sounded so absolutely naff I knew I couldn’t.

  I had no choice, I was committed to leaving, and Tristan wasn’t. So I said goodbye to both of them and traipsed down the stairs, one agonising step at a time.

  It was only when I’d reached the door that something occurred to me.

  I retraced my steps.

  Re-knocked on the door.

  ‘Dominic?’ came the reply.

  I pushed it open and – relief! – they were in exactly the same position as when I’d left them.

  Imogen looked at me, a look of puzzlement and anger.

  I had no choice.

  ‘I can identify another one of those people for you,’ I said.

  ‘You can?’ said Imogen.

  Tristan scoffed at that. ‘Really,’ he said. ‘Then why didn’t you tell us that before?’

  Though the question had come from Tristan, in possession of less brain power than certain single-celled organisms, it was actually a reasonable one – it deserved a reasonable answer.

  I looked at Imogen – I would like to say that I looked into her eyes, but her eyes were impenetrable – and said, ‘Because I was scared.’

  ‘Scared of what?’ said Tristan.

  I couldn’t quite believe that all this was getting played out in front of Tristan, of all people.

  I looked at Imogen – the same question was on her face – Scared of what?

  ‘My father was a member of the Labor Party,’ I said, and then I pointed to the obscured face in the photo, to the ear and curve of jaw that was highlighted yellow. ‘That’s him right there.’

  TUESDAY

  FIRST DAY OF THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR

  Mom dropped Toby and me off and suddenly we were in the middle of it, the craziness that was the first day of the new school year. There were kids gang-tackling other kids, desperate to tell them what a great/average/ crap holiday they’d had. There were the new Year 7s, lost in their two-sizes-too-big uniforms, giving their mums one last lingering hug before they were chewed up by the monster that is high school. And there were the newly promoted seniors, the Year 12s, swaggering around, looking for the right target to terrorise.

  And there was me, making slowly for the gates, thinking the same thing I’d thought for weeks: when was I going to get the last instalment? Here we were, school had already started, and I only had those five letters branded on my thigh.

  It really did feel like my life was on hold until The Debt had been repaid.

  There was a thump of footsteps from behind, and Tristan appeared at my side, towering over me, putting his very heavy arm around my shoulders.

  ‘So maybe you’ve got some more stuff for Im?’ he said.

  If he was going to persist in calling Imogen by my name for her I had to come up with something else, something that proved I was inner circle and he wasn’t.

  ‘Well, actually I’ve got quite a lot of stuff, but I just need to find it on my hard disk.’

  Any normal person would come up with a whole lot of questions: what stuff? Where did you get it?

  Not Tristan, however.

  ‘Okay, mate,’ he said. ‘But how about you put some effort in? Me and Im, we’re on fire these days.’ He then made some very unnecessary smooching noises. ‘I practically sucked her face right off her head the other night.’

  Even if he was lying – which of course, he was – I still wanted to pretty much punch his head right off his shoulders.

  ‘First base only,’ said Tristan, utilising a really unnecessary sporting analogy. ‘If you play your part, I reckon we’ll be hitting a homer before the end of the term.’

  After I’d pretty much punched his head right off his shoulders, I imagined it rolling along the ground. And then – what fun! – some Year 7s playing soccer with it, smashing it into the back of the net!

  With that, Tristan took off.

  As I walked through the gates, Coach was waiting for me.

  Okay, maybe she wasn’t waiting for me, maybe she just happened to be standing there and I happened to be walking through. Maybe. But unlikely.

  She was waiting for me.

  ‘Coach?’ I said.

  ‘Champ,’ she said, though that word sounded as hollow as the cicadas I sometimes found on our front lawn; I hadn’t run competitively for months now. ‘You ready to start training again?’

  I looked at Coach standing there, and the lines that furrowed her brow seemed even deeper than they had been last year.

  I remembered the story she’d told me, how she’d been a top-rated runner, but for some reason her career had gone nowhere. I even remembered what she had said then: There’s not a day that passes when I don’t think about it; when I don’t imagine what I could’ve bloody well been.

  Every now and then it had occurred to me that what The Debt was doing, above everything else, was taking me away from what I really loved in the world. And when I put everything else aside – the doctored photo, Mrs Jenkins, all that stuff – what was left was one truth: I loved running. So why let them take that from me?

  ‘I’m ready,’ I said.

  It was as easy as that – I was running again.

  The next person I ran into was Mr Ryan, dressed as usual in chinos with creases so sharp you could slice cucumbers with them.

  ‘Hi, Mr Ryan,’ I said.

  This time I really did think he just happened to be there, because he had nothing in particular to say except, ‘Welcome back, Dominic.’ And after that, ‘How’s your dad going?’

  ‘He’s good,’ I said, and then I made my way to the classroom.

  My Year 10 class wasn’t that different to my Year 9 class: Tristan was in it, and Bevan Milne, that bit of a turd, was in it, and Charles Bonthron was in it. No surprises there.

  But when I saw who else was in it, I was pretty shocked.

  ‘Rashid!’ I said.

  After he’d run in Afghani colours in the World Youth Games I guess I thought he’d have to live in Afghanistan now. Maybe even join the Taliban. Obviously not.

  ‘That was some race in Rome!’ he said, his voice full of excitement.

  ‘Yeah, you were awesome,’
I said, and I really meant it.

  ‘But you still recorded the best time,’ he said. ‘Four minutes exact.’

  Only Rashid would remember somebody else’s time.

  ‘I’ll see you at training,’ I said.

  We had the same home teacher as last year: Mr Travers.

  He looked at me. I looked at him. He was about to say something, but he bit his tongue. We both knew that I wasn’t going to forget what he’d posted on Facebook.

  ‘Back at the moron factory, then?’ I said, keeping my voice low.

  He glared at me, but that’s all he did – they were short and they were curly and I had a handful of his.

  There was the usual first day of term housekeeping, and then it was time for a welcome assembly.

  We all filed into the Great Hall, took our seats. So far, so last year. But I guess it was sort of cool to be closer to the back now, to the seniors and their swagger.

  Mr Cranbrook looked the same as usual in his Italian suit. Sounded the same as usual with the care he gave to pronounce every syllable clearly. And if the speech he gave wasn’t the same as last year’s it was pretty darned close. Yes, Coast Grammar had a responsibility to every boy here. But likewise every boy here had a responsibility to Coast Grammar, to live up to the example that its former students had set. It was all about rights and it was all about responsibility.

  Like Thor? I wondered, thinking of the former dux of the school who was now an eco-terrorist.

  ‘And this year,’ Mr Cranbrook enunciated, ‘we would like to welcome quite a number of overseas students to our school, a record total I believe.’

  Some lukewarm applause.

  Mr Cranbrook continued, ‘If those students would like to stand up, we can all have a better look at you.’

  The overseas students stood up. I wouldn’t say Coast Grammar was a racist place, but put it this way: if you didn’t surf, nobody really trusted you. And the blonder your hair, the more chance there was that you surfed.

  ‘Come on, Coast Grammar, surely we can do better than that,’ said Mr Cranbrook, switching into jolly mode. ‘A big round of applause for our overseas students!’

  The applause was probably much warmer and much luker than before, but I wasn’t really in much of a state to notice. Because standing just across the aisle from me was Droopy Eye.