Take a Life

by Phillip Gwynne

  THURSDAY

  AND THE BEAT GOES ON

  I didn’t want to go home, to either of them: Gus’s or my parents’. So I cycled down to the beach, practising riding with no hands, hands folded across my chest.

  I chained Treadly up and ordered a chicken kebab – ‘dizzy meat’ Toby calls it – from a kebab joint.

  ‘So you’ve never been to Dreamworld?’ said the man serving.

  ‘Nah, but I’d really love to one day,’ I said. See, Coach Sheeds, that’s how it’s done.

  ‘What sauce you want?’ he asked.

  ‘What sauce you got?’

  ‘Hommos, yoghurt, tomato, hot chilli, sweet chilli.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said.

  ‘You want all of them?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He didn’t blink an eyelid, just gave my kebab a decent squirt of each. As I was paying, the sound of drums came from outside.

  ‘Hell, here we go again,’ he said. ‘Ooga booga time.’

  I got stuck into the kebab – the sweet chilli might have been one sauce too many – and wandered onto the beach. I could see the drummers, a circle of maybe twenty or so of them, sitting on the sand. They had that Byron Bay look: half-tribal, half-hippie, lots of dreadlocks, natural fibres, bare feet.

  The music made me stop; they were really good, this mob, not the usual drugged-out hippies making a din. Their music was disciplined: intricate, layered but powerful, the vibration thrumming through my body.

  As I finished the last of my kebab, three girls, dressed in short shorts and bikini tops, appeared, spinning firesticks in unison. As I got closer I realised that I knew one of them: it was PJ!

  I had this enormous feeling of guilt – I’d actually considered killing her brother! Followed by this equally enormous feeling of relief – now I wouldn’t have to.

  My eyes didn’t let go of her, following her every sinuous move as she twirled and whirled to the beat. When they’d finished, their firesticks extinguished, I walked over to where she was standing.

  ‘PJ,’ I said.

  She looked up at me, her face smudged with charcoal, and broke into a smile. ‘Dom!

  ‘Not Grammar Boy?’ I said.

  ‘Nah, not tonight,’ she said. ‘Love your threads, by the way.’

  Somehow I’d forgotten the clothes I was wearing, clothes that were ludicrous to begin with, but were now stained with sweat from my battle with Seb.

  ‘That was awesome,’ I said, even though I never call anything ‘awesome’.

  PJ did a little bow.

  ‘Totally awesome,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘We get gigs every now and then around the place.’

  ‘So you’ve actually got a job?’

  ‘Yeah, but the superannuation’s rubbish.’

  Good joke; I laughed.

  ‘Come on,’ she said, pulling me by the hand. ‘Let’s sit down.’

  I didn’t really have much choice; I joined the circle of dirty ferals. A central lantern threw a flickering light over their faces, their flashing hands. I could feel the pressure of PJ’s thigh against mine; the beat got faster; occasionally somebody would say something like ‘Yeah!’ or ‘Oh!’ and then it came to an end.

  ‘You want to have a drum?’ said PJ.

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Yes, you do,’ she said, taking a drum and putting it between my legs. ‘You just don’t know it yet, that’s all.’ She showed me how to hold my fingers. Where on the drum to hit.

  But when the music started up, when PJ started drumming, my hands remained in my lap. What if I mucked it up? What if I got it wrong?

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Just listen then, get the beat.’

  It was pretty good advice and I did just that, sat there on the sand, PJ’s thigh pressing against mine, and let the sound pulse through me.

  A bottle of Jim Beam was being passed around but I just handed it on. I concentrated on watching PJ’s fingers as they tapped away. And I realised that she wasn’t doing anything too complicated, that she was just following a basic pattern. I looked up at the other drummers in the circle, the light flickering on their faces. They all looked so friendly, even the unfriendly ones looked friendly – maybe PJ was right, maybe they wouldn’t rouse on me if – when – I mucked it up.

  I gave the drum a tentative tap with my right hand. Followed by another with my left.

  None of the other drummers jumped and exclaimed, ‘He’s wrecked it!’ None of them even looked over at me. Except for PJ – she threw me an encouraging smile.

  I tried again, left hand then right hand, remembering PJ’s advice as to where to hit the drum. Again, nothing from the other drummers. Right hand, left hand, right hand – I settled into a simple rhythm. But then a pang of deep guilt – I had an instalment to pay, a sting to organise, and here I was, bashing at a drum.

  And, as if to rub this in, my phone beeped. I checked it. It was only Gus.

  all good?

  I sent him a quick reply and returned to my drumming.

  But, suddenly, silence. I’m not sure what the signal was, or whether there even was a signal, but everybody seemed to cease playing at exactly the same time.

  Everybody except me.

  My beat kept going, so anaemic, so pathetic, without the accompanying drums, until I, too, stopped.

  ‘Ciggie break,’ said PJ, which didn’t really make sense because a lot of the drummers had been smoking while they drummed.

  Somebody picked up a guitar and began strumming.

  ‘Bloody government’s no bloody good,’ said somebody else. That seemed like a pretty popular opinion, everybody agreeing that the bloody government was no bloody good. And then there was a discussion on the various ways the government was no good.

  ‘The Zolt’s the only one standing up to them,’ somebody said.

  Really, I thought.

  Again, there was almost unanimous agreement – the Zolt was obviously some sort of folk hero here. They continued talking about the Zolt, according him almost superhuman qualities.

  Hey, he’s just a tall, skinny kid with a squeaky voice who tends to crash-land planes, I wanted to tell them.

  ‘Pigs!’ PJ muttered.

  I’d been so absorbed in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed the police officers – two men, one young, one old.

  They’re just doing their job, I thought.

  ‘Okay, time to go home,’ one of them said. And tonight their job was to stop some people drumming on the beach.

  ‘But we weren’t doing anything,’ I heard myself saying. PJ elbowed me in the ribs – keep your mouth shut!

  The older police officer clapped his hands. ‘You heard, party’s finished!’

  Despite PJ’s quite pointy elbow in the ribs, I repeated what I’d said, more loudly this time. The police officer moved towards me, taking out a pad and a pen. He had a real old-style cop’s head.

  ‘So what’s your name?’ he demanded.

  ‘Dominic,’ I said.

  ‘And do you have a surname, Dominic?’

  ‘Sure, it’s Silvagni,’ I said.

  The police officer stopped writing. ‘As in David Silvagni?’

  ‘That’s my father,’ I said.

  The police officer said nothing, just closed his pad and moved away. As the other cop tried to move people on, I noticed that he was on his phone. A minute or so later my phone rang.

  I answered.

  It was Mom. And she wasn’t happy.

  ‘What are you doing on the beach this time of the night?’ she said.

  I was just about to get all defensive, to try to manufacture a plausible excuse, when I realised that I didn’t have to – I didn’t even live under the same roof as her any more. ‘Having a pretty cool time,’ I said.

  ‘And what time are you getting back to Gus’s?’

  ‘Hey, maybe not at all,’ I said, but then I realised what an a-hole I was being. ‘It’s fine, Mom, I’m fine.’

  A pause, and she said
, ‘Just keep your phone on, alright? And any problem, you ring.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, thinking I’d got out of that relatively unscathed. But when I thought about it, Mom had always been that sort of parent: take responsibility for your actions, that sort of thing.

  I hung up and PJ said, ‘I guess the party’s over.’

  ‘I guess so,’ I said. ‘Do you want a ride home or anything?’

  ‘You got a car?’

  ‘No, a pushie.’

  ‘Sure, why not?’ she said, laughing.

  PJ was so small it was very easy to dink her; she sat on the handlebars, keeping her legs straight out in front.

  ‘Preacher’s?’ I said.

  ‘Nah, we’ve moved up a bit in the world,’ she said. ‘The Spit.’

  ‘Really?’ I said, thinking they must’ve found some place near the breakwater, one of those old sheds maybe.

  It was really straightforward to get there – I just followed the cycle path all the way along the coast. As I did, something like, derr! occurred to me: how come some growly old cop had my dad’s phone number?

  ‘Dom?’ said PJ.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I just wanted to say thanks for springing me the other day.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘It was nothing.’ Though having a gun pointed at you, the trigger pulled, even if it is a cigarette lighter, is never nothing.

  That’s when I stacked it. It wasn’t anything major, I hit a patch of sand and sort of lost control and the bike clipped one of those exercise station things and we both ended up on the lawn, a tangle of my Treadly and our limbs.

  ‘Oh, hell, are you okay, PJ? I’m so sorry, so sorry.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, and then her hand was on my face and then her face was next to my face and her lips were on my lips and we were kissing.

  I felt guilty – wasn’t Imogen the one that I wanted? – but when I thought of her and Tristan and all that sucking face the guilt went right away.

  The kiss lasted for … several epochs … before she broke away and said, ‘Come on, let’s continue this somewhere a bit more comfy.’

  What, like an oily shed? I thought, but I soon gave that thought the treatment it deserved and trashed it. I didn’t care where we went, as long as I was with her. As long as I got to kiss her again. And again. And again.

  ‘We can walk from here,’ she said.

  I pushed Treadly with one hand and held her hand with the other. It felt warm, slightly moist; her pulse was surprisingly strong. We came to the street where I’d gone searching for Toby that night, the street with all the posh houses.

  ‘You better leave your pushie there,’ she said, pointing to a fence. I chained it up.

  ‘Keep right behind me,’ she said.

  I wasn’t sure what was going to happen, but I had a fair idea it wasn’t going to be entirely legal. But really, who was I to talk?

  PJ hurried across the street, stopping in front of a large two-storey house surrounded by a high stone wall with a heavy iron gate. It wasn’t Halcyon Grove, but it wasn’t far off. How did she intend to get in there?

  Quite easily, actually. First looking around to make sure nobody was watching, she took a key from her pocket and unlocked the iron gate. We both slipped inside.

  ‘Whose place is this?’ I said.

  ‘The Bonthrons’,’ she said. ‘They go skiing in Aspen for two months every year.’

  I sort of knew them; they were Charles’s uncle and aunty.

  ‘CCTV?’ I said.

  ‘Sorted.’

  ‘So Brandon’s inside?’

  ‘Probably watching DVDs; that’s all he ever does. We don’t have to take any notice of him,’ she said, squeezing my hand.

  The front door of the house was open. I wasn’t sure if Mr and Mr Bonthron were richer than my parents, but even with the lights off, I could see how much stuff they had, rich people’s stuff.

  I could also see the flicker of a TV from another room. Hear the biff and bang of the soundtrack – obviously an action movie.

  PJ squeezed my hand. ‘I’ll just check on Brandon, make sure he’s okay,’ she said, her voice trailing off as she walked towards where the light was flickering.

  I couldn’t quite believe where I was, and what I was doing. The risk I was taking – this had nothing to do with The Debt. But was that just the wimp in me talking?

  In a few seconds she would be here again.

  Kissing again.

  Somewhere more comfy.

  Then came a scream that tore the night apart.

  And PJ was standing at the entrance, the light from the TV on her face. ‘Brandon killed himself!’

  ‘No!’

  I followed PJ back into the room. Brandon was sprawled face-down on the floor, and beside him were empty prescription pill containers.

  ‘He always said he would do it,’ stammered PJ. ‘He always said he’d get there before Paris Hilton did.’

  I knelt next to him, and straightaway I could see that he wasn’t dead.

  That he was breathing, his chest rising and falling. ‘He’s alive,’ I said, taking out my phone, hitting zero, zero – but then stopping.

  ‘They won’t believe me,’ I said, remembering that they had my number on their database as a potential nuisance caller. ‘You call.’

  PJ ran over and grabbed the cordless. Dialled triple-O.

  And then it hit me, what I had to do.

  ‘PJ, I can’t be here when the cops come,’ I said, and already I was on the move. ‘Text me.’

  ‘Sure thing, Grammar,’ she said, and I knew exactly what she was thinking: it was my reputation I was protecting. I had no time to explain to her, even if I could. I just couldn’t afford to get involved with the cops, not when the sting was organised for tomorrow. Instead I raced out of there, back through the iron gate. As I was unchaining my bike the ambulance pulled up, lights flashing. Nobody saw me, though, and I rode off into the dark.

  The first text arrived just as I braked outside Gus’s house.

  b ok

  I sent a text back. that’s great

  PJ replied: gold coast public ward 2d if you want to visit

  I walked inside to find Gus sitting at the kitchen table, reading a running magazine. He looked me up and down: the garish Dreamworld clothes, the sand on my feet, the burn on my hand, and said two words, ‘Big night?’

  ‘Biggish,’ I said.

  FRIDAY

  STUNG

  I thought I’d keep it as normal as possible, so I rocked up to work the next day. As I went to carry Treadly up the stairs Ratface Ponytail yelled out, ‘Eh!’

  ‘Yeah?’ I said in reply.

  ‘Bike,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ I replied, figuring that since he’d started the monosyllabic stuff I wasn’t going to change it.

  ‘Money,’ he said, shifting into the exciting world of polysyllables.

  ‘Deposit,’ I said, seeing his two and raising him by one.

  ‘Not enough,’ he said.

  Ha – you cracked, Ratface Ponytail, not me. I win. ‘But I thought the deposit was what the bike’s worth.’

  ‘Do I look like I came down in the last rain?’ he said. ‘That machine’s worth at least a hundred bucks.’

  ‘I’ll give you sixty for it.’

  ‘Eighty.’

  ‘Seventy.’

  ‘Seventy-five.’

  ‘Deal.’

  I paid the extra twenty-five dollars and the bike was officially mine. That was, until next week when some kid on the street would recognise his crap paint job and say, ‘Hey, there’s my bike that got stolen from the shed!’

  As soon as I sat at my desk, people started arriving. Nitmick. Guzman. Snake. Lazarus brothers. I wasn’t sure if they all really did need to go to the toilet, or if they needed an excuse to say hello to me, but during the next half-hour or so every one of the associates made noisy use of the men’s amenities. Then they all disappeared into Hound’s office; I could
hear the click as the door was locked behind them.

  ‘What’s that all about?’ I asked Jodie, feeling a bit miffed that I wasn’t included.

  ‘Not sure, but something’s up. He plays his cards pretty close to his chest, does the Hound Dog, but I reckon it’s big, really big.’

  In the meantime Hound hadn’t given me any work, so I decided to continue on my investigation of Coast Home Loans.

  The more I searched, the more intriguing it became, because Coast Home Loans didn’t seem to have any money, or ‘capital’ as it’s called in the world of finance. In fact, they seemed to have the opposite: they actually owed quite a lot of money, especially to some of the major banks.

  And the great thing about the major banks is that it isn’t that difficult to access those sorts of records.

  Coast Home Loans owed 23.6 million dollars to Westpac.

  They owed 3.4 million dollars to Macquarie.

  And 2.4 million to Citibank.

  Maybe they were called Coast Home Loans because they’d taken out so many loans themselves.

  I sort of wished that like Peter Eisinger I’d enrolled in Business Studies at school, because I found it really hard to get my head around all this. Then I had a thought: there was no way I could get my head around all this, but I knew somebody who could – Mr Jazy. And his office wasn’t that far away.

  I printed out some of these figures, making sure ‘Coast Home Loans’ didn’t appear anywhere on them, and told Jodie that I was popping out for half an hour.

  It took no time at all to get there. Once inside I told the receptionist my name and asked if I could see Mr Jazy. She frowned at me, but disappeared out back. When she returned it was with Mr Jazy himself.

  His beard, deforested during Tristan’s coma, had returned to its former lush state. ‘Dom,’ he said. ‘It’s wonderful to see you.’

  He was a very nice man, Mr Jazy, and I wondered, not for the first time, how he had produced such a useless son. But I’d done enough Biology at school to have some idea how genetics worked: Tristan had fifty per cent of his dad’s genes, but had obviously acquired the dickhead gene from somewhere else.

  ‘Let’s talk in my office,’ said Mr Jazy.

  It was a nice office, more like a lounge room, full of family photos and the sort of couch you could stretch out on for serious TV time.