I push the door open, and I remember it is not these things that keep me away. It is the smell: an awesome smell, a faint breath of my son, who went to ride his motorbike and never came back to this room. He was sixteen years old, and never survived the jump over the contour bank that landed him on his head — a head unprotected by a helmet, not enforced by his witless father. Sarah will never forgive me, and I can never forgive myself. This is an awful place, so beautiful that I can’t bear to be here.
But now his room reminds me that I used to argue that he had to be allowed to live, to experience risk, and the thrill of it all. He loved me for that. That’s got to be worth something. I tried hard to allow him to push his boundaries. I wanted him to know that a bit of pain or a broken limb weren’t the end of the world. But as my mother would have said, ‘It’s all fine until it goes wrong.’ And it went so wrong.
I recollect now, without crying, his excitement when we brought that bike home. He had had a bike too small and weak for him for too long. It embarrassed him, but Sarah was convinced he would hurt himself on anything bigger. She allowed the new, bigger bike, but bemoaned its existence at every opportunity, and insisted on that helmet at all times. So it was only when she was away, in town or visiting friends, unable to police her rules, that he was permitted the freedom of riding without a helmet. I told him not to be stupid about it, and that if he was trying out new stunts he had to come back and put the helmet on. Every time he agreed, and every time he laughed it off.
That day, when Sarah got home from town, James hadn’t returned from his ride, so we both went to look for him. She had seen the helmet hanging in the garage, and was frantic. I was talking her down, telling both of us that he was fine, just a little late. How many times afterwards did she scream my words of reassurance back at me: ‘He’s fine. He’s just a little late,’ condensing the lethal stupidity and carelessness of my character into two short sentences.
We found him in the paddock, in the fading light, next to his upended bike, his head speared into the dirt, his eyes open. It was the worst thing you could ever dream up. You could pull my arm off with a tractor, and I would get over it. I will never get over this. We were everywhere on him, trying to resuscitate him, frantically pumping CPR, but he was already cold. Cold in your son’s skin: that is hell right there. I would kill myself rather than feel that again. Eighteen months, and the thought can have me back in those full-body sobs.
You never forget the eyes or the bike or the moment, no matter how much you wish to, and then you hate yourself for dishonouring your child’s death by the wishing.
But now, after all this time, and all this pain, I see him again, embarrassed by me, by the fact that I have given up. He was a spirited child, if nothing else. I hear him tossing a ball in the air, catching it, and asking ‘Why?’ ‘Why are you asleep on the couch, Dad? Why is the place a mess? Why don’t you do anything? Why is Mum gone?’ In my head I make the first steps towards resolving to do better.
Then I open another beer. I know I’m not capable of getting back to farm work. I can’t see the point. Farm work needs vision and goals for the future: meaningless abstracts, as far as I am concerned. So what if the fences fall down, or the oats and the wheat don’t get planted? I’ll just run fewer animals. I’ll run no animals. If the troughs and the tanks leak, there’s still water in the creek — for now anyway. Time has stood still for me for eighteen months. I have existed in a blurry dream world, wishing to go back and unable to go forward. The only thing that has made the clock move ahead is the boxes, and that is seriously weird.
I push the door to the laundry to where the boxes are. They sit under their sheet like any other piece of discarded furniture, past their time of usefulness. I quickly check that the money is there, as well as the ash, that I’m not imagining their existence, and then shut the door, pulling it tight. I leave my beer behind, walk out into the garden, and try to think. If the boxes are the only thing that gets me out of the house and away from the beer, then I need to think about boxes.
I walk to James’s area, make a small promise about doing better, and keep going. I stroll out of the garden and down the road towards the shed. The day is clear, blue, and mild. A bearded dragon sits on a fencepost in the sun, statue-still. The cooler weather should have slowed him to a near-sleep state, somewhere unseen, but he’s out grabbing a last chance at warmth. I feel like I should admire him for his pluck and resilience — things James would be impressed by. But I’m not recovering that quickly.
It is mail day, and I realise I am walking towards the mailbox. It is, after all, where the boxes come from.
My mother would sometimes walk to the mailbox to get the mail for exercise and to ‘keep in shape’. When she was sick she did it every mail day. Sarah and I knew something was wrong before Dad did. She would ask for my help with simple things like writing an email to one of her charity groups. The explanation was usually that she ‘wasn’t very good with computers’, and they ‘never did what they were told’. It was a believable excuse. She wasn’t very good with computers, and she certainly wasn’t patient with them. But I realised after a while that she was having trouble putting words together, and she had never had trouble with that. She was always confident in her words, and then she wasn’t. She was only in her fifties, and I was in my twenties, and I couldn’t work out what was going on. I remember her laughing at herself when she got something wrong or forgot an incident that had only recently happened. Then she would often blame a ‘virus thing’ she’d had that was ‘clogging up her brain’, and I suppose I fell for these justifications, even though I knew I had seen moments of stress and fear on her face that were quickly concealed.
I pick up a rusty bolt I notice in the gravel on the side of the road and stick it in my pocket, and then start to talk to her, telling her everything that has happened, that I have felt, that I have done. And I apologise for not having paid enough attention to her. My father and I. Neither of us paid enough attention. My mother would not have wanted attention, and it probably wouldn’t have made a difference, but we still should have done it.
I follow the road as it snakes through the trees and straightens in sight of the ramp and the mailbox. I see the mailman’s vehicle nearing, and I break into a run. If I’m not quick, I’ll miss him.
The vehicle veers in close to the mailbox. He leans out the window and puts the mail in the box, then pulls forward. I think I’m too late, and I sprint a little harder. But he is not leaving; he is getting out to retrieve a newspaper from the back of his ute. He pushes it into my mailbox, and looks up to see me panting to a stop. His expression is suspicious, as if my exertion can only mean trouble.
I breathe hard, and say, ‘Hey, Grant, is it? Dave.’ He is young, maybe twenty-five — tall, pale, and slim with a light-brown goatee kind of arrangement on his chin. He is in tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt that promotes a sports team.
‘Yeah. You got a letter or something you want me to take?’ He doesn’t wait for my response. ‘You’re getting a lot of mail these days.’ His forearms are the dirty green of cheap tattoos.
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’
‘Well, talk, brother. I’m busy. People are pretty demanding on this run. Always whingeing if I’m late or if I miss one day in a blue moon.’
‘I would prefer if you didn’t tell everyone what I was getting in my mail.’
‘I haven’t. I don’t.’
‘Yes you have. You told Elaine Slade, and Ben Ruder, and other people that I’m getting boxes in my mail.’
‘Oh, that. That was a while ago. Everyone was asking. I just told them you were getting boxes. No big secret. They could have found out for themselves.’
‘Well, I’d ask you not to.’
‘Sure.’ His face tells me this is another ridiculous imposition from another demanding client. He gets back into his ute. He is a busy man. ‘So, if I’m not allowed
to share unimportant information, you won’t want to know your girlfriend is home?’
‘My girlfriend?’
‘You think no one knows? You think you can keep secrets out here? Like your cheap-shit gadgets in boxes from China?’
He drives off, mouthing a disbelieving ‘Fuck’ or maybe ‘Fuckwit’.
On face value, you’d have to say he doesn’t know about the money. It is good news that Elaine is home. I had wondered if she’d ever return. I stride out towards the house, keen to talk to her, wondering how I might protect her.
On the phone, she is cautious, but I think pleased to hear from me. She tells me she’s hired a full-time bodyguard and that he makes her feel safe. Without premeditation, I outsmart myself by asking her to come for dinner. There must be something in the freezer I can use, I think. Perhaps she’d be happy with an omelette. Perhaps not. She agrees to come, and asks if there’s anything she can bring. Casual as you like, I say, ‘Not a thing.’ My mouth seems to do what it wants. I already know I was kidding myself thinking there might be something worthwhile in my freezer. Dinner will mean a trip to town for wine, main-course ingredients, and some cheeses and nibbly stuff.
My first job is to tackle the sink, and the dishes that never made it to the dishwasher and now line the bench. I fill the dishwasher, then wash up the remaining stacks. I change the water in the sink twice, leaving my hands pink and wrinkled. Then comes the trip to town.
As I drive, I ask myself, Am I trying to impress Elaine, or asking her to absolve me? Midway through that phone conversation, after I’d stunned myself with the invitation, I knew I was going to be trying (insanely) for something like understated sophistication: no trouble taken, but exquisite results. ‘I do this sort of thing all the time.’
This is remarkable, considering I have just cleaned my house for the first time in some weeks, and given that my recent cooking decisions have involved choosing between the microwave and the oven for heating frozen meals — sausage rolls and party pies par excellence. I did cook a bit, back in the good old days, and I’m guessing the internet can walk me through it if I can’t remember how.
Waterglen has a couple of pretty good supermarkets. When I can be bothered to shop at all, I buy my groceries at eight in the morning, as soon as they open, because it is a good time to avoid seeing people. I know the drill. I won’t meet up with parents of school-age children, because they’re too busy organising for school; locals looking to buy a couple of things and have a chat won’t arrive until midmorning; people hunting for last-minute meal solutions at the end of the day still have many hours’ grace; and farmers in town for parts or fertiliser that have been sent to the supermarket with a list won’t wander around, lost in the aisles, until well after lunch.
Today, I do not have that security. I am not safe. As I walk in, I pull my hat down, put my collar up, and keep a sideways eye out. A girl on the checkout (Alyssa?) smiles at me, and I give her the quick grin of a man with no time to spare. I move quickly. At the meat section I consider pork and the aphrodisiac of crackling, but know it would turn out soggy, and then ponder the alternative of crispy roast chicken, maybe with lemon, if that’s a thing, but I decide that a couple of good-quality steaks will give me the benefit of I really haven’t gone to much trouble. I can do potatoes served in their jackets, and a salad. Maybe some veggies in the oven. I can cook the steaks while we talk, and the rest can already be in train.
So far, I have seen no one I know. The supermarket is relatively empty, so I push myself along. I buy a brie because I can’t remember what some of the other cheeses taste like, and throw in some crackers, and a quince paste. Then I whizz round to the section with air fresheners, grab one that doesn’t look too sickly, and head for the checkout.
The checkout is dangerous, because you are exposed. Anyone can see you, and once you’re caught in the line there is no way of making a run for it. I am nervous at the checkout, and I make sure I don’t select the one manned by the girl I am supposed to know, even though it might have been quicker to do so. I am through quickly, painlessly, and push my trolley at pace towards the grog shop. But standing at the sliding doors, waiting for me, is a young man. One I cannot avoid: Tom Little. He was a year older than James, but still in his group. He has visited us, stayed, camped, partied, played board games, and stretched out on couches eating snacks and watching movies. A mate.
‘Hi, Dave. Mr Martin.’ Tom is tall and slim, with broad, angular shoulders and pale, still-adolescent skin that I’m sure annoys him.
‘Tommy. How are you?’ He is one of the kids who took James’s death very hard. There was even a stage when his parents were worried about him; he was so down, they thought he might be at risk. I remember he wanted to come out to our place all the time after we lost James. He didn’t want to be near the grave; he just wanted to be around what had existed before. Like all of us. We tried to be supportive, but we had too much of our own stuff to be of much help. Another person I failed.
‘I’m okay, thanks. How are you?’
I remember how much I like Tom. He is a quality kid: modest; good-hearted; interested in the world. I don’t need any more reasons to like him. But there is another significant one: he was a friend of James’s and the fact that he’s the best of what young men can be, not the worst, reflects well on my son and my memory of my son. My reasons for liking him are nothing to be proud of.
‘Pretty good, all in all. Did you get yourself a job?’
‘Yep. At the paper. Waterglen Times.’ I remember that Tom wanted to be a reporter, even though the job had become quaint and kind of old-fashioned. His parents don’t have much money, so I guess he’s decided to hold off on university until he can get some cash together himself.
‘Well, good on you.’ He looks slightly embarrassed, which might be from my encouragement, or the fact that he is working at a newspaper which is only just that. ‘Been there long?’
‘Few months.’
‘Excellent — a working man.’ I’m trying to choose between hugging and walking away without saying another word. Neither option would be fair to him. ‘How’s it going?’
‘I think I’m getting the hang of it. Made one mistake, though.’
One big mistake by the local newspaper comes to mind, though it is no orphan. ‘Elaine Slade?’ I say it wincing, not meaning to make him relive it, but unable to go in any other direction.
‘Yes. I got the names mixed up, and I was the only one in the office. Guess I would have been fired anywhere else.’ He looks embarrassed, but I can tell he’s almost past worrying about it. He must have had to explain himself many times.
‘Shit happens, eh?’
He gives me a half-chuckle, and agrees. I ask him if his parents are all right, and then leave him with a weak joke about going to the grog shop, the most important grocery shop. I look back, and see him turn and walk out into the car park alone and unsure, and I feel a good old stab of self-hatred. I direct my trolley towards the security of alcohol.
There are some stands to hide behind in the liquor section, but I also know it is easy to be cornered there, with only one checkout, one way out. Ambush territory. I’m selecting a shiraz, and I hear a voice I know. It is a man’s voice, and not one I want to hear: Ben Ruder. He is asking the young, dopey guy behind the counter why they’ve put the price up on a particular whisky. The young guy doesn’t have any answers, and Ben demands he go and get a manager to explain. The young man disappears, and Ben strolls away from the counter, obviously waiting for a result. I move further down the display of reds to the merlots, which I consider unsuitable, and keep my back to Ben, showing I’m far too engrossed in my potential purchase to engage in any other sort of interaction. It doesn’t stop him. He takes a few loud steps in my direction and says, ‘Martin, I’d stay away from that Slade woman if I were you. Lot of bad rumours going around about her.’ He sniggers. ‘She’d be too much for a wuss like y
ou to handle.’
It’s dirty and nasty, and I ignore him. The young attendant returns with his explanation. I stay perusing the reds until I hear Ben complaining again about the price, and maintaining he’ll take his business elsewhere. I pick two shirazes, grab a sav blanc in case Elaine’s not a red drinker, and add a case of beer to my trolley. And then I move to the section with expensive reds, choose one at the top end of the price range, turn, yell ‘Ben!’ and then toss the pricey bottle at him. He swivels to see the missile arcing through the air at him. His instinct won’t allow him to drop something that might be very valuable. His face reddens and his eyes widen, and his unthinking response is to juggle the bottle from side to side, eventually grasping it by the neck and stopping it crashing to the floor. He expels a breath, looks at me fiercely, puts the bottle on the counter, and leaves.
The young guy lets out a stifled laugh. I purse my lips, shake my head, and say, ‘Dickhead.’
He swallows a grin as he keys in my purchases. ‘Does it every week. Miserable bastard. Complains about price. No matter what he buys, he complains about the cost. I could call my supervisor in, over the mic, but he won’t come. So I just pretend to go and see him.’
I push my trolley to the ute, and almost ask aloud: ‘Are there really rumours about Elaine? What sort?’ A large woman in maroon tracksuit alongside a maroon sedan watches me mumble my way past. Tonight I am going to give Elaine a few drinks and a nice meal, and ask her everything.
At the approach to the roundabout on the way out of town, I stop behind a sixteen-wheeler flatbed truck with a bogie drive. The truck driver is being overly cautious, but you can’t complain about that. Then I feel something nudge me from behind. I’m not even sure if I really feel it, but when I turn around, I see Ben in his old ute, grinning, sticking a finger up at me. He uses all the steel in his old machine to push into me, and I begin to skid towards the back of the truck. I jam the footbrake on, and then the handbrake, and I almost stop. I don’t give Ben the pleasure of seeing me scream at him. I can smell rubber and asphalt. Then my ute lurches forward until the tyres catch and hold for a moment before letting go. I slide, and the back of the truck rises before me like a cliff face. I’d jam the ute into reverse, but shifting through neutral might make things worse. I don’t have any alternative except to jump out, but that feels like it would be a sort of cowardice. My ute moves again and draws level with the tray of the truck. If Ben pushes hard enough I will slide in under the tray, and the front of my vehicle will crumple, and maybe I will, too. Ben is still pushing, and I can hear how hard his machine is working. And then, as if there was never anything to worry about, the truck takes off and leaves me, the slow guy in the fast lane, behind. Ben retreats and then swings out past me, blowing his horn as he goes.
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