The Things We Promise

by J. C. Burke

  Instead, I took a breath and said, ‘Hi.’

  Ralph looked up. ‘Hey.’

  I pointed at my locker. ‘I need to get my bag.’

  ‘Oh? Yeah. Sorry.’

  I riffled around in there, trying to kill time. What was Ralph doing here? As far as I was concerned, the rule said that if you waited at someone’s locker, you had to be the first to speak. State what you wanted and what you were doing here. Put your heart on your sleeve, then I’d put mine on too.

  ‘Do you want a lift home?’ Ralph finally said.

  ‘No.’ I nearly stopped there. But I didn’t want to be that girl. ‘I’m going to the hospital. Billy was admitted on the weekend.’

  ‘I can drive you.’

  ‘My neighbour’s taking me. He’s probably already waiting outside in the Fiat.’

  ‘Gemma. I’m sorry,’ Ralph began. ‘I really am. You didn’t ring me back. I get that you were probably still mad. But now you’re avoiding me. Is it because I wasn’t there on Monday morning to pick you up? I had to take Vanessa to an audition in the city and—’

  ‘I didn’t even go to school on Monday,’ I answered. ‘Look, I have to go.’ I didn’t really. Mr C was the most patient man on the planet. But I knew I was seconds away from crying.

  Ralph stood there while I closed up my locker and fiddled with the padlock. He stood there while I heaved my bag onto my back and he didn’t say a thing. It wasn’t until I reached the door that he called out, ‘Gemma?’

  I stopped. ‘Yes?’

  ‘There’s a new message for you in the phone box,’ he told me. ‘From Andrea. I saw it on Sunday when I tried to call you.’

  ‘Oh. Okay.’ I started walking. ‘Thanks.’

  When I stepped out of the hospital lift and into the ward, Anna was there waiting to step in. Her bag was over her shoulder and she was untying her ponytail.

  ‘Bill’s drain’s gone,’ she told me. ‘Just oxygen therapy now. You have a much happier brother.’

  ‘He’s been a big grump.’

  Anna pressed the button in the lift so that the doors wouldn’t close. ‘It’s tough, Gemma,’ she said. ‘I don’t think any of us know what it’s like.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘This morning, when I was helping Bill with a shower, he told me about his partner, Saul. He’d never mentioned him before. They sounded like they were really close.’

  ‘I thought they were.’

  ‘To lose a partner must be the worst.’

  For a second I couldn’t move. It was as though Anna’s words had paralysed my limbs.

  I did think about Saul. Not all day, every day. Not the way I thought about Ralph. But Ralph and I weren’t even a thing. Yet I couldn’t imagine how it would feel if one day Ralph just disappeared off the face of the earth like Saul or Meg Docker.

  When I walked into Billy’s room, he waved and pointed to the chair for me to sit down.

  Today he was back to his old self, smiling as he listened to whatever the person on the other end of the phone was saying. He put his hand over the receiver and whispered to me, ‘It’s Aunty Mame. She’s in the middle of a long story.’ Then he started laughing at whatever Mame had just said.

  Looking at him then, you would never guess what he was really feeling inside. Anna was right. Billy had been through something none of us could begin to imagine. Did it really make a difference that Billy had made Saul sick? They loved each other and I had to remember that.

  Billy hadn’t just held Saul’s hand at the end like I had with Zane. He’d been there every day with him. Showering him, feeding him his mush, worrying when he came back to their apartment and Saul had disappeared to buy me earrings. Having to make all those promises, right to Saul’s face, looking straight at him. At his thin, purple-spotted face. How could any of us know what that was like?

  Billy didn’t look like he was going to get off the phone anytime soon.

  ‘I’m going for a walk,’ I mouthed.

  ‘Mum’s down in the cafeteria,’ he mouthed back.

  Outside Zane’s old room a frail man with wisps of white hair sticking out from under a black hat and wearing trousers that didn’t fit properly was pacing around the doorway, a walking stick in his hand and a look on his face that I couldn’t read. Was it impatience? Was he waiting for a doctor or nurse to finish in there? Or maybe he was waiting for his wife who’d been in there too long with their poofter son?

  I went to the sink to wash my hands when I noticed a nurse and the ward clerk walking over to the patient board. As though she were some efficient teacher, the ward clerk picked up the eraser and wiped out the name next to Bed 15.

  ‘That’s number three this week,’ I heard her say to the nurse.

  ‘I know, and Jim won’t last the night either,’ the nurse replied. ‘Look at darling Carlo. He hasn’t left his side.’

  ‘And he doesn’t look well himself,’ the ward clerk added. ‘He’ll be a patient here in a few weeks.’

  ‘Weeks? I’d say more like days.’

  They walked away, smiling at me as they passed.

  That frail old man waiting outside the room was no father. That was the partner of whoever was in there. The partner who’d no doubt washed and fed and made promises to the man he loved who was lying inside.

  Straight away, I went back to my brother’s room.

  He was off the phone and out of bed, staring through the window. There were yachts out on the water and their colourful spinnakers reminded me of our T-shirts laid out across the living room floor.

  ‘They must be racing,’ Billy said. ‘That’s my favourite one there.’ He tapped at the glass. ‘The one with the black- and-pink striped sail.’

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve been grumpy with you,’ I offered. ‘I didn’t …’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Gem. I’ve been horrible lately. I’m so ashamed of the way I’ve acted.’

  I wrapped my arm around him. He felt small and bony, as though I could crunch him in half with just a snap of my elbow.

  He nudged me. ‘How’s lover boy? Have you two made up?’

  ‘No. We weren’t really a thing anyway.’

  ‘Was your fight about me? Honestly?’

  ‘I posted the letter.’

  Billy sighed. He took my hand and step by step made his way back to bed. I helped him pull up the sheets and blanket, tucking them in around him. Then he lay back into the pillows and said, ‘I think I know what the fight was about.’

  ‘Can we talk about it?’

  ‘If you want to,’ he answered. ‘But usually, you don’t.’

  There was silence. We didn’t stuff it with all our usual jokes about what a loser Dad was and how if he turned up at the front door we’d pretend we didn’t recognise him and act like he was a Mormon coming to spread the word.

  ‘Do you want to see Dad? Is that why you wrote to him?’ ‘It would be okay to see him. But it’s totally fine if I don’t.’ Billy was fitting the nasal prongs back into his nostrils. ‘To be honest, I care more about how you feel about it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean …’ Billy closed his eyes and I could tell he was really concentrating on what he wanted to say. He looked sad and now I wished I hadn’t mentioned it. ‘Dad being here isn’t nearly as important to me as you being okay is. You and Mum. I don’t want to leave and have him hanging around and it all being horrible.’

  ‘Leave?’ I choked out.

  Billy squeezed my hand.

  ‘Please tell me. Do you want to see him?’ I begged. My jaw felt like it was dragging down to my knees. Why was it that when something was hard to talk about it was also hard to speak the words? Like even your subconscious didn’t want to hear them. ‘I need to know.’

  ‘Gem, all I wanted was to tell him that I love him and that I forgive him. I wrote the letter in case I don’t get to say it to his face. So it’s done. Whether he comes to see me or not makes little difference to me. I’ve done my bit.’
r />   ‘Are you just saying that?’ I wept. ‘To make me feel better?’

  ‘No. I promise. And it’s not like I’m holding on for him, Gemma. Like you see in the movies. I made my peace with Dad a while ago in here.’ Billy pointed to his heart. ‘Thanks to Saul, who had to weather that storm with me. Poor bastard. I must’ve been so hard to live with.’

  ‘How did you make peace?’

  ‘I am so, so flawed. Just like him,’ Billy told me. His eyes were closed as his long, fine fingers twisted a button on his pyjamas. ‘It was hard. But it was also easy.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I choked. ‘Why can’t I feel like that?’

  ‘One day you might, baby girl. One day you might.’

  27

  7 weeks to formal

  THAT NIGHT I COULDN’T SLEEP. MUM HAD taken a sleeping tablet and was snoring for Australia, but that wasn’t the problem. It was the conversation I’d had with Billy.

  In the whole time our father had been gone, it was the first time we’d really spoken about him. Actually ditched the jokes that camouflaged our pain and told some truths. At least, my brother had.

  I was the one who’d shouted Mum and Billy down, who’d told them that contacting Dad was a bad, bad move. Now, I didn’t know what I thought. Did I just say that because not telling Dad was the easiest solution? Because it kept the lid on things and stopped all the mess spilling out? Was it me who didn’t want Dad to know? Who didn’t want Dad to be here?

  Yet I’d wanted Zane’s dad to be with him even though Zane himself had probably wanted him as far away as possible.

  I dragged the pillow over my face and held it tightly until I couldn’t breathe. Then I threw it off and sat up in bed. It was so obvious. There was no other solution.

  I crept into Mum’s room, took her handbag off the chair and tiptoed back to mine. When I opened her green address book to the ‘L’ page, a business card fell out: Ezzo Drilling, Maintenance and Petroleum Services, PO Box 188, Dampney Bay, WA. But there was more. A phone number and next to it the words 24 hours.

  I copied all the details down and slipped the card back inside the green book.

  Then I did what I’d probably never done before. I didn’t let myself think.

  Polly Pessimistic was tied and gagged.

  I put my black-and-white checked coat on over my pyjamas, grabbed my wallet, the bit of paper and pen and shoved them all in my pockets. Then I took Mum’s handbag back to her room, leaving it on the chair, exactly as I’d found it.

  Outside it was dark and the chill in the air cut at my skin like a razor fresh from the packet. It was too scary to walk. If I looked at the trees hard enough, I convinced myself I could see someone hiding behind them, waiting to pounce. So I ran all the way to the phone box, hoping that my pounding feet wouldn’t wake up the entire street who would think I was a robber on the getaway. But to be truthful, the thing I was running to was the scariest of all.

  The last time I spoke to my father was too long ago to remember. Maybe it was on my birthday two years ago. The conversation had only lasted three minutes. Four if you counted the awkward silences.

  If the silences bothered Dad, I never knew it because he’d never tried to fill them. All I remembered about our conversations was the twenty-tonne brick that had sat in my stomach for days afterwards.

  The phone box was lit up, like a little safe house on the edge of the footpath. I slipped in and straight away started to stack the coins into piles along the ledge. I hoped like crazy that I had enough. I didn’t want to get to the punchline only to hear the phone go dead.

  As I was counting the last pile, I noticed Andrea’s message on the wall. In fresh black writing, standing out against all our faded words, she’d written:

  G, I miss you. A xxx YATWBMW.

  The tips of my fingers traced her words. It was Andrea who’d met me here the day my father had slammed the door and left. I’d cried and cried and cried. She’d patted my back and wiped my nose with the sleeve of her jumper. She’d sat with me just outside here, on the gutter, while I raged and shouted that I would poke out my left eye before I spoke to him again. She’d answered, ‘Just your left eye?’ We’d both started laughing and just for that second the pain had lifted and I’d felt like maybe life would be okay again.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said out loud, even though Andrea couldn’t hear. I dropped the coins into the slot and started dialling.

  ‘Ezzo Petroleum.’ It was a lady. That was a good start. ‘How can I assist you?’

  ‘Hello.’ I had to shake my head a bit to make the next words come out. ‘I’m trying to find my father. His name’s Garth Longrigg.’

  ‘What department, miss?’

  ‘Maintenance and Petroleum Services. He’s tall and—’

  ‘Miss, we have over three thousand staff. I’m just looking for his name. Bear with me.’

  She put me on hold and some music started. It was a track from Grease: ‘You’re the One That I Want’. I wondered if it was meant to be some bad pun.

  Suddenly, it occurred to me that the next voice I’d hear could be my father’s. I started chewing my lips and puffing out the air as though the starter gun was about to go off for a race.

  ‘Hello?’ It was the lady again.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Garth Longrigg’s out on one of the boats at the moment. He’s scheduled to return on the twenty-first of September.’

  ‘That’s more than three weeks away. This is urgent.’

  ‘I can try and get a message to him.’

  ‘Yes, please! We’ve already sent him a letter. But we haven’t heard back. It’s urgent. His son’s sick. Really sick.’

  ‘Mr Longrigg’s next of kin is Mrs Longrigg. Is she available to speak to?’

  ‘No, she’s not. But I’m the daughter of Mr and Mrs Longrigg.’

  ‘Yes, I understand that,’ she explained. ‘But we need to speak to Mrs Longrigg. It’s company policy, dear.’

  ‘Please can you tell him?’

  ‘I’ll try and get a message out to the boat to tell him to ring home. But if you’ve sent a letter, it’ll find him. There’s a postal drop at least three times a week.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, dear. But we really need to speak to Mrs Longrigg.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. Thank you.’

  That was it. I’d done it. The unthinkable. The thing I had vowed never to do.

  My hands gripped the ledge and I breathed deeply, as though I’d finished a race. I hadn’t won. I hadn’t lost. But I’d done it.

  I stumbled out of the phone box, almost tripping over my feet. I could feel my body traversing down the road. Off to the left, off to the right. If anyone in the houses near the phone box had looked out their window that night, they’d have seen a girl wearing a black-and-white checked coat over her pyjamas, cutting a zigzagged path across the streets.

  Finally, I found myself outside Ralph’s house. I sat on the footpath and waited until the sky turned from black to mauve and the birds began warbling their songs. Then it was light enough for me to see the golden number 36 on the gate. It’d be a disaster if this was the wrong house.

  As quietly as I could, I slipped through the gate and crept around the side of the house. From memory, Ralph’s bedroom was the second window along. I really hoped so because using the key under the doormat was not the option I wanted to be left with.

  Gently, I tapped the glass. Once. Then twice. Ralph’s face appeared at the window and as stupid as it sounds, I waved.

  Ralph and I drove to a petrol station where the taxi drivers were lined up waiting for their morning coffee. While Ralph bought two hot chocolates and a stale doughnut, I called Mum from the pay phone – because thinking I’d been kidnapped from my bed was the last thing she needed.

  We sat on the bonnet of the lime mobile, sipping our drinks, our hands wrestling in the paper bag as we tore hunks off the doughnut. It was a good breakfast and the best moment I’d had all we
ek.

  ‘Where do you want to go now?’ he asked.

  ‘Anywhere.’

  Off we went. I watched the street lights flicker off. The first dog-walker of the day passed by, his labrador stopping at every tree, sniffing and peeing, as his patient owner stood by. I wondered if it was the same routine for that man every morning. Was that why he was eager to be out with first light? Because at least he knew how that part of his day went?

  ‘Is it Thursday or Friday?’ I asked.

  ‘Thursday.’

  ‘So it wasn’t even a week ago when I went to your place and met your dad?’

  Ralph nodded.

  ‘And a week later I rang my dad,’ I said. ‘Well, left a message for him.’

  Ralph pulled into the entrance of the Western Showground and parked the car at the edge of the stadium. It was built about seven years ago and was the most exciting thing to happen in our suburb yet.

  Posters for the Crowded House tour in October were pasted along the walls. Maybe layers and layers underneath the ones for the Boy George concert were still there.

  ‘I saw Boy George here,’ I told Ralph.

  ‘I think Vanessa did too.’

  ‘Billy and Saul took me. It was my first big concert.’

  ‘Good night?’

  I sighed. ‘Really good.’

  We lowered our seats, then turned around, facing each other. I could see the many shades of green and yellow smudged like pencil sharpenings around Ralph’s bruised eyes. My fingertips circled their outline, as though I was painting his face.

  ‘Saul had purple spots everywhere,’ I said. ‘Kaposi’s sarcoma,’ I pronounced carefully. ‘His back, his legs, his face and neck. Once when they were going to a fancy dress ball, Billy painted him into a zebra. He covered every single spot with white and black stripes so that no one would know.’

  ‘That’s sad.’

  ‘Billy made Saul sick,’ I whispered. ‘Billy ruined everything.’

  ‘Gem.’ Ralph had taken my hand and kissed my fingers. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Remember when you said “AIDS in the burbs. Not everyone’s going to like it.” ’