Sam

by Luke F. Harris

  “Did you always know you were gay?”

  He fixed her with a stare. “Where’s this all coming from?” he asked, one eyebrow raised. But she just shrugged and took another sip from the glass. He walked over to the fridge for a fresh bottle of beer. He poured the contents into a glass and sat back down at the table.

  “The day I met Sam,” he said. “I mean, that’s when I knew for sure.” He leaned back in his seat and linked his hands behind his head. “My girlfriend wasn’t over the moon about it, though.”

  He didn’t think he had ever seen Olivia lost for words before. Her jaw almost hit the table. “I see your mum never told you about Eve, then?”

  Olivia shook her head. She picked up the glass and realised it was empty.

  “There’s another in the fridge, but I’m having half—OK? I don’t want your mum finding out I got you pissed.”

  It was obvious that Olivia was itching to ask questions but didn’t know quite where to begin.

  “Spit it out,” he said, taking the bottle away from her before she emptied its entire contents into her glass.

  “You and—”

  “Eve.”

  “Did you ever—you know?”

  He shifted uncomfortably in the chair and glanced out the window. It was dark outside and the brightness of the room made it impossible to see the surrounding bush. He could hear the wind howling from the north, whipping the rain against the windows in gusts. “I’m not sure that’s the type of thing you’re meant to ask an uncle, but for the record, yes, we did.”

  “But how?” It was clear she hadn’t meant to voice what she was thinking. Her face went bright red.

  He stood up and took a bottle of vodka down from the shelf above the fridge. He was going to need something stronger than beer. “I thought your mum would’ve had that conversation with you by now,” he teased. He knew exactly what Olivia meant but he didn’t feel like making it easy for her. “When a man loves a woman—”

  “Not that,” Olivia interrupted. He turned away before she caught him smiling.

  He dropped a handful of ice cubes into a short glass, doused them with a generous slug of vodka, and topped it up with soda. He took a large sip and steeled himself for the conversation he was about to have. Like her mother, Olivia would never settle for half-answers. He raised both eyebrows, as if to say “Continue.”

  “Well, it’s just, for women it’s not essential—”

  He gave her a questioning look.

  “I mean, if you don’t find a guy attractive—it doesn’t mean you can’t—” she continued in a roundabout way and then sighed. “Do you know what I mean?”

  “I thought I did, but I’m not sure I do any more.”

  He had never been as relieved to see Carla as he was when she walked into the room.

  “What’s going on here?” Carla said, looking from him to the glass of beer in Olivia’s hand. “Are you letting her drink? Christ, Tom, she’s only sixteen.”

  Carla marched over to Olivia and snatched the glass out of her hand before turning and giving her brother a look that could kill.

  “Where’s Nathan?” he said, trying to change the subject. Almost on cue, his eight-year-old nephew appeared in the doorway, behind his mother. He was holding a tablet computer. His eyes were glued to the screen.

  “Hi, Nathan,” he said, but Nathan didn’t look up.

  “Nathan!” Carla scolded and snatched the device out of his hands. “Answer when your uncle is talking to you.”

  His nephew glanced up from beneath a thick mop of blond hair and smiled. For the first time, he saw what everybody else did; it was like looking at a photograph of himself at the same age.

  Carla dropped her handbag onto the kitchen bench, took a glass out of the cupboard, and, without saying a word, poured herself a drink. There was a small square of roti left on the plate in the middle of the table. She picked it up and popped it into her mouth. “Christ, I’m hungry.” She turned to Olivia. “Your father is taking you and Nate out for the day tomorrow.”

  Olivia started to protest, but Carla cut her off. “I don’t want to hear it right now. He’s picking you up at nine o’clock.”

  “I’m not going,” Olivia glared at her mother.

  “You’re going, and that’s the end of it.”

  “She’s just jealous,” Nathan piped up all of a sudden. He was still tapping away on the tablet again, but, clearly, he had been listening to every word.

  “Jealous?” Carla repeated. They all turned towards Nathan.

  “Of Dad’s new girlfriend,” he said, without even looking up.

  It was hard to describe the expression on Carla’s face. She looked shocked, disgusted, and amused all at once.

  “I am not jealous,” Olivia protested, but nobody was listening any more. The cat had chosen the same moment to make his grand entrance. He rubbed his face against the leg of Tom’s chair as he trotted past, and then, once everybody was watching, plopped down in the centre of the room and started to lick his bum.

  “Eew.” Nathan screwed his face up.

  “Bentley, that’s disgusting,” Tom said, and shooed the cat out of the room. “Nathan, take Bentley to the laundry and fill up his biscuits, please.”

  “Is he right?” Carla asked Olivia as soon as Nathan was out of earshot. “That Dad’s got a new girlfriend?”

  Olivia looked increasingly uncomfortable. She shrugged her shoulders. “I guess.”

  “How long has it been going on?” Carla continued to probe, but Olivia snapped, “Why do you care? It’s not like you wanted him.”

  There was a long, awkward silence before Nathan reappeared. He was clutching one hand in the other. “Bentley scratched me.”

  Carla prised the hand away from his body to take a look. The wound was only surface deep. “Olivia, take your brother to the bathroom, please, and help him put a plaster on his hand.” Olivia made a loud huffing sound, but she did as she was told.

  “I take it you didn’t know about the girlfriend,” Tom said once they were alone.

  Carla rolled her eyes. “Not about this one, no.”

  He got to his feet and started to tidy away the empty takeaway containers. “And you—are you jealous?”

  Carla laughed. “No, I wouldn’t have Adam back if he was gift-wrapped.” She sighed. “But sometimes I think it’d be nice to have someone to talk to.”

  He suddenly felt a pang of guilt. For months, he had been so consumed with his own grief that he had forgotten that his sister was raising two children by herself.

  “You can talk to me,” he said. Carla smiled and gave his arm a squeeze.

  He stacked the last of the dirty plates into the dishwasher and then wiped down the benchtop.

  “Come on, it’s time we were going,” Carla said as soon as Nate returned. She placed her hands on the table and pushed herself to her feet with a groan. “Where’s your sister?”

  Nate shrugged, but the familiar low-pitched drone of headphones indicated that she wasn’t far away.

  Tom tossed the used tea towel into the sink and followed them out of the room. Olivia was standing in the hall, leaning against the door jamb. Without looking up from her smartphone, she followed her brother out to the car.

  When they reached the door, Carla turned and put her arms around him. A good twenty centimetres shorter than Tom, her head only came up to his chest. He wasn’t one for public displays of affection, and he felt his muscles tense.

  “What are you playing at?”

  “Just shut up and put your arms around me,” Carla replied, resting her head against his breast. “It’ll be OK, you know. The grief won’t last for ever.”

  “Mm-hm,” he replied, obediently linking his arms behind her back and resting his chin on the top of her head.

  The moment was shattered by the sound of raised voices outside. Carla stood back and, holding him firmly by the arms, looked him straight in the eye. She smiled and gave his arms a squeeze. “Wanna swap with me for a bit
?”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he called after her, but she didn’t respond; she already had other fish to fry.

  chapter nine

  It was dark by the time they pulled up outside his parents’ house. He was already several hours later than he’d said he would be.

  “I hope you don’t get into too much trouble.” Tom spoke quietly so as not to wake the others, who had been asleep since before Masterton. A lorry had jack-knifed just north of the brewery at Mangatainoka and the traffic jam had backed up as far as Woodville.

  “I’ll be fine,” he replied, unfolding himself from the back seat and removing his backpack from the mass of belongings in the boot. He walked round to the driver’s window, which was open. “Thanks for the ride,” he said, delaying the goodbye for as long as he reasonably could. “I had a nice time.”

  “Me too.” Tom looked up at him and smiled.

  “I guess I’ll see you round then,” he said, and kicked the tarmac with the toe of his shoe.

  Tom looked in the rear-view mirror. The others were still dead to the world. “Of course.”

  Reluctantly, he turned away. There was nothing left to say.

  Patch was at the door before his key was in the lock. Two nostrils flared behind the frosted glass pane. He reached down to stop Patch from escaping as he opened the door.

  “Sam, is that you?” a voice called out of the dark.

  He let the door swing shut behind him and dropped his bag on the floor. “Yes, Mum.”

  The hall light flicked on as his mother stepped out of the bedroom. She gently closed the door behind her. “Why on earth are you so late? I’ve been out of my mind with worry.”

  She rushed forward to give him a kiss and then sniffed at the air. “Have you been drinking?” she asked, The furrows on her forehead deepened. “Actually, on second thoughts, don’t tell me. I don’t think I want to know. There’s some food in the fridge if you want it. Your father has already gone to bed.”

  “Thanks,” he smiled. “There was a crash.” He saw her eyes grow wide with alarm and quickly added, “It was nothing to do with us, but it caused a long traffic jam.” He reached down and scratched Patch behind the ears, who was sniffing inquisitively at his pants.

  “Well, so long as you’re OK,” his mother said. She squeezed him on the arm and turned back towards the bedroom. “’Night.”

  As he slowly undressed, he dropped the dirty clothes one by one into the laundry basket. Then he opened the wardrobe and stood naked in front of the full-length mirror inside.

  He sucked in his stomach and drew back his shoulders to inflate his chest. He held the posture for a moment and then exhaled deeply. It was hard to identify with the man’s body reflected back at him in the glass. Inside, he still felt like an oversized kid. The idea that another human being could find his body attractive was somewhat absurd.

  He climbed into bed and closed his eyes. Yet he was far from sleep. All he could think about was Tom. He pictured Tom’s smile and felt an invisible hand squeeze his heart.

  He rolled onto his side. The bedsheets were fresh and felt like silk against his skin. He slid an arm beneath the cool underside of his pillow. He buried his face in the pillow to muffle the sound and let out a deep groan. How would he be able to concentrate on anything else ever again?

  He kept his head down as he jogged along the footpath towards the beach. The wind had changed direction overnight and was blowing from the south again, dusting the front yards of the houses along the foreshore with coarse, yellow sand. As he looked up to cross the road, a gust of wind caught him full in the face.

  “Fuck,” he cursed, slowing to a walk and rubbing the grit from his eyes. Unfortunately, he drove the grains of sand only deeper., so that by the time he reached the bay, tears were streaming down his cheeks and his eye sockets felt like two raw pits in the front of his head. He made straight for the drinking fountain outside the surf club and splashed fresh water over his face. He sighed with relief.

  As soon as he was able to see again, he went inside and climbed the wooden staircase up to the café on the first floor. Holly was already there, waiting at a table by the window.

  “You took your time,” she said.

  He smiled sheepishly and sat down at the seat opposite.

  From where they were sitting, they had an unrestricted view of the beach. Holly looked out the window at the waves crashing on the sand below. The usually raucous seagulls were clustered together in tight groups, their heads retracted deep into their bodies.

  He reached into his pocket and took out a packet of cigarettes. He offered the packet to Holly but she shook her head. “I thought you were going to give up for New Year.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe next year.”

  Although it was midsummer, it was actually warmer inside the surf club than it was outside. For several days now, an Antarctic blast had been buffeting the capital, making it feel more like August than January.

  “I’ll have a flat white,” Holly ordered once the waitress appeared, “with two sugars.” He waved away the menu and asked for the same.

  Holly leaned across the table conspiratorially when they were alone. “So tell me all about it.”

  He shrugged and looked out the window again. “There’s nothing much to tell.”

  A ferry was inching its way out from behind the rocks that concealed the entrance to the harbour. He waited until the stern was in full view before he turned back to Holly.

  He stubbed out his cigarette and reached automatically for another but Holly snatched the packet away. “Not until you’ve spilled the beans. I want to know all the gory details.”

  “I told you, nothing happened.”

  “But you wanted it to?”

  His mouth twitched up at the corners as if by reflex.

  “I knew it!” Holly exclaimed. The woman at the next table turned and looked in their direction.

  “Shush, will you,” Sam said.

  In the time that it took for their drinks to arrive, the tide advanced several metres up the beach. He watched the white-capped waves creeping closer.

  “Well?” Holly was staring at him above the rim of her coffee cup.

  “For a moment, I thought that maybe—” He let the words trail off. He took a sip of his drink before he continued. “But then I found out he’s got a girlfriend. A hot girlfriend.”

  Holly’s face sank.

  They finished their drinks in silence.

  “Come on—let’s get out of here, eh,” he mumbled, searching his pockets for some money. He found a crumpled five-dollar note, which he flattened out and tossed into the centre of the table.

  “Do you think you’ll ever tell your folks you’re gay?” Holly asked as they walked on up the beach. Thankfully, there was nobody round to hear her motor mouth.

  “No way. They’d never accept it.”

  “You don’t know that,” Holly replied. “The world’s moved on. People don’t care so much any more.”

  “I can assure you that my folks will most certainly care.

  Holly seemed to mull over what he had just said. “Well, I guess you don’t need to tell them for a while anyway.” She reached into her pocket for a stick of gum. “Want some?”

  “Ta,” he said, removing the foil wrapper and popping the rectangular wafer into his mouth. He snapped it in half with his tongue.

  By the time he arrived home, his mother was putting the finishing touches to the Sunday lunch. The whole house smelt of roast lamb, and within seconds, his stomach was rumbling loudly.

  “Lunch won’t be long. Can you set the table, please?” his mother asked, giving the roast potatoes a shake before returning them to the oven.

  He hung his jacket on the hook by the front door and moved silently to the dresser, where the placemats were kept.

  “Where have you been today?” his mother asked.

  “For a walk,” he replied. He purposely left out the fact that Holly had been
with him. His mother still hadn’t forgiven her for the magazine incident. He retrieved the salt and pepper from the pantry and placed them in the centre of the table.

  His mother was standing with her back to him, but as she turned towards the sink to drain the vegetables, he saw the red lump on the side of her face.

  “Mum, what happened?”

  She didn’t reply, but the tensing of her shoulders under her blouse told him enough.

  “The bastard,” he swore.

  She placed the pot on the kitchen bench and turned to face him. He could see that she had tried to mask the bruise with make-up, but the bluish tinge was still visible.

  “Please don’t, Sam,” she said. “It’ll only make things worse.”

  He didn’t answer her. He wasn’t sure what to say. Had it been the first time, he might have believed there was something that he could do.

  “I wish he was dead,” he said under his breath, but loud enough for her to hear. He saw her recoil.

  “Don’t say such a thing. He is still your father.”

  “How can you defend him?” he asked incredulously. He clenched and unclenched his fists; he could feel himself getting angry. His mother turned back to the sink and picked up the pot.

  “He’s been under a lot of pressure lately. He doesn’t mean it. He just doesn’t know how to deal with his emotions.”

  Before he was able to reply, the front door opened.

  “What’s going on?” his sister asked, stepping cautiously into the kitchen. She looked from him to his mother and then back to him.

  “Ask Mum,” he replied, pushing past her and out into the hall.

  “Sam, where are you going?” his mother yelled after him. “Lunch is almost ready.”

  “I’m not hungry!” he shouted, slamming the front door behind him.

  His father was sitting at the kitchen table when he returned. He had been pacing the streets for the best part of an hour, trying to work out whom he was most angry with: his father, or his mother for putting up with him.

  “Would you like something to eat?” his mother asked. She was out of her seat before he could reply. She retrieved his lunch from the oven, where she had been keeping it warm.