Crossfire

by James Moloney

  Alison was resting in her bedroom when Luke heard a car pull in over the kerb and park on the footpath in front of the house, followed inevitably, moments later, by the dull thud of the driver’s door. A bit early for Sally to be home, he thought briefly … then he heard the heavy stamp of footsteps on the stairs. He knew that tread, the pace of the climb, the weight of each stride. If he hurried, he could intercept the caller before he knocked at the door and perhaps deal with him on the veranda without his mother hearing.

  He darted out of his chair, across the room, and flung open the door to find his father already on the doorstep. With the way open to him, Wayne Aldridge kept walking into the lounge room, mumbling a greeting with embarrassed self-consciousness. Luke fell back against the wall to let him pass, too stunned to make any reply. What had he done? Why, in God’s name, hadn’t he stolen a precautionary glance before he opened the door to let his father waltz straight in like this? There he was, turning slowly around in the middle of the room, probably marking in his mind what had been changed and what was the same. He swayed slightly, just enough for Luke to be sure of what he’d already guessed from Wayne’s breath as he slid past. But it was worse than this: much worse, a thousand times worse.

  His father was not only drunk, he was clutching in his right hand his thirty-thirty Winchester.

  ‘How are you feeling, Luke?’ began Wayne. ‘You got over the trip yet?’

  Luke nodded. He wondered whether his voice would work. He gave it a try. ‘Why have you brought your gun with you, Dad?’ he asked as though he was inquiring about a broomstick or a bottle of beer. Watching his father’s movements, listening to his speech, picking up every signal, Luke tried to calculate how drunk he was. It was nearly four in the afternoon. If he’d started when the pubs opened at ten, that was … Oh God, what did it matter how many hours. He was full of beer, and standing in the middle of the house with a gun in his hand.

  ‘Luke, I want to apologise for making a fool of you with this gun. I don’t know why I did it, really I don’t. Very stupid of me. I’ve come to teach you how to do it properly. It’s not hard, even for a young bloke like you. It’s just a matter of bracing the stock into your shoulder properly and knowing how much recoil to expect. We could do it now, over in the bush across the road.’

  ‘You can’t fire a gun over there, Dad! There’s houses all around. We’d be sure to hit someone,’ Luke said as reasonably as he could. He wanted to say more, but you had to be careful what you said to a man with a rifle in his hands. He had to get his father’s thoughts away from this ridiculous target practice. The very suggestion proved that Wayne was even more intoxicated than he appeared.

  ‘I heard you were pulled over by the police on Sunday. How come? What happened?’ As he said this, Luke moved farther into the room and with a gentle sweep of his arm invited Wayne to sit down on the sofa, which he did. ‘There’s a beer in the fridge. I’ll get you one.’

  And before Wayne could say whether he wanted a drink or not, Luke had slipped into the kitchen. There were always cans of beer in the refrigerator for the frequent visits of Sally’s numerous boyfriends. It might sound ludicrous to offer a drunk another can of beer, but Luke was intent upon forcing his father to lay down his rifle, and with a bit of luck this plan would do the trick. One more can of beer was hardly likely to make any difference at this stage. He wrenched open the refrigerator and managed to knock over almost everything on the shelves as he removed a single can, which he quickly ripped open, pouring half into a glass. Then he took both glass and can back into the lounge room and offered them to his father.

  ‘Thanks,’ muttered Wayne Aldridge; but then he became confused. Both his hands rested on the rifle, which was cradled across his knee. As he reached upwards, the gun jostled uncomfortably and after a pause to consider his position, Wayne plucked the weapon from his lap and laid it gently on the carpet beside the sofa. Now he could accept the can and the glass, which went straight to his lips. Thus occupied, he missed the relief which oozed onto his son’s anxious face.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe what’s happened to me this week, Luke. It was after the footy when I was caught in one of the random breath-testing traps. I’d only had a few beers but the mongrels said I was over the limit. Danielle was with me, but she’d had a few drinks too and the coppers warned her that if she tried to drive my car away they’d arrest her as well. We’d spent all our cash at the footy and there wasn’t enough for a taxi. Danny was furious. And the police didn’t help much, laughing at her. She had to walk to a phone box along the street to ring her mother to come and pick her up.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Danny wasn’t real happy about me going on the trip out west, and I suppose being stranded and embarrassed like that on Sunday — well, it was the last straw for her. Haven’t seen her since, and last night when I came home all her stuff was gone. She hasn’t rung or anything. She doesn’t even know about my job.’

  ‘Your job?’ Luke repeated, not understanding.

  ‘Yeh, that’s the other thing. That courier company I worked for has fired me. I told them I was applying to have my licence suspension changed to let me keep driving for work, but they weren’t interested. I guess they didn’t like me taking those days off last week to go hunting. Oh, God! How I wish we’d never gone on that trip.’

  ‘Dad, if you’ve lost your driver’s licence, how come you drove here?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Look, just because they take away your licence doesn’t mean you immediately forget how to drive.’

  ‘But that’s illegal. What if you’re stopped again? Won’t it be worse next time?’

  ‘Oh, rubbish. They won’t stop me. Lightning never strikes twice. That’s another thing about losing your licence, Luke. You don’t have to carry around a big sign saying ‘No licence’. To the police car driving by, you don’t look any different from the rest of the traffic.’

  ‘But Dad, you’ve had a few drinks as well. What if you get tested again? You — ’

  ‘Oh, come on, Luke. I just had a few drinks for lunch at the pub. Nothing to worry about. I’m getting real tired of every Tom, Dick and Harry telling me I’m drunk. Don’t know what they’re talking about.’ His father was becoming agitated, even angry, so Luke steered clear of the topic.

  Presently, Wayne remembered why he had come. ‘Luke, if you’re worried about firing in that jungle over the road we can find some bush with no people around. Come on, let’s go.’

  Luke could see that his father was determined this time and that further subtle diversions were not going to distract him. It was time to be blunt. He leaned forward in his seat, pulling back his shoulders to appear as tall as he could and said: ‘I don’t want to learn how to use the thirty-thirty, Dad. I don’t want to have anything to do with guns for a while.’

  Wayne was shocked by these words from his son. He had come to make amends for one regrettable mistake, one foolish moment which he knew had hurt his son. But Luke was rejecting the entire hunting trip. ‘Why not, Luke? What’s wrong with guns? You always loved them, couldn’t wait for the latest magazines …’

  ‘Dad, it was different just admiring them in those magazines. Sounds stupid, I know, but somehow I never realised that guns are for killing, not until we went out west and I saw for myself. I just don’t want to have anything to do with it.’

  Luke expected a barrage of argument at these words, but in his father’s face he saw hurt and disappointment instead of anger. ‘I don’t understand how you can feel that way, Luke, just can’t understand it. I was looking forward to taking you with me again, when you’re a bit older, and I was maybe going to get you a good rifle too, a powerful one like that.’ He tossed his head towards the thirty-thirty, still lying next to the sofa.

  A long silence followed, awkward and tense, neither able to find the eye of the other. Wayne had finished his beer now and as a response to this breakdown in the visit he said, ‘I suppose I should go then … ’ And he probably would have done just that — had not Alison chosen
that moment to enter the room.

  FOURTEEN

  Alison had not yet shaken off the drowsiness of sleep, and this was why she was unable to mask any of the surprise and distaste which rose within her when she saw her former husband seated on the sofa.

  ‘Oh, Wayne,’ she muttered, managing to make the name sound like a disease. ‘I heard voices; thought I’d come out to see who it was.’

  ‘Hello, Alison,’ responded Wayne cautiously. He was careful not to falter in his speech and hint at his drunkenness. ‘I called in to see Luke.’ But he couldn’t resist the chance of a bitter remark so he added sarcastically, ‘Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘I have no objection,’ said Alison with cold formality.

  Luke knew what was going to happen and he was terrified. With the two of them trapped in the same room it was only a matter of time before they began to snap and curse at one another. God knows, the few words they had exchanged already had been nasty enough. But this time there was a horrible danger that had never occurred before in a meeting between his mother and father. His father was drunk and on the floor not a metre from his hands lay a gun. For a second he hoped desperately that Alison would be able to see the rifle from where she stood behind his chair, but he realised that from where he sat, his eye followed almost the same line as his mother’s towards that hidden corner of the sofa. As he could not see the weapon, his mother would also be unable to spot it.

  How could he stop her from launching into one of her tirades against Wayne, an attack which on this occasion might provoke the unthinkable? He considered saying calmly, almost as part of the conversation: ‘Mum, Dad’s brought his gun along with him. It’s sitting on the carpet next to the sofa.’ Ob, don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. How could you possibly slip that statement casually into the stiff and measured sentences that were being exchanged. It was too obvious and if his father took offence, he could retrieve the gun in an instant. Besides, he could just guess at Alison’s response to this revelation. She would hit the roof and start screaming at her ex-husband. Just the thing for a man with too much booze in his blood.

  All of this went through Luke’s mind in a flash, as Wayne and Alison eyed each other off sullenly.

  ‘What were you talking about?’ asked Alison.

  Luke cursed his mother under his breath. She knew damned well what he and his father had been discussing; she was intent upon using this as a stick with which to beat his dad.

  Wayne, for his part, said nothing as he sat on the edge of the sofa holding an empty glass and an empty beer can. There was deep worry in his face, a fear of Alison which Luke had never seen before. It dawned on Luke that Wayne still believed Alison to be ignorant about the hunting trip, and that he had convinced himself that if she discovered the truth she would instantly cut his access rights to Luke. The last thing Luke wanted, with that gun so near to hand, was for Wayne to feel threatened. So he answered his mother’s question himself.

  ‘I’ve been explaining to Dad why I don’t want to go on any more hunting trips for a while.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ chirped Alison, as if the topic had never entered her head. Both she and Luke looked towards Wayne to gauge his reaction, though each did so from a different viewpoint. Wayne’s face had lost its colour and he had taken on the darting-eyed dread which actors used on television to portray a criminal in a courtroom drama.

  ‘It’s okay, Dad. Mum and I have been talking about it for a few days now.’ Luke was about to rush on and say more to put his father’s mind at rest, but Alison beat him to it.

  ‘Yes, you don’t have to worry, Wayne. Your son has just about talked me into ignoring the whole sorry business.’

  Luke almost sighed aloud in relief. He could have jumped up and kissed his mother.

  The feeling lasted about ten seconds, then Alison began to speak again.

  ‘Of course, I shouldn’t ignore what amounts to about the most irresponsible stunt you’ve ever pulled, Wayne. Behind my back, too. I’m laid up in hospital for a few days, Luke’s suspended from school, and what do you do? You take him on your drunken one-man-war against everything that moves. I suppose I should be thankful just to have him back in one piece instead of several. I really don’t know why you didn’t take him crocodile fishing so you could use him as bait. He’d be about as safe.’

  ‘Oh shuddup, Alison,’ said Wayne irritably. ‘He was never in any danger.’

  ‘Never in any danger?’ goaded Alison. ‘You nearly blew his head off, do you realise that? He was in danger just standing near you, Wayne. When you’ve got a gun in your hand you’re a menace to life itself.’ Alison paused, though not long enough to allow Wayne to reply. The clever words which slashed and tore at Wayne came so easily to her. He had no defence against her. She knew from experience exactly how long it would take him to gather his words for a fight back, and she began firing again just in time to cut him off. ‘Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Wayne. Luke might still want to spend time with you, though I can’t imagine why, but there is no possibility that he’ll ever go out west shooting with you and Jacko and whatever other clowns you lumber along with you.’

  A few minutes earlier, Wayne Aldridge’s face had been white, but with this onslaught he became as flushed as the fury bubbling within him. Luke watched it rise, like a flood victim noting with helpless horror the steady rise of the water which will eventually engulf him.

  ‘Mum,’ hissed Luke in desperation. ‘Calm down, will you?’

  ‘Don’t start protecting your father, Luke. It’s about time he faced his own foolishness all by himself. You’ve been lucky, Wayne. First your parents stood up for you, then it was me, and now it looks like your son wants to take on the role. Well, I won’t let it happen, not to my son. If you want to waste your own life that’s fine, but you’re not going to drag Luke along with you so that he turns out the same way. He’s got some courage about him, has Luke, the kind of courage that makes someone face growing up. You haven’t noticed that about him, have you? You’ve been too busy teaching him the useless sort of bravery you imagine you have, taking pot-shots at animals.’

  Alison went on relentlessly: ‘You have to manufacture your courage. You have to prove you’ve got any by slaughtering hapless animals. But when it comes to real guts, to looking in the mirror and asking ‘Have I ever done anything in my life for somebody else? Have I ever done anything I didn’t want to do? Have I stuck with it because other people needed me to do it?’ the answer is no. You just haven’t got any stomach for that at all. Far easier to live in a dream world where you can be the brave hero. There’s always some fool who’ll look after you, even look up to you until the truth starts to seep through.’

  ‘That’s enough!’ shouted Wayne. ‘I don’t have to listen to this garbage.’ His hands were curled into tight fists, as though at any moment he would launch himself at his former wife. Instead, he turned his attention to his son, pleading: ‘Luke, you don’t believe this, do you. Is this what she’s been saying to you all week? Don’t listen to her.’

  Luke had no answer. He found it difficult to look at his father. Clouding his vision was the image of Kieran Doggitt leaping down to grab the Winchester and fell the pig before it gored his stranded, screaming father.

  Finally, Wayne’s control crumbled. ‘You bitch!’ he yelled, hurling his empty glass at Alison’s head. In his drunkenness, his aim was poor and Alison easily evaded it, but the incident distracted Luke’s attention. He had been waiting for the slightest sign that Wayne was reaching for the gun, but as the glass sailed through the air he naturally followed it with his eye … and it was then that Wayne shifted to the edge of the sofa and grabbed the rifle. Luke caught the movement out of the corner of his eye and knew immediately what it meant.

  He leapt to his feet, diving to trap the gun against the floor so that his father would be unable to lift it. He was too late. Wayne snatched it away before he landed, and in the second it took for Luke to recover and spring to his feet, he heard his f
ather crank the lever down then up: the gun was ready to fire. On his feet again, Luke latched himself onto the rifle with both hands and pulled it close to his chest. Because his father was so much stronger, this meant closing up tightly against Wayne. They stood glaring into each other’s face, hugging the gun with the stock and barrel protruding from opposite sides.

  ‘Let it go, Dad. You’ll do something stupid,’ gasped Luke.

  ‘I’ve finally had it, son. I’m sick and tired of your mother’s tongue. I’m going to shoot it out of her mouth for her.’

  ‘Mum, get out of here!’ called Luke. ‘He’s drunk and the gun’s loaded.’

  But Alison had no intention of fleeing, not while Luke was struggling with Wayne. She was still frozen to the floor behind Luke’s chair, but at these words, she came round towards the wrestling figures to lend her weight to Luke. Wayne saw her coming; mustering his strength, he yanked the rifle towards himself then thrust it hard into Luke’s face. Luke gave a yelp and fell to the floor, his lower lip split and bleeding. Wayne had the rifle to himself now. Quickly he snapped it round so that it was pointed at Alison, who screamed at the sight of the barrel directed at her navel.

  ‘Dad!’ begged Luke from the floor.

  ‘Shut up, both of you,’ shouted Wayne. ‘Especially you, you bitch,’ he hissed at Alison. ‘One more word and I’ll blow you in two. Ask Luke. He’s seen what this little beauty can do.’

  Silence. Alison had enough sense this time to save her own life; for the time being at least. The seconds ticked by. No one moved, no one spoke. At last, feeling his power, Wayne relaxed a fraction. ‘Sit down,’ he told Alison, who thought it wise to obey, easing herself into the chair Luke had occupied earlier.

  Luke gambled that he could speak now and get away with it. Watching his father’s face, he said to Alison, ‘Dad brought the rifle along so he could teach me how to use it. We’re going to take it deep into the bush. Somewhere safe. Dad says I should be able to handle it if he shows me how.’