‘Let’s die together!’
But Tom had left soon after that. He’d wandered off home mumbling something about needing to have his head clear for the next day. Whereas Jonty had stayed . . . right till dawn.
‘You hear me?’ Jonty’s father shouted into his ear.
‘Yes, I hear you.’ The pain was even further away.
‘What future will you have if you mix with cretins and degenerates?’
‘No future,’ Jonty mumbled, because that was the only answer he was allowed to give.
‘So what were you on?’
Jonty can’t remember that either. Had there been pills of some sort?
His father let him go suddenly and Jonty, weak with relief, scrambled off the bed and pulled on his jeans. But his father was a former boxer and could still move fast.
‘Drugs are for degenerates,’ he began again, softly. ‘For people with no pride. You understand me?’
‘Yes.’ Jonty rubbed his wrist and shoulder. ‘I understand you.’
Jed would have him on the floor with a knee in his chest if he tried anything.
‘Pride! You hear me?’
Jonty nodded subserviently and readied himself for the full treatment.
But this time fate was on his side . . . The phone rang. It rang and rang. Loudly. Louder than Jonty could remember it ever ringing before.
‘Marie!’ Jed bellowed out. ‘Phone! Get the phone.’
Still it rang. His mother must have been outside, maybe feeding the chooks or in the garden with her roses – the one pleasure in her life. His father gave him a last fleeting contemptuous look and was out the door.
Jonty’s mother comes in with two cups of the cocoa he likes and some special chocolate biscuits he doesn’t like but eats anyway just to please her.
‘Sometimes there’s nothing you can do, Mum,’ Jonty mumbles, trying to sound calm.
‘But she didn’t earn it!’ His mother has that hysterical sob in her voice. ‘My father wanted it for us! Lillian and me. His girls. He used to tell us all the time. It was all for Lillian and me. She nagged him to an early grave!’
Oh jeez. All this again! What can you say when someone is on a roll like this? Nothing. Just sit and cop it sweet. As though he hadn’t heard it before.
‘Same way she nagged Lillian and me. We both ran like blind donkeys into completely senseless marriages just to get away from her. Oh my poor sister. To think what happened to my poor darling sister!’ She falls down onto the sofa again and starts crying, searching around for a hanky in the pocket of her dressing-gown.
Jonty hands over his own and waits.
‘Sweet sweet Lillian who never hurt a fly! She used to stick up for me all the time . . . when we were little.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Jonty keeps his voice steady, ‘she’s dead now.’
‘I want you to be able to walk proudly in this town,’ his mother says, ‘in front of everyone, including your father when he comes back. One day you’ll be a wealthy man, Jonty. I want that for you.’
‘Hush, Mum,’ he mutters softly. ‘It’s okay now, calm down.’
‘As soon as the twelve months are up I’ll divorce him and he won’t get a penny!’ She starts laughing again, and even though Jonty hasn’t smoked anything in ages the laughter makes him roll into a kind of disconnected semi-stoned state. He feels like an actor being made to do weird things that make no sense but he has to do them because . . . it’s his job. ‘You get your share of her money and I’ll die happy,’ she is still raving. ‘Her wealth was the only reason he married me . . .’
‘Listen, Mum, you’ve got to seem more together in this letter,’ Jonty says patiently. ‘Just tell her that Dad has gone and that you’re never going back to him, and then maybe invite her to lunch or something.’
His mother frowns.
‘You could bring her to Thistles so she can see me in action!’ Jonty is only joking, but his mother looks so terrified by the suggestion that he smiles.
‘I couldn’t possibly . . . do that,’ she whispers.
‘Okay, but make it more upbeat anyway,’ Jonty grabs the pad and biro from her and begins to rewrite and cross out bits and pieces. ‘She won’t want to see you begging.’
‘Don’t you believe it!’ she whispers. ‘She’ll want me begging and I’ll do it. I’ll do and say whatever it takes!’ But she finally agrees the tone should be lighter and more succinct. It should work as a bait to entice her mother into at least meeting for a talk. The overhaul takes about ten minutes. After she agrees on the finished draft, Jonty gets up, yawning.
‘Got to sleep.’
‘You go to bed then.’ She touches his hand briefly. ‘Did you know there is some big thing happening at the Centre tomorrow night?’
‘Yeah, I know.’ Jonty is edging for the door.
‘You going?’ She gives one of her wrecked hopeful smiles. ‘You should. You’ve been stuck at home ever since you’ve been back. Don’t hide away. You’re young, Jonty. Get out and have some fun.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Jonty suddenly feels like a kid in kindergarten being urged not to hold back, to take his bag of lollies along with all the other kids. ‘Maybe. Goodnight, Mum.’
‘Goodnight, my darling boy.’
Jonty crawls into his unmade bed and switches off the bedside light.
How weird is this? His mother urging him to get out and have fun! Bizarre coming from someone who sits home most of the day looking at the wall – too freaked to phone anyone, too scared to go down to the shops in case she runs into her husband, who happens to be thousands of miles away. Too frightened of her own mother to knock on her door and say ‘hi’.
Hey, Jonty, get out there and have fun! How do you have fun with no friends? The names of friends drift into his consciousness and then drift away again in just the way they did three years ago. But it was Tom Mullaney cutting him loose that really mattered. That one hurt! It all got too close for Tom. His old man being Jonty’s defence lawyer and all but . . . what kind of pissweak excuse is that? One day he’ll have it out with Tom Mullaney. He doesn’t know when or where or how, but one day he’ll make that prick face himself.
Those detectives! There was one guy Jonty had genuinely liked. Lloyd Hooper, a slow-talker, but quick to see the funny side of whatever was going on. He got Jonty’s humour early on and they hit it off. Or it seemed that way. That guy could talk music. He’d lived in Europe for a few years and was interested in politics. Jonty liked talking to a kindred spirit who was older. Lloyd would take him out sometimes and they’d sit on the beach. The detective would buy coffees and they’d talk. Jonty told him about his old man, about his mum and about school, the trouble he’d been in. He told him about the afternoons he and Tommo spent with Lillian, too. Why not? There was nothing wrong there. It was just a close, unusual friendship. The detective was cool about them getting into dope. He took a real interest in the stuff the three of them used to talk about, too; the different views Lillian had about films and books and studying; what she was doing with her life and what Jonty and Tom thought about it all.
But then they’d brought Jonty in for a record of interview. Just Jonty on his own. Anything you say may be used in a court of law against you. And it had dawned on him that it was him they were after. That all the hours of pleasant talk had been a ruse. They had Jonty in their sights. You are entitled to make a phone call. ‘Yeah,’ Jonty had said to the bristly-faced, fat-bellied little prick, who was staring at him with his bulging eyes, like he could see right into Jonty’s heart and didn’t like what he saw one little bit. ‘I want to make a phone call!’ His good mate Lloyd seemed to have disappeared at that stage. And where was Tom?
Jonty rang his mother, and she got Luke Mullaney around to the police station within the hour.
‘Say nothing,’ Luke told Jonty. Constantly he said that. Even when they charged Jonty and he was locked away in remand, Luke would come by and tell him the same thing over and over. Say nothing to nobody. It got so boring.
Jonty had all kinds of ideas about how he was going to get himself out of that hole. But Luke’s advice was always the same, like a broken record: Say nothing, Jonty. Remember they’ve got to prove it against you! It was hard remembering that because it got so lonely in there. After a while it was the only thing he wanted to talk about.
In remand he met up with a guy he knew in primary school. Bryce Collins. He’d been charged with petty larceny or some dumb thing. They’d been mates, so Jonty was glad to see him. But after a few weeks he started asking Jonty about Lillian and the murder. Confide in no one, Luke had told Jonty. Coppers put stooges in to get information. Say nothing. Jonty was totally freaked out by that stage, so lonely, with no smoke or pills to ease it either. But he stayed away from the guy after that.
Now, more than anything, Jonty wants whoever did it to be caught. He wants them put inside. And he wants the key thrown away. That’s what he tells himself as he goes off to sleep, with his mother still rustling about in the living room. That’s his prayer. Whoever did it should be punished.
Jonty ends up going to the concert. Anything to get away from his mother. The next morning she was still driving him nuts with all the talk about his grandmother’s money. In the middle of it all she rings Luke Mullaney for advice. So now Luke’s their money guru as well? Fuck that! Apparently you can contest a will if it’s unfair blah blah. But it sometimes takes years blah blah, and you can’t count on a favourable outcome. Great! Jonty knows that he’s got to get out. He can manage small doses of her when he has work to go to at night, but actually hanging out with her all day makes him edgy, gives him an urge to do something wild and really stupid just to relieve the feeling that his heart is being dragged bumping and scraping along the road behind a utility truck.
So here he is, rugged-up in coat and scarf, heading into town to see a band. God! It feels like someone else. But no . . . it’s him all right. Jonty van der Weihl. Just another human being out in the spitting rain and the mean wind. Once he’s down on Webber Street he becomes part of a whole throng of people around his own age, heading in the same direction. And it feels all right, it does. He’s on his own A lot of ties came loose three years ago. He does recognise a few faces. Mostly they nod and say, G’day, Jonty! or, You back, Jonty? How you doing? Not overtly hostile exactly, more curious, like they didn’t expect ever to see him again. But they don’t hang around. Fair enough.
He lines up and buys his ticket. The good seats have gone already so he gets stuck right up the back, but he doesn’t mind that much.
He finds himself next to a pack of sixteen-year-old girls, all of them dressed to kill in tight T-shirts and stiletto shoes, with studs and rings in their ears and eyebrows and mouths. A couple have rolls of fat spilling out over their skin-tight jeans, and they all stink of perfume and hair gunk. They gabble on excitedly about who is there and who isn’t, and if some other dude will make the concert on time. Jonty hasn’t heard this kind of breathless, babbling girl-talk for a long time. It’s almost like another language, and it makes him smile.
‘Hey, Skye!’ The one next to him shouts. ‘Over here!’ She leans across Jonty to chuck something from her bag at whoever she wants to attract in a seat further down, and in the process swipes him in the face with her earring.
‘Hey!’ Jonty says, holding his cheek.
‘Renee! You got him in the eye!’ the one next to him giggles.
‘Did not!’ She turns to him. ‘Did I?’
‘Yeah,’ Jonty shrugs. ‘You got me.’
‘Omigod!’ she gasps and leans closer peering into his face. ‘Are you okay?’
Jonty nods. If there is one thing he hates it is being asked Are you okay?
Huddled up in the corner of the psychiatric ward of the local hospital having some sort of drug-induced psychotic episode. Hallucinating like crazy, he thought he was in a helicopter during a war. The engine had been hit and was on fire. The whole thing was going to blow up any second. He was the only one without a parachute but his mates didn’t know it, they were trying to push him out. The fields far below spread out like a green patchwork rug and the cars moved like little coloured meccano dots and he knew he was about to die. He was sweating like a pig, gasping and crying. He had ants crawling out his ears and up his arse and this young nurse came in, put a hand on his shoulder and said, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Oh sure,’ Jonty sobbed, tears pouring down his face, ‘just fantastic! What about you? Are you okay?’
The first band is a group of local guys and no one is interested. They get a bit of applause at the end of their set and a couple more bands come on. But when Pete’s Revenge is introduced the atmosphere immediately belts up into a higher gear. Not silence exactly just a heavy charge of excitement and expectation. The chatter stops. Even the girl who swiped him with her earring gets serious. Jonty takes a quick look at her face in the revolving red light and they share a smile. He suddenly wants to tell her that she looks good, so much better than she sounds. But he keeps his mouth shut because he knows she’s likely to take it the wrong way.
Okay, here’s the band! Five guys. They burst onto the stage like a pack of wild cats, half a minute tune-up and then – without a smile or a word or a wave – it’s on. So loud! It crashes into his ears like a storm. He’s not used to this. Fake smoke billows out from somewhere under the stage and the lights change from red to purple to yellow.
After the first few numbers, they sing the hit that got them known and the girls around Jonty go berserk. They squeal and clap and stand on their chairs. The earring girl hauls him up too.
‘Comeon!’ she screams, throwing an arm around his shoulders and kissing him on the ear. ‘Whatchawaitinfor?’
Jonty laughs and stands, too. He sees the number through with her hand clinging on to clumps of his hair and it feels all right.
At the end of the song she jumps down and edges nearer, and he kisses her in the dark because she wants him too. Her tongue immediately goes down his throat and he has to pull away because he’s laughing so hard. She’s obviously the leader of the group, the outrageous one who’d do anything. There is always one in a crowd. He knows because it used to be him. The others are watching and giggling and nudging her on.
‘Whatsyaname?’ she shouts up into his face,
‘Jonno,’ he laughs. ‘You?’
‘Renee!’ she shouts. ‘And this is Teagan and Mally and Skye.’
They all shake hands exuberantly and then turn back to the stage because the band has started a new number.
‘Hey, Jack,’ Renee declares boldly, so her friends hear. ‘You’re cool.’
‘You too,’ Jonty grins back. Jack? Okay, Jack will do.
After an hour of loud music, banter with the girls and a bit more touchy feely in the dark, Jonty needs to take a piss. He’s also got a thirst on him like a dead cat left out in the sun for five days. He and Renee have shared two more unsuccessful kisses and a lot of personal information like, What star sign are you? What is your favourite CD ever? Can you surf? It calls for a drink. Why didn’t he bring in a bottle of water like the girlies around him, sucking on their bottles like babies? He excuses himself with promises to be back soon, ducks his way out to the end of the row and makes his exit past the security guys through the back door.
There are maybe fifty people in the foyer. Some of them are security, drifting around, chatting to each other or talking importantly into their phones. Others are lining up for drinks at a counter down the other end. There are more people out the front of the glass doors, smoking. Someone has a van out there selling doughnuts to a group of bikers who have obviously just pulled up. Jonty notes the half-a-dozen gleaming motor bikes parked on the footpath outside and wishes like crazy that he had one. The girl’s toilet has the usual winding queue.
Jonty spots some guys he thinks are from his old school. Names he’s mostly forgotten. They’re larking around in the drinks line with a couple of girls he doesn’t recognise. Before pushing the toilet door open he takes
a second look. Is one of them Tom Mullaney? The tall guy with the black curly hair has his back turned. It is him, Jonty thinks as he ducks quickly into a cubicle. He takes a long piss and zips up his fly, feeling unaccountably nervous. So . . . what do I say? He feels like a loser here by himself. Jonty washes his hands and decides not to go back for the rest of the concert. Tom will keep. He takes a long slurp of water from the tap and puts on his coat for the walk home. If he cuts out now with luck he’ll be able to sneak in the back way and avoid his mother.
But when he walks out into the foyer again something is going on.
The bikers have come in from the cold and up close they look mean. They’re older guys, most of them, in their thirties and forties, all decked out in tatts and leathers, beards and guts hanging over their belts. They’re swaggering around, yelling out. But it’s not until one of them stamps out his cigarette on the foyer carpet and the others start chucking doughnuts at each other that the two security guys come over to remonstrate – only to be totally ignored. The glassy eyes and loud voices tell Jonty that they’re seriously out of it on some chemical or other. The two uniformed security guys start to confer, but they don’t really seem to know what to do. The music has started up again in the main hall, so all noise in the foyer has been drowned out.
About to walk out into the cold, Jonty hesitates. There is something mesmerising about watching a group of idiots. He stands by the door and watches the bikers saunter up behind Tom and his group. There is a sharp exchange. At first it is just edgy aggressive talk and then one of the bikers starts screaming and pushing his way to the front of the queue. One of the girls topples over in her high heels. There is a bit of squealing and gasping and a few are-you-okay squawks. Jonty moves nearer.
‘Careful, mate!’ he hears Tom say loudly, helping the blonde girl up and giving the heavies a dirty look. A couple of them turn quickly to size him up.
‘You got a problem?’ the red-faced fat one says. The atmosphere is suddenly thick with hostility. Jonty stands well back, feeling a weird kind of excitement grow in him. He can tell what’s going to happen. It’s like a play he’s seen before with everybody performing their designated roles. The leading moron figures that he’s got the numbers so why not pick a fight for the hell of it.
Somebody's Crying Page 10
