‘Oh, right.’ Tom juggles a couple of tomatoes in the air before putting them down on the chopping board. He picks up a sharp knife and begins to chop them. ‘And those Jews are going to die anyway, so it might as well be me who switches on the gas. And someone is going to torture some poor bastard in jail in Iran or Chile or China, so it might as well be me. I get the drift. Nice one, Dad!’
‘What are you saying?’ his father looks up sharply.
‘I don’t know,’ Tom sighs.
‘Everyone has a right to legal representation in our system of justice,’ Luke continues sternly. ‘Everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You say you don’t believe in that?’
‘I’m saying that someone accused of murder should not be able to just sit there and say . . . nothing! They should have to account for themselves at the very least!’
‘So, no right to silence?’
But Tom is unsure now. All those cop shows where they’re handcuffing some innocent guy and at the same time shouting, I’m duty bound to inform you that you have the right to remain silent and that anything you say might be used in a court of law, start playing over in his mind.
‘Well,’ his father shrugs, ‘I work within the system we’ve got.’
‘Even if you know someone is guilty?’ Tom shoots back at him.
There is a slight pause. Luke stands up from where he is bending to turn the meat and looks straight at Tom. ‘Jonty van der Weihl has never admitted guilt to me!’ Luke says, stabbing the air with his finger, ‘and if he did tell me he was guilty, I would not defend him on a not guilty plea, anyway. Simple as that! It would not be ethical, so I wouldn’t do it.’
‘But you’ve got a fair idea!’ Tom hits right back. ‘Just because he hasn’t said the words!’
‘A hunch is worth nothing. It’s bullshit.’
‘Why?’ Tom thinks of all the films where the protagonist has only a hunch to go on. And how often it turns out to be right.
‘It is up to a jury to decide on the basis of evidence!’ Luke says. ‘That’s our system and it’s a good one.’
‘But how will the jury decide?’ Tom sneers. ‘You’re going to make bloody sure that he never goes near a court!’
Luke says nothing, but he is frowning as he goes to the cupboard and gets out plates, knives and forks. Tom finishes off the basic salad with way too much Paul Newman dressing – the lettuce looks like strips of dripping wallpaper – and places it in the middle of the table. He is sorry to have upset his old man. The meat smells good and he’s really hungry.
‘What about the eggs?’
‘You want eggs?’ Luke asks blandly.
‘Yeah.’
Luke heats up oil in the frypan.
‘Listen, Tom, I can only do my best for that kid,’ Luke continues evenly. ‘He used to be a mate of yours. Surely you wouldn’t deny him a lawyer?’
Ah! That’s below the belt! Tom has never talked to his father about the way he and Jonty fell out three years ago. The way he dropped Jonty . . . He watches the eggs spitting and sizzling in the pan and wonders if other people noticed the way he slid away like a . . . coward.
‘I’m getting old, Tom.’ Luke throws the eggshells one at a time into the rubbish bin over the other side of the room. He gets all four in and they grin at each other.
‘That’s your excuse, is it?’ Tom says lightly.
‘Yep.’ Luke forks the meat onto the plates.
‘Well I suppose we all tell ourselves bullshit in order to keep the wolf from the door, eh?’ Tom is dismayed by his own judgemental attitude but can’t seem to help it.
‘Jeez! What’s got into you?’ His father suddenly laughs. ‘Give an old codger a break, will you!’
They eat companionably in front of the television, then Luke goes to finish off the shed. After watching a football panel show and then half of a sexy European movie, Tom decides to go to bed. He finds his father making up the spare bed downstairs.
‘What are you doing that for?’
‘I thought your mother might like to stay tomorrow night,’ he says casually, without looking up. He is taking great care to make the sheet corners absolutely straight, and it strikes Tom that this is probably the first time he’s ever seen his father make a bed in his life. ‘After the long drive. What do you think?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Tom shrugs as though this is a perfectly reasonable, thoughtful and kind suggestion. But he knows the whole idea of his mum staying the night is simply wishful thinking on his father’s part, and that makes him feel sad.
Tom’s mother, sister and brother arrive at about midday the next day. It’s only been a couple of months, but Nellie and Ned have both changed for the better. Nellie looks good in her short grubby denim skirt, black jumper with holes in both elbows and hot pink leggings complete with a few runs up the back. The heavy Doc Martins could do with a clean – there’s dried mud encircling both heels – but even so she manages to look ultra cool. She’s always had a great sense of style, but now, at eighteen, any awkwardness she had seems to have gone. The carelessly worn red scarf around her neck, and the jet black hair pulled straight back into a knot at the back of her head, make her look like a cool French student off for a philosophy lecture. Tom grins, thinking that she’ll go well with the sharp crowd at uni next year.
‘G’day, Ned!’ Tom gives his fourteen-year-old brother a hug. ‘You takin’ growth pills, or what?’ Ned’s skin is spotty, but his eyes are clear and bright. He’s also not hanging his head and looking like he’d rather be somewhere else, which is a big improvement. Even before they get inside he backs up against Tom so their father can measure them. Tom is just over six feet and Ned is delighted when Luke tells him that he’s only a couple of inches shorter.
‘You’ll be bossing him around soon, Kel!’ Their mum laughs, as she hugs Tom.
‘When have I ever bossed him around?’
‘Don’t call me Kel!’
‘Sorry!’ Kel is Ned’s pet name, from Ned Kelly.
‘Well if it isn’t lover boy!’ Nellie smirks. ‘Broken any hearts since you’ve been here?’ They clap hands, then a quick hard hug, glad to see each other. Nellie was in on some of the stuff that went down when he split with Amanda, so she feels she’s entitled to hang it on Tom about his love life.
‘Only three or four.’ Tom grabs one end of the red scarf and tries to unwind it before his sister can slip away. ‘So you’ve been hanging out in St Vinnies again have you, Sis?’
‘At least I have some idea!’ Nellie steps away for a long cool look at what he’s wearing. ‘Same old baggy jeans, I see, and this has to be,’ she plucks at his chest and makes a disgusted face, ‘one of Dad’s cast-off jumpers!’ She hugs her father, pats Tom on the head disdainfully and walks past him into the house. ‘Thought you’d have a whole new wardrobe for the big lights of Woobie by now, Tommy boy!’
Woobie is the name Nellie and Tom gave their home town when they moved to the city. Nellie had pretended to be totally glad to have left, but Tom knows she missed everything a lot. He can see in her eyes that she’s glad to be back, even for a visit. Ned wasn’t old enough to pretend. He was really homesick for the first two years.
Nellie and Ned are first inside. Tom follows his parents, who are talking quietly about the way Ned’s speech impediment has improved dramatically over the last few months. It’s true, Tom thinks. From the little bit he’s heard, the stutter is almost gone.
Once they realise that Nanette isn’t there, his brother and sister immediately begin snooping around their old house, commenting on changes and reliving past triumphs and mishaps.
‘Hey, Nellie, remember when you cut your foot trying to escape out the window?’
‘I wasn’t escaping; I was—!’
‘You sooked for ages!’
‘I did not!’
‘Who gave you this dorky painting, Dad?’
They open windows, poke in cupboards, loll about on the furniture and make rude comments. Although Anna is being supe
r-polite, it amuses Tom to see that she’s dying to have a poke around, too. It’s her old house after all, and she hasn’t seen it for over a year and then only with Nanette around. Tom watches his mother looking at everything, smiling at the photos that Luke has pinned up and even running her hands over the furniture – most of which she chose herself.
‘Love this chair,’ she mumbles to herself as she sits down in the huge old leather club with a glass of wine. ‘They don’t make them like this anymore.’
‘Take it, if you want,’ Luke immediately responds. ‘I don’t need it.’ He waves around the room which probably is too full of furniture, although its cluttered comfortable feel is nice.
Anna smiles at him a bit sadly. Luke has always erred on the side of being overly generous. ‘Thanks, Luke, but I knew when I bought my apartment that I wouldn’t have room for this kind of stuff.’
Luke cooks the barbeque outside and Tom helps his mother make the salad. Nellie and Ned are meant to set the table but basically just stand around stuffing themselves with slices of the fresh bread, packed up high with dips and olives and whatever else they can get their hands on, while teasing Tom about his dorky taste in music. Years ago they’d caught him listening to a country album and they’ve never let him forget it.
Eventually, the five of them are sitting around the table and it’s just like old times on a good day. Nellie isn’t snaking around like a viper, hitting out with nasty comments about everything from someone’s bad breath to the state of the nation under the present government. And Ned seems to have gained a whole lot of new opinions, along with his renewed ease in speaking. Ned is probably the major factor that puts the rest of them in such a good mood. He’s not sitting back with the blank doltish look on his face that he’d worn or most of last three years, letting everything happen around him. He’s getting in there with his own comments and jokes and put-downs.
It’s pretty rare for the five of them to be together these days, and Tom can see it means a lot to his parents to see everyone happy. Luke and Anna don’t say much, but they laugh and smile and obviously love the banter.
‘Saw Amanda the other day.’ Nellie has a look in her eye that tells Tom she might well be lying, but he couldn’t care less.
‘Yeah?’ Tom acts interested just to get her going. ‘So how is she?’
‘Amanda is sooo hot!’ Ned cuts in, pointing his fork across the table at Tom. ‘You were the biggest friggin’ idiot in the world to break up with her!’
‘Yeah, well.’ Tom gives his little brother a kick in the shins. ‘My business, isn’t it? You want to have a kick of the footy later?’
‘Yeah!’
‘She had a guy with her.’ Nellie waits for everyone to take in this information. ‘Older dude in a really cool leather jacket.’
‘Probably her personal trainer,’ Tom quips. Amanda was a complete perfectionist. If she put on an ounce it was all systems go at the gym for the next week. All that perfect body stuff bored Tom after a while, so many times they’d go out to eat and she’d have about three bites and say she wasn’t hungry when Tom knew she was.
‘Wanted to know how you were,’ Nellie goes on.
‘So, what did you say?’
‘I said as far as I knew you were the same complete loser you’ve always been.’
‘Gee, thanks, Nellie! Good to know I’ve got someone to put out the good word about me!’
‘She wanted to know about your new girlfriend.’
‘No go on that front,’ Tom shoots her a wry look, ‘unfortunately.’
‘Dad?’ Nellie turns to him.
‘How would I know?’ Luke grins.
‘I bet he’s panting after some hot little local Barbie doll!’
‘I did see two girls outside my office checking him over the other day,’ Luke adds mildly, ‘but I have no idea if—’
‘Who?’ Tom cuts in. What if it was Alice?
‘Didn’t know them.’ Luke laughs at his quick response and looks around at the others. ‘He’s interested, though, isn’t he?’
‘So what did they look like?’ Tom asks, more to keep the ball rolling than because he really wants to know.
Luke frowns trying to think. ‘Ah well . . .’ He looks at his ex-wife down at the other end of the table. ‘Everyone under forty looks eighteen to me these days.’
‘I know what you mean!’ Anna grimaces. ‘We had a locum in at work the other day and I thought he was my partner Rob’s son, so I asked him how school was going!’
‘Mum!’ they all chorus.
‘That is truly fucking pathetic, Mum,’ Nellie almost shouts as she serves herself more meat. ‘There is no excuse for being so completely stupid.’
‘Watch your language, missy!’ Anna slaps Nellie’s hand. ‘It’s just not appropriate to speak like that . . .’
‘But it is so insulting!’
‘Mum is blind!’ Ned says solemnly and everyone nods, including Luke. She is too vain to wear her glasses most of the time.
‘Honestly, Mum,’ Nellie lectures with a full mouth, ‘you can’t just go around humiliating people like that because you’re too proud to wear glasses!’
‘Humiliating!’ Luke comments dryly. ‘Wish someone would ask me how school is going!’
Suddenly Ned is spluttering with laughter, his face red with it as he rocks helplessly on his chair, pointing one finger at his father. It’s so good to see Ned like this that the rest of them crack up laughing before they’ve even heard the joke.
‘Imagine Dad in a school uniform!’ he shouts, and they all hoot away picturing poor old fat Luke in grey shorts and tie . . .
Not that funny at all, Tom thinks wryly, but so what? You had to be there. It was just really good.
After the lunch dishes have been put away, Tom has a kick outside with Ned. When he comes back inside, he finds Nellie trying to cajole Luke into taking the boat out for a fishing trip. Tom can see his father would rather just stay home and catch up with his ex-wife, but he ends up agreeing.
‘Will you come, Tom? Help me lift the boat?’
‘Sure.’ Tom had been planning to head off in the car for a couple of hours with his camera, but he doesn’t want to be the spoiler.
‘Anna, you want to come?’ Luke asks.
‘I’ll come and watch,’ she smiles. ‘I get sick, remember.’
The old man immediately gets into Chief Commander mode, working out what tackle to take, telling Ned how to lift his end of the boat and Nellie how to hook bait. Everyone starts fighting about who will wear what coat and if the life jackets are seaworthy. Nellie tries hers on and starts screaming because there’s a spider.
Part of Tom is looking on all this a bit cynically. A family outing? Wow! Been a while since he’s been on one of these! But he can see that Ned is so thrilled by everything that he thinks, What the hell. Just get into it. He grabs his coat and the old Minolta. Might as well catch a few happy snaps on the boat while he’s at it. They all pile into the grunge-filled four-wheel drive and head off.
It takes less than five minutes to get down to the pier. Tom helps his father start the motor, which takes a bit of doing. They’re both cursing and yelling and kicking it in the side by the time it splutters to life, but at last the whole circus is ready to launch. It’s a bit cramped in the boat with four so Tom elects to stay back with his mother, who is sitting up on the grassy embankment in the sunshine, watching them all.
He grabs his camera and runs back down to the water to snap the three of them: Nellie, Ned and Luke, all laughing and waving as the crappy little tin dingy roars out over the water.
It’s a good day for it. Slight breeze, but the slate-grey water is calm enough. It shimmers like flat steel under the overcast sky. Tom walks back from the water to where his mother is sitting on a long bench, both arms extended across the back, her head back, face looking up at the sky.
‘Hey, Mum!’ Tom calls out as he gets nearer.
He catches her look of confusion and surprise as she
opens her eyes and sits up, dazed; then her warm smile as she sees him walking towards her still clicking away.
‘Not too many! I haven’t got my lipstick on.’
‘You look fine.’
‘Okay, Tom,’ she teases as he sits down beside her, ‘what’s going on in your life? You’ve got that faraway look in your eye.’
‘Nothing,’ Tom shrugs, looking out over the water. The little boat is now just a silver speck racing towards the horizon.
‘You’re preoccupied,’ she insists.
‘No, I’m not!’
‘What is happening?’
‘Not much at all,’ Tom says shortly, ‘apart from working on the paper.’
‘So . . . good living with Dad?’
‘Yep.’ What is it with mothers? He’d seen her watching him through lunch, looking for any clues about what was going through his head. He’d had to work hard to keep up the carefree front. The idea of anyone, much less his parents, knowing anything about his preoccupation with Alice Wishart would be horror territory of the first order.
‘What about Nanette?’ she asks casually.
‘Nanette is . . . Nanette,’ Tom sighs. He could mouth off about the way the woman annoys him but decides not to.
‘You get along with her okay?’
‘Fine.’ Tom smiles at his mother and she smiles back wryly. She knows what is going down on that front without being told, anyway.
They’re quiet for a while, watching small groups of tourists wander by, looking at the boats and eating ice-cream. It’s very picturesque down here. The clouds clear for a bit and his mother takes off her heavy jacket.
‘I just love watching the sky,’ she mumbles, pushing her face up into the light again. Tom looks up. Clouds are skidding past in the wind, but every now and again the sun makes a brief appearance. It’s ages since he’s just sat about with his mother. They used to do stuff like this all the time. Tom slides over and puts his arm around her shoulders.
‘How is Heath?’
‘Oh, he’s terrific,’ she says, without much interest.
‘You really like him?’
‘Sure thing.’
‘Going to get married?’ Tom asks.
Somebody's Crying Page 20
