Somebody's Crying

by Somebody's Crying (retail) (epub)

  Tom laughs, and wishes he could plant a kiss on her shiny face.

  ‘I don’t lie.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ She looks at him amused.

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘Do you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘I’ll remember that, Alice Wishart!’ He grins and suddenly they are both laughing.

  Jonty takes his time negotiating the traffic. He lopes across to them in a half-distracted way and stands under the streetlight, shifting about from one foot to the other. He looks oddly young, and ill-equipped for the cold night. His face is pale, he is wearing no jacket or jumper and his shirt is thin. His feet are grubby in worn thongs. The long, red hand-knitted scarf dangling around his neck is his only bit of warm clothing. About to hold out his hand, Tom decides that playing cool was never what this meeting was going to be about, so impulsively he grabs the two ends of the long scarf and wraps them quickly around Jonty’s head and neck.

  ‘Hey, Jonno!’

  Caught by surprise, Jonty tries to dodge and slip out of Tom’s grasp but can’t. Tom can tell that under the awkward Piss off, can’t ya, he’s laughing a bit.

  ‘You guys drunk yet?’ Jonty asks, unwinding the scarf.

  ‘We were waiting for you,’ Tom quips. ‘You look like you’ve just come back from a blizzard.’ Jonty laughs as he rewinds the scarf around his neck. ‘Or from committing a burglary!’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Jonty sniffs a couple of times, pulls out a hanky and blows his nose, then looks quizzically from Alice to Tom and back again.

  ‘So,’ he chuckles. ‘We’re here.’

  ‘The three of us.’

  ‘Why are you late?’

  ‘My old lady,’ Jonty grimaces, ‘that’s why I’m late.’ His voice is steady enough but his movements are jerky. He half turns and takes a step away as though he is going to leave altogether. On impulse, Tom grabs him again, this time by the shoulders, pushes him up against the wall of the pub and looks into his face.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks gently.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jonty laughs softly. ‘I’m okay, Tommy boy.’

  ‘It’s good to see you then.’ Tom doesn’t trust himself to say anything else. Being up so close to Jonty drags him through some kind of time warp and he feels like bawling.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Tom lets him go and clears his throat. Jonty smiles at Alice who is leaning up on the wall alongside him.

  ‘So, cousin,’ he jokes, ‘you know Tom, huh?’

  ‘Sort of.’ She smiles uncertainly. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jonty throws an arm around Tom’s shoulder, ‘not much to know.’

  ‘You want to go inside?’ Tom waves towards the pub.

  Jonty looks over at the crowd of young people spilling from one of the doorways and shakes his head.

  ‘What about a coffee, then? We could walk around to the Angry Cat.’

  ‘No.’ Jonty screws up his face. ‘I drink way too much coffee.’

  ‘And I should get home,’ Alice says.

  But none of them move.

  The usual late-night yelling and excited pissed talk of people deciding what to do next swells around them. Cars roar up and down the road and it begins to spit with rain. Tom isn’t sure what’s happening, but he is aware of their cocoon-like separateness from the rest of the crowd. If anyone bothered to look, they’d see the three leading actors in the current local drama.

  ‘So, we just stand out here in the rain?’ Tom asks wryly. ‘Is that the idea?’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Jonty is looking around edgily, frowning as though his mind is already concentrating on something else, humming a bit, then scratching his head.

  Tom glances at Alice. She shrugs as though she doesn’t know what’s going on either. Tom gives him a light punch on the arm and suddenly Jonty refocuses. He’s back on board with them.

  ‘So?’ He smiles ‘What’s happening, man? You working at the local rag?’

  ‘Yep. Holding the whole place together.’

  ‘Of course!’ Jonty fumbles around in the front pocket of his shirt for a cigarette. ‘The place would fall apart without ya, huh?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Tom laughs uneasily.

  Jonty is so shaky that he only just manages to pick a cigarette out of the pack. He gets it into his mouth but his hands are trembling so violently he can’t get it lit.

  Tom takes the lighter from him, does the job then waits as Jonty takes a couple of deep drags. ‘You don’t seem too good, mate,’ Tom says softly.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Jonty laughs, and makes a tight fist with one of his hands. He puts it on Tom’s shoulder. ‘Just bit unco at the moment, you know? Things are . . . have been . . . pretty full on, you know? Everything is . . . so bloody weird.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom says. ‘I can guess.’

  ‘My old man wrote to me today.’

  ‘From prison?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jonty looks at Tom and then at Alice. ‘He’s found God.’

  ‘Jeez!’ Tom’s mouth falls open.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So where did he find him?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Where does God hang out?’

  ‘We always wanted to know that, didn’t we?’

  They grin darkly at each other in the wet yellow light from the streetlamp. It strikes Tom that the old Jonty – the one he knew years ago – would be killing himself laughing by this stage. The old Jonty wouldn’t be looking so anxious about his old man finding God. He’d be spluttering with derision, laying bets maybe on how it happened and how long it would last. They’d be joking about where God had been hiding all this time – under a bush, in the wall cabinet, or in some celebrity’s coat pocket? And the question would be, did God want to be found?

  Alice knots her hair up at the back of her head and buttons up her coat, then takes a worried backwards glace at Eric, who is still waiting in the car. A taxi pulls up and they all watch a young guy in a sharp suit and a skinny girl in ridiculously high heels argue about who should pay the fare.

  ‘So, what do we talk about?’ Jonty asks suddenly. ‘Nobody is saying nothin’!’

  Tom laughs. This at least is like the old Jonty. So much to talk about and no one can find a word. Tom, for one, wants to clear the decks big time. He wants to apologise and make amends in some real way. He also wants to talk to Alice. He wants to walk home with her. Tell that geek in the car to piss off. He’d rehearsed all of the above a million times over from every angle but now, now he’s got both of them here and he’s on the spot, he can’t think of a single thing to say or do. The other two must be thinking along the same lines because Alice suddenly giggles.

  ‘We’re here though!’ She smacks Jonty on the arm. ‘My one and only cousin!’

  ‘Only the two of us.’ Jonty puts his arm briefly around her. ‘We should . . . you know, stick together!’

  ‘Yeah!’ Alice agrees warmly.

  Tom grabs Jonty again and pulls him closer. Then he grabs Alice with the other arm and pulls her in. A spurt of elation goes through him when her arm slides easily around his waist. It’s the three of them in close now, arms around each other, their heads touching, all breathing hard, laughing a bit. Tom has a moment of being aware of not wanting or needing anything else. These two, he thinks. Apart from his family it’s just these two, really, in the whole wide world.

  ‘Jeez!’ Jonty is the first to pull away. He rubs two hands through his hair ‘What’s all this about? . . . You’re both fucking idiots!’

  ‘I’ve got to go back home now, anyway.’ Alice backs away, pointing at Eric waiting in the car. ‘My grandmother is sick. I mean . . . our grandmother is sick.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  Alice shrugs. ‘Had some kind of turn.’

  ‘A turn?’ Jonty grins. ‘I want one of them.’

  ‘Good luck, then, again,’ Tom tells her. ‘I hope everything is okay.’

  ‘Thanks!’ Alice gives him a sudden wide warm smile that make
s him feel dizzy with hope. ‘Bye, Tom. Bye, Jonno.’

  ‘Yeah, bye, Alice.’ Jonty waves. ‘Tell that old lady I like her.’

  ‘You like her?’ Alice yells back incredulously from the open car door.

  ‘Yeah!’ Jonty is quite serious until he sees Alice break up into laughter and then his own face splits open. Tom watches them both, loving the way the laughter rolls out of her as though she can’t help it.

  ‘I really like her,’ Jonty yells again, ‘I mean it.’

  ‘I know you do!’

  ‘Tell her I think she’s great!’

  ‘I will!’ Alice shouts back as she gets in and slams the door, ‘I’ll tell her you like her. Promise!’

  Tom and Jonty wave as Alice speeds off with Eric.

  ‘I gotta piss off, too,’ Jonty mumbles. ‘Gotta get home.’

  ‘Okay.’ Tom grasps his hand. ‘You take it easy, okay?’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Come around any time.’

  ‘Okay. I will.’

  On the way home Tom feels the beginnings of a cold setting in. His head feels stuffed up and there is a raspy tight soreness in his throat. The glands in his throat are swollen too. Damn! He knows the signs. When his phone rings his voice is slightly croaky.

  It’s Amanda. Weird. It takes a while before Tom recognises her voice.

  ‘Happy birthday for tomorrow,’ she says, with one of her short bright laughs.

  ‘Thanks, Amanda!’ He is genuinely touched that she has remembered. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m good,’ she says. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘You mean tomorrow?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I dunno.’ It’s true, he hasn’t given it a thought. After all the fuss and fanfare of turning twenty-one last year he’s kind of glad it will be quiet. ‘I’ll probably end up having a few beers with the old man,’ Tom jokes. ‘Should be really exciting.’

  ‘Why don’t you come down to town?’ she suggests lightly. ‘I could get a few of the old crowd together or we . . . I mean you and me, could do something?’

  Oh jeez, don’t, Amanda, please. The false carelessness in her voice makes Tom feel really bad. He doesn’t want to hear that yearning sad note, but . . . it’s there all right.

  ‘Ah . . . I don’t think so. It’s just that I’m . . .’ he stumbles on, making it worse, ‘I mean that is a really nice idea, Amanda, but . . .’

  ‘It’s okay,’ she cuts in crisply, ‘don’t worry about it. I just thought you might like to do something.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s so nice of you to ask,’ he adds sincerely, ‘and really nice of you to remember.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m a nice person, Tom,’ she says sarcastically. ‘You used to think so, anyway. Have a good one, won’t you?’

  ‘I will, thanks, Amanda.’

  Tom clicks off, feeling absolutely shithouse. Getting knocked back is hard for anyone, but for Amanda it will be agony. He knows how proud she is. He knows how much it would have taken for her to make the call. Tom remembers his last birthday. They were so much the couple! Everyone was saying they were made for each other. She bought all that bullshit, hook, line and sinker, and he almost did too.

  Tom wakes to a raging head, a sore throat and the sound of things being slammed around the kitchen. He groans and covers his head with a pillow. What’s going on? Is some kind of renovation happening that no one bothered to tell him about? The noise eases off a bit and he lies on his back for a while, thinking about Alice the night before – the way her hair fell in waves around her face, and those deep and shining eyes. What was she thinking? How was she feeling about him? Pity that Eric guy was there. If not for him, Tom could have driven Alice home in his car, and been part of whatever was going on with the old duck. What will happen to Alice if the old lady dies?

  The noises start again and Tom gets up to see what’s happening.

  It’s only Nanette, dressed in a new set of designer weekend gear – pink tracksuit with a white shirt collar sticking out like cardboard, hair teased up into a perfect natty little roll. She is up on a stool clearing out the high shelves of the pantry, chucking stuff down.

  Tom sighs. It’s eight o’clock on Saturday morning. She must have stayed overnight. How come this woman never relaxes in an old T-shirt and jeans, or dressing-gown and slippers, like other people? She’s furiously chucking jars and bottles and plastic containers into two separate cardboard boxes. As she wipes down surfaces, clouds of dust and flour and bits of paper and other rubbish fly out around her. Something stinks, too.

  Tom heads for the medicine cupboard to get himself some Panadol, thinking that no one would have cleaned the pantry out for at least five years. He’s always finding bottles full of weird mouldy stuff in there.

  ‘G’day, Nanette,’ Tom says. ‘Feeling energetic, are we?’

  She nods sharply but doesn’t answer. Tom switches on the kettle as his father comes in holding the weekend papers, stinking of stale cigarettes. Luke stands back to regard Nanette with a kind of fuddled bewilderment before he speaks.

  ‘I thought you were heading off early to the sales?’ he says meekly.

  ‘I am,’ she snaps.

  ‘Well,’ he says guiltily, ‘don’t . . . bother with all this.’

  ‘But it’s disgusting!’ She continues to pull stuff out and throw it at the boxes. ‘Weevils and mice and see this?’ She shoves an opened packet of flour in Luke’s face. ‘The use by date is eighteen months ago!’

  ‘I know,’ Luke looks genuinely shamefaced, ‘but I’ll do it.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Today. This weekend. Sometime soon.’

  ‘You say you’ll do things, Luke, but you . . . don’t!’

  ‘Well, I will this time. Tom and I will finish it, Nanette! Really. You don’t have to bother with this. It’s not your responsibility. Just get going. Your sister will be waiting.’

  She gives a deep sigh and gets off the stool, throwing down the cloth she’s been using.

  ‘Hang on!’ Tom sees the brightly coloured box on the bench. ‘This for me?’

  Tom opens the card first, knowing it will be from her – his old man never remembers birthdays – and then he starts his gush and suck routine.

  ‘Hey! Thanks a lot, Nanette!’

  She gulps down her irritation and pecks him on the cheek.

  To a special young man, it says on the front, next to a picture of a tennis racket and beer glass. And then inside: Happy Birthday, Tom, with love from Nanette.

  Tom suddenly feels so sorry for her. She hasn’t got the faintest idea. Poor bloody woman!

  ‘That’s so nice of you.’ He tries to be sincere. Well, it is nice of her!

  ‘Open your present,’ she orders, smiling now.

  ‘Okay.’ He puts on an enthusiastic face and rips off the paper. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered with a present! You know me, Nanette. I tend to lose everything anyway.’ This is a vague reference to the horrible present she gave him last year, which he conveniently lost. It was a really vomitous print of two people holding hands and looking down into a stream with the sun behind them – absolutely gut-wrenchingly terrible. It got worse when Luke and Nanette had called in at the student house two weeks later, and she saw that it wasn’t pride of place on his bedroom wall. Tom had hurriedly lied about someone pinching it at a party.

  ‘Hope you like it,’ she mumbles, coming over.

  ‘I’m sure I will.’

  This year it’s a striped business shirt, a purple silk tie and a pair of cufflinks. Christ! Tom is completely gobsmacked and so is his father. He turns to see if it’s a joke, but no, of course it isn’t. Nanette is smiling proudly. She’s deadly serious. Not only does Tom not own a suit, but more importantly he never wants to own one. Ever. Period. In fact he has made it known generally that one of the biggest ambitions of his life is never to own a suit. What could have been going through that well-coiffed head of hers?

  ‘Gee, thanks a heap, Nanette!’ H
e kisses on the cheek. ‘They’re really great!’

  ‘You like the cufflinks?’

  ‘I sure do,’ he says, picking them out of the box and flipping them from one hand to the other, pretending to be impressed by the weight. Heavy, gold, oval jobs with a tiny little bit of opal in one corner. They were probably really expensive. No one has ever been able to explain the point of cufflinks to Tom but shit, what does he know? Maybe he’ll be able to sell them.

  ‘Thought you needed smartening up,’ she says happily, looking pointedly at his old jeans and sweatshirt. ‘Getting older now and all that.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Tom tries to laugh, ‘I guess this will do the trick!’

  Nanette pulls the shirt out of its box and holds it up against his shoulders.

  ‘You think the size will be right?’

  ‘Perfect,’ Tom says and begins undoing the buttons. Why not try it on? It will probably look great.

  They chitchat for a while. Tom sits at the table in his new shirt, chattering on about the exact colour of suit that will ‘go’ nicely with the shirt, until Nanette’s sister rings and she goes to have her shower.

  When she is out of the room, Tom and his dad look at each other. Luke shrugs and shakes his head, then goes into the kitchen to turn off the whistling kettle. ‘You want tea?’ he asks.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom replies, flipping on the television, ‘after you give me your present.’

  ‘It’s coming!’ Luke grins.

  ‘So is Christmas!’

  They sit down together at the table and flip through the papers. Luke suddenly stops, leans over, picks up the little velvet box and stares down at the cufflinks.

  ‘What am I going to do, Tommo?’ he sighs. ‘What the hell am I going to do?’

  ‘I see what you mean.’ Tom turns around to stare pointedly at the pantry and all the stuff on the floor. ‘Not looking too good, is it?’

  ‘But what can I do?’ Luke shrugs. ‘I mean, she is a nice woman.’

  ‘Tell her,’ Tom says.

  ‘I have!’

  ‘So tell her again!’

  Luke nods and goes back to the paper. ‘I don’t like hurting people,’ he mumbles. Then grins wryly, ‘God I wish I’d never let her race me off.’