Somebody's Crying

by Somebody's Crying (retail) (epub)

  ‘You want me to print it up?’

  ‘Could we have a look at some of the others first?’

  ‘Good idea! You can pick the ones you want.’

  The next hour goes by in a weird kind of daze. Every now and again Tom almost has to pinch himself. For once fate is on his side! He is in a small room with Alice Wishart, bathed in red light. They’re so close to each other now that he can smell her perfume under the toxic chemical fumes. What next? In spite of the physical proximity, he feels weirdly shy and unsure, and has no idea what he might say or do to bring them closer.

  One after another, he puts the negatives into the viewfinder but because it is dark he can’t see how each one affects Alice. She remains silent and even when she does comment briefly she doesn’t give much away.

  ‘My grandparents,’ she murmurs. ‘That’s Mum and her sister. That is probably Grandma and her two sisters.’

  It’s almost as though the dim light has made her forget Tom. She could be talking to herself. Tom doesn’t say much, just lets her have a few moments to look at each image before he pulls it out and slots in the next one. Most of the prints are pretty standard: mother and children, mother and baby, a couple standing together near a car. Just amateur snaps, they’re sharp enough but nothing special. No close-up shots of anyone’s face or even mid-range shots that show anyone in much detail.

  They are almost through the pile of negatives when a closer image emerges under the light. It’s of a good-looking young couple sitting on a verandah. The woman is holding a baby and they’re both smiling happily into the camera. It takes Tom a moment to see that he woman is Lillian and so . . . the baby must be Alice.

  ‘That you?’ Tom says lightly, pointing at the baby.

  ‘I guess,’ Alice replies guardedly.

  ‘We’ll definitely print that one up!’ Tom tries to sound jocular because he doesn’t want to give away how affected he is by the image of Lillian looking so young and full of happiness. The happy couple with their baby, smiling innocently into the camera. How little they knew then of what would happen! A flash of Lillian lying still on the grass shoots in from nowhere and makes Tom shudder involuntarily. God! He wonders if that same image jumps in on Alice, too, when she least expects it. One day, he swears to himself, I’ll ask her.

  ‘That’s my father,’ she says pointing to the guy in the image.

  ‘He’s a good-looking guy,’ Tom says sincerely. She makes a low noise of disapproval in her throat. ‘You don’t think so?’

  ‘He’s not like that now.’

  ‘What’s he like?’ Tom asks lightly.

  But Alice doesn’t answer. She is peering forward intently, staring into the image as though it might be withholding some secret from her. Tom pulls back from the bench so she can get nearer.

  ‘Have a good look,’ he says. ‘I’ll print it up. It’s the best so far.’

  ‘Okay,’ she whispers, continuing to stare but not moving onto the now vacant stool.

  ‘They were obviously happy together,’ Tom says quietly. ‘He still live in Darwin?’

  ‘Yeah.’ They are both bending over the image, their faces only inches apart, and the moment drags on.

  ‘How long since you’ve seen him?’

  ‘About a year.’

  What is the picture telling her? Tom feels a sort of dampness developing on his forehead and under his arms. He runs one hand through his hair. It’s embarrassing. He can smell himself! The tablets must be wearing off because his head is thick again and his nose is running.

  ‘Okay,’ Alice sighs at last, ‘that’s enough.’

  Tom straightens up and pulls the negative out. He puts it down away from the rest and slips in the next one.

  Alice lets out a gasp, and although Tom makes no sound, he is similarly affected. It is Lillian, sitting on a fence, about the same age that Alice is now. Her hair is blowing back with a few strands across her face, and she’s laughing. Tom doesn’t know if it’s the cold or Alice being so close, but his sense of reality is blurring around the edges and he loses sense of where he is. Lillian? Maybe she’s back? Maybe she is here standing beside me. On one level he knows this is crap but . . . it feels as though it might be true.

  ‘Alice,’ he says, his throat is hoarse and his voice faint. The girl in the picture and the girl beside him! Where does one end and the other begin? No. He’s sick and that’s making him stupid. He might well have a fever. Or he could be going crazy. Tom gulps and licks his lips, blows his nose again and tries to clear his mind. But it doesn’t clear, one image arrives on top of another. They fly into his mind and . . . underpinning them all is the longing, as intense now as it was in the courtroom. But there is nothing he can do about it. The chasm separating them is as real as a raging river.

  ‘What?’ she whispers.

  Without asking her if she’s finished looking, or if she wants him to change the image, he takes the negative out and puts the last one in. It is Lillian again, probably taken the same day because she has got the same dress on.

  ‘I remember that dress,’ Alice smiles. And her saying that somehow releases Tom. The chasm doesn’t seem quite so impassable any more. In this new dreamy state he finds himself picking up her hand from where it is sitting, bunched up into a tight fist on the bench. She doesn’t pull away as he gently unfurls each finger and locks his own fingers with hers. Then he reaches out his other hand, puts it under her chin and turns her face to him. They look at each other in the weird, blood-red light.

  ‘I’ve got a cold,’ Tom says.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she whispers.

  Tom reaches out for her other hand and she gives it to him and they stand looking at each other. Tom is overwhelmed and can’t think of what to say. It is as though he’s on the point of diving into a clear sparkling stream of water. Does he dare? Is it deep enough? What if he is imagining it all?

  ‘Alice?’ he whispers.

  She doesn’t say anything but moves ever so slightly towards him, and that’s when he knows he can kiss her. So he does. The kiss is as soft and as light as a handful of feathers being thrown up into the air. Down they come again, floating, and he reaches up to cup her face in his hands and kiss her again.

  ‘I love you,’ he says. He has never said those words to anyone else in the world, except to his mother when he was a kid. But as daggy and hackneyed as those three little words might be, he knows that they are absolutely true in this case. He’s not embarrassed or sorry he has spoken them, and he doesn’t want to pull them back. He loves her and no matter where it gets him, he’s glad to have said it.

  Her eyes open wide in surprise and she laughs a little, then opens her mouth to speak and says . . . nothing. They kiss again. Tom puts his arms around her and draws her close. Then he takes the elastic out of her hair, letting it fall out around her face. Still holding her close, he runs both hands through it.

  ‘Your hair,’ he says, kissing it and then her neck, ‘it’s wonderful.’

  ‘You’ve got nice hair, too,’ she laughs softly.

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Then he tells her that he loves her again. But this time she stiffens and steps back a little. She frowns and turns her head away and looks down at that image of her mother.

  ‘Why?’ she whispers, after a while.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, ‘a million reasons. Why does anyone love anyone else?’

  ‘I don’t know either,’ she whispers.

  Tom laughs softly.

  ‘I don’t really trust myself.’

  ‘Why not?’ he whispers and clears his throat. His head is beginning to spin and throb. Damn it! He needs all his wits about him.

  ‘And I . . . I don’t think I trust you.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asks again.

  ‘People say . . . things,’ she murmurs.

  ‘People don’t know shit!’ Tom knows he is being defensive, but he doesn’t know how else to play it. Come on, Alice. He reaches out
again to touch her hair, everything in him is aching now. If he can just hold her in his arms again he knows that every little reservation she has about him will resolve itself. Has to. Fate is whispering in his ear, telling him that he’s been building up to this moment all his bloody life.

  ‘Whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter. It’s over,’ he says hoarsely, moving closer, but this makes her edge further away. She is looking positively wary now.

  ‘No,’ she says quietly, ‘everything that happened . . . in the past . . . matters a lot to me.’

  ‘Of course it does but . . .’

  ‘I hated you back then!’ she bursts out suddenly, drawing away and pulling the cardigan tightly around her. ‘I hated you and my cousin coming around.’ She stops to squint at him. ‘Did you have any idea of that? I mean . . . any idea of just how much I hated you?’

  Tom’s breath gives way momentarily. He is truly shocked. He tries to think back but can’t remember anything. He can only see her now, those beautiful eyes shining in the red light, the heavy eyebrows and chiselled nose and chin – so sweet, this girl! Who is she really? He doesn’t know, but he wants her. Badly. He knows that. He shakes his head. ‘Why?’

  ‘You and Jonty being there all the time,’ her voice breaks, ‘it was so weird!’

  ‘But we were just friends . . .’ Tom mumbles lamely.

  ‘No, it was . . . weird!’ Alice shudders holding herself in, arms tight across her chest. She backs towards the door and a chill passes through Tom like a gust of icy wind. Part of him can’t believe this is actually happening. Moments before he had her in his arms. She wanted him the way he wanted her. But now . . .

  ‘So, tell me it’s not true!’ she says hoarsely.

  What? But he knows. He knows what she means. What can he say? He can’t lie to her but he can’t tell her the truth either.

  Her face accuses him without her having to put it into words. Her mouth tightens and she raises her chin as though pulling even further into herself. Then she turns to open the door.

  ‘Alice, I was just a kid.’ Tom sounds pathetic. ‘Don’t go . . . please.’

  ‘I came for help with the photos,’ she whispers sharply.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies helplessly.

  ‘That’s why I came.’ Her eyes are blazing with anger. ‘Not for anything else. You said you’d help me do them.’

  ‘I know that!’

  Before he can say anything else she has disappeared out the door. He watches her walking determinedly back towards the house. At the back verandah she hesitates for a moment, but doesn’t look back.

  Jonty

  Water is boiling. Slip in the spag. Crush the garlic and get it sizzling, then chuck in the chopped bacon. Hmmm. Cream. Where is it?

  ‘Hey Buzz, cream, mate?’

  Buzz brings it over from the fridge and snaffles a bit of Jonty’s bacon.

  ‘How many of these you doing?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘This will feed four,’ Buzz says frowning.

  ‘Mind your own business!’ Jonty edges him out of the way, throws some diced onions into a wok on one of the other burners and starts shifting them around under the heat.

  ‘So how are you?’ Buzz asks quietly.

  ‘I’m here, aren’t I?’ Jonty pulls a piece of the pasta out with a fork, to test it.

  Buzz puts a hand on his shoulder before moving off to the herbs rack. ‘And I’m glad about that, Jonno,’ he says, ‘very glad.’

  Good old Buzz! He’d found Jonty virtually hanging off the cliff face the night before. It was a clear sky and Jonty was out there in the dark, staring down into that roiling sea. The funny old bastard must have seen him. Jonty thought that there was no one else left alive on earth but . . . well, it turned out Buzz was still there. The big wire fence was a total joke. It was no trouble for Jonty to climb over it. Took him about three minutes. Maybe he just wanted to prove that he could.

  Did he go there to jump? Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. You could say he was sizing up future possibilities. It was actually cool being out there in the wind, listening to the sea smashing against the rocks, being just a few feet from instant destruction.

  Jonty needed to get off his head. Badly. When the craving gets like that, there is nothing else in the world. All night he’d been obsessing about getting his hands on something serious. A hit of smack, a line of coke, a few pills, even just a nice strong joint would’ve done the job. He hadn’t felt so crazy since . . . well since he’d got out of remand. Since then he’s been able to brush it aside without too much trouble. But last night it had been eating away at his nerves Come on! Just one snort, one line one . . . whatever! Something to take the edge off.

  As soon as night fell he’d headed off down to the centre of town to score. That used to be the place, years ago. There was always some dude hanging about selling something. But nothing doing last night. Nothing at all. He started to get frantic. Shit! What is this? Is every prick in rehab or what? So he went along to Manning Street, but that whole joint has closed up too. Maddening to know that there would be lots out there, but he didn’t know who to call. He was out of the loop now. And that was the truth. In the end, he had to make do with a bottle of Jack Daniels. He bought it and took himself up to the point.

  The feeling of having something ugly clinging to the back of his skull, putting weird pictures in his head, has to be about big bad Jed. Why did he come back three years on for the big fess up? What does any of it mean?

  Any shrink could tell you what was troubling him, but hey . . . what do those guys know? It’s only words in the end isn’t it? Big, pillowy words that make everyone else feel comfortable, as though they understand what’s really going on. But to Jonty, words aren’t the point. What actually happens – what has been done and what is to be done – that’s the point. And he isn’t sure about any of it.

  Anyway, he ended up on the wrong side of the fence getting drunk and looking down at his own death. Did he want it now or later or . . . not at all? He was out there for an hour or three and then Buzz was suddenly calling to him from the other side of the mesh wire.

  ‘Come here, Jonno!’ he yelled. ‘I want to talk to you!’

  ‘Go home, Buzz,’ Jonty yelled back, ‘I’m okay.’ But he wasn’t okay, and Buzz must have sussed that out because he didn’t go home.

  What that old coot did was actually pretty amazing. He climbed the fence! All eight feet of it. Jonty couldn’t believe it. Buzz is over sixty, and there he was, pulling his skinny arse up and over like a monkey. By the time he got down the other side, Jonty was standing, laughing with admiration.

  ‘Were you an acrobat in your last life?’ he asked.

  But Buzz didn’t answer. He grabbed Jonty by the arm, pulled him away from the drop and made him sit down on a rock some way back from the cliff face. Then he put his arm around Jonty’s shoulders, took the bottle, had a swig and put it in his pocket. They sat there for quite a while, not saying much, and that was okay. Jonty figured there was enough noise going on, what with the sea and all the shit inside his head.

  Eventually Jonty told him about feeling like his old man is inside his head, and it turned out Buzz knew the feeling. Knew just how mad that kind of thing can make a person. Because you can’t get away from them even if you’re a hundred kilometres apart. Even if one of you is locked up and the other one is roaming free as a bird, you can’t get away.

  ‘What does he say to you?’

  It would have taken forever to answer that question, so Jonty just shrugged.

  ‘Does he threaten you?’ Buzz asked after a while.

  Jonty shrugged again. The sound of the sea was so loud and the yellow moon was so bright that everything he wanted to tell Buzz had gone blurry and collapsed in on itself. Even trying to concentrate made Jonty feel exhausted.

  ‘What happened back then, Jonno?’ Buzz asked after a while.

  ‘That’s the thing,’ Jonty puffed his dark laughter into the cold night, ma
king a fog in front of his face. ‘I was on a lot of shit at that time.’ Buzz nods but doesn’t comment. ‘Heaps of it was legal, too. The friggin’ doctors got it all wrong, I reckon. Chunks of my life sort of blur,’ Jonty explained, ‘like a movie out of focus.’

  ‘It’ll come back one day,’ Buzz said quietly.

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘It will,’ Buzz continued matter-of-factly, ‘and you’ll wish it hadn’t.’

  Jonty tried to get his head around this. Buzz had never talked about his experiences in Vietnam, yet Jonty knew that’s what he meant.

  ‘You remember much of it, Buzz,’ he asks eventually, ‘the war I mean?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’

  ‘Does it . . . get you?’

  ‘Only every night,’ Buzz sighs. ‘Every fucking night.’

  Eventually they get up, climb back over the fence and walk home.

  ‘Come back to work tomorrow,’ Buzz orders stiffly when he says goodbye. ‘It will do you good.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Buzz was right on two fronts. It did him good to be back at work and there was enough spaghetti for four. At the end of the night they heat up the leftovers and sit down together to eat.

  ‘It’s colder tonight,’ Buzz says as he buttons up his coat. ‘You going straight home?’

  ‘Nah,’ Jonty grins at him, ‘thought I might just hang off the point again!’

  ‘I’m going to see you to your door,’ the old guy says firmly.

  ‘No need, Buzz.’ Jonty switches off the light. ‘Don’t actually feel like necking myself tonight.’

  ‘That’s a relief.’ He gives Jonty a wry smile.

  Jonty lets himself in through the back door and goes to check that his mum is okay. She is snoring peacefully in the front bedroom. His newly acquired mobile phone suddenly peeps and he sees that he has a message from Tom Mullaney.

  Beers and pizzas next Friday? My place.

  You’re on! Jonty texts back. Is Alice coming?

  alice

  Tom answers the door.

  ‘Hello, Alice!’ He smiles without meeting her eyes, which tells her he’s awkward too. ‘Come in, why don’t you? Shit of a day, eh?’ She nods and steps inside. He takes her coat and hangs it on the stand.