The Near Miss

by Fran Cusworth

  ‘They’re not going to give me that!’

  ‘How do you know until you ask? I think they will at least go away and think about it. They’ll have to take it to their board, they can’t just dismiss it.’

  ‘I don’t want to wait around for weeks.’

  ‘Days, mate, if not hours.’

  ‘I don’t want to wait for one hour.’

  ‘Jesus, what are you, a businessman or a kid wanting an ice cream?’

  ‘Mate, just hold off on the fucking insults.’

  ‘Seriously. How long have you been working on this thing — a year? And you don’t want to wait a few days to get potentially millions more out of them?

  ‘Bird in the hand . . .’

  ‘Forget that shit. You have kids, right?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

  ‘A lot. So what, two, three kids?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘You could hand her an income for life, long after you’re dead. Cheques arriving quarterly, to remind her of Daddy, right up to when she’s an old lady. She’ll pass those onto her children, and it will be your legacy. Alternatively, you could lose half of what you get in tax, pay off your mortgage on some suburban house, and go back to your job as a wage slave. Big deal, so what. Your choice.’

  Tom looked at Eddy. Eddy sighed. He wanted to say, I know, I know, he’s an arrogant moron, but he’s also really, really smart, and he’s right, you should have brought a lawyer to something like this, and he may actually be in the ballpark here . . . He did his best to convey this with raised eyebrows and rueful glances, which Tom, by the disheartened set of his sagging shoulders, seemed to reluctantly get.

  ‘But if we ask for more, don’t we risk losing the whole deal?’

  Tank shrugged. ‘Hard to say. But if you’ve been trying to invent machines, I’m guessing you’re not a man to shy away from a risk.’

  ‘Okay, okay. Let me think.’ Tom shook his head and rubbed his forehead. ‘You really think there’s a chance in hell they might go for that? They won’t just laugh us out of the place?’

  ‘I think there’s a good chance that the actions of the next few minutes will determine whether you merely repay your debts, or become a millionaire.’

  ‘Or whether you lose the whole deal,’ murmured Eddy. He was, after all, a risk analyst. But no one heard him.

  Tom stared at Alf and took a deep breath. ‘Okay. Okay. Do it.’

  Eddy sat in the back seat of Tank’s car and held the phone to his ear. Laura had to shout above a gaggle of four-year-olds.

  ‘Where are you?’ she said.

  ‘I’m with a couple of friends. We’re just driving out to a pub in the country.’

  ‘You’ve finished work already?’

  Eddy watched the suburbs flash past, thinning out to the country. ‘We finished a bit early. I’m actually with Tom, er, Lotte’s dad. He’s had an offer on his invention and he’s . . . well, it’s a waiting game now.’ Too complicated to explain that the firm members had asked for a night to consider his request, and that Alf had, on leaving, insisted on taking Tom to a pub where he could get pissed and wait out the night under Alf’s watchful eye, without caving in. Eddy could hear Alf right now demanding Tom hand over his mobile phone.

  ‘Sounds exciting,’ said Laura. ‘Well, here in the Possum group we’re experiencing tactile sensations; exploring the different feelings of wet, dry, furry, gooey, sticky, warm, and cold.’ There was no mistaking the playful note in her voice. ‘It’s fun.’

  ‘Goodness. It does sound . . . fun.’ He was suddenly weak with desire, and joy that she felt safe enough with him to sound so suggestive. They had had a few dinners out, one movie, and he had spent one Sunday helping her paint a set for the end-of-year concert. The rest of the time he could hardly stop thinking about her.

  ‘Facilitates brain connections, they say.’

  ‘Oh! I was just thinking my brain felt a bit disconnected. Could we maybe . . .?’

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘Could I see you tonight?’

  ‘Aren’t you en route to the country?’

  ‘I could— Damn. Actually I think Tom needs me. I can’t leave.’ He was worried Tom and Alf might rip each other to shreds if left alone. ‘Why don’t you jump in a taxi, come out to Healesville and meet us for dinner?’

  ‘Or I could meet you back at your place?’

  Oh my God. Was she hinting that . . . Dammit, Romy was at his place. He tried to match her suggestive tone. ‘Well maybe if we have a drink it will be better to stay in a hotel.’ God, when was Romy going to move out? She was only meant to have been there briefly; he hadn’t even told anyone she was there.

  ‘It’s not a boys’ night?’

  ‘I really hope not.’

  ‘You sure? It sounds like it is.’

  ‘Does it?’ Eddy heard the gloom in his own voice. He didn’t really like boys’ nights, with all their fraught competitiveness and veiled anger and the unsettling sense that anything was possible. ‘I don’t want it to be. In fact, I think we need a woman here. It’s all a bit tense.’ Oh God, he shouldn’t have said that. She would run a mile. ‘I mean, not tense. Too boyish, you know.’ Oh, God, he sounded like a fucking Girl Guide.

  But she just laughed. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Really?’ He grinned madly out at the paddocks. ‘That would be great.’ She liked him. She must. Even if he was a Girl Guide.

  ‘I’ll see you there.’

  ‘My brain will be ready. For those new connections. All that tactile stuff.’

  ‘Hmm. Dr Laura is on her way.’

  Grace knocked on Eddy’s front door. A crate of beer bottles sat out the front alongside a stack of empty pizza boxes. Eddy’s car was here, but that meant nothing, she knew. He could be working late, or he might have gone out after work. It was almost nine, and Tom had said earlier that he would call her back that evening. She had rung him that morning to tell him that there was an excursion fee due for kindy, it was his turn to pay, that Lotte needed new clothes, that Grace needed help. He had sounded distracted, said he would call her back, and then he had not answered calls all day. She had left message after message, and she had gone beyond angry to worried. Was he alright? Had he been electrocuted while working on his invention? Hit by a car? Had he committed suicide with grief from being apart from her? Well, probably not that. Worse, was he in bed with a woman? The tight pants girl from the IGA? A kindy mum? Oh God. Eddy might know where he was. She pounded on the door.

  She was about to turn away when she heard a noise behind the door and the handle rattled. The door opened a few inches to reveal a woman. For a moment, Grace couldn’t place her.

  ‘Romy!’ It was Eddy’s old girlfriend, who had vanished from Grace’s own home that long-ago night last summer. The one who had sailed off into the darkness on a motorbike and only appeared since in newspaper photographs, blurry convenience-store security pictures. Grace was shocked. ‘Are you and Eddy, er?’

  ‘No, no.’ Romy glanced nervously up the street and pulled Grace inside. She locked the door again, and leaned back against the wall, resting her hand on her stomach. Her very large, pregnant stomach.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ said Grace. ‘You’re . . . Is that . . .? Does Eddy . . .?’

  ‘It’s Van’s,’ said Romy, sighing heavily. Despite her pregnancy her face looked thinner, her eyes larger and more serious, and Grace recognised the heavy breathing of late gestation.

  ‘Oh!’ Grace was momentarily back in that far-off dinner party. And now this.

  Romy nodded ruefully. ‘Can I make you a cup of something? Please don’t rush off. I’ve been alone here all day, I’m going out of my mind.’

  ‘How long have you been living back with Eddy for?’

  ‘For a few days now. I had nowhere else to go and he said I could stay here for a week until I get somewhere else, but . . .’

  ‘So you’re not . . . together, then?’

  Romy shook her head. ‘He doesn’t want m
e back.’

  It was all so calm, so undramatically stated. So unlike the drama queen who had roared off from the front of Grace’s home. Romy walked awkwardly to the kitchen and sank into a chair. She moved like someone trying to conserve energy, someone hanging on by their fingernails. Grace well remembered this state of pregnancy, the belly solid like a stone shrink-wrapped in plastic. The vibrating in the thighs and shoulders, as if the guy ropes of the whole structure were anchored there. The visibility of it, providing a spectacle everywhere you went.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  Romy slumped on the table. ‘Terrified. Every time I hear a police chopper. I can’t sleep, what with the baby kicking, and the fear that the cops could burst in the door any minute. They’re after me. Have you heard? It’s on the news. They’ve got a reward out. It’s like a bad dream.’

  Grace stared at her. ‘But surely they’d have some sympathy . . . I mean look at you. They couldn’t send you to prison like that.’

  ‘Are you kidding? There are women’s prisons, where people keep their babies with them. Oh no, they won’t let a little thing like pregnancy stop them.’

  There was a thud outside the kitchen window and Romy jumped, wild-eyed. ‘Shit.’

  Grace went to the window and pushed the curtain aside with one finger. ‘Just your neighbour, putting out the rubbish.’

  ‘Oh, God, I’m a wreck.’ Romy wept silently. ‘Why, why did I ever meet that man? It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. That dinner at your house . . . it was the crossroads of my life.’

  Grace looked at her. She sympathised, and yet she had been there when Romy had dumped her boyfriend at her dinner party, behaving like the most spoilt of children, the most self-indulgent of girls. She had seen Eddy broken-hearted for the best part of a year. She couldn’t believe he had taken her back into his home.

  ‘Ah, well. Do you know where Eddy is?’

  Romy shook her head, sniffling. ‘No. But he’s got his mobile on him.’

  ‘I’m just looking for Tom. He’s been missing all day and I thought maybe he was with Eddy.’ Grace sat down. ‘We broke up, Tom and I. You probably heard.’

  ‘Eddy mentioned it. Do you want his mobile number?’

  Grace shook her head. ‘I’ve got it.’

  ‘You all became pretty good friends this year, didn’t you?’ said Romy. ‘After that dinner where I took off.’

  ‘It was more after my daughter almost got killed by a bus, and Eddy and Melody were there.’ It wasn’t about you, you silly cow. Although if the bus hadn’t hit Lotte, she wouldn’t have had them all for dinner, and Romy wouldn’t have run off with Van, and now she wouldn’t be sitting here in front of her, her shirt riding up over a belly so taut and huge that lines were snaking their way upwards, like elastic fabric stretched too hard. Grace wouldn’t have gotten such a fright that she demanded Tom keep his job for two years so she could have a baby. Tom wouldn’t have decided she was a controlling cow, and Melody wouldn’t have been on the scene to tell Tom about the universe providing, and Tom might not have left Grace. Eddy might have presented his ring and he and Romy might be married right this minute, with this pregnancy not Van’s, but Eddy’s . . .

  ‘I’m scared, Grace.’ Romy stared at her. ‘Eddy’s left me here alone and I could go into labour. I can’t call a hospital, in case they turn me into the police.’

  ‘Take my number,’ said Grace, writing it down distractedly. She was desperate to speak to Tom, and dialed Eddy.

  ‘Eddy? It’s Grace.’ She paused. Was Eddy in a nightclub or something? She could hear shouting and laughter and the unmistakable volume of drinkers. ‘I’m just sitting here with Romy.’

  ‘What’s happening? Is she alright?’

  ‘Fine. Pregnant. As you know.’

  ‘Hang on, let me find a quiet place.’

  ‘I’m after Tom, have you seen him?’

  ‘Sure!’ Eddy was almost shouting with relief. ‘I’ll put him on.’ And there was Tom’s voice, slightly slurred. ‘Yair, hello?’

  ‘It’s me. You were going to call me back. Where are you?’

  ‘Errr . . . Pub in Healesville. With a few fellas.’

  Romy leaned over. ‘Can I speak to Eddy?’

  Tom brightened. ‘Is that Romy? At Eddy’s house?’

  ‘She’s staying with him. She’s pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant!’

  ‘Hey, I need money. I need to talk to you about Lotte and her kindy fees.’

  ‘Kindy! Well, let me put you onto the woman herself.’ There was a shout and laughter and Grace stared at the phone in confusion. Then a voice said, ‘Hello, Grace? It’s Miss Laura.’

  There was a burst of rowdy laughter and Grace glared furiously at Eddy’s kitchen wall. ‘What are you doing with Tom?’ she asked Laura. Oh God. Her child’s kindergarten teacher was in a relationship with her ex-husband. Did all the other mothers know already? Had they all been tiptoeing around her? Does Grace know yet? I don’t want to be the one to tell her . . . but someone has to . . .

  ‘We’re just having a few drinks.’

  Right.

  A strange man’s voice came on the line and said, ‘Mrs Tom, you’re going to be a millionaire. And your children have one sexy kindergarten teacher.’ There was a hoot of laughter that sounded like it came from Laura, and then Eddy’s voice in the background sounding a little injured. ‘Mate. Show a bit of respect.’

  ‘I have plenty of respect for beautiful women.’

  God, they were all horribly drunk. Messily, awfully. What the hell was Miss Laura doing out there with them, laughing like she was a pole dancer for hire rather than a role model to small children? How could Miss Laura have a sexuality at all, and, if she did have one, why did she have to exercise it on Tom? Truly, nothing was sacred. And what was that? She could hear another familiar voice as well.

  ‘Is Melody there?’ she demanded indignantly. If there was going to be a party at some out-of-the-way country pub, they could at least have invited her.

  ‘Melody? No. Oh, shit. Look! Look! It’s Melody on the telly!’ said Eddy.

  Grace went to turn on Eddy’s own set. There was Melody, angelic in white with gold stars woven through her blonde dreadlocks; like some heavenly bride. Her face was a treat to watch, utterly serene and yet fired through with emotion. She could see what Anthea Schulberg had meant about the camera loving Mel. You wanted her to never leave the screen. In her ear, the pub fell silent, except for Melody’s calm voice.

  ‘Aquarius . . . You need not feel that you are obliged to stay forever with what was once agreed — but nor can you just walk away,’ Melody said, her crystal ball turning before her. Dreamy music played in the background. A mobile of stars and moons hung from the studio ceiling above. ‘Over the next few days you will take part in a significant conversation and begin a new way forward that will prove both reassuring and comfortable’. She spread her hands before her to denote the pleasantness of the new route ahead, flat and smooth and easy.

  Grace held onto the remote, Romy stood beside her, and they watched Melody on the small screen, like some goddess bringing messages from a world far beyond.

  Chapter 19

  She wore tight jeans, over a bottom resplendently, generously curvaceous. A floral shirt unbuttoned to show the inner curves of peachy breast. Shiny brown hair and no makeup, or none that Eddy could detect. Rosy-cheeked, pale-skinned, dark-lashed. Eddy couldn’t take his eyes off Laura. Except to scowl at Alf, the big-talking show-off.

  ‘So there I am, camping alone in the German countryside, when in the middle of the night I hear footsteps.’

  Laura widened her eyes and sucked on her straw. Her lips pursed. Her ice rattled. She wrinkled her nose in a friendly way at Eddy, but she watched Tank as he relived some alpha-male adventure in Europe.

  ‘My heart’s pounding, and then there’s a rustle at my tent door. Someone takes hold of my tent zipper and starts pulling it up, very slowly.’

  Three strangers
, other drinkers at the bar, leaned in close. Tom wasn’t one of them. He was over by the juke box, leaning on it as he argued with a man in a biker jacket over the sounds of Dead or Alive’s ‘You Spin Me Right Round’.

  ‘So we don’t all like the same music, mate. ’sa free whirl, mate, a free whirl,’ he shouted.

  Biker jacket thrust his fat, unshaven chin towards Tom’s face. He thumped the juke box. ‘It’s a poofter song,’ he growled.

  Tom danced loosely, clicked his fingers in the air and sang. ‘Right round, baby, right round, like a record baby, right round round round round . . .’

  ‘Fuck. That’s a fucking shit fucking song.’ The biker turned around and snarled at the world. Hornets, read the back of his jacket. Crimson letters stitched on black leather, sewed in a symmetrical arch. His back was so wide that the H and the S disappeared around his sides. ornet.

  Eddy looked back at Tank. His girl, Laura, was getting seduced by another man, a manlier man than he. His mate was about to get punched. Great night. All he needed was Romy to go into labour. Grace had scared him with her call; he must check that Romy had some plan for birth that didn’t involve him.

  Alf said: ‘So it’s pitch black. Silent. Then there’s a sound. It’s a zipper, going up. I manage to reach out, noiselessly, and find my pocket knife.’

  ‘Oh, of course you do,’ sneered Eddy, glancing quickly at Laura.

  ‘Luckily I know every surface of my knife off by heart . . .’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Eddy tried to look loftily contemptuous, but Laura was too enthralled by the story to notice.

  ‘Sorry, mate?’ Alf looked sideways at Eddy, as if at an irritating child.

  ‘Er nothing, nothing.’ Eddy subsided resentfully.

  ‘. . . and I can open it in the dark. Then, the other guy rustles around a bit outside and I use the cover of his noise to sit up and feel for my headlamp, stick it on my head.’

  Laura was panting with suspense. She finished her drink and picked up the full glass Eddy had placed before her, barely moving her eyes from Alf’s face. She transferred the straw and resumed sucking. The straw flattened out and the level of pink drink plummeted, like water down a sinkhole. Alf continued.