by Scot Gardner
As I walked, I thought about driving home but just the thought required more energy than I had at my disposal. It was like I’d lost a grand final by one point. Exhausted, as if my body had been punished, with my heavy heart threatening to spill on the footpath at my feet.
I sat in the driver’s seat of the Suba and held the wheel. I stared at a fluorescent security light on the balcony near Mum’s flat. It flickered and I felt like climbing the stairs and punching the thing. Knock some sense into it. I folded the seat down in the back of Bully’s Subaru, revealing a condom wrapper but no condom. I unpacked my swag and climbed in fully clothed, with all the doors locked around me but the window open a crack.
On or off. Make your choice. Don’t just flicker.
Six
I hardly slept. My body desperately needed to, but it creaked and complained about the makeshift bed and I couldn’t stop the rack of useless blah-blah thoughts tumbling around in my head. There was the noise, too. The ceaseless rumble of the city, punched every half-hour or so by the pinging of a nearby level crossing and trains that sounded like they were clacking over the top of the car. I lost count of how many times the howl and clatter of the railway dragged me out of feather-light sleep, my fingers gripping the swag. Skin tingling.
I cried out just before dawn. The ute I was driving in my dream left the road. I’d fallen asleep at the wheel and the racket of a train exploded into my consciousness as I crashed.
It was light by then. Watery winter dawn. The insides of the windows had fogged and I realised, after the train noise had subsided and I could breathe again, that somebody was tapping on the glass.
‘Adam?’
‘Mum?’
I rubbed at my eyes and wound down the window.
Her uniform and ponytail were back. She tossed keys onto the sleeping bag in front of me.
‘Help yourself to breakfast. The shower’s useless but better than nothing. The towels are in a cupboard in the kitchen.’
I curled my fingers around the keys. They were still warm.
‘Thanks,’ I said, but she’d gone, her sensible shoes tick-tacking on the concrete.
Breakfast was a choice of cornflakes with skim milk or cornflakes without skim milk. No bacon. No eggs. No bread for toast. I had a shower instead.
The water pressure seemed okay but the shower rose was pissy and even though I was conscious of not being able to run the tank dry, in three minutes I’d cleaned myself and turned the water off. My boxers smelled a bit nasty but I put them back on.
With the flat empty and a ticking curiosity, I opened the door to Mum’s room. She’d made her bed. It was a double and I wondered if anyone had shared it with her. I flopped face-first into the covered pillow. It smelled like dust and washing powder. The same washing powder Mum had always used.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I woke at midday, my cheek resting in a cold pool of dribble on Mum’s bedspread. I wiped at my face and at the wet spot on the cover. My guts grumbled.
I ate brunch at the golden arches. It was getting to be a habit, but hey, I knew what I liked. I bought a jacket, two new shirts and two new pairs of jeans at Ski, Surf and Sun. Four hundred and eighty-nine dollars. I swallowed hard and handed the saleswoman the cash. I bought socks and jocks and boxers at Target. Deodorant, shavers, a toothbrush and stuff to make dinner at Coles. My day kicked into top gear at about three in the afternoon when I decided to replace Mum’s shower rose.
The Hardware House stank of fresh paint. I cruised the aisles looking for a shower rose but instead found the source of the paint smell. Three customers stood at the edge of a small lake of liquid white, watching a woman struggle with huge cans that had toppled from a pallet. Several cans had popped their lids and the lake was about three metres wide. I couldn’t believe the customers were just watching. I stepped carefully on the spilled paint and grabbed a fallen can. I stood it on the pallet and the woman noticed me.
‘Oh, you don’t have to. Please . . . Look at your boots! My god, they’re covered! Thanks, but you . . .’
I shrugged and righted another can. And another. The customers went back to their shopping. Soon, a bloke in a Hardware House store uniform arrived on the edge of the mess with a bag of rags.
‘Have you got any sand?’ I asked.
‘Sand?’ the bloke said.
‘Sand first, rags later.’
‘What sort of sand?’ the bloke asked. His voice was lispy and effeminate; his hair gelled into a messy mohawk.
‘Any sort.’
He span on his heels and vanished down an aisle. The woman beside me grunted with effort as she righted each can. I took the handles from her and lifted them out of the mess and onto the pallet.
‘Thank you,’ she said with each can.
‘No worries.’
The male assistant returned with a squeaky trolley carrying three bags of sand. ‘Now what?’
I stepped through the lake of paint again and lifted a bag onto my hip. I flipped my pocketknife out of its sheath and opened the blade with my teeth. I stabbed into the bottom of the bag and opened a hole that let the sand flow. I paced the edge of the liquid mess and let the sand fall. Soon the puddle was shored up and the bag was empty. I gutted another bag and spread the contents around the middle.
‘We’ll need a shovel. A big, square-mouthed shovel,’ I said to the bloke.
‘Right,’ he said, and jogged off.
The woman had retreated to the edge and had her knuckles resting on her hips. She shook her head.
Pansy boy returned with the perfect shovel. It had a D handle and a mouth on it like a backhoe bucket. It still had the price tag on it. I flipped it in my fingers then made it second-hand on the painted sand. The scraping on the concrete echoed around the store as I mixed the sand and piled it.
‘Grab one of those fifty-litre planter pots, Harry,’ the woman said.
Harry – the pansy – ducked down another aisle and produced a black plastic pot. He stuffed one of the empty bags in the bottom to cover the holes and I shovelled it full of white sand. I helped Harry lift the filled pot onto the trolley.
The woman had a smile on her face. She was in her twenties at a guess, with flawless honey skin and dark hazel eyes. She had a smear of paint on her cheek.
‘Don’t suppose you’re looking for a job,’ she said.
‘Well, actually . . .’
‘Don’t move,’ she said, and took a mobile phone from her belt. She dialled and her voice came over the PA.
‘Tony, can you come to paint, please? Tony to paint.’
I grabbed a rag and wiped at the lip of a can. When it was clean, I wiped the sand and most of the paint off my boots.
‘God, your boots are stuffed,’ the woman said. ‘I don’t even know your name.’
‘Adam Prince.’
I put out my hand and realised it had a paint spot on it. I rubbed at the spot with the rag and succeeded in spreading it across my palm.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ the woman said, and stuck out her hand. ‘I’m Debbie Wilde.’
We shook, laughed and looked at our hands.
‘I guess we’re blood now,’ Debbie said. ‘Or paint, as the case may be.’
An Italian bloke in a suit arrived. ‘What the bloody hell happened here?’ he said. He’d said it quietly so that only Debbie and I could hear. He’d said it quietly but the rage in him was palpable.
‘Tony, this is Adam,’ Debbie said.
Tony bucked his head in a defiant sort of greeting. ‘Are you responsible for this?’ he asked me.
‘Don’t be a dick,’ Debbie said. ‘It was an accident. Adam helped clean it up.’
‘Oh, right. What did you want?’
‘Adam’s looking for a job.’
Tony scoffed. ‘Good luck, Adam.’
Debbie sighed. ‘I don’t think you understand, Tony. Adam wants a job and you’re going to give him one.’
Tony put a fist on his hip and stroked an invisible beard with his other han
d.
Subtle, I thought. Don’t mess with Debbie, I thought. Tony may have been the boss, but Debbie had the power. There was something more than the average employee– employer relationship between them.
‘Oh, right,’ Tony said. ‘And who am I going to sack so that Mr Adam can have his job?’
‘Nobody,’ Debbie said. ‘I’ve saved you the trouble. I sacked Karen. It was one of her little tantrums that ended up all over the floor here.’
‘You can’t do that, Debbie,’ Tony hissed. He waved his arms wildly. ‘You can’t just sack someone.’
Debbie shrugged. ‘It’s done. She’d been warned. It’s all there on the security video. I probably saved you ten grand by doing it. And if you want to save another ten grand, give Adam the job.’
So Tony gave me the job. I cleaned myself up and followed him upstairs to his office, signed a form and listened to him rabbit on about pay and conditions. He gave me two official Hardware House shirts and an apron. He said my nametag would be ready in a week. It happened just like that.
The paint smell had mostly gone when I came back to the shop later with a bunch of yellow roses for Debbie. All that was left of the spill was a pale clean patch on the concrete floor.
‘Thanks,’ I said, and handed her the flowers.
She blushed. Her face literally flooded with blood.
‘They’re beautiful, Adam. You didn’t have to. God, I should be buying you flowers.’
‘They’re the least I can do. I only arrived in town a couple of days ago and you got me a job. I feel like I owe you big-time.’
There was an awkward moment when Debbie rolled on the balls of her feet and sniffed at the roses. She fell onto her heels, straightened her apron and coughed into her hand.
‘I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,’ I said.
‘Yes. Excellent. See you then.’
We said goodbye and I could feel her watching me as I strode along the aisle. I stole a glance. She looked away. She’d definitely been watching me. She had definitely blushed. I had a job and my heart was fit to burst.
Harry was serving a customer in the timber yard. I gently patted his shoulder as I stepped past.
‘See you tomorrow, Harry.’
‘Right. Okay. See you tomorrow . . . mate,’ Harry said.
Mum missed my culinary coming of age. It was her leaving Splitters Creek that spurred me to cook. Tori – so graceful and competent in the kitchen – taught me how to make a pasta sauce from scratch and stir fry and curried vegetables and rice. She was patient and explained everything with a natural flair.
Simon wouldn’t eat some of the things I made. I kept three bags of frozen chips in the chest freezer to keep the peace. We were fine as long as we didn’t run out of sauce. I kept two big caterer’s bottles in the pantry. Dad called my creations hippie food, but not unkindly. He’d say grace and eat without a word but never failed to make a positive comment when he’d finished, even when it turned out nothing like the stuff Tori made. He’d obviously worked out that his heavy-hearted indifference had cost him his wife. It would have been a less painful experience if he’d noticed that Mum was falling apart a day a week a month a year before she left.
It would have helped if I’d pitched in, too.
It got dark in the flat and I cooked. Nothing special, just my take on a pasta sauce. Tomato, onion, zucchini and mushroom. I was cooking for Mum for the first time in my life. I was giving her back a meal for all the meals she’d made for me. I’d only have to do it for eighteen more years to repay the debt.
The door rattled. My stomach dropped like I’d missed a step. I hurried across to let her in and the timer on the electric oven pinged – the garlic bread was ready – and Mum was home.
She dropped her purse on the table and didn’t move for the longest time. I took the bread from the oven. When I eventually looked directly at her, she flashed her teeth in a token smile.
‘Smells good,’ she said and disappeared into her room. When she came back, she was still in her work uniform but her hair was free from the ponytail.
‘I made some dinner. You hungry?’
She offered the barest shrug and sat at the kitchen table. She fingered the TV remote and found the news. She thanked me without enthusiasm and ate in silence, with an eye on the news. She didn’t pick at the fettuccine, though – she shovelled.
She said yes to a second helping and washed it all down with lemon squash from the fridge. The news broke for adverts. She took my empty bowl and stacked it in hers.
‘Very nice,’ she said, almost under her breath.
‘Thanks. Glad you liked it.’
‘What brand was that?’
‘Pardon?’
‘What brand of pasta sauce?’
‘No brand. Adam Prince brand. Made it up.’
She raised one eyebrow. ‘When did you learn to cook?’
I smiled, but said nothing.
Mum nodded slowly. ‘I’m impressed.’
She filled the sink. I found a threadbare tea towel and stood beside her.
‘What did you get up to today?’ she asked.
‘Nothing much. Bit of shopping. Found a job. That sort of thing.’
Mum chuckled. ‘You what?’
‘Found a job. It was an accident. I went to the hardware store down the road looking for a better showerhead and I helped them clean up some paint. They offered me a job.’
Mum stared at the dishwater and shook her head. ‘Did you fix the shower?’
‘No, well, I got distracted.’
Mum let out a stuttery breath. ‘Do you want a cuppa, love?’
I nodded. She called me love and suddenly I was six years old again. Six years old and the Mum from my dreams was back.
‘We missed you,’ I said, as Mum filled the white plastic kettle.
She huffed.
‘We did. Especially Simon.’
‘Maybe so, but you coped.’
‘Not really. Not well, anyway. Simon punched Dad in the jaw while we were trying to get him under the shower.’
The sink sucked as the last of the dishwater drained. Mum watched it go.
‘Simon wouldn’t shower and then he pooped his pants one night at the pub and Emma Terry volunteered to wash him. She’s been washing him ever since.’
‘It’s not Emma’s job,’ Mum growled.
‘Yes but Simon wouldn’t let me or Dad . . .’
‘It’s not Emma’s job.’
‘Somebody had to do it.’
Mum razed me with her eyes. She shoved past into her room, hurling the door against its frame. She shouted something at the wall.
I’d managed to crack the eggshell around her heart again. I felt like an oaf. I stood there with my pulse ticking in my fingers and I wanted to drive. Jump in the Suba and continue my search for whatever it was that I was looking for. Some peace. Some direction. A moment’s grace.
Bully had been right – I had run from Splitters Creek and my escape had been a success in many ways.
Out of the frying pan.
I slumped onto the couch and waited. I waited for Mum to come back out. I waited for my head to make sense of the moment, but the sense never came. I sat there with my thoughts floating, pedalling at the air until sleep claimed me.
Seven
Mum dropped her keys near my head as she left for work the next morning. I swallowed awkwardly, coughed and sat up as she tugged the door closed behind her.
‘Thanks,’ I shouted, but there was no reply.
It was a ten-minute walk from Mum’s flat to work. I think the weirdest thing about my first day was seeing Harry arrive. He had a girlfriend. She dropped him at the door in her little red Laser with the matching P plates and Harry kissed her before he got out. She was a well-packed unit, too.
You can’t pick them.
I worked with Debbie in the paint department. She made sure I had plenty of work to do and had me stand beside her while she was mixing paint. She was patient with me and professio
nal when there were customers about but when the coast was clear, another Debbie appeared. She brushed against me and touched my arm when she talked. She used my name so many times it started to make me cringe.
I sat with Harry in the brew room at lunch.
‘Debbie’s amazing,’ I said.
‘She’s a witch. She’s pretty full of herself,’ he said, without a smile.
I chuckled. ‘How old do you reckon she is?’
‘I’ve never asked. She could be twenty-five or so. Maybe younger. She has a dog. She drives a red MX5. She goes to the gym. She doesn’t smoke. She and Tony have something funky going on. Oh, and she’s married.’
‘Married?’
He nodded and bit into his second shop-bought ham and cheese sandwich.
You wouldn’t know, I thought. The gym fitted – she was toned and tanned. The MX5 made sense – flirtatious car. Dog? I could imagine her with something big and fluffy like a sheepdog. And not smoking was another sign of intelligence. But married?
I watched her like a security camera that afternoon. I thought that maybe she wasn’t aware that she was flirting. Like that time when Jai Murray was going out with Karen Hegarty – years after Karen and I were an item – and she’d had a few too many vodkas and started flirting with me flat-out. The next thing I knew, Jai Murray’s shoving me in the shoulder and accusing me of hitting onto his girlfriend.
Right.
Karen reckoned she didn’t know she was flirting. She’d rubbed herself against me more than when we were going out.
Debbie was the same. I was up the ladder and she was handing cans of paint up to me and I was stacking them on the higher shelves. The cans were awkward for her and she took to grabbing my leg with one hand to steady herself before heaving the can in my direction. She started grabbing me at the ankle but when I got lower on the ladder, she got higher. She was grabbing me above the knee. That, combined with the hot little grunts of exertion as she lifted each can, turned the shifting of paint into an erotic experience.
Debbie knew what was going on.
And when she winked and waved goodbye with one little finger that night, I felt like I’d become her toy. Sure, I’d helped out with the paint spill, but mopping up a little paint wasn’t much of a resume or job interview. Debbie must have decided that she wanted me to play with, convinced her boss that I was a worthwhile prospect and let the games begin.
