Afternoons with Harvey Beam

by Carrie Cox

  Beam sees amidst all this that Penny was probably right. Even though she meant it in terms of emotional support rather than practical assistance, Lynn is helping Naomi in a way that is vital to her daughter’s survival. If their mother hadn’t fallen down the stairs, Harvey reasons, this experiment in ‘transgenerational living’ would still be occurring. Because one way or another, if the world is working as it should, family has to shift and settle into the cracks that need filling.

  For the first time in several hours, Beam remembers that he is now officially unemployed.

  14

  Two weeks before Harvey’s fourteenth birthday, his father moved out of the family home. Lynn Beam had packed up most of Lionel’s belongings (apart from his books which she refused to touch and had threatened to give to charity) and given him the address of a small house on the opposite side of the river available for rent. It had all happened while Harvey and his siblings were at school. Most of the neighbourhood had been at work. The lack of drama involved had been particularly unsettling for his sisters, as though nothing this life-changing should cause so small a ripple.

  On Harvey’s birthday, his father called by the house for the first time since he had left. He arrived in a taxi, the vehicle idling in the front drive. Harvey sat in his room, waiting to be summoned to the front door where his parents were having a discussion. He could make out a few words—his brother’s name, his sister’s names, something about a bank, something about a car. Finally, from his mother’s mouth, Harvey heard his own name spoken. Then nothing for about ten minutes. Then Harvey heard the taxi drive away.

  It wasn’t until dinnertime that Harvey learned his father had come over not to drop off a birthday present but to pick up Bryan.

  Your brother is going to live with Dad, Lynn Beam had told her three remaining children as she moved a knife through Harvey’s chocolate birthday cake.

  Penny and Naomi had looked wide-eyed at each other, uncharacteristically silent.

  Their mother kept moving, flipping pieces of cake onto saucers, dabbing at crumbs on the table, gathering up the dinner plates, moving, moving.

  Harvey looked hard at his cake, at one of the tiny holes in the sponge.

  At last Naomi spoke. It was the first question of maybe a hundred that she and Penny lobbed at their mother that night, but it was the only one that mattered to Harvey.

  ‘What about Pencil?’ she’d asked.

  Lynn Beam explained that their father’s home had only two bedrooms. Having Bryan would take some of the pressure off Lynn. Lionel thought it was the right thing to do. It’s wrong to separate sisters. Bryan had been happy to go.

  Harvey quickly registered that he had not been an option in his father’s plan. Discussions had been held that didn’t involve him, hadn’t even required his opinion. Why was it okay to separate brothers but not sisters? How much had Bryan wanted to go? Harvey had a new sense of how much space he really occupied in this family, in the world.

  On the outer edge of his thoughts, Harvey could hear yelling.

  ‘Doesn’t he even care about us?’ Naomi was wailing at their mother, tears spilling down her face.

  ‘Why couldn’t he get a bigger house?’ Penny demanded.

  ‘Of course he will still see you all,’ Lynn Beam assured them. ‘Of course he wants to see you all. But he also has to finish the next book and … it will all just … work out. Things are going to be better than they were, I promise.’

  Harvey looked down at the smudged glass tabletop, willing himself not to smash it.

  15

  Beam wakes up on a mattress in Naomi’s media room, an ambitious title for a small darkened room with a flat screen on the wall and a couch. It’s the ping of his phone that rouses him and Harvey sees that he has six messages.

  Naomi: Letting you sleep in. Going grocery shopping after dropping kids off. Be back around lunch. Help yourself to whatever. Hangover!

  Cate: Bkd flights. Arrive Saturday morning. Emailed u deets.

  Trudi Rice: Documents emailed. As discussed, tomorrow is the deadline for accepting the original offer.

  Penny: Heading off to see Dad now. Call me later. Key still under mat.

  Unknown number: Hi Harvey, this is Grace (nurse, fellow plane drinker). Sorry I couldn’t talk yesterday but your sister gave me your number. If you want a break from family stuff, we could do coffee or lunch or something. Up to you. Cheers.

  Suze: Call me. Now.

  Harvey calls Suze. She’s in a meeting; she’ll call back. She calls back; he’s on the toilet. They call each other at the same time; leave brief messages that might never be heard. The marriage of messaging. Finally he gets her, just as Matt walks into the dining room and says, ‘Hey, wanna see the bonsai?’

  Beam doesn’t want to look unenthusiastic—he does want to see the bonsai—but the phone is on his ear now and he does a series of interpretive dance gestures at Matt that mean, in no particular order: sorry, have to take this call, really want to see the bonsai, and how bloody hot is it?

  ‘Harvey,’ says Suze, her voice a familiar mix of rage and resignation. ‘Honestly, I may never understand you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve invited Cate to come to Shorton. She’s booked a ticket.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘She seemed upset, she sounds lost. I thought it might be good. Get her mind off things.’

  ‘Her mind has been off things for ages, Harvey. That’s not the problem. Not by a long shot.’

  ‘Okay. Sorry.’

  ‘The problem is Jayne.’

  ‘Jayne?’ What?

  ‘So you offer to fly one child to Shorton to … what? Say goodbye to Lionel, keep you company, be a human shield against your family, whatever. What is the other child meant to think?’

  Beam’s head hurts. He is not going to drink today.

  ‘But Cate’s going through a tough time,’ he says. ‘I thought this would help. It’s not about bringing everyone to Shorton. It’s not a family reunion, Suze. It’s about dealing with this situation … what’s happening now.’

  ‘Kids don’t understand the choices we make unless we explain them, Harvey.’

  ‘I know.’

  And Harvey knows that Suze knows.

  ‘Jayne is upset,’ she says. ‘She’s already fighting with Cate and now she’s really upset. It’s a fucking shitstorm.’

  ‘Okay,’ he says, ‘what do you want me to do?’

  ‘Just do what you always do, Harvey. Stick your head in the sand until it all blows over.’

  ‘Fuck, Suze. What do you want me to do here? Just say it.’

  But Suze is gone. Always and ever queen of the perfectly timed hang-up. How frustrating she must now find it, Harvey has often thought, to just press END instead of throwing a heavy handset against a wall.

  How hard it is to do the right thing, he thinks. How much easier it is to do nothing.

  Beam looks at his phone for insight. Shit. Bonsai. Matt.

  Harvey wanders outside and down the back to Matt’s shed. He can hear him inside whistling and Harvey isn’t sure whether to knock first or walk right in. He once interviewed a self-described expert in ‘shed etiquette’ whose golden rule was that a man in his shed must never be interrupted unless said shed is in the immediate path of an imminent natural disaster. Even then, you need to be really sure about the scale of the disaster.

  While recalling this, the door opens from the inside and Matt says, ‘Come on in, mate.’

  Like many sheds, of which Beam has been inside precious few, it feels much bigger inside than it looks from the exterior, as though ideas and plans and projects occupy a different kind of space to mere oxygen. Matt has set up two pedestal fans in opposite corners, a military flanking manoeuvre against the inexorable heat. There is a small bar fridge in another corner, and all around, on every wall, shelves dotted with bonsai plants at various stages of their evolution.

  Matt has names for all of them, monikers that bare little obvious resemblan
ce to their botanic titles. Weeping Angela. Goodbye Sally. Helena Handbasket. Sigrid Thorn.

  ‘Ghosts of girlfriends past?’ asks Beam.

  ‘Ha. Something like that,’ Matt says, taking a small set of secateurs to You Jane. ‘Don’t tell Naomi.’

  ‘So,’ Harvey says, positioning his sweating back against one of the fans. ‘Is this the most popular secret pastime of men who drive trucks bigger than houses?’

  Matt smiles and ponders this. ‘I think the reasons I got into it and what I get out of it now are different things,’ he says. ‘My grandfather used to keep bonsai and my dad was really shitty at him for having such a selfish hobby. He thought it was pointless, the complete opposite of kicking a footy around with your kids. And I get that—I mean, it is time-consuming. But I don’t know. I think I was probably just curious to explore something that pissed off my dad so much. I was probably just being an arsehole when I started googling bonsai.’

  ‘And now?’ Beam is in interview mode: never divert a good source who’s on a roll.

  ‘Now,’ Matt says, ‘well, this is going to sound really wanky, Harvey, so let’s keep it in the shed, but I reckon it’s about having control over something bigger than yourself. Being able to shrink a whole landscape to a few pots. Keeping things manageable. It’s actually pretty blokey when you think about it. Women are happy to look at the big picture, but the big picture frightens the fuck out of me.’

  ‘Me too,’ says Harvey.

  ‘Wanna lift to the hospital?’

  It’s a circuitous drive there as, on a whim, Matt decides to show Harvey the recently completed marina development at the town’s harbour. Gone entirely is the beach Beam knew as a child, a left-handed break that was mostly good for bodysurfing and occasionally, when big storms loomed, the unsheathing of a rarely used board. Gone is the old surf club, the public loos, the humble kiosk, and in their place a vast and somehow precarious new arrangement of hotels, apartments and restaurants wrapped around a labyrinth of pontoons.

  ‘Shit,’ says Harvey.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Who asked for this?’ Beam wonders aloud, noticing how few boats are moored, none of them showroom material. ‘There are so many things this town needed before … this.’

  ‘Progress, mate. Someone’s vision. No-one asked me, that’s for sure.’

  Beam has no beef with progress but this is something else: there is no evidence, not even a hint, of what once existed here, no familiar fence post on which to hang a childhood memory. An entire beach, the place where Shorton families had long gone to escape the heat and each other, has been eliminated. That’s not progress, thinks Harvey, that’s annihilation.

  They drive slowly along the arched rock wall, one of the artificial limbs holding this watery meccano set together.

  ‘Where did you grow up?’ Beam asks of Matt.

  ‘Whole bunch of places. Moved every couple of years. East coast, west coast. Dog’s breakfast. Even spent some time in Indonesia.’

  ‘So where is home?’

  Matt looks at Harvey strangely. ‘Here,’ he says.

  They drive back through the vast and hideous industrial estate that rims the coastline—hulking silos and monolithic sheds that could house a billion bonsai. There is no way to get to the new marina except through this, like putting a fancy hotel at the edge of a nuclear wasteland. Just close your eyes, folks, we’ll be there soon.

  ‘Is that SR95.3?’ Harvey asks, pointing to the centre console.

  ‘Not sure,’ says Matt. ‘Probably.’

  ‘Do you mind if I have a quick listen? I used to work there.’

  ‘Go for it,’ Matt says.

  And before long the two men are shaking their heads and laughing and groaning at just how bad radio can be. The two hosts, a young guy and girl, are talking about their plans for the weekend, but there’s no punchline, no helpful information, just a series of flat in-jokes delivered in a manner that is so rough and inarticulate Harvey assumes it’s contrived.

  ‘Jesus,’ Beam says. ‘Is this for real? I mean, is it work-experience day or something?’

  ‘This ain’t the big city, Harvey,’ Matt says with a good-natured punch into Beam’s pillowy upper arm. ‘The work experience kid’d be paid a lot more than these two.’

  Harvey laughs. ‘But they’re not even trying to engage the audience,’ he says. ‘It’s like they don’t care.’

  ‘Maybe we’re not the audience,’ Matt says.

  And Harvey suddenly remembers what his father used to say about the local radio station, back when Harvey worked there: Mulch for the masses. Brain extraction via the ears.

  When Harvey reaches the door of his father’s hospital room, Grace is walking out.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘I just got your text.’ Three hours ago. Shit.

  He immediately senses that the delayed reply, the apparent lack of reply—honestly, when had he had the chance?—has been interpreted unfavourably.

  ‘What?’ Grace says. ‘Oh, that was nothing. The second after I sent it I realised I probably don’t have time for anything while I’m here. I’ve taken on extra shifts.’

  ‘Well, I would actually love to catch up,’ says Harvey. ‘If there’s a chance.’

  ‘Probably not,’ she says. ‘Look, your dad’s asleep at the moment. Has been for about an hour. We walked him around the room this morning and he really did his best but I think it took a lot out of him. He’s very frail.’

  ‘Thanks, Grace,’ Beam says. ‘Thanks for the terrific job you’re doing.’

  Grace looks to the floor, her ponytail resting to one side of her neck.

  ‘You’re very different to your brother,’ she says.

  ‘I know. I often think the nurses got one of us mixed up.’

  He quickly adds, ‘Not that nurses … mix things up. Except in good ways. Caring ways. Good, sensible mix-ups.’

  Grace smiles, and Harvey is taken with a small indentation on her cheek, a tiny scar. And to stop focusing on it, he looks at her nose. That lovely small nose. There is nothing so difficult to marry as a large nose, Oscar Wilde had said.

  ‘I’d better get going,’ she says.

  ‘Okay. I’ll see you soon, Grace.’

  And Harvey watches her walk away full of purpose and possibly anger, and he thinks that if it’s possible to destroy something that doesn’t yet exist, he has just managed it. You’re a dick, Beam.

  He finds Penny and Bryan sitting on either side of their father’s bed, both making a fist of reading something. The room feels different somehow to how it felt yesterday, warmer and less daunting. A large new bunch of wildflowers dominates the windowsill.

  ‘Hey,’ Beam says in a whisper. ‘How are we all?’

  ‘Harvey,’ Penny says, looking up at Beam and then back down at their father. ‘He’s okay. Just the same, really. How was your night? Have you been back to my place?’

  ‘No, I came straight here,’ he says. ‘Matt drove me. Hey, he’s a bloody nice bloke. Where have you all been hiding him?’

  ‘You live in Sydney, Harvey.’

  ‘Yes, well, there’s that,’ he says and smiles. Smiles at both of them, but Bryan doesn’t look up from his book.

  ‘Have this chair,’ Bryan says, abruptly standing up and returning his book to the side table. ‘I have to go and speak with the oncologist.’

  And he walks out, single-mindedly making no eye contact with his brother, and Harvey watches him go, a less pleasurable rear view than that of Grace.

  ‘Fucking hell,’ Harvey says, pulling up the vacated seat. ‘That guy has more issues than Israel.’

  Penny is not impressed with the comparison. ‘Harvey, this is really, really hard on Bryan,’ she whispers. ‘Don’t be horrible about it. You have no idea.’

  ‘No, I don’t have any idea, Penny,’ Beam says in a poor attempt at whispering. ‘Not a fucking clue. How and when did this become the poor Bryan show?’

  ‘Shhh,’ Penny says. ‘Just stop, Harvey.’

/>   And he is instantly ashamed, for everything about his last response was inappropriate but especially the venue.

  They sit for a few minutes in silence. Penny reads her magazine, although it doesn’t escape Beam that she’s been on the same page since their conversation precipitously ended. He picks up the book recently abandoned by Bryan: A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England.

  For fuck’s sake.

  Harvey digs out his phone, puts it on silent and checks his messages. Just the one from Cate confirming her flight time on Saturday.

  Beam decides to text Jayne, aware she won’t receive his message until school finishes for the day. Writes: Cate is coming to Shorton for a few days—you’re most welcome to come too if you like. Love, Dad.

  This will either please or infuriate Suze.

  And then he texts Grace: How about a bite to eat tonight? I can show you the sights and delights of Shorton if you’ve got a spare seven minutes. Cheers, Harvey Beam.

  And then he changes his wallpaper, and his screensaver, and then works out he can do both and more by changing the phone’s ‘theme’. Anything to avoid looking at that depressing bed.

  ‘I’m going to head off now, Harvey,’ Penny says, standing up and reframing the sheeting around her father’s neck. His chest is barely moving. Lionel Beam is very still.

  ‘Okay,’ Harvey says, putting away his phone. ‘Sorry about before. I just can’t … sorry. I know it’s hard for you too. I’m a dick.’

  ‘You really are,’ she says and walks around to Harvey’s side of the bed and cradles his head roughly in a gesture of affection that doesn’t quite work.

  ‘Well, that’s going to look weird when we play it back,’ Harvey says.

  And there is a reply but it’s not from Penny. It’s a new voice in the room and Harvey soon realises it has come from his father, eyes still closed, body unmoving. The voice is barely reconcilable with the one Beam remembers.