The Apology

by Ross Watkins

  Ross Watkins is an author and illustrator for both children and adults. His first major publication was as the illustrator of The Boy Who Grew Into a Tree (2012), and his picture book One Photo (2016) was shortlisted for the CBCA 2017 Picture Book of the Year. His short fiction has been published in various Australian anthologies and journals, and he was shortlisted for the 2011 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award for Emerging Author. Ross lives on the Sunshine Coast hinterland. The Apology is his first novel.

  For my mum and dad.

  For my brothers.

  For me.

  He thinks of the letter only as The Apology. The object itself – the paper, its handwriting a juvenile scrawl – is gone, taken back by the writer. But its words have imprinted themselves on surfaces far more difficult to put in a pocket and walk away with: the membrane beneath his skull, the inner workings of his eyes. And his mouth. Always his mouth.

  When he thinks of The Apology, he remembers the silkiness of cock skin sliding across his mouth.

  The Apology was not asked for, nor was it expected. It was delivered in a way which told him that its author still possessed the ability to infiltrate and manipulate – now more than ever, even. To have somehow gained access to his house, leaving the letter on the bedside table, tucked between the pages of The Stories of John Cheever – that required resourcefulness, and guile. To know where to place the letter so that only he would discover it as he butterflied the book open. To know that he would find it in the moment he had sloughed off the muck of his day and allowed his body to rest, red wine on his breath, his mind groomed for the sluice of someone else’s words.

  He didn’t read the letter. Not then, anyway. He allowed the writer his deviousness but not the satisfaction of his words hitting home. And so that night, when he didn’t yet know the letter’s contents, it only said one thing: I am still touching you.

  ADRIAN

  Mr Havlicek called this place his island. The assembly address was one of his favourites. It was over the top – everyone in the school knew that – but he delivered it whenever a sense of unrest was growing, or when a particularly appalling incident had happened among the student body. And there was a bit of both going on that day.

  ‘The school,’ he said, ‘must be a safe place amid the troubled waters of the Western Sydney community. Here, within these grounds, we must set a high standard of morality. If we don’t’ – and here he paused, looking around the hall and its standing rows of bored boys in blazers – ‘if we don’t, then depravity will find a method to blot this school and everything that is good in it. You are boys becoming men, and in that becoming you must shed the puerile ways of boys.’

  Boys, Adrian thought. If they’re not trying to fuck with you, they’re trying to fuck with you.

  Mr H – everyone called him Mr H – dismissed the assembly to the sound of bags being slung over shoulders and murmured relief. He placed the microphone on its stand and descended the stage stairs to the hardwood floor. He walked directly towards Adrian, but did not look at him. ‘Mr Pomeroy,’ he said as he neared.

  ‘Yes, Mr Havlicek?’

  ‘My office.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Havlicek.’

  *

  Adrian didn’t know where to put his hands – pockets, knees. Across his chest. He knew why he’d been called in – a parent had complained that he’d been excessively late in handing back the Year Eleven English papers, a comparative analysis of The Hunger Games and Richard Connell’s The Most Dangerous Game. The accusation was accurate – he had grown careless of his professionalism over the past term. He’d been teaching at the boys’ high school for seven years, and already he felt the onset of burnout. The students seemed to like him, and their parents only complained about small things every so often, but in a place like that nothing could be taken for granted.

  Mr H closed the door, then walked around his desk and sat in his chair. His breath was audible. He leant against the backrest, glanced at his desk, rubbed his moustache, and then looked at Adrian. ‘Alex Bowman,’ he finally said.

  Adrian was very familiar. ‘Akker’ was what Alex liked to be called now, especially around the boys in class. He waited for Mr H to continue.

  ‘Alex came to see me before assembly today, and he was quite upset. He was in that very chair and in tears. Distraught is probably a more apposite word, in fact.’

  Adrian tried to imagine Akker in tears.

  Mr H fiddled with his tie. A check tie on a check shirt. ‘You see, Alex was here to make certain allegations, Mr Pomeroy. Allegations of a very serious nature.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Mr H’s moustache didn’t move. ‘I would be very careful with my apologies, Mr Pomeroy, if I were you. Especially at this point in proceedings. For reasons I can and cannot understand, Alex has not mentioned these allegations to his parents. He apparently felt more comfortable telling me in the first instance, and requested that I be present when he does tell them, so I have arranged a meeting with them and the school counsellor here at four-thirty today. This will provide you with sufficient time to gather your personal items and leave the school grounds. It is safer that way.’

  Later, Adrian would try to imagine his own expression at hearing this. He did not have the presence of mind to gauge himself in the moment. He only felt heat. An overriding sense of heat. He knew why.

  ‘You must understand that there are protocols for allegations of this nature, Mr Pomeroy,’ Mr H said, but already Adrian was there and not there, dislocating, his eyes drifting to the school crest above Mr H’s head – an open book below a hovering dagger, and the motto Scientia Vos Liberabit: Knowledge Shall Set You Free. Mr H went on about other details: that the police would be notified following the meeting, that failure to report the information was a criminal offence, that Alex’s remarks were only allegations pending a full and proper investigation, and that the school must be seen to support the student, as it had a duty of care. That Adrian would be suspended with pay until further notice.

  Mr H rubbed his moustache again. He moved small stacks of paper around his desk, then picked up a rogue pen and inserted it into his stationery caddy. ‘If it appears that I am being careful with my words, Adrian, it’s because I am.’ He could no longer maintain eye contact.

  Adrian again looked at Mr H. He understood the nature of the circumstances. ‘Thank you,’ he said, then he stood, pushed the chair to the desk and said, ‘I am sorry.’

  Adrian left the building.

  *

  Some boys were softer. They sat between the boy who believed he was above the learning process and the boy who was always talking about how good he was at overtly masculine things. Soft boys were easy targets, but sometimes they had an inner stability, a quiet confidence that could bamboozle the bullies and bullshit artists. And so, as Adrian had seen over the years, they got left alone. They became expert at evading conflict by smelling it before it ripened. They knew the right words to say at the right moment because they had become adept at strategising. It was their means of protecting their tender bodies from harm.

  When Alex was twelve, back in his first year of high school, he was soft. A genuinely good kid, empathetic, and one with an academic future. Staff said he was the Year Seven standout, not because of his blond hair but as one of the school’s low-socioeconomic successes, a poster boy for the school’s scholarship program. Adrian had agreed. In English, the boy once wrote a short story which was a cut above the rest. Although his writing had its share of issues – spelling and grammatical errors and the like – the story was strong. It told of a boy not only well read but of remarkable sensitivity. Especially compared to the tales of violence and overstated heroism the rest always
came up with.

  Alex’s story was about two feuding brothers in the afterlife, one on the verge of entering Hell and the other entering the gates of Heaven. The two men talk in armistice before saying goodbye. The unworthy brother talks about his regrets in life, and the worthy man listens. Despite their differences, the worthy man forgives his brother for his sins and announces that he may take his place in Heaven. The unworthy man declares that, although he desperately fears the flames, he cannot accept his brother’s offer: he alone must bear the burden of his actions. He turns and enters the fire. Witnessing this, the worthy man feels great sadness and decides to go in after him, sacrificing himself so that his brother might have company. As the worthy man places a foot on the embers spilling from Hell, he hears a familiar voice calling from behind. He turns and steps towards the voice, only to find himself being carried by light through the gates of Heaven. On the other side of the gates, he finds that the voice belongs to his brother, who waits for him with open arms.

  Adrian photocopied the story and showed it to some other teachers. He talked about it a lot for a few days, and it stayed with him over the next weeks. It became an anecdote he mentioned in class for the next three years.

  Even back then, Adrian wondered if his compassion for Alex brought him too close to the boy. Did he see something of himself in his student? He asked himself this after writing Alex’s Year Seven English report, when he realised he had stepped away from the usual objective expressions: Mikael is still learning how to negotiate the challenges of social interaction in the classroom, Jamal has tried his best to convey his ideas about the texts studied this semester, and so on. Instead, Adrian found himself being more heartfelt: Alex made being a teacher worthwhile, he wrote, and he loved having him in his class. That Alex was one of the loveliest boys Adrian had ever taught, and his talent for storytelling should be encouraged. He even wrote that he looked forward to being part of Alex’s nurturing, in whatever way possible, during his high school years.

  When Adrian read back over the report he was both proud and hesitant – the sentiment was genuine but its lack of distance made him wonder if he’d breached a boundary of some sort. He then thought about his mother, and the kindness of her tongue during his own formative years, and he left the report as it was. No ill came of it.

  Four years later, when Alex again entered Adrian’s classroom at the beginning of term, his mates called him Akker. Alex was still present in Akker’s eyes but his face had firmed. Adrian had seen this metamorphosis before, of course, a thousand times throughout his time at the school, but he remembered none as pronounced as Alex’s. The twelve-year-old body had stretched and strained itself well into pubescence; his mouth was more resolute, and his jawline testing stubble. He was still handsome, Adrian thought, but a more aloof and merciless kind of handsome.

  After that first lesson, Alex made sure he was the last to leave. He approached Adrian’s desk.

  ‘What’s up, Alex?’

  ‘I’d like to be called Akker in class, sir.’

  ‘Sure, Akker. Not a problem.’ Adrian was grateful for the contact – the boy hadn’t said a word all lesson. He’d just leant back in his chair with an expression which could have been derision, or boredom, or self-satisfaction. ‘It’s good to have you in my classroom again.’

  Akker slipped his hands into his pockets and put on a smirk. ‘I look forward to being nurtured, sir,’ he said.

  It was then that Adrian first felt the haunting heat of the past.

  *

  The heat came upon him again as he drove the M4 home. He rolled down his window and tried to settle his mind, his heartbeat. The truck tailgating him didn’t help, its grille just about filling the rear windscreen. The word cunt came off his lips in a fluent way, and he wondered who it was truly meant for: the delivery driver, Akker or himself?

  Akker …

  The name echoed and he felt a pulse of angst. Soon the boy and his parents would be walking into Mr H’s office, and that moustache would be announcing Adrian’s professional demise and personal humiliation. Fuck.

  Akker …

  Adrian wondered about the story he’d tell this time – the words he would choose, the imagery, the villain writ large in the imagination of his audience.

  Earlier, on his way to the English staffroom, Adrian had glimpsed himself in the reflective glass of the administration building. Although the horror of the afternoon wasn’t yet there in the detail of his face, he still wondered what others saw in this thirty-six-year-old. His receding hairline and his beak-like nose were disconcerting self-criticisms, but soon the students would be saying more creative things about him – words passed between desks and published on Facebook and Twitter and wherever the fuck else. Years ago he’d done some casual teaching at state schools, and he preferred their kind of arsehole. Those boys told you what they thought of you to your face, then maybe threw a rock at your car. But the boys at this school were in it for the game, and what depraved games they liked to play.

  He tried the radio for a distraction and hit the four o’clock news. His father always said that the news was just other people’s problems, and right now it was a good reminder that many people out there had it worse than him. There was an extended piece on the ISIS attacks in France, then something political. The next item was on the royal commission’s investigations of child sexual abuse at a grammar school. Adrian turned it off.

  He checked his rear-vision mirror: the truck was still behind, bearing down on him.

  ‘Go around, fuckface!’

  On his back seat was a box full of student papers, and Adrian realised how stupid he was to bring it all home with him. When he packed his stuff he hadn’t been thinking, but now he recognised that this wouldn’t be a short term layoff. It would be Akker’s word against his – if he could find his words and not incriminate himself, that is. What would he tell people? He imagined himself arriving home and not coming out until the whole business was over.

  Again, the heat. Blooming from his neck. He felt like ripping his shirt open.

  He looked at his phone in the centre console and thought of Nguyet. He was coming home earlier than usual, but this wasn’t unprecedented so he hoped for fewer questions. He would much prefer to tell her over red wine than over the doormat. He then thought of Tam. God, young Tam … He pictured the boy’s face, a pretty composite of Vietnamese and Caucasian features. At six he was asking so many questions but could not yet understand everything going on. How would the boy’s impression of his father change with the knowledge of today?

  Six years old … Now Adrian’s own scars were being thumbed.

  The intensity of the heat rose. He suddenly felt tightness across his chest and he breathed harder, quicker, but he was beyond settling himself now. The windscreen blurred as he thought of Tam’s face, Akker’s face, his brother’s face, and it was then that Adrian lost consciousness. His head fell forward, his nose cracked against the centre of the steering wheel and the car veered left. The truck had backed off by now but the distance between the two vehicles wasn’t enough to prevent it from bashing into Adrian’s car, spearing it off the motorway and onto the grass, across a ditch and into a tree.

  The truck kept motoring.

  NOEL

  Noel leant back on the bonnet of his car and felt far from everything familiar. No family, no cops, no more fucking grubs. The only familiarities were what he dragged out here with him and what he created – and the thing he created here was superb.

  He sat with his knees bent and drank from a longneck of beer he’d bought from a drive-through in an outer suburb of Perth. Just some typical bottle-o in a bland suburb no one would think twice about, especially not in relation to a fire in scrubland east of the airport. If he did the right thing – if he stuck to his protocol – then the two actions were unrelated and the bottle shop’s CCTV footage would mean zip. And out here at Statham’s Quarry, wher
e blokes came on Friday nights to drink and do doughies, there were no cameras, and Noel wasn’t stupid enough to film the fire with his phone. Not like the dipshits who got pinched doing this stuff because they’d uploaded it and bragged online. Noel was above them and their narcissism – his was a compulsion he could control. In fact, that sense of control was what sparked his gratification.

  From the car, he watched the smoke whirl white and brown, which he guessed had something to do with the grass being consumed. It smelled sweet, and from two hundred metres away the crackle sounded like erratic applause, as if the land was celebrating his choice to burn it all back. Drinking the beer, he thought: If only more than grass could be burned back.

  Noel wasn’t a bad guy. Unlike other men he’d worked with, he hardly ever drank hard and never screwed any of the victimised women he came across in the job – the women begging for a hero, which was really anyone who didn’t beat them. Nor was he like the two general duties officers he knew who spent their work hours fucking in the police vehicle. Noel, he told himself, you’re an officer for the Western Australia Police Force, and you’re one of the good guys.

  He knew that if he was smart in his actions – if he applied enough thought before, during and after the event – then his chances of being caught were low. The statistics said that arson was one of the least convicted crimes because the evidence was usually burned. He doubted that a forensics team would be sent to a grassfire out in the middle of nowhere, but even if they were – if somehow something went wrong and the fire got out of hand – he had strategies to contain any evidence and prevent discovery.

  He never went to the same location twice, although he had hit the Zig Zag a few times, plus Helena Valley. He always mapped out where he would park the car and which route to take out of there, and while he couldn’t help tyre tracks, his tread was common enough. He always walked to the ignition location with bare feet, and only hung around long enough to see the flames take hold and feel the heat across his face. He watched the rest from back at the car.