by Ross Watkins
Noel went back into the house, shut the broken door as best he could, then pushed a hefty sofa from the lounge room against it as a barricade. He went into the kitchen, screwed up the letter as hard as he could and threw it into the sink. He splashed some of his booze onto the paper, took the lighter from his pocket and lit the thing, then stood back to watch it go. Black smoke came swirling up.
He watched the blaze, felt the heat rise over his face, traces of the past going with it, his words blackening to ash, curling and shedding. Such perfect intensity, feeling the high of being in control, finally, he believed.
Noel stepped back and upended what was left of the booze into his mouth. The room swayed. He sat on the floor and rested against a cupboard door. Exhausted, giddy. Delirious. At the end of something immense he never thought containable. But he’d found a way. For now at least. There would be other stuff to deal with later, but that didn’t matter right then. He felt so far from everything familiar, yet so close to himself.
Yellow flickered somewhere higher beside him, the sound of fire like fury embodied, the sound of self-loathing quenched. Somewhere down the hallway a smoke alarm wailed, but Noel eased his back onto the kitchen floor, from where he could look up at the black smoke rippling across the ceiling, creeping down the walls, his past both shrouded and aglow. His adult life had been a slow and sure self-annihilation, but this … in the delirium of now, this was Noel Pomeroy’s resurrection. The final burn.
If only Adrian was here to witness it.
ADRIAN
Adrian was brought back to consciousness by the wail of a smoke alarm. He lifted his head from foliage and the centre of his face pulsated. He brought his hands to his nose but didn’t touch. There was blood around his mouth, beneath his lips, slicking his teeth. He ran his tongue across his teeth and lips, swallowed, then put his head back down. The alarm continued to bleep for a few moments, before at last registering in his psyche. So did everything else – where he was, what brought him here, drunken Noel and his fist.
The alarm was coming from the house. Shit – Noel.
Adrian peeled himself out of the garden bed, went up the steps and pushed on the door. He could see the lock was shattered and the door gave in a little but he couldn’t open it. He went to the nearest window, the lounge room, and cupped his hands against the glass to look inside: there was a sofa stuck halfway into the hallway. He turned and grabbed a decent-sized rock from the garden bed and threw it at the window, shattering the glass into wedges. He took off one of his shoes and used it to clear the glass from the frame and sill, then hoisted himself onto it, throwing one leg inside and then the other. His face stung like all hell but he ignored it. He was in.
Smoke hung like haze. He couldn’t smell it but could taste it. He bent and looked down the hallway to where it was billowing from the old kitchen, rippling in ropey black currents. Beneath the alarm he could hear the fire, the sound of consumption, of the kitchen coming to pieces.
‘Noel!’
No response. He peered out the window but couldn’t see his brother, only the rental car in the driveway. Adrian looked back down the hallway. He lifted his shirt collar over his mouth and breathed through it, then crouched lower and moved towards the kitchen.
The closer he edged, the less he could see and breathe. Around halfway he dropped to his stomach and crawled the rest of the length to the kitchen doorway, holding his breath, squinting from the burn, and there he saw Noel face-down on the kitchen floor. Above and behind his body the fire tore at the walls and had opened the ceiling.
The window exploded, casting glass across the kitchen. Smoke released into the sky but the fire blazed higher and harder with the oxygen let in. Adrian reached out and grabbed Noel’s arm and heaved him across the tiles to the doorway, inching the dead weight of his brother’s body closer, stopping to cough and breathe through his shirt. Eventually he got Noel to the hallway. Adrian then got to his knees and dragged Noel to the front door.
Although the smoke hung lower now, he managed to push the sofa from the door. He turned to his brother, hooked his hands under his armpits and dragged him from the house, gasping down the steps, into clean air, finally. He took Noel onto the grass. Exhausted and wheezing, Adrian sat over his brother and began resuscitation, grateful for the training the school made him do every few years – even for the evacuation tests, which always devolved and made the students manic from the break in routine, the break from curriculum, from classroom tedium. These were the thoughts Adrian had while he pumped Noel’s sternum to a measured count, his own blood on his brother’s face from where he breathed into his mouth, wincing from the pain of his nose each time but the pain not something to even consider.
He didn’t question whether he was doing the right thing – whether Noel wanted Adrian to bring him back from his death. Noel had made a choice, Adrian had intervened. Nor did he think about The Apology, or whether he forgave his brother, because he had already forgiven him long ago. Forgetting was an impossibility, as long as he remained in his own skin, but forgiveness was easy. Forgiveness was only a matter of learning how to hold on and let go at once.
‘Help,’ Adrian said, to no one in particular – to anyone. Anyone who was willing to hear what hadn’t been said until now. Especially by his brother.
‘Help,’ he said, while his hands rhythmically pushed against his brother’s sternum, impressing that heart to beat by its own volition.
‘Help,’ while neighbours ran down the driveway, and further off a fire truck blared its horn, an ambulance not far behind.
‘Help,’ willing his brother back from the past, bringing Noel into the present with a word neither had thought to say until now.
EPILOGUE
Seven months after the fire, Adrian walks into a supermarket, his new son asleep in his arms. He has long since put Alex and the allegations out of his mind, pushing those events to a corner he knows is there but from which he can avert his eyes, for the most part, and on most days. Today is not such a day.
While he makes his way down an aisle, a man walks past carrying a basket. He doesn’t pay any attention to the man, other than to move aside a little, out of courtesy. But then he senses that the man has stopped and is looking at him and the baby. Adrian turns, sees that the man is Alex. Alex, no more than six feet away. One step towards each other and they would be within arm’s reach. The closest they’ve been since the day Adrian was called to the office, the day of his car accident, the day the drama began. And now that he sees Alex again, he feels a familiar surge of emotion, affection, perhaps even a form of desire. But he has learned to push through that, to move forward with what is actually his. Now is the moment to take control.
They don’t speak. Alex looks at the content baby boy, then at Adrian. He nods, and Adrian nods too. Then Alex turns, and goes his own way.
*
‘Adrian’s back,’ Glenda calls from the kitchen, as he pulls into the driveway.
She makes her way to the front door and watches Adrian unbuckle her new grandson from the car, then cradle him as he walks up the path. She holds her hands out and Adrian eases the baby from his arms into hers. She leans in and kisses the baby from forehead to nose, just as Adrian likes to do, just as she once did a long time ago with her two boys. She wasn’t able to see the baby until this morning because of Vietnamese custom, some superstition or other that she didn’t agree with at first, but, today being his one-month celebration, she now lets that feeling go. She is filled instead with so much love for the littlest Pomeroy, his supple skin, the smell of his newness, that she has to hold back from crying. And she can’t help thinking of her own two babies, holding each of them in her arms all those years ago. It’s as though her body has never forgotten the sensation of them lying there, dependent, in need of her – her milk, her warmth, her touch, her voice.
She looks up at Adrian, who gleams over his little boy, and she realises that she l
oves her youngest son even more now, and that she wouldn’t take anything back, none of it, not even the things she didn’t quite understand back then or even now, not exactly. She won’t ever fully understand, she believes, and lets that feeling go as well. Just as she had to let go of Noel.
Noel. She thinks of Noel in the emergency ward, hooked up with cables, the ventilator; the way he lay there for several days without moving; the worry about brain damage; the way the family came together for him, in that moment, despite everything. Despite him. There was so much crying then – from all of them, even Mal – that now she feels as though everyone’s tears somehow expelled the pressure she had once intuited would break their family. And that intuition was correct, after all, though by breaking the family it brought the family together, closer. Even Noel, in one way or another, though not consciously. Over the past seven months she has forced herself to believe that – no matter how much she continued to cry for her eldest boy, no matter how many times she wanted to crumple at the knees or not go on with routine things like making meals and washing dishes, to stop and throw her hands in the air and say out loud, Why should I care about this when Noel is dead? – despite those feelings, ultimately, destruction can bring about joy. And now, holding her new grandson, she knows this to be true.
Nguyet comes from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a tea towel. ‘Did he sleep the whole time?’ she asks Adrian, and he nods.
She sees Grace and Tam on the corduroy lounges, Grace teaching him how to play chess. She thinks about her deep love for her boys, and can’t wait to show them her Vietnam. Not long, she thinks. Only weeks now.
And Adrian, of course. Her monkey. She wonders what her mother will make of him this time. Some days even Nguyet doesn’t know what to make of him. She always assumed that forgiveness was something felt, not something to labour over, something to work hard at, daily, and reminds herself of the complexity of actions: that even though Adrian’s showing of love for her could wane or even fail sometimes, so could her love for him. She reminds herself that love is affection, negotiation, tolerance. Even hurt. And looking at her baby boy in Glenda’s arms, his sleepy face, his tiny fingers, she appreciates that all her hurt has led, in one way or another, to this happiness.
As Noo and Glenda take the shopping and his youngest into the kitchen, Adrian walks through the house to the table out the back. He sits next to Wendy, who is drinking wine and reading crime fiction. Out in the yard, Mal has the blue tarp off his kit car, which, remarkably, he managed to complete a couple of months ago. Although whenever Adrian comes over, Mal is still tinkering with something, like he is now, the driver’s door open, his legs hanging out as he fiddles under the dash. His drinking hasn’t stopped so his dementia has worsened, the only benefit being that grief hasn’t hit him so hard – at least from what Adrian can tell.
Adrian leans over the table to pour himself a glass of grappa and looks at the picture Riley is sketching. ‘Didn’t know you were an artist,’ he says.
Riley doesn’t say that he’s been drawing ideas for tattoos, or that he’s drawing right now to distract himself from thinking about that day all those months ago, when his dad successfully humiliated him more than ever before, on the worst day of his life so far. Riley told himself he didn’t give a shit about his dad dying, that when they got the phone call in Canberra and he heard what happened the only thought to cross his mind was that the old bastard deserved it, and he hoped going out that way was like torture because he’d tortured Riley so much over the years, even more so when he came out as trans. But then there was the funeral, and that changed how Riley felt. The change didn’t come when he saw the coffin, or from listening to the speeches. It was afterwards, when Adrian came outside and sat next to him on the street kerb.
‘You should know a few things about your dad,’ his uncle said, ‘about why he acted like he did.’ Adrian went on to say that Noel had probably paid out on Riley out of fear, and that he found it difficult to accept Riley for who he is because Noel found it difficult to accept who he himself was, and that he probably felt ownership for all of Riley’s decisions. Perhaps also that Noel felt Riley’s choices reflected on his limitations as a father – maybe even as a person.
‘That’s just stupid, though,’ Riley had said, scratching at the kerb with a rock.
‘It sounds stupid to us, but we all have shit to deal with.’
Riley nodded. ‘We all just deal with it differently,’ he said.
Then Adrian had stood, looked back at the funeral home door and said, ‘You can be a better person than your father was.’
Riley took that to mean that it was up to him to decide how he responded to his own problems, and part of that was how he chose to remember his father. Which is why he now wants to design his own tattoo, regardless of whether he ever gets it done. Working at the lines gives him the chance to practise some compassion for his dad. To keep thinking of him, but to shed himself of his father at the same time.
Wendy is trying to read but she’s thinking of Noel in hospital, and of the funeral. She frightened herself with how much she cried that week, but she knows now that it was mostly from shock – shock brought on by the drama of what Noel had done, of how spectacularly he went out, and by the realisation that she never really knew who he was. Not to mention what he’d done to Adrian. She couldn’t justify any of it.
She felt relief when he passed because she knew the crisis his actions would’ve brought on – that the criminal justice system he’d worked so hard for would now work him over. Sure, the police force would’ve offered good legal counsel and a psychiatrist, would’ve stuck by him for as long as they could while the media attention lasted, but in the end Noel would’ve come out of it all as a broken man. No, as Wendy saw it, Noel had hit the escape button, so she did too.
Moving back to Canberra was the best decision she’d made in a long time. The kids were happier, too. Though that took some time. Riley told her about getting his periods, so she sought medical advice and they began the steps towards hormone therapy. Grace hadn’t coped well with her father’s death or the move, but over the past few months she’d improved, settling into a new group of friends. Not to mention the boyfriend. For Wendy, living close to her mother was the most important thing: she could support her mother, and her mother could support her.
But she hadn’t turned her back on the Pomeroys, and getting together today to see Noo’s new little one for the first time means that the day isn’t about loss but gain, which is more important. The Pomeroys, she believes, have to look forward, not backward.
Wendy watches Adrian sip his grappa. She watches him watching Riley, Mal, the sky. ‘Happy?’ she asks. It’s a dumb sort of question, she knows, but she hopes he’ll say that, yes, he is happy, for once.
But he doesn’t show that he’s heard her.
‘Adrian?’ she says, and puts her hand on his forearm. ‘Hello in there …’
It takes an extended moment before her words, her touch, bring him back. ‘Sorry?’ he says.
Wendy shakes her head in an amused way. ‘Where did you go?’ she asks.
There is a place Adrian goes to. Not a physical place, a location on a map, although it was once. Once. He isn’t keen on that word because it happened more than once, and the word sounds a little too much like fable. Because it did happen. The materials of his memory have come apart over the years, some replaced by reproductions, and some of those reproductions have been replaced by yet more reproductions – the mind’s ability to record and replay and re-record, changing memory into something which both existed and didn’t exist, and yet still exists nonetheless. Without doubt.
Adrian understands these things, and has carved out a place for himself in the in-between – a place where he can sit with the six-year-old boy he once was and the twelve-year-old boy Noel once was, and the three of them can talk and tell stories to each other. The kind of stories that destroy the
silences people construct around their pasts. The kind of stories that must be told, because protective silences can also be punitive.
Acknowledgements
Warm thanks go to the people who played a significant role in shaping this book: Kate Elkington, who put the fire in my belly and provided endless encouragement; Madonna Duffy, my publisher, for her commitment and unwavering enthusiasm; my astute and generous editors, Cathy Vallance, Rebecca Starford and Julian Welch; Matthew and Hoa Jennings, for endorsing my Vietnamese cultural references; and Claire, who gifted me time, space and belief.
BURNING DOWN
Venero Armanno
Charlie Smoke is living out his early retirement from the boxing ring as a bricklayer. It is the mid-1970s and his best days are behind him. He’s lost his wife and daughter to his questionable past, but when he meets Holly Banks and her teenage son, Ricky, he has a chance to do things differently. As an unlikely friendship develops with Ricky, Charlie is unwittingly pulled back into the gambling underworld he thought he’d left behind. In order to make a new future, first he must help settle some old scores.
Burning Down is a searing new novel from acclaimed storyteller Venero Armanno about family, regret, love and the promise of salvation.
‘Australian crime writing has never been in better hands.’
Weekend West
ISBN 978 0 7022 5970 8
HINTERLAND
Steven Lang
Tensions have been slowly building in the old farming district of Winderran. Its rich landscape has attracted a new wave of urban tree-changers and wealthy developers. But traditional loyalties and values are pushed to the brink with the announcement of a controversial dam project. Locals Eugenie and Guy are forced to choose sides, while newcomer Nick discovers there are more sinister forces at work. The personal and the political soon collide in ways that will change their fates and determine the future of the town.
