Sixty Seconds

by Jesse Blackadder

  Only Chen has asked how you feel about it. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Chen has, after all, stepped into the best-friend hole left in your life by Sandra’s expulsion. You’re both scientists: he the big-picture ecologist to your fine detail biologist. You share a similar sense of humour and a taste for optimism, rare in your profession.

  But you know what’s wrong with it. He’s nine years your junior and you’ve caught yourself looking at the taut, smooth curve of his arms when he wears a short-sleeved shirt. You swap witty repartee. More recently, your eyes meet and you grin without needing to articulate the joke.

  It’s a new step, this text. Friday night, and personal, and far too insightful. It’s dangerous. You moved here for a fresh start in your eighteen-year marriage. You agreed to put what happened behind you and so far it’s on track. Mostly. But you don’t stop Chen, and you answer his texts and you glance at his arms and both of you laugh just a bit too long. No one has said anything – not him, not you – and of course it’s possible you’re imagining it.

  But you don’t think so.

  You’ll send back a breezy text. Except when you go to type it, you realise how unfunny it is.

  The second glass of wine has gone the way of the first. You switch to mineral water. They’ll be back any second now, and you get yourself together and start clearing the table and throwing down napkins and glasses.

  When the landline bleats, you jump and knock your glass over. You snatch up a cloth and multi-task, mopping as you answer.

  ‘Bridge, it’s Eddie. Finn’s not picking up.’

  ‘Pizza run.’ You’re not sure you like the way Edmund, with the prospect of making some actual money from your husband at last, seems to have become his new best friend.

  ‘Fuck and bother. He’ll really want to hear this.’

  You roll your eyes. Edmund loves a drama. ‘What?’

  ‘Sculpture by the Quay had a late dropout. I’ve pulled some strings. If Finn can get that piece finished by Thursday, he’s in.’

  You’ve sopped up most of the wine now and you head to the sink, wedging the phone between shoulder and ear to squeeze the cloth. ‘Sounds great.’

  ‘Not great, Bridget. We’re talking major breakthrough. Do you know how many people see this show over New Year? He’s picked the steampunk zeitgeist. He’ll be keeping you in the accustomed manner.’

  You laugh, though not unkindly. Finn’s sculpture hasn’t ever brought in much more than it costs, but it’s made him happy, and meant you could pursue your career while he looked after the boys. It’s worked out well all round, as Edmund knows. Sudden artistic breakthrough isn’t something you’ve factored into your plans.

  ‘I’m serious. This is huge. You’ll need to step up.’

  Edmund can still rile you, after all these years. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Put him first. At least for a week, so he meets the deadline. See what happens.’

  He doesn’t know about Finn’s betrayal last year – at least you don’t think he knows – and injustice rises in your throat like gorge. ‘Listen, I’ve—’

  ‘Settle. You know what I’m saying. Get him over the line, OK? And now you get to tell him, half your luck.’

  You hang up, and moments later you hear slamming doors and feet thudding up the verandah steps. Finn comes in last, behind Toby, who’s about to tip into fractiousness from hunger, and Jarrah, whose face is set in studied teenage blankness.

  Finn glances at you as he sets the pizzas down. ‘What?’

  You grin at him, teasing. ‘I should make you wait …’

  ‘What, woman?’ he demands.

  ‘Eddie called. You’re in some minor show in Sydney. Now, what was it again? … Something by the Quay?’

  He stares at you, then relaxes. ‘Yeah, very funny. They selected months ago.’

  ‘Someone dropped out. Edmund knows the right people. Finish that piece by Thursday and you’re in.’

  The way his face changes shows you how much this means. He lumbers across the kitchen, banging past the table, and grabs you in a Finn bear-hug that squeezes the breath from your lungs as he lifts you up. You beat him on the back and he loosens his grip and lowers you, grinning like a kid.

  And something loosens inside, something hard you didn’t know was still knotted so tight. You said you’d forgive him and maybe, finally, you really have. Your kiss lingers with the promise of later.

  ‘Oh, get a room,’ Jarrah says, making a face.

  You make one right back at him. ‘Your dad’s only in Sydney’s newest outdoor sculpture show, boyo. Worth celebrating. Now get Toby sorted.’

  Jarrah wrestles an overwrought Toby into a highchair, where he pounds his fists on the tray of the highchair with an energy that’ll turn quickly to tantrum. You quickly slide the pizzas on to platters and Finn cracks a beer, refills your wine, opens a Coke for Jarrah.

  You lift your glass high. ‘Here’s to the steampunk zeitgeist. Cheers!’

  Finn clinks his bottle against your glass, and against Jarrah’s soft drink. ‘Punk-what-what?’

  You shrug. ‘That’s you. So Eddie says.’

  Finn fangs down his first slice of pizza in two bites and grins at you with his mouth full. He’s a bear of a man, a blacksmith from some medieval village, with his broad shoulders and big belly, everything about him substantial. Smiling back, you make the decision. You’ll put this thing with Chen away. You won’t reply to his text tonight. You won’t think about his arms. You’ll throw yourself behind this opportunity for Finn. After all these years of pottering away in the studio, selling a piece here and there, he deserves his chance, and God knows he’s talented. He’s been carving wood all these years when he should have been metalworking, that’s all. He’s found his medium now.

  It occurs to you things might be about to change drastically. Who’ll look after Toby? If this really is Finn’s big moment, you need to adjust. You might need a nanny, or a cleaner, or, please God, someone to take over the cooking.

  Time enough to talk about that over the weekend, but not tonight. Tonight is about celebrating, about sex, about coming home. You’ll switch off the mobile. You’ll stop holding back. You’ll give yourself to him.

  You have no idea, yet, how long it will be before you’ll do that again.

  JARRAH

  Mum was always that obvious. ‘Subtle as a sledgehammer,’ Nanna Brenn used to say back when she was alive. Like I didn’t see her whisper to Dad in the pool right before Dad asked me to go with him to pick up the pizzas, as if he’d just thought of it.

  I knew what was going on. She was pretending to send us to Great White Pizza, which didn’t deliver, because their capriccioso was better and Toby liked the jaws on the front door. The real reason was that Laura Fieldman worked there most Friday nights and I had a crush on her. I guess Mum thought she was doing me a favour.

  Laura Fieldman had noticed me all right. Just enough to work out I was into her. Me, Jarrah Brennan, nerd. Her, top of the year ten pack of long-legged, long-haired, long-on-confidence girls who existed in another universe. Just two weeks back I’d walked past them in the quad and a snorting laugh had rung out from one of Laura Fieldman’s friends. My face burned. The kind of burn that comes back in the dark and makes you roll over and drag the covers over your head and wish you were dead.

  My hunch was confirmed when we pulled into the car park and Dad turned off the engine and tossed his wallet in my lap. ‘Can you boys handle it?’

  He’d watched me once before trying to stammer out a pizza order to Laura. I guess he didn’t want to get in the way. Or it was too embarrassing, watching me make an idiot of myself. I was pretty nervous, so I started mucking around with Toby. I teased him for a moment, standing outside his door pretending I wasn’t going to open it. When he started to screw up his face I threw it open. ‘Tricked you!’

  I’d timed it right. He laughed. I wrestled him out of the seatbelt, picked him up, du
mped him on the ground. ‘Ready to face the shark?’

  Toby looked over at the yawning jaws wrapping the door in a tunnel of teeth, and shivered. He reached up with his arms. ‘Jawwa.’

  I picked him up and headed in that direction, taking little steps to build the anticipation. He clung on tighter and tighter as we approached, half afraid, half thrilled.

  ‘Feeling brave?’ I whispered in his ear.

  I took a tighter hold of him and ran, roaring, right into the shark’s jaws. Pushed the door open and staggered inside, Toby squealing in my arms, the bell on the door clanking above our heads. Straightened up, laughing.

  ‘Look, here’s Little Mummy.’

  I hadn’t seen them from outside. Five of them, watching us from the window booth. I froze.

  ‘How’s your baby going?’

  There’s always one who leads it. His name was Dave, I was pretty sure. A year above me at school. I’d felt his eyes on me in the playground and known he was trouble. I’d been avoiding him, and now I was cornered.

  ‘Mumma?’ Toby asked, confused.

  The five of them laughed. Toby laughed too, joining in, and I had to get him away from them. Laura Fieldman was standing behind the counter, her face blank. Hard to know which was the worse option.

  ‘Go on, Little Mummy, go get your pizza.’

  Toby squirmed to be put down, arching his back and kicking out. I let him slide to the floor, but grabbed his hand, praying he wouldn’t have a tantrum. I tugged him towards the counter, sensing their eyes on my back and the mutter as they tried out some new insults among themselves.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Surely Laura had heard them, but she showed no sign.

  My voice was an insect squeak. ‘Ah, hi. Takeaway? Brennan?’

  She checked the docket on top of two boxes. ‘Large Hawaiian? Large capriccioso?’

  Toby looked up at her. ‘Haw-wan?’

  Her face lit up in a smile and he grinned back, all toothy charm without even trying. It was an opening, kind of.

  ‘That’s us.’ I scooped Toby up so she had to look at my actual face as well as his. Toby kept smiling at her as I prised out Dad’s credit card with one hand, trying to think of something to say. ‘Rotten maths test, eh?’

  A snort from the booth near the door. ‘Rotten maths test, eh?’ in a high-pitched voice.

  Laura Fieldman dragged her gaze from Toby to me. There was a pause long enough for me to absorb the highlights in her dark hair, pulled back into a ponytail, and the precise brown of her eyes, before she said, ‘Wasn’t too bad.’

  She looked back at Toby and I typed in Dad’s PIN. A hundred years later the machine ground out a receipt, which she spiked, and a second one that she slapped on top of the pizza boxes. I hesitated, too gutless to face the booth boys.

  ‘Say goodbye, Toby,’ I instructed.

  ‘Ba ba!’ Toby grinned again and Laura’s smile widened.

  The door opened, the bell clanged, and another family stamped inside, spilling kids in every direction and giving me cover. I shoved Toby to my hip, snatched up the boxes with my free hand, turned. Did a bit of ducking and weaving to keep the family in between me and the boys. Not that it helped.

  ‘Bye bye, Toby. Bye bye, Little Mummy.’

  ‘Ba ba,’ Toby said. Then: ‘Dadda.’

  A moment away from escape, we were stopped by Dad coming in the door. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I want some garlic bread.’

  ‘Too late. Pizza’ll be cold. And Toby’s had enough.’ I shoved Toby into Dad’s arms and pushed past him. I heard Dave call out, ‘Bye, boys!’ behind me, in the kind of smarmy voice guys like him used when your parents could hear.

  I slouched in the front seat while Dad buckled Toby in the back. Across the car park, I could see them laughing at me through the window. Go, go, go.

  Dad got in beside me, started the engine, pulled out slowly. ‘Friends from school?’

  Did he know? ‘Not really,’ I said.

  ‘What about the girl? Isn’t she in your class?’

  ‘One or two subjects.’

  ‘She looks nice.’

  ‘Mm,’ I said, in a conversation-closing way. Sure she looked nice, Dad, if you weren’t some speck on the hide of year ten. If you hadn’t just been called Little Mummy in front of her.

  I switched on the radio and cranked up the volume. Nineteen-eighties rock filled the car: Dad’s favourite station. I didn’t bother asking for mine. Just wound the window all the way down and pushed my face into the wind to watch the streets whizzing past as we headed home. It was getting dark. The pizza burned my legs through the box.

  I’d been called a fag plenty of times. Anyone who didn’t fit in was a fag. I was used to it. But this was different. They’d seen me with Toby and somehow they knew.

  FINN

  Finn put the phone down in a daze. Saturday morning continued a run of steamy days trying to set another hottest spring record, and Edmund had rung with a new commission and the chance of a second.

  ‘High four figures,’ he said. ‘I’ll have you up to five soon.’

  Finn’s belly churned with an unfamiliar mix of excitement and nerves. Maybe the heat was making him delirious. He headed back out to the pool area, where the boys were playing in the water and Bridget was stretched on a deckchair, reading the weekend paper. Told her.

  She lifted her sunglasses to stare at him. ‘How much did you say?’

  ‘Eddie says hang on and enjoy the ride.’ Finn threw himself down into a beanbag, grabbed his hair and pulled so it stood on end and lifted his scalp. ‘This happens to other people, Bridge.’

  ‘It’s your breakthrough moment, Steampunk.’ Bridget sounded like she didn’t quite believe it. ‘Can you do it?’

  Finn suppressed down a squirm of guilt at the time he’d spent carving when he should have been doing metalwork. He calculated. ‘Dragon Sentry took three weeks. Eddie needs the Sculpture by the Quay piece in five days. Then the commission ASAP after that.’

  ‘Christ.’ Bridget blinked. ‘But you’ve already been working on the new piece, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Finn said slowly. ‘Ish.’

  Bridget lowered her glasses again. ‘Better check if I can take some leave. We need child care!’

  ‘What d’you mean? Toby can hang out with me like usual.’

  Bridget laughed and shook her head. ‘Get real. This is the big league. You can’t look after a toddler.’

  Finn leaned back in the beanbag and glanced down at the pool where Jarrah was playing with Toby. The kid was giggling and squealing, like he usually did. Jarrah was solemn. He’d been that way a long time. Since he started school, or maybe earlier. Funny how brothers could be so different.

  Finn had been the stay-at-home parent for Jarrah while Bridget finished her PhD and worked long hours, tutoring undergrads, marking their endless assignments. He’d loved it, especially when Jarrah was small. Loved carrying him around the hilly streets of Hobart in the backpack, or hiking up Mount Wellington with Jarrah burbling and waving his fists. Loved parking him in a safe spot on the studio floor while he carved. He was good at all of it, except cooking. Bridget had lowered her food expectations and Jarrah knew nothing different.

  Finn had wanted more kids. Dreamed of a big Irish Catholic family like the ones his ancestors bred. Bridget was up for it, kind of, though not on the same schedule: she needed more time to establish herself at work. They’d started trying for a second child in a vague way when Jarrah was five. Then her father died and mother started going downhill. Finn never dreamed it would take another nine years and a miscarriage. They were almost ready to give up when Toby finally came along. Finn hadn’t broached trying again. Looked like two might be as good as it got.

  A squirt of water hit him on the cheek.

  ‘Dadda!’ Toby, armed with a water pistol, Jarrah helping with the aim.

  ‘Right!’ Finn got to his feet. He crouched, swung his arms and leaped, tucking up his legs against his belly for maximum im
pact, knowing his ability to displace a major volume. Hit the water with a whump and heard Bridget’s shriek and Toby’s squeal as he went under.

  He surfaced, grinning. She was sodden. Trying to look cranky, but smiling.

  ‘Gotcha,’ he said.

  Toby was straining from Jarrah’s arms and Finn reached out, grabbed him and swung him onto his shoulders. Then held out his hand. ‘Come on, Bridge.’

  She shook her head then launched herself at them without warning, straight from sitting. Splashed them all, all over again. Even Jarrah laughed.

  ‘I’ll take the boys to the beach this afternoon, and you can get some work done,’ Bridget said. ‘We’ll swing by and see Mum on the way back.’

  ‘But it’s Saturday!’ Saturday was sacred. Even when she was working hard, even during the PhD.

  ‘Steampunks don’t get Saturdays. Or Sundays.’

  Finn lifted Toby off his shoulders and handed him back to Jarrah. He waded to the steps and climbed them, his sodden clothes hanging heavy as he rose from the water.

  ‘Hey, this is good news, remember,’ she called after him.

  It was. It was. But the day felt heavy suddenly. Toby was too young to go into full-time child care. He was only two and a half. Finn had expected another couple of years of gradually handing him over to the world. He wasn’t ready to let him go.

  ‘I’ll bring you a coffee,’ she said, smiling. ‘Now scoot!’

  At his downcast face, she swam over, pulled herself up and gave him a hug. ‘It’s your turn, Finn. We’re all with you. Go for it.’

  Her hair was slicked back, her eyelashes wet. Jesus, she was gorgeous. He squeezed her, lifting her up out of the water. ‘I love you, woman.’

  ‘You too, Steampunk. Now make us proud. I’ll make some calls about child care before we head to the beach. Maybe we can drum up a nanny or something for the first week.’