Finn sat on the step, pretending to drink his coffee while watching Tom’s preparations obliquely. The boy took up a clean brush, dipped it in the paint, stood and slid the brush along the join of two weatherboards. Paint spread out in a pale trail behind the brush, smelling clean, chemical, optimistic.
He was paying the boy to paint so he had time to finish the sculpture. But Finn wanted nothing more than to apply that thick coating to the wall, blot out any evidence of what had happened, focus on the simple job of moving the paintbrush in a straight line, covering up one colour with another.
‘Can I give you a hand?’ He felt foolish the moment he said it.
Tom showed no surprise. ‘Sure. I’m doing the joins first and then I’ll roller the rest. There’s another brush.’
Finn picked up the brush. It was used – old paint stains speckled the handle – but the bristles had been meticulously cleaned. He dipped it into the paint, lifted it, placed it against the timber. As he drew out the first line of paint, he inhaled the scent and felt inexplicably relieved.
The two of them worked easily together. Found their way around each other without hassle, timed their refills so they didn’t collide, took up where the other had left off. As the cutting-in work moved towards completion, Tom poured a slab of paint into the tray, worked the roller back and forth until it was saturated, screwed it to the end of the long pole. He moved down the other end and began rollering the boards, the paint matching up the gaps with a pleasing symmetry.
Finn let himself fall into the rhythm of the brush, senses alert, mind stilled. He was aware of the movement of his arm and the way his body supported it. The sounds of the birds, the humming of small insects, the occasional croak of an errant frog, the rustle of undergrowth as one of the water dragons moved through in search of that frog. A tapestry of sound in which he was central and the brush and the paint were central too. The task being done.
‘Do you miss your father?’ he asked, as Tom passed close with the roller.
Tom’s rhythm didn’t falter. ‘Every day.’
‘How long’s it been?’
‘Two years, three months.’
‘And no better?’
Tom stopped at the end of the row and lowered the roller. ‘Of course it’s better. You think it’ll never get better at first, but it does. Only thing is you hate yourself when you feel better. Like it’s disloyal.’
Finn nodded; that he could understand. ‘I can’t talk to my son, Tom. I don’t know what to say to him. I don’t know if he’s OK and getting on with his life or what.’
Tom went back to the paint tray, topped up the paint, pressed the roller into it and soaked it again. ‘Can’t you do stuff with him?’
‘Stuff?’
Tom gestured to the wall. ‘Like this. Practical stuff.’
Finn lowered his brush. ‘He used to like running, but I’m too fat to run. Anyhow, he’s busy.’
‘What’s he doing?’
‘I don’t know. He’s hardly at home any more. I think he has new friends.’
Tom started on the next row. ‘New friends, you reckon?’
Something in his voice caught Finn’s attention. He hadn’t thought much about Jarrah’s new friends, in truth. He’d seen him getting out of a car once or twice – there’d been a girl in the front seat and a woman, presumably her mother, who’d waved him off. But no one ever came into the house. He knew nothing much about any friends, new or otherwise. Just the girl from before, the one Bridget told him worked at the pizza place. Maybe she was the girl in the car?
‘Could you talk to him, Tom? You’re close to his age. You know what he’s going through.’
‘No one knows what you’re going through,’ Tom said, his voice wary. ‘Nothing anyone says makes much difference.’
‘You’re right about that,’ Finn said wearily. He put the brush down, suddenly exhausted. ‘I should go and get some work done,’ he said, wiping his hands on a rag. ‘Thanks for letting me help out.’
Tom flashed him a small smile. Finn headed along the verandah, steeling himself to cross the pool area and do some actual work.
‘Don’t leave him alone too much,’ Tom said from behind him. ‘Even if you think that’s what he wants.’
BRIDGET
No matter what they give you to bring sleep, it never lasts. You dread this time. You refuse to open your eyes, refuse to let your body stretch or move or, in any way, act awake. After the first few times you don’t need to look at the red burn of the numbers on the bedside clock to know. Three-thirty, give or take. The deathly hour, the hour of regret and sorrow and revenge, the hour of buried rage resurfacing. The hour when you relive finding Toby, over and over, and wonder if those images will ever burn themselves out.
You haven’t even made it to the pre-dawn hours this time. It’s a little after two and you’ve been awake for God knows.
Someone is buying this house. Already some guy is painting the front wall, covering up any trace of what happened. Soon you’ll walk out for the last time, hand over the keys, take the money and go. Home, Finn keeps saying, like this has been a poorly conceived holiday to a dangerous destination where war suddenly broke out, and now you’re being airlifted to safety by the embassy.
You slide out of bed, stand, pull on a dressing gown, cross to the window. The moon is setting against the faint chatter of fruit bats as they feed on the lemon-scented gum blossoms out on the street. The rest of the human world sleeps, while the absence of Toby slowly dismembers you.
You have dreamed all this. You’ll wake and he’ll thunder down the hallway and scramble into bed beside you, his hand will pat your cheek and he’ll babble in your ear. It’s impossible he doesn’t exist.
You have been a scientist all your adult life, but one thing you now know: there is no consolation in science. It offers nothing to help you understand or live with this. Your body does not know science. Your body believes that if you search long enough you’ll find Toby out there somewhere.
As if pulled by some force, you stride to the door, open it, pad down the hallway past Jarrah’s door, enter Toby’s room. His absence – now total – is a vortex that wants to suck you in. You stuff your fist in your mouth and it’s only the thought of Jarrah two rooms away that forces you to control the harsh sound that wants to come. Until yesterday you could come in here and still smell Toby. It was unendurable, and you came rarely, but now you want it back.
You have to keep moving. The lounge room is cold and dark, the kitchen the same. Your body is animal in its need for comfort, a caged creature pacing its pain into the ground. You want Finn, suddenly and physically. You need his body against yours, his arms around you, his bristled chin on your cheek, the way he has never said anything to blame you. The urge is so strong, so beyond your control, that you follow it, through the lounge, out the door, along the verandah.
And then understand, viscerally: you have to pass the pool to reach him.
You lift the new, efficient latch, push the gate open, step into the pool area, feeling the rough sandstone under your bare feet. You let the gate close behind you. You plan to skirt the pool as widely as you can on your way to Finn, you plan to avert your gaze, but you can’t help yourself. As you tiptoe by, you glance down into the water and it all comes back.
You’d thought perhaps you were starting to make progress these past few days, but the memory smites you. You stagger and chlorine burns up through your nostrils and into your brain.
Before you can flee, something flickers down there in the water. The moon’s reflection glistens and the water moves slightly, as if some small thing has disturbed its calm surface, setting tiny ripples in motion.
You are suddenly very still.
There is nothing alive about a swimming pool. It’s a closed loop of finely balanced chemistry calculated to obliterate organic life. When operating normally, the pool’s system ensures anything organic is burned into oblivion before it can multiply.
Yet, looking down into the dark water, y
ou’d swear you could almost hear its voice, an impossible siren song hidden in the ripples, drawing you in. You lower yourself to hands and knees, put your face close to the water’s dark surface and stare into its merciless depths.
Toby went into those depths. He followed the siren call to the water, down with the mermaids and the white whales and the giant squid and the seals and the selkies and all the nameless things of the sea. And it seems to you that water is always trying to lure its children back, whispering through human dreams, as if your lungs recall breathing water, your old gills strain under the surface of your skin, the webs between your fingers and toes twitch and try to grow, your limbs dream of weightlessness. You are made of water and you can never leave it.
If he’s anywhere, surely he’s here?
You know it’s not true; it can’t be. Your brain is mining memories of childhood fairy tales, pushing you to madness. Yet you lower yourself until your belly is pressed against the sandstone edging and your face is just centimetres above the water, and you stare as if you could pierce the surface with your gaze, as if you could look into it and see Toby’s face in those shadows of light and dark.
Because you are hanging over the surface your tears fall straight into the water and it happens again, the ripples, the movement of light and dark, and it seems you can see into the depths and almost hear his voice.
Toby?
You lower your hand, feeling the moment it breaks the surface tension of the water and the cold moves up your fingers.
You’re touching him. For a second you’re sure of it, and you reach in until the water laps around your wrist and you can feel him in there, as if he’s looking up at you.
‘Bridget?’
Finn’s low voice, real and shocking, snaps you out of the moment, wrenching you back into the world where your son has gone and the pool is a body of lifeless, disinfected water.
‘Are you all right?’
You scramble to your feet, shaking, and back off. ‘Get away from me.’
You turn and run away, fumbling with the gate and letting it clang behind you. You take the steps at a run, crash inside the house and flee to your bed, forgetting that Jarrah’s sleeping, forgetting everything except that for one moment you reached out your hand and touched Toby.
JARRAH
I felt like I should know if Laura was my girlfriend but I didn’t. At school she was just the same as before we’d kissed. She didn’t mention it.
Two more afternoons went by. On the first I sat in the booth at the back of the pizza shop and did my homework during her shift. Dave and his mates were in the front booth, but they ignored me. Or at least they didn’t say anything, and I kept my head down. On the second afternoon I watched her rehearsal again in the school hall. Laura was playing Coral in Away, the play we were studying in English. She’d never be a great actress – even I could see that – but she wasn’t bad, and I didn’t mind watching.
There wasn’t a minute alone with her. In her mother’s car, dropping me home after drama, she sat in the front seat, so there was no chance to hold hands, or even exchange a look.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow?’ she said when her mother pulled up outside my place. ‘I’ve got rehearsal, if you wanna come?’
I got out, shut my door, leaned down to her window. ‘Yep.’
‘Bye, Jazz,’ she said.
‘Bye, Laura. Bye, Mrs Fieldman. Thanks for the lift.’
The car swooshed off in a way that didn’t answer any questions. It was still light, and the evenings were warm. In the old days I would have had a swim.
How would I even know if Laura was my girlfriend?
I pushed open the gate and headed in. The handyman guy, Tom, was crouching on the verandah, which was suddenly cream, and the place stank of paint.
I trudged up the steps. ‘Hi.’
He looked up from wiping the brushes and smiled. ‘Hi.’
‘Looks good,’ I lied.
He looked at me with an eyebrow raised and then back at the wall. ‘Yeah.’ He stood up and dried his hands on the legs of his shorts. ‘Hear you like running?’
I blinked. Back in Hobart I’d won a few athletics prizes. I’d thought being a fast runner would help. But you know what they say about vicious animals: running just makes them attack you. I hadn’t run since we moved north.
‘Uh, I guess. Used to.’
‘There’s a loop track that starts in the next street. Up to the big park and back. About six Ks. Wanna come?’
It was a weird offer. I took a step backwards. ‘Oh, no thanks. I’ve got homework, you know?’
‘Easy!’ Tom put his hands up. ‘No big deal. Your dad thought you might wanna.’
I was right to be suspicious. I wondered if it was part of Tom’s job for Dad. Paint the verandah, mow the lawn and cheer up my son.
‘What would Dad know?’ I moved past him and put my hand to the screen door.
‘Running stopped me going nuts when my father died.’
I stood still.
‘How old are you?’ Tom asked.
‘Nearly sixteen.’
‘I was nearly seventeen when Dad died.’
The house was empty. I didn’t have homework. I’d done so much homework to pass the time, I was reading chapters we hadn’t reached in class. There was nothing for me to do and no one to do it with. Since Laura and I had started catching the bus, I hadn’t even ridden my bike.
I pushed the door open. ‘I’ll get changed.’
*
I started out fast, but after two kilometres I had a stitch. My face burned and I was panting.
Next to me, Tom breathed easily. He wasn’t even sweating. The track had gone round the grassy streets of the neighbourhood, past the barking dogs, and come to the big park. We ran under a tall pine tree where the noise from the parrots in its branches was nearly deafening.
Tom slowed and glanced over at me. ‘Break?’
I was glad to stop, though I tried not to show it. Put my hands on my hips and bent over, breathing hard. It hurt, but physical pain was bearable. I just hoped Tom wouldn’t take this as a sign to ask how I was coping or whatever other dumb ideas Dad might have put in his head.
I snuck a look at him. He’d put his foot up against the tree and was stretching out his hamstring, looking up at the parrots. Not smiling, exactly, but happy. It was Wednesday afternoon, he’d finished work, he was fit. He’d probably be going to the pub with some mates later, or maybe he had a girlfriend he was taking out to dinner.
‘Let’s get going,’ I said, straightening up. ‘No pain no gain.’
He laughed. ‘You believe that bullshit?’
He swung around and took off and I had to sprint to catch up. He was faster than me and I couldn’t get into a rhythm going side by side. Kept falling behind and speeding to catch up. Six kilometres was going to wear me out.
It was better when the track wound down into the bush and I dropped back and ran behind him instead of trying to match his stride. I found a rhythm and my legs settled. The stitch disappeared. I panted and my muscles burned, but I remembered how you could get to that feeling like you were floating. It didn’t take long. A week or two of running and I could be back there.
We pounded through the little valley and up the other side. I couldn’t remember when I’d last sweated like that from exercise. It was dripping down my sides and my forehead and it felt good. Whatever Tom thought, the physical pain was good. I lifted my knees higher, forced my legs to work harder. We were back in the streets and I sped up. Tom heard me coming up behind and grinned as I caught up.
‘Bout time.’
I didn’t answer. Was going to pay for this tomorrow, I reckoned, but it didn’t matter. I remembered how I used to dig down for that last bit of strength, and it was still there, right where I remembered. My legs pumped. I drew ahead of Tom and rounded the corner of my street. A quick glance over my shoulder showed him twenty metres behind, red faced but not giving up. There wasn’t far to go and if
I slowed down he could still catch me. I was looking at my feet, I realised, and remembered what I’d learned back in Hobart. Look at the finish line. Look at where you want to end up.
The light was fading as I raised my head. I saw the hedge that hid our house, the little wooden gate, the big gum tree with the white branches, the driveway.
Parked in it, a police car.
FINN
The faint noise of footsteps on the verandah broke through Finn’s concentration. He laid the gears on the bench and wiped the grease from his hands with a rag. For the first time he was making progress with disassembling and adapting Dragon Sentry, though his gut churned the whole time. Finding Bridget by the pool in the night had shocked him into action. He had to get them out of here.
The noise resolved into knocking. Never again, Finn thought, would he be oblivious to distant sounds. The slightest clank or thud sent him onto high alert, senses quivering.
He pushed open the door and stepped out, blinking in the afternoon sunlight reflected off the pool’s surface. Through the glare he could make out two figures on the verandah.
‘Hello?’ he called.
‘Finn Brennan?’
The voice was familiar, and as Finn started to walk around the pool one of the figures stepped towards the gate. A uniform. There was barely time for him to register the colour – blue – before a wave of fear engulfed his body. Was it Bridget, or Jarrah?
He broke into a run towards them, reached the gate and wrenched it open, yelled into her face: ‘For Christ’s sake, what is it?’
The woman held up both hands to stop him. ‘Nobody’s hurt.’
Finn’s heart was thundering and an awful weakness swept over him. For a moment he thought he might pass out. He pressed his hand to his chest to try and squash the pain there.
‘Do you need to sit down?’
He knew their faces. The female constable had driven him to the hospital and then to the school. The man had spent the afternoon of Toby’s death sitting in the shade in the pool area until the police tape was finally taken down.
Sixty Seconds Page 11
