Sixty Seconds

by Jesse Blackadder

  ‘Yes, I …’

  He staggered inside and slumped on the couch. One of them got him a drink of water, and they sat silently for a few minutes until the hammering in his ears and chest subsided a little and he nodded.

  The woman put her hand on his arm and Finn thought she was trying to comfort him with her firm grip, until she spoke.

  ‘Mr Brennan, you’re under arrest.’

  A short, snorting laugh escaped Finn. ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘You are charged with manslaughter by criminal negligence. You do not have to say or do anything, but if you do, it may be used in evidence against you. It may harm your defence if you fail or refuse to mention something that you later seek to rely on in court. Do you understand?’

  The urge to laugh vanished and his heart started up again.

  ‘We need to take you down to the station. Are you ready?’

  She gestured towards the door and Finn stood, unresisting, unable to gather his thoughts.

  Footsteps thudded up the wooden stairs outside. Jarrah burst into the room, slammed to a halt, looked frantically from Finn to the constable. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘It’s all right, Jarrah.’ Finn tried to reach for him, but the constable stopped him from moving.

  ‘I’m sorry, but your father’s under arrest,’ the constable said.

  ‘For what?’ Jarrah demanded. When no one answered, he said it again. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Manslaughter by criminal negligence.’

  Jarrah blanched and his hand flew to his mouth. ‘Is it Mum?’

  He was thinking the worst, just as Finn had. Worse than the worst, by the look of him. Finn wanted to reach out and grab him. ‘Jarrah, nothing’s happened. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Is Mum all right?’ His face worked.

  The constable stepped forward. ‘This is a legal matter related to your brother’s death. Is there an adult who can stay here with you while we take your father to the station?’

  Tom had come in behind Jarrah. ‘I’ll stay.’

  ‘We need to go, Mr Brennan.’ The male constable pulled gently but inexorably on his arm. Finn strained against his hold, twisting to look at Jarrah, who was sickly pale under the flush of exercise. He forced himself to be calm. ‘Call your mother,’ he said over his shoulder as they led him towards the door. ‘She’ll know what to do.’

  In his own ears, his voice almost sounded normal. The cops flanked him down the stairs and out onto the grass.

  BRIDGET

  A text from Jarrah:

  Chen has just pulled up by your vehicle in the car park when it pops through. You call Jarrah immediately but he doesn’t pick up, and so you snatch your things from the back of the four-wheel drive, leap into your car, skid out of the car park and floor the accelerator.

  Your mind races through scenarios as you drive. It could be as small as a lost key, as major as death. You swing into the driveway, opening the door before the car has stopped, and leaving it gaping as you run. You take the verandah stairs in a leap, wrench the sliding door on its tracks, roar into the kitchen.

  Jarrah is at the bench, talking on the phone, his face white and stunned. This is no lost key.

  ‘What?’ you demand.

  ‘Mum’s here,’ he says into the phone. ‘Can you talk to her?’

  He shoves the phone in your direction. The painting guy is leaning against the kitchen wall, you notice, as you grab the phone and Jarrah slumps onto a stool.

  You press it to your ear. ‘Someone tell me what’s going on!’

  ‘Bridge, it’s Eddie. Jarrah says Finn’s been arrested.’

  You breathe properly for the first time since receiving Jarrah’s text and steady yourself against the bench.

  ‘Jarrah says he’s been charged with negligence.’

  ‘Negligence?’ It doesn’t sound too bad, you think. Like carelessness. ‘Is that serious?’

  ‘It’s manslaughter by criminal negligence, Mrs Brennan,’ the painter interjects, loud enough that Edmund can hear.

  Edmund’s silent for a moment. ‘Christ. That’s serious. You need a solicitor. Have you got one?’

  ‘Um …’ You try to think. ‘Someone’s doing the house contract, I think.’

  ‘That’s no good. I’ll find someone who can get over to the station. You should go too. You’ll need to get whoever I find up to speed.’

  ‘OK. Gotta go.’ You hang up.

  ‘What do they mean, manslaughter?’ Jarrah blurts. ‘Like they think he killed Toby?’

  ‘No!’ You say automatically. Try to give him a hug but he’s wooden in your arms. ‘It means they think that what he did to the gate, with that opening device, was wrong.’

  ‘Dad said it was an accident.’

  He’s staring at you, his face even whiter, and you wonder what he thinks happened. Finn took the job of explaining it to Jarrah and you never asked what he told him.

  ‘Of course it was,’ you say. ‘Look, I’ve got to get to the station.’

  You glance over at the painting boy, but your mind refuses to supply his name. ‘Can you guys stay here? Watch a video or something?’

  ‘Can’t I come?’ Jarrah asks.

  You shake your head. ‘It could be hours, Jarr.’

  Hours in which you and Jarrah will sit in some hideous waiting area, and you’ll be powerless to avoid his questions. You look again at the painter. The boys are both wearing running kit; they’ve obviously been hanging out.

  ‘Do you mind staying here with Jarrah?’

  He gives a brief smile. ‘No problem, Mrs Brennan.’

  ‘Thank you.’ You pick up the keys from where you’ve thrown them on the bench. You don’t try to hug Jarrah again. ‘It’ll be OK.’

  Jarrah gives you a disbelieving look, and as you step out again into the warm late afternoon, you know it’s a stupid thing to say. Nothing is OK. Haven’t you all learned that? Better to think that whatever is happening can always get worse, suddenly and drastically.

  The mobile rings as you turn out of the street and you pull over to answer it. A fine for using the phone while driving is the last thing you need.

  ‘Bridge, I’ve found you a local solicitor. He’s headed to the station now. He’ll do for tonight. Are you on the way?’

  ‘I’m in the car.’

  ‘It’s a serious offence. He’s going to need you.’

  You feel a stab of resentment at the suggestion you’re neglecting Finn. ‘I understand.’

  ‘Do you really?’

  You hang up. At some point Eddie changed sides, aligned himself with Finn, against you. Damn him. He must know Finn’s been banished to the studio.

  You pull out, narrowly missing a car you didn’t see coming. A blare of horn, a finger stuck in the air, a shouted insult. It’s almost a relief. No one has dared to do such a normal thing to you in your grief. You thrust your middle finger up in reply too and settle into the lane.

  Manslaughter.

  It isn’t a word you’ve dreamed of applying to what happened. ‘Accident’ was what everyone said, to keep some of the horror at bay. Someone, you remember, gave condolences for the fact that Toby had ‘passed’. You hated that word.

  Drowning was worse, suggestive of gasping, struggling, the flood of liquid into the lungs. Drowning, you thought, was the worst word. But now, according to the law, Toby was slaughtered.

  Edmund’s words are slowly sinking in. You should be grateful to him. Who else could – from a distance – track down a solicitor and get him to the police station in a matter of fifteen minutes? But you hate him. It’s unjustifiable and irrational, you know, but you can’t help it. You hate the world, and everyone, and Finn. Now it’s not only you who blames him. The state is on your side. The state believes he’s guilty.

  The station looms up ahead on the left. You turn in, park. Switch off the engine and sit, hand on the keys, staring sightlessly ahead. What can you do for Finn? You don’t want to comfort him. You can’t reassu
re him you’ll be by his side through this.

  You reach for the door handle but your fingers won’t work. They won’t pull out the lever to open the door, allow you to swing your legs out, stand, walk to the entrance of the station and step inside. The phone rings again. Edmund. You let it peal three times. Just before it goes to voicemail you swipe.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ you say before he can speak. You push the red stripe on the screen, wishing for the days when you could hang up a phone with force.

  Chen’s number is top of your frequently called list, and you type a message.

 

  The reply, instant:

  It’s not right. If you’re not staying here for Finn, you should at least go home for Jarrah. But you need someone whose world hasn’t been destroyed. Someone who can withstand your fury.

  JARRAH

  Pizza, she said. And left me with him. Christ, I’d only met the guy twice. We’d been on a jog together. I hardly knew him.

  ‘Look, don’t worry about it,’ I said, as I heard her reverse-crunch on the gravel, then slam into drive and speed off. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m sure you’ve got plans.’

  ‘Not really,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve got homework.’

  He drummed his fingers on the bench. ‘Don’t reckon you’ll get much homework done.’

  I poured myself a glass of water, offered him one too, gulped it down while I tried to figure out what to do. The sweat was cooling on my T-shirt. A swim would have been nice. My hands shook as I lowered the glass to the sink. Because I’d just run six kilometres for the first time since forever? Or because of the moment when the woman said ‘manslaughter’ and I thought she meant Dad had killed Mum? Or because Toby’s death somehow wasn’t an accident?

  ‘Let’s get a pizza,’ Tom said. ‘We can bring it back and watch telly.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, giving in. But in fact I was glad. I didn’t want to sit in the house by myself for hours waiting for them to get home. Way too much time to think.

  Tom drove an old ute, the floor covered in soft-drink bottles and empty chip packets. He swept a bit of junk off the seat and I shuffled my feet around and buckled the belt.

  ‘Any favourite place?’ he asked, starting up and shoving the column shift into reverse.

  ‘Domino’s,’ I said. Laura might be on shift at Great White Pizza and I couldn’t face her.

  We drove there in silence and Tom parked. He looked over at me. ‘You look like shit. Want me to order? You’re not vegetarian or anything are you?’

  I rolled my eyes. He hopped out of the car, slammed it behind him, disappeared inside.

  It was a hot evening, like summer already. I was still in running clothes. My T-shirt had dried and the air felt good against my skin. It was the only good thing.

  I didn’t think things had got so bad. Sure, they were sleeping apart. I’d been imagining them splitting up in a vague, horrible kind of way. But for a second I totally believed Dad had killed Mum. And it seemed like the police thought Dad had somehow killed Toby. I didn’t know any more what they could do, my parents. I didn’t know them.

  Finally Tom strode across the car park, a huge pizza box in one hand, a two-litre bottle of Coke in the other, and slid them onto the seat between us. He saw my red eyes.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ was all he said.

  Thank God he didn’t ask how I was feeling, like Laura probably would’ve.

  It was starting to get dark when we got home. The house felt weird and empty and blank. I hesitated on the steps. Didn’t want to go in.

  Tom barged up beside me, slid the door back, stepped in, looked back. ‘Don’t let all the mozzies in,’ he said with a jerk of his head.

  I shut the door behind me and followed him to the lounge room. He put the box on the coffee table, flipped it open, fumbled for the remote. The news came on as he headed to the kitchen for glasses. I didn’t want to see any news. I flicked it over to some game show.

  I hadn’t eaten pizza since Toby died. Tom had ordered Hawaiian. I poked at it and picked up a slice. Tom came back in, cracked the Coke and glugged it into the glasses. He scooped up a slice and took a huge bite.

  I bit into mine. One bite was enough to take me back to the last Friday night Toby was alive. We were sitting around the kitchen and I was stretching the cheese on my third piece of pizza, stringing it out between my mouth and my hand until Toby was laughing so hard he was nearly choking.

  I tried to chew but my chest started heaving and I nearly choked too. I forced that bit of pizza down and swallowed. Then my shoulders started shaking. I’d never felt like that. I didn’t know crying could be like someone grabbing you by the shoulders, lifting you off the ground, and shaking you so hard that your teeth knocked together.

  After a while I realised I was sort of lying down, and I turned my face so it was buried in the cushions and curled up. I couldn’t stop crying.

  I felt something. Tom must have moved. He didn’t do anything weird, just moved to the end of the lounge, against my foot. Didn’t say anything. Just a few centimetres of contact. Nearly nothing. But he stayed there.

  FINN

  A line of sweat trickled down Finn’s back in spite of the air-conditioning. His new solicitor, Malcolm, sat next to him, and made notes on a lined yellow pad. It all seemed to be happening at a great distance. DI Evans, who’d seemed quite sympathetic on the day Toby drowned, was now set on grilling him.

  ‘How many times did the gate malfunction?’

  ‘Um. Two. Or, no, more than that. Four. Might have been five.’

  ‘What did the malfunction involve?’

  ‘Opened and then didn’t swing shut properly.’

  ‘And that was because of the device you installed.’

  ‘I think so. Yes.’

  ‘So you knew the gate didn’t shut properly but you didn’t do anything about it?’

  ‘I was planning to. And we normally checked it was shut, you know. Manually.’

  ‘Are you familiar with the New South Wales Swimming Pools Regulation 2008?’

  ‘I’m not sure. What is it?’

  ‘It requires every swimming pool to have a certificate of compliance. Does your pool have one?’

  ‘You would have had one with the purchase of the house,’ the solicitor interjected. ‘It’s required by law now.’

  ‘Then, I suppose so,’ Finn said.

  ‘Has your pool been inspected since you installed the modifications to the safety fencing?’

  ‘No.’

  It went on and on. Once or twice the solicitor stopped him from answering. At last DI Evans sat back in her chair.

  ‘That’s all the questions we have at the moment.’

  Malcolm laid his pen down. ‘It’s a pity someone has decided to make an example of my client at this tragic time.’

  ‘Yes, it is tragic, but the law has changed.’

  ‘And do you grant my client unconditional bail?’

  DI Evans nodded. It took another hour to photograph, fingerprint and paperwork Finn, then he was free to leave. They emerged into the subtropical dark, the warm air washing over them after the station’s chill. Finn took a deep breath.

  ‘I’m sorry, this must be a dreadful time for you, Mr Brennan,’ Malcolm said. ‘They’re idiots. I don’t believe this can go far. Someone up high wants to try it out, but I don’t think they have the evidence. Come on, I’ll give you a lift.’

  Finn blinked and shivered. He’d hoped for Bridget, but there was no sign of her. He got into Malcolm’s car obediently.

  As they pulled out, he sent her a text:

  He’d chosen to take the blame from Bridget. As if he hadn’t been to blame at all. But that decision felt so remote now. What had he told the police on the day of Toby’s death? He strained to remember. What was real and what had he made up? He’d absorbed the story of the gate-opener failure until it felt true. Perhaps the fail
ure of Owl Sentry was real. What else explained it?

  The solicitor followed Finn’s terse directions and pulled up outside the house. ‘We’ll talk in a day or two. Try not to worry too much.’

  Finn nodded, remembered to thank him, got out and turned towards the house. The car eased away and he stood at the gate, his hand on the row of pickets, looking into the garden. The garage yawned empty; a ute was parked out the front. No sign of Bridget’s car. Over at the house, lights were on and Finn heard the faint tinkle of television. Jarrah must be there.

  How could he go inside?

  It was one thing to try to shoulder the burden, but another to be accused by the law. It no longer seemed like a noble act, what he’d done in trying to take the blame. He was to blame. The gate hadn’t worked. And he’d turned his back.

  Finn trudged across the grass and climbed the stairs. Through the door he saw the boys sprawled on the two couches, watching television, pizza box spread on the table. Like any pair of teenage mates. He opened the door and they both swivelled. It wasn’t a normal night, Finn remembered, looking at Jarrah’s pale, strained face and red-rimmed eyes.

  ‘What happened?’ the boy asked.

  ‘They just asked some questions,’ Finn said. ‘The solicitor says it will blow over.’ He hoped to change the look on Jarrah’s face, but his words weren’t doing it. ‘Where’s your mother?’

  ‘Isn’t she with you? She went to meet you ages ago.’

  Finn felt cold. ‘No.’

  Tom got to his feet. ‘I’d better go. See ya, Jarrah. Bye, Mr Brennan.’

  ‘Bye,’ Jarrah said.

  ‘Bye,’ Finn added automatically. And caught himself as Tom reached the door. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘No worries,’ Tom said. And was gone.

  Jarrah turned to face the TV again and Finn stood still. Nothing in his experience told him what he should do.

  After what felt like an eternity, Jarrah glanced up again. ‘Want some pizza?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Finn wasn’t hungry, but he sat on the couch Tom had vacated, flipped open the box, conveyed a cold slice to his mouth. Instructed his jaws to bite and chew. Faced the television, upon which some show played that made no sense at all.