He dressed slowly and deliberately.
‘Wait,’ Sistine spoke, voice quiet. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
‘I have to go.’
All that frustration inside her, but he could tell she was still trying to think things through. For him.
‘Listen. We’ve both got parents, right?’
He wouldn’t answer. Bobby got out of there fast.
…
The cement mixer chugged grey fumes into a cloudless day as Charlie Smoke shovelled sand, loam and dry cement powder into that spinning maw. He added a half-bucket of water, waited to see how it went, then added a little more. He mixed his concrete by eye and touch, as he’d been taught. The cement dust and the day’s dry heat were in the back of his throat, a sensation as familiar as rain on his face or wind in his hair. Once this load was ready he’d go stand out of the sun a few minutes and drink a bellyful of his special water. This destroyed fence was a killer, in reality a job for a gang; he’d make sure it didn’t take too long or cost one dollar more than it had to.
When the concrete looked ready he held a heavy wheelbarrow in place with one arm and used the other to muscle the mixer’s lever so that the grey mixture poured smooth as silk from its turning mouth. As he did it his left arm wanted to give out. Mixing and pouring fresh concrete was always hard work, but the pain in his shoulder, Dio mio, he’d never felt that before. Whatever was going on seemed to be getting worse day by day. He was actually gasping by the time he could turn off the mixer’s rattling motor. The machine performed three belching coughs and was still. With the back of his hand Charlie wiped his brow beneath the brim of his hat, squinted away from the sun and caught his breath. He rubbed his shoulder. The pain quickly passed; it was strange that way. Yet as he started to move the now loaded wheelbarrow, the weakness of his left arm let a dribble of wet concrete slop over one edge.
‘Hi,’ Holly Banks said, standing to one side.
‘Sorry,’ he replied, arms and face spotted with tiny dots of wet concrete that he tried to wipe away. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘That looked difficult.’
‘I don’t know.’
He waited to see what she wanted.
‘So,’ she said. ‘I’ve got lunch.’
‘Beg yours?’
He removed his sweat-stained straw hat so he could run a towel around the inside brim. His hair was matted and the position of the sun told him it was too early for eating. He tried not to look at her, especially not at those strange eyes, but he thought that pallor had returned. Another bottle last night? For good times or untold troubles? Today her hair was pinned back, and though the dress she wore was soft and light for the summer heat, it was perfectly demure as well.
‘What I mean is, I made something for the both of us.’
‘Always bring my own.’
‘Today’s different. Charlie, why don’t we go and sit in the shade?’
He used the towel to wipe himself down. Arms, legs, back of the neck, wanting—somehow—to make himself presentable. He couldn’t quite understand what was on this woman’s mind, but he wouldn’t be impolite. Collecting his blue cooler and foam lunch bucket, Charlie followed her to the shading trees up closer to the house. Sighs of a fresh breeze touched his face. In that blessed shade Holly offered him a sandwich from a ceramic platter. Charlie hesitated, so she put a couple onto a small plate for him. He thought about that a moment, then unwrapped his own lunch and placed a nice-looking roll onto her plate.
‘What do we have here?’
‘It’s got roast eggplant, tomatoes dried in the sun and prosciutto.’
‘Pro—shoe—’
She just couldn’t pronounce it. Her eyes were dark, those smudges back again. And that purple, it was real. He wondered if she had sleeping problems.
‘Prosciutto,’ he said, giving the full Italian inflection.
‘Okay … what is it?’
‘Cured ham the Mediterranean way.’
He watched her take a bite of the roll, then another.
‘I might have made a mistake,’ she spoke, a rueful tone to her voice. And kind of playful too, despite whatever kept her up at night. ‘My sandwiches are just plain. But this … I don’t think I’ve had anything like it.’
‘Nothing special really.’
‘Your wife knows how to pack you a lunch.’
‘No wife.’ He noticed Holly’s glance at the wedding band on his finger. He touched it. ‘This. It was a divorce long time back, then she passed away, just in August. I’m wearing this for a little while, sort of for respect.’ He was quiet a moment, reflecting. He liked that she didn’t try to say anything to any of that. ‘We had a daughter. Sistine. Kid’s nineteen now.’ He finished off a first sandwich. ‘This is good.’
‘It doesn’t compare to yours.’
‘Depends on your perspective.’ He tried another. ‘So,’ he said, wanting Holly to tell him why they were sitting under this tree.
‘Uhm, I guess, if it’s all right …’
‘If what’s all right?’
It was as if she had to make up her mind to speak, and Charlie couldn’t shake the feeling there was more going on with Holly Banks than the effects of alcohol. He didn’t think it had to do with pills either. For whatever reason, this woman was carrying something that weighed her down.
‘Well, I wanted to ask you.’
‘Hurry up with the fence already?’
She laughed, just a quick moment, and it sounded good.
‘Sort of the opposite.’
‘I don’t get that very often.’
‘Well, it’s two things. The first is Ricky likes the way you kick the ball with him. It’s been nice of you to do that.’
‘He’s a good kid.’
‘But he keeps other kids away. Children his own age, almost everybody really. Sometimes that includes me—’ She cleared her throat. ‘And my husband.’ Holly looked away. ‘But there was something you said the other day, about how maybe it’s good he gets angry?’
‘Just talking.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Well, maybe I learned that when you’re too comfortable you don’t do anything and your life stays the same. When you’re angry you want to find a way to get rid of the things holding you back.’
‘There’s nothing holding Ricky back.’
‘Good then.’
‘It’s just that he should have friends. He doesn’t like to talk very much.’
‘Maybe talk’s overrated.’ Charlie tapped his chest. ‘You have to have it in here.’
Her smile was something questioning, as if she had to wonder what he meant—and he saw that when she did smile, somehow it managed to be serious as well.
‘He likes you, Charlie. He likes you very much. So I wanted to say, uh, you can kick the ball with him any time you want. If it doesn’t interrupt your work.’
‘That’s why the help gets served sandwiches from your kitchen?’
She looked away, but with an expression that wasn’t quite so serious, anxiety replaced by just a touch of lightness.
‘So you’ll give Ricky a few minutes, when you can?’
‘Mr Banks might be a lot keener on me clearing out.’
‘Just if you can.’
‘Happy to do it.’
‘That’s fantastic.’ Now Holly took in the branches above them. A deep breath and she seemed to relax even more.
‘Don’t let that go to waste,’ he said.
Holly picked up the roll and took another bite. He saw she still liked it.
‘Were you always bricklaying?’
He noticed the way she tried not to glance at his face as she asked. The scar tissue around his eyes, especially the right. It told its own story. Then he realised the two of them were in a kind of dance—him not to notice her
eyes, her not to react to his scars.
No, better to be direct.
‘You mean these?’ Charlie touched his face, both sides.
‘I didn’t mean to—’
‘No, it’s okay. Before learning the building trade I was involved in boxing.’
She took him in now. ‘You mean you fought men and knocked them down?’
‘A lot of vice versa.’
‘I’ve—I’ve never met anyone who’s done that.’
‘Sometimes I wish I could say the same.’
‘Okay.’ She nodded to herself, absorbing the information. ‘And that’s how you injured your shoulder?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with my shoulder.’
‘You seem to protect it when you’re working.’
‘Few aches and pains.’ Charlie put an uneaten sandwich back down onto the plate. He rubbed crumbs off his thick palms. ‘You said that question before about Ricky and the ball was the first thing. So this is the second thing?’
‘Before Ricky came along, for a while I was a receptionist in a physiotherapist’s clinic. I learned a lot dealing with the patients, so then I got really interested and started doing my degree. I was two years in when I fell pregnant. But I remember a lot, and I was thinking, your shoulder might need looking into.’
‘My age, you’re always carrying something.’
‘Wait—’
He was getting to his feet.
‘Please, I didn’t mean—’
‘I better get back. That fence won’t build itself.’
Charlie packed his things and with a curt nod left her there. He grabbed his heaviest shovel, propped against the trunk of an elm tree. In the blistering sunshine he made an art of shovelling load after load of his fresh concrete, not resting, refusing to wince or relent, and not looking back. He had no idea if Holly Banks was still there in the shade or had retreated inside. Before he’d finished with the next wheelbarrow load Ricky was coming in through the front, school satchel on his back.
The boy passed and made eye contact but didn’t say anything. Charlie turned his head toward the sun nearing its zenith. Going on to midday. Strange that he was home so early, and looking so miserable.
Ricky trudged on but Charlie thought he caught a kind of pleading quality to his glance. Now he did put the shovel aside and rubbed his left shoulder, then watched Ricky walk to the front door of his nice home in comfortable suburbia.
…
Stinking hot even in the late day but Bobby buttoned his lumberjacket over his T-shirt, adjusted his aviator sunglasses, wrapped the thick woollen scarf around his neck and pulled the Makita baseball cap down over his forehead. He caught his reflection in a storefront window. With sandy hair sticking out the back of the cap and wearing tight blue jeans, guess what, he looked like Detective Hutchinson from Starsky & Hutch.
Hutch in a Southern California winter, that was, not this stinking antipodean pre-summer. Still, the similarity gave him a boost, even if what he’d started running through his mind seemed like the worst idea in the world. Hutch was the cool-headed one, a counter to hot-headed Starsky—the type of reliable, self-possessed guy not prone to setting a foot wrong. Maybe that could be Bobby if he kept his head together. He’d have to be sure in his actions, cool as Hutch, be on top of things in this ongoing pinch.
So he stood across the street from the small two-teller National Bank on Brunswick Street and walked up to the corner once, then back down. His heart hammered but his resolve was renewed. Before anyone could take any notice of him he finished his reconnaissance and returned to his car, parked three blocks away. As he’d imagined, that little bank looked like child’s play.
The next thing?
Bobby had heard from the shopkeepers near the bistro what you needed on your side if anyone walked in demanding money. Georgios Spyros from the corner deli—who’d not once but twice frightened off just such intruders, without needing to fire a shot—had been very happy to offer Bobby the name he would need, and the address.
After driving over to the type of grungy Fortitude Valley block some wrecking ball would take about sixty seconds to obliterate he found who he wanted and had the business done. Evening had come and the sun was taking its time to slip below the horizon. He headed for home, but once there all the cars out front reminded him that his mother was meeting a group of her friends to plan their annual Christmas breakfast for the poor. Sistine’s flat was second best, but good enough for a breather. She’d be at the bistro by now. He needed to get himself together. The transaction had just about shot his nerves to pieces, plus he wanted to inspect this thing he’d paid too much money for.
He left the balmy evening warmth of the street and took the stairs. He used his key and slipped into the flat. There he fumbled the package out from under the lumberjacket he was still wearing, and held his breath as he unfolded the wax paper to reveal a snub-nosed pistol. Georgios hadn’t led him astray. The dealer told him it was a .38 once issued by the police department, now dull as an old penny, identifying marks filed off.
Look at me, Robert Domingo, with a fucking gun right on my girlfriend’s kitchen counter.
The gun gave him no sense of power or moment of solace. Instead, Bobby felt like the very tendons at the back of his neck were about to snap. He dug in his jeans pocket for the three slugs he’d been given. The dealer had taken the time to show him how to squeeze the trigger and feel the hammer’s snap, encouraging him to click off more than a dozen empty shots.
Bobby held those three slugs in his damp palm. He stared at the .38, which he now couldn’t bring himself to load. Then, as if in a dream, he heard the muted flush of the toilet. Bobby snatched the pistol off the kitchen counter and tried to rewrap and hide it all at the same time.
Sistine emerged, buttoning her black work shirt.
‘Hey, I moved my shift. I was hoping you’d come by.’
‘Yeah? Why?’
‘I want to tell you something.’
Bobby turned away. ‘Really?’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing. It’s bloody hot outside.’
‘So you’re wearing that?’
‘Trying a new look.’ He backed up a little but couldn’t find an excuse good enough to get himself out of there. ‘What did you want to tell me?’
‘It’s about my idea. Parents. I’m thinking maybe I’ve got something to inherit.’
‘Your ma didn’t have much to her name.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’ Sistine came closer. ‘Bobby, what’s happened?’
‘Nothing. I’ve got a few things to do. Better we talk at work.’
‘What’s that?’
His fist, closed tight, holding three slugs. He shoved them into his pocket.
‘Bobby?’
Now he pulled her hard against him, his heart hammering in a way he didn’t understand.
‘I want you to marry me.’
‘What?’
‘This … you’re right. It’s all wrong and it’s all shit.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I got you the wrong ring … I’m a complete idiot. It should have been one with a diamond, right? You and me, if we’re together, things will always work out. So let’s get married. Let’s just run the fuck away and never look back.’
‘Bobby, you’re hurting me.’
Jesus, he was squeezing her arm.
He let go. Sistine rubbed where it was sore, staring at him.
He was acting like a madman, and this made no sense at all. There wasn’t a shred of cool in him. How the fuck had he got himself into this dirty great sinkhole of shit?
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, moving to the door. ‘I’m really sorry.’
Whatever Sistine managed to say he lost in the pounding of his feet down the staircase.
…
The sun remained as bright and hot as ever, and he stood now, shaking his water cooler only to find he’d already drunk the last of his special concoction. Then the Toyota four-door pulled up. Peter Banks emerged and barely looked in the direction of either the fence or Charlie Smoke. He strode to the house and disappeared inside.
Good time to get out of here.
The man had seemed preoccupied, annoyed even. Charlie packed a few of his things then rolled his two wheelbarrows to the outside tap. He used the garden hose to wash them down and turned them on their sides to rinse out the last of the concrete. After that he ran the hose down to the cement mixer and washed it out as well. For a moment he stopped, cut the spray so that he could drink and swallowed the cool water. He doused his head and hair; the day had just about cooked him alive.
When Charlie started to roll the hose neatly back to the tap he heard raised voices coming from inside, the sort of argument that sounded like it might have been going on for days or weeks.
And in that instant the Banks family home made sense to him.
‘You kid yourself this has nothing to do with how absent you are? Can’t you see Ricky needs his father to—’
‘I have all the time in the world for my son. How dare you—’
Holly’s drained face, the stale booze on her breath.
Burning Down Page 6
