Golden Boys

by Sonya Hartnett

  His mother tells him he can’t make a pest of himself by visiting the Jensons during the week, and while he obeys he does so in suffering. It is possible to feel summer in the breeze, and he longs to go into the water, to sweep the heavy liquid between his fingers and have the arch of his feet knock against the ungiving floor of the pool. The water will be cold but the prospect is inviting, the way pressing a bruise feels nice. He will stay underwater as long as he can, ignoring his body’s protest against the chill and the absence of oxygen. He had discovered, at the barbeque, that he likes swimming for the solitude of it: although in no way an antisocial child, he had found tranquillity in that water. He’d been aware of the world beyond the pool’s walls, but he had been cushioned from it. In the water there were no words he couldn’t spell, no broadbeans he had to eat, no hand-me-downs that were all he had to wear. There’d been no tight-lipped school principal, no shrivelling before the leather strap, no girls in the playground whispering to each other as he walked by. No maths tests returned with a wrathful F inside a circle. No silver balls disappearing, with his pocket money, down the gutter of the pinball machine. No stink-breathed bullies, no interrupted television shows, no sisters disappointed on Christmas morning. No waking already weighted down by what lies between that moment, and when he can sleep again. The only place he knows that might be the pool’s equal as sanctuary is the stormwater drain, but that’s too far away for a school night, so all he can do is wander, each evening, round the corner and up the hill to the vicinity of the red-brick house in the hope that the Jensons will see him, sense his longing, invite him in. What actually happens is that he sees Mrs Jenson close the lounge-room curtains, and he sees the man briefly through what must be the parents’ bedroom window. He sees, in addition, Avery’s banged-up bike in the front garden. It is there, on the driveway, on Monday evening, and it is there, by a tree, on Tuesday. Disturbingly, on Tuesday not only is Avery’s bike in the garden, but Garrick’s is too. There’s no evidence that either of them is swimming in Syd’s pool, but the thought of Garrick Greene polluting the blue water with his body literally makes Syd feel queasy, and give up.

  Late on Wednesday when the children are in bed and it seems the night will pass uneventfully, the car turns into the driveway and the light of headlamps sweeps across the ceiling of the boys’ bedroom. Syd hears Declan shift beneath his blankets, and the brothers listen in silence to the slamming of the car door, the unlocking of the house door. Their father’s tread is heavy for a lightly-made man. Their mother is in the lounge room, ironing; the boys hear, between their parents, a curt exchange of words. They hear their father move to the kitchen, the dinner plate rattling off the oven’s wire shelf.

  Syd is aware he isn’t breathing, that he had more air under­water than he has now, in his bed, in his room. He listens, and the house has stopped breathing. When the crash comes he knows exactly what it is – the plate hitting the wall. He knows exactly what he will see when he runs to the kitchen – the plate in many pieces, food across the floor. Declan throws aside his blankets and runs for the door. ‘Stay here,’ he tells Syd, and disappears. Syd, sitting up, sees Freya rush past, and already the shouting has started, his father’s cursing, his mother’s rage. After a moment he jumps from bed and charges down the hall pursuing his siblings. He cannot stay behind.

  The kitchen is lit fluorescently, too harshly for its size; his father rampages in this cell of whiteness, ignoring the woman and children who crowd the doorway. He has knocked the pile of junkmail from the counter, and the catalogues have slipped under the table and lodged among triangles of shattered plate. Now he’s swaying before the refrigerator, one hand gripping its open door, pulling from the shelves one item after another, swearing and weaving as he does so. Onto the floor goes a carton of milk, a bundle of ham, a bowl of leftover bolognaise. Milk glugs from the carton’s spout, spaghetti slops from the bowl. The margarine skids thickly across the linoleum. ‘Dad!’ cries Freya. ‘Stop!’ but he doesn’t look to them. A jam jar hits a cupboard as loudly as a bomb. On the wall above the table is a smear of mashed potato. The table is splattered with gravy, beaded with peas. Their father wrenches open the crisper, pulls from it a sheaf of carrots and hurls this over a shoulder. The orange spikes and green stems pinwheel under a chair. Any other time, the sight would have made Syd laugh. Now there’s a stink in the air, and his heart is racing. His wrist is grasped and he looks up at his mother, and when he looks back to the kitchen his father loses his hold on the fridge door and stumbles sideways onto the floor.

  For an instant Elizabeth’s hand moves to cover Syd’s eyes. ‘Come away,’ she tells her children. In the lounge room Declan hurries to the glass doors and opens them, and the evening air billows in. Syd sees stars and, in the street, the glowing orb of a streetlight. From down the hall they hear a plaintive cry and Elizabeth says, ‘Sydney, go to the girls.’ He doesn’t want to, but already she’s steering him to the door by the wrist she still holds painfully. ‘Hurry,’ Declan says, and Syd goes. Passing the kitchen he glimpses his father on his knees among the torn papers and strewn food. He runs into his parents’ room and Peter is awake in the darkness, climbing from his cot; he lifts the child over the bars cooing, ‘Baby boy, baby boy,’ and jostles down the hall with his brother squeezed to his hip. At the furthest room he flicks on the light to find Dorrie and Marigold on Dorrie’s bed, bunched up in blankets and nighties. Dorrie is weeping into the hair of a doll, and Marigold, white-faced, has fingers in her mouth. He shovels Peter between them, begging, ‘Quiet, Dorrie, it’s all right, I’m here,’ but his sister’s mouth sags woefully, she buries her face in her doll. ‘Is it Dad?’ asks Marigold. Syd’s heart is still racing, hitting at his ribs; when a howl comes from the lounge room, a sound not of pain but of indignation, it whips him round to the door and spills tears down Marigold’s face. Peter groans and claws at her, trying to fasten himself to her neck. They hear Freya’s strident voice over Elizabeth’s angry cries, and Syd heaps the blankets around the children frantically, trying to bundle them into place. ‘Stay here,’ he tells Marigold. ‘Don’t come out. Look after Peter and Dorrie.’ Peter’s arms wrap her like pythons, but he meets her blue eyes and she’s smart, she understands. Dorrie collapses howling, but Syd doesn’t wait.

  His father has found his way into the lounge room and stands with his back to the door. There’s a dark stain down his trousers which halts Syd like a chain. Joe is weaving as if he’s been hit, and perhaps he has been: Elizabeth, in the centre of the room, has the clothes iron gripped in her fist. Declan and Freya flank her like young wolves, Freya shouting at Joe, ‘What’s wrong with you? Get out, we don’t want you! You stink, you’re disgusting! Go on, get out! Get out, get out, get out, get out!’ And maybe it’s the sheer force of her fury that drives him away, because she’s small and so swattable, yet their father is going. He’s swearing at her, sneering, yet he’s going, shifting backwards with his arms up, feeling his way into retreat. Syd sidesteps into the kitchen as his father backs past, harried as he goes by his offspring who dash at him, snarling and yelping, always beyond reach. Hissing with defeat, their father turns and makes for the front door and bangs through the flyscreen. Syd runs to the lounge windows to see him get in his car and haul the door closed – but the engine doesn’t start, the headlights don’t come on, and for moments the four of them watch breathlessly, Elizabeth still holding the iron. Then she says what the children have realised: ‘He’s fallen asleep. The stupid fool.’

  Only now, in safety, do they look at each other, and look around the room. Syd sees what made his sister so incandescent: the clothes which their mother spent the afternoon ironing have been torn to the floor and trampled by boots that have left their imprints in gravy. His father’s workshirts are among the wreckage, as well as the girls’ school dresses. Syd is frightened and wide-awake and still half-dizzy with dread, but it is the sight of all that wasted work which brings hot tears to his eyes.

  And then Marigold and Dorrie
and Peter have rushed in, weeping wetly, hanging off their mother’s arms. Freya kneels and hugs Dorrie. ‘Don’t cry, stop crying,’ she says. ‘There’s nothing to cry about.’ But Freya herself looks blanched and ill, and when she lets go of Dorrie her hands are shaking; she gouges her eyes and says, ‘Oh.’ For a minute they stand around stupefied, but in truth this is nothing they haven’t seen before. Marigold wipes her face, looks at the ravaged ironing and says, ‘Phew, what a mess!’ She and Declan pick up the clothes, hang them on doorknobs and over the backs of chairs. The kitchen needs mopping, broken things must be binned. Syd and Freya clean the floor and walls, but soon Elizabeth sends them to bed.

  Lying once more in the dark in his bedroom, the sheets beneath him cool but not cold, Syd marvels how it’s possible to think it was a dream. He was in bed before, and he’s in the same bed now. He is Syd, as he was before. They will wake in the morning and the world will be just as it was but for the absence of a few inconsequential bits including a white china dinner plate, and Syd thinks he will find one that looks exactly the same as that lost one, and give it to his mother for Christmas.

  He could pretend it was a dream, but it wasn’t: he wakes, the next morning, craving the water. He knows he will go mad, a wolfman, if he doesn’t swim. Against his wishes he remembers the sight of his father stumbling onto his knees, and only the water can wash away such a hurting vision. After dinner he takes his towel and, without telling anyone, hurries up the road to the Jensons’. It is still light and will be so for a while longer, but he isn’t bothered by the dark. He will tell the Jensons to ignore him, he doesn’t need company or help, he will make himself as tiny an intrusion as possible: the important thing is that he swims. The hand he raises to the door is shy, but steely.

  Bastian, in green pyjamas, opens the door and stares at him owlishly. ‘Hi, Bastian,’ says Syd.

  ‘Have you come for a play?’

  He proffers his towel. ‘No, a swim.’

  Bastian crinkles his nose. ‘I’ve got no one to play with.’

  Syd’s noticed it already: the bikes aren’t here. ‘Where’s Avery and Garrick?’

  ‘I don’t know. They’re not my friends. They’re Colt’s friends.’

  Syd nods. He shifts his weight. Bastian leans against the door. ‘So,’ Syd says finally. ‘Can I have a swim?’

  Bastian smiles. ‘Only if you play first.’

  Though he could kick himself for stooping to the demands of this half-boy half-guinea-pig, Syd instantly agrees. He follows Bastian through the house, passing Mrs Jenson in the kitchen. She is unloading a dishwasher that stands beside the sink, its sinewy pipe-arms reaching to the taps, huffing a burnt-smelling steam. ‘Hello, Syd,’ she says, and smiles her wilted smile. She always sounds tired, although she has only two children to look after, and a dishwasher.

  There are worse things, he supposes, than being temporarily stuck in the playroom. The slot-car set is assembled on the floor, and it’s an inviting thing. ‘You be blue, I’ll be red,’ says Bastian, plumping down at the finish line with its tiny chequered flag. Syd tests the blue car’s fitness by pinning it to the track and pumping the control so the car screeches and wriggles. When he lets it go it shoots off like a bullet, launching from the track and whacking into the wall. Syd smiles with brute satisfaction but Bastian cries, ‘Oh no, not like that!’ and retrieves the car, blowing lint from its chassis. The child’s idea of racing, Syd is depressed but not surprised to discover, is to have the cars travel at such a speed that they not only stay on the track, but also never outstrip each other: when he eases pressure off the control and drives the blue car slower and slower, Bastian’s red car likewise slows, until they are trundling side-by-side around the course like miniature Sunday drivers in hats. ‘You do know what a racing car is, don’t you?’ he asks the child archly, and squeezes his control so the blue car powers forward, misses the corner, flies over Bastian’s knees and vanishes under a bookshelf. Bastian gives a squeal and dives after it, legs flailing: truly, Syd has never met such a boy. While his host is moleishly occupied he looks longingly at the window. He can’t see the swimming pool, but it’s out there. He can hear the siren-call of its churning filter.

  ‘Syd?’

  He swivels on his knees: Colt stands in the doorway. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Is Declan here?’

  ‘No, just me. I was going to have a swim.’

  ‘I can’t find it!’ Bastian complains.

  A shade of disapproval crosses Colt’s face. ‘It’s pretty cold for swimming.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ says Syd.

  ‘Colt!’ Bastian struggles upright. ‘Syd made the car go under the bookshelf, and now it’s lost!’

  Colt crosses the room – he is not wearing pyjamas but a loose windcheater and jeans; Syd bets that one of the rules of this house is that the boys must change from their uniforms the minute they get home from school – and reaches under the bookshelf; naturally he finds the car immediately. He takes up Bastian’s control and says, ‘I’ll race you, Syd.’

  This is an improvement, and Syd brightens. Colt sits the cars at the starting line, Syd shuffles into a jaguar’s crouch. ‘Ready, set, go!’ says Bastian, and Syd’s car rockets away, losing traction at the first bend and nose-diving into the carpet. Colt’s red car zips by without a glance, negotiating the bends while humming warmly to itself, and cruises nonchalantly past the flag. ‘Colt wins!’ Bastian declares unnecessarily, but the red car doesn’t stop: it runs round and round the track, past the tennis racquets, the upturned skateboards, the soldiers on parade beside their tanks. ‘Slot cars aren’t really about racing,’ Colt tells Syd.

  ‘What are they about?’

  ‘They’re about being . . . perfect.’

  ‘Perfect.’ Syd blows air dismissively. ‘They should be about racing.’

  Colt nods. ‘They should. But they’re not.’

  ‘Show him, Colt!’ says Bastian.

  Colt looks at Syd. ‘It’s too late for swimming.’

  The idea of swimming under the stars makes Syd’s blood pump fast; the thought of not swimming, now he’s come this close, makes him feel a touch frantic. ‘I don’t mind the dark. We can race another day —’

  But as he speaks the doorbell rings, and the boys look in the direction of the sound. It must be Colt’s father who opens the front door because they hear his voice, a rumbling purr. His footsteps press down the hall and when he stops at the door of the playroom he’s in the company of Freya. ‘Here he is!’ the man says. ‘The prodigal.’

  ‘Syd!’ says Freya. ‘I told Mum you’d be here.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ says Colt. ‘We’ve been playing with the cars.’

  ‘Colt’s teaching me,’ Syd says quickly, indicating the track.

  ‘But it’s a school night! You’re being a pest!’

  Syd can see that at least half her fierceness is false, play-acting to impress Colt’s father and Colt. And when the man says, ‘Oh, Syd’s never a pest, we hardly knew he was here. And it’s time well spent, racing slot cars, don’t you think?’ she’s like a balloon popping or a flower opening up: her frown clears immediately, her hands drop from her hips. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea?’ he asks. ‘Just while they finish their game? Is a cup of tea permissible on a school night?’

  ‘Um,’ she says. ‘OK.’

  ‘I’ll bring the pot out to the deck, shall I? Or would you prefer it here, in the playroom?’

  She glances at the toys, the swirling racetrack, and Colt. ‘Um. I don’t mind.’

  ‘Outside, then? It seems a shame to waste these fine evenings.’

  ‘Outside is good,’ she says.

  When the man has gone to the kitchen, Syd asks, ‘Don’t you want to play cars, Frey?’

  ‘Another day,’ she says, and leans against the frame. ‘Colt’s teaching you. Hi, Colt.’

  ‘Hi Freya,’ he says.

  ‘Has Syd been annoying you?’

  ‘No. We’re just mucking around.’


  She nods and nods; and inexplicably returns to the beginning: ‘Don’t be a pest, Syd.’

  Syd bites his lip against squawking that he is trying his very, very best not to be a pest, and snatches up the blue car from where it has rolled against a beanbag. Freya goes out to the deck, and through the screen door and the open louvres they hear her, dragging two of the heavy benches from beneath the outdoor table. Colt positions the cars at the starting line, takes up his control. ‘Look,’ he says, ‘it’s all in the thumb,’ and brings his thumb down on the control forcefully, so the red car whizzes forward, fishtails catastrophically, and cartwheels off the track. Bastian fetches it, sets it on the line. ‘You have to start slowly, so you’ll stay on the track; then you build up speed.’

  Colt’s car takes off again, smoothly this time, whispering down the straight before swooping gracefully around the first noodle in the track. ‘It’s skill,’ Colt says, ‘it’s a test of skill,’ and they watch the red car loop the circuit one faultless lap after another. It is hypnotising, the steady pace, the mosquito burr, the confidence with which the tiny vehicle shimmies through the curves travelling neither fast nor slow but as if it has something both urgent and fragile to deliver. Colt’s father passes the door carrying tea things on a tray: ‘How’s it going in there?’ he asks, but the boys don’t answer and he doesn’t ask again. He shoulders past the screen and they hear his strong voice. ‘How have you been, Freya? How’s school? How’s your family?’

  ‘Good,’ she tells him. ‘The same.’

  ‘Slower into the curves, fast out of them,’ Colt instructs. ‘Even pressure on the accelerator.’

  Syd says, ‘But I want to go really fast, all the time.’

  ‘That doesn’t work,’ says Colt. The boys watch the red car snake the circuit, the last little car in the world. They can hear the conversation taking place on the deck as readily as if it were being spoken in the playroom, in the centre of the track. That brother of yours is a champ, isn’t he? Petey. It seems like only yesterday my boys were his age. To Syd, Colt says, ‘I guess you can either go fast all the time, and crash, and start again and have the same thing happen, go fast, crash, start again, fast, crash, start again . . . or do what works. It’s one or the other.’