Too Close to Home

by Georgia Blain

  When Anna comes out to the kitchen, they open the champagne. It’s French and very expensive. Just as Freya raises the glass to her lips, there’s a knock on the door.

  ‘Bugger.’ She puts her glass down. ‘I don’t know who it could be.’

  But as she walks up the hall, her feet loud on the polished boards despite tiptoeing so as not to disturb Ella, she can hear their voices. It’s Archie, Darlene and Shane.

  Shane is agitated, moving from foot to foot, one hand on each of the kids, who stand in front of him, looking up at her in the light of the corridor. He shepherds the children through to the kitchen, leaving an overnight bag near the front door. As Freya introduces Anna, Shane nods. ‘G’day,’ he says, his eyes immediately returning to Freya. He wants to speak to her.

  ‘Can you take the kids?’ he asks, his voice hushed and low, while Anna talks to Darlene and Archie.

  She doesn’t reply immediately, her hesitation brief before she says: ‘I guess so.’

  ‘They’re rioting,’ he tells her. ‘In The Block.’ His agitation is palpable; the slight sweat across his forehead and the inability to stand still are not the only signs. There is a distance in his eyes. He wants to get out the door. ‘You heard about that boy? The one the cops killed?’

  She remembers the story on that evening’s news, a Koori teenager supposedly brawling outside a pub; the police had come to break up the fight. Apparently they’d used Tasers, thirteen times.

  Shane wants to get down there. He’s packed the kids’ uniforms. They are already in their pyjamas. He will pick them up tomorrow after school.

  As he hugs Archie and Darlene, he tells them to be good. ‘Behave yourselves,’ he says, and he ruffles their hair. He heads for the front door without saying goodbye to Anna, and Freya follows him out.

  ‘Be careful,’ she says, suddenly anxious.

  He’s pulled his car up in a hurry. Two of the wheels are halfway up the kerb. The door is still open, and he looks out at her, raising a hand in farewell.

  He is gone as quickly as he arrived.

  Inside, Freya puts Archie and Darlene in her bed. She will sleep on the lounge.

  ‘Where’s Dad gone?’ Archie asks, his eyes wide in the soft glow of the bedside lamp.

  It’s Darlene who answers. ‘To fight the cops,’ she tells him.

  Archie grins. Sitting up, he stretches both his arms forward, hands clasped, pointer fingers aimed. ‘Pow,’ he says, and then the smile fades. ‘Why’s he gone?’ he asks.

  ‘’Cos they killed a kid,’ Darlene responds.

  Freya doesn’t know what to say. ‘He’ll be all right,’ she tells Archie. ‘He’s careful.’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ Darlene interrupts, and then seeing Archie’s face, she relents. ‘He’ll get us tomorrow,’ she says, her arm around her little brother.

  Freya kisses them both and then goes out to where Anna is waiting for her in the kitchen, glasses of champagne still full, food uneaten on their plates.

  ‘Cheers again,’ and Freya raises her glass as she sits down.

  Anna wants to know what’s happened and Freya explains, trying to articulate how she feels as she speaks; pissed off, and then guilty for feeling that way and then pissed off that she’d felt guilty, and now she is bloody anxious that something will happen to him.

  ‘It’s never simple,’ she tells Anna. ‘And I hate the fact that we can’t move beyond the loaded complexities, but then perhaps it isn’t possible. I mean, I don’t know what we would have in common anyway, apart from kids at the same school.’ She sighs. ‘And Matt.’

  As she says his name, she fears the conversation will move to Matt’s journey north and his possible son. But it doesn’t. Instead Anna wants to talk about her and Paolo. Freya is surprised. Anna rarely discusses her relationships. She is also relieved. She doesn’t want to talk about what’s happening in her own life. It’s still too unknown, and she fears any attempt to put it into words will only give voice (and credence) to fears she is trying to resolve.

  In the soft light of the kitchen, Anna puts one long slender leg up on the chair next to her, her body angled to the side as she stares at the ceiling, her dark green eyes focused on a moth flickering above. She wants a child. She pours another champagne as she speaks. She doesn’t touch her food.

  ‘I’m forty,’ she tells Freya, ‘and there’s no time. Should I leave him and try to do it on my own?’ She turns then to look at her friend and her anxiety is genuine.

  It’s Louise who has precipitated this urgency; it’s made Anna realise it is possible. She explains this as she walks around the kitchen, holding her glass in one hand, a cigarette in the other. She rarely smokes now and Freya watches her drawing back on the tobacco with a clumsiness that’s strange to witness because this lack of grace is, for Anna, unusual.

  ‘It’s hard,’ Freya tells her. ‘It’s such a big leap to make but if this is what you really want …’

  ‘I mean, look at you.’ Anna stops her pacing and faces Freya. ‘You’ve done it, and your work has still gone from strength to strength. Look at all you’ve got.’ She waves her cigarette around the smallness of the kitchen. ‘You and Matt, Ella, a new play about to be produced; all of it.’

  Freya puts her fork back on her plate.

  ‘I wish I had your life.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ Freya has choked on her mouthful and she coughs before she can continue speaking. ‘You’d hate my life. Living out here, with not much money.’ She pours herself a glass of water, and then also waves her hand around the kitchen. ‘I don’t even want to go on.’

  ‘You like it out here,’ Anna says.

  ‘I know I do.’ Freya is dismissive. ‘But really, if money wasn’t an option, who would choose living next door to light industry over living near the sea?’ She gets up, agitated. ‘And if you really want a baby, you’re going to have to leave him. Quickly.’

  They are both silent.

  The sound of the tap dripping seems, for one moment, to be far louder than it is. It drums a steady rhythm against the steel and Freya tightens it one notch.

  ‘I’m sorry to have been so brutal,’ she apologises.

  Anna just looks at her. ‘You’re right,’ she eventually says. ‘But I don’t think I have the courage to leave. I’d be on my own, older, and I’d reek of desperation to everyone I met.’ She glances away as she runs a hand through her hair. ‘So – easy to suggest, but not so simple to do.’ She rubs at her eyes, her mascara smudging slightly as she does so. She looks up at Freya. ‘I’ll be all right,’ and she holds the bottle out, but Freya puts her hand over her glass. ‘It’s probably just because time is running out. I mean it’s not as if I’ve really wanted this before.’ She smiles slightly. ‘But now that it’s looking like it won’t be possible, I can’t think of anything I want more,’ and she shakes her head.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ Freya tells her.

  ‘I know,’ Anna replies. ‘But you could listen without getting annoyed.’

  It’s like a slap, and Freya feels it. She had been abrupt. She drinks what’s left in her glass.

  ‘Of course I’ll listen,’ she says, and she is surprised at how wrong this evening has become.

  Anna looks at her.

  ‘Do you want to talk more about it?’

  Anna shakes her head.

  Freya is not sure if Anna’s punishing her. She reaches across the table for her hand, and Anna doesn’t move away.

  ‘Are we okay?’

  Anna just squeezes her fingers in her own.

  ‘Do you mind if we go into the other room?’ Freya asks, nodding in the direction of the doorway. ‘I’d quite like to switch on the television and see if there’s any news about the riots.’

  Anna doesn’t reply but she follows Freya through to the lounge room, and sits in the dark green chair Freya bought when she first left home. It is sixties in style, square and covered in wool, with low wooden legs. Freya has always loved it, but tonight she see
s how shabby it has become. The carpet on the floor is an old kilim of her mother’s, rusty oranges and steel blues in a geometric pattern. Ella has spilt food on it more times than she can remember, and her toys are scattered across the floor. Freya picks them up and puts them in the wooden box Matt made, and then she looks across at Anna.

  ‘I really am sorry,’ she says.

  Anna glances at her and smiles slightly. Freya doesn’t know if the smile is genuine.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Anna says, and Freya can only take her word for it.

  The television news break starts, and they both lean forward, the small screen flickering with what seems to be explosions, people running across the darkness, illuminated by flashes of light. The reporter is some distance away, doing a piece to camera in which he explains that the riots are worsening. There are petrol bombs being thrown, the police are unable to hold back the crowds.

  ‘My understanding is that they have called in the riot squads,’ the reporter says and behind him there is a flare of intense orange and a loud crack.

  The broadcast cuts away to stock footage of the pub where the boy was killed as the anchor explains the reason for the riots, adding that police denied excessive use of Taser guns.

  He was only a teenager, Freya thinks, as she looks at the stretch of Regent Street, cars in both directions. She puts her head in her hands and then flicks off the television.

  But later, after Anna has left, after she has checked on Ella, Archie and Darlene, she turns it on again, wanting a brief update before she tries to sleep. It’s worse. The crowd is barely held back by police who form a line of shields, truncheons and hoses. Behind them the train station is on fire, it blazes against the black of the sky. Down the side streets, rocks are thrown at cameras. People are shouting, screaming, while above, a helicopter circles through the night, sharp white light cutting through the chaos and anger below.

  This is not my country, Freya thinks, and then she immediately retracts this thought. This is my country. The wonder is that it does not happen more often.

  She sleeps fitfully, waking to find Archie standing next to where she’s lying on the couch.

  ‘Where’s my dad?’ he asks.

  She explains that he’ll get them after school.

  Archie’s anxiety is eased with the offer of a whole mango.

  ‘All to yourself,’ Freya says. ‘Before the others wake.’

  Jumping up and down, Archie holds out his hand: ‘Mango, mango, mango.’ His repetition of the word is irritating but she does her best to hide its effect on her. She looks at him sitting outside, sucking the sticky fruit, and she is struck by how little he is. She forgets it sometimes.

  After dropping them at school, she walks past Shane’s house. She wants him to be there, but as she nears the top of the street, she sees no sign of his black four-wheel drive, usually pulled up out the front, windows left wide open. Despite this, she pushes open the rusty gate and walks up the cracked cement path, overgrown with weeds. She knocks loudly on his front door. The bedroom window is ajar and she looks inside. The unmade bed is empty, clothes strewn across it. She knocks again but there is no one home.

  On the other side of the fence, an old Chinese woman sweeps the cement out the front of her house, her face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat. Seeing Freya, she shakes her head, tut-tutting as she does so. Unsure whether the disapproval is directed at her, Shane or the leaves, Freya doesn’t smile at her as their eyes meet. She just lifts the gate over the crack in the path and hooks it shut behind her.

  Shane is still not there in the afternoon. Freya picks up Ella and, at the school gate, she sees Archie and Darlene walking ahead alone.

  ‘Run and stop them,’ she tells Ella.

  She catches up with them at the corner. They are okay on their own, Darlene says. They can wait for their dad at home. Her defiance disappears with the bribe of a treat. After leaving a note at Shane’s, Freya takes them all to the local shop and lets them choose an iceblock each.

  The owner, a grumpy old Greek man, knows Archie and Darlene well.

  ‘You got my money, you kids?’ and he takes down a note he has stuck to the side of the register. The IOU is up over ten dollars.

  Darlene shrugs her shoulders and looks the man in the eye. She has one of those deep voices that young girls occasionally have, and she tells him that her dad has the money. ‘I’ve told him to pay you,’ she says.

  ‘You can’t have no more,’ and the owner holds one end of the freezer door so that Darlene can’t open it to get her iceblock.

  ‘I’m paying,’ Freya explains, showing him her purse.

  He lets go and the door slides open too quickly, catching Archie’s finger. As he howls, Freya tries to comfort him.

  ‘Can we have any one we want?’ Ella asks, her eyes on the Magnums.

  ‘Yes,’ Freya replies, wanting to be gone.

  The owner takes the money, explaining his gripe to Freya. Those kids come down every day. They say their dad has gone out and left them with no food. What is he to do? He feeds them. But he has had enough.

  ‘Enough,’ and he wags his finger at Archie, who still has tears in his eyes.

  In a bid to shut him up, Freya says she will settle the account, and she gives him the money. He puts it in the register without even thanking her.

  When she gets home, Freya tries to ring Matt. She is worried and she wants to speak to someone. The riots are continuing. She has listened to the radio on and off for most of the day, and although the anger has dissipated a little, there is talk of another build-up this evening.

  ‘My people are angry,’ a local elder tells the reporters and the grab of his voice is used in each news bulletin. ‘The police harass us, all day, all night. Now a young man has been killed and we have had enough.’

  Enough, Freya thinks, when she hears the quote again, and she is reminded of the shop owner shaking his finger in front of Archie.

  When Matt calls her back she’s making dinner. The mobile reception is terrible, his voice cutting out halfway through each sentence.

  ‘What do I do?’ she asks him.

  He tells her to just hold on to the kids until the situation calms down, until she can find out what’s happened to Shane. At least that’s what she thinks he’s saying; it’s how he’s most likely to respond.

  He will be heading back to Townsville tomorrow, he says, and then flying out the next morning.

  It’s not until she’s hung up that she realises he hadn’t mentioned her play. She wonders whether he got her earlier message. She knows he finds her apparent success hard sometimes, but she hasn’t known him to ever fail to congratulate her.

  The next morning, Archie climbs in through the window to get clean uniforms for him and Darlene. They dress quickly, and throw their dirty clothes into Shane’s bedroom.

  ‘Will Dad get us this afternoon?’ Archie asks.

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ Freya replies, avoiding Darlene’s eyes.

  Freya has continued listening to news reports. Last night’s riots had ended just before midnight. Community meetings were to be held that morning. There’d been demands made on both sides. Peace and a full inquiry into the death of the teenager. The footage of the area showed how extreme the situation had been.

  ‘We are angry,’ people on the street said. ‘We want justice.’ ‘They murdered a kid.’ Some stared into the cameras, others turned their backs, giving the reporters the finger, others shouted direct at the news crews: ‘Just fuck off outta here.’

  Freya had decided. If Shane didn’t come back this afternoon, she would call the police.

  After leaving the kids at school, she catches the train into the city to meet her agent and the artistic director, John. She sees her reflection in the window and wonders whether she should have dressed a little less casually. She is wearing another of her mother’s Marimekko shifts (her father had bought her several on his Scandinavian trip and they’d all remained in a trunk, unworn). She has red clogs and she
has pinned her hair up. The problem is she still looks like a student, she thinks. She has never developed the kind of elegance that Anna has.

  She has caught the line that goes through Redfern. The station is closed, and the train rattles straight through. As she peers out the window, there’s little to see. The damage from the fire is not as bad as it appeared on television. The people are no longer out on the streets. It’s hard to reconcile the extreme images with the vision she sees now. All she wants is for Shane to return this afternoon.

  When she arrives at the meeting, she’s surprised to find Frank there as well, and as she remembers her birthday, she hopes she doesn’t blush.

  ‘You know each other, of course,’ John says.

  He wants Frank to direct her play, and as he was in town, John thought it would be good for him to come along.

  They all praise her work (which is what they always do) and tell her that it’s her best yet: funny, harsh, timely. Freya nods, smiles and thanks them.

  ‘It’s political,’ John says. ‘And so very relevant to our current situation – people feel frustrated, disenfranchised, let down by both the major political parties and they don’t know how to express this. Your work will speak to them.’

  She always feels uncomfortable in the face of compliments. She would also like to tell them that, to her, the play is more about a relationship between a man and a woman, how tenuous the links are that build a life, and how easily rent. But she is aware that would be foolish. The political element takes her work into a realm other than just the domestic, a site of death for most women writers. She takes a sugar sachet and turns it round and round in her palm, staying silent as they talk briefly about the approach they’d like to take in the production, including Freya in the conversation, although she knows she’s now out of the picture. Frank and John will make these decisions. She’s done her job.

  At the end of the meeting, Frank leaves with her.

  The day is harsh and blue, and she shades her eyes from the glare of the sun as she asks him when he’s going back to Melbourne.