When there’s nowhere else to Run

by Murray Middleton

  ‘We’ve all got to eat.’ I hoped I didn’t sound patronising.

  ‘I suppose I just liked the routines. I remember mopping the floor at the end of every shift and hosing the mats and the milk crates down in the break area, knowing I was getting everything ready for the next morning. Sometimes it’s nice to simplify everything. It helped take my mind off her, sort of like finding a way back to zero.’

  ‘See?’ I said. ‘I’d rather wait on sick people than work in a sweaty kitchen all day.’

  He smiled and rubbed his sparse facial hair. ‘I tell you what,’ he said, rising from the decking. ‘Why don’t we make some breakfast for everyone?’

  ‘Sure.’

  We made our way quietly to the kitchen. Frank and Megan were asleep on the sofa, which was strange, because it was supposed to be Megan’s turn to sit with Jenna. Maurice inspected the pantry. It was getting pretty bare. He removed a bottle of milk and half a carton of eggs from the fridge.

  ‘How about pancakes?’ he asked.

  ‘Sounds perfect.’

  He handed me the milk and the eggs and started rummaging around in the cupboards. ‘I’ll see if I can track down a jug for you to whisk them in,’ he said. ‘They’ve got pancakes in Africa, right?’

  ‘No, we only eat lions and giraffes and zebras.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’

  He found a jug for me. I cracked an egg into it as he started sifting flour into a large mixing bowl.

  ‘When you’re done, pour that mixture into the bowl,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  I grinned as we exchanged glances, feeling stupidly guilty because I was starting to enjoy myself.

  ■

  Ben walked into the living room while the rest of us were watching an action movie that was full of tedious car chases. He made eye contact with me and tilted his head. I followed him into the master bedroom, my heart racing. Sunlight was punching into the room through the window, accentuating the pallor of Jenna’s face. I knelt down beside the bed, but I already knew. I checked for a pulse, nodded at Ben and told him I was sorry. He opened the window and tucked her arm back underneath the covers.

  We returned to the living room. The others could tell as soon as they looked at Ben. Without speaking, we gathered around and hugged him. Megan’s eyes were brimming with tears. She grabbed a box of tissues from the coffee table and blew her nose. Frank walked out to the decking, clutched the railing and looked out over the bay. Maurice joined him. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do anymore. I paused the action movie. It all seemed kind of hopeless without her. I’d tried to avoid thinking about what it would feel like. Now that it had finally arrived, my grief felt endless.

  Ben walked over to the television, removed the movie and slotted a new disc into the DVD player. He studied the remote control and pointed it at the absurdly large screen, increasing the volume until the floorboards were reverberating. I heard the familiar dripping of keys at the beginning of the song and then Brandon Flowers started crooning like a heartthrob. Jenna was always a sucker for The Killers. It was about as mainstream as she got. One time I tried telling her that her boy Brandon was a Mormon, but she’d just grinned and said, ‘I’m happy to convert for him.’

  Frank came in from outside and wiped Megan’s eyes with his fat thumbs. He kissed her hair, tucked her used tissues into his pockets and started twirling her awkwardly around to the music. He couldn’t dance to save himself. Six foot three of oaf. He released Megan so that he could clench his fists and belt out a hoarse, tone-deaf chorus.

  Ben started shuffling behind the sofa with his eyes closed. It had been years since I’d seen him dance. Megan was rocking her hips from side to side and swaying her head to the bassline.

  She couldn’t look ugly if she tried. I remembered when the three of us went to see The Killers at the showgrounds on Jenna’s twenty-fourth birthday. We’d danced for two hours straight that night. This was a different dance. I wasn’t conscious of being prompted by any particular instrument or sound. I just let my limbs flail and my body do whatever it needed to.

  Maurice joined us during the breakdown in the middle of the song, mouthing the lyrics and wriggling his bony shoulders, sweating like he was working in a busy kitchen. He looked like he was trying to shimmy the mothballs out of his jumper. I wondered whether he’d learnt any country moves in Bundaberg. It didn’t look like it. His elbows were wobbling about and he was grimacing, or maybe smiling. He met my gaze, bleary-eyed, and offered his right hand. I reached out and took hold of it.

  THE LAST TROUT THAT RICHARD BOUGHT FOR ALICE

  Richard snakes through the narrow backstreets of Brunswick in his old Subaru, trying to avoid the late afternoon traffic. He stops at a roundabout to let three kids in blue uniforms cross the street. It’s funny. Up until a few years ago, when he met Alice, he couldn’t see himself having kids. But now he can’t think of anything nicer than finishing his run for the day and picking up a few youngsters from school, still wearing his Australia Post uniform, maybe stopping at a milk bar to buy Calippos if it’s stinking hot.

  As he’s approaching a futon store near Barkly Square, he catches sight of an unmistakably lanky figure from his university days, back when he fancied himself as a painter. He pulls over.

  ‘Wes!’ he calls out, winding down the passenger window.

  The lanky figure looks around in a bit of a daze, before finally noticing him.

  ‘Richard,’ says Wes, grinning clumsily. ‘Long time, no see.’ He’s wearing a flannelette shirt that’s a couple of sizes too big, giving him an uncanny resemblance to a scarecrow.

  ‘Listen,’ says Wes, glancing into the distance. ‘I hate to ask, but I’m a bit pressed for time. Any chance of a quick lift to the Edinburgh Castle?’

  ‘Sure,’ says Richard. ‘Hop in.’

  Wes has to tuck his knees up to fit into the front seat. Richard swings the car around and turns right onto Sydney Road. He gets stuck behind a tram straight away. As they wait, he wonders whether he’d make better headway riding along the footpath on his little Honda, stopping at letterboxes every five or ten metres.

  ‘Still painting?’ he asks, smelling turpentine.

  ‘Trying to,’ says Wes, scouting the crowd outside the Penny Black, who seem to get younger every week. ‘Hey, want to grab a feed with us and play some ping pong?’

  ‘I can’t,’ says Richard. ‘My girlfriend’s students are putting on a show tonight. I’ve got to be there in half an hour.’

  ‘Maybe next time,’ says Wes, unbuckling his seatbelt.

  He ruffles Richard’s hair before getting out at the next traffic light. Richard watches through the window as Wes walks into the pub and leans against the horseshoe bar next to a few regulars, probably waiting for some tattooed rockabilly woman to serve him.

  When the lights go green, Richard turns left, but he gets stuck at the level crossing at Anstey Station. The gates stay down for several minutes, even though there’s no sign of any train coming. At least a hundred cars could’ve driven through by now. It was a mistake taking Albion Street. He winds down his window and lets the crisp scent of Lebanese bread seep into the car, but his eyes still wander to the clock on the dashboard. Alice is probably waiting in the foyer of the Flemington Community Centre already, making small talk with colleagues. The last thing he wants is to have to sneak into the performance late and sit separately to her.

  One of the cars on the other side of the crossing swerves onto the wrong side of the road and drives around the boom gates. No one beeps at them. Another two cars quickly follow suit. Richard reverses about a metre, which gives him just enough room to squeeze past the hatchback in front of him. When he reaches the gates, he slows down to survey the tracks. No trains coming. As he accelerates through the crossing, he feels the exhilaration spread through his body, and just like that, he’s through.

  The evening sun pours over the brick-veneer houses, giving the street a sharp orange glow. He reaches up to adjust the sun visor, but s
omething appears out of nowhere behind the tray of a parked ute, leaving him no time to hit the brakes or veer out of its way. He hears his toolkit shift in the back seat. There’s a thud as a heavy form collides with his bonnet and then its skull crashes into his windscreen, cracking it like a spider’s web.

  ■

  Richard keeps driving downhill, past a rundown playground, over the tollway, towards the Moonee Valley racecourse. The left side of his windscreen is spattered with blood. It’s a fact. He knows any decent person would’ve stopped straight away. Every second is making it worse. But he already feels helpless to arrest this worsening, this constricting of time. The further he drives, the less he feels like turning around and facing up to whatever it is that he’s just done.

  It wasn’t his fault, he’s certain of that much. But he knows that if he goes back now, no one’s going to believe him, especially since he skipped the crossing. All the questions he’ll have to answer and all the holes they’ll find in his story. He doesn’t even have a clue what his story is. What actually happened back there? One second he was driving and the next someone appeared out of nowhere. It was all so fast. The only thing he maybe shouldn’t have done is reach for the sun visor, but it wouldn’t have changed anything.

  There’s no way he can get away with it, is there? No, surely there were witnesses. There were dozens of cars banked up on the opposite side of the street. By now there’s probably an ambulance on the scene and it won’t be long until people are reciting his number plates to stone-faced policemen. Plus there’ll be CCTV footage. Is anyone following him? No, good. No helicopters overhead, either. What he really needs now is time to figure out how he’s going to explain it all, word by word. If he can just get his story straight, there might be a chance that they’ll believe him.

  He parks his car in a residential street near the racetrack; when he gets out he instinctively notes that he’s parked in a permit zone. Not that it matters. There’s a huge dent in the bonnet and a large smear of something on his right windscreen wiper. Membrane of some kind. He searches in the boot for a rag to wipe it off with, but he realises that he’ll never be able to get every last trace of it off the car. Besides, what can he really do about the bonnet and the windscreen? No mechanic is going to agree to keep it a secret, at least none he’ll ever be able to find.

  He pulls a Phillips head screwdriver out of his toolkit and starts unscrewing his front number plate. It’s calming, in a way, watching the cross-shaped screw heads slowly come loose. Once he’s removed all the screws from both number plates, he peels his registration sticker away from the inside of the windscreen and stows it in his toolkit. He dumps his belongings in the first rubbish bin he sees and walks towards Mount Alexander Road, staring at the empty grandstands overlooking the racetrack. The grass in the straight is immaculate and the flowers will still bloom in spring. He just isn’t sure whether he’ll be around to see them.

  A tram approaches within seconds and a group of kids with school bags spill out of the front carriage, drinking Slurpees and laughing. One of them brushes against Richard’s shoulder and he feels a wave of indignation rise up in his chest. He just manages to refrain from throttling the little prick, instead boarding the tram and negotiating the aisle. No one even glances at him. There’s a vacant booth at the rear of the second carriage. It reeks of deodorant. He sits down and drops his head into his hands, trying to figure out what on earth he’s going to say to Alice.

  ■

  Alice is leaning against the side of the Flemington Community Centre, wearing a yellow dress that Richard loves. When she recognises him, she gives him a quick hug and kisses him on the neck.

  ‘You’re lucky we’re on African time,’ she says, smiling.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘I ended up catching the tram.’

  ‘Come on, let’s head inside.’ She grabs his hand and leads him hurriedly towards the entrance. Richard really just wants to stay outside in the fresh air and confess, but he can’t bring himself to resist her. The foyer is crowded with murmuring people whom he half expects to turn around and stare at him in disgust.

  ‘Thanks so much for coming,’ says Alice, fixing the side part of his hair. ‘Tell me about your day.’

  His face is almost too stiff to speak. ‘It’s a bit complicated,’ he says, feeling his heart suddenly racing.

  ‘That’s alright, it looks like we’ve got time.’

  Richard breathes in and exhales slowly, but it doesn’t help. It all seemed so much simpler when he was rehearsing it in his head on the tram.

  ‘Hi, Miss Alice,’ says a curvy girl in a bright green hijab, walking towards them.

  ‘Rahama,’ says Alice, smiling warmly. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’

  Rahama glances at Richard’s uniform as though there’s something strange on it. Is there a fleck of blood he’s missed? ‘Hi, Mister Alice,’ she says, giggling into her hand.

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ he manages to say.

  ‘Rahama’s in my year ten ESL class,’ says Alice to Richard.

  He has the feeling that he ought to be saying something or asking something, but he can’t think what it is.

  ‘Anyway,’ says Rahama, looking only at Alice now, ‘I hope you like the show.’

  ‘Good luck, sweetie.’

  They join a line outside the auditorium that’s moving at a snail’s pace. Richard wishes he could just sit down. How long is it going to take for them to find him? They won’t come in halfway through the performance to take him away, will they? Not that it’ll make much of a difference. All he wishes is that he could live the last hour of his life over again. He envies everyone in the crowded foyer. There’s not a single person that he wouldn’t trade places with in a heartbeat.

  ‘Richie,’ says Alice, waving her hand in front of his eyes. ‘Are you alright?’

  He tries to nod the way he usually would.

  ‘You look really pale. Why don’t you quickly go and splash some water on your face?’

  ‘I’m fine, seriously.’

  He notices with relief that they’re at the entrance to the auditorium. Prams spill into the aisles and young children are kneeling on the floorboards near the stage, jostling for position in front of the speakers. Richard recognises some of Alice’s old students. There’s Abdi with the long braids. Priscilla in the Lakers singlet. Omar with his cap on sideways. He’s put on heaps of weight. A hunched man with long hair gets up on stage to introduce the performance.

  ‘And it all begins with a huge round of applause from you!’ he cries at the end of his speech, and Richard watches, motionless, as the audience breaks into applause.

  The performance starts with a halal pizza delivery boy being extradited to his country of birth in Africa. The immigration officials are played as fat, slapstick characters, drawing loud laughter from the audience. Richard watches Alice laughing her perfect laugh. He knows it’s too late to tell her now and that this will be the last performance by her students that he ever gets to see. And he knows he’ll never wake up at the crack of dawn to sort through his mail trays again, he’ll never get to check the tyre pressure on his Honda, he’ll never get to whisper to Alice’s swollen belly like they’ve joked about or help blow out the candles on a child’s birthday cake.

  ■

  Alice is opening another bottle of cheap shiraz and singing a Sharon Jones song in the kitchen, but she doesn’t quite have the pipes for it. Richard, still disconcertingly sober, can feel the vibrations of a late-night tram through the bedframe. He stares at an old oil painting of Wes’s that’s hanging on the bedroom wall. It’s of a sea of nutshells on the tiles beside leather shoes in a Spanish pinchos bar. Wes named the painting El Clásico.

  It’s strange, Richard feels like he’s never really looked at the painting properly until now. The brushwork on the nutshells is so subtle and he loves the way the natural light intersects with the leather shoes. Then there’s the way that Wes has blended the grout between the tiles into the shadows of some of th
e nutshells.

  Alice returns to the bedroom with two topped-up glasses, still singing. Richard is surprised by the click in his blood at the sight of her.

  ‘Rahama was hilarious tonight, wasn’t she?’ says Alice, handing him the glass.

  ‘Yep,’ he says, swallowing. ‘She’s a real natural on stage.’

  ‘I know. It’s so nice to see her up there enjoying herself. Her family spent three years in a refugee camp in Kenya. I can’t imagine how that must’ve been.’

  It’s the last thing he really wants to think about.

  ‘I told her I’d fast again this year, for Ramadan,’ says Alice, settling on the bed. ‘She was really excited.’

  ‘Great,’ says Richard, trying to force a smile. He remembers Alice waking up before sunrise last winter, drinking two litres of water every morning and loading up on carbohydrates.

  ‘Also, I forgot to ask,’ says Alice, her cheeks flushed. ‘What happened to your car?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’ asks Richard, his chest throbbing.

  ‘I thought you said you caught the tram, so where’s the car?’

  He has a long drink. ‘I ended up leaving it near the racetrack,’ he says, not wanting to lie to her. ‘The traffic was awful. I think there must have been an accident or something.’

  ‘So when are you going to pick it up?’ she asks, putting on a sweet young girl’s voice that usually drives him crazy with desire.

  ‘Sometime tomorrow, I guess.’

  ‘Okay,’ says Alice, dropping the voice and folding her legs so that her dress creeps up her thin, pale thighs. ‘Stop being so uptight, you’re making me feel funny.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘You should be.’

  He swallows the rest of his shiraz, wishing he could at least start feeling tipsy.

  ‘You’re very cute,’ she says, resting her glass on the bedside table. ‘Do you know that?’