The Hands

by Stephen Orr

  No reply.

  Aiden appeared from his room. He noticed his father and walked slowly towards the kitchen. Put his plate on the bench.

  ‘You need to talk to your son,’ Murray said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He thinks it’s okay to be rude to me.’

  Aiden scraped his plate. Put his dishes in the sink and started washing them. ‘Nice chook, Aunt.’ Looked at his brother. ‘Tender, too.’

  Murray shook his head. ‘See.’

  But Trevor was just staring at Aiden. Aiden could feel his eyes, but refused to look at him.

  ‘He’s tellin’ me it’s my fault Chris burnt down the hut.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘Dad!’ Trevor growled.

  ‘Dad nothin’. He’s your son. Teach him a bit of respect. If you don’t …’

  ‘What are you gonna do about it?’ Aiden said. ‘Put me in my room?’

  ‘Aiden,’ Trevor said.

  Aiden looked at his father. ‘You’re the worst of all.’ He dropped his plate into the sink, turned and went outside.

  25

  Trevor looked towards the highway. Gaby’s car appeared over a ridge, grew bigger, slowed and stopped. He approached her window. ‘How are you?’ Kissed her, and their lips lingered.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ she asked.

  A few moments later they were sitting in the car. He told her about Mrs Banville and her son, ruining everything. ‘I thought I better warn you.’

  She remembered. ‘Bitch.’ She could see her looking up as he came in; approaching him and asking if he needed help. ‘Does Harry know?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘Well, I’m just gettin’ the look. No words. Nothing.’

  She stopped to think what this might mean. It wasn’t that they’d done anything wrong, particularly; it wasn’t like Carelyn had known. It wasn’t like anyone had been hurt. ‘Harry is …?’

  ‘Don’t expect too much from them this time.’

  ‘This time?’

  ‘They’ll get over it.’

  But she wasn’t so sure. She feared the boys would see it differently; that she’d become more monster than replacement mother.

  They drove towards the house. ‘Maybe I should drop you and go,’ she said.

  ‘They know you’re coming.’

  ‘Great.’

  Most of the time she drove over the corrugations. ‘We’ve got nothing to be ashamed of.’

  He didn’t respond.

  ‘Have we?’

  They arrived at the house and he helped with her bags. When they went in they found Harry lying on the couch watching The Simpsons. ‘Haven’t you got some homework?’ Trevor asked.

  He sat up, turned and looked at them. ‘I’ve finished everything.’

  ‘Hi, Harry,’ Gaby said.

  ‘Hi.’ He stared at her robe, her scarf, the clear squares of plastic hanging around her neck.

  ‘How have you been?’ she asked, coming around, taking his head in her hands and kissing his cheek.

  ‘Fine.’

  Yanga was sniffing her dress; he licked her shoe.

  ‘Go away,’ she said.

  Go away, he thought, sinking into the lounge. Who says that?

  Trevor said, ‘Gaby’s staying a few nights.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘That okay?’

  No reply.

  ‘Harry?’

  He looked at his father. ‘I suppose.’

  Trevor refocused on Gaby. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She sat down on one of Chris’s food-stained rugs. ‘I like The Simpsons,’ she said.

  No reply. Harry folded his arms and dropped his head onto his chest. He felt like he’d already conceded too much. This woman deserved nothing. Less than nothing. Contempt. She had no opinion about The Simpsons. Another one of her tricks.

  ‘Lisa,’ she said. ‘That’s me as a child.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Trevor said.

  Harry looked sideways at the woman. He wondered whether he should just go to his room. Or perhaps tell her, both of them, what he thought of them. They continued watching the cartoon without speaking. A few minutes later Trevor came over with the coffees and sat down. Gaby turned to Harry and asked, ‘So, what have you been up to?’

  He looked at her and thought: Not much. What about you? What have you been up to?

  ‘We went on a bore run this week, didn’t we, Harry?’ Trevor said.

  No reply.

  ‘That sounds like fun,’ Gaby said.

  He hated the way she played with words. That sounds like fun. Like a four-year-old. That sounds like fun. He looked at his dad. It’s time to go, he thought, but couldn’t do it.

  ‘And what else have you been up to?’ Gaby asked.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like you, Harry.’

  How, he wanted to ask, do you know what I’m like? I’m not your son, you’re not my mother. You’re no one. A body my father drags into the house every few weeks.

  ‘How’s school going?’ she asked.

  No reply.

  ‘You’ll be boarding soon, won’t you? You can stay with me if you like.’

  He met her eyes. ‘You have to stay there,’ he said.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Trevor explained. ‘If there’s another option. It’d save a lot of money.’

  ‘I want to board.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Aiden got to.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You really don’t like me,’ Gaby said, grinning.

  No, he thought. Five years of hell? How could you even think of it? After what you did to my mum.

  Silence. More gags. He dropped his head.

  ‘You’re a funny one,’ Gaby said, sipping her coffee.

  ‘Funny?’ he asked.

  ‘The other day you’re out on your bike, now …’

  ‘There’s a reason.’

  ‘Should we talk about it?’

  He even hated this about her. The way that everything, no matter how shitty, could be talked about, resolved, made good. But life wasn’t like that. Pop was right about one thing: talking didn’t fix anything. ‘What’s the point?’ he asked.

  ‘Perhaps …’

  She stopped short again. Aiden had emerged from his room. He stood in the doorway studying the scene.

  ‘Hi, Aiden,’ she said.

  ‘Harry, wanna go for a ride?’

  ‘Gaby said hello,’ Trevor insisted.

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Okay.’ He slipped on his boots.

  ‘Aiden,’ Trevor repeated.

  Aiden ignored them. Harry was the only one in the room. ‘Ready?’ he asked his brother.

  ‘Aiden!’

  Gaby looked at him and shook her head. Trevor sank into his seat.

  The two boys went out, Aiden squeezing his brother’s shoulder.

  Trevor looked at her. ‘Well …’

  She smiled. ‘You reap as you sow, old man.’

  The shed was hot but he was used to it. He could sit sweating for hours and not notice. He’d wipe his forehead with a linseed-rag; unbutton his shirt and pull out his tails. He had a fan but the motor had fused years ago.

  So he just sat, sanding, using the crease in the paper to sculpt the final folds of skin on Harry’s hand; the little valleys around the fingernails; the webbing between the fingers. Until he decided it was finished. He laid it on the desk and studied it; moved it so it picked up light and shadow from the globe. It looked like a hand: the blood vessels, the wiring between the wrist and fingers.

  Now was the time to take it inside, present it to his son and study his reaction. But, of course, he couldn’t. He’d just look at it and give it back. ‘That’s good, Dad, thanks.’ Or not even that. Just a shrug as he placed it on his bedside table.

  So, he continued. He used the tip of a nail to deepen the criss-crossing li
felines.

  The phone sat beside him. And a scrap of paper with a number and the words: Malboona Rural Equity. The handset was still warm from his conversation with an assistant manager in Perth.

  Yes, I’ve read the letter, and the offer seems generous … my father is against it, and he has the deed on the place … so?

  Trevor Wilkie was at a dead-end. He could feel every gram, every tonne of the farm collapsing on top of him. Every steer, every cow, every calf. Every person: Murray, wheezing, distantly; Fay, clutching her perch; Aiden, who was still a long way from finding his path. And Harry, unsure what to think about anything.

  It was always going to come to this, he thought.

  Since the first time he’d gone to the chemist to fill one of Fay’s scripts. Since he’d said, ‘Yes, I remember you, you came to Carelyn’s birthday … when was it?’ Since that first half-hour they’d spent talking, and the next time, a few weeks later, when they’d gone to the Commercial for a counter lunch.

  They’d gone from friendship to companionship, hand-holding to a kiss; coffee under a pepper tree in her backyard to the twenty minutes it took on the couch. Later, when he’d come to love her more, things had changed. Part, or most, of what he’d sit thinking about in the shed was the impending disaster he’d manufactured. There was no explaining it away or mitigating it. With the rebuilding of a new Trevor came the pulling down of the old.

  She was at the door.

  ‘Finished?’ he asked.

  ‘Yeah. Fay’s a nice old biddy, but she likes to do things her own way.’

  In this case, lavender bags, sewn on the Singer, finished with a ribbon, deposited in drawers full of musty underwear and unwashed shorts.

  She approached the desk and ran her fingers through a carpet of shavings and sawdust. ‘She’s very shaky,’ she said.

  ‘She’s probably just nervous. Living with Murray all these years.’

  ‘Probably. She has that little tic with her head, doesn’t she?’ She demonstrated.

  He’d noticed it and the thought had occurred to him. ‘If it’s Parkinson’s,’ he said, ‘it’s very early, and she’s very old.’

  ‘You should take her to see someone.’

  ‘I will.’

  She took the hand from him. ‘It’s excellent.’

  ‘It’s ready.’

  ‘Why don’t you give it to him?’

  He just looked at her.

  ‘God … they’ll get used to it.’ She studied the hand. ‘Exactly proportional. Nice long fingers, just like his. Come on, we’ll go give it to him.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on.’ She pulled his arm.

  ‘It needs more sanding.’

  How, he wondered, could he give it to him? How could he make up for what he’d done? Reclaim his first lesson with the whip, or the afternoon at the Port Augusta Rock and Roll Muster where they’d all danced to some awful country singer, up to their knees in mud, falling over, picking up handfuls of slosh and throwing it at each other. All before Gaby.

  She leaned against the bench, playing with Harry’s fingers. ‘This is just gonna go on and on,’ she said. ‘It’s silly.’

  ‘It’s my fault.’

  ‘Listen, this is what we do. Get them together, explain everything. You say, Yes, I … we, did the wrong thing, but humans do, don’t they?’ She waited for a response.

  ‘That’d just make it worse.’

  ‘If you explain …’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And then say, We’re sorry.’

  This much he did agree with. That’s what it would have to come to: Sorry. ‘I can’t do it right now.’

  ‘You can.’

  ‘They need a while for it to … sink in.’

  ‘Nonsense. The longer you leave it the worse it will get.’

  He was tightening into a ball, again. Wanted to push her away, to stand, walk out. ‘But I have to,’ he said.

  There was a long wait. She returned the hand. ‘You’re gonna have to face it, Trevor.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m getting tired of all this.’

  Murray still didn’t know. As he sat on the porch he told Gaby about Bill. ‘He walked out of this door to the stables (it’s the shed now), saddled his horse and rode off.’

  ‘He was quite upset?’ she asked.

  He didn’t hear her. ‘He rode all the way to Number one. Then you know what he did?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Let his horse loose. His best horse. Skedaddle. It ran into the desert, never to be seen again.’

  She felt like a child; Murray-the-storyteller; fairy tales; half-truths (although he swore every word was true). ‘I think I know what comes next,’ she said.

  But he didn’t care. ‘Bill couldn’t accept that his boy was a coward. Never had, never would. Couldn’t accept what the school had done, what his neighbours said. He knew John was no coward.’ He tapped his armrest with his fingernail.

  ‘Things might be different today,’ she said, but he still ignored her.

  ‘So, he goes inside the building. He knows what’s in there: food, fencing, wire, ropes …’

  She shook her head. ‘No?’

  She studied his face, but was caught up in a thought.

  ‘Apparently,’ Murray said, ‘there were bolts, screws, nails sitting around, and he filled his pockets. He’d strangled plenty of animals and must have known it wouldn’t be quick.’

  ‘How awful.’

  ‘So … he moves a chair under the rope and puts it around his neck.’

  Aiden walked past without looking at them. ‘What are you up to, Aiden?’ she said, but he just looked at her and kept walking.

  ‘She asked you a question,’ Murray said.

  Aiden stopped. ‘Not much.’

  ‘What’s your problem?’ Murray asked.

  ‘My problem? I don’t have a problem.’ He looked at Gaby. ‘Well, one, really.’

  ‘Grow up,’ she said to him.

  Murray sat up.

  ‘She hasn’t told you?’ he asked his grandfather.

  ‘What?’

  ‘About her and dad?’

  ‘What about ’em?’

  ‘How long they’ve been seeing each other?’

  Murray turned to her. ‘What’s that all about?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s gonna tell you.’

  ‘Three years. Three years.’ He glared at her.

  Murray didn’t know what to believe.

  ‘All those trips to town … what do you think Dad was doing?’

  ‘Aiden,’ Trevor said, appearing beside them.

  Aiden didn’t care. ‘All of that time they were together and none of us knew. Me and Harry, we were just kids.’ He looked at his father. ‘We thought he was off paying bills, or buying wire. We were busy learning. Ancient Egypt. What was the point of that?’

  Murray said, ‘Jesus, Trevor.’

  ‘That’s what you were doing, wasn’t it, Dad?’

  Trevor couldn’t speak.

  ‘While Mum was home helping us.’

  Gaby had had enough. ‘This is not particularly helpful, Aiden.’

  ‘It’s very helpful. You were the one …’

  She waited for Trevor to respond. He dropped his head, lost.

  ‘Typical,’ she said, standing and going inside.

  Murray, meanwhile, was waiting for his son to respond. ‘You better clear this up,’ he said.

  ‘There’s nothing to clear up, Pop,’ Aiden said. ‘They’d been seeing each other behind Mum’s back.’

  Trevor broke away. He went into the house and found her throwing the last of her things into her case. ‘Don’t go,’ he said.

  ‘When you’re ready to deal with it, tell me.’

  She closed the zip and stood up.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Harry emerged from his room. Stood in a shadow, watching. She looked at him but didn’t say goodbye. Walked from the house, nearly col
lecting Yanga with her case. Trevor followed. ‘We’ll go back in. We’ll talk to them now.’

  ‘You talk to them. When someone’s ready to treat me civilly …’

  She threw her case into the back of the car and got in. ‘This is a disaster. You sort it out.’ She started her engine and drove off without even looking at him.

  26

  The following morning Aiden drove the Commodore into the middle of the compound. He used a bucket of Fay’s grey water to wash it. For the next thirty minutes he scrubbed, rinsed and chamoised each gravel-chipped panel until it shone.

  Trevor came out and stood waiting, thinking. ‘I’ll pay you to do it each week if you like.’

  ‘I don’t want to get paid.’

  Not far away, Harry was sitting up his tree. He’d been reading, but had stopped, and was straining to hear. I’ll pay you to do it … I don’t want to get paid … He wondered why his brother was talking to his dad. Perhaps he’d reconsidered.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he heard him say. ‘I’ve decided to take this apprenticeship.’

  Trevor waited. It explained the clean car. The eye contact.

  ‘Right,’ he managed.

  ‘I’ll stay and help for a few months, get everything cleaned up.’

  ‘Why wait? Nothin’ much needs doin’.’

  ‘I’ve arranged to come back for the muster. I can have six weeks.’

  ‘Good.’

  Harry slowed his breathing and shut out every sound, bird, rustle of leaves, so he could hear them. Aiden was off. He’d leave and hardly ever return. He wouldn’t be a home supervisor anymore; a trail bike opponent; a friend; a pain in the arse. He’d just be gone. Like everyone.

  ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen,’ Trevor said.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with that. I’ve been thinking about it. We talked about it, didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you said, You might be better off out of it.’

  Harry wondered how things could possibly function without him. Who’d lubricate the rubbing parts of his family? Tell him about the foul-breathed, nasal-haired teachers at Mercy? Stand up for Chris when Murray got the shits on? Explain improper fractions?

  ‘Gonna stay at their place?’ Trevor asked.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well … that’ll work out okay.’

  ‘The good things is, in a year or so when Harry goes to school, I’ll be handy, to keep an eye out.’