Two Man Station

by Lisa Henry

  Jason wasn’t comfortable with the idea of sending Taylor to someone else’s house overnight when he was on call either, but that was his next best option. His only option, probably. He needed a retiree who had a flexible routine and a spare room, or a parent who could chuck a mattress on their kid’s floor for Taylor. Jason had resisted looking so far though, since it felt like an admission of failure. Intellectually he knew it was no different than relying on Sandra or on Kane’s parents, but emotionally it felt bigger than that.

  Hadn’t he promised Alana he’d look after their son?

  Jason scraped Vegemite onto Taylor’s toast. The knife clinked against his wedding ring.

  It wasn’t fair on Taylor. Not with the hours he worked. Maybe it was time to look into transferring, to going somewhere big enough that he could plant himself in an office and work eight to four, Monday to Friday for a couple of years at least. So that he could drop Taylor off at school and pick him up again. So that he wouldn’t get called out in the middle of the night. So that he could be there for his son.

  He screwed the lid back on the Vegemite, and swallowed down the ache in his throat. His son was the most important thing in his life, and today he’d been three hours away when Taylor had needed him. That wasn’t right.

  He poured Taylor half a cup of apple juice from the fridge and topped it up with water, hoping it wouldn’t be too much for his upset stomach, and then carried the cup and the plate of toast into Taylor’s room for him.

  Taylor was already asleep.

  Jason left the juice for him in case he woke up, and carried the toast back into the kitchen. He was eating it over the sink, the crumbs bouncing against the steel, when he heard footsteps on the back stairs. Moments later, someone rapped on the frame of the screen door.

  “Sarge?”

  Gio. Jason wiped crumbs off his shirt and headed to the back door to open it. Gio was still in uniform. Finishing up the shift that Jason hadn’t.

  “I’m going to do a patrol through town,” he said. “Did you need anything from the chemist for Taylor?”

  Jason tried not to let his surprise show. “No, we’re good, I think. Thanks.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m rostered an eight to four tomorrow,” Jason said. “I won’t be in.”

  “Okay,” Gio said again, nodding. “Do you want me to change my shift, or still work my two to ten?”

  “I’ll keep you on your two to ten,” Jason said. “But if you let Comms know you’ll be on call tomorrow morning in case a job comes in?”

  “No worries, Sarge.” Gio stepped back out of the doorway. “If you think of something you need from down the street, give me a call.”

  “Thanks,” Jason repeated, and closed the door after him.

  Gio Valeri was a puzzle. If Jason didn’t know his history, he wouldn’t have hesitated to let his guard down around him and try to build a real friendship instead of just the basic courtesy they needed to be able to work together. Gio seemed like a decent guy—which was probably what his former colleagues down south had thought right up until the moment he’d stuck a knife in the back of one of them.

  Jason moved into the living room. From the front windows, he could see across the yard to the rear of the station. He watched Gio walk across the scrubby grass. He had his phone out, and was texting someone. Jason wondered if it was a family member, or a friend—did Gio have any friends?—or if it was Richard Hanna from Baxter Mine. He’d given Gio his card before Gio and Jason had left in a rush.

  Jason knew very little about Gio Valeri. But you kept your distance from a guy like that, right? You made sure the snake wasn’t in striking distance when you inched open the cupboard door. Jason remembered the bead of venom that had slid down the side of Gio’s boot like a shining teardrop. Or, if you couldn’t keep your distance from the snake because it was your bloody job to deal with it, you made sure you were protected. That was common sense.

  Jason sat down on the couch and turned the TV on. He flicked through the channels until he found the cricket, although he didn’t actually give a fuck about the score, or even who was playing. The drone of the commentary was soothing.

  He put his feet on the coffee table and rolled his shoulders in a vain attempt to get rid of some of the day’s tension, and closed his eyes.

  When he woke up later it was dark, and Taylor was cuddling into him, a little furnace pressed tightly against his side. His head was jammed under Jason’s arm, like he’d burrowed in like a tick. Jason shifted carefully, and Taylor yawned and grumbled himself awake.

  “How are you feeling?” Jason asked him.

  “You were gonna make me toast,” Taylor said, his face still screwed up as he blinked around the room. “What happened to my toast?”

  Well, his appetite was back. That had to be a positive sign, right?

  “I’ll go and make you some now,” Jason said. He tightened his arm around his son briefly. “With Vegemite?”

  “Durr,” Taylor said with an accompanying eye roll, which was probably a yes.

  They’d talk about his attitude if he kept the toast down.

  By his third week in Richmond, Gio felt like maybe he was finding his feet. He could finally locate everything around the station without having to ask Sandra every time—like telling him where the envelopes were kept was such a hardship for her—and was starting to recognise a few of the more familiar faces around town. And not just the grubs either. He knew the publicans now, the woman at the bakery, the man at the newsagent, and of course Vicki, the ambo. She was divorced, in her late thirties, with a crooked smile and a riot of frizzy blonde hair that was usually trying to escape her bun. Gio spent most of his shifts, particularly those on a Friday or a Saturday, shadowing her around town, where he could make sure she didn’t get into any shit. Or, if she did, that he was right there to dive in and assist. In an ideal world, nobody would punch the paramedic who was only there to help them, but it wasn’t an ideal world, was it?

  “You stalkin’ me because I’m a sheila, Gio?” she asked him one night at the pub as she strapped the hand of some drunk who’d managed to put his hand through his beer glass.

  “I’m stalking you because you work alone,” he told her, “and you’re surrounded by drunks.”

  “Fair enough.” She shoved the guy’s arm towards him. “Keep this elevated.”

  He was settling in, Gio supposed, or giving up the fight or something. It was a little hard to tell the difference. For a while he continued to avoid Sophie’s calls—shift work was a good excuse for that—but he sent her a photograph of sunrise one morning, the river ablaze with light.

  Not quite the hellish dystopia I was picturing, she sent back and whatever walls he’d put up in the last few months crumbled, and they were suddenly communicating again. It was good. He’d missed it.

  I’m never going to get laid in this town, he sent her one night.

  Talk to the hand, she sent back. Yours, not mine.

  He fell into a routine with work, and at home. In the afternoons when he wasn’t working, he’d sit out on the front veranda to catch the breeze, a mug of coffee in one hand and a book in the other. Catching the breeze also meant catching the flies though, and Gio learned very quickly to check there were none swimming in his coffee before he took a gulp.

  Often Taylor was riding his bike in circles in the scrubby yard, or digging holes, or poking around with a stick, eking out the last of the golden light before the sun dipped below the horizon. Then he’d climb up the back stairs of his house, and the screen door would slam in the frame. Sometimes, if the breeze was right, Gio could hear the murmur of voices from the Quinns’ house as they talked over dinner, and the scrape and clink of cutlery across plates.

  There was obviously no wife in the picture. Not with the way Taylor hung around at the station at all hours if his dad was working. Not with the conversation Gio overheard one afternoon when he was starting his shift and Sergeant Quinn was finishing.

  “I’m no
t his mother, Jason,” Sandra said, her usual brusque tone tempered with something like pity. “I’m not yours either.”

  Gio froze with his hand raised to knock on the sergeant’s office door. He hadn’t noticed it was ajar.

  “Sandra, I know it’s not ideal, but—”

  “You need to make other arrangements,” Sandra said, cutting him off. “Babysitting Taylor is not part of my job description.”

  Gio slunk back to the dayroom, where Taylor was working on his homework and chewing on his pencil. Taylor scratched his head, and a small shower of red dirt rained onto the table. Jesus. Did he roll in it? Gio probably didn’t want to know the answer to that.

  It was Vicki who filled him in later that evening, when he stopped in at the ambulance station to see if she wanted him to pick up a coffee when he went past the truck stop. She elected to come with him instead, switching on her handheld radio in case she got a call, and climbing into the passenger side of the police LandCruiser.

  They grabbed their coffee and an early dinner at the truck stop, sitting at the scratched laminate tables in the rundown café area, and watching the slow parade of trucks and cars and caravans pass through into the night. Vicki tore open three paper sachets of sugar and stirred them into her coffee.

  “Thought it was Jason’s turn to work tonight,” she said, her spoon scraping against the side of her paper cup.

  “He asked to swap,” Gio said. “I don’t mind.”

  “Right,” Vicki said, thin mouth turning up in a smile. “Because you’ve got nothing better to do with your evenings than come to work?”

  “I actually don’t,” Gio said, picking at his chips.

  “Oh, please. I saw that backpacker girl flashing her tits at you last night.” Vicki snorted. “You could pull without even trying.”

  Gio didn’t know what to say. His hesitation said it all, he supposed.

  “Jesus,” Vicki said at last, and slurped at her coffee. “The poor women of this town. Two single cops, except you’re not buying what they’re selling, and Jason’s still in love with his dead wife. And they were relying on you guys, Gio. We don’t have any proper firemen!”

  Gio jolted with surprise, both for the way that Vicki had picked up on his orientation and just rolled with it, and for the way she’d dropped the fact that Sergeant Quinn was a widower into the conversation as bluntly as she had. “Jason’s still in love with his dead wife.” But tact wasn’t exactly Vicki’s strong suit. Gio had figured that out within minutes of meeting her.

  “I didn’t know that,” he said.

  “Four years now,” Vicki said, and then paused. Her forehead crinkled and she stirred her coffee again. “No. Five. Five years.”

  Outside, hydraulic brakes hissed as a B-double pulled off the highway.

  Vicki pursed her lips and seemed to shake herself awake. “I’m gonna order some more chips. Want some?”

  “I’m good.” He watched her head back to the counter, and checked his watch. It wasn’t even 7 p.m. yet. Gonna be a boring shift.

  Famous last words.

  His hands were shaking. Delayed shock, or adrenaline dump, or whatever. It had just been a pub fight. Nothing Gio hadn’t dealt with before, except this time he’d been on his own. He’d taken an elbow to the jaw before he’d managed to spray the guy—and copped a secondary exposure himself—and he’d barely managed to blurt into the radio that he needed help before he’d been on the ground.

  What a fucking mess.

  Gio sat on the examination table in the hospital. His eyes were still stinging, and his jaw was swollen. Outside, he could hear someone complaining loudly that he didn’t need a bloody doctor, thanks very much. It sounded like Gio’s new best mate, Barry. Barry was sixty years old if he was a day, and full as a tick, but he’d helped Gio hold his assailant down—while the security guard had yelled at the guy’s mates to back the fuck off—until Sergeant Quinn had arrived sixteen minutes later.

  Sixteen minutes was a long fucking time to be rolling around on the floor, eyes burning, while some asshole tried to grab for his gun.

  The curtain rattled on the rail as it was pulled back.

  “How are you feeling?” Vicki asked for what must’ve been the hundredth time. “Put your head back.”

  Gio held a towel around his neck as she began to flush his eyes out for the third time since arriving at the hospital. “Is Barry okay?”

  Vicki snorted, and squirted more water into his eyes. “He’ll be getting free drinks out of this story for months. You’ve made his year.”

  Gio smiled despite himself.

  “Wait here. I’ll go and track down the doc. See if he’s ready to give you the okay to get the hell out of here.” The curtain rattled again as she left him.

  Gio’s hands were still shaking. He curled his fingers into loose fists to try to control it. In his pocket, his phone started to buzz. He pulled it out, struggling not to drop it, and squinted blearily at the screen. A private number. “Hello?”

  “Giovanni?” a gruff voice asked.

  A stranger’s voice. Gio tensed, damp fingers slipping as he gripped the phone tighter. “Who’s this?”

  “This is Senior Sergeant Gordon,” the man growled. “District duty officer.”

  Gio winced. Fuck. Fuck his life. “Sorry, sir.”

  “That’s alright.” His voice was still a growl. “You’ve had a rough night. I’m calling to check how you’re travelling. You still at the hospital?”

  “Yes, sir.” He’d been injured on a job. The DDO in Townsville had to contact him. He’d probably have a call from the inspector tomorrow, and the HSO, and whoever the hell else needed to climb on the officer welfare bandwagon and pretend they gave a fuck. Just so Gio couldn’t sue them later down the track.

  “Well, you’re talking, so I’m guessing your jaw’s not broken.”

  “Just bruised.”

  “Take the rest of the night off, and as long as the doctor says.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Righto, then. Welcome to the district, and try not to get flogged again.”

  “I’ll try, sir.”

  The DDO grunted and ended the call.

  It was almost 5 a.m. by the time Gio made it back to the station. He was tired, and his whole body ached from his impromptu wrestling match. He headed straight to the armoury, to get rid of his Glock and taser. Sergeant Quinn had already seized his empty canister of spray, because of course there’d be an investigation. Just what Gio needed. Fuck. He’d barely made it through the last one. How many people would use this as an opportunity to fuck him up completely? To get rid of him, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong. Not back then, and not tonight, but he was a troublemaker, wasn’t he? A whistle-blower. And despite the lip service all the bosses paid to being fair and ethical and transparent, Gio knew they wanted him gone.

  He locked his weapons up, and then headed for the shower room. His locker was beside Sergeant Quinn’s. Gio couldn’t get the key in the lock. His hands were still shaking. He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against the cool metal surface of his locker door.

  Fuck.

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  What was it Sergeant Quinn had said that time?

  “This isn’t the Coast. You don’t have twenty other coppers right behind you ready to back you up.”

  Tonight wasn’t the fucking issue. Not the fucking issue at all. The issue was that two months ago, Gio had waded into a brawl on Orchid Avenue, and there should have been at least three other coppers behind him. Coop, his partner for the shift, and Carlos and Sarah, who’d turned up at the incident at the same time. By the time Gio had realised they weren’t backing him up, it had been too late to turn around.

  “What are you bitching for?” Coop had said later, flashing his wide, easygoing smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “You had it under control, mate. Don’t be such a drama queen.”

  That was the trick with those arseholes, wasn’t it? They never did anything, said anythin
g, that they couldn’t later argue that Gio had misinterpreted. They’d swear blind that Gio had never been in danger—and maybe he hadn’t, but who knew better than coppers how quickly a situation could turn to shit?—and that if he was offended by being called a drama queen, well, he was just being oversensitive. Coop said stuff like that to everyone. It was only a joke. What was Gio’s problem that he couldn’t take a joke?

  “Gio?”

  Gio spun around quickly, his heart thumping, to see Sergeant Quinn standing beside him. He hadn’t even heard him approach.

  “Are you okay?” The sergeant’s gaze tracked over him, lingering on his bruised cheek.

  Gio curled his trembling fingers around his keys. “Yeah, Sarge. Just tired.”

  Sergeant Quinn held his hand out. “The key sticks sometimes.”

  It probably fucking didn’t, but Gio lifted his arm and dropped his bundle of keys into Sergeant Quinn’s hand anyway. He shuffled aside, leaning back against the sergeant’s locker as the sergeant slid the key into the lock and turned it. The door grated and squealed as Sergeant Quinn tugged it open.

  “That’s got it.” Sergeant Quinn’s mouth quirked in a slight smile, and the skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled. “Finish up here and head on home.”

  Gio fumbled with his utility belt. “Do you want help with the paperwork, Sarge?”