Black Teeth (39 page)

I say, ‘What?'

Rudy winds down his window fast like he can't breathe, reveals a black and frozen street.

‘It's…'

Beth smiles into the cabin, wrapped up in a puffy asexual jacket, the innocence in her eyes restored.

‘Hiya! What are you guys doing?'

‘Anthony lives here,' Rudy excitedly points to my flat.

‘Wow,' says Beth, gawking at me, at the coincidence. ‘I had no idea. I was just visiting a friend and now I'm heading up to the shops.'

Rudy says, ‘Really?'

He can't possibly fall for this. But he can, because it's her.

‘Is everything okay?'

‘Nah, everything's good.'

‘Can I get in? It's freezing.'

She opens the back passenger door and sidles inside. ‘Good and warm in here.'

‘Yeah,' says Rudy, overjoyed she's experiencing this warmth with us.

‘Rudy was just saying…' I turn to give her a pointed face. ‘…that maybe tonight isn't the right night.'

‘I didn't say that,' Rudy corrects.

‘But you need time to think, though, right?'

He wants to refute this too, to save face in front of Beth, but also he wants a reason to go home. He consults with the shiv in case it knows what to do.

‘Is that true, Rudy?' She's the stern teacher again.

‘I don't know.' And he's the recalcitrant student.

‘Perhaps the best thing to do is to go there and see how you feel then.'

‘Can you come?' he asks, his eyes pleading.

‘Sure,' Beth says. ‘Sure, Rudy. I can come.'

‘You too,' Rudy looks at me. The man strangely silent in the passenger seat. Who right now is shaken by how much he and Rudy have in common.

‘We can't come. Someone might see us.'

‘The windows are fogged,' Beth says, helpfully. ‘No one can see in.'

‘Someone might see your licence plate.'

‘They were going to see that anyway.'

She peers back with those innocent eyes, not dropping her act. Rudy considers it resolved.

‘And also…' He's back to analysing his toothbrush, the death it foretells. ‘I'm not good at driving right now.'

Beth says, ‘I can drive.'

She seems remarkably cheerful given where she's offered to drive
to
, but Rudy doesn't pick up on behavioural anomalies, even when he isn't on his way to a home invasion. He and Beth swap seats and without any more talk the engine turns over and the heater roars and the stereo comes alive.

A gentle, almost beatless track. Bongos and a man singing.

I know this song. ‘In the Air Tonight'. It's like a funeral march. So loud that the speakers distort on the heavier notes.

We motor east through the fluid streets and when the song ends it starts again. The CD player in this car still works and it's programmed to repeat. I let it play. I do not adjust the volume.

67

We pull over a block short of Suttle Street. Phil Collins has felt it coming in the air tonight about a thousand times since we left Kensington, while tonight's air itself hasn't offered much more than a frigid wind and a moon that glows behind the clouds like it's ashamed. We're silent: Rudy slumped in his seat, toying with that thing that isn't a toy. Beth has been following my minimal directions and praying like fuck, I suppose, that Rudy doesn't pike. For my part, I've been preparing for when Rudy asks me how I know where Tyan lives. But also, I know he won't ask.

I tell him, ‘You can walk it from here, I reckon.'

His face is one of such wide-eyed expectancy it's like he's waiting for me to tell him where we are. Then he grins.

‘It's like you're my mum and dad.'

My response is a snort and a nod. I guess it does seem that way. Mum behind the wheel, Dad giving directions, baby-Rudy warm in the backseat on a freezing winter's night, watching out the window as the moon follows them home. Maybe it brought back memories.

‘Which is which?' I ask. A joke that Rudy doesn't get. But he chuckles because chuckling is how you forget what you've come to do.

‘The thing is, we're not your mum and dad, are we, Rudy?' This is Beth, talking into the rearview.
We're not far off
, I say to myself. Rudy's parents didn't want him. They saw him as a burden and raced to abandon him. Now here we are, just as treacherous, ushering him to his doom.

Beth says, ‘Your mum and dad are dead.'

Not even that can kill off Rudy's desperate grin. Stay on the lollercoaster. Don't let it stop.

I'm like, ‘I'm not sure I could pull off high heels, Rudy. What do you think?'

Rudy guffaws with the back of his throat, mouth wider than it needs to be. Beth turns to him, bassfaced.

‘Are you ready?'

In return she receives a wide smile like he doesn't know what she means but he's too polite to inquire.

‘Rudy?'

Big shrug. ‘I don't know.'

‘Anthony can walk you to the door if you like.'

He's just as surprised as I am.

‘Yeah. That's…That'll be good.'

‘I can't do that.'

‘We'll be quick.'

‘Just to the door, Anthony.' She beams.

‘If I get spotted then I'm screwed.' I try to communicate using just my tone of voice that if I'm spotted then she, too, is screwed.

She matches my tone.

‘It's. Dark.'

‘Pleeeeeeeeease,' squeals Rudy, like we're talking about an ice-cream from the ice-cream truck.

‘Please, Anthony,' says Beth. She stares me down. ‘For Rudy.'

I can barely see out these windows, but what I can see is quiet and suburban and deserted. A weeknight in workaday country.

‘No,' I say to her, sharply, then rotate to the effervescent child in the back seat. ‘It's not too late to back out, Rudy. If that's what you want.'

‘Mmmm,' Beth confirms, to my surprise. She rotates too. ‘It's okay if you want to give up.'

Rudy lowers his head and he's silent. Then he appears to laugh at nothing. Then another big shrug.

Beth is thoughtful.

‘I guess the question is, what does your father mean to you?'

I stop nodding along. The boy chuckles again, a titter quelled by the steel in Beth's eyes.

‘For some people, they don't care about things like that. Family. Some people don't care about the blood in their veins. Maybe it's not important to you, Rudy.'

‘It
is
.'

‘Well, that's what you need to ask yourself. Do you feel that bond? Do you have that sense of
belonging
?'

She doesn't have to look at me for me to know she's mocking my words. And while I know that, I'm listening as keenly as Rudy.

‘Does it mean something to you? If it does, then I don't know if you have a choice. Are you your father's son?'

Now she nods, like she wants a response.

‘Yes,' Rudy says, meekly.

‘You can't just say it, Rudy. You have to do it. Or else, hey… Maybe Glen Tyan isn't such a bad—'

‘
No
,' he interrupts. Absolutely sure of that one thing.

‘Then it sounds like you know what to do.'

Rudy swallows using all the muscles in his neck. He turns to the car door and peers at it like he's been given his punishment and he's to administer it himself. Then in a quick scurry he mumbles, ‘Okay bye,' and gets out.

The door slams shut and his figure lingers there through the frost of the window. In this private silence I want to say something. Can't think of what.

She speaks, only softly, only after it's apparent that this is the end.

‘Luiks like ah am th'arsehole ye think ah am.'

I don't know what to say to that, either. So I'm like, ‘You should go. I'll catch the train.'

She looks at me, almost worried for me.

I say, ‘Better the car's not seen.'

And I'm out the door too. The Volvo pulls away and Rudy and I watch it go. I wonder if
I
have some inspirational words for Rudy.

Nothing.

I just lead the way.

68

We trudge the cold path onto Suttle Street and the house looms ahead like the structure itself holds a shiv behind its back. We are siblings, Rudy and I. Twin sons of the orphanage. On approach to repair our orphan pasts.

My gloves and scarf keep me warm enough but Rudy's only insulation is his jumper and tracksuit pants. He's shivering, though maybe not from the cold. I walk ahead and he comes on with his bald head bowed and I decide now that Rudy won't get another word of encouragement from me. If he can't do it, if he can't so much as get inside the house without a push, then that, I believe, is a suitable line to draw. Tyan will just have to live with it. If that's what happens, then what happens next is I take Rudy home.

This resolution is put to the test when we reach Tyan's gate. I wait for Rudy to turn the handle, don't gesture or speak, just wait. Rudy seems to recognise that this is a threshold moment and his moon-face shines hot, wants me to tell him what to do; considers me, it seems, more than the house or the gate. But he reaches out, gently depresses the metal lever and we pad to the driveway. It's too dark to spot our reflection in the police glass and that's enough to convince me that it's too dark, now that we're off the street, to be spotted by sleepwalking neighbours.

Along the crumbled drive I turn back every few steps to be sure Rudy is there. He is, sharpened toothbrush at the ready, glaring at every black window because the terrace on Grand Street doesn't have windows like this, and also because of who's inside. The rose
bushes appear especially thorny in the dark and while I try to keep my footsteps as quiet as possible I know that Tyan can hear them, is listening out for them.

Can he tell that there are two of us?

We pass the garage, move away from the patio entrance, partly because I don't want to demonstrate that I know my way around, also because it's actually the smart approach. The lawn is quieter, darker, a less likely direction—Rudy has to arrive in the belief that we are ninja. But then, on the far side of the weatherboard shed, painted a colour I can't determine for all the darkness but which is flaking off in handfuls of hard dandruff, Rudy's pattering steps come to a stop and I turn to see why.

He says, not whispering, ‘Anthony?'

I do whisper. ‘Yeah?'

‘What's, like…?'

‘Oh,' I hush, looking around at nothing to see. ‘I just…I'm not sure where…Is this the way?'

‘I mean…' Rudy lowers his voice now, steps closer. ‘Like, what's actually…?'

‘What?'

He looks down at his toothbrush. ‘Yesterday…I found a pen in front of my house. And like, there was a crack in the glass in the window.'

I shrug, big so Rudy can see it. ‘Yeah?'

‘Also,' he continues, ‘I got phoned by Fortunate Insurance today. They asked if I wanted to buy the policy. And I said I already had, and they checked and said I hadn't.'

‘Right…'

‘Also, I heard your phone. Yesterday. Upstairs. At my house. Is that…did it?'

Despite what this means—that I've failed and that I've failed Glen Tyan—what I'm thinking is,
Good for you, Rudy
. Finally a note of suspicion as the entire world conspires against you.

‘Glen Tyan is waiting. He's got a gun. He knows you're coming.'

All that planning and commitment. Done away with in a whisper.

‘How…? How?' The question is all-encompassing. Rudy's teeth chatter in the cold.

‘I told him.'

His eyes bat. He tries to understand. He bites his lip as he tries. Bunches the skin around his eyes.

‘Why?'

What I say next I don't whisper because I want Rudy to hear.

‘He's my dad.'

And in response the full moon springs from its hiding place and glows all over Rudy, who steps back, cocks his head a fraction of a degree but otherwise registers nothing.

‘But…'

‘And my name's not Anthony. It's Jason. Jason Tyan.'

‘Ummm…' Still blank-faced, imitating the moon.

‘And I don't sell insurance. And I was never in Severington. I never met your dad.'

‘You're his…your father?'

‘Yes.'

‘But he…'

‘I know.'

‘He
lied
—'

‘He thought Piers was a killer—'

‘He
wasn't
.'

‘I know.'

Cloud sucks up the moonlight again and Rudy's face dissolves into darkness. In a moment my eyes will adjust, but all I see now is a black figure stuck against a grey lawn.

‘So what do we do?'

After a silence, he says:

‘Let's go.'

‘You mean, let's go home?'

‘Nuh. No. Let's go.'

‘Inside?'

‘Yeah.'

‘You're sure?'

‘Yeah.'

‘All right. That's okay. But you have to know, if we go in there…' Steam from my mouth gathers around my head and seems to hang. ‘He's got a gun.'

‘I know.'

‘There's only one way this can end.'

‘That's okay. I know. It's okay.'

Beth was right. Her stories about Rudy. It's what he's come here for. I nod, grasp his shoulder. All the pain of his existence buzzes through my hand and we are resolved.

‘Okay then, matey. Let's go.'

He doesn't hesitate, leads us to the rear patio, seeing better than me. He raises the doormat and takes out the key. The hanging pots squeak gently like a horde of frightened mice.

Rudy whispers, ‘Can you open it?'

He offers the key. I shake my head.

‘I'm sorry, matey.'

He waits, still. I can't hear him breathe, can't see his face, can feel his apprehension but that might be my own.