Catherine Jinks TheRoad (5 page)

He felt so bad about it. After Michelle had finally chucked him
(‘Why do
I
have to think of everything? Why do
I
have to do everything? I’m sick of it! I’m sick of the sight of you, sitting around on your arse!
’
)
, Alec had been feeling like ten kinds of shit. He had been chased out into the street by a screaming girlfriend in the middle of the night, completely shell-shocked, and Darryl had taken him in. Lent him a toothbrush and a pair of pyjamas. Gone with him back to Michelle’s place the next morning, where they had collected all his stuff (most of it from the front yard) and where Darryl had given Michelle a piece of his mind, accusing her of being a crazy cunt. Then Alec had moved into Darryl’s third bedroom.

And how had Alec repaid his elder brother for these generous acts? By falling for Janine.

The funny thing was, Alec had never thought much about Janine before moving into her house. His other brother, Mike, had always badmouthed his sister-in-law (though not to Darryl’s face). He’d always said that she was pushy. Whenever Alec remarked that Janine was, as far as he could see, the quietest and most retiring of women, who hardly opened her mouth at family get-togethers, Mike would point out that, while she might come across as shy, she actually thought herself a cut above the rest of them. You only had to look at the house she had made Darryl buy. Brand new, double brick, three bedrooms and a study, ensuite, landscaping, automatic garage door – the works. She had Darryl out all weekend – mowing, fertilising, handwatering, while she went about spending his hard-earned on fancy curtains, bird baths, porcelain dolls (she collected them) and all kinds of other useless shit.

‘She might look like a puff of wind would blow her away,’ said Mike, ‘but I tell ya, mate – she cracks the bloody whip in that house.’

Alec had his doubts about that, because Darryl was a confident sort of bloke with firm views on things. He had to be: he owned his own business. After moving into Darryl’s house, Alec quickly saw that his instincts had been right. Darryl was no henpecked husband, and Janine was no ball-breaker. It was more complicated than that. Darryl wanted to be a success, and in many ways he was. But as far as his house and garden were concerned, he wasn’t quite sure what success should look like. He relied on Janine to tell him what to do with his floral plantings, his wallpaper, his dining room suite. He trusted her taste – her instincts – because she came from Adelaide, and was a trained florist, with a diploma. Everyone agreed that Janine had a bit of style about her. Even with a two-year-old kid in tow, she always looked neat and tidy. She was a little woman, small-boned, with nice legs and clean skin, blonde highlights, narrow shoulders, not much chest. She favoured delicate gold jewellery; her clothes were carefully chosen and beautifully laundered. She wore mostly pale colours – pinks and mauves, primrose yellow, cream, beige, stone, saltbush grey – and she smelled good.

She was a terrific housekeeper and a reasonable cook, but Alec had thought her a bit dull at first. A bit bland. He’d thought that fucking her must be like fucking a stick of chalk. Gradually, however, he had begun to change his mind. It had started with the realisation that the kind of house Janine kept, with its spotless surfaces and nice smells and pleasant atmosphere, took more than just a knack. It took relentless organisation, a huge amount of work, which Janine tackled without making a big thing of it. He admired her for that. He also began to see that while she wasn’t constantly well groomed – while she did have mornings where she slopped around in a dressing gown with her hair in her eyes – she remained all soft around the edges, like a rabbit. And she did have a sense of humour. Alec didn’t catch it for a while, because it was so subdued, so deadpan. Occasionally he would see her eyes glint, or her lips twist. Occasionally she would drop a casual remark, in her little bird’s voice, that would make him do a double take before he started to laugh.

Gradually, he had found himself waiting for her to come home, watching her as she moved around, helping her to lift Ronnie. And then – bang. It had happened. And now he was well and truly fucked. Because there was nothing he could do about it, was there? Except move out. Even if Alec had been willing to betray Darryl, he couldn’t exactly compete with him. All Alec could boast was a ten-year-old hatchback, a few garbage bags full of clothes, and a truckie’s job. And his looks, of course – no one could deny that he was the best looking of the Muller boys, though he wasn’t very tall, and was starting to lose a few hairs off the top. Even Janine had said something about wishing that Darryl had Alec’s eyelashes. But what good did it do, having the longest lashes and the thickest, curliest hair in the family, when Darryl had a name, a business, a house, two cars, a wide-screen TV, a massive DVD collection, a two-year-old son and his grandfather’s old short-wave radio set? Alec had nothing to offer that could even come close. He knew that. Hell, he accepted it.

He didn’t know what he would do if Janine ever
did
turn around and look him in the eye, and start unhooking her bra. He liked to imagine it – he often did when he was lying in bed – but fantasy and reality are entirely different things. He was old enough to realise
that
. Anyway, if Janine ever started to behave like a
Playboy
centrefold, she wouldn’t be Janine any more. That was the whole point. She was so pale and pretty and wholesome, like something off the Beatrix Potter plates that she kept in her lounge room; she had charmed Alec for that very reason. He didn’t
want
her to start strutting around in red satin teddies and fish-net stockings. At least . . . well, not very often.

No. He was stuck, all right. He loved her but he didn’t want to spoil her marriage. He was ashamed of himself but he didn’t want to leave her house. He wished to be the most important person in her life (as she was in his) but had no desire to ruin the current arrangements, which suited him very well.

It was obvious, though, that he couldn’t go on living with her – not if he didn’t want the shit to hit the fan. He had an inkling that she was fond of him, that she liked having him around, but her attitude could change if she got scared. He just wasn’t sure how she really felt. Sometimes she could be a bit flirty, but only in a sister-in-law kind of way. At other times she treated him like her two-year-old, scolding him gently for getting tomato sauce on his good T-shirt, or telling him to comb his hair. Maybe, he thought gloomily, I’m just a little brother to her, the way I am to Darryl.

Heaving himself off the bed, Alec shuffled into the bathroom, peeled the paper strip off the toilet seat (‘Sanitised for your convenience’) and emptied his bladder. Then he washed his hands. The face that stared back at him out of the mirror was creased, scrubby, sullen. It looked at home among all the exposed brick and mouldy grouting in that bathroom. Janine’s bathrooms (both of them) were light, airy and spotlessly clean, full of pink porcelain and fluffy white towels. They also smelled, subtly, of Janine.

He was so infatuated with her that he even found himself mooning over things like her almond bath salts and her electric toothbrush.

But he would have to get a grip on himself. He knew that. The trouble was, he didn’t have much else to think about. For the last three years, his plans had been all tied up with Michelle. They had talked about buying a house together, taking a trip to Fiji, maybe getting married and having kids. The usual sort of thing. Michelle had taken the lead, and Alec had drifted along behind her, agreeing with everything she suggested in the certain knowledge that if Michelle was around, he would have the ability to make all those dreams come true. They had been her dreams, rather than his dreams, but he had liked them. He had liked having goals more substantial than saving for a car; he had liked being part of a recognisable unit. Before meeting Michelle, he had been drifting around, living sometimes with his dad, sometimes with his mates, skiving off to Adelaide occasionally, organising the odd pool tournament, working at all kinds of part-time jobs: removalist, cab driver, bar tender, bricklayer’s assistant. In other words, his life had been a dog’s breakfast, and he had rarely looked ahead further than his next pay-day.

Michelle had changed all that. She had taken him in hand – given his life some structure. But she had grown tired of her caretaker’s role. That business with the washing – that had been the last straw as far as Michelle was concerned. When she had returned home from a three-week trip to Adelaide and found a pile of stinking laundry (which Alec had forgotten to hang out) sitting in the bottom of the washing machine . . . well, she had turned on Alec. Decided that he was a ‘useless waste of fucking space’. Cut him adrift, so that he was once more without goals, without a tether, without anything particular to think about, or plan for. No wonder he had become obsessed with Janine. She was obviously filling a sudden gap in his life. He had latched onto her because there was no one else to latch onto.

Just because he loved her on the rebound, however, didn’t mean that it wasn’t going to be hell, moving away from her. Setting up on his own again. As a matter of fact, Alec wasn’t sure that he could make it on his own. Mike and Dad were still living together in the old house, which only had two bedrooms. Would they object, he wondered, if he cleared the junk off the back veranda and moved in there for a while? The back veranda wasn’t very well insulated, but it
was
enclosed. He could seal some of the cracks, hang a few thick curtains, borrow a fan and a heater, buy or beg a large piece of carpet offcut. He could make it comfortable.

But everyone would ask why, of course. If he moved into his own place, no one would question that; it would be the mature thing to do, the sort of thing most people would do, after living with the family for a spell. But why move out of your brother’s nice spare bedroom into the lousy, draughty back veranda of your father’s house? What kind of sensible reason could you give for doing that?

I’ll say I’ve been feeling guilty, Alec decided, as he threw himself back onto the bed and picked up the TV remote. I’ll say it’s time that Darryl and Janine and Ronnie had the house to themselves. Because it’s true – it is time. I’ve been there two months now. They must be getting sick of me.

But even as he practised these announcements in his head, he couldn’t help imagining what Janine’s response might be. ‘Oh no,’ she might say. ‘Oh no, Alec, we love having you here. You’re so good with Ronnie. It’s great to have a live-in babysitter. Anyway, you can’t sleep on that awful veranda. You’ll catch your death.’

Dreamily, Alec began to indulge in further visions of what Janine might do if he threatened to leave. Suppose he insisted? Suppose she began to cry? Suppose he asked her why she was crying, and she wouldn’t say, and he pressed her, and she asked him not to make her say it. He must know how she felt but it was wrong to make her say it . . .

Having nothing else to do, Alec jerked off. Then – after a decent interval – he turned on the television, flipping through the channels until he stumbled upon a cricket match.

He fell asleep to the drowsy sound of Richie Benaud’s commentary, his head still full of Janine.

Harry died during the night. Grace lay awake for hours as Nathan muttered and thrashed about in his sleep; around one a.m. she heard shuffling footsteps pass her room. She heard heavy breathing, the back door creak, the screen door slam. Then nothing for a while.

She got up (carefully, so as not to wake her son) and met Cyrene in the hall. He was returning to his own bedroom, carrying a torch.

‘What’s wrong?’ she whispered.

Cyrene blinked at her. He had thrown a brown raincoat over his striped pyjama top and baggy old track pants. His teeth were out, so his voice was distorted.

‘Harry’sh gone. I put him in de shed.’

‘Oh no, Cy.’ Grace covered her mouth. ‘God, I’m sorry.’

He shrugged. ‘Poishin,’ he said. ‘Godda be. Arshenic, maybe? Rat bait? Alwaysh dush the job.’

‘Y’reckon?’

He nodded. She said goodnight. Back in bed, she thought about Cyrene, and how he had taken Harry into his room, wrapped him in a blanket, laid him on newspapers. The dog had been covered in shit and vomit, but Cyrene hadn’t tried to clean him up. He hadn’t done anything much, like give the dog mustard and water or any other kind of home remedy that would make him puke. When Grace had suggested it, Cyrene had shaken his head. ‘Too late,’ he’d declared.

And now Harry was gone. Poor Cyrene. All he had for company were his dogs – what would he do without them?

The next morning, while they dressed together, she broke the news to Nathan. ‘Harry was really sick,’ she explained. ‘He ate something and it killed him. Something poisonous.’

‘Oh.’ Nathan swallowed, but didn’t cry. ‘Where is he?’

‘In the shed. We’ll bury him later.’

‘Where?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Is Bit back?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Can we look for ’im?’

‘After breakfast.’

Cyrene was still in his room. Grace suspected that he hadn’t slept much. But he appeared while she and Nathan were eating, drawn perhaps by the bubbling kettle, the hiss of frying eggs, the smell of hot toast. His face looked more slack and weary than usual.