Cosmo Cosmolino (25 page)

Dumb as fish, the three faces swallowed the story. They released their pent breath in a grand, lingering sigh. Then, in unison, as if choreographed, the two women lowered their heads on to the table and drooped there, limply, while Ray, his face mantling with envy and admiration, sat gazing at his brother. Alby rested on his oars. He let the table drift and swivel on a tide of satisfaction.

‘So now you know,' he said at last. ‘Now you know what happened to my guitar.'

The women stirred, and raised their heavy heads. Their eyes were glazed, their features relaxed and smooth.

‘How
awful
,'
said Janet. ‘How absolutely
terrible
.'

‘Still,' said Ray, arranging the dirty plates in a square. ‘You can hardly complain. You had it coming to you.'

Janet and Maxine looked sharply at him, then at the table. Somebody's tongue clicked.

‘And what about the girl?' said Maxine, presently.

‘What girl?' said Alby.

‘Yes,' said Janet. ‘The so-called “great big bustling blonde”. What became of her?'

Alby laughed and turned his face away, but Ray's brow knotted and he shifted sideways on his chair, to realign himself with his brother.

‘Trust you,' he said. ‘Trust you women to completely miss the point.'

Alby let it pass. He laid his hand on Ray's shoulder.

‘I'm broke,' he said. ‘I haven't got a brass razoo. The last cash I had went on hiring that truck. I'm throwing myself on Raymond's mercy. He's my brother—he'll look out for me, even if he does secretly think I'm a ratbag and a hoon.'

He jostled Ray's shoulder back and forth, and with the rough movements Ray's pack-ice began to melt and break up. His cheeks flushed. His mouth broadened and split into a smile.

‘Come upstairs now, Alby,' he said. ‘Come up to my room. I've got something for you. Something to show you that you won't believe.'

The last blur of the story's spell cleared from Maxine's eyes; but her movements, as she rose to her feet, had a feminine languor she did not know
she possessed: trailing her fingers along the tabletop, she glided to the window. She rolled up the sash. Cold air and traffic noise flooded in.

‘What sort of furniture have you actually got, Alby?' she said over her shoulder. ‘Out there in your truck?'

Her tone was almost melodic. Ray saw Alby's head come up in response: he was
programmed
,
where women were concerned. Ray glanced at Janet. She pulled a comical face. He scowled and stumped away to the stairs.

‘In my truck?' said Alby vaguely. The girl had run to the shop for him, she had cooked his breakfast: to humour her, he stood up and sidled along the table to the window. What was there to say, about his furniture? It was everything he owned, that was all. A table, a bed, a wardrobe. Some kitchen chairs. Maxine made room for him, and he leaned out. The pink had returned not only to her face: it extended in a long streak down the side of her neck and into her jumper collar. She slid her eyes towards Alby. ‘Janet's got one of those banjo things,' she murmured. ‘Like in your story. It's under her bed.' She rubbed her cheek against the cracked leather of his sleeve; the tips of her crazy hair scraped across his ear. He glanced down at her, curious, puzzled. What did she want? He breathed in a strangely pleasant, woody perfume that her clothes and hair emitted. Wedged there in the window frame,
with their backs to the room and their heads and shoulders hanging out over the street, the two of them were encased in an unexpected privacy.

Alby had forgotten how pure the winter air was, down here. It sizzled in your nose like that green stuff in a Jap restaurant. Your head felt cleaner. You could breathe, and think. A tram went clanking loosely across the intersection, dinging its chime. A pretty sound. Polite. Trams might be cumbersome, but they had manners. The sky had started to cloud over. Still, low down there was a big yellow stripe. It was a pleasant morning. A couple of crows were gargling on a lamp-post. Pity about the house. It needed major work. Only a dill would have expected it not to have changed. The wonder was that it was still here at all. All those rooms, though. The joint was empty. There was no hurry to move on. Give the girls a hand to sling some paint and Polyfilla round. Janet had had the stuffing knocked out of her; but she seemed pleased to see him. So did the woman beside him in the window, pressing her arm warmly against his. She had muscles. Handy with a roller. Might be a job to sort out Raymond. He was touchy. He still needed kid-glove treatment. Couldn't handle women. Basically he was what Janet used to call
a sensitive plant
.
Alby couldn't help himself. He grinned. He chuckled. Maxine looked up at him. She smiled. Boy, was she weird. Wacko. The eyes of someone who at some stage had fried their brains
with acid. Maxine would have heard the angels sing, for sure. But he liked her. He did. She was game. She was all right. He unplugged himself from his cosy spot beside her, and turned around.

Janet had pushed the breakfast dishes aside and was sitting quietly at the table with her head still wrapped in a towel, reading yesterday's paper. She raised her face as Alby sat down beside her, and though he was still part dazzled by the street, he noticed the wrinkles of her upper lip, the marks that make women look as if they have been whistling all their lives instead of speaking. But she smiled at him, and they vanished. Surprised by tenderness, he shoved his hands into his pockets and tilted his chair, feigning nonchalance.

‘Stop tipping that chair,' said Janet absently. ‘You'll break the legs off it.'

‘Sorry.' He planked it down flat, snipping the lining of his cheek and tasting blood. He wanted to laugh, it was so silly to be here: they spoke to each other like an old married couple. In a rush of affection he curved his arm to put it round her.

But from the top of the house a cry broke out. Feet crashed along the upper hall and bungled down the stairs. Maxine drew her head in from the window and scanned the room. Her forehead cramped. Ray had got away. This was it. She braced herself.

He came hurling and flinging into the room, his eyes starting out of his head, his arms barely keeping
up with the rest of him—and when he dived to a halt in the middle of the carpet and crouched there staring and speechless, Janet saw that in his hand he was brandishing the twig cradle. He had such a grip on its little frame that she started to her feet with a gasp of warning; but Ray was after Maxine, and spotting her in silhouette against the open window, he bared his teeth and advanced on her as slowly and deliberately as if no one else were in the room.

‘Where's my money?' His voice was swollen. ‘What have you done with it?'

He thrust the cradle at Maxine. His fingers were forced between the struts. Maxine went white. So there would be violence. This she had not foreseen. Freckles floated to the surface of her skin. Her hair boiled round her head. She put her hands behind her and raised her chin.

‘What is it?' whispered Alby. ‘What's he got?'

‘Shhhhh.' Janet leaned forward, breathless.

Ray bent his knees and flexed his hands. They heard the first twig snap.

‘I know,' he said, very low and dangerous. ‘You lost it. You put my money on that game.'

‘Yes,' said Maxine, with dignity. She tried to keep her voice mellow, so as not to antagonise him. ‘I took the money, Ray, and I gave it to the game.'

‘Maxine,' hissed Janet. ‘You
didn
'
t
.'

‘What?
What?
'
said Alby.

‘I'm sorry,' said Maxine. Her voice rose a little, and cracked. She cleared her throat. ‘I know I did wrong, in your eyes. I should perhaps have asked you first. I lost patience. But it was in a very good cause. One day you'll understand. And I did leave you the cradle. I believe it was a fair swap.'

Fair.
Fair
.

Suffocating with rage, Ray looked down at the thing in his hands. His fingers, tangled in it, kicked like small legs. He closed his eyes and jerked his hands apart. It burst. He tore the fragile ribs out of their sockets. The curved rockers resisted: he wrenched them away. He crushed the whole thing back to a bunch of sticks, and flung them on the floor at Maxine's feet. They bounced on the ugly carpet, strewing themselves, and lay still.

He stepped back. His eyes blurred. Maxine was only a shape. The window behind her was open. He saw a silly bearded head in a bike helmet slide past. A woman shouted from a car in a language that sounded like barking: how heow
how
.
He let out a slow breath.

Very quietly, Maxine got down on to her hands and knees. She began to scrape the pieces of twisted wood towards her. As she worked, she turned her face up to him, and spoke.

‘Now you've done it, Ray' she said. ‘Now you've gone and spoilt
everything
.'

‘
Me!
'

He rushed at her again. She reared up on her knees to save her fingers, and in a passion he trampled the scraps of twig with his steel-toed boots: he danced on them heel and toe like a sailor; his tantrum shook the floor and made the dirty cups jig in their saucers. Flinching, Maxine waited, holding her hands in the air beside her face; and when Alby grabbed Ray by the shoulders and dragged him away, she dived forward again and earnestly raked the shattered twigs into a fresh pile.

‘The cradle was my best thing ever, Ray,' she went on in a dreamy voice, brushing and sweeping, plucking splinters from the carpet's coarse weave. ‘It came from an inspiration. It came from a dream. I'll probably never make anything that good again. I've learnt a lot from knowing you, though. I'm not quite sure what—but I must tell you that I'm grateful.'

‘You're a loony,' shouted Ray. ‘You're a nutcase. They used to burn people like you.'

Down on all fours like a servant, Maxine laughed. They all heard her. It stilled them. Janet stooped for a piece of twig under the table, and brought it to her.

‘Thank you, Janet,' said Maxine. She sat back on her heels, and smiled.

‘Where's the money now?' said Janet.

‘Hawkwind's got it,' said Maxine. ‘Hawkwind flew out last night.'

‘Who the hell's Hawkwind?' said Alby, grappling
with Ray. ‘What's going
on
round here?'

Maxine had all the willow pieces now, and stood up, holding them flat between her crossed palms. ‘The game's dead, I'm sorry to say,' she said. ‘Hawkwind got the last of the money. And he
deserved
it, Ray. For
trusting
.'
She stepped up close to him, and scorched him with a reproachful look. He writhed in Alby's grip. ‘I've lost all my illusions about you—but just the same, I do forgive you. I forgive you with all my heart.'

She stood on tiptoe and went to kiss him on the lips, but he lashed his head away, and her mouth grazed his cheek.

‘I'll kill you,' he ground out between his teeth. ‘I'll kill you for this. I will.'

‘No you won't,' said Maxine. ‘I may have had the wrong idea about you—but if you'd been
that
sort of person, I never would have liked you in the first place.'

She stuffed the broken twigs into her tracksuit pockets and backed towards the door, keeping her eyes fixed calmly on Ray's convulsing face. ‘And now,' she said, ‘I'm going to leave you. I feel much happier, since we worked it all out. I saw some jonquils sprouting down near the back fence. I'm going to pick them for the house; and then I'm going to start work.'

She gave a merry little wave and a smile, and swung away to the door. They heard her rubber soles
tread lightly over the kitchen lino, thud twice on the verandah, and patter across the concrete. Ray uttered a strangled roar; but Janet darted to the door and slammed it. She leaned on it hard.

‘How much was it, Raymond?' said Alby, shaking him and letting him go.

‘A grand,' panted Ray. ‘A thousand dollars, I had. In cash—notes, rolled up. She came into my room and stole it. She
took
it. She took it and she left that thing behind—her
art
.'

‘Crikey,' said Alby. ‘A thousand bucks. This is serious.'

Janet clapped her hands over her mouth. She started to giggle.

‘You don't even care!' said Ray, stabbed. ‘I worked for that money! I slaved for it—
I
didn't sit on my arse all day tapping on a typewriter—look at my blisters!'

Janet laughed out loud. She stuffed her fingers into her mouth. ‘Sorry—sorry, Ray,' she said; but she could not stop. It was a kind of hysteria.

‘I'm going out there,' raved Ray. ‘I'm going to drag her out of that shed. She won't get away with this.'

‘Face it,' said Alby. ‘Face it, Raymond. She already has. Calm down, mate.' He gripped and squeezed his brother's shoulder. ‘She shouldn't have done it—it's lousy—it stinks. But you've got to bloody calm down.'

‘It's all right for
you
!'
shouted Ray. He threw
off Alby's hand and rushed about the room, butting the walls with his shoulders. Janet had never seen anyone in such a frenzy: she gnawed at her nails: it was wonderful.

‘How long was it up there in your room?' said Alby. ‘All that money?'

‘Weeks.
Months
.
I
saved and saved—I hardly spent a cent.'

Alby punched him in the arm. ‘Haven't you ever heard of
banks
?'
he roared in sudden temper. ‘You might just as well have buried the money, as leave it upstairs in a flamin'
sock
.
What's the matter with you? And what was she doing up there in your room, anyway?'

Ray froze, shocked. Then he seized his head in both hands and began to pace up and down.