Eyrie (17 page)

He gazed out at the retro Minis, the 4x4s, the muscle cars ahead in the line. Behold, the miracle of hire-purchase and lax lending. Clearly he wasn’t the only one to feel empty. What a pageant of consolation this line of vehicles was, what a spiritual mystery conveyances had become.

He angled the poxy little A/C vent his way. This hangover wasn’t just making him maudlin, it was bringing on mortal thoughts – not helpful. A blast of icy air would have been welcome. But from this triumph of Korean engineering? Not happening.

Listen, she said cautiously after a long silence. Now I’ve got the car, I’m gunna visit Carly.

That’ll be nice, he said, sensing it coming.

Yeah, she said. I’m going up Saturday week.

Please, no, he thought – don’t ask me.

I was gunna say. If maybe you wouldn’t mind.

Keely averted his gaze. His temples felt scorched. He didn’t want this.

It’s way the hell out towards the hills, I know, she said.

Keely ran his dry tongue across his teeth. It was maddening, this obscure, relentless sense of obligation. It wasn’t his fault they’d lost the house and moved away from Blackboy Crescent. You couldn’t hold Nev responsible for a heart attack. Doris had her own children to see to; hadn’t she done all she could? This was getting ridiculous.

He said nothing, gave her no relief.

I know you’ve never met her or nothin. But Kai’s always funny about it. If you go he’ll be orright. It’s his mum, Tom.

He shifted in his seat, angry now.

Like I said, she murmured. Don’t feel obliged.

Keely knew he didn’t have the balls to say no. He wondered if she could see it in his face, if she’d known it all along. He drew a defeated breath, put a hand on her thigh from sheer opportunism and she didn’t flinch.

Not a problem, he said with all the irony he could muster.

God love ya, Tom.

No chance of that, he thought, taking his hand away ruefully.

The bell rang. The schoolyard filled instantly with darting, leaping bodies.

There he is, he said too brightly.

Kai emerged alone from the mob with his distinctive stiff gait and air of self-containment. He was solitary, oblivious, preoccupied. When he saw his grandmother waving from the car window he halted and stared.

God, she said. I could eat him up. Look at him.

Hyundai, said Kai as he finally opened the rear door. Smaller than a Volvo.

And quite a bit cheaper, said Keely.

The boy looked at him warily.

I told you about the beard, said Gemma.

It was better before.

I agree, said Keely. But she made me.

Come on, you heathen. Get in.

The boy pursed his lips and slid in alongside the trash on the back seat. Hyundai, he said again. Hy. Un. Dai.

It’s Korean for Nana, said Keely.

T
he message on the machine was curt. Doris sounded agitated, testy. He belted down some pipe-sick water and called her.

What is it? he asked, looking out across the sound as the southerly began to ruffle the sea.

The islands looked insubstantial as soufflés. The cement-works dredge ploughed on across the bank, pillaging shell for its lime, ripping sea grass up by the tonne, leaving a filthy plume in its wake. They’d recently secured another decade’s lease. Surprise, surprise. And a few hundred metres inland their stack rained particulates on the roofs of five thousand homes. With an EPA licence, no less. Business as usual. Democracy at work.

Mum, what’s the matter?

I was about to ask
you,
Tom.

You’ve lost me.

Faith called.

How is she?

You should know. You spoke to her last night.

Me? Last night?

She’s upset. So am I.

Keely felt a twinge of dread, said nothing. He had not called his sister last night. After seeing Gemma in the early evening he hadn’t spoken to anyone at all. Had he?

She said you were awful, said terrible things.

Keely had been sick all day. But not as ill as he felt this minute.

Tom?

I’m here.

What’s happening?

I’ll call her now.

She’s on a plane. Leave her be.

Shit.

What’s got into you?

I don’t know, Mum. I’ll fix it up.

She’s your sister. She doesn’t deserve this. You think because she works with money she doesn’t have a conscience? She’s a good person – you have no idea.

I don’t remember, he confessed.

That she’s your sister, that I’m proud of her?

Calling her, Mum. I don’t remember calling her.

Which speaks for itself.

Keely leant against the wall, took the sting right through him. He deserved it.

Have you cooked yourself dinner?

It’s three thirty-five, Doris.

Don’t dare take that tone with me.

Sorry.

I’ve got some mussels. More than I can eat. I should know better, but when you look at them in the shop, you see the handful it takes to feed yourself, it looks pathetic, like it wouldn’t feed a sparrow.

I know, he said. Cooking for one, it’s science over instinct.

Dreary, that’s what it is. No wonder all these Claremont ladies eat out. Divorce is the only thing keeping the hospitality industry afloat.

God, he thought in wonder. She’s moved on already. Like some sort of moral amazon, she’s sucked the poison from the wound, wiped her mouth and resumed the fight; it’s bloody sainthood.

I’m sorry, he said. I’ll do whatever it takes.

I’ll be there at five, she said. I’ll call you when I’m outside.

Mum, I’ll catch the train.

No, I’ll be there directly.

He put down the phone and ran the shower. His face in the mirror was ailing. His cheeks were lumpy with ingrown hairs, stippled in places by shaving rash. He thought he preferred the preacher with the hurtin heart to the feeble wonk looking back at him. Doris probably hadn’t even bought the mussels yet; she’d be on her way to the Boatshed Market to get them now. What a rube he was; she was brilliant.

After he’d scraped his chin and dressed, while he waited for Doris to do her thing, he called Faith’s landline, left a message on the machine. His apology was heartfelt but after a few moments he could feel himself rambling. He sounded like a drunk, a loon. He tried to wind it up. But lost his nerve and rang off mid-sentence.

The moment he hung up he wished he hadn’t called. She’d think he was barking. He’d only made it worse. He stared at the carpet, felt the reflux of panic in his throat. When the phone rang he grunted and was relieved to hear it was only Doris.

H
er back garden smelt of frangipani and citronella and in the evening light white cockatoos roamed in raucous packs above the treetops of the neighbourhood. On the sea breeze came the waft of cut lawns, barbecue smoke, leaf-blowers. The proximity of the river was like something on the skin, a pleasant clamminess that brought to mind tree roots, undercut banks, stranded jellyfish. The house’s rear deck was deep and broad. The little table hardly occupied a corner.

Keely sopped up the last of the tomato sauce with crusty bread and sat back, conscious of being observed. There was no wine on the table.

It’s a nice house, this, he said sincerely.

Still, you’ve always disapproved.

Not true.

In ten years you’ve never had a good word for it.

Working-class prejudice.

Oh, rubbish. That’s middle-class anxiety.

Probably.

You had a place just as nice yourself.

True.

In a street of old lumpers’ cottages – go on, say it, make the distinction.

Which cost about the same, I know.

Tom, love, you have such romantic ideas about the working class.

Oh, come on, Mum.

Really, it tickles me.

Annoys you, actually.

Well, yes. I’m not as sentimental.

You couldn’t get out of Blackboy Crescent fast enough. Could you?

I didn’t have a choice, if you recall.

Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound so judgemental.

Really? The further you got from Blackboy Crescent, the more you wore your blue collar on your sleeve. And I know that sounds mangled but you know what I mean.

Keely winced. Because he did. Also because it was true.

And don’t tell me about mixed metaphors – I
am
one.

Just never thought there was any harm in being proud of my origins, he said. State housing, state schools.

But why wear it like a badge of honour? As if it’s
your
achievement rather than the result of government policy? The way all these people here seem to think the state is swimming in money because they
invented
iron ore, planted it, watered it. It’s sheer luck. And it’s luck that got you to university free of charge. You’re the product of an historical moment, a brief awakening.
Tom Keely: My Struggle
– it doesn’t wash, love. You were generationally privileged. You’re just another sulky Whitlam heir.

Mussels were never so expensive, he said by way of concession.

I’m not saying you didn’t work hard.

Mum, all I was actually saying, if you remember, is that you have a nice house.

Well, it’s too big, and as you can see I can’t keep up with the garden.

Geez. People’ll think you’re renting.

At this there was an indulgent silence between them.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d still be there, she murmured. Blackboy Crescent. If things had worked out differently.

Really?

I don’t know. It was your father who was restless, not me. We would have travelled, I think.

Where?

Central America, the Philippines. The liberation theology thing – we were in that together of course. Couldn’t you just see him as a worker priest?

An evangelical with a wife and two kids – why not?

Well, everything smelt different then. A sense of possibility. Vatican II and all.

Think of it, he said. Nev as a Catholic, Billy Jack takes the Pope’s shilling.

They both laughed. It was good. Better.

Anyway.

It really is a nice house, Mum. You bought it with hard work, righteous work. There’s nothing to be guilty about.

I know that. I’m comfortable with that.

Okay. Good.

I’m just worried about you.

I know.

And I suspect you’ve come to enjoy the rewards of defeat. Shopping in despair’s boutiques.

The law degree I applaud, Doris. The psych thing has become a nuisance.

So I’m told.

He pushed his chair back. It growled across the boards.

I saw her yesterday, he said. Harriet, I mean.

Don’t try to sidestep me, Tom. Last night, along with every other vile thing you had to offload, you told your sister you were already dead, and that they’d be steaming you out of the carpet for weeks.

Fuck, he said, despite himself. No way.

Perhaps she imagined it. Maybe she’s lying.

He sat there.

And you don’t remember, she said. Or you’d rather not recall.

The sun was gone. Night had fallen without him noticing. Keely gripped his knees and let mosquitoes nip at his ankles.

Tom, I think we should talk about this.

Gemma’s got a grandson.

You said.

He lives with her. In my building. There’s something about him.

Tom, I’m talking about you. Right now there’s something about you, she said, sliding a business card across the sauce-flecked table. I’d like you to go and see someone. I’ve made an appointment. You can call my doctor in the morning and he’ll give you the referral.

You’ve been busy, he said.

Want something done, ask a busy person. This bloke’s good. No scented candles, no hand holding, no bullshit.

And, listen, thanks for paying the phone bill. I meant to say. You shouldn’t have.

I prefer you to be contactable. And you’re changing the subject. Will you go?

Look, I appreciate all these recommendations, Mum, but really.

I’ve fixed it. If it’s the money you’re using as an excuse.

Gemma’s boy, he’s very economical with his facial expressions. Almost affectless.

Tell me you’ll go.

I thought you were asking.

I am asking.

When an angel asks something of you, isn’t it kind of like a command?

What’re you talking about? Angels don’t have arthritis – or a thing for Leonard Cohen.

So. Guided democracy – that’s what it’s come to in the People’s Republic of Keely?

Just tell me you’ll go.

He nodded. He wondered if, strictly speaking, a nod was actual consent, whether it constituted a promise.

*

They washed the dishes together and cleaned up the messy remains in a wary détente. He could sense his mother stepping around him tenderly, soothing him however she could, compensating for her little moment of intervention. Keely tried to spend the intervals between neutral passages of small talk ordering his thoughts, attempting to unpick strands and settle upon one memory, one idea, a single resolution, but there was a rising, teeming noise of thoughts in him like the uproar in a rainforest at the approach of anintruder.

This boy, Doris was saying. Gemma’s grandson. How old is he?

Kai.

Kai
?

I know, he said guiltily.

I spose he could be Jet.

Or Koby.

Listen to us, she said. What’s he like?

Strange, really. Smart. Very self-possessed, a bit withdrawn.

How old?

Six.

Maybe somewhere on the autism spectrum? Or just bright and lonely.

I wondered. You know, Asperger’s, something like that.

Or foetal alcohol syndrome, she said. But he wouldn’t be so bright. His mother?

Bandyup.

Drugs, I imagine.

He nodded.

The boy’ll have a caseworker, said Doris. He’ll be in the system, poor love.

He’s so serious.

So were you.

Yeah, and I turned out alright.

Has he fixed on you? This boy?

Imagine how it’s been for him.

She nodded. Please be careful, Tom. For his sake. And yours.

I am, he said. I will.

Suds splurged and gargled down the drain. Doris looked at him bravely, almost all her scepticism hidden from view.

Up close, where the sunspots and loose flesh showed, you could see she was an old woman. It never ceased to come as a shock. All the girlish hair, the sleekness and gravity. You forgot she wasn’t young anymore. She was older than, well . . . Julie Christie. And had she stayed in Blackboy Crescent she might have been a great-grandmother now.

Is she beautiful?

What?

Gemma. Is she beautiful?

Well, he sighed. You can certainly see she
was
.

Doris finished wiping down the benches and straightened the cloth too carefully for his liking.

Attractive, isn’t it, lost beauty?

Mum. Honestly.

Men like it. Gives them confidence. Then there’s the added
frisson
of damage. They can’t resist.

Are we looting old tutorials here or speaking from experience?

She glanced at him as if she’d been struck.

I’ll drive you to the train.