I Am the Messenger (27 page)

“Come inside,” I tell him. Soon after, I hear the car door open and slam and the scuffing of his feet behind me.

Ritchie gets the couch, Marv takes my bed, and I decide to stay in the kitchen. I tell Marv I wouldn’t have slept anyway, and he’s quite gracious in accepting the bed.

“Thanks, Ed.”

Before he goes in, I take my opportunity, walk inside the room, and retrieve all the cards from the drawer next to the bed. The Tatupu stone is also there.

In the kitchen, I go through them, reading them all again, though the fatigue in my eyes makes the words swap and turn and juggle. I feel eroded.

In moments of awakeness, I remember the diamonds, relive the clubs, and even smile about the spades.

I worry about the hearts.

I don’t want to sleep in case I dream them.

Tradition can be a dirty word, especially around Christmas.

Families all over the globe get together and enjoy each other’s company for all of a few minutes. For an hour, they endure each other. After that, they just manage to stomach each other.

I go over to Ma’s place after an uneventful morning with Ritchie and Marv. All we did was eat leftovers from the night before and play a few games of Annoyance. It wasn’t the same without Audrey, and it didn’t take long for us to pack up and for the other two to leave.

The usual agreement with my family is for a twelve o’clock meeting time at Ma’s place.

My sisters are there with their kids and husbands, and Tommy’s shown up with a stunning girl he’s managed to pick up at university.

“This is Ingrid,” he introduces her, and I must say, Ingrid is calendar-worthy. She has long brown hair, a lovely tanned face, and a body I’d let myself dissolve in.

“Nice to meet you,” she says. Lovely voice, too. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Ed.” She’s lying, of course, and I decide not to go along with it. This year I simply don’t have the strength.

I say, “No you haven’t, Ingrid,” but I remain pleasant as I say it. I’m almost shy. She’s too beautiful to get annoyed with. Beautiful girls get away with murder.

“Oh,
you’re
here,” says Ma when she sees me.

“Merry Christmas, Ma!” I shout excitedly, and I’m sure everyone picks up on the sarcasm in my voice.

We eat.

We give presents.

I give Leigh’s and Katherine’s kids a hundred airplane rides and piggybacks, or at least until I can’t stand up anymore.

I also catch Tommy with his hands all over Ingrid in the lounge room. Right near the famous cedar coffee table.

“Shit—sorry,” and I back away from the room.

Good luck to him.

By quarter to four, it’s time to go and pick up Milla. I kiss my sisters, shake the hands of my brothers-in-law, and say a final goodbye to the kids.

“Last to get here, first to leave,” says Ma, blowing out some cigarette smoke. She smokes a lot at Christmas. “And he lives the closest,” which nearly makes me throw my temper from my skin and hurl it at her.

Cheating on Dad,
I think.
Insulting me at every turn
.

I want so much to verbally abuse this woman standing there in the kitchen, sucking in smoke, and pouring it out from her lungs.

Instead, I look right at her.

I speak through the warm mist.

“The smoking makes you ugly,” I say, and I walk out, leaving her stranded among the haze.

On the front lawn as I leave, I’m called back twice. First by Tommy, then Ma.

Tommy comes out and says, “You doing all right, Ed?”

I walk back. “I’m doing fine, Tommy. It’s been a crazy year but I’m doing fine. You?”

We sit on the front steps, which are half in shadow, half in the sun. As it happens, I sit in the darkness and Tommy sits in the light. Quite symbolic, really.

It’s the first time I’ve felt comfortable all day as my brother and I talk and answer each other’s brief questions.

“University okay?”

“Yeah, the marks have been good. Better than I hoped.”

“And Ingrid?”

There’s a silence before we can’t contain it anymore. It breaks between us and we both laugh. It feels very boyish but I’m congratulating him, and Tommy’s congratulating himself.

“She’s not bad,” he says, and genuinely I tell my brother that I’m proud of him—and not for Ingrid. Ingrid means nothing in comparison to what I’m talking about.

I say, “Good for you, Tommy,” plant my hand on his back, and stand up. “Good luck.”

As I walk down the steps, he says, “I’ll call you sometime. We’ll get together.”

But again, I can’t go along with it. I turn and speak with a quietness that surprises even me. I say, “I doubt you will, Tommy,” and it feels good. It feels nice to emerge from the lies.

Tommy agrees.

He says, “You’re right, Ed.”

We’re still brothers, and who knows? Maybe one day. One day, I feel certain, we’ll get together and remember and tell and speak many things. Things bigger than university and Ingrid.

Just not soon.

For now, I walk across the lawn and say, “Bye, Tommy, thanks for coming out,” and I’m satisfied with just one thing.

I’d wanted to stay on that porch with him until the sun shone bright on both of us, but I didn’t. I stood up and walked down the steps. I’d rather chase the sun than wait for it.

As Tommy goes in and I leave again, Ma comes out.

“Ed!” she calls.

I face her.

She walks closer and says, “Merry Christmas, all right?”

“Same to you.” Then I add, “It’s the person, Ma, not the place. If you left here, you’d have been the same anywhere else.” It’s truth enough, but I can’t stop now. “If I ever leave this place”—I swallow—“I’ll make sure I’m better
here
first.”

“Okay, Ed.” She’s stunned, and I feel sorry for the woman standing on the front porch of a poor street in an ordinary town. “That sounds fair.”

“See you later, Ma.”

I’m gone.

That had to be done.

I drop in at home for a quick drink and go to Milla’s. When I get there, she’s waiting eagerly, wearing a light blue summer dress and holding a present. She also holds an excitement across her face.

“For you, Jimmy,” she says, handing me the big, flat box.

I feel bad because I don’t have a gift for her. “I’m sorry,” I begin to say, but she shuts me up quickly with a wave of her hand.

“It’s enough that you came back for me,” she says. “Are you going to open it?”

“No, I’ll wait,” and I offer the old lady my arm. She takes it and we leave her house, heading over to my place. I ask if we should get a cab, but she’s happy to walk, and halfway there, I’m not sure if she’s going to make it. She coughs hard and struggles for air. I imagine myself having to carry her. She makes it, though, and I give her some wine when we get there.

“Thank you, Jimmy,” she says, but she sinks into the armchair and falls asleep almost straightaway.

As she remains there, I come back a few times to check she’s still alive, but I can always hear her breathing.

In the end, I sit in the lounge room with her as the day dies outside the window.

When she wakes up, we eat turkey from last night and some bean salad.

“Marvelous, Jimmy.” The old lady beams. “Just marvelous.” Her smile crackles.

In normal circumstances, I’d prefer to shoot someone who uses the word
marvelous,
but it suits Milla down to the ground. She wipes her mouth and mutters “Marvelous” several times, and I feel like Christmas is complete.

“Now.” She slaps the arms of the chair. She seems much more alive now that she’s slept a little. “Will you open your present, Jimmy?”

I give in.

“Of course.”

I go over to the gift-wrapped box and lift the lid. Inside is a casual black suit and an ocean blue shirt. It’s probably the first and last suit anyone will ever buy me.

“You like?” she asks.

“It’s great.” I fall in love with it instantly, despite knowing I’ll rarely, if ever, get a chance to wear it.

“Put it on, Jimmy.”

“I’m going,” I say. “I’m going.” And once I’ve disappeared to the bedroom to put it on, I find an old pair of black shoes to match. The suit doesn’t have big shoulders, which is a relief. I’m excited to get back out there to show her, but when I come out, Milla’s asleep again.

So I sit.

In the suit.

When she wakes up, the old lady says, “Oh, that’s a
nice
suit, Jimmy.” She even touches it to feel the fabric. “Where’d you get it from?”

I stand a moment, confused, before realizing that she’s completely forgotten. I give the old lady a kiss on the cheek.

“A beautiful woman gave it to me,” I say.

The old lady’s marvelous.

“That’s lovely,” she says.

“It is,” I agree.

She’s right.

After we’ve had coffee, I call a cab and go home with her. The driver’s actually Simon, the boyfriend, earning some double time on Christmas Day.

Before I take Milla inside, I ask him to wait. It’s laziness, I know, but I’ve got the money today and can afford the trip home.

“Well, thanks again, Jimmy,” Milla says, and she walks shakily to the kitchen. She’s so frail, yet so beautiful. “It’s been a great day,” she tells me, and I can’t help but agree. It has. It hits me that all along I thought I was doing this old lady a favor by spending Christmas Day with her.

Walking out again in my casual black suit, I realize it’s the opposite.

I’m the privileged one, and the old lady will always be marvelous.

“Back home?” the boyfriend asks me when I return to the cab.

“Yes please.”

I sit in the front seat, and the boyfriend initiates conversation. He seems intent on discussing Audrey, though I wish he wouldn’t.

He says, “So you and Audrey been friends for years, huh?”

I look at the dash. “Probably more than years.”

He comes at me. “Do you love her?”

I’m taken aback by the frankness of his question, especially so early in the dialogue. I come to the conclusion that he knows it’s only a short drive. He wants to maximize outcomes quickly, which is fair enough. He asks again. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Now, don’t start on me, Kennedy. Do you love her or not?”

“Well, what do you think?”

He rubs his chin and says nothing, so I continue.

I say, “Whether I love her isn’t the question at all. Whether she loves you is what you want to know.” My voice trounces him. I’m all over the poor guy. “Isn’t it?”

“Well…” He trips about as he drives, and I see he deserves at least some form of an answer.

“She doesn’t
want
to love you,” I tell him. “She doesn’t want to love anyone. She’s had a rough life, Audrey. The only people she ever loved she hated.” I get some flashbacks of when we were growing up. She was hurt a lot, and she vowed it wouldn’t continue that way. She wouldn’t let it.

The boyfriend says nothing. He’s handsome, I decide. More handsome than me. He has soft eyes and a solid jaw. The whiskers on his face give him that male-model look.

We’re silent till we pull up back at my place, and the boyfriend speaks again. He says, “She loves
you,
Ed….”

I look at him. “But she wants you.”

And that’s the problem.

“Here.”

I pass him the money but he waves it away.

“On the house,” he says, but I try again, and this time he takes it.

“Don’t put it in the till,” I suggest. “I think you’ve earned it for your own pocket today.” We share a moment before I get out.