Ironbark (9 page)

He's chopping wood.

In every single photo, he's chopping wood. Well, okay, in a couple he seems to be
sawing
wood, but wood features prominently, that's for sure. Wood and Richie. Richie and Wood. It's a marriage made in heaven, it seems. And the other recurring photographic motif is shorts, a singlet and muscles the size of basketballs.

It is incredibly impressive and unbelievably crap.

A hand lands on my shoulder and multiple bones consider going the stress fracture route.

‘Ah, you've noticed my collection,' says Richie. Noticed? It would be hard to miss since it covers the entire wall. What I like, though, is that they're on the wall opposite the counter, presumably so man-mountain can check himself out when business is slow. Like all the time. ‘That's my little hobby. Woodchopping.'

‘More than a hobby, Richie,' chips in Granddad in this brownnosey voice. ‘You're out on the mountain practising every spare moment you've got. And you've won how many titles?'

Richie grins and points to a photograph showing him and another colossus with their arms around each other. ‘Not as many as I would have if this guy hadn't been around. Do you know who this is? Do you?'

I realise the question is directed at me. I can't understand why, since there's no reason on God's sweet earth why I would recognise
any
dude with an axe and muscles the size of punching bags, unless he was a homicidal maniac in a well-known horror flick.

‘Give me a clue,' I say.

‘How about the greatest woodchopper of all time? One of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen? Over one hundred and eighty world titles and more than a thousand championship wins? An Australian icon. A legend. A legend.'

‘Ricky Ponting?' I say, but I suspect you couldn't find this guy's sense of humour with a compass and a road map.

‘David Foster,' says Richie, confirming my suspicions and clapping me on the back with one hand. Actually that does hurt. ‘The great David Foster.' He sighs, and for a moment I think he's going to wipe away a tear. ‘Doesn't live far from here, you know,' he continues. ‘You should see his place. It's a shrine to woodchopping. Has all his cups and trophies and ribbons from thousands of events all over the world. It's amazing. It's amazing.'

‘Wow,' I say. ‘I'll definitely go see that. Later in my stay. I wouldn't want to get the highlight over with first, 'cos everything that follows would just be an anticlimax. And my doctor has told me not to get over-excited. Not to get over-excited.'

As soon as I say it, I feel ashamed. I'm being too smart for my own good. Just because the guy's a cop and a bit slow doesn't give me the right to mock him. It
nearly
gives me the right to mock him . . .

Richie gives a little laugh, but I catch his eyes and they aren't smiling, let alone laughing. There's a glint that some might call steely. It occurs to me that old Rich is a strong candidate for the position of worst-kind-of-enemy-to-make-in-a-small-town. Even without that consideration, I feel bad. I want to apologise for being an excellent facsimile of a horse's rear end. But I don't know how to frame the words, so I keep quiet.

‘Well, you come on through here with me, young fella,' he says and opens up a door next to the counter. I step through to a short corridor. ‘We just need to do some paperwork. Shouldn't take long.' Granddad looks like he's going to follow us, but Richie points to a chair in the foyer. I catch a glimpse of Gramps sitting as the door clicks shut and the cop and I are alone in the corridor. Richie leans back against the closed door and folds his arms across the slab of his chest. He stares down at me and he isn't smiling. There's no expression at all on his face. He stands there for what seems like minutes, but is probably only twenty seconds.

‘What?' I say and open my arms to emphasise the point.

Eventually, he takes his weight off the door, unfolds his arms and points down the corridor behind me.

‘End door on the right,' he says.

‘Look . . .' I say.

‘Move!' he snaps. Now, I know I said I was in the wrong, being smart and all that, but here I am trying to apologise and he's not interested. He rumbles down the corridor, and I have to scuttle to avoid being run over. It'd have the same effect as falling under a steamroller, I reckon.

I scramble into the room just in the lead. There's a desk, one chair, a filing cabinet and a window with a view of an empty car park. I consider snagging the one chair, but even I know this wouldn't be a wise move, so I stand and wait while Richie eases himself into the leather wing-back. There's a lot of creaking and the sounds of dispirited springs doing their best to cope. Richie leans back in the chair, to more groans and creaks, and puts a foot on the desk. His boots are the size of lifeboats.

He looks at me. I look back. The silence stretches.

Look, I know what he's trying to do – I've seen enough American cop shows – but it's really unnerving and I find myself shifting weight from foot to foot. My mouth is dry and I get this compulsion to break the heavy silence. I know I shouldn't. I know I should wait it out. But the pressure is too much.

‘I'm sorry I was a bit smart out there,' I say. ‘I didn't mean to give offence. I apologise.' I'm pleased there's no tremor in my voice.

Richie doesn't say anything. Absolutely nothing. He's looking right through me, even though he doesn't take his eyes from mine. He pulls a pencil from the top pocket of his uniform and taps it against his front teeth. There's no other sound except for the tapping of wood on enamel and the distant surf of my heart. I clear my throat and he obviously thinks I'm going to say something else because he puts his right hand up in the stop position. Actually, I wasn't going to say anything. I was just checking to see if my brain was still in charge of my body.

‘Do you know what I think?' he says and his voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear. ‘Do you?'

I have no idea if this is a question he seriously expects me to answer. I'm tempted to say, ‘Yes,' but I swallow it before it has the chance to come out. Again, I know I should let the silence work for me. But I'm gutless. I can't ignore a question, so I shake my head. I'm such a loser.

‘I think you reckon you're a real tough guy. A real tough guy.'

I can feel my head starting to shake a ‘no' again, but luckily I stop it in time. I want to keep some self-esteem. He continues in the same low voice.

‘Yeah. You come here from Melbourne. Think you're the city hotshot and we're just a bunch of ignorant inbreeds. Is that it, mate? Is that what you're thinking?'

I'm doing better now, because my head doesn't budge. I keep my eyes on his.

‘So much better than us. Well, I've got your details here, mate.' Richie takes his foot off the table and turns his eyes away from me for the first time since he sat. He sorts through a pile of papers on the crowded desk, picks up a thin manila folder, and flips it open. ‘Quite a record you've got, mate. A few cautions for assault. Like to use those fists of yours, do you?'

‘Hey, dude . . .'

He uses his fists, then. Well, one. It slams onto the desk and cuts me off. Richie's voice, though, doesn't go up even a notch in volume.

‘And then you moved up into another weight division, didn't you? Busting up that fast food restaurant, terrorising customers.' He whistles. ‘Quite the little temper. Yes, indeed. So. Let's see what the Melbourne justice system thought about that, shall we?' He makes a big deal of turning over a few pages. ‘Oh, yes. Here we are. Probation.' He makes his tone of voice sound surprised. ‘You must be a criminal with friends in high places. All that . . . mayhem. And you scored probation. Of course, maybe your dad coughing up thirty thousand dollars in damages, maybe bucks into back pockets, might have helped. Not to mention the “expert witnesses” he paid for.' You can hear the quotation marks in his voice. ‘What was that, young fella?'

The words are as regular as a metronome in my head.
It's cool. It's cool. It's okay. You're okay. It's cool
. I realise my lips are moving. That I'm mumbling the words out loud. I shake my head, but I can't stop my lips moving.

‘Yes, the expert witnesses,' he continues. ‘Shrinks who testified that you suffer from “Intermittent Explosive Disorder”.' He laughs. ‘I love that. “
You
suffer”.
You
suffer. Poor thing. Well, we couldn't lock up a victim, could we? No. Send 'em on holiday. Send 'em to Tasmania, to a place full of decent law-abiding families. Send 'em to stay with their old granddad.'

‘I want to go,' I say. My voice is shaking. You'd better believe it's shaking.

‘You'll go when I say you can go. Not before. You're not in Melbourne now. With the bleeding hearts and their fancy names for temper tantrums. You're in my patch, mate. And it works differently here. You put a foot out of place here, young fella, and you are in the worst kinda trouble. You don't know what trouble is. You don't wanna know the trouble I can bring you.'

The blood in my head is getting louder. It's a whooshing noise, like static on a radio, but regular. Pulsing. Beating. The danger signs are all there and getting worse. The cop's voice is starting to echo. I can't work out if it's just him repeating words or whether it's echoes. Echoes are bad. Echoes mean I could blow at any moment.

‘You have no right to keep me here.' I don't know how the words sound when they come out. There's the rushing of blood, the echoing of the cop's words, mingling with words I'm putting into my own head.
It's cool. You're okay.

It's cool. It's cool.
My lips keep moving even when I'm done talking. I don't know if the words come out at all. Maybe everything is in my head.

‘. . . think they can flush their filth right across Bass Strait, strait. But I manage the sewage here, mate, mate, and I'm gonna keep my eyes on you, you. And don't even think about screaming police brutality, ality. 'Cos no one'll believe you, you. You're scum, scum.'

I turn and leave and he doesn't try to stop me. I go straight out of the office, down the corridor, through the door into the foyer and then out into the sunshine. I don't see Granddad. I don't think about Granddad. All I'm concerned with is getting distance between me and the cop. I walk. Anywhere.

It's cool. I'm okay. It's cool
.

I cling to the words. Their repetition is a comfort. I march them across the dark spaces in my head, a procession of bright word shapes and word sounds. They keep the demons back among the shadow. Sometimes.

The air in my lungs, the words in my head, the regular movement of my legs. Eventually, I get enough control to sit on a bench and check the situation. I think I've managed to pull back from the brink. It feels like that sometimes. That I'm about to go over a steep drop, that I'm going to fall, down, down, down. That once I'm over the edge, nothing can stop me falling, that gravity has me in its complete control and all I can do is surrender.

This time, my scuffed Etnies cling to the edge. Safe.

I clear my mind as much as I can, let my breathing settle into its usual rhythm, concentrate on the passage of air into my lungs. In. Out. In. Out. Slowly, I come back to myself. By the time Granddad talks, I'm almost normal. Well, as normal as a guy like me can ever be.

‘Are you okay? You're very pale.'

Granddad is sitting next to me and he seems pale himself. His breath is coming fast and there's a touch of sweat on his top lip.

‘I called out to you, but you took off like a scalded cat. What's the matter?'

‘Nothing,' I say. ‘Got a touch of claustrophobia. Had to get out of there.'

‘I had to carry your shopping as well as my own, you know. I'm not as young as I was.'

‘Sorry.'

Granddad doesn't know whether to be irritated or concerned. In the end he comes down on the side of concerned.

‘Got some colour back in your cheeks. Come on. I'll buy you a hot drink.'

‘Hey, if it's your shout, I'm your man.' Caffeine sounds like an answer to a prayer I didn't even know I'd made. I'm even prepared to put up with chintzy curtains and red tablecloths. We walk – very slowly – back to the cafe. I've got all the shopping bags now.

‘So what do you think of Richie?' asks Granddad, between wheezes. ‘Our local celebrity.'

‘A prince, dude,' I say. ‘An absolute prince. If I was of that persuasion, I'd marry him and have his babies.'

While Granddad is being urged to have a slab of apple pie by a rosy-cheeked old dear, I nip out the front and phone Kris. It's lunchtime at school. My relief at not blowing like some random volcano has worn off. Now, I'm feeling anger at Richie and disappointment with myself. I've let myself down. I should have stood up to him. Trouble is, I can't have it all ways. I can't just tap into a manageable portion of righteous anger. It doesn't work that way. This is something I've been through plenty of times with counsellors. I should be happy I've beaten the demon this time. The challenge now is not to let it back out.