The Good Parents (38 page)

She went walking. If she had more energy she would have liked
to head for the hills, where she glimpsed parks tumbling down slopes, old timber houses, pylons, switchback roads. Maybe there’d
be some bush to disappear into.

She walked around a bit in the city, the food courts, the war memorials and parks. She went to the Mall and walked amongst
people of her own age. She felt cut off from everybody. Each day she bought a juice from the Boost Bar, an Energy Lift or
a Stress Relief, so cold it made her head ache and her heart constrict. No food. If she could save a dollar or two she could
buy Magnus a CD. The air was warm, there were tropical blooms appearing on the trees, she liked the dips and valleys, the
frontier freedom of the streets after Melbourne. But she didn’t have the spirit to tackle a new city.

Mostly she sat in the Corner Cafe or on the fire escape at the back of the Mimosa, or lay on the bed in their room, trying
to read. Cheap magazines with their tips for ideal bodies and lovers, and pages of celebrity pics. She slept.

She moved like a sleepwalker. A dull anxiety had taken her over and she didn’t like to go too far from the Mimosa. He didn’t
have to worry about her talking. Days could pass without her speaking to anyone.

Except now there was Andrew.

She kept the phone with her. ‘Speak to you soon,’ Andrew had said, at the end of their conversation. She knew he was programmed
into the top left-hand key. Number One in Maynard’s life. Just one little press of the button.

How much could she trust him? How much was he on his father’s side? Would he tell Maynard that she’d spoken on his phone?

He was right to be worried about Maynard. Dreams woke him, drenched with sweat. He was plagued by what he called ‘nasal problems’
with the spring pollens, so that he sat up in bed
blowing his nose, lost in misery. His face jumped in and out of focus as she stared at it, like a mask pulled on and off,
and sometimes for a moment a face she didn’t know peered out at her, wary, calculating, the eyes cold as stones. Yet his touch
still had love in it.

A pale fat man in his thirties had come to sit at the other table on the terrace. He was wearing a sagging knit T-shirt and
enormous moulded maroon suede sneakers. He had the air, like her, of having nowhere else to go. Rita brought him his breakfast,
two sausage rolls and a cup of chips.

If this was a letter who would it be to?

It was coming back, a little shoot breaking through, the instinct to note the grit of details. If she had a notebook she would
describe the man at the next table, and the private school girls who had just walked past in round hats and tartan skirts.
A little gold chain swung out from Rita’s blouse as she took away her cup and she wanted to write that down too. Ever since
she spoke to Andrew she’d started recording again. Was this a letter to him? Images came to her. She saw her father talking
films with Carlos at the kitchen table. Her father at his desk in the back shed, his mournful eyes staring through the window.
Sometimes with his kids he gave a harsh shout.
Don’t tell me you were taken in by that!
As if something in his past had hurt him or tricked him. She missed his crumpled, honest face.

The phone rang. ‘Hi. Dad?’

‘No. Maya again.’

‘Where are you? I can hear traffic.’

‘In a cafe, sitting outside.’

‘He’s not back?’

‘No.’

‘When he comes in can you tell him to phone Granny? She calls up every hour about him. She’s driving me mad.’

‘She’s a terrible old woman.’ Why was she so un-shy with him? The truth lay around her, a devastated plain. He knew everything,
the only other person in the world who did. She had nothing more to lose.

He burst out laughing. ‘Are all you country folk so straightforward?

‘Not that country girl stuff again. I didn’t deliver dead calves or anything.’

‘What was it like growing up in all that space? Did you feel free?’

She considered. ‘I felt safe. Every single thing, trees and rocks and hills, kind of had a character. You felt they knew you.
There were these pine trees that were like people. We had a whole world in the trees and down by the creek. The horses used
to pretend not to watch us. Horses are mystical creatures, did you know that? I saw a UFO when I was ten. Do you think there
are such things as UFOs?’

‘If people see them. Maybe they exist in the unconscious.’ He paused. ‘Do your folks know where you are?’

‘I don’t want them to.’

A hire car –
No Birds
– had pulled up on the opposite side of the street. Maynard got out, carrying his jacket and crossed quickly to the Mimosa.
The car drove past and she saw the toady hunch of Mr T at the wheel and the glint of his glasses. She thought there was an
Asian girl sitting in the back.

‘I gotta go now. Bye.’

She turned the phone off and hid it at the bottom of her bag.

C
ecile was waiting for him at the wine bar. She’d called him and arranged to meet him straight after work. There was a silver
bucket with a bottle of French champagne on their table. He loved the way she did things. If he were meeting any other woman
he would have ritually kissed her. Her face glowed up at him as he sat down, her hair crow-black, her skin like liquid. He
knew what she would tell him. Clarice had agreed to be in
The Prodigal
.

‘I admit I was unscrupulous,’ she said. ‘I emailed her yesterday and told her that with a topic like this there was a good
chance of festival screenings around the world and potential for a large Asian audience. Cannes was not out of the question,
or for sure some place in Europe, and I promised to take her with me wherever I was invited. It didn’t take her long
to make up her mind. Today she emailed back.’

A waiter opened the champagne and poured it for them. She lifted her glass in a toast to Jacob.

‘You look happy,’ he said. Strands of hair fell around her face, her eyes were bright.

‘Maybe this is the best time, at the beginning. I have new ideas every hour. I’m too excited to sleep.’

‘And you’ll be with Clarice.’ She didn’t see Clarice as he did, vain and wilful and self-centred. ‘Is Dieter enthusiastic?’

‘Dieter’s going to California. He wants to get involved in more commercial projects.’

Need someone to carry the camera? he wanted to ask. Book flights and hotels? Handle your temperamental leading lady? Hail
taxis, order meals? Let me be your
grip
, your
best boy
. They were always mentioned in the credits but he never had found out what they did. How could he help her raise some money
for this film? Capelli Brothers was now a multimillion-dollar business, you saw their name on building sites and trucks all
over Perth. If he gave them a call? He sat very still for some minutes.

‘What are you thinking?’ Cecile asked.

‘I’m thinking that everything I thought was bad – capitalism, materialism – is now seen as good. And everything I thought
was good has turned out to be … ineffective.’

‘But you know, Jacob, everything creates its opposite. Being creates nonbeing. Absence creates presence.’ She smiled, out
of general happiness. ‘It’s the Tao.’

He decided to go to the house of M&D Flynn who never answered their phone. Action after non-action, he supposed.
On the tram he tried to focus on Maynard Flynn. Middle-aged, a struggling businessman. Did he have kids?

This Flynn was the person Maya was
last seen with
…A man walking down a street, little Maya skipping beside him, holding his hand. No, not little Maya. His grown-up daughter.
A law unto herself. But still with a sweetness of touch, a loving heart. What sort of older man would lightly take that for
himself?

He knocked decisively on the Flynns’ front door. Modest, but on the way up, he thought, surveying the street as he waited.
Looked like couples with young children were moving in. There was some sort of park down the end.

The Flynns’ house was bleak, the curtains drawn, the concrete front yard covered with fallen leaves. Unoccupied, he’d say,
the life all gone out of it. This is how he’d report it to Toni.

But when he knocked again, he detected through the door’s coloured-glass panels an answering glimmer deep within the house.
Footsteps. A tall thin young man opened the door.

‘I’m looking for a Maynard Flynn. Does he live here?’

‘He’s away at the moment. Can I help you? I’m his son.’

‘Any idea how I can get in contact with him?’

The young man stared at him. Early twenties. Unusual colouring, not Anglo-Celt. Pale olive skin, almost greenish, red glints
in the hair, dark eyes. Shadows under the eyes. A quietness about him. Of course. He’d just lost his mother.

‘My name’s Jacob de Jong. My daughter Maya used to work for your father.’

‘I’m Andrew. Come in.’

Jacob followed him down a long corridor to a living room dark from overgrown vines on a pergola outside the windows. Cheerless,
unlived in, filled with the sort of antique-style teak furniture that you could buy in import stores.

‘Sit down.’ Andrew indicated a chair at the table. ‘Would you
like a drink? I always help myself to my father’s whisky when I call in.’ He took down two cut-glass tumblers and a decanter
from the dresser. ‘It’s lucky you caught me. My father’s put the place on the market. I’m packing up my kid stuff.’ He indicated
an open door into a small bedroom. ‘You know, hockey trophies,
Asterix
,
Tintin
. Cheers.’ He sat down opposite Jacob and took a sip of whisky. He kept his eyes on Jacob. The place was cold, Jacob was glad
of his coat. But he sensed that at last he was getting closer to the heart of the matter. Because why was this son so willing
to engage?

‘I’m sorry to disturb you …’ Jacob began.

‘I’m glad of company. I don’t like coming here.’ Andrew threw his head back and swallowed the whole shot. ‘I reward myself
with whisky. I find it helps.’

He seemed like a nice young guy or was he being disarming? Of course he’d want to protect his father. (Would Magnus protect
him
if he knew he was in the wrong?) Maybe it was
him
, Jacob, that Andrew wanted to check out? He remembered the attitude of the sergeant at the Missing Persons Bureau. What,
after all, might a girl be running away from? Fathers were suspicious people these days.

‘The fact is, Andrew, we don’t know where Maya is. We haven’t been able to contact her. Perhaps your father could help. Are
you in contact with him?’

‘We talk occasionally on the phone.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

Andrew shrugged. ‘He travels all over. I call his mobile.’

‘Could I ask you for his number?’

‘I’m sorry, he never gives it out.’

‘Then could you do something for me? Next time you speak to your father could you ask him to give me a call? Here’s my number.’

‘OK.’

‘Can I also ask you to call me if you hear anything about Maya, anything at all?’

Andrew bowed his head, a signal of acquiescence, if only to Jacob’s right to ask. His deep brown eyes were full of thoughts,
sad and grown-up. Already his high forehead was faintly lined. When he wasn’t smiling there was something ascetic about his
face. He wouldn’t want to lie. Toni would approve of him, Jacob thought, unexpectedly. She loved sensitive young men.

Jacob put down his glass and stood up. ‘Thanks Andrew.’ He hesitated, then looked him steadily in the eye. ‘The thing about
Maya is, she’s a very special girl. We think she is. She’s very intense, very loyal. Once she commits to someone or something
…’

The two men shook hands.

T
oni was late and for a while Jacob was glad to be able to give himself to the experience, to the rumble of anticipation that
was building up in the stadium, to be part of things for once, lifted up and carried along by the energy waiting to be released.

Tod had good connections. Seats in the middle tier of the stadium, mid-field. Next to Jacob were two men in their mid-thirties,
friends, Demons supporters, like him. He’d decided to back Melbourne, the dark horse, the desperate, you never knew what they’d
pull out of the bag. He could shout and swear along with them, throw his arms around. Here he was allowed to be male. If he
had a mobile phone he would have called Carlos.
Guess where I am
,
mate!
They’d made a tradition of setting up for the big match at the Garcias’, stacking the
fridge with beer, wearing team scarves. Chris made everyone hot dogs. He thought of the streets of Warton, silent and empty,
the whole country gone into retreat, everyone hunkered down in darkened rooms before the telly, as if war had been declared.

A massed choir assembled on the emerald field and belted out a medley culminating in ‘I Still Call Australia Home’. Schoolkids
did some aerobic dancing to indulgent cheers. Smoke and balloons went up, jet fighters circled overhead. Then the national
anthem, the young gladiators burst out and a hundred thousand people stood and roared for blood. Then the toss, the grapple
for the ball, the break. Everyone started calling out, as if the stakes were personal now, screaming his or her advice. Strange
transformations materialised around him. ‘Get it out! Get it out!’ screamed the genteel middle-aged woman in front of him,
in a sort of a tantrum. For a moment he was dizzy with the occasion of it all. This was his culture! His country!

But where was Toni?

Suddenly he was on his feet. ‘
Holding the ball, ya mongrel
,’ he roared, showing off to the guys next to him, who laughed and stamped their feet.

Then for a little while Jacob forgot about his women, and his sense of having in some way failed them, and settled into his
habitual meditation on the players as warriors, symbols, losers and winners on life’s playing field.

The world was more changed than she had expected. Mile after mile it displayed itself to her in a hotchpotch of detail, factories,
warehouses, car yards, rows of matching houses disappearing into the haze. It had never been clearer to her, what the world
cared about. Her gaze seemed more acute, as if a blast of air had passed through her head.