The Near Miss (24 page)

‘It's not a boys' night?'

‘I really hope not.'

‘You sure? It sounds like it is.'

‘Does it?' Eddy heard the gloom in his own voice. He didn't really like boys' nights, with all their fraught competitiveness and veiled anger and the unsettling sense that anything was possible. ‘I don't want it to be. In fact, I think we need a woman here. It's all a bit tense.' Oh God, he shouldn't have said that. She would run a mile. ‘I mean, not tense. Too boyish, you know.' Oh, God, he sounded like a fucking Girl Guide.

But she just laughed. ‘Okay.'

‘Really?' He grinned madly out at the paddocks. ‘That would be great.' She liked him. She must. Even if he was a Girl Guide.

‘I'll see you there.'

‘My brain will be ready. For those new connections. All that tactile stuff.'

‘Hmm. Dr Laura is on her way.'

Grace knocked on Eddy's front door. A crate of beer bottles sat out the front alongside a stack of empty pizza boxes. Eddy's car was here, but that meant nothing, she knew. He could be working late, or he might have gone out after work. It was almost nine, and Tom had said earlier that he would call her back that evening. She had rung him that morning to tell him that there was an excursion fee due for kindy, it was his turn to pay, that Lotte needed new clothes, that Grace needed help. He had sounded distracted, said he would call her back, and then he had not answered
calls all day. She had left message after message, and she had gone beyond angry to worried. Was he alright? Had he been electrocuted while working on his invention? Hit by a car? Had he committed suicide with grief from being apart from her? Well, probably not that. Worse, was he in bed with a woman? The tight pants girl from the IGA? A kindy mum? Oh God. Eddy might know where he was. She pounded on the door.

She was about to turn away when she heard a noise behind the door and the handle rattled. The door opened a few inches to reveal a woman. For a moment, Grace couldn't place her.

‘Romy!' It was Eddy's old girlfriend, who had vanished from Grace's own home that long-ago night last summer. The one who had sailed off into the darkness on a motorbike and only appeared since in newspaper photographs, blurry convenience-store security pictures. Grace was shocked. ‘Are you and Eddy, er?'

‘No, no.' Romy glanced nervously up the street and pulled Grace inside. She locked the door again, and leaned back against the wall, resting her hand on her stomach. Her very large, pregnant stomach.

‘Oh, my God!' said Grace. ‘You're . . . Is that . . .? Does Eddy . . .?'

‘It's Van's,' said Romy, sighing heavily. Despite her pregnancy her face looked thinner, her eyes larger and more serious, and Grace recognised the heavy breathing of late gestation.

‘Oh!' Grace was momentarily back in that far-off dinner party. And now this.

Romy nodded ruefully. ‘Can I make you a cup of something? Please don't rush off. I've been alone here all day, I'm going out of my mind.'

‘How long have you been living back with Eddy for?'

‘For a few days now. I had nowhere else to go and he said I could stay here for a week until I get somewhere else, but . . .'

‘So you're not . . . together, then?'

Romy shook her head. ‘He doesn't want me back.'

It was all so calm, so undramatically stated. So unlike the drama queen who had roared off from the front of Grace's home. Romy walked awkwardly to the kitchen and sank into a chair. She moved like someone trying to conserve energy, someone hanging on by their fingernails. Grace well remembered this state of pregnancy, the belly solid like a stone shrink-wrapped in plastic. The vibrating in the thighs and shoulders, as if the guy ropes of the whole structure were anchored there. The visibility of it, providing a spectacle everywhere you went.

‘Are you alright?'

Romy slumped on the table. ‘Terrified. Every time I hear a police chopper. I can't sleep, what with the baby kicking, and the fear that the cops could burst in the door any minute. They're after me. Have you heard? It's on the news. They've got a reward out. It's like a bad dream.'

Grace stared at her. ‘But surely they'd have some sympathy . . . I mean look at you. They couldn't send you to prison like that.'

‘Are you kidding? There are women's prisons, where people keep their babies with them. Oh no, they won't let a little thing like pregnancy stop them.'

There was a thud outside the kitchen window and Romy jumped, wild-eyed. ‘Shit.'

Grace went to the window and pushed the curtain aside with one finger. ‘Just your neighbour, putting out the rubbish.'

‘Oh, God, I'm a wreck.' Romy wept silently. ‘Why, why did I ever meet that man? It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. That dinner at your house . . . it was the crossroads of my life.'

Grace looked at her. She sympathised, and yet she had been there when Romy had dumped
her boyfriend at her dinner party, behaving like the most spoilt of children, the most self-indulgent of girls. She had seen Eddy broken-hearted for the best part of a year. She couldn't believe he had taken her back into his home.

‘Ah, well. Do you know where Eddy is?'

Romy shook her head, sniffling. ‘No. But he's got his mobile on him.'

‘I'm just looking for Tom. He's been missing all day and I thought maybe he was with Eddy.' Grace sat down. ‘We broke up, Tom and I. You probably heard.'

‘Eddy mentioned it. Do you want his mobile number?'

Grace shook her head. ‘I've got it.'

‘You all became pretty good friends this year, didn't you?' said Romy. ‘After that dinner where I took off.'

‘It was more after my daughter almost got killed by a bus, and Eddy and Melody were there.' It wasn't about you, you silly cow. Although if the bus hadn't hit Lotte, she wouldn't have had them all for dinner, and Romy wouldn't have run off with Van, and now she wouldn't be sitting here in front of her, her shirt riding up over a belly so taut and huge that lines were snaking their way upwards, like elastic fabric stretched too hard. Grace wouldn't have gotten such a fright that she demanded Tom keep his job for two years so she could have a baby. Tom wouldn't have decided she was a controlling cow, and Melody wouldn't have been on the scene to tell Tom about the universe providing, and Tom might not have left Grace. Eddy might have presented his ring and he and Romy might be married right this minute, with this pregnancy not Van's, but Eddy's . . .

‘I'm scared, Grace.' Romy stared at her. ‘Eddy's left me here alone and I could go into labour. I can't call a hospital, in case they turn me into the police.'

‘Take my number,' said Grace, writing it down distractedly. She was desperate to speak to
Tom, and dialed Eddy.

‘Eddy? It's Grace.' She paused. Was Eddy in a nightclub or something? She could hear shouting and laughter and the unmistakable volume of drinkers. ‘I'm just sitting here with Romy.'

‘What's happening? Is she alright?'

‘Fine. Pregnant. As you know.'

‘Hang on, let me find a quiet place.'

‘I'm after Tom, have you seen him?'

‘Sure!' Eddy was almost shouting with relief. ‘I'll put him on.' And there was Tom's voice, slightly slurred. ‘Yair, hello?'

‘It's me. You were going to call me back. Where are you?'

‘Errr . . . Pub in Healesville. With a few fellas.'

Romy leaned over. ‘Can I speak to Eddy?'

Tom brightened. ‘Is that Romy? At Eddy's house?'

‘She's staying with him. She's pregnant.'

‘Pregnant!'

‘Hey, I need money. I need to talk to you about Lotte and her kindy fees.'

‘Kindy! Well, let me put you onto the woman herself.' There was a shout and laughter and Grace stared at the phone in confusion. Then a voice said, ‘Hello, Grace? It's Miss Laura.'

There was a burst of rowdy laughter and Grace glared furiously at Eddy's kitchen wall. ‘What are you doing with Tom?' she asked Laura. Oh God. Her child's kindergarten teacher was in a relationship with her ex-husband. Did all the other mothers know already? Had they all been tiptoeing around her?
Does Grace know yet? I don't want to be the one to tell her . . . but someone has to . . .

‘We're just having a few drinks.'

Right.

A strange man's voice came on the line and said, ‘Mrs Tom, you're going to be a millionaire. And your children have one sexy kindergarten teacher.' There was a hoot of laughter that sounded like it came from Laura, and then Eddy's voice in the background sounding a little injured. ‘Mate. Show a bit of respect.'

‘I have plenty of respect for beautiful women.'

God, they were all
horribly
drunk. Messily, awfully. What the hell was Miss Laura doing out there with them, laughing like she was a pole dancer for hire rather than a role model to small children? How could Miss Laura have a sexuality at all, and, if she did have one, why did she have to exercise it on Tom? Truly, nothing was sacred. And what was that? She could hear another familiar voice as well.

‘Is Melody there?' she demanded indignantly. If there was going to be a party at some out-of-the-way country pub, they could at least have invited her.

‘Melody? No. Oh, shit. Look! Look! It's Melody on the telly!' said Eddy.

Grace went to turn on Eddy's own set. There was Melody, angelic in white with gold stars woven through her blonde dreadlocks; like some heavenly bride. Her face was a treat to watch, utterly serene and yet fired through with emotion. She could see what Anthea Schulberg had meant about the camera loving Mel. You wanted her to never leave the screen. In her ear, the pub fell silent, except for Melody's calm voice.

‘Aquarius . . . You need not feel that you are obliged to stay forever with what was once agreed — but nor can you just walk away,'
Melody said, her crystal ball turning before her. Dreamy music played in the background. A mobile of stars and moons hung from the studio
ceiling above
. ‘Over the next few days you will take part in a significant conversation and begin a new way forward that will prove both reassuring and comfortable'.
She spread her hands before her to denote the pleasantness of the new route ahead, flat and smooth and easy.

Grace held onto the remote, Romy stood beside her, and they watched Melody on the small screen, like some goddess bringing messages from a world far beyond.

She wore tight jeans, over a bottom resplendently, generously curvaceous. A floral shirt unbuttoned to show the inner curves of peachy breast. Shiny brown hair and no makeup, or none that Eddy could detect. Rosy-cheeked, pale-skinned, dark-lashed. Eddy couldn't take his eyes off Laura. Except to scowl at Alf, the big-talking show-off.

‘So there I am, camping alone in the German countryside, when in the middle of the night I hear footsteps.'

Laura widened her eyes and sucked on her straw. Her lips pursed. Her ice rattled. She wrinkled her nose in a friendly way at Eddy, but she watched Tank as he relived some alpha-male adventure in Europe.

‘My heart's pounding, and then there's a rustle at my tent door. Someone takes hold of my tent zipper and starts pulling it up, very slowly.'

Three strangers, other drinkers at the bar, leaned in close. Tom wasn't one of them. He was over by the juke box, leaning on it as he argued with a man in a biker jacket over the sounds of Dead or Alive's ‘You Spin Me Right Round'.

‘So we don't all like the same music, mate. 'sa free whirl, mate, a free whirl,' he shouted.

Biker jacket thrust his fat, unshaven chin towards Tom's face. He thumped the juke box. ‘It's a poofter song,' he growled.

Tom danced loosely, clicked his fingers in the air and sang. ‘Right round, baby, right round, like a record baby, right round round round round . . .'

‘
Fuck
. That's a fucking shit fucking song.' The biker turned around and snarled at the world.
Hornets
, read the back of his jacket. Crimson letters stitched on black leather, sewed in a symmetrical arch. His back was so wide that the H and the S disappeared around his sides.
ornet
.

Eddy looked back at Tank. His girl, Laura, was getting seduced by another man, a manlier man than he. His mate was about to get punched. Great night. All he needed was Romy to go into labour. Grace had scared him with her call; he must check that Romy had some plan for birth that didn't involve him.

Alf said: ‘So it's pitch black. Silent. Then there's a sound. It's a zipper, going up. I manage to reach out, noiselessly, and find my pocket knife.'

‘Oh, of course you do,' sneered Eddy, glancing quickly at Laura.

‘Luckily I know every surface of my knife off by heart . . .'

‘Yeah, right.' Eddy tried to look loftily contemptuous, but Laura was too enthralled by the story to notice.

‘Sorry, mate?' Alf looked sideways at Eddy, as if at an irritating child.

‘Er nothing, nothing.' Eddy subsided resentfully.

‘. . . and I can open it in the dark. Then, the other guy rustles around a bit outside and I use the cover of his noise to sit up and feel for my headlamp, stick it on my head.'

Laura was panting with suspense. She finished her drink and picked up the full glass Eddy had placed before her, barely moving her eyes from Alf's face. She transferred the straw and resumed sucking. The straw flattened out and the level of pink drink plummeted, like water down a sinkhole. Alf continued.

‘I turn on the torch and there it is — a hand.'

‘Oooh!' Laura guided the straw-end proboscis over the bottom of the glass, and it sniffed around the ice blocks for any last morsel of alcohol.

‘A big, hairy man's hand, reaching through the tent door. Within a second I grab it, throw my knees on the fingers and start stabbing at it! He's shouting something in German, and I hear
footsteps! He had a mate, you see, and the mate ran off.'

‘Oh, my God,' said Laura. ‘I can't believe you held onto him.'

‘And then what?' Eddy interjected, sounding as bored as he could. Let's just get the bloody story over with and fast-forward to the ending, which would paint Alf as the hero.

‘Then I beat the shit out of him.' Alf casually sculled his beer and grinned. Laura recoiled, revolted, and Eddy seized his chance.

‘You punched him in the head or you stabbed him in the belly?' he inquired.

Alf shrugged. ‘Oh mate, details. Let's just say that, while I can't speak German, I reckon all that jibberish could pretty easily be translated into
Let me go, please — you win this round, big fella
.'

‘Are you hungry?' Eddy spoke in a low voice to Laura, so she had to turn towards him. ‘We could scoot off to the bistro and get a bite to eat.'

‘Bistro's closed,' reported Tank loudly.

‘I wasn't
talking
to you.'

‘Oh, I'm starving,' wailed Laura.

‘Have another cocktail, that'll fill you up.' Alf tossed her a packet of potato chips. ‘Shit, what is our budding Donald Trump doing now?'

Tom had climbed on a table and was reaching his hands to the roof. ‘People! People!' There were guffaws from the bikers who sat nearby in a thick knot of bellies, leather and hair.

Tom pressed on portentously. ‘I am about. To Become. A Rich. Man.'

Eddy groaned, and dragged his feet towards Tom. ‘Mate.' He stood beside him, as far from the bikers as he could, and reached up to tug at his friend's sleeve. ‘Get down. Please. I'm begging you.'

Tom shouted on. ‘
Because
I have discovered a universal truth, that the universe will provide everything you need. I want to make that truth . . . I want to pass that on . . . I want to provide something to you, you good people, you people here to share my joy. I want to buy
every single person in this bar
a free drink.'

Luckily the bar was so crowded and noisy that only those immediately nearby heard, most of them bikers. They trotted to line up along the bar as obediently as school children and ordered triple shots of spirits, followed by spirit chasers. Eddy helped Tom down from the table.

‘Mate, that's going to be expensive.'

‘I don't care. Because they're going to take the offer, aren't they? Eddy? What do you think?'

‘I really don't know.' A set of antlers adorned the wall beside them, emerging right at the level of Tom's head.

‘Would you have taken the risk? Would you have gone for the jackpot or would you have taken their offer?'

Eddy shrugged. ‘Well, personally three million sounds like a helluva lot of money to me.'

Tom's face fell into a mask of horror. ‘Oh. My. God. You're right. What have I done?'

‘I don't— Hey, watch out!'

Tom clutched his head, bumping the antlers and making them swing. ‘You're right. You're right. What have I done? Have I really walked away from an offer of three million dollars?' He was wild-eyed, and Eddy felt Laura near his elbow, her silent offer of help. Alf meanwhile had, thankfully, moved on and was chatting up another woman.

‘You'd better get your wallet out, you're buying these guys drinks.' He looked down at Tom's jeans and was grateful to see a wallet-sized bulge in the pocket.

‘Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Three million dollars! I said no to three million dollars.'

‘You're apparently paying for these drinks, mate?' the bar man asked him.

‘No! Oh, God, I'll pay for what's done, but no more! Stop ordering! Happy hour's over!'

‘Happy fucking minute more like it,' said one bikie.

Eddy said: ‘There's still time, Tom. You've got the guy's number.'

Tom was crying, as he pawed at his groin, trying to dig his wallet out of his pocket. ‘What have I done? I see it now, Eddy, I've fucked up totally. After all these years, after losing my marriage, I was there, I was there on the doorstep of greatness, of wealth, and what happens? I fuck it up. I get greedy and fuck it up.'

‘It's not that bad.'

‘It's not?'

‘Well, I don't know that you were ever on the doorstep of greatness.'

Tom wept on. ‘It's Grace. She would never have let me do that. She would have made me take that first offer, and she would have been right. She's my compass, she's my business sense. I am nothing without her, nothing.'

‘She's—'

‘I wanted to teach her a lesson mate. I wanted to punish her, so I left. I owe her everything. I owed it to her not to fuck it up at the last minute, but I did. I did.'

‘Well, I don't—' Eddy exchanged glances with Laura.

‘You're right! You're absolutely right! It was that arsehole . . .' Tom pointed bitterly across the room at Tank. ‘It's his fault. I'm going to
have
him.' He lunged across the table, tripped on a chair and fell.

Eddy pulled him into an upright position. ‘Calm down.'

Tom was searching his pockets. ‘I'm going to ring them now. I'm going to accept their offer. Maybe it's not too late.'

‘Tom, it's nearly midnight, man. Might be a bit late to call. And you're not exactly at your best.'

‘I must! I have to do it for Grace.' He turned his pockets inside out and looked around wildly. ‘That fucker! He took my phone, didn't he! I remember now. Who the fuck is he, coming out of nowhere and fucking up my whole life? Why did you bring him, Eddy? Why?'

Eddy glanced nervously at Laura, who winced sympathetically. ‘He just sort of came, Tom. I couldn't stop him.'

Tom shook his head. ‘Never leave a good woman. Never leave a good woman, mate.' He beckoned Eddy forward and made an exaggerated attempt to speak behind his hand, although the words came out loud and clear. ‘I heard Romy's come back to you. Heard she's living back at your place.'

Eddy froze, his eyes swiveling towards Laura. She paled, her mouth slack and open. She stared back at him. He turned to her and spoke hastily.

‘It's my ex-girlfriend, she had nowhere to go. She means nothing to me.'

Tom leaned forward again. ‘And I heard she's pregnant. Due any minute. God, is that a moment.' He slumped back in the chair and stared unseeingly up at the ceiling of the pub. ‘Watching your baby born. Watching her slither into the world, better than the best fortune you'll ever have. That, that is better than three million dollars, better than . . .'

Eddy didn't hear any more, because he was chasing Laura as she marched, white-faced, out of the hotel. ‘Laura, stop! Let me explain.'

Outside, the air was sweet and fresh after the fug of the bar. Lights streamed through the
door, making a golden rectangle on the bitumen under his feet. He stepped out into the dark, towards her back, thankful she had stopped walking. Stars twinkled above the car park. God, he was drunk. Please don't let him throw up.

She turned to face him, her arms crossed over her chest, her eyes filled with tears.

‘I thought you were different. Why do I always meet the arseholes?'

He was shocked by her grief, touched by it. He took her shoulders gently and hunched his tall frame to stare into her eyes.

‘Romy is my old girlfriend. She dumped me almost a year ago and she turned up the other day, pregnant to another guy and about to give birth, with nowhere to stay. She asked if she could come back, just until she found somewhere else to live, and I said yes.'

Laura turned on him a silent look.
Sure
, that look said.
Like I'd believe that.
Then she looked down at her feet.

‘It's true. What else could I have said?'

There was a long silence, while they stood inches apart. A car reversed out and drove away. A couple swung past them, entered the bar and silence resumed.

‘I could have said no,' Eddy answered himself thoughtfully. ‘It's not my baby.'

Laura met his eyes.

Eddy shrugged, suddenly exhausted and dispirited and tired of his failures with women. Tired of the inevitable ruin. ‘You can ask Grace if you want to. Call her now and ask her, she knows the story.'

Laura spoke, her voice thin and tremulous. ‘Why would you take her back, if she dumped you and came back pregnant to another guy? No one would do that.'

He stared at her, grim and resigned. Okay, now it would all turn to shit. Just like Romy,
Laura had seen him for the spineless wimp he was. Too soft. His father was right. And yet, that was who he was. He couldn't have done things any differently.

‘I guess that's the sort of dickhead I am.' And he turned and walked back to the front door of the pub. He was sick of apologising for himself. Sick of feeling guilty for caring about people. Stupid, selfish people, who didn't deserve it.

She ran after him and grabbed him by the arm, pulled him back and made him turn around.

‘I believe you,' she whispered. ‘It
is
just the sort of dickhead you are.'

Eddy sighed. ‘She is nothing to me anymore.'

‘Good.'

And they kissed, out there under the stars, the door opening and closing behind them, a motorbike revving away, oblivious to it all.

Skipper spoke from the back of the car. ‘Nemen, when the lights are green, you go.'

‘Okay.' Melody agreed. She settled into the passenger seat of Grace's car and directed her eyes away from the dashboard clock. Had they really had to leave at six? Was she ever going to get into the spirit of the dreaming camp with Grace on board? She breathed deep, and felt oxygen enter her lower lungs. At least they could have a couple of days away to celebrate all the work of the past few weeks.