The Slap (15 page)

‘Remember Miss Ballingham?’

‘Who?’ Andrew asked with his mouth full.

‘Miss Ballingham in grade four.’

‘Jesus, that psycho. She’s probably in a maximum security prison somewhere. Guarding it, I mean.’

‘She wasn’t that bad.’

Andrew gulped down his mouthful and looked across at his friend. He put down his fork and sipped from the wine.

‘What’s this about,
malaka
?’

Harry could hear the
tap-tap-tap
of his heel on the floor. He made his foot go still.

‘People will think I’m just like her.’

Andrew looked genuinely appalled, then pissed off.

‘You’re no Miss Ballingham.’

‘Of course I’m no fucking Miss Ballingham.’ Harry cursed in Greek.

Andrew wiped his lips and chin with his napkin, scrunched it into a ball and threw it on the table. He grabbed a cigarette, leaned back in his chair and let out a loud burp.

‘I’m done. Let’s get to business.’ He rocked back and forth in the chair. ‘
Malaka
, I’m taking care of it. You have no record of assault, you have one misdemeanour stretching back to when you were a kid, you’re a good father, a good husband, a good businessman. They’re not going to hang you for belting some little prick kid that deserved it.’

‘Should I say that in court?’

Andrew laughed. Ash had fallen on his shirt and he absentmindedly brushed it off.

‘No, you are going to look contrite, you are going to look like a loving husband and father. Which you are. I’m going to do all the talking. That’s why your pocket is bleeding,
malaka
, you’re paying for the opportunity to see me shine.’ Andrew burped, again deliberately loud, to shock the tables around them. ‘And if we’re in luck that waste-of-space loser will turn up drunk. Don’t worry about it.’

‘Sandi wants to know when it will be.’

‘Bah.’ Andrew flung his hands in the air and looked unconcerned. ‘It’s months away.’

‘I want a date.’

‘We’ll probably get a notice over the next month. What’s the hurry?’

‘I just want it done. I just wish the whole fucking thing was over.’

Andrew made a contemptuous wave over the food and drinks. ‘Nah, it’s nothing, mate. What’s the worst that can happen to you?’

‘You said I can get a conviction. My second one.’

‘Shut the fuck up, Apostolou.’ Andrew’s tone became urgent and he leaned across the table. ‘You got into a fight at sixteen. That’s it. No judge is going to condemn you for that. You slapped this brat because he was threatening your child. Okay, they can try and make something of it but they’re not going to get far. The charge of assault isn’t going to stick. Worst-case scenario you get a slap on the wrist because the judge is some femo nazi or raving loony survivor type who sees abuse in everything. But even if they are loonies, what you did is nothing, do you understand me, it’s fucking nothing. Nada. Zero.’ Andrew’s voice hardened. ‘You know what the judge will have seen before you, Harry? I’ll tell you because I’ve seen it in court. The judge will have seen two-year-olds with their jaw shattered and their skull caved in because some drug-fucked boyfriend of some drug-fucked sixteen-year-old took her son and banged him against the wall because he couldn’t score his fix that morning. The judge will have seen some sick pervert pig who fucked his five-year-old daughter so often up the arse that the poor girl can’t shit and for the rest of her life is going to have a colostomy bag attached to her. This is the real world. Welcome to Australia in the early twenty-first century. No wonder the Arabs are so envious of us. Wouldn’t you be? Isn’t it fucking great?’ Andrew stopped, embarrassed at his outburst, sniffed, and finished off the wine in his glass. When he spoke again, his usual mocking drawl had returned.

‘You’re gonna be alright, Harry. You, Sandi, Rocco, you’re all normal. You got nothing to worry about. So, tell me what the fuck is really worrying you?’

‘What are you talking about?’

Andrew silently scrutinised Harry while rocking back and forth in the chair. Harry looked across to a table at the edge of the courtyard where three young women were finishing their lunch. The blonde one was a looker. She had long legs, nicely tanned under the thin, tight denim of her miniskirt. Rock and roll, thought Harry, rock and roll. He turned back to his friend. Andrew’s eyes had not moved off him.

‘Sandi’s scared that the television stations will find out.’ For one ludicrous moment he thought he was going to cry. Don’t you dare fucking cry, he threatened himself. He reached for his cigarettes and lit one quickly, inhaling deeply. He felt relieved. It was good to confess his anxieties to his friend. Sandi’s fear had become his, a seed that had sprouted, and slowly, obstinately, it had taken root and flowered in his imagination. All that they had created could be smeared and trashed by that animal manipulating and twisting what had happened to his kid to make out that Harry was some kind of monster.

He had felt it when the cops had come around the day after the barbecue to interview him and Sandi. The female cop in particular. She was blonde, a looker. She despised him, he could tell. You could always tell with the pigs. He had tried to be polite, used all his charm but nothing worked. She had gone off separately with Sandi and left him alone with the male cop. He too had been unfriendly, young, barely out of cop diapers.

‘So you hit a kid?’ he had asked with an ugly sneer, as if Harry was some kind of pervert. ‘You do that often?’

Harry had wanted to murder him. Instead, he laughed it off as a joke. The cunt cop didn’t return the laugh. Harry’s humiliation had deepened. Later, Sandi told him that the female copper had tried to get her to say that Harry beat her, beat Rocco, that he had a violent temper. Sandi politely denied that there was any violence or aggression in her husband’s character, that he’d only hit that child because he was scared that Hugo was going to hurt Rocco. He’s a saint, is he? the copper had taunted. Sandi’s lip curled in distaste as she told Harry about the encounter. Then a sly grin spread across her mouth. I took a chance, she said to Harry, I asked the bitch if she had children. Of course, she didn’t. It shut her up. No, it didn’t thought Harry, what had shut them up was asking to see Rocco. Their child had shut them up because it was obvious to anyone, even to some dim fuckwit copper, that Rocco was a wonderful, sane, normal, blessedly normal, good kid. Thank you, God, that he is normal, thank you,
Panagia
, that he is a good kid. That’s what shut them up.

‘This case is not going to get in the news.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Why would it?’

‘That loser, Hugo’s father, he told Sandi over the phone that he was going to
A Current Affair
with it.’

Andrew started to chortle.

‘It’s not fucking funny.’

‘Being concerned about something as stupid and ridiculous as
A Current Affair
is funny. Who cares what
A Current Affair
or any of those crap shows say or do? That’s not news, that’s just moving pictures on a screen for morons.’

‘You may not care, but my neighbours care, Rocco’s friends’ parents care, my workers care, my
thea
cares. We’re the morons that watch that show.’

Andrew’s tone softened, turned apologetic. ‘You’re not going to be on
A Current Affair
. You’re not a story. You’re not fucked-up enough. If you want to be on a show like that, next time send the kid to hospital.’

‘You know what happened after the cops came that day. None of the neighbours will look at us. Sandi and I and Rocco don’t exist for them. Just because they saw a cop car outside our place.’

‘Your neighbours are the kind of people who expect the police to be on call twenty-four/seven but otherwise don’t want to know they exist.’ The steel in Andrew’s tone returned. ‘I’m sure your neighbours weren’t shocked. I’m sure that’s what they expected to happen as soon as wogs moved into the neighbourhood.’

You sarcastic lawyer cunt. I could do you, I could fucking do you now.

‘I’m trying to make you understand why Sandi is so scared, why we’re so nervous. I spent years building this house. And this arsehole, this nothing piece of Aussie yobbo shit is trying to destroy it all. Why do I have to go to court? Can’t you stop it? This isn’t fair.’

‘No, it isn’t.’ Andrew picked up his cigarettes and pocketed them. ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll ring you as soon as the court notice comes through. Tell Sandi not to worry about
A Current Affair
. That freak probably got on the phone while raving drunk and I doubt he got further than the receptionist. As for your neighbours, better learn to live with them. If you wanted friendly neighbours you shouldn’t have bought a big motherfucking block of land right across the road from Brighton Beach.’

 

He was regretting the beer and the wine by the time he got home that evening. All afternoon he’d felt light-headed and by three he had developed a dull but steady headache. He’d lost his temper with the young Indian guy working the store in Moorabbin. The lazy bastard was always trying to change his roster and as soon as Harry walked in Sanjiv had come out from behind the counter and demanded Saturday off.

‘How about a fucking hello?’

‘Please, Mr Apostolou, I cannot work Saturday night.’

There was a group of school boys in the back, probably shoplifting. A young tradie pushed through the doors. Harry nodded towards him. But Sanjiv ignored the customer and instead patiently waited for an answer from his boss.

I wish I could fire you on the spot you butt-ugly Hindu cum-rag. ‘No,’ he said curtly. ‘I need more notice. I can’t get anyone to fill in for you Saturday. You’re just going to have to do the shift.’

The boy’s expression did not change. He slowly nodded and turned and walked back to the counter. Harry touched his forehead, his eyes felt heavy and there was a distinct throbbing in his head. He passed the schoolboys and for a moment was tempted to grab one of their bags and tip the contents on the floor. He was sure they were lifting from him. There were four of them, two skips, two Asians, giggling, the tall white one speaking loudly about smut and sex, trying to impress the others. Harry had bitten his lip. He wished he could say to the little bastards, Hey, if you’re not going to buy anything, fuck off from my shop. But he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t risk one of the little fucks saying something smart-arse in return. The way he felt at the moment, Harry couldn’t risk his temper worsening. He felt horribly, inescapably trapped.

The electric hum of the store, the air, the schoolboys’ voices were a fog around him. His hand was shaking as he fumbled with the key to open the storeroom. He crashed through the door, slammed it behind him, and rested his head on the cool metal of the shelf. He looked up at the clock on the storeroom wall and he shamelessly indulged in a little boy’s fantasy that he could turn back the time, to before the barbecue at his cousin’s, to before hitting that little cunt. He had been so happy. He lifted his head, shook away the world. You don’t deserve this shit, he told himself. You did nothing wrong.

He did the wages, some bookkeeping and then locked up. In passing, he told Sanjiv he’d find someone to do the shift on Saturday night.

 

‘How about a massage?’

It was the first thing she said to him when he walked into the house and her solicitude, her sensitivity to his mood, her care and her affection immediately routed his headache. He hugged her and Sandi relaxed into him. His grip tightened around her and she submitted easily, without anxiety or fear.

After a few moments she gently pushed him back. She held on to his arms. ‘What’s up, lover?’

‘Nothing. I’m just tired and glad to be home.’

‘What did Andrew say?’

‘It’s all fine. There’s nothing to worry about.’ He felt the buzzing in his head return.

Sandi was about to speak, but she stopped herself. He saw that she was tense and he wished there was something he could say to eradicate all her worries, to take away every single one of her fears. It was at that moment he made up his mind to lie.

‘I tell you, he said there’s nothing to worry about. Some journo from a TV station did contact him but Andrew put him straight. The journo told him he thought that that was the case because the prick was pissed when he phoned up. He abused the receptionist and everyone he spoke to. No one is going to take the arsehole seriously.’ As his story unfolded he found himself enjoying the lie, almost believing it himself.

His wife made no reply. She moved to the sink and began to dry dishes.

He came up beside her and took the hand towel off her. ‘Let me do it.’

‘He’s just going to go somewhere else.’

Jesus Christ, I’m so fucking tired.

‘He’ll get the same response everywhere he goes. Don’t you get it, Sandi, the arsehole’s a loser.’

‘You can’t be sure. Someone’s going to listen to him, someone can smell the story.’

He threw the towel onto the bench. ‘What fucking story, Sandi, what fucking story? I slapped a kid. That’s all. No one’s interested. ’

She was standing very still. It was like an advertisement: his wife in the middle of the expensive, perfect, modern kitchen he had built for her.

He touched her hair, kissed her softly on the lips. ‘I’m not going to let the bastard hurt you.’

She grabbed the towel. When she spoke her voice was small. ‘I don’t care about me. It’s you I care about. It’s what he’s doing to you that hurts.’ She began to sob. He felt paralysed and was suddenly aware that Rocco must be somewhere in the house, in his room. Her sobs were loud, and he didn’t want his son to hear them. He pulled her into his body and held her.

‘Shh,’ he whispered. ‘We are going to be alright.’

Her body gradually relaxed, her sobbing stopped. She kept holding on to him.

‘I could kill him,’ she mumbled into his chest. ‘I could kill him and that arrogant bitch.’