Through the Cracks (3 page)

T
he thing that lived inside Adam’s father never stayed down long. It came to the surface the same way the sun went up and down each day. The following morning it was up. Meanness was showing in his mouth. It was rippling through his expression. It coated his words.

‘Is this all that’s left?’

He was in the kitchen, shaking the bread bag. There were a few pieces in the bottom. He’d showered, dressed in long pants and a T-shirt. Adam saw that the rope from the table leg was missing. Whatever it was that lived inside Adam’s father evaporated his age. Adam understood that now. His father looked and sounded younger. His body was old, but the things in him weren’t, his mind wasn’t; it was tough and durable like leather. Looking at him it would have been easy for Adam to let the fear take hold, to be like Monty and Jerry, dropping to their bellies at the sound of the sneering voice, rolling onto their backs to see Adam’s father standing straight and well again. But, instead, Adam raised his fist and rushed his father. Adam knew the moves. He gave no warning. He pulled up short before hitting him, snarling in his father’s face, fist shaking in the air. His father dropped the bread bag and crouched by the sink.

‘Give it to me.’

His father took the rope from his pocket. He passed it to Adam and then cringed, waiting for the blows. Adam looped the rope as though about to strike him. But didn’t. Just let his father stay like that, cowering, a moment longer, before slowly pulling away.

Adam walked out and hurled the rope into the centre of the pool, watched it sink.

His chin trembled, but he refused to cry.

They needed bread and they needed meat. The milk carton was almost empty. Adam went into his father’s bedroom and looked at the pairs of shoes against the wall. He chose the brown leather ones without laces. Adam practised walking in them, up and down the hallway. The day was hot. He put on shorts. He kept on the brown checked shirt. He looked at himself in his father’s wardrobe mirror. Adam’s fringe was hanging in his eyes. His arms and legs were long, ghostly white and skinny. Boys on the TV had similar hair to Adam’s but none of them dressed the way he was dressed. His father had jeans, but he wore them often and they reminded Adam of his father; he couldn’t bring himself to put them on.

‘Take me to the shops.’

His father was sitting on the couch. ‘I’m too unwell.’

‘I don’t care, take me anyway.’

‘I’ve got no money.’

‘That’s not true. I found the money. If you don’t take me I’ll take it next door and ask them to take me.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The money under the house. Are you going to take me or do I have to go next door with it?’

When his father did nothing Adam moved as though to leave. His father shifted on the cushions.

As his father got ready, Adam didn’t let him out of his sight. He followed him into the bedroom and then into the bathroom. He watched while his father washed his hands and face. It felt to Adam that if at any time the gun was going to reappear it was going to be right then. His father dried his hands for a long time. His head was down. He was thinking.

‘What do you want?’ he said, turning suddenly. ‘I didn’t mean anything before. I was getting rid of the rope. I meant what I said down in the room. I am going to change. Do you want me to say I’m sorry?’

‘I don’t want you to say anything, I want you to take me to the shops.’

‘They’re closed.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘People will see you’ve hit me. You’ll get in trouble.’

‘I don’t think I will.’

‘Where have you put the safe key?’

‘I’m not telling you.’

‘What food do you want? I’ll get anything you want. I can get new things this time.’

‘I’m coming. You can’t stop me.’

They went out through the billiards room, across the decking and down the steps. They walked around to the gate. The sun was high. Concrete shimmered and rippled in the heat. His father had hidden the key for the gate padlock inside a length of hollow metal pipe. It was lying on top of a pile of bigger pipes. His father’s hand rested on the bar as he withdrew the key, his fingers closed a little way around the steel. Adam took a few paces back. He’d left the hose inside, but he had the bottle opener with him. It no longer felt big enough. Adam looked at the things around him – blocks of timber, beams of rusted iron, a metal fencing stake. Adam crouched and picked up the stake. He stayed crouched, watched his father. A car passed in the street. A ball bounced. Two voices drifted up from the other side of the fence. The conversation was fast and jumbled. The voices grew louder. They were right there, on the other side of the gate. Adam lifted his head, opened his mouth as though about to shout, eyed his father.

His father let go of the bar. He unlocked the gate.

Adam let go of the stake.

Monty and Jerry howled the moment the gates were closed. Adam guessed they usually got to go shopping. He’d never heard them howl like that before. Or maybe, locked in the backroom, the sound hadn’t reached him. Adam’s father’s car was parked in the street. It was a blue station wagon that could fit birdcages in the back and carry bags of seed. Once or twice, when very young, Adam had been allowed to play inside the vehicle. Now and then his father drove the car into the yard, unloaded seed, took caged birds away or brought new birds home. There were chicken feathers on the seats and scattered on the floor. The temperature in the car made the air hard to breathe. Adam closed the door and burned the backs of his legs on the vinyl seat. He perched on the edge with his knees against the dash. His father wound down the window. Adam watched and then did the same on his side. The boys bouncing the ball were on the footpath up ahead. They looked over their shoulders. One of them made the sound of a chicken. Both boys laughed. They were near enough to call out to, but it didn’t make them seem any closer. To Adam it felt as though there might as well have still been a fence between him and the boys. Everything remained far away. Adam’s gaze skimmed the fronts of the houses, the wide driveways, the short green lawns and colourful gardens. Tree branches arched over the road. Huge stretch of sky above that. Adam gripped his knees. The car sped up. Air blew in through the window. Things passed fast. He forced himself to look. The picture didn’t change. The world was tall, it was spread out, long and deep, filled to the brim, there were people in it, colour sprang forward, sun glinted off leaves and windows and off the moving cars, yet the world was a single thing, one big place. And Adam didn’t feel like he was in it. Was it just like his father had always said? There was no place for Adam. He didn’t belong.

‘M
r Vander, you’ve taken a fall or something?’

The butcher came out from behind the counter. He was wearing a white apron stained with blood. He wiped his hands on a tea towel tucked into his apron strings.

‘Are you okay?’

‘A bit of heart trouble, I took a tumble.’

‘That’s no good, sorry to hear it. Is that why you’ve got a helper with you today? G’day, young fella, you’re a good lad to help out.’

The man’s eyes were so brown they looked black. There was a steel rod hanging from his belt, resting down his thigh. The other man behind the counter was dark-eyed too. He was whistling along to a song on the radio.

‘Come and sit down, Mr Vander.’

The butcher brought forward one of the chairs lined up against the wall. He placed it in the middle of the long section of the shop where other people were waiting.

‘Hot day to be out if you’re not feeling well. What would you like? We’ll get your order quickly, let you get back home.’

Both men wrapped the meat. There were mirrors on the walls. Adam could see himself from different angles. He looked at the other customers. They didn’t look at him – not even when he tried to catch their eye – they looked into the cabinet at the meats.

In the next shop they knew Adam’s father too. They also saw that he was sick. He told them the same story.

There were trolleys and wire baskets. His father took a basket and passed it to Adam. Foods advertised on TV were on the shelves. The store was a strange temperature, not warm, not cool. No smell. Adam’s shoes were rubbing on his heels. His father filled the basket. A woman with a baby walked along the same part of the shop as them. She jiggled the boy on her hip and talked to him as she put things in her trolley. She wheeled the trolley one-handed and asked the boy to point at things.

‘Where’s purple?’

The child pointed to a packet on the shelf. ‘There.’

‘That’s green.’

‘There.’

‘No, that’s pink.’

‘There!’

The woman stopped and took a packet from the shelf. Her face was flushed and her hair was blonde and curly.

‘That’s purple,’ Adam said, pointing at a packet.

The woman pulled a wide-eyed face. She smiled at Adam. He smiled back. The skin on his bottom lip split. Adam’s father turned to face them. He exchanged a look with the woman. His eyes softened in a message –
Take no notice of him
.

‘There!’ the boy kept singing out, able to be heard even when Adam and his father were at the front buying their food.

A motorbike had parked beside Adam’s father’s car. There weren’t many other cars about, not many shops. There were lots of houses, in every direction. The yards were small, no high fences. In the car on the way home Adam went over in his mind what had happened. He didn’t look out the windows as he had on the way to the shops. He looked down at his knees. Adam could feel each breath he took. He was aware of every time he blinked. Could feel every heartbeat.

They turned into their street. His father parked the car. Adam felt cold despite the sun burning down. He took the bags of food from the back seat and stood waiting while his father opened the gate. Monty and Jerry darted out and raced around their feet. Adam followed his father through into the yard. His father was talking.

‘It’s only ever been that I’ve worried about you. I’ve looked after you the best way I could. We’ll make lots of changes now that you’re older . . .’

The moment the gate was shut, before his father had time to thread the chain and close the padlock, Adam put down the bags and picked up the steel pipe. As he turned with it his father stopped talking and crouched, covered his head. Adam stood over him, the bar raised, trembling and gripping the steel so tightly it hurt his hand. Down on the ground his father huddled against the gate. After a moment Adam started to cry. Tears began to roll down his father’s cheeks. Adam threw the pipe towards the house. It landed with a clank on the concrete. Adam gasped, catching his breath, tasting blood on his bottom lip, where the smile to the woman had cracked it.

Tears spilled from Adam’s eyes. His chest was tight. He had to drag in each breath. His father stretched out on the hot concrete, put his cheek against the rough surface and lay there like he wasn’t going to get up.

‘I’m normal, aren’t I?’ Adam cried.

His father nodded.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

His father shook his head.

‘You didn’t have to hurt me. You could have loved me.’ Adam’s voice caught in his throat.

‘I do love you.’

‘Don’t say it! I could have been like other children. You made me —’ A sob stopped Adam talking.

‘We can make it all right. I promise you we can. I want things to change as much as you do. I’m going to make it up to you. I will. From now on it can be everything you want. Anything you want.’ His father’s body began to tense up. Adam watched his hands curl against his chest, watched his father’s face grow grey and his lips turn pale. ‘I need a tablet . . .’

He left his father there. Adam went inside. He lay down on the lounge room floor. The tears wouldn’t stop. Adam curled on his side, pulled his legs into his chest. If he closed his eyes he saw everything too clearly, he had to keep his eyes open, but if he looked at things, like the carpet, or under the coffee table, or at the dogs’ cushions, he saw those things too clearly too. He had to blur his vision and stare at nothing. Monty and Jerry came in and licked his face. They jumped on top of him.

W
hen Adam woke it was dark. The house was quiet. He’d fallen asleep on the floor. His body felt light and empty. He got up and turned on the lamp.

The dogs were outside. They’d found the meat in the bags by the gate. Adam shone the torch. Flies were buzzing, trapped, within the plastic bag. Stars were out. The moon was bright. His father muttered something as Adam squatted down beside him. There was vomit on the concrete and dried sick on his chin.

‘Can you get up?’

He couldn’t. Adam had to help him. His father groaned and swayed. Adam’s stomach rumbled. He grew hungry in the time it took to get his father inside. He laid him on the bed, put a blanket over him.

Back outside, Jerry had run off with a steak and Monty had torn the paper around the sausages. Adam let Monty have a sausage. He shook the bag free of flies and carried the shopping into the kitchen.

Adam unpacked the groceries. He cooked a steak. It took him a couple of goes to get it right. He kept taking it off too soon and cutting into it only to find that it was raw. Blood pooled on the plate. Blood dripped on the floor. Adam buttered bread and ate it one slice after another, folding it and taking big bites. After the bread, and then the steak, Adam was so full it was difficult to move. Monty and Jerry had overeaten too. They ambled in, round bellies and slow steps. Jerry lay on the kitchen floor, panting. The little dog’s mouth stretched back like he was smiling. Adam began clearing away the cooking mess, but stopped himself. He left it. He went into the lounge room, flopped into the armchair. Monty was on her cushion, licking her paws.

That night there was a show about the police on the TV. The uniformed officers broke into a house, chased the man through it, shot him as he tried to leave through the window. The four policemen knelt around a bag of money, checking the bundles. One policeman picked up the dead man’s gun. He shot one of the other policemen. The music started up, the policemen began looking at one another. All together they reached for their guns. Another policeman was shot. Only two were left, staring at one another. Adam moved closer to the screen. The last two officers both reached for the bag. In the struggle they shot each other. One died, the other didn’t. Bleeding, the last one zipped up the bag and began to leave. He got blood all over everything. He slumped in the hallway and died. The show ended.

Adam switched off the TV.

He went down to the room above the safe, pulled back the carpet, removed the boards, climbed down, unlocked the safe and sat beside it.

For a few long moments he looked at the stack of cash.

It was, he realised, a lot of money.

Adam locked the safe again. He made a tight fist around the key. His pocket wasn’t any sort of good hiding spot.

In the lounge room, at the back of the TV, was a broken piece of casing where the cord came out. Adam slid the key in there, into the back of the TV unit. It relaxed him to think that when watching shows he’d be looking at the very place where the key was kept.

Adam made a cup of tea for his father and took it into the bedroom. His father didn’t move. Each breath wheezed in his chest. His mouth was open. Adam sat the drink on the bedside table. He put the box of tablets beside it.

‘The tablets are there.’

When Adam shook his father, he didn’t stir.

By the boarded-up front door was a telephone. Adam lifted the receiver. No sound. He looked at the dial, turned it. Nothing. No voice down the line. The phone made a soft ding when he put the receiver on and off, but that was all. Adam left it.