Maddy brought him to Sydney for a visit last month and the four of them endured an uncomfortable dinner as Logan questioned the man dating his sister over roast chicken, asked him about his plans over chocolate mousse and suggested he get a job after they’d all had coffee.
‘You were rude,’ Debbie told him. But Logan hadn’t cared.
He knows where we live.
‘No, no, no,’ cries Logan. Debbie’s at home, alone, in bed with a cold, in bed and weak. Debbie is at home. Terror dances through Logan. If Patrick is looking for him, he will find Debbie first. Don’t just sit here, idiot.
Logan swears and picks up his phone. ‘Listen, Debbie,’ he says when she answers.
‘Oh, hey babes,’ says Debbie, ‘hang on a second, there’s someone at the door.’
‘Debbie, wait! No – wait!’ he shouts, starting the van and pulling off with a screech of tyres, the phone slipping in his clammy hand. He’s too late. He should have just gone home and he would have been there now. He’s too late.
‘What are you doing here?’ he hears her say and then, ‘Oh no, no…’
‘Debbie!’ he screams as he turns a corner, cutting off a Mercedes Benz and nearly hitting a car parked on the street.
‘Debbie, Debbie, Debbie!’ His voice fills the van, breaking with hysteria, his pulse pounding in his throat, his hands slick on the wheel. ‘Debbie,’ he moans.
22
Gladys
Gladys cannot sit down. Her steps around the living room are short and rapid, the rattle of the air conditioner setting her teeth on edge. ‘I’m telling you, Lou, something is very wrong. “Thanks for trying to help,” that’s what he said to me. He knew that I know that something is wrong. I mean he’s five years old, Lou. What kind of a five-year-old says something like that?’
‘Can you please stop pacing, old girl, you’re making me tired. Maybe he just meant thanks for the muffins and it came out wrong. Children get things mixed up all the time.’ But Lou’s voice is uncertain. He is no longer as convinced of his own position. Gladys pushes, needing an ally to her own thoughts.
‘George is a particularly clever little boy. He was trying to give me some sort of message, I’m sure of it.’
‘Maybe but what exactly can you do about it?’
‘Well, I shall telephone the local police station and demand that they investigate.’ She nods her head. This is the right thing to do.
‘Yes, I suppose you could do that, but Gladys, didn’t they ask you to… I don’t know, stop calling or something?’ He is hesitant, unsure of her reaction.
Gladys feels her face flame. ‘I only call for good reasons, Lou. Constable Auerbach just asked if I could give people in the street more time to respond before I called her.’
‘Please try talking to your neighbours before you call us, Gladys,’ is what the constable said, but she had smiled kindly when she said it. ‘You’ve called us twelve times this year already,’ she said, then she reached out and patted Gladys on the arm, soothing an old woman. It had taken all of Gladys’s will to not pull her arm back, refusing the kind gesture.
Gladys didn’t think it could have been that many times anyway, but if it was, it was certainly not her fault that dogs barked all night or at least until 10 p.m., or that people parked in the incorrect manner or that sometimes the teenagers in the neighbourhood seemed to be exhibiting signs of being hard of hearing, so loud was their music. Every neighbourhood needs someone watching, making sure that things are all in order.
She reflects now that this is probably why she didn’t call the police after yesterday’s little incident. She had thought about it. She had definitely thought about it, but then she had imagined Constable Auerbach smiling kindly at her again and telling her, in a slightly condescending manner, that people have a right to do their jobs. But today she has tried to speak to Katherine. She’s tried over and again.
‘Look at that,’ says Lou, turning up the news, obviously hoping to distract her. ‘That young man has come to Sydney. They know he’s here now. They’ll get him, they will.’
Gladys glances at the television, sees the red cap again and she sinks into a chair, realisation creeping up her spine. ‘I’ve seen him,’ she says, placing her hand over her heart that is beating faster with each breath she takes.
‘Well, yes, there on the television.’ Lou gestures with the remote.
‘No, Lou,’ she says, wringing her hands. ‘That man, wearing the same red cap, was here, in our garden. He was here.’
‘Oh, Gladys, listen, I think…’
But she tunes her husband out. The red cap with the raised stitching in the same colour is seared on her mind. You can’t see the stitching in the CCTV footage but she knows it’s there. She knows it’s him. The facial features are blurry on the television but they sharpen as she thinks about him. She’s seen him. She can just make out the slight beard on his chin. She remembers that beard, knows she thought, If young men can’t grow proper beards, they should remain clean-shaven. A passing thought as she looked at him.
If she hadn’t wanted to hang the washing out then and there, she would probably not have seen the young man in her back garden at all, but there he was, looking straight into her kitchen when she came outside with the heavy plastic basket, filled with Lou’s shirts. He does seem to drop food on himself a lot these days. She is forever running for the stain remover.
‘What are you doing?’ she shouted at the young man, fear causing her voice to sound high and squeaky. He was dressed in jeans ripped at the knee, a black T-shirt and the cap. Red cap. Raised stitching on the front.
‘Gosh, I’m so sorry,’ he said politely. ‘I’m gardening next door and I wondered if I could place a ladder in your yard so I can trim the tall hedges on this side as well. I won’t, of course, if you would prefer me not to.’ He had a nice smile and he spoke very well so Gladys relaxed a bit.
‘Are you from Mark’s crew?’ she asked because the Petersons next door were very proud of their garden and had Mark and his gardening crew in at least once every two weeks to keep everything looking shipshape. One of them usually came over to ask if he could cut the tall hedges from Gladys’s side of the garden and of course she always said yes.
‘I am,’ he said and he smiled widely at her.
‘Well, of course you can, I always allow it,’ she said and then she realised that she’d forgotten her peg bag and had to go back inside. When she came back outside, he was gone, but she expected him back with his ladder at any moment. She darted to the front of the house quickly and saw that Mark’s van was indeed out the front of the Petersons’ house, so she assumed all was well.
She had been surprised when the young man hadn’t returned with his ladder and even more surprised when Hamid, one of the regular gardeners, turned up to ask if he could trim the hedges only half an hour later.
‘But I already told the other man that it was fine,’ Gladys said.
‘I’m the only one here today,’ Hamid said. And Gladys just nodded and smiled, feeling very stupid. Especially when she realised that Hamid wore a khaki brown shirt with ‘Garden Gurus’ on the pocket. The other young man had not been wearing any sort of uniform. Of course, she dashed around the house for a bit, grateful that Lou was having a nap, checking her purse and Lou’s wallet and the computers. Nothing had been taken or even moved. All was as it should be. She thought about calling the police, but then she imagined Constable Auerbach and her smile asking what exactly the problem was, and so she left it.
What was he doing here? Looking for money? Will he be back? Gladys imagines trying to sleep with the thought that a violent man is loose in her neighbourhood. No number of locks on her doors could make her feel safe. She needs to tell the police. It’s important that they know so they can begin looking for him.
‘I’m telling you, Lou, that man was here yesterday.’ She repeats herself, her hands twisting with worry.
Lou reaches forward and touches her leg lightly, softly – his concern f
or her communicated through his fingers. ‘Gladys, maybe you need a bit of a rest, you know, just for twenty minutes or so. It’s really hot.’
She shakes off his touch and stands up, returns to her pacing. ‘You have no idea what could be going on, Lou.’ She feels her body heating up as she moves, her mouth dry and thoughts crashing into each other. ‘Maybe the young man has something to do with John?’ she says.
‘Gladys, John is an accountant and he—’
‘We don’t know anything about what he does.’ Her voice rises so that he will keep quiet. She paces some more and then stops in front of her husband’s chair. ‘Maybe John is involved in something nefarious and the man is holding the whole family hostage,’ she says, grasping for the plot of some movie they once saw.
A look of real fear settles on Lou’s face. She knows that he thinks that something is really wrong with her. He is afraid for her mental wellbeing but she knows she saw the man, and she knows that she cannot stand by anymore and just let what’s happening at Katherine’s house go on. Maybe the two are connected. Maybe not but she needs to get some help from the police.
‘I’ll be back,’ she says to Lou, because she means to do something about all of this. Once and for all.
She will make the call outside after checking Katherine’s house just once more. A little spark of hope inside her imagines seeing Katherine and the children out the front, the hose sprinkling over the twins as it did last Sunday.
‘Maybe it’s all fine,’ she says aloud as she leaves her house. ‘Maybe everything is fine.’
23
‘I know that you’ve carried this around with you for a long time. I understand how much it would have hurt you and how difficult it was for you to live with your father and then for him… but you’re not there anymore.’
I am eating my way through an apple. The strange thing about being given free rein over what you eat is that your body starts to cry out for something more after a few months. I started to crave fruit when I lived with my father, the same way some kids lust after junk food.
After he died and they sent me back to live with my mother, I could see she thought the problem had been solved.
‘We can start again,’ she told me. ‘I’ve found a good counsellor and we can go together and we can just start again.’
But I didn’t want to spend any time with her. I was failed by both of them and the only thing I wanted was to leave my past behind and start my life again. At fifteen, I just wanted to move on. I imagined that becoming an adult and having control of my life would make everything different, but here I stand because of a woman who made a decision, who broke my heart and unravelled whatever life I had built for myself. Here I stand because exactly the same thing that happened to my father has happened to me.
I carried the guilt of my own part in his death with me all the time. It weighed me down and made me tired and apathetic about my own existence. If I had only listened to him when he lectured me, or maybe if I had found a way to get him some help… If I had been a better son, then he would have believed there was a reason for him to stick around, to try and give up the alcohol and get off the sofa. But I wasn’t and I knew it was my fault he was dead.
‘I don’t want to live with you,’ I told her. ‘I would rather go into foster care.’ I enjoyed the way those words hit her, shocking her so that she crumpled a little and sank into a chair.
‘You hate me that much?’ she asked.
‘He wouldn’t be dead if you had taken him back.’ Such a simple thing for a wife to do. Forgive. Listen, understand and forgive.
I stare at the three of them on the sofa now. The children are dozing in the heat but she is still watching me, her one cheek swollen, her wrist puffed up, watching and waiting for a chance to get away.
‘Only a few weeks ago, I was happy,’ I say. ‘I thought I had everything figured out.’
She is quiet, seeking refuge in silence, afraid of what I may do if she says something wrong. I like her like this.
I think about falling in love, about that first rush of excitement when all you can think about is that person and you spend your whole day just waiting to see them. Those first few months, we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. When she asked me to move in with her, I was like a kid at Christmas, so excited I couldn’t sleep the night before. The first night I moved in we stayed up all night talking, planning, even naming our future children.
I had already told her about my father dying and I had explained that I was estranged from my mother. One night, a few months after we met, I told her about my childhood as we sat in front of a fire in a pub on a cold night. It was pouring outside but we had braved the weather to go looking for a good burger and we found ourselves in an old-fashioned pub with a dartboard on the wall and a large fire roaring in a stone fireplace, blackened with age. The burgers were pretty good and we were the only two in the place.
‘Why don’t you want to talk to her?’ she asked me that night in the pub.
‘I can’t,’ I told her. And then I explained about my father. She listened quietly, occasionally touching my hand, her eyes shining with unshed tears for my tragic childhood. I thought that was the end of it. I thought we would never have to discuss it again, that I would never have to think about it again.
I felt completely accepted by her. Once you’ve shared your childhood demons with someone, there is a connection that shouldn’t be broken. I knew in the pub that night that I’d found a woman who would never break my heart and who would always understand me and what I needed. I feel really stupid about that now because I was warned by my father, but I somehow thought that it would be different for me.
The longer we were together, the more she lectured, argued, tried to control me. That’s what she was doing. She was trying to control me. My father’s note came back to me again and again. I should never have allowed myself to fall in love. I could see it coming, a slow-motion movie of my life and how it would play out. First, she would try to change me and I would grow frustrated with her. My father cheated on my mother and maybe somewhere deep inside me was the gene for that, the need for that. I used to imagine scenarios where I did meet another woman, where I could be with someone who didn’t need me to be a different person to the one she had liked in the first place. And then I saw her telling me it was over and kicking me out and I didn’t even need to think about what that terrible spiral down into addiction and depression would look like. I had watched it, been part of it and I couldn’t stand the idea that it was going to happen to me. I felt trapped by how much I loved her and how much I knew she was going to hurt me. I should have left then but I kept hoping. In some weird way I’m still hoping that it can all be fixed, that it can be put right. I just needed to do something drastic, something big. I needed to make her understand that leaving me, that our parting, was simply not an option.
But I’m not sure now. I’m not sure where I go from here or what I do, and strangely, I would like to be able to ask my father what I should do. But he’s gone because it all got too much for him and I can’t let that happen to me. I have to see this through.
I have no choice.
I drop my apple core on the floor, watching her eyes widen at the gesture. It’s laughable that something that ridiculous still has the ability to affect anyone considering where we all are now.
‘My life wasn’t meant to go like this, you know,’ I tell her.
‘That’s not my fault,’ she says, frustration in her voice.
‘Then whose fault is it?’ I ask as I rub the gun against my shirt, ridding the handle of my sweat.
‘It’s…’ she begins, but I shake my head at her.
I don’t care to listen to her answer.
24
Katherine
Her mouth is gritty with bits of chocolate muffin, her throat dry, but she doesn’t want to ask him for water. She doesn’t want to ask him for anything except that he just go, just leave her and her children alone. There is mounting anger in
side her but she knows that she needs to control it. His behaviour is not just unpredictable and violent – it feels like he’s on the edge of something worse, something that she will not be able to recover from. The room is warmer with each passing hour, filling up with the heat of their combined bodies, and she longs for the outside, for space to breathe and move. She can feel that there must be a way out of this beyond just sitting here and waiting for him to decide it’s over.
‘It’s getting late,’ she says. ‘Do you understand? This can’t go on.’ She speaks softly, gently. He is back in the recliner, the gun resting on his knee, pointed at the three of them. He is getting tired. It’s hard work to maintain the rage that’s keeping the gun pointed in their direction.
‘I don’t…’ he begins.
‘I understand. You don’t know what to do,’ she says. ‘But if you just get up now, just get up and leave, I won’t report you to the police. I won’t say anything at all. Take whatever you want and just go.’ She is in pain all over her body but she feels herself rise above the throbbing and the sharpness of it as she speaks. She has to end this. She cannot give in to the pain because she has these children to save.
He snorts, derision in the sound. ‘Of course you’re going to report me. I would report me.’
‘No one needs to know about what happened here today. I can say that I fell and hurt my wrist. The kids will keep the secret, won’t you, George? Sophie?’
The children rouse themselves from their light sleep. She knows they have been listening. ‘We can keep this a secret, can’t we?’ she repeats. They both nod, but cautiously. They’ve been told that lying is bad. She hopes to have a chance to explain this all to them, to be here still and to have them with her so she can explain.
The Family Across the Street Page 15