The Piper's Son

by Melina Marchetta

  “What did he say?”

  “I recall the letter c and the letter u and the letter n and the letter t and lots of fs and ks. It will filthy up my mouth to repeat the words.”

  Tom doesn’t know why he says that. It’s what his mum would say when she had to repeat someone’s swearing, and his father would laugh every time. The princess, they would call her. But the princess packed her bags and took Anabel with her and told his father not to come near them until he had been sober long enough not to remember his last drink. “And if you break that rule, I’ll file for divorce and you’ll have to see your daughter through a court order,” she had said. But she still added “my love” to it. So his father stayed away all this time, and now Tom thinks he’s doing it all wrong. In the movies, the guy gets sober and goes straight back to reclaim his family, like something out of a Paul Kelly song. He doesn’t hide in his sister’s house, still avoiding the world.

  Sometimes Tom wants to break into his father’s room and search it. Does he hide his booze there? Did he get up there tonight at his meeting and say, “Hi, my name’s Dominic and I’m an alcoholic and I’ll never drink again because I love my family too much to screw up again”?

  They walk into the house and his father shuts the door behind them.

  “She hasn’t eaten all week,” Tom says quietly. “She’s going to go straight up to her room. Do something.”

  He doesn’t know why he says that either. Why he thinks his father will be able to do anything. But he follows Dominic into the kitchen, just because it’s instinctive.

  “Can you make us something to eat, Georgie?” he hears his father say.

  It’s about eleven thirty and he hears the beep of a horn. At first he thinks it’s random, but Tom knows that horn well and peers outside the tiny window and sees the Valiant first and then Justine and Francesca jogging on the spot to keep warm. They’re dressed up, he can see that. It’s what they used to do years ago with Tara and Siobhan. Beep the horn and he’d have to determine in a split second, by the way they were dressed, where they were all off to. One minute’s notice. Tonight he has no reason to respond, because their lives aren’t like two years ago, but Francesca and Justine aren’t budging, so he grabs a pair of jeans and collared shirt.

  Five minutes later, he’s out of the house, and without a word, Justine and Francesca get back into the car and he hops in after them. They end up in some warehouse nightclub in Rosebery for a schoolmate’s twenty-first. He hasn’t seen the school crowd since the last of the eighteenth birthdays. The moment they step inside, Justine and Francesca are kidnapped by Anna Nguyen and Eva Rodriguez, off to the dance floor where he knows they’ll spend the rest of the night. He ends up out back with some of the guys, smoking. Someone hands him the bottle of Johnnie Walker doing the rounds and he shakes his head. If there’s one thing that makes him sick to the stomach, courtesy of Dominic Mackee, it’s the smell of whiskey.

  “When your uncle died, I felt it here, bro,” Shaheen says, thumping his chest.

  “Same,” Travis says.

  It gets too intense and someone brings up football. Tom’s relieved to be talking about something that has rules and purpose, and next minute they’re arguing and everyone’s calling each other pussy and dickhead and boofhead and turd with such affection that it almost brings tears to his eyes. Later, he goes inside and ends up on the dance floor with the girls and it’s hazy and sweaty and he doesn’t have to think; he just has to feel the bass inside him. It’s what he always had with Francesca and Justine. They were uninhibited when it came to music and sometimes the three of them had a tune inside their head that no one else could hear, and tonight it’s there between them and they’re fucking the space with their bodies.

  In the early hours of the morning, a bunch of them drive to Maroubra Beach like they used to when they were at school. The last time they were all here together was after graduation night, with their dates. Tom thought Tara was making a statement because she hadn’t asked anyone to be hers. He had been going out with one of the Year Elevens who seemed keen, but that night he couldn’t keep his eyes off Tara Finke and he knew she felt it. They drove around the city with Tom as their designated driver, planning to stay the night on the beach, where there was too much drinking and too much emotion among all of them. Will Trombal and Francesca had been apart because he’d graduated the year before and had been overseas for most of that year. Despite Francesca’s rule that they were going to take it slowly, the two couldn’t keep their hands off each other. And he remembered the water that night and how warm it felt and Jimmy doing a nudie run along the beach, and then they all stripped down to underwear and even now, looking at how rough the surf is, he can’t believe they went in, the others were so tanked. But in the darkness that night he knew exactly where to find Tara. He hadn’t realized he was looking until his hand snaked out and grabbed her, their mouths connecting and tongues taking over while his brain was saying, Danger, danger, Will Robinson. His mouth had been everywhere, hands with minds of their own . . . fingers . . . his . . . hers . . . scratching, searching, kneading.

  “Tom!”

  Until his date’s voice rang out through the night and Tara pushed him away. And she was crying. His one claim to fame, he thinks. Being able to make Tara Finke cry. All he could say the next day was, “Sorry about last night. Shit. What was that?” Like he didn’t know, the weak bastard that he was.

  He feels someone against his shoulder and it’s Francesca calling his name again.

  “You’re getting your jeans wet,” she says, and he walks up the sand with her to where Justine’s sitting on the hood of the car under one of the streetlights. This place isn’t exactly the best spot to be hanging out on a Saturday night if you’re not a local, but it’s like they couldn’t even be bothered being scared.

  He lights a cigarette and sits between them.

  “Stani’s going to have to find a new dish-pig if you don’t come back,” Justine says.

  “He was actually thinking of promoting you to glassy,” Francesca adds.

  “Oh, my God. Then what am I going to do about the job offers from Bill Gates and Donald Trump?”

  “Tell them the Union’s a better gig,” Francesca says. “It’s where you need to be.”

  He can’t speak because it’s like there’s something in his throat, but these two have learned the art of silence and they stay there until some shifty-looking guys come along and it’s time to go.

  And as quietly as they arrived to pick him up, they drive back over the Anzac Bridge and drop him off in front of Georgie’s, just as the sun begins to appear.

  “You don’t have to play,” Francesca says, “but we’re running out of time for our compilation and we need lyrics. Think about it.”

  He gets out of the car and waits for them to pull away. His stomach’s churning and he realizes that it’s a subconscious thing, seeing Francesca and Justine. That he was always used to seeing Tara with them, and he wonders if he thinks of her more often because they’re around. He wants to hear her voice again, but he can’t bear the idea that she could be lying beside some guy, some pasty-faced soldier.

  He turns when he hears a sound behind him and sees that it’s his father, preparing for his morning jog. Obsessive-compulsive to a T, Dom Mackee is.

  His father looks at him closely as he passes him, and Tom realizes bitterly that the prick has the hide to be assessing whether he’s drunk or off his face on drugs. He wishes he was, so he could say, “Because of you.”

  But neither says a word to each other, and it’s his father who puts the earphones in and looks away first.

  Tom’s at her bedroom door the next morning, a look of worry on his face. Georgie winces. She’s supposed to be the adult around here and instead, this poor kid’s looking after her.

  “I’m okay, Tom. I promise,” she says, shuffling out of bed.

  But he’s shaking his head. “Georgie, I’m sorry.”

  She grabs her dressing gown, which
doesn’t even reach her sides these days.

  “I got so stressed yesterday and freaked out and . . .” he’s saying.

  She stops and places her hands on his shoulders. “Calm down. It’s fine. I’m fine. I’m going to have a shower now and then eat breakfast. And then I’ll do the grocery shopping and tonight I’ll cook properly. I promise.”

  It takes a lot of energy to speak, but she doesn’t want him to see that.

  “I rang Nanni Grace and Bill yesterday because I was worried about you,” he says.

  She nods. She wants to get that look off Tom’s face. “I’ll ring them today and tell them I’m okay, Tommy — I promise.”

  He’s pointing outside and then down. Tom was always a pointer. Pointed at his food as a substitute for words.

  She hears barking.

  “They’re downstairs, Georgie. And they brought the dogs. And big suitcases.”

  Oh, my God.

  She’s out the bedroom door in a moment. “Mummy!” she calls out from the top of the stairs. The dogs respond to the sound of her voice and she clutches the banister as they come bounding up the stairs.

  And there she is. Amazing Grace. A grief-ravaged face, but the beauty and style is still there. No unruly hair for Grace Mackee. She’s all sleek bob cut and lipstick.

  “Bill. Get the dogs off Georgie!”

  “Bruno! Bazzi!”

  Lots of bellowing.

  Dominic stands behind their parents, at the bottom of the stairs. A bit shell-shocked really. When Georgie reaches them, Grace does that practical thing where she hugs her quickly and pats her on the back without lingering. Just one second more, Grace, Georgie wants to say. Just one second.

  “Bill will get some breakfast.”

  “Is Bill going to get the dogs, or is Bill going to get breakfast?” Bill asks. Dom gets his drawl from Bill. It’s a Burdekin drawl, no matter how many decades he’s lived down south. Georgie hugs her stepfather awkwardly and he holds on. Maybe that’s why she has resented him all her life. Because he would hold on longer, when she wanted it to come from her mother. He looks worn out. Although still fit and working outdoors fixing tractors in Albury, Joe’s death had aged him. Around him the dogs are going insane and everyone’s falling over one another with suitcases.

  “Do you want the spare room or the study?” Dom asks, and Grace agrees that the spare room is the way to go.

  Georgie tries to wash up the plates from the last two days quickly, ashamed at how untidy the house looks. In the past, if she’d known her parents were coming, she would be spring cleaning for a week.

  Her mother comes up behind her, holding a small diary. “What do you think, Georgie? Should I change Bill’s November checkups to now, seeing we’re here?”

  “That sounds good, Mum.”

  “But as long as your father doesn’t drive. As soon as we hit Sydney, he was useless. I told him the whole time not to take the Hume Highway. Do you think he listened to me?”

  “Organize it with Dom and he can drive you both around.”

  “He’s getting Alzheimer’s. I’m sure of it.”

  “I’m not getting Alzheimer’s,” Bill says, walking into the kitchen with a box of produce they’ve brought up from Albury. Dom’s behind him with another and begins stacking some of it in the fridge.

  “Great,” Georgie whispers to her brother as they huddle at the fridge door. “Bill gets Alzheimer’s and has an excuse to forget what a bastard he was all those years.”

  The doorbell rings and she thinks it’s the neighbors coming to complain already, so she rushes to answer the door. To Sam.

  “Where were you?” she blurts out. She doesn’t mean to make it sound like an accusation, but it’s out of her mouth before she can stop it.

  “I told you I was in Melbourne. Shit, Georgie. Do you ever listen to me?” He’s not happy. “Next time I come back to you looking like this, you’re moving in with Lucia and Abe.”

  It’s not until the dogs come running toward them that she notices that Callum is with him.

  “Hi, Georgie.”

  “Hi.”

  And suddenly Grace is there, looking from Georgie to Sam and then the kid.

  “Hello, Sam,” her mother says quietly.

  “Grace.” He leans forward to hug her. It’s all a bit awkward. There was Sam who was like a son-in-law for seven years, Sam the adulterer who they didn’t see for years, Sam the savior who was around for Joe’s death, and now Sam the impregnator of their daughter, standing on her front porch with his son by his side.

  Grace looks down at the kid.

  “You better come inside,” she says. “Bill wants the door shut to keep the dogs in.”

  Sam looks awkward. Georgie, defeated. Once Callum crosses the threshold, she doesn’t know what will happen. It changes the rules completely, although she isn’t quite sure what the rules are. The kid seems entranced. Usually there’s intrigue about Georgie’s front door. A whole lot of quiet and the mystery of what’s beyond there. But there are dogs barking and people bellowing, and Tom’s being a smart-arse and accompanying it all to music, strumming his guitar in a fast Spanish piece. He comes up behind her in the corridor, serenading over his grandmother’s shoulder, and then he looks down at Callum as well.

  “Tom and Grace, this is Callum,” Sam says with a sigh.

  The kid giggles at Tom’s antics, and the dogs come bounding. Georgie has no choice but to usher them in and shut the door.

  That day, while planning a getaway in his head from the Mackee/Finch circus, he receives an e-mail from taramarie. Not exactly an e-mail, but a link to the Lenina Crowne Fan Club website.

  Like he does most times when he thinks of Tara Finke lately, he smiles. And types. And decides he has nothing to lose.

  To: taramarie@yahoo.com

  From: anabelsbrother@hotmail.com

  Date: 15 August 2007

  Dear Finke,

  Flattered that you remembered my obsession with Lenina Crowne. So I must have told you that Huxley’s Brave New World was the porn of my Year Twelve year. Took me ages to work it out that it wasn’t her physical description or sexual liberation or curiosity that turned me on, but the voice of the vixen who read the part of Lenina in 12A English every lesson for four weeks.

  Tom

  To: anabelsbrother@hotmail.com

  From: taramarie@yahoo.com

  Date: 15 August 2007

  Dear Thomas,

  The only thing Lenina and I have in common is that we’ve both defied cultural conventions by dating one guy exclusively for several months. And we’ve both had misguided attractions to misfits in the past.

  Tara Finke

  Life just got one trillion times more bearable.

  There’s nothing like the Mackee clan all under the same roof to help convince Tom to return to work the next night. He’d rather face Stani and Ned the Cook than deal with a harassed Georgie, or a rundown on how the drought is affecting rural areas and a whole lot of Sydney-bashing. Worse still was the conversation Nanni Grace was having in whispers after lunch about how some tablets Bill had taken for depression had affected him having sex. Even Tom’s father looked horrified and left the kitchen while Georgie was screwing up her face and looking at Tom, as if she had never heard anything so disgusting. After walking in on Sam and Georgie having sex, Tom was becoming a bit numb to the pain of it all.

  The Union is pretty busy and he pushes past some of the regulars who are drinking and smoking on the pavement. “No glasses on the street,” he tells them, before walking in. In the kitchen, Ned looks a bit harassed and the plates are stacked up, leaving him with little room.

  “Move,” Tom says, pushing him away from the sink.

  Ned feigns a frightened sound, which Tom ignores. He doesn’t know how to deliver an apology. It’ll sound contrived now.

  Francesca walks in with some dirty plates.

  “Are you going to forgive him?” she asks Ned.

  Ned stays silent.

  �
��If I told you he can burp the whole of the national anthem, would you be impressed?” she says, dumping the plates next to Tom’s pile.

  “Impressed only because a burp would replace the word ‘girt.’”

  She walks out and Tom begins filling up the sink with clean water. Some of it flicks Ned, who feigns the frightened sound again, and Tom stares at him, unamused.

  Francesca pokes her head back in. “What if he can recite to you the whole of ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’?” she says.

  Ned looks at him, half impressed.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Tom says. “You’re not my type.”

  “The whole thing? Not just the first stanza? Not just the last lines about the mermaids singing? Not just the poxy rhyming line about Michelangelo?”

  Tom ignores him.

  “I’ll make you a bet,” Ned says, wiping his hands on his apron and going to his backpack to retrieve his Norton Anthology.

  “You carry your Norton around, you dickwit?” Tom asks.

  “I’m an English lit student. I can’t believe you even know what one is.”

  “It’s on page 1340,” Tom tells him.

  Ned looks at him suspiciously and flicks to the page, looking even more suspicious when he proves him right.

  Tom begins: “‘Let us go then, you and I . . .’”

  Stani walks in later, glaring at them both.

  “Bloody bastards. One minute punching each other, next minute reading poetry. What’s wrong with everyone this week?”

  Tom can tell that Ned is pissed off that he’s lost the bet.

  “What the hell made you learn that off by heart?” Ned asks. “Didn’t you drop out of construction or something?”

  Tom sponges up the last of the grime around the sink. “His name’s Tom. T. S. Eliot. The only Tom I kind of like. I have a cursed name.”

  “Try Ned. How many Neds are there in history? Two. Ned Kelly. Neddy Smith. Both crims.”