by Tim Winton
You want to ask me something, Kai?
There’s a letter, he whispered.
A letter? Where, mate? Who from?
No, said the boy impatiently. Here. Look.
He held out his palms.
Em.
Sorry?
It’s a em. See?
It took a moment to understand what the kid meant: the ragged letter M formed by the creases of his hand.
This one, too, said Kai. Em.
Well. Yeah. Look at that, eh?
I have a question.
Fire away.
Like, is it the same? For you?
Keely looked at the boy a second, then at his hands. He held them out. At the end of his arms his hands looked alien, improbable. The boy blinked and the sound of it was like cutlery chinking.
Not really, said Keely. Mine are a bit. Different.
Kai took a little while to digest this.
But what’s it for? he asked. M for what?
Well, M for whatever you like, I spose. They’re your hands, sport.
But what does it mean?
I don’t think it means anything, mate. It’s just a … just … just crease.
But only me?
Like a fingerprint, maybe. Yeah. Only you.
The boy settled on the pillow and reached for his arm. He wasn’t even close to sleep. And Keely couldn’t feel the boy’s fingertips. He was rattled.
You’re safe, he whispered prayerfully, needing it to be true, wanting to believe.
When Keely opened his eyes Doris was there, her silvery hair spilling over his chest.
Are you with me? she said.
Keely saw the ceiling rose behind her head. The pendant light-fitting like a halo.
Tom, love, are you with me?
As opposed to what? he replied. Against you?
Her hands on his neck and face were greasy. He knew the smell from childhood. Oil of Olay. Clearly Doris hadn’t heard about the animal testing. And now maybe wasn’t the right time. He was on the floor in the living room, and his limbs were treacherously slow, but he felt so alert. His mother clanked and rattled over him and he felt the boards under his arms, the Afghan rug prickling at his back. There was no getting around it. He’d checked out momentarily. He knew he should be terrified but right now he felt too embarrassed to be afraid.
I gather it’s not morning, then.
No, she said. It’s just after ten.
I wonder if that fish was alright.
It was fine, she said.
I must have tripped on the rug.
Maybe, she said, unconvinced. I was about to call an ambulance.
Call it what?
You’re squinting.
Am I?
Tom, are you taking something?
I wouldn’t steal from you, he said with a grin. Check my pockets.
Don’t worry, she said. I already have.
Through the jarrah floor he felt the fridge cycle off, shaking itself like a pup. A clock dripped. He felt the sound on his tongue.
Love, is there something you need to tell me?
I don’t think so, he said, levering himself by seven stages into a sitting position.
Doris sat back on her haunches. He looked at the big, saggy T-shirt, her bare legs. His mother went to bed in a Midnight Oil tour shirt. He never knew.
I fancy a shower, he said gamely.
Are you up to it?
It’s just water, he said.
I think I should call someone.
No, he said. Not tonight. You can’t do that now.
Doris pursed her lips.
I’ll be right in a moment.
Tom, we need to talk about this.
Look, he said woozily. I’m up. It’s fine. It’s these bloody Afghans, they’re all trying to kill us. That’s a joke.
If you say so.
He surfed the hallway to the bathroom. There was a towel, a spare toothbrush. Dear, dear Doris, he thought. Always two kicks ahead of the game.
Afterwards, cleaner, clearer, he stood in her doorway. She was on the bed cross-legged with a book in her lap. She glanced up a moment and turned the page. On the dresser a little desk fan turned its head to and fro. He leant against the architrave with a nonchalance Doris wasn’t buying.
What’re you reading?
A biography, she said. Dorothy Day.
On the bedside table there were more hardbacks. From here he could see something about Paul Robeson, a Brian Moore novel, the Bill McKibben he’d given her at Christmas.
Feeling better?
Yeah. Good.
What was that about, Tom?
He shrugged. I don’t know.
You just fell down.
Tired. I guess. Bit of vertigo.
Nothing you want to tell me?
He offered a counterfeit laugh. I haven’t even slept the night yet, Doris. You’re starting in early.
Has this happened before?
He shrugged again and she pushed her specs impatiently back into her hair.
It’s nothing, he said.
The sleepwalking. You asked me about sleepwalking.
Let’s just drop it. There’re bigger things on.
Do you have headaches?
Just an ear infection.
You never said anything about —
Ages ago. And, look, I haven’t been sleeping too well. It’s nothing.
I’m worried you’ll fall in the bathroom, somewhere else.
I won’t fall.
But you’re big, love, she said, at the verge of tears. I can’t lift you up.
Mum, you won’t have to.
He went in and held her. She was cool and trembling. He could feel her. And his arms burnt a little.
Really, he said. You’re making this into a big deal. And no, I’m not on heroin. Budgetary reasons, mostly.
She sniffed, suffered the embrace a moment, then pressed him away. He sat on the bed, guilty, mortified. She reached for a tissue and blotted her face with fierce detachment. The book lay face-down between them, wings out like a fallen bird.
It’s fine, he said.
If you say so. But Gemma and Kai. They’re here now.
Yes, he said, sensing a corner having been turned.
Doris straightened herself.
And now, to an extent, they’re my business too.
He nodded, waiting for it.
So you better listen to me.
All ears, Mum, he said, trying to match her tone.
I know you haven’t got a plan.
No, I’m just —
That’s fine. I understand.
But.
In the absence of a plan, you need a stance at least.
Stance.
A considered position. An act, as my younger clients like to say. You need to get an act. Even your father figured that much out – too late, I’ll admit.
What’re we talking about here?
Your own survival, for one thing.
Oh, Mum, I don’t think the situation’s that fraught.
Don’t be so literal. Just give yourself a bit of distance. That’s all I’m saying.
You mean from them? Gemma and Kai?
Doris nodded.
Geez, he said. You’re a surprise.
You’re trying to do the right thing, I know. It’s how we raised you, the both of you. But you save yourself first, Tom. That’s something I do know, it’s what I’ve learnt. You save yourself, then you look to the others.
Keely was confounded. He took a breath but she cut him short.
Perverse, isn’t it, how we could teach you that in the water but not on land, in life. We didn’t see it. We were such innocents.
You’ve lost me.
Swimming lessons, Tom. Lifesaving. How you approach a swimmer in distress.
You’re kidding me, aren’t you?
Feet first, ready to fend off.
Okay, he said, shaking his head. Wise as serpents, innocent as doves. Tick that box.
Tom, I’m serious. To save a drowner you need to be a swimmer. Remain a swimmer.
You’ve really thought about this.
For thirty-five years, she said with a heaviness that flattened his scorn.
Keely ran his hand over the dark dimples of her book. He slipped the page-marker back into the gutter, closed it and felt its heft.
You think you’d still have him if he’d been more of a swimmer, had an act?
She sighed and reclaimed the book.
Who knows, she said. When somebody burns that hot you don’t really expect a long haul.
But he never did have a sense of professional distance.
Not when it might have served him best. Nev was so bloody impulsive.
Being careful, though. After a while it grinds you down.
I’m not talking about your job.
Feels like submission, Doris. Being careful.
I don’t think you know as much about submission as you’d like to imagine.
But wasn’t I always too careful? Hasn’t that always been my problem?
Presently, I wouldn’t see it as your chief problem.
I didn’t want to make the same mistakes. Nev was like a bull in a china shop.
He was a giant surrounded by moral pygmies.
I’m not saying he wasn’t. I just wanted to be smarter.
Smarter?
More effective.
There’s no virtue in saying you’re not like Neville Keely, so don’t sit on my bed and talk bullshit, it’s insulting.
Sorry, he said, angry, humiliated, confused.
And don’t kid yourself, Tom. Your father was transparent. I could read him like the form guide. You’re not so different.
Keely got to his feet, anxious to disentangle himself.
How are you getting Kai to school tomorrow?
Gemma’s off at five, he said meekly. So there’s the car.
Right, Doris said, taking up her book. The car.
Chastened and bewildered, he took himself off to the couch and the living room and the long night ahead.
From the wind-ripped walkway on the tenth floor, Keely heard the school bell toll. He paused at the rail to watch the stragglers sprint indoors with their backpacks and folios and soccer balls.
He thought of Kai settling at his desk, examining the puzzle of his own palms as the teacher tried to launch the school day. The kid had been subdued all morning and silent on the drive down to the port. Keely didn’t dare mention the wet bed. Or the way he’d curled in beside him on the couch sometime before dawn. At breakfast Keely saw the sheets out on the line. The boy was already showered and dressed. Doris had him eating toast and staring at the sudoku on her phone. The Hyundai was in the driveway. Gemma asleep. His mother was quiet but there was conspiracy enough in her sunniness for him to know she’d dealt with everything seamlessly, as if nothing had happened. Doris had an act. She knew who she was and what she was doing. And he loved her for it.
At breakfast Kai said little, but he watched Doris assiduously. Just as he had last night at dinner. Perhaps he was trying to match this trim old bird and her noisy bangles with the young heroine in Gemma’s stories. Keely feared the legend had gotten out of hand. Blackboy Crescent. When moral giants strode the earth. But Kai didn’t seemed disappointed. Children fell in love with Doris. As a boy it shat Keely to tears, but this morning the spectacle revived him. If only he could project such calm authority.
He’d stirred for a second in the gloom, feeling the boy settle on the couch beside him. He savoured it briefly before falling away again. Only when he saw the washing line did he know he hadn’t dreamt it. And now, at the gallery rail, looking down at the schoolyard, he was ashamed of his self-absorption, his unctuous little moment of paternal fantasy. What about the kid? What’s it like to wake wet and frightened in a stranger’s house, to spare your grandmother and crawl in beside some old guy you hardly know? A sudden rage rose in him. At everything ranged against this boy. He had to do something.
He unlocked the flat and changed his clothes.
He wondered if he could convince Gemma to go to the police. She’d be awake just after midday; he had until then to make a compelling case. Failing that? There was Stewie. Maybe he’d negotiate. But Keely had no more persuasive arguments this morning than he’d had last night. And as for dealing with Stewie, he hadn’t the first clue how to parley with a bug-eyed speed freak. He had nothing.
He shaved. Brushed his teeth. With his own brush. He made his bed, straightened the place, and checked the fridge. Some pissweak bit of him wished he could just stay. But he couldn’t leave Gemma and Kai to Doris alone. She had to work. There was the school run. Gemma’s shiftwork to deal with. He’d just have to suck it up and endure the couch a while. Until he thought of something. Or it all went away of its own accord.
He packed a few clothes, a couple of books and snatched up his pillow. He decided to swing by Gemma’s place. There’d be things she’d want to collect but he didn’t know what she required, felt squeamish about going through her stuff. He could bring her back this afternoon when they collected Kai from school. Needn’t do it now. But he’d check it out anyway. Satisfy himself.
At Gemma’s door a bit of paper flapped in the security grille. Just a yellow square, ruffled by the desert wind, a Post-it note held captive by the steel mesh. There was nothing on it but a solitary dollar sign scrawled in biro.
Keely looked about anxiously and stuffed it into a pocket. He was turning to leave when something else caught his eye. Behind the mesh, on the inner door, a second yellow slip. He pulled Gemma’s key from around his neck and unlocked the screen door. He snatched it up. Same adhesive note, same symbol.
Trying to stay cool he examined the flyscreen but it was undamaged. Short of unlocking the grille, there seemed no other way of depositing the second slip there. He knocked on the door, feeling like a fool but fearful of walking blindly into something. Like what, an ambush? Keely turned the key in the lock and eased the door back slowly.
The flat still smelt of cheese and toast and smokes. He could smell Gemma and Kai. But it was hard to read the place. Everything had been a mess when they left, chaotic where that shithead had kicked things about, after which they’d tossed stuff into rubbish bags and fled in a panic. Food on a plate. Clothes on the floor. The TV where Keely had set it back upright. There was no sign anyone had been in since yesterday. Not that he could see. But somebody had definitely been by outside at least. And maybe in here as well. That note inside the locked grille. Keely thought of the Mirador’s supervisor, a bloke who’d taken against him for his brusque refusal to engage all these months. No point asking him if he’d let someone in. Besides, this wasn’t even Keely’s flat. How could he explain his interest? Gemma’s business and his would be all over the building inside an hour.
He wondered if Gemma had come by last night before work. Or this morning after her shift. To collect something. But why would she take the risk? Had someone followed her into the building, waited until she was inside and left both notes while she was in the bedroom grabbing what she’d come for? Why not confront her then? Make their little threats in person. Seemed more their style. Unless they’d had cause to think someone else was in here with her. A bloke. Him.
He locked up. Jumpy. Freaking at his paranoia. Wondered if he should even tell her.
Down in the gated car park he found the Hyundai where he’d squeezed it between a Kombi and a scrofulous Commodore. He was in the car before he noticed it on the windscreen.
He couldn’t see anyone – not in vehicles, nor around them. The bike shed looked deserted. There was a spill of suds emerging from the laundry door.
He started the car and waited a full minute, his pulse going feral. But no one. He buzzed the gate and rolled out into the narrow street. Under the jacaranda a Chinese kitchen hand smoked in his stained tunic. A smooth-cheeked hippy girl coasted by on a bike.
Bastards, he said aloud. You little shitheads.
All
thoughts of a swim and a coffee evaporated. He had to get this vehicle out of town. Warn Gemma. Maybe the supermarket could give her work in a franchise a bit further out in the suburbs. Even if there was nothing more than bluster behind all this, she couldn’t stay here. He’d ask Doris about a refuge, support services.
He turned into a side street. Idled down the quay, checking his mirrors all the way. He wound slowly along the river and saw nothing but mid-morning traffic. But by the time he pulled into his mother’s drive, his hands were shaking.
Doris’s Volvo was gone. Conscious that Gemma would be asleep, Keely unlocked the back door and entered the house discreetly, but as he crept through the kitchen he heard the shower running. It was too early for her to be up. She couldn’t have had five hours’ sleep. He filled the kettle, set it on the stove and tried to steady himself.
The couch had been straightened. His pillow and folded sheets lay over one arm. There was no sign of Kai’s bed linen and pyjamas on the line outside. In this heat they’d have been dry hours ago. Doris had covered her tracks before heading off to work. She’d left a newspaper and a sprig of basil in a jar on the dining table. The kitchen sink was empty.
He sat a moment, listening to the kettle, trying to think. As the water ran and ran in the bathroom, nothing sensible came to mind.
He got up. Made a pot of tea. As he set the canister back on the shelf he reached for a couple of mugs with one hand and fumbled. Caught the first. But the other mug hit the floor and smashed.
The shower stopped running. He cursed himself and grabbed the broom. Handle looked fuzzy. Felt smooth in his fingers.
Who’s there? called Gemma.
Just me, he said, sweeping the shards into a pan.
Fuck, said Gemma in the doorway. I thought I was on me own.
Sorry, he muttered.
Geez. I nearly shat meself.
Broke a mug.
She’ll be happy.
Doris won’t care.
She rested her wet head against the doorframe, settling her nerves. Wrapped in a fluffy towel, she’d drawn a cloud of soapy steam into the kitchen. How could he tell her things were worse, not better? Was this the moment to say she should quit her job and move?
Couldn’t sleep?
In your little boy-bed. Feels wrong.
You should try the couch, he said.