Malaise

by Max Henry

  She portrays a sad tale—albeit a harrowingly true one—of people forced to make decisions based on the need to survive, for independence. Of illegal jobs, arguments, and family divisions afterward. Of how the money Jon would earn from his underworld connections drove him to set family and honesty aside. To walk away when his wife needed him most after the cot death of their youngest child—the baby in the photo. But even worse, of how they realised too late that the nature of the beast was destined to be so.

  A man raised post-war to parents who had too little—a mother who’d beg for food stamps in the bread line—and parents who also made the hard choices that defined their son, Jon’s, future.

  Poverty is a cycle, an inescapable eddy that drags down the unfortunate souls who swim too close. The effort it takes to get out is too strong, the ease at which it pulls you in too appealing to the tired and dejected.

  Tanya beautifully puts into words the exact reason why Carver thinks it’s better for me to go it alone than to carry him with me.

  Because he’s destined to make the same choices as his father, not knowing any different. Destined to take the easy way out when the people with the resources and capabilities to help him break the cycle make it so fucking hard for him to do so. All because of a name.

  I still refuse to believe it; that I’m not strong enough to be the catalyst of that change for him. Maybe it’s too hard for him to do alone, but the town doesn’t look at me like they do him. I have more choices, more opportunities, and I have the ability to help him show the critics who he really is: loving, caring, and selfless.

  He’s underestimated me by telling me that I’m better off without his influence, and it’s only fuelled me on.

  “Can you drop me off at my parents’ house, please?”

  Tanya glances over as we enter the town limits for Whitecaps, slowing to the residential speed limit. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.” I straighten in my seat, pulling in a deep breath and pushing my chest out. “In fact, I think it’s the most sure I’ve ever been in my life.”

  ***

  “You don’t have to get involved in this mess, you know.”

  Tanya nods beside me, standing on my parents’ front step. “I know. But I want to. It’s the least I can do to repay what you’re doing for Brett.”

  The door swings open before I can answer, and I straighten my spine, ready to sort this once and for all.

  “Meg,” Dad greets coolly before letting his disinterested gaze drift over to Tanya. “Miss Carver.”

  She sticks her hand out. “Tanya.”

  He reluctantly shakes it. “Peter.” His eyes move between the two of us again before he relents. “Come in.”

  I gesture for Tanya to go first, and trail in behind, shutting the door. Dad leads us through to the living room and takes a seat, nodding for us to do the same.

  “To what do I owe this visit?”

  “I think you know,” I counter.

  He narrows his gaze on me, the telltale rose of his cheeks giving away his irritation at having me under the same roof, let alone talking back.

  “What’s he done now?” He directs the question at Tanya. “I presume Meg’s only returned with you in tow because of your brother.”

  “You’d assume right, sir,” she responds, seated impeccably with her hands crossed on her bent knees. “Brett is currently remanded in Kirkman prison awaiting trial for burglary, as well as another minor charge, but I’m going to assume you’re a man who’s in touch with the world around him and that you already know that.”

  He straightens in his seat, clearly intrigued by how well-spoken this tattooed and bleached vixen is. “I am aware, yes.”

  “Which would render your initial question to us redundant then, would it not?”

  Ha ha, schooled. I do my best to hide the smile that wants to break free.

  “It would,” Dad answers, hard expression returned.

  “Brett informed us that on the night in question he was in fact here, talking with you. Is that right?”

  “I think you already answered that question yourself.”

  “Why then,” I ask, “haven’t you gone down to the station to say so?”

  “Why should I?” He turns to face me, his body stiffening as he does. “Why would I go and help that lowlife out when he was the reason you ended up the way you are now.”

  “And how am I, Dad?”

  “We’ve had this discussion,” he snaps. “If you weren’t paying attention the first time, then that’s your loss.”

  “With all due respect,” Tanya intervenes, “my brother has done a lot to support and encourage Meg after you were so quick to cut all ties.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he’s done a lot more than that,” Dad chuckles. “Hasn’t he, Meg?”

  Not as much as I’d like. But he doesn’t need to know that. I give him my best smirk, knowing he’ll draw assumptions from it that stretch the truth of it all.

  The rose in his cheek deepens.

  Score.

  “I’m not going to pat your ego, Peter, nor am I going to offer you anything to persuade you to do what’s right. I haven’t got anything you need, and we’re not mutually invested in anything that would see such benefit from bartering a deal.” Tanya scoots forward, imploring my old man with her eyes. “I’m simply going to ask you, human being to human being, to find it in your heart and offer your daughter, if not me, this one reprieve. Do what you know is the honest and forthright thing to do, and make a statement to say Brett was with you that night. It’s the truth, and it needs to be said.”

  “But it’s not what we want for Meg,” he argues. “Her mother and I, we had aspirations for her. She’s extremely gifted, but the last two or three years, she’s just thrown that out the window, and we don’t know why.”

  “Because I was struggling to find myself, Dad.”

  He finally looks at me with an ounce of the kindness I used to know. “You’ve always been headstrong, sure of what you wanted. What on earth could you have been searching for?”

  “Identity.” My arms cross over my chest out of habit, given we’re discussing parts of me I’ve kept hidden so successfully for the past five years at least. “Do you know how my school days went?”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I had no friends, Dad. Having yoghurt thrown at my head because somebody decided my presence irritated them wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. I had people steal lunches from others’ lockers and place them in mine so I’d be framed. I had a girl threaten to beat me up on the way home from school with a steel pipe over a packet of fucking pretzels.”

  He sighs, running a hand over his chin. “I had no idea.”

  “No, you wouldn’t, because you never asked. Den was the only one who knew. He was the only one who looked out for me.”

  “We would have done something if we’d known.”

  “Like what, Dad? Talk to the principal and make it worse. Nobody could fix the fact everybody in my year saw me as the outcast, the target. I just had to ride it out, and unfortunately, acting out and finding unconventional ways to deal kind of went along with it.”

  “Meg, that’s horrible,” Tanya whispers, reaching for my hand.

  I take hers and shrug. “It’s life.”

  “Regardless,” Dad says carefully, “it doesn’t excuse where you’re at now. We had one request, only one.”

  “Ditch Brett,” I fill in. “I know. I can’t do it.”

  “Then we’re at an impasse.”

  “We are.”

  I sigh, dropping Tanya’s hand to rub my palms over my knees. “I’ve come to terms with this, Dad. I don’t like that this is how things are between us, but I can accept it for what it is. You don’t agree with the path I’ve chosen for myself, but please, just do this one last thing for me and give a statement that sets Brett free.”

  “I don’t have to do a single thing for either one of you.” Dad frowns. “Did you think that if Tanya here fan
cied herself up with well-spoken prose that I’d relent and do as you wish? Think again, sweetheart.” He shakes his head, looking Tanya over top to toe before talking to me. “She’s everything I don’t want you to be, Meg. I’d never agree to anything that gives you licence to become another one of them.” He shifts his attention to Tanya. “There’s a mirror in our entranceway, dear. Go take a long hard look in it and realise that words mean nothing when what you are on the outside, how you present yourself to the world, is all you’ll ever be: white trash.”

  “Dad!”

  “Don’t go thinking you’ve got anything worthwhile to say on this,” he threatens with a raised finger. “We’ve said our piece and it’s clear that this issue of your present company won’t be resolved anytime soon, Meg.”

  Tanya stands, hands flexing at her hips. “I don’t need a mirror to know what the town thinks of my family, Mr Andrews. The sad truth of the matter is that ignorant, narrow-minded fools like you are the reason why people refuse to look below the surface and acknowledge their neglect and unfair treatment of people like my mother. People like you were the reason why the one person in my and Brett’s lives who had the determination to change our future, died regretting the fact she couldn’t.”

  “Bullshit,” Dad challenges. “Your family cut their own path, choosing the easy way out by thieving what they wanted from the town instead of working hard to earn it.”

  “Tell yourself what you need to so you can sleep at night, but I know the truth: that Mum applied and failed to even get a first interview for over thirty jobs in four years. The men who held the power decided that her foolish decision to marry a bad man who swept her off her feet as a teenager was reason enough why she shouldn’t be rewarded for trying to change her circumstance.” Her chest rises and falls rapidly as she takes a measured step toward Dad. “How dare you chastise and belittle us for being what you make us.”

  I’m in awe of this woman. None of this is helping Brett’s cause, but damn, Tanya has spirit.

  “Feelings aside,” I say, breaking in before they can restart where they left off, “can you promise to at least think on it?”

  Dad looks me over, now on his feet in response to Tanya’s threatening stance. “There’s nothing to think on, Meg.”

  “Have you not already done enough?” I gesture for Tanya to back away and step between them. “I can stomach what you’ve done to me, find a way to let go of the fact that Den’s death only shone a light on the cracks that were already in our family, but this? Why go to such an extent to hurt me?”

  He opens his mouth to protest, yet I raise a hand to quiet him. He begrudgingly complies, arms crossed over his chest.

  “We’ve accepted the fact that we don’t see eye to eye, and you laid down your ground rules. I spoke my piece when I disagreed, and then left when you asked me to. I suffer enough trying to get by on minimum wage. I’m hurting enough knowing that the only family I have left don’t want me. But are you really that cold that you’d twist the knife a little more by denying me the one thing, the one person, who gives me hope, all so you can feel vindicated? Because if you are that cold, Dad, then you’re no better than Jon Carver, and I guess that in turn makes me just the same as Brett, the person you’re trying to distance me from.”

  He stands stunned, without a single rebuttal to fire my way.

  Tanya moves to my side and leans in close, whispering, “We’ve done all we can, Meg.”

  I nod, backing away to follow her from the room. “I hope you talk to Mum about this, Dad. Because I’m sure she wouldn’t want this for me, hell, for any of us.”

  “Your mother doesn’t tell me what to do.” I barely catch his words as he speaks down to the floor. “I make the rules in this house.”

  “I know,” I reply through gritted teeth as I reach the front door. “It’s a fucking shame though, otherwise perhaps somebody with a bit of heart could have stopped it coming to this.”

  “And what exactly is ‘this,’ Meg?”

  I lift my chin and stare him square in the eye. “Deciding it’s easier to live my life as an orphan than try and work out what I ever did to make you hate me so much.”

  “I don’t hate you,” he offers quietly.

  “Let me guess, you’re just disappointed.”

  His hard stare says it all, even before the minute nod he gives me.

  So much worse.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Did you wanna hear about that job I got for you? Only if you’re keen, that is.” Tanya flicks her finger repeatedly, scrolling through her newsfeed. “Call it a birthday present, hon.”

  We’ve been hanging out back at my room in the hostel for most of the day after the unsuccessful conversation with Dad yesterday, celebrating the fact I’ve turned another year older with a cheap bottle of wine and a couple of overiced cupcakes from the bakery on the main drag.

  Happy fucking birthday to me. No phone call from Mum, and definitely not Dad, but then what else did I expect?

  “I guess,” I answer. “A little cash can’t hurt.”

  She looks at me, biting her lip to stop her smile.

  “What?”

  “It might hurt… a little.”

  “What on earth could it be?” I ask with a chuckle. “Jesus, Tanya. You sign me up for some medical trial or something?”

  She shakes her head, blonde hair falling into her face. “No. Not that bad. It’s doing a little work for a guy I met the other weekend, at that tattoo convention I told you about.”

  This sounds ominous. “Yeah? How come you’ve never mentioned him before now?”

  “With everything going on, there just never seemed to be a time.” She sets the phone down, unfurling herself from where she’d been cross-legged on my single chair. “He’s really nice. A bit scary to look at, but you’ll love him. Wicked sense of humour.”

  Her gaze goes all doe-eyed, and I snort in my attempt to stifle a laugh.

  “You want the work, or not?” she teases.

  If it gives me more cash to stay here until Carver’s trial, then, “Yeah, of course.”

  “He needs a tattoo model. A blank canvas if you like, for some upcoming competition.”

  “Wow.”

  “Hon,” she chastises. “It’s free ink.”

  “What does he want to draw?” I’d always thought of getting something, but until recently I was the age where Mum and Dad would have had to sign it off, and yeah… nah.

  “He does mostly real-life, portraiture kind of stuff. He’d draw it to suit you, but it’d be his style.”

  “How big would it be? Like, a little pic, or something huge like a whole arm?”

  She shrugs, picking her phone up again. “I don’t know.”

  “What does it pay?”

  “He said something about two hundred?”

  “Wow.” Here I was thinking fifty bucks and a free beer to calm my nerves if I’m lucky.

  “When?”

  “Um, hang on.” She flips through her phone. “End of the week. It’d be a full-day sitting.”

  “Wow.”

  “You said that already,” she teases with a smile.

  “I’m just… I do want something done, I just hadn’t given it a lot of thought yet.”

  “You’ve got time to figure it out, and plus, once you’ve talked with him he might be able to help you come up with a plan.”

  Two hundred dollars, all for sitting on my arse and getting what most people pay way more than that for. What would Carver think? He’s inked—covered in it—but I’ve never asked what he thinks of chicks with tattoos.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “Awesome.” Tanya skips to the end of the twin bed and flops down, phone in hand. “I’ll call him now.”

  I pick up my own phone and light up the blank screen again. It’s bugged me since yesterday that I only got to talk to Dad. What if Mum had been home? Would she have felt any different? My finger taps the side of the device as I toss up the idea.

  “I’
m just going to nip out for a bit,” I whisper to Tanya as she waits for this mystery guy to pick up.

  She pops a thumb up, and I slip off the bed to grab my wallet and keys. Her call connects as I slip out the door, and her laughter follows me into the car park where I hesitate, giving the thought one last doubt before I decide to go with my gut and at least give it a try.

  Wednesday is Mum’s day to volunteer at the old folks’ home across town. If I hustle, I can get there before she’s due to knock off and grab a moment with her on her own to plead my case.

  It takes me forty minutes to walk there, hot and uncomfortable in the afternoon sun without a scrap of water to drink. By the time I step into the reception at the home, I’m sure my face is beet red, and a trail of sweat trickles down my spine.

  “Meg, it’s been an age.” Moira, the receptionist who isn’t too far off the average entry age of her residents, gives me a large smile. “Your mum is just doing last-minute paperwork. Do you want me to call her up?”

  I shake my head and gesture to an empty chair. “I’ll wait for her.”

  I’d come here with her sometimes when I was younger and read to the ladies in the main lounge. But like so many other things that brought me small joys, I gave it up in my effort to be another “cool” kid. In a way, Mum and Dad did have reason to worry about me. Now that I look back on it, I literally killed off the strands of my personality in the name of trying to be another sheep.

  Baa-aa.

  Fifteen minutes tick by before Mum shows her face, shocked one that it is. “Meg, this is a surprise.”

  “Do you have a moment?”

  “Of course.” She says her goodbyes to Moira and collects her bag from under the reception desk. “Where would you like to go?”

  “Somewhere with a cool drink would be nice.”

  She drives us into town to grab an iced coffee at the café. Her perfect bob blows gently in the afternoon breeze as we sit at one of the outdoor tables, watching people as they walk by.

  “What did you want to talk about?” She absently stirs her drink with the straw.

  “Dad told you I dropped by yesterday?” Happy birthday might not go amiss, either.

  “He did.”