by Toni Jordan
I remember coming home from school once, crying. I would have been around six or seven. I was picked last for some team. That was me, the kid without the father, West the pest, Mr Unco. Grandma used to be here after school, to look after us while Mum and Stanzi were at work, and she called Grandpa and next thing I knew, he pulled up. He’d left some photoshoot, just left the model and the client standing there. A family emergency, he told them.
‘Right,’ he said, as he walked into my room. I was face down on my bed, head in the pillows, and the sound of his voice so startled me I rolled over and sat up. He took off his jacket and his tie and draped them on the door handle. ‘Where’s that boy who says he can’t catch a ball?’
That autumn afternoon the air was cooling and he stood in the backyard with me for hours while the sun went down and threw a tennis ball at me. When it got dark and I’d mastered his gentle underarm lobs, he moved us to Rowena Parade and parked his car up on the footpath and put the headlights on. Even when Grandma said that boy’s had enough, he kept at it. By the end, I was thirsty and tired and my shoulders were aching and he was throwing it hard and fast and high and I was catching it, every single time. He didn’t let me quit. I was never picked last for sport again.
After Grandpa kisses us all and they leave, it’s quiet at home, just the three of us. Stanzi will drop them off at their retirement home, then go out with her friends. She won’t be home for hours, maybe not until morning. Charlotte is tired from the cooking and she decides to clean up tomorrow. We’re just going to bed, when we turn our heads and see it together. The photo of Connie at the train station is on the couch. I don’t know how we didn’t notice her before.
‘Oh, no. When Dad realises it’s missing, he’ll be frantic.’ Charlotte looks straight at me.
‘I’ll take it back to him tomorrow.’
‘He was so happy to have that photo. He’s so frail.’
‘First thing in the morning. As soon as I get up. Off I’ll go.’
‘He said he wouldn’t let it out of his sight. He said his sister’s been returned to him.’
‘Just ring Stanzi’s mobile. She can’t have gotten far. Ask her to come back and pick it up.’
‘I will not. If she wants to get a brain tumour that’s her business but I will not be contributing to it.’
‘OK, OK. I’ll go. I’ll ride my bike.’ Not like there’s anything fun to do around here anyway.
‘You will not. It’s too dark.’
This is an example of the futility of my life. Go, she says. All right, I say. No, she says. It’s insane.
‘It’s all the way to Kew. It’s two trams. I’m tired. I won’t be back before eleven.’
‘Alec. He’s old. What if he dies tonight? What if this was the last time you ever saw him and you had a chance to do something kind for someone who’s done so much for you, and you didn’t take it? How would you live with yourself?’
Grant me strength. ‘He’s not going to die tonight. How do you function in the world, thinking like that?’
‘Alec.’ She makes her eyes go big and round like some manga puppy, which is her standard manipulation technique. ‘Please. You won’t have to do any dishes tomorrow. No drying, no wiping. Libby will even take the bins out.’
‘What? Libby will what?’ Libby says, in her most whiney voice. ‘Muuuum. That is totally unfair. I can go to Grandpa’s. I don’t mind.’
That’s it then. ‘All right, all right,’ I say. ‘I’ll go.’
It must be around nine when I walk down Lennox Street to Bridge Road. If I was on my bike, I’d go via Victoria: that part of Richmond is way cooler, like being in Saigon. Trust my olds to live on the hill in the boring Anglo part. Connie is back in her envelope, back in the biscuit tin, safe in my backpack. Bridge Road is still crowded: the pubs and clubs and restaurants are full, people are milling about, but there’s no one else waiting for the tram. I’m standing at the stop alone when I hear a horn.
In front of the tram stop, the hottest car I have ever seen in my whole entire life pulls up. It’s mad crimson, so shiny it looks wet, low to the ground. A hotted-up Ford, chrome mags, Eminem blaring, the whole chassis trembling from the woofers. The front window goes down. Ohmigod. It’s Tim.
‘Lecster. Mate. Get the fuck in the car.’
All the windows go down now. It’s Tim’s brother Andy driving, big grin on his face. Andy’s living proof of exactly how dumb my mother is. She is always on at me about doing good at school, about having something to fall back on if art doesn’t work out. And here is Andy, an apprentice plumber, proud owner of a fully sick car and let me assure you he is no rocket surgeon. I could leave school right now and get any job and do just fine. In the back seat are Cooper and Wade and Henry. I can see their grinning faces inside. I say hi.
‘Nice car. New?’
‘I just picked it up,’ says Andy. ‘Just this second.’ He laughs like a loon, snorting through his nose.
‘Westie,’ Cooper yells. ‘Road trip. We is goin’ to Rye.’
‘We was just coming to your place,’ says Tim, ‘when we saw you waiting here for us. Forward thinking, brother.’
‘We weren’t going to park out the front,’ says Cooper, tapping his temple. ‘We learned our lesson.’
‘We had it all planned. Park around the corner, send Tim in to ask if you could sleep over,’ says Wade. ‘No need to alarm the hippy Oberführer.’
‘We got beer.’ Henry lifts up what looks like the best part of an entire slab.
‘Plenty of room,’ yells Andy, from the driver’s seat. ‘Get in and have a brew.’
This, ladies and gentlemen, is living. Driving in a hot red car down to the beach with your mates, watching the sun come up over the water, drinking beer, talking shit. God, maybe we’ll meet some girls down there. Not city girls, beach girls. Easter holidays are only just over. Not too cold for bikinis, not quite. I’ve wasted my whole entire existence up to now. I’ve done absolutely nothing with it. I’ve just been counting down the months of my life. Sixteen years, totally useless. I live with three women. A big night at my place is when the ABC runs a Jane Austen marathon. God I hate that Bennet chick. Marry him already, spare us all the drama!
Tonight, in contrast, could well be the greatest night of my life. I can almost feel the sand, smell the sea. This would be a bond we share forever: me and Tim and Andy and Cooper and Wade and Henry. I’d have made it. I’d be one of the guys.
Cooper opens the back seat. On the floor of the car is something the colour of cardboard; it stands out against the white carpet. And then I smell it. Oh. My. God. Pizza. There is pizza in that car. Actual, non-homemade, non-wholemeal pizzas that have never seen a vegetable in their entire cheesy lives. With artificial flavourings and actual meat, from an animal.
‘Westaway,’ Cooper says. ‘Get in. For once in your life, do not be a pussy.’
I have my hand on the door when I feel the strap of my backpack. I’d forgotten about Connie.
Could I ask the guys to swing past the retirement home first? Ah, no. That would be utterly lame. I can fully imagine the copious amount of shit they’d give me. Westie needs to go see his gramps. What a good boy you are, Westie. I’ve heard it all before. At primary school, half the class would chant Westie’s testes aren’t the bestie. Everyone said my balls were permanently shrunken from the chick pheromones in the air at my place. Once, in year eight, I found out that everyone thought I was lying about Charlotte and Stanzi being sisters. They all thought they were gay, that I had two mums, and they started saying I was gay too. Charlotte had to go see the principal. And if I told the guys about the photo of my great aunt? Even if they didn’t think I was a softcock, which they would, they’d say Bros before hos. Andy revs the engine.
‘Brother that light’s not gonna get any greener,’ says Tim. ‘Get in.’
‘Hey, s’cool. Westie’s not interested in beer and cars,’ says Andy. ‘We all know he likes drawing pretty pictures. He’s more a stay-home-and-wa
tch-Oprah-with-the-girls kinda guy.’
‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that.’ Cooper sniggers.
I want to get in the car. I do. But What if he dies tonight? What if this was the last time you ever saw him? I will my legs to move but instead I think about Grandpa, how frail he looked and the colours in his skin. About the things he was saying to me, about that tennis ball he threw at me for hours when I was a little kid. I think about what he said to me in the hall. Every time you see someone, you never know if you’re seeing them for the last time.
That’s it. I am without a doubt the biggest moron in the history of moronness. My entire life is completely fucked.
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘I got shit to do.’
Like quitting school and giving away all my possessions and joining an Antarctic expedition where I end up freezing my dick off and eating my own dog.
‘Westicle,’ says Tim. ‘Surely you jesticle, testicle.’
‘Busy,’ I say.
‘One-time offer, Westie,’ says Cooper. ‘Get in the car now or forever be known as a piker.’
Yep. Fucked. For. Ever. Thanks, Charlotte. Thanks Grandpa. ‘Thanks anyway.’
‘You are such a fucking loser,’ says Cooper. They all lean out the windows near me, doing the shape of Ls on their foreheads.
‘Can’t argue with that,’ I say. ‘Have a nice time.’
I wave as they hoon off. An empty beer can zips out of a back window, hits me square on the knee and clatters against the tram stop. The dregs dribble out on the cement. I watch the car hum and throb and all the way to the lights, the heads of people on the street spin to look as it passes. It is the most alive thing in the whole street, the whole suburb. For a long way before they turn, I see the crimson paintwork reflected in puddles on the road and it’s like, for a second, there’s a real car and a ghost one, both of them speeding down Bridge Road, leaving me and the photo far behind.
At the maximum security facility for the ancient and infirm, I have to punch a number in to the keypad near the door like it was an ATM. Please enter your six-digit PIN and select the gerie you’d like to withdraw. Your remaining gerie balance will appear on the screen. What fucked security, I think, because the number is printed out on a laminated sheet stuck right to the front door. Anyone who could read the number could get in. And then I realise: it’s meant to stop the demented old buggers getting out, because presumably they can’t read and/or punch numbers.
That. Is. So. Shit. I feel so sad for Grandpa and Grandma and even Uncle Frank. Mum looked for months to find a place they could stay together, and this was the best she could find, but they’re not demented. It’s close to us and it’s the best place for them, Mum said. We can’t separate them now.
At the front desk they ring up to Grandpa’s room then send me up. He’s standing in the doorway in his pyjamas, waiting.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
‘Nothing. I thought I’d hang with you guys for a while. I hear there are lots of single chicks.’
‘You wouldn’t last five seconds.’ Grandma appears in the doorway behind him, hair in rollers with a net over the top. I thought no one did that in real life, that rollers were only in old movies. How does she sleep in them? It’d be like having acupuncture all over your scalp. ‘They’re barracudas,’ she says. ‘They’d eat you alive.’
Grandpa says, ‘They can smell tender young flesh. You should run while you still can.’
I lift the backpack off my shoulders and take out the tin. ‘Plus I thought I’d drop this off.’ I open it, take it out of the envelope, hold the photo carefully with both hands.
‘Oh dear.’ Grandpa puts both hands to his face and sways a bit. For a moment I think he’s going to faint. ‘My sister.’
‘Kip. You can’t have forgotten Connie.’
‘I must have. I didn’t even realise she was missing.’
Wait, what? What did he say? He didn’t even know she was missing? I turn down a road trip with the guys and ruin my entire life for all eternity, I haul myself all the way over here, two tram rides, thinking he’d be frantic, and he didn’t even know she was missing? I could be eating pizza and drinking beer by now. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I smack my head against the door post.
‘You’re a good boy to drop her back.’ Grandma kisses me on the cheek, then takes her from me and cradles her in her arms. ‘What’s wrong? Do you have a headache? Do you want an aspirin? Come in. Have some tea. We have Monte Carlos. It’ll just be between us. We won’t breathe a word.’
‘Thanks anyway. Colonel Klink is waiting.’
‘One cup,’ says Grandpa. ‘One biscuit. Two minutes. We see nussink. We hear nussink.’
What the hell. I could go home and watch a repeat of Veronica Mars on the couch with Libby, or I could go in. The whole apartment smells of old person but I don’t mind that. I not only have one cup of tea, I have two goddammit. And four proper biscuits from a real plastic packet. Before long, Grandma goes to bed and I sit up with Grandpa, just talking. He tells me about the old days, about some horse he used to have, about the trouble Uncle Frank got up to when he was my age, but he also asks lots of questions about school and art. He’s ace, actually. He understands what it’s like for a brother to be outnumbered by women. The whole time he’s talking, he has the photo of Connie in his hands. He never once puts her down.
I imagine what it would be like never to see Libby again, never have a chance to say goodbye to her. As much as she utterly shits me, that would suck. While Libby is alive I know I’ll never really be alone. All the things I remember, everything about my life, our family, my childhood: it’s all real because Libby knows it too.
The stuff he’s talking about, though, the people-disappearing-never-to-be-seen-again stuff? That only happened back in the olden days. War and shit.
I can justify it all I like, but on the way home I suddenly realise: I just spent Saturday night sitting in a retirement home with an old man in his eighties instead of being on the beach at Rye with my friends. The guys are right. I am a fucking loser.
‘Alec!’ Mum yells, as soon as I turn my key in the lock. ‘Where in God’s name have you been? You should have been home hours ago.’
I thought she’d be way asleep by now, but she’s standing in the hallway in her daggiest pyjamas staring, because apparently I have to account for every second of my time. Why doesn’t she just get me an electronic ankle bracelet? She could significantly reduce her contribution to global warming by not asking where I’ve been every two freakin seconds.
I start to say You know where I’ve been, to Grandpa’s. You sent me. My friends—in fact my ex-friends, past tense—my friends are down at Rye, sitting on the beach, eating pizza and drinking beer and I’m right here, but before I know it she’s holding me. She’s stretching up and she has her arms around my neck and she’s gripping me for dear life, like she’s drowning. I start to complain. I try to pull away. I’m sixteen years old, I’m not a baby. Then all at once it hits me: my mother is smaller than me.
She’s tiny. I don’t know the last time she held me like this, but I could reach down and wrap my arms around her and pick her up. So I do, for a moment, just to see if I can. I lift her right off the floor and she’s dangling in the air. I’m hit with this dizzy feeling that throws sparkles in front of my eyes. Fuck. I’m bigger than her. It’s kind of terrifying. I’ll be bigger than her for ever now. She’ll get smaller and smaller like Grandpa until she dies and then she’ll be gone and I won’t have her anymore.
‘Alec, sweetheart.’
‘Shh, Mum. It’s all right. I’m here.’
She’s hardly letting me breathe. She’s holding me so tight, pulling my face down to her neck so that I only have vision from one corner of my eye.
‘There was a horrible car accident on the late news,’ she’s saying. ‘Young boys, on the Monash freeway. Two dead, three critical. I just felt so sad for their families. They’re only your age. I thought about what would happen if I ever l
ost you. And then I couldn’t stop crying.’
I hug her again and she makes a big sigh. And it’s only then, from that corner of my eye, that I see the crimson.
On that old-fashioned television, in that shabby house where I’ve lived all my life, being held by my tiny mother, I see that exact shade of crimson on the flickering screen.
I raise my head and she lets me go. I walk over to the TV.
‘Alec. What is it?’
I drop to my knees and reach forward and touch the screen with my fingertips, like I could reach through the glass. Crimson is the colour of the wreck, the colour of what remains of the car’s panels where they’ve wrapped around the light pole. Part of it is covered by a tarp but there it is: that colour, the mags, the twisted shape of it. And I see the police gathered around the crumpled metal, the lights flashing, the fire truck a deeper red in the background. A policeman is being interviewed now, about the tragedy, about drinking, speeding, P-plate drivers, suspected stolen cars. About the senseless loss of young lives, about the devastation it will bring to the families who will never hold their sons again. My mother is speaking now and so is Libby, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. My fingertips touch the dark grey of the bitumen and the white blankets that are covering the mounds on the ground, the mounds that once were people.
Then the picture disappears and we’re back to the studio. The newsreader looks sad, which is her job. Soon there will be a happier story and she’ll perk up again. For her, this is just another accident among the hundreds she’ll report every year. It means nothing that these people have vanished into thin air and will never be seen again. The names of the victims, the newsreader says in her professional way, have not yet been released.
CHAPTER 9
Connie
THE RAIN IS coming. It’s a mild night for winter but I can feel it even through the cold. The air is heavy, the way it laps against my skin. I raise my arms and it feels like I’m swimming in deep, still water instead of lying on my bed. Any minute now the weight will be too much for the air to hold and it will fall out in fat drops on the roof. Already there’s a grassy, dewy smell. A distant memory of the ocean, a lingering of salt. Tonight this house doesn’t even feel like Richmond. I could shut my eyes and be in St Kilda, or somewhere even further. Perhaps I did drift off for a little bit. It takes me a moment to remember where I am.