The Unbroken Line

by Alex Hammond

  He returned to his seat next to Will as Eloise, now back in her corset, took a deep bow in front of them. They clapped. Miller, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, applauded loudest and then cleared some space on the coffee table so she could sit facing them.

  Instead Eloise sat on Miller’s lap, placing her legs on Will’s knees.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ she asked Will.

  ‘No problem,’ he said, forcing a smile.

  The suspender fishnets across her left thigh were torn, beneath them fresh gauze with a red line bleeding through.

  Eva.

  ‘Cut myself getting offstage,’ she said to Will. ‘Coke makes me overconfident. I won’t make that mistake again. Only after a show – that’s the new rule.’

  Eloise placed her hand on Miller’s head as he leant forwards to kiss the bandage. Will took out his phone and checked his inbox. Nothing. No word from her.

  ‘You were fucking hot up there,’ Leah said.

  ‘Thanks, hon. So, where’s your lady, Will? We thought she might be here.’

  ‘It’s a long story, El,’ said Miller. ‘Not my place to tell it, but I think Will here needs more than a few drinks tonight.’

  ‘Great,’ Eloise said, sliding over Will’s lap to stand. ‘Let me get us the good stuff. I know where they keep some Scotch around here. You’re Islay boys, right?’

  ‘See?’ said Miller, grinning. ‘How perfect is this woman?’

  SEVEN

  The trepidation that came with the memory of metal grinding on concrete passed as Will let out Miller’s Porsche and raced through a tight bend. His head was foggy from their night of drinking but the anticipation of seeing Nicholas Aaron surrendered to the police invigorated him. It was the first step towards pulling himself out of the mess with the Ivanics.

  The freeway out of Melbourne made for good driving; most of the morning traffic was heading in the other direction and his rear-view mirror was clear. No tails, no one following him. Will’s mood improved as the uninspiring corridors of multi-lane highways gave way to the curve of the ocean road. The Porsche really was a wonder of engineering; he could barely hear the sound of its V8 as he accelerated to a hundred kilometres an hour in less than a few seconds. He was now glad that Miller had insisted he borrow it in lieu of hiring another driver. The car was fun. And he could do with some of that.

  The appearance of a surf shop up ahead confirmed that Will was going in the right direction. As he passed the line of white fibreglass boards, he checked his phone for directions. Aaron’s aunt’s house was down a series of side streets in the scrubby hinterland.

  At a traffic light Will followed a painkiller with a sip from a bottle of water. He didn’t want to go into this distracted.

  A horn from behind him refocused his attention on the road. Will tapped the accelerator, miniaturising the plumber’s truck in his mirror. If he had been in a car like this one, the accident would have been impossible. Nothing could have caught him.

  Except another Porsche. They would have just stolen a faster car.

  Will slowed as he passed sea changers and holiday houses from an expansion of the area in the 1980s. The trappings of beach life were scattered around yards and decks – more surfboards, drying board shorts, flippers and hammocks, pump-packs of sunscreen with their nozzles clogged with sand.

  At a line of tea-tree bushes he stopped. On the rusted letterbox was the number 19. Nineteen Alleyne Avenue.

  Will parked the car a few houses down and walked back. The tramadol was kicking in and the pleasant numbing sensation was spreading through him, washing the pain away and making him feel superhuman.

  He walked up to the old weatherboard through a garden of native plants, and unlatched the flyscreen. The door behind it was opened before he had a chance to tap the bronze knocker in the shape of a frigate.

  Aaron was standing there shirtless in a pair of jeans.

  He looked even thinner than when Will had last seen him, his pale skin taut over bone and sinewy muscle. His whole torso was tattooed, his DJ name, Aarow, in cursive across his chest. He had an unkempt beard that grew in patches across his face and neck. His eyes were red and his hands were shaking.

  ‘Are you going to make me pay you a dollar again? To be my lawyer?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ Will replied. ‘I have some papers for that. You’ll need to sign them. Shall I come in?’

  Aaron nodded and walked into the lounge room. He started pacing as Will sat on the green felt couch and spread the authority forms across the tiled coffee table.

  ‘Ram spoke to you?’

  ‘Yep,’ Aaron said, clicking his fingers.

  ‘The police will drop their charges around avoiding arrest and the courts will weigh up your cooperation in their sentencing.’ Will looked up from the pages. ‘This is the right thing to do.’

  ‘Right thing?’

  ‘I’ve marked where you need to sign: here, here and here.’

  Aaron sat down and took the pen, shaking. After signing the forms, he dropped the pen back onto the table. Will picked it up and tucked it into his pocket.

  A tiny, frail woman peered around the kitchen door, her face long and drawn. She clutched a tea towel close to her chest. Will could feel the medical tape tugging at the skin on his face as he smiled.

  Will and Aaron stood.

  ‘You must be Nicholas’s aunt?’

  She stepped backwards, her wide eyes locked on Will.

  Aaron hurried over, bending forwards to put an arm around her shoulder.

  ‘It’s okay, Janie,’ he said, coaxing her back towards the kitchen. ‘He’s my lawyer.’

  ‘I’m here to help Nick. He’s going to be all right,’ Will called after them.

  Aaron came back into the lounge room holding a leather tobacco pouch. He dropped it onto the coffee table and returned to his seat.

  He looked up at Will. ‘I hate you. You’re the last person I want as my lawyer.’

  ‘Sure. I get that. You’re afraid of the Ivanics.’

  ‘Fuck’n ay I’m scared of them. Ram didn’t want to give me up.’

  ‘You’re staying with your aunt, Nick. It was only a matter of time until the cops found you.’

  ‘She’s not actually my aunt. She’s one of the birds my dad used to date when I was growing up. So, no, it wasn’t a matter of time. They wouldn’t have found me. I’m doing this because Ram said it was the best thing to do.’

  Somewhere at the back of the house was a wind chime. The lighter treble bells started to ring before being joined by the deeper tones. A storm was coming.

  ‘Okay, let’s talk a bit about that, then. I’ll make the call to the local cops. They’ll transport you to Evans, the detective who’s heading up the case. I’ll stick with you throughout the process and be there when the police interview you.’

  ‘So we’ll need to get our stories straight.’

  ‘Not really, Nick. You’ll need to tell the truth. You were in possession of a trafficable quantity of drugs, which you intended to sell at clubs and out of hotel rooms.’

  ‘And the Ivanics?’

  ‘I think we both know it’s better if you don’t mention them, better if you refuse to cooperate on who your supplier was.’

  And there it was. Too easy by half, the sour compromise of his representing the Ivanics’ interests over Aaron’s. He felt light-headed, sick.

  Aaron paused, his face blank, holding the rolled cigarette open with the gummed paper upwards. Will watched as his eyes twitched while he scanned some future scenario. His shoulders sunk as he plotted out those moves.

  ‘Nick? Are you okay?’ Will asked. ‘You want me to get you a glass of water?’

  ‘Nup. Let me have this and then you can make the call.’ Aaron licked the edge of the paper and rolled the cigarette closed. He pulled a tartan blanket from the couch. Will followed him as he shuffled onto the warped deck that looked out over the back garden.

  ‘You’re my shadow now, huh?’

&n
bsp; ‘Legally speaking. It’s important that you don’t say anything to the cops, to the OPP, without me there. The woman prosecuting this, Alida Paraskos, will respect that. She’s principled. But Evans, the detective, is a bit of a dick.’

  Aaron chuckled and drew on the cigarette. The musky smell of marijuana drifted over to Will as the wind picked up. Aaron pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

  ‘Last of my stash. It’s a half and half. What happened to your face?’

  ‘I seem to get in fights a lot.’

  ‘That scar from me?’

  Will touched the raised line on his cheek.

  ‘Yes.’

  They both looked out across the garden where saplings quivered in the wind.

  ‘I planted those, when I got here. She’s not well enough to look after a garden so we stuck with the Aussie plants. Means she doesn’t have to water them.’

  A raven started to pick through the undergrowth, its feathers bristling as the wind picked up.

  ‘We should make that call,’ Will said.

  ‘How’s Mischa?’

  ‘Overseas. Living her life. Away from you.’

  Aaron shrugged. ‘You know, I did care about her. I’m sorry for trying to make her take the rap. Been thinking about it a lot.’

  ‘That’s something we shouldn’t talk about, Nick. It’s a touchy subject.’

  ‘But if she emails you, you’ll tell her that for me, yeah?’

  ‘No.’

  Aaron shook his head and took one last drag on the cigarette. He stubbed it out in an upturned seashell.

  ‘I’ll get ready. Say goodbye.’

  Will crossed the house and opened the front door, leaving it open as he made the call to the local police station. He kept one eye on the driveway and the other on Aaron sliding a red sports bag into a high cupboard.

  Five minutes later he heard the sound of engines.

  More than just one cop car.

  Will walked down the drive and looked around the hedge. Neighbours were coming outside while small children were hustled indoors by their mothers. The cop cars had arrived with three press trucks in tow, their cameras pointing towards the house.

  ‘Fucking Evans,’ Will said, walking back up the drive to the front door. ‘Time to go, Nick. Let’s be quick about this.’

  ‘What?’ Aaron called, his arms around the small woman.

  ‘You camera-shy?’ he said, nodding to the driveway as two local cops started to march towards the house, camera crews filming from behind.

  ‘What does this mean?’ Aaron said from the front door.

  ‘It means they’re going to come at you hard. It means they’re after the Ivanics.’

  EIGHT

  Will rushed around his apartment looking for a black bow tie to match his tuxedo. He kept glancing at the old mantel clock on top of one of his bookshelves. It was already eight p.m. He was running late.

  The day had been spent walking Aaron through his bail hearing and fast tracking the filing hearing. It was an ill-spent Thursday. He felt he’d never be clean again, mired in sordid compromise and unable to get out.

  He checked the cloak cupboard, hoping the tie had fallen out of the dry-cleaning bag when he removed the tux. By the light of his smart phone he could only see old ticket stubs and lint.

  The apartment buzzer rang and he shut the cupboard doors. He tried to remember when he’d last worn the suit – probably another one of his mother’s fundraisers. He would have taken the tie off at some point in the evening. He slid a hand into the inner breast pocket and touched silk.

  Pulling the tie free, he pushed the intercom at the buzzer.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s me,’ Eva said.

  He froze. Unsure.

  ‘Will?’

  ‘I’m coming down now.’

  He left the apartment and ran downstairs to the building’s central courtyard. He felt as though he were in a trance. Five days spent trying to talk to her and now that she was here, he couldn’t summon any words. He was unprepared, exposed and nervous.

  Eva was standing on the other side of the security gate. Behind her, a cab idled in a loading bay. He quickened his pace.

  The busy street was slowing around her, Bourke Street pedestrians staring as they passed close enough to see Eva’s face. On both cheeks were strips of plastic tape, transparent and shining. Through them Will could see the cuts, the fine knots of sutures pressing against the dressing. Her throat was as black as his eye, with thick marks where rough hands had gripped her. Her arm was in a black sling, her hands marked with smaller abrasions from the accident and its aftermath.

  Will rushed towards the gate and reached for the handle. ‘Come in.’

  Her look stopped him in his tracks. A cold stare, the pinpoints of pupils that made him feel as though he were suddenly a mile away, even though she was right before him.

  ‘Eva . . .’ He could feel tears at the edges of his eyes.

  ‘Will,’ she said, stepping back from the gate, ‘I came to say goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye? What? I understand that —’

  ‘Actually, I don’t think you do. You couldn’t.’

  Will pressed his arms against his chest. He realised that he was shaking. The images were slipping away from him now – her boxes in his apartment, the exhibition opening, the world reduced to their embrace.

  ‘I’ve spent the last five days thinking about what happened,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you to say anything. This is not a discussion. This is me telling you my decision.’

  He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t even if he had wanted to. The words were not there.

  ‘I don’t know why those men came after you. I don’t want to know. But I think you’re dangerous to be around. I had thought that what happened with Amber Tasic was the exception. A fucked-up once-in-a-lifetime thing that happened to us because we went looking for her killer. Because I wanted to make him pay and you wanted . . . I don’t know, something else. But now I see that this is what your life is. You’re so close to the edge that at any moment you could slip over, and I think it’s because of all the shit that happened to you in the past. You’ve lost so much, everything else seems without value.’

  ‘You have value. I don’t want to lose you.’

  A single tear ran down her cheek, tracing the edge of the dressing. She gripped her hands into fists and looked away from him.

  ‘Ugh. Will. It’s not me that I’m talking about. You don’t see your own value. It’s practically medieval, this self-destructive streak. It’s like St Sebastian with all those fucking arrows coming out of him. If I stay with you, I’ll become a pincushion too. Look at my face, Will. It’s fucked up.’

  She turned her head back to face him.

  ‘Eva . . .’

  ‘It’s done. I’m on my way to the airport. I’m flying out to New York.’

  ‘New York?’

  ‘I have a friend there. She has a spare room. I need to be away from Melbourne.’

  He wanted to move towards her, to hold her, but the gate stood between them.

  I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay. Say it.

  ‘I . . .’

  The darkness of her eyes was drilling into him now. He thought about the injustice of the attack – their hurting her, his losing her. He tried to think of something noble, something he could say and not feel ashamed of. He didn’t really understand her argument but being the lawyer, interrogating her logic, would get him nowhere. This was the woman to help him put the past behind him, his second chance at a life without turmoil.

  You’re only thinking that because she’s telling you no. You only want what you don’t have.

  He nodded.

  ‘Okay. I understand.’

  Eva walked up to the cab and opened the door. She stopped to turn to him. ‘I’ll email you to let you know I’ve landed.’

  ‘And the police? They have your statement?’ He felt numb. He wanted more tramadol. So he stared past her to the
city street beyond.

  ‘Yes.’ She hesitated, big eyes looking at him one last time.

  ‘I’m going to find them,’ he said.

  She sighed and shook her head. ‘Goodbye, Will.’

  He watched as she stepped into the cab and shut the door. It took only seconds for the taxi to disappear around the corner, taking Eva with it.

  NINE

  A city of night stretched out below him. Office windows, hazard lights and landmarks lit with geometrical precision were all cut out of the darkness in an array of hues and divided by the inky blackness of the Yarra. Will brought the Scotch to his lips and tried to remember a time when his life didn’t feel as though it were falling away from him.

  Eva was gone now, probably flying over the vast expanse of the Pacific, the same night sky gradually giving way to daylight as she crossed time zones.

  Anger was building in him. With each new thought, each ana­lysis of how it had come to be like this, the fire was stoked. What answer did he have to the wounds on her face? What could he say in light of her broken arm? Her fractured ribs? There was no argument to be made against these, no alternative position. Violence had a way of rendering debate meaningless. Men had attacked them. Now she was permanently scarred. What hopes he’d had for returning to a civilised world had been shattered along with the Jag.

  This life had been taken from him.

  Throughout the room the buzz and chatter of the fundraiser ebbed and flowed as guests mingled and canapés were served. From the bar he could hear the chime of glasses, the pop of corks, the hum of the coffee machine.

  ‘Will Harris. My old nemesis,’ said a woman’s voice.

  Will turned and was met by a face hidden beneath a lace mask. Green eyes gleamed from behind it. Professionally tousled red hair flowed down to pale shoulders exposed by a strapless turquoise dress. The woman smiled. She was almost as tall as he was. Six foot one, maybe.

  Her eyes widened as she took in Will’s gaze. No doubt his dark thoughts had cast a shadow across his face.