Running Man

by Michael Gerard Bauer

  When she called company headquarters at Port Moresby, Mrs Davidson was told that everything possible was being done to get through to the mine and the hospital, and that they would contact her when they had further news. The only thing that they were able to confirm was that her husband’s name had been on the roster for work at the time of the tragedy.

  Regularly throughout the evening, Joseph and his mother’s silent vigil was shattered by the sound of the telephone. Each time it rang, Joseph’s heart would leap and he would watch with awful foreboding as his mother lifted the receiver as if she were disarming a mine.

  Each call seemed to sap more strength from her. ‘Just Aunt Beth,’ she told Joseph wearily, before sitting down again to stare impassively at the television babbling pointlessly in the corner. Eventually, when the telephone had remained silent for over two hours, Joseph gave in to his mother’s gentle urging and agreed to go to bed.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, Joseph,’ she said, brushing his hair back off his forehead and embracing him gently. ‘We’ll get through this. I know it’s hard, but try not to worry too much. We both need some sleep.’

  Now, as Joseph lay on his bed, his mind was so crowded with images that sleep seemed but a faint hope. He recalled the vision of his mother sitting alone in her room with rosary beads trailing from her hands and her long dark hair hanging like a veil round her face. He thought also of his father, trying to imagine him safe and well, trying to remember times when he was happy and laughing. But the image always transformed into a face filled with anger, frustration and confusion – his father’s face the day he left for Bougainville.

  Joseph struggled to chase the pain of that day and those last moments from his mind, but it was pointless pretending that the malignancy eating away at him just wasn’t there. When he realised that he couldn’t avoid it any longer, he tried to make sense of it.

  For as long as Joseph could remember, his father had worked away from home on big construction projects – mines out west, dams down south and in Tasmania, and now up in Bougainville. As a young boy it was all he knew – he and his mother living alone for most of the year and his father returning for a month over Christmas, sometimes for a few days at Easter, or here and there depending on the distance that separated them.

  It had never been any different: his most vivid childhood memories were often of nights when he sat on the front steps with his head pressed against the railings waiting for that magic moment when one of the passing set of headlights would slow and turn into his driveway. He would remember, too, how he would be lifted by sure and powerful arms and how his heart would tingle as he was thrust rapidly into the air. His happiest memories though, were always of waking up the next morning and realising that his whole world had changed – his father was home, sleeping in his mum’s room.

  He always knew that it wouldn’t last. After a few weeks his father would leave, and he and his mother would be on their own again. Everyone knew that and everyone had always accepted it. So why was the last time any different? Why had it ended in that horrible scene and those terrible words?

  Somehow it had been easier when he was little. As he grew older, Joseph longed for his father to stay permanently, and each departure had become more painful. He wanted his father to be there, to teach him things, to go places with him and just to talk. He wanted his father to take him to cricket matches so that he wouldn’t have to tag along with someone else’s family because his mother was so busy. He wanted the fact that his father was home to be normal, not a special occasion with his father just an important visitor. But there were always plenty of reasons why his father couldn’t stay with them or they couldn’t go with him and they were piled up before Joseph’s defeated eyes like stones in a wall. The money was better interstate. There was no suitable work in the local area. They couldn’t afford to move. Joseph’s schooling couldn’t be disrupted. The time wasn’t right. It was for the best. When he was younger Joseph grudgingly accepted these responses as insurmountable obstacles, but recently he had become more critical. Even his mother seemed less convinced by her own explanations. It was last Christmas that Joseph noticed the change. His mother had begun tentatively to add her support to her son’s pleas.

  ‘Maybe you should think about it, Peter. You said yourself that there’s not much work left where you are. I mean, if something came up here, I’m sure we could survive on less money.’

  His father reminded Joseph of a cornered animal as he pushed his food around his plate. ‘We’ll see,’ he said glumly and without conviction.

  Then one night Joseph was woken by the sound of his parents’ voices. The words were indistinct, but the tone was harsh and abrupt. Joseph moved quietly to the bedroom door and edged it open. The murmur of sound crystallised into recognisable words as he gazed blindly into the shadows of the house.

  ‘… all right up till now.’

  It was his father sounding pressured and angry.

  ‘But things are different now. He’s growing up. He needs you to be here.’

  ‘He’s fine – you mother him too much.’

  ‘Don’t tell me how to raise my son. You’re never here. Then you come home for a few weeks and you’re off again. You’re not here for him – you don’t even really know him. And by the way, he’s not fine. He’s a great kid but he’s not fine. He hides it all inside but he’s hurting and confused and pretty soon he’ll be angry. Peter, he needs you. You can’t keep running away.’

  ‘He’s got me and I’m not running away,’ her husband snapped back. ‘I am here, you know. I haven’t buggered off. I’ve worked my guts out for both of you, to pay for the house and school and every other bloody thing, but apparently it’s not enough.’

  ‘No it’s not enough,’ came the cold reply. ‘And it’s not about things and money. In the early days maybe, but not now … now your son needs a father. He needs to get to know you, for God’s sake.’

  ‘That’s rubbish. He knows me.’

  ‘Does he? Sometimes I wonder if I know you myself.’

  The cold edge of his mother’s voice and the hard silence that followed shocked Joseph like a slash from a knife.

  There must have been other conversations of which Joseph was unaware, because in February when his father’s work in New South Wales finished, he came home and took up a job with the local city council as a plant operator. Joseph got his wish, but the father he had wanted for so long was now often morose and irritable. It wasn’t that the work was difficult or demanding. In fact the opposite was true, and that was the problem. For Joseph’s father, who was used to massive construction sites and being a part of feats of engineering on a large scale, the prospect of repairing roads and mowing parks was demeaning.

  For the first few weeks, Joseph and his mother listened sympathetically at the dinner table as Peter Davidson gave voice to the annoyances and frustrations of his day. Nothing was properly planned or organised and as a result most of the day was spent waiting around for people or equipment to turn up. The machinery was outdated and badly maintained. His workmates were either lazy or incompetent. The foreman was weak and useless. Everything was ‘a bloody joke’.

  As the weeks wore on Joseph watched as his father became more withdrawn, responding only with dismissive mumbles whenever Laura chanced an enquiry about his day. At first, he hoped that this growing silence might be a sign that his father was beginning to accept his new life, but the tension that seemed to simmer below the surface of most conversations told him otherwise.

  Then it happened, almost miraculously. His father’s mood lifted and he became more as he was during his holiday stays. Joseph was so happy with the change in his father that he failed to see the worry that deepened in his mother’s eyes.

  Now, as Joseph lay in the darkness of his room, not knowing if his father was alive or dead, he thought about that particular Saturday. In many ways it was the best and the worst day of his life.

  It was the morning of the cricket trials. Joseph
remembered how proud he felt arriving at school with his father and the thrill of seeing him talking and laughing with the other parents. He remembered, too, how nervous and excited he was and how he concentrated so hard on playing well. He remembered especially his father smiling happily and giving him the thumbs up when he took a high and difficult catch.

  The magic of that day had continued right up to the dinner table at night but ended when his father placed his knife and fork deliberately on his gravy-streaked plate, looked up apprehensively and said, ‘Mate, there’s something I need to tell you.’

  Joseph waited. Something in the tone of his father’s voice scared him.

  ‘I’ve been offered a job … in Bougainville.’ A silence followed. ‘I’m going to take it.’

  At first Joseph didn’t understand what his father was telling him and looked to his mother for help. She sat rigid, her eyes set firmly on the tablecloth in front of her.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Bougainville,’ his father repeated. ‘It’s an island off the coast of New Guinea. They say -’

  ‘New Guinea?’ Joseph interrupted, the alarm clearly evident in his voice.

  ‘Yeah, I know it sounds like it’s a long way away …’

  ‘But you’ve already got a job,’ Joseph broke in again desperately.

  ‘I know … but I quit.’ Peter Davidson saw the panic in his son’s eyes as they widened in disbelief.

  ‘But why?’

  His father shook his head and grappled to find the words that would make the boy understand. ‘Joseph, I tried, I really did. But that job – the council job – I can’t do it any more. And this new job, it’s what I’m used to, what I’m good at, and the money’s much better. We’ll be able to get that computer you wanted.’

  ‘We don’t need more money – Mum said so, and I don’t want a stupid computer. You said you were staying this time. You promised.’

  The torment in Joseph’s voice had risen and his father’s tone hardened against it. ‘Look Joseph, I’m sorry, but you’re big enough to understand that things don’t always work out the way we want. No use being silly about it. The decision’s been made. I have to fly out tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow!’ Joseph echoed in amazement.

  ‘Yes, I know it’s sudden, but I only found out for sure a few days ago. I was going to tell you earlier, but I wanted to wait till after the trials today.’

  For a second, as it flashed through his mind, Joseph recalled the happiness he had felt that day. ‘But why do you have to go? You could get another job here – a better one. Couldn’t he, Mum?’

  Joseph turned to see his mother looking towards the ceiling. She was trying hard not to blink so that the tears that now filmed her eyes wouldn’t escape down her cheeks. She remained silent as her chin creased and quivered.

  ‘Look, Joseph, just leave it, all right? You’re only upsetting your mother.’

  ‘Me!’ Joseph exploded.

  ‘Just settle down,’ his father shot back firmly.

  Joseph felt his eyes starting to burn with tears and his throat become raw and tight. ‘You’re always leaving. Why don’t you want to live with Mum and me? What’s wrong with us?’

  ‘Now you’re being stupid,’ his father replied angrily. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you. I’ve told you why I’m leaving and it’s about time you grew up and started behaving like a man instead of some cry-baby kid.’

  Joseph’s mother turned suddenly as if she had been released from a spell and reached across the table to take her son’s hand, but it was snatched away.

  ‘Go then!’ Joseph shouted as he roughly pushed back his chair and stormed towards the door.

  ‘Joseph! Come back here and sit down!’ his father growled.

  ‘No! If you want to leave, then leave!’ Joseph spat out bitterly, ‘Go on, go! I don’t want you to stay – I hate you and I hope you never come back!’

  Those were the last words that he had spoken to his father.

  The next morning while it was still dark, movement in the house roused Joseph from his sleep. He heard his parents talking and he knew his father was preparing to leave. After a while the door to his room slowly opened and he could just make out his father’s silhouette in the darkness. ‘Joseph, are you awake? I’m leaving now.’

  Joseph lay still as the silence and shadows of the room swamped and dissolved his father’s words, and he stayed that way as the door was pulled shut. It was not until the sound of a car’s engine faded down the driveway and was lost in the night that Joseph gasped for air in silent, choking sobs of sadness and regret.

  All that was six months ago now, but those final words to his father still pierced Joseph’s heart like a knife.

  Tormented by the memory, Joseph kicked the sheet off, rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed. He thought about the letters his father had written from Bougainville. They always began with, ‘Dear Laura and Joseph,’ and ended with something like, ‘Love to you both,’ but there was never any letter just for him, and no mention was ever made of the acrimony that surrounded his departure. Instead his father wrote as he always did, in his straightforward way, about the job, his workmates and the country, and as she had done since he was a child, Mrs Davidson read her husband’s letters to Joseph while he listened and waited for some word from his father that was meant only for him. It was usually towards the end of the letter that Joseph would rate a mention. ‘How’s Joseph going at school? Did Joseph make the cricket team? Is Joseph keeping the garden weeded?’ It was the same way his father would ask about the car.

  Earlier that year, following his mother’s urging, Joseph had tried to write his own letter to his father, but the words on the page came out sounding clumsy and false. In the end, overcome by frustration, he scratched out Dear Dad so roughly with his pen that the paper tore through.

  For six months the gulf between Joseph and his father had deepened, and now as he sat alone in his room, Joseph feared that it could never be taken away. As helplessness and fear closed in on him, Joseph slid from his bed and, for the first time in years, knelt down to pray. As his knees hit the floor, he bent forward, buried his face in his hands and whispered aloud, ‘Please God, let him be alive …’

  The words seemed strange and foreign to him. He looked at his hands and saw them clasped together like a child’s. He remembered what it was like when he used to say his prayers beside his bed each night – how easy it was, how safe and sure he felt. But he didn’t feel like that now. All he felt in the stillness and emptiness that engulfed him was his own breathing and the soft thudding of his heart. It was as if he were the only person alive.

  Suddenly the ringing of the telephone pierced the night. Joseph heard a light being switched on and his mother’s hurried footsteps. Then the strident call of the telephone clicked into silence.

  ‘Please God …’ Joseph breathed through clenched teeth.

  His mother was standing motionless when he entered the lounge room. She cradled the telephone to her ear as the light from the bedroom spilled softly over her. Her face was pale and impassive. Finally she whispered something that Joseph couldn’t make out and lowered the receiver slowly to her chest.

  ‘Mum?’ Joseph’s voice trembled into the stillness.

  Laura Davidson looked up at the frightened face of her son.

  ‘Mum, what is it?’

  Joseph watched as his mother’s body began to sag and her face crumpled with grief. Before he had a chance to move, the receiver slipped out of her hands and dangled wildly from its cord, bucking and jumping like a hanging man.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘Joseph?’

  Tom Leyton stared in amazement at the boy who stood before him in his pyjamas. When he saw the strain on Joseph’s face, he moved back from the door and motioned him into his room.

  It was over an hour now since the call had come. Joseph’s mother had at last embraced sleep through the combined effect of exhaustion and tablets, but Joseph’s mind was still racing
with questions whose answers terrified him.

  Back in his room he had found himself staring out the window into the murky night. Only one soft light held out against the darkness – the one that burned behind the curtains of Tom Leyton’s room. And now for reasons he couldn’t explain, Joseph found himself in that room, drawn like a moth to the soft glow of a single light bulb. He sat on the window seat with his head bowed. Tom Leyton sat on the edge of his bed, just as he had done for their portrait sessions.

  ‘Joseph?’ Tom Leyton said again, gently this time.

  ‘Mum got a phone call,’ Joseph said without looking up, ‘about the men in the hospital. One of them died. The other two are going to be all right. They found out who they were … Dad wasn’t one of them.’

  Tom Leyton nodded his head and looked at his hands, and the familiar silence of their early meetings crept up around them like floodwater.

  ‘He’s not coming back,’ Joseph whispered, as if struggling for air.

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  Joseph lowered his head further until his chin was touching his chest. ‘We had a fight … when Dad left for Bougainville. I didn’t want him to go … I wanted him to stay with us. He wouldn’t listen … I said … I told him … not to come back … not ever … but I didn’t …’

  Joseph rose suddenly and moved to the desk, where he stood with his back to Tom Leyton.

  ‘Joseph, you can’t … you were angry and hurt. Your father would have understood that. He would have known that you didn’t mean what you said.’

  Joseph eyes drifted up to Escher’s print of the swirling world of angels and devils. He stared at the wide-eyed mocking face of the central bat-like demon till all he could see was a pattern of black devils linked over a globe-like sphere.

  ‘I hated him being away all the time, and now … it’s just like you said.’