by Jaap Robben
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42
Last night’s fight has fizzled out. As long as we keep our mouths shut. When we talk, I still feel the heat behind his words.
He was away all day again. Now he’s slumped in his chair with a can of beer on his belly. Rico noses around in the hope of a pat on the head.
Two Mercedes rolled into the yard a while back, one with a German number plate. Brown Henri’s brothers is my guess. The dusty bulbs strung along the garage roof ever since we moved here are lit up like Christmas lights. “They must have something to celebrate,” I say. A fire is blazing in an oil drum but no one’s standing round it. The flames colour the front of the garage a flickering orange. “No invite for us.”
“Did you want one?” Dad asks.
A bloke comes wandering out of the garage. The construction lamp snaps on of its own accord and he looks up mid piss. Sparks spin in the smoke above the fire.
Dad has heaved himself out of the chair and is peeking in at Lucien. “Looks like he’s out for the count.”
“We were walking all afternoon.”
“Good for you.”
“Honest. It went really well.”
“Come on then.”
The construction lamp snaps on again. A bat flutters into the circle of light with us and shoots off into the dark.
No one looks up when we appear. Only Emile raises a hand to greet us. What’s he doing here? Henri turns in his garden chair. “Well, look what the cat dragged in.”
“Fun times,” Dad says, and his eyes dart across to Emile.
“They were till you showed up.” The brothers around the table snigger in chorus. Three versions of Henri that shrank in the wash. Each with a different moustache so you can tell them apart.
“Sounds like we’re not wanted, Bry.” Dad shoves me toward the door.
“Pull up a seat, Maurice. Might as well, since you’re here.”
“No, no.”
Brown Henri drags over an empty crate and Dad makes a show of refusing.
“Watch yourself … Watch yourself.” Jean bears down on the table with a grill tray of hissing meat. He doesn’t seem to notice that we’ve gate-crashed. I sit down as far away from Emile as I can. “Rrrr-righty ho,” Jean says. I take the paper plate he hands me. “A nice bit of cheek … for you.” With Jean you never know what you’re eating. Once Dad swore he was eating rabbit, until Jean revealed we were chowing down on muskrat. Even brought out the head to prove it.
The grill tray is a jigsaw of charred meat. I recognize a jawbone by the pointy teeth, another bit looks like a two-prong socket roasted brown. Must be piglet. I grab a bread roll from an old laundry basket on the table. “Sauce?” Jean asks and squirts a blob of mayonnaise onto my plate. “You know where to find the cans.” Jean thumbs in the direction of the fridge.
One of the brothers is in full flow. Emile nods along with his story as he takes a plate of piglet and thanks Jean politely.
“Beer, Maurice?” Brown Henri says. Dad gets a cold bottle in the neck.
“For fu—” Dad splutters and fends him off a little too fiercely.
“Come on, Maurice. Just kidding around. Here.”
Dad takes the beer, cracks open the bottle on the edge of the table, and slurps at the foam welling up. Pallet wood crackles as it’s thrown onto the fire outside.
“The beers in your fridge must be room temperature by now, eh, Maurice?” Henri asks when the conversation around the table falters. Henri’s brothers chuckle and stamp their bottles on the table, their applause for every joke.
Emile, Jean, and Henri have slipped me separate winks, like they all have a secret Dad’s not in on.
“What’s the big occasion?” Dad asks between gulps.
“Just having a few friends around for a beer.”
“Friends? Is he one of the gang now, too?”
“Who?”
Dad nods at Emile.
“Why not?”
“Oh well, it’s your party.”
Another brother has launched into an anecdote that makes no sense. Emile listens. His smile makes it look like he’s part of every conversation he’s watching, but I can tell he has no idea what the guy’s yakking about.
“When’s your son leaving?” Henri asks Dad across the table. “A week he was here for, wasn’t it?”
Dad drains his bottle in one go so he doesn’t have to answer.
“Pay-up time tomorrow, Maurice?”
Jean signals to Henri to keep things friendly. I sink my teeth into the piglet’s cheek. Someone must have cracked another joke, because they bang on the table again until the necks of their bottles start to foam. “Another round everyone?” Jean asks. Only Emile gestures that he’s fine with his cola. No one asks me anything.
“Let me get ’em,” Dad says, pushing Jean back into his chair.
“Well, well, what a treat … Waiter, six beers for table two.” No one watches Dad except me. He crouches at the fridge, takes out seven bottles and puts seven warm ones back in their place. He drains one in a single swallow and slots the empty in the crate.
Returning to the table with two fistfuls of beer, he barges in so that Emile has to lean back and bangs his head on the post of the hydraulic lift.
The beers are passed around and opened. Bottle tops roll over the ground. Emile joins in the toast with his cola. I keep myself occupied with my pork cheek and chuckle along when they laugh. When it’s time for the next round, Dad repeats the same routine. Come the third round, he hooks a bottle of vodka toward him, unscrews the top, and carefully tops up his beer.
“Paws off,” Henri grunts and yanks the vodka out of his hands.
“Your beer’s too watery for me,” Dad mutters.
Henri screws the top back on the bottle. “If you’re here to cause trouble, Maurice, you can fuck off right now.”
“And what’s this?” Dad drags a bottle of Pernod toward him.
“Present from the tenant. You can keep your paws off that an’ all.”
“Present from the tenant, eh? Fancy.”
“Mind if I join you?” Emile is standing at my elbow, holding his chair. Jean shoves up to make some space.
“How much longer till you’re back at school?” Emile asks.
“Week or two.”
“And then?”
“New class.”
“That must be daunting. Or not?”
“Not specially.”
“I was going to come over and help with Lucien this morning, but I saw you were managing fine on your own.”
Dad is grinning along while one of the moustaches spins another yarn. I don’t know if he can hear us.
“Where’s Lucien now?”
“In bed.”
“He must be wiped out after all the walking you’ve done.”
I want to snatch the words from the air and cram them back in his mouth. Emile has put his cola down next to mine. I don’t know which can is whose and I don’t want to drink out of his.
“That fence you’ve built around your brother’s bed means nothing much can happen to him.”
“Even if he falls out, it’s not so bad.”
“Oh?”
“The state he’s in, there’s not much damage left to do.” Dad must be tuned in after all, because a little smile appears on his face. That line is one of his.
“Where are the ferrets?” I ask Jean’s back.
“We moved them. If there’s too much commotion, they start gnawing at each other.”
“By the way, I have something for you,” Emile goes on.
“For me? I don’t want anything.”
“Just a little something. To say thanks for helping me make it to the supermarket.”
Dad heard that. I can tell.
“As soon as I saw it, I thought of
you. Because you were taking such an interest in your brother’s medicine.”
Dad gets to his feet suddenly. I’m the only one who flinches.
“Everyone in for another beer?” he asks.
“No, thank you,” Emile answers. But Dad wasn’t asking him. Emile leans toward me. “How’s things with that girl of yours? Is she coming to visit? You’re welcome to call her again. Knock anytime you like.”
Dad taps my shoulder with his beer bottle. He wants to swap places. Now I get to sit on the crate. When I don’t move fast enough, he bumps me off the chair. “That’s more like it,” Dad grunts, spreading his legs and blanking Emile.
“Eat! Eat!” Jean holds up a dish of sputtering sausages. Rolls are ripped open and squirted full of sauce. Brown Henri stuffs a sausage in every roll, blows on his fingertips before grabbing each one.
“Reminds me of my ex,” says one brother, holding his roll aloft. “She could take two bangers no trouble.” Howls of laughter, the table almost gives way under the hammering of beer bottles.
“On second thoughts, hold the ketchup!” Brown Henri shouts.
More howls.
Emile clings to his can with both hands. He shoots Dad a sideways glance.
“That’s nothing on Brian’s mum …” Dad says.
“Da-aad.” I know what’s coming and I don’t want to hear it. But everyone’s already listening. “What about her?” Jean asks. Dad takes another gulp of beer, gestures that the punchline is on its way. But he stretches it too long. “Don’t tell me you had yourself a real live woman?” Another roar around the table.
“That mother of his was dry as a bone,” Dad does his best to drown them out. “Had to cry me a river before I could stick it to her.” Dad thrusts his can in the air, laughs louder than the rest put together.
“Says more about you … than it does about her.”
More hammering of bottles.
“And still two sons?”
Dad takes a bow. Luckily, no one cracks a joke about Lucien.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Dad says. “You want to know how …?” But no one wants to know. They’ve all tuned in to another story.
“And how about you?” Dad bellows.
Emile jerks to attention.
“Did your little fishies swim over the dam?”
Everyone falls silent.
“Or don’t they have what it takes?”
Emile stares at the ground.
“Hey!” Dad whacks him on the shoulder. “Why so quiet? You’re always eager to talk to our Brian here.”
“Maurice,” Jean tries to call him off.
“I can ask your new friend a question or two, can’t I?”
“I don’t have any children, if that’s what you mean,” Emile says in a clear voice.
“Goes by the name of Louise, that bird of yours?”
Emile takes another swallow from his can. I will him to look at me, so I can give him a sign that there’s nothing I can do about this.
“Dumped you good and proper, if I’m not mistaken?”
Emile puts his can on the table and gets to his feet. “I wish you all a pleasant evening.” He nods to everyone in turn. Everyone but me. Without a backward glance he walks into the night. I want to go after him but I don’t dare.
Dad has keeled over by the fridge and heaves himself back onto his haunches. Takes out another bottle, fumbles with the bottle top against the aluminium edge of the fridge, has to sink to his knees to pry it off. Jean puts his arm around me. “Maybe it’s time for you to get some sleep,” he says.
“But what about Dad?”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Dad has started moving in slow motion. He doesn’t so much turn as reel.
“Gents,” Jean says. “Our Brian has decided to call it a night.”
Thumbs-up all round. A pat on my shoulder. “Hands above the covers, mind,” one of the moustaches quips.
Dad sticks a crooked thumb in the air and presses a few times on an invisible doorbell. He leans in close to my ear. “Bastards, this lot. Every last one of ’em. One more drink, and I’ll be right behind you.” He rubs his rough hand over my bare forearm. “You’re a good lad,” he slurs. “A proper good lad.” He wobbles unexpectedly and grabs my shoulder to steady himself, spills cold beer on my T-shirt. “Lemme say a few words …!” he shouts. No one pays us any attention, so he tosses an empty beer bottle high in the air. It shatters on the concrete. Now everyone’s looking.
“Yeah, yeah,” he says. “This little fella here … an un-be-liev-ably good lad. Good to his brother, too.” His eyes go teary. “And nothin’s gonna come between us. Nothin’.” He nods to show how much he agrees with himself. “My boy.” He pounds a couple of dents in his chest.
“To Brian,” Jean says.
Brown Henri pulls Dad down into the chair vacated by Emile. “Now, what do you say we pipe down a bit, eh, Maurice?”
“But I’m allowed to say … That boy there, he’s my son, you know?”
“Of course you are, of course. He’s a good lad, through and through.”
Dad sticks a warning finger in the air. “Well then.”
Henri slaps a bottle of beer into his hand. “This one’s for the road.”
“Sleep tight, Brian,” Jean says.
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43
No boots kicked into the corner. No clothes on his chair. “Dad?” I ease his door open a little further. Nothing but a mattress and a tangle of sheets. Behind me, Lucien flexes his knees. “About-turn,” I say. “We’re going outside.” He clamps the spout of his beaker between his teeth and we negotiate the doorstep together.
“Dad?”
Every time I shout, Lucien groans an echo.
“Dad? Where are you?”
The pickup is parked where he left it. The moon is stamped pale on the morning sky, the cold, dewy grass makes my flip-flops stiff and slippery.
After last night, I was worried Emile might have taken off, but his car is still there. For the first time, his curtains are wide open.
Smoke is still snaking from the oil drum outside Jean’s place. Most of the blue paint has flaked off, the metal flecked from the heat. “Dad?” I call.
“Bry …” A dusty croak. I can’t work out where it’s coming from.
“Dad?” Is he lying in the bushes?
“Bry?”
“Where are you?”
A retching cough. “In here. With the dog.”
He’s a heap in the corner of the cage. “What are you doing in there?” His face is crumpled, his cheek dirty. Lucien leans on my shoulder and we edge closer. Only then do I see the blue-red blister below his eye and the raw skin under the dirt on his cheek.
“Moo-wah-wah.” The beaker drops from Lucien’s mouth and he bends his knees excitedly a couple of times.
“How did you end up in there?”
A chain lock is looped through the cage door and the bars.
“Who locked you in?”
Dad shifts his weight, blinks.
“Where’s the key?”
“Those fuckers are more worried about a Dad taking care of his son than a scumbag tenant.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“You were already asleep.” The thought that I could leave him locked up like this triggers an uneasy feeling in my stomach.
“Where’s Rico?”
“Knocking about somewhere.” Dad sticks his fingers in his mouth and whistles. The weeds by Emile’s caravan sweep aside and Rico comes bounding toward us.
“Moo-wah-wah.”
“Do you want me to get the angle grinder?”
“It’s been sold for a bit.”
“Sold for a bit?”
“Pawn broker’s. Till your brother’s money arri
ves, then I’ll buy it back.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Shut up about it, will you!”
“But you could have pawned some of my stuff …”
“I’m not flogging anything that belongs to my own son.” That’s exactly what he did with all my birthday presents these past few years, without asking. The dragon castle that was way too big for my room. The electric go-cart. The second-hand keyboard without an adapter.
“Jean? Henri?”
Flies swarm around gnawed bones and open sauce bottles. Broken glass and trampled sausages litter the concrete floor.
“Feffe …” Lucien puffs, out of breath from walking.
“Henri?” I shout. “I need the key.”
“Feffe, feffe.” Lucien sinks to his knees and reaches for the glass splinters on the floor.
“No, no … Here.” I hand him a bottle. He grabs it and smashes it. Shock first, then a whinny of laughter. A pigeon up in the rafters flaps and resettles.
“Hey! There’s a deposit on that bottle …” Brown Henri appears wearing only his underpants, rubbing finger and thumb together.
“You can get the ten cents off Lucien.”
“Brian!” Jean greets me as he comes trundling out with his oxygen tank. “I was just about to look in … on your dad.”
His eyebrow is swollen, blood sticky among the hairs.
“What happened?”
He dips his fingers into the breast pocket of his shirt and pulls out a ring of three identical keys.
“Tell him I never want to see him here again.”
“Tell him yourself.”
“Already have and I’m not going to … waste my breath on another warning.”
“Feffe … feffe …” Lucien is straining to reach the bottles that are still on the table.
“What happened?”
They both start scratching at the same time. Jean his throat, Henri the side of his belly.
“You promised you’d keep an eye on Dad.”