Beyond the peaked roof of the Jaguar salesroom towers the huge lingerie girl. Her legs are the size of cathedral spires, her folded arms barely conceal rounded breasts the size of small planets. Naked apart from a black G-string, a white bunny tail and pink ears, she pouts at the world. How big are her teeth inside those enormous glistening lips? All the better to eat you with, my dear! And still the light is red. Nothing is changing.
He pushes the clutch deep to the floor and starts shifting through the gears. There’s a graunch, a slight grittiness, which bothers him. My wife hates that billboard. Is she bothered that he’s away so much? Or — he’s never contemplated this before — has she started to feel relieved when he leaves?
Leaving. Leaving. Until now, he’s never realised how much of life is made up of departures. He leans forward to check the traffic light again and the bunny girl’s thighs gleam through the mist. She straddles time with two sexily arched monstrous feet — and at last the light turns green and he takes off so fast that his tyres scream on the road.
The horn. It hadn’t sounded quite right, either, when he tooted goodbye. He swirls through a roundabout, hands occupied with gear changes and steering. Now he’s right below the bunny girl. If I look up, maybe I can see her pussy? He honks the horn in appreciation of billboard lingerie, and two-dimensional women, and being alone on the road: a man in a man’s world. Toot toot! He’s sweeping past the tall newspaper building, a stack of floodlit ledges, and his moment of good humour fades. There’s definitely something wrong with the car horn; it has a strange resonance, falling away like the sound of a boat leaving port. Or the mournful honk of a Canadian goose circling above the dead body of its partner.
TOOT, TOOT. SOMETHING IS pulling Bright out of the deepest water he’s ever been in. It’s a rope of sound, a twisted loop of noise, catching him by the throat and — whether or not he wants it — dragging him upwards.
‘Fucking hell! Oh, fucking hell, and Jesus bloody Christ! Please, please, let this not be happening.’
Are they his words, or is it another voice? He thinks it must be someone else, because the tugboat has wrapped its noose so tightly around his neck that not a word could make it through.
‘Are you alive? Say something, please. Are you really alive?’
A light mist is falling on his face; at least, he hopes that it’s mist. For when his eyes grate open, the first thing he sees is a large mouth, two blubbery lips, and a bobbing tongue.
‘That had better not be spit,’ he whispers. His throat’s a scorching mess of red. Even these six short words hurt so much that his eyes feel ready to fall out of his head. Pain is everywhere. Eyelids scrape over eyeballs like cheese graters, knives scratching at burnt toast, fingernails picking at calluses till the blood wells.
‘Where does it hurt?’
He raises his hand to blot out the blinding light. Street lamp, sun — the end of his life? Through spread fingers he can make out a large pale face. Or is it the moon? No, he believes it’s human. White flabby cheeks, high forehead, a halo of hair. And something strange. ‘What happened to your eyebrows?’ he mutters. But the muscles in his back are burning like flames, his hand falls, he can no longer see anything. He falls again, back into the darkness.
GIBBY HAS NEVER CALLED an ambulance before. ‘Alive, yes, alive! But he’s just passed out again. Yes, he’s still breathing. No, I won’t move him.’ He’s sweating so much that the phone slips from his hand, crashing onto the asphalt just as a body might: a few ugly bounces, then a sliding halt. ‘Shit.’ He fumbles it back into his pocket, mops his forehead with his soaking sleeve: even the creases of his elbows are wet with sweat. The red-haired boy lies motionless on top of the newspaper cart.
His right leg is crooked up at an almost casual angle, as if he’s relaxing on a midday lawn. And the light above him is almost as bright as the sun. It beams down on him, highlighting the angles of his thin face. He’s the hero of his own play, a tragic protagonist in an urban myth. Who would believe what’s happened?
‘Hang in there.’ Gibby speaks to the swollen blue-veined eyelids. There’s a mark on the left cheek, but other than that the boy’s face is eerily unblemished. ‘Help’s on its way.’ As he bends over the body, sweat falls from his forehead like rain and he steps back quickly.
Behind him an engine roars: one of the out-of-town delivery vans. ‘Move your bloody trolley!’ The driver sticks his arm out the window in a gesture that’s either impatient or plain obscene.
‘I can’t.’ Gibby darts over to the van. ‘Someone — someone has just fallen on top of it.’
‘What the hell are you whispering for?’ The driver’s the sort who wears his cap backwards: fast on the roads, slow to catch on.
‘A jumper!’ Gibby raises both his arms — at the floodlit sky, at the newspaper building, at the looming bunny girl — but he lowers his voice out of respect for the nearly dead. ‘I parked my trolley here, I went to open the barrier, I turned —’ Here, he stops. The black flash is still there in the corner of his vision, falling like a waterfall every time he moves his head.
‘Some dude fell into your cart? From all the way up there? Holy shit!’ The driver shifts in his seat with an excited creaking of vinyl. ‘So he’s dead, right? Have you called the cops?’
‘Shhh!’ Glancing over his shoulder, Gibby thinks he sees a movement — but is it only his imagination? — the falling boy, the thump, the sudden terrible creak of the wheels as they absorbed the weight. He rushes back to the cart. ‘Lie still,’ he says urgently. ‘The ambulance people said not to move you. You shouldn’t move either.’
It’s a real, not imagined, movement. The boy is shuffling his head about on the newspapers. Under his red curls are tomorrow’s headlines, braying about violence and death. ‘Am I… are you…’ The boy’s eyes flicker in his white immobile face.
‘I called an ambulance.’ Should Gibby touch him on the shoulder to reassure him or is this also risky? ‘I told them to hurry.’
‘Like they. Haven’t heard. That before.’ The croak comes from his mouth in a delayed fashion and, seconds later, something like a laugh.
Behind Gibby the van throbs on. ‘Is he really alive?’ bellows the driver across the carpark. ‘Holy shit!’
Gibby ignores him and looks at the boy. Black jeans, black pullover, thin wrists sticking out of frayed cuffs. A few threads hang from the hems of his trousers, and one of his bootlaces is undone. These details make Gibby’s eyes sting. If he’d been a little later, if he’d gone for a coffee before loading his papers, if he hadn’t parked his cart exactly there —
A siren flares in the darkness. ‘They’re coming!’ He’s so relieved he does a quick jog on the spot. ‘You’ll be all right now.’
‘Don’t tell them.’ The boy’s eyes fly open, much wider than the narrow battered slits they’ve been.
‘Tell them what?’
‘Don’t tell them I was pushed.’
‘You were pushed?’ Gibby is skewered by the intense green gaze. ‘Do you mean someone tried to — murder you?’
‘Not murder.’ The boy swallows, a painful rasp. ‘Someone was helping me.’
But the ambulance is blaring up beside them: flashing, whooping; slamming doors and running men. Gibby bends very close to the barrow. ‘So what do we say?’ He’s colluding with Icarus, who’s plummeted from the sky and landed crash, bang on breaking news. ‘What do I say, if I’m asked anything?’
‘Say that I jumped.’ One shoulder moves in a tiny approximation of a shrug. ‘Don’t want any fuss. Mustn’t bring anyone else into it.’
Now there are white-clad men pushing between Gibby-the-Saviour and the red-haired boy who could have been in pieces by now.
‘Are you the one who called us?’ They speak in businesslike tones. ‘Did you see what happened?’
Soon the twig-like limbs of the boy are being wheeled away on a different kind of trolley towards the bright chamber of the ambulance, and the delivery van is edging around the
chaos, driver hanging out the window, still staring, chewing gum, and Gibby is hemmed around by questions. Rooted to the ground, a blasted oak in a city car park, he cranes behind him to catch one last glimpse of the person he’s either saved from death or condemned to life. ‘I caught sight of him falling.’ He nods. ‘On the very edge of my vision. I heard a crash. I ran to help.’
He knows only the truth as he’s seen it and he tells it unhesitatingly, several times. Luckily no one thinks to ask if another person had been up there on the ledge of the newspaper building: one other, several, or even a crowd. So his loyalty isn’t put to the test. But for hours afterwards, through many cups of hot sweet tea and the acrylic semi-warmth of blankets around the shoulders, Gibby knows how he would have answered. The thin wrists and the trailing shoelace were enough. It seems that the red-haired, white-faced, green-eyed boy has a tight hold on people as well as on life.
THE UNCLE PHENOMENON
LACE EATS HER BREAKFAST fast and absent-mindedly. She’s cooked eggs, though not in any recognisable style: cracked into a saucepan, swished around with a wooden spoon, poured out in a lukewarm liquid state, and mopped up with stale wholegrain bread. She follows this with a cold sausage dipped in mustard, and a triangle of smoked orange cheese. She always feels hungry the morning after she’s misjudged somebody. ‘In his office he appeared invulnerable,’ she says wretchedly to the coffee pot.
‘Huh?’ Someone has appeared at the kitchen door, yawning, scratching.
From the little you’ve seen of Lace so far, you might expect her to live with:
a) glamorous tousled male model, who strides on beaches in cable-knit sweaters in front of camera crews
b) sweet, heartshape-faced brunette fashionista, sufficiently confident and pretty to fully appreciate her flatmate’s beauty
c) huge pedigree dog, perhaps a Weimarana or a Dalmatian, whose glossy coat and long legs draw as many admiring glances as Lace does when they step out together on the street.
Wrong, wrong and wrong, on all three counts. ‘Were you talking to me?’ A small woody person is standing in the doorway, with stick-like legs and flakes of skin in his eyelashes. ‘Ah, runny eggs! Just what I feel like.’
‘Help yourself.’ Lace has been so busy worrying about misusing the banker that she can’t remember eating, but there’s evidence she has: yellow smears on her plate, crumbs all around it. ‘I’ve had more than my share.’ She watches him try a fork, but the eggs pour through it like soup, and then resort to a spoon.
Who is this scrawny man of middling height, with mid-brown hair and nondescript features hovering beside the stove? He’s the man you pass in the street and never register; the man who makes your takeaway coffee, sells you a ticket from a generic ticket booth, or works in the local drycleaner. Nothing to write home about, as they used to say — except that this man happens to be Lace’s uncle.
Although Lace is blessed in the areas of beauty and brains, she’s not so fortunate when it comes to family. She’s what you might call ‘family-light’. It sounds absurd to call someone an orphan when that person is old enough to bed bankers and arouse policemen to semi-lawlessness. Nonetheless, this is what she is: permanently parentless. Nor does she have siblings, and only two uncles, one of whom is standing before her in chequered boxer shorts, spooning up gloop.
‘How was your date?’ asks the uncle.
‘Not good.’ Lace fans her face with the raffia placemat. ‘Too keen.’
‘Another clingy one?’ Chummie looks sympathetic. ‘They’re pretty desperate, these men you go out with.’
From this remark it’s clear that he’s lived with Lace for so many years, he doesn’t really see her any more. Her extraordinary beauty, which knocks men sideways and dents their hearts and confidence; her cat-like detachment, coupled with her deeply caring nature: these things are lost on Chummie. But living with anyone for most of your life is like pressing your face up against a mirror. It’s surprising how little one ends up taking in.
‘What about dating a strong lone-ranger type for a change?’ suggests Chummie helpfully.
‘A lone ranger. That would be perfect.’ As Lace gazes around the room, the crumb-strewn floor becomes a sandy desert, the basil plant bursts into hot pink flowers, and a black hat with a silver star appears at the window. In her mind’s eye she sees strong tanned hands gripping the sill, and she’s just about to discover who’s coming to visit when — crash! She jumps, and sees Chummie down on his spindly knees in a pool of yellow.
‘Should’ve eaten faster,’ he mutters, ‘then there’d be less mess.’ As he squeezes egg out of the dishcloth, he asks Lace about her trust fund and whether she made it to the bank.
No, I made it with the bank. This is Lace, joking in her head, in spite of being preoccupied with a cloudy future and a needling past.
‘As your official guardian,’ says Chummie, strangely formally for someone in baggy underwear with goose-bumped legs, ‘I have a duty to check on these things.’ It’s true, he is Lace’s guardian as well as her uncle — something that’s hard for some people to believe, especially when they find out he’s only one year older than Lace.
‘Of course you do,’ agrees Lace. Chummie’s bursts of responsibility are rare, and usually prompted by something. She waits to hear what the catalyst might be, but he just keeps bending and squelching, rinsing and sighing at the sink. ‘Did Bill ring?’ she asks finally.
Chummie slaps his forehead. Yes, now he remembers; Lace’s other uncle did ring last night. ‘Just before I left for work, wanting to know if any universities have accepted you yet.’
There’s a silence.
‘I couldn’t answer that,’ he adds matter-of-factly, ‘because I haven’t asked you.’
Lace shifts in her chair. Usually she’s fine about being left alone in her life, but this morning — is it the humid grey day outside? — she feels as if she’s sinking. ‘I got into all of them,’ she mumbles.
‘You did?’ Chummie looks genuinely amazed that Lace, with whom he’s lived for the past twelve years, might not be here one morning when he walks into the kitchen hungry for eggs. ‘I don’t know which one to accept.’ Lace wanders to the sofa.
‘It won’t be till next year anyway. Don’t worry.’ The alarm in Chummie’s voice makes her feel sad. Perhaps after she’s gone, he’ll finally find someone nice to move in with him, help him clean up his kitchen messes and listen for his key in the door?
‘Your Uncle Bill was going to Canberra for a conference.’ Chummie furrows his brow. ‘And… yes, that’s right, Jean’s enrolled in some teaching course.’
‘Anything else?’ Lace is hunting for the remote control. The TV’s been on, muted, for days.
‘Not really. They’re pretty old. They don’t have much news.’
‘They’re only forty-five. Your father was acting like a sex-crazed teenager when he was forty-five.’ This is a trifle sharp, but she feels a need to protect Bill, with his kindly koala-face, and Jean, who never wanted children but treated Lace like her own daughter.
‘That’s true.’ Chummie rarely takes offence, especially on the subject of his patchwork family. ‘In fact, my father probably hadn’t even had me by the time he was Bill’s age.’
By now you may be wondering if it’s possible to have an uncle who’s twenty-one and another, from the same family, who’s well into middle age. It’s certainly unusual, but Lace’s grandfather was energetic and virile well into his sixties. By the time he died, he’d been married four times to four increasingly younger women.
‘So, what are you doing today?’ It’s not something Chummie usually asks but he’s still caught up in his uncle role, especially after taking a phone call from his brother that’s reminded him it’s normal to keep an eye on those you love.
‘This.’ Lace reaches into the basket by the sofa and uncoils a long knitted snake. Her arms stretch higher and higher towards the cracked ceiling, but still the scarf hangs in loops.
‘Isn’t it long
enough already?’ For a second Chummie sounds jealous. ‘I suppose it’s for your pale competitive friend. Why can’t his mother knit scarves for him?’
‘She’d be more likely to mix him a whisky and soda.’ Lace holds a sky-blue wool against a dark magenta. ‘I’ll knit you a scarf if you want.’
‘My neck doesn’t really get cold, because of my mullet. But thanks anyway.’ Chummie’s voice settles back into its usual brown monotone. ‘Well, I’d better have a shower and get some sleep.’
As he turns to go, suddenly there are two Chummies in the room: one on Lace’s right and one on her left. ‘You’re on TV!’ she exclaims, swivelling her gaze between the real Chummie and the smaller, flickering one. ‘Why are you on TV?’
The tiny television Chummie is addressing a cluster of microphones. As he walks off-screen in his green uniform, white clogs and black puffer jacket, he looks remarkably composed.
The life-size Chummie leans on the breakfast bar, equally unfazed. ‘The hospital is not authorised to comment on the condition of patients,’ he nods, apparently quoting his earlier words. ‘A statement will be issued only when requested by an individual patient.’
In spite of the caked egg on his chin, Lace is impressed. ‘Were you sent out there to say that?’
‘I was leaving to go home and they thought I was a doctor,’ admits Chummie with a little laugh. ‘I remembered those lines from a film on celebrity shootings.’
‘You had a shooting last night?’
‘No, a jumper. Some skinny kid leapt off a building.’
‘What?’ A row of stitches flies off Lace’s needle, slipping, shining, falling like water. ‘Oh, Jesus Christ! Bloody hell!’
‘Trouble casting off?’ says Chummie. ‘One of the nurses at work always has that problem.’
‘The boy that jumped!’ The tiny figure is tumbling again before her eyes: it’s misty-cold, she’s encased in moving glass. And there’s the body, falling against the buildings, too far away for her to be sure. ‘Did he die?’ She stares at the scarf and its coloured lines blur. Police chalk melting into wet pavement, blood running like rain — and suddenly Lace is crying.
Suicide Club, The Page 4