Acid Song

by Bernard Beckett

  ‘You see what I mean,’ the priest smiled, now flicking his lights on and off for no apparent reason. ‘Hopelessly devout.’

  The wipers leapt back into life.

  ‘Electrics are a little uneven. Flicking the lights usually gets them back into line. Or it could be the Hail Marys. Have you decided who you’re voting for? Open the top of the chips if you’d be so good, and pass one to Tartar. No, you’ll need to blow on it first a little. He doesn’t enjoy the heat. Hmm, Labour, I’d say. Or Green.’

  ‘I, ah, I haven’t decided.’

  ‘Do what I do. Wait until the last moment and say a little prayer.’

  ‘Did it help?’

  ‘God told me to vote for Rodney, but I overruled him. Sometimes the voices inside your head are just voices, you see. He likes to challenge us. We’re here.’

  ‘Well, Father,’ Simon smiled, feeling suddenly a deep sense of gratitude at his health. ‘I’m not the sort who usually prays, but I don’t mind admitting that during that short journey I wavered once or twice.’

  ‘Excellent. Just the thing.’

  There was no sign of Amanda amongst the scraggly line of dripping last-minuters. Simon checked his watch. Five minutes left.

  ‘Cutting it fine, Sir,’ the scrutineer remarked. Simon shrugged and walked to the cubicle with his papers. He looked down the list, hoping for a moment of clarity. His phone rang. Around the hall people stared at him. He had broken a rule, even if they couldn’t name it. They would listen to the conversation.

  ‘Hi.’

  ‘You make it?’

  ‘Just about to place the tick.’

  ‘Who you voting for?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Yes you do, vote Labour.’

  ‘I think I’m meant to decide for myself.’

  ‘I can’t make it. You have to vote for me.’

  ‘They won’t let me.’

  ‘No, I mean use your vote to vote the way I would have. Come on, you know you don’t take it half as seriously as I do.’

  ‘Not so seriously that you remembered to vote.’

  ‘Just tell me you’re voting Labour.’

  ‘Okay, sure.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I was going to anyway, so it doesn’t really count. So why aren’t you here?’

  ‘Something’s come up with the documentary. We think, well, we think the focus is going to change, and we need to plan out how we shoot the speech again.’

  ‘You and Greg?’

  He knew how it sounded, when he jumped like that, but he couldn’t help it. He hated Greg, for good and simple reasons.

  ‘What does that matter?’

  ‘We were meant to celebrate.’

  ‘We will, tomorrow.’

  ‘So explain why this last minute change is more important than my career or the election?’

  ‘He died.’

  ‘Richard?’

  ‘No, William. A friend of Richard’s. The guy we saw being beaten up yesterday, he killed himself this morning.’

  ‘Well, I can’t top that. Sorry, badly put.’

  ‘I’ll try to get home before the meeting. Promise. Sorry. Love you. Labour okay? Two ticks Labour.’

  ‘Love you too. Good luck tonight.’

  The line went dead. Simon realised a scrutineer was standing at his shoulder.

  ‘Is everything all right there, Sir?’

  ‘Peachy.’

  ‘We prefer it if phones are turned off, during the voting process.’

  ‘Won’t happen again. Who should I vote for then, would you say?’

  The man backed away, as if Simon had just suggested they commit a crime together.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t offer any …’

  ‘No problem, I’ve got a coin.’

  He made a show of flipping it. The woman in the booth craned her head to see which way it landed.

  ‘Heads. Guess that’s Labour.’

  He tried to force a smile as he placed his tick, but his heart wasn’t in it. Amanda and Greg. How often had those names been uttered together? How often had people just assumed? Or how many knew for sure, and were laughing at him behind his back? Worse, laughing at him. She was meant to be there. They were meant to celebrate. He’d done it for her. What was the fucking point?

  ‘DO WE HAVE to watch this?’ Robyn complained.

  ‘We always watch the election,’ Luke replied.

  ‘That’s not a reason.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was a reason. I just want to see.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s the same thing all night. We can turn back in the ads. There’s a film on the other channel.’

  ‘It’s halfway through.’

  ‘I’ll pick it up.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Runaway Jury.’

  ‘That’s a thriller. You have to watch them from the start.’

  ‘I’ve seen it before. I can explain it to you.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d like that.’

  ‘This is about my father isn’t it?’

  Luke resisted the urge to struggle. It was like being dumped by a wave. You tumbled, held your breath, waited. Fighting only kept you under longer. He could feel her eyes on him: small, blue and hopeful. Once, when they first started going out, he’d written a poem about them, an embarrassing thing on a birthday card he’d hoped would make her love him more. Of all the things he’d ever loved, being loved was the best of them.

  ‘I’ve already apologised. Let’s forget it.’ Luke took her hand and squeezed it.

  The noise from the television rose and fell: the constant, relentless soundtrack. It had taken a day to buy, eleven stores in all, before they returned to buy the first set they had seen. Widescreen LCD, plus free cabinet. Graphite, to match the lounge suite (wedding present, chosen by Robyn’s mother).

  ‘You didn’t mean it.’

  He caught a glimpse of her mouth, pursed and tight, a valve about to blow.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said you were sorry but you didn’t mean it.’

  ‘Oh God. Look, please trust me on this. I meant it, okay? If there’s one thing I’m truly sorry about, it’s that I ever said a single word to your family today. Next time, you can Superglue my lips together before we go around. I promise you, I’ll let you do it.’

  Hold your breath, Luke told himself. But the self wasn’t listening.

  ‘See, this is what I mean.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You manage to apologise in a way that makes it sound like it’s their fault.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’

  ‘Like you’re saying it isn’t possible to have a civil and enjoyable conversation with my parents. That’s what you actually think isn’t it?’

  ‘Do you think you could give me some sort of estimate of when this might be over? We’ve been going, what, seven hours now I make it, and it’s just going to be a whole lot easier to bear if I can see the finish line, you know?’

  ‘And making a joke of this is how you’re going to deal with it?’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘With the problem we have.’ She made an announcement of it, an Oprah moment.

  ‘I don’t think we have a problem,’ Luke replied.

  ‘You don’t like my family.’

  ‘Your mother’s all right.’

  ‘My father wants to like you. He tries very hard to like you.’

  ‘You’re right. Let’s watch the movie.’

  ‘I don’t want to watch the movie. I want to talk about this.’

  ‘Robyn, there’s nothing to talk about.’

  ‘I think there is.’

  Luke took a deep breath and reminded himself he had the skills to get through this. It was in the end his job description, to take the best hits hormones could hurl, then quietly, calmly, talk them down. But this was different. It could not, if all else failed, be resolved by a change in the student’s timetable. An
d there was something else itching at him tonight. Something like anger.

  ‘Look, your father and me, we’re very different people. You know that. You’ve always known that. It’s never been a problem before. Today I was stupid and I said things I shouldn’t have said. Next time, we’ll all pretend it never happened and go back to being polite to one another. You’ll see.’

  ‘I don’t want to pretend.’

  ‘Why the fuck not? Pretending’s excellent. Pretending’s how we get through this shit.’

  ‘What shit?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes you do. What did you mean by shit?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You mean this. You mean me and you.’

  ‘No I don’t.’

  ‘You do. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’

  ‘Okay, enough of this. This is fucken pointless. I’m watching the election.’

  Luke took the remote and increased the volume. His wife’s silence deepened beside him.

  On the small screen a panel of experts sat uncomfortably close. There was the same political scientist they pulled out every three years, to make the simple and depressing appear complex and worthy. Next to him was a flamboyantly dressed journalist – whose name Luke couldn’t remember – chosen for her toxic mix of articulacy and insecurity. And the obligatory outsider, a visiting American psychologist who was there for reassurance, to tell us all we’re ‘doing all right’.

  ‘Okay, let’s just get back to these figures then.’

  The host was ill-chosen, a lightweight who scored well with the younger demographic, who would not be spending their Saturday night in front of a television.

  ‘Look, Tony, there are some real surprises here aren’t there? Let’s just run down through the main party returns again. I think you can see them across the bottom of your screen now, and I need to stress these are still very early results. As we’ve been saying all night, the votes come in last from the biggest electorates, so that can have a significant effect on the outcome, but nevertheless … Labour thirty-six per cent, National forty per cent, that’s closer than most were predicting. Greens, who last week in some polls were as high as nine, have weirdly dropped to five per cent. Mäori party is steady on four per cent, they’ll be pleased with that, but look here, this is the surprising one isn’t it? One Nation: eleven per cent. Eleven per cent! Tony, what’s going on?’

  ‘Well, as you say, we do have to be cautious about interpreting these figures at this stage, of course, but the big story I think is voter turnout. It’s up, and that’s what One Nation were promising, that they’d mobilise a group of traditionally reluctant voters. Maybe that’s what’s happening here, although of course we can’t know that for sure. But with turnout up, ah, I think it’s seven per cent at the moment, it’s hard not to draw those conclusions.’

  ‘Jodie, let’s talk about what this is going to do to the coalition prospects. Peter Wilson has said he’s open to offers. Can he do it? Can he be part of the government, or are his views just too far from the mainstream for that to happen?’

  ‘Well, how can he not be, with these figures? Both major parties would clearly love to govern without him, but if these early trends turn out to be solid, then they’re both going to need him. Labour, Green, Mäori, even if they could stitch that together, is what, only forty-five per cent. That’s not enough.’

  ‘So he gets to decide the next government?’

  ‘I think he does,’ Susan drawled. ‘That’s certainly the scenario as I see it.’

  ‘Well doesn’t that just cap off a perfect day?’ Luke’s anger was swirling, collecting debris.

  ‘Calm down,’ Robyn told him.

  ‘It’s all right for you. This is what you want.’

  ‘It is not what I want and you know it.’

  ‘So what do you want Robyn?’

  ‘I want you to calm down. I want you to stop treating me like this.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like a piece of furniture.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that now you’ve brought me home I’m not worth having an opinion on, because you’re stuck with me either way.’

  ‘You talk some shit sometimes.’

  ‘When was the last time we did anything together?’

  ‘I was trying to watch the election together.’

  ‘No, you were trying to watch the election while I was here. It’s not the same thing.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘I’m tired, Robyn. If we keep talking now, I’m going to say something I shouldn’t. So how about we just …’

  ‘I’m not one of your students, Luke.’

  ‘I had noticed that.’

  ‘I want to talk about this.’

  ‘Keep your voice down. You’ll wake Alicia.’

  Luke would be held here now, like a fish on a line, until she was ready to drag him in. Silence. The beginning of a tear. Had he simply stopped caring? No. If he was asked, that was the answer. No. Yet …

  ‘Last night, you didn’t try to stop me.’

  ‘I told you not to go near him.’

  ‘But, when the glass smashed, you just …’

  ‘I was watching Alicia.’

  ‘You never asked how I was.’

  ‘I could see nothing had happened to you.’

  ‘After everybody had gone. You never asked.’

  ‘You never asked me,’ Luke replied.

  ‘I did.’

  He didn’t remember. She was crying, the tears heavy and hopeless. He knew what came next. He would stand, move forward, hold her. Wait for this to pass. Tell her she was wrong. Say the words again and again, until they both believed them.

  He stood.

  ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘What?’ Her face was empty, disbelieving, desperate to be mistaken.

  ‘Just to school. There’s some marking I forgot to bring home,’ he lied. ‘I’ll be half an hour. It’ll do me good, clear my head.’ That bit at least held the possibility of truth.

  Robyn stood too, her eyes swarming with the sentences fear kept trapped inside.

  ‘Okay,’ she nodded. ‘Don’t be long.’

  She kissed him quickly, uncertain as a schoolgirl. He looked away, before the tears in her eyes could snare him.

  ‘See you soon.’

  Her car was behind his, blocking it in. Robyn stood at the door, and gave a half wave as he whined backwards down the drive.

  ‘JUST YOU AND me,’ Ollie’s text had promised. ‘That’s what I want tonight. You know it is.’

  Sophie heard him knocking at the front door. It was too cold for the clothes she had chosen, but what were you supposed to do with winter, wrap it in polar fleece?

  ‘Come in,’ she called, smoothing the lip gloss with her finger, turning to check her reflection one more time, already regretting the trousers.

  ‘Hey babe, you look beautiful.’ Ollie stepped forward and kissed her, coyly avoiding her eyes, like he’d never pressed on top of her.

  ‘I should get a jacket.’

  ‘Don’t worry, we’re driving.’

  ‘You haven’t got your licence.’

  ‘Nah, we ah,’ Ollie ran his hand through his hair, squinted up at her as if anticipating a blow. ‘Bomber’s giving us a lift. It’s on the way.’

  She considered pulling out, there and then, trading this small disappointment for those that would follow, but she didn’t. Her mother’s daughter.

  ‘You said it was just us.’

  ‘It’s just a ride. Too cold for walking.’

  ‘Just a ride, or I’ll fucking …’

  ‘I’ve got a surprise. Just us. You hungry? Come on babe. Smile. You’re beautiful when you smile.’

  He grinned at her, the big lopsided grin of a puppy, useless, helpless, loveable. She smiled back.

  Bomber was pimping his car one panel at a time, so for now it was a comical patchwork of shopping c
art grey and drug dealer purple. The suspension had already been lowered – job number one – and the alloys were on a repayment scheme that would outlast the car. The tinting had been done cheap by a mate who owed him, and was starting to bubble at the back. There was something about engine pressure too, but Sophie never really listened. What she saw was an angry man’s car: angry and ugly. No surprise, she supposed, that those things should go so well together.

  The rolls of fat on Bomber’s neck reached up to his ears and compressed as he turned to greet her. Dark glasses hid his confusion from the world. Beside him sat the one they called Gash, who smelt of cigarette smoke and leather, and layers of trapped-in sweat. Why do you bother with them? Sophie often asked. Ollie always shrugged, and said, ‘They’re my mates.’

  ‘Sophie, looking good!’ The back door swung open and Ratchet (Aaron, to his mother) slid across the seat to make room for them. He was smaller than the others, and of all Ollie’s friends the one Sophie trusted least. Like Bomber he had left school earlier in the year. Unlike Bomber there was no word as to what job he was doing, but he was never short of money.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  Ratchet’s teeth were a last minute jumble, sharp and vicious and explaining perhaps his acrid breath.

  ‘Ollie man, your lady’s made an effort. Hope you’re up to the challenge.’

  He made a noise in his throat that sounded like drowning. A snort from the front, catching like an engine, revving into laughter.

  ‘Just drive will ya?’ Ollie told them.

  The car shuddered into life and Sophie felt the anxious call of the big bore exhaust beneath her. Then came the stereo, fast and loud, vibrating behind her head. This was how they were: one moment asleep, the next angry and urgent, at war with the world. The car squealed away from the curb. Ollie took her hand and squeezed it. She smiled.

  ‘One stop off on the way,’ he whispered, trying to look cool about it, but there was worry in his eyes. ‘Then it’s just you and me.’

  ‘What sort of a stop off?’

  ‘It’s sweet. You can stay in the car.’

  ‘What sort of a stop off?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  ‘You said it was just a ride.’

  ‘It is. For you. Not now.’ Ollie spoke low but Ratchet had the ears of a rodent.