Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes)

by Cusack, Louise

  “Sure,” Baz said easily, but deep in his gut he felt a kick of excitement. Was he going to kiss her there? Would they even make it as far as the movie? “You could help me make coffee.”

  “I have tea,” Ted said, stuffing the last piece of pie in his mouth.

  “As if I could forget, dad,” Baz replied.

  They sat waiting as Ted finished, then Baz loaded that plate onto the tray and after excusing themselves, left Ted to find his own way to the media room to set the movie up while they walked in silence to the kitchen.

  “It’s in here,” Baz said, nodding at the swinging door to his left.

  Wynne click–clicked ahead and held it open while he came through with the tray. “Wow, it’s big,” she said.

  “Well, it’s meant for a bigger family than dad and I.”

  Wynne walked over to the window and looked out on the now–moonlit rose garden. She stood studying it for the longest time while he loaded the dishwasher. When she turned back to face him a small frown had formed on her forehead. “This place is much bigger than it looks from the front,” she said. “Your dad must be rich.”

  Baz shrugged. “Inherited money.”

  “But, that means you’ll inherit it,” she said, and if Baz had harbored any thoughts that Wynne was a gold–digger, her worried tone disabused him of the idea. “You’ll be rich yourself.”

  “Maybe,” he said, ever mindful of Budjenski, although when her frown deepened, he added, “Not soon though. Dad will live to be a hundred just to spite me.” He smiled but she wasn’t smiling back.

  Instead she shook her head. “I thought you were just a science teacher.”

  “Just?”

  His lame attempt at humor fell flat.

  “You could have anyone.” She sounded almost accusing, as if he’d deliberately tried to trick her.

  Baz wanted to laugh at how ridiculous the idea was, but Wynne was frowning in earnest now.

  She pointed at him. “Look at you. You’re gorgeous, well dressed, intelligent, funny, and now rich.”

  Baz felt a tug inside himself then. The vulnerability on her face was touching him and he couldn’t pull away from it — didn’t want to. Instead he walked over and took her hands. It was way too early to be talking about such things but Baz suddenly didn’t care to be obtuse. “Wynne, money isn’t important in relationships, except that it makes your life comfortable because you don’t have to argue about it.”

  She thought about that. “My parents are always arguing about money,” she admitted, “and the lack of it.”

  “Being rich doesn’t make you happy,” he told her, remembering the bickering between himself and Beth. “I’ve seen that first hand.”

  “Just comfortable,” she said and he nodded.

  “It can make your life easier,” he told her, “if you don’t go mad trying to protect it.” And then he smiled wryly, which encouraged her to smile back, albeit briefly.

  “Okay. If you put it that way,” she said.

  He squeezed her fingers reassuringly before letting them go. “Coffee,” he instructed, and pointed down the servery. “The percolator and grinder are down there. I’ll get the beans out of the fridge.”

  Her smile was coming back. “No problem,” she said, and turned to obey. Baz had a good view of smooth, bare back as she clicked down to the other end of the room, and the way her halter dress clung to her backside was enticing enough to keep him watching for a couple of seconds longer. Then he turned towards the fridge.

  So, they hadn’t kissed, but he’d just covered more emotional ground with Wynne than he had in his whole marriage to Beth. That was a good start. Or, at least, Baz felt good about it. And true to his recent policy of not projecting too far ahead, he opened the fridge with a completely clear mind, thinking only of which coffee beans to select and how he could convince his father that one scoop of nuts was actually two.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Rand would have whistled to keep himself company if he hadn’t been taught to be silent and invisible at night. He was on his way home to Poss, enjoying the moon and the good luck he’d created for himself.

  Though he was two hundred dollars poorer, he’d temporarily placated “The man”, and the inevitable had been postponed. Poss lived to smoke another day. Not only that, Rand had sat across the desk from the suit at Legal Aid and bled her for the procedure to gut the Wilson estate. As easy as picking a mark’s pocket while you were sucking his dick.

  File a copy of the signed Power of Attorney with the Magistrates Court, make sure the son never found out, then have a GP declare the old fart mentally incompetent.

  After that, start writing checks…

  The only problem was Rand’s age. He didn’t turn eighteen for another week, but if he could get the old man’s signature on the papers first, then sign and lodge them on his birthday, the rest should fall into place.

  Living in the lap was getting closer by the day, and Rand could almost taste that morning fruit platter. Sunshine on glistening sand, an ocean view, clean towels every day, clean sheets! It was like imagining what heaven would be like: the smell of fresh laundry.

  Only, as he walked down a stinking back alley to their squat, Rand’s thoughts drifted away from those luxuries to Possum. Rand had returned that afternoon to find the kid had blown the twenty as expected, but there was no whisky bottle to prove Poss’s claim that he’d drunk the dough. So he’d spent the money on something else. But what? And why lie about it?

  A gust of wind blew a newspaper up onto Rand’s arm and he shook it off, squinting against the dirt flying around. Someone had crapped in the alley and it stunk, but Rand preferred the stink to the street. Well–lit areas were a magnet for cops who got off on intimidation, and although it would be a test of his skill to pick a cops pocket while being frisked, Rand knew that would be suicide. They’d be looking for him then. Better to be just another indistinguishable street kid scuttling away.

  Better for Poss too, which was why Rand was happier to leave him at home. The kid had a big mouth that had already drawn the wrong kind of attention, but Rand was paying out that debt. Another thing tying them to the Valley. Money would free them from that. Money fixed everything.

  The alley ended in a gust of fresh air and Rand sucked it up before glancing around the corner and darting across the street into the next alley. It stunk of piss, and half way down Rand discovered why – a bum asleep in a pile of soggy newspapers, a port bottle at his side.

  Rand kicked the bottle over on his way through. He didn’t hate drunks — they were mostly benign — but their addictions made them lazy and Rand knew the best way to get them up and walking, thinking about food, was to remove their grog. Otherwise they had no self–respect and were happy to stagger around in pissy clothes.

  The one time Poss had pissed himself, Rand had taken him out the back and hosed him. That wasn’t the only time Rand had hosed Poss, but when he’d been pissy Rand had made noise about it, waking their neighbors, letting everyone see Possum’s humiliation. Middle of winter, shrunken balls weather, and the kid had hated it. But like a puppy being housetrained, he’d respected Rand’s authority after that and got changed whenever he disgraced himself — well, as soon as he regained consciousness after his binge.

  He was probably bingeing now, home alone. But worrying about that would only turn Rand into a fucking ‘mother’, scared to leave the house. The kid needed to learn responsibility. Besides, if Poss fucked up, Rand would just fix things. That’s what you did for your people.

  Two alleys’ later he was on home turf — a block away — and the fact that he couldn’t smell fire was the first relief. A minute later, silently loping up the back stairs, he could see the door was shut and, on reaching it, found it was still locked, so that was the second relief. A quick flick of the key and he was in, padding around in the dark, looking for silhouettes that didn’t belong — silhouettes that might pounce on him as he walked past.

  A beating was one thing
— Rand had suffered enough of them to know you could switch off from the pain — but if someone was stealing his stuff they might be aggressive enough to pull a knife or a gun. Rand didn’t like weapons. Fists he could recover from, and so could Poss. But he’d seen enough streeters die of blood loss to not want that for himself or his people.

  Every shadow looked familiar, however, so after his recon he made his way down the hall to Possum’s room, pausing outside the door, which for some reason was closed. But more unusual than that was the sound coming from behind it: the unmistakable grunting of penetrative sex, which was distinctively different to the moaning of oral sex or the quieter panting of a wank.

  No, this was porking, and although it was Possum grunting, Rand couldn’t be sure if the kid had his dick inside someone, or if he was on the receiving end of someone’s sausage, and whose? Was this something to do with the missing twenty bucks?

  Rand had never questioned Possum about his pants–life. Of course, he knew the kid had been pimped. Like all the boys who ended up in the Valley, Poss had learned to suck cock for money. But he could pick his own partners now, and might have found a preference for pussy. There wasn’t any question about Poss prostituting out of the house. Rand had laid that law down in blood. This had to be a pleasure hump. But who?

  Rand’s hand slid down to the doorknob and curiosity warred with his innate respect for privacy. True, he was responsible for the kid and should probably check that condoms were on and that the ‘other’ wasn’t going to get his or her jollies by hurting Poss. That happened in the Valley a lot — suburbanites coming in for a thrill, thinking they could do anything to streeters and get away with it, as if no–one protected them.

  Well, Poss was Rand’s ‘people’, and he was protected. So on that self–righteous note, the knob turned under Rand’s hand and he cracked the door a couple of inches. It was just as dark inside Possum’s room as it was in the hallway. Only a sliver of moonlight illuminated the corner where Possum’s bundle of clothes lay. The mattress in the middle of the floor was shrouded in mystery, which meant Rand would have to turn on the light to get closure on the situation.

  Of course, Possum probably wanted ‘closure’ of his own before he was interrupted, and Rand knew there was little point in stopping him now. The kid’s grunts were getting louder, so Rand slipped into the room and silently shut the door, waiting, realizing he was going to turn on the light when the show was over, whether that embarrassed Possum or not.

  This was his place. He made the rules. But that didn’t stop him feeling embarrassed. He’d seen sex lots of times but never on the sly, always by invitation. People who got off on being watched were happy to pay for the privilege, and it was certainly easier work than fucking.

  Possum wouldn’t want anyone watching him, though. Rand knew that. But he stood there anyway, consoling himself with the fact that he couldn’t actually see anything. Still, the noises were graphic. He’d heard Possum wanking enough times to know the blow–off would be marked by a prolonged groan, any time soon. What surprised him was that the kid’s partner in this noisy exchange of bodily fluids wasn’t making a sound. It was just Poss. Was the body even conscious? Christ, Rand hoped the kid hadn’t found a Rohypnol victim somewhere and dragged it in.

  “Oh, oh, ohhh!”

  Touchdown.

  Rand reached up for the light switch, but he didn’t flick it on. Orgasm was disorienting and he wanted to give Possum a few seconds to come back to himself, to be able to think before he was squinting in the headlights.

  “Oh, God!”

  Rand had to smile. So, it had been good for the kid. Well that was nice. Until the next bad thing happened he’d have a happy memory to overlay the crappiness of their lives.

  Then Possum groaned softly, “Tight bitch,” and Rand’s smile widened. Until he heard an odd noise. A jarring squeak. Like hands catching on tight vinyl pants. Or an animal? Fuck! Rand flicked on the light switch and Possum, who was kneeling on the stained mattress, threw his hands up to cover his bloodshot eyes, his knees wavering for balance.

  On the mattress in front of him, lolling on its side, was a plastic blow–up sheep.

  Twenty bucks worth of blow up sheep, Rand guessed. Half the price of a blow up girl.

  When Possum realised who’d sprung him, his hands dropped to fumbling with his dripping pecker, trying to cram it back into his jeans. “Shit, man!” he yelled, his cheeks brick red. “You’re a fuckin’ vor–er.”

  Rand would have corrected the pronunciation – he usually did.

  Only he was too busy laughing his guts out.

  Thursday

  Chapter Twenty

  Knock, knock.

  Baz pulled the pillow off his head and gazed blankly around his room. A sound seemed to be echoing in his ears but he wasn’t sure if he’d dreamt it or if it had been real. And something was wrong with the lighting. It was way too bright for the middle of the night.

  Knock.

  “Balthazar?”

  “Dad.” Baz shook his head, trying to clear the fog.

  “Why is your door locked?”

  To keep you out. Baz glanced at his bedside alarm clock. “Fuck!”

  “What did you say?”

  But Baz was too busy diving across the room to answer. He lunged through the ensuite and opened Wynne’s door without a single thought for her privacy. The room was empty.

  “Jesus Christ.” Baz ran back and flung open his own door.

  His father stood looking like thunder on the other side. “If I hear you blaspheme like that again, boy, I’ll get my old switch out of the cupboard and put you over my knee —”

  “Out of the way, dad.” Baz pushed past him and ran down the corridor, stopping at the front foyer to look down the other hallway. He’d seen clothes folded on the chair in Wynne’s room. She hadn’t bailed on him, so she had to be in the house somewhere. Thank God he’d locked the guest suite door.

  Blood was pounding in Baz’s temples and his mouth felt furry. Too much coffee and not enough sleep. He looked down and noticed he was wearing boxers and nothing else — then ran back to his room.

  Ted was inside, sitting on his bed, looking through his beside drawer. He held up a diary. “What’s this?”

  Baz took it out of his hand, threw it back in the drawer and shut it. “Address book, dad. Where’s Wynne?” He went to the cupboard and pulled out a checked shirt, shrugged it on and snatched up some shorts. “Is she in the kitchen? The dining room?” It was almost noon. She’d have to be hungry by now.

  Ted shook his head. “Didn’t she go home?”

  Baz finished buttoning the shorts and started on the shirt. “No, she’s my guest. She was sleeping next door.” Or, at least, that’s where he’d left her at 1am, after watching two movies and only getting as far as holding her hand.

  Not that Baz was disappointed. If anything, Wynne’s physical reserve, coupled with the way she’d teased him verbally, was a huge turn on. The masochist in him wanted to be made to wait, knowing it would be so worth it when they finally made love.

  See, he was even thinking of it as making love, not having sex. So clearly he’d decided Wynne wasn’t just after sex and could well be a keeper. He just had to make sure she didn’t bump into Venus before the teenager went on her way. And damn it! He’d meant to get up early and quiz Venus — to have that nothing but the facts conversation she’d been deflecting.

  “You definitely haven’t seen Wynne?” he asked his father.

  Ted stood and wobbled towards the door. “She wasn’t in my room. And she’s clearly not in your room.”

  “Well, that covers most of the house,” Baz said, waiting for his father to exit so he could too, then he turned back and locked his door. “I’ll look in the kitchen. You try the dining room.”

  “I’m hungry,” Ted said, predictably.

  “Then I’ll make you a sandwich while I’m in the kitchen.”

  “Ham,” Ted insisted. “Bone ham. None of that proc
essed muck.”

  “Fine, dad. Bone ham.” Baz gave him a tap to start him moving and Ted toddled off down the hallway. Baz quickly overtook him and said over his shoulder. “If she’s in the dining room keep her there. I’ll bring you both a sandwich.”

  “She can have the processed ham,” Ted called.

  “By all means. And let’s give her the day–old bread while we’re at it.” Baz gritted his teeth. It would be a bloody miracle if Wynne lasted the day before leaving in disgust.

  “I might want that for the birds,” Ted called after him but Baz was beyond caring. He was too busy running down the hallway, devising a plan to have a deep and meaningful with Venus then ring her a taxi and escort her out the door, maybe to a motel. Pronto. Or, at least, as soon as he’d put Wynne somewhere she couldn’t see it happening.

  Only… a taxi wouldn’t be able to get past Wynne’s bogged car. And once the car was cleared, Baz would have Constable, Moore, to worry about. Shit! He needed to get Venus sorted before then. Maybe after dark, after Wynne had gone to sleep, he could take off with Venus in the four wheel drive and run along the beach and then the coastal tracks to Bundaberg where he could drop her off somewhere she’d be safe. Anything to avoid having her there when Moore returned.

  That decided, Baz skidded to a stop just short of the kitchen door – so as not to scare Wynne by barging in — and swung it open silently to peek inside at the sun–warmed kitchen. Glare shone off the pale timber floor and he blinked against that for a moment before his heart stuttered to a standstill.

  Wynne was standing at the kitchen sink beside Venus who wore an overlarge wrap–around apron that didn’t quite meet at the back. It was giving him, and anyone else who might walk in, a far too generous a view of her backside clad only in what looked like a tie dyed g–string. Wynne was speaking softly, as if she was explaining something, and it was all completely innocent except that something about the way they were standing so close together and Venus was leaning towards Wynne screamed intimacy. Had Venus given up on trying to get pregnant and was flirting with Wynne?