Happy as Larry

by Scot Gardner

  Those words rattled in Denise’s head. It felt like years since she’d had reason to laugh too, and the thought of ageing like Muriel Hammersmith chilled her.

  ‘What happened?’ Denise asked. ‘Surely she wasn’t always like that.’

  Vince waved his hand dismissively, then caught himself. ‘We have a daughter. Muriel and I have a daughter.’

  Denise swallowed.

  Vince looked to the dog again. ‘Hannah. She and her mother fought all their lives, as if God had dumped them together as a joke, and when Hannah was sixteen, Muriel lost her temper and hit her so hard that she fell and broke her arm. I watched it all happen. I couldn’t do a thing. They’d squabbled a thousand times before and I’d given up trying to keep the peace.’

  A long period of silence followed. Denise didn’t know what to say. The idea that her neighbours had lost a child gave Muriel’s anger at the world some rationale. She made sense.

  ‘That must have been horrible,’ Denise eventually said.

  Vince nodded once. ‘That was my midlife crisis. I didn’t need a fast car or a younger woman.’

  Denise smiled in spite of herself.

  ‘Still,’ Vince said, and looked across the table at her, straight into her eyes. ‘We all have to deal with loss.’

  Denise looked away. For someone who was supposed to be going blind, he certainly had the power to look right through her.

  ‘That wasn’t my first miscarriage,’ Denise said bluntly.

  Vince felt for the edge of the table and put his cup down. He crossed his hands on his lap, bowed his head.

  ‘It was the first since Larry was born,’ she said. ‘Eighth altogether.’

  Then she felt she was bragging, as if she was dining out on her grief.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said quickly.

  Vince snorted. ‘Don’t apologise. We’re sharing war stories. Let them all out.’

  And they did. They talked until the early afternoon. They didn’t think to eat lunch and didn’t have another cup of tea – both unwilling to move and break the rhythm of conversation. It had taken years of knowing each other to get to that place.

  Not long before Larry arrived home from school, Vince stood and stretched his legs. They said goodbye on the doorstep. She hugged him and he hugged back.

  The warmth of Vince’s embrace was still on her skin hours later. Maybe it was less about the hug and more about the words they’d shared. If anything, the connection she’d found with her neighbour made her more critical of her husband and son. Here is a man, she thought, twice my age, who knows about pain and understands me in a way no other man can.

  THE

  COMING

  WAR

  MAL LAY BESIDE his wife in bed and felt the ocean of indifference rise between them. It had been winter in their bedroom since the baby died, and his sex-drive had gone into hibernation. Now he apologised if he touched her and averted his eyes when she got changed. His work colleagues talked incessantly about the gorgeous women they’d seen and the fire in their pants. It was lost on Mal. He smiled – albeit sadly – and made the right noises; the stories didn’t make him hungry the way they used to. It wasn’t the images of the scantily clad women on the television that stuck in his head; it was the tunes from the ads. He didn’t miss the sex, but he did miss the pillow talk and holding hands. For months he’d tried to get conversations off the ground, about anything and everything. The dialogue never evolved beyond the monosyllabic. Now he’d given up. He forgot Denise’s smile and he never slept in. He drove the delivery van, and he fished, and he tinkered in the shed. There was always a project on the go, and Larry liked to watch and ask questions or potter on his own. They repaired the motorbike and Larry rode pillion as Mal test-drove it around town. Larry always wanted a sip of his father’s home-brew and Mal always said yes. Larry rubbed his tummy and licked his lips but Mal could see his face contorting at the bitterness. He was too young to enjoy it. Too young to get through an entire glass. Or six.

  In October terrorist bombs tore up a Bali nightclub, but Denise didn’t cry. Two hundred and two people died. Mal kept one eye on the news and the other on his wife, waiting for her to fall, waiting for the tears, but they never came. At one time in his life, to see her not crying at the news would have felt like progress. The fact that the Bali bombings didn’t make her blink chilled his blood.

  On the last Tuesday of the Christmas holidays, the day President George W. Bush announced to the world that he was ready to attack Iraq whether the United Nations thought it was a good idea or not, Larry had Jemma to himself again. Guillermo was shopping with Susan. April and Jack had stayed home to watch cartoons. While Jemma seemed disappointed that it was just the two of them, Larry didn’t share the feeling. They took Gilligan on a lead and rode the track beside the river to the weir wall.

  Water flowed over the spillway in a summertime trickle. They took off their shoes and socks, waded to the rocky beach and threw pebbles for Gilligan. When their arms grew heavy and the dog was truly soaked, they sat.

  Jemma tapped two stones together. ‘I’m going to miss you this year, Larry.’

  ‘Same here,’ Larry said. ‘But we’ll still have church.’

  ‘Why aren’t you coming to Villea Catholic College?’

  ‘My parents can’t afford it.’

  ‘My nanna is paying for us, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to afford it either.’

  Larry smiled then, but found himself wishing for a grandmother. Grandfather. Somebody who could help his parents with the everyday battles. Somebody who could look at his mother and say, ‘Snap out of it, Denise. You’re wasting your life away,’ or give his father one thousand dollars to spend any way he wished. One thousand dollars. Imagine that.

  His thoughts left the path then. He imagined he was eighteen years old and earning enough money to give his mother and father a thousand dollars a week. Each.

  But by then it would be too late.

  Gilligan had crossed the creek. He was barking wildly but in a muffled way, as if he had his head in a bucket.

  ‘Can you keep a secret?’ Larry asked, getting to his feet.

  ‘Of course,’ Jemma said, smiling. ‘What sort of a question is that?’

  ‘A very serious one,’ he said, and looked at her squarely. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  Jemma wiped her smile. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even from your mum and dad?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even from Guillermo?’

  ‘Of course. He’s not my boyfriend. We just kissed.’

  Larry held his breath at the news.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘I promise. You’re freaking me out.’

  ‘What do you promise?’

  ‘I promise that I won’t tell anybody . . . about anything. You know. I won’t wreck your secret.’

  He took her hand, led her across the river and gently through the ferns to the mouth of the echidna cave.

  Gilligan appeared, panting, from the shadows, and Jemma squealed. She clutched at her heart.

  Larry led her through the opening and deeper into the tunnel.

  ‘Larry . . .’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s safe.’

  The darkness folded around them and Jemma propped.

  ‘Just a little further. There’s a place to sit.’

  ‘But I can’t see. I can’t see anything. Larry? I want to go out now.’

  ‘Trust me. Come on.’

  She made a small noise that was thick with restrained panic, then drew closer to him. Larry felt his way along the rough wall and found a flat rock for Jemma to sit on. He coaxed and cajoled her – just as his father had done for him years before – and noticed that the cave sounded different. His voice sounded deeper, more adult. He hummed a low note and it filled the tunnel. Jemma’s grip softened, but she wouldn’t let go of his hand.

  ‘It’s scary to start with,’ Larry said soothingly. ‘But you get used to it.’

>   ‘I can’t see anything. Not . . . a . . . thing.’

  ‘Close your eyes.’

  Jemma was silent for an entire second. ‘What’s down there?’

  She tugged Larry’s hand towards the end of the tunnel.

  ‘Nothing. It finishes a short way along.’

  ‘Is it a cave? Are there bats?’

  ‘I haven’t seen any bats. It’s an old mine shaft. Gilligan found it a few years ago. There was an echidna in here.’

  ‘Is this the secret?’ She sounded disappointed.

  ‘Well, yes. It’s a family secret. I thought . . .’

  ‘Oh, no. It’s . . . it’s wonderful. Thank you,’ she said, and squeezed his hand. ‘Can we go now?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’

  As they dodged the potholes along the track, Gilligan kept running then stopping right in front of Larry. Jemma laughed.

  Larry swore under his breath. Showing her the echidna cave had been a silly idea. He didn’t know what he’d hoped to achieve – a bond, a symbol of a special alliance, a shared secret – but whatever it was, it hadn’t worked.

  ‘Has Guillermo told you about where he used to live?’

  Jemma asked as they rode.

  ‘Bolivia?’

  ‘No, El Alto. It’s in Bolivia.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘He said it was a slum. The government cracked down on people growing coca illegally . . . it’s what they make cocaine from . . . and all the people came to live in El Alto. Drug dealers, criminals, prostitutes.’

  No, Larry thought. Guillermo had never mentioned El Alto to him.

  Gilligan cut in front of Larry’s moving front tyre and his lead got caught in the wheel. The bike whirred to a halt and Larry battled to keep it upright, then tossed it to the ground.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Jemma asked.

  ‘Fine,’ Larry snarled, and kicked the wheel. He squatted and tried to untangle the lead. He pulled it this way and that but couldn’t get it free.

  ‘Sorry, Larry,’ Jemma said.

  ‘What for? You didn’t do anything.’

  ‘Stand up.’

  ‘What for?’ he asked, but stood anyway.

  She hugged him. ‘I love you. We’ll be okay.’

  Larry melted into her and tears stung at his eyes. Sadness he didn’t know he had crept out of his belly and grabbed at his throat. He felt his lost little brother or sister. He felt his mother’s broken heart. He felt Vince’s encroaching darkness. He felt the coming war and he felt his own death. He sobbed into Jemma’s neck and she hugged him tighter.

  ‘We’ll be okay.’

  BLOOD

  SOAKS

  THROUGH

  THE SPACE SHUTTLE Columbia disintegrated on re-entry the Sunday before Larry started high school, and seven astronauts died. Guillermo relayed the news and he seemed truly shocked.

  ‘I guess I won’t be a space tourist any time soon. And if I do get the chance, I think I might fly with the Russians. I reckon God is angry with America at the moment.’

  In the weeks that followed it seemed that it wasn’t only God who was angry at the USA. Colin Powell told the United Nations that Iraq had hidden weapons – a nuclear arsenal, biological weapons – and they needed to be disarmed before something devastating occurred. That’s why America wanted the war. Around the globe, millions of people took to the streets to protest against the proposed invasion of Iraq. In Villea, more than one thousand people – ordinary people like the Rainbows and the Hollands, Guillermo and his family – assembled on the foreshore with cardboard signs and anti-war slogans painted on old bedsheets. People of all races and from every church; the war was bigger than their differences. It was big enough to displace Mal from his armchair. It was bigger than Denise’s indifference.

  They walked along the breakwater wall and assembled on the grass beside the Cradle River bridge. They cheered and chanted with guest speakers who talked of the madness infecting the elected government of their country, unlike the governments of France and Germany and Russia, which had said they wouldn’t support the war and the military option should be the last resort.

  Much of what was said was beyond Larry, but a big lady in a floral dress took the microphone and put it into words a kindergarten kid could have understood.

  Her son was being shipped off to war. Shipped off to another country half a world away to maybe kill someone else’s son. To maybe even lose his own life. Yes, it was his choice to join the army, but this war was somebody else’s insanity.

  The Rainbows watched the news as a family that night. Larry perched on the arm of his father’s chair as the reports of peaceful protests came in from across the country, across the world.

  Somebody painted ‘NO WAR’ in huge red letters on the side of the Sydney Opera House.

  Mal chuckled. ‘You’d think they’d notice that . . . even in Canberra.’

  If they did, they didn’t respond.

  On 19 March, the Coalition of the Willing, led by the USA, Britain and Australia, launched the war in Iraq.

  It seemed strange to Larry that a war on the other side of the world could have such a huge impact on his daily life. The children at Villea Secondary College formed two camps – the mob who saw the war as an outrage, and those who saw it as a kind of international sporting event and viewed the body count as a scoresheet. While the majority of Larry’s friends who thought about these things saw the war as an affront to all things humane, the likes of Tim Holland and Clinton Miller searched the news for blood.

  The war was like a slap to Denise. Her coma of self-pity turned to anger. If she had joined the protest march out of a sense of Christian duty, now a fire had ignited in her belly. Every news report, every injury and death fanned the flames, and Larry and his father began to feel the reflected heat.

  ‘It’s your room, Larry. If you want to live in a pigsty, that’s up to you. I only wash clothes that make it into the laundry basket. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  ‘That includes your school uniform.’

  ‘Yes, Mum.’

  She was mad about everything. It was a slow burn. Larry wondered if having a mother who steamed from the ears was better than living with the walking dead.

  ‘And you and your father can take it in turns cleaning the toilet.’

  Mal groaned. ‘You use the toilet too, Denise.’

  ‘Yes, but I never miss.’

  Within a month, US troops had taken Baghdad, and on the first of May they declared an official end to the combat operations in Iraq. But there was no huge sigh of relief, and the fighting continued. Suicide bombers and car bombs, abductions and videotaped murders. The war had no single front, and spot-fires of brutality flared with mindless regularity.

  One Wednesday night after film club, Denise and Anita were sharing coffee and airing their grievances about the fate of the world at the hands of men, and their men in particular, when Anita suggested that Denise should come and work for her at the supermarket.

  ‘It’ll get you out of the house. Mal and Larry will have to fend for themselves.’

  ‘That won’t do them any harm,’ Denise said. She left Anita’s place saying that she’d think about it, but the idea was so ripe she could think of nothing else. She was sick of being a mother, wife and domestic slave. She wanted money of her own and the sort of independence she’d had in her late teens.

  She phoned Anita at work the following morning and did her first shift later that day. She made it home before Larry got back from school, and while some part of her felt unsettled – guilty even – making the evening meal seemed much less bother. She snuck out to work twice more before she found the courage to tell Mal and Larry.

  ‘There are going to be some changes around home,’ she announced.

  ‘Oh?’ Mal said. It wasn’t the first time she’d made such a pronouncement, and while he didn’t tremble with fear at her words, he cringed inside.

  ‘I’ve got a job. I don’t want to
be working all day and then coming home to more work than necessary at night. You’re both going to have to do more. Pull your weight.’

  Mal stood up. ‘You what? That’s fantastic news. When do you start?’

  ‘Congratulations, Mum,’ Larry added.

  Their lack of resistance caught her off guard. She’d thought she’d get a groan of protest, minimum. ‘I . . . I start tomorrow.’

  They took it in turns to hug her, and while a smile didn’t magically appear on her face, she did hug them back.

  She was alive.

  Denise was a success. She was reliable, thorough, self-motivated and a quick learner. She dusted and stacked shelves, helped customers and slipped behind the counter at the delicatessen in emergencies. She shared morning tea and lunch breaks with Anita, and confessed to loving the job and the things it brought into her life.

  ‘I was going stir-crazy at home.’

  ‘I had noticed.’

  ‘It’s the little things, like walking here and home again, the constant activity during the day. I go to bed at night exhausted and I’m out like a light. I don’t ever remember sleeping so well. I think I’m losing weight.’

  ‘And there’s the money . . .’

  ‘Yes, the money. I’ve been thinking about giving Larry extra pocket money. I’ve never felt so rich.’

  Denise took Anita’s hand, kissed it and hugged it to her cheek. A little smile escaped from her sore heart and came to rest on her lips. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘That’s my pleasure, sweetheart.’

  Mal sensed the change in his wife like a shift in the wind direction. One day it was an ice-laden, hat-stealing surge straight off the South Pole and the next day it was blowing hot and dry, smelling like sand, just as inhospitable as the cold but at least there was change. He hadn’t seen her smile, but her every action seemed animated and bristling with heat. Her drug was a moderate-strength dose of work. Those things that used to make her cry now seemed to make her angry. She took her anger to bed and slept beside Mal with clenched fists. She was always snoring before he was, a quiet snuffle-pah that he found soothing. It made him smile. He realised he was the closest he’d been to his wife – smiling at her snoring – since the baby died. Two years had passed. It was a thought stained with sadness, but the stain was quickly covered by the realisation that the woman he’d fallen in love with was still in there, somewhere, and fighting. He lightly kissed her sleeping cheek.