Crossfire

by James Moloney

  ‘This is all a rather silly business, you realise,’ said Sally when she emerged from the bedroom. ‘Your mother should really see a doctor. You know what, Luke, I think your Mum was embarrassed to confess that she had been toppled by a cat. Afraid people would laugh at her.’

  It was almost ten o’clock by this time and with another glance at her watch Sally declared she must be at the hospital to start her shift by eleven. As she danced about preparing her uniform and forcing down a hasty breakfast, she called to Luke: ‘Your Mum is more than likely going to be fine. But you’ll have to keep an eye on her. There’s a thermometer beside the bed. Make her check her temperature every hour or so, and if she starts to feel sick or the pain is too great, call a taxi and make her see a doctor, okay?’ She saw the uncertainty in Luke’s face and, reaching across, took his arm for a moment. ‘She’s probably all right, you know. Don’t worry.’ She gave Luke a smile that almost convinced him.

  ‘And now I really must go.’ With that Sally scurried down the steps, climbed into her car and sped off to work, leaving Luke in charge of his sleeping mother.

  The house was calm and quiet. Luke went back to stand staring at his mother, peacefully asleep after her ordeal. In repose like this she was not at all the dragon she sometimes seemed, belching flames of disapproval at everything he did. That was how he had come to think of her lately — as a dragon guarding the cave of his childhood, faithfully supplying him with all that she thought he needed, but barring his escape into the world none the less. She took good care of him, it was true. He should love her for that alone, but … it was the way she spoke to him. She never talked with him, she could only talk at him. Well, for the next few hours she wasn’t going to be talking at all.

  There was little point in sitting by Alison’s bed as she slept the morning away. As Luke began to relax after the trauma of the past two hours, he felt able to move quietly around the house. There was a deal of tidying to do in the lounge room. On his knees near a bookcase, Luke realised that Rascal, the terrified quarry of that mad chase, was still crouched in her hideaway under the sofa. Luke called softly to her, but though she shifted herself to stare the better at him, she would not emerge.

  Oh well, he decided. She’ll come out to face the world when she feels she must.

  He began to wonder what he would do with the day. If, as they hoped, Alison just slept and rested, he was faced with a day indoors with little to do. The Match of the Day on TV didn’t start until three. He was browsing through the television guide when he heard the familiar crush of a bicycle tyre on the gravel along the side of the house.

  It couldn’t be, surely. Even CT wouldn’t dare show his face around here on the very day after they had both been suspended from school for a fortnight! But he went to investigate, and sure enough, CT had propped his bike against the side of the house and was waiting for Luke to appear. At least he had the sense not to come to the door; probably he feared Luke’s Mum would detect him and give him yet another dressing-down.

  Even though he knew his mother was deeply asleep, Luke found himself creeping silently down the back stairs and speaking in whispers when he joined CT under the house. ‘What are you doing here? I thought your parents would lock you up for a year.’

  CT smiled triumphantly, ‘They think they have. Told me to stay in the house all weekend, but they’ve both gone to work as usual, so what are they going to know?’

  ‘What if they ring up to see if you’re still there?’

  ‘Thought of that,’ replied CT. ‘Left the phone off the hook. They’ll think I’m on the line to all my mates. Didn’t tell me to stay off the phone did they?’

  Luke still wasn’t convinced. ‘If they get suspicious they might ask the Telecom people to see if anyone is talking on the line. They can check that.’

  ‘What, my parents! Too much trouble.’ CT was more interested in discussing yesterday’s excitement, but before he could begin, Luke blurted out the story of Alison’s ordeal.

  ‘A cat! Oh come on, that is ridiculous!’ snorted CT when he’d finished. The incident took remarkably little time to tell; it hardly seemed drastic at all when put into a few simple words. ‘A few scratches maybe, but not as bad as that,’ was all that CT would believe.

  ‘No, I’m serious, CT. This cat dug its claws right into Mum’s arm, and it didn’t know how to get them out. It wasn’t just a few scratches …’ Luke was about to describe the incident in more detail, when the sound of the telephone distracted him. He bounded up the stairs, anxious to cut off the ringing before it could rouse his mother. ‘Hello, Luke Aldridge speaking,’ he announced, in the way his mother had drilled him.

  ‘Luke, it’s me, Dad,’ began the familiar voice of Wayne Aldridge. ‘Is your mother hovering about listening to every word, or can I speak?’

  Luke pondered a second then decided against explaining exactly why Alison was unable to disturb the call. ‘No, Mum’s asleep. As long as I don’t shout it’s okay.’

  ‘Asleep, your mother! There’s a first time for everything. Listen, do you want to go to the footy this arvo? Me and the blokes are going. I’ve just been talking to Jacko.’

  Luke hesitated. He knew what he should say but the words seemed difficult to form.

  His father attached his own meaning to the delay. ‘This is my weekend isn’t it, Luke? I haven’t made a mistake, have I?’

  ‘No, no. That’s okay, Dad. It’s just that …’

  ‘I’ve left it too late. Is that it? Oh, I’m sorry, Luke. I should have called yesterday, but — well, things got a bit hectic in the van, and … ’

  ‘No, it’s not that either, Dad. You see, Mum’s sick and I have to look after her.’

  ‘Look after her! If she’s asleep, she surely doesn’t need much looking after. Come on, Alison’s as tough as old boots. We both know that, we’ve been kicked around by her enough.’ He laughed at this but cut his mirth short when Luke did not join in as he normally did whenever his father had a gentle dig at his mother. Instead, he tried a new way to persuade his son. ‘I’ll have a bit of a surprise by the time I pick you up. I hope so, anyway.’

  Luke was tempted more than he wanted to be. He threw in another obstacle to fend away his father’s insistence. ‘CT is here too, Dad.’

  Wayne Aldridge turned this to his advantage. ‘Well, he can come along too, if you want. Come on, Luke. Not many home games left this season.’

  That was certainly true. Luke pictured his mother, peacefully sleeping, and recalled the uneventful day that yawned before him if he turned his father down. Alison herself was sure she would be fine and Sally had thought so too, hadn’t she? He’d only be gone for a few hours, and this was a weekend when his father was allowed to take him out for the day — for the whole weekend, if he wished.

  ‘All right, Dad. I’ll come and I think CT will be happy to tag along as well.’

  Alison usually insisted that Wayne collect Luke from the house and deliver him back to the door after the outing. Wayne disliked this condition; there were invariably a few tense moments when the former married couple faced each other in a kind of formal handing-over ceremony, featuring Luke as the prized possession. Luke detested these occasions even more than his father.

  ‘Dad, pick up me and CT down on the corner by the park, okay? We’re going down there to kick a footy around for a while, and it will save you a minute or two ’cause it’s on the main road.’ This would be news to CT, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that this way his father did not have to bring the telltale roar of his panel van right up to the house and risk waking his mother. Luke was sure his father would be happy to agree to this plan, especially if it meant one less confrontation with Alison.

  ‘Sure, Luke. If that’s what you want. On the corner, just up from the lights. I should be there about twelve thirty. See you then.’

  Luke placed the phone back on its cradle, pleased that his father had rung and that he would soon be with him. But now it was time he looked in at h
is mother again. She hadn’t moved since last time he had checked; in fact, she had not moved since falling asleep well over an hour ago. For one sinking moment, Luke thought … but no, he could see clearly the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Luke smiled at his own sudden fear. There was nothing to worry about. He hurried downstairs to give CT the good news.

  three

  Luke did take his football with him when, some time later, he and CT headed off on the ten-minute walk to the park where Wayne Aldridge would collect them. ‘Dad can sometimes be a bit late,’ he confided to his mate. The ball was to keep them occupied.

  CT nodded. He knew all about adults who didn’t always live up to their promises.

  At twenty to one, Luke booted the ball long and high to CT, then called him to come stand on the comer. It shouldn’t be too long now. By ten to one, CT was bored and suggested they resume the game. ‘We can see when he turns up from the middle of the park. Come on.’

  ‘No, we’d better wait here. Be any time now,’ decided Luke, a little edgy. He peered at the distant comer of the park, just in case, but this was certainly the comer they had agreed upon. From here he had a full view of the roads that ran along two boundaries.

  At one o’clock, CT took the ball out of Luke’s unresisting arms and moved back into the open expanse of grass where he began hoisting it into the air as high as he could manage, then tried to catch it. He was successful two times out of three. He sauntered over once to ask, ‘Is your father cornin’ or not, Aldridge?’

  ‘Definitely,’ insisted Luke pretending more confidence than he felt. If his father didn’t show up, he thought to himself, it wouldn’t be the first time. A cold westerly wind whipped at his legs and cut through his thin sweat shirt, forcing him to fold his arms across his chest.

  ‘Come on, we can watch the Match of the Day on the telly at my place,’ said CT. He didn’t seem to care about Luke’s dad one way or the other, as long as he got to see a good game. But then, it wasn’t his father who was supposed to be taking them to the footy.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ Luke heard himself say softly, more than once.

  And then he was there. A dusty maroon panel van, with the sills under the doors rusted away. A horn blared. Luke called to CT, who was forty metres away in the park, and ran to the kerbside, where the van cruised to a halt.

  ‘Hi, Luke,’ called a familiar voice. Wayne Aldridge was leaning over from the driver’s seat so that he could see Luke. He was a tall man, as Luke himself would be one day. He was starting to become a little tubby around the middle, yet people still thought of him as thin. His fleshy face was open and carefree, often holding a smile that invited another in return. ‘Jump in, mate. Where’s your friend?’

  ‘Right behind me. Here he is. You know CT, don’t you Dad.’

  There was another passenger next to Wayne Aldridge. ‘Open the door and move over, Dan. Let Luke and his mate in.’

  Dan was Danielle, Wayne’s friend. Luke had met her many times in the past year. At first Danielle’s hair had been brown. Now it was blonde. Luke thought she was a lot of fun. Like his father, she was always laughing, usually at the things Wayne did and said. Travelling in the front seat of the van with the two of them was always a party.

  CT climbed in first, slithering past the young woman to reach the open space in the rear of the van, then Luke took the seat next to the window now that Danielle had moved into the centre. He hauled the heavy door shut, reminded as the door slammed, of his mother’s car and yesterday’s unhappy trip home from school. This was so different.

  Wayne rammed the gear lever into place, poked his untidy head through the window, and accelerated the van into a break in the traffic. ‘Should be a great game this arv’ eh, Luke. Can’t see our mob losing, not to that bunch of nohopers from down south, anyway.’

  Luke agreed. Not that he cared so much just at the moment. He was just pleased that Wayne had not let him down after all. Not a word of apology for being late, of course, but Luke barely expected such a thing. He was safely in the car with his father on their way to the stadium, and this was going to be a top Saturday after all.

  Danielle leaned forward to the stereo controls and brought up the volume. ‘Hey, I like this song,’ she declared, her voice almost lost as the wave of noise rose and washed over them. The song had a simple chorus, repeated often and as all four of them knew the words, they chanted and wailed as the panel van hurtled up onto the freeway, towards the centre of the city.

  In a back street around the stadium, Wayne found his ‘private’ parking spot, a tight squeeze between a retaining wall and an old fence. It was barely a hundred metres from the main gates, but no one else parked there because clearance on either side of the vehicle would not allow the doors to be open more than an inch or two. This didn’t bother Wayne and his passengers; they simply scrambled through the back of the panel van to emerge through the rear doors. A little undignified, perhaps, but it saved a lengthy walk.

  As he shuffled over the blankets which lined the floor of the van, Luke knelt on something long and rigid. ‘What’s under the blanket, Dad?’

  Wayne stopped his crawling for a moment, obviously thinking of his reply. Then he smiled. ‘I’ll show you.’ He called to his girlfriend, who had already alighted onto the footpath. ‘Close the back door, Dan.’

  Once the door was dosed, Wayne took away the blanket wrapped around the mysterious object to reveal a large rifle.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ He hefted it in both hands, enjoying the weight of wood and metal. ‘It’s a Winchester thirty-thirty lever action. Much like the rifles you see in the cowboy movies. See the lever?’ Holding the gun out in front of himself with one hand under the barrel, he hooked his other hand into the long narrow loop and levered it away from the body of the rifle. ‘Working the lever like this ejects the used cartridge and loads the next one into the breech. This one’s been used just enough to get the stiffness out of it. Works so smoothly. Just bought it this morning. Couldn’t believe the price. The guy seemed to want to give it away. He had some story about his dog. Couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. Poor old fool. He might have got another two hundred dollars for it if he tried. That’s why I had to get it this morning, before he changed his mind and someone else offered him more.’

  Wayne brought the rifle up to his shoulder and snuggled it into the firing position. ‘There’s going to be a few feral pigs sorry I bought this little firestick,’ he said, sighting along the barrel. ‘Here Luke, hold it,’ he continued, offering the weapon to his son. ‘There’s no ammo in it. What do you think?’

  Luke was stunned. He took the rifle in his hands, felt the weight of it and smelled the gun oil. ‘Fantastic,’ he breathed. ‘Hey, can CT see this? He’s pretty keen on guns himself.’

  ‘Sure.’ Wayne opened the door far enough to call CT into the back of the panel van, leaving Danielle alone on the footpath. CT’s eyes were still adjusting to the darkness as he wriggled his way curiously to kneel upright. ‘What’s the big supr…’ He changed tack in mid-word. ‘Unreal! A Winchester lever action! Is this yours, Mr Aldridge? I’ve only ever seen one in magazines.’ Even in the half-light, CT had recognised the weapon.

  Luke was clutching the gun to his chest now to support it. How could he possibly hold it out straight from his shoulder as they did in the movies? His father had shown him his various rifles many times, but he had never been allowed to handle one before. He felt very proud to be trusted like this with such a weapon and in front of CT as well. This was great.

  Detecting his son’s difficulty, Wayne Aldridge said, ‘It’s too heavy for you, Luke, I know. Not meant for young fellas like yourself. Here, I’ll help you.’ He grasped the gun halfway along the barrel and brought it to rest on his shoulder. Luke now had to contend with only half the weight. At his father’s instruction, he tucked the thick wooden end, the stock, into the crook of his right shoulder. Then he felt for the trigger and resting his cheek lightly on the top of the stock, peered dow
n the length of the barrel. ‘Unbelievable,’ he muttered to himself. Then gently he sighed: ‘Bang.’

  ‘Bang,’ echoed his father with a grin. ‘More than a bang, Luke. These thirty-thirties are like cannons.’

  ‘Too right,’ echoed CT who had never heard one shoot but thought he should sound knowledgeable.

  Their trance was broken by Danielle slapping the side of the panel van and calling, ‘Come on, Wayne! The crowd’s building up at the turnstiles!’

  Wayne tucked the rifle inside the blanket and laid it gently on the floor of the van as though it was a baby. Then he remembered something. ‘Oh, Luke, I’ve got something else for you.’

  He let his body snake forward into the front seat, and, still almost horizontal, reached into the glove-box and brought out a magazine. The glossy cover depicted a man in jungle greens toting a heavy rifle across his chest. ‘Another mag for you. It’s got a write-up on Armalites. Great photos.’

  Luke took it, but in the half-light could make out very little. ‘Thanks, Dad. I’ll smuggle this one into the house tonight.’

  ‘Mum still hasn’t found your hiding-place yet?’ teased Wayne.

  ‘No, and she won’t, either. Not even CT knows where it is.’ He nudged CT for effect. ‘God help me if she finds them. I’ve got a couple to give back to you, Dad. I’ve been through them cover to cover.’

  ‘It’s okay, Luke. You keep ‘em,’ said Wayne.

  Moments later, he and Luke and CT burst into the sunlight and with Danielle squeezed next to Wayne, they joined the herd of spectators shuffling towards the gates. They passed the entrance to the grandstand and came to halt outside the ticket window for the ‘Outer’ where the entry charge was cheapest. Wayne dug into the pocket of his ragged jeans, bought the tickets, ushered Luke, CT and Danielle through the turnstiles, then headed for the terraces where they could sit with the sun at their back.

  On the crest of the mound which led down to the seating stood a booth plastered with gaudy signs praising the home team. Everything was on sale, from man-sized teddy bears wearing the team colours to car bumper stickers for fifty cents. Memories of a promise flickered in Luke’s mind and he hesitated briefly in front of the stall, looking towards Wayne. His father returned his gaze and he knew Wayne was sharing his thoughts.