by Lois Murphy
The contempt on their faces was mortifying. James, the youngest, actually held his nose when I shook his hand. They didn’t reprimand him. I don’t know what Julie was mortified by most – my state after a week of roadside camping, or the discovery that I had Gina with me.
‘I can’t believe you brought your dog!’ She tried to establish an unconvincing air of amused exasperation, yanking vertical blinds aside and flinging open an enormous ranch sliding door. Beyond it, a manicured shoebox masqueraded as a yard. ‘She’ll have to stay tied up, we can’t have her destroying the garden.’ The ‘garden’ comprised concrete borders and uniform shrubs in wincingly straight lines. Julie began to gather up the cushions from an enormous, uncomfortable-looking outdoor setting.
‘She’ll be all right, she’s a good dog.’ Gina didn’t look like a good dog, though: her ears were flat and she was clearly distressed by the unaccustomed walls around the yard.
‘Mum,’ intoned Lachlan (the boys were hovering at the back door, alert to their mother’s precariously heightened mood), ‘why is the dog named after Grandma?’
Needless to say, dinner was strained.
Christmas Day was marginally better, with everyone more settled and making an effort, and Julie determined to be the perfect hostess. She frowned when I declined to accompany them to church, saying I’d take The Dog (I was forbidden to call her Gina) for a walk, but didn’t press the issue beyond pointing out that I should be concerned with being a good role model to the boys.
I loitered outside in the ‘garden’, having a smoke and waiting for them to go. Julie’s heels clattered round the house like artillery and the boys squabbled and whined.
‘No,’ I heard her say to them, ‘Grandad doesn’t have to come to church, but you do.’
‘Is that because he’s dirty?’ asked Lachlan, all innocence. There weren’t going to be any card games.
There were no pubs open on Christmas Day. I swiped a couple of Todd’s expensive imported beers and took Gina to the park. Large family groups picnicked around me, mainly Europeans, laughing and playing. I watched them enjoying each other, their harmoniousness, each person a part of the whole, and wondered for the hundredth time what I thought I was trying to achieve. For their part, they kept a wary eye on me, this scruffy solitary man loitering in the park with his dog and his beer, carefully monitoring my proximity to their kids. I wished them a merry Christmas and the greeting was returned, but it was clear I made them uncomfortable. I decided to call it a day.
Things were more relaxed when they got home from church, duty done, appearances maintained. Their shiny surfaces could be allowed to dull from the showroom polish, a bit of grime allowed back into the crevices. The boys raced for the TV and Todd strayed off to doze over the Financial Times. Julie kicked off her heels and unclasped the string of pearls around her neck.
‘Phew,’ she sighed. ‘Tea?’
I was about to accept when she reeled suddenly. ‘Actually, stuff tea. It’s Christmas, bugger the yardarm. I’m going to have a glass of wine. Do you want one?’
‘Yeah, I’ll join you,’ I said carefully.
And so it came that instead of announcing my intention to shoot through (‘It’s been nice and all that, but …’), I ended up perched in Julie’s kitchen, peeling spuds and listening, while she crammed a sun-dried tomato concoction into a turkey’s orifices and told me about her life. Or what accounted for a life: the boys’ school fees (Todd insisted on sending them to the most expensive of the private boys’ schools, feeling the social contacts they would make there would ultimately justify the expense); how Lachlan didn’t like rugby, which was a shame as the school was very big on it, but at least he didn’t mind cricket, and both boys enjoyed golf. Etcetera.
She’d opened a second bottle of wine by the time she got round to Terry, his sleaziness and distressing chin.
I didn’t know what she wanted from me. Julie had clothed herself in Gina’s grievances, real and fabricated, and withheld herself from me for nearly twenty years. After all the blame and recrimination I’d had dumped on me over the course of those decades, I was buggered if I was going to sit and chat about my ex-wife’s love life over a glass of riesling. I was not accountable for Terry.
I refused to be drawn.
The turkey was ready, small bright parcels of tinfoil wrapped around the knuckles of the drumsticks where its feet would have been.
‘You know,’ said Julie, as she turned from the oven.
But the boys’ DVD had finished and they burst into the kitchen demanding to know when the presents would be opened. The flint look that had been in Julie’s eye when she’d turned from the trussed turkey was chased away by the reminder that it was Christmas. And, as in all good fairytales, Christmas is a time for Happy Families.
‘Yes, okay, let’s open presents.’ She topped up our glasses. ‘Go and wake Daddy.’
But I felt like I’d already had my present: the stone that had been about to be flung had been dropped. For now it could stay on the ground.
I stuffed up the gifts too, of course. I barely knew the boys; had only, in fact, met them once, when they were very small children, barely more than infants. Woodford’s retail opportunities are pretty limited, and I hadn’t had time to chase anything up on the way over. The $20 notes I’d shoved into Christmas cards for the boys were woefully inadequate; turned out their pocket money was $50 a week. They recited their thankyous with eyes cast down; Grandpa’s stocks were declining rapidly. Todd exclaimed with an amused smirk over the bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label I’d forked out for, and pointedly added it to the expensively overstocked shelves of his bar, which had the Christmas tree erected beside it for maximum effect.
But Julie looked startled at the perfume when she unwrapped it. For once, Gail’s inflated tastes had been useful.
And, I will admit, I was taken aback at my own present. A bread machine. Whether they realised it or not, it was perfect, about the most useful thing I could have been given. No more buying bread in bulk on weekly town trips and doling it out from the freezer. I was touched by the thoughtfulness of it. I hate frozen bread. For the first time since my arrival, I felt like maybe, after all, there was a chance.
Dinner was late – Todd had to make the Christmas call to his parents on the Gold Coast. They had declined the invitation to join the family, preferring their annual ritual of dinner at their club. I took Gina for a walk; when I got back everything was ready: a ceremonious masterpiece, with crackers at each place, and two bottles of very impressive champagne, of which the boys were allowed to partake. Candles glowed at intervals along the table, their flames reflected off the polished surfaces around us.
Julie had the glass doors open; the evening breeze was light and refreshing, making the candle flames dance a little drunkenly. I remarked how pleasant it was to have doors open to the evening, to a twilight breeze.
James looked at me. ‘Grandpa, is it true you live in a haunted house?’
‘James, behave,’ warned his father.
Behave? I thought. He’s asking me about my life. ‘Yes, it’s true. Only it’s the town that’s haunted, not my house.’
‘Shall we say grace?’ interrupted Julie.
‘Yes.’ Todd manoeuvred his napkin below his belly. ‘I think that would be more appropriate. We don’t want to be giving the boys nightmares.’ He gave me what he obviously considered to be a pointed look. Even his eyelids were bloated.
When the family raised their eyes from the amens, Todd held the carving knife aloft while Julie whipped off the turkey’s tiny tinfoil shoes and crushed them deftly. I found myself clinging to the stem of my wineglass as if it were a life raft.
Boxing Day was D-day, as I tend to think of it now. No, I should be more exact: D-day is how I think of it when I can’t avoid it, otherwise I do my best to forget it completely. If only I’d stuck to my original intention of heading off early, instead of being lulled by chatter over bottles of wine.
The day began badl
y, with champagne and port heads all round – we’d all crammed ourselves with rich food and then drunk too much over Christmas dinner. Boxing Day should traditionally be spent in bed, or at the cricket nursing gentle beers. But Julie and Todd were of the social set that like to think of themselves as ‘hosts’ and are into making ‘occasions’ – the year before they’d had people over for a Boxing Day barbecue, and now felt it had been a significant enough event to establish as an annual institution. They were obligated, Julie’s cross preparations in the kitchen asserted; people expected it from them, as if they were some kind of social royalty. Look how they suffered for their generosity. All these guests. The dishwasher clanged shut.
I tried to take myself off for the day, but it seemed my presence was required, no doubt as some kind of public show of Julie’s magnanimity: Exhibit 1: Errant father, unforgivable husband, neglectful grandfather, freeloading on his daughter’s good graces. Ah, she’s a saint, that one. And he even brought his bloody dog! Would you believe the old bugger’s cheek?
Maybe it was just me, a dose of paranoia in unfamiliar surroundings. But I don’t think so, I’ve been a cop for too long – you learn to read just about everything you need to know from someone’s face when they greet you. People often don’t realise that thought processes are tangible. From the involuntary shift of the eyes, it’s instantly apparent who has something to hide, who will be studied with their use of the truth. When each of Julie’s guests chanted graciously ‘Nice to meet you’, their eyes told me that they already knew all there was to know about me, and what was nice about meeting me was having their curiosity sated. They could now elucidate opinions on me, justified because based on first-hand knowledge: I came, I critiqued. I decided. I would be hung, drawn and quartered with delight over many a mid-morning latte.
You can probably tell I don’t get out much anymore.
There were six guests in all. The first to arrive were two middle-aged couples; the men were associates of Todd’s, already soft and nondescript. They feigned jolliness under their receding hairlines and teeth squared from grinding, their fattening necks in polo collars. All belied the realities of life in the commercial sector. Their wives wore bright, barbecue-appropriate colours, and veneered their viciousness with lipsticks in pink and amber.
The last couple was younger, and obviously new to the proceedings. They sported gym-buffed physiques, and wore their fitness like an expensive brand; it was evident from the envious faces of the others that they judged this to be ostentatious and crude. The older women tried to dismiss the younger one’s slimness, averting their eyes from her toned arms, and casually splaying fingers encased with expensive rings, pushing hair aside to expose bland but expensive gold earrings.
The younger couple were too inexperienced and pleased with themselves to recognise their social gaffes – they lost points for leaving their young children with family instead of bringing them to mingle with the boys, and they evidently didn’t appreciate just how grateful they should be for their invitation. They were too casual, too accepting of their inclusion; it was obvious that this would cost them dearly.
Just another friendly barbecue in the right suburb.
I began to long for the enforced solitude of Nebulah. I wanted a cigarette, but felt this would mark me out further. I was fairly certain that only the lower classes smoked these days; the rich clogged the roads with bicycles and ate expensive, low-GI food like blueberries and Asian greens.
I glanced at Gina, who echoed my feelings physically: flattened forlornly on the lawn, where she’d been chained as far as possible from the ‘patio’ area. A compromise – I’d refused to lock her in the car for the day.
Bottles of wine were being conjured from cooler bags and eskies with great ceremony. There was an unacknowledged but strict etiquette to this – the wine had to be impressive but only quietly expensive. A flagrantly pricey bottle was a faux pas, a sign of trying too hard. The correct form was something expensive but unusual, preferentially purchased directly from the cellar door, with connotations of picturesque valleys, sunsets and, naturally, limited production.
My own contribution, two New Zealand whites in the $15 to $20 range from the drive-in, screamed inadequacy. Julie hid them away in the fridge ‘to keep cool’. When Todd asked me what I’d like to drink I asked for beer, something I could gulp. But I was handed a tall thin stubby, with a slice of lemon wedged in its neck.
I decided to have a smoke after all, and took Gina out the front to desecrate the nature strip. The Land Cruiser, muddy and battered, was like a sore thumb, surrounded by spotless bus-sized 4WDs, showroom shiny.
It was the sight of these vehicles, oversized, expensive and pointless, dwarfing the street, that made me face reality at last. While I’d known all along that any hopes of escaping to here were ludicrous, it was these people, with their pecking orders and their ridiculous cars, that made me accept that coming here, even simply as a way out, would not be an escape.
So in hindsight, a lot of what followed was down to me. The surrender of my delusions made me cynical and socially reckless. I felt I had nothing to prove to these people – they could take me as I was or not at all. No games. No effort. Not the best of attitudes.
When I got back to the kitchen, the gathering had moved outside; the cushions had been restored to the oversized outdoor setting, the kind whose chairs are so heavy it is impossible to manoeuvre them, and women usually end up perched at their uncomfortable edges, trying to eat from plates three feet away.
I took another beer (sans lemon) and settled on a concrete garden edge nearby. The conversation was, predictably enough, about property values. One of the polo shirts – Colin, I think his name was – had already refilled his glass. He turned to me.
‘So, Peter,’ he began, evidently thinking himself a social pioneer for his efforts, ‘I understand you’re from the famous Nebulah.’
‘Famous for all the right reasons.’
There was a general stir: curiosity, but reluctance to initiate a conversation on a subject where someone else could be an authority. But then these days, everyone who watches TV is an authority on everything.
‘You actually live there?’ said the younger woman.
‘Some people do,’ I answered.
‘But isn’t it dangerous? Haven’t people gone missing?’
‘Yes.’
A bowl of Asian rice snacks was passed down the table.
‘But aren’t you … worried?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say ‘frightened’.
‘Worried?’ I resisted the urge to tell her that worry was for people whose lives depended on interest rates. ‘It’s terrifying. But as long as we stay inside after dark, and keep the doors locked, we seem to be safe.’
There was an incredulous silence. ‘I hear it’s bikies,’ announced another wife, digging her glossy nails into the snack bowl.
I scoffed. Feathers ruffled.
The woman’s husband was a natural authority. ‘Danni’s brother,’ he asserted, nodding towards his wife, ‘is a reporter with the Herald Sun. He has close connections with the CID, and I mean top shelf. He says that rival gangs are trying to clear the area for a drug war.’
‘What a load of bollocks.’ I say it quietly, but the effect is the same.
‘Dad,’ muttered Julie.
‘I live there!’
‘What’s your explanation, then?’ asked the younger woman.
And then I felt stupid, knowing how bad it would sound. ‘I don’t know exactly,’ I hedged. ‘I guess traditionally you’d call it ghosts.’
There was indulgent laughter from the couple with the well-connected brother.
‘Oh, right,’ he burst. ‘Far more credible!’
‘I believe Four Corners did a story on the place to that effect,’ chipped in Colin. ‘But there was no proof, no footage or anything. Just some frankly unconvincing locals screaming for compensation.’ He coloured, coughed. ‘Pardon me, Peter.’
The younger man, Michael
, was enjoying this conversation. ‘So have you seen them?’ he asked me over the expanse of the table.
‘Of course I have. Do you think I’d sit here and claim I live among ghosts if I hadn’t seen them?’
‘What do they look like?’ started the unpleasant woman, with a smirk, but she was cut off by Colin.
‘But could what you’ve seen be faked? Someone playing funny buggers, trying to scare you out? It’s odd that they haven’t managed to film anything. I remember the journalist who covered the story sounded a bit dubious.’
I remembered the journalist who did the story too. Not one of the bravest souls to visit us. Dubious is always a better front than cowardly.
I cleared my throat. ‘I’ve seen people killed. I saw a living person torn limb from limb. Someone I knew. You can’t fake that.’
I knew they would not like this. There was a shocked silence, tremendously awkward. It was obvious, though, that it was due to embarrassment; a comment on my sanity rather than acceptance of what I’d just said.
‘Dad, that’s enough,’ started Julie.
‘But apparently,’ interrupted Danni’s husband, and the others pricked up their ears, keen to see how this would be dealt with. ‘They said on Sixty Minutes that there haven’t been any bodies.’
‘There aren’t.’ I suddenly felt worn out; I knew I could never convince these people, it was too far beyond what they were capable of coping with. They judged everything by what they were told by the media, unable to think beyond the interpretations they were served up, cooked into facts. Digestible; much more credible than an eyewitness. ‘They become part of the mist. That’s why they’re defined as missing rather than dead.’
There were subdued mutterings about the authorities, along the lines of ‘as if …’.
Todd was getting irritated. This was his social event, and it wasn’t the conversation he wanted at his table. ‘More wine?’ he boomed, gesturing at Julie, who went to fetch new bottles from the kitchen.
‘It’s all very X-Files,’ said Colin’s wife, who up till then had been occupied with picking the green crackers from the Asian nibblies. ‘If it’s as hellish as all that, why would you stay there?’