Soon

by Lois Murphy

  It was a staggeringly insensitive question. They waited. ‘Because,’ I told them, ‘I have nowhere else to go.’

  There was a terrible, loaded pause, then everyone leapt into an awkwardly energetic reprise of the property value conversation. The only person who didn’t join the general clamour was Julie, who stood rigidly beside the table with two newly opened bottles. I did not have to look at her, I knew she was staring at me, mortified by what I had just made public knowledge. I knew she would never forgive me for it.

  By the time lunch was served, I was so jagged it was hard to eat. No burnt sausages and coleslaw, but fatless marinated butterfly cuts, cooked in machines like portable kitchens, the barbecue equivalent of the cars parked outside. Large, expensive and fundamentally pointless. I looked at the flawless cut of meat on my plate and longed for something charred over a heat bead.

  Julie also had little on her plate. She was clearly livid, a condition exacerbated by the fact that she had to contain herself until her guests had departed. My candidness had earned me no allies, either; my assertions about ghosts were too far out to be socially acceptable. Instead, logic dictated that I was clearly a bit of a fruitcake. If I was acknowledged at all, I was patronised, as if I were a child or some dotty old aunt out for the day. Whenever I left the room the hostile polo shirt, Doug – whose name suited him perfectly – reasserted his privileged insider knowledge, and announced with confidential gravity (‘not to go further than this table’) that in fact ASIO would be rounding up the culprits very shortly.

  ‘I rather like the idea of ghosts,’ said the younger woman, to general merriment.

  But Julie wasn’t the only one incensed at my hijack of the Boxing Day soiree. I could feel Todd’s hostility pulsating around the emptying bottles. I was an embarrassment, with my cheap wine and inappropriate conversation; I’d wrecked his ambience, strained the atmosphere and insulted his generosity of spirit. He was itching to put me in my place. And unlike Julie, who was far more terrifying, he would rather dish out his comeuppance publicly.

  Which didn’t worry me in the slightest. My son-in-law is an idiot, the son of bingo-obsessed morons who happened to strike it lucky on the stock market. He is one of those stupid men who think that a bank account is a sign of intellect, and mistake their wealth for proof of superior intelligence. I’d never had any respect for this painfully dull man, and I was drunk and feeling unfriendly – aggressive might be a more accurate description – and I couldn’t help goading him, raising him a provocative toast every time I opened another of his expensive beers.

  The conversation, since my home town had become a contentious topic, revolved around money. Politics briefly reared its ugly head, but only because all these people were in agreement, and their political values were confined to purely economic policies. Inevitably the subject turned to tax.

  This was Todd’s specialty; his eyes gleamed. Full of largess, he casually boasted of exploited loopholes and misdirected shareholders, openly advising the others on methods for concealing assets in offshore funds. His posture changed as he recounted his own shonky dealings, as if they were entertainment, anecdotes suitable for the dinner table. He leaned back in his chair.

  ‘But I should be more circumspect.’ He swished the wine in his glass, studiously distracted as if its colour were of more significance than anything to do with money. ‘My father-in-law, after all, is an ex-policeman. He might not approve of my creative accounting.’

  His statement didn’t have the intended effect. It had been an unsuccessful lunch all up, discordant, with Julie’s selfconscious civility failing to overpower the palpable tension. They’d had enough confrontation for one day, and Todd’s deliberate effort to provoke more was badly judged and inappropriate. But he is inept, and he thought he had a topic which would ostracise me further.

  Even so, I was drunk and the man was a toad. ‘Creative accounting,’ I said to my beer, ‘is the spin name for it. The correct term is stealing.’

  ‘Stealing? That’s a bit heavy-handed! I don’t believe I’m doing anything actually outside the law – just making use of some convenient grey areas. In corporate circles it’s known as enterprising.’

  ‘In human circles it’s known as immoral.’

  The women started gathering up the dirty dessert dishes. Todd flushed.

  ‘Morality and legality are separate issues. What is it they say? “It’s only illegal if you get caught.”’

  ‘I must have missed that commandment. But you’re the churchgoer, so you should know.’

  There was a general, unspoken consensus among the guests that it was time to call it a day. They began to search for cooler bags.

  I didn’t bother joining the farewells out the front. While shrill thankyous were volleyed around the row of SUVs, I crammed my clothes into my bag.

  The debriefing was predictably bitter. The boys, ignoring their father’s orders to vacate, hung around the kitchen door with delight.

  ‘How dare you?’ bulged Todd. ‘This is my table.’

  ‘Christ, it certainly isn’t mine.’

  ‘Don’t you dare judge us!’ shrieked Julie. ‘Don’t you dare! Pronouncing your judgements on us in front of our guests, as though you’re some kind of visiting Messiah.’

  ‘Jesus, Julie, bugger your guests, what about your children?’

  ‘Don’t you drag my children into this!’

  ‘Drag them in? They live here, they’re exposed to everything you do. All this wank about it being all right to lie and steal because it’s not technically illegal. Why don’t you care about looking bad to them?’

  ‘This has got nothing to do with them. This is about you, your behaviour.’

  ‘My behaviour? It was your husband who proudly pronounced himself a crook and a hypocrite.’

  ‘Oo-ooh!’ chorused the boys.

  ‘I demand you retract that!’ sputtered Todd.

  ‘Retract what? That you’re instilling your family with the values of a leech? Bringing your children up to have no respect …’

  Julie, in her fury at this, was divine, a Greek goddess whipped up to war.

  ‘You, of all people, dare to criticise the way we bring up our children.’ She launched a plate across the kitchen, where it shattered two wineglasses. ‘We invite you to share Christmas with us and you sulk about, looking as though you’re above us all, disapproving of everything. Who made you so God-given superior?’

  I was taken aback at this. ‘Julie …’

  ‘And then you start telling us we’re bad parents! The gall of you, after what I had to cope with, what you did to Mum.’

  It had to come, it always did. ‘Julie, that’s not fair. I did my best with your mother, you know she has a mental illness. You can hardly hold me responsible for that.’

  ‘I can and I do. You were always cruel.’

  ‘I was never cruel!’

  ‘You’ve named your bloody dog after her!’

  I had to concede that point. I tried for lightheartedness. ‘A little bit of misplaced irony?’

  It wasn’t the right tack. Another plate was launched, this one losing strength and crashing to the floor before the sink. Even Todd was looking worried by then. ‘You’re a pig!’ she shouted at me.

  I can’t stand violence. It’s too easy. I’ve seen too much of it and I hate seeing it used for effect. Julie had learnt this behaviour from her mother.

  ‘Your mother found it easier to be a victim than to face up to her own flaws. And you’ve always encouraged her, the two of you conniving to make me a tyrant because it was easier than the truth.’

  ‘The truth? She was sick, she was suffering and you were never there. You just left her to cope. She needed you and you just turned your back.’

  ‘That’s not …’

  ‘You only ever thought about yourself.’

  ‘That is not true …’

  ‘Then you come here and look down your nose, ignore my children and insult my husband.’

  There w
as nothing constructive to be gained by this. I picked up my bag. ‘Enjoy Terry,’ I said. ‘I hope he makes your mother happy.’

  Another thing about these modern houses is that there’s no sound insulation. As I led Gina to the car, neighbours were clustered nearby.

  ‘She didn’t like her Christmas present,’ I told them with a wave.

  I shouldn’t have been driving but I didn’t care, I needed to put as much distance between me and that suburb as I could. At Katoomba I stopped for coffee and a sandwich. Its edges were dry and unappetising, as if it had been frozen. It was only then that I realised I’d left the bread machine, that most thoughtful and appreciated of gifts, in their lounge room, among the wrapping and general Christmas debris. As if it didn’t matter.

  I drove pretty much straight through, only stopping to sleep when my head got too heavy. By the 29th I was back on my porch, swigging on a stubby. I was surprised at my sense of relief at being home again.

  When I first moved here I planted a row of grevilleas along the fence by the road, and they quickly became established as home to butcherbirds. Dreadful birds, I know, killing other birds and destroying their eggs. But I’d always loved their song, their challenging eyes, telling you they own the place.

  Todd had shuffled my grandsons from the room when Julie started throwing things. They’d been nowhere to be seen as I drove away. I wondered if I’d ever see them again, and was surprised at the lack of grief this thought aroused. The absence of emotion was distinct.

  But even so, I still reeled from the shambles. I wondered whether I should try writing to Julie, but would have to work out first if there would really be any point, and if I cared enough to bother.

  Milly had rung about four. She’d seen my car.

  ‘How was Christmas?’ I asked her.

  ‘Pretty diabolical, Gail on a soggy dive. Yours?’

  ‘Monumental.’

  ‘Colossal?’

  ‘Let’s just say that worlds collided.’

  ‘Oh. Did anyone fall off?’

  ‘Just me. A true tumble.’

  ‘Will you be able to remount?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Moved out of orbit now.’

  Milly gave a tsk. ‘Come for tea?’

  My pause was only for show. ‘Yes. I’d like that.’

  I went inside to clean up and get ready. I was relieved at the invitation. I hadn’t wanted to sit at home with Julie’s final words, hurled with as much contempt as her crockery.

  ‘I just pity the next woman who enters your life. I hope for her sake she never needs you, because I’d stake my life that you won’t be there for her!’

  In our lives, it’s words that really have the power to wound us. Everything physical, all those highly emotional or unutterably painful experiences retreat from memory, their visceral substance unable to be retained in any other way than by their translation into language. We condense their intensity into tiny capsules, the essence of existence contained within the shell of words. Hardened slugs with the potency of bullets.

  And there are words that threaten the future, rather than conjure the past. Words like Alex’s Soon, a virtual labyrinth of possibility. Or the words of Stick’s casual threat – words that may prove to be powerless, or may have enough edge to them to slice through the remaining tethers to any life I still have. There was no proof behind his claims of my involvement, but sometimes that can hardly matter, the words themselves can be enough on their own. Platitudes like ‘where there’s smoke…’ swirl around accusations, especially unsubstantiated ones. You can volley the assertion of innocence all you like, but it will never be enough to completely extinguish the smouldering coals. I could tap-dance my innocence along the main street of Woodford but, as I learnt with Julie, once words are spilled, guilt is the public domain, and innocence only a private quality.

  I just don’t know if I have the energy to go through with it. And on top of that, the thought that we would be reduced to just three makes my very bones ache with exhaustion. I need to think things through.

  So when Sean rings that evening to follow up on my unexplained visit, I hedge, saying only that Stick was acting furtive and I thought he might be up to something. I say of course I’ll keep an eye on him.

  ‘Don’t take too long,’ he warns. ‘As of the twelfth of May I won’t give a toss. I’ll be winding my way east for two beautiful months of the simple life. Fishing, swimming, Happy Hours. Rachael lazing on the beach, all thoughts of new kitchens washed away with the tide.’

  ‘You got your leave!’

  ‘Eight whole weeks. My brother’s jacked up a place at Tin Can Bay for us all, just south of Hervey Bay. Man oh man, my bags have been packed for two days. You ever used those rubber baits?’

  ‘Not with any joy. Who’s holding the fort while you’re away?’

  ‘They’re trying to get Joey Holmes from Kalgoorlie to cover. If not it’ll be Denham, would you believe?’

  ‘What about Kath? Or Davies?’

  ‘Kath’s pregnant. Her last check-up her blood pressure was way up, so she’s looking at cutting back. Davies is past it, doesn’t want the bother, just wants his pension.’

  ‘Christ, Denham’s barely out of nappies.’

  ‘He’s okay.’ Sean is defensive; in his mind he’s already reeling in barramundi and sinking beers. ‘He’s a bit green but he’s not a fool. Well, not completely. And it’s only a few weeks, for Christ’s sake. I’m owed three times that. I hear you got up his nose today.’

  ‘Both nostrils.’

  ‘Let me guess. Men’s Health?’

  ‘In one. Hey, did you hear Tom and Gail are leaving us?’

  ‘Yeah, I saw Ivy from the hospital in the Arms earlier on. Gail’s pretty crook, apparently.’

  ‘Tom’s over the moon.’

  ‘Cretin. Born for a ditch. You coming over for a drink before I head off into the sunset?’

  ‘Should be able to make it. It’s Li’s last delivery on Tuesday.’

  ‘Yeah, the Barrys reckon their doors’ll be shut by the end of May. John’s gutted.’

  ‘So are we.’

  Outside a distant howl rises, coyote-style. ‘Gotta go, mate. Time to batten down the hatches.’

  ‘Stay safe. I’ll see you next week?’

  ‘You will,’ I reply, not realising how much weight these words would carry.

  The weekend is largely uneventful. I try to keep a quiet eye on Stick, but he is sticking to home, aware he is in my firing line. He drove past me once when I was staggering along Pearson Street, doing my laughable imitation of a fit person, and gave me a honk, a cheeky wave.

  I already know that my decision to stay quiet is wrong. I just haven’t brought myself to face up to it yet.

  Gina and I spend the nights at Milly’s, with Li and Blackie. Milly’s house is the largest, the most comfortable, set up originally as a home, shared, not a solo space. Milly and I play Scrabble quietly, while Li wrestles her BAS return for the quarter, although the receipts involved are hardly overwhelming. She is distant while we eat, remote. I realise I can’t remember when I last saw her smile.

  At one point Milly and I leave her with her head down over her invoices, to clear up the dishes together. Milly is thoughtful, she closes the door gently and asks if I have plans to go into Woodford any time soon.

  ‘Probably Thursday week. Said I’d catch up with Sean. What’s up?’

  ‘It’s Li’s birthday the following Saturday. I was thinking we should do something special, celebrate.’

  ‘A party?’

  ‘The works. She needs it.’

  ‘Party hats for three.’

  She’s quick. ‘Not Stick?’

  ‘Not Stick.’

  She shrugs. ‘Three can be a party. Exclusive.’

  ‘Elite.’

  ‘Refined.’

  ‘Elegant.’

  She chuckles. ‘Hardly.’

  I spend nearly all of Monday with Li, picking apples and loading spuds. The Barrys
will take everything she can bring them, in the hope they will have enough trading days left to shift it all.

  We work hard, till my back is aching. Sometimes it’s just as well we have the mist to beat us inside – Li would work all night, I reckon. At four-thirty we stop for a beer. Already the days are finishing early, we have to be careful not to be caught unexpectedly.

  The truck is loaded up. I’ve checked the oil and water, and made sure there’s plenty more on board. It’ll be a slow old trip, but for now at least it’s the last one. So far Li’s efforts in Mandurah have been pointless.

  I nod towards Blackie, snuffling round the truck’s wheels. ‘Blackie’ll miss the heap of shit.’

  ‘Yes. I’ll have to take him for drives round the farm. Otherwise he’ll fret. I won’t miss it, though. That constant overheating, having to sit all the time. I’ve been close to torching it.’

  Torching it. She is such an Aussie. ‘We’ll have a bonfire when you get back,’ I say.

  She gasps. ‘Blackie’d never forgive me. It’s his truck.’

  ‘Shame he can’t drive.’

  ‘He would if he could. You’ve seen him on the tractor.’

  I grin. Blackie loves any kind of machinery, anything he can ride on. He sits in the driver’s seat of the tractor as if he’s a king. If he ever worked out how to turn on the ignition we’d never see him again.

  It’s time to go. I stretch.

  ‘You sure there’s nothing you need from town?’

  ‘Nah, I picked up everything with Milly the other day. Actually – would you mind grabbing me some papers? I’m low.’ So much for giving up the smokes. I reach for my wallet. Wedged at the front is the lotto ticket I bought her the Friday before. ‘Hey, I forgot to give you this. It was for Saturday.’ I am about to say, ‘All your hard work might have been for nothing after all,’ but under the circumstance I change it to, ‘You might already be a millionaire.’

  ‘Woo hoo!’ she sings, taking the ticket. ‘This is the one, for sure. What do you say we buy a huge property in Tasmania and commandeer the local apple industry?’