Roadman

by Scott Zarcinas

  The fire was now all but out. Satisfied that there was not much more he could do in the meantime, Max got in the Cherokee and headed back to the A131 past the ruins of the Johnson farm and through the rusty gate. If the coppers found his old hunting ground—which he knew was more of a case of when not if—he was confident there was no useable evidence they could positively tie to him. The trophies in his shed back home, however, like the Cherokee, were a different matter. He would need to dispose of them with the car when he returned tonight, which he now knew wasn’t going to be much of a problem. He already had an idea of what he was going to do. Each of his trophies would find a final resting place at the bottom of the Murray River, along with the Cherokee. Nice and simple.

  He stopped the car, got out and shut the gate to the farmstead, more out of habit than anything else. Then he steered the Cherokee in the direction of the billabong.

  He didn’t look back.

  Friday, 19th December 2008

  Dear Diary,

  Today was the last day of work for the year. The factory has shut down for two weeks over the Christmas and New Year period. I should be celebrating, having a glass of champagne or two (or three or four!). It is the Silly Season after all, but this will be the first Christmas without dad. I remember the first Christmas without mum. It didn’t feel right. I was young, I was confused, I felt betrayed by the doctors. Worse, I felt betrayed by God. How could I celebrate the birth of His child when he had taken my mother from me? The worst thing was the feeling of emptiness. I wasn’t lonely, I had dad, and I knew he was grieving too, which kind of helped in a way because I knew I wasn’t alone. But it was the emptiness that I remember most, the void inside my chest, as though my heart had been ripped out as some kind of sacrifice to appease and uncaring God.

  Now the emptiness has returned like a long lost dog that’s found its way back home. In a way, it’s as though it had never left. Far more severe this time, however, because dad has gone. I’m alone. There’s no one to grieve with me. The isolation is suffocating; it’s an anonymous dark glove smothering my mouth, muting my voice and choking my breath. I can’t get away from it. It’s ever-present. A bad dream from which I can’t wake up.

  I wish Max would talk to me. I wish Max would hold me in his arms and fill this void, make the emptiness go away, tell the loneliness that it has no place around here anymore. But that’s just wishful thinking. That’s not being realistic. That’s just a fantasy and fantasies are for the poets and the mentally unsound.

  I’ve seen him across the street. I don’t know if he’s seen me watching him through the window, he doesn’t look this way when he’s outside, but I’ve noticed he doesn’t leave the house very much these days. I didn’t see him for a long while, nearly two weeks. I wonder if he was sick. Maybe that’s why he’s been a bit more active lately. When I noticed he had first come back (when was that, late November probably, when I last wrote in this diary?) he had a new car, a Holden Commodor ute. Brand new too by the look of it. Interesting colour. Perhaps he felt the old Jeep just wasn’t worth the upkeep anymore. Anyhow, this new car seems to suit his personality more, I think, but he doesn’t seem to take it out of the garage very much. Doesn’t seem to do much at all these days, in fact.

  A bit like me, I guess. Now that I’ve got some holiday time, I should probably do something. Go shopping. Go to some bars and clubs with Georgina. Go to the beach even. Geez, I haven’t done that in ages. Don’t seem to have done a lot of anything of late. I haven’t watched a movie or any of my favourite sitcoms for months, or even Sex in the City for that matter. Can’t remember the last time I even switched on the TV. I don’t watch the news or read the newspapers anymore. Don’t read books or women’s magazines. Don’t listen to the radio or songs on my iPod. Don’t do much except eat, sleep and go to work. I don’t do much at all.

  Except cry. I cry a lot.

  CHAPTER 16

  Max had decided that he would make his move on Christmas morning. Like the day at the humpy, he was leaving this fuck’n shithole for good and he wasn’t coming back. Unlike that day at the humpy, he wasn’t going to burn the place down. He was going to sell up, take the cash and get the fuck out of here.

  In fact, the place was already sold. His old boss, Bill O’Driscoll, had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. When, in a moment of weakness he had to admit, he had rung Bill to tell him he was leaving Adelaide and to thank him for giving him work over the years, and in particular for his support over the Jonesy incident, the Irishman had come over all emotional and unexpectedly teary, as if his own son was leaving him and his wife to spend their last few years of retirement without him. Bill, of course, had asked him where he was going and for how long, but Max was deliberately coy and could only reply that he just wanted to hit the road for a while, couldn’t say where, couldn’t say how long.

  “What about your house?” Bill asked, chirping in his Irish brogue. “You need someone to look after it while you’re gone?”

  “Gonna sell it,” Max said. “Fire sale, you could call it.”

  Bill was silent for a moment on the other end of the phone. Max reckoned he could hear the cogs of his boss’s brain working harder than a jackhammer on a piece of concrete.

  “I’ll tell you what. I know it’s the GFC and a lot of people don’t have much expendable cash at the moment, but I reckon you’re gonna have a bit of a wait to get the price you want, especially if you’re in a bit of a rush to pack up and leave. Maybe I can help you out.”

  Max was interested.

  “I’ll pay you cash. It won’t be as much as you would’ve got a year or two ago for it, but hey, who can get those prices anymore? I know a conveyancer. She can do all the paperwork. No need for lawyers or real estate agents, so you save more than a few thousand not having to pay those bastards. I’ll write you a cheque and when it’s cleared you sign the house over to me. Whaddya say?”

  Max said absa-fuck’n-lutely and the deal was all but done. They agreed on a price and discussed a turnaround time for the handover of the keys.

  “Now, don’t go putt’n that money in the slot machines, you hear?” Bill said. “Or piss’n it against the wall, okay? You use it for something decent to look after that lovely lass of yours, you got me? How is Lorraine, by the way? It’s been a while since we last saw you both.”

  Again Max was evasive, and now that the problem of the house had been solved, he suddenly wanted an end to the conversation. Of the few blokes in the world he actually liked, Bill was one of them, but Max was moving on, erasing his past and starting afresh. In another life, he would’ve liked to have gotten to know Bill a little more. Hell, he could even see himself maybe looking up to him as the father he never had, but that was never going to be. He was going his own way now, a way of his own choosing, nobody else’s. His future beckoned seductively like a whore offering a freebie on the house, and there was nothing about his past he was taking with him.

  Only Lorraine, and only if she would have him back.

  Max spent the week leading up to Christmas packing all his essential items into boxes—clothes, kitchen utensils, cups and plates, and most of his tools from the shed—but a lot of stuff he deemed useless he threw in the back of the ute and dumped at the local rubbish tip. Including the television set, which he hadn’t dared turn on for weeks for fear of seeing his identikit splashed all over the fuck’n screen.

  The fact that the coppers hadn’t come knocking on his door only spurred him to move faster. He figured the longer he stayed in Adelaide, the more likely the noose would tighten and he’d get a visit from the snoopy pigs. So the Twenty-Fifth of December was D-day. He was gonna be outta there faster than a cat with a boot to its backside. His plan, however, hinged on one assumption, an assumption so vital that would either make or break the whole thing. He could only hope Lorraine’s behaviour would be as predictable as he thought he knew it was.

  When the morning arrived, Max positioned himself at the lounge room window and peered
across the street through the crack in the curtains. He was up early with the singing of the magpies, around 6 a.m., fearing he’d miss her departure if he got up any later. Wanting to make the best impression, he had dressed in his wedding suit, probably the only thing that he’d kept from his fuck’n marriage, and only because it had cost him three hundred bucks and he couldn’t bear to part with something that cost him nearly a week’s fuck’n wages. The pants and jacket were a little tighter around the waist than on the day he’d said “I do” to his fuck’n bitch of an ex, the worst two words he’d ever uttered in his life, but all in all he felt he scrubbed up all right.

  Watching through the window felt kinda creepy though, like he was a stalker waiting in ambush for her, but he knew if he didn’t he’d never know the location to which he assumed she was headed. As it was, she didn’t leave the house until around 9 o’clock. Not too long before he was about to give up on the idea of surprising her and gearing up for plan B, which he had yet to formulate, a cab pulled into her driveway and beeped. Lorraine exited the house seconds later with a bunch of flowers, locked the front door and got into the back of the taxi. Even though the morning air was already fairly warm, she was wearing a long black coat over a knee-length black dress. Her hair was tied into a bun and her face, make-up free, was unsmiling.

  Looks like you guessed right, Maxy boy. Time to get the plan into action.

  Once the cab had reversed back onto the street and headed toward ANZAC Highway, Max raced out of the house and jumped into his new lime green Commodore ute. He caught up with the taxi just as it turned right onto South Road, then, keeping several car lengths back to avoid any suspicion on behalf of the cabbie or Lorraine, he followed the taxi as it meandered onto Goodwood Road toward the Southern Expressway. Before it got there, however, the taxi turned into Centennial Park Cemetery and stopped at the wrought iron gates.

  Max drove past, glancing out of the driver’s window as Lorraine got out of the taxi and headed inside the cemetery. She was now wearing a pair of dark, large-rimmed sunglasses, presumably to hide her tears and reddened eyes, and had tied a black shawl around her head. At the next side street, Max did a U-turn and sped back, catching a glimpse of Lorraine just as she disappeared amongst the headstones and family crypts. He parked the Commodore along the main road and hurried through the gates after her. Keeping his distance, he followed her as she beelined to a grave site on the outer edge of the cemetery beneath a large jacaranda tree, where she silently bent down and placed the bouquet of flowers against the marble headstone. From where he stood, he could just make out the freshly chiselled name of her father beneath the weatherworn name of her mother.

  The two love birds buried in one spot. Kinda romantic, if you’re into that sort of thing.

  He watched as she stood back, hands clasped in front, head down, as if in prayer, and waited for several minutes until he thought it best to approach. Although he was only ten or so metres behind her, she hadn’t sensed his presence. It was quiet this far into the cemetery, even the birds didn’t chirp, as if they too were respecting her silence and bereavement. He could feel his heartbeat beneath the lapels of his wedding jacket and his throat felt dry and parched.

  He cleared his throat and Lorraine suddenly spun around. Although he couldn’t see her eyes through her sunglasses, the rest of her face was written in grief and pain. She seemed visibly rattled by his unexpected presence. As he stared at her, neither of them saying a word, his throat seemed to close, as if the ghost of his father had risen from one of the gravesites behind and grabbed his neck, choking him.

  Say something you fool, say something!

  He cleared his throat again and took a couple of steps toward her. “…Larry was a good man, a real good man. I’m sorry…”

  Lorraine turned back to her parent’s gravestone, biting her bottom lip and trying to hold back her tears. She said nothing.

  Max continued to step toward her. “Lorraine… I,” but she cut him short.

  “I thought you knew, Max,” she said, her voice cracking. She turned and walked away from the grave and Max.

  Max was sure he’d blown his chance of ever getting back together with her. He watched her meander through the headstones toward the cemetery entrance, cursing himself for being such a pathetic fool.

  Do you want her, Max? he said to himself. Do you really want this woman? If you do, then this is it. There’s no coming back. He hesitated at his own words, then, Do something, you idiot, before she leaves you for good!

  Max ran after her, chasing her down before she exited the cemetery through the iron gates. “Please, Lorraine…” he said.

  Lorraine stopped and turned to face him. “It’s too late, Max.”

  Max was desperate. Words failed him. He didn’t have the vocabulary to express his emotions or the self-loathing he felt for causing her such deep-seated and bitter sorrow. So he simply said the truth. “Lorraine… I, I’m scared.”

  With that, ever so slightly, she seemed to drop her guard. “Everyone’s scared, Max,” she said, and for the first time he saw the little girl she once was. The little girl who jumped out of bed on Christmas morning at 5 a.m. and raced to the lounge room to see what presents Santa had put under the Christmas tree for her. The little girl who left her tooth in a glass of water next to her bed for the tooth fairy to collect and leave her money in appreciation for the gift. The little girl who used to call out for her daddy in the middle of the night because she had heard a noise outside and was scared of the dark and the monsters that lurked in the shadows. The little girl who now looked back at him through tear-stained glasses.

  “I’m going away, Lorraine. I’m leaving this shithole for good. Come with me.”

  She stared at him, not saying a word. Her bottom lip quivered.

  He took a step toward her, arms outstretched. “Please, Lorraine, I don’t want to go without you.”

  Suddenly, as if all resistance had melted in the mid-morning sunshine like ice cream left on a park bench, Lorraine burst into tears and ran into his arms. They remained locked in desperate embrace for several minutes and Max knew, just knew, that everything was going to work out just fine. He’d finally broken the curse of his old man. Life started now, right here, in the embrace of the woman he loved, the woman he would marry, the woman who would bear his children and grow old with him. The woman who had given him hope of a future he previously feared to dare, given him a reason to keep going, to live… to love.

  He was finally fuck’n free.

  Thursday, 25th December 2008

  Dear Diary,

  This is going to be quick, very quick, but MERRY XMAS! My head is in such a spin. But it’s a good spin. A very good spin. I’m just so happy. Who would have thought that this morning, which started out so depressing and glum, so full of hopelessness and grief, could end with such joy and relief?

  I’m not going to say much, except that MAX LOVES ME!

  I knew he did. I just knew it! He just had to come to terms with whatever he needed to come to terms with (and, really, could it be that bad?), and he has, or at least it seems he has. Anyway, I’m so happy I don’t care what he put me through these past few months. Everything’s worked out for the best. He’s forgiven. Do you hear me Max? “I FORGIVE YOU!”

  And I love you. I love you so much. This is the best Christmas present I’ve ever had.

  Wednesday, 31st December 2008—New Year’s Eve!

  Dear Diary,

  Everything’s happening at a million miles an hour. I’m on such a rollercoaster. Or should I say rocket ship? Because I’m up in the heavens amongst the stars and the angels and it’s all just so wonderful.

  We’ve left Adelaide! Yes, can you believe it? We’ve left for good. I didn’t know it, but Max had already sold his house (to his old boss, who would’ve thought?). I’ve left, my job (yes, I resigned two days ago!) and I know this sounds juvenile and immature, but I just don’t care. I know it’s the GFC and people are losing their jobs left right and ce
ntre, but I’ll find another job sooner or later, even if it’s working as a waitress in a café or as a cleaner somewhere. It really doesn’t matter, as long as I’m with Max.

  Actually, come to think of it, I might even pull out the old Janome sewing machine and spin out a few hot little dresses. I still have the phone numbers of a few clients who liked what I made for them in the past. I could even see if a few of the local shops will put my dresses in their windows (Mental note: get friendly with the local shop owners). I could even set up my own label (LJNY, lol!) and start selling on eBay, ha! Hell, it’s worth a shot isn’t it? The sky’s the limit! The way I feel at the moment, anything and everything’s possible. Look out Donna Karan, Lorraine Jackson fashionista extraordinaire is coming to town!

  Anyhow, as I was saying, everything’s going at a million miles an hour. I rang the landlord right after I rang my boss and broke the lease right there and then. I told him I was moving out before the week was over and, surprisingly, he took it pretty well, telling me he thought I’d move out considering all that had happened with my father; besides the unwanted memories, it was, after all, a big house for just one tenant. The thought of Max moving in with me did enter my head for a split second, but I squashed that idea like one of those gruesome red-back spiders under my heel. We both wanted a fresh start (needed, I should say, a fresh start), so Max helped me to pack away all my belongings in suitcases and boxes (he had already cleared out his house before Christmas, again without me knowing a thing), and to get rid of all the junk we won’t need in the new house.

  Did I say, “NEW HOUSE?” You bet!

  We moved into our gorgeous cottage today! Everything has gone so smoothly and quickly, as though a giant invisible hand has picked us up and transported us all the way here and set us down in our own special place—our Xanadu. I get the distinct feeling the angels have been looking after us (or was it my dad looking down from heaven and still taking care of me?). It hadn’t sold, either on the market or at auction (there wasn’t even one bid!). It’s as though the cottage was waiting for Max and me to get back together. Max made the owner an offer he couldn’t refuse (or was it an offer he couldn’t understand?) and paid him cash up front. We still have a cooling off period of three weeks, but we’re not moving. No way. This is our little piece of paradise and nothing on this earth is going to make us leave. We signed the documents and we have the keys. Well, I signed them. Max didn’t, he just paid the money. He said it was his gift to me should something ever happen to him.