The Book of Emmett

by Deborah Forster

  Emmett puts up ten bucks and Louisa and John nip down to Poons to pick it up and leaning on the wall in the restaurant under the giant chopsticks clock, he remarks, ‘Your dad has quite a strong personality, doesn’t he?’ The understatement of the century, she thinks, and that she might start laughing and never stop.

  ‘Yeah, he does,’ she says, struggling to stay calm. And later, stopping at the traffic lights, they kiss and she feels she has had a reprieve from something, that John has been spared for her.

  33

  In possibly the smallest house in North Melbourne live Louisa Brown and John Keele. When John stands out the front with his arms outstretched, he touches both walls. But in that narrow width they are happy.

  The house is in Leaf Street and even the name makes Louisa smile, but then she’s in love and smiling comes easy. In Leaf Street they make love whenever and wherever they want and they want to often. They smile at each other and make each other cups of tea just how they like it, they read books to and with each other while they sip wine. They throw dinner parties for other journalists who gossip with a kind of feverish mania about anything, and they love having people round to their little place.

  They make coq au vin and bouillabaisse from old recipes from his French mother. They walk to the market first thing most Saturday mornings and she believes life is as good as it can be. She puts her face close to his shoulder as they walk and she thinks they are just like Dylan and Suze on the cover of the Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

  She treats John’s poetry ambitions with complete seriousness and reads every transcript of his poems, encouraging each draft. When he does a reading (he calls them gigs) she sits up the front and claps embarrassingly loud and she brings Rob and Peter along to boost the audience. The brothers seem so clean with their combed hair and washed jeans and they listen politely, sipping their beers and sneaking looks at their watches, wondering when it’ll be all right to nick off.

  At work John gets promoted more quickly than Louisa despite having lousy shorthand, but this is common (‘it’s not all about note-taking, Louisa’) and soon she’s a C-grade and he’s a B. Louisa is very good at shorthand and does much court reporting. It’s soothing to watch justice at work.

  John’s hair has faded to a dirty blond and she begins to wonder whether he’d been bleaching it. She never asks though, it seems too personal. He cuts it shorter and soon it settles into mouse-brown with barely a glance back at blond.

  His special skill is ghost-writing columns for ex-footballers. He likes the time he spends with them and says getting something out of them is like emptying the sock drawer looking for pairs. Their thoughts are rambling and unmatched. When he says such things she loves him.

  Though Louisa is wary of gambling, they go once to the races. John is persuasive, tells her he operates only on tips and doesn’t bet if he doesn’t get any and he never even mentions probabilities. With John’s tips they do all right but still, it feels strange being there. There’s a tightening in her chest and a sorrowful feeling that she’s given something away but then since she can’t name it, she thinks it isn’t that important anyway. In the last few months she has started to bite her nails though, and this is unnerving too. Maybe, she thinks, she’s losing the way.

  She’s conscious of the similarities between John and her father – poetry and racing are both impossible quests – but she tries not to think too deeply.

  And then at the races in her blue dress she does something strange. Going down the grandstand stairs at Flemington to watch a race, she puts her hand on John’s arm and almost in a trance state says, ‘I’d like to marry you, if you’d like to marry me.’ And John is utterly shocked. His eyes, it seems, become transparent.

  In the long pause Louisa laughs far too hard with a kind of terror bursting through her. Why on earth, she wonders incredulously, would you say such a thing? And from the look on his face, he’s embarrassed. My God, she thinks, I’ve read the whole thing wrong.

  ‘Just a joke,’ she says cracking up, trying to save herself, and he laughs too, his hard barking laugh. Trouble is, she’s been thinking of children, his children. She believes she’s old enough now to make a good mother. She often thinks about Jess. Something there needs to be repaired. Some shame in the way she behaved that needs to be erased.

  John Keele stops a second on the step and then grabs her hand and keeps heading downstairs. ‘Jeez Weeza,’ he says, using his pet name for her, ‘you caught me by surprise there. Wasn’t thinking about marriage, just thinking about the next race.’ He bark-laughs again. ‘Anyway, thought you didn’t believe in marriage.’ She doesn’t answer, just keeps laughing lightly, though nothing seems the least bit funny. She blames it all on going to the races. The poison of it. Your own fault, she says again and again to herself.

  The horses, sleek as seals, are moving towards the barrier. Phil Dwyer, a pimply-faced streak not that much older than Louisa, joins them. She knew him when they were cadets and now he works for the little paper. He’s always curious about what’s going on at other newspapers. ‘You on today Keelie? Business and pleasure,’ he says, eyeing off Louisa, but doesn’t listen when John replies that he’s mostly doing football these days. Then Dwyer gets to the point and nods towards Louisa, ‘See you brought along the little filly.’

  Louisa bristles because Dwyer knows her, knows she’s a journo, not some fancy bloody piece. Just what she needs today, a nasty little shit who thinks he’s God just because he’s got a dick. She wants to tear his head off or to run home, just run, but she flicks her hair back harder than she means to and snaps caustically, ‘And what are you Johnny? A stallion?’ Then, quite pleased with that one even though she thinks she might cry because she got it so wrong with John, she turns to see the horses better.

  ‘Ho, feisty!’ Dwyer replies with a smirk, ‘I love ’em feisty.’ And Louisa imagines killing him slowly with something heavy.

  John pats Dwyer’s shoulder to shut him up. Then the moment of the race begins and they watch intently and are hypnotised by the cacophony of hooves, the beautiful humming. The strain and the spatter and the rawness of these divine animals striving to win for someone else stirs Louisa, brings tears for them and for herself, for the foolish racing endeavours of her father, for all those years, and for the pure spectacular futility that is gambling.

  While the jockeys are turning back, Louisa turns to John, ‘We’d better get going, we’ve got dinner with Jules and George tonight,’ she says brightly, trying not to show that she’s been moved or that she knows she’s been rejected and they walk away, uneasily holding hands. Halfway to the grandstand, he stops her and says, ‘Listen. I want to say something to you ... Yes, I’d love to marry you Weezey, you know I would.’ And so, with those words, the world has righted itself. Smiling and kissing John’s perfect mouth, she is elated. All she must do now is shake off the ghost of his hesitation.

  ***

  That night they lie close on the tiny high old bed she bought when she first moved out, and the airy curtains fall in and out with the breeze until she gets up to shut the window. At first the billowing seemed romantic and then it just got annoying – like so many things, Louisa thinks grimly.

  She can’t sleep, so she goes into the lounge room and gets a sheaf of his poems from the drawer in the dresser. She hasn’t read any for a while, and the second one is new. Look here. It’s about a woman with brown eyes. Well, she concludes, staggered, and right then her heart is clamped and towed away.

  On the couch, in a funnel of chalky lamp light, she wonders whether there is anyone in the world you can trust. Anyone you know. And she completely doubts it. She puts the poems back and goes to bed, and the dark closes around her like the night sky.

  ***

  Louisa Brown and John Keele are married at the registry office one Wednesday lunchtime in May. Their witnesses are two subeditors. Round old Harry Marks gave her sound advice when she began. ‘Just start at the beginning love, and the rest will follow,’ Harry
said, the pen in his spotted hands hovering over her copy. The other witness is the very wrinkly Alfie Jordon, whose hairy ears are elephantine and who wears spotted bowties most days and always has three sugars in his tea.

  They’ve known Louisa since she started work at The Ant and on her wedding day they wear suits with white carnations in their lapels as if it’s a special occasion. Louisa wears the black dress with the tiny flowers, the one Emmett paid for after he won the double and, today, there’s another echo of Emmett – her hands shake just like her father’s.

  But John is not the least bit nervous; if anything he seems heedlessly eager to tie the knot. ‘Let’s get going,’ he says, rubbing his hands together as he strides up to Louisa and the two witnesses standing on the wide grey steps on this windy day. His hair, grown long and blond again, is moving in the breeze. Louisa’s is streaming back from her face and today, she thinks, John looks shiny as though he were made of metal. She puts out her hand to hold his but he doesn’t notice.

  And when they come out arm in arm, they are married and it doesn’t feel so different; the wind still pushes at them out there on the steps. Harry and Alfie wouldn’t mind a drink but they’re all due back at work. John kisses Louisa and hurries off to a sacked coach press conference (it’s that time of the year) and she goes back to the office.

  She rings Anne from her desk in the humming, gossipy news room and nestles into her corner to talk. Can’t understand why she feels so shaky. ‘Hi Mum, it’s me,’ she begins brightly as she always does and Anne, as usual, says, ‘Hello you and what’s happening in there today?’ Louisa is hesitant, feeling ashamed, like she should weep and admit to all mistakes. But she swallows hard and pushes on and her voice is high and young.

  ‘Nothing much. How ya going Mum? Good. Listen. Guess what? John and I got married today, yes at lunchtime. Because I wanted to. Well, I didn’t want Dad there. Couldn’t stand for him to mess it up and John didn’t care either way. Mum, are you all right?’ She presses the phone to her ear, seeking the rope of her mother’s voice, the voice that steadies and holds her, pulls her from the deep.

  Anne is stunned. She pulls out the stool from under the counter. It’s a quiet day at the shop, there’s time, there’s no one around. Anne says, ‘It’s okay,’ several times and truly means it.

  Part of her is even relieved that she doesn’t have to go through a wedding. It’s true, as everyone knows, she does hate a fuss. And can you imagine Emmet at the wedding of his eldest child?

  But then, something strikes her. ‘You’re not pregnant are you Lou?’ In that silence, the question is answered.

  ‘John knows,’ Louisa says as if it makes a difference.

  ***

  Harry and Alfie give their carnations to Louisa to press for her glory box. And though no one knows about the wedding, at Louisa’s desk there’s a bottle of French champagne with a ribbon and a card from Michael Abbey. Reading his name, she feels the electricity of him. Regret stirs her heart as she holds the bottle. She puts it in the bottom drawer and slams it and takes a sip from a glass of water with a skin of dust and begins work on a feature on hospital closures. She looks up and says ‘hi’ to a passing shaggy illustrator as if it’s just another day and kicks off her shoes under the desk. First, she thinks, I’ve got to sort out these notes. And her gleaming gold wedding ring seems huge on her hand.

  34

  Rob is waiting for Louisa to have a cup of coffee with him. The weather’s been patchy lately and he’s had to cancel work because of storms; still, he thinks and allows himself a smile, it’s swings and roundabouts with storms, there’s plenty of work after they’ve done their worst. Insurance jobs are always the best kind, no doubt about that.

  The café is in Linen Street, North Melbourne, near the market. It’s halfway between both their houses and they meet there for convenience and maybe, if they’ll only admit, for their father’s sake. He lived in Linen Street as a child with his Nana and his uncles. In North Melbourne they feel the child their father once was, feel the possibility of his life before it was lost.

  There’s something Rob needs to say to Lou and it won’t be easy. He orders a short black to give him strength and knocks it back in a hot speedy gulp. How do you say such a thing? he wonders, looking up at the sky. How do you tell your sister that you think it’s a mistake for her to have children, for any of us to.

  It gnaws at him and now she’s gone and married this Keele bloke, something is bound to happen. There’s something about her that says secrets and something just a little too happy for his liking.

  The truth of it is, he reckons, after long thinking on the subject, that considering the childhood they survived, none of them can possibly become a decent, let alone an excellent, parent. And for Rob that is the only sort anyone should be: wonderful. But how’re you supposed to get it right when you’ve got so little to go on?

  He gears himself up for the talk. Knows she won’t appreciate it. What woman would? he supposes. Though he will never really think of Louisa as a woman, she’s a sister to her core, so that excludes her from the woman issue. Rob has his own complicated relationships to worry about, but one thing he’s sure of: he will never have children. It wouldn’t be fair. It would be gross irresponsibility.

  He sees her striding down the street before she sees him. She’s wearing a new cream coat and her dark hair is long and shiny. Okay, he decides, she looks well enough. Possibly, she even looks good. He likes the big brown boots but he won’t tell her.

  She kisses him and he seems to flinch so she punches his upper arm and ruffles his hair which he straightens immediately with both hands. ‘You are a dag Robbie boy,’ she says and orders a decaff cappuccino which would have given him a clue if he had truly been awake.

  They try to catch up at least once a month at this café and when they do, eyes privately held behind sunglasses, they talk in snatches with their frothy coffee before them.

  As usual, she starts, ‘How are you then, how’s things?’ He stirs his second coffee for a long time and says they’re fine and she thinks, oh dear, it’s going to be one of those days when talking to him is like pulling teeth. Poplar trees whisper beside them and further along, plane trees line Linen Street like green soldiers. Traffic is orderly and cars slip by like ants heading inside before rain. The market isn’t far and the occasional call of the stall-holders reaches them.

  Emmett inevitably comes up. Louisa has heard from Anne that he’s having blistering headaches. Shockers that keep him down for days. Rob’s not impressed. ‘Oh well,’ he says, trying to make his face show some concern, ‘bound to happen with the booze plus he’s getting old and he’s hardly a poster boy for taking care of yourself.’

  And then flatly out of nowhere it seems, he snaps, ‘You know Louie, I hate the old man and I will never feel any pity for him. I hate his fucking guts. He was a brutal bastard, the worst, the worst...’ And Louisa thinks, No, not today, I don’t want to hear it. Today is a clear good day.

  Rob sips his coffee and though she agrees with him, Louisa tries to talk him out of the hate ‘because hate just eats into you’, she says like some American talkshow host. And so then, of course, the talking slows because just for once Rob would like to hear someone agree with him, just this one time would do. Not someone who tells him about their experience the minute he tells them of his own. No, he’d just really like to be heard.

  ‘Say it,’ he urges, leaning in, ‘just say it, just say you know what I mean and don’t try to talk me out of what I’m feeling. Give me some credit Lou.’ Louisa doesn’t feel like agreeing, so they grind to a halt. Rob peevishly scratches at the new beard he’s grown because he can’t be bothered shaving. It’s bloody itchy and he decides it will have to go. The sun slides in and glints on the cups.

  And then again, baldly out of nowhere, like an actor walking onto a stage for his big moment, Rob stretches his neck, lifts off his sunglasses and tosses them on the table and says, ‘You know, I don’t think it’s a good i
dea to have children.’ Louisa thinks it’s payback time and looks at him. He lets the statement sit in the chasm between them and pauses, sipping busily at his coffee. There, he’s said it, now he takes a big hot swallow. ‘ I for one,would not be rushing into it.’

  Louisa is already pregnant with Tom and while Anne has guessed, no one else has. She hadn’t expected it, but John is enthusiastic, which seems a good thing. She feels the world of possibility expanding within her. She thinks for a moment she might say something to Rob but then she feels a boiling anger followed by a kind of pity. Still, she wouldn’t mind sticking it to him. Thinks he knows it all, flashes through her but she takes hold of herself, smiles and says, ‘Surely, Robert, it’s got to be a personal decision. What are you going to do mate, have us all sterilised?’