‘I heard some famous band is going to be playing,’ Buzz says, as Jonty falls into step with him.
‘What band?’ Jonty isn’t really interested. The wind is sticking its fingers down his jacket. He should have worn more clothes.
‘Can’t remember.’ Buzz pulls his thick scarf tightly around his neck. ‘I don’t listen to that kind of music,’ he sniffs dismissively. ‘But you really should go, Jonty.’
‘Oh, so you don’t listen to that kind of music?’ Jonty mimics him. ‘It’s crap, and yet you want me to subject myself to it!’
‘Look, I’m ancient,’ Buzz laughs at himself, ‘but you should be there, meeting people . . . enjoying yourself.’
Who with? Jonty thinks. Since getting back from Sydney, Jonty has kept his head right down. He doesn’t take drugs any more and he hardly drinks. But he knows what people are thinking. He can see it on their faces. They know more stuff about him than he knows himself. They think they do, anyway. Well . . . hello, Jonno! You’re back? Their eyes dart away and then bounce to him again, like those dumb attached tennis balls people play with on the beach. Yeah. I’m back.
Anyway, going to hear a band completely straight probably wouldn’t work. Last time he checked it was more or less mandatory to be off your face.
Jonty and Buzz walk home together along the coast road, the sea roaring along beside them like some tortured soul in purgatory. Jonty’s house is only about ten minutes away, but Buzz lives on the other side of town. He lost his licence for drink-driving some months before and Jonty feels sorry for him, wishes he had a car to drive him home. Poor old guy has got a bit of a limp from some shit that happened to him in Vietnam back in the sixties.
‘Jeez, it’s dead tonight,’ Jonty says as they turn into James Street. Only two houses even have a light on.
‘Yep, another wild Friday night in Warrnie town,’ Buzz mutters in agreement. ‘Always something going on.’
Jonty laughs.
‘Pete’s Revenge is the name of the band,’ Buzz remembers suddenly. ‘You like them?’
‘I dunno.’ Jonty hasn’t listened to music seriously for ages. ‘Might do. How come they’re coming here?’
‘Country tour before they go OS.’
‘Yeah?’ Jonty looks at Buzz. ‘How come you know all this?’
‘I keep my ear to the ground,’ he laughs.
Three more blocks and Jonty’s home. It’s good walking past Pitt Street with Buzz. Just having the old guy there stops the ghosts walking into his head. Sometimes they come on hard and have his brain twisted up like a discarded chip-packet before he even makes it home.
‘So when is it?’
‘Tomorrow night.’ Buzz gives Jonty a sly nudge. ‘Apparently they’re the next big thing, Jonty. Read it myself in the Chronicle! You’ll kick yourself if you miss out.’
‘Ah, I don’t know,’ Jonty sighs. ‘Where’s it on?’
‘The new Arts Centre,’ Buzz says. ‘Good acoustics.’
‘Right,’ Jonty laughs softly, ‘like I really need you to tell me this.’ They stop outside the little house that Jonty shares with his mother. ‘Farewell, Bernard.’ Jonty flicks open the latch on the front gate.
‘Go see that band or I’ll have your guts for garters on Monday.’ Buzz waves gruffly before heading up the road into the blackness.
‘Okay!’ Jonty calls after him. ‘See ya Monday!’
‘I’ll want a full account then, remember.’
Jonty’s mood shifts down a few notches when he sees the light is on in the front room. His mother is up and that could mean anything from a wall of stony silence because of the mess he left on the back porch, to a full-on neurotic drama about the state of the nation. Or she could just be watching a late night movie. It’s possible. She’s been a lot better lately.
Marie is sitting in front of the television in her dressing-gown and slippers. The heater is on and the room is pretty tidy and clean.
‘Hi there, Mum!’
Her face almost collapses with relief when she sees Jonty, but he pretends not to notice. She’s still got a bit of pride left, which is good. Jonty wants to help her keep that.
‘Hello!’ Her voice is clear.
Things are so much better, he reminds himself. She’s come a long way. For the first month they lived together he’d sometimes come home to find her sitting in the dark, in the cold, with only an old rug wrapped around her shoulders, shivering and panicky about where he’d been. Once, Jonty found her lying between the couch and the wall because she’d ‘heard some noise’. He’d had to coax her out and more or less carry her to bed.
‘You’re late,’ she says brightly. ‘How was work?’
‘Really good.’ Jonty puts on a cheery voice. People who tell you to be honest at all times don’t know shit about anything. The last thing most people want is honesty. ‘We were packed out from six o’clock. So I stayed back a bit to help Buzz.’
‘You’re a good boy,’ she says quietly, picking up the TV guide and pretending to read it. All this is good, he reminds himself again. Okay, she’s acting too – probably been crawling up the walls all night – but she’s not laying the trip on him now and that’s some improvement. She’s coping, sort of, and that’s what matters.
‘So, what have you been doing?’ Jonty asks, taking off his coat and scarf, thinking that he’d give her ten minutes and then hit the sack. Late-night conversations with her can very quickly turn belly-up. She tends to sink into desperation really quickly at night.
‘Oh, this and that,’ she says, putting the TV guide down and fingering a notepad on her knee. ‘Watching a bit of television and writing a bit . . . trying to work something out.’
‘Writing what?’ Jonty asks because he knows she wants him to, slipping off his wet shoes and walking over nearer to the heater. ‘What are you trying to work out?’
She holds out the pad to Jonty.
‘Have a look at this,’ she says shyly. ‘It’s just a draft, but I’d like to know if you think it’s worded . . . right.’
Jonty takes the pad from her and sits down on the floor. He doesn’t want to do this. No way. He’s too tired. It’s too late, but . . . he will. His mother is the one person in his life he’ll do anything for. She stuck by him, right through everything. She came to see him every single visiting-day when he was in remand. Wrote him letters, rang, badgered his defence lawyer . . . everything she could do, she did. The fact that she was having some kind of mini-breakdown at the same time makes it more amazing. When the old man cleared out it got really bad, but she’s getting better now, starting to recover. He can see the changes. She’ll be back to her old self soon.
His father never came to see him once, nor did anyone else. Jonty knows that if Lillian had been alive she would have come. She would have written letters and phoned him and told him that she believed in him, just like his mum did. Both of them are beautiful people in their own way. They’re sisters, so it makes sense. It’s not just the evil mad stuff that runs in families, least that’s what Jonty thinks. Good stuff gets passed on too.
‘Hang on just a minute,’ he sighs. ‘Just gotta get my wet socks off.’
Lillian will forgive me . . . everything. That sentence runs through his head, then slides away again like a bored guest at a birthday party, before he can even decide what it means. Out the door it goes and he’s left wondering, did it even come in? Who invited it?
Lillian will forgive me . . .
His mother is not very much like her sister physically. Her late sister. Christ! Jonty keeps forgetting. It’s too weird to admit to anyone, but he still thinks of Lillian as being alive. Someone like that can’t just die . . . can they? His mum is much plainer, kind of dumpy and ordinary with her short, grey hair. But her eyes are like Lillian’s: brown and, when she’s happy, sparkling. Her face is very lined now, but Jonty supposes that’s what comes from living with his old man. Jed was hard. His mum never had nice clothes or make-up or any of the other stuff women go for, bu
t even so she is beautiful in her own way. Sometimes in the half-light Jonty catches her sitting quietly, her hands folded, looking out the window maybe. With her round dark eyes and bony face she is like one of those paintings of saints that Catholics carry around with them – a holy person living in some other realm. Sometimes he can imagine the two of them, his mother and his aunt, as young girls, looking out the window, up at the dark sky, waiting for the night to be over.
He sees that his mother has been working on a letter in her neat cramped writing. When he sees it is to his grandmother he groans inside. Why is she writing to that old bat?
Dear Mother,
I hope this finds you well. As you might have guessed from the address above, I have at last left the farm. I’m living in town with my son (your grandson!), Jonty, in this little house, which is very small but adequate for our needs, and I plan to divorce Jed as soon as I can – whether he turns up or not. Jonty is helping me. He has a job and I plan to get one myself just as soon as I get a bit stronger and something suitable comes up.
I still live in fear of Jed. Although he has rung a few times it doesn’t appear that he’s coming home anytime soon. Gut instinct tells me that he will fight the divorce every inch of the way. But I don’t care. I’m prepared to do whatever I have to to free myself from his horrible clutches.
You were right, Mother. Since marrying him that April day when I was just twenty-two, I have paid dearly for the choice I made. At last it is over. I will never go back to him. I’d rather die.
On the bright side, I have Jonty. Since the big trouble of three years ago, he has turned his life around and is an enormous help and solace to me.
I’m writing now to beg your forgiveness and to ask that you treat me like a daughter again. I am your only living child. Your only close relative, apart from Lillian’s daughter and my son, Jonty. That has got to mean something to someone who used to say that family was everything in life.
Hope you are feeling well these days and that the rheumatism isn’t too bad in this cold weather.
Your loving daughter,
Marie
Jonty reads it through again.
‘Good,’ he says slowly, trying to put his finger on what it is that’s definitely not good about it.
‘You think so?’ she asks eagerly.
‘You want her talking to you again, right?’ Jonty says matter-of-factly. ‘To get back in her good books. Is that it?’
His mother flushes.
‘I don’t want it for me,’ she says sharply. ‘Why should you be punished? You weren’t convicted, you’ve done nothing wrong.’
It’s the first Jonty knows that he’s got anything to do with it. He’s been told that the source of the rift between the families was Grandma not approving of his old man. But he doesn’t say this. Why rile her up or load her with more stuff? Not at this time of night, anyway.
‘Listen, Mum, don’t do this for me,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m not in jail. I’ve got a job. I’m okay.’
‘I’ve seen the will; Lillian’s girl is going to get everything!’ his mother cuts in bitterly. ‘Just because she has come back to live with her.’
Jonty shrugs, trying not to show his surprise. He didn’t know his mother knew Alice was back living with Grandma. He hadn’t said anything about it because he thought it might rub salt into the wound. He has seen Alice in the supermarket and the street a few times but purposely avoided her. What could he possibly say?
Grandma’s money has never seemed real to Jonty. He isn’t counting on getting his hands on any of it, nor is he losing sleep about it.
‘Maybe the old lady is sick,’ he says. ‘Alice might have come home to look after her.’
‘But that’s my job! I’m her daughter!’
Then his mother starts laughing in this totally black, miserable, out-of-control way that gets Jonty’s heart galloping in his rib cage. Crazy! My old lady is crazy. On she goes like a wild bird caught in a trap, her arms flapping like wings. This kind of desperate stuff makes Jonty want to hightail it as far away as he can – from her, from this town, from this whole new life he’s trying to build for himself. He should never have come back here. He’d rather be back inside the can. No shit, he’d rather be locked up with a pack of psychopathic morons who’d bust your head in as soon as look at you than listen to his mother laugh like this.
‘Oh, Jonty.’ She is wiping her eyes now, smiling at him as though they’d just shared a joke. ‘My mother was always so difficult.’
The last time Jonty had seen his cousin Alice Wishart was two days before in the supermarket. He’d hidden behind the aisle and watched her wheeling her trolley around. She’d changed a lot, grown up. She seemed very serious. He couldn’t explain the rush of sadness that passed through him when he watched her buying her things: soap and milk and bread. His throat choked up watching her roll off through that supermarket, her long hair swinging down her back, and wondered what it felt like to lose your one and only mother.
‘We’re talking millions of dollars, Jonty.’ Marie is calm now, but when she looks around their little lounge room she grimaces. ‘We live like this when she is sitting on all that money!’
‘Yeah, I know, Mum,’ Jonty says, wondering how long it will be before he can slope off to the cot. Jonty actually really likes the little house they’re renting. It feels kind of manageable compared with that huge old farmhouse they used to live in. That joint was one of those National Trust numbers with big fire places and wood stoves and a wide verandah all around, full of fancy stuff passed down through the family from South Africa – china, silver cutlery, vases and glassware – that the family were never allowed to use in case it broke. But it’s hard work living in a place like that with no modern appliances or heating. And anyhow, being out there had meant living with his father.
His mother goes out to the kitchen to get them both a cup of tea and Jonty stares into the red bar of the heater. Suddenly he is back there, or just a breath away . . .
‘I had such hopes for you!’
Jonty opened his eyes. His father was standing by the door watching him sleep. Oh jeez! he groaned, and prayed that it was just an apparition. Hadn’t his father gone to the livestock sales in Horsham? He hid his head under the covers. Not for long. The sheet and doona were pulled right off him and he was left lying in his boxer shorts and socks.
‘It’s cold,’ he mumbled stupidly, looking around wildly before sitting up, bringing his knees up to his chin, shaking himself awake. There was no easy way out of his room. He knew he’d just have to deal with whatever was coming. He groaned again as a wave of nausea hit his guts and slid up into his throat. He tried to hide his face in his hands but they were pulled away, too.
‘Give me a look at you!’ His father had him tightly by one wrist and peered into his face. ‘Where were you last night?’
‘Just out.’ Jonty looked up at his father.
‘Out?’ Those eyes were blazing, boring into his own, pinning him down.
‘With friends!’
‘Friends,’ his father spat derisively.
‘Yeah.’ Want me to explain what a friend is?
‘What friends?’
Jonty shrugged and tried to meet his father’s eyes but it was impossible. Who was there? Jonty cleared his throat and tried very hard not to look as utterly trashed as he felt. He remembered they’d all been on the weed the night before and there’d been vodka, too, at the start of the night, and he knew his father could tell.
‘What were you on?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing, huh?’ Jed panted, his face flooding with pink blotches. Blood pressure. Jonty hoped hard that it would get him one day soon. A massive brain bleed would do the job.
‘Look at you squirming!’ His father pulled his wrist backwards sharply, making Jonty yelp with pain, then suddenly Jonty’s whole arm was being twisted up his back.
‘Leave me alone!’
‘Leave me alone,’ his father mimics in
a high voice. ‘You weak little girl! If you had any guts you’d be fighting back!’
Jonty looked at the clock near his bed. Seven. He’d had two hours sleep and he wouldn’t mind dying. He couldn’t remember much about the night before, except that he and Tom had been down at the river with a whole lot of others. His head thumped, heavy as a load of concrete, and his mouth felt like the bottom of a rat cage. Then he suddenly saw Tom as he’d been the night before, standing on the bridge. Jonty knew it would be alright then. Let the old prick break his arm! He had something good to think about.
All of them had been down on the bank clapping slowly, egging Tom on, helpless with laughter. He’d stripped right down to his boxers, and just as the girls were screaming for him to take them off too, he’d jumped, straight as a die, right into the freezing river, surprising them all. There was silence on the bank. His head didn’t appear for ages and even Jonty had a few moments panic.
When that head did appear it was about forty metres downstream and travelling fast. They’d all gone running through the bush, spluttering with laughter, to help him out. Was there music of some sort? Who’d supplied the dope? Some girl went swimming, too, at some stage. Or maybe she just went in up to her knees. Jonty couldn’t remember much else.
‘Your head will never recover.’ His father was squatting behind him now, his left arm around his throat, his mouth in Jonty’s ear. The other hand was pushing Jonty’s arm higher and higher up his back. Tears of pain formed in his eyes and his father hissed, ‘You bring shame on my proud family. You hear me?’
Jonty gasped again.
There had been bark and weeds in Tommy’s hair when he’d got out, water sloshing down his skin and such exhilaration in his eyes.
‘Hey, Jonno.’ The wet cold arm around his shoulder. ‘Wanna do it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Together man!’
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