‘Your father and I knew what that man was like as soon as we met him! And we forbade you to see him again!’
Jeez, give us a break! His poor old mum is being hauled over the coals for something she did twenty-five years ago! This has to be bloody ridiculous in anybody’s language.
‘I know.’ Marie is close to tears. ‘It was a terrible mistake.’
‘And you were so wilful and stupid that you actually married that monster!’
‘Mother, I had no idea . . . what he was like. He . . .’
‘A psychopath with next to nothing in his favour except a farm he inherited from his grandparents. And from what I’ve heard, he systematically ruined that over the years!’
Poor Mum. The old bitch is on a roll now and part of Jonty wants to get up and walk out, tell her to go get fucked. But he can’t do that. He’s got to stick it out for his mum. She told him that he wasn’t, under any circumstances, to take offence on her behalf. So he knows he’s got to stay cool. He has to support her. That’s why he’s here, after all.
‘You let him bully and torment you for twenty years before he deserted you. And now,’ his grandmother shudders, ‘now it turns out he has murdered your sister! And this whole terrible business begins all over again. It’s all over the papers, again. I’ve lived with respect in this town all my life, Marie, and I deserve some peace in my final years. What in heavens were you thinking? Where was your gumption, girl?’
‘But he’s gone now, mother,’ his mum pleads, trying to smile. ‘He’s in gaol. There will be a sentencing hearing soon. He’ll be given many years in goal. Jonty and I are living in town now. Getting on just fine without him for the past year. I think I told you.’
‘Did he contact you when he came back?’
‘I wouldn’t see him. I refused to speak to him.’
Jonty looks at his mother for signs she might be lying. It’s the first he’s heard that his father had contacted her too.
‘Did he tell you anything?’ The old lady’s voice is shaking a little now. ‘Any reason for . . . this, this absolutely terrible crime?’
His mother shakes her head vigorously.
‘I refused to talk to him. I put . . . the phone down. I found out . . . from the police.’
‘What about you?’ Phyllis turns to Jonty sharply.
‘Nope,’ Jonty shakes his head, thinking of his old man that night at the gate. I’ve come to beg for forgiveness. I want to save you too!
‘Will you go and see him in jail?’
‘Of course not!’ Marie shudders, and then adds with real conviction, ‘He killed my sister!’
‘Quite!’ His grandmother gulps and turns away. She takes a sharply pressed hanky out from her sleeve, blows her nose and dabs her eyes. No one says anything for some time. Then the old lady sniffs and turns to Alice. ‘Could you organise afternoon tea, please, dear?’
‘Sure.’ Alice gets up hurriedly, turning to her aunt and cousin. ‘Tea? Or would you like coffee?’
‘We’ll have tea, thank you, Alice!’ the old lady cuts in. ‘I believe there is a fresh sponge cake in the pantry.’ She turns to Jonty with an icy stare. ‘Perhaps you could help your cousin while I talk to your mother?’
‘No, no, I’ll be right.’ Alice heads for the door. ‘Don’t need any help.’
‘Alice will need help to carry everything.’ Phyllis gives Jonty a dismissive flick of her fingers. ‘Off you go.’
Something about the flicking gesture gets to Jonty. Before he can think, he stands slowly, leans both hands on the back of the chair and stares at the old girl until she has to turn back to see what is keeping him.
‘I’ve got a name,’ is all he says, quite politely.
She stares at him in surprise for a few moments.
‘I beg your pardon?’ Her top lip is quivering with anger.
‘I’ve got a name,’ he says again.
‘Believe me, young man,’ his grandmother says in a low, very slow whisper, the vitriol seeping through the words like dirty old sump oil from a car engine, ‘I know your name!’
‘Good,’ Jonty ignores his mother’s pleading look and adds, ‘so there will be no problem when you want to talk to me next.’
‘Your name, young man, has been the cause of enormous suffering to me over these last few years,’ his grandmother continues angrily. ‘It was plastered all over the papers, just in case you’ve forgotten!’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ he says, following Alice to the door.
‘Nor have I!’ she shouts after him. ‘How could anybody forget such humiliation?’
Jonty walks out of the room breathing hard.
‘But mother! Jonty was acquitted!’ He hears his own mother pleading. ‘He was wrongly accused. You know that now. It was his father all along!’ Oh Jeez! Shut up Mum.
Jonty follows his cousin down the passage towards the back of the house.
‘Like father, like son!’ he hears the old girl declare triumphantly. Jonty stops and closes his eyes. Like father, like son! His breath is short and his heart is pounding. Her words have pierced through the thick skin he has cultivated around himself since coming back to this town. They have torn great gaping holes right through it and the icy wind is blowing in. She is right. His grandmother is right.
Like father, like son.
The big old-fashioned kitchen has all the modern appliances – microwaves and toasters and fridges – but there’s a worn wooden table in the middle of the room and two funny little windows surrounded by old yellow tiles on either side of a huge cast-iron oven. It’s something to look at anyway. Jonty feels jumpy. He walks around the kitchen from the fridge to the stove to the little windows, trying to calm down, trying not to flip out. His cousin disappears into the pantry, finds a big silver tray, puts a little cloth on it and then starts piling on crockery. She fills the kettle, puts milk into a little jug and rinses out the teapot.
‘She’s one tough old lady,’ Alice gives him a tentative smile, ‘but she’s not as bad as she seems. Honestly. Try not to take it personally.’
Jonty can tell that Alice wants to put him at ease, but he is feeling so edgy that he can’t think of what to reply. The inability to talk makes him feel like an idiot, so he diverts himself by snooping about. He opens canisters and checks out their contents – cocoa, tea, flour – then he tries out the microwave. Yeah, it works. He peers closely into a glass-fronted cupboard where a million crystal glasses sit polished and shining. He feels Alice watching him so he stops, looks up and meets her eyes. Her expression is bewildered more than anything else, as though she doesn’t know what to make of him hopping about her kitchen.
‘I’m so sorry about . . . everything, Jonty,’ she says.
He nods and gulps.
‘You didn’t deserve . . . all you went through.’
Jonty slumps, unsure what to say, or how to take it. He wishes they could talk about why she goes to the old house. And he would like to ask her what her life is like now that her mother is gone and she lives in this big old joint.
‘It must be terrible to be accused of something you didn’t do,’ she continues awkwardly.
‘Do you ever see Tom Mullaney?’ Jonty suddenly asks, and then laughs when she shakes her head. ‘It was pretty weird that night we landed up here a few weeks back, wasn’t it?’ She nods carefully. ‘Hey, you were pretty cool that night, Alice. You did well to look after him the way you did. Bit of a trooper! I haven’t seen him since. Was he okay? You work for his old man, don’t you? He’s a good guy, old Luke. I got a lot of time for Luke . . .’
Jonty knows he’s blathering, filling in the silence, but he doesn’t know how to stop. He really wants to talk now. He feels as though he hasn’t spoken to anyone for years. He turns around to check out the knives lined up on the magnetic strip above the bench and pulls down the biggest one. What a beauty! Top brand, too. He runs the blade across his hand. It’s more of a cleaver than a knife. The ones at work are nowhere near as big as this one. He ho
lds it up to the nearby window to watch the light sparkling along the blade and tip, musing about onions and frying meat and the last meal he’d prepared where he used a big knife. Maybe he should ask his cousin round to dinner at his mum’s place. He could cook up something impressive and the three of them could just hang out. No pressure, just good food. Would she come? he wonders.
‘What are you doing?’ Alice’s shout breaks his reverie.
Jonty looks up. Her face is taut and distressed.
‘Nothing,’ he says, dumbfounded. ‘I’m not doing anything.’
‘So put it down!’
He lets the knife drop to the floor. It clatters on the stones, making a lonely sound. When that stops there is nothing. Just air. They look at each other; neither of them speak. He can see she’s really upset. He wants to apologise but doesn’t know what for exactly. He picked up a friggin’ kitchen knife! So what?
‘Go back . . . to the others,’ she stammers. ‘I’ll bring the things in.’
‘I’ll help you.’
‘I can manage!’ And when Jonty doesn’t move or say anything she gulps and adds, ‘Please.’
‘Okay.’ Jonty doesn’t move, but he gets it. They stand, locked eyeball to eyeball, before she lurches forward, puts the cake on the tray with the other things, and hurries out with it.
As soon as she’s gone, Jonty heads out the back door, cuts across the lawn, jumps over the fence and heads home. It was the please that brought him undone, and the way her eyes flicked down to the knife on the floor. Please. No point trying to tell her that he’s harmless is it? The very idea makes him want to laugh! Me? Harmless? No. He doesn’t think so either. He thinks of his father outside the house. I’ve come home to set things right. None of it was your fault. The words play in his head like a stuck record, over and over.
Like father, like son.
The next few days go by in a blur. Jonty rings in sick and sneaks sleeping pills from his mother. He sleeps most of the day and then goes out at night. It’s hard to remember how he’s been filling in the hours. Mainly it’s just walking around. Around midnight, he looks for somewhere to plonk himself for a rest. The all-night café on the highway does the job one night. His old high school is the go the next. It’s a weird feeling, sitting outside the school gates at three in the morning, trying to work out who he was back then.
Another night he ends up at the hospital. He makes his way around to the side gate, slips in and sits in the little garden outside Ward Nine for a while. He remembers this joint. God, does he ever! He was admitted here once with drug-induced psychosis. The lights are on in a couple of rooms and he sees the occasional shadow of a figure moving about inside. He wonders what’s going on in there and tries to remember what it felt like. It was only for a few days but slivers and fragments come to mind and then fade away. There was an Indian doctor with a great big white smile. Jonty remembers asking him what toothpaste he used, and he didn’t take offence. And he was real easy in the way he gave Jonty that injection in the arse once, told him that it was his great joy to stick needles into bums. Jonty had always hated injections but somehow having the guy joke about it made it easier to handle. When he’d finished, Jonty heard him talking to someone outside the door. Another fried brain, was what he said. Was he talking about Jonty? He’d sat up at that point. Have I fried my brain?
And he remembers his mother coming in with some of his favourite pancakes, telling him that she was looking forward to having him home soon.
Another fried brain.
Nothing much comes when Jonty tries to remember bigger sequences. In fact, the longer, more useful memories usually arrive when he’s thinking about something else entirely.
One afternoon he walks all the way out to the caves by himself. Something is pulling him there. He half expects to see his father, even though he knows Jed is tucked away inside, by this stage. Jed has found God! Jonty laughs at the thought. He tries to imagine his father behind those walls, doing what he’s told, but . . . it’s too difficult. His imagination won’t reach that far. The whole idea of Jed bedding down in a little cell every night and lining up for roll call is just too sad. Jonty wanders from one cave to another, listening for the hollow sounds of the tunnels underneath the earth, feeling the light breeze against his skin. Even in the middle of this quiet grey afternoon the place is spooky. The few other people out there don’t seem to feel it though. English and Japanese tourists chatter to each other and pose for photos as though it’s somewhere ordinary. Jonty stands on the rim of one deep cavern, thinking, trying to remember. When nothing gives, he moves on to another and another.
He hasn’t spoken properly to his mother since that afternoon tea. He doesn’t even know how the meeting ended up for her. Whenever she tries to talk to him about anything now, Jonty tells her to stick it. He doesn’t want to talk to loopies who go crawling up the arses of people they hate, begging for money. If she persists, he goes to bed or leaves the house. He hears her crying in her room at night. He feels bad about that, but he stays away. She’s too crazy, and Jonty is scared he’s headed the same way. He either takes another sleeping pill or turns on the radio to cut out her noise. Sometimes he sinks right back down under the blanket of sleep with the radio going loudly and when he wakes he thinks this might be it. Finally, he might be unravelling.
alice
‘Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me, but you should know that your cousin Jonno is in a bad way.’
Alice swivels around to find Tom Mullaney standing in the doorway of her office. He’s in loose jeans and a jumper. His tousled hair could do with a comb and he’s moving from one foot to the other, crossing and recrossing his arms as though he’s warming up for a race. She stares at him, her mind jamming. What did he say? For the last ten minutes she’d been wholly taken up with finding an important file for Luke, and now, at last, she has. She sets it down on her desk.
‘What?’
‘His mother, your aunt, rang me.’
‘And?’
Tom moves a few steps further into the room. Alice gulps. He is fiddling around with his shirt sleeves now. First he hides them under the cuff of his jumper and then he pulls them out again. His focus shifts from her, to the desk, to his hands. Alice feels cornered but . . . intrigued too. She likes his unkempt appearance. There are holes in the sleeves of his jumper and his old muddy gym boots have pink laces with silver spangles on the end that make her want to smile.
‘Your aunt rang me about Jonno.’ He pushes his hair back and half closes his eyes. ‘He’s gone AWOL from work and won’t talk to anyone. He’s just wandering around like a nutter. She’s worried about him. Thinks he’s on some kind of downward spiral. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe she’s overreacting but . . . she’s scared he’s going to get back on the dope and . . . the rest of it.’
‘Why did she ring you?’
Tom stops moving about and looks up at her in surprise.
‘I dunno,’ he says, ‘I’m a mate, I guess.’
‘Used to be.’ Alice is being too sharp, but he was the one who busted in here with no warning. He didn’t even knock.
‘Yeah,’ Tom gulps awkwardly, ‘used to be.’
Alice doesn’t know whether to ask him to sit down or to piss off. She doesn’t know whether she wants this conversation at all. Work has been her only relief over the last few days. All the phone calls and letters and appointment times, all the real estate, petty crime and divorces have kept her sane. Jed van der Weihl’s confession has the whole town talking. The local paper is full of it and the twins tell her the hotels, cafés and pubs are seething with gossip. Was he having an affair with Lillian? Why did he let his kid take the flak? Did he really do it? Was his kid part of it? Even walking down the street for lunch makes her self-conscious. Phyllis has gone to ground, and that makes it all doubly difficult. She won’t go to her weekly hair appointment or play cards with her cronies. Worse still, she’s become unusually compliant, lost some of her sting. The vitriolic outburs
t she dished out to Marie and Jonty the previous week was the last sighting of pugnacious Phyllis. Since then, she’s become increasingly subdued, hardly bothers to tell Alice anything about anything. Alice finds herself longing for her usual feisty, stubborn, demanding grandmother, who has views on everything from boiling an egg to solving the country’s water shortage. At least she knew where she was with that one, and she didn’t have to feel sorry for her.
‘I thought Jonty would be relieved,’ Alice says curtly.
‘Relieved?’ Tom repeats incredulously.
‘Well . . .’ Alice feels a little silly now, ‘he’s off the hook isn’t he?’
Tom doesn’t say anything to that for some time.
‘It wouldn’t be easy knowing that about your old man, Alice,’ he says softly. ‘Nothing about that would be easy.’
‘I suppose not.’ Alice turns from his gaze.
Tom is fiddling with a bunch of papers on the bench now and looking out the window. She has a sudden longing for him, a sharp edgy pang that makes her want to go over to where he is standing and draw close against the heat of his skin. It’s like a river rushing through her, impossible to stop. She longs to sink her face into his neck, run her hands through his curly hair, feel that bony body pressed hard against hers and . . . smell him.
You’re lovely Alice. You know that? That strange hour they’d spent together in the café. She never told anyone about what he’d said, but she often thinks of it.
‘I rang him a few times but he wouldn’t talk to me,’ Tom continues as he straightens a pile of already straight files, ‘so I went up to the house.’
‘And?’
‘He said he was busy. But he was just hanging out in his room. He was doing nothing. The only way I could get him to agree to go to the pub tomorrow night was by saying I’d ask you too.’
‘Me?’ Alice stares back at him dumbfounded. ‘Why me?’
Tom shrugs.
‘Said he’d come and have a drink with me if you did too.’
Somebody's Crying Page 24