Somebody's Crying

by Somebody's Crying (retail) (epub)

At fifteen, Ned finds the ‘ageing fag’ business fascinating. His face squints with curiosity as he lines up the ball.

  ‘What’s the fag like?’

  ‘Great guy.’

  ‘You’re joking?’ Ned sneers.

  ‘He’s a good guy,’ Jonty repeats.

  ‘What’s his name?’ Tom asks.

  ‘Buzz,’ Jonty smiles, ‘short for Bernard.’

  Ned shakes his head, confounded all over again. ‘Does he . . . ever try to . . . hit on you?’

  ‘Can’t turn around,’ Jonty winks at Tom, ‘but he’s at me!’

  The rain starts to come down seriously and they move up to the verandah. The sky is brilliant, huge and inky-black with shafts of transparent yellow light pouring out of the cracks like gold streamers. Tom handballs to Ned, thinking of his grandfather. He’d have the tripod out now. He’d be screwing on the old camera, looking for an angle. Never let an opportunity pass, he used to say, the next shot might be the one that makes your career.

  ‘You want to come in and have a drink, Jonty?’ Tom asks.

  ‘Okay.’

  They find Anna and Luke watching a DVD of Henry V. His dad is looking way too relaxed for his own good, lying on the couch, his head propped up with cushions. Anna is sitting in one of the club chairs with her legs on the footstool, eating an orange. It’s the Kenneth Branagh version, and Tom knows for a fact they’ve both seen it at least six times already.

  His mum is leaning forward, mouth open, taking it all in. Tom gets caught up himself and so does Jonty. They rest their elbows on the backs of chairs and gawk at the telly for full-on five minutes, while Ned scoots off to meet his friend. At the very end Anna turns to Luke with tears in her eyes and gives three big claps.

  ‘Ah! Wasn’t that something!’

  ‘Beats Home and Away,’ Luke laughs fondly, and picks up his packet of smokes. ‘Anyone mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna says, ‘go out to the verandah.’

  ‘Okay,’ Luke laughs. But he puts the cigarettes down again as they start discussing some of the minor actors in the play.

  Tom walks around all the pantry junk still spread out over the floor and gets drinks from the fridge, thinking how good it is to see his old man so engaged. His father’s big bushy eyebrows are flying around his face and his sudden loud laughs are easy and unforced . . .

  ‘Well, I’ll be seeing you all,’ Jonty says to Tom’s parents, after gulping down the drink. ‘Thanks for the cake and everything.’ When they finally twig that he’s going they stop talking and Luke stands up.

  ‘Don’t feel you have to go, Jonty,’ he says. ‘Stay for a meal.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Jonty looks embarrassed.

  ‘Stay for tea, Jonty,’ Anna chimes in. ‘Ned and I will be going after that. We can drop you home.’

  ‘No,’ he declares more firmly, ‘I’ll get going now.’

  The rain has eased off but it’s still cold outside when Tom walks with Jonty out to the front gate. He offers to run back in and fetch him a coat but Jonty refuses.

  ‘Well, thanks,’ Jonty says awkwardly, but once he’s out the gate he spins around again and grasps Tom’s hand impulsively.

  ‘Bye, Tom!’

  ‘See you, Jonno.’

  ‘I often think of how things were back then . . . you and me,’ Jonty says. ‘We were great mates, eh?’

  Tom nods.

  ‘My old man wrote to me, you know?’ Jonty is exuding a soft, troubled mood that makes Tom wary.

  ‘Yeah?’ Tom replies impatiently. ‘So what is he on about?’

  ‘Saving me,’ Jonty says simply.

  ‘Saving you? You mean he wants you to find God, too?’

  ‘He says that him being in there will . . .’ Jonty gives a small anguished laugh, ‘help me discover the truth.’

  It’s getting really cold now and Tom wants to get back inside. The Panadol is wearing off and his throat is on fire.

  ‘Listen, Jonno, try not to worry about what he says. Forget the fucker. Don’t read his letters. Get on with your own life! He’s crazy, Jonno. You said so yourself.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jonty looks away thoughtfully, ‘one crazy bastard. Well I better go now.’ He walks off, yelling, ‘We’ll have that beer, hey?’ over his shoulder without turning around.

  ‘Okay,’ Tom shouts after him. ‘You’re on, mate!’

  By early evening the cold that has been threatening Tom all day gets serious. His nose starts dripping and he’s coughing up yellow gunk, so he decides he might as well go to bed. But first he rings Alice. He knows he shouldn’t push things but he can’t help himself. He needs to keep some kind of connection happening. Or maybe it’s just that he needs to hear her voice, make real that smile of the night before.

  ‘How is your gran?’

  ‘Would you believe she’s sitting up eating toast and drinking tea?’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ Tom is momentarily flummoxed. He’s been expecting bad news. ‘Well that’s good, eh?’

  ‘I guess so,’ she gives a deep sigh.

  ‘You don’t sound exactly elated!’

  ‘Oh well,’ she sighs again and this makes Tom laugh.

  ‘So what do the doctors say?’

  ‘They can’t believe it.’

  There is a pause between them for a few moments.

  ‘It was good last night,’ she says suddenly.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’m glad he came in the end.’

  Quiet moments with Alice are interesting, even though they make him nervous. Time seems to slow right down. It’s like he can feel the world’s heartbeat under everything. He becomes aware of small things, like his own fingers tapping on the bench or the motes of dust in the air. She’s different from other girls he knows. Not just girls actually, everybody! Yak yak. Most people want to fill up the quiet spaces. She is the first person he’s come across who doesn’t seem shit-scared of silence.

  ‘Jonty came around today,’ Tom offers, ‘out of the blue.’

  ‘Really!’ Alice is thoughtful. ‘I’ve been thinking about him. What did he say?’

  ‘We just hung out for a while.’

  ‘That’s good,’ she said slowly, ‘isn’t it?’

  ‘I guess so. He seems pretty freaked-out about his father. Has your aunt told you anything more?’

  ‘I don’t really have anything to do with my aunt,’ Alice replies.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘That’s just the way . . . it’s always been.’

  ‘Don’t you like her?’

  She laughs a little. ‘You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?’

  ‘I like to know the score.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ she laughs again. ‘Well, the score is I don’t really know her. But . . . my cousin,’ she continues thoughtfully, ‘he interests me. I want him to be . . . okay.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Tom sighs. What about me Alice? Are you interested in me?

  ‘Last night was a bit of a fizzer,’ Tom changes the subject, trying to sound chirpy and on top of everything and then realises that he’s just said the opposite to what she said. ‘What I mean is, was Eric was all right with it?’

  ‘Oh he’s okay with anything,’ Alice says casually. ‘He doesn’t care.’

  ‘Is he . . . is Eric your boyfriend?’

  She doesn’t answer immediately and Tom’s words hang in the air, so pathetic and intrusive . . . God he wishes he hadn’t asked her that! What business is it of his?

  ‘You want to know the score?’ she asks lightly. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I guess so,’ Tom tries to sound light-hearted, too.

  ‘No,’ she says dryly, ‘he’s not my boyfriend.’

  Well that’s something anyway. Still, Tom wishes he hadn’t asked.

  He wakes early the next morning and lies there listening to the rain. His throat is on fire, and his nose is blocked even though he’s constantly blowing it. He needs another one of those strong lemon-juice and honey drinks but doesn’t want to get up
to get it. It would mean going out to the lemon tree in the rain.

  Tom begins to seriously consider heading back to the city. He could just give his notice in to the Chronicle, see the week out and leave. It wouldn’t be such a big deal. He could tell his lecturers that the work experience stint didn’t work out. They’re flexible. He’d be able to make it up some other time during his course. On top of the Jonty fiasco, there is Alice. If he hightailed it back to the big smoke, this consuming desire for her would eventually fade away. Sooner rather than later, most probably. Face it, Mullaney. Getting together with Alice Wishart is never to happen.

  Tom lies there coughing and spluttering into his wet hanky. He takes some more Panadol and drifts off to sleep again.

  He finally surfaces a couple of hours later. The need to take a piss wins out over just wanting to lie there in the warmth. He wraps the doona around his shoulders and heads out to the bathroom and then down to the kitchen. With a bit of luck, his mother might have brought in a few extra lemons from the tree last night before she left. Yes! He sees them there, at least six sitting in the fruit bowl. His old man isn’t up yet, so Tom switches on the heating and begins to squeeze lemons. He is about to turn on the radio when he hears laughter coming from the spare room. Tom listens to the low murmuring voices and then more laughter. His mother must have stayed after all and Ned must be in there with her.

  Tom has a twinge of nostalgia remembering how he used to jump into bed with Anna on Sunday mornings, right up to when he was about Ned’s age. His dad would be tooling around in the kitchen, bringing her in a cup of tea and making plans for the day, while she read the papers and talked to Tom. She’d read to him and they’d talk and laugh about nothing much. But there was something special about lying together there under the blankets. Tom is pleased to think of his little brother doing the same thing.

  The laughter and talking continue, and Tom is just coming around to thinking that the male voice doesn’t sound like Ned’s when the door opens and his old man comes out looking all rumpled and sleepy and, when he sees Tom, embarrassed. His feet and chest are bare but thankfully he’s wearing jeans.

  ‘Hi there, Tom.’ Luke saunters past to the bathroom pretending everything is absolutely normal. Tom doesn’t answer.

  ‘How is the cold?’ he asks casually on his way back. ‘Did you manage to sleep?’

  ‘Listen,’ Tom says in a low voice, ‘this is fucking irresponsible!’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Luke has the grace to be embarrassed as well as perplexed.

  ‘Now, listen here, Tom,’ he comes back a few paces. ‘No harm has been done so . . . just calm down please!’

  ‘What do you mean no harm?’ Tom points to his little brother’s room. ‘What about Ned, eh? You think this is fair on him?’

  Luke shakes his head and smiles, as though Tom is the one being unreasonable. ‘All right, all right,’ he makes a quietening gesture that only makes Tom more furious, ‘I know it’s all a bit strange but . . . just keep your seat belt on. There is nothing to get excited about.’

  ‘You both put him through the mill once,’ Tom accuses angrily, ‘not to mention Nellie and me, and now you’re going to do it again.’

  ‘He isn’t even here, Tom,’ his dad says mildly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘After you’d gone to bed, Ned went round to his mate’s place to stay the night. So he doesn’t need to know about this unless . . . you tell him.’ This catches Tom off guard. He turns back to the last lemon. ‘You’re the only one who knows.’

  ‘Okay,’ Tom says, not looking at him. ‘I still think it’s irresponsible unless you’re going to . . . I mean, what about Nanette?’

  Lukes stares back at him without speaking.

  What about Nanette? Is Tom actually worried about Nanette? Not really. It’s the whole idea of his parents chucking everything up in the air again! Just when the five of them are all finally getting used to things, the new households and the new partners and the rest of it.

  ‘Listen, don’t say anything to Ned, okay?’ Luke is busy trying to look as though he gives a rat’s arse about what Tom thinks, frowning and rubbing his hands through his hair, and Tom feels like thumping him because he knows it’s all an act. He planned this. It’s what he’s wanted all along, the old bastard! Tom isn’t going to let him off the hook that easily though.

  ‘As though I would!’ Tom pours in the boiling water then slips a big spoonful of honey into the cup and stirs it around. ‘Are you going to tell Nanette?’

  ‘Look, Tom, that isn’t actually any of your business,’ Luke says, which makes Tom feel like a moron because his father is right. ‘And for your information it’s . . . nothing serious okay?’ he adds heading back to the spare room.

  ‘What?’ Did Tom actually hear him say that? Nothing serious?

  ‘Things aren’t necessarily going to change,’ his old man adds, his hand on the door handle.

  ‘Oh, right!’ Tom’s voice is thick with sore throat and sarcasm. ‘Don’t forget to tell me when it gets serious, will you?’

  The little darkroom hasn’t been used in about three years. It needs airing and it’s grimy with dust and spider webs, but the tin roof hasn’t leaked and all the equipment seems to be in working order. As Tom checks the lights and bottles of chemicals, the paper and trays, his black mood shifts a little. Yeah, he’ll be able to get some thing happening here! Shouldn’t take long either.

  An hour later he’s printing off a few happy snaps, just to get himself into the swing of it all again. There are some shots of Nellie and Ned taken on the boat and a few of his uni mates that he’d forgotten about. He spends a bit of time working up a nice print of his mum hugging herself on the park bench, looking all bemused and above it all. Tom grins to himself, thinking how his brother is going to love the way his muscles show in this shot where he’s hauling the bucket of fish in.

  It’s good to feel his dormant skills come to life again. Working in black-and-white is a bit like getting behind the wheel of an old car with dodgy gears after a long spell of driving automatic. You wonder if you’ll remember how to do it. What are the tricks again? Then the brain boots up and your hands and eyes take over.

  Within a short space of time he’s got a set of prints drying on the lines he’s set up above the sink.

  Tom has been working for a couple of hours when there’s a sharp rap at the door.

  ‘Hey, Tom!’ his father’s voice booms. ‘You in there?’

  ‘Hang on,’ Tom says irritably, ‘I’m in the middle of something.’

  He’s working on a particularly nice shot of an empty fishing boat against some low cloud. The light on the water is beautiful. He is on the point of cropping out the pier, thinking he might be able to use it as background for the big montage he is putting together for his end of term assignment.

  ‘Tom! How long you going to be?’

  Shit. ‘What do you want?’ Tom calls back sourly. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘I have a visitor for you.’

  ‘Who?’ Tom sighs.

  ‘Alice,’ Luke yells back, ‘and we’re both waiting.’

  Tom quickly throws the unfinished print into the fixer and washes his hands.

  ‘Okay, I’m coming,’ he says, switching on the light.

  When Tom opens the door, she’s standing next to his father, biting her lip. He doesn’t quite know what to say. Every time he sees her he’s surprised. She has this old-fashioned loveliness and is quite unlike anyone else he has ever thought beautiful or attractive. Her hair is pulled back from her face and she’s in a long dark dress with some kind of red cardigan over the top that brings out the colour of her rosy cheeks. He notices that she’s also wearing shiny lipstick and . . . she looks nervous.

  ‘I brought these around,’ she says, holding out a small yellow package of negatives. ‘You said that it would be okay.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ Tom takes them, ‘that’s fine
.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it then,’ Luke says, edging away.

  ‘I’ll go, too,’ Alice says hurriedly. ‘I just wanted to drop them off . . . if that is still okay with you?’

  ‘Come in,’ Tom smiles at her, ‘and I’ll do some now.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t expect you to do them now . . . I don’t want to interrupt!’

  ‘But I’m not doing anything important.’

  ‘You’re not too busy?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘So, what’s here?’ He opens up her yellow envelope. There are probably about fifty large negatives inside. He pulls one out and holds it up against the light. ‘Wow!’ He turns to Alice with a smile, ‘These are from an old Brownie. The first ever mass-produced camera!’ He turns back to the neg. ‘These will be good, Alice!’ He peers into the image. ‘Do you know who they are of?’

  ‘Not really.’ Alice is looking around the darkroom curiously, running her finger along the bench. ‘I found them in my grandmother’s sideboard, behind a whole lot of stuff.’

  ‘Does she know you’ve got them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you been in a darkroom before?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘We’ve got to turn the light off,’ Tom explains, pulling on the red-light cord. ‘if you want to see these printed up.’

  ‘Okay.’

  He switches off the overhead light and they’re immersed in a dull red light. He pretends not to notice her surprise.

  Tom goes over to the enlarger and positions the first negative into the viewfinder. He peers down into the lenses and adjusts the focus. The image is of a woman in the street, all done up sixties-style in coat and hat and gloves. She is pushing a pram, and there is a little girl in a coat standing next to her, frowning into the camera.

  ‘Come have a look,’ Tom says. Alice moves closer and stands quietly behind him. ‘Do you know who this is?’

  ‘Well, I think that is my mother as a little girl.’ Alice says slowly. ‘And my aunt Marie in the pram.’

  ‘Okay.’ Tom tries not to show how revved up he is. She’s come. He wasn’t at all sure that she would. ‘And that would be your grandmother?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says softly.