Hard Light- Infamous

by Warren Hately

  “Hey.”

  “Hey yourself, arsehole. Where have you been?”

  “I love how in our family we don’t make nice just for the sake of getting along.”

  Nuala sucked in a deep breath and straightened. Her glossy black hair the same colour as his almost reached her jaw, an improvement on the bulimia chic she’d cultivated last time he was in town. Beneath the long sweater she wore black tights and clogs soon revealed as velvet Birkenstocks. She disappeared the cup on an inside ledge and walked forward, extending her arms just like the good sister she imagined.

  “I’m sorry,” Nuala mumbled. “It’s good to see you. We were worried.”

  Flanagan consented to the hug as well as he was able. She led him inside and he could finally drop the bag and put both hands in the pockets of his mid-length coat. A skinny girl stretched out reading an art book on the long couch beneath the wood staircase. She glanced at Nuala as if for a translation, no attempt to look Flanagan in the eye.

  “Who’s ‘we’?” he asked.

  Nuala said something in rapidfire German and the goggle-eyed woman made her face blank as an etch-a-sketch and swanned out of the room. Nuala gestured at the couch as if her lover had never been there.

  “Have a seat. The kettle’s warm.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “OK.”

  They settled together at either end of the lounge. Nuala had her mug again and clamped two hands around it like the drink might start spouting expletives any minute. Hazel eyes nervously found the dank, expensive carpet and lifted to him again.

  “You’ve heard about dad, then?”

  “Yeah. A friend of mine was the executor. I guess you disappointed dad when you quit your law degree.”

  Nuala smiled stiffly and Flanagan couldn’t help marvel at the wrinkles and pallid skin in the sister he’d once thought so beautiful. With five years it seemed she’d become more fine-boned. Her features were already resolving into the handsome, but middle-aged woman she’d soon become.

  “It didn’t take much to disappoint Plunkett. You know that, Mick.”

  “Were you speaking to him, before he died?”

  “I was in Berlin when it happened. I didn’t have a clue. Mum had been over and stayed with us,” she said, a slight tremor on the group pronoun. “After she left him. You heard about that too, I hope?”

  “The bloke who sold the house was good enough to fill me in.”

  “Sorry Mick, that’s horrible.”

  “Jesus Nee, you know she was always fucking screaming about leaving. It’s not exactly a surprise. Maybe just how long it took her.”

  The girlfriend swept through the room and Flanagan thought about putting his sister at ease then and there, asking to be introduced. But that would be too easy. Instead, he remained – he imagined, sullen-looking – on the enfantalising couch and let them snap off phrases from old Commando comics before the door slammed and the redhead was gone.

  “Sorry,” Nuala said.

  “Uncle Ted said you’re fucking some chick. Is that her?”

  “Michael,” Nuala said, her expressive nostrils flaring like he remembered so well. “This is the twenty-first century, thank you.”

  “Exactly. We’re all just horny little consumers.”

  “I could say more about that, but frankly it would probably go over your head,” his sister snapped. “How about you explain where you’ve been for the past five years?”

  “I’ve been working for the government,” he said quietly. “I can’t talk about it.”

  “That’s fucking rubbish, Mick, and you know it,” Nuala said. “ASIO turned up just before mum and dad split, asking around after you. Mum played the sympathy card and one of the men told her you’d vanished.”

  “I went into business for myself.”

  Nuala regarded him coldly for a moment. “Where did you do this, pray tell?”

  “Thailand. Moresby. Indonesia.”

  “I don’t even want to know what that means,” his sister said, tired with him already, it seemed. “Mum was proud you were in a good government job. I don’t think she understood they hadn’t hired you for your people skills.”

  “Actually, that’s exactly why they hired me. The rest came later.”

  Flanagan bit down hard, wondering what you called it when nostalgia made you feel sick. Naustalgea? He managed to keep his mouth shut for once, standing quick as a flash and stalking for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  He was strong enough not to fight it, but the fragile concern in her voice stopped him dead. He turned like an automaton to show red eyes brimming with tears.

  “Just tell me where mum is, for fuck’s sake.”

  Nuala held the contact for as long as she was able, which wasn’t long. Then she gave him the number of a house in Hilton. Flanagan nodded, unable to thank her, and turned to go.

  “And Mick,” she stuttered. “Go easy on her. She thinks maybe you’re dead.”

  “Don’t call her before I get there.”

  Nuala inclined her head. “And Mick . . . Her name . . . my lover’s name is Karen. I’m moving to Berlin to be with her. To paint.”

  Flanagan sniffed through one nostril and hit the gate with the palm of his hand before tearing it open and storming up the footpath.

  “Karen,” he said with the long German a. “Fucking brilliant.”

  SIX

  INSTEAD OF TUMBLEWEEDS, loose sheets from the local paper blew forlornly down the curve of Oldham Crescent. Knee-high grass adorned the curb, green still before the inevitable heat of summer. His mother’s house was a two-bedroom weatherboard dog-box with a muscle car parked in the oil-stained drive, another one up on cinder blocks out front.

  His mother had never been one for cars or even driving. Flanagan could only assume there was a man – a man he didn’t feel ready to meet. The only thing more astonishing than his queasy reaction was the fact it was the first time he’d even considered it.

  The mail untouched in the letterbox confirmed she’d kept the Flanagan name along with whatever proceeds survived his father’s death. Judging by the property, not much. It was conceivable the old man had left a mountain of debt the faded brick-and-tile in Midland could barely dent. Viewed in that light, Flanagan was glad he wasn’t a beneficiary.

  The best and worst things he could do remained his easiest option. After watching for a minute more, daring his mother to make an appearance, he changed gears in the Fairmont and chugged away down the street.

  “Another time, maybe.”

  It was his day for cruising slowly past women’s houses and nursing regrets.

  Testing his shave and thinking about dinner with the Tennysons, Flanagan found himself in Fremantle and then down near Wray Avenue again; and he slowed at the Italian grocers, shunted to the right and chinked the fender of the Fairmont on the steep curve going up Manning and past barmaid Tess’s house. In the daylight, the street’s only two-storey structure looked just like the inviting student home it was, a riot of rhododendron and Banksia in the front garden, a few girlie bikes chained to the front railing, large pieces of underwear drying on the second floor balcony marring the enticing views within and without.

  Flanagan knew there was only so much rejection the girl could probably bear, so he considered it a favour when he swung the Fairmont around in an awkward three-point turn. He drove back up through Wray Avenue’s narrow rat run of buses, parked cars and pedestrians, honked a girl on a bike for wobbling both her vehicle and her delicious tail end, and then at Hampton Road swung around and drove for where the city pool was, last time he hit Freo.

  For a few dollars he had a swim and a shower. Both left him grinning with exuberant fatigue. A packet of six disposable razors he half-exhausted in the attempt to make himself a new man. He washed the soap down the sink and junked the plastic, scrubbing his face until the colour returned, a faint shadow on his face where in a few hours the stubble would return. It couldn’t be helped.
The plague, the plague.

  From the car, he’d brought a clean midnight blue button-up shirt, the sleeves long, but rolled back to the elbow and going well enough with the jacket and dark jeans for him to look respectable. His wet hair hung blackly either side of his forehead and Flanagan wondered whether now was the time to get it cut or drift into a poor man’s Keanu Reeves impersonation.

  To straighten his nerves, he parked at the back of the Whale & Tanker, not really appreciating the new grey paint job. He ordered a tall schooner of Harp and sat in the beer garden and read one of the free papers, tutting over typos and the music reviews he felt a million miles away from understanding or giving a shit about. The fine day let radiant sunshine pour like a fountain, like the perfect beer, down across the brick exit of the landmark hotel; and once the paper was finished, Flanagan found himself in possession of a second and then a third drink, malodorously watching the girls go by as he smoked cigarettes and reflected back on the differences between Fremantle and Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Jakarta, Dili.

  Perhaps it was the beer, but he missed the heat.

  Sitting in a public bar, that wasn’t all – he missed the sense of menace, the subtle lawlessness permeating Asian life away from the ever-bribable police. A couple of cocky young toughs swaggered into the dining area, intent from the first drop on giving the sour-faced waitress a hard time. Flanagan only watched, dark blue eyes glowing over the rim of his glass. The sudden urge to stand and smash something or somebody was palpable enough he thought he might just do the Solo Man thing with the glass. Only slightly woozy, he walked to the cigarette machine and bought another pouch of tobacco, looking sidelong through the beer fug at the closest of the three men and waiting till he had all their attention and then staring hard and grinning, a half-drunk idiot, and yet unable to resist the pissing contest to show who was top dog. One of the young blokes muttered something about the football and they turned as one and stared steadfastly back down the polished dark wood hall to the front of the hotel. The light was opalescent. If it wasn’t for the rising sense of his own pathos, Flanagan thought he’d never leave.

  But the pub had a tasteful bottle shop he nearly totalled trying to buy a half-dozen long-neck beers. He tucked the cardboard box under his arm as he walked, cocky now himself, back in the direction of the Fairmont, unsurprised and stumped at the same time to see a parking ticket under the wiper.

  *

  HE WAS STILL on time to Lord and Teneille’s place. Sobriety inverse to his neatened appearance, Flanagan waltzed to the front door, ducking under the lagging foliage to ring the doorbell and wait. Tennyson himself quickly appeared, a New Age hug executed faster than an Afghan militia, Flanagan stuffing the beers like an unwanted baby into the tall lawyer’s arms.

  “Just hang onto them a minute, and remember I never asked you,” Lord muttered.

  “Fuck. Married bliss.”

  Lord drew Flanagan down through the familiar lush entrance and into the sunken living room, the floor so soft it reminded him how much he’d like a sleep.

  Teneille stood at the bottom of the step. She was a good-looking woman with lightened, shoulder-length blonde hair and not as much jewellery or make-up as he expected. Her blue eyes flashed along with her smile and Flanagan had to utter a word of caution to himself as he met her gaze and felt his inner Lothario waken and dust off his feathered hat.

  “Teneille, this is Mick,” Tennyson said rather helplessly. “Mick, my wife.”

  “Your wife Teneille. Hi Teneille.”

  They shook hands and Flanagan was mildly surprised when she hugged him, nearly impaling herself on the corner of the half-carton in his arms.

  “I’ve always wanted to meet more of Fred’s old friends,” Teneille said. “Fred always told me you were working over east, Mick. Some government job?”

  She scanned him up and down, her look a soft question mark.

  “Yeah, well I haven’t kept in touch,” Flanagan offered. “My fault, really.”

  “You’ve just come back, I understand?”

  “Mick came around the other day as you know, honey,” Lord said.

  “Yeah, I’m, uh, sorry about the run-in with your old man. I guess I didn’t know the score. I come on like a herd of elephants, sometimes.”

  “So I hear,” Teneille grinned. “You’re quite the young Elvis, aren’t you? Come in and help me pour Fred one of those beers he’s so evidently craving.”

  She shot her husband a smile in which Flanagan could read all the highs and lows as well as their total commitment to each other. Flanagan tried to look like he wasn’t checking out Teneille’s rear end – clad in pale designer jeans worn thin, hundred-dollar sandals on her feet – as he followed her into the country-style kitchen to fetch some glassware.

  “Fred says he told you about this business with my sister.”

  Flanagan glanced around and realised Lord was nowhere to be seen. A set-up. He turned back to Teneille and slowly removed his jacket, hanging the leather over the back of one of the tall stools surrounding the breakfast bar like slips around a keeper. He used a bare hand to unscrew one of the bottles, ignoring the indentation in his palm as he slowly poured.

  “My previous work involved investigations of a kind that can be pretty easily ported over into a civilian context, Teneille.”

  He smiled slightly to himself as her eyes widened, surprised to see the monkey talk so good. She pushed a third glass forward and he emptied the Midstrength, still smiling.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your sister. Allyson, isn’t it?” he said. “I thought it was the least I could do after almost giving your dad a heart attack, to try and get some sense of where she was at and have a word to the young guy she’s seeing.”

  Teneille took the beer and slowly sipped off the head, tongue appearing to disperse a fine line of foam.

  “My sister’s a little shit, but I love her, Mick. I’m really not sure what kind of trouble she’s getting herself in. The one thing I do know is my parents are spending the kind of money we never had when I was growing up to put her through one of Perth’s best schools. I don’t know if I really believe in such things, but if there’s an opportunity they’re buying her here, I don’t want to see it screwed up just because she’s on a lark,” Teneille said.

  “When I was Allyson’s age, all I wanted to do was throw it in and run away,” she said. “There were these boys on the bus, you know, with Mohawks and ripped jeans and things. I just wanted to go away with them and have adventures, be free, not care about anything else, even my parents. For one reason or another though I was a good girl. I was too afraid, I think, of my mother’s disapproval. All I ever did was talk to those boys when I saw them, and then one day they weren’t there any more . . . and I had exams.”

  She laughed quickly and said, “Life’s cruel, especially for young people. I know that’s a ridiculous thing to say when you look at the lives older people have, and the things older generations have gone through. I look at you and I can tell you’ve got a few stories. All I ask is you go easy on Allyson. She’s a crazy kid. I don’t know if it’s just hormones and her age or what. These guys she’s around look like they have money and so there’s probably drugs. We want her out of it. It’s so kind of you to offer your help. I’m still not . . . not really sure what it is you’ll do. If you can just give us the chance to at least speak with her, maybe even. . . .”

  Teneille gestured helplessly and Flanagan offered, “Deprogram?”

  “Yes, deprogram her, I guess that’s it.”

  “Alright.”

  He drank his beer and Teneille passed him a bottle opener and he cracked another, refilling for them both. Teneille lifted her glass and made for a toast and Flanagan eased his hip against the bench and allowed her the silly gesture, the glasses clinking perhaps the signal for Lord to appear with a small manila folder and a legal notepad.

  “I’ll get the dinner on,” his wife said.

  “Come through, come through,” Lord smiled, lead
ing the way past the kitchen to the enclosed back veranda, set high above an impossibly green and fern-furnished back yard, a marble colonnade with a bird bath, some stone nymphs tastefully weathered by an auto-lathe, and out the back a green metal archway supporting a wash of cream-coloured roses.

  The old porch was varnished to within an inch of its life, mummified and prepared for the archaeologists of 3000AD and currently serving as the lawyer’s glassed-in home office. A tasteful series of lamps slowly ascending in size lit the right side of the room, and in front of a leather-bound desk with a laptop, two stuffed leather couches invited the recline of well-padded rear ends.

  Tennyson dropped a couple of photographs on the table. As Flanagan studied them discreetly, he flicked his gaze to his old friend.

  “Your wife seems surprisingly . . . into what I offered.”

  “That strike you as strange?” He gave a self-deprecatory laugh and looked away. “I guess Teneille’s heard a few stories about you over the years. I’ve been kind, she’s mostly heard only the nice things, or at least the ones where you came out on top.”

  “Me? Or we?”

  “Jesus, Mick, I never had your balls, you know that. Look around.”

  He gestured and smiled again, patently embarrassed by the nascent wealth.

  “I took the safe path, I guess. I was jealous of you, not just because the government picked you up. God knows, I probably could’ve got a job with ASIC or someone if I’d wanted, once I finished law school. We don’t all have to go in to personal injury law, you know.”

  He stuttered a laugh and drank some beer and went on.

  “Anyway, you won’t ever hear me say it again, and if you fuck this up then you definitely won’t, but I guess Teneille’s come to think of you as, you know, one of my trusted friends. Someone I can look up to. Maybe even . . . God knows why . . . maybe one I can rely on.”