“She’s someone’s daughter.”
“I’m the one with the money, too,” Allyson chipped in.
“Better get in the back then,” the driver said.
Transaction complete, the taxi tore away from the side of the road in a direction Flanagan hoped would at least get them to Fremantle. The driver dropped a few hints about how hard the old garden markets were to find and what an inconvenience it was on a Saturday for him to go out-of-the-way to pick them up.
Flanagan blinked back from a stupor to ask, “What’s your name, pal?”
“Mike. Mike Self.”
“Alright, Mike. If you can get me to Mosman Park without the guilts, I’ll give you another twenty, alright?”
The driver chuckled and nodded his dark, shaggy head, the hairs shot through with grey.
“I’ll do you one better,” the cabbie said. “I’ll do the same and take you to your hospital of choice. Which one’s it gonna be?”
Flanagan shook his head and passed out from the effort, blinking awake in Allyson’s soft cleavage only moments later.
“No hospitals,” he muttered. “And no police.”
He closed his eyes, and should’ve been shocked at how quickly he fell asleep.
*
THE JOSTLING OF the metal gurney in the corridor brought Flanagan back to hard reality. He was on his side with his shoes off, the Blundstones tucked inexplicably beneath his head. Like a fearful animal, he stared around wildly and spotted Allyson and the taxi driver sitting across from him on a three-seat bench.
He groaned and lifted his hand to wipe the taste of vomit from his mouth, a medical tag around his wrist. Old scars seemed faded by comparison beneath the white plastic sleeve.
“What happened?”
“You’re concussed,” the driver, Mike, said.
“What are you still doin’ here?”
The cabbie gestured to the girl. “Like you said, she’s somebody’s daughter. A good-looking one at that. And since she won’t cough with her name or her parents’ number, I’m stuck lookin’ after you.”
“Hardly,” Flanagan said.
“The doctor said you need to lie down,” Allyson said.
“Not exactly normal treatment for a concussion,” Flanagan said, all the pain in the world filling his side as he found a way to turn over and lever himself up, sock-covered feet dangling.
“It’s just your mate’s expert opinion,” Allyson said scornfully. “The doctor didn’t say anything about concussion.”
“Yeah, in the three minutes he dropped by,” Mike added.
“Look,” Flanagan said. “This is stupid. Where’s my phone?”
“In your boot.”
“Why don’t you program some numbers into that address book of yours?” the cabbie growled.
“It’s new,” Flanagan said. “Sorry.”
He lifted his t-shirt and grimaced at the lumpy bruises down his right-hand side. His whole ribcage was turning the colour of decomposing meat. He felt a wave of nausea just looking at it, and he gripped the metal rails of the hospital bed to keep back his gorge.
“That’s how you looked last time, just before you puked,” said Allyson.
Flanagan grimaced and swallowed.
“Right.”
He thumbed in Lord’s number from memory and waited while the phone rang. Allyson went quiet and ominous and Flanagan wondered suddenly if he should’ve waited till the girl was out of earshot. If she decided to run now, there was no way he’d be able to run her down.
Lord answered the phone.
“I’ve got her,” Flanagan said. “Come to Fremantle Hospital.”
SEVENTEEN
IT WAS A tense if not particularly tearful reunion. The ascetic halls of the hospital didn’t really lend themselves to sentimentality, and since Flanagan had since been readmitted to emergency to have his broken ribs bandaged, the confrontation between Allyson, who refused to leave his side, and her sister and parents, had to wait until Flanagan was ready to hop down from his perch and hobble out through the automatic doors into the 60s foyer, Mike Self the taxi driver hovering in the background.
Lord Tennyson took one look at Flanagan and glanced meaningfully at Darryl and Glenda Jacobsen, haggard and stooped the both of them, the old man bowed in the legs, bagged eyes reaching to meet the floor amid a face the colour of tomato soup. Clearly he recognised Flanagan, though dumbfounded wasn’t quite the word to explain his expression as he took in Flanagan’s obvious injuries and his own daughter standing there, hand demurely clutching her arm in the hospital waiting room.
Glenda Jacobsen was a heavyset woman still struggling to maintain her looks against all common sense. Emotion and the years had stripped her of what little good graces she still had, and she crossed the room to take her youngest in a back-breaking hug of fierce motherly proportions. Darryl followed like a dog on a leash, nodding to Flanagan.
“Appreciate all you’ve done,” he said.
“Don’t mention it,” Flanagan numbly replied.
Jacobsen had a look in his eyes he’d seen in his father’s face many times in their last years together. Flanagan was too chilled by the thought his father may have known what was coming to lose himself in the emotion of the present. Instead, he stood aside, and after Teneille gave him a gentle hug and a kiss on the cheek, it was just him and Lord standing separate from the clucking trio.
“You’ve been through the wringer.”
“Would you believe me if I told you it was Brett Hopkins did this?”
“Hoppy Hopkins? No way,” Tennyson remarked. “Man, that’s awesome.”
“Fuck off it is,” Flanagan winced. “It took him and half his team to take me down, for the record.”
“Flanagan. . . .”
“Alf, don’t shit me on this,” Flanagan said.
“Hey, Mick, that guy’s a machine, come on.” Lord glanced at the cab driver, around the room and then back.
“Uh, hi.”
“Lord Tennyson,” Flanagan said tiredly, “this is Mike Self.”
The pair shook hands.
“If you’ve got any money on you, we owe Mike sixty dollars . . . at least.”
Tennyson frowned as he opened his wallet and coughed up. Flanagan explained about getting robbed after Hopkins and his mates descended on him in the closing minutes of the grand final.
“So what happened? Saved by the siren?”
“No,” Flanagan replied. “A Welshman.”
*
THE OTHERS HEADED to Darryl Jacobsen’s car. Lord palmed the keys to Teneille’s sedan over to Flanagan, telling him to come home when the doctors gave the all-clear. Instead, Mike Self stepped in.
“Mozzie Park? I’ll drop you on my way home.”
“You sure?” Flanagan winced, indebted once again.
Lord, with his lawyer’s voice, couldn’t catch up with the more ecstatic members of his clan fast enough, Flanagan left feeling like a problem solved.
And just like that, Flanagan and the cabbie were alone in the fading light of the hospital waiting room. Additional fluoros flickered on as the day outside dwindled, the rain threatening all day now starting to fall. The warmth of the day seemed distant.
“You know a Jim Flanagan?” Mike asked. “I used to play cricket with him.”
“There’s loads of Flanagans.”
“Did you ever play?”
“In school, a little,” Flanagan conceded.
He glanced back at the desks where the nurses sat ensconced behind plastic safety glass. An Aboriginal woman staggered in from the street outside wielding a juice bottle full of solvents like it was a Molotov. Like a game of musical chairs, the waiting patients shuffled around, leaving the black woman slumped, mumbling, and alone.
“I’d better go back in,” Flanagan said.
“Alright. I’m gonna get a feed and I’ll come back.”
“Are you sure?”
“Don’t fucken ask again, sunshine. Just relax.”
U
neasily, Flanagan nodded. Then he turned, gestured to a nurse, and slowly hobbled through the automatic door.
*
MIKE SELF RETURNED that evening, but the stalwart nurses of the hard-faced hospital gave him bad news. Mr Flanagan would be staying overnight for observation.
“It’s just a precautionary measure,” the battle-weary young blonde said.
“I knew it was concussion,” the taxi driver said.
“Mike. . . .”
“Here, take one of these and give me a call when you need a ride home,” Mike said, handing over one of his company cards.
“Thanks, Mike,” Flanagan said tiredly. “I’ll probably sleep right through between now and then.”
“You gotta be careful, with that head of yours.”
“That’s been true my whole life.”
When Mike had gone, the nurse returned, the frenetic pace of the emergency ward slowing enough for her to wheel him up to one of the recovery rooms on the upper floors. The halls were busy with the first of Saturday night’s Cappuccino Strip casualties. It wasn’t exactly Lebanon, but inevitability was the same the world over.
“Did you want the police called?” the woman asked, breaking Flanagan out of his moribund reverie.
“The police? Why?”
“You’re pretty banged up. . . .”
“Oh, that,” Flanagan said. “No, I’ll be OK.”
“Yeah, you’ll be OK,” the nurse agreed. “What if you hadn’t been?”
“Trust me,” he said weakly. “You should’ve seen the other guy.”
“Yeah, right,” the nurse replied, chuckling despite herself as she pushed the gurney into a ward. “Out you get.”
She walked around the trolley and fussed with the racked curtains to reveal an empty bed with blue sheets. She took down a hospital gown from a peg and tossed it across the pillow.
“You’ll need to get that gear off and I’ll get it washed for you.”
Flanagan plucked at the shirt Allyson had retrieved.
“I’ll manage.”
The nurse left and he sat on the edge of the bed, finally succumbing to the weight of his leaden eyes to lean back, fully dressed except for his boots, almost immediately falling asleep once more.
EIGHTEEN
FLANAGAN STEPPED FROM the cab some twenty-four hours later as the sun was lowering over the tennis courts of Iona Presentation College, the tall evergreens casting the streets into long shadows thick as treacle in the gloomy crepuscular light. He thanked Mike again, promising to call some time soon about C-grade cricket, and then he walked the last few blocks to the Tennyson house in a painkiller fog.
Paranoia aside, concealing his home address still seemed like a sensible precaution. Flanagan didn’t know whether Carlo Franco would be willing to let their association end on the note it had. He and Hopkins were practically fucking, going by the vibe at the fight club, and even if he’d had the last laugh, the footballer had copped a taste of humiliation that wouldn’t be too frequent in his privileged life.
Lord stood in the doorway like he was expecting him to come down the drive by some prior arrangement. Instead, they shook hands as the out-patient tiredly hauled himself up the steps and then inside.
“Allyson’s here, I should warn you,” Lord said.
“How come?”
“Still sorting things with her folks. By the end of this one I think I might be representing Perth’s first ever parental divorce.”
“Which client?”
“Don’t ask,” he replied.
“She’s a smart kid,” Flanagan said. “Maybe too smart. She’s cocky.”
“She’s mad,” Lord said under his breath. “Anyway, we’re trying to keep the peace.”
They descended into the sunken living room. Teneille did the smiling and hugging thing again and quickly went to fetch Flanagan a beer.
“Can you drink this? Are you on any medication?”
“No, I’m grand,” he said, the phrase his Irish grandfather’s, a staunch Fenian and former publican and thus twice as ever fond of a beer.
Flanagan sat gingerly on the edge of one of the big plush armchairs and Lord took a position across, nursing his beer like a teetotaller passing time in awkward company. Teneille disappeared to put the kettle on for the sake of overkill and Allyson swanned into the room in a t-shirt and oversized shorts, doing a double-take to see Flanagan.
“Oh, they let you out, Flanagan.”
She came across like the prodigal daughter and even though Flanagan knew the family business in hugs, he remained sitting legs askew on the edge of the chair unmoving. He was rather surprised when she dropped to her knees on the carpet in front of him and looked up into his face with all the kindness of a veterinarian, or maybe a born-again Christian fresh from baptism. She reached up and gently smoothed back his hair.
“Are you OK?”
Flanagan laughed and stood, suppressing his wince, and moved across to the front windows like a Terminator surveying the angles of approach. Allyson followed, even shorter than him in bare feet though he was no tall man, her hand on the back of his left shoulder.
“I haven’t thanked you properly for coming after me.”
Flanagan turned, aware the girl’s voice was pitched low like they were in a private conversation. He glanced at Lord who only coughed and shifted uncomfortably in his mirrored posture on the other chair.
“That’s a bit rich, isn’t it?” he said, not too loudly.
The girl stood close and he could tell by every twitch and arch she was completely in control, her heart-shaped face and full lips mere tools in a deadly arsenal yet to fully mature. Flanagan backed away and she slowly wound her bare arms together, resting her hip against the low wide sill. He looked slowly down her figure.
“You’re wearing my shorts.”
“You’re in my room,” she smiled.
“I’ll move.”
“No,” Allyson replied hastily. “Teneille’s going to clear out the middle room for me, her studio. Last night was just . . . temporary.”
“I guess you have school tomorrow,” Flanagan said, unable to resist the smile that followed.
“I guess so,” she replied. Her expression abruptly shifted gears. “I’m glad you’re back. I need to go around to where I was staying and get my gear back. Drive me?”
Flanagan shook his head. “No.”
“Flanagan,” she practically hissed in that private voice. “It’s important. I have to get my things.”
“Honey, I just got out of hospital with broken ribs and my face feels like an overripe melon.”
“You look pretty good to me.”
“Well, I feel fucking awful.”
“Fine.”
She stormed out of the room, feet bare and hair loose. Flanagan’s eyes went from her rear end to Tennyson’s nervous, downcast expression.
“She’s unbelievable,” the lawyer said.
“She’s a piece of work, alright.”
“I’ll make sure she’s gone in a couple of days.”
“The same might be true for me,” Flanagan said. “I think I’ve bought a house.”
“A house?” Lord stood up, face bright and merry once again at the mention of something as ordinary as property acquisition. “Hey, that’s great. Whereabouts?”
“South Fremantle.”
“South Fremantle?” He screwed up his face. “You’re kidding me. Why?”
Flanagan shrugged. “The beach. The price.”
“OK. When do you find out?”
Flanagan looked around the room as it started to spin. He moved back to the armchair and sat properly this time.
“Hopefully soon. It’s an . . . accelerated purchase.”
He sipped his beer and Lord said, “You know you’re welcome here for as long as you need it. Teneille likes having you around. She said she always wanted a brother. And what you did for Darryl and Glenda, for all of us. . . .”
“Relax, Lord,” Flanagan said and closed his
eyes.
The front door slammed and he opened them again, seeing no one there.
“You’re welcome, anyway.”
Lord stood and moved slowly to the front windows, a perplexed expression on his face. He kept speaking, his back turned.
“We really appreciate it, Mick. I’m sorry you had to get hurt. You’ve got to tell me the full story, when you’re ready.”
Flanagan swallowed an answer as he heard Teneille’s car roar into life in the driveway. He stood and followed Lord to the window as the lawyer clutched his head in distress, but otherwise stood unmoving. The tail lights on the wet road glowed like cigarette ends as the sporty Honda pulled out and gracefully veered left.
Teneille jogged breathlessly into the room.
“The little bitch! She took my keys.”
Flanagan took a moment to breathe in the warm air, before exhaling regret to be abandoning himself to chaos once again. He glanced at Lord and the lawyer turned and nodded.
“I’ll take my car. We’ll split up.”
*
THE WET STREETS were quiet. It was only by fluke Flanagan saw the Civic disappear around the corner of Stirling Highway, a red light holding the other cars still. He turned the wheel hard, veering wildly back away from the direction he’d been going, spinning the wheels on the roads with their oily sheen to pursue the under-age driver.
He pulled a plastic phial of pills from the top pocket of his dark long-sleeve shirt, and after using two hands on the child-proof lock, steering with his knees, he unscrewed the cap with his left hand and shook a few of the contents out onto the seat, picking two of the small pills like a connoisseur and swallowing them dry. After a grimace, he slowed, the lights turning from red to green, and a few other drivers gave him the finger as he slewed across two lanes onto the busy highway in tight pursuit.
His two-toned brown car slowly accelerated, passing through the pack of Sunday drivers caught in the seasonal wetness on the Governor’s own road. Soon the brown Fairmont was looming behind the Honda like the proverbial turd that wouldn’t flush. Flanagan honked, just a glimpse of Allyson’s dark, occasionally blonde-streaked head checking her own rear-view mirror. When he thought he had her looking, he thumbed towards the curb. Entering Claremont, there were numerous commercial lots, small car parks fronting furniture stores and office complexes, fast food joints and offices for banks.
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