‘Like Primo says, it diverts straight to his message bank,’ Kath said after one more effort on her phone.
‘He arranged a night in town tonight, just the two of them,’ their mother offered. She was seated on the sofa, puzzled and upset. ‘It was to be a surprise for Stella. He arranged for Beth to stay the night here, with us ...’ Her voice trailed off into heavy silence.
‘He probably needs time to sort through what’s happened,’ Primo said. ‘Ad’s deluded if he’s expecting Stella to just take him back without a fight.’
‘You were just starting school, Primo,’ their mother said, ‘when the last of the affairs came to light. But they were different times.’
As he watched her, Primo saw his mother’s eyes flutter. She drew a long laborious breath. ‘For better or worse, I’m cut from the old cloth. My generation didn’t walk away. We ought to have, but we didn’t. We stayed and stayed, despite the humiliation, the shattered trust.’
From behind Primo, Kath called, ‘Mum. Don’t do this to yourself, please.’
On the sofa, the ageing woman pressed the fingertips of both hands together and leaned forward, as though straining to catch a whispered conversation just beyond her hearing.
Primo stood, his arms by his sides, looking on disconsolately, silently daring his mother to continue.
‘She’s doing the right thing, I know that,’ his mother finally said. ‘Unless Stella takes a stand now, Adrian will walk all over her for the rest of her life.’
Primo only became aware that Kath had moved to stand next to him when he felt her head nuzzle against his right shoulder. Primo squared his shoulders to shake Kath off, but she barely noticed.
‘What your brother did was wrong,’ their mother said. ‘For Stella. For Beth. For the woman concerned. For us.’ She was on her feet now, and marching past her startled children and into the kitchen. ‘There’s good food in the oven,’ she said. ‘God help me if I’m going to let it go to waste.’
As Primo and his sister watched, their mother worked in a kind of focused frenzy gathering cutlery, pulling plates from drawers, and dragging glasses from cupboards.
She stopped only when Kath broke from Primo and wrapped her in a hug from behind, clutching the older woman’s arms to her chest and holding her until the room filled with a silence so intense it pummelled Primo in the chest like a barrage of clenched fists.
‘She came here,’ his mother announced, shaking herself free of her daughter’s hold. ‘She came here, to my house, to my home, asking after Adrian. That other woman.’
‘Oh, Mum,’ Kath said. ‘No.’
A hard lump dropped in Primo’s belly. Ari’s sister had come to the house?
‘Oh, Mum, yes,’ his mother went on. ‘Oh, yes. She came here screaming that she had to see your brother. But of course he wouldn’t go into the front yard to see her. And your father could hear all the commotion, the yelling, and Adrian cursing and threatening to do her and himself harm.’
‘Oh, Mum!’
‘Thank God your father didn’t understand any of it. He thought someone had the TV on too loud. I thought she was going to come bursting through the front door.’
Primo opened his mouth to say something, but his sister got in first.
‘But how did she know to come here?’ Kath’s question came with an intake of breath. ‘When did this happen?’
‘Stella told her where to find your brother, obviously. This poor woman stood yelling outside Adrian’s place, with Beth and Stella inside. Can you imagine it? Little Beth hearing this woman screeching and ranting, demanding that Adrian see her. And then she came here looking for him.’
For a few long moments no one seemed able to find words. Finally Kath asked, ‘You didn’t open the door, Mum? You didn’t go out, did you?’
Primo anticipated his mother’s answer by letting out a short sigh.
‘I’ve been that poor woman,’ he heard his mother say. ‘That was me standing in the front yard yelling and feeling pathetic and betrayed, so yes, I went outside.’ Primo looked up and caught her eye. ‘We just sort of looked at each other,’ she said.
Primo swallowed and held his mother’s steady gaze.
‘Adrian bolted for the back door the moment he saw me open the front one,’ his mother went on. ‘No real surprise there. But that woman just stopped all her ranting when I stepped out, and stared hard at me as if she was trying to work out what sort of mother has a son who drops a dead dog on a woman’s doorstep.’ She swallowed hard. ‘She said there was a dead dog involved.’
She waved a hand in the air as if she would conjure words to explain what she’d been told, what she’d seen, what she’d felt.
‘What else did she say? What did she want?’ Even as he asked the questions Primo realised his tone was panicky so he paused to catch a breath and added, ‘She didn’t come in, did she?’
His mother shook her head, the fingertips of her left hand rubbing her temple in rapid little pokes.
The enormity of what he’d escaped dawned on Primo. What if he’d been home and gone to the door?
That day with Tone outside the house, Crystal would have seen him talking to Ari. If he had been home and gone to the door instead of his mother, Crystal would doubtless have recognised him, put the puzzle together.
Primo felt weak at the knees, but steadied himself against the table before either woman noticed.
‘She looked sad,’ his mother said suddenly. ‘I know that look. Not just angry, but sad, like Adrian had disappointed rather than betrayed her. The same look Stella has.’
As Kath led their mother to a chair Primo fetched a glass of water. She waved it away, saying, ‘She wanted to know why Adrian had left a dead dog on her doorstep. That’s what she kept asking, over and over. I don’t understand.’
Primo felt his mother’s fingers close about his wrist. ‘Why would Adrian do that?’ she asked. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’
Fear rose like a thick ooze in Primo’s belly, coating his entrails, burning his throat.
‘She was going to wreck –’ Primo started, ready to offer up an excuse for what he’d done.
Kath interrupted, ‘What do you mean a dead dog?’ and the moment passed.
Primo pressed his lips into a tight line and stared at his mother.
‘Adrian won’t say,’ his mother said quietly. ‘He just let the woman stand in our driveway and call out the question over and over again, until I went out there and she left. But not before the neighbours got their fill.’
She paused and a tired smile creased her face. ‘It was like old times again. Like when I’d lock your father out and he’d stand there calling out my name and promising unending loyalty until I was forced to let him back into the house by the shame of the whole street listening in.’
‘Mum, don’t talk like that,’ Kath said and looked at Primo pleadingly.
Primo said nothing.
‘Don’t do this to yourself, Mum, please,’ Kath said.
‘Stella is a good mother,’ said their mother. ‘She’s stronger and smarter than I ever was. Like you, Kath. That’s why you had to get out. The men in this family …’
Kath bent down and wrapped her mother’s head in a hug, muffling the rest of the sentence, while Primo felt the fear well up.
‘It’s okay, Mum,’ Kath said.
She turned her eyes toward Primo, pleading for reassurance that everything would be okay. Primo knew he couldn’t give it.
He left the room. Moments later, he was rummaging in his mother’s purse for the keys to her car, and before anyone could bar his way, he was reversing out of the driveway. Primo dialled Adrian’s number as he turned into the street.
The dial tone rang out to silence.
Primo had a sense that Adrian would go to the dead dog house now that Stella had spurned him completely, now that his plan to win her back by scaring the other woman away seemed to have failed. Adrian was desperate, vengeful.
It made sense to Primo at least. Pe
rfect sense.
Adrian didn’t like to lose at anything. He and Santo both. Adrian would not lose his family quietly.
Primo gripped the wheel and accelerated, the big car responding quickly, effortlessly. He had been a door knock away from being exposed. The thought made him want to dry retch.
When he came into view of the house, Primo was surprised not to find Adrian’s car there. He pulled up into almost the same spot where Tone had parked the hearse the afternoon they had run into Ari.
Ari. The thought of the much bigger man made Primo tense. He prayed that Ari was still in the dark over the dead dog, that Ari still thought it had to do with his drug dealing, with someone trying to intimidate him out of that territory. But now that Ari’s sister had come to the house he couldn’t be too confident about anything, least of all what Ari knew.
Primo crossed the road to the house and stood at the gate.
The short driveway was empty. The house seemed closed up, windows shut, curtains drawn. Primo looked up and down the street.
No, he thought, this was not the upmarket part of Fitzroy. No trendy ‘Free Tibet’ or ‘Save the whale’ banners in this street. No poky converted warehouses selling phoney bongs and realistic-looking spiritual gemstones here. Everything was purely utilitarian, from the plastic and metal bus shelter, to the bedraggled canvas awning hanging limply over the kindergarten sandpit across the road from Ari’s place.
This was not a place for discussions and compromises.
Adrian had to be here somewhere, he told himself. He had nothing left to lose.
Tentatively, Primo made his way to the veranda, listening hard for the sound of voices from inside the house that might betray what was going on behind closed doors.
But there was no sound. The house was wrapped in silence.
Primo had no real idea how long he stood there for, but it was long enough to bring a neighbour to the gate.
‘You right there, mate?’ A man’s voice, curious.
Primo turned and saw the man standing just inside his own front gate, eyes narrowed, taking in features he could remember later when it might be important. The man was short and stocky, with a halo of dark hair. His face was pinched and leathery, the neck of his T-shirt too tight, accentuating his large ears.
‘Can I help you, mate?’ the man asked, sticking his chin out and cocking his head. He had come around the low fence and was standing an arm’s length away.
Primo felt the fear seep into his bones.
‘What do you want?’ the man asked directly.
Primo found the voice to utter, ‘I was looking for someone. Must have got the wrong house.’
As he stepped past, the man knocked him gently but firmly with his left shoulder, making Primo sidestep awkwardly.
‘Need to be careful about the mistakes you make, mate,’ the man said, a threat in his voice. ‘Can’t just go onto people’s property for no good reason. So, who exactly are you looking for?’
Primo snapped, ‘My brother. I thought this was the address he gave me, but I guess I got it wrong.’
The man stared hard at Primo.
‘What’s your brother’s name?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Maybe I know him. Could be a neighbour.’
The man’s close-fisted stance told Primo he wasn’t trying to be helpful.
‘Tone,’ Primo replied after a fraction too long. ‘Tony. Tone.’
The man stepped forward, and one hand went out and pushed Primo hard in the chest, sending him backward, feet struggling to keep their hold.
‘I’ve told that good-for-nothing lout to tell his junkie mates not to come hanging round here looking to score,’ he threatened. ‘What more do I have to say before you scumbags understand, eh?’
The man was looming large in Primo’s face, his eyes angry and his breathing raspy.
‘You got it all wrong,’ Primo started, but the furious neighbour was lifting an open hand, pulling it back across his shoulders to carry his full weight upon Primo’s head. Primo managed to turn himself out of the man’s grip and the blow glanced off his ear, but it was enough to sting savagely.
‘You tell your mate Ari that I’m not going to put up with your kind turning up here at every hour of the bloody day, turning the street into a drug alley,’ the man spat. ‘I’ve had a gutful of you lot.’
‘Don’t get involved, honey, please.’ A woman’s plaintive voice at the man’s back. ‘Please, you don’t know what these people are capable of.’
Primo didn’t see the woman. He was cowering, hiding his face, shying away from the anticipated blows and the accusation.
‘They’re dirty bastards, the lot of them!’ the man shouted, and landed three hard jabs in quick succession on Primo’s torso. Primo dropped to one knee and a kick caught him in the ribs. He let out a sharp cry of pain.
‘Filthy druggie bastard!’
When Primo looked up, he was alone. His attacker was being led into his own front yard, the woman’s arms around his shoulders almost protectively. The man was cursing loudly, indistinct words punctuated with the woman’s soothing voice.
As Primo got gingerly to his feet, the mobile in his pocket vibrated.
‘I’m okay,’ he stammered after listening to his sister demand to know where he’d got to.
‘Come home, Primo. Adrian’s been here almost since you stormed out,’ his sister said. ‘If you’d answered your phone you would have known that. Come home.’
‘Thought you didn’t want your old lady to know about the door?’ Tone said as he and Primo carried the repaired door from the hearse to the garage the next Saturday morning.
Primo spied his mother looking on in silence from the back door. ‘She’s paying for the repair,’ he said.
Tone smiled. ‘See, I told you. You should’ve told her up front, and then there wouldn’t have been any of this secrecy crap.’
Primo didn’t answer.
Tone nodded to the older woman and she lifted a hand in greeting then went inside.
‘I can’t stop thinking about the dog, Tone,’ Primo said suddenly.
‘You gotta let it go, mate. Like that saying says, you know, “let sleeping dogs lie”, right?’
Primo looked at Tone and shook his head. ‘Hard to do, Tone,’ he said. ‘I keep thinking about those kids, and how they could of found it and I think about what if it had been Beth.’
Putting his end of the door down, Tone straightened and looked hard at Primo. ‘Look, Prims,’ he began. ‘We did your brother a favour. It isn’t the best thing we’ve ever done, but hey, people have done worse, true? So, stop being such a girl about it. Let go of the dog, Prims.’
‘Ari’s sister came here. She came and stood in the front yard and went on about the dog,’ Primo continued. ‘’Course Ad didn’t bother coming out to face her. He left that to Mum.’
Tone whistled, then blurted, ‘Do you think she’s told Ari?’
Primo shrugged. ‘Doubt it. I see the way Ari struts about at work. No, if he knew, he would of come crashing through the front door.’
Tone gave a troubled laugh. Primo echoed it, uncertainly.
‘And you’ve told Ad about Ari, right?’ Tone asked.
‘Tried to, but Ad’s not listening,’ Primo said. He looked at the door leaning against the Fiat, waiting to be reattached.
‘We never should of put the dog there, Tone,’ he said. ‘I never should of gone through with such a stupid idea.’ He looked up at his mate. ‘It’s my fault. Ari being after Ad. Mum having to come face-to-face with Ari’s sister. The car. The shit with Maddie.’
‘Yeah, it was, eh. Your fault, Prims.’
Primo scowled. ‘Thanks.’
‘Anytime,’ Tone said and motioned that they should get back to work.
Primo leaned his weight into the door so that Tone could insert the first pin. It lined up perfectly.
‘My cousin is good or what!’ Tone chirped. ‘Brilliance runs in the family, obviously.’
‘I went to the house agai
n. Thought Ad would be there,’ Primo said, ignoring Tone’s boast. ‘Guess he doesn’t have the balls to do that, either.’
‘Forget Ad being there or not,’ Tone said. ‘If Ari had seen you hanging around after he’s already warned you away, how would you’ve explained it?’
‘I thought maybe, after he let Mum take the brunt of Crystal’s anger, Ad would have had enough shame to actually go do something about it,’ Primo shouted at Tone. He punched the air. ‘But I was wrong, again. ’Cause he’s a coward and a cheat. Like the old man. He hid behind Mum. He let Mum wear it.’
Tone shook his head.
‘I don’t know what I would of done if Ad had been there,’ Primo said. ‘Turns out he was at the Nursing Home, harassing the old man. The supervisor called Mum to tell her Ad had been in to see Dad, and that Dad became really agitated, raising his voice, and crying. She said Dad kept asking why this man had come to yell at him. Seems Ad was getting stuck into Dad for something and Dad just saw this guy standing over him yelling and pointing and whatever.’
Primo drew a breath. ‘And I’ve told Maddie about the dog.’
‘Yeah, of course you did! Why not, eh? Good move that. Real smart. Are you out of your mind?’ Tone propped the door with the top of his foot and looked at Primo.
‘I took her to Dad’s workshop,’ Primo said. ‘I wanted to sell off all his old gear, use the money to go OS with her.’
Tone frowned. ‘I guess she was flattered. Know I would be, if someone sold off family stuff behind their backs just to take a holiday with me. So I guess you’ll go with her now, then?’
‘No,’ Primo answered. ‘I can’t sell the stuff. It was a pretty stupid idea anyway, when I think about it.’
‘You collecting stupid ideas like they’re gold medals, Prim,’ Tone said.
‘Maddie wants time out,’ Primo said slowly. He pursed his lips. ‘We had a good thing going though, for a little while.’
‘Yeah, you did,’ Tone said, ‘despite the fact that you’re too young for her, too ugly, and too stubborn. I guess, apart from that, it was a perfect match.’
‘Maybe when she gets back from Europe we can see how things are between us,’ Primo said, thinking out loud. ‘It’s not completely impossible we could get back together, eh?’
Dead Dog in the Still of the Night Page 11