Can You Keep a Secret?

by Caroline Overington

  ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘wait up. Who’s Jack?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘Your father still lives here?’

  ‘I guess he must. I don’t really make a point of keeping up with what he’s doing.’

  Of course they ran straight into him, because that’s what happens, isn’t it? People travel all the way to Europe and meet somebody who lives across the street. Caitlin had tried to avoid it, by quickly designing an itinerary that would take them past her old school at Horseshoe Bay, by her childhood home, over to the rock wallabies and back to the pier. She rented a Moke with a pop-out windshield from the man who owned Rent-a-Moke at the end of the pier, so they could get that all done, and Caitlin had just pulled up in the leaf litter outside a pink cottage when Jack stepped out onto the porch, wearing loose yellow underpants and nothing else. He looked to Colby to be about sixty. He was in fact fifty but in bad shape: his legs were tanned like an old leather couch; his knees were shot and his beard was overgrown and grey, except for the yellow nicotine stains around his mouth.

  Caitlin got out of the Moke and stood in the leaf litter, swatting flies. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I could ask you the same question.’ Jack was so freshly out of the house that the long strips of coloured vinyl that hung in the doorway were still resting on his shoulders. He cupped his hands around a match, and lit a cigarette.

  ‘You better not be stealing Mum’s things,’ Caitlin said, striding towards him.

  ‘What would I steal? It’s all junk.’

  Colby was still seated in the Moke, unsure what to do. Caitlin hadn’t said, ‘Come on, let’s meet Dad,’ or anything like that. He put his hands up on the roll bar, lifted himself out of the vinyl seat and walked up to the timber porch.

  ‘Hello,’ he said, extending a hand to Jack. ‘I’m Lachlan Colbert – Colby – I’m a friend of Caitlin. She’s showing me around.’

  Jack did not take Colby’s hand. He looked at him and said, ‘You’re a Yank.’

  ‘Ha! Right! From New York City, yes!’ said Colby.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those Septics that Trevor took out on the boat last year?’

  ‘Ah, I’m not sure. We went out on a tour with Trevor Nesbit, yes.’

  ‘Well, he saw you coming, didn’t he? He’s been dining out on that story for a year.’

  ‘Right,’ said Colby. ‘Well, we think we got good value.’

  Jack turned to Caitlin. ‘Hear that, love? He thinks you’re good value.’

  ‘Shut up,’ said Caitlin.

  ‘Why are you here, anyway?’ Jack asked. ‘I thought you hated this place. Never coming back. That’s what you said.’

  ‘I’m showing my friend around. The actual question is, what are you doing here? This isn’t your house.’

  ‘It is now.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Caitlin, her voice rising. ‘This is Department of Housing. They’re going to do this up and find new people for it. You can’t just take it over. What’s wrong with your own place?’

  ‘Council condemned it.’

  ‘Did you ever think to cut the grass? Get rid of some of that junk you collect?’

  ‘It wasn’t junk.’

  ‘So, you just think you can move in here? On Mum’s lease?’

  ‘It’s not her lease. She’s given it up. And it’s not your business, anyway,’ said Jack. He’d been smoking, but now licked his fingers, snuffed the end of the cigarette and pocketed what remained. He went back through the vinyl strips into the kitchen and Caitlin followed.

  Colby hesitated, and then he followed too.

  ‘I came here to show Colby. I thought the place was empty.’

  ‘Well, it’s not. But since you’re here, there’s a stack of mail for your mother on the kitchen bench. And if you’re planning on making your boyfriend a cup of tea, you can make one for me as well.’

  There would be no tea. There was no milk in the fridge, and the only saucepan was already burnt black on the stove. Colby looked around, amazed: three cats sat on the benchtop, their tails swishing.

  ‘When was the last time you cleaned in here?’ Caitlin lifted and sniffed a tin of Carnation milk. Someone had hammered a hole through the lid.

  ‘I don’t clean, and there’s your mother’s mail.’ Jack gestured to the stack of envelopes on the bench. He pushed open the fly-screen door, and went down the wooden steps into the overgrown backyard.

  ‘Ignore him,’ Caitlin said.

  ‘I’d only be returning the favour,’ said Colby.

  ‘Jesus, this place is a mess.’ Caitlin ran a finger along a window sill, inspected the dirt, and walked down the hall to the room she’d occupied as a child. ‘It’s the same as when I lived here.’

  ‘You’re joking?’ said Colby. There was no carpet or linoleum or anything on the floor, and no plasterboard on the walls. The beams doubled as shelves.

  ‘This was my favourite toy when I was a kid.’ Caitlin reached for an old coconut, carved to look like the laughing head of a chimpanzee.

  ‘It’s not exactly cuddly, is it?’ Colby took it from her, and rolled it through his own hands. ‘Why didn’t you take it with you, when you cleared out? In fact, why not take it now? Put it by your bed. It’ll scare off any other men who might try to stay over.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid.’

  Colby put the coconut back on its exposed beam, and took Caitlin into his arms, so her sandy head rested on his chest.

  ‘You had one wild childhood,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ she said, sighing. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Can we go?’

  It was the first time since they had become lovers that Colby had seen her less than happy.

  ‘Sure,’ he said.

  Caitlin led the way back down the hall to the kitchen. She picked up her mum’s mail, and left the house through the strip-vinyl door. Colby hesitated, thinking, ‘Are we supposed to say goodbye?’ He could see Caitlin’s father standing in a cloud of smoke on the back porch, grinning at Colby.

  ‘I’d watch her if I were you,’ Jack said, ‘she’s not the full quid.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ said Colby.

  ‘Will you piss off!’

  Colby turned in time to see Caitlin coming back into the house, at speed. ‘Heh-ho!’ he said, reaching for her waist. ‘It’s okay, babe.’

  ‘There you go,’ said Jack, grinning. ‘Screw loose.’

  ‘I’m going to kill you,’ said Caitlin, but Colby had her by the waist and would not let her go. She turned on her ankle so fiercely that it twisted, and she had to limp her way back to the Moke.

  ‘You show very little respect for your daughter,’ Colby said, and maybe he’d have said more, but the Moke had started up. Caitlin was leaving. ‘Wait up,’ he said, striding over the dried leaves, gumnut shells and ibis poo, towards where she was revving the engine.

  ‘Get in,’ said Caitlin, ‘before I do something stupid.’

  Colby slammed the car door. ‘I’m in.’ It wasn’t a clean exit. Caitlin tried to accelerate, but she wasn’t properly in gear. They skidded on leaves, and stalled. Caitlin swore, but finally they were away.

  For the first few minutes, neither said anything.

  Colby broke the ice. ‘Your dad’s a jerk.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ Her tone was sharp.

  ‘Right,’ said Colby. ‘So. Do you want to talk about this?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay.’

  They drove back to Rent-a-Moke with the wind rushing through the glassless windscreen into their faces. They parked under a banana tree. The owner came out of the rental hut, dusting her hands together.

  ‘No charge for you, love,’ she said. ‘We miss your mum now she’s on the mainland.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t think she misses much here.’

  Colby had never seen Caitlin in such a mood. The sun – so high and bright when they’d set out – was lost behind a cloud. They boarded the ferry, and rode home sitting o
n benches on the deck, with Caitlin’s golden hair whipping about her face, and seagulls swooping on the breeze.

  ‘I sense a storm,’ said Colby.

  ‘Me too,’ said Caitlin, ‘and I’m not often wrong.’

  Chapter 8

  ‘Just so you know, I’m not coming to New York because it’s your birthday. I’m coming because it’s winter here, and there’s absolutely nothing to do.’

  ‘So, you’re basically telling me you’re bored,’ said Colby, ‘and you want me to entertain you?’

  They were on opposite ends of the phone again, at opposite ends of the world. Colby had flown home after his week in Townsville in October 2000 and now he was coming good on a promise – made while drunk on tequila at the Townsville Hotel one night – to fly Caitlin to Manhattan in 2001, so she could see where he lived.

  ‘No,’ said Caitlin, ‘I’m only coming because you keep saying how much you miss me.’

  ‘I do miss you. I can’t wait to see you.’

  ‘True story?’

  ‘True story.’

  And it was a true story: Colby was looking forward to seeing Caitlin again. He had picked up the cost of her ticket to Manhattan, and he was going to put her up for six weeks, all of which surprised him. He told Robert as much, saying, ‘I don’t want to put a label on it, but I do like being around her.’

  ‘You better watch it,’ Robert said, ‘next thing you’ll be telling me you’re ready to settle down.’

  Colby laughed. Caitlin was cute, and shagging her was fun, but Colby wasn’t ready to settle down. He wouldn’t have told Caitlin this, but he was still seeing other women. A little under a year earlier, Colby had bought his first apartment and, upon picking up the key, he’d immediately paid somebody to transform it into a bachelor pad for him.

  ‘You can’t do it yourself,’ Robert had said, ‘you’ve got to get a gay guy, somebody who understands fabric weight and scatter cushions and all that shit.’

  ‘But the look I want isn’t smooth,’ said Colby. ‘I don’t want a girl thinking, “I could live here.” I want a place that says, “No woman has ever, or will ever, live here. This is a bachelor pad, and that’s the way it’s going to stay.”’

  He found a designer who specialised in cool pads for finance guys. She hadn’t been anything particularly special to look at – she’d turned up in leggings, a faded T-shirt and ballet flats, carrying colour swatches and an HB pencil – but she took measurements and opened curtains and then, six weeks later, she’d come back with a truck and five Hispanic labourers to carry cardboard boxes down the ramp.

  Colby made himself scarce, saying, ‘I think I’m in the way here.’ By the time he got home, the apartment was unrecognisable, in ways he wouldn’t have predicted. The linen was slate-grey. The towels were plump and charcoal-coloured. He had a new leather sofa, and a bed even wider than king size, for which he’d have to have sheets custom-made.

  ‘You like?’ the designer asked.

  ‘I like!’ said Colby.

  ‘You should try it,’ she said of the bed, pressing a hand into the mattress. Colby shot her a look and they broke in the bed, there and then, and there hadn’t been much down time for that bed ever since.

  Now Caitlin was coming for six weeks. That was longer than Colby had ever lived with anyone, except his college roommate.

  ‘It makes me nervous,’ Caitlin said.

  ‘What does? Staying with me, or the flight?’

  ‘Not the flight. But what if I get lost at the airport?’

  ‘You can’t get lost at the airport. There are signs everywhere, and there are people to help you.’

  ‘What if I get on the wrong plane?’

  ‘You can’t get on the wrong plane. You’ll have a boarding pass, and you can’t get on the wrong plane with that boarding pass.’

  ‘What if I lose the boarding pass?’

  ‘They’ll give you another one.’

  ‘What do I do when I land? Are you going to pick me up from the airport?’

  ‘Me?’ Colby laughed. ‘No. I don’t have a car. But don’t worry, I’ll send one for you.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s what people do here. There will be a man standing in the arrivals hall with a sign with your name on it. All you need to do is go up and introduce yourself. He’ll have my address, and the doorman will let you in.’

  ‘What if the doorman’s not there?’

  ‘The doorman is always there.’

  There was more than a continent between them; there was an ocean of sophistication. ‘And I’m supposed to tip the driver, right? And the doorman. But how much?’

  ‘Two dollars,’ Colby said. ‘You tip everyone – the driver, the doorman – all of them get two dollars. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it. Have you told your mom you’re coming?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You better do it.’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Caitlin, but she was dreading it. She lived not six streets away from Ruby in Townsville, and they saw each other once a week, usually before the last of Caitlin’s shifts on Sunday, but their little chats, over tea and Madeira biscuits, never seemed to go all that well.

  ‘I think she’s losing her mind in there,’ said Caitlin. ‘You should see her wheelchair. She’s put a basket on the front for her dog, and she’s got these Australian flags fluttering behind, left over from when she was waving them at the Olympics on TV. She’s put on weight and she’s taken to putting her hair in these little ponytails that stand up like palm trees on the top of her head.’

  ‘At least I’m still having fun,’ she had told Caitlin. ‘Most of the other people in here have given up. They’re slumped all day in front of the soaps. The biggest drama of the day is what’s for dessert. I can’t stand it.’

  Ruby’s apartment in the assisted-living village had everything that her little cottage with the cyclone pole had not: the floors were smooth, beige and tiled; the walls were smooth, beige and painted; the kitchen bench was smooth, beige and laminated.

  ‘Is it not the most boring place you’ve ever seen in your life?’ Ruby said, the first time Caitlin had dropped around. ‘I’m going to have to paint the walls yellow to make it more like home.’ But that wasn’t permitted.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Caitlin, ‘we can jazz it up with ornaments.’ They’d tried, with faux tiger throws and a plastic shower curtain with glitter fish.

  ‘It still looks like God’s waiting room,’ said Ruby, which was fair enough. That’s what it was: a place for people to spend their last few years before they died. It took quite a bit of Caitlin’s courage to tell Ruby that she was leaving town to have a summer romance in Manhattan. To her surprise, Ruby encouraged her to go. ‘You might as well have an adventure,’ she said. ‘God only knows, I’ll never have another one. I’m guessing it’s his money?’

  ‘He’s buying the ticket,’ Caitlin said. ‘Where would I get that kind of money? It costs more than $2000.’

  ‘Good for him, if he wants to splash his moolah around. But it sounds a bit like prostitution.’

  ‘How does it sound like prostitution? He’s not paying me to stay with him. He’s paying for the flight.’

  ‘I wish some young bloke had offered to fly me to New York when I was your age,’ Ruby said. ‘Your father never offered me so much as a trip to the mainland.’

  Caitlin was in the kitchen, searching through the cupboards above the sink for teabags. The kettle started to whistle.

  ‘So, how long will you be gone?’ Ruby asked.

  ‘Six weeks. I leave on July 30, and I’m due back on September 14.’

  ‘I hope you know New York’s dangerous. You can’t just wander around there like you do here. You’re too young to have heard of the Central Park jogger. A woman got raped there. It was all over the news.’

  ‘Women can get raped anywhere,’ said Caitlin. She pulled up the teabag and squeezed it against a spoon.

  ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Tea.’
<
br />   ‘You’re not having one?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘Not today,’ said Caitlin. ‘I’ve got one more shift to do. Then I’m gone. But don’t worry. I’ll be home soon.’

  Chapter 9

  ‘What the hell is she playing at?’

  It was 6 pm on 30 July 2001 – the day that Caitlin had been due to land in New York – and Colby was in his office at the World Trade Center, awaiting her call.

  ‘I sent a car to pick her up,’ he told his assistant, Summer, ‘and they say they’ve been at the airport since the plane touched down, but she hasn’t come out.’

  ‘Maybe she came out and missed the guy with the sign,’ said Summer, bouncing a little on the yoga ball that she had recently rolled into his office, to use while taking notes. ‘Maybe she caught a cab straight to your apartment.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Colby, but he’d called his own regular doorman, Carlos, three times to ask if anyone had come looking for him.

  ‘I’m afraid not, Mr Colbert,’ Carlos had said. ‘No visitors for you today.’

  Did he have to sound so happy about it? But honestly, where could Caitlin be? Colby had five computer screens in his office, including three on the desk in front of him, one of which was open to the Qantas website. It very clearly showed that Caitlin’s plane – QF 108 – had taken off on time, and it had landed on time. By rights, Caitlin had been on the ground in New York for six hours. That was plenty of time to clear customs. Wait, maybe she hadn’t cleared customs? Maybe she had forgotten to empty all of her mom’s so-called medicinal cigarettes out of her pockets? But no. They’d joked about that. Caitlin had promised to be careful. So, where the hell was she? The plan had been for Colby to go to the office, and for Caitlin to get picked up by the car service he’d organised. The driver would take her to his apartment. Carlos would let her in.

  ‘Have a shower, get undressed,’ Colby had said. ‘Get into bed if you want! I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

  Caitlin had said, ‘Yes, yes, I understand,’ but now he couldn’t find her. He called the car service again (more accurately, he got Summer to again call the car service) while he watched and twisted a paperclip.