by M R Field
“What do you mean that Patricia was losing her shop? I thought she had a good business.” Nonna shuffles against the phone for a moment before she continues. “No, Kathleen was telling me that her sister, who works in the bank next to the chemist in the mall, knows someone who is friends with Rodney.”
“What’s Hazel’s dad got to do with this?” A knot begins to form in my stomach. Something is not adding up.
“He was saying that she needs money, or the bank will take it.”
“Nonna, it could be him just making shit up.”
“No, Roberto. Kathleen’s sister also told her that many, many years ago before she married Rodney, she was in a car accident and hurt her back. She used to take strong pain-killers and now, many years later, she still takes those tablets.”
“I’m confused. What does this have to do with anything?”
“She takes too many and doesn’t look after her business. Apparently, even after the divorce she was still asking Rodney to buy the pills for her, as she blamed him for her addiction. Now, Chantal is also in trouble with taking the pills too. The police found some in her car. She goes to court next month. Patricia is desperate.” Her rapid Italian thunders down the phone.
“Keep Hazel away from her, Roberto.” She warns and the knot has now become a lead balloon in my gut.
“Why?” I clear my throat.
“Rodney won’t help her, he thinks he’s paid enough for her in the past. She told her friend that she will get the money from Hazel. That Hazel doesn’t need it, and she owes her as she’s her mother.”
My jaw locks and I freeze. “What?”
“Is it an Aussie thing to take your kid’s money? Who does that?” Her bewildered tone does nothing for the iron ball that clogs my chest.
“Not Aussie, just a bitch,” I snarl. Alex and Ty both flinch beside me. “Her father left her to target Hazel? Who the hell does that?”
“Hazel has a baby; that is her money.”
Just like that, my head snaps back, as if it’s been hit by a freight train. “Patricia called Hazel today; she wanted to meet her to talk.”
“No!” Nonna yells down the phone. “Her mother is no good. Go get Hazel. Don’t let Hazel give her mother her money!”
“Okay, Nonna, I have to go. I see you soon.”
“Okay. Now go.”
I can’t hang up soon enough. I dial Hazel’s number and place it to my ear. No response. I dial again and begin to walk to the tram stop, until her phone clicks to voicemail, once again.
Both the guys follow me as I point to the tram stop in the distance. “Gotta get to work. Hazel could be in trouble.”
Their pace increases with mine, until we are striding in a strong run to the tram stop. “I’ll explain on tram,” I yell. I pick up speed and am grateful that they are both fit guys who aren’t lagging behind me.
We arrive just as a tram approaches, and my chest is relieved for a moment. We charge up the steps and stand on the other side, clutching the bars, waiting nervously for the tram to begin to move.
I dial again.
The same six rings taunt me.
Nothing.
I dial again.
Two rings sound before her voicemail connects.
I hang up and dial again.
Her voicemail picks up instantly.
My gut clenches. What’s her mum doing? Something isn’t right. I can feel it. Why can’t she answer her phone? I tap my phone against the side of my face, trying to piece together what I know so far. Her mother—bankrupt, her father—out of the picture. What am I missing? My fingers curl around the sides of my phone and I begin to retell the boys what my Nonna just told me. By the time I’ve finished, thankfully the club is close by. I can’t get Nonna’s words out of my head—her mother is no good. What the hell has she gotten herself into? Why the fuck were she and Rodney pushing Hazel towards her ex? Nothing is making sense. I’m confused. After flaunting all their wealth in my face all those years ago, now it’s hit Patricia in the face. Why meet at my club?
The tram stops and we eagerly jump off and run down Nicholson Street to the club. There are no lights on and the front blinds are drawn shut, making it appear closed. Hazel has my keys, so I whistle faintly to the boys to follow me down the lane to the back. The car park is empty, yet my gut keeps twisting, urging me on to find her inside. I push on the back door, but it’s locked. Where is Hazel? I’m about to start banging on the door but Ty gestures to the office window at the side.
There against the grey asphalt, shards of glass glisten like warped glitter. I walk closer and see the back window smashed in, with serrated shards of glass scattered across the ground. A wooden handle shoved in a deep blue woollen beanie lies on the ground, and as I take another look, the unmistakeable white CFC insignia is on the crest for the British Chelsea Football Club. An eerie feeling niggles at the base of my neck. The window frame has a towel across the broken shards, clearly for better access to get into my club. I peer in through the opening to find the office floor is in disarray, with folders, papers and office phone on the floor. My desk is cleared off, my chair pushed back, and every fucking thing is scattered across the room. For a moment, I stare blankly at the mess through the window and then back down against the ground at the beanie. I pull out my phone and find no messages. How did my alarm not go off?
“Robbie.” Alex voice lowers beside me. “Someone’s in there. I can hear something.”
“My alarm didn’t activate when they smashed the window.” I voice my thoughts aloud at the blue beanie, then I stare confused at the gaping hole of my office window.
“That’s because it must not have been on when they smashed it. Meaning …” Alex’s voice trails off, and I don’t hear anything else. A chill rushes up my spine, as Hazel’s here somewhere and some fucker knew it. Who plans a break-in while people are inside during broad daylight? A whoosh sounds between my ears as a rage of fury begins to climb. FUCK!
“Hazel’s in there now with whoever smashed it …” I don’t finish my train of thought. Instead, I grab onto the frame of the window and hoist myself up, trying to do it quickly and quietly, threading my leg through. Hazel probably doesn’t know that there is some fucker lurking around in here.
My leg stretches down towards the carpet, as I point my toe on a part that doesn’t have any shattered glass on it. I twist my torso to the side to weave out of the window ledge, my other leg following me.
“I have a bad feeling.” Ty’s voice lowers as he peers into the office in front of me.
“This is not the time to hear about your balls,” I say.
“Dude, I’m being serious.” He gestures to the office door that is halfway open. “It’s gone fuckin’ quiet. Where are they?”
I crouch down to hunch across the ground. He’s right. The dude could be anywhere. If he’s still here. Ty follows through the window and drops down quietly next to me, while Alex holds up his phone to us. He mouths police and we nod. At least someone has his head switched on.
The steps we take towards the door feel like they’re taking minutes. I want to charge through, but if some psycho is going to break through my window, what else are they capable of? Hopefully, Hazel hasn’t realised that they are here yet. We reach the door and listen for any noise. A dull murmur fills the air and as I listen closely, it seems to be coming from the main bar area. I tilt my chin to Ty and his eyes widen in recognition.
I peer out slowly into the corridor and am relieved to find it empty. I push into the carpet and rise up, keeping check that my movements aren’t rushed and that I am silent. I feel Ty’s shadow behind me, as I make my way down silently along the carpeted floor. Each step feels like a blade against my throat, the fear of not knowing, tightening against my dry stricken throat. I’m nervous about what I will find. As the end of the corridor approaches, the blue fire extinguisher hangs against the wall, blocking my view over the bar into the main area.
By now, the murmur is deeper. A voice rising and lower
ing while chairs scrape and thump across the floor. Could Hazel be sitting? What’s her mother doing? Pretending to humour this guy in the hope that he’ll go? I reach the extinguisher and a tingle assaults my nostrils in an eerily familiar way. I inhale again, and am stunned to find my initial guess is right—the caustic smell of petrol is here, and it’s lingering close by. My pulse quickens and my blood thickens.
Curling my fingers up the cool steel of the fire extinguisher, I unclasp the lock that clips it to the back wall. My hands have begun to sweat and feel clammy as I grip around the handle and pull it down. It scrapes against the metal for an instant, and I freeze, listening to see if we have been heard.
“Easy,” Ty barely whispers near me. I nod with a hint of irritation. I need to get to her. I tilt my chin to the extinguisher and jut my chin out to the bar. Ty nods, understanding that there’s another extinguisher over there and a fire blanket, that I hope he’ll grab when he sees it. Pulling the extinguisher closer to my chest, I hold it firmly and take a silent step forward, and my body locks. There is the stage, the stage where my girlfriend, the future mother of our child finally accepted me. There on stage, she made a commitment to give us a chance. That stage has the piano where we made love after I pledged her the world and an eternity with me. All, as I look on, is about to be swept away. I’m frozen in the shoes that now seemed filled with leaden feet. Hazel and her mother are both on that stage, tied to the very chairs that my Farfalla wooed me on, now battered and bruised.
A shadowy figure stands before them, dressed in a blue polyester tracksuit, holding a large can in his hand. I don’t need to read it to know that it’s the petrol I smelt. I don’t need to look around to see that he has poured it everywhere on the stage. I don’t need for the fucker to turn around as now, my ears have tuned into his patronising voice that grates against my eardrums. I don’t need him in here at all, and I am about to try to get him out.
My feet become unstuck as I run towards the stage, the ring of petrol now evident around Hazel and her mother on the floor. As my thunderous steps gets closer, the fucker turns and flinches in surprise, but not before the match he lights flickers in his fingers and he stumbles slightly. His lips tilt up in a smile, and I look over to Hazel, whose tear-filled eyes power me through the agony that holds me from her. As I get closer, a cry unlike anything I have ever heard roars through the club, and I watch helplessly as the match is released from his fingertips and makes its sharp descent to reduce us to hell. The roar continues to shake through the room in raucous misery, and just as the match is about to hit the floor, I realise the sound is coming from me at the thought that Hazel and my child, who I might never get to hold in my arms, are about to be torn out of my life in a cloister of flames.
“You may shoot me with your words, you may cut me with your eyes,
you may kill me with your hatefulness. But still, like air, I’ll rise!”
Viola Davis
HAZEL
One hour ago
“Wake up, birthday bitch,” a stale breath yells in my ear, causing my neck to crick as a hand strikes me across the side of my face. The slap causes my head to throb incessantly, like a pendulum. My face falls forward but my body stops abruptly, restricted by a coarse rope tightening around my stomach and chest. It tightens against my skin, chafing as I struggle to move underneath it. My lip stings, the metallic taste of blood seeping into my mouth and onto my tongue, while a few drops run down my chin. The side of my mouth aches as I move my jaw. The swollen tissue leaves a golf ball-sized lump poking through my cheek.
I hurt everywhere. My aches chime in time with the beat that continues to sound in my head, one agonising pang after another.
“Open your eyes, petal, or I will open them for you,” the stale breath commands. Oh no! That voice.
Another sharp slap hits me fiercely against the side of my face, the blow sending me a lightning rod of pain so fierce that a piercing scream tears from my lips in response. My head flies back and my eyes startle open and stare straight into the dark eyes of … Jerry.
“What … are …?” I mumble, perplexed. Seeing him here doesn’t make any sense. He was meant to board a plane and leave. Why is he still around? My thoughts attempt to assemble, to shift everything in place, but my mind is so full of cotton wool that the fog can’t seem to lift and weave them together.
A dark smile appears across his lips as I squint to take in his features. His normally short and clean-cut hair now hangs limply by the side of his face, dirty and unkempt. Stubble lines his chin in a feeble attempt to grow a beard, with blond patches across his pale skin. A shine from his chest catches my eye, as I notice his tell-tale Chelsea Football Club nylon tracksuit that he used to wear while he ran back in London and—what’s that smell? My nose begins to scrunch, a stinging sensation there causes my eyes to water. I try to reach up to check my nose and stop the sting, but the rope tightens again, rubbing against my skin. As I look down, I see I’m tied to one of my performance chairs. What a twisted irony. A place I loved so much now becoming my worst nightmare.
“Bet you thought you got rid of me, right?” he spits, his eyes darting up and down my body. “Fancy coming to meet your mother on your birthday and not suspecting that inside this club where I watched you whore yourself out, I’d be waiting. How’s your face? Sore? Good. Serves you right for not listening to me.”
His eyes zoom onto my protruding belly that the rope is sharply tied against. His sharp finger pokes my stomach violently, and I scream as the pain radiates across my skin. My nerves feel frayed. I shift and stiffen, shocked to feel that nothing happened when he did that. My baby did not move. I try to shift in my seat so that I can wake the baby, but nothing is budging. Is our baby asleep? Something isn’t right and after a deep poke like that, you’d expect movement. My skin begins to clam. The chill of fear rises across me as my heart palpitates, tears cascading down my face as now I feel truly in my worst nightmare.
My stomach suddenly tightens, gripping me from the inside like a tight coil. My legs bend slightly to ease into the pain, but still no movement is felt from inside. My breathing escalates and despite the searing pain that rises through my nostrils, I continue to rapidly breathe. A surge of panic rushes up my throat as more tears fall down my cheeks. No, oh God, no!
Jerry watches me and nods in appreciation as a sharp contented whistle leaves his lips, penetrating into the echo of the room. His shoulders straighten as he moves back from me, jumping down a step as a snigger leaves his anger-filled lips.
I shake my head to clear the haze of tears and the scene in front of me becomes clear. The club begins to take focus. Another gripping cramp tightens my stomach, and I hold my breath for a moment until it subsides. Oh no. What’s happening to me? I look down to find myself on stage in the centre of a spotlight.
“Oh petal.” He leers at me. “You’ve noticed that you’re not using that chair like you normally do? Oops. How inconsiderate of me.” His sarcasm continues. “I bet you’re super excited for what I have planned. I get the front row seat, of course.” My head continues to throb as the burning overhead lights shine, stinging my watery eyes. “Least I got the duet component right. I know you’re not a solo act.”
My eyes flick instantly to the side to find a huddled mass tied to another chair behind me. Her dark hair covers her face, and as her swollen cheek turns towards me, the same eyes that I know to be mine fill with tears. My mother.
“But? How did we get here? You were supposed to meet me … Are you okay?” I gasp. My voice cracks from the crushing fear that my baby is gone and my mother is here trapped alongside me—all are threatening to consume me.
“Yes, we were meeting …” she responds, her eyes darting over to Jerry, but the glare of the light sends them back over to me. A sob tears through her throat as she roars towards him. “You promised! You said you wouldn’t hurt her!”
I blink in shock as heavy footsteps thump across the wooden floorboards.
“I promised
no such thing. You’re simply mistaken,” he sneers. The shadow of his body staggers in front of the beam of light in front of my eyes. Is he drunk?
“I was handling it!” She wails, rocking on her seat in a feeble attempt to free herself.
“Bullshit. You were supposed to convince her. She is mine!” he shouts, raising his hand to point at me.
“I was trying, you prick! What more could you want? I couldn’t just force her!” She shifts in her chair, her eyes pleading with Jerry.
“I wanted her back! You were taking too fucking long.” He paces back and forth across the floor in front of the stage, muttering to himself incoherently. “You let me down and I had to take matters into my own hands.”
A sharp pain tears through my abdomen as I struggle to focus on their shouting. Please, baby. Please, please wake up.
“She wouldn’t listen to me. I got Rodney to try, and that didn’t work.” My mother’s voice bursts through my thoughts.
“She was supposed to fall back in love with me!” he roars. “Then our lives would be back to normal. None of this”—he points his finger in the air back and forth in front of us—“would have happened. But you forced my hand, you incompetent bitch.”
“Please,” she begs. “There can be another way.” She rocks again in her chair. “Not this!”
“It has to be like this! I’m too late. Too fucking late.” His maniacal voice booms throughout the room as he squares his shoulders towards my mother. “You stupid cow! Don’t you see how pathetic you are? Do you think I’m bothered with how you’re feeling? No wonder you’re bankrupt! You have no … concept of how to fix your mistakes. Instead, you are a hopeless bitch who I should have never trusted.”
“What is he talking about?” I hiss, another sharp pain gripping my insides.
“Oh.” His voice lightens. “This is going to be interesting. C’mon, Patricia tell her. Tell your daughter, your flesh and blood, why she is sitting there?”
My mother’s eyes close tightly for a moment before she tilts her head down. She blows out a breath before stating. “I’m bankrupt. I … ah, have handled things poorly.”