At first sight the tall boy in the back garden looks more confused than threatening. He is kicking the Hills Hoist post, flinging his long thin stem of a body around the small patch of lawn, his cheeks hot and indignant. A plume of hair flops over one side of his face, the other half of his head is shaved. His hands dangle like floppy spatulas by his side as he kicks. Everything about him from this angle looks soft, bendable, giving.
‘Fuck,’ he shouts over and over—it’s the cawing, warbling noise. ‘Fuck fuck fuck,’ as if he’s still getting used to saying the word, to speaking in a man’s voice at all.
The mother is nowhere to be seen. The interior of the house is shadowy. Kay checks the name she keyed into her phone. Amy, the woman said, spelt like the French for loved, A-I-M-E-E, with that accent on the first e. You got that?
Kay begins to type OK? but at the same instant Aimée texts from somewhere inside the house.
Make yourself at home. Can’t face him right now.
Kay calls her straight away. Aitch is just in front of her on the back doorstep, watching the boy. They hear Aimée’s voice resonating somewhere.
‘Be out as soon as I can,’ she says. ‘Can’t stand to be near him right now, my son. In fact I can’t even bear to look at him.’
Aitch and Kay step back into the house. They stand in the middle of the living room facing the big window out on to the garden, the boy in the centre of their view, his hair dark with sweat, his cheeks fiery. He’s still kicking the post, but with diminishing fury. The long grass around the post has been trampled flat.
‘Could murder a cup of tea right now,’ says Aitch.
‘Me too,’ says Kay. She wishes vaguely he hadn’t said murder.
She goes towards the fridge to check for milk but stops herself halfway. They shouldn’t make themselves comfortable, not really, not without a proper invitation. She stays standing and Aitch stays standing. Their radio phones chatter at their belts—colleagues on other jobs, in other backyards.
Kay rests on one leg and looks at the photos stuck to the fridge with ladybird magnets, photos of the kicking boy at various younger ages, his arm around a dog, around a friend, around an older woman, probably a grandmother, blowing out the candles on a series of birthday cakes, his face each time grown broader. Kay counts five candles, six, eight, twelve.
‘Isn’t this weird?’ Kay says. ‘When I first walked in here I thought it could be my own place.’
‘Previous life,’ says Aitch.
‘I mean it, Aitch, the shape of the garden and how the screen door fits alongside the picture window—it’s the same. But not just the house. I have an exercise bike exactly like hers, also sat in the laundry, believe it or not. And then these photos on the fridge, just the same, in my case Donny through the ages—’
‘Well, if it helps, Kay, you’ve never been here before. To my knowledge. You live on the other side of town.’
‘Seriously, though, even that patch of white irises in the garden, over there in the corner, I have the same irises. Even her tea is the same—see here, Ceylon.’
‘Ladies of a certain age, Kay, with similar interests,’ Aitch gives a cheeky grin that doesn’t suit him. ‘Maybe their houses end up looking alike.’
She decides to let it go. Aitch is like this, whatever the word is, straightforward or maybe tone-deaf—she’s worked with him many times before.
‘Even the bike colour is the same, Aitch,’ she can’t resist a last word. ‘Same make and same colour. A parallel life more than previous life, I’d say.’
She biffs him lightly on the arm.
The biff makes him grunt involuntarily and the boy looks up, scowls at his reflection in the window. Then he suddenly frowns deeper and at the same moment they hear a noise at their backs. Aimée. Someone slight and dark is suddenly standing close behind them.
‘So you’ve managed to make my son’s acquaintance?’
The next instant the boy bursts into the house. Aitch and Kay spin around.
‘Give me the phone.’ He grabs at his mother’s hand, wrings it to get the phone free. ‘I want to talk to my dad. I want to tell him about this crazy woman. I don’t want to live with her any more.’
Kay turns back fast enough to see Aimée squeeze her eyes tight shut.
‘Come,’ Aitch grabs the boy by the arm, ‘Let’s step outside again for a minute.’
‘Get off, I know what I’m doing,’ the boy shouts, but Aitch’s clutch is firm.
‘She’s the mad one, the crazy one, not me,’ he bellows over his shoulder, ‘I don’t want to be around her. She’s not my mother any more. I hate her. I hate her so badly. She hates me, too.’
The woman is built like a girl—tiny waist, tiny wrists, everything else tiny, tiny thighs in kid’s jeans, an ironed black shirt, tight-fitting and ruched around her ribcage, matte black hair, dyed, like Kay’s own, tucked behind her ears.
She gestures to Kay to sit. Kay is suddenly aware of the bulletproof jacket tight around her own chest and stomach. She wishes she could take it off. She stays standing.
Through the picture window they see Aitch and the boy unstack two garden chairs and sit down at the wire-mesh table. See, another likeness, Aitch, Kay says to herself, a square wire-mesh table like the one on my porch.
The boy leans sideways in the chair, as far away from the police officer as possible. He is very young—fifteen, Kay thinks, not a day older. He projects a string of gob into the iris bed and Aitch rears forward, almost on top of him. Won’t try that one again.
The mother, Aimée, chooses a straight-backed chair and turns it away from the window. When she moves she is like a trick of the light, a thin flash of darkness breaking up the sunlight in a forest.
‘So young, my son, a month and ten days off his sixteenth birthday, would you believe it?’ she says, as if reading Kay’s thoughts. ‘But not so young as to avoid threatening his mother. Just an hour ago he stood here on the step, towering over me, dragging at the screen door—look, the hinge is bent. I thought if he’d get it loose he could turn it on me. I was afraid.’
‘Was there something that upset…?’ Kay sits down.
‘Who knows, I never know. Did I tell him to do his homework? Did I say I’d cut off his phone? I can’t remember. All I know is, he’s trying to get clear.’
‘Clear?’
‘He’s trying to scour his way away from me. Scour it wide open. Like you might scour a pan.’
The boy dodges around Aitch, and pushes back through the screen door. Kay and the woman stand up in unison.
‘You called the police out on me! This guy said. What mother calls the police? Let me speak to my dad.’
Aitch hands the boy his own phone. The boy stabs numbers into it. Almost immediately he begins to talk.
‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing,’ the boy caws into the phone. The three others stand staring at him. ‘She’s mad. She called the police. I need to get away. Please. I want to come and live with you.’
Aimée sits down and shrugs—a slight rise and fall of her shoulders. Her cheeks are shining, a skim of rainwater over stone. Kay can’t bear to look at her. She moves in the direction of the fridge, those ladybird magnets.
‘You hear what he says about me?’ Aimée says quietly, addressing no one in particular. ‘Repeating the things he’s heard from his father. What can I do? When he began damaging my door, my house, I felt desperate. All I could think was, call for help.’
In mid-sentence the boy stops shouting into the phone. Aitch leads him outside, still flinging his arms. The screen door bangs behind them.
Kay and the woman sit and watch the boy pacing the yard, Aitch leaning against the hoist.
‘You can leave and go somewhere for a while,’ Kay says quietly. ‘You don’t have to stay here. You can go to a friend till it blows over.’
‘But it’s my home. I need to be here. My things are here. I don’t want to leave him with my things. He shouldn’t be able to oust me.’
‘Still, to use y
our words, you also wouldn’t want to oust him?’
‘How could I? He’s my son, whatever he says. Could I put him out on the street? No. I don’t want him to get into trouble. You have that phone number for families. I just wanted someone to come along, be here, see for themselves.’
‘You can call our number at any time,’ Kay says.
She almost wants to add, I also have a son, but she doesn’t. She wouldn’t know how to go on. She couldn’t then say, Oh, men, like her mother, or, boys will be—, or, I do so totally see where you’re coming from. Between the two young men, there’s no ground for comparison.
She catches Aitch’s eye through the window, points her head in the direction of the door. Aitch knows what she means. If she’s to have any time at the arena, they should be heading on.
~
The top name on the big screen in the arena car park is not Donny’s. For a moment Kay’s not sure what disappoints her more—his name not being up there or the notice that it’s all over, she’s missed the prize-giving, she won’t see him compete at all.
But then, looking again, it does say Donny. She twigs what she’s reading. His name is up there anyway. He has won something, looks like another silver medal. Well I never, she tells herself, locking the car, there you go, not bad, son, not bad.
Reeking of sweat, Donny towers over her in the arena foyer. If he were to hug her without bending, his arms would meet around her crown. They could crush her skull like a nut, she thinks. And she, Kay, is not short, she is not tiny Aimée. She steps suddenly away.
They move into the arena club-room buffeted by large powerlifters and their families. Massive men pump Donny’s arm. Round tables are laid with white cloths, white crockery, pale orchid centrepieces. The food on the buffet is also mainly pale—pale and glutinous—white-fish mousse, cold chicken, potato salad, coleslaw.
Donny is ravenous. He piles a plate high. Kay also piles her plate, knowing he will eat most of it, too, ‘just a smidgen, Mum,’ creep his fork across and pick up titbits as he did as a child.
Cramming the white food into his mouth, Donny tells her three times over about his near-winning lift. And then, he says, and then, with each then hitting the table with his fist. She understands why he’s putting the emphasis. If you hadn’t quite made gold, you’d want to give your back a pat.
Still, he’s very loud. His blaring reminds her of that young boy earlier, in the backyard, what was his name? Aimée’s son? She can’t believe she doesn’t remember. Did she catch his name? It was Aitch who spoke to him.
Kay looks around the tables. Large groups surround the other powerlifters. She and Donny are just two to their table. Everyone around seems to be telling versions of his story. She’s hearing the same names, the same lines. Donny has been a star, though not the biggest star. The winner is someone with a Croatian name. She can’t bear to ask Donny who it is. The beating noise of his fist is stubbing out her concentration. And then I lifted it, then, he says again, hitting his fist. Their coffee cups rattle.
She feels for her bulletproof jacket but, no, it’s back in the car. She’d like to have it here with her now, have it on. Donny’s fist beating the table is making her feel irritated, queasy—either that or the seafood mousse. Donny keeps turning to her and half-winking, half-grimacing, as though he’s pointing to some secret they alone share.
She wants to step back, peel away this closeness he’s folding around her, this sticky mix of intimacy and boasting. This is no way to be with your mother, can’t he see? so sickly close and soft. It’s definitely no way to be here, in this public place. After a win like his, he should be grappling his mates to his chest, or his girlfriend, his wife, not his mother.
They finish their coffee and Donny leads the way out on to the balcony. The balcony runs the length of the club-room. It is dark out here, quiet and cool. A few small groups stand talking. The hazy sky is empty of stars and a laser light in the direction of Elizabeth Square strokes the low clouds.
Kay checks her phone. Almost she hoped there might be a message, that she might be recalled to that same house, Aimée’s—check she’s doing OK. But the screen shows no new activity. Donny begins winking again, winking and lifting one shoulder, and now she sees why. The gold-medal winner’s huge back looms over the next group along. Donny means to point at him. The winner has the trophy in his arms.
Might they go over? she gestures.
She still wonders what exactly a powerlifter does, especially to win? Despite all Donny has said. She’d like to ask the winner.
In answer Donny clasps her arms and pins them to her sides, an old trick. So she can’t put out her hand, say hello. So her attention is all his.
Wriggle out. She wants to make herself small and slip out of his grip. His hands feel sticky. They cling. She wants to prise his insistent hands off her skin.
She turns away and faces out across the cricket ground, watches the laser beam reaching and stretching. She is a good step away but still senses Donny’s closeness, the damp heat radiating from him. She remembers the joy she felt this morning, looking forward, hoping to catch sight of her son. What was all that about, that elation? If she once knew, she doesn’t now.
Donny leans his arms on the balcony rail and lets his head hang down. He looks dog-tired. He has at last fallen silent, a small mercy. Her queasiness has gone. His noise must have brought it on, not the mousse. Before, before today, she would have reached out to him at this moment, rubbed his back. But now she doesn’t. She does nothing and she says nothing. She can’t think of a thing to say.
Something about today has brought this change, Kay thinks, but what it is eludes her. Even as she and Aitch closed the sky-blue door of Aimée’s house behind them and left the boy cawing in the backyard and his mother sitting tiny and dark on the straight-backed chair with her back to the light, it escaped her. At some point today she learned something she didn’t see when she sat out on the porch this morning, but it’s obscure to her now. It’s left behind in the shadows of that house that’s the very spit of her own. It’s there somewhere in the squeezed-shut eyes of that tiny woman in black. It’s somewhere in the photos of the hugging boy stuck on the fridge with ladybird magnets, in the spaces between the candles, in the shadows leaping on the walls.
Supermarket Love
WHEN I WALK by the security-office door on my break and it’s open, I try to snatch a look. The supermarket security guards keep the door open when it’s hot, over forty. Right now, mid-February, that’s most of the time.
‘You must get boiling with that headscarf on,’ my friend Skye says, almost whispering. We’ve been friends for weeks before she says this. I’ve seen the other girls wear strappy tops under their brown supermarket overalls.
It’s only us in the staff tearoom, me and Skye in the plastic chairs, Mo standing against the wall in his silver trainers, drinking Nescafé. Mo glances up, he doesn’t miss a thing.
I look at him, I look at Skye.
‘It’s not as bad as you think,’ I say. ‘The air-conditioning helps. I never get cold.’
‘That’s what my mother says,’ Mo murmurs.
Columns of black-and-white CCTV screens cover the security-office walls. There are no windows, the same as in the staff tearoom.
What can the security guards see on their screens? What can’t they see? This is what I want to find out. This is why I peek. But usually I don’t get more than a few seconds. The screens all look the same, the aisles all look the same. The security guards sit with their feet up on the desks drinking cold Pepsi.
Plus right now they have giant red Valentine’s Day cardboard hearts hanging in the aisles, blocking the view.
Defeats their purpose, you might say.
Gives ideas, my mother might say.
More ways than one, I think to myself.
Already I know the place I’m looking for won’t be the frozen-goods aisle, its corridor of smooth fridge-doors. Nowhere to hide there, and freezing cold, too.
&nb
sp; It also won’t be the open-plan sweets area with the help-yourself display units, the imported Valentine’s Day chocolates in stacks of red and pink. Everything in the sweets area is waist-high. The supermarket expects sweets and chocolates to go, also grapes, cherries, cherry tomatoes—anything that’s finger food. Mo says so. Some days we set out sample trays of cherry tomatoes. They all go in twenty.
Everyone does it, Mo says. He’s worked here for longer than us girls have. He’s been in this country for longer, too. Stuff just walks into people’s mouths, he says—smarties, plain old marshmallows, jelly-babies, everyone thinks they can sample one or two without anyone noticing. Maybe no one does. The security guards wait for bigger prey.
My heart jumps. It jumps the minute he says, you won’t believe how much just walks. Mo, I see, is also taking looks at the screens. Mo is also wondering about places out of sight.
But then, who wouldn’t want to find a hidden place somewhere to break up their day? Who wouldn’t take a moment to skate, slide, twirl a trolley? Skye once turned a somersault. It was quiet, close to closing. She did it in a second, flick flack, just like that.
Mo knows more, though. He has the lowdown. The shoppers picking their noses in empty aisles, plucking at their underwear, squeezing the fresh bread till it’s nearly flat—Mo knows their secrets, he has it all cased out. When he tells me about something he has spotted I blush. I let my headscarf fall lower over my cheeks to hide my blushes. But I come back to him.
‘By the bleach, I think,’ I tell Mo. ‘That’s the best place.’
See if he agrees. From what I can tell, people don’t pause and browse in the cleaning-products aisle. Any security guard with knowhow won’t waste time watching those screens. Shoppers go straight to the place on the shelf. They don’t linger, they don’t steal bleach. Unless.
‘Uh-huh, Farhana, so now we know. Bleach section. We know where to find you when next you have something to hide.’
And he winks at me. My heart jolts.
The first time we spoke my heart did the same jolt, a skip out of time. It was in the staffroom. The fan was on, another hot day. He caught my eye and without pausing said salaam alaikum in proper Australian from behind his Pepsi can.
To the Volcano Page 9