by Ross Watkins
Mal said no smoking; although he himself went through a carton of ciggies a week, Noel was still a child and still under his roof, and the parents of kids who smoked were useless. Mal was a walking contradiction on some topics, and could be strikingly old-fashioned. One of Noel’s mates was already eighteen and had a tattoo of Bon Scott on his forearm. When Noel came home with a tattoo magazine, Mal said that if the magazine was brought into the house he’d chuck Noel’s stuff onto the kerbside and change the locks. Noel took the magazine to the flat out the back.
There was no lock on the door, and it was always left open anyway, unless there was heavy rain and someone thought to shut it, but Adrian hardly ever went in there. The only word he could think of to describe it was seedy, but there was more to it than just low light, pizza boxes and sticky lino. If that room showed what he had to look forward to when he grew into a young man himself, then he wanted to stay a boy forever. Yet even this idea of his youth was eventually obliterated. He was there when Noel and his mates thought it would be funny to show their dicks to each other and manipulate them like puppets, and he happened to be looking the day Mal went into the room.
Glenda was doing the groceries and Noel was somewhere else. Adrian was playing in his bedroom and through the window saw movement outside: his dad went into the granny flat and shut the door. Adrian kept playing with his superhero figurines, but he also kept watching the door, and kept wondering. Maybe twenty minutes later, Mal opened the door and went back into the garage to work on his car. It was then that Adrian decided to have a look around in there someday as well.
He walked home from school a bit quicker than usual one day that week and went in with his school bag and shut the door. He turned on the light and started looking behind the lounges and shifting cushions. There was a drawer under the TV with some videos, but that was all. There was the stereo, some tapes, a football on the floor. He picked it up and sat on the lounge. He then looked at the posters, which he knew covered the holes in the fibrocement boards. He leant over to one of the posters and pulled a bottom corner from the wall. He peered inside the hole and could see paper wedged there, so he reached in and felt for it. He thought it would be the tattoo magazine – perhaps his dad had been looking to get rid of it. But it wasn’t what he expected.
And yet it was.
All that skin … The pictures of the women were confronting enough, but it was the men with their hairless bodies and hard cocks which stirred a dream he must have had almost half his lifetime ago. A dream he could only remember with vague tactility and as a murmur of sounds. He tried to remember more but couldn’t. He only felt the onset of heat, as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his head. He’d uncovered something other than a porn mag, but he didn’t know what.
Adrian put the magazine back and smoothed the poster corner down again. He picked up his bag, switched off the light and opened the door, and as he walked away he told himself that remembering the dream was the only important thing now. Regardless of how it made him feel, he needed to know what it meant.
At the time he didn’t mention these things to anyone because he couldn’t articulate his thoughts; that did not come until later, when he was fourteen or so and Noel had shifted to the Goulburn Police Academy. By then the granny flat had become a storage space for boxes of Adrian’s old toys, Mal’s engine parts and the stuff Glenda didn’t really need but couldn’t face throwing away. Noel’s musty lounges and everything else, including the magazine, had gone – as had Adrian’s grip on the dream he only might have had.
*
When Nguyet pulled into the driveway, she failed to notice the man in the car parked over the road. Adrian noticed.
Alex Bowman’s father – Adrian couldn’t recall his name right then – sat in a charcoal-grey Camry with the window down. For a moment Adrian wondered if he was there to beat the shit out of him, but the man didn’t budge when they got out of the car and walked to the front door. While Nguyet was finding the house key, Adrian couldn’t help looking across the yard and the road. Bowman looked back. As Nguyet pushed the key into the lock, Bowman mouthed some words Adrian couldn’t decipher, and then put his head out the window and spat onto the bitumen. A car passed. Adrian went inside.
He spent the next hour in the lounge room watching afternoon TV, trying to ignore the roil of his gut. His senses were amplified but at the same time he lacked mental clarity, as though emotion had exhausted his capacity to think. The television was meant to be a distraction, but he was distracted even from it, glancing through the blind every so often to check if the Camry was still there. It was, but he couldn’t see Bowman because he had the window up now, and it was tinted enough to obscure what was within.
Adrian was sure he was there to intimidate, but the longer the Camry stayed, the more Adrian wondered. At the very least, it confirmed that the meeting at the school had taken place, and the allegations had been aired. He assumed that a statement had by now been made to the police. Interviews would then begin. Mr H would receive a visit because he was the first one Alex told. Next would be Alex’s parents. His mother would cry for the second or third time and his father would swear and shout. Eventually, Alex’s mates at school would be questioned for evidence or corroboration, especially those in Adrian’s English class. They’d be asked what Mr Pomeroy was like as a teacher, what his reputation was among the students. They’d be asked if they witnessed preferential treatment for any particular student, or suspicious behaviour. Of course the students wouldn’t tell the police what really went on in the classroom – the stupid shit they did to themselves and each other, a bunch of testosterone-fuelled lads intent on fucking whatever they could get their hands on, or at least thinking and talking about fucking as much as they could.
Adrian got up off the lounge. Nguyet was folding clothes in their bedroom. He stood behind her and put his arms around her, and she relaxed against his chest. He kissed her hair. She put the clothes she was holding on the bed and turned and hugged him and sighed, and he knew what the sigh was for. Over the past two days they’d shown each other more affection than they had for several weeks, if not months. In fact, the marriage had been troubled for over four years but they had somehow found a way to function. It now seemed ironic that the year he first taught Alex was the year their trouble began. The two were not directly connected, of course, but there were perhaps some furtive links. Having entered Adrian’s life at that very time, Alex might now bring an end to his marriage.
Now, Adrian thought; now is the time to tell her. Even though he knew it would destroy this rare moment.
Then came a knock at the door.
Adrian said he’d get it – he was ready for Bowman – but before he opened the door he saw blue through the opaque glass.
Two officers had come for him, an older woman and a younger man. The female was a senior constable, and the male reminded him of Noel as a first-year officer – young, yet to be appalled by what humanity is fully capable of. Especially against its own. Adrian looked down at the man’s left lapel – the plain navy blue of a probationary constable. In the distance over his shoulder, Bowman was leaning against his car bonnet, arms folded, here for the show.
It was then that Adrian understood – and then that he resigned himself to the thought of Noel.
WENDY
‘Well, where the fuck is he?’
Simmo didn’t know, of course – he was the one who had phoned her. But Wendy felt much better after airing her frustrations with a rhetorical question. Only Noel himself knew where he’d been for most of the afternoon.
This wasn’t the first time Simmo had called her mobile to talk about Noel. The first came a bit over a year ago, when he asked if everything was okay in the marriage. Wendy thought it was just Simmo trying it on with her again, so she laughed and said no, nothing was wrong – situation normal. She told Simmo that it was a good try but she still wasn’t interested in him, and never would be.
She had said it sympathetically but he’d persisted with all seriousness, saying he had noticed a change in Noel’s mentality at work. When Wendy asked what that meant, Simmo just said something ‘wasn’t quite right with him’. At the time, Wendy had her ideas about why Noel might be distracted from policing, but she didn’t feel ready to talk to anyone about Riley. Not yet. She had ended the call by saying she’d keep an eye on Noel – and that she was thankful they had a friend like Simmo to look out for them. For better or for worse, Simmo had been a phone call away for sixteen years.
Wendy and Noel met at the Goulburn Academy when they were in their early twenties. He looked good in uniform, and even better with a gun in his hands on the firing range, though she was a more accurate shot. He was a hard worker in the gym and on the obstacle course, and she helped him get through the study. Noel was the kind of officer other recruits wanted to be stationed with because he was dependable, sturdy. On weekends she sometimes drove him to Canberra to show off her old haunts and stay at her mother’s house. She was close to her mother. Noel often spoke about his mother in a respectful way, and this tenderness had ultimately triggered Wendy’s love for him.
They served their first couple of years in Kings Cross, sharing a flat in Darlinghurst and then in Randwick. But soon Noel got wind of the opportunities in the west, and eventually talked her into moving to Perth. They got stationed in different suburbs, and one night after work Noel brought his new mate Simmo home for a few drinks. The guy wasn’t backward about coming forward, especially when he’d put a few cans away. Wendy vividly recalled Simmo sitting on a stool in their kitchen with a big dumb grin, calling her ‘Peaches’ and asking about the chances of a threesome. Noel and Simmo thought that was hilarious – they were like a couple of adolescents. Wendy said definitely not.
Perth was good to them. The sense of space they felt, having come from Sydney, made them want to fill it. They got married, had Grace a year later, and then Riley two years after her. Wendy never returned to the force. Motherhood changed her and her priorities. She couldn’t fathom the idea of dealing with scumbags all day and then coming home to her girls and reading picture books – the gulf between instilling her children with the wonder of the world and what she witnessed in that world each day on the job was too great. But Noel climbed the ranks and they bought the house in Dianella – a house she despised yet agreed to because Noel was in love with its rigid and covert aesthetics, and she was still in love with Noel. Besides, he was the one bringing home the main income; Wendy was studying occupational therapy part-time at uni and doing a few shifts a week at a cafe.
As the girls grew older, Noel grew quieter. He spoke less and less of his family, and hardly ever rang his mother. He blamed distance and time, but Wendy knew that he had chosen that distance and time. Noel had insisted on Perth not just because of the opportunities but because Sydney was a trap, because the proximity to family was claustrophobic, because he wanted something different for himself. Noel possessed an innate desire to cut and run, she now understood that, and Perth had been an exit sign.
After Simmo’s initial call a year ago, he phoned her a couple of times to ask if Noel was around because he couldn’t get him on the mobile and no one at the station knew where he was. Wendy told herself not to overthink it. She obeyed. Then came this latest call.
‘All I know is that a mate on patrol spotted him heading east past the airport this afternoon,’ Simmo said, ‘and he’s not picking up calls.’
‘I know. His mother called with family news and I couldn’t get him either.’
Wendy stood at the sliding door to the patio. She tried to remember where she’d noticed brothels around town but doubted this, like she doubted an affair. Although she couldn’t say her own sex life was satisfying, Noel certainly could; he often did.
‘What was his mood like before he left the station?’
‘He was edgy all day.’
She looked across the yard, at the six-foot aluminium fencing. The sun was almost down and she could faintly hear Grace chatting online with a schoolfriend in her bedroom. Noel and his fucking walls, she thought.
‘Something’s really not right,’ Simmo added.
Wendy heard the automatic roller door going up and Noel’s car pulling into the garage. ‘He’s here,’ she said. ‘I better go.’
She put her mobile on the sideboard and went around the kitchen bench and started on the mushrooms for dinner. Moments later, Noel came in smelling like he’d been smoking all afternoon, wherever he’d been.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hey.’
‘You’re a bit late.’
He walked straight past her and out to the patio. He asked where the girls were and she told him, trying to focus on the mushrooms so as to not slice herself, but all the while thinking about the old Noel, the husband who rubbed her neck before she knew she needed it, the husband who always said he’d put her before anyone else, the husband who tried to humour her with lame celebrity impersonations, and the father who said he loved his daughters like nothing else in the world. Noel was a good man lost.
‘Where’ve you been?’
Beers with the boys, he lied.
Calm, casual voice, she told herself, then she asked if Simmo was there too.
And Noel said yes. Noel said yeah, Simmo was.
*
When Noel ended the phone call with his mother he placed the mobile down on the patio table. He walked off into the yard, then Wendy heard the side gate latch. He was gone again. Cut and run.
When he returned, Wendy was combing Grace’s hair on the lounge, and Riley was sitting in Noel’s armchair with knees bent and spread like a guy. Noel entered through the sliding door, said nothing and went down the hall. A minute later Wendy heard the shower.
By the time she’d finished cleaning up and getting the girls to bed, Noel was asleep. The girls – she couldn’t help her old ways. The kids.
*
Three days later they were on a plane. Wendy and Riley sat beside each other, and Noel and Grace were in the row in front. On take-off, Wendy watched the crown of Noel’s head and wondered what the hell was going on in there.
Two days before, he was eating breakfast when he announced he was returning to Sydney. ‘I’m going home,’ he said. ‘I’ve got plenty of leave.’
To Wendy it had sounded as though he wasn’t coming back. ‘Good,’ she’d said. ‘Adrian needs you.’
Noel shook his head. ‘Adrian’s never needed me.’ His words were full with cereal. She despised the sloppy way he ate sometimes.
‘Maybe he didn’t in the past, or maybe he just never said so, but he needs you now.’
In a way Wendy was grateful for the turn of events: their marriage needed some kind of change. She was beginning to feel desperate for it, maybe even daring something more for herself. She wondered if the past would provide those needs.
‘Have you spoken to him?’ she had asked.
He’d said he had tried, but she couldn’t help thinking that a lot of what Noel said these days was bullshit. ‘He’s turned his phone off and shut down his online stuff.’
Fair enough, she thought, considering the circumstances.
Wendy had a soft spot for Adrian. She realised a long time ago that she was more prepared to defend Adrian to the hilt than she was Noel. Adrian was simply a nicer person. And she couldn’t entertain the idea that the allegations were valid. This punk kid would get what was coming to him.
‘Anyway,’ Noel had said, ‘Mum wants me there so the decision is made.’
There it is, she’d thought. Noel’s allegiance to his mother. Wendy hadn’t seen this in her husband for quite some time, and wondered if returning to the east coast would revive the old Noel. The man she’d fallen in love with.
She then told him she’d book the tickets, and that they would all go. Grace and Riley had
n’t been to Sydney for eight years, she said, and the school would be okay about them having a short time away for family reasons. Wendy could get her shifts at the clinic covered. A decent trip would give the kids an appreciation of where Noel grew up – he could show them his childhood house. She knew that would mean a lot to them. And when Wendy had her fill of Pomeroy family drama, she could drive a hire car to Canberra and see her mother. The thought of stealing more time for herself was solidifying.
Riley then came in wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Wendy noticed the chest binding through the material. She didn’t know why Riley even needed compression yet – she was still flat-chested enough to look like a boy. Wendy wondered when the request for hormones would come. There’d be a trip to the counsellor before that.
‘What’s this about?’ Riley had said, putting on his best twelve-year-old boy’s voice.
Wendy looked Noel in the eye. ‘Your uncle and your father.’
ADRIAN
‘I’m Detective Inspector Fielder,’ the officer said, showing Adrian his nametag. He had a low-key voice. Flat. Like he was bored.
Fielder made some notes and glanced up, pointing the end of his biro at Adrian’s face. ‘That’s quite a nose you’ve got there. Painful?’
Fielder could easily have been Mr H’s brother – older and wearier, but with the same kind of moustache. Adrian wondered what it was about men and moustaches. For some reason, being near a moustache made him want to lean over and pull on it.
Adrian looked over at the senior constable, the officer who had brought him in. She was leaning against the wall, keeping an eye on things. ‘I manage,’ he answered.
‘How did it occur?’
He felt like lying. He didn’t want to admit that his broken and lacerated nose was the result of a panic attack brought on by this impending event and its series of interrogations. But he also knew that a flurry of unverifiable information would increase their suspicion of his guilt. And contradiction was what he feared most.