by Ross Watkins
Michaela’s mother called a spade a spade. ‘Danny’s just not a very nice person,’ she told Michaela. ‘He’s got you in a rut. Divorce might be a hard road to take, but you can’t keep hurting like this. You’ve got to do something about it.’
Although Alex didn’t fully understand what that hurt was, he’d seen the stress in his mum’s face enough to know that she wasn’t happy. Hadn’t been for a long time, he figured, and that night he saw her cry so much there at the kitchen bench that he felt like crying as well. And so by the time Alex witnessed his parents’ separation the following day, Michaela had no more tears left.
She waited until Danny woke from his overnight shift. She made him bacon and baked beans, waited till he was finished, then sat him on their bed and took his hands. Shannon was at a neighbour’s house; Alex watched from the lounge room.
‘Danny, listen, I’ve been thinking about us and the kids heaps lately, and—’
‘Yeah, what?’
‘And I’ve been feeling a certain way for a long time, and I don’t think it’s good that I feel this way.’
‘What? Piss off.’
‘I’m serious, Danny. Listen to me, I don’t—’
‘Don’t start this shit again. It’s all good. Money gets a bit tight sometimes, but it’s—’
‘No, it’s not all good, and that’s my point. You’re working two jobs and I’m getting these bookkeeping jobs coming through, and we never get to see each other, and when we do you’re always getting on the piss or sleeping or yelling at the kids, and then we argue about it.’
‘Bullshit. We haven’t argued for ages.’
‘That’s only because I’ve been holding back, or because you’re not here to argue with.’
‘That’s because I’m working hard – hard for you! So what if I have a few drinks, have a yell? You’re alright. I don’t hit you or anything.’
‘I want something different from—’
‘From what, me working my arse off for you and the kids?’
‘Yes, exactly. I want something different for the kids, for us. For you, most of all.’
‘Right, and for yourself by the sounds of it.’
‘Exactly. I’m not happy living like this. Something has to change or I’ll go fucking mental. So I want you to leave. For a while. Just see what happens,’ she said, and Danny said nothing.
Alex held his breath, waiting for his old man to rage, to break shit, to smash a hole in the wall again, to punch the framed photograph of the family who no longer wanted him. But he did none of those things. He got up from the bed, put clothes and shoes in a bag, and refused to look at his wife, quaking as though the surface of his heart had split. Shannon came home while he packed and Alex told her what was happening. She said nothing.
Their father grabbed his wallet and keys and phone from the kitchen and headed towards the door. Then he did something Alex wasn’t expecting – he came up and kissed both his kids on the head.
‘She can kick me out of the house, but you’re still my kids, okay? I’ll be around,’ he told them.
*
Danny moved into a flat not far from his family’s home and continued to pay for some of the bills. The kids didn’t visit his flat on a regular basis but Michaela said he could come back home on the weekends, so he ate dinner with them every Saturday.
Over the next year, without his father around much, Alex started to take on more responsibility. With this emergent sense of importance, he found it easier to ignore, most of the time, those feelings he’d had for Mr Pomeroy, putting them in their place by reasoning that it was probably just his hormones. He had a different English teacher, so he only saw Mr Pomeroy at assembly or in the yard at lunchtime, and whenever he got that pang again, that compulsion, that sense of a developing need, he tried to distract himself with his mates or schoolwork or whatever was going on at home. He also tried to remember shame.
By the time Alex was sixteen he’d become a young man, and with this came a new sense of self. No longer the boy in need of a believer, he was coming to understand his own potency. No longer would his dad raise a belt to him – instead, he would raise his own hand to the world.
‘Look at you, ay?’ his father said at dinner one Saturday. ‘Finally got some hair on that upper lip, like a real man.’ Danny grabbed his forearm and shook it hard.
‘That actually hurts,’ Alex said.
Danny laughed. ‘But not a man yet!’
Shannon looked at her father. ‘What about me, Dad?’
‘Yeah, you’re lookin’ more and more like your mum,’ he said, then put a forkful of rice in his mouth and spoke through it, though the words struck nevertheless. ‘But that doesn’t mean you’ve got an excuse for making the same mistakes she has.’
Alex didn’t know which of her decisions his dad was referring to: the separation, or falling for him in the first place.
Later that night, after Danny left for his flat and Alex was in his bedroom, his mum came to him and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Don’t think you have to be the man he is, okay? You can be your own man. Who loves others in the ways he wants to love them.’
‘I know,’ he said.
She kissed his forehead and gave him some space.
On the first day of Year Eleven, not long after that Saturday night, Mr Pomeroy walked into the classroom and Alex’s heart swelled in a way he had to fight with new resolve. The habit of denial had become so entrenched by then that at first his feelings hit him with genuine surprise. He’d grown into his adolescent body, put on some muscle bulk, but he had also grown a new mindset. He’d hardened up. He’d learned how to sit back in his seat and put on an air of not knowing much and not really caring. And he now had mates who called him Akker, and he wore this name as a badge of their camaraderie.
It was for this reason, he told himself, that he approached Mr Pomeroy’s desk at the end of that first English class of the year. To show just how much he’d changed.
‘What’s up, Alex?’
Mr Pomeroy was tidying the lesson’s paperwork on his desk. Akker liked watching him being busy.
‘I’d like to be called Akker in class, sir.’
‘Sure, Akker. Not a problem. It’s good to have you in my classroom again,’ Mr Pomeroy said, to which Akker felt a surge of what he thought had been neatly buried. He was so unnerved that a smirk broke across his mouth.
‘I look forward to being nurtured, sir,’ he said. He couldn’t help the tease, even though it was only drawing out that buried thing. It was as though some part of him desired to begin something new from something old.
That night, in bed, he reflected on the many things that had happened over the past four years, plus all that hadn’t happened. Although he was transformed on the surface, the one element of himself he’d done so well to conceal had, after all this time, not altered at all. And he knew – he could see it in Mr Pomeroy’s eyes, in the subtleties of his body language – that there was reciprocal feeling. A spark. A burn. He could see heat there in Mr Pomeroy’s expression.
That night, Alex finally gave in to the thought of Adrian Pomeroy – and not Adrian Pomeroy the teacher, but Adrian Pomeroy the man.
*
Getting to Adrian’s house was a little difficult the first time, but after that Akker knew the way and even memorised the bus route. Finding out his address online wasn’t all that complicated.
There was risk, for sure, that he’d get caught and have to explain what the hell he was doing stalking his teacher. The only possible justifications he could come up with involved turning the tables, deflecting the accusations, making Adrian into something he wasn’t. Then again, it wasn’t as if Adrian was exactly rejecting the attention – mostly just looks in class, at that point. He seemed to like it.
But there was no chance Akker would tell the truth because that would mean more shame
than he could bear. And anyway, he wasn’t quite sure what the truth of the situation was. Can impressions and thoughts be told as some definitive truth? He reckoned not.
So he strategised, telling his mum he’d been called in for an evening work shift. He’d ask her to drop him off at the store, and from there bus it across suburbs and walk the remaining few blocks to the house. By the time he arrived it was always dark enough to slip up the driveway and along the side of the house, where he could move from window to window, watching Adrian go about his night. There was a perverse pleasure in seeing this other side to his teacher, his domestic qualities. He’d watch him play with his son on the floor or read books together or watch TV. Seeing the way Adrian interacted with his family didn’t put Akker off at all. It brought a sense of intimacy that he couldn’t get in the classroom. It was a kind of privilege to witness the real Adrian, the man beyond the teacher at the front of the room, and Akker’s feelings strengthened.
Not even seeing Adrian’s wife deterred him. If anything, knowing who she was dispelled the woman of his imagination, who was far more incredible than the reality. He was relieved at her ordinariness – her looks, her backgrounded presence in the house. He was also relieved by the lack of affection she showed Adrian. They hardly touched, let alone did anything more sexual. From the outside, they looked like a couple on the verge of slipping away from one another, urged by the invisible force of diminishing love. He never caught them arguing or witnessed a decisive action, but Akker had seen enough to know that such a marriage couldn’t last. And although he wanted it that way, sometimes he wished he could reach in through the window and hold them both. At other times, he desired to take Adrian away from the hurt he could not see coming.
Over eight visits spanning a few months, Akker never saw Adrian naked, but on a few nights he saw him in his underwear or with a towel around his waist, and this turned him on even more. Especially when he imagined what he would find once that towel was peeled away. Sometimes he convinced himself that Adrian knew he was being watched, and that he was putting on a kind of show – a display of his masculinity, a demonstration of the love he was capable of giving.
When Adrian showed up at the store one night, Akker took it as a sign. When his shift ended he went home, and there wrote the first story he’d created for Adrian since he was twelve. Two days later he opened an email account under the name godhand. Using this account, he sent Adrian the story. It was meant to be a love story. A gesture of touch. The story was meant to portray Adrian as his saviour.
*
Adrian’s behaviour changed after that first email. He never said anything, never mentioned what he thought of the story or even acknowledged receiving it, but Akker knew his teacher was watching him more closely. Whenever doubt surfaced – that perhaps he shouldn’t have emailed under an alias – Akker found reassurance in a glance, a turning of the lip, or the emphasis Adrian put on a word when he read aloud from the Golding book they were studying in class.
Then came the day in the library.
Akker had an assignment to complete for ancient history so he went to find reference materials during his free period. He walked the shelves and found what he needed, then carried the pile to the quiet study zone, a room towards the rear of the building where there were beanbags and armchairs. When he entered he looked up to see Adrian lounging in one of the armchairs, reading a novel. No one else was around.
Akker watched him and sat in one of the chairs nearby. Adrian didn’t seem to notice him at first, so Akker opened a book and flipped through pages, looking up every few seconds. Adrian read, moving his lips mutely as he did so, as if he were in a trance.
Then the trance broke. He looked up. They made eye contact.
‘Sir.’
‘Mr Bowman,’ Adrian said. The teacher tried to go back to his book, but failed. He dropped it to his lap. ‘Why are you in here, Akker? Shouldn’t you be in class?’
Akker felt his heart sucking blood from his body’s extremities. ‘Free period, sir. Doing some research for an assignment.’
‘Right. And I just happen to be sitting here.’
Akker looked around, then back at his teacher. ‘A coincidence,’ Adrian said.
‘Yeah, I guess so.’
‘Right.’
Akker didn’t appreciate Adrian’s expression; it was like he was taking the piss or something. ‘What book are you reading, sir?’
‘This.’ Adrian held up the hardback copy of The Stories of John Cheever. ‘I just picked it up off the shelf.’
‘Sure. Any good?’
‘A bit heavy, you could say.’
Akker nodded.
‘It can be difficult to find a storyteller you like,’ Adrian continued.
‘Yeah. Stories are good.’
‘Stories are important because they allow us to make sense of our lives,’ Adrian said, playing the teacher’s role more faithfully now.
‘Yeah, but they’re better than life because we can be who we want in them.’
Adrian nodded. He turned a page.
Akker smirked, and they both returned to their books. They could’ve been just two people reading.
When the bell rang Adrian closed his book, then came over to Akker and stood behind his chair. He reached out and put his hand on Akker’s shoulder, leaving it there a moment, looking down at the book Akker held, perhaps at the very same words he was reading. Adrian seemed reluctant to pull away. Perhaps, Akker wondered, out of lust. Or perhaps because removing the hand would draw more attention to it.
‘Can’t we stay?’ Akker asked.
‘No,’ Adrian said. ‘We can’t.’
Then Adrian took his hand back and walked away.
But Akker didn’t move. Akker didn’t move for a very long time.
*
Late that Saturday night, Akker wrote the second story as a dedication to what was unsaid. There was risk in telling this story, because there was a good chance Adrian would realise Akker had been to his house at some point – the evidence was there in the description. If Adrian responded with anger, he decided, he would deny it. Denial was the easiest card to play. After all, he’d played it many times before – he had done so that very evening, when his dad spoke to him after dinner.
Michaela had stood and begun taking the plates from the table. Danny looked to Shannon. ‘Go give your mother a hand in the kitchen.’ Shannon did as she was asked.
‘Alex, you didn’t finish your dinner,’ Danny began. ‘What’s up, mate?’
He shook his head. ‘Not hungry.’
‘You know I hate it when you kids waste food.’
‘Not hungry, I said.’ He put his elbows on the table and sank his head into his palms.
Years ago, his old man would’ve threatened to get the belt out for that kind of behaviour, but so much had changed. Maybe now he feared the return of his son’s hand.
Danny moved his chair closer and bent towards Akker’s face. ‘Mate, I’ve been watching you for a couple of weeks. Is there something going on I should know about?’
‘It’s nothing, Dad.’
‘Well, I reckon there’s at least something.’ Danny tried to pull Akker’s hand from his face. ‘Look at me when I’m speaking to you.’
Akker didn’t budge.
‘What about school – you keeping up with tests and all that?’
‘Yep.’
‘Your mates giving you trouble?’
‘No.’
‘What about your teachers?’
‘No, Dad.’ Akker lifted his head now and rocked back in his chair.
‘What about work? Is that manager giving you shit shifts still? Mum says you’ve been working more lately. Just don’t throw away this chance you’ve got at school, okay? Don’t be a dickhead like me, right? School’s more important than money at the moment. And we didn’t—’
‘I know, Dad. And I’ve got nothing to say to you. I’m in control.’
Danny sat back in his chair. ‘Well. I hope you are.’
ADRIAN
Adrian woke to Glenda tapping on his bedroom window with a key. He could make out her shape through the slicing blinds and her voice through muffling glass. He didn’t move and she didn’t tap long. He heard her walk around to the front of the house, and guessed she left the key under the mat or somewhere not too conspicuous. He heard the sound of his dad’s ute start up and pull away, then he got up and yanked the blind cord down and the room got dark enough that he could go back to sleep.
He woke again late morning. He fixed himself a coffee and was sweeping the shards of glass from the kitchen benchtop and floor onto some newspaper when the phone rang.
‘Is this Adrian?’
‘Rafiq?’
‘Yeah, you caught me at a bad time yesterday but I’m glad you called.’
‘Look, I just need to talk to someone about what’s going on.’
‘I bet you do. There’s been a bit of talk at school you should probably know about. I have a class soon and I don’t want to talk about it like this, but could you meet at the squash courts at five o’clock?’
Adrian looked out at his mother’s car, delivered to his driveway. ‘Sure.’
*
As he drove, he tried to recall the dream he’d been having before he woke. Adrian almost always remembered his dreams for a while, before leaving them behind. Even the ones about banal acts and everyday emotions – the kind which failed to leave their mark on the day they precede. The sieved stuff of ordinariness. It seemed that those forgettable dreams were only important to be had, rather than remembered. Dreams to get things clear, for thoughts from the day to arrange themselves, to find a place somewhere in the box that was his brain.
But then there were the dreams he knew must form a map of him. The kind which recurred or reached for some truth, if only he could pull back and take a good look at what they revealed beyond their abstract quality. These were the kinds of dreams that left an impression on his skin, in his muscle, like the sweat and ache of physical exertion.