The Best Australian Stories 2012

by Sonya Hartnett

  Gillespie said we should go to auction. ‘Harness the competition.’ Bruno thought auctions were about game playing. He preferred the surety of sale price. Private sale, as agents say, as if it’s not them but the owner plonking a hand-painted For Sale sign out front. They put $995,000 on it because it was such a great property, but also because the million-dollar figure would scare some folks off. The young agent, whose name was Peter Duncan-Green and whom I dubbed Green Peter, did most of the selling. He was a nice guy, I liked him better than Gillespie, who always looked on the make, but he was over-anxious, too eager to please.

  It took Papa a while to get used to the idea that $995,000 was a starting point, not the figure someone was likely to cough up. Then a couple came who were going to fork out something near it, but the woman got cold feet and the deal fell through. Mama and Papa could hardly believe it.

  ‘Should have had the experienced one,’ Rita kept saying. ‘That boy, he got no sales smarts!’

  In fairness to Green Peter, he worked hard and got other offers, but Bruno would accept nothing less than what was on the table when the first deal collapsed. Rita convinced him, eventually, to surrender attachment to the office-bound Bigelow and go elsewhere.

  HBT were a bigger outfit, with a glitzy glass cube of an office down the road from the last mob. After Bruno and Rita signed, they sent around a minibus – I’m not kidding – with all their agents, who slid out in their black suits like a murder of crows, conducted a three-minute inspection with handshakes sprayed in all directions, collected themselves and drove off again. Apparently they did this with every new property on the books, so that all their agents, even those who had nothing to do with a sale, could provide a recommendation.

  The agent responsible for Papa and Mama’s property was Wayde Tinkel. He was about the same age as Gillespie, late forties, when agents, the men at least, hit their spinmaster, lying bastard prime. But he was fitter, with cropped hair going silver above a tanned face, and a body that looked as if it might have been a rower’s or at least seen the inside of a gym. He wore, unusually, an open-neck shirt, an expensive grey suit that matched his hair, and an air of being a statesman of the realty world. He was assisted by a young woman named Kirsten, who carried a clipboard that probably held nothing but blank forms, and who wore tight grey skirts that approximated the grey of Wayde’s hair, so it looked as if they always read from the same über urban corporate page. A youngster, John, who was on a different page, sometimes hovered in the background in an ill-fitting black suit, checking his mobile and failing to wipe the remains of his lunch from the side of his mouth.

  Like the previous agents, the buffed Wayde Tinkel recommended auction. My parents this time agreed, hoping to spare themselves the grief of another collapsed sale.

  ‘Once someone puts their hand up at auction, there’s no pulling it down,’ assured Wayde. He said anything less than a million would be giving the house away.

  Being a middle manager has occasional advantages, so I took a long lunch to sit in with Bruno and Rita when they signed with HBT. Whenever mention was made of the previous agents, Wayde Tinkel would give a small shake of his head, say he was loath to criticise competitors, but some agents didn’t know how to garner interest in challenging market conditions.

  ‘For quality properties such as yours, there’s always a market.’

  ‘Exactly!’ said Rita, shaking her hands so that the gold bracelet she wore for important occasions bounced noisily on her wrist. ‘That boy with the last mob not sharp enough.’

  ‘Some agents,’ said Wayde, and he shook his head again. John-with-lunch-on-his-cheek grunted agreement.

  HBT already had, we were told, a number of clients on their books seeking a property just like Bruno and Rita’s. For the first week of the marketing campaign, apparently the most important, Wayde convinced my parents to take out a full-page advertisement in the local rag. At the first open inspection, after complimenting them on their immaculate presentation – there was not a speck of lint on the carpets, not a dust mote on the polished blackwood boards – Wayde, aided by the full-page advertisement and his easy charm, ushered through scores of would-be buyers while Bruno and Rita took coffee in the backyard.

  My parents had heard on radio that, according to an article once written by Bryce Courtenay, who could attest to the fact thanks to the happy experience of selling his own small mansion on Darling Harbour or wherever, the aroma of coffee and freshly baked bread created happy associations for potential buyers. Before each inspection, Bruno and Rita would make a large pot of coffee. Bruno would buy a loaf of something white and crusty, rip it open, shove it in an oven and turn to medium for twelve minutes. By the time Wayde Tinkel or Kirsten or crumb-faced John knocked on the door, the coffee and bread would be swept away, but the kitchen and dining area would have the comforting aromas of a bakery.

  My parents had rarely tolerated mess, but they now set new benchmarks in tidiness. When I visited, Mama immediately gathered my keys, jacket, bag and the newspaper or magazine I’d thrown on the kitchen table, and make of them a neat pile folded onto a chair. The house once cheerfully cluttered with gold-leaf cups, florid cushions, decorative plates featuring royal couplings, family photos and bad art, took on an air of austerity if not heightened alert. Even the hallway crucifix was temporarily laid to rest in a drawer, and Jesus and his fellow diners now took their last supper in the garage.

  Mama often repeated the line Wayde Tinkel had gifted her: ‘Anything less than a million would be giving the house away.’ When Wayde or the tight-skirted Kirsten ushered casually well-shod buyers in and out, it felt as if that million dollars was fluttering through our family home, waiting for the right moment to deposit itself on a leather armchair.

  But as the auction date approached, I noticed Wayde, Kirsten and even young John Boy, catching up on his craft, tweak their words. ‘If we can get up towards that magic seven figures, that’ll be a great result for you,’ they said. Or, ‘We’re still confident we can achieve a fantastic outcome.’ A week before the auction, only a handful came to the open inspection, and few requests were made for the contract of sale. Kirsten said this was normal. Those interested (‘and we have had interest’) had done their homework already. Papa frowned. Kirsten patted his arm. ‘In any case the auction itself is only one stage of the campaign.’

  By the final days pre-auction, Bruno and Rita’s campaign of neatness had a military air. A chair once sat on would be inched back into place with slide-rule precision, windows were cleaned to the point of invisibility. The new bedroom carpets, which moulted wisps of sisal every time someone stepped on them, were vacuumed daily, as were the timber floors. Every bench and ledge – nearly every horizontal surface – was dusted almost on the hour, and a vase or lamp would be repositioned millimetre perfect. Outside, the lawn wore a permanent buzz cut. Any leaf with the temerity to rest on a concrete paver would quickly be met with Bruno’s fanatical broom.

  *

  The night before auction, I had dinner at Papa and Mama’s. Bruno said grace, adding to the usual spiel a prayer that the house would sell, that the new owners would take as much joy and happiness in our family home as we had. Amen to that. He and Rita were on high alert. I was scrubbing dishes – no way would anyone find a dirty pot in our dishwasher – when the doorbell rang. Bruno was gone two minutes. Male voices, his and another, floated down the hallway. A mix of exclamations and pauses, footsteps on the dust-free floorboards. Heavy steps, and a familiar voice that rang loudly in the de-cluttered house. A voice I hadn’t heard in five years.

  My little brother looked both wiry and large when he walked in. He wrenched a swollen rucksack off his shoulder and swung it in an arc to the clean-swept tiles of the kitchen floor, accompanied by an equally expansive ‘Well!’ This was directed partly at Mama and me, partly at the renovated space before him.

  Mama didn’t move. She held a knif
e with which she’d been scraping scraps from a plate. She stood still, plate in one hand, knife held mid air in the other. She stood like that nearly half a minute, staring at my brother. Then she scraped the plate.

  My brother remained stationary, hand and mouth both slightly open. He held on tightly to a smile.

  ‘You’ve lost weight, Mickey,’ I said. He turned, took a step forward and put his arms around me. I smelt train station lockers, fast food. I kissed him quickly on each cheek, then gave the burp-the-baby pat that says let go. He held me at arm’s length, like in a Hollywood soap.

  ‘Big sis, it’s good to see you.’

  He went to Mama, stuck out his arms. She half turned away but accepted a peck on her cheek. He hugged her briefly. Released, she dropped the plate and knife into the sink.

  ‘Why you here?’

  ‘Nostalgia, Mama.’

  She looked for more dirty plates, but they were in the sink or washed already. She grabbed a tea towel.

  ‘Just kidding,’ he said. He maintained a big smile. ‘I wanted to see my family again. And the old family home. What’s that lit-up billboard about?’ He gestured towards the front of the house.

  ‘You forgotten how to read?’ said Mama.

  Papa stepped forward. ‘Mickey thought he might stay a couple of nights.’ He patted Mickey in a fatherly way on the arm. A nervous action, I thought, desperate to summon cheer.

  ‘Only if that’s okay, of course,’ said Mickey. He lowered his head, turned his hands out in stagey supplication. ‘I know the last time I was here was not a happy time. My behaviour was appalling. For that, I’m truly sorry.’

  *

  We’d last seen Mickey after he walked out of another failed rehab. By his second night back home, he’d relieved the house of the flat-screen TV – a replacement for the previous model that had vanished six months earlier – the stereo, a rack of CDs and my old PC. How it was worth his while lugging a Pentium III out the back door was beyond me, but the loss of the stereo pushed Mama over the edge. When Papa had retired, he’d bought a Bose with separate CD, tuner, amp and speakers with subwoofer. MP3 compatible. A curiously top-dollar affair, given Bruno barely knew what to do with a CD. He listened mostly to talkback radio or watched TV news services that repeated each other. But the Bose was a mature-age rite of passage. He proudly showed visitors its discreet black lines, the digital welcome when it came to life, how effortlessly the earnest voices on talkback or SBS Italian news bellowed through its three-way speakers. It was a signature piece marking Bruno’s decades of managing storerooms. And it was gone.

  Rita shouted at Mickey and declared this the last of many straws. Screechingly asked how he could pawn his own sister’s computer. Gestured at the space from where the flat-screen had disappeared as if at the loss of a minor da Vinci. She moved to where the Bose had sat and screamed at him as to how, how he could possibly have sunk so low as to steal his own father’s loved music box, and for a quick quirt in the arm sell it to some, some … For one of the few times in my mother’s life, words failed her.

  ‘Your own papa!’ she yelled. ‘Fifty years shifting boxes for this!’ In his later years he’d had others shift the boxes for him, but never mind.

  Mickey roused himself from momentary silence. He turned to her and swore. Viciously. Papa stepped forward with hands raised in a vain attempt to foster calm.

  ‘You don’t talk to your mama like that.’

  Mickey punched him in the stomach, twice. Short jabs that took his breath away. When Papa’s breath returned it came in little sobs, and he stood crying while Mickey stormed from the house and into the night in a cyclone of screaming and slammed doors. Later, Mickey phoned to check if it was safe to come pick up his stuff. He could pick up his stuff from the rubbish tip, I told him.

  Bruno, most sinned against, was the most forgiving. Rita maintained her rage. When Mickey’s name came up she would let loose on his appalling abuse of our family. She muddled sentences in her anger. ‘The first order of an arsehole,’ he was. He was that and more, of course, but her outbursts were mostly enough for both of us, and I had little to add, saving my anger for private rages. After two years, Rita moderated hers to releasing a short breath, shaking her head a dozen times and slamming whatever was to hand on a table or benchtop. Once she broke a cheese platter. Bruno made vague noises to the effect that this was what God had offered, and we must bear with it.

  *

  I helped Mama prepare the bed in his old room, now with a feature wall in some designer shade of olive. Methodically, silently, we unfolded blankets and pulled the sheets tight as Mama’s face. I patted down the bed, patted her shoulder. She straightened the pillow with a slap, as if Mickey’s head were on it already.

  I stayed until eleven. Mickey, after making a conspicuous point of washing our cups and wiping down the already clean bench top, sat at the kitchen table with a tumbler of Frangelico poured from a bottle he’d extracted from his grubby rucksack as a gift for Papa.

  ‘Cin cin,’ he said as I was leaving, and emptied the glass.

  *

  Next morning, auction day, I was met with the black smell of burning toast, the front door having been thrown open before I reached it. Papa had put the oven on full, only to forget the torn loaf he’d placed inside to counterfeit a bakery. An acrid fog filled the kitchen; smoke decanted from the oven. They were in near panic, yelling in Italian, Papa waving his hands to clear the air and placate Mama in a series of frenzied movements.

  Mickey hadn’t emerged. It was Mickey’s fault their routine was up in smoke.

  Rita confined to the bin the charcoal carcase of what had once been a loaf of bread.

  I knocked on Mickey’s door and entered. The room was a cartoon dog kennel. Clothes had spilled from the belly of the rucksack all over the floor; the tumbler and half-empty bottle of Frangelico sat beside the bed. The blanket was largely detached from the bed itself, and an odour of sweat and a muffled groan rose from the hump of bedclothes, from which protruded a scruffy head of hair. I gave the hump a violent shove, five years in the making.

  ‘Get up. Pronto!’

  Over their protests I steered Bruno and Rita, still fussing with windows and fans, to chairs. Into their hands I put cups of coffee, remade after the previous pot had burnt as badly as the bread. When the greasy-haired rag that was Mickey staggered into the room, I slapped a cup in front of him too.

  ‘Service,’ he said.

  ‘You know what day it is?’

  ‘Friday. Saturday. That’d be it.’

  I looked at him.

  ‘Oh yeah. The sign out the front.’

  ‘One hour,’ said Rita, near hysterical. ‘One hour and everyone will be here!’

  ‘Milk?’

  I gestured towards a carton.

  ‘It was good to be back in my old bed. Have you seen my leather coat, by the way? Knee-length? Whatever. I was thinking if I could stay a while, I could sort my next move. You know, stability. Family. Roots. That’s all I need. If I could hunker down, like Kafka’s little beetle, I’d be sweet.’

  Mama walked from the room. Mickey yawned.

  ‘Is it just me or has something burnt?’

  ‘Shower. Get dressed. Now.’ I shoved him towards the bathroom. Perhaps it was my meaner, inner jungle Barbie, but I could get to like the shove.

  He made a big thing of tidying his room. He wrestled his clothes back into the rucksack, which he threw to into a wardrobe. He straightened the bedclothes, centred his pillow.

  ‘Mama, Pops, this house is a credit to you.’ He put his arm around Papa’s shoulders and squeezed, as if he were the greatest son any father could want. ‘Sure you want to sell?’

  *

  Wayde Tinkel agreed the house at 31 George Parade was a credit to my parents. He would tell his audience so this morning.
He arrived with Kirsten, John Boy and a tall suit I recalled from the minibus visit a month earlier. Another flurry of handshakes. The sun shone on what all agreed was a perfect auction day. John had removed breakfast from his cheek for the occasion.

  Ten minutes before the auction, the family home was a public thoroughfare, a department store where the only item for sale was the store itself. Parents towing kids shuffled from room to room, the kids opening and poking everything and no doubt wiping their snot on the bedspreads and lounge. The adults walked with their arms strapped across their chests, except when they too opened a cupboard door to check the storage or our belongings, and they nodded or frowned and shook their heads or just locked their thoughts down. Kafka’s little beetle sat on his bed, staring as if stoned at everyone who walked into his room. I manoeuvred him out the front door, along the garden path, and lodged him up against a picket fence on the opposite side of the street.

  ‘Don’t fuck this up for Mama and Papa,’ I spat at him. He looked at me, shame-faced.

  ‘Sis, I hear you.’

  ‘Stay here,’ I said, motioning with my hand as if instructing a dog, looking back as I walked away to check he hadn’t moved.

  At 11 a.m. Kirsten rang a bell, the sort once used in schoolyards, which everyone seemed to think was very amusing. The parents, their snot-nosed kids and a smattering of tradie and investor types assembled. I joined Mama and Papa in the lounge room at the front of the house, where they stood by the window, too tense to sit.

  After motoring through the requisite legalese, Wayde extolled the virtues of this premium property in a tightly held pocket of a sought-after suburb with so much local amenity – a term that probably owed its existence to estate agents. The cafés, the public transport, the schools, the parks, the twenty minutes to the CBD. The charm of the house, the meticulous renovation that retained and enhanced magnificent period features and melded them with contemporary design. A property the vendors could rightly take pride in. And one in which, over many years, they had made an immense emotional investment. Here Wayde hit his spinmeister straps. This was a very emotional day for the vendors, the whole family, he said. A family he’d come to know and respect, one that had put so much time and love into this residence. Stepping into this much cared-for and loved family home, all would feel the warmth of thirty-five years of family life. It was a very special property, and it was with great emotion that this close-knit family now offered it, entrusted it, to the market. With that, Wayde cast his arms out wide, Christ-like, and declared himself in the hands of his audience.