Charis laughed triumphantly and stood up. “I’ll put it in a sentence! You do the hokey kokey and you turn around, and that’s what it’s all about!” She ended with a twirl that left her facing the other way.
The cloying heat, the dust, the sweet drink sitting on my stomach, and my lack of sleep hit me all at once. My stomach churned.
“I’m gonna chuck.” I jumped up and stumbled off to the bathroom, tripping on a brass vase that landed on the floor with a clang. The sight of the pink toilet bowl relaxed my throat and the awful relief you get just as you vomit hit me. Whenever I vomit I’m always a kid again; six years old and crying as mum holds me over the toilet. The bitter taste, the sting in the nose, the gnashing teeth afterwards, it stays with you. The clammy shivers you feel when the purge is complete. I reached up and flushed the old-style chain, and put down the lid. When I looked up Charis was at the door.
“What’s wrong. Did you eat something?”
I sat back down on the floor, feeling the cool of the tiles. It wasn’t how I had pictured the conversation that was about to happen.
“Gracie came round to see me yesterday.”
“Really?” Her eye looked away, betraying her.
“Why did you go round there and do that?”
“Because they’re siblings too. We’ve got to give Bevan the most chance we can.”
“But we don’t even know if they’d be compatible enough!”
“Your Dad said he’ll think about!”
“Gracie said no way.” I could see the confusion and hurt in Charis’ face. I wiped my mouth with some toilet paper, my still-sensitive stomach shuddering at the perfumey taste.
“I thought I was doing something good.”
“Well Gracie doesn’t want you near her kids.”
“She said that?”
“Those exact words.”
“Is everything ok in there?” Doris called in hesitantly from down the hall.
“We’re fine Doris, Rob’s just been sick, that’s all.”
“Out in a minute,” I called, trying to sound bright.
“I’ll get you some more Coke if you like,” offered Doris.
Despite myself, I jokingly shape to vomit again. Charis smiled.
“Those bottles have done some miles,” she said in a low voice.
“Yeah, the last quarter mile backwards.”
“Are you ok?”
“I’ll live.” I got up and rinsed my mouth at the matching pink pedestal hand-basin.
The over-flow trap was flaky and stained with rust dribbles that meandered down towards the plug-hole. I spat out the water and watched the last of the vomit flecks disappear.
“Are we ok?” She said it quietly and with emphasis.
“We’re ok,” I said, wiping my mouth again, “But we need to talk about some stuff.”
“If we play another game will you vomit again?”
“Look I might go home. I feel crap and I need some sleep.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, I’ll come and see you after work tomorrow.” She smiled, looking reassured.
“We’ll talk tomorrow, go out for coffee.” Relief in her voice.
I gave my apologies to Doris and Hector, who had resumed their positions round the board.
“Bit sick,” I said.
“You’re not pregnant are you?”
“Look after yourself love,” said Doris, ignoring Hector’s remark, “Keep up your fluids, it’s a hot day.”
“Cos if you are you’ll only be sick in the first trimester.”
I managed a smile. “I’m not pregnant Hector.”
“Good lad!” he exclaimed, like I’d ran in under the posts for Oxford against Cambridge.
I let myself out, and stood in the baking sun for a while, feeling it dry my post-vomit sweat. I drove home with the windows down listening to the ABC commentary from the Test Match at the WACA. Typical. Not even lunch on day three and the game was almost over.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I worked off my frustrations the next day helping Chris put up four metre lengths of Gyprock on a ceiling in a house he was doing. I’d stand there on the trestles balancing my end of the huge grey sheet on my head, while Chris Tek-screwed it to the ceiling.
“Watch it!,” he called as it started to list. My arms trembled from the weight. The Gyprock bucked and warped like some manic wobble-board from a Rolf Harris nightmare. The heat beat through the zinc roof. Without a ceiling or insulation the room was a hot-house. Sweat streamed off us. It was work-boots and shorts only. It felt good; blokey and worthwhile. The heat and hard work had a cleansing effect, and every pore on my body opened up. The poison of the last few days was pouring out with the sweat, invigorating my mind even as my body protested at the weight.
“Take a breather,” Chris gasped, putting the last screw in. He jumped off the trestle and turned and faced me. “Thanks,” he heaved, “Couldn’t do it by myself.” Sweat was pouring off him too. It suited his lean brown body, tight and tensed from holding the sheeting.
We sat on the upside down milk-crates you find at every building site drinking iced-coffee.
“What’s it with builders and iced-coffee?”
“What’d you mean?” he asked, flicking a hardened lump of plaster off his boot.
“All the tradies I see drink it. Even your car’s full of empties.”
“It’s our AM drink.”
“AM drink? What’s your PM drink?
“VB, stupid.”
“You guys have it cushy. You know what you’re drinking when. You knock off at three. You get paid better than I ever have.”
“Piss off, I do this six days a week, you do it one or two.”
“Yeah, well sometimes I wish my life was more like yours.”
“What do you mean?”
“Regular. No surprises.”
“You wanna work on site with some of the guys I’ve worked with. You’d go running back to your office, mate.” Chris gave a phlegmy haugh and spat. The meteor cratered in the thick dust on the floor. “No such thing as a regular life without surprises. Look at Bevan. Three months back he was fine. Then surprise! Wanna swap with him?”
The mention of Bevan reminded me of the afternoon meeting coming up with Charis.
“Charis put her foot in it,” I said warily, testing out to see if he wanted to pursue it.
“In what?’
“The whole bone marrow thing.”
“What do you mean?” He shifted on the crate, giving me a narrow-eyed look.
“I’m going to see her about it this afternoon. She went round to Dad and Gracie’s and asked if the kids could be tested.” Chris leaned back and laughed, downing the last of his drink.
“Shit! Good on her,” he said wiping his arm across his mouth, “The girl’s got balls.”
“Gracie came round and let me have it afterwards.”
“To your place?”
“Yeah, couple of days ago.”
“Hope you told her to get stuffed.”
“You think Charis did the right thing?”
“Right thing, wrong thing. What does it matter? She did something. She’s a good chick.”
“I hope one of us is compatible.”
“Bloody Vicki,” he said, staring off into space. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “You doing the blood-test tomorrow?” he asked, snapping out of it.
“Yeah.”
“Me too,” he said getting up with a bounce. “Right next sheet. We need to finish this today, so you can forget the three o’clock knock off.”
I got up, feeling half as invigorated and twice as sore as Chris. Six days a week! How did he keep it up?
* * *
Chris was right about Charis. She did have balls. And that was it wasn’t it? It was all about balls. Dad didn’t have the balls to say no to Charis, while Gracie had the balls to come round and let me have it. Where did that leave me and my prevaricating? In the midst of it all Bevan was close to dying. If Stu, Chris or I wer
e not suitable donors the window of opportunity was pretty small to find another one. What if Jesse and Lauren were compatible?
And hadn’t Gracie shown her true colours to us? She‘d made it clear that Dad’s past family was exactly that - his past. She didn’t see the irony that when she met Dad it was his present family that she tore apart. I’d often wondered what would have happened if when Gracie got involved with Dad, Mum had stormed round to her house like Gracie did to mine and told her to keep away from her family. Why hadn’t Mum dived in and saved the whole family from the dark swollen river that was Gracie, like she did me that time in the National Park? Our family was swept away by that woman. What would Dad have done if Mum had dived in? Stood on the sidelines looking on sheepishly, that’s what.
The women in our family had been the strong ones. And now with the Charis Light Brigade charging in, I was repeating the pattern. When we’d gone to Dad’s and Gracie’s that first time for dinner, Charis had said she’d been glad to be part of something that breaks a circuit. Why didn’t the men ever do that? We were still going round in those eternal loops. Maybe it was a family curse.
Dad’s dad had worked the Belfast shipyards: a breeding ground for tough fighting Ulster Defence Association types. Men to be feared. Men who beat their own wives and played around with other men’s. Yet the ship they’re most famous for is the Titanic. Dad’s dad was a riveter and he grew strong and wiry from the hot metal and the pounding hammer. What did he do with that strength? He diluted it pint after pint, before wasting the rest of it beating my grandmother. Not once did these men look to the scudding grey Ulster sky and dream of something brighter beyond it. Or if they did, they lacked the willpower to do anything about it. In the end their dreams would curdle like the jars of buttermilk they drank to wash down their bread and dripping sandwiches.
“Who’s for cards?” they’d say, wiping their mouths on their grey serge coats that kept out the Ulster damp. They’d pull out their baccy and papers and sit smoking waiting for the whistle to haul them back to the dock. A life that celebrated the eternal loop, and would have feared anything else.
** *
“How many times have we come in here?” Charis sounded bright and happy. The ship had righted itself: the storm seemed to have passed. We were in the cafe round the corner from her work, the place we’d gone to that first time. I’d raced home from working with Chris, jumped in the shower, feeling the satisfaction as water, milky-white from plaster dust, slurried down the plug-hole. I got to Fremantle just as Charis was closing up the shop.
“Better?” she’d asked.
“No more puking. Worked today with Chris.”
We’d walked the rest of the way to the cafe in silent hand-holding.
“Outside or in? “
In. It’s too hot out.”
“Remember the first time we came here?” I asked as we sat down. A wave of nerves hit me. I couldn’t pick why. Suddenly I wasn’t sure that we should be having this meeting, if that’s what it was. Lovers have trysts and rendezvous’, not meetings. Once it’s called a meeting, it’s usually because the relationship is dead in the water. And this one didn’t seem dead in the water. Maybe I was over-reacting, like Gracie had. Charis had done it, Gracie had rejected it. End of story. Get on with our lives. Was this just a beat-up, akin to Pongo sending me to get a dubious angle on some agricultural story for a front page lead?
“The coffee was cold,” she smiled. You wouldn’t ask for a new one.”
“You did! I wondered what I’d gotten myself into! You were wearing that same tee-shirt.”
“Was I?” She pulled at it. “It’s past its best.”
“Your hair was a lot shorter.”
“Yeah it needs cut, it’s losing its spring. She pushed it back from her eyes with a pale hand. I remembered watching her hands twisted her napkin. How I liked them the first time I noticed them. How familiar they were now. I wondered what it would be like to lose Charis. It takes ages to replace the familiarity of hands.
“Two lattes?” The waitress arrived, placing coffees in front of us. I warily felt the cup. Hot thankfully.
“Why didn’t you want me asking about the kids?” I should have been used to her forwardness by now, but the baldness of her question still caught me by surprise.
“It’s... it’s just that we don’t know them well enough to do that.”
“He’s your father,”
“Yeah, but he left twelve years ago. He’s got another life now. Another wife and kids. It’s not like...”
“Thirteen years ago,” she corrected, “And you don’t think he’s got some responsibilities?” All her tentativeness from the other day at Hector and Doris’s was gone.
“I’m just trying to keep the two sides of my life separate.”
“But Rob, you’re the one who linked him up with Bevan in the first place.”
“Maybe that was a mistake.”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was what was meant to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
She pulled her hair back from her face again. “Do you ever wonder why you caught up with your Dad when you did?”
“I dunno. I just did it. A bit of a whim.”
“You believe that do you?”
“Well why do you think?” It came out more caustic than I’d intended.
“Maybe that’s what was meant to happen.”
“Like fate or something?”
“I was thinking more like God.”
“What’s God got to do with it?” I said it too loudly, and a group of Chinese students who were sitting giggling and texting two tables away looked over. “What’s God got to do with it?” I said sotto voce, as if she was the only one there who hadn’t heard me the first time.
“These things don’t just happen. They happen for a reason.”
“So God gave Bevan leukaemia for a reason too? So we could be one big happy family before he dies?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, Rob.”
“What are you saying?”
“Look, I went round to your Dad’s and Gracie’s because I felt that they had to be given the option. Imagine the healing it could bring, a whole lot of different kinds of healing, if either Lauren or Jesse was able to help Bevan.”
“You should have run it by me though. Have you been speaking to your Mum about this?” I asked.
“You don’t think I’ve got a faith of my own?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying, why didn’t you talk to me about it? You’ve only met Gracie and the kids once. Same as me.”
“And you would have said yes?” She had a point. Her face was looking flushed, a mixture of heat, coffee, and anger. “What’s your Dad said about it?”
“We haven’t spoken about it yet.”
“You see, that’s what I mean. You think your Dad would be on the phone straight away to try and sort things out, maybe even consider it. But Gracie says no, and that’s it.”
“Dad’s weak, that’s all.”
“And you don’t expect him to be any better?” I started to see where this was heading.
“You mean, you expect me to be better, better than him.”
“I wasn’t saying that.”
“No, but you are God’s circuit breaker aren’t you?” The minute it came out I regretted it. Charis’ chair screeched in protest as she pushed herself out and got up. The Chinese students looked up from their mobiles. Charis shot them a glare and they turned away, their thumbs going into overdrive.
“I love you Rob, but I don’t need this.” She put three-fifty on the table and walked out.
“Charis don’t.” I sounded stupid and pathetic. Perhaps we’d just had a meeting, after all, or at least turned whatever it was we had been having into one. She didn’t even turn around. The door bell tinkled. Round one TKO. Some stubborn force pinned me to my seat. For the next five minutes, it drove the cup robotically up and down to my mouth. The latte formed bitter in my stomach. I waited. Sh
e wasn’t coming back. I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to be giving her a lift home. She’d be at the bus station. I paid with my own tenner and put her three-fifty in my pocket. I wasn’t going to allow her to do this to me. Handing over her money would have been an admission that this was a meeting. That we were dividing the assets early, before anything tricky like a mortgage or kids came along.
I got stuck at the lights by a learner who stalled twice trying to turn right. Peak hour had kicked in and it had taken ages to get to a green light. A capricious angel was stirring the waters, turning the light green for a few minutes, before snuffing out the hope of the lame-asses at the back like me who were missing out. Green, then red, then green, then red again. The steering wheel was burning, and the air-con huffed and wheezed impotently as the sun glared off the windows. I could see the bus-station but couldn’t get to it quick enough.
“C’mon!!” I yelled, banging the steering wheel, pushing down the frantic feeling that was rising in me like reflux. Anxiety mingled with the heat, and the sweat ran from my armpits as I gripped the wheel, dripping with a cold shock onto my chest. At the crucial moment the learner blinked. Another missed opportunity. “C’mon!”
Charis was still there when I drove up to the terminal. I saw her red hair behind the mustard coloured blur of Christian Brothers College uniforms catching the late bus home. School bags and cricket gear were piled in the corner of the shelter. Here were the athletes; the early developers. Strong and tall, they were pretend-fighting. Full of swagger, they shouted and jumped into the road, circling each other like young lions; prodding and poking for weaknesses that could be exploited when it really mattered. I had not been one of them in school, and they would never be me. The ones like me were already home, domesticated by homework, washing-up duties and TV.
Charis saw the car slowing down and came over. She opened the door and the boys’ mixture of laughter and derision poured in.
“Let me take you home at least.”
“I’m catching the bus. I need to think about some stuff.” She looked hot and angry, like she’d already been thinking about some stuff.
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