Too Close to Home

by Georgia Blain

  At work, he’s sitting out on the balcony with Lorna, the company’s interior designer. The bare branches of the plane trees scratch the clear blue sky and the traffic below hums faint above the stillness of day.

  It’s early and they are both reading the paper, pausing to swap sections. She shows him a dress she likes and asks him whether he thinks it would suit her. She’s always going out with different men, and often wants his advice on her love life. They flirt slightly, and he enjoys her company.

  ‘It’d look good on you,’ he tells her in all seriousness, and then seeing the price, he chokes. ‘You wouldn’t spend that much?’

  She grins. ‘What else do I have to spend my money on? It’s not like I have a mortgage and a child.’

  He almost doesn’t hear his phone ringing on the table next to him, but then he glances across to see the screen lit up, and recognising the Queensland number, he picks it up hurriedly.

  The line is bad and he moves to the edge of the balcony, while Lorna folds up the paper and goes back inside. Her move to give him privacy makes him wonder whether she thinks he’s having an affair. Lisa has rung him a few times at work and Lorna has often been nearby when she’s called.

  ‘How are things?’ he asks. ‘Any word from Lucas?’

  And then he realises she is crying, or at least trying to stop herself from crying.

  The rattle of a train below drowns out her words, and he has to ask her to tell him again.

  ‘They reckon he mugged someone near Central. He’s being held by the police.’

  Matt doesn’t know what to say.

  She can’t get a flight until that evening, but in the meantime she wants to know if he’ll go down to the station, if he will check whether Lucas is okay, if he’ll try and organise legal aid for him.

  ‘I didn’t know who else to call,’ she tells him. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He assures her there’s no need to apologise, he wants to help, he’s always told her that.

  ‘I know.’ Her voice is soft now.

  And then, as she tells him where Lucas is being held, he writes down the details.

  ‘Do you need somewhere to stay?’ he asks.

  She accepts, apologising again as she does so. ‘I don’t have anywhere else,’ she says, ‘and the airfare has just about wiped me out.’

  She mustn’t worry, he tells her. He can help out with money too. It will be all right, and the silence on the other end of the phone makes him think she must be crying again.

  ‘When did you hear?’ he asks.

  She tells him it was this morning. He was brought in last night.

  ‘I don’t know all that much at this stage.’ She breathes in, short, harsh breaths, her words once again drowned out by the noise of a train.

  ‘Call me as soon as you see him,’ she makes him promise, and he assures her that he will.

  Outside the police station, Matt waits for Shane. He had wanted someone with him, someone who would be better at this than he is likely to be, and he had rung on the way from the office. Shane was in a meeting, but promised he’d cut it short.

  ‘I’ll be down there in the half-hour,’ he’d told Matt.

  Leaning against the warmth of the brick wall, Matt watches the constant stream of cars surging up towards the traffic lights on the corner, the drivers trying to make it over the intersection before the red halts them. It’s an endless stream of metallic colour, he thinks, and he counts each change of the lights while he waits.

  Shane arrives more quickly than he’d said he would, and when Matt sees him crossing the road, he is relieved, the anxiety that he’d have to do this on his own dissipating. They walk towards each other, meeting a few doors down from the station. Shane drops his cigarette butt to the ground and checks his mobile phone before turning it off.

  ‘He’s in there?’

  Matt confesses he hasn’t gone inside yet.

  Shane will take charge. He knows how to deal with the cops. Not arguing, Matt just follows him.

  The constable at reception is young, probably no more than twenty-one or twenty-two, and she barely glances in their direction as they enter. They have to wait until she’s finished entering data onto the computer, and then she looks up, her blue eyes pale and watery, her cheeks and brow smeared with acne.

  When Shane announces that they are here to see Lucas Holmes, that he is the lawyer appointed by the boy’s parents – and he nods in Matt’s direction – she just continues looking at them. The pause is strange, and Matt is uncertain as to whether they are meant to fill it with further information, but he says nothing. Shane, too, remains silent, waiting.

  Eventually she checks the computer again, and sniffs loudly.

  They can take a seat, and she points to the orange plastic chairs behind them. She will be back in a moment.

  Shane asks Matt to fill him in on everything he knows, which is very little. As Matt relays all that Lisa told him, Shane’s left leg jiggles up and down, his foot tapping against the worn lino.

  He wants another cigarette. ‘Get nervous in places like this.’

  Matt has to agree that he also feels nervous. But it’s not just being in a police station. It’s the whole situation.

  He tells Shane to go and smoke. He’ll call him when the constable comes back.

  When she does return, she again says nothing. She just takes her seat at the computer and continues with her data entry, not even looking in his direction.

  ‘Can we see him?’ Matt asks, his voice sounding unnaturally loud in the stillness.

  The soft clatter of the computer keys continues as she tells him, still without glancing his way, that she’ll let them know when they can go through to an interview room.

  The smell of tobacco is thick as Shane sits heavily in the chair next to Matt.

  ‘Still nothin’?’ He nods in the direction of the young woman, shaking his head as he does so. ‘What’s the hold-up?’ he asks, his voice raspy.

  She tells him there is no hold-up. They will be able to go through shortly.

  Shane stands, walking slowly over to the glass window dividing her office space from the room in which they are waiting. Matt can see her pull back as he approaches.

  He doesn’t have all day, Shane says. How much longer will they have to wait?

  Her sigh is audible as she stands up. She will check. In the meantime, could he please return to his seat?

  Lucas has his back to them when they enter the interview room. Another young constable stands by the door, opening it for them and indicating the seats on the other side of the table. Matt barely dares to glance in Lucas’ direction. Uncertain as to whether Lisa has said anything about the possibility of him being Lucas’ father, he hopes that Shane has the presence of mind to hold his tongue.

  He looks across as he sits. Lucas has his eyes fixed on the table. He is smaller than Matt remembered, pale and pimply, his greasy black hair hanging low over his forehead. There is a slight fluff on his upper lip, a smudge against the white of his skin. All his clothes are black; a T-shirt with a metal band insignia, and black jeans, and when he scratches his hand, Matt notices that his nails are painted black also, the chipped strips of polish chewed back to the quick. He smells musty, unwashed and afraid.

  ‘Your mum asked me to come,’ Matt says, and the boy looks up quickly. His eyes are red and glazed. ‘This is Shane,’ Matt continues, momentarily uncertain as to whether the boy even remembers who he is. ‘He’s a lawyer.’

  Lucas just nods.

  Shane leans closer and pushes his tobacco pouch and papers across the table. Lucas’ hands tremble as he takes out a couple of pinches, spreading them along the centre of the paper. He rolls quickly, lighting the cigarette with obvious relief.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says, and it’s the first word he’s spoken.

  ‘They bring you in last night?’ Shane asks.

  Lucas nods again.

  ‘And they charged you?’

  This time Lucas is a little more un
certain. ‘They got some youth worker in. But I didn’t want to say nothing. I was out of it,’ he mumbles, and he scratches at a sore on his forearm, lifting the scab. A small pinprick of bright red blood appears on the whiteness of his flesh. ‘Can you get me outta here?’ His eyes dart from Shane to the door, and he sniffs loudly. ‘I want to get out. I want me mum.’

  Shane explains that Lisa is on her way and in the meantime he’ll get a copy of the charge sheet. ‘They’ll have a committal hearing,’ he says, ‘and we’ll try to get you bail.’

  ‘So, you really my lawyer?’ Lucas looks at him. He rubs at the blood on his skin, licking it off his finger. ‘You don’t look like a lawyer.’

  Matt doesn’t know whether he’s referring to Shane’s colour, or the fact that he’s wearing jeans and has long dreadlocks. He doesn’t want to know. He also doesn’t want to look at Shane as he tells the boy that he can appoint someone from legal aid if he qualifies, which he probably will.

  ‘I’m just here ’cause he asked me to come,’ and he nods curtly in Matt’s direction.

  ‘How’s me mum?’ Lucas eventually says, looking quickly at Matt before turning his gaze back to the table.

  ‘She’s upset,’ Matt tells him. ‘She’s getting here as quick as she can.’

  The boy rubs at his eyes, and Matt finds himself remembering Lisa’s photo album, the faded pictures of Lucas as a child, arranged beneath the crumpled sheets of plastic. He thinks of Ella, too, in that instant, a sudden realisation that parents have no idea what will befall them; the extent of their potential vulnerability is too overwhelming to contemplate.

  ‘She said to say she loves you,’ he adds, and the words aren’t really a lie because he knows that Lisa does love Lucas, just as he loves Ella, just as he couldn’t bear for Ella to become like this boy here in front of him.

  ‘Can we get you anything?’ Matt asks, uncertain as to what they would be allowed to get for him in any event.

  Lucas wipes at his nose with the back of his hand, and then he rubs at his eyes again. There are cuts along his forearm, slashes that look in danger of becoming infected. He clears his throat as he breathes in and Matt wonders whether he is about to cry. He is just a boy and he must be scared.

  When they stand up to leave, he looks at them.

  ‘When will me mum be here?’ he asks.

  ‘She flies in tonight,’ Matt reassures him. ‘She’ll be there for the hearing in the morning.’

  ‘Will I get out then?’

  Shane explains once more that it depends on whether they get bail.

  Lucas is led out by the constable. He does not look back at them.

  Outside, they sit on a bench under the giant knotted branches of a Moreton Bay fig. Shane explains the charge sheet. It’s bad. Worse than Matt had anticipated. Lucas had been sleeping in the tunnel near Central since he arrived in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. Or at least that’s what he told the police. He’d bashed an old woman who slept a few metres up from him when she woke to find him stealing her money. She’d been taken to the hospital.

  ‘Were there witnesses?’ Matt asks, not really wanting to know.

  There were. A young guy known to the police, and his girlfriend. He was called Stinky. He also slept in the tunnel. He saw it all happen. In fact, he intervened to stop Lucas really hurting her. Or at least that’s what he told the cops.

  ‘I reckon he’s goin’ to need legal aid,’ Shane says. ‘The bail hearing’ll be tough. He’s not got much chance with Lisa not living here.’ Looking up at the weak winter sun, Shane squints.

  Matt stands, kicking at the leaves at his feet. He wishes he hadn’t got involved. That’s the truth of the matter. He would like, more than anything, to not be here, to have not thought of Lisa again, to have never seen her, to have never heard of Lucas.

  THEY HAVE ARRANGED TO meet at a cafe near the theatre. Freya chose the place, wanting to pick somewhere they would be unlikely to see anyone they knew, yet careful to ensure that it wasn’t too out of the way, a meeting that couldn’t be regarded as secret should they be discovered.

  She has changed three times that morning, critical of each outfit she tried. Ella looked at her in bemusement as she came out in the last combination, a grey woollen skirt, red boots and a black jumper with a boat-neck.

  ‘I like that one,’ she said.

  Freya kissed her on the top of her head, wanting to breathe in the still musty scent of her sleep – rich, warm and sweet.

  ‘Last night I dreamt you were a dinosaur,’ Ella told her. ‘Big and green and scary.’

  Freya smiled. ‘I do write plays. Probably makes me as close to a dinosaur as you can get.’

  Ella didn’t get the joke but she still found it funny.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, looking Freya up and down one last time at the school gates. ‘A meeting?’

  And she told her she was, a meeting about work.

  At home alone, she considers getting changed again, but then decides not to. She has only just had her hair cut and it hangs sleek and perfect down her back. She pulls it back into a tight knot, not wanting its smooth gloss to make it look as though she is trying too hard. She wears only lipstick and mascara, rubbing the red into her lips so that it is more a stain than a full colour. At the last minute she puts a little powder on her nose. Then she takes one final look at herself in the mirror, breathing in as she does so. Try as hard as she can, she cannot get enough distance from herself to see her face as another would.

  She reads the paper on the train, trying to calm herself, but the news of a leadership challenge within the Labor Party only makes her all the more agitated. She is astounded that it has come to this. How could the prime minister have gone from such extraordinary popularity to facing the real possibility of being dumped?

  She wants to talk to someone, and so she turns without thinking to the man sitting next to her.

  ‘Have you heard the news?’ she asks, showing him the front page.

  He gives it a cursory glance.

  ‘Do you think they’ll really get rid of him?’

  The man doesn’t care. ‘Never vote,’ he tells her. ‘Don’t trust any of them.’

  Freya shakes her head in wonder, both at his lack of interest and at the incredible turn of political events. She leans against the window and looks at the rows of small terraces backing onto the railway tracks, their gardens overgrown with lantana. She likes trying to see inside, a glimpse of any other domestic scene – a bike leaning against a hallway, a table, a reading lamp – always holding a certain sad beauty, calling up a sense of longing that comes with standing on the outside and looking in.

  As they pass a park, she catches sight of herself reflected in the glass. She looks anxious. Her hands are sweaty. She rubs them on the front of her skirt, grimacing as she does so.

  He is already in the cafe when she arrives. Sitting at a table near the back, the newspaper open in front of him. His head is bent so she cannot see his face, just his long lean legs in jeans, a charcoal jumper and a red scarf draped over the seat next to him. She wants to look for a while, to fix him in this picture of right here and now so that it will become vivid and strong enough to remove any memory of kissing in the taxi. It is all so adolescent. Oh God, she thinks. What on earth am I playing at?

  As he glances up, she knows she is blushing and she hates the paleness of her skin, the pink flush that betrays how nervous she feels.

  He stands to kiss her on the cheek, smiling as he does so. ‘Not really sure how to greet you now,’ he confesses. ‘But it’s good to see you.’

  He is smooth at this, she realises. Much more so than she is, and she sits down, asking if he’s read the news.

  ‘It’s so hard to believe,’ she tells him. ‘I had no idea until this morning.’

  ‘I guess the polls have made them lose their nerve.’ He raises an eyebrow. ‘Are we here to discuss politics?’

  Her smile is wry. ‘I’m just trying to make it unweird.’

/>   ‘There’s no such word.’ He looks at her directly now, eyes kind. ‘Everything’s been all right?’

  She nods, and then shakes her head. ‘I’m sorry,’ she tells him. ‘I’ve actually felt very strange about what happened. I tell myself a kiss is nothing, which it is, but then if it isn’t anything why do I have to keep quiet about it? Which of course I do. And why do I feel so awkward seeing you again like this?’ She meets his gaze. ‘I just wanted to try to get back on an even keel, and really, I should order a coffee and keep talking politics.’

  He reaches for her hand and as he does so, her phone rings. It’s Matt. His name is there on the screen. She picks it up without thinking, relieved that there is some distraction from this moment, and then, as she answers, she wishes she hadn’t because it is wrong to be sitting here with Frank while she talks to Matt.

  ‘Are you at home?’ Matt asks her, and Freya tells him that no, she isn’t, and she is about to pretend she is having a coffee with Anna before she realises there’s no need to do this. He isn’t interested. There’s something else, an edge in his voice that makes her stand, covering her other ear with her hand as she heads to the door, to take the call outside.

  ‘Is everything okay? Ella? There’s nothing wrong with Ella?’

  No, he tells her. She’s at school. He needs to talk. Can she get home soon? He’s heading back there himself and will be waiting for her.

  ‘Now?’ she asks, exasperated.

  If she can, he replies.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ she tells him. ‘You can’t just call and say it’s time to talk. Tell me what about. Is it Lucas? Has he shown up?’