by Joy Dettman
‘Then I’ll just talk to him.’
‘I don’t think he’s around. I’ll have a look,’ Ben said, and the line went dead. Ben the quiet, reliable brother; he hadn’t run away.
It did no good to run away. It never worked – not for long. In the end all runners had to return, to go back for the self they’d left cowering behind in some dark corner and try to bring it back with them to the now. She drank again while she waited.
‘He’s disappeared somewhere, Annie. Probably over at the old place.’
‘I wouldn’t like to tackle that bridge with crutches. No insult intended.’
‘Yeah. It could do with a rail and some new boards. Do you want him to call you when he gets in?’
‘No. He probably won’t anyway. Just tell him that I’ve been thinking about him. I found my old gumnut bubble pipe today and the boys have placed their orders for two more.’
‘I’ve got plastic ones at the shop.’
‘They’ve been through their plastic era. Anything old is new again, you know.’
‘Oh, speaking of old. Remember the wild red poppies we used to find in the top paddock? He found one.’
‘A wild poppy? Johnny?’
‘In the far paddock where the pigs used to be.’
‘How did it survive the pigs?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Did he build a fence around it, Benjie?’
‘Yeah. Covered it with chicken wire too.’
‘I thought they’d disappeared off the face of the planet.’ Tears misted her eyes and she picked up her glass, emptied it fast, refilled it. ‘But they haven’t, have they?’
‘Nope. It’s got more buds too. I had a look at it this morning.’
‘And they’ll live to seed, Ben, and there will be wild red poppies there next year, and all the years of our lives. And one day soon, things are going to be fine again. They will be.’ The tears were trickling again so she tossed the wine down, then sat down. That last half glass had hit the right spot. Her shoulders had relaxed first, now every muscle in her body was taking the hint.
‘Are you okay? You sound a bit . . . a bit weird.’
‘I’m fine. I’m really very fine now. I’m also very drunk, Ben, so I’d better go.’
‘Who are you drinking with?’
‘Just me and little Annie. Give Johnny my love, but take seventy-five per cent of it for yourself.’ That silenced him. He wasn’t accustomed to declarations of love, but she did love him and she’d never told him, and what if she died tomorrow of a hangover and never got to tell him? ‘And tell him we’re glad about the poppy, and even gladder about the fence, but now we’ve found the guts to make another call. Bye, Ben.’
She disconnected with a finger, then dialled again and got a Telstra recorded message. She listened, frowned. She used to know that number. Used to ring it often. It took four attempts to get it right. It took a call to directory assistance, but when the phone finally began ringing, she knew it was the right number. It had that rich, Toorak, well-fed cat purr. Wide-eyed she waited, her glass in her hand. What was she going to say to May?
No one answering. The phone rang out and she was left listening to the beeps. No answering machine there. She shrugged and dialled the Narrawee number.
Ringing. Ringing. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Then the ringing stopped.
‘May Burton speaking.’
Ann swallowed hard, poured more wine, suddenly sober and not liking it.
‘Hello. Is there anyone there?’
‘It’s . . . it’s Ann. I was sitting here, thinking of you, and . . . and I thought I should let you know – ’
Then she heard him.
She heard him!
What did you do with the bloody butter I tossed in that trolley, May?
is dad there
It was him! Ann’s womb lurched, and the words she’d planned to speak scattered as her ears strained, but in Narrawee a hand had covered the phone.
Then May spoke again. ‘Ann. Is it really you, sweetheart?’
Nothing she could say to sweetheart. Her heartbeat swimming in wine, her head swimming in wine. Silence.
Then, ‘Is Dad there, Aunty May?’
‘Yes. Yes, he is, dear. I’ll get him for you.’
Just like that.
A muttering of two voices; a long muttering while Ann held the phone pressed hard against her ear, straining to hear every breath, every murmur. Cold now, freezing cold; and his voice was on the line and she grew colder still. Shivering, shuddering cold. Mind-numbing cold.
‘What is it?’ he said.
‘Why didn’t I know? I should have known.’
Silence on the other end of the line. Then, ‘Have they identified me yet?’
Humorous bastard, but she wasn’t in the mood for humour. Her heart was hammering and the one in her womb was pressing down, down, down. Her hand shaking, she lifted the glass, gaining courage from it, and she gained enough.
‘Just thought you might like to know that I have absolutely – absolutely – no intention of being charged with your murder.’ No reply to that so she spoke on, choosing her words carefully, speaking them slowly. Concentrating. ‘So, you would be well advised . . . to do whatever you can do to end this little farce. Or . . . or the other little farce will end right here.’ She waited for a reply, but heard only his breathing. ‘So, that’s it. That’s all. I hope you find your butter. Goodnight.’
And she hung up. And she shook, and her heart beat in her head and throat and stomach. And her glass was empty and she tried to sip directly from the bottle. It connected hard with her front teeth.
‘Shit!’ Her tongue checked for breakages. No cracks, no chips, thank God. Bron had paid over a thousand dollars to have a broken tooth capped and fate had thrown in an abscess and a pregnancy.
Is Dad there? It had sounded so normal. Is Dad there? She looked at the bottle. It was half full, or half empty, so she poured more into her glass, which made the bottle two-thirds empty. She drank again. Shivered. Cold. Freezing.
But oddly relieved.
He was alive.
‘Is Dad there?’
Normal people said those words every day, but she had never said them before because she wasn’t normal. Never had been. Mother, wife and kindergarten president. All abnormal.
‘Is Dad there?’ She glanced at the closed doors, at the windows. What if the ratty little cop was hiding outside? What if they’d planted a bug and they’d been listening in?
‘I’ve blown his cover.’
So they weren’t his bones. So whose bones were they?
So what did it matter? They were not his. It altered everything. He wasn’t dead. He wasn’t a skull with a bullet hole through it, wasn’t old bones bleached white in a shallow grave.
Huge absurd relief. And her bladder near bursting.
Her fingers gaining support from the wall she walked to the bathroom, then returned the same way, feeling better now, very inebriated but better.
‘Why do I feel so . . . so relieved? Because Johnny didn’t kill him? Not that I thought he had, Annie, but I thought he might have.’
She laughed then, her fingers checking out the underside of the table, her eyes scanning the room for a bug. Or maybe they’d put one inside her phone, while she was getting the briefcase. That’s what they did in the movies. One cop stayed with the guilty party while the other one planted the bug. Eyes circled the room, looking for a bug.
‘Don’t know what a bug looks like, so I don’t know what I’m looking for, so it’s not much use looking for it, is it? Why do they call them bugs? Because they look like bugs, like flies on the wall? No flies tonight. Ah, but a daddy-longlegs spider in the corner.’
It was moving too, so it was no bug, unless it had electronics in its legs.
She sipped from the glass and giggled into her wine, blew bubbles there, continuing to force a little down, sipping and giggling until she heard the car drive into the garage. Then she tried to kill the gig
gle, to find lost self-control, but the world suddenly seemed to be a very funny place.
Such a huge relief. She needed to tell someone. Crazy.
She wanted to phone Johnny and tell him. He was the only one she could tell. Couldn’t tell Ben. Couldn’t tell David. No one she could tell. That was the worst bit, no one to celebrate with – except Johnny.
Celebrate? Johnny wouldn’t want to celebrate.
Weird stuff going on inside her tonight. ‘Admit it,’ she said. ‘You didn’t want him to be dead, because if he was dead, then something . . . something would be lost, and no chance ever to find it. Admit it.’
Crazy. Too much wine. Too many old potholes smoothed out on those old roads. Head full of dust.
What do I tell David? Oh, by the way, the cat is dead but Dad is not. Or, the cops were here today looking for Dad’s briefcase, so I gave him a call. Or the other way around. By the way, the cops were here today and the cat is dead.
I can’t tell him that Dad is not dead, because it was Sam who I spoke to tonight. So, Dad is still dead, but Sam is not – even if it is the other way around. Except Sam wasn’t ever supposed to be dead.
I’ll have to ring Johnny. Have to let it out to someone or my head will spin off its cogs. She looked at the phone, stood, but the ceiling moved so she sat down again. Tomorrow. First thing tomorrow. I’ll do it face to face, drive down and see him, and see my wild red poppy. Tomorrow. First thing in the morning.
‘Is Dad there?’
She’d never spoken to her father on the telephone. Never. Not once. He had a nice voice, from a distance.
‘I had to wait until he was dead before I got to hear his nice telephone voice,’ she told her wineglass. ‘There’s something symbolic about that.’
Then David’s footsteps were walking up from the garage so she swallowed her smile with a gulp of wine as she looked at the door, and when he opened it, she nodded, very seriously, while her eyes laughed on.
He kissed her cheek, seeing the laughter, seeing the bottle, and knowing where the laughter had been born. ‘What’s the celebration?’
Valiantly she composed her mind as she attempted to coerce numb lips into forming controlled speech. ‘Did you find . . . the money?’
‘It wasn’t money. Just a figure, and we found it. Someone hits a wrong button and all hell breaks loose. The boys are asleep?’
‘Hours ago.’ Head down, she watched the table, watched the light moving on table and bottle as David moved around the room.
What do I tell him first? The cops, the cat or the case? Forget the call. She swallowed a giggle but it bubbled up with a wine burp.
‘Excuse me! Did you . . . eat, David?’
‘No time.’ He glanced at his chair, no cat sleeping there. ‘Where’s Tiddy?’
‘Dead,’ she said, and the giggle exploded. He looked at her, not believing. She tried to stand, to explain. Couldn’t make it to her feet. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really very sorry. It’s just . . . just, what is dead somehow got mixed up with what isn’t. It’s just – oh God, I’m so sorry for laughing, David.’
He waited until the laughter subsided before trying again. ‘Is the cat dead?’
‘Yes. It is. A car. Dee found it. It’s buried. Down the back. In a plastic bag and I don’t think I should have put him in a plastic bag. Non-biodegradable.’ But all control was lost. Too much wine, the red and the white warring, had turned both stomach and her world a rosy pink.
He stood before her, not amused. ‘What have you been up to tonight?’ No reply. ‘You’ve had enough wine, I know that much.’ He reached for the bottle, but her reflexes were still good enough. She snatched the bottle, holding it behind her as she stood. ‘Have you eaten anything, Ann?’
‘I said that first.’
He sighed, took off his jacket and adjusted the heating. The bottle in hand, she walked to the refrigerator, where she selected two eggs, brown ones. She’d always liked the brown ones the best.
‘It’s like an oven in here,’ he said.
‘My hair was wet,’ she explained, trying to close the refrigerator with her shoulder. The two eggs, balanced in one hand, toppled off, smashed onto the floor.
‘Sit down. You’re a disaster area. Sit, Ann. I’ll do it.’ He tried to take the bottle from her hand. She held on tight to the neck but allowed him to guide her around the broken eggs to her chair, to sit her down. ‘What brought this on?’
‘Just the phoney old world.’ Phone set her giggling. She watched him clean up the spilled eggs with paper towels while she poured more wine into her glass.
‘That’s one of the Chardonnays. Did you drink the entire bottle?’
‘No, I left the bottle. Fill it up from a cask. Give it to Bob and Enid next time they invite themselves to dinner. They won’t know the difference.’
‘Ann Taylor, the comic drunk. What happened here today?’
‘What do you want first – the cat, the cops, the case, or the call?’
It set her off again so he gave up and crept into the boys’ rooms, pulling up quilts, kissing small heads. He hung his jacket and when he returned she was leaning on the table, her head in her hands. He sat beside her, one hand on her shoulder.
‘Tell me all about it.’
‘The cat, kids, cops, case or call?’ Two fingers pressed to each side of her mouth held it safe from smiling.
‘You’ll suffer later.’ He reached for her glass.
‘Get your own.’
‘Is the cat dead, Ann?’
Her lips trembled. ‘No confusion with the cat.’ Only a small giggle, a bare shuddering of her shoulders. ‘It is buried.’
‘How did you bury it?’
‘Shovel.’
There would be no sense out of her tonight. From the pantry he took a can of baked beans, from a cupboard he selected the smallest saucepan and he returned with them to the table.
‘What does a bug look like? An elet . . . electronic bug that the cops plant? Does it look like a bug?’
‘I have no idea. Will you have some beans on toast?’
‘I ate the boys’ leftovers. I’m sick of the sight of beans.’
‘If you continue drinking, you’ll be sicker still. Hand it over.’
She shook her head as she stood unsteadily, the bottle in her hand, and walked towards the bathroom, laughing because the narrow doorway moved out to bump her, then the walls of the passage got in on the game, tossing her from side to side.
‘Shush. You’ll wake the boys – and leave that bottle here.’
‘It’s my security blanket. Can’t go anywhere without it,’ she yelled.
He heard the bathroom door close with a bang and he let her go. He showered in the upstairs bathroom. Fifteen minutes passed before he noticed the silence and went searching for her. He found her slumped on the floor beside the toilet.
‘Come on. Up you get. You can’t sit on cold tiles.’
‘I keep running to the toilet every two minutes so I may as well stay beside it. And I feel sick too.’
‘I hate to say I told you so.’
‘You love to say it. Anyway, I was sick already. I’ve had a sickening day.’
‘Cats get killed every day. Is that what set you off?’
‘No. It was . . . it was . . . more the undead.’
‘Have they found your father’s dental records?’
‘I found the originals.’ She covered her nose and mouth with cupped hands, looking over them at him. ‘I found my original vegetable knife when I was digging the cat’s grave too. It must have gone out in the mulch. The handle is still intact but the blade is rusty. It’s terrible burying things.’
‘Knives?’
‘Cats, dogs, bodies. Must take hours and hours to dig a hole big enough for a body, mustn’t it? They were here today.’
‘Who?’
‘Those Sydney cops. One’s got bloodhound eyes. Woof, woof, he said.’
‘We knew they’d find your father sooner or later. Isn’t it bet
ter to know that he’s dead? Better for your mother. Once this is all over, she’ll be able to get on with her life.’
‘That’s first-rate bullshit, David. People don’t get on with their lives when they’re all screwed up. They just keep screwing around and around and around in the same old screw holes, can’t get a grip on good wood to dig in deeper. Anyway . . . anyway, who says he’s dead except the bloodhound and his weasel mate?’ She looked at him, then down to gaze at her reflection in the toilet bowl, and she waved her hand to her reflection. ‘Hello, little Annie. How’s life down there? It’s bad up here. Want to swap places for a month or two?’
‘It’s gone on too long. You’ve all lived with it for too long.’
‘And you don’t know the half of it. You talk about what you know nothing about as if you know what you’re talking about, David, and it’s no use me talking about it to you anyway.’
‘I understand about the loss of a parent. We know it will happen sooner or later, but it’s still a shock when they go – and particularly when they die violently.’
She raised her finger to make a point. ‘Yes, but that’s the other half of the problem. You might understand about loss, but what we’re into tonight is anti-loss and fossilised lies.’
‘Fossilised lies. That’s a new one.’
‘No. It’s a very old one, that’s why it’s fossilised. They are the ones that become a part of your core; there for all time, because they’re a part of you, and there’s not a bloody thing you can do about them except . . . except wear them and call them ornaments. Turn them into an art form, David. Live with them. Polish them up every Monday while you wipe the dust away.’
‘I thought you’d given up dusting.’
‘I have. Yesterday’s dust is no worse than next week’s, and there’s more of it to wipe up – so it’s more satisfying wiping it up, isn’t it? Logic. The same goes for cobwebs.’ She waved a hand at cobwebs and the world. ‘Oh, and there is a daddy longlegs in the family room. You’d better move him down to the garage before Matthew sees him. How can two brothers be so different? Tristan likes spiders. He loves all the bad guys. The witch in Snow White, and Darth Vader. Anyway, where was I before the spider?’