Eyrie

~ ~ ~

Keely lingered a while in front of Cash Converters, scooting the bike back and forth beneath him, wondering what his laptop would fetch. By his calculations, unless he quickly got cash work or hocked something, he was a fortnight from destitution. It wasn’t just Keely pride that kept him from the dole but the certain knowledge the perversities of Centrelink would crush him; he was neither fit nor mad enough to endure the welfare system. Even if he did sign up he’d starve by the time the first cheque finally appeared. Unless he stood in the street for soup and sandwiches with all the other lost souls. He couldn’t touch his superannuation for another decade. He could sell the flat but it would take weeks or months to find a buyer and settle and in the meantime he’d have nothing. He had to cash up fast or come to terms with the idea of living with his mother like an addled invalid. Selling the dinghy would help. But even that’d take a week or two. The time for action was now.

He twisted the handlebars of his reeking bike. At the corner, tattooed thugs were sending their women into the loan joint, and pacing the kerb, flexing their roid-pecs.

He peered into the hock-shop. The store was the size of a big whitegoods franchise, the front window stacked with guitars, golf bags, chainsaws, the legacy of other reversals. What a display it was, this cargo cult. The entire window an altar to defeat. Which sounded a tad grandiose, but there it was. Blame the plonk.

Catching his reflection in the glass he was surprised by how old and dazed he looked. Surprised to be so surprised, truth be told; what did he expect from a seventy-dollar haircut and a shave — to suddenly look invigorated, to have excavated his inner George Clooney? When you felt as abstracted from yourself as he did these days, why not feel strange in your own face? How hard his chin felt, how creepy-smooth his cheeks. And there in the window, plain evidence of where his sorrowful beard had been. So much fresh white skin, he looked as two-toned as Roy Rene or Michael Jackson. High up on his face, where the sun had been, he was dark, especially around the eyes. A veritable boobook owl. Which struck him as funny. Maybe not funny enough to warrant laughter, but there he was anyway, causing passers-by to give him a wide berth on the pavement: a piebald cyclist, chemically augmented, kneading his own chops in a pawnbroker’s window, indulging himself in his very own Knut Hamsun moment, chortling like a loon.

~ ~ ~

He shouldn’t have been back in there, amidst the boxes of goon, the racks of gleaming bottles; he’d spent money he could not afford to be blowing and he’d regret it, regretted it already, but he wanted something decent, had a little glow on from lunch, and the front window of Cash Converters had kicked him off a bit and he couldn’t settle.

He bought a couple of bin-end McLaren Vales that were crazy cheap, telling himself he’d saved twenty bucks on them, his luck was turning.

Keely had only been in a few hours before, securing the ransom cans, but now the bloke in the bottlo didn’t recognize him without the beard. It was disconcerting at first, but then it struck him as possibly advantageous in a way he couldn’t quite put his finger on just yet.

Stepping back onto the street he was nearly mown down by a cyclist whose expression morphed from irritation to delight in a heartbeat.

Tom!

Keely jerked upright, like a man accused. Just stood there hugging those costly bargains to his chest. The youth’s face was distantly familiar but Keely couldn’t place him. He had a downy soul-patch and girlish arms and his flash mountain bike was laden with wholesome produce.

Damien, said the boy brightly.

Ah, said Keely. The helmet and sunnies, I didn’t…

Wetlands campaign, said the kid. And the mallee fowl thing, remember?

Yeah, of course, he said. You did good work, mate.

He knew the kid now and it was true. He was good value. Environmental science graduate with a real bird bent. Especially good on habitat loss. A straight shooter.

Your ideas, Tom. Your vision.

Didn’t they hate us, though.

Truly. But like you said: if the suits don’t hate you, you’ve wasted your time.

Well, jury’s still out on that.

Wasn’t it Gandhi saying first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they negotiate?

Something like that. Then you win. Apparently.

You’ve had a few wins over the years, Tom. Shouldn’t forget that.

They let you win the odd skirmish, comrade. To make it look as if the game’s fair. But the dogs bark, circus rolls on.

The youth offered a noncommittal grimace.

Who you with now? Keely asked.

The kid laughed skittishly.

Government?

Ah no, said the boy.

Keely didn’t need to be told what that meant. He’d had his wild years, this kid, his Gandhi-quoting period. If the iron giants hadn’t bought him it could only be oil and gas. These days they were co-opting them as undergrads, paying their tuition. Miners employed more ecologists, marine scientists and geology graduates than six governments. In order to smooth the way, before they literally scraped the place bare. All that harmless data owned and warehoused. It was brilliant.

Still, he said. Look at you, buying organic. Like a trouper.

It’s only for a while, said the boy, stung.

Keely saw young Damien eye the brown bags cradled in his arm. Here was his old boss, ravaged and unsteady outside the roughest liquor store in town. Quite a picture. But the youth, plainly the better man, was charitable enough to refrain from comment. Keely felt like a shit.

He offered up a lame smile.

I know, I know, said the kid. A while’s all we get.

You gotta stop quoting me, Keely replied, straining to relent, to show remorse.

Listen, I’m sorry to hear what happened.

Keely shrugged, graciously as he could.

You were right, you know. It’s all coming out.

We’ll see.

They were nuts to let you go.

I was probably nuts when they did.

Well, good luck to you anyway.

Maybe you could put in a good word at Woodside.

Mate, said the kid, missing the joke entirely, they’d snap you up.

He gave the boy the bravest smile he could manage and watched him wheel his righteous vegetables through the canyon of junk shops and manicure joints until he was gone at the corner. It was Wednesday — a day off, no doubt. He imagined the neat little cottage Damien was headed for, the sleek girl coming home to him tonight, the couscous he’d have waiting on the scrubbed-pine table. It was beautiful.

Enough to make you want to drink yourself a new arsehole.

*

He’d hardly made a dent on the second bottle when Kai appeared at the door, toting his schoolbag. For a moment the kid rocked on his heels as if he’d peered into the wrong flat. The look of alarm on his face was unmistakeable.

It’s me, said Keely. I shaved my beard off, that’s all.

But the kid was gone, his footfalls chiming in the rails of the gallery.

What was that about? said Gemma, suddenly filling the doorway. Christ, look at you.

He doesn’t approve.

Of what — the haircut, or the fact you’re pissed as a squirrel?

Why should he object?

You’re a bloody idiot.

What, leaving the door open to the likes of you? Obviously an error of judgement. For which I need not seek forgiveness. But which I seek all the same.

Get stuffed. The five-dollar words, they don’t make you sound any smarter.

Duly noted.

Christ, what a disappointment you are.

Refresh my memory, Gem. Did we get married at some juncture?

Juncture.

Is there some claim you have, something I signed that gives you the right to stand in my door and wave the nana finger at me? Maybe I nodded off during the ceremony.

Go fuck yourself.

I suspect. This evening. It may come to that. But I am. You might say. A dab hand already.

What is it with you?

I had my bike stolen.

Don’t you dare come over tonight.

Here, he said, reefing her key from around his neck so hard he feared he might have sliced his own ears off. Gemma didn’t even flinch as it bounced off the insect screen.

Pissweak, she muttered, giving him a parting stare he felt in the pit of his guts.

Correct, he said to the empty doorway once she was safely gone. He thought of the last great stand of tuart trees bulldozed and trucked away. Ripped earth as far as the eye could see, and homeless birds, black and wheeling. Cheap work. A Chinese construction deal cost millions in bribes. But here you could buy a new suburb for seventy thousand bucks. Small beans. Price of a Prado for a western-suburbs soccer mum. While she’s waiting on the Audi. Small fucking beans. And still too big for the likes of him.

*

A few hours later she was there again in the doorway. Kitted out for work, bearing a foil-covered plate.

And another thing, he said, trying to be funny.

I’m off, she said. Chrissake eat something.

Is this the heart of gold shining through?

Be buggered, she spat. I need you tomorrow. Whatever’s left of you.

Well, you’re not fussy, I’ll give you that. Couldn’t you find some poor prick in the street? Offer him an inducement?

Just shut up before I clout you.

Your sister did once. More than once, actually.

And that’s not all, I bet.

Nothing else. She never offered me anything but a thick ear.

And I’ll bet she had her reasons.

Doubtless she did.

Fuckin slag.

Fair go, he said blearily. She was just a girl. Tryna find her way.

Lookin out for herself. Never bothered much to protect me.

There was nothing Keely could say to this. It felt dangerous to proceed. He was too far gone. And the smell of food was making him queasy.

Kai alright?

He’s fine.

Done his homework?

He’s six.

Oh. Right.

In her pale-blue smock, her hair scraped back in a ponytail, Gemma looked like a faded, beaten-down schoolgirl. Sensible shoes, support hose. He was a little bit in love with her.

I didn’t mean to scare him, he said abjectly.

You won’t forget tomorrow?

All yours.

Two o’clock, orright?

Right you are.

Your teeth are all black.

I’ll brush before two.

What happened to you, Tommy?

My wife had an abortion.

What?

I couldn’t handle it.

Well, shit.

And it wasn’t my baby anyway.

You kicked her out?

No, he said with a laugh that burnt like acid reflux. She asked me to leave.

What the fuck?

Kept going on and on. About the baby. Mourning. Just mourning.

Well, it’s not bloody easy, take it from me.

Not her, he said, holding his hands in the air like a halfwit. Me.

Gemma looked at him with a mixture of bewilderment and scorn.

I would have taken it. I didn’t mind. I would have raised it. It was like my own child had died.

You’re bonkers.

This is probably true.

I’m late, she said, turning for the door.

At the security screen she stooped to collect her key on its woollen noose. And after a moment’s consideration she set it on the counter beside the giveaway newspapers and the leaflets for pizza bars and quick loans.

I have redeemed a bicycle, he whispered as the door clacked to. That is what I have saved. And what God hath joined together let no man… spoil, with a chunder.

He pulled the foil off the plate and smiled. Rissoles!

~ ~ ~

Jesus wept, she said when he opened the door at two.

Apparently.

You orright?

Fine, he lied into the blinding light of day.

You got some better clothes?

Better? Keely could only make out a shape, an outline, until she stepped past him into the dim fug of his livingroom and jerked the curtains apart.

More… formal. Like a suit.

A suit. Yeah, there’s one in there somewhere. But is it really necessary?

Would I ask ya just to be annoyin?

He offered a smile as evidence of his doubts — all scrubbed teeth and bleeding gums.

It’s in a box, he said.

Great, she replied. You got an iron?

Somewhere.

I’ll have to press it. Carn, let’s fix this.

A suit, he thought. And why am I doing this? Because she’s pretty, because she’s blonde? Because she’s little Gemma Buck the waif? Christ, his guts, his head.

Reaching deep into the wardrobe he fought a bilious shudder. You were rude to her, he thought, said something nasty you can’t quite remember, and she cooked you dinner anyway. You’ll do whatever she says.

I’ve only got an hour, she said. Kai gets off at three.

Here he said, digging the thing out and brandishing it as a single wodge.

Lovely, she said with full scorn. Dunno whether to press it or mop the floor with it.

*

As they walked through the back end of town with its sour smells, blasts of noise and pitiless rods of sun, Keely noticed, despite his nausea, that for all her hard-boiled banter Gemma was becoming increasingly edgy. She wore another small black dress that showed her figure. He recognized the heels from Tuesday, or whenever it was. Her hair was swept back in a black band that looked something like velvet and the dark vinyl satchel she carried seemed new. She looked like a real estate agent on the make, or the sort of defence lawyer who lived off a roster of ‘colourful’ clients. If he hadn’t felt so rocky he’d tease her about it — or at the very least dawdle behind her for the simple pleasure of watching those legs scissor away deliciously. Right now he was focused on keeping his rissoles in place. Gemma hauled him by the sleeve, drawing savagely on a fag. He prayed she wouldn’t blow smoke his way.

I’m coming, he said. Listen, where are we going?

Collectin some things, that’s all.

From the bank?

No. Geez, were you that pissed? I told you. From his father.

The father. I knew that. So what’s with the get-up? Both of us like pox doctors’ clerks.

Try not to whinge, Tom. It’s gettin on me nerves. Just tell me now if you’re pikin out.

I’m here, aren’t I?

Well, she said. A version of you, anyway.

A pale facsimile, he said.

Very pale.

And I’m sorry.

Well, beggars can’t be choosers.

Keely took it on the shaven chin and sucked in hot air, anxious for this task and the rest of the day to be over.

Near the markets, short of the grand old pub at the corner, Gemma drew up at a familiar row of semis whose narrow verandahs were variously draped with footy flags, banners advertising Bundaberg rum, and the kind of cheap bamboo blinds that reminded him of his student days. The street gave off a swampy stink of frangipani, ganja, incense and rotting vegetables. There was broken glass on the footpath and music spilled from open doorways. Gemma took his arm and steered him towards a traffic bollard.

You stay here, Tommy.

Well, he said peevishly. You’re the boss.

She angled towards the closest house, the seediest in the row, glanced back at him briefly and clacked her way up to the door. Her bum rolling in its dark sheath, her hair flaring from within the shade of the porch.

The way she thudded on the door was more than emphatic; he felt the percussion ten metres away. She kept it up, applying the side of her fist, until finally the door was opened by a scowling girl of about seventeen. She surveyed Gemma, squinted past her at Keely, who folded his arms instinctively and Gemma said something he couldn’t make out. After a long moment the girl slunk off in her tiny shorts and tanktop, and a minute later another figure loomed in the doorway. Gemma rose to her full height, seemed to exceed it. Her battle stance brought Keely to a new level of alertness.

The man was tall and wiry. His bare chest and arms were covered in the sorts of tattoos that hadn’t yet found favour with the cooler cadres of the middle class. Keely figured he was in his late twenties. He had an aura of easy violence about him. He looked as sly and unknowable as a mistreated dog. As he leant contemptuously against the doorjamb, he took the opportunity to reach into his trackpants to huffle his nuts.

Gemma spoke. The man began to shake his head disdainfully, projecting ostentatious amusement. Gemma unzipped her document case and drew out a folder. She held up several sheets of paper in turn and then began to wave one right in his face. Keely caught the bloke glancing over at him. The dark flash of his eyes caused something to hitch in Keely’s throat. The fellow licked his lips appraisingly, not breaking his glance as Gemma continued to speak. He seemed to consider his options. He glanced up the street, ploughed his fingers through his hair. Gemma’s voice became audible, but the only word Keely made out was a shout: Now! Even at this distance, the young man’s rage was evident. Keely knew this was the moment to step forward, to reinforce whatever point Gemma was driving home, but by the time he summoned the requisite courage the bloke had already turned in the doorway and disappeared.

Gemma swivelled and held up a hand, halting Keely’s unhappy progress, so that he was left lurking there, mid-stride, stranded in the sun, awkward and shamefaced, about as threatening as a faded traffic cone.

Without speaking they waited a long couple of minutes. Down the row a dreadlocked busker was setting up outside the markets. Gulls wheeled above the street as a keg truck pulled up at the corner pub. A once-great drinking place. Now the haunt of Facebook hipsters and metrosexuals. Another lost cause.

When he returned, the young man dumped a cardboard carton on the porch at Gemma’s feet. She stood her ground and held out a hand to receive something that was a long time coming. Eventually the punk handed over a small object, perhaps a key. Then he said something that set Gemma’s head back. It was as if she’d been slapped. He closed the door on her with a sneer and after several seconds she stooped in her heels, took up the box and stalked unsteadily down the path.

What the fuck was that? he said, fumbling the carton she shoved at him in passing.

It took some effort to keep up with her and she didn’t slow down until they were at the roundabout beside the football oval. She was white-faced and agitated, blinking back tears so fiercely he thought she might strike him.

Are you alright?

Shut the fuck up.

She blundered into traffic and he followed her, juggling the box and copping car horns and howls of abuse. When they were safely across and headed for the carpark in the lee of the old prison, she began blotting her eyes with a tissue. There was mascara down her face.

Gemma, what’s the story?

Doesn’t matter.

What’s in the box?

Nintendo, she said, blowing her nose on the mottled Kleenex.

A computer game? All that back there was for a Nintendo? You’re kidding me.

She broke away and he trudged behind her until they were amidst rows of parked cars baking in the sun.

Come on, Gemma, you’re not serious.

He followed her up and down ranks of vehicles. The sun was vicious. He saw the dress glued to her back with sweat.

Finally she stopped in front of a battered little Hyundai. A thick sheaf of parking tickets fluttered from the wipers. Gemma sighed, swiped them up and unlocked the car.

It’s Carly’s, she murmured, pulling her hair free. Get in.

The superheated Hyundai stank of cigarettes and mould. Keely sat ankle-deep in burger wrappers and chip buckets, breathing oven air.

No petrol, of course, muttered Gemma. Let’s find a servo.

Keely refrained for a moment but he couldn’t help himself.

The charmer back there, that’s Kai’s father?

She turned the key in the ignition several times and eventually the engine came sluggishly to life.

Stewie. He’s a turd. Christ, wind your window down!

He lowered it all the way and she stabbed at the aircon button, hissing through her teeth.

I don’t get it, he confessed. All this get-up, all the drama.

It’s Carly’s stuff, Kai’s stuff. Pictures, toys, clothes. What’s so hard to understand?

Well, what was I there for? he asked, half knowing already.

There’s bloody court orders and letters and he wouldn’t give it up. Two years! I’ve had no car, nothing for Kai, and no one bloody follows through. Not the coppers, DOCS, no one. I’m payin for taxis just to get to work.

Didn’t you say there was a restraining order?

There’s a list of em, take your pick. Not worth the paper they’re printed on.

And you went over there?

You saw me, why ask?

Because I didn’t know what the hell I was getting into, Gemma. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

I needed a bit of support, orright? Sorry to put a dent in your busy day.

It was so hot in the car, Keely was surprised to feel an actual flush of shame.

Anyway, she said, relenting. You looked the part. That’s the main thing.

Thanks. I spose. Remind me, though, what part was I playing?

I was just messin with his head. Little arsehole couldn’t decide if you were the bailiff or my bloke. He was twitchy as shit, wired by the looks. In the end I reckon he was wonderin if you might be my lawyer, or even a cop. I never said a thing about it and he didn’t ask. I just left you out there — like a mindfuck, she said, beginning to enjoy herself. You do look pretty bad-tempered with a hangover. The beard wouldn’t have worked, made you look like a hippy preacher with a hurtin heart.

Well, this is all very handy to know, of course, he said, grateful the car was moving; even a roasting breeze was better than none.

He’s got parole conditions, she said, steering them towards the exit. The house musta been full of speed or something, cause he caved real quick.

What if he hadn’t? What if he’d done something to you? Really, Gemma, what was I supposed to do?

I dunno, she said, lurching out into the traffic. Tell him love conquers all and punch him in the throat. I saw Nev put a bloke through an asbestos fence once.

That was probably a prayer meeting.

She laughed and he joined her.

He rooted through the carton as she drove. Apart from the papers and toys the only thing of use was the laptop. As a boxful, as a trophy of war, it wasn’t much.

He’s flogged everything else, she said as if reading him. Only reason he kept the computer and the Nintendo is to use himself. Maybe you could look at it for me, the laptop. Kai’ll need it for school. They do everything on a computer these days and he’s not gunna miss out. I dunno the first thing about the bloody things. Would you do that?

He nodded.

This thing’s hers, she said, whacking the wheel, but it’s registered in my name, so guess who pays the rego and the fines. I couldn’t stand walkin past it every day knowin Kai and me’re catchin the bus, it was eatin me up.

Well, you’re game, I’ll give you that.

Now and then you need a win, she said. Keeps you goin.

She veered into the BP. He thought of Prudhoe Bay; it was involuntary. British Petroleum, he thought — what a friend they had in Jesus.

While she pumped the fuel, Keely sat nursing the cardboard carton. In the end he felt silly enough to get out and stand on the greasy concrete. Across the vehicle, in a wavering tableau of heat shimmer and fume shadows, Gemma stood with one hand on her hip, the other gripping the nozzle. With her body cocked liked that and all her hair rippling off her shoulders, she was a sight in her little black dress. Keely felt a surge of admiration. She had more guts than he could hope for. Just looking at her made him happy all of a sudden, just for a moment, and when she caught his gaze and his dopey grin, she looked at him quizzically, and then became guarded, as if suspecting she’d been mocked.

You look great, he said.

Oh, get fucked, she said, grinning.

*

Despite the fact that Kai’s school was on the same block as the Mirador, Gemma insisted on collecting him in the car. Keely’s headache was luminous; he would have preferred to get out, cross the street and go up in the lift, but he didn’t have the heart — or maybe the nerve — to leave her in this moment of triumph, so in the minutes before the bell rang, they idled in the sweltering line around the block behind all the other vehicular parents and guardians and afterschool carers.

He doesn’t like surprises, she said. But he’ll like this one.

Why the convent school? Is it just because it’s close?

Well, duh.

I wondered if you might have gone Catholic.

Nah, just went to Sunday school with you and Faith. Whatever that was.

Like you said. A hippy preacher with a hurtin heart — Billy Graham meets Billy Jack. Singing ‘Morning Has Broken’ if memory serves.

They told us there was angels lookin out for us.

Well.

When I was livin at your place with Nev and Doris, it sorta felt true.

And now?

Angels move away, mate. They die. They get old. They leave you on yer own.

Still, he said. You’re a tough bit of gear. No illusions. Just yourself.

Your self, she said with unsettling authority. Your self isn’t enough.

Keely had nothing honest to offer her. How could you counter such a sense of abandonment? She really did carry with her a kind of desolation. It wasn’t just his parents who’d vanished from her life, but their fierce saviour, too, their Great Defender evaporating along with them. That much he understood. He had a hole that size in him too; sometimes it was the size of him entire.

He gazed out at the retro Minis, the 4x4s, the muscle cars ahead in the line. Behold, the miracle of hire-purchase and lax lending. Clearly he wasn’t the only one to feel empty. What a pageant of consolation this line of vehicles was, what a spiritual mystery conveyances had become.

He angled the poxy little A/C vent his way. This hangover wasn’t just making him maudlin, it was bringing on mortal thoughts — not helpful. A blast of icy air would have been welcome. But from this triumph of Korean engineering? Not happening.

Listen, she said cautiously after a long silence. Now I’ve got the car, I’m gunna visit Carly.

That’ll be nice, he said, sensing it coming.

Yeah, she said. I’m going up Saturday week.

Please, no, he thought — don’t ask me.

I was gunna say. If maybe you wouldn’t mind.

Keely averted his gaze. His temples felt scorched. He didn’t want this.

It’s way the hell out towards the hills, I know, she said.

Keely ran his dry tongue across his teeth. It was maddening, this obscure, relentless sense of obligation. It wasn’t his fault they’d lost the house and moved away from Blackboy Crescent. You couldn’t hold Nev responsible for a heart attack. Doris had her own children to see to; hadn’t she done all she could? This was getting ridiculous.

He said nothing, gave her no relief.

I know you’ve never met her or nothin. But Kai’s always funny about it. If you go he’ll be orright. It’s his mum, Tom.

He shifted in his seat, angry now.

Like I said, she murmured. Don’t feel obliged.

Keely knew he didn’t have the balls to say no. He wondered if she could see it in his face, if she’d known it all along. He drew a defeated breath, put a hand on her thigh from sheer opportunism and she didn’t flinch.

Not a problem, he said with all the irony he could muster.

God love ya, Tom.

No chance of that, he thought, taking his hand away ruefully.

The bell rang. The schoolyard filled instantly with darting, leaping bodies.

There he is, he said too brightly.

Kai emerged alone from the mob with his distinctive stiff gait and air of self-containment. He was solitary, oblivious, preoccupied. When he saw his grandmother waving from the car window he halted and stared.

God, she said. I could eat him up. Look at him.

Hyundai, said Kai as he finally opened the rear door. Smaller than a Volvo.

And quite a bit cheaper, said Keely.

The boy looked at him warily.

I told you about the beard, said Gemma.

It was better before.

I agree, said Keely. But she made me.

Come on, you heathen. Get in.

The boy pursed his lips and slid in alongside the trash on the back seat. Hyundai, he said again. Hy. Un. Dai.

It’s Korean for Nana, said Keely.

~ ~ ~

The message on the machine was curt. Doris sounded agitated, testy. He belted down some pipe-sick water and called her.

What is it? he asked, looking out across the sound as the southerly began to ruffle the sea.

The islands looked insubstantial as soufflés. The cement-works dredge ploughed on across the bank, pillaging shell for its lime, ripping sea grass up by the tonne, leaving a filthy plume in its wake. They’d recently secured another decade’s lease. Surprise, surprise. And a few hundred metres inland their stack rained particulates on the roofs of five thousand homes. With an EPA licence, no less. Business as usual. Democracy at work.

Mum, what’s the matter?

I was about to ask you, Tom.

You’ve lost me.

Faith called.

How is she?

You should know. You spoke to her last night.

Me? Last night?

She’s upset. So am I.

Keely felt a twinge of dread, said nothing. He had not called his sister last night. After seeing Gemma in the early evening he hadn’t spoken to anyone at all. Had he?

She said you were awful, said terrible things.

Keely had been sick all day. But not as ill as he felt this minute.

Tom?

I’m here.

What’s happening?

I’ll call her now.

She’s on a plane. Leave her be.

Shit.

What’s got into you?

I don’t know, Mum. I’ll fix it up.

She’s your sister. She doesn’t deserve this. You think because she works with money she doesn’t have a conscience? She’s a good person — you have no idea.

I don’t remember, he confessed.

That she’s your sister, that I’m proud of her?

Calling her, Mum. I don’t remember calling her.

Which speaks for itself.

Keely leant against the wall, took the sting right through him. He deserved it.

Have you cooked yourself dinner?

It’s three thirty-five, Doris.

Don’t dare take that tone with me.

Sorry.

I’ve got some mussels. More than I can eat. I should know better, but when you look at them in the shop, you see the handful it takes to feed yourself, it looks pathetic, like it wouldn’t feed a sparrow.

I know, he said. Cooking for one, it’s science over instinct.

Dreary, that’s what it is. No wonder all these Claremont ladies eat out. Divorce is the only thing keeping the hospitality industry afloat.

God, he thought in wonder. She’s moved on already. Like some sort of moral amazon, she’s sucked the poison from the wound, wiped her mouth and resumed the fight; it’s bloody sainthood.

I’m sorry, he said. I’ll do whatever it takes.

I’ll be there at five, she said. I’ll call you when I’m outside.

Mum, I’ll catch the train.

No, I’ll be there directly.

He put down the phone and ran the shower. His face in the mirror was ailing. His cheeks were lumpy with ingrown hairs, stippled in places by shaving rash. He thought he preferred the preacher with the hurtin heart to the feeble wonk looking back at him. Doris probably hadn’t even bought the mussels yet; she’d be on her way to the Boatshed Market to get them now. What a rube he was; she was brilliant.

After he’d scraped his chin and dressed, while he waited for Doris to do her thing, he called Faith’s landline, left a message on the machine. His apology was heartfelt but after a few moments he could feel himself rambling. He sounded like a drunk, a loon. He tried to wind it up. But lost his nerve and rang off mid-sentence.

The moment he hung up he wished he hadn’t called. She’d think he was barking. He’d only made it worse. He stared at the carpet, felt the reflux of panic in his throat. When the phone rang he grunted and was relieved to hear it was only Doris.

~ ~ ~

Her back garden smelt of frangipani and citronella and in the evening light white cockatoos roamed in raucous packs above the treetops of the neighbourhood. On the sea breeze came the waft of cut lawns, barbecue smoke, leaf-blowers. The proximity of the river was like something on the skin, a pleasant clamminess that brought to mind tree roots, undercut banks, stranded jellyfish. The house’s rear deck was deep and broad. The little table hardly occupied a corner.

Keely sopped up the last of the tomato sauce with crusty bread and sat back, conscious of being observed. There was no wine on the table.

It’s a nice house, this, he said sincerely.

Still, you’ve always disapproved.

Not true.

In ten years you’ve never had a good word for it.

Working-class prejudice.

Oh, rubbish. That’s middle-class anxiety.

Probably.

You had a place just as nice yourself.

True.

In a street of old lumpers’ cottages — go on, say it, make the distinction.

Which cost about the same, I know.

Tom, love, you have such romantic ideas about the working class.

Oh, come on, Mum.

Really, it tickles me.

Annoys you, actually.

Well, yes. I’m not as sentimental.

You couldn’t get out of Blackboy Crescent fast enough. Could you?

I didn’t have a choice, if you recall.

Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound so judgemental.

Really? The further you got from Blackboy Crescent, the more you wore your blue collar on your sleeve. And I know that sounds mangled but you know what I mean.

Keely winced. Because he did. Also because it was true.

And don’t tell me about mixed metaphors — I am one.

Just never thought there was any harm in being proud of my origins, he said. State housing, state schools.

But why wear it like a badge of honour? As if it’s your achievement rather than the result of government policy? The way all these people here seem to think the state is swimming in money because they invented iron ore, planted it, watered it. It’s sheer luck. And it’s luck that got you to university free of charge. You’re the product of an historical moment, a brief awakening. Tom Keely: My Struggle — it doesn’t wash, love. You were generationally privileged. You’re just another sulky Whitlam heir.

Mussels were never so expensive, he said by way of concession.

I’m not saying you didn’t work hard.

Mum, all I was actually saying, if you remember, is that you have a nice house.

Well, it’s too big, and as you can see I can’t keep up with the garden.

Geez. People’ll think you’re renting.

At this there was an indulgent silence between them.

Sometimes I wonder if I’d still be there, she murmured. Blackboy Crescent. If things had worked out differently.

Really?

I don’t know. It was your father who was restless, not me. We would have travelled, I think.

Where?

Central America, the Philippines. The liberation theology thing — we were in that together of course. Couldn’t you just see him as a worker priest?

An evangelical with a wife and two kids — why not?

Well, everything smelt different then. A sense of possibility. Vatican II and all.

Think of it, he said. Nev as a Catholic, Billy Jack takes the Pope’s shilling.

They both laughed. It was good. Better.

Anyway.

It really is a nice house, Mum. You bought it with hard work, righteous work. There’s nothing to be guilty about.

I know that. I’m comfortable with that.

Okay. Good.

I’m just worried about you.

I know.

And I suspect you’ve come to enjoy the rewards of defeat. Shopping in despair’s boutiques.

The law degree I applaud, Doris. The psych thing has become a nuisance.

So I’m told.

He pushed his chair back. It growled across the boards.

I saw her yesterday, he said. Harriet, I mean.

Don’t try to sidestep me, Tom. Last night, along with every other vile thing you had to offload, you told your sister you were already dead, and that they’d be steaming you out of the carpet for weeks.

Fuck, he said, despite himself. No way.

Perhaps she imagined it. Maybe she’s lying.

He sat there.

And you don’t remember, she said. Or you’d rather not recall.

The sun was gone. Night had fallen without him noticing. Keely gripped his knees and let mosquitoes nip at his ankles.

Tom, I think we should talk about this.

Gemma’s got a grandson.

You said.

He lives with her. In my building. There’s something about him.

Tom, I’m talking about you. Right now there’s something about you, she said, sliding a business card across the sauce-flecked table. I’d like you to go and see someone. I’ve made an appointment. You can call my doctor in the morning and he’ll give you the referral.

You’ve been busy, he said.

Want something done, ask a busy person. This bloke’s good. No scented candles, no hand holding, no bullshit.

And, listen, thanks for paying the phone bill. I meant to say. You shouldn’t have.

I prefer you to be contactable. And you’re changing the subject. Will you go?

Look, I appreciate all these recommendations, Mum, but really.

I’ve fixed it. If it’s the money you’re using as an excuse.

Gemma’s boy, he’s very economical with his facial expressions. Almost affectless.

Tell me you’ll go.

I thought you were asking.

I am asking.

When an angel asks something of you, isn’t it kind of like a command?

What’re you talking about? Angels don’t have arthritis — or a thing for Leonard Cohen.

So. Guided democracy — that’s what it’s come to in the People’s Republic of Keely?

Just tell me you’ll go.

He nodded. He wondered if, strictly speaking, a nod was actual consent, whether it constituted a promise.

*

They washed the dishes together and cleaned up the messy remains in a wary détente. He could sense his mother stepping around him tenderly, soothing him however she could, compensating for her little moment of intervention. Keely tried to spend the intervals between neutral passages of small talk ordering his thoughts, attempting to unpick strands and settle upon one memory, one idea, a single resolution, but there was a rising, teeming noise of thoughts in him like the uproar in a rainforest at the approach of anintruder.

This boy, Doris was saying. Gemma’s grandson. How old is he?

Kai.

Kai?

I know, he said guiltily.

I spose he could be Jet.

Or Koby.

Listen to us, she said. What’s he like?

Strange, really. Smart. Very self-possessed, a bit withdrawn.

How old?

Six.

Maybe somewhere on the autism spectrum? Or just bright and lonely.

I wondered. You know, Asperger’s, something like that.

Or foetal alcohol syndrome, she said. But he wouldn’t be so bright. His mother?

Bandyup.

Drugs, I imagine.

He nodded.

The boy’ll have a caseworker, said Doris. He’ll be in the system, poor love.

He’s so serious.

So were you.

Yeah, and I turned out alright.

Has he fixed on you? This boy?

Imagine how it’s been for him.

She nodded. Please be careful, Tom. For his sake. And yours.

I am, he said. I will.

Suds splurged and gargled down the drain. Doris looked at him bravely, almost all her scepticism hidden from view.

Up close, where the sunspots and loose flesh showed, you could see she was an old woman. It never ceased to come as a shock. All the girlish hair, the sleekness and gravity. You forgot she wasn’t young anymore. She was older than, well… Julie Christie. And had she stayed in Blackboy Crescent she might have been a great-grandmother now.

Is she beautiful?

What?

Gemma. Is she beautiful?

Well, he sighed. You can certainly see she was.

Doris finished wiping down the benches and straightened the cloth too carefully for his liking.

Attractive, isn’t it, lost beauty?

Mum. Honestly.

Men like it. Gives them confidence. Then there’s the added frisson of damage. They can’t resist.

Are we looting old tutorials here or speaking from experience?

She glanced at him as if she’d been struck.

I’ll drive you to the train.

~ ~ ~

Keely got out of the lift, turned the corner and there along the gallery in a puddle of light outside his door was Gemma. He hesitated a second but it was too late. She’d seen him. And his moment of indecision. In cargo shorts and a singlet, she leant against the iron rail, sucking on a fag beneath a cloud of moths. As he tramped on towards her, she glanced up and scattered them with a savage jet of smoke.

Evening, he murmured.

She said nothing. Lent on her elbows and stared out towards the bridges. Her hands shook.

Everything alright?

On his doormat was the laptop they’d retrieved that afternoon. It felt like days ago. He gathered it up and unlocked his door.

Gemma?

Moths churned and wheeled above her. She blew them into disarray once more.

Keely went in, set the little Acer on the kitchen bench and opened the sliding door to catch whatever mucky updraught there was. He turned to see her stab the fag out against the rail and pitch the butt into the darkness.

You coming in or what?

She turned beneath her corona of moths, ran a hand through her hair and peered in at him. She came on in, but unsteadily. She was drunk. Or drugged. Or something.

Kai asleep? he asked.

I can’t get him off that bloody Nintendo.

What d’you want me to do with this? he said, pointing to the laptop.

I dunno. Set it up or whatever for Kai? Dunno nothin about em.

You want a cup of tea or something?

She shook her head.

You’re not working tonight?

What is this — quiz night? I called in crook, okay?

As she brushed by to flop into the armchair he saw how puffy her eyes were, as if she’d been crying.

Something’s happened, he said.

Let’s go for a drive.

Maybe you should tell me.

I feel like a drive, she said.

It’s late, Gem. I’m knackered. And what about Kai?

He can come too.

He’s got school. I don’t think it’s a good idea.

He’s comin, she said hotly. Don’t look at me like I’m some horrible slag. All I want’s a bloody drive in me car — is that a crime? Come or don’t come, I don’t care.

She blundered back out onto the gallery and up the way. He watched her fumble at her own door.

Leave us alone! she yelled back at him before stepping inside.

Keely retreated indoors. Alert to the prospect of a stormy return, he left the door ajar and tidied the kitchen, but she didn’t show.

He was brushing his teeth for bed when he heard Gemma’s angry shout in the distance. A door slammed. He went out onto the balcony from where a child’s wailing carried on the warm night air. Keely told himself it could be anyone’s kid. Every window in the building was open as residents courted the tepid breeze; the place was as porous as a birdcage — sounds you swore you heard next door actually boiled up from several floors below.

He went inside, uneasy but determined to get an early night. But another door thudded shut and then footfalls rang along the gallery.

Do what ya bloody told! yelled Gemma.

Keely stepped out to see her hauling the resistant boy by the arm and the sight of them struggling out there between the wall and the railing sent a ripple of fear through him. When he reached them they were both flailing and tearful. A few doors down, from the safety of the darkness, someone threatened to call the cops. Gemma told whoever they were to get stuffed. But she gave up the car keys the moment Keely asked for them.

*

It wasn’t until they were past the Old Traffic Bridge and the container terminal that the boy’s rending sobs finally gave way to silence. Keely cranked down the window to let in a soothing rush of night air. He steered them along the coast, savouring the quiet, not knowing or caring where he was headed, his bewilderment and disgust gradually softened by the smells of limey sand, ocean air and saltbush. The road narrowed and wound through unlit bush reserves. The little car burped and rattled. There were sparks behind his eyes and that deep ache in his skull further back, but he tried to concentrate on the sweet feel of the wind rummaging through his shirt. In the mirror he caught the pale flutter of Gemma’s hair, the swipe of a hand blotting tears. She sat in the corner of the back seat cradling the kid. Kai seemed to have subsided into sleep.

Swanbourne, Floreat, City Beach. Gulls orbited the orange sodium lights of the northern beaches and above them the sky was starless, inky. The waterside carparks were scattered with vanloads of backpackers and partying youths hunting shadows. Every rocky groyne bristled with fishing rods and the shadows on the dimpled sand looked like moon craters.

At Scarborough he circled the roundabout beneath the ugly clock and wound slowly through the old terraces.

Christ, she said.

I know.

Why here?

It wasn’t deliberate, he said.

I’m just sayin.

I’m just driving, he said. I could be in bed, you know.

She said nothing and he caught a glimpse of her running a hand through her hair, gazing out at the old sights. Keely steered them past the tawdry strip of shops, the Norfolk pines, the kids sitting on the bonnets of their cars.

Saw a boy surfin a Torana here one night. The mudflaps were on fire.

I was there, he said.

Riot police and everythin.

Happy days!

Loved that show.

That too, he said, pulling up by the northern shower block where the coolest surfers used to hang and the stink of hash was often more pungent than the reek of piss. A couple of kids hacked up and down on skateboards. It looked desolate here now. But at this time of night perhaps it had always looked a bit bleak.

Carn then, she said. We come this far. Let’s check it out.

Check what out?

You know what.

What happened tonight?

Five minutes, Tom. It won’t kill ya.

Why?

Old times’ sake.

Why now?

Cause we can. And I got the car, Tommy. I don’t care what that little shit Stewie says. I got the car. I can drive where I like. C’mon.

The skater boys flipped their boards warily, waiting for the old folks to get out or drive away. With one of them in the front and the other in the back Keely knew they probably looked dodgy. He wheeled the car around and a minute later they were on the four-lane east.

I remember this, said Gemma. I remember when it was a limestone track.

Keely said nothing. He recalled it well enough. Wished she would shut up.

When he pulled into the old street he felt uneasy. Why couldn’t he have tooled along the river, somewhere neutral? He hadn’t been back in thirty-five years; he wasn’t sure he wanted to do this tonight. Maybe another day — alone, on foot, in daylight. But he was here now. And he could smell wild oats and lupins from the empty lot on the corner. He remembered this, the smell and the patch of dirt, from all those long treks to school. He thought of bikes with banana seats, boys in desert boots, hot tar.

In the back Gemma twisted and gasped.

Christ, she muttered. They’ve changed the name. Grasstree Crescent.

Grasstree? he said as evenly as he could manage.

I’ll bet it’s to keep the Abos happy.

Keely let it go. But he felt the twinge of loss, despite himself. He eased down the hill in first, struggling to get his bearings. The road was the same; he remembered when this too had been limestone. The crescent curved down towards the swamp, so strange and familiar. But few of the old places were there anymore. The modest uniformity of the original neighbourhood was gone and with it the sense of egalitarian plainness, the peculiar comprehensibility it once had. The quarter-acre blocks had been subdivided, the small brick-veneer bungalows replaced by two-storey triplexes pressed together without eaves or verandahs. On nearly every roof sat an airconditioner and a satellite dish. Where there had been picket fences, high brick walls. No families out on porches watching TV, no cars sprawled across front yards, no lumpy aprons of buffalo grass.

Neither he nor Gemma spoke until they reached the swamp, now a recreation precinct of bicycle paths, pine-log gazebos and mown lawns under floodlights.

Fuck, she said.

Yeah.

Go back, she said. Chuck a u-ey.

A little dazed, Keely swung about and headed uphill at a crawl. Number 14 was gone. He idled out the front of a shrunken Tuscan villa behind whose wrought-iron gates stood a Chinese 4x4.

I don’t care about ours, she said. But I wanted yours to still be there.

Well. It isn’t.

A sensor light came on. He pulled away, heard her counting houses. But in the end they didn’t need to count. For there it was, unmistakeable.

Wouldn’t it rip ya? she said quietly.

The old Buck place had every light on, curtains askew, music pounding from open windows. On the parched front lawn a slew of vehicles, some on blocks. A dog flew out, flashing its teeth. From the porch a woman called it back with a foul stream of imprecations.

That’ll be why they changed the name, said Gemma. So more boongs could move in.

Stop it, he said, pulling away.

I wish we hadn’t come.

Well, we did.

It’s all different.

No, he said with pleasure. Your place is still the same.

Fuck you, she said lighting up a fag. Go fuck yourself.

He drove homeward in the stormy silence and as the lights of the container terminal rose before them he heard her weeping in the back.

~ ~ ~

Instead of settling for budget-brand muesli, Keely sat in Bub’s and ordered his morning usual. While he was waiting he fired up the newly charged laptop for a casual look at what needed doing. And a single glance was sufficient. He slapped the thing shut with so much force a woman cried out at the next table and all he could offer was a grimace of apology.

Keely thought he’d seen porn but he’d never encountered anything quite like this before. When breakfast came he ate it blinking dumbly at the battered Acer which had suddenly taken on a radioactive aura. Between that and the nervous glances from the poor woman alongside him, he wasn’t inclined to linger and the outing was an expensive washout.

Once he got the machine home he found the software was registered to Carly M. Fairlight, but he doubted she was the gonzo-porn enthusiast. He spent the rest of the day dumping files and running clean-up programs. He wondered about Gemma’s mood last night, whether she’d stumbled on this cache — or worse, found Kai with it. That was an ugly thought. But no. If she’d seen that shit she’d have pitched the thing off the tenth floor already, wouldn’t she? Maybe he was a resentful puritan — wasn’t that how the shock-jocks portrayed him? But that stuff was foul. He wished he hadn’t seen it.

Eventually he got the computer running smoothly, and for good measure found he could pirate other folks’ wireless networks right here in the building, and by way of exorcism or whatever sacrament applied to soiled machines, he wiped it down, inside and out, with antibacterial handwash.

In the afternoon he left the front door open but nobody knocked. He made a fiery and extremely cheap vegetarian curry and ate it at dusk in a virtuous sweat.

At eight the phone rang. He was expecting his sister or his mother, but it was Gemma. She was subdued; she sounded hoarse. Kai was being difficult. She had a shift to do. Would he mind coming over for an hour?

He met her on the gallery. She was dressed for work, made up a little too vividly. She looked wretched and spent.

You could have come by, he said.

I didn’t think I should, she murmured shakily.

It’s fine, Gem.

I’m just a stupid bitch.

What did he do, that bloke? What’d he say to you?

Somethin nasty. Somethin a bloke’ll say.

You won’t tell me?

She shook her head.

Last night.

It doesn’t matter.

I just needed somethin nice, she said. Somewhere I could remember bein happy.

It took some absorbing. After everything she’d told him, everything he’d seen for himself, Blackboy Crescent was where she’d been happiest? He didn’t say anything. She looked too tired.

Just sit with him, will you, Tom? Don’t make him do anythin. Just be there.

He nodded. She gathered herself, pecked him on the cheek and went.

Inside 1010 the TV was off but the flat was a mess. Kai was in bed flipping through the raptor book. As if his being difficult were directed at Gemma alone. Keely greeted him but the boy did not respond. There were blue pools like bruises beneath his eyes. Keely resisted the urge to natter brightly at the kid. He did only what Gemma had asked, pushed her pillows against the wall and sat with him.

The boy closed the book and sank deeper. He tilted the thing up on his chest and surveyed the cover. It was a close-up image of an eagle’s eye — black-rimmed, stark, the iris a web of yellow-bronze — and Kai wasn’t merely glancing at it but peering deeply, chewing his lips, wheezing in fervent concentration. Keely tried not to stare but it was difficult. The kid seemed to mesmerize himself, sink into the interlacing layers of the bird’s iris.

Eventually the boy’s eyelids began to droop and flutter. He seemed to struggle against sleep as if stalked by it, and this skirmish went on for a minute or so, until the book began to waver. At the last moment, as if to save himself from falling, the boy reached aside and took Keely’s arm. And was gone. Keely caught the book with his spare hand. Saw him down. Tried not to hold his breath. Watched him sleep.

~ ~ ~

He woke on the floor in his own place with the slider open to the baking wind and his legs stippled with mosquito bites. His face hurt, his mouth was woolly, but he didn’t remember drinking anything. In the bathroom mirror he saw what amounted to a shiner. He had no memory of hurting himself. But there was still an eerie sparkle behind his eyes. A sequin fizz. It took a full minute to unscramble the label on the toothpaste.

In the café Bub raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Keely drank one coffee only and paid with shrapnel. He was turning to leave when Bub sent down a double-shot on the house. He waved in sheepish gratitude and tried to savour it. But he thought of the boy, his dry little hand on his arm. And the bird’s yellow eye. And the troubling fact of the wide-open door.

After a few moments Bub emerged from the kitchen and slid a tall glass of apple juice onto the table.

Here, said the nuggety bald fixture. You look dry as a camel’s cookie.

I am that. And thanks.

Tom, said Bub, smiling at the black eye, you’re not the fighting type.

You think?

The kitchen bell chimed. Bub clapped him on the shoulder and headed back.

~ ~ ~

They gave him thirty bucks for the iPod and ninety for his laptop. He suspected that without the shiner he’d have gotten more, but he was content enough afterwards, trolling op-shops with cash in his pocket, looking for something to please the boy. He started at Save the Children, moved on to Oxfam, then the Vinnies. But they had nothing he was after. Then at the last stop, closest to home, he scored. He walked out of the Good Sammies with a perfectly serviceable game of Scrabble and change from a fiver.

At home, tucked into the grille of his security door, was a fair pencil rendering of a mudlark. He pulled it out and went on to Gemma’s. At his knock he saw the tiny moon of the peephole flash a second. She pulled the door back on its chain and peered out warily.

Just me, he said.

Christ, what happened?

I walked into a cliché, he muttered.

I’m serious.

It’s nothing. Really. And look, he said, holding up the battered box.

~ ~ ~

The whole Scrabble business was a mystery to Keely. Kai had the Nintendo, after all, and kids were supposedly addicted zombies after only a day or two’s feverish toggling, but although the boy seemed to enjoy murdering thugs and aliens, and often shouted disconcertingly at certain leering villains, the excitement wore off after the first mad binge. He never completely forsook Super Mario, but tended to lose energy after half an hour or so and drift to the laptop whose charm lay in the keyboard as much as the screen. As far as Keely could tell, Gemma had never played Scrabble with him. Perhaps he’d seen something on TV — he didn’t say and Gemma couldn’t recall, didn’t find the question nearly as intriguing as Keely did. The boy was in his first year of school and yet he could already read extremely well and write after a fashion. Keely wondered who’d taught him. It didn’t seem possible he could have absorbed it all himself. He got simple words arse-about, and certain letters as well. It was strange to watch him hunched at the computer, wheezing slightly, experimenting — building words with cautious pecks at the keys, consciously or inadvertently creating lists that plunged down the screen like ratlines.

Keely was excited at the prospect of teaching Kai to play, but he wondered how the kid would fare. It wasn’t the raciest board game invented. But from the outset Kai seemed less interested in scores than in the words themselves. Games might begin in a spirit of boyish competition, but Kai seemed to fall into a trance, rousing now and then in a momentary shiver of recognition. Keely imagined the syllables emerging from chaos. He recalled his own childhood, how words hid as if aching to be found, transformed by his gaze, reaching out to meet him. He was fascinated by the way the boy handled the tiles, how he turned them over in his hands, running the tips of his thumbs across their faces as if tempted to slip them into his mouth like milky chocolates. His fingers twitched, tantalized, over the board, as he breathed upon his row of letters on their little pine plinth.

Kai was an exacting playing partner. He did not like tiles to fall out of alignment on the board. And there was no point making conversation or daggy jokes between moves because he’d stiff you. The only time he tolerated noise was during the initial shaking and shuffling of pieces in the box lid before the game commenced. Then he seemed like any other kid. He liked to rifle through the tiles like a miser with his loot — Scrooge McDuck in the vault — but once he settled down it was all sober concentration. He did not enjoy the letter Q. And blanks, letters that were mutable, seemed to cause him anxiety; they had to be marked laboriously with a pencil before he could accept them as real, and even then they troubled him, as if there were something untrustworthy about their nature. But defeat didn’t bother him. And thankfully he was bored by the tedious endgame. Like Keely, he had no interest in plugging holes with two-letter words or suffixes, scrounging points in endless rounds of lexical puttying. Once the rich pickings were gone he began to fidget and Keely was only too happy to concede a comradely draw and start afresh.

They played afternoons and evenings all week; it became a routine. And apart from his morning swim this was soon the thing Keely most looked forward to. Something to digest, really, the knowledge that a game of Scrabble with a six-year-old had become the highlight of his day. But there was weird pleasure in it, something he’d been missing for longer than he cared to think.

Often as not Kai came straight from school bearing a new sketch — a wattlebird, a kingfisher, a heron — and Keely sent him home for his fruit and biscuits and lime cordial before he returned with the Scrabble box pressed to his chest. Around five Gemma came by to dragoon the boy into showering and Keely followed them up the gallery to 1010 where she’d already have the makings for dinner on the bench. Evenings settled into a pattern of school notes fixed to the fridge door, and reading before bedtime. Their conversation became desultory, as if the adults were partners in a faded marriage. It amused him, and he was grateful for it, but often he yearned for more. Not high conversation, nothing taxing. But he would have liked to know things, to press her for details, facts about her life and Kai’s. He wondered about her sister, Baby. There were so many gaps, years and relationships, disasters and hurts he was left to infer. And there were moments, too, when Gemma’s physical proximity caused him pangs.

Even so he felt that his life was different, that it had finally tilted towards something coherent. The headaches seemed more bearable. He could suffer Gemma’s diffidence because of Kai. At day’s end, he and the boy played their games of Scrabble and Super Mario, talked birds and habitat, rifled through the dictionary, googled odd facts in a long and pleasurable post-ponement of bedtime. The nightly challenge was to present the kid a story, like a cat dragging in a rodent. As Keely perched at the bedside, waiting for any flicker of inspiration, the boy noted the progress of his shiner as the contusion flared, morphed, and began, thankfully, to fade. It was kind of charming — flattering, really — having him catalogue every change of colour.

You like this shiner, he said to Kai.

No, said the boy. Just makin it go away.

*

The kid had tropes and sayings, things that stuck in Keely’s head.

At the start of a game: Seven tiles, he said, almost chanting. Seven letters. Like seven days. 7-Eleven. 24/7. Always seven. Gotta be seven.

Then at bedtime: Wattlebirds. They eat spiders. If there’s too much spiders there’s too much poison. In the world.

When Keely’s jokes wore thin: No, Tom. No falling.

At dusk: Look. The lighthouse. Counting the night.

During an episode of Friends: Eagles. They’re killers. Do they get to go to Heaven?

In Keely’s flat: Really, but. Where do words come from?

*

At home alone at night, he sat up late resisting all temptation, exhausted but unable to rest his mind. He tried re-reading Catch-22 and marvelled that he’d found it so mordantly funny in his youth. Now it was too distressing. He wanted to shout at the novelist: no more, no fooling, no falling.

Mostly, though, he felt okay, more or less functional. Just bubbling with thoughts that kept him from sleep, watching the Parker Point lighthouse measure out the darkness.

He thought a lot about Kai. Especially the way he resisted sleep. As if it were something to fear, not a release. Except for those final moments, the slipping away, the kid avoided physical contact. Keely had to police himself, refrain from tousling the kid’s hair or shoving him playfully in passing. As a boy he’d loved being monstered by Nev, rolled on the floor in a headlock, tickled until he was blue. He liked to be overwhelmed by him and then have at him with camel bites and knee jabs — just to feel and make himself felt in return. But Kai could find space where there seemed to be none; he could sidestep any well-meaning pat or squeeze, as if his body anticipated yours, as if he were monitoring your every movement.

The boy retreated into silences, reveries, fugues. During which he was impassive, unreachable. He could blink you away, delete you from his presence, and these silent lockouts sent Gemma into furies. There was so much Keely didn’t understand. It was as if he’d stumbled into a play halfway through the show. And he wondered if he’d ever catch up.

But he adjusted to some things rapidly, even if he didn’t know what they signified. Like the bedtime ritual, which he came to need as much as the boy. There was something about that period of potent, dreamy calm between the pair of them, the intimacy of the whispered story and the long silences that ensued. The way Kai drifted beside him in the shafted gloom, unmoored from the day and his defended self. Every night came that moment of panic before surrender when the boy made solid contact, seizing him, the arm shooting out like a baby’s startle reflex, the hand gripping Keely’s shirt as if he were steadying himself before finally letting go.

I knew you, said Kai one night. I knew you before you had a face.

I don’t understand, he murmured. What do you mean?

But the boy was silent, perhaps asleep already, and Keely was left to turn it over in his mind, the thought that Kai had been waiting for him, lying alone in the flat night after night while Gemma worked, waiting for someone to keep him safe. The idea was intoxicating. It made a man feel enormous and substantial. That he might be necessary.

~ ~ ~

Towards the end of the week he noticed Gemma becoming increasingly fractious. Sent on an errand he bought the wrong brand of paper towels. He cooked with too much garlic and like Kai he left the toilet seat up. She was fed up with their nerdy boy talk, their birdy bullshit — and why was he always here in the flat anyway, taking up space? She didn’t want a wife and besides he wasn’t even paying his way, so why didn’t he stop botting off her and leave them in peace?

On Thursday he gave Kai a quick game after school but sent him on home alone for dinner. Keely figured he’d make himself scarce a while. But on Friday evening she came by with a takeaway roasted chicken and reminded him of the prison visit next morning. She had the night off, she said girlishly. And for someone just back from the supermarket she seemed a little too carefully put together. She was giving him the willies.

Gemma left him the chook but he stayed away and jerked off miserably during the SBS movie. Later he thought of calling Harriet — she’d probably be still at work, the number wouldn’t take long to find. He suddenly wanted to hear her voice, tell her about this boy who held his arm, but he wasn’t mad enough yet to do it. She’d think it was either vengeful or pathetic. He’d make her cry and hate himself.

So as drunks rolled festively through the streets below, he carted himself off to bed. He couldn’t think about tomorrow. Tried to hypnotize himself. Fox his way down step by step, turn by turn, avoiding all thought. And mostly failing.

*

He dreamt he was swimming, coursing towards the sea on his own, fleeing shadows, making himself tiny with fear.

~ ~ ~

It was a long, hot drive out into the valley. They had the drab entirety of Perth to traverse — every grey and khaki suburb, every baking industrial park, car yard and junk-food franchise on the ravaged plain. The Saturday-morning drivers were torpid and maddening. Heat rolled down from the ranges in waves. Although they began the journey with Gemma at the wheel she was so erratic from nervous excitement she had to pull over and surrender the controls to Keely. Almost as jittery as her, he followed her directions, submitting to her liverish commentary until he got to the outlands where droughted horse paddocks gave way to housing estates of heartbreaking ugliness.

In the back with his sketchpad and pencil case, Kai sat subdued to the point of complete withdrawal. The boy had been to Bandyup before but he would not be drawn into conversation about it. At home whenever Gemma mentioned his mother he rarely engaged. The whole thing gave Keely the yips.

His eyes hurt. His head pinged and throbbed. Smears of light caught on everything, gave his vision a nasty lag, like old-school video. It was the shits, feeling this bad after a booze-free evening. He hadn’t even gobbed a pill for twelve hours and now he felt worse than if he’d been on a bender. For relief he thought of worthy analgesics: Panadeine Forte, Nurofen Osteo, Mersyndol.

When the turn-off finally came he missed it. Gemma slapped the dashboard in disgust. He pulled over violently.

For God’s sake, he said, startled as much as angry. Just calm down, will you?

Turning around on the highway, he took his indignation out on the car, conscious of how unhelpful the histrionics were.

The women’s prison was a squat brick campus set well back from the road. Except for the coils of razor wire it looked no nastier than the schools he’d gone to in the sixties and seventies. And yet his mouth went dry just rolling up the drive.

They were a few minutes early. He found somewhere permissible to park. Left the motor running for the sake of what paltry relief the aircon provided. Gemma opened and closed her handbag repeatedly. She checked her face in the mirror, tried to fold Kai’s hair behind his ears. Other vehicles began to coast in around them.

I’ll swing back at eleven, said Keely. Or if you’d prefer, I’ll wait here — in case you come out early.

You’re not comin in? she said with feeling.

Oh, he exclaimed dishonestly. I didn’t realize.

Well, Jesus. You don’t have to.

No, it’s that I didn’t —

I asked for Kai’s sake.

Not a problem, he said. Of course.

Jesus.

Really, he said, turning off the engine.

See? she said to Kai, twisting in her seat. Tom’s comin too. You ready to see your mum?

Kai shrugged.

Love! she said too brightly. She’ll be that excited.

The boy packed up his things without expression.

When they opened the car doors, the heat was withering. Keely felt it shrink his throat and cause flares at the edge of his vision. Gemma took Kai by the arm and Keely followed. All the way to reception she prattled about shade and airconditioning but once they passed into the industrial chill of the interior there was surprisingly little relief. With its muddle of signage, its antiseptic smell and atmosphere of tamped desperation, the building could have been the annexe of any social service — the dole office, Homeswest, DOCS. This side of the glass attempts had been made to create a sense of normality, but the strain was palpable. The false cheer amongst visitors. The sideways looks. Keely felt a scalding flush in his cheeks.

He followed Gemma, did what she did, tried to seem relaxed. They joined a queue, exchanged thin smiles with others. But they’d barely begun the process of registration when Gemma turned and seized him by the sleeve.

Oh Christ, she said. They’ve brought the dogs.

What’s that mean? he asked.

Down the line a uniformed officer and his eager mutt capered in and out.

Non-contact, said Gemma through her teeth. It’s gunna be a strip search — Jesus! Tom, take him.

What?

Kai, she said. Take him out.

But why?

Just get him in the car, drive him around for a bit.

Gemma —

I’m not havin em touch this boy.

Are you sure?

Of course I’m bloody sure, just go — now!

Bewildered but galvanized, he steered the child back towards the entrance.

Everything alright? said the officer at the door.

Change of plan, said Keely.

Imagine so, she murmured a little too knowingly.

They stepped out of the refrigerated enclosure and into white sun. Keely felt it dig into the pits of his eyes and the pain travelled through his shoulders, elbows, hands.

He didn’t know what to tell Kai. Then wondered if the boy needed anything explained anyway. Keely got them onto the highway for the sake of being gone, yet the moment he was free, giddy and slightly guilty for the relief of it, he was faced with the immediate problem of where to go and what to do out here in this desolation of overpasses and spiky bush. There was nothing: no shade, no houses, no shops. Enormous signs rose before them touting wildlife parks and tourist-trap wineries.

After a few minutes Keely pulled in at a semi-rural roadhouse where articulated trucks parked in lines at high-flow diesel pumps. Watermelons sat piled in crates. At the edge of the gravel apron there were trailers for hire and horse manure for sale.

You must be thirsty, he said to Kai.

Yes, the boy allowed.

Inside the place stank of fried bacon and scorched coffee. Homely smells after the prison. And the place was cool but not cold. Keely bought a Coke and a packet of chips for the boy. Scruples be buggered — the kid needed some sort of treat. Got an apple juice for himself. He chugged it before he’d even drawn up a chair. Kai opened his drink and then his chips and set his sketchpad on the table. Keely hadn’t even noticed him bring it in. He watched the boy lay out his pencils.

Well, he said. That was all a bit awkward, wasn’t it?

The boy glanced past him.

I’m sorry you didn’t get to see your mum.

Kai selected a pencil.

Your nan will explain everything.

It’s drugs, said Kai.

I see, he said haplessly.

A waitress sloped by on tender feet and informed them that if they wanted to sit inside they’d need to buy a meal. Keely couldn’t face the heat just now and he was anxious to avoid any unpleasantness, so he ordered a BLT. Maybe the kid would pick at it.

Lucky you’ve got your nan, he said.

The boy chewed his lip.

What’re you drawing?

Kai shrugged.

Can I see?

Kai rolled a pencil on the laminex as if weighing up the request. Then he pushed the pad across. Keely took it up and flicked through pictures of magpies, a Pacific gull and several failed attempts at a pelican. After this came a series of simple, almost stylized images that were not at all birdlike. It took Keely a few moments to understand what they were.

Kai, what’s this?

Just me, said the boy, considering a salty crinkle-cut chip.

An outline?

Kai licked the salt off the chip. Keely looked again at the emphatic line, the splayed limbs. It was the classic pictograph of a dead body, the sort of thing you saw every night on TV.

What’s it about? What’s it for?

I draw it when I dream it.

When you dream it? You mean the same dream you told me about?

Where I land. I’m there for a while. Then I’m gone and that’s all that’s left.

This line?

The boy ate the chip, took a gulp of Coke, and burped quietly.

Are you sure this is a dream?

Kai offered a look of studied patience and did not quite meet his gaze.

Well, that’s pretty interesting, he said, trying to disguise his alarm.

The boy retrieved the pad and thumbed through the pages.

Does it make you afraid?

Kai took up the pencil and commenced to roll it again.

Kai? Can you say?

The boy pursed his lips in a manner suggesting assent.

Keely pressed his thumbs into his temples, tried to think.

The waitress returned with a colossal sandwich. They looked at it, man and boy, and Keely saw that Kai wanted it but needed coaxing. He passed him a knife and fork.

Bet you can’t finish that, he said.

Kai set aside his pad and pencils, drew the plate to him and went to work with his usual finicky precision. Keely could have watched him do it all day. The boy’s fine blond hair fell across his face. He brushed it aside with a forearm and chewed methodically, eyes half closed in concentration.

Keely got up to buy himself more juice and at the counter he looked back at the kid working his way through another mouthful.

He’s lovely, said the waitress, clearly mistaking this for a Saturday access visit.

Yes, said Keely. He is.

*

As Gemma got into the car she brought with her an acrid smell that suggested an electrical fire, and he saw by the cooked colour of her face that he’d kept her waiting in the sun for some time. For several minutes nobody spoke. The Hyundai’s airconditioner buzzed impotently. And then at the freeway on-ramp Gemma began to blot her eyes with a tissue.

Sorry you didn’t see her, Kai, she said.

Keely wasn’t sure the boy heard. He watched him in the mirror as he gazed out at the traffic, licking his lips without expression.

Not your fault, Keely murmured.

No. It’s not.

She hunched forward suddenly. She beat a fist against her brow in a ghastly, silent sob. Keely did his best to focus on the road and traffic ahead but he monitored the white flash of the tissue clenched in her fingers, the veins rising in her neck, one livid ear. She gave out a small, strangled sigh. And after a few moments she’d mastered herself.

The dog, she said at last. They bring it out when she’s blown her privileges.

I don’t follow you, he said, anxious about the boy.

She wouldn’t say, of course. But I could see it right off.

I guess you’ve had practice, he said lamely.

You just know. When it’s suddenly non-contact, when they strip you and put the dogs over you, means she’s not clean. Christ, she coulda said when she rang, to spare the boy. She knows what it means. She doesn’t even care that much. How can she let us go in there and have him felt up like that? Jesus, you’re lucky they didn’t follow you out and do a car search.

How could it matter? he asked. There’s nothing here.

Mate, the dogs’d be howlin over this thing. You think this doesn’t stink of what they’re lookin for?

But we’re not carrying anything, Gem.

As if that makes any difference. The dog gets a positive, they think you’re supplyin. And suddenly it’s all hands on deck. Big search, more bullshit.

But they’d see we’re clean.

Jesus, you haven’t got a clue.

Keely steered the car. Nauseated. Angry. Fighting blips of phosphorus he could taste now.

After a moment’s silence she lit a fag and cracked a window.

This piece of shit, she said.

On the freeway he threaded through the citybound traffic.

I was only there ten minutes, she said. You know what she wanted to talk about? The car. She wants me to sell it, wants the money in an account. She wants the computer stuff sold. Can you believe that? She wants money. I’ve been down this road, I don’t need it.

It’s just the drugs, said Kai.

Yes, love. That’s what it is. But she’ll get better. We’ll go again another time. When she’s right again.

The boy said nothing. They rode home in silence.

~ ~ ~

He swam out to the pontoon in a languid Mersyndol crawl. Beneath him the white sandy bottom was ribbed and scalloped and the sheen from the surface spangled across the sand in pulsing bursts like brain waves. As he hauled himself onto the ladder squealing kids leapt overhead, spearing out behind him, their bodies sending shocks through the water. He clambered up and sat awhile, bracing himself against every lurch and jerk as the platform yanked on its chains and children launched and chased and goaded each other. He felt self-conscious there amongst the kids, but the water had brought him back off the boil, calmed him enough to enjoy their antic energy. Neither Gemma nor Kai had wanted to come and he was glad. The beach was a relief, a happy rippling mosaic of colour. Umbrellas, balls, lycra, bodies, hair. The desert breeze carried laughter, shouts and music across the water. He lingered, savouring it while he could. Up on the grass there was no sign of Conan at all. Keely was home free.

*

Afterwards he rode into the West End, took in an art show at an old Victorian warehouse. Just to feel normal again. But the gallery was hot, its whitewashed walls too bright for him. He moved on to a bookshop but lost his bearings. Found himself standing by a row of fashion tomes beneath the airconditioning vent.

Is there anything I can help you with? asked the tattooed young woman striding down from the counter.

He gave a witless smile and shook his head. There was nothing here he could afford. And he’d been there fifteen minutes, he now realized. Not even browsing. Just there. Like a post, an uncurated installation.

*

Late in the afternoon Kai came to the door.

Nan’s got takeaway, said the boy.

Keely didn’t fancy it; he could have done with a break from them, but he didn’t have the heart to knock the kid back.

I’ll be up there in a minute, he said.

Keely washed the salt from his face and looked for a clean shirt. When he got to the door the boy was still there. He wasn’t sure if Kai had something to say to him or if he was simply being escorted. He didn’t want to quiz him. Nothing was said.

Gemma dished up takeaway Chinese. Kai shoved a disc into the DVD player. They watched Shrek do his thing for the umpteenth time. No one said much. Gemma seemed faded. She bore an air of regret, of unspoken apology. Kai had eyes only for the green ogre and his mad japes; he loved everything about this movie except the musical routines, which bored him. Keely’s mind kept returning to the boy’s most recent drawings. Perhaps he’d seen these body outlines on a cop show. They bothered him. He should mention them to Gemma. Though maybe not tonight.

He’s not happy, she said later, quietly at the sink.

It was a rough day, he murmured.

Will you stay with him? Just till he’s asleep?

He nodded. Of course.

When you weren’t here it didn’t matter. Now you are — well, look at us.

He shrugged. It was hard to know what she meant.

Sometimes I wish she wasn’t born.

Keely set a sudsy plate on the draining board without comment.

Her father was a shithead. I wish none of it happened.

Then you wouldn’t have Kai, he said gently.

She nodded absently, blotting the plate with a towel.

Gemma?

I don’t wanna talk about it anymore.

~ ~ ~

He woke.

Gemma’s. The couch. The boy standing over him.

Oh, he croaked. What’s the matter? What time is it?

Four and twelve, said Kai. The boy’s face was pale in the yellow light spilling up from the wharves.

You alright?

I have a question.

Ah, he said, cranking himself slowly onto an elbow. Right. Okay. Hang on a sec, just let me wake up a bit.

What’s it like, getting old?

Keely hauled himself more or less upright on the couch, let his head fall back a moment to catch up with where he was. The bedroom light was on. Gemma was still at work.

Did you have a dream?

The boy said nothing. He was bare-chested in his shorty pyjamas. His breath was bitter, his eyes wide in the gloom.

Tom?

Kai, it’s the middle of the night.

Are you awake?

Well, I guess I am now, he said. Have you had a fright?

Can you tell me?

Getting old? Is that the question? Keely’s back was stiff. He wondered how long the kid had been awake.

It’s just, I don’t know what it’s like, said the boy.

Mate, I don’t know what to tell you.

But you’re old.

Well. Older than you. And yeah, right now I feel pretty old, that’s the truth.

Can you say?

What it’s like, you mean? What it feels like? Keely scratched his stubble, kneaded his cheeks a moment. The thing is, he said. Thing is, you hardly notice. It happens so slowly. You look different in the mirror, but inside you feel pretty much the same. You’re just a kid with an old man’s body, that’s how it feels. Same for everyone, I guess.

The boy shook his head.

I try and see it. But I can’t.

Well, I spose it takes a lot of imagination.

I have a lot of imagination. Mrs Crumb said. Father Crean said.

That’s good. That’s a big compliment. You want to sit here a moment? he said, patting the cushion.

But it’s not there, said the boy, ignoring him. Still standing. Looking past him.

Sorry? What’s not there?

Old.

Keely peered into the boy’s face.

Kai?

It won’t happen to me.

Getting old? Happens to all of us, mate.

No, he said sadly. Not me.

Keely reached for the boy’s arm but Kai eluded him.

Kai, listen. You don’t have to worry about things like that.

Are you like your dad?

Mate, what’s bothering you?

Keely struggled to his feet and the boy made room for him. At the sink he found a glass and filled it with water. He drank it off and filled it again.

I’m not like my dad, said Kai, resting his chin on the counter between them.

My dad’s dead, said Keely.

I know. But maybe you’re like him. When he was alive.

And what makes you say that?

Nan said.

Well, said Keely. I’d like to be. But I don’t think I am. Sadly. I’m older than him, now. Isn’t that weird. Listen, what did she tell you?

Are you going to be my dad then?

She said that?

Kai shook his head.

Oh. Well, no. You already have a dad.

Yes.

But I’m your mate, okay?

Okay.

Really. I’m your friend. You can tell me anything.

Kai considered this.

I know things, the boy said, spreading his hands across the laminated counter.

I believe you.

He saved people.

Who?

Nan said.

Who saved people?

Your dad.

At this, Keely felt a peculiar flush of grief. Hotter, fresher, harder than he’d felt for years.

Is it true?

Well, if your nan says.

But sometimes she says stuff. To be nice. He’s not just a story?

Keely set the glass down and looked at Kai’s hands. He felt ensnared.

Listen, why don’t we go in and lie down, eh?

Is it true? Like, he saved people? They called out in the night and he came?

Well, yeah. I guess.

There’s this bad dad, said Kai. It’s dark in the street. He’s real mean, he does all the baddest things. And the kids are crying. They hide in the toilet. Run in the shed. They go in the garden, and call out for help. But no one comes cause they’re scared of him. Nobody ’cept your dad.

Well, yeah. I think that’s true.

And he saves them.

He tries.

He fights him, said the boy, warmed to his own telling. He saves the kids. He’s big and he’s got a motorbike. And big hands.

Let’s talk about it in there, Keely said, pointing to the bedroom.

He’s real big, said the boy, allowing himself to be steered. Like a ogre. Like Shrek.

Maybe, said Keely, thinking on it. Maybe a little bit.

He got the boy into bed. The easterly was moaning in the balustrades and window sashes already. The sheets were cool. They smelt of woman and child. Kai’s hair fanned back against his pillow. He steepled his fingers on his pale chest.

I wish he wasn’t dead.

Yeah, said Keely, lying back on Gemma’s pillow. Me too.

He would come. He would save me.

Keely searched the kid’s face.

This nightmare. I think it’s really bothering you.

The people aren’t bad, Kai said quietly. There’s eyes and no faces. But they aren’t bad.

So there’s no one hurting you?

No. The hurting gets smaller. It’s kind of sad. Like… Like everything goes away, turning off. But I don’t want it to. Everything goes off like the end of the day.

Like going to sleep?

He shrugged.

And can you see yourself?

Sometimes I’m smaller. I can see from here.

And that’s what you draw?

The boy yawned.

Kai, have you told your nan about this dream?

The boy wheezed a little.

Kai?

He didn’t get very old either. Your dad.

You’ll get old, mate.

And a beard, said the boy sleepily. And big hands.

There was a long silence, as if Kai were picturing the big man of legend and savouring some detail before offering it up. Keely felt the little hand on his arm, the moment’s panic, and then the boy was off, overtaken by fatigue.

*

They were still there, side by side, the boy asleep, the man awake, when Gemma’s key scratched into the lock at dawn.

~ ~ ~

At midday the hot streets were crammed and the Strip was a freakshow. He angled his way off the main drag but even Bub’s was full. The place reeked of bacon, coffee, garlic, but beneath that comely fug were the contesting deodorants, unguents and perfumes of Sunday.

Gawd, he muttered at the door. Spare me days.

By the looks of you, said Bub, bussing his own tables, it’s breakfast rather than lunch.

Keely nodded bleakly and looked about for somewhere to settle but there was nothing.

I had the Minister in here an hour ago, said Bub.

Which one?

You know which one.

Shoulda poisoned him.

Clowns I’m hiring, I probably did. Pig and bumnuts do you?

Perfect.

The sheeny-domed proprietor set him up at a stool beside the servery and his tall apple juice and double-shot appeared soon after.

You’re limping, Tommy.

Crook back.

Shagger’s back.

Not likely.

Keely picked up a pre-loved paper despite himself. Flopped it on its ugly face to see what fresh recruiting disasters the Dockers had gotten themselves into in the pre-season. But it was all cricket. He threw it down as his breakfast arrived in the arms of a lovely goth in a kilt and fishnet singlet.

Cricket, he said. What’s that about?

Money, I guess. And blondes. Who could resist, eh?

Keely smiled and she set his plate down with an ironic flourish. As she sashayed away he caught a glimpse of the dish station through the swing door where a buzzcut kid wrestled the gooseneck amidst a pile of trays and pans. His acned face was flushed and miserable and their eyes met for a moment before the door swung to.

Bub’s had always been their morning joint. Him and the WildForce crew. It was a modest place, decent but unfussy. During the week it was a haunt for seedy locals, policy wonks, coppers and fishermen. Once upon a time half the NGOs in town began their day here, back when a coffee and a good bitch session passed for a briefing. Since his messy exit old comrades and rivals seemed to have moved on to other establishments. Which left a few dejected humanitarians who ignored him from either pity or fear of contagion.

Bub never mentioned his public blow-up. He had the discretion or perhaps the indifference of a bloke who’d torched a few bridges himself. Today he seemed particularly harassed. The Sunday crowd required a different level of energy — a lot of fluffy milk to make, for one — and he looked short-handed.

I know what you’re thinking, said Bub, passing him with plates of pasta. You’re transparent.

Keely worked at his eggs and bacon and as Bub returned he raised his head.

Actually I was thinking about you, you poor bugger. You want some help?

Piss off, Bub said good-naturedly.

I’m serious.

You look like a bent nail.

I’ll be right.

Eat your breakfast, said Bub, heading for the kitchen.

Keely watched him and the girl in the kilt blow to and fro, sweating and harried.

Really, he said, catching him on the next pass. I could help out. You need another dishpig?

Bub took his plate and wiped the counter.

You actually serious?

I’m broke, mate. Today I’ll work for love. Any other day I’ll do it for money.

Fuck me.

Is that compulsory?

Bub looked across his shoulder towards the kitchen. It’s settling now anyway. But thanks. You need a few bucks?

Only if I can work for it. Without actually having to, you know, deal with the general public.

Well, it’ll be weird. But I could do with the hands. Every other prick’s at the mines and the backpackers are all heading home to save what’s left of Europe.

I’m serious.

Thursday. Come by at seven.

Hey, thanks.

That’s a.m. And don’t be late.

~ ~ ~

Stepping into the lobby after the white heat of the streets, Keely was momentarily blinded. He hesitated. The doors slid to behind him and he took a second or two to get his bearings in the much weaker light. As he turned the corner for the lifts, he clashed shoulders with someone he hadn’t seen coming.

Look out, ya dumb cunt, the bloke said hoarsely, pushing past without a pause.

Geez, mate, said Keely, flattened hard against the wall. What’s your problem?

You, said the bloke over his shoulder. Fuckwits like you.

Listen, sport —

But the doors rolled back and the little oaf was gone, lost in the welding flare of afternoon. Nobody he recognized. Not that he got a proper look at him. Just the impression of somebody small and dark-haired with a whiff of sweat about him. Keely hoped he wasn’t a resident; his heart sank at the prospect of regular encounters. What a charmless turd. The Mirador wasn’t exactly genteel — there were all sorts of characters pressed in floor upon floor, some of them less than lovely — but people mostly managed a kind of strained civility. This sort of default-setting aggro was not promising.

A lift opened. Keely stepped in, rubbing his shoulder. On the ride up he let himself reclaim some satisfaction about the job. It wasn’t much. In fact it was work for teenagers and halfwits. But he’d come away from Bub’s with a little buzz on, just a faint glow of self-respect at the idea of having made a start. It didn’t matter that Bub was embarrassed. Keely had to work. And he’d made something happen. This was a good thing.

Up on the gallery he pulled out his key but hesitated at the door. It was silly — mortifying really — that he should want so badly and suddenly to share his news. Maybe Gemma wouldn’t see the funny side or even the flicker of hope it gave him, but he had to tell someone. He rapped on her kitchen window and something crashed in the sink.

I’ve got a knife! she bellowed. She was muffled by the glass and obscured by the curtain. Get the fuck away!

Keely recoiled.

You hear me? I said a week.

Gemma?

Come near me I’ll use it, I swear.

Gem, it’s me — Tom.

The nylon curtain lurched askew. A flash of face, hair. She looked raddled, mad even. And she wasn’t bluffing about the knife; it was an evil steeled-out boning piece.

Just me, he said.

The curtain fell to and he heard the door-chain in its slot. His skin tightened with apprehension. As the door heeled open he retreated instinctively and felt the rails against his spine.

Gemma’s face was flushed, her skin mottled. There was snot on her lip and tears clinging to her chin. She held the knife at her side.

Gem, what’re you doing? Is everything alright? Where’s Kai?

In the bathroom.

Something in Keely’s gut turned over. He stepped up and peered in through the screen. She was shaking.

Is he okay?

Hidin.

The knife, he said carefully. How about we put that down. You’re freaking me out here.

Oh, she said, looking at it.

Is that alright?

She turned aside and set it on top of the fridge.

Can I come in?

She nodded.

As he slipped past he felt the heat coming off her. She closed the door behind him and he nabbed the knife while she had her back turned. He headed for the bathroom, calling the boy as he went.

Only me, he said to the locked door. It’s just Tom, Kai. Are you okay in there, mate?

The handle rattled and the door opened a crack. The boy’s face was white but he looked unharmed.

Kai?

Did you get him? said the kid. With that?

What? Keely saw it was the knife he was referring to. No, I didn’t get anyone. Who are we talking about? What’s happening?

Keely stared at the boy a moment. The kid looked confused. Keely took the knife back through to the kitchen and tossed it onto the bench. Perched on an arm of the couch, Gemma flinched at the clatter.

Just tell me what’s going on.

The flat smelt of grilled cheese and burnt toast. The TV lay on its back, flickering away. Things were in disarray everywhere he looked. Gemma tried to light a smoke but her hands were shaking badly. He strode over and lit it for her.

What’s happening?

He hauled the TV back onto its stubby base. Judge Judy soundlessly dishing out rough justice.

Gemma?

I can’t talk with him here, she said in barely more than a whisper.

I told you he’d come, said Kai.

Well, he came too late, didn’t he?

Hey, Kai, said Keely as sunnily as he could manage. How about you set up a game for us?

The Scrabble’s at yours.

Well, here’s the key.

He’s not goin anywhere, said Gemma. He’s not leavin this flat.

Well, maybe we could step outside?

She shook her head.

The balcony?

She sucked in a chestful of smoke, raked her hair angrily, got to her feet. Keely grabbed the TV remote and cranked up the sound. There was cricket, soccer, a fat-person show. Judge Judy would have to do. He turned to Kai.

Mate, I think there’s still some icecream in the freezer. Get yourself a big bowl, much as you like. Here, I’ll do it for you.

He dragged out the tub and scooped icecream into an inviting mound. Put the bowl in the boy’s unsteady hands. Kai glanced at it, then looked to his grandmother. She nodded, tried a washed-out smile of reassurance but it didn’t carry.

We’ll just have a chat out there, your nan and me. We’ll be right here.

The boy blinked and chewed his lip. Keely followed Gemma out onto the sun-blasted balcony and slid the glass door to. They stood at the rail in the roar of traffic and cooling stacks. The broiling updraughts tugged at his hair, his shirt.

Tell me, he said.

She pulled hard on the fag, squinting in the gritty wind. Her tanktop was soaked with sweat. She wiped her face on the hem and sighed.

First of all, what’s the knife about?

He wants five grand, she said.

Who wants five grand? Five grand for what?

The car.

This is the father? He called you?

Didn’t even have the guts to show up himself. Sent some filthy-faced prick around to do it for him.

Just now?

Christ, I shouldn’t have even opened the door — I thought it was you. How bloody stupid is that? Before you come along I had it together. I wouldn’t have just opened the door like an airhead, would I?

So it’s my fault?

What? Have I hurt your feelings? she said scornfully.

Gemma, just tell me. Someone was here. Who was here?

Christ, I dunno. Stewie’s dopey little ferret. I can’t remember his name. They’ve found out where we are. Fuck, I told the Welfare this was too close, I said it in court, I begged em. The judge, the cops, the suits — no one listened. I’m just another dumb bitch with a junkie daughter, what would I know?

But it’s supposed to be secure here, he said. There’s a swipe card.

People follow you through the lobby every day, Tom — wake up.

And he’s come to the door? Here?

And like a dill I’ve left the chain off and his foot’s in the door and the little shit’s up in my face, pushin me back inside.

Did he touch you?

Of course he fuckin touched me — what are you, dense or somethin?

And where was Kai?

Right there. At the table.

He saw all this?

Saw enough.

Shit.

He’s just standin there, this little turd, grindin his teeth, stinkin the kitchen up. They want money. Otherwise they’ll fuck us up.

What is this, television? What does that even mean?

Gemma ditched the fag, didn’t look at him. You were a woman, she said, you’d know what it means.

Okay, he said, chastened.

You never seen a meth-head off his chops?

He shrugged.

He says his piece and then he’s just hangin there, givin off the fuck-yous, like sayin nothin for a bit, thinkin he’s standin still. But he’s fidgetin, bouncin like — I dunno, like a boxer. Eyes on him like he’s not even human anymore. And then he looks out the window, out here. And I could see it straight away. I’m thinkin, Look here, you little shit, look at this, think of me, not him, not Kai.

Oh, Gemma, this is insane.

Cause you could see the little shit — the idea arrivin in his head. You know — Kai, the balcony. He’s smilin. Like it’s brilliant. His big idea to get me to pay. And he sees me knowin it, you know, watchin it sink in. And it’s like he’s just won Lotto. All’s he had to do was look out the fuckin window and we both knew.

And Kai?

Jesus, I dunno. But he knows what trouble smells like.

Gem, this is just bravado, it has to be. Kai’s father isn’t going to have someone kill his own child.

You know what Stewie calls him? Gump. The retard. The girly-boy.

But he’s not going to kill him.

You still wanna know what he said to me the other day?

Not sure I do.

Said all he needed was five minutes, said he’d been thinkin about it for years, even when he was with Carly.

Five minutes, said Keely.

To fuck me in the arse so hard I’d cough up shit for a fortnight.

Oh, God help us, he said aloud, holding hard to the rail. Dear God. Please.

You think he won’t kill his kid? Maybe you’re right. Maybe his little mate just thinks it’s funny to dangle a boy by the ankles, ten floors up. Like that’d be a hoot. Wouldn’t that rock, eh? she said, kicking the blighted geranium across the balcony. Wouldn’t that be a fuckin scream?

The pot glanced off his shin. Keely staggered back, sat on the milk crate by the door, felt something crack under his weight — a scorched saucer whose service as an ashtray was at an end.

Gem, this is serious, he said, pulling the shards from under him, rubbing his leg. We should go to the police. Right now, this minute.

I can’t.

You have to report it.

Tommy, I just. Can’t.

This is bad. This is scary.

You think I’m not scared? You think I’m just stupid?

What’d he look like, this bloke?

What does it matter what he looks like?

Please. Just tell me.

Small, orright? Black hair. Somethin gold in his teeth. Anyway, I’ve seen him before.

So you can tell the cops.

No.

Just say what happened.

Oh, Jesus.

C’mon! Just call them.

Tommy, Jesus!

Keely thought of the thug getting out of the lift. He’d missed it all by a minute. And if he’d been there in time what could he have done? Really, how would he deal with somebody like that?

Shitheads, she said bitterly. He tried to hug her but she jabbed him away.

This is all about the car?

I spose. Sort of.

Gemma, that thing’s worth about five hundred bucks if you’re lucky.

I know that. You know that. Probably even they know that, the fuckin drug-addled idiots. But now I’ve made it worth something, haven’t I, like a fool. I’ve called him, AVO and all, and I’ve gone around there thinkin I’m real smart, like they’ll reckon you’re a cop or a lawyer or some bullshit, and all he’s seen is I’ve got a new bloke and I’m in a nice dress and he thinks, Right, she’s got money. He needs money, he’s got ugly debts. And now they’ve found where we are.

How does this happen?

What’re you talkin about?

The authorities, the DOCS people, the courts — don’t they make sure the kid’s somewhere safe and private?

Dream on.

Could these guys have followed you home?

Or you.

Me?

Stewie knows what you look like.

Right, he thought. Terrific.

And I’ve got the car parked down there, obvious as you like. What a blockhead. For a stupid little car. What a brilliant idea that was.

Well, you had a right, he said lamely.

I can keep the car — that’s what he said. But I need to pay up. Five thousand bucks, she said with a hopeless laugh.

When?

I told em I needed a week.

Do you have it?

What d’you think?

If you did it wouldn’t be the end of it anyway.

I know that.

Keely glanced back and saw Kai still standing with the bowl on the other side of the glass. He wasn’t eating; it didn’t look as if he’d even taken hold of the spoon.

Well, he said. There’s a week, then. At least there’s that.

Gemma leant against the rail, her features darkened by a new thought. She blinked repeatedly, pulled herself upright.

When were we at Bandyup? she asked. Yesterday?

Yeah, he said. What is it?

Christ Almighty.

Keely saw some dread realization travel through her face.

Jesus Christ Almighty, she said. She was already askin about the car. They’re in it together. Carly and him. That’s who they are. That’s what Kai is to em.

She held her head, as if she could not trust it to contain the noxious reactions this thought had set off. Her eyes widened. The hot wind whipped her hair in every direction. She looked like a woman hurtling, falling backwards.

He tried to go to her but she batted him away again, tears tracking crazily in the wind. He caught her arm, drew her in, took the blows and when she gave way he held her to his shoulder for some gesture of comfort, some hopeless promise of safety. And there was Kai at the window, alert and afraid.

Keely let her cry. He did what he could to show the boy he meant no harm. Her face burnt through his shirt and her sobs were awful. He tried to master his panic but his mind capered perilously. This business, these threats — it was all probably junkie bluster. No one in this town would be shaking a six-year-old off the top-floor balcony for five thousand dollars. But he didn’t have the stomach to wait around and test the proposition. The state of her, the fear in the boy’s face.

He couldn’t just leave them. And even if Gemma did go to the cops, she and Kai couldn’t stay here in the building.

The wind tore at him. The boy’s icecream melted.

Keely didn’t know what to do. But he knew he had to do something. Today. Now. Without hesitation.