Golden Boys (10 page)

He could pretend it was a dream, but it wasn't: he wakes, the next morning, craving the water. He knows he will go mad, a wolfman, if he doesn't swim. Against his wishes he remembers the sight of his father stumbling onto his knees, and only the water can wash away such a hurting vision. After dinner he takes his towel and, without telling anyone, hurries up the road to the Jensons'. It is still light and will be so for a while longer, but he isn't bothered by the dark. He will tell the Jensons to ignore him, he doesn't need company or help, he will make himself as tiny an intrusion as possible: the important thing is that he swims. The hand he raises to the door is shy, but steely.

Bastian, in green pyjamas, opens the door and stares at him owlishly. ‘Hi, Bastian,' says Syd.

‘Have you come for a play?'

He proffers his towel. ‘No, a swim.'

Bastian crinkles his nose. ‘I've got no one to play with.'

Syd's noticed it already: the bikes aren't here. ‘Where's Avery and Garrick?'

‘I don't know. They're not my friends. They're Colt's friends.'

Syd nods. He shifts his weight. Bastian leans against the door. ‘So,' Syd says finally. ‘Can I have a swim?'

Bastian smiles. ‘Only if you play first.'

Though he could kick himself for stooping to the demands of this half-boy half-guinea-pig, Syd instantly agrees. He follows Bastian through the house, passing Mrs Jenson in the kitchen. She is unloading a dishwasher that stands beside the sink, its sinewy pipe-arms reaching to the taps, huffing a burnt-smelling steam. ‘Hello, Syd,' she says, and smiles her wilted smile. She always sounds tired, although she has only two children to look after, and a dishwasher.

There are worse things, he supposes, than being temporarily stuck in the playroom. The slot-car set is assembled on the floor, and it's an inviting thing. ‘You be blue, I'll be red,' says Bastian, plumping down at the finish line with its tiny chequered flag. Syd tests the blue car's fitness by pinning it to the track and pumping the control so the car screeches and wriggles. When he lets it go it shoots off like a bullet, launching from the track and whacking into the wall. Syd smiles with brute satisfaction but Bastian cries, ‘Oh no, not like that!' and retrieves the car, blowing lint from its chassis. The child's idea of racing, Syd is depressed but not surprised to discover, is to have the cars travel at such a speed that they not only stay on the track, but also never outstrip each other: when he eases pressure off the control and drives the blue car slower and slower, Bastian's red car likewise slows, until they are trundling side-by-side around the course like miniature Sunday drivers in hats. ‘You do know what a racing car is, don't you?' he asks the child archly, and squeezes his control so the blue car powers forward, misses the corner, flies over Bastian's knees and vanishes under a bookshelf. Bastian gives a squeal and dives after it, legs flailing: truly, Syd has never met such a boy. While his host is moleishly occupied he looks longingly at the window. He can't see the swimming pool, but it's out there. He can hear the siren-call of its churning filter.

‘Syd?'

He swivels on his knees: Colt stands in the doorway. ‘Hi.'

‘Is Declan here?'

‘No, just me. I was going to have a swim.'

‘I can't find it!' Bastian complains.

A shade of disapproval crosses Colt's face. ‘It's pretty cold for swimming.'

‘I don't mind,' says Syd.

‘Colt!' Bastian struggles upright. ‘Syd made the car go under the bookshelf, and now it's lost!'

Colt crosses the room – he is not wearing pyjamas but a loose windcheater and jeans; Syd bets that one of the rules of this house is that the boys must change from their uniforms the minute they get home from school – and reaches under the bookshelf; naturally he finds the car immediately. He takes up Bastian's control and says, ‘I'll race you, Syd.'

This is an improvement, and Syd brightens. Colt sits the cars at the starting line, Syd shuffles into a jaguar's crouch. ‘Ready, set, go!' says Bastian, and Syd's car rockets away, losing traction at the first bend and nose-diving into the carpet. Colt's red car zips by without a glance, negotiating the bends while humming warmly to itself, and cruises nonchalantly past the flag. ‘Colt wins!' Bastian declares unnecessarily, but the red car doesn't stop: it runs round and round the track, past the tennis racquets, the upturned skateboards, the soldiers on parade beside their tanks. ‘Slot cars aren't really about racing,' Colt tells Syd.

‘What are they about?'

‘They're about being . . . perfect.'

‘Perfect.' Syd blows air dismissively. ‘They should be about racing.'

Colt nods. ‘They should. But they're not.'

‘Show him, Colt!' says Bastian.

Colt looks at Syd. ‘It's too late for swimming.'

The idea of swimming under the stars makes Syd's blood pump fast; the thought of not swimming, now he's come this close, makes him feel a touch frantic. ‘I don't mind the dark. We can race another day —'

But as he speaks the doorbell rings, and the boys look in the direction of the sound. It must be Colt's father who opens the front door because they hear his voice, a rumbling purr. His footsteps press down the hall and when he stops at the door of the playroom he's in the company of Freya. ‘Here he is!' the man says. ‘The prodigal.'

‘Syd!' says Freya. ‘I told Mum you'd be here.'

‘It's all right,' says Colt. ‘We've been playing with the cars.'

‘Colt's teaching me,' Syd says quickly, indicating the track.

‘But it's a school night! You're being a pest!'

Syd can see that at least half her fierceness is false, play-acting to impress Colt's father and Colt. And when the man says, ‘Oh, Syd's never a pest, we hardly knew he was here. And it's time well spent, racing slot cars, don't you think?' she's like a balloon popping or a flower opening up: her frown clears immediately, her hands drop from her hips. ‘Shall we have a cup of tea?' he asks. ‘Just while they finish their game? Is a cup of tea permissible on a school night?'

‘Um,' she says. ‘OK.'

‘I'll bring the pot out to the deck, shall I? Or would you prefer it here, in the playroom?'

She glances at the toys, the swirling racetrack, and Colt. ‘Um. I don't mind.'

‘Outside, then? It seems a shame to waste these fine evenings.'

‘Outside is good,' she says.

When the man has gone to the kitchen, Syd asks, ‘Don't you want to play cars, Frey?'

‘Another day,' she says, and leans against the frame. ‘Colt's teaching you. Hi, Colt.'

‘Hi Freya,' he says.

‘Has Syd been annoying you?'

‘No. We're just mucking around.'

She nods and nods; and inexplicably returns to the beginning: ‘Don't be a pest, Syd.'

Syd bites his lip against squawking that he is trying his very, very best not to be a pest, and snatches up the blue car from where it has rolled against a beanbag. Freya goes out to the deck, and through the screen door and the open louvres they hear her, dragging two of the heavy benches from beneath the outdoor table. Colt positions the cars at the starting line, takes up his control. ‘Look,' he says, ‘it's all in the thumb,' and brings his thumb down on the control forcefully, so the red car whizzes forward, fishtails catastrophically, and cartwheels off the track. Bastian fetches it, sets it on the line. ‘You have to start slowly, so you'll stay on the track; then you build up speed.'

Colt's car takes off again, smoothly this time, whispering down the straight before swooping gracefully around the first noodle in the track. ‘It's skill,' Colt says, ‘it's a test of skill,' and they watch the red car loop the circuit one faultless lap after another. It is hypnotising, the steady pace, the mosquito burr, the confidence with which the tiny vehicle shimmies through the curves travelling neither fast nor slow but as if it has something both urgent and fragile to deliver. Colt's father passes the door carrying tea things on a tray: ‘How's it going in there?' he asks, but the boys don't answer and he doesn't ask again. He shoulders past the screen and they hear his strong voice. ‘How have you been, Freya? How's school? How's your family?'

‘Good,' she tells him. ‘The same.'

‘Slower into the curves, fast out of them,' Colt instructs. ‘Even pressure on the accelerator.'

Syd says, ‘But I want to go really fast,
all
the time.'

‘That doesn't work,' says Colt. The boys watch the red car snake the circuit, the last little car in the world. They can hear the conversation taking place on the deck as readily as if it were being spoken in the playroom, in the centre of the track.
That brother of
yours is a champ, isn't he? Petey. It seems like only yesterday my boys were his age
. To Syd, Colt says, ‘I guess you can either go fast all the time, and crash, and start again and have the same thing happen, go fast, crash, start again, fast, crash, start again . . . or do what works. It's one or the other.'

‘How is your father?' the man outside asks. ‘Has he been behaving?'

‘Well.' Freya's voice is softer, the car must go slower so it doesn't make so much noise. ‘Not really. I wish he wasn't rude to you at the barbeque.'

‘Was he rude? I don't remember that.'

‘It's boring,' blurts Syd. ‘The way it works is boring —'

‘If you always go fast,' Colt answers quietly, ‘you'll always crash. It's the law.'

‘How's he been at home?'

‘Well. You know.'

Syd shifts on his knees. ‘There's nothing bad about crashing.'

‘Yeah!' says Bastian. ‘Crashing is fun!'

But Colt drives the car slower, so it travels at a dead crawl. Freya's voice comes past the flyscreen, the open slats, as if searching for a place to be. ‘We're his children, and Mum is his wife. Aren't we supposed to be his good things? But what he does . . . he doesn't seem to love us. And he doesn't seem to care if we love him or not.'

‘It's unfortunate.' The man's voice is even, safe. ‘For all of you, and for him too.'

‘But
why
does he do it? Why is he like this? Why can't he be more like – you?'

‘Be quiet, Bas,' says Colt under his breath, although the boy has said nothing, and looks quizzically at his brother. They hear the bench creak as the man moves his seat. ‘Life is complicated, Freya,' he says. ‘None of us go through it the way anybody else does. Who knows what history has shaped your father into being who he is? Maybe his own father was a careless man, and he grew up thinking that's how fathers must be. Maybe he has thoughts which give him trouble, make him angry, or jealous, or sad. Maybe it's none of these: maybe he just has a temper, maybe he's someone who shouldn't drink. I can't tell you, Freya. I'm not Joe. You could ask him, but you might not get an answer. He might not think there's anything wrong with the way he behaves, or maybe he'd be too ashamed to admit there is. Anyway, the only important thing to know is that you are not to blame.'

‘But it's
us
who suffer, not him —'

‘Oh, he suffers, don't you think? He suffers. And he'll suffer more, in other ways, as time goes on.'

Freya says nothing. Then, ‘I feel sad for him.'

‘Because you love him.'

‘It's not fair.'

‘No,' the man says, ‘life isn't. But don't let that spoil it for you.'

There's silence from the deck; Syd's gaze follows, as if dragged by a wheel, the tour of the red car around the track. Forgetting the command to be quiet Bastian says, ‘Why is your car just sitting there, Syd?' And when neither Syd nor Colt replies, he reaches for Syd's control and sets the blue car in motion. With two engines making their insect buzz it is more difficult to hear, and Colt and Syd dip their heads.

‘I don't know why they got married,' says Freya. ‘They don't even like each other. I don't think they
ever
liked each other. They're smiling in the wedding photos, but that doesn't mean anything.'

‘It probably means something.' The man's cup makes a sound against the table. ‘Maybe it means things weren't as bad as you think. You'll never know everything about your parents, Freya. No child can, just as they'll never know everything about you. Maybe they didn't have the choices you imagine they had. Sometimes people get married for reasons other than love.'

‘Reasons like what?'

‘Well – like babies. People sometimes get married because of babies.'

Again there's silence on the deck, or at least nothing Syd can hear. Then something startling: ‘I don't know for sure, but I think Mum's having a baby.'

‘That's wonderful. Babies are lovely.'

‘No they're not. We haven't got anywhere to put another baby. We haven't got enough money for another baby. We don't need another baby. I wish Mum would stop having babies!'

There's a throaty chuckle, although Syd sees no reason for laughter. He can hear the distress in his sister, and suffers waves of distress himself. ‘Once again,' says Colt's father, in his voice that knows everything, ‘maybe your mother doesn't have the choices you think she does.'

Freya says, ‘I don't know what I think, but I know she's got enough kids already!'

‘Maybe she needs you,' says the man.

‘What?' Syd hears her scowl. ‘What do you mean?'

‘Well, maybe you're her – how did you put it, a moment ago?
Good things
. Maybe you're her good things.'

‘You can have too many good things,' says Freya.

‘Can you?' says the man. ‘I'm not sure about that.'