Gravity (7 page)

I could hear Bonnie clunking with locks at the other end of the house, then muffled and excited barking from a big dog. Bonnie cooed at the dog and the barking turned to yelping, followed by the sound of clawed feet fighting for purchase on smooth tiles.

It was a wolf.

I backed against the door as it barrelled along the hallway. The dog was a grey and white monster and it just kept coming. It sniffed my ankle and my knee and I risked a pat on its huge head. Its tail slashed through the air and it dived its nose at my nuts. I buckled and tried to shove it off, but it was determined.

‘Felix! Get down,' Bonnie said, and the dog ignored her. She jogged along the hall, grabbed Felix by the collar and yanked, but Felix held his ground and snuffled at my crotch. She heaved at the collar again and the dog's legs stiffened, then scratched at the tiles as it struggled to keep nose contact. I shoved at its head and brushed my lap.

‘He's friendly,' Bonnie said.

‘I noticed.'

‘No, I mean he won't bite.'

‘That's reassuring.'

‘He was just checking you out, weren't you Felix? Come on boy, come and get some din-dins. You hungry, fella?'

The promise of food finally broke the dog's concentration.

‘Big dog,' I said. ‘What sort is he?'

‘Malamute,' Bonnie sang from the kitchen. ‘Alaskan malamute.'

Felix the Alaskan malamute scratched around on the kitchen floor. I slipped along on the hall tiles in my socks and watched Bonnie lever a can of food into a bowl that would have made a good emergency raft on the
Titanic
.

‘The houses on either side have both been robbed in the last six months, but they haven't got any closer than trashing our letterbox.'

‘Can't think why,' I said.

Felix's head pumped as he devoured his dinner. He slopped and slurped and dropped bits of dogfood jelly on the kitchen floor.

‘What do you want for dinner?' Bonnie shouted. ‘I was going to order Thai.'

Harry said Thai sounded fine to him.

‘You staying for dinner?' Bonnie asked. ‘Just take-away.'

She handed me a tattered paper menu from beside the phone. I scanned the offerings and found – to my delight – number sixteen, chilli fried squid.

‘I'll have the chicken green curry,' Harry shouted.

‘Mmm, I'll have that, too. Can you give them a call while I get changed? They deliver. And some steamed rice.'

I ordered the food. They needed an address and I found it on a phone bill. They needed a phone number and that was there, too. The waitress said the delivery would take twenty minutes. I thanked her and hung up, with a smile on my face. That had been the first time I'd ordered home delivery of anything other than a gas bottle and I felt proud of myself.

Harry had disappeared. Bonnie was taking ages to change.

I lifted the receiver again and phoned Mum, just to let her know that I was okay. A sombre and stilted recorded voice answered and I left a message that was part apology and part reassurance.

Strange. It was after six and she still wasn't home.

I lowered myself into a leather lounge and Felix rested his head on my knees and breathed dogfood breath at me. I patted him and could finally appreciate what a magnificent
animal he was. Certainly the biggest dog I'd ever patted, both in height and sheer muscle mass. His grey eyes looked cold in some ways but his demeanour led me to believe that this monster wouldn't be much use in a fight. He seemed like such a softie.

He stood there with his head on my knees and let me pat him for the best part of ten minutes. When Bonnie came into the room, she'd showered and dressed in grey tracksuit pants that hugged her all over and a pink and white sort of rugby top with three-quarter sleeves and a low neckline that gave me a spectacular view when she bent to scruff her dog.

‘Look at you two,' she said. ‘Best mates already. That didn't take long.'

‘He's not exactly loaded with insecurities,' I said.

‘Unlike his owners,' Bonnie said, and laughed.

Harry had changed. He flopped next to me on the couch and poked the TV remote. ‘Do you want a beer?'

‘Sure.'

‘Bon, can you grab us a drink? Is it okay if Chainsaw has one of your beers?'

Bonnie didn't say anything, just arrived with two beers, a Lemon Ruski and a smile as big as sunshine.

The Thai arrived and Harry paid for the lot. We emptied the boxes onto plates at a wooden table in the kitchen. The chilli fried squid was much more chilli than squid and my eyes started watering after the third mouthful. My nose ran and I mopped it and my brow with a serviette. I finished my beer and couldn't think of a nice way to actually ask for another one, so I sat there and steamed.

Harry and Bonnie ate with chopsticks. My serviette was
soaked with snot and perspiration and I'd scoffed half my plate of squid.

‘My god, look at you! You're melting,' Harry said.

‘Do you want another beer?' Bonnie asked.

I finished my meal and my second beer. I burped quietly into my hand and excused myself.

‘Ho! You pig,' Harry said.

I apologised and sat up.

Bonnie burped then. A full-on beer-laden bar growl. She looked at me and I smiled. Harry just shook his head. He slid his plate of curry into the middle of the table and poked his chopsticks in the top. ‘I think that's enough,' he said.

‘I'm going to take Felix for a walk,' Bonnie said.

‘That's right, leave me and Chainsaw to do all the dishes,' Harry said, and swept the take-away containers into the bin. ‘The dishes can wait. Chainsaw and I are going into the shed to do blokey things.'

Bonnie raised one eyebrow. ‘Sounds like fun. Be gentle, now.'

The shed wasn't really a shed. It occupied the whole next block and was as big as their house. Harry flicked a switch and banks of fluorescent tubes strobed into life, revealing a workshop of divine proportions with a huge island bench. The walls were lined with serious power tools – a radial arm saw, a thicknesser, a bench saw with a router table, a band saw and a monster lathe.

‘Bloody hell,' I said.

Harry smiled. ‘My grandad was a cabinetmaker. He and Gordon next door worked from here for the last ten years of
his life. He left me all this and I didn't know what to do with it. Gordon took pity on me and started teaching me stuff.'

‘Bloody hell,' I said again.

He put his hand on my arm and looked at my face. ‘Please, Chainsaw, come over any time you want. My shed is your shed.'

‘Are you serious?'

‘Yes, I'm serious. I might learn something.'

‘Bloody hell.'

Harry laughed. ‘But wait!' he said, and scurried into a corner. He reached behind a bench and flicked another switch that illuminated a mirror-lined bar. He opened a cupboard to reveal an alcoholic arsenal. ‘The bar is open.'

We perched on stools and got quietly wrecked. Harry had a formidable repertoire of cocktails and we drank them almost as quickly as he could make them. Fluffy ducks, B-52s, something with Malibu that he'd invented himself called ‘Silk panties' and more than one orgasm. The conversation rattled along like an old train, going into deeper and more personal terrain after each stop.

‘Where did you meet Bonnie?' I eventually asked.

Harry smiled. ‘Umm . . . at the hospital.'

‘Hospital?'

He nodded. ‘A few years back now. We had a fair bit in common.'

‘Oh?'

Harry nodded again and I could see a smile tugging at his lips. ‘Yes, my mum was her mum. My dad was her dad.'

There was a drunken gap in my thoughts as my head
finally computed they were brother and sister. I squawked a laugh that was loud even to my own ears, and then covered my mouth. Harry rumbled with satisfied mirth and continued his story.

‘My dad pissed off after Bon was born. Just left. He used to beat up on Mum. We never heard from him again and me and Mum and Bon got on quite well, thank you very much. My pop,' he said, and opened his hands to the shed around him. ‘My pop was like my dad. I only wished he'd lived a bit longer so he could have shown me some of the things he knew. Bastard. Sometimes, when I'm out here, I feel like he's watching over me. Sometimes I can't find what I'm looking for so I'll say something like, “Hey, Pop! Where's the bloody set square?” and then it'll turn up.'

I put my glass on the bar.

He patted my arm. ‘I think he'll like having you around.'

I turned my face towards the fluoro lights. ‘Thanks, Harry's pop. I promise I'll look after everything.'

The shed door creaked open.

Harry swore.

Felix barrelled in, closely followed by Bonnie and a tall dude with pointed lobe-length sideburns.

‘Having a party without me?' Bonnie screeched.

‘Just warming up,' Harry said.

Bonnie put the radio on, made a drink for herself and got the tall dude a beer.

‘Oh,' Harry said, ‘Chainsaw, this is Germy.'

‘Pardon?' I said, and shook hands with the dude. ‘Germy? I'm Adam.'

‘Jeremy,' Bonnie shouted.

It was at that moment when my conversational train left its tracks. I was pissed off at Debbie for flirting so hard and then just letting me go. I was overwhelmed by Harry's shed and his generosity. I wanted to say sorry to my dad. Sorry for letting him down. I was pissed off at Germy. He hadn't done anything; I was just pissed off that he was there. And I wanted to smell Bonnie's hair. I wondered what Si was doing and I could feel a cry biting at my lungs, but I shook it off.

I
really
wanted to smell Bonnie's hair.

I woke early on Friday with a leaden head and a bladder that was fit to burst. I'd slept in a nest of cushions and dog hair on the floor in Harry and Bonnie's lounge room. Naked. I couldn't remember getting undressed. I covered myself and hurried through the silent house. I used the toilet, washed my hands and face, and dressed.

Harry and Bonnie eventually surfaced and prepared for work.

A sombre instant coffee breakfast.

They kissed when Bonnie dropped us at work. I thanked her and she forced a smile.

The work at the timber shed was easy and varied. It didn't feel like real work. Not like being a yardie. It was indoors and we were supposed to work in pairs to lift anything heavier than a box of toothpicks. I missed being an integral part of the mill machine. I missed the mute blokiness of heavy industry. The relentlessness of it. I kept myself busy but I felt like I was cheating. Never worked up a sweat. I still got
splinters, but at The Hardware House a splinter was a valid excuse for a half-hour trip to Marcia in first aid. I enjoyed helping customers and Harry was good company once the storm clouds on his head disappeared.

And there was lunchtime. Half an hour in the orbit of Debbie Wilde. She flashed me a look of delight and sat beside me. When she realised I only had Coke for lunch, she insisted I have some of her pasta leftovers. She found another fork for me and we had a picnic in the lunchroom.

We talked about inconsequential shite like the weather and football. The conversation went nowhere but there was magic about it. The lunchroom emptied just before we had to go back to work and the tone in her voice changed.

‘Where do you live?' she said, and looked at her watch.

‘Sort of in a flat. In Springvale.'

‘Do you live with anyone?'

‘Um . . . yes, my mum.'

She nodded thoughtfully. ‘Are you going to get a mobile phone?'

A mobile phone? I hadn't thought about one since Debbie last mentioned it. There's no signal for mobile phones in Splitters Creek so hardly anyone had one and since I'd been in Melbourne the only mobile phones I'd encountered swung off the hips of the important members of staff at The Hardware House. I wasn't important enough to have a phone.

‘Yes, I am,' I lied. ‘I just don't know much about them. I wouldn't know . . .'

‘What are you doing after work tonight?'

I shrugged. ‘Nothing.'

‘There's a place around the corner. I can give you a hand, if you like.'

‘Great. Yes. That would be fantastic. Thanks.'

‘Right,' she said. It was almost a whisper. ‘I'll see you out the front after work.'

Harry left for lunch as soon as I made it back to the timber shed but when he returned half an hour later there was a smile on his face like he'd finally woken up.

‘What are you doing after work, Chainsaw? You want to come out for drinks or something?'

‘I . . . I'm going out to get myself a mobile phone.'

‘After that?'

‘I'm not sure. I think I might be busy.'

‘Well, there's this pub and I know you'll love it. Great country atmosphere. It'd be your crowd for sure. Lee Kernaghan is playing tonight.'

He wrote his mobile number on an order docket and stripped it from the pad. ‘If you get a phone and you find yourself at a loose end, give me a call. Have you got a hat?'

‘Yes,' I said, and grabbed my cap.

‘No, a proper hat. A cowboy dude hat. A country hat.'

‘What, like an Akubra or something like that?'

‘I guess so.'

‘Nobody wears that sort of crap.'

‘You must be joking. Are you sure you're from the country?'

I thought about my mates at home, my family, the people of Splitters Creek. There were a lot of hats. Mongrel things
with more personality than your average spaniel but you had to be over thirty to wear one. Everybody else wore truckers' caps, footy hats or beanies. They weren't show ponies; they were by and large ugly beasts that kept heads warm and dry. Nobody wore out-and-out cowboy hats. Except maybe Squid Hegarty. He wore a leather sort of cowboy's hat, pulled into a point at the front by the chinstrap that had been looped over the top. It was so full of head grease and sweat that it was totally black. Dom from National Parks offered to send it away to get a biodiversity study done on it. He reckoned Squid's hat was a bioregion of national significance.

The store was open until eight on Friday. I waited at the door and said good night to everybody as they left. Marcia was ready to lock up when Debbie bolted through. She winked at me but kept jogging towards her car. Was I meant to follow? Had she changed her mind? She put her handbag in the back seat of her scarlet MX5. I stood there like a mountain ash under the security lights until she waved.

She was being discreet.

I said good night to Marcia and whistled as I walked along the street to where the MX5 was parked. The electric window slid open and I crouched beside her door.

‘Coming?' she said.

I smiled and shuffled to the passenger side.

Her car smelled like artificial roses. It didn't smell, really; it reeked.

Debbie backed out of the parking spot and I was shunted into my seat when she floored it. The little engine zinged and she flung the car into the traffic.

I looked at the side of Debbie's face. She raked her fingers through her hair and sighed. She looked at me.

‘What?'

‘Nothing,' I said. ‘I'm seeing a new side of Debbie Wilde. It's very . . . interesting.'

She laughed.

She drove us to a small shopping centre only a few minutes down the road. She parked and dashed out of the car.

‘Come on!' she said. ‘They close at nine.'

There were hundreds of phones to choose from, but Debbie knew the phone that I wanted. It had a camera in the back and polyphonic ring tones. Whatever that meant. The salesgirl started on her spiel about the features of the unit and Debbie cut her short.

‘He wants this one, don't you, Adam?'

‘Ah, yes. This one will be great.'

I paid for it and the salesgirl sold me an additional one hundred dollars' worth of credit for fifty bucks.

Debbie jangled her keys.

I thanked the salesgirl and we left.

Debbie power-walked towards the car park again and I had to jog to keep up with her.

‘Thanks for that,' I said, when we'd made it back into the car.

‘For what?'

‘Helping me organise a phone. I've been wanting one for . . . I don't know . . . ages.'

Debbie shrugged one shoulder. ‘Read the manual and make sure you know how it works.'

‘Yeah, I will. I will.'

She took the bag from me and typed my new number into her own phone. Hers was a sleek copper-coloured unit that folded in half. It was nothing like the brick she used at work. I put my seatbelt on and she zipped out of the car park. I read the instructions in the intermittent streetlights.

Where were we going?

‘Do you want to go for a coffee or something?' I asked.

She shook her head. ‘I have to get going. Keep your phone on and I'll send you a message later on. For practice. Okay?'

She drove onto Mungo Road and eventually, after scanning the street numbers, stopped in the car park below Mum's flat.

‘Huh? How did you know . . . ?' I said.

She smiled. ‘Saw your file in Tony's office. Hope you don't mind.'

I stood for a full minute after she left, in a kind of daze. There was something about her. She was gorgeous and hot and confident.

Mysterious city girl.

It wasn't until I was climbing the stairs to Mum's flat that I realised I'd fucked up.

I had her keys.

I'd had her car keys and the keys to her flat for two nights and I hadn't given it a moment's thought.

I held the keys in my hand. I could hear the television chattering with the forced enthusiasm of adverts and decided to knock.

Footsteps, heavy and deliberate.

The door clattered and opened on the chain. One of Mum's eyes peered through, narrowed with anger and recognition, like she'd been expecting me.

‘Sorry, Mum. I didn't realise until just now that I still had your keys.'

The door slammed, then reopened off the chain. I stepped inside and Mum shut it with a little more vigour than was necessary.

She crossed her arms, stiffly.

‘Sorry,' I said again.

Mum shrugged. ‘I'm used to it.'

‘I didn't mean it. I didn't think . . .'

‘Didn't think? Couldn't think. Where were you?'

‘At a mate's place.'

Mum's lips disappeared into her mouth. She strode across the flat and exploded. ‘I sat out there for three hours. Three hours! I couldn't even sit in my car. You had those keys, too. Ignorant, selfish, inconsiderate child.'

She was shaking. Her words tapered to a spitting whisper and I thought she was going to hit me. I knew if she hit me, it would be over. The sorry in me had gone. Now I was buoyed by my own anger. If she hit me, I'd hit her back. Force ten. I'd break her and there'd be no going back from that. She'd go down.

As we stood there, huffing like horses, I could feel that I was at a turning point. The next ten seconds would do more to define me as a person than anything in the previous eighteen years. Underneath the animal rage, my thoughts were tripping over themselves. She was angry about the keys, but there was a whole other battle being played out. I could
feel it. The keys were a symbol of all the times Mum had been let down, by me, by Dad, by Simon, by the world. I understood why she'd left Splitters Creek. She did all the caring and nobody cared for her. Nobody spared a thought for her. Her life had been lost in the wash of others. She'd forgotten how to get angry. Anger is no use to the martyr.

Mum was standing up for herself.

Seeing through her bluster in that moment caught me off guard. Mum's not a super-woman, she's mortal and vulnerable and doing the best she can. That understanding punctured the pressure vessel of my own rage. All the steam leaked out of me in one long sigh.

‘I'm sorry, Mum, I really am. You're right, I should have realised. I'm sorry that I let you down. I'm sorry for everything, not just the keys. I'm sorry I didn't help around the house . . . with Simon . . .'

‘Stop!' she shouted, and covered her ears. ‘Just stop it. I don't want to hear it. It's too late.'

She charged into her room with her hands still over her ears and kicked the door shut.

I could hear her crying then, bawling into her pillow like a child, and I stood there dazed like I'd been slapped.

Slapped for saying sorry.

I listened to her crying and it all seemed too weird. I'd never heard her cry. Not when her parents died when I was four, not when her son was mangled in a car wreck. Never.

They were very old tears.

And they were not easy to listen to. One part of me wanted to sit on the edge of her bed and rub circles on her back like she'd done for me as a kid. Another part of
me didn't know what to do. I felt like I should be doing
somehing
.

The phone in my pocket beeped and vibrated. It took me a minute to work out that I had a text message.

Hey, sorry if I was a bit weird this afternoon. A bit distracted. C U

There was no name but only one person knew that I had a phone. I committed her number to memory and thought about replying but couldn't think what to write. Couldn't
think
. I found a pen and wrote a note to Mum instead.

I really am sorry. I'll call around tomorrow, but if you need me, ring me.

I had to search through my phone to find the number, then sung it to myself until it was committed to memory as well.

I sat in the comfortable dusty-oily pong of Bullant's Subaru and collected the broken shells of my thoughts. When Mum had ordered chicken and chips, I thought she hadn't changed. I was wrong. The changes were deep, tectonic. While the surface was still chicken and chips, Mum was starting to erupt and, as scary as that was, I knew she'd find something else under that lava. I knew it was wussy, but I didn't want to be in the danger zone while she boiled. I didn't even want to be conscious while she steamed. I phoned Harry and gave him my new number. I told him I needed rum. He was still at home and said that things really didn't heat up at the pub until after eleven anyway. He said he'd wait for me.

The car wouldn't start.

The battery had certainly lost its edge.

One of the Asian dudes from the flat opposite Mum's had been under the bonnet of his car with a torch while I wound the Subaru until the starter would only click. He offered to help get it going. He wore a blue singlet against the cold, his arms encircled with tribal tattoos like Bully's. His car was a black Toyota Celica with a rusted dent and flaking paint on the passenger side front-quarter panel. He parked next to the Suba, left the engine running and linked the batteries.

‘Just give it a couple of minutes to charge, then kick it in the guts,' he said. Language that would have been at home in the bar of the Splitters Creek Hotel.

I waited the recommended couple of minutes and the Suba started first try.

‘Thanks heaps, mate,' I said. ‘I'm Adam.'

He shook my hand. ‘Dave. No worries, champ,' he said, as he packed up his jumper leads. ‘Might be my rocket that needs a jump next time, hey? Cheers.'

Harry flung open the door but didn't offer a greeting. ‘Come on.'

I followed him along the hall to his bedroom. The king-size bed was decked in dark tartan. The room had probably once housed a loving couple but now the sliding mirror-door robe was packed with Harry's clothes. There were more clothes in that wardrobe than there were in our entire house in the mountains.

‘You've got a great body,' Harry said. ‘We've got to find you some clothes that show it off.'