The Break (4 page)

‘Hi, Mum.'

‘Hello, Rosie. How are you? Has Ray gone back?'

They never called him Cray, even though it was the only way she ever referred to him.

‘Yeah, he left a couple of hours ago,' she lied lightly, letting it go. ‘Just thought I'd ring and say hi to you and Dad. How're things?'

The conversation followed its usual format until the point where Rosie couldn't delay telling them any longer.

‘What? You did
what
?'

‘Dad, I wasn't happy there.'

‘But you've only been there a year!'

‘It wasn't me; it's not what I want to do, okay? There's no point plodding on with it, it was just a waste of time.'

‘But it's your first real job, Rosie, it was a
break
. And what with unemployment rates …'

‘I know, I really do. But it's a farce, that job — all those stories on … don't tell me you thought it was high-end journalism.'

‘It doesn't have to be, for Christ's sake; it's work. It's money. I knew it wasn't exactly what you'd hoped for, but it would have led to something better eventually. What on earth will you do now?'

Oh, god. There was no point explaining any of this. The house seemed to expand around her, the walls started to slide away, and Cray was gone. Why had she given in to her moment of weakness and rung?

‘Don't worry, Dad, please, there's nothing to worry about. We've got money saved, so don't think about that.' She paused, trying to express something that was kicking out of her. ‘But do you understand … about the job, why I left? You've got to trust me, Dad. This isn't about money, you know?'

She was stuck. Caught in the process of moving away from saying what her parents wanted to hear — she knew the content and the delivery, man, did she ever — towards what she actually wanted to say. And if ever she gave it a go, expressed her genuine opinion on something, her old man had the habit of making the comment: ‘You never used to think this way.'

Of course I didn't!
she wanted to shout.
I've bloody well
grown up, and guess what? I've changed. I actually don't agree with much of what you and Mum think anymore!

He sighed loudly. ‘Well, love, it's your life, isn't it. It's up to you what you do.'

Liza came into the kitchen to see Ferg clutching an avocado. There was a pile of vegie offcuts beside the chopping board. Ferg gripped the fruit and ran the knife through its guts.

‘Can I help?'

He didn't look up.

‘Hell-o-o-ww …' She was still a bit hyper from another visit from Mike that afternoon — twice in one week! — and had been kicking the footy around in the wind with Sam. ‘Ferg! Speak to me. What's up?'

The salad was finished. He scooped up the scraps for the worm farm with both hands, crushing them.

‘Thanks for doing dinner,' she tried.

‘Maybe I should do enough for five, now that Mike's gunna be here all the time. Popping in.
Moving
in.'

She was surprised by his tone. ‘He just wanted to drop that computer magazine off for Sam. I thought it was nice of him. Beyond that, I reckon he's all talk, your brother. He'll never come down, not for long, anyway.' Liza paused. ‘It'd be fun for Sam, though, someone else to hang out with.'

Ferg's head snapped up. His eyes were dark. ‘Sam's got plenty of people to spend time with — good people. I don't want him mixing too much with Mike, I don't like the idea.'

‘Fergus! He's your brother.'

He became intensely preoccupied with a slab of salmon, and she waited there a moment, staring at the chopping board, before leaving him to it.

Later, Ferg went outside into the warm wind. Liza was trawling recipe books, his mum was in bed already and Sam was in his room, at his computer. Most nights were spent like that, either around the telly or each pottering around doing their own thing. Ferg liked it that way, was never one for going out, socialising. Not much good at chitchat, he thought now, as the wind found its way into the marri's highest branches, husking them together like a sudden flurry of maracas.

Despite the wind, stars salted the dark sky, and Fergus noticed first, as always, the startling brightness of Venus, fairly glowing compared with its smaller companions. ‘But that's cos it's a planet, Dad, not a star,' Sam had reminded him once before when he'd made the observation.

His own father had shown Venus to Ferg when he was little, when the house was on its own out here in the middle of the forest, with only a few paddocks cleared like the burn marks of meteorites. Jack had built the cottages for the single blokes who'd worked on the farm, milking, looking after the cows. When he retired, he and Pip moved into the more comfortable one, and Ferg and Liza moved into the farmhouse to run the property. They sold the other cottage to Mrs Perry, along with a couple of acres, to help get a start on the blue gums. It was only after Jack died that Pip moved back in with them, into the main house.

Ferg had worried over the decision to expand into blue-gum farming, over the changes it would bring to the property. Part of him wanted to keep the place as it was when his father imagined it, created it, but Jack had told him many times that change was the only way, you had to be able to stay in touch with your children and their children, in touch with their ideas.

Ferg shook his head at the memory. ‘Better bloke than me, Dad,' he said out loud, into the night.

A sudden gust caused the marri to strain at the ground, making tiny faulting, shifting sounds, and, although it had been there for years and Ferg doubted it was going anywhere, he jogged over to Sam's yellowed window to take him up on his offer of a few days back to help with pruning.

Liza turned and faced the other glass wall, met its streaked, metal-reinforced pane more for a different view than any other reason; more because she realised that her time spent in the shower was always devoted to the three other walls. Just another meaningless habit, she thought, but the new view was surprisingly different.

She was tired, but she didn't know why. She hadn't been all that busy recently, and at nights she slept well, long and heavy sleep that was difficult to emerge from.

Pip was in bed already, probably engrossed in some sweeping eight-hundred-page historical saga with a box of Turkish Delight beside her. Sam and Ferg were outside with the marri and the torches. Liza thought of climbing into bed with the doona around her and a book — one of the many she had on the go but was too unmotivated to finish — or a good magazine for instant gratification.

‘Over to your left, Dad,' Sam indicated with the light of the big Dolphin torch. ‘Bit further, yep, that one.'

His dad had the hacksaw out, and was trying to fend off the other branches taking swipes at him as he crouched on the top rung of the ladder. The skin on Sam's knuckles was pulled tight from holding on to the ladder so hard, but the wind was real strong and there was no way he was gunna let his dad come off just because he couldn't hold it properly.

‘You alright up there, Dad?'

‘Just hang on to that damn ladder. How's that looking? Is the line clear now?'

Sam craned his neck as far left as possible, and shone the torch over without adjusting his grip. ‘Um, yeah, it's still swinging pretty close, but it's not touching the line. I think. Can you come down and check?'

Ferg looked back as he put each foot on the rung, breathed out when he reached the bottom.

‘Can we have a beer after this, Dad? Like on the Emu Export ads?'

‘Sam!' Ferg grinned at him. ‘Not with your grandmother in the house, she'd have a bloody coronary!' After a moment, leaning down to Sam conspiratorially, he said: ‘But you can have a sip of mine.' He looked back up at the tree, black leaves moving about. ‘How's that Vultran guy of yours going?'

‘
Valstran
, Dad, jeez!'

‘Oh, you know what I mean.' Ferg moved the ladder around.

‘Well, he's landed at Sawan and the Sawan people are flocking to Lumptor, which is the last place in that universe that has the red springs they need.'

‘And where are they gunna go when he makes it to Lumptor, which is only a matter of time, presumably? Can you hold the ladder again, mate?'

Sam steeled himself against the ladder. ‘Uh, I dunno, Dad. Maybe there are mountains there or caves or somewhere else they can hide. And there might be natural stuff at Lumptor they can use against him. Like, I dunno, maybe some biochemical or something.'

‘What, as in biological warfare? Sounds serious.' Ferg tapped the hacksaw on a branch. ‘This one?'

‘Yep, that one. It
is
serious. They have to do something, right? Dad …'

‘Mmm?' He was sawing away. Every minute or so he'd let his arm drop down and hang for a while to refill with blood before shaking it back into action.

‘Is everything alright with … you … and Mum?'

Ferg stopped sawing. He looked down, descended a couple of rungs, sat. ‘Sam, of course, everything's
fine
with your mum and me. We're
all
fine.' He paused. ‘How about you, are you okay?'

Sam nodded. He couldn't say anything. His heart was shifting about all over the place. The marri's leaves were warped and bubbling above him. Other people thought they looked diseased, but Sam knew that was just how they were, thicker and stumpier than other, more popular gums.

‘How about something to eat when we go inside?' Ferg said. ‘I reckon I saw some Tim Tams somewhere in the kitchen — that's if your mum hasn't nicked them all. I'll just finish this last one,' he said, tapping the branch, ‘then we'll go in.'

He rested his hand on the back of Sam's head, where his hair stopped. Sam examined a handful of marri leaves, the young branch bending easily to him. Ferg's hand was warm on his neck.

After drying off and smearing some cream on her arms and face, Liza went around the house turning off unnecessary lights and headed for the bedroom. She hoped Ferg would be a little while yet. She wanted to enjoy it on her own — there wasn't much time for that these days, and it was never the same when Ferg was there; she couldn't focus on her own thing with him wanting to sleep, a t-shirt over his eyes to
keep the light out. Or if he chose to read, he was vocal about it, his journeys through amazement, amusement and disgust making it impossible for her to concentrate.

Liza thought about Mike dropping by that afternoon. He often made her laugh. He never talked about the usual stuff — work, school, home — even when they hadn't seen him for a while, but picked up on small things he'd seen or heard, or felt. She appreciated that. There was enough of the mundane already. That afternoon, he'd noticed a design of Sam's she'd stuck on the fridge, and had moved closer to inspect it while the kettle boiled. It was Sam's latest X-wing star-fighter design, sporting multiple new features including a secret spot for weaponry and an escape hatch for the pilot. Sam had brought it out to show her after a particularly long spell in his bedroom a few weeks ago. Liza had pored over the drawing with him, asking him to explain all the angles and features to her.
Jet-propelled this
and
hydraulic such-and-such
. It was gorgeous. And she saw, this afternoon, the pleasure Mike took in his nephew's fascination with the technical.

Sam and Ferg came back inside, talking at the same volume they had out in the wind. They came into the bedroom, almost shouting in the otherwise quiet house.

‘Actually, I think it's dying down now,' Ferg yelled. He dropped his voice to an apologetic whisper. ‘Be interesting to see how the saplings are tomorrow morning, though.' Concern settled on his face for a moment, before Liza distracted him. If he started worrying now he'd be awake all night, wishing on dawn.

‘All clear, then?' she said. ‘The powerline?'

‘Yep, thanks to Sam.'

She watched him, looking down at his son, this boy who learned everything from them, from her, and Ferg.

‘Snacks!' Ferg announced, rubbing Sam's back. ‘And aren't you looking cosy?'

‘We can have them in here, and I'll bring in my night sky chart, because I plotted some more stars the other day.' Sam was off, tripping down the passage to his room.

‘Uhh …' Liza looked at Ferg, looked at her magazine and dropped it on the rug beside their bed with an amused sigh. ‘I'd love to see his chart. Better than make-up tips in
Elle
. I don't even use the stuff, so why am I reading about it?'

‘Because you're bored, my love.' Heading off towards the kitchen he said, ‘Don't let him show you anything until I'm back, I don't want to miss a thing.'

Liza stared at where Ferg had been standing. Bored.
Bored
. Was she?

He was too far away to hear her when she called, ‘What do you mean, I'm bored — how can you tell?'

Liza glanced at her rejected magazine. Bored with what? Hurry up, Sam, she thought. Come save me from my tragic life.

Pip lay in bed with the curtains wide open so she could see the sky. In that time before sleep, in varying shades of moonlight, she and Jack had talked about their day, about the days ahead, about the kids, the farm.

Now instead of his voice, she listened to the sounds outside her room, to Liza and Ferg and Sam talking and moving and laughing, or to their silences. Or to the noises from the garden, from the orchard, from the marri, and the night.

Paperwork. And lots of it. It should have been a relief, coming in from the sun and dust, the extreme heat. But the thought of tackling that pile had Cray wanting to head straight out the door again. It had to be done. He forced himself to sit. The aircon pumped refrigerated cool over him.

The phone rang and the area superintendent walked in. Simultaneously. Cray looked from the short, bullish figure to the phone as he reached to get it. Shitslinger — more formally known as Don Rittsinger — wanted to talk to him, and he was waiting for Cray to get off the phone he was waiting for Cray to get off the phone, standing too close, not bothering to busy himself with some other task for privacy's sake, but standing there so Cray could almost feel the wave of heat he'd brought in from the site. But on the line was the company boss, wanting to know how Cray's week off had been and could he come in and see him some time this afternoon. Cray felt the movement of his blood for a moment and then made a time with him, trying to sound relaxed.