White Goods (37 page)

I walked into chaos and
bedlam.

19.

Once bedlam began, it
didn’t end. It didn’t even pause for breath. Instead, it
multiplied, splitting in two, then two again, like the broom in the
sorcerer’s apprentice, splitting and splitting, creating confusion,
mayhem and damage, until bedlam was everywhere. Ceaseless,
unstoppable, bloody.

It began before my
arrival. I got the account later, once calm had been restored; in
the aftermath, when we were calmly calculating our losses, totting
up the body count.

Della started it with her
questions. She’d been out with Russell for the day: a trip into
town, checking out a few record stores, followed by a picnic in
Jubilee Park and then hanging out by the river near the
crematorium, where she began reflecting, like the waters they were
dipping their feet in.

Why had he and
Ian stopped hanging out?
she wanted to
know.
What had happened between
them?

She had thought about
asking before, but had been cautious. She didn’t want to stir
things up needlessly, rake over coals that were otherwise cooling,
particularly if they resulted in Russell backing off. Yet, by then
she felt safe enough to question without concern.

According to Della,
Russell had simply shrugged at first; he wasn’t sure, couldn’t
pinpoint the reason. However, the question got him thinking back,
trying to recall what or when it could have been. Eventually, it
came to him: a small moment that had belonged to his last day as
Ian’s best pal.

He wouldn’t
let me in the house,
Russell said.
They were going out somewhere – town. Just going
to hang out.
When Ian came to the door, he
wouldn’t let Russell in. There was a voice in the background. Male.
Telling Ian to get back in. He didn’t even open the front door.
Just hissed ‘fuck off’ through the glass of its window.
It had seemed odd at the time, but not
significant,
Russell added, his tone
suggesting his viewpoint might be changing.

When?
Della wanted to know.
When had this happened?

Last
summer,
Russell answered.
Beginning of last summer’s holidays.

Was it a
Thursday? The last Thursday of July?

Possibly,
Russell said, suddenly
watching his every word.
Yes, it probably
was, now he thought about it.
What had
seemed an odd, trivial end to a good friendship had suddenly
transformed into a cause for greater concern.
What was it?
he was asking her,
taking the reins on the question front.
What was significant about that day?

Rushing home, her body
pumped with equal measures of panic and adrenalin, Della explained
on the way. Explained everything she could to Russell.

You were
there,
she kept repeating, over and over,
a mantra of disbelief, dragging him across the road, past the
derelict house where it was likely I was still waiting for
Uncle
Gary. Past the
dump, Crinky’s, the church, the Tankards, her steps speeding up to
a gallop, dragging Russell along with her. Dragging Russell to
where bedlam would erupt like a volcano.
You were there, Russell. That’s why he was so odd. You were
there – and so was Ian. Ian was there. Shit, Ian was there when it
happened. He’s was there. Shit, shit, shit!

Ian was doing something
very ordinary when Della rushed in, instantly unleashing a
whirlwind of accusations; a contrast that added to the madness. He
was in the kitchen, scrambling eggs; teasing the yolky mixture
around a pan, gently coaxing it to bubble-up. She grabbed the
handle of the pan, sent it flying across the kitchen, where it
slammed against the door to the bathroom, vomiting its yellow
contents across the wall and floor.

Russell tried
to intervene, to hold Della back –
Della,
calm down, Della, stop it, leave him –
but
her rage was too intense. It had built up rapidly as she had
charged home, and, at the point of finding Ian, it was unleashed
without control or fear of the consequences.

You were
there! You were fucking there! You’ve known all along, all along,
and you’ve said nothing. Who else was here, Ian? Who else was here
with you?
She had him by the front of his
t-shirt, grabbing two fists of fabric, pushing him up against the
cooker, where the gas flame was still flickering.
Why the fuck didn’t you tell me? And why did you
try to hide it? Why send Russell away, when he could have helped?
He could have helped, Ian – but you told him to fuck off! She’s
gone because of you! BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU FUCKING
BASTARD!

Della,
careful. Della, leave him. Let it go…
Russell tried, but she wasn’t listening. She was too busy
bleeding: brain, heart, eyes, ears, mouth, all bleeding with fury,
ache, disbelief, fear.
Della, ease off.
Della, stop it, leave him.
Careful, Della.
Be careful.
She didn’t see the flames.
That’s what she told me later. Didn’t realise it was happening. Too
busy screaming at Ian, too busy pummelling his chest with those
hands that had gripped and ripped his t-shirt.
DELLA! DELLA! DELLA!

But it was Russell, not
Ian, who cried out when Ian’s t-shirt went up.

JESUS!
FUCK!

It was Russell who made
the effort, pushing a screaming Della to one side. Turning Ian
round and suffocating the flame with a damp tea towel. Finally
switching off the gas. Picking up Della, checking her over,
apologising – he hadn’t meant to push her, just to rescue Ian
before it got worse.

‘It’s fine,’
Della told him, shaking off his fussing. This was where I came in,
sneaking round the back way, full of plans to confront them all
with what I knew. With what
Uncle
Gary had revealed. But Della’s prickly voice gave
me reason to pause. ‘I just want the truth; I want to know why that
prick has been keeping things from me.’ So, I stayed out of sight:
crouched down outside the kitchen window, hidden from view by a
high pile of white boxes from Dontask that were stacked under the
lean-to.

‘You okay?’ Russell,
asking Ian.

‘It’s sore.’

‘You got something in the
bathroom? Something to cool it?’

No one answered Russell,
but I heard the bathroom door open, and someone rummaged inside the
mirrored wall cabinet. He was looking for something to cool Ian’s
burns, I reckoned, and cool Della’s fury, thinking he was doing the
right thing. But he had underestimated the heat of the fire and,
the moment he was off the scene, it re-ignited.

‘I want you to answer me,
you prick!’ Della expelled, pushing Ian with the flat of her hands,
pushing him with the force of her demands.

He stepped back, trying
to retreat, and it took him into our back room. Our squeezed in
room, packed with too much furniture; a place that would give him
little room to avoid her assault.

‘I want to know what
happened! You were here the day Mum left! You were here when it
happened! And I want you to tell me what you did! Why you covered
it up! Why you lied to me!’

Ian didn’t respond, not
verbally. He just pushed her hands away, and did his best to get
away. But there was nowhere to go. And the oddest thing occurred:
as he stepped back, she pursued him, so he stepped back again, yet
still Della came forward, again and again, one stepping back, the
other stepping forward, like a dance. As Della struck out and Ian
retreated within the confines of that small, crowded room, it
looked like a dance. And when Russell charged back on the scene, he
couldn’t pull them apart. Not this time. There was no room: all the
space occupied by too much furniture and a turbulent sibling
waltz.

‘Della, stop it! Calm it
down! Let him explain! Della, stop it!’

But Della wasn’t
listening. She was too busy screaming back at Ian, too caught up in
chasing his failed retreat.

‘I want to know why you
lied to me! I want to know the truth, Ian! I WANT TO KNOW THE
FUCKING TRUTH!’

‘WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING
ON IN HERE?’

Suddenly, like a bullet
the size of a cannonball, another shot of fury roared onto the
scene. Appearing as if from nowhere, it filled the doorframe that
linked the back room to the stairs. I couldn’t see it, only hear
it, but the intense heat that came from his voice suggested our Dad
was on fire, glowing wild and furious, threatening to engulf them
all in his wrath.

‘I SAID, WHAT THE FUCK IS
GOING ON? EH? WHAT THE FUCK IS ALL THE SCREAMING ABOUT? WHAT THE
FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?’

He was looking at Ian and
it calmed him, just for a moment, his roar subsiding.

‘Jesus, boy, how the hell
did-.’

‘She knows.’

The first two words to
come from Ian. He said them coolly, with no hint of fear in his
voice, no hint of the physical pain he must have been suffering,
either.

‘Knows what?’
Dad asked, but I knew that voice; his
caught-out
voice, the one he used
when he was stalling, when he was still seeking out an
excuse.

‘She just knows,
Dad.’

‘She… knows…’ Dad simply
repeated the words, taking them in, buying more time than I’d ever
known before, his fire still at bay. And it might have stayed that
way, calm might have been restored, reason and honesty may have
prevailed without further fury or violence, had Russell not made
his second bad move of the day.

‘Mr Buckley,’ he began,
hoping to enter as mediator. He failed; it worked as another
trigger releasing yet another bullet.

‘Eh?’ Dad uttered, a
little confused as this new voice spoke out, noticing Russell for
the very first time.

I noticed something for
the first time too: the fuel source of Dad’s blazing entrance. It
was in his voice, in its delayed reaction. Appearing first as just
a mild slur at the end of his sentences, it began to slight his
every word. Further, as Dad began to comprehend the enormity of the
scene he had bellowed into, he lost control of this alcoholic fuel
and the rumbling inferno it supplied.

‘
What’s he
doing here?’

‘Dad!’

‘He needs to
go.’

‘Dad!
Russell hasn’t done anything-.’

‘You need to leave
lad.’

‘Mr Buckley, I’m just
trying to-.’

‘Didn’t you
hear me? I asked you to leave. I don’t want to ask twice, and I
don’t want to
make
you either. You understand?

‘I understand, but I
just-.’

‘I don’t think you do
understand! Della, get him out of here, for fuck’s
sake!’

‘Dad!’

‘That’s not difficult for
you to understand, is it?’

‘DAD!’

‘DELLA, I ASKED YOU TO
GET HIM THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! IT’S A SIMPLE REQUEST!’ Suddenly, he
was the snarling, spiteful Dad who had force-fed me the salty stew,
relishing the upper hand his bullish approach allowed. His
onslaught would be relentless from here on; there would be no
listening. He turned back to Russell, addressing him directly.
‘WANT ME TO BEAT YOU OUT THE DOOR, BOY? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT? IS
THAT IT?!’

Ablaze, he stumbled
forward into the crowded room, where the twisted sibling dance had
come to a halt, reaching out to the rear of the room, where Russell
was positioned. Spit sizzled on his lips, accompanying the fury
that thundered from his mouth, adding to the incoherency of his
speech.

‘I’LL ASK YOU ONE MORE
TIME: GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE, THIS IS STRICTLY FAMILY
BUSINESS!’

Russell began to back
off, to make his way out into the kitchen, to the back door, where
I was watching, just out of sight. But Della intervened, blocked
Dad’s way, fought back with a wrath of her own.

‘NO! NO! HE STAYS! I WANT
HIM TO STAY! I WANT HIM TO HEAR!’

The fireball wavered,
startled by her retaliation. It staggered a little, back and forth,
searching for a balance that was absent from the whole
vicinity.

‘You want him to stay?’
His blaze subsided, flickered, and in this brief, thoughtful pause,
it took control again. ‘You want him to stay?’

‘No, Dad, no-.’
Ian.

‘She wants him to stay,
Ian, to hear us out.’

‘Dad, no,
don’t-.’

‘You want your boyfriend
here to listen to our big, dark family secret?’

‘Dad, stop this, tell him
to go. Dad! What the hell are you playing at? Tell him to
leave!’

‘Yes.’ Della finally
answered. ‘I want Russell to stay. I want him to know.’

The fire was still there,
burning away. I could feel it; it was in Dad’s glare, I was
certain, and I heard it in his menacing tone. He was daring Della,
daring her to get just that little bit closer to the flames,
tempting her to throw herself into his inferno.