The Outing, page 13
“Yeah, I know.”
“You do?”
“Not that you're his lawyer. But the history thing.”
“And what exactly do you know?”
“Hey, I'm the cop here,” Kowalski’s half-laugh was self-consciously disarming. “Would it be worrying enough to jump?”
Robert pressed his lips together and shook his head slowly, till he could speak, “I can see why some people might come to that conclusion, but,” the head shaking continued, “definitely not.”
“How come you’re so definite?”
“A conversation we had. Several. He was in a good place. Despite what was going on.”
“Specifics? Off the record. Not that anyone listens to me.”
“Nutshell version. To start with, the arrest, court, he was upset, worried. As you'd expect. After some time to think, it was more like an annoying hiccup. Except for not being legal, which he was working on, he had family, friends, lots of love, and career prospects, not that he'd really need it, 'cause he'd just heard he was going to inherit truckloads of money. So,” Robert paused, “happy, and not, by any stretch of the imagination, suicidal.”
Kowalski nodded and held up the business card, “Got another one?”
He wrote on the back, “I don’t normally do this. My personal number. I mean it. If you need anything.”
Robert tucked it into the space in his wallet behind his licence. As he did, he noticed a torn off beer coaster and a chill crept up the back of his neck.
Chapter 24
The drive back from the Station with Jack and Marnie was foggy. No-one spoke as small bursts of light twinkled, either across the river or from the houses along it.
When they arrived Marnie said, “You and Lauren stay. Don’t disturb the kids. I’ll stay with Dad.”
He watched their shadows move across the lawn dividing their houses.
Lauren answered the door at Marnie's, “You need to go to Harry’s. It’s been on the news.” “It can’t have. The coroner hasn’t had time.”
“I’m not arguing Robert. I’m telling you. Go.”
He turned and stopped, “Ring your dad. Tell him to meet me there. They haven't seen much of each other in the last twenty years, but they were close friends. At least he won’t have to explain himself to Duncan.”
***
Robert's eyes roamed around Harry’s apartment. He'd always felt smugly complacent, growing up in suburban middle-class ease, despite the discomfort of its defining and ill-fitting gender requirements, but today the sense of other-worlds was dramatically real and on top of everything else, completely disorienting. The living room was opulently subdued, like its owner.
The only thing out of place but completely appropriate was the anger and hurt, thrashing around in Harry's eyes. He swallowed something golden brown from the crystal glass he held, “What's unforgivable, even more than being the last person to find out, is hearing it on the news,” his words harsh and flat. “Do I look invisible to you? Not quite a human being? I've been sitting here listening to the newsreader over and over in my head. I wanted to punch a hole in the wall, but when I tried to stand up, I couldn't. Just devastating, devastating sorrow. Waves of it. And I kept asking myself why? What did I miss? What was so troubling he couldn’t tell me? That he would do something so, so-” His eyes profoundly sad and bewildered, “My poor boy. My poor beautiful boy.”
Harry had put his glass down on the art deco side table with such gentleness that the sob which broke out of him took Robert by surprise. It made him think of metal tearing apart, jagged and resisting, trying to hold its original shape while something huge and forceful made it buckle and split open.
The sharp edges of Harry’s grief cut through Robert as well. Fat wet drops oozed from their eyes. They sat opposite each other, two islands, their shores sharing the same ocean of grief. It was a comfort of sorts to share it.
Gradually it ebbed enough for words again.
“I don’t understand,” Harry said finally, “how they could come to a conclusion so quickly. There must have been absolutely no doubt at all that this was a deliberate and intentional act of self-harm. I just can’t believe it.”
He looked at Robert as if somehow the answers would appear.
Robert stood, “Excuse me, Harry, the bathroom?”
Harry pointed up the hall, and Robert rushed off, hating himself for the inanity of a bathroom excuse, but the grief was so raw and urgent and present, and he wasn't that good an actor. How long are you going to slink away from the truth like this. It was taking staggering willpower to keep the stone in his chest in place. It was exhausting. Don't you dare say anything. You can't pile on more hurt. Talk about kick someone when they're down. But all this? All this hiding and keeping quiet. It would be such a relief to say something.
Robert sneered at the image in the bathroom mirror, Yeah. For who? This isn’t about you. How would you feel? If you lost Lauren and her lover turned up. Oh, by the way, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. We’ve been having a bit of a thing. I thought you should know.
He gripped the basin and hit the edge with his fist. Grateful for the physical pain he looked down at his hand and wrist and took off his watch.
“Stupid fucking…” he stuffed the watch into his pocket, his finger tracing the crack he'd put in the face. You didn't want to lie about it. Your entire fucking life is a lie. Oh Johnny, I'm so sorry. I’m so sorry. I'm…
He looked back into the mirror. Stop it. Just stop it.
*
“Forgive me,” said Harry, when Robert returned, “I’ve got cheese and crackers and some odd bits in the fridge, I’ll fix you a plate if-”
“I'm not hungry. But thank you.” It seemed unfair, shameful, to be eating or even hungry.
“All the same,” said Harry. “But first, I want to say something.”
“Actually, I-” Robert faltered. “Harry, I don’t quite know how-”
Harry raised his hand in a stop, and the intercom buzzing stopped them both.
Harry switched to leveraging himself from the chair, then de-tensioned, “I’m not expecting anyone.”
“No, that'll be Duncan. Lauren, my wife, she, we didn't want to interfere, but we thought maybe some company. Someone you were comfortable with. Who knew Johnny and well…”
The buzzer went again. This time Harry got up.
Somewhere in Duncan and Harry’s greeting Robert's attention disappeared and something undefined, lurking at the edge of his mind began to emerge, “Can I ask you a question, sir?”
Harry nodded.
“We knew about the bequest, the will and the Trust set up, but does anyone else know? Did you tell him what it was? How much?” Robert silently berated himself for pretending not to know.
“I can see why you're asking,” Harry tapped his lips. “Makes no sense. You're set for a substantial inheritance, soon, not years away, and you kill yourself? And no. No-one else knows.”
Harry thought for a minute, “I don't like to admit it, but frankly I was frightened by what happened. The ambush the blackmail. I thought it would be better, safer, for Johnny and for me if he- if we were both to appear as if we had separate lives. And then well, I didn't want him to be my nursemaid. But as he rightly pointed out, that was his decision not mine.” Harry swallowed and put his glass down, “Anyway, at first I didn't want the money to seem like a big financial carrot. A sorry please come back to me inducement.”
“But he knew? You told him? What changed your mind?”
“We all make mistakes,” Harry looked at Robert and they both looked away, “I'm not immune,” he continued. “He changed it. Or I suppose love did. Johnny isn’t the sort of-” Harry's eyes filmed and he tapped his lips before continuing, “wasn’t, Johnny wasn't the sort of person who would hang around for money. I don't know why I got all thingy about that.” He shrugged, “My own baggage I suppose, maybe because my niece and her husband think of me as some kind of cash-cow. Then I thought, if we were any ordinary couple, a legal Mr and Mrs, Mr and Mr, I wouldn't be making special provisions. I wouldn't have to. He'd get if not all, then most of my estate, and we'd talk about it. So I told him. He didn't know the finer details but he knew. And he knew I thought of him as my partner. Not that lately…” he shook his head out of its reverie. “And,” he snorted, “I was supposed to die first. Instead, I'm sitting here only half dead, finding out on the news, that my Johnny, my special love, the most important irreplaceable person in my life, has jumped off a bridge.”
“To be fair,” Robert said quietly, “we all expected him to simply walk through the door. Marnie, Jack too. They wouldn't deliberately exclude you. They're not that sort of family.”
“I know, I know, I’m just railing against it.” Harry’s anger and hurt needed somewhere to go. “I won’t even get a copy of the report, the coroner’s report. Family will. Johnny’s body won’t be released to me. It will be released to the family. We aren’t allowed to be family. Good thing he wasn't alive somewhere in hospital… I'd have been arrested breaking down the bloody doors to see him. Garrhh. What the hell. Here,” he held his glass up, “do the honours would you Duncan?” His head moved slowly side to side, “We sicken them. Hah. They sicken me.” His breath caught, and he rubbed his forehead, the anger dissipating into sadness, “They sicken me.”
Robert had been absently twirling his glass while his heart was breaking for Harry. His thoughts going backwards and forwards, and when Duncan refilled Harry's glass he put a hand on Harry's shoulder and gave it a squeeze, as if the gesture could somehow ease the anguish. Robert watched as Harry’s hand patted it thank you and something else started clicking into place. He needed some time without them talking.
“Harry,” said Robert, “why don’t you two have some time together, and I’ll raid your fridge. It would probably be a good idea if you ate something too.”
Harry pointed unnecessarily towards the kitchen.
*
“You told Johnny I owed you a favour,” said Duncan.
“I thought you did,” Harry picked up the decanter, and light bounced off the mirrored surface as he passed it to Duncan, “I’m slowing down… my treatment, and the edge is off, for now.”
“Thanks. You were saying,” Duncan prompted.
“I wasn’t.”
“Come on Harry, you're a professional arbiter of truth. Withholding it is as bad as telling an outright lie. I was hoping you know… between old friends.”
“This isn’t easy. No-one likes rejection.”
“Who are you talking about Harry?”
“I loved Johnny, dearly, but he wasn’t…” Harry stopped, his eyes damp and desolate. “He reminded me of being young, of us being young, but I’m not good at letting things go. Johnny is- was- expansive. He got over things quickly. Early on, I thought he was burying things, that they'd fester, that there'd be some lashing out to follow. But he wasn't like that. Don't get me wrong, he was no saint. But he didn't bear a grudge. He'd be… if something's wrong, let's fix it, not blame someone.” Harry fell silent. “When he came back, he was, I don't know… aloof isn't the right word. Maybe there was some hurt or resentment. Me sending him away like that might have felt like a rejection and… I think I'm rambling… what if he hadn't gotten over things this time. And maybe that's why he…”
Supported by the doorframe in the kitchen Robert closed his eyes.
Duncan stayed silent.
“I've felt close to doing it too. Twice,” said Harry. “The first time was when you married Lauren's mother. I was broken,” he paused, “and then, when she died, I thought…”
“Julieanne,” Duncan said, “her name was Julieanne. I had a child Harry. I had to work. We both had to work.”
“I think that's why I sent Johnny to you. For a connection. Maybe at some level, he knew my motives weren’t all pure.”
“Are you trying to blame yourself for this?” said Duncan. “Because it was something you contemplated? I think most people have, if they're honest.”
“I'm trying to find a reason, an explanation. But… the way things were set up. He seemed genuinely content. Except… No. I don’t know.”
Robert pulled himself away from their conversation and started making noisy progress in the kitchen.
It didn’t take long, and he made his presence known with an off-hand, “Harry, I’m looking for a corkscrew,” and emerging soon after with a couple of plates, and catching the last bit of their exchange.
Harry was shaking his head, “Strange to say considering how much this is hurting, but I know he wouldn't do anything to hurt me,” he sighed heavily, and Duncan leaned forward to stand, but Harry waved his hand. “No. No, sit will you? Let me finish. I don’t want anything from you Duncan. But,” a glittery film smudged and softened the red veins of grief spidering the whites of Harry's eyes, “…but I just want a friend now.”
Duncan finished getting up and took the now open bottle from Robert and poured, “Here you are, my friend.”
A teary smile hovered over Harry's face, “Thanks. If there’s one thing Johnny taught me it’s that nothing is too bad. I loved him for that,” his sniff couldn’t stem the tears, “his hope,” and his shoulders sank, and he looked at Duncan and Robert in turn, in blurry-eyed bewilderment, “and now I don’t believe him.” His lip shook, and he shuddered, “He lied. He lied.”
*
“I’ll leave you to it,” said Robert. “But before I go I wanted to flag something you mentioned earlier, about the coroner's report. The family, Jack and Marnie, I know you said you hadn’t told anyone but, do you have any idea if Johnny had spoken to them. Told them anything about the will and-” Robert looked for Harry's eyes, “They know you're back together, but…”
“Of course. That's why it was on the news,” said Harry flatly. “The coroner will have the information from the police records. He'll be going by what they think they know. To them it's open and shut. Their story will be that he was frantic about the court case, the prospect of jail. The stigma and loneliness, and the fear, were all too much.”
“You're right,” said Robert. “The policeman at the station said they knew about Johnny's arrest and the circumstances. They'd probably already done fingerprint matches. The identification would've just been an added tick. So without any reason otherwise, the verdict was suicide, as long as the injuries,” he stopped. “I don’t want to upset you Harry, but, as long as they were consistent with, well… they would've shut the file.” He looked at Duncan and then settled on Harry, “There won’t be an inquest. Or I'd be very surprised if there was.”
Chapter 25
“Wasn’t expecting you Lovey,” Tank's reflection looked at Robert from between two rows of bright bulbs around his dressing room mirror at the Wickham.
He turned to peer around behind Robert, “Where’s Johnny?”
“What time’s the show?”
Tank looked at the wall-clock, “Fifteen minutes. Are you joining in again?” he wiggled his shoulders, turning back to the mirror, and adjusting his headband. His reflection changed dramatically when it caught Robert's expression in the mirror, “What’s wrong?” He was up and guiding Robert into a chair. “Here, sit down. What is it?”
Robert's breath vibrated on the air around it, “It can wait till after the show.”
“Somehow I think not.” Tank leaned forward, “It’s Johnny isn’t it?”
The wretchedness was now clearly visible, but the words were still hiding. The dull muffled tick-tick, tick-tick of the second hand held them in its thrall, then one word, soft on the out-breath, and trying not to be heard, “Dead.” And then, following an anguished hiccupping sob, “He died. Johnny died.”
Tank tilted forward, rocking, a hand gripping each knee, and stared at the door, as if Johnny would come in, laughing, wondering why they were being so morose when the show was about to start. When the door stayed closed, he turned back to Robert, “What happened?”
“The show.”
“Fuck the show. My friend is dead. I want to know what happened,” his face twisted.
Robert unburdened himself from being custodian of the only full version of the events of the last twenty-five hours.
Telling it didn’t lift the stone, but he got a deep breath down to his stomach without it having to claw past in several shuddering pushes.
“No-one else knows,” he finished looking down at his hands.
“Come with me.”
At the side of the bar, Tank whispered something to Bluey, who nodded and disappeared, while Tank made his way to the stage. The lights flickered and then, in the spotlight stood Tank, demure and vulnerable in his belted dressing gown, his headband resting on his forehead above his unmade eyes. His bare lips shushed into the microphone.
“There won’t be a show tonight, friends. We have news. Heartbreaking news.” He looked around the room, “Another one of us, otherwise happy, full of love and life has nonetheless managed to unexpectedly and inexplicably kill themselves.” He blinked, bit his lip then continued, “The lights went out here on earth, for our dear friend Johnny Saunders.”
As the shocked whispers fell away, “All of us who knew him will miss his beauty, his charm, his generosity, his wit, his kindness, his earnest sense of fair play, not that life was all that fair to him on occasion, but he managed in the face of everything that came along, good and bad, to maintain a sense of humour and of hope. Except, it seems, till now. To all of you who never had the chance to meet him, you have missed one of life’s gifts.” He bowed his head, “That was hard. Remember ladies, don’t believe everything you see in the papers or on TV. If you hear anything, you'll find us, me and Bluey,” he nodded towards the bar and Blue raised his arm, “here or the Story Bridge back bar.”
