Losing Face, page 13
As soon as the priest farewelled the congregation, Elaine and her children went straight to the car to avoid any interactions outside the church. The real test, however, was the openness of Rookwood Cemetery. Any of the relatives could come up to them there, and they couldn’t avoid going because that’s where the family of the deceased lined up for people to pay their respects.
There was more silence on the drive to Rookwood. When they parked the car Elaine said, ‘We go see Dad after.’ She knew Amal and Michael never came to visit their father’s grave. She hadn’t been in months either.
There were far fewer people at the burial, but she spotted the two women who would likely bring up Joey’s fiasco, gasbagging behind their hands. Elaine and her children stood quite some distance off under a tree so that it looked like they were just there to shade themselves from the sun.
The coffin went in the ground and the sand was sprinkled. As soon as the deceased’s family stood in line for the onslaught of respect, she charged over the graves with Amal and Michael in tow and said, ‘Allah y yerhamo’, with her hand on her heart. The whole thing took less than a minute. She had shown her face and that’s all that mattered.
The flamboyant crypts of the Lebanese and Greeks and Russians began materialising in the distance as they walked away from the burial and towards Youssef’s grave. Some people, like the cousin who’d just died, had to be buried in the Catholic section, as the spaces in the Orthodox section were filling up and becoming more and more expensive. Luckily, Elaine and Youssef had bought a double plot, so her final resting place was already claimed. She tried not to think about it because knowing where your flesh would eventually rot was bizarre.
She stopped, exhausted, and spun around on the spot, dizzied by the graves and by how predictable life was. You were born, you were married, there were happy times, shameful ones, and after all of that you died. Where would her children and grandchildren end up when all the space was taken and bodies were layered three, four, five on top of each other? Was the earth deep enough to contain all the people still to come? She shuddered at the thought.
On their way to Youssef’s spot, they passed gigantic monuments to young men and women who had succumbed to tumours, motorbike accidents, suicide. Elaine knew their stories from encountering the families, back when she used to visit the grave often. There was the yiayia in the row over from Youssef whose granddaughter left a fresh Snickers bar every time she visited. Apparently the yiayia had become obsessed with the snack after her dementia set in. There was no Snickers on her grave today, just dust.
When they arrived at Youssef’s modest tombstone Elaine was ashamed to see a pile of leaves and a meat pie wrapper at its base. She dropped to her knees and stuffed the leaves and the wrapper into a plastic bag she had in her handbag. Amal and Michael stood beside her, their arms around one another’s shoulders. Nothing like a dead father to bring the family together. She finished stuffing the leaves in the bag and then licked her finger to create adhesive for the minute bits of dirt on the granite. She wept while she worked.
‘He was a good man, your Youssef. A good man.’
The line, in Arabic, sliced through the air like a spear. Elaine whipped around to see the two gabbling relatives from earlier approaching.
She stood up. ‘Yes, he was.’
She was as cold as her husband’s bones beneath her. The ladies ambled over and, after they had all greeted each other, one of them gestured towards the plastic bag and said, ‘I don’t blame you for not coming for a while with all that your family has been going through.’
Maybe Elaine could smash their heads against the tombstone, spend the rest of her days in prison and fall for a woman in there who would protect her.
The crones turned to Amal and delivered their lines one after the other without pause.
‘Terrible, just terrible what they are saying in the news. No-one knows what to believe.’
‘Who knows what goes on in the minds of young men when they are trying to outdo each other?’
It took everything in her, but Elaine was determined not to say anything. She would let them finish and move on. Michael and Amal on the other hand were red-faced and ready to burst. They lacked the composure that the village had hardwired in her. Australia, Sydney, Greenacre: it allowed them to be rageful. She didn’t mind it so much, but she wished that today they would not talk back to the relatives. It was futile. There wasn’t anything in the world that could combat their negativity.
The lanky relative went on. ‘Anyway, maybe it’s a good thing Youssef isn’t around to see his namesake being rubbished.’
Michael replied, ‘It’s never a good thing to not have your father around’, and in doing so he set them up for their next critique. She saw it coming.
‘No, that’s right, it isn’t? And maybe Joseph wouldn’t have ended up in this mess if his father …’ The woman gestured limply towards Amal, who stormed away.
‘Oh, I hope we haven’t upset her. Well, it was nice seeing you, habibti. We really do wish all the best for your family in court.’
Elaine’s feet bore into the ground. She wished she could prematurely crawl into the final resting place beneath her.
17
Joey spent three weeks in his bedroom smoking cigarettes out of the window, only emerging to use the toilet and microwave. His boss at work had sent a text when the story was in the news to say it might be best if he didn’t come in for the foreseeable future. Joey had just straight-up typed a resignation email and sent it through.
Kyri was only replying to Joey’s texts matter-of-factly. Initially Emma wouldn’t answer any of Joey’s calls or texts but more recently when he tried to call the number was unavailable. When he’d dialled from Alex’s phone the call had gone through, which meant she had blocked his number. There was so much to feel sick about, but Emma hating him was a real infection. She was supposed to be his lifebuoy in a lake of tedium. He wondered what Ivan would be thinking of him. He checked to see that he was still following him back on Instagram and he was. Joey had deleted all his content and changed his profile name on the day of his release. He sent Ivan a message, Hey man.
When the day came for the hearing at Bankstown Court House, to decide if he would be tried by a judge only instead of a regular jury, Marco all but guaranteed it would be approved. The public were too aware of the case since it had been covered widely in the media. Kyri had had the same hearing only a week prior and was granted a judge-only trial.
Joey had no concept of the judicial system apart from what he had seen on TV, and most of the time that wasn’t even set in Australia. He just agreed with what Marco suggested because he trusted him, which was stupid. Trusting people had landed him where he was now. But he found it easy to admit to himself that he had no hand in how his life would play out anymore. The thought sometimes comforted him, but mostly it just added to the turmoil he’d felt since his arrest.
Inside the courtroom, the bob-haircut stenographer chatted idly with the presiding police officer about My Kitchen Rules as everyone waited for the magistrate to enter. Marco was sitting to Joey’s left, shaking his leg and licking his thumb to flick through notes, and on the bench directly behind him were Joey’s mother, Alex and Tayta. He avoided turning around to look at them but could hear their rustling through handbags for chewing gum and their patting of clothes and their biting of nails.
In his line of sight there were TVs, cameras, speakers, microphones, cabling and computers. It smelt like paper and coffee and hair gel. Just as he thought to ask Marco if they would be waiting much longer, the public entrance clicked open loudly. Everybody twisted to see a bearded man with thick arms forcing the door shut against the pressure of its self-closing mechanism.
Alex flicked back around to face Joey and was trying keenly to say something with his eyes. Joey looked again at the man striding down the aisle and the hairs on his arms stood up like an army. It was Simon Boyle. His father.
Before he had time to process anything, the magistrate entered and everybody stood up and sat back down and everything was underway.
The most awkward thing about Joey’s father bursting their bubble was the circumstance of his resurrection. He had finally come back for them, but it was because his son was a criminal. Joey and Alex stole glances at each another in the café – their whole family at the table.
His mother recapped the court proceedings. She had drunk too much coffee. ‘It’s a good thing. A good thing – being tried by the judge only, you know. Because God knows what racists they could put in the jury. They’d never let you off. Especially with all the media stuff about you guys being Middle Eastern.’
His father shifted in his seat. It struck Joey that the man was handsome, and the thought reminded him to look around the café to make sure nobody had recognised him.
His mother went on, because she didn’t know how to talk about anything else. ‘Like the magistrate said, it wouldn’t be fair because the case had so much publicity, too much open prejudice around it all. Marco is pretty hopeful that he will be acquitted.’
Joey was a subject.
‘How did you find the lawyer?’ His father’s voice was croaky.
She chewed her lip. ‘It was a recommendation.’
Alex ignored everything, scrolling through his phone. ‘Can we go?’
Joey realised the barista was looking at him, or through him.
‘Yeah, c’mon boys. Simon, where are you staying?’
‘Oh, I haven’t booked anything yet, actually.’
‘Come to ours. You can have Alex’s room.’
Joey and Alex glared at her. Was she on drugs? How was she suddenly inviting the ex-husband she hadn’t seen in thirteen years to stay at their place? Surely he wouldn’t take up the offer.
‘Ah, yeah, I guess. If that’s alright with you guys.’
Joey made a sound.
His mother kicked him under the table and said, ‘Of course it is. Yulla, let’s go.’
It was impossible to reconcile that Alex, him and the two hopeless adults who had given birth to them were going to be under the same roof. Joey wasn’t going to leave his bedroom.
Joey woke up panting from a dream in which his mouth was full of sand. The sunlight flooding through the window meant it had to be the later part of the morning. He peered over the side of the bed to see Alex on the blow-up mattress tapping on his phone. ‘What time is it?’
‘Ten thirty.’
It was Saturday, which meant their mother had left for her shift at the beauty salon already. Which meant their father was somewhere around their house, willy-nilly.
‘Where is he? Have you been out yet?’ Joey asked.
‘I think in the kitchen. No, and I’m busting to go to the toilet, but I don’t wanna go out on my own. It’s awks. What are we meant to talk about?’
‘Piss in that water bottle. I’m happy to stay in here until Mum gets back.’
Alex stifled his laugh in the pillow. ‘Joey, we can’t.’
‘Fuck my life. I’m gonna kill Mum.’
‘What if we told Tayta to come over?’
‘Honestly can’t be arsed for her, either.’
‘Well then, we should get out of the house, take him somewhere, make it less awks.’
‘Alex, are you forgetting that my face is all over the fucking news?’
‘I mean, it’s not anymore.’
‘I’m not going out.’
The night before, they hadn’t really had to interact. It was just a take-out dinner in the lounge room. Tayta had come over too and was oddly courteous to the point of flirting with her ex-son-in-law. She had spoken about how Jiddo Youssef had withered away and Joey’s father had gazed at his interwoven hands pensively. Their mother had spoken about the house, which their stranger-father had lived in too, and the repairs it needed. And then there had been a catch-up on how the Australian grandparents were doing (which was well). Then they had gone to sleep, Joey in his bed, his father in Alex’s, and Alex on the floor in Joey’s room. But of course Joey had hardly slept. He was too wound up by the rage that his father’s return had brought on.
His father was staying two nights and said that he would come back for the trial in three months. He was living in Surfers Paradise. He had set himself up as a mobile mechanic and was enjoying beach life.
Joey hadn’t been to Surfers but had heard from the guys in the year above him at school about the terrible time they had at schoolies. Apparently they were followed around by cops and shop assistants and felt like they were only allowed into the clubs because there were no obvious reasons to reject them. They’d expected to pull heaps of girls but very few had shown interest so they spent most of their time in the hotel room getting high and ordering Uber Eats. And then some private school kid from the eastern suburbs who was staying in a room a few doors down fell off the balcony and died and the hotel became a crime scene. They couldn’t escape fast enough.
Even though he could pass as Aussie, Joey had no desire to go to the Gold Coast, even less now that he knew his father lived there.
‘I think he’s coming,’ Alex said as he raised the doona up over his torso. They stared at each other and then at the door. There was a knock and the door opened and there was their father in a T-shirt and shorts, saying, ‘I’m about to cook breakfast. You boys getting up?’ as though he had done so a million times before.
It was less awkward once they had washed their faces and sat at the dining table. They watched while he fried eggs in butter (their mum only ever fried them in olive oil) and cooked bacon. He must have gone out for the bacon, but he had no car, which meant he’d gone to the corner store that no-one ever bought groceries from. He moved around the kitchen with ease, knew what cupboard the pans and plates were in. Here he was, this man that had jizzed Joey into existence, trotting through the house, sleeping in Alex’s bed, shedding his ginger pubes in the bathroom, cooking them breakfast.
He was thicker than in the wedding video, had the kind of physique Joey wished he could have. His clothes were daggy, probably from Lowes. Alex gestured with his eyes towards the man’s feet. His flip-flops looked like they were made for hiking. The only word to describe them was ugly. Most of the talk revolved around Alex and what subjects he was taking at school, what his friends were like, his job at Macca’s. Then there was a lot of talk about Netflix shows (in which they had very similar tastes).
Joey began cleaning up as soon as they finished eating, hoping that his father might have somewhere to be, some old friends to catch up with, and that would be the end of it, but instead his father sat back in the dining chair, spread his legs. ‘And what about you, Joey?’
He threw the cutlery into the sink. ‘What about me?’
‘You were working … before?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What were you doing?’
‘Woolies produce section.’
‘Bit of a fruity boy, then?’
The joke was deplorable. ‘What?’
‘Nothing. So, I was thinking we could go do something, get out of the house. A hike or something in the Royal National Park.’
Alex looked at Joey for a reply.
‘I don’t really feel like going out,’ Joey said.
‘Come on, it’s a nice day for it.’
Joey was suddenly egged on by something to be honest, cutting. ‘Mate, thanks for coming and all but, like, you don’t have to do this. We’re all good. Plus, how do you expect to get to the national park? Hitchhiking?’ It was easy to say, washing the dishes, staring out of the window into the backyard.
His father walked out the back and lit a cigarette.
Alex whispered to Joey, ‘Don’t have to be a dick. He’s trying.’
‘Trying? For what? I’m not about to sit around a campfire and sing “Waltzing Matilda”.’
‘I know, but like, we literally just have to get through this one day with him.’
‘So what do you expect me to do?’
‘I don’t know. Act normal.’
‘Alex, seriously, you need to shut the fuck up.’
‘You shut up. Stop acting like you own everybody.’
Joey looked out the window and saw his father turn towards the house, then back to the garden. Alex took the empty milk bottle out to the bins then walked over to him. They stood side by side chatting and pointing around the neighbourhood. He scrubbed hard at the burnt butter on the pan, cursing the cook.
He spent the rest of the afternoon in his bedroom. His father and Alex were watching a movie in the lounge room. When he heard his mother arrive, he waited for the greeting murmur between the three to die down before he emerged and followed her into the kitchen where she was unloading groceries.
He was on the war path. ‘Are you sick in the head or something? Why the fuck did you tell him to stay here? Do you know how awkward it’s been?’
‘God, you gave me a fright, Joey. And hello to you too.’ She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Why are you in your room? Why don’t you go sit with them?’
‘What is going on here? Am I in a fucking alternate universe? Are we ignoring the fact that you kept this guy a secret this whole time and he’s suddenly back? And that I might be going to jail?’
‘Joey, please, I can’t do this right now.’
