The Fancies, page 14
‘Who are you calling a rookie?’ Abigail said, taking the money and folding it into her back pocket. ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’
‘Maybe I can’t afford you the whole day.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t work the whole day. I’ve got stuff I need to do.’
‘How did we end up here?’ Nate said. ‘You’re setting the terms and I’m not even convinced you’re good at this.’
‘Mate, seriously? I’m not going to dignify that with a response.’ She climbed out of the four-wheel drive, turning to face him through the open door. ‘Did you not see me on that quad?’
Nate’s features were picked out by the light overhead, his face partially in shadow. She could see the line of day-old stubble along his jaw. The smear of dirt was still there. ‘I’ll pick you up at eleven,’ he said. ‘Whatever you need to do, do it before then.’
Abigail licked her thumb. ‘You’ve got a little something,’ she said, motioning to her own jaw. He frowned, looked in the rear-vision mirror. Tried to rub the dirt away but it didn’t come off.
‘So do you.’ His finger drew a line in the air from her face, to her neck, down her chest.
She blew him a kiss. ‘See you tomorrow.’
The house was lit up, voices chattering, TV blaring and her grandfather yelling about a ladder. The inside of her jolted and withdrew, curled like a poked sea urchin. A longing for her tiny apartment, for the dull anonymous drone of the city, joined the rest of her physical aches.
She came into the kitchen to find her father at the counter, her grandfather at the table and her mother standing between them, hands on hips. Nell’s mouth was open, as if to speak, but when Abigail entered she closed it.
Abigail considered staying quiet. She could grab something to eat, say good night and disappear. She yearned for sleep. But the tension in the room hummed like a plucked wire. It was clear she had walked into the centre of something, and ignoring it or pretending she didn’t notice would only make it more awkward and obvious. Her mind flashed back to the weightless feeling of the quad with its wheels off the ground. What would a good person do?
‘Everything okay?’ she asked, warily.
‘Never you mind,’ her mother said. ‘It doesn’t concern you.’
‘Great.’ Taking a fifty from her back pocket, she handed it to her mother.
‘Fifty won’t go too far. Not with the amount you’re eating.’
‘I’m getting more tomorrow,’ Abigail said. ‘Oh, and Teflon tape.’
‘What?’
‘Never you mind. It doesn’t concern you.’
‘Thanks, Abs,’ her father said, coming forward. ‘But you should keep it, so you can, you know—’ he gestured at her, as if indicating her entire body ‘—get back on your feet.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ her mother said, pocketing the cash. ‘I’d like my jeans back, too.’
‘Be careful whose money you take,’ her grandfather said from the table. ‘They might want to collect it later. With interest. Sometimes it’s blood. Other times it’s your balls.’
‘And on that encouraging note,’ Abigail said, ‘I’ll retire to my room for the rest of the evening. Good night.’
‘Not so fast,’ Nell said. ‘There’s something you should know.’
Abigail bit back another retort about things that did not concern her. ‘As soon as I’ve been to the shops tomorrow, you can have your jeans back.’
‘It’s not about the jeans.’
She took in the three of them ranged across the kitchen, each staring at her with a certain expression. Her mother’s barely veiled fury, her father’s pity mixed with hope, her grandfather’s concern and calculation. She felt weary to her bones.
‘Can it wait till morning?’
Her parents exchanged a glance. ‘Let’s get it out of the way now,’ her mother said.
Abigail sat at the table.
Her grandfather asked, ‘What the hell happened to your eye?’ and she replied, ‘Wrong end of a cow,’ and the old man nodded knowingly.
Her father’s phone rang. Pulling it from his pocket, he glanced at the screen and shoved it away. ‘There’s been some developments,’ he began without preamble.
This is what Abigail learned: the cops had a strong suspicion who the thighbone from yesterday might belong to. No one else in town knew that particular piece of information yet. In the meantime, the discovery of said thighbone had caused nerves throughout town to fray. Some of the more lawfully questionable, her father said, (‘Dodgy buggers,’ her grandfather said), were reconsidering the shady behaviour of their past and wondering just how shaded it might continue to be. Or if it was going to become exposed to the daylight, washed up like a femur on the beach.
‘So what you’re telling me,’ Abigail said tiredly, ‘is that Kingo is currently having a collective arse clench.’
Her mother rolled her eyes.
Her father said, ‘Yes,’ and went on: Old Man Loft’s cray boat had gone missing. No one knew where it was. To compound matters, Lofty himself seemed to have disappeared, too. Presently Fish Fisher was laying siege to town with accusations that bikies were behind it and that the disappearance of both Lofty and his boat was evasive action, her father said, (‘Pants shitting,’ her grandfather said).
‘And this concerns me how?’ Abigail asked, fighting the droop of her eyelids.
‘I’m getting to that.’
People were fabricating their own stories about the origin of the bone. There were also plenty of stories being made up about Lofty, Fish and the boat.
‘Town is getting … uncomfortable,’ her father said.
‘Like genital warts,’ her grandfather said.
‘Look,’ Abigail broke in, ‘I get you’re trying to keep me in the loop. But I’ve no idea what any of this means, and honestly? I don’t care.’
Her parents exchanged another meaningful look. Her father went to speak but Nell cut him off. ‘There’s talk about what happened before you left,’ Nell said. ‘Renewed talk. About all of it.’
A cold prickle stole over Abigail’s body. Suddenly she was wide awake.
‘The timing is unfortunate,’ her mother added. ‘The bone washing up on the same day as you—’
‘They think I had something to do with this thighbone?’ Abigail felt her voice could cut glass.
Silence fell in the kitchen.
‘Well?’ she prompted, looking between them.
Her father opened his mouth, but it took so long for his words to come out she began to wonder if he was going to speak at all. ‘People seem to be … re-evaluating,’ he said finally.
‘Re-evaluating what?’
Her parents sighed like one united organism of sufferance. She wanted to punch something.
‘Alliances,’ her father said. ‘Who’s on whose side and who’s keeping whose confidence. Navel-gazing about the past. Rehashing old grievances. All of it really. You name it, they’re talking about it.’
Abigail muttered ‘Fuck’s sake’ under her breath. It was beginning to seem like a cosmic joke, all of it.
The first time Abigail went skydiving, she convinced Mark to go with her. As the single-engine aircraft made its rattling climb into the sky, they strapped themselves to strangers then plummeted down over Semaphore Beach. The initial freefall had felt so physically inconceivable she didn’t have words to describe it. A few years later she talked Jen into it and once again she was dropping from the sky, weightless, obliterated, the roar in her ears and the breath ripped from her lungs.
As another wave of disorienting homesickness crashed over her now, Abigail was reminded of that sensation of freefall: a bodily scream that there is no earth beneath your feet. And she thought that feeling homesick when you were at home, when there was nowhere else to go, was possibly the most unnerving thing she had ever felt.
‘Listen,’ her mother said, and Abigail heard an attempt at conciliation in her tone, ‘we’re just saying you should keep your wits about you. If people talk to you—which they will—just keep it together.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘You threatened to tear Adrian Turner’s balls off.’
Abigail gave an incredulous laugh. ‘How do you even know that?’
‘I’m just saying. Keep a hold on your temper.’
‘Your concern is noted.’
Nell threw up her hands. Young Dick’s phone rang. Again he ignored it.
‘You’re going about this the wrong way,’ her grandfather said. ‘You want the girl to behave herself? Stop terrorising young blokes? Keep her mouth shut? Just say so. Stop farnarkling about.’
‘I think that’s the gist, Grandpa,’ Abigail said. ‘Although I’m not sure why it’s my responsibility to keep the fuckwits in this town calm when I’ve been away twenty-odd years and back all of five minutes. Seems to me any “re-evaluating of alliances” is none of my business.’
Her grandfather turned to her parents and said, ‘She makes a fair point.’
Her father’s phone chimed, and Nell said, ‘Just turn it off.’
‘It’s Twitch.’ Her father read the message then swivelled in his chair, looking towards the doorway. He stabbed the screen in reply. ‘He’s here,’ he said. ‘He’s coming in.’
Abigail heard the sound of the back door opening and closing. Heavy footsteps, then a bald head appeared in the kitchen doorway, followed by a very large man. Black T-shirt straining at the seams, black jeans, tattoo snaking up one side of his neck.
Abigail couldn’t help it: her face stretched into a grin. Somehow she was out of her chair and across the kitchen and Twitch wrapped her in an embrace, lifting her off the ground.
‘You smell like crabs,’ she said, when he set her down.
‘You smell like cow shit.’
‘You got old.’
‘You got fat.’
She laughed and punched him in one enormous arm. Her fist bounced harmlessly.
‘Your mum’s telling everyone you look amazing,’ Twitch said. ‘She’s not lying, eh?’
Abigail turned to her mother in surprise. Nell’s face remained impassive.
‘Although.’ Twitch frowned, gently taking hold of her chin, his eyes roving over the bruised side of her face. ‘Tell me they look worse, yeah?’
She withdrew from his grip, saying nothing.
‘Am I interrupting something?’ Twitch asked, glancing around the table. ‘Good.’ He clapped a hand on her father’s shoulder. ‘All right, Dicky?’
‘Who’s this meathead?’ said her grandfather.
‘This is Twitch, Dad,’ said her father. ‘Fisherman. You’ve met plenty of times.’
‘Good to see you again, sir,’ Twitch said to Old Dick, smiling.
‘Sod off.’
Abigail put her arm around her grandfather’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘God,’ she said. ‘You’re excellent.’ Straightening up with difficulty, she announced, ‘This has been fun, but I’m knackered. And I’ve promised that lovely vet my services again tomorrow, so—’
‘You’re working with Nate Ruskin again?’ her mother asked.
‘Yep.’
Nell looked at Young Dick. ‘She’s going to snap that man in half,’ she said, wistfully. ‘And we only just got him.’
Abigail opened her mouth to respond and was interrupted by a rapid knocking on the back door. Her mother, father and Twitch exchanged a loaded glance, before her father closed his eyes and said, ‘That’ll be Col.’
Nell turned to Abigail. ‘Now, his balls,’ she said, ‘you can tear off.’
THEM
When Col Morton drove up to Young Dick’s house and saw Twitch’s ute parked there, he felt a sudden urge to piss.
Col took his time putting the ute in park and shutting off the engine. He reflected, not for the first time that day, on how screwing Jessica Bram in the pub kitchen may not have been one of his wisest ideas. One of his more exhilarating ideas, true, but possibly not the wisest.
Let it not be said that Col Morton was an unwise man. For this was something that he, Col, prided himself upon: his ability to think about the consequences of things. By his mid-thirties, Col had been captain of his own boat; he had avoided the bond of a missus and kids that make a fisherman’s life both easier and harder; he’d never had crabs (the pubic variety).
But to see Twitch’s ute parked there, black paint gleaming under the Fancys’ back porch light—that squeezed Col’s bladder all right. Squeezed the wisdom that seemed to have fled last night at the sight of Jessica Bram in her running tights right back into him.
Col ascended the steps to the back porch. Raised his fist to knock, then hesitated.
Perhaps he’d been a bit stupid, but spineless Col was not. It takes a certain fortitude to get where Col Morton had got in this town and he reminded himself that a moment of weakness shouldn’t take that away. So right there, where his fist was raised to knock at Young Dick’s back door because Col and Young Dick had that kind of relationship, Col checked himself, and instead of knocking like a person timid with contrition, he rapped the door like he always had: assured of his own importance.
They left him standing there longer than Col liked before Young Dick called, ‘Come in.’
When Col went in his limp returned.
Around the table in the kitchen were Young Dick, Nell, Twitch, Old Dick and—there she was—Abigail. Thinking of the sausages, Col felt the blood leave his face then flush it with heat. He was a few years younger than her so he’d never experienced it himself, but he knew Abigail was an easy sort. Giving and generous with her affection, the boys used to say. He’d once seen Brian Wimple kissing her behind the bus shelter and been unable to look away. Now Col felt himself struck by the same desire. All he wanted to do was look at Abigail, so instead he looked at everyone else.
‘G’day, Fancys,’ he said, clearing his throat. ‘Twitch.’
Twitch made no acknowledgement of Col’s greeting. The big bald man just held Col’s gaze, unblinking, in a way that was neither cold nor angry. Actually, Col found that he could not make sense of Twitch’s expression at all.
No one told Col to have a seat, so Col continued standing in the doorway. It looked to everyone as if Col were trying to affect a casual pose, momentarily resting one elbow against the door frame, then crossing one foot over his ankle, but in the end he gave up. He stood up straight, putting his hands behind his back.
‘Is there a problem?’ Young Dick asked.
Col didn’t reply but his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
‘Well?’
Again Col swallowed. Again he cleared his throat. Finally he said, ‘Just having a little fun, is all, Dick. No harm meant.’ His eyes darted to Abigail and the expression on her face made him feel dizzy. Was that … arousal he could see in her eyes? Did she know about him and Jessica, and was she picturing it, the way he had been picturing her, in the pub kitchen last night? Oh god, thought Col, Abigail Fancy is thinking about sex. In the same room as me.
Nell started to laugh. ‘No harm meant? The woman is married, Col. She has three kids.’
‘Apparently Jess and her husband have an under—’
‘I don’t want to hear it,’ said Young Dick.
Col went quiet.
‘Wait,’ Abigail said, and the sound of her voice turned Col’s insides to warm liquid. ‘What’s this “fun” you had, and who’s this married Jess?’
Oh, thought Col. Abigail didn’t know. Now his bowels sunk into his shoes.
Young Dick stood up. He went to the counter and flicked on the kettle. Taking down two cups, he dropped in tea bags, leaned against the bench and waited for the kettle to boil. Col thought Young Dick completed these actions with the calculated deliberateness of an executioner.
What Col did not understand was this: Young Dick was not thinking about Col and Jessica Bram in the pub kitchen. When Nell had told him about it, Young Dick had found the piece of news about as interesting as weather: it played a part in the landscape of one’s day, but it wasn’t especially remarkable. Because between the surprise of his daughter’s return, his father’s increasing verbal outpourings, a washed-up femur and a missing boat and its skipper, Young Dick’s interest in Col Morton’s sexual activity bordered on non-existent.
But, like most people, Col was prone to solipsism. He thought his own internal worldview was fact; he believed that his reality was the only reality. Col assumed that everyone else was thinking about the same things as he, and that what he believed to be true irrefutably was.
So Col entered the Fancys’ kitchen and thought he felt tension, and decided that tension was a result of what he now judged to be his betrayal of Young Dick—from his knocking boots behind enemy lines. In a perverse way, this misconception only heightened Col’s sense of self-importance. But the fact was, Young Dick was tired, and merely wanted to know what Col Morton was doing unannounced in his kitchen on a Thursday evening. Nell didn’t care about Col, either: she was worried about Abigail. Twitch, while enjoying the look of discomfort on Col Morton’s face, was wondering what to buy his youngest granddaughter for her upcoming birthday. Old Dick was wondering when he would get his cup of tea.
And Abigail?
‘Tell me what’s happened,’ said Abigail.
Col chewed his lip and considered the ceiling. He continued to avoid Abigail’s eye. ‘I’d rather not talk about it with ladies present.’
Abigail leaned back and screeched with laughter. ‘Tosser.’
‘I don’t get it,’ said Old Dick.
‘Sounds like this guy’s dipped his wick in someone he regrets,’ said Abigail, pointing at Col, ‘and thinks he shouldn’t explain himself around Mum and me because we’re not cock-carrying members of society.’
‘That makes sense,’ Old Dick said. ‘Sorry, Luce.’
Abigail took her grandfather’s hand and squeezed it. Nell leaned over and patted his arm. Young Dick set tea in front of Old Dick and Abigail.
‘So who’d you bone, Col?’ Abigail asked.
Col kept his eyes somewhere around the light fixture.
Then Abigail said, ‘Hold on. Mum said “married”. And you said “Jess”. Col—did you fuck Jessica Bram?’
