After the Smoke Clears, page 6
My hands-free unit answered a call I would have ignored from anyone but her.
‘Hey, stranger,’ Jess said. It sounded as if her twin two-year-old boys were screaming directly into her phone. I secretly liked to feel a little smug when my procreating friends provided evidence of the mayhem that was family life. ‘I’m hiding in the laundry so they can’t find me. I’ve only got minutes but I haven’t spoken to a grown-up in days, please come over with wine.’
Part of the reason I took the outer suburban Brisbane teaching post over another was Jessica Adams. She was an hour away from my flat, up in the hills of the Sunshine Coast, which still felt too far when we’d survived boarding school together. I didn’t even resent her life turning out perfectly and mine still being under construction. ‘I’d love to, J-Girl, but I’m chasing a ghost in the middle of Fuck Knows Where.’ August’s gutter talk had begun to infiltrate my vernacular.
‘You went after Wrench Boy? What did I tell you about making the blokes chase you?’
‘Isn’t that sexist?’ I asked. With all the focus on droughts and the GFC, no one talked about sexism anymore.
Jess paused. ‘I’m not surprised though, after what you told me …’ Her voice lowered conspiratorially. ‘You know, the bit about how he finished you off with one finger in under a minute …’
I was aghast, heat flushing my neck, relieved Otto could not hear such filth over the speakerphone. ‘I never said that!’ Didn’t mean it wasn’t true. A shiver ran through me at the thought.
‘Drunk in the beer garden outside your dad’s awards do – remember?’ Her voice went all serious. ‘You also said you loved him.’
‘Now that’s a total lie.’ I hadn’t even told him that, or myself for that matter. Wasn’t that half the point of this trip – figuring it out?
‘Honey, I just spent an hour scrubbing skid marks off kids’ shorts – I live vicariously through you. I remember everything. You also cried ugly tears on the phone the other night because he hadn’t called you back in days. It’s not even school holidays and you’re tripping around the country? It doesn’t sound like you’re thinking with your head right now.’
‘I have no idea what I am doing,’ I half-cried into the phone, staring at the white line disappearing beneath my wheels. I gave my oldest friend a synopsis of my predicament, how August had basically told me he loved me, and to figure out if it was reciprocated. She always had my back, was kind to her core, but also the only one who’d tell me straight when I was being precious or paranoid.
‘Charlotte. I know you’re indecisive but this is not a question you can work out with paper-scissors-rock.’ A highly effective decision-making process in boarding school. ‘There’s a little person involved.’
There was that.
‘So, you have no idea why he left?’ Jess asked.
‘I told you – his old friend from school.’
‘Well, that’s BS if ever I heard it. Did you check his phone?’
‘I may have glanced at it. It definitely was a text from “Brookesy”’
‘Which could be a Brooke with boobs, or someone he listed in his phone under that name.’
‘Or it could just be a male friend that needed a mate?’ I threw in, headlights from a truck harsh in my eyes. A string of missed calls from ‘Margo’ also stood out on Augie’s recent-calls list. I’d seen the name flash up another time when August was reading with Otto and his eyebrows pulled together as he said, ‘Not important.’ But something told me not to tell Jess this, nor the fact that I’d been suspicious enough to save the number in my phone contacts for potential future reference. I knew what she’d say. I didn’t want to hear it. ‘I know I sound like one of those naïve chicks who write to prisoners but August just isn’t like that.’ He was closed off emotionally, our sex life was complicated, but we were working through all that. ‘He’s never given me reason not to trust him.’
‘He’s run away, left his kid, turned his phone off, hasn’t called you …’
‘I did tell him to screw himself.’
‘Abandoning his son without so much as a call?’
‘He’s deaf.’
‘A text?’
Ignoring me was one thing, but Otto? It had made me feel like hired help, not his partner. If I’d trusted August, why had I ditched work and chased after him?
‘Look, I know how you like your research, on account of how uncomfortable you get with uncertainty, so let’s try that. What school did he go to?’ Jess asked. ‘I’ll see if I can check online.’
‘He never told me.’ He never told me anything. That word, unknowable, wafted into my mind again, but I wanted to know him. I’d find a way in.
‘He said he lived in the moment, not in the past.’ I inwardly cringed as the words left my mouth.
Jess paused. ‘Wait – hear that? It’s an alarm bell.’
I huffed, craned my neck in the driver’s seat. I was comforted by the fact Otto couldn’t hear this. He couldn’t even read lips from the angle of his seat. ‘I’ve only known the guy a few months, and he had a couple of mysterious absences but only a few days. But, Jess, the thing with Augie and I – it doesn’t feel new. It feels safe and familiar, like we had an instant connection.’ I knew it sounded bad. But it was the truth.
‘Said every scam victim ever. And he knows your dad’s loaded? Not to mention your other biggest fan …’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous, Jess. I’ve never mentioned Grayson, or my dad much. Besides, you’ve never even met August.’
‘I’ve seen Homicide, hon, this is how they trap you. Next comes the white van and the ransom note. Use your head. Haven’t you seen the stats on gender-based violence – you’re safer on a tram at midnight than at home with your partner.’
‘That can’t be true.’ Well, not for me. Not for us.
Back through the wormhole into Jess’s world, a muffled scream choked the airwaves. ‘God, my time’s up, hon.’ I felt relieved. I’d had enough reality check. ‘Think about turning back. Whatever he’s got himself embroiled in, he doesn’t want you or the child involved or he’d call. Come home, hey, girl? And, maybe change your locks? Call me tomorrow so I know you’re not in that ditch, okay? Ciao, Bella.’
August and I had never discussed money, but I got the vague impression he came from humble beginnings. Wealth wasn’t important to either of us, or was that just the impression of him he wanted me to have? Maybe that grave was intended for him, and his arch enemy or debt collector had him dig it before he escaped his fate?
I shook my head to rattle away the conspiracy theories I was back to, thanks to well-meaning, straight-talking Jess. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know he built me a shower with rainbow boots for squelch protection. Or that he arranged the pastry chef from the food van that parked at his garage to deliver an almond croissant at school every morning with ‘Miss Hill’ scribbled on the box because he understood I never had time for breakfast or to queue at the tuckshop like an overgrown student. I trusted Augie. He was helping a friend. A very male friend called Brookes. That was the Augie I knew. Steadfast. Dependable. Shower-building.
Private.
My thoughts roamed before my driver’s seat almost ejected me, followed by another bash, then a rhythmic general vibration from the back seat. I’d forgotten about the kid. I wasn’t used to having them for homework.
‘What’s for tea?’
Without a school bell to remind me, I also forgot he demanded watering and feeding every few hours. I was hoping he was like Pavlov’s dogs and only got hungry when the bell rang.
‘Maccas?’ Otto begged from the back seat for the eighth time, despite there not being one for miles.
‘Roadhouse nuggets?’ I bargained, seeing a sign for a petrol station with wooden picnic tables advertised for the next exit.
We pulled over not long after and entered the diner that sold everything from battered fish (despite no coastline within half a day’s drive) to fence posts. Every wall, every inch of counter space was cluttered with stock. I could barely see the cash register, but I could smell the grease wafting through the small window that allowed a view through to the deep fryers in the kitchen. I ordered Otto’s requests. ‘Do you have anything green?’
The man at the register raised an eyebrow. ‘Karen sometimes puts garnish on the side of the burgers – that do?’
I gave a thumbs up to hide the fact I died a little inside at the thought of more grease. The man spoke while chewing gum, which I found just as impressive as his ‘Kevin-07’ visor but chose not to mention who my father was. I didn’t have a spare hour to talk about the GFC or how we could better support agriculture or how much politicians got paid.
Otto was sitting at a ghastly brown booth, still kicking his heels against the seat so loudly it distracted from the country twang blaring through the tinny speakers in the store.
‘You out from the city council?’ the man asked.
‘Council? No, just seeing a friend. What makes you say that?’
‘The dust. Your mags – they’re still silver.’ He sniffed. ‘Everyone else who looks like you’s here about the red tape with the Brightside development. Reckon the old school’s heritage listed or somethin’ – all bulldust. The only thing that went on in that place of any cultural significance was how many birds got their cherries popped with all the parties the kids had there in the last twenty years. The developers have gone apeshit over the fuck around. Scuse my French.’ He could even smile while chewing gum.
I nodded and he spat his chewy in the bin and went out back to start our meals and the teacher in me had to restrain a need to remind him to wash his hands.
I spent the next minute or two hoping he’d washed his hands.
Otto had started playing a game of Twister for one on the black-and-white chequered tiles of the diner that was empty but for us.
After Jess’s negativity, I needed an antidote to reality, and rang my mum, hoping she was having a good day, hoping she’d provide a virtual warm hug. Her answer was spritely, and I was relieved.
‘Hey, Mum. You okay?’ There was a fifty-fifty chance of lucid.
‘Why wouldn’t I be, love? How are you? Your father there yet?’
‘Why would he be here? I’m not at home.’ She probably thought it was 1999. ‘I’ve gone away for a few days.’
‘Oh, your father didn’t ring? He’s up your way for the campaign – was looking forward to dinner with you.’
It was likely I was his (unknowing) alibi for dinner with an entirely different woman. Mum probably exceeded his expectations by remembering his decoy at all. Or maybe she was remembering wrong.
It was only six-thirty, but I knew she’d already be wearing that faded pink chenille dressing gown, blending moisturiser on her elegant fingers as she relaxed in the wing chair. Mum updated me on Dad’s campaign trail, on the rosebush’s recovery from the gardener’s overzealous pruning, on their red border collies, Sherlock and Watson’s, latest wayward act. It was reassuring, speaking with Mum like she was still herself and I savoured it like a rainbow. You never knew when the mirage would melt away.
‘I’m out in central Queensland to see where August grew up.’ It was misleading but sounded reassuring, and that’s all I wanted to impart. Everything’s alright… I wanted every second to feel like Mary Magdalene anointing Jesus like in the musical she dragged me to when I was ten that I secretly loved.
‘The outback? On your own?’ Mum had wandered into a Sunday matinee of Wolf Creek a couple of years back that fundamentally altered her perception of the world and she’d become as obsessed as Otto about all things sadistic.
‘I’ll be with Augie soon, Mum.’ And as the man of mystery said, he was built like a brick shithouse. No harm would come to me with him around, unless, the thought inserted itself, it was him doing the harm.
Dad had insisted on meeting the new man in my life a few months ago when he’d travelled up from Canberra for work and met us for dinner, but the cornerstone memory of that night was August not having the right shoes, telling the host how fucked the rule was because his steelcapped boots were both leather and enclosed, and Dad’s chauffer (by a stroke of luck was size 11, too) lending Augie some. But Mum wasn’t there that night. For the past few years, Mum was rarely there. But they had spoken on the phone by accident.
‘Augie with the gravelly voice?’ she asked in her version of gravelly, and warmth spread across my cheeks and down my neck, grateful at being present for part of her precious good day.
‘That’s the one.’
‘You know they do talking books now – not just for the blind – you get them on tapes. He’d do a lovely grumpy old detective in one of those cosy mysteries.’
I baulked a little. She was right. His voice had that low sexy timbre that could do voiceover commentaries. David Attenborough with f-bombs.
‘Did you see your father made the news this morning? Front page! Just below the news about Michael Jackson dying – so sad.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘What’s Dad done now? Visited a chook farm? Eaten a sausage at a by-election?’
Otto started shaking the gum machine, checking for loose change, making funny loud noises that he couldn’t realise he was making.
‘You’re still at school at this hour?’
‘No, Ma, that’s just Otto – August’s little boy.’
‘Oh, yes. The photo on the Facebook. Have those chubby cheeks changed your mind on kids yet?’
‘No, Ma. Kids are so’ – I glanced at Otto, determined to get that gum – ‘relentless. Think I’m happy to hand them back at bell time.’ As the words left my mouth, I realised they felt like a lie. Mum was always my litmus test for the truth.
Her voice was barely more than a whisper, her way of trying to not sound pushy. ‘The scans didn’t rule it out, love, so you shouldn’t either …’
I was twenty-nine. Was I meant to know that yet? Maybe I just hadn’t wanted kids with Grayson. I shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Ma.’
‘Well, baby girl, if you don’t know what you want, how can you ask the world to give it to you?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Yes, Ma.’
‘But you like this mechanic and his boy, yeah?’
Otto found a twenty-cent piece in the last gum machine and screamed in delight, bringing it over to show me and bask in his success. I smiled, stroked his chubby cheek. ‘Yes, Ma.’
‘Good.’
Was it good? It might be easier if I didn’t.
‘Oh, that’s the housekeeper leaving, better go, love you.’ Mum faded off.
I didn’t want her to. Every turn in my life created questions needing her input, her knowledge of the essence of me that no one else knew, that would keep demanding answers with or without her.
‘Love you, Mum.’ My lips puckered to make a smacking sound and she was gone. I held my phone, warm in my hand and wondered when she’d be back. I missed her already.
Otto frolicked like a deer in the playground near the diner as we waited for our food. He’d been staring at something on the grass, obscured from view the whole time I was on the phone. I waited, watching, amazed at his stillness. He stood motionless for a minute before a crow swooped to his feet, pecking at the ground with gusto. Otto’s high-pitched hysterics pierced the low hum of the highway noise. I quickstepped over to him. An evil-eyed crow matched his antics, squawking, wing-flapping, biting and tearing at something with its beak. Otto stomped on the grass near the crow, chasing it, arms flailing, face determined and fearful. I flinched at the scene: the carcass of a dead possum nested in long grass, ants crawling through its orifices, its rotten flesh pecked and raw.
‘Leave it alone!’ Otto cried.
I shooshed the vulture away, then pressed Otto’s shoulders firmly with my palms to calm him. I considered shuffling him along, but I didn’t need to shelter this kid from death – he’d experienced it firsthand. Death was part of life.
‘It was hurting the possum!’ he blubbered, eyes shiny with tears.
‘I know. Poor possum. It seems awful, doesn’t it? But one good thing about death is you can’t feel anything. No pain. No grief.’ I hoped I wasn’t overselling it.
His barely-there eyebrows threaded together. ‘How do you know, have you been dead?’
‘Nope, but does the TV work when we unplug it? Without our heart pumping blood around, the pain signals don’t get through to our brain to tell us to feel hurt.’
His mind ticked over. ‘The iPad works when I unplug it – maybe the possum can still feel the crow pecking his eyes!’ His eyes fixated on the roadkill, wide-eyed, panicked that he might be right. Had I converted him to vegetarianism? ‘Do ants eat people flesh, too?’
‘My sweet O-man, come here.’ I gave him a big hug. ‘People can rest in peace because they’re protected in coffins.’
‘In a grave, like we saw?’
‘We don’t know that was a grave …’
‘Mummy’s coffin was the same shape. A rectangle!’ His eyes looked to mine for endorsement and I hope I gave it even half as much as I felt it.
‘You’ve always been good with shapes, dude.’ And death. Whenever I mentioned an explorer, he’d ask if they were dead and if I knew how they died. I diverted him back to the possum and we talked about what it was best to do about it. I promised I’d find a number we could call for someone to collect it, let Mr Possum sleep in peace like he deserved.
‘Do you remember your mother, Otto?’
‘Ma’s in heaven.’
So that confirmed what I’d assumed when August said Otto’s mother was ‘gone’. Dead gone. Proper, forever gone. My throat tightened and I signed how sorry I was, to which Otto said in a soft voice, so soft I could barely hear him, ‘I know. The whole world cried when her coffin got carried out.’
