Clancy of the Undertow (16 page)

‘Are you nearly finished?' I say, channeling a Loving Sister Who Just Doesn't Want You To Ruin Your Mind With Too Much Computer Time.

‘No.' His eyes don't move from the screen. His fingers tap on the keyboard seemingly independent of reason. Virtual Titch creeps down a shadowy hallway. ‘I'm on here,' he says, blasting away the head of a teeth-baring monster.

‘All day?'

‘Gotta finish this stage.'

‘How long's that going to take?'

Titch shrugs. ‘Have to get enough achievements.' He smashes the space bar and a giant spider explodes in a wash of green blood. ‘And awards.'

‘And then you get your Advanced Diploma?'

‘What?'

‘Nothing.' I stare at Titch's disgusting unwashed hair, flecked with what I really hope is dandruff. ‘When did you last have a shower?'

Titch just grunts. After only a week of parental neglect my brother is devolving into a unicellular organism.

Mum comes in, face reset again, like nothing's ever been wrong in history. ‘So you'll call Reeve, then?' she says.

‘Yes.'

‘Yes when?'

‘Soon.'

‘Today?'

‘Yes, today.'

‘You've got his number?' Mum gives me what she probably thinks is a knowing mother–daughter look, but comes out like
I've just got lemon juice in my eye
.

‘Yes. I'll do it now.'

Titch makes a kissing noise without ever moving his face further than a few centimetres from the computer screen.

Mum's still got the weird half-grin on her face as I walk over and take the phone. Thank God for cordless technology, I think, and then it hits me that I'm a fricking idiot. I could have given Nancy our home number. I could have taken the phone into my room. I really am the absolute worst at making friends. I haven't even got
her
number. And then my mind races ahead and I think of Sasha calling me. I wouldn't want anyone knowing she was on the phone, and I get a little thrill at the thought of it. I bound up the stairs.

The weather's made my room dark and gloomy, the rain tapping against the window. My favourite weather. I find my work pants in the highly organised clump of clothes beside my wardrobe and grab Reeve's business card from the pocket. Angus's old driving manual lies open on my bed where I've left it, dog-eared to hell but mostly memorised. I throw it aside and lie back on my bed, kicking off my boots. I dial Reeve's number and wait, hoping he won't answer.

He picks up, of course, on the third ring.

‘Clancy! What is happening?'

‘Hello?' I say, because my brain hates me. And then, ‘How do you know this is me?'

‘What?'

‘How did you know this was me calling?'

‘I know what your voice sounds like.'

‘But…you answered…'

Reeve explodes with laughter. ‘Caller ID, Sherlock.'

‘Oh,' I say. ‘Right.' I hate using the phone. Like, really hate it.

‘What's cracking?' Reeve says.

‘Are you at work?'

‘Yep.'

‘How come you're answering your phone, then?'

‘Because I'm at work. It's not exactly a hotbed of crime today.'

‘What if someone ram-raids Classic Cuts while you're talking to me?'

‘It would be Barwen's worst ever case of Skankicide.'

I laugh, but then smack my head, like
Car-crash jokes, Clancy. Just perfect
.

‘Anyway,' says Reeve, ‘nice to hear from you. How's, you know, everything?'

‘Everything's okay.'

‘You all holding up? Your family, I mean? My folks send their best.'

No they bloody don't. ‘We're getting there,' I say. ‘What's new in town? What have I missed?'

‘Not much. Dan Cryer locked himself inside the Boystown Raffle car. Said he wasn't getting out until they gave him a thousand tickets. It was pretty funny.'

Dan Cryer is one of the football-playing mouth-breathers that went to school with Angus. ‘Surprised he figured out how to open the door in the first place.'

‘Or that he knows how many a thousand is.'

‘How's Eloise? Business any better?'

Reeve's voice disappears for a second and I hear the unmistakable squeak of food-court chairs. ‘Sorry,' he says. Then, ‘Thanks,' to someone else.

‘I sense donuts.'

The crinkle of a paper bag. ‘How dare you,' Reeve says through a mouthful of what I know is plain cinnamon, extra hot.

‘How's Eloise, though?'

‘Oh, she's great. Well, not
great
, but she's good. Think she's looking forward to you getting back.'

This news fills me with a weird pride. I want to ask Reeve if people still hate me, my family, my name, but I'm too afraid of the answer.

‘So listen,' I say. ‘The reason I'm calling,'
is that my mother forced me to
, ‘is that we're having, like, a lunch here on Sunday. Apparently. I don't know what it is.'

‘Okay,' he says. ‘It's usually the meal between breakfast and dinner.'

‘Sorry. I'm fucking this up. Do you want to come over for lunch on Sunday? I've got a friend—some friends—um, coming over.' This just sounds weird but I press on regardless. ‘Anyway, my family will also allegedly be attending, but I will try and convince them not to.'

Reeve laughs. ‘What time?'

‘Um, lunchtime?'

‘Can I bring anything?'

‘Just yourself!' I smack myself on the head again. ‘Did I just say that?' How do people do this all the time? The invites, the details, the phone calls. It's the actual worst. ‘But yes, I don't think you need to bring anything.'

‘What's the dress code? Will you provide soup forks, or should I bring my own?'

‘You know where you can stick your soup fork.'

‘Okay. Looking forward to it!'

We say our goodbyes, and I hang up. This
friends
thing is bloody exhausting.

31

When Dad rolls up the garage door he's got his old school jumper on. It still fits him, somehow.

‘They don't make quality like this anymore,' he says. The same line he uses every time he fetches it from the back of the cupboard.

‘It's not
that
cold,' I say.

‘Maybe I just felt like wearing it.'

‘You felt like smelling of mothballs and itching?'

‘You came out here just to critique my fashion sense? What time is it?'

‘Couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd visit a weird guy in a shed.'

Dad smiles. He points his thumb behind him. ‘Come on, then.'

Inside, everything looks different. All the paperwork is gone from the workbench, and there's a bunch of cardboard boxes stacked against one wall. ‘Spring cleaning?' I say.

‘Something like that.'

I hear the familiar grumble of the radio. ‘We still in the match?'

Dad tips his hand from side to side, like
not really
. ‘They've only got to get a hundred and forty-odd. They're none for twenty already.'

‘Bugger.' I settle into the bucket seat. I don't even fall out of it straight away now.

‘You know what the Aussies need?' Dad says.

I groan.

‘They need a raw-boned fast bowler to shake up the top order.'

‘You don't say.'

‘I've told you about the semi-final, haven't I?'

He has me cornered now. ‘Only a few hundred times.'

Back when he played cricket, Dad sometimes filled in for the A-grade team whenever one of their fast bowlers wasn't available. He'd only done it a few times when he got a call one night from the captain. Half the team were down with food poisoning, on the eve of a semi-final against Toowoomba. Just about the biggest match the Barwen team—perennial easybeats that they were—had ever played. He drove up that night and played the next day. Came on first change, and went for twenty runs off two overs. Only given a third because they had no one else to relieve the opening bowlers. Took two wickets in the over, and then another six. He kept bowling until the last batsman was out.

‘Eight for seventy-three,' Dad says. ‘Fourteen overs, one maiden. Shook them up deluxe.' He moves his hand out in front of him, pushing an invisible cricket ball away down the centre seam. ‘Nearly won the game. If it wasn't for our batting lineup, we would've.'

It's a script I can repeat word for word.

‘The glory days, they were.'

‘Maybe they'll call you up for the next test.'

‘Not much use with my back.'

‘Once you're better, though. You could reinvent yourself as a crafty spinner.' I rock back and mime a Shane Warne delivery. ‘Maybe you could play locally again.'

Dad sits down. ‘Think it might be a while before that happens. Not exactly flavour of the month.'

‘It'll blow over.'

Dad leans back in his chair, runs his hands through his hair. ‘Not from the look of that stuff they sprayed on the house.'

I must give Dad a shocked look, because he adds, ‘I know about it, Clance. Bit hard not to, really.'

‘Oh. Okay.'

‘Thanks for helping your mum clean it up.'

‘That's all right.' I don't know what made me think Dad wouldn't have known. ‘Did you tell the police about it?'

‘No.'

‘Why not?'

‘It's not worth it, really. In the long run.'

‘But they sprayed those…horrible things on the house.'

‘Paint comes off.'

‘What about my bike, though?'

‘Your bike?'

I tell Dad about Angus driving me home. The bogans outside the Cri.
Lightning Lady
, mangled up in the yard.

‘I didn't realise, Clance,' he says. ‘I honestly didn't know. We'll get you a new one.'

There's a look Dad's had on his face ever since the accident that I haven't been able to place until now. My fearless, stubborn, pig-headed father. He's scared.

This thought frightens me. Dad has always taken things in his stride. Even when his back got so bad he could hardly sit up. Even when the council screwed him with his compo, even when all he was left with was a shitty job with traffic control, he's always been so matter-of-fact about it. Things
will
turn out fine. Everything
will
be okay. Eventually, everyone believed him. Except now, I don't.

He brings his seat back and looks straight at me. ‘People aren't always on your side, Clance.'

‘Yeah, I know.' Preacher, I think, meet the converted.

‘But you can't let them get to you. You'll always know what's right and wrong.
You
will.' Dad pokes me in the shoulder. ‘Some people spend their whole lives working that out. God knows I have. You, you've already got it figured out.'

‘Have I?'

‘Damn right. And it means you've got a head start on everyone else.'

‘But I've learned it, you know, from Mum and you. Right and wrong.'

‘From your mum, mainly. I've had quite a history of forgetting which is which.'

‘Is that why those cops gave you a hard time?'

Dad waves his hand. ‘They're just doing their job.'

‘But they still think you're…whatever.'

‘That's their problem, really.' The voices on the radio rise for a moment, and we both listen in. A wicket. ‘Yes! Here comes the collapse,' Dad says, rising out of his chair before grabbing his back and sinking back into his seat. ‘So, anyway,' he says. ‘How are things with you?'

‘I'm okay.'

‘With everything, though. Mum says you got into a bit of trouble at work? And at Landsdowne?'

‘Just learning right from wrong.' Why's Mum told him about all my crap? I kind of assumed they weren't talking about anything.

‘If you need to talk,' he says, ‘I'm here. It hasn't been a…very normal couple of weeks. But if anything's worrying you…'

I nod. ‘That's what Mum keeps telling me.'

‘Well,' he says, ‘there's talking to Mum, and then there's talking to me.' He laughs. ‘Don't tell her I said that. She'd never let me out here again.'

‘What is it about men and sheds, anyway?'

‘It's something the female species will never really appreciate,' Dad says. ‘It's an eternal bond.'

I roll my eyes. ‘Aren't men supposed to create useful things in their sheds? Shouldn't you be building a boat or writing a novel about bullfighting?'

He sighs. ‘It's just a little place, I suppose, where I can escape.'

I feel a little sheepish when he says this. I think about the nightly relief when I finally close my bedroom door behind me. I think about the pleasure I take in being allowed to be alone. Maybe we aren't so different.

I glance up at the pinboard on the back wall and it takes me a moment to realise one of the pictures has changed. In the top left corner, there's a small photo of Mum and Dad on their wedding day. I've never seen it before. It's not the formal church-steps portrait that used to be up there, it's a candid shot, two bodies blurred with movement, halfway through turning away from the camera. And they're smiling. Really smiling. The embarrassed and happy grins of two young people trying to escape from a day's attention. The train of Mum's dress is shot through with sun and her hair is mixed up with a crown of purple flowers; Dad's goofy tall-guy stoop looks actually elegant, liberated from a forced pose. His hand rests in the small of Mum's back, one finger curled around the satin trail of a bow. You can tell they're in love.

And, now it's decades of life later. Do they still love each other? Are you allowed not to? Are you allowed to ask? I wonder what Mum thinks of him now. What he thinks of her. I wonder if that's why he comes out here at night, so as not to have the conversation.

‘If you…need to talk as well,' I say. ‘If you need to tell me anything. I'm, um, here as well.' Sincerity. Always a bad fit.