Eyrie (3 page)

Nothing for it but to suck it up and beat a ginger retreat.

Home was only forty metres away, sixty at the most. But something of a challenge given the blurred vision and the intermittent sparks of lightning in his head. Twice he needed to steady himself. First against a jacaranda. Then by high-tackling a molten parking meter. And in these restorative pauses he leaned back like a tranquilized pole-dancer to take in the brutal monolith that rose above trees, chimneys and whining wires.

The Mirador. Not much of the winsome Spanish turret about it, that’s for sure. It was a classic shitbox: beige bricks, raw concrete galleries, ironbar railings, doors and windows like prison slots. Hard to credit that fifty years ago some nabob thought it a grand idea, a harbinger of progress. The place had grown old and grim within months of its completion and the subsequent years had not been gentle. Locals despised it. But it had been a haven for old folks, retired lumpers and clerks, invalid pensioners, transients, drunks and welfare mothers. They were still there, many of them, lately joined by the first gentrifying hopefuls and middle-class casualties like himself. Keely looked up at its meagre balconies. The drying mop, the ruined telly, the Dockers flag, the jaunty sunflower in a pot, the wheelchair flashing in the sun.

He swayed against the meter and felt a little flutter of affection for the old hulk. Like him, the building was a product of the sixties. And like him it was too large a mistake to be undone.

I’m not much, he told himself on the caustic forecourt, but I’m home.

T
he lobby stank of laundry soap, fresh paint, and mopped floors. As he entered, Keely fell in behind a woman and child heading for the lifts. He would have preferred to peel off into the laundromat a moment until they were gone, and then go on up alone when the coast was clear, but he was desperate to lie down; he felt faint and the headache was evil in him. Besides, the lift door rolled open as he approached; he’d only look like a wally backing away now. So he followed them in, careful to arrange himself and his morally unflattering plastic bag in the farthest corner of the carriage. When the woman punched the key for the tenth floor his heart sank.

You? she asked without looking his way.

Oh, he murmured. Same.

Neighbours, then, she said with a hint of scepticism.

He grunted. She sighed as if she’d already discounted his presence.

Keely snatched a look at the boy as he laid his head against the woman’s hip. The kid avoided his gaze. As they were hauled up slowly Keely fixed on the woozy stippled pattern of the car’s stainless-steel lining.

No good? the woman asked the boy.

I’m not right in myself, said the kid.

Did you sick up? The teacher didn’t say.

No, said the boy. But I’m not well.

You’re hot.

Yes, hot in the temperature.

The woman made a gentle laughing sound through her nose and repeated it without mockery:
Hot in the temperature
.

Keely sensed the pale flare of the woman’s face turning his way.

When he was really little, she said, he thought his forrid was his temperature. You know,
let me check your temperature
and everythin. Little smartarse.

Am not.

Are so.

Keely assembled a makeshift grin but spared himself the eye contact. There he was in monstrous outline, distorted by the shiny pressed steel, radiating fluorescent light from a hundred welts and dints. When he moved, his head swam. God, he thought, all the stoners in the building – do they take the stairs?

He dug a thumb into his temple, closed his eyes.

And now, she said. Now, he’s
not right in himself
.

Well, said the boy. I’m not.

You never get crook of a weekend, do ya?

I was once.

That was Easter, you dill. All that chocolate. Eyes bigger’n yer belly.

He felt the woman’s attention, the full force of her gaze. It was all he could do not to cringe. Inside his shirt the sweat began to run; he could feel panic rising in him like nausea and only the bounce of their arrival delivered him. As the door opened he lunged forward, hoisting his clammy supermarket bag after him, and took in a hot draught of air. Out on the walkway he stepped aside so they could pass, and the woman brushed by smelling of cigarettes and body spray. But the boy lingered. And when Keely looked back he saw him planted in the gap, fending the closing door off with hip and shoulder like a little half-back. His gaze was intense but removed and without the boy actually looking his way Keely sensed himself being registered, sized up. And it was awkward. Standing there, suspended. The woman waiting beside him with no pretence at patience. As if she blamed him as much as the kid for this delay.

Keely prepared to walk away but there was something about the boy that intrigued him. Perhaps the dark rings beneath his eyes. Or the pale blue irises. Such a round face. And they did something odd, those shadows, made the kid seem older than he was, older than he could be. His hair fell white and straight to his shoulders. He licked his lower lip, which was chapped, and bunted the door away again as the woman jangled her keys. The boy wore a little polo shirt, shorts, sneakers. Just an ordinary Mirador kid trying it on with his longsuffering mother. So what was it that made Keely’s stomach flip, standing here watching him gaze across the rooftops while the hot wind rose from the shaft at their feet? He had no experience with kids; he didn’t know what this was. But it felt a bit like being cased by a dog too wary to come right up and sniff.

When you’re ready, said the woman.

I’m ready, said the kid, stepping out, letting the door roll to.

Hope you feel better, Keely said to the boy.

You too, said the kid.

The woman snorted and fished for something in her bag. She’d been pretty once. In her denim skirt and sleeveless top she seemed puffy, almost bruised. Her dirty-blonde hair was dry and she had the kippered complexion of the lifelong smoker, but any man would still look twice.

You look familiar, she said.

She seemed to be about his age. One of her front teeth was chipped and discoloured, as though it were dying.

Well, he said. Same floor, I guess. Like you said, neighbours.

Where are you again?

It occurred to him she was only being careful, that she suspected him of having followed them up from the street through the security door.

Ten-oh-seven, he said.

Huh, she murmured, taking the serious little boy’s hand. Don’t think I seen you here before. Know you from somewhere, but.

Keely tried to bring it to a close by setting off along the walkway. Well, he said over his shoulder – a little more abruptly than he intended – I keep to myself.

He heard her grunt; it could have meant anything. When he pulled up at his door he saw her strolling along hand in hand with the boy, no longer in quite such a hurry. She was making sure. Which said something about the way he looked, no doubt, so he made a performance of digging out his key like the hunter home from the hill and all. But he was running out of puff now, listing against the gritty bricks, and as he hauled back the security screen and shoved the key in the lock, he saw the kid surge ahead of the woman, dart towards the iron balustrade and mount the bottom rung with a suddenness that sent a spasm of apprehension through him. He fumbled the key, dropped it, but couldn’t stoop to pick it up with the kid perched there on tiptoe, right outside the door, two metres away. The child’s skinny arms were knitted over the iron rail, head suspended in a roasting updraught, hair ripped back like the tail of a comet. As if he were speeding, hurtling, falling already. Brutal silver rooftops, far below. Traffic noise. Playground cries. A ship’s horn signalling imminent departure. Keely didn’t dare take his eyes off him. Too stunned, at first. Terrified he’d startle him disastrously by moving, by lunging, calling out. And then, for two, three, four whole seconds he was convinced his steady gaze was vital, that he was the only force securing the kid to the building. Sneakered heels tipped up, laces snickering in the wind. Keely heard the woman, clocked the peripheral blur of her ambling. Could not believe she was so lax, so sanguine about the child being this close to the edge, ten storeys high with his feet off the mottled concrete. He just locked onto the slight frame with his last fading energy, growing angrier with every slow-moving moment, furious at both of them for being so careless and such a cruel interruption. Until the little boy’s throat began to work and he looked as if he were about to puke. And in the instant Keely tensed himself to spring, to haul him back to safety, when it seemed the kid would retch and lose his grip, the boy hawked and sent a shining gob of spit out into space. And then the woman was there, cuffing the back of his neck goodnaturedly.

Don’t spit, ya dirty bugger, she said. Some poor mug’ll think it’s rain.

One drop? said the kid.

That was a joke, ya knucklehead.

Was it funny?

Thanks a lot.

Keely subsided against his door. Like a badly wrapped parcel, a side of beef on the turn, wrappers sodden, every exposed patch of him livid and unwholesome. Christ, he reeked. He snatched up the key, fell through the door and left the pair of them bantering away as if he’d never been there.

Git down off that, said the woman. Carn, it’s hot.

Keely shut the door, pitched his pointless shopping onto the bench and lurched towards the bedroom. Fell to the mattress like a burning man into a swimming pool.

Thank God. Or whoever. Just, thank you. And in that first flush of deliverance Keely felt feverish relief. Before the blood rushed to his head and the ceiling blurred horribly, pressing down against his eyes, chest, tongue. Nothing for it but to lie there. Taking it. Giving it time to resolve. Willing the distorted sensation to back off enough for him to get his wits together, breathe easy again.

But there was a knock at the door.

Not now! he called.

The rapping continued. The fridge kicked in so hard he felt it in the neck. And a voice, like something through water. Burbling. Ramping up the pain. Every knock at the door was like a thudding heartbeat out of sync, needling through his teeth. For pity’s sake!

He got to his feet seeing double, slammed his hip against the kitchen bench heading for the door and was too consumed by all the competing sensations to even say anything when he reefed it open and saw them still there, backlit into fuzzy silhouettes on the other side of the insect screen.

Tommy Keely, she said.

He blinked. It was nasty, hearing his name uttered. Here in the building. Out in the open. Through his own screen door.

It took a while, she said. But I knew it was you.

Well, he croaked, congratulations. I guess.

It’s you, though, isn’t it? I’m right, aren’t I?

Maybe. Who cares?

Sorta bloody question’s that?

I dunno. I’m sorry. I’m. I dunno.

Keely sagged against the fridge a moment, his head ready to split like a melon. When he looked back, the boy was gone. The air outside danced with bubbles of light, camera flashes, a violet pulse.

You alright? she asked.

Yeah. Nah. Yeah.

You don’t remember?

Yes, he said. I remember who I am.

Not you, ya fuckwit. Me.

He stared at her through the flyscreen. Saw little more than the flaring nimbus around her head.

I’m sorry?

Blackboy Crescent, she said.

Shit. Really?

I thought you’d remember.

I remember Blackboy Crescent.

But not me.

It occurred to him that this was the point at which he was supposed to throw all caution aside and ask her in, but he’d lived too long in wary isolation. And already regretted admitting who he was. But Blackboy Crescent, that set him back. And where was the kid? What was she doing about the kid scampering somewhere along the open gallery?

Your little boy, he rasped.

Watchin telly. Bloody scam-artist.

He tried to straighten up. He could feel her peering in. Feel her scoping out his entire ruined carcase.

Your sister’s name is Faith.

Okay, he said, pressing against the screen door for a closer look. The woman chuckled. He could not truly see her for turbulent, twitching lights.

Mate, you’re off your chops.

No. Headache.

Right, she said sceptically.

So, he said. So. So, how d’you know Faith?

Same way I know your mum’s Doris and your dad’s Neville.

He’s dead.

Oh. Jesus. Sorry. Fuck. I forgot.

Doesn’t matter.

You look different, she said. Maybe it’s the beard.

I guess so, he muttered, finding the thought distantly amusing, as if it could only be the whiskers that were rubbish and the rest of him was in showroom nick.

She stood there a few moments more in hazy outline. He thought he might fall. For a moment he wanted to be sick. No nausea, just the urge, which was a recent thing and perplexing. Yet he could still feel her disappointment, the sense of something curdling. Blackboy Crescent. The swamp, corrugated-iron canoes, tuart trees, yellow dirt, the engine-oil smell of his father.

Anyway, she murmured.

Right.

I’ll let you go before you fall over.

Okay.

It’s Gemma, by the way, in case you were actually wondering.

Gemma? Gemma Buck? Are you serious?

No, I’m bloody makin it up, what d’you think?

I’m, I —

And then she was gone.

The bed came halfway across the flat to meet him.

W
hen he woke it was almost dark. The sea breeze rattled the blinds above his head and the building clanked and gurgled with showering, dinner-making, dishwashing. Weird the way coughs and cries and TV laughter travelled through the bones of the place. Outside, only gulls and the murmur of traffic, everything subdued, as if the fever of payday had broken.

He got up slowly, in stages. He was weak. His headache had retreated to the intensity of a mere hangover and this was as close to relief as he was likely to get. His vision was more or less back to normal.

As ever, somebody was cooking with old-style curry powder – Keen’s or Clive of India – the smell of church suppers, student digs. The junkies would be content, on the nod. And, having peaked early, the drunks sleeping it off at home, on the street, in custody. Everyone else treating themselves to a nice chop, a bit of spicy chook. All was well.

On the kitchen bench in a puddle, his bag of groceries. He slung it into the fridge and tried not to think of salmonella. Over by the sliding glass door there was no longer a visible stain on the carpet but when he walked across it he found the area still slightly damp underfoot. At least it didn’t stink.

He slid the door open and stepped out onto the balcony to feel the briny wind in his hair, his beard. Out over the sea the western sky was all fading afterglow. Beneath him, the melancholy lights of the wharves, warehouses, streets.

Blackboy Crescent. Gemma Buck.

A festive mob of pink and grey cockatoos settled on the date palms behind the cathedral. Galahs, he thought fondly, they were the backpackers of the skies – rowdy, rooting freeloaders, God love em. For a minute or two he watched them preen and dance for one another, and it was calming. Until the slider next door grated open and he retreated inside as someone stepped out to light a fag and hack up a lungful.

Now he was forced indoors, he thought he should eat. His appetite was all over the place. He felt hollow, so maybe food was the thing. Cooking a meal every night was about the only form of self-discipline he’d been able to maintain of late. Apart from keeping his head down. But tonight he was too spent and shook up to bother. He’d nuke the leftovers of yesterday’s stir-fry and make it up to himself tomorrow.

And while the bowl suffered bedspins inside the microwave, he tried to make sense of the Gemma thing. Couldn’t even come at the kid on the rail, that whole freaking thirty-second scene, no, not now he’d levelled out. The idea of her, though. Being outside his door, here in the building. That was already more than he could deal with without burning a circuit.

Gemma Buck. Not a girl at all, but a woman – and a pretty ordinary middle-aged woman at that. He couldn’t get to grips with it. For in his mind she was still a needy urchin with white-blonde plaits. Someone’s irritating little sister.

Inside the machine the bowl of food began to sweat and the flat filled with the earthy scents of shiitake and sesame oil. A reminder that he’d been functional up until the early evening last night, at least. Which didn’t quite warm the cockles, but he’d take it as a small success regardless. The box bleated. He set his wholesome vegies free and plonked the bowl on the bench to let them cool. Which made him wonder why he bothered heating food at all. And then he actually was hungry, too urgently hungry to wait. So he burnt his tongue. Of course. Et cetera.

The Buck girls. From up the hill. They were in the house so often, those kids, like permanent fixtures. And actually lived with them for part of one year: 1971, maybe, or ’72. He could see it crisply, all of them in the lounge, on their bellies, with the TV flashing in glorious black and white. Little Gemma at one end of the tartan travel rug, and his sister Faith beside her. Then him, next to Baby Buck, the older one. The girls in their flannelette nighties, him in his goofy pyjamas. The old man behind them all, chortling in his recliner-rocker. Flip Wilson, who seemed to look blacker in black and white. Everyone yelling in joyful unison:
Here come de judge!

Little Gemma Buck. She came to mind along with
McHale’s Navy
, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, primary school. She belonged to the golden time before his world collapsed. When Nev was still with them. And, man, did Nev love that Flip Wilson.

Keely gave the food another crack, chewing his way back.

Gemma was a mouth-breather, now he thought of it. Cute enough in a Cindy Brady way, but clingy, too. She was completely unlike her big sister. And kind of annoying for always being around. But they were a protected species, those girls; they had problems, trouble at home for which you had to make allowances. Faith and he learned to let a whole lot of things slide in order to spare themselves a Disappointed Lecture from the oldies.

Keely thought of the hundred nights the Buck girls came knocking: summer evenings out there on the porch sobbing in their nylon nighties, the sound of glass breaking up the hill behind them. There was always screaming; their place was bedlam after dark. Fridays were the worst, when Johnny Buck drank his pay right up to closing time and did not care to be admonished by the missus when he came home shitfaced and broke with a couple of brown baggers under his arm and a torn shirt hanging off his back. The beltings were fearsome and public. No one ever called the cops. The girls would just be at the Keely door, whimpering on the porch until a light went on and Doris took them in. Then the old man would go looking for his boots, gathering his wits a moment, muttering some prayer or imprecation, before trudging up the hill to deal with it best he could.

In those days the Keelys didn’t have trouble, they fixed it. By faith, with thanksgiving. And now and then, when the shit hit the fan, with a judicious bit of biffo.

The oldies were careful to shield his sister and him from the carnage in the street, but some mayhem got past the cordon sanitaire. Keely had flashes of recall that would never fade. They were, he supposed, his first experiences of violence. And it was always strange how foreign they seemed, these memories, for all their lurid immediacy, because although they were inescapably from his old neighbourhood they did not feel as if they belonged to his world, not then, not now. But he could still see it, wild and vivid as a nightmare. He saw Bunny Buck. The girls’ mother. Mrs Buck. On her knees on lumpy buffalo grass. In her front yard. Down on her knees with a sanitary pad pressed to her bleeding face. He didn’t even know what a pad was until years later. She had it planted against her swelling jaw as if any form of softness might be a comfort. As shadows flayed her. Two men facing off in the driveway. Johnny Buck in his work duds. Neville Keely in stubbies and a singlet. Plenty of lights on across the road, next door, silhouettes in every front garden, but no help forthcoming. In the porchlight, Nev circling, voice like a horse whisperer, sleep in his eyes and grease in the cracks of his hands. Johnny Buck staggering, squinting to keep him in view. Nev pressing in, smiling, feinting, nattering about Forgiveness, and Letting Go, and Owning Up, and Giving In to Love, a kind of dancing, panting midnight homily brought to a head by a sudden lunge and a half-nelson that had the nasty little prick on his arse in a moment. And it was hard to forget the sight of a big man like Nev blessing Johnny Buck while burying his face in the grass. The faceless neighbours cheered; he remembered that.

So where had
he
been standing that night? Had he snuck away at last to see for himself, left Faith and his mum and the girls inthe house and skulked his way from yard to yard to witness what it was that bent their nights out of shape? Or were the girls there, too, shrieking, clutching at Doris, imploring the spineless spectators? He didn’t remember. He could only see Johnny Buck struggling and swearing on the grass. His father copping a few in the chops for his trouble. And then Nev abruptly prevailing, kneeling on him, like a man in prayer, pinning the shithead’s arms to the earth until the bloke was weeping. A moment later his wife was at his side to comfort him and call Nev a churchy fuckin bully-bastard who should mind his own bloody business.

It was confounding. And it felt wrong that her humiliated fuck-you should remain as indelible as the violence itself. But even now the memory brought a welter of shame along with the pride.

It was the year Harold Holt drowned. Somehow that fact had stuck in his head. But Keely knew it had been happening since Menzies was prime minister. It went on until Whitlam. It was standard procedure in Blackboy Crescent. When some addled boofhead started playing up the neighbours sent for good ole Nev. He was the holy fool with hands like mallee roots and a heart, while it lasted, as big as a beer keg. Night after night, they sent him out and let him bear it all. And hung back in the shadows, urging him on from a cosy distance.

Keely finished the stir-fry. He was still standing. Not quite as calm as he’d been looking down on the birds. Agitated by the memory. But the weight in his head had lifted a little, the disgruntled passenger was dozing.

He felt odd now. But not so terrible. Better, even. As if Gemma’s sudden appearance had kicked him out of a spin. Something new, unexpected. Okay, maybe old and unexpected. To take his mind off the five thousand things he was frying his own wiring over. It was kind of nice to go on a fresh tangent. To sieve through the memories.

But what could he really remember? About Gemma, specifically? Not that much, actually, now he thought about it. Apart from the sight of her and her sister huddled beneath Doris’s dressing gown, mewling like pups. And those blonde plaits. Not much else at all. Because it was the older girl, Baby, who’d made the impression. She was tough, chubby, kind of clammy, and foul-mouthed. He’d copped a flogging from her once at school in front of a dozen boys; he didn’t remember why – just recalled the laughter and the exploded feeling in his cheek. Baby gave off a strange current. Boys noticed her, said things to her, and so did men. When she lived with them those months, when her father was in prison and her mother still in hospital, Keely noticed her vaguely horticultural scent and the peculiar formality with which his own father addressed her. Nev was not a cautious man, but around Baby Buck he was careful, almost courtly.

The Buck sisters. They were strays who couldn’t be shaken off until the Keelys were gone themselves, swept away by disaster into a new life. For Faith and him those teen years were fogged with grief. The Bucks just fell away with everything and everyone else. After Blackboy Crescent he hardly thought another thing about them.

But had caught sight of them occasionally. Must have been the late seventies when he walked past Baby in Barrack Street one night. Tilted against a wall, one shoe broken. She looked drug-fucked, or just fucked in general. There was an awkward moment of mutual recognition but no greeting. A couple of times he saw Gemma at a distance. At a concert, a pub. Under the arm of one dangerous-looking dude or another. She was all tan and sunstreaked tresses, a leggy provocation, and by then, for the likes of him, a total impossibility. Their gazes met but Keely pretended not to see her. Remembered how his ears glowed for shame.

Last night’s dishes were still there on the sink. The heat of the day had baked stains to a glaze and the purple crust in his wineglass smelt fruity as a bishop. He washed without conviction, buried his bottles deep in the recycling crate and wiped everything down, from restlessness as much as anything.

But he was still a little buzzed. He should bag some laundry. Better still, call Faith. She’d be tickled. Curious at least. Besides, having stumbled into all these memories he felt the need to hear her voice. He looked at the clock. Singapore. Same time zone. He grabbed the landline phone, punched his sister’s number.

Faith answered from within a noisy room, a restaurant by the sound of it. He had to repeat his name twice before she understood who was calling.

Are you alright? she asked. Is it Mum?

She’s fine, we’re fine.

You don’t sound it.

Nah, I’m good.

Have you seen someone?

What?

Did you try those numbers?

Quacks and bankers, mate. You know me.

Sometimes I wonder.

Tell you who I
have
seen —

Tom, I’m in a meeting.

Okay, sorry. Just that I thought you’d find it . . . weird.

Everything’s weird just at the present. The world as we know it is choking on a bone.

Yeah?

You actually have no idea.

Well, I get the broad picture.

I doubt it.

Anyway, I’ve got two words for you.

Please tell me they’re not Lehman Brothers.

Funny.

Not that funny. Which words, Tom?

Buck. And Gemma.

Gemma Buck?

You’re quick, sis.

Blackboy Crescent Gemma Buck?

That’s the one.

What about her?

Lives in my building, mate. Same floor.

This is a joke?

Am I that funny a bloke?

Hell. Wow, that’s . . . weird. So, what does she look like?

Keely couldn’t help but laugh.

What? she asked.

I love that it’s the first thing you ask. If a bloke said it you’d serve him his tripe on a platter.

Aw, boohoo.

Actually she looks a bit ground down.

Wasn’t she a bit of a stunner?

I spose she was.

Listen, I have to go. Can you call me later?

Alright.

Give me another hour, okay?

Not a problem.

I’ll call you.

Don’t worry, he said, I’ll ring back.

Of course you will. Anyway, I can afford it.

I said I’d call. Didn’t I?

Love you, she said with an air of defeat before hanging up.

Yeah, he said to the ether. You too, sis.

For a moment he was buoyed by a fleeting sense of closeness. He thought of the safe mass of her in a sleeping bag beside him in the back of the station wagon. Her asthmatic wheeze, the soapy-vanilla scent of her above the smells of vinyl upholstery and wet grass. The sound of crickets. All those nights parked on front lawns while the oldies ran committees, prayer groups, demo meetings. That wheezy, sweet lump in the car up close. His baby sister, the merchant banker. He kissed the phone like a sap and set it back in its cradle.