Golden Boys (13 page)

Their father is home late but he hasn't been drinking, Syd can tell by the sound of his footsteps and because his mother asks, ‘How are you?' which she wouldn't if he didn't deserve the question. The children are in bed but Syd isn't close to sleeping. Since Christmas appeared on the calendar he has become more restless than usual. Now that he's discovered the pleasure of a private swimming pool he'd like to have one of his own: given the unlikelihood of this happening, he's staked all his hopes on a skateboard. He needs a skateboard. He has told his school friends that he'll be getting a skateboard, so it's more than imperative: the quality of his future hangs on the ownership of a skateboard. And every atom of his being has begun to tingle in fear that his wish will not come true.

He sees the skateboards at the Jenson house, propped against the wall of the playroom, both as good as new. Neither Colt nor Bastian knows how lucky they are to have them; Syd feels, as if it were manacles on his wrists, the ponderous unfairness of it. He detests being poor. From the chocolate biscuits he won't eat for afternoon tea to the lessons in gymnastics in which he'll only ever imagine excelling, Syd is already weary, at ten, of the constant deprivation that is the lack of money. He lies in bed, curled on his side, listening to Declan's sleep-breathing, envisaging for himself a life in which he will own everything, he will give money away, he will never bother looking at price tags, he'll have a thin red car and a big vicious dog and he'll spend his holidays at the snow. His fabulous two-storey house will have an in-ground pool and a colour television with pushbuttons and a matching pair of leather recliner chairs and a dishwasher and a chest freezer and a tropical fish tank and an outdoor spa and a spiral staircase and a separate bedroom for every person who lives there . . . a house not much unlike the Jensons', he supposes. He has wondered, on Colt's and Bastian's behalf, what they could possibly be getting for Christmas, and has decided it will probably be a trampoline. They seem to like toys they can share. Either a trampoline or a Green Machine, to add to their collection of fantastic wheeled playthings.

He doesn't know how he'll earn the money to sustain his anticipated life of luxury. He won't be a printer, like his father – printing's brought him nothing so far. Sometimes – and Syd does not tell Declan this – he thinks about a life of crime. It sounds exciting and, if one can stay out of gaol, seems a flash way to earn a living. A cat-burglar. A bank robber. He pictures himself wielding a gun. He could ask Garrick about that kind of thing, but Garrick would only big-note himself, though he's never done anything more impressive than filch some lollies from the milkbar. Syd Kiley the gangster, thinks Syd Kiley the boy, will laugh in the face of Garrick Greene, then squash him like an ant.

But this lies a long way in the future: for now, skateboards are his concern, and he hasn't got any money so he must pin his hopes on Santa Claus, in whom he has some faith but not belief. He doesn't need an extravagant board, just something with a bit of dash, preferably one with red-and-white chevrons like Colt's board, although in truth almost any kind will do. His friends will expect not only to hear about it, but to see it and ride it: so if he doesn't get it, he might as well die. He'd be better off. He lies listening to the murmur of his parents' voices, and in a lightning-bolt instant he is decided. Living in hope is simply too precarious, he must take matters into his own hands. It's always best to ask their father for something – money, that's all the children really want – when he is sober. When he's been drinking, he is both miserly and impoverished. He will undoubtedly say no, but at least the thought will be put in his head; more importantly, his mother will witness the depth of his desire, the risks he's prepared to take for it. It's a brave move, to get out of bed, interrupt their conversation, request a costly something. It's likely that what he'll get for his trouble is more trouble – a shout to get to his bedroom, a whack to hurry him along. But once the decision is made, he can't resist.

He slips from bed and out the door quickly, and pads down the hall on bare feet, the cuffs of his pyjamas flipping at his ankles. The kitchen light is on but he veers around the patch of fluorescence it casts into the hall. He hesitates in the shadows of the lounge doorway, collecting his meagre courage. From here he can't see his parents but they are there, very near, and very far away. The television is on, not loudly. He hears his mother say something about school fees, and his father replies, ‘Yes, I suppose.' His tone is testy, and Syd's nerve wavers. He could go back to bed and his parents would never know he'd stood here in secret, overhearing them. But his mind is essentially the one-track kind, and this plan is all he has. He's on the verge of stepping from the shadows and into the room when his mother says, ‘Syd and Declan said something funny about Rex Jenson today.'

Syd instantly ducks back into the darkness. ‘Who's Rex Jenson,' says his father.

‘Oh, you know. The man who cooked the barbeque the other day. The people with the pool.'

‘The dentist? He's a try-hard, that bloke.'

‘Well. Him.'

The TV burbles and Syd's father must listen; after a minute he asks, ‘What about him.'

‘The boys were saying . . .' Syd can tell his mother is at the ironing-board, because she pauses the way she does when she's turning a garment to press its intimate spots. ‘They were saying he rubs their shoulders, that sort of thing. Declan told Syd not to go to their house by himself.'

There's quite a long lull in which neither Syd's mother nor father speaks. Laughter erupts from the television, there's a bad-tempered sigh from the iron. The audience applauds, and the TV show cuts to an ad: still his parents say nothing. Then his father says, ‘We had teachers like that when I was at school.
Over-friendly.
'

‘Maybe you should say something to him.'

‘To who? The dentist?'

‘Obviously, Joe.'

Again they are silent, and the advertisements jangle. Syd rests his head against the doorframe, feels the severe bite of the wood. Eventually his father speaks. ‘If it's just a rub on the shoulders, there's not much harm done. Is there.'

‘I don't know. Is there?'

‘It never hurt us. We used to laugh it off.'

‘That's what they're doing, I think, laughing it off.'

‘Well, good.' Joe shifts on the couch and the vinyl cushions creak. ‘You have to feel sorry for blokes like that,' he says. ‘They're pathetic.' Again the adults are silent, and the television noise expands. The program they are watching resumes with a fanfare, and Syd hears his father guffaw. The host of the show talks in a pompous way, his voice like rough-sawn timber. It's mortally boring, this program, although grownups find it hilarious. Then Joe says, ‘I don't know what you expect me to do. We've got to live with these people, they're only up the road. I'm not gonna march up there and make a hoo-ha over nothing.'

‘Declan wouldn't have mentioned it, if it was nothing —'

‘Well, tell him to toughen up. There's nothing worse than a crybaby. Nothing worse than a dobber, either.'

‘He wasn't dobbing,' says Elizabeth. ‘Oh, forget it,' she says.

And his father does go quiet, so Syd thinks he might be forgetting it. But then he chuckles and says, ‘God Almighty. Poor bloody bloke. He's a bit of a dickhead, I agree, but that doesn't mean he should be stoned in the square.'

‘Don't carry on, Joe. I'm only telling you.'

‘We don't even know if it's true, do we? The boys could have it all wrong. They probably do, knowing them. You want me to make a fool of myself, bang on his door and accuse the poor sod of something that never happened?'

Syd doesn't hear what his mother replies; he moves away from the door and down the hall as if drawn by the arms of a ghost. He doesn't want to ask his father for anything anymore. His chest feels filled with oil, a contempt that takes the shape of a hooded snake racing through burning grass. He climbs into bed and draws up the blankets, lies staring into the dark. He thinks one word, a favourite of his, thinks it repeatedly as the baleful snake rips across the flames. Chickenshit, he thinks: you
chickenshit
.

It's a word Freya hears him whisper when, a couple of nights later, they are gathered at the window staring wide-eyed through the darkness to where their father is kicking the flanks of Elizabeth's car. The station wagon absorbs each wallop with a stolid thunk. Marigold is sobbing, her fingers dragging at her cheeks, and Peter in his mother's arms is crying uncertainly, but the rest of them are silent, watching the performance and waiting for what comes next, until Freya hears Syd say, ‘Chickenshit,' and she glances at him, and his face is steeped with rage.

All the lights inside the house are off, as is the veranda light. A blackout might have deterred their father, but all it is doing is throwing a gauzy cloak over his rampage. He moves unsteadily around the car, lashing unpredictably at the plants along the fence, kicking the car in every panel, growling as he goes. He's a jerking, jolting shape in the night, there's nothing liquid about him. The station wagon is as solid as a tank, imperturbable: booting it makes their father stumble, arms thrust out rigidly. Then he lurches forward, swings his leg again, and a door takes the impact with a boom. Marigold, at Freya's elbow, covers her ears and weeps.

And it might be that he knows they're watching, for he goes still, of a sudden, and turns to the house, his feet shuffling to keep him upright; he turns a full circle before dropping to a crouch by the front passenger wheel. Freya asks huskily, ‘What's he doing?' and in the next instant she knows. The corner of the car doesn't drop significantly, but the moonlight shifts on the bonnet. Then Joe crabwalks down the side of the car to the next tyre, and as he lets the air out of this too, the list of the vehicle becomes obvious. Two sunken tyres might be enough, but he seems committed to the work now, and scuttles around to the far side of the car. Freya shades her eyes against the window, scanning what she can see of the street. It's late, not far from midnight, yet surely someone will notice a madman in a front garden and telephone the police. Surely somebody must hear their hearts. Rescue has never come when they've needed it, but Freya can't bring herself to accept that they are alone in this. The world seems to abandon them to their plight at such times, but it shouldn't – it has no right to. It cannot ignore them, and expect them to forgive that, and forget it – to emerge from neglect unscathed. They have, she thinks, such reason to be resentful.

Her siblings have, anyway.

When all four tyres are flat as puddles their father rises up to lean against the bonnet, wiping his palms on his chest. The sight of him spills fresh tears from Marigold, and their mother reaches to her. ‘It's all right,' she says: but what is all right about a woman and a clutch of petrified children standing in an unlit lounge room watching a man deflate the tyres of their car so they won't use the vehicle to escape him – what is all right about that? If she and Declan were older, Freya thinks, they could go out there and knock him down, beat him with something heavy on the back of the head, but she's not capable of doing it yet, and it will be a long time until she is – a long time of standing here, gripping Dorrie's wrist, sinking in this stew of fright and guilt.

He turns to the window, where he must know they are, and shouts, ‘Let me in!'

That is the cause: the screen door is locked, and he doesn't have a key. It's so late, and Elizabeth had thought he wasn't coming home, or maybe that he didn't deserve to, so she'd locked the door before going to bed. And now he is sagging, drained, against the bonnet, having kicked the screen door violently and so noisily before attacking the car, and Freya crosses her fingers hoping he'll drop dead with exhaustion – or not dead, just unconscious, for she doesn't hate her father, she loves him – but what she's terrified will really happen is that he'll hurl a brick through a window, take an axe to the door, rummage in the garage for petrol and set the house alight. They are standing at the window because here are the glass doors through which they can run if they need to, across the garden, over the street, into the parkland and the night. She will clamp her hand round Dorrie's paw and drag her if she has to, running like a gazelle.

‘Let me in!' he screams, and slams a fist against the bonnet making the loudest noise ever heard in this neighbourhood, a sonic blast which crumples Marigold to the floor. In her mind's eye Freya sees the house burn, the car explode, the pine tree in the yard become a whooshing candle of flame. If this is the future then they have to let him in. And there's a confused part of her that might have carried her to the door and unlocked it, some pious piece which solemnly believes that she, Freya, must take what's coming – except that her father abruptly pushes away from the car and shambles not toward the house or garage but to where his own car is parked messily on the driveway, its driver's door hanging open. They watch him climb behind the wheel and there's a drawn-out, soundless minute that is almost suffocating – in his car could be a screwdriver, a crowbar, even, she thinks, a gun – and Dorrie whimpers, ‘What's he doing?' and Declan hisses, ‘Shh!'

Then their father's car roars and the headlamps glare into wakefulness, spearing beams across the lawn. Oh no, Freya thinks: no no no no. He is going to ram the house. She wants to scream at her family to get back from the window, for the glass when it shatters will be like flying scimitars, the car will surge smoking and screeching into the room, the walls and ceiling will crash down to seal them in a splintery, fume-filled tomb. But none of these words come out of her, because it's hopeless to flee. The world has been pulled off-kilter, and something horrendous is now running on the loose. Its quarry is she, Freya Kiley. In its fury it has possessed her father and is shaking him to pieces, but it's Freya whom it really wants. She thinks to tell her family,
You'll be safe, I will go
: but then her father's car rams backwards into the street, comes to a jarring halt as the gears change, and drives, dark as a tumour, away.

For some time they linger near the window, expecting him to return, although the neighbourhood is quiet enough for them to hear his car burling further and further away. Marigold mops her face and gets up from the floor, and Dorrie rubs her squeezed wrist. When, after a while, he hasn't returned, Elizabeth tells her children to go to bed. It's a school night, it is late. Freya lies feeling her body float past the ceiling and into the empty sky. Tonight she's seen the front door bludgeoned from its hinges with an axe, the roof of her house fringed with fire, the trees in the garden swathed in flame, knives of glass twirling around her. She's seen herself running, running for her actual life, hauling her sister over concrete and road. She's seen, after all these years, the wraith-like creature that has been thinking about her forever, crouched golden-eyed in the darkness, waiting for its chance. And all there is to show for it are four flat tyres and a few scuff-marks on a car: who, she wonders dully, would believe it.