Happy as Larry (18 page)

He made sure nobody saw him from the kitchen window as he buried it beneath the bags of kitchen rubbish in the wheelie bin. When Thursday came around, the garbage truck would take it away, and hopefully the heavy mess in his heart would go with it.

He blamed himself. If he were a better father, a better hunter-gatherer, a better provider, then his son would not go wanting. He wouldn't have to lie and steal to acquire the things that made him happy. But even then, Mal knew these were feeble thoughts. They were psychobabble beside the deep, cold understanding that Larry had stared him in the face and lied like a crim.

A GENTLE
MAN

T
HE FOLLOWING
M
ONDAY
saw Larry dressed and ready for school an hour before it officially started. It was his last year of primary school. Denise watched him jog out the gate and listened to his feet slapping on the concrete long after he'd disappeared. She sighed as she closed the door, content to have the house to herself again.

Vince arrived mid-morning. He had a signature
rum-papa-
pum-pum
knock and Denise heard it from the kitchen. She had a smile on her face before she'd opened the door. ‘Good morning!'

‘Top of the morning to you, neighbour.'

He handed her a plastic shopping bag. ‘Apricots,' he said. ‘Muriel doesn't eat them and I've bottled and jammed as many as our pantry can hold.'

‘Thanks.'

Vince shifted his feet.

‘Got time for a cup of tea?' Denise asked.

‘If it's not too much of a bother.'

She pushed the door wide with her foot, and as Vince stepped through she reached up and kissed his cheek.

Vince blushed. He coughed into his hand.

‘Thanks,' Denise said. ‘Thanks for the apricots. My boys will love those.'

‘It was nothing. Couldn't see them go to waste.'

The conversation continued in the kitchen – a little awkward and inconsequential – as Denise fussed tea into cups.

It had felt good to kiss him, she realised. It was just a peck, after all. Besides Anita, he was her best friend. She hadn't meant to embarrass him, and there was nothing hidden in the gesture.

Vince didn't really relax until they'd taken their tea to the shaded table in the back yard. Betsy barked at the fence and he growled at her. Gilligan wandered over, tail fanning. Vince stroked the dog's head and Denise could feel the tenderness of his touch from across the table. Her gentleman neighbour was exactly that – a gentle man.

‘What's Muriel up to today?'

‘Gone into the city to meet up with her sister.'

Denise nodded. ‘You seem more relaxed when she's not around.'

Vince straightened, pursed his lips then sighed.

There was an uneasy silence. Vince stared at his cup. ‘You're more relaxed when your boys are elsewhere, too,' he said, and rubbed his cheek.

It was true, of course, but it still knocked Denise off balance for a moment, and she held her breath.

‘Sorry,' Vince eventually said. ‘I love my wife dearly but she can be hell to live with at times.'

Denise exhaled.

‘Seems like the older she gets, the harder she gets. It's been years since I've heard her laugh.'

Those words rattled in Denise's head. It felt like years since she'd had reason to laugh too, and the thought of ageing like Muriel Hammersmith chilled her.

‘What happened?' Denise asked. ‘Surely she wasn't always like that.'

Vince waved his hand dismissively, then caught himself. ‘We have a daughter. Muriel and I have a daughter.'

Denise swallowed.

Vince looked to the dog again. ‘Hannah. She and her mother fought all their lives, as if God had dumped them together as a joke, and when Hannah was sixteen, Muriel lost her temper and hit her so hard that she fell and broke her arm. I watched it all happen. I couldn't do a thing. They'd squabbled a thousand times before and I'd given up trying to keep the peace.'

A long period of silence followed. Denise didn't know what to say. The idea that her neighbours had lost a child gave Muriel's anger at the world some rationale. She made sense.

‘That must have been horrible,' Denise eventually said.

Vince nodded once. ‘That was my midlife crisis. I didn't need a fast car or a younger woman.'

Denise smiled in spite of herself.

‘Still,' Vince said, and looked across the table at her, straight into her eyes. ‘We all have to deal with loss.'

Denise looked away. For someone who was supposed to be going blind, he certainly had the power to look right through her.

‘That wasn't my first miscarriage,' Denise said bluntly.

Vince felt for the edge of the table and put his cup down. He crossed his hands on his lap, bowed his head.

‘It was the first since Larry was born,' she said. ‘Eighth altogether.'

Then she felt she was bragging, as if she was dining out on her grief.

‘Sorry,' she said quickly.

Vince snorted. ‘Don't apologise. We're sharing war stories. Let them all out.'

And they did. They talked until the early afternoon. They didn't think to eat lunch and didn't have another cup of tea – both unwilling to move and break the rhythm of conversation. It had taken years of knowing each other to get to that place.

Not long before Larry arrived home from school, Vince stood and stretched his legs. They said goodbye on the doorstep. She hugged him and he hugged back.

The warmth of Vince's embrace was still on her skin hours later. Maybe it was less about the hug and more about the words they'd shared. If anything, the connection she'd found with her neighbour made her more critical of her husband and son. Here is a man, she thought, twice my age, who knows about pain and understands me in a way no other man can.

THE
COMING
WAR

M
AL LAY BESIDE
his wife in bed and felt the ocean of indifference rise between them. It had been winter in their bedroom since the baby died, and his sex-drive had gone into hibernation. Now he apologised if he touched her and averted his eyes when she got changed. His work colleagues talked incessantly about the gorgeous women they'd seen and the fire in their pants. It was lost on Mal. He smiled – albeit sadly – and made the right noises; the stories didn't make him hungry the way they used to. It wasn't the images of the scantily clad women on the television that stuck in his head; it was the tunes from the ads. He didn't miss the sex, but he did miss the pillow talk and holding hands. For months he'd tried to get conversations off the ground, about anything and everything. The dialogue never evolved beyond the monosyllabic. Now he'd given up. He forgot Denise's smile and he never slept in. He drove the delivery van, and he fished, and he tinkered in the shed. There was always a project on the go, and Larry liked to watch and ask questions or potter on his own. They repaired the motorbike and Larry rode pillion as Mal test-drove it around town. Larry always wanted a sip of his father's home-brew and Mal always said yes. Larry rubbed his tummy and licked his lips but Mal could see his face contorting at the bitterness. He was too young to enjoy it. Too young to get through an entire glass. Or six.

In October terrorist bombs tore up a Bali nightclub, but Denise didn't cry. Two hundred and two people died. Mal kept one eye on the news and the other on his wife, waiting for her to fall, waiting for the tears, but they never came. At one time in his life, to see her
not
crying at the news would have felt like progress. The fact that the Bali bombings didn't make her blink chilled his blood.

On the last Tuesday of the Christmas holidays, the day President George W. Bush announced to the world that he was ready to attack Iraq whether the United Nations thought it was a good idea or not, Larry had Jemma to himself again. Guillermo was shopping with Susan. April and Jack had stayed home to watch cartoons. While Jemma seemed disappointed that it was just the two of them, Larry didn't share the feeling. They took Gilligan on a lead and rode the track beside the river to the weir wall.

Water flowed over the spillway in a summertime trickle. They took off their shoes and socks, waded to the rocky beach and threw pebbles for Gilligan. When their arms grew heavy and the dog was truly soaked, they sat.

Jemma tapped two stones together. ‘I'm going to miss you this year, Larry.'

‘Same here,' Larry said. ‘But we'll still have church.'

‘Why aren't you coming to Villea Catholic College?'

‘My parents can't afford it.'

‘My nanna is paying for us, otherwise we wouldn't be able to afford it either.'

Larry smiled then, but found himself wishing for a grandmother. Grandfather. Somebody who could help his parents with the everyday battles. Somebody who could look at his mother and say, ‘Snap out of it, Denise. You're wasting your life away,' or give his father one thousand dollars to spend any way he wished. One thousand dollars. Imagine that.

His thoughts left the path then. He imagined he was eighteen years old and earning enough money to give his mother and father a thousand dollars a week. Each.

But by then it would be too late.

Gilligan had crossed the creek. He was barking wildly but in a muffled way, as if he had his head in a bucket.

‘Can you keep a secret?' Larry asked, getting to his feet.

‘Of course,' Jemma said, smiling. ‘What sort of a question is that?'

‘A very serious one,' he said, and looked at her squarely. ‘Can you keep a secret?'

Jemma wiped her smile. ‘Yes.'

‘Even from your mum and dad?'

‘Yes.'

‘Even from Guillermo?'

‘Of course. He's not my boyfriend. We just kissed.'

Larry held his breath at the news.

‘What?' she asked.

‘Promise?'

‘I promise. You're freaking me out.'

‘What do you promise?'

‘I promise that I won't tell anybody . . . about anything. You know. I won't wreck your secret.'

He took her hand, led her across the river and gently through the ferns to the mouth of the echidna cave.

Gilligan appeared, panting, from the shadows, and Jemma squealed. She clutched at her heart.

Larry led her through the opening and deeper into the tunnel.

‘Larry . . .'

‘It's okay. It's safe.'

The darkness folded around them and Jemma propped.

‘Just a little further. There's a place to sit.'

‘But I can't see. I can't see anything. Larry? I want to go out now.'

‘Trust me. Come on.'

She made a small noise that was thick with restrained panic, then drew closer to him. Larry felt his way along the rough wall and found a flat rock for Jemma to sit on. He coaxed and cajoled her – just as his father had done for him years before – and noticed that the cave sounded different. His voice sounded deeper, more adult. He hummed a low note and it filled the tunnel. Jemma's grip softened, but she wouldn't let go of his hand.

‘It's scary to start with,' Larry said soothingly. ‘But you get used to it.'

‘I can't see anything. Not . . . a . . . thing.'

‘Close your eyes.'

Jemma was silent for an entire second. ‘What's down there?'

She tugged Larry's hand towards the end of the tunnel.

‘Nothing. It finishes a short way along.'

‘Is it a cave? Are there bats?'

‘I haven't seen any bats. It's an old mine shaft. Gilligan found it a few years ago. There was an echidna in here.'

‘Is this the secret?' She sounded disappointed.

‘Well, yes. It's a family secret. I thought . . .'

‘Oh, no. It's . . . it's wonderful. Thank you,' she said, and squeezed his hand. ‘Can we go now?'

‘Yes. Of course.'

As they dodged the potholes along the track, Gilligan kept running then stopping right in front of Larry. Jemma laughed.

Larry swore under his breath. Showing her the echidna cave had been a silly idea. He didn't know what he'd hoped to achieve – a bond, a symbol of a special alliance, a shared secret – but whatever it was, it hadn't worked.

‘Has Guillermo told you about where he used to live?'

Jemma asked as they rode.

‘Bolivia?'

‘No, El Alto. It's
in
Bolivia.'

‘Not really.'

‘He said it was a slum. The government cracked down on people growing coca illegally . . . it's what they make cocaine from . . . and all the people came to live in El Alto. Drug dealers, criminals, prostitutes.'

No, Larry thought. Guillermo had never mentioned El Alto to him.

Gilligan cut in front of Larry's moving front tyre and his lead got caught in the wheel. The bike whirred to a halt and Larry battled to keep it upright, then tossed it to the ground.

‘Are you all right?' Jemma asked.

‘Fine,' Larry snarled, and kicked the wheel. He squatted and tried to untangle the lead. He pulled it this way and that but couldn't get it free.

‘Sorry, Larry,' Jemma said.

‘What for? You didn't do anything.'

‘Stand up.'

‘What for?' he asked, but stood anyway.

She hugged him. ‘I love you. We'll be okay.'

Larry melted into her and tears stung at his eyes. Sadness he didn't know he had crept out of his belly and grabbed at his throat. He felt his lost little brother or sister. He felt his mother's broken heart. He felt Vince's encroaching darkness. He felt the coming war and he felt his own death. He sobbed into Jemma's neck and she hugged him tighter.

‘We'll be okay.'

BLOOD
SOAKS
THROUGH

T
HE SPACE SHUTTLE
Columbia disintegrated on re-entry the Sunday before Larry started high school, and seven astronauts died. Guillermo relayed the news and he seemed truly shocked.