Jill Jackson - 04 - Watch the World Burn (16 page)

Frank Vella didn’t bother waiting for the walk signal before crossing Elizabeth Street. The intersection with Goulburn Street was as deserted at ten pm as it was packed during business hours. He could clearly hear what his wife, Mary, would have said about that.
All the real businessmen are at home by this hour. If you looked for a better job, or you stood up to your boss, you could be at home with your family at night. Carmel Pezzina’s husband just got another raise; they’re going to Canada on a cruise. I told you he bought her a Mercedes, didn’t I?
Whenever he wasn’t super-busy or asleep, Frank had a soundtrack of her bitching and moaning. She didn’t even need to be there – if it wasn’t coming directly from her, he’d heard her nagging and putdowns so many times over the past nineteen years that her voice was indelibly etched in his own thoughts. Everyone had an inner critic, but Frank’s had a name: Mary Vella.

Carrying a cumbersome cardboard box, Frank limped across the intersection, wincing. His shoes pinched and squashed his pinkie toes; he would swear the skin on his left one had been chafed off completely. He could feel raw flesh rubbing against his sock with every step. He’d rather lose the toe, though, than tell Mary. She’d drag him out shopping for new shoes.

Come to think of it, he’d sacrifice the foot completely rather than enter a shopping centre with her. First, the kids would have to come. Bony through nerves and obsessive housework, and standing only as tall as their thirteen-year-old daughter, Mary nevertheless had a voice that would carry clear across the food court of Ashfield Mall. And she would use it, bawling out constant instructions to their four kids, one or all of whom would invariably be crying at some point between getting into the car to get there and arriving home again.

Sitting in the car with Mary was the most difficult part. Frank had never hit a woman in his life, but when trapped with his wife in their Pajero, and trying to find a parking spot, sometimes the carpark disappeared and all he could see was his arm swinging hard across the seat, his elbow connecting with her jaw. Frank didn’t know what he hated more about that image – that he could even think that way about his wife, or that he knew that if he actually followed it through, their kids would probably cheer.

The thing was, though, it wasn’t always that bad. Maybe the main reason Mary’s criticism of his job hurt was because he actually
wanted
to be at home at night with his family. At least a couple of times a week Mary would forget what she was mad at him for, and after one of her great meals she’d stop tidying long enough to let him pull her onto his lap, and they’d watch TV with the kids. These moments with them were the reason he did all this.

His brother-in-law Joe, on the other hand, thought Frank was the luckiest bastard alive. Married to Mary’s sister, Joe knew a thing or two about the nagging himself, and he would say having to entertain clients in restaurants two or three nights a week was a ‘get out of gaol free’ card. But Frank had got over the rich restaurant food and having to ingratiate himself with the city’s doctors long ago. As a pharmaceutical representative, he had to get his company’s drugs on their prescription pads or his arse was grass. And that meant lavish dinners with personal attention. Frank needed to know that Dr Chu ordinarily didn’t eat pork, but that he’d protest if he didn’t get crispy prosciutto on his risotto when everyone else had it. He had to make sure Dr Holland was seated nowhere near Dr Wendell – after too many pap smears through the day and Chardonnays over dinner, these women were not above a scrag-fight at the table. And he had to keep the red wine flowing for Dr Mendel, and the Scotch for Dr Aziz.

Approaching the carpark, Frank shifted the box in his hands. Most of all, he was sick of the endless objects of marketing junk he had to lug around to these events. Pens, squashy stress balls and post-it notes were so passé. Nowadays, he’d bring everything from laptop bags and brass letter-openers to manicure sets, dress watches and electronic organisers. With everything covered in the company logo, of course. So much useless junk. And the way the doctors would just load it up, shoving fistfuls of the plastic-wrapped crap into their handbags and briefcases. Frank couldn’t blame them – Lord knew these doctors had a shit job, every day writing scripts for – or copping abuse from – the Valium-shoppers; being coughed on and bled over; fingering arses, fondling lumps and shoving speculums up vaginas. And it wasn’t like the pay or respect was there like it had been in the old days. Hell, Frank would take his crappy job over theirs any day.

He hobbled over to the entry ramp, the most direct route into the carpark. He heard footsteps behind him but didn’t pause or turn. Some other poor bastard just trying to pick up his car on a Thursday night, he figured.

Frank definitely paused when he felt the first blow. He would’ve said something, offered his wallet, but his left lung was sucking air through a hole in his back and was in the process of collapsing. He couldn’t get any words out. With the next blow, Frank Vella fell to his knees, doing his best on the way down not to tip the box; this one held company coffee mugs, and he knew they wouldn’t survive the fall. The box probably saved Frank a broken nose, because with the third blow – to his neck – he pitched forwards, chest-first, onto the box. Still unable to get a word out, Frank thought that maybe, if he could just get a look at the guy, he could show him with his eyes he was sorry, and maybe he would just stop the hitting.

Frank Vella managed to turn his head just enough to make eye contact with his attacker. Had Frank’s lungs not been full of blood at that point, he would certainly have screamed.

Erin stared out at her audience and decided it was a good thing she’d chosen to hold the lunchtime meeting about the CCTV proposal in the smaller of the two meeting rooms. At any rate, Hamish would have free lunches for as long as he wanted them. There’d be enough sandwiches left over for a few weeks, at least. She figured she’d let him take them all home – he’d spent the morning complaining about having only twenty dollars a week to live on after paying his rent.

‘Well, that’s just not sustainable, Hamish,’ she’d told him. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Live on credit, like everyone else,’ he’d answered.

‘You’ll have to move, Hamish,’ she’d said. ‘You’ll end up in big trouble.’

‘Are you serious?’ Hamish had said. ‘Do you know how hard it is to get a place in Surry Hills?’

‘You could move further west,’ she’d tried. ‘The rent is a little more reasonable.’

Hamish had shuddered. ‘Don’t even joke about it, Mrs Hart.’

Now, he sat to her left at the table they’d set out at the front of the hall. She was glad she’d discouraged the other committee members from attending. She and Hamish had put out sixty chairs for members of the community. Five of them were filled. She hoped that more people showed up tonight for the evening meeting.

Erin gave her presentation as though the hall were crammed with people, with more waiting to get in the doors. An elderly woman in the front row stood and left when she was halfway through. A man in a coat she could smell from her seat slept through the whole presentation.

She wrapped up her speech and asked the three conscious people whether they had any questions.

‘I have more of a comment than a question.’ A dark-haired middle-aged woman with a European accent stood.

Erin forced herself to not sigh aloud. She’d allowed herself that pleasure when she’d first entered the hall and spotted this woman. ‘Yes, Florence?’ she said. Florence showed up at most town meetings, and she never left before monopolising question time with a rambling diatribe, always beginning with the same sentence: I have more of a comment than a question...

Florence wanted it noted that CCTV cameras were not always effective. She had heard that, in the majority of cases, either police couldn’t use the images or the courts found their data inadmissible.

Despite the fact that Erin had just wound up a speech highlighting the fact that the new cameras were designed to reduce these problems dramatically, Erin patiently went over these points again, by which time another person had walked out. That left her and Hamish; Mr Stinky, still asleep; Florence, who still looked good to go; and an Asian man, who’d sat through the meeting listening intently. He was stiff in his seat and he periodically mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief. Erin smiled at him. He certainly looked as though he had something to say. Instead, he just stared, hard.

‘Okay,’ Erin said, standing. ‘Thank you very much for coming. We value your involvement, and we’ll continue to keep everybody notified at every stage throughout the project.’

The Asian man stood.

‘Ah, it looks like we have a final comment,’ said Erin.

‘Why do you really put the camera?’ he said.

‘Ah, I think–’ began Erin.

‘You use these to spy,’ he said. ‘This is just like China. The government is spying. You have no permission for my shop. You stay away from my shop.’

‘I’m happy to speak with anybody who has a serious objection,’ said Erin. ‘Maybe we could have a chat now? Why don’t you come and have a seat?’ She gestured to the chair next to her at the table.

The man swung his head from left to right, his eyes wild. He suddenly shoved at his chair, sending it flying, and bolted for the exit.

By the food table, Florence watched the show, then went back to picking over the sandwiches. Stinky-coat slept on.

‘That went well, don’t you think, Hamish?’ asked Erin.

‘Can I take some of those sandwiches home?’ he said.

‘Oh my God. Would you look at this,’ said Troy. ‘You’re not actually home on time, are you, bro?’ He stopped lacing his shoes and looked up.

Chris Berrigan gave half a smile and dropped his schoolbag. ‘You have to go back to work tonight,’ he said.

‘And when has that ever got your arse home from school on time before?’

‘I wanted to catch you before you leave.’

‘Oh. That,’ said Troy.

‘It’s Friday. End of the week. You said you’d let me know about the DJ equipment.’

Troy exhaled and stood, hands on hips, facing his brother. ‘Here’s the thing–’

‘Oh
bull
shit,’ said Chris.

Troy laughed. ‘I haven’t said a thing, you idiot.’

‘You’re going to say no,’ said Chris. ‘You’re going to say you haven’t got the money to hook me up right now.’

‘No, no, no, not exactly that,’ said Troy, quickly rethinking his next words. ‘I was going to say that money is tight, you know, but it’s not about that. It’s just that I don’t know a lot about this DJ business.’

‘You said you were going to check that out.’

‘Yeah, look, Chris, I know I did. It’s just that shit’s been hectic this past week.’

‘You haven’t even been working! You’ve been here, fucking around.’

‘Bro, what I want to say is this,’ said Troy. ‘I know you don’t want to stay on to Year Twelve. I understand that. That’s cool. But I don’t want you out there at sixteen trying to get jobs in clubs.’

‘I told you I’d work parties first.’

‘See, that doesn’t make me any happier, Chris. You’re still a kid. And you’re, what, gonna be out there at parties every night until three, four in the morning?’

‘It’s good money, Troy. It’s what I want to do.’ Chris spoke quietly, his eyes on the floor. Troy looked at his brother’s buzz-cut haircut – Chris didn’t have his hood up for once.

‘I get that, Chris. I really do. I haven’t seen you this into anything for a couple of years. If you want to do this, then I want you to do this. But I want you to do a course first.’ He kept speaking when Chris threw his head back, made a dissing sound with his mouth. ‘Like a sound engineer course, or some kind of music-industry course. If you can do that next year, I promise you that when you finish it I will buy you the equipment you need to set yourself up. And you won’t even have to pay me back.’

Chris pulled his hood forward over his near-shaved scalp. ‘I told you,
bro,’
he said. ‘I’m done with school. And you might think that you’re my fucken father, but you’re fucken not. I’m my own man now, and you don’t tell me what to do anymore. You can’t flog me anymore when I don’t do what you want.’ Chris took a step closer and eyeballed Troy hard. ‘But you can always fucken try.’

Troy didn’t move.

‘Didn’t think so.’ Chris sneered. He turned, picked up his backpack and left the unit.

‘How come you like cooking so much but you hardly eat anything?’ Callie asked her brother, snatching a wedge of garlic-buttered roast potato from the oven tray. She tossed it from hand to hand and finally dropped it onto the travertine benchtop.

‘Ow! Hot!’ she said, at the same time that Reece cried, ‘Mum! She’s taking stuff when it’s not ready!’

Erin clucked at her daughter and massaged the back of her son’s neck. Still so soft.

‘Don’t complain,’ she said to Callie. ‘He’s a great cook, isn’t he? And if he doesn’t eat a lot, it leaves more for you and me, right?’ She turned off the oven and slid out the tray of pan-fried, cheesy-crumbed, flattened chicken thigh fillets – Reece’s specialty. ‘Grab the plates, Cal,’ she said.

‘Two, please,’ said Callie, holding out her plate, which was already mounded with potatoes.

‘One and some salad,’ said Erin.

Callie stuck out her tongue.

‘Half, please,’ said Reece, holding out his plate.

‘One and some potato,’ said Erin.

Erin lifted the foil draped loosely over her fillet of deep-sea perch. While she could easily have eaten the rest of the cheesy chicken thighs and all of the potato, the steamed fish looked great too. She was absolutely starving. She slid the fish onto her plate and then stacked it in salad. She worried a little about how much her mouth really watered when she unscrewed the ice-cold bottle of Sauvignon Blanc.

‘At the table tonight, everyone,’ she tried.

‘Can’t,’ said Callie, her mouth full, on her way to her room. She swallowed. ‘I’ve got a group assignment due and we agreed we’d talk online now.’

‘At six-thirty?’ said Erin.

‘Uh huh.’ Callie grinned, waved her fork and closed her bedroom door.

‘What about you, my baby boy? You want to watch some TV with your mum?’

‘Okay, first of all, Mum, if you ever call me that when we’re in public, you’ll get a call the next day telling you to pick me up in Emergency. Second, I’ll sit in there with you as long as I can work on my programs.’

Erin waited. ‘Is there a third condition? You look like you’re not done.’

‘Third,’ said Reece. ‘Don’t get too drunk and start talking about what the world’s coming to and what it was like back in the day.’

‘Well, just for that, we’re watching the news,’ said Erin, thumbing on the plasma.

‘Can you turn it down a little?’ asked Reece from behind his laptop, his dinner untouched on the coffee table in front of him.

‘Shh, in a second, honey. I want to hear this.’

‘Police are tonight urgently appealing for public assistance to determine who committed the brutal stabbing murder of Frank Vella,forty-three, of Ashfield in Sydney’s inner west. Although we will not be showing the full attack, which was captured entirely by a city carpark CCTV camera, please be warned that the footage we will display may be disturbing to some viewers.’

Erin leaned forward on the lounge.

The footage was very brief. Black-and-white, and just a little grainy – one of the older cameras. At first, just a person in a coat, back to the camera, leaning over a body on the ground in front of him, which had been pixellated.

And then the person turned around and directly faced the camera.

Erin stifled a scream, her hand over her mouth. Capering grotesquely, swinging what appeared to be a screwdriver, was a man in a cartoon mask.

‘Isn’t that a Ninja Turtle?’ asked Reece.

The man brandished the weapon like a sword and then raised his other hand. Although again pixellated, there was no way of missing that he had raised his middle finger.

Just for the camera.