30

Damien walks home the long way. He went out via the back gate of the school to avoid the shops and the shortcut through the park. It will take him twice as long to get home but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to see Tyson and he’s not in any hurry to get home either. Both Kerry and Marcus will go nuts at him for hitting that little kid. He doesn’t understand what happened, he just flipped like Guido. Is he going mad like him? His mouth and chest tighten. He’s needed his puffer for most of the afternoon but couldn’t be bothered digging it out.

The day is bright and when the sun escapes the clouds, it’s warm. When Damien finally gets home, he breathes a bit easier to see there is no car out the front. Chances are Marcus has taken it. He walks in through the back door, into a silent house. There’s no crying baby, no television, no shouting or whimpering, just the quiet buzz of the fridge. He opens it but there isn’t much inside; an almost empty carton of milk, a bowl of pasta which has been in the fridge for so long it’s like a permanent fixture, a tub of margarine, a container of sliced beetroot, a withering apple and half an onion. He goes to the pantry and opens the biscuit tin. There’s one biscuit left. A Scotch Finger. How did that survive?

He hopes they have gone shopping to buy food, though he knows that’s unlikely—Kerry never takes the baby, Skye and Emily all at once. Not if she can avoid it—it’s chaos. Still you never know. He takes the last biscuit and drains the remainder of milk into a glass. He carries them into the lounge where he turns on the television and settles down in Marcus’s recliner. The sun streams in through the net curtains and warms him. He wishes he’d come home a little earlier so he could enjoy the peace and quiet longer.

A sudden spark of dread grips him. Perhaps they’re at the school. Perhaps they have gone to talk about him. They’ll kill him when they get back. He tries to relax. He wants to enjoy the peaceful house again. He wants the warmth of the sun and the quiet afternoon to stroke and soothe him, but the thought of them finding out about that little kid squeezes the breath from him. He gets up and walks into Kerry and Marcus’s room to look for clues but there is nothing to indicate where they might have gone. Kerry’s handbag is not there but then she always takes that with her. The baby bag is next to the cot so he guesses they didn’t plan to be out for too long. A school visit doesn’t take long. It’s only five minutes away by car. He tries to remember if they would take the baby bag to do the grocery shopping. How long does it take to do the shopping? He doesn’t know.

He runs to the kitchen to see if there is a note on the table. Maybe he missed it. Or maybe there is a clue stuck behind a magnet on the fridge—an activity or invitation to something or somewhere. Maybe they went to the pub for a drink. There’s no invitation or notice and no note. What about the phone? Maybe there’s a message. A special invitation reminder or, worse, maybe the school left a message to say what time they would like to have a meeting. He runs into the passage. The light is flashing. He pushes the button.

‘You have one new message. Received at 2.45 pm,’ the robotic voice of the answering machine says.

‘Yes, hello. This is Mrs Price, the school counsellor, I wonder if you could call me back regarding your son, Damien. He was involved in a bullying incident today …’

Shit! Now what?

Bleep.

‘There are no more messages.’

Bleep.

Damien pushes the delete button.

‘Message deleted.’

He chews his bottom lip, goes back and sits on the couch, the peace obliterated now as the robotic voice plays over and over in his mind. Message deleted … message deleted.

A car skids to a halt on the gravel drive, car doors open and bang shut. Damien grips the arms of the chair and stares ahead at the television. The front door swings open and the horde pile in. The noise level rises dramatically and Damien feels a sensation of shell-shock, feels as if he is in a war zone.

‘Hey,’ Kerry says to him as she strides in through the door with a sleeping Jamie in her arms. ‘You all right? You look pale.’ She seems happy.

Skye and Emily walk in behind her. Emily looks miserable or maybe that’s just the way her swollen face is going to make her look for a while. Skye comes in singing, ‘Nanas in jajamas.’

‘Move along. Come on,’ Marcus says cheerfully as he walks in carrying five plastic bags full of groceries. ‘Chip bloody chop.’

Skye giggles. ‘Chippies! Yum-yum!’ she springs up and down and he laughs.

They’ve bought food and they’re all happy. Marcus is in a really good mood. Damien begins to relax. He follows them into the kitchen.

Kerry passes him. ‘Just going to put the little fellow down for a sleep. Let’s hope he stays that way for a while.’

Damien joins Emily and Skye who are standing at the kitchen table peering into bags. ‘Can we have our chocolate now?’ Emily asks.

Marcus beams. ‘Yeah. Go on. Dig ’em out.’

‘Yay! Chocate!’ Skye claps and jiggles on the spot.

Emily digs through the bags and Damien peers tentatively into a couple of others. ‘What, these?’ he says and pulls out two Time Out bars.

‘Yep. There should be a couple more in there too,’ Kerry says peering over his shoulder and rolling up her sleeves as if she is about to get stuck into some serious work.

‘One for me too?’ Damien asks.

‘Course,’ says Kerry.

‘It’s not shopping day though is it?’ Damien asks. The number of bags on the table aren’t as many as normal. On shopping day, the laminate table is covered in thin plastic bags.

‘Nah. We just got a few things. Marcus won some money.’ Kerry’s eyes grow wide. She smiles at Marcus. ‘Didn’t ya, darlin?’

‘Two hundred and fifty bucks, mate.’ Marcus lights his cigarette.

Marcus called him ‘mate’. It feels weird and sort of good all at the same time. ‘That’s a lot of money.’

‘Damn right it is.’

‘Did you win it on the lotto?’ Emily asks.

‘Nope, at the pokies.’ Marcus straightens his back and takes another drag. ‘Reckon I’m on a winning streak. My luck has changed.’

Damien looks at the happy faces eating chocolate around the kitchen table. He peels away the blue wrapper and takes a small bite, lets it melt on his tongue. The anxious day dissolves with the chocolate. He feels better. Maybe his luck will turn too. Maybe no one will ever know about the bullying or the deleted message. Maybe Marcus will forget about revenge and Tyson will forget about him. If Marcus’s luck can change, why couldn’t it change for him, too?