It’s my “day off”. I finished work last night at 6 p.m. and will be starting work tonight at 6 p.m. That’s not a day off. That’s a sleep-in.
I make a cup of coffee, pick up my book and walk outside. The glare of the sun hurts. I sit in a plastic chair and open to a dogeared page. I read a few chapters. The story is engaging and the writing is quintessential McMurtry — a good thing — but every now and again I have to reread a paragraph after catching my mind wandering, eyes and internal reader on autopilot as some other part of my brain thinks about the long-overdue call I promised Oli I’d make.
I wonder what Harris bullshit there is to catch up on. Oli knows not to keep me apprised, that I’ve moved on and don’t want to be dragged back into those interlocking spheres of shit. The less I know, the better. But even after everything, I don’t think Mum really understands how I feel. The rare times when I call she still manages to surprise me with some new nugget of Harris lunacy.
Last time we spoke it was Esther, Clem’s dear sister and my aunt, though we’ve never called her that. Mum told me Esther had been in a fist-fight with her best friend, Didee. Esther wouldn’t say how it started, but the going theory in town was that it concerned a tin of missing drugs. Probably pot, but with Esther you never know.
Didee’s a big woman, has the build of a bloke, and she put Esther in hospital. Mum took in Esther’s shithead kids for a week while their mother’s face mended. Lo and behold, some antique watches handed down from Grandad went missing. Mum figured they could have been misplaced by accident (like the missing tin of drugs …). Or then there’s my theory — that some little Harris reprobate stole them. Anyway, Esther’s oldest son, Ricky, could have taken the younger ones in and saved all the hassle, but Mum wouldn’t have a bar of that. It’s no mystery why.
Some people think it’s a funny story, but I’d say it’s more bothersome than funny. Esther’s son, Ricky, fucked Belle. She’s his cousin, the daughter of Filthy (that’s what everyone calls Phil, Esther and Clem’s brother). Belle got pregnant because they didn’t use a condom, and then she went and got an abortion in Perth with Ricky’s help. Word ended up getting out, because there’s no such thing as a secret in a small town, and then it was a huge deal because not only had two cousins fucked each other, but the whole age thing was dicey.
Ricky was twenty. Based on how far along the pregnancy was, they worked out that Belle was right on the cusp of her birthday when it happened. Nobody knew whether she was fifteen or sixteen, and neither Belle nor Ricky would admit to anything. The difference of a few days was the difference between a child molester and just a sleazy loser who manipulated a stupid girl who happened to be his cousin into having unprotected sex.
I was twelve or thirteen when all that was going down. It was pretty much the end of Esther and Filthy because Filthy took his daughter’s side and Esther took her son’s side, which still boggles my mind, as if there was any way to defend Ricky. Mum, of course, took no sides, because she’s always been diplomatic and knows that taking sides doesn’t change a thing.
Not Clem. He took his sister’s side, even though they were in the middle of their own falling out. Said that kids just do that sort of shit, even though Ricky wasn’t a kid — Belle was the kid. I think he wanted to spite his brother, who he hated even more than Esther, because they’d always had a difficult relationship. Filthy thought Clem was a liar and scammer, and Clem thought Filthy was a cruel, unreasonable bastard. Both were right.
I wonder who’s fucked who this time? Or maybe it’ll just be who’s fucked up their life, more than it was before.
If I think about it too much I’ll convince myself not to call, so I walk back to my room and grab my phone. If Oli said so, then she wants to hear from me.
I dial the number that I know off by heart. The phone rings a long time. I wait. Mum is normally outside working in the garden; sometimes she doesn’t bother to answer the phone at all.
Finally, someone picks up.
“Hello.”
“Mum?”
Maybe it’s a bad line. Maybe I’ve forgotten what my own mother sounds like.
“No, this is Kylie. Is that Oliver?”
Jesus. I certainly didn’t think I’d be speaking to Kylie Harris, wife of Filthy and mother of cousins Belle and Beau.
“Um, hi. No, it’s Nick. Is Mum there?”
“Nick. Oh, goodness, yes. Oh, I can’t believe it, we were just speaking about you. That can’t be a coincidence.”
Well, obviously it can. And why was Mum speaking about me with Kylie Harris? Actually, I don’t even want to know. I shouldn’t have called. This is the reason why — because there is always something with the Harrises, always some unpleasantness, some dispute, some hateful gossip being spread, and now Filthy’s wife is with Mum and she’s already confirmed they are talking about me, about the incident that is still a raw wound after five years. I don’t want it in my life. If I just pretend hard enough, it’s like it isn’t.
“Is Mum there?”
“Yes, yes. It’s good that you called, Nick. Just hold on a moment. I’m going to get the other cordless phone and give that one to her, and then I’ll hang up this one.”
“Righto,” I say.
I guess Mum has a cordless phone now. That’s about the extent of the family news I can handle. I hear another handset click onto the line.
“Hello?” says Kylie.
“Yeah.”
“Ok, I’m going to hang up the other one now.”
After a moment I hear a phone clumsily pressed back onto its receiver, then I hear the sounds of Kylie walking through the house, clearly taking a circuitous route, for it seems to take forever. Just give Mum the phone, I think. Finally I hear muffled voices, then:
“Hello, baby boy.”
And it breaks my goddamn heart every time.