29

I drove Peeko home. She lived by the river in a skinny terrace house. I kept the car idling, double-parked to get going quickly. I wanted to start the O’Bough piece and not be in the ‘experiment’ mood with my pure original sending my hormones fizzing. But fizzing they were and I failed to control them. Peeko leaning forward for my mouth. Me touching her left breast, then taking a handful. Touching her leg, the inside of it, up her dress, her groin. I closed my eyes and enjoyed having human contact on my fly region. There was even a swelling of the warm and tingling kind. Swelling, for Christ’s sake. Then my eyes flicked open and my mind screamed, It’s Peeko, stupid! This was worse than if I’d walked into Miss Kisses brothel.

‘He fucked Peeko!’ the journo rumour mill would go. ‘He’s that desperate? Pathetic. Lost respect for him.’

I did not pick her fingers from my trousers where she was fiddling with the zipper. I did not remove my hand from her wet inside. I went up deeper. I said, ‘Let’s go into your house.’

The sheer smuttiness of the moment got to me. My penis was out and stiffening—yes, stiffening—as I bid her to bend forward on the bottom four stairs. Kneel there, knees on the second step. Elbows on the fourth. She wanted the whole bed experience, she said. More kissing and touching. Nakedness, rubbing. Sex that is slow and soft and ends in sleep. What I was doing I could have done at Miss Kisses. What I was doing was a mistake for both of us. But she knelt and said, ‘Go in slow, it’s been a while.’

It only lasted a few minutes. I orgasmed in the air and it landed on her clothing. I did not risk pregnancy. Not with Peeko. She was puffing and said, ‘That’s it?’

No tears from her as I tucked my shirt in, pulled my belt buckle closed. Her slit-bitter stare had dead glitter deep in it. She smiled—her sign for being hurt—and lifted one leg then the other off the stair carpet. She pushed herself upright.

‘I’d better go write this story,’ I said.

She was still smiling and slit-bitter.

I was at her front door and turning open the locks.

‘I’m no angel, Words, but I’m no spittoon either. A one-night stand can at least have bedsheets.’

I knew to keep quiet. No antagonising with a sorry or contradicting her.

She knew to keep quiet and stretch my shame out.

She didn’t slam the door but closed it softly as I left.

A clicking of the locks.

‘Shit,’ I muttered going back to my car. ‘You stupid man. Peeko for an enemy. You idiot.’

I drove to the office arguing with myself.

‘Don’t worry about it.’

‘I’m not worried.’

‘You are.’

‘I’m pissed off. She’s useful. I’ve burned her.’

‘Who cares! You’ve got your O’Bough yarn. Peeko’s served her purpose.’

‘True.’

‘Forget her.’

‘I am.’

‘There’s hand sanitiser in the glove box. Pull the car over. Disinfect your face. Disinfect your privates.’

‘That’s better.’

‘All clean again.’

‘Clean slate.’

‘How many slates does a man get in a lifetime?’

This shut me up. I’d no answer.

My phone rang. Ollie. Keeping his voice down.

He had another pass mark, he said. For a maths test. Out of ten he got seven when he’d usually get three.

He didn’t sound as chuffed as he should be.

‘What’s wrong with you, boy?’

‘Nothin’,’ he grunted. Teenage boys. Always grunting when they should be verbose with explanation.

‘What’s wrong. Answer me.’

He said Dad? In a troubled way.

‘Yes, son?’

‘Dad, are you and Mum breaking up?’

‘No, no, no. Sometimes a tiff gets out of hand. With mums and dads it happens regularly.’

‘It’s just, Mum’s been on the phone with that guy Gordon. I heard her and she said she was fed up and she said…’

‘Hold it. You’re telling me that your mother and that old sleazy bastard—she has communicated with him? What did she say? Don’t tell me. I can guess. Tax department. Yes?’

‘That was part of it.’

‘Well, I’m proud to say I have been a good citizen and informed on Mr Gordon effing Grace. Tax evasion is theft from each and every one of us. How do we have roads and hospitals if the Gordon Graces of this world are not held to account?’

‘Dad, just shut up, will you?’

‘What did you say? You do not ever speak to me that way. Do not ever use that language to me.’

‘You cheated on Mum?’

‘What?’

‘In a beer garden, that’s what Mum told him. You cheated on her and she’s never been the same.’

This coming out of the mouth of my fourteen-year-old. How dare Emma make a phone call where my only son could listen.

‘I…I did not cheat on your mother. A man in my position has women flirting and always trying it on. Your mother is a jealous woman and has conflated some scenario. By that I mean got ideas into her head. Not based on real events but mere fantasy.’

He didn’t respond.

‘Come on, son. You trust your old man, don’t you? I can’t believe your mother would say such things. In my business it’s called defamation.’

‘I don’t know what to believe.’

‘Yes, you do. You believe me. I’m not badmouthing your mother, I’m just saying she’s got her wires crossed.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, almost inaudibly. And that tone of his. Like his mother’s when suspicious of my fakes. He was smart enough for that now, it seemed. I’d have thought perspicacity beyond him. It was primitive perspicacity if it existed at all. Still unformed enough for me to work around it.

‘You’re on a roll, son, with the good marks you’re getting.’

‘That’s you, not me. You intimidate people. You got Mr Gumm frightened.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘Mum says you dug up dirt. She said that to Gordon too.’

‘That’s appalling. Her wires are crossed on this issue as well. I have a few words in a teacher’s ear about the benefits of confidence and next thing I’m a villain and being intimidating.’

That addled his perspicacity. He was silent.

‘And stop calling him “Gordon” as if you’re friends. I want to confide something in you, Ollie. Your father’s involved in a very important cause at the moment. He’s doing a good turn for someone who is suffering. A young mother the law has forbidden to be with her child. I admit I have a chest-swelling feeling: the first time in my career I’ve had a cause other than my career. People bang on about doing good for others. I can see the benefit: you become proud of yourself; you feel a foot taller.

‘The issue will be that your dad has to chill the reader’s bones. This will interest you if you want to follow in my shoes. “Listen here,” I have to shout to the public. “I have a human tragedy to show.” I’m utterly sick of third-person when I’m writing a piece: she said; he said. That bullshit’s boring. I’m a first-person fan but first-person is not original. An original story should be original in every capacity. Why don’t I do this in second-person, I’m thinking? As if I’m speaking for Kelli O’Bough, pleading her case—They said you committed infanticide but you don’t remember a thing. You were a loving mother before it happened…

‘There it is. There’s the opener. It was your doing, Ollie. Addressing you like consulting with a colleague, a crafty grown-up, not some sulky victim kid. See how confidence works? You get a few good marks and you’re a different person, more confident. Aren’t you? Eh? Answer me.’

‘Suppose so.’

‘Suppose so? Well, I’ll tell you something. Your confidence is contagious. Your confidence has jumped to me and I’m bubbling ideas up, not flattened by writer’s block.’

I told him: go to your desk and do your reading and writing. Do your maths work, do your essays. Don’t say I’m too dumb or too lazy and pull a shamed face. What did Mr Oxford say? That you were clever enough to change the Fowler and Fowler around, take old punctuation and make it modern-looking. Let’s see that cleverness translate into real marks, not fraudulent ones.

‘Know what I’m going to do? Your father is going to pull an all-nighter. Straight to the office now and get this big story written. I’m on a mission. Like I’m heading to parliament, like a senator righting the wrongs in a broken-down system.’

That smoothed matters for now. The boy said Sweet in his usual manner and we ended the call. Sweet was better than him rudely talking back. Telling me to shut up. Getting uppity, getting bold. You don’t say shut up to your father, whatever his habits or sins. You defer to his word if you’re a dim boy like Ollie. You only get one father and shouldn’t take him for granted. I’ll be dead one day and my son will wish he’d not questioned me. Keep your father on a pedestal. Live with the myths in life and live happy unless you’ve wits enough to cope with the truth of people.