ELENA WALKED FROM HER CAR and up through the Treasury Gardens, its wide path overhung by Moreton Bay and Port Jackson figs, birdsong from within the canopy. The midmorning sun streamed delicate light through the leaves, creating a patchwork on the footpath below. A shape figured at the edge of her vision: the bronzed statue of an early explorer in breeches and military jacket, one hand raised skyward, the other firmly gripping the musket at his belt. His face was a mask of serious contemplation at the sight she noted, with some amusement, of a pigeon nestled in the upheld palm. There were office workers seated on benches with takeaway coffees and sandwiches, others sprawled on the bright cushiony grass. The day was beautiful and mild, clouds retreating to reveal a shale-grey sky, and with Daniel at a sleepover after school she had it all to herself. She was grateful for the distraction, which took the edge off her anxiety, a rumbling unease in her gut. She came out next to the Old Treasury Building and waited for the green light to Collins Street.
She’d always loved this part of town. Sunlight glinted off the dark glass of the modern office towers on one side facing a stone building modelled on the Palazzo style, round-headed windows, sandy brickwork and wrought-iron balconies. Further along, the street was rimmed with more high-rises, all gleaming panes and concrete, buttressing the early 19th century architecture, pretty and understated: chocolate shops, clothing boutiques, a gentlemen’s club. She thought about dropping in for a hot chocolate, about how she could call Tom and make an excuse, but that would have meant driving all the way for nothing.
Traffic rumbled through the intersection, the rattle of a tram across the tracks, the ding of its bell. Elena crossed with the lights, walking in step with two men in suits, but in the centre of the wide road the green man quickly changed to flashing red and they all had to scuttle to the kerb. Her breath escaped in bursts, a staccato rattle. It didn’t make sense to feel nervous. After all, she’d been the one to call him this morning to arrange a catch-up; she had suggested lunch near his work. The problem, however, wasn’t their attraction – it was time for her to move on from Peter, even though the thought alone felt like a betrayal – but what she planned on asking him. That was why she was really here. Elena sighed, wishing she could go back in time, a little annoyed at herself for thinking up the whole stupid thing in the first place. A few moments later she was standing under the latticework of the forecourt roof. This peculiar arrangement, like pick-up sticks, beneath a Perspex roof, a great steel pillar in the middle of it all. It was quarter to eleven, almost time to meet.
Elena went to sit by the fountain, excited, tense.
She looked over to the footpath. It was all business there, people streaming past, heads down, talking into mobile phones, texting, serious faces. Down by the taxi rank a man dressed in a koala suit of grey flannel rattled a donation bucket, doing a little shuffle in scuffed Blundstones whenever anybody glanced his way. A bicycle courier cut through a gap in the crowd, narrowly missing a pedestrian who’d stopped to pick up some papers. The woman shouted after him but he’d already disappeared back into the traffic, a blur of orange. Elena watched it all, as though entranced. This had been her life once: the hustle and hum of the city. She felt longing, let it bubble for a moment. Her situation now consisted of four walls, in a place where time – even as she contemplated her uncertain future – seemed to stand still. She grimaced at the thought.
In the corner of her vision, a dark shadow appeared, blocking the weak light overhead. “I thought I was too early,” he said brightly.
“Yeah, I thought the same thing,” she replied for something to say.
She looked up at Tom. His sandy brown hair fell across his forehead. He was in a suit: dark blue heavy weave, light blue shirt, grey tie. Impeccable. A faint scent of cologne – musk? Citrus? She had no idea, but found it intoxicating all the same. With a rush of adrenaline, she stood. He kissed her on the cheek, both hands lingering on her arms. Elena smiled up at him, giddy for a moment, a feeling she could hardly remember.
They stood for an awkward moment.
“So,” he said. “Coffee? Lunch? A kick of soccer?”
Elena laughed. “Lunch is a good idea. Anything else and you’re taking your life in your hands.”
They went down to the food court and found a small café away from the main area. Tom took her by the arm, steered her inside. “Grab a seat. I’ll go order.”
She felt a shudder at his touch, like a spark of electricity. Elena watched him moving between the tables, the long confident strides, arms swinging casually at his sides. Her eyes travelled up to his shoulders, broad and strong, and she wondered what it would be like to kiss him with her fingers laced around the back of his neck. Wondered about more. And the thought was so seductive it made her blush. Suddenly, she became aware she was still standing where he’d left her, as immovable as the statue in the park. Quickly, she looked around for a table, and went to sit.
He came back a few minutes later with a tray, and placed it in front of her. There were sandwiches – chicken and mayonnaise by the look of it – and thick wedges of cake, a couple of rumballs flecked in snowy coconut, bananas, brightly coloured drinks.
“Right, OK. That’s a lot of —” She looked up at him, her face a picture of mock horror.
“Too much? I didn’t know what to get.” He sat down and manoeuvred his long legs to the side of the table. “So I got everything.”
Elena nodded, amused. The food, his coat around her shoulders the other day at the oval showed a generosity of spirit which both captivated and terrified her. Mostly, because she didn’t know how to react. For so long – too long – it had just been her and the boy, the two of them in their bubble. It was almost as though she’d forgotten how to relate to the world; to the men in it. There was a brief silence between them. The hubbub of voices. Clattering plates.
“You beat me to it,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I was going to visit you on the weekend.”
She smiled under his gaze, felt a twinge of guilt that her visit wasn’t entirely social. “Yeah, well,” she reached for one of the sandwiches, “I thought I should make more of an effort to get out among the general public, you know.”
“They’re overrated,” he said with a shrug. “So what’s the deal, are you getting sick of Paradise?”
“Dunno. I think I’m feeling a little isolated.”
“That’s understandable. It’s a pretty quiet place. Alright if you play golf,” he said with a mirthless laugh. “How long have you been there now?”
“Over a year.”
“You could always come back.”
She said nothing. There was no real counter to that. But it just seemed like so much effort. And she knew she’d feel the loss of this perfect place where, until recently – very recently – their lives had been good. “I suppose so. But what would I do?”
“What do you do now?”
“Nothing.”
Tom laughed, started on the other sandwich. He clearly thought she was joking.
“Well,” she murmured, pouring the juice into a glass, “I got a payout from my previous job, a good one. It has allowed me to live a life of relative leisure up to this point. No office hours, no early starts, none of this,” she added with a wave of her hand. “So I guess that could be construed as nothing.”
“Raising a kid’s not nothing,” he said with a small shake of his head. His expression, she noted, was the same as the one at Matilda’s: somewhere between admiration and adoration. It made her feel unworthy. Made her wonder too why she just couldn’t accept a compliment. She didn’t need anybody else dragging her down, she thought, she was perfectly capable of doing that herself.
“Yeah, that’s the good bit,” she said.
He looked wistful. “I’d love to be a dad.”
“You never tried? With your ex-wife?”
“She didn’t want kids. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m sure she wanted them, just not with me.”
Elena nodded – what could she say to that?
“Sorry,” he said with a smile. “Didn’t mean to go all maudlin on you. I’m just tired, I guess.”
“It’s fine, really.” She smiled back at him. Wished she could lean over and give him a hug. But she didn’t have the courage. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about taking Daniel on a trip. Maybe to the Top End, a sheep station, you know, the authentic Australian experience.”
Tom pulled over the cake and rumballs, proffered them both. “But?”
“Sorry?”
“The trip – I’m sensing a ‘but’?”
“I need the dad’s permission to take him out of the State,” she said, feeling a lurch in her chest at the mere thought of him. “It’s bad enough that I have to ask first before I can give Daniel a haircut, let alone this. I just reckon the less we have to do with that creep, the better.”
It was a stupid thing to say. Anderson had already found them. It made her think of big lumbering Dave who hadn’t counted on a tiny ball of fury with a broken garden fork and a smart mouth. Mothers were like that, she thought. Even the pretend ones. She wondered how he’d managed to get back on his bike and drive to wherever he came from with a wound oozing like an oil slick and only one good arm. For a second, a split second, she felt ashamed of what she’d done. But at the memory of her own shattered ear, and the nauseating fear the bikies had inspired, it passed.
“Anyway,” she said, glancing down and feeling the sudden loss of her nerve, “that’s not a fun subject. Let’s talk about something else.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Those ice-blue eyes were serious now. No longer relaxed. “I mean, I’ve dealt with a fair share of scumbags in my working life, and that’s just the lawyers. But, you know, I’m still up for a rumble.”
Elena ran her fingers along the pocked edge of the table, sensing that if she didn’t ask now, she never would. “Well,” she said, swallowing down her nerves. “There is something.”
“Yeah?”
A long moment passed. She wrapped her fingertips around the edge of the table, leaving imprints on the wood. She didn’t even want to say the word, to make it real. But what was the alternative? To pretend everything was fine: that the enemy wasn’t at the door, moments away from breaking it down entirely.
She made a point of sounding casual. “Do you think you could get me a gun?”
“What, a real one?”
She laughed an embarrassed laugh, and her cheeks flushed wildly. “Um, yeah,” she stammered. “A real one.”
She nodded.
“Are you in danger?”
“No,” she lied. “Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
She wished she could tell him about the other day in the driveway, wanting to share with someone, to let it out. But how could she? What would he do any different to Peter? He’d be on the phone to the police in an instant, doing what he could to keep them safe. Like any sane person for that matter. And she wished she could think more clearly, just form a plan in her head where she could believe she was doing the best by both the child and herself. Nothing made sense anymore.
“There’s a chance that he could find us – find out where we live.”
“How is that possible? Aren’t your details supposed to be confidential?”
“You’d like to think so,” Elena said wearily. “But stuff happens.”
“I see.”
He didn’t say anything else, just sat there absorbing it all, one hand still at his chin. She felt guilty, then. He did look really tired.
“I can’t get you a gun,” he said eventually. “Even I’m not that well connected.”
“Forget about it, Tommy,” she said with a wave of a hand, as if that one gesture could erase the entire conversation. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m putting you in a terrible position just by asking.”
“It’s not an issue, Elena,” he said dryly.
She saw in his benign expression that he was genuinely unfazed. She was relieved. “I just want to keep him safe, you know,” she said by way of explanation, an apology of sorts. “You mentioned you were a lawyer and I just thought… Well, I didn’t know who else to ask.”
Tom shook his head. “It’s OK, really.”
He drummed his fingers on the table, seeming to consider something else. “Like I said, I can’t get you a gun. That would be near impossible. But I can get you something else.”
Elena glugged the remainder of the juice, tried not to cough. She wished she hadn’t said anything. It made her feel ashamed: the knowledge that she’d used his attraction towards her – the hunger in his eyes – and manipulated it for her own ends. She hated women like that – the ones who used beauty as a weapon. What the hell was she thinking?
“It’s not the same but it’d do the job.”
“What’s that?”
“A Taser.”
It took a moment to register. She cocked her head to one side, recalling vague television images of motorists writhing on the ground, usually on late-night American cop shows. “The electric shock thing?”
“Yeah.”
“Just point and shoot?”
“Pretty much.”
“Well, I guess it’ll have to do.” Then, thinking she sounded ungrateful, quickly added: “I mean, that’d be great, Tommy.”
He’d finished the cake, started on the banana, nodded with a mouthful. An easy nod. Even as she surveyed him in the artificial light, his expression remained unchanged. Still calm and steady. Elena had asked him for a gun – hadn’t even told him why – and he’d remained as unflappable as if she had asked to borrow a lawnmower. It made her heart ripple with gratitude. And something else too. A wash of affection, overwhelming and surprising.
“It won’t kill anyone, will it?” she asked suddenly.
He laughed at that – a great belly laugh that seemed to come from deep within him and made the other patrons turn around. “Not likely. Just make their eyeballs boggle.”
When he spoke again, his tone had changed. “Maybe you should go away,” he said gently. “Head up north, somewhere remote. Disappear for a while.”
Elena shook her head. “I’d love nothing more. But it’s the whole permission thing again. The dad would know where we were going – there’d be no getting away from him then.”
“Anyone’d think you’re the criminal the way these government departments operate.”
She registered his disgust, tried to lighten the mood. “I don’t know, Tommy. I just asked you for a gun; I am a criminal.”
He snorted. “Well, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve seen you kick a ball. If you did try to shoot someone you’d miss by a bloody mile.”
Elena shot him a sly grin. “Well, now you’re just being mean,” she said with mock offence.
His eyes twinkled. It was a face to love, she thought.
“Thank you,” she said in a small voice. “Thank you for everything, Tommy.” The words sounded so feeble but she didn’t know what else to say.
In an unexpected intimacy, he reached a hand around the back of her neck, and squeezed gently. Kept it there for a long moment. She felt her heart skip, momentarily taken aback, before offering him a soft smile.
She drew her gaze from him, slowly, reluctantly – unable to bear this confidential gaze; unable to break away – over to counter where a young girl in a black uniform, black apron was making coffee, lips pursed. The machine sputtered, steam wafting up to the roof, shuddering from inside the beast. The noise had ebbed. Numbers had thinned. There were maybe a dozen people left in the café. How long had they been there? She didn’t even know.
She shrugged, as if to wrap things up. “I should go, I suppose. Go and do something.”
“Do you have somewhere to be?”
“No. Not really. Maybe I’ll go for a drive.”
“You’ve got a charmed life.” Tom smiled an easy smile, the guileless observation anyone might have when looking at her situation from a distance.
“You don’t know half of it.” She felt suddenly embarrassed. At this loss of purpose, as sudden as it was surprising. Although she was never happier than when she was with Daniel at the beach or watching television and playing video games, without him she was lost. And she wondered what had happened to the mine administrator: the woman who had once been in charge of coordinating daily heli-flights for a hundred men on an oil rig off the coast of Dampier; a force of nature in high-vis and a pink hard hat.
He pushed back, the chair scraping across the floor. “I’ll come down on the weekend – bring the Taser with me.”
She shook her head. “God. What am I thinking?”
“You should have it anyway,” he said, his tone one of determined resolve. “Just the two of you alone in that house. It’ll give you a bit of peace of mind.”
Elena looked at his sandy hair, his pale skin, the haunting eyes. “You’re just too good.”
“Vested interest,” he said.
She averted her gaze. She didn’t know if she wanted this. What did she really have to offer him? It wasn’t just Daniel’s temporary status, or her unresolved feelings for her ex-husband, but her own sense of abandonment. What a broken bird she was. Although she suspected he already knew that. She felt that he had an emptiness inside of him too; revealed in the flash of his eyes, a twitch of the shoulder. Perhaps that’s why he’d chosen them. To fill the hole. To put the pieces together – two damaged people – and make them whole. You can do better than us, she thought. You’re nothing, her mother’s voice mocked. You’ll always be nothing.
“Vested interest,” she said after a pregnant silence. “Now I have to find out what that means.”
“You can count on it,” he said, standing and taking her elbow to help her up. They were facing each other then, chests almost touching. He took her chin in his hand, gently. Then he kissed her on the mouth. It was a chaste kind of kiss, soft lips pressed against hers, like a caress, but still it lingered after he’d pulled back.
After a long minute Tom said. “Sorry, I —” He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Couldn’t help myself.”
A flush across her cheeks. For a brief moment, she rested her head against his chest. “It’s OK,” she said, palms pressed into his shirt.
They stepped back, an awkward fumbling of limbs and chairs, then left the cafe. Tom went back to work, stopped on the far side of the concourse, turned to give her a final wave. And she waved back, held her hand there long after he’d disappeared from sight.
Elena ended up in Boonvale, listening to the idling engine, wondering how she got there. By distraction, she’d missed the freeway turn off and ended up in the suburbs out by the airport. It wasn’t until she was past the shopping strip and the industrial park that she realised where she was. But instead of doing a U-ey she steered her way through the side streets and pulled up outside the old house. She held down the button for the driver’s side window and hung her arm out, the cool breeze niggling at her bare arm.
The little house was still there – a double-fronted weatherboard, tin roof, painted a cheerily incongruous yellow. There were creeping vines on the low brick fence and the metal gate had all but fallen from its hinges, but apart from that the place remained unchanged. It had been twenty years since she’d been here; it could have been yesterday. So many houses but that was the one she remembered the most. Perhaps because it was the last place she had lived with her mother. Or perhaps it was because it was the last time they’d spoken. Elena had walked down the hallway without turning and pulled the door shut on the wash of imprecations. She could still hear the screaming halfway down the block. At the memory, a knot caught in her throat, the rise of long-suppressed tears. She sat there, wished she hadn’t come. Wondered why she had.
“Fuck,” she said to herself. “What the fuck am I doing here?”
But she didn’t leave.
Walking across the road was like dragging dead weights. She pitched over to the fence and sat heavily. She was panting, and had to grip the cold damp brick until her breath evened out. Her legs shook, as though from exertion. Elena thought of her mother, the pinched mouth under hard black eyes. Irrationally, she wondered – and the thought made her heart stop – whether she still lived there. Was she even alive? Elena had no idea. A dog barked from inside.
Startled by screech of the front door opening, she turned around sharply. The woman coming towards her was wearing a purple hoodie with an Everlast logo, black leggings underneath, long straight two-toned hair. It made Elena think of top deck chocolate, and a snort rose in her throat. She swallowed it down. On her feet, the woman wore tan Ugg boots, the fleece escaping at the seams. She scuffed along the cracked concrete path, her face a mask of contempt, and rounded the decrepit gate. An old brindle dog sallied along behind her, ears raised like antennae, ready for anything. And then, her arms folded in front of her. “Can I help ya?”
A rough late-thirties voice, not entirely unpleasant.
“Sorry.” Elena raised a hand in an apologetic wave. She stood up to move, but her back twinged, sent a stab of pain down her leg. Made her sit. She rubbed it with one hand, spoke quickly. “I’m so —. I used to live here, just thought I’d come back for a look.”
The woman looked at her warily. “Yeah?”
Elena nodded. “Yeah. A long time ago.”
And then she was curious, surveying Elena in her pretty pink dress, matching cardigan and suede pumps, taking in the outfit clearly worn for someplace else, before deciding she was okay. “When was that?” she asked.
Elena blushed, turning beet red. “Twenty years at least.”
“You’re fuckin’ jokin’, aren’t ya?”
“Sadly not.”
The woman pulled a packet of cigarettes from the pocket of her hoodie. She tapped one out, found the lighter in her other pocket, lit up. Didn’t offer. A great cloud momentarily obscured her face. “Bin here twelve years now. There was an old lady before us – dead now.”
Elena’s heart went to her throat. “What was her name … the old lady?”
Another deep draw, more smoke oblivion. “Nancy Ward.”
“Right.” She felt a wash of relief so profound it made her legs shudder beneath her. Why did she even care? She hadn’t had as much as a phone call in all these years; wouldn’t have even wanted one. For all the difference it made, her mother may as well have been dead. And yet … Part of her still wanted things to be different. She tried to find some remnants of love and kindness in her memory but, seated on the damp brick fence, the cold seeping through, there were none. And nothing would change that.
Down the block the dog sprayed a bush, ambled back.
“Wanna come inside?” the woman asked. “Check out the place?”
Elena recoiled, caught herself. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Oh,” she stammered, shaking her head. She felt the blood rushing to her cheeks, the thought of setting foot back in there. “No, I can’t. I have to get back. Pick up my boy from school.” Of course it was a lie. Daniel wouldn’t be home until the following day. “But thanks all the same.”
The woman shrugged off her refusal. “Well, see ya, then.”
Elena was already moving away. “Thanks again,” she said at the kerb, realising she hadn’t even asked her name. “It was nice to meet you.”
The dog followed her over, slurped her hand with a rough tongue. Elena gave him a long scratch behind one ear.
“What’s his name?” she said.
“Norman,” the woman replied, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Two husbands, both of ’em fuckin’ useless. But ’im, he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
Elena laughed and looked down at Norman, gazed into his rheumy old man eyes. She knew about the love of animals, as uncomplicated and pure as the day was long. “You’re a good boy, you are.”
She crossed the road, waving goodbye over her shoulder, and got back into the car. She sat for a while, staring down the street at the mottled sky, grey as ash, struck by the realisation that it was her own fractured childhood which was compelling her to fight so hard for the boy. Yet in that, there were doubts too. That perhaps none of this was for him. Instead, she was doing all this to save herself – to save the fourteen-year-old girl exiled to the verandah in the dark because her mother’s boyfriend, as sleazy and untrustworthy as all the others, had been leering openly at her while she did her homework at the kitchen table. And Pamela had screamed at her to get out. Where was the loyalty? Did she even have a heart? Elena shuddered at the memory. Now her eyes filled with tears that she wiped away so sharply she thought she might hurt herself.
She grabbed the steering wheel firmly with both hands. “I’m nothing like you,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll never be anything like you. Never.” And she gunned the engine, pulling out with a fresh resolve. That even if she had no idea of how to be a mother, she’d still fight against the only example she had.