The call comes in while I’m watching one of my movies. There she is on the screen. The strange girl, sad-eyed, hair dark at the root but white gold everywhere else. A metaphor, I guess. A prize for hire.
I told her, ‘I’ll look after you,’ and I had every intention of doing so. But she wouldn’t play by the rules. She wanted her own money, was addicted to her own ventures. She had another father for her unborn child. Some dupe in the wings. It was her downfall, obviously. She summoned some other dark entity and disappeared in an instant. I give and I give and—
The phone keeps ringing.
It takes ten whole seconds, but I manage to answer on my own.
‘Victor, you sneaky bastard. I should have known,’ says the voice on the line.
Noah Winters.
I take my time. Breathe deep. ‘I take it the deal has been presented to you.’
‘I could kill her, you know?’
‘You’d just be killing the messenger.’
‘It’d feel good.’
‘I’m dying, Noah. I don’t have a lot of time. What do you want to say to me?’
‘I thought you’d be able to raise the money without these crooks. Have you fallen on tough times, Victor?’
‘The banks won’t bet on an old man.’
‘Don’t I know it. If I did take this deal, I’d want your word that this is the last of your meddling.’
I cough. ‘It’s ending, Noah. It’s all ending.’
And then the call is cut short by shouting.
The film ends and I want more. Instead, I get a blank white screen. A stern square of whiteness announcing itself in the darkened living room.
‘Elda!’
I’m hurting.
The world feels wrong.
‘Elda!’
I can’t reach the jug I piss in.
‘Elda!’
Grasping for it, I come round too fast. My legs slip from the bed and gravity has me. Without really experiencing it, I fall from the bed and my head collects edges and objects. My face and jaw bounce off the tiles.
I murmur one last time for Elda before remembering that she’s dead.
That pleases me to no end. I close my eyes.
In what might be heaven, or a dream of heaven, I see my son.
William.
We’re on the coast, walking along the tideline of some ancient version of Surfers Paradise. All the buildings are absent. There are no roads or streetlights. It’s twin planes: an expanse of land and water.
‘Dad, where are we going?’
‘Forward, son. This will all be yours one day.’
‘Who does it belong to now?’
‘It belongs to me.’
‘I can’t take what’s yours,’ says William.
He’s so soft. Not the youngest, but the littlest, always. The kid hugs me there on the beach for no reason. Thin arms gripping my leg, half a game and half just wanting to be close. He brings me over into the sand.
We’re both laughing.
A golden day. A real day, too. An actual event.
I remember it because it’s the day I know I have to change him, lest he change me.
The rest of it is morose detail. The recent past. The events. It’s all a bunch of …
It’s not needed.
I turn to my son and say, ‘We’ll remember this day, because today is the day that—’