‘I told you to stay away from her!’ Marilyn Spencer stood over her husband’s bed, her fists clenched, her face red, her eyes flashing green fire.
‘I hardly said two words to Stella. I was talking to Bonny.’
‘You give each other looks, and I can hear her brain, hear her thinking. “Can he still be fond of Marilyn? Dear me, how has she allowed herself to go to fat. How terrible for poor dear Ronald.” The skinny old maid bitch, with her bloody lovesick eyes.’
‘I carried their shopping out to the car – ’
‘And opened the car door for her. And held it. You don’t need to speak to her! I see the way you look at her when you think I’m not watching. Bloody hangdog cur of a man – you haven’t got the guts of a louse, you haven’t. The only reason you still play the organ in church is so you can hide behind it and look at her, smile at her behind my back.’
‘Then join the choir and you can sit up there and watch me.’
‘Oh, no. I can’t sing as well as Stella. You’d just make comparisons. You always have. How was she in bed, anyway?’ Ron rolled to his side, offering his back to her abuse. “‘Stella was always clever with her hands. Stella was always creative.” I bet she was!’
‘I’ve had enough of your stupidity. I’m tired. I’ve been on my feet since seven this morning and I’ll be on them again in six hours. Go to bed.’
‘You can’t even touch me any more. You won’t even share my bloody room.’
He rose up on his elbow. ‘And who decided they wanted me out here, eh? Who told me to get the hell out of my own room?’ His voice rose now, matching hers. ‘I’m sick of your jealousy, Marilyn. You get in one of your moods and you try to take it out on her.’
‘Now you’re defending her.’
‘I’m not defending her. But what has she ever done to you?’
‘What’s she ever done to me? What’s she ever done to me? She ruined my bloody life. I never had a chance with you. She was in our bed on our honeymoon. And your mother. “Stella is such a gentle, well raised girl. Stella is this. Stella is that. Stella’s father is a minister, you know. Poor Marilyn’s hung himself. Not a very stable background.”’
‘Take a pill. You get yourself wound up and you don’t know what you’re saying, and Mum never ran you down. She did a lot for you.’
‘Bullshit she did. “Poor Ronald, she can’t even give him a child.” I heard her. I heard her with my own ears. “Stella would have made him a wonderful wife. She’s so good with children.” That bloody old maid bitch! And when I finally had a baby, she tried to take him away from me.’
‘That’s a lie, and you know it. You were always asking her to take him, and she never said no.’
‘Never said no. Didn’t say no to you either, did she, you liar?’
‘Don’t judge everyone by yourself, and she’s been a second mother to Tommy, and a good friend to you. You couldn’t have coped without her when Tommy was small.’
‘I had to work.’
‘You didn’t have to work. I wanted to put a junior on when Dad died – ’
‘So you could feel her up in the storeroom.’
‘You’re sick, Marilyn. You need help.’
‘And you’re not a bloody man’s bootlace. I never had a husband. I tied myself to a bloody lovesick worm. She had you. She’s had you all our married life – ’
‘I’ve never touched her.’
‘Don’t you give me that shit. We all knew you were doing it.’
‘Oh, Christ. I want a divorce.’
‘Divorce? So you can go to her and cry on her shoulder. I’m not divorcing you, you bastard. You’re stuck with me until the day you die.’
‘That’s your decision. I hope it makes you happy. Now get out of my room – ’
Thomas’s window was only a metre from the sleep-out louvres, and they were open tonight; he’d been getting an earful for hours. It got boring after a while. Anyway, he had his own problems.
Parsons had given Kelly a prescription for the pill, but her old man wouldn’t let her take it – or so she said. Now she was in the pudding club again, and blaming him for it because he didn’t use a condom. All the others had used a condom, so it had to be his, or so she’d said today after school.
‘It’s cool,’ he’d said. ‘So get another abortion.’
The trouble was, she didn’t want an abortion. She wanted him to nick off to Sydney with her and play mummies and daddies in some hole with a kid that could have belonged to any one of two dozen. Maybe he might have taken up the offer a few months back. Got out of town, gone on the dole, but he had better options now. Bigger fish to fry. Maidenville by night was full of opportunities with old bull-moose Templeton gone.
It was after one when the noise in the sleep-out settled down, but he couldn’t sleep. Around two he got out of bed and took a couple of the pills his old lady had left on the kitchen table, and he downed them with a half a glass of whisky. He was used to beer and her pills, but mixing them with his old man’s whisky made his head buzz and his muscles feel like they were made of unravelling silk.
He needed space – empty space – so he got on his bike and rode around town, feeling his muscles sort of smooth out, knit up, slip into overdrive.
‘She’s cool man. She’s cool.’ Everything was cool now. Even the town clock doing it’s Dong, Dong, Dong, sounded cool. ‘The lonely death knoll on the hill that never was. Dong. Dong. Dong. Maidenville swallowed up by the earth, but still the clock dongs on. It’s a great donger.’
He laughed as he pedalled on, swerving from side to side on the empty road. He was on a high now, hyped up, his bones trying to break out of his skin, jumping around like the Davis’s pup that he and Kelly had drowned down at the river.
Stupid little mongrel, it had followed them up the street one night, let them pick it up. They tied it into a plastic garbage bag and threw it in the river, and watched it try to run free while the water crept up. It was still running when the bag disappeared around the bend. Tonight he knew how it felt. Like his bones were locked in some place, trying to run, cut loose, but there was a bag stopping their escape.
When he got to Stell’s gates, he found them wide open. ‘Maybe she’s expecting me,’ he said. ‘Been on her own for nearly a week now. Never disappoint the ladies, Thomas.’ He laughed, choking on it, trying to hold it in. Keeping close to the shadows, he dismounted and leaned the bike against the open gate before creeping through the tall shrubs to the shed.
The doors were shut. Her doors had never been shut against him. He liked that shed, liked poking around in it, finding stuff that you never saw anywhere else. ‘Old bitch,’ he said, trying the side door, wanting to kick it in, but knowing if he did, it would set every dog in the neighbourhood barking.
‘Stupid old maid bitch. You think locked doors can keep me out if I want to get in. You stupid old bitch. You can’t keep me out if I want in. No-one can.’
A part of the shadows, he crept around to the back of the house, feeling like a silky black Indian stalking his prey. The wire door wheezed open, and he reached for the doorknob, turned it.
Nothing.
He turned it again, pushed against the door. ‘Locked up like Fort Knox. Who do you think you are?’ he snarled.
His pen-light drawing a pale line on the gravel, he followed it up the side path to the twin glass lounge room doors. They were made up of small square panes. One door had a snib and bolt at the top, with the other one locked to it by a key. That key was always in the lock. He knew this house, knew it well. Old Stell used to watch the kids’ shows on television with him in this room. The dark room, he’d called it when he was a kid.
‘Can we go in the dark room, Aunty Stell?’
Wilson’s trees next door stole all the light, even in the day time; at night it was a black hole. The trees, mainly gums, were creaking and moaning tonight, shedding their leaves in the wind. It was a good night to be out. No-one would expect anyone to be out. There was the smell of fire on the wind too. Some place was burning.
He stood in the space between fence and wall, and he sniffed at the air. Everything was cool tonight. Everything was new, cool – even the moaning of the trees. They sounded like the souls of all the people old Templeton had buried; an army of souls coming back to get him. But he wasn’t here, was he? He was in Africa. Thomas gave a ghostly moan that ended in a giggle. He tried the door, knowing it would be locked, but also knowing that this would be the best side of the house for a break-in. With the end of his torch he tapped the glass, gently. Just one good tap would knock out a pane, and he could reach in and turn the key.
She’d be in bed, and she’d have her bra off, and maybe she’d have her knickers off, and he’d just peel back her nightie and –
‘Coming ready or not, Aunty Stell,’ he whispered, but he couldn’t get up the nerve to tap that glass.
He rubbed at his groin with the pen-light. Rubbed slow. Nothing was happening. Maybe it was scared she might tell this time. But she didn’t before, so why should she this time? He unzipped his fly and his hand worked hard on unresponsive flesh. He tried encouraging it with his fantasy of old Stell’s silky tongue. It was all tuckered out and he wasn’t in the mood anyway.
Maybe it was the pills and the booze, he thought, but he liked the pills and the booze, liked the way it made him see things from a different angle.
‘You’ll save, Aunty Stell. I got two more weeks,’ he said, gliding back to the cypress hedge where he picked up his bike, wishing he’d nicked a spray pack from the supermarket. Paint her hedge. Paint it yellow. Paint her drive yellow.
‘Just follow the yellow brick road.’
He was giggling, looking at the hedge and planning his artwork when the pedal of his bike caught on the leg of his jeans. His reflexes were slow tonight. He tripped, fell against the hedge, and the bike fell on top of him. The outside growth looked green and soft enough, but behind it, the branches were sharp. They scratched his face, gouged at his shoulder.
And the silky Indian was gone, and Maidenville looked like shit again. He scrambled to his feet. His bike weighed nothing, and he tossed it to the gutter, then he kicked the hedge, angry at that which had dared to reach out to him, hurt him, to rip his new shirt, make his shoulder bleed. He kicked the open gate, then he went after his bike and he kicked it too, threw it at the hedge.
‘Fucking bastard. Fucking bloody hedge.’ His arm was bleeding. He sucked on it, spitting blood as he hiked back to the dark side of the Templeton house, where he stood wanting to smash the door. Just get a brick and toss it through. Just get a knife and cut her, make her bleed too. But he didn’t have a knife, only his bloody torch.
Angry, breathing fast now, he peered over the paling fence into Wilson’s yard.
Wilson didn’t used to have a dog, but he whistled softly just in case. Waited. No barking, no scuttling in the long grass. Easing himself up, he scrambled over the fence, prowling through the tangle of grass and overgrown creepers until he stumbled on an open garage.
It was a treasure trove. Thomas found exactly what he needed . . . exactly what he was looking for.