Behind the Moon (29 page)

His eyes adjusted to the gloom and he could see at once that they’d been waiting for him: three bullish men with the glint of hate in their eyes and the stale stench of beer on their breath. He read his fate in the knobbled knuckles of clenched fists and the angry orange burn of lip-clamped cigarettes.

‘Fucking Asian faggot.’

He closed his eyes and, to his mild surprise, thought about Gibbo and Tien. That was what he really wanted, he thought. His friends. In the lilt and drag of his pummelled body he remembered the rocking motion of a Ferris-wheel cage in Glenelg and he would have given anything to be a child again.

He heard the snarl, ‘What are you?’

Through cracked bleeding lips he said, ‘I am me.’

And at last, for the first time in his life, he knew that this was true. He no longer needed the external markers of identity, the first thing people saw or learned about him and judged him by. He was not reducible to his ethnicity or his sexuality or his occupation or geographical location or even to his family. Somewhere between the surface of his skin and the creases of his soul, in the interstice of mind and matter, there was a void in which he simply was.

‘I am me,’ he said. He accepted it.

Pain was a starburst on his flesh. They said, ‘What are you?’

He stretched his split lip into a ghastly grimace, clung on to the thought of Gibbo and Tien, and said, ‘I’m a Mouseketeer. All for one, and one for all.’

‘What are you?’

At last he gave in and croaked, ‘I’m a fucking Asian faggot.’

Behind the Moon

‘Wind’s held me up, rain’s kept me back—

I’ve hurt your feelings much against my wish.

I’m home alone today—I’ve come out here

to make amends repaying love for love.’

Nguyen Du,
The Tale of Kieu

The doctor recited a list of cigarette burns, fractured ribs, broken left tibula, contusions, concussion, oedema of the brain and a ruptured spleen that had been removed. Blood loss had been severe. He hesitated. There was more, he said. There had been anal penetration, possibly with a broken beer bottle. The rectum had ruptured. Infection was likely so they were feeding him a strong dose of antibiotics. Justin had not yet recovered consciousness.

‘Sodomised? With a fucking beer bottle?’

No-one had ever seen Bob Gibson broken with grief. In his line of work, he claimed he’d seen everything and there was nothing left to shock an old cynic like him. Vietnam vet, football-chucking tough bloke, in the face of trouble he lowered his head and became bullish, snorting, stamping and galloping head-on towards obstacles to trample them underfoot or toss them out of his way. He did not often allow himself to indulge in warm fuzzy feelings. He refused to be a sentimental man. He muscled his way through life with a dogged determination and an aggressiveness that might lose him friends but which, so he claimed, actually got things done.

Now he fell apart. He sank down onto the grey plastic chair in the hospital waiting room and sobbed into his hands. His shoulders quaked with sorrow. Only now did he realise how much he loved their children. All of them.

‘Justo,’ he groaned. ‘God, how can these things happen to our kids? We tried to take such good care of them. We tried to make sure they were safe. What kind of fucked-up world do we live in where people can do these things?’

Gibbo cut down his hours of work at the pub. He came to sit with Justin every day and spent alternate nights at the hospital to give Tek and Annabelle a chance to sleep properly in their own beds. He steamed rice and cooked Chinese stir-fries, packed them into plastic boxes and brought them to the hospital for Tek and Annabelle, urging them to eat.

‘Come, Auntie, Uncle.
Sek farn
.’

‘
Wah
, you so clever one,’ Annabelle said after she tasted his cooking.

‘Well, you’re the one who taught me, Auntie,’ he said.

‘Is it?’ She gave him a tiny smile. ‘Pass, you know.
Ho sek
.’

He felt good about himself then. He liked the feeling of being useful, being needed. Late at night, after everyone left, he sat on a chair by Justin’s bed and leant his head against the mattress. He reached out his hand and touched Justin’s bandaged, broken fingers lightly, careful not to exert too much pressure in case Justin could feel pain even in his coma.

‘I swear I’ll take care of your parents like they’re my own if anything happens to you,’ he said to Justin. Then he began to cry, his tears soaking the thin white sheet covering the plaster cast on Justin’s left leg. ‘But don’t go yet. Not when we’ve just started to be friends again. I haven’t had enough time with you. I wish I’d done so many things different.’

He could not help rewinding and replaying the past in his mind, and his memories always stuttered to a stop when they reached that night at Reef Beach. In a life strewn with mistakes, Gibbo had one major regret. He wished that he had kissed Justin just once that night. If he could go back, rub out the past and rewrite his life, this was the thing he would change. He wished he’d had the maturity, the compassion and courage to kiss Justin back, hug him tightly, then ease away and say with a smile, ‘Jus, if I was gay you’d be it for me. Maybe in our next lives, mate. Let’s drink to that, eh?’

Gibbo swore to himself that when all this was over and their lives returned to normal, he would make it up to Justin. And in the meantime, he would make things right with Tien when she returned from San Francisco.

Tien arrived in Sydney a few days later. She was surprised to see Gillian waiting for her at the airport.

‘Welcome home, Tien,’ Gillian said, and she sounded as though she really meant it. She kissed Tien on the cheek and took charge of the trolley, wheeling it out to her car. ‘I’m picking you up because your mother has been helping Annabelle to look after Justin during the night. They’ve moved him out of intensive care so he no longer has a nurse attending to him all the time. Annabelle wants someone there continually so that he won’t be alone when he wakes up.’

‘Thanks for picking me up. It’s really good to see you, Mrs Gibson,’ Tien said. ‘So. How are things with you and Gibbo and my mum then? You’re obviously talking again.’

‘Oh, well. We need to pull together for Tek and Annabelle, don’t we?’ Gillian sighed. ‘We all seem to have gone slightly mad over the last few years. Anyway, dear, how is Stanley?’

‘I don’t know,’ Tien said flatly. ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of weeks now. We’re getting divorced. I haven’t told Mum yet.’

‘Oh.’ Gillian started the car and drove towards the car-park tollbooths.

Tien looked straight ahead and said, ‘Mrs Gibson, you know that it was Stan and me who made Mum take out the AVO against Gibbo, don’t you? Stan said he would drop his lawsuit against you if Mum would do it. I didn’t do anything to stop him either time.’

Gillian glanced quickly at Tien, then turned her attention back to the road. ‘Tien, I think we shouldn’t talk about all that. Tek and Annabelle and Justin need us now. Let bygones be bygones, all right? Now, did they serve you breakfast on the plane?’

‘I just don’t want you to be angry with me,’ Tien said. ‘Although you have a right to be. I’m so sorry for everything.’

‘Tien, I’m not angry,’ Gillian sighed. ‘I’m tired and distracted and stressed over Justin, and I just haven’t got room for anger anymore. I want us to move on. Write off the last couple of years as an aberration and let’s just put it behind us, okay? Now, I can take you out for breakfast or I can take you back to your mother’s apartment. Unless you want to go straight to the hospital. Whatever suits you best, dear.’

Tien was silent for a moment. She remembered that she had once given Gillian flowers for Mother’s Day. She said, ‘Thank you. I’d like to see Justin first.’

Nothing could have prepared her for the sight of Justin lying there in a tangle of tubes, his pulpy face covered with hideous bruises, his slightly parted lips chapped and dry, and his body swathed in bandages. Unrecognisable.

She didn’t know how long she stood by his bedside, staring down at him, her fingernails biting into the soft palms of her clenched fists, her breathing choppy with anger and a heart full of hurt. She bent to smooth back Justin’s hair and whispered, ‘I don’t know how important I ever was to you, even as a friend. I know you’re gay. But I want you to know that I’ve always loved you. I still do.’

‘You’re a good girl to fly all the way back from San Francisco, Tien,’ Tek said when he saw her. He walked towards her with outstretched arms and folded her into a tight hug. Then he stepped back, blew his nose hard and tried to smile. ‘Thank you for coming. Justin will appreciate this. He’s so lucky to have such good friends. All our families, you know, no matter what happened in the past, everybody is here now for Jay. Bob and Gillian have been so good to us, and Gibbo cooks for us every day, you know. We’re so lucky to have you all. Even him.’

Tek jerked his head towards one corner of the visitors’ lounge where Dirk Merkel was sitting apart from everyone else, looking uncomfortable but determined to stay. ‘They broke up, you know. But I tell you what. Gay or not, he really loves my Jay. He comes to visit every evening after work and stays for hours.’

It was the only thing he and Annabelle could take comfort in just then. The fact that their son meant something to these people who came day after day. All debts were cancelled, all offences forgiven, simply because Justin was loved.

Tien looked over at Dirk and thought how lucky Justin was because he could command such loyalty and affection even from an ex. Perhaps love was like a game of pick-upsticks, she thought. You tossed up the coloured sticks and you couldn’t predict where they would land, what kinds of patterns would be formed. If you had enough skill, you could extract a stick for yourself, but if your fingers shook, you brought the whole pile down and then you lost your turn. You were ‘out’. Well, it was her turn to be ‘out’ now. She was out in so many ways; out of love, out of a job, out of a home and, as always, out of place.

Inevitably, everyone asked after Stan, and she had to sit there and tell them bluntly that she was getting a divorce.

‘
Ai-yoh
, how come?’ Annabelle lamented, momentarily diverted from her own worries. She gripped Tien’s shoulder and shook it hard. ‘Don’t be so hasty. All marriage difficult in the first few years, you know, but then you get used to it. Like buying a nice new pair of shoes, isn’t it?
Oi lang moi
mang
, you know. You want beauty even if it costs you your life. At first new shoes pinch and hurt so much when you walk you think you’ll die! Then you break them in and they’re not so bad. Always make your feet look good, though. Marriage is the same.’

Tien smiled and something eased within her chest. She felt a small part of her locking back into its rightful place. ‘But I can always buy a nice new pair of shoes, can’t I?’

Annabelle surprised herself by laughing. Then she shook her head sadly. ‘This generation! Always throw away and then buy new things. Just like my Jay. All of you don’t know what you want. You don’t know how to value what you have.’ Her eyes filled with tears again and Tien stepped in close to hold her tightly.

‘I don’t know what to say, Auntie,’ Tien whispered into Annabelle’s hair. ‘I want to do the right thing and say the right thing to you and Uncle Tek, but I don’t know what to say.’

‘No need to say anything,’ Annabelle said. ‘You always so strong. Put up with so many things. You be strong for us now, okay? You and Gibbo. Always my Jay’s best friends no matter what.’

She held out her hand and Tien looked up to see Gibbo emerging from the lift, a cardboard tray of takeaway coffee in his hands. Tien met his gaze, then dropped her eyes. How could he not hate her, she thought, when he must know that she had coerced Linh into taking out the AVO against him—her best friend, her first friend in Australia.

But Gibbo merely handed out the coffee cups, then he came over and hugged Annabelle and Tien.

‘You must be tired, Tien,’ he said. ‘Can I drive you back to Linh’s so you can get some rest?’

And it was just that easy for him. No thunderhead of vengeance or even a passing grey cloud of resentment seemed to shadow his heart. Somehow, in the angst of selfabsorbed adolescence and her jealousy over his closeness to Justin, she’d forgotten the sweetness of his heart and all the things that made him worth hanging on to as a friend.

He dropped her off at Linh’s and before she got out of the car, she touched his hand and said, ‘I’m really sorry, Gibbo. I’ve been a terrible friend to you.’

He turned his palm upwards to clasp her hand tightly. He said, ‘It’s okay. I’m sorry too. Anyway, the main thing now is that we’ve gotta be there for Justin and his family.’

That night, Tien told Linh that she and Stan were getting divorced. She edited out most of her marriage, merely explaining that Stan had found somebody else.

‘So you were right in the end. I shouldn’t have married Stan.’ When Linh was silent, Tien became defensive. She pushed against the imagined weight of her mother’s disapproval. ‘I suppose you’re going to say “I told you so”?’

Linh looked at her sadly. ‘So even now you don’t believe that I love you. You’re my daughter. What do I have to do to prove that your joys are mine, and all your pain as well?’

‘I believe you,’ Tien said, not wanting to argue with her mother. But she did not feel loved. She told herself she didn’t feel anything. She would not acknowledge the anger simmering inside her.

A few weeks after Tien returned to Sydney, Annabelle rang Linh early one morning but Linh had already left for work. She spoke to Tien instead.

‘The police have made an arrest,’ she said distractedly. ‘Tek and I are going down to the station to find out more. You and your mummy come over for dinner tonight, okay? We see you later.’

Tien and her mother had dinner with the Gibsons and the Cheongs that night—the first time since the Dead Diana Dinner. The women each brought a dish, and if Tek shuddered inwardly when he spotted Gillian’s attempted rendang, made from a bottle of curry sauce she’d bought at the supermarket, he said nothing but smiled and thanked her warmly.

‘So kind of you to cook. You all so kind to us.’ His voice shook and he blinked away tears, then coughed in embarrassment.

‘Eat up, eat up,’ Annabelle ordered, dolloping huge spoonfuls of Gillian’s curry onto everyone’s plate so that there was nothing left in the bowl. ‘Must finish everything tonight. Cannot keep any leftovers in the fridge. Got no space.’

By unspoken agreement, they avoided the topic of Justin’s condition and the police arrests during dinner.

‘So tell us about America, Tien. You must have lots of funny stories,’ Annabelle said, determined to have a cheerful meal. ‘Did you go to Hollywood? Is it true all the women have nose jobs and boob jobs?’

Tien roused herself from her abstraction. She had to be strong for Annabelle, she reminded herself. She had to be there for Justin’s family.

‘Yeah, absolutely,’ she said. ‘In fact, once I was at this dinner party in LA and there was this blonde tanned Babewatch-type stunner of a woman with humungous stripper breasts just popping out of her red halter-neck top. It was impossible to hold a decent conversation with any of the men there that night. Their eyeballs were just zooming like Exocet missiles towards her cleavage.’

‘Really, Tien. This isn’t very tasteful conversation,’ Gillian murmured.

‘
Hi-yah
, never mind whether tasty or not,’ Annabelle said impatiently. ‘What happen?’

‘Oh, she just lapped it up. She was in her element, flirting and not paying any attention to what she was doing, and neither were the men. They were oblivious to everything but those breasts. Our hostess got more and more annoyed. She hissed to her husband, who was sitting opposite this F-cup woman, to fill up our glasses with more champagne because we were running low. He very reluctantly ran to the kitchen, grabbed the champers from the fridge and ran back to the table because he didn’t want to lose any gawking time. He sat back down at the table, twisted off the wire and eased off the cork.