Demons (18 page)

It was hot in the room. The midday sun was beating down on the roof and streaming
in through the glass doors. The heat and odour from thirty bodies meant the air in
the living room had become almost unbreathable; sweat was dripping off Payley’s forehead
and had soaked the underarms of his suit jacket. The group were all sweating too,
and those at the back in the direct sun were shading their heads with their hands.
The only one who seemed to have stayed cool was Bartleby: his face had just a slight
extra sheen. He had been listening to Payley throughout with his ear cocked, but
now, on his forehead, otherwise as passive as stone, the backbencher could see a
little furrow. On the brows of a few others, too, there were lines. The kids down
the front were staring up at the man in the suit with their mouths open. They greatly
respected their elders, and Uncle in particular—otherwise, no doubt, they would be
outside playing. They were all waiting to see if the man in the suit had finished.

But now, said Payley, enough of me. It is time for Uncle to speak.

Payley had only ever met one or two Aboriginal people in his life, he was inner-city
born and bred, and he didn’t really know how he should address them. He’d been parachute-preselected
into and won by a nearly twenty per cent majority a safe outer-suburban Labor seat—there
was as much chance of running into a blackfella out there as there was of meeting
a Kalahari bushman. He gestured for Uncle to speak. There was a long silence. Uncle,
he said, you may speak.

Uncle’s lips barely moved. Now I’ve sat down, he said, I won’t be getting up.

Well, said Marshall, I’m sure you’re all thinking that the next thing Payley did
was call in the cops and get some heads kicked to save face—that’s what we blokes
do, don’t we? Actually, that’s what he should have done. In fact, what he did next
was I’m sure against his better judgment. There was a clear right and wrong—the young
couple were right, the squatters wrong—but the backbencher chose to take on Bartleby’s
cause.

He started defending him in the press, arguing the point with the outraged new settlers
who came trooping into his electoral office (
If you let this happen once, it won’t
stop!
), took it up with his party colleagues and tried to get parliamentary support.
He always ran the line—he had to—that while he didn’t necessarily agree with their
methods, we as a community couldn’t completely ignore what they had to say. Maybe
we were trampling over sacred ground a little too quickly and unthinkingly. Shouldn’t
we at least stop for a minute and draw breath? Look at the circumstances? Launch
an enquiry? Payley kept visiting the house—the press were camped there, he knew there’d
be photos—to sit down and parley with Bartleby and try to get something else out
of him. He couldn’t. He began to feel like everything he was doing—let’s face it,
risking his career—was for no other reason than to get Bartleby to speak and somehow
‘explain himself’.

Then the young Indian wife had her baby and the photo was published on the front
page of the papers.
Shock! Outrage!
An unwashed rabble were living in the house that
was rightfully theirs, while they—now with a newborn—slept in the husband’s parents’
spare room. The tide turned against Bartleby and his supporters, including, and most
dramatically, Payley. He was hauled in by the party and given a dressing down: a
recent poll showed voter support plummeting in his aspirational lower middle-class
electorate. He took their advice and stepped away. Shortly after that the cops raided
the house, broke up the protest and arrested the occupants, including Bartleby. The
house was restored at the government’s expense to its original condition, the tradesmen
returned to finish it off and there were plenty more happy snaps and smiley footage
when the young couple and their baby moved in.

The case got dragged through the courts for a while but in the end the charges were
dropped. Bartleby disappeared and, aside from a few stuttering attempts to revive
the movement, his supporters disappeared too. Payley tub-thumped pretty strongly
after that for the little guy, the battler, trying to pay his mortgage and put food
on the table, while big government let welfare cheats get away with murder. His numbers
crept
back up again: at the next election he won by an increased majority.

Marshall placed the stick carefully back on the table.

It’s about expediency, isn’t it? said Evan. Don’t you think? The quick fix. Keep
it simple, stupid. We don’t want to take time, get our hands dirty. Oh no! Do you
see what I mean? We’ve become very good at avoiding the messy bits, haven’t we? It’s
always someone else’s problem. But what can we do, people? Seriously? What can we
do?

It was only after he went on like this for a while that everyone realised Evan was
pissed. Actually, everyone was a bit pissed but it was only Evan who was jumping
out of his chair. Adam watched him, smiling.

Marshall sat forward. You’re right, Ev, he said, it’s true, and not just with politics
but with everything. We’re becoming short-sighted, stupid. Pretty soon even one plus
one will be too complicated for us. Debate’s a thing of the past—don’t talk to me
about debate! We only pay lip-service to it now. How many times already in this job
would I have liked to undo a decision I’d made only because there was pressure to
make one? We need to find time to relax, people, to sit down and have a chat, or
soon we’ll all be going over the cliff.

Absolutely, said Evan—but with that, in an instant, he seemed to have expended his
last bit of energy. Marshall waited—but Evan had nothing left. Thunder rumbled above
the house. That was a good story, said Megan. Everyone went quiet. Marshall sank
back into the cushions. The pot bell went off. Megan got up.

They started organising dinner, an Italian-style casserole with the lamb loin chops
Lauren and Adam had brought for a Saturday barbecue. There would be no barbecue now.
They had onions, garlic, carrots. A tin of tomatoes. Dried herbs from the top of
the cupboard. Half a bottle of wine. For a while there was some dispute about how
much to put in: Adam, Evan and Marshall argued a splash, Megan said they’d need at
least a cup to give it flavour. Marshall said he thought he might have a couple of
bottles, a gift from a donor, in the back of his car—but then they looked out at
the rain. Scissors, paper, rock, said Evan. I’ve got one, said Adam. What? said Lauren.
A spare bottle, in my bag, wrapped in a jumper, just in case—it’s a good one too.
Now he tells us! said Evan. Adam went to get it.

Hannah was still looking out the window. God, she said—and she flicked on the outside
light.

A river of water was pouring over the embankment onto the driveway, dragging a slurry
of dirt and gravel and splashing around the wheels of the cars. Marshall’s, at the
end, had been cut loose. They watched, amazed, their faces pressed against the glass,
as it floated across the road on a brown river of water and dropped into a shallow
ditch on the other side. Fuck! said Marshall. He grabbed the real estate section
from the couch, held it over his head, opened the balcony door and ran out.

It was not just the end of the driveway gone, half the front garden had been washed
away too.

Then it went dark. Shit! said Adam, from the hallway. What? said Evan, looking round.
Shit! said Adam, again. The only light was the glow from the fire. Are there candles?
asked Hannah. Someone lit one. Hello? Tilly’s here, said Adam. What? There was a
silver light coming up the stairs, shaking and shivering. Everyone? said Adam—I think
I can see Tilly here.

Tilly turned off her phone so the candle was lighting her. There’s grog here somewhere
for sure, said Evan, from the kitchen. Tilly? said Marshall, from the balcony door.
The newspaper had moulded itself to his head. The lights are out, said Tilly. I got
the wine, said Adam, holding it up. Tilly flipped her phone over and over in the
palm of her hand. Whisky! said Evan. I found whisky here!

They lit more candles, set the table. Marshall? Evan poured some whisky into a glass
with pictures of Bart Simpson on it. Marshall had taken the newspaper off but his
hair was still stuck to his scalp. Tilly was in the living room on the couch, fiddling
with her phone. (It was doing their heads in, that silver light; they were like moths,
flapping around it but not getting too close in case it burned them up.) The pot
bell went off and Hannah got up to empty it. Anyone else? said Evan, and he presented
the whisky to each in turn.

Lauren set the casserole dish on a chopping board in the centre of the table. Adam
opened the wine. Hannah brought in plates, knives and forks. It was, unexpectedly,
a candlelit dinner. Are you going to have something to eat? asked Lauren. Come on
love, said Megan. Tilly came to the table and sat at the place set for her, next
to her father. Now we are eight! said Evan, raising his glass. No-one laughed. Maybe
you should turn it off? said Leon. He spoke quietly, almost under his breath. Tilly
flipped the phone around once in her hand. When did you last charge it? asked Evan.
He spoke like someone who needed to know but also wanted to make out like he didn’t.
This morning, said Tilly. Phew, said Evan. Turn it off now please, darling, said
Marshall, while we’re at the table. Tilly did. The room changed without the silver
light.

I’m sorry to hear about your Uncle Rylan, said Hannah. That felt like someone had
dropped a bomb and Tilly said nothing at first. He was a troubled young man, said
Marshall, always had been, trying this and that but never really getting his life
together. I guess he’d had it a bit too easy—but easy’s not always the best, is it?
Lauren started serving. I tried to help him, said Marshall, with money and all that,
but he couldn’t hold on to anything for long. I’m just telling the truth, Tilly,
he said, turning to her. Your mother would agree, Uncle Rylan had some lovely traits
but listening to good advice wasn’t one of them.

He seemed to be warming to his subject—truth is, they were all warming to the idea
of dealing with the elephant in the room—when Tilly pushed her chair back, picked
up her phone and stepped away from the table. If Uncle Rylan was stupid, she said,
and maybe he was, then stupid’s better than liar. She hesitated, held her ground.
She looked like a loaded spring. And if you don’t want to do anything, she said—she
was talking to them all—then why don’t you just
get out of the way
.

The phone torch came on. She followed it downstairs. The door below opened and closed.

I’ll do it, said Megan. There was something cold, abrupt, about her voice. Marshall
stiffened, but let it go. Megan picked up the plate that Lauren had prepared and
with a candle in her other hand she made her way downstairs. They all stared at their
meals. Evan started first, the others followed. When Marshall spoke it was like he’d
decided to confess to the plate of food in front of him and that of all things available
this was the one most likely to offer absolution.

He was giving me the shits, he said, so I yelled at him, that’s all. I gave him a
serve. He had it coming. He was a lazy, selfish little prick who’d never lifted a
finger in his life. Jackie’s parents are working-class-made-good; they did everything
so their kids didn’t have to do anything. But Jackie had a conscience, she studied
hard, worked hard—you all know that—she never once leaned on her parents for money.
We scraped together our own deposit, took out a mortgage, paid it off week by week
like everyone else. We never asked for hand-outs. But not Rylan. He stayed home all
through his twenties, they bought him a car, whatever he wanted—when he finally did
move out they even bought him his own apartment. Simple, working-class people who
had earned what they had by the sweat of their brows.

So Rylan moves out and fucks around, goes to bars, eats at good restaurants, buys
the best clothes, has one girlfriend after another but nothing that lasts. He tries
a few jobs and they don’t last either. He’s got a self-destructive streak. Flies
off the handle, says stuff he shouldn’t. And whenever he needs money he just rings
the old man. Jackie was always too soft on him. We used to argue about him, and I
tried to keep out of it, really I did. Tilly loved her Uncle Rylan. And why? Because
Uncle Rylan was full of shit. He listened to the coolest music, wore the coolest
clothes, seemed to be always where the action was. It started to get to me, it shouldn’t
have, I know; what Rylan provoked in me was a kind of alien feeling. I’m rusted on
Labor, you know that, I’m about a fair go for all, we hold out the helping hand when
it’s needed, we don’t do sink or swim. But this idea had lodged in my head that Rylan
was a bludger—like my dad used to say—and that he needed to get off his arse, take
responsibility for his actions, show some initiative. Some
enterprise
. There I was
running a campaign and winning a seat on a platform of old-style community values
and all the while, on the side, I’m preaching dog-eat-dog individualism to my wayward
brother-in-law.

The pot bell rang. That’s you, said Evan. Fuck it, said Marshall. I’ll do it, said
Evan, and he got up. Woo, I’m a bit pissed, he said.

Megan came back from downstairs and sat at her place: she said nothing, did nothing,
held her thoughts.

Go on, said Hannah.

Anyway, said Marshall, too far into his explanation now to turn back, one day when
Rylan was over I lost it with him. I cut into him pretty hard, saying how he ought
to get off his backside and do something, that he couldn’t keep living off his parents
like this. He was actually pretty contrite; he didn’t argue, he just listened with
that hang-dog look he sometimes got and at the end he said: You’re right.

Jackie and I talked after that, for hours actually. I apologised, said I knew it
wasn’t my business but all the same I thought she should have a word with her parents,
that they were being weak with him, that I understood how he was her brother and
all that but he needed to harden up. That ended up all right, that discussion, and
later she mentioned to me how she’d spoken to her parents and she was pretty sure
they’d taken it on board.