I Never Thought I'd See You Again: A Novelists Inc. Anthology (28 page)

“Was it that long ago?” My father gave a bit of an ashamed laugh. “At least you can’t say I never cared.”

I never knew whether it was me he cared about, or Discount, who, like me, learned to keep a healthy distance from my father in times of stress. Discount grew out rather than up. He was squat, his legs curved out from each corner like those on an antique table.

A year or so later, my pa met with an accident. He was run over in the driveway when his best buddy forgot about the handbrake. They’d been on a run to the liquor shop to stock up for the long weekend, and Pa was lifting the beer from the boot. I’d never liked Alex.

My father surprised me. He left me a large amount of money and the house we lived in. It wasn’t much of a place but it had potential, he’d said.

“He won the money on the lotto,” Alex told me. “I bought the boat with my share. Your pa and I were going to sail to Greece when you grew up.”

Over the years the symbol of Alex the Greek’s short-lived prosperity had been neglected, so the boat was now as unseaworthy as a bathtub in a storm. It was a small boat to go all the way to Greece in.

“I’m grown up now, so don’t let me delay you,” I told him, in case he hadn’t noticed.

Alex had a Greek captain’s hat hanging on a peg in the hall, but he’d never worn it and a spider had taken up residence.

Narelle –– that’s my mother –– came to Pa’s funeral. It was the first time I’d seen her since she’d left. When I thought to recall her — not often, because it took too much effort to remember that far back — her hair was blonde. Now it’s dark brown with copper streaks, as if her head’s leaking rust. Her eyes are ginger. She looks okay for a middle-aged woman.

Politely I hold out a hand. “Mother, how are you?”

She ignored the hand. “I’m a darned sight better than I would’ve been if I’d stayed. I married again, but it didn’t last. I did quite well out of it though. I don’t know what’s the matter with men these days.”

She showed me a photograph of two brown-eyed girls, laughing and holding up rabbit ear fingers behind each other’s heads. They must have been about twelve when the photograph was taken, and they reminded me of Annamarie. Where is she now? I wondered.

“They’re my twins. You can keep the photo if you like.”

It was disconcerting to experience a tug of jealousy about people I didn’t know. “I thought you didn’t want kids . . . that’s what you told me when you left.” in the twenty-first centuryDd

“Don’t whine. I asked you to come. You went all sullen on me, just like your father. When you told me you wanted to stay with him, who was I to argue?”

I would have told her who she was, but she remembered. “Has he treated you well?”

Her glance went around the sitting room of the small house, her nostrils pinching as she lit a cigarette and inhaled the smoke. “I’d be too ashamed to live in this dump.”

“Nobody’s asking you to.”

“Ooh . . . who’s a grouchy one, then? You didn’t answer my question about your father.”

Had I been treated right? What did she care? It was easier to remember the bad things than the good times. There had been beatings from my pa because alcohol made him mean. Sometimes he was okay, like when he’d handed over Discount Dog and became soft, and was ashamed because he knew it wasn’t manly to show emotion. Pa found it difficult to express love since he’d never had any himself, or so Alex said one night. A boy needed love.

After that, when Pa worked the night-shift I’d put a chair under my door handle and curl up small in my bed, hoping Alex would be too drunk to remember it.

If my imaginary guard dog had been a real one then, life might have been different.

“Pa was okay most of the time, I suppose,” I tell her.

“Of course he was, otherwise I wouldn’t have left you with him. Come and give me a hug, Johnny boy. I’ve missed you.”

Johnny boy!
The sharp pain of betrayal hit me, an instant when love, trust and indecision were crushed into pulp by a door closing.

“Goodbye, Johnny boy,” she’d said, and that had been that.

Her scent caught in my throat and made it tickle. Her heart beat against mine but didn’t connect. As much as I yearned for it, there was no synchronicity, just awkwardness. The boy was gone. There was a softness though, a muskiness I wasn’t comfortd it because she smiled, “You’re my handsome, Johnny boy. I bet the girls fall at your feet. Give me a ring sometime.”

I did. She said she was busy and would return the call later. She didn’t.

Women didn’t fall at my feet . . . not then. I had pimples.

My mother called me a month later. “Alex told me your father has left you a legacy. You kept that quiet.”

Alex was a dark horse. So was my mother. The half-sisters I’d never met giggled in the background. I did them a favor. “If you’re seeing Alex, watch out for the twins,” I tell her, and there’s silence while she digests it. This time it’s me who hangs up.

Alex and I had a row. I told him it was my business and he should keep his nose out of it.

“She’s your mother. You’re the man of the family and should take care of them. It’s the right thing to do.” He gave me one of his fierce looks, one that would have terrified me when I was a child.

Discount Dog dredged up some menace and growled do you think you’re doing?”">
“ma when Alex took a step towards me. He likes to surprise me sometimes.

My mother rang several times, so I took charge and changed my number. I didn’t need them. I had Discount for company.

Alex left me a year after Pa’s funeral. He’d grown increasingly morose over the months. The police found his boat trailer on the beach. We’d had a silly argument about whose turn it was to wash up that day, and I told him to find somewhere else to live. After all, it wasn’t as if he paid any rent.

Flinging his cap to the floor he’d jumped up and down on it.

He called me a treacherous low down dog.
“Christe mou!
” he said, sounding exasperated, and he shook the crippled spider from the battered cap before jamming the garment back on his balding head. Headstrong with Greek pride and spitting curses in a mixture of Greek and English he went outside and hitched the trailer to his car. “I’m going back to Greece.”

“Who cares?”

“Gamoto!
You’re an ungrateful doormat. I wouldn’t wipe my feet on your bristles.”

I tossed a grudging laugh at him; I couldn’t help it.

“If I leave I’m not coming back,” he warned.

I was as stubborn as he. “Good . . . get lost then.”

The pebble he threw missed my head by an inch and smashed a window. The spider unfolded its six remaining legs and made a lopsided escape.

I closed the door on Alex’s theatrics. I didn’t really expect him to leave. Oddly though, I missed him when he did.

The boat arrived back on the beach in an untidy scattering of small pieces and planks. Alex washed ashore somewhere else, up the coast. He’d left me the proceeds of his insurance policy. Guilt I suppose. I gave it to my mother. Also guilt. I haven’t heard from her since.

There was an enquiry, where I was called to account.

“Why was Mr. Lopodopolous out at sea in a storm in an unseaworthy vessel?”

Lopodopolous . . . had that been Alex’s name? It sounded more like one the spider grew up with.

“He said he was going home to Greece,” I offered.

“He was a fool.” The coroner frowned at me, as though it was my fault.

“Yes sir, he was,” I said humbly.

Ada Tenby gave me a hug but she didn’t say anything. She knew all about missing people. The picture of Annamarie smiled down at us from the piano, never changing. I began to wonder what she looked like with teeth.

My neighbor was a crazy old bat; she knitted socks for me. She said it kept my feet warm and her fingers supple. I took her shopping and other stuff, like doctor appointments.

By this time I’d become an artist and grown a long beard to go with my laid-back lifestyle. I wasn’t bad.

One day Mrs. Tenby came to my studio and I painted her portrait sitting in the armchair with her tiny gnarled feet in her l“Thank youd fasate husband’s checked carpet slippers. She was knitting a red and white striped sock on four needles. The portrait was good. Ada had a sly look on her careworn face, so if I turned my back on her I had the feeling she was going to poke me between the shoulder blades with a knitting needle.

“You should enter it for the Portrait Prize,” she said, trying not to look proud.

“I might at that.”

Her head slanted to one side. “Do I really look that old?”

“You look fantastic, just like Angelina Jolie.”

She cackled when I grinned, and said, “God help her then.”

In return for sitting I gave her a portrait of Wolf she’d admired, one of my earlier works. She’d said Wolf reminded her of her late husband, and would scare the burglars away. I didn’t tell her that Wolf had deserted me in my time of need.

Discount and I lived behind Ada Tenby for years — and quite happily.

Okay, the house is getting a bit shabby, but like the agent told my father, “It’s nothing that a hammer and nails won’t fix. It’s the view you’re paying for. It can never be built out.”

A lick of paint from time to time disguises the worst, but you soon get used to living in shabby chic, and I didn’t notice it deteriorating into shabby shambles once the first proud flush of fresh paint wore off.

When I wasn’t working in my studio I sat with Discount on the front verandah enjoying the view and the peace and quiet. You could almost hear the termites munching though the stumps beneath us. My ambition was never to leave here.

Never say never!

Ada Tenby died, leaving her washing flapping on the clothes hoist. Thursday it was, supermarket day. When she didn’t answer my knock I peered through the window. She was still wearing her pink flannel nightgown, and had flopped sideways in her chair with her mouth hanging open, the photograph of Annamarie in her lap.

I called the doctor and the police. They arrived together, gazing at me suspiciously while they forced the door open.

“She’s dead,” the doctor pronounced knowledgeably. He was a man who called a spade a spade.

Mrs. Tenby’s grandson was informed; the one who did something important in the city and never had time to visit her. A funeral director took her away in a sober black limousine and the grandson came with a van to remove her effects, including the picture of Wolf. I imagined it hanging in his city office; dripping saliva on him.

Mrs. Tenby’s home was sold to a developer. It took one man with a machine two hours to reduce it to a pile of rusting tin, cancerous concrete and broken glass. I found the picture of Annemarie amongst the rubble, gave the frame a polish and set it on my windowsill as a tribute to the old lady.

The developers built Shangri-La Apartments. They stole the view my father had paid for – the sea, the sky, the flaming sunsets and the starlight.

Now I live in the ugly behind of the constantly circling shadow of Shangri-la Apartments.

The view might have changed, but it has its compensations. At night a there the whole time.ye86 wall of bedrooms and bathrooms are exposed to my view. I see them; women of every shape and size, doing what women do. They have become independent creatures, giving as good as they get. They’ve got the vote, cast off their shackles and have earned their freedom. It’s not easy being free – ask my mother if you ever run into her.

Ada Tenby didn’t win the Portrait Prize, but the offer I got for her was substantial. The buyer said she looked just like his granny. I painted another canvas, of a block of flats, the back wall removed and all the women being women. I called it, The Dolls’ House. It caused a bit of a stir in the art world, sold for a vast sum and got me a couple of commissions.

Today a young woman came to my door. The same developer wants my land for a taller apartment block. It’s a good offer, so they must want it really badly.

“Of course, it would be worth more if you had a bit of a view,” the woman says with a laugh. She has a cute smile and melting brown eyes, and I fall instantly in love. My artist’s eye replaces her two front teeth with empty pink gums. She was still cutable we. I hadn’t thought to ith. She sense

Greg Herren is the author of twenty novels, including the award-winning
Sleeping Angel
and
Murder in the Rue Chartres,
called by the New Orleans
Times-Picayune
“the most honest piece of writing about post-Katrina New Orleans.” His most recent novel,
Timothy,
was published in the fall of 2012. He writes three different mystery series: the Chanse MacLeod mysteries, the Scotty Bradley adventures, and the Paige Tourneur Missing Husband series. The Paige series is exclusively for e-books (the most recent,
Dead Housewives of New Orleans,
was released in May 2013.) He divides his time between writing, editing for Bold Strokes Books, and working as an HIV educator/researcher.