Too Close to Home (13 page)

On the other side of the fence, an old Chinese woman sweeps the cement out the front of her house, her face shaded by a wide-brimmed straw hat. Seeing Freya, she shakes her head, tut-tutting as she does so. Unsure whether the disapproval is directed at her, Shane or the leaves, Freya doesn't smile at her as their eyes meet. She just lifts the gate over the crack in the path and hooks it shut behind her.

 

Shane is still not there in the afternoon. Freya picks up Ella and, at the school gate, she sees Archie and Darlene walking ahead alone.

‘Run and stop them,' she tells Ella.

She catches up with them at the corner. They are okay on their own, Darlene says. They can wait for their dad at home. Her defiance disappears with the bribe of a treat. After leaving a note at Shane's, Freya takes them all to the local shop and lets them choose an iceblock each.

The owner, a grumpy old Greek man, knows Archie and Darlene well.

‘You got my money, you kids?' and he takes down a note he has stuck to the side of the register. The IOU is up over ten dollars.

Darlene shrugs her shoulders and looks the man in the eye. She has one of those deep voices that young girls occasionally have, and she tells him that her dad has the money. ‘I've told him to pay you,' she says.

‘You can't have no more,' and the owner holds one end of the freezer door so that Darlene can't open it to get her iceblock.

‘I'm paying,' Freya explains, showing him her purse.

He lets go and the door slides open too quickly, catching Archie's finger. As he howls, Freya tries to comfort him.

‘Can we have any one we want?' Ella asks, her eyes on the Magnums.

‘Yes,' Freya replies, wanting to be gone.

The owner takes the money, explaining his gripe to Freya. Those kids come down every day. They say their dad has gone out and left them with no food. What is he to do? He feeds them. But he has had enough.

‘Enough,' and he wags his finger at Archie, who still has tears in his eyes.

In a bid to shut him up, Freya says she will settle the account, and she gives him the money. He puts it in the register without even thanking her.

When she gets home, Freya tries to ring Matt. She is worried and she wants to speak to someone. The riots are continuing. She has listened to the radio on and off for most of the day, and although the anger has dissipated a little, there is talk of another build-up this evening.

‘My people are angry,' a local elder tells the reporters and the grab of his voice is used in each news bulletin. ‘The police harass us, all day, all night. Now a young man has been killed and we have had enough.'

Enough, Freya thinks, when she hears the quote again, and she is reminded of the shop owner shaking his finger in front of Archie.

When Matt calls her back she's making dinner. The mobile reception is terrible, his voice cutting out halfway through each sentence.

‘What do I do?' she asks him.

He tells her to just hold on to the kids until the situation calms down, until she can find out what's happened to Shane. At least that's what she thinks he's saying; it's how he's most likely to respond.

He will be heading back to Townsville tomorrow, he says, and then flying out the next morning.

It's not until she's hung up that she realises he hadn't mentioned her play. She wonders whether he got her earlier message. She knows he finds her apparent success hard sometimes, but she hasn't known him to ever fail to congratulate her.

The next morning, Archie climbs in through the window to get clean uniforms for him and Darlene. They dress quickly, and throw their dirty clothes into Shane's bedroom.

‘Will Dad get us this afternoon?' Archie asks.

‘I'm sure he will,' Freya replies, avoiding Darlene's eyes.

Freya has continued listening to news reports. Last night's riots had ended just before midnight. Community meetings were to be held that morning. There'd been demands made on both sides. Peace and a full inquiry into the death of the teenager. The footage of the area showed how extreme the situation had been.

‘We are angry,' people on the street said. ‘We want justice.' ‘They murdered a kid.' Some stared into the cameras, others turned their backs, giving the reporters
the finger, others shouted direct at the news crews: ‘Just fuck off outta here.'

Freya had decided. If Shane didn't come back this afternoon, she would call the police.

After leaving the kids at school, she catches the train into the city to meet her agent and the artistic director, John. She sees her reflection in the window and wonders whether she should have dressed a little less casually. She is wearing another of her mother's Marimekko shifts (her father had bought her several on his Scandinavian trip and they'd all remained in a trunk, unworn). She has red clogs and she has pinned her hair up. The problem is she still looks like a student, she thinks. She has never developed the kind of elegance that Anna has.

She has caught the line that goes through Redfern. The station is closed, and the train rattles straight through. As she peers out the window, there's little to see. The damage from the fire is not as bad as it appeared on television. The people are no longer out on the streets. It's hard to reconcile the extreme images with the vision she sees now. All she wants is for Shane to return this afternoon.

When she arrives at the meeting, she's surprised to find Frank there as well, and as she remembers her birthday, she hopes she doesn't blush.

‘You know each other, of course,' John says.

He wants Frank to direct her play, and as he was in town, John thought it would be good for him to come along.

They all praise her work (which is what they always do) and tell her that it's her best yet: funny, harsh, timely. Freya nods, smiles and thanks them.

‘It's political,' John says. ‘And so very relevant to our current situation – people feel frustrated, disenfranchised, let down by both the major political parties and they don't know how to express this. Your work will speak to them.'

She always feels uncomfortable in the face of compliments. She would also like to tell them that, to her, the play is more about a relationship between a man and a woman, how tenuous the links are that build a life, and how easily rent. But she is aware that would be foolish. The political element takes her work into a realm other than just the domestic, a site of death for most women writers. She takes a sugar sachet and turns it round and round in her palm, staying silent as they talk briefly about the approach they'd like to take in the production, including Freya in the conversation, although she knows she's now out of the picture. Frank and John will make these decisions. She's done her job.

At the end of the meeting, Frank leaves with her.

The day is harsh and blue, and she shades her eyes from the glare of the sun as she asks him when he's going back to Melbourne.

He smiles awkwardly. ‘Tomorrow. But just for a couple of days.'

‘Things are okay?'

He shakes his head. ‘Do you want to have lunch?'

She wants to say yes, but she's anxious about getting home and seeing if Shane is back. Looking at him, the smooth line of his jaw and the gold of his skin, she knows this isn't the only reason. She remembers lying in the hammock and wanting to kiss him. She hadn't, of course; even drunk she'd been aware of Matt nearby,
Ella asleep in the house. But now she feels herself on the brink of freefall.

His smile is wry as he says that he guesses dinner is out of the question.

Stepping back under the cool green shade of the plane tree, she wonders for a moment what it would be like to throw everything up in the air, all her life as it is now, fluttering around her against the blue of the sky. Dinner would be good, she could say. But it will have to be at my place.

The lightness is sparkling and cold.

‘I can't,' she says.

He takes her hand and squeezes it as he kisses her on the cheek, and she watches as he walks away, wanting to hold on to the possibility of changing her mind, going after him and saying that no, she'd like to have dinner, until he turns down a side street and is no longer in sight.

AFTER FREYA HAD THE termination, she and Matt had stopped circling each other. She loved him without the anxiety she had once had. He, too, changed.

‘I think we should live together,' he suggested.

Her first play had been accepted for production, and she'd been looking for a flat. Sitting at his kitchen table, marking apartments in the paper while he made her breakfast, she'd read out descriptions of each place that appealed to her.

‘You know,' she suddenly told him, ‘I feel as though my life is opening up; good things are happening in abundance.'

He sat down opposite her and took her hand in his. When he said that it made sense for them to find somewhere together, she was surprised and, she had to confess, momentarily taken aback by the idea. She had visions of her own place, and to alter that wasn't as easy as he'd assumed it would be.

‘You don't want to?' he'd asked.

She'd looked at him, and then she'd stood up slowly and gone over to the window. ‘You know,' she'd said,
‘if I hadn't hesitated, if I'd just said yes immediately, it would be the wrong thing to do.'

He narrowed his eyes and tried to assess what she was saying.

‘The fact that I want to be on my own almost as much as with you is a good thing.' She kissed him gently and then picked up the newspaper, handing it to him as she did so. ‘I suppose that means you'd better have a closer look at the places I've circled.'

 

Now, as Freya opens the door to the cool of the hallway, she wishes Matt were home. She'd walked past Shane's on the way back from the train station and he still wasn't there. She wants Matt here to take control of this situation because she isn't sure what she should be doing.

As she heads up to the school, she realises she's been so distracted by the play and Shane's absence, she's had little opportunity to dwell on the ramifications of Matt's trip, and she's glad of that. Because each time she thinks of it, she's anxious. It's there, underlying her general state, an edgy skittishness that rattles inside her, knocking against her being. She just wants to concentrate on dealing with the fact that Shane isn't back. She can only hope he'll be in the school grounds.

She waits under the shade of a Moreton Bay fig, the ground littered with bruised fruit and dead leaves. When the principal walks past, she wonders whether she should speak to her. If something has happened, she may have had word, and she looks up, wanting to catch her eye. But the principal doesn't stop. Freya will stick to her original plan. If Shane isn't here, she'll take the kids home and call the police.

The bell rings loudly, jarring and harsh, and Freya hears the sound of children chattering as they wait at the door to their classroom until they are given permission to leave. Teachers call out over the noise, and the first group of kids break free, running across the playground to the spot where their mothers or fathers usually wait. Freya sees Ella, her hair coming out of her plaits, her face coloured with slashes of Texta and her knees covered in dirt; she is clutching notes in one hand, her bag in the other. Freya waves and she is, as always, light with the wonder of her.

‘Look,' Ella says and she crushes the paper into Freya's palm. ‘We've got an excursion. I need to bring some money.'

Freya bends to kiss her, and as she does so, she glances across to where Archie still waits outside the classroom. His bag is at his feet, and he sits against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, not looking up at the teacher who stands by the door.

‘Archie.' It's Darlene calling out.

Hearing his sister, Archie grabs his bag and glances up at the teacher who nods at him; yes, he can go.

Freya stops them as they cross the playground.

‘Can we get an ice-cream?' they ask.

‘We'll have something at home,' she tells them, not wanting to deal with the shop owner again.

The kids groan, but Freya ignores them.

She doesn't know why, but she decides to go past Shane's house once again. She is so sure he won't be there that she doesn't even look for his car as they round the corner to the top of his street. It's Ella who sees it first.

‘Look,' and she points to the jeep pulled up out the front, one wheel on the kerb, the others in the gutter.

The three of them start running; Archie is in front, his thin brown legs fast as he races for the front door, calling out ‘Dad, Dad' over and over again. Ella follows them into the dimness of the long bare corridor. Freya ducks under a light globe that hangs so low it almost touches her head and stands at the entrance to the lounge room. The carpet is old and stained, the furniture is minimal; a couch that is losing its stuffing, a TV and a coffee table, bare except for an overflowing ashtray on top.

‘He'll be in there,' Darlene says, racing back to the other end of the hall, and she pushes open the door to the front room.

Archie is right behind her.

Freya hears the kids, and Shane's muffled greeting. The sweet smell of stale alcohol, smoke and sweat wafts out of the room, like rotten fruit, she thinks. Taking Ella's hand, Freya looks in to where Shane lies on top of the unmade bed, the kids jumping around him, squealing in excitement, until he reaches up for them and pulls them down on top of him.

‘You're back,' she says, and her voice is tight.

He sits up, and she can see the beginnings of a black eye, purpled bruising around the bloodshot iris. He is wheezing as he tries to speak.

‘Thanks for having them, ay.' He ruffles Archie's curls. ‘Say thank you to your Auntie Freya.'

Darlene grins as she mimics her father. ‘Thank you, Auntie Freya.' She even has the wheeze and she giggles at the success of her own imitation.

Freya just looks at Shane. Eventually when she speaks, the anger is impossible to hide, ragged at the edge of her words. ‘You said you'd be back yesterday.'

He doesn't respond.

She is holding on to the doorframe, her knuckles white.

‘I was worried sick.'

Still, he doesn't answer.

‘I didn't know what to do. I was going to call the cops. I mean, you could have rung or something. Just let me know you were okay.' Her eyes are smarting. ‘You're their fucking father.'

She can see he has no understanding of why she's angry.

‘I mean, what were you expecting this afternoon? That I would just get them again? Which I did and which I would do – but Jesus, you know, I watched what was happening on TV. I didn't know whether you were dead in a gutter. But you're fine, of course. And I was here to look after your kids until you decided to come back, pissed and totally okay.'

She takes Ella's hand and steps out into the glare of the afternoon. Standing for a moment on the footpath, she wipes at the tears in her eyes. Why the fuck am I crying? she thinks, and she breathes in deeply.

He comes out behind her, stumbling slightly on the step near the front gate. ‘I shoulda called,' he admits, ‘but I knew you'd be takin' care of 'em.'

Across the road, a neighbour raises his hand in greeting. Shane nods back at him.

‘He's lived here all his life,' he says. ‘Helped me fix the car.'

Ella looks across at him.

‘My stinky car.' Shane ruffles the top of Ella's hair. ‘She's always tellin' me how much it smells,' and he grins as he glances across at Freya. ‘I'm takin' the kids to Macca's; I can take her too.'

Freya shakes her head again. ‘You're still pissed,' she says. ‘You can't drive.'

‘You could drive,' Ella urges, pulling at Freya's hand.

‘I don't want to go to McDonald's,' she answers.

‘She can stay and have dinner, but?' Out in the light, Shane's eye looks worse.

‘I guess so,' Freya replies.

‘I'll bring her home,' Shane promises. ‘Not in the car,' he adds.

They look at each other for a moment, neither of them saying a word, and then Freya asks him how it was. She is referring to the riots, and he replies briefly.

‘They was angry, you know.'

She nods.

‘It's not good. The cops don't let up on the young kids and everyone's had enough. It was gunna spill over.' He rolls another cigarette as he speaks. ‘Wonder it doesn't happen more often.'

Freya asks him if his eye is okay and he rubs at it sheepishly.

‘Not the worst black eye I've had.'

She tells him she has arnica at home. She'll give it to him when he brings Ella back, and as she turns to leave, he thanks her.

‘For lookin' after 'em,' he says.

She just nods and says she'll see him soon.

And she walks back alone, down the hill to their
house; empty now with Matt away and Ella out. The door swings shut behind her and she stands in the long narrow hallway, looking down towards the kitchen, wondering what she will do with herself for the next couple of hours with no one else around. She will eat, she supposes; watch the news, she guesses; and she contemplates briefly the possibility of calling Frank and telling him to come over, but it's just a game, a way of keeping herself amused in this strange and sudden period of waiting that has descended on her home.