Stephen Irwin - The Darkening

‘I’m sorry I never said too many good things about your father. But no woman likes to come second to a bottle.’

Nicholas watched her put her cup on the drainer. She smoothed the front of her cardigan.

‘I’ll check our guest and then be off to bed,’ she said.

As she passed Nicholas, her hand drifted over his shoulder and squeezed it, then left as lightly as a startled swallow taking flight.

Tony Barisi stood on his balcony finishing a Dunhill Superior Mild, watching sheets of rain blow like impossibly tall sails across the half-lit office buildings of the city across the river.

He stubbed the smoke out and dropped it in a cast bronze vessel filled with damp sand held between the paws of a sculpted Asiatic lion. Tony didn’t feel fifty-one. Tonight he felt thirty-one! Fuck it, twenty -one! He didn’t want to sleep, because sleep would hasten the rising of tomorrow’s sun, and he didn’t want to miss a minute, not now. Business was beautiful. The city was beautiful. Life was beautiful. He turned to the tall, frameless glass door and went back into his penthouse.

The boy was asleep on the couch. Tony smiled. He was a gorgeous one, Dan: just gone thirty but tight and tough as a teenager. And he was different . Dan had stayed with Tony right through the court case, even when everyone — Tony’s solicitor included — was sure that all was lost. Dan was the only one who knew — knew! — they’d settle out of court. And he was right. Dan’s confidence was infectious and Tony loved him for it.

Loved him.

Admitting that sent a thrill into his stomach. He smiled, watching Dan sleep. Yes, it was love. And being in love was divine. Dan was a keeper. Tony watched his lover slumbering where he’d drifted off after their many celebratory drinks, and decided not to wake him. He padded silently to the bedroom.

As he undressed, a delicious weariness crept over him and the bed suddenly looked inviting. Screw it, I won’t even clean my teeth . Sleep when you’re tired, eat when you’re hungry; the rest of the time was for hard work and hard play. He stripped off his boxer shorts and pulled back the covers to curl onto the delicious four-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

Life was beautiful. Life was perfect.

Tick, ticketty-tack-tacktacktack. .

Tony sat up.

The echoing sound had come from the ensuite bathroom. Something had fallen into the sink. He felt his face grow hot. That was a seven-thousand-dollar Villeroy amp; Boch vanity — the thought of some badly installed light globe chipping the enamel made him instantly angry. He threw back the covers and stomped naked through the walk-in robe, past his bespoke suits and shoes, Zegna ties and Duarte jeans, into the ensuite.

The bathroom was as wide as a garage, tiled in icy white with a cathedral ceiling that had made Dan gasp (a delightfully erotic sound) when Tony first showed it to him. One wall was a single pane of one-way glass, affording an unimpeded view of the city and allowing the glow of its buildings’ lights to illuminate the room. A set of three large hopper windows rose above the wide white vanity: the first was head height, the second rose to three metres off the floor, the third rose to the ceiling five metres up. These huge windows were usually kept closed — it could blow a gale here on the apartment building’s top floor, and even up this high the noise of human traffic on the boulevard below could be disturbing. But he’d left the middle hopper open a crack, and something dark was hunched on top of the pane. A bird? A mouse?

Tony crept closer, wondering what he could use to shoo away the pest. And then he stopped. His stomach gave a slow gurgle as if suddenly filled with spoiled milk.

The creature perched on the middle window frame was a spider. One as big as the barking spiders that used to crawl the sides of his father’s tractor shed in Innisfail. Motherfucker. Tony was just about to creep backwards, to run to the kitchen and get the insect spray, when he noticed. .

It’s holding something.

The creature held in its jaws — fangs? mouth? — a tiny white pebble. As he watched, the spider carefully balanced itself, took a sly half-step forward and dropped the pebble.

It fell through the air and landed neatly — tick, tack, tacktacktack — in the vanity basin.

Tony stared with wide eyes. Then something even more incredible happened. The spider threw itself into space and fell away. Just a moment later, another spider of the same size but of a different genus stepped delicately from the side of the building onto the middle pane. It, too, held a white pebble, and carried it to the centre of the pane. Then it stopped, motionless and waiting.

Waiting for me.

Tony took a reluctant step forward, his eyes locked on the spider. And another, until he was standing at the vanity, staring up at it.

The creature leaned forward and dropped its hard little parcel.

Tony caught the stone, and watched the spider throw itself backwards, slide down the glass and fall away into darkness.

No others came to take its place.

He was about to call out to Dan, but glanced down at the pebble in his palm. There were two others like it in the basin. The stones were the size of large ball bearings, smooth and white and slightly ovoid, like tiny eyeballs. The one in his palm was translucent, like quartz, and cold. On its flattest part a mark was scratched. It was a line with two angled hooks, one each end:

The mark had been stained with something rusty red.

Tony looked into the basin. The other two stones bore the same symbol. There was something about it. Something sad. Something depressing. Something familiar.

Papa’s cheek. The mark looks just like the deep lines in my father’s cheek. The lines that grew deep as chasms as he got sicker and sicker. .

A wave of unhappy nostalgia flowed over Tony like a noxious wind. He recalled his father lying in the hospital bed, his cheeks bristled white and deeply furrowed, panting like a dog. And his eyes, Papa’s blue eyes. Papa’s body was thin and dying, lungs wasted with emphysema, but his eyes were blue as flames. His glands were swollen and his voice was reed thin, but not so thin as to hide the hate as he whispered to Tony in a voice dry as cane stubble, ‘ Finocchio.’

Tony leaned on the vanity and looked into the mirror. That’s me , he thought. That’s me. A big, fat-bellied faggot.

He ran his fingers over his scalp. The hair was thin. When had it been thick? Before the divorce. ‘You’re going to look after Gabrielle,’ Karan had said. Gabrielle. Oh, the poor kid. Did her classmates know she had a big fat wog faggot for a father? His face grew warm. Of course they knew. Kids found out everything. Did Gab ask for that? For a father who liked the feel of cock in his arse? And what was her reward for the schoolyard taunts? He’d nearly lost it all — a hair’s breadth from bankruptcy.

Tony’s heart started thumping. I could lose it all again! He was one signature away from committing everything to the Tallong block development. What a fool!

He hurried to the bedroom, picked up the phone and dialled.

‘Hello?’ The woman’s voice on the other end was sleep-fuddled.

‘Ellen, it’s Tony.’

‘Mr Barisi? It’s. . is there something-’

‘Stop the Tallong development. First thing in the morning. Ring Koopers and tell them it’s off. I’m not ratifying.’

‘Mr Barisi, are you-’

‘It’s off.’

Tony disconnected. He dropped the phone. What a waste. He could hear Ellen’s disgust, having to talk to such a filthy, pathetic finocchio . Tears welled in his eyes. What did he really own? A mountain of debt, a fag brothel of an apartment with a filthy little fuck monkey faggot asleep on his couch dribbling cum out of his dirty faggot arse.