Tim Winton - The Turning

You work the bolt in the breech. Check and check and check again. You cock the weapon and listen to the cold click of the firing pin when you pull the trigger.

Now your sister is awake.

You turn to the dressing table. You fish three shells from the cut-glass jars and stand each of them in its tarnished casing on the lacquered surface of the table. In the mirror your features are grave. There are great smudges beneath your eyes.

Your sister whacks and rattles in her cot across the hall. You load your rifle. In the gunsight you watch the strangers of your town take their dirty secrets from place to place. Beyond the glass their lips move but you can only hear your sister beginning to wail.

You can’t leave the window. You’re not sure what to look for but you know you have to be ready. From here you have a long, clear view. Responsibility is on you now, formless and implacable as gravity. You’re just waiting for them to make a move. Let them. Yes, let them try.

The stock of the weapon warms your cheek, keeps you steady. You can’t look at the bed for fear that you’ll lie down and sleep. You can do this. You can hold out for as long as it takes to have everyone home safe, returned to themselves and how things used to be. You cock your weapon.

It was Christmas Day and hot. There were only the three of us and lunch was sumptuous but without children it wasn’t particularly festive.

Over coffee my mother-in-law, Carol, made an announcement.

They’ve asked us over to Ernie and Cleo’s, she said.

What? said Vic, putting his cup down carefully.

Your grandmother will be there.

When did they invite you? I asked.

Us, Gail, said Carol. All of us. Cleo rang last night.

Our eyes locked for a moment in an odd, appraising stare.

Bloody hell, said Vic. That’s a turn up.

So why don’t we leave the dishes till later?

You’re actually going? I asked.

I don’t see why not, she said with a smile. You have to give people the benefit of the doubt.

I don’t believe it, said Vic.

Will you come with me? Carol asked.

Vic and I glanced at one another and already he wore that round-shouldered look of apology. I shrugged. In the decades since Carol’s husband had disappeared, his family had shunned her as though she were to blame. For her sake we couldn’t refuse.

Just for an hour, said Vic.

Oh, said Carol with a laugh. An hour’ll be time enough.

As we drove through the suburbs where new kites already hung from powerlines and shiny bikes lay askew on front lawns, nobody spoke much except Vic.

Things were never hostile between my mother-in-law and me, but they were often strangely cool. There was no battle of wills over her son, just a distance that couldn’t be bridged, a civility that bewildered all of us and Vic in particular.

Everyone got enough air? he said, with a familiar panicky note of jauntiness in his voice. Hey, the streets are deserted.

It’s the heat, said Carol from the back seat.

It’s eerie, I murmured.

We’re all just nervous, said Carol.

She was a substantial person, Carol Lang. I knew she’d endured a lot. Even in our earliest encounters, during the first tricky months of letting go, she’d been gracious and thoughtful. Yet there was something impenetrable about her. She resisted intimacy. Beneath the mildness there was a hard-won pride, a kind of dignity that was intimidating. If she’d ever had a life beyond motherhood she wasn’t letting on to me, and the less of it she offered the less I came to enquire. In the company of this plain, quiet, grey-haired woman I became cautious, even defensive, conscious that I was not a mother, that I had no purchase. After five years, no headway.

You think they want us to eat? asked Vic.

No, said his mother. They made it clear we should come after lunch.

Just in time to do the dishes, he muttered.

Carol laughed and Vic laughed too. I’d never met Ernie and Cleo but I’d heard the stories. I had a headache just thinking about them.

Through a suburb of roundabouts and artful dead-ends, Vic brought us to the driveway of a house that seemed stranded somewhere between ‘Gone with the Wind’ and ‘Miami Vice’. It had porticoes and pediments, but also pastels and palms. Rising from the cul-de-sac and the hectic styles of its neighbours, Ernie and Cleo’s place stood high at the peak of a berm of rollout lawn. It was two storeys high and festooned with lights and decorations. In the drive were several cars.

Are you sure this is it, Mum?

This is the address they gave me.

I just don’t recognize anything. The cars. . nothing.

Well, you haven’t seen them since you were at the uni.

He’s obviously moved on from driving pig trucks, I murmured.

Or getting someone else to drive them for him, said Carol getting out.

Vic and I shuffled up to the door behind his mother and we stood fidgeting like children while chimes echoed through the house. We waited. Carol knocked. Her beige shoulderbag jiggled at her hip. Vic whistled a tune whose melody was beyond him. The only other sound was the general noise of people carousing in backyard pools.

We’ll try round the back, said Carol. They might be in the pool.

We don’t even know they’ve got a pool, Mum.

Vic, I said, what’s the chances of a place like this not having a pool?

Imagine cleaning it, said Carol.

The pool? I said.

The house, Gail.

Yes.

Feeling conspicuous out there in full view of the neighbourhood, a whole street without evidence of people but for the slopping, screeching, laughing noise of poolside celebration, we hullo-ed the house a few minutes longer and then followed Carol through the open-doored garage into the yard beyond. Back there it was all coconut palms and aluminium wrought-iron and brick pavers. Not only was there a pool but also a cabana the size of a hangar.

The sliding doors at the rear of the house were ajar and Christmas music tinkled from within, but nobody came to Carol’s calls. I noticed a tremor in her voice. She chewed her lip uncertainly and pivoted in her flat-soled shoes.

Try up at the pool? said Vic without enthusiasm.

Yes, said Carol.

What time did they say? I asked.

After lunch, said Carol firmly.

It’s nearly four, I said.

I didn’t want to seem too eager, she said.

It’s quiet, said Vic.

Too damn quiet, I said, and with that Vic and I broke into nervous giggles. Carol stared us back into order.

We’ll try that hut thing, she said.

It’s a cabana, Mum.

Yes.

We stalked up the path with its bougainvillea and assorted water features and I felt a creeping hysteria. I was actually walking on tiptoe, throwing glances over my shoulder, shaking with silent, mortified laughter.

Yoo-hoo! said Carol at the pool gate.

Oh my God, muttered Vic. Get me out of here.

Once we were inside the pool fence it took quite a few moments to realize that the deep shade of the cabana was empty. The pool was strewn with bobbing toys. On the cold barbecue were a few wizened chops and prawns.

It’s the Marie Celeste , I said.

It’s rude, said Carol. That’s what it is.

She turned, tottered a moment with eyes big as baubles, and a ball shot from beneath her as she went sidelong into the pool. I caught the bag but not her arm. When she surfaced her frock billowed beneath her arms and I couldn’t help laughing.

Hell, said Vic, sensing trouble.

Oh my sainted aunt! cried Carol.

Not in this family, he said.

And then we were all useless with laughter. It was like something had possessed us. Vic lurched around the pool holding his knees and I laughed till my throat hurt.