Tim Winton - Eyrie

From the wind-ripped walkway on the tenth floor, Keely heard the school bell toll. He paused at the rail to watch the stragglers sprint indoors with their backpacks and folios and soccer balls.

He thought of Kai settling at his desk, examining the puzzle of his own palms as the teacher tried to launch the school day. The kid had been subdued all morning and silent on the drive down to the port. Keely didn’t dare mention the wet bed. Or the way he’d curled in beside him on the couch sometime before dawn. At breakfast Keely saw the sheets out on the line. The boy was already showered and dressed. Doris had him eating toast and staring at the sudoku on her phone. The Hyundai was in the driveway. Gemma asleep. His mother was quiet but there was conspiracy enough in her sunniness for him to know she’d dealt with everything seamlessly, as if nothing had happened. Doris had an act. She knew who she was and what she was doing. And he loved her for it.

At breakfast Kai said little, but he watched Doris assiduously. Just as he had last night at dinner. Perhaps he was trying to match this trim old bird and her noisy bangles with the young heroine in Gemma’s stories. Keely feared the legend had gotten out of hand. Blackboy Crescent. When moral giants strode the earth. But Kai didn’t seemed disappointed. Children fell in love with Doris. As a boy it shat Keely to tears, but this morning the spectacle revived him. If only he could project such calm authority.

He’d stirred for a second in the gloom, feeling the boy settle on the couch beside him. He savoured it briefly before falling away again. Only when he saw the washing line did he know he hadn’t dreamt it. And now, at the gallery rail, looking down at the schoolyard, he was ashamed of his self-absorption, his unctuous little moment of paternal fantasy. What about the kid? What’s it like to wake wet and frightened in a stranger’s house, to spare your grandmother and crawl in beside some old guy you hardly know? A sudden rage rose in him. At everything ranged against this boy. He had to do something.

He unlocked the flat and changed his clothes.

He wondered if he could convince Gemma to go to the police. She’d be awake just after midday; he had until then to make a compelling case. Failing that? There was Stewie. Maybe he’d negotiate. But Keely had no more persuasive arguments this morning than he’d had last night. And as for dealing with Stewie, he hadn’t the first clue how to parley with a bug-eyed speed freak. He had nothing.

He shaved. Brushed his teeth. With his own brush. He made his bed, straightened the place, and checked the fridge. Some piss-weak bit of him wished he could just stay. But he couldn’t leave Gemma and Kai to Doris alone. She had to work. There was the school run. Gemma’s shiftwork to deal with. He’d just have to suck it up and endure the couch a while. Until he thought of something. Or it all went away of its own accord.

He packed a few clothes, a couple of books and snatched up his pillow. He decided to swing by Gemma’s place. There’d be things she’d want to collect but he didn’t know what she required, felt squeamish about going through her stuff. He could bring her back this afternoon when they collected Kai from school. Needn’t do it now. But he’d check it out anyway. Satisfy himself.

At Gemma’s door a bit of paper flapped in the security grille. Just a yellow square, ruffled by the desert wind, a Post-it note held captive by the steel mesh. There was nothing on it but a solitary dollar sign scrawled in biro.

Keely looked about anxiously and stuffed it into a pocket. He was turning to leave when something else caught his eye. Behind the mesh, on the inner door, a second yellow slip. He pulled Gemma’s key from around his neck and unlocked the screen door. He snatched it up. Same adhesive note, same symbol.

Trying to stay cool he examined the flyscreen but it was undamaged. Short of unlocking the grille, there seemed no other way of depositing the second slip there. He knocked on the door, feeling like a fool but fearful of walking blindly into something. Like what, an ambush? Keely turned the key in the lock and eased the door back slowly.

The flat still smelt of cheese and toast and smokes. He could smell Gemma and Kai. But it was hard to read the place. Everything had been a mess when they left, chaotic where that shithead had kicked things about, after which they’d tossed stuff into rubbish bags and fled in a panic. Food on a plate. Clothes on the floor. The TV where Keely had set it back upright. There was no sign anyone had been in since yesterday. Not that he could see. But somebody had definitely been by outside at least. And maybe in here as well. That note inside the locked grille. Keely thought of the Mirador’s supervisor, a bloke who’d taken against him for his brusque refusal to engage all these months. No point asking him if he’d let someone in. Besides, this wasn’t even Keely’s flat. How could he explain his interest? Gemma’s business and his would be all over the building inside an hour.

He wondered if Gemma had come by last night before work. Or this morning after her shift. To collect something. But why would she take the risk? Had someone followed her into the building, waited until she was inside and left both notes while she was in the bedroom grabbing what she’d come for? Why not confront her then? Make their little threats in person. Seemed more their style. Unless they’d had cause to think someone else was in here with her. A bloke. Him.

He locked up. Jumpy. Freaking at his paranoia. Wondered if he should even tell her.

Down in the gated carpark he found the Hyundai where he’d squeezed it between a Kombi and a scrofulous Commodore. He was in the car before he noticed it on the windscreen.

He couldn’t see anyone — not in vehicles, nor around them. The bike shed looked deserted. There was a spill of suds emerging from the laundry door.

He started the car and waited a full minute, his pulse going feral. But no one. He buzzed the gate and rolled out into the narrow street. Under the jacaranda a Chinese kitchen hand smoked in his stained tunic. A smooth-cheeked hippy girl coasted by on a bike.

Bastards, he said aloud. You little shitheads.

All thoughts of a swim and a coffee evaporated. He had to get this vehicle out of town. Warn Gemma. Maybe the supermarket could give her work in a franchise a bit further out in the suburbs. Even if there was nothing more than bluster behind all this, she couldn’t stay here. He’d ask Doris about a refuge, support services.

He turned into a side street. Idled down the quay, checking his mirrors all the way. He wound slowly along the river and saw nothing but mid-morning traffic. But by the time he pulled into his mother’s drive, his hands were shaking.

Doris’s Volvo was gone. Conscious that Gemma would be asleep, Keely unlocked the back door and entered the house discreetly, but as he crept through the kitchen he heard the shower running. It was too early for her to be up. She couldn’t have had five hours’ sleep. He filled the kettle, set it on the stove and tried to steady himself.

The couch had been straightened. His pillow and folded sheets lay over one arm. There was no sign of Kai’s bed linen and pyjamas on the line outside. In this heat they’d have been dry hours ago. Doris had covered her tracks before heading off to work. She’d left a newspaper and a sprig of basil in a jar on the dining table. The kitchen sink was empty.