Tim Winton - Eyrie

He lapped the block in the Volvo and pulled into the alley behind the supermarket. Refrigerated trucks chuntered against the loading docks but the big roller-doors were shut. He fished out his phone and called her, but got the same message. Maybe it was enough to know the building was secure, that there was surveillance. Because if she was at work she seemed to be safe.

So why didn’t he feel reassured?

He rolled back down Canning towards the bridges. The wharves with their penumbra of yellow against the dark sky. The streets into town were empty. Even the drunks in the park next to Clancy’swere gone. The East End was desolate. A few gulls squabbling over food on the pavement outside the Woolstores. Disposable cups, newspapers in gyres against graffiti walls.

Rolled by the old Mirador. Counted lights on the top floor. Nothing at his, nothing at hers. All clear.

He drifted along the Strip with the windows down. The midnight news came on the radio. He switched it off. The street-sweepers were not yet trawling the alleys but the pubs were closed and the last evicted drinkers were plundering kebab shops and hailing cabs. There were modest altercations at the kerbside but this was a long way from the standard welter of puke and broken glass that graced the precinct at weekends. A few cafés were still open to service the late-shift bohemians and confused old men. On the Market Street corner a couple of Euro-hippies strummed and bojangled at pedestrians, whose indifference did not deter them.

South Mole. Victoria Quay. The old passenger terminal. Crossed the tracks again. The warehouses, backstreets. Round House, the Roma.

Everything familiar. His town. Doing what it did in the weekday wee-hours. Nothing to be agitated about. Riding around like a bored hoon.

*

Just before one he buzzed himself into the Mirador carpark.

Rode the lift to the top floor. Along the gallery the usual night noises: thudding bass, scrambly TV atmospherics, gurgles of plumbing and conversation.

The flat was hot and closed up. Out on the balcony the air was cooler. The cranes of the port flashed and lumbered. Closer in, on the pavements below, there was nothing moving but blown trash and gulls that looked like blown trash. Gloom, tranches of deep darkness, spills of light. He could feel the pending, aching nearness of something about to happen. The streets, so familiar, now a maze as much as a neighbourhood. Their very emptiness made him uneasy. Caused the roof of his mouth to itch.

A horn sounded. Freight train wending its way around the water to the old bridge. Rumbling, squealing on the bends. White quills of masts bristled on the marina. The sea beyond winking out measures of distance and depth, flashes of warning.

Gemma’s balcony was dark. All well. Not feeling it.

Before locking up he rolled the knife drawer out and snatched up a few cards of medicine. Just to get him through the next day or two, while he was gone. Found a Coles bag and stuffed them in. Necked a couple of the Valium for a steadier.

Out on the gallery the wind caused the plastic bag to rustle against his leg. And the moment he turned from his door he could see something hanging from the grille at Gemma’s. It hadn’t been there when he arrived. Or at least he hadn’t noticed it.

From a distance it looked like an out-of-season Christmas decoration. Up close it was a leprous teddy bear suspended by one leg. Keely swore and yanked at it. The bear tore free but the snared leg hung twisting in the easterly, leaking sawdust and lint that blew in his face and caught in his eyes. He pulled at it madly, broke the dirty packing string and got it off, but by then it was little more than a hollowing scrap of fabric. He stuffed this and the mutilated bear into the shopping bag and headed at a trot for the lifts. Halfway along the gallery he caught a brief flare in the street below, as if someone were lighting a smoke.

The lift down was ponderously slow. No one in the lobby. Nobody outside the laundry. He shoved the bear into the garbage skip. Couldn’t see anyone in the carpark, but the lighting out there was patchy.

Got to the Volvo without actually breaking into a run. For a few moments sat peering out. In the side street, a flicker of movement. Someone there. Definitely there. So he started the car, buzzed the gate open and rolled down the ramp without lights. As he swept into the street he snapped on the high beam and saw them. Beside the stranded shopping trolley, the parked bike, the yellow-topped recycling bin. A tall, white-haired bloke in pinstripes. And a smaller figure in a tracksuit. One smoking. The other busy on his knees.

Keely took the corner too fast to be safe. Launched out onto the main street wildly. Like a fool. Like a man who couldn’t tell if he was relieved or ashamed. Traffic lights. Side street. Esplanade. Rail lines. The shimmer and open space of the marina.

The sardine dock was deserted. He pulled up and got out shakily. The tarmac glittered with scales. He strode out to the planked jetty, feeling the sparks in his fingertips, pacing under the jaundiced lights until he got his breath back and trusted himself to think again. Underfoot the reeking timbers bore all the hallmarks of night-owl anglers — bait bags, beer cans and stomped blowfish. A few gulls worked through the scuzz of pollard and bait scraps. Out in the pens, boats nodded at their moorings and light flecked the water.

He leant against a wooden pile. It still had the warmth of the sun in it.

Wondered if he should have kept the teddy bear. For proof, evidence — he didn’t know what.

He had to bring this matter to a head. Another kind of man would have had it sorted by now. No use hiding and hoping these nasty pricks would go away. No point reasoning with them. What this situation required was swift and sudden violence. Stop them in their tracks. Disable them. But that just wasn’t in him. He could imagine it easily enough, fantasize. But he’d never do it.

So whatever happened to whatever it takes ? That bit of steely resolve had lasted all of an evening.

God, why couldn’t Gemma just go to the cops? Or pack the car, take the boy and drive north? What the hell was he supposed to do? And why him , anyway? How long could he live like this, waiting for the hammer to fall? Wouldn’t it be better to just bring it on, spare himself and the others the misery of anticipation and make something happen? That’s what the old man would have done. And, okay, there was often carnage in his wake. But that wasn’t all carelessness. Shit happened. Keely knew how merciful it could be, a decisive nature.

He needed a bit of that huge, headlong, loving force. Kindness with a backbone — wasn’t that Nev’s mantra? Why was it so hard to summon? Why wasn’t it simply there, bubbling up instantly the way anxiety did, the way this festival of second-guessing did? Couldn’t blame that on too much school, too much soft-handed generational success. It was something lacking in him. Something in the shape of him. This empty thing he’d become.

He ran his hands over the soft grain of the jarrah post. Rested his forehead on its edge a moment. Drew himself back. From torturing himself with Nev, making the poor old bugger some mythic paragon again. Like the superhero Gemma had turned him into for Kai’s sake. This business would not be resolved with an honest bit of biffo and some sorrowful Kumbayah. It was going to take more. Worse. Better. Cleverer. No point wounding them; they’d be back. If you couldn’t get them arrested you’d have to kill them. And you weren’t killing anybody.

What you needed was a few minutes’ confidence. Not the sort you got from being built like a brick shithouse, but the kind you got by being convinced. Determined. Wasn’t it hot, hurting conviction that had fuelled you all those good years? Didn’t you have some warrior in you then, when things were only as hopeless as they’d ever been, when despite that you still went at it like a good and faithful servant? With only your backbone to lean on. And the pride of still giving a damn. You could have stood before Nev then, him and his Mighty Force. With your head up.