Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

Saverio couldn’t speak. He felt wretched. He wasn’t sorry that his brother was dead, he could only feel relief.

It was over.

•

In the end Rachel did not fly up north with him. She had been on higher duties since the beginning of the year, taking over the management of her unit from Gloria, who was on long-service leave. The extra money had been useful, allowed them to pay Matthew’s university fees upfront, but it had meant Rachel working longer hours, bringing work home on the weekends and having to fly regularly to Canberra to assist the minister while parliament was sitting. Saverio felt as if he had hardly seen her over the last month; she had worked late every night organising an international conference on industrial relations. In response to his complaints she had booked a four-day retreat for them at Mount Hotham after the conference. Saverio was a keen skier but it was years since they had visited the snow. On the night they’d heard the news about Leo, she had come into the bedroom and announced that she was going to cancel the retreat.

‘Why?’

‘I’m sorry, darling, I can’t go to both Leo’s funeral and the snow. I just don’t have the time.’

‘I want to go to Mount Hotham with you.’ He beckoned her over and pulled her onto the bed. Her hand was greasy with the lotion she’d been rubbing into her arms. ‘I really want this holiday. You don’t have to come to the funeral. I just want to bury him, say my goodbyes and that’s it. I’d rather go alone.’

Her eyes were searching his face. She didn’t believe him. Or didn’t want to believe him. ‘I think I should be there.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he groaned. ‘As if Leo would have given a fuck if you were there or not.’

Her hand slipped out of his. Her eyes were cold, distant.

‘More than anything,’ he continued, lowering his voice, introducing a note of pleading, ‘I want to be away with you, just you. That’s what I’m going to need after the funeral.’

She gave no answer, just kissed him on the forehead and went back into the ensuite. In the mirror he watched her finish applying her creams, watched her floss and brush her teeth, grinned as she slid the door shut to take a pee, enjoying as he always did the fact that even after so many years she could still be shy with him. He’d also caught the hint of relief in her expression. She would have willingly come to say her farewell to Leo. He had always made her laugh. But Saverio knew she would have been dreading the idea of spending time with any of Leo’s old friends.

•

As the plane began its descent into Coolangatta, Saverio took out his earphones and looked down at the splendour of the Pacific and the ugly town thrusting out of the lush green landscape.

Matthew had been rendered almost dumb by the news of his uncle’s death; not from any personal shock or grief, for he had very few memories of Leo, but rather out of fear of having to communicate somehow with a supposedly mourning father. He had created a playlist on Saverio’s MP3 player filled with uncomplicated rock-and-roll from the late seventies and early eighties. A tinny whisper of ‘Brass in Pocket’ still seeped softly from the earphones as an unsmiling stewardess leaned over to scold him. ‘Please turn it off, sir, we are about to land.’

Saverio settled back in his seat. He did appreciate Matty’s clumsy effort at sympathy; it was a loving, masculine gesture. Words would have been impossible between them. Saverio didn’t dare confess to his son his ambivalence about Leo’s death. He had always been more comfortable with his daughter. On hearing the news, Adelaide had rushed to him and clutched him tight, whispering, I know it’s difficult, I know it must be . It had been exactly the right thing to say. He had marvelled at her innate wisdom: only two years older than her brother and, no matter how much Saverio still tried to deny it, undoubtedly an adult.

He gritted his teeth and held tight to the armrests as the aeroplane surged. In a few seconds the wheels would touch earth, the moment he always feared, the point where the hubris of this mass of steel and wire defying gravity would end in calamity for all on board. The bronzed gentleman farmer sitting next to him, with the open-necked polo shirt and the clearly expensive Italian loafers, stifled a yawn. The wheels of the craft touched asphalt, the plane pogoed, swayed from side to side, then righted itself and screeched forward on the runway. They were safe.

The drive from Coolangatta to Mullumbimby cut through some of the loveliest forest in the country. Saverio could see that if one believed in deities, one could call it God’s country, could imagine that the hills and coves and vast open space were the garden and sky of Eden. From time to time, as the rental car climbed into the hinterland, he would catch sight of the ocean sparkling in the rear-view mirror, the silvery light of the sky touching the glimmer of the sea. It was beautiful. No wonder his brother had made this part of the world home. But as he veered off the highway onto Demons Creek Road, Saverio felt a knotting in his stomach. He tightened his grip on the wheel.

Money had clearly been put into the communities that dotted the verdant hills. Eleven years ago the road had still been gravel. Now it was shiny black bitumen. Architect-designed houses jutted out of the greenery, all with prominent verandahs overlooking the sea.

When Leo had first moved there in the early nineties there still existed the remnants of a commune, the property itself owned by a septet of academics who had been radicalised as students at universities in Sydney and Melbourne. The commune had disbanded soon after Leo had moved there with Julian but, nostalgically loyal to their old politics, the landlords had all agreed that Leo could live and paint there rent-free. Saverio and Rachel had urged him to buy some land when it was still going cheap, but Leo had scoffed at their capitalist avarice. To the end he had refused any of the money left to him by his parents.

‘I don’t believe in inheritance,’ he had said brutally to Rachel when she phoned after his father had finally died and they needed to know what to do with the portion of the estate left to Leo.

‘But what do you want to do with the money?’ she persisted.

The answer had come a week later in the form of a letter. Half of the money, it stated, was to go to the Aboriginal community centre in Redfern, the rest to an outreach centre in Kings Cross.

The lawyer had raised her eyebrows on reading the letter and whistled out loud. ‘Are you sure your brother is fully cognisant of his responsibilities?’ It was intended as a joke but they did not miss the appeal in her question.

‘Just do whatever he says,’ Saverio had replied. ‘Just as long as I don’t have to speak to the prick.’

The car nosed its way up the dirt drive to the cottage. Eleven years before there had been an immaculately maintained herb garden, a fig tree, and lime and lemon trees. The garden was now overrun by weeds, and rotting fruit covered the ground underneath the untamed foliage of the trees. Saverio wasn’t surprised. The garden had been Julian’s project and once he’d gone Leo wouldn’t have had the gumption to keep it together.

The chassis of the car scraped along the ground as the front left wheel sank into a pothole. Frigging Leo, Saverio thought, he couldn’t look after anything. Five or six cars were already parked haphazardly across the yard.

There was music coming from the cottage and Saverio could see people standing and sitting on the wide verandah. He felt as though every eye was on him, and his hand trembled as he turned off the ignition. The sun was setting behind the mountain and the crowd on the verandah was in shade. He was dreading the small talk, the hours to come. For a moment he contemplated simply turning back, weaving down the mountain back to the coast, to get the last plane home to Melbourne. The seatbelt was still buckled up, his foot still rested on the accelerator.