Christos Tsiolkas - Merciless Gods

There was a knock on the door and Julian entered. ‘Dawn’s all good. I found a bottle of Jameson’s in one of the kitchen cupboards.’ He looked at the canvas in Saverio’s hands. ‘I thought you might want to keep it.’

Saverio wanted to say, I don’t want to talk tomorrow, there is nothing I can say. ‘Thank you.’

‘Come out for a drink. Our bark is worse than our bite.’

Saverio shook his head. ‘Nah, I want to ring Rachel, I want to check on things at home.’

•

The service began with a recording of Maria Callas singing an aria from Tosca , and then it was Dawn who first stepped onto the platform. Before she spoke she walked to the back of the dais and took down the Australian flag. There was a burst of applause. Leo wouldn’t have wanted it, she explained to the shocked civil celebrant. This time there were no outlandish stories, no off-colour jokes or declarations. She told the assembled mourners of how she had first met Leo when they were volunteers at the Aboriginal Legal Centre in Fitzroy, of how frightened she had been of the Aboriginal men, of how Leo had never succumbed to white guilt, how one youth had hurled a barrage of abuse at them one afternoon, to which Leo had stood his ground and answered, ‘You pay me and you can call me a white cunt — but if I’m a volunteer and you insult me then you’re a black cunt.’

Tom Jords spoke next, about Leo’s work and activism in those first terrible years of the AIDS epidemic, Leo’s sense of humour, how the door of his flat in the Cross was always left open in case any of the working girls or boys needed a safe house to escape to.

Margaret Cannon got up after Tom and read Leo’s favourite poem, ‘To Posterity’ by Bertolt Brecht.

Then it was Saverio’s turn to speak. He scanned the crowd. Mel was up the back of the room in a black dress, a chunky silver crucifix around her neck, holding hands with an Islander woman who wore black jeans and a black T-shirt.

His eyes came to rest on Anna. He spoke to her. To her and to Julian. He began by telling them that Leo’s real name was Luigi, how Leo had hated that name because it was yelled at him with such derision and spite by the Aussie boys.

‘Once he started university, Luigi became Leo. You’re his family, you were the ones he learned with and experimented with and found so much joy with. You looked after him, you protected him, you understood him. Thank you for that.’

The room had fallen quiet except for the screams of the birds, the steady hum of the distant ocean.

‘I’m not going to speak about Leo but about Luigi, my younger brother. When he first started school Dad made sure I understood that I had to walk with him every day, that I was not to let him out of my sight. “He’s your brother,” he said to me, “you will always have to look after him. Do you understand?” But from the second day of school Luigi was determined to walk on his own. I guess he was an anarchist from birth.’

There was a ripple of laughter.

‘I knew I couldn’t change his mind. I knew it even back then. So I said, yes, you can walk ahead of me. That’s my favourite memory of him, him walking ahead, a hundred metres in the distance, but every now and then turning back to look at me to make sure I was still there. That was what he was like: always wanting to be independent, free, not reliant on anyone. But I have to believe that from time to time he was still turning back, searching for me.’ At this Saverio’s voice cracked. ‘I have to believe he never forgot me.’

The applause that followed him back to his seat was warm and generous. Anna’s claps were the last to die out. Saverio looked over at Julian, who was walking onto the dais. Thank you, the younger man mouthed. It was Julian who spoke at the end, and he spoke simply about love. There were no hymns, there was no religion, no prayers. The service finished with Lou Reed’s voice singing ‘Perfect Day’.

•

Rachel was waiting for him at the airport and as she folded him into her arms he submitted to the sweet calmness of their life together.

At home, as he unpacked, she sat on their bed, took Leo’s painting of their kids and scrutinised it closely. ‘I always liked this painting.’

She took it and walked out of their bedroom.

He followed her into the lounge room where she held up the canvas against a stretch of blank wall above the stereo.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘I think it will be perfect here.’

MARIANNE HAD WORKED ALL WEEKEND AT a trade fair in town. She’d risen just after dawn on Saturday morning, and detoured to collect Darren and Aliyah on the way so they could help her set up the stall at the exhibition hall and make sure that their brand-new cyan and white T-shirts with the dark blue company logo had been delivered and were available to give out to any potential clients. As usual Darren had left the women to set up and staff the stand and had spent both days ‘networking’, slipping out for beers with Arnie from Northern Territory Travel, Marty from Travelworld, and whoever else he could find to ensure he spent as little time as possible actually working. It had been exhausting but Marianne enjoyed the fair, chatting with colleagues, catching up on gossip, making contacts. Her effusiveness, her straight-talking honesty, had as always made her popular. Unlike Darren, she never pretended to be able to offer more than was possible. Aliyah found it hard to step out from behind the table; her attempts to overcome her timidity made her voice sound shrill and unconfident. On the Sunday, Siobhan, the head of sales and their immediate manager, had come to see them. Darren had butted in immediately to tell her about the deals he had nearly struck, the contracts just about to be signed. Siobhan had smiled politely and told the three of them they could take the Monday off. Then she had whispered to Marianne, ‘You can take off the Tuesday as well; just keep your phone on, okay?’

Marianne had smiled to herself. Siobhan could tell a bullshitter.

•

Now it was Tuesday afternoon and Marianne experienced a frisson of guilt over how much she had enjoyed her time off. All Monday she had worked in the garden, pruning the apricot tree, weeding, spreading compost on the vegetable patch to prepare the soil for its slow-brewing hibernation and regeneration. She had put on and hung out two loads of washing, and on Tuesday morning had woken up just before six to take a long walk down to Darebin Creek along the path that ran by the back of the high school, and finished off with a coffee at Carmen’s. She was back in time to wake Jack for school and to make another coffee for herself and Rick before he headed off to work.

He had looked at her with a bemused grin when she brought in his work shirts off the line and piled them on the redwood dining table. ‘You going to iron my shirts?’

‘Mm-hm.’

He pulled her close to him and kissed her. ‘But it isn’t my b-b-b-b-b-birthday.’

She flicked her finger at the snub of his nose, made a face. ‘Just this once, boyo.’ She stretched, arched her back. ‘But I am enjoying being a lady of leisure. I think I might quit my job.’ The quick flush of panic that crossed his face made her collapse into laughter.

He began laughing as well and slid up behind her, placing his large long-fingered hands across her shoulder, his left hand slipping underneath her gardening shirt, under her bra strap, his thumb lightly brushing her nipple. ‘Maybe I should take the day off as well.’

‘Mmm.’ Please don’t, she thought, I want another day just to myself. They heard Jack slam the bathroom door and Rick jumped back and sat down again to finish his coffee.

‘Mum, I can’t find my laptop.’