Meatloaf in Manhattan (19 page)

Eduardo heads back down the hill, glowing in his brother's praise.

Madam Rosa shifts on the sofa, the weight of the sleeping man sending pins and needles up her leg. She looks at the grandfather clock that stands proudly in the alcove. Forty-five minutes have passed. Time to rouse Baby from his nap.

‘Baby,' she whispers gently, blowing on his furrowed forehead, ‘it's Mama. Time to wake up.'

The Mayor stirs and grunts, pulling himself from the glue of a familiar dream. He hears the far distant voice of his long-dead mother. ‘You will be nothing,' spits his mother, ‘amount to nothing, you thief. Your father is turning in his grave with the shame.' And in the shallows of his dream the Mayor hears his father knocking on his coffin. Knock, knock, tick, knock, tick, tock. The Mayor opens his eyes to the room, the sight of the tall grandfather clock in the corner and the large powdered face of Madam Rosa and the feel of her fingers running through his straggly hair.

‘Time to get up Baby,' she says, shifting under his torso, tensing against the cramp in her calf, smiling away the pain.

‘I'm the Mayor of Durabaya, mother, father, the Mayor …' he says, rising from his dream, the ticking of the clock bringing him back to the room.

‘Yes, Baby, you are the Mayor of Durabaya.' she says, sitting upright, her voice now matronly. ‘I think you have something to tell me. Baby, do you have something to tell me?'

The Mayor sits up.

‘Sit up straight, Baby. What is it you need to tell your Mama?'

‘Mama … I've been fighting.'

‘With other children?'

‘Big boys, Mama, they were big boys.'

‘What have I told you?'

‘I know. I know.'

‘Answer me, Baby. What … have … I … told … you?'

‘No more fighting, Mama, no more fighting.'

Slowly he stands up from the velvet-covered sofa, undoes his belt, lets his trousers and underpants drop to his ankles and bends over. Thwack, goes the swish.

‘No … more … fighting … no more stealing.' Thwack. Madam Rosa whips his bare behind until welts appear on his skin and tears trickle down his face, his jowls quivering, sweat on his brow.

‘What do you say, Baby?'

‘Thank you, Mama, thank you.'

Waiting outside in the car, Anton watches the light go out in Madam Rosa's bedroom. He turns off the radio, silencing the barrage of comments on the Mayor's assault on the football coach. The front door opens and out walks the Mayor, preceded by a plume of thick cigar smoke.

Eduardo sits on his mattress by the window of the shack. His father is at the table, folding out the few crumpled rupiah notes he has made from his newspaper sales. His mother squats in the corner, peeling and slicing papaya. The boy takes the old tin from under his blanket and stares at the faded image on the lid. There is the scene of Icarus falling from the sky, plunging into the sea, into a bay, just like the Bay of Durabaya. Eduardo traces with his finger the boy with wings, burnt by the sun, plummeting into the salty water. He sees the huge dray horse pulling the plough across the field in the foreground and the galleon in the bay heading away to the ocean. Just like the horse and farmer, the ship is moving away, oblivious to the plight of Icarus, of his dreams to fly, his failure, his silent drowning, his death. Eduardo opens the lid and takes out his crumpled collection of football cards. Heroes from the past and present in blue-and-black stripes. He looks over to his father folding newspapers, to his mother peeling fruit, and he remembers the image of the boat in the bay as the penalty was about to be taken, and of the fisherman on board who had no idea of the game, or the score, or the Mayor punching the coach in the chest. He feels a strangeness and a smallness that is new to him, like the time Raphael showed him the Milky Way in the sky and said the Earth is in the solar system, and the solar system is just a tiny speck in the star-spangled stretch of space. So how small is Papua? How small is the football ground and the penalty spot? And does it matter if the Mayor hit the coach and the Brazilian missed the penalty?

When the Mayor opens the door of his house he hears the familiar sound of his three children scuttling up the stairs, each hiding themselves behind their sumptuous bedroom doors. He slumps on the sofa and turns on the television.

‘Whisky,' he shouts, knowing some minion close by will jump to order and bring him what he wants.

Sometime later, just as it begins to get dark, he hears the front door open and his wife call out to the maid to bring the shopping in from the car. She enters the room and notices the look in his eye.

‘What?' she says quietly.

He stares at her, his demeanour darkening.

‘I told you never to wear that blouse to the shops. You had not expected me back so early. No time to change, eh? You look like a whore.'

He walks forward, raises his fist, higher and more threateningly than chest level. Instinctively, his wife, the mother of his children, cowers and shields her face with her arms.

‘Don't,' she pleads.

Eduardo lies on the cardboard on the concrete ‘veranda' that his father is so proud of. He peers up at the clear night sky through a tiny hole he makes with his forefinger. He remembers his big brother telling him the Milky Way is nine trillion kilometres deep and nine trillion kilometres wide. But his mind keeps going back to the penalty kick and the twelve metres between success and failure. He imagines taking the kick himself and thumping it into the roof of the net. The crowd goes wild, the coach runs onto the pitch and the Mayor embraces him as a hero. At that moment he hears a crash and a slide as Raphael skips and stumbles down the hillside in the near dark.

‘Eduardo, mother, father,' shouts Raphael, running and whooping down the hillside, ‘he's done it, he's done it. We have a smoking monkey. We will all be rich!'

GROOMING

‘Say she was a princess,' urges Jake, the younger twin by ten minutes. ‘Say she was used to luxury. When she was in Africa. Stuff like that.'

Alec thinks a second, then types ferociously. They both stare at the computer screen and smile a twinny smile.

YOU MIGHT FIND THIS HARD TO BELIEVE, JOHN, BUT MY FAMILY IN SOMALIA, BEFORE THE WAR, BEFORE WE CAME TO AUSTRALIA, WAS ROYALTY. IF THINGS HAD NOT CHANGED I WOULD HAVE BECOME A PRINCESS AND LIVED IN LUXURY. MAYBE YOU WILL BE MY PRINCE CHARMING.

‘Perfect. There's the bait,' says Jake. ‘Let's see if John bites.'

‘Let's just put one more shrimp on the hook,' says his brother, taking over on the keyboard.

I MAY BE ONLY 15, JOHN, BUT I REALLY WANT TO MEET UP WITH YOU. I HAVE SEEN MUCH OF LIFE IN MY SHORT TIME. I FEEL I KNOW YOU AND I THINK WE WILL GET ON REALLY WELL(!) CAN I SEE YOU THIS WEEK?

In the room next door, the twins' father, Adam, web-designer and entrepreneur, looks out of the window at the wintry rain as it bounces off the tarmac of their suburban street. Adam is not in the habit of speaking to himself, but on this occasion he needs to hear his own voice.

‘It's research. Nothing more, nothing less.'

On the screen are pictures of young girls. They are all dressed, scantily maybe, but nothing that could be deemed pornographic. All part of his commission to design a new website to attract young business leaders of the digital future. He won the job by convincing the client he would make it edgy by looking for the best in contemporary websites, especially those on the fringe. The night before the interview the twins had prepped him on what was new and raw and the selection panel was duly impressed.

Downstairs, Jean Butler, child psychologist, the twins' mother and Adam's wife, is checking through court reports ahead of tomorrow's assessments. She's thinking about a cigarette and the chance to sneak one on the verandah while her teenage boys and husband are upstairs and the pasta's still bubbling.

‘Dinner in ten,' she yells upwards, then quietly opens the french windows, coughing to smother the sound of the latch.

Adam has a list of web addresses on a sheet of paper next to his keyboard. Over the last few weeks, since winning the job, he's studied them all, looking for a point of difference, seeking out an angle. All fresh and new to him. He's more used to YouTube of old rock stars and sports webpages. But he finds himself being drawn back to the same site, mesmerised by the faces of the young women who fade in and out of the screen.

It's then that another message pops up on the site from the young Somalian girl he's been chatting with for a couple of weeks. His head tells him he's doing nothing wrong, but also knows that he's used a false name and has told no one about her. The current message has a photo attached. He all but holds his breath as he opens up the link. She looks so regal in the photo. So tall, so elegant; so desirable. His mind begins to wander in spite of himself, wondering how far he could go, fantasising meeting her, maybe even taking her in his arms. The suddenness and depth of his thoughts surprise him. So does the arousal.

‘Dinner's on the table,' he hears Jean shout and then the sound of the boys' door opening and them scuttling down the stairs, whooping with laughter. Adam looks back at the screen. There's another posting from the exotic stranger.

I'M ONLY IN MELBOURNE FOR A WEEK. JOHN, LET'S TAKE A CHANCE AND MEET UP. I THINK WE'VE REALLY CONNECTED. I'M KEEN TO SEE YOU IN THE FLESH. WHO KNOWS WHERE IT MIGHT LEAD!

Adam reads and rereads the message, stares at the photo and taps his fingers on the table, as if rehearsing a response. He feels the adrenaline rise through his body, daring him to take a risk. Then he does something he has never done before in his life, never even thought of doing. A heady mix of spontaneity and wantonness overtakes him. Intoxicates him. As he types his fingers seem to take on a life of their own.

MEET ME UNDER THE CLOCKS AT FLINDERS STREET STATION AT 7PM THURSDAY. I'LL BE WEARING A BLACK AND WHITE CHECKED SHIRT AND COWBOY BOOTS.

The email account he is using is secure and untraceable. But an intuition tells him to send a message to his client to cover himself, just in case.

HI SAM, I'VE FOUND A GREAT SOCIAL NETWORK SITE (NO NOT F'BOOK ETC) THAT I'LL EXPLORE FURTHER. REGARDS ADAM.

Standing at the top of the stairs, looking down at his wife and sons sitting at the dining table, he feels guilty, the betrayer. The loyal husband, the exemplary father, who's just acted totally against what he deems to be his nature. On a whim. In a heightened state of excitement he walks down the steps and takes his place at the head of the table. His wife looks up, glad she's had a mouthful of garlic from the pasta sauce to hide the smell of the cigarette. The twins glance at each other and smile, complicit in their secret ruse. Adam reaches over for the salad bowl, thinking hard for something to say. The four eat in silence. The boys sit on one side of the table, their parents on the other. The silence, as always when they sit together, is overlaid by a low level of tension.

‘I wish, sometimes, we would speak to each other,' says Jean. ‘Like a normal family.'

‘Please. Don't start that normal family stuff again, mum,' says Alec.

‘I talk to Alec all the time,' says Jake.

‘Precisely,' says Jean. ‘But I want us all to talk. Together. Like normal people.'

The twins look at each other; the parents do the same.

‘So what happened at school today?' asks Adam, lightening his voice to take the edge of things.

‘Nothing,' says Alec.

‘Nothing,' says Jake.

‘Something must've,' pleads Adam. ‘… oh, forget it.'

Jean glances at Adam. They both look down at the food on their plates.

‘I might have to go to Sydney on Thursday.'

‘That's sudden,' says Jean.

‘A sniff of a new commission. Meeting first thing Friday morning.'

‘Then you must go.'

‘Probably leave Thursday evening and stay over.'

‘Of course.'

‘Can't chance the early morning flights.'

‘What with the fog.'

‘Exactly. And the strikes.'

‘And the strikes.'

‘You'll miss our basketball game,' says Alec.

‘You're down to be scorer,' adds Jake.

‘Sorry, boys, but work is work. Coach'll find someone to step in,' says Adam.

‘Sure he will,' says Jean. ‘Balsamic?'

‘Please,' replies Adam, barely believing the ease in which he slips into subterfuge.

‘Bingo!' exclaims Alec, clapping his hands. ‘What a sleazebag.'

‘Show me,' says his brother, closing the bedroom door behind him, blocking out the silence from their parents downstairs.

‘Look,' says Alec, pointing to the screen. ‘This paedo's arranged a meeting for Thursday.'

‘Press reply again, see if we can get his email address,' says Jake.

‘I've tried that. It's blocked.'

‘Ok, move aside.'

Jake takes over on the keyboard, licking his lips in excitement.

‘Urban warriors we are,' he says to his twin, as he types in the message, ‘protecting the innocent from the paws of the avaricious.'

‘From claws of the pernicious.'

‘How I adore the delicious,' says Alec, pressing the send button with an emphatic strike.

SEE YOU THERE ON THURSDAY, LOVE FROM YOUR SOMALIAN PRINCESS.

Next day Jean waits in the antechamber of court for proceedings to begin. Her intern sits beside her, lapping up every second. This young girl reminds Jean of herself when she too was fresh from college, keen to put the world to rights and fight for the dispossessed, the downtrodden, those who stumble and fall in this business of meeting life. Some thirty years of courts and tragedy, misjustice and bureaucratic incompetence have taken the shine off Jean's armour. The door opens and a young man enters the room. Jean looks up and smiles, recognising him from a case they both covered last year concerning young illegal refugees caught up in a vice ring.