When they get to her place, Francesca touches Will’s hand, and Tom watches as Will clenches hers. “I’ll just go unlock the door for him,” she says quietly, waiting for Tom to get out first. Will gets out as well and leans against the ute. Tom can’t see his expression in the dark, but he feels the bastard’s eyes drilling a hole into him. Will Trombal was in the next year up from them at school, and Tom can’t believe Francesca’s still with him after five years.
“Thanks.” Tom mutters the word. He doesn’t mean it but says it all the same.
“Don’t,” Trombal says quietly. “You’d still be out there, and I wouldn’t give a shit if you were bleeding all over Parramatta Road, if it was my choice. You know that.”
They have a quick verbal exchange but only get to cover the alphabet from A to F, outdoing each other with the most choice of words. Trombal kind of wins this round, courtesy of having hung out with engineers in Asia for most of the year. Then they’re shoving each other and Tom sees more emotion on the other guy’s face than he has in the years he’s known him. Francesca’s back between them, trying to push them apart, but it’s Trombal she’s facing and they start kissing in the middle of his fight — they start kissing — and it’s no longer about Tom, and he makes his way to the open front door, looking back once.
Trombal has her pressed against the door of the ute and they’re going at it like they’ve got no time left in this world together and Tom can hear that she’s crying and any time she comes up for air, Francesca’s saying, “Be careful, Will, please,” and Tom’s not an idiot to realize what he’s interrupted. Will Trombal’s some wunderkind in engineering, sponsored throughout his uni years by one of the top companies. Now Trombal’s taking a break from studying and it’s payback time, so he’s had to spend most of the year working offshore in Sumatra.
Francesca’s still crying when she comes inside and makes herself busy doing up the sofa bed for him in the lounge room.
“When’s he leaving?” Tom asks quietly, more out of the need for something to say than real interest.
“In the morning.”
“Go be with him, then. I’ll be fine.”
She fluffs up the pillow and throws it on the bed before looking up at him coldly.
“As if I’d leave you here with my little brother.”
Georgie makes a list. Her hand is steady as she writes and she nods and records. It’s part of the job description to stay neutral.
flannel shirt
metallic-blue nylon tracksuit pants
wool sweater
Adidas running shoes
gray parka
thin gold-plated chain with the name Sofya engraved on it
A Bosnian woman sits facing her. Georgie can see by the information on the form that they’re almost the same age, the woman maybe a year or two younger. The woman looks older, but so would Georgie if she had waved good-bye to her husband with the nylon tracksuit pants and her son with the Adidas shoes and her father with the wool sweater and her uncle with the gray parka and her cousin who loved a girl named Sofya and never saw them again. Sometimes the woman takes her hand and begins to weep, and Georgie lets her hold it while she continues to write. And when the woman lets go, Georgie wants to beg her to keep holding on. She wants to weep with her.
She’s not doing too well these days, although she’s only thrown up twice today. Earlier, while she was puking up morning sickness that doesn’t seem to discriminate between morning or afternoon, she made another list. She wants to stop making the lists, but she can’t. It’s become her little addiction, list making.
So she tries to call them rules. Ignore the first rule of not getting pregnant at forty-two because of the risks, because it’s not as though she planned this and it’s too late anyway. First real rule: no smoking. And no alcohol. Not even a glass of wine. Deformities, they say. No stone fruit. Not good for the baby’s intestines. And of course she’ll breast-feed. According to midwives, nothing beats the nutrients in breast milk because they keep the baby strong. Except if you live in Ireland, where ninety percent of them don’t breast-feed, so they must have strong immune systems to start with for some reason. She’ll sleep it on its tummy so it won’t die during the night from crib death. Or is the rule sleeping it on its back these days? And no pool. According to the stats, backyard drowning is the leading cause of injury for children under five, ahead of violence, poisonings, falls, burns, and motor-vehicle crashes. Of course her baby’s not sitting in the front seat because air bags can decapitate young children. She’ll vaccinate. She won’t give it peanuts. She’ll never leave it overnight at a friend’s because according to statistics ninety-five percent of all molestations happen at the hands of a family friend. There’ll be no Internet. Pedophiles are lurking everywhere. And she’ll holiday at home, thank you very much. No tsunamis here, or earthquakes.
And won’t he grow up to be the healthiest of young men, all because she kept him safe? Ready for the world. Ready to one day conquer it. To travel. Get on a train. Go to work. Get blown out of her life.
Maybe she should be having that glass of wine and cigarette after all.
The stone top step of his aunt’s front porch is cold under him, but Tom’s not budging. He’s got all the time in the world and nowhere else left to go. Across the road at the park, he can see people letting their dogs off the leash for that final run before they go home for dinner and lock out the world behind them.
He sees Georgie before she sees him. Coming up Percival Street from the station, and he can see it’s her ex, Sam, by her side. Georgie and Sam haven’t been together for seven years and they don’t look together now. Their bodies are stiff, their heads down. When they stop at the park across from him, Tom watches as Sam’s hand reaches out to Georgie for a moment, but he seems to stop himself and then she’s walking across the road toward the house and there’s that look Tom’s become used to in his life with his aunt. It’s the unconditional love that flashes across someone’s face before they remember the shit. Before they remember that their only nephew hasn’t made contact for months and that he’s a big prick. She can’t hide her joy for a moment, not Georgie, and Tom knows the instant she sees his stitches because she has a hand against her chest and the eyes give it all away. But that’s Georgie. Her pain was awful to watch the day they buried his uncle Joe, or whatever the hell you call it when you have a service with no body. Georgie’s grief was worse even than Nanni Grace’s, who refused to allow anyone to comfort her. “Take care of Bill,” Nanni Grace said over and over again because Tom’s step-pop was crying like nobody’s business. No one had ever seen Pop Bill cry. “Take care of Bill,” Nanni Grace said, “because he’s falling apart without his boy.”
When Georgie reaches him, he stands up and she gives him a hug with such force that he can’t let go. Nothing’s felt this good since that night two years ago when he was holding Tara Finke in his arms. And there it is again. A memory he’s kept at bay for so long and all he needs to do is fall into a table to bring it back.