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“It’s good to see that the bastard streak still lives within you, Dom,” she snaps, shoving past him and her mother along the way. “You said you asked him first,” she accuses Grace, who follows her up the stairs, warning her about blood pressure and babies.
“Dominic’s not an invalid, Mum.”
Grace makes the sound that Georgie knows all too well. She used to call it “the Grace-full sigh of disappointment” but Dominic and Joe had no idea what Georgie was talking about because somehow Grace dared not express her disappointment in front of her sons. The sigh of disappointment was only dished out to Georgie and Bill.
But worse still is the look she’s getting now. The Grace-full look of martyrdom.
“Tomorrow we’ll take a taxi,” her mother says. “We don’t want to be disturbing anyone.”
“But it’s okay to disturb me?”
Next look, the Grace-full stare of hurt. The killer of all looks.
Georgie takes a deep breath. “All I’m saying, Mum, is that you’re better off without me racing out of work and being a martyr,” she yells, so that Dominic can hear her. “Dominic’s home —”
“Dominic has enough to worry about,” Grace says.
“Don’t do that!” Georgie says. “You always do. ‘Poor Dominic has Tommy to care for,’ and then, ‘Oh, that poor Dominic, looking after Tommy and Anabel and Jacinta Louise and trying to juggle everything,’ or ‘Joe can’t be disturbed because Joe is studying,’ or ‘Leave him; Joe’s trying to have a social life.’”
“You’re very emotional because of the baby, Georgie.”
“No, I’m not!” she shouts with frustration. “All of a sudden, every other thing pales in comparison. I would have preferred you come to visit me when there was no baby. When I was dealing with what Sam did seven years ago, or having to cope with the decision to go to London to bring back Joe’s body, or worse still, coming home without it.”
Mention of Joe was okay in her family. Mention of what happened to him was a no-no, but Georgie can’t stop herself.
“And do you know what else I remember? When Joe died, Mum, all you could say was, ‘We have to go home to Albury. Bill’s suffering without his boy and he needs to go home.’ Two days you stayed with me and then you all went home. All of you. And left me here, on my own, to fix up everything, because everyone’s lives were bigger and their suffering was greater, because they had their own families to take care of and their own lives to put back together. But it was like I was worth nothing then, and now, all of a sudden because of this baby, everyone thinks Georgie needs help.”
“I suffered for you when Sam —”
“No, you didn’t. ‘You shouldn’t have let him go, Georgie. He wouldn’t have strayed if you didn’t let him go.’ That’s what you said to me and those words killed me more than anything.”
“Oh, you’re a cruel girl, Georgie, to remember that over everything else.”
In the kitchen, they can hear everything. Tom is trying to eat, but it’s cardboard in his mouth and his father is fixed on the newspaper in front of him while Bill is just staring. At nothing.
“I’ve got to go to my meeting,” Dominic mumbles, standing up.
“I’ll go with you.” This from Bill.
Somehow it’s as if Tom is left with only two options in the world. Stay in the house with Georgie and Na
Tom’s heard it too often in the movies to be touched by it. Now it just seems like a cliché. No one can say it with authenticity without it seeming like a joke.
“Hi, my name’s Des and I’m an alcoholic.”
Big clap. Clap. Clap.
How great would it be if it applied to other things in his life?
“Hi, my name is Tom and I dropped out of uni and spent the last year smoking weed and getting high.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I had a one-and-a-half-night stand with one of my best friends and I don’t have the guts to ask her how she felt about it.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Hi, my name is Tom and I treated my friends who hung around to pick up the pieces like they were shit.”
Clap, clap, clap.
“Hi, my name’s Dominic . . .”
Tom’s eyes swing up to the front of the hall, where his father is standing. For the first time in a year, he gets to look at him properly. So far he’s been passing him by in the corridor back in Georgie’s house or sitting around the kitchen table, but he hasn’t dared to look his way, in case there is prolonged eye contact.
Tom finds out things he hasn’t had the guts to ask. His father hasn’t touched a drink for 150 days. Tom makes calculations, and it means Dominic’s been sober since March. Nothing momentous about March. No birthdays. No a
“I had been on a blinder for a couple of days and I woke up in a park,” his father continues. Tom’s heard his father make speeches hundreds of times. At home. In a meeting hall of irate builders. At a union rally. But his voice is different this time. Broken. “I remember the humidity and that I stunk and that I still had my wallet on me. This woman was there. A jogger . . . with a look on her face that makes me . . . I don’t know . . . Just thinking of it . . . People’s compassion has always floored me. Despite all the shit in the world, people’s compassion never fails to surprise me. Anyway, she helped me up and she asked for permission to look into my wallet so she could help work out who I was and what to do, and while she was flicking through it, she came across a photo. She asked me who they were. And I looked at the photograph and I pointed to my wife and said, ‘That’s Jacinta Louise. She’s the love of my life,’” he says, and there are tears in his eyes. “Then I pointed to my baby girl and I said, ‘That’s Anabel. She’s in Year Eight and plays a mean trumpet.’”
He stops, and finds Tom in the audience, and their eyes lock. “And then I pointed to my son.” There’s so much emotion in that one look. It tells Tom that his father stopped drinking because he loved him and that he was sorry and maybe for now he has to allow that to be enough. Tom could move on with that knowledge. That Dominic Finch Mackee gave up drinking for his son, Tom.
“And I couldn’t remember his name,” his father said, his voice hoarse. “I couldn’t remember my boy’s name. And that was the first day . . .”
Tom doesn’t hear the rest. He feels as if someone’s just punched him in the gut. He thinks he hears a sound from his grandfather. Thinks he even feels Bill’s hand on his shoulder. He wants to be back in the house where Georgie and Na
He doesn’t remember much after that except there’s a bit of a collection to cover basic costs and then they serve tea, coffee, and biscuits. His father speaks to almost everyone in the hall. They gravitate to him the way people always have. And they all want to meet Tom. To tell him that even though they’ve only known Dominic a couple of weeks, they all love him. Does his father do it on purpose? Cause people to have a dependency on him so that when he’s gone, it’s hard to cope?
The three of them walk home in silence. It’s not Tom’s night to work, but he splits from them at the corner without a word and goes into the pub. He knows, with a satisfaction born of bitterness, that his father won’t follow him into the Union.