Sins of the father, p.8
Sins of the Father, page 8
‘Yeah. Bye.’
Janine hung up the phone carefully, her body moved in slow motion. She put her hands in her lap and started to cry. She was going to be alone at Christmas and her boyfriend wouldn’t let her meet his mother even when she was dying.
There must be something really wrong with me. She sobbed into her hands. She cried until her head hurt and her eyes were swollen and sore. By the time she looked up it was getting dark outside.
Janine pushed the hair out of her eyes and went to the bathroom. She stripped off her T-shirt and showered, the warm water running across her skin felt gorgeous. When she had towelled herself dry, she opened the cabinet behind the mirror and took the last two Valium. She needed to sleep; everything would be better in the morning.
* * *
Christmas morning Janine woke up alone. She realised with John away there would be no presents from anyone. She wasn’t sure what he’d bought her, he hadn’t given her any hints. She’d bought him a fancy new silver cigarette lighter and had ‘Love Always’ engraved on it.
She was tempted to go through the cupboards and wardrobe looking for her gift, but it would make John angry. He had enough to deal with.
She scrubbed the floors, vacuumed the carpets, took the covers off the couch cushions and washed them. The day was bright and sunny and by the time she’d washed a load of sheets the cushion covers were already dry. She put on some of John’s records, if he’d been home, he would have insisted he chose the music and handled the records.
She started to get hungry for lunch and looked in the fridge. There wasn’t much.
Nothing’s open, I’ll have to make do with what’s in there. She scrambled eggs and had it with the ends of the loaf of bread. She ate at the dining table listening to The Cure.
When she’d cleaned up after lunch, she despaired. The house was as clean as it was ever going to be and it still looked dark, dingy and falling down. There was only one more Valium and she didn’t want to feel sad and alone anymore. John had a bottle of scotch but she had nothing to mix. She sat in front of the television and slowly drank the rest of the bottle, wincing a little less with each sip.
Janine woke up on Boxing Day on the couch. She’d passed out some time after midnight. Her neck and back twinged as she sat up and her head pounded, she had one of the tablets the doctors had given her which helped a little.
John hadn’t called. She wanted to call him, but had no number to reach him on. He was so far away, and she couldn’t even let him know she was thinking of him.
She picked up the phone and dialled Gerry’s house. She hadn’t heard from her for a while, but maybe they could hang out.
‘Hello?’ Gerry’s mother answered.
‘Hi.’ Janine didn’t know how to start. ‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Who’s this please?’
‘Sorry. It’s Janine. I wondered if Gerry was there?’
‘Hello dear.’ Gerry’s mother hesitated briefly. ‘Let me get her for you.’
There was a long pause, Janine heard muted conversation but couldn’t make out the words, then there was a scuffling sound and Gerry’s voice came down the line.
‘Hi Janine,’ she said.
‘Merry Christmas.’
‘Yeah, you too.’
There was a long pause. ‘I thought we could catch-up. I have a few days off work, John’s gone to visit his mother. I haven’t seen you for ages.’
‘I have lots of family stuff on right now.’
‘You don’t even have time for a coffee?’ Janine pushed harder than she would have usually.
‘I’ll check with Mum.’ Gerry put her hand over the receiver and Janine couldn’t make out what was being said.
‘Mum says I can see you tomorrow. About eleven?’
‘Great. I look forward to it.’
‘Yep. See you at the coffee shop down the road from me, remember the one?’
‘I remember.’
‘I have to go.’
Gerry had hung up the phone before Janine had said goodbye. She clenched her teeth; her friend’s mother had to force Gerry to spend time with her.
Maybe Gerry would tell her they couldn’t be friends anymore. She had probably been hoping Janine would go away, and they wouldn’t have to have an awkward conversation. Thanks for the memories and all that.
At least the shops are open today. Janine pushed away the sadness in her throat.
She looked down at herself, still wearing the dirty overalls she’d put on to clean the house yesterday. She sniffed; she needed a shower, a good meal and to stop feeling sorry for herself.
She had just turned the water on when she heard the phone ringing. What if it’s Gerry cancelling? She briefly considered letting it ring out, then remembered it was probably John, and he would be livid if she didn’t answer.
She flicked off the water and ran to pick up the handset in the bedroom before he hung up.
‘Hello?’ She sounded breathless.
‘What were you doing?’ he asked, his voice cold and clipped.
‘Shower, sorry baby.’
‘Right. I’ll have to stay up here a bit longer. Looks like mum won’t last the week and I have to sort out her shit when she dies.’
‘Oh.’ Janine folded her free hand across her belly, standing in the bedroom naked while her boyfriend’s mother was dying. ‘What can I do?’
‘Nothing. I don’t need you coming up here and getting underfoot. I’m staying in Mum’s house while she’s in hospital so I can start throwing shit away.’
‘Don’t you want to keep any of it? Won’t your brothers want some of it?’ Janine didn’t have any idea what his brothers would want, they were so seldom mentioned she suspected John had had a fight with them. Both younger than John, his brothers lived in Sale, close to their mother.
‘Why aren’t they taking care of it?’ she asked.
‘They’re both useless pricks. Sean’s too busy being on smack and Greg is visiting his in-laws in Melbourne. They’ve got three little kids and apparently he can’t bring them back from seeing their other grandparents to see his own mother’s dying breath.’
‘That’s appalling. Are you sure I can’t help? I don’t want you to be alone.’
‘Fuck, Janine, let me be. I was only calling to make sure you hadn’t burned the house down.’
‘What’s your number there?’ She needed a way to reach him, she didn’t want to have to wait by the phone for days in case he was coming back.
‘I don’t want you calling me here.’
‘Just for emergencies then.’
‘What possible emergency could you have that would trump mum’s death?’
Janine couldn’t think of anything, she stammered down the phone line feeling more and more stupid as the pause drew out.
‘I thought so. I’ll call you in a few days.’
‘I love you,’ she said. He grunted and hung up the phone.
My poor baby, he’s going through so much and he wants to push me away. There was nothing for her to do but wait. She went back to the shower and stood under the hot streaming water. It felt better to be clean, but her belly gnawed with a suspicion John wasn’t telling her everything.
* * *
The next morning Janine felt almost hopeful about her meeting with Gerry. Would they be able to reconnect after all that time? Both out of school now, dealing with the world of jobs, and rent and other adult experiences.
Janine arrived at the café a little before eleven, she’d had a Valium before leaving the house to make sure she was in a good mood. She sat at a table facing the front window and waited. They used to go for hot chocolate or coffee every weekend when she was still at home, back before her dad died and everything changed. Her mother’s house was five minutes’ walk away, but Janine wouldn’t go there. Having the phone hung up in your ear was one thing, but a door slamming in her face was more than she could bear.
‘You want to order something?’ The waitress came over to her, a tiny spiral bound pad in one hand, and a red, chewed-looking pencil in the other.
‘I’m waiting for someone, we’ll order together.’
‘Righto.’ The waitress walked back towards the kitchen. Janine was the only customer. It was quite warm in the sun streaming through the window, and Janine started to feel drowsy.
She snapped her eyes open when she heard the bell over the door tinkle, it wasn’t Gerry but an older gent. The clock on the wall said ten past. Gerry had never been particularly good at being on time.
The door tinkled again, and Gerry’s mother, Celia, walked in. She came to sit at the table with Janine, her face was drawn and serious.
‘I thought Gerry was coming.’
‘Hello dear. She was going to come. But...’
‘But?’
Before Celia could answer, the waitress came back over. Janine ordered a cappuccino and Celia a pot of tea.
When the waitress was out of earshot again, Celia spoke. ‘It’s been very hard on Gerry the last few years. She felt you’d abandoned her.’
‘I never did. I kept in touch.’ Janine’s voice was louder than she meant it to be.
‘She doesn’t want to see you, Janine. She has to focus on her studies and spending time with you is too painful for her.’
‘Why is hanging out with me painful?’
Celia sighed. ‘When you left school there was a lot of negativity—your mother said a lot of nasty things about you.’
‘What things?’ Janine’s hands clutched one another under the table.
Celia’s head whipped around, the waitress approached with their drinks. They were both silent until she was back in the kitchen, out of earshot.
‘Vicky said you’d stolen from her. Said you were taking drugs and weren’t to be trusted.’ Celia held up her hand to silence Janine. ‘I know she was exaggerating, but the school believed it. Gerry was teased for being friends with you. Vicky would drop in to visit us, wanted to be friends with me she said, she was so sad since you’d left, and you wouldn’t speak to her.’
‘She wouldn’t speak to me.’
‘Your mother has always been fond of wine. She would come to our place, drunk, throwing wild accusations about you. I had to tell her not to come in the end. I know you’re not a bad girl, Janine, but Gerry can’t separate what your mother said from reality.’
Janine sniffed loudly and realised she was crying.
‘I’m sorry. I tried to tell her to give you a chance, maybe what Vicky said wasn’t true, but with all the rumours flying around, Gerry doesn’t want to risk being seen with you.’ Celia put her hand on Janine’s shoulder.
‘But she was my best friend. My only friend.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Celia looked sad, but somehow it felt fake. She sipped her tea and said nothing.
‘I may as well leave, then. I can’t say it was nice to see you,’ Janine pushed her untouched cappuccino away; it sloshed over the edges filling the saucer with dirty-looking beige liquid.
‘You were never a mean-spirited girl, Janine. Don’t start now.’ Celia said as Janine was walking out the door. The tinkle of the bell as the door closed was maddening, she wanted to pull it off and smash it.
Janine hands were shaking so she shoved them into the pockets of her jeans. She stormed up the road, not thinking about where she was going. When she looked up, she was around the corner from her mother’s house.
She’d walked off some of her anger but as she saw her mother’s gold Mercedes parked in front of the house she grew up in, she wanted to scream. Without thinking about it, she marched up to the front door and slammed her fist against it four times.
‘Vicky,’ she yelled. ‘Open the door right now and speak to your only child before I make a scene.’
Janine pounded against the door again before turning her back on the house. Her mother kept a row of pot-plants along the edge of the veranda in terra cotta pots. Vicky would spend hours making sure they had just the right soil moisture, that they were protected from pests, and too much sun. She took an unreasonable amount of joy from them.
‘Vicky!’ Janine screamed. Footsteps came towards her down the hall, the slightly unsteady click clack of heels, her mother had had a heavy night. Janine picked up the pot plant closest to her, a maiden hair fern, and threw it over the veranda railing onto the front path where the pot smashed, splattering dirt everywhere.
The front door opened behind her. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Vicky squinted her eyes against the bright summer morning.
‘Hello, Mother.’ Janine threw a second pot over the railing. It didn’t explode as spectacularly as the first, deadened by falling onto the grass beside the path.
‘How dare you show your face here.’
‘How dare I? After the shit you’ve been telling people about me?’
‘Keep your voice down.’
‘Are you ashamed of me, Mother? Or of yourself? Let’s have all the neighbours up and peering around the lace curtains. You can’t pretend I’m dead, or overseas, or whatever you’ve told them.’
Vicky folded her arms across her skinny bosom and waited. ‘Are you quite done?’
Janine was so angry she had nothing to say.
‘You brought it on yourself. And yes, I am ashamed of you.’
‘What did you tell my grandparents? They don’t talk to me either.’
‘I haven’t told them anything except that you don’t live here anymore. They don’t know where you are. You’ve never tried to get in contact with them.’
‘And no one thought it was weird I wasn’t there for Christmas?’
‘No. They didn’t.’
Vicky seemed so calm Janine wanted to punch her just to get a reaction. It wouldn’t make any difference. Her own mother had moved on with her life and didn’t care about her anymore.
Janine kicked over another pot plant, one with large, flat, deep green leaves, and walked away from the house. She was wearing thin tennis shoes and as she walked her foot hurt where she’d kicked the plant.
What a waste of energy that was. Trying to reconnect with people who clearly didn’t care about her. She was angry, disappointed and despairing. When she was far enough away from her mother’s house, she wouldn’t be seen by anyone she knew, she stopped and sat on a bench. She’d been crying and her face would be streaked with mascara. She opened her little mirror and tried to clean it up with spit on a tissue as best as she could.
She wanted oblivion and was out of pills. Who do I know who has good stuff? The first person to pop into her head was Spider, she shuddered. She had no money but maybe he’d be interested in an exchange. John didn’t need to know.
Spider’s phone number was in her address book, she’d copied it from John’s once in case of emergencies. She walked to a phone box and called him.
The phone rang and rang, she counted eighteen rings before a sleepy sounding voice answered.
‘What?’ he said.
‘It’s Janine. I need—’ she hesitated, why would she want to subject herself to Spider’s sweaty hands if she didn’t have to?
‘Lovely Janine. You looking for a good time, eh?’
She shivered at how excited his voice had become. ‘I need some party favours. I don’t have a lot of cash.’
‘Don’t worry, love. We’ll sort you out.’
‘I’ll be there in about an hour.’
‘I can’t wait.’
Janine hung up the phone and tried not to think about his breath panting in her ears.
10. Make You Own Fun
When Janine knocked on Spider’s door she almost turned and ran away. This was the lowest she’d ever sunk. John would hate her if he knew she was doing, he could never find out.
Her taste for oxy and Valium had been increasing, it was a problem. She told herself she would stop before going back to work. She was in control, just needed a hand while John was away.
While she was telling herself all of this Spider opened the door. He was wearing saggy cut off black jeans and no shirt, his thin, pale, hairless torso on display.
‘Come in, come in.’ He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the dark warehouse. ‘I’m so glad you called.’
He pulled her along behind him and sat her down on the decrepit couch. He sat beside her and his pupils were tiny, even in the gloomy room.
‘You look good,’ he said.
‘Thanks. I can’t stay long.’ They both knew it was a lie. He smiled at her the way a wolf might smile at a rabbit.
‘No worries, straight to business then.’
She shifted away from him, but she was right up against the arm of the couch, his leg was pressed against hers. She could smell his breath, sickly sweet and somehow oniony.
‘What’re you after then?’
‘Do you have prescription stuff? Oxy or Valium?’
‘I have some, sure, that’s what you like?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How about I give you what I have in the pharmacy range, and throw in a few ludes, and a roofie or two.’
‘Yeah, whatever,’ she said.
‘Now, about payment.’ He put his hand on her thigh and started rubbing.
‘No kissing.’
‘Deal.’
She fought the urge to push his hand away. ‘Can I have the gear then?’
‘Payment first lovely.’
Janine closed her eyes. ‘Of course.’
He stood up and held out his hand. She took it and they went into the back bedroom with the mattress on the floor. It was even dingier than she remembered.
* * *
At least it was over quickly. Spider didn’t have much stamina. She pulled her jeans back on while he went to the cabinet beside the door. He pulled out a small baggy of white pills, some round and some ellipsoid. He pulled out a bigger bag of different pills, these were pale yellow, and dropped a few into the other bag. He spent a few minutes rummaging around and preparing a collection for her.
‘These are my finest pharmaceuticals. You’re a good lay. And don’t mix the little red ones with any of the others, yeah?’
‘Right.’
She reached for the baggy but he held it back. ‘John doesn’t need to know about this deal, yeah?’
