Act of Grace Read online

  But this knowledge didn’t deter Toohey from continuing to work out, Jean noticed. For ninety minutes each day he’d lift weights, puffing out his cheeks, neck taut, long spidery veins rising on his arms like welts. He’d adjust the discs on his barbell, skip for twenty and drop his dumbbells onto the carpet when he was done with a routine thud. He did the same regime he had followed when he was enlisted – same lifts, same weight, he boasted. His core strength hadn’t changed. But his enthusiasm had gone. When he was younger, still part of his unit, Jean remembered how he’d approach each exercise session with bravado, often issuing himself an extra challenge. But now, Toohey did his weights like it was a sentence. On the odd occasion she’d been able to observe him, she saw a grim expression on his face as he went through his sets, his body inflating and hardening as if he were filling with cement. Still, he was beautiful.

  Jean reached out to Toohey as he walked purposefully towards the village. He paused, letting her drift her hand down his arm before catching her wrist. He smiled, pulling her close. ‘Come on,’ he said, nodding at Gerry. The first street they entered was narrow and adorned with Arabic signs, sun-bleached billboards for Coca-Cola and Baghdad cigarettes. Toohey spun round. ‘It’s exactly the same!’ There were rubber thongs and Velcro sandals left outside hobbit-sized doorways, and shops stacked with pretend boxes of biscuits and salted crackers, watches, belt buckles, refillable cigarette lighters and snow globes. Another stall had bolts, nuts and washers neatly laid out on a yellowed lace tablecloth alongside old tools that looked like they’d been found in a dig. There were trestle tables piled with books, rugs, hookah pipes, copper bowls, bronze pitchers and lanterns, baskets of spices and polystyrene fruit, the surface pocked by bugs. Gerry ran ahead, yelling excitedly: ‘This shop has toys!’ His voice had that hopeful whine Toohey hated so much. Jean checked to see if he’d noticed but Toohey was looking around, his eyes shining. ‘Still think we shouldn’t have come in?’ Jean shook her head.

  Toohey led them through the tight streets, pointing out sniper holes in the walls where the pretend enemy had rested their pretend gun barrels. They looked inside low buildings, stooping to pass through the doorways. Tattered curtains fluttered like cobwebs over the window frames. There were stained floral mattresses and lumpy couches, rickety chairs pulled up alongside. The rooms stank of piss and time.

  Painted on the front of an official-looking building was a portrait of Saddam Hussein, while pasted along its side were posters of the dictator’s eldest son, Uday.

  ‘That caused a fuss with the Iraqis,’ Toohey said, pointing at Uday. He explained that Saddam’s eldest son had been, among other things, chairman of the Iraq Football Association. He was known for torturing the athletes if they missed a penalty kick. ‘Every day the Iraqis would come past here and spit on him.’ He stopped at a poster and picked at the edges, carefully peeling it off the wall. ‘They’d never spit on Saddam, though,’ he said. ‘Most were too scared to even walk past it. We reckoned the painter had done the bastard’s eyes like Mona Lisa’s on purpose – he was always watching you.’ Rolling up the poster of Uday, he passed it to Jean. ‘Souvenir.’

  As he stopped to light a cigarette, Toohey spotted a greasy blue diesel generator on the outskirts of the village. ‘Let’s see if this has any kick left in it,’ he said, tucking the smoke in the corner of his lips as he knelt to fiddle with the switches. There was a short, wet splutter, and Toohey beamed. ‘Fuck me!’ he said. He tried again: nothing. Over and over he flicked the switch, but couldn’t get anything beyond that small rise. Toohey stared at it, thinking and smoking. Then he winked at Gerry. ‘This might do the trick.’ He tossed the cigarette butt and prised the lid off a cloudy-white plastic container sitting among the tubes in the generator, bending it back so it wouldn’t close. He undid his pants and took his penis out, ignoring Jean, who had let out a small gasp. Carefully he aimed at the hole, shooting forth a stream of piss. ‘Radiator fluid,’ he said when he’d finished, giving his dick a little shake.

  Gerry’s eyes were popping out of his head; he already had his shorts down and half-ran, half-hopped over. ‘Can I have a go?’

  ‘No!’ Jean shrieked, just as Toohey nodded and moved aside so that Gerry could get closer to the container. Already Gerry was peeing, squeezing his small penis between his fingers and spraying urine over the generator.

  ‘Jesus, kid,’ said Toohey. ‘You need to learn some control.’

  Gerry reddened and attempted to slow his stream down, getting a trickle in the container. Jean hid a smile, shaking her head, but she had her sister’s voice in her head. ‘Seriously?’ she imagined Bron saying. ‘You seriously think that’s a good idea?’

  ‘Gerard needs a role model,’ her sister had said to her once, ‘not a fucking idiot.’ Words spoken in the heat of an argument – at least that’s what Bron said later, but it was just her doing the arguing. Jean had sat, head bowed, waiting for the tongue-lashing to end.

  ‘It’s because you’re so similar,’ Jean had said timidly at one point. It was true, to a degree. Bron and Toohey were both headstrong.

  Bron was furious. ‘Don’t pop-psychology me,’ she said viciously. ‘Next you’ll tell me it’s because our star signs aren’t compatible.’

  Jean had blushed, and in the desert she blushed again, remembering it. She tried to switch to a different memory, thinking of the time in her sister’s backyard when they had left the men to it and brought in the washing. The sweet-smelling sheets were cool against their faces as they reached up to unpeg them. Cabbage moths fluttered out of the long grass, the sisters performing a kind of waltz as they folded the sheets, stepping towards each other and out again. Jean had replayed the scene so many times in her head in the past six months that she had almost succeeded in erasing their fight and the dinner that caused it.

  *

  It had been their last meal together before they left for Perth. Military security systems, Toohey had explained to Jean about the job an old army mate had lined up for him. He was going to be in charge of data. Vital work, he’d impressed upon her, possibly more important than being on the ground.

  Jean hadn’t wanted to hold the farewell dinner at their flat, a dreary blond-brick building in Brunswick West. Usually they went to Bron and Stuart’s for a barbie. Those two were good at it. They would have nothing organised and be so relaxed, putting out a platter of cheese, nuts rummaged from the pantry, figs from their tree split open with their fingers. Plus their backyard was huge, with a trampoline and a sandpit, so the kids could run around. But Toohey had insisted they come to the flat. ‘It’s Jean’s turn to cook,’ he said.

  She was unable to eat that day from nerves, while Gerry was wriggling out of his skin with excitement. For hours he had worked on transforming his bedroom into the Midwest, using blocks to make rocks jutting from low plains, setting up torches as campfires and plastic cowboys surveying the land. He placed his animals in miniature scenes: horses drinking from pretend lakes, buffalo migrating in herds, Red Indians climbing out of drawers and fighting for territory.

  When there was a shuffling on the step, he opened the door before the guests even had a chance to ring the bell, ready to grab his cousins and drag them into his room. But only his aunt and uncle stood there. Bron gathered him in a hug. ‘We got a babysitter,’ she said airily to Jean, who had prepared mini sausage rolls and cupcakes for the kids. ‘It would be too hard to keep them entertained in such a small space!’ She added confidingly, ‘They’re such monsters.’

  Gerry was stricken, and it was left to Jean to coax him to show his uncle his bedroom. For a while Stuart played, picking up the plastic Red Indians and making them do a war dance that Gerry didn’t like. Then he said he needed to go to the toilet but instead headed to the kitchen to talk with the other adults. Gerry, alone in his room, turned the campfire torch on and off in the dark.

  ‘So,’ Bron said, smiling at Stuart as he joined them, ‘there was this woman in class this week.’ Bron was standing
on one leg, her right foot tucked neatly into the small of her back, wearing a tight black top, scooped at the neck and ruffled around her pregnant belly, and light blue leggings with elephants printed on them. Toohey was sitting at the laminate table watching her, his hand curled around a beer while Jean fussed at the stovetop.

  ‘Oh my god, she was so annoying. She complained about every pose.’ Bron twisted her right hand behind her to hold her ankle. ‘I can’t do it, it’s too hard,’ she mimicked in a whiny voice. ‘She said it for every pose, she didn’t even try.’

  Then, in a supple move, to demonstrate just how easy it was, she stretched her leg up so that her foot curled behind her head. She lifted her left arm to the ceiling. It was startling, and the others held their breath as she pitched forward, her top stretching so tight over her belly that Jean thought she could see the outline of the baby’s feet.

  ‘Should you be doing that?’ Jean asked nervously. ‘With the baby?’

  Bron snorted and unfolded herself, slipping her foot back into the canvas shoe on the floor. ‘Of course I should, Jean – if anything, being pregnant is all the more reason to do it. Healthy mum, healthy baby.’

  Jean reddened, looking across at Toohey, but he was gazing at her sister.

  Stuart grinned. ‘Tell them what you said, Bron.’

  Bron smiled secretively and sat back down, eyes glowing. ‘Well, I got sick of it, didn’t I? Everyone did. You could feel it in the room. So towards the end of the class, when she complained about the easiest pose, I couldn’t help myself.’

  ‘Oh no,’ murmured Jean.

  Bron grinned. ‘I turned around and said to her, “You know, if we were in a hostage situation, you’d be the first to be shot.”’

  There was a beat, then Toohey roared with laughter, and Stuart joined in, the two exchanging looks of admiration for Bron, while she humbly cupped her glass of soda water in her hands. Jean cracked open the oven door, welcoming the whoosh of heat in her face.

  ‘Let me guess,’ Toohey said. ‘Everyone avoided you afterwards like the plague.’

  ‘Yes!’ Bron said, putting her palm down on the table emphatically. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because no one likes the truth,’ Toohey said, shifting in his chair. ‘Even if every fucker in the room was thinking the same thing, no one wants to say it straight up. God forbid you hurt someone’s feelings.’

  Bron nodded avidly. ‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘People’s feelings have a lot to answer for.’

  Toohey rolled his eyes. ‘Tell me about it. Man, the shit we were told not to do in Iraq because it was “cultural”.’ He clawed his fingers in the air like quotation marks. ‘Shit like don’t expect a straight-up no if you ask an Iraqi whether they can do something and they can’t. Instead you have to play this dumb-arse game of “Can you?” and they say, “I will see,” then three weeks later you say, “Can you?” and they say, “I will see.” You play it for months before finally, you get it: the fucker is useless. Apparently that’s cultural.’

  Bron sat back, her shoulders stiff. ‘I don’t think it’s the same thing,’ she said, her voice tightening.

  Toohey cocked his head at her. ‘No?’ he said. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, you’re talking about an ancient Islamic culture and I’m talking about a bunch of Westerners doing yoga.’

  Jean started to set the table, slotting plates and cutlery between Toohey’s and Bron’s elbows. Taking her lead, Stuart went to have a closer look at a small painting on the wall. ‘What’s this of?’ he asked, to change the subject.

  Toohey stared at Bron, then looked at the painting, a strip of blue flanked by reeds and hills. ‘It’s a reproduction,’ he said proudly. ‘The Euphrates River.’

  ‘I didn’t know you went that way,’ Stuart said.

  Toohey laughed. ‘I didn’t.’ Ignoring the expression on Jean’s face, he added slyly, ‘Got it from some Iraqi guy’s apartment.’ Bron recoiled. ‘Don’t worry, he gave it to me. Was a joke me and the guys had going, from the same army handbook that told us not to expect honesty because, as you know, Bron, Iraq is an ancient Islamic culture.’

  Jean couldn’t bear it. She went to the kitchen door to call Gerry to the table.

  ‘The handbook,’ Toohey continued, ‘went on about how when we were in an Iraqi’s home we were not to go overboard praising one of their possessions, because they’ll feel obliged to give it to you.’ He paused, then added, ‘Red rag to a bull, don’t you reckon?’

  An icy silence. ‘So we started to praise the shit out of the dumbest things – soap dishes, you name it. One guy even walked out of one place with a fucking kitchen chair!’

  ‘Gerry!’ Jean called again.

  ‘And this?’ asked Stuart.

  Gerry trotted in.

  ‘I don’t know how I ended up getting that,’ Toohey said. ‘I was praising the shit out of an orange cushion and the idiot gave me the painting!’ He was laughing and Stuart gave a polite laugh too as Gerry pulled his chair out and sat down, peering at the food. Through the steam of the peas, roasted chicken and potatoes, Jean smiled at her son.

  ‘Maybe there was something inside the cushion,’ the boy said.

  The adults’ eyebrows lifted in surprise. Stuart waved his fork at Gerry. ‘Not bad,’ he said, nodding at him. Jean felt a buzz of pride. Stuart was a schoolteacher.

  Toohey scowled. ‘I doubt it, kid.’

  Gerry looked down at his plate.

  ‘I would’ve smelt it,’ Toohey said, glancing at Bron with a hint of aggression. ‘Their money stank. I mean, like, literally, it stank of shit.’

  Later, when Jean asked Toohey why he’d baited her sister, he told her he hadn’t, that she was an idiot for thinking it; then he admitted he’d done it because of the way Bron had spoken to her. ‘Healthy mum, healthy baby,’ he mimicked. Jean was surprised he even remembered her sister saying that, recalling how he’d been gazing at Bron as she stretched.

  Jean sensed that for Toohey, the dinner only got better. Bron and Stuart weren’t getting along, so Toohey kept bringing it back to Iraq – it was his specialty, where his word was irrefutable. Bron’s hands were flat on the table, her voice strained as she looked at Stuart. ‘I was just saying that Saddam was secular and now look at Iraq, it’s —’

  ‘Jesus, Bron,’ interrupted Stuart, ‘get your facts straight. Saddam was far from secular. He was a Muslim, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Yes, but the government was secular,’ Bron said.

  Stuart snorted. ‘You can hardly call his regime secular – the enforced worship of one brute of a man seems pretty religious to me.’

  Toohey chuckled, leaning across to clink his stubby with Stuart’s wine glass. Then he looked at Jean. ‘Tell them about the woman we saw at the beach.’

  Jean stupidly lit up. She’d fallen into a funk, trying to follow what the others were saying, and was feeling thick-headed. Now, with Toohey’s attention, she rallied. ‘It was horrible. The woman, she was wearing the whole bit, you know, black gown, veil, covering everything but her eyes, and her husband —’

  Bron cut in. ‘How do you know it was her husband?’

  Jean stopped, looking at Toohey.

  ‘I guess,’ he said slowly, ‘we’re assuming it was her husband. Keep going, Jean.’

  ‘Well, he, he was practically naked, a tiny pair of swimming shorts, while she walked behind him completely covered. It made me so angry. How dare a man —’

  Again Bron interrupted. ‘I think you’ve made some fairly big assumptions there, Jean. Who are you to say what she should be wearing? Doesn’t that make you just as bad as him? Maybe it was her choice to wear the niqab? Was it a niqab, Jean? Or a chador? A hijab?’

  Jean fell silent. Their mother did the same thing to their dad, she thought, made him feel like an idiot, never let him finish a story, always pulling the rug out if he ever started to feel at ease.

  ‘So what was it, Jean – a niqab? A hijab?’ Bron’s eyes narrowed and she pointe
d her fork as she spoke.

  Jean started to stammer. ‘I don’t know . . . I – it was one where just the eyes are showing.’

  ‘A niqab,’ Bron said. ‘It’s called a niqab.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘And let me guess, Jean, all the other women on the beach were wearing bathers and bikinis and you were looking at them too and judging them. Oh my god, that woman is too fat to be wearing a bikini! Right?’

  Jean blushed. They had been doing those things. She and Toohey had had such a fun time. He’d been in a good mood, had taken the day off and suggested they go to the beach. They’d gotten ice-creams and spoken about bringing back Gerry at the weekend. When they looked at the women stranded on their towels or bobbing in the water like dugongs, Toohey puffed out his cheeks and Jean tried to stifle her laughter, pressing her mouth against his arm, tasting the salt on his skin. But it hadn’t been like that with the woman wearing the hood over her face and the long black cloak, whatever its name was. It wasn’t like that. Sure, she’d liked agreeing with Toohey, seeing his face harden, the anger in his voice. Women are not animals, he’d said, and she loved him for saying it, god, she loved him. But women are animals, she knew this, and probably the shadow did too, the column of heat tracking down the beach, little kicks of sand coming off the dark gown as she shuffled slowly so as not to trip, the man wading in the sea ahead of her, trailing his fingers in the water. It felt so suddenly precarious. It was up to them, she realised, up to the man in the water and up to Toohey. It was they who would decide how it should be for her and the woman in the black body bag. Goose pimples had puckered her arms and she’d looked up to see if a cloud was blocking the sun.

  In the kitchen, Bron was looking at Toohey with contempt. ‘You men,’ she said, ‘are so good at believing your own bullshit.’ Agitated, she stood and started to rub the right side of her belly. Jean recalled doing the same when she was pregnant with Gerry. She stood too and began to clear the table.