Act of Grace Page 3

Toohey reached for his cigarettes.

  Bron cleared her throat. ‘I’d rather you didn’t.’

  Jean opened the freezer. She’d bought a selection of ice-creams, thinking it would be fun for everyone to choose their own, maybe even argue over flavours, but now she couldn’t imagine anything sillier than the four of them sitting around the table with sticks in their hands. She tapped Gerry on the head. ‘Choose one, Gerry. Then you can watch a couple of shows.’ At once he was happy, picking out a Splice and going to turn on the television.

  Toohey sat back, leaving his cigarettes on the table. ‘Tell me, Bron. What is it you think I believe?’

  ‘You believe the bullshit that by getting a woman to take off her veil or niqab you’re giving her freedom, rescuing her from a cage. But really, you’re just uncovering her for your own reasons.’

  Toohey flared, a rush of red that began at his ears. ‘That’s pretty low, Bron. You think I just want to perve on her?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said, now calm in his anger. ‘I’m not saying I agree with women being covered up against their wishes, if that’s the case, but the whole “Western men rescuing them by undressing them” story? Bullshit. Men just want to uncover them so they can reflect his glorious image back at him, like everyone else does.’ Bron flicked a finger at Jean. ‘You don’t want a woman, you want a mirror.’

  ‘Bron,’ Stuart said, trying to interrupt, but she held up her hand.

  ‘Let me finish. You tell me, Toohey, what if she does take off the niqab and you don’t like what you see? I don’t mean she’s ugly or anything stupid like that, but what if she rejects you? If she doesn’t make you feel special? Worst-case scenario – she doesn’t respect you, Toohey? What then?’

  Toohey was stony-faced.

  ‘I’ll tell you what then,’ Bron continued. ‘You’d advocate for her to be sent back, to Iraq or wherever, to her so-called cage. You’d say she wasn’t assimilating.’

  Jean sat down. Slumped, really. Toohey leaned forward, taking out a cigarette, not lighting it but cartwheeling it between his fingers, tapping each end on the table.

  It was Stuart who spoke. Jean realised he was drunk, his eyes unfocused, lips stained pink from the wine he’d brought. ‘You know what I think?’ he said.

  Bron looked at him. ‘What?’ she asked dryly.

  ‘I just wish they’d admit it. Always going on about how it’s about modesty, wearing the veil, that it’s for God, or Allah, whatever. But that’s the bullshit. It’s just something kinky. No big deal, just a thing between a man and a wife trying to keep the passion alive. The whole modesty thing makes everyone else feel like they’re being judged, but it’s really about sex, and if they admitted it I reckon this whole debate would be over.’ Stuart’s eyes glistened unsteadily as he looked around the table. ‘Don’t you reckon?’ he said.

  Toohey began to laugh again. He grabbed his lighter and flamed the cigarette. Bron stepped back, pushing in her chair, which teetered before settling. She cupped her hands around her belly protectively. ‘You’re a fucking idiot, Stuart,’ she spat and walked out. The front door slammed.

  After a beat, Stuart stood awkwardly, swaying a little. ‘Hormones,’ he said, giving an embarrassed shrug, and rushed out after her.

  Jean tried to say sorry afterwards, sending Bron five long text messages to zero response, each one making her feel more stupid. To call it a bad dinner would, she supposed, be an understatement.

  *

  Screw her, Jean thought. The whole ‘blood is thicker’ bit – it’s bullshit. Blood only makes things more disappointing.

  ‘A niqab, it’s called a niqab,’ her sister had said in her condescending tone, and Jean had wanted to scream, ‘So you know the name, so fucking what?’

  She looked at Toohey bending over the generator, twisting things with his Swiss Army knife, flicking the switch. The sky was laced pink and orange now, just on dusk, and the splutter became a roar. Behind them the village lit up. Coloured fairy lights twinkled around the shop fronts, a whir of fans suddenly buffeted the worn curtains: the earthen houses glowed like oil burners, single bulbs dangling inside. Arabic music began playing. Toohey picked up Gerry and swung the kid around and Jean thought, So fucking what. She loved him. She ran to Toohey, putting her arms around him. Screw Bron and her perfect family. Toohey was more man than Stuart would ever be. She remembered how Bron’s front door was always clicking open, nearly impossible to keep shut. Bron had been nagging Stuart to fix it, worried that the boys could get out onto the street. He’d given her some idiotic reason why it couldn’t be done – it was structural, he said, the house had changed shape – and Toohey had fixed it in ten minutes.

  Toohey was grinning like a kid. He caught her lips with his, kissing her. Jean plunged her fingers into his hair. Embarrassed, Gerry looked away. He took a step towards the village again, urging them to follow.

  Along the tiny streets, Toohey peered inside each stall, marvelling at how not a single radio dial had been fiddled with, all still set on Radio Arabic. At a stall laden with jewellery – strings of beads, amulets and charms – he picked out a headdress made from silver, threaded with coins and bells. Smoothing back Jean’s hair, he fastened it over her hairline, the coins settling on her brow. The headdress rustled as she moved, the silver electric on her skin, sending tiny thrills down her spine. Jean took Gerry’s hand at one point, dancing to the music, urging him along until they fell apart laughing.

  They went out the same way, first Gerry under the fence, then Jean, and Toohey last, over the top. The music finished playing and a DJ spoke in Arabic. Then, as they were about to get into the car, a melancholy voice came through the speakers, singing a song that seemed to stretch and roll, echoing as the voice inflated, subsided and pressed on a single note. Toohey turned in surprise. ‘It’s the call to prayer.’

  As if under a spell, Gerry returned to the fence and threaded his fingers in the wire diamonds. The village was glowing in the night now, the daisy-chain lights blinking. Stars like press-studs in the sky.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ Jean said, turning to Toohey, but he was looking down, cupping a cigarette with his hand as he tried to light it. It caught and he sucked in, the stalk glowing red in his mouth. Then he snorted, blowing smoke out his nostrils. ‘I can’t fucking stand it, sounds like a pig being gutted.’ He snapped his fingers at Gerry. ‘Get in,’ he ordered.

  When they were all in, Toohey put the car into reverse, swinging it around before turning the headlights on, and for a second they faced the darkness of the desert, while behind them the dozen Panasonic minarets called them to prayer.

  *

  ‘What the brass don’t tell you,’ an older veteran had said before Toohey’s unit left for their first tour, flicking his head to the officers at the back of the room, ‘is that home don’t exist anymore.’ The army had brought in veterans to talk to the soldiers about adjustment, and the men had, for the most part, tuned out. But now, getting the sense that this guy was going off-script, they sat up.

  He was mostly bone, skin like worn leather. His name was Victor. The tattoos on his arms were faded blue threads, sprawling like capillaries. ‘So, you’re out there in Vietnam, Rwanda or Timor, or wherever you lucky bastards are heading, and you think about home all the time, it’s embarrassing how much you think about it, and about the girl you’re with and the things you’re going to do when you get home, not just to her’ – the men laughed – ‘but other stuff too, like learning carpentry or another language, being nice to your mum’ – the men laughed again –‘and what they don’t tell you is that it’s gone. You’re so fucking excited to be on the flying kangaroo going home, but then you get off the plane, and this place,’ the veteran waved at the window, ‘it may as well be the fucking moon.’

  The men followed the veteran’s hand, looking out at the ti-tree. In flower, the tiny white blooms were so numerous they looked like sprinkled snow.

  By now an officer had made his way to the front o
f the room and cleared his throat. The veteran looked at him but kept talking. ‘You’ll readjust – don’t worry about that, boys, course you will. A stint of drinking, losing your shit at the missus or blobbing out in front of the telly, and then you’ll settle, get a routine going, sign up for the gym. Might even make dinner for the kids every now and then.’

  The officer motioned with his hand to wrap it up.

  The veteran smiled. ‘But home,’ he said, ‘that’s fucking gone.’ He leaned back in his chair, satisfied, knowing he’d never be asked back. And the men laughed.

  It was Wedge who’d said later, ‘Someone ought to buy the bastard a pair of red slippers so he can return to Kansas,’ and the guys loved it so much they ordered a pair of red sequined ballet shoes and sent them off to the veteran, the officer happy to help with his address.

  The veteran was followed by a doctor. ‘The risk is,’ said the doctor, ‘with all this media beat-up about PTSD, some of you may start to assume that you’ll return damaged.’ The men looked down sheepishly. ‘But only ten per cent of you will truly experience PTSD,’ he continued, and they stole glances at one another, wondering who it would be. Watching this, the doctor smiled. ‘It’s not really like that, boys,’ he said. ‘It’s not a disease you can foresee in the genes.’ He paused, before adding, ‘If it was, it would be part of your screening process.’

  *

  That night, after visiting the old training base, Jean and Toohey sat on the edge of the kidney-shaped swimming pool at the motel, their feet dangling in the water, Gerry asleep on the single in their room. Toohey had carried him in from the car, the dozing boy’s arms dangling and then cautiously curling around his father’s neck.

  Jean lifted Toohey’s hand and kissed it. She wanted to ask about money. She’d watched him through the car window as he stood at the motel reception, saw the slow, regretful way he pulled his wallet out of his pocket and passed the woman his bankcard. She knew not to ask, but also knew if, when, the money did run out, she’d cop it for not asking. She looked at his neck instead for answers, the scattering of lumps that seemed to shape-shift every few days. In the heat they grew red and swollen, and when things were bad in Toohey’s head, they seemed to know it, the lumps opening like swollen mouths, beads of clear jelly oozing out. But this evening they looked calm, like the pocked surface of the moon. She reached over, touching them. Toohey flinched, but he didn’t pull away.

  Later, as they lay in bed, Jean touched them again, her fingers fanning over his skin. ‘Do they hurt?’ she whispered.

  ‘No,’ said Toohey. Then, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sometimes?’

  ‘Yeah. Sometimes they hurt.’

  Jean drew him in close, the sheets ruffling around them, and started to kiss the lumps, her lips like a small animal nuzzling into his neck. She’s brave in the dark, remembered Toohey, as she ran her hands down his arms and held him by his wrists, pinning him, and lowered herself on top of him, her body pulling him towards her. She came almost as soon as Toohey put his dick in her, shuddering down on him. Like a teenage boy, they joked, as he flipped her over and slipped inside her from behind. Since his last tour, he’d always fucked Jean like this. It felt safer for some reason, not being able to see her face. He came quickly, with a boyish moan.

  Jean slept easy after that, the smell of Toohey on her, in her. But in the morning, when she opened her eyes dreamily, the sheet coiled around her thighs, he wasn’t beside her.

  She sat up and spotted him through the window, in the car park, talking to a man in workpants and a fluoro orange top. They were both smoking, sucking on the cigarettes like oxygen sticks. When they were finished, they ground the butts into the bitumen with their boots and shook hands.

  Jean wrapped the sheet around her. She saw the silver headdress on the bedside table and hid it in her handbag on the floor beside her, scared that Toohey would see it and tell her to get rid of it. But he smiled when he entered. He nodded out to the car park. ‘Bloke out there called Mac says he can get me a few days’ work.’ He looked around the room, eyes settling on the car keys. ‘I’m going to follow him out there now.’

  Jean swung her feet out of the bed and yawned, letting the sheet drop away. Toohey grinned and went over to her. He put his hand on her breast and the other in her messy hair, threading his fingers in the knots. He tilted her face up to him. They kissed, and Jean tried to tease him back to bed, her tongue searching his mouth. Toohey laughed and pushed her away. ‘Tell reception to book us in for two extra nights and I’ll pay them when I get back.’

  Jean nodded. ‘Love you,’ she said as he left. Toohey waved. She watched him through the window, getting into the car. Then she looked across at Gerry and saw that he was awake. She wriggled over and pulled the sheet up, patting the mattress beside her. ‘Come snuggle,’ she said, reaching for the remote on the bedside table, the sheet slipping again and revealing a naked breast hanging like a bell jar. ‘We can watch cartoons.’

  *

  Happyland Hens, said the sign. Toohey drove through the gate, parked on a strip of gravel and walked over to Mac, who was waiting for him. Five tin sheds cast shadows over a dirt paddock, their windows boarded up with old planks. ‘So this is Happyland, eh?’ Toohey said wryly.

  Mac laughed. ‘Yep, mate. You should be paying me.’ He bent his head in the direction of a small portable. ‘Boss sits in there. I’ll introduce you.’

  ‘I gotta piss first,’ said Toohey.

  ‘Do it up along the fence line,’ came the reply. ‘Keeps the foxes away.’

  Toohey undid the button on his pants as he walked, breathing in the fresh air. It felt good to be up and at it early, the ground crisp with dew and the sun just beginning to warm. As he pissed through the wire fence, into the long grass on the other side, he settled back on his heels, satisfied. He could still feel Jean and smell that soapy, sugary scent of hers. The leaves on the gumtrees were a faded pea-green and his stream scared the crickets up out of the grass. He smiled, thinking of the training camp they’d visited. Fuck, he thought. The things he’d seen, the things he’d survived, the man he’d been – shit, the man he was – while these dickheads had been feeding chickens.

  He closed his eyes, tapping out the last few drops, and then smelt it: orange blossom. Toohey snapped his eyes open, whirling around, dick still out. He scanned the property, the sides of the sheds, around the portable. Not a fucking orange blossom to be seen. Why? Why did it fucking do this? Toohey’s chest tightened, then his neck, his whole body, his blood thumping.

  ‘Mate?’ A voice broke through. Toohey looked down to where Mac was yelling, hand cupped around his mouth. ‘You coming or what, mate?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Toohey shouted, pushing his tackle in, still tingling with adrenaline. Zipping it all up. ‘Something fucking bit me,’ he called as he walked back. ‘Stung like hell.’

  Mac tilted his head to study Toohey. ‘Must have been a fire ant.’ He pointed to the open door of the portable. ‘Bob’s in there. I told him you were coming. Come and meet me in the first shed after you and him sort out the numbers.’

  In the flimsy fibro, a fan was already going full-blast. Behind a desk was a man eating chicken nuggets, a can of Coke keeping a pile of his papers from blowing away. Bob was enormous. He looked as though he had been poured into his chair like a soft-serve ice-cream into a cone. Toohey watched as he examined a nugget, turning it over as if it were gold, before putting it in his mouth.

  Toohey stepped forward and offered his hand. ‘Hi, mate. Toohey.’

  Bob waved it away, lifting the Coke so he could leaf through the paperwork on his desk. ‘How long did you say you wanted?’

  ‘Three days,’ replied Toohey. ‘Five days max. We’re just passing through.’

  Bob squinted at him. ‘Reckon you could pick up some night shifts too?’

  ‘Depends what you’re offering.’

  Bob put another nugget in his mouth, chewing it meditatively. He swallowed. ‘I can do eighty cash for th
e day, fifty for the nights.’

  Toohey put his hands in his pockets to hide his clenched fists. He had no fucking choice.

  *

  For his third deployment, Toohey’s unit had been posted to Baghdad, and while none of the men would admit it, the location didn’t suit them. They felt hemmed in, missing the sprawl of the south. They even missed the Iraqi soldiers they’d been in charge of, pathetic as they were, scattering like cats at first contact and leaving their gear behind for the insurgents to take. Here, the unit were little more than glorified taxi drivers, escorting diplomats who barely looked up from their paperwork. There was an excess of briefings and officers, one superior replying coolly, ‘You’re in Baghdad now,’ when Jolley offered an opinion without being asked, as if they’d been frolicking in the meadows their last two deployments.

  Red was the only soldier in their unit who thrived. ‘This,’ he said as they drove down the fortified streets, his face still flushed from talking to yet another VIP, ‘is the nerve centre.’ The others started to hate him and began banging on the dunny door when he was having a shit.

  Truth was, the Green Zone was too big a pond, and the boys were feeling lost in it. ‘Hearts and minds,’ they muttered, as they nudged cars off the road with their vehicles, flipping the bird at the Iraqis who got out to shake their fists. They kept an eye out for sticky bombs, magnetic devices stuck to the undersides of vehicles, and to other units they talked up the superiority of the daisy-chain detonations they’d been used to.

  ‘Bush good,’ some Iraqis kept repeating at the checkpoints, as if it was still just after the invasion. ‘We love America!’ When they discovered the soldiers were Australian, they’d make a hopping motion, their grown men’s hands bent like paws. ‘Kang-ga-roo?’ It pissed the unit off. Their luck had to run out soon, that’s what everyone kept saying. With civvies back home getting their knickers in a knot over WMDs, and after an operational blackout that meant another Aussie had been wounded, their newsfeeds filled with articles calling for the troops to be withdrawn, as if they were a bunch of pansies.