She glances sharply at me, angling for complicity. I hope my silence best conveys don’t ask me.
‘And the money. Poor Sergey’s in a time warp when it comes to exchange rates. A hundred and fifty American dollars might stretch to a week’s groceries. In 1980. Touching, but not quite the way he intended.’ A dismissive chop of her hand.
‘I guess he did his best.’
‘No doubt.’ Her curt rejoinder reads my mind. Fence-sitting amounts to filial defence. One more cultural tripwire.
The tabby shoots behind the divan, emitting low growls. One of the boys kicking the football shambles inside, all slack-jawed energy, the bill of his baseball cap twisted behind his right ear. Carrying the ball and roller-blades in one hand he whisks open the fridge, takes out a Coke and slams it shut in one movement. Two dreadlocks bounce off each shaved temple. He flicks them off his face in self-conscious adolescent fashion. When he sees us, he pauses long enough for me to read the imprint on his T-shirt: I’D RATHER HAVE A BOTTLE IN FRONT OF ME THAN A FRONTAL LOBOTOMY.
‘I’m off to the skate park. Back for dinner.’ Voice cracked and husky, as though it broke overnight.
‘If you’re not going to introduce yourself, at least look up. This is, er, Vassili. Vassili, Peter.’
Helen tries to sound offhand but her hands tremble.
‘Howyadoin’.’ Peter flips the football, removes his cap – and I nearly slide off my chair. The dark brown roots belong to neither parent but there is no mistaking my father’s high sloping forehead, and long grooved channel of skin between nostrils and upper lip, like mine.
‘Get inside if it starts to rain. And stay clear of those yobs at the arcade.’
Peter flings the football at the divan, just missing the cat – who dives for cover. He disappears through the front door.
‘Buddha! Come out, sweetie, he can’t hurt you now.’
Buddha makes a watchful reappearance, deposits himself on his owner’s lap.
‘So.’
Give her nothing. Except silence.
‘You must hate me.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Nothing!
Outside the window a lemon thuds on the lawn.
‘Possum lunch.’
That doesn’t deserve a reply.
I stand up. ‘I should go.’
Peter comes back through the door. From his darkened expression he has seen more than he wants to let on. He stares at me. Then his mother. Back to me. His eyes cloud over. He storms out, slamming the door.
Helen stabs her butt. ‘Yep. He knows. Who does he take after?’
‘I am sorry?’
‘Who does he look like?’
What sort of question is that? I want to spit. You casually tear up my family’s history, sentence my mother to lifelong humiliation, send my father – your lover – into a lethal spiral of guilt and shame. Then you introduce my half-brother I never knew I had, like a walk-on extra in a soap opera. Right now I don’t give a fuck who he takes after. How’s that for honesty?
Somehow I craft an answer. ‘I would say he is a happy combination of both parents.’
‘Beautifully said. You should be working in Foreign Affairs, you’d make a great envoy. Actually you already are. No, no, only kidding. From my purely subjective viewpoint I can only see his dad. You’re a fair resemblance too by the way. As far as that goes, Peter knows as much as he needs. Which is no more and no less than he has ever asked. My therapist tells me that will change, but there are no signs yet. In a way I wish he was curious. There’s this ghost that one day I’ll have to sort of flesh out. I’ve been careful not to poison his mind. I tell him dad’s a nice enough man on the far side of the world who doesn’t get around to writing much.’
She leans forward to wave the smoke from my face. ‘Yes, present tense intended. Life just got very complicated. I haven’t broken the news of his death. Let alone explain how the hell you fit into the picture. No offence.’ She still shoots me another scowl. ‘I suppose I want to set the record straight.’
I blink.
‘Sorry, that’s slang. I mean, I don’t want to drag you into it, but you have his side of the story, can I tell you mine?’
‘Of course.’
‘I can understand him not coming back. They harassed him enough as it was, and God knows what they did to his poor wife. But I can’t forgive him toying with my hopes, fuelling the embers just enough, hinting he would come back to me if only Teresa wasn’t standing in his way. One straight lie would have been more honourable than dribbled half-truths. Every time I started to remake my life, another letter would arrive. In the end I gave up my Russian studies to become a part-time librarian at Peter’s high school. Although maybe librarianship is a good choice of profession if you’re stuck in the past, I’m certainly not in it for the money. Don’t think I’m crying poor, especially with the state your country’s in. But I’ve no prospect of buying a house, which at my age is almost unpatriotic. If I want some new books I’d have to steal them from work.’
Lighting another cigarette, she tosses her head back, again shedding fifteen years. A half-apologetic smile. ‘I rest my case.’ She looks out the window. ‘How about a drive to Mount Dandenong? The weather’s turning ugly by the minute. Melbourne being Melbourne it could be blazing sunshine again by the time we reach the lookout.’
I give the bottle a lingering appraisal – two thirds full.
‘Relax. I’m nowhere near the limit.’
Bewildered as I am, I could sprint all the way back to Richmond. Without breaking stride. But I’d better watch myself. She might have a hotline to Enright.
‘Okay if we pick up Peter on the way? If he’s where I think he’ll be. With his mates at the arcade.’
When she unlocks the Gemini I see the green paintwork above the mud flap has the bubbly finish of a collision sprayed over. Utility bills are wedged into the gearshift like poorly shuffled cards.
‘My second office.’ She grimaces in mock embarrassment.
Rain spots from a clearing sky spatter the windscreen as we navigate closes and crescents, ways and rises. Her gaze swivels from one side of the road to the other.
Entering a car park by an L-shaped mall, we do a lap before slotting into the end bay. She wrenches on the handbrake, gets out to drop change into a dispensing machine, puts the ticket face up on the glovebox.
‘Let’s do a quick flit round Peter’s favourite haunts.’
I jog to keep pace with her rapid stride, past a red canvas awning over a fruit shop, Bi-Lo mini mart, Waves Hairdressing, a boutique window with a ribbon sign advertising two-for-one markdowns. Blue light streams out of a video game parlour onto a gaggle of shaved heads. Easily the smallest and youngest, Peter wears a red New York Giants zip-up jacket and jeans slashed at the knees. The three of us almost collide.
‘Footy training cancelled? Doesn’t look that wet to me.’
Peter leans back on a wall, looks down, worries his slashed-knee jeans with one finger.
‘Coming with us to the lookout? Bring your skates if you want.’
‘Nah. Got other plans.’ He cocks the other leg sideways, studies the underside of his skate, scrapes gum off a wheel.
‘Remember what we agreed. Home by eight. This is no place to hang out at night.’
‘Yeah, sweet. Catch ya.’ He launches off the wall and glides towards the others circling on the pavement. I watch them pivot in ensemble, sunlight sparkling on their blades, poised and graceful as a ballet troupe. I glance sideways at Helen. She is seeing something else.
‘Uncanny, isn’t it?’ she muses. ‘Did you notice the way he screwed up his lip and blinked twice when I told him off? Guess who had the same mannerism?’