Johnny looked like his Dad. Naturally this was not so interesting for their Dad to look at. Benny looked like the other person, the one they were not allowed to ask about and the bad nights always began with their father staring at Benny and looking sad. Then he would cuddle in to him and stroke his hair and kiss him on the neck. He was not ashamed of it. He said: ‘You see those other fathers, too scared to even touch their kids. They’re just terrified of natural feelings.’ He kissed them both, often, like you saw mothers kissing babies. Kissing their necks and backs.
Once he started kissing Benny’s neck, he would not stay soulful and doggy-eyed for long. Johnny could watch the mood-change coming like wind across a paddock full of wheat. His dad’s eyes would turn snaky. He’d start to talk sarcastic, spiky. He would laugh and say mean things about the shape of Johnny’s head or how fat his legs were. He did not mean them really – nasty and nice were all the same to him when his mood changed. He had only one objective: to get Johnny to leave the room so he could be alone with Benny.
Johnny slammed the door to counterfeit his exit from the house. He sat outside the blessed circle of affection, outside the blue centre of the flame, safer but more lonely, excluded but responsible. He became the ugly one. He became a peek, a sneak. He watched his father stroke Benny’s hair, waited for the moment when the mustard velvet cushion would be placed across his brother’s lap. It was then he would come in throwing darts or pillows.
Sometimes Benny just looked at him with wet open lips and a smile on his face, sometimes he needed him bad. Sometimes Mort and Benny both shouted at him, told him to piss off out of there.
The day they saw Paddles it was still seven whole years away from the night when he would smash his father’s bedroom window with a cast-iron casserole and cut him with the Stay-sharp knife.
He was not Vish yet.
He was still Johnny and when Mort said, ‘Come on, killer, I’ll buy you a quarter pounder,’ he looked at the big face and in spite of everything, was still proud to be just like his Daddy.
23
At ten-fifteen on Monday night, while Maria and Gia drove from the Blue Moon Brasserie towards the Taxation Office, Cathy stood at her open refrigerator door wondering what she could be bothered cooking; Mrs Catchprice walked along Vernon Street, Franklin, and offered to employ Sarkis Alaverdian; Vishnabarnu finished ironing Benny’s wrapping paper and began to iron his jeans.
‘I’m going to get you out of here,’ he said.
‘You never did listen to anyone but yourself, Vish.’ Benny straightened the orange plastic sheet beneath his suit and adjusted his socks once again. ‘I’m asking you to be my partner.’
‘I’ll take you out of here,’ Vish smiled. ‘If I have to pick you up and carry you out.’
‘Only problem,’ Benny lit a Marlboro and blew a long thin line towards his brother, ‘I want to be here. You want to help me, stay here with me.’
Vish put the iron on its end and folded the jeans one more time.
‘You’re a stubborn fucker, aren’t you?’ Benny said.
Vish looked up and smiled.
‘We know the truth though,’ Benny blew a fat and formless cloud of smoke. ‘You’ve got the business and the personal mixed up. The problem is you were always jealous.’
‘Oh really? Of what?’
‘Of me and Him.’
‘Benny, you hated him. You used to cry in your sleep. We were plotting to poison him with heart tablets.’
‘You were jealous of us. That’s why you went crazy. It wasn’t the business. If you want him to retire, we can do that. We can look after him. We can get him out of here.’
‘This is nothing to do with Mort.’
‘You smashed the window. You stabbed him. You have to admit you’ve got a problem with him, not with the business.’
‘I was protecting you.’
‘You want to protect me – be my partner.’
Vish had that red-brown colour in his cheeks. His neck and shoulders were set so tight – if you touched him he would feel like rock.
‘Benny, I’m not coming back. O.K.? Never, ever.’
Benny laughed but he felt the sadness, like snot, running down his throat. He did not say anything. He could not think of anything to say.
Vish folded the jeans and laid them carefully beside the bottled brown snakes Benny had rescued from his Grandpa’s personal effects. He took the AC/DC T-shirt and smoothed it against his broad chest. ‘You should have washed them first,’ he said.
‘I’m never going to wear them again,’ Benny said.
He waited for Vish to ask him why. But Vish was a Catchprice – he was never going to ask. He just kept on ironing, with his big square face all wrinkled up against the steam.
After a while, Benny said: ‘Aren’t you even curious?’
Vish jabbed at the T-shirt with the point of the iron.
Benny asked: ‘Do you think I look like her?’
‘Like who?’
‘Like who?’ Benny mimicked the high scratchy voice. He pulled the photograph out of the silky pocket of his suit and pushed it at his brother. Vish took it and held it up to the light.
‘Oh, yeah.’ He looked up at Benny but made no comment on his dazzling similarity.
Benny took the photo back. He put it in his pocket.
Vish said: ‘Remember the night you saw her?’ He folded the T-shirt arms over so they made a 45° angle with the shoulder, then he pressed them flat. He was grinning.
‘You saw her too,’ Benny smiled as well. ‘Who else would stand like that at the front gate at two in the morning.’
‘It could have been anyone.’ Vish folded the T-shirt so its trunk was exactly in half. When the hot iron hit it, the shirt gave off a smell like Bathurst – oil, maybe some methyl benzine.
‘It must have been her,’ Benny said. ‘Anyone gets shot with an air rifle – if they’re innocent they call the cops.’
Vish smiled.
‘Admit it – you think about her too.’
‘All I try to think about is Krishna.’
‘Bullshit, Johnny. What total bullshit.’ Benny said. ‘You should learn to ask questions, it’s amazing what you find out. Did you know how long it took you to get born? Ask me.’
‘You don’t know.’
‘Ten hours. You know how long it took me? It took me thirty hours. You don’t believe me, ask Cathy. The second baby should be faster but I was lying back to front. They cut our mother open to get me out. It fucked up all her stomach muscles. She got a stomach like an old woman when she was twenty, all wrinkled like a prune.’
‘And that’s why she shot you? Come on, Benny. Give up. Get on with your life.’
‘Hey,’ Benny rose from the couch, his finger pointing. ‘Forget all this shit you tell yourself about me. Forget all the bullshit stories you carry in your head.’ He straightened his trouser legs and ran his palms along his jacket sleeves. ‘What did I tell you?’
‘When?’
‘Any time.’ He held his palms out. The gesture made no sense. ‘Ever. I told you we could do this thing together. I told you I was changed. Angel. Look.’ He walked carefully along the plank to reach his brother. Then he opened his mouth for his brother to look in.
What he meant was: light. I have light pouring out of me.
‘Benny you need help.’
‘You don’t believe me,’ Benny hit his forehead with his palm. ‘You jerk-off – you’re walking away from two hundred thou a year. You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know where you are. Where are you?’ Benny helped him. He pointed. He pointed to the walls, the writing. He invited him to look, to read, to understand all this – the very centre of his life – but all Vish did was shrug and unplug the iron. He stood the iron end up on the bench beside the clothes and the snakes. Right behind him was the fibreglass ‘thing’ in the shape of a flattened ‘n’.