I was up to my waist in the pool, having just finished shouting every last thing I could think to shout at my parents. Father was stoned and blinking in and out of sleep, and as I got out of the water and wrapped a towel around myself I remembered that he’d never actually said hello to me. All these years and nothing as formal as a hi. Mother absorbed all I had to give her with that mode of professional detachment she had always defaulted to. She was watching me dry myself, standing in her firm but non-confrontational stance, acknowledging me with the slightest of nods and the creasing of her brow.
‘What did you do?’ I asked.
‘We’re not proud, Kick. It’s important to us that we’re honest about that. Honest to you kids.’
‘What did you actually do? I mean, if you say they’re going to lay criminal charges. Heavy criminal charges, he said.’ I look over to Father and he’s still out of it, one hand resting at the crest of his belly.
‘It’s important that we acknowledge the situation, accept its reality, and move forward in the most effective way we can. We focus on what matters and that is how we get from the now to the future. We transition.’
I said nothing for a time and just examined my mother. Looked at her like I hadn’t since I was a teenager. She appeared unchanged. Older, but the same in her fundamental ways. Stunning and inscrutable. She was dressed in a suit jacket and straight skirt but in the dim light of the pool room it was impossible to discern the fabric. It was somewhere between a blue and black and probably a fine wool. Without padding it made a feature of her arms and elongated fingers. Stop. Jesus, the endless red carpet of it all. My god, this stuff is wired in deep.
I said nothing for a time and just examined my mother. Looked at her like I hadn’t since I was a teenager.
‘We transition,’ I said. ‘That’s what you have to say? You are psychopathic. The pair of you. Truly, you’re diseased.’
‘We need to accept this, Kick, and move forward. There is a path.’
‘Why did you want me here?’
‘Because you’re a part of this family. There are steps that need to be taken and we want to protect you, darling. That’s what matters most.’
‘This has nothing to do with me.’
‘We’re a family; you’re a part of this. You have to trust me, because keeping you safe is all that matters to me. Listen to your mother.’
I let out a single, involuntary snort that unsettled Father’s balance. I couldn’t think of anything to say that could capture my storming, multidimensional array of resentments, so I turned and left. I went to my room and dressed and then walked out of the house. To the sidewalk and down the long arc of the street. The sun had drooped low and the drama of late afternoon gave the houses and lawns the look of a photo shoot. A pop-up Architectural Digest. There was no movement of time or life. The ghost town of childhood.
I walked along Otter Rock Drive, being tempted by the slope towards the water. Belle Haven was a funnel. Maybe a meat mincer. I couldn’t return to those people, no matter how much I needed rescue. And those things my father had said, they seemed beyond reality. The feds knocking down the door in a week’s time. The business collapsing. Criminal charges, jail time. This was a movie script and not a good one. I reached the end of the decline where the road curved away towards the harbour at the Belle Haven Club. I could hear tennis coming from behind the hedges. The pock of the ball and the chatter of doubles partners. I went and sat on a low rock wall and looked out to the water. It was beautiful, it was perfect. Of course. Salt on the warm and seductive breeze. Birds flew at a relaxed pace and accommodating distance. The cluster of a dozen bone-white yachts.
I would leave and it would be a great relief. I would find some way to deal with the banks and the debt and get things straightened out on my own. Or maybe I wouldn’t. Maybe this would be my end but I would cling to something near enough to pride. My family could deal with whatever was coming to them because it had nothing to do with me. It stung that I had let myself be lured back, even for this one weak minute. I sat on the stone wall, looked out, and inhaled that sweet air. I waited for my mind to slide into soothing oblivion.
Maybe this would be my end but I would cling to something near enough to pride.
It had shifted to near sunset when I regained consciousness. The water lapped on the stones. I would go to the house, grab my shit and get the fuck out of here, even if I had to hitch back to Nevada. I could find the cheapest hotel in New York and go back to waiting tables. I could catch the train to Montauk and sleep in the dunes. I would walk into the sea.
I started back up the street and I’d only gone twenty yards before I realised I was looking directly at my brother parked up with Duke. It was the same corner, same time of day, just a million years later and they were still snorting coke off the dash of the Porsche. They were embarrassing, trapped in their Alex P. Keaton time warp. They’d be listening to Brothers in Arms in there. Thing is, Lincoln always knew better. Beneath the repellent exterior he was smart and emotionally perceptive, which made his personality all the more a crime.
We found each other’s eyes and I saluted. I walked on until I was on the straight of Otter Rock Drive and rehearsing my escape. There was something noxious brewing in me that might first need saying to my mother. I could smash the living room to pieces but this might ultimately please her. I noticed a car cruising beside me. The driver’s window came down.
‘Excuse me, ma’am. Stop for me, please.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Ma’am, stop.’
I smiled, I inhaled, I repressed.
‘I’m fine, thank you,’ I said. ‘I’m just going to keep on keeping on, but thank you.’
His car tyres made a gentle snarl against the road, with the crackle of the occasional dry leaf. This was Belle Haven security. They patrolled the streets twenty-four hours a day and sat in their little sentry booths further north at Mayo Avenue. They wore their neat grey uniforms and performed their busywork of reassurance.
‘Are you a member of the community, ma’am?’
‘I’m fine, thank you for your service.’
‘Are you a guest of the community, ma’am? This is a private area. You need to stop for me, ma’am.’
I considered going absolutely shit wild. I repressed.
‘I’m going to keep on walking,’ I say. ‘But I’m happy to let you know that I am a member of this community. I’m thrilled about it. This glorious enclave.’
‘If you could just give me your name, ma’am. If you could stop and let me know your address. You’ll understand I need to confirm your membership; this is private property.’
‘My name is Gulch. I am the daughter Gulch. Mayo Ave.’
‘Thank you, ma’am. My apologies—I didn’t recognise you. I’ll just be a moment, if you could please stop.’
I walked on, as I’d said I would, at a very reasonable and lawful pace. The security guard went on his walkie-talkie and I hoped in his imagination he was NYPD, calling in a suspected perp. He would bust the case wide open. At the end of his shift he would drink the cold domestic beer that signalled the end of another day protecting and honouring the law. Faithful Unto Death.
After a few seconds of muttering I heard the resigned pop of his receiver.
‘That’s all fine, Miss Gulch. You have a pleasant evening.’
His window raised as his car gained speed towards the blond sunset.
I turned into Walsh Lane, where the grass was still the Haven’s best. It was something in the soil. Some naturally occurring seam of nutrition that somehow surpassed even the best of Big Fertiliser. A cemetery of megafauna, long decomposed and waiting to release the prize of their matter. Walsh Lane. I found myself on that particular pavement because instinct is a cruel and undeterrable demon. I reached the wide terracotta-tiled path leading to number 36 because that was the path I had reached hundreds, thousands of times before.
The path to Presley’s house.
This is an extract from Somebody Down There Likes Me by Robert Lukins (Allen & Unwin), available now at your local independent bookseller.
