Читать книгу Fly By Night - Narrelle M Harris - Страница 4

Frank stared at the wooden coffin as it was slowly lowered into the ground. He tried to picture Steven lying in it, but the image wouldn’t come. Not for Steven. Steven had been light and life and laughter.

Once more, Frank was gripped with that disturbing tumble of guilt and relief. Guilt that he hadn’t been there when Steven’s system had finally collapsed, a decade after his initial diagnosis; guilt that he hadn’t returned when Kevin had written to tell him Frank was getting worse; guilt that he hadn’t returned to Perth in time. Relief at all his absences as well, and then guilt at the relief.

Other mourners took their turn to throw dirt on the coffin, now sitting snugly in the hole. Frank thought that Steven would be horrified. ‘No light, darling, no air. So much dirt! I’m an old Queen of Tarts, Frankie. I have standards.’

Kevin stood by the grave, weeping – as much for himself as for his darling Steven. Kevin had never mentioned his HIV status; Frank would never ask, but he thought it likely Kevin was positive. He ought to say something comforting, but Frank had never been able to think of anything that didn’t sound trite. Everything was too deep, and too damned universal. He’d been to so many of these funerals, both in Australia and in Europe, where he’d worked these last three years.

The man beside him stepped forward to add his handful of dirt and Frank watched him with peculiar intensity. Milo’s handsome face was serious and sympathetic. He hadn’t known Steven, but he knew what the older man had meant to Frank. The mop of dark hair fell into Milo’s dark brown eyes; his fine, sensitive mouth frowned briefly as he scattered soil onto the coffin, the gesture smooth and graceful, even down to the brushing away of the last of the clinging dirt.

Such beautiful hands, so strong and certain. The sudden fear that one day those hands might be stilled gripped Frank: that Milo may never conjure music with those hands again, may one day lie in the ground…

A hand squeezed his shoulder; arms slid around his back to hold him.

‘It’s all right,’ said Milo.

Frank felt the brush of Milo’s cheek against his forehead, the light press of lips on his temple. He leaned into the embrace, hypersensitive to the texture of Milo’s jacket, the scent of his aftershave, the sound of his breathing. Never had anyone felt so alive to him before; radiant. Steven had once been alive like that – the personification of vitality.

‘I’m okay,’ said Frank at last. He met Milo’s compassionate gaze and managed a watery smile. ‘It’s just hit me. I’m not going to see him any more.’

The others mourners took their turn to scatter dirt into the grave and then walked away, leaving the two of them alone until Kevin approached, his hands flecked with dark soil that he couldn’t brush off for trembling. His thinning hair flopped over his forehead. A smudge on his cheek and brow showed where he’d tried to push it out of the way again.

‘You’ll come back to the house? For the wake?’

‘Of course we’ll be there, Kev.’

‘He was a-always so fond of you.’

‘I know. He meant a lot to me too.’

‘He was very proud of you.’

‘I’m glad.’

Kevin nodded stiffly, battling another bout of tears. ‘B-back at the house, then?’

‘We’ll go straight round.’

‘Good.’

A woman from the AIDS Council, who had also been crying, placed an arm around Kevin’s back and guided him towards her car.

Frank watched them go. Parked a little beyond the rest of the funeral party, he noticed again the dark blue sedan he’d seen on his arrival. The occupants were still in the car, watching the proceedings. Straight friends, too self-conscious to join them? Cowards.

We’re all cowards.

‘Want me to drive?’

Frank dragged his gaze away from the two men in the sedan. ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

David Tyson pushed his white Cortina over the speed limit as he tore down the highway back to the house at Point Walter. He’d really meant to be at the funeral, but other matters were more urgent. Steven’s death had made them urgent. Kevin’s grief had made them urgent.

Ross’ bloody-mindedness didn’t help either. Ross had taken over the contacts last exchange, though they’d insisted on sending the money the usual way. Next time they’d leave Kev right out of the equation. Ross was on his way back south, already calculating how much they’d get in this haul, provided everyone did their bit. Perhaps after this shipment, he could take some time off. Try painting again. Maybe.

David scowled at himself in the rear-view mirror. Maybe nothing. He’d taken his sketch pad with him to Geraldton. Stopping along the way, he’d set down in charcoal and pencil a series of tableaus of light and landscape. Everything he tried was mediocre or horribly pretentious. He’d flung the sketchpad into the ocean in disgust from the Geraldton wharves.

He pulled into the driveway at Point Walter ahead of Kevin’s car. ‘Sorry, Kev,’ he called out, ‘Business. You know. I’ll get changed and give you a hand here. Okay?’

Kevin stared at him. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, David.’

David cleared his throat uncomfortably, nodded briefly. ‘Yeah. Well. Won’t be a minute.’ He hurried inside to change.

Kevin would definitely have to be excluded from the next job.

Frank was silent for the whole trip, except for occasional road directions, and was grateful to Milo for the silence. He was amazed that he remembered the way to Point Walter after so long away; but it wasn’t so strange. For almost seven years it had been home, the most important place in the world to him.

It was hard to find a place to park when they got there; it looked like everyone who had attended the funeral had already arrived, along with a few dozen others.

‘Nice place,’ remarked Milo. The house stood two storeys high behind a lush garden of tropical greenery. The driveway led to a short stone staircase up onto the front landing. They stepped through the open doors – lead-lighted with floral scenes of rich colour – to the foyer. A white marble staircase to the right led up to the second storey. Frank took Milo straight ahead, down a wide corridor and into the large rooms with wall-length windows which faced the cliff and the river.

The subdued sound of a crowd drifted down the corridor. Soon they stood at the threshold of the largest of the front rooms. Frank watched for a moment, a little taken aback at the number of people it contained. But Steven had always been popular.

‘Oh, there you are!’ Kevin came up behind them both, ‘Go on in. You’ll know someone in there, love.’ He had his emotions under control at last, though his eyes were puffy and pink-rimmed. He’d washed his face and combed his hair again, making it sit still with gel.

‘Sure. Can I- can I do anything to help?’

‘Thanks, Frankie, but no. Running things gives me something else to think about. I’ll let you know if I need a hand.’

‘Sure.’

Frank hesitated again at the door, moving only when Milo placed a guiding hand under his arm and steered him inside. He looked at all the strangers, at the acquaintances and friends he hadn’t seen for so long, wondering what he was supposed to say to them and feeling like he didn’t want to say much at all.

‘We don’t have to stay for long,’ Milo said quietly. ‘Put in an appearance, that’s all. I’m sure Kevin will understand.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Frank? Frank Capriano?’ A young man, several years younger than Frank, emerged from the crowd, grinning. ‘It is you! God, when did you get back?’

‘A few days ago.’ Frank turned to Milo, ‘Milo, this is David Tyson – he was Steve’s latest protege when I left. Dave, this is Milo Bertolone, my partner.’

David raised his eyebrows and grinned. ‘I heard you two were making a bit of a name for yourselves on the circuits in Europe.’

Milo shrugged, but was smiling. ‘Not too bad. One single in the top one hundred last year. We get good audiences at the gigs.’

‘Steven may have exaggerated our fame, just a bit,’ said Frank cautiously.

‘Well, you were his Golden Boy.’ David’s smile faded. ‘It’s a shame you couldn’t make it back earlier. He would have loved to see you.’

Frank nodded, the guilt rising again. ‘We couldn’t get away earlier. We spoke on the phone about it, when he was in hospital. Steve understood.’

‘He was disappointed, though.’

‘So was I.’ A sharp, defensive note came into his voice. ‘We couldn’t get away.’

‘Yeah. Do you want a drink? Here, I’ll get you one.’ David strode towards the drinks table while Frank glowered at the floor. He sensed Milo studying him.

‘We could have come back, you know. Those last few gigs-’

‘We needed the money, and the exposure.’

‘If you’d wanted-’

‘I didn’t want to, all right?’ The words came out harsh and angry, and Frank bit back on them. ‘Milo, I wrote to him, I phoned him every week. But I couldn’t… I couldn’t come back to watch him die. I couldn’t do that.’ Eyes closed, he felt Milo’s hand on his arm again.

‘Hey, it’s all right. Come on, Gormless Dave is returning with a scotch. Shall I send him back for the bottle?’

‘Hell, send him back for the crate.’

David returned bearing glasses but before he had a chance to speak, Milo deftly relieved him of the two drinks he carried. ‘Ta, mate. How about a couple of hors-d’oeuvres as well. Here you go,’ he handed a glass to Frank and took him by the arm, steering him across the room. He threw a friendly ‘Catch you later!’ over his shoulder to David, who stood, bemused.

Frank unhooked himself from Milo’s grip and, bemused himself, said, ‘What are you up to?’

‘Jealous bastard, if ever I saw one,’ Milo said matter-of-factly, and he drained his glass. ‘No point leaving you in the vicinity of a demolition squad, is there?’

‘Come on, Milo, he’s a harmless kid.’

‘When you left, maybe. Poisonous little shit now, though.’

‘Yeah, well, he’s got a point.’ The frown returned to Frank’s face, and he swallowed the scotch in one gulp.

Milo took the glass from him. ‘He doesn’t have to be bloody mean about it. And it’s not like he was at the funeral himself, is it? Hypocritical little prick. Hang on, I’ll go get that crate for you.’ He managed to draw a smile from Frank and only then did he head off towards the drinks.

Frank melted out of the crowd to stand by the windows. He turned his back on them and stared at the view. The paved backyard led to a low wrought-iron fence, an elegant barrier between the terracotta and the rocky drop which led ten or so metres down to the river. Wide and slow, the Swan River wound past below, reflecting the clear blue sky. A few boats were out on the water. He saw a couple of the Rottnest cruise boats go past, churning up the water as they went.

When he’d come to live here, he used to go into the backyard, climb the fence and sit on the rocks up here, watching. Steven had tried to stop him, worried that it was dangerous, but he’d done it anyway. He’d liked it out there. It had always made him feel kind of still, and kind of powerful, watching the world from high up. He’d seen a dolphin swim past once, and for a second he’d thought, if I dive down from up here, I’ll turn into a dolphin, and swim back out to sea with him. He’d been with Steven for almost six months by then. A few years back he’d written a song about it. Milo had done a brilliant arrangement for it. They played it sometimes, if the audience was in a mellow mood.

He should get back to them. Join in the wake. Kevin had gone to a lot of trouble and, in his usual style, exceeded himself. Plenty of food, alcohol, music, people – a big send-off for his partner of the last twenty-five years. Maybe a big send-off for himself as well. God, what a sick thought. Poor bastard. Frank hated funerals, and he hated wakes. He hated going to so many of them. He certainly didn’t want to have to make small talk, or talk about Steven. That hurt too much.

He observed his own reflection in the glass. Brown eyes, dark with emotion and shadowed with habitual worry, observed back from under a high forehead and a thatch of light brown hair. High cheekbones, a fine, straight nose, his sensitive mouth drawn into an unhappy frown. Milo told him he always looked too serious. Steven had said it too. He remembered a disappointed groupie in Amsterdam telling him he didn’t ‘look gay’, whatever that meant. Regarding his reflection, he didn’t think he looked like a coward either.

He glanced away from the sight of himself and realised he could see the whole room reflected in the glass. He studied them, picking out those he knew and all the strangers. There stood Dave Tyson, holding a plate full of exotic nibbly things. Kevin appeared in the doorway, gesturing to David, who made his way over. They spoke briefly, Dave nodded in his direction, and then Kevin walked towards him. Frank was briefly surprised by the expression he saw on David’s face – decidedly unfriendly – but then he remembered Milo’s judgement. David really was jealous of ‘the Golden Boy’. He wondered why David hadn’t been at the funeral.

‘There you are!’

Frank smiled at Kevin then turned back to the view. ‘Here I am.’

‘Not being very sociable, are we?’

‘Sorry, Kevin. I don’t feel up to it. I find it hard to accept that he’s gone. I keep thinking he’s going to walk in, ask what all the fuss is about and demand that we crack a bottle of Bollie.’

‘Well, I did get Bollinger, in his memory.’

‘Yeah, it’s a great wake. The sort of thing he’d have liked.’

‘Yes, I thought so. I wanted to make it just right. It’s a pity…’

Frank waited for the rest of it. His gaze was fixed on the river below.

‘It’s a pity you couldn’t be here, before.’

Silence.

‘He was so proud of you, you know.’

Still no response.

‘He felt like he’d done a Cinderella job on you. Picked you up, a grotty little runaway, trying to steal his car, and seven years later you left to find your fortune.’

‘I didn’t leave him. Not like that. It was time to move on.’

‘I know, Frankie. I don’t mean to sound so angry. But being here, by myself, was hard. Watching him-’ Kevin faltered; stopped. He took a deep, trembling breath and Frank knew he was close to tears again. ‘David wasn’t so satisfying a… project… for him. He’s terribly wilful, and he doesn’t have your depth.’

‘Not all of Steven’s “projects” were worth his time.’

‘That’s why he was so proud of you. You’d really achieved something. It may not be international fame, but you moved on. You made your own choices and you did something you wanted to do with your life. You didn’t take advantage of him, like some of the others did.’

‘He-’ Frank caught his breath, ‘Kevin, I’m sorry, but I can’t, I’m not-’

‘Oh, I know, love, I know. You and I got the best of him. It’s hard. I know you would have been here if you’d been able to.’

Frank nodded miserably. He’d have been here if he hadn’t been such a shit-scared little coward. How come Cinderella never had to live through her fairy godmother being taken apart, a piece at a time, like a disintegrating rag-doll?

‘Anyway,’ Kevin continued, ‘In part I wanted… Did you know the terms of Steven’s will? No? Well, the house and everything, I have a life interest in that. He’s left a bequest for you – ten thousand. He wanted you to make a record with it, or CD, or whatever it is these days.’

‘Wh-? Jesus, you mean… Did he mean with Milo?’

‘It’ll take a while to finalise – I’ve never been an executor before – but that’s what he wanted.’

Frank nodded, stunned, feeling unworthy.

‘And after I die, you get the house.’

Frank blinked. ‘But you’re-’

‘A life interest. Mine for my lifetime. Then it goes to you. I said you were his favourite.’

No wonder David’s so pissed off with me, thought Frank. And I was too gutless to come back for him.

The long pause was broken at last by Kevin. ‘I like your boyfriend.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘He’s charming. Very attractive.’

This brought an answering smile. ‘Yeah. Most talented musician I ever met too. He can play anything with strings on it.’

‘Steven would have liked him.’

‘I’m sorry they didn’t get a chance to meet. We always meant to come back, then Steve-’

‘You’ve been with Milo for, what, a year now, is it?’

‘Nearly a year and a half.’

‘That’s a record for you, isn’t it?’

‘You make me sound like a slut.’

‘That’s right, yours tended to be few and far between, didn’t they?’

Frank cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘You’re fishing for something, Kev, and I’m not sure what it is.’

Kevin laughed. ‘I just wondered. Steven and I were very happy for twenty-five years, and I thought-’

‘I don’t know.’ Actually, Frank could see it. Milo was – well, not perfection, but damned nearly. He felt comfortable with himself when they were together – just the right amount of togetherness, just the right amount of freedom. They made a good team, musically, sexually, in their personalities. The idea of being with Milo a quarter of a century from now was appealing, but he didn’t know how Milo felt about that. He realised he’d been silent too long, and with a wry smile said, ‘It’s not only up to me, you know.’

‘No, I suppose not.’ Kevin patted him on the shoulder. ‘I should get back to the others. I wanted to tell you about the will. I’ll talk to you later about it.’

‘Yeah.’

‘And, Frank?’

‘Kev?’

‘He knew why you didn’t come back. He missed you, and when he was afraid he got mad. But you didn’t forget him – all the calls and letters. A lot of others disappeared. He understood that you were frightened too. He wanted me to tell you that it was okay.’

Frank’s heart was hammering, and the view through the window was an indecipherable blur. The effort of holding back the tears made his lungs burn. ‘It wasn’t okay. I should have come back. I let him down. And you.’

‘It wasn’t a good thing to see him die, Frank. It’s not a good way to remember him. In the end he was glad you hadn’t come back.’ Kevin kissed him on the cheek, brushed a stray hair back, and let his hand smooth down Frank’s hair to the nape of his neck. Frank shuddered, but he wouldn’t let the tears go.

‘You’d better take him home.’ Kevin stood aside as Milo appeared beside him, a bottle of scotch in one hand.

‘Sure. Mind if we take this?’

‘Be my guest. Come back later, tomorrow or the day after. We can have a quiet chat then.’

‘If you like. We’re staying at the Norfolk in Fremantle if you need to call. Or we’ll call you.’

Frank let Milo guide him away from the window, back through the house and out to the car.

Neither registered the presence of a dark blue sedan parked down the street, unremarkable amidst all the other cars there.

It wasn’t until halfway back to Fremantle that Frank spoke. ‘I’m an ungrateful, cowardly shit.’ Then he opened the scotch, drank a long gulp of it and no longer cared if he cried.

Back at the hotel, Milo helped him to their room and put him to bed. He prised the bottle out of Frank’s hands and tried to tuck him in.

‘I’m not such a shit, am I?’ Frank asked, pleading in his brown eyes.

‘Of course you’re not.’

‘Kevin says that Steve understood. That it was okay. I wrote every fortnight, I phoned him every week, right to the end. I didn’t ignore him. Why do I feel like such a little shit?’

‘Because you’re a nice guy. And you’re pissed out of your brain. Go to sleep.’

‘You’ll think I’m…’ The rest of the sentence dissolved into a mumble.

‘No, I won’t.’

‘Yes, you will.’

‘Frank, I don’t think you’re a shit. I think you were scared and sad and you didn’t want to watch your best friend waste away when you couldn’t do anything about it.’

Frank turned an adoring gaze up to Milo. ‘You’re my best friend.’

‘I’ll be your worst nightmare if you don’t shut up and go to sleep.’

‘Sure.’ Frank grinned drunkenly and snuggled down into the bed. ‘Anything you say.’

‘You bet. Daft bastard.’

Frank sensed Milo’s presence as the blankets were tugged up around his shoulders, started feeling less awful about himself, and finally fell asleep.