White Balance Read online

  He was showered but didn’t bother shaving. Found a pair of jeans that looked clean and still fit his now arguably too thin frame, and took a t-shirt from the dry cleaning bag on the back of the door. Now there was something to be proud of, dry cleaned t-shirts. They went in with the work shirts at the end of the week. The dry cleaner thought he was mad, but had long since tried to stop taking them. He must remember to stick these jeans in the bag as well because God knows if the washing machine still functioned. It probably still had a load of towels in it gone stiff from months ago.

  Sunglasses, wallet, keys, and off to face the world on a day he usually ignored it. This would be quick. He’d tell the kid there’d been a mistake, buy him lunch, and send him on his way. There was nothing he had to give, so no point pretending this could work out.

  The woman at Big Brother had sent him an email with the details for the meeting and a helpful photo of the kid. She’d signed off HB, which made him feel more thickheaded. She could be Helen or Hyacinth for all he knew. The kid, Cody, had dirty blonde hair that hung in his eyes, and a scowl that had potential to be dark alley dangerous in a few years time.

  Shannon had wanted them to do this. Wanted them to play big brother, and big sister to a kid like Cody, someone from a disadvantaged home. Cody had a doctorate in disadvantage. No father; mother struggling to make ends meet. Expelled from two schools: the first time for hitting another kid, the second time for selling prescription drugs he’d ripped off from somewhere.

  The best he could do for Cody was promise nothing and get the hell out of the picture. This was a kid who looked like he was used to disappointment on a grand scale, so a failed Big Brother attempt would hardly scratch the surface.

  He found the coffee shop and took a table in the corner, ordered black coffee, and flicked through a newspaper someone had left behind. Perhaps the kid would save them both the trouble by not showing up. It was a Saturday, he’d have more suitably delinquent things to do than meet some random dude whose whole purpose was to discourage said delinquency.

  He was on a second coffee and deep into an article on gender in the workplace when he got the curious back of the neck prickle of being watched. The cafe was busy. Most of the tables full, but apart from the toddler slobbering over a toast crust, there was no one under the age of adult there, and no one appeared to be paying him more than glancing attention. Still, he had that ‘ants on skin’ crawly feeling he was being observed. A glance out the wide open window confirmed it. Bus stop. Dead ahead. One bleached blonde kid in surf gear and thongs with a practiced scowl. It made him smile. It’s exactly what he’d have done at that age. It’s almost exactly what he did do to the rollcall of boyfriends when he got the chance, and the first meeting wasn’t on the way to the bathroom or at the kitchen sink, the night after Mum dragged them home.

  The question was how to respond? A wave seemed aggressive — a ‘nah-nah I caught you out’ move, but doing absolutely nothing was a wimp-out. He glanced at the time on the screen of his phone. Ten past the hour. Let’s see what happened if he packed up to go.

  He stuck his sunglasses on, folded the paper and picked up keys and phone. When he looked up, the only bus stop attendee was an enormously fat man with a mohawk and the Scowl was standing in front of him.

  “You Aiden Riley?” Scowl said, with a head flick that revealed wary eyes.

  “Are you Cody George?”

  Scowl didn’t answer but he did sit. “What now?”

  Aiden took his sunglasses off and dumped them with the paper, keys and phone back on the stainless steel tabletop. “Would you like some lunch?”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  “That’s ok, my shout.” Aiden flicked a look over his shoulder to catch the waitress’ attention.

  “I can’t pay you back.”

  “You don’t have to — free lunch.”

  Scowl snickered, “Like that’s true.”

  “You’re right. I’d like to buy you lunch because I can’t be your big brother.”

  “What? Don’t like my shirt?”

  Aiden laughed. There was something hard-bitten and cynical about this kid. “It’s me, not you. I wasn’t meant to do this.”

  Scowl’s chair made a hard squeal on the polished cement floor as he stood. “Mostly they wait a couple of hours before they say that. Dude, you set the record.”

  Aiden hesitated. What was it to him how the kid took it, but sending him off like this felt crook. “Have you had lunch?” He got a head flick that could have meant anything. “So eat first, then blow me off.”

  “You said you were outta here.”

  “I did. But you didn’t give me a chance to explain.” Explain what? What was he going to say? My gorgeous sweetheart of a wife wanted to do this, not me. And then she died, and I’m not fit to do this on my own, and I didn’t have my wits about me enough to stop this happening. Nope, so not going anywhere near that.

  “Can I have anything?”

  “Anything you want.”

  “Can I have a steak sandwich and a chocolate milkshake?”

  “No problem.” Aiden signalled the blonde waitress, catching her eye as she wiped down a table across the other side of the cafe, then he looked back at Scowl. “You’re going to have to sit.”

  Scowl sat with another hair flick, but faced away from Aiden out towards the street. He was a study of virtual invisibility. He wasn’t going to say another word or make eye contact with anything other than the plate of food when it arrived. Aiden knew that like he knew the faint burn scar on his chest. It’s exactly what he used to do. It’s exactly what prompted Number Nine to hold down his outraged fifteen year old self and burn him with a cigarette.

  “Tough guy,” he said. It came out more like praise than criticism.

  Scowl’s head whipped around. “What’s it to you?”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing to me.”

  “Fuck off then.”

  “Yeah, good idea. I’ll pay for your meal and leave you with it. I’m sorry you got dragged here for no good reason.”

  Scowl looked surprised, but that’s if you considered him staring out the window an expression of anything other than drilled to the bone boredom.

  Aiden gathered his keys and glasses, but his phone wasn’t on the table. He patted his back pocket. No. The spare seat beside him. No. He looked under the table. He looked at Scowl, a picture of sullen intransience. “Seen my phone?” He got nothing, not even the hint of a head flick back. “Cody, did you see my phone?” Aiden tapped the tabletop. “It was right here.”

  Scowl’s head came up. “Nah, man. I didn’t see nothin’.”

  The waitress brought Scowl’s meal and set it down. Neither of them acknowledged her.

  Aiden leaned across the table and lowered his voice, “You little shit. Give it back now.”

  “Dunno what you’re talking about.”

  “My phone. It was on the table, right here.”

  “Maybe it flew away.”

  “Maybe it’s in your pocket.”

  “You callin’ me a thief?”

  “Yep.”

  “Well you can’t prove nothin’.”

  “I can haul you down to the cop shop and have them search you.”

  “Then you’d look pretty stupid.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’ve never seen your phone.”

  “Eat. Then we’re going.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re some pedo stranger who bought me lunch and wants to get in my pants. I think the cops should call Mum.”

  Aiden closed his eyes. “Could you have said that any louder?”

  Scowl ate. Aiden watched. The desire to overpower Cody to get his phone back was an astringent sting that curled his fists. Half of him wanted to pound the kid’s head into the table. But the half of him that admired the kid’s guts, and his practiced poker face at the same time as he abhorred the conditions that gifted them to him, was vaguely amused. Scowl ignored hi
m and ate like he’d never seen steak before.

  Aiden had a choice. He could go the cop routine and it would be bloody awkward, but he was pretty damn sure his phone would show up, or he could let it ride and walk away. It was a crappy old phone that was out of contract and badly needed updating. He could cancel the sim card, which was backed up anyway and let the kid have the handset. It was just like the ladder really. There was an easy way, and a hard way, and easy was all Aiden was interested in.

  He gathered his stuff again. “Ok kid. You win.” He got the faintest flicker of a smile around a mouthful of meat, with a tomato sauce coat. He stood and Scowl ignored him. He put his hand on the kid’s lank hair. “Be careful who you push your luck with, little brother.”

  Scowl had vanished before he’d paid the cheque. By the time Aiden woke later that night, and stumbled out into the lounge room to stick Apocalypse Now in the Blueray player, he’d almost forgotten him. He’d also forgotten to move the vacuum cleaner.

  4: The Bastard Penguin

  Bailey waited till the kite dipped low and screamed along the shoreline parallel to the horizon. She framed its red and yellow wings against a slash of deep blue sea and light blue sky and pressed the shutter on her new camera.

  It was her official first day of not having any work to do—except worry about not having any work to do. She should’ve been in Melbourne setting up for another launch event. Instead, she was at the beach well past the time she usually headed back to her home office or into a client’s. She started the day at 6.30am with the kite. Shooting it and loading it to the blog, and then had coffee and eggs at Sandology. So far this could have been any ordinary work day because that’s what she did ordinary workdays give or take the precise time; she shot a pic, published it, had breakfast and went to work.

  She could’ve slept in. She could’ve come later. Her subscribers didn’t care what time the pic came. They only cared if it didn’t come at all.

  The list had long since grown beyond the small group of family, friends, and industry contacts who originally wanted to see her morning photo. She had more than five thousand subscribers to her White Balance blog, almost all of them strangers. And every month a few more people found the site and signed up. It was odd, this network of people who knew her only as the genderless, ageless White Balance. They were mainly other Sydneysiders who thought it was a cool idea to start the day with a different pic and a caption, but there were also subscribers from all over the world, scattered in China, India, Japan, Europe, Canada and the US.

  Yet they didn’t feel like total strangers. They called her WB and posted their own comments and messages about how the pics made them feel. And they complained on the only occasion in four years she’d failed to post.

  Complained—they’d gone feral, as though the innate goodness of their day or night as the case may be, had been ripped out from under them because she hadn’t posted.

  In hindsight, perhaps she should’ve said something in advance, but it simply hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would care.

  There was the day of the surgery and the two days after it when she was so out of it on pethidine, and unable to sit up, let alone contemplate the blog. So when she’d logged back on again it had been an eye-popper to see the flood of posts that teased, requested and demanded to know why there’d been no daily pic and when service would resume.

  All her regular commentators were there. Rollo, DJ, GirlX, Andy507, Weme, Flatcat, Morpha, AltReal, Mum247 and even the resident sage and poet, MacGuffin came out of retirement to have a say.

  She’d used the camera in her phone to take a pic of her drip and released it with the caption, ‘Normal services will resume shortly’. That was enough to start a veritable flood of apology, get well and speedy recovery messages.

  The following day she posted a picture of a staple gun like the one they’d used on her spine and the response was more heartfelt. Andy507 offered massages, Weme wanted to know how many staples they used and MacGuffin quoted Bob Dylan, “Behind every beautiful thing, there’s some kind of pain”. Five days later back home, normal services resumed.

  Bailey sipped her second cappuccino. It had a faint flavour of luxury. She probably should start saving money and having breakfast at home. Sunday she’d done a quick overview of her finances, and pending a disaster and being sensible, she had enough money to pay the mortgage and the car loan, and meet basic expenses during the gap in assignments between now, and the Department of Immigration’s new citizenship program starting in June. The longer term issue was whether she’d suffer any sticky reputation damage from the energy launch and whether that might impact future income.

  Friday night’s TV and the weekend’s papers had been full of the predicted blackout pun headlines and while her name didn’t parade in type alongside the Minister’s everyone in the event industry would certainly be able to figure out it was her disaster. The tender had been hotly contended, so there’d be laughter at her expense. Hopefully the people laughing would be astute enough to realise it was dumb luck that could’ve happened to any of them.

  Fingers crossed.

  The first call she got was from the parents. Mr and Mrs Perennial Worrier. Mr Worrier was convinced that finally now she’d see the light and give up this crazy fantasy of having her own company. He’d never been a fan. Didn’t think she had a head for business. He’d left the family dinner table in a fit of temper the night she announced she’d quit the agency to run her own show.

  He didn’t think she could manage a mortgage either, same soft head problem. A mortgage wasn’t for single women. It was for women who had a husband to fall back on. That was the reason banks never used to lend to single women. They were too flaky. Dad thought owning the beachside semi was a repossession waiting to happen, and every time he visited he made a joke about how much of the front door she owned. Not much more than the old-fashioned leadlight feature panel so the gag went.

  It wasn’t unkind, that was just Dad—it was irrelevant. Nothing in Bailey’s schooling or early career demonstrated she was an airhead, so there was no reason why she couldn’t run her own life the way she wanted it.

  Mrs Worrier voted with Mr. Always had. Always would. No surprise that Mum led the call by saying how embarrassing it was to be sacked by the Minister. You’d think she was the one spittle sprayed in the hotel foyer. There was no point trying to argue the difference. There was also no point telling them about the gap. That would be the equivalent to pinning a target on her chest and saying, ready, aim, bankruptcy, repossession.

  The only one who would get it was Sarah. Two years younger, her sister was her biggest supporter. Not that they saw each other much. Sarah was building a career as a medical rep and travelled extensively.

  Sandology’s owner Moses Sand caught her eye and tapped his wrist. He was wondering why she was still here. Bailey hung out at the cafe a lot. It was a rest stop on her daily walks and a place to enjoy the late winter sun and linger over the paper or a book. Mos knew she’d gone back to work, back to her usual pic, breakfast and skedaddle routine, so he was surprised when she gestured to her cup indicating she wanted another one. He gave her a pursed lip look followed by a grin, and she knew he’d want to know why she was in shorts and a t today instead of her usual work gear.

  If she was smart, she’d think of this time as a holiday. She hadn’t had a holiday since she’d started the business and that was a good three years ago. Other than hustle up new work sources or apply for a real job, with a real boss—God no, just what Dad wanted, and not until she was living in her car—there was nothing else she could do.

  For today at least, she was going to float. Sit in the sun, read the paper, drink more coffee than was sensible and drift. Later she was seeing Doug, and they’d create a new plan for dealing with the penguin. For the rest of the week, she’d hit the phones and the pavement and see what new jobs she could magic up. If enchantment happened that was great. If it didn’t then ok, the penguin was so dead as to be exting
uished for all time.

  She watched two swimmers do steady laps in the seawater pool. Maybe she could start swimming, Doug would approve. It was a penguin killing move. She shifted in the woven plastic rattan of the cafe’s seat. It had a slight backwards slant to it that tilted her hips and this morning brought on a dull ache across her lumbar spine, consistent with the waddle she’d woken up with again this morning.

  She checked the viewfinder of the Canon. The shot worked well. The kite looked fast and free, the strings were barely there. You could imagine it self-piloting across the skyline on its way somewhere important. She frowned. Perhaps it just looked furiously out of control and headed for a crash landing. Why had she picked the kite?

  It was nearly the two black and white cats sitting on the surf club roof, looking like they were the on shark patrol. She’d shot them anyway, but hadn’t posted them. They went in a backup file. God, was she the kite? Not sure if she was fast and free, or about to ditch in the sea. Ah that was twisted. But that was how she felt. Stuck somewhere between the sense of everything will be alright, ‘you still rock, sis’, and the parent trap of this is a major crisis.

  This was one of those times she missed the idea of Chris. Doug was great, but Doug didn’t understand her career, he was all about her health. Chris had always been good at helping her sort out confusion like this. Talking it through with him made everything seem less complex, more manageable.

  Chris had been good for other things as well. Strong arms and demanding lips. Tenderness, togetherness and laugher. Going to bed with and waking up next to.

  There was another reason to detest the bastard penguin, because Chris had.

  He’d had a hard enough time living through the months before the ruptured disc was diagnosed, but he’d finally up and quit when the penguin appeared. He’d lived through the worst of it when Bailey was a mess of sharp, unrelenting, pulsing pain, dragging herself to work each day, and crashing into bed almost as soon as she got home. Reluctant to move on weekends. Not able to sit or stand without pain. Unable to walk for any distance without needing a rest, and incapable of sleeping through the night. She was twenty-eight going on ninety.