White Balance Read online

  Apparently she’d whimpered during the little drug induced sleep she did get. She couldn’t carry anything heavier than her mini laptop. She couldn’t bend over to pick up anything she dropped. She needed help with just about everything, and through it all, the full shopping trolley’s abandoned because she couldn’t wait in the checkout queue any longer, the mess of no housekeeping, the help she needed putting pants, socks and shoes on, Chris was amazing.

  He gritted his teeth and faked a smile. He moved in and helped out in every way possible without a single complaint. He shopped, cooked, cleaned, washed and did pants and shoes duty. He worried, soothed, played nurse and drove Bailey around while she curled up on the back seat of the car. He found cafes and pubs with counters where she could have a meal standing up on the days sitting was too hard. He waited in the rooms of osteopaths and physiotherapists, neurologists and surgeons. And when all the less radical solutions had been tried and failed, he was the last face she saw before the anaesthetic was administered, and the first she saw when they wheeled her out of recovery.

  But he’d hated every minute of it, and been clever enough to hide that from her. So when Bailey was back on both feet, and able to look after herself again—he took off. South America, Africa and beyond. The trip of a lifetime. One they might have made together had it not been for the business and the fact he didn’t invite her.

  Bailey looked down at her left leg. The muscle in her thigh was still slightly wasted and toe tapping today was impossible no matter how much she pressed her numb heel into the pavement and willed her toes to lift.

  At her three months post surgical check up, the neurologist said she’d sustained too much damage to the S1 nerve and her ankle and knee reflexes. He said she’d probably always limp. That’s when they’d known the penguin was going to stick around. That’s when unbelievably, after living through much worse, Chris bailed.

  Half a year on now, in an uncomfortable chair in the sun that bathed Sandology with heat and life, Chris seemed like a fairytale; a reverse frog prince, having gone from perfect to prick in the blink of a magnetic resonance image scan.

  Then there was Doug and lots of therapy and being careful and smart and they’d defeated the waddle, surprised the neurologist and laughed in the face of the frog prince only to have the bastard penguin show up again in a Ministerial post sacking glow.

  Bailey gave up the toe tap attempt, eased forward in the rubber rattan. Gave up thinking about the parents, the industry gossip, the subscribers, the sensible idea of eating breakfast at home, and gave in to the sun and the sound of the surf, and the smell of the sea, and drifted. Because really being unemployed in the summer couldn’t possibly be that bad.

  5: Dealing with Despots

  Aiden winced as his new smart-phone rang. 7.30am. He should be in the car already but he’d been avoiding Blake for days and the guy would only get more stroppy if he kept sending him to voicemail. He picked up.

  “God, mate. Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you for days? I was starting to get worried.”

  “Ah, I lost my phone. Had to get a new one.” At least that was true.

  “And you don’t answer messages on the home line anymore?”

  Well, no, as a new rule he didn’t. “You’ve got me now, Blake, what’s up?”

  “Dinner our place.”

  “Ah, cool, when?” Didn’t matter when Blake suggested, Aiden would be busy. There were towels to scrape out of the barrel of the washing machine, cockroaches to roust, and vacuum handle TV to watch. And sleeping required.

  “You call it.”

  “What?”

  “Aid, give us a date and we’ll do the rest.”

  Blake had always been a crafty bugger. “Oh, ah, look, I’m sort of busy.”

  “Aren’t we all. Date.” He was also a persistent bugger.

  “Ah, let me get back to you.”

  “Aid, Olivia will serve my balls to the dog on the best Limoges if I don’t report back with a date for dinner in about five minutes. I’m not joking. You’ve been avoiding us and that’s a piece of shit and it stops now.”

  Aiden grimaced. “Right,” and when Blake responded with dead air said, “I haven’t been avoiding you. I really did lose my phone, in fact it was stolen. I’ll tell you about it. I’ve been busy.”

  “I know, mate. You walked into the National Energy Plan thing, though that might be poison, and you thieved that Sculpture in the Park event from us.”

  “I did not thieve it. You left it lying around for me to pick up.”

  “You undercut us.”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Bastard, you did. There is no other reason they’d go with you guys.”

  “I’m the reason they went with us guys. They weren’t impressed by your account team.”

  “Legit?”

  “Legit. Wasn’t anything to do with your pricing. You can ask them.”

  “Fuck. I wanted that job. Fuck, why aren’t you working for me, instead of the second best company in the industry?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because I like being my own boss and winning business from you, instead of suffering as your galley slave.”

  “I only have bedroom slaves.”

  “In your most vivid dreams I’m sure that’s true.”

  “Date.”

  “Ok, Saturday.”

  “Done. Seven, you bring whatever you’re drinking. Olivia will do her good kitchen witch thing and we’ll eat till we bust. You’ll crash out on the sofa like the old days, though there is a perfectly acceptable guest bedroom, and in the morning we’ll both pretend we don’t have hangovers and we’re still handsome fuckers.”

  “Sounds about right. I’ll see you then.”

  “Aid.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You dump on us, and Olivia will feed us both to the stupid dog. You hearing me?”

  “I love your wife.”

  “She loves you too, you great loser. But touch her and you’re dead.”

  “Got it.”

  “Aid.”

  “What?”

  “Just be there, right. We miss her too. You don’t get to go AWOL as well.”

  “Yeah, alright. I suppose you mean well, you holier than thou, interfering, despot.”

  “Keep thinking that when I’m kicking your arse on the next pitch.”

  “Blake.”

  “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

  “You are the king of dorks. I’ll see you Saturday night.”

  Aiden got a grunt and the Dork King, his oldest mate, his professional rival and the only person in the world who had the right to call him on his bullshit, rang off. He’d go to dinner. Try not to let being in the same room with Olivia make him cry from missing her best friend, Shannon. Drink too much, eat too much, tell tall stories, wind Blake up, avoid showing them the truth of his life, and need about sixty hours sleep to get over it all. He was exhausted thinking about it.

  He thumbed the new phone, pulled up an email from White Balance and clicked through to the blog. A weekday habit he’d stumbled across years ago. These days it was what passed for breakfast. Today’s shot was a red and yellow kite framed in two-tone blue. It was speed and recklessness; a flimsy toy against the vagaries of the elements, and a string snapping crash waiting off screen. Once he’d have posted a comment, something poetic to encourage the photographer, now that was too much trouble.

  That morning, tradition dealt with, he was wallet, keys, phone, satchel, bag of dry cleaning, go—and just like the kite, he was out in the world and up against the rule of random, fighting off the inevitability of eating dirt.

  In the office there was an array of different flavours of dirt to eat. Staffing issues dirt—why did they gossip about salaries, what good ever came of learning someone with your same title was paid more than you? Quarterly reporting dirt—no, the numbers were never good enough, and client stupidity dirt—yes, the reason we recommended you got permission for the parade is
because it’s illegal to block off the middle of the city with horse floats. This was business as usual. Usual for someone who’d given up the role of creative director to become Sydney office Managing Director.

  Once it had all been about making magic happen, using ideas and themes, sounds and sights to make people sit up and notice. But after Shannon, Aiden had no more magic in him. No ideas that sung, no visions that popped, no ways of looking at the world that weren’t smudged grey at the edges with tired, yesterday and ho-hum vibes at their core. All he was really fit for was dealing with the dirt while someone else—the talented Karen Ho specifically, got to make the colour and magic happen now.

  Good thing he was first-rate with the dirt and no one had to know he’d lost the magic.

  And amongst all the granules of dirt that had to be dealt with, there was the Scowl.

  When he finally traced the illusive HB through the big brother mob’s switchboard, he discovered she had exactly the kind of name a social worker might be expected to have, a name he should never have forgotten.

  Her name was Happi. Happi-Anne Bennet. And Happi-Anne was a full voicemail box and an unanswered email for all of Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, he got voicemail and left a message. On Thursday, Happi-Anne called back and got his voicemail. Her message went:

  Hi Aiden. Thanks for your call. I’m so pleased the meeting with Cody went well. I’ve spoken to his mother and he’s very keen to meet you Saturday again. Same time, same place, it’s all arranged. I need you to sign those forms we sent you. You know, the ones that explain how the program works, and what your responsibilities as a big brother are. Right well, thanks again.

  He had to listen to it twice to be sure he’d heard it all because his message had gone:

  This is Aiden Riley. I need to talk to you urgently about Cody George. There was an incident when we met. Actually, I’m pretty certain the kid stole my phone and I guess you need to do whatever it is you do when something like this happens. I don’t need the phone back and I don’t want to press charges or anything but that’s it for me as far as being a big brother is concerned. You might remember I wasn’t keen about doing this without my wife. Well, good luck with Cody.

  Perhaps Happi-Anne had a hearing problem. Perhaps she failed basic comprehension at school. Perhaps she was just plain stupid. He started speed dialling Happi-Anne Bennet and pile driving her voicemail box with ‘please call me urgently’ messages. He might as well have been playing endless rounds of Fruit Ninja for all the good it did. By Friday afternoon he’d heard nothing and he was all out of fruit salad.

  And he might have known it would go that way. Friday morning’s White Balance photo was a pair of crutches wedged upright in a crevice of rock, white caps foaming behind them, and the sky a shade of stormy purple. The caption had read, ‘Rock and a hard place’.

  Somewhere at home there was Happi’s private mobile number, but maybe it’d been written in special disappearing ink because he couldn’t find any evidence it ever existed, though it would’ve because Shannon would’ve made it so.

  Surely good old Happi would figure from the sheer number of ‘please call me urgentlys’, which became less polite as the crush towards Friday night thickened, that things were not ok with big brother, Aiden and little brother, Cody. Aiden trusted Happi-Anne about as much as he trusted Cody George. She was as much a time, sanity and goodwill thief as Cody was a technology bandit.

  Bad enough he had to interrupt planned weekend oblivion for dinner with Blake and Olivia, now he had to think about whether it was ok to stand Cody up. Who was to say Happi-bloody-Anne had even spoken to Mother of Scowl and Scowl would even show up? It was enough to put a bloke off his sleep.

  When Karen Ho blasted into his office late Friday with a beer in her hand to regale him with her latest brainstorm, he shut her down and avoided her disapproving cat-like eyes.

  She draped herself against his open doorway. “I thought you’d be interested in this?” She used a tone of voice suggesting what she’d meant to say was, ‘What the hell’s wrong with you?’

  “I’m interested in what makes clients happy and pays the rent.”

  “Geez, I don’t get you anymore. You used to live for the big idea. The bigger, the brighter the better.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve sold out. I’m just a suit now. Times change.”

  “You said it.”

  “To save you the trouble.”

  She straightened up. “I’m not the enemy here, Aid.”

  “And being excited about your ideas isn’t my job anymore, Karen.” He said it straight-faced, no hint of a smile, no confusion about whether he was serious or not. “You do your job and I’ll do mine.”

  Karen snapped to attention. All her Friday afternoon drinks, let’s shoot the breeze joy evaporated like moisture in the desert. She tipped the mouth of her beer bottle towards her forehead in a mock salute, “Yes sir,” then bowed in an exaggerated subservient manner and backed out of his office.

  That exchange would be common knowledge quicker than it took to boil an egg, and not because of anything Karen said. Several people had heard them and seen her bow and scrape routine. Once, Aiden would’ve cared. Now he waited till the office had emptied of rotten egg smell and went home. He was asleep fifteen minutes after he came in the front door. It was 8pm.

  ●

  Cody stood at the bus shelter and watched the cafe. He wore the same clothes he wore last week on purpose. He wished he had sunglasses. He wished he had an iPod. He thought the phone he nicked might’ve had a music player but it was a crap handset, only did calls and text, didn’t even have Internet. And anyway the big doofus must have cancelled it ‘cause he couldn’t make any calls on it either. The kid he sold it to didn’t know that though and now Jas almost had enough money to get ballet shoes. And she needed them if she wanted to dance in videos and stuff.

  There was no way that doofus would show up again. He was a straight A doofus if he did. But if he did, Cody figured he’d get another lunch and if he was quick about it, nick something else. What he really wanted was the dude’s wallet. Then maybe Jas would have enough money for shoes plus a whole term of lessons, but there was no way he was gunna show. That sad face social worker said he would, but she was clueless, so what would she know.

  He had no idea what time it was. He tried to see someone’s watch, but there was only an old granma with a cardy and a goth chick at the bus stop. The goth chick was this huge beast with heaps of black round her eyes and Docs that laced up her shins. She was totes cool, but no watch. He’d have to make do with granma. She probably smelled bad. He was looking at her when a bus pulled in and she went to get on, but goth chick bumped her and she dropped her shopping bag and all these oranges fell out on the street. A few went under the bus, yeah, orange juice. Goth girl didn’t give a shit about the oranges and got on the bus, so he picked up the ones he could see and put them in the old lady’s bag.

  She said, “Thank you very much,” in like a totes old voice, all tinkly like broken bottles and he said, “Can you tell me the time?” and she said, “It’s midday.” He said, “Thank you,” and put his hand out to stop the driver closing the door so the old granny could get on the bus. She said thank you again and what was awesome is that she gave him an orange and she didn’t smell like old people, but kind of like donuts. When the bus pulled out and he could see the cafe again he laughed out loud, because straight A, there was the doofus.

  ●

  Aiden knew Scowl was standing there, knew he was looking at the new phone with his keys and sunglasses on the stainless steel tabletop, but he was disinclined to start the conversation. He had a headache, probably from not eating, but the thought of food made him feel nauseous and one hundred percent more irritable than the new normal.

  The kid stood there by the side of the table. He didn’t fidget and he didn’t make any move to sit down or say anything. Aiden got the feeling this could go on for years. He didn’t look up from his paper. “Wh
at do you want, kid?”

  “You’re supposed to be my big brother.”

  “No. I’m not.”

  “Why you here then?”

  The kid sounded genuinely puzzled about that. Aiden looked up at him, “Because I couldn’t call it off.”

  “She said you’d be here.”

  “She?”

  “Sad face social worker chick.”

  “Does she have a sad face?”

  “She has a sad name.”

  In spite of himself Aiden smiled. “I agree with you on that. Look, Cody. This is not going to work. You’re a little thief and a scam artist, and you don’t want a big brother and I’m not going to be your patsy.”

  Cody looked confused. Aiden said, “Do you know what a patsy is?”

  “Like a doofus?”

  “Yeah, that’ll do.”

  “This is what we’re going to do. I’m going to buy you lunch. You’re not going to steal anything from me, then we’re never going to see each other again.”

  “I never stole nothin’ from you.”

  “You know if you want to go on thinking I came down in the last shower go right ahead.” Aiden tipped his chin up at the waitress, to get her attention. “Order yourself something.”

  Scowl ordered a burger and chips and a chocolate milkshake, and Aiden got a second coffee. Soon as he’d drunk it he was out of here. Needed to get flowers for Olivia, a bottle of wine, and since Chauncey had shown up as he was leaving the house, all indignant wailing and prominent ribs and hips, he needed cat food.

  Around a mouthful of burger bun Scowl spoke. “Why don’t you want to be my big brother?”

  “Eat, Cody. And try to do it with your mouth closed.”

  “I’m just askin’ so me Mum can tell sad face.”

  “I’m sure you’ll think of something to say.”

  Cody made a gesture; opening his hand, index finger extended at a right angle to his thumb, the other three fingers tucked down. The universal sign for ‘loser’. It was quickly done, his hand back on the burger in a breath, but Aiden caught it, as he was meant to. He laughed.