Roadman Read online

  Max glanced over at Lorraine. She was still talking to Bill O’Driscoll at the drinks table. It seemed his wife, Irene, had joined them, but to his dismay so had Jonesy and Kev. The prick was still wearing his SIT DOWN, SHUT UP & EAT! apron. He had said something to Lorraine, touching her playfully on her shoulder, and she was now laughing.

  Max felt a knot in his stomach start to tighten. “Not much at the moment,” he said. “But hope’n that will change quite soon.”

  While he flipped the seafood on the hotplate, Gazza glanced in the direction of Lorraine. “Oh, she’s with you is she? Don’t get me wrong, Max, but I wouldn’t be spending one second fishing down south if I had a looker like her.”

  Max smiled, but inwardly gritted his teeth. While Bill was talking, Jonesy had taken a step back from the group and was now showing off to Kev, pretending to rub his hand up and down all over Lorraine’s arse without the rest of the group knowing what he was doing. His tongue was out, pretending to lick her bum crack, and he held his crotch with his other hand, jiggling his testicles in her direction. Max’s innards sizzled like Gazza’s seafood on the barbeque. Only the presence of Lorraine prevented him from grabbing the steak knife and plunging it into Jonesy’s back, just as he’d fantasised minutes earlier. He didn’t give a fuck about the rest of the gathering. He’d have gladly sunk the knife to the hilt and sliced the prick open in front of them all. Maybe even cut off his testicles while he was at it.

  “What a prick,” Gazza said, also watching Jonesy run his hand inches from Lorraine’s backside and crotch-grabbing his balls.

  Even Kev didn’t seem too impressed. He shoved Jonesy back with short jab of an open hand and made a silent gesture to stop his nonsense. Bill said something out of earshot, which made the group laugh. Jonsey turned, embarrassed by Kev’s reaction, and caught Max’s stare. From the look he threw back, Jonesy knew Max had seen what he’d been doing. He grinned. A defiant, fuck you grin that said, “What the fuck you gonna do about it shit-for-brains?”

  Max picked up the steak knife, gripping the handle so tight his knuckles went white. He could feel the muscles in his forearm strain and twitch.

  Let me show you what the fuck I’m gonna do. I’m gonna make you SIT DOWN, SHUT UP & EAT! fuck face, he fumed, just as a young boy appeared his peripheral vision.

  The boy was not one he’d seen previously playing with the other kids. He was standing alone near a shaded porch seat, the kind that hung on chains from a metal frame that kids loved to sit on and swing. The kid looked familiar, especially the eerie way he just stared back at him with the lifeless vacant eyes of a zombie. Most kids playing around the garden were wearing jeans and sweaters, but this kid was in a T-shirt and shorts and wore no shoes.

  Max glanced back at Jonesy, still fuming and gripping the steak knife as he had. He was thinking that within five to ten seconds his fuck’n testicles would be sizzling on the hotplate next to Gazza’s squid and octopus, maybe seasoned with a squeeze of lemon juice. Lorraine then turned, as if sensing what was going on behind her back. She smiled and started to make her way toward the barbeque, instantly defusing the tension coursing through Max’s body. The speed of change was incredible. From seething rage to complete calm in less than a second. He had never experienced such an immediate and abrupt emotional transformation. Who was this woman? How could she have such an effect on him? They barely knew each other.

  The urge to ram the knife into Jonesy’s back now defused, he sliced the closest T-bone to check how far the meat had cooked.

  “Ah, perfect,” she said, “pink in the middle. Just how I like it.”

  Max nodded, not yet able to make eye contact with her. He was still coming to terms with how close he’d come to giving in to the rage in front of fifty or so people, kids included. He glanced up. Lorraine was no longer smiling, now concerned with what she was reading of his demeanour. Behind her, the kid with the vacant eyes and bare feet was no longer next to the porch swing, seemingly gone the way of his rage. Jonesy, though, was still ogling her ass and licking his lips with exaggerated, sexual connotations. Lorraine turned to see what Max was looking at, catching Jonesy with his tongue hanging out of his mouth. Jonesy sneered, grabbed his crotch, then went back to his mate at the drinks table.

  “He’s a proper dickhead,” Max said.

  “Agree with you there,” said Gazza, turning his attention back to the hotplate.

  “Has been since high school,” Lorraine said.

  Max’s eyelids blinked wide. “You know him?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” she said. “He was always asking me out on dates during school, but I never agreed, even though half my friends would have given their virginity to him on a silver plate. He was quite a good footballer back then. Captain of the first eighteen. Highly desirable.”

  “You joke, of course,” said Max.

  “Now, would I ever do that?” she said.

  Her smile was back.

  Two hours later, Max parked the Cherokee in Lorraine’s driveway and killed the engine. They hadn’t said much on the return from Bill O’Driscoll’s house, mainly due to Max’s reticence to talk. Something was on his mind, something he hoped hadn’t worked against him and fucked his chances with Lorraine good and proper.

  “When… when Bill called you my girlfriend,” he said after a moment, “I just went along with it. Sorry.”

  “That’s fine. I had a nice time.”

  Max nodded, relieved.

  “Maybe we could do it again sometime,” she added. “I mean, go somewhere else.”

  “Yeah, I’d like that,” Max said.

  The squeals of a Holden ute hooning down the street drowned out his words. Both turned to watch it approach and then disappear in a haze of blue smoke. The mutt across the street was yapping madly at the end of the driveway. Still staring after the hoon car through the passenger window, Lorraine said, almost to herself, “You know, every day I feel like leaving this place.”

  The mutt across the street stopped yapping and returned to its flea bag on the porch. Although Max agreed completely with her sentiments, he said nothing. Lorraine glanced at the greying twilight. “It’s still early,” she said. “Want to come in for a cuppa?”

  “Yeah, sounds good.”

  “Black, one sugar, right?”

  “That’s me, strong ‘n’ sweet,” he said, impressed with her memory. “And I only drink from a Crows mug.”

  She giggled and ushered him into the house through to the kitchen. While she filled the kettle from the tap and removed the coffee and sugar from the pantry, Max sat down at the kitchen table. At the far end was copy of The Adelaide Sun’s weekend edition. It was folded, but the headlines were clearly visible:

  MISSING BACKPACKER.

  NEW CLUES FOUND.

  He couldn’t read any more from where he sat, so he tried to ignore it for the moment and pretend he hadn’t seen it. Which didn’t really work because it kept seducing his attention, like Lorraine’s fabbo wonder cleavage.

  “So what do you do with yourself on the weekends when you’re not at home?” she asked.

  “Hunt’n. Fish’n. Camp’n.” He chose not to tell her that he actually hunted roos (And don’t forget the occasional human, Maxy, but only the ones that fuck’n deserve it, of course!) not knowing her well enough to predict her response to shoot’n animals. Some hated it. Some didn’t give a toss, like Sarah. Some even enjoyed it, like him. But he wasn’t prepared to get into another “How could you kill an innocent creature?” argument again. Not with this chick anyway.

  She removed the Crows mug and her favourite I LOVE COFFEE mug from the cupboard below the kitchen bench and stirred in the coffee when the water came to boil. “It’s great to have something you love to do,” she said, joining him at the table. “I don’t mind camping. Haven’t done it in years, mind you. When mum was alive we sometimes went down the Yorke Peninsula. Went to the Flinders Rangers too, once or twice.” She handed Max the Crows mug and took a sip from her ow
n. “Got any favourite spots?”

  Before Max could answer he heard a man clearing his throat and for a horrid moment he thought Frank was making another unwanted appearance. He was relieved to see it wasn’t his useless father, although the old guy in the dressing gown who’d just entered the kitchen looked as frail and sick as the good-for-noth’n German bastard.

  “Dad!” said Lorraine. “You don’t have to get up. I can bring you your dinner.”

  Lorraine’s dad waved her away. “Thanks, darl,” he said. “Sorry to interrupt. Didn’t know you had company,” although the cheeky look he gave Lorraine told Max otherwise.

  He’d come to check out who his daughter was dating, making sure he was the right type of fella. Max didn’t mind; in fact he felt honoured that someone would bother to check him out at all, especially someone who barely had the energy to get out of bed to take a piss.

  Max rose to greet him, offering his hand. “Hi, I’m Max. Max Grieff. Nice to meet you Mr. Jackson.”

  Lorraine’s dad shuffled forward, leaning on an old wooden cane and shook Max’s hand. “Call me Larry,” he said in gasping breaths. “Was beginning to think you were a figment of her imagination.”

  “Dad!”

  “What?”

  Lorraine gestured to the table and chairs. “Just sit down.”

  Larry Jackson did as his daughter asked. To Max, he shuffled with the exhausted sluggishness of a man who only had months, if not weeks, to live. His pyjamas and dressing gown sagged off his anorexic frame like old elephant skin. His complexion was yellow grey, the colour of faded bruising, and most of his scalp had thinned fair hair that would most likely fall out at the touch of a wintry draft coming through the house. He’d seen this kind of degeneration before. Knew exactly what was going on inside this man’s bony frame. A body at war with itself. Cancer. The worst kind too, by the look of it. The kind that offered no hope of remission, just the hope that you might live sufficiently long enough to see your only daughter get married and start her own family.

  Larry pushed aside Lorraine’s efforts to help him sit. He reached the end of the table where The Adelaide Sun lay folded, leaned on its scratched and coffee-stained surface for a moment, then sat down, slumping into the chair. His cane slipped across the edge of the table and clattered to the floor. He was breathing hard, exhausted by the ten metre walk.

  Max picked up the cane and handed it back to Larry, giving him the chance to scan the newspaper and make sure there was nothing incriminating, like his name sprawled in huge fuck’n letters across the page. Beneath the screaming headlines—MISSING

  BACKPACKER. NEW CLUES FOUND.—he was able to speed read another couple of lines:

  Police today have released a statement about new findings in the case of the missing German backpacker, Gerhard Winkler. According to eyewitness accounts, Mr. Winkler was last seen hitchhiking along Main South Road, heading toward Victor Harbour or possibly Kangaroo Island.

  The column ran under the folded edge of the newspaper, which meant he was unable to read any further for the time being. “Sorry to hear you’re not so well, Larry,” Max said, and sat down at the other end of the table.

  Larry caught his breath before he answered, one hand on the cane, the other knuckling his forehead, propping it up. To Max he looked like some decrepit version of The Thinker.

  “Can’t complain,” he said, then smiled up at his daughter. “Lorraine’s taking good care of me.”

  Max caught Lorraine biting her bottom lip before she turned away and went to make another cup of coffee for her dad. He thought he also saw the welling of tears in her eyes. “Respect’s a rare thing,” he said.

  “Too right… stay for dinner, Max?” Larry said between gasps.

  Max glanced over at Lorraine. While she poured water into another mug, she nodded her silent approval. “Thanks Larry,” he said with genuine gratitude. “That’d be good.”

  Saturday, 9th August 2008

  Dear Diary,

  OMG! What a day! I can’t believe it. I really can’t believe it. Today was the most perfect day ever. Max took me to his boss’s house for a barbeque and it was just all so perfect. Well, except for a moment when Chris Jones was acting up like a complete idiot (nothing’s changed from high school there!). I could tell Max didn’t like his antics, but he’s too much of a gentleman to say anything bad about Chris. I could tell he didn’t want to embarrass me. I know other men who would’ve made a complete spectacle over it, even started a fight. But Max did no such thing. He just took it all in his stride, which gives him more ticks of approval from me.

  Anyhow, fancy bumping into Chris Jones, of all people! Georgina will have a heart attack when I tell her (or wet her pants!). I guess that’s Adelaide, isn’t it—two degrees of separation? If you don’t know someone, somebody you know will probably know them, or at least they’ll know somebody who does. Chris, though, is somebody I thought I’d never see again after school. I hope he doesn’t tell Max lies about me at work. What could he say? Lots of things I guess. Would he hold a grudge against me for not going out with him or sleeping with him when we were teenagers? Would he tell Max I’m a slut who slept with the whole first eighteen football team? Eek, I hope not. Then again, what he says about me is out of my control, isn’t it? I just have to hope Max doesn’t listen to his lies or care what he says.

  But that’s just a distraction. I was talking about what a perfect day it was with Max. After the barbeque I invited him in for a coffee (and nothing else, mind you, if that’s what you’re thinking!). He even met dad, which was great, and they got on like a house on fire. Max stayed for dinner at dad’s request. I was dreading it a bit, but I decide to whip up one of mum’s favourite Irish stew recipes, the one she used to make for me and dad way back when I was still at school. Thankfully it went down a treat with Max, and even dad, who said it was as good as anything mum used to make. Not a morsel was left in the pot! (So, thank God, it seems I haven’t put Max off my cooking, which might just mean he’ll be back for more!)

  I haven’t seen dad this happy in ages, probably not since mum was alive. Geez, even his breathing seemed to improve. He and Max talked and talked. I barely got a word in myself. Still, I didn’t care. I was just drifting in a sea of happiness, listening to them. They mainly talked about bloke stuff—cars, footy, hunting, fishing, camping, work, and that kind of thing—stuff that I’m probably not that interested in, but it was just so good to see them getting along so well.

  We ate dessert (I was even feeling confident enough to bake an apple crumble) and drank heaps of wine. Then about 10 o’clock Max said he didn’t want to overstay his welcome (he’s such a gentleman!). When he left, dad and I watched him reverse his car over to his driveway. I was thinking what a perfect day it had turned out, better than I could ever have imagined. Dad, being dad, told me to just be careful. He could tell that I was (am!) besotted with the ‘boy next door’ and I know he’s just being a bit over-protective of me.

  But he doesn’t have to worry. Max is not like all the other guys I’ve dated. He’s different. I don’t think he has a bad bone in his body.

  CHAPTER 9

  Max arrived at the demolition site the following Monday morning feeling on top of the world. The dilapidated factory had once been the site of a copper pipe and sheeting manufacturer, but like so many manufacturing businesses in and around Adelaide it had gone the way of the fuck’n dogs. The site had now been earmarked for one of them government housing projects for students, some kind of cheap inner city accommodation that Max reckoned would end up being another fuck’n white elephant that would have to be paid for by the tax payer, namely him.

  Nevertheless, he was in a damn good mood. He was thinking his life, despite the predictions of his dickhead father, had made a seismic shift for the better over the weekend. He felt so calm, so at peace. Hell, he felt like his Blundstones didn’t even touch the pavement when he walked. Maybe, and he didn’t quite trust these thoughts yet, but just fuck’n maybe the
odds had swung in his favour. Maybe if things went well with Lorraine he could get his shit together and actually make someth’n of his fucked up life.

  Max went to the site office with a huge grin across his face, donned his hard hat, unhooked a pair of ear muffs and safety glasses from the wall, then slipped a yellow safety vest over his workman’s overalls. Just as he clocked in his timesheet, Bill O’Driscoll poked his ruddy face through the office door.

  “Max me boy, hope you and Lorraine had a good time on Saturday.”

  “Yeah. Went real well.” Then he added, “Thanks for inviting me… us.”

  “No worries me lad,” Bill said, and winked. “Though I think Lorraine’s too good look’n for an ugly bastard like yourself.”

  “You’re probably right,” he said to Bill, taking no offence at his boss’s humour.

  Hell, Mr. IRA was more than probably right: he was damn well on the fuck’n money. Lorraine was out of his league. Or so he used to think such gorgeous women were. Not now though. He didn’t know how he’d done it, but he’d stepped up a level. And boy, wasn’t she a dozen levels higher than his fuck’n whinging ex? Lorraine was his, or rather was going to be his, and he was going to make something of his fuck’n life after all.

  “He’s right,” Jonesy said, ambling into the site office to clock in. “Lorraine’s way too fuck’n good for you.”

  “Leave it out, Jonesy,” Bill said.

  Jonesy donned his hard hat and slipped on a safety vest. “Did she tell you we went to school together?”

  Max gritted his teeth. “Yeah. What of it?”

  “Did she also tell you I fucked all her friends?”

  Max said nothing.

  “Would’ve fucked her too had I had enough time. She was gagging for it, but her friend Georgina was so busy gobbling my cock every lunchtime behind the school shed I didn’t get around to it.”

  “I said leave it out!” Bill said, his face reddening.