PREVIOUSLY
“You want me to come with you?” asked Jack. Wasn’t
he a bundle of surprises, thought Beulah.
It was beginning to rain now.
“No, I’ll be alright…thanks.” She flashed
him a fleeting smile, and gathering her coat about her, hurried in through the
gate.
She didn’t quite know what she was looking
for but steered towards her mother’s grave. In the back of her mind she had the
misguided thought that the old lady would be there waiting for her.
Well, she had been partially right. Even
from a distance she could see that something had been written on her mother’s
tombstone in chalk….a message….she was sure it was a message from the old lady.
She ran forward through the rain, breath rasping in her lungs, screwing up her
eyes to try and read what it said, but it was bucketing down now, washing in
waves against the chalk marks and melting them into a thin sheen of white
water. By the time Clara got within range the writing was indecipherable. She
collapsed to her knees, the last link with her son dribbling away in the
gutters. She had been seconds too late. For a moment she felt like clawing at
the headstone to try and retrieve the message, but then her mind turned inwards
and the light in her eyes went out.
A human being can only stand so much
disappointment. She sat in silence…soaked to the skin…unhearing and unknowing. She
was no trouble to Beulah and Jack who gently took her by either arm, raised her
up, and led her to the waiting car.
NOW
When they got home they almost didn’t notice
the unstamped letter lying on the floor just inside the front door. It got
stood on, dripped on, and kicked to one side in the stampede to get out of the
rain. It was only when Beulah was hanging up the coats that she noticed it. She
picked it up and saw that it was addressed simply to ‘Clara’ in a spidery hand
that didn’t need a second guess at the writer. She carried it rather reverentially
into the kitchen and placed it on the table in front of her mother. Clara sat
unseeing with her hands folded on her lap, white lips drawn tight together.
Jack was busy making a hot pot of tea and cutting some bread for toast and jam.
He was relaxed and moved easily about the kitchen for a hulking football
player, as if he was quite at home. He and Beulah carried on about their
business as if nothing was wrong, letting Clara have the time to come to
herself when she felt like it.
Jack placed the steaming cup of tea and warm
toast in front of her, the delicious aroma wafting up into her nose and caused a
synapse or two to register in her brain. Within a short while she was eating ravenously,
fingering the envelope as she remembered her philosophy teacher quoting
Nietche: “A person should put a special day aside for the receiving of mail…and
then take a bath immediately afterwards”. She was sure this was going to be one
of those letters and was in two minds whether to open it. Alice was never good
news. But what the hell. She was a woman and they were notorious for their
curiosity.
The letter read: “Dear Clara, I know we have
had our differences and I know I done you wrong. I would like to make it up to
you believe it or not. I think I know a way to get your boy back!”
Clara nearly laughed out loud. There must be
a catch. Alice never did anything for anyone other than herself. But as she
read on the letter began to get her attention.
Samuel found himself tapping his fingers on
the visitors table impatiently – eyes constantly scanning the hall gate where
Ronetta would appear. His heart raced slightly and his hands were clammy…a sure
sign of guilt in criminals. He had no idea what he was doing here. On the other
hand he knew exactly what he was doing here. He was doing a one hundred and
eighty degree turnabout…if you’ll pardon the phrase. Law and order plonked on
its arse by a cross-dressing homo-hooker and the pillars of his moral stature
cracking like cheap concrete and crashing into the dust.
Ronetta was late. But Ronetta was never
early. It irked him that she kept him waiting, dangling like a fish out of water,
unable to breathe except in her presence. Since last they met he had thought of
little else. He couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t eat, and he couldn’t concentrate.
He was, for the first time in his life…in love. And it hurt.
Eventually she walked in wearing a tight
grey pencil skirt and a see-through blouse. High heels and stockings finished
off the ensemble and pretty much finished off Samuel as well. Her hourglass
figure swayed from one end of the room to the other leaving Samuel speechless
by the time she got there. Even her peripheries - legs, ankles, arms, neck - everywhere
he looked clapped him in a new set of restraints until his eyes were fastened
to her with a thousand chains.
“Hello,” she said, and sat down with a
sliding swish that had his ears standing out like radar dishes. His skin
prickled on alert. Somewhere inside, his conscience was trying to get a word in
edgewise. ‘Your son is missing. Probably dead. What kind of revolting animal
are you, drooling over this tart?’ Truly, he was never more disgusted with
himself than at that moment. His own son….for this woman. And not even a real
woman…….a MAN! He remembered what he had thought of all the other men who
‘cohabited’ with women like her….queers, gays, poofters, fags….and now he was
one of them…or as close as, for given half a chance and he knew he wouldn’t
hesitate. He had even been toying with the plan of visiting her in a private cell
where no one could see what went on. He understood now what people meant by
physical attraction. She was like a magnet. He hated himself for the way he was
side-lining Joshua, but secretly he was glad of an excuse to come and see her.
Ronetta for her part could see the effect
she was having on him. It was written all over his face. She had him dangling
from her little finger. She lit a cigarette to give him time to sort out his malfunctioning
circuits. She was reeling him in and she didn’t even have to take it nice and
slow. He was well and truly hooked. She supposed that’s why they called them
hookers.
“I remembered something,” she said.
“Oh.” Samuel sat back in his chair and tried
to appear nonchalant.
“Somewhere my mother might have taken him….an
old warehouse where I used to practice my girlie act. I took my mother there
once in a misguided attempt to try and convince her that I was serious. She
might have remembered.”
“Where?” he asked.
Ronetta remained silent for a long while. He
watched the smoke curl from between her lips. Oh how he wished he were that
smoke.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “I think I
do want to get out of here.”
A vein started throbbing somewhere under his
left eye.
“Okay,” he said, stalling for time. “I don’t
know if that’s wise. I don’t know…well I do know what’ll happen if I break you
out of here. I know what’ll happen to me. I’ll be fired and probably end up in
prison myself. And you. Maximum security. Moved to Hemworth and put in with the
general population. I don’t think you’re going to like that.” He’d been giving
an escape plan plenty of thought lately and hadn’t been very encouraged by the
results.
She shrugged her shoulders and pretended to
be bored with his answers. Samuel’s mind started racing. Dear God she was
serious.
“Where would you go?”
“I have a place.”
“Look. I can make things very easy for you
in here. You’d be surprised how sweet life could be. A special room…on suite
bath….everything you could possibly want…”
“I
didn’t think so,” she said. “You started me thinking about freedom, and I think
I’d like to try it. I’ve had enough of this.”
“They’d fire me,” he said, stalling for
time.
“Look,” she said. “You want your boy back?”
She knew who she was dealing with here. She had to get him to focus now. Time
to bring out the big guns. “You want me?”
Samuel looked at her with hunger in his
eyes.
“Then take me away from here,” she looked
appealingly into his eyes and he nearly wet himself. He didn’t dare move
because he knew his coordination had just gone bye bye. For a while his throat
wrestled with a word that never saw the light of day. Ronetta clasped her bag
and stood up. “I’ll be waiting.” She touched his cheek gently then turned and
sashayed away to such a tune that Samuel was once again hard pressed to
remember what they had just been talking about. He was none too pleased when he
did.
