Marilyn (3 page)

'Wonderful, now. I need you to relax. Take a few deep breaths and try and stay calm.’

She breathed deeply, steadily.

‘Brilliant. Now, close your eyes and take three more deep breaths. I want you to try and forget everything and only listen to the sound of my voice, nothing else. OK? Try your best to empty your mind.’

EIGHT

The pair sat in a difficult silence heading into the storm. They couldn't pick up much of a speed, the road was hardly visible and the weather was too unpredictable. The man concentrated on his path ahead. The boy sat next to him, his eyes closed.

    'Where's my mom?' Jack asked, not pulling any punches.

The man didn't reply. He cleared his throat and just twisted his fingers tighter around the steering wheel.

'Where are we going? What do you want? Who are you? Are you going to hurt me?' Jack rattled, without taking a fresh breath.

The man took his empty eyes from the road and glanced at the boy, briefly. There was very little emotion in his face.

'If you behave, then I won't hurt you,' the man snapped, in an icy, serious tone.

He directed his vision back to the road, without so much as a change of his facial expressions.

The boy rubbed a chain around his neck.

'Who are you?' he asked, calmly, his hand still clasped around his chain.

The man stared out of the window, saying nothing. There was a minute of silence. His mouth twitched.

'My name is O'Sullivan. Walter O'Sullivan. My friends call me Walt.' His sentences lingered, like each word was new, spoken for the first time.

The boy rubbed his eyes once more, oiled his vocal chords with a throat-clearing cough and pinned a believable smile to his face.

'I'm Jack. Nice to meet you, Walt.'

O'Sullivan just stared at him, his face like stone.

'Nice to meet you too, Jack.' The beginnings of a trying smile crawled up the sides of his face.

The car chugged along, rattling when it travelled along open road, but steadily fighting against the tempestuousness of the storm. It looked as though it was calming. Passing over.

     'Is my mom OK?' he quizzed, pouncing on the man's newfound friendliness.

There was a pause.

'She's fine. Nothing to worry about.'

     'Where are we going?'

'To the freeway. Through the storm, it's passing over us.'

Jack shifted anxiously in seat, sitting on his hands.

'What do you want with me, Walt? I mean, what am I doing here?'

O'Sullivan focused his gaze deep into Jack's brown eyes and shrugged.

NINE

Trying his best not to distract Marilyn, Elwood flicked out another cigarette from his packet and lit it as quietly as he could, his thumb pressing and dragging over the worn lighter reel until it produced a flame.

He inhaled and exhaled. It felt great on his lungs. He missed it.

He thought his questions through. There was a lot he needed to know. A lot she needed to remember.

'Marilyn. Can you hear me?'

'Yes,' she answered through a stony, throat trapped whisper. 

'Good. I need you to remember. Where is it you were heading with Jack?'

She twitched in her seat at the mention of Jack, but managed to keep her composure. Her voice was soft and coated in sadness.

'Mr Nighty, my boss. My ex-boss. He had given me the keys to his holiday home. It's about a two day drive away from here. Things at home were not so good, and well, we both really needed a break. I thought the drive down would help us get to know each other a little better, help us bond. I've been away a lot with my job and I wanted to make it up to him.'

'That's an excellent start,' he responded, proudly. 'What happened next, Marilyn?'

'We'd been driving for a good eight hours. Jack was getting restless and agitated. He gets bored easily. He was hungry, even though I made him a packed lunch for the journey and had food before we left. He's always hungry. We joked and laughed. We stopped at a fast food place.'

    'OK, you're doing just fine, Marilyn. Great progress.'

He took a slow draw of his cigarette, keeping the smoke in his lungs, and continued with a strained voice. 'Did anything happen there, anything suspicious, anything at all?'

'No. Nothing. We ate our food and drank our drinks. We talked and left.'

'Did you leave Jack on his own at any point?'

'No. I was with him the whole….' Marilyn paused. 'Wait. I went to the toilet. I went to the toilet and checked my hair. Freshened up. I was less than two minutes.' She became frustrated, her head and body twisting and turning on the sofa. She scrunched her hands into tight fists.

'It's OK, Marilyn. Breathe. Listen to my voice. That's it. Nice and easy. You're doing great.' He stopped. Took a puff of his Marlboro and watched the dead ash fall into his lap. 'Who else was there?'

She thought about it hard.

'It was pretty quiet. There were three or four people working. The woman who served us. She was called Amanda.'

'OK, good, who else?’

'A young couple. They were kissing. I remember thinking Jack hated it. He never cared much for me and his father kissing when we were in public.'

The old man laughed, covering his mouth and catching the smoke

'There was a mother and daughter there. She had blonde hair, the daughter.'

'Anyone else that you can remember, Marilyn/’ he pushed.             

'There was a man, sitting in the corner. I couldn't see him very well.'

'Try to remember something about him. What was he wearing? Did he look out of place? Anything.’

'He looked tired and worn out.' She squirmed. 'He also looked kind of dirty, his jacket was all scraggly.’

     'Very good, Marilyn.' He put the cigarette to his mouth, but didn't take a drag, just let it balance there between his lips. 'Now, think about his face. Think hard. Is there anything you can remember?'

Her face crinkled up, she was trying so hard to remember. Elwood tapped his ash onto his lap and took the missing puff. He pulled long and hard and blew out a mushroom cloud of smoke. He needed another drink.

'He had a mark under his eye. It looked like pen, but it could have been a cut. I don't know.'

'Did you see him leave?'

'No. He was gone when I came out of the toilet. I was only gone two minutes.'

Elwood reached back out and took her hands in his.

'Ok, it's OK. You were fantastic. Keep your breathing steady. I want you to count backwards from five slowly and open your eyes. Ready?'

TEN

The car trudged into the unending onslaught of rain and wind. They had been travelling for hours now, down a miscellaneous collection of roads and lanes, where the next looked just like the last, but at this pace, they were getting nowhere fast.

'Are you thirsty? Would you like a drink?'

Jack was caught off guard, he wasn't expecting to be asked anything.

'There's water in the glove box if you want it. Help yourself.'

Walter gestured at the glove box with his arm. Jack reached forward and unclipped the stiff door. Just as he suspected. Mess. It was overflowing with scrunched up receipts, napkins, and condiments. He carelessly pulled out a handful of discarded, professional-looking letter-headed papers and dropped them onto the floor, adding them to the mishmash. Sure as Walter had said, there it was. A bottle of water, unopened, full to the brim. But that's not what stole his attention. To the side of the water bottle, the butt of a gun poked its way through mounds of debris, crying to be seen. He couldn't take his eyes from it.

Jack removed the water bottle from the glove box, carefully, keeping his eyes fixed upon the cool, metallic glow of the gun. He unscrewed the cap, took a sip, swilled it around his mouth, and offered some to Walt. He declined, politely. Jack closed the glove box and kept the bottle on the seat next to him.

'Thanks, I needed that.’

Walter sniffled. He wiped his running nose with the sleeve of his ripped jacket and observed it with curious eyes.

'How old are you, Jack?' Walter asked.

'I'm eight,' Jack entertained.

Walter stared across at Jack but said nothing. He swallowed hard.

'Where were you heading, Jack?'

     'I'm not too sure, Walt. We were heading to my mom's boss's house. He let her borrow it for a little while. So we were going to stay there for a few months, maybe more. At least until we found a little place of our own,' Jack answered, honestly.

'That's nice of him.'

Jack didn't reply.

'Where's your dad, is he still alive?'

     'He's back at home, with his new girlfriend. They're calling it a separation, but they'll definitely get a divorce.' He didn't stop there, he couldn't help himself. 'I heard that word at school, divorce. It what parents do when they don't love each other anymore.'

Walter listened to Jack intently, changing the painful subject as he slid around a bend.

Do you want to see a picture of my son? His name’s David.' he asked openly.

     'Yeah, sure.'

Walter slipped his wallet out from his back pocket with his free hand. The brown leather was worn and cracked from years of use. He flipped it open and pulled out a picture from inside. It was beginning to fade like something that had been left in the sun for too long, and had little tears and creases around the edges. Walt passed it across to Jack.

Jack stared and stared at it. He couldn't believe what he was looking at. It was like looking into a mirror. The boy in the picture could have been his brother. The resemblance was uncanny. Sure, his haircut was a little dated, but that's where the differences stopped.

‘He was such a handsome boy, full of life and wonder,' Walter stated without taking his eyes from the road.

David was sat on a wooden chair, his arms resting limply in his lap. A grey, blue backdrop hung behind him. He was smiling like he had no worries or cares in the world. It was a natural smile, easy and happy. David's hair was combed over, revealing a little side parting. He was dressed smartly, wearing all black, with a little, thin stylish white tie pressed against his shirt, the knot just off centre. Jack cleared his throat with a nervous cough.

'That's a lovely picture, he looks like a nice kid.'

Walter gazed across at Jack. Jack looked right back at him.

'He was.'

'Was?' he asked, cautiously.

Jack waited in the humid silence for a response. Nothing.

'What kinda things did he like?'

A smile crept up Walter's face. A smile Jack had not seen before.

'He loved jazz music. Which was strange considering his age.' He laughed. 'He got that from his mother, not from me. He was learning to play the saxophone. He was actually pretty good at it.'

Jack smiled, something he could not remember doing for a long time.

'He played for hours and hours every day. I used to phone him on my lunch break at work and ask him to play something for me. It was really impressive,' he claimed passionately.

      'He was also a mean soccer player, but he was short. At least for his age, anyway. He helped win the season at his school. I was so proud of him. I missed the game, I was working. I was always working,' he snapped disapprovingly, his voice flooded with anger and resentment.

Jack took another sip from the bottle. 'My mom missed my birthday last year, she told me she would be home.' Jack replied, with real empathy. 'But in the end she couldn't make it. I cried. She promised and promised me that she would be able to get the time off work to make it home to see me open my presents.'

Jack rubbed his silver chain between his thumb and index finger. He spun it around his neck, a mini ingot dangled from the chain. The Chinese character for 'hope' was expertly engraved.

'But she never did.' He let his head fall, his chin touching his chest. 'She came home the next day and we argued and I didn't speak to her for a whole day, almost two, then she left again.'

Jack turned to look out of the window. He felt a tear trickle down his face, he smoothly and secretly wiped it away.
Guys don't cry
, he thought.

    'Parents should always be there for their children, no matter what,' Walter puffed, squeezing his fingers around the wheel, watching them turn white. 'They grow up so fast, every moment you have with them is precious. Before we know it, they move out and don't need us any more.'

Jack could see that Walter was becoming ill-tempered and irritable, he stared at his hands, not wanting to look into Walter's eyes.

'Everything's going to be fine, David. There's nothing to worry about. I won’t miss any more of your soccer games or birthdays. I'll never miss anything, ever again.'