Merciless Gods Read online

  •

  Within the first half-hour Saverio was deeply regretting coming up north. He was sure he wasn’t imagining the suspicion and disapproval directed towards him. He wished that Julian could have been the only one there; he alone seemed to bear Saverio no ill-will.

  The others he had not seen for decades. Hannah Wiszler, who used to wear workers’ overalls and shave her head, was now a journalist at the ABC; Siobhan F, who had dropped all but the first letter of her surname in the late seventies when she was sixteen and playing electric guitar in a three-piece called Penis Envy, was now a doctor with Médecins Sans Frontières. Dimitri Alexandropoulos he knew of, a playwright and scriptwriter; Ben Franks was a noted visual artist; Dawn Sallford was a parliamentary secretary; and Tom Jords was still a poet and still a drunk. They all had to be reminded of his name, and none of them were the slightest bit interested in him or his life.

  Saverio took the wine offered to him by Julian and sat on the top step of the verandah listening in to their conversation, their reminiscences of Leo. Leo at university, Leo at protests, Leo as an artist, Leo’s jokes, Leo’s feuds, Leo’s insults.

  ‘Wasn’t he fabulous?’ That was Dawn Sallford, her voice a rasp from the cigarettes she still chain-smoked.

  You’ll be dead soon as well, Saverio couldn’t help thinking. He hated himself for descending into the pettiness of the past, instantly transforming back into the unconfident, awkward older brother who never knew the right books to read, the right films to quote, the right music to have in his collection. They had all been so erudite, so opinionated, so intelligent. Even his father, who had despised the effeminacy and pretension of Leo’s university friends, had reluctantly granted them that. ‘They’re smart,’ he used to spit out. ‘That’s all they are.’

  Dawn was launching into another story about Leo, some political meeting which had bored them both and in which she had dared him to strip naked. It seemed Leo had taken the dare, had stood up in the middle of the room and begun to undress.

  The rollie in Dawn’s hand swung wildly as the tale unfolded. ‘And I’m going, Dah-dah-DAH dah-dah-DAH dah-dah-dah-DAH—you know, that frigging strippers’ music—and Leo is down to his jocks and he pulls them off and throws them at the facilitator, who was this dumb-fuck po-faced Stalinist who bored you shitless with quotes from Lenin and deadshits like that.’

  Except for Saverio, everyone was laughing, Dawn so hard that she couldn’t continue.

  ‘And then? What else happened?’ Julian’s face was eager, expectant.

  For Christ’s sake, Saverio thought, he must have heard this story, must have been bored by it a hundred times already. But no, he was like a child anticipating his favourite moment from a well-loved storybook. He was so young compared to them all, at least ten years younger than Leo.

  ‘Come on, Dawn,’ said Julian, ‘tell us. What was so funny?’

  Dawn straightened up, sniffed, took a breath. ‘Now, what was that prick’s name? Nick? Nick Tate? No, that was the actor.’ She looked triumphant. ‘Nick Simmonds. Anyway, Leo’s white jocks are flung over Nick’s face, everyone is looking at him, so shocked, Leo’s standing starkers in the middle of the circle—getting a stiffie I might add . . .’

  ‘Always the fucking exhibitionist!’ shrieked Tom Jords.

  Dawn was coughing and chuckling again. ‘He loved getting his bloody cock out, the silly old poof.’ She took a swig of wine, finished the last puff from her cigarette, flicked it into the ashtray precariously perched on the bannister. ‘So there’s this silence and everyone is shocked and open-mouthed and I’m looking over at Nick and there’s this big pair of white Y-fronts covering his head. So Leo, starkers, turns to me and announces, “Dawn, I think we’re going to get purged.” ’ Dawn again collapsed into spasms of mirth.

  They all did, except Saverio. He threw back his wine and rose to his feet. ‘Where am I sleeping?’

  They were laughing so hard they couldn’t hear him.

  He cleared his throat and repeated the question.

  Julian, still chuckling, smiled up at him. He pointed inside. ‘You’ve got the main bedroom.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Saverio grabbed his bag off the verandah and walked into the house. They had all fallen back into laughter. He knew it was foolish, that it was not at all the case, but it felt like they were laughing at him.

  •

  ‘You think that’s something to be proud of, do you? It’s not. You should be fucking ashamed.’

  It was at Leo’s twenty-first birthday party and it had been Dawn who’d said it to him.

  Saverio had recently completed his engineering degree and that morning had received the call to say he’d been accepted as a graduate by Shell. He was just about to turn twenty-three and was excited at the prospect of his first professional job.

  Leo’s birthday had been held in rooms above a popular vegetarian North Indian restaurant in Carlton. It attracted students and it was said that if you knew the staff they would let you onto the roof to smoke joints while looking over the skyline of Melbourne. Not that there had been much of a skyline to Melbourne back then. Just the forlorn apocalyptic Bauhaus towers of the housing commission.

  Saverio couldn’t wait to tell his brother about the job. Leo had already been living out of home for two years, having walked out after a final argument with their old man that had ended, as they usually did, with their father lashing out at Leo; but this time Leo had punched back.

  It was the night Leo had told them all that he was homosexual.

  ‘Finocchio,’ their father kept repeating, confused. ‘No, non lo sei!’

  ‘I am!’

  ‘No, no, no. Finocchio no!’ Saverio remembered the finality in his father’s tone, the distaste and denial firmly set on his face. He would not accept it. He would not have it.

  ‘You know, Dad,’ Leo had shouted, ‘you would have benefited from a good cock up your arse. It would have made you a better man. It would have made you a better husband.’

  Saverio had not believed that his brother could say such things to their father. With a roar, their father had rushed over to Leo and started pummelling him with both fists. Saverio had been ready to leap up and defend his brother when Leo had raised a fist and struck back. It had been an ineffectual, weak hit, Saverio had thought, so fucking pansy, but it was enough to stop their father cold. A son had dared to strike back.

  ‘Go.’ Their father had pointed at the door. ‘You don’t live here no more.’

  Leo had smiled, a cruel, gloating smile that had been directly passed down to him from their father. ‘I’m already gone, you ignorant shit. I’ve been gone for years.’

  That, of course, had been Leo all over: throw a bomb, walk away and let someone else clean up the mess. It had always been that way; Leo and their father seemed to be born to battle. Leo refused to learn Italian, Leo wasn’t interested in anything to do with soccer, all Leo wanted to do was get lost in books.

  At first it had been their mother who intervened, protecting Leo from her husband’s violence but also pleading, remonstrating, coaxing Leo into making his apologies. Then the cancer struck and she was dead within a year. Saverio had been fourteen and Leo just about to start high school. The younger boy disappeared deeper into his world of books and imagination, and Saverio had become the go-between, even years later, after Leo had left home and immersed himself in the stimulating intellectual and political life of university, discovering the pleasures of drugs and sex.

  ‘Why can’t you say something to him?’ his father would roar. ‘What kind of older brother are you?’

  Ashamed, Saverio would try to broker peace.

  It would then be Leo’s turn to scream at him. ‘I don’t have to apologise to that patriarchal fascist shit!’

  ‘You think that’s something to be proud of, do you? It’s not. You should be fucking ashamed!’ Dawn’s voice had been brutal and disapproving.

  Saverio had looked over to his brother, wanting Leo to save him from th
e ferocity of her contempt, but Leo had made no reply. It was a ghastly moment, one of those times when all other conversation had ceased and everyone seemed to be turned towards him. That could just be memory playing a trick, of course; probably no one else at the party really gave a damn. But he did not make up Leo’s silence. Leo had not defended him.

  ‘Dawn, I’ve been looking for work for ages, since completing my degree—’

  She hadn’t let him finish. That was what he remembered most about Leo’s friends: the surety of their beliefs, the passion and the hostility. ‘Shell supports the apartheid state in South Africa. You want to be part of that?’

  No, I want a job. They interviewed me, have given me a graduate position, I’ve been trying for months. But that wouldn’t do for Dawn, so he had said nothing.

  She had stepped closer to him, and the vehemence in her eyes had startled him. She felt it so strongly. She wasn’t even black. ‘Don’t take the job.’

  ‘What?’ He had been astounded. ‘Of course I’m taking the job.’

  He had thought she was going to spit on him but instead she had turned around and dismissed him with a guttural, vicious grunt of disgust.

  From Leo there had been no word of congratulations, no questions about the job, what he would be doing, when he would be starting.

  ‘She’s right. You shouldn’t take the job.’ Then Leo had walked off to whisper and laugh and joke with his friends.

  •

  Saverio slammed his suitcase onto the bed. That night was over thirty years ago, but the recollection of it still rankled, still filled him with impotent fury.

  He stared around the room. Every spare inch of wall was filled with canvases or photographs: Polaroids, cheap travel shots in florid colours, artistic black and white prints. Framed photos were crammed onto the bureau and bedside table. A stack of Leo’s paintings was resting against the far wall, under a framed Aboriginal Land Rights poster that Saverio remembered from the early eighties. The photographs were of Leo and his friends. Leo in Hanoi and Paris and Mexico City. Leo and Dawn in Cuba. Leo and Tom Jords wearing pink T-shirts emblazoned with a black Women’s Liberation fist at Mardi Gras.

  On the small table was an old framed black and white photograph of their mother, taken when she was a young girl in Rome, her face sullen as she braved the camera. Of Saverio and their father there was nothing at all, not one snapshot.

  He shouldn’t have come. Leo’s true family had been the men and women who were laughing and swapping reminiscences on the verandah.

  There was a muffled ‘Can I come in?’, and Saverio swung around. Julian was holding out a glass of wine with an apologetic smile.

  Saverio took it and gestured for Julian to enter. ‘You should be the one sleeping in here,’ Saverio said quietly.

  Julian laughed and shook his head. ‘It’s fine. The old gang are going to sleep on mattresses and sleeping bags on the living-room floor. We’ll probably keep you awake with our drunken raves.’ Julian’s brow suddenly squashed into a frown. ‘Unless you prefer not to sleep in . . .’

  ‘No, no, that’s fine. Thanks, it’s kind of you.’

  Saverio was not frightened of Leo’s ghost. They had that in common, brothers in their rationalism and atheism, their father’s sons.

  Julian walked around the bed and started flicking through the canvases against the wall. ‘I’ll have to sort through all of these before I head back to Sydney. Leo’s named me executor of his estate.’ Julian’s voice had dropped to an anxious whisper.

  ‘That’s how it should be.’

  Saverio glimpsed a corner of a painting, the strokes thick, the colours warm, fiery. A lavender-veined penis pushing through a glory hole. Julian let the canvases drop. He seemed to be searching the walls of the room and his gaze lighted on a small, vividly coloured Polaroid. It was of a beaming Filipina woman holding a chuckling naked boy. Julian’s features, his smile, his mischievous eyes, were unmistakable. Julian unpinned the Polaroid and put it in his shirt pocket. ‘Leo was always meant to give that back. It’s the only photo I have of me and Mum back in Manila.’

  Saverio felt as if he were sinking. He had hoped that it would be cooler up in the hills but he had forgotten that it was impossible to escape the humidity in this part of the world. He wanted to be back in Melbourne, in less intense light, where he didn’t feel that every corner and spare inch of space was illuminated. He didn’t want to be sipping red wine. He wanted a beer. He didn’t know how to make conversation with these people, even Julian who had always been kind to him and Rachel.

  There was the sound of smashing glass on the verandah and peals of laughter.

  ‘It’s probably going to be like this all night.’

  Saverio searched his pockets, clasped the car keys. ‘I’m going to go into town. Do we need anything?’

  Julian, surprised, shook his head.

  ‘I’ll see you in an hour or two.’

  ‘Sav, will you deliver a eulogy tomorrow?’

  He felt snookered. No, he did not want to deliver a eulogy. There was absolutely nothing to say.

  With a toss of his chin, Julian indicated the world outside. ‘We’d all appreciate it.’

  I thought you didn’t believe in family. I thought you believed it was a patriarchal capitalist construct. But maybe they did now. Maybe now they believed in family and shares and television and parliamentary democracy. He just wanted to leave the room, the house, the unbearable heat.

  He nodded and Julian smiled.

  An old lime Volkswagen Beetle was coming up the drive. There was a noisy crunching of gears, and then a small shudder before it came to a halt. Saverio looked through the flyscreen door to see everyone leave the verandah and cluster around the white-haired woman who got out of the car. She wore faded bermuda shorts and a yellow singlet.

  A much younger woman stepped out from the driver’s side. She looked as though she was still shedding adolescence. She was wearing a pink see-through shirt and even from behind the screen Saverio could see the outline of the black bra beneath.

  Julian pushed past him through the door and Saverio almost fell out onto the verandah.

  Everyone was talking, calling out, hugging and kissing the older woman. Only the young woman looked up and smiled ruefully, as if to acknowledge him. She was not dressed for the weather at all. She had on a tight black miniskirt with embroidered white stockings. Her thick-soled black boots laced up past her ankles. Her hair was dyed a platinum blonde, set in curls that fell to her shoulders, and her face was heavily made-up with rouge, thick black eyeliner and scarlet lipstick. She reminded him of a young Marilyn Monroe. She seemed to know everyone, greeting them with kisses. Julian had placed a protective arm around her and was beckoning Saverio to come down.

  The older woman looked up as he descended the steps. He recognised her face: Margaret Cannon was a well-regarded fiction writer; Rachel had read all her books. Saverio had no recollection of meeting her before. But her smile was warm, inviting, and her grip firm as she shook his hand. ‘It’s Stephen, isn’t it?’

  ‘Saverio.’

  ‘My apologies. That’s a much better name.’ She turned to the younger woman. ‘This is Leo’s brother, Saverio. And this is Anna, my daughter and Leo’s goddaughter.’

  The young woman’s hand was moist. She winced apologetically. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sweaty.’

  ‘Of course you are, Anna. Look at what you’re wearing.’

  Anna’s laugh was loud and deep-throated. ‘You’re a bitch, Dawn.’

  ‘Yeah, shut up.’ Julian’s arm tightened around Anna’s shoulders. ‘I think you look gorgeous.’

  ‘Thank you, Jules, so do you.’

  Saverio now found himself at the edge of the circle. He jiggled the car keys in his pocket. ‘I’m going into town. Anyone need anything?’

  ‘Do we need more grog?’

  ‘There’s plenty. Even for us.’

  Dawn wasn’t satisfied. ‘Is there whisky?’

  Julian rub
bed at his chin. ‘I can go and have a look . . .’

  ‘Get us a bottle of Scotch,’ she interrupted.

  Give us some money, thought Saverio sourly.

  But it was Anna who answered. ‘Jesus, Dawn, what did your last slave die of?’

  Dawn didn’t miss a beat. ‘Laziness.’

  He couldn’t help it, even he had to laugh. They were so fast, so sophisticated, so smart. He nodded and moved towards his car. He was surprised to find Anna following him.

  She turned back to her mother. ‘I’m going into town as well.’

  ‘We just got here!’

  Anna ignored her. She was waiting for Saverio to unlock the doors. She smiled across at him. ‘It’s alright with you, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course.’

  As they turned onto the Pacific Highway, Anna let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thank you. That was a bit too much.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Seeing everyone en masse. You know, that old libertarian femo crowd. They’re lovely but it will be all the same stories: who slept with Germaine Greer, who sucked off Robert Hughes while they were all on acid.’

  She reminded Saverio of Adelaide, the affectation in her outburst. They were both young women, trying out accents, tones, registers. He wasn’t at all shocked by her language. It just reminded him of how young she was.

  ‘Tom looks awful.’

  He didn’t reply.

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I guess that’s because of all the antiretroviral drugs he’s on. And because he’s a drunk.’

  ‘He’s always been an alcoholic.’

  He felt her gaze fix on him. ‘I didn’t know Leo had a brother.’

  ‘I didn’t know he had a godchild.’

  ‘He’s got two. But Danny is in England or Poland or somewhere like that.’

  They fell into silence. But something she’d said had made him curious. He couldn’t help it. He felt a little embarrassed asking but ask he did. ‘Who did Germaine Greer fuck?’

  Anna grinned mischievously. ‘Probably all of them.’ She was searching through the glove box and underneath her seat. ‘Do you have any music?’