Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
Mick leans back into the front door and feels it shudder closed. The relief that used to come with finishing a day at work barely registers these days. Leaving the factory to come home to three rowdy kids and a moody wife is almost worse. It just feels like another job. He knows he shouldn’t feel like this. His kids adore him, and he them, but they’re still bloody hard work.
He sighs, throws his keys in the bowl and stoops to pull off his work boots, waiting for the cascade of feet down the hallway and the familiar shrill of his children’s voices. Instead, the house stays quiet, and he’s greeted only by the faint drone of the fish tank gurgling from the living room.
“Eli? Kids?”
Nothing.
He shrugs and heads upstairs for a shower.
“Thank God.”
After the day he’s just had, a few quiet minutes to himself are exactly what he needs. He’s been dealing with problems all day. The morons on the airport job that lost all their cabling, Joffa fucking up the Latrobe quote, and now Marty had gone AWOL. How the hell would he find 25 grand and three new blokes by Monday? He was so sick of having to fix everyone else’s fuck ups.
He peeled off his work clothes and stepped in front of the bathroom mirror, glancing at his rippled torso and flexing hard. A few days earlier he’d caught up with old classmates at his twenty year school reunion, and every single one of them had turned to fat. Let themselves go. Not him. He was still fit and hard. Probably better now than two decades ago, to be honest. He was pleased to still look this good.
Stepping in under the water and closing his eyes, Mick felt the heat glance off his chest. It was the only place he had left to himself. Everything else belonged to others.
From under the shower he suddenly heard his phone ringing in the bedroom.
“No fucking way. What now?”
He tried to ignore it, but the ringing persisted. No doubt some other fuck up he’d have to sort out urgently. Sometimes he wished the whole world would fuck off and leave him be. Everyone. Eli, the kids, work. Everyone. Or perhaps he would one day.
When he’d towelled himself off, he picked up his phone.
Six missed calls. No Caller ID. Fuck off.
Just as he tossed it back onto the bed, it rang again.
No Caller ID.
Mick picked it up to delete the call, but something made him reconsider and he swiped right instead, and put the phone up to his ear.
“Mick!” Elise’s frantic voice gasped at him. “Thank God.”
“Eli? That you? What?”
It was a bad line, crackling over her voice and echoing his own, but through the distortion he distinctly caught the word ‘hospital’.
“Eli? What? I can’t fucking hear you! Where are you?”
More scratching and again, small fragments of her voice punctuated through.
“Come…em…see…”
She was crying too, making it even harder to understand her.
“Eli,” He yelled. “Slow the hell down! I can’t…”
He could no longer hear her.
“FUCK!”
He was frantic now. He pulled his phone from his ear and tried calling his wife’s number, but it diverted straight to her voicemail.
“Shit. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK.”
He started to check his own messages to see if Eli had left anything for him, when suddenly, he heard their front door close and footsteps in the hallway. He sprinted downstairs.
“ELI? Thank God. What’s going on – ” But instead of running into his wife on the landing, he caught Mary, the cleaning lady’s bewildered face.
Fear shot through him once again.
“Oh shit, Mary. I thought you were Eli.”
Just then, his phone lit up in his hand again. This time, it was a number he didn’t recognise.
“Hello?”
“Michael? It’s Carol. From three doors’ down? Do you want me to feed the kids?”
“What?”
“Immy and Jack…”
“I’m sorry…you have Immy and Jack at your place?”
“Yes. Eli went with Ben in the ambulance. I…”
“Huh? What? Why?” Panic rose in his chest.
“You don’t know? Eli didn’t ring?”
“NO! Nothing.”
She fell silent for a second. Mick could sense her panic.
“Oh god, Michael,” she whispered. “I thought you knew.” She gulped and then continued, even softer than before, as if she couldn’t bring herself to say the words too loudly.
“They’re at the Children’s. Ben…he fell out of a tree.”
Mick swayed and wanted to vomit.
“Christ.”
“The other two are here with me. They’re totally fine, Michael. I’ll keep them here as long as you want.”
Her voice continued talking, but the phone was no longer at Mick’s ear. He had to get to the hospital.
* * * * *
Elise can’t sit still. She paces the waiting room, feeling her chest heave with each breath, waiting anxiously for someone to tell her Benny is ok. She needs to see him, but has no idea where he is.
All around her, the hospital buzzes with activity. Nurses in identical scrubs and bandanas scurry in all directions, patients wander about. When she’d arrived, the paramedics had wheeled Ben away immediately and an orderly with had taken her to the waiting area, and made her a cup of tea, but Elise hadn’t been able to even take a sip without feeling violently ill, so the polystyrene cup remained cold and full on a table nearby. They had told her to wait and the doctors would talk to her soon.
She walked over to the nurse’s station and tried to get Mick on the phone again. Again, it rang out and diverted to his gruff voicemail voice.
“Mick…God, please answer! Where are you? Benny…we’re in emergency at The Children’s. I need you to get here.” She hung up the phone for the eighth time, and walked slowly back to the windows. Someone had made an effort to hang tinsel across the glass panes, and Christmas carols played cheerfully through the hospital’s PA system. The cheeriness of the familiar jingles grated on her. Who wants to hear fucking Christmas Carols.
“Mrs. Farrell?” A woman’s voice spoke. Elise wheeled around to see someone in hospital gowns calling her name from the desk.
“Yes. I’m her.” She hurried over to where the woman was standing.
“Mrs. Farrell…can you come with me, please.” She said gently.
Gulping slowly, Elise followed the woman through some swinging doors to the right, and into a cubicle. The woman drew the curtains around them and asked her to sit down.
“Mrs. Farrell. I’m afraid I don’t have good news. I’m so sorry…Benjamin. He’s… well we’re not sure he’s going to pull through.”
The room swam and the woman’s voice began to echo in Elise’s ears, so softly she couldn’t make it out properly. It was like a thick barrier had descended over her dulling her senses. “What? I can’t hear you!” she yelled, “I can’t hear.” She was frantic now, pleading, “Benny…where’s Benny?”
“I’ll take you to him, Mrs. Farrell. He’s in ICU.”
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