Gravity Read Online Free Page B

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    Dad had tears in his eyes again and he gnawed at his bottom lip. ‘Thanks, Em. You’re a miracle worker.’
    â€˜It was nothing, Hughie. Send him around every other day and I’ll hose him down for you. He was no trouble at all. Honestly.’
    So, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday I’d drop him off at the pub after we’d had breakfast. We started to realise how important routine was for Simon. He’d wake early on washdays and shake me awake like my personal alarm clock at exactly six-thirty. Emma said he was good company when Col was off at Catalpa in the truck doing his twice-weekly trips to pick up supplies for the locals. Two hours each way to Catalpa and an hour stuffing around at the market or scouring the town for some special requests, then deliveries when he got back – Col was away for the best part of the day. Emma had taken to giving Simon little jobs in the pub. Folding napkins, cleaning tables and washing glasses. Si seemed to enjoy it, but who could really tell?
    The only good thing that came of Mum leaving was the fact that Tori and her boy started visiting. Mum and Tori hadn’t spoken since the accident. Mum had never said a word to her grandson, born eight months after the wreck. Somehow, in Mum’s head, it was Tori’s fault that Simon was the way he was. That Patchy was dead. Somehow, the fact that Tori walked away from the accident proved she was guilty. And in the three years since, the anger had festered. Mum never talked directly about it and it just kept getting bigger and bigger. In the beginning, the mention of Tori’s namewould entice a spitting red rage in Mum. Then you could fire her up by talking about Hargate – the hippie village near Splitters Creek where Tori and Francis lived. And that grew to hating anything that was hippie or alternative, then single mums. Eventually, Mum couldn’t even talk about little kids. The rage had become a black hole. A septic pond of antimatter in her heart, with gravity so strong that any micron of happiness passing by her was sucked into its inky depths.
    And it was all Tori’s fault.
    Tori, for the most part, didn’t lose any sleep over the fact that Mum hated her guts and I loved her for that. She wanted Francis to know his father. She thought it was important for Simon to know his son. After word passed around that Mum had left, Tori began to arrive just after I got home from school – often loaded with some wild and invariably delicious vegetarian meal – and watch Simon and Francis together. It was a kind of nature documentary to begin with and Si was like a mountain gorilla next to Francis the little monkey. Tori never took her eyes off them.
    At first we drank coffee and watched, but after a few days Tori stopped bringing casseroles and took it on herself to teach me how to cook. I had the need to learn and she was a great teacher.
    She became increasingly more edgy as the evening closed in around us and she’d usually be gone by the time Dad got home.
    Dad’s relationship with Tori was chilly but impeccably civil. They never talked about Mum and they were capable of pleasantries, but Dad insisted Francis call him Hugh and Francis told me that he thought Hugh smelled funny.
    I took Simon out to Hargate one Sunday to visit Tori and Francis in their rented hand-made mud brick home, but Simon wouldn’t get out of the ute. Francis and I played rough and tumble on the rug in the lounge until the boy’s hair stuck to his forehead with sweat and his cheeks glowed with a permanent smile. Tori spent the whole time trying to coax Si out of the car. Si just stared at the dash and rocked.
    I stopped the car in a heavily treed siding and had a piss.
    I knew I’d let Bullant down, but I’d make it right. We’d still be mates.
    I’d let Dad down, but I’d always been the second son. He was used to me letting him down. It wouldn’t be the end.
    Monday