Les Grands Chantiers (Wattys 2022)

23. Crazy Rich Rogues

The interior of the house was, to put it lightly, eclectic. Corinthian, Ionic and Doric pillars clashed with each other at the corners of each hallway. Vases, sculptures and L-shaped lounges dotted the mirror-polished tiled topography with seemingly no method to the madness.

This felt so divorced from what he had witnessed earlier down in the Industrial Zone. Everything was so prim and proper. A tiny island of tranquility in a world gone mad. He breathed in and out, feeling planted every time he stepped on the mirror-smooth floor tiles. He breathed in the faint scent of disinfectant, the omnipresent mild hum of the air conditioning. The deep indigo of the sky outside, flecked with stars.

The kitchen looked out onto a surprisingly small yard, most of its fenced space taken up by a pool. Beyond the corrugated metal fence, the stubble-grass peak of the hill poked out. The grass was ghostly white in the moonlight. Brendan stood, mesmerised by the view, for a short moment. Which felt a longer than it must have been.

The moon felt strangely bright. He swore it he had never seen it so bright in Corviston. The whole tableau had a washed-out quality to it. He felt faint. Maybe he needed to drink more water. He took a long cold gulp from the glass he was holding, that Adrian had given him earlier. Did he feel a little better? Could he feel the blood rushing back up? He relaxed.

A tall woman emerged from the doorway. Straight dark hair, aquiline nose. Charmaine, Adrian had introduced her beforehand.

Brendan!" she planted a kiss on his cheek. "Sorry. I had something to attend to. I've heard so much about you. Adrian can't stop talking about you on the phone." He smelled her perfume. He knew a little bit about perfumes from a National Geographic magazine he had read in primary school and from working on spells. Regretfully the disconnected words floating around in his subconscious wouldn't be of any help with small talk.

Adrian seemed slightly taken aback by this. "Mum."

"You want anything to eat? Drink?" Brendan realised she looked nothing alike Adrian.

"I'm alright." Brendan brandished his glass of water. They followed her into the living room. There was a sunken den with couches surrounding a TV.

"Aiden! Bellan!" She called into the den. "Say hi to Brendan."

The cousins were as Adrian had described them. They barely looked up from the video game they were playing. "They're a bit spoiled. But basically good kids," Adrian had said of them on the way there.

Make an effort, he told himself. But obviously they had barely noticed him. So maybe it could wait. What had he been doing at that age? He had been focusing all his efforts on pleasing Beidzner. He had cut off ties from his old friends after he had dropped out. All except for Johnny. He hadn't realised it for some time afterwards, but they had taken that away from him. He felt the loss, but at the same time he knew there was nothing that would be able to truly heal it. There was no point in dwelling on it. The only possible solution was to move on.

"Come on," Charmaine said, trying to rouse them. "You've got a new visitor. Make him feel welcome. Get your eyes off that screen."

They mumbled in unison. Brendan didn't really know how to meet their eyes. She smiled at him. "You like the place?" Adrian looked at home here. "It was redone just a few years ago. Cleaned it right up. Before that it was a bit of a mess."

"Any photos?"

"Plenty." Adrian disappeared for a moment. When he came back he had a couple of thick photo albums under his arm.

"You can still see the line in the plaster." Adrian pointed up at the roof. "That's where the old house ended and the new addition started."

Brendan peered at the photos. If not for Adrian's guidance he would have had no idea the house in the photos was the same one he was standing in today. It was a fraction of the size and looked very much handmade.

"So where do you go on full moon?"

"There's a door out the back," Adrian replied, somewhat warily. He looked behind him as he talked.

"You don't worry about rogues and stuff?" Brendan regretted the choice of words almost immediately as they came out of his mouth but he bit his tongue too late.

"We are rogues," Adrian replied. Brendan bit his tongue. He should have worded the question a little better.

***

They sat down to dinner. The twins dug in right away, and so did Adrian.

The other family members had slowly filtered out of their quarters. Both of Adrian's grandparents. His uncle with the eyepatch. Charmaine tried her best to get the conversation going, but they didn't seem to be in the mood to talk. Brendan didn't mind. Hopefully there would be a next time.

Brendan piled his plate high, but he barely tasted the food. He was not just thinking about the abundance of the food, he was thinking about where it had come from, to an oasis in such a dry and barren and unforgiving place. He looked out the doors to the courtyard and pool outside and the metal fence and the barbed wire and the dark starry night beyond. So much of the landscape around him did not make sense. But yet he was breathing cool fresh air when many people living here could not. Where did the water come from? He imagined they must have their own reservoir somewhere in this little cluster of houses. One of those mountaintop ones.

"Where do you go to get... stuff?" he asked Adrian.

"The city. Sometimes it's easier just to fly to Corviston. There's a private airstrip not far from here. You can hear those aircraft. Most of those are the Alphas' private jets."

"You have your own jet?"

"No. But sometimes one of the pilots is going the same way as you are just to pick something up, and you can bum a ride."

"Where do they go to school?" Brendan had so many questions. He felt like he had discovered five new primary colours since the start of the day. He felt like he was going to explode. When they had set out he had his eyes set on the mission ahead, but now that was set far to the sidelines. He had planned tomorrow out already anyway.

"Like I did. They board in Laidlaw. But they're home right now because it's the weekend..."

***

After the meal they went out into the little courtyard to look at the stars. The twins went straight for the pool, even though it was a winter night. They had dared each other over dinner.

Brendan ignored them. He went over to the edge, to the door in the fence. He looked through the cutout where the latch was. It was just rolling plains of yellow grass bleached to a pale silver in the moonlight, the wind blowing the stalks around in waves that rippled up and down the undulating landscape. He maintained his gaze for a moment, trying to see any sudden movements.

Brendan took his eye away from the hole in the door. The breeze was quite strong here. He was getting cold. The others seemed not to have noticed him here.

He looked up. His eyes followed the trajectory of a plane in the sky, across the wispy clouds floating along high up that were faintly glowing in the light of the moon. The winds blowing freely across the plains pushed them along at a pace you had to stare slowly at to fully appreciate.