creeping inside and using a pillow to smother his son as he sleeps, but he walks on. Chris would wake and beat him senseless.
Back in the spare room he lifts the bottle of Lagavulin from the bedside table, pours a very small measure into his glass and drinks it slowly, then sinks down onto the bed.
Lying listening to the familiar creaks and stretches of his house at night, he understands the inevitability of his arrival at this place of utter desolation. How the last twenty years—his sobriety, meticulously paying his taxes, never getting so much as a parking ticket, throwing money and awkward affection at the Solomons kids—means nothing.
He and Beverley built a life on a cracked foundation, a life not without its trappings of success and glittery veneer. This big house had hosted its share of parties, blandly attractive white thirtysomethings eyeing one another’s spouses over their booze glasses, secure in the knowledge that if they strayed—and few did—it wouldn’t be far and it would be reassuringly familiar.
Lane had never strayed, bound to his wife by more than a social contract and the pooling of genes. She knew his secret, knew what made him different from the men around him, and no matter how light and bright and shiny it seemed, their life had at its center a darkness, and each night sleep took him to that dark place with its dreams of torn flesh and pleading eyes, and there was not a morning that he didn’t wake without the bitter tang of gasoline and blood in his nostrils.
When Lane closes his eyes he sees those three weather-beaten wooden crosses at the base of the oak tree, sees the road beyond that carves through bush and rock, sees the headlights of a pickup truck coming at speed and he’s at the wheel of that truck, twenty-four years old, his blood hot with weed and whiskey and many bumps of very pure cocaine.
Beverley was at his side. Oh-so-fuckable Bev with the tight little body and the well-bred voice, getting him hard as she leaned over and whispered filth in his ear. Way after midnight they’d quit a party in Simonstown—surfers and sailors and students—and were driving to Uncle John’s place, the old man gone walkabout in the Kalahari for two weeks. He ’d left them the run of his house, a stock of beer and the keys to his Toyota pickup, all bull-bars and fat tires. The Panzer, Bev called it.
Lane driving with his foot flat to the floor, one hand on the wheel, the other around Bev’s shoulders, pulling her to him, thinking only of getting her into Uncle John’s bed, his hard-on throbbing painfully against the buttons of his Levis.
Bev shouted “Michael!” as he jumped the stop sign, her voice lost in the sound of tearing metal and exploding glass.
Too late Lane hit the brakes and the truck spun three-sixty degrees in a scream of rubber before it halted, shaking on it springs, headlights spearing the crumpled wreck of a small car that had been flung with massive violence at the oak tree, wrapped like crumpled foil around it’s trunk, smoke and steam hanging low in the beams of the Toyota.
Sudden quiet, just the ragged idling of the truck’s engine and the smack of a wheel ripped free from the car, lurching like a gimp on its bent rim down the road toward them, before it collapsed on its side and lay still.
“Jesus,” Lane said , “are you okay?”
“Yes,” Beverley said. “Drive, Michael. Get us out of here.”
But he didn’t. He opened his door and stepped down onto the asphalt, shocked sober, his senses suddenly hyper-alert. He could hear his shoes on the gravel, the call of a bird, the distant fizz of the surf, invisible through the dark bush.
As Lan e walked toward the mangled car, his feet crunching on a confetti of broken glass, the smell of gasoline was overwhelming and when he approached the driver’s window he smelled something else, something earthy and metallic.
He leaned down and looked and gagged. A man was impaled on the steering wheel, his neck
Back in the spare room he lifts the bottle of Lagavulin from the bedside table, pours a very small measure into his glass and drinks it slowly, then sinks down onto the bed.
Lying listening to the familiar creaks and stretches of his house at night, he understands the inevitability of his arrival at this place of utter desolation. How the last twenty years—his sobriety, meticulously paying his taxes, never getting so much as a parking ticket, throwing money and awkward affection at the Solomons kids—means nothing.
He and Beverley built a life on a cracked foundation, a life not without its trappings of success and glittery veneer. This big house had hosted its share of parties, blandly attractive white thirtysomethings eyeing one another’s spouses over their booze glasses, secure in the knowledge that if they strayed—and few did—it wouldn’t be far and it would be reassuringly familiar.
Lane had never strayed, bound to his wife by more than a social contract and the pooling of genes. She knew his secret, knew what made him different from the men around him, and no matter how light and bright and shiny it seemed, their life had at its center a darkness, and each night sleep took him to that dark place with its dreams of torn flesh and pleading eyes, and there was not a morning that he didn’t wake without the bitter tang of gasoline and blood in his nostrils.
When Lane closes his eyes he sees those three weather-beaten wooden crosses at the base of the oak tree, sees the road beyond that carves through bush and rock, sees the headlights of a pickup truck coming at speed and he’s at the wheel of that truck, twenty-four years old, his blood hot with weed and whiskey and many bumps of very pure cocaine.
Beverley was at his side. Oh-so-fuckable Bev with the tight little body and the well-bred voice, getting him hard as she leaned over and whispered filth in his ear. Way after midnight they’d quit a party in Simonstown—surfers and sailors and students—and were driving to Uncle John’s place, the old man gone walkabout in the Kalahari for two weeks. He ’d left them the run of his house, a stock of beer and the keys to his Toyota pickup, all bull-bars and fat tires. The Panzer, Bev called it.
Lane driving with his foot flat to the floor, one hand on the wheel, the other around Bev’s shoulders, pulling her to him, thinking only of getting her into Uncle John’s bed, his hard-on throbbing painfully against the buttons of his Levis.
Bev shouted “Michael!” as he jumped the stop sign, her voice lost in the sound of tearing metal and exploding glass.
Too late Lane hit the brakes and the truck spun three-sixty degrees in a scream of rubber before it halted, shaking on it springs, headlights spearing the crumpled wreck of a small car that had been flung with massive violence at the oak tree, wrapped like crumpled foil around it’s trunk, smoke and steam hanging low in the beams of the Toyota.
Sudden quiet, just the ragged idling of the truck’s engine and the smack of a wheel ripped free from the car, lurching like a gimp on its bent rim down the road toward them, before it collapsed on its side and lay still.
“Jesus,” Lane said , “are you okay?”
“Yes,” Beverley said. “Drive, Michael. Get us out of here.”
But he didn’t. He opened his door and stepped down onto the asphalt, shocked sober, his senses suddenly hyper-alert. He could hear his shoes on the gravel, the call of a bird, the distant fizz of the surf, invisible through the dark bush.
As Lan e walked toward the mangled car, his feet crunching on a confetti of broken glass, the smell of gasoline was overwhelming and when he approached the driver’s window he smelled something else, something earthy and metallic.
He leaned down and looked and gagged. A man was impaled on the steering wheel, his neck
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