The phone summoned.
Angrily, it sounded to him.
GLORIA HOPE, the screen informed him in glaring Helvetica.
Buddy watched it in the palm of his hand, felt its panic. Couldn’t cope in that instant. So he let its plea go unanswered, until it lay silent, a useless piece of technology, a complicated instrument that would garble anything he had to say or hear via its incomprehensible circuitry. Not to be trusted, he judged.
The sun had hauled its molten mass over the hump of Thetis Island. How geocentric, he judged, out of sorts with its revelations. Since when had its rays become carcinogenic, the searing effulgence of a monstrous, vengeful diety. An x-ray demon that cooked you from the outside-in if you didn’t take precautions.
“Ding!”
“What’s going on!” Gloria demanded.
He groaned. As if I knew myself, he complained, but couldn’t leave it at that. She wanted answers, which meant Leanne had filled her head with vitriol, which meant he had to call soon, see if he could set things right.
First a piss. He levered himself out of the dining nook bench and stumbled into the bathroom, leaning against the cabinetry as he watched the contents of his bladder splash into the toilet.
You know, it’s never as bad as you think? An assuring voice advised, as Buddy made his way back into the dining nook.
“Go away!” he grumbled.
Harry Senior nodded from the opposite bench. “When it’s time,” he said.
“Now!”
“Not sure you’re in fit condition to be left on your own.”
Buddy laughed. “You’re not part of my solution, believe me!”
His companion nodded, shrewdly.
If I ignore him, he’ll disappear, Buddy figured.
Harry Senior obliged, fading, but not quite vanishing. A ghostly aberration disturbed the atmosphere where he had been, ripples in a fluid mist, distorting what lay beyond, like a mirage. Buddy picked up his mobile and punched in Gloria’s number, hoping to get her answering service.
“Dad?” she said.
“Hon?”
“What’s going on?”
“What has your mother told you?” he challenged gently.
“I want to hear what you have to say, Dad. I don’t want to play monkey in the middle.”
Buddy sighed.
The Truth, Harry Senior coached.
“Well, you know your mother and I have separated?” He waited. No response. “Well, it’s looking more like the separation is going to be permanent.”
“You’re having an affair?” she accused.
“I’ve met someone up here. We’ve become friends.”
The Truth.
“Friends?” Gloria sneered.
“Well I hope we can stay friends.”
The Truth.
“Mum didn’t hold anything back, Dad. I just want to hear your side of the story.”
“The facts don’t always add up to the truth, hon,” Buddy heard himself say. “There’s a whole lot of background, doesn’t show up in a surveillance photo.”
“Tell me about it!”
The Truth.
“Your mother and I have been separating for years. We’ve both tried to hold things together…”
“For me and Robbie! Don’t put that on us.”
“I’m not. For you, Robbie, and your mother and me. Love’s not something I can divvy up like a birthday cake, hon. I still love Mom, even if we don’t work together as a couple. I love you and I love Robbie. I love our family… so, yeah, your mother and I have tried to hold things together.”
“And now you’re saying ‘Fuck it!’?”
The Truth.
“No. I’m not the one pushing for a divorce, Gloria. I came up here, just to get away for a while. To think. Your mother changed the locks, remember? She sent my stuff up with Robbie in a bunch of garbage bags. She hired a P.I. to get some dirt on me.”
“And this woman?”
“She’s a pharmacist. I met her getting a prescription filled. We like each other. We’ve become friends.”
“That’s it?”
The Truth.
“I don’t know if that’s it, hon. I don’t have a clue, right now, what ‘it’ means, except I love you and Robbie, and I’m just trying to get through this shit without doing too much damage…”
Silence. He held the mobile at arms length. She’d ended the call.
The Truth.
Buddy looked across the table to the place where Harry Senior had wavered in the atmosphere. There was no sign of him now, the air having settled into an unaffected transparency. Listening to my own voice, Buddy reasoned. Taking my own advice…
“At least I didn’t out-and-out lie.”
A half-assed commendation if ever he’d heard one.