"Ed?" she asks.
I'm in the cab now and wind down the window. "Sophie?"
"Could you?" Her voice steps politely from her mouth. "Could you tell me what I can give to you? You've given me so much."
"I've given you nothing," I tell her.
But she knows me well enough.
Nothing was an empty shoe box, but we'd never trade it.
We both know.
The steering wheel's warm as I drive off.
The last card I deliver is to Father O'Reilly, who seems to be having a party at his place for all the hopeless cases on his street. Those guys who tried to get my jacket and my nonexistent money and cigarettes are there, all eating sausage sandwiches with lots of sauce and onions.
"Hey, look." One points me out. I think it's Joe. "It's Ed!" He tries to find the father. "Hey, Father!" he calls, spitting out half his sandwich with the words. "Ed's here!"
Father O'Reilly comes hurrying over and says, "And here he is--the man who made all the difference to the year. I've been trying to call you."
"I've been a bit busy, Father."
"Ah yes." He nods. "Your mission." He pulls me aside and says, "Look, I just want to thank you again, Ed."
I know I should feel good about that, but I don't. "I'm not here to be thanked, Father. I was just bringing you a lousy Christmas card."
"Well, I thank you anyway, boy."
I'm frustrated because of my final ace.
Hearts, of all things to be last.
I expected spades.
I got hearts, and for some reason, this feels the most dangerous of them all.
People die of broken hearts. They have heart attacks. And it's the heart that hurts most when things go wrong and fall apart.
When I walk back onto the street, the father intuits my apprehension. He says, "It's still not over, is it?" He knows he was just one piece of what I have to do. One message of the given hand.
"No, Father," I reply. "It's not over."
"You'll be all right," he says to me.
"No," I tell him, "I won't. I won't be okay just for the sake of it. Not anymore."
It's true.
If I'm ever going to be okay, I'll have to earn it.
The card still sits in my pocket as I wish the father a merry Christmas and move on into the evening. I feel the Ace of Hearts sway inside my pocket. It leans forward, trying to get closer to the air and the world I have to face.
"Where to?" I ask my first pickup the next day, but I can't hear the answer. All I can hear is the sound of the hearts again, shouting and screaming and beating through my ears.
Faster.
Faster.
There is no engine.
There's no ticktock of the blinker, no voice of the customer, and no sizzle of the traffic. Only hearts.
In my pocket.
In my ears.
In my pants.
On my skin. On my breath.
They're in the inside of the inside of me.
"Just hearts," I say, "everywhere," but my customer has no idea what I'm talking about.
"Here'll do," she says.
She's about forty and wears deodorant that smells like sweet smoke and makeup the color of roses. When she hands me the money, she speaks, looking at me in the mirror.
"Merry Christmas," she says.
Her voice sounds like hearts.
I've bought everything I need to buy. More alcohol than food, of course, and by the time everyone shows up for Christmas Eve, my shack smells like turkey, coleslaw, and, of course, the Doorman. For a while, the turkey overpowers him, but the smell of that dog can get to anything.
First to show up is Audrey.
She brings a bottle and some biscuits she's made.
"Sorry, Ed," she tells me as she comes in. "I can't stay too long." She kisses me on the cheek. "Simon's got this thing on with his mates and he wants me to go."
"Do you want to go?" I ask, though I know she does. Why would you prefer to stay with three positively pointless blokes and a filthy dog? She'd be crazy to stay with us.
Audrey answers. "Of course. You know I wouldn't do anything I don't want to."
"That's true," I reply. It is.
We start to drink as Ritchie comes in next. We hear his bike from the top of the street, and when he pulls in, he calls out for us to open the door for him. He carries in a big cooler stocked with prawns, salmon, and sliced lemons.
"Not bad, huh?" He drops it. "The least I could do."
"How'd you get it here?" I ask.
"What?"
"The cooler? You know, with the bike?"
"Oh--I strapped it on back. I was practically standing up the whole way. The cooler took up half my seat." Ritchie winks at us, generously. "It was worth it, though." Half his dole check would have gone into the contents of that cooler.
Now we wait.
For Marv.
"I bet he doesn't show up," Ritchie says once he's settled in. His hand feels at the scratchy whiskers on his face, and his muddy hair is as unwashed and coarse as ever. Amusement is his overriding expression. He's looking forward to this. Sipping a beer and sitting on the couch, he uses the Doorman as a footstool. He's lazy and lanky, Ritchie, lying there with his feet extended in comfort. Somehow, he looks gracious.
"Oh, he's showing up all right," I affirm. "If he doesn't, I'll drag the Doorman to his doorstep and make him kiss him right there and then." I put down my drink. "I haven't looked forward to Christmas like this for years."
"Me, too," Ritchie replies. He can barely wait.
"Plus, it's a free feed," I continue. "Marv might have forty grand in the bank but he still can't keep himself from freeloading. Believe me. He'll come."
"The tight arse," Ritchie affirms. This is Christmas spirit in its purest form.
"Should we call him?" Audrey suggests.
"No. Let him come to us," Ritchie says with a smirk, and I can smell it. This is going to be great. He looks down at the dog and says, "You all pumped up for the big one, Doorman?" The Doorman looks up as if to say, Just what the hell are you on about, mate? No one's told him about what's still to come tonight. The poor dog. Nobody asked him if it was okay.
Finally, Marv walks in, empty-handed.
"Merry Christmas," he says.
"Yeah, yeah," I say. "Same to you." I point now to his empty hands. "Jeez, you're a generous bastard, aren't you?"
But I know how Marv thinks.
He's decided that if he has to kiss the Doorman, that's more than enough for him to do this year. I can also tell he's still clinging to a faint hope that we all might have forgotten.
Ritchie destroys all notions of that immediately.
He stands up and says, "Well, Marv?" He's grinning.
"Well what?"
"You know," Audrey chimes in.
"No," Marv persists, "I don't."
"Now, don't you give me the shits." Ritchie lays down the law. "You know it. We know it." He's enjoying this. I almost expect him to rub his hands together with delight. "Marv," he announces, "you will kiss this dog." He motions to the Doorman. "And when you kiss him, you're going to like it. You're going to do it with a big bloody smile on your face or else we'll make you do it again, and again, and--"
"All right!" Marv snarls. He reminds me of a little kid not getting his own way. "On top of the head, right?"
"Ohh no," Ritchie asserts. He stands up, relishing every minute of this. "I believe the agreement was that you'd kiss him right on the lips, and that's just"--he points his finger at Marv--"where you're going to do it."
The Doorman looks up.
He looks uneasy as we all watch him.
"You poor fella," Ritchie states.
Marv sulks. "I know."
"Not you," Ritchie charges. "Him!" And he throws his head toward the dog.
"All right," Audrey says. "No messing about now." She hands me my camera. "Off you go, Marv. He's all yours."
With the weight of the world on his shoulders, Marv
bends down in horror and finally brings himself to get close to the Doorman's face. The Doorman looks nervous enough to cry--black and gold fur and watery eyes.
"Does he have to have his tongue out like that?" Marv asks me.
"He's a dog," I say. "What more do you want from him?"
Copiously disgruntled, Marv eventually does it. He leans in and kisses the Doorman on the snout, just long enough for me to take the photo and for Audrey and Ritchie to cheer, clap, and crack up.
"That wasn't so hard now, was it?" Ritchie says, but Marv's gone straight to the bathroom.
The poor Doorman.
I give him a kiss myself, on the forehead, and a prime piece of turkey.
Thanks, Ed. He smiles.
The Doorman's got a nice smile.
We manage to get Marv to loosen up and laugh a bit later, though he still complains of tasting the Doorman on his lips.
We all eat and drink and play some cards until a knock at the door brings the boyfriend in. He drinks with us awhile and eats some prawns. He's a nice guy, I decide, but I can tell by looking. Audrey doesn't love him.
I guess that's the point.
After Audrey's gone, we decide not to cry in our beer. Ritchie, Marv, and I eat up, drink up, and go wandering through town. There's a bonfire lighting up the top of Main Street, and that's the way we head.
For a while, it's hard to walk straight, but by the time we make it, we're all pretty sober.
It's a good night.
People dancing.
Loud talking.
A few people fighting.
It's always the way at Christmas. The whole year's tension comes to a head.
At the fire, I see Angie Carusso and her kids, or rather, they come over to me.
There's a tap on my leg and when I look down I see one of her boys. The one that always cries.
"Hey, mister?" he says.
When I turn around, I see Angie Carusso holding an ice cream. She offers it to me and says, "Merry Christmas, Ed." I take it.
"Thanks," I say. "Just what I needed."
"Sometimes we all do." Her happiness at being able to return a small favor is obvious.
I take a bite and ask, "So how are you, Angie?"
"Ah..." She looks at the kids and now back at me. "I'm surviving, Ed. Sometimes that's enough." She recalls something. "Thanks for the card, by the way." Slowly, Angie begins to move on.
"No worries," I call after her. "Enjoy the night."
"Enjoy the ice cream," she answers. She walks alongside the fire.
"What was all that about?" asks Marv.
"Just a girl I know."
I've never been given an ice cream for Christmas before.
Watching the fire, I let the sweet cool of it soak into my lips.
Behind me, I hear a father talking to his son.
"Do that again," he says, "and I'll kick your arse so hard you'll fall into the fire." His voice sweetens sardonically. "And we wouldn't want that now, would we? Santa won't be too impressed with that, will he now? No, he won't."
Marv, Ritchie, and I all enjoy hearing that.
"Ahhh," Ritchie sighs happily. "This is what Christmas is all about."
We've all heard that from our fathers. At least once.
I think of my own father, dead and buried. My first Christmas without him.
"Merry Christmas, Dad," I say, and I make sure to keep my eyes out of the fire.
The ice cream melts to my fingers.
As the night moves on and blurs toward Christmas morning, Marv, Ritchie, and I become separated. The crowd's thick, and once we lose each other, it's all over.
I go back through town and visit my father's grave and stay there a long time. From the cemetery, I see a small glow that's the fire, and I sit there, looking at the gravestone with my father's name on it.
I cried at his funeral.
I let the tears trample my face in complete silence, guilty that I couldn't even summon the courage to speak about him. I knew everyone there was only thinking about what a drunk he was, while I was remembering the other things as well.
"He was a gentleman," I whisper now.
If only I could have said that on the day, I think, because my father never had a bad word for anybody or a true act of unkindness. Certainly, he never achieved much, and he disappointed my mother with broken promises, but I don't think he deserved not a word from anyone in his family that day.
"I'm sorry," I tell him now as I get up to leave. "I'm so sorry, Dad."
I walk away, afraid.
Afraid because I don't want my own funeral to be that forlorn and empty.
I want words at my funeral.
But I guess that means you need life in your life.
Walking now.
Just walking.
When I make it home, I find Marv asleep in the backseat of his car and Ritchie sitting on my porch. His legs are out straight, and he leans back against the fibro. On closer inspection, I find that Ritchie's also asleep. I tug at his sleeve.
"Ritchie," I whisper. "Wake up."
His eyes slap open.
"What?" he says, almost in panic. "What?"
"You're asleep on my porch," I tell him. "You better get home."
He shakes himself awake now, looks at the half-moon, and says, "I left my keys on your kitchen table."
"Come on." I drop my hand, he takes it, and I help him up.
Inside, I find it's a few minutes past three o'clock.
Ritchie's fingers curl around the keys.
"You want anything?" I ask. "Drink, food, coffee?"
"No, thanks."
But he doesn't leave, either.
For a moment, we stand awkwardly, until finally Ritchie looks just past me and says, "I don't feel like going home tonight, Ed."
I catch a dent of sadness in his eyes, but it disappears immediately as Ritchie quickly smooths it over. He only looks at the keys now, and I wonder what lurks beneath the cool, calm exterior of my friend. I wonder tiredly what could ever bother someone as laid-back as Ritchie.
His eyes drag themselves up again to mine.
"Sure," I tell him. "Stay here the night."
Ritchie sits down at the table.
"Thanks, Ed," he says. "Hey, Doorman."
The Doorman has walked into the kitchen as I go out to get Marv.
For a moment I consider leaving him out in the car, but Christmas spirit can even make its way to someone like me.
I attempt to knock on the window, but my hand goes right through.
Of course.
There is no window.
Marv still hasn't had it fixed since the bungled bank robbery. I think he got a quote for it, but the guy said the window would end up being worth more than the car.
He sleeps with his head twisted in his hands, and the mosquitoes are queuing up for his blood.
The front door's unlocked, so I open it and matter-of-factly blow the horn.
"Christ!" Marv shrieks.
"Come inside," I tell him. Soon after, I hear the car door open and slam and the scuffing of his feet behind me.
Ritchie gets the couch, Marv takes my bed, and I decide to stay in the kitchen. I tell Marv I wouldn't have slept anyway, and he's quite gracious in accepting the bed.
"Thanks, Ed."
Before he goes in, I take my opportunity, walk inside the room, and retrieve all the cards from the drawer next to the bed. The Tatupu stone is also there.
In the kitchen, I go through them, reading them all again, though the fatigue in my eyes makes the words swap and turn and juggle. I feel eroded.
In moments of awakeness, I remember the diamonds, relive the clubs, and even smile about the spades.
I worry about the hearts.
I don't want to sleep in case I dream them.
Tradition can be a dirty word, especially around Christmas.
Families all over the globe get together and enjoy each other's company for all of a few minutes. For an hour, they endure each othe
r. After that, they just manage to stomach each other.
I go over to Ma's place after an uneventful morning with Ritchie and Marv. All we did was eat leftovers from the night before and play a few games of Annoyance. It wasn't the same without Audrey, and it didn't take long for us to pack up and for the other two to leave.
The usual agreement with my family is for a twelve o'clock meeting time at Ma's place.
My sisters are there with their kids and husbands, and Tommy's shown up with a stunning girl he's managed to pick up at university.
"This is Ingrid," he introduces her, and I must say, Ingrid is calendar-worthy. She has long brown hair, a lovely tanned face, and a body I'd let myself dissolve in.
"Nice to meet you," she says. Lovely voice, too. "I've heard a lot about you, Ed." She's lying, of course, and I decide not to go along with it. This year I simply don't have the strength.
I say, "No you haven't, Ingrid," but I remain pleasant as I say it. I'm almost shy. She's too beautiful to get annoyed with. Beautiful girls get away with murder.
"Oh, you're here," says Ma when she sees me.
"Merry Christmas, Ma!" I shout excitedly, and I'm sure everyone picks up on the sarcasm in my voice.
We eat.
We give presents.
I give Leigh's and Katherine's kids a hundred airplane rides and piggybacks, or at least until I can't stand up anymore.
I also catch Tommy with his hands all over Ingrid in the lounge room. Right near the famous cedar coffee table.
"Shit--sorry," and I back away from the room.
Good luck to him.
By quarter to four, it's time to go and pick up Milla. I kiss my sisters, shake the hands of my brothers-in-law, and say a final goodbye to the kids.
"Last to get here, first to leave," says Ma, blowing out some cigarette smoke. She smokes a lot at Christmas. "And he lives the closest," which nearly makes me throw my temper from my skin and hurl it at her.
Cheating on Dad, I think. Insulting me at every turn.
I want so much to verbally abuse this woman standing there in the kitchen, sucking in smoke, and pouring it out from her lungs.
Instead, I look right at her.
I speak through the warm mist.
"The smoking makes you ugly," I say, and I walk out, leaving her stranded among the haze.
On the front lawn as I leave, I'm called back twice. First by Tommy, then Ma.
Tommy comes out and says, "You doing all right, Ed?"