Leo feels like his head might explode. “What? Please give me his details, Mum. I’ll call him right now.”
To take advantage of an elderly woman like that is egregious. At least Neve hasn’t mentioned the prediction to her, and even if his mother has by chance read anything about “the Death Lady,” she must be unaware that Leo was on that flight, because she has said nothing.
“No, no, I’ll give him a few more weeks. I think he had an illness in the family. I guess if he really has disappeared we could sell his equipment on eBay,” says his mother. “I might make a profit. Well, I must go, darling, talk soon, tell the children if they agree to move to Tasmania I’ll give them one hundred dollars. Each! But they mustn’t tell their cousins.”
“We’re not bribing them.”
“Your hands are clean! I’m the one doing the bribing. Bye, darling!”
She’s gone. Leo returns to his computer screen.
Neve is “preparing a proposal” for this hypothetical move. She is “crunching the numbers.” She plans to have him unemployed by his birthday so he will not die in a workplace accident when he’s forty-three. Leo suspects Neve might have his letter of resignation already drafted and dated, awaiting his signature.
Should he just let all this happen?
Ridiculous.
He looks at the Post-it note stuck to his computer.
Rod Van Blair and a phone number, in Neve’s handwriting.
I know who you’d call, Leo.
She didn’t have to think about it. She didn’t check to make sure she had it right. They haven’t talked about Rod in years, but it’s like he’s always been front of mind for both of them.
He remembers how confused his parents were when Rod wasn’t at Leo’s thirtieth birthday party.
“Where’s Rod?” asked his dad, the only man at the party in a suit and tie, as he peered over Leo’s shoulder.
“He’s not here, Dad. We kind of lost touch.”
That’s what you say. You don’t say “we broke up” when a friendship ends. You don’t say “we’re estranged” if it’s not a family member. You say you “lost touch,” as if you carelessly misplaced your friend, as if it’s not one of your life’s greatest failures and regrets.
Leo hadn’t seen Rod in two years by then. He couldn’t believe he was having a thirtieth birthday party without him. He hadn’t enjoyed the party, and has refused to have one ever since. Parties are too stressful anyway.
“You what?” said his mother. “You did not lose touch. What happened?”
He never did tell his parents what happened.
The kids have sometimes asked about Rod when they look at the wedding photos. Rod was his best man and there are photos of them together at the reception, arms slung carelessly around each other’s shoulders, ties askew, rumpled shirts and hair, young unlined faces.
“Just an old friend,” said Leo. “We lost touch.”
“Why did you do that?” asked Bridie.
Yes, why did he do that?
Leo and Rod had met on their first day at Sydney University. They were both studying for a Bachelor of Engineering (Honors) in the Civil Engineering stream. Neither of them had gone to school in Sydney, so they both felt like outsiders when other students hollered the names of friends across the quadrangle. Rod was from regional Victoria and Leo was from Tasmania so they probably both felt like country bumpkins, although both would have denied that at the time.
They ended up sharing a terrace house near the university. Rod taught Leo how to make a curry. Leo taught Rod how to do laundry.
Rod played squash and one of his squash friends became sort of friends with Leo too. And it was at that sort-of-friend’s twenty-first that Leo caught sight of a tangle-haired girl wearing a Cartier watch. So basically Leo owes Rod his whole life.
When they were twenty-eight and had been each other’s best mates for over a decade, Rod fell for a beautiful woman who constantly spoke to Rod in such a dismissive way it was painful to hear. She was a wicked witch, it was clear to all, but Rod was besotted, which meant, as Neve said at the time: the situation needed to be handled sensitively. Leo tried to tiptoe. He dropped hints over many months. He said mildly, “She sometimes seems kind of critical of you, mate.” But nothing worked, and the relationship continued for over a year, and Leo had to watch as she sucked the lifeblood out of Rod; he was becoming less and less like the real Rod and more like a pale, anxious, second-guessing version of himself, which is why, one night at the pub, Leo lost patience. He did it out of love! But he’d had too much to drink and all his most unfortunate eldest-brother tendencies were on display and Rod responded like the defensive youngest brother he was, accusing Leo of being jealous, which, what the fuck, was an insult to Leo’s wife. Leo had no reason to be jealous! Rod should be jealous of him! They ended up in a yelling match outside the Lord Nelson Hotel. There was chest shoving and swearing, red contorted faces and a security guard saying, “Oi! You two! Stop it!” The memory still makes Leo feel ill.
Some people who were at the pub that night said Leo was in the right, some people said he was not. Alliances were formed. The alliances didn’t help, they only fed the fire.
Why didn’t he get on the phone the next day, apologize, and end the thing? Rod was the only one who mattered in that group of friends, the rest have all fallen by the wayside. Rod loved Neve; he wasn’t insulting her by calling Leo jealous. He was lashing out. He was in a really bad relationship and what he needed was Leo’s support and understanding.