beside each other in the back of the cab, taken Tom’s sweaty hand in her own cool one and given it a series of rhythmic squeezes, as if seeking to pump into him a little of her steely resolve.
However, when Tom raised the issue of Swai-Phillips, Martha’s expression hardened. She turned away from him, completed the check-in procedure, then sent the kids over to the gift shop with a couple of bills. Motioning to Tom, she led him in the opposite direction, towards a towering shrubbery: entire trees, strung with creepers, were planted in an enormous container, together with a basalt boulder.
Once they were concealed behind this, Martha let him have it. ‘I understand you made a mistake, Tom,’ she began reasonably enough, ‘but the way you insist on compounding it is beyond me. It’s like you’ve got some kinda urge to drag yourself down – and the rest of us with you. Jesus Christ!’ she spat, then gnawed with perfect teeth at the heel of her hand, a pathetic signal of distress that Tom couldn’t remember her making since the dark days, shortly after they’d adopted Tommy Junior, and he was – albeit tentatively – being diagnosed.
‘I – I . . . I’m not sure I know . . .’ He groped for the right formula to appease her. ‘I mean, I thought you – you were angry when I was rude to him, to Swai-Phillips.’
‘Jesus-fucking-Christ!’ she spat again. ‘I wanted you to be polite to the man, not sign away our entire fucking livelihood to him. Don’t you get anything? Don’t you realize where you are? These people are laughing at you – laughing all the way to the fucking bank.’
Tom ran a hand over his brush-cut hair; its thickness reassured him, and his headache had succumbed to two hefty painkillers. He felt gutsy enough to come back at her: ‘Look, Martha, maybe you’re right, in part, but I do know where I am – right here, and Swai-Phillips is a local attorney, he knows all about this local stuff, the way native and codified laws work together. Shit, even Adams, the Consul, he says Swai-Phillips is the man in Vance – or one of them.’
‘The man, the man,’ Martha mocked him. ‘And what does that make you, a man’s man? No, lissen to me, Tom. I told you before we came here to read those books, really read them, not just drift off over them ’cause you’d had your evening toke and your Seven and fucking Seven. This is a big, dangerous, confused country, and these people are not your friends – none of them.
‘While you were getting in with them, I was making my own inquiries. Seems Adams hasn’t been with the State Department for over ten years – he’s just the Honorary Consul, he hasn’t got any more leverage than you.’
Tom was unmanned. He stood face down to the polished floor of the terminal. The scissoring brushes wielded by a downtrodden-looking Tugganarong pushed a sausage of lint past where they stood.
Eventually, he said what he thought she wanted to hear: ‘What should I do, then?’
Martha pursed her lips; her long neck kinked in irritation. It had been the wrong thing to say.
‘Do? I dunno, Tom, but if I was you, I’d at least check with the embassy down south. If they can’t advise you by phone, I’d get on a goddamn flight and go see them. You’ve got bail, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure if–’ He was going to explain about state and federal jurisdictions in this part of the world, thereby demonstrating that he wasn’t completely ignorant.
After twenty years of marriage Martha could anticipate this from tone alone. ‘One thing I need you to realize, Tom, is this: this is all your own doing, one hundred per cent. You’ve screwed this one up, just like you screwed up that real estate business in Munnings, and my goddamn brother’s health insurance.’
‘That–’
‘I don’t want to hear it. You’ve screwed this up like you’ve screwed up your relationship with Dixie, with Tommy Junior, and the way you’re on target to do the
However, when Tom raised the issue of Swai-Phillips, Martha’s expression hardened. She turned away from him, completed the check-in procedure, then sent the kids over to the gift shop with a couple of bills. Motioning to Tom, she led him in the opposite direction, towards a towering shrubbery: entire trees, strung with creepers, were planted in an enormous container, together with a basalt boulder.
Once they were concealed behind this, Martha let him have it. ‘I understand you made a mistake, Tom,’ she began reasonably enough, ‘but the way you insist on compounding it is beyond me. It’s like you’ve got some kinda urge to drag yourself down – and the rest of us with you. Jesus Christ!’ she spat, then gnawed with perfect teeth at the heel of her hand, a pathetic signal of distress that Tom couldn’t remember her making since the dark days, shortly after they’d adopted Tommy Junior, and he was – albeit tentatively – being diagnosed.
‘I – I . . . I’m not sure I know . . .’ He groped for the right formula to appease her. ‘I mean, I thought you – you were angry when I was rude to him, to Swai-Phillips.’
‘Jesus-fucking-Christ!’ she spat again. ‘I wanted you to be polite to the man, not sign away our entire fucking livelihood to him. Don’t you get anything? Don’t you realize where you are? These people are laughing at you – laughing all the way to the fucking bank.’
Tom ran a hand over his brush-cut hair; its thickness reassured him, and his headache had succumbed to two hefty painkillers. He felt gutsy enough to come back at her: ‘Look, Martha, maybe you’re right, in part, but I do know where I am – right here, and Swai-Phillips is a local attorney, he knows all about this local stuff, the way native and codified laws work together. Shit, even Adams, the Consul, he says Swai-Phillips is the man in Vance – or one of them.’
‘The man, the man,’ Martha mocked him. ‘And what does that make you, a man’s man? No, lissen to me, Tom. I told you before we came here to read those books, really read them, not just drift off over them ’cause you’d had your evening toke and your Seven and fucking Seven. This is a big, dangerous, confused country, and these people are not your friends – none of them.
‘While you were getting in with them, I was making my own inquiries. Seems Adams hasn’t been with the State Department for over ten years – he’s just the Honorary Consul, he hasn’t got any more leverage than you.’
Tom was unmanned. He stood face down to the polished floor of the terminal. The scissoring brushes wielded by a downtrodden-looking Tugganarong pushed a sausage of lint past where they stood.
Eventually, he said what he thought she wanted to hear: ‘What should I do, then?’
Martha pursed her lips; her long neck kinked in irritation. It had been the wrong thing to say.
‘Do? I dunno, Tom, but if I was you, I’d at least check with the embassy down south. If they can’t advise you by phone, I’d get on a goddamn flight and go see them. You’ve got bail, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure if–’ He was going to explain about state and federal jurisdictions in this part of the world, thereby demonstrating that he wasn’t completely ignorant.
After twenty years of marriage Martha could anticipate this from tone alone. ‘One thing I need you to realize, Tom, is this: this is all your own doing, one hundred per cent. You’ve screwed this one up, just like you screwed up that real estate business in Munnings, and my goddamn brother’s health insurance.’
‘That–’
‘I don’t want to hear it. You’ve screwed this up like you’ve screwed up your relationship with Dixie, with Tommy Junior, and the way you’re on target to do the
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