The Butt Read Online Free PDF Page B

frame rattled on the brick wall. Dixie’s hairstyle was now all mashed up, like a bird’s nest found lying by the roots of a tree. She bit her lip. Tears lay in her eye sockets – misery bifocals. She bit her knuckles and spluttered, ‘You . . . you!’ Then she turned abruptly, mashing the halo still further, and bolted into the back bedroom, where, after a few more seconds, Tom heard her begin to wail, with all the mundane anguish of an ambulance siren.
    Tommy Junior remained standing exactly where he was, gurning at his games console.
    Later on, when the kids had cooled off in the Mimosa’s pool, the Brodzinskis walked across the stretch of park to the ’nade.
    When they’d first arrived in Vance, three weeks before, the prospect had both charmed and reassured Tom: the neatly mown grass and the oval beds of tropical shrubbery, which spread smoothly down to the ’nade, the long boardwalk that ran clear around Vance Bay, its supporting piles sunk deep in the muddy foreshore.
    Now, however, he was conscious only of what an alien imposition this all was: the flowers were too lurid and fleshy, the heavily irrigated grass too green. As for the ’nade, while the weathered wood used to build it was meant to make the serpentine structure harmonize with its surroundings, this effect was ruined by the regularly spaced ‘information points’ – each with its perspex rain hood, each blazoned with a stentorian NO SMOKING sign, complete with obligatory list of grave penalties.
    Alongside the ’nade, there was a beautifully equipped playground. Bright, primary-coloured climbing frames, see-saws and swings stood in safety pits of fine white sand. There was even a water play area, where concealed jets created an artificial stream. Yet, the high-flown municipal pride in inclusiveness, which had even produced a swing for wheelchair-bound children, now seemed strange to Tom, set beside the brackish ooze of the bay, in which wallowed the occasional salt-water crocodile or prehistoric-looking bird.
    As they ate their burgers and fries on one of the trestle tables by the café, Martha pointed out what Tom had known only too well – even as he’d wheedled the airline clerk – yet hadn’t dared to acknowledge to himself. ‘There are only two alternatives, Tom,’ she began.
    And he, forlornly, tried to stop her, with a ‘Perhaps we should discuss this in private. . . ?’
    Which she waved away with ‘The kids may as well hear it right now. It’s a valuable lesson for them’ – she turned to include all the children in the homily – ‘about how all our actions have consequences. Your daddy has signed a bond, see, and that bond is his word, because he’s an honest man; and because he’s given his word, he’ll have to stay here for a few more days, so he can sort out this business with Mr Lincoln, the man he injured.
    ‘OK. But if we want to get home in time for you guys to start school, and me to start work’ – here, Martha darted a particularly sharp look at Tom, who, she maintained, never accorded her career the same importance that he attached to his own – ‘then we’ll have to go without him. See’ – she turned to Tom again – ‘wasn’t that easy?’
    Jeremy squeezed a French fry between his grubby fingers, until it ejaculated white pulp on to his ketchup-smeared paper plate.
    ‘What’s a bond?’ he said.

    On leaving his family, Tom went straight to the CellPoint store that he’d spotted the day before. It was half a mile along Dundas Boulevard, the wide straight avenue that ran from the terracotta block of the Mimosa into the downtown area of Vance.
    The CellPoint store, with its plate-glass window plastered with blue and orange decals, and its modular plastic stands that held the gleaming clam shells of the cellphones, was deeply comforting to Tom. There was an outlet exactly like it in the mall near their home town of Milford.
    The CellPoint store spoke to him of efficient global communications