‘Robert, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but August has been telling Eli a number of troubling things,’ Mrs Birkbeck says. ‘Traumatic things that are, I believe, themselves borne of trauma. Potentially harmful thoughts from a bright boy with an imagination too wild for his own good.’
‘All older brothers tell their younger brothers all kinds of bullshit,’ Dad says.
‘But Eli believes it all, Robert. Eli believes it because August believes it.’
‘Believes what?’ Dad asks, frustrated.
Her voice turns to a whisper we can hear only faintly through the floorboard cracks.
‘It would appear August has become convinced that he . . . ummm . . . I don’t know how to say this . . . ummm . . . he believes he died that night in the moon pool,’ she says. ‘He believes he died and came back. And I think he believes he’s died before and come back before. And maybe he believes he’s died like that and come back like that several times.’
A long pause in the kitchen. The sound of Dad lighting a smoke.
‘And it seems he told Eli that . . . well . . . he believes there are now other Augusts in other . . . places.’
‘Places?’ Dad echoes.
‘Yes,’ Mrs Birkbeck says.
‘What sort of places?’
‘Well, places beyond our understanding. Places that are found at the other end of the red telephone the boys talk about.’
‘What fuckin’ . . . Sorry . . . what red telephone?’ Dad barks, losing patience.
‘The boys say they hear voices. A man at the end of a red telephone.’
‘I have no fuckin’ idea what you’re on about.’
Mrs Birkbeck speaks now like she’s disciplining a six-year-old. ‘The red telephone that sits in the secret room beneath the house their mother shared with her partner, Lyle, who has inexplicably disappeared off the face of the earth.’
Dad takes a long drag. A long silence.
‘August hasn’t spoken since that night of the moon pool because he doesn’t want to risk letting slip the truth behind his great secret,’ Mrs Birkbeck says. ‘And Eli is adamant the magic red phone is true because he’s spoken to a man on the other end of the phone who knows things about him he couldn’t possibly know.’
Another long pause. And Dad laughs. He howls, in fact.
‘Oh, that’s fuckin’ priceless,’ he says. ‘That’s fuckin’ spectacular.’
I hear him slapping his knees.
‘I’m glad you can see the funny side,’ Mrs Birkbeck says.
‘And you believe that my boys truly believe all of this?’ Dad asks.
‘I believe both of their minds, quite some time ago perhaps, developed a complex and mixed belief system of real and imagined explanations for compounding moments of great trauma,’ she says. ‘I believe they are either deeply psychologically damaged or . . . or . . .’
She pauses.
‘Or what?’ Dad asks.
‘Or . . . it couldn’t hurt to consider the other explanation for it all,’ she says.
‘What’s that?’ Dad asks.
‘That they are more special than you and I could possibly understand,’ Mrs Birkbeck says. ‘Maybe they do hear things that are beyond their own understanding as well and this red phone they’re talking about is the only way they know how to make sense of the impossible.’
‘That’s fuckin’ ridiculous,’ Dad says.
‘Maybe so,’ Mrs Birkbeck says. ‘Whatever the case – however fantastical these theories are – my point is that I truly fear these beliefs, even if they were formed in the imagination, might one day cause great harm to August and Eli. What if August’s belief in what he calls “coming back” transfers itself to some mistaken sense of . . . invincibility.’
Dad chuckles.
‘I worry these thoughts have placed your boys on a path of recklessness, Robert.’
Dad dwells on this for a moment. The flint of his lighter striking. An exhalation of smoke.
‘Well, you don’t need to worry yourself about my boys, Mrs Birkbeck,’ Dad says.
‘I don’t?’
‘Nah,’ Dad says. ‘Because that’s all a pile of horseshit.’
‘How so?’ asks Mrs Birkbeck.
‘I mean August is nuts and bolts,’ Dad says.
‘Sorry, nuts and bolts?’
‘He’s straight up and down,’ Dad says. ‘I mean it sounds like Eli’s taking the piss. He’s spinnin’ you a fantastical bullshit yarn to pull himself outta some shit he got himself in. It’s a win-win. You believe it and you think he’s special. You don’t believe it and you think he’s fucked in the head but you still think he’s special. Look, he’s a storyteller. And I hate to tell