me one of those looks that says, You’ll help her cook these lamb shanks because it means something to her and you’ll enjoy it and if you don’t I’m gonna cave your skull in.
We make the lamb shanks, slow-cook them for a day just like little iddy widdy Teddy likes them.
Teddy leaves the house at midday, marches through the kitchen.
‘Where you going?’ Mum asks.
He says nothing.
‘Can you be back for dinner at six?’ she says.
Nothing.
‘We’re making you lamb shanks,’ she says.
Say something, you fuck.
‘With the red wine sauce, just how you like ’em,’ Mum says. Mum’s smile. Look at that smile, Teddy. Look at that sun inside her. Teddy? Teddy?
Nothing. He walks out of the kitchen, down the back stairs. Down, down, down, the devil going down and the devil’s sunshine girl doing her best to laugh it off.
We slow-cook the lamb shanks in a steel pot that once belonged to Teddy’s grandmother, big enough to take a bubble bath in. We cook them for half a day and then some, turn them every hour in a sauce made of red wine, garlic, thyme, four bay leaves, chopped onions, carrots and celery sticks. By the time it comes to taste testing, pieces of lamb are falling off those shanks like chocolate in the hands of that ethereal lady in white from the Flake ad who August has a crush on.
*
Teddy doesn’t make it back by 6 p.m. We’ve already started eating at the dining room table when he pads in two hours later.
‘Yours is in the oven,’ Mum says.
He stares at us. Assesses us. August and I can smell the piss on him the minute he sits down at the table. And something else inside him. Speed, maybe. The trucker’s little helper on a long-haul drive up to Cairns. His eyes can’t fix on us and he’s breathing loud and he keeps opening and closing his mouth like he’s thirsty, thick white balls of saliva pooling in the corners of his lips. Mum goes to the kitchen to serve his meal and he stares at August across the table.
‘How was your day, Teddy?’ I ask.
But he does not answer, he just keeps staring at August, who has his head down in his plate, dragging flakes of lamb through red wine sauce and mashed potato.
‘What’s that?’ Teddy says, staring at August. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you.’
‘He didn’t say anything, Teddy,’ I say.
He leans in closer to August, heaving his fat stomach onto the table so far that his Winfield Reds fall out of the pocket of his blue denim work shirt.
‘Can you repeat that for me? Maybe a little louder this time.’
He turns his left ear theatrically to August.
‘No, no, I understand, mate,’ Teddy shrugs. ‘I’d be lost for words too, if my old man did that to me.’
My brother looks up at the betrayer and smiles. Teddy rests back in his dining chair and Mum places his meal in front of him.
‘We’re glad you made it,’ Mum says.
He forks some mash like a child. Bites into a shank like a shark. He looks across at August again.
‘You know what his problem is, don’t you?’ he says.
‘Let’s just eat our dinner, hey, Teddy,’ Mum says.
‘You indulged this vow-of-silence bullshit,’ Teddy says. ‘You made these boys as crazy as their fuck-up father.’
‘All right, Teddy, that’s enough,’ Mum says.
August looks up again at Teddy. August is not smiling this time. He’s just studying Teddy.
‘I gotta hand it to you, boys,’ Teddy says. ‘It sure is brave of ya to sleep under the same roof as the bloke who tried to drive you into a fuckin’ dam.’
Then he screams, too. Louder than Mum. ‘Nup, nup,’ he barks. ‘This was my dad’s dinner table. My dad built this fuckin’ table and now it’s my fuckin’ table and my dad was a good fuckin’ man and he raised me right and I’ll say what the fuck I want at my fuckin’ table.’ He bites another lamb shank like he’s biting the flesh from my left forearm.
‘Nup, nup,’ he shouts. ‘You can all fuck off.’
He stands. ‘You don’t deserve to sit at this table. Get away from my table. You’re not worthy of this table, you fuckin’ crazies.’
Mum stands now. ‘Boys, we can finish our meals in the kitchen,’ she says, her hands lifting up her dinner plate. Then Teddy’s hand smacks the plate loudly back down on the