The Parable of the Mustard Seed Read online

  David, always so calm and level-headed. John wondered if that was what was keeping him afloat now, or if it was more than that. Because David had Tee, didn’t he? He had someone at his side, someone who loved him, someone holding his hand when he stumbled. What did John have to go home to except a silent, empty apartment?

  “I love him, Tama,” he said to his dad’s headstone. “I love him, and I want him, and I know he wants me too, but we can’t. We can’t. Because if it went wrong, it’d hurt him too much. I can’t give him that, and then maybe one day take it away from him. I can’t risk it. I can’t risk him.”

  He closed his stinging eyes, and reached out to run his fingers over the top edge of the headstone.

  “We can’t.”

  A lone curlew cried mournfully from somewhere close by, invisible in the darkness, echoing John’s heartache.

  Chapter Six

  Naomi slid the unopened chocolate bar into her sleeve. John gave her another one. She liked to be bribed, this skinny little girl. Made it easier to deal with her than Caleb. She was younger than Caleb, sharper and more suspicious than she was scared, but nobody had ever beaten the shit out of her and killed a boy in front of her.

  “Brother Ben is in charge of the new people,” she told John. “When they come, he gives them robes and takes their old things away.”

  Ben Quartermain.

  “What about Brother Leon?” John asked her.

  Leon Harrison.

  Naomi unwrapped her chocolate. “I don’t like him.” She lowered her voice. “He has a stick.”

  “A stick?”

  “For hitting people.” Naomi demonstrated with her chocolate, raising her arm and bringing it down in a swinging arc. She was careful not to smash the chocolate bar on the desk.

  “Did he hit Caleb and Simon?”

  “They’re sinners,” Naomi announced. “They’re bad. Simon ran away. Except you can’t outrun hell, Ethan says.”

  “And what is Ethan in charge of?” John asked her.

  She opened her mouth, and then frowned. She tilted her head to the side and looked at John as though he were simple. “Ethan is God. He’s in charge of everything.”

  Caleb was subdued when John picked him up the next morning, but it didn’t last for long. As they got closer to the Gold Coast, he grew more animated. He fiddled with the radio, changing stations and turning the volume up when he found a song he liked. He jiggled his right leg impatiently.

  “When I was a kid,” John told him, “there was nothing between Logan and the Coast except scrub. Heaps of gumtrees, then the theme parks, then gumtrees again. You knew you were getting close when you could smell the sea from the top of Brisbane Road. We used to go to the beach every weekend.”

  “Not the theme parks?” Caleb asked.

  “No. Dad was a council worker. We couldn’t afford that. I remember we got a coupon from the paper one school holidays. Twenty percent off. Dad said we still couldn’t afford it, so David and I lugged his lawnmower all over the neighbourhood for a whole week. Five bucks a lawn.” John smiled at the memory.

  “You still didn’t go?”

  “Nah. David left the lawnmower behind some guy’s car, and he backed over it. Everything we made, we had to spend on a new mower.” He laughed. “And Dad could never start it first go. Every time we heard it spluttering as he tried to get it going, we felt bad.”

  “You could go now,” Caleb said suddenly. “You could afford it now.”

  John considered that for a moment. There was still a part of him who was that eager, desperate kid, willing to believe that because he wanted to go so much it just had to happen. It had to. But he knew there was nothing behind those gates that could in any way match the expectations of his childhood. “Nah. I’d rather spend my money on other things now.”

  Caleb eyed him curiously. “Like what?”

  “Like rent,” John said. “And groceries.” Shit. He sounded like he was middle-aged. He needed to cultivate more vices. “And video games and beer.”

  Caleb laughed. “I approve.”

  He leaned forward to change radio channels again.

  John always felt that bittersweet bite of nostalgia when he came to the Gold Coast. Not that he could really recognise the place much from when he was a kid. It was always changing. Always a new high rise on the ever-expanding skyline. Not that his dad had headed for the glitter strip of Surfers Paradise when he’d brought them down on weekends. They’d gone to Southport instead, where the beaches were less crowded. And the kids had begged money for ice creams while their parents had walked arm in arm along the beach. It wasn’t until John was older that he realised it had been his parents’ unspoken homesickness that had called them to the beach every weekend. That need to feel sand under their feet, and to breathe the salt air.

  It was a homesickness that their children had inherited, John thought. None of them remembered much about Samoa, but it was in their blood. More than that, it was in all the stories that the families in the community told. John felt the strange ache of it sometimes. The pull of it.

  He’d go there one day. Take Ma back so she could walk her beaches again.

  Caleb finally settled on a song he liked and nodded to the beat.

  John flashed him a smile as he drove.

  The animal shelter was in Broadbeach Waters, on a large half-acre block only a few minutes from the waterfront, that John was sure would be worth millions. On either side, high rise units had been built where modest holiday houses used to be.

  Caleb was out of the car before John had even turned off the ignition, clutching the paperwork.

  The woman behind the counter was expecting them. “Hi, you must be here for Cricket. She’s a lovely, friendly girl. Very sociable.” She smiled at Caleb’s obvious excitement. “Would you like to meet her?”

  “Yes, please!”

  Fifteen minutes later, with an armful of dog food, treats, toys, and Cricket’s favourite blanket, John pushed the door open with difficulty. Caleb and Cricket followed him, Cricket tangling herself on her leash.

  “Hope she doesn’t pee in my car,” John said.

  “Can I sit in the back with her?” Caleb asked him, wearing a smile bigger than any John had seen on him in months. Maybe longer.

  “Sure.”

  They drove to the beach, and John laughed while Caleb paddled in the shallows with a very dubious Cricket. Dainty little girl didn’t like to get her paws wet. Not at first, anyway, but it didn’t take her long to change her mind.

  John sat on the beach and watched as Caleb and Cricket splashed around. It was good to see Caleb happy. Carefree. His hair shone in the sunlight. The water glittered.

  Afterward, they found a tap up on the grass, and Caleb washed his feet then cupped his hands so Cricket could drink. He was still smiling.

  “Thanks, John,” he said. “Thanks for doing this.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” John said. “Do you want to grab some takeaway on the way back?”

  On the drive home, Cricket fell asleep in the backseat with her head resting on Caleb’s lap.

  “Will she cry, do you think?” Caleb asked. “On their first night pups cry, don’t they?”

  “Maybe,” John said. “How old did you say she was?”

  “Seven months,” Caleb said. “She’s not really a puppy, I guess. More like a teenager. But she might still be scared, her first night in a strange place.” He was silent for a moment. “I’m not going to lock her up in the laundry or anything.”

  There was a sudden stubbornness in his voice.

  “I’m sure your dad won’t tell you to lock her up,” John said.

  “She can sleep in my room,” Caleb said. “I don’t want her to be locked up. I don’t want her to cry.”

  “Caleb, your dad won’t tell you to lock her up,” John assured him. He glanced in the rear-view mirror and saw the set of Caleb’s jaw, and the way he stroked Cricket’s head protectively. “He won’t.”

  A part of Cal
eb would always be in that tank. Always locked up and screaming in pain. Waiting for someone to come. Waiting for days. And John could still remember what Brian had said: “We’ve got that warrant for the Children of Galilee or whatever the fuck they call themselves. We were going to knock it over today, but there’s some protest outside Parliament House so all our uniforms have been sent there. We’ll get to it after the weekend.”

  Meanwhile, Caleb had been waiting. Screaming and crying until he didn’t have the strength anymore. But they hadn’t known that. They’d been going in to investigate claims that there were children on the property who weren’t going to school. No fucking way had they been expecting to find what they had. No fucking way.

  They couldn’t have known. But it still bit at him. At all of them who’d been there, John guessed. Could they have made it in time to save Simon? Nobody was sure. Nobody wanted to look too closely, even if there was no way they could have known.

  So, no crying in Caleb’s house, no scratching at locked doors. No ignoring the howls and whimpers of a frightened little animal.

  “So what do you want for lunch?” John asked him. “Burgers or pizza?”

  “Sushi,” Caleb said.

  “Pretty sure I said burgers or pizza, mate.”

  Caleb laughed. “If you stop at that place just before home, you can get a burger or a pizza, and I can get a sushi roll.”

  They both got sushi.

  Cricket was in love with the wading pool. It was one of those large plastic seashells that could be filled with sand or water for toddlers to play in. Or for dogs. Cricket had splashed in it for a while, gnawed the hard edges, and finally lay down in it with her head resting over the side.

  John and Caleb sat together on the back deck. Caleb read through the reams of paperwork from the shelter. He’d taken the calendar off the kitchen wall and was writing reminders on the days when Cricket needed her worming tablets and her flea treatments.

  He set the pen aside at last. “How’s your family going, John?”

  “Pretty good.” John sipped his drink. “Mary and David and Tee are good. Ma has her good and her bad days, and you’d better not get me started on Jess. Teenage girls.” He shook his head. “They never stop.”

  Caleb smiled. “If you can’t handle teenage girls, you might be in the wrong line of work.”

  “Too late now!” John laughed. “And it’s different, when they’re family. Anyone else’s kids, and I can put the fear of God into them. But Jessie? No way. She’s immune.”

  “You never put the fear of God into me,” Caleb said, his smile fading, and John immediately castigated himself for saying something so fucking stupid.

  Never needed to. That was all you had.

  “I think you’re immune too,” he said. “You count as family.”

  Caleb lifted his hand to the neck of his shirt, and John realised he must have been wearing the boar’s tusk necklace underneath. “Really?”

  “You stopped being my job a long time ago,” John told him.

  Caleb looked suddenly shy. “I thought maybe I did.”

  “You did.”

  They watched Cricket for a while, as she lolled happily in the pool. Caleb began to gather up the rubbish from their lunch. He rose and headed inside to the bin, and John realised he’d left a soy sauce container behind. He picked it up and followed him inside.

  John stood behind him at the bin, and Caleb turned.

  Before John had even registered what was happening, Caleb’s arms were around him and Caleb’s lips were pressing against his. He tasted like soy sauce. Sudden heat, sudden need, and the man John loved in his arms.

  “Wait.” John said it to himself as much as to Caleb. Caleb stiffened, but didn’t drop his arms from around John’s neck. He stood there, his head bowed, breathing against John’s shoulder. He was shaking. John’s throat ached. “Oh, Caleb. We can’t.”

  Caleb’s voice was a whisper. “Why can’t we?”

  Why can’t we? the voice in John’s head echoed. Why can’t we? Why can’t we? Why can’t we?

  “I’m your friend,” John said. “But I’m also your dad’s friend. And I worked on your case, Caleb. I can’t be your boyfriend.”

  “Because you worked on my case?” Caleb whispered.

  “That’s a part of it.” John closed his eyes, and struggled for what to say. Because professional distance hadn’t counted for shit for years, had it? Not with Caleb or Darren. And Caleb knew it. “But it’s mostly because I’m your friend. I don’t want to lose our friendship.”

  I’m scared it would destroy you.

  Caleb still didn’t move.

  John lifted an arm and stroked his hair. “You’re my friend. I love you.”

  “Don’t say it like that,” Caleb murmured.

  “Like what?”

  Caleb reeled away suddenly, his face flaming red. “Like it’s a fucking consolation prize!” He kicked at the bin, sending it onto the floor. Rubbish tumbled out of it: sushi containers, potato peels, an empty blister pack. “Fuck you! I want you, and you say you love me, but I can’t have you!”

  Because look at you, Caleb. Look at you.

  How could I promise never to hurt you?

  Everything fucking hurts you.

  “I do love you,” John said, struggling to keep his voice even. “But I can’t be your boyfriend. I’m sorry.”

  Shit. Caleb was crying. Tears streaked his pale face.

  “Please, John,” he said, his shoulders sagging as the anger rushed out of him. “I just want to have something normal. I just want to be like other people.”

  “I know you do.” Fuck. How long until Darren was home? John was out of his depth here, and completely aware of how cruel he sounded. “Listen, we can talk about this, that’s okay, but maybe it should wait? Maybe you need a rest. Or a pill. You’ve had a big day.”

  “I’m not a child.” Caleb looked wounded. He hunched over, hugging his stomach. He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Fuck, I’m sorry, John. I wreck everything.”

  “Hey,” John said. He stepped through the rubbish on the floor and tugged Caleb into an embrace. Tried not to register how good Caleb felt in his arms. How right. “You don’t wreck everything. You don’t wreck anything, okay?”

  Caleb was still shaking. “It’s not fair. I love you and I want you, and it’s not fair.”

  “I know it’s not,” John said. His breath hitched. “I know.”

  “Every time I touch someone, I fuck it up.”

  “It’ll happen for you.” John didn’t know if he was lying or not. “When it’s the right time, when it’s the right guy, it’ll happen.”

  Just don’t fucking cut yourself in the meantime.

  Caleb nodded and sniffed, his face still hidden against John’s shoulder.

  “It will happen,” John repeated. “You’ll be okay.”

  And he wondered if Caleb was thinking exactly what he was: What if this was the right time, and what if John was the right guy? How would they know unless they tried?

  Yeah. That was the voice he needed not to hear.

  John was relieved when Caleb stepped away and threw him a smile that was equal parts apology and shame. Caleb crossed to the sink and filled a glass with water from the tap.

  No, it wasn't fair that Caleb wasn't like everyone else.

  Wasn't fair that he couldn't throw himself into love like everyone else.

  Wasn't fair that he couldn't risk heartbreak.

  John could, and did. Every single day for years.

  He forced an answering smile when Caleb turned again.

  Don't turn this on you, John wanted to tell him. Don't let my words, my voice, be the ones you hear telling you you're worthless. Telling you to die.

  He wanted to say something, anything, but when every awkward overture came wrapped in rejection, what was there to say?

  “You want to try and teach Cricket to fetch?”

  “Yeah.” Caleb was still subdued, still embarrassed and unwillin
g to hold his gaze. “That would be good.”

  John followed him back outside and down the stairs to where Cricket, dripping wet, greeted them happily.

  When Darren got home, John didn’t tell him what had happened. He told himself he wasn't hiding anything, it was just that he didn't know how to say it. But maybe that was a lie. Maybe he was worried about how Darren would react. Maybe he figured Caleb deserved to keep some things secret. Or maybe he was just guilty.

  A lot of time had passed in that kiss before he told Caleb to stop. Time counted out in breaths, in heartbeats, in hope.

  So John said nothing about it when Darren arrived. Neither did Caleb. John stayed around and played with Cricket for a while longer, then said his goodbyes and headed back up the motorway toward home.

  He didn't realise he'd taken the exit to Woodridge until he was almost at his mother's house.

  He pulled up in her street.

  There was junk mail fluttering in the sagging chain links of the Nguyens’ fence, shoved right in between the letterbox and the No Junk Mail sign.

  John got out of the car and waved to Mr. Nguyen, who was working in the garden. He waved back.

  John’s parents didn’t approve of gambling, but Mr. Nguyen next door had played cards with his friends every Thursday afternoon from the time he moved in. And he’d seen those curious Samoan kids staring over the fence at him.

  “Gambling is bad,” he’d told them. “Bad for kids.” And then he’d taught them anyway. “You never gamble more than you afford to lose. Ten dollar, one hundred dollar, one million, same thing. Never more than you can lose.”

  Caleb. Caleb was more than John could afford to lose.

  “And you not tell your father!”

  He went and knocked on his mother’s door.

  The door was flung open instantly, and Jessie’s face went from a wide smile to a scowl in a heartbeat. “It’s you.”