Managing Death Read Free

she pushes my hand away. Ten minutes of silence. Out of the ’burbs and onto the M3 Motorway.
    ‘You really should be practising your shifting.’ Lissa says at last. The traffic’s already creeping, the highway burdened with even more cars than usual; it’s a matter of days until Christmas.
    ‘Yeah, but I like coming to work with you.’ That’s only partly true – certainly not today.
    Shifting hurts, I really haven’t mastered it yet, and I don’t like the pain. I’m sure I could handle it if it was the same sort of agony each shift, but it’s not. Sometimes it manifests itself as a throbbing headache, others as a kick to the groin, or a hand clenching my guts and squeezing. There’s usually a bit of gagging involved.
    Lissa grunts. Changes lanes. I reach over to turn on the stereo and she slaps my hand again. This is the real silent treatment.
    ‘What did I do wrong?’ I shake my stinging fingers.
    ‘It’s what you haven’t done,’ she says, and that’s all I can get out of her, as she weaves her way through the traffic.
    What the hell
haven’t
I done? It’s not her birthday. And we’ve only been together for two months, so there’s no real anniversary to speak of. I try to catch her eye. She ignores me, contemplating her next move. Changes lanes again.
    We cross the Brisbane River on the Captain Cook Bridge, crawling as the Riverside Expressway ahead becomes anything but express: choked by a half-dozen exits leading into and out of the city. I can feel the water beneath us, and its links to the Underworld and the Hellriver Styx – all rivers are the Styx and the Styx is all rivers. When I was a Pomp it was just murky water to me, a winding thread that bound and separated the city, east from west, north from south. Now it hums with residual energies, it’s like stepping over a live wire. My whole body tingles, the hangover dies with it – down the river and into the Styx, I guess. A smile stretches across my face. I can’t help it.
    Lissa doesn’t seem to appreciate the grin.
    She clenches her jaw, and swerves the Corolla into a gap in the next lane barely large enough. A horn blares behind us, Lissa holds the steering wheel tight, the muscles in her jaw twitching.
    I settle in for one of the longest fifteen minutes of my life. The only noise is the traffic and the thunk of the Corolla’s tyres as it passes over the seams in the unexpressway. I can’t find a safe place to look. A glance in Lissa’s direction gets me a scowl. Looking out over the river towards Mount Coot-tha earns me an exasperated huff so I settle on staring at the car directly in front of us, my hands folded in my lap. It’s as contrite a position as I can manage.
    At last Lissa belts into the underground car park of Number Four, off George Street, pedestrians beware. She pulls into a spot next to the lift, turns off the engine and stares at me. ‘So, even after that drive you’ve got nothing to say for yourself?’
    ‘I –’ I give up, look at her, defeated. I can feel anothergrin straining at my lips. That’s not going to help. Lissa’s eyes flare.
    ‘Look,’ she snarls, ‘we’ve all lost people that we care about, but you –’
    ‘I’ve what? What do you think I’ve done?’
    ‘Oh – I could just – no, forget about it.’ Lissa yanks her seatbelt free, storms out of the car and is already in the lift before I’ve opened my door.
    I have to wait for the lift to come back down. The basement car park’s full. I can see Tim’s car a few spots down. I’m last to work, yet again.
    I could shift up to my office from here. But I don’t reckon it’s worth the pain.
    The lift takes me straight up to the sixth floor. Everyone’s a picture of industry when the doors open, and no one gives me a second glance. Which worries me. Where are the usual hellos? The people wanting to talk to me? Why hasn’t Lundwall from the front desk hurried over to me with a list of phone calls that I’m not going to