Peripheral Vision Read Free Page B

Perhaps these men thought they could attack him, take money from him. As if he would be stupid enough to carry money around a suburb like this. Pran eased his clipboard into his canvas bag and shook it until the clipboard had slid completely inside. ‘Unless you feel like a walk. Company is always pleasant.’
    â€˜That’s us, pleasant company. Right, Azza?’
    â€˜Right.’ Azza stood and hitched up his jeans. ‘Let’s do it.’
    Before he headed for the door, Pran turned and dipped his head to Marly. She was looking at him as if she felt sorry for him.
    â€˜What you are suffering in this world’ – he waved his hand at Marly’s prosthetic foot, but his eyes were trained on her face – ‘will serve you in the next life.’
    â€˜Great, ’cause it’s not doing her much fucking good in this one.’ Shaun laughed as he positioned his big hand on the back of Pran’s neck and guided him out of the kitchen.
    Marly was waiting in the chair on the front verandah when the boys walked back through the hole in the fence. Neither of them looked at her. As she followed them into the house, a creased sheet of paper eased out of Shaun’s back pocket and fluttered to the floor. He didn’t notice until Marly had stooped to pick it up, then he turned and tried to snatch it from her. She stared at the printed sheet with Shaun’s scrawled signature at the bottom. ‘What’s this?’
    Shaun tried again to nab the paper from her fingers but Marly held on.
    â€˜A minimum of two thousand dollars over twenty-four months – are you fucking kidding? How did he get you to sign this?’ As she threw the paper onto the kitchen table, she noticed Azza thrust his hands in his pockets, but not before she had caught sight of the rusty brown stain on his palm.
    â€˜Oh, no. What did you do to him?’ She pictured Pran’s melty eyes swimming with tears of pain, his soft mouth squeezed into a grimace. ‘Where is he?’ If they’d hurt that beautiful man she was going to kill them.
    â€˜He’s all right, okay? I lost it for a minute, tapped him on the nose.’ Azza pulled his hand from his pocket, spat on it and rubbed it against his jeans until the stain was off his skin.
    â€˜That’s blood.’
    â€˜He’s all right. We said we were sorry. He drove away in his fucking Honda coupe. Now shut up.’ Shaun slammed his fist on the table. The dog bolted out through the back door.
    Marly stood uncertainly in the doorway. Shaun was glaring at her, daring her to say a single word. She’d never find out how the Indian had got him to sign the contract.
    â€˜I’m going out front.’ She took a beer from the fridge and stumped down the hallway to the verandah on her graceless steel leg. The streetlights were on. She could see the shadows of trees in the reserve. On the other side, somewhere, was Pran, flying along the freeway in his Honda coupe with two thousand dollars of their money. Money they didn’t even have yet. Two years of their lives signed away. Everything had turned upside down. She tried to remember what he had said about the essence. Something about hands and feet. Or skulls and ears. Or something.

Procession
    When they first stood up and walked on their hind legs we paid money to see them.
    I took my five-year-old. She laughed and ran up to one of the dogs, who stood upright beside a bucket where we were supposed to drop our tickets. Sienna was the same height as the Beagle. He laid a paw on her shoulder. His sinewy tongue curled for a moment around the lobe of her ear and she giggled, kissing the dog’s wet black nose before she ran back to me. I pulled a wipe from my bag to clean her face as she chattered.
    â€˜His name is Oscar but he doesn’t like it.’ She grinned her toothy grin at me as I screwed up the wipe and threw it in the bin. ‘A human gave him the