The Ice-cream Man by Jenny Mounfield Read Free Book Online Page B

his mother was the most together person he knew – one who only drank on special occasions. Death, it seemed, was the most special occasion of them all.
    Rick eased the door closed, waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dark hallway and then walked into the lounge room. He opened the curtains and was about to open the blinds when his mother spoke.
    ‘Where you been all day?’
    ‘Geez, don’t do that, Mum. You scared the crud outta me.’ Rick let go of the blind and turned towards his mother’s voice. No wonder he hadn’t seen her. She was slouched in an armchair in the corner, nursing a wine glass as though it were a newborn baby.
    Leaning forward, she screwed up her eyes against the light. ‘That’s no way to talk to your mother. Now, where you been?’
    ‘Hangin’ out with friends. Went swimming and stuff.’
    Rick’s mother raised the glass, clinking it against her teeth, and drank deeply. A good portion dribbled down the front of her dress. She wiped her chin as though swatting a fly. ‘You don’t care about me, do you, Ricky?’
    ‘Please, Mum, don’t start.’
    ‘I bet you wish I was dead too, don’t you? That’d make your life easier, wouldn’t it? And there you are out all day having a good time while your father lies rotting in his grave.’ She slumped back into the shadows, pressing the empty glass to her breast.
    Rick clenched his fists. He shouldn’t listen when she was like this. She didn’t mean what she said
    – wouldn’t even remember tomorrow. ‘Please, Mum, you shouldn’t talk about him like that.’
    His mother lurched forward again, almost falling out of the chair. ‘Well it’s true. He’s nothing but food for the worms and you’re walking round happy as Larry. Is that fair? Is it?’
    ‘I . . . I . . .’ Rick staggered back, turned and ran from the room. He shouldn’t have come home; should have stayed at the billabong where it was quiet and safe; should have gone so deep into the bush no one would ever find him.
    He went into the kitchen. He had to eat something. The milkshake was the closest thing he’d had to food all day. Rick crossed to the pantry and looked inside: a tin of baked beans and a half-empty box of cereal stared back at him. He grabbed the beans and searched the freezer for bread.
    Once his stomach was full and the rage had drained away, Rick took a bowl half-filled with beans into the lounge room. ‘Here, Mum, you’ve gotta eat,’
    he said, sliding the bowl across the coffee table.
    She waved it away and reached for the wine bottle.
    ‘I’m sorry, Ricky. I didn’t mean what I said. I just miss him so much, you know?’ She slopped wine into her glass and then fixed Rick with watery eyes. She raised the glass to her mouth. Tears glistened in the hollows of her cheeks.
    ‘We’ve gotta get some food, Mum. There’s nothing left.’
    ‘There’s money in my purse. You can pick up something tomorrow.’ Her head wobbled and then dropped to her chest.
    Rick’s mother began to snore. The wine glass slipped from her limp fingers and fell to the floor.

    The nightmare was the worst he’d had in months. It began the way they all did, with his father climbing behind the wheel of the Land Cruiser. He’d only had the four-wheel drive a month, said it was his reward for suffering twenty years working for the trucking company. With dream eyes, Rick watched his mother run over to the driver’s side window, exactly as she’d done that day.
    ‘Can’t you wait till tomorrow, Jack? You’ve just got home and you haven’t slept in three days.’ Rick’s father simply laughed and reversed down the drive and onto the road. Rick watched his mother march into the house, watched the arc of water spraying from the Hendersons’ sprinkler across the road catch the light and send a rainbow over the grass; watched his father drive out of his life forever.
    Rick’s dream self was pulled through the air and into the back seat of his father’s car. The