The Promise by Tony Birch Page B

you found another bed?’
    â€˜I just wanted the record player.’
    â€˜Well, if it’s any help to you, I gave the stuff to the Salvation Army store down on the highway. Maybe they haven’t sold it yet?’
    â€˜That’s okay. It was just an idea.’
    She looked me up and down.
    â€˜You look well. You’ve put on some weight.’
    â€˜Yeah, a little. I’m good. I eat well.’
    â€˜Are you seeing anyone?’
    â€˜No. I don’t have the time. Work keeps me pretty busy.’
    â€˜The car park?’

    â€˜Yep. At the car park. It’s always busy. You know, moving cars, here and there.’
    I could think of nothing more to say to Rachel. She fumbled over a goodbye, walked away and got back into the car alongside Robert. I waited until they’d driven out of the street before closing the front door. I walked back into the kitchen, unscrewed the lid on the fresh jar of olives and scooped a few into a teacup with a large spoon. I took my seat in front of the record player, moved the needle across to the first track of the album and tapped my foot to the beat.

STICKY FINGERS
    The Beatles had broken up a year ago and Sparrow had hardly left his bedroom. Once he’d worn out his original copy of Let It Be , their final album, he headed straight back to the record shop on Victoria Street and picked up a second copy. On weekends he’d throw open his bedroom window, turn his stereo up full volume and torture us with ‘The Long and Winding Road’. Or worse, the title track – more mournful, if that were possible. He had the best sound system of any kid on the estate, a foreign make with a funny name that his old man had lifted from the docks. He’d actually knocked off four of them, but no one on the estate could afford to buy one, even at half price.
    While the system produced a great sound, it couldn’t save Let It Be . Most of the tracks were fit only for a funeral, and are being sung at drunken wakes to this day. Despite our complaints Sparrow wouldn’t give the album a rest. Worse still, he skipped the only decent track, ‘Get Back’, to probe the lyrics of the more depressing songs for some logical explanation as to why the band had so suddenly and completely disintegrated, unconvinced by half the planet’s conviction that it was fucken Yoko.
    He lived with his parents and two older brothers in a first-floor corner flat. His window hung directly above where we wasted our days, catching the sliver of light that cut between two high-rise blocks. We would have been prepared to give up on the precious sun and escape his music if it were not for the fact that our competition marble ring was located on the same spot. When we weren’t lying around talking shit to each other, occasionally hurling abuse at Sparrow’s open window, or practising the art of blowing smoke rings, we played marbles, practising for the annual City Marbles Championship, the most important date on our sporting and social calendar. The CMC had been set up between the Public Housing Authority and some churchies, to keep kids out of trouble and off the streets. Rather than kick the shit out of each other, teenagers from inner-city public housing estates went to war over the game of marbles.
    The tournament was organised across the summer holidays and was run by the Salvation Army one year, and the Catholic Church the following year. Teams of four players, from each of the eight inner city estates, drew each other in a round-robin tournament before the four top-ranking teams played each other in the semis, with the two best teams facing off in the grand final. The team racking up the highest tally of keepsies – the number of marbles won across the early rounds of the tournament – got to play the grand final on their home ring.
    Each ring was unique, and having mastery over its peculiar habits provided a genuine advantage. For instance,