One More Spin
Six-thirty and the sun was already cruel. Davo set his first brick of the day, the mortar cool and heavy on the trowel — scoop, butter, tap, level, repeat. The rhythm of it was the closest thing he had to meditation. Twenty years of muscle memory that started in his shoulders and ended in his wrists, and for a few minutes the only thing in his head was the wall going up straight and true.
The site was a row of duplexes off the Great Western Highway, bare frames and orange mesh fencing, a skip bin already half-full of offcuts. Tradies' utes lined the verge like a car yard nobody wanted. Somewhere behind him a nail gun popped in steady rhythm, and the radio in the site shed was playing something by Chisel that nobody had bothered to turn up or down.
Macca was working the other end of the same wall, his hat on backwards, a cigarette tucked behind his ear that he'd been saving since he quit three weeks ago. They didn't need to talk. Fifteen years on the same crews meant they could lay a course in silence and have it come out plumb.
Davo's phone sat in his hi-vis pocket. He could feel its weight the way you feel a stone in your boot — not painful, just present. He'd been up until one-thirty last night on the app. Forty in, then sixty chasing the forty, then another fifty chasing the hundred because the Mustang Money feature had been two scatters away from triggering three times running and that meant it was close. The maths made sense at midnight. It always did.
Macca straightened up, pressing a fist into the small of his back.
"Bub was up half the night. Teething."
It came out smooth. Mila was fourteen months old and had been teething on and off for weeks, which made it the perfect excuse — true enough to be believable, vague enough to cover anything. Macca nodded and went back to his bricks. But his eyes stayed on Davo a beat longer than they needed to.
The site shed door banged open and Jenko came through it holding two paper bags from the servo and a grin that could talk you into anything.
"Lads. Lads. Tell me you saw the Eels last night. Thirteen-point underdogs and they've done 'em by six. I had twenty on it. Free money, mate."
He pulled a crumpled bet slip from his shorts like a kid showing off a merit certificate.
Davo laughed. He couldn't help it.
"It's not about the amount, it's about being right. You watch the game?"
Davo shook his head. He'd been watching digital reels spin instead, but that wasn't the kind of thing you said out loud.
Jenko tossed him a sausage roll from one of the bags.
Macca looked at Davo over the rim of his water bottle, then looked away at the crooked downpipe on the frame next door. The silence lasted two seconds. It said plenty.
Davo bit into the sausage roll. His hand drifted toward his pocket, then stopped. Not yet. Smoko wasn't for another hour. He could wait an hour. He set down the roll and picked up his trowel, and the mortar was already starting to go off in the heat.
Davo's thumb was on his phone before the thought caught up.
"Go on then. Send us the legs."
Jenko clapped his hands together once, sharp as a nail gun report, and had his phone out before Davo had finished swallowing the sausage roll. He talked through the selections the way he talked through everything — fast, bright, no gaps for doubt to settle into. Blues by eight or more. Turbo to score first. Over forty-two and a half total points. Each leg stacked on the last like courses in a wall that only went one way.
"Eighteen to one, brother. Eighteen. To. One. Fifty on it and you're looking at nine-eighteen back. That's not a bet, that's a business decision."
Macca's hand went to the cigarette behind his ear. He rolled it between his fingers, once, then tucked it back without a word.
Fifty. He'd lost a hundred and fifty last night. Fifty more was rounding error — and if the multi came in, nine hundred straight back into the joint account. Rene would never see the gap.
Davo opened the app. The balance sat there: $214.30. Less than he thought. He tapped through to the sports book, found the Origin market, built the multi leg by leg the way Jenko had laid it out. The odds assembled themselves. $50 to return $918.
He hit confirm.
"Yes, son! We're in it together now. Wednesday night, you and me, we'll watch it come in."
Macca set his trowel down on the course and wiped his hands on his shorts.
"Just a cheeky fifty."
Macca picked his trowel back up. The cigarette stayed behind his ear. He didn't say anything else, and the nothing he said sat between them like a spirit level with the bubble off-centre.
Davo pocketed his phone and went back to the wall. The nine-eighteen floated somewhere behind his eyes, warm and specific, more real than the hundred and fifty that was already gone.
Davo waited until Jenko had wandered off toward the skip bin, whistling something tuneless, before he pulled his phone out. The screen was hot from sitting against his thigh. He opened his messages, scrolled past the app notifications — two of them, both offers he didn't look at — and found Rene's name.
He typed: How's Mila going? She sleep ok after I got her down? Then he deleted it and started again. The first version sounded like a bloke building an alibi. He tried: Hows bub? Teething still bad? That was worse — too on-the-nose, the kind of text you'd send if you were thinking about the cover story instead of the kid.
He settled on: Hey babe hows Mila today? Anything in the fridge for tonight or want me to grab something. Simple. Domestic. The kind of thing a bloke sends when his biggest problem is dinner.
He read it twice and hit send.
Macca was working three metres away, setting the next course with the quiet efficiency of a bloke who could do this blindfolded. He hadn't said a word since the bet. Not about the bet, not about anything. He just worked — checking the string line, adjusting, moving on. The silence between them had a different texture now. Fifteen years of comfortable quiet, and somewhere in the last hour a thread had pulled loose.
Macca didn't look up from the course he was laying.
"Yeah, nah, she's good. Just want to check Rene's not pulling her hair out."
Macca ran his thumb along the top of a brick he'd just set, feeling for level. His hands always found something to do when his mouth was deciding whether to open.
"You were late Tuesday as well, yeah? Tommo noticed."
There it was. Not an accusation — Macca didn't do accusations. Just a fact, laid out flat, the way he laid bricks. Davo felt something tighten across his shoulders.
"Fifteen minutes. Mila had a rough one, I was up and down all night. Rene was cooked by morning so I did the feed before I left."
More detail than he needed. That was the tell — a bloke telling the truth says 'I was late.' A bloke lying builds a house around it. But Macca just nodded, slow, and went back to the string line.
"I told Tommo your ute was blocked in. So that's the story if he asks."
Davo looked at him. Macca's jaw was set, his eyes on the wall. He'd covered for him. Already. Without being asked, and without making it sound like a favour — which made it worse, because now it was a debt that sat between them with no price tag on it.
"Cheers, mate. Won't happen again."
Macca picked up another brick. He didn't say 'you said that last time,' but his hands moved a fraction faster than they needed to, pressing the mortar down with more force than the joint required.
Davo's phone buzzed. Rene. He opened it fast, grateful for the exit.
Shes ok. Grizzly but ok. Theres pasta bake in the fridge.
Then, a second message, almost immediately: Can you be home by 6 tonight.
No question mark. Not a request.
He stared at it. The words were ordinary. Rene always wanted him home — that was marriage, that was having a toddler. But something about the full stop where the question mark should've been sat wrong in his chest, the way a brick sits wrong when the mortar's too thin. You can't see it from the ground. You feel it in your hands.
He typed back: Yeah course. 6 no worries. And then he pocketed the phone and picked up his trowel and went back to the wall because that was what you did. You worked. The wall went up. Everything else could wait.
The $164.30 sat in the app like water in a bucket with a hole in it. Nine-eighteen coming Wednesday. That was the number that mattered. He held it in front of the other number — the one Rene might or might not have seen — the way you hold your hand up against the sun.
Davo found Jenko around the back of the duplex, sitting on a stack of pallets with his phone in one hand and a meat pie in the other, tomato sauce on his thumb. He'd set up camp the way he always did — arse planted, legs spread, phone angled against the sun like a man reading the morning paper. Except Jenko hadn't read a paper in his life.
Davo dropped onto the pallet beside him.
Jenko's face lit up. He put the pie down on the plastic wrap and wiped his thumb on his shorts, already swiping through screens.
"Right. First leg — Blues by eight or more. Everyone's on the Blues but no one's backing the margin. That's where the value is. Tedesco's fit, Cleary's fit, they've got the pack to bully Queensland up the middle for eighty minutes."
"Second leg, Turbo first tryscorer. He's been shifted to centre, yeah? Shorter ball, more touches. They'll go to him early. Third leg, over forty-two and a half total. Last three Origins at Accor have all gone over. It's a fast track, mate. Points on tap."
He said all of it without taking a breath, tapping each leg on the screen as he went. His knee bounced against the pallet. An inevitability that just hadn't happened yet.
"Turbo at centre worries me a bit. He's played fullback his whole career."
"That's why the odds are juicy, brother. Market hasn't adjusted. You're getting eighteen-to-one because the bookies are still pricing him at fullback. By Wednesday it'll be down to twelve."
Davo nodded. Fifty dollars felt like nothing when Jenko framed it. Nine-eighteen back. Enough to fill the hole in the joint account and leave change for a slab.
Jenko was scrolling again, faster now, his leg still going.
"I'm good with the multi."
It came out firm. One bet. That was the line. He could feel the shape of it in his chest, solid and clean, and he held onto it.
Jenko shrugged, already moving on, but something flickered across his face — quick, like a light going on in a room and someone pulling the curtain.
He picked the pie back up and bit into it, sauce running down his wrist. Then, around the mouthful:
"Kel reckons I spend too much on it. The missus. She's done the whole — you know, the spreadsheet thing. Printed out three months of bank statements and highlighted every bet in yellow like she's marking a bloody essay."
Davo's hand stopped halfway to his water bottle.
"I said babe, you want to highlight the electricity bill too? The rego? It's all money going out, what's the difference. She didn't think that was funny."
The laugh that followed was the loudest sound on the site. It bounced off the duplex frame and came back thinner.
"Three months of statements, though. That's commitment."
Jenko waved the pie.
Davo felt Rene's message in his pocket. No question mark. The full stop like a door pulled shut. Three months of bank statements, highlighted in yellow. He wondered what colour Rene would use.
"Yeah. She's flat out with the bub."
From around the corner came the sound of Macca's trowel — steady, even, the pace of a man who hadn't stopped working. Davo looked at his watch. Twelve minutes he'd been sitting here. Twelve minutes off the wall while Macca picked up the slack, and Tommo could come around that corner any second.
He stood up from the pallets. Jenko didn't notice, already deep in his phone again, thumb flicking through markets the way other people flicked through the news.
"Wednesday night, brother. You and me. It's gonna be beautiful."
Davo walked back toward the wall. The sun pressed down on his shoulders and the hi-vis stuck to his back. He could see Macca from here — head down, trowel moving, the string line tight and true along the course. Macca didn't look up when Davo picked up his trowel. Didn't need to. The gap in the wall where Davo should have been laying was three bricks wide and said everything.
Davo picked up his trowel and started on the gap. Three bricks wide. Macca had laid clean courses either side of it, the joints even and tight, and the empty space sat there like an accusation in a language they both spoke fluently. He scooped mortar from the bucket — fresh batch, Macca must have mixed it while he was gone — and buttered the first brick.
The radio in the site shed had gone to ads. In the quiet, the scrape of Macca's trowel carried further than it should have.
Davo set two bricks. Then a third. The gap closed. He checked the level and it was true, or close enough. But Macca was working at the other end of the course and the three metres between them felt like thirty, and Davo could feel the shape of what wasn't being said the way you feel weather coming — pressure in the air, nothing you can point to.
He put his trowel down.
Macca didn't stop working. He set a brick, tapped it, scraped the excess. Then he stood up slowly, one hand on his lower back, and looked at Davo. His hands were still. Completely still — no trowel, no brick, no fidgeting. Just hanging at his sides like he'd decided to stop pretending they were busy.
"You tell me."
"I'm asking."
Macca looked at him properly then. Not a glance, not the sideways inventory he'd been running all morning. A full, level look — the kind that took in Davo's face and the bags under his eyes and the phone-shaped weight in his pocket and everything those things added up to.
"How long's Mila been teething now, Davo? She must have about sixty teeth by now."
The words landed and sat there. Davo opened his mouth and nothing came out. The excuse — the one that had been so smooth at six-thirty this morning, so easy, so perfectly shaped — just died somewhere between his chest and his throat.
"Tuesday I told Tommo your ute was blocked in. Last Thursday I said you were at a dental thing for the bub. Week before that I can't even remember what I said. But Tommo's not stupid and I'm running out of stories."
Davo's jaw worked. He could feel the lie forming — something about Rene, about Mila, about anything except the truth — and for once it wouldn't come.
Macca cut him off. Not sharp. Tired.
Somewhere behind them, a compressor kicked on and drowned the world for a few seconds. When it settled back to a hum, neither of them had moved.
"Fifteen years, Davo. I've never not had your back. But I can't keep covering shifts you're not here for and pretending I don't know why."
"It's under control."
It came out automatic. The same words in the same order he'd said them to himself at one-thirty this morning, thumb hovering over the deposit button. Under control. Macca's expression didn't change, but something behind his eyes closed — a door, gently, without slamming.
"Yeah. Alright."
He picked his trowel back up. That was the worst part. Not anger, not an ultimatum — just Macca picking up his trowel and going back to the bricks, the conversation over because Davo had given him the one answer that made continuing it pointless.
Davo stood there. The mortar on his trowel was starting to stiffen. He could hear Jenko whistling around the far side of the build, and the compressor humming, and the distant grind of trucks on the highway. Normal sounds. A normal day. He tried to make it feel like one.
Macca didn't look up. Just set a brick, tapped it true, reached for the next one.
Davo nodded. Macca didn't see it. He picked up his trowel and went back to the course, and they worked the rest of it in a silence that used to be comfortable and now had a seam running through it, visible only if you knew where to look — like a joint where the mortar's been patched but the colour doesn't quite match.
His phone buzzed once in his pocket. He didn't reach for it. He didn't not reach for it. His hand just stayed where it was, on the trowel, and the notification sat there unseen while the wall went up one brick at a time.
The afternoon ground on. Four hours of bricks laid side by side, and Macca didn't say a word that wasn't about the wall. Pass the float. More sand in the next mix. That joint needs pointing. Davo answered in kind and the work got done the way it always got done, except that every time he finished a brick and reached for the next one, Macca was already there — already ahead, already covering the rhythm Davo kept dropping half a beat behind.
His phone buzzed six times between lunch and knock-off. He didn't look at it once. He felt each one in his thigh like a tap on the shoulder from someone he owed money to.
At four-thirty Jenko came past with his bag slung over one shoulder, keys already spinning on his finger.
"Wednesday night, lads. I can feel it. Eighteen to one."
Davo lifted his trowel in acknowledgment. Jenko disappeared around the corner, whistling, and then it was just the two of them and the wall and the last course to finish before knock-off.
Macca scraped his trowel clean against the edge of the bucket. He pulled off his gloves and tucked them into his belt, then stood there looking at the finished section — checking it the way he always did, running his eye along the horizontal like a man reading a sentence for errors. His hands hung at his sides. He didn't reach for anything.
Davo put his trowel down. His mouth was dry in a way that had nothing to do with the heat.
Macca turned. Not fast, not slow. He just turned and waited, his face carrying nothing Davo could read.
"It's not. Under control. It's — yeah."
He couldn't look at Macca while he said it so he looked at his own hands instead. Mortar under the nails, cracked skin across the knuckles, a blister starting on his right palm where the trowel handle had been rubbing all day. Working hands. Hands that were supposed to build things.
"I was up till half one last night. On the app. Lost a hundred and fifty. Night before that was — I don't even know. Eighty? A hundred? I stopped counting because counting made it real and if it was real I'd have to stop and I didn't want to stop."
His voice sounded strange to him. Like hearing a recording of yourself.
"The teething thing. Mila's fine. She sleeps through most nights now. I just — that's what I tell Rene when she wakes up and I'm still on the couch with the laptop open."
Macca leaned against the scaffold frame. He crossed his arms, then uncrossed them. Then he walked to the esky, pulled out two Cokes, cracked one, and held the other out to Davo without a word. Davo took it. The can was cold and wet against his palm and he held it there, not drinking, just holding something that was simple and exactly what it was.
"How much. Total."
Davo opened his mouth and closed it. The real number — the one he'd never added up because adding it up was a door he couldn't walk back through — sat somewhere in his chest like a stone he'd been swallowing a piece at a time.
"Does Rene know."
"No."
But even as he said it he thought of the text. The pasta bake in the fridge. Be home by six. And something in his gut shifted — not knowledge, not yet, just the feeling you get when you're driving and the engine makes a sound it's never made before and you turn the radio up.
Macca drank his Coke. He took his time with it. When he lowered the can his jaw was working like he was chewing through the words before he let them out.
"Yeah."
"So I'm not going to say it. But I'll drive you home if you want. Make sure you get there by six."
Davo looked at the wall they'd built today. Every course level, the joints clean. Something solid made by two blokes who knew what they were doing. He wondered when the last time was that anything else in his life looked like that.
His phone buzzed again. He reached into his pocket, felt the warm glass of the screen against his fingers, and pulled his hand back out empty. It was the hardest thing he'd done all day. Harder than the confession. Harder than looking Macca in the face. His hand wanted to go back in the way water wants to run downhill — just gravity, just the path of least resistance, just one look, just to see.
"Yeah. Alright. Drive me home."
Macca nodded once. He picked up both their toolbags and slung them into the back of his ute without being asked, and Davo stood there with the Coke going warm in his hand and the sun dropping behind the duplex frames and the sound of the Great Western Highway filling the space where he'd run out of words. The phone buzzed one more time. He left it where it was.
Macca drove the way he laid bricks — steady, no wasted movement. The Great Western Highway was choked with afternoon traffic and he didn't try to beat it. He just sat in it, one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the door. The radio was on low. Neither of them touched it.
Davo watched the suburbs go past. Servo, bottlo, real estate agent, kebab shop. A mum pushing a pram outside the chemist. The pokies room at the RSL with its windows blacked out, a bloke in high-vis walking in through the side door at ten to five on a Monday.
He looked away from that.
Macca turned off the highway two blocks early and came up through the back streets. He pulled over two houses short of Davo's place and put it in park. The engine idled. Through the windscreen, Davo could see his own front yard — the bins out, Mila's plastic ride-on faded from the sun, the kitchen light already on.
Macca looked at the steering wheel, not at Davo.
Davo nodded. He grabbed his toolbag from the tray and shut the door, and Macca waited until he was on the footpath before pulling away. The tail lights turned the corner and were gone.
The street was quiet. Someone mowing a few houses down. He stood there longer than he needed to, looking at the lit kitchen window. Rene moved past it once, carrying something. Then again, without it.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He could feel the shape of it against his leg — the app, the balance, the multi, all of it right there under his thumb if he wanted it. He left his hand where it was.
He walked up the driveway. The concrete was warm through his boot soles. He could smell something — pasta bake, maybe, or just the house, the particular smell of his own life that he stopped noticing most days.
The screen door was unlatched. He opened it and stepped into the hallway and Rene was standing at the kitchen bench with her back to him. She turned around. Mila was on her hip, gnawing on a teething ring, and Rene's face was calm and clean and completely unreadable.
"You're home."
Two words. Not a question.
Mila saw him and reached out with both hands, the teething ring dropping to the floor. He took her. She grabbed a fistful of his hi-vis and pressed her face into his neck, and she smelled like baby shampoo and Vegemite toast and she was warm and solid and real.
Rene watched him hold her. Her hands found the bench behind her and rested there, and her eyes stayed on his face the way they'd been staying on his face lately — he couldn't say how long, or what it meant, only that it was there.
He put his toolbag down. He took off his boots. He stood in his own kitchen holding his daughter, and Rene was three feet away, and the distance between them was the width of everything he hadn't said.