The Restorer

by Michael Sala

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When you’re old, do you think you’ll suddenly just go, yeah, that’s what I remember?’

  Freya thought about it. ‘My dad says he remembers things now that he didn’t before. Like bits of being a kid and stuff.’

  Something came into Josh’s expression. ‘I hope I remember more of my mother.’

  ‘Maybe you’ll see her again when you least expect it.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  They fell silent. Freya traced a mossy outline on a stone with a date beginning 1862. The sound of the mall, and of traffic crawling along below, seemed distant here. Birds were calling to each other, flitting through the foliage of the trees that pressed close together along the slope that ran down from the cathedral.

  ‘Do you think they’re still buried under us?’ she asked.

  ‘Yeah. That’s probably why it’s so green up here.’ He hesitated. ‘If I kissed you right now, we’d totally remember today, no matter what else happened.’

  He grabbed for her hand.

  She pushed him away with a laugh, pointed at the ring through her lip. ‘You stuck a needle through my lip today—that should be enough for now.’

  They went back to his place again, smoked pot, listened to music and lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling without really seeing it. Then they played Turbo OutRun on the Commodore 64, with its looping soundtrack and its broad road with palm trees and blue water and beach and clear sky and the girl with dark hair sitting in the open car next to the boy as they drove forever across the wide, bright landscape. There was something dreamy and sad about that soundtrack, especially when you were stoned. Their hands touched as they passed the joystick between them.

  Next they watched Pretty in Pink on the video player upstairs.

  ‘I like it until the end,’ Josh said. ‘It’s always the jerk who gets the girl. All he has to do is change. What kind of a name is Blane, anyway? He’ll be a jerk again.’

  She giggled. ‘I know. But then he’ll change again, and it’ll be awesome.’

  There was disappointment in his pot-glazed eyes.

  ‘I’m joking,’ she said. ‘He’s not even real.’

  He smiled. ‘It’s true, though. I see that happen at school all the time. Natural selection. The girls nearly always go for jerks, talk about the jerks, think about the jerks. And then they wonder why boys are such jerks.’

  ‘The nice boys’ll have their chance,’ she said.

  He laughed. ‘Only the ones that survive. When they’re not being crushed by girls who want to go out with a jerk, they’re getting beaten up by the jerks.’

  ‘Well, if that’s all it takes to crush them, they’re not very strong, are they.’

  He looked at her for a moment in silence. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘My dad should have been called Blane,’ Freya said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Nah. He’s more of a jerk than Blane—and he doesn’t have a decent car.’

  ‘Shame.’

  ‘He changes, though. He changes all the time.’ She laughed.

  ‘I should change too,’ Josh said.

  ‘Trust me,’ she said, pointing at him. ‘You’re perfect.’

  When she got home, Mum was in the hallway, checking herself in the mirror, about to leave for work. She asked Freya about school, and Freya, still mellow, looking at everything from a pleasant distance, said it was fine.

  ‘I’ve been called in early again,’ Mum said, ‘so I didn’t have time to cook anything for tonight. I’ve left money on the bench in the kitchen. Go to Hamburger Haven and buy everyone a burger and chips. Don’t leave it too late.’ She paused. ‘What have you done to your face?’

  Freya felt herself tense, but she tried to be offhand about it. ‘You can see for yourself, can’t you? I just got my lip pierced, that’s all.’

  ‘Right.’ Mum finished buttoning up her shirt and frowned again into the mirror at her own face. ‘Well, I look a wreck.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell me to get rid of it?’

  Mum glanced back at her. ‘Do you want me to?’

  The front door opened and Dad came into the hallway, several bulging plastic bags full of groceries in his hands. The hall seemed very small all of a sudden with the three of them standing there.

  ‘I’m going to cook,’ he announced, then took in Mum, there in her uniform. ‘I thought you didn’t start until ten tonight.’

  ‘They asked me to come in early.’

  He frowned. ‘Again? You didn’t think you’d check in with me first?’

  ‘We need the money,’ she said. ‘And they needed someone.’

  The plastic bags crinkled in his grip. ‘I called. You didn’t pick up the phone. Didn’t you hear it?’

  ‘Maybe I was in the shower.’

  ‘You should wait. It won’t take me that long. Got all the ingredients here.’

  ‘I’m sorry—I have to go.’

  ‘Right,’ he said.

  Mum hesitated. ‘Maybe you can put some aside for me?’

  Dad nodded, but his expression didn’t change.

  ‘Your daughter’s pierced her lip, by the way,’ Mum said.

  Dad looked at Freya for the first time. ‘What, are you turning into some sort of punk now?’

  ‘No,’ Freya said.

  ‘It’s that kid you’re hanging out with, what’s his name.’

  She stared at him blankly.

  ‘Josh,’ Mum said. ‘His name is Josh.’

  ‘Well,’ Dad glanced at Mum, then back at her. ‘I’ll leave that one for your mum to sort out. It’s not like she was a princess when she was your age.’

  He walked off towards the kitchen. Mum stared after him, then opened the front door and looked at Freya. ‘I’m not saying I like it, what you’ve done to your mouth.’ She smiled, a teasing glint in her eye that carried also a hint of sadness. ‘I’m not saying I don’t like it either.’

  And then she was gone.

  They ate, Freya and Daniel and Dad, with the television on. Dad had cooked pasta, and a rich tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes and dried basil—he’d even bought cheese.

  ‘Good?’ he asked.

  Daniel made a noise through his full mouth.

  ‘It’s good,’ Freya said.

  Dad nodded. ‘I used to cook this all the time when I was your age, Freya, for my old man. He never appreciated it. Some people are just hardwired not to appreciate things. Doesn’t matter what you do.’

  For a while they watched the seven o’clock news. The protests were still going on in China. The television cut to images of tanks and soldiers.

  ‘Idiots,’ Dad said.

  ‘My teacher thinks there might be another revolution,’ Freya said.

  Dad snorted.

  ‘What’s a revolution?’ Daniel asked. He had pasta sauce all down his chin.

  ‘It’s when shit falls apart,’ Dad said, ‘and someone takes advantage. The same people end up in charge—they just have different faces. That’s probably all you need to know. See, who needs to go to school?’

  ‘Does that mean I don’t have to?’ Freya said.

  Daniel laughed with his mouth full again, then wiped his face with the back of his arm.

  ‘Of course you do,’ Dad said, ‘because your mother wants you to. And we always do what your mother wants.’

  Apart from that, they ate mostly in silence.

  ‘Right.’ Dad stood up and pushed back his chair. ‘I’m going out for a while. The two of you can clean up.’

  He left the room and went out into the hallway. Daniel and Freya went into the kitchen together and started doing the dishes. Freya washed and Daniel dried. Then the front door slammed shut and Dad was gone.

  ‘The school called about the clarinet,’ she said.

  Daniel nearly dropped the plate he was drying. ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I pretended I was Mum, but I’m not sure they believed me. I told them I’d call back. We might have to tell
her.’

  ‘We can’t.’

  ‘You want Mum finding out before Dad does, don’t you? Imagine if he’d picked up the phone instead of me. It’ll be okay. She’ll sort it.’

  ‘But she’ll be mad.’

  ‘She’ll find out anyway. And maybe if she does, Dad won’t.’

  They stared out at the courtyard, lit only by the light spilling out from the kitchen, and finished the dishes. Then they watched television, and Freya made sure that Daniel had a shower. By the time he was lying in bed, and she was lying next to him with a book in her hands, Dad had not yet come home.

  There was a noise inside the house. It brought her out of a restless sleep. Someone was in her room. No. Something. And not in her room—it just sounded like it, because of the shape of the house or something. She guessed that it was a rat. Its claws were scraping along the inside of the walls or the floor or the ceiling in furtive bursts of activity. She stood up and went to the window. The street below was deserted, mournful under the sparse streetlights.

  Dad’s station wagon stood out the front. He hadn’t gone off in it. He was out there, wandering through the neighbourhood. She thought of the brothel, the expression on Mum’s face when they’d been walking past. The sky was very clear tonight, the houses sharply outlined. She went back to bed.

  She might have been asleep again and dreaming, or lifted briefly towards a waking moment, when she heard the front door open and shut and Dad’s footsteps climbing the stairs. He went into his room, just below hers, the room he shared with Mum, and he did not stop pacing up and down for a long time.

  14

  ‘I’m beginning to think you enjoy doing this,’ Mr Hind said. The noise from the quadrangle carried through the closed windows. It was bright outside, the sun shining over the rooftops, but she could hear the wind and knew it was cold. At least it was warm in the classroom.

  ‘Can I listen to some music?’

  ‘I just want you to get your homework done. Doesn’t matter how you do it.’

  Freya took out her Walkman and put it on the desk.

  Mr Hind looked at it like he knew it had been stolen. ‘I’m going to the maths staffroom,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back in twenty minutes. If you’ve got the first five problems done by the time I’m back, you can go.’

  She pressed play. The tape kicked in with a soft hiss. ‘Mother’ by Pink Floyd filled her head.

  The bombs were beginning to fall in ‘Goodbye Blue Sky’ by the time she realised Mr Hind was in the room again. He was standing at the window, staring outside, but when she pressed stop and took her headphones off, he turned around.

  ‘What are you listening to?’ he asked.

  ‘Pink Floyd.’

  ‘That’s a bit old for you, isn’t it?’

  Freya looked at him with interest. ‘Do you know them?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be listening to one of those boy bands? What are they, Milli Willi? The New Boys on the Block?’

  ‘Nineteen eighty-nine,’ she said, ‘is not a good year for music.’

  ‘I saw them once,’ he said. ‘Pink Floyd, I mean.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘What’s so strange about that?’

  ‘I didn’t think they ever came here.’

  ‘I saw them in England. You think I’ve been stuck here all my life?’ He grinned at her and walked to the door. ‘Any time you need any help, just let me know. I’ll see you later.’

  She grabbed her books and shoved them into her bag.

  ‘Will do, sir,’ she said.

  She stepped out of the maths block, pulled the sleeves of her jumper down over her wrists. To her left, in the shadows thrown by the Moreton Bay figs beneath the science block, she saw a crowd of boys. They were standing in a circle, like a football team in a huddle before a game, so close together that they were shouldering each other for room.

  ‘Cunt, cunt, cunt,’ they were chanting.

  From the other end of the quadrangle, Mrs Vaughan, the careers teacher, was sauntering in their direction. The circle of boys broke apart. A girl emerged from their midst, her hair and face covered in gobs of spit. The girl walked towards the toilets without looking back, sobbing, wiping her face with the backs of her hands. Mrs Vaughan was walking away again, as if she’d seen too much already.

  ‘Think she broke up with one of them,’ Ally said as Freya sat down beside her at their usual bench.

  ‘Should we go in and see if she’s all right?’

  Ally shrugged. ‘Stay out of it, let her get over it by herself. They’re animals, those guys from Stockton. They’re king shit over there. If you piss off one of them, they all get in on it.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Stockton. Freya could see it from her bedroom, across the broad grey swathe of the harbour. She couldn’t see much of it—just a few outlying houses among the Norfolk pines that hid away the rest.

  ‘What’s a baldy?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I hear the boys say it sometimes.’

  ‘You don’t know?’ Ally shook her head. ‘It means girls that don’t have any hair down there. Because they’re too young, right? Year 7 girls. Some of the boys like them because you can get them drunk easier, and make them do things they don’t want to.’

  ‘That’s gross,’ Freya said.

  Ally shrugged. ‘That’s how they think.’

  There was finally something happening in China—they were watching it on the television while they ate dinner. Tear gas rising in plumes. A grainy image of tanks rolling down a main street. A man carrying a shopping bag standing on a crossing, waving the bags, refusing to move while a column of tanks banked up in front of him.

  ‘Look at that dickhead,’ Dad said. ‘You don’t think they’ll put a bullet through his head when this is all done?’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ Mum said.

  ‘What other way is there?’

  ‘He believes in something. Isn’t it good to believe in something?’

  ‘Right. That’d be something you’d do. You’d be right there, believing in something, standing in front of a tank, daring them to roll on over you.’

  Mum gave a short shake of her head. ‘Can we change the channel?’

  ‘You like to be informed, don’t you?’

  ‘I just don’t want to hear the news today while we’re having dinner.’

  ‘Freya wants to watch it, don’t you?’ Dad looked at her. ‘She’s learning about it at school.’

  ‘Well,’ Mum said, ‘she can watch it later.’

  Dad got up and switched off the television.

  ‘So,’ he said, as he sat down again, ‘Daniel. How’s the clarinet going?’

  A sensation of dread washed through her. She kept eating, but she didn’t taste what she was chewing. Daniel didn’t say anything. He gave an anxious smile and nodded his head, as if he didn’t trust himself to speak.

  ‘Been practising?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Haven’t heard you playing for a while. Seeing as your mother doesn’t want to watch television, why don’t you give us a concert? Show us what you’ve learned?’

  Daniel picked up his glass of milk, drank long and slow. He put down the glass. ‘I don’t want to. I feel sick.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ Mum interjected.

  ‘You don’t look sick,’ Dad said, ignoring her.

  ‘What are you doing, Roy?’ Mum said.

  ‘I’d like to see what we’re getting for our money.’

  ‘Roy.’

  ‘Guess what.’ He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table, and looked only at Daniel. ‘I got a call from school today. I just happened to be here to pick up the phone.’

  ‘So?’ Mum said.

  His eyes cut towards her. ‘They said that they spoke to you. Did they speak to you?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About him. The clarinet. Do you want to guess what they said?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t
know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  Mum shook her head. ‘Why would I lie?’

  Dad looked at her steadily, and then at Freya, who kept her face still and didn’t look away. Eventually he nodded and looked back at Mum. ‘They spoke to someone, apparently. He’s missed his lesson and turned up at band practice without his clarinet, and now he’s been kicked out of the band.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You going to tell her, Dan?’

  Daniel’s mouth was quivering.

  ‘He lost the clarinet,’ Dad said. ‘So much for being musical.’

  A look of disappointment crossed Mum’s face. ‘Oh, Daniel. You didn’t. When?’

  Daniel shrugged and stared at the table.

  Dad snorted. ‘He hasn’t even been at school for the last few days.’

  Mum stared at Dad. ‘That’s ridiculous. If I don’t drop him at the bus stop, Freya does.’

  ‘Tell me, do either of you wait to see him get on the bus?’ He stared at Freya until she shook her head.

  Mum looked confused. ‘But I’ve been picking him up the last few days too,’ she said.

  ‘Do you see him actually walking out of the school? Have you actually been paying attention at all?’

  Mum looked at Daniel. ‘Is this true?’

  Daniel began crying.

  ‘Do you even know where you lost it?’ Dad said.

  Daniel swallowed and wiped his face. ‘I didn’t lose it,’ he muttered thickly.

  ‘What then? Where is it?’

  Daniel looked down at the table.

  ‘What?’ Dad put his hand to his ear. ‘Go on, Daniel. Tell us what you did. Show a bit of spine.’

  ‘Roy,’ Mum said. ‘He’s only eight.’

  ‘Old enough to join a band, you seemed to think.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean he won’t make mistakes,’ Mum snapped back.

  Dad pointed his fork at Daniel’s face. ‘I’ll tell you what you did, Daniel. You left the clarinet at the bus stop. You got on the bus and you left it there. I know because I saw it when I drove past on my way to work. I should have left it there to really teach you a lesson.’

  Mum’s voice was quiet. ‘When did that happen?’