I woke at first light to the sound of footsteps outside my bedroom door.
I scrambled up from the mattress, my heart thumping in the unfamiliar room.
The footsteps stopped. A board creaked and shadows shifted in the crack at the bottom of the door.
Something slapped against the floor and rasped as it jammed under the door. I dived for the door handle and wrenched it open, surprising Anders on the other side.
‘What are you doing?’ I hissed, looking around to see if any of the others were up. ‘It’s five in the morning.’
He reached down and picked up a large yellow envelope from the floor. ‘Your mum’s contract,’ he said, handing it to me. Then he rubbed a hand across his bloodshot eyes and walked away.
‘Wait–’ I followed him out to the kitchen. ‘Where did you find this? Was it in the car?’
I pulled out a dozen or more typed pages. They were meaningless apart from the signatures scrawled on the front and the initials at the top corner of each page. They’d signed. Both of them. Mum would get her money.
Anders was at the sink, splashing water on his face.
‘Have you been out all night getting this?’
He rubbed a handtowel across his face. ‘Had to find the right towing company. Couldn’t get into the yard. Had to wait till someone towed in another wreck. Eventually found it under the front seat.’
He tipped a whole glass of water down his throat. ‘Go back to bed. The real-estate office won’t be open for hours.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m going to walk up to the hospital and see Mum. It’s not that far–’
He placed the glass back down on the bench and met my eyes. ‘They didn’t operate till past midnight. It went well, but she’ll be tired. Better to wait till visiting hours start at ten.’
The pit in my stomach yawned wider. ‘Did you see her?’
He shook his head and mopped again at his face with the towel. ‘I’ll take the contract in to the real-estate office. You should go to school–’
‘I told you, I’m not going to school. I’m going to see my mum.’
He stared at me, at my arms folded across my chest, his limited supply of words exhausted.
A sharp voice cut in from the next room. ‘What are you two doing up at this hour?’
It was Caleb, with bird’s-nest hair, a grumpy pig T-shirt and drawstring pants that had a crotch halfway down to his knees. He wasn’t much of a morning person. Or maybe he was still dirty at Anders about whatever they’d been arguing about the night before.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to wake you. Could you please let Mr Paulson know that I’m not coming in today.’ I stared stubbornly at Anders. ‘That I’m visiting my mum. In the hospital.’
His eyes flicked between me and Anders. ‘I can do that. But right now, I’d like to get back to bed.’
‘No probs,’ I said, heading for the front door. ‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Whoa–’ He grabbed my arm as I tried to slip past him. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
I wiggled out of his grasp. ‘I’m going to grab my stuff from next door–’ it wasn’t home any more, not without Mum there, ‘–and have a swim. If I train for a couple of hours, then come back and grab some breakfast, it’ll be time to go see Mum.’
‘Swim?’ asked Anders, suddenly alert.
I nodded.
He pushed off the bench, ignoring the look in Caleb’s eyes. ‘Go get your stuff. I’ll give you a ride.’
‘Two for squad.’ Anders held a fifty-dollar bill out to Ma Mallory.
‘You don’t have to pay for me for squad,’ I said. ‘I can train on my own.’
Ma Mallory raised an eyebrow at Anders, a whisker short of grabbing the cash. He slotted the note into her waiting fingers and leaned back. A moment later, she slapped the change into his palm.
‘Better get in there. Squad’s about to start.’
Anders pushed through the turnstile.
‘Thanks,’ I said, a little stab of excitement knifing through me. My first real squad training session. Where I could ask questions of my own. Not just eavesdrop on what other people were doing.
Anders pulled off his T-shirt and threw it on the nearest table. I did the same, dropping my shorts and my bag next to it. I yanked on a cap and hung my goggles round my neck. Swung my arms in a quick warm-up routine, one clockwise, one counterclockwise, then swapped arms, as the morning squad filed in, laughing and chatting.
No Angelica this morning. Thank the high heavens for that.
I turned to see Anders stretching his shoulders behind me. He looked pretty fit, with one elbow raised, both hands locked behind his back. His head was down, listening to something Ma Mallory was telling him. She broke off when she saw me looking and barked out warm-up instructions to the lines of waiting swimmers.
‘Ten laps of freestyle to start. Hit the water.’
I hit the water and the cares of the world dissolved around me.
Two hours later, I’d almost demolished the big breakfast that Anders had bought for us both at Vinnie’s Café at Newmarket.
‘Ma says you’re a good show for Districts; says you’ve got the juice.’
It was his first attempt at conversation for the morning and he’d timed it kind of badly. I really couldn’t talk with a mouth full of bacon and eggs.
‘You should be training every day.’
I rolled my eyes and kept chewing. For someone who didn’t say much, he liked to tell me what I should be doing. You should go to school. You should do squad training.
I swallowed hard. ‘I should go see my mother in hospital every day, that’s what I should be doing.’
He speared a corner of bacon-and-egg-laden toast with his fork and sliced it off. ‘Visiting hours go through to eight at night. You can do both.’ He put it in his mouth and chewed, eyes fixed on me.
I forked in a mouthful of sausage instead of answering, but he wouldn’t let it rest.
‘You can swim. You should do what you’re good at.’
‘Can I get you anything else, sir?’ The waitress was young and pretty and had been smiling at Anders since we walked in. ‘Another coffee?’
He nodded.
‘Short black?’
He nodded again. ‘Thanks.’ Then turned back to me.
‘Well?’
I looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t drink coffee.’
He wiped his mouth on a napkin and pushed his plate away. ‘About squad training.’
I looked down at the plate and was surprised, and a bit disappointed, that the huge plate of egg, bacon, sausage, toast and grilled tomato had somehow disappeared. I pushed my plate to the side. ‘I’ll see how Mum is first.’
He nodded and leaned back in the chair.
I stared at him for fully two minutes then said, ‘You don’t say much, do you?’
He shook his head, then, for the first time since I met him, he actually smiled. A real smile. With teeth and everything. It made him look younger. Way younger.
‘I do most of my talking inside my head too,’ I said, surprising myself. Normally I wouldn’t tell anyone that. But it seemed pretty safe to tell Anders. He didn’t really talk to anyone, so who was he going to tell?
‘I have these huge conversations with myself about everything that goes on in my life. Then it doesn’t matter so much if I don’t have anyone to talk to...’Cos, you know, I can always talk to myself.’
He was no longer smiling. ‘That’s a mistake,’ he said quietly, and I felt the heat rise in my face.
‘There you go.’ The smiley waitress was back with a coffee. ‘If you need anything else, just give me a wave.’
He nodded and waited till she took her big smile off to the next table. Then he leaned forward, eyes fixed on me.
‘Shutting people out is a mistake,’ he said. ‘You have to tell them what’s going on in your head. Or they won’t know.’
He was a fine one to talk. I pulled away from him and f
olded my arms across my chest.
‘Yeah? Well, what if people don’t want to hear? What if you don’t have any choice because noone talks to you anyway?’
He flinched and tried again. ‘If they shut you out, it’s on them. But if you don’t give them the chance, it’s on you.’ He hesitated and looked away. ‘Then you end up like me.’
‘What?’ I glowered at him from across the table. ‘Really bad at talking to people?’
The skin tightened around his eyes.
‘Alone.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
It was a quiet trip back home.
I didn’t want to think about Anders being lonely. I had enough on my plate as it was.
I had to get changed. Make sure Caleb had told Mr Paulson that I wouldn’t be coming to school today. Get some clothes for Mum and pick a bunch of flowers from the hydrangea bush out front of our house to take up to the hospital. She loved hydrangeas, especially the blue ones. Called them Nanna flowers.Said they were one of the reasons she had rented the house.
I told him I had to get some stuff from home and jumped out of the car as soon as he stopped. I figured I could hole up at home till it was time to go the hospital, but as soon as I set my foot inside the front door, I knew that I was wrong.
The place was like the inside of a drum. Vibrating with emptiness. Every muscle in my body wanted to spin me round and walk me straight back out again. But there were things I had to do. A quick clean-up. Hang out the washing that had been sitting in the machine since yesterday. Sort out what stuff I needed to take to Mum.
Half an hour later, I was back next door with an armful of clothes and a bunch of blue hydrangeas clutched in one hand.
Manny prised them out of my fingers in the kitchen. ‘Here, I’ll wrap these up for your mum while you put those clothes away in your room.’
He’d been busy while I was out. My bed was made and a chest of drawers was squeezed in next to the desk. No-one ever made my bed – I was usually still in it when Mum went to work, and I’d never seen the point of making something I was going to mess up again that night.
I slid open the drawers. All empty and just waiting for me to fill them.
I shoved my clothes in and picked up the bag of things I’d grabbed for Mum. A couple of giant T-shirts she could use for nighties, a toothbrush and toothpaste. That was probably all that she’d need.
I wandered back out to the kitchen where Manny was making himself a cup of tea. His mug had a picture of a fat lady, swooning in a chair, and the words Happily Dying from Chocolate.
‘Where is everyone?’
Manny looked around. ‘I thought Anders was with you. Caleb’s working, and Vee’s sleeping. Don’t expect to see her anytime soon.’
I thought about Mum calling Vee the reclusive Violet Winterthe first time they had met. She obviously didn’t tell her fans what she had told me last night.
‘What time does she normally get up?’
The jug boiled and automatically clicked off. Manny held up a packet of green tea with mint and wiggled it at me. I shook my head.
‘We try to keep pretty quiet in the mornings for her,’ he said, pouring boiling water into his mug and dunking the bag three times before pulling it out. ‘She usually gets up in the early afternoon, but tends to stick to her room till dark. It’s blacked out better than the rest of the house.’
‘I’m going to head off to the hospital,’ I said. ‘Tell Vee and Caleb I’ll see them this arvo.’ A thought struck me. ‘Did Caleb remember to tell Mr Paulson that I wasn’t coming in today?’
‘He did,’ said Manny. ‘Your principal said to pass on to your mum his best wishes for a speedy recovery. And to let him know if there’s anything he or the school can do to help while she’s laid up.’
He was a good bloke, Mr Paulson, but I’d made my decision. There wasn’t anything he or Perpetual Suckers could do for me from now on. I wasn’t ever going back to that school. But right now, I didn’t feel like getting into all that with Manny.
‘Can you tell Anders that I decided to walk to the hospital–’
‘Tell him yourself,’ said Manny, nodding in the direction of the lounge.
I turned to see Anders, bleary-eyed but upright, standing in the doorway with his keys in his hand.
‘You ready?’ he asked.
I nodded and he turned on his heel and headed straight back out the door.
Manny raised his eyebrows as he passed me Mum’s blue hydrangeas, now wrapped in bright yellow tissue paper and tied with a green bow.
‘Thanks.’ I grabbed the flowers and the bag for Mum and waved a quick goodbye. If Anders wanted to save me a long hot walk to the hospital, I wasn’t going to say no.
He was already in the driver’s seat when I reefed open the door. He’d cleared a space for me in the front passenger seat. Everything that had been in the front was now neatly stacked alongside the canvasses, paints and boxes in the back.
I climbed in and buckled up, just as an important thought slapped me in the head. ‘Hang on a tick–’ I twisted round in my seat, craning my head to see if I could spot the yellow envelope in the back. ‘Where’s Mum’s contract?’
‘At the real-estate office,’ he said, pulling away from the kerb.
I propped myself sideways in the seat and stared at him. ‘You took it in? Why didn’t you wait for me?’
‘You were busy.’ His hands shifted on the wheel, gripping it tighter. ‘And I thought you’d want to be at the hospital when visiting hours start. To tell your mum the good news.’
He pulled up at the red light on the corner. ‘She’ll be paid as soon as the property settles in thirty days time.’
I sagged back into the seat, thinking out loud. ‘OK, then we just have to get through the next thirty days. We can do that. I can deliver pamphlets or something. I’ve done it before.’
He opened his mouth, then closed it again. A beep behind let us know that the lights had changed to green. He took off, lips compressed into a tight line.
We were almost at the hospital before he spoke again.
‘Your rent’s paid for the next month. Manny will feed you. You can give me any bills that come in till your mum is back on her feet.’
I didn’t know what to say. I’d only known him for a couple of days. ‘Uh, thanks, but I don’t think Mum would like that–’
‘Consider it a loan. Till her commission comes through.’
I thought about that for a minute and couldn’t see any reason to object to the arrangement. It seemed fair enough. ‘OK. Thanks. I’ll see what Mum says.’
His mouth worked, like he was chewing on something but it wasn’t in his nature to just spit it out.
‘I thought you said people should say stuff out loud,’ I said. ‘Instead of keeping it all inside their head.’
He glanced over at me and blew air out from between his lips.
‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘I think you’re right. Your mum’s not going to like it.’
He swung into the car park.
‘But right now, she doesn’t have much choice.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Anders’ internal satellite navigation system tracked us quickly and efficiently through Royal Brisbane’s maze of walkways and corridors and into a part of the hospital that I hadn’t seen before.
The surgical ward was a bit of an improvement on last night’s jammed corridors in Emergency, but not much. There were still way too many sick and wounded people for my liking. Too many beds, drips and trolleys. And that antiseptic smell that didn’t exist anywhere else in the world, that had gotten right up my nose. That, and my worries about Mum, made the nerves jump under my skin every time I spotted a blonde head on a pillow, in a ward or wheeling slowly up the corridor.
Anders stopped suddenly and I barrelled into the back of him. He backtracked, checked the ward and bed numbers again, and frowned.
‘What?’ Anxiety made my voice squeak.
‘She’s supposed to b
e in Bed 9. You stay here. I’ll find–’
‘What are youdoing here?’ The harsh accusation in my mother’s voice spun me around.
She was standing not three metres away in a corridor coming off to the left. Propped up on crutches with a nurse at her elbow, presumably to catch her if she fell – and right now she looked like she just might.
Her lower left leg was off the floor in a half-cast that was open at the front. Her right forearm wore a lightweight cast too, but it was her face, ashen with shock and pain, that hurt the most to see.
‘Mum–’ I ran to her, throwing my arms around her, crushing my flowers against her crutches, burying my face in the flattened fluff on the crown of her head. Without her heels, she came up to my chin. Her body trembled, tense and stiff in my arms. ‘I couldn’t go to school. I had to make sure you were all right.’
I pulled away, babbling out my news. ‘We found your contract – well, Anders did, in your car. They’re going to pay you, everything’s going to be OK–’
‘Andy–?’ Her voice came out in a strangled whisper; her eyes wide and staring as they swung between the two of us.
‘And ers,’ I reminded her. ‘He’s a friend of Manny and Caleb’s – the artist, remember? He took the contract into your work this morning. They said the money would come through in thirty days so you don’t need to worry–’
‘Your mum’s gone a bit pale, love,’ interrupted the nurse at her side. ‘We might sit her down for a minute.’
She grabbed a wheelchair parked next to the wall and I helped her settle Mum into it. Her face was grey and sweaty from the effort. But there was something else going on. She was staring past me like there was a snake in the room; she didn’t even react when I lay the flowers I’d brought with me into her lap.
I grabbed at the nurse’s arm in alarm. ‘She’s sick,’ I said accusingly. ‘She shouldn’t be out of bed. She just had her leg operated on–’
‘Your mum’s doing remarkably well,’ the nurse said. ‘All things considered.’
She took Mum’s wrist in her hand, timing her pulse against the watch hanging from the front of her uniform. ‘The surgeon was able to plate and screw the broken bone. She’ll probably be able to go home in a few days–’
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