‘Are you okay, dear?’ she asked.
Hunter nodded. He stretched his legs and stood up in the pool. His mother touched his cheek with her long fingers. They stood in the pool, looking at each other and the din of splashing and laughing children faded away. After a few moments, they both walked slowly through the water to the steps at the shallow end and got out of the pool. His mother’s dress dripped as they walked back to his towel. Hunter noticed she was shivering, even though it was a warm afternoon.
The next time they visited the pool, his mother arranged for a different instructor. A gruff old woman who tolerated no nonsense and never took her eyes off her students. Hunter’s mum came to every lesson. She wore the same dress, every week. A private joke, between Hunter and her.
He stares once more at his hairstyle reflected in his dad’s mirror. He hates it. He picks up the scissors and starts snipping, not caring where he cuts, just taking off as much hair as he can. He’s back in the pool, and every snip is one more paddle, one more stroke to safety. Or further into the deep end? Hunter reaches to the back of his head and snips blindly. He feels the tickle of hair against his neck as it falls to the floor. He keeps cutting until his fingers can no longer grip the locks of hair on the back of his head, until there’s nothing but awkward stubble. He grabs at tufts of hair around his ears and cuts wildly. He doesn’t stop until there are no more locks to cut.
Hunter notices he’s breathing heavily, like that day in the pool, short sharp gasps that aren’t enough to fill his lungs. He drops the scissors on the floor and looks into the mirror. A grinning bowling ball stares back.
‘Ha!’
13
jesse
‘It’s okay, Trevor,’ I whisper. ‘It’s for a good cause. Kelifa needs the money more than us. And I’ve also emailed the Japanese Embassy, about Kate’s whales.’
Trevor is silent, although the clouds behind him appear to be getting darker. It’s night outside my window.
‘Can’t we just turn the other cheek?’ I plead.
Trevor frowns. I must have the wrong psalm.
‘You went around helping people,’ I reason. ‘Why can’t I?’ I blush. ‘Not that I’m comparing myself to you. You’re … you’re the inspiration. But I won’t tell Dad about that. He’s a little funny about false gods.’
There’s a sound of shuffling outside my room. I put my finger to my lips to alert Trevor. I creep to the door. The shuffling stops. I peer through the keyhole and see an eye staring back at me!
Someone screams!
I jump and stumble across the floor in surprise.
‘What the?’ says a voice.
I scramble back to the door and turn the knob.
Beth and I stare at each other.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demands.
‘Me? I was looking through my keyhole and saw something blobby and gruesome!’
‘That was my eye!’ she says.
‘Well, I wasn’t expecting it to be in my keyhole.’
‘It wasn’t in anything,’ she pauses, ‘except in my face where it belongs.’
‘Why were you spying on me?’ I ask.
Beth smirks. ‘I heard voices. I thought maybe you had someone in your room.’
‘Who? Ryan Blake?’ I ask.
Beth blushes. ‘He’s never been in my room. And if you tell Mum, I’ll deny it! So was it your imaginary friend again, Jesse?’
We both look toward Trevor. His eyes are downcast, as if to say, don’t involve me. I decide I could use a real friend for a change. Even if it’s my sister.
‘Beth, can you keep a secret?’
We sit together on the edge of my bed.
‘Sure. It was weeks before I told anyone Jade was going out with Nathan.’ She pats my knee. ‘Tell Aunty Beth everything.’ She frowns. ‘Have you been bedwetting?’ She realises where she’s sitting and jumps up.
‘Beth! I’m too old for that.’
She sits back down, nervously.
Trevor looks down over Beth’s shoulder.
‘I stole … I borrowed Dad’s credit card,’ I confess.
Beth’s eyes widen. ‘Whoa, that’s much heavier than wetting the bed.’ She frowns. ‘You don’t still have it, do you?’
‘No, I put it straight back,’ I say.
‘After what?’ she asks, one eyebrow raised.
I squirm underneath the gaze of my twin confessors.
‘After giving some money to Kelifa.’
‘Who the hell is Kelifa?’ Beth’s voice is dangerously loud. Dad might not have heard, but Trevor did and I don’t think he liked the cursing.
I whisper, ‘He’s an Ethiopian friend.’
‘At school?’
‘No, on the internet.’
She clutches my hand and squeezes. ‘Please tell me you didn’t fall for a Nigerian bank scam? They’ll max Dad’s credit card in a second!’
She stands ready to blab everything to Dad.
I try to drag her back.
‘Do I look that stupid?’ I ask.
She moves further to the door.
‘Beth! It was CARE Australia,’ I say.
She relaxes and comes back to the side of the bed.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. There was a picture of Kelifa standing in front of his hut. It was smaller than your bedroom.’ I wonder whether I should tell her about his four sisters. ‘And he doesn’t have a mum.’
‘How much?’ she asks.
‘Pardon?’
‘How much did you give?’ Her eyes narrow. Trevor looks down.
‘Fifty dollars,’ I whisper.
Beth whistles.
I squirm.
‘So this is what you were getting at over dinner.’
‘I wasn’t getting at anything. It just came up.’
She grins. ‘And Dad promised one hundred dollars.’ She whistles again.
‘Could you stop whistling please, Beth.’
She sees the anguish on my face. We’re both quiet for a long time.
My voice wavers, ‘I’m going to tell Dad tonight.’
Beth looks toward Trevor. ‘Did he talk you into it?’
‘It’s not Trevor’s fault.’
Beth giggles. ‘Calling the picture Trevor doesn’t make him any more real.’
Trevor and I pretend not to hear.
Beth stands. ‘Come on then.’ She reaches for my hand. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You will?’
‘Yeah, we’ll say … We’ll say we were fooling around on the CARE Australia site and I …’ She frowns.
I click my fingers. ‘And I just put some numbers into the credit card box and they turned out to be Dad’s.’
‘Jesse that is the stupidest idea you’ve had since stealing Dad’s credit card in the first place.’ We walk down the hallway. ‘I’ll think of something,’ she rolls her eyes, ‘something more believable.’
14
jesse
Dad swears, loudly. The noise of something being thrown comes from behind the door. I break out in a sweat. Even Beth looks a little pale.
‘Are you wearing make-up?’ I ask.
Beth looks at me strangely. ‘No, why?’
‘No reason,’ I say. The pale face is real. It’s not fair to make her go through this torture with me, especially if Dad is already throwing things before we’ve even entered his workshop.
‘Psst,’ I whisper.
Beth leads me away from the door. ‘What now?’
‘Sis, I’ll tell Dad alone.’
Dad swears again. Beth tries to smile. ‘Nah. It’ll be okay.’ She gulps, ‘I can’t—’
I hold up my hand and interrupt her. ‘Really, Beth. I’ve got to do it alone.’ I try to stand a little straighter.
‘Are you sure?’ Beth asks.
‘I’ll just tell the truth.’
Beth grins. ‘Did Trevor tell you to say that?’
‘Trevor doesn’t actually speak,’ I reply.
Beth looks to the door. ‘Do you want me to wait outside, just in case?’
I shake my head.
‘Just think of the starving millions, Jesse,’ she says, before creeping quietly up the back stairs and waving from the landing.
A noise like a dentist’s drill comes from behind the door. It stops for a second, followed by shuffling and then the drill starts up once more. I knock. The drill keeps going. It seems to be getting louder.
I knock a little harder.
‘Who is it?’ Dad’s voice sounds frustrated.
I open the door and poke my head around. Dad is sitting in the centre of the room behind a sewing machine.
‘Hi, Dad.’
‘Hi, come in, Jesse.’ He holds up my blue jeans. His overalls are in a pile on the floor. ‘I’m stitching our old clothes.’ He coughs, embarrassed. ‘Your mother suggested we make some savings, after our,’ he looks at me, meaningfully, ‘recent expenditures.’
‘Have you already donated, Dad?’
‘No, not yet. Tomorrow night. Your mum suggested we do it together, as a family, before dinner.’ He looks quickly toward the door. ‘Just between you and me, Jesse, I may have been a bit rash promising one hundred dollars.’
‘That’s okay, Dad. I understand.’ A vision of Kelifa flashes in my mind, his disappointment is easy to imagine. ‘Maybe we could pay it in …’ I can’t think of the word.
‘Instalments?’ Dad suggests.
‘Yeah, like fifty dollars over two months.’
Dad smiles. ‘Don’t worry about it, Jesse. My credit card can take it.’ He stares at the back wall and his eyes have that faraway look he gets when he and Mum talk about holidays. ‘Beth’s right. Growing fruit and vegies is not enough.’ Dad looks around his workshop, cluttered with tools and boxes full of cast-off junk and old appliances. He points to an ice-cream maker. ‘That was used for one summer if I remember correctly.’
I swallow hard. I don’t want Dad to feel bad because of something I started.
‘Dad, I stole something,’ I blurt out.
Dad looks surprised. ‘You what?’
‘I did it for a good reason, but,’ my cheeks feel as if they’re on fire, ‘but I know it’s still stealing. I’m really sorry.’
‘What did you steal, Jesse?’
‘Your credit card,’ I say, in a small voice.
‘My what!’ Dad’s hand instinctively goes to his back pocket.
‘For CARE Australia … and Kelifa … the Ethiopians,’ I blather.
‘Who? Where?’ Dad looks confused.
‘You can get Mum, if you like. I’m sorry,’ I say.
Dad stands up from the sewing machine and walks toward me. He takes my hand and leads me over to the old couch in the corner. We both sit down. ‘Okay, son,’ he says, ‘tell me what you did. Slowly.’
I take a deep breath and tell him everything. Well, almost everything. I leave Trevor out of the story. I figure Dad would blame him, even though it’s all my fault. Dad listens patiently, although he sighs a little too frequently to make me feel comfortable.
After I’ve finished my confession, I know Dad is thinking because he’s not talking.
‘Maybe I could pay it back,’ I suggest. ‘By working extra in the garden, or,’ I gulp, ‘you could take it out of my pocket money.’
Dad smiles. ‘I stole ten dollars from my dad once,’ he says. ‘When he found out, I suggested paying it back out of my pocket money too.’ He pats my knee. ‘Your grandpa charged me interest, to teach me a lesson.’
‘You can do that too, Dad, if you want.’
‘I’m not a banker, Jesse. No, we’ll work this out ourselves.’ He looks at me. ‘Let me get this straight. You donated fifty dollars to CARE Australia using my credit card.’
I nod. ‘I’m going to write a letter to Kelifa to apologise for not being able to sponsor him. But fifty dollars should help.’
‘Not to mention the other money,’ adds Dad.
I don’t know why, but my lip starts to quiver and without meaning to, or wanting to, I start crying. I’m so embarrassed I hide my face in Dad’s chest, sobbing. Dad wraps his arms around me and says my name.
We stay like this for a few minutes before I feel strong enough to show my face again. Dad smiles. ‘It’s okay, son. I cried after telling my dad too.’
‘Really?’
‘Well, yes, but that’s because Grandpa hit me around the legs with his strap a few times.’ Dad’s voice deepens, as he imitates Grandpa. ‘To teach me a lesson. As if the interest charge wasn’t bad enough.’ Dad’s face is serious. ‘Things were different when I was young, Jesse. Grandpa was a good dad, just a little old-fashioned.’
I reach across and hug Dad to let him know he’s a good dad too.
‘And now comes the hard part. Telling your mum,’ Dad says.
‘Dad?’
‘Yeah?’
‘We haven’t decided on a punishment.’
‘Yes, I’ve been thinking about that, and maybe Grandpa was right.’
I gulp, thinking Dad’s suggesting a few straps across the back of the legs. Dad sees me cringing and adds, quickly, ‘No, not that!’ He laughs. ‘It wasn’t the strap that made me cry. It was knowing I’d done something wrong.’ He looks at me keenly. ‘And I suspect you’ve learned your lesson, Jesse. That awful feeling in your stomach, that’s punishment enough.’ He stands up. ‘Don’t do it again. Okay? Stealing is …’
‘Wrong?’ I suggest.
He nods.
I hug him tightly once more and leave.
Beth is sitting on the back step. ‘Not too painful?’
I shake my head, scared I might start blubbering again if I try to speak.
Beth’s phone beeps when I walk past her.
She reads the text and smiles.
‘Ryan?’ I ask.
‘He’s helping me with homework,’ she says.
The drill-like sound starts again in Dad’s workshop.
Beth asks, ‘What’s he doing in there?’
‘Building a cage,’ I say, ‘to keep Ryan out!’
We both giggle.
15
HUNTER
Hunter sits in front of the computer in his room and types ‘Queenstown’ into Google Images. The screen fills with pictures of snow-capped mountains looming over a vibrant blue lake; a cable car full of smiling people waving from the windows; a man standing on a mountain top wearing a backpack, raising his arms in celebration; and apple trees blooming pink and white in a green field.
It looks like a place where people go for holidays, where only rich people live. Everyone seems happy. But there are no children. His dad will enjoy that.
He closes Google and looks out of his own window. The house next door has a light on, above the front door. Mrs Ainsworth walks out onto the verandah and calls for her dog, Charlie. She holds a biscuit in her hand. Charlie bounds up the stairs, his tail wagging.
Hunter gets up from his chair and flops onto his bed, closing his eyes. He remembers the last time he saw his dad. It was a Sunday, four months ago.
All morning, he’d been excited, wondering what they’d do. He checked the times of the football games at both stadiums, wondering which one his dad would choose. He googled the weather and decided to pack a towel and swimmers, just in case. Maybe his dad would buy him a boogie board? He jumped up as soon as he heard the car horn. Mum tried to convince him to take a jacket. Hunter had laughed, he didn’t need a jacket at the beach. He raced down the driveway and jumped the fence in one casual bound. He hopped in the car. His dad said hello and sped off up the str
eet, before Hunter had even fastened his seatbelt. The conversation went like this:
‘How are you, Hunts?’
‘Good,’ Hunter placed his bag on the floor under his seat.
Mr Riley shifted gear, elaborately, and turned onto Benson Freeway. Hunter wondered what that distinctive smell was. He looked around the interior of the car at the leather seats and the wood-grain dashboard. He turned and looked behind. Nothing but an old frisbee on the rear seat. The car rumbled along the double-lane freeway. Hunter felt like he was sitting in a massage chair. He wondered if they were heading east, to the beach.
‘I’m thinking of adding a racing stripe,’ Mr Riley said.
‘What?’
‘A racing stripe, black and white, like the ’67 Mustang.’ He smiled. ‘Didn’t you notice my new car? I had a Matchbox model just like this when I was your age. You like cars, don’t you, Hunts?’
‘Hunter,’ he corrected his father. You shouldn’t have to tell your dad your name, he thought.
‘Come on, I’ve always called you Hunts,’ his dad said.
Hunter shrugged. They drove on in silence. Hunter kept stealing glances at his father. He wondered why he smiled all the time. Why he leaned forward, even when driving, his hands holding the steering wheel loosely, eyes narrowed, squinting into the sun. His sunglasses dangled from the rear-view mirror, swaying back and forth every time they rounded a corner. It began to irritate Hunter. He’d rather his father hid behind the glasses.
His hair was different from last time. It was longer and swept back off his forehead, lacquered around his ears and curled up at his shirt collar. Hunter stared. He was wearing gel. At his age. That was the smell in the car: hair gel, aftershave and leather.
As if reading Hunter’s mind, Mr Riley wound down the window.
‘It’s a good day for swimming, Dad,’ Hunter said.
His dad swept a hand over his hair and wound the window up, checking his appearance in the mirror.
Bleakboy and Hunter Stand Out in the Rain Page 5