‘Did you hurt Mackenzie?’
He raises his clenched fist, but then lowers it. ‘You’re not worth it.’
Callum skids towards me on his knees. He wraps his arms around me. ‘Are you OK?’
I nod and then rest my head on his shoulder. He holds the back of my neck. He smells sweet and spicy. ‘Everything’s all right now.’ I lift my head and touch his face. I can feel his cheekbone under my thumb. I place my pinkie finger in the cleft on his chin and then his mouth crushes against mine.
I hear a low, whining sound. I think it’s an insect at first, but it’s too steady. It gets closer and I can tell it’s a helicopter. The Red Man lies flat. He wriggles forward to peek through the opening and the spotlight washes his face. He panics. He doesn’t know what to do. There’s sweat on his face. The blades cut the air outside and throw small rocks and branches against the fly-sheet. It billows like a sail, straining against the pegs.
Then we hear the voice through the megaphone. ‘Please exit slowly.’
The Red Man starts to cry. He’s left the door flap open and I can see the police in their vests and helmets swarming through the bush.
When the police come I’ll be on the news. I’ll have to do an interview on the radio. People will ring to see how I am and send flowers and chocolates.
He speaks and I’m startled out of my thoughts. ‘Wake up.’
He clicks his fingers again.
‘They’re going to look for me, you know,’ I tell him again.
The Red Man shrugs. ‘They will, but not for a while and not for long.’
I lift my chin in defiance, but I think he’s right. I’m a recurrent runaway. It’s written in my file, along with my other ‘challenges’: chronic truancy, depression, anxiety, borderline eating disorder, impulsive risk-taking and frequent antisocial behaviour, possible substance abuse, suspected attention deficit disorder, occasional evidence of self-harm, paranoia.
Potential for violence.
In my file there is the list of therapies that my youth behavioural management committee have agreed upon – hypnotherapy, hippo-therapy (that was fun, though it didn’t heal me), mentoring, family mediation, foster care, emotional growth boarding program, independent living program, wilderness therapy.
Why would they bother? No one would miss me. They will probably all be glad.
‘You know Dad’s not coming. I can’t help you. You might as well let me go.’
He shrugs. ‘I’m confident that you will get the message.’
We stare at each other again. It’s getting stuffy in here. His stink thrusts itself up my nose and down my throat and makes me nauseous.
A car rumbles to a stop outside. I hear the handbrake, and then one door slams. A pair of feet scuff through the grass. A man clears his throat.
‘Can I come in?’ my father asks.
He crawls inside and smiles at me. ‘Hi there, Poss. I won’t be too much longer.’
He squats in front of the Red Man and takes a small bottle out of his pocket. He shakes it between thumb and index finger. With his other hand and his teeth he peels back the wrapper from a syringe with practised ease.
He fills the syringe from the bottle and flicks the bubbles to the top. The Red Man holds out his arm. Dad slides the needle under his skin. Then he places his thumb over the puncture.
‘There now. Don’t you feel better?’
The Red Man nods.
‘You keep this.’ He folds the Red Man’s fingers over the bottle and then ruffles his hair. ‘There’s a good boy.’
Dad stands up. He slips the cover over the syringe and slips it into his pocket. He holds out his hand to me.
‘Time to go home, Possum.’
4
DISCLOSING
The fire makes shadows on the Red Man’s face like bruises. His mouth is a mean slash across his face – brooding. He’s ready for an excuse to let his unresolved issues manifest themselves. He sighs and rubs his forehead. ‘You’re not trying, Mackenzie.’
‘I don’t know what you want.’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘What?’
‘We’re workshopping it.’
I close my eyes and speak slowly. ‘Every now and then when my school counsellor is pushing me, I tell her lies. She writes it all down in my file and I can see her lining it up against all the other things in there. She nods as though it all makes sense now why I behave the way I do. Then at the end she puts her hand on my arm and asks if I feel better having worked it through. Sometimes I tell her lies, but mostly I just withhold information.’
‘Like what?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know, just junk – junk she would say was important. Every time something happened she would bring up that one thing, as though it drives everything I do instead of that it’s just one more shitty thing.’
Another recollection bubbles to the top, ugly and putrid like methane from a bog.
I’m trying to turn it off like a light and imagine the sand under my back. I can hear the waves on the beach, but it’s not blocking out the bad thought.
Sometimes if I hurt myself really badly it can stop the bad thoughts. I concentrate on the dull ache in my legs, but it’s not enough and now it’s too late.
This is what I came out here to do.
When I stayed at my friend Emily’s house and her brother Joshua came in after she was asleep, I was drunk. I was very drunk. I wasn’t able to talk my way out of it. Joshua raped me.
I’ve never told anyone – not my social worker and especially not the school counsellor because that is called ‘disclosing’ and they would be obliged to tell DOCS or the police or both, and then it would become a matter for investigation.
The school counsellor would know and the principal, the deputy, the office staff, the DOCS person, the police officer and all their husbands and wives, brothers, sisters, neighbours, friends. Each person would swear not to tell, but they would tell at least one other person, because in their heads, even while they’re swearing it, they don’t consider that telling their husband or their sister is telling someone else, and the further away from me each of these people get, the more people they would tell.
There would be speculation and debate amongst the mothers over coffee and banana muffins in the shopping centre across from the school, and amongst the staff at Friday-afternoon drinks at the RSL.
Some would say that I consented and then changed my mind afterwards and claimed rape, as if calling it that means it didn’t really happen. Most would agree that I consented and was then disappointed that the relationship didn’t go any further so I cried rape out of revenge, because Joshua was normal – middling-to-high-range socially and academically, and a strong swimmer, whereas everybody knew what sort of girl I was.
Later Joshua told a few of the other boys that he’d ‘had’ me. When I heard I just curled my lip and said, ‘Yeah, in his dreams.’
I did have a slight crush on Joshua before that night. It was no raging obsession, but when his eyes followed me I felt pretty and desirable. I flirted with him. I let my hand brush against his when we walked side-by-side and held eye contact longer than was polite. I even had a few daydreams about having sex with him.
It’s true. I was disappointed, because there’s no type of relationship you can have after a rape. You can’t be mates with your rapist, you can’t even be nodding acquaintances. I couldn’t still be friends with Emily either.
I was humiliated because, after all our flirting, Joshua thought so little of me that he didn’t even want to keep the option of friendship open, even though I was at the same school and would probably run into him every day.
I was physically and emotionally disposable.
At university the school counsellor had read textbooks and case studies and learned how to work through situations like this one, but she wasn’t there that night. She doesn’t understand that no amount of ‘working through’ will change what happened. Talking about it lets him force his way into my
head as well.
Besides which, even if I did go through with it, there is a conviction rate of two per cent on sex crimes in this state. Two per cent. What’s the point?
I choose to remember that Joshua and I shared a beer and he told me about his dead father.
5
STALKING INDIA
‘What’s the worst thing you’ve done?’ the Red Man asks.
I shut my eyes and shake my head. I’m so tired. I just want to sleep.
‘What, Mackenzie? What have you done?’
‘I stole from the Guidmans.’
‘No.’
‘I set fire to Nan and Pop’s shed,’ I whisper.
He’s in my face. I can feel the moisture from his breath on my cheek. ‘No, no, no! You’re not trying.’
I swallow. My throat is dry. I want to tell this one. There’s pain in it, but it feels good, like squeezing a zit.
‘There’s a girl at school. Her name is India Kavanah. She comes top in all her classes and she has lots of friends. She goes out with Jazz MacEachern. She’s a Barbie doll. You know – long blond hair with no split ends, perfect skin and straight white teeth. India still looks good after PE. She’s tall – taller than I will ever be, but nice. She doesn’t get involved in the bitching. India writes songs and when she sings at assembly people cry. I . . .’
‘Go on.’
I clench my teeth. ‘I want to punch her face in.’
His eyes are bright and he’s leaning forward.
‘She speaks French. She has tap dancing on Saturday mornings, because she can dance too. India is always the lead in Rock Eisteddfod. So on Saturday mornings I go to her house.’
His face is eager. ‘And?’
‘I break into her house and I go through her stuff.’
He waits. Eventually he says, ‘That’s not all.’
‘No.’ Tears well in my eyes. ‘It’s not even a very nice house. It’s not as nice as our house used to be. It’s not impressive like Katie Winter’s house. It’s just ordinary, but it’s always tidy and they have family food in their cupboards – lunchbox packets of chips and snack-size chocolates. Her mum makes slices. Their fridge is neat. They keep their leftovers in proper Tupperware containers, not just cling-wrap over the plate. The Kavanahs don’t have expensive furniture, but there are family portraits in the lounge room – mum, dad and a goofy younger brother with freckles, and then India looking happy and flawless.’
‘You’re stalling.’
‘I hate her. I hate her so much it’s as though there’s a brick in my guts even when I think about her.’
‘What do you do, Mackenzie?’
‘I go through her stuff. I take things sometimes. Or I break things.’
‘What else?’
‘There’s nothing else.’
‘Yes, there is.’
The tears spill down my cheeks. ‘I leave notes. Mean notes. I put them under her pillow and in her socks. I scrunch them up and shove them in the pocket of her blazer. I tell her I’m going to come back at night and slit her throat. I say I’m going to throw her dog in front of a train.’
‘Why, Mackenzie?’
‘Because I will never be as good as India at anything. She makes me feel stupid and ugly. She makes me feel like shit,’ I blurt.
The Red Man doesn’t answer. ‘That’s not the worst thing you’ve done, is it, Mackenzie?’
I shake my head, but I haven’t finished. ‘And do you know something? She has no idea that it’s me. I’m so low to her that I can go right into her house. It’s as if I’m invisible. I can walk right up to her face and she doesn’t even see me.’
‘What’s the worst thing you’ve done?’
‘I’ve told you.’
‘No. You’ve done worse than that.’ He grabs me by the hair and lifts. I squeal with shock and pain. It takes my breath away. ‘Tell me!’
My eyes squeeze shut. I feel a bead of moisture run down my cheek. It could be sweat or a tear. I hope it’s not blood.
He loosens his grip a little.
One time in Year 3 I stayed over at Katie Winter’s house. Her mother picked us up from school in a dark green car that was done up with white leather inside.
Katie lived on the top of what Dad called ‘Persnickety Hill’, because her mother came from old money. Lots of girls from that school had old money. I didn’t know why Katie had invited me, because we hadn’t played much before that. The other girls said that their parents told them not to play with me. They said our family was nouveau riche, and apparently that wasn’t as good.
At Katie’s house there was a window from the floor to the ceiling in the lounge room and you could see the glowing houses below, and the moving red lights of the cars winding through the streets. The glass had no smudges on it, even on the outside, and when you stood near the edge you thought you might fall through it.
We played in Katie’s room. She had twin beds in gloss white with pale green bedspreads, even though she didn’t share with anyone. There was a matching white bookcase and a wardrobe with louvre doors, but no dust on them. Neither of my bedrooms looked like that.
Katie played Oasis – ‘(What’s the Story) Morning Glory?’ on a portable CD player. I had a CD player too, but I only ever played music from my parents’ CD collection – old-fashioned music.
Katie let me hold her Tickle Me Elmo. It smelled toyshop-new, even though she’d had it since Christmas. The pictures in her room were matching and framed, and I bet she wasn’t allowed to stick up any posters with Blu Tack.
I decided that having old money meant that you had to keep your house looking as though nobody actually lived there.
Mrs Winter made coleslaw from scratch and potato bake with bubbling cheese on top. Mr Winter cooked steak on a barbecue with a lid and all sorts of knobs, levers and cables, like a spaceship. Katie showed me how to place my serviette across my lap instead of tucking it into my collar.
During the meal Mrs Winter asked what my father did. I was about to tell them that he had an earthmoving business – my parents had been very clear about me telling lies – but I thought a chemist sounded much better; less nouveau riche.
I wanted them to like me, so when Mr Winter asked for details I pictured the chemist’s shop in my mind and I told him everything I could remember. I told him about the runner and the customers on their plastic chairs and how I played imaginary hopscotch down the middle of the shop while I waited for my dad. I even gave him the address.
6
PRAYING
The waves are crashing over me again and I’m drowning. There are tears rolling down my cheeks. I’m so tired. I can’t keep my head up, or my eyes open.
The Red Man has me by the shoulders and he’s shaking me.
About two weeks after the runner boy ate all the pills in the chemist’s shop, Paul Hiller pushed in front of me in the canteen line. I punched him in the back of the head, and then when he turned around I punched him in the neck. Then all the kids formed a circle around us and chanted, ‘Fight, fight, fight’.
Paul Hiller’s eyes were wide and his face went white. He looked angry, but mostly he looked surprised. My face was probably the same. We fought because we’d started, and we were full of adrenaline, so we had to keep going. He kicked me in the shins, I pulled his hair and bit his arm.
Everything was static and fuzz except for the grunts I was making and the slapping sounds our limbs made when we hit each other.
When I think about it, it was kind of like sex. I suddenly found myself halfway through and I couldn’t quite remember how it started except that I possibly overreacted to something he did, and those small, mean, ancient circuits in my brain that run reactions and appendages just the same in dogs, bees and crocodiles kicked in, and even as that realisation blossomed in my mind, it was too late to stop.
Mrs Wong broke us up.
That fight with Paul Hiller was the beginning of my parental-separation, trauma-reactive behavioural problems. I was in Year 3.
I went to visit my dad that weekend. He was already thinner. Dad and I shared an egg-and-lettuce sandwich. He said he had taken up yoga and was planning to start a course in wine-making.
He asked me about school and I told him it was good. I didn’t tell him about hitting Paul Hiller, or about the counselling, or about the foster-home. I wanted him to ask me. I wanted him to perceive it the way he’d always known when I needed to go to the toilet or when I hadn’t brushed my teeth before bed. He didn’t see it, though. He was too busy thinking about himself.
When you don’t see me, I feel angry and frightened.
At the same time I was relieved, because if he didn’t know about those things, which were out in the open, he didn’t know about what I’d told the Winters at dinner. Or maybe he did know and it hurt him so much that he couldn’t take in any more information that had anything to do with me.
I asked him if we could go home now. Then he cried and said he wished he could hold me. It was weird. I hadn’t seen him cry before. His face kept crumpling and twisting. He would take in big breaths and hold them, and let them go in a whoosh, as though he was practising for underwater swimming.
I swung my feet under the chair and looked around the room while I waited for him to finish. All the time a thought was running through my head, blinking like one of those mobile street signs. I broke him. I broke him. One of the other men was crying too. They all looked ill under the fluorescent lights.
That night I had bad dreams so I never went back. When Itsy went I told her I’d wait for him to come home but he never did.
Our family wasn’t religious, so I didn’t really know how to do it, but I tried praying. I shut my eyes tight and I pressed my hands together, the way kids did on television and asked God to fix it. I’ve never understood about God. At the Catholic school I went to later we prayed every day in Religious Studies. The Brothers and Sisters were so convinced it would work. It’s still mysterious and vague to me, like electricity, or car engines – even when someone explains how it works, it’s still incomprehensible and magic.
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