by Emily Gale
The house has gone to sleep quickly, but I haven’t wound down yet. It’s a warm night. I drop my towel again and stand in front of the flyscreen to feel the breeze on my skin. I run my fingertips across my chest as my skin dries; cold water drips from my hair; I shiver, feeling Adie’s eyes on my back.
Monday after school is squad training. After we finish a set of sprints, Nate’s dad walks in with a clipboard and murmurs something to Mr Pruitt, the swimming teacher. Pruitt nods and both men walk to the side of the pool. This is it. Every breath comes with the sensation that my lungs are going to rupture my rib cage. I drift away from the side and turn to face them. Tom Cartright starts to read out names. Some of the boys high-five and cheer, too loud for me to hear what he’s saying. My teeth are chattering. Come on, come on, come on, say my name.
‘Benjamin Brearley …’
‘Yes, Benny!’ yells Nate. He clambers onto me and takes me under. We grip each other, skin to skin, in a deathroll, finally breaking the surface and laughing so loudly that the sound bounces off the walls.
Pruitt dismisses us. I get out quickly and jog towards the toilets, aware of my guts rumbling. Sure enough, my lunch comes up as soon as I look down the bowl.
But I’m in. It’s all right. I wipe the corner of my mouth and smile to myself.
When I get home from school, Mum’s out the front hosing the lawn. I’m dying to tell her I made the team, but Dad would want to be first, so I act casual and walk past her. He’s in the kitchen, sitting on a stool, tie loosened, reading the news on his iPad with his hand around a cold beer.
‘Dad. I’m in. I made it.’
He swivels to face me and puts his hand down hard on my shoulder. He squeezes, looking at me intensely. I try to see past his swollen nose, the dark red gash where they glued his skin shut, the deep purple smudge under his left eye.
‘Great work,’ he says. He taps my cheek with his hand, gets off the stool and leaves.
That’s it? My bag falls off my shoulder and drops to my feet.
I’ve said sorry fifty times. He says it’s fine, but it isn’t. He’s so damn quiet. He leaves the room whenever I’m in it and hardly looks at me. I thought this would be the thing to fix it.
Noah wanders in, eyes locked on his Nintendo, thumbs working like crazy, tongue poking out the side of his mouth. As he passes, I snatch it out of his hands.
‘Hey! What’ja do that for?’
Because. I hold the Nintendo high and watch him jump for it. Noah is smaller and skinnier than I was at his age. He’s always in his own little world or having secret chats with Mum, or climbing the tree down the back of our garden by himself and sitting there like some loner.
‘Give it, Ben!’
I walk around the kitchen bench, the Nintendo inches from the ceiling. He clambers after me and I will him to slam into me harder, to work himself into a sweat, tear me down and wrestle the thing out of my hands. ‘You’re not even trying!’
He goes for it. My body responds to his slaps and punches with something like pleasure.
‘Come on, bro!’ I shout at him, striding from room to room. Laughter rises in my stone chest. I walk faster but keep stopping in my tracks to let him slam into me again.
‘Ben! Give it!’ He tackles me near the sofa and brings me down. He’s on top of me, pummelling his hands into my back. He climbs over my head and clamps my arm down. I feel the pressure intensify as he puts his whole body on my arm and the blood slows. ‘Give it back! Why are you being like this?’
I can’t stop laughing. He picks off my fingers, bending them right back.
Afterwards, I lie there, panting, looking deep into the fibres of the carpet.
Maccas, Tuesday lunchtime. There are four of us at a table with our laptops out, trying to finish off an English essay on this play called The Winslow Boy. The used wrapper from Nate’s burger is spread out in the middle with fries heaped on top.
‘Has anyone read this dumb play?’ Nate says through a mouthful.
Jake snorts. ‘As if.’
‘Nup,’ I say. Except I have. ‘Just watched the movie.’
‘Who’s in it?’
‘No idea. It’s black-and-white.’
‘There’s a 1999 version,’ says Marcus. ‘That’s the one I watched.’
‘Almost this century then,’ Nate says scornfully. ‘So, come on, give us some clues. I’ve only written a hundred and fifty words.’ Nate tries to look at Marcus’s screen. Marcus clamps his hand over Nate’s head and pushes him back, laughing. ‘Don’t be a bitch, Marcus. This is due.’
‘I know it’s due. That’s why I’m trying to finish it.’ Marcus is still smiling. Nate isn’t.
‘Write some bollocks about the personal price of justice,’ I say. ‘It’s all about how the dad becomes obsessed with clearing his son’s name in court after he gets accused of stealing five shillings, and they all lose something because of it, even though they win the case in the end.’
‘Five shillings. I have to write an essay about a kid who’s stolen five shillings. Jesus.’ Nate nudges Jake. ‘How much is five shillings?’
‘About a dollar,’ Marcus says while typing. ‘But it doesn’t matter how much it is. Focus on the dad. After he asks his son whether or not he did it, and the son says no, that’s it – the dad’s committed, no matter how bad things get.’
‘I reckon my dad would tell me to suck it up,’ says Nate. ‘Your dad would probably knock you sideways, Benny boy.’
‘What?’ I snap. ‘Why would you say that?’
‘Calm your farm. I was kidding. He’s built like a truck, that’s all.’
We carry on typing and shovelling in clumps of fries. There’s only fifteen minutes left to get back to school. As I’m checking the notes I made while I was watching the movie, I notice that Nate’s on his phone.
‘Have you finished the essay or what?’ I say.
‘No point. I’ll make an excuse. Just uploading the latest photo.’ Nate gives Jake a sly look. ‘Not that Ben and Marcus will be getting a look-in, seeing as neither of them have come up with the goods.’ Nate puts his phone facedown on the table. ‘Disappointed in you, Benny boy. Thought you’d have access to a serious amount of pussy considering it’s always throwing itself at you.’
‘Whatever.’
‘Maybe you’re not a team player. Better let my dad know.’ I look up. Nate’s got a Joker grin. He wouldn’t get me kicked off water polo, would he? ‘My contribution will be worth the wait. Trust me.’
Nate nods. ‘You’ve got till the weekend.’
‘We’ve got deadlines now?’ says Marcus, laughing. ‘I still reckon it’s messed-up, so count me out. Right, done with this essay. I’m grabbing a drink before we head back.’ Marcus shuts his laptop and heads to the counter.
Nate slides into Marcus’s chair and opens the lid again. His eyes dart around the screen, then he double-clicks and his hands hover over the keys.
‘What are you doing?’ I look over at where Marcus is queuing.
Nate starts to type. ‘Finishing his essay … I love …’ He eyes me before typing the final word. ‘There. Perfect.’ He slams the lid and takes the last fry.
It turns out that Piper goes to my old school. On Wednesday, I arrive there to pick her up with only a minute to spare. I wonder if I ever would have thought to come here without having the extra reason. Seems like the universe made the decision for me.
There’s a familiar pitched roof and the tops of gum trees behind the main building, but there’s also a huge modern block and I’m sure there wasn’t a running track when I was here. I run my fingertips along the bottle-green railings and try to picture the past in solid form, but it’s when the bell goes that I gasp and smile. I was here – I know the feeling of it, not just the fact.
Older kids in a navy-blue uniform come out of the gates first. I stay behind the railings, where several dogs are tied up. A hundred or more anonymous bodies file out before I see Piper and another little girl up at the far
end of the playground, bouncing on their toes towards the gates.
I had a friend, I think to myself, watching them. I had a best friend. The way it felt to be near her is like a taste – an ingredient in a mouthful of food that you can’t put your finger on. Which makes me want it back. But what kind of friend am I if I can’t remember her name?
Piper sees me. She waves with both arms before starting to run, while her friend walks off in another direction. My heart catches. I don’t know why Piper likes me so much, or why she’s so open about it. I guess nobody’s taught her to guard her feelings yet.
‘Did you bring me a snack?’ she says, pushing her face through the railings.
‘Was I supposed to?’
‘Some childminders do, some are meaner.’
I reach into my pocket and pull out a packet of gum. ‘Yes!’ She runs along the railing and out through the gate. She stands so close to me that our feet are almost touching, and looks up. ‘Good job, Adie.’
We walk past my own house and go up the path next door. Piper reaches down the front of her airtex shirt and pulls out a key on a string. She tries to put it into the lock by standing on her tiptoes, but it won’t reach.
‘Here, take it off.’ I lift the string over her head and slide the key into the lock.
Piper steps inside and spins around to block me. ‘I’ll be the guide.’
‘Of course.’
The house is the same layout as ours, but there’s a long rug up the narrow hallway with big coloured spots on it like Twister, and the walls are bright white. There’s a door with pretty glass panels in it right at the end of the hallway – in my house you can just see where the hinges used to be. The door looks familiar, but I guess I’m remembering the one we had when I was little.
The first door on the left is Elise’s room. Piper strides in and starts to point and name everything in sight. ‘This is where my mum sleeps. This is the chair where she puts all her clothes. Here are my mum’s going-out shoes. This is her make-up.’
I smile and nod, lurking in the doorway because I’m sure Elise doesn’t want me poking around her things.
Piper walks down the hallway, straight past the middle room.
‘You missed this one,’ I say, as she goes ahead and opens the door to the third room.
‘That’s Tav’s. I’m not allowed in there unless he’s home. This is my room.’ She disappears.
I linger outside Tav’s room for a second longer, liking the fact that we both have the middle room. I wish I could have a peek.
‘Hurry up, Adie!’
‘Coming!’
Piper’s dollhouse is the focus of the room. Tav made it out of wooden crates and smaller boxes, which he stuck together so that it looks like an eccentric apartment block. The walls of each room are a different colour. The people are wooden pegs with wool hair and drawn-on faces. I watch her improvising scenes with them. She doesn’t make me join in, but every so often I pass her a new character and she seamlessly works it into her game.
‘We need some food,’ says Piper.
‘I can make you something. Eggs?’
‘I mean pretend.’ Piper passes me a large Tupperware box filled with blobs of coloured clay. When I open the lid, the smell hits me.
‘Play-Doh,’ I say, remembering the word as if I’d been desperately trying to think of it for ages. Piper’s too engrossed to notice. I push my fingers into the blobs, then pull off a chunk and roll it in my hands.
This is so familiar. Not just this smell or the sensation in my hands, but this whole scene – this place. I work the dough in my hands, letting the thought sink in.
I think I’ve done this exact thing in Piper’s house before.
Or do I mean my house?
I get to my feet and take in the room with fresh purpose, peering more closely at the walls, the window frame, the ceiling rose, the space around me, trying to think back at the same time. Imagining myself here, smaller, younger.
I walk out of Piper’s room and stalk around the kitchen and back further to the bathroom. I look out of the window at the garden. There’s no studio out there, only a huge tree. The Faraway Tree. We used to call that The Faraway Tree!
But who’s ‘we’?
I put my hand over my mouth and spin around. It’s not that this house looks a lot like mine; I’ve actually been here. I used to come here a lot. I hurry back into Piper’s room.
‘How long have you lived here?’
She turns, holding two peg-people. ‘Since I was a baby. Do you want to be this one?’
‘And you’re six, right?’
‘Yes, but I’m going to be seven next year.’ Piper carries on with her game.
‘Seven …’ I take my place on the floor again. ‘Do you know who lived here before you?’ She doesn’t hear me or, any way, she doesn’t answer. ‘Piper, who lived here before you?’
‘A different family.’ She shrugs. ‘Can I have a real snack now?’
The kitchen is well-stocked like Tav said it would be. I make us fried eggs on toast and we eat with our hands, sucking the yolk off our fingertips.
When we hear a key in the front door, Piper slides off the chair and runs to the hall. First comes Elise’s voice and then Tav’s. Clumsily, I grab our plates and glasses and take them to the sink. Elise comes into the kitchen with Piper hanging off her neck.
‘Don’t bother with the dishes, Adie. I’ll shove them in the machine.’ She’s pink from the last of the day’s heat but looks happy to have Piper’s lips clamped to her cheek. ‘Thanks so much for looking after this monkey.’
‘We had fun. I was wondering –’
‘Here.’ Elise holds out a fifty-dollar note with some effort because Piper is still firmly attached. ‘I haven’t got anything smaller, so this is thirty for today and a down payment for Friday.’
‘Wow, that’s awesome. Thanks.’ I was going to ask her about the people who lived here before them, but I’ve lost my nerve.
Music with a heavy bass starts playing from Tav’s room. Piper’s giving Elise a detailed rundown of her day. I don’t have a place here any more, nor do my flimsy memories. My little friend seems to have forgotten that I exist. As I walk up the hall to leave, I pretend very hard that I don’t want to look into the crack in Tav’s doorway.
Back in my own house, my memories are a slow drip, barely enough to whet the appetite. I should be able to ask my dad who lived next door before Piper’s family, but instinctively I know that’s a last resort – especially at the moment. So much for the idea that the shortlisting would lead to some kind of normality in our lives. It’s as if the day after he got the news, all that mattered was winning. He’s back to being fractious and mean, out drinking at all hours. I found a poker chip down the back of the sofa. He and Dara have been arguing. He hasn’t painted for days.
I collect Piper again on Friday, but I have to take her to a swimming lesson. When we get back to her house, Elise is standing in the open doorway, home early from her shift, and doesn’t invite me in.
It’s quiet when I walk through my front door. I can hear Piper’s feet running up and down her own hallway. It’s comforting. I go straight to my room and step around the discarded clothes as if they’re moon jellies on a beach. I pick up the denim shorts and reach into one pocket, draw out Piper’s key on a string and put it on the mantelpiece. Then I check the other pocket.
My fifty’s gone.
I check the pockets again and then grab at other clothes, sending them flying behind me once I’ve been through them. I check under the mattress, inside the pillowcase, under the insoles of my runners – Oh, come on, Adie. You know where it is.
Dad.
I need that cash! There’s a party I’ve been invited to tomorrow night. I looked up the address on a school computer and found out that the house is a palace, about five kilometres away. I really wanted to go. A girl called Hari asked me and she’s the nicest person I’ve met so far. I needed that fifty for something new to wear and the
rest for travel.
How could he?
I have to confront him. But I have a bad history of not doing that.
No, I’ll do it. As soon as he gets home.
I move from room to room, finding things to tidy in no logical order. For dinner, I stand in front of the open fridge and eat a whole tub of baby pink taramasalata by way of a hooked finger. Then I eat an apple, sitting on the armchair in the kitchen with a view of the front door. Two hours pass. My chest feels congested with anger and anticipation, but I keep willing myself to stay calm and strong to give myself a proper chance to get back my money.
Nine o’clock. Where are they? I’ve got all this anger and nowhere to direct it. The armchair that I dragged in here for Dad – I’m taking it back to my room. It’s mine. I’m always dancing around him. He gets to call every shot. All I do is react, try to predict him, struggle to work him out.
Who’s going to work me out?
The armchair is double the weight it was when I moved it before. I try pushing it, but it only moves an inch. ‘Why?’ I yell at the ceiling, and slump into the chair, where it’s stuck in the kitchen doorway. I can’t take him any more.
Why is my life dependent on his art?
Why does he beat himself up when his painting isn’t up to scratch but not when his parenting sucks?
Why am I second to a palette of crusted-over paints?
Why is my face more interesting to him than my heart?
Why doesn’t he know me?
Why did I have to inherit his eyes?
Why did my mother leave me with him?
Why doesn’t he love me?
Why didn’t she?
My head’s in my hands and the armchair has grown bigger around me. I hear a key in the door. Shit. I wipe my eyes with my sleeves and spring to my feet.
‘Adie, my love! What are you doing here?’
‘I live here.’
Dad’s smiling, theatrical, holding his arms out. Behind him is someone else. He strides over and wraps me up so that I have no choice but to look over his shoulder at the she. Red hair in a bob, boho black clothes, late forties and in denial.