‘I feel like such a dickhead,’ she told me, not meeting my gaze but keeping her eyes fixed on the white railings that separated road from grass.
He was there, leaning against the pylons. From where she stood, up above, he seemed to be alone, but as she walked down the slope, she saw he had two of his mates with him.
‘I suddenly wished I hadn’t come down,’ she told me. ‘But it was too late, you know? I was there, and they could see me, and I just said “Hi” and thought I would look like a total idiot if I turned and went back.’
He asked her if she had a joint, and she shook her head, wishing she’d managed to nick one from Karen.
And then, as she continued towards them, he spat on the ground.
‘He told me to piss off.’
I didn’t say anything, I just stayed perfectly still, next to her.
‘He called me a slag.’
She had lowered her eyes now and was staring fixedly at the hole in the knee of her jeans. I was about to tell her that he was the dickhead, that he wasn’t worth worrying about, but she kept talking.
‘He told all his friends how easy I was. He told them everything we’d done the previous day. “Cassie the slut”, he called me, and they were all laughing. He said they should all have a go, not that I was worth it.’
I felt sick, and I edged closer to her, putting my arm around her shoulder.
‘What did you do?’ I finally asked.
‘That’s the worst.’ Her long hair was covering her face, but I could see one tear, sliding, complete and round, down to the tip of her nose, where it stayed, perfectly still, until she wiped it away with her hand. ‘I should have given him the finger, I should have told him what I thought, I should have done something, but I didn’t. I was scared and upset and I felt so ashamed, and I think I started crying and then I ran.’
We stayed silent. There was no sound except the constant rush of cars, and from somewhere, on the other side of the grass, the bark of a dog.
‘He’s a total arsehole,’ I eventually said.
‘I just wanted someone to like me.’ She looked up at me now, her pale eyes wide and open and vulnerable in the glare of the light. ‘You know, I wanted someone to think I was special. And I thought he did.’
I told her that she wasspecial. Her mum thought so, Sonia and I thought so, lots of people thought so. I told her all the things that people say when someone is upset, a rush of words that don’t seem to mean all that much, that are like a soothing bland salve you put on an open cut in the hope of protecting that rawness from the harshness of the world. And then I stopped, and I took her hands in mine and I made her face me.
‘You know, you should be angry.’ As I spoke, I felt the anger rising in me, a heat in my blood, my limbs firm, smooth and tight. ‘Where does he live?’
She looked at me, smiling nervously. And then she pointed to a high liver-coloured block of flats with white besser brick balconies. It was the block behind her own, the one next to Lyndon’s.
‘Do you know which one?’
She shook her head.
I picked up my board and began to walk towards the road. She didn’t follow me immediately, but when I reached the crossing, I heard her, right behind me.
‘What are you going to do?’
I turned to face her. ‘No,’ I eventually said. ‘What are we going to do?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to see him.’ And the look on her face was one of horror. ‘Truly.’
‘Why?’ I asked her. ‘He’s the one who should feel ashamed.’
The glass doors at the entrance to the flats were open, rolled up newspapers tossed into the lobby. The carpet was threadbare and the fluorescent light in the low stucco ceiling was still on, flickering and humming. I ran my fingers down the list of names, the plastic letters pinned into the plastic backing, all behind a glass case that had been cracked and never repaired.
The Bensons were on the fourth floor.
‘I don’t want to go up.’ Cassie was begging, looking genuinely sick at the thought.
The truth was, I hadn’t really worked out what we were going to do, and now that we were here I was losing my nerve, probably because her fear was so obvious, and I didn’t want to her to feel like she had made an even worse fool of herself. I was about to suggest something petty, like throwing a rock up to his window, or knocking on his door and running away, when I changed my mind. I hated him for what he’d done, and I didn’t know why she should be the one feeling so awful.
‘You shouldn’t be scared of facing him,’ I told her. ‘He’s the one who should be too embarrassed to show himself. But it’s okay.’
I suggested going back to her place. ‘I want you to write him a letter,’ I said. ‘An angry letter that tells him what he did was wrong. And then I’ll deliver it to him. Personally.’
An hour later, we came back to the same block of flats. I had Cassie’s letter clutched in my hand. She walked with me as far as the entrance and then said she couldn’t come up. I left her on the low cement fence that bordered the road from a parched garden of succulents and gravel, and promised her I wouldn’t be long.
‘I just want to give it to him, make sure he reads it and then go.’ How I intended to do the second of these things and ensure that he actually looked at the letter wasn’t something I’d worked out yet.
I’d lain on Cassie’s bed, listening to her favourite Sherbet record while she wrote. She’d only asked for help once, and I’d refused.
‘It has to be your words, otherwise there’s no point.’
She’d made several attempts, angrily crossing out paragraphs and then crumpling up sheets of paper, before she felt she had the letter she wanted.
I didn’t read it. She just folded it up, put it in an envelope and gave it to me.
On the landing to the fourth floor, I was dismayed to find there were no numbers on the doors. I had to run down a flight and check the layout of the third floor, before running back up.
My heart was thumping as I knocked, and then I reminded myself: there was no reason to feel scared. He was the one in the wrong. There was music coming from inside, a loud, thumping bass that meant I had to knock again. It wasn’t until the third time that the door finally opened. A little girl in pale pink pyjamas stood in front of me, her teddy bear clutched under her arm.
‘Grant,’ she called out, when I asked for him, her voice much louder than her size would have indicated was possible. ‘GRANT.’
When he came to the door, she didn’t move. She just stood there, sucking her thumb and watching as he leant against the doorframe, looked me up and down and waited for me to speak.
I opened my mouth, only able to utter the word ‘wanker’ before Cassie appeared, and gave me such a shock as she took the letter from my hand, that I jumped, the little girl smirking as she watched.
‘I was going to deliver this to you.’ She held the letter up and her voice was loud and clear, as she stood in front of me, facing Grant directly. ‘But then I thought, I wanted to tell you myself.’
I was so surprised and delighted that it was hard to stop myself from giggling.
‘You are a prize arsehole. You will never have a girlfriend. And you and your pathetic friends deserve each other. This is my delivery.’ She held one finger up in his face. ‘Don’t you ever dare think you can treat me, or anyone else, like that again.’
We ran down those stairs, leaping them two at a time, the sound of the little girl’s laughter, followed by the slam of the front door, punctuating the slap of our soles on the concrete steps.
‘You were brilliant,’ I told her when we finally reached the bottom, both of us doubled over. ‘The look on his face.’
She grinned at me. ‘You know, I really didn’t think I’d do it, and then I was sitting down here, waiting for you, and I suddenly thought: “Stuff it.” I hate him.’ She raised her hand high in the air and I slapped it. ‘I hate him.’ Her face was bright red now and she switched, suddenl
y, to tears.
I looked at her, alarmed.
‘It’s all right,’ she told me. ‘It’s not because I’m upset. It’s just, you know,’ and then she laughed again, ‘everything.’
I took her arm in mine and we rounded the corner, both of us standing on the street at the side of the block of flats. It was then that I looked up. I don’t know why I did it, but I glanced up into the brilliant blue sky and then down to the other block of flats in front of me, and I saw him, Lyndon, out on the balcony of an apartment on the fifth floor.
twenty
Fact: I don’t know what made me decide to cross the road and go up there.
There was no one reason I acted in the way I did. It was partly the rush of having just given Grant Benson all that he deserved. I was also tired of feeling scared. I wanted to face Lyndon, and I wanted to believe he wouldn’t hurt me. I also wanted to believe he wasn’t responsible for the murder of someone he had known since kindergarten, someone who had been his friend and, if the rumours were true, someone who had become his girlfriend.
I suppose I presumed I would be able to help him. I would warn him that Cassie had gone home to call the police, and that it would be better if he called them himself, now, voluntarily. Even if he refused (which I knew was likely), I hoped he would wait until they arrived, prepared at least to face them, rather than being surprised and doing something stupid that would only make it look worse for himself.
In retrospect, I guess that was my plan, although at the time everything seemed to happen so quickly that I don’t think I really had any clear idea of why I was trying to persuade Cassie to do as I asked.
She argued with me. She told me he could be dangerous. But I insisted I’d be fine.
I ran across the road as soon as the lights changed, jumping over the low cement wall that bordered Lyndon’s block of flats. The layout of the two buildings was almost identical, but I had to pause for a moment to try and remember which floor he had been on and where the entrance would be for that particular flat.
I ran up the stairs, the sole of my thong almost catching on a torn piece of carpet. I lurched forward, holding my hands out to stop myself from hitting the steps. At the top, I stopped, wanting to get my bearings and my breath.
There were four apartments on each floor. Lyndon’s had been to the left. I looked at both the doors, uncertain as to which I should knock on. I approached the first, leaning my ear in close to see whether I could hear anything. I then turned to the second. It wasn’t closed properly.
It was only as I pushed it cautiously, that I realised I was afraid. My palms were sweaty and my breath was caught high in my chest. I stepped inside, the hallway was dim, and there, in the lounge room at the end, was Lyndon, clearly visible in the light from the window. He was staring directly at me, an open bag of clothes at his feet.
‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
I know I opened my mouth to utter some kind of sound but I am fairly certain nothing came out. We just looked at each other, both of us tense.
When Lyndon used to stay at our house, he always looked anxious. It was only after a few hours that he would relax, the guard slowly dropping, the smile appearing. Right then, as we both stood in his flat, he looked like the boy he had once been, the kid waiting to see whether everything was okay, not giving an inch until he knew that he was safe.
‘I saw you,’ I eventually said, my voice quavering, ‘from down on the street.’
He glanced behind him for a second, to the open sliding glass door that led out onto the balcony. The pale netting curtains lifted in the breeze from the open front door and then fell again.
The flat was almost bare. There was only an old green lounge chair, half vinyl and half striped wool, and in front of it a chipped coffee table. To the right was the kitchen. The cupboard above the bench that separated it from the living space was empty, apart from a brown coffee cup and a beer schooner.
‘Are you moving out?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer.
‘Where’s your brother?’
He shrugged. ‘He went over a year ago.’
I hadn’t known.
‘So you’ve been living on your own?’
Again, he simply shrugged. And then he shook his head. ‘What’s it to you?’
I couldn’t imagine how he’d survived, what he’d done for money or food and then, as though he could read my thoughts, he said he’d coped. ‘My brother sends me what he can. It’s enough.’
He stood up straight now, staring at me, as he pointed to the still open front door. ‘Out.’
I didn’t move.
‘I never asked you in, so get the hell out.’
My hands gripped the side of my jeans and I didn’t take my eyes from him. ‘You know the police have been looking for you?’
I had assumed he’d realised and I was surprised when he shook his head.
‘I went north to see my grandma. She’s dying.’
I glanced down to the bag at his feet, realising then that he had been unpacking, not getting clothes to take away as I had at first thought.
He was panicked now, scratching at his elbow as he paced across the living room. ‘It’s Amanda, isn’t it?’
I nodded.
‘Why?’ As he leant right up close to me, I saw the red veins in the whites of his eyes and the pale stubble across his chin. ‘Why me?’ He had his hands on my shoulders as he demanded an answer.
I knew Cassie was at home calling the police. They would be here soon. If I told him that now I ran the risk of him running.
‘Tell me.’ He shook me.
I tried to explain about Cherry saying she had witnessed him going to meet Amanda on the afternoon she died.
‘It’s not true.’ It was all he said, at first. He walked to the sliding door, lifting the net curtain to try to see down below to the street.
‘Why would she say that?’
I could see the agitation building now, and I didn’t know how to answer him.
‘Why?’ He demanded a response.
‘I don’t know.’
‘It’s not true.’ He was staring straight at me, challenging me to argue. ‘It’s a lie.’
‘Then you should tell the police,’ I urged him. ‘If you go to them and explain that you weren’t there, it’ll be all right.’
He was stuffing his clothes back in his bag, and ignoring me.
‘If you run away then they’re going to think you did it.’
His look when he zipped up the bag was one of complete scorn. ‘That’s what you all think, anyway. Don’t you? You reckon I killed her.’
I was shaking my head.
‘You really think I could go to the police and they’d believe me over her?’
He had his bag slung over his shoulder now. How I had thought I would be capable of stopping him was beyond me.
‘Get real.’ His sneer was harsh. ‘I’ve got a dad in jail and a brother who’s been wanted for armed robbery. Of course they’re going to pin it on me.’
We must have both heard the siren at the same time because I saw the panic in his eyes as the harsh wail was abruptly silenced, the car coming to a halt on the street below his balcony.
Darkwater Page 17