Fat George didn't answer. He was close to tears. He would not be given another chance to bring lunch. That night, when his father hit his mother because she had cooked a poor meal, Fat George didn't defend her as he usually did. He said, "Yeah," under his breath and left her to cry. That earned him an hour with the comics at his dad's feet, instead of a punch in the solar plexus, and the difference was so vast, so easily achieved, he never told his father how unfunny he found the comics. Sally tossed the sandwich down and accepted a jammy half from Alex.
"Perhaps you like black bread," he said, a great joke. His best received; certainly it was quoted about the school for many weeks.
Black bread was available in the shops ten or so years later. When he first saw it, Alex could not believe that something he had invented as the most ridiculous-sounding thing was there, at the delicatessen rather than the milk bar, of course, but there. He wondered if anyone remembered his joke, and thought him even cleverer.
"You're so funny, Allie," Sally said. "Sally and Allie."
There was silence on the steps and for miles about. The sun went behind a cloud and Sally shivered, a magnificent,
shimmering movement they watched in slow motion.
"Sally and Allie," Alex said.
His left hand shook so he sat on it and
reached for her shoulder with his right. She shivered again, and the whole school sighed. The competition was over. He had won, and now they could relax, leave him to it, live through the stories he would tell if they had to beat it out of him.
The other girls joined the sigh, because they wished for love too, but it all seemed so difficult, so uncomfortable.
Alex became good at pretending he wanted what she wanted, and liked what she liked.
Sally and Allie sat on the steps alone. He
couldn't say to her, "Don't call me Allie," because he had a feeling it was the only reason she had picked him. If there had been an older boy called Callum or Malcolm, there would have been a battle.
He wasn't sure what was expected of him physically. He was content to watch her shivers, curl his arm around her waist, but was she getting bored?
The weeks passed, and he began to struggle for things to say. He was tired of flattery, and that made Sally peevish. So he decided to take a drastic step.
Two of the older boys were known sexaddicts. Alex began going out with them at night, to sit with them on another set of steps, the ones leading to the Town Hall.
All they talked about was sex, and Alex
remembered everything. He never asked questions; was so quiet he was barely noticed. He learnt about in her pants, which finger to use, what to do if she was wearing waist-hugger underpants. Everything but what to say to her parents when they caught you at it.
After three weeks, Alex realised they were repeating themselves and that he was getting more practice than they were.
He began at a neighbourhood party, a sixteenth. Everybody was there, dancing with the lights off. Sally brought two friends, quiet and fat, to keep her safe, but as she was leaving, he said, "Goodnight, Sally," and pinned her against the wall.
He kissed her then, quickly but deeply, felt those lovely breasts against his chest and pressed harder.
"You're very forceful," she said.
They stopped sitting on the steps at lunch time, stopped eating lunch. They began going out of bounds, to the sloping grounds outside the school oval. To the sounds of soccer and British Bulldog, they kissed. To make it real, she gave him the top two buttons of her shirt. Small and white, he carried them in his pocket.
She would not let him touch her breasts; her mother had told her that much at least. Alex now knew what was expected of him. He no longer had to think about it. It was out of his control.
He learnt to whisper in her ear, tell her what sort of grass they lay on, who tended it, when soccer was first played, why West Germany had won the world cup the year before, anything to distract her, take her mind from his soft and gentle, his roving hands.
Alex had in his mind that he would like to make love for the first time in a bed. That was the way he imagined it, the way he thought was natural. He had a good friend whose parents had a granny flat in the back of the house. This was a place for smoking, drinking, swearing, kissing. Alex asked for the place, just one night, a school night, the others wouldn't mind. The date, the place, the time was set. He spent an evening with Sally's parents, winning them over.
When Alex got home from seeing Sally, the house was full of the smell of burnt food.
"I ate at Sally's, Mum," he said. She shrugged and scraped the food into the bin. He bought some roses, wrapped them so
the thorns couldn't hurt him. He bought some special snacks. A little feast of chocolate and cheese. He didn't really know what to buy, but Sally was just as unsophisticated. Sally came to the place dressed prettily, like a bride. They nibbled at the food, swallowed the sweet soft drink he had also brought. They kissed, touched, they gently stripped each other's clothing away. Everything was perfect until he fumbled and struggled with the condom. He knew all about them (wet-checks, frangers, rubbers, raincoats, dingers, prophylactics). It was not so easy in practice, though, and he fumbled, became distracted by feelings of inadequacy. At least, he thought, she was a virgin too. Sally laughed as he tried to balance forward on his knees, tipped, landed on his face. She laughed harder.
The moment was ruined forever.
"What's so funny?" He didn't want to scare her off by being too aggressive. "It's just he always knows what he's doing."
Alex sat beside her, looking, horrified, at her face. Was she lying now, or had she been lying in the past?
"I thought this was your first time."
"First time I've wanted to do it," she said. The boys on the town hall steps hadn't indicated there was a difference.
Sally shut her eyes, and he could see movement behind them. Alex realised why Sally both wanted and was terrified by sex. Was it her father, or someone else?
"Don't cry," he said. "We can just hold each other."
Then she did cry.
"That's what he says, and next thing I know it's happening. Don't tell anyone. I don't want them to know I'm a slut."
Alex was angry, an unselfish, adult anger.
"I don't think you are a slut, if you didn't want to do it. Even if you wanted to do it."
"I didn't. I never do."
"How often?"
"Every time Mum and Dad aren't in the house."
"So which one is it?" He tried to imagine one of the Town Hall Boys with her, forcing her – how? With words of seduction he had not yet learned? With strength?
"Mr Harris," she said.
"Which Mr Harris?" Surely not the pipe smoking, upright, strict man next door?
"How many do you know, Alex? And stop asking questions. I don't want to think about it. He hasn't come around since I started going out with you – oh, just that night of the party. He drove my friends home and wouldn't let me out of the car."
Mr Harris. Alex had thought it had to be someone young, someone their age. Mr Harris lived next door. He had a wife who didn't like to venture outside the house much, two boys younger than Alex. He was a round, red-faced man who was always shiny with sweat.
Sally was crying again. He used his shirt sleeve to wipe her tears, and held her as her shoulders shook. He could feel his pulse banging in his ears. This little girl, little Sally, being hurt by an adult. He could look after himself; Sally could not.
He walked Sally home.
Alex thought with all the wisdom a fifteen-year old owned. He already had an interest in the law, and knew he needed to pass this terrible information on to adult hands.
But he barely had the words for his complaint, let alone the courage to speak them. So he did nothing. Nothing.
Sally and Allie went back to sitting on the step. There was much speculation; people wanted to know what happened. It was better for Sally that way, and Alex thought of her differently n
ow. Like a sister he needed to protect.
He talked to her a lot about Mr Harris. He asked her to call him the next time Mr Harris came over.
There was the night when Sally's parents went to the music show Alex's mother was singing in. Half the adults in the street went.
Alex's father stayed home to keep an eye on things. He had seen the show before, again and again, and it still made him cry. Alex's mother finally said he must stay behind; his sobs disturbed the audience.
So Alex and his father settled for a night at home. They played a game of cards, but Alex was restless. He thought about Sally, alone in the house, and Mrs Harris, who'd made an exception and left the house, and Mr Harris who didn't go to the show because he didn't have an ear for it.
Alex said, "I was reading a book the other day about a married man who started forcing himself on a young girl."
"Where did you find a book like that?" his father said. He had thought the library far more stringent.
"One of the older boys had it. Is it OK, though? Even if the girl doesn't like him?"
Alex realised another secret of the adult world; sometimes things are suspected, but never spoken.
His father said, "We don't see your friend Sally about much, these days."
"So you know, too?"
"Knowing is different to guessing."
"But it's disgusting."
"I'm not sure what we can do. We don't want to shame Sally. After all, she's only fourteen."
"Exactly. How is it her fault? We have to stop him, tell his wife or something."
"You can't interfere in other people's business. It's only a sexual act, Alexander. You'll realise soon enough how little it means. This was possibly the worst advice Alex ever received. He became anxious for adulthood, when he would be in a position to help. He would not back away in a cowardly manner.
He performed his first detective task; kept watch on Mr Harris's front door.
It opened at 9pm, one hour after the crowd had departed for the show.
Mr Harris stood on his front step, smoking his pipe. Just casually, as if he was going for a stroll. He looked up the street, saw no one. Alex was well-hidden. Alex took a photo of his smug face. Mr Harris tapped out his pipe and tucked it into his back pocket. He never went anywhere without his pipe, and told the story of where he'd found it, what it was worth, what he'd got it for, why he couldn't let anyone touch it. He had beaten his son Sam till the boy ran screaming into the street one time, defended himself by saying, "He actually sucked on my pipe, the little shit. Clenched his teeth around the stem."
Sam was a wonderful mimic; he did a great version of his father, standing tall and purveying the world like he owned it. It was this, perhaps, rather than the sullying of the sanctity of the pipe, which distressed Mr Harris so much.
Mr Harris crossed the road, sauntering to a place he wasn't welcome.
Alex wanted to smash his head in with a stone, shoot him, make him bloody. But he followed, once Sally had allowed the man into her home. She left the front door ajar, as Alex had told her to do and disappeared into the darkness of the hallway.
Alex didn't have the strength or the age to beat Mr Harris.
Alex had been reading a lot of true detective magazines; he knew how these things were done. He crept up the hallway and then he had to wait until the photo he took would be undeniable proof.
"I don't like it," Sally said.
Mr Harris squinted at her. "You just haven't got used to it yet. Just think how happy your boyfriend will be when he finds out how experienced you are," he said.
"Alex isn't like that."
"All men are like that," he said, nodding.
Then silence, for a minute, two minutes. Alex realised he didn't know what he was listening for. Sally whimpered. He pushed open her bedroom door, camera wound, flash ready, he was armed like a cop. He lifted the camera to his eye, knowing his chance would be very short.
Through the viewfinder, he saw Sally sitting on the bed, her eyes shut, her mouth open. He saw Mr Harris, his trousers down, his Yfronts down, knees against the bed. His eyes were shut, too, and his mouth open, though the differences in their expressions taught Alex something he never forgot; Feelings rarely match because people never do, even when they are doing the same thing.
Alex snapped the picture and ran. He
wanted the film safe. He locked himself in his parents' bedroom, which was at the front of the house, and called Sally from the phone by the bed.
"Are you all right?"
"He's gone. He's really angry."
"Scared, more like."
"What are you going to do now?"
"Call the police."
"Can't you just keep the picture in case he does it again?"
"I can't watch him all the time, Sally. And if it's not you, it'll be someone else. He has to be stopped. Men can't take advantage of women that way."
"But everyone'll know I'm not a virgin."
"Sally, everyone will know it wasn't your fault. No one'll hold it against you."
"You'll have to look after me now, Allie. My family won't want me."
"I can do that," he said. His father was listening to music on headphones, doing a crossword.
Mr Harris crossed the front lawn.
"He's here. I have to get off and phone the police."
Mr Harris banged on the front door.
"Open up, you little shit. Open the fucking door." Alex wondered briefly if his father would intervene, but knew that wouldn't happen.
Alex called the local police to tell them there was an intruder. He thought it was the best way to get them there quickly, and it worked, but it told against him later. They said he'd lied, and that made him
untrustworthy. They didn't accept the photo evidence; said he'd probably tricked it up.
"How?" he said, but that was too smart for a fifteen year old boy.
He was not to lose his virginity to Sally. That happened at a school dance where somebody had smuggled beer in, and he lost it in a two-minute fumble against the science block. He remembered the girl's name only because she followed him around for the rest of the term, wanting to belong to him. Wanting to make him forget Sally. Because Sally was gone to him. And Alex was no longer considered a worthy neighbour – he had told of things best kept secret, revealed the underfelt of their lives. They feared his childish honesty, were nervous of him revealing back-fence hopping, drunken gropes, those kisses exchanged after cocktails. He was too young to understand human sexuality. He didn't know about need. The Searle family were no longer considered neighbourly.
The street withdrew support for the Searles, as if they, as a whole, had deliberately and cruelly set out to destroy the fantasy of a happy place. Mr Horton, who mowed everybody's nature strip, no longer mowed the Searle's. Alex's father sought a transfer, and they moved.
No one offered to help. The whole street stood on their own front lawns, watching as the family loaded box after box into the hired van. No one waved as they drove away.
Alex and his family did not find a new home straight away. They wanted something perfect, his parents; they didn't learn the lesson of perfection, how dangerous it could be. They went to Mr Searle's family home; his parents were happy to have them. They loved Alex's energy, and his brother Dominic's quiet wit, and Sebastian's obedience.
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