Ryan returned home and found his mother on the kitchen floor having a withdrawal. She’d managed to get out of bed and crawl through to the phone in the kitchen to call someone about heroin but the phone had been cut off for the last week because she’d neglected to pay the bill. She was too weak to stand or to crawl back to her bed and Ryan had dragged her to the sitting room and fetched the blankets from her bed and covered her up.
‘I shoulda called the ambulance like that doctor said,’ Ryan said, ‘but she told me that it was just that she needed a fix. She said to take a hundred dollars out of her bag and to go to this place in the Cross and see this bloke, to take a photo we had of me and her when we’d gone to Luna Park, so as he’d know I was, like, her son. She said to give him the hundred bucks and ask him for two caps of smack.’ Ryan looked up, ‘I didn’t want to do it but she begged and cried and then she done a vomit on the carpet and she’d et nothin’ and it was just this green stuff come up. She said she’d be fine, she only needed the fix.’
‘This place she sent you to. The man you had to see. Where was that and did he give you his name?’
‘Nah, me mum did, it was Mr Suleman, it was where she worked of a night.’
‘Mohammed Suleman, at The Queen of Sheba?’ Ryan nodded, ‘I showed him the photo and give him the money and he give me two caps. He was real nice and gimme a Coke and told one of the Lebbo blokes at the door to take me to McDonald’s across the road for a hamburger. I told him nah, I had to get back to me mum. Mr Suleman said I was a good boy lookin’ after me mum and if I needed some more smack to come back. He said to tell her she could come back to her job when she was better.’
Dr Goldstein turned up in the morning after his shift at St Vincent’s that night. He examined Ryan’s mother and took a blood sample. When he saw that she was too weak to get out of bed, he said he was pretty sure it was Hepatitis C, which accounted for her chronic fatigue, and that he was going to put her into hospital. She only agreed after he promised they’d give her morphine. She spent two days in hospital on a drip, getting Interferon by means of a subcutaneous injection, then signed herself out, saying that she couldn’t leave Ryan on his own and that she didn’t want ‘none of them bastards from DOCS taking her son away from her’.
It seemed that she tried to go back to work but collapsed and they sent her home in a taxi. She had no money and she needed a fix. It was at that time that Ryan had called on Dorothy Flanagan to get some of Billy’s money and when she’d refused, tried to pawn his grandmother’s ring and locket along with his skateboard.
‘It were just the same as the last time, she was real crook, but we had no money, so me mum said to go and see Mr Suleman again.’ Ryan paused. ‘You see, I’d told her about the Coke and McDonald’s and how he’d said I could come back any time if I wanted. I went to see him that night and I told him what me mum said, that we’d pay him when she got better. He was real nice, but he said he didn’t have any smack though he knew someone who’d give me some for nothing. One of the girls there then took me round the block to the back lane and we come to this door and she pressed this button and a light come on and she said our business and the door opened and we went up these stairs that was just ordinary and suddenly we’re in, like this palace. There’s flowers and a fish pond and these leather couches and marble and pitchiz on the wall and this girl who brung me told me to wait and left. Then this lady come into the room. ‘“Hello, Ryan,” she says.
‘“Hello,” I say to her, but I don’t know how she knows me name.
‘“How’s your mother?” she says. She’s got perfume on and you can smell it. “Oh, Mr Suleman told me she’s not well,” she says. I still don’t say nothing. “Would you like a Coke?” she says. I don’t really want one, but I say, “Okay, cool.”
‘“Monkey!” she shouts out. This bloke come out and he’s dressed like a waiter in one of them black suits and bow ties and he has a Coke with a straw on a silver tray. “Monkey’s a dancer,” she says as he puts down the Coke.
‘“Hello,” I say. You can see he’s a poofter.
‘Monkey smiles and looks at The Queenie. “Hmm, lovely,” he says to her. I don’t know if he’s talkin’ about the Coke or him being a dancer or he thinks she’s pretty, so I say nothing, except I think Monkey is a real crook name.’
Ryan looked up at Billy and then down at the second container of Maria’s delicacies, which was now half empty. ‘I can’t eat no more, Billy.’
‘Good, I’m glad you enjoyed them.’ Billy pointed to the fountain. ‘The drinking fountain’s working again. Why don’t you go and wash your face, lad?’
When Ryan returned and seated himself back on the skateboard, Billy hoped that he might continue, but now he said, ‘You said you had two more Trim stories, when will you tell them to me?’
‘Any time you like, lad, but I had rather hoped you might tell me what happened next. You see,’ Billy explained, ‘I have a plan I’ll tell you about later, but I think it might help if I knew a bit more.’ Billy marvelled at the ability of the young to live in the present, though he knew that Ryan would be deeply affected for the rest of his life.
Ryan started right off where he’d left his story. ‘She said she could give me what I wanted but she hoped I could do something for her. “What can you do, Ryan?” she asked me.
‘I don’t know what she means. “I can’t do nuthink,” I say, “I’m only eleven.”
‘She smiles at me. “A little dickie bird told me you can sing,” she says. I don’t know how she knows but I tell her I can a little bit. “Well then, perhaps you’ll sing for us?”
‘There’s only her and me and I say “I dunno.”
‘She holds up a cap, “Come now.” She kind of laughs, like it’s just us two havin’ fun. “One good turn deserves another, Ryan.”
‘“I don’t know lots of stuff to sing,” I tell her.
‘“‘Ave Maria’, you know that,” she says. I dunno how she knows this, but then she says, “The school concert.”’
Ryan glanced at Billy. ‘We done this concert at school last year and she must’ve come or something. Lots of people came from all over, it was a big success.
‘She’s holding up the cap o’ smack. I stand up. “No, no, we have an audience!” She takes my hand and we go into this room that’s like marble, white everywhere, and there a big spa and there’s four blokes sitting in it in all these bubbles. “What have we got here, The Queenie?” one of them shouts out ’cause the spa is making a noise with all the water and the bubbles.
‘Now I know her name. So Queenie walks over and switches off the spa. “This is Ryan, gentlemen, he has a voice like an angel,” she says.
‘The blokes clap. “Good on ya, Ryan,” one o’ them shouts.
‘So I sing “Ave Maria” and one of the blokes is crying when I done it and one of the others says, “I’ll give you fifty bucks if you’ll sing another song.”
‘That’s cool. If he pays me fifty bucks I can give it to the lady and then we don’t owe her no favours like. So I sing, “We are One but We are Many”, it’s a song we done at school. And they clap again and he gives me the fifty bucks which is exactly what a cap costs.
‘The lady takes me back where we come in and she gives me the cap. “I hope your mother is better soon,” she says to me. I hand her the fifty dollars. “No, no, that’s yours, Ryan, you’ve earned it, you have a beautiful voice.”
‘“It’s fifty dollars for a cap, Queenie,” I say, ’cause now I know her name.
‘“This one’s on the house, Ryan.” She smiles at me. “But I tell you what, if you need more I’ll pay you fifty dollars to sing any night you want. Have we got a deal?” We go to the stairs so I can go home and she says, “By the way, it’s The Queenie, that’s my name.” She says it again, like it’s very important, “The Queenie.”’
Billy again marvelled at Ryan’s ability at
his age to capture the detail and the atmosphere of his surroundings. He’d make an excellent lawyer, he thought. And then instantly he remembered what Davo had said about Osmond Hall and what could happen to this bright little boy.
Ryan told Billy how his mother had remained in bed, too weak to move. Dr Goldstein had visited her again and given her another injection of Interferon. He had tried to persuade her to return to hospital but she’d been paranoid about leaving Ryan and the prospect of DOCS placing him in an institution until she recovered. At one stage Dr Goldstein had arranged for the Salvation Army Early Intervention House at Hurstville to take him, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She’d even tried to con him into believing she was off heroin because of the Hep C, although he probably wouldn’t have believed her. Anyway, Ryan sang for his supper for the next eight days. He also managed to turn up at school for some of that time, which had stopped Dorothy Flanagan initially calling in DOCS.
On the evening of the eighth day of Ryan getting a cap of heroin in lieu of his fifty dollars, The Queenie had said to him, ‘Ryan, there is a man who’s come all the way from Germany who wants to hear you sing, he’ll pay you two hundred dollars.’
Ryan had grown accustomed by now to ‘the club’ and, besides, no one had laid a hand on him, but nevertheless he was no fool. ‘Why, The Queenie? I can’t sing no better for two hundred dollars.’
The Queenie had laughed. ‘No, of course, but he can’t come here, it’s in the afternoon, you have to go to the apartment he’s rented in Bondi Junction.’ The Queenie shrugged. ‘It’s good money, Ryan, and Monkey will drive you in the limo.’
‘What’s a limo?’ Ryan asked.
‘It’s like a taxi, only it’s a Mercedes or BMW,’ The Queenie had said. ‘It’s all right, Monkey will take you,’ she said again.’
‘Did you tell your mother all this?’ Billy asked.
‘Nah, she just thought I was getting it from Mr Suleman.’
‘But why didn’t you tell her? After all, apart from procuring heroin, you hadn’t been compromised.’
‘What’s that mean, “compromised”?’
‘It means you weren’t coming to any harm.’
Ryan shrugged. ‘I dunno, she didn’t ask, so I didn’t say nothin’.’ He looked up at Billy and then, as if explaining the obvious, said, ‘Addicts just want a fix, they don’t care where it comes from, Billy.’
In some things, Billy thought, Ryan was already too old for his years.
Ryan went on to tell Billy how he’d arrived at the apartment block in Bondi Junction and Monkey had pushed a button in the foyer from a whole row of buttons with names on them. ‘But the one he pushed didn’t have a name, only a number.
‘“Ja?” a voice says through a grid thing on the wall.
‘“The Boys’ Boutique, sir,” Monkey says.
‘“Okay, I press the lift, tenth floor,” the voice says.
‘“What’s that mean, The Boys’ Boutique?” I ask Monkey.
‘“It’s like a password,” he says. “They don’t like people they don’t know coming into these exclusive apartments.”
‘The lift stops on the tenth floor and Monkey presses the bell on number 111 and a very tall man comes to the door. Then Monkey says to the man to call him on his mobile when he wants him to return and he give him this card with his number on it. I asked him why he wasn’t stayin’ and he said he’d be waitin’ downstairs in the car, that this was a private aud . . . aud . . .’
‘Audition?’ Billy suggested.
‘Yeah, that. So this German bloke says to me, “Hello, Ryan, my name is Karl. You can sing very well, I am told?”
‘He’s very big and he puts his hand on my shoulder. “I dunno, suppose,” I tell him.
‘“Have you heard of the Vienna Boys’ Choir maybe?” he asks me.
‘We had this CD at school which Miss Sypkins played sometimes. “Yeah, they sing a Mozart Mass. It’s called ‘Benedictus’,” I say, because that’s what was on the CD we learned it from.
‘“You can sing Mozart, a song?” he says. “Mozart is a great Austrian composer.”
‘“We learned one song,” I say. “But I don’t know what the words mean.”
‘“You will sing this song, please,” he says.
‘I done that and he clapped and then he says, “Wunderbar! You know what means that, Ryan?”
‘I didn’t know, so he says, “Wunderbar, it means wonderful.”
‘I tell him I don’t know any more German songs and he says if I come to Germany he’ll teach me some. “Now you will sing more, but first I change my clothes, it is very hot. In Germany it is winter and I only come today, there is snow on my house. You like to ski, Ryan?”
‘“I dunno,” I say. “I never done any. I never seen the snow.”
‘“In Bavaria, in the mountains, the snow is very beautiful, you will come to my lodge, we will go in the forest to shoot a deer.”
‘He goes out of the room and I’m sitting waiting, it’s a big room and I can see he must be very rich, it’s got the biggest television you’ve ever seen and there’s this swimming pool that’s half in the room and half outside on a terrace. I’ve never seen a swimming pool that come inside a house. He comes back and he’s wearing only a white dressing-gown, one like me mum’s got, that’s made out of towels.
‘“Now I am much more comfortable, we have a swimming pool. You like to swim, Ryan?”
‘I tell him I didn’t bring my bathers.
‘“Ach, it don’t matter bathers here, we are all men, nobody can see where we are swimming.” ‘But I tell him no, I didn’t want to.
‘“So now you sing again, you have a good voice, Ryan.”
‘I ask him what he wanted me to sing. “Ave Maria”, or what?
‘“That is gut, ‘Ave Maria’, that is very gut, Ryan.”
‘When I finished he’s lying on the couch, “Mein schöner Liebling,” he says over and over again.’
Ryan was now talking from memory and without emotion, not looking up, simply telling what had happened, his voice even.
‘Then Karl pats the couch next to him. “Come and sit here, Ryan, we will have a nice talk now, ja?”
‘I didn’t want to, but he held up a hundred dollars. “Extra, for singing Mozart. Come, we talk now or maybe you sing some more.”
‘So I go and sit next to him, but it was creepy, I don’t know what to do.’
‘“Sing, Liebling, you sing for Uncle Karl.”’ Ryan looks up at Billy. ‘There’s this song, it’s not really a song, it’s in Latin, it’s called “Soli Deo Gloria” and it’s a part of saying Mass at St Mary’s. I dunno why, maybe I was frightened and if I sang to God it could help. Anyway, that’s what I sing and he’s crying and stroking me and I want to run away, but where to? He’s saying “Wunderbar” and “Mein kleiner Liebling” and all that stuff, then he asks me to kiss him.
‘“Just for friends, you understand,” he says. “A little kiss for your Uncle Karl, who gives you hundred dollars.”
‘But my nana told me when I was little you don’t kiss men never, only if you’re gay and they are also. So I jumped up, so’s I could get away from him.
‘“I’m sorry, so sorry,” he says, “It was the ‘Gloria’, so beautiful.”
‘He hands me another hundred dollars and gets up.
“Maybe you like to rest now, Liebling? You can sing more later. There is a nice bedroom here with a television.”’
Ryan looks up at Billy again. ‘I ain’t an idjit and I’m scared. “I want to go now, please, sir,” I says to him.
‘“Go? You don’t want to sing for me?”
‘“I done all the songs I know,” I tell him. It’s a lie ’cause I know lots, but I wanna get out of the joint,’ Ryan says, enjoying the tough phrasing in retrospect.
‘“Okay, Ryan, you go now. I am very
disappointed,” he says.
‘I take the money, the two hundred dollars he give me, out of me pocket, “Here, you can have it back,” I tell him.
‘“No, no, we make a deal,” he says. “You can keep it.” He takes a card from the pocket of the gown, I think it must be the one Monkey give him because he goes to the phone and he says for him to come up and fetch me. But the dressing-gown, the belt, it’s come loose and fallen on the floor and I can see he’s got this enormous hard-on.
‘“Your chauffeur is coming now, boy,” he says. He’s real cranky and has got his back turned so I can’t see his front no more, but he ain’t picked up the belt what’s fell to the floor.
‘I go to stand on the terrace ’cause I don’t want to be near him because of what I just seen. I hear a buzzer go and then Karl’s voice, “Ja, you come now, please, the boy is ready!” he says to Monkey. Then a bit later the doorbell rings and I run to it and open it so I can escape, but it’s not Monkey! There’s these two men in black suits and T-shirts and all their hair is shaved off and they grab me. This German bloke is now lying back on the couch and he’s took off his gown and they drag me over and make me bend down on the carpet in front of him. One of them’s got the back o’ me head in his hand and he’s pushing me down. “Suck him, you little cocksucker!” he says. “Suck the man’s cock or I’ll break yer fuckin’ neck!”’
Ryan looked up at Billy. ‘Afterwards they made me bend over the end of the couch and he, the German bloke, done it to me up the back.’ Ryan started to sob. ‘He kept shouting, “Mein schöner Liebling!” It hurt, Billy, it hurt a lot!’ Ryan whimpered. ‘I don’t wanna be no poofter, Billy!’
And then Ryan began to sob uncontrollably, sitting on his skateboard, hiccupping, gasping for breath, his mouth wide open and bawling like a small child.
Billy’s gammy knee wouldn’t allow him to crouch next to Ryan. He leaned forward and put his hand on Ryan’s shoulder. ‘It’s all right, lad, it’s all right.’ Billy felt a love for the boy that was greater than the sum of his entire life, more than Charlie, more than anything he had ever felt before. He would happily kill to protect this child.
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