Gypsy—who could always sense when we were about to boil over—pressed her body against my leg beneath the table. She shook.
‘You’re only seventeen. You could get me into a whole lot of trouble with Ma,’ Trudy said. ‘I thought you’d be happy.’
‘You went overseas when you weren’t much older than I am,’ I yelled. ‘I know it’s not for me—I’m not stupid. Thanks a lot. You’re about two weeks too late. Luke and I never had a chance.’
Gypsy moved away and my leg went cold. Mads was already stuffing her things into her bag.
‘Don’t leave,’ Trudy said. ‘Sleep it off on the couch. She can leave. We were having a good time.’ She slammed the dining-room door.
A violent draft blew my hair back. I stabbed my middle finger into the hole in the veneer.
I found Gypsy lying on my bed. She huffed and moved over.
‘I hate her,’ I whispered, wiping her chin. ‘And I’m sick of carrying on better conversations with old people who drool and can’t talk back.’ I stared into her beloved face.
She gazed back quizzically.
‘You are my people,’ I said.
CHAPTER NINE
On Monday, I went across to Mrs Gates’s salon during my lunchbreak, but not before I’d eaten Astrid’s salad sandwich. She’d brought Adam with her and let him play shopkeeper on my checkout; he’d filled a trolley with stock and stacked it all on my counter. Astrid had been scrubbing surfaces so diligently that Bent Bowl Spoon was in danger of coming apart; I had hardly anything to do, apart from cleaning up Adam’s mess.
‘I don’t know. I just need a change,’ I told Mrs Gates. I sat in front of one of her mirrors, turning my face from side to side.
‘How much of a change?’ She parted my long hair and flipped it, feathering out pieces around my chin. ‘I’ve been cutting your hair since you were halfway up my shinbone, Jack Bates, and not once have you ever told me anything other than “Half an inch”.’
‘Make it red. And cut it up to my shoulders.’
‘Red? That’s a bit radical for you. And you don’t have the complexion for it.’
I stared at her black frizz and her lightning stripe and tried not to laugh. ‘I want something new.’
Not like me. Not like Trudy.
‘Your mother will have me strung up.’ Mrs Gates shook her head and checked her watch. ‘She has her appointment in half an hour.’
Ma’s weekly treatment and blow-dry—in all her years she’d never come out looking much different, just freshly sprayed and stiff with Mrs Gates’s signature hairspray, The Black Death, which gave off an odour that made me worry she’d go off like a cracker if she strayed too close to fire.
‘I forgot about that,’ I said. ‘Okay, just the usual. Half an inch.’
‘I can do you both at the same time,’ Mrs Gates said, warming to the idea now that it was hers. ‘Colour’s going to take a while. We have to block out this blonde with brown, and then put on a tint.’
‘I’ve changed my mind.’ I was not in the mood for Ma. ‘I have to get back to work.’
‘Alby won’t even notice you’re missing. Besides, it seems like Wrong Turn Astrid is looking for things to do.’ She gestured across the street. Astrid was cleaning the front windows. Adam was with her, whizzing a trolley up and down the footpath. ‘She’s turned out to be rather…industrious after all, hasn’t she?’
‘Yeah, she’s a real treasure.’ I glared at Astrid through the glass—all legs and ridiculous hair—and the force of it made her turn around. ‘I really should go. I’ll book in another time.’ I unsnapped the cape.
Mrs Gates pressed down on my shoulders. ‘Sit. Now what’s that sister of yours up to? Nobody could work out how to change the keg last night.’
‘She’s sick.’
Mrs Gates sighed. ‘Tell her that ranger guy came in moping after her again.’
Less than ten seconds and there it was. I didn’t even have to ask. And ten minutes later, there was Ma.
Mrs Gates had tied my hair in a ponytail and cut it off, just below the band. She jammed me into the torture device at the basin with goo on my head and cucumber slices on my eyelids. I heard the jingle-bells over the front door and the scuff-scuff of Ma’s shoes.
‘The usual, Moira? Or will you be wanting a change, too?’
The chair next to me squeaked as Ma settled into it.
‘Jack’s halfway to making the biggest mistake of her life so far. You’ve got about nine minutes to talk her out of it,’ Mrs Gates said.
Silence for the longest moment. For the first time ever, Mrs Gates had nothing to say. Neither did I. The chair squeaked and the bells jangled.
‘Ma?’ I said, and tried to sit up. I peeled off the cucumber slices.
‘She’s gone,’ Mrs Gates said. ‘Face like a cat’s behind. Aren’t you two getting along?’
‘Did that just happen?’ I sat forward. Dye ran down my neck.
‘It did. Well, you can’t live this close without rubbing up some friction, but I won’t have you scaring off my regulars,’ she said. ‘Let’s do this. What’s the final decision?’
‘Red as you can make it without giving me a whole new head. ’
‘Gotcha.’
‘It’ll grow out if I don’t like it, right?’
‘Jack, this will be one long, leisurely repentance.’
‘I’ve made bigger mistakes, Mrs Gates.’
I left Bent Bowl Spoon early, before it got too dark.
I rode from Main Street to the forest without knowing exactly where I was headed until I steered up the dirt road. I’d skipped through a range of emotions and ended up numb, my face stiff with dried tears. I tried to call Luke from the public phone, but the receiver cord had been hacked off. Vandals for sure—not the first time it had happened, but the worst time. My hair was shocking red, razor-cut to just above my chin, shorter than I’d worn it for more than half my life. Astrid had laughed in my face. My belief—that a change was as good as a new personality—dissolved. Mrs Gates was right to warn me: the colour turned my skin yellow. She didn’t warn me I’d feel less like a girl.
The forest was steamy after a night of light rain followed by a day of sunshine. The air clotted in my throat. I crept up quietly, tracing the fishing line without touching it. It had become slack in places but I could see where Pope had been treading a new path as he moved up and down the hillside.
When I saw him, I experienced a blood rush that felt a lot like love. He was sitting on a stump just outside the open flap of his tent. I wondered what was inside.
‘I’m still here,’ he said, glancing up from the book in his lap. ‘I heard your bike.’
‘What are you reading?’ I asked, stepping out from the shadows.
He closed the cover. ‘I’m not reading. What did you do to your hair?’
‘You’re looking at words. If that isn’t reading, what do you call it?’
‘I’m listening to my thoughts, or I was. Now I can’t hear them.’
He didn’t seem angry. Did he have any emotion stronger than sadness? The whites of his eyes were red, as if he’d been rubbing them. His hair was still tied back, matted in places.
‘Sorry. I was just checking on you. I’ll leave you to it.’
‘I’d appreciate that.’
‘It’s your life,’ I snapped, and turned to go.
‘Well, it’s not really, is it?’ he said. ‘Now you’re here, our lives have touched each other’s, which goes to show, even if you come to a place to be completely alone, you can’t be.’ He sighed. ‘This is a world where we can’t be alone anymore. There are too many of us.’
I snorted. ‘You don’t like people much, do you?’
‘I like people fine,’ he said, and stood up.
‘You don’t have to be by yourself to feel alone.’
‘But you do have to be by yourself to be alone. I didn’t say I wanted to feel alone. They’re two distinct states.’
‘Maybe your misery n
eeds company.’
‘See, these are the conversations I came here hoping to avoid,’ he grumbled.
‘Jerk,’ I said, and he choked back a laugh, which made me go one better. ‘Prick.’ I started to cry.
‘Oh, damn.’
He gestured to the stump and I sat next to him, smearing snot and tears on my T-shirt. ‘Don’t,’ I said when he offered his own sleeve. ‘I’m fine. I’ve just had a very bad day.’
‘Clearly. It’s getting dark. Won’t your parents be missing you?’ He peered along the path as if somebody might be coming for me. ‘Look, when you get to my age you’ll realise it was nothing. By then you’ll have real catastrophes to compare this—whatever this is—with.’
‘You’re right,’ I said. I took a deep breath, brushed off my backside and retied a loose shoelace. Once I was composed, I said, ‘I’d better go. You’re absolutely right.’
‘Oh, you don’t mean that.’
I started off along the path. ‘No, I don’t. But that’s what you wanted to hear, right?’
‘I suppose I did. But you can tell me what’s wrong,’ he called. ‘If you want to talk about it.’
‘I don’t want to talk about it. I just wanted to cry about it.’ I picked up pace, moving away from the ridge.
He followed, jogging. ‘It’s a guy, right?’
‘What would you know?’
‘It’s always a guy.’
I stopped and turned to face him. ‘Why? Because I am shallow and predictable and I have small problems?’ A full-blown tantrum was building, born of embarrassment and frustration, a jumble of feelings I couldn’t separate. ‘I don’t even know you. Stop following me!’ I kept going.
‘You came here,’ he said, falling into step with me. ‘Look, tomorrow you’ll be falling for somebody new or making up. Ten minutes later, you’ll be declaring undying love. That’s how it goes.’
‘Why would I give anyone that kind of power over me?’ I said, quoting Trudy. ‘He’s got to say it first.’
‘So it is a guy,’ he said. ‘And what kind of screwed up manifesto do you call that?’
I glanced at him: he was blushing. ‘I’m going home now. You should leave, too. It’s a sacred site—you’ll stir up the ghosts.’
At that word, he came to a halt and drew back.
‘Boo!’ I hissed over my shoulder, breaking into a jog.
‘What happens if you don’t say anything important, out loud, ever—have you considered that?’ he called. ‘Forget it. Go home. Don’t come back here…what’s your name again?’
‘Don’t worry. I’ve already forgotten you, too,’ I said. I ran.
The storm finally came. It had been hanging in the air the whole day, thick and heavy. Trudy had chosen the television over me for company and banished Gypsy to the hallway. We’d had one brief, wordless interaction when I’d come in from the forest: she’d pointed to a corner where Gypsy had messed on the rug.
Rain pounded the roof, drowning out the television, which Trudy had turned way up. I counted my remaining cash, set aside enough for the next two weeks’ rent and moved my bed into the centre of the room, leaving a moat of space around it. I was pleased with myself. I had to change my thinking. There was always another way.
So Ma didn’t want to talk. I understood. Her silences were nothing new to me. Trudy, on the other hand, was usually quick to forgive—the last to apologise, but the first to speak. She never lasted long in her own company.
I set out another can of tuna for Ringworm. The stash in the bottom of the pantry was dwindling. I never knew when he came, only that the cans were always spotless by morning.
I tried doing things I used to enjoy, like reading magazines and listening to CDs, but I found myself at the window again, chin in hands. My door stayed closed and nobody came knocking.
At midnight, the rain eased and the house was quiet. I checked to see if Trudy had fallen asleep on the couch but she wasn’t there. A sliver of light was still showing under her bedroom door. I tiptoed closer—stepping over Gypsy, avoiding the creaks—and heard her talking to somebody, low and…sexy.
It was then that I noticed the yellow cord, snaking its way along the hall and disappearing beneath her door.
The phone was back on.
My toilet paper obsession was more a monument than a display by the time I had completed it according to Jeremiah’s detailed instructions. He was right: the arch was fully supported by both interlocked columns and surprisingly solid when I leaned up against it.
‘You’re losing your mind,’ Astrid said. ‘I don’t know how you expect to sell any of these without pulling it apart.’
I stood back to admire my work. She had a point but I wasn’t going to give it to her. ‘I just wanted to finish it. I don’t care what you do with it now.’
Astrid put her hands on her hips. I noticed she’d had her nails done. ‘I’m just saying. What if a customer comes and tries to pull one from…’ She leaned over and tugged at a packet in one of the columns, ‘…here? What if the whole thing falls down again?’ She gave the packet a good hard yank and it slid out.
I held my breath. The structure didn’t budge.
Furious, Astrid eyed the hole.
‘Jenga,’ I said, and cracked up.
The old Astrid would have laughed, too. This one yelled, ‘And stop eating my fucking sandwiches!’ She stomped away to the lunchroom.
I caught my own reflection in the drinks fridge door and I didn’t find anything to laugh about. I was losing my mind. She watched me from the small window on the mezzanine floor, jaw working madly, eyes fierce.
Astrid had put aside a carton of ‘cracked’ eggs under her checkout counter. I opened the carton, pressed my thumbnail into the bottom of each egg and placed them carefully back into their nests to plug up the breaks. With a bit of luck she wouldn’t notice until she got home.
‘Jack,’ Alby said.
I jumped and turned around, wiping my thumb on my apron. Alby was studying the counter as if there was something there I should see.
‘Jack, I feel sick about it, but I have to let you go. It’s not fair to keep you working here when I can’t afford to pay you.’
Look at me. Look at me. He wouldn’t, or couldn’t.
‘What about Astrid?’ I choked out.
Alby shrugged and said, ‘She has a kid so I’ll try to keep her on for as long as I can. I don’t know how long that will be.’
I looked up at the lunchroom window. Astrid was gone. We had nothing in common; she was a shitty replacement for my sister. Voodoo and unbreakable curses were in order.
‘I’ve spoken to Max and he says he’ll take you on as a glass-girl Friday and Saturday nights, if you want,’ Alby said. ‘And I could do with some help with my father, as you know. Could you manage three afternoons a week, say, Monday, Wednesday and Friday?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
‘He likes you best.’ He gave me a hopeful smile.
‘Fine. But you still owe me.’ I started clearing out the cubbyhole underneath my checkout. There were things in there belonging to another life: a name-badge I’d never worn—I knew every single person in Mobius and they all knew me; the gumnut I’d found in my knickers after the second time with Luke; a CD Astrid had given me that I’d never played.
‘No rush,’ Alby said and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Finish the day. Finish the week if you want to.’
‘I’ll go now,’ I said through my teeth. ‘I have things to do.’ I have to get out of here before Astrid finishes her lunchbreak.
‘I’m sorry, Jack.’
‘It’s okay. I’ve kind of been expecting it.’
‘How could you? I didn’t know it myself until yesterday.’ He scratched his eyebrows, which had turned almost completely grey.
CHAPTER TEN
Unemployment seemed like the worst thing that could happen to me but, given the events of the last few days, I was surprisingly calm. And free. I had the deadness safely tucked awa
y and all of my catastrophes tallied and ticked off, like an anti-bucket list:
No job. Check.
No income. No licence. No car. Check.
I’d filled my tank with stolen fuel as I left the roadhouse, so there was that. I took some overripe peaches, too, and a packet of tampons for old times’ sake. I didn’t pause once to count the diamonds.
Lost love. No friends. Family feud. Bad hair. Incontinent dog. Check.
I was stuck between yesterday and tomorrow. I did have right now—and right now I needed to see Ma. I had no idea what I would do or say when I got there, but I strapped on my backpack and rode side-saddle to the house, just to see if I could do it. I could.
I noticed a familiar dirty white Subaru and, just off Main Street, I passed Pope. He was standing outside Alby’s laundromat, holding a bulging plastic bag and staring at the CLOSED sign. I didn’t wave—I couldn’t, not riding like that—but he did, an accidental reflex that quickly faded.
This time I parked my bike on the front lawn and went straight up to the door. I pressed the doorbell several times. There was still no answer and no music coming from Dad’s shed. Ma’s car was missing again. Where did she go, all these days?
Across the street, my tyre was swinging as if the ghost of me was sitting in it. I folded onto the verandah step and pulled my knees to my chest.
I had not quite two hundred dollars left to my name. Ringworm hadn’t keeled over yet, so I figured the tuna was safe to eat as a last resort. Trudy had warned me more than once that if I couldn’t pull my own weight, then she wasn’t going to do it for me. I stretched out a foot and kicked my bike. At least I had a ride.
‘It’s still there,’ Jeremiah said. ‘I’ve been keeping an eye on it and it hasn’t moved. Not an inch.’
‘My bike?’
‘Your house.’
He stood on the footpath, just outside the gate. I checked him over: greasy denim overalls, unbrushed hair and steel-capped boots, like a cross between a biker and the BFG. He stared at my hair. His expression gave away more than his manners would let him.
‘I told you, it’s not my house. I haven’t been inside for a long time,’ I said. ‘Today I was going to, but there’s nobody home.’
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