Crooked Leg Road

by Jennifer Walsh

  They worked steadily for a couple of hours, and Andrea was secretly pleased when Moshe got so carried away explaining some poetry that there was very little time left for algebra. ‘But we’ll really have to concentrate on that next time,’ he said. ‘Now, I do hope you’re eating with us? I’m making something a bit adventurous with the leftover lamb, and I don’t think Alex or Linda will be coming home for dinner.’

  Anything Moshe made was fine with Andrea, so she agreed eagerly. Moshe said he didn’t need help, so she hung around in the living room for a while. The only things on television were boring documentaries and silly shows for little kids, so she wandered back to the kitchen.

  ‘I’m going out to meet David,’ she told Moshe.

  ‘Good, good.’ He waved, distracted.

  Andrea stepped out cautiously, relieved to see that the white van was gone, and the street deserted. She walked a few blocks in the direction of the park and the pool, not wanting to go too far. There were two ways David could come, and she didn’t want to go the wrong way and miss him.

  At the last corner she looked both ways, then spotted him coming up the hill. He must have followed the water around, rather than come up through the park. He saw her and raised his hand to give a little wave.

  There were two men walking several metres behind David, and when he waved one of them looked up sharply. Andrea’s heart lurched. The man was short and fat, with a heavy black beard, and she was sure he was the one who had frightened her before. She beckoned frantically to David, and he smiled and waved.

  Andrea ran towards him, yelling, ‘David, David, quick!’

  He looked at her, bewildered, but picked up his pace a little. She was aware that the two men behind him were also walking faster, closing the gap rapidly. In a few more strides she reached David and grabbed his arm.

  ‘This way. Run!’

  She dragged him across the road and into a laneway that led to the next street. He was laughing and protesting.

  ‘What are you doing? I’ve just swum twenty laps.’

  Andrea kept running, thinking ahead. She pulled David around the corner into a narrower lane. A few metres along there was a gate hanging open. She dragged him though it into a tangled garden and closed the gate behind them.

  ‘What? Where are . . . ?’

  ‘Shhhh!’ Andrea pulled David down and they crouched in the undergrowth. She could hear her own heart banging in her chest, and she could also hear footsteps, rapid at first, then slow and deliberate. When they were very close the footsteps stopped, and she strained to hear voices, breathing, anything. David was about to speak again, but she shook her head and put a finger to her lips.

  Then she heard the footsteps again, moving away. Her breathing slowed down to normal, and after a couple more minutes she stood up.

  ‘What is this place?’ whispered David.

  ‘An old lady lives here,’ said Andrea. ‘She lets her dog out the back, to go for a walk. I’d better leave the gate open for him.’

  She peeped through the gate and looked up and down the lane. Nothing.

  ‘Right, let’s go,’ said David.

  ‘Not out there, they might be waiting,’ she said. ‘We’ll go out the front way.’

  They tiptoed past the house and out the front gate into another street.

  ‘Hell, Andrea,’ said David. ‘What was all that about?’

  ‘They were the same men,’ said Andrea, ‘the ones from the other day. Do you believe me now?’

  ‘Sure,’ said David, ‘but . . . I didn’t actually see anyone.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear them running after us?’

  ‘Umm . . . not sure. Maybe,’ he added quickly.

  ‘Well, it was them.’ She led him back to his house by a roundabout route, jumping whenever she saw someone moving in the street, or heard a car. David was quiet and seemed confused.

  ‘Are you sure they’re the same men?’ he asked.

  ‘Shhh.’ She grabbed his arm and pulled him behind a tree as a car swept past. It didn’t slow down, and she breathed again. ‘I’m not sure of anything, David, but they’re still after me. What am I going to do?’

  WHEN they got back to David’s house his father was home after all, chatting brightly about the pool and even the weather. Andrea thought David might tell his father about the men reappearing and chasing them, but he seemed to have forgotten about it. In the living room, David sank into the couch and started flicking channels on the TV. Good smells wafted from the kitchen.

  ‘Wow, I’m starving,’ said David.

  ‘I’ll see if Moshe wants me to set the table.’ Andrea got up and went towards the kitchen. David’s father was standing in the hall, his phone pressed to his ear.

  ‘Twin pencil pines?’ she heard him say. ‘Left? Okay.’ He noticed her and stopped abruptly, then turned and went up the stairs.

  They ate an unusually subdued meal. It was rare for David’s father to be home from work so early, and Andrea was, as always, tongue-tied in his presence. Despite assurances from the others that he liked her, she never felt entirely comfortable with Alex. He just seemed too serious and important to be bothered with someone like her.

  When Andrea left the house the street was full of the usual parked cars, and there was no one around. She walked home quickly, often glancing nervously over her shoulder.

  10

  KITTY wished she had never agreed to ask Skender about the word Andrea had heard. Surely it was bad manners to ask what they had been saying. She didn’t want Skender to think she had bad manners.

  She wondered if she should ask David what he thought, but David wasn’t on the usual morning bus. Maybe he had something on before school.

  In any case, it wasn’t that easy to find Skender or to engage him in conversation. On Monday, the day before, she had brought her copy of To Kill a Mockingbird to Science, just before lunchtime.

  ‘Here’s that book if you still want to borrow it,’ she had said after the class.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ He took it with a smile and opened it. Her name was written on the flyleaf. ‘Thank you, Kitty O’Brien.’

  It struck her that he hadn’t known her name before that moment, and she felt foolish for knowing his. Confusion made her forget what she was planning to say next, so it was almost a relief when two girls swooped down.

  ‘There you are!’ said one.

  ‘Sorry,’ said the other one to Kitty. ‘We’re stealing Skender.’

  She was a tall girl with a lot of curly red hair and a glittering stud in her nose. Kitty had seen her occasionally lugging a huge cello case to school. Her tiny friend was Asian, with glossy black hair that hung to her waist, and little round glasses. They were in Kitty’s English class and talked a lot, but they both had odd names, which she hadn’t quite got.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Kitty. ‘I’ve got to . . .I ’m just going.’

  Skender put her book carefully in his bag and went off with the girls. Kitty gazed after them in consternation. She had convinced herself that Skender, lonely and friendless, needed her help, but maybe she was the one who was lonely and friendless.

  She hadn’t seen Skender again that day and today she wouldn’t be sharing any classes with him. She would just have to keep her eyes open in the schoolyard, or hope to see him on the bus again. If she had to ask him questions it would be better to get it over and done with.

  But she was in luck. In the last session of the day, Visual Arts, Kitty went into the storeroom to get the painting she was working on. When she came back, Skender was sitting at the table behind her.

  ‘Hi!’ she said. ‘You’re not usually in this class.’

  He shrugged. ‘Our teacher didn’t come. They say, go here, go there.’

  She set out the paints and brushes, ducking her head to hide how pleased she was.

  ‘Nice picture,’ said Skender.

  ‘Thanks. It’s supposed to be the garden of a place called Tarcoola. My friend Andrea – she was in the park, reme
mber? – her dad’s a real artist, and he does these sort of smudgy paintings of the bush. That’s what gave me the idea.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Skender. ‘It . . . could be a garden.’

  ‘If it comes out all right I’m going to give it to this old lady called Clarissa. She’s sort of like my grandma except that we’re not related. Or a great-grandma, really. She— ’

  ‘Can we have a bit of shoosh, please?’ The teacher was coming down the aisle towards them, and Kitty turned quickly to her work.

  ‘Now,’ she heard the teacher say. ‘Sorry, what’s your name?’

  ‘Skender, Miss. Skender Ahmeti.’

  ‘Right. Well, you’d better not start a painting if you’re with us only for today, but you can do some drawing, if you like. Do you know what a still life is?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Well, come up the front. There are a few things set out, and some of the others are drawing them. I’ll show you what I’m looking for.’

  Resigned, Kitty concentrated on her painting. She had mixed some lovely colours last session, but she couldn’t manage to reproduce them this time. Still, because of the style of painting she had chosen it didn’t really matter if the images were blurry, or even if the wet colours ran into each other. It was coming along nicely, and she had even managed to suggest a fountain with a statue of a little boy in the middle. She couldn’t wait to show Clarissa. The Tarcoola garden, next to the brooding old house, was properly fenced off now, with shiny padlocks on all the gates. It would stay that way until the restoration work was finished and all the people in charge decided it was safe. But Kitty was painting an image that would live forever in her memory, just as it lived in Clarissa’s as she sat by her window in the nursing home, gazing out over the trees.

  She finished the painting just before the bell, and she was still washing brushes when nearly everyone else had gone. As she put the last of the equipment away, Skender came into the storeroom with a stack of drawings.

  ‘Have you finished your picture?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sort of.’ Kitty showed him. ‘I just have to wait for it to dry.’

  ‘It’s very nice.’ They walked together up towards the street. Kitty swallowed.

  ‘Skender,’ she said, ‘what language does your family speak?’

  He frowned. ‘Just our dialect. It is hard to explain. It’s like Albanian.’

  ‘Oh, okay. It’s just that . . . the other day, in the park . . . my friend Andrea was wondering . . . Well, your brother said a word she’d heard before, and she was wondering what it meant.’

  He eyed her warily. ‘A word?’

  ‘Yes, it sounded like vyzair. She wondered what it meant.’

  ‘It was nothing,’ said Skender. ‘My brother says stupid things.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  They got to the bus stop and waited. Kitty cast around for another subject.

  ‘So,’ she said, ‘how long have you been in Australia?’

  ‘Hmmm – about eight months.’

  ‘Only eight months! Your English is pretty good.’

  ‘I learned English for maybe five years. My mother is English teacher.’

  ‘Really?’ Kitty beamed. ‘So’s mine! But I suppose it’s a bit different . . .I suppose your mother teaches people to speak English?’

  ‘Yes.’ The bus came and they got on. ‘We were in camps for a while, then Italy. Everywhere we went, people wanted to learn English. Everyone was wanting to go to Australia, or New Zealand.’

  ‘And you got here! How long were you in Italy?’

  ‘Nearly five years. My little sister Mirlinda was born in Italy, and my brothers don’t remember much about our home. My baby sister was born here. She’s kangaroo.’

  ‘Right! What’s her name? Something Australian?

  ‘No, it’s something Australians can’t say,’ Skender said ruefully. ‘Her name is Scheherazade, but we call her Zadi for short.’

  ‘Scheherazade! That’s fantastic, like in The Thousand and One Nights. She’ll grow up to be a storyteller.’

  ‘You know about Scheherazade? You have those stories here?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Kitty. ‘My mum used to tell us some of the stories when we were little, Ali Baba and Sinbad the Sailor and everything, and we had lots of books of the Arabian Nights with lovely illustrations. I didn’t understand the whole thing for a long time – you know, how Scheherazade had to keep telling stories so the king wouldn’t cut off her head.’

  ‘I always knew that,’ said Skender, ‘and I always worried what would happen if she ran out of stories.’

  ‘Oh, she did,’ said Kitty. ‘She only had a thousand and one stories, but by then the king was in love with her.’

  They came to Kitty’s stop, but Skender made no move to get off. Kitty stood waiting while a faltering old couple inched their way out ahead of her.

  ‘See you tomorrow,’ she said, hoisting her bag onto her shoulder.

  ‘It means girl,’ said Skender.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘That word, vajzë. In our language, it means girl.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’

  ‘My brother was saying I’m not allowed to talk to girls. It’s stupid. He doesn’t tell me what to do. He’s only nine!’

  ‘Right! And you said budalla to him. What does that mean?’

  ‘Idiot.’ Skender grinned. ‘That’s my brother.’

  ‘Mine too. I’m going to start calling him budalla too.’

  She got off the bus smiling. Instead of going home, she turned down the narrow street that led to Andrea’s house. The front door was open, and she peered down the cluttered hallway into the gloom.

  ‘Andrea? Anyone there?’

  Andrea came out of the kitchen, eating a sandwich.

  ‘Hey!’ she said. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened.’

  Kitty followed her back into the tiny dark kitchen, full of dirty dishes. Andrea started running water into the sink.

  ‘I am spewing!’ she announced. ‘This is, like, the last straw!’

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ Kitty picked up a pile of plates and brought them over.

  ‘Well, have you heard about this big debate they’re having at our school, with the Premier and everything?’

  ‘Yeah, my parents were talking about it last night. My dad thinks it’s a silly idea.’

  ‘I guess it is,’ said Andrea. ‘The teachers are going on and on about it, and how we’ve got to be on our best behaviour because we’re all going to be on television. As if. But the latest thing is, they had to pick someone to give the Premier some flowers, and then, I think, maybe go around with them. One of the girls.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So they’ve only picked Sam!’

  ‘Sam!’ Kitty put down her plates with a crash. ‘Sam?’

  ‘Yeah. Can you believe it? She’s only been at the school for five minutes.’

  Andrea was washing dishes so violently Kitty thought she might break something.

  ‘Well, you didn’t want to do it, did you?’ she asked reasonably.

  ‘Me? Yeah, like they’d ever pick me! But they should have someone who belongs there. Not Sam! And can you imagine what a big head she’s going to have now?’

  ‘You’re right. She’s going to be unbearable.’

  Andrea splashed water everywhere and hurled dishes into the drainer. Kitty found a ragged tea towel and started drying.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah. I talked to Skender. That word means girl.’

  ‘Girl?’ Andrea stopped washing dishes and gazed unseeingly through the kitchen window. ‘Vyzair means girl?’

  ‘Yes, and budalla means idiot. Does that make any sense to you?’

  ‘He was angry,’ said Andrea. ‘The one with the beard was about to grab me, and the other one started yelling at him, “Girl, something something idiot something girl.” Like, “You idiot, that’s the girl.”
But listen, there’s more. I saw them again last night and they chased us, me and David.’

  ‘No!’ Kitty was aghast.

  Andrea described the chase down the laneways.

  ‘And . . . they were out looking for you?’ asked Kitty.

  ‘They must have been.’

  ‘And then they saw you and chased you?’

  ‘Yes. We only just got away. David was laughing and he wouldn’t look round, so he didn’t realise . . . If he’d seen them he’d know what they were like.’

  ‘And . . . um . . . they were following him?’ said Kitty. ‘Not you?’

  ‘Well, sort of,’ said Andrea. She grabbed Kitty’s arm. ‘They were following him. Do you think he’s the one they were after?’

  ‘Like, right at the beginning?’ said Kitty. ‘He could have been saying “No, she’s a girl”, not “she’s the girl”, because they weren’t looking for a girl?’ She thought for a moment. ‘Maybe the one who nearly grabbed you thought they were just after – you know – a kid. The kid who lived in that house.’

  ‘But I was the one who sprung them in the lane.’

  ‘Maybe David saw them in the lane some other day,’ said Kitty, ‘doing their dealing?’

  ‘If they’re kidnappers,’ said Andrea, ‘it’s about money. I mean, David’s family – they’re pretty rich.’

  ‘Are they?’

  ‘Yeah, they’re lawyers, aren’t they? Lawyers make a lot of money.’

  Kitty frowned.

  ‘It’s David,’ said Andrea. ‘They’re after him and he doesn’t even realise it. Kitty, we have to warn him!’

  11

  ON WEDNESDAY afternoon, Martin arrived at the squash courts right on time. He gave his name at the desk, but the man wasn’t impressed. The booking was in David’s name, and the man wasn’t going to let anyone else in until David arrived.

  Martin had been looking forward to this. Now that David was doing all that swimming he was, if still not exactly sporty, much more interested in doing the sorts of things that Martin enjoyed, and he had agreed to give squash a try.

  ‘You don’t have to be good at ball games,’ Martin had assured him. ‘It’s just a lot of running around and swinging the racquet. It doesn’t matter if you miss.’