by Alan Duff
‘And your name?’
‘Oh. Sorry. It’s, uh,’ wanting desperately to give a false name, survival instincts demanding she did. ‘Lu. Luana in full.’ Done it now, kid.
‘Which do you prefer?’
Lulu, actually, from my friends. But you’re a stranger, even if we’ve said a lot to each other in writing.
‘I’m used to Lu.’
Same barest of nods. Nice trim figure in a plaid skirt, plain creamy top, thin gold chain round her neck and that was it for bling. Eyes strained and just holding back on the anger more probably hatred, I expected that. Looks better than the newspaper pictures and on the TV news. Shit, I’m shaking all over. Skin’s gone all clammy.
‘Well …’ Well what? The world’s starting to spin faster and faster, gonna black out any sec.
‘Come in …?’ More question than invite.
She stepped back to let Mrs Chadwick past, not sure of the manners, the procedure of, well, hosting a visitor at this apartment Rocky had arranged, another client of Rocky’s new business hardly two weeks started.
Somehow they both reached the centre of the living room in this open-plan kitchen and living room–dining area. Thirty-eight floors up in the sky, thirty-eight impossible flights of stairs to run down if or when the cops pounced at this woman’s setting up. Did Lu blame her? Sure I blame her. Be breaking her word wouldn’t it? But no, I don’t blame her. How could I? Oh, why did I agree to do this?
‘This isn’t your apartment I take it?’
‘Hell no.’ Is hell a swear word to these people?
‘A friend’s?’
‘Not even that. Friend of a friend’s. Sit down, if you like.’
‘In a moment.’
Mrs C, what Lu had been calling her in her mind of late, walked over to the big windows affording a grand view of the city. World Towers this building was called: must be two or more. Lu got it mixed up with those buildings the terros brought down in New York. Had been sitting up here waiting for Mrs C, her imagination running wild with pictures of cops busting in and a jet plane coming straight at that window for her and her alone. Piloted by Mrs C and her daughter.
Waiting for a small-talk remark about the view and her response rehearsed in agreeing in a try-not-to-pretend voice. But the bitch said nothing. Just plain nothing. Things spinning again.
This face not for one moment what Claire expected. Of such unexpected beauty, even in this raw working-class woman, all Claire could do to make her planned coolest of openings. My God, she is frighteningly gorgeous. How could she be the person? And why does she not appear to know her physical qualities? Even my modest, unselfconscious Anna has some idea she is attractive. Not this one.
The complexion could be Eastern European, something Riley had taught her to look for: he always commented on women and their distinctive attributes as if they were thoroughbred horse flesh and now she knew why. Damn you, Riley Chadwick. Flawless skin, a slight coppery tan, soft black hair unpretentiously styled, likely all she could afford. Striking green eyes, if diffident and unsure.
A noble peasant face structure in the best sense of noble. Jeans with design-ripped knees, flesh showing how young people do, loose top of light material, almost see-through, and she wasn’t wearing a bra. Very good figure. Not a gram of excess weight.
Of course the kid was very nervous, just as Claire’s own nerves were going off like shorted wires. The smell of a smoker, even if no freshly rank evidence of her habit was present in this apartment. Presumably because it wasn’t hers.
Why am I here? If my husband hadn’t run off, would I have just handed her letter over to the police and let them deal with it? Am I using this as an excuse, a distraction from my personal grief? Which hurts the most, Riley or Anna?
What a choice. Was it wrong if she judged them of equal moment? How about her family in little pieces then?
All those hours of thinking what she would say, the exchange of three letters apiece, a whole lot said Claire’s end — understandably. But now what did she say, of the hundred different questions and things she had clear in her mind to tell this criminal lowlife? The photographs Claire had brought of Anna at different ages, the intention to really give this young miss a piece of her mind — gone. The carefully chosen words, the anguish rehearsed and boiled down to bare essentials so to keep the emotion out of it, at least as much as she could while being in the living presence of, surely, a monster? Gone.
Claire had her as overweight. Plainer than plain bordering on ugly. Not this. Sure, her common qualities seeped out every pore: you’d never mistake her for anything other than what she was, not even if seriously dressed up. Claire knew that if the girl had attended Anna’s Sydney boarding school those daughters of rich fathers and snobby mothers would have made her life miserable, to put it mildly. She was not blind to certain aspects that went with private schooling, and though she had raised her daughters not to look down on others, she hadn’t actually gone so far as to urge Anna never to follow her peers in being cruel and mocking of a fellow pupil. She assumed — she knew — Anna would never do such a thing, since she came home with tales of girls given a terrible time because they were overweight, on a scholarship and therefore ‘subsidised working class’, unattractive, too geekish, all manner of perceived poor qualities which did not fit the upper-middle-class mould, the same Claire had experienced at her own private school in the Hunter.
This young woman thought her inner feelings concealed behind that flat-eyed look, when she was clearly someone hurt, broken — though Claire saw no sign of drug use. But what would I know about life for hard-nosed city girls?
Not even sure she is reading this situation in the rational way I am. Looks like she’s here under duress, on someone else’s instructions, the same as she said in her first, shock-surprise letter. She doesn’t get it. Guess because she can’t get it. You have to learn these things. Were I brought up as she apparently was, how could I possibly be any different?
Now you’re feeling sorry for her, Claire Jennings. And that’s ridiculous, let alone an insult to your poor Anna.
‘I don’t like the idea of being here any more than you do,’ Claire stated. ‘But we’re here.’ Now she’s frowning. A literal type it would seem. ‘I suggest we forget about the awkwardness and just one of us start. Somewhere.
‘And as I’ve come all this way … and I’m representing not just myself but a family …’ Keep a grip on yourself, woman, ‘it may as well be me.’
Chapter fifty-one
On his right, if he took that street, it went straight to Hell. Except Deano had been there, in his daytime walking, getting seen so his pale skin wasn’t perceived as that of the enemy, especially the cops, so they could see he was kind of one of them at least on the outer edges looking in at the campfire and — who knows — one day getting invited to join them even if for a short time, since he lived in the neighbourhood. Not as a mate, in their company most the time, it could never be that. This was their Hell, it was branded all over in their skin colour alone, never mind all the other shit, of being the definition: Abo.
Hell, visible from any of those big apartment buildings over yonder like the World Towers with a view thirty, forty, fifty floors up and a universe safe from the seething nest of Redferners, from a people set against each other even though they suffered the same oppressor, same injustice, same racist hatred: they were divided here and so were ruled. By law, though in a limited way since it was dangerous to go right into Redfern, even if or especially if you were a cop.
With engine gunning up your arse sometimes the only choice is the fire, so Deano ran right. And up ahead another world, peopled by shapes making strange movement, the sounds coming down to meet him; they’d know the second he passed under a streetlight reflecting off his unpigmented complexion, he was out of his territory. Out of his country. Knew it would take a face or three to remember him, to pluck the memory of seeing him when they were less drunk in the daylight hours, when he put himself out and ab
out here. Please, God.
Crying, yelling, bellowing, moaning, the strange staccato of their incoherent speech, the screaming and grunting of wild animals fighting, yet humans with their hopes six, seven generations dashed. Didn’t seem right he was hoping for their empathy.
Screech of the pursuer braking. Whine of it in reverse. Mad scamper of Deano’s sneakers on the road as he knew the pavement had uneven patches that could trip a man, snap his ankle. Running without desperate lungs had always been an ability he had, so he was fine on that score, even though he smoked.
Shit, a totally different world from the daytime. Shapes became milling groups of people in a state not only of gibbering drunkenness but self-immolation by spiritual insanity, setting themselves on fire; staggering and falling, on hands and knees, bent over vomiting, in some bizarre choreography whose sole instruction was to express despair — despair.
And now I’m one of you. You’re spewing your life up on the road. I’m running on it to save mine.
Running past figures sprawled out of shop doorway recesses unconscious or fighting it, no Dreamtime here, that was gone, not even awaiting them in the Great Outback, not this lot. Running past scarecrows leaned and propped up against boarded-up store fronts covered in graffiti, blokes sat out on the road, befuddled — like someone had dropped them from the sky — lain on the road like slumbering reptiles their ancestors used to eat and pay homage to in art and worship for sustaining them, for nourishing spirit as well as body. Bodies strewn everywhere to his adjusted eyes, and staggering like zombies and corpses risen not so much from the grave as heading back. Shadows fell from shadows. This is Sydney town, world’s most beautiful harbour city, fifty-plus beaches, mild climate, a bit for everyone, made by God so whites could oust the Abos after forty thousand years, and later in the piece so migrants from everywhere could stream in. No one thought their paradise might have a virus that would one day invade the invader body cells and kill it dead. One day. But not soon. Might take another forty thousand years. Maybe never.
Deano got an idea born of more than desperation, since several figures lined the street and the pavement both sides not fifty paces off, waiting to block him. And the car had forced him on to the pavement quite possibly to ram him — me — against the concrete wall alongside.
‘Undercover! Undercover cops!’ he screamed. A warning that found somewhere to echo. And now he was forced to slow down to a walk, breathing heavily but not frantically, not from heaving lungs. Just mortal fear as the figures stood in a linked line right across the street now.
He turned in a crouch, stabbing a finger like God Himself accusing, right at the vehicle with two opening front doors. ‘Undercover! Undercover cops!’ As the figures, same black as the night, blocked him. And, he hoped, fervently hoped, the word cops reverberated in every sufferer’s mind.
Whose side they gonna take, D? Or are we both the enemy? Had a vague idea why the pair were pursuing him, wondered how the hell someone had managed to find him, and who of the others had ratted.
Something whizzed by above his head. Next, glass shattered. The night glinted and arced white, it shone like tiny stars hurtling from the dark. Whistling sound through the air, soft whooshes and a constant tinkling and shattering like some kind of music and percussion gone wild with explosion and heavy thumps, as bottles rained down on the two figures out of their car, sent them scuttling back.
Out of sequence and the logic of just moments ago, Deano sprinting in the same direction as the car reversing at speed, realising he too was the enemy since the bottles were aimed at him and them both.
One caught him in the back. Others whizzed past him and exploded like bombs in front, to the side and behind. Voices were not so much yelling as shrieking race and colour: ‘WHITE MAGGOT FUCKS! GET OUTTA OUR TERRITORY!’
Owen still on the ground where Deano had pushed him. Jeezus, hope he didn’t hit his head and fuckin’ die! But Jeezus, he was out to it, snoring.
‘Come on, you old bugger,’ he said, hefting the man up. ‘Time we took our money-spinner up to Brizzie. Hardly ever rains there, water or bottles. Let’s get the hell out of here, Owie. Now.’
Chapter fifty-two
Seemed to produce a strange thrill in Lu to be — well, entertaining, wasn’t that what they called it when it was either being promiscuous or done solely to please the male, even having no choice you were still entertaining — here in the same apartment the meeting with Mrs C took place. Lu still reeling over that and then there was this. Him. It. Kev the Rev. The cop about to fuck her.
Right here in the big living area, not too close to the big windows. Or he might see me taking in the view and know then I don’t enjoy this, never mind the sounds he likes to hear me make. Says it makes him feel better. In that case: Oh! Oh! Mmmm!
Fuckin’ men. The ones who saw sex as power over a female. But why? Wouldn’t the power be in, say, like she was with Rocky, wanting him to do it, not fuck but make love? Wasn’t a man more powerful when he reduced a woman by charm and had an ear for what she would like to say from her heart?
Music playing on the stereo, her idea, that black guy the legend — Marvin Gaye, that’s him — got shot dead by his own father. So she wasn’t the only one in a crazy, fucked-up world. What a voice to be cut down so early. By a family member, Lu? Know it?
He, Ahern — ‘big bad Kevvy the revvy Eveready’, the long-lasting battery, as he called himself in the sex role — went over to the view. ‘Hey? Not bad, eh?’
Could only mean the multitude of lights and up-thrusts of apartment and commercial buildings all lit up. The harbour snaking in and out, you could follow the shoreline from the residential lights going down or close to the water’s edge. A chunk of Sydney town visible.
‘Friend of yours owns this?’
‘Friend of a friend.’ Exactly what she’d told Mrs C.
‘And it’s not rented out? Place would get, what, a grand a week? More? Fuckin’ carpet’s half a metre thick.’
‘Not, actually. Too many places on the market, people can’t sell their apartments, banks foreclosing because everyone’s property value has gone down.’ Straight from Rocky, what he told her of the property market here and worldwide too, least the places a European Aussie would relate to. Kev, well, he didn’t think ninety per cent of the world’s population existed, ignorant cop; wouldn’t care if most got nuked, long as it wasn’t him and some piece of female flesh to keep him happy.
‘You’re quite smart for a good looker.’ Meant to be a compliment. ‘How about you bring your other asset over here, babe,’ he said to the view, not her directly. ‘The body, as if you don’t know what I’m talking about.’ That was funny?
‘In a sec. Gonna start the CD over again.’ She was at the stereo system, and he was turning to her now.
‘Why? Who says I like music?’
‘Thought you’d like the mood.’
‘I don’t need a mood.’ He took a step her way. ‘Not when I’ve got you. Leave it off.’
‘I’m talking putting me in the mood.’
‘What? You don’t feel like a bit of hanky-panky?’
‘Sometimes a woman needs a bit of —’ Didn’t let her finish.
‘Foreplay? Sweetheart, that’s okay by me. Don’t put the music on. Specially not that coon music. Come over here and let me feel you.’
‘Kev, I’d prefer some music. To get my head, other things, in the right place. I’ll change it.’ She sorted through a CD collection not her own, mostly names she didn’t recognise.
Next his presence towered over her, like one of those buildings out there in the twinkling suddenly caught you in its shade and might.
‘You might prefer music,’ he said, voice grown an edge. ‘I don’t.’
‘Okay,’ she shrugged to say: in that case I’m just going through the motions. Wouldn’t look at him. Knew he was staring hard at her. Prick would probably slap her face any moment. Or punch her like last time, when she’d called him ignorant for not knowi
ng anything about Turkey. Learned from her bosses of course, but still.
‘Come to think of it,’ he said as his huge paw suddenly snapped her by the jawline to look at him and she thought a punch might be following, ‘music would cover up the sounds of pleasure you’re gonna be making soon. Right?’ Yeah, right.
Everyone’s seen a porn movie. Knows the sounds the women all make, the moaning, the ‘involuntary’ cries from the pleasure being too much — not. Load of faked bullshit.
She smiled. No need to say anything. Put on James Blunt, someone she had heard of but didn’t exactly like. Play anything.
He picked her up like a doll and could have walked her anywhere, into the bedroom, had her on the kitchen bench. Except she murmured, ‘I do like a sofa.’
Where he carried her, kind of dumped her down, smiled at her. Then not long before he buried his face down there, up under the skirt she wore just for him.
Back up he came, with a bigger grin.
Said, ‘You naughty, dirty, filthy girl.’ At her not wearing knickers. Still no need to say anything: why, when the action keeps doing the talking?
As he did his thing, and she acted hers, she remembered what Mrs C had said about her morals, or lack of them, that even if not her fault every person owed it to herself to acquire them. ‘Or we are all lost in a world of anarchy and chaos. Morals hold us together.’ Kind of talk she’d normally switch off to. But in the circumstances. So what was this? A cop humping her, failing to do his job of seeing what part she played in two serious crimes. Never mind her morality. His world wasn’t anarchic chaos, he lived in an orderly manner, Lu had been to his house — to do precisely this, no choice but to let him commit an act of immorality against his wife, their children, in the marital bed. Mrs C, you talk a load of shit. The world belongs to those who take it.
On and on he pounded and grunted, sighed and moaned, talked, turned her this way and that. And she performed back, rose to meet him, turned supplicant, bitch-like compliant, helpless vulnerable female, gave him back faces to tell him he was oh so manly, she had no words so here was her body to express it instead, the admiration, and how the force and power of him just overwhelmed her. Yeah, that’s it, tear my nipples off, rip every pubic hair you love so much, why don’t you tear a handful out to carry around on your person as reminder you have possessed me. Do your big thing, buster boy. Pass me the meat pie on the bedside table while you’re at it, give me something to do till you’ve finished. If she could once cry out loud, ‘BOR-ING,’ it would be worth suffering for, even dying.