Screw the rules. I am so sick of being afraid. I haven’t been moving away from anything at all. I’m still right where I started. Kate was right: everything’s changing. Maybe things don’t happen unless you make them.
The hairs on the back of my neck are standing up and the wind swings around as if it’s unsure which way to blow. I feel like I’ve been blindfolded and spun around until I’m nauseous and dizzy.
Inside me, something lets go.
I cross back and stand at the corner of the Tarrant block. The driveway is empty. A loose roof-sheet lifts and slams back down. Somewhere, talkback radio blares, a child squeals and a lawnmower starts. My hair whips straight out behind me—like in Carrie—and I can smell burnt sausages and fried onions.
I line up at the starting gate. My hand shakes. I jam two fingers between my lips, blow a wharfie whistle— and begin the long walk. The wind suddenly drops and in the lull, the sound of my thongs slapping against my feet is too loud. One of the kids across the street looks over his shoulder. He calls to his friend and they both stop and stare.
I keep walking, counting in my head, one, two, three, four…seventeen, eighteen…twenty-six, twenty-seven… twenty-eight steps on cracked, uneven concrete.
At the corner of the next house, I stop and look back.
At first there’s nothing. Then I hear the slow drag of the chain on the wooden porch. Gargoyle stands on the step, panting, his massive chest heaving. He’s been lying there the whole time. He still looks sunken and ill. Maybe he’ll never be the same monster again, maybe his light’s finally gone out. He watches me warily but stays where he is.
I did it. I took a chance and things aren’t so bad. He must remember the bucket and the blanket, my hand on his head, his life in my hands. He must know I’d never hurt him.
The screen door opens and Donna Tarrant pokes her head out. She looks around. Our eyes meet for a millisecond but she can’t hold my stare. Her arms hang like they have no bones and I feel desperately sorry for her, shackled to her pathetic, miserable life. I want to scream and call her names. Instead, I wave.
As if that’s his cue, Gargoyle starts his dash, claws scrabbling, the chain reeling out like it’s attached to an anchor thrown overboard. A guttural growl and he’s airborne, flying towards me, his red eyes crazy with hate. I can feel my nails biting into my palms and a rush of adrenalin that’s going nowhere. You never quite know if that chain’s going to hold him, if he’ll keep coming at you or zing back like a yo-yo.
When he comes to the end, I’m still standing in the same place.
Gargoyle slobbers and rages.
Donna Tarrant quietly closes the door.
The witch is spraying her garden again. Most of the water mists away on the wind.
‘Why do you tease that dog?’ Mrs Tkautz yells in her mangled speech. The dropped side of her mouth flaps uselessly.
‘Because I’m godless!’ I screech.
But I’m not mad at him. It’s the nature of the beast. He can’t help it.
In front of our house there’s a silver car with government number plates. A woman wearing a man’s suit and sensible shoes gets into it and drives away.
THIRTEEN
The night sounds in our street are mostly familiar.
Burnouts, the slow rumble of a drive-by, far-off sirens. A night bird that screams like a woman. Shouts, crying, laughter and quiet murmurs through thin walls. Cats raiding bins. You can tell when someone is passing on the pavement by the barking dog relay. Always four houses ahead. You can tell who’s watching the same program by matching the flickering lights through front windows.
Mum’s asleep on the couch, exhausted after today’s cleaning blitz. She hasn’t moved since I got home and when I asked her about the government woman, she just shut me down. Told me to mind my own business. The horizontal weight of her drags the lines away from her face. She looks smooth and relaxed. When she’s still, like this, I want to touch her skin to see if it feels the same, to see if it’s soft and warm like I remember it.
I turn the volume on the telly way down and lie on my bed. I find a tattered National Geographic under the bookshelf and try to read it, but I can’t get past the first page. I eat for the sake of it, sweet things in crunchy packets that smell like bliss and taste like guilt.
I check my phone. Tahnee still hasn’t called.
I imagine I hear Jordan’s car, but by the time I get to the window all I can see is the faint red glow of taillights.
Then the power pops and cuts out. There have been warnings on the news about planned outages, but it could be a fuse. The thought of putting my hand into the spider-infested fuse box makes me shudder. I look through the window again. The whole street’s out. Gradually, dim lights appear behind curtains as torches and candles are found. People start coming outside because there’s nothing to watch. It’s so still when everything stops. For weeks the hum and drip of air-conditioners has been the soundtrack to summer.
Mum sleeps hard, and the sudden quiet doesn’t wake her. I grab a can of Coke and go out to the porch. It’s cooler, but not much. I sit with my bare feet up on the railing, the vinyl seat sticking to my legs. Across the street, Benny’s cigarette glows when he inhales.
This time, when the car passes, I know it’s not him. The engine sounds the same, but this car crouches low on fat tyres and its tail-lights look like slanted eyes. It slows past our place, but doesn’t stop. It could be Welles or somebody else who has heard that the boys are in remand. I press back into my seat and breathe out to make myself smaller. I can’t see Benny, only his cigarette, so maybe they can’t see me.
Power cuts always make me nervous—the dark leaves gaps for things to creep out of. If I’m ever home alone and I hear a strange noise, I turn the sound up, not down. People can go crazy in this heat.
I go inside, kick off my thongs and curl into the corner next to Mum. She’s out to it, but it’s comforting. Even comatose, Mum’s formidable.
My legs go to sleep under me.
When my phone rings and I nearly jump out of my skin. Mum stirs and rolls over. I run to my room, muffling the ring-tone against my stomach.
Private number.
‘Hello?’
A hiss and a burst of static.
‘Hello? Who is it?’
Nothing, then the hang-up tone. I press ‘End’, blood pounding in my ears. Outside, the night bird screams.
A few minutes later I get a message.
Can u come over? I’m freakin out here. The message ends with a crying smiley.
It’s not Tahnee, unless she’s blocked her number.
Who’s this? I text back.
Next door, comes the reply.
Lola.
I tiptoe past Mum to get my thongs.
A board creaks and Mum opens one eye. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere,’ I lie. ‘Power cut.’
I go out the back way. I climb the fence rather than risk going into the street and my bare legs catch on the asbestos. A corner snaps off. I imagine tiny filaments, floating on the air, worming their way into my lungs. Lying dormant for twenty years until I’ve forgotten how they got in there.
Mosquitoes whine near my ears.
I tap at the back door. There’s evidence of an old break-in. A splintered door jamb, a square of cut mesh. I hear a chain rattle and the sound of a deadlock releasing.
‘Why didn’t you come to the front?’ Lola asks.
At least she’s dressed this time. She’s not wearing make-up. Now I can see how young she is.
‘Hey. I’ll tell you later. Can I come in? I’m getting bitten.’
‘Thanks for coming over,’ she says and sprays insect repellent past my head, into the night. ‘I hate the dark.’ There’s one stumpy candle flickering in a corner. She uses her mobile as a torch to light my way, probably forgetting that her house is the same as ours, only in reverse. The smell is far worse this time. Musty and old.
‘You’re not working tonight?’
I ask, then remember that it may not be polite.
She slides a pile of clothing off the couch and dumps it onto the floor.
‘I can’t work if the phone’s out. I have a one-nine-hundred number,’ she says, as if that explains everything. ‘Even when I’m not working I have trouble sleeping at night. My body clock is backwards.’
She goes to the kitchen. I hear the suck of the fridge door, then the chink of bottles. When she comes back she has two Bacardi Breezers. She whacks the tops off on the edge of her table.
‘Thanks.’ I take a tiny sip. ‘What exactly do you do? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘You first,’ she says, taking a huge swig. She sits on the floor. ‘Let me guess. A dancer. You’ve got the legs for it.’
‘Wrong. Way wrong,’ I laugh. I’d love to be able to dance. Again, it comes down to being able to look at yourself in the mirror.
‘Okay. What about…a dealer.’
‘You think I look like a dealer?’ I gulp. Is it possible that she knows?
‘You know, a card dealer. At the casino.’
‘Where did you get that idea?’
‘I don’t know. You’ve got one of those faces I can’t read. You’d make a good poker player.’
‘I’m still at school,’ I say, before I can feel worse about not being any of those things. ‘One more year.’
‘Wow. You must like it a lot to keep going, huh?’
I snort and she finds it hilarious. She laughs with her whole body, not just her face. She crosses her legs and I notice she has purple toenails, like mine.
There are no photos anywhere. Nothing really tells me who she is or who she isn’t, if I don’t count the barely there underwear on top of the pile of clothes on the floor. One print of a Greek island with those perfect white buildings that look like they’re about to slide off the edge of the hillside. All those little oblong doors, beckoning. A place where the sea and the sky are the same colour. Her stuff is thrown about like she doesn’t care where it lands. There are unopened boxes stacked in one corner. Only the Buddha looks like he’s been put there for a reason.
‘So, what do you do, since you left school?’ I press.
She lights a cigarette. ‘Phone sex,’ she announces in an offhand way. ‘Easy money.’ She blows her smoke away from me in a way I find curiously courteous.
‘We’ve heard some stuff,’ I confess.
‘Yeah, sorry about that. Sometimes I put them on speaker. I didn’t realise until you came over the other day. I could tell you were wondering. Want another?’ She’s finished her drink.
When I look at mine I realise it’s almost gone, too. It tastes as harmless as cordial. At least with champagne there’s a deadly aftertaste that reminds you it’s alcoholic. My arms and legs feel looser. I like it, so I nod.
‘When do you think the power will come back on?’
‘Could be hours. It’s okay, I’ll stay with you.’
The candle stump is drowning in its own wax. This drink slides down even more easily than the first. The blood in my veins slows to a crawl.
‘Thanks. I hate the dark,’ she says again.
We end up at either end of the couch, our purple toes and crossed legs almost identical. I tell her about Jordan and his treason and about the drive-by that I suspect is Brant Welles. About Tahnee and our fight. I tell her I call her Lola, and she laughs. She doesn’t mind.
She tells me she’s going back to school. She wants to be a nurse. She tells me about a man called Max who calls every second night and pays her four dollars a minute to listen to him. He talks to her while his wife is asleep and he’s sitting in a cupboard.
‘What a weirdo.’ I shiver.
‘He’s just lonely. You can’t tell much about a person without seeing them on a good day, and a bad day,’ she says. ‘They’re not all horrible people.’
I wonder how she can be so accepting of her life. Squatting in the worst house in the worst street in the worst suburb. Talking dirty to strangers and listening to their problems. Living like a nocturnal creature.
‘I hate living here,’ I say.
She nods and shrugs. ‘I just think of everything as only temporary. Look, sometimes I don’t even unpack.’ She points to the boxes.
‘Don’t you have any family?’
‘Not here. Not any more. They moved away and I stayed because I thought I was in love with this guy but then it turned out he was a complete loser.’
‘Yeah. I know the feeling.’
Lola goes still. She puts her hand on my arm and her stillness passes to me.
‘What?’ I say. I can’t hear anything over the hum of my blood and the mosquitoes.
She points to the front window. A shadow moves from one side to the other. The scrape of branches flinging back. A shape at the glass.
I was right about the gaps in the dark.
‘There’s someone out there,’ she whispers. ‘He’s back.’
We hold hands like small children and crouch under the kitchen table. It’s absurd, but I feel like laughing. Lola holds a knife in one hand, her phone in the other.
‘I could go out the back way and get Mum,’ I offer.
‘Don’t you dare leave me,’ she says.
‘There’s two of us. What can he do?’
Lola scuttles across the kitchen floor to the back door. She checks the lock and crawls back under the table.
‘Let’s just go and have a look around,’ I say. ‘We’ll make a lot of noise.’
Her breath is coming fast and she looks like a hunted thing.
‘I can’t,’ she says. ‘I can’t go out there.’
‘I can,’ I say. I stand on wobbly legs. Maybe the booze is giving me a dose of Dutch courage.
I go to the lounge room and pick up the candle in its saucer. Hot wax runs along my thumb and immediately hardens like a second skin. Lola is behind me, one hand on my back. Her knife catches the candlelight.
‘Don’t open it. Please,’ Lola begs.
‘It’s fine, it’ll be fine,’ I slur.
We open the door and stand there, listening.
‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘Me either.’
‘What’s that?’
The flame flickers in the warm breeze, then goes out. Something moves to the right, outside Lola’s bedroom window. Lola screams and I jump, my hands flying up into the air. The candle and the saucer pitch into the bushes.
All at once:
‘Shit, Lola!’ Me.
‘Eeeeek!’ Lola.
And a howl, followed by crashing and flailing as a man lumbers out into the street, beating at his face with his hands. He keeps going, past the dark lamp posts, until I can’t see him any more.
Lola runs inside the house and slams the door, leaving me on the porch. The street is empty. There’s a stinging pain in my back.
‘Lola, it’s okay, I got him,’ I hiss through the door. ‘He’s gone. Open up.’ I twist my arm backwards to explore the pain. My fingers come away sticky with blood. ‘Come on, let me in. I’m bleeding.’
The door opens.
Lola’s face has no colour. ‘You’re crazy,’ she accuses.
‘You’re a certifiable lunatic.’
‘You stabbed me,’ I say.
‘Oh, shit.’ She pulls up my top and checks me over. ‘It’s nothing, just a scrape.’
‘I need to use your toilet.’
‘Are you going to be sick?’ she asks.
‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’
I’m feeling floaty and benevolent with booze. I’d give my last dollar to a bum. Maybe I’m in shock.
While I sit, the power comes back on and there’s a distant cheer. Violent white light makes me blink. A mosquito lands on my arm and I let it drink. I peel a strip of wax the shape of Portugal from my thumb, roll it into a ball and drop it into the toilet. On the back of the door there’s a calendar that’s stuck on October. When my eyes adjust to the light, I read the inspirational quote at the bo
ttom of the page.
‘Responsibility is a detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbour.’ Ambrose Bierce
I flush, holding my arm still until the mosquito lets go. It takes off, drunk and clumsy. I turn the page to December.
‘The poor man is not he without a cent, but he who is without a dream.’ Harry Kemp
There’s one more, a bonus month for the new year. I tear off the quote at the bottom, fold it into a neat square and put it in my pocket.
Sometimes there are signs.
FOURTEEN
On Thursday morning I have a mild hangover, but Mum drags me out of bed so we can get to the Remand Centre before the mid-morning rush.
‘Just as well they’re in a box,’ I say. I grit my teeth against the sound of grinding gears. ‘It stinks in here.’ Witchy. Eye of something and toe of something else. My stomach is churning.
‘Thanks to Mrs Tkautz, we don’t have to take the bus,’ Mum says, then tells me the last time she drove a manual was in 1994.
We hardly speak. If I open my mouth it might all come out. But then I’ve never really confided in Mum, and she’s never really been the type of mother to listen. She’s a sorter. Tell her the problem and she’ll fix it. She’s infamous for overturning suspensions, mostly for the boys.
Two years ago I came home with a suspension notice for smoking. So did about seven other girls, because the teachers’ sting operations are usually pretty successful during P.E. When I told Mum, she marched me back down to the school office and demanded a retraction: her daughter didn’t smoke, therefore the teacher had made a mistake. As usual, she was embarrassing, but spectacular.
On the way out of the principal’s office I asked her, ‘How’d you know I wasn’t smoking?’ I was innocent and, for a moment, I thought she had faith in me.
She just shrugged. ‘I don’t know if you were or you weren’t. But you don’t get a holiday on my time.’
When we get to the Remand Centre she drives around and around the car park, waiting for a decent spot. On the sixth lap I lose it.
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