All I Ever Wanted

by Vikki Wakefield

  ‘I’m here. What’s going on?’ She struggles with a box—a box of books.

  I take the box from her and by the weight of it, I can tell they’re all there.

  ‘I can have them?’

  ‘Of course. I think your mum gave me the wrong box.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because these books have been loved. You don’t just give away books like these.’ She picks a book up and opens it in the middle. ‘See? Fingernail marks. Under every line.’ She holds a page up to the light and it’s worn thin as rice-paper and scored with horizontal lines.

  I want to kiss her. ‘Thank you,’ I say.

  ‘God bless, child,’ she says and pinches my chin with her witchy fingers.

  Up close, watching her lips stumble over the b sound, I know that this is what she’s been saying to me the whole time.

  I look over at Benny, my eyes under water. Benny puts down his bottle. He smiles his piano smile and flips his hands. Over and over.

  TWENTY

  Sunday morning. I wake late.

  My mind is reeling with numbers. Two. The number of days until I turn seventeen. Three. The number of strikes I’m on. If Mum asks me for the package one more time, I’m out. Four. The number of messages on my phone, like I’ve suddenly blipped back on the radar. Five. The numbers of hours before I’m not supposed to meet Welles at the lake.

  I should stay.

  The queasiness in my stomach has spread to every cell in my body.

  ‘You all right?’ Mum asks when I slump at the kitchen table.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You don’t look all right.’

  ‘Well, I am.’

  ‘Look,’ she points to the window. ‘They’re back.’

  The wood pigeons have rebuilt their nest with dry grass and pieces of orange twine. She sits, fat and fluffed-up and content. He lands next to her and tenderly feeds her a writhing worm.

  ‘What are they doing? They’ve already had babies. Why does she just want to sit there like a bloody incubator all the time?’

  Mum smiles. ‘Because that’s what she does.’

  ‘Not me,’ I say. I make a piece of toast, force myself to chew and swallow.

  Mum smiles again but this time her mouth turns down when she does it.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you think, if you have to make a choice, and you don’t know what to do, should you do nothing? Until you do know what to do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she glares suspiciously through narrowed eyes.

  ‘I mean, should you keep moving forward, even if you don’t know where you’re going?’

  She sits heavily. The skin on her arms is loose, like she’s shedding it. I haven’t seen her eat in a while. Not the living-to-eat kind of stuffing her face. And I haven’t heard the telly.

  ‘It would help if I knew what you were talking about, Mim.’

  ‘Like, if someone else could solve a problem for you, but it’s your problem, should you let them solve it? Or should you do something about it?’

  ‘You mean you, don’t you? Because if it’s a question of character, I can’t answer for someone I don’t know.’

  ‘You know me,’ I tell her, searching her face.

  ‘I know you,’ she sighs, like it’s a burden, this knowing. ‘You would keep moving. You’d keep going and you wouldn’t look back.’ She leaves the kitchen as if the conversation is too much.

  I should stay. But I go.

  I ride my bike to the lake—it’s just a bike after all, not a symbol of everything that’s second-hand or lacking in my life. The seat’s too low, the handlebars are too high and the front wheel goes clack-clack—but I don’t care. I feel a fondness for the bike that I couldn’t feel before. It’s a survivor.

  I park it behind a tree and wait, crouched inside the concrete stormwater pipe that used to feed the lake. It’s dismantled now, only a piece of it left, threaded through a man-made hill like a severed artery. It’s dark and cool. I can stand, but only just, my feet in an inch of squelchy mud that oozes between my toes.

  The lake is almost dried up. Back when Ashley Cooke disappeared, the park was green with an adventure playground and a pirate ship. Now, the ship is a wreck, the lake is a puddle and the only thing remotely green is algae.

  Bread-bloated ducks stalk me hopefully and I shoo them away. It’s only one-thirty and the car park is empty.

  Over the other side of the lake a man walks a small brown dog. The dog stops, squats, shits and sniffs while the man pretends to look the other way. He walks on.

  I tell myself I’m cleaning up my own mess, but the truth is, it’s compelling, this momentum. This feeling that I’m moving after so long in limbo.

  ‘Boo,’ comes a voice from the dark end of the pipe.

  I jump and whack my head. I brace myself and I see a dark shape moving towards me, back-lit by a circle of yellow light.

  ‘Saw your bike,’ says Jordan. ‘You should hide it somewhere else because they’ll come from that direction.’ He points.

  ‘You scared the crap out of me!’ I yell.

  He comes close enough so that I can see his face. ‘Why are you hiding, anyway? Where’s the stuff?’

  He looks at my obvious lack of anything except the shorts and halter-neck top I’m wearing. I can hardly conceal my own bellybutton, let alone a package of drugs.

  ‘I haven’t got it. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I wanted to make sure you were okay,’ he says. ‘I told you I would come.’

  ‘And I told you I didn’t need your help. I’m okay, now go.’ I shoo him the way I shooed the ducks. ‘You’ve done your bit. I don’t need you.’ I peer out of the pipe, look left and right, but the park is still empty.

  I feel his hand on my back. It creeps up to my neck and he sweeps my hair aside, runs his warm hand down my bare shoulder to my waist. A rash of goose bumps follows its path. I turn. He has a look of fascination on his face.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I hiss.

  He tries to kiss me.

  ‘Get off!’ I sputter, wiping my mouth. ‘Don’t do that!’

  ‘Why not?’ he asks. ‘I can help you. Whatever you’re planning, I’ll help.’

  I think of Feeney coming, and Welles, and how this could all go really, really wrong. And how I don’t much care about Jordan any more and how free that makes me feel. How Kate would be devastated if her brother got hurt over somebody like me.

  ‘Okay, you can help. You’re right. Get rid of the bike,’ I tell him, playing for time.

  I watch him from the end of the pipe as he wheels it away. The front wheel still wobbles off-kilter. When he’s out of sight I text Kate.

  Call Jordan. Ask him to come home, urgently. It’s important, pls just do it. Send.

  After a few minutes, he comes back.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he says. ‘You send me cards for years, then you stop. All of a sudden you start hanging out with my sister. You say I never even looked at you. You let me…you know. Then you make me stop.’ He grins and points to his feet. ‘I’m standing in a pipe, in this muck, waiting for certain death or at least a huge amount of pain, for you. I see you now, Jemima Dodd.’

  I feel like laughing, except that he’s so serious. I’m standing in a pipe, in muck, as well. I know my hair is limp and ratty and I’m covered in green slime. I’m a skinny, sixteen going on seventeen-year-old girl with an awful name, bad breeding and a dubious future. I feel strong and beautiful.

  Jordan slides down the concave pipe to a squat. He stares up at me. ‘When you sent me the cards, I wanted to meet you. I was a bit in love with this idea of a girl who would sneak around in the dark, like a ghost. I’ve never felt this way before.’

  I think of her, that girl, the one who let her dreams dance ahead of her but never tried to catch them. The girl who let things go.

  ‘That girl wasn’t really me,’ I say. ‘And I’m going away one day. I probably won’
t ever come back.’

  His phone beeps.

  ‘It’s Kate. Something’s wrong. She needs me,’ he frowns.

  I swallow. ‘Go,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t.’

  I look at the back of him as he leaves, trying to figure out how I can turn him down when he’s topped my wish-list for so long. I have that feeling again, that emotion I can’t name, the nostalgia-homesickness thing. Like grief, but different. Like my bones are hollow. Like I’m falling. I don’t care that the mud seeps through my shorts or that there’s a mangy duck sitting next to me.

  I hear them before I see them, their voices carrying through the tunnel.

  ‘What’s the time?’ Welles asks.

  ‘Two. I told you she wouldn’t come.’

  ‘Shut up. We’ll wait a bit longer.’

  They’re on top of me, standing on the hill, directly over the pipe. My heart bolts and there’s a bubble in my throat that will turn into a scream if I let it burst.

  Feeney said he’d come. He said he’d deal with this.

  ‘I’m gonna take a piss,’ Welles says.

  ‘Drive past her house. Let her know this isn’t the end of it.’

  ‘Shut up. Keep an eye out.’

  I stand, slipping on the mud. The duck squawks and flaps out of the pipe. I hold my breath and move away from the lake, towards the trees. Slowly.

  Behind me, the dull plop of rocks frisbeeing into the sludge. Ducks scatter into the reeds. The other opening seems so far away and that’s the direction Welles went. My bike. I don’t know where Jordan hid it. I’m stuck. I’m screwed.

  No Feeney.

  ‘Look what I found,’ Welles says. ‘She’s here, somewhere.’

  For the second time, I hear the escalating squeak of my bike’s wheels as it begins its descent, only this time I can’t see it until it lands, upside down in the mud, bottom up in old cans and duck shit. The bent front wheel spins and stops.

  Feeney didn’t say he’d come. He said he’d deal with it. He told me not to come. He’s not coming.

  ‘Check the boat thing. She could be in there,’ Welles says.

  ‘Don’t you reckon this might be a set-up?’ asks the other one.

  ‘Nah. Find her. What are you scared of? She’s just a girl.’

  It starts raining.

  I stay in the middle of the pipe so I have a chance in either direction if one of them should look. My thongs are submerged in mud. Sweet, rainy wind whooshes through the pipe and the hairs on my arms stand up. I gulp air. I keep forgetting to breathe.

  A whistle.

  Silence.

  It’s too quiet. I picture Welles standing above me, pointing down, signalling. If I don’t do something now, they’ll have me cornered.

  I head for the lake end, figuring Welles won’t wade through the sludge to get to me. My thongs stay there. My feet make rude slurping, sucking sounds but I don’t care. I skid out of the pipe and start running as Welles comes through the other end.

  Quicksand. Slow motion running. Scattering ducks.

  When I look behind, Welles has whacked his head and he’s stopped. I can’t see the other one.

  ‘Oi!’

  I pull myself out of the muddy lake and launch myself up the hill. It feels like I’m running up a dune; my calves burn and my lungs ache. Welles’s car is parked at the far end of the car park. When I reach it I can’t see through the dark tint, so I pick up a rock and throw it as hard as I can through the driver’s side window. The window shatters, but the tint holds the glass in place.

  ‘Shit!’ I pull the doorhandle in frustration and it opens. It’s unlocked! You idiot! The package is sitting on the floor but I’ve lost valuable time and Welles is lumbering up the path from the lake, holding a hand to his head. Blood drips between his fingers. I grab the package and run.

  Barefoot, I weave between the trees. Soft mulch and stinging branches.

  Somewhere behind, doors slamming. An engine firing. Squealing tyres.

  Out of the forest.

  I cross the main road, frogging between cars. Horns, swearing, fingers. The smell of burning rubber. The package digs into my ribs but I hang on to it with one arm, the other pumping. Past polite houses with functional fences, shady trees and lap dogs, across a reserve, an avenue, a cul-de-sac, through an alley, behind the shops, along roads and streets and ways. The curbs get shallow, the fences lower, the trees sparse and drought-stricken. Rows of half-houses with ragged roofs. Tagged fences and rusting cars jacked up on bricks. Behind shuttered windows, eyes everywhere.

  Into the badlands.

  At the top of Tudor Crescent I stop, gagging for breath. Rain slaps my face, coming in sideways. Steam rising off the hot street, a misty other world. No Tudors and no crescent, but it is what it is, and I know every inch.

  I jog to the corner of the Tarrant place. Gargoyle lifts his head and barks once. His chain is taut but secure and I keep going. There’s no point crossing over.

  The screen door opens. Mick Tarrant pokes his head out. When he sees me, he knows that I know it was him at Lola’s window. His face is covered with a splash of purple burn blisters and he gives me an evil smile, like it hurts. He bends to unclip Gargoyle’s chain.

  I stop. I give him the finger, so solemnly he could take it for a greeting. I know that Gargoyle will chase me—his hate has burned too deep for too long—and I forgive him. I will my legs to keep moving past the pain.

  At the top of the street an engine idles.

  Scrabbling claws.

  I reach our house, but if I stop running it will all be over.

  Mrs Tkautz is holding her garage sale under the carport. Benny stands there in his jocks, in the rain, beer in hand. He smiles, but it fades quickly. Mrs Tkautz looks at me flying past, chased by a monster. Her mouth opens, but nothing comes out.

  All I hear is the wind in my ears.

  Up the driveway, out through the back gate, to the tracks. There are a dozen ways to get through. Gaps big enough for a girl, and a monster.

  Squealing tyres. Shouts.

  I sprint, skidding in sticky red clay that clumps to my feet like shoes. The package is sodden and heavy under my arm. My legs are losing power.

  Olive trees, black with fruit, endless as the rails. The signal tower, my old friend, glows like a beacon in the grey light.

  I lob the package as hard as I can. It lands on the bridge with a wet, smacking sound. A rope with a hangman’s noose. I step into the noose and climb, but my feet are slippery with clay. I’m so, so tired.

  I look back.

  Gargoyle is getting close, but his hind leg flicks out sideways when he gallops and the mud is slowing him down, too. Behind him, a Neanderthal and his sidekick. Behind them, Mick Tarrant and a few others, still dots in the distance.

  When I get to the top, I lie there, exhausted and heaving. The package is next to me. I feel like doing a Rocky dance but I can’t get up. My skin is red with clay.

  Gargoyle reaches the tower. He bites at the rope, tugging on the end like it’s all just a game.

  Welles and his sidekick stop a safe distance from the monster and the tower. They wait until Mick Tarrant gets there and Welles politely asks him to restrain his dog.

  ‘My pleasure,’ Mick says, grabbing Gargoyle’s collar.

  I try to pull the rope up but I’m too slow. Welles gets the end of it and starts to climb, but the mud from my feet has made it slick. His arm muscles bulge but after a couple of metres he slides back down.

  ‘Fellas,’ slurs Mick. He nods at the door.

  From the bridge, all I can do is listen as the door is rammed. Taking turns, they run up and hit it with their shoulders. Grunts and curses. Splintering wood.

  ‘Couple more, fellas,’ says Mick, waiting at the bottom of the rope.

  Gargoyle is spinning, dancing in circles. Happy yaps of pure doggy excitement.

  Down the rope or down the stairs, either way, I’m dead.

  When the dots in the distance get closer, I see them:
Mum with a golf club, Mrs Tkautz with a crowbar, Benny with…a bottle.

  ‘Mum!’ I scream, but I’m afraid for her, without the boys.

  She’s huffing, purple with rage or lack of oxygen. ‘Back off, Tarrant, and hold that pony of yours,’ she says calmly. She grips her club with white knuckles.

  Mrs Tkautz lets her crowbar fall into the mud and puts her hands over her face.

  Welles rams the door for the last time before I hear it rebound off the inside wall.

  Mick lets Gargoyle go.

  I stand on the end of the bridge to see Mum disappear under it, her golf club high above her head. She lets rip with a banshee wail and goes in swinging.

  Feet on stairs.

  No more time.

  I pick up the package. Benny was right. It’s a long way up, but not far down. And Benny knows things.

  So I jump.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I land like a cat on all fours but the mud is like jelly and one ankle rolls over. Sickening, white-hot pain shoots up my leg and any chance of escape is gone with it. I hear Mum shriek and all I can think is that I can’t get to her.

  ‘Mum!’ I yell, but there’s mud in my eyes and my mouth and all that comes out is a gurgle. I flip over and scrabble backwards like a sand crab, but I get stuck. I wipe my eyes. I can’t see. I pat the ground around me but the package isn’t there. Mud drips through my empty hands. I’ve lost it. Again. My eyes are stinging and each swipe rubs the grit in deeper. Something touches my hair and my neck.

  ‘Stay still!’ Mrs Tkautz shouts.

  ‘Tarrant, you are a dead man,’ from Mum.

  ‘Don’t anybody move,’ from above.

  Oh, shit! I can’t see anything. I can’t hear anything either, except for my own ragged breaths. I can smell something though: a hot blast of foulness that makes me gag. And something else, a familiar smell that triggers a feeling of déjà vu and dread. What the hell is that?

  ‘Mum!’ I scream again.

  ‘Keep very still, baby!’ she calls out. ‘Please don’t move. I’m coming.’

  She sounds weird, and so far away. I freeze.

  Tears of frustration well up and I can feel them rinsing my eyes clean. I tilt my face up to the rain and slowly the whole crazy scene comes into focus.