Ballad for a Mad Girl

by Vikki Wakefield

  ‘You won’t give me answers, so I go looking.’

  ‘Looking where? What questions, Grace? Do you mean about your mum? Can’t you accept that I don’t have all the answers?’ He takes my plate, too, except he throws the plate, cutlery and all, into the bin. He doesn’t notice.

  ‘I think you do.’

  ‘Try me.’ He leans on the kitchen counter, his mouth a grim line.

  I take a deep breath. ‘Do you think she threw herself under that truck?’

  ‘No.’

  I believe him. ‘Did you know she knew both Hannah Holt and the driver of the truck, Dominic Aloisi?’

  ‘They were the same age, in the same classes at Heart, yes. I knew that.’ He clocks my expression. ‘It’s a small town, Grace, relatively speaking. Don’t think I haven’t wondered. But there’s no connection other than two old classmates being in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘Did Mum know William Dean?’ The air is suddenly charged, like the minutes before a storm.

  But Dad says, ‘Not to my knowledge.’

  ‘Why did Mum want nothing to do with her parents and her old friends once she started seeing you? Why did she marry you so young and move out to the farm when she was so lonely out there? Did you make her do it?’ I feel sick asking him this, but I have to know.

  ‘You’ve been talking to your grandmother.’ It’s not a question. Dad rubs his big hand over his face. ‘She assured me it was what she wanted. Nobody ever made your mother do anything. She was driven, one-hundred-per-cent committed to me, and you, and Cody. She wasn’t happy, but it wasn’t us who made her unhappy. Whatever was going on in her head—it happened before. I know that much is true.’

  ‘And she never told you what it was?’

  ‘No.’ His voice breaks, but he carries on. ‘She said it wouldn’t change it, and I would stop loving her.’ Diesel has his nose in the bin, snorting up spaghetti. Dad nudges him away with his foot. ‘Is that all of your questions?’

  It’s killing me to hurt him, but I stand up and take a step forward.

  Diesel pushes between us.

  ‘Did she ever see ghosts? Did she talk to them? Dream about them?’

  There’s a sharp intake of breath. He stares down at Diesel, who’s watching us both in his silent, protective stance. Dad seems smaller somehow.

  I’ve brought this on. I’m destructive. I hold out my arms. I want to wrap them around him, but I know I’m not strong enough to hold us both together. Dad’s looking at me as if I’m a stranger, and Diesel won’t let me pass.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ My arms fall to my sides. I walk away.

  Dad speaks so quietly, for a moment I think I made it up. ‘She said they were everywhere. She said at least out there she could see them coming.’

  The Deans are moving out. There’s no SOLD sticker on the sign yet but it looks like they’re leaving anyway.

  I’m standing in the alley, watching their neighbours wander across the road to help carry boxes and chat. There’s a pod, like a giant shipping container, parked on the street at the front of the house, plus a rubbish skip on the lawn. In a way, I’m relieved. It’s over for them. They’ll pack their things into a truck and drive away to a new place where it’s peaceful and no one knows them and nobody paints their house without permission.

  It’s my second day home from school and that’s exactly how I feel—suspended. Interrupted. Stuck in a holding pattern. My phone’s buzzing in my jeans pocket—the messages have been coming in a steady stream of bile and I’ve been avoiding Kenzie’s calls. She’s been passionately defending me on every thread, trying to claw back responsibility, but nobody’s listening. She can’t stop it now. She should know that. I haven’t responded—a silent suspect is a guilty one—but I’m quietly playing along.

  My life is exploding, and it’s spectacular.

  They’re lugging boxes and furniture from the shed through the roller door now. The moving pod’s only half full but the skip’s already overflowing. Mrs Dean brings a tray of sandwiches out to share with the neighbours, waving, talking, balancing the tray on her hip. She seems happy.

  Maybe it isn’t all bad. I get hours when I don’t think about Mum; maybe after twenty-three years you get whole days.

  The sky turns dark and a few drops of rain hit my arm. We usually get either a short, sharp downpour that runs off the hard ground before it can do any good or a massive cloud that hovers over Swanston like an alien mothership before it spins away to rain somewhere else.

  I look up. A rolling band of cloud is moving south, swallowing up the blue. I don’t know why I’ve come. It’s not as if I can walk up to William Dean’s mother and tell her that what’s left of her son has taken possession of me and of the corner of my bedroom.

  I pull my hoodie over my head as it starts to pour. Mrs Dean makes a run for the house, beckoning to the others, and they flee inside, abandoning a cabinet and several boxes to the rain. I make a dash for cover under the carport of the house next door and huddle against the brick wall.

  A water spout starts shooting from the bottom of the rubbish skip. On top, there’s something as shiny and blue-black as the wing of a crow, caught on a jagged piece of wood. It appears to flap—but there’s no wind.

  I swallow and step out into the rain, pushing through a gap in a hedge. My shoes squelch and my breath steams. I glance towards the front windows of the house—if I stay this side of the skip, no one will see. I curl my fingers over the edge and peer over the top just as something inside slides and shifts. I jump back. It’s just the contents, settling: broken furniture, paint tins, books, toys and a sodden mass of old clothes.

  I hoist myself up, balancing my belly on the edge of the skip, and lean across to tug at the wood. I lever it towards me. It’s spattered with dried paint, smooth, apart from the splintered end. It’s an easel, in pieces. Finally, it gives—as I drag the piece out, the junk underneath lets go with a groan and there’s a hollow crash that seems to echo forever, followed by the tinkle of breaking glass. I’m holding the piece of broken easel in one hand, the fingers of my other hand jammed against the side of the skip, trapped by the weight of the junk slide.

  I wait. Nobody comes outside; the rain must have drowned out the noise. But I’m close to screaming; the numbness in my fingers has given way to searing pain.

  Fingers first. I let go of the easel. It springs back, and the crow’s wing slithers over the opposite side of the skip. Gritting my teeth, I push the layers of junk away to free my fingers, then crouch in the mud, holding my hand like a sore paw.

  Shaking, I inspect the damage. My fingernails are blanched. An instant bruise has spread in a line across all four fingers and my little finger has a deep cut across the middle knuckle—white, where the skin has peeled away from the bone.

  ‘Shit.’ I curl my hand in the front pocket of my hoodie. Shitshitshit.

  I stagger back under cover of the carport. I’m drenched and dizzy. Blood is already seeping through the pocket. I fumble for my phone. I’ll just have to ring Dad or Cody—it’s not like I can get on a bus looking like this.

  I have two text messages.

  We’re watching you.

  The second message is from the same unknown caller ID.

  Tick tock.

  I jerk my head up. Nobody can know where I am, only Dad, and he wouldn’t suspect I’d come back here. I check up and down the street: it’s empty and the rain has slowed to a drizzle.

  Another one comes as I’m hitting delete and trying to block the number, my thumb slipping on the wet buttons.

  Time’s up.

  I turn my phone to silent and shove it in the back pocket of my jeans. I start heading for the alley, but decide it’ll take me the long way around, through the gully, and I need to get to a place where there are people.

  I turn around and walk straight up the street as if I’ve every right to be there—an ordinary girl, not bleeding all over the place, not swallowing the urge to be sick in the gutter. No
t counting the huddle of crows on the power line above. Six of them.

  Six means death.

  I hurry past the Dean house. Out of the corner of my eye I can see the blue-black shiny thing lying on the ground, like a fallen bird. The seventh crow.

  Seven for a secret never to be told.

  At the last second, I dart across the lawn and scoop it up, cradling it to my chest. It’s a leather jacket, not a bird at all, but it seems to me that it holds a faint heartbeat deep inside. It wants to be saved.

  When I’m safely around the corner, I peel off my bloodstained, soaking hoodie and drop it in a wheelie bin by the kerb. I shake the water from the leather jacket and slip one arm into a sleeve. Teeth chattering, I push my sticky, bloody claw carefully through the other sleeve, letting the shoulders settle around my own. It has wide, pointy lapels and four fake pockets with tarnished zippers; in some places the leather is cracked or worn through to the lining, and the arms are too long, flopping like broken wings. Inside, the jacket is only slightly damp. It’s warm. I notice the stiffness around the collar, the smell of mothballs and dust.

  Mostly I notice that it feels like skin.

  My injured hand feels twice its normal size, but it’s turning numb. I keep walking—head down, arms folded around my middle, bleeding into the lining of William Dean’s jacket—until another turn takes me along a winding, unfamiliar street and, finally, onto the main road.

  A man barges through the door of a cafe, knocking me sideways and spilling his coffee. He’s angry, spitting words through thick, rubbery lips, but I can’t make out what he’s saying. I huddle into myself, spinning away in a different direction, staggering past people, houses, shops, bus stops, cars—everything registers, but I’m lost and disconnected. I’m slipping away to another place.

  Seven for a secret never to be told.

  A bus zooms by, too close. I’m walking in the gutter. A rush of movement from behind.

  Weightless.

  Carried.

  Rough hands and a breathless laugh.

  Shhhhh.

  I think I must be dreaming. The last thing I see before daylight is snatched away is a tiny patch of blue in the sky, like looking through a bullet hole in a dirty window.

  I’ve pinched myself hard and nothing has changed. My heart is pumping panic, not blood, and my breath comes in rapid, shuddering bursts—but there still isn’t enough oxygen. I’m holding on to the image of that patch of blue sky; here, everything is grey.

  I’m in the boot of a car. My wrists are taped in front of me. My muscles are so tense they’re cramping. At every bump in the road there’s bone-jarring impact through my left hip, shoulder and temple. It’s not quite dark. Pinpricks of light flicker like distant stars and every few seconds I’m jolted out of position.

  Using the index finger on my good hand I probe the swollen pinkie on the other: it’s scabbing over. I can’t stretch my legs. I’m curled up on my side, hair covering my face, and I can feel the hard rectangle of my phone in my back pocket, out of reach.

  I’ve lived this before in my dreams. Dust, rubber, oil, metal, fear. But this is real, happening, right now—it’s not a dreamscape or a figment or a hallucination. Dreamscapes don’t have hard edges. Hallucinations don’t hurt—not like this.

  There’s music coming from somewhere above my head. Speakers. A male voice, singing along to a song I don’t recognise. The car brakes, the darkness glows red, and my knees ram against metal. A reply thud comes from the back seat. Is there more than one person? A door opens and closes. The volume of the music lowers and for long minutes the engine idles. The car is stationary.

  I wait, expecting the boot to open. In my dream the boot opens. I see him, William Dean, and I hear the gunshot. I just don’t know what comes next.

  I scream and drum my feet against the back seat. Again, someone replies with exactly the same beat, and this time I hear voices and low laughter. More music. A different song.

  And, ‘Shhhhh.’

  The car takes off again, speeding up, sweeping right and accelerating. I use the momentum to roll onto my other side, feeling around with numb fingers for the boot release. I can’t locate a cable—not near the catch or anywhere along the panel near my head, and I can’t reach the opposite side without twisting around completely. The space is too small and we’re moving too fast.

  The speed has been consistent for a few minutes now. We must be on a long, straight road. Breathing hard, I pull my wrists apart. The tape stretches, but only so far; the more I yank at it, the less it gives. I bend my elbows and tear with my teeth. It’s sticky and flexible. Electrical tape? Now it’s dark inside the boot apart from the faint glow of the tail-lights. Finally, a piece of the tape splits and I keep sawing at it until I feel a blunt end with my lips. It starts to unravel: bite, stretch, bite, stretch. I can only unwind it so far before I need to start chewing at the next piece to separate another end.

  The car slows and turns. The tyre noise changes from smooth to gritty. A dirt road.

  Wherever we are, if we’re off the freeway no one will hear me scream. My lips have split. I taste blood. Desperately, I shred the last pieces of tape to free my hands and waste precious seconds kneading some feeling back into them. I run my clumsy fingers over the lock mechanism, trying to work out which way it turns—find the catch, twist it, hear the pop. As the car pulls up I breathe in a sweet rush of night air.

  Dust filters through the crack, and I smother a cough. My body wants to react, but my mind is telling me to wait. I’m shivering, head spinning, trying to catch hold of a single clear-eyed thought—and now one pulls me down like a stone: I’m here. How or why doesn’t matter. If I wait, perhaps I’ll learn what happened to Hannah Holt, but it might be the last thing I’ll ever know—and it isn’t worth it. Not for a girl I never knew.

  I plant my feet against the metal. The engine cuts out. A door opens. I let go of the catch and kick out, sending the boot flying up. I swing my legs over the side, lever my aching body over the edge and start running.

  I don’t stop to look behind. I just run.

  The car engine starts and revs. A deep voice calls out but I keep going, leaping over bushes and rocks, stirring up clouds of fine dust, darting and weaving like I’m dodging a spray of bullets. It’s almost dark, barely a strip of luminous colour on the horizon and a hazy moon rising. About a hundred metres ahead, there’s a silvery bridge stretching across a deep chasm.

  The pipe. The quarry.

  A chorus of voices now, yelling. I risk a look over my shoulder: one dark-coloured sedan and three, maybe four hulking shadows. My toe stubs against a rock, sending a jarring pain up my spine. My legs crumple and I fall, rolling almost to the edge of the quarry. Scrambling to my feet, I clutch at the safety grille and squeeze through the bars.

  The gully is as good as a dry moat; from there I’ll be able to defend. The pipe is my bridge to the other side.

  I kick off my shoes and spread my arms for balance. The sleeves of William Dean’s jacket billow, catching the breeze like sails. I step onto the pipe, feet turned out. No hesitation, cranking my own fear like a propellor. Mississippi one, Mississippi two. I take long, graceful steps, pushing off the balls of my feet and landing lightly on the arches.

  Mississippi eleven, Mississippi twelve. I’ve reached the middle. The pink horizon is slipping away, and I can feel the ridges of concrete against my skin, the smoothness of paint. I imagine the softness of feathers where the birds should be.

  I don’t look down. Twenty. Twenty-two. Twenty-six.

  Shouting. A horn blasts, but I don’t stop. I finish the pipe at twenty-eight seconds flat, wrapping my hands around the bars of the grille to halt the momentum. I turn and raise my fist, feeling the warm trickle of blood as the knuckle splits.

  The car is moving. They’re not following—they’re leaving. For a moment, the headlights are turned squarely on me as I stand there with my fist in the air; then the car is gone and everything’s still.

&n
bsp; I sit, straddling the pipe. My heartbeat slows. I can’t think straight—my thoughts have scattered again. The night air is freezing, but it’s warm inside the jacket. I pat my back pocket and my hand comes up empty. Where did I drop my phone? Did I leave it behind in the car boot? Did I lose it in the dust? I think I hear the rumble of an engine and decide to wait. I won’t cross back until I’m sure they’re gone.

  I wrap the jacket tighter and tuck the loose ends of the sleeves over my cold hands. On the other side of the quarry, a mist is taking over where the dust has settled.

  I’ll wait ten minutes and start walking. It’s not far to the freeway—there’ll be a passing truck or car sooner or later. Dad will be getting worried, and there’s zero chance he’ll think of looking for me here.

  The wind starts to blow from the north, spreading the mist until everything takes on a blueish hue. The colder I become, the more I begin to make out the true shape of the shadows in the night: the huddle of rocks at the bottom of the quarry, the rounded mounds of bushes, a lone bare tree leaning the way of the wind. I tense and suck in a breath. On the other side, near the edge where the quarry is widest, a faint flickering glow.

  A campfire. And the outline of a car.

  I rise, unsteady on my feet. How could I miss it? How could they miss me?

  As I’m steeling myself to cross back, two more cars pull into the quarry, music blaring, churning up dust. Old cars. When they get closer one of them is instantly recognisable: Mum’s red Celica. I’m struggling to make sense of it. Cody or Dad? Here? I realise the car is faded and banged-up, like it was before.

  Three girls get out of the Celica. One is tall and blonde, wearing a short skirt and long boots, and the other has a boyish build and short, dark hair.

  But the last girl, the driver—she’s me. Or she looks like me, wearing unfamiliar clothes: flared jeans, a puffy red jacket and a grey scarf.

  Mum. She’s laughing. Mum when she was young.

  I slip my good hand from the sleeve of William Dean’s jacket and wave, calling out to her, ‘I’m here! Mum, here!’ I yell until my throat shreds, but my voice is coming from far away.