He grins and leans back, arms behind his head, a tiny strip of white skin showing between the top of his jeans and the end of his t-shirt. ‘The Velvet Underground’ is written across his chest. ‘You have questions? Shoot.’
‘How do you take a shower? Does this place have plumbing?’
His arrogant smirk wavers. ‘I mean questions about your brother.’
‘Why did Dave hit you?’
‘See previous statement. Add a little more menace to the tone.’
‘How come you have your own room? Are you King of the Squat People?’
He doesn’t bother saying anything because looks really can kill.
I chew my lip and wonder what it would be like to sleep here. To breathe in this chill, this stench, this hopelessness every single night. Note to self: be less of a judgmental bitch.
I lean against the wall and pray it doesn’t give way. ‘Did my brother stay here?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘And you’re his friend?’
‘Couldn’t stand the little shit.’
My look is colder than the room. ‘While I appreciate your honesty, go fuck yourself.’
He smirks. ‘Go fuck yourself. I didn’t ask you to come here.’
I fold my arms and stare at the holes in the floor. Come on, zombies, rise and feed off Nate’s brain. Your queen commands it.
‘Why did you call my brother a little shit?’
‘Because he was. He stole anything that wasn’t nailed down.’
‘You’re saying that’s a bad thing?’
‘X steals to buy shitty over-priced material possessions. And he’ll rip off his friends too. I don’t do that. Someone like Dave steals to feed his drug habit. And I don’t have one of those.’
‘So when you steal it’s like a political statement?’
Nate needs to be careful he doesn’t choke on his own self-satisfied grin. ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘That’s exactly it.’
‘You’re telling me that those skinny jeans you’re wearing are the twenty-first century’s answer to tights and you’re a modern-day Robin Hood?’
He scowls as he picks up the guitar and starts picking out a tune. Nothing I know but it’s kind of nice. A little bit Nick Drake. I listen for a bit before I realise this means he’s now ignoring me.
Okay. So I’m not sure this is how the cops would have interviewed Harrison’s friends. I’ve got to start asking the right questions.
‘Do you know where my brother hangs out?’
‘Nope.’ He doesn’t take his eyes off his fingers. I need to get him a name badge: hello, my name is Petulant Nate and I’m a snarky little bitch.
‘Did he at least say where he was going after you saw him last?’
‘He said he owed his dad money. And a few others too. I guess he was going to pawn the stuff we stole and divvy out the cash. Maybe. I don’t know.’
‘His dad hasn’t seen him. How much would he have gotten? Four and a half grand?’
‘A couple hundred at most. Your neighbours have shit taste. Wait, four and a half grand?’
‘He stole his dad’s credit card. Maxed it out to buy me a Joy Division record. No telling who else he ripped off and how much he actually owed.’
The music stops. ‘Four and a half grand? For a CD?’
I narrow my eyes. ‘Vinyl. Rare. Joy Division.’
He snorts and starts playing again.
I walk to the side of the bed and squat. There’s something under the dictionary. A few somethings: records? ‘He called me Thursday,’ I say. ‘Said he’d got the cash. More than enough. Where’s he going to get that kind of money?’ I reach out to shift the dictionary so I can see the records underneath. ‘I mean, if you – and I’m giving you a compliment here – if you couldn’t steal four-and-a-half grand worth of stuff in one go then where’s he going –’
My fingertips have only just connected with the top record when Nate dumps his guitar and grabs my wrist. ‘Hey, didn’t anybody teach you it’s rude to poke around in other people’s stuff?’
He pulls me to standing and I overbalance.
‘Careful,’ he says, holding me upright.
I open my mouth to give him a serve, but he’s not just gripping my wrist; his other hand is pressed into my back. Is it 1950? Are we about to waltz?
I find myself looking into a deep blue stare. The kind you could get lost in.
But not me. I’m focused. One hundred per cent.
Maybe ninety.
He shifts closer. I don’t move; my eyes flick to the cut on his lip. Eighty per cent. ‘At least tell me where Xavier would go to pawn the stuff,’ I say.
He watches me. Silent.
Seventy per cent. I’m seventy per cent focused. So focused on his lips I don’t notice how close we are until . . .
‘Shit.’ I bump against the wall as I pull away. ‘I mean . . .’
He jumps back, tucks both hands under his armpits, giving the floorboards exclusive access to his blue-eyed stare. ‘Whatever.’ The amber glow flickers across his cheeks. He clears his throat. Loudly. ‘If I give you the pawn guy’s details, will you quit bugging me and stay the hell away?’
I nod. Vigorously. The room doesn’t spin. Excellent.
He walks back to the bed and drops to his knees, yanking up one of the floorboards. There isn’t, surprisingly, a swarming mass of zombie rats underneath, just a black backpack.
I peer over his shoulder. ‘Got any corn chips buried in there? I’m starved.’
He pulls out the backpack and riffles through, pulling out a black leather-bound notebook. Those expensive ones that Hemingway used. There are pages and pages filled with scrawl – words scribbled out here and there, mostly the writing is set out in long thin columns. Nate writes poetry? No way.
‘Is that your manifesto for world domination?’
He scribbles something on the corner of a blank page and tears it out. ‘The guy’s name is Ted.’ He stands, holding out the piece of paper. ‘I’m pretty sure you owe me. Again.’
‘Tell you what.’ I grab the address and shove it into my pocket. ‘I don’t kick you in the nuts and we call it quits.’
For a second he frowns at me, but it doesn’t last. He laughs. ‘Deal. And now I’ll help you one last time. I’ll show you how to get out of this place.’
I spin around and out the door.
‘Left,’ he says. ‘Other left.’
I give him a scowl over my shoulder and turn left. The other left. I stumble my way down the corridor with Nate behind me.
But only until I see her.
There’s another painting on the wall, about ten metres down from Zombie-me. I don’t need to look for the little ‘x’ to know it’s one of Xavier’s.
‘What the hell, Vega,’ says Nate. ‘Keep moving.’
But I pull out my phone and hold the lit screen up to the wall.
It’s all wrong. Like when I re-watched The Dark Crystal last year and I could see that the creatures were puppets and the movement was all jerky and the magic had gone.
There’s an iron fist around my heart. Closing fast.
It’s a portrait of Juliet Vega.
There’s the manic glint in her eye, the pointed chin, the bleached blonde hair; god knows what colour it really was but the roots were always dark.
She’s got bigger eyes than I remember. Or maybe that’s what they call artistic licence. Like the way her skin is scab-free and she’s smiling.
But it’s wrong because she’s so much older than I remember. Crow’s feet around her eyes, lips ringed with lines from years of smoking.
‘When did Xavier paint this?’ The light from my mobile falls softly across her face. The plaster peeks through where the paint is thinnest.
‘I don’t know. A year? Around the time he first moved to Melbourne.’
‘A year ago? From Townsville?’
He nods.
‘Queensland?’ I say, barely audible.
I reach out my hand, fingertips grazi
ng the bridge of her nose. Long and thin. Just like Xavier’s.
This is not the truth I came here to find.
‘Frankie, are you –?’
I run.
And then I sleep.
Saturday’s cancelled.
And Sunday.
Dear Dickhead Arsehole Pus-face half-brother Xavier,
You suck.
I handed this to Daniel but he says I have to write more.
He sucks too.
How many times can I write fuck you?
So I guess you’re wondering why I’m writing you a letter. Or not, seeing as I’m not going to send this. That’s the point, see? You write the letter, get all the angry stuff out of your system and then you throw it in the bin.
It’s another one of Daniel’s ‘therapeutic exercises’. Like the time capsule. And the shouting-at-the-empty-chair-pretending-the-person-you’re-angry-at-is-sitting-in-it thing.
I shouldn’t have told him about you. He got all excited and started taking notes.
‘How does that make you feel?’ he asked.
Why is he so damn excited about my pain?
Whatever. I don’t care.
What I really want to know is who’s been using the other desk. I don’t care about anything else. Last time I was in this office, the spare desk in the corner was clear, now it has a stack of papers, used cups and a photo frame – I can’t see what’s in the frame because it’s angled away from me.
I asked Daniel who sits there but he told me to quit deflecting.
Deflecting?
I deflected his stupid chicken timer right across its beak and told him it’s warped having a chicken for an eggtimer. I mean, he’s asking a chicken to help him boil and eat its babies.
You have no idea how excruciating this is. Locked in a small, grey office with someone who’s excited because my brother turned out to be an arsehole. It’s worse than school because it’s just me and Daniel. The second I stop writing his chin jerks up and he glares.
Oh, gods of novelty eggtimers, please make the chicken cluck sooner.
Now Daniel’s taking notes. I’m on one side of the desk and he’s on the other. Maybe he’s doing his shopping list. I bet he’s gluten-free or sugar-free and he probably eats kale. And likes it.
You wouldn’t like kale; it’s green.
He’s doing the full stop thing again. Twisting the pen hard into the paper at the end of each sentence. It doesn’t fit with who he is. He’s the master of the serene – like he OD’d on Zen – but the full stop thing is passive-aggressive, don’t you think?
Or maybe that’s really him. Maybe the sleepy smile, the quiet manner and the laughing eyes are an act and underneath he’s an aggro prick. Like me. Like you.
Hey. I could be a psychologist. Then I could figure this all out. Like, why did Juliet stick it out with you? What’s so special about you?
You could have told me, you know. I would have punched you, but siblings beat up on each other all the time, don’t they?
I get it. I get why you left that all-important titbit out of our first meeting. Things would have gone down a totally different path if you’d told me the truth from the start, if you hadn’t let me make the world’s stupidest assumption.
‘Hi, I’m Xavier. I’m your brother.’
‘Hi, I’m Frankie, I didn’t know you existed. Sorry.’
‘It’s okay. Mum never mentioned you either.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t, would she? She dumped me in a barn with a bunch of guinea pigs when I was four.’
‘Oh. She stuck it out with me until I was thirteen so I guess I did better than I thought.’
‘Great to know. I’ve been feeling way too positive about myself lately. It’s a real relief to find out it wasn’t her inability to be a mother that forced her to dump me in a barn. Here was me thinking it wasn’t personal when really it was. Thanks for clarifying that.’
But I guess Marzoli was right. You’re just so shitty at facing up to consequences that you’d rather run away than fix things. I shouldn’t be surprised. Juliet moved all the way to Queensland so she didn’t have to face the consequences of having me.
And you should know that I blame you completely. Not just because Juliet dumped me to be with your father. I blame you for pretty much everything. Wars, natural disasters, the lack of milk in our fridge. I’m calling the army and telling them to put you on the terrorist watch-list.
I blame you because you were rubbing my face in it. Patronising me. Like, don’t tell Frankie that Mum kept me or else the poor little thing will go on a nose-breaking spree. Is that why you bought me that ridiculous gift? Did you steal four and a half grand just to buy a sister? A sister who would have liked you anyway?
Fuck you.
Did you know that it was a whole month after she dumped me before I found out where she’d pissed off to?
I guess Vinnie got sick of me asking because she sat me down and gave me the your-mum’s-moved-to-Queensland-so-you-can’t-ever-see-her-again talk. I was four so Queensland was just a word. It didn’t become a place until I was older and even then I wasn’t sure why Juliet was there and why it meant I couldn’t see her. It doesn’t matter how shitty your mother is, how much better off you’ll be with someone else. Just drop a kid in the middle of a shopping centre and watch their face when they lose sight of their mum. The confusion, the panic, the heartbreak. Every one of them.
Even me.
So Juliet wasn’t completely incapable of being a parent. Or maybe you were just so perfect that she couldn’t help but keep you. Well done, you. Gold stars. Child of the Year Award.
She gave you up in the end though, didn’t she? What did you do to fall out of favour? Do you know where she is? Did she dump you with Bill Green and the phone number of her firstborn?
But you don’t even have the decency to be here so I can ask you. So I can yell at you and not an empty chair. I’m sick of people not being here when they’re supposed to be.
You’re a dickhead, Xavier. At least let me say it to your face.
__________
I put down my pen and reach into my pocket, pulling out the scrap of paper Nate gave me: 38 hudson st – talk to ted. Nate has messy, almost unreadable handwriting. Like a child who needs those dotted blue lines to help him write straight. He didn’t even put a full stop at the end of it.
Why do I still have this? I’m done looking for Xavier. Aren’t I?
Daniel lays down his pen, firmly enough to make a noise.
‘Done?’
I look at my letter. It’s scrawl, harder to read than Nate’s. And I don’t even feel any better.
‘Done,’ I say.
Daniel smiles. He’s already chalking me up as a success.
‘I’ve been asked to write a report,’ he says, stretching back in his chair. ‘For your school.’
I curl my fingers around Nate’s scrap of paper, watching it disappear inside my fist.
‘What do you think I should write?’ Daniel asks. ‘Do you know why you react the way you do? Why you lashed out at your classmate? Your principal thinks the boy said something to you. She doesn’t think you’d do it without a reason. Last week you started –’
‘Why do you think I did it?’
His brow crinkles. I imagine the desert. Waves of sand.
‘Because you think you deserve to fail,’ he says. Doesn’t even stop to think about it. ‘Because “being wrong” was the only way you ever gained your mother’s attention. And even then she still left you. And you blame yourself for that. You think she abandoned you because you weren’t good enough. So you push people away who love you to prove that you’re a bad person who repels people. Your whole identity is based on feeling that way. And if it turns out not to be true – that you’re actually a good person and your mother abandoning you had nothing to do with you – who are you then?’
I stand, heart in my throat and red ink blots pooling around the edge of my vision. The timer hasn’t clucked but fuck th
e chicken. There’s no way I’m letting poultry dictate my life. ‘Write whatever you like.’
‘We have ten minutes left,’ says Daniel. He points at the chicken.
‘But I have somewhere I need to be.’ I wave Nate’s little scrap of paper at him. ‘It’s important.’
‘What’s more important than your future, Frankie?’ He stands as I yank open the office door.
‘Bees.’
His forehead crinkles. ‘Bees?’
‘They’re dying out. And they pollinate most of the world’s grains and vegetables and shit so, yeah, saving the bees is far more important than worrying about my future.’
I think this is the first time Daniel has been genuinely worried about my sanity. He clicks his pen, switching from blue ink to green. So that’s what the green ink is for. ‘Do you want to stay and talk about the bees, Frankie?’
‘Nope.’ I wave the little scrap of paper again. ‘I have more than bees on my mind.’
He’s somewhere between seated and standing. ‘Okay,’ he says. He smiles. ‘Bees,’ he says.
The last thing I hear as I shut the door behind me is laughter.
I guess I’m not done.
Thirty-eight Hudson Street isn’t a pawn shop. It’s not even a shop shop. I check the address. It could be eighty-three or thirty-three or eighty-eight or nothing to do with an eight or a three. It might not even be Hudson Street. Nate needs to go back to school.
While it may not be a pawn shop, thirty-eight Hudson Street is most definitely a brick box. The roof is flat, the front window is small and blacked-out – the whole place is narrow, decaying and sad.
I walk across the concrete front yard, past two Commodores and a ute. There are stickers on the front door: fuck off, we’re full and fish fear me, women love me.
I press the doorbell. I can’t hear it ring inside but I wait just in case. Nothing happens so I knock. While I’m waiting I text Cara: If I go missing, tell the police I was last at 38 Hudson Street, the home of a racist fisherman.
The door opens a crack. At some point this house has sunk because the bottom of the door drags along the carpet. The guy has to yank it, cursing the whole time.
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