by JD Nixon
“Sorry, Sarge,” I told him, genuinely regretful, “but I have to take the Land Rover. I don’t think Dad’s chair would fit in your little car.” I noticed Romi smile to herself in secret delight. She was obviously thinking that she’d be alone with him. “You can come with Dad and me, Romi.”
“Thanks, Tessie, but I’ll drive with Finn,” she said, turning to smile up at him sweetly.
“No, you’ll come with me,” I insisted firmly. “Abe wouldn’t be happy to learn that you were driving around with a man by yourself.” I looked over to my boss. “No offence, Sarge.”
Romi’s lips tightened and she opened her mouth to protest, but the Sarge spoke up first. “None taken. I’ll just catch a lift with you as well, Tess, if you don’t mind. We can go for a spin in my car another day.”
“No problems. We’ll head off soon, will we?” I said to him thankfully, pleased to avoid a teenage tantrum, no matter how mild and well-mannered it would be.
Romi recovered her normal good temper when she realised that she’d be sitting in the back seat with the Sarge. Hmm, this crush could prove to be problematic, I thought to myself. I’d have to have a quiet word with Abe about the situation when I had the chance.
The Land Rover was usually parked out the back of the house, near the ramp that we’d had installed for Dad, replacing the back stairs. He wheeled down the ramp, positioned himself next to the open passenger door and slowly hoisted himself up into the seat. It was getting harder for him to do that, but he was too proud to accept any help. Yet.
I pushed his chair back inside the kitchen, locked the house and jumped in the driver’s seat. At the Sarge’s questioning look, I told him that we kept a fold-up chair in the back of the vehicle for outings. It wasn’t as comfortable for Dad and he couldn’t sit in it for long periods of time, but it was handy and more portable than his permanent chair.
I drove carefully into town – I never hooned when Dad was with me. You couldn’t hoon in the Land Rover anyway. It was ancient and like a tank. There was no such thing as a three-point turn in the old beast. It hadn’t been new when Dad had bought it fifteen years ago, but it was reliable and a good work horse. And now that the Sarge was taking the patrol car away from me, it was my only set of wheels. The cute little silver Toyota hatchback I’d previously owned had been stolen about two months after I returned to town and driven into the water-filled abandoned quarry up near Big Town. The crime remained unsolved, but I knew it was one of the Bycrafts, most probably Chad. Who else?
My insurance company had eventually coughed up the money to replace it, but I’d never found the time to buy a new vehicle, instead using the patrol car for all my personal needs contrary to every official directive. Guess I should go car shopping soon. Only problem was that I’d already spent the insurance money on replacing some of the house’s rotten timber stumps and buying the dishwasher. I’d also bought a new fridge after the antiquated one that Dad’s parents had bought him as a wedding present finally died. We’d had to live without a fridge for seven weeks during the hottest part of the year before that godsend insurance lump sum was deposited into my bank account. And I hadn’t felt the slightest bit guilty using a lot of that money to replace the fridge, just so I could have a glass of chilled water again.
The brutal truth was that I didn’t have even one cent to buy a new car. That was probably a blessing in disguise though, because the Bycrafts would only just steal any new car that I did buy anyway. Or vandalise it. They especially loved to scratch obscene words into the paintwork of any vehicle I owned. The Land Rover had more graphic graffiti on it than a public bathroom at a train station. But there was no way I was going to waste good money to get it resprayed though, so Dad and I had little choice but to put up with it. And after a while we’d grown indifferent to driving around town in a profanity-ridden vehicle, complete with X-rated etchings. The townsfolk now jokingly referred to the Land Rover as the ‘Fuck-Off-Fuller Wagon’. I noticed the Sarge’s eyebrows lowering as he took in the graffiti when he climbed into the back seat next to Romi, but he didn’t say anything.
Romi, on the other hand, had everything in the world to say and chatted and giggled excitedly non-stop the entire drive to the police station. We all silently breathed a sigh of relief when I pulled into the station carpark. It was full, even the one parking space reserved for the disabled taken. That made me angry, especially when I saw that the car hogging that space was owned by someone whose only disability was that he’d been born a Bycraft. I left our vehicle idling and jumped out of the driver’s seat, stalking over to the gang of Bycrafts lazily lounging against the wire fence, smoking, swearing, a few even drinking despite the early hour. My Jake was smack bang in the middle of them.
“Oi!” I shouted at them, careful not to get too close. “Rick Bycraft! Get your arse over here right now and move your rust-bucket, or I’ll book you for parking in a disabled spot.”
“You wouldn’t dare, piglet,” he swaggered in front of his family. They all sniggered.
“Wanna bet?” I said, fuming. No Bycraft called my bluff. I turned around, jogging up to the Land Rover, leaning over Dad and rummaging in the untidy glove box for a ticket pad. I stood next to Rick’s car and commenced writing out a penalty notice. The Sarge climbed out and stood beside me in support, arms crossed, watching with interest. I appreciated that. It was good to have someone on my side for once. Especially someone so big and muscular.
“All right, all right,” Rick grumbled, sauntering over, hitching up his jeans. He couldn’t afford to get a ticket, being as dirt poor as the rest of his family. “You’re such a sour bitch, piglet. I dunno what our Jakey sees in you.”
“Shut your cakehole and move this piece of shit now,” I ordered coldly.
He slowly climbed into his car, staring at me insolently the whole way. He revved the engine loudly a few times, spinning his tyres, kicking up gravel all over the Sarge and me, reversed with a skid, barely missing our Land Rover and fishtailed out the gates, flipping me his middle finger out the driver’s window. His family cheered and hooted him in encouragement. And yes, that included my Jake.
I jumped back in the Land Rover and quickly parked it, pulling the wheelchair out of the back, opening it and positioning it for Dad to manoeuvre himself into. He wheeled himself over to the police house on the cement path that ran between it and the station, heading towards a group of his friends, Romi at his side ready to help if asked.
“Who are they?” the Sarge asked me quietly, looking over at the Bycrafts.
“That’s the Bycraft family, the town outlaws. Anytime there’s a crime in town, think of them first and foremost,” I informed him, unsmiling.
“Isn’t that your boyfriend with them?”
“Yes, he’s a Bycraft. The only decent one in the whole bunch. Maybe one of the only few decent Bycrafts ever.”
“That must make your relationship interesting,” he commented neutrally.
I gave a short, bitter laugh. “You can say that again.”
“With that golden colouring they all have, they look like a pride of lions,” he said thoughtfully. I glanced up at him with an admiring smile.
“That’s very good, Sarge. I like that. You’ve put your finger right on it. They’re as lazy as lions too, but just as dangerous when they strike.”
The Bycrafts jeered the two of us when they noticed us staring at them.
“Who’s your new boyfriend, piglet?” yelled out Tracey Bycraft, Jake’s cousin. She had a baby on her hip, a cigarette in her other hand and a toddler clutching her leg, crying. She was only eighteen and heavily pregnant with her third kid. But she didn’t let an inconvenience such as that interfere with her drinking, smoking or her career as a shoplifter. “He’s kinda cute. I’d let him pork me.”
“He’d be the only man in town who hasn’t, Tracey Bycraft,” I yelled back at her as I stalked up to Des’ house. They all heckled me then and I slyly gave them the finger as I pretended to scratch my nose. Jake d
idn’t join in the heckling of course, but he didn’t try to stop it either. That was the relationship we had – he would never get in the way of his family’s God-given right to harass me.
“Piglet?” queried the Sarge, catching up to me.
“That’s what they call me. Adorable, isn’t it?” I said sarcastically. “The Bycrafts and I have a love-hate relationship. I hate them, they hate me, and we all love to hate each other.” I glanced at him. “A word of advice, Sarge. Do not be tempted by a Bycraft woman. They are beautiful and wild, but they are witches. And fertile. You only have to look at them and they get knocked up. You don’t want one of them to sink her talons into you. You’ll be paying child support for the rest of your life.”
“Advice noted, thanks.”
“And it wouldn’t go down well with the townsfolk for you to be involved with a Bycraft either. They are a one-family crime wave and plenty of people in this town have suffered because of them, including my family. There’re a lot of folk in town who don’t like the fact that Jake is my boyfriend, and they’re not shy about telling me.”
“Anyone else I should avoid? Not that I’m looking for anyone.”
“Stay away from Foxy Dubois too.”
“Foxy?”
“Her real name is Barbara White. She took Foxy as her stage name. She used to be a stripper in Big Town . . . Oh sorry, she prefers the term ‘exotic dancer’. She’ll have her eye on you in no time.”
“She’s the one your former sergeant, er, ‘investigated’ frequently?”
I laughed. “Oh yeah. Des ‘investigated’ her at least once a week.”
Speaking of the devil, we noticed Des standing on the verandah, barking orders to the removalists from Big Town who were beavering away, loading furniture into the truck that had been backed up to the stairs. We pushed our way through the crowd that had gathered to watch and dodged the brawny removal men as we ran up the stairs.
“How’s it going, Des?” I asked. Mr Sparkles waddled over to me, carnal intent clear in his eyes. “Don’t even think about it, Sparkles,” I warned him in a mean voice. He barked at me with irritation and changed direction, heading towards the Sarge instead. “Sparkles! I’ll sell you off to be turned into cat food,” I threatened and he gave me a surly look before retreating back to a corner of the verandah, glaring at us resentfully.
“The move’s going well, Tessie love. Nearly finished. The guys came early in the morning and you can see that they’re hard workers.” He looked up at the Sarge and had to keep looking a long way as Des was somewhat shorter than me. “The house will be ready for you late this afternoon, mate. Maureen and her helpers are cleaning it as each room is emptied.”
“Those Bycrafts giving you any grief?” I asked him.
“Caught one of them young buggers trying to steal one of Maureen’s Jesus figurines from out the truck the second my back was turned. Can you believe it? Gave him a right kick up the bum.”
“Who was it?”
“Chad or Timmy or Mikey? I don’t know. They all look the bloody same to me. Why the fuck would he want a Jesus figurine?”
“I think they just do it for the thrill half the time,” I replied, looking back over at lounging Bycrafts. I sadly noted Jake happily sharing a laugh with his oldest brother, the revolting Red, puffing on a cigarette even though he normally didn’t smoke, relaxed and comfortable in the middle of that nest of vipers. He became a different person when he was with his family, and not one that I liked too much.
I would never have gone out with him if I’d met him again in the company of his family or on his own, but he had approached me with his two best mates – who weren’t bad blokes – at a nightclub a few weeks after I returned to Little Town from the city. I had been in Big Town for a hen’s party for one of the female cops there and we’d all gone out to the nightclub afterwards. The three of them came up to me, made themselves known again and begged me to remember them, which of course I did. I hadn’t been away from town that long. And as if I’d ever forget a Bycraft.
They invited themselves to join me and my friends and offered to buy me a drink. I refused the offer, always careful to buy my own drinks when I went out, wary of drink-spiking. Had Jake accosted me on his own at the nightclub that night, I probably would have stabbed him with my knife. But in the company of his two mates who I didn’t mind, I found him far less threatening. In fact, his affectionate bantering with them, funny asides, and friendly, appealing charm helped me see a side of him that I would never have otherwise been close enough to him to notice. So instead of telling them to shove off like I should have, I chatted to them for the rest of the evening, enjoying their gentle teasing of me and obvious and competitive attempts at flirting.
Where his mates were happy to flirt with any of the girls in my group, Jake didn’t bother to hide his clear interest in me nor his genuine disappointment when I refused, several times, to dance with him. Quite a few of my girlfriends were trying to catch his eye, but all of his attention that evening was on me. When I went to the bathroom or up to the bar for another drink, his eyes followed me all the way there and all the way back. When I returned from one trek to the bar, he had swapped places with his friend and was now sitting right next to me, the sulky look on his friend’s face telling me that it hadn’t been a voluntary move.
That type of intense attention from a Bycraft should have switched my senses to red alert, but rather than seeming creepy and threatening, I found it somehow endearing instead. Perhaps it was the sincerity I sensed from him that made the difference. And then again, perhaps it was just the alcohol I’d drunk or the fact that I hadn’t had any sex for over a year that did the trick.
Jake and I hadn’t seen each other for more than ten years, not since he left high school after tenth grade and moved first to Big Town and then to the city. He had only moved back to Little Town to take a job at the prison about six months before I moved back home myself. I’d forgotten how good-looking he was and how beautiful his amber eyes were. His devastatingly gorgeous smile and easy-going charisma weakened my defences and managed to overcome my natural abhorrence of all things Bycraft.
By the end of that evening, after I’d had a few drinks and egged on by my girlfriends who’d been trying to find me a boyfriend since I’d returned, I agreed to let him visit me back home in town the following day. His touching gratitude at that small indulgence made me feel like a princess. He’d grabbed my hand and squeezed it, smiling at me happily when I left the nightclub with my girlfriends to catch a taxi back to their place where I was crashing for the night. We’d giggled about him the whole way home.
Sober, I’d regretted my offer the next day though, because a Bycraft had only ever set foot in the Fuller family home once before, with catastrophic results. I was terrified about what Dad would say to me and had worried about it all the drive back to Little Town. I was right to be anxious, because Dad went completely ballistic when I told him about the invitation I’d given. He did something that he’d never done before in my entire life – he yelled at me angrily until I cried. I would have rung Jake up right then and withdrawn my invitation, feeling worse than terrible about upsetting Dad so much, but I’d stubbornly refused to take his phone number the evening before or to give him mine.
So Jake came over to our house that afternoon, nervously clutching a glorious bouquet of flowers, which I thought was sweetly old-fashioned. He was polite and respectful towards us both, tactfully overlooking my red eyes and subdued manner. But he couldn’t fail to notice Dad’s undisguised and silent hostility towards him nor the shotgun that Dad had leant up against his wheelchair that he kept his hand on the entire time that Jake was there.
Surprisingly not discouraged by that unpromising first visit to the Fuller residence, Jake continued to pursue me courteously but relentlessly afterwards. I kept pushing him away, and not nicely most of the time I’ll admit, unable to understand why he was so keen on me when he had never even noticed me at school and could surely have hi
s pick of women. And when I was a Fuller and he was a Bycraft.
“Teresa Fuller, don’t you ever look in a mirror?” he’d responded once with impatience, as we sat together on my lounge one afternoon. He had his arm stretched out behind me on the back of the lounge, but didn’t quite dare to put it around my shoulders as he knew that I’d only immediately shrug it off. “You’ve grown to be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I fell in love the second I laid eyes on you again at that nightclub so of course I’m interested in you. So are all the other single men in town and probably most of the married ones as well.” He paused to stroke my hair, which I let him do because I really enjoyed that particular caress and the gentleness of his fingers.
“Babe,” he continued with fond exasperation, “you don’t seem to realise that you’re an incredibly stunning woman. Don’t you notice men staring at you all the time? Because I do.” Bullshit alert, I told myself cynically. I had noticed men staring me all the time, but that was because I was a whacko with a knife. I wanted to roll my eyes, but his lovely eyes had mine trapped in stillness. He stopped talking long enough to lean towards me in an attempt to kiss me. I dodged his lips as usual and his shoulders slumped in frustration as usual. “And I did notice you at school, but you were always Denny’s girl.”
“I bloody well was not!” I insisted hotly, jumping up suddenly and stalking away a few paces. I turned back. “Don’t you dare say that! He made my life miserable.”
“Sorry, Tessie. I meant that he was obsessed with you – still is obsessed with you. He wouldn’t have taken it well for me to show any interest in you. He’s . . .” he hesitated for a moment, glancing up at me uncertainly. “He’s not quite right in the head, our Denny.”