‘Yep. Somethin’ did.’
‘What, then?’
I look out the window. Houses pass, a whole road of different opinions: tell, don’t tell, guilty, not guilty, hooligan, hero, moron.
‘I can’t say.’ Then I laugh because Jude’s all right, and I can see that she’s worried I’m going down the same rocky road as Slate, but about eight years earlier than he did. Slate never fought at school – only since leaving has he got a taste for it. ‘Don’t fuckin’ worry. As you heard, I was only tryin’ to break it up.’
‘Don’t swear, Ryan.’ Jude’s on automatic now. ‘Your dad’ll have to be told.’
Bobby won’t care; well, he will, but he’ll hear what I’m saying. It’s pretty obvious that Evan isn’t a starter of fights and neither am I. Oh, boy! A clear conscience is such a wonderful thing.
What does worry me is what’s behind Larkin’s madness, because dealing with someone who is genuinely – what’s the word? – disturbed, is dangerous. Who knows what they’ll do? And who knows why they’re doing it?
Although, as rumour has it, if Elmore was responsible for his little brother getting killed, that’d probably be enough to tip anyone over the edge. Unfortunately, he’s not going over any edge, he’s staying right here in Templeton.
Jude and the principal have made an agreement that I’m not allowed to see Evan until my suspension’s over. I can cop that, so to calm my mind I watch Foxtel Sport, and concentrate on the Aussie netball girls, who are possibly the biggest babes in the world. This works to an extent, and when the Hockeyroos come on, every one of them blonde, I’m at the point where I think I did pretty much the right thing in a bad situation.
I grab the phone, figuring that in the interests of friendship, I ought to know if Evan got any stitches and how many. Jude’s onto me like a hawk.
‘Don’t push it, Ryan.’
The more the old girl’s thinking about the situation, the more aggro she’s getting. I can see my role as peacemaker is starting to lose its shine.
‘School work is what you’re supposed be doing.’ She glares at me, holding a carrot in one hand and a peeler in the other. ‘Get your act together.’
I hit Evan’s number. ‘I will. Just wait. Have to hear what happened at the doctor’s.’
Jude won’t back off, so to prove my good intentions, still holding the phone, I open my backpack and dig around in it until I pull out a book. Evan answers, and I head for the couch, holding up a novel as if it contains the secrets of the universe.
‘Dude!’
Three stitches and a few bruises. No real harm done, but the big question for Evan and me is, where will this end? And the big answer, as far as school’s concerned, is that it’s officially over now. One more strike will see Larkin gone, meaning he can’t fight if he wants to stay, so that’s good. Although, of course, what happens outside school is another matter.
‘Down the track,’ Evan says. ‘I’m going to nail him.’
I can see why Evan would want to, and that’s not only because we’re boys from the west who are not into forgiving and forgetting. Somehow what Larkin said has to be unsaid. Those words cannot remain as they are, out in the air, unchanged. The trouble is Elmore’s madder than anyone else and not a guy to go to war with, which gives him a great advantage – because pretty much no one wants to die over a school argument or a single insult – although Evan is prepared to go where no one else will.
The only way I can see this whole thing stopping is if Elmore decides he’s going to make it stop. Or if Evan blows up the Larkins’ house with a homemade atomic bomb. Which is not entirely out of the question.
‘He crossed the line,’ Evan says. ‘He’s gone.’
A thought, blood-red, sparks from a deep-down place of dark truths.
‘Don’t do anything mental, Evan.’ I picture him holding his hunting bow. I picture his batons and the knife he got from America before it was illegal. ‘They’ll lock you up for twenty years.’
He laughs. ‘Do you think I would?’
‘Ah,’ I say, picturing him firing a flaming arrow, no hope of recall. ‘I hope not.’
He awards me a laugh. ‘Elmore’s got to learn that for every action, there’s a reaction.’
Jude is giving me the evil eye from the kitchen. She points the wooden spoon.
‘Get off the phone, Ryan. Do some homework, or else.’
I’d prefer or else, but I know when to fold.
‘I’ll read a book,’ I say. ‘In ten seconds.’
‘Really?’ She wags the spoon. ‘You must be a genius.’
That’s a little uncalled for, but I’ll wear it. Sometimes you just have to.
At five o’clock Deed and I head over to Sky Point Reserve. Hardly anyone’s around – it’s that dead grey time between afternoon and night. Mostly people are inside, or still busy with work, or getting home. I’ve got to say I don’t mind it – everything’s kind of misty and peaceful. But there’s also no denying there’s a loneliness here, as if everything is hard yards and nothing’s worked out as well as you hoped.
The day’s slow-falling into darkness and I’m about to go home when I see someone sitting on the council seats no one ever sits on. It’s Eden Larkin, in her Tempy bomber jacket, and I wonder if she might have been there since school finished.
I did not see this coming, no sir. But as Slate says, sometimes you’ve got to do the hard thing. Sometimes you’ve got to step up when plenty of people’d bolt. You’ve got to be like Boydy and run straight. I mean, Eden’s a person, right? A kid, really. So I call Deed, slip her chain over her head, and slowly climb the bank towards the seats and those wild-looking shrubs.
The seat Eden’s on is made of green metal. Behind it is a higgledy-piggledy line of overgrown bushes and now the reserve is as grim-looking as a flooded quarry, dark, gloomy and dangerous. Eden watches Deed and me climb the bank.
‘Hey,’ I say, as we walk. ‘Cold, eh?’ I hold Deed close enough for Eden to see she’s a friendly, well-trained dog.
Eden’s schoolbag sits beside her like a punctured basketball. I see she has tear tracks down her face. She looks at Deed.
‘Hey.’ Her hands are in her lap, chubby and white, not even touching each other.
Deed edges closer, black nose raised and interested, little tail flipping, because she likes people.
‘You orright?’ I put the question quietly.
Eden shakes her head. ‘Nup.’
So what would Boydy do? Well, this isn’t a football situation, but it’s got test written all over it. Me, I think he’d hang tough, like Slate would. So I sit, even after this morning’s tangle with Elmore.
‘Hard time, eh?’
Eden stares straight ahead. ‘Too fuckin’ hard.’
I let Deed lean against Eden’s knees, looking up, wanting attention, because a lot of Dobermans are big babies. Eden puts a hand on her head and Deed dog-smiles, giving off animal warmth and good vibes.
‘You an’ Elmore.’ Eden gives her attention to the dog. ‘I heard. And that hat guy. Evan.’
We have now clearly identified the elephant in the room, as they say. Or one of them, as they do like to travel in herds.
‘I was tryin’ to break it up.’ Almost, anyway. Oh, the value of truth!
‘No one knows fuckin’ nothin’,’ Eden says, looking at Dee Dee. ‘They don’t have no fuckin’ idea at all. Where we come from. What happened. The bad things. Who we are.’
It’s dark, it’s freezing and I should be home. But I’m not leaving. I know Boydy’d see the reality: this has to be seen through one way or another.
‘Ninety-nine per cent of them,’ I say, ‘don’t know what day it is.’
It pops into my head that Ariel would know how to handle this. I even try to guess how she’d do it. Talk, for a start.
‘They’re just dumb-arse kids,’ I add. ‘A bunch of fuckin’ scaredy cats.’ I doubt Ariel would select quite those words, but I’m being creative under pressure here.<
br />
Eden strokes Deed’s ears, gently folding the ends with blunt fingers. ‘I either wanna be old, or I wanna be dead,’ she says. ‘I can’t handle this shit much fuckin’ longer.’
For a moment I watch the cars heading for home, street lights leading to the freeway before the poles double in height, a glowing line of sick suns pointing the way out of town. And I know that things have just taken a turn for the worse.
‘Eden,’ I say, ‘I think you ought to talk to Johnny James Dunnolly. I’ll go to school tomorrow and set it up. I swear to God I will not tell a soul. He’s a smart guy, Johnny James. He doesn’t ignore shit. He’ll help.’
Eden’s face is pale and puffy, her hair damp, a loose curl kept off her cheek with a blue butterfly clip. I see she’s let Deed rest her muzzle in her hands, as if she’s known the dog for years.
‘You’re banned from school. I know it. Two days.’
I shrug, relief flowing because a two-day suspension feels like the least of my problems.
‘I couldn’t give a stuff about that.’ Walking into school tomorrow would be a breeze compared to this conversation. ‘I’ll go, Eden, I promise. Johnny James’ll understand. He’s a good guy. He’ll help. I’ll turn up at nine o’clock tomorrow morning, and never tell a soul, I promise.’
Eden shakes her head. ‘Oh, no, don’t. It’ll only make things worse. He’ll tell every fuckin’ idiot.’
‘He won’t.’ I have faith in Johnny James. He’s a teacher because he wants to be a teacher, not because he couldn’t think of anything else to do. He will take on stuff that should be taken on. ‘You can trust him, Eden. Tomorrow. Deadset. I’ll go. He’ll make a difference.’
Eden stares at the ground. ‘No, he won’t. He don’t know me and I don’t know him. And anyway, no one can bring people back from the dead.’
Well, she has a point – Johnny James couldn’t do that. For a while we sit in silence, night coming down like everything you don’t know, or can’t work out.
‘If you don’t mind me asking, Eden,’ I say. ‘Who’s dead?’
With great care Eden moves Deed’s muzzle to one side, slides along the seat, claims her bag, and stands.
‘Me little brother,’ she says. ‘And Elmore and me done nothin’ fuckin’ wrong, although me dad says it was our key left in the gate. But I never did it and neither did Elmore. But we got the blame ’cause no one can find that fuckin’ key.’ She looks right at me. ‘Don’t you tell no one. Don’t you ever fuckin’ mention it.’
‘I won’t, I promise.’ I stay where I am, holding Deed, thinking that the degree of difficulty of this whole thing just went up by about fifty points. ‘I won’t say a word.’
‘Don’t.’ Eden nods. ‘ ’Cause I got enough shit.’ She slings her bag over one shoulder like a guy would do. ‘See ya.’ Then she walks down the bank and heads across the reserve.
I watch her go, my mind a wide and complicated blank. In fact, it’s a stack of wide and complicated blanks. Hard day at the office, I think. Real hard.
It seems the Evan–Larkin fight, with its extra onstage appearance by Ryan Lanyon, is more famous for its level of teacher involvement than anything else. Personally, I don’t want to talk about it, and when I go back to school I say nothing, hoping to bring the temperature down before Evan and Elmore turn up.
I look around for Eden; if she changes her mind I’ll walk into Johnny James’s dogbox office right now, and try and get things sorted. But I don’t see her, can’t imagine seeing her, and get the feeling she’s not even close to the place.
This information about Eden’s little brother goes a long way to explaining why Elmore’s on a razor’s edge. You don’t suddenly wake one morning and something like that goes away. If people are blaming you, blaming your sister, then it’s no wonder you’re a nutter. But this information is classified. I can’t tell Evan – or I shouldn’t. A promise is a promise. But if a promise had to be broken to avoid a war . . .
I walk through the day, and although the absent-Elmore effect results in all classes running smoothly, I can’t concentrate on anything but Eden’s situation. I feel sorry for both of them, but I’d have to feel a lot sorrier to forgive Elmore for what he said to Evan.
When the bell goes I take off, deciding to swing by Sky Point to see Ariel. My Brew card has earned me a free hot chocolate, so now I can afford to buy her one. Hey, big spender!
We sit in a booth at Brew, and let everything that’s going on go away for a while. This is Sky Point mall magic at its best. Who would’ve thought that a concrete space of air-conned air, seventy-five shops and one crappy fountain would feel like a truly peaceful place to be? Man, I must be getting old!
But it is good. We sit next to each other, worries about the past and future pretty much banned by centre management.
‘That Elmore guy comes through here,’ Ariel says, throwing a crowbar into the works. ‘Occasionally.’
Instinctively I look around. There’s no sign of the big dope, thankfully. His name does enough to rattle me as it is.
‘What’s he say?’ I watch the people passing, drifting in and out of shops as if they’re on a tide. ‘What’s he do?’
Ariel is calm, her fingers lightly crossed. She wears a light-brown and white dress that makes her skin look golden. To that she’s added cheap, flat, white sneakers and jewellery from the Indian shop – creating another award-winning combination, as far as I’m concerned.
‘He doesn’t say anything,’ she says. ‘He looks like he might, then he doesn’t. He just leaves.’
Man, if I have to deal with this, whatever this is, I will.
‘Does he follow you or anythin’? Does he wait for you outside the shop?’
‘No.’ Ariel turns her cup around, as if it might help to look at things from a different angle. ‘He just passes through, pretty much. I’m not sure it’s anything to worry about, Ryan.’
If it involves Elmore Larkin, then it is. He doesn’t strike me as the surfer-type, coming from an English coalmining background, as he does.
‘Just be careful,’ I add, lamely. ‘Call me if you need help. Any time.’ That is, of course, if I’m not busy in the park shooting the breeze with Eden.
‘Why don’t we go to the beach again?’ Ariel smiles, her eyes lifted by light. ‘I liked it last time. We could go where there are some waves.’
How did we get onto that road?
‘Of course,’ I say. ‘I know a place. You can call it work experience.’ And here’s the kicker, folks! ‘We can get there by public transport.’
Truly, I don’t even think Kelly Slater could have handled that any better.
Ariel opens her hands and tells me she lived in an old wooden house by a reedy creek. It’s as if she’s decided to let words loose that she’s been holding on to for a long time.
‘It wasn’t very flash,’ she adds. ‘Neither was the farm. My dad had to work for other people because our place was too small to make much money. Jill worked as a hairdresser. It was nice, though.’ Ariel tilts her head as if she isn’t so sure she wants the memory, or all the memories. ‘I could tell you about every tree, gate, rock and bird’s nest.’ She smiles, embarrassed. ‘I even liked the rabbits.’
Hey, I like rabbits! They’re all gone from around here, though. They didn’t get on with the bulldozers.
‘What was your school like?’ I’ve seen country schools when we used to drive up to the Murray. Sometimes I wonder how I’d go in one – probably fairly average, same as here. ‘Good?’
She stretches, I sneak a peak at her front, even see there are little pictures of butterflies on her bra.
‘Oh, it was pretty good. We did a school magazine and things.’ She lifts a shoulder. ‘The boys played footy. Some even managed to get drafted. Local heroes. Of course.’
Yeah, it’s funny how footy can make you famous. But you’ve still got to be a team guy to do any good.
‘The flood was something else.’ Ariel looks at the tabletop that has a swir
ling timber grain. ‘Our creek went from three metres wide to three hundred. Trees came through the front door and took out the back wall. It was like the whole world was being swept to the sea.’ She shrugs. ‘I used to love the sound of rain. It makes me feel sick now.’
We’re getting close to the time her dad died. I can see she’s there already; the difference in her eyes is like looking at deep water compared to shallow.
‘And then.’ She nods slowly, as if in time with her heartbeat. ‘And then.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ I hold her hand, keeping it down by my side. At times like this you’ve got to lose your shyness and take a risk. I don’t think you can let someone go through something like this by themselves. Even in public. ‘Bad news. The worst.’
‘He was helping his mate.’ Ariel squeezes my hand. I doubt she knows she’s doing it. ‘It shouldn’t happen like that. He said he was all right, but he wasn’t. I never saw him again.’ She looks past me, perhaps remembering her dad walking out the door that morning. ‘Kaydie understands. To a point. She’s got a lot to get through. I don’t know how far down the track she is with it. Not far.’
And that track’s brought them to Templeton, a place I’m sure none of them had even heard of a year ago, let alone thought they’d ever live in.
‘We sold our land to neighbours.’ Ariel dabs at her eyes with a serviette. It’s like they’re old tears, a few leftovers from way back. ‘It was all we had. And a mortgage. My dad stuffed up big time. He didn’t insure the place. Probably didn’t have the money. So it seemed like the city might offer us more. Schools. Jobs. Chances. And maybe it will. I don’t know.’
I have a vision of a loaded trailer hooked up to a shit-box old station wagon parked on Raleigh Road. Ariel, Kaydie, and Jill are getting ready to go somewhere else, maybe a caravan park or back up the bush. Away . . . from here.
‘Stay in Tempy, Ariel,’ I say. ‘It’s not bad. You’ve got a job, Jill’s gettin’ stronger. And Kaydie likes school, doesn’t she? She likes Evan. He likes her. Everyone likes her.’ More needs to be done here. ‘I like you all.’ I find myself smiling through the gloom. ‘Your dad’d be proud of you. Jesus Christ, mine is. You’re a hero.’
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