The Protected

by Claire Zorn

  ‘Yeah. Right.’

  He raises his right arm high above his head, gently pulls a slippery blue yabby clear of the water’s surface. The yabby squirms, swinging. Its claws wave about as if it’s signalling for help. With a delicate, assured grip, Josh takes it between his thumb and forefinger, holding it just behind the claws. He holds it up in front of his face and grins at it.

  ‘Check out his pincers. Man. Could do some damage. Wanna have a cuddle with Hannah, little fella?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  ‘Oh, rejected. So harsh. And she doesn’t even know you.’ Josh tosses the yabby back into the pond. He tears off another bit of sandwich and fastens it to the end of the line.

  ‘You’re going to catch another one? So you can just throw it back?’

  ‘What do you want to do? Eat them?’

  ‘Just seems kind of weird, that’s all.’

  ‘Well, so do you, but you don’t hear me going on about it.’ He flashes me a smile, double-checking I know he’s joking. He throws the line into the water and settles back down into position on the bank. We sit there quietly for a few moments, flicking at the flies, watching the pond’s surface.

  ‘I knew her, you know. Your sister.’ Josh says.

  Somewhere above us a whipbird calls, its voice a smooth bell note, a drop of cool water.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Oh, you know, parties and that. Would see her around. Everyone thought she was hot, but I guess you know that.’

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘She wasn’t my type, if it means anything.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I mean, I didn’t know her real well. Just knew people who were mates with her. I didn’t know she had a sister, that’s for sure.’

  ‘She kept me pretty separate from the rest of her life.’

  ‘You weren’t close?’

  ‘No. She was different to me. I don’t think she … understood me. She didn’t take any crap from anyone. I actually think most people were a bit scared of her.’

  ‘You used to take a bit of crap around here, yeah?’

  I nod.

  ‘When I got here I saw you on your own all the time and I was like, “Who is that?” and everyone’s like, “Oh no one hangs out with Hannah”. And I’m like, “Why the fuck not?”’

  ‘You said that?’

  ‘Ahhh, yeah I did. Because I don’t get it. Katie was a swimmer, wasn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Do you swim?’

  ‘I did. I wasn’t as good as her.’

  ‘I’m crap in the water.’

  I laugh.

  ‘Probably drown at the carnival. I’m serious. Don’t get too attached. You a good swimmer?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. I mean, I used to be.’

  ‘You should race. Thorne will make everyone anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, no thanks.’

  ‘You know, there’s this waterhole down the bottom of the gully, really big. We should go there …’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yeah. Go for a swim. Hot enough.’

  I look back in the direction of the school. ‘I don’t know. I’ve got English next. I should go …’

  ‘I bet you always do what you’re supposed to.’

  ‘I’m here aren’t I?’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. I know where I’d rather be.’

  ‘I should go.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He waves at me dismissively.

  ‘See you later.’ I stand, brush myself off.

  As I am walking away, Josh calls after me. ‘See ya, Jane.’

  ***

  When I got off the bus in the afternoon, Katie was waiting for me. She noticed that I was using a plastic bag from Jay Jays instead of my schoolbag.

  ‘Where’s your bag?’ she asked.

  ‘They took it.’

  ‘What? They took your schoolbag?’

  ‘No, I’m just carrying my stuff like this for fun.’

  ‘Hey, don’t get shitty with me about it.’

  We walked the rest of the way home in silence. I hoped to sneak in past Mum without her noticing my lack of schoolbag, but it was the first thing she asked me when I walked in the door.

  ‘It broke? I don’t understand how it could break so catastrophically that you had to use a plastic bag.’ She was standing at the juicer making us fresh apple, watermelon and ginger juice.

  ‘Well, it did.’

  ‘Some kids stole it,’ said Katie.

  She put down the apple she had poised over the juicer. ‘Stole it? Who? What happened?’ Her tone was more compassionate than I’d expected and it was enough to bring me undone. I turned away so she wouldn’t see my face.

  ‘Hannah? What’s going on?’

  I went to my room and closed the door. She followed me.

  ‘Can you just leave it? I have homework.’

  ‘Hannah, talk to me. What’s happening at school?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘It’s something. What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing. It was a prank. Some kid took my bag, that’s it.’

  ‘Did you ask for it back?’

  I didn’t answer her. I took my History textbook out of the Jay Jays bag and turned back to my desk.

  ‘Who are you friends with at school?’

  ‘No one.’

  She laughed. ‘You must be friends with someone. What about Charlotte? You two have had fights before and sorted it out. What’s so bad this time?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Well. Is there another sporting group you can join? An activity group at school? Somewhere you can extend your friendship base?’

  ‘I don’t play sport. I swim.’

  ‘I know you do. I’m just trying to think of some strategies we can use here. If you’re in a tricky situation, I’d be looking at changes I could make within myself.’

  I opened the textbook and uncapped my pen.

  ‘Are you being cyber-bullied?’

  The way she said it made it sound like I was being victimised by a group of robots.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you have to help me help you, Hannah. A “woe is me” attitude isn’t going to help. Trust me.’

  She left the room, closing the door behind her. The tears fell on my page, bleeding the ink from my notes.

  Later, when he got home from work, Dad knocked softly on my door. I let him in and he sat on my bed, arms folded.

  ‘Having a crap time at school, Span?’

  ‘I just … I don’t fit anymore.’

  ‘It’ll pass. I’m not saying it’s not crap and I’m not saying that it’s easy, but it will pass.’

  The tears started again.

  ‘Hey, Hannah. Hey, hey.’ He put his arm around me and I sobbed for what felt like ages. When there was nothing left he smoothed the hair back from my forehead with his palm.

  ‘Can you tell me what’s going on?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘You being picked on?’

  I didn’t answer him.

  ‘All right. Well, I’m here when you’re ready to talk.’

  Katie didn’t knock, but she did close the door behind her – so I guess that’s something. She sat on my bed, picked up my paperback of Great Expectations and opened it.

  ‘“We had looked forward to my one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and anticipations”,’ she read aloud. ‘Seriously, Hannah. How can you read this stuff? Why doesn’t he just say, “I was excited about turning twenty-one.”’

  ‘He’s not excited, he’s speculative.’

  ‘Speculative.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She gave a deep sigh and tossed the book aside. ‘Was it really awful?’<
br />
  ‘Yes.’

  We sat there with a warm silence around us that I hadn’t quite felt with her before. Her gaze didn’t go beyond her toes.

  ‘He broke up with me,’ she said eventually.

  ‘Jensen?’

  ‘Yep. Took me on a picnic and gave me the it’s-not-you spiel. Thought he was more imaginative.’ She picked at a loose thread on my doona cover. ‘Apparently I’m a really gorgeous girl who he doesn’t want to date.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Katie.’

  ‘Maybe you were right – not quite enough going on up here.’ She tapped her temple.

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘Never been dumped before.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  A faint smile. She sniffed, wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist.

  ‘I slept with him, you know. First one. Don’t look so surprised. Think I might have been in love with him. What an idiot.’

  ‘You’re not an idiot, Katie. You’re not.’ I shifted so I was next to her. I put my arm around her shoulder, not sure how she would react. She didn’t shake me away.

  ‘So a shit day all round, hey?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. A shit day all round.’

  The next morning I stood in the doorway, Katie’s spare backpack on my back. Katie had already left for the bus stop. I called goodbye to Mum, she was out the back on the deck, I think. And I went to step out the door, onto the porch. Twenty to eight, right on time. But I just … couldn’t. And it was like the world around me was folding in on itself. And I was folding in on myself. There would be no end to this. No end. And my knees gave way beneath me and I let myself fold down onto the ground. And if I closed my eyes, curled into a ball, didn’t move, didn’t speak, I wasn’t there at all.

  Wasn’t here at all.

  ‘Hannah! What’s going on? Stand up!’

  I wouldn’t. I heard her swear under her breath. If Dad had been there he would have understood what was happening. But he wasn’t. He had already left for work. I didn’t open my eyes. Mum physically tried to get me to my feet but I shook her grip from my arm.

  ‘I’m never going again,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m not going.’ I got up and went into my bedroom. I closed the door behind me, pushed the desk across it so it wouldn’t open. I crawled into bed and listened to her knocking until she gave up.

  ***

  Eighteen

  ‘Han Nah, Han Nah,’ Mrs Van walks across her lawn with her hand on her hip like she’s trying to stop it falling off. ‘How are you? I haven’t seen you for so long. Your mother, she must come out of the house! Oh Han Nah! Your poor sister, dead and gone.’

  Mrs Van is the only person I know who is quite happy to talk about death.

  ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘Okay. The same.’

  ‘It’s not good for her to be inside all day. I tell her to come talk to me but she won’t. I pray for her Hannah, and for you and your father. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll make you some nice tea. I make more boterkoek today. For the fair, at the church. Like I have nothing else to do. Do you not see my yard? Do you not see how busy I am?’ She shrugs. ‘But what can I do? Who else will make the boterkoek? No one. At the end, Hannah, we are all on our own.’

  Yes. According to Mrs Van, in the end we will all be on our own, arguing with the lawnmower, making endless cakes and waiting to die.

  Not Katie though.

  She takes my elbow and tugs me across the grass. ‘Come, come.’

  What am I to do? Left to choose between two lonely women fixated on death. I choose the one with the cake.

  Mrs Van’s entire house is about the size of our lounge room. I’ve been in it before, but not for years. She leads me into her sitting room where there is brown fluffy carpet and two of those big recliner chairs old people seem to adore. She makes me sit down and gets me a cup of tea without asking if I want one. It has about fifteen sugars in it. She puts a slice of cake on the coffee table in front of me and sits down in the other chair. There are photos of smiling people all over her sideboard and walls, some of her grandchildren and lots of black-and-white ones. She points to an old photograph of a tall guy in a uniform. He’s totally gorgeous. James Dean gorgeous.

  ‘This is my husband, Joss. He was very handsome. Look how handsome he is.’

  ‘He’s a hottie, Mrs Van.’

  ‘A hottie,’ she laughs. ‘This is good, yes? Yes, he was a hot-ti, as you say.’

  ‘Did he die in the war?’

  ‘The war? No. They try to kill him, he gets shot twice.’ She holds up two fingers. ‘But he said to me “Hilde, they’ll have to do better than that!” No, no. He died fifteen years ago. The cancer. I miss him every day.’

  She points to a picture of three young girls.

  ‘This one is me and these my sisters. This one, Jani, she’s still in Holland.’ She pauses and points to the eldest of the girls. ‘This, Marieke,’ she says. She leans forwards a little. ‘You listen to me, Hannah. I know the hurt. And I pray for you every day.’

  She holds me in her gaze, she doesn’t waver. ‘People say stupid, stupid things when someone you love dies. Rubbish. Nothing gets easier, Hannah. You just go on with life.’

  She is tiny in her big chair, thin insect limbs. But there is nothing frail about her.

  I don’t ask her about Marieke. She sips her tea and gazes out at her lawn, probably surveying all the work she still has to do.

  ‘Sometimes it’s very hard to go on,’ she says after a while. ‘I know this. But we do, don’t we?’

  I say yes but I don’t know if I really believe it, not every day.

  *

  Dinner. Dad cooks steaks on the barbecue, I make a salad. Well, it passes as a salad: a few lettuce leaves, a sliced carrot and half a grainy tomato from the back of the fridge. (Nanna’s due any day now.) Mum doesn’t eat anything, she just sits there and looks at the food for fifteen minutes while Dad talks and talks with his mouth full. After a while he runs out of things to say and we sit in silence. Mum looks up from her plate.

  ‘We should go to the cemetery on the … on Katie’s anniversary,’ she says.

  Dad stops chewing.

  ‘The three of us. Yes, that’s something we should do.’ She picks up her fork.

  Dad puts his down.

  ‘Love, if you want to go that’s fine, that’s good. But I … I have a meeting on Thursday.’

  ‘You have a meeting on Thursday?’

  ‘Yeah … I’ve got to meet the Perth manager. It’s okay though, love. You go. You and Hannah go.’

  Mum stares at him, her eyes bright and sharp, drilling. She shakes her head. ‘I cannot believe you.’

  ‘Paula.’

  ‘If only we all had a meeting to go to, maybe we could all pretend she’s on a holiday.’

  ‘Paula,’ Dad’s voice is calm, measured. ‘Paula, not in front of Hannah.’

  ‘Not in front of Hannah? Why not? Everything else has happened in front of Hannah!’

  I think of Josh’s parents. Of his dad on the Gold Coast with a woman called Sonia. I want to get up and leave but I can’t. I am tethered there between them.

  ‘She’s got her assessment coming up. They’re going to decide whether she remembers what happened or not. So she can tell the court, Andrew—’

  ‘That’s enough, Paula.’

  ‘Oh, is it? I think so too, Andrew. I think we’ve all had enough. But we don’t have a choice do we?’

  My dad closes his eyes, takes a deep breath. He crosses his long arms, the arms that wrapped around my mother. Folds them across his chest.

  ‘Well, some of us don’t anyway,’ she says.

  Nineteen

  Josh sets a cold bottle of juice down next to me.

  ‘How mu
ch was it?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s all good. I gotta deal going with the canteen lady.’ He winks at me.

  ‘I really do not want to know.’

  ‘Just happy to reap the benefits, are you? Typical.’

  Josh sips his Coke. His shirt is crumpled and untucked, as usual. Tie nowhere to be seen. He unzips his bag and pulls out a book. The Hunger Games.

  ‘You like books? Read this? It’s good. No pictures of Jennifer Lawrence, though. Which is a shame. I finished it in, like, a week. What? You look shocked. I can read, you know. Just don’t tell Black. You’ll ruin my reputation.’

  ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  ‘Black?’

  ‘Yeah. I think you’re quite fond of him.’

  ‘“Fond”? Bloody hell, you are Jane Eyre.’

  ‘I’m just saying, I think you … respect him more than you let on.’

  ‘Yeah, well. At least he gives a shit if I don’t do my homework.’

  He looks away, takes another swig of Coke.

  ‘You know there’s a whole other world beyond this veranda. There’s like space and trees and other places to sit and even other people – crazy, I know. Some of them are actually friendly. Ever think of venturing out?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You afraid of them, Janie?’

  ‘No. I’m really not. I just. I like it here.’

  ‘Don’t want anyone’s pity?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Yeah, well. You don’t have mine. Except when it comes to your sandwich-making skills.’ He takes a piece of paper from his pocket and unfolds it. The crossword. ‘With the unstable lawyers? Six letters. Third letter “F”.’

  ‘Um. Infirm.’

  ‘Well, that’s just ridiculous. How do you do that?’

  ‘Not sure … Was it better after your dad left? I mean, was it a relief that the tension was gone or something?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t a relief. That’s what they want you to think, though. As if two Christmases is compensation for a fucking family.’ He pauses, flicks the pen between his fingers. ‘My mum goes on dates now. She’s decided she’s ready to “get back into life”. As if going for Chinese with some pathetic, balding creep is getting into life. Do you know how weird that is?’ He laughs, but it clearly isn’t funny. ‘I have to meet these guys who come to my house to pick up my mum. “Hello there, young man. My name’s John, I’m a wanker. Why else would I be single?” You know what she said to me? She told me that she’s still a woman with needs. Those are words you don’t want to hear coming from your mum’s mouth.’ He sighs. ‘So, short answer, no it’s not better.’