by Anne Davies
I breathe deep. The bit I don’t really get is that he’s happy at the end even though he’s going off to prison in Siberia for eight years. He could have gotten away with it.
But he was in worse pain before; he was suffering, staggering under the knowledge that he had caused two people’s deaths and wasn’t able to tell anyone about it. He’s suffered so much, and all that suffering is illuminating. The Buddhists call it ‘enlightenment’ when we see the absolute truth of all things.
The next day, Mr P comes in with a couple of books for me. One’s a Buddhist book, Awakening the Buddha Within, and the other one’s the New Testament. “Two perceptions on suffering. The best you’ll ever get.”
“Trying to convert me, sir?”
“Not exactly; they’ll help you to understand the book. But then,” he grins at me, “I live in hope.”
*
Believe it or not, a whole year has rolled around. Tomorrow is my birthday. Seventeen. Licence. Car. End of high school. School ball. Girls. Going to the beach. Girls. Parties.
I get the usual card from Mr Khan and another unsigned one with another photo. This one has me, Katy and Dad in it. I put it next to the first one on my desk, and then I look back to what I wrote in my journal this time last year.
Some things have changed, but other things have stayed the same. On the outside, I’m still stuck in this little cell, doing the same things every day. Why I’m in here hasn’t changed, and the uncertainty of what will happen to me is still hanging over me, more and more strongly the closer I get to 18. On another level, though, I have one really good friend and quite a few others I like who seem to like me, Neil isn’t the dangerous snake I was afraid of, I’m fit, I’m learning and working hard, and I have a great teacher.
Time goes by quickly, whereas every day stretched endlessly back then. I don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I still crave more air, more sky, and the idea of swimming or running along a beach with the sun on my back is a distant dream, just like girls. I try not to think about Karol anymore, but it’s difficult—especially late at night when I can’t sleep. That skin: smooth, golden, tiny blonde hairs glinting in the sunlight. Not mine. Tim loves saying that he’s off to visit Mrs Palm and her five daughters, and it always gets a laugh, but I think we all hate it. Who needs to be reminded of what else they’re missing out on?
The pain over what I’ve done is always there, but even that’s changed. Sometimes I don’t even think about it for a whole day! It must be a bit like Gary’s eye. He probably doesn’t think about it, and then he catches sight of himself in a mirror or someone—a girl he’s talking to, maybe—stares at it or, just as bad, looks away. Then he remembers it, and he must think for the millionth time, like me, if only. He can’t kid himself any more than I can. It’s what he is now— Gary, the kid with one eye. And I’m Luca, the boy who killed his own mother and stepfather.
Owen wishes me happy birthday, and I find five dollars on my desk later. The unexpectedness of it brings tears to my eyes. The boys slap me on the back and talk about the cars we’ll buy one day.
“I want a big Land Rover,” Archie says. “Black and shiny and beautiful.”
“Like you!” Neil laughs.
“Dunno about the beautiful part, Neil,” I say. “You’ve been in here way too long if Archie’s starting to look hot.”
“I’ll go anywhere I want to,” Archie continues. “On my own sometimes, but there’s plenty of room for other people too. Just get up and drive whenever I feel like it.”
“I want something loud and proud,” Neil says. “A chick magnet. Mag wheels. Great sound system. I’ll drive down the road, and everyone will turn and look. What about you, Luca?”
“A motorbike. A big one, like a Harley. Wind in my face, sun on my back, long, straight road in front of me.”
We sit in silence for a moment, imagining how good it would be. The only one sitting there saying nothing is Aaron. He just stares into space, his eyes blank. All the life seems to have drained out of him. His skin, once so smooth and golden, is pasty and pimply. His eyes are no longer twinkling and ready for a joke. He often doesn’t even answer at the table when we talk to him—just picks at his food and then goes back to his cell.
As we walk out after breakfast, Archie slips me a piece of paper in an envelope that he must have had in his tracksuit pocket. It’s a painting, only it’s the size of a birthday card. He’s got the blue sky, the red earth, a few scrubby bushes dotted here and there, and three white parrots heading towards the haze of purplish hills. It’s all tiny but perfect. I put it carefully on my desk, propping it up next to my birthday card, and then it’s time for class.
Mr P has bought a cake, a sponge with jam and cream, and it tastes amazing with my Milo that Norbert has made extra-large. But it’s back to work pretty quick for all of us. Exams are creeping up.
Funny how life is. Just when you feel almost happy, rising above some of the crap, something comes to chuck you right back down into it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next Sunday, I walk back towards the rec, past all the guys lined up for visiting day. Owen sees me and beckons me over. “You’ve got a visitor. Better get in line.”
My chest thumps, like a big kick in my chest. “I don’t think so.” My voice sounds quivery.
“In line, mate.” He smiles and moves off. I step behind Johnno, his usually morose face almost happy. “Dad’s coming today,” he says, looking away from me after he says it, acting real casual. “Mum’s here every week, but I haven’t seen Dad for six months. They’re not together.” He stops.
Hell, I’ve sat at a table opposite this guy for over a year, and that’s the most I’ve ever heard him say.
“Who’s here for you?”
My heart clicks its heels a couple of times. “No idea.”
He nods, and the line starts to move. I check myself over quickly. I look okay for a jailbird—my hair’s cut, my nails are clean, my clothes are fine. Suddenly, I’m getting shoved through the door as the boys make a beeline for different tables.
Then I see her. She’s thinner and her hair is different, but it’s her. Katy. She’s sitting at a table, her hands clasped tightly together on top of it and her eyes down, but the second I’m through that doorway, she looks straight at me, with an expression on her face like she doesn’t know whether to smile or cry or both. I get to the table and reach for her hands, but she pulls them back, and her face is set and grim, just like Mum’s used to be. I sit down opposite her, confused.
“Hi, Luca,” she says at last. “Happy birthday for last week.”
“You too.” I grasp for something to say—anything—but she speaks first.
“Dad asked me to come and see you.”
I blink. “You’ve seen Dad?”
She looks at me, frowning a little. “Of course. So have you. He was in the court, sitting at the back.”
“I never saw him.”
She shrugs. “Well, he was there. I can understand that you don’t remember seeing him…”
“Didn’t see him,” I correct her.
“Didn’t see him, then. Whatever. You were acting so weird I can understand that nothing much was registering with you.”
“But you’ve seen him,” I repeat.
“Yes, of course. I stayed with him and his wife; he remarried, by the way, after…” Her voice trails off but not for long. “Aunty Alma sold her house and moved into Mum and Ray’s house.” Her voice shakes a little, and she stops. After regaining control, she goes on. “She looked after me. I don’t know what I would have done without her. I finished school last year, and I’ve been working here and there in Geraldton, doing nothing much, and now she wants to go back east and take me with her. She has family there, and I want to go too. Start over.” She looks squarely at me for a long moment. “I don’t ever want to come back here. The house will be sold, and that will be an end to it.”
“But what about Dad?”
�
�He has his own life now and a new family. I didn’t feel at home there. Don’t get me wrong—he was good to me, and his wife couldn’t have been kinder, but I wanted to be with my friends and I missed Aunty Alma. She’s been like a mother to me… almost.” Her mouth thins into that hard, straight line. “Dad keeps in touch. He does his best, but he and I were never as close as you two. It was me and Mum, remember?” She tries to maintain the tough expression, but her eyes fill with tears, and she brushes them away angrily with the back of her hand, just like she used to when she was a little kid.
She takes a deep, shuddering breath, and whispers, “Why did you do it, Luca? What had Ray done to you that was so bad? I get that Mum got in the way—not that it helps much—but what set you off? Or was it just the drugs?”
I look at her, my face twisting into an expression of disbelief. “What had he done to me? Are you serious, or have you blocked it out of your mind?” My raised voice brings one of the guards over.
“Tone it down, or your friend will have to leave.”
I nod, and the guard saunters away.
Katy is staring at me, her mouth turning down at the corners in disgust. “What, because he didn’t make a big fuss of you like Dad did? Because you weren’t Luca, the carrier of the family name, the perfect child who hung on his father’s every word?” Her voice was low and venomous. “Was that worth killing him for? And my mother along with him?”
It is my turn to stare at her. She gulps and makes an obviously superhuman attempt at controlling herself. “Look, Luca, this isn’t why I came here. I just came to say…”
“Why the hell do you think I did it?” I hiss.
She looks down, and I can see her jaws working as though she’s gritting her teeth. “I know you didn’t know what you were doing. You were high on speed.” Her voice drones as though she’s said those words many times, either to herself or to other people.
“Katy, what do you remember of that night?”
She glances at me and then turns away.
“The house was dark. It was late. Ray was talking to me, and you switched on the light and then went completely berserk.” She stops, breathing hard. “That’s all I want to remember.”
I sat there, listening to the tick of the clock on the wall, the murmurs, the laughter, the urgent talk around me. I have to make her see it. Even if I can’t tell anyone else about it, there has to be honesty between us. No lies.
“So Ray was sitting on your bed, half-dressed in the dark, with his arm around you, and you were crying.
She stares at me. “My God, Luca. You don’t… you didn’t think…” She stops, and her eyes fill with tears. The tears spill down her cheeks, but she still keeps looking straight at me, her gaze never wavering. Her hands unfold, and she takes my hands on the top of the table, gripping them hard.
“Luca, you’ve got to listen to me.” Katy breathes hard and then begins speaking, her voice low and clear. “The day before, we’d gone to Dongara for my game on Sunday. Erin came too. She was my best friend.”
I nod impatiently. “I know all that.”
“There was someone on the boys’ team I really liked—Kim. I’d met him down at the beach a few times, and we’d kissed and all that. We were an item.”
“You never told me.”
“We were way past the times when we shared everything, Luca. You were so wrapped up in yourself and mourning Dad and hating Mum and Ray.”
“I never hated Mum,” I say quietly.
She pauses. “It seemed like you hated everyone. Even me.”
“Just him. Never you or Mum.”
“Just let me tell you! Saturday night had been great. Erin and I had gone with all the kids, both teams, down to the beach. We’d lit a bonfire, cooked sausages, sung songs and danced, and then everyone had kind of quietened down and just sat around the fire. I was lying there, looking into the coals, everyone’s voices droning away, and I must have gone to sleep. You know what I’m like.”
It was true. She was full of energy, but when her head hit the pillow, she’d be asleep in under a minute. Dad used to call her Quick Snore McGraw when she was little.
“I woke up later, and it was cold. Only a few kids were left on the beach, so I stood up and looked around for Erin and Kim. I couldn’t see them, so I figured they’d gone back to the hotel. I was pretty pissed off, as a matter of fact. Mum was going to growl if it was really late, but then she knew exactly where I was, so I figured it couldn’t be that late after all.
“I was walking back on the path through the sand hills when I heard Kim’s voice. I opened my mouth to call him, but then I heard Erin’s voice giggling, so I stopped and stepped off the path towards their voices. The moon was fairly bright, and as I climbed over the hill, I saw Kim and Erin lying under a blanket. Kim was on top of Erin, and Erin’s arms were wrapped around him. Neither of them saw me standing there, my shadow almost touching them, and I don’t know how long I stood there till I turned and left. Erin came in much later, and I pretended I was asleep. She tiptoed around, and within five minutes, she was asleep.
“The next day, both of them acted just the same, except I saw the looks and smiles they gave each other. I said nothing, but when we dropped Erin off, I walked her to her door and said, ‘Don’t come near me at school. Don’t come near me anywhere’. She looked shocked, and then she ran inside. I said I was tired when we got home and stayed in my room.” She gives a twisted little smile. “I was sadder about Erin than Kim; another boyfriend I can always get, but Erin and I had been friends since Day One at high school.
“Ray heard me crying. He didn’t want to wake Mum, I guess, so he knocked on my door quietly and came in without turning the light on. I told him everything, and he was so kind, Luca, so kind.” Her voice trembles. “Just like he always was. He told me how something similar had happened to him once. He made me feel better. He was about to go back to bed when you switched on the light.”
My mind is running in circles. I pull my hands from hers and bury my face in them. I’m shaking—not just my hands but somewhere deep inside, just like I was when I was in court.
Katy’s hands are on my shoulders. “Luca, Luca, you made a mistake, a horrible mistake. Ray was helping me; he wasn’t abusing me.”
My head jerks up. “Why didn’t you say something in court?”
“I thought you’d just gone crazy on drugs. I didn’t want to say how much you’d always hated him, so I just kept quiet. Like you did. I thought I would make it worse for you if I said anything, and I was so angry at you, Luca. I hated you for what you’d done.” She was crying openly now, her face red. “My poor brother, you got it all so wrong.”
The guard comes over again to see what’s going on.
“Thank you. I’m all right,” Katy says, smiling shakily up at him.
“Time’s just about up,” The guard says quietly, and Katy blows her nose, carefully dabbing under her eyes and wiping away watery, mascara rivulets.
“I see Dad every now and then, but I’ve got my own life now. So has he. I came down to say goodbye to him before we leave next week, and he asked me to see you. He talks about you all the time, Luca.” She shrugs. “Nothing’s changed.”
The bell tinkles for everyone to say their goodbyes.
“I’m glad I came to see you. Maybe in a while, when you’re out of here, we’ll see each other again. I don’t know. I just want to leave everything behind and start afresh—new job, new home, new people.”
I nod. How can I blame her?
“Good luck, Luca.” Katy smiles, and the tears slip down her cheeks. “We won’t be able to see each other right now, but I’ll be just around the corner, just like when we were little.” And then she’s gone.
I feel a touch on my shoulder and jerk my head up. Everyone has left, and I’m sitting alone at the table.
“Pretty girl,” the guard says. “Your girlfriend?”
I shake my head but can’t speak.
“Time to go now. I know it’s
tough when they go and you can’t go too, but it won’t be forever.”
I stumble back to my cell and sit on the edge of my bed, shaking, and then I roll myself into a ball, and despite everything, I sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
At lunch, I know Archie’s talking to me, and I nod when he stops but don’t hear what he’s saying. After a while, the conversation slides around me, and I feel like I’m in a bubble, cut off, unable to think, eat or speak.
Later, I sit at my desk and open a book, but nothing’s going in. I sit there staring blindly till lights out, and then I lie in the darkness, forcing my mind to stay in one place. I go over everything from the time I saw Katy till she left, concentrating on every detail so it’s burned into my brain: her hair, her clothes, her hands, her voice…what she’d said. Then I stop thinking and start shaking again, lying there and staring into the darkness till morning comes at last, and it’s not till the room is misty and grey that I finally sleep.
*
I sleep in the next morning. I always wake well before the siren, but this morning, I wake groggily, partway through some dream, that sound cutting through everything. I lie there with my eyes still closed, and I know something is wrong. What is it? Then it floods back, and I open my eyes and count the bricks in the end wall, forcing my mind not to think.
It’s breakfast, and Archie peers at me, his hair flopping forwards towards those soft eyes. “Feeling better today, mate?”
I nod but can’t look him in the eye. My mood is contagious, and the boys sitting at the table all turn quiet, eyes lowered. I sit there, trying to look preoccupied and thoughtful rather than just totally on another planet. I just can’t shake this zombie feeling. I know the only way I can keep things together is to push every thought down deep, away from where I have to consciously look at it and realise what I’ve done, realise what I’ve… I concentrate on my food, chew every bit carefully, carry my plates over, go back to my cell and get ready for class.