Bone Song

by Sherryl Clark

  That’s when I hear her laugh.

  God, I want to kill her! I’m out here looking for her, dodging weirdos in cars, and she’s in there drinking and laughing. How could she do that? I want to go in there and drag her out by her hair! The red haze is back, like blood smeared across my eyes, and I half-sob, then take a deep breath.

  Cool it. Yelling at her isn’t going to help. She might even just refuse to come home. Depends how many drinks she’s had already. And who she’s with. If she’s with her new boss, I’d better not cause trouble.

  I take a few more breaths, then I pull the big door open and go in. The Caledonia Club is wide but not very deep. I’m facing the bar so I slip sideways around the doorway before the barman can spot me and order me out. The tall potted plant is handy for hiding behind, even if its plastic leaves are coated with dust. A million people have stubbed out their cigarettes in the pot. A quick scan to my right but no Mum, so I scuttle across the doorway to check the other side.

  There she is in a booth, leaning back, cheeks flushed, opposite a blond guy in a dark suit. I don’t like the way he’s looking at her, as if he knows it’ll only take one more drink and she’ll do whatever he suggests. Does he know about the pills she’s on? I do a quick shuffle to the booth, slide in next to her.

  ‘Hi, Mum, I’m ready now.’ I say it brightly like this is something we’ve arranged.

  She stares at me for a moment. I hold my breath. Is she going to play along? Then her face relaxes and her eyes grow warm.

  ‘Hi, sweetie.’

  She doesn’t ask how I found her, so I’ve caught her at just the right stage.

  ‘If we don’t go now, we’re going to be late.’ I grab her hand, tug gently. She resists and my heart takes a nosedive.

  ‘Melissa, I want you to meet Gordon. He’s the sales manager at my new place. He’s made me feel very welcome.’

  I’ll bet he has. ‘Hi, Gordon,’ I say nicely, then back to her. ‘Mum, you promised we’d be on time tonight. This school thing is really important.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looks puzzled.

  Of course you don’t remember any school thing, Mum, there isn’t one. For God’s sake, get up and come with me without arguing, please. I tug her hand again. This time she starts to move.

  ‘I guess duty calls, Gordon. Sorry.’ She smiles at him. ‘See you at work tomorrow.’

  He looks sour but that’s his problem. He can go home to his wife now. I let Mum make her own way to the door – she gets snappy with me if I help her in public. Outside, I take her arm and she cuddles in close to me.

  ‘What’s on at school, sweetie?’ She’s definitely slurring now. There’s no money for a taxi and I’m stuffed if I can carry her. I hurry her along a bit more.

  ‘It’s a parent thing, and we’re late. We’ll have to speed up, come on.’ Oddly enough, the faster I hassle her along, the straighter she walks. Lucky she’s got her sensible work shoes on. I can feel the bones in her hand, like an old hen I’d once picked up on a farm visit in primary school.

  ‘Steady Mum, we’re nearly home. Look, the elevator.’ I pray that it’s working – for once, it is. Of course, it stinks of pee and vomit and there’s a pile of paper in one corner that I don’t want to look at too closely. I press the button and the doors close.

  It’s all going OK. Mum hasn’t questioned why we’re home instead of at school. If I can get her to eat something, we’ll be on a roll. She starts to stagger just before we get to our front door and I can’t hold her. She drops to her knees as I reach for my key to get her inside as fast as I can, but it’s not in my pocket.

  How many stupid damn things can you do in one day, you idiot? The tears burn in my eyes but I force them back. Maybe Mrs Wyatt will be home. She keeps a spare key for me, and sometimes lends me money. I roll Mum around awkwardly and manage to lean her against the wall, then knock on Mrs Wyatt’s door – but there’s no reply. Bingo night. She won’t be back until after nine.

  Everything comes crunching down on me all at once. I don’t know whether to cry or scream, but I haven’t got enough energy to do either. My knee is killing me. How come I didn’t feel it before? I look down at it, stunned when I see all the dried blood in streams down my leg. The top of my sock is soaked and turning brown.

  Mum starts to slide sideways. I haul her straight again, then sit down beside her, letting her fall against me. Her head lolls on my shoulder; I hear her breathing, deep and throaty. If she took another trank before she went to the bar, she’ll be out all night now. I really, truly hope Mrs Wyatt’s son walks her home tonight, so he can help me carry Mum inside. I close my eyes and try to think of absolutely nothing.

  CHAPTER 4

  Dobie

  I hang around the school for about ten minutes until I realise I’m behaving like a total dork – I mean, who stays at school if they don’t have to? I wait at the bus stop, kind of hoping the bus is cancelled but it turns up in a couple of minutes just to spite me. I walk all the way to the back, ignoring the two old ladies in their floral dresses and big white handbags who purse their lips at my studs and hair.

  The bus driver is staring at me in his rear-view mirror. Does he think I’m going to start a riot on my own? Hey, that might be something new to torment my mother with.

  The bus passes Middle Gate and the street leading down to the Housing Commission flats. All the way down, four-storey cement-sheet buildings create a wall of grey squares and red glass, the sunset reflected in the windows. It looks really cool but I’d hate to live there. It’s bad enough going to school with some of the kids from that street.

  I wonder what my mother thinks of them. Maybe she’s waiting for me to get hooked on drugs so she can ship me off to a facility where she doesn’t have to see me or think about me. Likewise Sara and Louise. Dad might miss me though. I hope.

  Anyway, there’s no way I’ll get into drugs. Had enough of that in the hospital, feeling like the world was coated in fuzz and everyone was talking in a tunnel. Oops, daydreaming so much that I nearly missed my stop. If I had two dollars, I could buy some chocolate before my next bus arrives, but I know that I’m practically broke. Bummer. Have I still got a chocolate stash behind my books? Or did I actually get up in the middle of the night last night and eat it all? Might have dreamt that.

  The second bus takes forever to weave its way through the business district and into my suburb. Tall office buildings followed by houses with marble columns and too many windows. I get off and wander down my street where everyone has a gardener, and I stop to admire neat little hedges and blooming roses. I’ve been tempted a few times to come along after dark and spray weedkiller on everything, but if the neighbours didn’t guess it was me, my mother would and she’d go ballistic. I’d probably be grounded, which would be the ultimate punishment for both of us. She tries to avoid that unless she’s so pissed off that she can’t help herself.

  I stop in front of our house – who’s inside? Dad’s car isn’t here, but Mother’s is. Classical music drifts from somewhere upstairs. I guess Louise is home. It’s Thursday so maybe Sara is still at choir practice. If Mother isn’t in the kitchen bossing Nancy around and driving her nuts, I’ll be able to sneak in without being seen.

  I follow the side path around to the back door, open it quietly, slip inside and creep up the passageway towards the kitchen. A voice I know only too well pierces the closed door. I’m about to get the hell up to my room when I catch what she’s actually saying.

  ‘Of course, it’s only to be expected that they’ll set new rules for Deborah. She’ll just have to make sure she abides by them.’

  Nancy murmurs something but Mother talks over the top of her, like she always does. I swear Nancy could tell her the house was on fire and Mother wouldn’t hear. But I want to know about these rules.

  ‘Madeline Le Blanc is a very reasonable woman. And a sizable donation to the school library didn’t go astray.’ Mother laughs – the dry, sarcastic laugh that she saves for discussing topics o
f money and sex. ‘That girl will just have to shape up, or else.’

  Or else what? My control-freak mother has obviously bribed Barton Private School for Young Ladies into taking me back. That sure makes them stupider than snot on the sidewalk. I turn the handle and shove open the kitchen door. It bangs against the wall and Mother jumps.

  ‘I am not going back to Barton,’ I say, matching her glare.

  ‘You’ll do as you’re told.’

  ‘I’ll just do something to make them expel me again.’ There are lots of things I’ve learned at my new school that would really freak out the Barton Bigots.

  Mother walks towards me, stopping two paces away. She doesn’t want Nancy to hear, I can tell. ‘You will either go back to Barton and behave, or you will be put in a boarding school that specialises in problem children. Somewhere a long way from here.’

  I can’t believe the venom in her voice. Suddenly I realise she might hate me as much as I hate her. Wow. I can’t think what to say. It’s like my brain is jammed. She’s got that little light of victory in her eyes and she smiles at me, then leaves the kitchen. I’m no longer worth talking to.

  Nancy had her head down, chopping spinach, but she looks up at me and grimaces. ‘Man, you sure put a stick up her bum. What’ve you done now?’

  ‘Nothing. Well, nothing new.’

  ‘You in detention again?’

  ‘Yeah. That’s normal, isn’t it?’

  Nancy doesn’t answer, thinks for a moment. ‘She was ferreting around upstairs this morning for half an hour or more.’

  Oh shit. She’s been in my room, I just know it. Suddenly my legs come to life. I bolt out of the kitchen and up the stairs, all the time trying to remember what things I’ve stashed and where. Chocolate – no problem. Diary – I write in one occasionally to keep her happy if she snoops, kind of like a decoy. Cigarettes – she already knows about those. What else? What else?

  I stop in the doorway. My room is perfectly tidy, not a book or a CD or a stuffed toy out of place. Just as I left it. I prowl, pulling open drawers and cupboards. It has to be something accidental, something I’ve forgotten about because I didn’t think it was important, just a laugh or a curiosity thing.

  Oh. Now I remember. No wonder she… It’s the condoms. Black, super-sized, ribbed. I bought them last week to make water balloons out of them. I laugh. She thinks I’m having sex. If it wasn’t so mortally serious, I’d die laughing. Who’d be desperate enough to want sex with me?

  She won’t believe a word I say, I know. Dad might, but he doesn’t stick up for me much any more. If Mother’s causing a huge fuss, he kind of shrinks away, usually to his office or to golf. When she’s raving on about me, he hardly ever defends me. I hate that.

  Now though, I reckon I’m screwed. Going back to Barton will kill me. White shirts, brown skirts, black lace-up shoes and brown socks. Hair tied back neatly. Punctuality. Discipline. Homework. Aaarrrgh!

  But I know she’s got me this time. When she says remedial boarding school, she means it. I ignore the dinner bell and fall onto my bed, wondering if I can smother myself with my own pillow. It seems a very tempting option.

  I decide I’d better do the dinner thing so as not to make things worse. This entails dressing in something that won’t freak my mother out too much, eating nicely with the correct cutlery, not talking to Nancy while she serves up the food, and only speaking when spoken to. Anything I do say needs to be intelligent, articulate and not some kind of smartarse retort. It’ll be a good test for me. Fail right here, right now, and I’ve got no hope at all.

  I don’t own a dress that I’d be seen dead in, so I dig out a pair of black stretch pants and a plain white shirt. There’s no time to remove studs or purple hair dye. I settle for scrubbing my face until it’s all fresh and pink. God, I must be desperate. I run down the stairs, into the dining room and dive into my chair, whip the starched napkin onto my lap and place my hands on top, neatly folded. Mother’s face looks a picture of displeasure, like she’s a Victorian matron. It takes every bit of control I can muster not to laugh. I come close to exploding, then I bite the inside of my mouth until I get it contained.

  Nancy doesn’t help. When I finally risk a glance at her as she’s ladling out some kind of soup, her right eye is twitching so bad that I think she’s going to slop some of it down the front of Mother’s dress. I grab a dinner roll and pull it apart, shredding it into crumbs.

  Louise sits opposite Mother, rabbiting on about some new CD she’s bought that has ‘the most divine flute solo’. The soup appears in the bowl in front of me looking like green slime – I’m almost too scared to taste it. Would my mother poison me?

  Nah, Nancy wouldn’t be up for that. Still, it looks fairly gruesome. I lift a spoonful to my mouth and taste it. Not bad. Creamy and garlicky. I won’t ask what the green is. Probably spinach.

  I don’t have the honour of being directly addressed until Mother has nearly finished her chicken breast and avocado with snap peas (we’re definitely having a green night). She and Louise have talked about classical music, a new designer boutique that’s opening on Saturday, and the maths teacher at Barton who Louise thinks is gay, though how she’d know is beyond me. She still thinks a dyke is a seawall in Holland. So when Mother actually says something to me, I nearly jump out of my fresh, white shirt.

  ‘Huh?’ I can see that’s impressed her.

  ‘I said, were you in detention again today, Deborah?’ Her lemon-sucking mouth tells me she already knows that I was.

  ‘Um, yes. Just a misunderstanding.’

  ‘Oh?’ She raises her eyebrows. She doesn’t really care, she just wants to make me squirm.

  ‘I… um… happened to be…’ Oh, what’s the use? She’ll know I’m lying if I make something up. ‘I refused to do PE yesterday and I didn’t have a note.’

  ‘PE? In what way?’

  ‘They were showing everyone how to vault a horse and hang on those ring things. I said I’d sit that class out and the teacher got tetchy with me.’

  Actually, I’d told Feeble that ‘horse’ was a dirty word to me and I’d rather clean toilets than jump on, over, or under the stupid contraption. His face turned almost terracotta and he actually spat on me when he ordered me to sit on the bench.

  ‘Has your teacher not been advised of your limitations?’ Mother frowns at me and pushes away her plate. By limitations, she means that my shoulder and arm still haven’t healed properly. The school was supposed to have received a letter from my specialist, describing my injuries in great detail, and which activities I am not allowed to participate in. I know this because I ripped it up then burned it.

  ‘I guess not. It’s no big deal.’ Oops, wrong thing to say. Now I get the frown and the lemon-lips together.

  ‘Another good reason why that school is inadequate for your needs.’

  Louise can’t help herself. ‘Ms Sharp asked me yesterday when you were coming back to Barton.’ For sure, she knows what Mother’s up to and she wants to turn the screw. ‘She said the classical guitar group just isn’t the same without you.’

  I try to glare down the table at Mother but she turns away to talk to Nancy.

  ‘I think we’ll just have fruit salad and coffee, Nancy. I need to watch my weight a little more closely.’

  As if! Mother is so skinny, her collar bones look like dinosaur fossils and her breasts are little saggy sacks. I burst in on her one day when she was dressing in the cabana by the pool. Man, was that a shock. No, this fruit salad thing is a dig at me, at the fact that although I’m still wearing the black clothes I bought last year in my first stages of Up Yours, Mother, large parts of me now bulge out over waistbands, split sleeves and stretch-pants legs.

  ‘May I fetch the double choc-chip ice-cream?’ I ask as nicely as possible.

  That’s got her. She wants to say no, but I know she’s also made some kind of pact with herself not to criticise me about anything to do with my body. It’s because of my shoulder and arm, of c
ourse, but extends to my former dancer’s figure. Slim, trim and fighting fit. Now I’m just fighting.

  She nods like her neck is in a brace and I head for the freezer in the kitchen, as Nancy emerges through the swing door, carrying a Wedgwood bowl of fresh fruit salad. When I bring the ice-cream back to the table, it’s too much for Louise. She has to have some too. Mother spoons her fruit into her mouth like it’s got worms in it.

  I don’t want coffee. I’m wired enough already, trying to be good daughter number three without cracking up. Now I’ll pretend I’m having an early night and hide out in my room until Dad gets home. I really hope he’ll listen. I don’t want to think about all the other times in the past few years that he’s quietly crept away from the Dragon Queen. I used to be his favourite, the one he’d always stick up for. What happened?

  CHAPTER 5

  Melissa

  The alarm brrr-ings me awake at 6am. I whack the button so hard that I knock the clock off the side table. I don’t want to get up. My knee and my elbow ached all night and kept me awake. Now I feel rotten.

  Mrs Wyatt will be in around 7.30am to check on us. She nearly cried when she saw us hunched up against the front door last night. I felt awful upsetting her like that, but her son Bobby was great, just lifted Mum straight up and carried her to bed.

  The twenty Bandaids Mrs Wyatt plastered on my knee and elbow feel like great wads of parcel tape. I can’t go to school like this, but what’s the alternative? Take them off and bleed everywhere? Maybe I’ll have to go and see the first aid teacher before class. There’s no time to worry about it now. I’ve got to get Mum showered, dressed and off to work. Plus coax some food into her – that’s the most important thing.

  She’s hard to wake but I get the routine going. Turn on the shower, pull the blankets off, stand her up, then nudge her under the water. Ten minutes usually does it. By then she’s awake and can shampoo and wash on her own. I lay out clean clothes, make breakfast. Today she can have the omelette she missed out on.