My voice has gone all wobbly.
‘Quite a clan, eh?’ says Amos, and gives me a pat on the back.
‘Yeah. Quite a tribe.’
Ty again. Asking about his folks has made him real mean. I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. I feel really homesick. After I’ve heard these stories I realise I’m dead lucky to have my family. Well, not Dad. A serious disappointment there.
‘Hi, Amos.’
Another guy, this one lean and weather-beaten with sharp blue eyes, curly grey hair and a wary expression.
‘Any trouble?’
‘Couple of eager jacks back near the border. I’ve kept to the back roads. Don’t need a canary.’
‘Yeah. Right. This lot ready to roll?’
‘Yeah. Thanks, man.’
‘Wanted to visit my aunt in Melbourne anyway.’
‘Okay, let’s go.’
‘Bye, Amos,’ I say and stretch up to give him a kiss on the cheek.
‘Take care. And take care of young Danny too, won’t you?’
Now what does he mean by that?
But we’re moving out to the car.
‘She’s fuelled up.’
‘Right. Who’ll pick her up?’
‘Leave her at Pee Wee’s garage and there’ll be some clan taking her back next week.’
‘Right.’
We pile in again. If I ever decide to leave Victoria for any reason I’m going to fly. My bum’s as sore as … All this sitting. And I haven’t had a shower for ages. I can’t wait to hit our place and soak in a hot tub. Luxury.
The countryside flies by, and soon we’re in Albury then over the border into Wodonga. Only four hours and I’ll be home.
‘Jacks.’
Not again.
But this lot ignore us and roar on down the highway.
‘That’s all we need, stuck in the lock-up for a few hours,’ goes Ty.
‘How can we be stuck in the lock-up if we haven’t done anything?’ I argue.
‘You’re with Danny. That’s enough.’
‘I told you, shut up. You’re gettin close to a fiver, man.’
‘Touchy!’
‘Anyway the lock-up’s good down at Corio,’ says Alicia, ‘They get you McDonald’s.’
‘Yeah? Ballarat’s better, but,’ says Ty. ‘Kentucky Fried, real hot.’
‘Have you really been in the lock-up?’ I whisper to Danny. All this talk about burgs and nicking cars and jails and lock-ups is starting to scare me.
‘Yeah. But don’t worry. It’s all behind me now.’
He squeezes my hand.
‘When we get back I … I’d like to see ya, Leanne. Cup of coffee? Go to a movie?’
His voice is casual but I can sense him tensing slightly beside me. I cuddle into him reassuringly.
‘Sure.’
‘Got a boyfriend?’
‘Nah. Well … (I’d better not sound too eager) … no one special. You got a girlfriend?’
‘No one special.’
We grin at each other.
‘I’ll be sixteen soon,’ I volunteer.
‘Yeah? I’ll be eighteen, couple of months.’
There’s all sorts of things I want to ask. I wonder if Danny’s like Alicia, can’t read too well, or if he’s managed to pass at school despite being expelled from heaps. I wonder if he’s going to live back with his folks on the reserve. All these things chase themselves round and round in my head but the one important thing, the one I’m most scared of, is … what’ll Mum think? Will she be like Dad and think he’s a bad dude or even worse, a ‘dirty Abo’?
‘Motor’s not sounding too good to me,’ says Bart. ‘Has it been like this all the time?’
Danny leans forward and listens.
‘Hadn’t noticed. We had the radio goin most of the way.’
‘I’m losing power, man.’
‘Pull over.’
We’re on a back road, no service station in sight as the car rolls to a stop.
‘What ya think, Danny?’ says Ty, as they lift the hood and Danny pokes his head in under it.
‘Dunno. Yet.’
‘He’s a real petrolhead,’ goes Alicia. ‘Magic. Can fix any motor. A natural.’
‘Yeah. He can hot wire anythin.’
‘I don’t mean rig stuff, although he’s top, but mendin engines, ya know? If anyone can fix this old bomb he can.’
‘Yeah? No tools? No hoist? No spare parts? Ya gotta be jokin.’
I’m getting fed up with him putting Danny down.
‘You’re a creep,’ I snap.
‘Who, me?’
‘No, I’m talkin to the other fifty creeps round us,’ I yell. ‘Who d’ya think?’
‘Temper, temper.’
‘Come on, Leanne,’ says Alicia, grabbing my arm and pointing to a bridge up ahead. ‘My amazin Aboriginal powers have discovered water. Let’s go for a swim.’
‘Get real. It’ll be freezin.’
‘What are ya, white chicken?’
That does it. I grab my grubby looking towel and soap, stuff some clean underwear under my t-shirt and some for Alicia and race after her down the road. I can’t believe what she does, strips off everything, climbs up on the bridge railing and jumps straight off.
‘Yeehah,’ she screams as she hits the water.
I lean over.
‘Don’t you know you should never leap into water when you don’t know how deep it is?’ I yell at her. ‘You could break your neck.’
‘I do know how deep it is. Now.’
She holds her nose and goes under. Then as I watch anxiously she bobs to the surface.
‘It’s about four metres deep here. Come on, jump in.’
I strip off looking cautiously round to make sure there’s no perverts in the bushes.
‘Come on, will ya?’
I climb up, hold my nose with one hand the soap with the other, shut my eyes, and jump. For one terrible minute I’m suspended in space then I hit the water with the force of a twenty-kilo bag of spuds falling off the back of a truck. It’s freezing. I’ve never known water to be so cold.
‘Agghhh!’
I swim like mad for the closest bank and haul myself out shivering. I soap myself very quickly and leap back in, dunking off the soap.
‘Er, there’s all this soapy pollution,’ calls Alicia, who’s floating happily on her back.
I scramble for the bank and stand, dripping and quivering like a blue jelly.
‘Aren’t you going to swim for a bit?’ goes Alicia.
‘You must be mad. It’s totally freezin in there. See? I’ve gone blue.’
‘So’ve I but you can’t notice it.’
I toss her the soap, but she misses and it sinks like a stone.
‘Too bad, I’m washed anyway.’
She hauls herself out, dripping, like a glossy brown seal, and we claw our way up the steep bank to the road.
‘I brought you some clean undies,’ I say as I rub myself dry then pass her the towel.
‘Thanks.’
She slides into the knickers and, rolling hers into a ball, chucks them into the bushes.
‘They were worn out anyway.’
Arm in arm we walk back across the bridge. The boys have bits of the motor lying all over the grass.
‘Won’t be long,’ says Danny from underneath the hood, ‘I’ve just about got this part sorted. Hand me the spanner, will you?’
Alicia hands him a spanner because I’m not sure what one looks like. Well, if Danny’s going to be part of my life I might as well learn how to recognise tools; might even learn to strip and rebuild an engine, who knows? So I squat on the grass and watch.
After some more fiddling round, the engine parts are miraculously all back in the car. Danny wipes his greasy hands on my towel.
‘Okay, start her up, Bart.’
I cross my fingers as he turns the key in the ignition. The engine gives a cough, a splutter, then begins to purr like a kitten. Brrrmmm, brmmm, brmmmm.
&
nbsp; ‘Sweet,’ says Bart.
We pile back in and we’re off down the road again. The swim has made me feel clean and contented. I curl against Danny. Another petrol stop and burgers.
‘For someone so thin you can pack away the food,’ goes Alicia as I devour two burgers, fries and a large Coke. Now I’m happy I’m starving!
We finally reach Melbourne without any hassles and roll through the city. It looks so grey and grim after the sunshine of Noosa and the flat open plains we’ve just travelled through.
‘I can get the train,’ I offer. ‘It goes to Geelong regularly.’
‘Don’t want your folks to see us?’ says Ty.
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Alicia looks at the ground, scuffles her feet, Danny’s looking grim. I feel awful.
‘Not that,’ I say. ‘Get real. I was trying to save Bart a journey, that’s all. Trying to be thoughtful, not …’
I turn away. They’re so … prickly.
‘Look, guys, we’d have to give her the train fare and it’s only an hour’s drive down the highway,’ says Bart.
‘Do you want that, Leanne?’
I face Danny squarely.
‘Yeah. But is that what you want?’
He nods.
‘Okay. Geelong, here we come.’
But the easiness has gone. I feel tense. What’s Mum going to say? If she yells at me in front of them all I’ll die. If she calls them dirty Abos, I’ll get straight back in the car!
The highway to Geelong seems to go on forever but finally we reach the outer suburbs as it’s getting dark and I lean forward, giving directions.
‘Down this road. Turn left at the corner.’
We nearly drive past our house. I don’t recognise it with the lawns neatly mowed and the weatherboards painted.
‘Pull over. Can you back up? It’s here.’
Bart reverses then pulls into our driveway. My heart’s pounding so hard I’m sure Mum can hear it from inside the house.
‘Do you want us to wait?’ says Danny.
‘Yes.’
I’m scared but I want to get this bit over, to know whether Mum’s going to be just like Dad, to know …
‘Leanne!’
This whirlwind comes barrelling out the door and hurls at me.
‘Mum!’
Then we’re both bawling and hugging each other and dancing round on the driveway. Over Mum’s shoulder I see Sam, and I make a grab for him, too. We all hug and hug and hug. Then Mum notices the others standing round the car looking awkward, Danny holding my bag like it’s full of dynamite and not dirty clothes. Mum lets me go and advances on them all. Next thing she’s hugging them, too.
‘I can’t thank you enough for looking after her,’ she says, and she’s falling all over them and I’m beginning to feel embarrassed. But they don’t mind. She gives Danny this smacking kiss on his cheek and grabs my bag.
‘Come in. Come in. Don’t just stand there, you must all be exhausted. I’ll cook up some chops and eggs. Sam, go down to the fish shop and get five dollars worth of chips and potato cakes. Hurry up. There’s hot showers, whatever you want …’
She’s gabbling with excitement, waving her hands round as she shepherds them inside, dashes about pulling out chairs round the kitchen table, puts on the kettle, turns on the griller, yapping away like she’s afraid we’re all a vision and not real, that if she stops for a minute we’ll all vanish into thin air. She keeps hugging me.
‘I thought you’d yell,’ I say when I’ve untangled myself from Mum for the fifteenth time.
‘I’m going to fix you later. You’ll be grounded for the rest of your adolescent life. And you’ll work your butt off, miss. Chores like you’ll never believe. Then when I think you’ve suffered enough, I’ll probably kill you.’
‘So what’s new?’
Finally Sam’s back with the bulging parcel and there’s chops and fried eggs and tomatoes and piled plates. Then Mum drags out biscuits and a fat chocolate cake and makes more cups of coffee and opens Coke. It’s like a great big party. She wants to hear what I’ve been doing, looks grim when I tell about Rick, Nathan and Mattie chucking me out of the tent (‘But I deserved it, Mum,’ I go) and even grimmer when I describe my meeting with Dad.
‘He called us dirty Abos,’ says Ty, watching her carefully.
Mum sighs.
‘I’m sorry about that. He always was a racist pig,’ she says, looking disgusted. Then. ‘Do you want some more cake, Ty?’
The sticky bit’s over, just like that. Why was I worrying? I should’ve known that Mum’d be okay. Kill me, yeah. But she’s fair, I’ve gotta admit. Danny and Ty go to the car and drag out bags and disappear into the bathroom. I take Alicia to my room and she puts on clean jeans, t-shirt, windcheater and socks.
‘I’d forgotten how cold it is down here,’ she says, shivering.
Mum’s still fussing round. She’s got us organised before we know it. Alicia’s sleeping in my room on the fold-down bed, Sam’s out on the sofa, Danny and Ty have got his bunks, and Bart’s in the spare room. We’re sitting in the lounge and I’m describing how Alicia and I went for this meal in the posh hotel and everyone’s killing themselves laughing when there’s a knock at the door. Sam goes. And when he returns he’s got Steve the super cop in tow. In uniform. The atmosphere ices over in a second and there’s this frozen silence. I look warily at Steve. The only one in the room not fazed is Mum.
‘Look who’s back,’ she warbles.
Then she starts in on the introductions. You could cut the air with a knife.
‘Ah, Danny,’ says Steve.
Their eyes lock as they shake hands. There’s a sullen anger in Danny’s and a wary look in the cop’s. In one swift moment Steve’s wrecked everything.
‘I’m not staying,’ he says. ‘Just called in to tell you I’ve organised the Falcon to go in for the repairs and a paint job on Thursday.’
‘Oh, Leanne. You don’t know,’ goes Mum. ‘I won some money on a scratchy.’
‘Yeah. Twenty five thousand,’ says Sam casually like it’s something we do every day.
‘Sam. You’re not supposed to go round blurting it out all over the place,’ says Mum.
We’re rich? I gape at her. Then I look at Danny. His face is sort of closed. Alicia looks mocking, Ty sneers, and Bart looks uncomfortable. We’re rich whites. I look at Danny and I can feel the gap widening even more.
I wish I’d never come home!
SAM
*
I’m living with Leanne again.
She’s back. And somehow she’s changed, not so mega cranky. Although I thought she was going to lose it in our lounge room in front of all her new friends when she found out we’d won money. She’s got to be the only person on the planet who didn’t act thrilled when she found out about the twenty-five thousand. And you didn’t have to be Einstein to realise that the room was as tense as overstrung guitar strings when Steve rolled up. But I’ll give him that, he didn’t hang about. Once he took off Leanne started ranting and raving but Danny told her to cool it and listen to Mum’s side of things.
‘Look, Leanne,’ Mum said. ‘Twenty-five thousand might seem rich to you. And to you,’ she included the others, ‘and to me. But I’ll level with you. I’ve paid ten off the house and we still owe twenty. Bills. We can pay them for once in our lives. Fix up the Falcon. Put a bit aside for a rainy day or you kids for education or whatever. And we can go on the Bali trip. Then guess what? It’s all gone. I want you to understand that we’ve had a bit of luck. Great. BUT WE ARE NOT RICH. Got it?’
‘She’s right,’ says Bart.
‘Still got more than we’ll ever have, but,’ says Ty.
‘Hey. Get the chip off your shoulder,’ goes Mum. ‘You can go and buy a two dollar scratchy. No one’s stopping you.’
Whoa, it was getting heavy. I thought that’d be it and they’d all pack up and leave. But then Ty starts this debate with Mum about the lousy deal indigenous people have had an
d Mum informs him that not all whites are bastards and that our great-great-grandfather was made a blood brother in some Aboriginal tribe for saving some dude’s life.
‘Yeah? Every white reckons he’s a blood brother when it suits him!’
Mum cracks it. She marches out and comes back with this old photo album I’ve never seen before.
‘You’d better believe it, Sunshine!’
She flips the pages, finds the one she wants, and shoves it under his nose. We all crowd round. There’s this white guy in old-fashioned clothes, pork-pie hat and beard with his arm round the shoulder of this Aboriginal guy, and him posing with a boomerang and decorated in tribal markings.
‘Maybe you’re the racist,’ she says to Ty.
So he pours out all this stuff about bad whites and bad cops and it goes on into the early hours of the morning till everyone’s totally wiped out and all the anger’s been used up.
‘We can’t make up for the past,’ says Mum. ‘But we can do something about the future. Now, everyone, go to bed. I need to sleep. I’ve got to get energy to kill Leanne, remember!’
The next day Bart and Alicia decide to bail. Leanne clings to Alicia and they bawl their eyes out, then Mum gets in on the act and there’s weeping and wailing like you wouldn’t believe. Mum gives Alicia this bankroll to keep her going and says if she needs money to phone up and Mum’ll organise it at the nearest post office. And she must be sure to write!
‘Sure,’ says Alicia, winking. ‘I’ll send a message stick.’
‘A postcard,’ says Mum. ‘Just so we know you’re okay.’
Ty and Danny’ve decided to hang for a while. You don’t need to be Blind Freddy to see that he’s got the hots for Leanne, and she doesn’t exactly hate him, either. Mum sees this, too, and she must’ve decided that they shouldn’t be living too long under the same roof.
Because that afternoon just after the others have left Steve rolls round, wearing plain clothes. Danny and Ty are dead suss but Steve just talks about footy and cricket and cars and stuff over some Cokes and finger buns at the kitchen table. After about half an hour of small talk he gets round to why he’s here. First of all he’s heard on the grapevine that Danny’s a wiz with cars, so why spend big bucks on the Falcon and give big business the business when maybe Danny might like to do the work? Paid, of course.
Living With Leanne Page 12