‘Sorry, boys,’ said Shaun eventually. ‘Might’ve said too much as it is. Say any more and I’ll have to take youse out the back, line youse up and pop…pop…pop!’
For the rest of the evening, I turned that story over and over in my mind. Once the party’d wrapped up, after Val had smooched Shaun goodbye and told him how brave he’d been to go over there and fight, after Trev had stumbled down to the dairy singing some old song about a nineteen-year-old kid who fought in Vietnam, after the Davises had hauled themselves up into their old cattle truck, Jim patting Shaun’s back and saying that Pop would’ve been proud, real bloody proud, mate, after Mum’d collapsed into bed, all the days of nonstop preparations finally taking its toll, when it was just Shaun and the boys left standing, I stole off to my room. And while the boys kept going on the verandah, their rowdy laughter and the smell of their durry smoke and yeasty beer burps drifting through my window, I spent that hour before sleep replaying Shaun’s battle story again and again.
Next day at school I was gonna tell everyone—Jessica, Ricky and Jade—all about Shaun’s adventures, and I wanted to make sure I got every detail right.
11
The next arvo when I got back from school I found Shaun in the shed, turning a spanner over in his hand, staring at it like he wasn’t quite sure what it was he was holding.
‘Hey, Shaun. What ya up to?’
‘Huh?’ He looked at me like I was speaking Chinese. He looked back at the spanner, turned it over in his hand again. ‘Oh…yeah. Decided I’m gonna fix up the Kingswood.’
‘Really? You reckon she can be fixed?’
‘Nothing broke that can’t be fixed, Little Man. Not on a Holden anyway. Ha! C’mon—let’s check her out.’
We stepped into the old work shed, greeted by the smells of rat piss and rust and rubber and grease. It was crammed floor to ceiling with tools and busted-up small engines—dirt bike motors, mowers, whipper snippers—that Shaun had collected over the years and used to tinker with. Dad always said Shaun was a natural mechanic, and he was right. Shaun could fix almost anything.
I looked at the far corner of the shed where my KX 125 leant against the wall, crumpled and twisted. Ricky’d come undone on it, trying to land a big jump we’d built. Almost snapped the bike in two, and his leg as well. He’d been on crutches for a whole month.
I nodded towards it. ‘Reckon you could have a go at that too, Shaun?’
He laughed. ‘Sorry, mate, that is well and truly fucked. Beyond repair. Got bigger fish to fry.’
The centrepiece of the shed, hidden under a big plastic tarp, was our old family car—a 1977 Holden Kingswood station wagon.
Shaun hauled some of the gear out of the way and reefed off the tarp. Dust billowed up in the air.
‘Whoa,’ I said. ‘There she is. The Beast.’
‘Nah, not the Beast. The Tank. That’s what the Henderson brothers called it when we lived on Marion Street in town. Those little freckle-faced fuckers pointed and laughed and said it looked like a big old tank. Dad got the shits ’cause he reckoned you couldn’t get a car more reliable. Was right about that—ran like a dream; well, up until she became mine.’
After Mum had bought the old Corolla she’d kept the Tank for Shaun. When he was back on leave from the barracks he’d take off with Amy to the beach for an arvo, or to Big Town to catch a movie. But after a couple of years the Tank started playing up. The engine leaked oil. The gears started crunching. The head gasket blew. Shaun eventually gave up on her, rolled her into the second bay of the shed, saying it’d be a big job but one day he’d fix her. But any time he’d been back on leave since then he was too busy hooning round with Amy in the Commodore that he bought after saving a few of his paychecks.
Shaun prised the hood open, propped it up. The massive engine was covered with cobwebs and layers of grease and grime.
‘Jeez, Shaun—I don’t know why you’re bothering.’
‘Yeah, there’s a bit of work in it, I s’pose, but I still got two weeks leave and I ain’t got too much to do now.’
‘Why, ’cause Amy’s working so much?’
Shaun kept his head under the hood.
‘Yeah, well, there’s more to it than just that. It’s been a bit rocky between us. Usually is when I first get back—like we’re all good, and then all of a sudden we’re fighting. But this time we didn’t even get to the all-good stuff, just straight to fighting. She got all teary the other night when I saw her. Said she doesn’t know if she can go on doing the distance thing. So I put it to her again. Asked her to come and live with me in a house near the barracks. Said she didn’t know if she could. Started going on about her mum, her sister—who she hardly even fucken likes—and how she wasn’t sure she could leave the area. Loves her new job. Thinks living in Big Town is alright. Since seeing her I’ve called her every day, asked her to come see me, talk it through some more—but she keeps putting it off, saying she’s too busy working at that la-de-da restaurant.’
‘Shit,’ I said. ‘That sucks, Shaun.’
He sighed. ‘Ah, don’t worry—it’s all good. Once I get a bit of time with her I’m sure we’ll sort it out. We always do.’
I wasn’t really sure what else to say about Amy, so I pointed to the filthy engine under the bonnet. ‘Well, this hunk of shit should keep you busy for a long while.’
‘You mean keep us busy.’ Shaun tossed me a rag. ‘You’re gonna help. I’ll teach you a thing or two about cars.’
If anyone else’d tossed me that rag I’d have told ’em to piss right off, but because it was Shaun I slung it over my shoulder and said, ‘Righto, let’s get to it then.’
We worked away for the rest of the afternoon—clearing the shed, putting the small engines under the bench and out of the way, cleaning up the Kingswood. Shaun made an inventory of bits and pieces we’d need for the job. Every now and then he’d tell me the names of the busted parts and what was wrong with them and how we were going to fix them. I tried to concentrate and remember the names, but it was all in one ear and out the other with me and that kind of stuff. I sucked at fixing things. Could never get my head round it.
After a couple of hours of working and listening, I was tired. And by the time the sun had dipped behind the ranges, stretching the shadows and cooling the air, I was stuffed. Stuffed in a good way, though, buzzing from the work and from hanging out with Shaun. I felt even better when Shaun ducked off to his shed and returned with two tinnies of mid-strength beer.
‘Knock-off time!’
I looked at the beer, unsure.
‘Go on. It’s only a middie.’
The first swig went down better than that warm one with Ricky. I did a small burp, had another swig. And after a few more I still wasn’t loving the taste or the feeling of the froth, but I was enjoying the feeling that came with it—all floaty and lightheaded, like someone was gently massaging my brain.
And as I had a few more swigs, sitting up on a stool next to Shaun, looking over the roof of the farmhouse down to the paddocks beyond and the rolling hills as the sinking sun sprayed the sky purple, I felt even better. Bigger. Bolder.
Halfway through my can I turned to Shaun. ‘So,’ I said, ‘ya see any action over there or what?’
Shaun took a swig. ‘Yeah. A bit.’
‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘Ya gonna tell us then?’
He grinned. ‘Sure I will, Little Man. Sure I will.’
And then as we finished our beers, Shaun retelling the story in even more detail than when he’d told the boys, I felt bigger still.
Big as our house.
Big as the ranges beyond.
While Mr Finkle drew circles on the board—as if he figured those triangles were just too much for us Maths for Lifers, and he’d take us back to basics—Ricky boasted about his last few recesses with Jade under the jacaranda.
‘It’s like that tree’s enchanted or something. Gives you special kissing powers.’
‘What? I thought Jade said you needed pra
ctice.’
‘Nah, that’s just her style. She might say that, but believe me, when I’m under there with her, she’s digging it. Oh, brother, it’s awesome, I tell ya. Awesome! Ya making progress on Jessica?’ I told him about how on the bus that morning she’d sat even closer to me, so close our legs and arms were touching. Then I showed him the swirly pattern, like a Maori tattoo, on the back of my hand that she’d drawn during Civics.
‘Sweet as! She’s got skills, hey.’
‘Yeah, it took half the lesson. My hand was resting on her lap the whole time! It’s killing me, Ricky. Killing me. I don’t know how much more I can stand. I’ve been too scared to try and put the moves on, though. I don’t know if she’s keen, or just enjoying the attention.’
‘Don’t worry, brother. She’s keen. Jade said she just doesn’t want to do anything at school. She’s too worried about getting busted by Carroll or something and getting into shit with those uptight parents of hers. She wants to, mate. She wants to!’
‘Yeah? Well, I’m kinda shitting my pants about that, too. Once we get to that.’
‘Why?’
‘’Cause of last time.’
‘Last time?’
‘Yeah! Claire Anderson. Year six. School fete. In the ghost house. Remember?’
‘Oh, yeah.’ Ricky smiled. ‘That’s right. First try youse donked heads, didn’t ya?’
‘Yep.’
Ricky chuckled. ‘Yeah, that’s right! And then when ya tried again, ya stuck yer tongue in her ear.’
‘Well, it was dark.’
Ricky laughed louder. So loud Finkle Dinkle put his chalk down and looked at Ricky as though he was about to give him a warning, one of those keep it up and I’ll send you to Carroll warnings no one heeded because the sappy old suck never carried through on ’em.
‘That’s right,’ said Ricky once Finkle’d got back to the board. ‘And then, when youse finally got to it, you chewed her lip so hard you drew blood and she tore out of there screaming.’
‘Yep. See what I mean?’
Ricky grabbed me round the back of the neck. ‘Ah, c’mon. You’ll be fine, brother. I guarantee it! You two just need to get somewhere private. And I tell ya, I’m keen to get Jade somewhere a bit more private, too. She’s keen to take things further, I reckon.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Shit yeah! Maybe we could wag school with ’em. Pull ’em off the bus in the morning and take ’em somewhere.’
‘Jeez, Ricky. Sounds like a kidnapping. Anyway, where would we take ’em?’
‘I dunno. Down the river?’
‘What, and roll round in the cow shit? Get ticks on our bits? Anyway, if I wagged and got busted Mum’d flog me.’
‘Well, shit, brother—you got any ideas?’
But I didn’t have any, then or any of the other times Ricky asked. In the end, though, it didn’t matter. We didn’t need a plan. All the while we’d been scheming, the girls’d been working on a plan of their own.
When Josie pulled up at Jade’s driveway on the second-last day of the school year, Jade bounded up the bus steps. Then, rather than her usual strut up the aisle, she raced as fast as she was able to without tearing that tiny skirt of hers in two.
‘Oh my god, oh my god. Oh…my…god!’ She slapped a hand over her wide-open mouth, as if stifling a scream.
‘What’s up, babe? What is it?’
‘We…are…having…a…party!’
Jade squealed so hard the littluns up the front jumped in their seats and Josie lowered her sunnies and glowered at us in the rear-vision mirror.
‘Huh?’ said Ricky. ‘A party? Whose party?’
‘Me and my big cousin, Trace. My parents are going to the city to see some daggy old farts’ band for New Year’s, and Tracy’s looking after me while they’re away, which she only said yes to on the condition that she could have a few friends over for a very small New Year’s celebration. So, I asked Trace if I could add a few to her few. She wasn’t that sure at first…buuuttt I managed to nab an invite for you, Ricky. And one for Jessica, whose parents have already signed off on it—well, for her staying over, that is. If they knew anything about the party there’s no way they’d let her come.’
Jade took a breath and glanced over her shoulder at me. I stared at her hopefully. ‘And, yes, you’re invited too, Mr Black.’
‘Shit yeah,’ said Ricky, eyes wandering up and down Jade’s body. ‘A party!’
‘So, are you in, Trysten?’
‘Yeah. I’m in. For sure!’
I sat up straight, beaming. I couldn’t believe it. A party. Some time alone with Jessica. It was too good to be true. Then I realised it probably was. I slumped back in my seat.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m in, if I’m allowed. Mum’s been sky-high since Shaun’s been back. Never better. She’s chilled out heaps, but signing off on a party with no oldies? I doubt it.’
‘Don’t get her sign-off then. Just tell her you’re staying at mine,’ Ricky suggested.
‘Aw, I dunno, hey. What if she called and found out I wasn’t there? I’d be in such deep shit. Wouldn’t be worth it.’
‘What?’ asked Jade. ‘Wouldn’t be worth it? Even for getting some alone time with the fabulous Miss Mayer?’
I slumped even lower in my seat and glanced out the window. A lime-green Ford XR8 overtook the bus, and zoomed along the road ahead.
‘Shit yeah,’ said Ricky. ‘Y’see that? That fella was fucken fanging it. That ute’d take Shaun’s SS any day, I reckon.’
‘Bull-fucken-shit! Not with Shaun behind the wheel it wouldn’t.’
Ricky’s eyes popped open, then he shot his hand in the air like he was in class and had the answer. ‘Shaun! Get Shaun to take you to the party, brother. Y’know, like a chaperone.’
The cogs turned. Of course! Tracy was Acker’s stepbrother. The boys’d probably be there—Adam, Jase and Acker. Shaun’d be keen on going too, and Mum might even let me go if he was there.
I looked out the front window. Half a k ahead the XR8 shot round the slight bend and then sprinted along the flat.
‘You know what, Ricky?’
‘What?’
‘I think you may have actually had a good idea.’
12
Every afternoon of that week, after I’d charged up the driveway after school, stopping to spot Trev (who, if he wasn’t at the top pub in town having a punt on the horses, would be out the front of the dairy smoking a durry and throwing back a tinnie), giving him the stink eye and receiving a snarl in return, after I’d reached the house, popped my head in and hollered hooroo to Mum (who’d either be in the kitchen chatting to Val over a cuppa, or baking, humming and singing as she worked) I’d trot on up to the work shed and help Shaun with the Tank. Most days it was just the two of us, with Mum dropping in round five o’clock to deliver some oven-baked chips. For a couple of arvos the boys came over too, just Jase and Acker—with everyone hell-bent on getting their cars fixed up before the Chrissy holidays, Adam was always tied up at the garage. The boys would smoke durries and sink beers, and talk shit about the good old days. Even when they were round, Shaun didn’t shoo me away like he used to. He let me hang out like I was one of the crew. He even tossed me the odd middie.
On the afternoon I was planning to ask Shaun if he’d take me to the party, Jase and Acker were already there—loud ’n’ loose like they’d just smashed a whole carton between ’em.
‘Woo-hey! Twisted Trysten!’
‘Trysten! How ya fucken going?’
‘Hey.’ Shaun shook his head and rolled his eyes at the boys. ‘Come in, Little Man.’
It was a warm welcome but I was a bit bummed the boys were there. I’d have to wait till they left to ask Shaun about the party. I couldn’t ask in front of them. If Shaun said no, they’d take the piss out of me for sure.
I climbed up on the stool and, while I waited for them to go, listened to their good-old-days spiel.
‘Yeah, Jase,’ Acker said and laughed that
spluttery, snorting laugh of his—like a big fat sow gorging on slops. ‘Yeah, I ’member that one. You ’member that, Shaun? Hey, Shaun! ’Member that one? Huh?’
‘Oh…yeah.’ Shaun didn’t take his eyes off the alternator that he was tinkering with over on the workbench. ‘Oh, yeah. I remember. Yeah, was funny as.’
‘Yeah,’ Jase said, ‘that was funny fucken shit! Hey, Shaun, how about that school social, huh? Last one you were at, I think. Start of year eleven, a few months before you left. They had that filth band from Big Town doing metal covers. And that cunt from year twelve—that fucken mad cunt, Hillsy—downed a three-seven-five of overproof rum in the park, then stumbled into the hall. Only a few fucken steps in, and Mr Joyce was onto him. Went after him, tugged the sleeve of his t-shirt. So what does fucken Hillsy do? What does that mad cunt do? Turns round and bang—big fucken gatey right to the side of the head!’
Jase hopped off his stool, jerking his head back and to the side like he’d just copped that punch. He wobbled, dropped to his knees and crumpled to the ground.
‘Fuckhead fell like a sack of shit.’ Jase stood and dusted himself off. ‘Deserved it, though. Had it fucken coming to him. That Joycey, he was always a mean cunt. A real mean cunt.’
‘Shit yeah, Jase.’ Acker sow-laughed again. ‘I ’member. You ’member that one, Shaun?’
Shaun looked up. ‘Huh?’
‘Hillsy? The social?’
‘Oh yeah,’ Shaun nodded. ‘Yeah, that was funny.’
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