I drift off and fall asleep. It’s dark outside the window when I wake. Elton is quiet.
I return to the kitchen. Mum sits at the table, staring at a lump of dough. It looks pale and crumbly.
‘Lasagne with freshly baked bread,’ she says. ‘A Saturday night treat.’
‘It’ll be fine, Mum. Let’s have a slice.’
I get a knife from the drawer and hand it to her.
‘For stabbing myself because I can’t even bake bread,’ she says.
She grips the loaf in one hand and cuts a few slices on the breadboard. She fingers a slice.
‘That’s your piece,’ I say.
‘I’ve spent the past few hours twisting and kneading the mix,’ she says. ‘I let it rest, like the recipe says. Now look at it.’
I spread strawberry jam on my slice and take a bite. It’s crumbly and tastes like flour.
‘It’s great, Mum,’ I lie. ‘I might even take some to school on Monday. To share with Blake.’
Mum takes a bite and chews for longer than is necessary. She picks up the loaf and walks to the rubbish bin.
‘Maybe I tried too much.’ She sighs. ‘I’ll stick to reheating frozen lasagne.’
8
On Monday, I wait outside the school gates. Charlotte crosses the road ahead of the school bus that dumps loads of students from up the mountain. The kids with shaggy hair and names their parents thought up in a dope haze. Ariah, Willow, Sage, Dusk and Guthrie.
‘Your clothes have dried,’ Charlotte smiles.
‘They needed a wash anyway,’ I answer, remembering the sprinkler shower.
Charlotte’s phone rings. I wait for her to answer it. The twins from year nine, Dharma and Liberty, their bags overloaded with books, push past me. I’d normally tell them to be careful, but I’ve decided to make love not war. Or something like that.
Charlotte ignores her phone and the bad-mannered bus kids. ‘Rich girl would like to buy poor boy lunch later today.’
I shake my head. ‘We’ll share.’
Her phone stops ringing.
‘How was dinner?’ We both know I’m not talking about the food.
Charlotte shrugs. ‘Mum and I waited hours for the master to arrive. He decided to stay in the city. Which reminds me. They’ll both be late home tonight. Would you—’
‘Yes.’
‘You don’t know what I’m going to ask.’
‘I can read minds.’
‘Prove it.’ She smiles.
I reach for Charlotte’s hand, drawing her away from the crowd of students rushing past. I lean against the wall and close my eyes, squeezing her hand and pretending to concentrate.
‘Think of a number between one and ten,’ I say.
‘Ha!’ Charlotte laughs.
‘Seven,’ I say, opening my eyes.
Charlotte’s mouth crinkles in a wide grin. ‘Wow! How did you know?’
‘Magic powers.’
‘Pity I was thinking of the number four.’
‘I just wanted an excuse to hold your hand.’
We walk to English. Before entering, Charlotte whispers, ‘Would you like to see my bedroom this afternoon?’
She opens the door and walks to her desk. She already knows what I’ll say.
The rest of the day passes in a fog of expectation. No matter how much I try to focus on metaphor and simile in English, the significance of the decimal point in Maths and the chance of Blake blowing up the school in Science, all I can think of is Charlotte and me, alone in her house.
Charlotte takes up her usual place outside Mr Dexter’s class window as Blake and I suffer through another lunch of detention. I’m careful not to choose a poetry book again. Inspired by my recent encounter with Dharma and Liberty, I attempt a student–teacher conversation.
‘Mr Dexter?’
He looks up from his book.
‘What’s the most unusual name of a student you’ve taught?’
Dexter places his book facedown on the desk and stares at the ceiling. ‘Atticus Aurora Daylight,’ he says, after a minute.
Blake laughs.
‘You’re kidding,’ I say.
Mr Dexter crosses himself. ‘I swear to God, Buddha and the blessed parents who christened him.’
‘Daylight can’t be for real,’ says Blake.
‘They changed their surname by deed poll,’ Dexter says. He leans forwards, as if telling us a secret. ‘Atticus is a character in a book. It’s a great name,’ he shakes his head, ‘but Aurora Daylight?’
The bell rings.
‘Well,’ Mr Dexter pauses for emphasis, ‘my middle name is Aloysius, so I felt sympathy for young Atticus Aurora. He was a good kid. We all have our crosses to bear.’
‘Or burn,’ I say.
Dexter laughs. I’m almost beginning to enjoy detention. At least it stopped me thinking about this afternoon.
The moment the bell rings for the end of school, the sun comes out. I receive a text from Charlotte:
I reply:
It only takes me a little while to reach Charlotte’s front gate. I look up and down the street. A silver Mercedes passes and the driver looks at me like I’m Rodney casing the joint. I have to go inside or else the neighbours and the passing parade of rich dudes will start freaking out.
I walk up the driveway and knock quietly on the door.
Charlotte calls from inside, ‘It’s unlocked.’
I turn the handle and shuffle down the lush carpeted hallway.
Charlotte’s in her usual position, sitting on the bench.
‘You’re early,’ she says. She’s changed out of her school uniform and is wearing jeans, boots and a black t-shirt.
‘I didn’t have anywhere else to go.’
‘Would you like a beer?’ She glances towards the fridge.
I walk to the door but before opening it, I turn on the screen, just to see what happens. An electronic shopping list flashes up.
‘What’s a quinoa?’ I ask. ‘And kombucha?’ I have no idea if I’ve pronounced either word correctly.
‘Mum reads too many articles on healthy living.’ She laughs bitterly and I can guess what she’s thinking, even without my magic powers. It’s not the food that’s dangerous in this house.
Charlotte hops off the bench. ‘Would you like to see my bedroom?’
All thoughts of beer disappear from my mind. ‘I … I know,’ I say, ‘don’t get any ideas, big boy!’
‘You’re learning.’
‘The … the only female bedroom I’ve seen is my mum’s,’ I mumble. ‘Too many clothes on the floor, and shoes. What is it with the shoes?’
Charlotte leads me up a carpeted staircase. All the time, I keep talking, a monologue of nerves.
‘Mum has three shades of lipstick and four red nail polishes. And … and loads of moisturiser with herbs. She worships at the Altar of Jojoba and comes out of the bathroom smelling like she’s rolled in a lavender bush.’
Charlotte opens the door to her bedroom and we step inside. The walls are painted in blocks of colour – blue, yellow, red, white – all bordered by vertical and horizontal black lines.
‘It’s like an art gallery,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘Do you know Mondrian?’
‘Is he the Italian kid in year eight?’
‘No, he’s …’ She sees the smile on my face. ‘Are you ever serious?’
‘Only when I don’t know obscure Italian painters.’
She shakes her head.
‘French painters?’
Another shake.
‘Dutch?’
She nods.
‘Oh, that Mondrian,’ I say.
‘A few months before Mondrian died, he painted his studio walls just like this.’ Charlotte sits on her bed. The doona cover
is a similar design to the walls.
I could sit beside her or on the black swivel chair at her desk. I sit on the floor instead, leaning against the yellow painted block. ‘Rumour is you did something extreme to get expelled from your last school.’ I pick up a cushion from the floor, with the same pattern. She loves her artist.
‘There are endless ways of getting expelled,’ Charlotte says.
I toss the pillow in the air and catch it as it falls.
‘I reckon you painted the library wall and signed it Charlotte Mondrian.’
‘Graffiti, or art?’
‘Maybe you organised a petition to replace the Art teacher.’
‘Nah, I had sex with my Art teacher.’
I assume she’s joking.
‘Sex with your Art teacher, who’s female,’ I add.
She laughs. ‘Sex with my Art teacher, who’s female and yet is married to the English teacher,’ she responds.
‘My dad told me he got expelled for doing it with a girl on the school ping-pong table,’ I say.
‘Gives a whole new meaning to the term ping-pong,’ Charlotte says.
‘He reckoned that set him on the wrong path. As if once you’ve started—’
‘So, I’m sentenced to a life of sex with various teachers?’ Charlotte asks.
I think of my dad and his girlfriend being expelled. I wonder if they stayed together until he met Mum.
‘Does your dad live at home?’ Charlotte asks.
I swallow hard. ‘You can visit, one day.’
Charlotte nods.
We sit in silence for what seems like ages.
‘I don’t get it,’ I say eventually. I look around at the walls, the doona, the arty cushions. ‘If I asked Mum to paint the walls like this, she’d tell me I was mad and make some excuse about the cost.’
Charlotte stares at the floor.
‘I mean, it’s … it’s … I don’t know … I can’t think of the word,’ I say.
‘Then don’t.’ Her voice is cold.
She crosses her legs and looks at me.
‘Indulgent,’ she says. ‘That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’
I shrug. I don’t want to make her angry.
‘Rich girl gets whatever she wants,’ she adds.
She stands and walks towards me. I look up at her. Her lips are set in a tight smile. She kicks my shoe.
‘Hey!’ I say.
She kicks me again, this time on my thigh. I raise my hands.
‘Come on, Charlotte!’ I shout. ‘What’s got into you?’
She swings her boot again. I grab her ankle and she topples to the floor. She kicks out and I let go of her leg. Her face is flushed. I have no idea what’s going on. I stand and stride to the door.
‘Wait,’ she calls.
I can feel the blood rushing to my face. I’m somewhere between anger and panic and all I want to do is get out of here.
Charlotte pushes her hair away from her eyes. She’s crying, but I’m too scared to comfort her in case she uses me as a football again. She holds out her hand.
I shake my head.
‘Please,’ she says.
I make do with sitting against the door.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers.
‘So am I,’ I say.
My stomach churns. I just want to be gone.
Charlotte leans against the bed and ties her hair back in a tight knot. ‘I wanted to show you—’ She sighs. A tear tracks down her cheek. ‘—how it feels.’ She rubs her eyes with tight fists. ‘Your whole world tilts. People you trust are …’
‘Fucking mad?’
She laughs, despite herself. ‘Absolutely terrifying,’ she adds. ‘And you don’t know what to do, whether to run or try to talk sense into them.’
‘But why pick on me?’ I say.
She clenches her fists tightly. ‘Why pick on me?’ she repeats, emphasising each word. She looks at me with pleading eyes.
I crawl across the carpet and put my hand on her shoulder.
‘Why pick on me?’ she whispers. She reaches out and hugs me, sobbing into my shirt.
I stare at the perfect cream carpet and try to understand.
We stay like that for a long time.
Eventually, Charlotte stops crying and raises her head. ‘The next day,’ she whispers, ‘it’s all back to normal and he promises us anything.’ She wipes her nose on her sleeve. ‘So I take advantage. I indulge.’ She sniffles. ‘I make him pay with Mondrian on the wall.’
I offer my sleeve. ‘Here, use this.’
She wipes her face on my shirt. Without realising it, we’re holding hands.
‘I love Mondrian. But it doesn’t make me feel better. It doesn’t solve anything.’
I think of my house: the dirty kitchen, my bedroom with paint flaking from the ceiling and clothes scattered wherever I leave them. Mum getting home late from work, too tired to cook. Fish and chips and stale pizza.
‘I live at 210 Barton Street, Charlotte,’ I say. ‘The wrong side of the highway. Anytime you need a place …’
She smiles at me, reaches out her hand and touches my cheek.
I feel the blood rush to my face.
‘The right side of the highway,’ she says.
9
On the way home, it begins to rain. I shelter in the town library. Inside, there are lots of soft lounges with distant views across the town. The perfect place for the homeless and schoolkids.
The librarian smiles at me as I walk in. I ask her if they’ve got books on Mondrian.
‘One of my favourite painters,’ she says. ‘Follow me.’
She’s wearing a black lacy dress, fishnet stockings and high heels.
‘Are you going to a party?’ I ask, pointing to her outfit.
‘I’ve just been to a funeral,’ she says. ‘I wore my best dress.’
Her name tag reads Tracey.
She leads me to a long row of hardcover glossy books. She scans the shelf, running her hand along each spine.
‘Do the Mondrian books send out an electric charge?’
‘All great art does.’ She hands me a thick coffee-table book with a Mondrian print on the cover.
‘Thanks, Tracey. Sorry about the funeral.’
‘There’s a wake tonight.’
I sit on a beanbag in a corner of the library and open the book. First thing I learn is his name is ‘Piet’, which I assume translates to ‘Pete’. An artist with a simple name. I spend an hour admiring his paintings and reading about his life in Paris, London and New York – cities a world away from here. I try to understand terms like ‘Neo-plasticism’ and ‘Cubism’.
I picture Mondrian in his grey suit, slicked-back hair and thin moustache sitting in a Paris cafe debating the meaning of Cubism before returning to his studio and splashing paint on a canvas, cursing the cat sitting on the window ledge, being so irritated by the cat not moving that he tosses a paintbrush at it. The cat hops down and Mondrian is left staring at the perfect vertical and horizontal lines of the window frame, wondering why art can’t be so easy. I reckon he tossed away his canvas and drew the straight lines of the window but instead of the world outside, he just drew a red block, followed by a yellow block and on and on until Cubism didn’t matter so much.
I read some more.
Mondrian’s paintings became so popular that the abstract style was transferred onto clothes, handbags, wall panels and even onto the sides of buses. I stare at a few of his paintings. I have no idea what they mean but I can’t help but like them. I close my eyes and picture myself back in Charlotte’s room. The blocks of blue, yellow, red and white all bordered by black lines.
Mondrian – Piet – and I approve.
On the way home, I pass Blake at the community basketball court dodging puddles and
shooting hoops alone. I jump the fence and walk towards him. He tosses me the ball in a long, looping arc. I catch it, take a few bounces and fluke one from outside the three-point line.
Blake whistles. ‘You da man,’ he says.
‘We’re white boys, not homies, Blake,’ I deadpan.
He tosses a hook shot at the backboard while looking at me. It misses and I collect the rebound.
‘Sorry, mate,’ I say.
He nods and points to the top of the ring. That’s his way of suggesting a game of one on one. We sweat and struggle over a ball for the next ten minutes. Blake wins every rebound and racks up more points than either of us can keep count. Finally, I raise my hand to admit defeat.
‘You’ve convinced me,’ Blake says, as we sit in the shade of an oak tree.
‘Of what?’
‘You play like a white boy.’ He grins.
An ibis walks in the landscaped gardens, pecking in the dirt. It gives up searching and flies across the court to the overflowing rubbish bin for easier pickings.
‘You’ve been spending lots of time with Charlotte,’ Blake says.
‘She’s different.’
‘That don’t mean she’s better.’
The ibis shakes a packet and chips scatter on the concrete.
‘Have you heard from your dad recently?’ I ask.
‘He messaged me a smiley face on my birthday,’ Blake sneers. ‘He was useless here and he’s no different a thousand kilometres away.’
I reach for the basketball and run my fingers over the rippled surface. ‘Charlotte’s dad,’ I begin, digging my fingernails into the ball, ‘hits his wife.’
Blake doesn’t answer.
‘There are worse things than school,’ I add, remembering her line from the bluff.
After a long silence, Blake holds up two fingers. ‘One: we beat the shit out of him; two: we damage something he likes.’
‘We could call the cops.’
Blake shakes his head. ‘Rich blokes like him, they’ve got a way around the police.’
‘That’s what Charlotte said.’
The Bogan Mondrian Page 6