MUM TRUDGED along the riverbank with a shovel over her shoulder and a plastic bag in her hand. Barky and I followed, dead leaves and strips of bark crackle-crunching underfoot. Birds called, insects flittered, and a hot breeze disturbed the few remaining patches of wheat-coloured grass.
We passed my special place — the little ‘beach’, a sandbank just after the bend. In summer, when we were kids, and there was more water, Petra and I had shimmied on our bums down the almost-vertical drop. We’d swum, and paddled ‘the rapids’ in my rubber dinghy. When we were twelve or thirteen, we’d had picnics, sunbaked, smoked cigarettes, and discussed the hair growing on our bodies and the boys we liked.
A bit further along from my special place was our pet cemetery. Tree shadows lay long across the chook-sized hole Mum dug next to Rosemary the sheep’s grave. She took Dixie, inside her coffin — a small Pac King box — out of the plastic bag and placed her in the earth. Barky watched on, head tilted, ears pricked up in delight. I hoped he wouldn’t come back later and dig Dixie up.
‘Rest in peace,’ Mum said as she shovelled dirt on top.
‘Thanks for all the eggs.’ I brushed a fly from my face, trying not to think about what happened to all our dead animals during floods.
Every second or third year, the river broke its banks; the driveway and Broken River Road would disappear. Deceptively slow-moving so it didn’t seem dangerous, the deluge crept towards the house. The community flurried around, organising sandbags, telling stories of possums and rat families found in cupboards, snakes curled inside biscuit jars. Reminiscing about past floods — 1974, arguably the worst — and speculating on how high the water would rise this time.
As a kid, I had imagined how wonderful it would be if the whole house floated away, and we had to live like that; townspeople on dry land could throw us food and supplies as we sailed past. There were constant warnings in the news about not allowing children to play in floodwater: the main cause of death during floods. I had paddled in a plastic storage tub — my boat on the sea — while the adults were busy trying to protect the house.
Mum whispered something in my ear. I turned, but she wasn’t beside me. It was just the trees — speaking to each other, watching; they knew things, secrets. There was a faint buzzing sound in my ears, not dissimilar to the droning of the fans. Must be from the heat.
‘Stop daydreaming and hurry up,’ Mum said, heading back towards the house.
Crickets clicked inside cracks of the dry earth. A kookaburra cackled. I ran to catch up with Mum. Barky started barking, and Mum screamed at him to get away. I smelled alcohol on her breath. She grabbed my arm, hard enough to bruise, and pushed me backwards.
I stumbled against a tree. ‘What did you do that for?’
Mum swung the shovel through the air, sideways. It made a whistling noise. And a thwack as the blade sliced off the head of the tiger snake I’d almost stepped on.
Mum exhaled smoke as she poured a can of beer into a glass. ‘What do you want for tea?’
I shrugged. ‘Maybe not chicken.’
Her cigarette fizzled when she dropped it into the empty can. She turned, and slapped my face.
I put my hand to where she’d hit.
‘Can’t you see how fucken tired I am?’
‘But I didn’t say —’
She slapped me again. ‘Make your own fucken tea. Not that you need any.’
I had no words, but she screamed at me to shut up, and that I was a stupid, fat bitch. She gripped my upper arms and slammed me against the wall. The brown and orange flowers on the wallpaper blurred together for a moment.
Barky barked. I found my voice. ‘Stop! You’re hurting me.’
She gouged her fingers deeper into my flesh before letting go and raising her hand to hit me again. I shielded my face. But she slumped forward and cuddled me. ‘Sorry. So sorry. Didn’t mean it.’
Sweat stuck her sinewy arms to me like tentacles. I peeled them off, and rushed towards my bedroom. Five big steps across the foyer, don’t stand on the cracks, touch my door handle ten times.
I slammed the door behind me. Tears ran soundlessly from my eyes into my mouth as I stared at the red welts on my arms.
I heard Mum crying too. Another can of beer hissed open. A truck geared down on the highway. A record crackled on the record player in the dining room: ‘Mama Hated Diesels’.
A knock on my door woke me. I couldn’t remember falling asleep, or even feeling tired. My nose was blocked, my eyes stung. Mum cleared her throat, and the door opened slowly. She held a plate of my favourite: Kraft cheese — the type that came in a blue packet and didn’t need refrigerating until after opening — on toast, melted under the griller until it bubbled and started to burn on top, but was still gooey underneath. Four slices.
‘Thought you might be hungry.’ She set down the plate on Jon Bon Jovi’s face on the magazine next to my bed.
I couldn’t look at her.
She stood there, fiddling with the hem of her T-shirt, for a minute or so before leaving the room. I ate all four slices of toast. Pig. Mum was right: I was a fat bitch.
SATURDAY 14 JANUARY 1989
The welts on my arms are blooming into bruises. I can’t remember what I said that made Mum go mad. Probably because she’d been drinking. Or perhaps the heat just got to her. When I heard her crying, I felt sorry for her — she didn’t mean it.
WEDNESDAY 18 JANUARY 1989
I dreamt about Dean Cola last night. I was sitting next to him on the bench seat of the car he was driving. He was wearing shorts & no shirt. I could feel his skin against mine — burning hot. There was a little white dog on the passenger side & I was painting numbers on it: a 2 & a 1. Perhaps the numbers in the dream are important. This coming Saturday is the 21st, & Dean is 21. I hope he’s at Gareth Maher’s party on Saturday.
Now I’m sitting in bed, listening to Groffy on the radio & thinking about Dean Cola. I would like to do it with him (Dean, not Groffy!). Petra laughs because I’m still a virgin. She’s done it with heaps of guys, so she says, & so the rumours go. How I wish Dean could be my first.
THURSDAY 19 JANUARY 1989
I sat in my room all day & cried for Dean Cola. I hate him for making me feel this way. Everybody keeps asking why I haven’t got a new boyfriend (since Brett). The only guy I want doesn’t want me. I’ve waited for him, I’ve dreamt about him & now I’ve cried over him. That’s enough time wasting. From this moment I will not write about him anymore.
‘IS IT Mahersy’s birthday?’ I said.
‘I think it’s just ’cause his Mum and Dad are away.’ Petra ladled the lethal fruit-punch concoction into our glasses.
‘Do you think Dean will come?’
‘Depends what you do for him.’ She smirked.
I sighed melodramatically. ‘Do. You. Think. Dean. Will. Be. At. This. Party. Tonight.’
‘How should I know?’ She returned the ladle to the punch next to a bowl of potato chips — the only food I could see — on the clear-plastic-clothed table.
‘I hope not.’ I sipped my punch. Not much fruit: pineapple pieces from a tin and a few chunks of bruised apple.
‘Thought you luuurved him.’
‘Not anymore.’ I took a bigger sip.
‘But looky who is here.’ Petra stood up straighter and stuck out her boobs, not that she had any. She was wearing a shiny black top, with no bra by the look of it. I followed her eye line, past a few clusters of Mahersy’s mates, to Christos talking to Mahersy by the polished-timber bar (also covered in clear plastic). Christos was at least a head taller than anybody in the room.
‘What a fucken spunk,’ Petra whispered. Christos grinned back. ‘What’s the name of that Greek god? Hercules?’
‘Hercules was a Roman god.’
‘The good-looking Greek one?’
‘Adonis?’
&n
bsp; ‘Yes! Fireman Adonis.’
‘Adonis was actually a mortal …’
Petra rolled her eyes ceiling-ward; she sculled her punch, and ladled another.
I did the same.
‘Wow! Are you OK?’
I shrugged and followed her to the bookshelf, closer to Christos.
‘Why are you wearing a sweater?’ Petra flicked one of my sleeves.
‘Might get cold later.’
She rolled her eyes again. I pretended to listen to her going on about Christos’s assets while I looked at the books. Stock-feed guides; cricket biographies; Stephen King and Robert Ludlum novels. Petra was saying something about firemen’s poles when her expression hardened and she mouthed the word Shit.
Fricky was swaggering across the room towards us, extra gel in his hair. I’d been saving it for the right moment — I sang in Petra’s ear: ‘Fricky don’t lose my number, you —’
She elbowed me in the ribs, harder than necessary.
‘Ow.’
‘Hello, ladies.’ Fricky skirted around me and sidled up to Petra.
Petra grimace-smiled. ‘Hi, Marcus.’
I didn’t want to hang around watching Petra and Fricky shoving tongues down each other’s throats, so I added another ladle to my drink and said I was going outside for some fresh air. Petra mouthed, Don’t leave me. I dismissed her with a wave of my hand — handle it. Mahersy put on the Guns N’ Roses record that played at every party that summer.
There was a garden, bordered by rocks, in the corner of the yard. A small grove of trees sheltered shrubs, kangaroo paws, and other flowers I didn’t know the names of. I followed the stepping-stone path to a concrete bench that looked as though it had come from a graveyard, leaves carved down the legs. The punch had made me dizzy and sad. I held my skirt so it wouldn’t ride up as I sat on the graveyard-seat, wishing I hadn’t come to Mahersy’s party.
‘Hi, Sidney.’ A girl’s voice.
The light from the porch was in my eyes when I looked up; I shielded them. Shelley Cola — Dean’s little sister, a year older than me.
‘Can I ask you a question?’ she said.
Does anybody ever say no to that?
‘Do you like Dean?’
‘I don’t know.’ I shrugged. ‘And it doesn’t matter because I know he doesn’t like me.’
Somebody inside turned up the music.
‘Yes, he does,’ Shelley said. ‘He really likes you, but …’
‘What?’
She pivoted a toe, and twisted her body side to side, the way girls who have been told they’re pretty do.
‘The age difference?’
‘It’s not that. And I promised him I wouldn’t tell.’
She was playing games with me now. I looked down into my drink. ‘Can you please leave me alone?’
‘He’s picking me up at one thirty.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘Dunno. You should talk to him when he gets here.’ She turned and headed back towards the house. The door slid behind her.
I finished my drink but didn’t want to go inside for another. Even with the door shut, I could hear Petra’s laugh, shrill, above the music and other partying voices.
I slumped further forward, elbows on knees, and studied my bare tanned legs, my sneakers. A beetle crawled past. The night darkened, like a cloud had crossed the moon.
‘What are you doing out here all by yourself?’
I looked up. Fireman Adonis — blocking out the porch light.
I held up my empty glass. ‘Could you please get me some more punch?’
‘Looks like you’ve had enough.’ He sat down beside me.
‘Is that vodka?’ He was holding a glass of clear liquid, and I hoped he’d give me a sip. I wanted to be really drunk, so I could stop thinking about Dean Cola.
‘Soda water. I don’t drink alcohol.’
I didn’t know any guys who didn’t drink. I guessed it was in case he got called out to an emergency, but he said it was to do with his fitness regime. He told me all about it — running, and the intricacies of weight training at the fire-station gym. My legs felt tired just thinking about it.
‘What music do you like?’ he said.
I shrugged.
‘Some of Bon Jovi’s songs are all right,’ he said. ‘And I like some old stuff, like Leonard Cohen.’
‘Really?’ I straightened up and turned my face towards him. His dark eyes were shiny but dull at the same time — they reminded me of the old bakelite buttons in Nan’s sewing box.
He offered me a cigarette.
‘I’m surprised you smoke.’
‘Only socially.’ He took one for himself and lit them both with a brown-plastic lighter. ‘And with my mum.’
‘You live at home?’
‘Nah. A flat in town. Family’s in Melbourne. Well, Mum and Dad are. One brother’s in Adelaide, and the other’s moved to Canada for work.’
‘That must be hard.’
‘Yeah, mostly for Mum.’ He exhaled smoke. ‘Wogs and family, you know.’
I didn’t know. I also didn’t know why anybody would come from the city to this shithole. ‘Why did you move here?’
‘No places in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.’
I asked what it was like being a firefighter, and he told me to come down to the station some time and he’d take me for a ride in the truck.
The back door slid open. A blast of music. Petra wobbled across the yard in her high heels. ‘There you are!’
She navigated the stepping stones awkwardly, and parked her bum next to Christos’s. Her lycra skirt rode up so high I could see her undies. Christos moved closer to me.
‘What are you two doing out here?’ Petra said.
‘Talking,’ Christos said. He looked at his watch, stood, blocked out the light again, and said he’d better go back in and see how Gareth was going. ‘So just give me a call at the station if you want to come down, Sidney.’
When Christos was out of sight, Petra stood and kicked my shin.
‘What was that for?’ I rubbed where she’d hurt me.
‘All the boys like you, you could get anyone you want. Why can’t you just leave the only one I like alone?’
‘But I —’
‘Fucken hate you! Don’t want you to stay at my place tonight.’ She stumbled back towards the house.
I stamped out my cigarette, and went after her, chased her through the party.
‘Everything all right?’ Christos said as we passed him.
I followed Petra out onto the street. She kicked off her shoes and ran across the road.
I had that weird sensation again of things expanding around me. The road seemed a long way down from the gutter. I tried to step onto it, but tripped, and fell to my knees.
Christos appeared. He helped me up, and back to Mahersy’s front porch, where he had me sit on a chair, while he went inside for bandaids. I felt blood trickling from my right knee down my shin. I was afraid to look.
‘Is it bad?’ I asked, feeling faint, when Christos returned with a bottle of Dettol, and a handful of cotton balls and bandaids.
‘No. Lucky there were no cars driving past.’
‘Where’s Petra?’
‘She’ll be back.’
She did come back, shoes in hand, even more pissed off when she saw Christos on his knees, tending my wound. She threw herself down like a tantrumming toddler on Mahersy’s lawn.
By the time Christos had cleaned and dressed my knee, Petra was snoring. Christos said he’d drive us home.
I picked up Petra’s shoes, and followed Christos fireman-carrying her to his shit-brown Mazda parked on the street. I was scared she was going to spew all over him. She woke as he lowered her to the ground, and tried to scramble into the front-passenger s
ide. He guided her into the back, where she passed out again while I gave directions to her house.
SUNDAY 22 JANUARY 1989
I don’t believe Shelley Cola. Dean doesn’t like me. He probably hates me. I don’t know why, but I think he does. Why can’t I forget him? Life is so cruel.
I have this buzzing in my ears, & sometimes it sounds as though a door is being slammed or something is banging to the ground. It’s hard to explain & it’s been happening for a while now. I’m sure it will go away when the weather gets cooler. I think I’m just imagining the noises, but I keep the radio on in my room anyway to cover them up.
I’m reading ‘Wuthering Heights’. Catherine was only 16 when she had a baby (same as Mum) & died. Is the purpose of the novel (all novels, not just this one) to entertain? Why would Emily Bronte have created such a monster as Heathcliff?
I’m writing a story about a girl who is in love with a man who thinks she’s too young for him. When she falls pregnant to him, he disowns her. In the end she kills him & then kills herself. I haven’t decided on murder or suicide weapons. Maybe she’ll start a big fire instead.
THE WALLS of my room looked like the screen at the old drive-in cinema. A movie of a girl about my age, in a white dress, flickered on the silver-screen walls. The girl was standing in front of a red-brick building, but I could still somehow see my room: stereo on a pine chest of drawers, pedestal fan, cheval mirror, Bon Jovi posters. The buzzing in my head sounded like voices — garbled unintelligible messages, a radio not quite tuned to the station.
‘I’m from the church,’ said the girl in the white dress. She was standing in my doorway now and in the doorway of the building on the screen.
I sat up, pulling my knees and the bedsheet to my chin.
‘They want you for a human sacrifice to Jesus,’ said the girl. ‘They’re waiting for you down at the river.’
Something that sounded as though it had long claws scratched inside the cupboard where monsters had lived when I was little. I sucked the corner of the sheet. Sweat trickled down between my breasts. The buzzing voices mumbled louder, competing with my heartbeat. It was hard to hear the girl.
All That I Remember About Dean Cola Page 13