I open the door.
‘Hey,’ he says, holding a small, badly wrapped parcel in one hand. ‘You look nice.’
We hug awkwardly at the front entrance and he comes in. The deathly silence must hit him, because he says, ‘Where is every–your Dad?’
‘He got called to Canberra a few hours ago.’ I say it like it’s nothing.
‘You’re all by yourself at Christmas?’
He’s looking around the house, obviously at the lack of Christmas going on here, in a way that makes me embarrassed. Takes in our forlorn plastic Christmas tree with the one small present under it – his.
‘It’s fine.’ Please don’t turn me into a pity case. ‘It’s happened before. Part of being the kid of a politician.’
He says nothing.
‘Let me just …’ I duck into the living room and quickly retrieve his present. I want to whisk him away from the depressing sight so we can quickly forget about it. Next year, I might tell Marcella not to bother with the tree.
‘You want a drink or something to eat?’ I gesture vaguely towards the kitchen. There’s not a spot of food in sight.
‘I’m stuffed,’ Eli says, putting his hands on his stomach. ‘I’m not eating for another year.’
I laugh. My first laugh all day. ‘You’ll be starving in an hour. Guarantee it.’
We head upstairs to my room, and the voices from Eli’s place grow softer.
‘How long were you sitting here by yourself?’ he says.
‘Not long. I had a shower to kill some time.’
‘I see that – I mean, I didn’t see that … Your hair’s wet.’
I laugh again. ‘Oh, that’s a relief.’ His ears are tinged pink, so I busy myself with some music.
Eli listens to my playlist for about twenty seconds.
‘Really?’ he says. ‘Bel, you must have had one shitty day.’
I smile. ‘It’s improving slightly.’
‘Okay, well let me choose something to reflect the improvement.’
He comes alongside me, our arms brushing as he scrolls through my playlist.
‘Why you do have so much depressing shit on here? Okay, this is more like it.’ He puts on something more upbeat. ‘Now I’m in the mood for presents.’
We sit on my bed. ‘You first,’ I say.
‘No, you first.’
I hand Eli my present, losing all confidence in it. Now it feels like such a nothing gift. But when I saw it online, I thought of him instantly.
‘That is cool.’ He admires the rustic slice of timber, with the words Carve Your Own Path burnt into it.
‘You can hang it in your room,’ I say lamely. ‘A kind of get-stuffed message to your Dad.’
‘I love it. Thanks. Okay, now yours.’ He takes a deep breath and hands me my present. ‘It’s not much. I mean, it didn’t cost much. But I hope you like it.’
I start opening the parcel. ‘Did you use a whole roll of wrapping paper on this?’
He shrugs. ‘I’m not the best present-wrapper.’
I rip off the rest of the paper and look at the tan pouch with a zipper on it.
‘It’s a money wallet,’ he says. ‘For Thailand. You wear it under your clothes to keep your money safe.’
I turn it over. ‘Wow.’
‘There’s something else inside it.’
I unzip the pouch and pull out some dulled, crumpled notes. ‘Your first baht,’ he says. ‘It’s the currency.’
I shake out the last item and a small, golden Buddha-looking statue lands in my lap.
‘And that’s something I got when I was there. It’s the reclining Buddha. He’s huge, like ridiculously huge. I’ll take you to visit the temple when we go to Bangkok.’
I’m literally lost for words.
‘I told you it wasn’t much,’ Eli says.
I wrap my arms round his neck and hug him. His hands are at my back.
‘You’re the best, you know that?’ I whisper into his ear.
‘I know,’ he jokes.
‘Thanks for making this real.’
For the rest of the night, we lie on my bed and he talks to me about where he stayed in Thailand. About the family he lived with in a bamboo hut on the coast. Narong, the dad, is a fisherman, and Eli would go out fishing with him in his narrow canoe before the sun rose over the village. At night, Eli learnt to cook fish curry and the four children laughed as they watched him choke on the chilli.
He tells me about the friends he met, Lek and Sud, boys our age who taught him the basics of Muay Thai. I close my eyes and let him take me away with his stories, feeling full and golden for the first time in ages.
I must have fallen asleep because when I wake up, it’s dark, and I forget for a second where I am. I’m still in my dress, but someone has pulled a sheet over me and turned off the light. Eli’s gone.
To save me from spending New Year Eve’s on my own, Tash comes to stay at Dad’s for a few days. She’s been bursting to fill me in on everything that’s happened over the holidays. Since I’ve now managed to put a few days between myself and Christmas, hearing her stories doesn’t hurt as much. When she tells me her brothers threw her mother fully clothed into the pool on Christmas Day, I laugh. Then she fills me in on the all-day tennis marathons that were matched only by the all-night movie marathons.
I don’t tell her Dad left me alone at Christmas. It wouldn’t be fair to ruin her joy. Besides, all evidence of Christmas is gone. I saved Dad the trouble of putting the tree away. It was gone by the time he returned a few days later. This year it went out with the trash. Marcella won’t even notice when she starts back at work next week because it’s always packed away by the time she returns.
Dad has taken the advice in Marcella’s Christmas card and is putting his feet up for New Year’s Eve. Tells us he’s watching the fireworks from the comfort of his armchair – it’s a better view anyway. He hears us talking about the local fireworks at Manly and gives us cab money.
I text Eli to check if he’s ready. He meets us out the front of our place with his latest gadget – a camera he’s been sent that’s meant to take incredible low light shots. He’s testing it out on the fireworks so he can review it on YouTube.
The evening is balmy as we head out – we’re in shorts and tank tops, and Eli’s in a singlet and boardies. The cab drops us off and we get waffle cone ice-creams down by the wharf and eat them as we stroll along the boardwalk.
Manly is humming with energy. Officials doing last minute fireworks prep, mothers pushing toddlers in strollers around the wharf, kids playing football on the beach. The breeze off the harbour is salty and warm, and I turn my face into it, letting it ruffle my hair.
I catch Eli taking a photo of me.
‘Just testing out the exposure,’ he says.
We find a patch on the grassy hill in front of the wharf. Kids in glow necklaces run laps around the grass as the night creeps across the harbour.
Before long, there’s the first boom of a firework. Tash and I lie back on the hill to watch the flowery bursts of colour across the sky.
‘So romantic,’ Tash sighs.
Eli takes pictures of the fireworks raining down on the harbour before joining us, his arm alongside mine.
There’s another boom as a shower of green stars explode and fan out across the night sky.
‘Beautiful,’ Eli murmurs.
Even the luminescent kids are rooted to the spot, their little faces pointed at the sky, mesmerised by the magic.
When the fireworks are over, we cut through the park to a cab rank the tourists don’t know about and share a cab home.
Tash says goodbye to Eli and beckons me towards Dad’s house. She has plans for us.
‘Hey, since I won’t see you for it, happy new year,’ Eli says to me.
Then he leans forward. Kisses me on the lips. So quickly, I’m not entirely sure it happened.
As we walk inside, Tash yanks on my arm.
‘Did Eli just do what I think he d
id?’ she says under her breath. ‘What exactly have you been up to over Christmas?’
‘We’re just friends, Tash. It’s New Year’s Eve, it’s what people do.’
But my lips are still tingling. It’s not what Eli and I do.
Tash refuses to allow me to stay up for the midnight fireworks, insisting we’ll miss the essence of life itself if we sleep through the first sunrise of the year. So we sleep through the countdown instead and the first I know of the new year is the BEEP-BEEP-BEEP of the alarm.
I jerk awake in the thick darkness. Squint at the number five on the alarm clock, a number I usually choose never to be awake to see. Tash’s sheets on the fold-out bed swish as she gets up. Despite dawn being my arch enemy, I drag my sorry bones out of bed and we tread down the stairs, slipping out the back door into the dusty white light of a new day. We cross the road barefoot, sinking our toes into the cool, sandy staircase that leads down to the beach.
The breeze is nothing more than a ripple as we stroll along the water’s edge, backlit by an amber horizon. Even the lapping of the waves is hushed. I inhale the briny air, and Tash and I stand in awe as the first rays of sunlight pierce the horizon and an orange smudge shimmers over the lip of the world.
I stare at the fiery glow of the sky and wonder what the next three hundred and sixty-five days will bring. I’m almost grown, eighteen this year. What will I do with my life? Will I still be writing to Micah? Will he still be alive?
‘So this is the year, huh?’ Tash kicks at a clump of wet sand. ‘The final one.’
‘That sounds morbid, like it’s our last year on earth.’
‘Well it seems like it, in some ways,’ she says. ‘Next year, everything’ll be different. We won’t be sharing a dorm anymore, for one.’ She looks over her shoulder at our twin set of footprints, sunk deep into the wet sand. ‘We probably won’t be here, doing this.’
‘Don’t talk like that.’ Ahead of me, the empty sand mocks us. I push it down, how much it’s going to sting. Next year will be an amputation. Tash will run off to the Conservatorium of Music. What will I be running towards?
‘It’s true,’ she says. ‘This time next year, I’ll have either made the cut for the Conservatorium of Music, or I won’t have.’
‘You will have.’
‘And Mum will either be swelling with pride, or swallowing her bitter disappointment,’ Tash says. ‘How about you, have you decided on a course yet?’
‘Nope.’ I bite my lip and focus on a yacht struggling to stay upright around the headland.
‘Well, you’d better start thinking. You need to know what ATAR will get you in.’
‘I’m thinking of taking a gap year.’ I wasn’t seriously considering it, but it sounds good. And instantly appealing. ‘Maybe I’ll do some aid work before I get press-ganged into a degree.’
‘Aid work?’ She stops walking. ‘Wait. This isn’t connected to Micah, is it?’
‘No.’
‘One word answer.’
‘Okay, maybe. I don’t know.’
Tash rests a hand on her hip and glares at me. ‘Have you even heard from him lately?’
‘It’s been twenty-eight days.’ I twirl my hair absently round my finger. ‘What if I pissed him off when I told him he was a school assignment? What’s wrong with me?’
‘You told him that?’ She grimaces. ‘Well, that’s the truth, honey. None of us are perfect. He of all people should know.’
‘Dammit.’ I kick at a hard clump of seaweed and send it scudding across the smooth sand.
Tash winces. ‘It’s out of your control now, and you don’t know he took it the wrong way. There’s probably some other reason he can’t write.’
‘Maybe it’s because I asked him more about what he did? Maybe he doesn’t want to tell me.’
‘Maybe.’
‘There’s one other possibility, though …’ It’s the thought I keep dunking each time it struggles to the surface. ‘Tash, you don’t think something could have happened to him, do you? I mean, he could have gotten sick. Or they could have …’
‘Don’t,’ she says.
‘But how would I even know?’
Tash turns her face into the breeze coming off the back of the waves. ‘Probably just a delay in the post,’ she says softly.
‘Yeah, probably.’ The icy water sloshes over my feet, covering them in a dusting of soft sand.
‘Anyway, I’m sure you’ve been too distracted by Elijah to be counting the minutes,’ she says.
‘What?’
‘Don’t pretend you didn’t notice him taking off his shirt last night. His window is right in front of yours.’
‘Hence why I keep my curtains closed.’
‘I always thought Eli was a skinny nerd, but he’s actually really cool. If that’s what six months in Thailand does for you, I need some of that.’
I’ve been waiting for the right moment to ask her, and she’s just handed it to me.
‘Well, come with us then,’ I say.
‘Where?’
‘To Thailand.’
‘Oh sure,’ she mocks. ‘Since when are you going to Thailand?’
‘Since Eli asked me.’
‘He asked you?’
‘Not like that …’ I turn to the ocean. ‘I said I wanted to go. Turns out he’s heading back there this year. Makes sense we go together.’
‘Woah. Wait. Rewind a second.’ She turns to face me. ‘You’re doing what?’
‘Tash, Micah’s never had a visitor. Not one. And who knows how much longer I’ll have the chance?’
She puffs air out through her cheeks. ‘Wow. Bel, you are seriously starting to freak me out. This thing you’ve got going, with Micah. Tell me you don’t actually believe it’s real. I mean, he’s over there for the rest of his life, and you’re here with a life. You’re turning this whole thing into some kind of weird prison romance. This story isn’t going to end with happily-ever-after. He’s going to die over there, Bel. Do you get that? They’re going to kill him.’
‘Tash, stop.’ I say.
I feel like I’m losing her. She usually backs me. When the first letter arrived, she was okay about it, but now …
She wraps her hands around herself as though she’s suddenly cold. ‘Just … be careful, okay? This is a dangerous game you’re playing.’
‘I’ll be careful.’ I nudge her with my shoulder and smile crookedly. ‘More careful if you come with me.’
‘Bel, you don’t even know what he did. If you’re serious about this, you need to get over your hang-up and google him. Or let me do it. I’ll gladly do it. I bet Eli hasn’t held back.’
I bite my bottom lip.
‘Wait. You haven’t told him?’ She laughs. ‘Oh, Bel, this gets better by the second. So you guys are going to Thailand together, but Eli has no idea you’re visiting a Death Row prisoner?’
‘He wants to visit the mountains up north,’ I say airily. ‘I want to spend a few days in Bangkok. No reason we can’t do both. I’ll tell him once we’ve booked our tickets. I just don’t want him freaking out and canning the whole idea. Come on, Tash. Come with us. It’ll be fun!’
‘You, me and Eli?’ She folds her arms across her chest and wriggles one foot deep into the wet sand. ‘In a foreign country, visiting prisoners and trekking through mountains …’
‘About as exciting as it gets.’ I grin.
She can’t resist grinning back, her eyes shining.
‘When?’
Tash stands on tippy toes and peers through my curtains.
‘You see anything?’ I shuffle my chair closer to the desk and flick on my laptop.
‘Nope. And I feel like a pervert,’ she whispers.
‘Why are we whispering?’
‘Wait … something just moved. I think he’s in bed, maybe.’
‘I don’t know how people communicated in the old days,’ I say. ‘But I’m going for Messenger. If he doesn’t answer his messages, something is up.’
&nbs
p; Urgent conference. My room. 5 mins. Get your butt out of bed.
‘Will your Dad be cool with a boy in your room at night?’ Tash says.
I laugh. ‘It’s not a boy. It’s Eli.’
Eli who kissed me last night.
The thought of that kiss is like a little volt of electricity. It was so unexpected. But it’s just Eli, so a friendly kiss shouldn’t throw me off-kilter.
He stumbles in fifteen minutes later.
‘Nice bed hair,’ I say.
He tries to smooth it down at the back, but it sticks right on up again. Tash smothers a laugh with her hand as she sits cross-legged on my bed.
‘Okay, so I thought you should know. Tash wants in.’
Eli shoots me a quizzical look. ‘In …?’
‘On our Thai adventure,’ I say, clicking my fingers. ‘Wake up.’
‘Oh.’ He scratches the back of his head.
‘That’s only if you don’t mind,’ Tash adds. ‘I don’t want to, like, crash your holiday or anything.’
‘The more the merrier,’ I say.
‘Yeah, yeah, sure.’ He sits down on the far end of my bed. He doesn’t sound so sure.
‘You still want to go, right?’ I say.
‘Hey, I said I was in, didn’t I?’ And he sets his jaw firmly in a way that makes me want to hug him. Nobody could call the guy unreliable.
‘Good. We’re sorted then. But we need to talk about funds. And the best way to drop this bomb on our parents.’
‘My folks know I’m going already,’ Eli says. ‘Tell me this isn’t what you called me outta bed for?’
‘Wait, your parents know you’re going with two girls?’ I say.
‘Ah, no. I just found out I’m going with two girls.’
Tash laughs.
‘Okay. Maybe you can omit the threesome factor,’ I say.
‘Gutted,’ he says.
I roll my eyes.
‘Bel, my folks are cool. They love you.’ He says it so matter-of-factly, but something catches in my throat.
‘All right, so that’s your parents sorted.’ I avoid his eyes. ‘I’ll be able to work on Dad. He’s still trying to make it up to me for running off at Christmas.’
‘Wait, what? Your Dad left you at Christmas?’ Tash sounds shocked. ‘Again?’
Inside the Tiger Page 8