Pretty Girls

by Pretty Girls (retail) (epub)

  “Evie!” back to reality, there he was again. Neil. Not mean, just not nice.

  Somehow they’d ended up in bed together. He was on top of her and she was naked. He ploughed into her over and over again while she lay starfish like in shape, staring out the window.

  Staring again. She would have to stop doing this too. It was fucking self-destructive, and she knew it.

  He came inside her, and then pulled out. She could feel the slippery-ness between her thighs, it made her want to vomit.

  He lit a cigarette, and they were quiet for a few moments. She was always quiet.

  “Evie?” her name again. He said her name so many times during the course of a day to snap her back to reality that she had started to disassociate herself from it. Who was this Evie that he kept referring to? Was it her? Greg and Lilly’s daughter? Benny’s sister? Was it?

  She looked at him now. Focus. There was something about this second that was important, she just wasn’t sure what.

  “Evie – you can’t do this anymore. I can’t fuck you like that. It makes me feel like shit. It makes me feel like you don’t want it. I’m a lot of things Evie but I’m not that person. I’m not that guy.”

  He had a wholesome face, wide, lined already from the weather and the elements. She could tell he was trying to break through to her. Maybe he had been for weeks, longer.

  “You need to go. We can’t do that again.”

  He got up, still smoking his cigarette, naked and walked out of the room.

  He was nicer than she’d thought.

  38

  Fucking Redfern

  (2017, Redfern)

  Back to reality. Was it reality? She wasn’t sure. She paced the dark corridor, backwards and forwards. Someone yelled outside. A drunk voice. Fucking Redfern. The dirty, dirty, miscreants of the world all heaving and moving in the one place. Some metro version of hell, without the flames.

  The flames. The flames. She saw them in her mind. Golden red and warm, throwing heat and smoke in her direction. Her hair would smell like smoke, that’s all she could think. That’s all she could worry about. Not the lick of that warm fire on her skin. Reducing her to a pile of liquid fat and waste. No – just about her hair.

  She was a girl again in Redfern. After Benny had died. She was wearing a short skirt and a crop top. A length of her stomach had been exposed. Taut and tight. She’d heard a riot had broken out on the block, and in Redfern proper. She could hear it from her house. The sirens blazing, the screams and snaps from the tear-gas. It had been brewing for weeks. Worse, it had been brewing for decades, maybe more, maybe since 1788 when this whole mess had started. When they’d been invaded. But in the last few weeks the energy had gathered. You could feel it in the air crackling, like a massive electrical storm ready to ignite. The Abos and the white fellas. It was inevitable.

  One spark and they’d all go up in flames. Fight to the fucking end.

  That afternoon. It started. The riot.

  The police had barricaded the streets. Blocking the access to Redfern. Traffic and people were being diverted away from them. Away from that place where they were all acting like savages. All of them.

  She’d followed the sounds. That’s where she had wanted to be. In the middle of it. She could feel the pounding energy of the fight. Deep down, she loved the fight. She was just like her father, a violent fuck. Just like Benny and her mum, fucking messes.

  This was home to her.

  The grim heart of this dark place.

  She’d wandered down there, barely dressed. Straight into the Block. There were the police cars, the tear-gas, the burning mattresses, the Aboriginal kids throwing stones. It was like some scene from Dante’s inferno. A writhing mess of heat, violence and emotions. She walked straight in ... she headed towards one of those mattresses. Was that the one that had been in Pete’s home? It looked familiar, something about the floral pattern and the shape of the stain. She knew it.

  It was lit now. Going up in flames. She could feel the heat on her skin. Her hair would smell like smoke. But she so wanted to lie down. So much. She wanted to press herself to that burning mattress – where Benny had lain. Was that too much to ask? To be close to him again? She was so terribly tired.

  She just didn’t want her hair to smell like smoke. That’s the only compromise ... otherwise she was good to lie down.

  She moved towards it, ready to lie, when a man grabbed her by the shoulders. He was black and sweaty, and he pushed her aside, holding her back. She looked into his face, he was her age, maybe a few years older. There was soot on his skin, and a bruise beginning to bloom near his temple.

  “What are you doing?”

  She didn’t respond. She never did. He shook her for a second to bring her back to life. The shake had an impact on her. Like he’d smacked her across the cheek – she was back in the scene. Surrounded by that cacophony of light and sound.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Are you okay,” he repeated. Suddenly the boy’s face was replaced by a teenage G. Those kind eyes. The bruise, the hyper pigmentation near his eye.

  “I don’t know,” she’d finally said. Confused. Startled.

  “C'mon I’ll get you out of here,” he’d said.

  He’d grabbed her firmly by the arms and led her away. Away from the block. Away from the flames. Away from it all.

  She didn't belong there. None of them did. They'd stolen this place way back when and they needed to leave.

  39

  Things were always clear in the morning

  (2017, Redfern)

  Everything was always better in the morning. The poison leaked out in darkness and in the daylight there was always a resolution to make a plan. To move forward. She woke seated in the corridor. Still wearing yesterday’s clothes. There were scratches on her skin. Still nothing made sense, still the missing piece alluded her. What she knew in the benevolence of the morning was, it probably didn’t exist and none of this would ever make sense. There was no rhyme or reason as to why all the violence had happened. There was no discovering why her dad had been a bad man, or why Benny had killed himself ... or even why she hadn’t been enough. In daylight she knew a number of things to be accurate: her father had been an alcoholic, her brother a junkie, and her mother, crazy. They’d only really cared about themselves. They’d been selfish. And she, the same flesh and bones, part of the same family, was selfish also. She had to have self-preservation in mind, because nobody else would look after her.

  Redfern was a shit place. It always had been. It let people like her family exist. Fester, grow into something worse. Everyone here was shambolic. Fetid. Infected. Wild. Nothing was ever in check. Everything was primitive and desolate. She knew for absolute certain that she had to get out, and that she had to get Tilley out.

  Tilley was the only thing that mattered. She couldn’t hope for her own happiness. She’d never had that option. She’d never been provided with that opportunity. But there was still a chance for Tilley. Her beautiful, shining star of a daughter. Her baby, the one who had demanded to come into this world despite the circumstances. The one that had saved Evie’s life when she had been overcome by despair. Yes, it had to be done for Tilley. Evie was unimportant. Irrelevant and definitely unremarkable. Always close, but a few centimetres off.

  They had to leave. She got to her feet. Where would they go? Melbourne was off the table, too many other memories. Maybe Brisbane? Maybe they could head up North? To the good weather. To the beach. That’s what they needed, more sunshine, less junkies. Yes, Evie was resolute.

  Where to start?

  She’d collect Tilley from Chris’s house and drop her off at school. The full day would give her time to pack-up the home and tidy up any loose ends. Resign from her job, pull Tilley out of school, do a Google search on places to live in Brisbane. Places that had office jobs, cheap accommodation and a primary school. She had enough money in savings to tide them over for a while. She’d learnt that the hard way. Money, of your o
wn, meant security. It meant you didn’t have to sleep with some bugger to keep a roof over your head.

  They could start driving this evening. Begin the first leg of the trip overnight. Forget about her dad, he was going to die soon enough, and none of this would have mattered at all. He would go straight into the ground and take any final secrets with him. Not that she knew if he had any final secrets. He was likely just a shit person, and she was stupid enough to think that there was something more to it.

  Forget the whole thing with G. Again, stupid her for believing in the possibility of happiness, of real joy, of a loving relationship. Those things weren’t for her. Not for someone like her. They were meant for someone else, like the elegant doctor who had treated Benny at the hospital the night of her formal. The doctor expected all of those things – because she deserved them. Not Evie, she was unworthy. Always was. Always would be.

  She examined her appearance in the mirror of the bathroom – it remained passable. Maybe her hair wasn’t as glossy as it had once been and her eyes didn’t glitter blue – but it was all still pretty damn close. Feel like shit, look like gold. Story of her life.

  She grabbed her handbag from where she had left it on the kitchen table, and ran the list of things through in her mind that she needed to do. Pick up Tilley, take her to school, resign from her job, pack the house. Her job would want two weeks’ notice. They always did. But this wasn’t Evie’s first rodeo, nobody pursued you when you took off. You were completely replaceable. Like she said, irrelevant.

  She stumbled out of the door out into the noise of Elizabeth Street.

  He had waited all night.

  There he was seated. Hoodie pulled over his head, knees pulled up to his chest, chin resting on them. He looked up at her startled, as though he wasn’t expecting her sudden appearance. There were dark marks under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept. He probably hadn’t.

  She hadn’t been expecting him to be here. She clasped the strap of her bag, wondering what she needed to say. What did she need to do to make him go away?

  He got to his feet awkwardly, sore from the outdoor sleep and cement stoop. His eyes slowly taking her in. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t ask if she was okay, or tell her she looked remarkably good despite the sleepless night. He parked all the standard remarks and said nothing at all. She was forced to speak instead.

  “Sleep here all night?” Direct, straight. Don’t let yourself feel anything for him. Don’t do it Evie. He was just a hurdle on her path. Someone that would hold her back.

  “Yeah, if you could call it that.” He arched his eyebrows upwards at his ironic comment. She didn’t smile, but nodded. Acknowledge him, he did you a good turn yesterday. Who knows where you would have ended up if he didn’t march you home?

  “Thanks for walking me back here yesterday,” she said, followed by a perfunctory nod of her own head.

  Now keep moving before he halts the process. Things like this, picking up and leaving, had to be done fast. The band-aid had to come right off, in one swift motion. Quickly. Otherwise things became sticky and painful. She didn’t want that.

  “I have to go and pick up Tilley,” she said heading past him to the gate. For a second she thought he was just going to let her go on her way but it was too easy an exit.

  “Hang on,” he said, grabbing her by the arm and spinning her back towards him. She avoided his eyes, those dark kind eyes. There was something epic about him. That filled her up completely. It called her bluff and made her want to believe, in everything. “Can you tell me what’s going on here?” he demanded, hand on hip. Like he deserved an answer. She wanted to scream at him – nobody deserves an answer. She should know as much. She’d never gotten any.

  “What do you mean?” she circumvented.

  “I mean with you. You lost the plot yesterday. You never told me your brother had committed suicide – and yesterday, clearly that kid’s death triggered some hard shit for you. I could hear you wailing all night,” he gestured towards the door. His voice was hard, and his eyes. He wanted her to face up to what was going on. Nope – not even close.

  “And?” she asked obtusely.

  “And now you’re treating me like a stranger,” he said, there was something wounded about him, that she didn’t care to recognize.

  “No offence G, but you kind of are,” she said harshly. This is how it worked, when you left people behind, you had to hurt them. A lot. So they didn’t care about you going, and so they wouldn’t come after you. You had to destroy the memory ofyou -the pre-existing one in their minds and replace it with something else. Something ugly.

  “You joking?” he questioned taken aback.

  “No,” she responded resolutely. She had to avoid his eyes because otherwise she couldn’t go through with this. “I met you a few months ago. We’ve hung out a bit, so what? It doesn’t a love story make,” she said to him. Straight-up.

  He shook his head at her, and took a step back, like she’d hit him. Maybe she had. Not physically but emotionally. She knew violence, and she knew how to administer it when it was required.

  “We hung out?” he repeated, like he couldn’t believe she’d reduced to so little.

  “Yeah, we hung out,” she said again. “We had sex a few times, so what?” she furrowed her brow, like she couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. He stared at her perplexed, like he was trying to process this response. The 454 bus for the city pulled up behind them. A bus load of people climbed out. Suits and ties ready for work. Some of them looked at them, intrigued. A screenplay in action. A break-up. A recital.

  “It’s not about the sex,” he said to her. “I could have sex with anyone and it might mean nothing. It was about all the rest. Everything else that went along with it. I though we ... He trailed off, like he was second-guessing himself. Yes, do it. None of it happened it was all in your head. The best liar, believes the lie.

  “What?” she demanded.

  Again, he shook his head like there was water in his ears. “I thought we connected.”

  Suddenly she felt her throat constrict. They had connected. He had understood her in ways that she didn’t even understand herself. He knew her completely. In her ravaged state he still found something to love. She needed to disconnect now, at this very moment. Otherwise – this between them, threatened everything.

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m a hot mess G. I don’t connect with anyone. It was just a thing. We both needed to feel something, and we were there for each other for that moment in time. But if you want something more – I’m not the one,” she said. Mechanical. Automatic. All there and nothing else.

  He laughed for a second and put his hands up to his eyes. “Oh my God, I cannot believe you’re saying this. Did I misread this entire situation? Is that possible? And what are you going to do now? Are you running again?” he demanded. She wasn’t sure if he was asking her a question or just running through a soliloquy. He knew the answer – because he knew her too well. So she didn’t respond.

  “You are, aren’t you? You going back to Melbourne? Or maybe somewhere else altogether. Where no one knows you. Where there are no memories. I’m right aren’t I? It’s Brisbane isn’t it?” he could read her like the palm of his hand. Of course she was going to Brisbane, stay on the east coast where everything was familiar and safe, big city where you could blend in and nobody would notice you disappear if you needed to, somewhere where there were no memories. Brisbane. She had no other options. She’d exhausted the rest.

  “That’s it. Fuck Evie. I can’t believe it.” He laughed again, like he couldn’t quite believe that she’d played him for such a fool. Had she? Maybe. Maybe deep down this had always been her intent.

  “I told you I wasn’t good at this stuff,” she said finally. And she had. She’d never really made any public declaration to him. He couldn’t hold her to account for anything. Only her actions. And they weren’t worth the paper they were printed on.

  “Yeah, you did ... but I waged on thi
s. I put my heart on this ...” he said.

  She could feel something constricting in her chest. Don’t say that. Say anything but that. Close it down Evie. Close it down before he goes too far. Before he leaves another memory that you can’t erase.

  “You shouldn’t have. I never asked you to. I don’t belong here G,” as some sort of explanation. “This place, Redfern, I hate it. It brings out the worst in people. It gets under your skin and in your veins. It makes you bad. It makes everything bad. I need to get out.”

  What type of explanation was that? She wasn’t sure. It was something. But it was never going to be enough. Nothing would have been.

  “You know you’ve got some sort of vendetta against Redfern and everyone in it. You think it’s a bad place. It’s not. It’s fucking everything. It’s the beating heart of this bloody country. The place where real fights are being fought. Where people don’t pretend to be someone else. The real fucking primitive soul of us all. You afraid of the Aboriginals? The white fellas? The junkies? The dealers? The homeless? What the fuck is it? They’re just like you and me – no different, no better, no worse. They’re just real. You know what I think, Evie, I think you’re afraid of what’s real. You’re afraid to feel anything. So go and fucking hide. Go on then. Break my heart and keep on running. At the end of the day, yours is broken already. I’m Redfern through and through – and I’m fucking proud of it. You keep on, pretty girl. You keep on,” he backed away from her slowly and then walked away, down Elizabeth Street.

  He just kept on walking.

  She put her bag on her shoulder. Yeah, she’d keep on.

  40

  Running again

  (2017, Redfern)

  Tilley was crying in the corridor. Big crocodile tears and sobs. She was still in her school uniform. Evie worked around her, shoving bits and pieces into boxes. As per usual, everything was labelled misc. The cardboard boxes she’d arrived with and stowed shortly in the outside garage had come in handy. Again. She ignored Tilley, and ran over her mental list again. Resignation, school, lease broken, bags mostly packed ... it was coming together. Of course there would be loose ends, there would always be loose ends, but she could sort those out from Brisbane. Most of the boxes were already in the car. It was all but done now. She could feel this shameful place already loosening its grip on her. Soon it would be gone.