Ballad for a Mad Girl Read online

  I duck. I can still see the washing line and her hands, but not her face. She won’t see me. She shakes and snaps a white sheet, pegging it in three places, followed by two blue towels. Then her hands shake out some smaller items—too small to be hers, and far too delicate. I recognise the lace bra, girlish underwear, and a pair of white shortie pyjamas. They’re worn so thin the sunlight passes through, turning some patches brownish-yellow. They’re not clean.

  Why is she washing Hannah’s clothes? What’s the point? Who is going to wear them?

  Her hands are still for a long moment. I hold my breath, worried I’ve been spotted. She snatches at the bra, yanking it by a strap, sending the pegs pinging off somewhere. She’s dragging the clean washing from the line, stuffing it back into the basket, cursing. The squeaking noise starts again. I duck lower. I can see all of her now. She’s pushing a trolley, carrying the basket up the steps, through the back door, into a laundry; she’s stuffing the washing into the machine, still muttering. She pours about half a bottle of liquid over the clothing and slams the lid, turning the dial viciously, and disappears.

  The back door is wide open.

  I move closer to the fence. Through the kitchen window, I watch her go upstairs. There’s the sound of glass breaking and someone yelling. My skin prickling all over, I hoist myself over the fence and creep across the yard. More shouting.

  Is there someone else inside the house?

  I press close to the warm weatherboard planks, sidling along as flakes of old paint peel off and cling to my back. Up the steps, to the back door. The laundry reeks of bleach. Somewhere, a door slams. I tiptoe through the hallway and into the kitchen, pull out my phone, open the camera and snap four shots of the photo on the fridge, just as a shoe comes flying down the stairs to rest upside-down on the last step.

  Someone screams. Every instinct is telling me to leave the way I came—now, before I’m caught, or caught up in something that’s none of my business—but in the distance I hear a low sobbing and a crunch, like breaking bone.

  I place one foot on the bottom step, next to the shoe. It’s a stiletto, white, with a broken heel. The muscles in my calves are so tense they’re cramping, and sweat makes my hoodie cling to my skin. I take nine quick, silent steps. I can see the door of Hannah’s room: it’s open, sunlight spilling into the dark hallway.

  Another scream, this one ear-splitting, but with anger, not fear. Now I can make sense of the sounds coming from the room.

  Susannah Holt’s in there, alone, and she’s trashing it: opening drawers, tearing paper, scattering bottles and throwing shoes. She’s muttering. She’s speaking to her daughter as if she’s in there with her.

  The hair on my arms stands up. I back away, one step at a time, until I’ve reached the back door and the clean air outside.

  In the safety of the gully I scroll through the photos. The first two are out of focus, the next cuts off a third of the right-hand side of the picture. The last is clear and true, if a little dark. I edit, adjusting the contrast and light, and pinch the screen to zoom in. I drag my finger, moving past each face in the class, and when I zoom out again I can see the perfect triangle—middle top, bottom left, bottom right.

  For once, my memory hasn’t failed me. There are not only two faces I recognise in this picture—there are three.

  Hannah Holt, with her guarded smile.

  My mother, Erin Grady, challenging the lens with her stare.

  And a young Dominic Aloisi, with his thick neck and his straight, square-edged teeth.

  On Sunday, I lie to Dad, begging him to let me meet my friends at the mall so we can hold a wake to mourn the end of the holidays. He forces me to eat a sandwich before he decides I can go, watching carefully as I go through the motions: chewing, swallowing, washing the plate.

  ‘Want me to drive you? I’ve got a load to take to the dump. I’ll be going right past,’ he offers.

  I shake my head. ‘I’ll walk. I’m meeting Kenzie halfway.’ The fluorescent stripes on his vest hurt my eyes.

  ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ He says it gently, but there’s an edge.

  I smother a wave of fury. There’s a whole lot he isn’t telling me, and I’m not allowed to ask in case I puncture this family-sized bag of hurt we’re all protecting.

  I smile. ‘Of course not. I’d better get going. I’m late.’

  Ten minutes later, he passes me in the truck on the main road. I’ve just arrived at the bus stop, but I keep walking, doubling back when he’s out of sight.

  To know Hannah Holt, I need to know William Dean, and the Dean house is open for inspection at two.

  I get there half an hour early. The street is packed: there’s no parking for three or four blocks, and a restless mob waits for the door to open. The worst part is the Deans are still inside, peering through the curtains. Are they too afraid to come out?

  It’s not as if the house is anything special—except it is. There’s no such thing as a short memory in Swamptown.

  I wait by the alley where I’m less likely to be noticed. Ten minutes later, both cars pull out of the driveway. The Deans hunker down; the crowd parts as though they might catch something, as though tragedy is a virus.

  I know. I’ve experienced it.

  The real estate agent’s shiny BMW turns up at the same time that my phone pings.

  It’s Gummer. At your place. Where r u?

  Out, I reply.

  Out where?

  He must be hungry. Either that or his clothes need washing. I ignore his last message.

  The agent puts a flag and a yellow sign at the end of the driveway, not that there’s any confusion as to which house is for sale. People are queuing at the front door already. When it opens, I wait fifteen minutes to see if the crowd dies down. But the queue remains steady, so I join the line, trying not to make eye contact with anyone.

  ‘Would you like a brochure?’ the agent asks the woman ahead of me.

  I hold out my hand and he dismisses it. He’s sweating, red in the face—excited about the number of prospective buyers or annoyed because he suspects we’re all ‘just looking’, I can’t tell. He waves me through.

  I follow the woman into a lounge room. She’s breathing heavily and gives off an odour like cat pee, or perhaps the smell is coming from the threadbare carpet. The lounge room is stripped of everything apart from large items like the couch, and the table and chairs. There’s nothing personal on display—no photos, ornaments or books on the bookshelves. It’s colder in here than it is outside, and dim, even with all the lights switched on.

  We wander into the kitchen and dining room. Again, it’s bare except for a wilting bunch of yellow roses in a blue vase on the table. The first and second bedrooms are large but empty; the third is a cluttered haven for dust and a stack of empty moving boxes. The house is a warren of rooms with tiny windows. I step into a sunken family room at the rear—only a combustion heater and a single armchair. Cat-pee woman turns a slow circle, gazing at the ceiling. Her thin lips turn down. I brush up against a wave of people and they’re all wearing a similar expression: disappointment. This house is ordinary. Ugly, even. Suddenly I feel like laughing. Were we all expecting a house of horrors? Evidence of devil worship? An evil, ageing portrait of William Dean?

  There are more people leaving than arriving now. Across the room, I see a familiar face: Lucy Babbage, one of our old neighbours. As if I’ve called her name, her head turns and she shoots me a questioning smile. I duck into the hallway, through a door, into the laundry. The back door is open, the screen door latched.

  I flip the latch and dash down a flight of concrete steps to the backyard. A dented garage takes up the length of one side, and a washing line squeaks as it spins, its arms bowed just like the one at the farm that Cody and I used to swing on. All the way to the back fence, the weeds have been recently cut, exposing thick yellow roots like worms, raising the sweet smell of hacked grass, and around the yard there are indentations and hump
s of dirt as if the ground had been dug up a long time ago.

  It was, I remember from the newspaper clippings. They looked for Hannah Holt here.

  I check down either side of the house, searching for another way out, but the side gate is padlocked and the roller door under the carport is down. I’ll have to wait until Lucy Babbage leaves—or I could jump the back fence and escape through the gully. But before I can move, the screen door bangs. A family of five are heading down the steps into the yard.

  I try to make it look as if I’m casually inspecting the garden as the children run around, leaping from hump to hump. Their mother tells them off. The man turns the handle on the garage side door, and appears surprised when it opens. I move closer, peering past him, and a rush of air escapes, prompting the man to pinch his nose and slam the door. The family head back inside the house.

  I turn the handle and inhale. The smell is a blend of dust, dampness, ammonia and wood. It’s not unpleasant. Inside, there’s barely room to move: teetering stacks of chairs, piles of bulging boxes, and racks of old clothing left to rot. Some of it, I realise—T-shirts, ripped jeans, a leather biker jacket—must have belonged to him.

  I step further inside and run my hand across a scarred tabletop, leaving tracks in the dust. A green BMX dangles from a wire above my head—I reach up to flick the lever on the bell and it makes a strangled, grating noise, setting off a scurry of movement. Mice. Or rats. The afternoon sun slips lower and a beam of light pours through the glass slats of a window, giving shape to the shadows. I can just make out a bunk bed, a pile of empty picture frames, an acoustic guitar and an easel in the far corner, as well as several pieces of exercise equipment covered with cobwebs.

  It’s as if the Deans packed away their lives—not recently, but a long, long time ago.

  My nerve endings are thrumming with recognition and something else. Not fear, but longing. I dance my fingertips over the keys of an ancient typewriter, a square wooden box with a brass catch, a cloudy jar with a blueish residue in the bottom—everything I smell, everything I touch, it’s all eerily familiar.

  I check my phone. It’s nearly 2.45. The inspection was over fifteen minutes ago.

  I back swiftly out of the garage, close the door behind me, and dash up the steps into the laundry. Voices. Two men, one the agent and the other, a tall, grey-haired man I assume to be Mr Dean. They’re in the kitchen. I manage to tiptoe past without either of them turning around, but as I bolt down the hallway to the front door, I run smack into Mrs Dean.

  She gasps, winded, and stumbles back. Her eyes widen and she flings out a hand to stop herself from falling. She’s clutching something to her chest, holding it underneath her cardigan like a baby; even as she slides to the floor in slow motion, she doesn’t let go.

  ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ I grab her forearm and haul her up, steadying her against my body. A shudder passes between us—hers or mine, I’m not sure. I check her over for injury. The whites of her eyes are bloodshot, the skin around her mouth an unhealthy shade of blue, and she’s so thin she might have broken in two when she fell.

  I stammer another apology, holding on to her frail shoulders.

  ‘Jeanette?’ One of the voices from the kitchen.

  She twists away. Her free hand joins the other to cradle the thing in her arms. Without a word, she steps away. Her gaze is vacant, and she doesn’t seem shaken or upset; she doesn’t seem conscious of anything at all.

  I obey the urge to run and keep on running until I’m as far away from the Dean house as my legs can take me. I’m almost halfway home before they give out. I walk the rest of the way, haunted by the texture of her eyes, like shattered mirrors, still rattled by the sensation I felt as I held her.

  It was as if we shared a heartbeat.

  There’s a black Ford 250 on the front lawn, parked like it was stolen and dumped, and, from the wet patches on the tyres, it looks like Diesel has marked his territory. The door to the house is open and the television is blaring.

  I go upstairs to find Gummer asleep on my bed.

  ‘What are you doing in my room?’ I kick his foot. There’s a half-eaten apple on the side table.

  ‘What day is it?’ he mumbles. ‘Are we late for school?’

  ‘It’s Sunday. School’s tomorrow.’ I sweated buckets running home. I need a shower, but not with Gummer here. ‘How’d you get in, anyway?’

  ‘Door was open,’ he says, sitting up. He has sheet wrinkles on his face. ‘Nobody was home.’

  ‘So you just let yourself in, ate an apple and fell asleep like Snow freaking White?’

  He gives me a quizzical look. ‘Why are you mad?’

  I flinch at his word choice. ‘I need to take a shower.’

  ‘Seriously. Why are you angry all the time? You’re so different lately.’

  Pointedly, I go into the bathroom, yank the dirty towel from the rack and throw it in the corner. I get a clean towel from the hall linen cupboard and come back with it draped around my neck.

  Gummer’s standing with his hands in his pockets. ‘I know you’re probably still upset, but Kenzie said it was like before. You know, like with your mum and the accident. We were worried. We didn’t know how to handle it.’

  Against my will, I tear up. ‘Like, how? Like I was sad? Of course I was sad then. Anyway, this isn’t the same thing. I don’t need all this Dr Phil interventionist bullshit. How about you guys just be there to hold my hand and feed me and laugh at my jokes like you used to? Oh, wait, you’re right, that was before. When you were my friends.’

  He shakes his head. ‘You were more than sad back then, Grace. We didn’t know how to handle it then, either. It’s hard to understand you when you’re so hellbent on being misunderstood.’

  ‘Screw you.’

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Is that your default setting now?’

  I don’t answer. I just want him to leave. I open drawers and grab clean underwear and clothes.

  ‘So where are the little green guys?’

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the star-gazer.’

  ‘No, I mean the tank dudes.’

  I turn around slowly. The tank’s empty. The water line is down by a third at least, and Waldorf and Statler are gone. ‘Did you let them out?’ I say.

  ‘Yeah. I took them for a walk.’ He laughs, then realises I’m serious. ‘Of course I didn’t.’ He’s crawling on the floor, checking under the bed and behind the curtains. ‘For real? They can’t just disappear.’ He looks up. ‘Why are you just standing there?’

  I feel suddenly, desperately sad. ‘Gummer, why don’t you ever go home?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I’m not trying to be mean. I’m just asking the question.’

  He stares down at his scuffed sneakers. ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

  He has a new tattoo on the inside of his wrist, in some kind of script. It’s not really his style.

  ‘I never thought I’d say it, but Amber’s right—we all keep secrets from each other. We used to tell each other everything.’

  He’s giving me the strangest look, like he’s grappling with a mammoth equation and nothing is adding up. ‘But, Grace,’ he says. ‘I do go home. There’s no big secret. I just like other people’s food and couches.’

  ‘Stop making fun of me.’

  ‘I’m not!’ He lowers his voice. ‘You’re acting paranoid.’

  My head aches with frustration. I rub my eyes with my fists.

  ‘You have to talk about it,’ he says gently. ‘Whatever it is.’

  I smile. I know it’s a horrible smile because it feels as if my mouth is splitting. ‘You see that corner?’ He looks to where I’m pointing: the dark corner of my room. ‘There’s something awful there, waiting for me. You can’t see it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.’

  His eyes widen. ‘How do you know I can’t see it?’

  ‘Okay. What do you see?’ I put one hand on my hip.

  His eyes slide
left. ‘A dirty towel.’

  I push him across the room. ‘You have to go.’

  ‘Don’t you want to keep looking? There has to be an explanation.’

  I shove him through the door. He has his foot wedged in the gap. I kick it, stubbing my toe. ‘I am looking! There is no explanation! People disappear all the time and never get found. She’s just gone, okay?’

  ‘Grace, I’m talking about the dudes. Who did you think I was talking about?’

  ‘Please go.’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, pressing his nose to the gap. ‘I’ll go. But think about it—maybe no one tells you anything because you don’t listen.’

  I don’t hear his footsteps on the stairs which means he rode the banister. I wait until I see the Ford pull away and tear my room apart looking for Waldorf and Statler.

  After an hour of searching and crying, and no result, I take a long, hot shower. The water stings where my skin’s still not healed. I close my eyes and concentrate on the sensation of the needles of water hitting my scalp, praying for another shift in reality: when I step out there will be a full tank, drifting axolotls, and Gummer was never here.

  But Gummer’s beanie is lying on my bed and they’re still gone.

  I hope something will happen so I won’t have to go to school. A natural disaster before breakfast—it’s not much to ask. But it’s a clear, cool day outside and Dad’s made pancakes with lemon and sugar; he’s even ironed my uniform and packed me a lunch.

  ‘You have an appointment with Connie Renfrey straight after school,’ he says. ‘Don’t forget.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Did you ever find a new topic for that project you were working on?’ He hands me my lunch box.

  Now he’s showing an interest in my schoolwork. ‘Yeah. I did.’ He raises an eyebrow, and I’m scrambling to come up with something to put him off the scent. ‘Germ theory,’ I tell him, because Gummer once did a revolting, hour-long presentation about cholera that I still can’t get out of my head.

  Cody comes into the kitchen rubbing his eyes. ‘Morning.’