All I Ever Wanted Page 4

  ‘Can you listen to something for me?’

  She boots the computer and while she waits for it to start up, she pulls out a beanbag and pats a shape for my bum with her foot. Maybe Alice in Wonderland felt like this. Weirded out but willing to go along for the ride.

  Then she closes the door and switches off the lights. All I can see is a skinny strip of brightness under the door and a bar of lights on the screen that looks like the graphic equaliser in Matt’s old ute. Music starts: bass, strings, pipes. It starts simply, then layers start piling on top of each other, except I can still hear the original tune. It sounds like club music, but there’s a classical element that I can’t quite catch. The music peaks, then the layers ebb away one by one until all that’s left is the original tune. It’s beautiful and I want to hear it again.

  ‘What do you think?’ Kate’s voice in the dark.

  ‘Love it. Replay please, deejay.’

  I can hear her smile. ‘I’ll play you another version.’

  I kick back in that beanbag and just listen. Kate loops the music. I’m relaxed and happy and naturally high. In the back of my mind I know that this is wrong and I have somewhere I need to be. Like laughing at a joke, then remembering that somebody died. Guilty pleasure.

  She turns on the lights and takes a bow. I look at all that gear and the pride on her face and the penny drops.

  ‘That’s you? Playing the clarinet?’

  ‘And the other stuff.’ She points to the computer.

  For the second time in an hour, my jaw hammers like I’ve swallowed a pill.

  ‘That’s amazing.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I think.’

  ‘I like to write music.’

  She says it as if it’s nothing. She’s everything I try to be, except she has that thing, the thing that sets her apart from ordinary people.

  ‘Do you have anything else?’

  ‘Heaps. But I’m still working on them.’

  ‘Can I come back? To hear them?’ I’m surprised to find I mean it.

  ‘I’d like that.’ She blushes.

  She shuts down the computer and we go back to the kitchen. Everything gleams and I know I must be a great, dark blotch in all that white. A stain. Kate pours another cool drink and cuts a wedge of lemon. She drops it into the glass and slides it across. I can see her measuring her words before they come out.

  ‘I meant to thank you. Last year. For sticking up for me.’

  I don’t want to embarrass her, so I nod but don’t say anything.

  ‘When Todd Pearson sent that “One time, at band camp” poem around. You know, the one about me and my clarinet…you know.’ Her face is strawberry-red. ‘I just wondered, how did you get him to apologise like that? In front of everybody.’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t that hard. Pearson’s a dick.’ I shrug it off.

  ‘No, really. I need…I mean it must have been…’

  I feel an unreasonable anger. She’s so goddamn persistent.

  ‘Kate, do you know anything about my family?’

  ‘No. I mean, I know…No. I try not to listen to what other people say,’ she says, but her gaze skitters away.

  Her discomfort tells me that she knows. That she wants me to tell her none of it is true. And I can’t. I scrunch my fists and let my usual defensive reaction take over. I open my mouth and the words fly out.

  ‘We’re not very nice people,’ I say. ‘We sell drugs and we lend money to poor people who can’t pay it back and then when they can’t pay it back we take their stuff and sell it. For more money. Sometimes if they don’t have money or stuff, we hurt them. And we have a fairly solid reputation for hurting people, so chances are Todd Pearson took a look at his options and decided on public humiliation over pain and disfigurement. That’s it.’

  She could be a chameleon, the way the pink drains away from her cheeks. She’s bloodless now, blending into the background white.

  I laugh and the sound is ugly. I know I’ve ruined this fragile beginning, my only link to Jordan. That’s what I’m here for, isn’t it? The package?

  ‘So, now you know. Can I use your bathroom again? Then I’ll be out of here.’

  I don’t wait for an answer and she doesn’t move from her stool. The closed door beckons. I expect it to be locked, but the handle turns. I hold my breath as the airbrushed family stare at me. Is it breaking and entering if you’re already in the house?

  I see a guy’s room, guy things and I smell a guy smell. I don’t see the package. I look under the bed and have a quick poke in the wardrobe, but nothing. On the very top shelf, wedged between a surfing mag and a uni syllabus, is a familiar glittery rectangle of red. When I pull it out, the rest come too. My cards. Every one.

  I can’t leave a piece of myself in that room, so I take them. I run out of that house leaving the door wide open.

  SEVEN

  The next morning, for the first time ever, I decide I can’t wait for the holidays to be over. At school I have people telling me what to do, giving me direction. There are timetables, expectations: eat now, write this essay, dissect this, analyse that. Usually, the sheer promise of an empty day is thrilling. I can get up when I want to, wear whatever I like, ride the feeling until something happens.

  I don’t want to get out of bed. I lie there for ages, but I can’t get back to sleep.

  It’s the second day in a row that Mum hasn’t been home. Her shopping bags are gone so I’m guessing she’ll be trawling the reject shops, enjoying the air-conditioning. I’m sure she’s avoiding me. Sometimes it feels like we breathe the same air, but we exist on different planets.

  There’s no milk, so my coffee’s black and bitter. There’s no noise, so I switch on the radio. There’s no hot water because the service is on the blink, so I have a cold shower. On any other day, in this heat, it might be refreshing, but today it just pisses me off.

  I take some meat from the fridge: unearthly red on the outside, but brown and dead when I cut into it. It smells okay, though. Good enough for a monster.

  The wood pigeon babies are gone. All that’s left of the nest are a few sticks and strands of cotton wool, like it’s been dismantled. It could have been the wind. I wonder if they were ready to fly, if they’re safe.

  The doggy-door at the back of the shed is still propped open. If Gargoyle had gone he would have dislodged the stick. I make plenty of noise to let him know I’m coming.

  He’s sitting up, ears cocked, tail stiff. Instinctively, I hold my breath when I go in, but he’s not interested in me. He wants the meat. Drool hangs from his jowls and drops to the floor with a dull splat. He gulps the meat without chewing and the lump inches down his throat in a solid mass. It’s like watching an anaconda swallow a goat.

  ‘Benny’s right. There’s nothing wrong with you. Go home.’

  Thump.

  I think we’re friends now. When I squat next to him, he’s taller than me. I keep my eyes on a spot to his right and stretch out my hand, fingers curled under. I’m shaking a little bit. I can feel his warm blowing, then a cool wetness on my knuckles.

  Growl.

  I snap my hand back. He’s amused, and that makes me braver. I inch my hand to the top of his head and rest it there. He flattens his ears but doesn’t resist.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I tell him. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’

  I know that this is as close as I’ll ever get. He’s broken in ways I’m not. The kink in his tail, the skew in his back leg, the hollow in his side where his ribs have caved in. He tolerates my hand because he chooses it.

  When I take it away, he relaxes.

  Thump.

  I hold the shed door open for a minute. ‘Go on. Go home.’

  He looks at me, does a doggy pirouette, then drops onto his blanket with a sigh.

  I leave him there and go inside the house, grab an apple and spray-bottle of water, then sit out on the front porch in an old armchair that’s hammocked from hours of porch-sitting. Heat hits me like a s
lap. The sun blazes behind thin sheets of cloud and the air is a blanket over my face. This summer will never end. I spritz myself until the bottle is empty and my skin is tight and dry.

  The postman crams a wad of envelopes into our letterbox and burns on past. I wonder if he gets danger money for delivering in this street. Further up the road a couple of Tarrant kids are taping ‘lost dog’ posters to the light poles. The one in front of our house is blank. I feel a twang of guilt. Just a little one.

  I shuffle through the mail and find a letter addressed to the house next door. M. Hale. Our ghostly neighbour. I wonder what the initial stands for. Lola isn’t her real name, but I have to call her something.

  I know about most of our neighbours. We’ve lived here nearly all my life. The house next to us on the other side has been empty for a year and a faded condemnation order is stuck to the door. There are single mothers with kids in plague proportions and cars that don’t run; ancients that dodder about like empty husks with their Zimmer frames and their predictable routines; families like us whose kids have grown up and moved out, but not away. Matt and Dill share a house two streets along and Mum still goes over to do their washing and put the bins out.

  I know a lot about Benny. I know he sometimes doesn’t eat for days. He has a toe missing and a twenty-centimetre scar on his belly from a spear gun. I know he came down from the Top End sometime in the seventies and got stranded. He had a wife, but she bailed. He likes full-strength beer but he’ll drink light if he has to, it just means he has to double up. I know there’s more to Benny than just being an old drunk, because I’ve seen his curses come to pass and I’ve seen him make broken birds fly. Like the time the old Italian guy behind Benny poisoned Mrs Tkautz’s apple trees because he said they were stealing sun from his tomatoes—Mrs Tkautz still picks glorious, abundant fruit year after year. Mr Benetti hasn’t picked a single tomato since Benny climbed over the fence and pissed on his patch. Mum says the piss was a nice touch but purely for dramatic effect—the ground would have turned fallow from a malicious thought if that’s what Benny wanted. So the legend goes, anyway.

  I know Mrs Tkautz could afford to move to a nicer area. She drives a new Hyundai and her purse always looks fat and heavy and her hair is always done. I know she had a stroke because her face droops on one side like a shirt that’s slipping off the hanger. I know she hates children. I know she hates me.

  I know Mick Tarrant beats the crap out of his wife and kids and nobody stops him.

  Of Lola, I know almost nothing. We hear the phone ringing, mostly at night. We reckon it’s men calling and the sounds we hear give us a fair idea what they’re calling for. Mum has a theory: if you’ve lived next door to somebody for two months and never officially met, best leave it that way because it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

  I’m feeling bored and twitchy, so I take the letter to her door. I knock twice, but there’s no answer. I’m about to walk away when there’s a scuffling sound and the door opens a crack. Bleary panda-eyes in old make-up, a scruffy dressing gown and men’s slippers. Her hair is short, burnt-orange, bed-head style—but that could be because she’s just woken up.

  ‘Hi,’ she says.

  ‘We got your mail.’ I poke the letter through the crack.

  ‘Oh, thanks. You from next door?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m Mim.’

  The crack widens. She shuffles away, arms floppy, head tilted to the side like a zombie. ‘Come in. Give me a minute. I’ll chuck some clothes on.’

  It’s dark inside, and so warm I think I might pass out. There’s a musty smell, like clothes left in the machine too long, and a fat Buddha squats by the door.

  Lola comes out wearing a tank top and boy shorts that could be underwear. She whips open the blind, and I squint.

  ‘Which side are you from, Kim?’

  ‘Mim. The other half of you.’

  ‘Oh. Fuck.’ I can see her thinking. Wondering if we’ve heard her screaming, moaning, begging.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I ask her. L.O.L.A.

  ‘Melinda. Sorry, I’m a bit vague at the moment. I work nights.’ She lights a cigarette.

  ‘What do you do?’ Biting my cheek.

  ‘Just night work. How old are you, anyway?’

  ‘Nearly seventeen.’

  ‘You look younger. I’ll be eighteen in a few months.’

  I feel mean and cruel. She looks a lot older. I thought maybe twenty-five.

  ‘Have a seat. Do you want a drink?’

  ‘No, thanks. I’d better go.’

  ‘Come on. I won’t be able to get back to sleep, anyway.’ She goes to the kitchen and brings back two bottles of lemonade.

  I’m parched. I take a huge, grateful swig and nearly choke on it. It’s vodka, or something clear and just as deadly. The bubbles fizz down into my throat and burst there, leaving me gasping for breath.

  Lola laughs at my expression and chinks her bottle against mine. ‘Hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t usually drink,’ I say.

  ‘You’re kidding? Hey, have you heard anything about a peeper in the neighbourhood?’

  ‘What’s a peeper?’

  ‘A pervert. You know, someone who likes looking through people’s windows.’

  I nearly turn and spit over my shoulder. It’s a reflex. Mum does it to ward off evil spirits.

  ‘No, why?’

  Her eyes flick left and right. She peels a fingernail. ‘I don’t want any trouble,’ she says. ‘I just got this place and I don’t have anywhere else to go.’

  ‘I won’t say anything.’

  She butts out the cigarette and lights another one.

  ‘About a week ago I was sitting here and I thought I heard something outside. So, I turned off all the lights and I waited.’ She laughs. ‘I grabbed one of those big knives, you know, like this.’ She makes a horror-flick stabbing motion. ‘And I sat on the couch for a bit. Then, this face appears at the window and he’s looking around, then he goes to my bedroom window and I hear a scratching sound. So I turned on a light and picked up the phone. Made out like I was calling the police, and then he’s gone.’

  ‘Did you see his face?’ I ask. My skin feels crawly thinking about it.

  ‘Not really, not up close. It was dark but I don’t think I’ve seen him before. I hope he doesn’t come back. Man, there’s some funny people around here.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ I say.

  ‘How’s that place? The one with the big dog. I have to cross the road when I go past because he always comes at you and you think he’s going to get you, then he reaches the end of his chain and…’ she gurgles.

  ‘Sometimes he’s not chained. But he won’t cross the road.’

  ‘I hate big dogs. Scare the shit out of me every time.’

  ‘You should call the police. About the pervert,’ I say, even though it goes against everything I’ve ever known.

  ‘I would, but I sublet this place. The guy that got it for me said no police, no landlord, otherwise I’ll get kicked out and he’ll lose his lease.’ She begs me with her smeary eyes. ‘I’m underage. Please don’t tell anyone. I don’t have anywhere else to go.’

  ‘I won’t say anything. Promise,’ I say.

  She hooks her little finger around mine and shakes it. For a moment I’m reminded of Tahnee and our pinkie promises in the playground, how she always needed looking after, even with her tough exterior. If Lola’s doing what I think she’s doing—sleeping with strangers for money—I just want to hug her. Take her home to Mum. She knows what to do with a girl who smokes and swears and can’t keep her legs closed.

  ‘You can always ring me,’ I offer. ‘I’ll give you my number and you can call if something happens. We’re right next door.’ Like there’s anything we can do without Matt and Dill. A middle-aged fat woman and a skinny coward.

  But she says, ‘Are you serious? Oh man, I haven’t slept properly since it happened. T
hat would be great. Thanks.’

  I tell her my mobile number and she writes it in permanent black Texta onto the side of her fridge. Next to it she writes my other half inside a big heart that has eyes and a fat-cheeked grin.

  EIGHT

  Tahnee’s sitting on the doorstep when I get home.

  ‘I’ve been ringing you forever. Where’s your phone? Where have you been?’ She frowns and stabs her phone at me, like it’s an exclamation point. She’s pretty in a familiar kind of way that I forget to notice, until someone else notices and I’m reminded.

  ‘I was next door.’ I bend down and whisper, close to her ear. ‘I met Lola. Well, her real name is Melinda but she looks more like a Lola to me.’

  ‘The…’ she stops and giggles. ‘Yes, yes, YES!’

  ‘Shut UP,’ I hiss and drag her inside by the elbow.

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘She doesn’t look like a prostitute, if that’s what you mean. She’s really young, like, only seventeen.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. She was nice, too.’ I nearly tell her more, but I made a promise.

  ‘Where’s your mum?’

  ‘Dunno. Shops maybe. You know what she’s like when she feels the need to splurge. I reckon she sleeps there. Anyway, she’s a bit dark at me at the moment.’

  ‘Good. I mean, good that she’s not here, not good that she’s dark at you. What have you done, Miss Perfect?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Oh my God, you haven’t broken a rule.’

  ‘None of the major ones,’ I smirk. ‘Anyway, she doesn’t even know about the rules. You know that.’

  ‘No, she just thinks you’re a freak of nature. Maybe they switched babies at the hospital.’

  ‘Ha ha.’

  Tahnee thinks my rules are hilarious. She’s all for living in the moment, the here and now, because tomorrow might never come and yesterdays have been and gone. So, suck it up, baby, seize the day, drink the nectar of life and don’t worry about shit until it happens. That’s her motto.