A Little Wanting Song (14 page)

The problem with the world isn’t that there are too many liars. The problem is that people aren’t good enough at it. Who said nobody likes a liar? I like liars. I love liars. “Charlie, you are beautiful. Everybody loves you, Charlie Duskin.” I could do with a bit of that.

I’m working on a couple of new songs. I can’t decide between “Dave Robbie Is a Total Loser/Moron/Wanker,” “Dave Robbie Picks His Nose and Eats It,” “Where the Fuck Is Dad?” or, my personal favorite, “Shove This Song Up Your Arse, Rose Butler.” I play them loud. I play them till the walls throw them back at me. No one comes and asks what’s wrong. I play louder. Still no one. “Is Everyone in This Place Deaf?” I thrash out loudly. Apparently, yes.

I take my guitar on tour instead. We walk around the house. Grandpa’s left a note to wake him when dinner’s ready. Dad’s left a note to say he’s in the shop and not to worry about food for him. If he’s in the shop, surely he hears me and my angry guitar song. What would my note say? “Notice me, notice me, notice me.” I play some chords loudly to go with it. What sort of dad needs a note to work that out about his daughter? Gus and Beth notice things about me and they lived through the sixties.

Dahlia used to say I had a dad other kids dreamed about. “He never yells, he wouldn’t notice if you sneaked out, and he cooks the best chocolate cake I’ve ever tasted. What more do you want?”

I want a whole lot more. I want someone to talk to. I want someone who can fix things when they’re broken. I want to scream and have someone come running down the hall in their slippers, out of breath with worry.

I strike up another verse of “Dave Robbie Is a Total Wanker.” I play it as loud as I can outside Grandpa’s room. The world has lost its ears today. I’m screaming and no one can hear me.

“Charlie?” Rose calls, and knocks on the back door. I don’t answer. What’s the point, when everything she says is a lie? She’s still shouting when I walk through to the shop. I’m changing my name to Risk-taker. Dave can keep Rolling Idiot Robbie. It suits him. I storm into Dad like a runaway guitar riff, ripping at the air. Don’t think I have a plan, though. I never do.

I knock for ages on Charlie’s door. Eventually I give up and ride out to Dave’s. I sit next to him at the kitchen table and feel weird because neither of us says anything about what happened on the camping trip.

I know he’s forgiven me when he takes out this book on Formula One racing and starts showing me the pictures. “Look at this guy, Rosie. He’s on fire.”

“Right, fire. He’s going fast then, huh?” I wish Dave would talk to me about what he thinks is wrong with Charlie, but he keeps going on about the cars.

“Are you even listening? I mean he’s actually
on fire.”
Dave shoves the book in my face again.

“I can’t see any flames.”

“It’s an ethereal fire.”

“You mean ethanol, Dave. It makes a clear flame.”

“Whatever. He was burning in front of everyone and they didn’t even know.” Dave goes on and on in the background, but I can’t concentrate. I keep seeing Charlie’s face on the way home today. White ash. If Dave and Luke didn’t upset her, then that only leaves me.

“They walked up to find out what was wrong with him and they caught fire, too,” Dave says.

“Shit.”

“I know. He was dead before anyone worked out what was going on.”

“No, I mean, shit, I have to find Charlie.”

“Why, you know what’s wrong with her?”

“She heard us last night, Dave. When we called her Charlie Dorkin.” That has to be it. And she’s been burning ever since. Except no one was taking enough notice of her to see.

Dad’s counting the till when I storm in. It takes me about a second to lose my steam. “Charlotte, you’re back.” Looking on the bright side, I guess he noticed I was gone. “How was the camping trip?”

I want to tell him how awful it was, how I heard them all making fun of me. You raised a Dorkin. But then I’d have to explain to him what a Dorkin was and I’d feel worse after I finished than when I started. So instead I say, “There are animals in the bush, Dad. Dangerous animals.”

“Lucky you came back in one piece, then, Charlotte,” he says in his funny voice.

Look a little closer, Dad, I think, and ring the bell. “I’ll be outside having a Coke.”

After a while, one of the kids from the town sits beside me. I’ve seen him around but he hardly ever comes into the shop. “You don’t look so good,” he says. “I’m Antony Barellan, a friend of Rose and Luke’s.”

“I’m Charlie.”

“I know. That’s your dad in there, isn’t it?” He nods toward the shop.

“Uh-huh.”

“It was crappy that your gran died. My parents knew her. They said she was really nice.”

“She was nice,” I say, looking at the scratches on my hands from the camping trip. “Really nice.”

“So you’re only here for the summer, right?” He kicks at the chair and stares across the street. “You’re lucky. What do you do for fun in the city?”

I sit on my own and play guitar to ghosts, I think as Rose walks up. She scowls at Antony. “What are you guys up to?”

“I was just telling Charlie how boring it is around here.”

“Then maybe you should leave, Antony.”

He rubs his middle finger down his nose. “Luke,” he calls past her.

Luke arrives and ignores Rose. He sits in the middle of Antony and me and puts his arms around the two of us. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Haven’t even got money for cigarettes.” Antony grins in my direction. “Think you could get some from your dad, Charlie?”

“No, she can’t,” Rose says.

“I didn’t ask you, did I?”

She turns her back to him. “Come on, Charlie.” She moves without checking to see if I’m getting up, like a dog she’s owned for years. “I can get cigarettes,” I say. Shove that song up your arse, Rose Butler. Not everyone does what you tell them to do.

“Well, all right.” Antony grins.

“I’ll meet you by the river after I get them.” And it’d be good if you could have an ambulance waiting because I think I’m about to have a heart attack. They’re right. Smoking does kill.

Gran always said the shop would be mine when she and Grandpa died. Technically this isn’t stealing. It’s gift giving and this is the holiday season so I shouldn’t feel guilty. I should feel like Santa. “Santa doesn’t steal,” Mum says. It’s times like these I could really do without a dead mum looking over my shoulder.

Dad’s standing behind the cash register, right in front of the cigarettes. I need a diversion, that’s all. A simple, nothing-can-go-wrong diversion. The problem with kids like me is I’ve got no imagination for bad. The baddest thing I’ve done is stick gum under the table in class, not exactly a call-the-police offense. I back out of the shop planning to abandon my life of almost crime but Antony’s waiting there. His hand covers my mouth.

“Charlie …” His breath is warm and wrapped in chips. “Thought you’d need a bit of help.” He’s pressed so hard against my back my insides are sprinting. Now I’m sure I need
that ambulance. “Listen. You go and distract him, and I’ll take the stuff.” He pushes me forward.

I walk inside. “Charlotte?” Dad says. “Charlotte, what’s the matter?” He steps out from behind the counter and moves toward me. I walk through to the kitchen and that’s when I break a lifetime habit and really cry in front of him. I start and I can’t stop. I want him to fix this mess, for him to hear Antony in the shop and kick him out. But he just stands there with his hands hanging and his head tilting to the side.

“It’ll be all right,” he keeps saying, and I want to shout, Get some new freaking glasses, Dad. I’m stealing from you. There’s no way it’s going to be all right.

I rain out tears. Over Dad’s shoulder I see Antony sneaking behind the counter pouring packets of cigarettes into his bag. If Dad turns the smallest bit, he’ll see him, too, but he doesn’t. He stares at his hands like he’s forgotten what they’re for. Antony does his best to hide the gap on the shelf while I wish with every part of my body that I could hide in Dad’s arms. I watch Antony give me the thumbs-up in the background and I stand there and cry even harder.

It takes all my self-control not to kill Luke while we wait for Charlie and Antony at the river. He’s wearing this stupid look on his face like all his Christmases have come at once. I want to grab him by the neck and say, You dickhead, there’s more at stake here than you. I’m not thinking about the scholarship, either. I’ve broken Charlie.

I can tell she’s been crying when they get back. “Are you okay?” I ask, but she ignores me.

“So, what’s next?” Luke lights up a cigarette.

“It’s New Year’s Eve,” Antony says. “We need alcohol.”

There are only two places they’ll be able to get any. Either Luke will steal it from his parents or they’ll go to Arthur’s bottle shop on the edge of town. A lot of kids have tried to
steal from there and they’ve all ended up in jail. They’ve been happy for the bars after Arthur threatens them with these dogs he keeps hungry on nights like New Year’s Eve.

It’s the sort of thing Luke talks about when he’s trying to sound tough. “I could steal from Arthur,” he’d brag, and I’d laugh.

“In your dreams, buddy,” Dave would say. But we’re not in Luke’s dreams today. We’re in my nightmare. I don’t care about Antony, but if I know one thing for sure—he won’t take the stuff himself. He’ll find some way of convincing Luke and Charlie to do it.

“Luke, don’t,” I say. “You’ll get caught.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” he says, and the three of them stand up. I catch Charlie’s arm. “I know why you’re mad. I’m sorry.” She barely looks at me before walking away.

“Happy New Year, Rose,” Antony says.

“Don’t get too happy yet, Antony,” I tell him.

And then I run as fast as I can to get Dave. Branches scratch at my legs and leave thin streaks of red, but I keep moving.

I bang on the door till he opens it. “You have to come with me.”

“I can’t. Dad’s not happy I forgot to mow the back paddock before I went camping. I said I’d have it done by the time he and Mum get back.”

“It’s Luke and Charlie.” He still doesn’t move. “And Antony Barellan.”

“What are they doing?” Dave asks. I can tell he’s still not
sure if it’s worth annoying his dad for. I want to protect Charlie a little if I can, but it’s too late for that now. “She stole some cigarettes.”