Girl Next Door (6 page)

I'm pacing around the house not knowing what to do. I wish I hadn't bought the stupid hot chips because then I would have twenty dollars for a cab. Now I only have six dollars seventy-five left and it's not enough. I can't get to the hospital to be with my mum.

In her room, I pack an overnight bag of Mum's things – her toothbrush, a couple of pairs of pyjamas, a cardigan and the book on the bedside table. I'm proud of myself for doing something useful.

There's a knock at the door and I run downstairs to answer it. When I see two men on the doorstep I remember Bryce Cole telling me not to open the door. They're not salesmen or Mormons. The meaty one at the front wears thongs, and the other one chews gum.

'Is Bryce Cole here?'

I blink. 'Who? Never heard of him. Sorry. Thank you! Goodbye.' I start to close the door and one of the men stops it with the heel of his hand.

'We'll wait.'

They push through the door. The meaty-looking man with the thongs flips the light switch a few times experimentally and then heads off down the hallway, opening doors. The man with the gum settles on the lounge. I'm lurking in the archway to the kitchen not sure what to do.

What am I going to do? Ring the police? There's a lock on the phone, but I assume triple 0 still works. Even if it does, when are the police going to arrive, exactly? I could be a soggy heap of miscellaneous appendages in about ten minutes, if these blokes brought the right equipment.

It's amazing how calm I am. None of my limbs are moving, and my heart's racing, but it was doing that already. I haven't had time to get scared, or maybe I was already keyed-up before they even arrived, like if you get off a little roller-coaster and straight on a bigger one without going through the zigzaggy line-up area, so there's no time to listen to other people screaming, and see how shaky and rickety the beams are.

Or it could be because I'm thinking about it too much, as if I'm a reporter in a war zone who's too busy explaining what's happening, thinking about whether her make-up is even, and being pleased about how calm she is in the face of danger to scream and cry for her mum like the people in the background are.

Or possibly I'm not as calm as I think. This might be what I do when I'm completely freaking out. I have already totally freaked out twice today – more if you count each time when I was driving as a separate incident.

None of this is actually very useful.

I lick my lips and try to memorise what the men look like so the police artist can draw them for the wanted poster. The gum-chewing man has a small nose and bags under his eyes. He has long skinny legs and a potbelly. He looks like a frog. He's wearing a polo shirt, and he's lightly tanned. He could be a golfer, or an air-conditioning salesman, or a botanist. His elbows are dry and scaly. He scratches one and it makes a disgusting reptile sound.

Police are looking for a frog-like Caucasian male with gross, scaly elbows.

Then it occurs to me that they haven't actually done anything worth telling the police about yet, and if they do, I might not be in a position to give the description any more. Besides, these blokes might even be good mates of Bryce Cole's. School chums. Punting buddies. So I stop memorising.

The meaty man returns and shakes his head.

The gum-chewing frogman regards me for a moment. 'I didn't even know Coley had a kid,' he says.

Coley.
See? Mates! They've probably got names like 'Bazza', 'Dazza', 'Wozza' or 'Macca'. I should be offering them a coffee, except there's no electricity to boil the jug.

'I've come to collect my car,' Frogman tells me. 'The bastard's not here. Again! Maybe I'll borrow something of his. See how he likes it.' He gets to his feet.

Meatyman says, 'Looks like someone's pretty much cleaned out the rest of the place already.'

'Figures,' Frogman replies. He points to the microwave. 'I'll have that.'

'You can't! It's inside the unit. It doesn't . . .'

Come out,
was what I was going to say, but Meatyman looks around, takes the cleaver out of the knife block, and prises off the cabinet front. He hands the broken bit of timber and the cleaver to Frogman, then reaches behind the unit and pulls the microwave plug from the wall.

They're taking our microwave hostage. I'm glad they didn't think to take me, but still. 'Hey! What are you doing?' I shout. 'You can't take that! That's not Bryce Cole's anyway, it's ours! It's my mum's!'

Frogman sets the broken wood on the bench. He brushes the splintered bits of cupboard front off his hands. 'Runs on batteries, does it?' he sneers.

'Your elbows are gross! Haven't you ever heard of moisturiser?' I yell back at him.

'Haven't you heard of dermatitis?' he answers.

They traipse out the door. I follow.

'Hey!' I'm on the lawn, cupping my hands around my mouth. 'Help! Stealers! These guys are kidnapping our microwave!'

The men ignore me, discussing which is the best way to set the microwave on the back seat so it won't slip. 'Move that seat forward would you, Davo?'

'Help! Help!' I'm jumping, but no one even cares.

They get in the car and drive away. The plug from the microwave hangs out the bottom of the back door and drags along the road.

I go back inside and lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling. I remember Mum is in the hospital and I'm numb. There's nothing I can do. Chairman Meow stands on my chest, staring into my face. He's hungry, but we don't have anything for him to eat. I lie there trying not to think about anything. It's twilight. I see headlights arc across my bedroom wall as a car pulls into the driveway. I open the window and lean out. It's Bryce Cole.

'Where have
you
been?' I call down at him.

'Why is that any of your business?' he asks, slamming his car door.

'Because your mate Davo stole our microwave, and you better get it back!'

He slips the keys in his pocket. 'I'd better get it back, or what?'

'Or you can just move out! Mofo!'

'You listen here,' he says, narrowing his eyes and pointing at me. 'The reason Davo took your microwave is that I gave
his
money
to your
mother to pay
your
bills. And I was trying to make more money,
but you
got bored. You were tired. You wanted to go home. Remember? I told you not to open the door. If anyone lost your microwave it was
you!
You're the mofo!'

'Me?' I bluster. 'As if! And . . .' I'm searching. 'Betting is not a proper job!'

'Oh yeah? What money are you making?' he shouts back. 'Why don't
you
have a job?'

'Because . . .' Actually, I'm not sure. It used to be because I was concentrating on my studies. Well, when I was going to school anyway, but Sapph managed to do both.
'I'm
not old enough!' I shout louder.

'Exactly!' he yells. 'So shut up, and stop telling me what to do!'

He presses his lips into a thin line.

'I don't have to put up with this rubbish,' I hear him mutter. He gets back in the car and reverses. He whips the car around and drives down the road with the tyres squealing.

I take off Dad's shirt and stuff it back in my cupboard. I lie down on my bed. Chairman Meow nags at me from the doorway. I put my arm around Albert Bear, my pillow over my head and start to cry stupid tears of frustration, because that's not what Bryce Cole was supposed to do. He was supposed to turn on the electricity, bring us some groceries and get a new microwave and maybe a telly too. He was supposed to fix it.

Somebody has to fix it.

Declan's dad brought Mum home from the hospital when he collected Declan. There was this awkward moment where he moved towards her to help her lie on the lounge, but she misread it and thought he was leaning in to hug her. She clutched at his neck, weeping, and over her shoulder I saw a look cross his face, as if he'd walked through a cobweb and was waiting for the spider to run over his cheek.

Now Mum's on the lounge staring at where the television used to be. Sometimes she gets up, gingerly, but most of the time she lies there with tears leaking out of her eyes.

I thought I was doing Mum a favour by going next door to call up her work and tell them she wouldn't be in. Her boss said that he didn't know she was pregnant. He's confused. I ask him if he's trying to tell me that he's giving her the sack. I mention
Today Tonight
and how they might feel about him sacking a pregnant woman who has just lost her baby, but he says she was already sacked. He tells me that they've filled her position with a very competent graduate who is happy to make the company his highest priority.

So where has Mum been going in the mornings? Does she get Declan's dad to drop her off and then just sit in the park all day?

We still have no power. I leave the room and come back later, and she's still there, but the room is darker. It's like time-lapse photography.

I squat next to her and take her hand. Her face is puffy and pink. She's tucked a tissue under her cheek to catch the tears. That's how tired Mum is. She can't even be bothered lifting her hand to wipe her face.

'Mum, why don't we just sell the house?'

I've suggested it a hundred times since Dad left. It makes sense to me and I don't understand why she won't do it. Every time I say it she turns away, as though I haven't said anything at all.

'We can rent. Make a fresh start.'

Mum smiles at me, and then her face scrunches up. She lets go of my hand and rolls over so she is facing the back of the couch, like Andy Capp. Will is standing in the doorway. We trade a glance and he beckons me over. I follow him to the backyard. Annie from the granny flat is folding washing from the line, so we head into the alleyway.

'We can't sell the house,' he whispers.

'Why not?'

'Because Mum and Dad bought it when the market peaked. Now it's in a trough. The house isn't worth what they owe on it, so even if they do sell it and give all that money to the bank they will still owe more money. Lots more.' He shakes his head. 'If we sell the house they will still have to pay for the mortgage, as well as pay rent wherever we live. And before you're allowed to move into a rental property you have to come up with a bond, and rent in advance. You have to get the phone and electricity connected. We don't have money to do that. Also, they'll do a credit check before they even give us a house to rent. We have bad credit. They won't give us a house to rent. Even people who have good credit can't find houses to rent.'

'So what do we do?' I ask.

Will shrugs. 'Hope they don't kick us out of here.'

'But what if they do? I mean, we were sent that letter. They said we had thirty days, and that was, like, two weeks ago!'

'We'll have to go to a shelter or something.' Will is still whispering.

'A shelter?' I repeat. 'Like homeless people?'

Will frowns as though I'm stupid. 'Yes, exactly like homeless people. We will
be
homeless people, Jenna-Belle.'

'How can they make us go? They can't pick us up and carry us out the door, can they? They'd have to let us go once we were outside and then we could run back inside again. Maybe we could build a fort or something?'

Will stares at me and then he walks away.

'What?' I say.

Will keeps walking.

'Hey, Will?' I call out.

He turns.

'Where's Dad?' I ask him.

His face flushes. 'Well, that's a good bloody question, isn't it?' he mumbles.

I head up to Declan's room and sit for a while watching him being diabetic. He is sighing and grumbling. He hasn't gone back to school yet so we've been watching DVDs and playing Skip-bo.

His mother came in the other day and asked why I wasn't at school. I wasn't sure what to say, and then Declan blurted, 'Bird lice. Finsbury is completely infested with them.'

'Isn't that convenient timing,' she commented. Then she attempted to flounce down the hallway, but of course a flounce needs to be accompanied by a bigger statement – something like
my shandy saved your life –
otherwise it's just a jig.

I'm shuffling the cards.

'I'm glad you're not going to the track any more,' Declan says primly. 'I think that man was a bad influence on you.'

'Bryce Cole is a bad influence?' I say. 'You're the one who makes me drink beer and let you grope me!'

He snorts. 'That was not a grope, and it was outside clothes. Besides, you know I can't have beer ever again, even if I wanted to.'

'Poor thing.'

Declan glares at me. 'I don't think you realise that I have to deal with this for the rest of my life, Jenna-Belle.'

'Yeah, well, I menstruate. Get over yourself.'

When I go back into the house Bryce Cole is squatting on the floor next to the lounge where Mum is lying. She's talking to him and her words are bursting out in stuttering staccato like typewriter keystrokes. I stand in the gloomy kitchen eavesdropping.

'I . . . I didn't want to do nappies again. The kids are old enough. To look after themselves. And the idea of starting all over. Again with. Broken sleep for years. Twenty-four-hour care. Again. And birth! God! From the beginning. Again.'

I peek around the corner. They don't see me.

Mum grimaces. 'It's like I wished it,' she whispers. 'It's as if I wished it to death.'

Bryce Cole rubs the tears from Mum's face with his thumb. They sit still for a long time, and then he says, 'You've got to keep running. Even though your heart is going to burst, you've got to get up and keep running.'

'Like Phar Lap,' she says.

'Like Phar Lap,' he repeats.

And after a few minutes Mum gets up.

When I open the front door I recognise the figure standing on the step with his back to me as my father, and I think,
Yes! All our problems are over. He's returned with the answer. We're saved!
But when he turns around it's all wrong, because he's not supposed to knock on the door and wait. He's supposed to walk straight in, because he lives here, right? He's supposed to burst in, filthy from the gold mine or the oil well he's discovered, and sweep Mum up in his arms. Eureka!

It doesn't even look like him. He has a silly beard. He's wearing a spotty shirt that I've never seen before. He has a jumper draped over his shoulders as though he's in an ad for the pants he's wearing.

It's like when you return to a house that you haven't been to since you were little and it's not nearly as big and grand as you remember. I'm wondering how he could change so much in three months, or whether he's always looked like this and I never noticed because I saw him every day.

He has his hands on his hips, sunglasses on the top of his head and he's looking casual, as if he's been yachting in the Mediterranean. He's got a grin on his face as though he's trying to sell me a timeshare apartment.

'Er, hello, sweetheart.'

He's sweating. It's not hot. He's nervous. Why is he nervous?

'How was your holiday in the country?' I ask.

A slight frown crosses his brow. He decides not to go there. 'Is Willem at home? I thought the three of us might grab a burger.'

The three of us? So, Mum isn't invited? That's it? He's been gone for all this time and now he's going to buy us a
burger?
What the hell is going on here?

. . . Except I'm hungry, and I'm hopeful, so I find myself saying, 'Okay.'

'Dad!' Will yells. He pushes past me and throws his arms around Dad. 'Hey, man!' He's slapping Dad on the back.

Dad's wearing this weird expression. It's the look you have when you're trying to be pleased about a birthday present you hate. That look makes me feel bad all the way down in my guts, because this is wrong.

Standing in the doorway watching them hug in an awkward man way, all I can think about are the little good things about Dad. That time I was in the concert band and we were on last at the eisteddfod, after this tiny primary school from the bush whose bus broke down, so we didn't end up going on until after midnight, and most of the other parents went home. He didn't just stay; he also drove two other kids home afterwards. How when my karate group had a fundraiser, I was going to quit because I'd forgotten to sell my raffle tickets, and he took the whole book to work and said he sold them all, but I think he bought them all himself, and then he didn't complain when I quit anyway. And how whenever we shared a chocolate he would take the smaller half, and he always let me play my CDs in the car even though it was music he hated because he said it all sounded the same. But it's too late. I can feel it in my guts.

'Let me get Mum. She's sleeping,' says Will, grinning. He's so excited he's almost hopping up and down on the spot. 'She's still not feeling great after, you know . . . the miscarriage, or whatever.'

A wave of colour washes across Dad's face, but he plasters on a weird approximation of a sympathetic smile. He didn't know that Mum lost the baby.

They're not even talking to each other.

'Ah, no. I don't want to disturb her. How about we go, just the three of us, and I'll catch up with your mum later.' He tosses his keys in his hand, and I follow his gaze to the car at the kerb. It's not his car. It's a rental with a logo on the side.

I walk across the lawn with a weird buzzing in my ears. 'Your mum', so not, 'my wife', or even, 'Sue'. The knot in my gut tightens. He hasn't just gone away for a while. They've broken up. This whole time I've been assuming that this was all temporary. I'd thought it was like when there's a storm and the satellite is out. But that's not how it is. Our account has been cancelled.

'There's this guy, Bryce Cole, living here now,' Will tells Dad. He's got his elbow out the window and his foot on the dashboard. 'Nothing's going on, though. I just thought you'd want to know. And Annie's in the granny flat. Still. Mum must have told you about that.'

'Mm,' Dad grunts.

Will goes on. 'Did you know Jenna-Belle got kicked out of Finsbury? I got a scholarship.'

Dad nods but he doesn't say anything. He pretends to be concentrating on driving. I'm staring at the back of his head. We drive past the fish and chip shop. I'm expecting him to stop, but he drives on.

He takes us to McDonald's. We don't even eat in. He takes us to the drive-through, and then we pull up in the car park opposite the supermarket. Classy.

Will's tucking in to his Quarter Pounder, as if he's cool with that. He mustn't have the gut knot. The smell of my McChicken makes me want to heave.

About four years ago we went on a camping holiday to this place called Wombat Crossing, which was unusual for us. Mum preferred to go to resorts where there was a pool and a cocktail bar; you could order a masseuse on the room service menu and, of course, there was a kids' club, so they could go off and see boring grown-up stuff without us whining.

Dad preferred the resorts too – they always had a nine-hole golf course. But Wombat Crossing was a place that Will found on the internet. There was assorted wildlife in all the pictures. They had grass skiing, windsurfing and all that outdoorsy Boy Scout stuff that Will is into, so we went.

It must have been off-season, although I don't know when would be on-season for a place like that. We were the only ones staying there, aside from the caretaker who was a hundred years old.

It wasn't
camping
camping. We stayed in a cabin, but there was no electricity and we washed from a bucket that you filled with warm water from the billy on the gas stove or the barbecue fire outside.

Mum hated it, but we never laughed as much as we did that week – usually at the look of dismay on Mum's face every time she made a new discovery, like if we didn't keep the door shut then all the wildlife would come inside, and wouldn't want to leave. Possums and wallabies might look cute, but they have fearsome teeth and claws, and make sounds like a lion cub when you try to pick them up.

Dad and Will made bad jokes, particularly about the long-drop toilet.

We attempted to bake a damper. It was disastrous, but we ate it anyway, because we were starving, and afterwards Mum tried to order pizza from her mobile, but they wouldn't deliver so Dad had to drive out and meet them on the main road. By the time he got back it was cold, but we ate it anyway, and then went straight to bed even though it was only about half-past six. Willem and I had to share a room and we played Joke Jeopardy in the dark.

Wombat Crossing was awful, but we managed to pull together and make it work. Or maybe I just remember it more fondly the more time passes. The people that we were at Wombat Crossing seem about a million years away from who we are now.

'I went back to my old company,' Dad begins. 'I wanted to see if they'd filled my place yet, and unfortunately they had, but I caught up with a . . . a colleague of mine for lunch, and she said she knew of some openings . . . some positions . . . A few jobs that were going.' He's blushing – stumbling through it. 'We had lunch . . . a few times, and we got talking. You see, we'd worked together for a long time and we hadn't realised, and things got complicated pretty quickly. I never thought, I mean I always . . . You have no idea until you find yourself there, really.'

'Complicated?' I say. I can see Will's face in the side mirror. He's frowning over his fries.

'So do you kids like this Bryce Cole fellow?' Dad asks. 'I mean, is he nice to you?'

Will grunts. 'He's nice to Jenna-Belle.'

'What does that mean?' He flicks a look at me over his shoulder.

'It doesn't mean anything. Will's a dickhead,' I say. 'Go back to this colleague.'

Dad stares straight out the front window. That's why he didn't let us eat in. He didn't want to look at our faces while he told us this stuff.

'See, now that we weren't working together my colleague felt that she was finally at liberty to . . . and I never knew she felt that way. I had no idea! Believe me. And you know things weren't going well with the business. I had very low self-esteem. Then your mother with the . . . baby. Has she said anything to you about that?'

'I went to the hospital with her,' Will said. 'She was only there overnight.'

'Did your mum say anything about . . . anything?' Dad asks.

He's searching for something. There's a secret – something they haven't told us. Something
else.

'Well, anyway.' He sighs. 'It was very different with you kids. This time it really was a rock-bottom moment for me.'

'Are you trying to tell us that you're sleeping with your secretary?' I blurt. 'Seriously? I thought that was a joke! It's a joke, isn't it?'

Will is still frowning, and he's stopped eating. He's getting the gut knot.

Dad sighs. 'I'm feeling intensely conflicted right now. I really feel like your mum and I need a time-out.'

'Who uses expressions like that?' I say. 'Are you channelling Oprah? Jesus!' I'm smiling, because people don't talk like this. He's having a lend of us.

Dad ignores me. 'The important thing is that this is not about you kids. You're probably going to be angry for a while. I know I am. But I've come to accept that sometimes in your life you really need to just stop right where you are and think about whether your life is heading in the direction you want it to go, or if you're just living day-to-day, because you'll find . . . You wait and see – you'll wake up one day and think,
My God, my life is halfway through and what am I doing?
I know it sounds like a cliché, but isn't it a cliché because it's true?'

'So, what happens now?' Will asks. His face has gone white. There's a twitch in the muscle on the side of his neck.

Dad doesn't say anything for ages, and then he puts both hands over his face.

'God. This is really difficult for me.'

I snort. I can't help myself, because it's a joke, right? Difficult for
him?

Dad sighs again. 'There's an opportunity for a job on a short-term basis, and I think I need to take it. I have . . . I've already accepted it.'

He taps the steering wheel and I can't escape the feeling that he's trying to recall a rehearsed script.

'I want to spend as much time with you guys as I possibly can. It may be difficult for us to see each other for a while, but it's short-term.'

'Why?' Will asks.

'I'm . . . The fact is that Heather and I are moving . . .' He takes a deep breath. 'I'm only here for a few days. I'm . . . The job is in New Zealand.'

The knot lurches to the side and now my ears are ringing. I'm too shocked to say anything.

When Will speaks his voice cracks. 'But what about our house? Where are we going to live?' Will looks as if he's been punched. I think he's going to faint.

'Maybe it sounds selfish. It
is
selfish, but I haven't done anything selfish . . . I haven't done
anything
for sixteen years! Do you know how long that is?' He's looking at Willem now. 'You have no concept of how long that is because that's as long as your whole life.'

Will scrambles out of the car. The half-eaten burger goes flying all over the dashboard and some of it sticks to the windscreen. He runs across the car park and a van has to brake suddenly to avoid him.

'But this isn't about us,' I say.