Girl Next Door (9 page)

I remember the way that boy looked at me – as though it had nothing to do with me. It was almost like he was looking through me. Adrenalin shoots through my body and makes me twitch and jitter. My eyes are adjusting and I can see Will's face clearly. He's frightened and angry. His Adam's apple is bobbing. I hope he's not going to do something stupid. Even while I'm thinking it I can see his brain working. He's imagining the squeaky wheel. He's remembering Dad saying that we should be proactive.

Mum must see it too, because she yells out, 'Willem, no!'

Will lets out a roar and makes a dash. He flings the door open and leaps out of the van. Mum is right behind him. She swipes at him and misses. She slams the door after him and leans against it with her shoulder.

Outside the window they fall upon Will with athletic grace.

I'm clawing at Mum, but she has her body pressed against the door. She's not letting me out. She's not letting them in. I can feel her body crumple up as she weeps.

'They're going to kill him,' I screech at her, and they are. Will is in a ball at their feet. He has his hands over his face. They are shadowy dancers on the lawn. Then they each grab a limb. They're carrying Will across the grass. He's wriggling and fighting to get free. They're laughing at him. It's a game. They're going to take him somewhere and beat him for fun. Will tears a leg free and he kicks one of the boys in the stomach.

Now they're going to stab him. I can see it in my head in slow motion, as if it's a movie.

I think about that lady and the man fighting before, and how we didn't do anything. We just listened and played our stupid game. People out there are turning up their televisions to drown out the sound of those boys killing my brother.

Then torchlight swings over the boys. They drop Will and run. He lands flat on his back, and then curls up, like a dead spider. After we're sure they're gone we run out and drag Will inside.

The security guard with the torch knocks on our door.

'Everything all right in there?' He eyes us with suspicion.

Mum wants to call an ambulance, but Will insists that he's okay. Next she wants to call the police.

'Did they steal something?' the security guard asks.

My mother glares at him. 'They assaulted my son!'

The security guard suggests that we can go down to the station and report the incident in the morning, if we still want to by then. Or maybe (he doesn't say exactly, but we get the message) we will have gained some perspective by then.

We lie in the dark. I can hear Will grunting and sniffing as he tries to hide the fact that he's crying. I want to call an ambulance, but I don't want to walk down the road in the dark to the phone booth next to reception.

None of us even goes out to plug the power back in.

I lie there thinking about the time we were in Hanoi, when I was about eight. One minute we were all together in a market, looking at shoes and wooden toys, and then the next minute I was by myself in this grungy little alleyway. I looked up into the face of an old woman. She opened her mouth and it was all red in there with little maroon stumps for teeth. I knew the red was betel nut stain, but her mouth looked like a wound. Further ahead, men gathered around, staring at something. When I looked closely I could see two roosters in the middle of the circle, fighting. The men weren't even cheering, or trying to stop them, or anything, they were just standing there watching, and it made me feel sick in my guts. I was frozen in the spot. Then suddenly Mum and Dad were there and we continued on our way through the market. The whole thing probably lasted less than fifteen seconds, but I had this sense of infinite isolation.

I'm not used to people being mean to me, or to being alone. It's this weird feeling; I got it from Jasmina and Tanner when they said 'vintage', I got it from those boys and the security guard too, and even from Dad a little bit.

I've never felt like that before – as though the things that are important to me don't matter to anyone else. It's like I'm one of those roosters in the circle, fighting for my life – as though I've been set up for this fight, and nobody cares.

In the morning Will has dried blood on his face. He heads off to the shower block with a towel over his shoulder. He comes back ten minutes later wrapped just in his towel and crying again. I can see a faint bruise on his ribs.

There were two of them. They took his clothes. Will's voice cracks as he tells us. He had to fight them for the towel. They were laughing. He had to fight them in the nude.

I walk to the phone booth outside reception. Every step I'm looking around, but I pretend to be casual. It looks peaceful. The kids are on the lawn playing with a hose. One squirts the others and they squeal and laugh. The old people watch from their porches. But now I notice the big metal shutters they have over their windows and spotlights tucked under their eaves.

I hear footsteps behind me, and I look over my shoulder. It's one of the boys. He grins at me. Suddenly he darts forward. I scream and hold my hands over my head.

He pantses me, and laughs.

'You're an arsehole!' I shout at him as I pull my pants up from around my ankles. I'm furious.

'Oh, come on! It's just a joke,' he says. 'Nice booty, by the way. Kind of like . . .' He licks his lips. 'Two peaches.'

My lip curls and I stomp past him. I'm really scared, but I'm angry too, and I hope he sees the angry part more. My hands are shaking as I put the coins in the slot. I ring Bryce Cole's mobile and tell him what happened.

'Yeah, you get a bit of that going on,' Bryce Cole tells me. 'If you just ignore them they generally go away.'

'Generally?'

And that's when I decide we have to get off Bryce Cole's crazy conga line.

There's a little shopping centre in the suburb where we used to live. There aren't any clothes shops. It has all the banks, a deli and a post office. There's a bakery, a florist, a newsagent and a big coffee shop. It doesn't matter what time of day you go, there are good-looking people everywhere. Nearly everyone has well-cut, properly fitted clothes, straight white teeth and clean hair. Even the old people wear jaunty hats. They sit in their wheelchairs at the coffee shop with their daughters and grandchildren and smile contentedly. They eat cake together. People smile at each other.

We walk to this suburb's equivalent of that. They have mostly the same shops, but there's also a big Centrelink. There are no old people in jaunty hats. Everyone seems to be alone – even the people who are with other people. There are families arguing with each other. They're swearing. They don't care that people can overhear. If they ever had pineapples in the first place, they've taken them off their heads and are throwing them at each other.

The kids of the parents who are swearing aren't even crying. They're just watching everything.

I make eye contact with a toddler lying on the floor. I would swear that's Coca Cola in her bottle. She's got crusty boogers around her nostrils. The knees of her pink tights are dirty and baggy as if she's been wearing them for a week.

Eventually her mum growls, 'Come 'ere, you little witch.'

Mum keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs. I'm worried she'll walk out, and then we'll have sat in this horrible place for no reason. I hope they'll give us our money soon so we can leave.

Finally our number is called and we're ushered into a little room. Mum explains about the letter and the sheriff. The Centrelink man is nodding as he shuffles through his manila folder. Mum's voice is all wavery as she tells him about the boys rocking the caravan and stealing Will's clothes. The Centrelink man glances at his watch. It could be that he's just really anxious to rush out and help all those people out there waiting in the queue, but I don't think so.

He gives us some brochures for charity organisations and a women's shelter. Mum nods, but I know she won't go there. He needs to see Mum's identification before he can process a payment. Mum hands over her licence.

The Centrelink man stares at it for a minute. 'This licence is out of date. Do you have another one?'

Mum explains that she didn't renew her licence because it costs money, and there didn't seem to be any point when they took her car away.

'What other forms of identification do you have?'

Mum rifles through her wallet. She lays her Medicare card and two credit cards on the table.

'They're worth twenty-five points each,' he says. 'You're still short twenty-five.'

She slides across her Myer card, her blood donor card and her Video Ezy membership.

'I'm afraid they're not from a financial institution,' he tells her.

Mum's flustered. She flicks through her wallet again. She has her gym membership and a wine club card.

Will lines all the cards in a row on the table facing the Centrelink man. 'This out-of-date licence has Mum's photo on it, so that's who she is, right? You don't need to know whether she's allowed to drive, you just need it to prove who she is, isn't that right? That's her in the photo, isn't it? And all these other cards have the same name and address, so it stands to reason that she is who the licence says she is, even if it is out of date, doesn't it?'

'I don't make the rules,' the Centrelink man says. 'Do you have your birth certificate? Passport? Pension card? A council rates notice?'

'I'm not on a pension,' Mum says in a scratchy voice. She clears her throat.

Will interjects. 'Who carries that stuff with them, anyway?'

'What about a phone bill? An overseas driver's licence?' the man asks.

'So a phone bill with no photo is better than an out-of-date driver's licence?' Will is getting really mad now.

Mum shakes her head. She rubs her eyes. All Mum's points are in Declan's garage.

'This is such bullshit!' Will shouts.

'I don't make the rules,' the Centrelink man says again.

Mum takes Will by the hand. I don't think she's done that since he was five years old. She pats his hand. Her face is grey. His is red. Mum stands up. She takes my hand too and we walk out of the office.

Will sweats and swears. Mum tells him to hush. He kicks at a crumpled-up bit of paper on the floor, and swears at her, and now we're exactly like everyone else in the Centrelink office.

Outside, Mum tries to shush him again and he claims that he's all right. She still wants to take him to see a doctor. And she still needs her one hundred points.

I'd prefer to dig through boxes in the garage than sit in emergency all day, especially with Will in a foul mood, so we make a deal.

She gives me twenty dollars and I head for the bus stop.

The first part is okay. I just catch the bus that says 'City', but then as we get closer it occurs to me that the city is a pretty big place and I don't know all of it very well, just Pitt Street Mall and The Rocks and most of Darling Harbour. I know some other bits as well, because we used to have family friends at Watsons Bay, Balmain and Paddington, but I don't know where they are in relation to other parts, because I've never needed to know.

So I get off near the QVB, which I do know, because those are the only public toilets that Mum will use when we're shopping, and then I stand there looking at the bus timetables until a nice old man tells me to go up to Wynyard. I follow his directions, and I must walk ten blocks! But it isn't so bad, because the buildings are nice and there are interesting windows to look into, and I'm enjoying checking out all the office chicks' shoes. Besides, in that part of the city you don't get those people coming up and begging for money, which can happen down near Haymarket.

And then I have to wait forever for a bus. It's really longer than forever, because the whole time I'm panicking that the old man has told me the wrong thing, and I keep leaning in the doors of every bus that pulls up and asking the drivers where they're going. I have no idea how long the forever is, since I don't have a mobile phone any more, which is what I used to tell the time before, but of course that was one of the very first things to go – even before Foxtel and Mum and Dad's wine club membership.

I don't really understand how come wine club was more important than my safety, which is what a mobile is, when you come right down to it, but anyway, I finally get on the right bus and it goes back down around the QVB and up Clarence Street, so I didn't need to walk all that way after all.

The whole trip is really quite a long one, especially sitting among a whole bunch of old people and freaks. Haven't any of these people heard of deodorant? And I'm so hungry by the end, but I'm afraid to buy myself something to eat, because what if I run out of money? I could say to passers-by, 'Excuse me, I need a few bucks to catch a bus,' but nobody would believe me, because that's what all the bums say. I have to keep reminding myself that it's not just povvos, the A-listers are hungry all the time too.

The whole way to Declan's I wonder how many people I've walked past on the street who actually, truly, wanted a few bucks to catch a bus. How did they get where they needed to go? Are their mums still out at a caravan park near St Marys somewhere waiting for them to arrive?

Declan is at home having another sick day. He sees me out the window, and I can hear his feet running down the hall, but when he opens the door he's all casual. I want to hug him because I've missed him, but I'm being casual too.

'Do you ever go to school?' I ask as I saunter past him into the house.

'Do you?' he counters. 'How did you get here anyway?' He looks up and down the road for a car, but the street is empty.

'I caught a bus.' I sigh, as though it was the easiest and most boring thing in the world. I help myself to a bowl of this noodle salad thing from Declan's fridge, and explain about Mum's one hundred points through a mouthful, and soon we're squatting on the floor in the garage with the filing drawers open.

All of our most sensitive documents are spread across the oil-stained cement floor. I don't know what half of them are about, but I know they're supposed to be private. I feel exposed, kind of like I'm wearing one of those hospital gowns where your bum hangs out – Declan did keep his, by the way. He swears hospital chic is the new black. I can see myself in a scrub cap. It would look really cute with this Anna Sui smock dress that I have. Had.

I tell Declan about the night in the hotel. He loves the story about the French hairy nipples at the pub. He can't believe I didn't tell him about the hairy nipples thing from the beginning.

'Because you would have demanded proof that my nipples aren't hairy!' I say.

'True,' he concedes. There's a pause where I wait for him to say,
So are they?
but he leaves it.

I tell Declan how Mum has taken up smoking, about the whisperer, and how they beat up Will. I told him about how they stole Will's clothes, and pantsed me in the laneway. Declan's face scrunches up.

'I did that to a kid. Aiden Farmer, his name is. He's a little pain in the arse, and one time he was walking along the promenade in front of me. It's this second-storey walkway that goes from B Block to C Block, and it's glassed in, so you look down into the Junior Quad. I fully pantsed him and then pressed him against the glass so everyone below could see. So they put me on this "program". Every Tuesday morning I had to go in with the chaplain and talk about empathy, so then I stopped going to school on Tuesdays. They changed it to Mondays, so I stopped going on Mondays too. The chaplain asks me questions as if he's trying to find the reason for me being such an arsehole.'

'Well, it was an arsehole thing to do.'

'You think I don't know that?' Declan glares at me. 'But the whole thing happened in about five seconds and I've been on the program for months now. You'd think we could all move on.'

I flick through the folders in the filing cabinet. 'How come it's going on so long?'

Declan grimaces. 'The chaplain says I have to keep going until I agree that I sexually abused a younger boy, and I won't, because I didn't.'

'Yeah, you did.'

'Pantsing isn't sexual abuse. It's only sexual abuse if you touch it.'

'You did touch him. You pulled his pants down. You made him do something against his will.'

'I didn't touch his thingo. And I didn't get off on it either. It wasn't sexual, it was just normal abuse, and if you don't want boys to do that, then you shouldn't put, like, a thousand of them together, and only acknowledge the ones that are good at contact sports.'

'Okay, whatever.'

Declan is getting shirty, so I open the next drawer. 'If you had asked me to guess why you hated school I would never have picked that,' I tell him. 'You look more like the pantsee to me.'

'You're welcome to try.' He grins.

It doesn't take us long to find Mum's passport. It's with mine and Will's, but Dad's isn't there.

'He would have needed it to get to New Zealand,' Declan reminds me.

I stare at the spot where his passport should have been. 'He must have slipped his passport in his pocket and then crept out, leaving his pregnant wife and two sleeping kids. Nice.'

'Classy,' Declan adds.

'This sucks. He should be here. I can't believe we let him off so easy. I'm going to ring him.'

'How are you going to ring him?'

I pull out the drawer above. This one has bills in it. They used to be filed in order by date with receipt numbers written in the top corner in my mother's small, neat handwriting, but for the last few months they are just shoved in. They have big red stamps on them.
OVERDUE!

Declan takes a handful of phone bills, and we flick through them till we find the month before Dad left. We're looking for mobile numbers called during the day. That would be when Dad called the Heather woman.

Declan stops. 'What about this one? This number has been called a lot. Five minutes, then twenty-three minutes, then ten minutes. I know this number. Where do I know it from? Look, I can say it without even looking.' He rattles it off twice. 'Why would you have a number on your phone bill that I know so well?'

'Maybe it's in an ad? Maybe it's Pizza Eatza?'

He keeps repeating the number. He makes a song of it, until I crumple up an old envelope and throw it at his head. 'Why don't you just ring it?' I ask.

'I thought we were after the number for this Heather woman? I've never rung her, so that wouldn't be it.' He flicks the bill over and looks at the back. 'My mum has this big thing about the phone company ripping us off. When the bill comes in she goes through every number with a ruler under each line, and she writes down numbers she doesn't recognise in a little book that she keeps in her handbag. How weird is that? I've seen her ringing numbers to find out what they are, which is stupid because then on the next bill, her calling the number will come up as a two-second call, and then she'll be all suspicious of
that.
Sometimes I think she needs a job.'

'Let's try this one.'

Declan hands me his mobile.

Suddenly there's a voice attached to this Heather person, who had been merely a concept. In my head she's mid-twenties, blonde and goes to the gym, because that's what all home-wrecking secretaries look like, isn't it? But she doesn't sound like that. Heather must be older. She just sounds tired.

I put on the face that my mum used to call bolshie – back when Mum said things, before she was the chainsmoking, monosyllabic, trailer-park lady. I say in a bolshie voice, 'I wanna talk to my dad.'

Heather doesn't say
Who is this?
or any of the things I had been preparing myself for. I just hear her cover the mouthpiece and then after a few moments my dad's there.

'Yes, Jenna-Belle, what is it?'

I take a deep breath. 'You can't just answer the phone with "Yes, what is it?" as if we saw each other half an hour ago – as if I'm a nuisance.'