Have You Seen Ally Queen? (10 page)

I open my mouth to respond but she’s not actually interested. It’s a river of words.

‘...because no one in rich countries knows any other way of living anymore. No one can remember a time when it was enough to have a roof over your head, and food in your home, and healthy kids and a loving husband. Your dad and I travelled when we were younger, Ally, and I can tell you, people in other parts of the world have a lot less than us and are a lot happier than we are. You can either lead a soulless existence counting your bucks and keeping up with the Joneses, or you can be forever misunderstood by your peers, who can’t see why we won’t buy a plasma screen for you kids. Or you can leave the country.’

There’s a long pause, because I get that, I do, but I don’t have any idea what it’s got to do with her being
sick.
How can a money system make you sick?

She’s looking angry now; she’s staring out the window. I wish I hadn’t asked. I understand everything even less than I did before.

Mum tries to apologise, says something like
You’ll understand when you’re older.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ I mumble.

Aunty Trish pokes her head in, offers cuppas.

I stare at the door. ‘No, thanks. I’d better get going, if that’s okay, Aunty Trish, I’ve got a science test tomorrow,’ I lie.

My head’s a spin dryer on full blast.

Mum jerks out a hand to me. ‘Send Dad my love, Ally, and give Jez a cuddle for me.’

‘Okay.’

As I turn to leave, she says, ‘Don’t think too much about what I said today, okay?’

I can hardly look at either of them when I say goodbye.

I follow Aunty Trish out to the car.

Lunchtime. Forcing myself to plough through some crappy book we have to read for English. As usual, the book is shite. I’d love to know who gets to choose our books; they must be about to fall off their perch, or something. They’re always books about war—guns and bleak landscapes.

Rel’s coming over, hands in pockets, looking cool. His dickhead mates are on the other side of the oval, watching. I pretend I haven’t seen him and keep reading, except I’m reading the same line over and over, and I have no idea what it says. I check that my socks are pushed down, but not too much, and then he’s here.

‘Hey, McQueen.’

I look up. ‘Rellard.’

‘Very funny. How’s stuff?’

I sigh. ‘Pretty average. You?’

‘Yeah.’ He sits down and there’s a distant round of
clapping and cheering from his buddies. ‘Shut up,’ he says, giving them the forks. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Not much.’

He’s looking funny, kind of thoughtful. ‘Nicked any more mulberries lately?’

I grin. ‘Nah. But before ... I took
heaps.’

‘Little Miss Piggy, hey!’

Hmmm. Not really the impression I was going for.

The oval’s just been mowed, every other stripe is pale green, and insects are cutting sick around our legs and heads.

Rel says, not looking at me, ‘We’re, um, going prawning tonight, in the estuary, if you want to come.’

Bejesus.
‘Prawning?’ I’m going hell red.

‘Yeah, you know, with nets and lamps and the barbie, and we fire them up, then and there. My folks are right into it; it’s kind of a regular gig.’

‘With your
oldies?’

He starts picking grass clippings off his shoes.

‘Well, yeah.’

I take a breath, suddenly aware of how
rude
I just sounded. He must feel like a complete zit.

‘Okay ... well, yeah, thanks.’

‘Okay?’ His eyes are big. Maybe I should have said no; he looks shocked.

‘Yeah: okay.’

‘Okay.’

This is so embarrassing. ‘So ... how should I ... should I meet you there?’

‘Nah. Just come over to my place about five, or something.’

‘Okay.’

‘Cool.’ He stands up. ‘See you tonight, then.’

‘Yeah, tonight.’
Oh my God, oh my God.
Tonight.

Great. I’m in the shit again. Mum rang Dad in a state after giving me the lowdown on the evils of capitalism last night, and now Dad knows the whole story. He’s really angry that I went over there without permission. McSuck Jerry’s flitting around like a real little angel and I just can’t stop shaking my head about this whole ... ordeal. This thing with Mum is too weird. I mean, is she sick or what? And I was only trying to get it all straight in my head, and
now
look what’s happened.

Dad said, ‘Ally, you lied to me.’

‘But I didn’t.’

Dark look. ‘You told Aunty Trish that I’d said it was okay to go over there.’

‘What, so I need permission before I can talk to my own mum now?’

I slam down the tomato I’m holding and it splits open, spraying seeds and juice all over the counter. Now I look like a little kid chucking a tantrum. I don’t
see why Dad’s so crook at me. I mean, what have I really done wrong?

‘It’s not about getting permission—it’s about
upsetting
her, which is the last thing she needs right now.’

‘I didn’t do anything to upset her! She upset herself with all that Marxist crap, raving on like a loony.’

‘I know you never intended it, but that conversation really got her worrying, and that’s too much for Mum right now—she can’t
cope
with any worry or stress, Ally.
That’s
why it was important for you to get the okay from me.’

This stupid town, it’s sent my folks bloody psycho, I tell you. None of this would have happened in Perth. Everything was cool there; we hardly had arguments at all. Mum had a garden and Dad virtually
lived
in his shed. I actually had
friends
and Jerry could spend his Saturday mornings at the Dick Smith shop. What was so wrong with it that we had to move? I
really hate
it here, and I hate Mum for making us come here, and
now
look what’s happened. And I hate who I am—and so will Rel if he gets to know me, not that he will because he’ll have to have something he actually likes about me in the first place, and what will that be? I wish I could ... just be more
chilled,
and get some cool
clothes instead of this crap, and wear jewellery—every day, not just on
special occasions
—and, well, just feel normal for a change. Ally: a normal chick. Now, there’s a concept.

My room’s the only place I can be with this burning inside. I pick up a pillow and smash it as hard as I can on my bed. It hardly feels like I’m doing anything. I belt it over and over and over and my arms don’t even hurt. I reach up and try to wipe out the wall, but the pillow only makes a low, lame
uummphh.
Not the right sound at all for this, for
this!
I rip down my stupid poster of the Doors—what a joke, like I’m the kind of person who can pull that sort of thing off. Talk about punching above my weight.

I look at my diary, but I’m too weary.

I faceplant the bed, the poxy floral pillowslip that Mum insisted on putting on. I’m sick of this deal, I’m sick of it. I’m just gunna lie here and everyone can seriously go and
piss off.

I don’t tell anyone where I’m going. I don’t give a toss. They can think I’m leaving, for all I care. I slam the door, and a couple of maggies waiting for Mum’s kitchen scraps fly vertically off the verandah like helicopters.

‘Yaaahh!’ I bellow at them. They might have to wait a very long time for more scraps, and I can
not
believe I now have to go and meet Rel’s parents. Nice sweet Ally with eyes like boiled eggs and a temper like Satan. Or Hitler. Shite. At least it means I can get out of this hellhole I’m meant to call home. Prawning. Dad’d be jealous, if he knew, and Jerry, too. Good. Suck shite. I’m not gunna save them any.

I follow the sandy path down to Rel’s place and practise smiling along the way. It feels like someone’s forcibly pulling my skin back towards my ears. Hopefully, Rel won’t notice how weird I look—and hey, weird’s no different from usual, I guess.

They’re loading up the car when I get there. Buckets, gas barbie, blankets, towels, old sneakers and booties—the works. They’ve got an ancient old beast for a car, a really long station wagon, but it’s in perfect nick, shiny and clean and with perfect leather bench seats and old dials and everything. I’m not sure if it’s funky or totally daggy.

A woman crawls backwards out of the wagon part and smiles at me. She’s got curly hair and a really nice face; she’s smiling at me. I can’t help it: I grin back at her, despite my garden-slug lips from too much crying.

‘Alison? Rel’s inside, sweetheart, just go on in.’

‘Thanks.’ I breathe out. That wasn’t so bad. I didn’t even have to say hello to Mrs ... Mrs Who? Jesus, I don’t even know their surname.

‘Rel?’ I go into their kitchen, trying to take it all in. There’s stuff everywhere—bunches of flowers and drying herbs, pots and pans hanging over the oven like in magazines, shelves lined with funky pottery and thick Mexican wine goblets, a groovy wooden benchtop (like, a tree sliced in half), rows of cookbooks, and a collection of cats—all sorts—scattered all about the room. Wooden cats, ceramic teapot cats, pictures of cats, cat cushions, pottery cats. A big stripy rug covers the floor.

‘Hey.’

I swing around, my eyes wide. ‘Hey.’

There’s one of those embarrassing pauses, so I say, ‘Wow—your place is so ...
funky.
And I met your mum.’

He nods. ‘Wanna drink?’

‘No, thanks,’ I lie. ‘Oh, well, yeah, if you’re having one.’

He holds up a bottle of orange and mango cordial.

‘Yeah, fine,’ I say, looking around more because I don’t have a clue what else to say. There are a couple of huge bright paintings on the walls.

‘Want some mulberries for the road?’

The sun’s setting. Orange light cuts into the room. ‘Sure,’ I smile, thinking,
yum,
while around me, their house begins to work its way in.

I can remember the nights we used to go down to the foreshore and prawn with other families. Jerry was pretty young, but even he came out into the water, and Mum and Dad would each hold a corner of the net and I’d wade quietly behind to see if I could spot the little critters, and try to avoid the jellyfish. But river prawns are see-through in the water. They look like mini light bulbs until they’re cooked, and then they go the kind of pink that only Paris Hilton would be seen in.

Anyway, the cicadas would be stopping and starting as people moved and waited, and if you looked back to shore you could see the gas lamps glowing up around small groups of people as the sky went from blue to grey to black. We’d go home stinking and goosebumpy in the almost dark but with a bag of sweet yummy prawns in the esky, and Dad with one of his daggy JJ Cale CDs for the drive back. When we got home, either Mum’d close her eyes and chuck
our catch into a big pot of salty boiling water or Dad’d spread them out on the barbie. Either way, we’d eat them with a whole heap of different sauces: sweet chilli, tartare, mayo, and Mum’s special concoctions. Actually, it’s the only kind of fishing Mum ever got into. She reckons once you get into hooks and sinkers, it’s cruel and egotistical.

That was all at our place back in Perth.

I’ve seen old photos of Mum and Dad, before they had us, photos of them with their friends, at parties and on holidays, and I wish so much we’d taken the camera with us when we went prawning those times, even though I know a photo won’t keep the smell of those yellow evenings or the sound of our legs pulling through the water or the way laughter gets into your lungs, your heart, your skin.

‘None of those shrimpy ones this time, thanks, Dad,’ Rel calls out as his folks split away with their own net. ‘Don’t wanna have to report you to Fisheries again.’