The Boy Under the Table (2 page)

The people putting needles in their arms as casually as though they were drinking coffee had shocked her too, and the filth and the all-pervasive anger had been terrifying. But it had been two years now and she barely registered the horror of her surroundings anymore.

She didn’t see what she didn’t want to see. The women on the street were pretty girls waiting for a date and she was a princess waiting for her prince. The world could be a lot easier to deal with if you lived mostly inside your own head. Probably all the same ugly, sick, twisted stuff went on behind the pretty fences of her childhood anyway.

She had built herself a fairly impressive wall in the last two years, but then she had been building that long before she got to the Cross. She could watch the world shit itself up right in front of her and not feel a thing. Sometimes she thought that any feeling at all would have been a luxury, but nothing got through. It meant that nothing could hurt her but it also meant that nothing could move her either. It was a price she was willing to pay. It was one interesting fucking trade-off.

The boy under the table was quietly battering against her walls, but she held firm.

‘Take care of yourself first, before you think about anything else,’ Ruby had said.

Ruby handed down the same advice that had been given to her. She had been in the Cross for five years and it was a tradition to help the newbie.

Some didn’t help. Some led the younger kids in the wrong direction and then didn’t stick around to pick up the pieces. But Ruby liked to educate. Knowledge is power and all that shit.

Usually Tina knew better. Ruby had taught her better. Usually she knew better than to get into a car with one of them. Usually she would never have dreamed of allowing one of them to take her to his house. Usually she would never have put herself in this situation.

Usually it wasn’t fucking freezing and she wasn’t fucking starving.

Twenty bucks could stretch to cover a week if she was careful.

She could almost taste the burger and fries, but before she was allowed to put any food in her mouth she had to put something else down her throat.

‘You know it’s just a blow right?’ she said.

‘’Course I do, luv, that’s what we agreed. I just thought it would be more pleasant if we got out of the rain.’

She had been standing on the street for almost an hour when he came along. An hour of cars that sped past and an hour of the wind biting at her body. An hour of the trickling rain down her back that the umbrella did little to stop. An hour of thinking time.

There had been no one to talk to. Everyone else had given up and gone home but Tina had stayed.

Tina is a determined student with a great deal of potential.

When she saw the gold sedan finally slow down she had breathed a sigh of relief. She had watched him go past three times already.

She opened her coat so he could get a proper look. The window slid down and she leaned in just a little, squeezing her breasts together. She was wearing a tight red singlet with a back mini and sky-high silver heels.

All ready for the club dontcha know.

‘Cold, isn’t it?’ he said.

‘You’ve got that right,’ she said, and smiled.
Like me, want me, like me, want me.

‘How much?’

‘Twenty for a blow, fifty for the whole thing.’

‘Twenty is good.’

‘I can meet you in the alley at the back.’

‘It’s really cold. Why don’t you get in here?’

‘Okay,’ she said. Her mouth responded before her body processed the idea. The car was filled with heat. She could feel it coming out of the window. It was irresistible.

‘Stupid, stupid girl,’ Ruby would have said.

‘My house is just a few blocks away. It will be better there— for both of us.’

Tina knew she should get out of the car. But she just sat there and nodded. She was so grateful to be out of the rain. She willed her legs to move but they knew what was good for them. Her legs stayed put.

She sat there and let him drive off. It was so cold. Tina never knew that cold could become your whole body, not until she spent a night on the streets. It burrowed in through your clothes and went straight for your lungs and your bones. It became all you could think about. You could not imagine ever being warm again.

So she sat in the car and she let him drive and she tried not to see the boy under the table. The little boy under the table licking the empty biscuit packet. The little boy who should not have been there.

Tried/failed.

‘I want my money now,’ said Tina. She glanced around the kitchen again, sniffed at the air. The smell must have been coming off the boy because the kitchen was spotless. It was clean enough to be in one of those adverts that tried to convince the public that their crappy lives would be perfect if they could just kill enough germs.

Her mother was like that. Her kitchen cabinet was stacked with the best germ killers. A whole arsenal dedicated to wiping out anything that dared to live on her surfaces.

In the clean kitchen in the man’s house not a single thing was out of place. Even the tea towels were folded into perfect squares and sitting together on the draining board.

Not a single thing out of place except for one thing so very out of place.

The man’s car had been clean as well. Free of the usual debris of a life lived moving from one place to another.

No coffee cups or water bottles or burger wrappers. Nothing.

Nothing but the pine smell and the heat.

In the kitchen Tina stamped on her fear and forced herself to look around. She was in enemy territory. Time to work out the lay of the land.

‘If you’re dumb enough to let one of them drag you home always plan an escape route,’ Ruby had said. ‘But mostly don’t be dumb enough to let one of them take you home.’

Ruby carried a knife, hidden from prying eyes. Tina had never needed a knife. Correction: Tina had never needed a knife before.

She could see a small window and a back door that the man had locked three different ways after they used it to enter the house.

Shit
, she thought. You could turn one lock and get out before you got caught. If you were quick you could maybe turn two locks. Three would be impossible.

She looked at the window again.

There was something a little off about the window. Tina stared at it without staring at it and then she realised what she was seeing.

The latch was broken. It was hanging off the window at an odd angle. With a little bit of work she could get through it in no time. It was a small imperfection in the perfectly maintained space.

She kept the triumphant detail to herself. She stared at her feet and went over the movements that would get her through the window and out of the house.

The man held out a crisp twenty-dollar note.

There it was.

Who said money can’t buy happiness? No one who had ever been hungry, that’s for sure.

Tina grabbed the note and stuffed it right down the bottom of her cloth backpack, underneath her wallet and the few bits and pieces of her life she carried around.

It stopped her thinking. That was the one benefit of hunger. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else occupied your thoughts.

‘Come into the lounge room,’ he said. ‘I’ve got the heat on in there.’

It was a lot warmer in the lounge, and Tina felt her hands begin to thaw again. The boy under the table was wearing a pair of shorts and a torn T-shirt.

I’m just here for my money
, Tina thought.

The man sat himself down on a leather recliner. He unzipped his pants and opened them a little.

Tina felt the bile rise in her throat as it did every time.

‘Just think of the money,’ Ruby had advised.

‘Sometimes it’s good to feel a woman’s lips,’ said the man, giving her a creepy smile.

Tina said nothing. She got down on her knees.

‘Don’t talk to the fuckers. Just do your thing and leave. They love to think that we actually enjoy it because they are so special and so different from every other fuck who ever handed us twenty bucks. Well fuck ’em, I say. They’re all the same,’ Ruby had said.

Tina had listened and learned, grateful for eighteen year old Ruby and her brash kindness.

‘They’ll love you.’ Ruby was looking at Tina’s clear skin and green eyes. ‘You still look like a little kid. How old are you, anyway? Don’t shit me.’

‘Fifteen.’

‘Shit, you look twelve. All the daddies in their four-wheel drives will be after you. Poor bitch.’

The man groaned and it was over.

‘Can I use your loo?’

‘Yeah, sure, it’s over to the right. You could stay awhile, you know. I’d be willing to pay extra. I could make dinner.’

And we could play house
, thought Tina.
Do I give the kid under the table a pat as well?

Tina looked at the man. He was so clean. No extra hair on his face and he smelled of soap. He was even cleaner than his house, but the kid under the table told her that there was plenty of dirt where she couldn’t see it. Black stinking dirt.

‘I’m good,’ she said. ‘I have to get back. Billy will look for me.’

‘Billy your pimp?’ asked the man.

People were stupid. The whole fucking world was raised by the television. Tina nodded. ‘Big bloke from Tonga. You must have seen him when I got in your car. I told him I was coming here. He usually likes to follow me to make sure he gets his money.’

‘Now let me tell you about Billy,’ Ruby had said. ‘He’s the best fucking thing I ever thought up.’

The man knew there was no Billy but he wasn’t one hundred percent sure. None of them ever were. Mostly they didn’t take the chance.

In the bathroom Tina used some of the man’s mouthwash. She used it twice. She wiped her hands on the white towel and then she wiped her nose as well. She made sure the towel was lying perfectly straight again.

There was a uniform hanging just outside the shower. Tina felt her heart in her throat until she looked closer. It was the wrong colour for a cop’s uniform. The blue was different and the pants could have belonged to anyone but the badge made it official. But it was just a security guard’s uniform. Just a security guard.

‘Jumped-up fucks. Think they’re more dangerous than they are,’ Ruby had said about the ones who told them to move away from the front of the ritzy stores.

‘Jumped-up fuck,’ said Tina softly, enjoying the sound of the words and the memory of Ruby.

The man was dozing in his recliner.

‘I’m going now,’ said Tina, focusing on the large fireplace and the iron poker standing next to it.

‘I’ll give you a lift,’ said the man, opening his eyes. He stood and zipped up his pants. He had been more awake than asleep; waiting for her. Listening for her.

‘Nah thanks. Billy just rang me. He’s waiting around the corner.’

‘Oh,’ said the man, and he gave Tina a small smile. ‘I didn’t hear a phone ring.’

Tina sniffed and said nothing. You can’t argue with silence.

‘Why don’t I just walk you to his car? I’m sure Billy would appreciate me taking care of you. You can’t be too careful these days.’

Tina’s heart began to hammer in her neck. She knew exactly who she had to be careful of. She had to play this right or she was fucked.

‘I’m going now,’ she said in what Ruby called her teacher voice. ‘I’m going alone and if you want to see me again you know where to find me.’

‘Always let them know they can see you again,’ Ruby had told her. ‘The stupid fucks like to think it’s been a fucking date!’

The man gazed at Tina for a moment and then he seemed to come to the conclusion that staying inside was easier. The possibility of ‘Billy’ was a risk he was not prepared to take.

He sat down again.

Tina nodded again and turned to make her way through the kitchen and out the back door.

The boy was curled up as small as he could make himself and he was whimpering and shivering in his sleep.

She moved her arm without thinking but quickly clenched her fist and shoved it in her pocket. He was not hers to touch. But whose was he? Could the man who had made him a dog be his father? Did he belong to the clean man?

Tina felt her stomach contract.
Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.

Acid burned her throat but she kept going until she was out of the house and down the path. When she got to the road she started to run and she didn’t stop until she hit the main road. She ran with the exhilaration of having done it again and survived. She ran with the joy of having made the mistake of going with the man but living to tell the tale. She ran to keep warm and to get out of the rain. She ran but she would never be able to run far enough. She couldn’t quite believe her luck. The man had taken her home when he could have just had his blow in the car. There was a chance that he had wanted the warmth of home but there was also a chance that he wanted her in his house for something else entirely.

He had wanted her to see the boy. He had smiled and waited for her to show some reaction. He wanted her to see his prize. ‘Sick fuck,’ said Tina to the night air. She pushed the man and the boy from her mind and concentrated on moving her body. She was feeling lucky tonight. The universe only offered you so many chances.

The first time she did it she thought the disgust and self-loathing would kill her but they didn’t. Hunger could kill you, cold could kill you. All your thoughts could do was torture you so you wished you were dead. Big difference.

She felt her feet pound along the pavement and listened to the click of her heels.

She could run fast in heels now. Being able to run was important. Ruby had made her practice.

In a few minutes she was back where she started.

It wasn’t far to her usual spot. She could make it back to the house from her squat in ten minutes if she wanted to. But why would she want to?

Doug

There were times when Doug would forget. It would only be for a moment but he would forget.

He’d be driving the ute, rounding up the sheep. Jarred and Sean would be calling to each other, trying to keep the horses moving in the right direction, the dogs would be barking and he’d be so focused on making sure he didn’t let any of the sheep stray he would forget about his boy.