The Legend of Winstone Blackhat (20 page)

Jemma made him a card. She had it waiting for him on the table when he got home from school and it said
at the top and
Jemma
at the bottom in pink felt-tip pen and in the middle was a drawing of two figures holding hands and one of them had a big black hat on and the other looked like it had its head in a box but she said it was wearing a veil.

Jemma asked if she could marry you when she grows up, Debbie said, and she arched her eyebrows at Winstone and smiled. So I hope you don’t mind but I said since you’re not her brother that’d be okay.

There was cake on the table too. A pile of little brown cakes in paper cases with patterns on the paper and each little cake had chocolate icing and coloured sprinkles on it and stuck in the icing of each of the top eleven cakes was a little coloured candle.

Did you have a good day at school? Debbie had to raise her voice to say it because she was in the pantry by then and Winstone looked at the back of her standing there and his birthday must have been yoga day because those were the pants she had on, tight around the bum and black except for Jemma’s floury handprints. He nodded.

The school had known about his birthday as well. He supposed schools had to know about that kind of stuff but it didn’t seem right that they could just go and tell everyone else without even
asking. It seemed like it should be against the law. They didn’t have his permission for what they did and he wouldn’t have given them his permission if they had asked because he knew nothing good was going to come of it and nothing good did.

First thing after the morning bell Mrs Saunders came in and said good morning as she always did and enough of Room 3 said good morning Mrs Saunders back so it sounded neat and tidy.

We have birthdays today, Mrs Saunders said. Tara, come on up.

Tara was already sitting up straight in her chair and she tossed her shiny brown hair to her other shoulder and ran her hand down its length like it was a very good pet and got up and walked to the front of the class and all the while she was smiling a great big white-toothed smile like she’d just been given a pony.

And Winstone, Mrs Saunders said.

Winstone didn’t know what sort of diseases horses got but it looked like Tara’s pony had suddenly dropped stone dead or maybe hatched out in something contagious. There was the sort of silence that wasn’t really a silence at all but composed of breath taken in and held and let out through the nose and a shuffling as if a tribe of meerkats was forming up to embark on an offensive.

Come on, Mrs Saunders said. Up you come.

Someone giggled. Tara was looking off to one side as if something might be about to happen there and her smooth brown cheeks were all red and from the look on her face Winstone bet she was hoping that someone was going to come along and dig a big hole in that spot and bury her with the pony. He felt for Tara but in his experience such holes never appeared when you wanted them to and he had no other choice but to get out of his seat and go to the front of the class and stand beside her.

Tara was wearing a tight orange T-shirt with a kind of bullseye
thing on the front and although Winstone kept his eyes on his trainers as much as he could in the corner of his right eye was her breast where the cotton stretched and the pattern swelled and the lines of her bra cut into the perfect roundness of it like the stitching on a softball.

He knew what girls’ breasts looked like under their clothes. Bodun had plenty of pictures of them up on his wall, bloated bulbous naked things so big you could barely tell there was any girl behind them. And Winstone had seen plenty of them in the flesh, where they seemed smaller and less likely to burst, on the women Bic brought home and the women who came to the parties Bic and Grunt had, Kirsty and the rest, who didn’t wear a whole lot more on their tits than the girls in Bodun’s pictures and what little was hidden for starters was usually right in your face when they bent down to say hello. Kirsty had a tattoo over the fattest part of hers that said
GRUNT
and a lot of guys did and she never got it. Winstone had felt breasts pressed against him and had their mixed-up smell of perfume and cigarettes up his nose and he’d even touched a few.

But the breasts on Tara were different somehow, like baby mushrooms just breaking ground, and for them to be on a girl his own size was an alien and deeply disturbing sight. Winstone tried not to think about how they looked while Room 3 sang the birthday song but that just made him wonder whether they’d feel different to touch and somehow Tara’s breasts got connected to him and started to pull and his panic rose and he thought the stupid song would never end.

Dear Tara AND WINSTONE, the kids sang. They were eating it up like it was smothered in secret recipe special sauce. They’d have sung it all day if they could.

Hey Tara, they said at playtime, why aren’t you hanging out with your twin?

Hey guess what he looks just like you.

No he doesn’t.

Tara had no idea how to handle a situation like that, you could tell.

Anyway I’m a year older than him.

If he’s not your brother what is he? Jack said. Maybe he’s your lover.

You’re so dumb. That doesn’t even make any sense.

Tara was right but it didn’t help her.

He’s not your brother he’s your lover, a group of the Year Eight boys started to chant. Tara and Winstone, Tara and Winstone.

Winstone wished there was something he could do but he felt pretty sure there wasn’t. They were all under the shade sail as required by the rules and he looked at Tara sitting there on the opposite side in her orange T-shirt and her little pleated skirt and her black over-the-knee socks. She had her shoulders hunched and her feet splayed wide and turned in pigeon-toed and her knees pressed tight together. She was handing out pieces of birthday cake to Emily and Sara-Jane and pretending she couldn’t hear the boys but her cheeks were the sort of angry red you could fry an egg on.

God stop staring at her you little perv, said Sara-Jane. Can’t you see she doesn’t like you.

He’s always looking at you, said Emily.

Tara glanced up at him then.

You know. Emily’s eyes fell to Tara’s chest. Down there. He’s such a creep. He was doing it today while we sang happy birthday.

Winstone looked away quickly. He still had a picture of Tara on the back of his eyelids and he looked at her there and he wanted a lot of things but mainly to say sorry. Not for looking at Tara’s breasts, because she shouldn’t have put a target on them if she didn’t want people to stare, but for ruining her birthday.

Going back into class Emily and Sara-Jane were ahead and
Tara was last in the line and he stood behind her and got the words ready and thought about how he could get her attention and how bad it would be if he touched her arm and then Jack looked back from the front of the line and yelled, Hey Tara your lover’s got something to say to you.

Tara turned round so quickly her ponytail hit him right in the face and it almost stung.

Just stay away from me freak, Tara said, not shouting but low. I can’t stand you. None of us can. We don’t care what happened to your sister.

Debbie backed out of the pantry and turned and she had another little chocolate cake on a plate and she’d lit the candle on it and she carried it shielding the small flame with one hand and put it down in front of Winstone.

One for now, she said. We’ll have the rest tonight.

Debbie stood back and Jemma was up there quick as a moth on his knee with her loose honey hair in his face and Debbie said, Jemma, no, it’s Winstone’s candle, let him blow it out, and Winstone said she could help and they counted to three and did it together. Jemma laughed and clapped her hands and he reached both arms around her and broke the cake in two and gave Jemma half and watched her squish it over her face and lick her hands and Debbie said what a kind boy he was but he didn’t even mind.

Jemma go wash your face, Debbie said, and Jemma slid down from his knee and Winstone went out and fed the dogs and he gave them an extra biscuit each because it was his birthday.

The day was slick and swirling with heat and no wind and everywhere the cicadas rattling and the shed roof corrugating the sun and the long grass rank and cracking the earth and drawing it down to dust and the hills flattened into the sky. He walked back to the house and Jemma was crouched on her heels
on the green watered lawn pulling dandelion heads to bits and waiting for him and she wanted to play.

Princess or cowgirl? he said.

Cowgirl!

So Winstone let her ride about on the lawn for a bit herding bees and then he charged in on his mean black horse and lassooed her and slung her over his shoulder and carried her up to the rustlers’ hideout at the top of the slide and he tied her up very tightly with his fake rope and told her she was his slave and she’d never escape and he left her there.

Help, cried Jemma. Please somebody help.

Then Winstone changed horses and hats and he galloped up and sprang from the saddle to the top of the slide and he took his knife from between his teeth and sliced through the ropes and scooped Jemma up and called to his horse and holding Jemma tight in his arms he slid down straight onto the palomino’s back and they sped away to his ranch house in the hedge.

Now you ask me to marry you, Jemma said and Winstone went down on one knee and he did and Jemma said, I do. You may kiss the bride, she said, and she wrapped her arms around his neck and put her mouth on his for a second or two and it was damp and soft and breathy and warm and he felt the bones in her small chest press against him hard and flat and unconfronting as his own.

I love you Winson.

I love you Jim-jam.

Now we go to bed.

Jemma spun around and lay down and Winstone lay down beside her and opened his arms and Jemma shuffled in close and put her head on his shoulder and then she squeezed her eyes shut and pretended to snore. Winstone petted her hair where it was trying to get up his nose and the skin of her cheek was
soft and downy like velvet or marshmallow and her eyelashes fluttered against his neck and without opening her eyes she said, Is it morning yet?

No, he said. Not yet.

Jemma breathed in and out. Is it morning now?

Yes.

Okay. Jemma sat up and stretched and fake-yawned. I’m going to make us breakfast. She folded her lips and set out her imaginary pots and pans and tossed her hair and said how do you like your eggs, and Winstone said sunny-side up not knowing what that meant but because it sounded pretty and Jemma reached into the front pocket of her pink check pinafore dress and brought out two yellow dandelion hearts and she served them up on the palm of her hand.

In the weeks after that the weather broke and it stayed broken for a while. There was no more school and no more playing outside and a lot more TV and people complained on the radio but still the cold wind blustered and tossed around a fine rain that eddied and drifted from one day to the next as though it were looking for something. Winstone needed to put on his coat and boots when he went out to feed the dogs and Debbie lit the woodburner again and since he had a lot of spare time it was his job to keep it going.

On the day they drove to Alexandra Jemma was back in her pink gumboots even though they’d got too small and she said they squished her toes. It was raining in Alexandra as well and the lights showed yellow behind the closed doors of the shops and the few people walking past the closed doors all had their hoods up. In The Warehouse people were blaming the school holidays for the rain and some said it was the same every year and others said they’d seen nothing like it and a woman in
zebra-striped leggings said she couldn’t wait for the holidays to end and behind her the kid she was with ran his arm along the shelf and wiped off a stack of towels and watched them scatter over the floor.

Debbie headed down the baby aisle to get to the shoes and on the way Jemma found a plastic lion she liked and Debbie sighed and told her to put it back and Jemma’s lower lip went out.

It’s a baby’s toy, Debbie said. You’re a big girl now.

Jemma stood holding the lion close to her chest.

You’ll be going to school in a few weeks, Debbie said.

Jemma lowered the lion. With Winson, she said.

That’s right, Debbie said.

On the bus.

Yes, Debbie said. With all the big kids on the bus.

Jemma looked at the lion while she thought about that.

Babies can’t go on the bus, Debbie said.

Jemma turned around and set the lion back on the shelf and she got it lined up nice and straight and then she turned back and brushed imaginary dust from her hands. I’m not a baby, she said. I’m a big girl now.

That’s right. Debbie held out her hand. Come on, let’s go find you some gumboots.

Winstone followed a few steps behind them and watched Jemma’s feet as she tried to walk on just her heels so her toes didn’t squish and he thought about her walking onto the bus and as far as he could think there wasn’t a single thing in the world that he could do about it.