The Teacher's Secret (33 page)

Mel gives him a hard frown. The last thing she needs is for bloody Adam to turn the whole thing into some comedy routine.

Ignoring him, she fixes her eyes on Ethan. ‘Make it quick.'

Josh dumps his bag by the door and escapes up into his bedroom. Adam goes into the kitchen to turn on the kettle and Mel follows him. ‘You want to handle this or will I do it?' she asks.

‘You're scarier,' he says. ‘You do it.'

That just pisses her off. ‘Well, that's a bloody copout,' she says. ‘A complete bloody copout. Tell you what, I'll do the yelling and you sort out the punishment.'

Adam grins. ‘Done.'

He laughs when she scowls back at him.

‘It's not funny, you know that, don't you? In fact, it's right up there. I mean, calling some black kid a fucking black cunt, it's pretty bloody outrageous. You hear that in the street and you think,
Who is that racist prick? Hang on, that's our son
. But then again, what
would you expect from a loser kid like Ethan? Even his bloody principal thinks that.'

‘That's not what she said.'

He's still pissing her off. ‘I didn't say she said it, I said she thought it. And what would you know anyway, Mr Sorry-I'm-late-couldn't-get-away?'

Adam keeps his smile. ‘I wasn't bullshitting, you know. It was true.'

From the far end of the house, there's the sound of a toilet flushing.

‘Get ready,' he whispers. ‘Here he comes.'

Back in the kitchen, Ethan gives Mel an uncertain smile.

Mel doesn't smile back.

‘Can I, like, have something to eat?' he tries.

Mel crosses her arms in front of her. ‘No,' she says evenly, ‘you can't. You can just stand there and hear what I've got to say to you.' She keeps her tone pleasant, if a bit cool. It has the right effect. She can see it's putting the fear of God in him. ‘So,' she continues, ‘your dad and I, we got called up to the principal's office today, didn't we? Turns out you've been having a go at some new kid in the school.'

Ethan doesn't respond.

‘Well, is it true? Did you have a go at him?'

When he doesn't answer, she raises her voice. ‘Well, did you? Did you have a go at him or not?'

He whispers something she doesn't catch.

‘What did you say?'

This time he looks up at her, his face set hard. ‘I said, he deserved it.'

Now she really lets fly. ‘So he did, did he? On his first day at your school, he deserved to get picked on by you, did he?'

He doesn't answer her.

‘And I suppose he deserved to be called a fucking black cunt then, too, did he?'

Ethan looks blank.

‘Well?'

Still he looks blank. This just makes her more irate. ‘Is there something you aren't understanding, Ethan?'

Hesitantly, his lips part.

‘Well,' she snaps, ‘what is it?'

‘What's a cunt?' he asks.

She just stares at him. ‘Sorry?'

‘I don't know what a cunt is.' He says the word openly, so openly it suddenly occurs to her that maybe he really doesn't know.

‘So why did you call him a cunt if you don't even know what it means?'

He shakes his head. ‘I didn't,' he says. ‘I didn't call him a cunt.'

‘So what did you call him then?'

He looks shamefaced. ‘Nothing.'

‘Tell me what you said to him.'

‘I can't say it to you. You'll get me in trouble if I say the words to you.'

‘I'll get you in a whole lot more trouble if you don't.'

He mumbles something she can't understand.

‘Loudly and clearly, Ethan, or I'll get your dad to whack it out of you.'

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. ‘Fucking fuck fuck!' he shouts, his eyes still shut tight. ‘I called him a fucking fuck fuck.'

Mel looks at him in astonishment. ‘You called him a what?'

Ethan opens his eyes a bit and gives her a wary look. ‘I'm sorry, Mum. I just said it. It just sort of all came out.'

But that's not what she wants to know. She lowers her voice so she doesn't sound so cranky. ‘Just tell me again, Etho, just tell me what you said. Just exactly what you said.'

‘I said,
You're a fucking fuck, you're a fucking fuck fuck.
I'm sorry, Mum, I'm really sorry.'

Mel looks over him to Adam and raises her shoulders in a confused shrug. Adam shrugs back.

‘I'm glad you're sorry, Ethan, but your dad is going to have to sort out an appropriate punishment.' She looks back at Adam. ‘Aren't you, Adam?'

Adam gives her a fake solemn look. ‘That's right, babe.'

It's worth a week's grounding. That's what Adam decides. For picking on a new kid and for using such bad language.

Later, when the kids are asleep and she and Adam are getting ready for bed, Adam comes up from behind and starts to nuzzle her ear. ‘You know what you are, babe?'

She leans the side of her face against his. ‘What?'

‘You're a fuck.'

She laughs. ‘No, I'm not.'

‘Yes, you are, you're a fuck. Actually, you're not just a fuck, you're a fucking fuck.'

She twists herself around so she's facing him, then wraps her arms around him. ‘I am not a fucking fuck.'

‘Oh yes you are, babe, you're a fucking fuck fuck. You, my darling, are a real fucking fuck fuck.'

He starts to moves his hand down her backside. ‘Oh yeah, baby, that's what you are.'

She smiles into his neck. ‘You think?'

‘Oh yeah,' he whispers. ‘So, you feel like a fuck, then, you fucking fuck, fuck?'

‘Fuck yeah,' she whispers back.

Rebecca

The appointment is at ten o'clock. The lawyer Emmanuel has found does not charge for the advice. Rebecca questions how such a lawyer—a lawyer who doesn't charge—could possibly be a good one—but she doesn't argue about it.

When they approach the counter, the receptionist doesn't lift her eyes from her computer. ‘Criminal or civil?'

When neither of them answers, the woman raises her head, takes a good look at them, then slows her voice right down. ‘Do you have an appointment with a criminal lawyer or a civil lawyer?'

The question irks Rebecca. Surely the woman can see that they are not the sort of people to be in need of a criminal lawyer.

‘We have an immigration question,' Emmanuel tells her.

‘That's a civil matter, then.' She scrolls down a page on her computer. ‘Your name?'

‘Chuma,' he says. ‘Emmanuel Chuma. And my wife, Rebecca Chuma.'

The woman is looking doubtful. ‘So is Tumour your first name or your last name?'

‘It is our family name.'

Now she is shaking her head. ‘Nothing under T. Have you got the right day?'

‘The name is
Chuma
,' says Emmanuel, his voice clipped. ‘C-h-u-m-a. And I am certain that our appointment is for this morning.'

The woman is still unwilling to take his word for it. She squints at the computer screen, her mouth tight. ‘Emmanuel Chuma,' she says finally. ‘That right?'

Emmanuel gives her a small nod.

‘Take a seat then and wait for your name to be called out.'

There are plastic bucket seats lined up along the walls of the room and they take a seat beside a girl who seems only a few years older than Sebastian. It is a surprise, then, to see a baby stroller beside her, with a dirty-faced toddler sleeping in it. As Rebecca watches, the girl slides down in her chair and, letting her head fall back, is soon asleep too.

From the front of the room, Emmanuel's name is being called. It is a woman who calls him, and because her voice is thin, she has to speak loudly to be heard. Her hair, Rebecca sees, is unkempt and she wears no make-up. She is dressed casually, in trousers and a shirt under a sleeveless vest, and when Emmanuel lifts his hand to say that, yes, he is Emmanuel Chuma, the woman walks over to them.

At her request, they follow her down a long hallway. This, Rebecca thinks, is where the lawyer's office must be. Instead, they are led into a room that is empty apart from a round table and four chairs. There are no books or bookshelves in it, no files and no lawyer.

‘Right,' says the woman, once they are all seated. ‘My name's Amanda. How can I help you?'

‘We were hoping to see a lawyer,' Rebecca tells her, ‘an immigration lawyer.'

The woman nods. ‘I'm a lawyer,' she says, ‘and a migration agent.'

If this surprises Emmanuel as much as it does Rebecca, he doesn't show it.

‘You're on a temporary visa, is that right?'

‘I have been researching here,' Emmanuel tells her.

The woman has a notepad in front of her and now she has started to write in it. ‘So you're on a student visa, is that right?'

Emmanuel's reply comes so quickly he sounds curt. ‘No,' he says, ‘not a student visa—a research visa. I am an academic. I am a visiting academic.'

The woman turns to Rebecca. ‘And, Rebecca, are you on the same visa as your husband?'

To be addressed like this, by her first name, by a woman she doesn't know—and a white woman, at that—is insulting. ‘My son and I were granted visas on the basis of our relationship to my husband,' she says stiffly. ‘I can show you our passports.'

The woman tilts her head to the side. ‘Sure.'

Reaching into her bag, Rebecca pulls out their three passports.

The woman flicks through the top one. Rebecca cannot see whose it is, whether it is hers, Emmanuel's or Sebastian's. To not know this makes her anxious, immediately and inexplicably anxious.

‘Right,' the woman says finally. ‘So you're wanting to extend your visa, is that right?'

‘Under ordinary circumstances,' Emmanuel tells her, ‘that would not be our intention. I have good employment in our country. In
addition, I hold an academic post. My wife, equally, has good work there. Unfortunately, since my arrival in Australia, the situation has changed somewhat.' He moves in his chair, shifting his legs. ‘In my absence, my wife was detained. Threats were made against her, and against our son.'

Rebecca marvels at her husband's calm delivery of words that make her flinch.

‘Are you looking to make a claim for asylum then?'

Emmanuel looks at Rebecca for an answer, but she has nothing for him, nothing to give him. And so, lowering his head a fraction, slowly he lets his eyelids close over his eyes before he opens them again.
I will handle it
, he is telling her. She is grateful for this. No, more than that—she loves him for it.

‘Yes,' he says. ‘We would like to make a claim for asylum.'

For this, there are forms to complete. Afterwards, there will be an interview with an officer from the immigration department. Amanda the lawyer is happy to help them with the forms but won't be able to accompany them to the interview. Very few applicants bring a lawyer with them, she tells them. And in any case, she adds, most applicants don't have the money for a lawyer. When, then, with a smile, she includes them in the pool of the poverty-stricken, Rebecca has to swallow before she can smile back.

That afternoon, she waits in the schoolyard for the bell to ring and for Sebastian to come to her. Because she knows no one here, she waits by herself. This is why she doesn't turn when a voice calls from behind her, ‘Excuse me? Excuse me?'

When, finally, she does turn, there is a woman in front of her. ‘The new kid in Year 6,' she says, ‘are you his mother?'

Rebecca smiles as she takes in the pale-skinned women around them. ‘Yes,' she says, ‘I am.'

The woman pulls at her earlobe. ‘Listen,' she says, lowering her voice. ‘I've got to apologise for my ratbag son. Apparently he had a go at your boy.'

This is the first Rebecca has heard of it. ‘I'm sorry?'

‘Last week,' the woman tells her, ‘we got hauled into the principal's office about it.'