This River Awakens (30 page)

Jennifer sneered. ‘That makes a difference?’
Oh yes, he wouldn’t rape a son.
Just beat the shit out of him.

‘Well, I don’t think he’ll beat you – not if he hasn’t up to this point, that is. Has he? I didn’t think so. But the trauma – the psychological damage – will manifest itself in you. Differently, of course. It’s my opinion that it already has, Jennifer. You’re abusing yourself, completing the cycle – doing Sten’s job for him. It’s
his
situation, after all,
his
making. Now, none of this is my area of expertise, but I have consulted with the hospital’s resident psychologist.’ Roulston leaned towards Jennifer’s mother. ‘For your daughter’s sake, it’s important that we intervene. Now. I’ve contacted Family Services. A social worker will be coming out. She’s on her way, in fact. If you’d like, I can remain here and be with you during the assessment and interview.’ He swung to Jennifer. ‘It’s important that you be here as well.’

‘Fuck that, Doctor. I’m not talking to anybody, and you can’t make me.’

‘If you don’t co-operate, the worker will likely assume that you’re fearful for your life under the present situation, or if not for your own life, then for your mother’s. Jennifer, listen. You’re better off being reasonable. The three of you need help, you lose nothing by asking for it. We can get this situation under control, keep the family together – each of you supporting the other. Counselling, therapy – they can be very successful once you acknowledge the need for help.’

‘Nobody’s taking me away,’ Jennifer said.

‘Well, it shouldn’t have to come to that—’

‘You swear it won’t? Swear it.’

‘Very well. I swear. But conditionally. You have to co-operate, you have to genuinely want to find a solution, to work through things. Promise, Jennifer.’

She turned away. ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’m going outside. I’ll be in the playground. Call me when the bitch from hell arrives.’

Jennifer twisted on the swing.
Co-operate. Sure thing, Doctor. I’m gonna lie like hell, and Mother’s gonna nod her head at everything I say. Watch.
Roulston’s promise had been a surprise. She’d almost fallen for it, but then she realised he was going to fuck them over. He’d say anything – he knew damn well it was the social worker’s call, that she’d probably tell him to get lost. He’d made an empty promise. Maybe he was just stupid. More likely he knew.
And so, just like him, I’ll say anything. No, ma’am, my father’s the pathetic kind of drunk. He’d been aiming at a door when he’d hit Mother. He only beats up the house. He didn’t mean to hit her, and he didn’t mean to shove his cock up my ass. He didn’t mean it, really. You didn’t mean it, did you?

She saw Debbie Brand riding a bike on the road. The girl approached, riding down and across the shallow ditch. The bike looked strange. It was a Mustang, lime green, with high handlebars and a banana seat. But it had an extra gear sprocket, and the slick on the back wheel was thinner than usual.

Debbie rolled up and stopped in front of Jennifer.

‘Hi,’ she said, smiling.

‘Hi.’

‘Got a cigarette?’

She took out her pack and handed it over. ‘There’s matches inside.’

‘Had to get out of the house,’ Debbie said.

‘Oh yeah, I know what you mean. What kind of bike is that?’

‘It’s Owen’s. Our dad fixed it up. Man, it’s fast now. It’s like a racing bike. It’s got ten gears.’

‘Huh. So how come he’s not using it?’

Debbie returned the cigarette pack then got off the bike and sat in the swing next to Jennifer. They stared at the bike lying on the grass in front of them. ‘All his friends are on vacation and stuff. He goes out in the mornings and doesn’t even come back for lunch, sometimes. Don’t know what he’s up to. I saw Carl yesterday – you know him?’

‘I see him around.’

Debbie nodded. She tipped ash from her cigarette on to her jeans above one knee, then rubbed it in. ‘Carl says you and Owen are going together. Don’t worry about it if you are. I’ve got no problem.’

‘We’ve only been together a few times the last couple of weeks.’

‘You breaking up?’

‘No. But my mom was in the hospital, and now she’s home and I got to take care of her.’

‘Oh.’ Debbie frowned. ‘So where does he go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Weird.’ She looked over at Jennifer. ‘You turned him on? Is he tripping every day?’

Jennifer laughed. ‘Owen? No, he won’t do anything.’

‘Good. I mean, I don’t mind, really. I’m sure he will in a couple of years, once the revolution’s won and everything’s legal and stuff.’

‘You must be kidding.’

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’

They were silent for a minute, then Debbie said, ‘Dave’s such a jerk.’

‘Yeah, a real prick.’

‘I thought Mark was okay, but all he wants is to fuck. They’re all assholes.’

‘I know.’

‘I’m going to get my grades up. I’m going to go to university.’

‘Oh yeah. Going to change the world, eh?’

‘Anything’s better than this.’

‘Going to burn your bra?’

‘You don’t have to be mean about it. Can I have another butt?’

‘Sorry. Sure, take a few if you like.’

‘Thanks.’

‘So, does Owen’s – I mean, do your parents know about me and Owen?’

‘No. Lucky you. I hear Owen jerking off at night. His bed creaks.’

‘He must be really going at it.’

‘Yeah, you got him going, all right.’

‘He’s okay.’

‘Yeah, for a brother.’

A car rolled into the driveway behind them. ‘Got to go,’ Jennifer said. ‘See ya around?’

‘Yeah.’ Debbie’s smile was pretty. ‘Summer school’s over. I got time now.’

‘Great.’ A car door slammed.

‘See you.’

‘Bye.’ Jennifer hurried back to the house.
Mark told me once about social workers. Busting up families just for the hell of it. Sending kids to juvie homes. Roulston, she’s gonna eat you alive. Say what you like to her. I’ll make it obvious that you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusions. I’m good at this stuff. Watch me.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I

I wasn’t to hear what had happened at the Loupers’ until almost a week later. Days passed without seeing Jennifer and it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, as much as I enjoyed our times together, my mind was often drawn away, unscrolling in strange directions. The days seemed all too short, summer racing past all too quickly, and it made me feel uneasy as every word I devoured seemed to be pushing inside, forcing some kind of change.

The first book I’d chosen to read,
Les Misérables,
was a handful. The writing was dense, the story in some ways simple but in other ways anything but. My mind dwelt in a country far away, in a history I knew nothing about. Too late, I realised I should have tackled the history books first. I kept reading, determined to finish the book before I went on to the next one. The stranger with his gifts had been older than me, a lifetime gathered behind him. Or her –
Les Misérables
sometimes felt like a romance. And under everything, there was something else, a kind of faith. Not in God, but in some kind of mysterious force that lived in the land, that made people the way they were without them even knowing it. It felt like the faith mothers should have – whatever it was that made them decide to be mothers. In any case, I wasn’t sure whether the stranger was a fairy godmother, or a tyrant. The question felt important, because I felt that stranger’s hands, shaping my future.

My unease spread its murky tide across my days and nights as the dry, unyielding summer stretched on. Momentary relief came with Jennifer, of course – I thirsted for the taste of her, the breath that was anything but innocent, the body that knew what it wanted. She’d made me insatiable, with or without her, and what I needed and explored twisted into itself, a thick knot closing off a secret place.

I didn’t know if my new knowledge was a good thing. I didn’t know if the path I was taking was inevitable, if everyone took it, but the way the knot fed on its own tension struck me as too desperate to be normal.

Even in going together, Jennifer wasn’t the constant I’d imagined her to be. So far, our time together unfolded in a single dimension. Each and every time, we’d look into each other’s eyes and become animal. Wordless and drifting through the other senses with nothing more than instinct guiding us. At least it felt that way with me, and at least it seemed to be the same with Jennifer. She indulged herself with me the same way she indulged herself with cigarettes. Animal pleasure, something she could pull inside her body and hold there for as long as she wanted. She exhaled us both with the same look in her eyes. It was more than enough for me – it made me feel privileged to be possessed. But, even with all that, I knew my life was unfolding in other directions as well.

A new adventure was under way, and like the river it flowed between the worlds, from what I’d come to know, to what lay outside.
Mistress Flight
flowered, slowly, guided with deliberation and care. The old man and his unexpected friendship had drawn me into a place filled with possibilities, each dusted off and shown with pride. A life on the sea, ancient ports that had seen imperial triremes of Rome, a war conducted only on bitter cold nights when ice tumbled in the North Sea troughs and the hounds hunted shadowy wolves down below …

Every story, every poem, seemed to roll like waves, and when I looked at
Mistress Flight,
watching Walter nurturing her back into bloom, I felt the tug of adventure, the wandering pull. Of course, she had only the river, through lands where only the shallowest surface showed man’s hand, but like Walter often said: you walk across the world one step at a time.

Gribbs had a way of opening worlds in my mind. New words, new ways for old words. He showed me that things could mean more than one thing – that important things always did. It made reading the books even harder.

*   *   *

We were getting close –
Mistress Flight
was almost ready. Walter said that today was the day he’d winch her over to the rails.

The morning was bright, clear and hot. I left the house, seeing only Debbie – riding off on my bike, which she’d asked to borrow so it was okay. Mother had taken to sunning herself down by the riverbank. Father said she already looked like an Amazon, but she said she wanted the tan to last, and that meant at least three hours a day, usually in the morning before the bus brought William and Tanya back.

I walked down the driveway and emerged on to the road.

‘Owen!’

Lynk, Roland and Carl were down by the bend, near the end of the playground. They jogged my way. Lynk looked different, taller maybe. More likely it was just because I hadn’t seen him in a while. Roland looked the same – for some reason, that seemed natural. He would never change.

‘Got back yesterday,’ Lynk said.

I shrugged.

Roland asked, ‘What have you been up to? Apart from feeling up Jennifer, that is.’

‘Not much.’

‘Roland wants to go for a look,’ Lynk said, pushing the hair from his eyes. ‘I say fuck that. It’s either washed away or rotted to nothing. Who the fuck cares? I want to take my minibike out.’

‘There’d be bones,’ Roland said, his eyes on me.

‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Not today. What about tomorrow? Or Friday?’

‘All right,’ Roland said.

‘Forget it,’ Lynk said. ‘I got better things to do.’

I ignored him. ‘I think it’s time to see, to see what’s happened.’

‘Who the fuck made you boss? Sometimes you act like it’s yours. Like you fucking own it or something.’

‘It’s all of ours,’ I insisted. ‘What’s got into you, Lynk? Too scared or something? Go play on your minibike, then, what the fuck do I care.’

‘You ain’t got one.’

I looked at Roland. We both laughed.

Lynk took a step towards me, then stopped as I swung around to face him. He hesitated, then shrugged. ‘Let’s go, Carl. I’ll double you.’

‘Nah, I’m heading home.’

‘Forget that. Let’s go.’

‘I don’t want to.’

Lynk rushed Carl, getting him into a headlock, then throwing him down on to the asphalt. ‘Come on,’ he said, standing over him. ‘Let’s go.’

Carl stayed down, his face red and his eyes filling with tears. He sat up and wiped his nose, leaving a wide smear on his tanned forearm. ‘No. Fuck you.’

Lynk kicked him in the face. Carl folded up, rolling on to his side. Bright blood glistened on the black road surface.

Without another word, Lynk stalked down the road. He spun and walked backwards for a few steps, looking at Carl, whose nose gushed blood, then he turned and picked up his pace.

Roland’s face had darkened. He stared at Lynk. ‘I wish we’d never found it,’ he said.

‘Me too.’

Carl slowly climbed to his feet. His t-shirt was red, as was the hand he held up to his nose, pinching the nostrils. He breathed loudly through his mouth. ‘I’m going home,’ he said thickly.

He looked small, broken, as he cut across a yard and disappeared behind a house.

His blood was bright on the road between me and Roland.

‘Friday?’ he asked.

‘Okay.’

‘See you.’

‘Yeah.’

When I arrived at the yards,
Mistress Flight
sat on the rails. Walter crouched beside the main winch, reeling out an arm-length of cable. A bucket of grease sat beside him. ‘Walk this to her bow,’ he said, not looking up. ‘You’ll see where to attach it on the cradle. We need to firm up on this end before we release the side cables and remove the brakes. How’re you doing this fine morning, Owen?’

‘All right, I guess.’ I picked up the heavy, greased cable and carried it to
Mistress Flight.
A ring had been bolted into the wooden cradle between the blocks. I opened the cable’s clasp and locked it over the ring. ‘Ready over here,’ I said.

Walter straightened, one hand on the cable as he approached. ‘Feels right,’ he said as his hand reached and tested the clasp. He went back to the winch and started it up. The motor sounded loud. I watched the cable tighten. Walter disengaged the pull but left the motor running as he walked to the first of the side cable winches, which were hand-cranked.