Trust (14 page)

‘You know what? They’re right. I don’t want to have a serious relationship again till I’ve finished Year Twelve. I don’t care if it seems like a ridiculous cliché, I
really
want to get into medicine at Melbourne Uni.’ Rory drew a deep, determined breath and let it out slowly. ‘And that’s gonna be
hard
.’ She started tapping lightly on Seb’s chest with her fingertips, apparently deep in thought.

I wonder what’s in the fridge
, Seb thought.
Maybe we should get up and eat something.

‘Hey, you know what?’ said Rory suddenly, propping herself up on one elbow. ‘Seb?’

‘What?’

‘All the social pressure to be hooked up with someone – what if we let everybody think we’re an item? Any parties or stuff where you need a date, we’re it for each other. Hang out a bit. See? Then everyone thinks we’re taken. The pressure’s off.’

‘Yeah …’ said Seb slowly. He could see how that could be a good thing.
It’s a jungle out there, but maybe I don’t have to enter it.

‘And if we study together too … Now, that’d be smart. We’re mostly doing the same subjects, right? Biol, Chem, Maths Methods?’

‘Yeah,’ said Seb. ‘But I think I might’ve made a mistake going for Maths Methods. It gets marked higher but it’s definitely not my best subject.’

‘But it’s
my
best subject, and Chem, you’re outstanding. English, we could really help each other there. I reckon we can
ace
it.’

‘Riiight …’ Seb nodded slowly as her plan took shape. ‘Yeah. This could work, on a whole lot of levels.’ He gave an incredulous chuckle. ‘This is the sort of idea my
sister
would come up with! Oh, sorry, Rors, I don’t mean you’re like my sister.’

Rory laughed; she had a great laugh, surprisingly loud. ‘That’s cool. Your sister’s pretty amazing, you know? One day, you’re gonna be going, “Oh yeah, I’m Stella-Jean Visser’s brother.” Guarantee you.’

Seb looked horrified. ‘Promise me you won’t tell
her
that.’

‘Depends. What’ll you offer me to keep my mouth shut?’

It was so great to be lying here, yakking like this. Like when they used to lie on their mats next to each other during nap time and Miss Barnes had to tell them to shush – except that in Miss Barnes’s kinder group, they had their clothes on. Rory had shifted so that her hip was hoicked up against his, and now she moved her thigh to rest across his groin. The pressure was pleasant; more and more pleasant.

His dick started to get hard; they both noticed, but just kept talking. She started rocking slightly, and that was even better. She rolled her leg further across, splaying her slender body atop his, still rocking; they were both facing the ceiling, the wing-like back of her shoulder rubbing his chest, while his dick was sandwiched between her bum and his own taut belly, and as his hard-on grew so did the pressure. She reached for his right hand and placed it between her legs, guiding, curling his fingers over. Seb had never really touched a girl’s cunt before, certainly not like this. It was moist and hot, with surprisingly wiry fur. It alarmed him. Deftly, he reversed the position of their hands, so that his was on top of hers.

‘Show me,’ he murmured, and she did. He could feel her fingers working under his, he could feel the glute flexing in her small arse, no meatier than a boy’s, he could feel their bodies ramping up the voltage a notch, several notches. He wrapped his other arm around her torso, pressing her tight to him. The system was gonna reach overload, any second; Rory started making sounds that were not like any he’d heard her make before, and not like the women on the porn sites, and then her fingers were
tugging
, kind of, yes, or was it her whole body, he could feel her pelvis bucking under their stacked hands and she was making harsh, very ungirly noises, grunts really, a total turn-on, and his balls filled and shot white light up through his cock and blew the top of his head off into the sky, the universe, the Milky Way.

Some minutes later, after he had re-entered earth’s atmosphere, he managed to say ‘Wow!’ Unoriginal, but heartfelt.

‘Yeah,’ Rory murmured. Her thighs were still trembling. And her glasses were still on, which seemed odd and endearing. ‘Double wow.’ They lay sweatily entwined, just breathing, coming back to earth. ‘Not bad, for your first performance.’

‘I didn’t have to do a thing,’ said Seb sincerely. ‘I was in the hands of a master. Mistress. Why doesn’t that sound right?’

‘Damn sexist language. You know what? I’ve never come like that before.’

‘Nor have I,’ he said with fervour, and even though he couldn’t see her face he could feel her grinning.

‘Eesh, my leg’s all icky. Hand me those tissues, Visser.’ They disentangled; she wiped the cum off her hip while he mopped his belly.

Rory rose, all dancer’s grace, seeming almost to unfold and float from the bed. She plucked his towel from the back of a nearby chair, sniffed it hard a couple of times and wrapped it around herself. ‘Okay, I’m going to have a shower now.’

Seb watched her leave the room, then lay back and let himself revel in the fabulous, glowing fact:
I’ve had sex
. Not the standard format, but definitely sex.
And next time
, he told himself, grinning cheesily,
I’ll get the ace in the hole
. This was as good as winning any of those trophies lined up on the shelf. Better!
I’ve fucked a girl; I have a girlfriend
.

I’m not gay
. He heaved a great blissed-out sigh of relief.
I’m not gay!

TWELVE

Susanna had spent most of the morning preparing the kitchen for the annual Christmas baking, and was now checking that everything was in order, according to the recipes that had been handed down through generations of Greenfield women. In four separate clusters on the island bench she’d assembled all the ingredients for the fruit mince tarts, the Christmas cake, the shortbread, and of course the Christmas pudding, which would be mixed and ceremonially stirred today, then left to sit overnight before boiling.

Stella-Jean, meanwhile, stood by the table at the far end of the room, in perfect but unconscious imitation of her mother’s pose, right elbow supported in her cupped left hand as she too ticked off with her index finger what
she
had assembled – the stack of butcher’s paper, the textas and pastels and jumbo crayons. Each year, with Finn’s help, Stella-Jean produced a great quantity of colourful wrapping paper, and in three weeks time, on Christmas Day, the family would pile their gifts, all wrapped in this bright bounty, under a decorated pine tree in the living room. It gave Susanna great pleasure that her daughter had added a new tradition to the ones she herself so enjoyed maintaining. Yes, there was a lot of organising; yes, there were all the attendant and inevitable frictions – but it was worth it.

‘Aren’t they a bit late?’ Stella-Jean asked.

Susanna glanced at the clock on the wall, and frowned. ‘Yes. And Mum’s usually here early.’

‘This year, if Jeejee and Auntie Ange start fighting with each other, I’m going to fall down on the floor and pretend to faint, okay?’ Stella-Jean sounded like she was quite looking forward to the prospect. ‘That’ll distract ’em.’

‘I’m sure that won’t be necessary,’ her mother said. ‘I think just looking at you is distraction enough for anybody.’ She raised a hand across her forehead, pretending to shield her eyes from the vision of Stella-Jean in her lime-green leggings and a polished cotton mini-dress with swirling orange and pink paisleys, part of the haul Angie had given her. Bright plastic clips secured her hair in a dozen little bunches.

‘It’s for inspiration,’ said Stella-Jean, gesturing grandly at the paper waiting to be embellished.

Both turned as they heard Angie’s three-note ‘Hell-o-oh!’ at the open front door, and in she came, shepherding Finn before her. Once in the kitchen, Angie gave his shoulder a small meaningful nudge. Finn cast a fleeting glance at Susanna and then said, to his feet, ‘Hello Auntie Susanna.’

‘Oh! Hello to you, Finn! Nice to see you!’ He was already scuttling across to join his cousin at the table.

‘Finn’s been working on his manners, haven’t you Finnie?’ said Angie proudly.

Finn said, ‘Can we start drawing now, Stella?’

‘Go for it, Finnster.’

‘What do we say?’ his mother prompted.

‘Please,’ Finn said, after a moment’s hesitation, and then climbed right on to the table to gain maximum access to the big sheets of paper. Stella-Jean would have liked to tell him,
You don’t have to say please to me
, but maybe he’d hear it the wrong way, as just another piece of criticism. Finn had been so tense lately, jumpy, like Tigger the cat on a windy day.

‘Um – Ange: come with me and get some lemons, eh?’ said Susanna, beckoning her sister to the back door. As soon as they were outside she said in a low voice, ‘Wow, I’m impressed. I’m not used to Finn saying hello like that.’

‘You can thank Gabriel,’ said Angie happily. ‘He’s helped me see that the way I was letting Finn behave is not the way God wants
any
of us to behave. Children should respect us, just as we respect God.’ She had the slightly smug expression of someone who has mastered an elusive skill. ‘It’s simple, really, but I needed Gabriel to show me.’

‘Well, that’s marvellous,’ said Susanna, wondering about Stella-Jean’s dark mutterings about Gabriel being weird and Finn unhappy.
Could she be a little jealous?
Because even if the “respecting God” line wasn’t Susanna’s cup of tea, the new tenant was clearly having a positive influence. ‘Congratulations, Ange.’

‘And Finnie’s teacher says he’s much quieter now, and hardly ever misbehaves. And Gabriel makes sure I get him there on time, too.’

‘That
is
incredible,’ said Susanna, grinning as she gave her sister’s shoulder a playful bump with her own. The man must be a miracle worker! They each picked a couple of lemons from the tree and walked back up the path together. Through the kitchen window they could see the kids already hard at work.

Finn was hunkered low over the large sheet of butcher’s paper, concentrating fiercely. This big red circle in the middle of the page, this was Gabriel’s mouth, wide open as he sang, and all the jagged green diamonds around it, spread over every bit of the paper, these were his eyes, watching, watching you all the time. Finn picked up the black crayon and made a grid over the whole thing: these were the prison bars he would put Gabriel behind, one day. Lock him up and never let him out.
There!
He sat back on his heels and regarded his first drawing with a thin smile of satisfaction.

‘Here, Stella,’ he said. ‘This one’s finished.’

‘Good job, Finnster.’
Who gave you that horrible haircut?
she’d have liked to know. Too short and kind of patchy: it made his ears stick out and his big chin seem even bigger. He looked like one of those refugee kids you saw in documentaries. ‘Hey. You want to use the jumbo textas too?’ she asked, offering him the packet.

Finn nodded, selecting one with care. As Stella-Jean covered her own paper swiftly in loose swoops of crayon, she watched him out of the corner of her eye. He had always liked to draw geometric patterns – not for Finn the stick-figure family, the wobbly house with peaked roof and two windows – but she had never seen him being quite as precise and intense as this.

From one side of his fresh sheet to the other, Finn drew row after meticulous row of wavy pink lines, then, turning the paper forty-five degrees, he intersected them with purple lines. Pink was his mother’s favourite colour, purple was his. This is how it used to be: him and Mum. Now she was with Gabriel all the time; even when she was with Finn, she was
really
with Gabriel. And she was always going
Shh, Finnie, shh
, because Gabriel needed everything to be quiet for his songs. If Finn wasn’t quiet Gabriel got angry, striking out quick and hissy like a snake. In the thickest, blackest texta, Finn drew a snake’s forked tongue, an angry V here, there and everywhere among the wavy pink and purple lines.

At the island bench, Angie nodded as Susanna listed all the assembled ingredients: the various dried fruits, the different sugars, the treacle and flours and spices and so on. Suddenly Angie gasped and clutched at her sister’s arm.

‘Oh, Susu, I nearly forgot.’ She trotted over to the corner of the kitchen where, on entering, she’d propped a large grey cardboard folder, and carried it back to the bench. ‘I meant to give you this
weeks
ago. Come, see.’

Susanna withdrew a sheet of paper at random. ‘Oh, will you look at that! It’s baby Stella-Jean.’

‘Huh?’ Stella-Jean swung round, and her mother brought the sketch over to show her. It was in pencil, of a round-cheeked infant with flyaway hair. ‘Wow, I was so
cute
!’

‘Is that Stella?’ asked Finn, rising to a kneeling position and craning to see over Susanna’s arm.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Susanna, lowering her arm obligingly. ‘Do you recognise her?’ She took more drawings out of the folder: all were of Seb and Stella-Jean, as babies or toddlers or very young children. ‘Oh, this is terrific! Where did you find them, Ange? I thought
all
this stuff got chucked out.’

‘I saw this folder sitting by the bin one day, ages ago, and —’ Angie mimed furtively carrying something away.

‘Mum! You chucked them out?’ Stella-Jean was mightily affronted. ‘Pictures of
me
?’

‘I didn’t
mean
to, sweetheart. There was a mix-up with — never mind.’ She could still remember the row she and Gerry had had; she’d ended up apologising, but still couldn’t really see how it was her fault, when he’d been the one who cleared everything out in one ruthless day. ‘It was just, there wasn’t room to keep everything once I didn’t have the studio any more.’

‘What studio?’

‘The games room used to be my studio, when we first moved in here. I used to draw a lot then.’
Draw and paint
, she remembered.
Somehow, amid all the interruptions
.