Jeannie spun around on her stool. ‘How’re you travelling, darl?’ She had her hair pinned away from her face, curled into gift-wrap ribbons at the ends. ‘Been almost two weeks. Still loving your new career choice?’
I fiddled with my cash drawer. ‘It’s not my career choice.’
‘Sure, right. You’re going to be a vet or something? An astronaut? A tortured writer!’ She laughed to herself. ‘I was like you. Dropped out when I was fifteen. Thought I was pretty smart. Parents kicked me out right away so I worked in this old folks’ home during the day and went back to a crowded dorm at night. Me and eight other girls on bunks. Like an orphanage. I guess you’d call it a women’s shelter now. We’d all dropped out of somewhere – school, work, life.’ She pulled on the end of a curl and it sprang back.
‘And now you’re here.’
‘Met Les, didn’t I? Said he had a farm out here, inherited it from his dad. Didn’t tell me it was a garlic farm but it was too late then anyway. Got knocked up, spent the days in the kitchen with my Kylie, waiting for Les to come back from the fields. Stinking up the place.’ She smiled and sighed at the same time. ‘Drunk, mostly. Banged open the fridge and shouted when there was nothing in it. Then there was Peter and Steven and my career was over anyway.’
‘Your old folks’ home career?’
She frowned at me. ‘Yeah, my old folks’ home career. Had to wait ’til my kids were old enough to look after themselves, then I came here. The boss then was this guy Jack. Town bloody hated him but they’re like that, aren’t they? Close-minded dickheads, the lot of them. He took a chance on me though, didn’t he? Still here twenty years later even if he isn’t.’
‘Did he leave?’
She laughed. ‘Yeah, in a manner of speaking. Keeled over in that meat freezer. Treated his liver badly until it fought back. Anyway.’ She turned back to her belt, where a customer was waiting. ‘Laurence Black, my old friend. What’s the bandaid for? Oh yeah, you gotta be careful cutting those onions. Showed Les my trick, maybe I’ll show you. How’s Doreen? No good once they start breaking their hips, is it? ’Course I hope she gets better. No, ’course. Give her my love.’ Laurence Black left, but Jeannie kept her back to me.
Daryl set up an organic display at the end of my lane. Bags of expensive muesli and artisan pasta and oatmeal shampoo in cream-coloured bottles. He stepped back to admire his creation, all puffed out.
‘Whaddya think, Skye? I figured you’re young, you know how to sell this stuff. Right? You can sneak one across to the oldies, tell them it’ll make them live longer or whatever?’
‘Will it?’ Jeannie said.
‘Fuck no.’ Daryl laughed. ‘But I will live longer, once I get a bonus from this celebrity chef garbage.’
I drew some things on the whiteboard to look organic. Wheat stalks. An apple. A green shopping bag. The oldies started RSVPing right away, coming through my line with their ten-dollar notes already out for tickets. Geoff was a popular guy, apparently. Daryl watched me from the cigarette counter, pointed at the organics stand. I upsold a couple of oatmeal shampoos and boxes of quinoa, and Mrs Forsythe took a whole basket of overpriced vegetables, said she’d make her sons some organic soup to take out on their boats.
‘I bought these special new thermoses,’ she said. ‘They use the power of titanium.’ So I sold her an organic tea towel as well, and a sixpack of organic toothpaste. Daryl gave me a thumbs-up.
For three days I convinced pensioners to spend their money on ten-dollar avocados. On my breaks, Daryl said things like, Better than spending it at the pokies and It makes them feel smart and important. At night I made spaghetti with non-organic pasta and jars of homebrand sauce, read Raf’s texts about the mechanic and sent my own about old ladies and vegetables. After we’d eaten I worked on the plan with Ben with our backs against the bedroom door, each of us just waiting for the six weeks to pass. Staring at the walls until we were unconscious and then snapping conscious again like the night hadn’t passed at all.
By the time Friday morning rocked around, the organics stand was empty and I was a bit empty, too.
Geoff Garland was a big man, bald head with eyes pushed too far into it. He’d brought a whole team with him – a couple of chaperone–bodyguard types, some people to shuffle ingredients around, a whole camera crew, a prickly woman with a clipboard and a lizard in a glass tank. They got him set up at the front of the store while he waited in Daryl’s office. No one ever went into Daryl’s office – not even Daryl – but there was no chance he’d see the dodgy marked-down meat in there.
Jeannie appeared at my side. ‘Is he serious about that lizard?’ she said. She had on a blue dress with lace on the sleeves, cut almost to her bellybutton. Fancied herself a new celebrity chef husband, maybe. The aquarium had been mounted on the cigarette counter, lizard pressed up against the glass with all its toe pads flattened out.
‘I think so. Could be weirder, I guess.’ I would have to tell Ben about the lizard. Thought about calling him right then, getting the school receptionist to put him on. I got my phone out and took a photo instead. The woman with the clipboard was instantly next to me. She pointed to the aquarium.
‘Cedric doesn’t like having his photo taken,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘I’m going to need you to delete that.’ She stood over me while I flicked to my photo gallery and trashed the picture. Jeannie’s shoulders rocked, trying to hold in her laughter.
The supermarket was open while Geoff Garland did his thing, so I watched the show from my lane.
Two twiggy sticks appeared on my belt. A can of cola. I turned back and into the face of Simmo, newly black under his eyes and a few scabs around his mouth. I stared, for a second. It passed slowly while I figured out how to look away without being obvious. Couldn’t decide what he’d want me to do so I scanned the twiggy sticks.
‘They’ve gone up,’ he said, pointing at the screen.
‘Have they?’
‘Two sticks for a dollar. Always.’
I scanned them again. A dollar twenty. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘They must have changed the price.’ I looked over at Daryl, tapping on the aquarium glass, laughing in his beetroot way.
‘Fuck that.’ He slammed the can on the scanner. ‘Look at that arsehole. Gets paid to go round showing other dickheads how to boil an egg and I get an extra twenty cents on my bill. What, the price of cats’ anuses went up in China?’
Daryl turned his head towards us.
‘I’m really sorry,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘I have twenty cents you can have. Your dog – she’ll miss out.’
‘Not the point.’ He left one of the sticks on the belt. ‘Just get one then, right? Cleopatra can eat on Wednesdays and Saturdays.’
‘Is that her name, Cleopatra?’
He stared at me, put two dollars in my hand and walked out. Daryl had turned back to the lizard. He’d dropped an insect into the tank and had his nose right up to the glass, waiting for Cedric to jump at it. Like a child, and not a smart child. Jeannie had a family in her lane, two kids fighting over who got to unpack the trolley onto her conveyor belt. I made like I was going to the meat freezer but slipped out the door instead. Followed the man and Cleopatra to the jetty, twiggy stick in my pocket.
He sighed. ‘Whaddya want? Come to save my life with yer money, right?’ The little dog shook between his feet. He bent down to her and she licked his hand, took a tiny piece of sausage from his fingers.
‘Nah. Just wanted to get away from that chef crap.’
‘Righto.’
‘You’re right, too. I bet Daryl put the price up.’ Cleopatra got her front paws up on his leg, sniffed the air. ‘He’s been trying to get as much money out of this celebrity thing as he can. Organic toilet cleaner. Stuff no one even knows how to use, like truffle paste and quince jelly. Making all the oldies think they need it.’
‘Dickhead.’ Simmo picked at bait dried to the boards, threw it into the water. ‘Went to school
with him, y’know. Daryl. He was the kid beating up all the other kids. Me included.’
‘Oh.’ Something got me in the ribs, a bit of a feeling caught there. I took the twiggy stick from my pocket.
‘He was a wanker. Still is. He’ll get what he deserves one day.’
Ben in the playground, coming into the supermarket covered in yoghurt and whatever other garbage they’d thrown at him. Kids like Daryl. Ben and Simmo hiding under a bench together, Daryl pouring sand on them, jamming sticks into their ribs.
The automatic doors opened and laughter poured out, the amplified boom of Geoff Garland making a tuna salad I couldn’t pronounce. Simmo took the meat from my hand and looked me right in the eyes.
‘Don’t patronise me,’ he said, and threw the stick into the water.
I had to stay late, packing up the junk a celebrity chef apparently leaves behind.
‘I’ll get paid overtime, right?’ I said, and Jeannie laughed in her blue dress.
‘You won’t get fired, if that’s what you mean,’ Daryl said. I imagined him again with Simmo, bearing down, the other tough kids laughing. I wanted to shake him, for a second, jumbled up in my head with Ben and those kids at his school who didn’t care about his balloons and bees. Raf texted me: Wanna come over after work? and I wrote back, So tired. Tomorrow?
Late in the afternoon, I got a packet of pasta and some mushrooms and went home on the bus, same as always. Past Raf’s place with its sunshine windows, past Ben’s school dim with the evening.
Ben was hiding by the front door; his little hand stuck out from behind the bushes as I reached for the handle.
‘Don’t go in there,’ he whispered. ‘Can’t you hear them?’
I put my ear to the door. ‘I can’t hear anything.’
‘They’re in there, fighting. I was just building a replica Pyramid of Giza out of matchsticks and they started fighting about me.’ His hand shook around my wrist. ‘I came out here so I wouldn’t have to listen to them but they’re so loud. They’re so loud. I can hear them even inside this bush, even though it’s pretty dark in here.’ He pulled on my arm. ‘You should come in here too, so it’s not as loud.’
‘Ben, I can’t hear anything. I don’t think they’re fighting.’
‘Mum just said, “We should send Ben away.” Didn’t you hear her? She said it just now and, hang on’ – his head popped out and he pressed his forehead against the window – ‘now Jason is telling her he thinks I should live in an orphanage.’ His shoulders went around and around.
‘Wait a second.’ I cracked open the door. The air inside was still and cold. ‘Hello?’ No answer. I opened it the whole way, stepped into the front entry. Their bedroom door was closed but no light came from underneath. I went back to Ben, closed the door behind me. Jason’s car was not in the driveway.
‘Mate, there’s no one here.’
But he sat, with his hands over his ears, staring right into the window, and he said, ‘Please make them stop.’
I went in and made him some spaghetti, fried up the mushrooms and a bit of bacon. Murray’s nose went up with the bacon smell. He did a few laps of the Hills hoist, then went back the other way to get his chain untangled. I thought about throwing some out to him but that felt like betraying Ben, so I put it in the pasta instead and spooned it out into two bowls. Took them out to Ben in the bushes.
‘Come out, Ben. No one’s home except Murray and Bilbo.’
He crawled onto the front step, pushed his body in as close to mine as it would go. ‘Maybe I heard Murray shouting,’ he said. We ate our spaghetti under the front porch light. Watched the pasta move like a disco under the dancing insects.
12
AT THE END of Dad’s street there had been a little antiques shop with a leadlight window. A friend of his ran it, someone he’d met at university. The shop was filled with bizarre knick-knacks: porcelain dolls with heads that came off, single shoes made from exotic animal leather, flick-knives with women’s names engraved on them.
Out the back the shop opened into a tiny courtyard garden. That was the best part about it. Three brick walls, each with their own mural, hand-painted by Dad’s friend. To the left, Medusa with her snakes. To the right, a minotaur, horns curling right off the wall and into nightmares. And in front, my favourite – a mermaid with a pink and blue tail, her face the size of my entire body and her eyes closed. Thinking.
Each time we visited, Dad bought me something little from the shop. He kept them all on the shelf in his kitchen, all these trinkets in a row.
When Dad disappeared, the trinkets did too.
Raf texted me before seven on Saturday morning: Come out the front. He had a plastic bag and he led me over the road to the spinifex block – ‘It’s so early,’ I said – where he pulled out a couple of dry muffins. The ground was hard, rocks sticking into my legs.
‘Finally. Okay. I’m going to kiss you,’ he said, like the thought had occurred to him right then, leapt right out of him.
‘Okay,’ I said, or tried to say. My words were stuck in my throat.
He licked his lips, brought his mouth to mine. His soft mouth. It tasted like pie. Maybe that was just the way he tasted, always like pie. I opened my mouth a bit and his tongue shot in and then out again. I leaned into his shoulder.
‘When are you leaving?’ I said.
‘Next weekend. Here to Port Augusta to start.’ He sighed. ‘Least we get that one week at school before I’m gone again.’
I panicked. ‘We do?’
‘Isn’t your work experience over? I finished yesterday. Got a report saying I was a very good sport.’
‘I, uh . . . I’ve got another week. Maybe my boss didn’t know?’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Yeah, he’s definitely got me rostered on next week.’
‘Shit.’ He frowned at his hands. ‘What if we go somewhere now then? Somewhere nice.’
‘Right now?’
‘Yeah, today.’
‘Like a restaurant?’
‘Uh, no. Here? No. Somewhere good.’
‘Like on a date?’
He shrugged, one-dimpled. ‘Maybe.’
He had a great-uncle in Wallaroo, a fishing town about a hundred kilometres down the Yorke Peninsula. The uncle was keen to have us for the weekend, and Ben too, if he wanted to come. Raf’s brother would take us. He had a rusted-out Commodore but he’d rebuilt the engine himself and it would definitely get there. A kind of road trip.
‘Don’t you have football stuff?’ I said, but they all had the weekend off before their big week of training for the trip ahead.
We asked Mum as a courtesy. She was half-asleep anyway, took five seconds to look up from the couch and grunt. ‘Have you eaten?’ I said. She just stared ahead. I thought about calling someone, for a minute. Maybe even a doctor. But her phone rang and she cooed into it and waved me away. The deep lines around her eyes moved while she spoke.
‘Who’ll look after Bilbo?’ I said to Ben.
‘I gave him a cricket,’ he said.
‘Just one?’
‘He only eats one a day. Or if I can’t find any crickets, sometimes I give him a bit of sausage. But he likes to eat stuff he can catch.’
Raf’s brother’s girlfriend took the passenger’s seat, and Ben squeezed between us in the back. Raf reached his arm around the back of my brother, stroked my hair with his fingertips. My body froze, but my skin flushed with goosebumps.
‘You ever been to Wallaroo, Benno?’
‘Nope. I’ve been to Adelaide, Noarlunga, Aldinga, Victor Harbor and Port Elliot and I think one time to Normanville to get a vanilla slice.’ That had been Nonno, taking us to Normanville. After Dad disappeared. The bakery there was legendary and we had sat on the verandah with milkshakes and talked about everything except Dad.
‘But never Wallaroo? I’m offended.’
Ben frowned. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘He’s joking,’ I said.
‘Mostly joking.’ He
looked at me across Ben’s head.
The morning was warm for winter, and Trey’s car didn’t have air-conditioning so we drove with all the windows down. My hair whipped at my eyes, but the salted air renewed my skin.
We stopped halfway at a town called Port Broughton, which had a big red pub and a jetty in a huge T shape. While Trey got petrol, Raf took us out to the end of the jetty, where it split into two, and we watched the locals fishing and jumping.
‘It must be freezing in there,’ I said.
‘’Course it is. It’s bloody winter. Gives you a real rush, though. You should try it.’ He pulled off his shirt. His body was hard and dewy with sweat.
‘I’ll just watch.’
‘Suit yourself.’ He took a long run-up, hurdled the barrier and leapt into the water, landing with a slap! below. Ben looked over the edge, wrapped his arms around his body.
‘It’s a long way down,’ he said. A woo! shot up. ‘Do you reckon I should try it?’
‘Mum would kill me.’ Raf called out from the water, something unintelligible, and laughed. ‘Go on, do it.’
Ben was tiny, shivering on the jetty in his shorts, but he pulled himself over the barrier and stood there for a while with his back to the sun.
‘Come on, Ben!’ came the voice from below.
He dropped like a marble, straight and silent. After a second, a tiny splash, and a roar of applause from Raf. They went twice more before Trey found us, shouted about us getting his car wet and stormed ahead. Raf pulled me to him and his breath was all over my face, right up next to my ear. In the car, he wedged his hand between his leg and mine and it was warm and rough.
The whole drive had been flat and dry, but we pulled in to Wallaroo around a new housing estate and at the other end, the water broke through. Trey took us through town and along the coast, past the limestone buildings and the silos and out to a squat weatherboard house one street back from the sea.
‘This is it. Unpack your shit.’
I just had a few things in my school bag, but Ben had brought his usual collection of bits and pieces, and they clinked together as we walked. The uncle greeted us at the front door, smiling, arms wide.
The Gulf Page 16
