‘Go get him, Aaron,’ Marty said.
Before Aaron could move, Rick marched towards the shop, probably planning on getting more eggs. Behind him, the ice-cream van drove away.
‘What on earth are you boys up to?’ Bernie thundered down the aisle from the back of the shop.
‘Aaron, is everything all right?’ asked the woman behind him.
‘Yeah, Mum. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I think we’d better go.’ Marty rolled onto the footpath. Bernie looked as though he was about to tear strips off someone, and he didn’t want it to be him.
‘Yeah, be seein’ ya,’ Rick called. ‘And don’t worry about them eggs. I’ll give you the money tomorrow.’
5
The last thing Rick wanted to deal with after the day he’d had was his mother. He stood at the front gate and looked up at his house, certain he’d seen his mother’s bedroom curtain twitch. It must be nearly six o’clock; she should have been out cold hours ago. By the time he had gone to meet Marty at the servo that morning she’d already started her first bottle of wine.
Rick walked the weedy path and took the stairs two at a time. He ran a hand along the rail, paint flaking beneath his fingers. It had been only nine months, three weeks and two days since his dad had died and already the place had turned from the best kept house in the street to a dump.
He reached the top of the stairs and kicked one of the dead pot plants at the veranda’s edge into the overgrown garden below. Nine months, three weeks and two lousy days since his world had turned upside down. Rick bit the inside of his cheek in an effort to stifle the scream building in his chest. He tasted blood, hot and coppery.
Shoving open the front door he called: ‘Mum, you there?’
What a stupid question. Where else would she be? She never left the house these days unless she had to. Even her precious wine got delivered. He wondered what his father would say if he knew how she was spending his insurance money. He probably wouldn’t believe it. Rick barely believed it. Before his dad died, his mother was the most together person he knew – one who only drank on special occasions. Death, it seemed, was the most special occasion of them all.
Rick eased the door closed, waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dark hallway and then walked into the lounge room. He opened the curtains and was about to open the blinds when his mother spoke.
‘Where you been all day?’
‘Geez, don’t do that, Mum. You scared the crud outta me.’ Rick let go of the blind and turned towards his mother’s voice. No wonder he hadn’t seen her. She was slouched in an armchair in the corner, nursing a wine glass as though it were a newborn baby.
Leaning forward, she screwed up her eyes against the light. ‘That’s no way to talk to your mother. Now, where you been?’
‘Hangin’ out with friends. Went swimming and stuff.’
Rick’s mother raised the glass, clinking it against her teeth, and drank deeply. A good portion dribbled down the front of her dress. She wiped her chin as though swatting a fly. ‘You don’t care about me, do you, Ricky?’
‘Please, Mum, don’t start.’
‘I bet you wish I was dead too, don’t you? That’d make your life easier, wouldn’t it? And there you are out all day having a good time while your father lies rotting in his grave.’ She slumped back into the shadows, pressing the empty glass to her breast.
Rick clenched his fists. He shouldn’t listen when she was like this. She didn’t mean what she said
– wouldn’t even remember tomorrow. ‘Please, Mum, you shouldn’t talk about him like that.’
His mother lurched forward again, almost falling out of the chair. ‘Well it’s true. He’s nothing but food for the worms and you’re walking round happy as Larry. Is that fair? Is it?’
‘I . . . I . . .’ Rick staggered back, turned and ran from the room. He shouldn’t have come home; should have stayed at the billabong where it was quiet and safe; should have gone so deep into the bush no one would ever find him.
He went into the kitchen. He had to eat something. The milkshake was the closest thing he’d had to food all day. Rick crossed to the pantry and looked inside: a tin of baked beans and a half-empty box of cereal stared back at him. He grabbed the beans and searched the freezer for bread.
Once his stomach was full and the rage had drained away, Rick took a bowl half-filled with beans into the lounge room. ‘Here, Mum, you’ve gotta eat,’
he said, sliding the bowl across the coffee table.
She waved it away and reached for the wine bottle.
‘I’m sorry, Ricky. I didn’t mean what I said. I just miss him so much, you know?’ She slopped wine into her glass and then fixed Rick with watery eyes. She raised the glass to her mouth. Tears glistened in the hollows of her cheeks.
‘We’ve gotta get some food, Mum. There’s nothing left.’
‘There’s money in my purse. You can pick up something tomorrow.’ Her head wobbled and then dropped to her chest.
Rick’s mother began to snore. The wine glass slipped from her limp fingers and fell to the floor.
The nightmare was the worst he’d had in months. It began the way they all did, with his father climbing behind the wheel of the Land Cruiser. He’d only had the four-wheel drive a month, said it was his reward for suffering twenty years working for the trucking company. With dream eyes, Rick watched his mother run over to the driver’s side window, exactly as she’d done that day.
‘Can’t you wait till tomorrow, Jack? You’ve just got home and you haven’t slept in three days.’ Rick’s father simply laughed and reversed down the drive and onto the road. Rick watched his mother march into the house, watched the arc of water spraying from the Hendersons’ sprinkler across the road catch the light and send a rainbow over the grass; watched his father drive out of his life forever.
Rick’s dream self was pulled through the air and into the back seat of his father’s car. The Land Cruiser sped through town, so fast the houses and streets were a blur. Then they were rocketing along Riverbend Road. No, no, no! Rick’s mind screamed. He tried to reach over the seat and touch his father’s shoulder, tried to tell him to slow down, but his father drove on, oblivious. Rick couldn’t tear his gaze away from the windscreen, it was glued to the road ahead, to the place just over the next rise where Rick knew his father would career off the bitumen and plough into the trees. He would be forced to watch his father’s final minutes played out and there was not a thing he could do about it.
And then he heard it, that vile, chiming music that had no place here: Half a pound of tuppenny rice; half a pound of treacle; that’s the way the money goes. Pop! goes the weasel. He saw the flash of glass and pink paint on the rise – smack bang in the middle of the road
– and his heart almost stopped.
‘Dad, turn around!’ he screamed, though not a word left his dream mouth. ‘He’s gonna get us! He’s gonna get us!’
But the ice-cream van kept coming. It bore down on them, eating up the centre line. Eating up the world.
Rick sat up in bed, gasping, drenched in sweat. He shook his head, but couldn’t seem to shake that devil’s music from his ears: Half a pound of tuppenny rice; half a pound of treacle; that’s the way the money goes; Pop! goes the weasel. It took a drawn-out moment before he realised the sound wasn’t in his head. It was real. And it was coming from outside his house!
He stumbled from the bed, tangling a foot in the sheet and almost knocking himself out against the doorframe. The clock on his desk read 2.20 am. What was the ice-cream man doing out in the middle of the night? This couldn’t be right. He must still be dreaming.
Rick glanced into his mother’s room as he passed. Despite the state he’d last seen her in she’d managed to find her bed. He stumbled on in the dark to the front of the house where the music was loudest.
With a tug Rick raised the lounge room blind, and then pressing his face to the cool glass, peered out at the moonlit street. The ice
-cream van was there all right, parked about a metre from his front fence.
Something cold and reptilian uncoiled in Rick’s gut. The freak had found out where he lived and was delivering a very personal message: You can’t beat me!
Rick backed into the shadows. What if the ice- cream man had left the van and was breaking into his house right this minute? All around him the shadows took on menacing man-shapes. Should he search the house or go outside? The nightmare was screwing up his thoughts. The guy was crazy, but he didn’t have any reason to hurt Rick – did he? Damn the freak for doing this to him!
He had to search the house. His eyes scoured the room for a weapon and spotted a gleam of moonlight reflecting off his mother’s wine bottle. A trickle of wine ran down his arm as he held the bottle aloft, brandishing it like a club.
Trying to avoid as many creaky boards as possible, Rick crept into the hallway. A quick glance to his left reassured him the bathroom was empty. The worn shower curtain had been taken off its rings weeks ago and his mother hadn’t got around to buying a new one, so he had a clear view of the tub. Rick took another hesitant step forward. A thud sounded from the spare room. His head snapped around. The door was closed, as it had been since his father’s death. It was his father’s model room, filled with shelves and benches lined with model planes, many of which Rick had helped to build. Rick forced down the lump in his throat. He didn’t want to go in there. Any room but that one.
Another thud sounded, and the sound of something rolling across the wooden floor. Rick’s hand had grown so sweaty he was having a hard time keeping a grip on the bottle. He transferred it to the other hand and wiped his palm on his boxer shorts. He’d learnt enough at judo to defend himself, but his mind was a void; he couldn’t remember a single move. Rick pressed his ear to the model room door and jerked back as an image of the ice-cream man doing the same thing on the other side flashed into his mind. He couldn’t stand here forever. He had to go in.
With the bottle against his right shoulder, Rick grabbed the doorknob with his free hand and flung open the door. There was a flurry of movement to the right and without thinking, he threw the bottle. It crashed against the wall beside the window, showering the room with glass. Rick snapped on the light and saw the rear end of a tabby cat slip over the windowsill. Heart galloping, he pressed his back to the wall and forced air into his seizing lungs. He’d almost wet his pants over a frigging cat!
After closing the window, he turned off the light and backed out of the doorway on rubbery legs. He’d sweep up the broken bottle once he’d found out what the ice-cream man was doing. With a click as loud as a gunshot, he pulled the door closed.
The music stopped.
Rick’s heart, already beating faster than it had any right to, stuttered painfully. Now what? Check the rest of the house, or the van? Someone turned that music off, Ricky boy, said the calm voice of reason in the back of his mind. The ice-cream man couldn’t be in two places at once, not unless the guy had supernatural powers, and Rick definitely didn’t want to go there.
He clenched his fists, took a steadying breath – what he wouldn’t give for another wine bottle – and headed back towards the lounge. When he finally got up the nerve to look out the window again, the ice-cream van had gone.
‘Mum?’
The room reeked of sour wine and cigarette smoke. Rick moved towards the bed and gently shook his mother by the shoulder. She looked dead and for an awful moment he felt certain she was. Then she snorted and rolled over.
‘Mum, I’m taking money for food, okay?’ Nothing.
‘I’ll stop at the shops this arvo, after school.’ Rick considered giving her another shake and decided against it.
Stifling a yawn, he hefted his backpack then left the house. He had a science lesson first up. There was no way he’d be able to stay awake through one of Mr Hutz’s lectures. Thanks to the ice-cream man, Rick had only had a few hours’ sleep.
He collected his bike from under the house and rode into the street, headed not towards school, but towards Fifth Avenue where he planned to pay Aaron for the eggs he’d thrown yesterday. Why had he done it? He had no idea. He’d never done anything like that before and even though the ice-cream man had been asking for it, Rick couldn’t help but feel uneasy about his loss of control.
Aaron was pedalling away from the shop when
Rick got there.
‘Hey, Aaron,’ Rick yelled, skidding to a stop. Aaron glanced over his shoulder then executed a
wobbly U-turn.
‘Here, mate.’ Rick dug into his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar note. ‘This is for them eggs.’
Shaking his head Aaron refused to take it. ‘No, you keep it. I’ll cover the cost. I’m glad you threw them. I would’ve done it myself if I’d had the guts.’
Rick stared at the money in his hand, unsure what to do with it.
‘Woo-hoo, gay boy’s got a new boyfriend.’ Aaron’s step-brother, Steve, strode through the shop’s doorway like an action hero. He crossed the footpath, grinning.
Aaron groaned.
Steve pushed his leering face into Rick’s. ‘Ooh, and he’s pretty too, little bro.’
A red fog clouded Rick’s mind. ‘Get outta my face!’ He raised his hand and shoved Steve in the chest, sending him crashing into a post.
Steve’s zits flared like stop lights. ‘Well, well, we got a feisty one.’ He reached out to shove Rick back, but Rick nimbly sidestepped, letting his bike crash into the gutter. Steve, who no longer had anything to shove, lost his balance and fell on top of the bike.
Pocketing the money still in his hand, Rick took a defensive stance, the way his judo instructor had shown him.
‘He didn’t mean it, Steve. Leave him alone, okay?’ Aaron pleaded. He grabbed a handful of Rick’s shirt and tried to pull him out of his step-brother’s reach.
Rick wouldn’t budge. He knew he’d probably get pounded into the footpath, despite his red belt in judo, but he didn’t care.
‘I’m going to enjoy this, pretty boy,’ Steve said, getting to his feet and raising his fists.
‘Hit that boy and I’ll kick you into the middle of next week, Steven,’ Bernie roared as he charged from the shop.
‘Was just foolin’, Gramps,’ Steve said. He stumbled back, eyes wild. ‘Isn’t that right, Aaron?’
Rick couldn’t believe it. Steve actually looked scared.
Bernie gave Steve a backhander that almost sent his head rolling into the gutter. ‘Get to school, boy.’
Rick dived for his bike. With Steve running down the footpath like he had a rabid dog on his tail, Bernie just might decide to give him a serve next.
‘Geez, I can’t believe you stood up to Steve like that,’ Aaron said as they pushed their bikes into the bike compound.
‘I’ll tell you a secret, neither can I.’ Rick pulled out his bike chain and looped it through the front wheel.
‘Why’s he got it in for you so bad, anyway?’
Aaron took off his helmet and wiped his dripping face. ‘His old man married my mum.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yep. He’ll make us both pay for what you did, you know. You’d better look out for him round school.’
‘Yeah, well he’ll just have to take a number and get to the back of the queue.’ Rick finished locking up his bike and turned to Aaron. ‘Why don’t ya sic Bernie onto him? Steve looked ready to pee his pants when he showed up.’
‘Yeah, you don’t want to get on Bernie’s bad side, that’s for sure.’ Aaron slung his pack over a shoulder and headed for the compound gate.
Rick followed, swigging water from his sports bottle. ‘So, why don’t ya tell him about Steve?’
‘Wouldn’t do any good. Bernie would only tell me to fight my own battles. Besides, he’ll be gone next week and Steve’ll have me all to himself.’
Ramming a path through a group of giggling year eights, Rick said, ‘Let’s find Marty. I’ve gotta tell youse something.’
> They found him outside the canteen. ‘You’re late. Siren’s about to go,’ he said.
‘Yeah, I know.’ Rick took a quick look around then motioned for Marty and Aaron to move closer.
‘Youse are never gonna believe what happened to me last night.’
Marty grinned. ‘You had your first wet dream.’ Rick punched him on the shoulder. ‘Nah, dipstick.
The ice-cream man only went and showed up outside my house in the middle of the friggin’ night. Scared the crud outta me.’
‘No way!’ Marty and Aaron said in unison.
Aaron looked ready to throw up his breakfast. His tongue flickered in and out.
Rick nodded. ‘Yeah. Believe me I wouldn’t make something like that up.’
‘What did he do?’ Aaron asked.
‘That’s just it, nothing. He parked out front of my place and just played that creepy music. I don’t know how he didn’t wake up the whole neighbourhood.’
The siren blared, making them all jump.
‘We’ve got to tell someone,’ Aaron said. ‘That’s stalking. It’s illegal.’
‘Yeah, but how do we prove it?’ Rick said.
‘Is this a private tea party, or can anyone join?’
Mr Gunner, Rick and Aaron’s relief English teacher, pushed his pockmarked face so close Rick could smell the cereal he’d had for breakfast. The man’s blond-grey hair was pasted across his forehead in a totally nerdy way. As he stared down at Rick, his bony body all sharp angles, he flashed a big-toothed smile that bore no humour whatsoever. Rick would have bet money that the guy tucked his singlets into his jocks. The thought made him grin.
‘You boys are aware that the siren has sounded?’
‘Yes, Mr Gunner,’ Aaron said, scrambling to attention.
‘Well, you’d better get moving,’ Mr Gunner said.
‘Don’t want to be late for class.’
The Ice-cream Man Page 5
