by John Marsden
So I did. What the hell, it was about time. But I could understand her getting excited. They were the first words I’ve ever spoken in Group.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Daniel being so upset made me think. Everyone’s problems are different, but they’re the same in a lot of ways. One thing about all of us is that we don’t have any skin. People talk about thick skin and thin skin, but we don’t have any, or we wouldn’t be in here. When people like Noel attack us, we’ve got no way of holding them off.
It’s bad enough with Noel, who’s not much more than a stranger. It’s a lot worse when it’s someone close, like your own family for instance.
I was never thick-skinned, but I was better than I am now. Somehow I’ve lost whatever skin I had.
When things started going wrong with Dad and Rider Group it was bad, but it was still bearable. I almost got used to the front-page stories, the current affairs shows on TV. You could tell that most days they didn’t have anything new. I didn’t read many of the stories in the paper, and I got into the habit of taking Checkers for a walk when the current affairs shows came on at six-thirty. The worst part was that Dad and Mum and Mark, and yes, me too, stopped functioning as a family. Once Mum got over the first shock she became kind of housebound. She scrubbed harder, polished harder, cleaned more, but she hardly ever went anywhere. Dad couldn’t understand that, and it made him mad, but he didn’t seem able to do much about it. I couldn’t understand it myself, and it made me mad too.
It was about eight o’clock on a Tuesday night when we reached the next stage of awfulness. A reporter had been hanging around for nearly two hours. He rang the bell and asked to talk to Dad.
‘He’s not home yet.’
‘Can I ask when you’re expecting him?’
‘I don’t know. Probably quite late. But I don’t think he’ll give you an interview here.’
I was getting more polite to them, I suppose because I had some vague idea that they’d be kinder to us. I guess that was a bit naive.
I shut the door and the man wandered back to the street. I watched him through the window. He had a conference with his photographer, and they settled down on the front wall to wait. I didn’t look at them again. We were so used to them by now. I even knew this one’s name: Allan Watkins, from the Standard.
When Dad finally drove in I was sitting at my desk, trying to do homework. I got up to put some hot water on, in case he wanted a coffee. On the way to the kitchen I heard loud voices, angry voices, from outside, and I stopped and looked through the window. There was Dad, yelling at the reporter. He was waving his arms around like an AFL goal umpire with his flags. The reporter was only a metre from him, standing with his arms folded, not moving. The photographer was about five metres to Dad’s right, out of his line of vision, snapping away non-stop, having a great time. I paused, not knowing what to do. If I went outside I might make things worse. If I stayed inside things might get worse anyway. Mum was home, but having a sleep in her bedroom. She slept a lot these days. Mark was out. There was no-one to tell me what to do. After a minute, as the voices got louder and Dad’s arms even more violent, I thought I’d better go out there. Dad looked like he might hit someone at any moment. I went to the front door, pulled it open and went out. And just as I stepped onto the lawn it all exploded.
Dad pulled back his right arm and hit the reporter somewhere round the middle of his face. The reporter grabbed his nose and buckled at the knees. As he dropped, Dad pushed him backwards, so that he lost balance completely. The photographer didn’t do a thing to help his mate, just kept taking photos. Mr Watkins was lying on his back on the grass, holding his nose and moaning. I ran towards them, praying like mad that he wasn’t hurt. Not that I cared about him; I just didn’t want Dad to get in more trouble. But then I saw blood on Mr Watkins’ face. Dad was standing over him, not saying anything, just looking grim. For a moment the only sound was the ‘scarritch, scarritch’ of the camera. Then Mr Watkins yelled up at him, ‘You stupid bastard, what did you do that for?’
I reached Dad at that moment and grabbed him. I was scared he’d hit the reporter again. But he let me pull him away so Mr Watkins could get up. He got out a handkerchief and held it to his nose to soak up the blood. No-one said anything. They just stood there glaring at each other. The photographer was changing film cartridges, I think. I was the first to speak.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked Mr Watkins.
‘No, I’m not,’ he said, answering me but looking straight at Dad.
‘Do you want to come in the house?’ I asked. ‘To clean up?’
‘No,’ he said. Then he turned to the photographer. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.
Even Dad could tell by the tone of his voice that the situation was desperate. Dad put out a hand to stop him. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. I lost my head. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Come inside and clean up, and have a drink. You too,’ he said to the photographer.
But they ignored him. The photographer picked up his bag and the reporter looked around for his notebook. I saw it, and his pen, a few metres away, so I picked them up and handed them to him. He didn’t thank me, just walked away, he and the photographer, to their car, which was parked outside the Sykes’.
Dad stood there without moving. His head was down. I felt sorry for him, but I felt sort of masterful, in control. ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘You’d better have that drink yourself.’
He followed me into the house and I got him a whisky. He sat there for about two hours, not saying anything. I tried a few times to get him to talk, but he wouldn’t. I cooked him some tea but he wasn’t interested.
Eventually Mum came out of their bedroom. She looked at us and seemed to realise something was wrong. ‘What’s happened?’ she asked. He took her back into their room and shut the door. I could hear them talking for hours.
When Mark got home—he’d been to Josh’s—I told him about it. But he didn’t seem to react—just listened to what I said, then disappeared to his own room. In the end, I gave up and went to bed.
Next morning I dreaded to look at the Standard. But I thought I’d better so I’d know what to expect at school.
‘It couldn’t be worse,’ was my first thought. In fact, the time came when I realised things could always be worse. But I hadn’t quite realised that then. I stared at the page in horror, not knowing whether to read the story or look at the pictures. It was all over the front page, of course, but there was heaps more inside. Photos of Dad throwing the punch, of the punch connecting, of the push, of the reporter lying on the ground. It said he had to go to hospital to have his nose X-rayed, and that he was considering legal action against Dad. I don’t suppose that surprised me.
But what worried me as much as all that was the story behind the punch; the story of what he had said that made Dad lose his temper. It turned out there was more trouble about the contract. The paper said that one of the other bidders, a company I’d never heard of called Jackson Investments, had bid fifteen million dollars more than Rider Group. No-one would confirm it—there was a series of ‘no comments’ from all the people involved—but the paper swore its information was from ‘a reliable source’. The main editorial said that there’d have to be an inquiry, a Royal Commission preferably.
By itself it was no worse than all the other stories. It was just the sense that this was never going to go away; that it was going to keep getting worse and worse and worse. The Premier was famous for taking no notice of the press: it was his proud boast that ‘I run this state, and the newspapers don’t.’ In the last election the Opposition had run an ad showing the Premier with a bubble coming out of his mouth saying, ‘I am the Premier. Shut up.’
But even he couldn’t ignore this much longer. It was stinking worse than the Cheshunt Abattoirs. I was keeping my eyes closed and my nose firmly pegged, but the smell was starting to seep into me too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Oh, such a long day, such a hard one. Ever since the
time I spoke in Group, told Daniel he’d make a good social worker, Marj has been putting pressure on me. Dr Singh, too. I think they’re hoping I’ll be their star patient, the psych legend, make them famous at conferences from here to the Gold Coast. But I haven’t done like they hoped: I haven’t said much else in Group.
No, today was hard because of Cindy. She’s been in trouble for a long time. She keeps fighting the staff, abusing them, not doing what they want. For instance, we’re meant to write heaps of stuff, as part of our programme. Sometimes I think I do more writing in here than I ever did at school. We have to write about our family, like who’s the boss and what they do to hold that position (make that who was the boss in my family), who’s the most submissive (used to be Mark, really, even more than Mum, which did surprise me when I realised that—score one to you, Dr Singh), what things caused the most arguments. Even though my family’s changed so much, I still have to do it. But Cindy’s either too lazy or too something, I don’t know what. She never does any, and no matter how much pressure they put on her, it makes no difference.
Her parents came to visit a few times lately, not just for Family Therapy but for real visits, but it didn’t seem to help. They always looked so pale and grim, as though Cindy being in here was the end of the world. Matter of fact, most of the parents who visit look like that. Especially when their kids are being admitted. You see them down in Reception, and it’s like ‘Ohmigod, how could this happen to us? Where did we go wrong? What will I tell my friends at tennis on Tuesday?’
Cindy was always hopeless when her parents came, ratty at everyone, foul to them. She reminded me of a feral cat I once saw being pulled out of a trap by Peter the Possum Man. Spitting and kicking and yowling: that was Cindy. Her parents looked all right to me, but I mean, how can you tell? They all know how to look, especially in the kind of suburbs we live in.
One of the complications was that even in here Cindy lived a double life. There was the way she was around the staff and the way she was with us. Most patients give up on that kind of game when they come in here. We don’t have the energy for it any more. But Cindy kept it going. For instance, she has this friend who works in the pub around the corner, and a couple of times she’s talked the staff into letting her go to the milk bar for an ice-cream or a Mars Bar. That’s what she says she’s doing. What she really does is go straight to her mate in the pub and pick up a bottle of something toxic. Last week it was a litre of vodka. We mixed it with Fanta. By lunchtime the bottle was empty. We were kind of rowdy all afternoon. I don’t know if Marj noticed anything, but I guess we got away with it. Yesterday it was half a dozen cans of UDL, the vodka and orange, I think. I didn’t get to see it. I didn’t get an invitation. For once I got lucky, because they were busted when Daniel was sick in the corridor, right near the nurses’ station. He tried to make it to the bathroom and failed. Big mess on the carpet, and bigger mess for Cindy, when they found out she’d brought it in.
They were really angry. Sometimes, just when you’ve decided they’re all friendly and nice in here, they pull some totally fascist act, like turning off the TV five minutes from the end of a movie and making us go to bed. The way they went after Cindy, it was like we were back at school. They called her parents in and did the whole number. Fair enough, I suppose, but it freaked me out a bit. These days I can’t handle conflict at all, any kind of conflict. If I see someone arguing with the kitchen lady about the ice-cream being too soft, I’m like, ‘Beam me out of here’.
So Cindy got it from everyone: Dr Singh, Marj, Sister Allen, even the night staff. No-one could have predicted what she’d do. She came to Group this morning but she wouldn’t say anything, even though Marj wanted to talk about it. Daniel, Oliver, Ben and even Emine owned up to drinking, so in the end Marj just concentrated on them and explained how dangerous alcohol was with our treatment and medication and stuff. Then sometime before lunch they found Cindy hacking away at her wrist with a pair of scissors she’d pinched from the nurses’ station. Luckily they got her before she’d done much damage. They dressed her wrist, and bandaged it. And then they committed her.
It was horrible. We’re all voluntary patients here, so anyone who’s committed gets taken off to Janda Park. I’ve only seen it once before, with an old guy who started attacking the orderlies because he said they were agents of the devil.
An ambulance came at about five o’clock, with two policemen. Apparently you’ve got to have cops, when someone’s committed. It’s the law. It was the same when they took the old guy, but I’d thought it’d be different for Cindy, seeing she’s young and not dangerous or anything. Cindy looked absolutely terrified. Why wouldn’t she? She stood there, so pale-faced and thin, between these two big cops. We all said goodbye. She just smiled at us and said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ and stuff like that, but you could see how scared she was. It was as though the spirit had gone out of her.
I feel bad now that I was so bitchy to her. I didn’t like her before but when I saw her standing there behind the ambulance suddenly I felt I really liked her. Bit late for that. But that’s me all over, changing my mind too late.
I feel lonely tonight. I miss my family, even if they are such a mess. I even miss Mark. I can’t bring myself to think about what’s happened, what I did. I don’t know, I suppose all the stuff leading up to the big disaster wasn’t my fault. It just took me to finish it off. I can’t stop thinking about it. Without me it might still have worked out OK. When Dad punched out the reporter, that was bad. Maybe that was the beginning of the end. It encouraged all the other reporters to start hounding him more and more. They thought it proved that he was a weak link, that they might get more good footage if they pushed him enough. If he’d taken out a gun and shot one of them, the others would have been totally rapt. It would have given them such a great story.
What happened though was that things went quiet again for a while. Mr Watkins sued for assault, and Dad was summonsed for it as well. He settled the civil one out of court, straight away, and the other one got adjourned for four months. He had enough self-control not to hit anyone else. He was very quiet at home, hardly spoke to anyone, and when he did it was only a word or two: ‘No’, ‘Yes’, ‘Pass the salt, please, Mark’, ‘Get that dog away from the table’.
To Dad Checkers was always ‘that dog’.
The only new story that the papers played around with was a rumour that Dad had a secret meeting with the Premier in March. The Premier issued another statement denying he’d ever met Dad. But the big issue was still the contacts between Mr Koneckny and the Deputy Chairman of the Commission. Although they’d both been chucked out of their jobs, the press was screaming for an explanation of what their conversations were about. They both said it was just general chitchat about the inquiry, nothing sinister or illegal. The Premier said he believed them, and wasn’t going to waste public money on a Royal Commission. And it seemed to rest there. No-one had anything new and the Premier seemed like he was going to ride out the storm, as he’d done plenty of times before. The opinion polls had him eight points ahead, so I guess he wasn’t too worried.
One night Dad announced we were going skiing. He took me by surprise. He hadn’t done anything spontaneous for months, apart from punching out the reporter. There was still a week of school to go but that didn’t bother him: there’d been a good dump, the best of the year, and he wanted to go tomorrow, tonight, this instant.
We went the next day. The worst thing was putting Checkers into kennels. I felt like I’d abandoned him when I saw his sad face peering through the wire netting of his pen, and heard his yelping begin as I walked away. Poor thing, he’d never been left before. The lady who owned the kennels made it worse by laughing at Checkers when she saw him. ‘Goodness, he’s an unusual one,’ she said. ‘Where’d you get him?’
I’d never actually asked Dad where he got Checkers. He’d said something about a friend who’d been looking for a home for a dog, that was all. In the car on the way back f
rom the kennels I asked him some more. I was always kind of nervous when I was alone with Dad, so it was good to have a topic to talk about for once; a safe topic.
‘Oh, I got him from a business friend,’ he said vaguely, as he tried to sneak through a gap in the traffic at a roundabout. ‘No-one you’ve met.’
‘How many puppies were in the litter?’
‘Just the two. The mother wasn’t meant to breed with the father. She’s a pedigree cocker spaniel, he’s a crossbreed border collie from down the road. Your dog’s lucky he wasn’t drowned at birth.’
‘What happened to the other one?’
‘They kept him, I think. His wife, I think she wanted to have him. She was the one who stopped them being drowned in the first place.’
‘Does Checkers look like his brother?’
‘Yes, very, as I recall. I didn’t take a lot of notice. It all happened kind of quickly, on the spur of the moment. I was so excited about . . . there was so much happening that day . . . Well, my mind was on other things, put it that way.’
The next morning we left for Mt Whiteman. That’s always been my favourite, that and Tremblant, when we’ve been to Canada a few times. Whiteman’s a long drive, and I get carsick going up the last bit, but it’s a small price to pay. We stopped at Bronson for lunch and to hire some chains (Dad hadn’t got around to buying new ones since we changed cars) and I bought some very cool, very expensive Ray-Bans. Everyone seemed more relaxed, happier; even Mum. She doesn’t like skiing, and we’d had to work hard to persuade her to come, but I was glad we had when I saw her going through the clothes racks in the ski shop, just like old times.
The weather was pretty foul but we got to the carpark without using the chains, and caught a Toyota up to the hotel. We were staying in The Max, a new place, very big, a bit over the top with all the white marble and chandeliers, but at least the rooms weren’t pokey like they are in a lot of ski lodges. Mark and I had to share a room, because the place was so heavily booked but even though he dropped his stuff all over the floor as per usual, I could still get from the bed to the door and back without breaking a leg.
