Hostage

by Karen Tayleur

  I don’t read a lot fiction but I like true stories. I’m not talking about reading non-fiction, although I guess that’s what it is.

  That tin on the table ... I call it my memory tin. It moves house whenever I do. There’s a special front pocket in my suitcase and that’s where my tin lives. You’ve looked inside but it probably doesn’t mean much to you. My tin is packed with true stories—with bits of other people’s lives. They have no idea that I know about them. I clean the tin out every now and again when it gets too full and the lid doesn’t close. It’s usually easy to pick the things that need culling.

  To other people, the stuff in my tin is rubbish. They don’t look below the surface. They don’t read between the lines. A ticket or a receipt can tell you a lot about a person. I’ve been thinking that I could go into solving crimes when I leave school. Maybe I should join the police force?

  I read people’s body language. I learnt how to do it from a guy on TV. I can always tell when someone’s lying to me. Or is feeling nervous, even when they’re pretending they’re not. I can always tell who the murderer is on a show, even when all the evidence points to someone else. Mum used to say I should write TV scripts. She’d like that. Maybe I will.

  The oldest thing in my tin is a photo of my dad. At least I think it’s my dad. We were never introduced, but Mum casually pointed him out in a photo one day. I don’t think she noticed when I took the photo and kept it. I used to keep it under my pillow and talk to him at night about stuff. Sometimes I’d tell him what happened at school or how I hurt myself when I jumped off the swing too early or how I was in trouble with Mum because I lost my coat. Sometimes I’d just look at the photo and pretend I could see a hint of him in me. Around the eyes, maybe, or that pointy chin that made his face look like a teardrop.

  I used to look for his face in crowded places. In shopping malls or footy grounds or train stations, I would look at the men going about their business, one of them never realising that I was his daughter. I imagined finding him one day and saying, ‘Hi, Dad.’

  Later on I figured out that he probably wasn’t such a nice man and that’s why Mum didn’t want him around anymore. But I had just wanted to call someone Dad and for it to be true. Mum tried to make me call Craig Dad, in the early days, but I never would. There were a couple of other guys before him, but I only called any of them by their first name.

  There is a square piece of coloured paper in my tin folded into quarters. I haven’t opened it in a long time but I could tell you what it says without looking. It’s a party invitation to Bronnie’s birthday. The page is filled with party balloons and neat handwriting that says I am invited to Bronnie’s fourth birthday. I spent ages picking out a present for that party. I remember that I made Mum late for work because I took so long to choose. In the end I picked out something and we wrapped it at home that night with a wide gold ribbon. I never did get to that party. We moved in a hurry and I didn’t get to give Bronnie her present. I can’t even remember what the present was. I don’t remember what I did with it. But sometimes I pick the folded paper up and close my eyes and think of Bronnie. Of the scrappy way her hair would stick out from her plaits and the way her face always had food around the edges.

  And it’s not just paper stuff I put in my tin. I have a shiny fifty cent coin that some boy in a park gave to me once when I was four. And a hairclip with a butterfly with one broken wing. And a clear cats-eye marble with a swirl of purple in the middle.

  But there was something that never made it to my tin. A present that I left behind a long time ago. But that doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten it.

  Deer Tully

  Happy birthday from your

  BFFL

  Amanda

  xxxx

  28

  Christmas Eve

  The road curved, first left then right, in serpentine bends that made Tully’s stomach lift then fall to her toes. The roadside trees leaned in over them and a rabbit skipped to the side of the road.

  ‘We’re nearly there,’ said Tully.

  Griffin grunted.

  Drunken electricity poles took turns holding up the loose power lines. A lone streetlight pole on the horizon marked the outskirts of town.

  ‘I need a coffee,’ said Griffin.

  ‘You’ll have to wait. No fast food here,’ said Tully. ‘Maybe Boydy’s is open. Don’t know if they make coffee, though.’

  ‘Boydy’s?’

  ‘The local milk bar.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘You’re such a baby.’ She threw a near-empty water bottle into his lap. ‘Here. Use your imagination. Pretend it’s a latte.’

  ‘How long is this gonna take?’ asked Griffin. ‘Tell me why we’re here again.’

  ‘I told you already. Just something I have to do—’

  ‘Well, I have something to do too. I have to get home—’

  ‘And what? Hook up with the nice policeman who’s waiting for you? Even if they didn’t get your rego as you left, they could just ask your mum. Eddie knows you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I have to get home and get it sorted. I tried ringing Mum from the servo but I couldn’t get through.’

  ‘Did you try your dad?’

  Griffin shook his head.

  Tully slapped the dashboard. ‘Hey, slow down. That’s a sixty sign.’

  Griffin tapped on the brake pedal a couple of times and the car slowed a little.

  ‘All the way down,’ said Tully. ‘There’s nothing the local cops like better than bagging some tourist money.’

  The car slowed down to a crawl up the main street. The wide street was a dual carriageway divided in the centre by a strip of green lawn. The lawn was interspersed with parking spaces, used by the locals and busloads of travellers who sometimes stopped to use the public toilets.

  A close inspection of the shopping strip revealed over half the stores were vacant. A menu board stood drunkenly on three legs outside the hotel. A large plastic Santa head hung from the awning outside the hotel.

  ‘My old watering hole,’ said Tully. She wondered if Eric Hampson still worked behind the bar. He used to give her red lemonades when her mum worked there. A couple of utes and a four-wheel drive were parked out the front under the deep veranda and a red kelpie lifted its head from one ute tray as their car cruised past.

  ‘Where am I going?’

  ‘Turn left here.’ Tully pointed to a street sign past the public toilets.

  Griffin drove down a side street then left at Tully’s direction.

  ‘All the way. To the intersection,’ said Tully. Then, ‘Turn left here. All the way to the end.’

  The weatherboard house hugged the road, with no front garden to speak of. The dust from the road hung onto its peeling skin of paint. A battered letterbox, tilted to one side, announced that it was number one. A wire fence held a fringe of weeds and the front door screen gaped in parts. The doorbell, half-pulled out from the architrave, stood mute. The windows peered out into the street through halfdrawn blinds.

  ‘Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,’ said Griffin.

  ‘I was counting on that,’ said Tully.

  ‘How long is this going to take?’

  ‘Give me five,’ said Tully. ‘Wait here.’

  Griffin pushed the window button down and cut the engine, watching Tully disappear up the path alongside the house. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and tweaked the rear-view mirror so that he could see up the street. Griffin opened the drink bottle and grimaced at the plastic taste of the warm water. Another minute of finger-drumming and he grunted, opened the car door, and followed Tully’s path up the side of the house.

  At the back of the house, the land fell away steeply until it levelled out abruptly onto what once might have been lawn. Several willow trees hung listlessly in the heat.

  ‘Tully!’

  He watched her appear out of the trees and wave him back to the car, but he stayed where he was, feet planted firmly. She disappeared back into t
he green curtain of the willows and he waited as a light breeze fanned the sweat on his brow.

  After five minutes he called out again. ‘Tully!’ Then he marched back to car, got in and turned the engine on. He lowered the driver’s side window, fiddled with the radio to find a station, then did a u-turn.

  The passenger door suddenly yanked open and Tully fell inside onto the passenger seat beside.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you to wait?’

  ‘Who put you in charge?’ said Griffin.

  ‘Were you going without me?’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  Tully snorted. ‘Let’s go,’ she said, wiping her hands on her jeans.

  ‘Did you get what you came for?’

  She nodded. ‘We need to go somewhere else.’

  Griffin followed Tully’s directions back to the main street then over to the other side of town.

  ‘Is this the rich side of town?’ he asked.

  ‘I guess you could call it that,’ she said. ‘Can you park there? Right there under the tree.’

  Tully pointed out a native bottlebrush that was spreading some shade onto the road.

  ‘Won’t be long,’ she said. Then she left.

  29

  Fitzroy Police Station: 25 December, 3.47a.m.

  ‘So Griffin wasn’t ready to return home,’ said Constable Tognetti. ‘Where did he take you after Deer Park?’

  ‘He didn’t really “take” me anywhere,’ said Tully. ‘I guess I just stayed in the car.’

  ‘You stayed in the car?’

  ‘Well, I didn’t really have enough cash to get home—’

  ‘You could have gone to the nearest police station.’ Constable Tognetti’s voice was firm.

  ‘I ... I guess I thought I could change his mind. I didn’t want him to get into more trouble. I mean, I thought it would look bad if I turned up without him. Anyway, Griffin ended up just driving to a town where I used to live, which probably isn’t such a coincidence considering how often I’ve moved.’

  ‘Just randomly?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  30

  Tully’s Story

  I wanted to visit my old house. I guess he was feeling guilty about the chemist and driving off with me, so he agreed to drive me around a bit. I checked out the back garden of my old home and found something that I’d buried there when I was a kid. Then I asked Griffin to stop off at a friend’s house for me. My friend Amanda. Mum always says you can never go back. But I did.

  The name on the letterbox still said Dunlop. So I figured either her family had moved and the new owners hadn’t bothered to rename their letterbox or they were still there. There was a new four-wheel drive parked out the front and a small white car in the driveway with a P-plate stuck on the back window. I walked slowly past the house. The rose bushes lining the path leading to the front door looked the same. Someone had added a shiny brass nameplate near the fusebox—Shangri-La. There was a Christmas wreath hanging on the front door. I could hear the whine of a whippersnipper coming from the back garden.

  On my return walk past the house I noticed the lady next-door—I think her name was Val—peering at me as she pulled out some weeds from her garden bed. She looked more bent over than I remembered, though her hair was in the same helmet-shape—the signature hair style of Denise the local hairdresser. I could see she was going to talk to me, so I marched up the path and pretended to push Amanda’s doorbell. The doormat was new. The front room curtains were pulled back and I could easily see inside. Amanda’s mum was there, wrapping a large box in Christmas paper. She just looked the same, although her hair was short and straighter than I remembered and she was not as tall, although I suppose I was shorter when I had last seen her. She was laughing and talking to someone I couldn’t see, someone in another room. I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

  The front room was just as I remembered it, with the addition of a Christmas tree standing in the corner. It looked like they had one of those new large-screen TVs, but the fireboxes and the painting above the mantle were the same. I’d always liked that painting. There was a little hut at the front of the picture with smoke curling from the chimney. An old man with a pipe stood at the door and looked off into the distance at a pair of twin peaks covered in snow. It reminded me of a story that Mum used to tell me about a girl named Heidi. It was the only story Mum knew.

  Someone walked into the room carrying a step stool. I couldn’t see her face until she turned around. It was Amanda. I would have known her anywhere. Her hair was a little lighter, like she’d dyed it, and it was styled with a fringe. She’d obviously gone to town for her hair cut. And she was taller of course. I heard her laugh which ended in the trademark hiccup. Then she looked up and saw me looking through the window. We stood still, eye to eye. It hurt that she didn’t know me. I could see it in her eyes—she was looking at a stranger. It had been eight years, but to me it was like only yesterday that we’d been best friends. Her look was like a punch to my stomach.

  ‘Hello?’ she called out.

  I ran. I didn’t stop running until I got into the car and told Griffin to drive. I expected an argument about what the rush was, but with one look at my face he took off until the houses became a blur. We screeched out onto the main street, past Boydy’s, past the pub and light pole that marked the outskirts of town.

  I thought about the teddy-bear jewellery box that I’d dug up from under the willows and left on Amanda’s doorstep. I wondered if she’d remember. I figured she wouldn’t.

  I was sitting in my seat and the sun was beating through the window but I felt like I’d just been dunked into ice water. Griffin didn’t ask me any questions but I was ready with an answer, just in case he did.

  ‘Mum always says you can never go back,’ I would say. ‘I guess she was right.’

  31

  Christmas Eve

  They drove in silence for around half an hour until Griffin leaned forward to fiddle with the radio. Instead of returning his hand to the wheel, he casually draped his arm across the back of the passenger seat, his fingertips resting on Tully’s shoulder. At first she shrank towards the passenger door, but gradually, when he didn’t try anything else, she leaned back so that she could feel his touch once more.

  ‘Am I going the right way?’ Griffin asked and for the moment Tully wondered whether he was asking about his hand.

  Then she nodded. ‘It’s about thirty kays back along this road until you get to the highway.’

  They stayed silent for a while.

  ‘So, what are you going to do? Now that you’ve left school,’ said Tully.

  Griffin shrugged. ‘Not sure. I thought I’d take a gap year. Do a bit of work. Get a bit of money,’ he said.

  ‘So, how was your ENTER score?’

  ‘Well, not so good,’ he said finally. ‘Which is another reason I might take a gap year. May not have a choice. And you?’

  Tully remembered the day her ENTER had arrived. She hadn’t told Aunt Laney or Bamps that the scores were due. They were so out of touch they thought the scores weren’t out until after the new year. She didn’t bother to go online, but waited for the mail the next day, snatching the letter from the postie and putting it under her pillow. When she finally opened it, later that night, she had stared at the ENTER score of 82. So, 82 out of 100. Imagine if she’d tried.

  ‘Yeah, not so good,’ she said.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ asked Griffin.

  Tully shrugged. ‘I’m not really sure.’

  Tully felt Griffin’s thumb move once across her shoulder. She wondered if it was on purpose or just that he needed to move his thumb. Her palms were sweaty and she casually wiped them down the front of her jeans as if she were having a stretch.

  Finally, Griffin said, ‘You didn’t come to Damo’s party.’

  ‘Didn’t feel like it,’ said Tully. ‘Anyway, I don’t even know Damo.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Griffin. ‘Everyone knows Damo. He’s the guy
that did a nudie-run through the staffroom last term.’

  ‘Oh. That was Damo?’ Tully managed a weak laugh. ‘Why would you bother doing something like that?’

  ‘Someone offered him fifty bucks.’

  ‘Oh.’

  The radio crackled and threatened to drop out altogether. Griffin removed his hand from Tully’s shoulder and reached forward again to auto-search a station.

  ‘...on radio 3BO. And now, an oldie but a goodie from George Michael when he was just half of Wham.’

  George Michael’s song about last Christmas when he gave someone his heart filled the car.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Griffin looking flustered. ‘That’s local radio for you.’

  Tully smiled and Griffin’s hand returned to its perch on her shoulder.

  ‘So Damo’s party was good?’ said Tully quickly. She was trying to ignore the warmth from Griffin’s hand that was spreading straight down her arm.

  ‘It was okay,’ said Griffin. ‘So what’s with you and Nathan?’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend, if that’s what you’re asking.’ She felt Griffin’s hand relax a little on her shoulder.

  ‘Well, that’s good to hear,’ he said.

  ‘It is?’

  ‘He turned up to the party with Desi. I thought I was going to have to tell you that he was cheating on you.’

  Tully laughed.

  ‘Nate only stayed an hour. Desi got wasted and he had to take her home.’

  ‘Oh.’ Tully wondered if she should mention that she saw Griffin at Ravel’s party. Instead she said, ‘Desi’s actually okay. Nate seems to like her.’

  ‘So just friends?’ asked Griffin. ‘You and Nate?’