Girl Defective

by Simmone Howell

  “Password?”

  “Ringo.”

  And we were in.

  This was the maze that led to the mess. We turned corners and went upstairs and downstairs—up, down, around, and all the while the music grew louder and the smoke sharper. Then we were in the bowels of the building, the future underground car park and I was so nervous and excited that it was all I could do to just breathe, and take the sensations as they hit, the odd flashes of light, the moving shadows, the air of intensity so thick you could carve distress signals into it.

  The mess was people and oil-drum fires and music. Images flickered off and on various walls—snaps from Otisworld. There was something so self-conscious about it: people at a party watching pictures of people at a party.

  Someone poked me. I twisted to see Quinn. She grappled me in a bear hug, her camera sticking into my chest. I came out of the hug and put my hand over my face like she was the paparazzi. She snapped me anyway.

  “Have you seen Nancy?” I shouted above the music.

  Quinn pointed to a pile of pallets and shouted back, “Otis is starting soon!”

  I checked for familiar faces. Trilby saw me and swung his stethoscope from his fingers like a pendulum. Luke was staring at the pictures; his face looked sad. I guess he was waiting for Mia to crop up. I hoped that she wouldn’t—not the photo I’d seen. I grabbed his hand and led him away from the flashing images. We tried to get the lay of the land, skirting the edges. There were candles everywhere. The walls looked like they were breathing.

  Nancy was on an upper level, on a concrete island that looked like it was suspended in space. A narrow ladder led down to the makeshift stage. She wasn’t alone up there. I glimpsed scarves and lanky rock legs, Rocky’s solid quiff, and Otis’s luminous face. Even from where I was standing, Nancy didn’t look right. Otis had his sharkskin back turned to her, and Nancy was berating it. She threw a limp punch. And then she climbed down the ladder. I went to meet her at the bottom.

  Nancy’s face softened when she saw me. She started talking as if we’d already been talking. It took me a while to catch up.

  Her voice was tough, but her eyes didn’t match it. “What do you know? He fucking reneged. He said he was going to pay for my ticket. Bullshit.” She shrugged, her whole body flopping with the movement. “I suppose he would have worked it out eventually.”

  I guessed she meant Steve Sharp. She drank from her flask, waggling it in her fingers. I could tell by the angle that it was almost empty. Nancy continued, her voice whiny. “Sky, I don’t want there to be bad feelings between us. I’m always running from the bad feelings. Everybody hates Nancy.”

  “I don’t hate you. I’m worried about you.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.” But as she said it, her eyes darkened. She stared at a group of scarf girls dancing; her face turned hard. “Otis is sweet, but his dad is a pig.”

  “Why’d you do it, then?”

  “Because he’s got a big dick and a lot of money.” She laughed. I was pretty sure she was quoting. I wanted to tell her she didn’t have to, but she’d drifted off to dance. Under the pulsing lights she looked unreal. “Dance with me,” she called back. I moved limply, feeling awkward, wanting escape. Then suddenly she stopped.

  “He’s starting.”

  Otis and crew were climbing down the ladder. Otis was wearing his fox head. He knocked it a couple of times on the way down, which made it look more comic than surreal. Otis the fox, Rocky the duck, and the drummer had some kind of rodent head happening, but when I saw the bass player, my mouth went dry—he was wearing Gully’s snout.

  I scanned for Luke or Quinn in the sea of shifting bodies, and that was when I saw a figure smaller than most, a midget in night vision goggles, hand aloft, tracing the air. “Gully!” I shouted, and pushed through bodies like pillars until I reached him. I pulled him into a hug. I could feel his heart hammering.

  “What are you doing here? How did you get in?”

  “Stealth.” Gully smirked beneath the goggles. “This is a weird party.” He was looking around and then he stopped. He must have seen the snout because he extracted himself and started moving forward. He was slippery-quick, too fast for me. And then someone else was moving after him. Luke. But Gully weaved and Luke kept getting blocked. I watched Gully climb onto the stage, over to the bass player to reclaim his property. The bass player let him. Gully returned to the crowd. I made my way toward him, wading through strangers. By now Luke was up and aiming for Otis. Rocky—ever steroided—turned to attack. The drummer started up—what did he know? Maybe the mess was supposed to go like this and he didn’t get the memo—but after a few beats he held his sticks aloft, and then there was nothing but the ringing quiet and open-mouthed mess-heads staring at something about to happen.

  Luke punched Otis, straight in the jaw. Otis dropped like a sack of spuds. One minute he was up, the next he was down. It was like the punch to start the end of the world. Rocky set on Luke. They grappled around the pallets, finally crashing into the newly abandoned drum kit. The snoutless bass player was crouching, hiding his head behind his instrument. Mess-heads stormed the stage, and the scarf girls bent over Otis’s prone body, guarding him fiercely. I was at the foot of the chaos, holding tight to Gully, who had his hands over his ears. Someone had put the music back on, but it was crackling, fragmenting, and the broken sounds were like a mirror of the scene. Where had Luke gone? He and Rocky could have rolled out to sea, for all I knew, because the lights were shorting along with the sounds.

  In all the hubbub I had forgotten about Nancy. In a flash I saw her, climbing the rickety ladder, swaying slightly above the masses.

  She climbed up and up. All I could do was watch her.

  Then there was a loud crack. The generator seized and the room went dark—the only light left came from fires and camera flashes. Gully primed his night vision goggles. He raised his hand in the classic survivor fist. “Everybody stay calm!” But something was rising above even Gully: sirens and the word rushing like a bad wind. Cops! COPS!

  I froze as figures bolted into the black. Then more figures entered with lights and nightsticks. I backed into a corner, letting go of Gully. The generator juddered back to life and somebody screamed.

  Nancy. She wavered on the platform, eight feet up, her toes fairly curling over the edge, her head hanging, her hair mushrooming. And then she was falling and Gully was running toward her with his arms out, going for the big save. They both went down. There was a stunned silence, and then Gully’s voice rose up. “I’m okay! I’m okay!” A hand came up from under Nancy’s body. It was waving a pig snout.

  “IN THE JAILHOUSE NOW”

  WAY TO KILL A party, dude.”

  That was Rocky. I’d ended up next to him in the roundup. He was stuffed into the tightest pair of pants I’d ever seen. I was surprised he could breathe, let alone bitch. Luke was on the other side of the room, next to Otis, both of them bleeding. Otis’s eye looked like mashed turnip. Luke’s lip had gone bee-stung. I clocked Quinn. She had her camera at her hip and was surreptitiously sneaking shots. I didn’t recognize anyone else. Most people’s masks had slipped, faces showing fear and worry and regret.

  The police sorted through us, checking ID, searching bags, weeding out the underagers. I blew into the tube, thankful I hadn’t drunk anything.

  “That’s my brother,” I told the officer, pointing to Gully, who was only just taking off his night vision goggles. “Can I sit with him, make sure he’s okay?”

  “All night long at the police station,” she quipped.

  Boys and girls went in separate police vans. I jostled to get next to Quinn.

  “Did you drink?” she whispered.

  “No.”

  “What about you?”

  She shook her head.

  “What happens now?” I asked.

  “They’ll call our folks. They might charge us. They’ll try and charge someone.” She stopped to take a picture. Heads turned at the sl
y click. “I think we’ll be out for Christmas.”

  “What will your mum do?”

  “Ground me. Take my computer away. What about your dad?”

  I thought about it. “I don’t know.”

  “What was Gully doing?”

  “Saving Nancy.”

  At the police station we were hustled off to holding cells. There was a bag lady, a working girl, and a fancy-pants lady who must have been in by mistake. She couldn’t stop crying. Nancy and Gully weren’t with us, and for a long time I was too intimidated to talk to the guard. I sat next to Quinn and tried to close my senses. Luke, Otis, and Rocky were in the cell opposite with mess-heads and rough nuts; in the corner an old bum was curled up like a cat. Luke and Otis had given up glowering at each other. Luke stared at nothing. Rocky and Otis mumbled to each other and after a while not even that.

  One by one the mess-heads and deviants were released until the only faces I recognized belonged to Rocky and Otis and Luke and the bum. The bum began to sing, his voice gruff but tuneful, and then I recognized both the singer and the song. It was the Fugg, doing “In the Jailhouse Now.” Otis sat with his arms folded and a flat look on his face. Slowly he began tapping his foot to the Fugg’s song, and then he joined in, harmonizing, in his distinctive, hiccupy yawl. Rocky brought his head out of his hands. He relaxed; his big forehead went baby-skin smooth. The Fugg sang in an old-timey way that gave me memory creaks and good shivers. Even the weeping woman in my cell stopped to blow her nose. I exchanged a glance with Luke. For the first time since we’d been in, he smiled. Things were going to be okay. I could feel it.

  “Martin?” they called. I stood up; my bones were aching. “Somebody loves you.” I stayed where I was, not understanding what he meant, until he unlatched the door. “You can go.”

  Dad and I walked out of the police station and into his car without a word between us. The moon was clear now, the clouds all gone. He turned the key. I opened the window and inhaled freedom.

  He parked at the back of the shop. He cut the engine and lowered his head to the steering wheel. Then he lifted it again and turned to me. “You okay?”

  I nodded. The engine was ticking as it cooled down. It was a comforting sound, signifying a changing state. I wanted to lose myself to it. “How’s Gully?”

  “He’s fine. He’s got a broken arm.”

  “Ouch,” I mumbled. I knew Dad was waiting for an explanation, and that he deserved it.

  “He followed me there,” I said. “I didn’t know. I would never take him somewhere like that. And the only reason I was there—” I stopped. My reason contained too much—my reason wouldn’t fit in the car. My reason was Mia and Nancy and the teenage call to wildness and Luke’s desperate need to know. And it was something to do with belonging, too, though I wouldn’t work that out until later. I stared at Dad and I had nothing, but he just put his hand over mine.

  “They’re going to put Gully in the paper.”

  “Wow. He’ll love that.” I was quiet, wanting to ask, but not wanting to.

  “Nancy’s going to be fine too. She was lucky she was drunk, gave her a dead fall.” He paused. “She has to wear a brace for a bit. A neck brace.

  I nodded. Nancy in a neck brace. She’d probably find a way to make it look sexy. Dad’s hand felt warm over mine. It made me feel small. He said, “What happened to you? You used to be a sweet kid.”

  The stink of the bins was creeping in. I cranked the window up. I felt like crying, and then I was.

  “Hey, hey.” Dad hugged the half of me he could get to. It was the first time I could remember him smelling like himself, not of grog and defeat, but warm, musty, kind of like his T-shirt could use a wash.

  I said, “Remember you used to say Joe Meek had no place in the world? You said he had one foot in the past and the other in the future. Like he didn’t fit anywhere. I feel like that sometimes. Even with you and Gully.”

  Dad hugged me harder. “You fit. You fit fine.” He kept hugging. I almost couldn’t breathe. Then he let go and I wiped my eyes—then rolled them—and snuffled and yawned.

  “Come on,” Dad said. “Agent Seagull Martin wants to debrief.”

  THE GRACE OF BOB

  CHRISTMAS MORNING. LATE. OUTSIDE my window the world was a soft, unruffled blue, but already the sun was pressing upon its edges. I lay back in bed and closed my eyes, enjoying the quiet, my mind parade: the mess. The raid. Nancy falling. Gully’s hand with the snout raised high. Otis and the Fugg’s jailhouse jamboree. Luke’s last smile. Luke! I had no way of contacting him. I wondered if he was going to turn up for lunch. Had Otis told him anything? Did it make a difference? I felt different. When I looked at the picture of Mia, I felt sadness but also a sense of finality. I felt lighter. Even when I thought about the shop and the future. Even when I thought about Mum.

  I got dressed and knocked on Gully’s door. He was struggling to put his T-shirt on over his cast. After I’d sorted him, I looked up and around. The evidence wall was on the way out. The Polaroids were gone, the string and star stickers.

  The smallness of St. Kilda: it turned out that white Jeep was registered to one Rocco Cipriani, aka Rocky. Some random mess-head had swiped Gully’s pig snout and flung it onstage at Luna Park. Some bands get underpants, Otis got animal masks. Constable Eve Brennan put the eyes on Rocky, and he led her to the mess and the rest was history.

  Gully’s cast was pristine.

  “Can I be the first one to sign it?” I asked.

  He nodded. “No swear words!”

  I held the Sharpie over the cast, and my mind went blank. I wanted to write something profound. It seemed to me that the cast was the culmination of all of Gully’s work and to just write “Get Well Soon” would be an insult.

  “I have to think about it. Does it hurt?”

  “It’s itchy. But injuries make great covers: casts, crutches, mouthguards, eye patches . . .”

  I smiled. “So it’s all good?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Did you remember to wrap Dad’s present?”

  Gully nodded to his desk; the bulky package waited. It looked more like a football than a single.

  “I used a lot of bubble wrap. Digital intel is useless.”

  Dad was tidying the living room. In other words, he had a big black plastic tub and was sweeping all manner of stuff into it: records and bills and magazines and crockery. “Merry Christmas!” he said, all jolly, pausing to plant kisses on our foreheads.

  Gully brought the package around from his back. “This is from us. Sky found it and I wrapped it.”

  We held our breath as Dad began the excavation. His fingers found the single. “Well,” he said softly. “Well. Look at that. Where did this come from?”

  “Goldmine,” I lied.

  “Do you like it?” Gully asked.

  Dad grinned. “Are you crazy?” He took the record out of its sleeve and put it on the player. The Millionaires filled the flat in all their wobbly, demented glory. I checked for Steve Sharp’s mark inside the sleeve, but Gully had blacked over it. He saw me looking and gave me a sly thumbs-up. I returned it. Wishing Well was so familiar and yet every time I played it, I heard some little difference. A tell that could not be translated. Like Dad said, “There’s a lot going on in there.” I remember thinking, If songs can be seen, then “Wishing Well” shimmers. Right there in the living room for three minutes and four seconds, we, the Martins, were in exactly the right place.

  “Item,” Dad announced. “We have guests arriving at twelve hundred hours. I’m putting the turkey on.”

  Luke came first. His lip was still swollen, and his eyes held the promise of stories. Eve came second, with crackers and cake and elaborate mocktails. She kissed Dad and me and Gully and even Luke, who wasn’t expecting it. I saw the color rise on his neck, but he was smiling. She’d brought presents, too: a copy of the Police Gazette for Gully and a crystal radio kit; a Body Shop basket for me and a book called What Color Is Your Parachute?
>
  “I know,” she said. “You’re hard to buy for.”

  “Sky’s a mystery,” Dad agreed.

  I had been wondering about Nancy. Would she come? Would I get to see the neck brace? I imagined myself cooing at her, Neck braces are everywhere this season. I didn’t like the way we’d parted. I wanted to hear her donkey-honk laugh again. When the doorbell rang, Gully and I both leaped for it. We tramped downstairs and yanked the door open to find a man in a blue suit with the sun making a halo behind him.

  It was the Fugg, but he didn’t look like the Fugg. He was clean. His hair was oiled back, his beard trimmed and food-free; his hands clasped in front of his stomach looked pink and soft as baby voles. The Fugg’s suit was a little small and moth-eaten. He’d teamed it with loafers (no socks—there was nothing he could do about the scabs on his ankles). He was carrying a green shopping bag. I braced myself for the clink of bottles that never came.

  “Hor-doevers!” Dad announced in his posh voice.

  Oh, the awkwardness of the starter! The Fugg sat opposite Luke at the table, and the two of them just looked at each other. Luke’s face serious, the Fugg smiling at the tablecloth. Nancy’s chair stayed empty. I couldn’t look at Luke without wanting to kiss him, so I studied the Fugg. When he picked up his knife and fork, his hands shook so hard it made my heart wince. Gully was watching Dad’s face carefully, and I wondered if his reason for inviting Ernst extended beyond charity. Something like a there-but-for-the-grace-of-Bob-go-I. Conversation was stilted. Dad laughed too hard at a non-joke and nearly choked on his vol-au-vent. Just before turkey time Gully popped Nancy’s cracker, and after that I relaxed. This was Christmas: silly hats and sinking pavlova. The turkey that worked. Eve’s mocktails flowing like sweet, fizzy rivers. There was laughter and food and music—the holy trinity—and when Lee Hazlewood sang, “Some velvet morning when I’m straight,” Gully and I locked eyes and grinned. This was the first Christmas we’d seen Dad sober.