Jarvis 24

by David Metzenthen

  ‘All right,’ I say elusively, perhaps even enigmatically, a word that’s becoming more useful to me by the day. ‘We talked.’

  Mikey and I tap fists, which is something I did forget to do mentally on the way up.

  ‘That’s great.’ Belinda gives me a tilted smile. ‘Geezus. Someone around here has to get lucky.’ She steps forward and delivers a kiss to my cheek. ‘And it looks like you’re it. And on your last day. Talk about timing. What a week you’ve had.’

  I’d forgotten that today was my last day at the car yard. And now that I remember, a sudden sadness hollows me out. All the good things that have happened this week are already lining up to go into the past. Perhaps school is onto something with this Work Experience thing?

  ‘I’ve had a really good time,’ I say. ‘Thanks, guys. You’ve really helped me. I’ve learnt a heap. About, well, a lot of things. And don’t worry, Casey, I’ll go back and get your toy right now. I promise.’

  Casey nods. ‘Good. Because I need it.’

  Belinda, Mikey and I look at each other, the silence saying more than I ever could.

  ‘Well,’ says Belinda suddenly, taking hold of Casey’s hand. ‘Look, Marc, if you have a few minutes spare tomorrow morning, you could drop in as Vinnie said he might come by. I’m sure he’d like to see you. You don’t have a football game, do you?’

  ‘Nope, no footy.’ But I do have a date in the afternoon! ‘That’d be good,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Maybe around ten. And Casey, I’ll go back to Macca’s right now and get your thing.’

  ‘There’s no need for that, Marc.’ Belinda shakes her head. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘No, I’ll go.’ And down the driveway I head, as light on my feet as Muhammad Ali, who I’m sure would agree with me that Electra is one special girl, as he is a guy who knows a thing or two about what is, and what isn’t, the real deal.

  21

  After dinner, which I used to call tea but don’t anymore, I go around to Trav’s place, as I don’t want to be at mine. Then we take Dot out, as Trav doesn’t want to be at his place, either. And neither does Dot.

  This is not called going for a walk. This is taking the dog out. Two guys cannot go for a walk, unless they’re going somewhere to do something, or get something, and fresh air does not count.

  ‘So. Let me get this straight,’ Trav says, as we head for the Seven-Eleven. ‘You and this, er, Electra, are going out for a walk tomorrow afternoon.’ Trav lapses into what I think is critical silence.

  It’s hard to defend yourself against silent criticism, if that’s what this is. Firstly, because it’s difficult to work out what the silent criticism is exactly. And secondly, if you do work it out and respond, the other person will just deny they were ever thinking it.

  ‘Yes. We are going for a walk,’ I say. ‘Like you and Miranda used to go for a walk.’ Miranda is Trav’s ex-girlfriend; she was this blonde hippy girl who was always going on about being a lawyer or an international aid worker. Anyway, she’s gone. She got caught shoplifting. But that’s not why they split up. No one knows why they split up. Not even Trav. But he was relieved.

  ‘No, walking’s all right,’ Trav says. ‘Why? Did you hear me say that it wasn’t? Anyway, you can take Dot. She’s free tomorrow. And are you sure that name’s for real? Electra? It sounds a little, er, creative.’

  ‘Why wouldn’t it be real?’ I respond. ‘Doesn’t it sound real? It is real.’ There. I’m doing a bit of the unspoken criticism myself.

  Trav shrugs. ‘You know, people make shit up. Look at you. What sort of a name is Marc with a C? Or is that a double C? Who knows? Perhaps your name’s not really Marc at all. Perhaps it’s Martin.’

  I ignore that. ‘She’s a sprinter on a full scholarship and specialises in the two hundred metres. She comes from Broome and she lives with her coach, as I said. In her own room, of course. She’s an elite freak. Like, she’s seriously quick. State titles and stuff. That quick.’

  ‘Really?’ Trav’s impressed by freaks. He’s even impressed a bit by some dope at school who’s Lightweight Chess Champion of Australia or something equally as whack. ‘So why’s she talking to you then?’ Trav laughs, putting his fists up, hoping that I might be dumb enough to try to hit him.

  I’m not. Besides, that question is one I’ve already asked myself.

  ‘I don’t know really.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Trav ties Dot up directly outside the Seven-Eleven; often we use her as live bait for any chicks who might like dogs, although she is a bit of a biter, so sometimes it can be counter-productive. ‘Anyway, it’s a good thing, Jarvy. She seems cool. And I haven’t even met her. Now, because I’ve got no money, you’ll have to lend me five.’

  As I walk home I think about Electra. Her speed is like an aura; a star quality she tries to hide that can’t be hidden. I bet when she unleashes she blazes like the sun, and that’s something I’d like to see. Soon.

  Amelia-Anne, AA, she kind of blazed as well, but more as a kid than a runner. She lit the place up wherever she went. She was funny. She got into trouble. She didn’t care. She was a bit like Trav.

  ‘So suspend me,’ she’d once said a little too loudly after going out of school bounds a third time to buy hot chips. So they did. ‘It came as quite a surprise,’ she’d admitted later. ‘Still, I caught up on Jerry Springer.’

  AA always had something going on. She was too good to lose. And it’s taken me a long time to find someone else who fills me with wonder like she did. But Electra does, in a different way, and although she’s not about to go anywhere, I don’t even want to think about losing her as well.

  So don’t, I tell myself. Don’t.

  22

  I get up reasonably early on Saturday morning, just in time to see my dad put his golf clubs in the car, and head off down the drive. Then my mum and Gretchen take off for their usual Saturday cycle of basketball matches and shopping wars, leaving me at the kitchen table eating Weetbix, the only thing to look at being my mum’s copy of The Big Issue magazine, strategically placed.

  My mum does this so I will get some idea of what could happen to me if I dropped out of school, as The Big Issue has stuff about people on the fringe of society, and is sold by people who – oh, shit, I don’t know, it’s just a magazine full of big issues, costs five bucks, and helps out the people who sell it. So, yeah, respect, but hey, I’m not reading it cover to cover.

  But I do open it, between Weetbix and toast, and a heading actually catches my attention.

  ‘Have You Seen these Missing People?’

  Well, not yet, I say to myself, because I haven’t looked, but when I do look, I have to change my answer because one of the four people is freakin’ Mikey.

  And now I am reading the The Big Issue like I’ve never read anything else before. Well, one paragraph, anyway.

  Missing: Jason Michael Delaney. Born 1985. Last seen Cairns, QLD, Christmas, 2007. Need to know you are safe. Love Brad, mum, dad, Chopper. Call home, please.

  So what do I do about this? Or, what should I do?

  I have no idea, but hanging around here isn’t going to help. So I put my dishes on the sink, and head towards the car yard, The Big Issue stuck in my back pocket. Should I tell Mikey about it? Should I simply give the magazine to Belinda, and let her work it out? Or just chuck it over the fence, as it’s obvious Mikey has his reasons for going missing, and staying missing.

  But he’s a friend of mine, meaning perhaps I owe it to him to at least show him the thing. Or perhaps, as a friend, I don’t. I mean, I’m sure the guy knows his own phone number.

  Whatever, as I walk through the Glenferrie Road shopping centre, to take my mind off The Big Issue, I concentrate on analysing the various looks, clothes and perfumes of each and every one of the girls and ladies going by. Each, I think, is like a separate, mysterious, sexy solar system – and far more interesting than any real solar system, as space is totally meaningless and useless, utter bullshit, and total
garbage – whereas girls aren’t.

  Well, obviously, like space, some girls and women aren’t interesting, either. Especially the older ones, as generally I have no idea what they think, or do, or mean. But then there’s the odd one, like Ms Inglis, who is sexy even though she never does anything that is sexy, so that’s a mystery in itself. Meanwhile, I’ve made it to GateWay a lot earlier than I expected, as the gate is still locked.

  So I wait, and although The Big Issue is still stuck in my back pocket, it’s now certainly front and centre in my goddamn mind. It’s even moved Electra a little to one side. And that’s saying something.

  Belinda studies the small grainy photo of Mikey. Then she gazes off up the busy road where the roofs of traffic-jammed cars disappear into the distance.

  ‘Leave it with me, Marc.’ She produces an odd little smile. ‘I really think I ought to – no, I’m not sure.’ She walks to the locked gate and I walk with her. ‘But if it was you, you’d want people to tell you your family was looking for you, wouldn’t you? It might change a lot of things.’

  ‘Er, yeah, I guess,’ I say. ‘I suppose it depends on why you went missing.’ As I said, that magazine is full of issues.

  Belinda opens the padlock decisively.

  ‘No, he has to see it. I couldn’t live with myself otherwise. ’ Then she opens her bag, opens her purse, and gives me a tendollar note. ‘And all you’ve got to do, Marc, is go and buy some flowers. Here. Now. See you in a minute. Thanks.’

  How can flowers be part of this? How can flowers be part of anything?

  ‘What sort of flowers?’ I ask. Flowers are not my strong point. In fact, I don’t like them.

  Belinda waves me away. ‘Any sort that cost less than ten bucks that Mikey’ll like. Off you go. You’ll be right.’

  So I head off, wondering how I ever ended up being a guy going to buy another guy a bunch of flowers on a Saturday morning; which worries me a little, though not as much as it would’ve before I met Electra, or if it was my idea.

  Still. Belinda knows best. She is the boss.

  The greengrocer sells flowers; I trip over buckets of them every day on the way to school. So I go there, and the guy comes out waving short hairy arms around like a friendly spider.

  ‘Ah, you, young mister! I see this week you are expelled from your school and now you are working. Better for you, better for your school, I’m sure! Now, you are buying some flowers for a love-lee young girl, I bet.’

  ‘Er, well, I’m buying some flowers, yes,’ I say. ‘And I didn’t get expelled from school. I’m on Work Experience.’

  ‘Ha ha!’ Mr Greengrocer laughs, showing gold and silver teeth. ‘Yeah, I hear that one before. Anyway.’ He waves his hands over the flowers. ‘All these, my friend, one bunch seven dollars. Or two bunches, ten dollars!’

  Sweet! I point to some white ones that look pretty neutral.

  ‘I’ll have those, please. One bunch, thanks.’

  The guy lifts them out dripping.

  ‘Yes, lovely. Plus I mix in a few more for free for your beautiful young lady!’ And he does, before wrapping them in bright purple paper with a yellow ribbon. ‘Voila! Now you get luckeee!’

  Not if anyone from school sees me, I don’t.

  Taking Belinda’s change, I turn to make my getaway and run smack-bang into a sports bag with Electra on the other side of it.

  Holy freakin’ hell!

  ‘Oh, Electra!’ I say, and stick the flowers out like a robot. ‘These are for you!’

  She dodges, hands up.

  ‘Really?’ She doesn’t appear entirely convinced. ‘Perhaps you should hold onto them until this afternoon then? Because I’m going to school for a weights session, and I wouldn’t have anywhere to put them.’

  I push them forward. ‘No, they’ll be fine in your bag. Just don’t let any dumbells fall on them. Stick them in water later. I’m sure they’ll like it.’

  Electra takes the flowers, slowly. ‘All right. I will. And thanks.’ Then she smiles, and for once the storm clouds in her eyes seem to have taken a raincheck at the sight of nature’s amazing little floral miracle workers, as presented by M. E. Jarvis, 24, floral advisor to the stars of the future!

  ‘Ah, so lucky.’ Mr Greengrocer clasps his hands like a bikie praying for beer. ‘Boy, for a skinny beanpole kid kicked out of school, you gotta miracle!’

  I cannot disagree, although he could go a bit easy on the beanpole thing; I am now up around the seventy-three kilo mark.

  I say goodbye to Electra outside GateWay, wait until she’s gone around the corner into Barclay Road, then head back to the flower shop, keeping a sharp eye out for Mikey. Unfortunately, all the more neutral flowers have gone, so I have to buy these red things that stink; the only other alternatives being some spiky mongrels that look like a family of cassowarys killed by a roadtrain, or some other long-necked ugly suckers that look like white swans smoking cigarettes.

  ‘More flowers, my friend?’ says Mr Greengrocer. ‘No wonder they kick you out of school. You are girl-crazy. That last one, she is so beaudiful I think she is a princess. What is this next one? A movie star from Switzerland?’

  Does Switzerland have a film industry? It’s possible. I know it has trains that go up steep hills. Perhaps they made some films about them? I laugh because seeing Electra has put me on some kind of higher spiritual plane of joy, truth, and enlightenment. I mean, I’m not religious, but boy, I am feeling totally freakin’ bulletproof now!

  ‘No,’ I say, glancing at a display of pears that remind me of one hundred lightly tanned and freckled breasts. ‘They’re for a guy at work. We’re trying to cheer him up.’

  ‘Oh.’ This time, Mr Greengrocer puts his hands together like our school chaplain, who always seems disappointed for some reason. ‘Can’t help you on that one. I been married to the one lady for thirty years. But flowers is nice. For anyone.’ He hands me my flowers, perfectly wrapped in snowy white paper. ‘It’s a free country, after all.’

  ‘Oh, I’m not gay,’ I say. ‘It’s just, as I said, Belinda at work thought that – ’

  Then, a voice that sounds scarily familiar. ‘Hey, Marc. What’s up?’

  I turn around to see Mikey standing there smiling like a trainee flight attendant.

  ‘Flowers, bro?’ Cheerily he dismantles his iPod so we can speak, not that I have a lot to say at this point. ‘You shouldn’t have.’

  It’s true that I’d like to say, no, I didn’t, but what the hell.

  ‘Well, funnily enough, Mikey,’ I say. ‘I did.’ And I hand the flowers over, not even worrying about Mr Greengrocer, or telling Mikey that it was Belinda’s idea – well, not until we’re twenty metres down the road.

  Man, I’ve got to say it’s kind of liberating to be in love!

  Of course, the cat’s pretty much out of the bag by then. Or it will be soon.

  ‘You’ll have to wait for Belinda to give you the whole story,’ I tell Mikey, as we reach the GateWay office. ‘It’s kind of complicated.’

  ‘It sounds it.’ Mikey slides the door back, giving me a look. ‘After you, Marc.’

  I’ve watched far too much television to fall for that old trick.

  ‘No. After you, Mikey.’ Then I step back. ‘I’ve gotta make a phone call. I’ll see you in a sec.’

  Or just as soon as the smoke’s cleared.

  From high up in the safety of the Leadlight Café, I see Mikey leave the car yard, so I head back over to find out what Belinda’s got to say. Following her into her office, I see an abandoned bunch of flowers on Mr Gates’s desk. Of The Big Issue, there’s no sign.

  ‘Well, perhaps that wasn’t such a good idea.’ Belinda sits in her chair, arms limply crossed. ‘Now that I think about it.’

  I sit on a customer chair. ‘Why? Did he crack it?’

  ‘No, not quite.’ Belinda nods towards the other office. ‘But if you want some interesting weekend reading, go look in the bin.’

  ‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Well, recycling’s
good.’ I feel guilty for running away. ‘I think you did the right thing, anyway.’ Even if it did go wrong. ‘And I’m sorry for taking off. I should’ve stuck around.’

  Belinda shrugs. ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, Marc. I mean, what are we supposed to do? Not tell him? Jesus. I mean, think of how his family must feel, not knowing where the hell he is.’

  ‘I guess he thought we should mind our own business,’ I say.

  Belinda laughs, shrugs, runs a hand up through her fringe then pats it down.

  ‘I guess he did. But so bloody what? He can ring or not ring. Ball’s in his court. He’ll calm down.’

  ‘Yeah, I hope so.’ I look out the window. ‘Maybe he’s gone to find a phone box? Like Superman.’

  ‘If he’s got any sense.’ Belinda looks up from a photograph of Casey on her bike. ‘Because I happen to think that it’s a pretty terrible family that’s worse than no family at all.’

  Put like that, I think I’d have to agree.

  23

  Mikey hasn’t come back, so I’m cleaning a few cars just for fun, when a hippy guy in baggy black pants and red sneakers wanders into the yard.

  ‘G’day, looking for anything in particular?’ I say. ‘In the way of a car?’ I add, to clarify things.

  ‘I am.’ The guy points, his fingers loaded down with more rings than seem completely necessary. ‘The little Vee Dub, brother.’

  Oh, right. The one that’s been sprayed with mauve house paint.

  ‘The Volks-vagon,’ adds the guy, who has black sideburns like razors. ‘The people’s car. Is he a good little unit or what? The truth now, friend.’ The guy loosens up with a smile. ‘As I can’t be buyin’ me a lemon as funds are severely limited.’

  I know that story.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘He goes well.’ I mean, I guess he does. I don’t think he’d be in the yard if he didn’t go at all.