by Tony Birch
‘Jesse, in the morning you pack that case under the bunk with as much of Rache’s and your stuff that you can fit into it. We’re leaving.’
‘Leaving? Where we going?’
‘Do what I say and just be ready.’
My stomach starting churning up and it took me ages to get back to sleep, worrying over what would happen to us. I didn’t want Gwen moving us on again. But I knew we were flat broke and if we stayed at the farmhouse we’d starve.
I was so tired the next morning that I slept in and Gwen had to drag me out of bed. Rachel pretended she was asleep until Gwen left the room, then poked her head over the side of the top bunk and watched as I stuffed the suitcase with clothes. A couple of times I yelled at her to get dressed but she wouldn’t move.
‘If you don’t get some clothes on soon, Gwen’ll whack you, so get moving. She told me to do this job and get you ready. If she starts on me, I’ll start on you because it’ll be your fault.’
She shook her head from side to side. ‘I want to stay here. What about if Jon comes back? He won’t be able to find us if we go away.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Rachel. Jon’s not coming back. The cops were after him.’
‘If I’m the one who’s stupid, why do you pray for him to come back? I heard you.’
‘That’s not praying. I was making a wish. It’s not the same thing.’
‘You still do it and it’s cause you want him back too.’
‘Maybe I do. But I know he’s not coming.’
She climbed down the side of the bunk and changed out of her pyjamas into a flowery shirt and a denim dress I’d left on the floor for her. She pulled on an old pair of runners and was about to leave the room when I laughed at her and pointed.
‘Hey, don’t forget your undies.’
She grabbed hold of her skirt and pulled at it. ‘Oops.’
We shared a can of peaches and some flat lemonade for breakfast. Even though there didn’t seem much point in doing it, I rinsed the dishes under the tap and left them on the sink to dry, like Jon had shown me to. I then stood in the middle of the kitchen and took a last look around. We’d been at the farmhouse less than a year but it was the longest I’d spent in one place and knew I’d miss it.
Gwen came into the room, dragging her suitcase behind her. Rachel grabbed hold of my hand and squeezed tight.
‘Come on, you two,’ Gwen barked.
When neither of us moved she nodded to the front door. ‘Go. Now. Both of you.’
She followed us out of the house and shut the door behind her.
I couldn’t look back as I marched down the road carrying one case while Gwen lugged the other. Rachel wouldn’t carry anything except for the teddy bear she’d bought for twenty cents in an op shop three birthdays ago. I don’t know how she did it but she’d held onto that bear through all the moves we’d made since. When she bought the bear it was all grubby, the lining had split down its side and half the stuffing was missing. Rachel washed it and mended the hole with two safety pins. She named the bear Comfort, in honour of a bear on the TV that advertised clothes softener and, according to her, had to be the twin of the one she’d bought.
With Comfort tucked under her arm she trailed behind me along the road, walking as slow as anyone could without stopping. She was doing it so Gwen would know just how angry she was about having to leave. By the time we reached the bus stop she was way back on the road. Gwen called out to her that if she didn’t catch up she’d miss the bus and be left on her own. If Rachel heard it didn’t make any difference. If it was possible, she walked even slower.
By the time the bus turned up Rachel was moaning that she was tired and hungry.
‘Tired?’ Gwen screamed. ‘How could you be tired? You just got out of bed. And you had your breakfast. I saw you eating.’
‘Peaches,’ Rachel fired back at her. ‘Peaches aren’t breakfast.’
The driver got down from the bus and picked up one of the cases. As Gwen was counting out our bus fare, in small change she’d scrounged from around the house, he couldn’t take his eyes off her tits, popping out of a black bra under the dress she was wearing.
When she handed him the coins he jangled them in his hand. ‘You’re a dollar short, love.’
‘You sure? I thought I counted it right.’
He bent forward to get a better look at her tits. The tip of his tongue was sitting on his bottom lip. Gwen followed his eyes and looked down her front. She didn’t move or try covering up.
Once he’d had a good perve he smiled at her and winked. ‘That’s all right, love. Hop on. Take a seat, kids.’
After the bus took off Gwen put a hand under her chin and stared out the window. Rachel leaned against me and held up her thumb, showing me the neat pink cut across the top. It was already scabbing at the edges.
We took the bus to the end of the line and pulled in at a depot with lots of other buses, painted different colours. The drivers were standing in a group at one end, talking and having a smoke before they had to take off again.
Rachel and me sat guarding the cases in front of some shops while Gwen walked to a telephone box on the corner. I watched as she dialled a number. She’d always known how to con the operator with a sob story about losing her money, or some kind of emergency that she was in. She stopped for a bit and then started talking again, to somebody else, I guessed. I watched as she pulled the receiver away from her ear. She stared at it with a weird look on her face, like she didn’t know what she was holding in her hand, or maybe who was on the other end of the line.
When she started talking again I could just about hear her from where we were sitting. She was arguing with somebody. She stopped and rested against the side of the telephone box. She held the receiver to her chest, closed her eyes, and slipped down the box until she was just about on her knees.
Rachel had been watching too. She stood up and walked along the footpath to the phone box. Gwen tried shooing her away but Rachel wouldn’t move, so Gwen opened the door and yelled, ‘Piss off.’
‘What’s gonna happen to us, Jesse?’ Rachel asked, when she came back. She tapped the edge of the footpath with the toe of her shoe. It had a hole in it and her big toe was poking out. ‘I bet it will be something bad.’
‘No it won’t. Gwen’ll think of something. She always does. Maybe she’s talking to Mary. I think she lives round here somewhere. I remember these shops. When we stayed with her I reckon we came down here for fish and chips.’
‘I don’t like Mary. She’s mean. I’m not going to her house.’
I didn’t like Mary either, and hadn’t from the first time I’d seen her, but if Gwen decided we were going to stay with her there’d be no arguing over it.
Gwen hung up the phone and I watched as she walked slowly along the footpath in front of the line of buses, reading the names of the places each bus was heading to. When she got to the end of the line she spoke to the drivers. One of them held up his watch, shook his head a couple of times and smiled. Gwen just about ran back to us and snapped her fingers at me.
‘Jesse, get your case down to that bus, the blue and white one on the end of the row. Rachel, you too. Go. The driver’ll let you know when it’s your stop. You’re gonna be picked up from there.’
As soon as she said ‘picked up’ I thought about the welfare. Maybe that’s who she’d called on the phone?
‘What do you mean? Who’s picking us up?’
‘Your grandfather. Your pop,’ she said, quietly, almost like she was embarrassed. ‘He’s going to meet you with his car. He’ll pay the driver the fare when you get there.’
Rachel was getting worked up. She scratched the side of her face. ‘We don’t have a pop. Isn’t he dead, Jesse?’
Maybe he was. I wasn’t sure. The last time we’d seen him had been for only a few mi
nutes. We’d met at a café in the city. Rachel was still in her pusher and Gwen bought me a milkshake and told me to push her up and down out the front while they had a talk. It wasn’t long before she came running out and left Pop on his own. They’d had a fight.
Rachel screamed that she didn’t want to go to a stranger’s house and started to cry. She grabbed hold of Gwen and begged her to come with us.
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’ I asked.
Gwen’s face was pink and sweaty. ‘Because . . . because he doesn’t want me there. We don’t get on.’ She pushed away Rachel, who couldn’t stop herself from sobbing.
I grabbed the handle of the suitcase with one hand and yanked Rachel’s arm with the other. ‘Come on. We have to go.’
‘No,’ Rachel cried.
Other people waiting for their buses started looking at us. Rachel dug her heels into the footpath and wouldn’t move.
Gwen pressed her face against Rachel’s. ‘You’re going with your brother. Don’t you get it? I’ve got no money. I can’t even feed you.’
‘You said he wasn’t my brother. Why do you want me to go away with him now?’
I pulled at her shirtsleeve. ‘Come on, Rachel, please. You don’t want us to miss the bus. We’ll have to walk all the way with this case. When we get to the other end I’ll ask Pop to buy us a Coke or something.’
‘I don’t want a Coke.’
She tried grabbing hold of Gwen again. She pushed Rachel away, picked up her own case and walked off. Rachel threw herself on the ground. I left her where she was and started walking the other way. When she’d worked out that Gwen wasn’t coming back for her she jumped up and ran after me.
The driver was sitting on the bus, waiting for us with the engine running. ‘I’ll give you a yell when we get to your stop.’
‘Where’s that?’ I asked.
‘You don’t know where you’re going?’
‘No.’ He shook his head and groaned.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll let you know.’
As the bus took off I looked out the window, along the shopping strip. Gwen had already disappeared.
The bus headed along a busy road, past some car yards, a soccer ground and a cemetery that went on forever. I started counting the headstones but there were too many and I gave up. The bus stopped and collected more passengers at the next stop.
An old woman staggered on, carrying shopping bags in both arms.
‘How much further is it, Jesse?’ Rachel asked.
‘Can’t say. I don’t know where we’re going.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Nup. Haven’t got a clue.’
After two more stops the driver called out to us.
‘Hey, you kids. Here’s your stop.’
We pulled into a car park. A couple of old men were sitting on a bench talking to each other.
‘Some old bloke’s supposed to meet us here and pay your fare. You see him?’ the driver asked.
I couldn’t remember my grandfather’s face, so, of course I couldn’t see him.
The driver looked at his watch and shrugged his shoulders. ‘Oh well. It’s only a couple of bucks. I’ve got a timetable to meet.’
I reckoned he could see I was looking worried.
‘I’ll tell you what. When I’m on my way back I’ll look out for you. I’ll pick you up if you’re still here.’
‘And what’ll we do then?’ Rachel asked.
He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘Don’t know, love. But don’t you worry. I’m sure someone’ll turn up for you.’
He got back on the bus, waved goodbye, closed the door with a whoosh of air and took off. Rachel tugged at my arm.
‘What do you think, Jesse? Will we wait for him to come back?’
‘We have to. We’ve got no place to go.’
She sat down on the case, and I stuck my hands in my pockets and walked along the edge of the kerb, trying to keep my balance. I spotted a man walking towards me. He had on a clean white shirt and grey pants with sharp creases down the front, and black leather shoes. They were shiny as new. His silver hair was parted in the middle and brushed back like an old-time movie star. I was surprised I recognised him straightaway. Rachel stood up, backed away from the case and stood behind me. He looked us up and down like he wasn’t pleased to see us, nodded his head and picked up the case.
‘Is this all you’ve got?’
‘Yep,’ I whispered, a little ashamed. ‘I can carry it myself, the case, if you want me to.’
‘I’ve got it.’
We followed him between the rows of cars. Rachel grabbed hold of the back of my shirt and wouldn’t let go. He stopped at a battered station wagon with a sticker on the bumper bar – ‘Free Yourself With God’. He opened the back door and carefully laid the case down. He got into the driver’s seat and lifted the button on both the passenger doors.
When neither of us moved he leaned across and unwound the front passenger window. ‘Are you coming or not? I don’t see much point staying here.’
Rachel got into the back seat. Before she could close the door I jumped in and shoved her across the other side of the car. He looked across at the empty front passenger seat, then at me, in the rear-view mirror.
‘Are you hungry?’
I was starving but I kept my mouth shut. I was still trying to work out what was happening to us. He just about smiled at Rachel.
‘What about you? You want something to eat on the way, or can you wait?’
Rachel dropped her head and stuck her chin in her chest. She wasn’t about to open her mouth either. He looked at me again and raised his eyebrows.
‘Okay. We’ll wait.’
As soon as he’d driven off Rachel tapped me on the knee and whispered down to the floor, ‘I’m real hungry, Jesse.’
I pushed her hand away and tried ignoring her by looking out the window. She said it again, a little louder. He looked at me again through the mirror.
‘We’ll stop here.’
He pulled into a spot at a 7-Eleven, and handed me a twenty-dollar note.
‘Take your sister inside and get yourselves something to eat.’
I looked down at the money and back at him. I noticed that he was clean-shaven and had a nick of blood on the tip of his chin. His bushy eyebrows were half black and half grey and his eyes were a pale blue, almost grey, just like Gwen’s. I took the money.
‘What should we buy?’
‘Get what you need to.’
I soon learned that our pop used as few words as he needed to say anything. At first I thought he did it because he was unfriendly and didn’t want us around. He and Gwen looked a bit the same but they were mostly different. While she was loud and angry most of the time, he was quiet. I reckoned he did a lot more thinking than talking, which was fine by me because I did that too.
His house was tidy and as quiet as he was. It was made of concrete and in a street full of other concrete houses that all looked the same. That first time we drove into the street, Rachel wound down her window and stuck her head out to get a better look. Some of the houses had car wrecks in the front yards. One had been boarded up with sheets of corrugated iron and had black marks around the windows where there’d been a fire.
We pulled into his driveway. His garden had a scraggy tree in the middle of a dry lawn. As soon as he opened the front door of the house I could smell something like disinfectant. Inside everything was spotless. He dropped our suitcase on the floor in the hallway, and we walked quietly behind him, from room to room, as he showed us around. He opened a door off the lounge room. It was a small bedroom.
‘You’ll both have to sleep here. I’ll get some sheets and blankets for the bed and there’s a spare mattress out the back. I’ll fix that up for
you, Jesse. You’ll have to sleep on the floor,’ he sort of apologised, and clapped his hands together. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’
Rachel was just about strangling Comfort and wouldn’t take a step into the bedroom. I walked in, sat on the bed and took a good look around. There were faded pictures stuck on the walls, of movie stars and rock singers with funny haircuts. Bags of stuff were piled on top of a wardrobe. I could see toys and Barbie dolls through the clear plastic.
A photo in a frame hung on the wall above the bed, of a woman and a teenage girl. I could see that the girl was Gwen and guessed the woman was her mum, our grandma. In the photo she was wearing a buttoned-up jacket and a hat and carrying a leather bag. Gwen was wearing a frilly white dress and a veil and some sort of tiara. She had one hand resting on her stomach and was bent forward like she was about to throw up. I’d never thought about Gwen as a kid before, younger than me, but a bit bigger than Rachel.
I pointed to the picture as a way of getting her to come into the room.
‘Look, Rache. It’s Gwen.’
Although she was curious enough to take a look, she didn’t move an inch.
‘How do you know it is? Maybe it’s a different girl.’
‘It’s her, for sure.’
She slowly crept into the room, climbed onto the bed and pressed her face against the photo, close enough that her breath misted the glass.
‘You’re right. It’s her. She looks pretty. What do you think she’s doing in that beautiful dress?’
‘Going to church, I’d reckon.’
She didn’t take her eyes off the picture until Pop came back and told us to come for a cup of tea. The table was set with three cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits, all plain, no chocolate or cream. He went to the back door, whistled a couple of times, then turned around and said, ‘He will have crawled under the back fence and gone for a wander,’ like we knew what he was talking about.
A minute later a small dog came running into the kitchen. It was white with brown patches over its body and a black tail. It was moving so fast it slipped on the lino floor, skidded across the room and slammed into the fridge. It got straight up and started running again and barking. It skated around and around the table and stopped to sniff Rachel’s leg. She jumped down from her chair and started patting the dog. Rachel loved dogs.
