The Beauty Is in the Walking

by James Moloney

  Dad was already gone when I reached the kitchen, but The Advocate was open in front of where I normally sat. The second page featured three photos, one with me at the centre of a huddle and the other two close-ups of Dan, plastic bag beside his face, daring the camera to capture the full force of his commitment and later as he sullenly handed over that same plastic bag to Sergeant Wallace. The headline read, STUDENT DEMO BLUNTED.

  Nice one, Kerrod.

  The article didn’t mention Mahmoud’s brother or the time gap between when he was seen and Charlotte’s death. Instead, Williamson quoted Chloe about racism and managed to mention that she was new in town. Finally, he revelled in four long paragraphs describing how the knives had been confiscated.

  ‘That girl had no right to say Palmerston’s a racist town,’ said Mum. ‘The Council’s worked damned hard for the black community. Everyone gets on fine. She was wrong to say that and so were you.’

  ‘I didn’t. The protest wasn’t against racism, anyway.’

  ‘That’s not what it looks like there,’ said Mum, nodding at the paper.

  ‘Then it’s wrong.’

  ‘What’s printed in the paper is what people believe,’ she shot back at me with enough fury to blow the roof off the house. It was only afterwards, while I was getting my bag from my bedroom that I saw the irony of what she’d said. What the paper printed . . . that was the whole point of our protest. Why couldn’t Mum see that?

  The drive to school was silent and I wasn’t looking forward to the reception I’d get from kids if my own mother wasn’t speaking to me. What else could I do but square my shoulders as best as my crooked legs would allow and march through the gate like nothing had happened? I need not have worried, as it turned out. Kids didn’t read The Advocate and if there were hostile glances I didn’t see them. Relieved, I found myself searching for white headscarves near the agapanthus garden and spotted Chloe instead.

  ‘Have the girls gone with Mahmoud?’ I asked before I’d even sat down.

  She shook her head. ‘I rang Soraya as soon as I saw the news on Facebook. She’s still here and so’s her sister, but they’re staying home until things calm down.’

  ‘Nothing else they can do,’ I replied and if my voice was wishy-washy weak it was because Soraya had asked for my help right where I was sitting and I hadn’t done a thing.

  ‘Did you see about us in the paper?’ I asked.

  Chloe made a face. ‘He called it a demo, like we were spaced-out hippies in dreads.’

  ‘You noticed,’ I said and, despite ourselves, we grinned like cats.

  ‘You’re not sorry we did it, are you?’ she asked.

  The honest answer was yes, but I fudged my reply. ‘Sorry it didn’t work out as planned, that’s all. I’m bloody angry about that flick-knife, Chloe. It’s like Mahmoud let us down.’

  ‘Yeah, I thought the same,’ she replied and the casual way she said it left me stunned.

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Makes things easier if victims are all saints, doesn’t it? The knife was his father’s, Jacob. Must be hard to give up things like that when back in Lebanon he had men wanting to kill his whole family.’

  ‘Was it like that?’ I asked.

  ‘Soraya told me. All happened before she was born, but the stories are part of her family, like an extra child sitting around the dinner table. That’s how she put it.’

  ‘I know what she means,’ I said. ‘Every time the O’Learys get together someone rolls out the story of Dad’s uncle on the Kokoda Trail.’

  ‘Look, it’s okay to be annoyed about the flick-knife, but if you really want to get angry, think of how the police and the newspaper were so quick to put a slant on the whole thing.’

  Nothing like having your own words fed back to you. I was glad I’d ’fessed up about Mahmoud and the knife and, now that it was done, Chloe was setting my train back on the rails.

  ‘People are always putting their own slant on things,’ she said. ‘Human nature, I suppose. Look at what happened to me when I first came here.’

  ‘You didn’t go round with a flick-knife in your pocket, did you?’

  ‘Not a flick-knife. My own tongue got me in trouble instead. I told a girl I didn’t want to come here.’

  Bec had said something about this at the picnic table, but I stayed quiet so Chloe would tell her side.

  ‘New place, new friends. Should have found out who I could trust first,’ she said with a sniff at her own naivety. ‘I was just telling her a bit about myself, but she put it all round the school that I thought Palmerston was for hicks, when I never said anything like that.’

  ‘You just wanted to stay with your friends,’ I sympathised.

  ‘One friend, really,’ she responded and the way she peered determinedly into the school yard rather than at me suggested something. On another day I’d have missed the hint, yet I hadn’t and the words were out of my mouth before good sense could clamp my lips shut.

  ‘A boyfriend?’

  Chloe nodded. ‘I was in pretty deep.’ She checked out my face and seemed to decide I was trustworthy. ‘Head over heels,’ she added, mocking herself, and her tentative smile widened into the warmth I loved to see in Amy’s face.

  Head over heels. I was jealous and not just of Chloe for being able to say that, but of the nameless boy she was in love with. I wanted a girl to feel that way about me and to say it out loud. Amy, maybe? With her, I was still in the fluffy-cloud land of imagination where a relationship could be any shape and size you dared.

  Chloe was a full-on kind of person and I guessed she’d be like that in love, too. The downside would be the pain when things got in the way and that was what had happened. I’d be cut up pretty bad if I couldn’t see Amy and, so far, no one else even knew we were together.

  ‘Must have made it especially hard to leave Brisbane,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, and the stupid thing is, if I hadn’t acted so desperate Mum and Dad might have let me stay.’ For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to explain, but she’d dangled that news in front of me knowing I’d want the rest, so she was always going to tell me.

  ‘My closest friend had come up with a plan, you see. She talked her parents into letting me move in with them so I wouldn’t have to change schools for Year Twelve. Had them convinced it was a BFF thing, but Mum and Dad knew what we were up to. Without them to watch me, I’d spend every minute with . . .’ She was going to say his name, but decided against it, covering her hesitation with the perfect distraction.

  ‘It’s not just Muslim parents who have to watch their daughters,’ she said and for a moment her eyebrows danced wickedly.

  Sometimes you freeze every muscle and still print what you’re thinking all over your face better than any felt pen could manage. Watching me, Chloe laughed in a way I’d never seen before. ‘Released’ would have been my word if Svenson had been there demanding clarity of expression. Whatever the word, she thought I was hilarious. ‘Oh, Jacob, to you I’m the hard worker in class, the see-through girl with nothing hidden inside. You don’t think I could ever be reckless or willful, do you?’

  No, I didn’t – not until then, anyway.

  She leaned close and put a hand on my forearm, just the briefest touch. ‘Do you want to know the rest of it? The boy I was so in love with lost interest after a few weeks. He goes out with my best friend these days – my former best friend would be a more accurate description. I unfriended them both months ago.’

  At morning tea I headed for our picnic table with as much apprehension as I’d had on my ride to school and wouldn’t have been surprised to find the seats deserted. Everyone was there, though, and I was soon lowering myself between Dan and Amy, who let her hand rest briefly on my thigh.

  ‘I guess it didn’t look so good in the paper this morning, eh?’ I began.

  ‘Were we in the paper?’ Mitch asked.

  ‘You mean you didn’t look?’ I called across the table. ‘That’s why we wanted the reporter to
be there.’

  ‘I didn’t have to look,’ Bec moaned. ‘My father woke me up with it. Ranted all over breakfast. I could bloody kill you, Jacob.’ She shifted her gaze to Amy beside me. ‘What about you?’

  ‘My face is half hidden in the photo. Mum and Dad didn’t notice.’

  ‘You didn’t tell them!’ Bec wailed and if she’d been sitting where I was she’d have shoved Amy right off the bench.

  ‘Hey, guys,’ I said, drawing attention back on to me so I could get something straight. ‘If I’d known about the flick-knife, okay . . .’ Did I need to say any more? ‘I didn’t mean to put us all on the spot like that.’

  ‘It wasn’t all of us, though, was it?’ Dan broke in sharply. ‘I’m the one with my picture in the paper, holding up the bag like the whole thing was my idea. I’m the one who looks like a fool,’ he added more forcefully, poking savagely at his chest with an index finger.

  He had stood out in the photos – that was true – but it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone who simply glanced at the picture would think Dan was the leader. He was really steamed and, when Amy said something about the picture to the others across the table, he leaned in close and said, ‘What did I tell you up at Kibble’s place? I don’t like people putting shit on me, Jacob. You’d better bloody learn what that means.’

  The menace in his voice shocked me and I was immediately back in the darkness beside Mitch’s mum’s Barina, where he’d unleashed that voice on me before. What had he said just now. Putting shit on me. I began to understand what made him so furious.

  Oh Dan, get over it mate, I wanted to say, but the others were calling to us by then, wanting an answer.

  ‘What?’ said Dan, his temper still on show.

  ‘The Muslim kid,’ Bec replied. ‘He’s bunked off to Sydney, right, so do you still believe he’s innocent?’

  ‘Whether he’s innocent or not, damned if I’ll stand up again for some Leb with a flick-knife,’ said Dan.

  There it was, as honest as I could expect, and hadn’t I felt the same as we’d left the police station, anyway? That bloody knife. Bloody Mahmoud. The silent stare we’d shared outside Mrs Schwartz’s office would only carry me so far. If I hadn’t given up on him entirely, then something else had to be driving me, the restlessness that had lived deep in my gut all year, maybe, yet I could carve myself up like Charlotte and still not find what it was.

  ‘What are you going to do, Jacob?’ Bec asked.

  ‘Not sure, but I’m not giving up. Mahmoud didn’t do it and I’m going to make people understand that. You’re still with me, right?’

  ‘You don’t get it, Jacob,’ said Dan. ‘We don’t care anymore. It’s over as far as this mob are concerned,’ and he drew a sort of circle in the air with his hand, taking in each of the bodies around the picnic table, me as much as any of them. ‘We did our bit and we ended up with shit on our faces. End of story.’

  ‘For you, maybe,’ I said immediately. ‘Doesn’t have to be all of us.’

  ‘I’m still with you, as long as we don’t have to front the police again,’ said Amy, and heartened by her eagerness I tried the others.

  ‘What about you, Mitch?’

  He flicked his eyes towards Dan. ‘Er, look . . .’ He didn’t want to come right out and say it and only at the last moment did he remember the handy parachute sitting beside him. ‘Bec’s in enough trouble with her father already, eh? I don’t think we should make it any harder for her.’

  I don’t know who was more surprised, me or Bec.

  The music started up over the PA, and with more eagerness than he usually showed Mitch was on his way, with Bec and Dan not far behind him, leaving Amy alone to wait while I went through the usual elegant manoeuvres to regain my feet.

  ‘Hey, thanks for taking my side,’ I said. ‘It’s better than having Mitch and Dan as my bodyguards, you know what I mean, it’s like I have two good legs.’

  Amy’s face shone. ‘If everyone wasn’t watching, I’d kiss you for saying that.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’ I said, opening my arms, but she pulled away before I could move close enough.

  ‘Not here,’ she whispered.

  I was disappointed. A hug wasn’t so much to ask when we were becoming closer each day and it would have added the warmth of touch to the support she’d given me – a two-way thing, both thanks and reward for both of us.

  Just as well we hadn’t hugged, though, because Mitch and Dan had stopped at the end of the playground for a word about something, with Dan especially staring towards us as we set off for the classrooms.

  13

  fallguy

  I was suffering from exam guilt, which is when you think every minute you’re not studying is wasted. Stuff it. At eight-thirty I brought up Google on my laptop, switched to Images and typed in ‘red roses’ because they were the most romantic. Wow, a screen full of luscious crimson! I picked three impressive bunches and sent them one after the other to Amy, who’d been posting little messages of boredom to my Facebook page all night, each signed with a pink heart.

  For this to work, though, I needed some artificial flowers so I added words to the search box and found a bunch that was obviously plastic. I shot that off to her as well, then waited.

  Three minutes later she replied. Beautiful but how come the last lot are fake?

  My fingers went at the keyboard like pigeons after a packet of corn. Because I’ll keep thinking of you until the last flower dies.

  Nice, she responded. Bec saw that on one of those reality romance shows last year.

  Sprung! Served me right for copying something I’d seen on the Net myself, I suppose.

  I went back to my maths book, which reminded me of Tyke because he preferred subjects with numbers instead of words and thinking of Tyke conjured up the night we’d stood together outside the garage.

  I grabbed my phone and called Amy.

  ‘Hey!’ she said, sounding pleased.

  ‘Go outside and take your phone with you,’ I told her.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do it. Just walk outside.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I can’t tell you why until you’re outside.’

  She kept the phone in place as she walked, so close I could hear her breathing. The sounds of her large family drifted into my ear and her mother called, ‘Where are you going at this time of night?’

  ‘Need a lungful of air to help me study,’ Amy replied. ‘Back in a minute,’ and then a whisper: ‘Mum thinks The Ripper’s going to get me.’ The sound of shoes on steps followed, then, ‘Okay, I’m outside. Now what?’

  ‘Look up,’ I instructed.

  ‘Yeah, so there’s hardly any moon and the sky’s black.’

  ‘What else do you see?’

  She took the task seriously. ‘Um, stars, I suppose.’

  ‘Really look at them. It’s important. How many are there?’

  ‘God, Jacob, there’re too many to count.’

  I stretched a few seconds like elastic bands so she’d be hanging out for what I said next. ‘Amy,’ I told her in a slow, gentle voice, ‘that’s how many times I think of you every day.’

  I expected her to say something girly like, ‘Oh, Jacob, that’s so sweet,’ and I’d have been cool with that since it was a game after all, played on the phone for fun when you didn’t want to get serious.

  The long pause before Amy spoke made me think my trick with the stars had sunk deeper. ‘Did you think of that yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘I didn’t read it on the Net, if that’s what you mean. Can’t be sure I’m the first guy to come up with it, though. The stars have been there a long time, Amy. Maybe a caveman beat me to it.’

  ‘A very lovely caveman.’

  For a moment I thought she’d said ‘loving’ and wondered if I really deserved that word.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ said Amy. ‘Give me a minute. I have to hang up.’

  Soon after my phone pinged with an Instagram of Amy’s p
outed lips and then a text. UR the perfect boyfriend, Jacob O’Leary.

  I replied with similar words, but the kiss I was going to deliver in person, first chance I got.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Amy called to me as I approached an almost-empty picnic table the next morning. ‘Bec’s having a day at home and the guys are doing something for Lambert in the gym.’

  Should I care? I wouldn’t have, if Amy hadn’t seemed so keen to convince me. Oh, to hell with it, I decided. Things would be awkward with the other three until they got over their embarrassment, but we were all friends and in the meantime I’d have Amy to myself. I’d found the right words for her last night and my reward was the warmth in her face as she watched me shuffle towards her. It brought a pleasure I hadn’t known before, the pleasure I had deliberately set out to take for myself by putting my arm around her in the car that night. I didn’t worry about dribbling anymore, or about my legs.

  I thought about kissing her, and more than a quick smooch, too, right there in the school yard. Kids our age were up to a lot more in private if half of what they hinted at was true, yet I wasn’t thinking that far. It was the affection. I liked the sound of that word in my head where it swirled around all kinds of sensations I was eager to make real at last.

  I levered my way into place beside Amy, wondering how we could get together this weekend, just the two of us, and somewhere she could forget about prying eyes. Morning tea is never long enough, though, and I hadn’t managed to plan anything with Amy when we were parted by the musical call into class. I spent the next two periods working out what we’d do and how I’d ask her, which was why I was so eager to get down the stairs at lunchtime.

  Then I was flying, with head and shoulders tilted downwards and my arms outstretched to take the impact. Forget the slow-motion sensation that movies play with; one minute I was upright, the next I was a sack of bones on the landing and afraid I’d broken every one. My wrist throbbed painfully and, as a crowd gathered around me and hands helped me sit upright, I nursed it in the cradle of my other palm.