Rob takes my hand again and rubs it against the bulging crotch of his jeans. ‘I can’t wait that long, Jones, I’ll explode.’
I pull away.
‘Come on. It’ll be good. Please.’
‘No.’
Rob reaches out and strokes my fingers. I think he’s going to say something nice, but he tries to guide my hand to his trousers.
‘I don’t want to, Rob.’ I pull away. ‘Don’t.’
Rob jerks, like he’s been burnt. ‘Then what did you come in here for?’
He’s right – what had I expected? I’d expected – well, not this. But I’ve heard it’s painful for guys if girls are cockteasers.
‘Come on, Clover . . .’
Rob has never called me by my first name, ever. I melt. Maybe if I can relax? If I don’t stay now, that will be the end of it, I’m sure. He’ll go off with Katie and everyone will know there’s something wrong with me. And I love him. Don’t I?
‘Give me a hand job then.’
I shove him. ‘Keek’s right about you. You treat girls like shit.’
‘Yeah right – Saint Phil. As if he can talk.’
‘Keek wouldn’t hurt anyone. Not on purpose.’ I want Keek, now. Wish we could jump on his bike and disappear.
‘Yeah, right. After what he said about your mother.’ Rob sculls the last of his beer.
‘I’m going.’
‘Didn’t wait a year with your dad, did she?’ Rob’s mean laugh scares me. He opens a new stubby and takes a slug.
I want Mum. Or better still, Aunty Jean – she’d rip his stupid balls off and chuck them out the window. I don’t owe Rob Marcello anything. Poor Ellen. What would I have done if he’d said he loved me? I get off the bed to do up my jeans, but my fingers are like sausages.
‘You’re talking shit,’ I say, shaking with rising anger. ‘I thought you were . . . But you’re a loser dickhead like the rest of your dickhead mates. I bet your Nonna is ashamed of you, Hercules.’
Rob jolts upright and clenches his fist. I’ve seen his face like that once before, when Pete Tsaparis called him a wanker and they almost had a punch-on. ‘Yeah? It’s your slutty mother that should be ashamed. Up for the good old one-night stand according to Sanda.’
‘What do you know,’ I say, my vision blurring with tears. ‘Who’s Sanda?’
‘You know – Cho’s brother?’ Rob sits back and toasts me with his empty beer. ‘So much for your friend Phil.’
‘I hate you.’
Rob rubs his face. ‘Shit, Jones—’
I stumble to the door and wrench it open. Half-a-dozen drunken blokes clogging the hall suppress their laughter. When I push through, it roars out. I run, and crash into Katie.
‘What the hell?’ she says. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Leave me alone.’
Behind me, I hear Rob tell the boys to fuck off.
I half-turn to see Katie put her hand on Rob’s arm. ‘Hang on – Robbo, what’s going on, babe?’
He laughs. ‘Come on Katie, I need a smoke,’ and, putting his arm around her, lurches to the kitchen.
I run outside, hide behind an old shed, and cry.
I’ve stopped sobbing and sit, staring.
‘Clover?’
I peek.
Katie’s standing on the step, peering into the garden. ‘Where are you? I’ve got your bag.’
I want my bag. It has my smokes in it.
‘Clover?’
I wipe my nose on my sleeve. ‘I’m over here.’
Katie sits next to me on the rotted railway sleeper. ‘Are you all right?’
I shake my head.
‘I’ll be back in a minute.’ She disappears inside and comes back with a roll of toilet paper. Grateful, I blow my nose.
‘Want to talk about it?’ she says.
‘No.’
‘I won’t tell anyone. Seriously. It doesn’t matter, but you can tell me if you want and I promise I won’t tell anyone.’
‘What about Rosemary?’
‘Especially not her. She and Ellen have spread so many rumours about me. I hate it. Seriously. I promise.’
‘I can’t. Anyway, aren’t you going to get with Robbo now? He’s all yours.’
Katie stands – though how she balances on those shoes, I have no idea – brushes bark off her pink miniskirt, and frowns at the dirt. She sits on her bag – it’s big enough; there’s probably a small make-up department in there. ‘I don’t like him anymore,’ she says. ‘He’s been horrible to me the whole time anyway. And he—’ But she doesn’t finish.
‘What did he do?’
‘He didn’t do anything.’
‘What did he say?’
‘Don’t—’
She doesn’t say what her ‘don’t’ is supposed to mean and I don’t ask. We’re stuck in a weird, untrusting silence.
‘Oh, well,’ she says after a while. ‘Know any jokes?’
‘Jokes?’
‘You know – like: How did the sultana drown?’
‘I dunno.’
‘Dragged down by a strong currant.’ Katie laughs at her own stupid pun, then proceeds to reel off a string of bad jokes including the one about the interrupting sheep. The next thing I know, I’m telling her about Rob and then Keek and Cho, but I lie and say Keek lied about my mum and dad, while she repeats, ‘You’re freaking kidding me?’ and creates the most insulting swearing combinations I’ve ever heard, winding up with, ‘Rob Marcello is a toe-sucking dickweed with his nose right up Cho Roberts’s butt-cheeks.’
I laugh.
It’s getting cold. We snuggle up for warmth and sit there, Cock-tease Katie and Vandal-girl, daughter of Slut.
After a while, I ask, ‘How are you getting home?’
‘I don’t know. I was going to crash here. I thought with Robbo, to tell you the truth. Mum thinks I’m at Rosemary’s, but I’m not going there, even if I knew how to get there. She convinced me to come. I was so pissed off when he turned up with you.’
‘She told me I should come because you were coming,’ I say.
Katie stares at her shoes. ‘Rosemary did?’
‘Sorry, Katie.’
‘No way. You did me a favour. I was thinking about doing it with that pig.’
‘He didn’t seem like a pig. He’s . . .’ I don’t know what he is. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Why don’t you then?’
‘I’ll have to walk and I don’t know where I am.’
‘Where do you live?’
I tell her and she says, ‘That’s miles away. You can’t walk that far in the middle of the night, you’ll be killed or something.’
With a rush of inspiration like the smell of freshly baked baklava, I say, ‘Katie, can I use your mobile phone?’
If Theo Theopopolous isn’t that thrilled about getting a call at one in the morning, he never lets on. ‘Here I am,’ he says. ‘Your back-up man.’
Sitting with Katie in the warm safety of his car, I can’t thank him enough.
‘Keep out of trouble, Clover.’ Theo smiles, but his eyes are sad. ‘And I won’t even tell your mother.’
‘What about your mother?’ I manage a smile.
‘Definitely not!’ He laughs a big Theopopolous laugh and I burst into tears.
‘Ah, sweetheart,’ he says, reaching back to pat my knee. ‘You think you’re a big prickly cactus, but you’re a little clover-blossom after all.’
I’m so glad to be home, I don’t even care that Lucille has peed on the rug again. I hug and kiss her like I haven’t done since I was little.
‘That dog’s tail is going to wag off,’ says Katie. ‘What a weird house.’
Suddenly it seems kinda cool. ‘My mum’s an artist,’ I say, soaking up dog pee with paper towel. ‘Like me.’
It’s fun, being alone in the house with a girlfriend. We watch children’s DVDs from my unmistakeably dweebish collection, drink Milo and eat homemade ‘pizza subs’ and Greek shortbreads made by Mrs T.
&n
bsp; ‘These are the best biscuits I’ve ever eaten,’ says Katie, icing sugar cascading down the front of her top.
I point next door and say, ‘Mrs T lives over there. She bakes.’
Katie makes a few theatrical bows. ‘I worship thee, Mrs T,’ she says, cracking herself up.
Underneath the blonde hair and make-up, Katie Marshall isn’t what I had imagined. ‘You’re different at school,’ I say.
‘Yeah. So are you.’
It’s nearly dawn when I give Katie my bed and crawl into Mum’s with Lucille, who snores almost immediately. Lying in the dark, I can’t believe Keek told Cho about my dad. Or that Cho blabbed on to her stupid brother. Is my mum a slut for sleeping with someone she hardly knew? And obviously ‘safe sex’ hadn’t come into it. Only last week she gave me a box of condoms, saying, ‘I do believe you, but just in case.’ What a hypocrite.
Aunty Jean reckons Mum had a few boyfriends when I was little, but nothing worked out. Except for Yiayia’s ‘blind dates’, the only men I know of that Mum’s ever shown any interest in are actors and musicians she’ll never meet. Would she sleep with them, if she did meet them? I have a vision of her saying, ‘You bet I would,’ and leaping around the lounge room with her air guitar. A big laugh bursts out of me and wakes the dog.
Laughter. It does shake the black stuff off your soul.
‘I hope my dad’s not dead,’ I whisper to Lucille, who snorts and tucks her nose under her foreleg.
I’m up making toast when Katie shambles out of my bedroom wearing my Elmo pyjamas. My blood is thumping because there’s something about hanging out with Katie that reminds me of hanging out with Alison all those years ago. Something fragile and if I hold on too tight, I’ll crush it, but I don’t want to let it go, either. ‘Thanks for coming to find me last night,’ I say.
‘Thanks for having me. More fun than Josh’s dopefest. Can I ring my mum in case she rings Rosemary’s?’
‘Yeah, of course.’ I show her to our hopelessly old-fashioned landline.
‘Thanks. I’ve hardly got any credit.’
‘Sorry – is that from calling Theo last night?’
‘Sort of. But it’s worth it. Otherwise I’d’ve been stuck at that party.’
We shudder.
Katie picks up the receiver and pokes at the phone.
‘You have to dial.’
But she doesn’t get it and I have to show her.
‘God, it takes forever.’ She pats one of mum’s weird sculptures on the head. ‘What are you doing today?’
My palms have gone sweaty; I hope my face isn’t as red as it feels. ‘Nothing special.’ I busy myself patting the dog. ‘I have to clean up. You could hang out – but you don’t have to do any cleaning or anything . . .’
‘Cool.’
Cool. Just like that. Cool.
Katie’s mum doesn’t mind if she’s at mine or Rosemary’s as long as she’s ‘somewhere safe’.
I ring to tell Mum I’m home and Aunty Jean deigns to put my mother on the phone.
‘How was church?’ Mum says, laughing at me.
‘Oh, it was great,’ I joke back. ‘I’m getting baptised this afternoon.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes!’ I say, as earnestly as I can. ‘I don’t want to be left behind after the Rapture, Mum. And I don’t want you to be left behind, either. Join me, repent your sins, wash away your evil ways, and—’
Mum’s voice is flat. ‘You’re not serious, right?’
‘Relax, mother, I remain a sinner.’
So, everything is peachy, but the fracture inside is bubbling and charging – how dare Keek tell my secret? He crossed his heart. How dare he?
I can’t believe how many dishes I’ve managed to use in one weekend. Katie entertains me with Herb impressions while I wash them. I laugh until my stomach aches.
‘I thought you liked them,’ I say between sighs.
‘I do like them. Most of the time. But not nearly as much as they like themselves. Ha!’
The laugh-pain in my stomach churns into rottenness. ‘I hate Cho,’ I say.
Katie tosses a teaspoon in the sink. ‘She’s probably jealous.’
‘Jealous? What does she have to be jealous of? I’m not the one who stole her best friend.’
‘You and Keek were pretty tight.’
‘Yeah, but friends. Or so I thought.’
‘Yeah, but . . .’ Katie looks away.
‘But what?’
‘Well, he had a massive crush on you.’
‘Keek?’ Even the water circling down the plughole looks sceptical to me. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘No way.’
‘Yes way.’
‘No—’
‘Clover, the only one who doesn’t reckon, is you.’
‘Well, I hate him.’
Katie’s mum rings. ‘She’ll be here in an hour, but I’ll see ya tomorrow,’ Katie says, hugging me.
I hug her back and a big sigh escapes me. It’s so good to feel safe with someone. I think of Robbo and the other Herbs. They’ll be having a field day with what happened at the party. My missing one-nightstand father is probably common knowledge by now. I wonder if Keek and Cho have heard. ‘If I ever go to school again,’ I say.
‘You have to go to school.’
‘I don’t think I can.’
‘You have to. You have to find out who lied, Keek or Cho, and then you have to tell them what you think, right to their face. You can’t let people say things like that about your mum, Clover. You have to stand up for her. And who knows what Robbo is saying? People saw you run out of that bedroom. He’s going to have to say something, especially as everybody thinks you already – you know.’
‘We didn’t.’
‘I know. But Ellen told everybody that you did.’
‘What’s her problem? Why does she do that?’
‘To make herself feel better about having humped half the football team, I guess.’
‘And why does she do that?’ We head out the back on our way down to the kiddies’ park. The flywire slams behind me. Why hadn’t her experience with Robbo cured her forever?
At the boundary of our garden, Katie rubs the stone belly of the buddha. ‘Slut?’ she speculates.
I’m not convinced. Why does somebody suddenly become a ‘slut’? They dump her, one after the other.
It can’t be fun. ‘Why does she keep hooking up with them?’ I wonder out loud.
Katie leans in towards me. ‘She said she’s done things that made her want to vomit.’
‘What things?’
‘You know.’
We shudder, but there’s a kind of delight in it. ‘Anything can happen when you’re drunk,’ I say.
Katie lifts her shoulder and purses her lips knowingly. ‘But it isn’t about getting drunk. Ellen is a stalker.’
And now there are people at school saying I’m a slut, and I’m still a virgin. And why should I care? But I do care.
Katie climbs up the short ladder to sit at the top of the slide. ‘I think Ellen wants to make Robbo jealous.’
‘I hate Robbo, too,’ I say.
‘Rob Marcello,’ Katie slides down, ‘is a slut.’ She skids off the end faster than expected and lands on her arse. ‘Shit,’ she says, then laughs such a big loud laugh, I have to laugh too.
‘Yeah, but no one cares that Rob sleeps around. No one talks about it as if it’s a bad thing. None of those guys get put in a bad light because they’ve done it. It shits me. I mean: why is it a bad thing? If Ellen was having a good time, why should anyone care?’
‘Forget about them. At least until tomorrow.’
But I can’t. In a rush of revenge, I tell her about ‘Hercules’. We stroll back and play cards until her mum beeps in the driveway.
It’s after ten when Mum gets home. Lucille goes nuts and celebrates by peeing on the rug.
‘That’s the third time she’s done that this weekend,’ I complain, glad Mu
m is back to clean it up.
‘I wonder if I should take her to the vet for a check-up, poor darling.’
‘You’ve cut your hair.’
She stops stomping on paper towel and does a turn. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yeah.’ But it’s weird because she looks younger and sort of . . . modern. ‘You’re wearing make-up.’
Mum laughs. ‘Your aunty can’t help herself.’
‘Was it fun?’
‘It was. It really was. Jeannie and I haven’t laughed like that since uni days. And we danced our butts off. How about you?’
‘I was fine,’ I lie.
‘And how about you and Alison, hey?’ She’s happy and relaxed, even though she’s tired and dealing with dog pee. ‘How were the Larders?’
‘Yeah, Alison.’ I hand her another roll of paper towel. ‘They were all right.’
‘Good,’ she says. ‘I suppose I’d better call them and say thank you.’
I’m sweating. ‘You know what they’re like. You’ll be on the phone for hours, talking about Jesus. It was only a sleep over. Just write a thank-you card and I can give it to Alison at school.’
Mum kisses my cheek. ‘Good thinking, 99.’
I dawdle to school and chuck the thank-you card in someone’s wheelie bin on the way. When I get there, the knot of kids shocks me with its noise. It’s like walking through treacle. The shouted word – fight – pushes its way through the fug. Punch-ups don’t happen that often at Fernwood – I’ve never seen one before. My bag is heavy on my shoulder and my mouth goes dry. Maybe I should get Fitzy or even go home and leave them to their prehistoric bullshit. I hope it’s boys. Then I see – as if the knot of bodies parts especially so I can see – Rob Marcello punching the crap out of Keek.
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