'Actually, it's one of the nicer parks we've stayed in.' Will smiles again.
It's only the second park he's stayed in, after Wombat Crossing, where there were built-in goannas and you had to sleep about twenty metres away from a pit of poo. Unless in his definition of 'park' he counts the resort with the bungalows over the lagoon in Vanuatu – I expect that place tops the list.
Willem wants to stay and flirt with the girl, but I tug him by the sleeve. We have six weeks. We can make friends with them later.
As we walk away I hear one of the girls say, 'He's cute.'
'You reckon?' mumbles another. I'm guessing the redhead.
Back in our van I discover a snakes and ladders board. The three of us sit outside playing until it gets dark. Mum is still smoking, even though there's a sign. She turns on the little fan instead, making the passive smoking more efficient. This game is like our life, except our life-board is one big ladder at the beginning and then all snakes after that.
Somewhere in the park a couple start fighting. It's quiet at first and then gets louder, and soon they're both screaming swearwords at each other. Even though they're a long way away, all the muscles in my neck and shoulders are tense.
The man, I'm guessing, based on their exchange, storms out, slamming the van door behind him. She shouts after him. Glad that he's gone. Hoping he'll never come back. I hope so, too, but he does. The fight resumes. It goes on and on. I can feel the beginning of a headache pulsing in my temples.
We play again and again, and nobody says anything. We're listening to the fight. Eventually the man leaves. A car grunts into life and squeals away.
I've tried to look at the bright side, but this place really sucks. It's ugly, it smells bad. I don't like the people. They're like the characters in My Name is Earl, except not funny, or nice to each other.
'I don't like it here,' I say. 'I don't want to stay for six weeks.'
Mum lights another cigarette.
'Can you stop smoking? Please? You're giving me a headache. And can we get something else to eat? Like, order pizza or something?' I add. 'I'm starving.'
Mum ignores me. She rolls the dice, and counts out four spaces with her token.
'Who said anything about six weeks?' Will frowns.
'There's a phone box near reception. Will and I could walk down and order a pizza. We could get two, and some wings maybe. Mum? Can we?'
Mum squints at me through the smoke. 'Have an apple.'
'I already had an apple!'
'Have another one.'
I rock back on my seat. 'I can't believe you are starving us, and making us smoke cigarettes, and forcing us to live in this shoebox.'
'It's just for a little while,' she says, placing the dice in front of Will.
Will picks up the dice. Instead of rolling it, he says, 'Mum, why don't you go to Centrelink and get the dole?'
She looks startled and disgusted, as though Will just suggested that she might like a maggot sandwich.
It's like a little rainbow arching over my cloudy day. Why didn't I think of it before? It's designed for people like us, isn't it? Hardworking taxpayers down on their luck.
I've seen dole bludgers on telly. It must be enough to live on quite comfortably. Why would these people choose to live on it otherwise? I'm guessing it's enough for rent, food, and a little over to catch a movie. No popcorn, of course. We might even be able to afford Mum's new habit.
The lights go out. The fan blades slow down and then stop. Mum's cigarette end glows in the dark.
'The plug must have come out,' I say. The guy who showed us to our van plugged the power in before he unlocked the door. There might be a torch in one of the drawers, although it's pretty light outside. 'We can probably re-plug the socket without a torch,' I say.
And then the van rocks. The springs squeak. Collective sniggering.
'Mrs Melbourne,' whispers a voice. The window is open and the voice is right in my ear. It sends a violent shiver over me like a sharp poke in the side. I shoot out of my seat and bump into Mum. We hold each other's hands.
Outside, the light is behind them, so I can't see their faces, but there are four of them. It's the boys from the games room. I'm sure of it. The whisperer is clinging onto the side of the van like a monkey.
The van starts rocking rhythmically from side to side. The voice starts telling us what they are going to do to us. He's whispering it through the window. I haven't even heard of half the terms before, but I know I don't want them done to me. Most of it is directed at Mum.
They wouldn't be calling Mum 'Mrs Melbourne' unless those girls had told them that's where we're from. Why would they do that?
Our stuff pitches and rolls across the floor. I'm holding on to the foldaway table, and I feel sick. I'm scared too, because they're so brazen. If only I knew how far it was going to go. And for how long. Are they just going to rock the van for a while and leave, or will it be all night? What if this is their idea of foreplay?
I remember the way that boy looked at me – as though it had nothing to do with me. It was almost like he was looking through me. Adrenalin shoots through my body and makes me twitch and jitter. My eyes are adjusting and I can see Will's face clearly. He's frightened and angry. His Adam's apple is bobbing. I hope he's not going to do something stupid. Even while I'm thinking it I can see his brain working. He's imagining the squeaky wheel. He's remembering Dad saying that we should be proactive.
Mum must see it too, because she yells out, 'Willem, no!'
Will lets out a roar and makes a dash. He flings the door open and leaps out of the van. Mum is right behind him. She swipes at him and misses. She slams the door after him and leans against it with her shoulder.
Outside the window they fall upon Will with athletic grace.
I'm clawing at Mum, but she has her body pressed against the door. She's not letting me out. She's not letting them in. I can feel her body crumple up as she weeps.
'They're going to kill him,' I screech at her, and they are. Will is in a ball at their feet. He has his hands over his face. They are shadowy dancers on the lawn. Then they each grab a limb. They're carrying Will across the grass. He's wriggling and fighting to get free. They're laughing at him. It's a game. They're going to take him somewhere and beat him for fun. Will tears a leg free and he kicks one of the boys in the stomach.
Now they're going to stab him. I can see it in my head in slow motion, as if it's a movie.
I think about that lady and the man fighting before, and how we didn't do anything. We just listened and played our stupid game. People out there are turning up their televisions to drown out the sound of those boys killing my brother.
Then torchlight swings over the boys. They drop Will and run. He lands flat on his back, and then curls up, like a dead spider. After we're sure they're gone we run out and drag Will inside.
The security guard with the torch knocks on our door.
'Everything all right in there?' He eyes us with suspicion.
Mum wants to call an ambulance, but Will insists that he's okay. Next she wants to call the police.
'Did they steal something?' the security guard asks.
My mother glares at him. 'They assaulted my son!'
The security guard suggests that we can go down to the station and report the incident in the morning, if we still want to by then. Or maybe (he doesn't say exactly, but we get the message) we will have gained some perspective by then.
We lie in the dark. I can hear Will grunting and sniffing as he tries to hide the fact that he's crying. I want to call an ambulance, but I don't want to walk down the road in the dark to the phone booth next to reception.
None of us even goes out to plug the power back in.
I lie there thinking about the time we were in Hanoi, when I was about eight. One minute we were all together in a market, looking at shoes and wooden toys, and then the next minute I was by myself in this grungy little alleyway. I looked up into the face of an old woman. She ope
ned her mouth and it was all red in there with little maroon stumps for teeth. I knew the red was betel nut stain, but her mouth looked like a wound. Further ahead, men gathered around, staring at something. When I looked closely I could see two roosters in the middle of the circle, fighting. The men weren't even cheering, or trying to stop them, or anything, they were just standing there watching, and it made me feel sick in my guts. I was frozen in the spot. Then suddenly Mum and Dad were there and we continued on our way through the market. The whole thing probably lasted less than fifteen seconds, but I had this sense of infinite isolation.
I'm not used to people being mean to me, or to being alone. It's this weird feeling; I got it from Jasmina and Tanner when they said 'vintage', I got it from those boys and the security guard too, and even from Dad a little bit.
I've never felt like that before – as though the things that are important to me don't matter to anyone else. It's like I'm one of those roosters in the circle, fighting for my life – as though I've been set up for this fight, and nobody cares.
In the morning Will has dried blood on his face. He heads off to the shower block with a towel over his shoulder. He comes back ten minutes later wrapped just in his towel and crying again. I can see a faint bruise on his ribs.
There were two of them. They took his clothes. Will's voice cracks as he tells us. He had to fight them for the towel. They were laughing. He had to fight them in the nude.
I walk to the phone booth outside reception. Every step I'm looking around, but I pretend to be casual. It looks peaceful. The kids are on the lawn playing with a hose. One squirts the others and they squeal and laugh. The old people watch from their porches. But now I notice the big metal shutters they have over their windows and spotlights tucked under their eaves.
I hear footsteps behind me, and I look over my shoulder. It's one of the boys. He grins at me. Suddenly he darts forward. I scream and hold my hands over my head.
He pantses me, and laughs.
'You're an arsehole!' I shout at him as I pull my pants up from around my ankles. I'm furious.
'Oh, come on! It's just a joke,' he says. 'Nice booty, by the way. Kind of like . . .' He licks his lips. 'Two peaches.'
My lip curls and I stomp past him. I'm really scared, but I'm angry too, and I hope he sees the angry part more. My hands are shaking as I put the coins in the slot. I ring Bryce Cole's mobile and tell him what happened.
'Yeah, you get a bit of that going on,' Bryce Cole tells me. 'If you just ignore them they generally go away.'
'Generally?'
And that's when I decide we have to get off Bryce Cole's crazy conga line.
18
100 POINTS
There's a little shopping centre in the suburb where we used to live. There aren't any clothes shops. It has all the banks, a deli and a post office. There's a bakery, a florist, a newsagent and a big coffee shop. It doesn't matter what time of day you go, there are good-looking people everywhere. Nearly everyone has well-cut, properly fitted clothes, straight white teeth and clean hair. Even the old people wear jaunty hats. They sit in their wheelchairs at the coffee shop with their daughters and grandchildren and smile contentedly. They eat cake together. People smile at each other.
We walk to this suburb's equivalent of that. They have mostly the same shops, but there's also a big Centrelink. There are no old people in jaunty hats. Everyone seems to be alone – even the people who are with other people. There are families arguing with each other. They're swearing. They don't care that people can overhear. If they ever had pineapples in the first place, they've taken them off their heads and are throwing them at each other.
The kids of the parents who are swearing aren't even crying. They're just watching everything.
I make eye contact with a toddler lying on the floor. I would swear that's Coca Cola in her bottle. She's got crusty boogers around her nostrils. The knees of her pink tights are dirty and baggy as if she's been wearing them for a week.
Eventually her mum growls, 'Come 'ere, you little witch.'
Mum keeps crossing and uncrossing her legs. I'm worried she'll walk out, and then we'll have sat in this horrible place for no reason. I hope they'll give us our money soon so we can leave.
Finally our number is called and we're ushered into a little room. Mum explains about the letter and the sheriff. The Centrelink man is nodding as he shuffles through his manila folder. Mum's voice is all wavery as she tells him about the boys rocking the caravan and stealing Will's clothes. The Centrelink man glances at his watch. It could be that he's just really anxious to rush out and help all those people out there waiting in the queue, but I don't think so.
He gives us some brochures for charity organisations and a women's shelter. Mum nods, but I know she won't go there. He needs to see Mum's identification before he can process a payment. Mum hands over her licence.
The Centrelink man stares at it for a minute. 'This licence is out of date. Do you have another one?'
Mum explains that she didn't renew her licence because it costs money, and there didn't seem to be any point when they took her car away.
'What other forms of identification do you have?'
Mum rifles through her wallet. She lays her Medicare card and two credit cards on the table.
'They're worth twenty-five points each,' he says. 'You're still short twenty-five.'
She slides across her Myer card, her blood donor card and her Video Ezy membership.
'I'm afraid they're not from a financial institution,' he tells her.
Mum's flustered. She flicks through her wallet again. She has her gym membership and a wine club card.
Will lines all the cards in a row on the table facing the Centrelink man. 'This out-of-date licence has Mum's photo on it, so that's who she is, right? You don't need to know whether she's allowed to drive, you just need it to prove who she is, isn't that right? That's her in the photo, isn't it? And all these other cards have the same name and address, so it stands to reason that she is who the licence says she is, even if it is out of date, doesn't it?'
'I don't make the rules,' the Centrelink man says. 'Do you have your birth certificate? Passport? Pension card? A council rates notice?'
'I'm not on a pension,' Mum says in a scratchy voice. She clears her throat.
Will interjects. 'Who carries that stuff with them, anyway?'
'What about a phone bill? An overseas driver's licence?' the man asks.
'So a phone bill with no photo is better than an out-of-date driver's licence?' Will is getting really mad now.
Mum shakes her head. She rubs her eyes. All Mum's points are in Declan's garage.
'This is such bullshit!' Will shouts.
'I don't make the rules,' the Centrelink man says again.
Mum takes Will by the hand. I don't think she's done that since he was five years old. She pats his hand. Her face is grey. His is red. Mum stands up. She takes my hand too and we walk out of the office.
Will sweats and swears. Mum tells him to hush. He kicks at a crumpled-up bit of paper on the floor, and swears at her, and now we're exactly like everyone else in the Centrelink office.
Outside, Mum tries to shush him again and he claims that he's all right. She still wants to take him to see a doctor. And she still needs her one hundred points.
I'd prefer to dig through boxes in the garage than sit in emergency all day, especially with Will in a foul mood, so we make a deal.
Girl Next Door Page 12
