Girl Next Door

by Alyssa Brugman

  I text back: Not dead. Eating.

  Declan answers almost immediately. OMIGOD I have been so worried! u haven't said anything 2 me since u left. Is everything okay? I mean about this afternoon.

  I really, really don't want to talk about this afternoon. I'm racking my brain trying to think about something else – anything else – to talk about, and this is the crux of the problem, because the beauty of my relationship with Declan was that I didn't have to think when we talked. Hey wot did u get in that pol pot assignment anyway? I text back.

  After a minute or so I receive a new message from Declan. Something that random was def a code 4 something. Have u been kidnapped? If u want me 2 call the police DON'T answer this msg.

  I put the phone on the table and cross my arms. Bryce Cole yells out, 'Mahjong!', which I presume means that he won. One of his opponents pushes his wall of tiles over and mutters what I imagine to be a curse in Cantonese.

  No code, I text. I'm switching off now. Nighty!

  Instead I watch the telly with the turned-off phone in my pocket. I feel so mean, because it's not all Declan's fault, but I don't want to talk about it or even think about it, and the more I don't want to, the more he does, and I just wish he'd back off.

  I turn the phone on again and browse through the numbers in his phone book.

  A new message comes in. OK. I just want U 2 no that U R the most beautiful girl in the whole world & I hope U hav sweet dreams. Even if they R not about me.

  I write back. Hey wot was that number that U recognised from our phone bill?

  After a minute he sends it through. I browse through the numbers in his mobile – it's there. I quickly punch in his number. When he picks up I say, 'That's your dad's work number.'

  'Why would your dad be ringing my dad?' he mutters.

  'Maybe they were having an affair,' I joke.

  'Hang on.' Declan is rifling through pages. While I wait I look across the table. Mum is staring at me, her face drawn, gaunt. She looks trapped.

  'This bill isn't for your home phone,' he tells me. 'It's your mum's mobile.'

  20

  DIRTY

  LAUNDRY

  Will's learning how to play mahjong. I hope he's not getting himself in debt to the Triad. Mum's gone outside to have a cigarette. I'm so glad that she did that, because she knows I know about her and Declan's dad, and if she stayed we would have to talk, or not talk, and even the not talking is communicating – like when . . .

  Before I get into that it's important to understand that I was very young, and I thought I was in the house alone. Unsupervised childhood is a time of experimentation. There's nothing weird about that.

  I'd been watching that show Scrubs, and the Carla character told the Elliot character that if she wanted to have an orgasm she should use the washing machine. She didn't elaborate. Anyway, an ad came on and I just happened to notice that at that exact moment our washing machine was starting the spin cycle. I was curious, and so I went into the laundry and hopped up onto the washing machine lid.

  I didn't get a thrill. I tried various postures. Still nothing. And because I thought I was in the house by myself I got quite inventive. Then my mum comes around the corner with the hamper from the upstairs bathroom and I'm engaged in a lewd act with her whitegoods.

  What do you say?

  It would have been best for me if Mum had laughed. Believe me, I have re-run various alternative scenarios in my head. If she had laughed, then I could have laughed, and it could be a kind of silent in-joke – an awkward moment that we shared. Later she could have even teased me about it, because in a way that's almost like saying it's okay.

  It would even have been better if she'd said, Silly duffer, that's not how you do it. Actually, no. That would have been worse. To this day I have no idea how you get off on the washing machine – not that I dared try again, but in the months afterwards I hypothesised.

  Instead Mum looked shocked and disgusted. Then she turned away, murmuring, 'Excuse me,' the way you do when you inadvertently open the door when someone is on the loo. She could at least have had the courtesy to forget about it, but even now, years later, she never says the words 'washing' or 'laundry' to me.

  I know rationally that what I did was in the normal range of behaviour, but her black-banning any words that might in any way bring up associations kind of makes me feel as though she'd caught me boiling puppies.

  All that self-esteem stuff she talks about is such total crap, because instead of offering me a way out when it really mattered, she left me with my shame and mortification. That's what she does. Mum opens her mouth, and in all the places where she can confide something real, she says I look good in pastels, or she admires my spatial awareness, and when she doesn't open her mouth at all she's reminding me that she remembers every single stupid and humiliating thing I have ever done.

  Mum comes back inside and sits at the table next to me. We're in a closed Chinese restaurant in Parramatta with some guy we just met, who is totally ignoring us anyway. Tonight we'll go back to the caravan and possibly be beaten up.

  I take a deep breath. Although she knows I know, I'm still having trouble putting the words together, mostly because I can't picture her being intimate and messy, and intimately messy with someone, and especially not with Declan's dad. My mum wears rubber gloves to take the rubbish out. When they talk to each other, which I have hardly ever seen them do, they talk about council rates, concrete stencilling and options for solar pool heating.

  But I need to say something. I think about when the boys brought the cot in to the garage, and how Declan's dad freaked out. And then I go further back and remember when Declan's dad brought her home from the hospital, and how she clung to him. I remember Dad telling me that it was complicated. What did he say? He felt 'intensely conflicted'. No shit!

  I want her to tell me, or at least not not talk, in that pineapple-on-your-head way.

  She's sitting at the table opposite, smoothing the tablecloth with one hand and pretending to watch television.

  I say to my mother, 'Hey, do you remember that day with the washing machine?'

  She blanches. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  In the car on the way back to the caravan park I have this brainwave. If Declan's dad and my mum got together we could just go and live in Declan's house, which is almost exactly the same as our house – same colour, same shape, same room configuration almost – just different fittings, and a few metres to the left.

  Declan's dad earns a packet. I could go back to school. A school. You couldn't drag me back to Finsbury. In essence our lives would be the way they were.

  Almost the way they were.

  It seems hard on Declan's mum to be shunted out of the picture, but once she knows that her husband is a cheating bastard, surely she would want to leave? Mum already knows that he's a cheating bastard, and besides, it turns out she's a cheating ho, so they'll suit each other.

  Alternatively, Declan's dad could leave and we could move into wherever he goes. I think a terrace in North Sydney or a unit in Kirribilli would be nice, and also close to work for him. Mum too, assuming that she'd go back full-time. She needs to build up a nest egg for when Declan's dad cheats on her and his new girlfriend moves in with her kids.

  It would solve two problems. Declan would be my stepbrother, and so he could never hit on me again. It would be icky. We could pretend that the thing that happened didn't happen, but not in a taboo laundry way. Once every ten years we could say, 'Remember that day? Ha, ha, ha. Wasn't that a silly one-off mistake? And now here we are related.'

  And that would be the end of it.

  See, what happened was, I was at Declan's after the whole ringing Dad business, and we were talking about other things, the way you do. Declan said that he had been looking at vaginas on the internet, but he needed to see a real one, just for scientific research. I said I thought the photos were probably pretty accurate and the real ones were most likely much the same, but he said
they weren't in three dimensions. Anyway this back-and-forth went on for a while, and we laughed a lot. Eventually I agreed to flash him for half a second in the name of science. Except it didn't end up being for half a second.

  When I went over to Declan's house he was listening to my story, and he was saying all the predictable things. He was genuinely interested in everything that I said. He'd missed me, because he loves me. He made me laugh.

  When I saw him again after being apart I'd missed him too. It's as if when we first met we were two separate shapes but over time our personalities have rubbed together so much that now they're moulded into two complementary shapes – like a jigaw. Yin and yang.

  This morning it was so nice to fit into the mould again, and be in a safe happy place with someone I trust, and to be able to laugh at the things that happened, to be able to cry, and have Declan be genuinely, sincerely, earnestly . . . and all that.

  So that's why it happened.

  And also it felt good at a time when everything else felt bad.

  The big question is, what do we do about it? Almost the second we stopped I realised it was a really, really dumb thing to do. Especially when he said the thing he said afterwards, which was meant to be a joke, but wasn't.

  Who knew this was how events were going to unfold? Even twenty minutes before, if someone had suggested it I would have said pfft! If I'd known beforehand I would have worn nicer undies, for starters.

  Now the mould is broken because our whole relationship had been based on him making dirty suggestions and me turning him down, and neither of us believing that it could ever occur. Those are the shapes we are.

  Were.

  Now I'm sad, angry with myself, and scared too, because the one thing I could rely on in my whole life was the shape of Declan.

  But here is the magic solution! We just tell Declan's mum about the affair, like tipping over the first domino.

  This is what I'm thinking as we pull into the caravan park – dominoes. The car stops. Bryce Cole, Mum and Will are all staring at our caravan, which has these weird black and grey blotches around the windows like smudged mascara. While we were away having Chinese, someone has set the caravan alight and then hosed it down.

  21

  THE PLOUGH

  AND PEANUT

  On the inside, the caravan is not as burnt as I imagined, but it still leaves a hollow feeling in my gut. Everything stinks like an old ashtray. There's also the acrid odour of melted plastic, and some kind of fuel. Not petrol, but maybe paint thinner, or kerosene. Someone came in here to wreck our stuff. Why would they do that? Why do they hate us so much? They don't even know us.

  The beds are soggy. There are beads of sooty water leaving trails down the wall and in pools on the uneven floor. My green shopping bag is damp. My dirty clothes on the top are sooty and smell really bad, so I take them out.

  You'd expect that people would be milling around, and maybe there was excitement a while ago, but by the time we came back it was old news.

  The guy from the neighbouring van seems disappointed that we weren't in there at the time. 'Yeah, I told the firies that I hadn't seen yous, and they went in there just in case. Then they washed it down, and that.'

  Nobody saw who lit it.

  'But your mum smokes, eh,' the neighbour says. 'Yeah, I told the firies that.'

  The woman from reception says there aren't any other vans available, and she gives us a look, as if we were the ones who lit the fire – as if we're trouble.

  So now I have the chlorine-smelling clothes I'm standing in, my Dad's daggy old t-shirt and the stupid pinch pot.

  Bryce Cole knows a pub where we can stay for thirty-seven dollars. It's called the Plough and Peanut. I know where that is. As the crow flies, it's not that far from our house. We used to drive past the Plough and Peanut to get to the swimming centre where Will and I used to go to for lessons.

  He parks at the back and goes into the bar. We wait in the car. A couple come stumbling down the laneway. They stand in the corner of the car park right next to our car. They're giggling, murmuring and tearing at each other's clothes. I'm trying to pretend I can't hear what he's saying to her. He hitches up her skirt. She wraps a leg around his waist. She's trying to undo his belt.

  Mum leans across the driver's seat and turns on the headlights. The couple stare into the light, stunned for a moment, and then they laugh as they scamper back down the driveway the way they have come, hand in hand.

  Soon Bryce Cole returns with a set of keys. We climb the rear stairs. There is what looks like a heavy duffel bag draped across one of the lower treads, but as I step over it I realise it's a sleeping man.

  Classy place, the Plough and Peanut.

  At the top Bryce unlocks a door and we walk into a hallway that smells pretty similar to the caravan we just left. We take the third doorway on the left and then we're in a narrow room with two sets of bunk beds. The sound of the crowd is louder here. There's a set of French doors covered in dusty lace curtains at the far end of the room. I unlock the doors and peek out. There's a throng of drinkers on the verandah outside the doors – some standing against the rail, some sitting around tables. The bloke nearest the doors holds up his beer to me, and slurs, 'Hey, ho! Whaddya know?' I shut the doors again.

  'They're right outside!' I say to Bryce Cole.

  Mum sits on the edge of the bunk bed, holding a pillow up to her face and sniffing it experimentally. She puts it down and straightens the slip.

  'We have a roof over our heads,' she tells us, but I can tell she's trying to convince herself. When I sit next to her she picks lint off my collar, and runs her hand down my arm, straightening my cuff. 'This is a great colour for you, darling.'

  I blink at her because it's the same outfit I've been wearing for almost three days now.

  'We could go for a quick drink downstairs,' Bryce Cole suggests to Mum.

  'I'm not really dressed for it.' She smoothes down the front of her 'blouse'.

  'Rubbish! You look like a princess,' he tells her with a wide smile.

  'Where are the toilets?' I ask. I can feel the chlorine on my skin. I'm looking forward to a hot shower. I'll sleep in my Dad's old t-shirt, which is still clean, if a bit smoky.

  'Down the end of the hall,' Bryce Cole says. He throws me the keys. I slip them into my pocket and walk down the hall and around the corner. I see the bathroom. It has a sign on the door that says 'Room Guests Only'. It turns out I don't need the keys after all. There's a line of women coming out the door and down the corridor.

  I join the queue. The woman in front of me turns around and grins. Her make-up is smeared across her face. Her lipstick has come off and she has a ring of dark lip-liner around her mouth. Her eyes are bloodshot.

  'How's your night going?' she asks me.

  'I've had better,' I tell her.

  'Really? I'm having the best time. I've just met this guy. His name's Trevor and he's really hot!'

  We shuffle forward. I can see into the bathroom. There are women at the mirrors powdering their faces and fluffing their hair. One woman rearranges her boobs. Right there in front of everybody!

  There's only one toilet cubicle, and next to it what I guess is a shower, since it's covered by a curtain. I'm not going to have a shower, not with all those people, but at least I can get changed in there. I leave the queue and pull the curtain back. I quickly take off my top and slip Dad's shirt over my head.

  All of a sudden the curtain whips back and a woman stares at me. Her face looks kind of green, or it may be the light. Then her cheeks billow out. I have just enough time to think, Oh, no! and stagger backwards, and then she chucks all over me. It soaks through the shirt, and I pluck it away from my chest. It's warm and it stinks. I reef the shirt over my head, even though everyone can see me standing there in my bra.