There are no other cars in the car park, so it's easy to swing around, although as we head towards the ambulance Will feels the need to direct me. 'You're right. Heaps of room on this side.' I inch the car down the driveway.
'Wait, wait, WAIT!' Will screams. 'There's a pole.'
'Why didn't you say before?'
'I didn't see it before. You need to go right, go right. More. More.'
I'm looking out Will's window, looking for the pole. I can't see it because it's below the window. I stretch up, trying to look over the side and when I turn around I'm nose in to the ambulance. I thump my foot on the brake.
'You're going to have to get out,' I tell Will.
He climbs out and squeezes around the front of the car. 'Okay, go back, go back!'
I put the car in R and creep backwards.
'STOP!'
Now I'm nose in to the ambulance and bumper in to the wall of the Plough and Peanut. 'Dammit!'
'Where are we going anyway?' he asks.
I explain to Will about my plan to tell Declan's mum and how she will run screaming from the house.
'You think they're still in a relationship?'
I remember the spider-look on Declan's dad's face when she hugged him after he brought her home from hospital. But that face he pulled didn't necessarily mean it was over between them, did it? Maybe she was stepping on his toe? She could have had bad breath.
Around the corner comes the gurney with the dead body strapped to it. The ambo can't get to the back of his ambulance with the dead body because Bryce Cole's car is in the way. 'Is she stuck, mate?' he asks.
'Yeah,' Will says in his deep, old-enough-to-drive voice. 'Dunno what she was trying to do.'
Traitorous mofo!
'Do you want me to have a go, love?' The ambo calls out to me.
'Thanks.' I take my foot off the brake and open the door. The car is still in reverse. The car hits the Plough and Peanut. 'Oops!'
The ambo thinks I'm an idiot. He pushes the gurney towards Will. Will holds it by the rail on the side. He's holding on to a dead body and he's not even looking at it.
The ambo gets in. He does about a hundred-point turn. He's got it straight and then he drives forward, smiling at me. The ambo thinks I'm hot. A hot idiot.
'Stop, stop, STOP!' Will calls out, but it's too late. There's a loud crunch as the ambo hits the pole with Bryce Cole's car. He rolls the car back a bit. He's sitting up high in the driver's seat, trying to see what he's hit. Will lets go of the gurney and it rolls forward, down the other side of Bryce Cole's car. I can hear the metallic screech as it slides along the metal.
'Oops!' I say, grabbing the gurney. It's heavier than I imagined. I can't help myself. I poke the body through the sheet. It's cool, and firm, but at the same time rubbery, like a big ham.
'Geez! I'm sorry, sweetheart!' The ambo climbs out of the car to inspect the damage.
'That's fine!' I tell him, smiling back. 'I really am in a bit of a hurry, so I'll take over now.'
As I slip into the driver's side, I hear a voice from the back door of the Plough and Peanut.
'JB? Are you guys out here?' Then a pause. 'Where the hell is my car?'
'Get in, Will!' I hiss.
'I should give you my number – for insurance,' the ambo says.
From the thumping sound I can tell Bryce Cole is taking the steps two at a time.
I carefully put the car in D and head down the driveway.
'Jenna-Belle!' Bryce Cole hurtles down the driveway behind us. His face is purple.
There's a gap in the traffic. 'Go! Go! Go!' Will shouts.
I press the accelerator and the car bursts forward, ka-thumping over the kerb. I swing the steering wheel wildly and the tyres squeal. Once I get the car straight I punch Will in the arm. 'Don't yell stuff!'
Bryce Cole stops on the footpath, bellowing at us.
Well, I did tell him that if I could drive I would steal his car. He was stupid for teaching me.
23
PINEAPPLE-HEAD
Declan is not keen on my plan to break up his family and replace it with my own, but then he's not staring at the prospect of staying at the Plough and Peanut again tonight. He'll be staying in his nice warm neighbourhood, so he's not making an informed vote on the subject.
He's got me by the arm as I march down their hallway. If we were in a cartoon there would be smoke and flames coming from his heels as I drag him along the carpet. He's muttering objections.
Will is shuffling along behind us. He was going to stay in the car, but I think he wants to see, like I wanted to see the body.
Declan's mother is sorting flowers on the dining table. I'm going to tell her. I'm nervous and I know if I don't say it straight away I won't say it at all, so I just say it.
'Your husband is having an affair.'
She doesn't look up. She's stripping leaves off daisy stems. A few seconds pass and my heart is hammering, because this is a really big thing for me, breaking up a marriage. It's not a decision I've taken lightly, and it's not even completely self-interested because she'd want to know, wouldn't she?
Maybe she didn't hear me. I could just run away, but where am I going to run to, exactly? Perhaps I didn't actually say it out loud. I was sure that I did! There's no harm in saying it again, just in case.
'Your hus–'
She interrupts me. 'I heard you the first time.'
We're all just standing there in Declan's dining room. Willem has shrunk back against the wall. I can just imagine him with a lampshade over his head, pretending he's not there. Declan is standing next to me, holding his breath.
I don't know what to say next because I'd been expecting a bigger response. I'd pictured her crying and running out of the room to pack her stuff. Or his stuff. Somebody's stuff needs to be packed. There's enough room in this house for all of us, but it would be awkward.
Declan's mum keeps stripping leaves.
Eventually she looks up, smoothing a stray hair back from her cheek. 'It's over now.' She offers Declan a watery smile. 'Nothing for you to worry about.' She holds the bouquet of daisies up and carefully adds one flower to each side. She twists it this way and that, making sure that it's even.
'Your husband is . . .'
'All husbands do that, Jenna-Belle.'
And now I understand what it is about my mum and Declan's mum. The affair is the pineapple on both of their heads. Declan's mum doesn't check the phone records every month because she thinks Telstra is ripping her off; she rings her husband's girlfriends. She's always known. She lives with it because she doesn't have a job, or any skills, and she doesn't want to be a single mum living in a caravan park.
Declan's mum has decided it's better to have one person be indifferent and disrespectful to her than everyone.
24
BARBS
Bryce Cole has just climbed out of a taxi at the front of Declan's house. He shields his eyes and looks through the window of his car, but I have the keys in my pocket.
When he sees Will and me walking down the path his lips draw into a thin line. I pull my hand out of my pocket and he snatches the keys from me. 'Get in the car!' he growls. 'In the back!' he qualifies, as Will heads towards the passenger side.
Mum's at the end of the road, waiting on the corner. She didn't want Declan's mum to see her. She's embarrassed.
'What happened with Romance Me?' Will asks.
'It won,' Bryce says.
I look at Mum.
She whispers, 'The jockey was underweight.'
'So you lost? You lost it all?'
'The horse won the race,' Bryce Cole says.
'But it didn't,' I protest. 'It was disqualified.'
'It won by three lengths! What do you know? You weren't even there!' Bryce Cole rubs his lips. 'It won by three lengths.'
We drive west in silence.
After about twenty minutes Mum lights a cigarette and ashes out the window. The ash whips back into my face. This morning I thought the le
ast your mother could do is feed you, now I think the very least your mother can do for you is not to flick hot ashes into your face.
Declan's mobile rings in my pocket.
'Your dad was here! You just missed him!' Declan says to me. He's out of breath. 'He went to the house, and then he almost got back in his car, but I ran out there. I tried to make him stay, but he was looking for you. He's only just gone.'
'What did he say?'
'He had this whole story about how he applied for some job. I told him to meet you at the Plough and Peanut.'
'Yes, I know. In New Zealand. And we're not at the stupid Plough and Peanut!' I yell at him.
'He didn't say anything about New Zealand to me. He just said he applied for it ages ago. Where are you?'
I look at the back of Mum's head. Do I tell her? What do I do? Even if we go back to the pub, Dad will have gone by the time we get there. He might leave a message for us. But what if he doesn't? Should we drive all the way there and all the way back again just to find out something we already know?
'Why do you even care? Just shut up. Anyway, I've only got two bars of battery left.' I snap the phone shut and turn it off. I'm mad at Declan because my plan didn't work, and because of some other stuff about him, which I haven't worked out in my head yet.
It hurts that Dad doesn't want us to go with him. I need my parents to want to be with us, even if we don't want to be with them. I remember one Valentine's Day when I was about twelve, Mum and Dad were talking about going away for the weekend. They asked us if we thought we were old enough to look after ourselves overnight. Will and I told them that if they went away we'd have a party while they were gone. We were just kidding, but they didn't go. It was a joke, but I think we made it because we didn't want them to want to go somewhere without us.
I wonder if Tanner Hamrick-Gough feels like this every time her parents go back to Dubai? Apparently they think she gets a better and safer education here. Tanner says they can make more money over there, and that's probably true, but why can't her parents get a job here – at least until she's finished school? It's only a few more years. There must be some point at which they think the relationship they have with their kids is more important than having stuff, otherwise why would they have kids in the first place?
Unless they thought kids would be fun, but it didn't work out that way and now they're completely jack of them, which is even more depressing.
We stop at a petrol station. Bryce Cole puts in ten dollars, which takes the gauge from empty to nearly empty.
Just on dusk we pull up outside a brick house in a suburb I've never heard of. The woman who answers the door has drawn-on eyebrows so high on her forehead that she looks permanently shocked. Maybe she is shocked. She's got drawn-on lips as well. She's made herself a little cupid's bow.
This is a much cheaper option than surgery, I think. You just draw your features where you want them to be. You could change your mind, too. You could move your eyebrows to suit your mood.
She's got long fake fingernails and lots of bling, but the pantsuit she's wearing looks neat and comfortable. It's something that even my mum might have worn around the house – Sportscraft leisurewear.
'Bryce,' she says, leaning back against the doorframe and crossing her ankles.
'Hi, Mum,' he says.
As soon as he says it I can see the resemblance.
'Who's this?' she asks, looking my mum up and down.
'This is Sue, a friend of mine.'
'And did you father these?' she asks.
Bryce Cole blushes. 'No, Mum.'
Bryce Cole doesn't have to say anything. She gets it; she's just making us work for it. She raises her real eyebrows and her drawn-on ones disappear into one of her wrinkles, so then she has no eyebrows at all, and she stops looking surprised and just looks weird. She stares at us.
A woman with disappeared, drawn-on eyebrows, who lives west, is judging us.
After a long silence she says, 'You can come in for a cuppa,' then she turns around and I follow her down the hallway.
We walk though a crowded lounge room and into the kitchen. I lift a stack of well-thumbed women's magazines off the dining chair and sit down, then make a space between a variety of hideous, unfinished craft projects on the table for my elbows. There's an upright piano under similar domestic debris. It's dusty and smells like old people. I wrinkle my nose at Will.
Mum settles into a rocker in the corner.
Barb Cole spoons instant coffee into cups. She nods towards Mum, asking if she wants a cup. Mum stares at the instant coffee tin in Barb's hand. I've heard her say she would prefer to drink dishwater than instant coffee, but after a pause she sighs. 'Sure. Why not?' Mum turns to Bryce Cole. 'Where . . . um . . . where were you thinking of staying?'
'Not here, that's for sure,' Barb scoffs.
There is a long awkward pause. Will, Mum and I trade glances. That's what we're here for, right? To stay? When I look at Bryce Cole's face I can see he was going to raise it more subtly, maybe just by waiting until Barb had gone to bed and then dossing in the corner.
'Mum, it would only be . . .'
'No way,' she interrupts. 'I told you the last time, and the time before that, and the time before that.' She holds her arm up and the jewellery jangles. She glares at Mum. 'What did he say to you? "Oh, it's all right, we can go and sponge from the old lady. She's always good for a tenner." Well, I've told him!'
'Mum!' Bryce Cole pleads.
'I didn't mean to impose. We'll go now.' My mum stands up. 'I'll pay you back as soon as I can,' Mum tells Bryce Cole.
Barb arches her real eyebrows again. If she knew how it looked she wouldn't do it. 'You owe him money? That's a new one.' She thumps the coffee mugs on the table in front of each of us, and the thin brown liquid slops over the side. 'I've made the coffee now, so yous might as well drink it.'
'No, really. Thank you for the trouble, but we must . . .' Mum begins.
'Drink it!' Barb says.
We drink our coffees. I don't even drink coffee normally. It's disgusting, but I drink it because Barb is glaring, and I don't want to embarrass anyone.
'What did you think, coming back here?' Barb shakes her head. 'Not that I ever expected better – not from the very beginning. Couldn't find your arse with two hands and a flashlight.'
Bryce Cole rubs his face.
'Has he ever told you about his "business"? Yeah, he used to drive around the country, picking up other people's crap! No wonder he went broke.'
Bryce Cole is standing in the doorway. He drums his fingers on the frame. Why doesn't he say something? Why doesn't he just tell her to piss off?
'Good. For. Nothing.' She sounds out each word.
Mum stands up. 'I'm going now. Thank you for the coffee.' She stalks down the corridor.
We all follow.
My mum thinks Barb is a bad mother for saying Bryce Cole is good for nothing, but really, Mum always says that I'm good for everything, and that doesn't mean she knows me any better than Barb knows Bryce Cole.
Girl Next Door Page 16
