The Bogan Mondrian

by Herrick, Steven

  There’s nothing here. I take a deep breath and walk out of Charlotte’s room and down the stairs past a descending row of family portraits. Why do photographers always make the families wear white in these shots? The bright lighting, the satin backdrop, the stylised hair – it’s so fake.

  In the kitchen, I’m tempted by the fridge, but instead walk through the pantry and open the door to the garage. His bike is leaning against the far wall. I walk across, lean down and wobble the wheel. It’s tight in the housing. The wheel is secure. Maybe she did listen to me after all, even if she wouldn’t admit it.

  I retreat back to Charlotte’s room, ignoring the beer and chicken drumsticks in the fridge. I sit on her bed and look around the walls.

  Mondrian and me.

  It feels peaceful here, surrounded by blocks of colour. I remember listening to Charlotte play the piano in the lounge. She asked me to close my eyes and I drifted away.

  A door slams shut downstairs. Voices. A man.

  Please don’t let it be him.

  ‘Who put the ladder here?’ the voice yells.

  My stomach constricts and I dry retch in fear. It’s all I can do to hold it down. Puking in Charlotte’s room is not cool.

  A female voice answers.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  I take a deep breath, jump off the bed and creep to the window, just in time to see the ladder tilt away from the gutter and crash into the garden.

  Buster barks.

  ‘Don’t bark, boy,’ I whisper.

  The man’s angry voice booms again. I look towards Charlotte’s door. No escape that way. I can’t climb onto the roof. Not yet. Shit! The pattern on the walls spins in technicolour horror.

  Buster barks again.

  I lift my head just enough to peer out the window. Buster is running in circles in the garden, barking at something, someone out of sight. He stops and holds his head high, sniffing the air. He bounces forwards and barks again.

  Charlotte’s dad approaches him, holding a golf club.

  No! Please, no.

  I want to yell for Buster to run but my voice catches in my throat.

  Buster keeps barking. He thinks it’s a game. I can see the joy in his eyes as he jumps from side to side expecting a ball to be tossed. Or a sausage roll.

  Buster wags his tail.

  Mr Walsh lifts the club.

  A woman’s voice yells, ‘No!’

  I turn away. My fists clench. It’s all I can do to stop from vomiting.

  I hear the thud from here. And then another.

  Buster yelps.

  A woman screams.

  The blood in my temples threatens to explode.

  Silence.

  I force myself to lift my head and look out the window.

  Buster lies on the grass; his tongue hangs crookedly from his mouth.

  A golf club is beside his body.

  I hit my head against Charlotte’s wall, to dull the pain in my stomach, in my heart. The room spins as if I’m going to faint.

  A man’s voice booms downstairs from inside the house.

  I close the window and scramble to the built-in wardrobe. What idiot hides in a wardrobe? I scurry across the floor and look under Charlotte’s bed. Boxes and shoes. I squirm under the mattress and wriggle against the far wall, packing the boxes up as I go, as if they’ll protect me.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Footsteps. Doors slam down the corridor.

  I think of the golf club beside Buster.

  I try to suppress my breathing. He’ll come in here, eventually. He’s making lots of noise.

  The door opens. I see leather boots.

  ‘The bastard tried to get in here,’ he shouts. ‘If this window’s open, there’ll be hell to pay, Charlotte.’

  I watch his boots stride across the carpet. The window rattles. Shut. His boot kicks the wall as if he were hoping otherwise.

  ‘You’re lucky, my girl. You’d be doing more than just crying,’ he yells.

  Charlotte must be downstairs with her mum. He’s looking for someone to blame. Someone other than Buster. The window rattles again. Did I fit the screen properly?

  The boots bound across the carpet and turn down the hallway.

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he calls again.

  More doors slam. A tear slides down my cheek and drops onto the carpet. I roll on my back and wait under Charlotte’s bed. It’s all I can do. For now.

  If I close my eyes, all I see is Buster’s body lying on the grass, so I stare at the shoes beside me. Size seven. Black leather, shiny, with a silver buckle. I reach out and touch the leather. It’s soft and smooth.

  Downstairs, I hear voices. Charlotte and her mum. I can’t make out what they’re saying. His footsteps echo along the hallway and down the stairs. Their voices hush. If I hear a woman’s scream, I have to show myself. I have to do something.

  It’s quiet. In the distance, I hear a car engine start. I look at my watch. Five minutes before I move. I hold my hand in front of my face. It’s shaking. I wait until it stops before creeping out from under the bed.

  The house is still.

  I stand in the centre of Charlotte’s room. Without a ladder, there’s no escape through the window, which leaves only one alternative. To go downstairs. He’s not here. It’s too quiet.

  I take each step slowly, listening, ready to run. I dare not look at the photos on the wall and see his face. At the bottom step I lean forwards, gripping the handrail to peer around the corner into the lounge room. It’s empty. The breath releases from me in one long sigh. I walk into the kitchen and try the back door. It’s deadlocked.

  Shit!

  I run to the front door. The same.

  I scramble into the lounge room and try each window. All locked.

  Sweat drips from my face as I try every window in every room. Finally, in the laundry, a window slides open. I remove the screen, climb out, slide the window closed behind me and reattach the screen. I begin to walk around the house when I remember Buster.

  Against every impulse, I return to the shed. A council wheelie bin is behind the door. I tip the plastic bags of rubbish out on the floor. He can clean it up. Among the tools in the corner I find a shovel. I place it in the bin and wheel it over to Buster.

  I bend down to where he lies and touch his soft fur. His body is still warm, but his eyes are lifeless.

  ‘I’m sorry, boy,’ I whisper.

  As I take him in my arms I start to cry. His head lolls forwards as I lift him up and stagger to the wheelie bin. I lower his body in. He looks so small and broken. I don’t care how much I’m blubbering now. From the tree, I pick a branch of pink flowers and place them on Buster’s body, before closing the lid.

  I think of the chisel in Charlotte’s hands. The anger in her voice.

  The golf club lies on the grass. I pick it up and carry it down to the tennis court. Gripping it tightly in both hands, I smash it hard against the metal post of the gate, again and again, until the club is twisted and deformed. I walk to the back door of the bastard’s house and drop the golf club on the mat. So he’ll understand somebody knows what he did.

  Somebody knows.

  17

  I wheel the bin down the street. A woman hosing her garden stares at me. She knows something’s wrong. I don’t care. Let her call the cops. I’ll show them what’s inside the bin, what he did. Even if I have to tell them where I was when he killed my dog. I’ve got nothing to lose.

  The suburb is veiled in tears. It takes me ages to cross the highway pulling the bin behind me. A dude in a Mercedes honks as I scurry to the footpath. I respond with two fingers and every Italian swearword I can remember.

  The bin bumps roughly along the bush track to the reservoir. I choose a spot on a rise in the shade of the eucalypts and start digging. The groun
d is soft clay but occasionally I hit a rock. I scoop it out with the shovel and make a pile beside the hole. When it’s deep enough, I tip the bin gently on its side where I can reach in to pull Buster out into the sunlight, for one last time. I lower him into the grave and place the flowers on his fragile body.

  I scream with every ounce of pain inside me as I push the soil over Buster.

  It takes a few minutes and then it’s done. I lie on the grave looking up through the trees to the sky. Clouds, the rumbling of trucks on the highway, a chorus of magpies across the reservoir, my friend buried in the earth.

  I stand and arrange the rocks in a pattern of the letter B on the grave. The wind blows across the reservoir, chilling my body. I toss the wheelie bin in the bushes and pick up the shovel, wondering if I’d have the guts to smack him across the face with a garden tool. I can’t stop myself shaking because, deep down, I know it’s not the answer. I run to the water’s edge and, with all my strength, toss the shovel into the water.

  I sit on the log and cry.

  The sun is fading. Buster’s paw prints are in the dirt at the water’s edge.

  ‘Don’t you have anywhere else to go, kid?’

  Rodney stands behind me, a packet of cigarettes in his hand. He takes one from the pack and lights it, cupping his hands to shield the flame from the breeze. I don’t bother getting up.

  ‘Where’s your dog?’

  ‘He’s not mine,’ I say, my voice wavering. I wipe my eyes, hoping Rodney hasn’t noticed.

  Rodney offers me the cigarettes. I shake my head.

  ‘Everyone’s got a vice,’ he says.

  One of my shoelaces is undone. When I was young, Mum used to read me a book about a boy who couldn’t tie his laces and how he was always tripping over them, until one day he found a pair of trainers with velcro. It was a stupid book. As if problems are that easy to solve.

  Rodney sits down a few metres away and practises blowing smoke rings.

  ‘Are you interested in boosting an Audi?’ I say.

  Rodney laughs.

  ‘It’s the latest model,’ I add.

  Rodney takes a slow drag. ‘Sorry, kid,’ he says, ‘there’s no demand for parts. Audi owners are rich enough to buy new.’

  ‘There’d be shitloads of stuff inside.’

  ‘Yeah, and a proper alarm system. By the time I started it, the cops would have arrived.’ He flicks his lighter on and off. ‘If you really hate someone that much, just torch the car.’

  I can’t help but smile. ‘Is that your answer to everything?’

  Rodney shrugs.

  ‘Can I borrow your lighter?’ I ask.

  ‘I can’t help you, kid.’

  ‘Don’t tell me it’s your goodluck charm.’ I don’t believe in luck.

  Rodney polishes the lighter on his overalls. ‘I was adopted by this lady who had two sons of her own,’ he says. ‘She was crazy enough to want a third and without a husband, it was adoption or a quickie at the pub with some loser. I was five years old and stuck in foster care. She chose me.’

  He laughs bitterly.

  ‘My parents weren’t dead, just useless. She took me in and I had an instant family.’

  He looks across the reservoir and shakes his head, as if he’s already told me too much.

  ‘She gave me a lighter for my fifteenth birthday because I was always borrowing hers. A fucking lighter. She didn’t tell me not to smoke. Just not to use her lighter.’

  Rodney stands and dusts himself down.

  ‘So, you can’t borrow it, kid. But if I find one in a car, I’ll sell it to you, cheap.’

  ‘Do you visit her?’ I ask, changing the subject.

  ‘She died a few years ago. No prizes for guessing how.’ He holds up the packet of cigarettes.

  I understand why he got so angry at me talking about cancer the other day.

  ‘Time to go to work,’ Rodney says. He limps up the rise and disappears from view.

  It’s dark when I arrive home. Mum is in the lounge, watching a home renovation show.

  ‘Some people have no taste,’ she says. She looks at me and knows something’s wrong. ‘Are you okay, Luke?’

  I shake my head. I don’t know where to start.

  Mum switches off the television, stands and walks to the dining table, gesturing for me to sit down. After a few minutes of silence, she says, ‘Sometimes, your father and I would sit here for hours without speaking,’ she laughs, ‘usually because he’d lost a bucketload at the track.’

  The tap drips in the sink. In the distance, an ambulance siren wails.

  ‘I wished I could have told him, it didn’t matter. Money … pphhtt!’ Mum says.

  I smile, despite myself. I take a deep breath.

  ‘The dog you saw this morning,’ I begin, ‘I’ve been taking him for a walk without the owner’s permission.’ My lip starts to quiver.

  Mum reaches out to touch my hand.

  ‘The dog went on someone’s property and the man,’ I struggle to say the words, ‘the … the man hit him with a golf club.’

  Mum flinches. ‘He what?’

  I can’t repeat it.

  ‘Did anyone else see?’ she asks.

  I shake my head. Even though I know Charlotte and her mum were witnesses, I can’t involve them.

  ‘I can’t tell the cops,’ I say. ‘No-one will believe me.’

  ‘Is the dog alright?’

  ‘I … I buried him.’

  ‘Did anyone see you?’ Mum grips my hand tightly.

  ‘No.’

  We sit in silence for a long time.

  ‘We should go to the police, Luke.’

  I don’t know what to say.

  ‘He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it,’ Mum’s voice is quiet, trying to convince me to go to the cops, just like I did with Charlotte.

  ‘He’s rich,’ I say, as if that explains everything.

  Mum grips my hand tighter. ‘Do you want to show me where it happened?’

  ‘Why?’ I don’t want Mum confronting him.

  ‘Perhaps we could ask if someone else saw it. Maybe there’s security cameras on a neighbour’s house? The girls are always pointing them out at work. Did it happen in his front yard?’

  I shake my head, thinking of the thousands of videos I’d seen on YouTube of people caught in embarrassing situations. Their mistakes posted for the world to see, to laugh at, to get angry about. No-one likes to be caught on film.

  She reaches for my hand. ‘Promise me you won’t go near this man. Not without me beside you.’ There’s anguish in her eyes.

  I hug her again.

  18

  Later, I tell Mum I’m going to Blake’s place. She looks at me warily.

  ‘I won’t go anywhere near the man’s house,’ I promise.

  ‘Call me if you need a lift home.’

  ‘It’s not far, Mum.’ I give her a hug and assure her I’ll be back before ten.

  As I walk down our street, I text Blake. He and Hayley are at the movies. I ask if I can borrow his bike. He texts back a bike emoji and the words:

  Blake’s bike has three gears, a rusty chain and a crooked seat. I wheel it out of his shed onto the road, jump on and begin pedalling towards town. A bike, even as old and clunky as this, is faster than walking.

  I need to find Rodney and ask a favour.

  I keep to the left as cars on our side of the highway slow and give me lots of space. At the traffic lights near the hospital, a van pulls alongside me. The driver wears a peaked cap and a singlet. He looks at me and points to his head. I’m not wearing a helmet.

  ‘I’ve got a thick skull,’ I say.

  He laughs. ‘Don’t let the cops catch you,’ he calls, before pulling away from the lights.

  I wobble across the intersection
and cruise down Katoomba Street, past the cafes and restaurants. There are lots of cars parked along the kerb, a good hunting ground for Rodney. Every second car is a four-wheel drive with chunky tyres and a bull bar. A bunch of Chinese tourists hop off a bus outside a restaurant. Their guide holds a flag above her head so everyone can see her. A middle-aged woman in slacks and a koala t-shirt steps from the pack and takes a photo of me riding past. The flash nearly blinds me.

  I divert to Coles. CCTV cameras are located in every corner of the car park.

  Wherever we go, someone is watching.

  I pedal up the hill to the train station and wheel the bike through the tunnel to the car park opposite the Railway Hotel. I lean the bike against a pole and sit in the shadows of the pub awning. From inside comes the whir of poker machines and the call of a horse race.

  I think of Dad, leaning against the counter with his mates, laughing and joking with one eye on the television. Twenty dollars each way on the black mare in the seventh at Doomben. A sure-fire winner.

  Rodney steps out of the pub. He lights a cigarette, then notices me sitting in the shadows.

  ‘You following me, kid.’

  ‘I need your help.’

  ‘I haven’t got any money, and I’m not boosting an Audi.’

  ‘Mini action cameras,’ I say.

  He takes a drag and lets the smoke drift from his nose. ‘Fifty dollars.’

  ‘I just want a loan.’

  ‘Then go to a bank. Fifty bucks,’ he repeats.

  Someone shouts from inside the pub. A win on the pokies?

  ‘I want to help a friend,’ I say. ‘She’s …’

  ‘Ahh,’ Rodney grins.

  I shake my head. ‘It’s not like that. Her father hits her mum!’

  Rodney flicks his cigarette on the ground. We both watch it burn.

  ‘Why do you need a camera?’ he asks.

  I stand up. ‘When you’re boosting cars, do you ever think of CCTV footage?’

  ‘I know the location of every camera within forty kilometres.’

  ‘And you keep away, right?’