The boy woke at first light and said he needed to go to the toilet. Russell and Jade got him up. He was weakly outraged to find himself nappied in a towel. He began to tug at the fold until Jade ordered him to leave it on, did he want to shit on Russell’s floor? He was able to walk to the bathroom, hold in the urge until seated. The motions still hurt, he shut his eyes tight and groaned. But after two squirts his breathing calmed, and he announced that he was finished. Was he sure! Jade said. Yes! She tore off and folded paper, but after an attempt to wipe himself his arm fell limp and he sagged on the seat. They helped him off, and Jade walked him to the shower cubicle. Russell glanced into the bowl before pressing the button and was glad to see that the mess held none of the streaks of blood there’d been in the night.
By the time his other sisters woke and came in, he was sitting up in bed drinking the rehydration fluid unaided. He drained the cup and said he was hungry. Jade looked at Russell.
‘Can he?’
‘I don’t know. I might ring Helen. I’ll just see what the time is.’
Kayla tapped on her phone. ‘Six forty-eight.’
‘That’s a bit early. I’ll have a look on the computer.’
The same page he’d consulted yesterday — he lifted his eyes and sat back in the chair — was it only yesterday? Yes. In fact, not even a full day had passed. He found his place, was assured that the child could and should eat as soon as food was requested. There were no guidelines or prohibitions. He decided something dry.
He did two slices of white toast and cheese melted under the griller, cut them into fingers. The boy wolfed them, asked for more, which he also wolfed, then a muesli bar. By eight-thirty, when Helen came over, he was ensconced on the lounge with the other three, watching cartoons. She observed him for a minute from the doorway, then turned to Russell and shrugged. He made coffee, and they took their mugs out onto the landing and sat on the sunny top step. He told her what he’d eaten.
‘Well, that’s how fast they can bounce back. Especially if the immune system’s been exposed as a matter of course to what theirs probably have.’
‘And not just down there.’
‘No.’
They fell silent. He knew what she was waiting for. But he’d decided not to reopen what he’d begun at the roadside. It was a conversation he needed to have with himself and — depending on what decision he arrived at, and at the right moment — with Jade. Then — and wholly dependent on the answers she gave — with the littlies and with Kayla. Lastly, if it came to it, with the authorities who decided such matters. Grateful as he was to her, he didn’t have to justify to Helen whatever decision flowed from those conversations. Nor should he place her in the awkward position that consulting her certainly would. She’d feel bound by what she saw as her responsibility to Adele. To watch out for him. If necessary, save him from himself.
‘Do you need to get Jerome and Lucy away?’
‘They’ve already gone. They won’t say anything.’
‘That wasn’t my reason for asking. I thought you might be needed.’
‘They’ve got good at organising themselves. For similar reasons to these four.’
‘All the same, if you want to go, I think I’ll be all right. He seems to be on the mend.’
She read the wish behind the words. She handed him the empty mug and stood. She descended the steps till their eyes were level. ‘Get some advice, Russell, before you go any further. Not just off the net, speak to someone.’
‘I need to speak to three people here first.’
‘No — last. If at all.’
The boy heard and smelled cooking going on, sent Jade out to ask could he sit at the table. Russell went in. He had colour in his face, his eyes were alive and no longer sunk in their sockets.
‘Up you get.’
Jade dressed him from the shopping bag Helen had brought. Emma had been warned, you tell him they’re a girl’s and there’s no TV!
He ate two sausages with tomato sauce and a dollop of mashed potato, washed down with a glass of milk. Strangely, though, he didn’t want ice cream. Russell, from deep in his memory, mashed him a banana, sprinkled it with brown sugar.
They watched television while Russell read in the kitchen. He heard through the door an argument, quickly quelled. Water ran in the bathroom, then, a few minutes later, the door opened, and Jade came in.
‘He wants to say goodnight.’
Half an hour later she came in again. She’d put on and zipped her windcheater. Russell closed the book on his finger. ‘He asleep?’
‘Yeah. Hey, could you drive Kayl and me somewhere?’
‘What … now?’
He glanced at the clock. She kept her eyes on him.
‘Ain’t far. Em’s got my mobile.’
He slid the leather gumleaf into the book and stood. ‘Let me get my jacket.’
He thought Jade would take the front, but she ceded the place to her sister. Kayla directed him to a clinker-brick house at the older end of Vale Street. A car wrapped and tied like a present sat on blocks on the footpath. At the side of the house was a caravan sporting a satellite dish. Both got out, and Kayla took the lead. On the verandah she knocked and stepped back, shading her eyes. Jade did the same. A blinding spot came on, the door cracked, then opened. The man framed in the doorway looked past them towards the street and studied the car before he unsnibbed the security door. He ushered them past, closed the door. The spot went off, leaving Russell blinking, its after-image emblazoned on his retinas. When it faded he looked for a letterbox, then along the fence, finally at the house façade. There was no number. Did they not get mail? He turned the key in the ignition, read the time, turned it off.
They were inside less than ten minutes, his legs just beginning to feel cool even though his arms and torso were warm in quilted down. Each carried one of the familiar travel bags and a tied sleeping bag. The spot snapped off. He got out and opened the back, but didn’t dare offer to relieve either of her load. ‘Thanks,’ Jade murmured when they’d heaved the bags in onto the mat.
Kayla again took the front. She let him reach the Yeaman Bridge roundabout before she spoke. ‘Not Bathurst Road, yeah, we’re goin out the highway.’
He lifted his foot. ‘Oh?’
‘Not far — near North Katoomba Public — I’ll direct you. Turn at the council lights.’
He remained quiet, left her in charge. He couldn’t have said how many times — a hundred? — he and Adele — and for a time Michael — had passed the school on the way to Minni-ha-ha.
She directed him into the street beside the school — Mistral — then, halfway along, pointed, ‘Now here.’ He read the sign, Paris Parade. She didn’t give him a number. He drove slowly, adapted now to her last-minute instructions. In the semi-darkness between two streetlights she lifted her hand. ‘This’ll do. Don’t pull over, we’ll just get out. Turn off your lights for a sec.’ He did as told. He wanted to ask Jade what was going on, but wasn’t sure she’d answer. Kayla cracked the door, pulled it to again when the internal light came on. ‘Can you just go for a drive, come back in twenty?’
‘I suppose so. Back to here?’
She pointed through the windscreen. ‘Run in under there, yeah.’
He looked and saw a weeping wattle, beneath it a cave of shadow. She was already getting out, Jade too. Each closed her door with barely a click. He moved off as quietly, and without lights. ‘You’re learning,’ he murmured. He was nervous, yet excited to have been made an ‘accomplice’. He had no idea how long the street was, but calculated it must come out near Minni-ha-ha Road. He realised suddenly he was doing thirty without lights, snapped them on. Cars and utes, a crane-truck, were parked both sides. Few houses were dark, but he passed not a soul, even a dog. He had not been to Minni-ha-ha since she died. He could drive down to the falls reserve, come back up via one of the avenues. That would us
e ten minutes. Or park and listen to the radio. ‘Or both.’
He returned exactly on time. The street was unaware still of anything happening. He ran in under the wattle and turned off the lights. It was like a cave. He watched through the windscreen, did scans of the mirrors. Even so he didn’t see them arrive. They were suddenly at the back of the car, the hatch was being sprung. The internal light came on. ‘Fuck,’ Kayla laughed, ‘turn it off!’ Jade giggled, smothered it. He was half out. He stretched to the slide switch and thumbed it.
They had the hatch raised and between them were lifting a bulging pink and blue nylon zip bag onto the tray. A second bag, equally crammed, was on the gravel. He stood and watched, they didn’t need his help. Jade was still suppressing giggles, which set Kayla off. She clapped a hand to her mouth, snatched it away, hissed, ‘Fuckin shut up,’ but the words coming out as laughter. He remembered the same nervy laughter after he and his brother scampered through the ‘haunted house’ on Hat Hill Road. The sisters bent as one and lifted the second bag in beside the first, shoved it against the back seat.
‘Is this it?’
Kayla sobered. ‘Nah. We’ll do it, but.’
They disappeared behind the wattle, weren’t away long enough to have gone into a house. Kayla was carrying a black ghetto blaster and a naked guitar, one of its strings broken and dangling. Jade lugged a soft plastic suitcase so distorted it looked as if a child was inside, and a cardboard tube of the kind that held prints or posters. She was struggling, and Russell stepped forward and took the suitcase handle, which she gladly relinquished. Kayla laid the guitar gently on the back seat, put the ghetto blaster on the floor. ‘One more,’ she said, not looking at him. The giggling was gone.
They came carrying between them, of all things, an electric oil heater, and under their arms and slung round their necks blankets and towels. He didn’t think the heater would fit but they rammed it against the bags and lowered the hatch. Kayla got in the back, Jade in the front, the reversal explained when he heard behind him a hollow knock, then a strummed chord, abandoned when obvious how out the strings were.
‘Your old house,’ he said when they were moving.
‘You don’t need to freak,’ Kayla snarled from close behind his head, ‘no one’s livin there, it’s bein done up. Arsehole agent just chucked everythin in the garage.’
He spoke at the mirror. ‘What, you received some sort of notice, or …?’
‘I come here, seen it! Bastard’ll be fuckin sorry, too, when his windows cop a couple of bricks!’
‘Um — could I ask that you leave that for a while? I think we’ve got enough going on, don’t you, without the police looking for you for that too.’
‘Fuckers wouldn’t know where to start!’
He drew breath to say, well they picked up your friend Greg, felt a gentle tap on the knee.
‘Kayl, chill, ay. Arsehole could’ve took it to the tip.’
They were up before him, sprawled like puppies on the couch, already watching cartoons, the salvaged blankets wrapped about them and the electric heater going, its mystifying retrieval now explained — their solution to the morning’s dead fire. He said nothing, his power bill each quarter now so low it was almost negligible.
Where, though, was Kayla? He’d been to the bathroom. She wasn’t in the kitchen. He walked back to the lounge room.
She’d gone. And her guitar.
They resumed coming to the workshop, Emma too. The distorted suitcase had contained not only clothes, but Lego and CDs and shoes. She now owned a second, shabby, pair of joggers. Jade had exclusive use of the wheel, he was glazing. The pair of cylinders she’d left in the racks were now bone dry. He asked would she like him to glaze them. He couldn’t promise there’d be space in the kiln, but if there was he’d fire them.
‘Um. I was gonna try and make bottles.’
‘Yes, but we don’t know how long you’ll be here. These are ready.’
She slid from the saddle and came to the racks. He’d moved the cylinders to the front. She stared at them. He read her thoughts. I want something that’s finished. I maybe don’t want it to be these. He made the decision for her, the one that also suited him. ‘They’ll fit easier than bottles.’
She stared for a further few seconds, though, before she nodded. She glanced at him, looked back at the racks. ‘Can I have like your old bowl? Hare’s fur?’
‘No. They’d need to go in saggars, and I can’t spare any of them. But we can use the same glaze, from the dyke, and you’ll get a nice shiny black with some spangles. You happy with that?’
She shrugged.
Wow, he said silently. Don’t know the meaning of ‘compromise’, do you.
‘Can I dip em?’
‘Watch me, then you do the other one.’
Emma was again invited over to Helen’s and this time went. After she left, Todd whined to Jade, why just her? She didn’t even slow the wheel. ‘First you’re a boy, second you’re too young, third she don’t want your fuckin germs.’
He rang and got Delys. He told her the kids were back. Could she tell Hugh, and to ring beforehand if he was coming over rather than just turn up. They were okay now with Helen, but he wasn’t sure how they’d react to the unannounced arrival of a white Hilux.
‘So they’re still that feral?’
‘They’re not “feral”, Del — they’re just on high alert. With pretty fair reason.’
‘What are they doing back? You thought they’d skipped for good.’
He told her.
‘And … is he all right?’ Her baiting tone was gone, she was a mother again. ‘I could ask Andrew to take a look at him, no names, no pack drill.’ Russell had met her doctor son-in-law and liked him.
‘I did think of Andrew, but I didn’t like to ask. It might’ve put him in a difficult position.’
‘There’s ethics and there’s family, Russell.’
‘Still … Anyway, he’s over the worst. The squits have stopped, and he’s eating and drinking.’
‘Good.’ She was silent a moment. ‘So … any chance of meeting these characters?’
‘I … can ask. Jade would probably be interested in seeing another workshop. If we popped over at night. I’d like to see how she goes on an electric wheel. Just, if it’s the littlies as well I might have to choose my moment.’
‘They’ve certainly got under your skin, these three, haven’t they?’
It was a perfect invitation to tell her how much. That he’d been reading up on fostering. Fear stopped his tongue. To Del, men were hopelessly the creatures of sentiment.
‘The place we met I think had a fair bit to do with that.’
He heard he’d confirmed her belief. She said mildly, though, ‘I’ll pass on the warning.’
The boy was watching television. Jade and Emma were in their room with the door closed listening to rescued CDs. He was washing up. He heard a song stop mid-line, took no real notice until he heard the door open and a moment later the front door. Her mobile. He issued himself the same reminder, you are not her keeper.
He and Emma were in the window seats with the board between them when the front door opened again and closed. He wasn’t wearing his watch. She’d been gone, though, he thought, about two hours. He heard her speak to the boy and the television go off. Then she was in the hallway, the boy in tow. She evaded his eyes, hooked her head at Emma, the bedroom, now. He was shocked to see that she’d been crying.
It was his move, but he wouldn’t make it without the girl. He stood and went into the kitchen, filled a saucepan rather than the briki with milk — he’d have chocolate too — put it on the burner, fetched down four mugs and the powder. By the time he’d filled the mugs they were still not out. He would have to go to their door with the tray and knock. He placed the tray on the table, was positioning the mugs for balance, when the door opened, and he h
eard them come along the hall. They filed silently into the kitchen. The boy and girl stood against the fridge, heads down, attempting to be invisible. A glance at Jade told him why. She was no longer upset, she glittered with anger, a hardness in her eyes and especially about her mouth that took him back to their first few seconds of acquaintance, when she’d given him the merest of nods and swept the scree with her gaze before stepping down onto the overhang floor.
‘Me and Kayl’ve had a fight, a big one. She wants us to go to this bloke named Reb and his missus, yeah, but I said no way. He’s another fuckin druggie. I told her we’re stayin here and she needs to keep tryin. She bloody lost it, was swearin at me, tellin me I’m not their mother. I told her I fuckin am! I’m the one with em day and night! It’s not her livin in a cave, jumpin every time a branch falls or somethin. Havin to get Toddy back up top chuckin and shittin! That’s me doin that, not her!’ She swung her head, looked away at the windows. ‘Sorry, I don’t need to be yellin this at you, supposed to be just tellin you.’
‘What happened with your mother’s cousin?’ he said quietly.
‘Couldn’t find her.’ She’d calmed. ‘She just pissed off, yeah, without tellin no one.’
The time was wrong to open the subject of fostering. She was too raw, the littlies were there.
‘Well you stay here till you do. Okay?’
‘Thanks.’
He instituted ‘recess’, all downing tools at ten-thirty for, in his case coffee, in theirs Milo, the four of them seated in a row on the workshop apron with the sun on their outstretched legs. They’d been back inside for five minutes — Jade again on the wheel, the boy coiling a box, Emma sponging run glaze from the bases of the eggcups Russell was dipping — when the phone rang. He stood, wiping his hands on the rag of towel which had lain on his knee. The urgent voice came while he was still drawing breath to say hello. ‘Russell — Helen. Two police cars and another car just passed my place and are pulling up outside yours.’
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