Dress Rehearsal [1 ed.] 9781925160307, 9781921696671

Citation preview

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for my mother

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DRESS REHEARSAL

Zoe Thurner

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Chapter 1

Did you know that the stats for people who have died or been enlightened in confined spaces are really quite high? On that list are Elvis Presley, Martin Luther, a sixteenthcentury priest, and now me, Lara Pearlman, a Year 12 drama student from the small coastal town of Point Jerome. I’m crammed into the change-room at my favourite op shop, Altitude, trying on a fifties ball gown. It’s very cramped in here, and I have an overwhelming sense of urgency. Here are the reasons why. First: I heard the fabric rip when I did up the zip. I knew I shouldn’t come here today; the ball isn’t for ages. But this gown is gorgeous. It’s handmade and it has a bodice of black lace and lilac silk and a cinched waistline. Except my waist isn’t cinched. My mother would not approve of this gown because she thinks it’s undignified for the daughter of the local bank manager to wear second-hand clothing. She brought home a fluffy pink tulle thing for me from Country Ladies Outfitters 5

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that she imagines I will wear after the ball. Yep. In that much tulle I could rent myself out as a five-piece bridal party. Second: There’s a hand in my change-room. About a minute ago a hand groped its way under the partition from the next cubicle and grabbed the strap of my bag to steal it. Just like that. So I stamped on the wrist. Now, I’m no lightweight and I’ve still got my foot holding it down. That really must hurt. But I have to say that The Hand has not flinched. It is a very determined hand and I am developing a lot of respect for it, although we’re both in a no-win situation. Neither of us can move. I can’t squeal for help because I don’t want to get caught in a torn dress on my school lunch break, and for The Hand it’s just plain awkward. Third: I have to get back to school for an important test in exactly five minutes and then go to drama rehearsal. I really do not have time for this. But it’s amazing how focused I feel. I could do ten tests right now. Just shovel them under the door and let me go for it. Actually, I feel inspired. I’m sure this constitutes a ‘meaningful moment’. I wonder if I can reach my drama journal from this position. Probably not. We’re supposed to be recording our thoughts and experiences for the upcoming school drama production. We have to devise the play ourselves and everybody can 6

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audition. That means all the dance girls, the tragic Year 10 boys, my entire drama class and gorgeous Blake Taylor will be in it. I think we should do a love story and Blake Taylor should die in my arms in the final scene. Naturally, my mother doesn’t like Blake Taylor. She reckons that she saw Blake in the car park after school and that he smells funny. My mother can now smell a boy at forty metres through a windscreen. It’s a pity The Hand didn’t sniff out my bag in advance because I have zero cash in there. C’mon Hand. Let go! Oh! The Hand has adjusted its grip. Maybe it’s weakening. I really like this hand. It’s broad and smooth and strong. It has big oval knuckles and tiny pits where the hair follicles and pores dot the surface. Mr Hatherly, our drama teacher, has been teaching us how to build a character from small and intriguing details. He said you have to get completely involved and let the ideas flow. I can use this. This is important creative material. I am utterly absorbed. I find The Hand completely fascinating, can’t take my eyes off it. In fact, I think I may be having a seminal life experience — like when people who are trapped in small spaces become transcendent. Eat your heart out, Martin Luther. Speaking of eating, I have some very good chocolate in the side pouch of my bag. I wonder if I can reach it from here? 7

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If I shift my foot a little to the left on to the forearm, I should be able to. Here we go, easing my toes forward and my heel off the wrist. Hmm. Nice watch: vintage gold rim, black dial, fat numbers. Oh no. Is that the time? Only two minutes to class. Sorry, Hand, I really have to go. And I’m taking the bag with me.

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Chapter 2

Rehearsals suck. Chelsea Wilson sucks. Mr Hatherly is totally suspect. I walk into the drama studio after school and find Chelsea Wilson sitting with Blake Taylor. No, correction, make that on Blake. You could almost say around Blake. She has her teensy bum on the stool next to him, her legs in his lap, her elbow on his shoulder and her upper torso twisted around at 180 degrees to flirt with Nathan behind. I guess all those gym classes have paid off. She’s got the flexibility and figure of a rubber band. I dump my bag on the floor down the front and take out the box of smooth-as-silk chocolates that my mother keeps for her quilting club. They need such good chocolate? Normally I can make do with dates and butter — the perfect blend of sugar and fats — but today is bigger than dates. Today we start work on the play — which I’ve just found out is going to be a piece about World Poverty. I still think there could be a tragic final scene where I 9

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hold Blake Taylor while he dies. Not overplayed, but simple and deeply moving. Please note: that’s me doing the holding, not Chelsea Wilson. The chocolate melts and rolls to the back of my tongue. Nougat or toffee nut? I can’t choose. I wonder what they’d taste like together. Chelsea is staring at me but I had to bring the whole box for Oggy. I try not to worry about what Chelsea Wilson thinks because I’m not part of her group. She hangs out with the dance girls and doesn’t actually speak to me. Here’s Oggy. She throws her bag to me, clips Chelsea’s arm and hops over the chairs to sit down. Oggy is ten days older than me, has enough uniform slips to wallpaper the room and, next to Nathan Young, she’s my best friend. Oggy is very small, very white, with huge feet. Today she’s wearing a knitted cardigan and her steel-tipped boots. The Oggy-boots will dictate who gets the last chocolate. Oggy wants to tell me about an idea she’s got for the play but the chocolate is very rich and first she needs a sip of my drink. I don’t want to share because Mum always goes on about the risk of catching meningitis from sharing water bottles, but the boots are in my lap and they say I have to. I can’t think properly. There’s a glug of chocolate stuck to the roof of my mouth and Chelsea’s little laugh is circling the room and if she gives me one more of her looks I might have to ditch the chocolate 10

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and thump her. Now, that is meaningful and it goes in my journal. Mrs Kaye, the relief teacher, has just arrived to tell us that Hatherly is late. She whips out her Mad Hatter watch and yells ‘Start!’ to begin the warm-up. We all have to lie on the filthy floor and listen to Mrs Kaye telling us to relax and imagine a special journey. My special journey is on hold because of the smell. The cleaners are supposed to sweep the floor but they can’t because there is always the string quartet or the tai chi group here after school, and, from where I’m lying, I can see right under the seating stand where chip packets and drink cans roll around in the draught. I think I can smell a pizza from our last production festering under there. Mrs Kaye takes us down a labyrinth; our bodies are getting heavy, heavy, heavy. Down. Down. Down. Well, my labyrinth is gloomy and dripping fungus and I feel really claustrophobic, so I open my eyes and see that Chelsea has her legs wound around Blake and her nose in his ear. Mr Hatherly would never let that happen. I get up, which really upsets Mrs Kaye. She reckons I’ve broken the mood. I start to argue with her and Chelsea sits up. Yep, she actually disengages her tonsils from around Blake’s throat and begins to complain. Complains that I am ruining the creative atmosphere! That’s when the studio goes pitch black and there’s a 11

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piercing cry from the back of the auditorium. Everyone’s really quiet at first and then there’s a stampede for the back door, with its square rim of light. We all push and shove to get ahead and there are squishy arms and legs everywhere. I hear Chelsea scream ‘Blake!’ in her strangled don’t-you-love-me voice, which means that Blake is not galloping towards safety with Chelsea in his arms but instead he’s dumped her among the chip packets. Some thug rams me into the doorframe and I don’t know how many hands I have to slap away. I think two belong to Tom Novic. I can smell his skate shoes. He eats salami on rye for lunch and the garlic slides to his feet. I swear someone is kissing my neck. Then I bend down to let Oggy climb on my back to slip the bolt from the door. Ouch. I straighten up and stumble back against a warm chest and this time the hands that grip my waist and travel over my body are strong and searching. Suddenly all the house lights go up and a voice booms from the sound and lighting box: ‘Freeze!’ We don’t move. We’re a bunch of ferals blinded by the floodlights. ‘How do you feel?’ says the voice. How do I feel? I feel ridiculous, like walking out. And whose hands were those? ‘Go to your journals and record your response,’ Mr Hatherly calls from the lighting box. 12

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He’s on the floor, a slight man with silky blond hair and limp hips. He’s always leaning against something, as if he can’t support the weight of his feelings. ‘That sense of panic is what I want from the crowd scenes. And I want you to research World Poverty.’ Good one, Hath. Mrs Kaye picks a chair off the floor, sits down sideways and hunches over her notebook. She doesn’t seem ruffled at all. I bet she knew that was going to happen. She expects us to cooperate. Everyone is acting cool. The Year 10 dance girls are laughing and sharing a lip gloss. Two boys chase each other behind the black curtains. Am I the only one who’s pissed off? Two minutes ago we were sprawled on the floor. Blake talks to Mr Hatherly. Blake doesn’t keep a journal. Doesn’t have to. Blake always has his script delivered by the stage manager because Blake Taylor is the top drama student in our school. He even changed his casual work hours to take a role as a special favour to the Hath. Blake strokes the stubble of a new beard and relaxes against the stage. But I’m seething. I glare at Mr Hatherly and Blake gets in the way. Then it happens. Blake gives me the cutest wink. Ooh, I hope it was his silky lips on my neck. But he’s leaving; I have to say something. ‘See ya, Blake.’ 13

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‘Yeah.’ Does yeah mean where? ‘At school tomorrow.’ Oh, that is so dumb and now he’s gone. Maybe he didn’t hear me. But Nathan has. He stops with a sound cable wound around his arm and his crinkly hair on end. His eyes are frozen to my lips. Was I that obvious? I need more chocolate but the box is jammed under the seating stand. Hell. The box is empty.

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Chapter 3

I didn’t tell my mother about the chocolate because what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her and, besides, I figured that in two weeks’ time, when she wants them for her club meeting, it won’t be so shameful. Two weeks? It took her two hours. I tell you, my mother would be a great asset to our national security forces and I prefer it when she screams. At least it’s over. But she is disappointed and this is ten times worse. It was only a box of chocolates. But in just a few snappy steps we have the whole of international terrorism in our home. Clandestine Activity, Betrayal, Secrecy, Lies. That woman can really catastrophise. She’s good. She’s the best. The common cold is the bubonic plague. So my mother has decided. The theft of the chocolates represents a total breakdown in our relationship and she wants to talk. She wants to talk with one arm across her belly in pain as if holding back the grief. She shakes her head and sighs. How can she get so personal about chocolate? I had a little crisis of 15

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confidence, that’s all. I needed those chocolates. I wish Nana was still alive. She would have understood. Nana loved chocolate. But my mother is not happy. Actually, she’s not happy for lots of reasons, and so it starts. She’s worried about my health, she’s worried about my need to cover things up, she’s worried that I can’t talk to her. She’s worried because she’s worried. In truth, my mother thinks I’m too fat but can’t say the words, so she goes on a diet and hopes I might follow. I do. She eats celery. I eat celery, smothered in cream cheese. She is obsessed with how I look because at some level it’s a direct reflection on her. If someone should see me down Duke Street with my hair in a mess and my belly bulging they would immediately think of her, a well groomed, middle-class woman in pressed, size ten jeans. Really? But we are not finished yet. The chocolates are only a warm-up. Her hands circle the coffee mug and she waits in that respectful and dangerous silence they teach them at the Twelve Step Parenting Course. ‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’ Yes. I want to tell her that Chelsea Wilson puts out to all the guys and that I’m going for a central role in the play so that I can kiss Blake Taylor in the final scene. But the respectful pause is over. 16

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‘How is drama going? I hear you’re making up your own play.’ Oh no, she has inside knowledge. And then the floor gives way. ‘Will there be any dancing?’ I wish I’d saved some chocolate. Now I really need it. She knows I gave up dance after the Year 10 Rock Eisteddfod, when I helped with the choreography, washed and counted all the costumes and trained for hours. But Miss Spiro still put me in the back row, all 180 centimetres of me in jungle stripes. I told Miss Spiro that we should measure everybody first but she still went right ahead and hired the costumes. So I slit the lycra from thigh to armpit and inserted netting. It looked really tribal after I added the body paint. The girls reckoned it cost them the trophy but I say that Cindy screwed up the last twenty counts anyway. ‘Will there be dancing? Will there be dancing?’ Her question is a triumph. It implies everything and says nothing. It undermines, it suggests, it hurts. She has told me, without having to, that she has contacts and that she knows things, that I am no performer and that if I’d stuck to the Grapefruit Diet, the Pritikin Diet, the Celebrity Diet, the Zone Diet or, best of all, the Helen Pearlman Diet, then the world would be my oyster, which I could afford to eat battered and fried. 17

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‘There might be some movement in the crowd scenes.’ ‘Is that so?’ She hoards the information, like the ruthless stock trader that she is. My mother sells everything on a high and holds on to the money till the next low. My father sings her praises. ‘Oh, what nous, what drive, what a genius.’ But I say she’s a born pessimist and sells at the top because she never believes that a good thing can last, and then scurries like a mouse with her hoard into her hole. Look what she does with chocolate. ‘Who is in it?’ ‘Everybody, and we have to write it ourselves. If it’s really good, Mr Hatherly might take us to the city to perform at a youth arts festival.’ ‘And what is it about?’ ‘World Poverty.’ ‘How interesting. So it’s about the haves and the havenots?’ ‘Yeah, and suffering and stuff.’ And me kissing Blake in the finale. ‘Is Chelsea Wilson in it?’ Chelsea Wilson? Who cares? But she’s right about the haves and the have-nots: the people who were born here in Point Jerome and those who weren’t. Chelsea’s family has lived in this town for five generations. Her dad virtually owns the fisheries and half the foreshore, which makes her 18

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Princess Chelsea, and Oggy and me the peasants. I have my face in the fridge for the next question because she’s using her involved-parent voice and I can see I need some reinforcement. I lather a rum and raisin muffin with cream and plum jam. Her mouth goes down. If she doesn’t want us to eat cream, why buy it? What is it? A fridge ornament? ‘Lara, when is this production?’ ‘June.’ ‘Second term?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Before or after the exams?’ It’s a tricky question and I don’t know which way to play it, so I go for the full-mouth muffin mumble. But before she can repeat the question I decide to trade in some info. ‘There’s a drama camp at the end of this term. Mr Hatherly is going to get us released from class so that we can finish the play. It’s a day camp, so we sleep at home and rehearse at school.’ ‘We’ll be in the city. You can’t go.’ ‘What?’ ‘Nana’s gravestone is ready and we’re going up for the ceremony.’ ‘When?’ ‘In the holidays but we’re going early. I’m not leaving you here.’ 19

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‘I can’t, Mum.’ ‘You have to come, for Nana’s sake.’ I reach for the second muffin. Her hand comes down. ‘Lara, it’s too expensive to go for just a few days.’ ‘We fly on points and stay with Aunty Claire. It’s free.’ ‘But I have to help Claire organise things.’ ‘She won’t even let you in her kitchen to wash up.’ ‘We go as a family.’ ‘No!’ Match point: ‘I thought you loved Nana.’ I dump my plate on the table and knock over her mug. The coffee slops onto her mushroom-grey silk rug and pools in a dimple left by my chair. I don’t care. She can clean up the mess herself. I stomp to my room and flip open my journal. I should write up the rehearsal notes about world poverty but instead I make nasty gashes on the page. I draw a sketch of myself as a nomadic woman in a kaftan. Those women had it so easy — you could hide a few extra kilos and a spare goat under there. Hell! This is so not fair. Why can’t she leave me here? What is her problem? Nana is really important but I have to go to camp. ‘Lara? Lara!’ I won’t answer. She can scream her lungs out, for all I care. 20

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‘Lara, Nathan’s here. Go on, Nathan, I think she’s in her bedroom.’ Nathan is a family friend and in the old days he used to hurl himself from the door to my bed and then trampoline back upright, an impressive three-point manoeuvre. These days he hesitates over my sound system, flicking through channels to select a mood. But my mood is set to Preselect: Mad with Mum. ‘Stop it, Nathan.’ ‘These guys are great.’ ‘No, they’re not.’ He surfs through static and some really bad Metal, spins through a few more stations, ups the volume and hovers, waiting for my response. I sit on the bed with my back to the wall, balancing my journal on my knees. He’s twitchy and I see he wants to be invited to sit down. I wish he’d just do it. ‘Nathan?’ ‘Yes?’ ‘Have you done this drama assignment?’ ‘Which one?’ ‘The journal entry from last rehearsal.’ ‘Oh, that.’ ‘Yeah, that. What is it with you today?’ His hair is an arc of wiry curls, and a silver chain 21

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glistens between freckles. He slips on a track by Red Alert and eases down the volume. Nathan does all the tech stuff at school, and when he’s not hauling equipment around for Hatherly he uses it to burn totally weird CDs. Today’s choice is bearable, which means he must want something. ‘Are you doing the play, Lara?’ He twiddles the dial but it slips between sweaty fingers, which he wipes on his lime T-shirt. ‘Yeah. We all have to do it, don’t we?’ ‘No. I promised Hatherly I’d help with the lights, but you don’t have to be in it; it’s not part of our course.’ ‘But I want to. I want to get a good acting grade.’ He shaves a micro decibel off the volume. ‘Blake might not do it. I heard him tell the Hath that he’s got work in town.’ ‘I’m not doing it because of Blake.’ That’s a blatant lie and Nathan’s eyes dart around the room for cover. ‘Is that what you think, Nathan? I’m a groupie?’ He cringes. I should let him trampoline off some tension, but this is serious. ‘It’s just I know Blake a whole lot better than you do, Lara.’ ‘And you think you have to protect me. You can’t tell me what to do.’ ‘I’m not.’ 22

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I brush past him and stand in the hall, half a head taller than he is. ‘Thanks, but I’m a big girl now.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Into town.’ Red Alert’s number-one single screeches to a high and is throttled in static.

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Chapter 4

Oggy says our town is ordinary but I love Point Jerome. It’s like a badly pegged tent stretched over lumpy ground that sits across two hills and a bay. Today it billows in the breeze and late-afternoon sun. The sky is mottled with cloud but the town shines. Kids dash back and forth against the traffic and honking cars. Oggy and I wander up Duke Street and meet our entire drama class between the shops and jittery cafes. I fancy a big wedge of pie from Mills’ Corner Kaff. Mills’ makes the best flat white with double shots of coffee and cream and it sits on the windiest corner in town. I order the coffee and tell Oggy to find a table, and then I take a long time choosing between the cheesecake and lemon meringue pie. There are no tables, so we have to eat from the tray. But Oggy grabs some chairs and we teeter on the scarred pavement in full view of Duke Street. Oggy crumbles the banana cake I bought for her and feeds it to a gull, and then she starts. ‘This play has to be really out there. We can’t do 24

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anything boring and bourgeois like narrative theatre. It has to be aggressively political, absolutely cutting edge.’ ‘And it should have a wonderful, tragic love story running through it to give it a point of human interest and continuity.’ ‘No, Lara. We are not going to do romance. That’s way too easy and the audience gets too comfortable and goes to sleep. That’s what Brecht said, remember? I want to shock them, have stuff that’s really jarring. We have to wake people up.’ I don’t have anything clever to say because Chelsea Wilson just saw us and crossed to the other side of the road. She won’t be seen with us because we are totally uncool. And there’s something else about Chelsea that I do not get. We do English together and one time the teacher read out her essay. I was truly impressed. But she won’t talk up in class; she makes everyone else do it for her. Which is really twisted. Also I think that’s Tom Novic on the library steps, being told off by a cop for using it as a skate ramp. Tom’s lanky arms slop over the railing and he starts to argue with the cop, but a girl behind him pulls him away. The girl is very tall, with square shoulders and a tomboy haircut. I don’t think I know her. ‘Hey, Oggy, do you want your cream?’ ‘No, you can have it. I think we should get news 25

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stories about corrupt regimes. Jean says there’s loads of good music we could use to establish culture and place and she’d even bring in her fiddle and teach us some songs.’ ‘Cool.’ Oggy’s mother, Jean, teaches violin and knows music. Oggy inherited her boots from one of Jean’s violin students. The bloke worked in the abattoirs and liked to play Bach barefoot. One day he walked out, leaving his overdue fees and the boots. The Oggy-boots tip the rim of my chair. ‘The Hath said we’re only taking it to the festival if it’s really good, so we’ll have to work really hard.’ I’m happy with that and finish off the cream. But Princess Chelsea has just come out of the Council Chambers with her folks and has caught me licking my face. Does she have to sneer? Mrs Wilson has a grip on Chelsea’s razor-point elbow to steer her against the cars, while Mr Wilson booms into his mobile and walks right towards us. Oggy’s seen them. ‘Hey, Lara, shops shut in twenty minutes. Let’s go.’ Altitude is stuffed full of unwashed retro gear and faces the Town Hall in a beard of synthetic pink fur. It used to be a church store before an enterprising CWA lady discovered you could make lots of money from junk 26

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out of townie kids. She remodelled the shop and installed a cute guy at the counter who plays seventies music. It’s the same junk for double the price but we always get a discount. Oggy taps a rhythm on the floor, steel on wood, and flicks through spots and stripes on the tie rack. I finger a fuzzy top with a neck of winking pearls. I like it but it’s a bit greasy, so I spread it across the stand and turn to ask for Oggy’s opinion. She’s not interested in my top but in Tom Novic, who’s just spun across the entrance on his skateboard. Tom has one arm clamped around a pile of musty comics and the other spread wide for Oggy, who laughs and loops ties over it. I’ve never seen Tom stand still before. His mouth is a compressed line at the bottom of his bony face and he holds his breath beneath Oggy’s gentle touch. Oggy does not see his chest tremble or his black eyes dart over her; she sees only the lovely spots and stripes hanging from his scarecrow arm. But I see a whole lot more when I hold up a rope of plastic beads to the mirror. In the reflection I see Tom’s friend, that girl from the library steps, slide my top into her bag. She knees the bag shut and twists around to the exit, smiles at the guy at the counter and strides through the door. But she hasn’t seen me struck dumb with fury. I saw that top first. It’s my size, sixteen, and I want it. 27

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Besides, she is thin and flat-chested and it won’t even fit her. I bet she took it just for the thrill. I hiss at Oggy to follow me but have lost her to a vinyl handbag. I plummet down Duke Street, dodging people all the way. My lungs are chafed with cold and effort but it’s no use, the girl has gone and so has my top. I climb back up the street with my back to the melancholy bay, to find the shop locked and Oggy shivering in its draughty doorway. ‘What was that all about?’ ‘Didn’t you see that tall girl? She stole my top. We have to find her.’ ‘What girl? Where?’ She’s right. The sun has slipped over the hill, forcing shoppers out of the cutting air and into their cars. The streets are empty. There is no girl. Anywhere. ‘Who was she, Lara?’ ‘That’s the whole thing, I don’t know. She was with Tom. Let’s go and ask him.’ ‘I want to go home, Lara. I’m freezing.’ It’s no use arguing, so I follow Oggy around the corner and up the hill to her place, but we don’t talk because the climb is steep and I’m still thinking about that girl. She looked too old to go to school and she doesn’t serve in any of the shops. Then where did she come from and what was she doing with Tom? I feel irritated that I can’t place her. 28

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From the hilltop I look back on the falling streets of Point Jerome and see the cold close around the dull, blue town and make things secret.

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Chapter 5

My father’s family is full of gifted accountants and engineers and he thinks our family has mathematical genius encoded in our genes. Dad genuinely believes that if he can help me overcome my girlish resistance to numbers, then the whole glorious world of mathematics will open up to me. It was this thinking that landed me in Mr Appleby’s maths class. Except Appleby recognises me for what I am: a genetic throwback. My mother went to see him, and he told her that I could come for help at any time. I went to see him, and he told me to go work it out for myself. Session One today is maths with the Apeman. Mr Appleby is two fingers short of medium height and has to tilt his head to see me through his bifocals. He cranks up his voice to explain the work and taps a pen against his arm. His voice sounds like wire being drawn through steel, and his pen misses the beat. I can’t concentrate. I go to his desk, holding a page of those little symbols he loves, but before he explains anything he 30

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pauses and smiles because maths is a sly little joke that everyone gets except me. The smile also says: Only six more months of Lara Pearlman. Hurray! Three rows back, Blake bends over his work, and although I’m wearing my new non-regulation, at-risk-ofdetention jeans, he hasn’t even looked up. Appleby talks and the numbers swim. I don’t hear a word of it. So I give up and sit down. I hiss at Nathan for help, but this comes as an assault on the quiet of the Appleby classroom. ‘If you don’t want to work, Lara, then you can leave.’ Around me, faces flare and earplugs pop. The group meditation on Heavy Metal is over. ‘But you didn’t explain it properly.’ ‘Then why don’t you ask properly?’ ‘Because it’s pointless.’ ‘Only to you. Now leave.’ I use my bag to crash between desks. ‘Hey, Blake, what are we doing in drama today?’ But Blake must have his music up too loud or he just won’t answer. ‘Hey, Blake, are we doing the play today?’ ‘Lara Pearlman, get out!’ ‘I’m gone, Mr Appleby. Okay?’ In Session Two Mr Hatherly tells us to work in pairs to improvise a dialogue on the theme of Journeys. C’mon, Hath, we did that in Year 9. We’re in Year 12 now. He tries 31

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to convince us that it’s relevant to our World Poverty theme by talking about the journey of refugees, and then he rummages around in the props cupboard while we loll on the floor, pretending to work. The drama studio is as big and black as an empty barn. It has raked seating down one end and a mobile scaffold down the other that is used to adjust the lights. Today the space feels hollow and dark. Journeys. Who cares? Oggy climbs up the scaffold and dangles the Oggyboots from the top platform. Which is dangerous and against the rules. Blake swings up after her. Damn. Why didn’t I think of that? They spend five minutes being stowaways on top of a truck and half an hour shelling peanuts and throwing them at us. I can hear her going on about the play. She’d better not talk him into something weird. Chelsea glares at Oggy and then sits and plays with her mobile while Cindy does her hair. I’d like to know what Chelsea thinks but she’s giving nothing away. Tom Novic slips into class ten minutes late. There is still a rumble going on in the props room and Hatherly doesn’t notice. Tom stands beneath the rig, craning upwards. He is tall and broad like Blake, but very skinny. His family are seasonal workers who move from farm to farm, state to state, and I bet Tom’s had as many teachers as I’ve had chockie muffins. I wonder what he’ll make of Journeys. 32

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Oggy laughs at something Blake has said. Beneath them, Tom’s eyes are full of longing before they cloud over. Then I watch him disappear without leaving the room. Tom worries me. I’ve seen him do this before and it’s weird. It’s not like old people who get lost in remembering, like Nana and her stories about living through the Depression. This is cold. It’s like he’s gone somewhere and left his body behind. Oggy peers over the rig and pelts us with peanuts. Tom stands stoic in the rain of shells. But Nathan saves me by pushing me into the dark space under the stairs, and when I look back Tom has left the studio. Nathan tells me that we are refugees escaping through tunnels across the border. It is rank under here, and tight, and we have to press up close to avoid the framework and the sticky rubbish. Nathan puts his arms around me to drag me forward. I can smell his warmth and feel the whole length of him along my side as we belly crawl through to a ring of curious faces on the other side. Nathan tells everybody our piece is based on his uncle’s escape through the sewers of Warsaw but it could represent any refugee. The Hath really likes it and says we could use it in the production. But I say nothing because I can still feel Nathan’s gentle hands urging me on. At recess I catch up with Oggy in the canteen queue. 33

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She is hammering on about maintaining high artistic standards and pursuing political goals, which is pretty rich from a girl who sat on a rig all class. The hot chips run out and we share a blueberry muffin. No chips. Hungry! In business ed I argue with Oggy about the production. I tell her the show needs a romantic interest; otherwise it’s boring. The teacher sends me off to use the old computers in the back room while Oggy gets a whippy little laptop. I swear, next life I am coming back as a pygmy. That girl gets away with everything! But why does Oggy always have to argue? What’s wrong with a story about a man who risks his life to save his lover from poverty and starvation? Okay, so the part would suit Chelsea, who is truly consumptive, a lot more than it would me. Still, I reckon I could do it. All that talk about starvation makes me hungry, so in Session Four I nick off to the shops for a pie and get caught coming back through the tennis courts by Mrs Kaye. She looks like a bag lady in an old tartan skirt and she wears a frown for comfort. They reckon her daughter’s in jail for drugs and Mrs Kaye only works to pay off the legal fees. Mrs Kaye doesn’t care that I might need a few extra working kilojoules to face the afternoon and makes me report to Student Services. I bet there were no extra pies for her little kid. 34

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After the lunch break I go to the library to find my history class. Our fabulous young history teacher got pregnant last term and is often away, so today we have Mr Appleby as a replacement. I avoid all eye contact. We’re studying the Great Depression in Australia and we squash onto the beanbags to watch a documentary about the effects of unemployment in the 1930s. Blake is sprawled on a plump orange beanbag and I plop down beside him. The beans crackle and slide and I tumble onto his Levi jeans lap. He laughs and loops his arm around my shoulders to hold me in place. Chelsea comes in late and inserts herself into the micro space of orange vinyl on Blake’s other side and anchors herself by throwing her leg over his. I feel sick. Chelsea Wilson and stale pies do not mix. The film features a family of ten who were evicted from their home and lived in a humpy in the sand dunes on the edge of town. They used recycled kerosene tins as buckets and made rugs out of rags. A girl my age with a blunt haircut and dead-looking eyes stares from the frame. She had to care for a brood of young siblings while her parents roamed the streets, looking for food and work. The children are lined up in descending order; they are pinched and shoeless and wan. Above an entrance of galvanised iron is a sign fashioned from a plank of wood and studded nails. It says Home Sweet Home. The 35

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voiceover tells us that the family ate their last meal four days ago, a meal of bread and dripping. The fatty pie sits in my belly like a lead ball. I feel bad for the dark-eyed girl and my easy life; I feel nauseous with guilt and greed. I start to tremble and, although it’s cold in here, sweat rolls down the inside of my hoodie. The lights come on. A couple of kids doodle on their pads, glassy-eyed. Mr Appleby tells us to research poverty and the Great Depression for homework. Blake hauls Chelsea to her feet and they saunter outside. I run to the toilets and vomit up my pie. Someone’s told Nathan and he stands outside the girls’ loo, holding my bag. Luckily it’s last session and everyone’s gone home, because I look awful. My face is blotchy and red, my jeans cut into my hips and my hair is plastered to my neck from dunking my head in water. When I go out into the courtyard, it’s glary and smelly from the boys’ toilets opposite, but that hasn’t deterred Nathan. He’s still waiting. His hair glints in the afternoon sun and his freckly face is all screwed up with concern and he holds my hand all the way to the petrol station on the corner of Camden Road. Just when I’m beginning to feel okay, a powder-blue Ford ute with mag wheels and a little venetian blind in the back window rumbles past. Chelsea has Blake lynched around the neck with one arm; she turns and her 36

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other hand flaps out the window in the breeze. ‘Yoohoo!’ I am stunned, so stunned that I dump Nathan’s hand, say nothing and walk off home. That was so rude of me. I bet Nathan is still standing on the corner of Camden Road, empty-handed. Somebody should call Emergency to go and get him. But it won’t be me.

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Chapter 6

If the World Health Organization were truly serious about reducing obesity in teenagers, it would ban pizza ads on TV. Who can resist a layer of molten mozzarella oozing fat through the screen? I’ve hit the white chockie bits from the baking drawer and sit with a bowl of them in the games room. Mum and Dad are going to see a rerun of Valentine’s Day at the cinema. It’s a fund-raiser for Rotary, and they’re taking my little sister Gracie. They’re going with the Youngs, and even though I know that Nathan wouldn’t actually go to see a chick flick I can’t risk facing him. I haven’t spoken to him since the hand thing, since dumping him on a street corner, so I can’t invite him to stay home with me Dad stands at the top of the stairs leading down to the garage and games room. He is holding the door open for Mum, when the phone rings. ‘Helen, leave that, we’re late.’ ‘It could be Rita. She might want to change plans.’ ‘Why? You’ve checked with her twice already.’ 38

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Mum stalks across the floor, hellos into the receiver, murmurs something and then hangs up. ‘Gracie, stop picking your nose. It was Rita. She was checking to see if we can still go in one car.’ ‘And can we?’ ‘I’m not sure. Lara! Lara, are you coming or not?’ I’m suddenly scared that the call was about Nathan and I can’t answer. ‘Where is she, Ron?’ I hear his voice catch and see those little grey bristles spring away from his throat. ‘In the games room. Helen, I’m going.’ ‘Then why doesn’t she answer me? Do you think something is up?’ Mum whispers, ‘I think I should talk to her.’ But he’s gone, two steps at a time, down to the car, and finally so is she. It’s good that they’re gone but that leaves the waves breaking on the shore, the cold and me. I hate this house at night. The people who built it had five boys, all footballers, and they entertained a lot. So they built this huge games room underneath the house, which sits on the side of Mount Gordon. They had to cut into the rock face of the hill to build it. One wall is granite and when it rains it’s foul because it stinks like the earth is sweating. My father dug water channels to redirect the flow but in really wet weather the wall weeps. 39

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Usually the end of the room disappears into another dimension because Mum makes us turn off those little halogen lights stuck in the ceiling, but right now they’re blazing and it looks like a ferris wheel. I have to keep my food off the purple suede-look lounge because it’s our best and Mum knows when there’s been a grease spill. She also knows who’s been sitting on it, from their deodorant. That woman is a bloodhound. They should take her up the mount on wet nights like this and ask her to sniff out missing children in the slimy shrubs. Sometimes I pretend I’m not alone. Tonight MisterBlake-Smells-Fantastic-Taylor is lying here, decorating the end of my sofa in his creased jeans and lace-up workboots. We share my packet of chive and onion chips because I can’t finish an economy pack all on my own. I sit up close to his fake leather jacket and scruff his hair. Then he fades back into the purple suede and wet black of the night. The emptiness pushes me outside. The night wraps me in drizzle. I can barely see five houses ahead in the rank light of the moon. I’m wearing Dad’s bomber jacket and my old canvas shoes. First I stumble over the landfill on the verge but then I pick up a rhythm, I build up speed. I pound along the crescent to the heaving breath of the ocean where it meets the shore below. Pound, draw breath and recede. Pound, recede. The whole edge 40

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of me is luminous, a cobweb of mist and light. I press my loneliness into the sleek, wet road. My hair sticks in bits to the inside of my cheeks where I suck in the night. I don’t care. I am the road, the hillside, the core of the wet earth. I am night breathing itself in and out. But then I arrive on the nature strip by the beach under a silhouette of Norfolk Pines and I am a girl blowing cold rings of air outside O’Rourke’s pub, with spikes of wet hair, hands stuffed into a bomber jacket and eyes hungry for Blake Taylor at his local hangout. Now that I’ve stopped running, I’m really cold. The wind has crept around the hill to hurl buckets of rain at me. A jasmine creeper trembles on the stone wall of the pub, loses its grip and, in the spiralling air, conducts a mad symphony of wind and rain. Through the plateglass window I see Blake lounging against the bar. Is that Chelsea Wilson giggling and rubbing up against him? She can’t be here, she’s under-age. But it is Chelsea, on spiky heels, getting a drink from the barman, who pours her one and looks away. All the Wilsons flaunt the rules but I wonder if her parents know where she is. And how come they don’t care? Inside the warm fug of safety and beer swill, Blake and his mates nurse their glasses. They sidle over to the window and see me, a mad girl clinging to a lamppost, her face a wet wreath of hair. I am soaking wet and cold. 41

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I can’t stand here any longer; I will have to go in. I run straight past Blake and his mates to the loo. Chelsea pretends not to see me, but one of their girls follows me in and hauls a mile of paper from the dispenser to sponge down my face, my hair, my jeans. She tries to make me chuck my soggy shoes in the bin and says that her bloke will give me a ride home — but that would mean I’d have to parade back through the pub, through a pool room of guys, dripping water over the tiles. Past Blake. I hear the click of wobbly heels. Hell, I bet it’s Chelsea. I hide in a cubicle and wait ages for her to flush and go. Jeez, how much did that girl drink? I spend another fifteen minutes in the Ladies and the girl — Meredith, her name is — comes and goes a few times to report on my progress. She doesn’t look so sympathetic now because I won’t waddle into the public bar to display her handiwork. The rain has stopped its drum solo on the tin roof and Meredith has gone back to the bar for a drink, so I take my chances. I squish along the tiled hall at the back of the pub and find a window I can open. It’s an old wood-framed window with fat panes of rattling glass. The window sash is broken and the frame keeps crashing down on my neck. Eventually, I hold it up with one hand, prop it open with my shoulder and then take its weight on my back while I push my cold, 42

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stiff body over the sill into Blake’s waiting arms. ‘Took you long enough. Want a lift?’ The first thing he does after he’s rammed the old Ford into reverse and pointed her up the hill is to slide his warm palm onto the inside of my thigh. OMG. We’ve skipped the chive and onion chip warm-up and gone straight to Stage Two. It’s far too dark to drool into each other’s eyes. In fact, his eyes are glued to the slick of the road as we snake up the hill. Just as well, my mother would say. But my thigh? I mean, cellulite city, bulging and wobbling to little bleats of the car as it hits each twist of kerb. There are other parts of me I’m trying to get warm, and my fantasy usually doesn’t get this far. But Blake has swung the Ford into the Lookout car park and his hand hasn’t moved. Warm and snug between the whales of my thighs. Yep. It feels pretty good. The wind drops for a moment and the moon finds a crack in the bank of cloud, its beam lighting the roughened sea. You can feel the weight of the storm pressing down on the swollen mass of islands out there in the sound. Blake lights a cigarette. Yep, single-handedly. Left hand is still doing nice methodical circles. ‘How do you reckon the play’s going?’ I ask. Crappy small talk. ‘Yeah, all right.’ Blake thumps the ashtray on the dash. It won’t open. 43

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‘Do you reckon the Hath really knows what he’s doing?’ ‘Maybe.’ Frustrated with the dash, Blake cranks open the wing window and throws his stub into the southern ocean. Then he turns to face me. Usually I play safe and this is where my movie ends, the credits roll and I flush the chip packets under the purple lounge. But Blake’s other hand is now warming itself inside my C-cup bra. He has discovered the unedited version of my fantasy, the extra spools of tape I keep under my bed. My body has its own life. It arches towards his and urges the journey of his hands. It’s not supposed to be able to flex and writhe like this. Well, Hath, how’s this for an extended impro? Blake’s lips search for my mouth and impress their urgency. It’s the bulk of him I trust. His weight balances mine. I don’t feel fat and ugly now. I feel beautiful and I dance in his arms. Two headlights crash through the cabin of the Ford and impale us to the seat. ‘Shit.’ Blake sits upright and straightens the rear-view mirror. Light bounces off the mirror and splinters the mood. ‘Blake! Blake!’ A girl’s voice screams like a gull but is swallowed up 44

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by the wind. The car door rattles. Wrenched open, it’s sucked wide by the tunnel of air and lashes against the body of the car. Wind off the Antarctic howls inside and splices us apart. ‘Shit.’ He’s mad. He’s outside, hair, hands, face wild in the headlights and the slanting rain. It’s Chelsea Wilson. Mascara streams down her face, pressed against the windscreen. He has her by the wrist but she has to see. Me. Sitting there in her place. And I see her. Squirm? No, she is laughing as she pulls away. Chelsea struts across to a waiting car, where Meredith’s bloke guns the engine and reverses out of the car park. Headlights swoop. Engine roars. Gone. And so is my evening, because Blake has the car headed up the hill. My house looms out of the side of the hill and he parks in the drive with the motor running. ‘Sorry,’ he says. But he’s not looking at me; he’s jiggling the ashtray. It opens and he checks the spring loading. A small puzzle to be solved. He gives it a thump and slams it back into place. Problem solved. He looks pleased, while I feel like plasticine that’s had a shape pressed into it. My body holds the warm impression of his. I get out in silence and walk up the path. It’s only ten-fifteen. My parents’ movie hasn’t come 45

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out yet, so I’m alone. I turn off all the lights in the games room and flick on the telly. No longer wet, but steaming, I smear myself across the purple lounge and chuck the reserve pack of chips onto the floor. Nicole Kidman is kissing someone on the screen. But the image looks small, garish, brittle in the black void of the room. I don’t hear what she says to her lover because someone is screaming. I am screaming. I am sad, furious. I punch the sofa and scream into its soft suede skin. The sound is huge. It ricochets off the natural stone wall. The hill inside our house throws the noise back. The scream is not muffled tonight, damped down with chips and chocolate. It grows. Loneliness stalks the edge of the hilltop, the perimeter of night. Savage, craven, it does not falter. It knows its quarry. My arms circle emptiness. Their feet echo on the slate tiles in the hallway above me, so I flick off the telly. ‘Come on, Gracie, it’s late.’ ‘Can I have a Milo, Mum?’ ‘No. Into bed.’ ‘Mu-u-um,’ Gracie whines down the length of the hall, but Mum ignores her. I hear my mother pause at the top of the stairs, then her heels click back to the kitchen and around the kitchen 46

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cupboards. She’s checking the shelves to see what treats I’ve had tonight. The rage in me builds to a scream again. It feels like something twisted inside out. She stops and listens and is pulled downstairs to the black games room. Gracie hovers. ‘What was that, Mum?’ ‘Nothing, Gracie. I thought I told you to get ready for bed.’ I sit three metres to her left and hug the dark. She pushes Gracie back upstairs. ‘Come on, Gracie.’ ‘Do you think someone got killed?’ ‘No! But something’s not quite right.’ ‘Maybe Lara’s dead. I’ll get Dad.’ ‘Gracie, bed!’

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Chapter 7

My mother is whispering to Rita Young, Nathan’s mother, right outside my door. Rita knows everything there is to know about everybody in Point Jerome. Who drinks, who fights, who screams the loudest and who runs away. My mother claims she doesn’t want to know this stuff but tells me all the details and then I walk around with it in my head. But today my mother is whispering about a much bigger problem: me. ‘Lara won’t get out of bed. She hasn’t been to school and she hasn’t eaten for three days.’ ‘Really, Helen? Why not?’ ‘Ron said it might be shock but I say depression.’ Why does she have to use that stupid, breathy voice like a bad stage prompt? ‘What happened? Something must have happened.’ ‘I don’t know. We often go to the movies and leave her alone.’ ‘Don’t worry. Kids sometimes do this and then they’re fine.’ 48

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‘Does Nathan do this to you?’ Do it to her? What’s it got to do with her? ‘No, but Nathan’s a boy. They feel things differently.’ No, they don’t. ‘Maybe. But she’s only drunk Darjeeling tea for three days!’ I thrust my head under the pillow. Last summer it took a four-man rescue team to push a beached whale back out to sea. Two days later it returned. Like it had a death wish. I am seventeen years old, 180 centimetres, and have a heavy build, and a wounded heart. They cannot force me to move. It drizzles the whole time. Dad comes and sits in the wicker chair. He flicks through old National Geographic magazines, stares out my window at the grey valley below and strokes my hair. Then he goes away. Gracie comes, dumps the cat on my bed, ruins my eyeliner and plays the CD that Nathan burned for me. We listen to the drummer compete with the rain on the roof. Gracie shoots rubber bands at my poster of Transmission and with every hit she says, ‘Gotcha.’ The poster gives way around the drummer’s mouth and his face is ripped in half. She stands in the doorway, picking her nose, wanting me to chase her. I can’t be bothered, so she goes away. The chorus is back and the second act is tragedy. 49

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‘Helen, you need to watch her. My sister’s girl went through a thing like this in her final year.’ ‘Was she okay?’ ‘She locked herself away for hours. They thought she was studying; turns out she was downloading music off the internet.’ Cool chick. ‘How did they find out?’ ‘In the exams, all she wrote was lyrics from the songs — no essays, just songs.’ ‘That’s terrible.’ That’s awesome. ‘She was the clever one going to do medicine. They had big hopes and, oh, the money they spent on that girl.’ ‘At least mine hasn’t locked the door.’ Hers? I can’t stand it. I fish my scrunched jeans from the end of the bed, shrug on the bomber jacket and slip out when they go to drink tea. I lope up the mount past the houses and into the scrub. I am gone by the time Gracie notices and gets Mum to the front door. Cold shadow clings to my side of the hill but the world smells bright, and on the crest a mohawk of spindly gum is burned yellow by the afternoon sun. I slide on the wet clay. My runners are muck red and I puff after days of no food, no action. It’s hard to keep my balance because I’m so dizzy. I turn right 50

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along a bush track, tramp over the exposed granite and find my perch, a pocket of rock above the bay where the world opens. The sky is fantastic. The clouds hunker up like rugby players in a mass line-up and turn the world black. Then they shuffle along a bit to let through a golden shaft of sunlight that strikes a bit of tree or paddock and paints it iridescent green. When you’re just a flyspeck on the Earth’s rotation, it’s hard to hold on to hatred. Hey, it’s three-thirty: if I go to Oggy’s, she can tell me about rehearsal. I climb around the escarpment, puff my way along Oggy’s road and look out over the town before entering her house through the back gate. Oggy’s house is a painted old lady. Her front is pretty, with heritage iron lacework and pale green gables, but from behind, rotten shingles and rusty downpipes hang off the wall at a scary angle. I brush past feathers of lavender, which circle the house and hide the stench of the drains. The front verandah is hoisted up on stilts and is very deep. Oggy lies in shadow on a cane sofa and flicks through a magazine. Jean has her back to us. She stabs at a music score with her bow and prepares the fingering of a violin piece, pressing it into shape for her next student. The music, the clutter, the dusty verandah, their joint contentment — for a moment I feel jealous. I’ve never seen my mother quietly absorbed. I can’t interrupt and so 51

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I turn back along the path, but Oggy sees me. She grabs a folder and swings off the verandah. She yells to her mum that we’re going into town and hustles me through the front gate. Jean nods through the soaring strings and marks the page. Her left foot hasn’t lost a beat. Oggy’s trim little body clambers down the slope in her favourite jeans, a singlet top and a strawberry beret. It starts to drizzle and her back pimples with cold but she doesn’t stop. Oggy’s pants once belonged to Jean and are threadbare. Back in the days when Jean went on tour with some top bands, they scrawled their names on the bum. Oggy reckons one says The Clash, but I can’t see it. Although Oggy’s head only comes to my shoulder, she moves fast along the drain on the tilting land. I stumble on the wet clay, trying to keep up, still dizzy from the lack of food, and I’m confused because Point Jerome lies behind us under its damp cloak and we’re not heading into town at all but down to the flats. ‘Where’re we going, Oggy?’ ‘Blake’s.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Gotta give him this.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘Notes from the Hath.’ ‘Why didn’t you tell Jean? What’s the big deal?’ ‘Nothing. It’d take too long to explain. Okay, I said 52

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that because I thought you might not come. I thought you might chicken out.’ Blake. Oh, no, not on an empty belly and in last week’s clothes. I wonder if he’s thought about the other night. Maybe he liked it but had to leave because he had to go somewhere. Then why didn’t he say something? I definitely shouldn’t go. Yes, I should. All the agony thoughts of the past three days whiz around my foodstarved brain while the Oggy-boots stamp ahead, Blake! Blake! Blake! They leave me no time to rehearse what I should say. Blake. Oh, I really want to see him. Down past the roundabout on Camden Road we turn into a yard and left into a shed. It’s a motorbike graveyard of twisted metal body parts; the ribs of a motor lie on top of mangled handlebars. I bet somebody died on those. It smells of sump oil, rusted metal and dust. It’s cold but the carnage makes it even colder. What are we doing here? Oggy prowls along the mounds of metal till she spots him, a man kneeling in a pool of oil, tinkering with a gear chain. This man really wasn’t what I expected. I thought Blake’s dad would be blond and powerful in a sharp navy suit. I got powerful right, at least. This lanky man with knotted hands and curling ponytail has limbs jointed like a stallion, but his greatest power is his silence. Oggy fills us up with words: ‘Hi, Dan — this’s Lara, 53

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m’best friend — don’t s’pose Blake’s around — got something for him from the Hath — I mean, Mr Hatherly the drama teacher gave me this bit of script for Blake — just go up and see him, eh?’ Dan places the links in order on a piece of newspaper, wipes his hands on a folded towel and considers us for a minute. Then he decides. His fists are as big as bowling balls and swing along his thighs as he strides up to the house. The cottage floats in swamp lilies and I don’t think I want to go inside if it’s like the shed, but I’m shocked: the interior is immaculate. We stand in the kitchen, with its raw wood floors and tabletop of scrubbed flowery lino. Everything shines. There is not a spot of grease on the old firewood range, not a cup out of line on the sideboard. Dan puts on the kettle and cuts a slab of fruitcake into chunks. We sit and wait obediently and look at the model bikes mounted lovingly on the walls. Tea’s poured, cake’s cut, cigarette’s lit, ritual’s done. Still no Blake, but Oggy won’t let up. ‘Hey, Dan, ya reckon ya could give this to Blake for us? It’s pretty important and I reckon he’d want to have a look at it before tomorrow ’cause it’s for the play.’ Dan’s legs stretch out straight from the wooden chair and he picks a strand of tobacco from his smile with clean nails. He chuckles and his handlebar moustache grows across his face. His teeth are fabulous. Fat white piano 54

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keys. His teeth smile, his eyes smile, his eyebrows grin. Shock number two: Dan’s young. Well, no older than Hatherly. Say thirty-two, thirty-three. Dan points to the clock — it shows four-fifteen — and then at the door. But I’m too busy trying to calculate how old I think Dan must have been when he became a father to notice that the doorframe is occupied. I’ve got it and I have to say it. ‘You were seventeen. Wow! Seventeen, as old as me.’ I’m totally awed. But Dan doesn’t look at me. He looks proudly at the handsome youth that now fills the room, the youth glowering down at me. Dan still hasn’t glanced my way, but now I’ve got it all because Blake is speaking into Dan’s eyes with his hands. Shock number three: Dan can’t hear a word we say. Oggy and Blake have decided it’s raining too hard to go to the drama studio to rehearse. They’ve decided to sit at the scrubbed kitchen table and read the script while Dan chops vegies at the sink. They’ve decided to fall in love right there in front of me. Or at least that’s what I think later, but right now I’m trying to follow their ideas on bits of straggly paper with ugly words and weird pictures that they arrange on the flowered lino. There’s a gruesome article on the cholera epidemic 55

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in Zimbabwe, another on starvation in a refugee camp, and pictures everywhere of swollen-bellied children playing in swamps, garbage dumps, cardboard shanties. The papers, with their battered bodies and anguished tales, lie strewn across the table. Oggy pushes them gently into place like fallen petals. Blake chews his lip. He picks up a news photo of an Afghan mother standing over the corpses of her four sons. He fits it into place next to Michelangelo’s Pièta, Mother Mary holding Jesus in her lap, and Oggy says ‘Yes’ a lot. But to me it’s a blind white puzzle. All the pieces look the same, all meaningless in their appalling suffering. I don’t get any of it. ‘What’s this about, Oggy?’ ‘The play.’ ‘What’s the Afghan war got to do with it?’ ‘Everything.’ Oggy cuts out photos and glues them onto paper. ‘But I thought we were focusing on poverty.’ ‘War is about poverty — and loss of power.’ ‘But we can’t improvise this. It’s way too hard. We should make it all Australian and then we can sing and stuff. Blake, don’t you want to sing anymore?’ Blake laughs. ‘Um, do you?’ ‘Yeah. Why not? What is this?’ Oggy sighs. ‘These are real stories about poverty and 56

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suffering. These people are modern martyrs.’ ‘What?’ ‘These people live in terrible conditions. Lots of them made big sacrifice for their families.’ I pick up the photo of an old man who straddles his son’s back on a dirt road as they escape their wartorn village and claw their way to freedom. His face has collapsed around his toothless jaws and his eyes are vacant. He doesn’t look like a martyr to me, just shit scared. ‘My grandmother was a child in the Depression and it was terrible. She got separated from her family. Look, Oggy, we shouldn’t make it too heavy.’ ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ ‘Am I still in it?’ ‘Um, dunno.’ ‘I was only away for three days. Who else are you going to get to do it? Not Chelsea.’ I see Blake look away. ‘She sings like a sick canary.’ I see Blake grin. Maybe I should slap him. ‘What’s wrong, Lara? Can’t you see this is going to be really interesting?’ ‘What did Hatherly say?’ ‘Yeah, he’s cool. He said he likes it.’ ‘I don’t.’ Through the rain I can see Blake’s blue Ford ute 57

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parked in the driveway. I want to crawl onto its vinyl seats and feel safe. I don’t want to watch this parade of the wounded, the dying, the maimed. I didn’t come here to be confronted by all this. I came to find out how Blake feels. But I can see how he feels. He’s totally wrapped up in this orgy of suffering. It’s like I’m at Nana’s again, being forcefed chocolate doughnuts while my mother watches. Lara, eat something. Please eat. Mother, why did you give those to Lara? The doctor said no chocolate. Better she eats until she bursts than go through what I had to. Lara, how many have you had? Leave her, Helen. I like to watch her eat. When I was her age we ate rats. Dan tidies the sink as Blake hands Oggy the stories to paste onto cardboard for a storyboard. Blake and Oggy fit together in a cocoon of tenderness. They feel for these people that they’ve never met. I am invisible and so is Dan. They don’t see me dissolve into the lino to become the people in their pictures. Forlorn, listless, starving. I am that girl in a torn pinafore, fourth in line at the soup kitchen, holding my little sister’s hand and an empty pannikin. With numb hands I pick up the photo of a family who have been evicted from their home. The windows are 58

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boarded up and their possessions lie in bundles on the pavement. Their faces are empty of hope and belonging. I rip the picture into four strips then I glue them like the bars of a jail across the face of a woman. She is imprisoned inside her suffering. ‘Cool,’ whispers Blake. Oggy is excited. ‘We could do that. We could project these images while you tell your grandmother’s story.’ But there is no glory in martyrdom, only endless suffering, and I don’t want to tell these stories. I cannot separate myself from these people and do not want to play them. I want to do something beautiful and strong. My head is spinning with hunger and fear and I am alarmed by Oggy and Blake’s closeness. I want to tell them to stop but the words won’t come, so I push at the wood slab table. I want to tip it over but it’s too heavy, so I slash at the pages with madwoman arms. Cardboard, glue, photos, script with ripped edges storm across the room. ‘Stop her, Blake. Stop her!’ Oggy dashes past me to catch her maimed babies before they plummet to the floor and Blake grabs at me to save the family of suffering that I grind underfoot. I’m furious. ‘You can’t do this!’ ‘Get over it.’ Oggy’s anger is precise and cold. Her look is withering. ‘We can’t play World Poverty as a crappy pantomime.’ 59

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‘No. I know that.’ ‘Or a romance.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because we want to do something that really makes a statement, something that hits hard. And Hatherly is behind it.’ ‘So you talked him out of doing a story.’ ‘What are you getting so upset about? We’re just creating a starting point. Jeez, Lara, you are so stubborn.’ ‘I’m stubborn?’ ‘Yes. What are you so afraid of?’ I look at their crumpled pages of grief and pain, at the woman in her jail of suffering, at Oggy nestled under Blake’s arm, and feel powerless to change any of it. I have nothing to say. Dan’s eyes flicker from me to Blake to the mess strewn floor. Dan grips my arm and marches me across the slushy yard to a room at the back of his shed, where he sits me gently on the floor. I feel it; the wooden floor vibrates. There are two huge sound woofers pumping out the bass. The place is littered with body-building equipment, all homemade from machine parts, bulky and impressive. He gestures to the equipment and I sit down in the rowing machine. He helps to strap me in but my arms yank uselessly at the bars. He loosens the springs, then claps his hands in slow time till I pick up the beat. I am rowing 60

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my way to freedom across a river of fury against a tide of weird friends and starving people. By the time I leave, my throat is hoarse, my shoulders ache, but at last I am empty. When I get home, I see my mother has cornered Nathan in the games room with a slice of nut strudel, her weapon of mass destruction, and she’s whining at him: ‘I just don’t know, Nathan. You think it’s the school? I said to Ron from the beginning we should send her to the city for high school. But no. He didn’t want her to board, said it was better we stay together as a family, but you see how much she likes us. First she starves herself to death, and then she runs away. You think I should give her another five minutes? Okay. Five-thirty, but that’s it, then I’m calling the police. I don’t care if it isn’t dark. She’s not well. What do you mean, maybe I shouldn’t say that? Not well is not well. I can’t wait, I’m calling … Lara, darling, where have you been?’ I try to duck up the stairs but Nathan leaps in front of me, his mouth clamped shut over those delicate sheaths of pastry and honeyed nut. He glares at me and I am forced to sit down. He licks at a moustache of icing sugar and pushes his plate away with some difficulty. ‘Hi.’ I wipe the sweat off my skin with my sleeve. ‘Hi.’ Nathan looks truly relieved. 61

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I pick up the fork to toy with the strudel but Mum edges the plate daintily away. ‘Dinner soon. Where were you?’ ‘Weight training. Do I stink?’ Nathan grins and swings on his chair. ‘Don’t worry about it. The Apeman sprung a test and it’s tomorrow.’ ‘Oh no!’ Nathan yanks a crushed worksheet out of his bag. ‘Don’t stress. I brought over some sample questions that we can go over.’ ‘Thanks, Nathan.’ Mum picks up the remains of the strudel and sweeps crumbs onto the plate. ‘Nathan can stay for dinner so you can study. But you better get moving.’ The strudel will be served later with dollops of cream and oily forgiveness, my mother’s specialty.

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Chapter 8

Mr Hatherly leans against the lamppost we used for Sweet Charity, with his arms wrapped around his chest to scratch his shoulder blade. Thoughtfully. Though saying little, he is working the room. ‘Watch the Hath,’ whispers Nathan. ‘Who do you reckon he is?’ ‘Whadda ya mean?’ ‘Watch him.’ Hatherly has asked Blake and Oggy to show the class the images they’ve put together as a starting point for thematic exploration and to explain their ideas. They tell us that they want to produce an edgy docudrama in Brechtian style. They lost me back at docudrama and half the class, too, but there’s more. It’s all going to be about corporate greed and the sacrifice of the common people. Thus all notions of tragic love and twisted fate have been officially scrapped for this junk pile of human suffering. I am utterly devastated. The Hath shifts his position to cross his ankles and 63

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run long white fingers through his thinning hair. Nathan leans in. ‘He’s Johnny Depp.’ ‘Nah, Russell Crowe in State of Play.’ Mr Hatherly stares intensely at the class, brow puckered. ‘James Dean,’ we say in unison. Nathan and I punch each other. ‘Jinx!’ Oggy and Blake hand out photocopies of their work. Kids sprawl against their bags and turn the page upside down to look at the images and read the comments. People react strongly to my woman trapped behind bars, but Blake and Oggy don’t even look at me. Mr Hatherly squats on his heels next to a group of girls and reels off the places of political injustice. Now he’s called for silence with outstretched arms. He has shifted to his knees and his voice rings as he talks about world suffering, theatre as a political weapon and our right to have our say. He begs us to consider the idea of creating a piece of political theatre. Hatherly gets in prayer position to intone, ‘Suffering, Inequality, Sacrifice.’ There’s a reverent pause. The class draws breath. Mrs Kaye enters and interrupts Hatherly, who is still on bended knee. Nathan says ‘Revival Meeting’ too loudly and Oggy glares at us. But the Hath is up, directing. ‘You all know Mrs Kaye. 64

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She’s here to help us with the props and costumes. Now get into groups. Pick one image or a story that resonates with you and use it as a basis for an improvisation. You have fifteen minutes. C’mon, people, we have work to do!’ Oggy and Blake huddle over the pictures with Chelsea Wilson and Cindy Lee. They keep their backs to me. Tom Novic goes and sits on a big oblong stage block. He takes his MP3 player out of his bag, puts in his earplugs and stares into space. He doesn’t move. The air around him is cold; his long limbs and stinky runners crumple beneath him. Nathan chucks his bag and lies down next to Tom. He draws a moustache on my paper prisoner. I sit on Tom’s other side. We reach across and around Tom and scribble on the picture. It’s pretty silly but Tom begins to thaw. He giggles and sways between us. Then Nathan grabs the paper and writes frantically. He isn’t joking anymore. But our fifteen minutes are up. ‘Hell, Nathan, what are we going to do?’ ‘This.’ ‘What is this?’ ‘Well, look at us. We’re three people trying to fill in time in a big empty room. Get it?’ ‘No. What do you mean?’ ‘I think being really poor would feel like this. Kind of 65

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empty and lost. Look, I’ve got an idea. I wrote it down. Just sit there, Lara.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Shut up, it’s our turn.’ Chelsea has kicked off her shoes and lies with her head in Cindy’s lap. Blake and Oggy shuffle their papers while Tom and I crouch on the stage blocks in front of the scattered class. Nathan gives Tom’s music to Mrs Kaye to play as an intro. She puts it over the PA — Symphonic Metal. Nathan stands on the block and we sit quite still for a count of ten. Then the music goes down and Nathan speaks: ‘We are poor. We are cold, starving and dirt poor. We sit and wait with empty hands and pebble bellies. We wait like millions of refugees and homeless people around the world who’ve been deserted by their leaders and savaged by war. We wait for people to see and hear, accept and help us.’ An uneasy quiet has settled on the sprawl of bodies in front of the blocks. Nathan shifts his weight but Tom is immobile. I peer at Tom, at the hoop of his spine, at his soul bowed inward, and try to gauge his mood. Something worries me and I tug at Nathan’s shirt to make him sit down. But he carries on, oblivious. ‘You don’t see us. You don’t want to see us. Well, here we are, living in cars and camps and crappy boarding 66

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houses. We do it hard in your town and on your streets. We go to your school and sit in your class and breathe the same air and you still pretend we’re invisible. Well, guys, wake up. See us. Help us. Make us feel at home.’ Nathan sits down. Tom still has the empty plugs in his ears and stares at the class. The music rises and swells, the class shifts uncomfortably, but Tom does not move. His bony chest rises and falls and he looks scared and exposed. Hatherly starts to clap but the sound falters in the hollow room. Shocked, Aimee Robinson jerks her head up, and then goes back to drawing fat black tears on her folder. Chelsea pretends to sleep in Cindy’s lap. Oggy and Blake turn awkwardly away. Nobody can look at Tom because in the silence his eyes won’t rest. The siren goes. Kids stuff their journals into their bags and stream out the door. I stand up. ‘What was that? Was it about Tom? That was awful, Nathan.’ ‘Good,’ he says. ‘People should know that there’s more to World Poverty than war zones and refugee camps. They have to know what they’re getting into.’ He goes to Tom and hauls him to his feet. Oggy and Blake bend over the litter of sheets left on the chairs. Mrs Kaye talks gently to Tom as she hands him 67

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back his player. She frowns at Nathan and jiggles her keys, and then she ushers Tom into the bright courtyard. ‘C’mon, Lara, it’s maths. You get to find out what a fantastic coach I am.’ Behind us Mr Hatherly is doing the hard sell on Oggy and Blake’s egos. ‘That was a great session, guys. Great. I really like the direction you’re moving us in. Yes, it was hard, but good work is hard. Stick with it, guys. You’re worried about Tom? I think he’ll be okay. I’ll talk to him before next session. We should work on individual stories next. See where you can take us. Great work, guys.’ Nathan nudges me out the door. ‘Who do you reckon he is now?’ ‘President Bush with a touch of Sale of the Century.’ ‘Nah. Pure Hath.’ I complete the whole maths test. Yep, the whole thing. I can’t believe it. I check it and hand it in early. The Apeman has a bad cold. He shuffles through his bag for a lozenge and flicks through my test paper. His red pen hovers like a wasp, his eyes dodge past me, trying to assess my position for cheating, but I slouch under the window in a sea of empty, broken desks. Outside my window the day is bright and warm and some kids have started to filter on to the oval for lunch. The Year 10 boys 68

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bash a footy around the field and yell at the Year 8 girls to get out of the bloody way. I stretch my legs in a patch of light over a gash in the carpet and watch the dust motes swirl. The lightning hand of Mr Appleby moves across my paper. Tick. Tick. Tick. Hover. Twitch. Hand vibrates. Neck muscles cramp like a bull terrier. MMMmmm. Tick. Yes! I swear his lips are smiling, though his eyes are not as I leave the room. At lunch, Nathan and I celebrate. The junior school shares our canteen and we bribe Gracie, at the head of the canteen queue, to bring us two greasy cheeseburgers and Coffee Chills. They shouldn’t be selling these, according to the Helen Pearlman bible of nutrition, but I have sport next session and can afford the calories. Our bench is on the far side of the quad under a marri tree, where you can see everything but don’t have to be part of it. Gracie hangs around our bench, playing handball with Nathan, hoping to be seen. But we’re too well screened and soon she gets distracted and runs back to her friends. Tom Novic stands with the gardener opposite us and tears at a vegemite roll with his teeth while he kicks big gumnuts off the path. The gardener catches them on his rake and scrapes them into a pile. ‘Hey, Nathan, I truly aced that test.’ ‘Yep.’ 69

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‘I owe you.’ ‘Yep.’ ‘I’d offer you half my cheeseburger but I’ve already finished it.’ ‘No problem, because the market price for coaching, plus additional mother handling, has gone up.’ ‘Hell, Nathan, what is it this time?’ ‘Nut cake at recess for the rest of term and you can help me set the lights for this show.’ ‘Good one.’ Oggy perches at the end of our bench and tries to sort her file. She looks pinched and irritable. I know she doesn’t eat breakfast before school and I didn’t see her at the canteen for lunch, so I push the rest of my Coffee Chill towards her. She drinks it without comment and without looking up. Blake shifts in beside her and stares up at a magpie strutting along a low branch. ‘Hey, Oggy, you’re in a good position to get shat on here.’ ‘Actually, Blake, I get shat on every day. Know anything about bank loans?’ ‘Depends what you want it for. Your mother would have to go guarantor.’ ‘Jean? Yeah, right. Maybe I should rob the bank.’ ‘You can borrow my Ned Kelly mask.’ ‘Thank you. That’s really helpful.’ 70

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‘Why do you want a loan?’ Oggy shakes the empty coffee carton, draws rough air through the straw, then stamps the carton flat. Something about her worries me, but I get hit in the knee by one of Tom’s gumnuts and have to move away. ‘Hey, Tom, watch it.’ I hobble to the other bench. ‘Why is he always with the gardener?’ Nathan makes room. ‘That’s his uncle.’ Oggy scoops up her file and stuffs it in her bag. ‘How do you know?’ ‘From Nathan’s mum, Rita. She’s the Point Jerome Chronicle,’ I say. ‘Oggy, do you want me to come to the bank with you?’ ‘To speak to your dad?’ ‘Yeah. It might help.’ ‘Sure. Meet you there after school?’ My knee is throbbing and I turn to yell something at Tom but he has gone and so has Oggy.

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Chapter 9

At the bottom of Duke Street, gulls chip into the ragged face of the bay. I kick down the hill towards the bank, where Oggy sulks under an ugly greatcoat, trying to escape the cold. She stamps her boots on the pavement to force blood to her feet and then rocks with her back to the wind. Oggy is as ruffled as the bay. She must have given up waiting for me because she tramps around the corner of the bank, past the blade of the wind, and through the swish of electronic doors. I’m now just a few metres behind her and follow her into my father’s bank. ‘Hey, Oggy, I made it.’ ‘Hi Lara. Do you think your dad will really give me a loan?’ ‘I don’t know but I can speak to him.’ ‘Does he know that we’re here?’ I can see my father working in his office. The crown of his head is visible above the frosted glass. ‘Not yet. But he might be able to help if it’s important. 72

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Can you tell me why you need the loan?’ ‘Not really.’ ‘Oggy, I’m trying to help.’ ‘Just stuff, okay? Look, maybe I’ll try by myself first.’ And she joins the queue, leaving me by the entrance. The line shuffles forward and yawns. A bloke in stubbies watches the teller count his weekly pay and a teller chats to a pensioner in the next bay. Behind them, Oggy itches at the head of the queue and waits for their hunched backs to move on. I watch a mother jiggle a whimpering baby and wonder what I am doing here; then I join Oggy in the queue. In booth five, Magda’s attention flickers across the screen, her fingers count notes in deft clicks, her eyes remark, unseeing, on the crowd. Behind her a poster advertises home loans to smiling parents stippled over a new house, to retirees laughing across a fountain. The poster shouts, ‘WHY NOT YOU?’ Oggy wraps the awful coat twice around her and steps up to the booth. ‘Good afternoon.’ Magda spreads her poppy pink lips in an oily smile. ‘Please enter your PIN.’ Oggy jiggles the card in her hand. ‘No.’ Magda’s poppy pinks fuse and part, her eyes are startled. ‘I can’t make a withdrawal without your PIN.’ ‘I haven’t got anything to withdraw.’ ‘Then how can I help you?’ 73

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‘I want a loan.’ ‘You will have to speak to the manager, though I must warn you that you’ll need references and security.’ Magda purses her rosy bow and clicks the nails of her thumb and index fingers, an insect finishing off its meal. Oggy sinks into the coat but does not move. Magda looks up, bored, and searches for the manager. Oggy drops her head but I know this is not surrender. She is bolted to the counter. They are interrupted by a soft footfall, subtle yet close. I feel the man glide past, a tall, liquid figure wrapped in a bulky coat. He presses his hooded face against Oggy and I glimpse a stocking mask beneath the hood. I connect with her body and feel the man’s warm breath on her cheek and the pressure of his grip on her waist. There’s something gentle but decisive about his hold, and Oggy does not flinch as he slides the blade of a knife against her throat to point at Magda. My father thrusts past the glass partition, white with shock, but is forced to his knees. The rest of us break in a wave against the walls and drop to the floor. I squirm forward to see Magda’s face drain and her breath turn rancid. Oggy flushes with delight. The man gestures but doesn’t speak, and Oggy speaks for him. ‘Get the money.’ 74

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How smooth, how sweet, for Oggy to see Magda tremble over her bankrolls, to see her humiliated and stripped of her cash. A plump calico bag is handed over. See how easy it is, Maggy! ‘Is that everything?’ Magda nods. In a neat ballroom manoeuvre, Oggy’s partner pivots her away from the teller and backs her to the door. They are dancers in a liquid tango, fused at the hip, never missing a beat in the undertow of rhythm coursing through the room, through our heartbeats. Oggy is ushered outside and I leap to the door. Through the glass I watch him throw her to the pavement. The man races off and a car engine roars out of view. My father yells at me: ‘Keep down, Lara, stay put!’ His face is ashen. I turn back and see Oggy roll into the gutter and a cop car swerve into Duke Street. I run outside and pull her upright. ‘Oggy, Oggy, are you all right?’ ‘Hell no, I didn’t get his number.’ The next hour at the police station is gruelling. Oggy says she is fine but drinks a lot of coffee and whispers that she can still feel the man’s hand on the small of her back. But she doesn’t say any more and I’m not sure if she can’t talk or doesn’t want to. I have to wait for two awful hours 75

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while the police interview her and take her statement. It’s dusk when they let her go. Then it’s my turn with the very thorough Officer Nameen. ‘No, Officer, I’ve never seen the man before and neither has Oggy. Yes, sir, I will just answer the question, but you’ve asked me that five times and I’m telling you: Oggy came out of the bank and … what? Yeah, Ogden is her real name. She was named after Ogden Nash, the poet. Yes, I guess it’s weird but so is — how do you pronounce that — N-a-meen? No, I’m not trying to be rude but I was supposed to meet a friend an hour ago and I’m telling you we are not bank robbers. I mean, my father is the manager of that branch. Yes, sir, I know strange things happen and you’re only doing your duty but, look, I’m tired. Okay? Can I go now? Please?’ I lick cold beads of coffee from the paper cup and wait for Dad, still in the chief’s office. He comes out at last and stands shaking the officer’s hand, and then we tramp through the darkening streets, past the empty bank, to his car. Wind stirs the shopfront awnings, but inside the car the air is very still. ‘Lara, you told the police everything, right?’ ‘Yes, Dad.’ ‘And Oggy still lives on the hill above town?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How long have they lived there?’ 76

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‘Since late last year. They rent, Dad. It isn’t easy.’ ‘Has her mother found work?’ ‘She teaches violin, Dad! I’m telling you, they’re good people. They do it tough but Oggy does not rob banks.’ ‘I’d like to visit them.’ ‘Now? Oh, okay. How much did the bank lose?’ ‘About ten thousand dollars. Not much, considering. Lara, I don’t think I’ll tell Mum tonight.’ ‘All right.’ ‘Which house is it?’ ‘It’s the one with the deep verandah. Turn left here.’ I knock about four times on Oggy’s front door but nobody answers. Through the window, we can see CDs spilling from a pine table into the muddle of music scores and teacups that camp beside it. We listen to Jean’s Six O’Clock torturing Brahms. None of Jean’s students has a name, just a time: ‘I’m really pleased with Five O’Clock, her fingering has improved. I might put her and SixThirty in the eisteddfod this year.’ The front door is not locked, so I pull Dad inside. A synthetic sea of fibrous grey carpet twists as if electrified by a storm. A busted sofa cowers along the wall and wobbles, scared. Pulped cushions litter the floor. Five-Thirty’s little brother has been in here playing rock and roll. The air still gyrates and nothing settles in the room. Dad looks uncomfortable. 77

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Oggy wanders in from the kitchen with a plate of vegemite toast and drops onto the sofa. She is still wearing the awful coat. She arranges the toast soldiers on her plate and licks her fingers between bites. ‘Oh, it was you knocking. Sorry. I thought it was SixThirty at the door. His mum’s got five kids and she drops him off early. I’m the entertainment.’ Dad looks away from the greasy lounge, towards the practice room. ‘Is your mother available?’ ‘She’ll be here in a minute.’ Oggy offers him a bit of toast but he declines. I hope she doesn’t act too weird around my father. We wait for Jean, on the verandah, to give her student some final pointers and come inside. I watch Oggy eat; she holds the plate of vegemite toast in her left hand but has her right arm pinned to her ribs, which forces her to move her mouth down to the food. At first I think it’s because her coat is too heavy and that she can’t move properly, but then she pumps her right arm. I wonder if Dad has noticed but he’s impatient and has gone to the verandah to talk to Jean. I flop down beside Oggy. I smell little boy wetness and old rubber sneakers in the pit of the lounge and wish that Jean would make her students wait outside. I wish even more that Oggy could be ordinary for five minutes. ‘Oggy, what is it?’ 78

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‘Nothing.’ I try to pull her arm away from her chest, but this is a mistake. The sofa rocks drunkenly on its three legs, and a bit of soggy Sao worms its way up through the cushions and sticks to my pants. ‘That was pretty wild today.’ ‘Yep.’ She’s concentrating on her arm. ‘I wonder if they’ll catch him.’ ‘Hope not. That guy was cute.’ ‘How can you say that? He was wearing a hood with slits.’ Oggy sits entombed in the dreadful coat, her fingers wiggling and worrying at something in the lining. ‘Oggy, what are you doing?’ Jean usually roams around between students, revising the fingering of a phrase of music, but not today. Jean is awake and attentive when she marches in from the verandah, hauls Oggy up from the rubble of the lounge and starts to interrogate her. ‘Oggy, what’s happening?’ ‘What do ya mean?’ ‘The police left a message and Ron told me you were involved in a robbery.’ Oggy has located a lump over her left breast. She is trying to move the lump from the outside by pressing on the fabric, and the thing slides smoothly inside its satin 79

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casing. It looks like a small animal, forming a hillock as it burrows across the landscape of brown wool. Jean looks on, fascinated. The coat has vast shoulders, fat lapels, giant buttons, and has swallowed Oggy whole. ‘Where on earth did you get that coat? It’s so old, it must weigh a tonne. Oggy, you have to tell me when you’re in trouble. I know you’re independent, really too independent, and that’s my fault, but I’m still here. Oggy, you’re ignoring me.’ Dad stands at the door, looking awkward. ‘Lara, I should call Mum. I’ll wait in the car. Don’t be long.’ Jean is begging. ‘I know we haven’t been able to afford enough of the good stuff that you kids like, but please, Oggy.’ Then a hanky pops out of the coat and onto the sofa, no longer part of Oggy’s flesh. Jean can hardly bear to touch it. It must have sat in the lining of the coat for years. She pincers the balled hanky hardened with sweat and snot and shoots it through to the kitchen. This gives Oggy a minute to knead another lump into a safe corner of the coat before Jean falls down beside her and squeezes her hard. I gape at her and wonder what she’s up to. Oggy puts a finger to her lips to silence me over her mother’s shoulder. I have nothing to say because I’ve already seen enough today and make my way fast to the door. 80

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‘See ya, Lara.’ ‘Maybe.’ Our car arcs around the lake, pressed like a glassy pebble into the swathe of bush, and shoots up the side of the hill into dusk. Mum stands on the balcony of our house but doesn’t wave. Her fine profile is etched blue in the fading light, and behind her a flock of black cockatoos lifts from the dead fingers of a gum tree to chase the moon across the sky. The electronic garage door slides open and the car burrows into the hillside. Our feet echo in the cavity of hewn stone. At the top of the stairs, the door opens and the spill of home cooking and firelight ushers us home. Little sisters and TV do not mix. Gracie has stopped scratching a scab long enough to whine. ‘Why can’t we watch it, Lara?’ ‘Because it’s crap.’ ‘No, it’s not, it’s funny.’ ‘Trust me. A grown man who still needs his mummy is not funny.’ ‘My teacher likes it.’ ‘When you’re my age, you’ll find out how pathetic he really is.’ ‘I don’t want to be your age. Ever. You’re mean and grumpy. Hey, Dad, can I watch it?’ 81

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‘No, Gracie. What time’s the news, Lara?’ ‘Local news was on at six. Try the ABC.’ ‘Why can’t I find the news? Has somebody changed the settings?’ ‘You’ve got the wrong remote, Dad.’ ‘Gracie, don’t grab at the controls. I have to catch something important.’ ‘Do you mean the bit with you and the cops? Mum already taped it.’ ‘Mum saw it?’ ‘Yeah. Now can I watch Everybody Loves Raymond?’ ‘No, I want to see Four Corners.’ On tonight’s show we look at the number of illegal boats of refugees trying to enter our waters. We talk to the father of a family of five who embarked on this perilous journey and whose effort cost him all his savings and the life of his youngest child. ‘How can anybody be that desperate?’ ‘Lots of people are desperate, Lara. Look what happened today.’

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Chapter 10

Okay, Blake, Oggy, Mr Hath, you want a piece of agitprop, political theatre, you want something gritty, honest and thoroughly in your face? Okay, you’re on. But it has to be just Blake and me, exclusively. I wish I could call Nana; she knew loads of old communist songs and wartime tunes. Nana in action was the queen of the wicked lyric and juicy move. She tried to teach me but Mum always got in the way. Oggy reckons that Jean played in every cabaret bar across Europe. I bet Jean has something I can use. I trot up the hill to visit her and choke on a lump of orange cake with blue rum icing that she offers over a table covered with old tapes and press clippings. Here’s Jean in London busking on the Tube. Here she is, playing fiddle on a bridge in Amsterdam, her hair fanning out across the cloud-striped sky while her companion drags his accordion apart. His mouth is a black ‘O’ of frozen song. Jean flips a tape across the table. ‘What about doing 83

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“Another Day in Paradise”? That’s about homelessness. Plenty of suffering there.’ ‘Who wrote it?’ ‘Phil Collins. It was an international hit.’ ‘Dunno. It looks kind of old.’ ‘You mean tatty. We recorded it as a cover on the cheap but the singer’s marvellous. I think it might be what you’re looking for.’ ‘What’s the song about?’ ‘Well, there’s a homeless girl who calls out to a man on the street because she’s cold and has nowhere to sleep. The man ignores her and looks the other way. So the song challenges all of us living in comfort to stop and “look twice”. I’m thinking it would complement that scene you did with Nathan.’ ‘Did Oggy tell you? What did she say?’ ‘Just that you did something about the homeless.’ I’m sure Oggy said a whole lot more than that, but if the song can make sense of my scene with Nathan and Tom then it’s worth listening to. ‘Okay.’ ‘This recording is a lot rougher than the original because we wanted a textured, acoustic sound. Now that could really work well for you onstage and then you could get everyone to do the chorus. Wait, I’ll put it on.’ The piano and singer rollick into the afternoon and 84

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spill their rasping melody on to the verandah. Beside me, Jean takes her violin from its velvet cloth and nestles it beneath her chin. The violin leaches into the recorded sound and takes over. It loops like fencing wire between the posts of the past and the present and I drift on the melancholic melody to dusty streets of need. A plaintive voice joins the violin and it’s Oggy, tilting her chin and fluting the words. For a moment Jean and Oggy are street performers. Oggy has her arm hooked around her mother’s waist and their profiles flatten into the sepia grain of memory. The music stops and they look so alive, fused together in the autumn light, so utterly sure of this brilliant moment and their place in it. I try to imagine Mum and me in that pose, but can’t. I would dwarf Mum and she wouldn’t stay still, captivated by the creative moment; she’d be off with her broom in a cleaning frenzy, attacking the clutter of leaves and paper that swirls across the verandah. ‘Let’s do it, Lara. Let’s do that song.’ ‘In the play?’ ‘We’ll get everybody to do it.’ But I don’t want to. I came here to find a solo and now I wish I hadn’t come. Oggy’s head bobs on her reedy neck. I could step over and snap it off like a dandelion, I could blow her black tufts of hair around the garden and let 85

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them catch on the rough buffalo grass. I want to run away. Oggy drags me into her room, where a mound of blue and gold cake waits for us alongside the thing I really don’t want to think about. She shows it to me, the thing I know exists, the thing I don’t want to see. Her tiny hands ease open the knots on the hanky and it plops onto the bed between us, a fat greasy roll of banknotes. ‘Wow, Oggy.’ ‘Yeah, I know. It’s wild. After the hold-up, the guy threw it to me from his car.’ ‘How come I didn’t see that?’ ‘Because you were still inside when the car came back. And he threw it in the gutter.’ ‘Oh. So that’s why you ended up there.’ She shrugs. ‘How much do you reckon it is?’ But I don’t want to touch it. ‘Haven’t you counted it yet?’ ‘I can’t.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because then I’ll keep it.’ ‘You don’t want to?’ ‘That’s somebody’s money, some shop girl or farmer.’ ‘What are you going to do?’ ‘Dunno. Have they found out anything?’ ‘Why ask me?’ I shift away because my foot’s gone numb and I’m feeling anxious. 86

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‘Didn’t you hear anything from your dad?’ ‘No. None of the descriptions match anything that’s happened in the region before. Did you get a look at him?’ ‘He was behind me the whole time. Remember?’ ‘Yeah, but he was holding you.’ ‘So?’ Oggy’s face is burning but I pretend not to see. That’s our pact. I fiddle with the bankroll and fold the notes into red, yellow and green piles. ‘Well, what about the car? I thought he drove past you.’ ‘Yeah. Really fast. But I didn’t see much ’cos I was face down. It was browny orange, and kind of an old sedan. What is it? You’re staring.’ ‘Three grand.’ ‘What?’ ‘There’s a bit over three grand there.’ ‘Shit. Why did he have to chuck it to me?’ ‘You’re going to have to do something.’ ‘I know that, Lara. Jeez.’ ‘Do you want me to tell Dad? Maybe he could intervene with the police.’ ‘Why would he do that? Doesn’t he want to get his money back?’ ‘Yeah, but you’re a minor.’ ‘And in deep shit.’ 87

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‘Why? Look, just give it back.’ ‘Hello, officer, I just found this nasty lump in my shoe — thought it was a stone. Oops! Well, whadda ya know. It’s three grand.’ ‘But you didn’t take it.’ ‘I kept it. I’m a naughty, naughty girl.’ ‘It doesn’t make you an accomplice.’ Oggy sits on her hands and swings her legs. ‘Can you talk to your dad?’ ‘You just said not to.’ ‘Get him to offer a reward for the return of the money.’ ‘I don’t think they do that, Oggy. The police offer rewards for information. What did you tell them?’ ‘Nothing. I don’t know anything, all right.’ Her pupils dilate and the sun sets across her pallid cheeks for a second time. ‘You’re making life hard for yourself, girl.’ ‘Lara, what about the production. We could make some fantastic sets and costumes.’ I haven’t touched the cake and I’m glad now because I’m feeling queasy. ‘I haven’t seen this, Oggy. Okay? ‘But you have, Lara.’ Oggy folds her arms across her neat little chest and stands so that the cash lies equidistant between us. I gawk at her. Whatever happened to our girlfriend pact? 88

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I don’t see her nick lipstick from Finch’s Pharmacy and she doesn’t see me stuff myself with potato wedges on the Grapefruit Diet. Actually, I’ve never noticed before but Oggy’s eyes are really quite small and mean. She thumbs the notes down on the bed like a bank teller. The rhythm is mesmerising. She stacks them, binds them with rubber bands and slides them into the toe of a bunny slipper called Minty. Minty smiles up at me, all fluffy nose and pink ears, with three grand from Dad’s bank stuck in his teeth. ‘I’ll keep it in the back of my pyjama drawer.’ ‘Good one, Oggy.’ Oggy tucks the slipper purposefully into the back of the cupboard and dumps herself down on the groaning bed. She whacks me across the thigh with her spiral pad and starts to scribble. Evidently, the matter is closed and we will now write our monologues because Oggy is on a creative high. The blue rum icing and sunset orange cake begin to look like salvation. ‘Okay, Lara, here’s what we’re doing. Lots of big group numbers, with slide projections.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yep. It’s a musical slide show of history.’ ‘It sounds really complicated. Do you think it will work?’ ‘It’ll be awesome.’ 89

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But it doesn’t feel okay. I feel like a contestant in a game show when the compere gives his dazzling smile and all the windows light up on the game board. Inside the windows sit the police, the stolen money and Oggy. My mother and father scowl at me from the audience but my mind is already made up. I pick the one I always choose. It’s the reason I sit here in this tangle of grubby sheets and bent paperbacks and cats’ piss. It’s why I don’t say, ‘No, Oggy, I hate the idea.’ There’s a razzledazzle of light and sound and I pick us, this moment, our friendship, our pact against the world. I jump ship from my world to hers because I believe her world is the one that really exists. While I carry the hot dishes over to the table and my mother serves her generous portions, my father watches the news. There is another item on the boat people attempting to reach Australian shores. Then, over dinner, we talk about our day, the money market, my play — anything but the tiny figures huddled on barges afloat in that enormous sea. The same faces over and over again. I hate what is happening to those people but I don’t talk about it because I am too afraid, too ashamed, too confused. Then we jostle for our places on the purple lounge because Mum has an armful of DVDs. Gracie always 90

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fights the hardest and gets to choose, mostly because it has to be a family movie. They could just let her pick first but it’s more fun this way, the slamming match over favourite stars, favourite stories, till we choose a movie we’ve all seen before. Then we settle down with the music rolling, the lights low and bowls of ice-cream balanced perilously on the arms of the lounge. Dad juggles the remote and changes channels to a chorus of complaints and for a split second we get the local news: ‘Still no further information about last week’s robbery of the Point Jerome bank.’ My face flares in the dark. I am a coward, a traitor eating enemy ice-cream in the enemy camp. Is that who I am? For the next two hours and twenty minutes of family fun movie, I don’t want to know.

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Chapter 11

You’ve got to give it to Mrs Kaye: she does her best. But let’s face it, we don’t like her, we’re not going to listen and she can’t control the class. ‘Okay, people, quiet, please.’ Nobody stops talking but Mrs Kaye keeps going anyway. ‘Mr Hatherly has asked me to read the list of ideas that we have so far. As you know, we need to find a way to link them dramatically. Yes, Aimee, Mr Hatherly should be here in fifteen minutes, he’s at a meeting. I’ll ignore that remark, Oggy, I don’t believe he even smokes. Chelsea, sit down, you’re late. Do you have to sit on Cindy’s lap? There’s plenty of floor space. Why? Because you giggle and I for one find it very distracting. Right, then. We have “The Rights of the Homeless” from Nathan and Lara. We have a song from Oggy and Lara. There’s also “A Girls’ Night Out”, which is Cindy and Chelsea’s idea for a dance. I don’t know, Oggy, maybe Chelsea could tell us how this relates to our theme. Ogden! Please! 92

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That was uncalled for. I’ve brought some poems and I’d like you to read them before you start groaning, Chelsea, and then there’s a whole wad of monologues and play excerpts here that Mr Hatherly gave us. Chelsea, what’s the problem? Just tell me here; I don’t want to go into the props room. No, I can’t promise that. I cannot stop Lara Pearlman from dancing.’ What? I wasn’t even going to dance. But now I might have to. Nathan is ready with a distraction. ‘Hey, Lara, want to run a subtext?’ ‘No. Well, okay.’ ‘So what’s Mrs Kaye thinking right now?’ ‘Um. If those little bitches don’t sit down, I’ll screw them to their chairs.’ ‘No, Lara, that’s what you’re thinking. What is Mrs Kaye thinking?’ ‘I swear to you, Nathan, that’s it. On my woman’s intuition.’ ‘Yeah, right.’ ‘Okay, how about: When I was your age, I looked ten times better in those hipster pants.’ ‘Forget it, Lara. Hell, Tom isn’t here again.’ ‘Have you seen him around?’ ‘Yeah, he was at rugby.’ ‘And?’ 93

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‘Dunno. He got three reprimands. He tackled their midfielder so hard he almost broke the guy’s neck.’ ‘Do ya reckon he’s still in the play?’ ‘We could ask Mrs Kaye. She knows where he lives.’ ‘Now?’ ‘No, because right now she’s thinking: I’m too old for all this. Hatherly had better get here soon or I’ll stop rehearsal. I’m not covering his arse again.’ ‘Yeah, right.’ Cindy and Chelsea have started a robot dance, for no obvious reason, and Oggy is arguing with them over the music. This rehearsal is going nowhere and we try to sneak out past Mrs Kaye but she sees us. ‘Nathan, Lara, where are you going?’ ‘Um. To our lockers to get something.’ ‘Well, make it quick, because if Mr Hatherly doesn’t get here soon, I’ll close. I can’t always cover for him.’ Nathan grins at his watch. I catch her as she turns away. ‘Miss, Tom didn’t come to rehearsal.’ ‘No.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Well, why do you think?’ ‘I don’t know. He’s okay, isn’t he?’ ‘No. He’s not, really.’ ‘What do you mean?’ 94

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‘Well, Tom has a very difficult home life.’ ‘Oh. Can you talk to him for us?’ ‘And say what?’ ‘Tell him that we’re sorry and we like him. We need him in our scene.’ ‘Look, Tom is not a performer. He doesn’t have the interest or the …’ ‘Strength?’ ‘That’s right.’ ‘But we should talk to him about it. At least he could come and have some fun.’ ‘Listen, Lara, you can talk to Tom if you want to, but I think you should forget about having him in the play.’ ‘Where does he live?’ ‘Well, I’m not sure that I should tell you but I suppose you’ll go and ask his uncle anyway. In a boarding house on Hill Street.’ Nathan and I go outside and sit on our bench under the marri tree near where the gardener, Tom’s uncle, is sweeping the yard. His hands are stained black and his boxy skull bends over the broom, which he pushes in long strokes as if grooming a favourite cat. I can feel his strength in every stroke. There are long runs of clean pavement between paths of leaves. It all looks so normal; it just doesn’t feel that way. ‘Hell, Nathan, what have we done?’ 95

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‘Nothing.’ ‘But I feel really bad. We set him up, Nathan. We made Tom do that stuff about being poor and lonely.’ ‘Lara, get a grip. We didn’t make him do anything. He just sat there while I talked.’ ‘Yeah, about his life and in front of everyone.’ ‘Lara, we didn’t dump on him.’ ‘Then why do I feel like we did? You know, when I see a photo of some poor refugee kid starving to death because the rest of us are too busy with our whitegoods, why do I feel that I went in there personally and stole his food?’ ‘You’re a privileged white girl, Lara, not the entire world-market economy.’ ‘But I hate what’s happening there.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Everywhere.’ ‘Oh, c’mon, Lara, that’s so outta control. It’s not our fault.’ ‘Then what is our fault? And what are we going to do about Tom?’ ‘Leave him alone.’ ‘Oh, good one, Nathan. Some bloody hero you are.’ ‘I don’t want to be a hero. You do, except that one minute you’re running away from your mummy and the next minute you want to save the world.’ 96

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‘Thanks for the support, Friend!’ ‘I don’t want to be your “friend”, Lara.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Hatherly’s plays are rubbish, Blake is a poser and Oggy needs a bath.’ ‘Then why are you doing it?’ ‘You really don’t get it, do you?’ ‘Hey, Nathan, wait up.’ ‘Lara, piss off!’ The door to Dan’s gym is wide open; I guess nobody’s going to drive off with two tonne of equipment made from dead car parts. I walk straight in. Dan is in the workshop, welding mesh iron. I wave to him through the doorway and a veil of orange sparks. I think he’s seen me, so I put on some dance rock and start to row, watching a picture gallery of Nathan Young form in my head. There was the patient maths coaching, the protection in drama and the special CDs, not to mention the hand thing and the home visits. Poor Nathan. How could I be so dumb? But I just never think of him as being more than a Year 7 boy with fuzzy knees. I mean, it’s just not possible to fall for your best friend. Is it? Pump and flex, pump and flex. I grind away on the machinery with the sweat running down my spine and think about the double choc nougat ice-cream I’ll buy 97

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later. I don’t have to worry about Tom or watch amputee kids play soccer behind barbed wire in my head. I gave those pictures to Nathan. Quite a good technique, that. When I finish, the rain is falling vertically and Dan stands in front of me with a spare motorbike helmet. I accept the offer of a ride home because I don’t want to be cold and stiff after the workout. I just hope Mum’s not home when I get there.

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Chapter 12

I write down my address on Dan’s pad. He nods, holds up two fingers and points to the hill opposite. I figure that means that I’m second on the agenda and that we have an errand to do on the way. The moment that I strap on the helmet and straddle the belly of the bike, the rain stops and the sun punches its fist through the grey lead of the sky, stamping a rainbow on the valley road. Dan holds the bike to the lee of the hill, climbs to its crest and stops at a garage to drop off a bent metal thingy. The garage bloke gives Dan the thumbs-up and me the once-over as I fiddle through his chewing gum rack for spearmint. Then we settle into position, with Dan hunched over the handlebars and me leaning back, trying to look like a tough tart in a road movie. But I lose my balance on the first corner and fall forward to hug his leather back. I hear the throttle open full bore as Dan plunges the bike down the vertical drop of Camden Road. I expect him to pull back on the glassy surface but instead he holds us at the centre of gravity 99

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and lunges into the gully of water at the base of the hill. This is it. This is how I’m going to die. But the bike splices the water and I laugh and grip with my thighs and catch his smile in the mirror. I expect the bike to rear up the hill opposite, to my home, but instead he laces across roads and around the point, past waves, rocks and islands in the sound below. Our wheels peel back the tar, inventing and discarding the surface we travel over, and we lean into corners left and right. All the time Dan is in charge, and it feels smooth and effortless. The road offers us no resistance and we pass on the rush of the wind, like the chorus of a song you can’t quite remember. Eventually we zoom past the house where that woman murdered her husband and arrive full circle at my home. We slip across the driveway, where my mother backs her four-wheel drive out of the cavern of the garage, and Gracie dangles her ballet shoes off the porch. I can’t stand. My whole body throbs, still vibrating with the motor, still moving though the bike has stopped. If my mother wasn’t there, hugging the wheel of her Land Rover, I’d invite Dan inside. Dan’s moustache glints gold in the afternoon sun and his deep brown eyes are unfathomable, but he gets straight off the bike and thrusts his hand through the driver’s window. Mum has no choice. She places her narrow hand in his gloved paw 100

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and winces. Dan nods at me, lumbers back to the bike and slides the beast gracefully, silently down the hill. Out of sight, the bike purrs and picks up speed. Helen Pearlman never has trouble angling the Land Rover out of her curved driveway, but today her left rear wheel detours through the rockery and skates over the giant flowering cactus. Her head swivels like a gargoyle and she catches me grinning. Her face is beetroot, her eyes scream at me. She jams the heel of her hand on the horn and Gracie flips down the stairs and hops into the high cab. Mum wrenches the car onto the road and then pulls up sharply on the brakes. The rear bounces. She backs up to where I stand. ‘Get in.’ ‘I can’t, I’ve got homework to do.’ ‘I said, get in.’ ‘No.’ ‘This is not an invitation, Lara.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘I have to drop Gracie off at dance class and then pick up Dad at the airport. Come on, Lara, we have to talk.’ ‘Not all the way to the airport.’ The skin at Mum’s throat sags in long strings that have gone blotchy red. She has plucked her eyebrows too thin and the glassy skin over the ridge of her brow is almost bald. Her sunken eyes have been left unprotected. 101

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I can see her in the bathroom with the angry pincers biting at her flesh, perfecting and honing. I really have to finish a history assignment, but my mother looks more scared than angry. So I shoo Gracie into the back, swing into the passenger seat and stare out the window while she drops Gracie at the hall. And then she starts: ‘You have to help with Gracie’s party tomorrow.’ ‘I’m going out tomorrow, Mum.’ ‘Since when?’ ‘Since today. Aimee invited me to her beach party.’ ‘It’s too cold for that.’ ‘There’ll be a bonfire and you don’t have to worry, they contacted the Ranger.’ ‘Who is they and what time does it start?’ ‘Eight.’ ‘Well, we can’t take you.’ ‘Jean said she’d drive us.’ ‘That’s very nice of her. We’ll pick you up.’ ‘You don’t have to, Mum. There’ll be heaps of people coming back along the bay.’ ‘You’re not getting into just anybody’s car, Lara.’ ‘I don’t know what time it will finish, Mum. You can’t just turn up.’ The sky is a monotony of grey as we pull up at the roundabout on Camden Road, where stark shopfronts 102

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glower down at us. ‘Then you can’t go, Lara.’ ‘What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you want me to have any fun?’ ‘Is that what you were having on the back of that man’s bike today, Lara? Fun? Do you know how dangerous that is? Can you even imagine what you looked like?’ ‘Who cares?’ A truck carrying a tractor makes a slow parade around the roundabout. The traffic fumes at the intersection in the gathering gloom. ‘How can you not care? You are the bank manager’s daughter. This is a very small town, Lara.’ ‘People don’t go to his bank because I’m a good girl and you wash in Omo brightness, Mum.’ ‘Yes, they do, Lara. You don’t understand this community.’ My mother’s eyes glitter and dart to the rear-view mirror; she glares at the man in the ute behind us. He winds down his window and lights a cigarette. The ham of his arm hangs along the metal door; he flicks his ash. He is not her companion at the crossroad. She feels ambushed by the glowing butt, blockaded by his ute behind her. ‘That’s crap, Mum. Dad will let me go.’ ‘I’ll speak to him.’ 103

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‘I don’t have to ask you. I’m going, anyway.’ The wind ruffles a flock of galahs feeding on the lake. They lift in a squabbling mass and crowd the roundabout with their wings and noise. I jump out of the car and start to run. Mum is diverted, then shocked, then furious. The doors of the Land Rover stand ajar like jug ears while she and I hurtle down Roberts Road. I can’t believe it: the silly bitch is chasing me. Worse, she’s bloody gaining on me. But it’s fantastic because the galahs are chasing us along the parade. My throat fights the knife of the wind and my legs are jelly after my workout, but they’re pumping and I pound the pavement. The cement heaves up at me and I crash down on it. But I can’t get away from her. She’s got me by the jumper and is trying to hold on but I won’t stop, so we swing round and round till I regain my footing, lunge forward and then tumble onto the concrete with Mum beside me. I laugh and pant till I choke, and she screams to be heard against the wind. But I can’t hear her because the thirty cars banked up behind our Land Rover are blaring their horns. It’s bloody chaos. ‘What the hell are you playing at, Lara? I did not bring you up to have you burn in a road accident. What would Nana have thought?’ ‘What are you on about? What does this have to do with Nana?’ 104

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‘I didn’t bring you up to see you with that man.’ ‘Oh, so it’s the man. I met him once, Mum.’ ‘You got on his bike and you don’t even know him?’ ‘He’s Blake’s dad.’ ‘You were lucky to make it home alive. You can’t do this to me.’ ‘I’m not doing anything to you. You do it to yourself. And I’ll do what I like.’ I start to laugh again because she can’t bloody touch me. ‘What’s so funny?’ ‘You telling me off. What about the cars, Mum?’ ‘Forget the cars. We need to talk.’ ‘Yeah, let’s sit down right here and have a real heart to heart. Don’t you ever give up?’ ‘I’ll never give up on my daughters.’ It’s true, and I stop laughing. She doesn’t see the blood on her hands where she hit the concrete — or the tear in her knitted jacket. I fill her vision, me with my coffee cream skin, whale thighs and untamed hair, holding up the traffic on Camden Road. In this moment, I am all that exists for her. Her brittle hair stands up in the wind like a cockatoo’s crest and she claws at my shirt. But the bloke from the ute with the cigarette is here; he’s dawdled down the road to find us. Bits of concrete chafe his raw arms. Ribbons of ginger hair whip his face 105

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and blaze in the setting sun, which has just found a rip in the sky. ‘Everything all right, lady?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is yer girl okay?’ ‘Yes, thanks.’ ‘Then would you like to join us?’ Above us, the cars have gone quiet and people stand on the rim of the hill. But the bloke from the ute takes his time. He walks ahead, shooing the onlookers into their cars, and ushers us into ours. Though my mother chirps ‘Thank you’, her head has sunk to her chest as she puts the car into gear. We circle the roundabout in chaste procession and take the road to the airport. The eucalypts group along the road, wise sentinels to the falling night.

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Chapter 13

The airport is a settlement of fog and suspended light. Fuzzy lamps wander into grey swill on the runway, and the glass wall of the airport lounge is a porthole onto the void. The front desk announces that the flight from the city has been delayed due to poor weather conditions, which draws a collective groan from the crowd. Mum and I take foam cups of scalding coffee and whitener back to the Land Rover to listen to music, leaving behind the scratchy kids in ugg boots and PJs to play bombies off the airport lounge. Mum turns on the radio and a piano recital fills the cabin. She arches her back, collapses, then starts to talk. ‘I know why you’re friends with Oggy. It’s because she’s so brilliant.’ ‘She’s not that smart.’ ‘I don’t mean clever, I mean brilliant, as in being alive. There’s something fascinating about people who are truly alive. And utterly consuming.’ ‘I don’t always do what Oggy says.’ 107

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‘Yes, you do. My mother was like that. Passionate, intense about everything, so much larger than life because she had to be. She had to fill the void left behind when her mother and two little brothers died and the older children got scattered. She learned very young that it paid to sparkle, even though she was starving and homeless. I hated her for it when I was your age.’ ‘Nana was fun.’ ‘I had to live with her pantomime of “fun” my whole life. Always the life of the party, entertaining the absent crowd sitting at our table. And I had to be quiet, do nothing too sudden or too immediate, no big requests. Any time she got upset she screamed, and I hated it when she screamed, so I made myself small, hoping she’d appreciate my sacrifice. But all she saw was a colourless little girl.’ I can see my mother as a kid at Nana’s table, doing her doleful duty with the stew in dainty spoonfuls while Nana told a joke; Nana with her mouth full of food and gurgling laughter; Nana stabbing the air to make a point with a fistful of bread soaked in sauce. I look at Mum, dressed in her uniform of timid grey, and wonder who was the victim: Nana, who actually had a deprived childhood, or my mother, who tried to make amends for it. ‘You have her hips and her mouth; you even move like her, Lara. When Nana took me to buy a dress for my 108

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graduation she found a velvet shawl, the colour of claret. She danced in the mirror with the shawl draped around her throat. People were watching. The salesgirl fled. And when you got off that motorbike, you looked exactly like her.’ My mother turns towards me, her voice sounding trapped. ‘She was capable of anything, everything was always for her. She never ever saw me.’ Then she catches herself. She knows she’s gone too far. I taste life in the thick black air between us, and the intense pleasure I must not touch. But she has finished her coffee and balances the empty cup on her palm. So that’s it. She’s afraid I will become something she cannot control. But that’s not my fault and I can’t help her. Taxis drive off with their cargo of weary workers. My father wheels his case across the car park, grateful that we are there, and tells us that Head Office is worried about security, that his medical tests show signs of stress and that he hasn’t eaten all day. Mum decides to pick up Gracie from dancing and go for a Thai meal. Great. I can pig out on curried noodles and fried ice-cream. She can’t nag me in the restaurant and, besides, I just paid my dues. Mum steers the bulky vehicle down past the bank on Duke Street to the restaurant, and Dad prompts her to execute a perfect reverse park. She insists Gracie wear her jacket to cross the road to the restaurant, which 109

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is only ten metres away, and although she uses the automatic locking system, Mum checks all the doors. She never lets up. Her intensity overwhelms me. A different child might have roared at Nana’s jokes, but something dark was distilled in the silence of that childhood — watchfulness, the liquor of disgrace — and now it’s in her bones. The food arrives and it’s hot, spicy, satisfying. Now Dad becomes her captive audience. ‘Ron, Lara’s been invited to a party.’ ‘Oh, yes.’ ‘It’s tomorrow night.’ ‘Uh-huh.’ Dad’s eyes glaze over and he stares at the stone Buddha head by the bamboo screen. ‘But Gracie’s having her party tomorrow and I need Lara’s help.’ ‘Another birthday, Gracie! Getting old.’ ‘Ron, you’ll have to help with transport; all the girls are sleeping over.’ ‘Really? How many?’ ‘Ten. I don’t really know if there will be time to take Lara all the way to Granger Beach. Do you really think she should go?’ My mother guides Dad to make the choice she’s already made by depreciating her part and minimising emotion. She folds her paper napkin — unused because 110

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somehow the food always makes a perfect passage to her mouth — and puts it next to her plate. My placemat is a fallout shelter for feral rice. Dad wavers between the curry beef and pad thai noodles, and then says, ‘No.’ ‘But, Dad, I’ve got to go.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Everyone’s going. It’s Aimee Robinson’s party.’ ‘Fred’s daughter?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘That should be okay, then.’ Mum is appalled. ‘But it’s on the beach, Ron. Anybody could turn up.’ ‘Helen, if we don’t trust her to use her common sense, then she’ll never learn.’ My mother is thunderstruck and humiliated. How silly not to have done her homework. Fred is the president of the Rotary Club, after all. Match point. ‘All right, Lara, but Dad picks you up at twelve and you have to help tomorrow.’ ‘With ten hyper ’tweenagers at the ice rink?’ ‘Yes, that’s right.’ It’s my mother’s turn to smile into her noodles. Gracie punches the air. She thinks this is really cool and I relent because she looks so happy. ‘Okay, Mum.’ 111

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Now, will I fit into my lycra pants if I order fried banana and ice-cream?

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Chapter 14

I didn’t know Blake could skate. He flies around the rink backwards, lacing one skate over the other, cute butt out to the breeze. He sails past the string of girls I am trying to haul along the ice, with their wobbly little ankles and windmill arms. ‘Hey, Lara. Is this a party?’ ‘Hey, Blake. Yeah, my sister’s. What are you doing here?’ ‘I work here. Clear the ice between sessions. So which one is mini Lara?’ ‘Blake, meet Gracie. Gracie, meet Blake.’ Gracie giggles and slips on the ice, but Blake scoops her up and flies her in a circle right in front of the gawking girls. He slams to a halt in a spray of ice, neatly avoiding the wall by inches. Gracie’s cheeks glow hot embers as he lowers her down his chest to the ground. ‘How old are you, princess?’ ‘Ten.’ ‘Wow.’ 113

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‘How old are you?’ ‘Eighteen.’ ‘That’s okay.’ ‘Gracie!’ My sister is lean, like Mum, but with pointy features. Curls of nylon fur creep from her hat and frame her eyes, which flash lavender blue. With fragile fingers, she anchors herself on Blake’s arm and scuffs her skates. The girls titter. She’s flirting with him but he’s used to it. Her friends smirk and I feel like Mum, forced to witness something I can’t control. But Blake is right there. ‘I bet all the boys fight to sit next to you.’ ‘No. But you can at my party.’ ‘Sorry, darlin’, I’m working. You going to the party tonight, Lara?’ ‘Yeah, I’m going with Oggy.’ ‘How are you getting there?’ ‘Oggy’s mum’s giving us a lift.’ ‘Can I grab a ride with you?’ ‘Sure.’ ‘What time?’ ‘Around eight. Meet us at Oggy’s just after eight, okay?’ ‘Great. Thanks.’ Blake takes Gracie on one hand and two friends on the other. At first he has to drag them around the rink 114

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like a dray horse, but he coaches them till they get the hang of it. Their faces blaze with joy. Even my mother looks pleased, sipping her decaf from a thermos behind the glass screen. And I feel fantastic. Blake joins me for the doubles. At first it’s slow work because I can’t coordinate my feet around the corners, but soon I pick up his rhythm. He skates faster on the edge, then tows me on the straight, then I tow him; it’s a dance of opposites. At the close we catapult to the edge, laughing and puffing, with his arm still around my waist. But I have to go in to the party and he has to return to the office. I catch him watching me through the glass. I feel good but confused because there’s a tall girl with bare legs on the freezing ice. I recognise her wispy hair. It’s the girl from the op shop. I want to confront her but it’s too late for that now and, besides, I’d never catch her. She shoots around the rink on muscular calves, laces backwards around corners, and then spins and executes a perfect full stop. She is lithe, graceful, fast, and I gawp at her. She didn’t learn to skate like that in Point Jerome. Then she glides past the window of Blake’s office to peer inside. Blake signals to her but goes back to his books, ignoring her wide-framed eyes. I can’t believe it. Blake Taylor is coming to the party with me. I drag the little ice queens through three more circuits 115

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of the rink. Thankfully, a few more of them get the hang of it, although one girl has to sit down because she has blisters, and at last it’s time for the cake. The twins in their matching sugar-pink jumpers clap at the end of each phrase of ‘Happy Birthday’ and scream when Gracie cuts the cake. The girl who spent the most time sitting out digs into her ice-cream cake, her little plum tummy filling out her top and overlapping her jeans. I like to watch her enjoying her food. My father looks embarrassed but happy as the girls squeal and squirm around him. They can’t stay in their seats. They can’t stay on the ice. They have to go to the bathroom together, all ten of them, to check their hair. My mother wastes an extra fifteen minutes on a French plait for one princess while the others watch. The session ends with a fire drill siren. A guy in a crumpled suit, who I swear squeezed my bum on the way around, crushes through the turnstile when I go through so that we are caught for a moment, face to face, thigh to thigh. The suit is pinstriped, with big lapels, and probably belonged to his granddad. He wears it over a black T-shirt. It’s a bit overdone for the ice rink and I’m not sure if he’s trying to look criminal or cool. The guy is no taller than me but he’s bulky and has a wide, loose mouth that curves upward. There’s something there that I can’t read. Is he laughing with me or at me? 116

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But Blake has crossed over from the skate hire racks. ‘Hey, Mitch.’ ‘Blake. Mate.’ ‘What’s happening, Mitch?’ This distracts him and he lets me move on. ‘Hey, I hear there’s a beach rave tonight. Ya going?’ ‘Yeah, maybe.’ Blake winks at me. ‘Sorry, mate, I’m working, gotta go.’ The arena empties fast while Blake works the tractor over the ice, flattening and clearing it for the ice hockey mob, who are preparing for their game. I turn and wave to Blake on the tractor as he harvests the ice in circles and see Dan standing by the partition. He rests on his hockey stick and grinds a damp twig between his teeth. Blake waves and Dan turns to see who’s there. He waves and smiles, too, and it is at this moment that my mother returns, flushed with success, to catch me in congress with the bikie devil.

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Chapter 15

Oggy is wearing wide oyster-mauve pants, an off-theshoulder crop top and the enduring steel-tipped boots. She has to bend over a sink full of tissues to apply makeup in the cloudy mirror. She’s tried five different lipsticks already and her lips look bruised and purple against her clown-white skin. But the pants are fantastic. She cut them out today from some old silk pyjamas. They whisper around her legs. Behind, above, to the side, I fight for a place at the sink to get my eyeliner straight. ‘He can really skate.’ ‘Yeah, you told me, like, five times already.’ ‘He was so good with the girls. And strong! He held Gracie over his head. Literally!’ ‘Like, wow.’ ‘What’s wrong, Oggy?’ ‘You didn’t ask me if he could come with us.’ ‘Does it matter? I thought you two were really good friends.’ ‘What about Nathan?’ 118

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‘What about him?’ ‘Well, you’re really good friends but you didn’t ask him.’ ‘I didn’t ask Blake; he asked me. What’s your problem, Oggy? We’re just going to give him a lift. He can sit in the back with me, if you like. You don’t even have to talk to him.’ ‘Yeah, right, you’d like that.’ Her tone stings me and my eyeliner does a dive across my cheek, but there’s no time to answer because the doorbell rings and Blake is standing in the hallway, ready to go. Oggy prances up to him and gives him a juicy kiss on the lips and drags him into the bathroom. He laughs and tries to fight her off, but she presses her little breasts against him while she applies dark shadow to his eyes and pushes his hair into a wild quiff. He looks stunning, and when Oggy bobs down to tie her boots, for just one moment Blake and I stand face to face, heart to heart. I feel drawn into him, his eyes, lips, hair flowing over me. Oggy arranges us in front of the mirror in an ensemble, silenced and poised. I’ve borrowed an outfit from Jean’s orchestral days: a flowing black oriental coat that I wear over black leggings. Very classy. Blake looks like an urban warrior in his makeup, and Oggy is a tiny grey sparrow, pure chic. 119

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Jean calls out that it’s time to go or she’ll miss her movie on SBS. Oggy complains that she should program the DVD to record it. Jean yells from the bottom of the garden that she doesn’t know how. Oggy starts to fossick for a cable for the DVD, but Blake grips her by the arm and frogmarches her down the path. I follow and dive for the front passenger seat to avoid more arguments. Night lights glisten on the water as we curve around the bay and enter a forest of peppermint trees. There’s a deliberate calm about the evening and no further complaints from the back seat. I can tell that they don’t have their seatbelts on because their bodies are linked in one silhouette. Granger Beach is not protected from the southerlies, so we’re lucky that it’s a still night. Sparks from the fire flail the cold air and kids litter its perimeter. The oldies sit on the verge at a picnic table of cold beers and barbecue chops. It’s all surprisingly civilised. I mingle a bit, give Aimee her birthday present. She screams appreciatively. Mum insisted on buying Fred Robinson’s daughter a ‘nice’ present, a filigree heart on a long silver chain, and it clearly hit the spot. Onya, Mum. Five guys with electric gear set up on the pier and pump Thrash into the spume of stars. I wonder what the aliens think. I dance with Tom Novic and try to avoid his bucking legs and arms. It’s good to see him because he 120

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hasn’t been to drama for a while and I was worried about him, but he moves like a crazy man. The music is a blast and we jostle close together on the pier. We’re a heaving, sweating phalanx of bodies, totally going for it. Chelsea Wilson tramples my foot twice and then sways back into the mob. She is so out of it. I see her hook on to that guy from the ice rink with his creased lapels and greasy smile. The music bounces off the cliffs and ripples along the water. It tells every damn fool who’s over-age that we’re young, we’re strong, and to look out because we walk on water. I find Blake at the side of the band, smashing a tambourine against his hip in jagged moves. Next to him is the girl from the rink, following Blake’s every move with ice queen eyes. She wears the black angora top she stole from Altitude. It’s too big for her and she wears it as a mini with a studded belt, exposing one shoulder and her slim brown back. She is even taller than I am and smirks down at me from Blake’s side. I’ve got to talk to her, but Blake hoots when he sees me and hauls me into a frenzied dance. The boards bounce beneath us, and the stars, the air, his smile, my heart vibrate in tune. The set ends in a guitar solo that unzips the night and ruptures the edge of the world. It takes the dancers by the tip of the spine and whips them around the pier. The next number is slow, and the steaming bodies 121

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stop, stunned. Couples melt together or nestle in the rocks. Blake’s eyes are as black as the water beneath us. His body turns instinctively towards mine. The plane of his shoulders hovers over me, the arm that draws me close is unyielding, his hand splays across the small of my back and I am being drawn closer to his glistening neck and chest. And then it happens. That bulldog in the crumpled suit, who I’d totally forgotten about, who I am so not interested in, has me by the arm, saying, ‘Sorry, man, that’s my girl.’ I try to protest but Blake just laughs and lets me go. He was only with me because it was convenient and I see Oggy slip into the empty space that I was just occupying and nestle against his beautiful, warm chest. I feel like a fool. The idiot and I fumble through a song together and then watch the mass of dancers swaying in a big octopus. We stand outside the gold ring of the fire and the music. Suddenly I miss Nathan and wish I had apologised. I wonder where he is now.

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Chapter 16

The party’s over. Mr Robinson must abide by the city rules and kill the noise by eleven, which somehow everybody knew about except me. People drift off to other parties. Cars spin out of control as they do doughnuts in the car park, and then spiral up the hill. Blake helps the band to load their gear into a van and climbs aboard. Sorry, guys, there’s no extra room. In ten minutes the beach is deserted except for one lone car loitering in the shadows. The moon strikes a cold hand against the water and limestone cliffs. Chelsea Wilson is smashed. She crawls around on her knees, crying, and sifts through the sand for her mobile. Oggy and I swing our legs off the pier and wait for Dad, who won’t be here till twelve. Dammit! ‘So what happened to lover boy?’ ‘Who?’ ‘You know who I mean, Oggy.’ ‘Blake?’ ‘Yeah.’ 123

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‘Nothing.’ ‘I don’t get it, Oggy. One minute you don’t want him to come, then you’re all smoochy in the back seat, then it’s “don’t touch me”, and then as soon as he’s with me you’re all over him again.’ ‘You weren’t with him.’ ‘I was dancing with him.’ ‘That boy cut in.’ ‘I wonder why.’ ‘Do you reckon I set that up?’ ‘Well, you tell me. You were very conveniently placed to take over.’ ‘I’m not into Blake Taylor.’ ‘Say that again and this time to my face.’ ‘Okay, I like him. We’re friends.’ ‘Yeah, sure. You appear out of nowhere like a small hungry sparrow looking for a little place to hang your heart. That’s what this whole night has been about. You wanting Blake Taylor.’ ‘Shit, Lara, what do you think I am?’ ‘I don’t know, Oggy. You’ve got that money and now you’re trying to take my man.’ ‘Since when was Blake “your man”?’ ‘Since Year 8, when I first told you I liked him.’ ‘How does that make him yours?’ ‘Every weekend we talked about how I would get 124

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Blake and you’d win a million bucks to buy your mum an orchestra.’ ‘Lara, that was years ago.’ ‘Why can’t you just give me a chance with him?’ ‘Jesus, Lara, he doesn’t even like you.’ ‘How would you know?’ ‘Because he stole three thousand dollars for me!’ ‘Who? Blake? Are you crazy?’ ‘What did it feel like to have his arms around you? What did it feel like against his chest, with the pressure of his hand on your hip, guiding you to move? It’s like your whole body goes under his spell. Right? Can you still feel it, Lara? Would you ever forget that?’ I’m remembering the night in his car — the warmth, the comfort, his smell. ‘Lara, that’s what it was like in the bank. And tonight in the car, I realised it was him. That’s why I got him to dance with me. To make sure.’ But I still feel that I’ve missed something crucial. ‘So you do like him?’ ‘Shit. I don’t want some dumb cowboy stealing money for me. Chelsea! Chelsea! Get up, ya slack moll. We’re walking home.’ ‘It’s ten kilometres. I’ll wait for Dad.’ ‘Suit yourself.’ Oggy and Chelsea amble uncertainly on to the road, 125

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and a grey station wagon lurches out from the shadows and sidles up to them. The boy in the crumpled suit sits in the driver’s seat. His eyes are slits and his oily smile widens to a slur: ‘Hey, ladies. Wanna ride?’ The lads on the back seat splutter and honk with excitement. I’m not sure about this, but Chelsea has already hobbled to the back door and fallen giggling onto the back seat with the two boys. Oggy climbs in the front and looks questioningly at me. I can’t stay there alone and I figure that I could probably get home before Dad leaves and save him the trip. So I slide into the passenger seat and hold Oggy on my knee. The suit slams a lead foot on the accelerator and the car squeals and careens up the narrow pass from the beach. We freewheel through the night to classic rock and a litany from the back-seat boys: ‘Haven’t seen youse girls around before. Did youse like the party? Hey, pass the joint. No! Over here! Watch it, ya fucker, ya almost set me alight. Wouldn’t take much, ya bloody fuelhead. Hey, man, watch them corners. Ya almost ditched the little lady here. Whoa! Jeez, love, ya don’t have much balance. I guess she’s enjoyin’ the ride. She will. What? Enjoy the ride.’ This is the cue for the car to swerve down a dirt road. We bounce over sandy hillocks and rush under peppermint trees, which lash at the windscreen and obscure our view. The wheels spin wildly on the loose 126

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gravel curves. The car plunges into a trough and then ploughs up the rise. Oh, no, we’re airborne. We crash back to earth, striking our heads on the roof, then skid the last fifty metres back on to the main road. The lads are ecstatic. They whoop and pummel the metal of the doors. Chelsea hoots for more from the back seat. I tighten my grip on Oggy. Next time the car takes the detour slowly. They’ve turned off their lights. We make a sleek passage through the brilliant dark. The boys are silent. We travel evenly over the surface, testing the ground. They are looking for something. I can’t tell what. They slow down past an open paddock with a single gum tree, iced in moonlight. They decide it’s too near the farmhouse. A dog barks and barks, filling the void with its volley. The car slides to a halt at the intersection; the motor idles while the driver decides. This is it. I fling open the door and wrench Oggy outside. I scream at Chelsea to follow. We thrash through the bush, tripping on the undergrowth; we are scored by casuarina trees. We tumble down a slope. Car doors slam. They’re furious. They dive into the bush after us but I throw myself into a narrow gully and pull Oggy down with me. We cower beneath a low grass tree. They swear and fight the stumps and webs in their path. One boy kicks past us, yelling hoarsely, ‘Ya fuckin’ whores!’ The shaft of the moon strobes through our hollow. 127

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The boy stops. He’s seen something. Oggy’s boots. She lies exposed in the moonlight. He rockets down the incline, pouring rubble into our hiding place. His sweat, his smell, is upon me. He whoops with delight. I get it. It’s a game of the Hunter and the Hunted. I shove Oggy away and grab the boy by the lapels. Upright, I remember that I’m his height and that he’s drunk. He sags, off balance, and takes a swing; I dodge and he misses. I only have one chance. I hurl him sideways onto a prickly bush, grab Oggy’s hand and run for it. We scramble out of the gully and hide beneath the wattle scrub. They’ve had enough. They pile into their car, slamming it closed. We watch red tail-lights dip and swerve down the road. But the car reverses, an angry devil, churning and spitting gravel, and their high beam scours the bush, searching for us. There’s a shrill scream. Shit, they’ve still got Chelsea. Then the car shoots away. Our heartbeats won’t slow down. We scramble through the bush for a hundred metres till we reach the road. We don’t know which direction we’re walking in and have no idea how far we are from the main road. Oggy thinks we should knock at a farmhouse but I don’t think it’s a good idea. It’s late, no one will answer and we risk exposing ourselves. We walk in silence and hug the verge, pumped with adrenalin. Our night vision and senses are very sharp and every detail of the landscape leaps out at 128

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us. Each leaf on the eucalypts is defined by moonlight. I can see the ridges and bolts in the corrugated iron sheets of the sheds we pass. We smell the car on the crossover before we see it. It lies in wait above a cattle grid masked by pine trees. Two of them lean on the bonnet. Cigarette butts flicker. We crawl into shrubbery and creep forward but I can’t stop shivering. I’m so scared. The night is still and we can hear them talking in low, desultory voices. Somehow the party’s over and the game has changed. The driver wants to look for us but his mate reckons it’s not worth it. The driver complains that it’s his car and they’d better comply or they can walk home. The boy says that it’d be quicker to walk home, anyway. The guy in the car calls, ‘She’s passed out. She’s bloody useless. Besides, it’s cold and this is getting boring.’ The driver kicks the tyres, jumps back behind the wheel and churns the key in the ignition. The car growls and rolls forward, making the other boy run alongside. The driver yells that he’s going to dump the chick and the boy had better get in or he’ll fuckin’ leave him there. Finally the car crawls off into the night. I want to vomit but don’t, because I am panting and might choke. I feel hot with shame on the inside but my skin is ice cold. Oggy squats in the gully to pee, but holds my hand because we can’t let go of each other. We step on to the road and try to hug, but we are both shaking badly. 129

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I scan the bush and realise that we’re safe, we’re lost and we’re freezing. And what is the time? I worry about Dad and think of him hurtling along the bay in an empty car. Oggy tidies herself up and produces a pink Peter Pan watch that shows that it’s only a quarter past twelve. If we hurry, we might catch Dad on his way back from the beach. Oggy’s pants are ripped and she can’t keep up. She has to hold the waistband with one hand and grip my arm with the other. We lurch along the road but don’t talk. We can’t. It’s important not to think about Chelsea because if we do our terror will take over and we’ll imagine the boys lurking in wait around the next corner and then we won’t be able to track the car back to town. And what makes it worse is the vacuum of Chelsea not being there. Her absence looms at us in the dark. It hovers like a scream in the night air. We’re in luck: our dirt road spills on to tar and we stand on the main road with the headlights of a car bearing down on us. Oggy pushes me to the side and the car rushes past. Then another and another. I’m glad that there’s plenty of activity along the road; we will be seen. Then the high beam of a Land Rover pools around us. A man stumbles from the driver’s seat and scoops me up into a bear hug. It’s Dad, and I can’t stop crying. It’s hard to step into the high cab of the car because 130

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I’m stiff with fear and cold. Oggy tells him that it’s all her fault and apologises relentlessly. I guess it’s her way of crying. Dad will tell Mum what happened and won’t promise otherwise. He talks about criminal acts, youths out of control and identifying the station wagon. His face is grim in bursts of light from the street lamps, and he clutches at the wheel like it’s a life raft. He drops Oggy home and pulls in to our garage. My father tries to call Chelsea’s mobile and her parents, who do not answer, and then contacts the police. He’s told that it’s hard to mount a search at night but a police car will drive back along the road to Granger Beach to look for Chelsea. The police promise to notify him if they find her. Dad brews some coffee and flops on the lounge with a book and his mobile. He says it’s going to be a long night. After my mother has me bathed, towelled and into bed, she sinks into the wicker chair beside me. The table lamp is left on and she sits quite still in its orange glow to watch me fall asleep.

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Chapter 17

The woman sobs, ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ Her cries reach me from the lounge room and I burrow further under my doona. A man with a voice of gravel asks frightening, impossible questions about parental supervision and reckless youth. I can hear that the questions gouge and hurt the woman. It’s eight o’clock in the morning, a police car is parked in our entrance and I can’t help her. I can’t help Chelsea Wilson’s mother. But here’s Mum at my door with a cup of Milo and a grateful look. Her fingers tremble as she hands me my wrinkled jeans off the floor and says, ‘You have to get up now and tell them what happened.’ We sit on the floppy lounge, tugging at the folds of fabric, while I piece together a story about a moonlit beach, a lost mobile and a grey station wagon. I describe the boy in the suit and say that Blake knows him. Then I have to explain to the police and all the adults that we ran for our lives and that we abandoned Chelsea Wilson on 132

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the back seat of a car because she was too wasted. Mr and Mrs Wilson don’t look so powerful now. They sit marooned on the mammoth cloth chairs, on islands of swirling colour and dry grief, while fragments of the wild bush ride jag the silence. The cop talks haltingly about battered girls and unmarked vehicles, and that’s when I get it, when the groggy haze lifts. Chelsea didn’t come home last night. She’s still out there, lost in that night. Hell, I have to phone Oggy. I have to check that we really made it. Tell her that we’re okay. That I’m okay. I’ve got to tell somebody that these torn and bitter people with their fancy clothes and island holidays, these people who didn’t think to pick up their daughter, aren’t parents at all, and that Mum and Dad, who really piss me off, are the very best. Mum sets up camp in the living room with trays of food and gas heaters. She cocoons the Wilsons in mohair rugs and mood music. She listens and strokes and understands. Mum is in her element. She whispers to Dad about counselling. She pops between their room and mine. Outside, the lake and distant hills are bathed in light that doesn’t seem right. Indoors, the heaters blaze but I can’t get warm. I am shaking. ‘Delayed shock,’ murmurs Dad, and Mum is there beside me. TV footage shows the police search. They have cordoned off a section of bush along the bay, and police 133

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and dogs walk in long parallel lines. At one point, a dog thrashes through the undergrowth, and the sudden movement makes me want to run again. My legs twitch and ache. Mrs Wilson perches on the edge of her chair, a stiff effigy. Her eyes are frozen shut. Mr Wilson bristles along the porch and juggles his keys and mobile. By midday the car has been located and the boys rounded up, but there is still no Chelsea, and the sweat of gas heating, percolated coffee and fear engulfs me. I’ve got to get out. Luckily, Gracie is bored and wants to go for a ride along the foreshore. I give Oggy a quick call to meet us at the point and then squeeze out past Mum with ‘Yeah, don’t hassle, we’ll be back soon.’ We are welcomed by the blue of the day and a bank of pillowy cloud above the sea. I’ve grabbed Mum’s ratty old bike and my knees slap against the handlebars. Gracie catches me struggling up the hills, her legs pumping like pistons. The little witch makes me follow her, with my lousy brakes grabbing on the curves. Then she bumps over the wooden slats of the boardwalk and shoots along the foreshore. I throw my weight behind third gear and gain a bit on the hills, but the gears jam in second and I end up having to haul the whole crappy mangle of metal to the finish. Jeez, I thought I was getting into condition, but I’m knackered. I lie, heaving, on the sand. Gracie hoots with delight and 134

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extracts money from my pocket. She returns with Oggy and Jean and two cones of whipped hazelnut ice-cream. We all sit on the seawall, slurping up the drips, and watch a dad wade into the water with his boy. The child screams as he dives off the man’s shoulders. The dad scoops him out of the water and hurls him in the air and lets the kid wallop into the sea. How come it’s so easy for some families and so awful for others? Oggy says nothing and I catch Jean quietly checking us out. Gracie’s had enough and wants to head home, but my bike is stuffed. So Jean swaps bikes with me and offers to follow Gracie back, pushing the old one. It will be slow progress, but for once Gracie doesn’t complain, and they set off, chatting, along the boardwalk. Jean’s bike is a kid’s bike, with big old dragster handlebars. The moment I get on, Oggy jumps on her old treadly and rushes down the hill. We ride in tandem, tears streaming down our cheeks, the big girl on the baby bike behind the tiny girl on the rusty relic. We squeal around the bay, relishing a moment of freewheeling, and pass two cop cars heading back to town. ‘Oggy, where are we going?’ ‘To look for Chelsea.’ ‘No way.’ ‘It’s daytime, Lara, and the place is crawling with cops. Nothing will happen. Trust me.’ 135

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‘The cops have sniffer dogs. If they can’t find her, then how can we?’ ‘Yeah, but they don’t know Chelsea Wilson.’ ‘Neither do we. What kind of person gets that drunk?’ ‘A very sad one. Look, I’ve got a feeling I know where she is, Lara.’ ‘Did you tell the cops?’ ‘No.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘She doesn’t want to be found.’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘The radio says that the boys dumped her on the road past the intersection. She could have walked home by now if she’d wanted to.’ ‘You don’t believe that, do you?’ ‘Yes. Why not?’ Oggy slows down about five kilometres out from town and winds down a bush track that heads to the waterfront. It’s overgrown with bracken and hard to push through. I keep seeing that guy in the grey suit and my legs shake. Finally the scrub thins out and the track empties on to a sandy shawl. Oggy abandons her bike and tightrope-walks along a crust of rocks and then disappears. Where has she gone now? I drop my bike and search for her behind a granite boulder. She is standing in a lean-to of rusted iron. The floor is littered 136

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with glass and it stinks of wee. Oggy wrinkles her nose. ‘I thought Chelsea might be here.’ ‘Chelsea’s used to better than this.’ ‘Yeah, it’s creepy.’ ‘So why are we here?’ ‘Why are you whispering?’ ‘Because I feel weird,’ I say, shivering. ‘Is there another way back? I can’t go through the bush again.’ ‘We can go along the shore and up Quills Road.’ ‘Okay, let’s go.’ ‘I want to stay here. She might turn up.’ ‘No. Are you crazy? Wasn’t last night bad enough?’ ‘You don’t want to help.’ ‘I don’t want to die. I was scared shitless last night and I’m still scared. If I hadn’t dragged you away, Oggy, it could have been awful. Staying here won’t help, and if you reckon she doesn’t want to come home, then we can’t make her.’ ‘We understand.’ ‘About what?’ ‘That her parents are creeps and she does that stuff to get noticed.’ ‘I don’t think it’s that simple, Oggy. I don’t want to stay here anymore. Please, can we go?’ ‘What about the bikes?’ 137

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‘Pick them up later.’ I thrust along the shore, but Oggy drops to the sand and drags a twig around a knob of stone. She draws circles, enclosing the stone, making it safe. Her back shudders and her cheeks are wet. Oh, no, Oggy. She feels sharp and shaky in my arms. I can’t do anything, so I scowl at the bush and wish that Nathan was here. I realise that I’ve thought about Nathan a lot in the last twenty-four hours and that it probably means something. I guess it means that being reliable is important, not boring, like I thought it did. After the party Blake left without even asking if we had a lift home. I wonder if Oggy sees me as reliable and if that’s why we’re friends. I wish I knew the way home now, and I wish I’d stayed there. The tide’s in and it’s hard for us as we stumble over rocks, searching for footholds. We leap over crevices, with the water rushing in. Oggy is really crying now, and so am I. This is so dumb. Finally we’re driven off the shore by the tide and up a narrow track into a clearing. The dusk gathers around a circle of spindly jarrah trees. I hold on to Oggy and she holds on to me because now we are completely lost. My heart does a triple flip when Mrs Kaye steps out of the bush. I’m so relieved to see her that she doesn’t look like a scary dragon anymore. Wiry grey curls spring from beneath her beanie and she looks small 138

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and drab in a checked flannel shirt. ‘What are you girls doing here?’ ‘Where are we?’ ‘On my block; it fronts the bay.’ ‘We’re looking for Chelsea.’ ‘Chelsea’s with me. Her parents know and so do the police.’ ‘Is she okay?’ ‘No, not really.’ ‘Are her folks coming to get her?’ ‘She won’t go home.’ ‘Really? How did she end up here?’ ‘Last night she was dropped on the road about a kilometre past my entrance. She knows my place because her older sister was friendly with my daughter. So she spent the night in the bush and then crawled in after midday.’ ‘She slept the night in the bush?’ ‘I think she slept off whatever she’d consumed. It must have been an awful lot: she was in bad shape and terribly thirsty. But she doesn’t remember much. Maybe you can fill me in on the story.’ ‘Maybe. But my folks expected me home half an hour ago.’ ‘Right. You’d better come with me and call your parents.’ 139

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Mrs Kaye doesn’t waste any more breath talking because she is concentrating on the path. She steps over bracken and holds back the fronds of a wild orchid so that we can pass. I follow the tread of her big black gumboots on to the back porch of her home. We have to kick off our shoes to enter through the door, which has bits of ship iron and driftwood bolted to it. It’s a storyboard of shipwrecks and the elements. I love it. The stone floor is cool on our feet and we make out the dim shapes of a wood stove, a kitchen bench, the inner skeleton of the roof. The place is basic and I expect it to smell of stinky dogs or leftovers but meet the calm of damp earth and incense. A little vase of nasturtiums bursts orange in the glow of a kerosene lamp. Mrs Kaye’s skin is soft and crinkly and she feels friendly, though she doesn’t smile. Oggy and I stand in the evening hush and hold hands like little girls. We don’t search for Chelsea because we can’t move. Everywhere we look, on shelves, among books, between candles, over the lintel of the door, are photos of a girl who must be Mrs Kaye’s daughter. The reason she works. The one we never see. The one behind bars in a Thai jail.

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Chapter 18

Right now I want three things to happen. I want Chelsea to appear, all clean and docile, I want Mrs Kaye to magic up some muffins and hot tea, and then I want Mum to turn up and drive us all home because I just can’t cope with the girl on the saggy verandah who is pacing up and down. The light is so bad that I can’t even see the colour of her hair when she slams through the wire door and disappears. It can’t be Chelsea; she looks so small. Mrs Kaye sits at the kitchen bench and shells peas. There is no invitation to come in and make ourselves comfortable. Some kookaburras cackle over the last of the light but we don’t share the joke. Oggy’s hand is like ice in mine and her eyebrows work overtime to tell me how she feels. Because I’m big, people think I should be powerful, and I do feel pretty proud of the way I ditched that boy last night, but it doesn’t make me great in a crisis or a non-event, as this is turning out to be. There’s Mrs Kaye, who is obsessed with peas — the way she splits those shells, you’d think she was hunting for 141

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pearls — a runaway who won’t show and a best friend who speaks in brow language. It’s been a really long day and I’ve kind of had it with all the dramas. The warmth of the room makes me drowsy, so I throw myself on the rug by the fire. Mrs Kaye gives a wry snort and then goes back to the peas. I can see that I’m not helping, so I sit up to speak, to call the girl inside, but I can’t. If this was a noisy drama class, then Oggy and I would be hammering on about our new hair treatments, but the silence here makes me respectful. There is something devotional about the gentle dusk settling on the mud-brick room, the altar of candles, the photos and the untroubled presence of the woman shelling peas. The quiet makes me feel better, and I stretch out to wait, but Oggy doesn’t. She starts to poke at the photos buried around us. You can’t call Oggy a do-gooder but she is persistent. She’s like a little wiry terrier on guard duty. The sort that will leap at a two-metre fence and keep yapping till a passer-by is three streets away. I also have a theory that small women get away with murder because people think they’re cute and innocuous. I say they’re lethal. Look at my mother. The tighter her belt, the more acid her tongue. And so it is that Oggy, with dainty moves, wrecks the arrangement of the home and marches twenty photos of Mrs Kaye’s daughter up the mantelpiece above 142

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the fireplace. In each photo the girl gets older and more beautiful and yet she wears the same guarded expression as Chelsea Wilson. ‘She’s gorgeous.’ ‘Yes. She certainly was.’ ‘She’s got the same eyes as you.’ ‘But her father’s mouth.’ ‘She’s got a lovely mouth. Really full lips.’ ‘Hmm. So did he. You just couldn’t believe a word that came out of them.’ ‘How old is she here?’ ‘Sixteen, maybe, seventeen. About your age. That’s an antique kimono she’s wearing. She was playing the lead in The Mikado for a junior opera company.’ ‘She was a lead singer? At seventeen? Wow. Did she go to London? My mother played in the Royal Albert Hall when she was that young.’ Mrs Kaye stares at the photo and her voice drops. ‘My daughter never made it past there.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘She imagined that she sang better with her veins pumped with heroin. Here, you missed the last photo of her, the one above the stove.’ ‘That can’t be her.’ ‘That was taken by the press at her trial.’ The girl in the photo hides behind her lank hair, 143

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while her cheekbones, nose and narrow temples are compressed in one long line of misery. ‘Shit. Has Chelsea seen this?’ ‘I could show that photo to a hundred girls and it wouldn’t make an ounce of difference.’ The thin girl is back. She hunkers in the doorway and blows a strand of hair out of her eyes because her hands are occupied. They are wrapped around her chest to protect her heart. I can’t see her eyes but know they’re malevolent. They look me up and down and sum me up. As what? A tall, fat girl from a protected family? She waits for me to speak so she can rip the words out of my mouth and stamp on them. Oggy is not afraid. She walks up to the girl and puts an arm around her razorthin hips. The girl doesn’t move but stands there on the inside of Oggy’s love, under the stone archway, and dares me. She dares me to be kind. But I’m too scared to move. One point to Razor Girl. Nil to Lara. ‘So you told them bloody everything, Lara.’ ‘I had to, Chelsea. The police were there. Your parents are really worried.’ ‘Really. About what?’ ‘You.’ ‘Do ya reckon? Let me guess. Mum’s frozen to the bed. No, she’s at your place, better make it the lounge, and Dad’s conducting D-Day from his mobile.’ 144

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‘My mother’s looking after her.’ ‘You bet. Mum always gets top treatment, always travels first class.’ ‘She isn’t faking it. Chelsea, you have to come home. They’ve caught those guys.’ ‘So what?’ ‘So they’re going to charge them. The police are waiting for your statement.’ ‘I’m not making one.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Nothing happened.’ ‘What?’ ‘Nothing happened!’ ‘Chelsea, we were there. We hid behind the trees. We heard them. They were planning to do you.’ ‘Thanks a lot for the help, Lara.’ ‘We were scared. You were so out of it. Do you remember anything?’ ‘Yeah. I went for a drive in the country with a couple of blokes and then got them to drop me off.’ It’s Oggy’s turn. ‘That is so not true. They chased us through the bush. They tried to take all three of us.’ ‘It wasn’t that bad. I didn’t run away.’ ‘You mean you couldn’t. You were too out of it. This is crazy. Why are you defending them?’ ‘Because I was enjoying myself.’ 145

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That makes me mad. ‘With those guys?’ ‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’ ‘I don’t believe you.’ ‘Don’t.’ ‘So you’re not going to support our statement?’ ‘What for? I’d have to go to court and watch my father put some kid behind bars.’ ‘Don’t you care about what those boys did to us?’ ‘What difference does it make? Nobody will believe me.’ ‘Your parents will.’ ‘My father believes in whatever makes him look good.’ ‘But you have to identify those boys.’ ‘Why?’ ‘For us.’ ‘No. No. I’m not going to. I’m not going to the police. I don’t want to see you or those boys or anybody.’ The brave words freeze in her mouth. She looks at me and her eyes are coals of anger, but it’s the only warm thing about her. Her limbs are shaking violently. She is a tiny warrior facing certain death. Mrs Kaye wraps a blanket around her and moves her to the lounge. She lays a warm wheat pack against Chelsea’s chest and rubs lavender oil into her palms and temples. Chelsea lies there with her eyes squeezed shut. She looks just like her mother. 146

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I’ve never felt so useless. How could Chelsea give up like that? And what’s it got to do with her father? I don’t get it. But Chelsea runs to the bathroom. The shower is a furious spurt of steam. Mrs Kaye looks tired, resigned. She stokes the wood stove and lifts a warm towel from the drying rack and knocks on the bathroom door. I wonder how many times she’s done that today. Oggy scoops up the peas and arranges them in pearllike strings on the bench. Spirals. It seems like Oggy is always arranging something: a play I don’t understand, or a lift we shouldn’t take, even a burglary. Why is Oggy so busy in my life? She is preoccupied with the peas, like Mrs Kaye was with the shells. This is how lonely people keep busy. Oggy’s spirals gleam on the bench in a shaft of light, but they don’t look pretty. They look lurid, deranged. I step outside into the clearing, where an old milking goat on a loose tether grazes on marigolds at the border of the vegie garden. She watches me over her shoulder and grinds the lovely gold petals to a pulp. She’s been caught in the act and couldn’t care less. I pick a bit of chocolate from my pocket and try chewing like the goat. We rotate our lower jaws and watch each other. The chocolate melts to a silky mush. Yum. The goat gets picky. She tramples the marigolds to get to the carrots. I run at her to frighten her off, to stop her eating the feathery carrot tops. But 147

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she won’t be distracted. She’s having dessert. I feel silly letting her get away with it. I wonder where Jean is. We called her and she said she’d come to pick us up. I just wish that Mr and Mrs Wilson would arrive and take care of their daughter. What are they waiting for? But I guess this day will not be hurried. The goat and I turn and watch the sun die a final spectacular death across the bay and bleed into the water.

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Chapter 19

Duke Street tumbles down to the waterfront across the doorsteps of old pubs and glass-fronted stores. The shoppers scuttle between doorways under a blast of arctic wind. It won’t let them settle into the warm slack of shopping dreams. There aren’t a lot of places to hang out in our town after school, but one of the best spots is on the bench outside the Post Office on Duke Street. Nathan and I buy a box of hot chips to share and claim the bench. It sits halfway down Duke Street and everybody walks by. A couple of kids from drama stop and ask me about Chelsea. There’s not a lot to tell them, really, so they disappear into the music shop and Mills’ Kaff. Mr Hatherly, in a hairy brown coat, skids out of a shop on skinny ankles. Nathan mouths, around a hot chip, ‘Hey, thir, wanna ship?’ But the Hath doesn’t pause to chat, because he’s on one of his missions. ‘Rehearsal starts in ten minutes, guys. Ten minutes.’ 149

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Why do teachers repeat everything? Either you’re listening or you’re not. We watch Hatherly trip twice on the raw hem of the coat and climb into his car. I feel sorry for the guy. ‘He deserves a new coat.’ ‘Plenty in the costume room, where that one came from.’ I laugh and choke on a chip. They say that news moves fast in small towns but what they don’t tell you is that gossip hovers over the near-dead like a vulture over road kill. A couple of cars slow down past our bench and then speed around the roundabout to come back for a second look. I stare down the street at the bay, but Nathan stands on the bench and clowns and waves his bandanna frantically. I think the people in the cars are looking for Chelsea, but she’s gone to the city with her mother to stay with family. The onlookers have to be content with the big fat girl who fought off three blokes and carried her friend twenty ks to safety. If you can believe that — and some people do. I make the most of my ten minutes with the crunchy chips and Nathan. We don’t talk about the party or the play. We perch on the bench and squabble over chips like seagulls. We find new ways to gawk at the cars gawking at us. Nathan grabs the last chip and makes me chase him all the way back to rehearsal with the greasy thing dangling 150

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in front of me. I’m a spitting, giggling, hysterical wreck by the time we reach the drama studio. Nathan blasts his triumph over me by flashing his mouthful of white teeth. It pulls me up short. I’ve just noticed. His smile is a show stopper. The studio has big barn doors and they are open. A light breeze filters through the seating stand and, for once, the smell is bright, not fusty. This means that the cleaners have actually swept under there, and when Blake arrives his man-fumes overwhelm me. ‘Hey, Lara.’ Blake sits behind me and clamps my shoulder in a rugby grip. ‘Sorry about Saturday.’ You’re sorry! And was that sorry about Chelsea or sorry that you dumped us to get a ride home or sorry that you got my hopes up and then let me down? I want to hold his hand and bite it at the same time, which is confusing, so I give it a little pat. But I won’t turn around. Oggy doesn’t, either. She sits beside me and shreds her lever arch with a nail file. She looks very tense and everyone seems so quiet, maybe because Chelsea’s not here and nobody wants to mention it. Mr Hatherly bustles to the front of the stage with a fistful of rehearsal plans. ‘Now, people, we are getting perilously close to production time. Yes, Aimee, we will have time to polish scenes during camp. But, I reiterate, I must see your scripts for your individual scenes.’ 151

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Reiterate. Is that what he’s doing? I thought he repeats himself because he likes to pretend he’s on a film set doing second takes. ‘And I must have your camp permission slips in this week.’ I fish mine out of my bag to hand in. Thankfully, Mum has relented and we don’t have to leave early for Nana’s memorial service, so I can go to camp. In fact, she’s turned the pressure off since the thing with Chelsea. The Hath hasn’t finished. ‘Please give Mrs Kaye your props list. Yes, Blake, we can make some props on camp — there should be the facilities but we are really desperate for parent help. Did you hear me, people? Oggy, we’ll never get through this if you keep talking. Now listen. Does anybody’s mum or dad sew or paint or build? Please ask them. I’m sending around this piece of paper and I want you to write down your name and phone number if you think your folks can help, and perhaps some idea of what you think they may have to offer in the way of skills.’ The white flag of paper is passed to Cindy, who crumples it under her chair because she’s too busy chatting, and then it’s snatched back by Blake, who scribbles something and passes it on. ‘Okay, guys, if you want to use the computers to finish off your scripts, you can. Mrs Kaye said that a few people at a time could look at costumes. Blake, come with me. 152

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I want to drag the stage flats out of the storeroom. Now, listen, people, if we don’t all get off our behinds and make this happen now, then I’ll have to cancel the camp and it will be whose fault? So, all of you, practise, practise, practise.’ Mrs Kaye quietly ticks off attendance, assembles the scripts that get passed to the front and unlocks the costume room. She gives us a look that says ‘No mess’ and asks us to hang any pieces we choose on the side rack. But she does not acknowledge me as we pass by, which feels a bit weird. The costume room is awesome. There are rows upon rows of costumes — velvet gowns, Cossack pants, military coats, comic masks — and it stinks of stale sweat and naphthalene. I lose Nathan to a pile of silly hats. A couple of girls grab frocks and rush off to the changeroom. Nathan pulls a felt fedora hat over his frizzy hair. I tell him that it really works for me but think that it’s more Garbo than Garbage. He throws on a big black hobo coat and hands me a grey one, and then grabs a broken suitcase and hobbles down the hallway. Hmm. Yeah. Not bad, but a bit overdone. The dance girls are back wearing their costumes from the musical Sweet Charity. They squeeze into the costume room and fling their hips around and pout in front of the mirrors. Slinky gold spandex drapes across perfect bums, 153

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feathers fly and diamanté shoes wink at me. I can’t see how the costumes fit in a play about World Poverty but you can be sure the girls will wear them somehow. Cindy Lee sits on a bar stool and drapes one slim thigh across the other. Spaghetti straps fall off her little round shoulders and tangle in a sheath of black hair. Nathan stands gobsmacked, his eyes bulging. I catch myself in the mirror in my bulky grey coat. I look like the Hulk’s fairy godmother. Cindy wants Aimee Robinson to wear the skimpy green dress she has clutched in her hand. ‘C’mon, Aimee, try it on, we can all look the same.’ The same, like hell. Aimee Robinson is very pretty but she’s a large size and next to those girls she’ll look like a petrol bowser in lurex. ‘I don’t know, Cindy. How about I wear a suit and play a guy.’ ‘No. We’d have to change the choreography. Besides, it’ll fit. Stop yer whingeing, Aimee. Try it on.’ ‘But my bum will stick out.’ I hear Nathan stumble behind me as he tries to merge with the coat rack. Any moment now, gorgeous, voluptuous Aimee Robinson might slip off her jeans and squeeze into a dress the size of a Coke bottle, and he’s not missing out. ‘Nathan, get out of there.’ I give him a swift kick but 154

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he’s suffering from hormone-induced paralysis. I feel sick. I want Nathan to stop looking at Aimee and Cindy Lee and her emaciated pals because for a whole five minutes he was in love with me. ‘Look, Aimee, if you don’t want to do it, that’s cool,’ says Cindy. ‘We’ll find someone else.’ Good one, Cindy. I can see Aimee left behind with a broken zip and weepy mascara. ‘You can’t do that, Cindy. You can’t just exclude somebody.’ ‘Stay out of it, Hobo Girl.’ Cindy and her dancers giggle and rush off to practise. I catch Aimee’s eye in the mirror and she hands me the slithering green thing. From among the coats there’s a faint groan. But Aimee and I have the best time. We try on every dress in that cupboard, right there in front of Nathan. I want him to see that my thighs are wide and firm, that my breasts look absolutely fantastic in my lace bra. Poor Nathan, but this isn’t something we can do alone. We have to have an audience. I want some bloody boy to be in agony over us. Aimee doesn’t care. She’s my size and having fun. Nathan lies impaled on a dusty heap of old coats. I don’t know why I do this to him. Maybe because it’s safe, maybe because I know he won’t tell, or maybe because 155

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I’ve noticed the swell of his freckly chest inside the open shirt, his rough little beard and gorgeous brown eyes. And, up close, his musk overpowers the naphthalene. We riffle through crimson bodices, beaded taffeta, a thicket of peasant shirts, till we find what we’re looking for: two gowns that transport us to a different era and a totally new part of ourselves. Aimee thumbs a paste of white pancake makeup and purple shadow onto my face. Beneath the heavy fabric, our full hips shape the cloth into hills and valleys. We walk tall on bare feet, trailing fabric, silence, dignity. Nathan rolls off the coats and vaults upright. His face is radiant and I can see what he’s thinking: Stage. Lights. Action. He prepares the stage for our entrance so that we appear two shapely columns in a tight pool of light. The skittish dance girls go quiet. We rotate slowly. Nathan slips on a CD and brings up the sound. It’s rolling timpani, an ocean of sound. The darkened hall falls away and I stare into a swirling void of sea spray and stars. We are two women standing on the town jetty in a century past. We are waiting for ships, news, comfort, food. The darkness is our refuge — a mantle of hope. Nathan kills the power; the light goes out.

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Chapter 20

I am lying on Nathan’s bed, kissing Nathan. Am I really? Yep, I am. And Nathan Young, who I’ve known since I was twelve, is lying on top of me, kissing my neck while I count the freckles on his eyelids. In fact, I’m not really doing this. I’m imagining it, which is pretty awkward since I am at home on the purple suede-look lounge and Mum is calling for help because — what do you know? — she’s invited the Youngs to dinner. Isn’t that nice? ‘How come, Mum? It’s the middle of the week.’ ‘Yes, but Rita had to go up to the city to see her mother, so Phil and Nathan are by themselves. They will be here in five minutes. Please, Lara, can you set the table while I do everything else.’ In the remaining two minutes before I have to eat with Nathan Young and his new musky masculinity, I try really hard to replace the boy in my fantasy with the very bulging Blake Taylor. Which used to be so easy. But now the real Nathan Young slouches in the half-light, tentative, sweet, wired. His wild hair is a silhouette of 157

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flames and his broad shoulders fill the frame of the door to the games room. I’m goosebumps. ‘Hey, Lara, are you there?’ I’m surprised he can’t smell me over the roast: I’m soaked in ylang-ylang Body and Soul Touch Me Moisturiser. ‘Hey, Nathan. I’m over here.’ ‘Where? Can I turn on the light?’ ‘Here. Dumb arse.’ Shit, Lara. That’s what you used to call gangly old Nathan. It’s not what you call a freshly showered boy in an open-collared retro shirt and nice — yeah, real nice — cute-arse jeans. ‘The Hath liked your piece today.’ ‘It wasn’t really a piece, Nathan. It was just Aimee and me playing dress-ups.’ ‘But it could be. You looked like you were in another world. Lara you looked …’ ‘Yeah?’ I want him to say it but I figure I don’t have a lot of time before Mum gets excited about her veal roast. I have to do this before we get to the table and eat. Just thinking about it gives me indigestion. I pull Nathan on to the lounge, where it’s warm from my body, and edge him into the corner so he has to sit pressed against me. I have to touch his hair. It’s all tangled 158

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but surprisingly soft. More like lamb’s wool than steel wool. My hand drops to his shoulders; the muscles flinch. Nathan’s a rower and he’s beginning to get that Greek god look, with the Atlas shoulders and tiny waist in small but perfect proportion. I’m stuck for inspiration but he begins to get the message because he’s taken my hand in one of his. First he traces my face with his fingers, the ones I used to think were freckly and boyish but now form a firm man’s hand, and then with his lips. Then his hands are in my hair, inside my top circling my back, my neck, my breasts, stroking me. He is forceful in a way I would never have guessed and his lips and tongue tell me he is angry for all the teasing and the waiting I’ve made him do. I want to taste him. I want to draw him into me, but he gets up and pulls me, stunned, to the table. But not for one minute of that meal does Nathan Young let me go or take his hand off me, and it’s those hands that I love and trust when we finally fall onto the purple lounge, while my parents tell Phil Young how helpful Nathan has been. We hear them and laugh into each other’s mouths, our teeth rattling together. But Phil is yawning and saying thanks to a last coffee. He will want to go home soon. We stop listening. We clothe ourselves in each other. When we stand in the hallway, saying goodbye, I wonder if his dad can smell me on Nathan and I’m 159

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surprised that nobody trips over the luminous threads tying us together. Dad hugs Mum and tells her that it was a lovely meal. Phil says how much they enjoyed the evening. Nathan agrees. Mum gives me a peculiar look. His dad has one hand slung over Nathan’s shoulders, moving him outside. They are exactly the same height, the same build. They belong in each other’s shadow, they belong in our family home. Nathan’s smile opens onto tomorrow and says, Hey Lara, you belong here, too. Hell, I hope so.

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Chapter 21

Fluoro lights flicker across the clusters of kids in the drama studio. ‘Okay, guys. Everybody up and in your groups, ready for warm-up.’ Mr Hatherly’s voice dies in the lighting box. There is not a single buzz of excitement. No one moves. ‘Come on, pee-pull. Only three weeks to go. Up, up, up!’ Wind draws through the cavern of the room and sucks at the curtains, which rasp against the floor. Overhead lights blink on, and Hatherly marches down the stairs and leans against the pulpit left over from our production of The Crucible. He surveys us and prepares to deliver a sermon but stops because we, his audience, aren’t just quiet, we’re inert. He gapes at us and we look away. Instead, we all stare at Chelsea Wilson and wait to see what she will do. Chelsea Wilson is back from the city. She sits inside a barricade of bags in a circle of her friends, with her back to Mr Hatherly. She does not wear a scrap of makeup and her hair is dragged back in a rough ponytail. Her 161

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expression is empty. Oggy says that Chelsea won’t talk to her and I’m not even going to try. Everyone knows what happened to Chelsea Wilson, and that she’s always so out of it. Everyone knows that she won’t lay charges and that her parents are furious because they look like fools. The boys look scared because she’s messed around with lots of them, and the girls are afraid that she’ll let those guys get away with it and that every boy in town will turn feral. Her girlfriends sit hunched over their bags and pick at their nails. The room feels like a dusty, disused railway station where all the excited coming and going has ceased. How can that pallid stick insect hold so much power? Mr Hatherly gives up and leans on the rostrum, tapping out a dull rhythm. He looks tired. Mrs Kaye sits and sorts buttons and beads for the dance costumes. Her voice comes out low: ‘Nathan, there’s a CD in the player. Put it on. Right, everybody, on your feet.’ Her tone is even and it’s not a command, really, because she doesn’t even bother to look up to see if we respond. The music is languid. ‘Right. Move around the room. Take up all the space. Move into the empty corners, the empty space.’ She spills another tin of beads into her lap and starts to count. People get up in ones and twos and drift around the room. ‘Feel your body attracted and repelled by the space, by 162

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the sound, by other bodies in the room. Let yourself drift. Don’t force it.’ Usually, by this time the younger boys would be spinning out, showing off, trampling the mood. But today they’re not. It’s like they’ve hunkered down inside themselves and they’re too scared to come out. ‘If you meet someone, greet them with your body, with your feelings. No voices, please.’ Mrs Kaye has stopped counting. She sits with her back against the wall, her eyes are closed, and she directs from her feelings. She does not watch because this is not a performance; we do this for ourselves. People start to meet in twos and threes. Palms press to palms. Fingers intertwine and then free themselves. Sometimes there is anger in a slamming fist. We melt to the floor. We stretch and roll and coalesce; we part and move on. It feels like the sea. I find the shelter of Blake’s arms, the strength of Nathan’s body and the cool, torrid presence of Oggy’s locked wrists. Each meeting is swift, gossamer, unique. By the end of the music, we lie in a circle like starfish, our outstretched hands touching, connected each to each. Everyone except Chelsea, who has not moved. She sits in the centre with her head in her arms, closed and untouchable. ‘Right, Chelsea, start a game of “Everybody Who”.’ This time it’s Mr Hatherly speaking; he is clear 163

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but quiet. This game can go on for ages, with people swapping places as directions are fired: ‘Everybody who ate cornflakes for breakfast, move.’ ‘Everybody who’s not wearing underwear, move.’ The rule is that when you call out a category, you have to be in it. So if you’ve called no underpants, then you can’t be wearing underpants. It’s usually a bit hysterical but it’s not like that today. There’s too much at stake. Aimee starts the game: ‘Everybody who’s scared to die, move.’ There’s a scramble for new places. Chelsea doesn’t move. She’s supposed to, but she doesn’t. Instead she calls out, ‘Everybody who couldn’t care less if they die, move.’ Blake Taylor swaps places. We all look at him, amazed. I’m not sure if he did it to comfort her or if that’s really how he feels, but he doesn’t look so big in the room anymore. And so the game goes on. Everybody ends up in the middle sometime. ‘If you’ve ever been in love, move.’ ‘If you’re in love now, move.’ This one from Nathan. ‘If your olds shit you, move.’ ‘If your olds hit you, move.’ Too much information. Some things you don’t want to know. People tell sad things and funny things about themselves. We identify, we gag, we laugh till Mr Hatherly stands in the centre of the circle. He looks unhappy. 164

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‘If you want to give up working on our play, move.’ The air crackles. Hell. The teacher can’t admit defeat — that’s our job. We’re flaky teenagers full of food colouring and crappy mood swings. Mr Hatherly looks around the circle at each and every kid, begging somebody to move, begging someone to release him from the burden of this play. But no one moves. He looks tense but relieved. ‘Right, everybody. Scripts in tomorrow. Camp permission slips, please. Move.’ We drag open the side doors and daylight sucks us outside. I wait for Nathan, who is mucking around in the lighting box with Blake. They’re trying to fix something. Oggy has gone and I take a moment to watch Chelsea. She’s got her mates with her, so I know she won’t talk to me, but I watch her to see how she feels. I’ve discovered recently that sometimes people aren’t who you think they are. Chelsea dumps all her junk out of her bag and then roots around in the pocket. She says something to the girls. They laugh but she doesn’t. They slick their lips with frosted pink gloss and shriek over a message on Cindy’s mobile. While Cindy messages back, Aimee sweeps Cindy’s hair into a high ponytail that vaults off the back of her head and sprays across her neck. Cindy displays her phone. More shrieks. I swear Cindy has brains in her thumbs: she can text that fast. 165

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.

Chelsea’s found it. She fishes a damp permission slip out of the bottom of her bag and chews her lip. In her miniskirt, her long, thin legs are mottled with cold and knotted at the knee like a stork. She smoothes out the wrinkled page with chipped nails and folds it carefully. The girls form a loose, swaying circle of bubbly joy and slip out the door. They don’t see Chelsea Wilson walk up to me and whisper, ‘I’m sorry, Lara.’ It shocks me. I feel awful. She stands and fidgets with the paper. Chelsea Wilson wants to know if I will take her apology. She wants to know if I can understand what she did to herself and to us and if I can accept her. And you know what? I can’t answer. Because not for one lousy moment did I ever really worry about how she might feel now. I was too busy being disgusted, or jealous of her freedom. For a brief moment, I think that maybe I should have rushed that boy in the suit and stopped him. But brave thoughts can’t change things now, and Chelsea drops her head and leaves. By the time Nathan comes out of the lighting box, triumphantly trailing twenty metres of electric flex, my mood is sour. It’s not what he expected. He’s just solved a tricky problem with Blake — they have hooked up the network, and emerge slapping each other on the back, talking about three-phase power and school broadcasts — and they find me impersonating a hungry bear over a no166

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go ice hole. Can’t stay, can’t go. They look puzzled, then appalled. Blake does the manly thing and ducks out the side door, leaving Nathan with the bear. ‘What is it, Lara?’ ‘Chelsea.’ ‘Oh. Did you talk to her? What did she say?’ ‘I’m sorry.’ ‘That’s good.’ ‘No, it isn’t.’ ‘Okay, it isn’t.’ ‘You don’t have to agree with everything, Nathan. Stop being so nice. Now I have to speak to her. I’ll have to work out with Oggy what to do.’ ‘Oggy? Why do you girls always work in teams?’ ‘Because Oggy was there when it happened.’ ‘Oh, she spoke to Oggy too?’ ‘No! On the night.’ ‘I’m sure it’ll be okay.’ ‘No, it won’t.’ ‘Okay, it won’t.’ ‘Nathan!’ I could keep being angry till halfway through next week, but Nathan has me in the bike racks up against the wall. His hands press along my spine and he’s taking swooping dives at my mouth. Now, I like kissing, and I’ve found out how much I really like kissing Nathan Young, 167

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but I’m not really a public kisser, and even though the yard is deserted I’m still scared that the Apeman will step out of the staffroom and cut across the yard. Besides, I’m laughing too much. Nathan is making commando noises; it’s like being kissed by Top Gun. Frizzy curls fly around his face, his eyes crinkle and he smiles down on his handiwork: Lara Pearlman paralysed with the giggles, currently wetting her pants. ‘Nathan, stop it.’ ‘Only if you come with me to see Tom. He hasn’t been to the last two rehearsals and Hatherly wants to know if he’s in or out. But Hath doesn’t want to pressure Tom, so I said I’d go and check him out.’ ‘Now?’ ‘Yep.’ ‘Why do I have to come?’ ‘Because he lives somewhere weird and you can protect me.’ ‘But we’re meeting Oggy and Blake tonight for dance practice.’ ‘Where?’ ‘My place at seven-thirty.’ ‘Please? Come on, Lara.’ ‘Well, okay. But how weird?’ ‘Dunno. Just weird. Is your mum making pizza?’

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Chapter 22

My bum registers every pothole, every screaming dip in the road up the hill to Tom’s place, and although Nathan’s straining back reminds me I am no lightweight, he will not let me get off the back of his bike and walk. As a result, I get to the derelict verandah of the old boarding house in an evil mood. The house overlooks the town on the same street as Oggy’s, which is strange because I’ve never noticed it before. The house looks squashed and sad and we find Tom chasing a dog, which stupidly chases geese up the driveway. The game slows down when Tom slips in the mud, but then a goose snaps at the dog and the whole hissing, spitting circus starts again. I boot gumnuts off the road and scowl at Nathan, but he’s no help. He hoots at the dog, a sure winner, as it yaps past on the rutted earth. At last the geese waddle off in a noisy dispute over the dog. The wattle tree scrapes at us with spiky, seed-pod hands as we walk towards the house. I can’t breathe in 169

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the syrupy air. I want to go home, but Nathan pushes me on to the verandah. Tom is doubled over in the yard. He can’t get his breath. He is soggy with sweat, and the thin light paints his skin a waxy yellow. He still hasn’t said hello. Instead, he thrusts past us into the house and yells hoarsely. I don’t understand the words but the message is clear: Look out, there are strangers here, you’d better stay inside. Down the hall, a door slams. Tom returns with a sack of pistachio nuts, and we sit on the verandah on an old school bench with our feet on the railings and enjoy a front-row view of the town. But the show is lame, because the sun has done a backflip behind the clouds and the church and the library are sealed shut in uniform grey. Tom splits pistachio nuts between his teeth and spits the shells at the geese. He still hasn’t said anything and it’s killing me. Well, he hasn’t said anything real, about our play, himself, this house — just stuff about maths and footy. And Nathan hasn’t asked him. Tom hasn’t spilt his guts the way he should, the way I would if Oggy were here. I open my mouth to say something, to help the boys out, because this may be a special moment between guys, but it’s taking way too long to build. Nathan sees me gulp in air. He jumps to his feet, picks a footy off a rusted drum of feed and belts it across the mucky yard. 170

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The ball is flat and kicks like a bloated paddymelon, but it’s just right for the dog. The grizzly terrier pounces on it and runs flat out for the fence like a qualified midfielder. Nathan laughs and lunges for the dog, Tom leaps on top of them, and together they slide down a hill of mud. There’s a huge amount of grunting and pounding, which is really far too much male bonding for one day. I close my mouth, defeated, and turn to the house. The door is armoured with sheets of cladding. It feels heavy, like a dead thing, and doesn’t make sense on the flimsy, fibro house. When I finally wrench it open and slip inside, it claps shut behind me. It’s too heavy to push open again — in fact, it’s locked and I am sealed inside a dark hallway. I smell fried fat, mouldy mattresses, the ammonia of old piss and public toilets. I can’t see much and stumble down the hallway in the gloom. The boys whack the ball against the feeble walls and rush around in the freedom of late afternoon while I’m locked in this creepy black place. I sneeze in the dust and, crying out, rattle a door handle. The door springs open and I’m looking into some sort of workroom, where a tall girl with a tomboy haircut glares at me from among strips of sheepskin, spools of thread, cloth scrap, an old sewing machine. I feel trapped and sure that I should not be here. Outside the boys have gone oddly quiet, and I hope that Nathan will come to look for me, but inside the silence 171

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makes the girl’s prickly stare more awkward. It’s no surprise when Tom thrusts through the door with Nathan behind him. ‘You, Lara, get out.’ ‘Sorry, Tom, I was just …’ ‘Get out!’ But the girl won’t let me go. She blocks my way with the square of her shoulders and raised palm. ‘No, Tom.’ Tom relents but his eyes are desolate. He slides to the floor, no longer at home with the dog, the mud and the gloomy afternoon. He has come adrift again, like he did in drama. The young woman sniffs at me and turns her smooth, domed head away. This time I know her and we can talk. She’s the girl from the op shop, the ice rink, the party. I want to ask her about the top that she stole and what she was doing with Blake, but Nathan beats me to it and pushes past a column of scrap to grip my hand. ‘Who are you?’ he asks. ‘Petra.’ ‘What are you doing here?’ asks Nathan. ‘Working. I sew piecemeal for a sheepskin outlet.’ ‘In the dark?’ Tom kicks at a box of samples and above it the tower of scrap teeters. The girl grabs it and rebukes him. Her shrewd eyes glitter in the dull room and her voice catches. ‘I’m used to it.’ 172

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‘Are you from around here?’ asks Nathan. ‘You ask a lot of questions.’ Her mouth puckers with dislike, and close up I can see that she is even older than I thought, but this time I won’t be diverted. ‘This is kind of a strange place to live. Don’t you think? A boarding house?’ ‘It’s okay. I’m travelling around.’ Her voice is deep, for a woman, and the words are burred. Her accent is hard to place. ‘I’m from Canada. I came to Australia to escape the cold.’ ‘It gets really cold down here, you know.’ ‘Maybe, but you don’t have the months of ice and snow that we do. That’s bitter cold.’ Months of ice and snow. Of course, that’s how she learned to skate. I wonder if she’s a famous champion, but before I can ask her she cuts in. ‘You’re very lucky to live here, you know.’ The tone is sour and her assumption grates on me. ‘Why don’t you go up north? It’s much warmer there.’ ‘Point Jerome is beautiful. I like it here.’ Yeah, I think, and I bet you ran out of money, too, which I cannot say. But I decide to ask, ‘Do you have a work visa?’ Petra crosses her arms and shrugs casually. ‘So you shouldn’t be here.’ She knows that I’m hardly going to call the border 173

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police, and her insolent smile confirms it. Frustrated, I look around the room, hoping to see my beaded top, but Petra distracts me. ‘I heard about your play,’ she says. ‘How?’ ‘From Mrs Kaye. She came here to speak to Tom and she told me all about it. I think it sounds very exciting.’ Her false interest sickens me and I don’t want her opinion about our play. Something feels very wrong about this place, the girl, the sudden intimate conversation. She’s known about us all along, but we didn’t know about her, which makes me nervous. She’s watching me again and I don’t like it. ‘Who else lives here?’ ‘It changes a lot. People come and go.’ I look at Tom and ask him, ‘Do you live here with your parents?’ ‘No.’ Petra stands at an old sideboard. Sheets of wood laminate peel away in her hands when she yanks open a drawer and scrabbles about inside. Looking from Nathan to me, she hands us a photo of two women standing in black furrowed earth between long lines of fruit trees. One is Petra and the other is a woman with Tom’s bony face. ‘Is that Tom’s mother?’ 174

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‘Yes. I met her fruit picking and she told me to stay here.’ ‘What happened to her?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Nothing?’ ‘No. She’s a farm worker.’ I already knew that and it’s not an answer. It does not explain the terrible emptiness in this dismal room, or Tom, sitting slumped and vacant on the filthy floor. But there isn’t any more. I grip the photo. I want to insert Tom into the sunblazed orchard and attach him to the tall, bony woman under the fruit trees. I want to feel that he belongs somewhere. Instead I am reminded of Tom on the stage blocks with me and Nathan, looking powerless, raw, exposed. I feel angry and hurt for him and I want to blame someone. ‘You shouldn’t have made up that thing in drama, Nathan.’ Nathan shoves his fists into his pockets so that his arms go rigid and his chest is a wall. Petra gestures at the murky light and dingy room as if to say: what can you do? Nathan kneels gently in front of Tom. ‘Hey, man, we came here to see you about the play. Just wanna know if you still want to be in it, or what?’ ‘Nah. I only did it because …’ 175

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‘Why?’ ‘No reason.’ I look at Petra, who gives one of her annoying little shrugs, all-knowing, dismissive. Again she knows a lot and is not telling. Nathan softens. ‘That’s okay, mate, I’ll tell Mr Hatherly.’ Tom looks relieved and heaves himself upright off the floor. ‘But you’ve gotta come to our party. Mrs Kaye’s having one at the end of camp. Hey, and bring your dog, too.’ Tom nods and cracks a smile. Nathan springs to his feet and puts his arm protectively around my waist. It’s all good again. But I don’t want to risk multiple fractures on his bike downhill, so despite Nathan’s cosy arm I trek off to the side of the house to find a path down the hill. But there’s no other way around the house, because the side is blocked by a rough carport, where the bulky shape of a car sits under the hood of an old canvas tarp, snug in a hollow of rusty drums and tools. It sags in the mud on flat tyres. I try to squeeze past but can’t, because suddenly Petra has appeared, shrieking and flapping her hands at me like I’m one of their nasty geese. What is her problem? Trying to dodge past her, I slide in the muck. My knees buckle. I grab at the tarp and stumble sideways, 176

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dragging the canvas off the car, and then fall across the boot to the ground. I am lodged between the rusty end of an old bronze Fairlane and an explosion of shrieking, pecking, barking fury. The girl, the geese, the dog — all press me into the mud. I can’t get up and away. What do they want, and what have I done wrong? My hands dig into the mud and I kick at the frothing terrier till there’s enough distance between us for me to stagger up and get away. I scramble around the house through the hungry wattle and soupy air to look for Nathan. But Nathan’s bike, free of its load, is whistling cleanly down the hill towards town without me.

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Chapter 23

I should have just said no. No, Oggy, I cannot swing dance. No, Oggy, we don’t make a good dance team. No, Oggy, there’s no need to film the session. And no, Oggy, I do not want to watch you dance with Blake in my games room. Oggy has been choreographing for over an hour, and the combination of her with Blake, the pinwheel lights and too much homemade pizza has made me feel sick. I pick at the hardened mud under my nails. It’s still there from my fall at Tom’s place, and my attention wanders back to this afternoon, full of dark rooms and odd secrets. I cannot get excited about this music. ‘Oggy, this track is way too fast.’ ‘But it’s got a good beat and everyone can join in.’ ‘Like who?’ ‘Like the whole cast,’ says Oggy. ‘C’mon, you guys, don’t sit down now.’ Nathan lies splayed across the purple lounge, with 178

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ribbons of gold frizz stuck to his neck. He wipes them away with the back of his hand and guzzles down his fourth can of lemonade. Boys can do that. They have ten-litre bladders. I’m perched on the arm of the lounge, watching Oggy dance with Blake on a TV monitor that Nathan hooked up to Dad’s video camera. It’s a bit less painful than watching the real Oggy manoeuvre the very real Blake around my games room. ‘I reckon we should keep it simple, Oggy.’ ‘But that’s so boring.’ ‘Maybe for you, but the rest of us can’t keep up.’ ‘Okay, guys, one last try.’ But I’m tired. ‘If you show us that bit again.’ ‘What? While you two sit there?’ ‘Just do it, okay?’ Oggy clasps Blake’s hips, because his shoulders are too high, and swivels against the column of chest, giggling attractively. Then she looks at us and gives an exasperated little sigh. She’s not really angry. I can tell. She’s flirting. Look at her, strumming the rhythm on his chest and staring at herself on the monitor. Jesus. He says something and she laughs and flashes her eyes. He holds her as she swoons, and catches her as the tartan skirt and little midriff top part over her flesh, pressed between his hands. Nathan looks at me and places a fond hand on my thigh. I brush it off. Blake and Oggy dance flawlessly 179

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in sync. They twirl and gyrate to the swinging beat. The dance finishes with her back snug against his chest and his arms laced around her. Then she starts on us again. ‘Guys, you have to try it.’ Oggy’s worse than Hatherly; she’s relentless. Nathan groans to his feet. ‘What’s this for, again?’ ‘It’s about marathon dancing in the 1930s. Poor people used to go in dance competitions to win money. Some of them lasted up to three months.’ ‘Three months? That’s crazy. When did they sleep?’ ‘They slept on their feet because they could only stop for ten minutes of each hour. People literally ate and drank and shaved while they were dancing. It drew huge crowds, and people actually paid to watch the dancers collapse. It was wild. Sort of like reality TV for the thirties.’ I don’t want to move. ‘But they must have danced really slowly. Why can’t we?’ ‘We have to start fast and then slow down to show how exhausted and desperate we are.’ ‘I am desperate, believe me. And why does it have to be choreographed?’ ‘Because it does. Now, get up, Lara!’ But Dad has arrived at the top of the stairs and he stands there, staring at the monitor. ‘Hi, Dad. What’s up?’ 180

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‘Nothing. Just came to see what you’re up to.’ ‘Okay, Dad. You’ve seen. Byee!’ But Oggy needs more. ‘No, wait, Mr Pearlman. Please. Hey, Nathan, put on the music.’ The room rumbles to an old-time swing beat. Oggy drags our defensive bodies into position and pushes us through the number. We finish in retreat, up against the wall. ‘What do you reckon, Mr Pearlman?’ ‘Interesting. Really interesting.’ Dad cranes his neck at the monitor. Oggy isn’t impressed. ‘I think you’ll find it more exciting if you watch us.’ ‘Yes, yes, that was, um, great.’ ‘Thanks for the rich and rewarding feedback, Dad.’ But he’s gone, tripping backwards up the stairs, his eyes flitting between the monitor and our tired bodies slumped against the wall. ‘What was that about?’ Blake asks. ‘Who knows?’ Oggy clicks her fingers and counts the beats. ‘Okay, guys, come on, this is the last time of the last times.’ ‘Nah, I’ve had it.’ She’s not getting any more out of me. ‘But we were just getting it.’ Nathan is half a head too short and I feel like he’s rowing me around the room. Besides, I can’t stand the 181

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sight of long-limbed Blake clasped to Oggy’s twitchy little bum. She’s resetting the track on the CD player. ‘Oh, I’ve got it, all right.’ I flick open the CD player, take out the disc and spin it on one finger above her head, just out of reach. Oggy curls her lip, like the evil imp from the Dark Forest. Her felt cap of black hair flattens over pinpoint eyes. Nathan looks baffled, like he’s seen somebody familiar who he can’t quite place. Blake flops back on the soft suede lounge, with his legs thrust out in front of him and a stunning half smile. He knows exactly what’s going on. The warm spot beside him is vacant and inviting. I see me with Nathan on that couch, and me with fantasy-Blake. The pictures jumble and fight against the plush backdrop of purple and I can’t make up my mind to move. But Oggy is fast. She plops down next to Blake and nestles under one arm wing. Blake laughs. Yep. This is really his scene. Nathan stands outside our triangle. His T-shirt is creased with sweat and it sticks to his chest. His neck is crimson. He looks like the last kid chosen for a team. His palms are raised as if he’s about to pounce on the ball if he can just work out which direction the play is heading. But there is no ball, so instead he grabs my waist. His grip tightens and he really hurts me. ‘Hell, Nathan.’ I try to twist away. Oggy sniggers. ‘Very sexy grip, Toreador Man. Maybe 182

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we should try some swing lifts.’ ‘Stop it, Oggy, I’ve had enough. But hey, Blake, if you want to throw her matchstick body around your head, be my guest.’ ‘C’mon guys, the lady has spoken, it’s time to go.’ Blake’s right. We’ve wasted half an hour arguing since Dad left. He shrugs himself out of the embrace of the purple settee and my best friend and stoops to pick up his keys. ‘Wait there, young man. I’d like a word.’ Dad is back. He instructs a bloke to remove the disc from the video camera. The bloke is Police Constable Nameen. Point Jerome police make terrible coffee and it’s freezing inside the police station. Oggy and I have been given mugs of instant coffee with whitener and a stick of crumbly shortbread, homemade by the young policewoman at the front desk, hogging the only heater. She smiles confidently at her computer screen. ‘Is this all you can tell me about your friend?’ My throat constricts around a lump of rough flour and fat. The shortbread is terrible. I’m glad Mum isn’t here. She’d have the woman up on criminal charges. I tell Oggy that someone should run a cafe service for the police station. Oggy says that’s a dumb idea. I say 183

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they’d get better statements. She says it’s beside the point, and I say, What is the point? She rolls her eyes and swings the Oggy-boots and strawberry knee socks into the air. I say. Maybe we should fess up. Oggy white-claws the seat. Her flesh is no longer alabaster smooth but pimpled with fear. Oggy says, He didn’t do it. I say, But you said he did — and then again, much louder, You Said He Did. Oggy says, Shut up. I say, What about Minty? And she says, Yeah, Minty. Then we both look at the floor and think about a bunny slipper stuffed with notes and my father, the bank manager, and poor Blake under interrogation. I say, At least the coffee’s free. Blake ambles down the corridor and dumps his limbs on a plastic garden chair. Even when Blake has done a twelve-hour shift of stage work, his movements are still crisp. Right now he’s dishevelled and has lost that rosy Blake glow. He shovels hair back from his face to show the world he’s innocent. ‘It wasn’t me.’ Oggy’s hand flutters across his knotted back. ‘I know.’ ‘But Oggy …’ ‘Shut up, Lara.’ ‘You can’t lie, Oggy. Not here.’ ‘I’m not. Before, I thought it might be, but now I’m …’ ‘What?’ PC Nameen stalks down the hall, accompanied by PC 184

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Shortbread. She looks meaner without the soft blue glow of her computer screen. Her forehead is boxy and her lips and nose have been chiselled from wax. I decide the biscuits were a weapon. We were supposed to choke, gasp for water and confess. ‘Ogden Beales. Is that you?’ Oggy’s sparrow throat jerks up and down and she wobbles to her feet. ‘And you’re Lara Pearlman?’ Shortbread has one arm up like a traffic cop. ‘Right, all of you. This way, thanks.’ The room at the end of the corridor is stuffy, because the door is closed and the overhead lights are off. A cop adjusts a monitor, which fizzes into life, while Nameen speaks in low, deferential tones to my father. Dan Taylor, Blake’s dad, sits ramrod straight against the back wall. The cop rewinds the tape to the beginning of our rehearsal. The image on the TV is grainy and a bit weird, because it was taken in dull light in our games room. Blake and Oggy face the camera. He hovers behind her and reverses her to the door. On the last beat of the swing, PC Nameen calls, ‘Freeze!’ — and there is Oggy, trapped by Blake, like a bank robber and his hostage. The image is a replica of the police mug shot posted in every shop window in Point Jerome. Case closed. 185

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Chapter 24

Minty has developed a bad attitude since last we met. His nose tilts at a nasty angle, his eyes flash and he has a sour smell, but then so does Oggy’s room. A crust of fetta cheese, slimy with pink fungus, sits on the side table and dirty socks are stuffed under the door to stop the draught. Oggy squeezes little foam pimples on Minty’s nose. ‘Do you remember beanie toys?’ ‘Yeah. I used to have a beanie bear but I left him in a taxi in the city. I made Mum spend our whole holiday in toyshops, looking for a new one.’ ‘Did you find one?’ ‘Nope.’ Oggy holds Minty like a glove and strokes my leg. ‘Minty loves Lara.’ I pat Minty. ‘Good Minty bunny. Three grand, eh? Wow, what I could do with that. I wants me a pair of leather bikie pants and a trip to New York.’ Oggy rolls on her back. ‘The Prime are touring the 186

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east coast next month. I think I’ll buy tickets to all their concerts.’ ‘And I’ll take that cute guy from Altitude with me.’ ‘Can’t. He’s flying with me to Sydney, business class.’ ‘Where are you staying?’ ‘Somewhere classy on the harbour with an in-house tattoo artist.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yep. We’re getting matching bum tatts, for the concert.’ ‘That’s gross.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘Have you ever been to Sydney?’ ‘Once that I remember. I was five and we stayed in a house in Manly with some musos. I threw up every time we went on the Manly ferry.’ ‘Is the harbour really rough?’ ‘Not usually, but Jean’s boyfriend kept slipping me boiled lollies. They were those big black stripy aniseed ones, and he told me he got them from a friendly giant and to eat them all.’ ‘And he dangled you over the side of the ferry by one tiny ankle and made you drink sea water.’ ‘Giving rise to a deep dread of men who eat sweets. I think that guy was secretly trying to kill me so he could have Jean to himself.’ 187

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‘Then you’d better forget Altitude Boy; he likes strawberry toffee. He gave me some.’ ‘Never! He lied to me, the bastard. Our beautiful relationship is over.’ Oggy swan-dives onto the bed, which almost buckles to the floor, and drapes herself in a velvet wrap. ‘Yep, men are so oral and so fickle. Not like us.’ I break off a stripe of dark chocolate and stuff it sideways into my mouth and pulverise it with my tongue. ‘Seriously, Oggy, what would you do with three grand?’ ‘I’d go to LA and live with my dad. He’s a highranking detective.’ Oggy has never met her father, and he’s been a lot of things over the years, depending on her interests: activist, art dealer, anaesthetist. But one thing endures: he’s always world-class. ‘LA detective, huh?’ ‘Yep. He solves lots of flashy crimes.’ ‘Hey, we need him here in Point Jerome.’ ‘At least he wouldn’t grab the wrong robber.’ ‘So Blake did not do it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Yes he did? Yes he did not?’ ‘Did not.’ ‘But what about all the groovy dancing and that stuff about “he feels the same to me”?’ 188

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‘You’re jealous.’ ‘I am not.’ ‘Are.’ ‘Not.’ I ball the chocolate foil and ping the light shade. ‘Oh, forget it. What about Minty? I say we give the money to Dan to pay for Blake’s bail.’ ‘Oh, sure. Hey, Dan, here’s the cash that your son didn’t really steal. He wouldn’t take it.’ ‘No. What do we do, then?’ ‘I say we buy a lifetime supply of chocolate and go into hiding. Don’t look at me like that. You’re the one stuffing your face.’ ‘Bitch.’ I kick the socks out from under the door. ‘I’m going to see Dad.’ ‘You were always going to tell him …’ The door handle revolves in its socket and won’t open. I’m furious. ‘… because you’re Lara Pearlman, the bank manager’s daughter.’ ‘And you’re Oggy, scared little Oggy, with the mouthful of bullshit.’ Her eyes jar in the white ball of her face. ‘Spend the money, Oggy. What’s to stop you? Go to LA. Go find Superstar Daddy. Here. I’ll help you.’ I grab Minty by the ears, rip him apart and throw him in the air. I am showered by foam beads, but that’s all. There’s 189

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no cascade of notes. The carcass thuds to the floor and a ball of damp socks rolls to one side. Oggy picks up a small handful of rumpled notes and hands them to me. I thumb through them. ‘Thirty-five bucks. What the hell is this?’ She takes a bundle of papers from her desk and holds them against her chest as a shield, and then lays them one by one on the greasy rug. Car repayments, two months in arrears: paid. Rent: paid. Car rego, power bills, excess water: all paid. On top is a letter from my father’s bank, threatening to close the car loan and reclaim the vehicle. ‘You paid money on the car loan?’ ‘Yeah.’ She checks the balance. ‘Four hundred and seventy-three dollars and eighty-five cents.’ ‘Then my father must know.’ ‘Maybe. Probably not. It depends whether they’ve watched Jean’s account and reported to him, for some reason.’ ‘How did you pay it? Did you walk in with rolls of fifty-dollar bills?’ ‘I bought postal cheques and posted them.’ ‘Does your mother know, too?’ ‘Nope. Jean’s hopeless. I collect the bills and pay them out of her account, when she’s got the money.’ Oggy flattens out the pages and sticks them to the bulging plaster wall. Her trousers are pinched together 190

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with a fluorescent green laundry peg and her thumbs are hooked through holes in the sleeves of a maroon V-neck jumper. She wears the jumper backwards and the white knobs of her spine leap in the V. The crest on the jumper says ‘Saint Mary’s School’. Oggy looks like a deputy’s nightmare. The papers flutter in a crazed mosaic on a wall of orange and green stripes, painted to look like a circus tent. I look at the busted desk, the limping bed, the mangle of grubby clothes and yellow-paged novels, and wonder what to tell my father. What should I tell myself? It’s good that Oggy has paid her bills with somebody else’s earnings? I’m not sure that it’s Jean’s fault she can’t survive in a competitive world. And I would have done the same. Wouldn’t I? I don’t know. Then I think of Dad and how hard he works for that bank, and all the people who entrust it with their savings. ‘It’s not right, Oggy.’ ‘Right for who?’ Jean’s Five O’Clock is sawing a Brahms minuet in two on his violin, and the air vibrates. The sound stands like a wall between Oggy and me and I’m glad because I can leave without saying goodbye. I see nothing but Minty, all torn and empty, on the ten-minute walk to the bank. Oggy has risked everything for survival. Could I? Am I the kid who would crawl to safety after a car accident and 191

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get help for my family? Would I have survived the hunger of my grandmother’s childhood? I think about the people who hide others in a war and about men and women who share their last piece of bread. I try to imagine big things like dragging Gracie out of a burning house and saving Chelsea Wilson, or small things like Aimee Robinson holding her little brother’s snotty hand all the way through assembly. I stand in front of the bank and stare through the glass doors, trying to imagine surviving at all costs, being heroic, saving other lives. But instead I get a picture of the back of me running away. I watch Dad walk a client across the floor of the bank to his office. I stare at the busy foyer, where other people go about their business with certainty and purpose, quite sure of the way the world works. I feel big and raw outside the plate-glass wall. Soon they will see me and I’ll have to act because I should be at rehearsal, not skulking around here. I’d better decide soon.

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Chapter 25

Dan stands solemn and large in a circle of stage debris. He dangles a power drill from one giant fist and contemplates our drama camp. It’s chaos in the drama studio and I cannot believe that we’ll ever get this whole play together in three days. Some boys whir along the edge of the stage with gladiator swords. Four mothers sit at desks and churn out rough cloth costumes on their sewing machines. The gardener hacks through a pile of old masonry. Actors yell lines to rehearse their scenes. I try to tune out the sound, to see what Dan sees. It’s probably Blake sweeping his dance partner across the floor in a silent serenade. Mr Hatherly crashes through the circle to Dan and starts a string of mime. Watch Mr Hatherly sawing wood. See the staple gun jolt through his chest as he pretends to bolt the wood together. Look, he’s painting in long, slow licks. He’s really quite talented, and Dan smiles, because Dan knows what to do but is enjoying the show. I half hope that Mr H will ‘extend’ his impro and bolt his finger 193

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to his shoe. But today the Hath is a manic blowfly and has already buzzed off to instruct the girls’ choreography. Hatherly has sent me to the sound and lighting box to help Nathan with the lights. Our system is not digital, and someone has to pull focus while the other one takes notes. Bad move. Nathan and I haven’t spoken for four days since the swing dance rehearsal at my place, and things are a bit tense. Plus, I know nothing about lighting. ‘Hey, Lara, try to focus the lights on upstage right.’ I semaphore the lights across Blake as he twirls Oggy around the stage. ‘Lara, concentrate.’ ‘Which dimmer is it?’ ‘Number twelve.’ ‘Are we using that part of the stage?’ ‘Yes. The dance girls want to enter through there. I told you that before.’ ‘Okay, okay. Number ten?’ ‘Twelve. Look, I’ll get somebody else up here if you can’t do it.’ ‘And number seventeen. Write that down. Nobody else would do this with you.’ It’s tight in the dim lighting box with itchy Nathan, fifty metres of extra cabling and Chelsea’s fluffy dog. Evidently, the dog has abandonment issues and can’t be left at home. It sounds like a muppet and nips like a rat 194

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— that is, suddenly and without provocation. If Nathan doesn’t stop jabbing me with a pencil when he wants less light, I might just follow its example. I look at the stage. ‘Hey, we’re going to need more light than that for the swing dance.’ ‘Yeah, orright. What’s Blake doing here? I thought the cops had him.’ ‘He’s on bail, and Dan’s here because he’s responsible for him.’ ‘Will you get that dog out of my way?’ Nathan swats the dog. I pick it up by the scruff and hold it to my throat. ‘It’d make a nice fur ruff for my costume, whadda ya think?’ But he doesn’t laugh. ‘So who would you get up here to help, Grumpy?’ Nathan grunts and slides buttons up and down and peers at the downstage area. The dog squirms and bites me on the wrist, so I dump it on the desk. It skids across the lighting board and Nathan swipes at it. The dog’s a prancer, and its tiny toes set off a barrage of light changes. Floodlights flash across the stage and catch Cindy and her glitzy gigglers in mid-flight. Cindy has selected the nextto-nothing, bum-hugging lycra look for today’s rehearsal. She waves at the box. ‘Hi, Nathan.’ ‘Sorry, darlin’.’ His voice booms over the loudspeaker and Cindy twitters up at him. 195

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Yeah, I know who he’d get to help. The last thing I see before I plunge the dog into Nathan’s lap and the stage into black is Cindy arching her breasts in a golden wash of shimmering stage light. Mrs Kaye arrives with an icepack in time to save the Young family lineage, which now makes Mrs Kaye the Patron Saint of Boy Bits. I must say, she is pretty handy with an icepack and completely cool about it. She also manages to rescue me from the crew with a few wry cracks, and lighten my misery with a generous slice of the vegetable lasagne that she’s brought for a shared lunch. Bodies lie strewn around the barn, wolfing down pizza, courtesy of the mum brigade. I’ve got my mouth full but have something to say: ‘Adolescent boys are complete and utter bloody dickheads.’ ‘Well, not all of them, Lara.’ ‘And they think that all girls want them all the time.’ Mrs Kaye worries at a speck of sauce on her collar with a tissue. ‘Nathan strikes me as being very nice.’ ‘And I wouldn’t touch one if you paid me.’ Mrs Kaye gathers our plates and stands. ‘Mrs Young is getting the posters printed. I have to pick them up after rehearsal today and put them up in shop windows. Are you interested in helping?’ ‘No, thanks, Mrs Kaye.’ The buzz of machinery continues outside, but inside 196

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the stage space is a bright focus within the black cavern, and Mr Hatherly controls it like Fort Knox. Hatherly’s agenda for the afternoon is to check the flow of scenes in the entire show. We walk through the scenes to get the logic of all the entrances and exits, and nobody is allowed to sneeze without his permission. The group settles down and follows his instructions because suddenly it seems important to be here, doing this together. I sit in the front row, watching the play take shape. It’s like watching builders lay bricks from a scaffold. At first, you don’t have a clue how the thing will join up, and then you see that one structure supports another. Each scene joins the next, an exit ushers in an entrance elsewhere, and one character’s journey is another character’s downfall. The whole muddy jumble of ideas and scenes that we’ve thrown at him for weeks is about to come together and mean something. Mr Hatherly moulds the show into a montage of scenes linked by music and photographic images. It is the story of Australia between the wars. It is about a nation grappling with the loss of its young men and the economic hardships of the Depression. The whole cast comes onstage for the dance marathon, which works to symbolise desperate times, and later for the song Jean gave me. Hatherly pieces together jazz swing, vaudeville skits and dark monologues. He gives us deprivation and 197

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despair and the flame of the human spirit. He even gets the dance girls to ditch their glitzy lycra for drab linen skirts and they still look beautiful. If Nathan asked me right now who the Hath reminds me of, I might say a wizard, but I sense that Mr Hatherly is not pretending. This trance is his strength. But Nathan is not going to ask me anything for a while, because he’s back in the lighting box, plotting cues, with Blake and Cindy. A crimson wash warms the dancers, a spotlight isolates grief, and black shadows stalk along the backdrop and accompany the harrowing wail of a stretched violin that emerges from the velvet interior of the walls. Rhythm, image, soul are conjured out of the void and then banished by the houselights. At four o’clock Mr Hatherly lets us go and tells us to be on time tomorrow so that we can try on costumes. Nathan gets quickly into Blake’s ute without a backward glance, and I drift off alone.

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Chapter 26

‘So what did you tell your father?’ ‘I didn’t tell him anything, Oggy.’ I lie because I can’t cope with a confession over the spectacle of myself in a brown floral frock. The mirror in the girls’ change-room is covered with lipstick graffiti but I can still see my flesh suck and creep under the side zip, which refuses to do up. Day Two of drama camp has started badly. ‘Do we have to wear these?’ ‘Yes, Lara.’ ‘But I look terrible. I’m not going to.’ ‘You could wear a fur cape over the top. There’s one in the costume room.’ ‘It would be too heavy to move in. I thought we were supposed to be in a dance marathon. Those satin dresses would be better.’ ‘They’re all size ten.’ ‘Great, that solves it.’ I peel off the dress and pull on my comfy jeans. ‘You can get Cindy to dance with you. 199

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That should make Nathan happy.’ ‘I think you’ve got that wrong, Lara. What are you going to do?’ ‘Wait and see.’ Oggy pouts at me. ‘Okay, I’m going to play a bloke. Lots of the performers back then used to do that, you know.’ ‘But we’ve got two blokes.’ ‘No, I’m a woman playing a bloke and I’ll do the poem that Mrs Kaye brought in.’ Oggy holds a soft dimpled hat above her head and her elbows at sharp angles. Hoops of brown eyeshadow against her sallow skin make her look like an opium addict, pathetic and fragile. But Oggy won’t face me. She talks to me through the mirror. ‘You did talk to your dad, didn’t you?’ ‘How do you know?’ ‘Because he talked to Jean.’ ‘What’s going to happen?’ ‘I don’t know yet.’ ‘I’m sorry, Oggy.’ ‘Are you?’ She turns to face me. ‘So who else did you tell? Nathan?’ My heart is thumping. I dump everything on Nathan. And now I can’t even speak to him to ask him not to tell.

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But we don’t have time to solve this now because Cindy’s at the door. ‘Hey, girls, you’re on.’ ‘No, Cindy. You are.’ I can hear Oggy out on the floor, persuading Cindy to perform with Nathan. I don’t hear Nathan complaining. Then she tells them to hold their last position while I perform my poem. There’s a cream suit under a box of waistcoats. The jacket is grubby and frayed, but for once the trousers are my length and the waist is pleated so I’ve got lots of room. I try on a waistcoat made of silk brocade that loops around my neck and buttons with dainty pearls, but it’s backless. Hell, the music has started and I don’t have much time. My bra doesn’t look right under the waistcoat. It’ll have to go. By the time I’m sitting on a bar stool downstage, the dancers are halfway through their number. I’m a bystander in a felt fedora and three-piece suit, skulking in the shadows. Cindy trails in Nathan’s arms and he keeps in time and in control because they are the perfect fit. The marathon dancers complete their turn, and on the last note the dancers freeze and I deliver the poem ‘Song’ by John Mateer. The audience does not stir and I surrender to the intensity of the words.

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How can I tell you -

That these crowds haunt me, their crumpled hessian backs their eyes like cool cement

How can I tell you -

that my skin weeps, my mind is a robbed house my Silence, all I possess, my voiceless peace, a Living …

How can I tell you -



What I must tell you

The words flame but my voice is bitter ice. Nobody claps. Mr Hatherly comes down to the floor. ‘Are you sure about this, Lara?’ ‘Does it work?’ ‘Yes, it’s a very powerful poem. My question is: will you be able to maintain the emotion?’ I look to Nathan for approval, but his hands are distracted by Cindy’s hips. Oggy won’t even nod. She stamps out the territory of the dance with Cindy so they don’t collide. Their narrow hips flick and twist and the boys fly them through the air till they collapse in their 202

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arms. Great. I’ve just been dumped by my two best friends and it isn’t even lunchtime. ‘I’ll do it, Mr Hatherly.’ Outside the sun flails the courtyard, and pairs of bodies flop about on the bricks. We’re dun coloured and look like an old photo of smoko time at the canning factory, except there are no cigarettes. But we’ve got the lethargy right. Nobody wants to go back into the gloom and bump into hungry Depression stories, so we doodle around in the sunshine. Besides, Mr Appleby has arrived in a two-tonne ute piled with scaffolding. He leans out the driver’s window to back the truck up to the barn doors, which are flung wide open. I toast my back on the red brick wall and watch him. Chelsea Wilson sprawls beside me. We don’t speak to each other, but her silent company is better than nothing. Having neatly wedged the rear of the truck up against the open doors, the Apeman kills the engine and springs out of the cab to untie the traces. He flicks ropes with sinewy arms in rolled checked sleeves. Then he circles around to the back and boots the legs of a Year 10 boy out of the way. ‘Hey, this isn’t maths, Mr Appleby; ya can’t belt me here.’ ‘So get up and help, ya useless plop of steaming manure.’ The Apeman grins. This is tough, blokey work, and he looks a lot more satisfied with his stack of rusty posts than he 203

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usually does with a stack of our maths papers. Dan, Appleby and a few reluctant boys unload the scaffolding. They drag it across the dusty floor of the drama studio and assemble it against the back wall. At the moment, it looks like a factory floor, but it’s supposed to represent the workers. Mr Hatherly wants to use the scaffolding to erect levels around the walls, so that the dancers and performers can swing like monkeys from the bars or trundle up and down the ramps, their bold moves and languid smiles a constant decoration to the main act. Dan twists his wrench around joints of steel. A wall of bars grows into a snakes and ladders game. Dan works fast and makes Appleby trot back and froth along the construction. The Apeman’s shirt sticks to his back and his arms knot around tools and lengths of steel, but he looks happy to slave for the big man. Dan needs two sets of hands now, one on the ground and one to hold the other end of the post, so he squats on the second-level platform and squints into the auditorium. I’ve brought them tea, at Mrs Kaye’s request, and stand beneath him as he searches through the crowd scattered among the jumble of props and flats. Mr Appleby twitches between posts like a tunnel rat, but Dan does not move. His expression is pure pain. Blake has disappeared. I’m surprised when the cops arrive, since nobody called them, but I’m glad. My day is already a war zone, 204

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and the armed forces are a welcome intervention. Oggy won’t look at me and Nathan won’t let me in the lighting box when I try to kick down the door. Cindy flounces her pretty ponytail and greets me with a volley of hysterical giggles every time I pass by. Chelsea is mercifully silent. Her crowd has lost interest in both of us. I could kiss PCs Nameen and Shortbread when they enter through the barn doors and stand dwarfed by the chaos, a new dramatic focus in my day. Dan leaps off the platform and strides over to the police, because he knows this concerns him. Dan looks scared and angry and I wish he’d put down the wrench. Mr Hatherly has dropped the dumb mime show. He throws up his hands in desperation and jabs the air inches from Dan’s chest. Appleby intervenes. He places a protective hand on Dan and pushes him aside, speaks in slow low tones to Mr Hatherly, and then turns to face the silent mob of us huddled on the stage. ‘Where’s Blake Taylor? Does anybody know where he is? Oggy? Nathan? When was the last time any of you saw him? Somebody try his mobile.’ People offer glimpses of him through the day: ‘He was in the dance with me and Cindy.’ ‘He helped unload the scaffolding.’ ‘He grabbed the floodlights with me out of the storeroom.’ 205

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‘When was that, Nathan?’ ‘I’m not sure, sir. And his mobile is switched off.’ ‘Chelsea, did you see him?’ ‘He was here at morning tea.’ ‘No, he wasn’t.’ ‘Yes, he was. He got the last chocolate muffin.’ A Year 10 boy calls, ‘Pig.’ ‘So when was the last time anybody saw Blake? Eleven? Twelve? Lara, what about you?’ The morning’s a blur of bad things. ‘Chelsea and I cleaned up after morning tea around eleven-thirty; he was here then and he got in the way.’ ‘What’s wrong, sir?’ ‘There’s been another robbery.’ The room erupts: Where? Same guy? Did they get him on camera? What did he take this time? Would Blake do that? Oggy’s eyes are lanterns of fear and she looks straight at me for the first time today and mouths, ‘He didn’t do it.’ I nod back at her. ‘I know.’ I do. I know absolutely that the stupid blond bullock didn’t do it. You can feel it in your guts when someone’s sneaky. Can’t you? The police have gone but the Hath hasn’t moved. He sags against the rostrum and holds his head in his hands, with fragments of his dream production littered around him. Dan’s shoulders look 206

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like a landslide. He kneels, doubled up, over his toolbox and slots the cold steel of inert drill heads into place. Mr Appleby directs the boys to align the posts so that they’re out of the way and opens the car door for Dan. It’s early afternoon when Appleby’s ute swings out of the yard. A voice behind me asks, ‘Who’s that in the ute?’ ‘Dan and Appleby.’ ‘Where are they going?’ The car swerves along the edge of the school oval and out through the gates. ‘To find Blake, I suppose.’ Chelsea Wilson leans against me. Her closeness begs for warmth and protection and I put my arm around her. Her arms go across her chest. ‘I don’t think Blake did it.’ ‘Tell that to the police.’ ‘No point. Once they’ve got an idea about you, they don’t shift.’ ‘Is that why you won’t talk to them?’ Chelsea’s voice slips and she shivers. ‘I’ll speak to the cops but I’m just not telling my parents.’ I’m glad the sewing mums have already gone home. They’d be having hysterics. The younger boys have found some broken plywood to fracture on the cement, and the girls move like zombies. They spill into the entrance and scan their mobiles. Mrs Kaye has been down to the corner 207

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store. She slips the Hath a state-of-the-art latte to revive him. I watch him sip it slowly and start to unfurl. It’s a bit like watching a fast-track nature film where the ice thaws and the buds shoot in a ten-second time frame. The Hath straightens his back, flings out his arms and bellows, ‘Okay, pee-pull. We’ve got work to do.’ He’s on his feet now. ‘Get all those props out of the way. I want to see all the dance numbers now. Nathan, how are the back projections coming along? The rest of you, find a partner to practise your monologues with and get some feedback. I want to see them today. Aimee, have you learned yours? Then get moving. Come on, guys, we have a show to put on.’ ‘Are we still doing it, sir?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘But what about Blake?’ ‘I have faith that Blake will be here. And if he can’t do the part, then we’ll deal with that and work around him.’ ‘How? He’s practically in every scene.’ ‘That’s my job, Aimee. Stop worrying. You’ve all put a huge effort into this production, and Mrs Kaye and I really appreciate that and won’t let you down. This show must go on.’ ‘You’ve got to hand it to the man,’ murmurs Oggy. ‘Yep,’ says Chelsea, ‘he’s totally insane.’

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Chapter 27

A big brass jazz number hits the floor and Cindy and her dancers spin on to the stage. But I’ve had enough. All the crazy ups and downs, the loud music, Blake’s disappearance, the black walls, the cavernous space — it’s all closing in on me. I feel hemmed in. I tear at my costume to get out of there, fast. ‘Hey, wait,’ calls Chelsea. ‘Where are you off to?’ ‘Don’t know. Don’t care. Just out of here.’ Oggy is by my side, still in her costume, when Chelsea says, ‘Let’s go check out some op shops.’ ‘Now? What for?’ ‘Props.’ ‘Well, okay. But how are we going to bring the stuff back here?’ Chelsea dangles her car keys. I didn’t think that Chelsea could drive, especially a manual, and I swear that the photo on the driver’s licence she flashes past me looks a lot like her older sister, but I guess if Chelsea’s mother lent her the family car, then it must be okay. Armed with a 209

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props list from Mrs Kaye and a tin of petty cash, Oggy and I sit next to Chelsea in the high cab while she thrashes the reverse gear on the Wilsons’ four-wheel drive. Chelsea manages to get it to bunny hop backwards out of the car park and then to crash across the oval, chasing potholes. Oggy leans most of her body out the window so she can scream rude words into the wind, and we shriek a chorus of rock songs all the way to town. We were probably better off, in road safety terms, with those awful boys, but I don’t like to mention it. It’s Friday and there’s an auction at Segal’s car park down by the bay. The auction hasn’t quite started, so we wait with our backs to the car, trying to fool the wind, which flings our hair about. Oggy takes some petty cash and buys three double cones of rum and raisin ice-cream. We huddle together, licking the cones and sweet drips from our chins. At the auction, a farmer buys some tractor parts and a swing set with a flick of his wrist. A hand jerks up for the gramophone and box of old vinyl records that Oggy had her eye on. Then it’s our turn, and Chelsea’s got nerves of steel. We get four huge travel trunks for our stage blocks, an old bakelite telephone, some musty old coats, and the Rolls Royce of baby prams. Oggy climbs into the pram, bounces on the springs and sucks her thumb while Chelsea races it up and down the tarmac. That pram was 210

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built to carry a whole baby brigade and will be perfect for our scene about a family who gets evicted from their home during the Depression. Chelsea crams the gear into the boot and screams against the gulls and the wind that it’s time to go, but Oggy has dissolved into the crowd. I know that girl. I bet she’s chasing those records. I find her behind the fins of a battered blue Chevy, where she’s chatting up a stringy old bloke in a beige cable-knit cardigan. His outfit and the records must be thirty years old and he probably hasn’t spoken to a girl since his wife died. He lets Oggy flick through the box while he thumbs a nose full of yellow bristles. His eyes dart over Oggy, devouring her. She’s still in her costume for the dance marathon, almost his era. Chelsea scours him with her eyes. Oggy grips the ragged record covers and scratched vinyls. ‘How much for these?’ ‘Oggy, we don’t have the cash.’ Chelsea wants to go. Though his breath whistles between foxy teeth, the old bloke has the presence of mind to overcharge us. ‘Forty bucks.’ Chelsea sniffs. ‘That’s twice what you paid for them.’ ‘Chelsea, look, Tubular Bells, and Janis Joplin’s Pearl album. These are seventies classics.’ ‘How are you going to listen to them, dummy?’ ‘I’ve got the player.’ 211

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The bloke looks hopeful, and Chelsea looks ready to bash him. ‘Oh, this one, this one, Led Zeppelin.’ The records are now Oggy’s because she’s holding them; they lie in the cradle of her arms. But he must come out of this with something, so I fish around in the tin and hand him five bucks for some scratched records that we’ll never get to hear. He folds the note and waits. The transaction is not over. Down on the choppy grey bay, the sun shoots a rainbow at the target of the sea. Oggy strokes the records and beams at the man. ‘Thank you. Really, thank you so much.’ He hands me back the note and pockets her smile. ‘Ya welcome, love. Enjoy ’em.’ His Chevy creaks out of the yard and almost dumps the gearbox on the crossover. ‘Whadda loser.’ Chelsea has us packed and ready to go and we climb into the car beside her. ‘No, he was sweet.’ ‘All guys are losers.’ Chelsea grips the wheel and swings the car up to the kerb, where it bucks the sidewalk and skates out of town. The houses thin out as we swoop around the bay. Horses shy away from the road and the sky hangs three metres above our head, with its burden of cloud. Having scrounged ten bucks of coins from the ashtray, our 212

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pockets and off the floor, I make Chelsea stop at the last roadhouse among the peppermint trees for hot chips. The shop girl has a heavy hand with the salt, just the way I like it, and she hands over a parcel of hot chips sweating vinegar. On the way to the till, I scoop up a tub of sour cream, a sachet of sauce, two litres of lemonade and an afternoon of bliss. The car window steams up as we grind across the gravel to the road and head east. ‘Where’re we going, Chelsea?’ I sit on the back seat and nurse the chips. They scald my legs and, though I’ve promised not to open them yet, I sneak a few through a little wet hole in the corner. She drives quite slowly. ‘Where do you want to go?’ ‘Granger Beach,’ says Oggy. ‘Where they had the party? That’s pretty far,’ I say. ‘It might rain before we get there.’ More likely I will have eaten all the chips before we get there. Chelsea peers out the side window. ‘Actually, guys, I want to find that road those blokes took us down.’ ‘What for?’ ‘Because there’s stuff I can’t remember.’ Hell, is that what we’re doing here? I’m glad Chelsea can’t see the look that Oggy gives me from the front seat. ‘We passed the turnoff about ten minutes ago. Look, 213

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these chips are burning me. How about we go to Tuna Fish Bay and then, on the way back, I’ll show you where it is. Okay?’ ‘Okay.’ The car thumps along a corrugated dirt road and sashays around the curves, collecting a bouquet of scrub flowers on the bumper before stalling on the top of the cliff. Below us, the ocean hammers the cliff wall in a rising tide of panic. Chelsea churns the key in the ignition. The motor turns over a few times and then dies. She says something about the motor being flooded and slides down from the high cab. Oggy and I follow her to the lookout and peer over the edge. Man, it’s wild. The wind is relentless. It flattens us against the boulders, rips the words from our mouths and binds us in a jittery knot. Far below, the sea leaps and recoils. We lurch down the cliff and tumble into an alcove of wet stone. ‘Chippies?’ I open the soggy pack in a crevice and offer them around. ‘Hey, Lara, how’d you get those here?’ Oggy shivers, her neck and arms are wet with ocean spray. I swallow a fistful of chips and lick the salt off my fingers. ‘I carried them in my jumper. I couldn’t leave them, they’d get cold.’ Oggy toys with a hot chip between her teeth. 214

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‘No, Oggy, like this.’ I plunge a chip into the sour cream and sauce and lower it into her mouth. Oggy giggles. I giggle. Oggy hiccups. I laugh louder. We can’t swallow and giggle at the same time, so we have to hold the food in our mouths and laugh with our bellies. It makes us laugh even more. It’s torture. ‘What’s so funny?’ Chelsea asks without looking. ‘We’re stranded in the middle of bloody nowhere and Madam’s got a three-course meal.’ Chelsea grunts and points to the horizon, where the sky has burst. Sea and sky have fused in a grey wall of water that is moving towards us. The wind goads the clouds on and the storm eats up the metallic mat of the sea between us and the horizon. We sit on our rocky perch, lit rust and gold by the sun, eat chips and watch the edge of the world move closer. When the arrows of rain hit us, Oggy and Chelsea scramble up the cliff face to the car. But I can’t move, because I’m busy with the chips and the power of the wind and the swell of the sea. Rain douses the rock and paints it black. The tide sucks in and slams its fist against the unyielding rock wall. Water shoots in the air and splatters the ledge where I’m sitting and sluices down my back. I crawl into a hollow to protect my chips and get a good rhythm going between the chips, cream, sauce and me. Scoop, dip, plonk, swallow. Scoop, dip, plonk, 215

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swallow. These are very, very good chips, and I should know because I’m pretty picky about my chips. They can’t be fatty but must be plump with starch and spurt fresh oil into your mouth. I feel weightless on the cliff face. Mum’s wrong. Another handful of chips won’t make an ounce of difference inside this vault of water, rock and platinum sky. I could slip into the foam, and after a few years nobody would even know that a girl once sat here in the nest of the gods with a parcel of chips and dodgy thoughts. Nathan, the play and a rabbit slipper called Minty dissolve in the pounding waves. I see the girls above me, clinging to the slippery rocks. Near the top, Oggy scuttles up the path, but the wind teases her and rolls her like a ball into the scrub. Chelsea crawls over the boulders. When they disappear over the top, into the glowering dark, I feel cold and a little nauseous. The squall passes momentarily overhead and moves inland. It’s time to get back. I stuff the last of the chips under my shirt and climb up the cliff. The wind is cold and my grip stiffens on the slippery stone and stumps of sheoak trees. On the crest I see Chelsea’s car lights dip, falter and go dead. By the time I get there, she and Oggy are sitting cramped and silent in the front of the stalled cab. ‘Hey, Chelsea, put on the heater. It’s really bloody cold in here.’ 216

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‘I can’t, Lara. Not without the motor running.’ ‘Well, let’s get going.’ I hand my parcel to Oggy, who fusses over the remains. ‘The battery’s flat.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Why do you think we’re sitting here?’ ‘Um, because you’re playing murder in the dark?’ ‘You’re not wrong there. And guess who dies first.’ Oggy belts me about the head with the greasy paper. ‘You didn’t save us any chips.’ I say, ‘We could call my folks but they’re pretty useless. I mean, they’d come and get us, but what do we do with the car? Can we leave it here?’ ‘No way. I’ve got to get home before my father does.’ Chelsea kicks the dashboard. ‘No one knows I’ve got it.’ ‘How come?’ Chelsea wrenches the wheel around like a toddler in a play bus. ‘Mum’s in the city, having a little rest. She goes up for therapy.’ ‘What kind of therapy?’ Oggy has to know. ‘Retail therapy. When the world gets too big and scary for Mummy, Daddy tops up her credit card and then she and my sister go to see the consultants at Grandview Plaza.’ Oggy draws clouds on the foggy window. ‘I guess your family’s had a lot happen recently.’ 217

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‘To me. Not to her. To me! Oggy, the woman’s a cow. I am supposed to go to the police and give a statement and Mum’s hiding behind a shopping trolley somewhere in the CBD.’ ‘I thought you weren’t going to give a statement.’ ‘That’s not the point. The whole town knows about it, my mother’s away and those three bastards are …’ ‘Yeah, we get it. Okay.’ ‘Hang on,’ says Oggy. ‘They’re bastards now, are they? Before, at Mrs Kaye’s place, you said that …’ But Chelsea sits crouched over and is not listening. ‘Why did you leave me there?’ ‘Where?’ ‘In the car that night. Why did you two piss off?’ I can’t answer. I feel stung by the question that I have been trying to avoid and by the brutal fact that we hid in the bush, knowing she was in danger. And I feel very confused because she seems so raw and hurt, yet her eyes are intense pits of fury. It was like this at Mrs Kaye’s place. I wanted to hug her and slap her all at the same time, and now I don’t know who to defend — her or me. I look at her bitter profile in the flashes of lightning and wonder who could get close to Chelsea Wilson. Oggy rallies. ‘Lara tried to get you away but you were too out of it. We were really scared.’ ‘Did you really try?’ 218

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‘Okay, Chelsea,’ I say, ‘do you want to go back to that road? I’ll show you where we hid in a rock gully. There’s no way I could have dragged you out of the car and down the hill through the bush to hide.’ But I don’t tell her about us watching the car from a safe distance later on, when she was still in it. Chelsea screws her elbows into the dashboard and drops her head between her arms; her shoulders heave. Oggy fidgets with the raw edge of the costume she’s still wearing and tries to wrap the material tight around her birdcage ribs. I straighten some strands of hair that lie flattened against Chelsea’s neck. ‘At least they got them.’ Her voice is thick. ‘They got those boys because of your description. I don’t even remember what they look like.’ ‘Are you just saying that because you don’t want to talk to the police?’ ‘I can’t tell them anything.’ One hand swipes upwards at snotty tears. ‘It’s all just a blur.’ Chelsea’s eyes burn in the semi-dark. ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’ ‘No.’ ‘Sorry, I just meant that if you can’t remember anything, then you can’t have scary thoughts. I didn’t sleep properly for weeks.’ 219

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Chelsea turns to face me. ‘I remember the party and getting in a car and then a lot of angry voices. But then there was this awful heavy feeling, like I wanted to run but my legs wouldn’t work, and then I woke up in a ditch.’ ‘That’s all?’ ‘Yeah. I mean, what if something had really happened? Mum made me go to see our doctor, so I know that it didn’t. But what if that had been my first time and I couldn’t even remember it.’ Chelsea sees our looks of disbelief. ‘You believed all that crap about me.’ ‘I saw you at the pub with Blake and all those guys.’ ‘Blake doesn’t go past first base,’ says Chelsea. ‘Nah, you can get him to second,’ I say. ‘Sometimes third,’ says Oggy. ‘Ooh. Go, girl,’ I laugh. Oggy fluffs out her chest in a trophy girl pose and then says, ‘But I tell you what, Blake is saving his virtue for somebody special.’ ‘Damn.’ ‘Plus, I reckon he’s got someone.’ ‘Who?’ ‘Dunno,’ says Oggy. ‘Let’s give him a ring and ask him. Hey, Blake, who gets the thrill of your silky tongue this week?’ We chorus, ‘Bitch!’ and laugh. 220

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Oggy ferrets around in Chelsea’s bag for a mobile and punches in the numbers. ‘What are you doing?’ ‘Phoning Blake.’ ‘Whoa!’ ‘He can tow us home.’ ‘Yeah, if he’s not in a police cell.’ ‘Well, who else can we call? Not your folks, Jean won’t answer and Mr Wilson would probably … Oh, hello, Blake.’ Oggy gives Blake directions, and Chelsea stares out through the rain-stained window. ‘Do you really like him, Chelsea?’ ‘Doesn’t matter. He would never like me now. No one will.’ Tears squeeze along the seams of her eyes. ‘That’s not true.’ ‘You haven’t lived here very long, have you, Lara. You should never ever have left me there.’ She whispers this to the black storm. I follow her in to the cold wilderness of that night and I start to shake, too. ‘I’m sorry, Chelsea. Really, really sorry.’ I pluck at her thin wrists and scrappy hair. Oggy’s chin trembles. ‘We didn’t know what to do.’ Chelsea finds my hand and won’t let go. ‘You two are really lucky, do you know that?’ And the daughter of Point Jerome’s biggest developer bows her head and weeps. 221

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I put an arm around her thin shoulders till the shaking stops. I am cold but she is icy and the ice goes right to my heart. The storm has switched direction above our heads and searches the horizon for a home along the last crack of light. Pressure builds around the car, and the wind rocks the chassis. Rain strikes diagonally at the windscreen and pelts the roof. I don’t fancy being towed over the dirt road in this rain, but it beats the prospect of staying here or having to call my parents. Chelsea lies slumped over the wheel and Oggy beats tensely on the window. I pick up the beat and build a drum solo around it on my wet legs, the ashtray, the headrest. It’s pretty comprehensive, as found-object music goes, and it keeps me warm. Oggy and I beat louder to compete with the elements and to try to lift the mood. It’s bitterly cold and it seems like ages now since Oggy called Blake and got what she thought was a ‘yes’ over the crackly reception. But suddenly headlights flash across our dashboard and the moaning shrubbery, and Blake brings a healthy motor to idle alongside ours. Dan and Blake sit in the front of the powder-blue Ford, with a woman between them. Dan hops out and tries to prop open the hood of our car but he has to hold on to it in the wrecking wind so that it doesn’t peel off like the lid of a tin. Blake attaches 222

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jumper leads from his battery to ours, and the girl revs the motor to give us a bit of juice. I’d like to say that I feel grateful to the two men — lashed by rain, their arms and faces taut in the stripy light — but instead it feels sad, because this is familiar. Another night, another storm, but this time Chelsea and I are sitting together. ‘Who’s the chick in the ute?’ Oggy’s mind, as always, is where it really counts. ‘I can’t see.’ ‘So go take a look.’ Oggy springs open the door I’m leaning on. My weight topples onto the road. Hell, it’s freezing out here and I can hardly stand upright. I crawl hand over fist along the cliff edge side of the car and pass Dan methodically checking the fuel lines. Gusts of wind threaten to rip us both off our feet, but he stands there, resolute. Water beads on his oily hands and snakes in rivulets down his forearms. When I get parallel to the door of the ute, I flatten my nose on the glass. I’m not sure what I expect her to do. Open the door and invite me in for a cup of tea? And I don’t know what I should do. Yank her outside for a bitch fight? I mean, I only kissed Blake once. Besides, it’s just me and every other girl in Point Jerome High who fancies Blake Taylor. Why isn’t Oggy here? She’s the one who made it to third base. But it’s always like this. Lara Pearlman, better known as Oggy’s Goon, freezes her butt 223

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off in the name of duty. The girl inside looks terrified, and I see myself, hair plastered to her window, slobbering on the pane. Actually, it’s funny. Hysterically funny. I get the giggles. I grip the door handle and squeeze my legs together in the desperate hope that I don’t pee like a puppy in the pouring rain. Though I hear our car chug into life, I can’t move, and Blake has to lever me off the door because I’m soldered on with cold. ‘So who was it, Lara? Answer me.’ Oggy threatens to throttle me. ‘Go and see for yourself.’ I hunker down on the back seat and worry whether Dan, who sits at the wheel of our car, will get us back over the rutted earth. The storm has filled all the potholes, and rusty water splashes over the bonnet of Chelsea’s car as we pitch from one hummock to the next. Please, please, don’t let us get bogged. Blake Taylor is so not important. ‘Lara, you said you’d find out.’ ‘No, you shoved me outside to die of hypothermia.’ ‘Lara Pearlman, you rat.’ Chelsea twists around in the front seat. Her face is anxious and her ice-blue eyes twitch at the sound of the straining motor, the strange man in control, the flick of branches along the body of the car. I see that other night mirrored in her eyes. I lean forward and circle my arms around her. She feels cold and bony. 224

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‘Lara, where does this road go?’ ‘Straight back to the main road. Remember? There are no side roads. It’s okay, Chelsea. We’ll get home okay. Dan’s a good driver. Really, the best.’ Her hand clutches my arm as we lurch through another pothole and pull up at the intersection opposite the roadhouse. Dan throws the clutch into neutral and points at the lights of the shop, but I tap him on the shoulder and shake my head. I point in the direction of the town and mouth ‘Home’. Dan winds down the window and indicates for Blake to follow him, and our little convoy whistles smoothly past giant gum forest on the road to town. Chelsea’s head lolls against my arm. As we careen past the first town houses, Oggy flits about to look into the car behind but is blasted by their headlights. ‘Okay, Lara, who is that in the ute?’ I see a girl with wispy hair flicking past me at the ice rink, standing quietly by the band at the beach party, yanking open a door in a fibro boarding house. ‘It’s Petra, Tom’s housemate.’

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Chapter 28

Oggy looks like a Pierrot puppet. Her hands are lost up the baggy canals of the white flannel pyjamas I lent her, and her head is tucked into her chest. Chelsea snuggles against Oggy and sucks in air through her mouth. They are asleep on a mattress on my bedroom floor, so I crawl carefully past them and shuffle down the hall to the laundry to rummage through the mess of last night’s wet clothes. I find one of my shoes in the sink and the other stuffed with wet socks by the door. It will have to be ballet flats and odd socks, but at this time of the morning who cares? Our house is cold with shadow, but from the balcony I can see the valley, dewy and soft. The world seems mollified after the storm. I start off along our road at a good pace. Halfway down the hill, I catch up with a neat little figure in a navy-blue tracksuit, making careful progress on the steep incline because of her knees. I keep pace with Mum in silence till we get to the park at the bottom, where the boardwalk begins. We blow steam in the cold morning air, and I wait to hear about what’s for breakfast, 226

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about the Wilsons’ car parked on our rockery and about girls who are late, unkempt and a worry to their parents. Mum leans against the tree and stretches her hamstring. ‘Well, say something, Lara.’ I am blank. ‘Didn’t you follow me?’ ‘No.’ ‘Don’t you want something?’ ‘No.’ ‘Look, I got out early to avoid all of you. I don’t feel like being a mother at six o’clock on this very lovely Sunday morning. This is my time. So what is it?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘Good. See you later.’ Mum trots off along the boardwalk at a nice steady tempo, but my brain and body don’t respond. ‘Hey, wait.’ But she doesn’t, so I have to belt after her, because even in midlife the woman can move. ‘Mum, wait. Did Dad tell you about Oggy?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘What’s going to happen?’ ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ We pound along for another hundred metres and then she turns to me. ‘Okay, it’s like this: Jean spent time with Dad yesterday while you lot were out sightseeing and there are a few options.’ 227

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‘Like?’ ‘Repayment and jail.’ She stops short and I trip over the pebbled border of the boardwalk. ‘Do you realise you can get charged for withholding information? Lara, how long did you know about this and why, on earth, didn’t you tell us straight away?’ ‘I couldn’t.’ ‘Okay, Lara. Then I can’t help you, either.’ The boardwalk crosses a car park and we walk to the other side and stop. ‘This term we’ve had a bank robbery, an abduction and this crazy show. You kids are running wild. It’s too much.’ ‘We’re not wild.’ ‘No, Lara, you’re not.’ ‘Really?’ ‘I trust you, Lara. Sort of. Well, I am trying, because I have to, since there is no other way. You just seem to do what you want, anyway. I guess the best I can hope for is that you’ll come to me and ask for advice, which would be very nice in future.’ ‘Mum, I’m really worried about Oggy and Chelsea.’ ‘Don’t be. Oggy’s tough and Chelsea’s had to look after herself for years. You should worry about yourself.’ ‘But they’re in trouble.’ ‘Listen, Lara, those girls have made mistakes. Bad 228

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ones. And they will suffer for them, but it’s not the end of the world. Chelsea can get support, good support, when she’s ready, and nobody actually wants to put Oggy in jail. ‘But what’s going to happen?’ ‘Jean spoke to a lawyer friend at Legal Aid, who told her that Oggy needs character references. So the school has agreed to write her one and so has Dad. Which is good. And she’s still under eighteen, so she can go to a children’s court.’ ‘Will that be any better?’ ‘Yes, we’re hoping that the magistrate will take into account the fact that she was not a conspirator in the robbery and that this is her first offence, and will show some leniency.’ ‘Is that all?’ ‘She needs to show remorse and that she’s making an effort to repay the money.’ ‘Then what?’ ‘They might place her on a bond or an intensive supervision order.’ ‘That still sounds terrible.’ ‘Well, it’s not jail, so it’s not too terrible. You know, people do stupid things and hurt themselves and one another, and survive. Look at you and Nathan.’ ‘What do you know about that?’ ‘Nothing much, only what I feel.’ 229

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‘He dumped me, Mum.’ ‘Are you sure? Nathan’s been sweet on you for years. Maybe he’s sick of waiting. Lara, trust me, you’ll get a guy. You’re smart, you’re creative and you’re beautiful.’ ‘Beautiful? Since when?’ ‘Since always, since I stopped worrying about you. Now, you stop worrying about them.’ She’s halfway down the track before she remembers something and calls, ‘Tell Gracie she can watch her movie till I get back.’ ‘Where are you going?’ ‘To breakfast with my boyfriend. Mr Pearlman.’ She’s gone, and I want to ask her how she knows about Nathan. She must have snooped on that camera in the games room, or she’s been comparing notes with Rita Young again. Maybe Nathan and I weren’t as quiet in the games room as we thought. Who cares? I’m beautiful. I have it on full authority from the woman who can pick a facial flaw at fifty metres. Beautiful. She actually said that. And Oggy can be kept out of jail. I really hope so.

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Chapter 29

Dan must have already done an hour of weights before I got there, because he’s lathered in sweat and his back ripples as he eases to a close on the rowing machine. He adjusts the seat on the rower for me, turns down the music pulsing through the floor, and then towels off the sweat and watches as I build up steam. I feel my back and arms come into play. I feel powerful, in control, serene. Dan sits on the exercise bike, flicks back his long hair and guzzles a bottle of water. He cycles and watches me for a while, but I don’t care, because I have my eyes on the dappled light on the floor and feel like I’m rowing through a stream. I think about how much I hated following Oggy’s choreography because I like to choose what I do with my body, I hate being given the moves. The music builds and I push harder on the oars. I row against the current and it’s challenging. Once I’ve rotated around the equipment, Dan gestures that it’s time for a break, so we head for the house. Good, this is what I came for, to see Blake. I’ve 231

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got to get this right, so I rehearse some opening lines and forget to watch my step on the path. Dummy. It’s pretty undignified to be hauled out of a garden bed with bits of mulch sticking to your hair, so I avoid Dan’s dancing eyes. But I can’t help noticing that I reach to his chin, his breath on my cheek, and that one hand rests on my waist while he brushes me down. Up at the house, Blake lumbers around the kitchen, cooking bits of toast and tea for all of us. The us is Dan, Petra and me. Blake wears his singlet, silky shorts and morning stubble on limbs of golden steel, but for once in my life I’m not in a juice of excitement. Actually, I’m angry, because what the hell is she doing here? And doesn’t she look smug, uncurling her cute painted toes. This is revolting. Maybe I should slip out and disappear. The idea has merit and feels a lot more likely than me grilling Blake about where he’s been. His smile is all sparkly charm when she passes the honey and they sit quietly drinking tea. Vomit. I’d stamp straight out, except that Dan is barring the entrance. He squats on the front doorstep, crumbling toast for the wattlebirds. Well, I’d better get on with it, and since Dan can’t hear and Petra has gone out to feed the birds, I guess my conversation with Blake will be private. ‘So … what’s going on, Blake?’ ‘Not you, too!’ He soaks a slice of toast in honey and 232

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cuts it into triangles for Cutietoes. ‘We’re all worried about you.’ ‘I don’t do hardcore interrogation before nine — and yes, I take bribes.’ ‘So I see.’ ‘Lay off, Lara.’ ‘Your friend works illegally and nicks stuff. Aren’t you in enough trouble already?’ ‘Wrong. Petra is waiting for a permit and I am not a criminal. Or don’t you believe me? Is that what you’re here for, to tell me to be a good boy and lick the arse of the boys in blue?’ ‘No. I don’t think you did the robberies. But you could keep things legal and not run off when you feel like it. Plus we really need you for this production, Blake. You can’t let us down.’ ‘And I can’t let Petra down. I have to find a way for her to stay.’ ‘Shit, Blake. That is so dumb. You’re such a kid.’ ‘I’m eighteen.’ ‘Yeah, and male, so you can subtract about ten years. She’s using you, Blake.’ ‘It’s none of your business.’ ‘But you don’t know this girl. Not really. I don’t get a good feeling from her and I think you should be careful. She could wreck your life.’ 233

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‘What would you know, Lara? What would a bank manager’s daughter know about my life?’ ‘Not a lot, but I know you’re talented and popular and if you’re not careful you’ll screw things up. Like yesterday, when you disappeared. What about your dad?’ ‘What dad? My mother had a whole heap of kids and dumped me on Dan when I was eight. She dumped me on my sixteen-year-old brother.’ ‘I thought Dan was your father.’ ‘No. Who told you that? But Dan brought me up. He worked and fed me and looked after me. Not bad for a dumb male, eh, Lara? And if you think I’d do something to hurt him, well, think again.’ I can’t look up. I suddenly wish that I believed in hell and that there was some possibility that the floor might open and swallow me whole for my sins. But I guess the only way out is via an apology and the front door. Petra is back. She balances on a stool, prods the toast and studies me with curious eyes. She has changed from the whore of Babylon to a girl in bloke’s pyjamas. Behind her, Dan slouches against the stove. I am about to give up when Petra gets up and crosses to the bathroom. This could be my last chance. ‘So why’d you leave rehearsal yesterday?’ ‘To see Petra.’ ‘Good one, Blake.’ I figure if I’m in a mess, I might as 234

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well plunge in deep. ‘So you pissed off from the workshop to see your “girlfriend”, who has no visa. That’s not a terrific alibi.’ ‘And I had to do some stuff for the party.’ ‘But you didn’t tell anybody. And what about the production — don’t you owe us something, too?’ ‘I’m only doing the show as a favour for Hatherly.’ ‘You’re on bail. Remember? And you’re supposed to stick around with Dan. The guy you’d never hurt. Honestly, you can’t help Petra anyway. What can you do? Marry her?’ ‘Maybe.’ ‘Of yeah. What’s next? Nappies and babies?’ ‘You can’t tell me what I want.’ ‘You want fun and lots of attention, Blake. I do know you a bit.’ I sip my tea, but it’s stewed black and cold. ‘Oggy’s going to be sorry that she missed out on being Mrs Taylor.’ Blake suppresses a grin and Dan snorts. I look up, shocked. Damn my mouth. Of course, Dan can lip-read. I should be more careful. The girl has returned and stands behind Blake with her arms looped around his waist and a look of fierce intensity. I wonder how much she’s heard. And again I have that feeling that there’s a lot more going on with her than anybody knows. I worry for twenty seconds that she might be a terrorist spy. Probably not. 235

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But she looks pretty fiery. ‘So, are you coming to rehearsal today? It’s the last one.’ ‘Yeah.’ Petra stands close. Too close. I bet he brings her to the party. ‘Okay. See you there.’ I make it out the door, down the drive and past that ute with some dignity. Hell, I can’t believe the things I said. Hell, the town hunk is getting married and deep down he’s a geek. And Dan is only twenty-six. Now, that is cool.

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Chapter 30

I must try to remember in future that if I start the day at six o’clock, then by nine I am way too tired for more problems. I’m very glad that Mum and Dad are still out for breakfast when I get home and open the front door, and that Gracie is out of sight, probably watching a movie, because Mr Wilson is standing in our hallway, shrieking. Okay, men don’t shriek, but this one is doing a great job of venting his emotion without making sense. He yells obscenities, paces and snorts in a cross between a tantrum and a battle cry, so I reckon it’s the male version of the shriek. Chelsea sits defeated, propped against my bedroom door; her toothpick legs sprawl across the corridor, with Oggy at her feet. I hear the words ‘car insurance’ and ‘police profile’ and ‘stupid little cow’. He fails to utter ‘we’re worried about you’ or ‘please come home’, and I realise that Blake, at eighteen, has a finer sense of duty than this pig of a man. Mr Wilson stalks up and down the corridor, thumps the 237

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wall and threatens his daughter with increasing menace. I’m shocked. My father would never do this. Dad gets overwhelmed and disappointed and mutters a lot, and then leaves the big performances to Mum — which is not very good, either — but neither of them would ever bully me like this. ‘And if you think you can disgrace us, Chelsea, with this kind of behaviour …’ I can’t stand it, so I walk up behind him and yell, ‘Get out!’ ‘… then you can …’ Mr Wilson stops and looks at me. ‘I said, get out.’ ‘Don’t think you’re any better off, Lara. You should hear what people are saying about you.’ ‘I’m a whole lot better off, Mr Wilson, because I don’t have you as a father.’ ‘How dare you! But then I suppose we can’t expect much from your kind.’ ‘And what kind is that, Mr Wilson? What is it about me you don’t like? Is it because I’m a big fat girl or because I don’t come from around here?’ Mr Wilson turns puce and grabs his daughter. ‘Come on, Chelsea. We’re going.’ ‘I’ll let my father know that you called by to bully your daughter. Or maybe I should write a letter to the Point Jerome News.’ 238

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Chelsea twists out of her father’s grasp. ‘Shut up, Lara.’ And from Oggy: ‘Yeah, that was helpful.’ Wilson blocks my path. He is only my height but very broad. ‘They haven’t found that robber yet. Your father’s in trouble.’ ‘That’s not true.’ ‘It will be when my family changes banks.’ His eyes are piggy bright. The Wilsons control the fisheries, most of the shops on Duke Street and the new subdivision by the harbour. I’ve gone too far. ‘Right, Chelsea,’ he says, noting my shock with satisfaction, ‘Let’s go.’ ‘The car’s not damaged, Dad, and I’m sorry I took it, but I’m not coming home.’ ‘You’re coming, Chelsea. Now.’ ‘No, Dad, I haven’t done what you said since I was twelve, since I started wiping myself out.’ Oggy sidles over to Chelsea and holds her hand. ‘What are you going to do, Mr Wilson? Lock up your daughter?’ His mouth is a grim line of defeat. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do. Your mother’s not here, I don’t know if she even cares and I don’t understand either of you. Look at you, Chelsea, you’re a mess, and for all the money you spend you don’t have a scrap of decent clothing. All right. All right. Go to your theatre, or whatever it is. But you’d 239

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better come home tonight, because next time the cops call me to pick you up out of some gutter, I won’t be there.’ ‘Where will you be?’ ‘Gone. And you can tell your mother, too.’ Mr Wilson stalks out of the house and blasts his tank of a car out of our driveway. Well, that was productive. Dad loses his bank and Chelsea loses a father. Lara Pearlman, the sensitive diplomat, strikes again. I collapse against the wall. I feel awful and I’m ready to pack in the whole thing: rehearsal, the day, my life, the future. All officially closed. But what a toad that guy is. I search for Chelsea and find her in the kitchen among the flour and spices. She’s preparing for a very, very big breakfast and looks quite refreshed. ‘Are you all right, Chelsea?’ ‘Yep. Fantastic, thanks, Lara.’ It’s only nine o’clock and Oggy helps Chelsea cook up a huge feed. In fact, I’m surprised — Chelsea’s lemonhoney, banana-mash pancakes with maple syrup are really yummy. For a stick insect, she’s got a nice touch with food. ‘You are not a big fat girl, Lara,’ says Oggy, spearing a wedge of pancake and maple syrup. ‘Am too,’ I mumble. This is, after all, my fourth pancake and second breakfast. 240

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‘No, seriously, have you looked at yourself lately. I swear, you’ve lost weight.’ ‘She’s right, Lara.’ ‘Nah.’ ‘Come and find out.’ They haul me on to Mum’s digital scales and I take the last pancake with me, in case the news is bad. I try to balance while they laugh and fight to read the scales. Now, I only ever weigh myself naked, before breakfast, after a wee and definitely alone, so having the two of them looking on is scary. Besides, I’m right, I haven’t lost a gram since the time I spent three days in bed with a pot of Darjeeling tea. ‘Yeah, but Lara, you look really different,’ insists Chelsea. ‘She’s right, Lara, you do. More, um, long.’ ‘Oh, no.’ Oggy screws up her face to size me up. ‘No, hang on, less lumpy.’ ‘Thanks, guys. This is going great for me; how is it going for you?’ ‘No, wait, take a look in the mirror. You’ve changed shape. Really. No, don’t stand like that.’ Chelsea yanks me up. ‘Stand tall, like you did when you were talking to my father. Look proud.’ I take another look in Mum’s bathroom mirror and 241

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notice that when I stand straight, I do look different, and wonder if lots of kissing and rowing can improve your shape. Oggy holds her hand on the back of my saggy T-shirt and snaps my bra. ‘But this has to go.’ In one swoop, those two skinny monkeys have my shirt twisted over my head. ‘Oggy, I can’t breathe, I’ll suffocate in here. Let me go.’ ‘Where’s that black top your mum always wears?’ ‘Oggy, you can’t go in there. Oggy, please.’ ‘Keep her like that, Chelsea. I’ll be back in a minute.’ Oggy finds what she wants in the walk-in robe and Chelsea helps her drag Mum’s black stretch-knit top over my head. They can’t. They mustn’t. It’ll go out of shape. Mind you, Mum is a size fourteen in the upstairs department and the thing is sleeveless and shows off my brown arms. The black is slimming and the tight fabric holds my breasts in place. She’ll never forgive me. Then again, it looks great. Chelsea cinches in my belt so you see more studs than bulge and scoops up my hair into a classy little knot on top of my head. ‘Voila. La transformation. Whadda ya reckon?’ ‘Cool! What else has your mum got? Any dangly earrings?’ ‘No. Don’t go in there. She’ll freak.’ But I don’t mean 242

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it. I haven’t snooped in her wardrobe since I was twelve, which is the last time I was small enough to fit Mum’s clothes, and the joy of piracy is sweet. Oggy plucks my eyebrows to a razor-thin arch — the girl’s an artist — hums a gypsy tango and scans Mum’s makeup supply. The French lipliners, exotic facials and imported perfumes are testament to my mother’s exceptional taste in facial products. Oggy lines them up as a shop display. There are four different shades of carmine lip gloss to choose from, alone. Oggy moans with pleasure and starts applying a rainbow of colour to my eyelids, so I hear rather than see what happens next. ‘Chelsea, what are you doing in my robe? Lara, is that my top?’ Her voice lances the air and snap-freezes the moment. Whoa. Scary vibes. I felt bolder with Mr Wilson, and that creep was twice my size. ‘Lara? I thought you had to go to rehearsal — it’s ten o’clock already. Lara, answer me.’ But I keep my eyes closed. This way, it’s just a radio play. ‘Hi, Mrs Pearlman, what do you think so far?’ Chelsea’s cheeky voice cuts in. She is still the daughter of an influential investor and can hold her own. I try to move, but Oggy is obsessed with my skin and massages in Fragrant Frangipani, a moisturiser 243

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made from lama milk, to give me that mountain stream freshness. At eighty dollars an ounce, it has to work. I try to get away, but she keeps up vigorous circles on my neck and cheekbones and waits for Mum’s next move. I wait, too, and listen for who will break first. ‘Lara …’ This comes quiet and low. Get ready, she’s trying something new. ‘Yes?’ My eyes remain shut, because once you’re a wax model, you must remain a wax model. ‘That top looks great on you. You can keep it.’ My eyes fly open and she laughs, because she’s won. But her look is not one of triumph but pride, and she arranges the lines of the knit across my hips. ‘Right, girls, it’s time to go. Mr Pearlman and I have an appointment in here and you’re taking up the office space.’ ‘Mum!’ Parents! Once they start communicating, they think they have to tell you everything. ‘Grow up, Lara. Now, can you get yourselves into town? And, Lara, can you take Gracie with you to watch? We’ll pick you all up at five and take you to the party.’ Gracie does hoopla bounces off the bed and victory punches the air: ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ I don’t remember ever being allowed to trampoline off the king suite, and I’m so distracted that I agree.

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Chapter 31

In the drama studio, a lone figure stands on a travel trunk at centrestage with his back to the audience, framed in light. Wide shoulders sag inside a flannel shirt, scruffy jeans wilt over riding boots, and the head bows beneath a beanie in a picture of desolation. I recognise Blake. At least he got here this time. ‘Hey, you can sit down now, but I’d like you to stay there. I want to see what it looks like with the light behind you.’ Nathan issues commands and people move behind the scrim. He drops in a backfill of light, and a shadowy line of people shuffle along the scrim, a mob of human cattle seeking shelter. Nathan finishes the scene and thanks Blake for standing in. But I am not ready for what comes next: Nathan’s anger. ‘Hell, where’s Lara? It’s after ten already.’ I say, ‘I’m here, Nathan,’ and step on to the stage. ‘Where’ve you been? You missed all the monologues.’ He rakes me up and down with his eyes, but they are not kind when they make it to my face, so I don’t answer. 245

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‘We’re doing the Homeless scene. Are you in or not?’ His tone rasps my flesh and I feel wobbly and silly in the makeup and Mum’s black top. Bloody Oggy, it’s her fault. I want to hide in my crap shirt and jeans. I turn to run away, but Aimee holds the outsized overcoat and lays it gently over my shoulders. ‘Hey, Hobo Girl,’ she whispers, buttoning up the collar, ‘you’re too pretty for this.’ I collapse on the trunk as Blake leaves. Nathan takes his place beside me and delivers his monologue on poverty. Then he abandons me. I wipe my nose on the thick sleeve, and rest my face in my hands. Tears stream down my cheeks and I can’t stop them. I cry for Chelsea, who can’t go home, and Tom, who doesn’t really have one. I cry for all those homeless and refugee kids who are still waiting. But mostly I cry because my best friend has turned against me. It wasn’t Oggy or Chelsea or Blake who made this place home for me but Nathan, who always looked out for me, made me laugh and even stood outside the toilets, waiting to see if I was okay, because he was scared and confused, too. I cry onstage with everyone watching, and before the scene ends Mr Hatherly calls me offstage and into a quiet corner. ‘You know, you don’t have to do this, Lara. I started this play to give people an opportunity to say something that’s important to them. But I don’t want you tearing 246

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your life apart. Really! That’s not what this is about.’ ‘But I have to do that scene. It’s the whole play for me.’ ‘Then you have to find a way to resolve it. We’re not leaving it there. Okay? I want a performance from you, Lara, something you’ve got control over. I think we’ll do the dances next, so you can watch for a while. Can your little sister dance? I’ve got an idea for the finale.’ Trust the Hath. Always on to it. Outside I feel rebuked by the red brick of the dunny walls and square courtyard. It’s hard to keep sobbing in the sensible presence of flat cement. It’s so ordinary. If Nana were here, she would probably conjure the ugly grey orphanage where she grew up. But to me it’s just government-issue school cement. Besides, the sun’s out and its warmth fills me up. Dan has propped the skeleton of a stairwell he’s constructing up against the boys’ toilet block. He bends over the work, with his back to me. The sting of the drill is regular. It punctuates the day, breaks it into bits and makes it manageable. I stroll to his side and watch for a moment and then hand him the pop rivets, which he neatly skewers into the metal frame. He barely looks at me and I don’t know if this is because he is absorbed in the task or because of this morning. I think the whole world must be sick of Lara Pearlman. 247

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It’s funny, but the words that go round and round in my brain, and which fight to come out, eventually get dizzy, spin out and die. My head takes a five-minute break. For five whole minutes, all I hear is pop rivets being driven into steel, and birdsong. But I was born into a family who talk continuously for breakfast, lunch and tea. To decide on a street direction, which brand of coffee or a movie, we have a major summit meeting. Unfortunately, the buzz is back, so I start talking to myself, to Dan, to the sky. ‘Ya know, it’s all so crap. Really. This whole thing is dumb. First I fall for Blake and then Nathan and then Blake again. So I lose Nathan. Then Oggy steals that money — well, she doesn’t steal it, really — so I tell Dad that …’ Talk, talk, talk, talk. I tell Dan about the whole dumb cycle and the irony of losing each friend. Talk, talk, talk. At one point, he stares at me — his expression is sad and the drill spins in his hand — so I stop, because I don’t want him to lip-read my thoughts. But when he bends to his task, I start again and then he does this weird thing. He takes me gently by the shoulders and shakes me really hard. His eyes burn. I open my mouth to say something. So he does it again. He shakes and shakes till my spine is a rattling tube of bony bits. Then he wheels inside, leaving the drill alive on the ground. 248

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It takes Blake two minutes to get the story and find me. ‘What is wrong with you?’ ‘I’m okay now.’ ‘No, I mean why did you do that to him? Why did you use him like that? You know he can’t answer.’ Blake backs me up against the stairs, and the metal prongs stick in my back. ‘I just needed to talk to somebody.’ ‘And if you gave him a chance, he would have listened.’ ‘It was private stuff.’ ‘So you didn’t want somebody to talk to, you wanted somebody to talk at, to dump on, vomit your precious feelings all over?’ ‘I’ve been having a hard time, okay? I just wanted to talk, and Dan’s been so kind.’ ‘That’s right. He’s good and kind and everyone, including me, takes advantage of him. Dan doesn’t hear what you say, he feels it. All you feel is your self.’ Blake has me by the arm so I can’t run, and I’ve never seen him as angry as this, not even when he’s acting on stage. Eyes like Dan’s glare down at me, but they are ugly with hate. ‘That’s not true. I feel for people like Tom. I love my friends, Oggy and Nathan.’ ‘Nathan? You treat him like a piece of garbage.’ ‘You should talk. What about you stringing us all 249

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along, playing your little games.’ ‘Oggy knows what’s what, and you asked for it.’ ‘That’s total crap and you know it.’ I’d spit if I could catch him, but he has me angled below him. What did I ever see in this guy? My arm hurts so I give in. ‘I am sorry about Dan, okay?’ ‘I am sorry about Dan.’ He’s got me pitch perfect. But it’s true. I feel awful about Dan and I wish I could control what comes out of my mouth. ‘Let her go, Blake.’ Nathan moves in but Blake doesn’t lighten his grip. ‘Come on, Blake, what are you going to do? Drag her inside in front of the cast and make her apologise? Dan won’t like that, either,’ Nathan placates him, with one broad hand on his shoulder. Blake drops me on the spiky metal. ‘Silly bitch.’ ‘You idiot.’ This time it’s Oggy, and for a moment I’m not sure who she’s talking to. ‘You think you’re really something, don’t you, Mr Blake Got-Every-Girl-by-theShort-’n’-Curlies Taylor, shoving girls around. Wonder what “wifey” would think of you now.’ Wow. It sounds good, coming out of her mouth. ‘What is going on here, Oggy? Blake! Nathan! Lara! What’s got into all of you?’ Mr Hatherly is red in the face. ‘I can’t believe you’re behaving like this. I thought I had the team right this time. But, hearing you lot, I wonder why I even bother.’ 250

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We stall. ‘Nathan, I have a team of girls freezing on stage, waiting for some lights, and thanks to you, Blake, there’s a police inquiry on my doorstep. But that’s nothing compared to the sight of you lot ripping each other apart.’ Then nick off and don’t watch, Mr Hatherly. That’s what I reckon. But Hatherly changes tack like a catamaran on a windy bay, swift and unbalanced. ‘I do this for you. Yes, you, Oggy, believe it or not, at great personal sacrifice, and this is how you reward me. You had better give me a good reason to keep going.’ Nobody answers. We glare at the ground and fake interest in the ants as they dispose of the remains of a muesli bar. Nobody speaks. Nobody wants to be the one to walk out first. We each hold too much blame. Oh, but please, do we have to have the martyred adult shtick? I do it all for you. Yeah, maybe, but I’ve seen him fluffing around backstage on production night, moist eyes, hair at the alert, thrilled. He loves it. So far, he’s threatened to abandon us and throw himself to the wolves, for our sakes. Prepare for a plea. ‘We have four more hours to go — four. Do you think you could put aside your personal lives for five minutes and concentrate [pause and breathe] to get this thing finished? Not too much to ask, is it?’ The boys troop off inside, but Hatherly stops me. ‘I’d 251

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like a word with you, Lara. Oggy, go inside.’ You mean there’s more? But the limp pleading has gone. ‘What’s got into you? You used to be a nice kid. Now you drag around here like the world owes you something. Well, believe me, it doesn’t. The world pays people who work hard, and rewards people who care about what they do. You don’t strike me as either. So what’s going on, Lara?’ I toe the ground. ‘Um … nothing. Really. Nothing.’ But he’s tough and stony. ‘I’m not a fool. I can guess why Nathan is so angry, and why Dan looks like a wounded bull. You treat your friendship with Nathan like it’s some sort of dress rehearsal. I suppose till you find the right thing. Well, you know what? Every moment of your life is the real thing, Lara Pearlman. Not everybody gets to start life with what you’ve got. You’re an intelligent and attractive young woman and have people who care about you. So don’t ruin it, okay.’ This is the third time today that someone’s called me attractive. What’s got into them is the question. Plus it’s embarrassing to listen to, like getting a singing telegram. Anyway, I have other concerns. ‘Mr Hatherly, do you really think this play is any good? I mean, do you think it’s worth doing? You keep trying to get out of it.’ 252

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‘This play has got some of the toughest and most interesting material and some of the most talented kids I’ve ever worked with.’ ‘Yeah, but do you think we can pull it off?’ He looks annoyed. ‘I never do things half baked. That’s why you’re all here, and why I am giving up my free time to rehearse. But you have to commit to it, Lara, to the process. Can you do that?’ ‘I am committed; I’m tearing my heart out.’ I rub my eyes because the silly bun is down and I’ve got hair everywhere. ‘Yes, but an actor also thinks and reflects. I don’t want you in pieces on the dressing-room floor on the last night. It’s supposed to be fun. So, please, I want a simple ending for your scene, not all that sobbing stuff.’ He glances at his watch. ‘C’mon, Hobo Girl, let’s go.’ I meet Gracie in the change-rooms, wearing stage makeup and a linen pinafore. She’s dressed for the finale and looks ecstatic. But I look pretty much the way I feel — dull and stretched, since I got only four hours’ sleep — so I don’t know what this attractive thing is about. But the Hath is right: I don’t want to end up like a strangled feather boa, shredded on the dressing-room floor. Lighten up. Brighten up — that’s my mantra, and it gets me through the rest of the afternoon. I need it, because the Hath works us mercilessly hard and Dan won’t even look 253

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at me. I’d like to be able to apologise, but there’s no way he will even nod in my direction. Late in the afternoon, my parents sneak into the audience. They look so furtive and careful that it’s funny. They’ve come to take us to the party, but I bet they’ve come way before five so they can watch the final scenes. Their faces glow like beacons when Gracie performs with the dance girls and I come onstage. It feels very personal to have them there, whispering and searching for each other’s hands in the black auditorium. When I come forward at the end to say the poem, it is in a steady voice and it feels pure and true.

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Chapter 32

The evening is already bright with stars by the time we’ve packed up. It takes four of us to drag the doors closed and get the new scaffold inside. Mr Hatherly dashes about in the descending cold to lock up, count heads and ensure everybody has a lift to the party. Nathan travels with Blake and Chelsea in the ute, and Mr and Mrs Young have a car full of rowdy boys. Gracie swivels around in the front of Mum’s Land Rover to talk to Cindy and the dance girls on the back seat. Dad offers to drive Oggy, Aimee and me to Mrs Kaye’s block for the party, and Dan passes us on his motorbike, going the other direction. Mr Hatherly loses his back bumper in a pothole, which slows down our convoy, and while Dad and Mr Young wire the rusty thing back on the car, Gracie has the great idea of relaying messages between cars. She leans out the window and screams something inane, in the hope of running a big game of Chinese Whispers, but the boys in the next car totally ignore her. Since Dad is outside and Aimee is plugged into music 255

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on her iPod, I figure this is maybe my only chance to question Oggy. ‘What’s happening about the money, Oggy?’ It seems she was waiting for me to ask. ‘It would be good if Jean could take out a loan to pay it back immediately.’ ‘Can Jean afford to?’ ‘No. And no bank would give her a loan.’ ‘How will you cope?’ ‘Mr Hatherly said he’ll ask the music teacher if she can teach violin at school.’ ‘Is that enough?’ ‘Nowhere near. But your dad’s made some arrangements. I’m getting a job.’ ‘Where?’ ‘Dan’s workshop. I have to take calls and deal with the accounts.’ ‘The workshop? Really?’ ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got to do it for Jean. She was really, really mad at me but she was also mad at herself. For letting things get that bad. So from now on, I collect the bills and we work out how to pay them. But you know, I don’t think I can graduate, anyway, because I haven’t handed in enough work. Besides, I found out I like handling money.’ Oggy working with motor parts and balance sheets. 256

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Is that possible? But she did pay all those bills. Still, I feel bad, thinking about what she has to give up. ‘Do you think you can stick it out?’ ‘It’s better than being poor. For now, anyway.’ Oggy leans out the window and calls back to Gracie, but she’s drowned out by the roar of a leaky exhaust. An old bronze Fairlane rumbles past, with Tom at the wheel and Petra in the passenger seat. Oggy points wordlessly. I recognise the car from Tom’s backyard. ‘Yeah, that car is so old school. It’s really cool, eh?’ The younger kids arrive at the party all screamed out, which is a good thing, because the night is large and calm in Mrs Kaye’s back paddock. We are greeted by the sparks of a log fire, the scent of night jasmine and the aroma of roasting food. Mr Appleby’s oblong face is ruddy with smoke above the barbecue. He turns the sausages with one hand and waves us in with a bottle of beer in the other. Several brown empties lie at his feet: he’s had an advance tasting of his home brew. He flips the onions with a flourish and a loose grin. His face is alive under the coloured party lights and the rising moon. Nathan’s mother, Rita, has organised the food and can’t rush everybody fast enough to tables laden with baked jacket potatoes, chicken skewers, chunky 257

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salads and buttered rolls. She cackles with delight over something Mrs Kaye tells her — hot gossip, no doubt, that I’ll get to hear through Mum later. Tom kicks the flat soccer ball through the sparks. He’s organised two teams, with him and the dog on one side and the entire chorus of younger boys on the other. I don’t have to ask the score: the game is rigged — that dog’s a winner. I want to check if Dan is coming and spot Blake’s fake leather jacket and beanie bent over the food. I approach carefully, as it would not be cool to blow it three times in one day. But the back turns and I am confronted by Petra wearing Blake’s stuff. Maybe she was cold this morning and borrowed his clothes, but I am shocked and cannot speak. She goes to sit on the grass below Blake’s chair and rests her head on his knee. He strokes her cheek gently with one hand and illustrates some big bull story with the other. Good one, Blake. I give their relationship till the end of next week. Oggy and Chelsea find a CD deck and get Nathan to hook up a dodgy outdoor cable. They’ve scrounged around in everybody’s bags to assemble a respectable stack of music and are set to play DJ. The music starts with a low, smooth croon by Ray Charles. Jeez, that’s Dad’s CD. They must have ransacked his car. Those two work fast. Still, it’s a cunning start because by the time 258

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those girls really amp up the music it will be too late to banish them. And I am surprised about Mum. She looks utterly at home, with her chipped mug of home-brew beer on the peeling verandah, and she has just told a rude joke, judging by the hoots of laughter. I take my plate of chicken and potato salad and sit next to Aimee on the steps of the verandah. I’m just about to have a whinge about Blake Taylor when he trails over to join us, with Petra in tow. At least it’s a good chance to grill him about the police, which I missed out on doing this morning. Blake flushes down a sausage with a swallow of beer. ‘The cops didn’t charge me over the second robbery.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because I was here yesterday with Petra, and Mrs Kaye confirmed it. When she got home from school and saw all the stuff I’d dropped off, she called the police.’ ‘Do the police know what’s going on?’ ‘They reckon the second robbery was done by a different bloke because when they compared the footage of the two robberies, it was obvious that it was not the same person.’ ‘Oh. So it was kind of a copycat burglary.’ ‘I might be off the hook, too.’ ‘Really?’ 259

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‘Yeah. When I got to the station yesterday, that cop Nameen said that they’re working on some new information. A few people called in with descriptions of the getaway car but none of them checked out before. But the latest info looks more promising.’ Petra leans forward. ‘Did the cops say what the car looks like?’ ‘No. But they’ve excluded lots of possibilities and they’re pretty confident about this one.’ Petra says something about police incompetence but is drowned out by the squeal of synthesisers. Transmission’s third album, Spirit Level, hurtles across the yard and lifts Mrs Kaye out of her seat. ‘No, girls! No! Nathan, come here!’ But Nathan is standing with Tom and the soccer groupies on the other side of the barbecue and is staying out of it. Mrs Kaye struts over to Oggy and Chelsea and holds a vigorous debate. They can’t understand each other, because the music is too loud, but the girls eventually lose the argument and turn down the volume. Behind me, the parents are discussing events. ‘Chelsea doesn’t look well,’ says Rita. ‘I’d be very worried if she was my daughter.’ ‘She spent last night at our house,’ says Mum. ‘I think she pretends she’s all right because she has to.’ ‘At least she seems to be enjoying herself tonight.’ 260

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‘No thanks to her father,’ says Mum. ‘Ron, can he really do that to the bank?’ My father sounds flat. ‘He can take his business wherever he likes.’ Phil Young sounds equally unhappy. ‘He can’t force you out, surely.’ ‘He can try. He called this morning to give me a blowby-blow account of my failings as a manager and a father.’ Mum fills her glass. ‘From our driveway. Can you believe that man? He was standing on our road, bellowing at Ron down his mobile. It’s disgraceful.’ I chase a sausage around my plate with a piece of bread because I can’t swallow it. Everything is upside down. My father is being threatened by a bully, my best friend has dumped the revolution to leave school and work in car parts, the town spunk has fallen in love with a scarecrow in overalls, and, what’s worse, she’s sitting next to him, looking really tense and wired. There is something really not right about everything and I have an impending sense of disaster. Where’s Dan? I need someone who won’t argue with me. He’s not here, but it doesn’t matter, because now I feel hyped enough to tackle Nathan, who is sitting next to the speakers. ‘Hey, Nathan, you want to dance?’ ‘No. You’re too tall.’ ‘Okay. Do you want to talk?’ 261

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‘Probably not. You’re a smart-arse with a fast mouth.’ ‘So you don’t want to be friends, either.’ ‘No. Definitely not. Never, ever friends.’ ‘Great. I thought I might try the “Love, Hope and Charity” approach but your rejection reaffirms my belief. We are all doomed. Thank you for participating in this survey.’ ‘Lara, shut up and sit down.’ I’m about to move off when the drone of a motor drowns out the music and Dan’s bike idles into the yard. Dan. Yes! But then I remember what happened this afternoon and falter. For once, I do as I’m told and collapse onto the ground beside Nathan, because there’s no place left to go. Two dark silhouettes swing off the bike. Dan heaves the machine onto its stand and helps Jean brush her hair free of the helmet, and then they move into the tangle of sweaty bodies and barbecue smoke. Jean gives Oggy a long hug — they seem especially close — and then they laugh and talk excitedly above the music, arranging something. Suddenly the electric reverb drops out and the world is very quiet. ‘Hey, everyone.’ Oggy’s voice warps through the makeshift amp. ‘Off your seats. We’ve got some proper partying to do. C’mon, you lot. Put your hands together for the fabulous Duke Street Duo.’ 262

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Jean’s fiddle shreds the night air as she tunes up and puts Transmission to shame. Blake sits next to Jean and picks at a bass made from an old packing case with a rake handle and a taut string. Plunk, plunk, plunk. Behind him, Dan claps in perfect time, feeling the rhythm through his feet. He looks ecstatic. Then Jean lurches from one wild gypsy tune to the next, and people grab people, any people, and reel them into the dance. Gracie grabs Nathan and makes with the fluttery eyes. The girl has no shame. Chelsea and I thump through three songs, and then Tom partners me in a jig, surprising me with all the right moves. Till Oggy cuts in. That girl! My mother dances with Mr Hatherly, our fathers partner the girls, who exhaust them in no time, and the boys prance the dog around the yard on its hind legs and it yelps for more. Mr Appleby swings Mrs Kaye around and around in a dizzy circle. The stringy old goose looks like she’s enjoying it. Then Mr Hatherly rounds everybody up and organises a barn dance, while Jean saws through a stock of country songs. The dance is fun, and as the inner circle revolves around we change partners till I find myself opposite Petra. She is completely confident as she holds me in firm hands and, with the athletic agility that I saw at the ice rink, spins us through the dance. I tip sideways but she steadies me with her left hand and flashes her 263

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watch. Hmm. Nice watch: vintage gold rim, black dial, fat numbers. ‘Hey, Petra!’ I try to call her back but it’s too late, the circle has moved on. At the end, Jean scrapes the wet hair from her face and leans forward to Blake and plants a kiss on the crown of his head. People cheer. Jean holds up her hand for silence and the crowd sinks into shadow. She lifts the violin to her head and serenades the sky, us, this sweet moment. I catch Oggy’s eye. She stands at the edge of the light, leaning with her back against Tom. His arms are locked around her waist and he seems utterly at home. But Oggy’s look shifts from shock to joy and thrilled disbelief, and she keeps nodding at me. I have no time to ask her what she means, because Gracie has dragged Nathan to my side and dropped his hand on mine. I smile in a grimace and wait tensely for Gracie to go away so that I can drop his hand without insulting her. But my little sister thinks she can work magic and waits for something to happen. We stand and watch each other. I think it’s her parting shrug that says it all: ‘Are you stupid or what?’ It forces my knees to buckle and my body to the ground and, because we’re still holding hands, Nathan is tugged down beside me. He squats on his haunches and holds on, awkwardly. My arm hangs at a weird angle and it hurts, so I move 264

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closer. The grass is soft and wet and cold. I shiver and move closer for warmth, so we’re touching. I hope he’ll melt and put his arm around me but he doesn’t. He concentrates resolutely on the dancing crowd. ‘Nathan.’ ‘What do you want, Lara?’ ‘I want it to be okay between us.’ His voice is a monotone. ‘It is okay, Lara.’ ‘I’m sorry, Nathan.’ ‘Why? Because I got it wrong for six years? Don’t worry, it’s all sorted, friend.’ He shakes my hand formally and drops it. ‘I don’t want that.’ ‘You don’t know what you want.’ Town politics look like a walk in the park compared to this. ‘Stop being tricky. You know what I mean.’ ‘Funny thing, that, Lara: I don’t.’ Clearly, I don’t, either, because I swear I don’t know that I’m going to kiss him. A little bit. Just a light brush on the lips. In fact, it’s more of a casual swipe and could be mistaken for a face wipe after a greasy barbecue, except my scalp tingles. He doesn’t move, so I take this as a yes and I kiss him again. Then I look at him and his lips are open but his eyes are so sad. 265

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‘You’re making it worse, Lara.’ ‘But this is how I feel.’ ‘Tonight.’ ‘I’m sorry, Nathan, I really I wish I could be the sort of person who thinks things out in advance. Like Mum with her dinner parties, or even Oggy and her schemes, but that’s not me. I have to follow myself around and find things out as they happen.’ ‘That’s pretty wild. I don’t think I’m even safe as your friend.’ ‘Too crazy, huh?’ ‘You were always crazy, Lara; you just never reversed on me before.’ ‘We didn’t use to kiss, either.’ ‘How does that change things?’ ‘Oh, come on. You have to admit, it was different.’ ‘Not for me. I always had it planned.’ ‘Planned? I am not one of your lighting projects.’ I bowl him over on the wet grass, sit on his chest and pin down his arms with my knees and tickle him, hopefully to death. Planned. How industrial. His legs thrash in the grass and he chokes on laughter. ‘Get off, get off. You’re killing me.’ ‘All good boys deserve a favour.’ ‘Seriously, I can’t breathe. You’ll crush me, you great whale.’ 266

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‘What did you call me?’ ‘Friend. Okay? Friend.’ ‘No, the time for amnesty is over. You have to do better than that.’ And he does. He bucks and heaves till I roll on to the grass, where he catches me from behind, winds his arms around me in a vice and holds me till I’m still. Then he parts my hair and nuzzles my neck. ‘No, Lara, not just friends.’ A tender kiss lands on my ear, and I manage to swivel in his arms so that we lie facing. His hopeful grin is catching and we laugh and kiss, intertwined on an earth pumping with gypsy tunes in an inky, moon-spun sky. I pop my head up for air. ‘I bet you had this planned. Cunning, Nathan. Very cunning.’ ‘Thank you.’ ‘You’d make a good robber.’ ‘Nah, too short.’ ‘Too straight.’ ‘Lacking in criminal intent.’ ‘Besides, we already know who that is.’ ‘Do we?’ He threatens to jerk upright. But I hold him down. ‘Yes, I think we do.’ ‘Who?’ He twists about to follow my gaze on Tom and Oggy, 267

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and then I trace a line of thought that suddenly seems so obvious. ‘Why do you think Tom came to drama in the first place? He’s not exactly the arty type.’ ‘Well, he knew me and Blake from rugby. He probably came for the company.’ ‘A very special person’s company, I’d say. Do you think he’s the kind of person who would do anything for a friend?’ ‘Like what?’ ‘Like something dangerous? And what about Petra? We know she nicks stuff, that she’s broke, reckless and probably desperate without a visa. I bet she’s capable of almost anything.’ ‘Lara, what are you talking about?’ ‘Yeah, Petra’s really capable. She’s tall and athletic, with all the right moves, kind of like Blake. In fact, she could be Blake’s skinny twin. In fact, if you saw them together on poor quality black and white film, you couldn’t really tell them apart.’ ‘Yeah, you’re right.’ ‘But you see, Oggy’s got it wrong. She thinks the robber threw her the money. But I reckon the driver did.’ ‘Why would he do that?’ ‘Maybe the driver saw Oggy used as a shield and he wanted to reward her. Or maybe, yeah, because the driver 268

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knew she needed the money.’ ‘Oh, I get it. You think that …’ ‘And here’s something else that Oggy’s got wrong. Robbers aren’t always male.’ Nathan springs upright and scans the crowd. ‘And that mistake would make it easy for them to hide in a crowd.’ ‘Exactly.’ Nathan sights Petra lurking on the edge of the light. ‘Are you going to tell the police?’ ‘No, because I think the driver was weak and got dragged into it.’ ‘You mean Tom?’ ‘And I can’t dob in a boy who has nothing in life but everything to lose.’ ‘But you have to, Lara.’ ‘Shhhh. Let’s forget it. It’ll be okay. Blake said the police have a new lead and I reckon they can work it out.’ I stroke Nathan’s hair and relax in his arms. I feel sure that he would never abandon me on a kerb, like Oggy’s partner did. Besides. I’ve got his number.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Lisa Marino, Felicity Newman, Rachel Roberts, Kathleen Shiels and Rosemary Stevens for their generous reading of my early drafts. Jane Byrne’s enthusiasm helped me to take the next step. Sue McDonald inspired and coached me and made home support visits. Brigid Lowry sagely advised me to finish. Many thanks. I am grateful to Georgia Richter for her fine insights and responses, which enabled this book to come into being. Thank you to Cate Sutherland for guiding its progress. Most importantly, I wish to thank Amanda Curtin, whose direction and dedication I found invaluable. Lastly, thanks, Lukas and Joel, for answering my questions at all hours, and thank you, Michael, for supporting my projects with your steady calm.

Lines from ‘Song’ by John Mateer, pages 201–2, quoted with permission (Barefoot Speech, Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2000).

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Zoe Thurner lives by the river in Perth with her family.

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First published 2011 by FREMANTLE PRESS 25 Quarry Street, Fremantle (PO Box 158, North Fremantle 6159) Western Australia www.fremantlepress.com.au Copyright © Zoe Thurner, 2011. The moral right of the author has been asserted. This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. Edited by Amanda Curtin. Designed by Ally Crimp. Printed by Everbest Printing Company, China. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data Thurner, Zoe Dress rehearsal / Zoe Thurner. 1st ed. ISBN: 978 1921 696 67 1 (pbk.) ISBN: 978 1921 696 93 0 (eBook.) A823.4

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