Friday Brown (7 page)

‘Shit happens. That’s the original bumper sticker. I’m starting to think it’s all in the interpretation.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Shit happens to us all the time. It’s only after it’s happened that you say it was a sign. Did you see
this
coming?’

She knew what I meant by ‘this’. This thing that was killing her.

‘This is normal,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘You growing away from me.’

‘There’s nothing normal about what’s happening to us,’ I cried.

She stroked my hair again. ‘It would kill me if you stopped believing in me.’

We both fell silent at that.

‘You’re growing up,’ she said firmly. ‘It takes time to believe again. It took me sixteen years, but I hope it takes you less. That’s where you’ll find your peace.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘We’ve had our differences, my father and me, but we’ve forgiven each other. There are things you need to know.’

‘Like what? How to make
good choices?’
I said bitterly.

She shook her head. ‘You can’t always make good choices. Sometimes you have to settle for making a choice you can live with.’

‘Can’t we just go back? Let’s go up north. I liked it there.’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve come full circle. He’s not such a bad old guy and you’ll be able to finish school. He’ll look after you.’

‘I don’t need looking after.’

‘It’s too
soon,’
she said fiercely. ‘You have to be brave now. This is the last new beginning for me.’

Which sounded to me like it was an ending. Which it was.

Three months with Vivienne, forty-two days without her. That’s how I defined my time in that house. I didn’t want to remember any of it.

The ceiling of the squat seemed to press down. I burrowed further under the blanket and pinned the edges underneath my arms and legs. I felt a burning in my sinuses and a lump in my throat that meant tears were coming, so I pinched the bridge of my nose to stop them.

‘Damn ghosts,’ I whispered to the dark.

Another car drove by. For a few seconds, the newspapered walls lit up.

My eyes were playing tricks.

A slow-moving shadow crept down the hallway: the shape of a head, shoulders, a pointed chin. The shadow froze until the car had passed.

My body went rigid. I kept my head so still. My eyes ached from staring sideways at that shadow and, after long minutes, it started moving in my direction. The dark shape sidled through the doorway. It crouched low and leaned over me.

I felt the soft weight of a blanket pressing down. Scratchy fibres scraped my cheek. The shadow moved away and I heard the wheeze of laboured breath.

‘Silence, what are you doing?’ Bree hissed. ‘Go back to bed.’

The shadow gave a salute.

Bree sighed and rolled over.

Creeping warmth made my toes tingle and my eyes close. When my heart stopped pounding, I fell into ruptured sleep.

A toilet flushed. Somebody coughed. Shards of morning stabbed between the gaps in the newspaper; the exposed pipes that ran like veins through the creaky old house shuddered. Footsteps overhead and the cobweb-strung globe above swayed. I needed to pee, desperately, but I knew once I released the heat from the blankets it would be impossible to get it back.

Carrie’s and Bree’s beds were empty.

I hadn’t heard them get up which meant I’d slept harder than I liked. I curled myself into a ball on my side and waited.

‘Wake up, sleepyhead.’

I jumped and sat up.

Arden lounged in the doorway dressed in a long, black T-shirt. Her legs were white and endless, with the hard-edged muscle of a dancer, or a gymnast. Lines that begged to be drawn, if I could draw, and I couldn’t. Her dreads were tied in a clumped knot that sat like a sewer-rat on her shoulder. I noticed that her breasts were full, but high, even without a bra—like Vivienne’s had been. I would keep registering these similarities but I didn’t know what to make of them; they brought pain, but at the same time comfort.

‘Sleep well?’ Arden drawled.

‘Yes, thanks,’ I lied.

She was hiding something behind her back.

‘Was there something you didn’t understand about being invisible?’

At that moment the creeping light burst into a wall of sunshine. Arden moved to stand in it. A newspaper exploded in my face, the pages separating, fluttering down around me.

I cowered and put my hands up.

‘There mustn’t be much happening in the world today.’ Arden said. She rummaged through the paper and spread a page out over my legs. ‘Look who’s made headlines.’

I crossed my legs and smoothed the paper.

TEENAGER SAVES BABY,
screamed the front page. There was a picture of me pulling the pram onto the edge of the platform, one of those Big Brother images that looked grainy and indistinct. Below it, a close-up of my face with my hand up, fingers spread, like I was trying to ward off the paparazzi.

A mystery girl’s quick thinking averted tragedy yesterday morning when seven-month-old Reilly Cooper’s pram rolled…

‘But I didn’t…’ I started.

‘You’ll have to leave. You’re putting us all in danger.’

‘But it was Si…’ I stopped. If Arden was making me leave, what would she do to Silence?

Arden gathered the scattered pages to her chest, had a second thought, then threw the crumpled mess back on the floor. ‘No hard feelings, hey. It’s for the best.’

She sounded like someone much older.

As if she realised it, she laughed at herself. Her expression turned serious. ‘You don’t fit in, really. You don’t seem…damaged enough.’

I slid out from under the blankets and pushed the newspaper pages away from the mattress. I pulled my backpack close and looked inside for some clean clothes.

Arden stood over me, frowning. ‘There is another way, I suppose.’

My stuff seemed loose, like there were things missing, or out of place. ‘What do you mean?’ I pushed the clothes aside and felt for my purse. It wasn’t there. ‘My purse is gone,’ I mumbled.

‘It must be there somewhere,’ Arden said, irritated. ‘We could cut your hair.’

‘Why? What for?’ I sounded breathless. ‘It’s gone.’ My money was gone.

‘So nobody will recognise you. Then you could stay.’

‘It was here last night.’
Darcy
, I thought.

‘Did you hear me? You could stay. Let me cut your hair. You’ll be unrecognisable.’ Her eyes were shattered glass.

‘It’s okay. I’m leaving.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘I thought you wanted me to go?’

‘I do, but Silence won’t be happy.’

‘He doesn’t even know me.’

‘I think you remind him of his sister. She looked a bit like you.’ She bent down, grabbed a hank of my hair and
inspected the ends. ‘When was the last time you cut this?’

‘Not since I was about ten.’
When was the last time you cut yours?
I thought, looking at her snarled dreadlocks. I backed away from her and she held on a moment too long until the roots pulled. ‘What happened to her? Silence’s sister?’

‘Who said anything happened to her?’

‘You used the past tense.’

‘I didn’t. Oh, come on. Let me cut it.’ Arden cut the air with two fingers,
snip snip.
She knelt behind me and ran her fingers through my hair, combing the tangles. ‘Stop covering up that pretty face.’

After a minute, I relaxed against her. It felt good, like I was five years old again. I closed my eyes and she could have been Vivienne, winding sections into a fishtail braid. I sank deep into the pleasure and pain of pull and release.

Arden’s fingers moved to my scalp and started to massage hard, hypnotic circles.

‘Do you like that?’

I nodded. ‘I need to get dressed,’ I said but didn’t move. I couldn’t.

Her hands moved to my shoulders and she dug her thumbs into the tight muscles.

I groaned.

Arden caught and held her breath. She worked one cool hand from my shoulder, down, between the fabric and skin, until she scooped and cradled one of my breasts.

I froze.

She held me there until her hand grew warm.

And I let her.

I’m not sure who moved first.

She let me go, stood up, looked down at her near-nakedness and shrugged. ‘See you downstairs.’

I was shaking. I took my time and turfed all of my stuff out onto the mattress—two pairs of jeans, a few T-shirts, thongs, underwear, my jacket and a thin jumper. I wanted to put them all on.

My purse was definitely gone. The thought made me feel sick. Finally, I got dressed and went downstairs.

Only Carrie, Darcy, Arden and AiAi were there. AiAi was wolfing bread, his hand dipping into a brown paper bag to break chunks from a crusty loaf. Darcy was quiet and shifty, sitting on a crate, nursing a mug.

I gave her my best accusing stare but she wouldn’t look at me.

Carrie was stirring crazy circles in her mug with a teaspoon.

‘Where’s Silence?’ I asked.

Carrie looked up. ‘Gone out,’ she said.

Arden slurped the last of her drink and handed her mug to Carrie. She hadn’t bothered to put on more clothes, despite the chill of the house.
Snip, snip,
went her fingers. She behaved as if nothing had happened and I was relieved.

I looked at Carrie’s and Darcy’s short hair.

Bree wandered in, yawning.

I checked out her cropped curls and wondered. It crossed my mind that I’d been manipulated in some way, but I was embarrassed and confused.

‘What’s going on?’ Bree said.

Arden hauled a crate into the middle of the room and slapped it.

I thought it was a test. A girl rite of passage that must be endured. It was hair. Only hair. Dying cells oozing through pores, that’s all it was.

Arden was waiting, daring me.

Carrie ran her hand over her own stubbled head, almost like she wasn’t aware she was doing it.

Bree took a chunk of bread out of AiAi’s hand and said, ‘Gotta go. See you all tonight.’ Her eyes darted to me, then away. She left in a hurry.

I sat on the crate and gathered my heavy hair into a ponytail with both hands. I handed it to Arden.

Arden started to cut. But not with scissors. With her knife.

The dragging, sawing sensation was awful. My scalp burned.

Arden hacked through the hair just below her hand and let go.

A raggedy, concave bob swung around my face, just past my chin. The feeling of lightness was nice. Just an even-up and I could have lived with it. I didn’t know why I hadn’t done it sooner, except that Vivienne had kept hers long and I’d just never even thought about doing something different.

‘Hey, thanks. It feels good,’ I said, touching the blunt ends. ‘Maybe just go around the edges again…’

Arden lifted a piece and cut again, this time only a couple of centimetres from my scalp.

I turned around and said, ‘I like it. You can stop cutting.’

She twisted my shoulders to the front and said, ‘You still look like you.’

I made a swollen lump on my lip with my teeth. Apart from violence, there was no exit. I made my mind empty, filled it back up with the resignation that I could summon whenever I remembered that the worst had already happened. Nothing else would ever hurt as much again.

It was only hair.

Darcy left and came back with the round hand-mirror that sat over the bathroom basin. She held it in front of me so I could watch.

Arden continued cutting.

When she had finished, there were uneven tufts and zigzag edges, but my new haircut was short and wispy. Without all that weight, it stood straight up; without all that hair, my eyes were enormous.

Darcy angled the mirror so I could see the back.

The nape of my neck was cold, bare, and so white. Childlike.

I ran my hands over the skin and brushed away the amputated ends. I could see Darcy’s reflection behind me but I couldn’t read her expression.

‘I think she looks pretty,’ AiAi said through a mouthful of bread.

‘I think she looks like one of Carrie’s dyke friends,’ said Darcy.

Carrie yelled, ‘For fuck’s sake, go find your happy place, Darce.’ She slammed her cup into the sink and stomped up the stairs.

Arden’s mouth was thin as a paper cut. ‘Clean up this mess,’ she spat.

I scooped up handfuls of hair. It was already drying, dying, no longer a part of me.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to look pretty. Maybe none of us were.

I swept up the rest of the hair, stuffed it into a plastic shopping bag and took it outside.

Bree was smoking, leaning up against the wall of the house. She had her iPod headphones in, her eyes closed. Her mouth moved silently to music I couldn’t hear.

I touched her arm.

She jumped and plucked out her headphones. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘You look different.’

‘Not like me,’ I said.

‘No. You still look like you. Just lighter.’ She smiled. Her dimples were deep, like someone had pressed their thumbs into her face. A quick flash and they were gone. ‘I’ve gotta go somewhere. Come if you want.’

I got the feeling she’d been waiting for me. I leaned the bag up against the side of the house and left it there.

‘Did Arden cut your hair, too?’ I asked her. ‘And the others?’

‘No.’ She tucked her iPod into the waistband of her jeans. Her mouth twisted. ‘The boys already had short hair.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘Two hundred bucks a week is a lot,’ I said.

Bree led the way through a maze of alleys between double-storey townhouses. She walked quickly and smoked. Four cigarettes already and we’d only been walking for fifteen minutes. The air was razor-sharp and stung my throat like a strong mint.

‘Yeah, it is. But it’s actually not that hard. Joe helps out at the markets. He sorts through fruit and vegetables and gets rid of all the rotten stuff. Sweeps the floor. The greengrocers just sling him some cash here and there. It all adds up.’

‘What about benefits?’

‘We’re not supposed to get money from the government, otherwise it’s too easy to track us down. We don’t exist, remember? It’s better that way.’

‘Better for who?’ I asked but she didn’t answer. ‘So what do you do?’