Give Me Four Reasons (7 page)

‘He’s gone,’ I tell her.

‘I know,’ Felicity wails, ‘and it’s all my fault!’

‘It’s not your fault, Fliss.’ I put the tray on her bedside table and cradle her head, swiping her hair off her face.

‘It is,’ she moans. ‘He left because of me. Because of my stupid party. He’s tired of all the drama. Tired of having to rescue me and put up with having noisy teenagers in his house. That’s why he’s been spending so much time at work. And last night was just the last straw.’

I feel sick. I jump up. ‘I’ve got to go, Fliss,’ I say.

I run through our bathroom into my bedroom and shut the door. Is it true? Is that why Dad left? I know he hates drama and confrontation. If he left because of the trouble at Felicity’s party last night, that means he really left because of me. I caused the fight by telling the older kids about Willa kissing Adam.

I lie in bed, thinking and crying and cuddling my bears.

Felicity lies in her bed, crying and making phone calls to her friends.

Mum sits in the spare room, chanting.

* *

When evening comes, I make dinner. I’m determined to become indispensable to my mother and sister. As I try to separate the strands of gluggy cooked spaghetti I wonder what Dad is having for dinner. He can’t cook to save his life. I spoon the bolognaise sauce onto each pile of spaghetti, add a sprinkle of parmesan cheese, and a glass of water to each tray, then take the first tray to Mum in the spare room.

‘Thanks, Paige,’ Mum says. I wait for her to say more, to start eating, but she doesn’t. She just sits and stares at a pile of shiny black rocks etched with strange inscriptions.

Felicity allows me to place her tray on her lap. She picks up her fork and starts pushing at the lumpy bits of mincemeat. Then she drops her fork. It clatters onto the tray. She glares at me. ‘Spag bol is Dad’s favourite. You know that, don’t you?’

‘It … it’s the only meat we had in the freezer. And it’s the only thing I know how to cook.’

Felicity pushes her tray away. ‘I’m sorry, Paige. I can’t eat this. Not without Dad here.’

I sigh and take my sister’s tray back to the kitchen. I sit at the bench, staring into my own plate of spaghetti bolognaise for a long time. I remember what Dad’s face looks like when he greedily slurps up strands of pasta and licks red sauce off his chin.

I reach for the telephone and dial Dad’s mobile number. ‘I have two uneaten plates of spag bol here,’ I want to tell him.

But I hang up before he answers. I can’t entice my father back home with food. And when Mum returns her untouched tray to the kitchen a little while later, I’m glad I didn’t try. It’s lumpy and tasteless and boring. Nobody wants something like that.

On the third day after Dad leaves I wake up and I want to scream. The house is too quiet. Felicity is not blasting her music. Mum hasn’t had any clients. And my father is not mowing lawns or tinkering around the house, making sure everything is in order. I’m usually the quiet one, but this is too much, even for me. I have to do something.

I make Mum’s breakfast tray and take it into her bedroom. ‘We need to go shopping,’ I tell her.

Mum sips her herbal tea. It is the first time I have seen her eat or drink anything in three days. ‘I’m not really in the mood for Christmas shopping,’ she says.

I knew she would say that. ‘It’s not Christmas shopping, Mum. We need to get my new uniform for high school.’

‘There’s plenty of time for that,’ Mum says with a wave of her hand.

‘No, there’s not,’ I insist. ‘We don’t want to leave it until the last minute. All the clothes in my size might be gone.’

Mum sighs and gazes out the window. The sky is cobalt blue and the temperature is set to soar. It’s a perfect day for enjoying the beach or the pool. Mum blows on her tea and takes another sip. Her hands are shaky as she sets it down. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

It’s only four blocks to Farram’s Uniforms in the main street, but after Mum has showered and dressed she reaches for her car keys.

‘Let’s walk,’I suggest. I grab our hats off the hooks in the laundry and almost push my mother out the front door. She puts on her sunglasses and keeps her head down as we walk past the neighbours’ houses. Purple and white agapanthus flowers are in bloom in their front yards. Mum loves agapanthuses but this morning she does not stop to admire them. She is walking so fast that I have difficulty keeping up.

‘Come on, Paige,’ she calls from the corner of our street. ‘I don’t have all day.’

Yes, you do
, I want to tell her. I can’t bear for her to return to the spare room and
ohm
all day. I’ve got to keep her busy.

‘Remember how we used to come to this park?’ I say as I catch up to her. I look across the road to the playground nestled under gum trees in the spacious reserve. A father is pushing his two young daughters on the swings. The girls squeal in delight. ‘You used to love playing on the swings more than I did. Let’s have a turn.’

‘Let’s just get your uniform, Paige,’ Mum snaps.

We walk the rest of the way to the shops in silence. The main street is almost deserted, even though it’s a weekday. Most people now shop over at the huge mall near the edge of town.

Mrs Farram greets us with a tape measure slung over her shoulder and pins sticking out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Hello. What can I do for you?’ she mumbles.

‘Paige is starting at Juniper Bay High next year,’ Mum says.

Mrs Farram wraps the tape measure around my chest, my waist and then my hips. ‘Well, haven’t you grown, Paige?’ she says, looking at the numbers. She struts off to the rack labelled ‘Juniper Bay High’. She returns with a blue and mauve checked skirt and a white blouse.

‘These should fit, but I may need to take up the hem on the skirt,’ Mrs Farram says.

I take the clothes and walk over to the changing room. Mum follows. She stands outside the heavy blue curtain while I strip off. I try on the blouse then step into the skirt and zip it up. The skirt is quite long, but at least it fits. I pull the curtain back.

Mum looks at me and her lips start to tremble. ‘Oh, Paige,’ she says. ‘You’re all grown up. Our baby’s off to high school.’

I don’t know if it’s the thought of going off to high school that makes my eyes fill with tears or the fact that she said ‘our baby’. I tug the curtain back across so Mum can’t see me cry. Dad is meant to be there on my first day of high school. He’s meant to wish me well and give me advice and kiss me on the forehead. He’s meant to make me feel okay that no one cared enough to write in my Passport. He’s meant to be standing beside Mum and waving as I walk off down the front path on the next part of my journey.

But where will Dad be on that day at the end of January? Where is he now?

Mum pays for the skirt and three white blouses. I had planned to suggest going to the cafe next door for morning tea, but all I want to do now is go home. And judging from the speed with which Mum hightails it out of the shop and up the street, she feels the same way. So much for my attempt to cheer her up and take her mind off Dad. All I’ve done is make myself more miserable.

* *

Early in the morning two days later, Mum comes out of the spare room.

‘It’s time we all got out of the house, girls,’ she announces.

‘Are we going to see Dad?’ I ask. The thought excites me and scares me at the same time. He hasn’t rung, and I haven’t tried to phone him again. I’ve been too nervous. Although I miss him terribly, I don’t think I can face him at the moment.

‘No,’ Mum says. ‘I’ve consulted the rune stones and they said we all need a holiday.’

‘A holiday!’ Felicity squeals and leaps out of bed. She starts packing her clothes into a bag.

‘But we always spend our holidays in Juniper Bay, and Dad is coming over on Christmas Day,’ I remind Mum. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘And that’s exactly why we’re not going to be here,’ Mum says.

9

I want to leave a note for Dad, or phone him, but Mum says there’s no time, we have to go
now
.

I feel bad about leaving so close to Christmas, but I’m also relieved. Part of me would love to see Dad, but I’m dreading seeing his face when I explain the fight at the pool party was my fault. I get a pain in my stomach every time I remember that I’m the reason he went away.

And maybe a change of scene will take my mind off my empty Passport and my lack of friends for a while.

We pile into the hearse (that’s what Mum’s car is—one of Dad’s old funeral vehicles) and head north on the highway out of town. The traffic is awful. Cars are bumper to bumper, stuffed with families and Christmas presents. Everyone in the state must be on their way to see their loved ones for Christmas. I bet we’re the only ones running away from ours.

Mum is concentrating on driving and Felicity is sprawled across the back seat with her magazines, so I stare out the window. As the traffic thins out we pass dairy farms and I think about Rochelle at her grandparents’ place. Then we drive through tall conifer forests and I imagine Jed skiing through snow-covered trees. I think about Elfi when we drive past empty beach after empty beach. She’d told us that her German relatives were looking forward to hitting the surf.

After a while I doze. I only wake up when we stop for food, or petrol, or new magazines for Felicity. Mum closes her eyes and sniffs the air at each place, almost as though she is choosing our destination based on its aroma. She won’t tell us where we’re going. Perhaps the rune stones didn’t tell her. ‘You’ll know when we get there,’ she says.

At last we pull into a camping ground on a headland overlooking a wide beach. Caravans and tents and camper trailers dot the field. Mum pulls the hearse up to one of the on-site vans and goes to the office to check in. I expect people to be staring at us and the hearse. They always do. But nobody even turns their head. Then I realise why. The caravans and tents here are all brightly coloured and painted with stars and moons and fires and gypsies. Our weird car fits in perfectly.

‘What is this place, Mum?’ Felicity asks as we unlock the door of our caravan.

‘It’s a psychic fair,’ Mum announces. ‘You’re going to love it here.’

* *

After we unpack, I walk around the caravan park. It’s a bit like a carnival. There are some seriously strange people here.

For example, there is Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance. Claire has wild green hair and long fingernails. Her caravan is across from ours on the way to the toilet block and I’ve walked past it twice now. Both times she has called out to me. The first time she said, ‘The night moves across the sun during the spring of the crows.’ And the second time, ‘Take heed, little one, the wolf cries for blood.’

Back at the van Felicity is chucking a wobbly. ‘There’s no internet. No mobile phone reception. There’s not even a normal shop. This place is like juvenile detention!’ She points out the van’s tiny window at the camping ground. ‘The only reason we’re not locked up is because we’re in the middle of nowhere. We’d die of starvation and exposure before we got anywhere. Thanks a lot, Mum.’

I approach Mum cautiously. I know she is doing her best to make us happy. ‘Um, Mum. There’s a strange lady up there called Claire and she——’

‘Claire, the Queen of Clairvoyance?’ Mum’s eyes glow. ‘I didn’t know she was going to be here!’ She runs out of the van.

‘That crystal ball of hers isn’t working too well,’ Felicity sneers. She stomps across the van and lies on her bed. She tosses and turns and then sits up, banging her head on the bunk above. ‘God, this
is
juvie! Bunk beds and a wardrobe the size of a pencil case. There’s not even a mirror for putting on make-up!’

‘It’s not so bad,’ I say, trying to think of the pluses of being here. ‘The beach is nicer than at home, and it’s just down a little track——’

‘I’m not walking down a snake track to go for a swim in shark-infested waters.’

I leave Felicity to her whining. I want to phone Dad. Even though I feel anxious about talking to him, tomorrow is Christmas Day and he needs to know where we are. So I walk back to the public telephone booth. I dig through the pocket of my shorts and find some coins. I go to put them in the slot, but then I notice there is a small handwritten sign taped to the receiver.

PHONE BROKEN
, it reads.

‘Great!’ I say. I walk back to our caravan. Mum has put her sign out the front:
Nicole Knows: Psychic readings. Tarot cards, crystal ball, palm readings. Your future is in my hands.

For the first time I wonder if she knew that Dad was going to leave.

I ask her.

‘Of course I knew,’ she says as she fluffs out a lace cloth and places it over the plastic table in the annexe attached to the caravan.

‘Then why didn’t you do something to stop him? Why didn’t you cancel Felicity’s party?’

‘What are you talking about, Paige?’ Mum puts her crystal ball in the centre of the table and starts laying out her tarot cards.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned the party. If Mum doesn’t know it’s my fault that Dad left, I don’t want to explain it to her right now. ‘You just let him go,’ I say instead.

‘I can
see
things, Paige. I can’t
control
things. Especially another person’s destiny.’

‘But Dad’s destiny is part of our destiny.’

Mum stops laying out the tarot deck and looks at me. ‘Your father will always be in your life, Paige. Don’t worry about that.’

‘Can you drive me to the next town so I can call him?’

‘The next town? It’s miles away, Paige.’

‘Where are we, Mum? How do people manage to get in touch with the outside world from here?’

‘It’s juvie,’ Felicity calls out. ‘You only get one phone call and that’s to your lawyer!’

‘Maybe you could climb that hill over there,’ Mum says. ‘Take your mobile and see if there is any reception.’

‘I haven’t got any credit,’ I say. With all my friends unreachable over the holidays I hadn’t bothered to buy more.

‘Take my phone, then,’ Mum says.

I look out to where she is pointing. The headland curves up and around, and beyond it is a steep hill. It doesn’t look too far away. I take Mum’s phone from her beaded string bag and switch it on. The signal flashes then disappears. I slip the phone into my pocket.