Henry Hoey Hobson (13 page)

Half an hour later I was still awake, my mind over heating with the events of the day.

I flicked on the bedside lamp. Picked up
Northern Lights
and put it straight back down again. I sat up on the mattress, scrubbed my hair into a bird's nest and thought seriously about knocking on Vee's door. I swung my head round and spotted the sketchbook, at eye level, on the desktop next to my bed.

Anders had left it sitting there, right out in the open.

I reached up and grabbed it.

If he didn't want anyone looking at his drawings, then he should have put them away.

I lay on my stomach and shone the beam of the reading lamp onto the cover. It bore nothing but a generic description:
Sketchbook – 100 pages.

No name. No hint of the contents.

I opened the book to the last used page, the charcoal sketch that I had already seen, and tried to tell myself that it was less of an intrusion to sneak a second look at a picture I had already seen. I was kidding myself; once those pages lay open, I knew that no force on earth could stop me looking at every single drawing in the book.

Just like the first time, my eyes were sucked towards the tiny figure in the corner of the page.

Anders knew what he was doing. Every sweep and smudge of dark charcoal on that white page funnelled the gaze in one direction only.

The bleak desert landscape took up most of the page, but the meaning of the picture clearly lay in the figure of the departing child. It was as if all the life in the picture had withered and died in his wake.

I turned back to the previous page, careful not to smudge the dusty charcoal. It was completely different in every way. A pen and ink sketch of a baby looking over a mother's shoulder, eyes wide and expressionless. As though looking into the face of a stranger.

The page before was different again: a water-colour of a rugged landscape, with a boy running away on the far side of a rocky chasm.

Page after page showed drawings, paintings, pastels, all different, yet oddly similar. All featuring a child of varying ages. Distant, alone, caught in the act of leaving, of turning, of running away.

A soft knock made me start.

I fumbled to close Anders' sketchbook, but it was too late. Through a crack in the door I could see Manny's scarred eye staring at me and at the book on the floor in front of me.

‘I didn't want to wake you–' He pushed the door open and stepped into the room. ‘I just wanted to make sure that you were OK before I went off to bed.'

He held out a big scarred paw and I handed him the sketchbook, blood pounding in my face.

‘He's really good,' I said defensively. ‘He should show these to people.'

Manny nodded. ‘He does, when they're finished.'

I caught the note in his voice and hung my head, embarrassed about being caught snooping. ‘They look pretty finished to me,' I muttered under my breath.

He perched on the edge of the desk, tapping the sketchbook against his leg. ‘They weren't meant for anyone else's eyes. Anders uses them as a way of thinking out loud, trying to work out what he wants to say through his art.'

I raised my head. ‘Did you know that his sketchbook is full of pictures of lonely kids?'

His tufted eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘No, I didn't. But I do know that he draws what's important to him.' He took a breath, as though about to say something more, then changed his mind.

Instead he reached down and patted my arm. ‘If you're interested, Henry, just ask him.'

‘He doesn't talk to me, like you do. Like Caleb does.'

He studied the sketchbook propped against the broad expanse of his thigh. ‘Anders is a hard guy to get to know,' he admitted. ‘But he's worth the effort. Trust me on that.'

I hesitated. ‘I asked him how come he knew his way around the hospital. He said that he visited you when you were in there.'

‘
Visited
–' He coughed out a half laugh and rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Is that what he called it?'

I shrugged and shifted uncomfortably. The truth was Anders hadn't even said that much.

Manny sighed. ‘My story is what used to be called a “cautionary tale”. The type of story you tell kids to put them off doing something stupid. Something that might ruin their lives.' He pointed. ‘And their faces.'

I held my breath. He was going to tell me where he got the scars. The ugly twisting gouges that clawed across his head and face and disappeared down the front of his ridiculous T-shirts.

He smiled a tight, sad little grimace.

‘I got hit by a car. My own stupid fault for being too lazy to cross at the lights. Got thrown more than ten metres into the front window of a shop. Smashed it along with practically every bone in my body. I even broke my neck. Luckily I didn't sever my spinal column or I would have ended up in a wheelchair.'

I didn't know what to say. Manny's eyes were on the sketchbook in his hands.

‘When I woke up in the hospital, Anders was there by my bedside. He was there
every
time I woke up. He read to me when I couldn't hold a book or a newspaper. Brought in meals from Sirianni Fine Foods in The Valley so I wouldn't have to eat the boiled mince the hospital dished up. Took my dirty PJs home with him every day, washed them and brought them back fresh next morning.'

I couldn't help thinking of Mum and how she wouldn't be able to get her PJs on over a broken leg. Maybe I could take her some big T-shirts to sleep in. ‘How long were you in hospital, Manny?'

‘Six months.'

The words were a kick in the guts. The air rushed out of me and I thought I was going to be sick. Manny dropped the sketchbook on the desk and reached out a steadying hand. ‘Henry, I broke practically every bone in my body, including my neck. It's not the same for your mum, OK? She'll be up and about on crutches before you know it. OK, matey?'

I forced myself to breathe and he patted my arm, not sure what to do next.

His story had hit a nerve. Now I couldn't look at his broken face without thinking about what might have broken in Mum.

‘Manny, I'm really tired. I might just go to bed now, if that's OK with you.'

He ran a hand through his shaggy hair. ‘Sure ... and don't worry about your mum. She'll be fine.'

I crawled under the cover, trying not to notice him going down awkwardly on one knee, trying to tuck me in.

‘Things will look brighter in the morning, matey. You'll see.'

A final pat and he was gone.

I wanted to believe him, but the day had sucked a lot of the optimism out of me.

I turned my face towards the pillow. Muffling the hot damp fear that rose up inside me. Trying to ignore it squeezing its way out from between my closed lids.

I woke at first light to the sound of footsteps outside my bedroom door.

I scrambled up from the mattress, my heart thumping in the unfamiliar room.

The footsteps stopped. A board creaked and shadows shifted in the crack at the bottom of the door.

Something slapped against the floor and rasped as it jammed under the door. I dived for the door handle and wrenched it open, surprising Anders on the other side.

‘What are you doing?' I hissed, looking around to see if any of the others were up. ‘It's five in the morning.'

He reached down and picked up a large yellow envelope from the floor. ‘Your mum's contract,' he said, handing it to me. Then he rubbed a hand across his bloodshot eyes and walked away.

‘Wait–' I followed him out to the kitchen. ‘Where did you find this? Was it in the car?'

I pulled out a dozen or more typed pages. They were meaningless apart from the signatures scrawled on the front and the initials at the top corner of each page. They'd signed. Both of them. Mum would get her money.

Anders was at the sink, splashing water on his face.

‘Have you been out all night getting this?'

He rubbed a handtowel across his face. ‘Had to find the right towing company. Couldn't get into the yard. Had to wait till someone towed in another wreck. Eventually found it under the front seat.'

He tipped a whole glass of water down his throat. ‘Go back to bed. The real-estate office won't be open for hours.'

I shook my head. ‘I'm going to walk up to the hospital and see Mum. It's not that far–'

He placed the glass back down on the bench and met my eyes. ‘They didn't operate till past midnight. It went well, but she'll be tired. Better to wait till visiting hours start at ten.'

The pit in my stomach yawned wider. ‘Did you see her?'

He shook his head and mopped again at his face with the towel. ‘I'll take the contract in to the real-estate office. You should go to school–'

‘I told you, I'm not going to school. I'm going to see my mum.'

He stared at me, at my arms folded across my chest, his limited supply of words exhausted.

A sharp voice cut in from the next room. ‘What are you two doing up at this hour?'

It was Caleb, with bird's-nest hair, a grumpy pig T-shirt and drawstring pants that had a crotch halfway down to his knees. He wasn't much of a morning person. Or maybe he was still dirty at Anders about whatever they'd been arguing about the night before.

‘Sorry,' I said. ‘I didn't mean to wake you. Could you please let Mr Paulson know that I'm not coming in today.' I stared stubbornly at Anders. ‘That I'm visiting my mum. In the hospital.'

His eyes flicked between me and Anders. ‘I can do that. But right now, I'd like to get back to bed.'

‘No probs,' I said, heading for the front door. ‘I'll see you later.'

‘Whoa–' He grabbed my arm as I tried to slip past him. ‘Where do you think you're going?'

I wiggled out of his grasp. ‘I'm going to grab my stuff from next door–' it wasn't home any more, not without Mum there, ‘–and have a swim. If I train for a couple of hours, then come back and grab some breakfast, it'll be time to go see Mum.'

‘Swim?' asked Anders, suddenly alert.

I nodded.

He pushed off the bench, ignoring the look in Caleb's eyes. ‘Go get your stuff. I'll give you a ride.'

‘Two for squad.' Anders held a fifty-dollar bill out to Ma Mallory.

‘You don't have to pay for me for squad,' I said. ‘I can train on my own.'

Ma Mallory raised an eyebrow at Anders, a whisker short of grabbing the cash. He slotted the note into her waiting fingers and leaned back. A moment later, she slapped the change into his palm.

‘Better get in there. Squad's about to start.'

Anders pushed through the turnstile.

‘Thanks,' I said, a little stab of excitement knifing through me. My first real squad training session. Where I could ask questions of my own. Not just eavesdrop on what other people were doing.

Anders pulled off his T-shirt and threw it on the nearest table. I did the same, dropping my shorts and my bag next to it. I yanked on a cap and hung my goggles round my neck. Swung my arms in a quick warm-up routine, one clockwise, one counterclockwise, then swapped arms, as the morning squad filed in, laughing and chatting.

No Angelica this morning. Thank the high heavens for that.

I turned to see Anders stretching his shoulders behind me. He looked pretty fit, with one elbow raised, both hands locked behind his back. His head was down, listening to something Ma Mallory was telling him. She broke off when she saw me looking and barked out warm-up instructions to the lines of waiting swimmers.

‘Ten laps of freestyle to start. Hit the water.'

I hit the water and the cares of the world dissolved around me.

Two hours later, I'd almost demolished the big breakfast that Anders had bought for us both at Vinnie's Café at Newmarket.

‘Ma says you're a good show for Districts; says you've got the juice.'

It was his first attempt at conversation for the morning and he'd timed it kind of badly. I really couldn't talk with a mouth full of bacon and eggs.

‘You should be training every day.'

I rolled my eyes and kept chewing. For someone who didn't say much, he liked to tell me what I should be doing.
You should go to school. You should do squad training.

I swallowed hard. ‘I should go see my mother in hospital every day, that's what I should be doing.'

He speared a corner of bacon-and-egg-laden toast with his fork and sliced it off. ‘Visiting hours go through to eight at night. You can do both.' He put it in his mouth and chewed, eyes fixed on me.

I forked in a mouthful of sausage instead of answering, but he wouldn't let it rest.

‘You can swim. You should do what you're good at.'

‘Can I get you anything else, sir?' The waitress was young and pretty and had been smiling at Anders since we walked in. ‘Another coffee?'

He nodded.

‘Short black?'

He nodded again. ‘Thanks.' Then turned back to me.

‘Well?'

I looked at him blankly. ‘I don't drink coffee.'

He wiped his mouth on a napkin and pushed his plate away. ‘About squad training.'

I looked down at the plate and was surprised, and a bit disappointed, that the huge plate of egg, bacon, sausage, toast and grilled tomato had somehow disappeared. I pushed my plate to the side. ‘I'll see how Mum is first.'

He nodded and leaned back in the chair.

I stared at him for fully two minutes then said, ‘You don't say much, do you?'

He shook his head, then, for the first time since I met him, he actually smiled. A real smile. With teeth and everything. It made him look younger. Way younger.

‘I do most of my talking inside my head too,' I said, surprising myself. Normally I wouldn't tell anyone that. But it seemed pretty safe to tell Anders. He didn't really talk to anyone, so who was he going to tell?

‘I have these huge conversations with myself about everything that goes on in my life. Then it doesn't matter so much if I don't have anyone to talk to...'Cos, you know, I can always talk to myself.'

He was no longer smiling. ‘That's a mistake,' he said quietly, and I felt the heat rise in my face.

‘There you go.' The smiley waitress was back with a coffee. ‘If you need anything else, just give me a wave.'

He nodded and waited till she took her big smile off to the next table. Then he leaned forward, eyes fixed on me.

‘Shutting people out is a mistake,' he said. ‘You have to tell them what's going on in your head. Or they won't know.'

He was a fine one to talk. I pulled away from him and folded my arms across my chest.

‘Yeah? Well, what if people don't want to hear? What if you don't have any choice because noone talks to you anyway?'

He flinched and tried again. ‘If they shut you out, it's on them. But if you don't give them the chance, it's on you.' He hesitated and looked away. ‘Then you end up like me.'

‘What?' I glowered at him from across the table. ‘Really bad at talking to people?'

The skin tightened around his eyes.

‘Alone.'