Inbetween Days (11 page)

‘You're right,' I said. I took a deep breath, brushed off my backside and retied a loose shoelace. Once I was composed, I said, ‘I'd better go. You're absolutely right.'

‘Oh, you don't mean that.'

I started off along the path. ‘No, I don't. But that's what you wanted to hear, right?'

‘I suppose I did. But you can tell me what's wrong,' he called. ‘If you want to talk about it.'

‘I don't want to talk about it. I just wanted to cry about it.' I picked up pace, moving away from the ridge.

He followed, jogging. ‘It's a guy, right?'

‘What would you know?'

‘It's always a guy.'

I stopped and turned to face him. ‘Why? Because I am shallow and predictable and I have
small problems
?' A full-blown tantrum was building, born of embarrassment and frustration, a jumble of feelings I couldn't separate. ‘I don't even know you. Stop
following
me!' I kept going.

‘You came here,' he said, falling into step with me. ‘Look, tomorrow you'll be falling for somebody new or making up. Ten minutes later, you'll be declaring undying love. That's how it goes.'

‘Why would I give anyone that kind of power over me?' I said, quoting Trudy. ‘He's got to say it first.'

‘So it is a guy,' he said. ‘And what kind of screwed up manifesto do you call that?'

I glanced at him: he was blushing. ‘I'm going home now. You should leave, too. It's a sacred site—you'll stir up the ghosts.'

At that word, he came to a halt and drew back.

‘Boo!' I hissed over my shoulder, breaking into a jog.

‘What happens if you don't say anything important, out loud, ever—have you considered that?' he called. ‘Forget it. Go home. Don't come back here…what's your name again?'

‘Don't worry. I've already forgotten you, too,' I said. I ran.

The storm finally came. It had been hanging in the air the whole day, thick and heavy. Trudy had chosen the television over me for company and banished Gypsy to the hallway. We'd had one brief, wordless interaction when I'd come in from the forest: she'd pointed to a corner where Gypsy had messed on the rug.

Rain pounded the roof, drowning out the television, which Trudy had turned way up. I counted my remaining cash, set aside enough for the next two weeks' rent and moved my bed into the centre of the room, leaving a moat of space around it. I was pleased with myself. I had to change my thinking. There was always another way.

So Ma didn't want to talk. I understood. Her silences were nothing new to me. Trudy, on the other hand, was usually quick to forgive—the last to apologise, but the first to speak. She never lasted long in her own company.

I set out another can of tuna for Ringworm. The stash in the bottom of the pantry was dwindling. I never knew when he came, only that the cans were always spotless by morning.

I tried doing things I used to enjoy, like reading magazines and listening to CDs, but I found myself at the window again, chin in hands. My door stayed closed and nobody came knocking.

At midnight, the rain eased and the house was quiet. I checked to see if Trudy had fallen asleep on the couch but she wasn't there. A sliver of light was still showing under her bedroom door. I tiptoed closer—stepping over Gypsy, avoiding the creaks—and heard her talking to somebody, low and…sexy.

It was then that I noticed the yellow cord, snaking its way along the hall and disappearing beneath her door.

The phone was back on.

My toilet paper obsession was more a monument than a display by the time I had completed it according to Jeremiah's detailed instructions. He was right: the arch was fully supported by both interlocked columns and surprisingly solid when I leaned up against it.

‘You're losing your mind,' Astrid said. ‘I don't know how you expect to sell any of these without pulling it apart.'

I stood back to admire my work. She had a point but I wasn't going to give it to her. ‘I just wanted to finish it. I don't care what you do with it now.'

Astrid put her hands on her hips. I noticed she'd had her nails done. ‘I'm just saying. What if a customer comes and tries to pull one from…' She leaned over and tugged at a packet in one of the columns, ‘…here? What if the whole thing falls down again?' She gave the packet a good hard yank and it slid out.

I held my breath. The structure didn't budge.

Furious, Astrid eyed the hole.

‘Jenga,' I said, and cracked up.

The old Astrid would have laughed, too. This one yelled, ‘And stop eating my fucking sandwiches!' She stomped away to the lunchroom.

I caught my own reflection in the drinks fridge door and I didn't find anything to laugh about. I
was
losing my mind. She watched me from the small window on the mezzanine floor, jaw working madly, eyes fierce.

Astrid had put aside a carton of ‘cracked' eggs under her checkout counter. I opened the carton, pressed my thumbnail into the bottom of each egg and placed them carefully back into their nests to plug up the breaks. With a bit of luck she wouldn't notice until she got home.

‘Jack,' Alby said.

I jumped and turned around, wiping my thumb on my apron. Alby was studying the counter as if there was something there I should see.

‘Jack, I feel sick about it, but I have to let you go. It's not fair to keep you working here when I can't afford to pay you.'

Look at me. Look at me.
He wouldn't, or couldn't.

‘What about Astrid?' I choked out.

Alby shrugged and said, ‘She has a kid so I'll try to keep her on for as long as I can. I don't know how long that will be.'

I looked up at the lunchroom window. Astrid was gone. We had nothing in common; she was a shitty replacement for my sister. Voodoo and unbreakable curses were in order.

‘I've spoken to Max and he says he'll take you on as a glass-girl Friday and Saturday nights, if you want,' Alby said. ‘And I could do with some help with my father, as you know. Could you manage three afternoons a week, say, Monday, Wednesday and Friday?'

‘I don't know,' I said.

‘He likes you best.' He gave me a hopeful smile.

‘Fine. But you still owe me.' I started clearing out the cubbyhole underneath my checkout. There were things in there belonging to another life: a name-badge I'd never worn—I knew every single person in Mobius and they all knew me; the gumnut I'd found in my knickers after the second time with Luke; a CD Astrid had given me that I'd never played.

‘No rush,' Alby said and put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Finish the day. Finish the week if you want to.'

‘I'll go now,' I said through my teeth. ‘I have things to do.'
I have to get out of here before Astrid finishes her lunchbreak.

‘I'm sorry, Jack.'

‘It's okay. I've kind of been expecting it.'

‘How could you? I didn't know it myself until yesterday.' He scratched his eyebrows, which had turned almost completely grey.

CHAPTER TEN

Unemployment seemed like the worst thing that could happen to me but, given the events of the last few days, I was surprisingly calm. And free. I had the deadness safely tucked away and all of my catastrophes tallied and ticked off, like an anti-bucket list:

No job
. Check.

No income. No licence
.
No car.
Check.

I'd filled my tank with stolen fuel as I left the roadhouse, so there was that. I took some overripe peaches, too, and a packet of tampons for old times' sake. I didn't pause once to count the diamonds.

Lost love. No friends. Family feud. Bad hair. Incontinent dog.
Check
.

I was stuck between yesterday and tomorrow. I did have right now—and right now I needed to see Ma. I had no idea what I would do or say when I got there, but I strapped on my backpack and rode side-saddle to the house, just to see if I could do it. I could.

I noticed a familiar dirty white Subaru and, just off Main Street, I passed Pope. He was standing outside Alby's laundromat, holding a bulging plastic bag and staring at the
CLOSED
sign. I didn't wave—I couldn't, not riding like that—but he did, an accidental reflex that quickly faded.

This time I parked my bike on the front lawn and went straight up to the door. I pressed the doorbell several times. There was still no answer and no music coming from Dad's shed. Ma's car was missing again. Where did she go, all these days?

Across the street, my tyre was swinging as if the ghost of me was sitting in it. I folded onto the verandah step and pulled my knees to my chest.

I had not quite two hundred dollars left to my name. Ringworm hadn't keeled over yet, so I figured the tuna was safe to eat as a last resort. Trudy had warned me more than once that if I couldn't pull my own weight, then she wasn't going to do it for me. I stretched out a foot and kicked my bike. At least I had a ride.

‘It's still there,' Jeremiah said. ‘I've been keeping an eye on it and it hasn't moved. Not an inch.'

‘My bike?'

‘Your house.'

He stood on the footpath, just outside the gate. I checked him over: greasy denim overalls, unbrushed hair and steel-capped boots, like a cross between a biker and the BFG. He stared at my hair. His expression gave away more than his manners would let him.

‘I told you, it's not my house. I haven't been inside for a long time,' I said. ‘Today I was going to, but there's nobody home.'

‘You don't have a key?'

‘Not anymore.' I'd left them on my dresser the day I moved in with Trudy—not because I'd been asked to but because somehow I knew it was expected.

‘Your mum has been coming to see mine at the hospital,' he said. ‘It's nice of her. She brings magazines and they chat. Well, your mum does most of the talking.'

‘What do they talk about?' I asked bitterly.

‘I don't know. It's like a shift change—she comes in and I clock off. Look, do you want to wait inside?' He gestured towards his place. ‘It's starting to rain.'

I hadn't been inside that house for a long time either. Not since I was about ten. Ma made me go along to a Tupperware party with her—Jeremiah stayed in his room all night, and I ate so much kabana and cheese I went home with a stomach-ache.

‘Don't be shocked,' Jeremiah warned. He unlocked the front door and held it open.

All along the entrance walls—and in the lounge room, the kitchen, the dining room as well—there were shelves, many of them crooked. I had the unnerving sensation of being in a funhouse. And on those shelves were eggs, hundreds of eggs, all carved and decorated.

‘What is this?' I asked. ‘Is it her hobby?'

Meredith Jolley had lived down the street and worked in the butcher shop for as long as I could remember. She rarely smiled. I always noticed her fingernails, raw, pink and witchy, packed with meat, like she'd gouged somebody's face. But the butcher had closed, and now I knew what she'd been doing for the last couple of years.

‘This…' Jeremiah jabbed his finger at one of the eggs, ‘…is what probably landed her in the psych ward.'

‘What do you mean? They're just eggs.' I picked one up. It was large, grey-blue and gilded with gold leaf, a miniature royal family inside. ‘They're pretty.'

‘I don't know. This is all she does. Since she lost her job it's easier for her to focus on intricacies than it is to face the big, ugly world, I guess.' He took the egg from me and placed it back on its stand. ‘It's how she handles disappointment. You know—single mother with an only child and unhealthy expectations.'

‘Not really.' I thumbed my chest. ‘Two parents, psycho sister, zero expectations.'

I touched another one I liked—it was smaller, a duck egg, perhaps. It didn't seem fragile with its thick coat of lacquer, but, as Jeremiah picked it up, there was a crack, like a can opening. His index finger punctured the bedroom ceiling of the Princess and the Pea, just above a stack of miniature mattresses that appeared to be made from sanitary pads.

He looked to me for a reaction and I looked at him, waiting to decide whether he thought this was comic or tragic. It was the funniest thing that had happened to me all day. I didn't mean to laugh, but all I could think was that I'd done the same thing, twelve times, not an hour before.

Jeremiah made a noise, a cross between a choke and a sigh: he was laughing, too. The shattered shell was beyond repair. What he did next proved to me that I was probably evil and beyond hope myself: he sabotaged another three eggs by pressing his thumbnail into them, one by one, and placing them back into their stands.

‘
Woah
,' I said. ‘Have you done that before?'

He shook his head but I wasn't sure it was a denial. ‘I take my acts of petty rebellion where I can,' he said. ‘Maybe that makes me mean, but otherwise I think my head would explode.'

‘How is she doing?'

‘She'll be right to come home soon,' he said. ‘I suppose I'll be heading off once she's settled back in. The doctor says I should try not to upset her. I don't even know what use I am here, apart from paying the bills and feeding her damned cats.'

‘If it makes you feel better, that's all I do, too,' I said. ‘I've been eating Astrid's lunch for days. And I've just lost my job.'

‘You've said that before:
if it helps, if it makes you feel better
.' He tilted his head. ‘Are you in the business of making people feel better?'

Was he making fun of me? As far as I could tell, he was serious.

‘I want to learn how to drive.' It was out of my mouth before I knew it.

‘I'll teach you,' he said.

‘For real?'

‘I'm stuck in Mobius with a miniature car, housesitting four hundred eggs. What else am I going to do?'