Inbetween Days (31 page)

‘What are you after? Do you need money?'

Her expression set, her battle face, the one I hated so much it made my hackles go up every time. The battle face always, always, preceded an argument.

I crossed my arms over my chest.

Ma mirrored the action.

‘I can do it.'

I pictured that tense rope, like the one between Trudy and me:
tug, tug
. The way we hammered up our defences and tried to shoot each other down; all the times we chose hurtful words instead of truth, played dirty tricks, betrayed trust, used secrets, told lies, made war. We fought over the land between trenches as if it was a prize: every inch gained was an inch lost on the other side. But it didn't feel like winning anymore.

‘It'll just end up being something else I have to fix,' she said, frowning. ‘If I want anything done around here, I do it myself.'

The old emotions kept bubbling up—seventeen years of this and my programming ran like clockwork.

Ma straightened up and puffed out her chest.

My skin tightened and my blood ran hot in response. It hit me:
God
,
love was so close to hate
—but I took a deep breath and counted to ten, tapping my fingers on my forearm, and I did something I'd never done before: I dropped the rope.

‘Ma, I want to come home.'

She blinked slowly. The flush on her chest spread to her cheeks and before she could blow, I said it again.

‘I want to come home.'

Her shoulders drooped and she pressed her fingers to her temples. Suddenly she stepped forward and dragged her fingers through a knot of my hair, tugging my head along with it. ‘When was the last time you brushed this?'

‘Three days ago.'

She tutted.

‘So, is that a yes?'

Nothing but the sound of our breathing and a dull
thunk
as another piece of plaster fell off the wall. I gave up waiting for an answer and turned to leave.

‘I saw you on the telly,' she said in a rush. ‘I was watching the live updates on the whale. I didn't get off the couch for a whole day—I couldn't seem to turn it off. I forgot what time it was and I ended up telling your dad to make his own damned dinner. I fell asleep on the couch. In the morning, I woke up and I had this awful feeling in here.' She touched her chest. ‘I trust that feeling. I got it the day Trudy left but I was too busy yelling to pay attention. Just so you know, if you hadn't walked in when you did, I was damned well coming after you. And if I was younger it would have been me on that beach.'

Ma pushed past me and returned to the kitchen sink.
Clink, clink
went her bangle. I trailed after her. I looked at the suitcase and saw it differently.

‘You knew Trudy never
really
left.'

She made a half-turn but her hands kept cleaning. ‘Your dad and I didn't find out until after she got back. I've been nagging her to tell you, too. Let it go, Jack. Blame me if you have to blame anybody. She still left—the rest is just geography. It's in the past now.' She spoke evenly but one corner of her mouth had a telltale twitch.

‘Next time maybe you could come with me,' I said.

‘Next time?'

‘Next time there's a whale.'

The clinking stopped dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It didn't seem to matter that we gave him a horrible name and cursed at him all the time—Ringworm stayed. Trudy and I were the consolation prize, but then a bad-tempered, people-shy orphan didn't have too many options. On the nights before I moved back home, we set a trail of cat biscuits along the railing leading to a ratty wicker basket on the rear deck. In the mornings, the biscuits were gone. I didn't know if Ringworm ever slept in the basket but he sure as hell marked it with his scent. We tried to give him a kinder name but he wouldn't answer to anything else. Over time, he stopped screaming at us and we stopped screaming back, and that was as close as we got to owning each other.

The same thing happened with Ma, Trudy and me.

Two weeks after moving back home and I was working three part-time jobs: looking after Mr Broadbent, sweeping hair and rinsing colours for Mrs Gates on Saturday, and showing back-to-back films at the drive-in on Friday nights.

Astrid started calling me Jack of all trades; I called her Wrong Turn Astrid to her face. Since I wasn't hiding anymore, I ran into the old crowd from school more often. It mattered less and less what they thought of me, or if they were even thinking of me at all.

Alby let me keep a third of the takings from the drive-in. It wasn't much to begin with, but after a few weeks word got out. On a good night I sold around forty tickets. On a bad one it was just Roland Bone and me, drinking beer on the platform and arguing about everything from high school politics to what love really was. And each time I hit the switch and the old projector sent out its beam like a miniature lighthouse, I stuck up my middle finger at Pryor Ridge, the dark place. I waved to the ghosts, saluted the screen and made careful wishes.

Mr Broadbent had slipped further into his own dark place and the void he stared into was moving closer. Sometimes I had to remind him to eat, and he'd forgotten how to smile. The only time he showed signs of life was when I took him to the drive-in—it was like sight was his one remaining sense, like smell had been Gypsy's.

Alby, in his own way, had already let him go. Whatever roads Mr Broadbent and I were travelling, we'd passed each other way back, headed in different directions. But, on leaving the flat one afternoon, something made me turn and look up. Mr Broadbent had taken his place at the window, gazing down at the street.

I wondered if he was young in his dreams.
What are you looking at, Mr Broadbent? What do you see?

I waved at him.

His gaze shifted. He raised his arm. He waved back.

I stood there for ages, one foot on the kerb, staring up at the window. Alby was only right about one thing: I may have had nothing to teach Mr Broadbent
,
but that day it struck home that I'd tolerated, humoured, cajoled, berated, force-fed, placated, entertained and ignored him, and treated him like a child, but I'd never thought of him as adult and human. Not until that moment.

Alby took Mr Broadbent away from the window and closed the blinds, and there it was again: the flicker at the edge of my vision, the glitch in the frame. Time was slippery. His wave was already in the past and my whole life so far was history; the future was always out of reach and the present was gone in a blink.

Maybe the best part was the waiting.

In the weeks after Jeremiah left, I played mind-control games with the phone, willing it to ring, and every Thursday afternoon I sat on Meredith Jolley's verandah. We talked. Slowly, it started to feel as if I had clawed my way back to something resembling a life. It was such a relief to know that I hadn't finished changing—I wasn't an hourglass that had timed out, all the grains fallen through. I wasn't stuck, too soon the best I could ever be.

That's what hope was, I decided: believing an old man waved, waiting for the phone to ring, gripping the watch in my pocket on Thursdays.

‘You're a shit driver,' Trudy said. ‘Move over. You're in the middle of the road.'

‘There's nothing coming.' I edged Trudy's Mazda back over too far and we fishtailed in the dirt. I steered out of it and straddled the white line again. The car sputtered and backfired. It sounded as if something metal had come loose in the engine.

‘I should have let Dad teach you.' Trudy put her hands over her face. ‘We're going to die.'

‘Not today,' I said, and patted her knee.

Trudy dug her fingernails into the dashboard and held on until we reached the outskirts of Burt and the restricted speed limit.

‘Are you nervous? I should drive so you don't sweat.'

‘I'm not nervous,' I said, and I meant it. It was just a job interview for a reception position in a chain motel, and not even close to the job of my dreams, whatever that might be. ‘I've had three in the last two weeks, remember? I'm an old hand at this.'

‘Well, I feel sick for you,' Trudy said. ‘We'll have lunch at the Burt Hotel when you're finished. Okay?'

She was waiting for me after the interview, sitting in the foyer, chewing her nails. She looked up. ‘How'd it go?'

‘They said they'll let me know. The woman who interviewed me kept staring at my hair. I don't think I'd recognise her again if she sat on my lap and introduced herself.' I untucked my blouse and unbuttoned my skirt once we got in the car. I let my breath out. ‘Ma's feeding me too much.'

We sat in a corner booth at the pub, ordered counter meals and Trudy bought us both beers. I sipped mine, leaving a frothy moustache on my upper lip. I pretended I didn't know it was there to make Trudy laugh.

‘I miss you like crazy now you're not there,' she said.

‘If I was we'd drive each other nuts.'

‘You can come back and live with us, you know.'

‘Maybe. Anyway, you and Thom might move in together one day.'

‘Never.' She shook her head. ‘Uh-uh. Nope, no way,' she said, which meant she was considering it.

‘I like Thom,' I said. ‘He's…nice.'

Trudy looked alarmed. For a moment, I thought she was going to argue with me, but she stiffened. Her stare locked on to someone across the room. Her smile disappeared. ‘Well, look what the cat dragged in. He's coming over,' she hissed.

‘Who?' I jerked around.

‘Don't look!'

‘Okay. Jesus, what?'

‘Don't you dare give him the time of day.' She arched her eyebrow and sat back in the seat, crossing her arms over her chest. ‘Tell him where to go.'

I knew who was coming without turning around, based purely on the particular disdain Trudy had in reserve for one person. Luke.

A familiar and unwelcome emotion rose in my chest, the shreds of a feeling I couldn't name, something I couldn't stop no matter how hard I wished. Was it hope? Was it love? Is it only love if it comes back to you?

‘Don't you need to go to the Ladies'?' I whispered.

Trudy tucked her hair behind her ears and folded her arms. ‘No.'

‘Please.'

‘
Fine
. Just remember everything I've ever told you.' Trudy downed the last of her beer and flounced out of the booth.

‘Jack?'

Finally, I turned around. I found myself shaking. This obsession wasn't brittle at all—it was still fresh. Maybe I would never get over Luke and I'd only ever be left with my side of the story. How would I reconcile what had been with what might have been? How do I end it? How do I protect myself?

‘What do you want?'

Luke took a step back, unsure. He thrust his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. ‘I went to the dam on Sunday.'

‘Oh?' I swallowed. ‘Why did you do that?'

He shrugged and smiled. ‘I wanted to see you.' His mates catcalled him from the other side of the bar. He waved them away, then shoved his hand back in his pocket. ‘I thought you might be waiting.'

I made my heart a fist. ‘Well, you were wrong.' I delivered a slow performance of twisting the cap off my middle finger, applied an imaginary coat of lipstick with the tip, and offered him the finger when I was finished. ‘I won't wait for you anymore.'

Luke's expression twisted. ‘Did I do something wrong? I thought we…I thought you were…look, forget it. It was good to see you, Jack.' He walked away.

I heard a chorus of unsympathetic
oohs
.

‘
Slammed
,' somebody said.

I pushed my beer away. Say something.
Say something
.

Trudy cancelled our orders and ushered me into her car. ‘What did you say?' she prodded once we were out on the highway. ‘You told him, right?'

‘Yeah. I told him,' I muttered.

‘That's my girl.' She fell silent, satisfied, as if that was the end of it.

I waited for the ache to ease, counting flickering telegraph poles and white silos and the endless brown paddocks. It wasn't the end of anything. Just because you couldn't see a bruise didn't mean you couldn't still feel it underneath. I thought about Jeremiah. He'd seemed so wrong for me, but he'd been so right. Luke had felt right, but he was all wrong. Maybe, in my fucked-up world, it all made perfect sense and, if I couldn't have either of them, I'd still have to choose.

‘Could you stop the car, please?' Louder. ‘Trudy, please. Stop the car.'

Trudy slammed her foot on the brake and pulled over. ‘What? What's wrong?'

‘Turn around,' I said. ‘Turn the car around.'

‘The hell? We're halfway to…'

‘I know. If we get all the way home I'll never do this.'

‘Do what?'

I peeled Trudy's hand from the gearstick and linked her rigid fingers with mine.

‘You know you can't protect me forever, right?'

‘Says who?' Trudy snapped. She sighed and spun the wheel.

It took long seconds for my eyes to adjust to the shadows of the bar. I lingered in the doorway, one foot on the threshold, one hand on my skidding heart. I found Luke exactly where I'd found him the first time we met: leaning over the pool table with the cue drawn back, a glass balanced on the edge.

He jabbed the cue and the balls split and scattered. He watched, resting the cue on his foot. His head fell back and he laughed. I laughed a lot when I was with Luke, I realised, but I didn't smile that often.
Smiles are more real
, I thought.

‘Luke.'

He looked up as I moved forward, but he stayed where he was. It took the longest time to cover the distance between us and if anyone stared, I didn't notice; I tripped on the carpet, which felt like quicksand, and stumbled the last few steps. Above the pool table, a neon sign flashed purple and red. For a moment, I thought about turning around—but I knew exactly what would happen if I kept it all inside. What I didn't know was what might be possible if I just let go.