Red (13 page)

11
I didn't want to go to school.

12
I knew we were safe but I didn't know what we
were safe from.

• • • • •

How long did they stay there? Why did she end up in the mud in Sydney? She closed her eyes again and let the humming of the coach engine block everything else from her mind.

• • • • •

It was mid-afternoon. The sun was now streaming through Red's window. Farmland had given way to suburban houses.

‘How long before we get in to Melbourne?' Red asked.

Cassie looked out the window. ‘We're kind of there. Another half hour to the station.' She closed the book she was reading. ‘Are you all right? Where are you off to then? What are you going to do?'

Red hesitated. Should she tell her? Cassie had been so kind already. She might help. Should she say ‘I have to find the judge who is at the Royal Commission'?

‘I'm being picked up by a friend,' said Red. ‘If they aren't there, I have to wait for them.'

‘It's not too bad a place. They did it up so it's all flashy but you should find somewhere to wait.'

The freeway took them high above city blocks and then back to street level. The coach turned down further, underneath the huge station and pulled into a bay alongside others. Like pigs lining up for a feed. Where had that thought come from? How did she know that?

‘Good luck,' said Cassie as she tugged at a bag above their seats.

‘Thanks.' Red waited till the others had left the coach and were gathered around the side where the driver was pulling out suitcases, cardboard boxes tied with yellow twine and huge, thick plastic carrybags.

She wandered up the escalator and through the station, under giant billboards carrying lists of arrivals and departures and flashing notices saying
boarding,
cancelled
or
departed
.

People were clustered around drink machines and snack dispensers. Others sprawled on the seats or sat in groups on the floor.

Scuffling noises came from Red's right. She turned to see a young man cowering in front of four policemen.

Red stared at the men, their high black boots, their belts with a baton, a gun, a hand-held computer clipped to them. They each had neat, short hair and their shirts were stretched tight across the muscles of their chests and shoulders. Their sunglasses separated them from everyone: they could see your eyes; you could see nothing of the person behind the shades. They were the biggest men she'd ever seen. Red's stomach lurched. She had to get away. She ducked into the ladies' toilet, dropped her backpack and turned on the water in the hand-basin hard. She scrubbed and scrubbed at her palms. Her heart was pumping. Why was she so afraid? She'd done nothing wrong. Well, not much, and she would pay Kate back. Her father's words on the memory stick came back to her.
Do not, under any circumstances, allow it to fall
into the hands of any other person. Do not take it to the
police. Trust no one. I repeat, no one
.

So she couldn't just go up to a policeman and ask him where the Commission was. He might want to know why she wanted to go there, who she wanted to see.

• • • • •

‘Are your hands really dirty?' A little kid, her head level with Red's waist, stared up at her.

‘Something like that.' Why was she still washing them? Where should she go now? When did the next coach come in from Wagga? Would Peri and Jazz be on it? What if Kate's mum had found them? Or the police?

She stood shaking her hands under the drying machine till not a drop of water was left on her fingers.

Minutes passed. A steady stream of women and girls moved through the washroom. Sometimes Red studied them; sometimes she read the posters, the paper cracked and browning, their edges curling from the wall. They warned of personal safety, health checks and where to get help if you were pregnant.

She should go and check the timetable, see when she could expect Peri and Jazz. She pushed the door open enough to see across the concourse. No police.

Red stepped forward into the station.

The arrivals board flashed yellow signals. The next coach from Wagga was due in two hours. Two hours. Five o'clock. But would it also be searched on the freeway? Would Jazz and Peri be picked up by those police? Should she wait? How to fill in that time? Red wandered past the cafes, the chemist shop and the travel agent. She stopped in front of the newsagent. N
ATIONAL
D
AY
OF M
OURNING.
The huge letters, inside a thick black square, filled the billboard. Piles of newspapers were stacked in the window. On one, the front page was filled with images of horrific destruction: in black and white the crumbling facades of once-solid buildings, mountains of rubble that had been homes, schools and businesses. On another the face of a weeping woman, her old body bent, one hand holding tightly to a plastic bag, the other to her walking stick. And the headline:
Lost Everything, Again.

Her body shaking, Red was suddenly back in Sydney, in the mud, staring at Peri on the table. The name
jaymartinjaymartin
was pounding in her head. She turned away and tried to focus on the men and women pouring through the station but they merged to blurs of colour while she staggered forward. She tried to think of the road and the rolling countryside. Nothing could drive the images of mud from her mind. And the child. She saw again the weeping toddler clinging to the leg of his mother, also weeping at the photos on the board. She'd picked him up and carried him out. Were they back there, waiting, hoping? Red found a spare seat and dropped down onto it, her backpack on her lap. She closed her eyes and clutched the bag to her chest. She couldn't go looking for the Commission. She would just sit here till the Wagga coach came in.

Red sat for a long time. Gradually her mind drifted to the bus, charging down the freeway, the droning of the engines lulling her towards sleep when she felt a tugging on the leg of her shorts. A toddler with tangled hair falling into her eyes, grubby fingers and a grin that filled her face was pulling herself up from the floor. She rested both hands on Red's knee.

‘Tylor,' said the woman next to Red. ‘Leave the lady alone.'

‘She's OK.' Red leant forward. ‘Hello Tylor.'

The little girl giggled, clapped her hands and fell backwards.

‘Can I pick her up?'

‘Sure.'

Red pushed her backpack onto the seat beside her and lifted Tylor onto her lap. The child giggled and grinned. Red felt herself grinning too. ‘You're a smiley girl.'

Tylor laughed. Red laughed and felt her body relaxing back against the seat. Had she ever held a baby before? She jiggled her knees so that Tylor bounced up and down.

‘I wouldn't do too much of that,' said the mother. ‘She's just had lunch. She'll bring it up all over you.' She took a small plastic duck from her bag. ‘Here, Tylor.' She squeezed the toy and it made a sound something like a quack. The little girl snatched it and held it close.

‘Where are you heading off to?' She turned her attention back to Red.

‘Nowhere. I've just arrived. I'm waiting for someone coming in on a coach.'

‘Family?'

‘No. My best friends.' It felt good saying that. Peri and Jazz. Best friends. Jazz was her oldest friend, Peri her newest. She could have said only friends in the whole world. She pushed that thought away. ‘They're on the next coach from Wagga.'

‘We're going up to Ballarat,' said the woman. ‘To my mum's. It's her birthday tomorrow and she's having a big family party. All her kids, her brothers and sisters. My cousins. There'll be about fifty people there. Some of them haven't met Tylor yet.'

‘They'll think she's gorgeous.' Red stroked the little girl's hair. Birthday parties, family, cousins. Would she ever know if that was part of her life? More thoughts to push away.

The afternoon wore on. Tylor and her mother left. Red watched the numbers on the clock tick over. She studied the people around her. She challenged herself not to look at the clock until she had counted four men with tattoos, then three people with pull-along black bags, then five people talking on their phones. If only she had a phone she could call Peri, if only he had one too.

Four-thirty. Maybe the coach would be early. She checked the arrivals board. Bay eleven. She walked slowly across the concourse and down the escalator until she could see the empty bay. Half an hour. Peri and Jazz would be there. They'd jump down from the coach and their eyes would search the crowd and they would see her and grin with relief. They'd work out what to do together. Everything would be all right.

• • • • •

At a quarter past five, the Wagga coach pulled in. Red moved towards it as the doors opened and the driver stepped out. He stood back and waved down the first passengers: two women with children, an old man with a walking stick who stepped carefully and took the driver's arm, a couple who looked the same age as Cassie, more school kids and families.

No Peri. No Jazz.

Red couldn't move. She stared at the crowd gathering bags from the side of the coach. She scanned the group, willing the young man in a black leather jacket to somehow turn into Peri, the girl at his side to be Jazz. Where were they? She wanted to climb onto the coach, to check every seat, under the seats, to find them hiding, teasing her. They would burst out laughing, tricking her. She turned away, cold and empty.

• • • • •

Back in the hall she dropped down on the floor outside one of the cafes. The lights were on now and people were rushing, their briefcases and bags clutched tightly, heading for the trains and buses to take them home. Where would she sleep tonight? In a corner of the room an old man in a long khaki coat was arranging newspapers and a collection of plastic bags stuffed to overflowing with bits of fabric and pages from magazines. His black shoes were torn open at the toe and he kept hitching up his trousers that hung down to the floor over his heels. Red watched him settle down, his head on one of the bags. He drew his knees up and took a beanie out of one of the bags and pulled it down over his eyes.

• • • • •

A cool wind was blowing through the coach station. Red hunched her shoulders, hugging her backpack. Could she sleep out here? What could she use for a blanket? A young man squatted on the floor beside her. ‘I reckon you need company, love.' He held out his hand and Red saw only the thick black grime under his fingernails. She smelt beer breath and looked away.

‘No.'

‘Don't be like that.'

‘Go away. Leave me alone.' She clutched her bag.

He sat down and slid closer. ‘Watcha got in there?' Again the grimy hand slid towards her.

‘I said go away.'

He tilted his head back and laughed.

She thought again of the horse and the yellow-grey teeth. She pushed herself up and moved towards the warmth of the cafe. He was following her, like a dog on a leash, a few steps behind.

‘I'm not going to hurt you,' he said. ‘I just want some company.'

Red turned and faced him. ‘Please leave me alone.'

He slowly shook his head. ‘No way.' He stretched his lips into a sly, leering smile and stepped towards her, his arms outstretched.

Red shuddered, gasped and ran to the ladies' bathroom. She pushed into the furthest cubicle and dropped onto the closed lid of the toilet. How dare he! She could feel her heart thudding in her chest. She should have slapped him or whacked him over the head with her backpack. She leant back and let her eyes float over the writing on the door in front of her. Weird drawings in thick black texta.Tanya loves James. 4ever … Peta Christos is a slut …

She stood up and wrenched the door open. She kicked her bag into the far corner of the washroom. How dare he. And how dare Dad. Why was she here by herself? Why did she have to do this? Where was he? She paced up and down the narrow strip in front of the mirrors. Why her? She bit her lip, felt her whole body tense, every muscle held tight ready to explode. She spun round to stare at her face in the mirror; eyes shadowed and sunken, her mouth a slash across her pale skin. She gripped the handbasin and then lashed out, slapping her image in the glass hard. Blood burst from the torn scabs on her hand. Pain ripped through her fingers and she fell sobbing to the floor.

She blew and sucked on her hand. She should have told Jazz's parents. She should have stayed in Sydney with their family. She would be in a warm bed now with a full belly. They were good people. They couldn't be the ones her father had warned about on the stick. They would have known what to do. She used her good hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks and crawled to where her bag had landed. Dragging it behind her she went into the nearest cubicle and pushed the door shut.

Someone came into the cubicle next to her. Red dropped her head down and saw scarlet stilettos. Then there was flushing and the door opening and closing and the clacking of the shoes to the basins and then out.

Good, the room would be empty.

Red wedged herself into the corner of the cubicle, half lying on her backpack. The tiles were hard and she shifted from her back to her side and then to her other side. That was no more comfortable. She rested her pack on the closed lid of the toilet and pressed her head against that. She felt the rumble and the vibration of trains below her.

She couldn't sleep. She curled herself up into a ball hugging her knees. She rocked herself backwards and forwards. She scratched at a loose thread that hung from the bottom of her shorts, an itchy spot inside her left elbow and a mosquito bite on her left ankle. Above the red lump of the bite was a fading green and yellow bruise. Too old to be from the rocks and the mud. It must have been from before. When? How?

I am in the bathroom and Dad is yelling to me. Come
on he's saying hurry up the driver won't wait. We are
catching another plane and I am running to where he is
but I stumble on the laundry step and I crack my shin
against the box of tools. There is a bruise straight away
and he wraps some ice in a teatowel because we can't
wait there is a plane leaving and we have to catch it
because Grandma Chalmers is sick in Sydney and
everything is arranged that we will go to her. We may not
ever see her again if we don't get there tonight. I don't cry
on the plane but I go on and on about how much it hurts
and he puts his arm across my shoulders and says that
no one ever died from a bruise on their leg.