Red Queen (9 page)

He passed mine over first, and gave Denny her bowl where she sat, on the side of his chair. I waited for her to get up and take it around to the cushion she usually sat on, but, confusingly, she brought a leg up and balanced with the bowl rested on her knee.

I settled in my chair and waited to see what Rohan would do. Denny avoided looking at me.

When Rohan sat down beside her I began to understand.

When he shuffled forward and acted as if she wasn’t there, my understanding deepened. The bowl was forgotten on my lap as I darted my eyes over the new picture before me. Denny had her spoon upside down in her mouth and her eyes downcast; her foot was now on the chair cushion, in the dark, somewhere close to Rohan’s leg. Rohan had his head over his bowl but his eyes were lifted to me. The untouched food was telling on my knee; I didn’t care.

‘How is it, Den?’ Rohan said with eyes fixed on mine.

She moaned. ‘It’s a head rush.’

Rohan smirked.

When the door opened I thought it would be Denny. I took the shotgun from my knee, and ran a shaky hand over the top of my hair; but it was Rohan who came out and leant on the railing.

He looked up at the night sky. ‘Shannon,’ he said.

‘Fuck off.’

‘Don’t be a fool.’

‘Fuck off.’

‘Say it again and I’ll throw you over the bloody railing.’

‘Where is she?’

‘She’s having a shower.’

I nodded slowly.

We were silent. The night was like a held breath; I thought how it might never exhale. Rohan was uncomfortable, or impatient – who could tell.

‘She was always going to sleep with one of us,’ he said, ‘and it was never going to be you.’

I stood up and walked to the corner of the veranda. I projected all my energy out, into the night. Rohan came down to me, clearing his throat as he did.

He tried to talk but I cut him off. ‘She doesn’t have to sleep with anyone,’ I snarled. ‘You’re unbelievable. Although I shouldn’t be surprised – this is just the oppressor shit you bastards thrive on. When was it you decided you’d sleep with her? Was it when you stood over her with the gun? Or when you threatened to kill her? And why wait? Wouldn’t you have preferred her weak and desperate?’

‘That it? You finished?’

‘She hates you.’

‘Grow up, and open your eyes.’

‘What? You kidding yourself that she wants this? Is that how you reason it out? You’re so superior that everyone falls at your feet?’

‘That’ll do. You can shut up now.’

‘I won’t listen to you work your angles, make it right so you can sleep at night.’

‘I’ll sleep just fine, Pup, don’t you worry about that.’

‘Yeah righto. Why’d you come out here? What do you want?’

A lazy smile spread up one side of his face. ‘I actually only came out here to ask you to get those condoms you’ve got in your room.’

I backed up. ‘No.’

‘Go and get them, or I’ll go through your room myself.’

‘She shouldn’t have to sleep with you. She doesn’t like you. What if she says no?’

He laughed. ‘You really are green, aren’t you? Didn’t you ever progress beyond the eighteen-year-olds on campus? She doesn’t say no. Would you like me to tell you exactly how she says yes? It might give you some material for the shower.’

I stumbled back further. Something in my face made him back off.

‘Look.’ He raised a hand. ‘I didn’t want this. See …
she
does this. Anyone coming in would have done this. I didn’t want her here and she shouldn’t be here. But you stuffed around, you let her in, you wanted her to stay, and this is what you get.’

‘No. No – this can’t be about the guitar. Please, this isn’t a lesson.’

‘Everything’s a lesson.’

‘No … I’m sorry, all right? I won’t play. I’ll watch and I won’t even have it outside with me. Jesus, don’t sleep with her just to screw me.’

‘Everything has a consequence. You should have seen this, been ready for this. She knew, and don’t think she didn’t – she knew standing in that hallway listening to us whose bed she’d end up in.’

‘Please …’

He turned and flicked a dismissive hand over his shoulder. ‘You need to toughen up. It’s the only way. Put the condoms on my bed – I know you’ve got a couple of boxes.’

I did what he said because I could not think what else to do. I stood in front of the drawers in my dark room stacking condom boxes into my arm because that was simply all I could do. I’d been told. My thoughts had stalled.

I took them all, not even leaving one box, shutting the drawer and leaving the room neat behind me. In the hall I met Denny coming out from the shower; the steam for the bathroom preceded her. She was re-dressed in her old clothes and had a bundle of wet towels in her arms; she came to an abrupt halt at the sight of me. Grey light edged in through the open door of Rohan’s bedroom and illuminated her clean skin.

‘He made you shower first,’ I said.

She didn’t respond.

‘You smell good.’

‘Shannon —’

‘Will this be the first time? Or have you had sex while I’ve been asleep in the mornings?’

‘Please understand —’

‘Oh I think I understand all right. I’m just interested if you’ve been having sex while I’ve been asleep.’

She shook her head.

‘Is that no you haven’t or no you won’t tell me?’

‘It has to —’

‘Yeah, right.’ I opened my arms and dropped the boxes. ‘You’ll need these then. You might as well pick them up, while you’re down there.’

I regretted it later, what I’d said, and how I’d walked away and left her to feel in the dark for the scattered boxes of Rohan’s preordained sex. I regretted it most with my back to the stonework while I listened with glazed eyes for sounds of them together. What pinched at me, what made me tip back my head in an effort to properly breathe, was the silence from Rohan’s room.

Rohan’s bed, my mother and father’s bed, was old-fashioned, made of timber bolted together; it squeaked. I knew the pitch it obtained under the conditions of sex. My parents’ sex life had been clandestine only in conversation – at night anyone within earshot had a pretty good idea of the health of it. So what I waited for was a similar tune and pitch, and what destroyed me was the absolute nothing I heard. It had my mind racing. I realised that the repetitive nature of actual sex was not the thing to be feared; Rohan just fucking her – and I pictured it – was not the worst it could be. This was. Silence. What do you do in silence? What did he make her do in silence?

My mind ran with it and clocked over image after image of them together in their privacy and every possible sex act that could produce this … nothing. And I mean
nothing
– not one creaking spring, not one muttered word, not a moan, certainly not the headboard banging and the whole bed groaning like my father would have worked up to by now.

I inched closer to the window, stepping over rusty tins and old planters filled with dirt and weeds. I held the shotgun in one hand and had a moment of out-of-body lightness as I saw my own dark figure and what it was doing. What my life had been reduced to.

I was as close as I dared. The window was about an arm’s-length from me. The curtains were open. I held the gun by the barrel and rested the stock on the boards and pulled a tight face in anticipation of some noise I would make.

There was no wind, the owls were quiet for me, the crickets a monotone that hardly registered. The silence from the bedroom was impossible – I was sure they could hear
me
, breathing. I sunk down on my haunches and waited.

Clear, and with no telling inflection, I heard Rohan say, ‘Come here.’

There was some movement on the bed.

I was proven wrong in that second, by the rolling voice of Rohan, by the squeak of the bed, because at least the silence had contained in it the hope that nothing was happening. Now came the reality that something was.

I heard it all, my forehead on my knees, the gun by my side, the night drifting around me, I heard enough to know the sex was rough, wordless, and over when Rohan came. I heard Denny’s silence as an industrial-strength roar in my head.

5

STRADDLING A SHEEP
and with her fists full of wool, Denny frowned up at me and said something about this one being small. The sheep jerked and wormed under her and she sat on it to keep it still.

My lower back ached, and a thick line of pain made a curving track up my arm as I worked the shears; but the work was made immeasurably easier with Denny helping.

‘I won’t be able to do this alone again,’ I said.

‘You won’t have to. I’ll help you every day. I’d much rather this than be stuck inside the cabin.’

I finished and shook the pain from my hand and forearm. Denny let the sheep run through her legs. She came to stand beside me and we looked at the mob. A light breeze moved around us. I looked down at Denny’s boots.

‘How are they?’

‘Good,’ she answered, putting one foot out in front.

‘No blisters?’

‘Some.’

‘We’ll finish now.’

‘What time do you reckon it’d be?’

‘Early afternoon.’

‘Wanna walk down the creek?’ she asked.

I looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’

She kicked off her boots and stuffed her socks inside, then sat the boots neatly against a tree. She picked up the gun and grabbed my hand, tugging me along with her.

‘It’s not far,’ she said.

I fell into step beside her, and let go of her hand.

She brought the gun up to her shoulder, feeling its weight.

‘Shouldn’t someone show me how to use the guns?’ she asked.

‘Be careful.’

‘How do you reload it?’

She opened the gun and took out a cartridge; slipped it back in and snapped it shut.

‘Just like that,’ I said, my gaze on her face.

‘You always keep it loaded?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Here – have it back. I can see you’re stressing out.’

Once over the fence and through an open stretch the bush became tall and unknown. It was cooler and spongy under foot. We had to use our hands to get over fallen moss-covered logs and to climb down washouts in the ground. I kept glancing over at Denny, because she seemed to know her way.

The creek came up unexpected; I’d only known it nearer to the road, where it was shallow, but here in the bush it was narrow and black. It slipped under fallen branches and mossy overhangs. Ferns covered the ground. The peace of the place settled me. Denny found a rock and perched on top of it.

‘You know this place?’ I asked.

‘Not really.’

‘But you’ve been here before. You really cased the place out, didn’t you?’

‘Wouldn’t you have?’

‘I spose.’

I found something dry to sit on.

‘This is technically breaking the rules, Denny. This is not the yard. We’ve left the cabin unprotected.’

‘It’s not like we’re far, and we won’t stay long. It’s nice, don’t you think?’

‘Sure.’

But I was having a hard time appreciating it now that I’d vocalised what we’d done.

I followed the creek down a little. I found a spot and sat with my back to her. She sprung up suddenly, surprising me. ‘Right!’ she said.

I looked back at her.

She stood on the rock she had sat on.

‘Right what?’ I asked.

‘Let’s get back.’

‘What’s going on, Denny?’

‘You’re right; we shouldn’t be here.’

I got to my feet. ‘Make up your bloody mind.’

‘Come on, grumpy, take your shoes off; get a feel for it.’

‘Get a feel for what?’

‘The bush.’

‘I’m not going barefoot.’

She came over and balanced nimbly on some rough ground beside me. The tops of her feet were flecked with dirt.

‘Look at you,’ I said. ‘Wild child.’

‘I’ll carry your boots for you. You’d better start getting used to going barefoot. We’re not going to have Blundstones forever.’

‘Don’t say that. This can’t be it. This is not how we live out our days.’

‘I don’t know. It’s not so bad, is it?’

‘Yes.’

Her good mood lasted right back to the cabin; she flopped back on the veranda with her arms above her head.

‘It’s my birthday soon,’ she said.

‘How do you know what day it is?’

‘The calendar in Rohan’s room.’

‘When is it?’

‘In two weeks.’

I took off my shirt and sat down beside her.

‘What would you like for your birthday – hypothetically, and apart from food.’

‘A novel. Something thick, overblown and self-indulgent.’

‘You mean from the farmhouse.’

She turned and faced me. ‘I’d go – during the day. I promise I’d be back before Rohan got home.’

‘Jesus, Denny.’

‘I could take the pushbike and go down the track and out onto the road. If it was taking too long I’d come back.’

‘What about when Rohan sees that you’ve been – the clothes and shoes, and the books?’

‘I wouldn’t show him straight away. I know he’ll be upset – but I’d say it was just me, that I left while you were busy and you didn’t know about it.’

‘You don’t know him. You don’t know what he’d do. It’s not worth it, not just for books.’

‘Not just for books? I can’t believe you can say that! The sort of books you grew up reading, maybe – XF manuals and whatever, science journals and magazines. No, I probably wouldn’t go for them. I’m talking about novels, Shannon. Surely storytelling is more important now than ever. And you should understand – because it’s music too; your music re-tells the past, and in the best way, because it doesn’t preach, it wraps it up in emotion and gives it to us. What if it was a guitar at the farmhouse – if you had nothing here to play and down the road, in a place you knew was safe, was a music room full of six-string, twelve-string, and slide guitars? Wouldn’t you want to go?’

‘Rohan hardly lets me play anyway, so probably not.’

She looked away. ‘If it is Rohan you’re worried about – well I reckon he’d get over it.’

‘You underestimate him.’

‘I see a different side of him.’

I got to my feet. ‘Yeah, well if you know him so well why don’t you just ask him.’