Screw Loose (20 page)

At times she did use the front door and show off to the tourists on the footpath, catching tennis balls they threw, signing mangas and playfully gnawing the Dingo Girl soft toys they gave her. But not this morning. His girlfriend had rung him (she had trouble texting) and asked him to come over because the
Sunrise
team was doing a live broadcast from her front garden.

The news had exploded in the media a few days earlier: her parents had begun a fight on rival current affair shows, each blaming the other for Matilda's condition, and had proceeded to conduct a long-distance argument that had enthralled the whole country. Experts took sides; people in the street took sides. According to Matilda's father, who had been interviewed as he sat fishing off a jetty in Cairns, her mother had made the whole story up to draw attention to herself and strike it rich. The
Sunrise
team was there to uncover the truth.

Matilda opened the back door. Craig had never seen her looking so down in the dumps. Licking wasn't his thing, but he licked her today because she needed it.

‘What's going on?' he asked, putting his arm around her shoulders.

‘My dad reckons my mum is forcing me to be the Dingo Girl for money,' she said sadly, leading him into the lounge room.

‘My dad was on
A Current Affair
, and he said I was only in the desert for twenty minutes, not four years. He said my mum is rich. We're not rich, are we?'

Craig looked around the room. On the wall there was a big framed photo of Inspector Rex. They didn't seem rich, but they should be: she got heaps of royalties from Dingoes' Dinner and all the
Dog Grrrrl
mangas and the Tourism Australia advertisements screened in Japan.

‘I do have a recovered memory,' Matilda said firmly. ‘I remember lots. I recovered it myself.' She stood up and peeped through the curtains; Craig looked too. Together with the weather bloke, her mother was helping to deliver the national weather from beneath a conifer in the front garden. Vans and lights and cameras and people with clipboards and walkietalkies were everywhere.

Matilda grabbed Craig's hand and looked into his eyes. ‘I can remember sleeping beside my dingo sisters in the sun and trying to catch flies in my mouth.'

‘I know,' Craig said, stroking her hair. Once she'd caught a fly in her mouth during art class, and Chelsea had slapped her on the nose.
If you want friends, don't catch flies in your mouth
, Craig had warned her afterwards.

‘One of the men who captured me in a net said I stank. Then they tried to civilise me and send me to school, but I just chewed up the other kids' drawings and peed in their bags.

Everyone makes stuff up about me. I hate those mangas.'

‘I know. They're not truthful. They're made up,' he said softly.

‘I don't have a tail!'

‘No, you don't.'

‘And who are these girls?' she asked. ‘Not my friends.'

Matilda's big blue eyes flooded with tears. Craig licked her gently on the cheek. ‘Chelsea's gone. You can come and live in the pool room with me if you want. I'll look after you,' he said.

‘Thank you,' she said mournfully, ‘but I want you to come and live in my secret cave. I can't stand this any more.' She was actually starting to cry. He'd never seen her cry in his life. His girlfriend was a victim now, and he had to protect her.

‘It's okay. When they start to go, we'll sneak out and go over to Chelsea's place. She lost it yesterday with her mum and she's run away.'

‘Good. Will Arnold be there?'

‘Of course.'

She smiled a little. ‘I miss him.'

‘He misses you.'

‘And I don't have to lick Angelo Tarano, do I? I don't like his smell,' she whimpered.

‘No. You just have to pretend,' he answered. ‘So he doesn't get fired.'

‘If I see Chelsea at your new house, I will have to attack,' Matilda added.

‘She won't be there.'

‘I'd rather go to my cave,' she said.

Craig put his arm around her. ‘I know. But let's try Chelsea's pool room first.' He patted her again.

‘I'm nearly domesticated,' she said. ‘I sleep in a bed, you know.' She rested her head on his shoulder.

‘Good girl,' Craig said gently and sighed.

A SIMPLE
BUSINESS
MATTER

G
EORGIA
D
ELAHUNTY OPENED
her eyes to see a rope of dangling pearls. The maharajah and maharani were bending over their waking daughter.

‘Time to rise,' her father murmured. ‘A big day. Brunch at eleven.'

She glanced at her watch. It was already ten.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus. She was in India. The sound she could hear outside her window was trumpeting elephants. These two shimmering people were her parents. She had used the ruby phone beside her bed late last night, but Tamsin hadn't picked up.

It was her third day in India, and although her parents had been kind, and she'd been to a most extraordinary temple containing a giant silver bull over which monkeys jumped and chased, she was missing Australia fiercely.

‘I don't really think I can be a princess,' she sighed. She kept her eyes closed.

Her mother sat down on the bed. ‘I didn't fit into the Indian way of life for many years, and I missed Australia awfully when I first got here. I found India a little lonely and a little strange, but so many people do change countries, Georgia.'

‘Well,' said her father, ‘I'll see you both downstairs.' He left.

‘Now we need to pop you into a sari,' said her mother.

‘Why did you give me to Aunt Pam?' Georgia asked.

‘My dear, I was still much the hippy at that point in my life. I don't think I knew what I was doing – I was too carried away with the excitement of becoming the wife of a maharajah. I wasn't a deep thinker. You were safe in the hands of my sister-in-law and brother, so I just lived for the day. We were fools.'

‘So you didn't have regrets about me?'

‘Of course. Every day. But I did so want to marry your father.

I always thought that I would be able to come to Australia and collect you and bring you here, but things got difficult. Your grandfather was very old school.'

Georgia knew the story. When her mother was in her early twenties, she had left Australia to hitchhike through Asia and the Middle East on her way to London. She'd met the maharajah, Georgia's father, in India; fallen pregnant in Bangalore; then gone to London to give birth. She gave Georgia to her brother and returned to India to marry Georgia's father. So she hid the scandal of the birth of a daughter out of wedlock, and the grand members of her husband's Indian family remained ignorant.

‘You haven't actually lined me up with this bloke?' she asked her mother.

An emotion passed fleetingly over her mother's face. ‘This bloke? He's a very interesting chap. Very rich. A Yale undergraduate.'

‘In America?'

‘The right university; he's majoring in engineering and finance.'

‘Well, good for him,' Georgia said firmly.

‘You're very Australian,' her mother laughed.

‘And I like girls.'

‘Yes, you do.' Her mother lifted a beautiful piece of cloth up for her to inspect. ‘He's a charming young prince from a palace down the river. Or to say it your way, he's a
hot young dude
.' She laughed.

Georgia shrugged. Her stomach didn't feel right. If she hadn't been sunk deep in this luxurious bed, she might feel she was on a boat and seasick. Too much tandoori cooking? She rose and stood while her mother showed her how to put on a sari, wrapping her up like a spring roll in goldembroidered, pink-and-green silk and giving Georgia the sensation of being both captured and eye-catching.

‘The bath is being run now, my darling. Pop in and make yourself glamorous. I'll be back to do your hair.'

Georgia unwound the sari, then got up and wandered across to the bathroom. It was as big as a living room, with a marble bath in its centre and old paintings of flowers on the walls. The room smelt sweet, but she jumped when she saw a little monkey-face peering at her through the marble grille of the window. She turned her back on it as she got into the bath.

Her mother returned half an hour later, after Georgia had made a mess of winding the sari, and helped her to sort out the muddle. Then she helped Georgia to do her hair and put on a pair of glittering gold sandals. Georgia's stomach felt like a food processor set on
churn
. She and her mother walked out into the wide corridor, accompanied by two male servants.

Down on a terrace, her father and a group of people were already lounging in the shade, a scatter of white-uniformed servants attending to them. As soon as these strangers saw Georgia and her mother, they all stood up.

She was introduced to another maharajah, to his wife and then to their son. The son was tall and had a lot of very white teeth like her father and a moustache like her father's. Hands were shaken, and it seemed compulsory to smile unceasingly.

She could feel, and occasionally hear, her stomach rumbling, and she immediately forgot everyone's name. Her head was still fuzzy, too. They sat down, and the semicircle of servants, two of whom were wearing swords, began to serve tea.

Georgia slid down on her chair and looked out across a vast, shimmering landscape. A meandering river glinted in the sun, and the sky was a pale kind of yellow and pink.

The young maharajah leant towards her. ‘What an interesting life you've led,' he said, ‘being given up to your aunt when you were a mere baby. So nice to be taken back.' His accent was English like the others'.

Georgia felt a jab in her stomach. She wondered if her aunt's prediction that she would surely come down with Delhi belly might have come to pass. Either way, her aunt wouldn't be pleased when she discovered Georgia had purchased two small silver bulls as gifts for her aunt and uncle, and some Hindu prayer beads.

‘My life wasn't really that interesting,' Georgia finally said to the young maharajah. ‘I was too small to notice.'

‘I've never been to Australia. I imagine it to be very cultured, with that opera house.'

‘Yes.' She really didn't feel well.

‘You didn't like your last school?'

He'd been very well advised.

She shrugged. ‘Well, I slapped my principal.' She hoped that would worry him.

He laughed. ‘Goodness me,' he said. ‘He must have done something frightfully inappropriate.' He sipped a drink he had in his hand.

‘He outed me,' she answered.

‘Threw you out?'

‘Told the whole school I was gay.'

He nodded. ‘How awfully unjust. Perhaps he's mad.' There was another lull.

‘Do you like Bollywood dancing?' he asked.

She nodded her head weakly.

His eyes lit up and he leant uncomfortably close. ‘Maybe you'd like me to teach you how to Bollywood dance, then? I'm a
very
good teacher.'

‘Not at the moment.' Georgia smiled politely.

‘Oh no, you must learn.'

‘Not today. I'm not feeling terribly well.'

He nodded. ‘You surely need Dundee cake.' He waved at a servant.

She shook her head. He pulled his chair up closer to hers and she gritted her teeth. The four parents sat on the other side of the table, chatting and laughing in an exaggerated way.

But she knew they were watching.

The prince was silent, then he leant towards her and whispered, ‘You have a male friend?'

This was such a pain. She shook her head firmly. ‘I have a
girl
friend.'

‘Ahh!' he said. ‘Very good.' He smiled broadly. ‘I have a boyfriend.'

Despite the churning, Georgia looked at him closely.