Steal My Sunshine (7 page)

I made myself stop thinking about it and pictured Evan instead, the whole time aware of the faraway sound of Mum and Sam chatting on the sofa next to my chair. Evan on the beach, smiling at me, and me looking right into his eyes the way I never could in real life. What did it mean if you loved someone so much that you couldn't even look at them properly?

‘It's still terrible,' said Mum.

‘What is?' I was hardly aware I'd said it but something on the news had suddenly lifted me out of my daydream.

‘It's terrible when someone goes missing,' she said. A girl a few years older than me didn't make it home after a party. They'd put her Facebook photo on the screen. It was one of those selfies; I had one like it. She looked upbeat and pretty, like she went from one fun event to the next. I imagined her taking the photo when she'd just finished getting ready to go out.

‘Sure,' said Sam, ‘but I'm just saying that one person goes missing every fifteen minutes in this country.'

‘That's crazy,' said Mum.

‘Exactly. That's why we don't think about it – we can't. So every so often we focus on one case.' Sam had done Legal Studies for one term before dropping it and now thought he was an expert on every crime we heard about.

‘That's just wrong,' I said. ‘Who decides which case to put on TV anyway?' They were showing more photos of the missing girl now, cheek to cheek with her best friend, followed by footage of the same friend crying during a press conference, clutching hands with the missing girl's parents, who were staring at the floor with wild eyes.

Sam ignored my question. ‘People can't cope with big numbers,' he went on. ‘Like an earthquake on the other side of the world that takes out six hundred people in one go. Becomes meaningless. But look at everyone going nuts over this one girl.'

‘Are you saying we shouldn't? What are we supposed to do?' I said, annoyed by him in ways I could never articulate well enough on the spot. ‘Do we just not care about her because of all the other people who are dying all over the place?'

‘I'm just raising the topic.' He shrugged, staring at the screen, and we all fell back into silence.

It was true, what he'd said. I couldn't stop myself from thinking about that girl. She was becoming more familiar in my head. Not just a two-dimensional image on a screen, she was flesh and bone – a moving, laughing, feeling human being. She was Sophie.

I thought about who would take her and why they thought they could. I imagined being her, walking back from a party and never in a million years thinking that I was in danger, because Sophie didn't seem like the sort of person who would suspect anyone of wanting to hurt her. I imagined a man grabbing my arm and trying to pull me into a car, his strength and the way I'd struggle mixed in with the startled look on Sophie's face as she tried to understand how something so evil could be happening to her.

I said goodnight and went to my room. I swore to myself that I wouldn't think about Sophie any more, as if imagining these grotesque things meant they'd really happened to her. Maybe we all just needed to have faith that she'd be found alive. She'd go to more parties and take more happy photos and people would still die all over the place but at least we'd know that Sophie was okay.

My own problems felt so small and stupid in comparison. I swore I wouldn't think about those either.

 

 

 

The moment I was awake, I thought of Sophie. Still sleepy, I sat at my desk and opened my laptop to check the news. There was nothing, just more rehashing of the same information and some new photos: Sophie winning a cross-country race at school a few years earlier, her face more rounded and young. There was a quote from her uncle saying she would have fought back if anyone had tried to hurt her, that she was strong and fast and really fit. I wanted it to mean that her chances were better than they looked.

I closed the laptop and went back to bed. It was only five and the alert feeling I'd had when I'd first woken up was already turning into scratchy eyes and heaviness. Friday was here but I wasn't ready. Maybe I'd go to school or maybe Mum would want me here. I drifted off again. In my mind were waves of thoughts about Dad and all the conversations we'd had in the days before he'd left, when he must have known all along that he was going.
What do you want on your toast, Han?
(By the way, this is the last breakfast we'll ever eat as a family.)
Don't forget to take that DVD back to the rental place.
(I won't be here to remind you any more.)

I opened my curtains and lifted the window. Sleep wasn't going to happen. From that tiny peek of sky above the house I could see it was going to be a stunning day, but that did nothing for me. It was a slice of ‘Life goes on, Hannah!' and I couldn't stand that.

I heard laughter coming from outside. Was that Mum?

When I got out of bed and opened my bedroom door, a weird smell hit me straightaway. At first I thought it was Sam's trainers – he always left them outside his bedroom door so that we had to suffer them and he didn't. But there was no sign of them. His door was ajar and he looked sound asleep, with his feet sticking out the end of the bed and one arm folded over his eyes. I closed his door. This was my chance to speak to Mum.

The smell was still strong. Was it rubbish day? Or maybe Scribble had killed something and brought it in. Cats did that – brought you gifts you didn't want. Like loopy Margot and her lavender candle, which probably wasn't going to solve our problems.
Thanks anyway, Margot.

At that moment Scribble grazed against my legs and jumped onto my bed, settling himself on my pillow. I went cautiously up the hall, looking for a bloodied rodent or half a bird.

The smell was more familiar now. I thought it might be food but there was no one cooking in the kitchen. Anyway, Mum didn't do cooked breakfasts. She was usually working before anyone got up, and if you ever asked her what there was to eat she'd wave at some brown cardboard flakes or yoghurt that stank of damp goat hair.

There was more laughter and it came from our courtyard out the back. I suddenly remembered that smell. A voice saying, ‘Let's roll another one,' confirmed it. I couldn't believe it. To get to the sliding doors I had to step amongst the broken Christmas decorations and over the toppled tree. Then I just stood there and waited for them to look at me.

‘Hannah! Beautiful, lovely Hannah!' Margot leaped out of one of our garden chairs and guided me into it.

‘Er, Mum,' I said as I let Margot sit me down, ‘since when do you smoke?'

Margot and Mum giggled. Mum shrugged. The garden table was covered in tiny curls of tobacco and screwed-up pieces of rolling paper. There were some fat discarded joints lying around that were barely stuck together, spewing their contents, a near-empty packet of cigarettes and a dismantled lighter. The lavender candle was half its original size and the jug from Mum's liquidiser was filled with a greenish-brown liquid.

‘What's in there?'

‘Peppermint tea,' said Margot, struggling to get the words out. ‘This stuff makes you thirsty, doesn't it, Sar?' She slapped her legs and they both burst out laughing.

‘It's five in the morning,' I said.

‘Uh-oh.' Mum clutched my arm and stared, wide-eyed, at different parts of my face as if I'd broken out in spots. ‘Looks like someone had a sense-of-humour failure.'

‘Sar, stop that,' said Margot. ‘She's probably still in shock with all the upheaval. She's such a good girl, aren't you, Han? Hey? A good girl?'

I wanted to tell her not to call me Han and preferably not to speak to me at all but I was fixated on Mum's droopy eyelids and the way she was swaying around in her chair. ‘Mum, do you want me to make some coffee?'

Mum blew smoke towards me. ‘I tell you what.' She pointed the joint at me. ‘How about you make us some pizza. We're starving, aren't we, Margot? Margot? Margot!' She lurched her head around and smiled as Margot, who had moved behind her, wrapped her arms around Mum's neck. Margot nodded energetically.

‘I could make toast,' I said. ‘It's morning.'

‘No, it's not! I haven't been to bed yet so it's still Thursday. Toast with jam!' Mum got to her feet with an awkward flourish and jolted Margot, whose arms did a frantic backstroke as she fell into a giant potted yucca plant.

‘Margie! Oh my god, I've killed Margie. Help me, Hannah!' Mum tried to pull her out but they couldn't stop laughing. The joint was sandwiched between Mum's lips and she had to close one eye to stop the smoke going in. I didn't want to go anywhere near them.

When they finally got Margot on her feet again, they began to dance around the garden table.

‘Toast with jam! Toast with jam!' Mum sang, and the dance got more out of control. They were oblivious to the herb pots they knocked over or how much noise they were making.

Every time they passed by and nudged me I got more and more angry. ‘Mum, stop it,' I said. ‘You're being really loud.' She wasn't listening. ‘Mum, where's Dad gone? Did he tell you?' I knew it was crap timing but it all started to come out then.

She hitched up her trackies and danced harder, no longer singing but panting.

‘I said where's Dad?' I felt like I could snap, I was so tense. And suddenly I couldn't hold it in any more. ‘
Would you just stop and tell me where the bloody hell Dad is!
'

Mum stopped. She looked at the ground where the joint had fallen from her lips.

‘Han, not now darling,' said Margot. She came towards me with her arms outstretched and I knocked them away from me, staring so hard at Mum I couldn't believe she wasn't looking back at me. My eyes were stinging.

And then her voice came deep and hoarse. ‘I wouldn't have a clue.' She slumped down in a chair. Margot picked up the joint.

I stormed back inside and slammed my bedroom door. All the familiar objects of my room looked like a stage set, frozen and fake. Somewhere outside these walls the other fragments of my life were waiting, and I had to get out there and feel part of something again.

 

I tried to map out my day in my head. I'd take the painting on the tram and drop it off at Essie's. I'd go to school and try to have a normal day. I wouldn't look at my phone every five minutes, wondering if Evan was going to call again. I wouldn't care about what Mum was doing or where Dad was. It'd just be me and what I needed to do.

Essie was in her dressing-gown when she came to the door, her face and hair already made up.

‘What a lovely surprise,' she said, even though I'd promised to come today. ‘You're just in time to make my tea. You made it so nicely the other day.' She turned and beckoned me in as she walked stiffly towards the kitchen. She hadn't even mentioned the huge painting I was carrying. I propped it by the lounge and we chatted about the weather and the missing girl.

‘I hope they catch him,' she said.

‘We don't even know if she's been abducted yet.'

‘Don't we?'

‘It could be anything.'

‘I doubt it, darling. But you mustn't let it stop you from going out and having fun, you hear me?'

I smiled at her and went on making the tea. Essie hadn't been outside in years. She had a doctor who did home visits, no friends, and the only people she used to speak to were those who used to deliver stuff like groceries. She'd phone the stores she liked and pay them to bring things to her – they almost always did, even if the first time she asked they'd say it wasn't a service they offered. She always managed to convince them it was, until one day the deliveries stopped. Knowing Essie, she must have done something to upset them.

I wondered what Essie thought my life was like. I'd hung out with Chloe's mates a bit lately but that was all. There was nowhere to go unless you looked old enough to drink in bars or work in them, like Chloe. She seemed to have a new guy every week, while I'd never even had a proper boyfriend or gone further than a sloppy pash. It wasn't that I thought I wasn't pretty, but no one ever noticed me.

We sat down and ate white toast and drank our strong malty teas. I felt like I'd been awake for ages.

‘You found it then,' Essie said, finally nodding towards the painting.

‘It was behind Mum's wardrobe. Why do you want it? What's so special about it?'

She motioned for me to hold it up. ‘It's me, in Sydney. I was on a journey. It was a frightening and difficult one but not half as bad as what I was trying to escape from.'

‘You mean you were by yourself? Where were your parents? How old was Mum then?'

‘My parents have never been to this country,' Essie said, her face sour. After a moment she brightened again. ‘A dear friend painted it. How is your mother, by the way? Is she coping?'

I didn't want to talk about the right-now things so I said she was fine.

‘Hannah, come now.'

Part of me wanted to go for it, to tell Essie what a screwed-up version of herself Mum was being. Then I wondered if Mum might need Essie now but just didn't know how to go about it. You needed your mum in a crisis, even if you didn't get on the rest of the time. People suffered without them – Chloe hardly went a day without dropping hers into conversation, as if the loss defined her. And here I was, after only a few days of being sidelined by Mum, and I felt like a mess.

‘She's not great, Essie. I can't get near her. She just wants Sam and her idiot friend Margot who spends half her life eating goji berries and the other half getting pissed. Mum looks like a mess and she won't tell me where Dad is and he hasn't even called once.' I felt awkward; I wasn't usually this open about family stuff with Essie and I'd spoken the way I would with a friend, not my gran.

Essie's eyes looked sad and we didn't speak for a while, but then her expression changed as she became distracted by something else. ‘You're wearing the ring!' she said.

I smiled, held up my hand and felt a surge of connection between Essie and I. ‘Chloe asked me if I thought Dad was having an affair.'

‘And do you?'

‘I don't know.' I shrugged. ‘I guess he could be.'

‘It'll be a flash in the pan, you'll see.'

‘That's kind of what Chloe said.'

‘She sounds very sensible.'

I laughed. ‘That's not really how I'd describe her.'

‘Oh? Go on, how would you describe her then?'

I searched for the right words. ‘Brave, I think. Strong. Loud. Funny. Sometimes she might hurt your feelings but she doesn't know she's doing it. It's just that she's always tearing up the place and misses things.'

‘Things you wouldn't miss.'

‘Maybe. I'm not brave like her, though.'

Essie smiled and put her plate on the table in front of her. She hadn't eaten her crusts as usual. I giggled. ‘What is it?' she said.

‘Just your crusts, Ess.'

‘You didn't eat yours either.'

‘I know. It's just funny.'

‘They can't make us, can they?' Essie the child again. I wondered if anyone would be able to see the young me when I was as old as her.

‘Nope.'

‘I'd like to meet Chloe one day.'

I could feel my smile falter. ‘Maybe,' I said quietly, and took the cups and plates to the kitchen. I came back in determined to change the subject.