The Beauty Is in the Walking (5 page)

‘The problem with my mouth is CP as well,' I told her. ‘If I rush out what I want to say I start spraying spit everywhere and people think I'm a moron.'

‘Must be awful to see that in their faces,' said Chloe.

I shrugged my shoulders. ‘That's not why Soraya walked away the other day, is it? Do Muslims have a thing about cripples?'

Chloe just about gasped when I used the word.

‘Oh, get over it. You can't say “cripple”, but I can,' I said, teasing her.

She glared at me, but wasn't angry. ‘I don't know what Muslims think, but I can't imagine Soraya treating anyone badly. She walked off because of her brother. You saw him.'

‘Yeah, but why? She was just talking to us. What's the crime in that?'

I hadn't counted on an answer, yet the expression on her face said she had one. Then her face changed, animated by some idea that brightened her eyes and curled the edges of her mouth enough to soften the solemn gaze. I was at the head of the queue by this time, but before I could cross to the counter, Chloe took my arm, holding me in place. ‘I'm going to talk to Soraya. You could do her a big favour, Jacob. Meet us at the same place next time we get out of class.' She meant the agapanthus garden where the sleepers built up around it doubled as benches to sit on.

At lunchtime I was still brushing crumbs off my pants when Chloe arrived with Soraya trailing nervously in her wake. There was space either side of me, but Chloe made me shuffle to the right, taking the middle herself, and only when this seat-shifting was complete would Soraya sit down.

‘Why so particular?' I asked.

‘Because it can't seem like Soraya is talking to you.'

‘You're kidding me.'

The steadfast gaze she hit me with said otherwise.

Maybe it was a bastard thing to do, but I deliberately leaned forwards and spoke directly to Soraya. ‘Your brother plays soccer on the oval every lunchtime, anyway.'

‘It's not just that,' said Soraya. ‘I shouldn't sit next to a boy. Any boy. At my school in Sydney we had separate classrooms, and separate playgrounds.' She said all this calmly, as though she was listing off the features of a city she wanted me to visit.

‘Do brothers spy on their sisters there, too?'

‘Mahmoud wasn't spying on me. He was protecting my honour and I love him for it.'

‘Back off and listen for a minute, would you, Jacob,' said Chloe. ‘I'm serious about you doing Soraya a favour, something I can't do for her, but maybe you can.'

‘Why me?'

‘Because you're one of the guys. I see you with your friends all the time, the tall one and Daniel Latchworth.'

‘Dan and Mitch are part of my group.'

‘Yes, but it's not just them.'

Soraya touched Chloe on the shoulder, making her lean back so she could look straight into my face as she spoke. ‘The boys here try to talk to me, Jacob. They're just being friendly, I know, and I'm sure they're lovely guys, but that sort of thing isn't for me. If I talk back to them I dishonour my family and make it hard for my father to
love me. I'm sure some of them think I'm up myself and I hate that, but a couple have been pretty persistent.'

‘Dan,' I said, starting to get the picture.

Soraya nodded. ‘Could you talk to him and to the other boys, too? Explain that things are different for me,' and rather than the hangdog pout of a victim pleading for relief, her face glowed with the smile I'd liked so much a few days before. She left me with Chloe to think about it – or so Chloe would finish the job of talking me into it, maybe.

‘If Soraya's not allowed to talk to guys, like any guys at all, how does she fall in love and stuff?' I asked.

‘Her dad will find someone for her and pretty soon, too, she was telling me. She's quite excited to find out who, and what he's like.'

I was about to say ‘You're kidding me' again, but it was the kind of easy line that sounded false if you used it too often. Soraya hadn't yet disappeared across the school yard and seeing her stand out among the others prompted me to mouth off more than I should have.

‘I can't think of anything worse than having your whole life mapped out by your parents. No way I'd put up with that.'

‘But you'll talk to your friends, won't you, explain the way it is for Soraya?'

‘I'll do what I can.'

I was still thinking about Soraya when we broke for morning tea the next day, or maybe I was just wondering whether I was the one to help her. At the picnic table, Mitch made room for me opposite Amy, giving me a clear view of
her face, a prettier face than I remembered which couldn't be true unless my memory had shifted overnight. I hoped Tyke would call soon because there was no one else I could ask whether girls got prettier the more you liked them. Mitch had been my closest friend since Year One, and he still was, even if our one-on-one friendship had folded into the group these days, but we'd never talked much about girls and I certainly couldn't tell him about Amy.

‘All right, so how many suspects have we got?' said Mitch. He had an elbow propped solidly on the table top and his fingers splayed wide. On his thumb he counted Merv De Luca. ‘Merv prob'ly thought the pig was his wife. He's wanted to kill her for years.'

We laughed because it was so true.

‘What about that creep at the Royal?' said Bec. ‘The one who sits in the window and watches all the girls walk home from school.'

‘Oh, he's a definite,' said Dan.

Bec was on a roll. ‘We can't leave out Callum Landis, even if he is Amy's cousin.'

That suggestion was met with immediate and total agreement, from a laughing Amy most of all. The fourth finger went to Rhys Wilmott who was as odd and solitary in Year Twelve as he'd been in Year One. Four names, four people who made us shudder, but I couldn't see any of them as The Ripper.

‘Who's number five?' Amy asked Mitch.

He seemed surprised by the question, then saw his own hand still in place with four fingers counted off.
‘Actually, I heard this today,' he began, leaning forwards as though it was just for us to hear. ‘Those two blokes who moved here so the meatworks could get the new contract – they're Islamic, right, and their mob have this thing about pigs, that they're unclean.'

‘Unclean! Mate, they bloody stink!' said Dan.

‘Yeah, yeah, but the thing is, they could easily get hold of a boning knife and those things are razor sharp.'

‘That's bullshit,' said Bec. ‘Just because people don't eat pork doesn't mean they go round carving up pigs. If anything, they'd stay away from them.'

You didn't have to do Study of Religion to know Bec was right. There was something bigger here that pissed me off and, with barely a pause, I said, ‘A few days ago people were all over Facebook about Satan worshippers and, before that, mental patients. You should be careful what you spread around, Mitch.'

He turned to me, crestfallen, like I'd told him off which I hadn't meant to do. ‘Yeah, I suppose,' he muttered.

‘And what you said about boning knives,' said Dan, weighing in. ‘There've been so many stolen from the works, I bet half the town's got one in the drawer. Tell you what, though, it's a pity that bloke they dragged in wasn't the one. He sounded sort of right for it, don't you think?'

No one disagreed.

‘What if it really is someone from town?' asked Amy, but, despite Mitch's list of suspects, no one took her seriously.

At morning tea on Friday, I joined the crush at the top of the stairwell and survived, unscathed, in a new PB for the distance. I didn't hang around at the bottom, either, but used tortoise-warp speed towards the picnic table where my group would be gathering. I wanted to be there, I wanted to see Amy's face when she found it.

No, wait. If I arrived before the rest it would look obvious. I stopped at a cluster of posts and poked my head carefully around the corner. Amy and Bec had already found what I'd left there and now they were settling themselves on either side of the table with the parcel between them and the red paper already torn. I'd taken half an hour to get the wrapping just right.

A heavy hand fell on my shoulder and a voice to match said, ‘Waiting for us, are you?' It was Mitch and, of course, Dan was beside him. Had they sussed my spying? Neither said anything as they headed for the table, and they weren't the type to keep quiet if they could squeeze a laugh out of my embarrassment.

‘Come on,' said Mitch, slackening his pace to let me keep up.

The wrapping paper flickered like butterfly wings in the breeze. ‘What've you got there?' shouted Dan when we were still a few metres away.

‘Amy has a secret admirer,' said Bec and, as we folded ourselves into place around the table, she pointed with both hands, palms upwards like a television chef. ‘We found it here, with Amy's name on it and a little bow.'

Amy surely knew it was me. Would she tell them? For long torturous seconds I wished I hadn't done it and at the same time I wouldn't have traded the excitement for a million bucks.

‘Who is it? Do you know?' asked Dan.

‘If I knew, he wouldn't be a secret, would he?' Amy shot back at him. ‘Knowing would kill the romance.'

‘It would if Rhys Wilmott had left it there for you,' said Mitch.

Faces wrinkled in disgust while I luxuriated in the many meanings of ‘romance'.

‘Did you see anyone hanging around? Any suspects?' Amy let her eyes rest on Mitch as she said this, remembering our game to decide who had killed Charlotte. Before he could answer, she switched to me. ‘What about you, Jacob? Any ideas? Any suspicious characters loitering near our spot?'

She knew and she wasn't going to give me away. I could relax now. This was just as I'd hoped and I was enjoying the game as much as Amy delighted in the present.

‘Aren't they gorgeous,' she said, tearing away the rest of the paper to reveal four squat candles, five centimetres high and about the same across, each a different colour with a white wick in the centre. ‘I use these to help me study,' she told them. ‘I can feel a swag of A's coming.'

‘Study!' said Mitch.

Amy plunged into her explanation until Dan cut her off. ‘You're fooling yourself.'

Even Bec thought she was crazy and, for show, I agreed through a smile that Amy returned just for me. In those slow-motion seconds before she broke eye contact, my happiness meter trended off the charts.

Friday lunchtimes were a tradition for the guys in Year Twelve at Palmerston High – and it
was
strictly boys and only the Year Twelves. The way we saw it, we were almost-men who spent the week being ‘good', not to please the teachers, but in resignation because the lousy job prospects in town meant there wasn't much point in leaving school. By lunchtime on the last day of the week, though, we were ready to break out and a basketball game in the gym had become our escape route. No one paid much attention to the ‘foul' rule, making the game more footy than basketball. The ‘five a side' rule was another we ignored and the whole glorious shemozzle often had thirty guys on the court at once. Mugball, we called it. Goals were rare, blood was not.

Dan never missed Friday in the gym and although Mitch wasn't as physical he joined in to watch Dan's back.
I was Number One spectator. Girls stayed away, which was why Amy quickly caught my eye when she stood in the doorway of the gym. Light flooded through from behind, blasting her into silhouette, but the outline was hers. I'd pictured it enough, the Coke-bottle shape and the skirt that showed off her legs. Amid the hot, masculine air, she seemed nervous about venturing any further and vulnerable in a way I knew only too well. I cursed my legs when they took so long to carry me to her.

Amy relaxed when she saw me coming, although she didn't lose her nervous air entirely, and I saw then that it wasn't simply the rough and tumble behind me that made her jumpy.

‘Let's go,' I said, bending to speak in her ear.

‘Why do they do that?' she asked when we'd claimed the sanctuary of sunlight.

‘You have to be a guy to understand.'

‘You've never played, have you?'

‘Dan offered to carry me on his back, once, sort of horse and jockey.'

Amy stared at me, her eyes round and her mouth half open. ‘You didn't take him up on it, did you?'

‘No, too scared,' I joked, and I
had
been scared, but the reason I'd turned Dan down was something Tyke was fond of telling me.
Don't let them treat you like a fluffy toy
.

Amy wanted privacy, I discovered, when she led me across the playground, skirting the curve of the oval and heading for the groundsman's shed on the far side of the school. I didn't tell her what had happened there so recently.

‘It was you, wasn't it? The candles?' she asked as we walked.

‘Yes.' The honest delight in her face was a gift in return, whether she knew it or not. ‘Thought you might need a little help to study.'

‘Was that it?' she said, looking down as though the grass held a deep fascination for her.

I wanted her to say more and only then did I understand she was waiting for me to go first. I'd imagined the candles would do the talking for me. We were almost at the shed by this time and I didn't have a clue what I was going to say about my hand on the flat of her stomach and the tricks I'd used since to sit beside her at the picnic table.

We'd just slipped out of sight when a boy ran, full pelt, round the other corner and charged straight at us. He was looking over his shoulder and would send us flying like tenpins any moment.

‘Hey!' I shouted, making him stop just in time. It was Mahmoud Rais and he was terrified.

No wonder. Close up behind Amy and me three boys had arrived, halting as Mahmoud had done, all of them with chests heaving and their bodies as tight as springs.

Mahmoud turned, ready to take off in the opposite direction, but it was too late. More kids piled around the corner. Mahmoud rushed to the back wall of the shed where he shifted his weight from one leg to the other like a boxer bouncing in the ring. Whoever came at him first was in for some serious damage.

Amy grabbed the sleeve of my shirt and stepped back as though she hoped they hadn't seen us. ‘What's going on?' she whispered.

‘It's about the pig, I'll bet. Quick, go and get the guys,' I said and then I shuffled forwards until I was standing in front of Mahmoud.

‘What are you doing?' she hissed at me, but after that I didn't hear any more. A boy was shouting at me, ‘Get out of the way!' The others fanned out into a semicircle until I couldn't see whether Amy was still there or not.

They were all younger than me, Year Nines and Tens, and I could have named most of them if my mind hadn't been jammed by other things. They knew me, too, if not by name then by my legs. I was the disabled kid in a Seniors' shirt and no one wanted to be the one who knocked me flying. I was counting on that.

‘What do you think you're doing?' I barked at them.

‘He killed Charlotte,' said the leader. I did remember his name, at least. Nathan Hattendorf. His sister was in Svenson's class with me.

‘You don't know that,' I called back at him. ‘You've just heard rumours going round, about his family, their religion. Is that all you've got to go on?'

If I could get that admission out of them, maybe they'd see how stupid they were being. I waited, aware of the dangerous silence and, when a few faces frowned in confusion, I spoke up. ‘You've got it all wrong. If you'd only . . .'

Before I could get any further, Hattendorf set me straight. ‘Her auntie saw him,' he growled, pointing at a girl who glared at me, implacably sure of herself.

‘The Leb was here at the school on Sunday night,' she said.

It wasn't just the Muslim rumour, then. My mind went blank, robbing my tongue of words – any words. I searched for Dan and Mitch and saw only that Amy had gone – saw that the mob wasn't staying back because of me any longer, either. When they surged forwards, I groped two-handed at Hattendorf and locked my arms around him, hoping my dead weight alone might throw him off balance. In that much I succeeded when both of us fell like partners in a dance gone wrong. The impact broke my hold, but as Hattendorf scrambled to get up I caught hold of one leg like I'd seen Tyke do on the footy field. Hattendorf kicked at me with his free foot until I let go.

‘Get away from him!' cried a voice, not a teenager's, but the deep and furious shout of a man.

I'd put my hands over my head and had to peer through the crook of my elbow to see Ed Lambert, his face flushed from running and dark with anger. He was a technics teacher, a no-nonsense guy who soon had the hangers-on scattering and even the more determined backing away. In seconds, only Hattendorf remained and he would have scampered off, too, if Lambert hadn't clamped a tradesman's hand on the back of his shirt. Mahmoud stood with his back against the wall, his shirt
torn and his eyes still wild and frightened. I couldn't see any blood.

‘Are you all right, Jacob?' said Lambert, looking down at me as I lay on my side.

‘Yeah, fine. Don't worry about me,' and since the teacher had his hands full taking Mahmoud off to the Admin block, he took me at my word.

Then Amy's voice. ‘But are you? All right, I mean.'

I'd rolled over to take a longer look at Mahmoud and hadn't seen her arrive.

‘Anything broken?' she went on.

‘You'd hear me howling if there was.'

I sat up, collecting myself for a return to my feet – not an easy thing for me, especially when I was more shaky than I wanted to admit. The kicking had whacked me in the side of the head and, while I wasn't seeing stars, I was in for a headache.

‘Give me your hand,' said Amy.

‘No, I can do it.' I didn't want Amy to mess herself up when my hands were dusty and I'd grazed the skin of my elbow enough to draw blood.

She helped me anyway, telling me off gently as I unfolded myself to vertical. ‘What were you trying to do, Jacob? You could have got hurt. They were ready to kill the Leb kid.'

‘There wasn't anyone else,' I said, which pretty much told how it was.