The Beloved (25 page)

Chris jammed a softball bat into the sand and leaned on it. ‘Home run, Lindsay. Brilliant.' His words were for me but his eyes were for Diane. She swung lamely at the ball and missed.

‘You hate my hair, don't you?' I said.

He looked surprised. ‘No, it's fine.'

I didn't believe him.

My mother hated it. ‘You're a fool,' she'd said. ‘You've deprived yourself of your best asset.' The last word. Always the last word.

‘Then it's my foot.'

‘What?' said Chris.

‘Because of my foot, that's why you don't . . . like me.'

‘I do like you. You know I like you.'

‘You prefer Diane.'

‘That's different.' He shifted uncomfortably. ‘It's nothing to do with your foot.'

‘I don't believe you.' I turned and walked away. How could I have been so dumb?

‘It's true, Lindsay.'

Pigs flew. Who cared? Chris Bright could have his Diane Rudge, his ruddy Diane. I'd seen them together after school, holding hands and whispering. It made me sick.

It seemed everybody had pain of one sort or another.

Josie's Husband sat on a stool outside her boi-haus, staring at the ground. There were creases over his eyes and he gouged his bottom lip with his teeth. I drew him as a washing machine, its contents tumbling. Josie's friend brought her baby to visit and I drew its round crying mouth and tear-streaked eyes. No outline, no colour. You didn't need colours to recognise sadness. In the three weeks since Mama had taken my bike I'd filled another sketchbook. I hadn't paid for the last one and I had no money for another but I wasn't going to sponge off Helen. There was only one thing left to do.

I caught him alone one Sunday afternoon nodding over the paper, his feet on his desk. There were faint grey streaks among his brown curls and circles under his eyes. The Friday before he'd come home and flung his bag on the desk. ‘Bloody Faith Parker,' he'd said, scraping out papers. ‘This is a shambles; the only filing she knows how to do is her nails. Another contract lost for copra to Japan. The second in two months.'

I hated disturbing him but he was off to Lae the following morning, chasing business. ‘Dad?'

His head lolled in his hand. ‘Huh?'

‘I need some money,' I whispered.

Through the fly-wire heat rippled over Boroko in waves; Husband scythed our grass with a rhythmic
fffttt
. A long time since rain.

‘What for?'

‘Lipstick.'

‘Lipstick.' He nodded, eyes drooping. ‘Your mother know?'

I shook my head. ‘No.'

He dragged his feet off the desk, opened the drawer and fished around among its clutter for his wallet. ‘Ten bob cover it?'

Ten bob!

‘If there's any change . . .'

‘Yes, Dad. Thanks.'

The next day he left for Lae.

That night my mother went to a party at the Breuers' but promised to be back by midnight. I wasn't nervous because I knew Josie was nearby in her boi-haus. But worry about my bike, and about how I could get to Helen's and back without it, kept me awake. Just as I was about to get out of bed to make a Milo drink I heard a strange yelping sound. I looked at my watch. Eleven thirty. The sound was moving around the house very quickly and a few seconds later I heard footsteps on the back stairs and pounding at the door.

‘Open door! Open door!'

I scrambled to the kitchen and flung open the door. Josie elbowed me aside, locked the screen door and bolted the timber door on the inside. Her face was ragged with fear. ‘Where gun?'

‘I don't know. Josie, what's
wrong
?'

‘Dave!'

Dave – her ex. The jealous one.

The stairs creaked. Josie whimpered. A crash split the night; the screen door trembled. Josie slid to the floor. I dashed to the phone. It seemed to ring forever before Michael, the Breuers' haus-boi, answered.

‘Get my mother, Michael. Quick!'

The sounds of tearing metal, smashing glass and Josie's shrieks came from the kitchen. I dropped the phone and ran. She was huddled on the floor among a sea of splintered glass and in the window above the door, a triangular shard dangled like a broken tooth. The next blow knocked it out. I couldn't get near Josie. If she tried to move she'd cut her feet to pieces but if she stayed where she was she'd be killed.

‘Gun!' she shrieked.

Gun. Yes, but where? An arm came through the window and groped downwards for the lock but it couldn't quite reach. Seconds later the axe bit into the timber.

The
gun
. Where was it?

Another blow. The fine edge of the axe appeared in the door. God help me, where
was
that gun? Clutter . . . I remembered clutter: rulers, pencils, erasers . . . Dad's wallet . . . his desk! I sped to the alcove and ripped open the drawer. In the far corner the pistol gleamed darkly. I pulled it towards me and checked the chamber. Loaded. Another
whump
shook the house. I couldn't . . . I must. Maybe he'd see the gun and run. What was he doing? The silence between the crashes was more frightening than the sound of the axe. I had to see what he was doing. The bathroom window had no screen so I climbed up on the toilet seat and peered down. The light over the landing lit Dave's powerful body as he pulled Dad's short-handled axe from the door. There was a hole big enough for his fist just above the lock. He reached inside. I gasped and he looked up. His face was Dave's, but his expression was mad.

‘No!' I waved the gun. Five feet closer and he could have grabbed it. He landed a monumental kick on the door; it shuddered and the lock gave way. Josie howled. I cocked the gun, pointed it and fired. The gun exploded. Dave fell.

He lay on his side, jerking, eyes wide. Sweat drenched his body and a thick line of blood spread across the timber landing.

‘Bertie!' My mother came scrambling over the low rock wall that lined the side of the driveway. ‘Bertie! Lindsay!' She looked up and saw me at the bathroom window. ‘Jesus Christ.'

I stared at the gun in my hand; I'd just shot someone. I opened my hand and the pistol clattered down onto the stairs below. Cars pulled up in the driveway and the contents of the Breuers' party spilled out. Someone raced towards Dave. ‘Call an ambulance. Call the police.'

‘Of course I shot him,' my mother snapped. ‘What else could I do? He was tearing the door down. Was I supposed to watch him murder my daughter and haus-meri?'

‘Where did you get the gun?' said the detective.

‘I carry it with me, always. In my work, you never know.'

No-one was fooled. The detective's questions were designed more to help Mama build a believable story than to discredit her. I didn't want her protection. I didn't want to feel gratitude. I'd have told the detective what really happened but I couldn't speak. I sat with Mrs Breuer on the stairs, wrapped in a blanket, sipping a cup of tea, unable to take my eyes off a drying pool of Dave's blood, shaped like the wing of a moth.

Wings of moths were so very delicate, crushed to dust if you touched them.

As morning sharpened the outline of the trees along the driveway, my mother sat in a chair beside my bed.

‘What to say, Lindsay? You were incredibly brave and I'm very proud of you but God almighty, you're only thirteen. It could have gone so horribly wrong.'

It could. I might have killed Dave. Shooting Tom Piper, tin cans and Granny Davina's jam was one thing; shooting the pulsing flesh of a living human being was something else.

‘Not that I care much about him,' she said. ‘Only you. Still can't talk, huh? Just like the stones. Remember the stones? You couldn't let them go. You sure do have a way with weapons.'

I probably could have talked if I tried but there was nothing to say.

Mama stood up. ‘Try to get some sleep. And remember, I'm here. Anything you want. Anything. Okay?'

I turned on my side.
Give me back my bike
.
Let me paint. Let me be who I am. I can't bear this any more
.

I could shoot a man but I couldn't say it.

I'd shot Dave in the bum. Three days later he was out of hospital and behind bars. When Dad got home he was so shocked by what had happened he poured himself a slug of whisky. The glass clattered against his teeth. He replaced the door but the moth-shaped stain of blood on the landing was not so easily removed. Mama scrubbed it until sweat shone like diamonds on her forehead but she couldn't get rid of it all. Josie spat on it. She stopped gathering husbands. ‘Last husband, dis one. Em tasol. Husbands fight each other, okay. Husbands fight me, no good. Next time, all gone pinis.'

That night, I heard my parents arguing for the first time since we'd come to live in Boroko. From the darkness of my room I saw Mama perched on the arm of the couch. Dad stood with his back to me, staring out over the lights below.

‘You're not selling her bike,' he said.

‘Don't go soft on her because of Dave. The two aren't connected.'

‘If you sell her bike I'll go and buy her another one. Wheels are her feet. Her bike has no more to do with art than it does with Dave. You've grounded her, stopped her pocket money and confiscated her bike for the last month. That's enough.'