Too Close to Home (4 page)

Tiptoeing past, she heads to the lounge where the other one, the girl, is also asleep. Stretched out on the newly covered sofa, she lies on her back, arms out, small body draped in the blanket that had belonged to Freya's mother when she was a child, a sticky mango stone still clutched in one hand.

And from outside, Freya can hear Matt talking to someone, his voice taking that certain pitch that it always has when he is stoned, slightly deeper, slow, broken by a laugh she does not recognise, cigarette husky with an asthmatic wheeze.

ELLA'S BED IS WARM. Through the chinks in the blinds, Freya can see that it's another perfect day, slashes of pure blue sharp against the white wooden blades, the faint chirrup of a bird as it alights on the olive tree the only sound in the stillness. She lies perfectly still, waiting. And then there it is, the low rumble of a plane, deep and menacing, followed by the beep of a car being unlocked out on the street, the imprint of the day gradually marking her consciousness.

Next to her, Ella sleeps. Burrowed under a quilt, only a strand of her pale hair emerges and her elbow, small and sharp, the acute angle of the crook belying the complete abandonment of her body. Freya breathes in the muskiness of her daughter, and then turns to look out through the chinks to that harsh sliver of blue.

Unable to sleep last night, she had got up at three and come to Ella's room. She had been restless, her mind too active, churning over her work, her irritation with Mikhala and then her anxiety about Ella starting school. Sitting on the floor, she'd sent Mikhala an apologetic text –
can't sleep, so sorry I was out of sorts
– receiving a reply almost immediately –
insomniacs have to forgive and forget
.

Smiling, she'd climbed into bed with Ella. There was a smear of tomato sauce across her cheek, dirt ingrained in her fingernails, and Freya had kissed her gently on her forehead. In the distance she could hear the goods trains screeching along the tracks, a sharp grind in the stillness of the night. Several streets away, a car accelerated up a hill, the roar of the engine faint, while across the road a dog yapped, and a male voice called out.

There was a whole world out there. A nocturnal life that existed, separate and complete. On their first night in the house she had woken to the dull throb of a souped-up car in the driveway opposite, the sound of voices, doors swinging shut and then the building pulse of the engine as the car backed out of the drive and disappeared up the street. Half an hour later, the whole scene was repeated.

‘Jesus,' she'd whispered to Matt. ‘Is this going to happen every night?'

Parting the curtains with her fingers she had looked out into the darkness. She was behaving like a middle-aged busybody, she thought, peering, spying, snooping; there was a range of words to sum up what it was that she was doing and all of them were equally unpleasant.

‘Asiatics,' the old woman two doors up had told her the next morning. ‘Drug dealers. Called the police on them.'

She'd relayed the conversation to Matt and both of them had laughed.

‘Haven't come across that word in a while,' he'd said.

‘That's the burbs for you,' she'd replied, using what had grown to become a catchcry between them.

Hearing him in the kitchen now, Freya gets up, aware of how tired she is as soon as she stands.

‘I'm cleaning up,' he tells her, hands up in mock surrender.

She sits at the table and watches him bringing in the plates from the previous night, tomato sauce dried to the edges, sausage fat congealed in the middle. He looks as bad as she feels, his eyes puffy and his skin reddened from drinking too much. As he empties an overflowing ashtray into the bin, she asks him to take it outside.

‘It stinks,' and she looks at him accusingly. ‘How much did you smoke?'

‘Only one or two,' he lies.

‘What time did you get her to bed?' Freya nods in the direction of Ella's room.

‘About nine-thirty,' he confesses.

‘It's her first day at school.'

Matt apologises. ‘They start them later today, and she was having a good time.' He smiles as he waves his hand at the mess. ‘It'll all be gone in a jiffy.'

He leans forward to kiss her on the cheek and Freya can see that, despite the hangover, he is happy.

‘You're in a good mood.' She observes him for a moment.

Leaning against the cupboard, he pauses to consider her comment. His eyes are slightly bloodshot, but there's a glint, and when he smiles again it's even more pronounced.

‘You know, I reckon it was seeing Shane.' He looks at her. ‘Just sitting around and talking, the kids running wild, the barbecue, the fact that it was such a strange surprise.' He turns back to the plates. ‘It made me feel alive again.'

Freya looks out the back door. The cardboard from the slab of beer lies on the concrete. The cans are still on the table.

‘You drank a lot.'

Matt glances outside and shakes his head. ‘Mainly Shane,' he tells her.

When Freya had come home, they were sitting close to the Weber barbecue, planks of old wood burning, the smell of incinerated paint acrid in the night air. Passing a joint back and forth, they'd been unaware of her presence, and she'd leant against the doorframe watching them; Matt in particular, legs stretched out, hands gesturing as he spoke softly.

‘You're back,' and he had looked up to see her, holding his arm out to draw her close. It was the dope. He always loved her when he was stoned.

‘G'day.' Shane had glanced up, his face barely visible in the darkness, the long dreadlocks obscuring his eyes. He shifted in his chair, hunching further forward as he drew back on the joint and then offered it to her.

She shook her head.

‘Reckon your missus is going to have the shits with me,' and he turned to Matt, grinning ruefully. ‘First time I come here and it's all drinkin' and smokin'.'

Freya shook her head and smiled awkwardly. Matt pulled out a seat for her and she took it although all she really wanted was to go to bed. It was Sunday and it was late. She needed a good day of work tomorrow.

‘So you're from Queensland?' she asked, her voice bright and clear in comparison to the hushed tones they'd been using only moments earlier.

Shane nodded. ‘That's where I met him,' and he
looked across at Matt. ‘Couldn't believe it. Comin' down the street after all them years and there he is. What do you reckon?' He shook his head at the wonder of it.

‘And you're living here now?' She sounded like a mother, she thought, trying to make conversation with a child's boyfriend.

‘Got a job and came down with the kids.' He jerked his head in the direction of the house, where they both lay, sleeping. ‘Runnin' the Aboriginal Housing Service. No work at home, not with the drought. Had no choice.'

‘They're going to the same school as Ella,' Matt told her.

‘Startin' tomorrow.' Shane nodded and then stood, unsteady on his feet as he paced up and down the small courtyard. ‘Ay,' and he leant in awkwardly to Matt, ‘all right if I have a piss?'

Matt waved his hand in the direction of the toilet. ‘Or in the garden if you want,' and he pointed to the lemon tree.

Freya watched as Shane lurched into the darkness, eventually clutching onto the trunk of the tree as a steady stream of urine hissed into the dirt.

He rolled a cigarette as soon as he sat back down.

‘May I?' Freya reached for the pouch, and he pushed it towards her, nodding as he ran his tongue along the edge of the paper.

‘So what do the kids think of the move?' she asked.

‘Darlene's into it,' he told her, wheezing as he drew back on the cigarette. ‘You know girls. Born women they are. Loves the shops and all that shit. Archie – well he's not so sure. Misses his mates, I reckon.'

‘And have you started at the job?' The rat-a-tat of her questions was at odds with their stoned languor.

Shane nodded. ‘Could do it with me eyes closed. Still, it'll do us for now. Till we head home.' He shook his head.

Matt told Freya that Shane had won a land claim.

‘Two hundred acres,' Shane added. ‘Took us ten years. But it's ours now. Beautiful land.' He reached across the table for another can of beer, the sharp crack of the ring pull breaking the momentary silence that had descended upon them all. As he put the can down, he looked across at Matt and grinned. ‘Told the kids you were a good bloke,' he said. ‘Uncle Matt. Used to call him the Christmas angel. Found him in a pub, dressed up as a bloody angel, playing a recorder.' He laughed, breaking into a coughing fit at the end.

Matt glanced at Freya. ‘I've told you that story,' he said.

She couldn't remember.

‘How I had no money and tried to do some busking?'

He had told her. Years ago.

‘Shane found me. Took me back to his place in Brisbane and let me stay. Must have been there over a month.'

‘Longer than that.'

‘That was when you were finishing your law degree,' Matt added.

‘And I got it.' Shane sat back, arms crossed.

‘Jesus.' Matt grinned. ‘I never saw you do any study. I was sure you were going to fail those exams.'

‘Practice. I was usin' it all the time. Defendin' everyone. Didn't need to do any study.'

Freya stubbed her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray, the grey rubbing into the tips of her fingers. She stood slowly, stretching as she told them both she was going to bed. ‘I want to get some work done tomorrow.'

Shane looked up at her and nodded.

‘I'm sure I'll see you round. Maybe at the school?'

‘Night.' Matt glanced in her direction as he poked at the fire with a stick, the sparks glittering against the darkness.

In the lounge, she carefully extracted the sticky mango stone from the girl's fingers and drew the blanket up closer around her body. She didn't know what to do about the boy lying in the hall. She could lift him and put him at the other end of the couch, but he seemed comfortable enough where he was, deep in sleep, thumb in his mouth. In her room, Ella also slept, one long, thin leg sticking out from under the quilt. As she brushed her hair off her daughter's face, Freya looked at her, wondering for a moment who she was and who she would become. It was a question that always hollowed her out, and she bent down to kiss her on the softness of her cheek.

 

On the way to school that morning, Ella tells Freya she likes those new kids, Archie and Darlene.

‘They're cool,' she says, ‘and Darlene has her own TV, in her room.'

It is hot. Workers from the council are using whipper snippers to trim the strips of grass along the pavement, and they have to close their eyes as they pass;
needle-sharp offcuts fly through the stillness of the air, stinging as they swirl against their arms and legs. The rubbish bins are out, not collected yet, and the smell is overpowering in the heat – rotten meat and vegetables, sickly in their decay.

Ella holds her nose. ‘Can I go and play there?' she asks.

‘Probably,' Freya tells her.

‘This afternoon?'

‘I don't know. We'd have to arrange it.'

She wants to know how Matt knows Shane, and Freya says that she's not really sure. They met in Queensland a long time ago. ‘Before you were born. Before Archie and Darlene were born.'

It's not a concept that holds much interest for Ella; the time before she existed, a grey mass, dull and without definition.

It's recess in the schoolyard, the noise of children ringing out across the asphalt. A Year Six student greets them at the gate with instructions to follow her to the kindergarten rooms. Freya looks for anyone they recognise from day care, wanting to find some child that will ease Ella's transition into the strangeness of this new world, because here in the playground all Freya's old anxieties about school have returned.

‘No one ever liked me,' she always tells Matt. ‘I was one of those kids that never got paired off when you had to find a partner.'

It was made worse by the fact that she knew how the dynamics worked. She spent most of her childhood studying them, and as she watches the kids now she can see how little has changed. A group of girls skip, and in
their centre is the powerbroker, perfect in her ordinariness. She is flanked by her two offsiders, each of whom continually vie to be the chosen best friend for the day. Other girls watch, clustered together, and slightly further away there are the ones on their own, who do not join in.

Ella suddenly waves. Freya looks behind her and sees Shane, a rollie stuck to the edge of his bottom lip, one hand in his pocket. He's wearing jeans and a freshly ironed cotton shirt, his tie askew. Archie clutches his leg with a tight fist, kicking idly at the dirt and staring at the ground.

Freya drops back to tell him they are all meant to be following the Year Six girl.

Shane nods. ‘Brought Darlene up here this morning.' He points to where she is part of the group skipping. ‘Settled right in. Now, I've gotta convince
him
school ain't so bad.' He tries to extract his leg, but Archie only clutches tighter. ‘Got a meeting with the local member. Late already.'

Freya offers to look after Archie if he needs to get going.

Archie wipes at the snot running from his nose and refuses to take Freya's hand. He hides behind Shane's leg.

‘You'll be right,' Shane tells him as he pries himself loose. And then he apologises. ‘Stayed a bit late last night,' he says. ‘Told Matt he'd be in trouble with the missus.'

Freya tells him it was fine. She waves goodbye as he heads back to the street, before turning to both the kids.

‘Isn't it lucky?' She smiles brightly. ‘You won't be alone now. You'll have each other.'

They haven't heard her. Walking off together, Ella and Archie are already chatting, and Freya just follows, the sun burning the back of her neck.