Volcano Street (19 page)

Honza shuffled into the sleepout. ‘Come to see how she was.’ What a sight he looked: ripped shirt, panda-black shiner, swollen lip.

‘And what have you been up to?’ Queen Noreen fixed him with an accusing stare. From her wicker throne, the monarch in the
muu-muu reduced him to an abasement he had never, Skip was certain, displayed before Rigby. ‘And your mum lets you go out like that?’ Honza was a disgrace. Auntie Noreen expected no reply; indeed, she seemed glad that the boy presented so shabby an appearance. Let Deirdre Novak’s fecklessness be exposed for all to see.

She went on, ‘Your mum’s still putting on that play, I suppose? I remember them plays she used to be in, yonks back. Bloody rubbish, too:
Hamlet, Prince of Renmark
;
Man and Superman
, and Superman weren’t in it! The snores were louder than the talking on stage.’ She shook her head, her venom for the son subsumed, it seemed, by venom for the mother.

Honza (Skip could tell) wondered if he could go now.

‘Aunt.’ Marlo had come back. ‘There’s a man. Wants to see you.’

‘What man? If it’s one of them J. Dubs, you can tell him to bugger off. I’m not having no bloody religious fanatics disturbing me Sunday rest.’

‘It’s a policeman.’

Noreen Puce blanched. ‘Me shop!’

‘Shop’s fine, Mrs P.’ The police constable had followed Marlo. Stepping into the sleepout, he appeared remarkably callow; a boy, gangling and gawky, with an air of shame that extended, it seemed, to the very fact of being young and male. Acne blistered redly on his cheeks, and his Adam’s apple bulged almost obscenely from his stalky neck. In too-large bony hands he cupped his cap, and squashed behind it was something else, something red and shiny. Skip eyed it uncertainly; so did Honza.

Queen Noreen, like a judge in court, questioned the constable. The Adam’s apple bobbed absurdly – bob-bob, bob-bob, like the red red robin in that maddening cheery song. His name (she introduced him to the girls) was Constable Bonner, Mark Bonner, but Noreen Puce, remembering him as a toddler, could, of course, only call him Marky.

‘And how are you, Marky?’

Marky was fine.

‘Like it down the cop shop, eh?’

Marky liked it.

‘What’s that? Yous had a letter from Baz?’

Marky and Baz had been good mates. Real good mates.

‘See his plane,’ Noreen went on, ‘still there above the bed? Remember when he made that plane? Sticky fingers that day!’

Marky knew. Marky had been there.

‘Well, Marky, what’s all this about, then? Raffling a chook for the Cops’ Benevolent Fund?’

Marky shook his head sadly.

‘No chook! Marky, if you been standing here magging away when me window’s smashed in and half me stock’s gone up the Khyber, I’ll … I’ll have your flyballs for marbles, lad!’

The boy’s colour deepened. Had Mrs P. alluded to his private parts? Queen Noreen only cooed, ‘Marky, you’re such a tease!’ and not until she had subsided into smiling silence did Constable Bonner – stammering, acne pulsing fit to burst – set forth his theme: last night’s robbery in Crater Gardens.

How glad Skip was she was sick! She could be flushed, trembling, and it seemed quite in order. Honza twisted his hands; she wished he would stop. Marlo looked confused, and her confusion grew as the red-red-robin Adam’s apple heaved up words in a vomitous rush: words about the wishing well and water running away and evil acts with a hacksaw blade and evidence of a scuffle and bike tracks in the lawn, and this, this – big hands descended from the uniformed chest – this, I have to report, was found at the scene of the crime.

Scene of the crime: Marky’s eyes grew wide, as if he could not quite believe he had used the phrase, while Skip, slipping down in the bed, wondered how she could explain this Qantas bag that he uncrushed and held up, all the time (she was certain) fighting off
the temptation to call it ‘Exhibit A’. But there was no time to think of alibis. Auntie Noreen had already spotted the name, in black felt pen against the bag’s white lining:
HELEN WELLS
.

Honza, by the door, almost broke into a run, but fear gripped him and he only scuffed a heel, grinning stupidly at Constable Bonner. Marlo’s eyes met Skip’s, horrified, amazed. From somewhere, Skip imagined, came a cattle-truck rattle: the sleepout had always looked like rolling stock; she had wished more than once that it would bear her away, across the far paddocks, never to return. But it was going nowhere. A spell had fallen upon the players, freezing them into attitudes variously expressing accusation, guilt, shame.

Noreen Puce broke it. ‘Deary me, Marky, you had me going!’ She gestured to the bed. ‘Baby Helen, a master criminal? I don’t reckon, do you? Laid up all weekend. Bad dose of flu. But even if she was full of beans I hardly reckon a little filly like this would be jumping down wishing wells in the middle of the night! Sugar and spice and all things nice, eh? And as for this old bag – this Qantas bag, I means, not meself, Marky! – it was pinched last week. Terrible, what goes on at that school. Yous blokes at the cop shop ought to be patrolling there. Up and down the corridors. Round and round the grounds. That’s what cops do in America. Saw it on telly. Big-city schools filled with wops and blackies, what do you expect? Here’s your bag back, Helen.’ And the fond aunt tossed it to the bed with girlish nonchalance. ‘I’ll tell you this, Marky’ – she leaned forward, eyes narrowed; a sausage finger poked the air – ‘you find what bugger stole poor Helen’s bag and you’ll find what bugger robbed your wishing well. That high school’s a hotbed of crime, make no mistake. Little buggers! Might as well be Yanks.’

Whether P. C. Bonner was satisfied or merely browbeaten by her logic was difficult to determine. He pushed out his lower lip, nodded sagely, and might even have thanked her for assisting him in his investigations had she not interrupted, asking him jauntily to stay
for her Sunday roast. ‘How’s about it, Marky? Crack a few coldies with Doug, eh?’

The constable shook his head with regret. ‘On duty and all.’

‘Who’d have thought it, Marky? You all grown up and responsible. And I remember when you was just a little nipper, running round me yard with Baz. No pants on. Little winky poking out under your singlet.’

Little winky! The lawman, Skip realised, was defeated; he turned to go, then gestured to the F-111 that swayed in a breeze above Barry’s bed, and observed, his voice thick, ‘Don’t suppose Bazza’s been in one of them. Slogging through the jungle, he is, not flying up above. You know, Mrs P., sometimes I think of him and ask myself: why Bazza? Why not me?’

‘His number come up, love.’ Noreen Puce softened. ‘You’re fine young men, the pair of you, serving your country in different ways. Some have to fight the foreign scum, to keep Australia free. Some have to stay home and keep our own scum in line. Like them buggers I told you about, eh?’

Marky Bonner conceded this with a philosophical air. ‘I’ll see myself out, Mrs P.,’ he said.

Moments passed and his footsteps faded down the path. Skip looked at Marlo: Marlo looked at Skip. Honza, a grinning fool, seemed to think the danger was over. The side gate clunked.

Queen Noreen attempted to rise. One-two … one-two-three … Grimacing, she strained against the tight wicker. The drama of Marky’s visit had wedged the great lady all the more firmly into her ill-advised throne. Her face flushed. Leg-o’-mutton arms flapped like fleshy sails as she reared forward, shaking the floor. The chair lifted, protruding like a bustle from her mighty rump, but she burst out, oblivious, ‘Robbing the wishing well! Stealing from charity! You’d better have some explanation, Helen Wells!’

Skip’s brain spun like a car’s wheels in quicksand, and all she could do was whimper out useless denials as Auntie Noreen massed over
her, electric with rage, then turned sharply and pointed. Heaped in a corner, revealed by the displaced chair, were the filthy clothes, smeared with slime, that Skip had discarded the night before – the smell, traced to its source!

Terrified, Honza slunk towards the door, but Noreen Puce would not let him go. A hideous bent-over thing, half-woman, half-chair, face bright enough to burn, she lunged at him, shrieking, ‘This is your doing, Honza Novak!’ and grabbed his shoulders and shook him, hard. ‘Dirty little wog – you come round here, perving on me niece through her window (don’t think old Noreen don’t know!), luring her into a life of crime and God knows what else. Jesus, I don’t expect much of yous Novak brats – reffo for a dad, slag for a mum – but this time you gone too far, and you better count yourself lucky I don’t shop you. Because I’ll tell you one thing, young feller-me-lad: if I sees you hanging round me niece again, that’s what I’ll do. Know what that means? Reform school, and about bloody time – cold showers, beatings, and some big boy’s stiffy up your bumhole every night! Don’t think you can put the blame on Baby Helen. No niece of mine’s going down. Everybody will believe it was just you, and it’ll serve you right for sniffing round good Australian girls instead of sticking to your greasy wog sluts. Got that? Got that?’

There was more in this vein, and neither Skip’s protests (‘It’s not his fault!’) nor Marlo’s efforts to calm her aunt (‘Aunt, please! You’re hurting him’) were anything but futile. On and on the waves of execration came – much of it directed more at Deirdre Novak than at her son – cresting each time with an urgent ‘Got that? Got that?’

So violently did Noreen Puce shake the hapless Honza that all he could do was grunt through clashing teeth, until, in rising rage, she flung him from her. The boy crashed to the floor, scrambled up, and rushed out the door; through all this, Marlo stood white-faced against the wall, while Skip struggled to rise from her bed. Could she have followed Honza, she would have: run alongside
him, scaled the fence with him, escaped Auntie Noreen’s and never come back.

Auntie Noreen was straining, straining; shit-a-brick noises erupted from her throat as she struggled to free herself from the wicker bustle. ‘
Nrrghh …! Nrrghh …!
Marlene, help me …’ But Marlo had no need to act, for in desperation her aunt twisted, wrenched, and the chair clattered free. Her face scarlet, Noreen Puce plunged towards the door.

But she stopped on the threshold and turned back, eyes ablaze. Her words came slowly, levelly. ‘I’ll say one thing, and say it clear. Neither of yous girls goes round Novaks’ again. Ever. Got it?’

Skip could not speak. Her head throbbed.

Marlo gasped. ‘The play!’

‘Play! Yair, and making eyes at Pav all day. Or is it that poofter teacher from the school? Don’t think I don’t know what you get up to. Remember, Marlene, you’re under my roof. You’re working in me shop. I pays your bloody wages, and if I want to turn you and your thieving sister out on the streets, I bloody well will and who’s to tell me no? Nobody. You’re stopping indoors, the pair of you, till you learn how to behave. School and work! School and work, then home. Dougie can drive yous both. One bit of trouble from either of yous, and I’ll dob in Deirdre Novak’s brat before you can say Jack Robinson. Don’t look at me like that, Helen. I mean it. You’re a stupid, ignorant girl and I’m just doing what’s good for you. If you weren’t sick I’d drag you out of that bed this minute and beat you black and blue.’

‘You bitch,’ Skip said. ‘Fucking old bitch.’

Did Auntie Noreen hear this as she lumbered from the sleepout? If she did, she only added Skip’s words – weariedly, resignedly – to the teetering evidence that her mad sister’s kiddies were rotten to the core. The wicker chair, on its side, still lay where it had fallen.

Miserably, Skip sank into her pillow. Marlo stared at her with something between sadness and horror. Skip knew what she had
done. Marlo, dragged out of school, forced to work in a hardware shop, had found hope in Howard Brooker. Without him, she would never pass her exams. She would never escape. Skip turned from Marlo’s gaze. If her sister had said ‘I hate you’ she would not have been surprised. She hated herself.

But Marlo, without a word, slipped away after Auntie Noreen.

Chapter Ten

Summer a-coming. Not long now.

Morning shadows stretch from the bluegums that rim the school fence. Brightness glares off the yellow buses as they swing into the grounds. One day, give it a few weeks, smoky haze will shimmer over the tarmac; flies will buzz like bees while the skies stand arrested, day on day, in unbroken pale blue. But for Skip Wells, aged almost thirteen, the world is grey.

‘See you this arvo, love,’ says Uncle Doug, as she hauls up her Qantas bag from the littered floor of his van. He winks at her, clicks his mouth. ‘Cheer up. Snot so bad.’

Snot so bad! Skip slams the van door. Slopes through the gates. The school-in-the-morning hubbub claws at her mind like scrabbling gulls. How many weeks of this torment remain? One is too many. Drag along this path, up these steps, down this corridor, open this locker, stuff in your things and crash it shut. Ignore taunts, stares. Fuck off, Maggie Polomka. Fuck off, Shaun Kenny – one step towards me and I’ll fucking deck you. Tough little bitch: that’s what they’re saying.

Monday morning. Stiffly she sits in the gas-tap home group, in turbanned maths, in Brooker’s English class, and sneers at Honza
Novak if he turns around to look at her. No more Honza. No more anybody. Never, never.

Some slut says, ‘Skippy’s broken up with her boyfriend.’

Some whacker says, ‘Boyfriend? Fucking lez, she is.’

But something’s going on. Big announcement.

‘… That’s right, a time capsule,’ says Howard Brooker.

Light slants like balm across the yellow-white tables, scored and scuffed already, which replaced only recently the inkwelled desks that had borne in their scarifications a generation’s legacy.

‘Time capsule?’ Brenton Lumsden looks affronted.

‘Like
Doctor Who
?’ squeals Wayne Bunny, whose voice is breaking.

Kylie Cunliffe snorts. ‘Will we go into the future?’

‘Ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one-zero – blast off!’ yells Andreas Haskas, spit spraying in a glittering semicircle, fist, clenched whacker-style, surging skywards.