Who Sings for Lu? (2 page)

When they got to hang out, Rocky became one of those rare creatures: a boy who never tried to stick his dick or finger or tongue in one of her orifices. She wouldn’t call him a gentleman because he walked the city’s mean streets with a toughness that had none mess with him, not even those who hunted in packs. He knew everyone and had their respect, didn’t stand over anyone. In fact Lu came to see Rocky had a heart of gold, for the street kids at least: gave them money or tough-love advice, a hug, one of his shoulder squeezes where he managed to convey love like some kind of fighting Jesus — since he did fight if some mug offered it to him, like some bully drunk picking the wrong man. Once it was a professional rugby league player new on the scene who challenged Rocky up at the Bourbon and Beefsteak, a common fight venue in King’s Cross that males for some reason got drawn to, probably because the press reported it and the whole town — so they thought — talked about it. Fighting, duh. Strictly for a certain type of male.

So Lu got to witness a machine in action, close to a madman, but he was in control. Bang-bang-bang. Lights out. But no follow-up meant he had mercy. A heart therefore. Embarrassed when the diners and drinkers clapped his performance, wanted to buy him a beer: he grabbed Lu and was out of there. Never spoke a word about it. She didn’t mind the odd blue, okay when you grew up with fighting all around you, even
a female came to appreciate certain qualities a male could display when he fought. Like courage, will and a certain appealing ruthlessness, the kind that made a girl tingle. As in, ahem, like that. With her, though, the tingle was in her mind. Just a theory.

He lived in an ever-changing series of rental apartments and houses between tenants. Landlords trusted him to look after them. Many nights he’d be waiting for her shift to finish at the takeaway joint, and they’d go in his car to some nice apartment with a view of the city, the harbour all aglitter, the Opera House looking like out of a dream, so a girl would think:
This is my city?
With a certain gladness and happy disbelief. And when Rocky turned down the light dimmer, a girl could be forgiven for wanting more of living like this, she might even allow herself to think of having a man in a normal way. But it never held, the idea of ordinary romantic attachment. Why would it? That door was firmly closed, nailed and chain locked.

That ‘so pretty’ line with the soft emphasis he never used again. It was just a bluff. Rocky in fact was a thinking guy, sensitive, considerate; remembered the streets he’d once lived on, the runaway kid of twelve. The landlords paid him a fee along with giving free rent, and in exchange he cleaned up the places, did a bit of painting and fixing, moved on to the next.

One night he told her, ‘Listen, Lu. There’s stuff going on: action, kid, you should take notice of. There are people doing things — business stuff — their way of thinking, people like me and you should be learning about.’ Over her head, till he mentioned her two boss brothers.

‘Those cunning Malak brothers are always talking business,’ he said. For someone new on her scene how did he know anything about her employers? ‘I hear them talking stuff over with their mates, each other. They got the hunger in their eyes, Lu. Best we learn it.’ She liked him saying ‘we’.

He started on about recession and the credit market rules all changed by dramatic economic events. She said, ‘You sure you giving the lesson to the right person here, Rock? I might start yawning.’

‘The smart brains are figuring out where the next earner is. Just saying we got to follow them.’

‘The Malak brothers will always have a job for me.’

‘Shit, that’s ambitious. Working for a friggin’ wage. Wage-earners don’t rule this world — the self-employed do.’

‘So where would you go?’

‘Dunno. Why I keep my ear to the ground. When the herd’s running that way, you run this — right up the smartest one’s bum.’

‘And you’ll be running in the same direction?’ she got in more for reassurance of not just his integrity and fact he respected her, but to know she had company for when she faltered, got scared. Not as if she ran with the main pack at any rate. Just her tight circle of friends and this new one. A novelty at the expense of the others in the meantime, till the novelty wore off — if she ever wanted it to. As if his aura could ever weaken, let alone die.

He said, ‘I sure will.’ That smile. ‘Specially if you’re heading the same way.’

Made her blush, the intensity of his stare that yet was not sexual. Or not so it made her feel uneasy.

One time Rocky took her to this old house near, he pointed out, one of Sydney’s best hotels, The Observatory up the top of Argyle Street. ‘That joint costs six to eight hundred a night. And that’s not the suite. Penthouse is several grand a night. One day I’m gonna stay in there,’ Rocky said. Lu hoping he’d add she was invited.

The house was assigned for demolition, he said. A sweltering day it was; thirty-seven degrees, the register down by the harbour read.

‘Come on. Take a look.’

She sure he meant he was going take a look at her, at her private part down there, followed by take a look at this, as if a woman, a girl, is at every breathing moment waiting to receive another swollen cock forcing its way to where it was never invited — never.

So she hesitated as he yanked off the boarding across the back door — seriously strong he was, anyone could see that, yet so kind, normally. Now about to show his true self. Lu steeling inside for the worst, and soon another male friend off her birthday invite list.

‘Don’t ya trust me?’ That smile again. Going in after him but waiting for the move, for his fingers, his tongue to start probing. For the snake to pop its hungry head out of his jeans and fuckin’ spoil everything.

Instead he led her into the cool of an era and world long gone, of
gathered grime and dark material that could be coal dust, piled up in corners of revealed wall framing where she could hear the voices from the past, of the original inhabitants who must have spoken with kind of classy English accents and had lots of money. In this room he said had been the kitchen because of the three chimney outlets of blackened brick, and those metal clips were for attaching, he said, pots along a steel rod.

He took her to a far wall. ‘Take a look at this, Lu.’

At old newspapers glued to boarding, with articles of events from 1897, 1903, ancient times, faded photographs of olden-day tractors with big steel wheels, ads for mustard in a tin, custard powder being good for baby, baking products featuring a granny or a real
straight-looking
housewife who looked like no woman Luana had ever seen. Wallpapering that told tales of floods and lives lost to drowning, a young man’s suicide — his name was Theodore Ball-something, part of the name gone forever, like him, aged nineteen, poor bugger. There was murder on record, court cases, from urinating in a public place to associating with known criminals, chopping off a wife’s head, rape; a lot of violence against women, she noticed.

Into a smaller room next door. Rocky had figured out this was a later addition to the house, with newspapers showing the building of Sydney Harbour Bridge in the 1930s. Looked so weird in the different stages of construction: something you thought had always been there, not built by mere worker men’s hands and overseers’ brains to some grand plan.

‘Wow,’ she said, and some of that relief because the inevitable was not coming. Rocky had no plans to touch her. She felt her distrust melting away in the reduced summer heat in there.

‘Pretty cool, eh?’ Like proudly showing her his school project. Faded black-and-white photographic history with smudges and stains and rips and tears but mostly in its original state, insects crawling over it and always the summer flies, debris scattered everywhere.

‘Look at these old ceilings.’

She looked up, half expecting a hand to go there, up her skirt, just when she trusted him. But nothing happened. Just Rocky’s finger pointed at the ornate plastering, the fancy patterned ceilings,
the whirls and spiral design round where the centre light had hung. Lu could picture the grand balls they had had in here, the women all dressed up, the men a bit stuffy and formal but it would have been some experience.

Rocky’s finger pointed at parts where the wall lining was gone. ‘Hardwood framing like it’s put in recently. Been in an enclosed space, ya see. For over a hundred-fifty years.’

A girl starting to wonder if she hadn’t been in her own enclosed space, the things she was learning from this dude. Not remotely like the Rocky of first impressions. Not once did he try anything and nor did he say mean things like retard, reject, or ask if she was a Molly no-mates. Just took her for what she was, a cheerful sort no matter the private shit going down, which must show, she was certain.

Read the old newspaper wall coverings like a keen student back at Vaucluse High School — of all the places, because the law said it was the right of every kid to have a full education and exclusive Vaucluse was the nearest high school to inner-city Woolloomooloo. Back when she believed there might be a chance to change who and what she was, and if not put the shit behind her then at least have another focus; a positive one, not always having to be in self-protect mode, even with nothing left to protect.

Being around kids who thought and behaved differently to your own rough and ready lot was never going to be a smooth ride. Every Woollo kid saw the hatred and contempt on the rich kids’ faces, the sneered comments they were housing estate kids, renters, the children of welfare bludgers, and for the first time the notion that it was shameful to be working class when she’d grown up understanding it was more shameful not to be working. Took a while for it to sink in. Who told them this shit?

The old wool stores down behind The Rocks area, that strangely appealing smell Rocky told her was lanolin, being sheep wool scents; and odours of the countryside she’d never visited, of the bush meant to be part of every Australian, the farms she’d only seen photos of, television documentaries, showing grizzled farmers swatting away a constant attack of flies, with gum trees, dogs panting in the blinding
heat. They called it the Big Dry. As if it had known anything else. In one doco a suggestion that this man, this type, and this parched, harsh land was in every Australian’s soul — even a girl grown up in inner-city Woollo getting fucked by her uncle. And it kind of felt like it really was part of her too. Like being told she belonged. The somewhat comforting notion that if all else failed then at least your country loved you.

They would often hang out at Pyrmont fish market, Rocky and Lu, get fresh prawns and scoff them down by the old wooden bridge or watch the fishermen unload their boats, mend nets, away from where the tourists and employed people ate at tables, some with a bottle of wine, a beer. Rocky always had money enough, just he didn’t drink alcohol much, not like most men she knew. Lu not big on booze either, she guessed in reaction to her father making it his life.

She was coming to see the tousle-haired young man as a brother, but even more because she didn’t feel any empathy with her born brothers, who her sister Monica said were going to be gangsters. Lu thought thugs more like it, too dumb and hopelessly disorganised to be gangsters. Rocky was like the ideal brother. Jay, a good mate, got the shits with Lu at forgetting about him, but once he met Rocky they became something of a regular trio.

Jay could talk, ’cause when Dayshana came along and grabbed Jay’s heart in her hot little hand he didn’t want to know Lu. Fair enough, Daysh was a little live wire and soon became part of the tight group, but still a bitch as Lu had a crush on Jay.

Rocky told Lu that Daysh was nowhere as nice looking as she was, but Jay sure thought so and Rocky was just being kind. Her nice looking let alone compared to Dayshana? No way.

Then Daysh died, suddenly. Car crash. The driver lived and he admitted in court Dayshana had objected to his speeding. He got a suspended prison sentence, but only because the crash had him permanently confined to a wheelchair. Jay said he would have put him in one if the crash hadn’t. Man, was Jay shattered. Lu had mixed feelings.

Months later and Lu accepting Jay unlikely to see how much she liked him, another big jolt. Rocky had ‘a matter to deal with, might take
me out of circ for a bit. Just read the papers. Look for the name Brian O’Connor.’

Same Brian O’Connor who got three years’ jail, Long Bay Prison they presumed, for raping a twelve-year-old boy. Same Brian O’Connor sexo who Rocky went and beat up. Judge had given him a lecture about no one with the right to take the law in his own hands. Rocky was written up in the paper as asking, ‘So why didn’t the law protect the kid? Why isn’t the bloke standing here in the dock with me?’ Judge said if he had ‘further emotive outburst’ he’d be held in contempt.

‘Men and their cocks,’ Lu lamented for their pal going down. ‘What is it with blokes the thing has to intrude and violate like it does? And what about what Rocky said to the judge — where’s the real culprit?’

Jay said, ‘Ain’t none of us tried it on with you.’

‘Didn’t mean you or any of my male mates. Just saying how unfair it all is.’

‘Boohoo. Look around you,’ Jay said, ‘then start telling me about real culprits and shit.’ A cynic at twenty.

Jay, like Rocky, was a gentleman as far as his cock went. Least with Lu he was, though other issues had him go a bit wild at times: wouldn’t listen to no one but Rocky, would put a brick through a shop or house window for no reason, steal cash or anything that could be converted to cash, carried a knife to pull on anyone who threatened, lived free with no thought for the future, like kangaroos in the great outback on TV docos she liked to watch — if she happened to be channel cruising. And usually they stirred her up full of questions. Pity the answers were on the short side.

Mostly over it though she was, Lu wouldn’t have minded if Jay had a crack at her; she thought him a most handsome boy, quite tall, hair like Brad Pitt’s, same sultry eyes almost as the star, if he only had the confidence in himself like Rocky did, except Rocky didn’t have the looks. Funny that, how life balanced sometimes.