Wrath (10 page)

I started hanging out with my friends a lot more after school and on the weekends, and at night, I ate my tea as quickly as I could and then left the table, saying I had homework. I didn't, of course, but Mum never objected, and a few minutes later, I could hear her and Katy laughing away as though I somehow freed things up for them by leaving.

I pretty much did what I'm doing now, in a way, although in here, order is imposed on me; back then, I imposed it on myself—I made sure I filled every minute. The good bit was, I suppose, that all my grades improved. I'd always been okay at school, but after Dad left, in my room each night, I went over everything and even read ahead in my books so that when we came to that stuff in class, I already knew it.

Mr Squires asked me to stay back for a few minutes one day, and he said, “You're going great guns, Luca. Well done.” I'd shrugged, embarrassed, and he'd put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up, surprised.

“Look, it may not be none of my business, but I've heard that your mum and dad have split up. Usually, your schoolwork tends to go down the toilet when there're problems at home, but you've done the opposite.”

I couldn't look at him, and I did the old ‘bite the inside of the cheek' trick to keep from losing it.

“My parents split up when I was about your age. It was horrible. Before that, though, there'd been fights all the time. I couldn't wait to get to school to get away from home for a few hours. The first time I got into trouble at school for not doing my homework, though—something that never used to worry me at all—I knew I couldn't stand to have hassle at school as well as at home. I had to have some place I could feel good. So I started working hard. School became a bit of a haven for me. Maybe that's what's happening for you too.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Nothing like turning a negative into a positive.”

“Thanks, sir. I guess that's what I've been doing. I just don't want to sit in my room after tea with nothing to do, so I read my school books.”

“That's great, Luca, but maybe a bit of variety wouldn't go astray. Look, I've got a load of books here. Do you want to grab a few?”

“I've never really got into reading that much. I wouldn't know what's good or bad.”

“How about I pick a couple I think you might like, and we see what you think?”

I nodded, and he strode over to the bookcase, frowning in concentration as he scanned the shelves. I wished I had long legs like that. It'd be great to be tall. I looked down at my legs—solid enough but short. I looked again a bit closer. Hair was sprouting down by my shins! Why hadn't I noticed it before?

Mr Squires turned back to me with three books in his hands and dropped them on the desk beside us.

“This one's an oldie but a goody,
Tom Sawyer
, and here's a light one by Paul Jennings. You might get a laugh out of it. The last one is
Lockie Leonard
. A West Australian wrote that one. Give it a go.”

I leant towards him and smelt his after-shave or deodorant or something. It smelt good—not like Dad but still a bit blokey without smelling like a change room. “See you tomorrow, sir,” I waved.

“Luca.” His voice was sharp. I stopped and looked at him. “Believe it or not, it eventually gets better. It seems to take forever, but it does get there. The worst is probably over.”

Good old Mr Squires. Well, not old, but anyway. The books were great, and I liked them all. They started me reading—he was right about that—but as for the worst being over, man, it hadn't even started.

School, and life, went on just the same till at last Grade Seven was finished and Katy and I were ready for high school. My life had settled into what felt like a holding pattern, but apart from the times Ray Reid was there—which was about three nights a week—things were okay. The hair on my legs kept sprouting, and I was quite proud of it. It made my legs look bigger and more muscular. I'd never make a great runner—my legs were too short—but I was getting faster and ran a bit further every morning.

Katy had changed too. She looked older than I did, especially when she got dressed up and Mum let her put on some lipstick. She couldn't wait to get to high school.

“Just think, Luca, we're used to about40 kids in the whole school, and there are nearly 400 at Geraldton.”

I have to say I was a bit excited too. It felt like a big step, as though I was actually starting to grow up. I was starting to think Mr Squires might have been right after all, but then something happened that pulled me right back down to earth again.

It was Gary's birthday, and I was at his place for the night along with the boys in our class. We were lying around on sleeping bags in his old shed, and we had pizzas and cool drinks and a stack of DVDs. We'd already watched two, but they were pretty stupid.

“Have you got
The Hunger Games
?” I asked.

“Nah,” said Gary, squinting at me with his good eye. “Wish I did.”

“I've got it,” I said. “I'll nick home and grab it.” I was already halfway out the door. Katy wasn't home that night either—she'd gone over to stay at her friend's place—but Mum would be able to let me in. I jogged slower as I got close to home.
Bugger, she must be out.
There were no lights on anywhere, but Reid's car was in the drive. They must be there unless they'd gone out somewhere close—maybe to Mrs Brockman's.

I walked up the side of the house in the darkness and tried the back door. Yahoo! It wasn't locked, so I opened it, ducked into my room and grabbed the DVD.

As I was feeling my way out the back door again after I'd flicked off the light, I froze. Mum's laugh came high and clear from her room. A man's laugh, low and gruff, chimed in with hers. There was no light under the door. His laugh. Mum's room. Within a heartbeat, it was all clear. I wasn't stupid. I knew what was going on.

I moved as quietly as I could, and once I was safely outside, I leant against the back wall and slid down till I was sitting on the ground. My heart was hammering, my thoughts were whirling around and my stomach was churning.

As I calmed down, one part of my brain was telling me,
Well, what did you expect? Dad's gone, Ray Reid's here all the time, they go out every weekend, and they like each other—so what?
and while I knew this was all very sensible, that thought was soon pushed away by a rage of disgust that had no words at all.

I got to my feet and walked slowly to Gary's. Surprised, the boys swivelled their heads and looked at me as I came through the shed door.

“Jeez, Luca, where've you been? We thought you must have decided to stop home or you got into trouble with your mum or something.”

“No, I just took ages to find the DVD. Let's watch it now.”

They all chorused agreement, and I handed the disc to Gary. A few boys wriggled over, and I settled down amongst the chip wrappers, the empty cans and the smell of pizza to watch the movie. I don't think I saw any of it. I was too busy with my own sickening movie running through my head.

Ray Reid was still there when I got home in the late morning the next day. He was stretched out on the veranda in Dad's cane chair with his big, bare feet on a stool. Mum was near him, and they were drinking coffee as they read bits of the Sunday paper. Mum looked up as I came through the gate. “Good party, love?”

I nodded curtly and kept walking towards the door to go inside, but her voice stopped me.

“Luca, could you just come and sit here for a minute, please?”

I frowned, dropped my bag loudly on the step and sat down on the edge of the veranda. As I did, Katy came wandering around from the back yard, munching an apple. Mum turned.

“Katy. Good. Sit down for a sec.”

Katy finished the apple, even the core, leaving just the woody bit at the top like I always did, flicked it into a bush, plonked down beside me and leant back on the veranda post.

“What's up, Mum?” she said, licking her fingers.

“Nothing's up,” Mum said, glancing sideways across to Reid. “Well, nothing's wrong anyway. In fact, everything's great.”

Could have fooled me, Mother dear
, I felt like saying, but I sat there silently.

Looking all pink and smiley, Mum said, “Ray's asked me to marry him, and I've said yes.”

There was a silence. No, that word doesn't explain what there was. I could hear a crow way off, doing his five-call cry.
Why is it nearly always five?
I thought, and I remember following this thought almost excitedly. Had I cracked some secret bird code of communication?

Katy pushed her foot slowly against mine. I flicked my eyes across at her, and she widened hers at me. She was as stunned as I was.

“What do you think?” Mum said, her voice urgent and breathy. We both turned to her, and Katy slid her foot away from me. Reid was looking at us both too (me mostly) with a crease of—anger? concern? smugness?—on his forehead.

“Aren't you still married to Dad?” I croaked.

Mum shifted in the chair and licked her lips. “The divorce came through last week. That's what we were both waiting for.”

Waiting for
. Like you wait for the Royal Show or your birthday or a holiday. Waiting to finally wipe off Dad. I got to my feet awkwardly. “Does that mean you'll be here all the time? You'll live here?”

“We'll live in Geraldton,” said Reid. “That's where I work, and that's where high school is for you two. Plus,” he said, reaching his hand across to Mum's knee, “that's where your mum wants to live too. There's nothing keeping us here.”

Katy piped up. “I love Geraldton. Luca, we'll be able to go to the beach every day after school.”

I turned to her, shocked at the traitor she had become. “This is our home, Katy,” I said, hating the wobble in my voice. “All our friends are here. This is where we've always lived.”

Mum broke in with a note of irritation in her voice. “All your friends will be going to school there, Luca. There's no high school here! You'll see them every day.”

I looked down at my hands, surprised to see them trembling.

Katy got up. “Gee, are you going to have a big wedding?” She sounded excited. It made me sick.

Reid laughed and said, “That's up to your mum, but I don't think so. Just us and a few friends. My sister, of course, and a few people from work.”

“Would you like to be my bridesmaid?” I heard Mum say.

Katy gasped. “Oh, Mum, that would be great!” She jumped up and hugged Mum, and then, in front of me, she kind of skipped across and hugged Reid! I saw his freckly arms go around Katy, and I knew it was done. Once we moved from here, it would be as though Dad and our old life had never existed.

Anger surged through me at Dad.
Why did you go so easily? Why didn't you sell the house and move us all away from that toad? Mum would have been fine. She just got unhappy that you were away all the time and you were so cranky and tired when you were here.
I started imagining what it could have been like—the four of us, maybe in Geraldton. Dad could have gotten a job there, and everything would have been like before. We would have been our old four-wheeled machine again.

But even as the pictures formed in my mind, I could hear Katy and Mum laughing and Ray's voice chiming in, and I realised there was a new machine now. I just wasn't part of it.

I came home from school a few days later, and a ‘For Sale' sign had been hammered onto the fence. I wondered whether Dad would get any money when the house was sold. I supposed he wouldn't, but then if he cared about the house, he wouldn't have walked out of it so easily.

Katy was sitting on the edge of the veranda, swinging her legs and soaking up the sun. She had both arms stretched behind her like props, and her face was turned up to the sun. She was smiling a little and singing some tuneless little song. She looked so relaxed and happy that she made me feel good just looking at her.

“Howdy,” she grinned, her eyes still closed.

“How did you know it was me? It could have been a murderer or a dog.”

“I could say I smelt you,” she giggled, “but I just know the way you walk. We're going to Geraldton tomorrow.”

“What for?”

She opened her eyes and shot a look at me. “Mum and Ray have seen a house they like, and they want to show it to us to see what we think.”

I laughed, a short, derisive blast of contempt. “Yeah, like they really give a crap what we care.”

She pushed herself up till she was looking straight at me. Funny how much she was starting to look like Mum. “Give it a rest, Luca. It's gonna happen, and it'll be heaps better than here. We won't have to catch a bus every day, there's more to do in Geraldton, and we'll have a nicer house than this old dump.”

“I like this house,” I said, staring back at her just as hard as she was glaring at me. “It's our home.”

“Well, not for much longer,” she sniffed, sliding down off the veranda. “Besides, it was never Ray's house. It's natural that he wants to live in his own place with his own wife.”

“Not his own wife!” I yelled as she turned away from me. “He didn't have ‘his own wife'; he came and took Dad's.”

She turned and looked at me but kept walking away. “Sing another song, Luca. That one's boring.”

Furious, I ran at her retreating back and shoved her as hard as I could. She sprawled face down into the gravel and lay there. The only sound in that horrible silence was my harsh breathing, and then she pushed herself up, brushed off the bits of gravel sticking into her hands and legs, and turned to look at me. Her nose was bleeding, and blood was trickling from both knees. I couldn't move; I'd never done anything like that before to anyone, let alone to her. We stared at each other, and then I heard the wire door bang.