Wrath (6 page)

She'd send us kids outside ‘to play', and they'd huddle together over cups of tea and biscuits and lower their voices and talk about… what? I wondered.

We were eleven now and really a bit past the ‘to play' thing. Mucking around in the dirt with toy trucks didn't really cut it anymore, and though Katy and I still talked about things and felt good when we were around each other, something had changed a bit. I knew she loved it that she had Mum to herself now and she felt a bit guilty about that because she knew I didn't have Dad, but I also knew that her girlfriends were her main focus now.

We'd go outside sometimes and maybe walk down the road and talk a bit, but before long she'd say, “I might just nick over to Amy's and see if she's home. What are you going to do?”

“I'm fine,” I'd say. “I'll find a few of the kids and kick the footy around for a while.”

“Okay, good. See ya.” And she'd be off, her hair bouncing up and down on her shoulders. She'd changed. Even the old chubby, round little body was changing. I saw, as she walked away from me, that her legs were longer and she was thinner around the middle, and I couldn't help noticing when she wore a T-shirt that she was growing tiny boobs. God, that was weird. Then she'd turn around and grin, calling to me, “Let's go for a swim later, Luca.”

I'd answer, “Sure,” feeling happy for some reason. No matter how different she was starting to look, she was still my old Katy. I'd jog up to the oval behind the school. There was always someone hanging around up there to muck around with.

A few months later, I came home from school and plonked down on the edge of the veranda to pull my muddy shoes off. Mum was pretty fussy about that new carpet of hers, and she seemed to get angry easily lately. I knocked the worst of the mud onto the ground, rubbed the rest off with an old towel kept on a nail for that purpose, dropped the shoes into the shoebox and pulled my clean runners on. I was in no hurry to go inside because I could hear Mrs Brockman's voice braying away inside. I leant back against the veranda post and closed my eyes. I felt pretty good. We had a new teacher who seemed to like me, and he was great.

Today, he'd said, “Right, everyone, gather around and I'll read you a story.”

We'd groaned a bit—quietly, because we weren't too sure what the teacher's limits were yet—and Glen Jacobs had said, “We're Grade Six, sir, not little kids.”

“And this is no story for little kids. It's got murder, blood, executions, witchcraft and war.” He had us now. “Get comfortable.”

We'd dived onto a pile of old beanbags in the corner, he'd pulled a beanbag out in front of us and we'd all wriggled down, and then he'd opened a book.

“The story I'm going to read you happened a long while ago in Scotland. I'll fill you in with bits of it and read other bits. The language is from those times, so it's a bit different to that of today, but you can handle it; you're bright kids.”

We'd all felt the same, I think, when he said that: embarrassed but pleased, so pleased that we were having trouble keeping the grins off our faces. Old Mr Evans had only ever growled at us and told us how stupid we were.

“Well,” the new teacher began, “there'd been a war, and three men were riding back across the cold, misty moors of Scotland. One was named Macbeth…” and he'd read on all afternoon, reading bits from the book and then explaining any puzzling words. It was cold outside that day, just like on that Scottish moor, and we'd sat there, leaning comfortably against one another, pulled into the spell those strange, magic words were weaving.

Three o'clock arrived, but no one moved a muscle. The new teacher stopped and raised an eyebrow, and we'd all urged indignantly, “Go on, sir. Doesn't matter about the time. You can't stop there.”

He'd laughed, clearly delighted with our response.

“Great place to leave it! What I want you to do tonight… Let's see—whatever takes your fancy. Either draw a picture of the witches around the cauldron, making sure you include as many of the ingredients as you can remember, or if you'd rather write than draw, you can write about how you think this may end. I promise if you all do your homework, we'll read some more tomorrow.”

We'd rolled clumsily out of our cocoon of beanbags and run out the door, shouting, “Thanks, sir,” and, “See you tomorrow, sir!”

“Make sure you do your homework, Bevan,” my friend Martin said to the slackest person in the class as we shoved through the door.

“No worries,” he'd said, “I love drawing. Fancy not having to write a whole lot of crap for homework.” And that was the best thing really: that a teacher had actually given us a choice, had actually realised that we too liked a bit of power in our lives.

I was half-drowsing there, on the veranda, with the drone of the women's voices lulling me almost to sleep, when suddenly I jerked wide-awake. I'd heard a man's laughter in the kitchen, and it wasn't Dad's. I pushed open the wire door, and the voices stopped. They were all looking at me when I came into the kitchen: Mum, looking so pretty and flushed from laughing; Mrs Brockman, her red slash of a mouth wide open and dotted with crumbs of Nice biscuits caught in the fine hairs around her lips; and a man with gingery-coloured hair and ruddy skin. That's all I took in before Mum said, “Ah, here he is. Luca, this is Mr Reid, Mrs Brockman's brother. Say hello.”

There was something about the way she said it, the way she was speaking to me but looking at him, the way she had her hand resting on his shoulder—I disliked him on sight. He'd smiled confidently at me, touching my mother's hand as he stood up and moved around the table, his hand outstretched to pat me on the shoulder or shake my hand, I don't know, but I flinched away. Having done it, I couldn't undo it, so I stood, hardly breathing at my action. I felt rather than saw that he had not moved at all, frozen in that confident move forward, sure that I would allow myself to be touched by him.

I turned and looked him full in the face. His mouth was pulled back into a half-smile now, his large white teeth bare, his green eyes bland and cold. I heard a sharp intake of air from my mother, and I knew I had embarrassed her. A pang went through me, not simply because I had hurt her in some way but because I knew something had changed. But what?

“Luca, what's wrong with you? How can you be so rude?” Mum blurted out. “Go to your room and see if you can find your manners.”

I hurried from the kitchen and closed my bedroom door but not before hearing Mrs Brockman's voice.

“Don't worry about it, Sylvie. It's just his age. They can be rude little buggers, and it'll probably get worse before it gets better.”

“But he's never like that,” my mother broke in, her voice a little shaky.

“Don't worry about it. He'll be right as rain tomorrow.”

Don't bet on it,
I thought and closed my door.

That night, as we sat down for tea, Mum was still angry with me, but she didn't refer to what happened. Instead, she started chattering away.

“Mr Reid has come from Sydney. Mrs Brockman told him one of the new businesses in Geraldton was looking for staff, so he decided to move across here to be nearer to her now she's on her own.”

Katy looked up from munching her chop. “Is he a mechanic like Dad?”

Mum's eyes flicked away. “No, he's an accountant. He's a professional.”

“Isn't Dad a professional?” Katy mused, more interested in getting the last bit of meat from the bone.

“No,” Mum said slowly, “Dad's a mechanic. He works with his hands, like a tradesman. A professional person usually works in an office and has a qualification from a university, a degree. He works with his head more than his hands.”

I felt somehow that Mum was saying Mr Reid was cleverer than Dad just because he was in an office. “How about a doctor?” I piped up. “He's gone to university, but he wouldn't be much good if he couldn't work with his hands, would he? How could he set a broken bone or operate on someone?” I felt pleased with myself.

Mum sighed. “Yes, you're right, Luca. Anyway, you can ask him about the difference tonight. They're both coming over for tea.”

Katy and I both groaned. Mum slapped her hand on the table.

“That's enough! I treat your friends well whenever they come over. Do the same to mine. You forget that I get very lonely.”

“But Dad comes home when he can!” I protested. Mum regarded me coolly but said nothing.

Katy dropped her bone on the plate and said, “That was yum, Mum. What's for sweets?”

The moment was over. I wanted to say more, but I didn't really know what I was trying to say. We ate our tinned fruit and ice-cream, Katy chattering on about some birthday party she was going to on the weekend and Mum promising to take her to town and buy a new dress for her. I cleaned my plate and went to my room.

*

Ray Reid was a frequent visitor at our place now. Mrs Brockman didn't always come, but one Friday night, Mum said, “You two are old enough to be on your own for a few hours. I'm going out tonight with Mrs Brockman and Ray.”

“Where to, Mum?” Katy asked.

“Just out for a few drinks and a meal. I won't be late. Just stay here. If there's any big problem, go and call Mr Woolhouse next door or just ring my mobile. I've bought pizza for your tea.”

Those Friday nights became a regular thing. Mum would dress herself up, looking and smelling beautiful. She had this one dress Dad loved. It was black and fitted her tight—that's all I remember—but the first time I saw her go down the drive with Ray Reid, wearing that dress, all I could see was his big, freckled hand stretched out across her back. Mum, you were so happy.

Katy didn't seem to worry. She mostly got on Facebook on those nights, and I would read a bit or do some homework to take my mind off the waiting, always waiting for Dad to come home.

That life seems so long ago. Here, life has freed up for me a fair bit. After sport on Saturdays, we have lunch in the afternoon, we clean our rooms and wash our clothes, and then we can go to the common room, or rec room as most people call it. There are chess sets, scrabble boards and computers to use, and the first day I wander in with the group, and Archie comes over to me.

“How's it hangin', Luca? Come to the gym?”

I hesitate for a moment because I know that, next to Archie, I am a runt. Still, I nod and follow him through a door off the main room. There are weights, treadmills and some gymnastic equipment in there—quite a lot, really. There are three guards in there, which is more than I'm used to seeing in a small area, but they're pretty relaxed and stand chatting and lounging about, throwing a medicine ball to one another every now and then.

“Been in a gym before?” Archie asks. He's raising himself on a chin-up bar, his muscles taut across his stomach and his arms hinging powerfully up and down like it's easy.

“Not like this,” I say.

He swings his body forward, letting go of the bar and landing lightly by my side. “Well, let's give you a few things to do. Build up your arms, strengthen your back and shoulders, toughen up your gut,” he laughs, punching me lightly in the belly.

Fifteen minutes later, I have a piece of cardboard ripped from the back of an exercise book in the pocket of my track pants. On it, Archie has written me a program—so many lats, overhead curls, whatever. I go through it, watching furtively to see how the others do them. My muscles burn, but it feels good to punish my body, make it hurt. Even though some part of me has died because of what I've done, my body is alive. I would push it till it hurt, make it strong. My body would be a wall, a fortress that no one could get inside. The vision of those filed teeth ringed by that bloody, grinning mouth pulses through my mind. No one.

That night, we have pizza and a DVD! I can't believe it! I had imagined that being kept in my room for most of the day would be how life was in a juvenile detention centre. I sit on a plastic chair, munching on my slab of pizza and waiting for the movie to start, and I say to Archie, “Is this how every Saturday night is?”

He looks at me, pausing mid-munch. “Yeah, pretty much. Sometimes weekends are crap because there isn't enough staff on. Maybe on holiday or sick or something, so if the numbers aren't there, they keep us locked up, no sport or anything. It sucks, but mostly it's like this. Sometimes there's some sort of group that comes and puts on a play or sings or something, but not often.”

“Bloody hell! Not bad for prison.”

He laughs at me, throwing his head back. “You dummy! Did you think this was Alcatraz or something? We're all juveniles here. They treat us pretty good. I guess they think we're still young enough to change.”

He munches silently for a few minutes, and I look around the room. Boys are licking fingers, burping and laughing, their chatter good-natured. It could have been any canteen in any high school. Weren't we here to be punished?

As though he has read my thoughts, Archie says, “It's not like this is meant to be a terrible punishment; it's more like retraining. As though we'd ‘gone off the rails', as Mr Khan says, and needed to be guided back on them.”

“That Brown kid would take a bit of guiding,” I mutter, finishing the last bit of pizza. “He's an evil bastard. Why did he rip that kid's ear off?”

“Felt like it, maybe. Jimmy probably got the ball off him or bumped into him. Who knows?”

We're silent for a minute. “I hope he never tackles me,” Archie says, more to himself than me.

“You could take him,” I say quickly. “He's heavier than you, but you're quick and fit.”

He shakes his head. “I dunno. The thing is I don't really like hurting people. He loves it. That's what makes the winner, I think. It's not how big you are as much as how willing you are to hurt the other guy.”