‘Has he been okay to you? Can’t see any bruises.’
‘Oh, he says things, that’s all. Just words.’
‘Water off a duck’s back, eh?’
‘Yeah, I can handle it,’ said Janey, averting her eyes.
Chloe leaned across the table and stared at her.
‘I know. It’s bad,’ Janey finally admitted. ‘It is. If I could meet you here sometimes … ?’
Chloe pressed her lips together, but the words burst through them. ‘You dip, that was supposed to be your place!’
‘I know. I know. I know. I know. I’m sorr— It just hasn’t worked out that way, okay?’
‘It’s not a matter of working out. Just tell the little gnome to shove off!’ Chloe watched Janey on the pin for a moment, those slow, helpless limbs moving, suffering. ‘Okay. I’ll be here same time, same place, every day—except Wednesday; I’ve got a fitting then. I’ll bring a book, in case it’s hard for you to get away. And don’t tell Bonzo it’s me you’re coming out to see.’ Janey looked up, the gratitude in her eyes ready to spill out of her mouth. ‘And don’t say anything!’
Walking home with sadness all through her as if her blood was aching, Chloe found herself walking a block behind Isaac. She recognised the calf-length coat, solid black with never a hair or speck of lint on it (What a lovely coat! she remembered Joy saying. Look at that lining—teal, I’d say that colour was), and the scarf, a black and emerald tartan with a single red cross-thread. Lucky, clean, steady, tasteful Isaac with his mission in life. In the pale winter sunlight, he skirted the scrabbled callistemons crowding the footpath, and probably didn’t feel the least cramp of his heart in his chest, the least twinge of the poignancy of … of it all—of this scene with himself in it and Chloe following unnoticed behind, of the bigger things, the thoughts and fears that pressed on her out of this apparent peacefulness.
‘Ee oop.’ She was at the gate as he lifted his hand to the doorknocker.
‘Oh, hullo.’ He stood back while she unlocked the door.
In the past Chloe had sometimes disobeyed the unspoken rules between herself and Isaac, just to disquiet him. Like meeting his eyes for more than the barest polite second. Like standing just slightly closer to him than he was comfortable with. Now she stood aside from the door and he passed her with a distracted half-smile and went up the stairs two at a time. She heard him say ‘Howdy’ at Nick’s door. ‘Brought you back those books …’
She leaned against the door, and could have cried. Walking away from Janey (and away from Bass, of course), Isaac walking away from her—she was hit by the loneliness of it all of a sudden, by the solitude of her own figure in the street, in her house. Everyone else’s lives seemed so populated and busy, Mum’s and Dad’s at work and socially, Pete’s at school, Nick’s with Isaac and everyone they knew at uni. Hers had only Janey, and Janey took up all the room in it and more when she was there, but she left a whole lot empty when she wasn’t.
A loud knock on the front door startled Chloe as she was coming downstairs for tea. When she opened the door, Janey’s brother Nathan leaned there, one broad shoulder against the frame. He had grown. He had muscles; he’d never had muscles before. Chloe kept her eyes on his face, but she could see them lower down, on display in the tight windcheater with the sleeves torn off.
He was chewing. He chewed at Chloe. ‘Shitface here?’
Something ground to a halt inside her. ‘Beg your pardon?’
‘My sister, bitch. She here?’
‘No. She’s not.’
He stopped her closing the door with his boot toe. He sniggered and chewed. ‘I’d tell you to get fucked, ’cept I know no one’d ’ave ya. Frigid bitch.’
Chloe pulled the door open and kicked him hard on the shin with a Blundstone. He snatched his leg back, swearing. She slammed the door and he started to kick it. She hopped back onto the bottom stair. The door shuddered—she was sure it wouldn’t hold. Joy came hurrying from the kitchen. ‘For heaven’s sake, who is it?’
‘Nathan. Don’t open—!’ Chloe’s hands flew to her face.
Joy opened the door. Nathan froze with a leg raised. ‘What seems to be the problem, Nathan?’
He lowered his boot. ‘Nothin’. Lookin’ for my sister.’
Joy examined the kick-marks on the door. ‘No you’re not. You’re damaging my property. Not to mention threatening my daughter.’
Nathan shrugged and began to turn away. Chloe marvelled at her mother’s power.
‘Janey’s not here,’ Joy went on. ‘If she hasn’t said where she is, she obviously doesn’t want to see you, so just get off her case. Go and get on with your own life.’
Nathan looked back at Joy with dislike before she closed the door again. They listened for his footsteps on the front path. ‘What a goon,’ murmured Joy. ‘Poor girl hasn’t got much of a chance with that following her around.’
‘You should see this girlfriend he’s got,’ said Nick. ‘Phwoar!’
He and Chloe and Dane were making pizza. Dane dug in the fridge for ingredients. ‘Bit of all right, is she?’
Nick appeared not to know where to start. Chloe, slicing salami thinly, waited for him to speak, but he continued to grate mozzarella.
‘How’d they get together?’ she said finally.
‘Oh, some Bellevue Hill bash. Parents all in attendance, throwing the young people into each other’s arms, totting up the inheritances.’
‘Oh, so she comes with a good big herd of cattle?’ The sourness of Chloe’s voice surprised her, as did the faintly de-stabilised feeling.
‘Prestige cars,’ said Nick. ‘Her father’s an importer.’
‘So’s he madly in love? Isaac, I mean,’ said Chloe.
Nick stuck out his bottom lip. ‘Dunno. He’s the kind of guy keeps it all under his hat, that kind of thing. He’s not stupid about her. God, I’d be.’
Dane let a capsicum, a paper bag of mushrooms and some tomatoes spill from his arms onto the bench-top. ‘Yeah, but you’re stupid about most girls, briefly.’ He grinned at Chloe; after a second she realised she was supposed to smile back, and did.
‘Will he bring her on Sunday, d’you think?’
‘Yeah, so we can all have a good perve,’ said Dane.
‘Or would we be too lower-middle for her?’ Chloe said, and then shut her mouth determinedly.
‘He might, I guess. Her name’s Rachel. Nice name, isn’t it?’
Dane looked at him wide-eyed. ‘Think I’d better warn him to leave Rachel at home, if he wants to keep her.’
Nick grinned without looking up from the grating. Chloe thought they were both disgusting.
On Saturday Janey didn’t turn up at El Bahsa’s, so Chloe went to fetch her.
She heard the television yammering a football game as she rounded the back corner of the house, and the kind of loud honking boys did together, trying to impress each other with sheer noise and profanity. The noise stopped her, and she stood in the yard assessing how many of them were in there, and listening for Janey’s voice.
The potato woman came out of the laundry with her endless basket of washing. She nodded at Chloe. ‘Been a bit of a party in there.’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Going all night, that nonsense was. I’ve had to throw my weight around a bit.’
‘I’m sorry about that. Janey gets a bit crazy sometimes.’
The woman looked wry, lugging the laundry down the steps as if it were an enormous child. ‘Doesn’t bother me. I’m up all night anyway—I’m not the sleeping type. Some of the others get a bit narked, though. You might tell her.’
A cheer went up in Janey’s room, part televised, part real. Chloe groaned inwardly, then squared her shoulders and opened the door without knocking. No one turned. Chloe waded through them to the television, pulled the plug from the wall, turned to face their roar. One of the bigger ones staggered upright and bleared at her, shouting. She clapped him on one meaty shoulder.
‘You want to
be here when her dad gets here? Fine. You don’t? Clear out.’ Chloe began to tidy up pizza boxes and drink cans.
‘Her old man’s comin’!’ The mob galvanised itself and began to funnel out the door. ‘Let’s hit Rizzetti’s place!’
‘Move it,’ said Chloe to a few stragglers, kicking one awake. ‘If you value your life. You don’t want to get caught here.’
‘Shit,’ the sleeping one said groggily, and crawled away.
Most of Janey was behind the bed, but her head and white shoulders were visible, rocking. Chloe recognised Bass’s voice being forced up from beneath her.
‘Your dad’s on his way, Janey,’ Chloe called out, for Bass’s benefit. Janey went on rocking, eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Her face was slack with exhaustion, white, with spectacular purple rings under the eyes, a patchy rash reddening her jawline and neck. Around the bin at the end of the bed was a litter of torn condom foils.
Chloe tidied as she waited, gathering everything—bin contents, shoes, bottles—into a shiny fresh garbage bag. ‘Come on, Bass. Her dad thinks she’s a virgin. He finds you here, he’ll string you up himself, with one hand. He’s bigger than about five of you put together.’
She was really talking to amuse herself, but Bass began to carry on. ‘Come on, let me up, you mad bitch. Jesus. Come on. I’m all done.’ His voice sounded squashed and desperate.
Chloe smiled, hoving into his view over Janey’s shoulder. ‘Oh, but Bass,’ she purred. ‘It’s polite to let the lady finish, don’t you know?’
‘Fuck off.’ Bass, naked, was no bigger than a ten-year-old, with preternaturally old eyes shining between bed and wall. His body was like some kind of small utensil forking beneath Janey, his white legs splashed with bruises, nervously kicking at Chloe. She bent down and tickled his foot-soles and he flailed and swore. Janey continued to pin him and to move evenly, as if in a trance. Bass was almost crying with rage.
‘Her dad won’t be lo-ong,’ Chloe sang. ‘Five minutes tops. And boy, is he mad.’
She wandered away with her bag to deal with the smaller rubbish, bubble-gum wrappers, olives and pineapple chunks from pizzas, cigarette butts and ashtrays. She took the bag out and put it in one of the wheely-bins, then sat on the veranda breathing the fresher air.
The landlady was hanging out a row of trousers upside down, their flat legs pegged to each other like paper people’s. She looked out over a crotch. ‘What’d you use—tear gas?’
Bass charged out, shirt flying, jeans not done up, clutching his shoes. Chloe smiled sweetly at him. ‘Fear gas,’ she said. He curled his lip at her and ran away around the corner.
Chloe went inside. Janey was a wrapped lump on the bed, her breathing sleep-deep and clear in the carpeted quietness. Her hot-metal odour thickened the air. Chloe opened the French windows and the outside air began to roll in, cold and slow. She re-made the brick-and-plank shelves, stacked the spilt books, took a clean towel to the wet patch behind the bed and stood on it soaking the wet into the dry. Heat rose from the floor, banked up as if in a sun-warmed wall. Chloe leaned down and touched Janey’s rasped cheek, the slightly scaly heat of it. She clicked her tongue. ‘What I do for you, you nong.’
She stood there, moving from foot to foot on the towel, hands in her coat pockets. Her friend’s hair sprayed across the pillow; her friend’s face scowled slightly, pouted in sleep.
‘Yer, I’m hopeless, I know.’
Chloe hit Janey’s arm. ‘Will you stop that? You just need to have somewhere that’s yours, that’s all, where no one else’s got the right to barge in. I mean, how many of those guys are going to come tooling around now, any time they’re feeling itchy?’
‘I know. I wasn’t thinking, was I? I never do.’
‘No, but if you think beforehand, and make rules, so that when you’re not thinking you’re not letting some little dreg do your thinking for you …’
Janey raised her eyes to the traffic. Every few vehicles someone stared at them, or whistled, or shouted. She gave them all the same dogged stare. She was showered and wore make-up; the face-rash had become powdery plateaus that only Chloe was close enough to see. Her eyes were clear and wakeful, the whites clean white; her dreadlocks sprang damp into the cold air. She looked almost skinny, tight-jeaned and in a new black top that showed a semicircle of cleavage from shoulder to shoulder, the skin white and fine-grained, with a small tuck taken in between her breasts.
Chloe sighed. Janey turned to her, and a half-apologetic, half-triumphant smile lit her face and made Chloe feel mean for trying to rein her in, damp her down, control her.
‘I’m hanging out for some caffeine and sugar, mate,’ said Janey’s black-rimmed carmine lips.
‘Proper food first,’ said Chloe, steering her past El Bahsa’s.
‘Aw, don’t be such a mother.’
‘Oh, that’s a term of abuse, now, is it?’
‘Those guys last night were all saying it,’ Janey giggled. ‘To each other, not to me.’
‘I hope you told them where to go.’
‘I didn’t hear ’em until now. It just sank in. “Such a mother,” like it was the worst thing—’
‘That is so off.’
‘Only because you’ve got a brilliant mother. The rest of us, who’re just trying to forget …’
‘Maybe.’ It wasn’t healthy to think about Janey’s mum for too long—about any members of Janey’s family, in fact. Even about Janey, sometimes.
She sat Janey down in a café and made her eat soup and salad and a bread roll. The afternoon sun fired straight down the street, and the gold reflections off every cruising bit of chrome and car trim slid like dance-floor lights around the café walls.
‘Ah, what’d I do without you?’ Janey sighed after the first few mouthfuls.
‘Starve.’
‘Like, I’d never even think of doing this for myself.’
‘I know. You’d have cake and coffee five times a day until you thrushed yourself off the planet.’
Janey chortled. ‘I like that, thrushed yourself.’ Chloe could hear the soup doing Janey good, the cells crying out their thanks.
Two spoonfuls later, Janey sighed again and sat back. ‘What a night,’ she said, stretching, her eyes vaguely stroking through the traffic.
‘I don’t need to know,’ said Chloe.
‘Don’t worry. It’s all boring when you talk about it. Like listening to people’s dreams, or their drug experiences. What can I tell you, that’d be interesting?’ Janey sat forward and slurped more soup, with relish.
‘When you’re going to fall in love, like everyone else.’
Janey grinned. ‘Have to be a pretty special sort of guy.’ She wiggled her thick, black eyebrows. ‘I don’t see the point, myself. All that angst. Seems to me to be a sort of very complicated way for two people to annoy each other. Not very enjoyable.’
‘You’re talking about me and Theo. I’m talking about someone it’d work with, for you.’
‘Nah, no one’s come close.’
Chloe laughed. ‘How can you tell? You never look past their penises!’
‘I’m not a snob. I like them all.’
‘What, the penises?’
‘Whatever I see of them. It’s true. I just like. Like ’em all. Never anything stronger. Just, kind of, friendly, you know?’ She smiled out the window.
Chloe folded a paper napkin into a crown. ‘ “In adulthood she was a sad woman, unable to form lasting relationships,”’ she quoted dolefully. ‘I read that in the paper on the weekend. It seems to be one thing you’re supposed to be able to do, to be a grown-up.’
‘What, get past the first poke and start talking?’
‘Get past difficulties. Sustain friendships, boyfriendships. Et cetera.’
Janey shrugged. ‘It’s okay, I do go on feeling friendly. I don’t have difficulties.’
‘Oh, Janey.’
‘It’s true! When Bass says that stuff, for example, I’m like, it’s his problem, isn’t
it? Just because he’s dumping it on me doesn’t mean I have to feel dumped on.’
‘I’d swear you had Alzheimer’s sometimes, Janey. Just a few days ago you were sitting in El Bahsa’s, huddled down about the size of a flea!’
‘Yeah, but it passed.’ Janey waved it away. ‘I was low myself —that was separate from what Bass was on about. Besides, it wouldn’t be him. Like, I wouldn’t tell him, about Eddie or anything.’
‘But think about it, if you did have someone you could tell about Eddie or anything. If you had a whole bunch of friends.’
‘Oh, but where am I going to find anyone who puts up with as much as you? Not just you—your whole family. You just think the world’s full of smart, wonderful people like you, but it’s actually full of sad, scared dimwits.’
‘Foof. You just move in the wrong circles.’
Janey smiled at Chloe indulgently. ‘Yeah? And where are the right circles, powerbrain?’
‘All around you. Everywhere. All through. I know you think it’s money and status that makes it, but it’s not.’
Janey looked sceptical and slurped more soup.
Chloe watched her, her familiar face under the fierce make-up. ‘You might think about women some time. The sex thing wouldn’t get in the way, then.’
Janey snorted. ‘Wanna bet?’
‘Like Mrs O’Spud, at your place.’
Janey nearly dipped her face in her soup, laughing. ‘Mrs O’Spud. She is, isn’t she? You can imagine she’s got little pink eyes all over her. Under those smocks.’
‘Dimples.’ Chloe waited until the joke had passed. ‘Well, she’s pretty cool. And she stays up all night, which is ideal for someone who keeps your hours.’
‘I do. I already talk to her. Bette, her name is, with an E, like Bette Midler. She’s on her own, too. Maybe she can’t form lasting relationships either. No, that’s not true. Thirty-five years she was married to, what’s his name? Stan. Stan,’ she added with a false-toothed whistle. ‘Bless him. He’s with the angels now.’
‘Oh no, like that, is she?’
‘No. I’m just being silly. God, look at that salad.’ She pulled the bowl towards her and beamed at Chloe.