‘He’s alright.’ He was nice. A nice boy who smelt a little off, who was a bit of a nerd. He was alright.
‘I reckon he thinks you’re more than just alright.’
Richie was waiting for a response. He turned back to the wall.
‘Were your parents punks?’
‘I think so.’
‘That’s so cool.’
‘Your mum’s cool.’
‘My mum’s great but she’s not cool. She’s a bogan. She knows that.’
‘So’s Nick Cercic.’
‘Why?’
‘He just is.’
‘Am I a bogan?’
He was. He wore sports tops from Target, cheap jeans from Louis’s Economy Store and no-name runners from Northland. She didn’t want him to change, she didn’t want him to start wearing cologne, tight T-shirts, get all faggy on her. She liked him being a bogan.
‘You’re a bogan in a good way.’
‘Is Nick Cercic a bogan in a good way?’
She was concentrating on an algebraic equation but the numerals and the symbols were starting to swim. She had lost the thread of her concentration. She sighed and shut the book. She crawled over to her desk and launched Messenger. Richie rolled off the bed and knelt down beside her. He leaned across and flicked the switch on her stereo. A screeching guitar and a staccato backbeat filled the room.
‘Turn it down.’
Richie twisted the knob slightly.
Connie pushed him aside and turned the volume down sharply. She entered her password on the computer. Richie crouched on the floor and started searching through her CDs. She sent a smiley face to Jenna who was online. Her friend quickly responded: Thank you for yesterday. Connie typed back, No worries. She forgot her homework completely and she spent the next half-hour messaging back and forth. Richie sat cross-legged on the floor beside her, playing CD after CD, hardly ever a complete track. There was a pile that belonged to Tasha, some of which she knew had been her father’s. The first Madonna album, someone called Jackson Browne. He played three songs from Nino Rojo.
Without asking whether he could, without Connie or Tasha bothering to invite him, Richie sat down to dinner with them. After the meal Tasha pulled out the fold-up camp bed in the sunroom and dropped a doona over it.
‘Ring Tracey.’
Richie, who had been lying across the lounge-room floor watching television next to Connie, lazily pulled out his mobile phone and dialed his mother.
‘Mum, I’m staying at Connie’s tonight. That okay?’
He dug his phone back into his pocket and smiled at Connie. His grin was wide, huge, he seemed so excited, so happy, like a little boy. His eyes were gargantuan, so vivid, shiny and bright. Connie, lying next to him, could smell the musty pong of his socks. She smiled back and he touched her finger. They watched the end of Law and Order together.
‘Do you want to go to a party instead of the movies on Saturday?’
‘Whose party?’
‘Jordan Athanasiou.’
‘I’m not invited.’
Richie was slurping on his yoghurt and fruit, he ate messily and quickly, milky stains around his mouth.
‘I’m inviting you.’
‘He won’t want me to come.’
There was no whingeing, no hurt in her friend’s response. She was astonished at Richie’s calm understanding and acceptance of the world. It was true, Jordan probably didn’t want him at the party. She wasn’t sure she wanted Richie at the party. She didn’t want to sit with him all night, look after him. She was such a terrible friend.
‘I really want you to come.’
Richie vigorously wiped his chin. ‘Okay.’
He hadn’t showered, he didn’t have his toothbrush with him so he hadn’t brushed his teeth. She had offered him hers and she was glad when he declined. Sometime during the day, she knew one of the boys would tease him about his smell. They were in the last year of high school, nearly adults, but still, more than any other insult, the childish, You smell, You stink, hurt more than anything.
In English she and Mr Thompson argued furiously over her interpretation of The Quiet American. She hated the passivity of the woman in the book and wanted her to take responsibility for her fate. She didn’t answer Mr Thompson when he interrupted her and asked if she was wanting to absolve the Europeans and North Americans of their colonial exploitation of Vietnam. She was furious at his accusation. This is not at all what she had meant. She wanted the female to do more, say more, be more. She hated that the character had given herself over to drugs.
That lunchtime she, Jenna and Tina watched the boys play football—soccer, she reminded herself—in the back oval nearest the creek. One of the boys kicked the ball hard in their direction and they all had to jump. Nick Cercic came rushing over and apologised. You didn’t do it, thought Connie, why are you apologising ? He was sweating, out of breath. She squinted up at him, he was a shadow against the sun. She knew then that he wanted to kiss her. The thought made her slightly nauseous. He was just a big, clunky boy, he wouldn’t know how to kiss. Men knew how to kiss. Hector knew how to kiss. She launched a savage kick at the ball and it flew high over Nick’s head and landed in the middle of the oval, to the whooping astonishment of the boys.
‘Nick said you bent it like Beckham this arvo.’ Richie was on his knees on the floor, slowly building a railway circuit for Hugo who was staring at him with rapt attention, interrupting from time to time with an anguished cry, No, not there, Don’t put that there, put it there.
Connie didn’t answer. She had given up on the game, bored with it, but Richie seemed to have endless patience when it came to Hugo. The room stank of cigarettes and bongs. Rosie used incense to mask the stench but the sweet scent of sandlewood was too fragile to combat the dank odour of the other smells. While the boys played, Connie composed random text messages to various friends. Wot is it with boys + trains? Within a minute there was an answering beep: Its all about cock—Tina.
Richie suddenly jumped to his feet, an abrupt movement that startled both her and Hugo.
‘I’ve got to go to the loo,’ he announced, his look almost pleading, as if he was asking for her permission.
Hugo also scrambled onto his feet. ‘I want to come.’
Connie and Richie looked at each other in confusion. Hugo swung his head towards her as well, as if he too sensed all decisions lay with her. Shit, she didn’t know what to say. Was it a boy thing? Did little boys have an obsession with penises and pissing? She thought it strange, but maybe that was because she was a girl and had no experience of brothers. Shit. She didn’t know what to do. She glared at Richie, raising her eyebrows at him. Idiot, she mouthed, Do something.
‘Buddy, I’m just going for a wee. I won’t be long.’
‘I want to see.’ The child was adamant. His last word had tailed off into a wail. The last thing she wanted was for him to start crying. It would be at least another hour before Rosie and Gary came home. At least. If Hugo lost his temper the tears and tantrums and howls could go on for hours.
‘You can’t. Some things are meant to be private.’
Hugo was frowning, his stare defying her. Richie made for the door and the boy threw himself onto the older boy’s legs. ‘I want to come, I want to come.’ He would be screaming any moment now. Richie was still, his hand on door. She laughed. He looked so frightened it was comical. The little shit had them wrapped around his finger.
‘Oh, alright. If you want, go for it.’
For a moment, she thought Richie was going to cry as well but then he just shrugged his shoulders and ushered Hugo out of the door.
She shook her head and walked over to the bookcase. Unlike the one at home, it was crammed with so many books that a pile had fallen onto the carpet. She touched the stained dark wood and looked at the film of dust on her finger. The bookshelf was high, almost reaching the ceiling, with deep recesses; you’d need to get a chair from the kitchen to reach the books at the top. The selection of books
intrigued her. There were art books, biographies of writers and artists, stained dog-eared copies of books on philosophy and eastern religions. There was one whole shelf of DVDs, another of old videos, mostly European and Asian movies. Gary, provocatively, had four porno videos lying on their side, under a thick biography of the German playwright, Bertolt Brecht. She wanted to read Bertolt Brecht. Her father had loved him, and had once taken her to see a strange play called Mother Courage. She remembered the experience of watching actors live on stage more than she recalled anything about the play itself. She pulled out the book. She had imagined the playwright to be old and bearded, but he was young and clean-shaven on the cover, not exactly good-looking, his eyes piercing and sharp. She wondered if she would ever know any playwrights, any artists. Gary was a painter. She knew him. But would she ever know anyone famous? On the lowest shelf there were two photo albums lying underneath a copy of Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting. She put the biography back on the shelf and removed one of the albums. She sat back on the couch—it too stank of stale tobacco—and opened the album.
They were Gary’s photographs and they were exquisite. Secretly she thought he was a much better photographer than he was a painter. The first few sleeves were full of close-ups of flowers. The colours were brilliant, vivid, the subjects clear and distinct. She could see the veins in the petals and in the leaves. She turned the pages. Rosie, her cheeks fuller, heavy shadows under her eyes, was breast-feeding an infant Hugo. She turned the pages again and there were photographs of an even younger Rosie, her hair peroxided, in a sunflower yellow bikini, her skin tanned to a rich copper. She recognised a photograph of a young Aisha. Wow, she looked like a kid. She must have always been slim. There were dozens of photographs taken at a beach. The sky and water were an intense seductive blue, the light was the glare of a hot Australian summer. She turned another sleeve and gasped. She drew in her breath. She felt as if her heart was going to splinter.
She recognised him instantly. His features were the same except he was so much younger. His dimpled chin, the cruel haughtiness of his eyes, the soft fleshiness of his lips. She was shocked by the smoothness of his face, his hairless, suntanned chest and plump, crimson nipples. Hector wasn’t looking at the camera; his brow was creased as if there was something urgent he was searching for out to the sea. She was sure he was looking out to the water, she was sure of it. He was like a monument, a heroic man of stone, but more breathtaking than any sculpture she had ever seen. The next photograph in the sleeve must have been taken the same day. He was wearing long, daggy board-shorts, his short-cropped black hair was glistening, wet, so you could see scalp beneath it, and he had his arms around Aisha. She was wearing a white bikini, and it was such a contrast against her dark skin that it made it seem black. Aisha was grinning widely at the camera and Connie had a sudden ugly thought. Her teeth were too big. Her grin was toothy, she looked stupid. She was furious at herself, but more than fury she felt a piercing, wounding jealousy. I wish you had died. She had mouthed the words before she was conscious of them. Shame punched through her body. She hated herself. She was the worst bitch in the world. She fucking hated herself.
‘What you looking at?’
She snapped the album shut. ‘That was a long piss.’
It sounded like an accusation. She had not meant it to be.
‘He had to do number twos.’ Hugo was laughing gleefully.
‘And you watched?’ She was appalled.
‘Yeah,’ the boy chuckled again and held his nose. ‘It stank!’
Richie playfully lurched towards him. ‘That’s why what people do in toilets should remain private.’
Hugo squealed, delighted, and evaded Richie’s clutches. The boy knelt on the floor and began to play with his train set. Richie fell onto the couch next to Connie and grabbed the photo album. He began to flick through the sleeves. She stared up at the painting of a clown on the wall above the heater. It was one of Gary’s, a wild caricature done with thick, vivid splashes of oil. She guessed her art teacher in Year Nine would have called it Expressionist. The leering mouth was mocking her. She found the painting repellent but she kept staring at it. She was fully aware of her friend next to her, turning the pages. Richie stopped flicking. He was looking at the photograph of Hector, she was sure of it. Lucky, lucky Aish, to have known him, to have had him back then. The clown’s nose was bulbous, the thick dabs of scarlet oil were like blood. It was a dumb painting to have on the wall. It was dumb and ugly. Dumb dumb dumb. Richie had turned the page. Her hands were trembling.
As soon as Gary and Rosie walked through the door she knew they’d been arguing. She and Richie had tried to put Hugo to bed but he had refused and was lying on the lounge-room floor in his pyjamas watching Pinocchio. He rushed to his mother. Rosie loosened the clasp on her bra and began feeding the child. Gary groaned. He walked out and yelled from the kitchen.
‘Do you guys want a beer?’
Richie looked across at her. Up to you, she mouthed.
‘Sure.’
Gary returned with three beers. She still found the taste of beer unpleasant but she was determined to master the drink.
‘How was the class?’
Gary didn’t respond to Richie’s question. His eyes were fixed on his wife and child. Rosie’s smile was stretched across her face. She was faking it. Connie wished she wouldn’t do that.
‘The class was fucked.’
‘Gary, it was alright. We learned a lot.’
‘We learned fuck all.’
‘Connie and Richie don’t need to know about our arguments.’
‘They don’t need to know. But I want to tell them.’
Connie sucked savagely at her beer. Richie was sipping his slowly; she wished she could rush him. If they were going to fight she didn’t want to be here.
When Gary next spoke his tone was calm, reasonable. This almost frightened her. ‘We argued because I think Rosie should stop breast-feeding Hugo. He’s nearly four. I think she’s been doing it long enough.’
‘And the woman said it was fine, didn’t she?’ Rosie’s voice was rising. ‘There’s no right age to stop breastfeeding.’
‘Of course she would say that. That whole class was about validating middle-class women’s whims.’ Gary turned around to the teenagers. ‘What do you guys reckon?’
She and Richie both shrugged.
‘You don’t have an opinion?’
Rosie sighed. ‘Leave them alone. They don’t want to get involved. I’m not going through this again. It is natural to breastfeed a child. It’s just our fucked-up Western culture that puts all these prohibitions and regulations in place. Hugo will stop breastfeeding when he’s ready. It’s perfectly natural.’
‘It’s perfectly natural,’ Gary was cruel, mocking.
‘Fuck off.’
‘I wish I fucking could.’
Connie placed her beer, not quite finished, on the coffee table and stood up. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go. I’ve still got some schoolwork I need to finish.’
‘Of course, sweetheart.’ Rosie rose slowly, struggling with the still-feeding boy in her arms. The strained smile was back on her face. Connie was worried that the woman would stumble and fall. Richie looked at the half-empty beer bottle in his hands.
‘Take it, mate,’ Gary urged him. ‘Drink it on the way home.’ He started searching his pockets for his keys.
‘Don’t worry about driving us home, Gary. We’ll walk.’
‘It’s freezing out there.’
‘I don’t mind, I like walking in the cold.’ Richie was nodding as well. His grin was as effusive as Rosie’s had been. But he wasn’t faking it. He seemed oblivious to the tension, not bothered by the argument. How did he do that? She knew he listened. But he didn’t seem to take on other people’s shit. How the hell did he do that? She wished she could. She now felt guilty and a little sordid—it was silly, the argument had nothing to do with her.
‘Suit yourselves.’ Gary brushed his lips across her chee
k and staggered off to the kitchen for another drink. He was probably too blind to drive them anyway. ‘Thanks,’ he called out.
Rosie walked them to the front door. She gripped Connie’s hand and pulled it shut over two oily notes. It was thirty dollars.
‘You don’t have to.’
‘Shut up. ‘Course I do. How was he?’
‘He was fine. He was great.’ Richie nodded in agreement.
‘Can I ask you one more favour?’
‘Sure.’
‘Can you look after him for an hour on Saturday? Gary’s got to work.’
‘I’m working at the clinic till four. The morning’s free or the afternoon. Does that fit in with what you need to do?’
‘That’s fine. I’ll drop Hugo off at the clinic at four if that’s alright. I don’t have to be at my appointment till four-thirty. In fact, it’s perfect, thank you. It’s just for a couple of hours.’
Hugo had dropped Rosie’s nipple from his mouth and jutted his chin out for a kiss. Rosie, impulsively, gathered up Connie in a hug. ‘I really mean it, thank you. I feel so guilty.’
Connie kissed the child. She adored his smell, the rich succulent nectar of his mother’s milk.
‘Why are you guilty?’
‘It’s just yoga. It’s my one indulgence.’
‘Rosie it’s not a problem.’ She tickled the boy’s hair. ‘See you Saturday, Hugo.’
‘Can Richie come?’
Connie looked across at her friend. He nodded.
Richie tweaked Hugo’s ear.
‘See you then, buddy.’
As they walked across the park, they shared the remaining beer.
‘That was full-on, wasn’t it?’
‘What was?’
She looked at her friend in amazement. And then she laughed.
By the time she finished her schoolwork it was nearly midnight. Her aunt was in bed and the house was quiet. She shivered. She closed the bathroom door and began to run a bath. She stripped and looked at herself in the mirror. Her legs were too fat. She wished she could have a body like Aisha. She patted her stomach and groaned. Her pubes were too thick, too bushy. She would shave. She would get a Brazilian the first chance she had. She was hideous. She turned off the taps and slowly put her feet into the water. It was scalding. She shivered, enjoying the excruciating contrast, her legs burning and her torso freezing. Slowly, she eased herself into the tub.