Portraits of Celina (21 page)

“No worries. It’s cool. I was being stupid too. Forget it.”

“Bails …”

“Yeah.”

“I … I … need to tell you something.”

“Okay …” I’m not sure if I like the sound of this – I’ve had enough surprises to deal with already today.

“Not now. Not on the phone. Can I come over?”

“No,” I say far too quickly. “Why don’t we meet …” I am about to say at the bend, where we’ve met before, but the thought of Bud being around, spying on us, is unbearable. “In town,” I say. “Can we go to town?”

It’s weird being with Oliver today. I feel different. Older. Tireder. Strange.

I don’t want this thing about Bud to come between us, but in a way I fear it already has. When I look into Oliver’s eyes, those beautiful eyes, I can’t help but wonder if deep within those greeny-blue pools, he knows something. Can you live with a murderer, know him your whole life, and not realise it? Is that possible? He must have some idea. Is that why he’s so defensive about Bud? Do I really know Oliver at all?

And it occurs to me that you can never really know anyone. Not without crawling inside a person’s head. You only get to know what they want you to know. Like Celina. Did Deb ever
really
know Celina? Did Robbie? Or Gran?

What is real anyway? Is it everything just bullshit? I mean, look at me right now. Oliver is holding my hand and we are walking down Main Street, carrying paper bags filled with hamburgers and chips, chatting about nothing in particular. But I am not the person he dropped at the jetty last night. I am the holder of a terrible secret and an even more terrible truth. And unless I tell him, he will never know this part of me. Ever.

“Hey, Bails,” Oliver says. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

“Huh? Sorry.” I peer up at him and smile. “Strayed off somewhere. Did you see where Amelia went?” It wasn’t my idea for Amelia to come to town with us, but it was the only way I could convince Mum to let me go – which is highly ironic, given what Amelia has been up to.

“She took off to the river, I think.”

“She better be back by seven, or I’ll kill her.”

“Front row seats for that one. Make sure it’s bloody.”

“You’re such a boy.”

“I try.” Oliver steers me down a narrow laneway between the pub and the supermarket, and thankfully away from the end of town where Deb’s store is. “There’s a park down here. Come on, we’ll eat on the swings.”

I should be happy. I should be messaging Loni, telling her that I have a boyfriend. A boyfriend who has bought me a burger and wants to sit on the swings and eat with me, and who is so wonderful that I can’t imagine not being with him. A boyfriend I am terrified of losing, because of something that happened forty years ago.

It’s so steamy hot. Storm clouds gather behind the branches of the enormous fig trees at the edge of the park. I flop onto the rubber-strap seat, scuff the dirt with my feet, and bite into my burger. A dozen flies home in, and it becomes a challenge of dexterity to take a fly-free bite and shoo them away without landing on my bum in the dirt.

Oliver devours his burger in what seems like two bites, which is probably the better anti-fly tactic. But he is the one who seems distracted now. He rocks on the swing, lost in thought. Is he working up the courage to tell me what it was that he couldn’t tell me on the phone?

I decide to broach the subject. Get it over with. It couldn’t be worse than what Celina revealed last night.

When I ask him, he squints at me, as if struggling to find the right words. “I’m just sorry I yelled at you about Pop …” He stops and chews his bottom lip. Behind his fringe, his forehead is creased with a frown. “Bails,” he continues, “there is something else, something with Pop – but I don’t know what it is. It’s freaking me out, to be honest. Mum and Dad have noticed as well – I heard them talking, arguing, which is a pretty big deal for them. Come to think of it, Dad has been weird lately too. Everything’s so freakin’ tense and strange at home.” He smiles sheepishly. “I guess I took it out on you.”

He reaches for my hand. I take my last bite, dust the crumbs from my shorts, move across to his swing and sit on his lap. He seems so vulnerable – and it seems the natural thing to do. He wraps his arms around me and I rest my head on his shoulder.

“What’s up with your pop, do you think?” I choose my words carefully, concentrating on keeping my voice steady.

“Hard to put words to it. He’s kind of jumpy and super active. He’s been a hermit the last couple of years, kept to himself, watching the telly in his slippers kind of stuff – he’s in his eighties – but now he’s everywhere, buzzing around the place. He’s working on some big new art thing, but it’s more than that. He’s pissed off all the time. Something’s bothering him.”

My skin goes cold.
It’s me
. I am the one who has caused the change. I know it.

“Maybe he’s getting Alzheimer’s or something,” I try, my guts twisting.

“That’s what Mum thinks. But Dad won’t have it. He even accused Mum of making things up, so he’d put him in a home. And that is not like my dad – to say stuff like that to Mum.”

I prop my head against Oliver’s and play with the strands of hair that fall across his face. Two brains close together – and mine with the answers to Oliver’s worries.

I feel tempted. So tempted to divulge everything. To tell him what is really up with his pop. I just have to open my mouth and let it out. Unburden myself.

“Oliver …”

“Yeah …”

“It’ll all work out. Don’t worry.”

Oliver draws me closer. But his head hangs low. “There’s more,” he says. “When I got home last night, there was a note on my bed. From Pop.”

“Yeah.”

“It – I shouldn’t be telling you this!”

Dread tiptoes along my arms and legs. “What did it say?”

“I’m not going to do it, right? Know that first. But it said to stay away from you.” The last words come out in a hurry. “I don’t get it. He’s never been like this before. Why would he care about us seeing each other?”

Yeah. Good question.

Amelia swings a bat at the bouncing ball and misses by a mile. She tosses back her head and laughs. She sounds happy. It startles me.

“Run!” the shout goes up, as the guy behind her fails to retrieve the ball and it bumps and rolls towards the river’s edge.

Amelia squeals and takes off, racing for the garbage bin wicket.

“Amelia is playing cricket?” I whisper to Oliver as we approach. “Has the planet tilted off its axis or something?”

“Don’t be mean. It’s what we country bogans do to keep ourselves entertained.”

I poke my tongue out at him. A lame “Ha-ha” is the best I can manage.

Amelia and some other girl charge from bin to bin a half-a-dozen times, before the ball is retrieved from the river – muddy and dripping.

“Six. All run!” shouts another girl, who is sitting on the grass with a bunch of others. “You’re a legend, Mills!”

Mills?
A legend? The world has definitely tilted. We’ll be hurtling into the sun before we know it.

Amelia is leaning on her bat, puffing, when she catches sight of Oliver and me. “Did you hear that?” she calls out. “I’m a legend.” Her eyes latch onto Oliver’s hand in mine, and she smirks. I wait for the gibe, but it doesn’t come.

“Okay, Mills,” the bowler says. “No Mr Nice Guy now.”

The bowler starts his run up. He is about to let the ball go when the sky is lit by a ragged spear of lightning that is followed far too quickly by an enormous blast of thunder.

“Whoa,” says Oliver. “Nasty.”

Large drops of rain plop down on us, and before we even take two steps towards shelter, the clouds let fly, chucking down rain.

There is much squealing and cursing and people flapping about grabbing their gear. Oliver tightens his grip on my hand and we sprint for his car parked up on the street. Amelia is beside us, already soaked, her clothes clinging to her. Mascara running down her face. But she is still laughing. What is she on?

The grass is slippery, especially uphill, and impossibly the rain seems to intensify. I couldn’t get any wetter.

We dive into the car and slam the doors behind us as lightning fills the sky again. We sit, drenched to the bone, wide-eyed, waiting for the next boom. The noise of the rain on the roof is deafening. The sky lights up again a couple of times, but the rumble of thunder is far gentler and further away. The rain stops as abruptly as it started. We look at each other, three drowned rats, and we burst out laughing, Oliver’s wheezing hiss louder than ever. Amelia and I make eye contact and we burst out all over again.

Oliver shakes his head and turns the key in the ignition. “Guess I better get you two home.”

Amelia pulls out her phone and checks the time, twisting her lips. “It’s only ear–” There is a loud bang on the side window.

Amelia winds it down and some guy stands there, ringing the water out of his T-shirt, water trickling off the rings piercing his nose. Amelia’s eyes light up and her mouth curls into a dazzling smile.

“You goin’?” the guy says.

“Probs. What are you going to do?”

“Dunno. Maybe go to Fitzies’. Maybe go home.”

“I better get back – get dry.”

“See ya later then?”

“Yeah,” says Amelia sweetly, and the guy bends into the car and plants a moist kiss on Amelia’s lips.

“I’ll message ya,” he says, running off and jumping into a car parked up the road a bit.

“I’ll message ya,” I repeat in a singsong voice as Oliver pulls out from the kerb. “Who is
that
?”

“Lee,” Amelia says, smug.

“So that’s Lee,” I say. “Does he go to Tallowood High?”

“No. He’s left – works at the supermarket. Reckons he can get me a job there too.” Amelia grins at me, then adds, “And don’t tell Mum.”

“Sure. But I don’t see why not.”

“You know why. Because Mum is psycho. Because she has it in for me. Because she hates to see me happy.” The bitterness in Amelia’s reply is hard to miss. “Lee is nice. I like him. He’s fun and that’s all there is to it, and I don’t need Mum wrecking everything, like she always does.” Her phone beeps. She clips on her seatbelt, turns her body towards the door and starts keying away a message and it is clear that the sisterly bonding moment we shared a moment ago has vaporised.

Oliver winks at me, takes my hand and drags it up to rest on his leg.

And with my hand soaking up the warmth of his thigh, I am willing to pretend that life is good.

When Oliver says he’ll pick me up at eight, and make sure I wear my runners, he has me wondering. So I am perched on the top step of the verandah, ears tuned in for the sound of tyres on gravel, and eyes trained on the bush for a glimpse of his battered Toyota through the trees, when I notice the rower heading across the lake, straight for the jetty. I should have known.

I grab my backpack and I am feeling so golden this morning, I almost skip down to the lake edge. It’s one of those utterly gorgeous days, the sky surprising me with its blueness and the water shining like polished glass.

“Where are we going?” I ask, climbing down the jetty ladder.

“It’s a surprise. If I tell you–”

“You’ll have to kill me, right?”

“No, if I tell you, it won’t be a surprise, idiot.”

I take the middle seat beside Oliver and pick up the oar.

I am so in the moment, so damn joyous, rowing with Oliver that I don’t even realise we are heading for Lakeside and almost there, until that awful sick feeling swirls into my stomach. This is the last place I want to be, and my happiness tumbles to my toes.

“Hey, what’s up?” Oliver frowns at me from under his fringe.

“Nothing. Why?”

“Ah – you’ve stopped rowing?”

“Oh. Have I? Sorry.” I feel a babbling-idiot moment on its way. I suck air into my lungs, give Oliver my most beguiling smile and sweep the oar powerfully through the water, concentrating on coaxing the yoghurt and banana I had for breakfast to stay in my stomach where they belong.

By the time we have grounded the rower and are on dry land, I am that churned up, I can’t look at Oliver. I am too consumed with thoughts of Bud.
What if I see him? What should I do? How should I react? Will he know I know?
I glance up at the old farmhouse. The place is ancient and crumbly, and it is obvious that Bud hasn’t spent any of his art fortune on his house. A torn lacy curtain in the front room swings down. Was that Bud?