Smashed (17 page)

I have an almost uncontrollable urge to smooth the crease that’s formed between her eyes. Instead I reach over and take one of her hands into my own and ease her fingers out of their clenched fist. Her hand is so warm and fragile, mine cold and just a little shaky.

‘But you don’t have to do this,’ she insists. ‘Let someone else be the hero — not you.’

‘Listen,’ I say, distracted for a moment by the way her hand is shooting warmth around my body like a solar ray. ‘It’s about the level of risk involved. It’s like with your mum.
She
couldn’t risk standing up to your dad for what he did to you, cos it threatened everything she had, but your nana could. Imagine if she’d just said it was your mum’s responsibility and closed the door.’

Danica pulls her hand away, and it’s like someone switched off the sun. ‘It’s not the same at all.’

‘I know it’s not the
same
, but … oh, I don’t know.’ I throw my arms up to the heavens, my mind blank from exhaustion. ‘All I know is, I’ve got a better chance of surviving this than Carl. So what does it matter? I have a
shitty year, Rita thinks I’m her macho bodyguard, and Carl gets a chance to sort things out. Call it reciprocal altruism or something. Is that so bad?’

Behind us, I can hear Dad call ‘Toby, mate? You coming now?’

Danica studies me, and it’s like she can see directly into my brain — my heart — and is trying to weigh up what she sees in there. Then she holds out her hand — offering it to me this time — and when I take it she tugs me towards her till I’m standing right up in her face. ‘You’re an okay person,’ she says, continuing to hold me in the warm grip of her gaze. Up this close, my heart has started its excited flip-flop act and I swear I want to kiss her more than anything in this whole world. She smells of the beach — the salty scent of sea and sky — and a proverb from my old Chinese grandmother pops into my head:
Women hold up half the sky
.

I risk it. I lean forward and gently place my lips on hers. At first I think she’s going to pull back but then she leans in as well, and it’s not like any kiss I’ve had before. It’s like time stops.

Suddenly, behind us, the double doors burst open and we’re sent flying. ‘Danica!’

I don’t know who is most in shock — me and Danica, or Danica’s mum. Danica backs away from her, as Carol
blusters, ‘What the hell are you doing here — with
him
?’

Thankfully, the cavalry arrives in the form of my equally surprised family. Mum mutters, ‘Oh, shit’ and rushes to my defence. ‘What’s happening here?’

Danica has started shaking uncontrollably, and I can only figure it’s the first time she’s seen her mum since she left to live with her nana. I don’t care what her mother thinks: I put my arm around Danica and hold her tight.

Carol, meanwhile, seems to have snapped out of her shock. ‘Thank goodness you’re here!’ She reaches past me and rests a hand on Danica’s cheek. ‘He’s woken up, baby. He’s talked.’ Giant tears spill down Carol’s cheeks, and she brushes them away and laughs. ‘It’s going to be alright, love. It truly is.’

Danica’s not saying anything, just staring at her mum and crying too.

‘That’s great news,’ Mum joins in, and she wipes a tear from her own eyes.

‘Is it?’ Rita suddenly shrieks from behind us all. ‘Are you
happy
that he’s going to walk away from all of this? Cos I’m not!’

Dad reaches for her but she dodges away. ‘Honey, it’s not that we are discounting what he did to you …’

‘What about
you
, Mum?’ Danica fires at Carol. ‘Are you going to let Donald get away with it? Like Dad did?’ 

Carol blushes the deepest shade of red I’ve ever seen on skin. ‘Now is
not
the time,’ she hisses.

‘When is?’ Danica fires back, slipping from my hold and taking an aggro step towards her mum. ‘When is it ever going to be time?’

They’re standing there eyeballing each other, neither of them daring to blink or look away. But now, thank goodness, Mum decides to take control.

‘Danica and Carol, come home with us. I think we all need a cuppa and something to eat.’ She looks over at Rita, and takes her hand. ‘Is that alright with you, sweetie?’

I hold my breath, expecting Rita to throw another spaz, but her gaze is fixed on Danica’s staunch defiance. She just nods.

M
um switches into hostess mode, rushing to make soup and bagels while she and Dad burble pointless small-talk to cover for the fact that Danica’s refusing to even
look
at her mum, let alone talk to her. No doubt Rita’s loving how the level of tension between those two kind of takes the heat off her. She can ignore them both, rude as you like, safe in the knowledge that Mum would rather choke on her words than have a family spat in front of guests.

I’m worried for Danica, who’s pale and gnawing at her bottom lip — only if I don’t get into a shower soon I’ll die of cold. I know it’s like deserting her in enemy territory but the hot water is pure relief. Ridiculous as it sounds, all that seems to fill my head is that one sweet kiss with her, and I stand under the soothing downpour of hot water with a goopy smile locked on my face.

I’m certain now I’ll plead guilty and give poor Carl a chance to sort out his life. I reckon I owe him that. It’s
funny how, when things come down to life and death, all the stupid crap that seems so vitally important moments before gets swept aside. I mean, who cares if I don’t pass one exam? The thing is, I have my family, and my friends, and, maybe, a girl who kisses like an angel …
Thank god Carl didn’t die
.

By the time I’m dry and in warm clothes, everyone is sitting down to eat. Dad’s rabbiting on at Rita, who is now sprawled happily across his lap. ‘And your mother,’ he’s saying, ‘bumped the price up five hundred bucks!’

Rita actually laughs — the first I’ve heard from her in weeks. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘My radiolarian!’ Dad announces, puffed up with pride. ‘Mum talked her art dealer into showing it, and it looks like someone’s daft enough to buy it!’

‘You won’t believe the price, Tobe,’ Mum breaks in. ‘From here on in, I’m insisting that he sells them all!’

‘That’s fantastic!’ I tell him, and reach across the table to high-five him, just as the telephone rings. ‘I’ll get it,’ I offer, leaning at a precarious angle to pick up the receiver.

‘It’s me.’

For a moment I have no idea who I’m talking to. ‘Don?’

Behind me, everyone at the table turns to stone.

‘I only got a minute,’ he says. His words are blurred,
like his tongue has forgotten how to form them, and I can hear the effort in his voice.

I can’t say anything.
Where would I start?

‘I’m sorry, okay? Tell that to Rita. I can’t believe I did it, eh?’

‘Yeah.’ This is too much right now. I blow out a huge breath, trying to get back under control.

‘Listen up,’ he says. ‘I know the cops are doing you for my assault. I’ll tell them it wasn’t you.’

‘Forget it,’ I tell him, trying to keep my voice down so the stickybeaks can’t listen in. ‘I’m going to plead guilty. For Carl …’

‘But he didn’t put me here.’ There’s a long silence, and I think I hear him panting from the effort. ‘He only roughed me over, eh? I was so pissed, after you went I climbed onto the balcony t’call you back — but then I fell …’

He
fell
from the balcony? ‘You mean it was an accident?’ After everything I’ve been through — interrogated and arrested and made to feel like a worthless, lying piece of shit — it was just an
accident
?

I look at Danica, whose hand is spread across her heart as if she’s struggling to hold it in. Her eyes meet mine, and the panic I see in there hurts like hell. I want to reassure her, but I have to focus on Don to hear him speak. 

‘I’ll tell th’cops, tomorrow, eh?’ His voice is getting worse, more blurred. ‘I gotta go.’ There’s a moment’s hesitation, like there’s one more thing he wants to say. ‘Rita … she’zokay?’ I realise what’s happening now. He’s crying, blubbing uncontrollably into the phone.

I glance over at Rita. The colour has drained from her face, except for two bright blushing cheeks.
Is she okay?
‘She will be,’ I tell him, and I know I have to hang up quick. There’s nothing more, right now, I want to say.

Of course I feel relieved that Don will come through all this without too much long-term physical damage, and that I probably won’t get my arse kicked through the courts. But I think, maybe, he should be charged for what he did to Rita, when he’s well enough to face it. He needs to pay a price, or chances are he’ll just end up like Sidney. And no one wants
that
.

Five sets of eyes follow my every move. ‘So?’ Rita demands.

‘He fell,’ I say, and start to laugh. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s that the day has been so full of ups and downs I’ve lost the ability to cope — or maybe I’m just so damn tired and thankful it’s all over that I’ve lost the plot. Whichever one of these it is, I let the laughter run right through me like a quenching drink, before I settle down to tell them all exactly what Don said.

Danica and I sit with Carl as the afternoon light filters through the windows of the psych unit where he’s been sent. The medication they’ve put him on seems to have kicked in, and he’s calmer now than I’ve ever seen him in our whole friendship.

‘DeVinnie says I should get off with more probation and community work,’ he tells us. I still feel kind of guilty that he’s now the one in the gun, but the police dropped the charges against me when Don told them what had really happened, and Carl seemed determined, anyway, to take the blame. ‘Gotta do an addiction course, as well,’ he adds, not looking all that fazed.

‘When do you think you’re going home?’ Danica asks. Her hair is wispy against the light, and haloes around her face.

‘Maybe next week.’ He stretches and yawns, scrabbling in his pocket for another smoke. ‘Dad’s jacked me up a new job — laying bricks.’

‘That should just about burn off your excess energy,’ I tease him, and he grins at me and slaps my arm.

‘Doubt it, man! But I’m thinking of signing up for polytech next year and doing landscape gardening, so this
might help me get in.’

He and Danica start yabbering on about some garden makeover show on the TV, while I’m left gobsmacked at what Carl’s just said. He’s
never
, to my knowledge, thought that far ahead before or had a plan of what he might do with his life. To think that just three weeks ago he tried to do himself in.

The funny thing about all this is that now
I’m
the one who hasn’t got a clue about future plans. I was so convinced I’d stick with all the Evolutionary Psychology and genetics stuff, but now I’m not so sure. I look at Dad, at how much more alive he is since he threw off his ancestral expectations and ‘came out’ as an artist. And at Rita who, although she still has wobbly days, finally has found a counsellor she likes, and has confronted her outrage at Don by writing him a letter. She showed it to me just before she sent it, and I’ve gotta say that Don’d have to be an utter drongo not to get the point.
I’m glad you’re not brain-dead
, she wrote to him,
so you have to live with knowing what you’ve done for the rest of your life — cos I’ve got to live with it for the rest of my life too
… How’s that for straight talking? She makes me proud.

I wish I had her guts, in fact. I reckon she’ll forgive Don and move on way before I’m even close. It’s the trust
thing, I guess. I just don’t see how we can remain friends after everything that’s happened. It seems he’s going to face some kind of charge — not sure yet what — but DeVinnie’s had a real long chat with Mum and Dad.

I think all this has taught me that I don’t want
anything
to cage me in — not genetic programming, unhealthy expectations, IQ or guilt, or even something beautiful like one of Dad’s now sought-after radiolarian cages — and sure as hell not a police cell. There’s no way I’ll return to
that
. Instead, I want to focus on discovery — on strengthening the part of me that leapt into the water with Carl that day and just bloody well went after him with no thought for my own safety. It’s rocked me from my comfort zone.

For the first time in my life I feel excited — not smug, or confident, or logical — just buzzing with the possibilities and choices out there. Carl’s crazy gung-ho attitude must have rubbed off on me.

We leave Carl with a stack of old
Mad
magazines and race to catch the train that’ll link us to Danica’s bus. She’s still living with her nana in Wainui but, now that everything’s blown up, her mum is calling Danica to chat most days. It looks like every one of us has had a
shake-up
and I reckon, in the long run, it might be for the best.

The train is just about to pull out of the station and
we have to run to get aboard. Danica’s laughing as I haul her up after me. I kiss her — cos I can — and lean out over the fast-disappearing platform and yell out in pure Carl Sissons style, ‘
Geronimo!
’

You can’t beat that.