The Dark Part of Me (29 page)

‘Yeah, alright,’ I said, thinking fuck it. I was sick of Slob’s perving and waiting on beardies and making bloody cappuccinos. Besides, working at Temptations would be misery
without her.

That night Trish and I went feral. We went to the R.E. and drank Johnnie blue label in the beer garden while chatting up rugger-buggers in RMs and plaited belts. Their total
lack of brains and style didn’t stop Trish dragging one of them behind the loos for a quick root in the bushes. She was in top form, we both were, high on booze and freedom. Late in the
afternoon we stumbled over the road to Flight Centre to book Trish’s ticket to India. As soon as I was in there, surrounded by all the glossy mags and that whiff of travel bugginess, it came
to me as clear as fucking crystal.

‘I’m going, too,’ I said, realizing how long I’d dreamed of escape.

Trish cheered. ‘Yeah, baby, let’s go rank together!’

‘Nah,’ I said. ‘I’m going to London. Like I said I would.’ The first flight available was on New Year’s Day. I paid my deposit and we left. Outside, Trish did
some cartwheels on the pavement. I felt like stripping off and running down the road naked. It was the best feeling ever. At last, I was free. No more Temptations! No more BrisVegas! No more Scott
Greenwood!

Back at Trish’s bedsit, we snorted lines and ate some tabs. We turned the hardcore up full blast and danced until the sweat was pouring off us. To cool down, we took a shower. Trish dyed
my hair Kermit-green and we shaved each other’s pubes right off. We did more lines until we were rolling around on the floor laughing. We couldn’t stop. I actually pissed myself.
Afterwards, we chucked
Bad Boy Bubby
in the video and watched Bubby glad-wrap his pet cat over and over again on continuous replay. Then, we went speeding on the Western freeway and I
stuck my head out of the window and screamed, my green hair flapping like the wings of some exotic bird from the Amazon. I turned to Trish, my face squashed back like in a centrifuge, and shouted,
‘I love you!’

‘I fucking love you, too!’ she yelled back.

We were still beaming as we drove to the Toowong public pool and climbed the fence for a late-night skinny-dip. It felt like we were there for yonks, ducking and diving in the silky, black
water. Afterwards, we lay flat and panting on the grass, gazing up at the stars. The night was sweet and muggy. I turned to Trish, my head propped up on my wrist, too ripped to care I was
starkers.

‘I know you rooted Scott,’ I said.

Trish ran her fingers through her spiky, green hair. She looked child-like, almost innocent. Perhaps it was because she had no pubes.

‘But I don’t think we did,’ she said, eyes wide, her eyelashes clumped into cute, little points.

‘It’s cool, you know,’ I said. ‘You don’t have to lie about it. I don’t give a shit any more.’

‘Nah, it’s not that. I can’t remember if we did or not. It’s all muddled up. Did he say we did?’

‘He denied it, but I could tell he was lying.’

‘Then, maybe we did. Fuck knows. My head’s a pile of mush.’

‘I know you, babe, and I bet you did.’

‘Probably.’ She pulled up a handful of grass and stuffed it in her mouth. ‘Sorry, Rosebud.’

I watched as the stars tumbled out of the sky, pinging cold and bright as diamonds along my naked body. ‘You know what?’ He’s having a kid with this chick called Amber. Can you
believe it? I thought he loved me.’

I had a bit of a cry. Trish hugged me. We clung to each other, our bodies warm and damp. I lay back on the grass and reached for Trish’s hand, wanting her to know I’d forgiven her.
She rolled over and kissed me on the lips, then sprung up, whooping like a wild beast, and bomb-dived into the pool.

By the time we got back to Trish’s, the sun was coming up. The sky glowed bright pink and the morning chorus was kicking in. I can’t remember going to bed but when I woke up, it was
mid-afternoon and Trish had gone. She’d left a note stuck to the fridge with chewy:

I spent the rest of the week at home, packing and planning my escape. I’d already decided not to tell Mum or Randy about going, just to disappear, leave them all
wondering, scratching their sun-softened heads. The only person I had to tell was Hollie. I still hadn’t called her yet. The image of her and Danny rooting in the cave filled my head like a
porno vid. So, now I knew what Hollie had wanted to tell me at the hospital. Most people would think a brother and sister doing it was sick but I didn’t know what to think. I wasn’t
angry. If anything I felt kind of sad for them, not having anyone but each other, and a bit sorry for myself, being so far outside their secret world.

Apart from packing, I kept a vigilant eye on the news. Each day the cops made out they were closing in on Danny. They showed footage of the brigade thrashing through the bush, swaggering under
the weight of their holsters. It was a joke. Senior Constable Pitts would come on saying, ‘We’re pretty bloody certain he’s out ’ere somewhere and we won’t give up
till we get ’im. Don’t you worry about that. He can’t just escape into thin air.’

Towards the end of the week, I got the guts to call Hollie. Time was running out and I needed to tell her I was leaving, and that I’d seen her in the cave with Danny. She answered on the
first ring.

‘Rosie?’

‘Do you want to go for a chocollo in the air-con?’

Exactly ten minutes later, Hollie pulled up outside in the Lexus. I went running out in cut-offs. She was wearing the same white muslin dress, freshly washed, that she’d had on in the
cave. She eyed my green hair but didn’t say anything. We drove to Shoppingtown in silence, in case of, as Hollie scribbled on a scrap of paper: ‘
Bugs
.’

With the sales on, it was a bitch finding a park but eventually we got one up near the food court. Arm in arm, we marched across the carpark, anticipating the cool blast of air-con and soothing
musak. Once inside, we made straight for Wendy’s, great purveyor of chocollo. I bought us two extra-large cones and we sat down on plastic swivel stools, licking away and watching the
shoppers scurry past us. It took me a few minutes to psych myself up.

‘Hollie,’ I said, touching her wrist. ‘I saw you. In the cave.’ I took a deep breath. ‘With Danny.’

She pretended not to hear.

‘Hollie, look at me.’

She brushed my hand away. There was a long silence. She refused to look at me. I got up from the stool and stood facing her. Her lips were set. She crushed the chocollo cone in her hands. I
hugged her but she was wooden in my arms.

‘I don’t think anything bad,’ I whispered in her ear.

She pushed me back and spun around on the swivel, facing the blank wall. I sat beside her and put my arm around her.

‘Please. Don’t be like this. I understand. Really. Other people might think it’s weird but I don’t. You love each other.’

She raised her head and stared at me. ‘We’re freaks,’ she spat.

‘No, you’re not. I don’t think that.’

‘Yes, you do. Deep down, you think it.’

‘You’re wrong.’ I brushed away a stray hair which had got caught in her lip gloss. ‘You… you both looked… ’ my heart was beating wild,
‘beautiful.’

Her eyes glistened. Her cheeks coloured. ‘Really?’

‘Yes.’ I slipped my fingers into hers. She lifted my hand to her mouth and kissed it. The Wendy’s man was staring at us over the counter.

‘Hey, you girlies, if you’ve finished, move along.’

‘C’mon, Hollie,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

We walked back slowly, hand in hand, to the car, talking it all through and telling each other everything.

Mum and Randy were going ballroom dancing at the Hilton for New Year’s Eve. They stood in the doorway: Mum in a daring strapless number she’d bought in the sales;
Randy in black tie. When they asked what I was doing I told them I was staying in with a vid and a delivery pizza. Randy gave me a sympathetic nod but Mum smiled.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘It’s about time you took it easy.’

As soon as they were gone, I leapt off the couch and started getting ready. Hollie had invited me to the cave for a New Year’s Eve party, just the three of us – Hollie and me and
Danny. It was my last night in BrisVegas and I had this feeling, like something major was going to happen. Everything I’d thought about Hollie and Danny had changed and I didn’t quite
know how I was going to act around them. I wasn’t sure what to expect, what part I had to play. I wondered if Hollie had even told Danny that I’d seen them in the cave. I was nervous,
but excited, too, as if I was about to do something illicit or forbidden. Like the first night I went clubbing and met Scott.

I dyed my hair black from Kermit-green and set it in hot rollers. I painted my fingernails and toenails purple, and slid my silver serpent armband up my arm. I rubbed coconut oil over my body
until my skin shone, honey-coloured. As I dressed, a moth brushed its wings against my sticky skin. I pulled on a pair of Bonds, no bra. Then, a skirt, falling in soft, filmy folds, and my
white-lace camisole, its edges curled and scalloped against my stomach. As night fell, I unravelled the rollers and shook out my hair. It cascaded in loops and bangs down my chest. The contrast
turned my face pale and my scar seemed to glow in the dusky light. It shone back at me, a jagged crescent-moon. I painted my lips blood-red and my eyelashes thick with heavy mascara, liquid liner
around the eyes. I looked like a goth-freak but it was all for Hollie. I grabbed some of Trish’s hardcore CDs, put on my strappies and headed outside. The night-sky held its breath, a vast
swathe of indigo arched over me, heavy, as they say in Shakespeare, with portent. I had that scoopy hollowness in my gut. It wasn’t dread or excitement, but a teetering, falling feeling, like
a premonition, as if the gods had already decided our fates that night. I got on my bike and sped away to Hollie and Danny.

So much for intensifying the search. That evening, there were no cop cars outside Hollie’s house. The lazy buggers had probably racked off home to New Year’s piss-ups, like the ones
going on up and down Hollie’s street. Bevan music blared out into the night. Meaty smells filled the air. I rode up to the top of the hill and dumped my bike in the ditch. Hollie’s
house loomed black and hushed as a mausoleum, except for the Christmas tree, still lit up in the casement, and for a moment I thought I saw Mr Bailey standing next to it in the window. I turned and
started up the track. There was no moon at all. I couldn’t see my toes. As I ran through the bush to the cave, I felt jittery, like on a first date, but buzzy with anticipation, too.

Hollie was setting out the food. Orange fish-spawn glowed fluorescent in the soft light. There were silver trays piled with fleshy oysters and Moreton Bay bugs, their clawed
legs splayed at obscene angles. A giant poached salmon lay bloated, and its huge, dead eye seemed to follow me as I entered inside. There was an ice-bucket with three bottles of pink champagne and
three large satin cushions for us to sit on. Purple candles flickered out from rocky crannies, filling the cave with an overblown, musky scent. Opera was playing low. It was the same Wagner stuff
Danny’d had in the Lexus, the night he drove me home from Scott’s. As I crawled in, my shadow loomed against the back wall. Startled, Hollie spun around. She was alone.

‘You gave me a fright.’ She flung her arms around me, then, stepping back, said, ‘You look ravishing.’ The word, ravishing, and the way she said it, rolling the
‘r’ and pouting her lips, took me back to the night of her party when she’d acted so strangely with me. She was wearing a black evening gown and patent heels which had both been
her mother’s. Around her neck, she wore a diamond choker, which threw droplets of purplish-red light across the hand paintings on the wall. Her face was radiant.