A
fter righting the kitchen table and picking up the kitchen chairs, Billy made what he called a gumbo stew. All the different canned things from the cupboards went in together. He stirred the pot. The ceiling globe had been smashed. They opened the fridge door for light. Cool air came in through the broken window. Billy carried the stew to the table and dished up two bowls of it.
They sat down to eat.
‘Back then it was different,’ he was saying. ‘You probably won’t get this, but back then I was safer here than what I was at home. That gives you a fair idea of what my home was like. I’d be here for a day or two at a time. Mum was drinking too much to notice, or give a shit.’
‘What would happen when you went home?’
‘What wouldn’t.’
‘Did your parents know Joe?’
‘They only knew Kovac.’
Adam fished around in his bowl for the bits of chopped up Spam they’d stirred through the stew. ‘Why did they let you be with Kovac?’ he asked.
‘They didn’t know him, not really. Not the way I knew him. Kovac would drop me here. Soon as he was gone Joe would start on about how he hated him, talk like Kovac was the real bad guy, you know? They do that – try and make you think they’re not sick in the head. Kiddin’ themselves. Joe would go on like he was saving me from Kovac . . . Thing was, in a way he did. Joe never frightened me like Kovac. Kovac’s the sort, you know deep down he just wants to kill you. With Joe it was more the feeling he wanted to always keep you around. I was shit-scared of Kovac. There was no way me dad would have done anything to him even if I told him, so . . . I went off the rails instead. No one could control me. Dad got me put in Fiddlers. You won’t get this either, but Fiddlers makes this place look like a resort. Some of those Brothers even make Kovac look fucking mild. You think you’ve got it tough until you land in there. First time I escaped, Mum was off the grog and had moved from Harp Street to the caravan park. She’d left Dad. He hadn’t found her yet. Scotty was running the park. He’s thirty-something; you wouldn’t guess it, would you? He don’t look that old. He was like a dad to me. I went to school, did everything I was supposed to. Then Dad turned up. All started going to shit again. He got me dragged back to Fiddlers.’ Billy swallowed a spoonful of stew. ‘When I got out next time I couldn’t go home. Dad was there. And coming back here felt a bit like payback, I guess. You know? Joe was still forkin’ out the cash. I was older. I’d push him round. I’d bring the older kids and we’d make him buy us smokes, give him heaps of shit; the boys would drink all his grog. It wasn’t long after that I got scouted by Vern, down on the beach. I almost made it out. Everyone’s so full of
don’t do this
, and
don’t do that
, but what about when you
have
to do a bit of this and you
have
to do a bit of that? What then? No one’s got answers then . . . All I’ve ever done is stared the fuckers in the face, stared them down and not curled into a ball like they want you to. If that’s doing the wrong thing . . . well . . . I dunno.’
‘Was the tiger yours?’
Billy didn’t look up. He dragged his spoon back and forth through the soup.
‘I must have left it here, dropped it or something, ages ago. Might not even be the same one I had as a kid. They make thousands of those things.’ After a spoonful of soup he pointed the spoon at Adam. ‘What do you say, no matter what happens we stick together? We should do that, do you reckon? We’ll back one another up. Wanna agree to it?’
They tapped spoons to seal it. Above the clink was the smash of one of the glass bottles falling from the gate onto the concrete outside. Billy put down his spoon. He went into the lounge room.
‘Cops,’ he said when he returned.
They sprinted as light-footed as they could down to the room above the safe, Billy cursing the whole way – that the woman next door must have heard them and called the police, and that they had to conceal the safe before leaving. It was difficult to see in the dark. Adam felt for the boards and put them carefully into place. Billy listened in the hallway. There were no sounds but Adam could feel the police out there, in the yard, walking around the house. He put the last board back. Billy rolled out the carpet. It unfurled into the corner with a
slap
. They froze.
They edged along the hallway. At the billiards room they stopped. A policeman was at the sliding door, shining a torch through the glass. Adam touched Billy’s shoulder and they began to back away down the hallway, towards the backroom.
It was pitch black.
Adam sidestepped along, feeling his way, breathing shallow, frowning to try to block the fear.
They made it all the way down the hallway. Adam squeezed his eyes shut. His hands groped blindly for the verandah door. His fingers trembled and fumbled. He hurriedly pushed it open.
Billy shuddered beside him.
‘Fucking spiders.’
Early evening light shone through the slatted glass of the verandah. Billy stopped in the doorway, eyeing the long dusty cobwebs draping down from the roof, the newer webs stretched across the corners of the room. Adam went to the window and inched out a broken slat of glass. He eased out a second piece. Night breeze pushed in. Billy weaved his way across to Adam, baulking at every web he encountered. Adam knew the door to the outside was nailed shut, no amount of pulling would open it, but he left Billy to try it all the same. Tugging on the barred door helped to distract him from the webs. Adam took out more of the grubby slats of glass until there was a gap big enough to climb through. He got up, curled carefully through, and lowered himself down onto the grass.
Billy couldn’t make his body as small as Adam had. His shoulders barely squeezed through the space. He got cobwebs in his hair, yelped and swore. Before jumping down, he tried to brush them away. He swatted frantically at his face. Lost his balance. To stop from falling he reached up, grabbing a sheet of glass above him; it cracked, smashed. A second slat fell. Billy gripped the window frame. His weight pulled the frame away from the rotting timber.
Billy, and those sheets of glass still in the frame, came crashing down. He landed heavily, glass showering over him, the window frame around him. It was hard to imagine him making more noise if he’d tried. He lay there for a moment, then cautiously began to move. As he got to his feet the glass slid off his back and shoulders and shattered at his feet. He shook the final fine shards and bigger pieces off him.
‘You all right?’
Billy held his fingers slightly apart. In the voice of Maxwell Smart he said, ‘Missed it by that much.’
Laughter bubbled up in Adam. He barked with pleasure, with relief. Flashlights shone on them. One policeman began running towards them. The other policeman peeled away and headed towards the front.
Billy and Adam sprinted around the back of the house and down the other side. Strewn bags of rubbish and bits of mesh, piles of grass clippings blocked their path. Billy bounded over what he could and wound his way through the rest. Adam tried to keep up. The policeman following was right on Adam’s tail. The other policeman had stayed around the front, by the gate, ready to cut them off. He stepped out, flashlight raised, lifted high to blind them. Billy grabbed Adam by the collar and reefed him to the side. They tripped and stumbled towards an overgrown section of the yard, scrambled in between the fence and the bushes. They crouched, catching their breath. Adam’s lungs burned.
‘Boys,’ the policeman growled as he approached, ‘get out here now . . .’
Billy pointed in the direction they’d just run. ‘Plum tree,’ he whispered, ‘other side, other corner.’
Adam nodded.
The policeman was nearing the bush. ‘Get out here or you’ll be in more —’
Billy and Adam darted out, ran back the way they’d come, bounding over the same things as before, zigzagging around the same obstacles. The policeman bellowed for them to stop. Billy and Adam ran down past the backroom again. They kept on towards the sheds and trees, past where they’d crouched and hidden the first night. Then they turned and sprinted along the fence line, past where the rubbish trailer used to be, and where now there was a pile of rubbish – Joe’s sister looked to have emptied the load onto the ground. The bags had split, the smell was twice as rank as it had been a week before. In the front corner of the yard was the plum tree. Billy stopped at the base of it and indicated for Adam to hurry.
‘Climb, climb, climb!’
Adam pulled himself up into the lower branches. Billy put his hands on Adam’s backside and pushed. Adam climbed. His legs were jelly. His breaths rasped. The tree wasn’t hard up against the fence. Once at the right height, he had to inch out onto a limb. Billy overtook him, managed to get from the thin tree limbs to the fence in one sure-footed step. He stood on top of the fence, walked along it, balancing one foot on the wooden beam and the other on the corrugated edge, until he got to the corner, where he crouched like a cat.
‘You can do it.’
Adam doubted very much that he could. His body was trembling. He couldn’t catch his breath. From where he was he could see the police car parked out front. He could see the torchlights of the officers in the yard, shining, searching for them.
‘Come on,’ Billy urged.
Adam stood. The branch bowed beneath him. If not for the streetlights it would have been impossible, as it was it felt like he was stepping into nothing. The thin edge of the fence met him, though. Now all he had to do was let go of the tree and bring his other foot across. Dogs in the street had started barking. Neighbours’ front lights were turning on. The door of the castle house opened and the woman stepped out. She stood on the doormat, looked into the street. After a long minute she went back inside.
‘Now!’ Billy hissed.
In the end it wasn’t as though Adam was attempting to escape: he was simply choosing to make a mess of it and fall. He brought his other foot across, found the top wooden railing, swayed in the dark, reached for Billy’s hand, held it. Somehow Adam made his way along. Billy grabbed him around the waist.
‘Got ya.’
Adam crouched, like Billy had, using the corner of the fence to spread his weight, while Billy lowered himself down the outside of the fence. Billy stretched his leg out, feeling for the solid concrete top of the castle house’s corner fencepost. He stood with both feet on it, helped Adam, guided Adam’s foot across. Once Adam had a solid footing on the post, Billy jumped down onto the castle house’s lawn. Adam copied, landing bent-kneed and low like Billy had. The castle woman had pulled back her curtain and was peering out. She saw them. Her brow drew in. Adam could see her mouth move around a string of hate-filled words. Billy pulled down his shorts and flashed his backside at her.
Adam was still grinning at the end of the street.
W
ade Park was well lit. Street lamps lined the paths. Some of the day’s heat remained in the bitumen. Bushes rustled with the light wind that funnelled down the lanes. No one was about, not that Adam could see. A police siren sounded. It passed by out on the road. Billy and Adam walked down the main track, alongside a pond. A path branched off, thinner than the rest. It led to a brick toilet block. Male and Female signs had been scratched out. Cigarette butts and empty beer bottles littered the ground. Billy jumped over a section of wet concrete and walked into the male toilet. Adam edged around the puddle. He was recovering from running, swallowing every few breaths, occasionally coughing. The only lighting was a bare globe with a cage around it. The sinks were stainless steel. Taps missing. No mirrors. The urinal was white-tiled, watermarked and filthy. Adam rested the backs of his fingers against his nostrils. The smell in the toilet was so rich that it seemed to settle on his tongue and smart his already burning lungs. Billy was lighting a smoke. It was the first time Adam could see the benefit of cigarettes. Billy looked under the toilet doors. They went back outside.
On their way back up the path they met a boy walking towards them. It was the boy who’d been swimming at Joe’s. Adam remembered how he was able to extend his body out and coil it in at the moment of impact with the water, to create an impressive splash. Knowing what he knew now, Adam had to wonder if this boy had been at Joe’s house as a child too. All those rooms, was that what they’d been for?
‘Where’d you get to?’
The words were slurred. Billy leaned and peered at the boy’s face. ‘Really kicking goals there, aren’t you, Benny.’
‘Fuck you.’
For no apparent reason, Benny lost his balance and staggered off the path and into the bushes. His legs went out from under him and he sank down. The knees of his jeans were torn. His jumper was grubby. His eyes fluttered closed and his mouth grew slack.
‘Jesus,’ Billy said. He walked away, up the path. ‘Come on, kid, keep up.’
On the main track Billy went over to a woman standing on the grass by a park bench. She was taller than Billy. Her legs and arms were bony and long. Her shoulders were broad. She was wearing a short dress and a cardigan. Her arms were folded tightly across her chest. When she spoke, her voice was deep. Adam stopped on the path. It wasn’t a woman. It was a man dressed as a woman. He took one of Billy’s smokes, leaned down and had Billy light it for him. The man’s deep voice carried.
‘Who’s that?’
Billy glanced over his shoulder at Adam. ‘No one. Who did Benny get the gear off?’
The man scratched his head. His long blonde wig shifted. It sat crooked. He stuck the smoke between his red lips and pushed the wig back into place. ‘You’d have to ask Benny that.’ He spoke around the smoke.
‘No more agreement, Sal?’
‘You weren’t here to babysit, he was whining.’
‘Thanks a lot.’
‘Anytime.’
‘Could you spot me twenty bucks?’
Sal bent down and brushed some dry leaves off his stockings. ‘Nope.’
‘Come on, you just screwed Benny over for it.’
‘Who’s the boy?’ Sal asked again.
Billy walked over to Adam. He took him by the shoulders and pushed him off the track, into the shadows under the trees.
‘Don’t stand under streetlights, not around here.’
He returned to Sal. Adam watched from below the tree. Another police siren sounded and faded.
‘Please, Sal.’
‘
Please
? You are desperate.’
‘You know I’m good for it.’
‘Mmm, no question about that.’
Billy laid his hand across his chest. ‘I need it.’
‘Sweetheart . . .’ Sal sucked in his cheeks and smiled, ‘. . . you’re killing me.’
Billy went down on one knee. Sal flipped the blonde hair off his shoulder. He slipped his hand down the top of his dress and withdrew a folded note. He held it out between two fingers. As Billy went to take it Sal pulled it away. He fanned himself with the note. Billy got down on both knees, sunk low onto his haunches. Sal’s lips pursed. He held the money out again, and once again he snatched it back. Billy’s head lolled. He muttered something. Sal smiled and let Billy have the money.
‘Say you love me.’
‘I love you, Sal.’
‘Oh, Billy, you say it to all the boys.’