Hollywood Ending (22 page)

As Jake bounded down the stairs to his apartment, I closed the door behind me. Hank was sitting in his chair, staring at me. I busied myself with tidying the dinner dishes away.
Rear Window
had long finished and the television was turned to the news. A helicopter hovered high above a vanload of Mexicans who were pouring out the back doors and scurrying for the hills.

‘You trust people too goddamn easily,' Hank said, his voice grave. I slammed the dishes down in the sink, chipping a plate.

‘For God's sake Hank,
just stop
!' I cried. Hank's eyes widened. I was a little stunned myself. It was as if the hot, seemingly endless weeks of enduring his fits of paranoia and melancholy had suddenly broken me.

‘I mean, just listen to yourself. Listen to what you're saying,' he continued nevertheless. ‘The young are so easily taken advantage of. You, Hilda, are susceptible to the evils of the world. You open your heart because you want it filled, but not like that. Don't fill your heart with his kind.'

‘And who is my kind Hank? You? I'm seventeen and my best friend is a senior citizen. And it's not charming like a Woody Allen movie. I'm not Mariel fucking Hemingway, you know! Shit, now
I
sound like the crazy one. Listen, not everyone is out to get you, Hank. What can I say to make you feel better about Jake? He's done nothing at all to deserve this.'

‘Why do you care so much what I think?'

‘Because he lives right below you and we all have to see each other, so we might as well get along.'

I turned on the tap, started fiercely rubbing the plates with a cloth. I wasn't being totally honest with Hank. I wanted him to approve of Jake the same way I would have wanted my father to. I wanted his blessing. But if he was slowly going mad, what did it matter? That was, however, the problem. I didn't believe he was going mad. I didn't believe it for a second.

‘Have I ever told you the story of Lenore Shoshan?' he asked.

‘No, you haven't told me the story of Lenore Shoshan,' I replied, impatient. I scrubbed the dishes a little harder. ‘Was she some starlet you banged in the fifties?'

‘She was a girl I knew when I was very young, when I was a boy. She was in the camp with me.'

I stopped scrubbing. ‘The camp?'

He nodded. I dropped the plate back in the water and wiped my hands on my jeans.

‘She was a girl in the camp with you? The concentration camp?'

He nodded. ‘I didn't know her that well. She weren't too popular.'

I sat down. ‘Tell me.'

‘She was scared. She would say aloud the things none of us wanted to give voice to, things none of us wanted to contemplate. At night she screamed for her mother. Sometimes we would punch her arm to make her stop. If the guards had heard her screaming they would have come in, and who knows what they would have done. Probably killed her, and a few others just for the hell of it. We hated that she showed fear when the rest of us tried so hard to stay strong. We hated that she would dance like a clown for extra food from the guards, scoff it down while they laughed at her. We all wanted nothing more than to get out, get back to our families, but we never dared to say it. She would speak about it all the time, the fact that she wanted to get the hell out of there.'

‘Poor Lenore.'

‘Yeah, poor Lenore,' he chuckled. ‘And poor us for having to put up with that shit. As if we didn't have enough to deal with. One day, one of the other kids, a real little shit—his name was Saul, I think—he told Lenore that he overheard one of the guards saying they were going to turn off the electric fences that night. That they needed to turn them off to let them recharge, or some bullshit. Filled her head with a whole lotta crap about how he reckoned someone could get through the fence if only it wasn't electrified, that she could squeeze underneath the wire, make it out, get back to her parents.'

I held my breath. ‘What happened?'

‘She fried! Or was shot. All we know is one minute she was there, the next, she ain't. And you know what? None of us gave a damn. Hell, we were all relieved we didn't have to listen to her yapping anymore. So, what I'm saying is that people come to you, acting like they're gonna save you. And they're not. Sometimes they just wanna see you fry.'

Without thinking I reached out, took his hand and held it tightly. His eyes were grey and sad, his rage spent. ‘Hank, I'm so sorry you had to live through that,' I said softly. ‘I am so sorry you had to experience those things. But that was a long time ago. Now you have people who care about you. Jake cares about you. I care about you. All the bad things that happened in the past, they are gone. Finished. You're safe now. You don't have to keep looking over your shoulder.'

Hank grinned, a thin, mean grin that sent chills through me. I thought of Lenore Shoshan, hanging from the fence like a piece of burnt meat, skin singed, and pushed the thought from my head.

‘That Jake,' he said, ‘he asks too many questions. About the war. About what happened there. I don't trust him.'

‘You think he's a spy?' I laughed. ‘He's just being friendly. It's called showing an interest. You're just not used to it.'

‘You don't ask me questions. That's why I tell you. I'll tell you more, if you let me.'

‘You can tell me anything Hank.'

He took my hand, patted it. ‘All in good time, Hilda. When you need to know, I will tell you. Do you want to know?'

‘Yes,' I said, my voice trembling. ‘I want to know.'

He grinned again. ‘You better be sure.'

THIRTY

The next morning as I went through Lynette's wardrobe looking for something to wear to my picnic with Jake, I was struck with the sudden sensation of burning gas in my stomach. I opened shoeboxes and pushed aside coat-hangers and still the feeling persisted, not entirely unpleasant, but uncomfortable enough for me to notice. I pulled a green floral housedress from its hanger, the sleeves short and billowy, and as I measured it against my body I heard footsteps behind me.

‘That's vintage,' Lynette said from the doorway.

I turned around, the dress still against me. Lynette looked exhausted. She'd just arrived home from the office, the night's work hanging heavily beneath her eyes. She threw her keys on the table, lay down on the bed and sighed loudly.

‘Sorry,' I said, embarrassed I'd been caught in her cupboards, in her bedroom.

‘No no, it's fine,' she said, sitting up. ‘You're welcome to borrow anything you like. I got that dress at a market stall on Venice Beach when I was a teenager. It cost me five dollars. I've never had a tear in it.'

‘It's beautiful.'

‘I used to imagine who had owned it before me. I'd make up stories about who might have worn it, and where. I liked to think it had belonged to some Hollywood starlet. More likely it belonged to some suburban housewife who wore it to church. I love vintage clothes. They already have a story to them, and you get to add to that story. It's funny you chose that one.'

‘Why?'

‘Because your mom really liked it. She used to borrow it without asking. Drove me mad.'

I threw the dress on over my head. Already I felt closer to my mother, like I could feel her presence through the fabric. I looked in Lynette's full-length mirror, disappointed.

‘The pink kind of ruins the effect,' I said, pointing to my hair.

‘I like your pink hair.'

I laughed. ‘You do not!'

‘I do. It's very you. Strong, rebellious, distinct.'

I didn't say anything, embarrassed by the compliment, one of very few I had ever received from Lynette. I smoothed the dress, slipped my feet into my sandals and lay down on the bed next to my aunt.

‘Where are you off to today?' Lynette said, closing her eyes. ‘Surely you haven't gone to all this trouble for Benji.'

‘I don't really see Benji anymore,' I said. Saying the words aloud immediately made me feel guilty, like I had abandoned him. I could feel the desperation in Lynette to say something, to leap in the air and whoop for joy that her niece was no longer friends with the strangest boy in the neighbourhood, but she resisted.

‘So where are you going?'

‘On a picnic with a friend.'

‘A male friend?'

Normally this kind of comment would have irritated me. Instead, I found myself wanting to tell Lynette all about it. ‘I have a stomach ache though,' I said.

‘You're probably just excited. You've got butterflies in your stomach.'

I couldn't remember the last time I was truly excited about anything. I was excited before I went to gravesites and places where people had died, but this was different. I felt giddy, euphoric. Most of all I felt stronger than I had in a long time.

I looked at Lynette. Her eyes were closed, and I could tell she was already drifting off to sleep. I sat up, removed her shoes and socks, and rolled her over. She groaned.

‘Have a good sleep,' I said, and she opened her eyes to slits.

‘Hilda?' she mumbled.

‘Yes?'

‘Sorry I'm not around more. After this next case, I'll take some time off. After I have some sleep.'

‘Okay. After you have some sleep.'

She closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply. I turned off the light and tiptoed out, careful to close the door quietly. I took one last look in the bathroom mirror, ran a brush through my hair, and made my way out the door.

THIRTY-ONE

Jake picked me up in the convertible which he'd cleaned especially for the day. A picnic basket sat in the back seat, a bottle of red wine next to it. He handed me a cheap satellite navigation box and I set a course for the Indian Dunes Park, an old dirt-bike trail in Valencia near the Six Flags Magic Mountain theme park. The sat nav told us it would take twenty-nine minutes to get there.

‘There are plenty of places to go for a picnic around here,' Jake said as we drove past the local lake. ‘You sure with the price of gas you want to go all the way to Valencia?'

‘There's something I want to show you,' I said. ‘Don't worry. You'll love it.'

We drove down the highway and the wind blew through my hair. The air was clear and as we drove past the mountains and valleys I was struck by how blue the sky was out here compared to in the city. Sitting in Jake's convertible, driving up the San Diego Freeway, I felt cleaner than I had in years. I hung over the side of the car, letting my arms float on the breeze, and when I sat back I could feel Jake looking at me. I turned to smile at him, but he focused his attention on the sat nav, concentrating on the trail it was blazing for us.

‘You don't have to look at it all the time,' I laughed. ‘It tells you where you are. That's the point.'

‘I know. I'm just worried because we've been driving for a while and I've seen nothing but desert and fields, and cows. A hell of a lot of cows.'

‘That's where we're going. A field. Well, a kind of park. I just hope we don't have to climb any fences.'

‘Hilda, this isn't one of your weirdo cultish places is it? Let me guess. There's a hole in the ground out here where Charles Manson hid from the cops.'

‘It's an old bike trail,' I explained. ‘But it's been used in heaps of movies. They filmed a lot of Vietnam sequences out here, because there's a swamp and some palm trees. Ever see a movie called
The
Exterminator
?'

‘Ages ago. It sucked.'

‘Well they shot all the Vietnam scenes from that movie here. They shot some of
The Rocketeer
here too.'

‘You're not convincing me.'

‘Just wait until we get there.'

We drove on until the sat nav led us off the highway along a dusty dirt road towards the mountains. In the distance I could see a security fence but it didn't worry me. It looked quite low and I'd manoeuvred myself through more difficult situations before.

‘So what do I do now?' Jake asked as we pulled up to the fence, which I could see now was about twice my height. ‘I left my bolt cutters at home today.'

He stopped the car and shut off the engine. I pulled the picnic basket and bottle of wine from the back seat.

‘We jump the fence,' I said.

‘What?'

‘Come on Jake, live a little. I'll go first. Hold this.'

I passed him the wine and before he had time to protest I was out of the car and in front of the fence. I threw the picnic basket over and it landed with a thud on the other side.

‘Thanks a lot,' Jake moaned. ‘It took me all morning to make those sandwiches.'

‘
You
made sandwiches? Now I feel special.'

Just as I was about to haul myself up onto the fence, I remembered whose clothes I was wearing. I couldn't afford to tear my mother's dress and wouldn't know how to explain it to Lynette. She knew I got up to some crazy things but I'm sure jumping fences wasn't at the front of her mind. Without another thought I pulled the dress over my head and handed it to Jake. He took it and looked away.

‘What the hell? Are we going skinny dipping?' he said, one hand over his eyes.

‘I don't want to tear my dress.'

‘You're crazy. You know that, don't you?'

I grabbed onto the fence and pulled myself up, glad I had worn a matching bra and underpants. It only took one quick lunge and I was over on the other side, dropping to the ground next to our picnic basket. I stood up and dusted myself off. In the fall I had scraped my knee, and a small trickle of blood was making its way down my leg.

‘Are you okay?' Jake asked, the wine in one hand, my dress in the other, eyes averted.

‘It's just a graze. Throw my dress over.'

‘I don't know if I want to,' he grinned.

‘Jerk. Just throw it.'

‘How about I do this.'

There was a gap of about a foot beneath the fence through which Jake passed me both my dress and the wine.