The Good Daughter (8 page)

A sharp pain shoots across Zach’s forehead. He rubs between his eyes. ‘Can I talk to you?’

‘We’re talking, aren’t we?’

‘Can I come inside?’

She backs up and opens the door wider; she turns her head away. ‘Fine,’ she says.

She leaves him to walk in alone and goes into the kitchen to light a cigarette. She leans against the bench in her dressing-gown, with her arms folded and the ashtray by her elbow – a picture of Housing Commission white trash. All that is missing is a grubby toddler on her hip.

Zach sits at the kitchen table.

‘So?’ she says.

‘What?’

‘Tell me.’

‘About my mum?’

‘Yes, about your mum.’

‘Why are you talking down to me all of a sudden?’

‘I guess I’m a bit confused. You’re hard to keep up with. I don’t think this is really the best time for us to be talking about going out. If that’s what you actually want?’

Zach feels his top lip curl. ‘This is beautiful, isn’t it – a Toyer knocking a Kincaid back.’

‘If you’re gunna be a prick …’

‘I’m not being a
prick
. I am actually – believe it or not – trying to tell you what’s going on. I’m trying to be honest with you. I’m trying to tell you that my mother —’

‘No,’ she says suddenly, ‘actually, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be any more a part of it than I already am.’

Zach narrows his eyes. ‘What?’

‘It’s all right for you, but I live in your father’s house. My dad can’t find a place that’ll take his truck overnight – we can’t afford to lose this place. I’m already worried that your dad’s going to have us kicked out of here. I know you were upset earlier, and I figure your mum was upset for the same reason … about Aden, I guess … and I can imagine something like that would upset a family like yours.’

‘Like ours? What, wouldn’t it upset your
rock-solid
family?’

‘Finding out I had a half-brother – no, it wouldn’t.’

‘You have no idea.’

‘If there’s more going on, then it’s none of my business. I didn’t say any more than I had to. And I don’t know any more.’

‘If you’re so keen on staying out of other people’s business, why did you ring the police? It’s a bit late to say you don’t like getting involved after you started the whole thing. And a bit late to take it back, now you’ve told everyone who’ll listen that my mum is suicidal and some sort of mental case. That’s not really staying out of it, is it? Thanks a lot for that, Rebecca.’

‘I said she seemed upset, that’s all I said. Kara tried to get on to your father. She tried ringing his sisters. When she couldn’t get anyone she rang the police. Aden said … We agreed it was getting late and something had to be done.’

‘No, please, tell me what Aden said – I’d
love
to hear what
Aden
said.’

‘He didn’t say anything.’

‘How long have you known him?’

Rebecca taps the ash from her cigarette. She stays looking down.

‘You do know he’s an unemployed dole bludger? Works as a waiter in that restaurant, sells dope on his days off. You do know the restaurant isn’t even theirs? Dad owns it. They’ve got no money, nothing.’

During the conversation the dogs have been whining and barking from their cage. The sound has reached a pitch and urgency impossible to ignore. Rebecca crushes out her cigarette. ‘I have to let the dogs out.’

The floor reverberates with her steps. The dressing-gown she has on is pink with small white flowers dotted over it. Her feet are bare and her soles are dirty. She leaves the door open.

Zach gets up and goes into the kitchen. He looks for a glass and gets himself a drink of water. The sink is tarnished, the benches lifting with dry rot. Some cupboard doors are missing. It’s hard for him to comprehend how people let a place get like this – do they not respect or look after anything? He knows Rebecca’s room is nice enough, but it seems to reinforce the fact that she only looks after herself.

She comes back in and says, ‘I’m getting dressed.’

When he starts to follow her she slows her steps. She glances over her shoulder at him.

‘Can I come?’ he says.

‘What? No.’

‘Why not?’

‘What do you mean
why not?’

They stop together in the doorway of her room.

‘Because this time yesterday we were almost having sex.’

‘It was later than this,’ she replies, as though it has some relevance.

‘Oh, so should I come back at lunchtime? Is that the only time you put out?’

‘You’re unbelievable!’

‘And you think you’re not?’

‘Yes.’ She pulls a face. ‘Yes,’ she says again. ‘More believable than you – you can’t honestly go from insulting me and everything that happened yesterday to standing at my door expecting … I don’t even know what you’re expecting.’

‘Why do you all of a sudden act as if you’re older than me?’

‘You’re behaving strangely, Zach. I don’t know why you’re here …’ She starts to turn away.

He puts a hand on her shoulder and pulls her round to face him.

She reefs herself from his hold. ‘Don’t touch me! Christ! Don’t come over here and do that!’

‘I hardly laid a finger on you!’

‘What are you doing here? Who do you think you are? I know you’re only over here because you think I’m some lowlife who’ll relate to the violence or whatever in your life – well, I don’t relate to it, all right? I don’t get it and don’t want to get it. No-one touches me and no-one’s ever touched me. In my family no-one goes missing. You’re the same as your father – sitting there looking at me, thinking he knows me or has some right to speak to me the way he did.’ She rubs the top of her arm in what seems like an unconscious action. Her eyes are bright and her cheeks flushed with colour. ‘It’s selfish – coming here trying to tell what has happened —’

‘Keep it a secret with me.’

‘Keep
what
a secret? I don’t even know what you’re talking about!’

‘I was serious, Rebecca – on the bus I was being serious. I would kiss you out the front of school, in front of anyone. I want us to go out.’

She looks off across the room. ‘I can’t believe you’re talking about this. Something’s happened to your mother and all you’re worried about is kissing out the front of the school? It’s not important.’

‘It is to me.’

‘More important than your mother?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Then perhaps you shouldn’t push me around and scream out in car parks that I sleep with anyone. You shouldn’t whistle at me from across the schoolyard and ignore me in class. You shouldn’t tell me things you know put me in a bad position. I don’t want to have secrets with you, Zach. And we’re not going out.’

Zach says, his voice rising, ‘You go on and have this superior attitude because you think you’ve got it
so tough
, you’re so self-righteous about all the terrible things in your life – well you’ve got no idea, you’ve never been hit. You said it yourself – no-one’s ever touched you.’

‘Great! So you come over and deliver that, right? Because that’s what I’m missing – I really need you Kincaids pushing me around. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what your father has done to your mother. Has he pushed her around? Is that what’s happened? Has he hit her? Is that what it is with you?’

‘You don’t want to know what it is with us,’ he hisses.

He puts his hands on her chest and pushes. He doesn’t realise how hard he’s pushed until her eyes are wide and she’s falling back. The bed behind her breaks her fall. She gropes for the mattress, but slips off the edge and lands on her side.

She scrambles up, pulling down her dressing-gown. ‘Get out!’ she screams. ‘Get out!
Get out
or I’ll call the police!’

She backs up further, bumps into her bedside table and knocks the lamp onto the floor. In a high, wavering voice she says, ‘I mean it, Zach …’

‘I didn’t push you that hard.’

‘Get out.’

‘I didn’t mean it.’

‘I will call the police.’

‘Rebecca, I’m sorry.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You tripped.’

‘Get out!’

‘Please let me stay and show you I didn’t mean it.’

‘If you don’t get out …’

He takes a step forward and she leans back, the bedside table tipping with her weight. Her face is now completely white, her lips parted and pink. Zach feels light-headed, outside of himself. He hears himself say, ‘You’re overreacting.’ Her breathing is rapid, her chest rising and falling, the dressing-gown is open over one knee, and parting either side of her long smooth leg. He thinks how her eyes and lashes look darker against her pale face, and sees how strands of her hair have escaped and now frame her features, softening her, making her prettier. He remembers yesterday, being scared to touch her, as though his hand might pass right through her … Days, nights, years of wanting to touch her.

He’s now right in front of her.

The top of her dressing-gown is open and showing the swell of her breast. Zach brings his hand up to pull it closed for her. She jerks her arm up and knocks his hand away. ‘Don’t,’ she says.

There is that creeping female hysteria in her voice, the same as his mother’s. He sees now how similar she is to his mother – dark-haired, slim, high cheekbones, fair skin …

‘You’re overreacting,’ he says again.

There is a faint tap on the lino floor behind him, a sound he recognises but can’t place. He doesn’t turn, but tries to categorise it.

Again it comes – soft and delicate.
Tick
. The lowered line of Rebecca’s gaze gives it away, that and the rising of the fine hairs on Zach’s body. As though in confirmation, he hears the growl. Colour is returning to Rebecca’s face. She says, ‘The dogs are behind you.’

Zach turns. He steps to one side.

Two dogs stand in the doorway. A German shepherd and a German shepherd cross. When they move, their claws lightly tap on the lino floor. They don’t move now though. They stand still, their ears erect, their heads and shoulders out of proportion to their narrow backs and hips, their blacks eyes shining with a mixture of interest and aggression. Behind them, out in the kitchen, another two dogs stand watching – the blue heeler and the boxer.

The animals’ combined presence is such that it bonds Zach and Rebecca; she says to him, ‘I’ll go out first, wait till I call them.’

Even she must be afraid as she approaches them.

‘Come on,’ she says and slides in between them. She touches one on the back. ‘Come on, outside.’

The tension has transferred to all the dogs. Rebecca has to chaperone Zach right to the gate. Only once he is safely on the other side on the fence does he feel able to return to the conflict inside the bedroom. ‘I didn’t mean to push you.’

‘You can’t come back here. Don’t come here any more.’

‘Why won’t you let me apologise?’

‘If you come back, I’ll call the police.’

‘You can’t call the police,’ he says suddenly. ‘It’s our property, Rebecca, and we’ll have them take away your dogs. And then where will you be?’

13

It’s an hour before Rebecca feels any sense of normal returning, an hour before she can sit and drink a coffee. She taps her nails on the tabletop, chews her thumbnail and moves her chair so as to see both front and back doors.

The phone rings.

It’s the police. The constable’s voice is familiar, one from last night. He says, ‘Hi,’ as though ringing an old friend for a chat, ‘how you going?’

‘I’m okay.’

His voice drops out, and she can tell he only half listens as she answers. There’s noise in the background, the hiss of radios and men talking.

‘Yep,’ he says to someone else. ‘Just ringing,’ he continues, coming back on loud and clear, ‘to let you know we’ll be sending a car out to pick you up and take you into the station for a statement.’

Rebecca says, ‘I thought Aden Claas was coming to get me?’

There’s a pause. Someone laughs in the background.

She hears, ‘Is that
her?’

‘He was only here five minutes ago,’ the constable says down the line, ‘and said nothing about it. He’s gone off with a group searching. I got the impression he was putting in a full day.’ After a stretch the constable says, ‘You still there?’

She hears laughing.

‘Okay. That’s fine,’ she says.

‘You’ll be right then for someone to get you in about an hour?’

She nods as though he can see it.

Police do nothing to build a person’s confidence in them. They seem so civilian. What from a distance looks good, someone she might trust and confide in, up close looks too much like men with food crumbs on their chests, nicks from shaving, ugly mouths and bad breath. Men caught up in private agendas and workplace politics. Taking her statement seems a chore they have to get done so as to get back to bitching in the corridors.

Only at the restaurant do they seem to go about what looks like proper police work.

Rebecca’s lost there, though – it’s a different place to what it was last night. There are cars parked the length of the street, small buses, a taped-off area and a sniffer dog. The restaurant is overrun with people. Rebecca goes into the kitchen but the faces are all new – there’s no Marc, no Kara, no Aden. Instead there are sandwiches being made by what looks like the Women’s Auxiliary, women in floral dresses who eye her and spread margarine like old pros.