Girl Next Door (8 page)

We're sitting in the formal lounge at Declan's house when Bryce Cole pulls in. I'm glad to see him because about five minutes after we finished moving our stuff, Declan's mum ushered us in here for a cool drink. Declan's dad disappeared into his study. I was going to run up to Declan's room, except Mum coat-hangered me. Our mums have been discussing weight loss programs for half an hour. They've pretty much exhausted that line of conversation, and we're all panicking about where to go next.

'There's your friend now,' Declan's mother says in her smooth voice. There's a red mark around her throat where she's been fidgeting with her necklace.

Bryce Cole stares at his stuff next to the letterbox. He stacks it in his boot, and then he stands there tossing his keys in his hand.

I rush outside and tell him what happened.

'Go get Will and your mum. I've got an idea.' He grins at me.

Bryce Cole drives us into the city. We pull into the driveway of a fancy hotel near Circular Quay. The concierge wears a top hat and white gloves. I ask him if he has a whole stack of them behind his desk, because no one could wear the same white gloves all day. I'm rabbiting on because normally we would have suitcases when we check into a hotel. Mine was pink, with those stickers on it from every country we've visited. I think we sold it at the second garage sale. I don't want the concierge to notice that there's only one decent bag between us – Mum's overnight bag. I've got my green shopping bag. Will hasn't brought a thing. If the concierge does notice, he doesn't say anything. He directs us to the reception desk in the lobby.

Bryce Cole checks us in to a suite. As we stand in the lift, Mum is looking a bit shell-shocked.

Our suite has three bedrooms and a view out over the Bridge. I'm not sure who's supposed to have which room, so I hang back, but we're all hanging back, until Will calls the main bedroom with the king-sized bed. Bryce Cole swiftly kicks him out of that one, so he goes for the next biggest bedroom. Mum and I plonk our stuff on two single beds in the other room.

I take out Albert Bear and lean him against the pillow.

Will checks out the mini bar. He cracks himself a beer, hands one to Bryce Cole, then flops on the lounge with his feet on the coffee table. Mum has a wine and I have a Coke.

It's dusk and the cars crossing the Bridge have their lights on, leaving a trail of red inside my eyelids when I blink. Ferries cross the harbour. Nobody says anything. All I can hear is my drink fizzing inside the can, and the low thrum of the train pulling out of the station under the Cahill Expressway below.

This is it. This is the rescue we were hoping for. I can see how living in a hotel is actually better than living in a house. You don't have to worry about all that rent in advance and electricity deposit stuff that Will was talking about, or furniture, or washing, or anything. We can just order room service for our meals. We should have done this ages ago.

Mum sighs.

'There's a spa off the master,' Bryce Cole tells her. 'How about I take the kids out while you have a bath? We'll come back in an hour or so and we can go for dinner. You can take this with you.' He hands the wine bottle to her. 'In the meantime, we'll be in that pub down there.' He points to a building in The Rocks.

'Jenna-Belle can't go in there. She's under-age,' Will says. He's under-age too, but it's my youth he seems to be worried about.

'Getting into pubs is all about attitude,' Bryce Cole says. 'Come on.' He hustles us out the door.

On the way out I ignore the concierge. It's time for me to get a handbag. It's worth the nuisance of carrying around a handbag just so I can rummage through it to avoid conspicuously ignoring people.

The pub smells like the bar at the track, a combination of old spilt beer and trough lollies. We're the only ones in here, although I can see through a corridor to another bar on the other side where a few tourists are chatting.

Bryce Cole leans against the bar. The bartender asks if I'm over eighteen. Bryce Cole looks puzzled for a moment and then answers in a very strong French accent. 'We 'ave stayed 'ere for tree days already.' Then he smiles and orders two beers and 'an 'ow you say . . . shanzy?'

The bartender asks again. Bryce Cole pretends to be confused and stares at me, as though looking for an explanation.

I'm having a brain fart. All I can remember from my French lessons is
Jenna-Belle a les mamelons velus,
so I say that. Bryce Cole looks startled, and then he barks out a laugh.

'Did you just say . . .?' Will begins.

'Oui!' I reply, quickly.

Will starts to laugh too.

I shrug at the bartender. He shakes his head and pours the beer.

My face is turning crimson. It didn't occur to me during the brain fart that someone who can do a passable French accent probably speaks enough French to know the word for nipples. I don't want to know how Bryce Cole knows the French word for nipples.

Of course Will knows the French word for nipples. It's probably the only French word he knows.
Mamelons et fesses.
He is a schoolboy after all.

I stare into the middle distance, hoping that if I don't look at Bryce Cole and Willem, they won't be able to see me.

This would be a perfect handbag-rummaging moment. Even better would be an expandable handbag. Then you could just hop inside it in situations like these and wait for it to be over.

We climb onto a trio of bar stools around a high table in the corner. Outside the window, tourists and workers stalk past. I'm waiting for Bryce Cole or Will to pay me out, but they don't. Yet.

I'm racking my brain because sooner or later – probably sooner
and
later – someone is going to ask me why I said that. I can't tell them about Penelope Sullivan because they're going to wonder how I know that about her, and I can't see them buying the bathroom story, even though it's true. It's the same dilemma in a new location. I just know I'm going to be haunted by those hairy nipples for the rest of my life.

The only possibility I can see is that someone else taught me to say it, and I thought it meant something else.

Jenna-Belle enjoys melons.

Jenna-Belle favours mammals.

'What did you do before this?' Will asks Bryce Cole.

Bryce Cole puts down his beer. 'I used to restore antique farm equipment.'

Will and I wait for him to tell us more.

'I had a truck and drove out to country towns. I'd go to demolishers, and to the real estate agents. I'd find out who had old farm equipment that they were getting rid of. Then I would bring it home and restore it, and sell it on to interior decorators or landscape supply places. Bed and breakfasts in the Southern Highlands pay a packet for that kind of stuff. I had a nice little gig for sale and a guy who trained trotting horses came to look at it. He didn't buy it, but we got talking, and Bill – that was his name – asked me to help him load and unload his trotters a few times at the track, and while I was there I watched a race or two and put a few dollars on. Turned out I had an eye.'

'What about before that? Were you ever married?' Will asks.

'No.'

'Girlfriend?'

'A few.' He shrugs.

'How come you speak French?' I ask.

He takes another sip of beer. He has froth on his lip. 'I was a dancer in a burlesque show in Marseilles.'

'You were not!'

Bryce Cole drains the rest of his beer. He stands up and brushes down his lemon-coloured shirt. Then he holds his arms out to the side, shimmying his way across the pub floor to a chair. He's humming a stripper tune. He flicks his leg up a few times and lowers himself onto the chair. He runs his fingers through his hair and bats his eyelashes.

'Oh my God!' I say. 'You have to stop that right this minute, because it's obnoxious and gross!'

Bryce Cole is dancing with the chair. He's shaking his booty. Will thinks it's hysterical. I cover my eyes.

'No, really,' I plead. 'You have to stop! I'm pretty sure this is child abuse. It will take years of therapy for me to get over this incident.'

Then I look over and see the barman frowning at us not being French or over eighteen, and so we leave.

So we're at dinner when it comes up. Bryce Cole is telling Mum how he could hardly keep a straight face when her daughter says in French . . . He's laughing too much to finish. Will is laughing too. They're sharing a moment. Guffawing. Other diners are staring.

We're not at some sleazy burger joint. This is all silver service, a pianist in the corner, and a view over the Opera House. The waiters almost bow as they serve our meals. Mum's wearing a satin pyjama top over her slacks, because that's pretty much all I packed for her, but she has her pineapple on her head, so we're all pretending it's a blouse.

I'm watching Will and Bryce Cole, trying to keep an innocent expression on my face.

'What?' asks Mum, smiling.

'She says . . .'

More laughter.

'She says, "Jenna Belle has hairy breasts,"' Will blurts, although he has better manners than to say it too loudly.

'No, technically it was nipples,' Bryce Cole corrects.

'I did not!' I protest.

Mum turns to me. 'Say it again.'

'Jenna-Belle a les mamelons velus.'

Her mouth twitches.

'Jasmina Fitzgibbon taught me to say it,' I tell them. 'At Finsbury the French class always goes to Paris, and Jasmina said that you should say it when you meet the family you're staying with. It's tradition.'

'What did she tell you you were saying?' Mum asks.

'"Jenna-Belle shares her mother's values,"' I answer.

The three of them roar with laughter. After the giggling has died down, Mum wipes tears from her cheeks. 'You know, that Penelope Sullivan woman had hairy nipples,' she says.

'What are we going to do today?' I grin at Mum and Bryce Cole.

I've ordered a big stack of pancakes for breakfast. It comes with berries and ice-cream, which is melting into the dough.

Willem is at the bistro. When he lifts up one of the lids I see ramekin dishes of coddled eggs. The next one is eggs Benedict, which you can assemble yourself with smoked salmon or ham or wilted spinach, or all three. Or if you hesitate for two seconds a waiter will rush to your aid.

You can order fruit juices. A girl in the corner in a perfectly white smock will juice it for you, and not in a noisy juicer either. She does it with a manual stainless steel juicer that looks like a rocket ship. I've ordered strawberry and guava. She brings it over on a tray with a wedge of lime, and a tiny bowl of freshly torn mint leaves.

The sun is shining on my back through an enormous glass dome in the ceiling. My hair's still wet from the long shower I had with the rose on massage. Out the window I can see ferries chugging across the harbour. I haven't felt this fresh and relaxed for ages. It's going to be a beautiful day.

I'm thinking about suggesting the zoo, or maybe the aquarium. We can have yum cha for lunch and then catch a movie. There were also lots of great-looking restaurants on the waterfront that we walked past last night – that's if we don't stop at a Spanish place on Liverpool Street for tapas. We could even order room service. Our room has a view that's almost as good as that place we went last night, anyway.

'We have to check out before ten.' Bryce Cole consults his watch. 'It's nine now.'

'Check out? I'd thought . . .' I trail off.

'You thought what?' He crunches on a strip of bacon.

And then I realise that last night was a bender. My stomach lurches.

A series of questions form in my mind.

Wouldn't it have been sensible to find somewhere cheaper and stay for a week or so while we figure out what to do next?

Wouldn't it have been wiser to use the money to pay back the gum-chewing frogman? Or at least make an instalment?

If you wanted to splash out, wouldn't it have been a better decision to spend the money on something solid? Something real that you could hold in your hands? Like maybe some groceries?

But I don't voice any of these, because there's no point. If Bryce Cole was going to start being sensible and making better decisions he would have done that after he lost his house.

He's a roll-with-the-punches kind of guy.

Instead I ask, 'Where are we going to sleep tonight?'

No one says anything.

After we check out, Bryce Cole takes us to the track.

He passes me the form guide and asks who I like. I don't even look at it. Will picks it up. Bryce Cole puts money on a horse for Will. It loses.

Will loses three times in a row and then Bryce Cole tells him about the jockey, the conditions and the prize money. Next time Will gets a place. He's all excited.

Mum doesn't say anything. She just drinks another wine.

Bryce Cole buys three plates of chips for the table. He buys me a shandy, but Will drinks it.

My green shopping bag is between my ankles under the chair. I shift it with my foot, and then I shove my chair back, looking inside.

'I've left Albert Bear behind!' I tell Mum. 'At the hotel. We can go back, can't we?'

She stares back at me blankly. My heart sinks. We're not going back.

'He's my bear!' I shout at her. I want to throw myself on the floor, because all I have in the world is Albert Bear, my dad's old t-shirt and a stupid pinch pot. I stand up fast and the chair falls down behind me.

As I'm heading out the door I hear Will yell out, 'Go, you bastard!'

The gate to the stables is open and I walk through it. Nobody stops me. There's a long shed with alcoves in it. The horses stand there cross-tied. Waiting. Some of them stamp and shake their heads, or nicker, but mostly they just stand there. They're tied there like slaves.

A truck drives along the alleyway and two young men load the horses from the bays into the trucks. The horses are transferred from one little box to another little box.

No wonder they run so fast when the gate opens. They think they're going somewhere.

Bryce Cole knows a caravan park we can stay at for seventy dollars a week. We go over the Anzac Bridge. He can drive us there, but then, he explains, he has 'things to do'.

'Are you dancing tonight?' Will asks, grinning.

Mum doesn't get it.

'Don't ask,' I warn her.

We're heading west. It's common knowledge in my part of the world that the more east and north you live, the better a person you are. That is, until you get to Pittwater. Anywhere north of that and you're a bogan again.

We stop at a supermarket on the way and buy some home-brand canned soup, two-minute noodles, eight apples and a packet of cigarettes. If Mum decides not to take up smoking after all, and we can live on one packet of two-minute noodles a day between us, I'm guessing we can probably stay at the caravan park for about six weeks.

We drive along a winding road that runs through the middle of the park. There are little side roads off it like spokes. They have cheery names such as 'Sunshine Lane' and 'River View Crescent', although there's no river, just a stormwater drain filled with battered shopping trolleys and potential gang violence.

There are some tourists with their own vans, and a few on-site vans similar to the one we're given, but most of the caravans don't look like caravans. They don't have wheels, for starters. They're little boxes with windows. The biggest one is about the same size as the master bedroom in our house. They're called 'relocatable homes' in the brochure from the rotating stand in reception. The brochure also says they have cyclone anchors. Good to know, Toto.

There are no roof spaces. There's not even the possibility of treasure. I can't believe people actually live here. It must be, like, their summer place. Although I don't know why you would want to spend your summers here. Surely you'd want to be near the coast?

We put our stuff in the van. It looks like a shipping container with windows. There's a double bunk up one end, and then the dining table folds away and you can pull out a bed from the seat. It's all upholstered in cheap plasticky fabric as if it's going to be hosed after you've gone. It smells like a car with leather seats that has been in the sun all day.

Will and I go for a walk. Mum sits under the awning and smokes. Nice. Classy.

At least the landscaping is attractive. There are palm trees and hibiscus hedges between each of the cabins. Many of the vans have potted plants and ferns in hangers. Little kids run around in singlets and undies. Old men sit motionless and alone on their verandahs, watching us with suspicious and cloudy eyes. Their televisions roar in the rooms behind them.

This is how Bryce Cole will end up. He'll be in a place like this when he's old, because he didn't have a family and he doesn't save.

There's a pool. It's not much bigger than our pool, and it's way smaller than Jasmina Fitzgibbon's pool, which has this whole cool undercover lap section actually inside the house.

I'm thinking we should camp in her ballroom. They probably wouldn't even notice for a week or so.

We find a laundry with coin-operated washing machines and dryers opposite each other. Next to it there's a games room. I peer in and see an air hockey table and pinball machines against the far wall.

There's a group of guys already in there. They look about sixteen or seventeen. As soon as I see them I withdraw. Will and I stare at each other. He looks like a snooty private schoolboy with his square shoulders, grown-out salon haircut and first-rate orthodontic work. I guess I look like a snooty private schoolgirl, totally decked out in Sass & Bide and no make-up in an I-don't-need-your-approval way.

'Oi! What's your name?' one of the boys calls out.

I lean my head back in the door again. 'Jenna-Belle.'

'Come and sit on my face, Jenna-Belle.' Collective sniggering. The boy who spoke sits with his legs spread wide. He holds my gaze. I step back again, and I feel a shiver of unease. I've had boys say rude stuff to me lots of times, but there was something cold about the way he looked at me. He wasn't trying to impress me; he was playing up to his mates.

Will and I head on down the laneway. A group of girls sit on the railing. 'Just ignore them. They're dickheads,' the first one says.

'Okay.' Will smiles.

One of the girls is quite pretty – for a bogan trailer-park girl – although she slouches, which does nothing for her cleavage, and she's wearing rubber thongs that once had a cluster of beads around the toes, but now just have ugly, empty metal clasps. Her clothes are all pilled, because they're made from cheap material. The whole ensemble just screams,
I
buy my clothes at the supermarket!

At least they won't tease me for being 'vintage'.

'What are yous guys doing here?'

'We're on holidays. We live in Melbourne,' Will tells them.

'And you're staying here?' asks a red-haired girl.

'It looks better on the website, eh?' says the first girl.

'Yeah,' I say.

The red-haired girl looks offended.

'Actually, it's one of the nicer parks we've stayed in.' Will smiles again.

It's only the second park he's stayed in, after Wombat Crossing, where there were built-in goannas and you had to sleep about twenty metres away from a pit of poo. Unless in his definition of 'park' he counts the resort with the bungalows over the lagoon in Vanuatu – I expect that place tops the list.

Willem wants to stay and flirt with the girl, but I tug him by the sleeve. We have six weeks. We can make friends with them later.

As we walk away I hear one of the girls say, 'He's cute.'

'You reckon?' mumbles another. I'm guessing the redhead.

Back in our van I discover a snakes and ladders board. The three of us sit outside playing until it gets dark. Mum is still smoking, even though there's a sign. She turns on the little fan instead, making the passive smoking more efficient. This game is like our life, except our life-board is one big ladder at the beginning and then all snakes after that.

Somewhere in the park a couple start fighting. It's quiet at first and then gets louder, and soon they're both screaming swearwords at each other. Even though they're a long way away, all the muscles in my neck and shoulders are tense.

The man, I'm guessing, based on their exchange, storms out, slamming the van door behind him. She shouts after him. Glad that he's gone. Hoping he'll never come back. I hope so, too, but he does. The fight resumes. It goes on and on. I can feel the beginning of a headache pulsing in my temples.

We play again and again, and nobody says anything. We're listening to the fight. Eventually the man leaves. A car grunts into life and squeals away.

I've tried to look at the bright side, but this place really sucks. It's ugly, it smells bad. I don't like the people. They're like the characters in
My Name is Earl,
except not funny, or nice to each other.

'I don't like it here,' I say. 'I don't want to stay for six weeks.'

Mum lights another cigarette.

'Can you stop smoking? Please? You're giving me a headache. And can we get something else to eat? Like, order pizza or something?' I add. 'I'm starving.'

Mum ignores me. She rolls the dice, and counts out four spaces with her token.

'Who said anything about six weeks?' Will frowns.

'There's a phone box near reception. Will and I could walk down and order a pizza. We could get two, and some wings maybe. Mum? Can we?'

Mum squints at me through the smoke. 'Have an apple.'

'I already had an apple!'

'Have another one.'

I rock back on my seat. 'I can't believe you are starving us, and making us smoke cigarettes, and forcing us to live in this shoebox.'

'It's just for a little while,' she says, placing the dice in front of Will.

Will picks up the dice. Instead of rolling it, he says, 'Mum, why don't you go to Centrelink and get the dole?'

She looks startled and disgusted, as though Will just suggested that she might like a maggot sandwich.

It's like a little rainbow arching over my cloudy day. Why didn't I think of it before? It's designed for people like us, isn't it? Hardworking taxpayers down on their luck.

I've seen dole bludgers on telly. It must be enough to live on quite comfortably. Why would these people choose to live on it otherwise? I'm guessing it's enough for rent, food, and a little over to catch a movie. No popcorn, of course. We might even be able to afford Mum's new habit.

The lights go out. The fan blades slow down and then stop. Mum's cigarette end glows in the dark.

'The plug must have come out,' I say. The guy who showed us to our van plugged the power in before he unlocked the door. There might be a torch in one of the drawers, although it's pretty light outside. 'We can probably re-plug the socket without a torch,' I say.

And then the van rocks. The springs squeak. Collective sniggering.

'Mrs Melbourne,' whispers a voice. The window is open and the voice is right in my ear. It sends a violent shiver over me like a sharp poke in the side. I shoot out of my seat and bump into Mum. We hold each other's hands.

Outside, the light is behind them, so I can't see their faces, but there are four of them. It's the boys from the games room. I'm sure of it. The whisperer is clinging onto the side of the van like a monkey.

The van starts rocking rhythmically from side to side. The voice starts telling us what they are going to do to us. He's whispering it through the window. I haven't even heard of half the terms before, but I know I don't want them done to me. Most of it is directed at Mum.

They wouldn't be calling Mum 'Mrs Melbourne' unless those girls had told them that's where we're from. Why would they do that?

Our stuff pitches and rolls across the floor. I'm holding on to the foldaway table, and I feel sick. I'm scared too, because they're so brazen. If only I knew how far it was going to go. And for how long. Are they just going to rock the van for a while and leave, or will it be all night? What if this is their idea of foreplay?