Red (6 page)

‘And who is this young man?'

‘This is Peri.' Red pulled back and watched as Jazz's mum held her hand out.

‘Hop in the car,' she said. ‘I thought I'd just take you back to our place where you can tell us what happened and you can have some lunch. We can work it out from there.'

They headed west, leaving the Centre and the coast behind them. Tree branches were down and pushed to the edge of the road. They saw a car crushed by a whole tree trunk and every now and then a house with flapping roof iron and builders working to restore it.

They drove slowly through the heavy traffic.

‘The trains are all out,' said Jazz's mum. ‘The underground is flooded and the electricity in these suburbs is gone. Lots of the city network is down.'

‘Where are we actually going?' said Red.

‘We're living in Burwood now,' said Jazz. ‘It's OK there. We moved so I could go to high school. Remember how we were always going to do that together?'

Red nodded. She didn't remember that, but now wasn't the moment to say so. They drove on. Red turned her face to the window. Now there were streets full of whole houses almost untouched by the winds and the water. Pedestrians streamed along footpaths and ducked in and out of crowded shops. Cyclists in canary-coloured jackets darted between the cars. It was suddenly a different world.

• • • • •

They sat eating lunch on the wide verandah. Jazz's mum fussed around them, bringing bowls of pasta and salad and jugs of iced water. She took a camera from the bookcase inside and Red and Jazz sat together, arms around each other, posing, laughing and smiling. Then Red sucked spirally pasta into her mouth with tomato sauce, garlic, herbs and olives. It felt familiar. Was this what she was used to eating?

Peri slurped on his second helping. Red's eyes danced from the neatly mown lawn and the dense herb garden of basil and mint to the sprawling grevillea.Wattle birds balanced on the thin branches, their beaks pressed into golden flowers. Had she lived in a place like this? Did she sit eating lunch on a verandah looking out at a garden and birds? A tiny skink slid over the sandstone wall of a flowerbed.

‘OK.' Jazz pushed her plate to the side and leant back from the table. ‘OK. How come your photo was up on the wall? And where's your dad?'

‘I don't know,' said Red. ‘And how come you went to the Centre? Were you caught up in all the storm too?'

‘No way. You know how Mum was a teacher. Well now she works for the Department of Education and they sent her over there with some others to work out what to do with all the kids. Schools have been wrecked, but the kids have to go somewhere. I just went with her to have a look. But I don't get it. How come you two got together?'

‘Peri found me,' said Red. ‘He found me lying in the mud, in the middle of all the broken-up trees and the wrecked houses and everything.'

‘She was half dead,' said Peri. ‘Too much eating of mud and sea-water.'

‘And you don't know where your dad is?'

‘I don't know anything. I can't remember anything.' Red scratched at the dry timber of the table. ‘I don't know why. Maybe I got hit on the head or something. I can't picture anything; parents, the house I lived in, nothing. I couldn't remember you, Jazz, or that I was called Ginger. Not till I saw your note.'

‘You mean, if I hadn't put that message up you wouldn't have known about me?'

Red shook her head.

‘But we went to kindergarten together. You've known me since we were five.'

‘Doesn't matter. You can say that but I can't remember it.'

‘And your family? Your dad? Can you remember him?'

Red didn't answer. Her head, her whole body, felt suddenly heavy. Too many questions. Shut up, Jazz.

‘So that's when you went and put that photo up?'

Peri nodded.

‘But why were
you
there? Do you live round that area?'

Peri didn't answer.

Jazz wouldn't let up. ‘You must have a family, Peri. Where are they?'

‘I don't live with them any more.' He looked away.

‘So where did you sleep last night?'

‘At your old school,' he said. ‘We just wanted to get away from where everything was wrecked and I thought the school was a good place, lots of rooms. It's damaged but we could get in. We slept in the library.'

Jazz laughed. ‘In Mrs Mac's library. I wish I'd been there.'

‘And we saw the photos on the wall,' said Peri. ‘We knew then that it was Red's – Ginger's – school. Except she's not in the Year 6 photo, the one from last year.'

‘That's 'cos you'd gone.' She looked at Red.

‘Gone? Where did I go?'

‘Good question,' Jazz shrugged. ‘They came and got you from class. Your dad and another bloke. They said you had to go then, straight away. So you packed your bag and left. We thought it was something just for that day, or maybe a few days, but that was the last time we saw you. And it was terrible because you were in the class performance, you know, the one we used to do for Assembly. And when you didn't come back the next day, or the next, they had to cancel it, move it on to the next week and stupid Trevor Ho got to sing the song. You'd have been much better.'

The class performance
. I am crying in the car. But
I have to sing I am saying and Dad is there and he's
saying that he is sorry really sorry but this is important,
more important than anything in my whole life and we
are going, we have to get out of the city now, right now.
My bags are packed and I can't say goodbye to anyone
and we are going where the people who are after him will
never find him. I am kicking the back of the seat in front
and I am saying that I don't care I want to sing and he
doesn't care and Mrs Williams says it is the best class
performance she's ever programmed and I am the star.
He turns from the front passenger seat and he hasn't
shaved his face and it looks all furry. My dad is crying
and he's saying he's sorry, sorry, sorry. This is not how
he planned it, he thought we would never have to do this
again, but we have to go to another place, to change our
names and to never come back and it's to save our lives
and it's for our own protection
.

Red jumped up and moved to the end of the verandah. Her shoulders were shaking. She could see his face. Dark bushy eyebrows, the deep vertical crease between them as he spoke that afternoon, a tiny scar above his lip, pale against the darker colour of his skin. And then they were at the airport and on a plane and he said they were going to Adelaide and then to a smaller place in the country and her name was different, now it was Rosie.

‘What was my name?' Red turned to face Jazz. ‘Not Ginger. What was my real name?'

CHAPTER SIX

‘RHIANNON. RHIANNON CHALMERS. I CALLED YOU
Rina. I mean when I wasn't calling you Ginger.'

Rhiannon? Chalmers? They meant nothing. ‘Rhiannon, Rosie, Red, Rina, Ruby.' Peri ticked the names off on his fingers. ‘Bit stuck on “R”, don't you think?'

‘Not my fault.' Red sat down again. ‘Why did we go away? My dad said we needed protection. Who from? Why?'

‘Maybe your dad was in danger from some big-time crooks. Or maybe he was a crook himself,' said Peri.

‘Don't be stupid.' Red spat the words out.

‘Or a spy or something like that. And he knew stuff and …'

‘That sounds stupid, too,' said Jazz. ‘He was just like any other dad. He took us all camping in Year Four and he made the best birthday cakes.' She looked at Red. ‘Do you remember that year when we won the soccer and he made the cake like a field with green icing and…'

• • • • •

Red felt suddenly cold. Her dad, just like anyone else's dad. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap. She whispered, ‘And what about my mother?' There had been no mother in the car, at the airport, on the plane.

Jazz shook her head. ‘I don't know. There never was one at your place. I don't know what happened to her. Mum might know.' She went inside then and came back with a bowl of pistachio nuts. ‘I'll go and fix it with Mum so you can stay tonight.'

Red and Peri rubbed the skins off the nuts and ate in silence.

‘D'you want to stay here for the night?' said Peri.

‘I suppose so. I don't know what I want. But when she tells me stuff like the day we left, I do remember bits. If I stay here, more might come back. What about you?'

‘I'll stay tonight. Tomorrow…' He shrugged. ‘I'll work it out then.'

• • • • •

They stayed.

Jazz's mother studied Red's scabbed hands and insisted on bathing them in warm water and smoothing an antiseptic cream all over them. She found plastic gloves for Red, who then stood under the hot shower and soaped and soaped her body. She turned her face upwards and let the warm droplets pound her forehead and cheeks. Water poured over her back and her arms, taking with it the mud and salt that was in her hair and every pore of her skin. Finally she emerged. She dressed herself in Jazz's spare pyjamas and settled into an armchair in the lounge room.

‘Your turn,' she said to Peri.

The television screen was filled with images of the wrecked coastline. The helicopter filming swooped low over cliffs now smashed and shattered on the beaches. Huge front-end loaders like teams of dinosaurs moved through the streets. They scooped up mud, sand and the wreckage of homes, tipping everything into the council dump-trucks. Workers in fluorescent clothing swarmed over the remains of buildings, roads and open spaces. A face appeared on the screen.

‘Now here is the Prime Minister,' said the announcer.

‘My government has done and will continue to do everything we can to assist everyone marked by this terrible tragedy,' said the Prime Minister. ‘This is every bit as big a disaster as Cyclone Tracy that destroyed Darwin on Christmas Eve in 1974 or the Queensland cyclone and Brisbane floods of 2011. Because of the density of our current coastal urban environment, many people are now homeless. Resources are being moved in from interstate and we are grateful for the assistance coming to us from our international friends. Clearly this state of emergency will take time to resolve, but we are in this for the long haul. We are a resilient people. We will move forward. All efforts are being made by the different services to bring aid to anyone and everyone affected by what has happened.'

Numbers flashed across the bottom of the screen as she spoke:
confirmed dead 800, missing believed
to be a further 650… estimated homes destroyed 10 000
… businesses, schools and other places of learning
6000 … government appealing for blankets, tents … international
messages of sympathy … donations of money
are the best ways to help… Premier believed to be
among the dead … significant destruction up and down
the coast … worst-affected area the eastern suburbs of
Sydney.

• • • • •

Jazz left her seat and pushed into the space beside Red. ‘This is so horrible. You don't think it can happen in your place, your country.'

Red nodded. Her eyes were fixed on the images on the screen. Was her dad one of the 800? Was he one of the 650? How could she ever find out?

Jazz slipped her arm through Red's. ‘This is like when we were little and had sleepovers. Do you remember the scary movies we used to watch? And that time when we pigged out on all the lollies and you threw up on the doona that had Hannah Montana on it?'

Red didn't answer.

‘While you were in the shower,' Jazz went on, ‘I spoke to Mum and she says that you and Peri can stay here till we find out what happened to your dad.'

‘But that might take forever.'

‘So you'll stay forever. We've got room.'

‘Thanks, but what'll your dad say?'

‘He'll do whatever Mum and I want.'

‘Where is he?'

Jazz shrugged. ‘At work. He doesn't get in till really late. Since the cyclone they cancelled all the police leave. He's been taken off his usual job and is just working on this. They're all doing overtime looking for people and trying to fix stuff.'

So Jazz's mum was a teacher and her dad was a policeman. What was her own dad? How come he needed protection? How could she get from that plane trip with her dad to the mud when Peri found her? Where had she been for those two years?

• • • • •

She lay between the cool linen sheets in the extra bed in Jazz's room. Peri was down the hall in a spare room. Clearly Jazz's family had money. Had her family been like that too, with spare rooms, heavy old-fashioned furniture, fancy plates on the dinner table? As they'd eaten, Jazz's mum and dad had quizzed them about the past few days.

‘Have you registered with us, with the police?' her father had said.

Peri shook his head. ‘I don't need to. I'm not lost.'

‘But your family, they must be worried about you. We should get in touch with them.'

‘I've been in touch. They're fine and Red didn't have a name so we couldn't report her.'

Jazz's dad raised an eyebrow. ‘Well at least we've solved that problem.'

Red had been silent all through the meal. Now she took a deep breath and said to Jazz's parents, ‘Can you tell me something about my dad?'

‘I only met him a couple of times,' said Jazz's mother. ‘His name is David. And he used to drop you over to play.' She smiled at Red. ‘He was very nice, a lovely man. I'm not sure where he worked or what he did.'

‘Finance, I think,' said Jazz's father. ‘One of those big companies. I'm not really sure exactly.'