Riggs Crossing (15 page)

Chapter 37

I’m not so much into
Clarissa Hobbs
anymore, but I still watch it. Recently, the episodes seem to focus more on Clarissa’s personal life and gloss over her work. Maybe they’ve changed the writers, or maybe the producers have told the writers to do something different. They don’t show her much in court anymore, they just show her leaving her law office for the day, going off to do something glamorous and exciting. In the last episode, Clarissa was shopping in an exclusive boutique, trying to choose a dress for the Charity Ball. Her friend Barbara helps her choose a Vera Wang dress.

Do they even sell Vera Wang dresses in Sydney?

After my lesson with Miss Dunn, I usually go back to the Refuge after walking down University Road. But today, I take a bus into the city. I don’t know why I’ve never done this before. It’s not that far away.

The bus follows City Road, turns right onto Broadway, and trundles up the hill past the old Brewery on the right, then UTS on the left. Further up the hill, we go through the very edge of Chinatown, with neon signs in Chinese lighting the entrances to jewellery stores and noodle shops. Then comes Town Hall: cinemas, game parlours, Baskin Robbins, KFC. When the bus stops in front of the Queen Victoria Building, I know we’re getting close. I get off at the next stop, walk up half a block and turn right, walking toward Hyde Park. When I come to Llewellyn’s, I stop to study the window display. It’s summer and boiling hot, but the mannequins are dressed in wool skirts and jumpers. ‘Autumn Attractions’, the sign says. I pull open one of the heavy doors and go in.

A blast of air conditioning makes me shiver in my T-shirt. I can feel the sweat under my arms congealing – I hope I don’t smell bad to the clerks who’ve been working inside where it’s cool all day.

I try not to worry – after all, the other shoppers have been out in the heat, just like me. I walk past the rows of scarves and the display cases of watches, past the hosiery section, to the cosmetics department, then ride the escalator up to Designer Collections, on the third floor.

I walk around the floor. Simona. Trent Nathan. Moschino. Akira Isogawa. Covers. Dolce & Gabbana. Aquascutum. Max Mara. Colette Dinnigan. Carla Zampatti.

Floral prints seem to be in this season. I stop to look at a dress that has a pretty pattern of lilies all over it.

‘It looks like a muu-muu.’

The voice comes from behind me. It’s a young guy who looks like he paints houses for a living. He’s got paint splatters over his shorts and he’s wearing thongs. His girlfriend, skinny, blonde, and wearing heavy black eyeliner, is holding up a different floral dress against herself to show him what it will look like on.

‘Kev!’

‘Yeah, that’s what it looks like, a muu-muu!’ the painter guy says. He seems a nice guy, but he’s talking a bit too loud and his accent is full-on Westie. ‘A really fat lady lived across the street from us in St Mary’s and she used to wear ’em all summer. You know how you do this with your T-shirt to cool yourself down when it’s really hot?’ He flaps the hem of his T-shirt to demonstrate. ‘Well, that’s what this lady would do with her muu-muu.’ The blonde girl groans and puts the dress back on the rack. I move on.

I get bored looking at dresses and ride the lift to Level 7. The door opens onto an expanse of quiet. No one’s talking about muu-muus up here. The only noise is the whir of hair dryers and muted conversations from the hair salon on the opposite side of the floor.

I see a few names up here that I didn’t downstairs – Donna Karan, Valentino, Norma Kamali, Calvin Klein, Vivienne Westwood, Yves Saint Laurent, Ralph Lauren – but they don’t seem to have very much stuff by any one designer. I see one dress that I think is pretty, but they only have just the one in a size 10. Also, a lot of the clothes look like they’ve been tried on a million times. They’re a bit grubby around the edges and don’t stay on the hangers properly. I find one blue dress that wasn’t anything special to begin with, has a loose button and a lipstick smear on the neck, but still costs nine hundred dollars.

It’s a good thing there aren’t any clerks around. I’d be embarrassed if anyone heard me laughing because I imagined that blue dress showing up at the Refuge in a box of donated clothes.

There’s some exhibition going on – ballet costumes done by Australian fashion designers. I decide to forget about the clothes and have a look at the tutus. One is a tutu made out of lots of ballet shoes. Each shoe has a ballet dancer’s name written on it. Intelligent and imaginative, but not wearable, Clarissa Hobbs would say. She was one of the judges of a fashion design contest in one episode. She would have said the same thing about the one that had all these wires with discs hanging off them. Imagine dancing ballet in that. You’d impale yourself if you did a jump and landed wrong.

The Akira Isogawa one isn’t pretty like his dresses and skirts downstairs, but his tutu costume definitely has an attitude about it that I like.

It’s the Collette Dinnigan tutu that makes the ride up to the seventh floor worthwhile. It has a bodice with lots of black beadwork and sequins, and a long, lacy skirt. I mentally squeeze my thick waist and chunky thighs into the tutu. I will my legs to grow longer and slimmer. Is it too late for me to start learning ballet? Bouquets of roses are thrown onto the stage, cries of ‘Encore!’ and ‘Bravo!’ echo through the Opera House as I bow, having performed for an audience of thousands wearing the famous Colette Dinnigan tutu . . .

A scream jerks me out of my stupid fantasy.

‘GET OUT!’ A large blond man wearing black trousers and a white shirt is standing near the entrance to the hair salon, pointing a finger out the door. A younger, slim, dark-haired man strides angrily toward him.

‘Fine! I WILL leave!’ the younger man shouts, throwing a towel onto the front counter.

‘Your behaviour is totally unprofessional!’ The blond man has his hands on his hips.

‘What’s unprofessional is YOU and the FASCIST way you run this salon. You STEAL my clients, you DON’T pay me the bonuses I’m entitled to, and you INTENTIONALLY give me bad shifts! I’m SICK of you! You’re JEALOUS of me!’

The blond man splutters. ‘JEALOUS?’ he screeches. ‘Of YOU? You’re a non-talented suburban hairdresser! I only hired you because Ian asked me to.’

‘Well, if we’re going to talk about “non-talented suburban hairdressers” we might start with Ian, mightn’t we?’ the younger man smirks, craning his neck and aiming his voice toward the back of the salon. ‘We all know why you keep HIM on!’

‘LEAVE NOW OR I’LL CALL SECURITY!’

The younger dark-haired man flounces toward the lift, trying to look triumphant, but I can see that he’s about to cry. Without stopping to think, I run after him and we go into the lift together. He punches ‘G’ savagely and the doors of the lift close.

I look at his nametag. ‘Derrykk’. Yep, two r’s, two k’s, and a y.

I remember Scott, the physiotherapist. Like I do whenever I feel a little twinge in my shoulder.

Fortunately, no one gets in the lift on our journey down. As we whoosh down seven floors, Derrykk starts to cry silently, tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask him, just as the lift arrives at ground level and the doors open.

Derrykk looks down at me, manages a smile, and pats me on the shoulder. ‘Don’t go into hairdressing, Little One,’ he chokes. ‘It’ll break your heart.’ Then he runs for the Elizabeth Street exit, breaking into a wail of sorrow that makes people turn and look as he heads through the door.

The doors of the lift shut by themselves. I’m standing in the lift wondering what to do, then I remember that I wanted to check out Level 2 for some casual clothes. I find a black long-sleeved T-shirt marked down to $19.99 on the sale rack.

Chapter 38

I leave Llewellyn’s by the Castlereagh Street exit, making sure I catch the bus in time to get back to the Refuge before dinner. We have to sign out and sign back in, and if you don’t come back when you’re supposed to, Lyyssa has to keep a closer eye on you. I don’t like anyone keeping me on a lead, so it’s easier just to follow the rules.

On the bus, I remove the tags from the shirt and despite the heat I put it on over the T-shirt I’m wearing. When I get off the bus, I find a rubbish bin and throw away the tags. The Llewellyn’s shopping bag is folded neatly inside my backpack, where I can get it up to my room without anyone seeing it and then use it as a dirty clothes bag.

I check my reflection in the window before I open the front door. I hope no one notices I’m wearing a new shirt.

‘. . . and I just told him, “I’ve only done
that
twice in my whole life, so don’t you lay
that
on me”.’

I don’t know this voice. I don’t want to know this voice. It’s a whiny, reedy, nasty, ill-bred voice.

‘And he says some rubbish about stuff that some other girl did and I got blamed for, and
that’s
when I picked up the chair and threw it at him.’

I stop at the entrance to the lounge room. Karen is sitting on the couch, staring at the new girl with her mouth open. Shane is sitting next to Karen, staring with his mouth closed and a worried look in his eyes. Cinnamon is sitting in the lounge chair, watching the new girl with barely suppressed contempt.

The new girl is perched on the edge of Clementine, swollen with pride at her recital of whacking some juvenile justice officer or dickhead social worker with a chair. She’s about my age, with mousey hair, teeth with spaces in between them, and mean little blue eyes.

Lyyssa is standing rigidly next to the TV, a smile frozen on her face, obviously wondering what the hell to do with this loud, stupid nutcase. I can hear Jo in the dining room, tapping away on her laptop.

‘Len!’ Lyyssa cries, like she’s drowning and I’m the surf lifesaver. ‘We have a new member of the household. Allie is explaining why she came to live with us.’

‘Sounds real interesting. Sorry I missed it.’ This comes out before I’ve had a chance to think it over. Karen and Shane just keep staring. Cinnamon lets out a tiny snort of laughter.

‘They put me in Seggro for three days,’ Allie says proudly.
Seggro?
This trashy little Allie is a wanker. Even I know that Seggro only happens in real jails, not kiddie detention centres or group homes. It’s short for ‘segregation’, and means they put you in a cell by yourself because you’re violent or uncontrollable.

‘I’ll put you in Seggro if you ever sit on my couch again.’

‘Len!’ Lyyssa gasps. Allie’s mouth snaps shut. Cinnamon hides her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with laughter. Karen and Shane have dimly realised that something’s up and are giggling vaguely, even though they haven’t really understood what’s funny. Jo comes to the doorway and stares.

‘Len,’ Lyyssa repeats sternly. ‘That couch is for everyone’s use. And that’s no way to speak to a newcomer. I’d like you to apologise to Allie.’ She looks around. ‘Cinnamon, Karen, Shane, can you please help me in the kitchen? Allie and Len, please come join us in the dining room in five minutes.’

Lyyssa walks briskly from the room and Jo retreats with her, followed by Karen and Shane, both of whom can’t stop laughing and will probably keep laughing all the way through dinner. Cinnamon doesn’t look at me as she leaves the room, but her face has just a trace of a smile on it, something I haven’t seen since Bindi left.

That leaves me standing in the middle of the room and Allie sitting on Clementine. I shop at Llewellyn’s. I’m not sharing Clementine with some ugly little mutt who might have crabs. I ball my hands into fists and take a step closer to Allie.

Allie leans forward and looks me up and down. Her mean little eyes sharpen onto my new shirt. ‘Nice shirt. What size is it?’

What she means is, I’m going to take your shirt.

‘My size,’ I say in a low voice, taking another step toward her. ‘Now get off my couch and don’t ever go near it again.’

Allie is out of the room in a flash.

Chapter 39

Nothing happened during dinner. Allie was seated across the table from me, and I stared her down every time she looked at my way. I’ll keep doing this for a couple of days, then ease off. But every once in a while, I’ll stare her down again.

I’m in my room, sitting on my bed. I’ve decorated it as much as I can in Leo colours, orange and gold. At the Westgardens Metro I bought a couple of gold candle holders, and put peppermint-scented candles in them. There’s a rule about not lighting candles or cigarettes or joints or bushfires in the Refuge, but Lyyssa and I have an agreement that I am allowed to light candles provided that I never light more than two and never set them next to anything flammable or put them any place they might be knocked over. I’ve put the candles on the mantelpiece above where the fireplace used to be.

I used to have my books on the mantelpiece. Now I put them in a small bookshelf that I found in someone’s garbage and spray-painted a saffron colour. And at a fabric store at the Westgardens Metro, I found four metres of sheer orange fabric threaded through with gold. It was on the remnant table and only cost $12.99. I draped it over the fixtures that hold the window blinds, so that the fabric hangs like a curtain.

‘I’M NOT WEARING ANY PYJAMAS! I SLEEP IN MY CLOTHES, YOU STUPID COW!’ Allie screams at Lyyssa.

Whoever decided Allie should come to the Refuge made a blue. She’s way too crazy for this place. I don’t think even Major Heath will be able to do anything with her.

I lie down on my bed and look at the ceiling. Yes, I’ll have to do something a little bit mean to Allie once a week. Otherwise, she’ll get stroppy.

It’s all right to be mean to people, even to hit people, if they really need to be taught a lesson.

I close my eyes.

Daddy drives us into town. We stop at the Post Office and get the package with the books Daddy ordered for me. The package comes from Sydney. Once we’re in the car again I take Daddy’s bowie knife from the glove compartment and cut the strong tape so I can open the package. There are some books that I asked him to get me, and the next volume of Self-paced Mathematics that Daddy says I have to finish before I can have a 50cc motorbike. There’s also The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for Daddy, which weighs more than all of my books put together. Every once in a while Daddy gets one thick book and spends the rest of the year reading it.

We park outside the bottle shop and I leave the books on the car seat.

‘G’day,’ the man behind the counter says. He’s reading a girlie magazine, the kind that shows ladies with huge, perfectly round boobs that Daddy says are really fake and ugly.

I follow Daddy as he heads toward the back of the store to get a slab of VB. We’ve reached the coolers when the bell on the door tinkles and another customer walks in.

‘Small bottle of Johnny Walker Red, thanks.’

It’s Terry. The blond mullet bloke we went down to Sydney with, the one who introduced Daddy to that loser with the bathroom scale.

Daddy cut Terry dead after that, and so did Ernie and so did some other people in Riggs Crossing. Then, a big patch of Daddy’s crop got ripped. It wasn’t too hard to work out who stole it. Terry’s car ran a lot better and had two new front tyres the week after Daddy’s patch got ripped. And the work on Terry’s car hadn’t been done in Riggs Crossing. How did Terry get the money to get those repairs done? And why didn’t he have the repairs done at Murphy the Mechanic’s in town? It stuck out like dog’s balls.

Daddy stops dead in his tracks when he hears Terry’s voice. ‘Stay here,’ he says to me, then strides to the front of the shop.

I don’t move an inch from where Daddy told me to stay, but I step onto a box so I can see over the cardboard display with a fake palm tree advertising a free glass with each bottle of Kokomo’s coconut liqueur.

‘Terry,’ Daddy says loudly.

Terry turns white when he sees Daddy. ‘Hey, Mick!’ He forces a smile. ‘Long time no see!’

Daddy grabs Terry by his jacket and throws him into the palm tree display, sending some bottles crashing to the floor. They roll around, but none of them breaks. The clerk looks up from his magazine, annoyed. ‘Hey, mind the stock!’ he says.

‘Never mind the stock. I’ll pay for whatever his head breaks,’ Daddy yells. He boots Terry in the ribs, pulls him up, punches him in the mouth, then drags him to the door and tosses him out onto the pavement. I creep toward the front of the shop so I can see them. Daddy is crouching over Terry as he lies groaning on the footpath. ‘You rip my patch again, you’re dead meat,’ Daddy hisses.

The clerk puts the Johnny Walker in a paper bag and takes it outside. ‘Um, that’s seventeen dollars for the whiskey,’ he says to Terry.

‘It’s on me,’ Daddy says, reaching for his wallet. ‘Best seventeen bucks I ever spent.’

I open my eyes and look at the ceiling for a minute. I wonder if Lyyssa would let me paint the ceiling gold. If she says yes, how would I paint it so that the paint doesn’t drip onto the floor?

‘I TOLD YOU I’M NOT WEARING ANY PYJAMAS! TAKE YOUR PINK POOFTER PYJAMAS AND SHOVE THEM UP YOUR ARSE!’

Allie’s door slams, then Lyyssa and Jo try to talk to Allie through the door before they give up and go back downstairs.

Allie’s not really angry. She’s just working out how far she can push Lyyssa.

I turn onto my side and stare into the flame of one candle. Yes, Allie will need to be taught a lesson regularly. But her ribs won’t get broken, like four of Terry’s did.