Six Impossible Things (12 page)

They’re growing all along the base of the daphne hedge, and there are heaps of flowers out.

I start at the end where our garden borders on Estelle’s. When I hear voices, I step in closer, jamming myself between two big shrubs right next to the fence. Eavesdropping is nothing to someone who’s low enough to read a diary. It’s Estelle and Janie. Janie’s having a cigarette, that must be why they’re hiding out next to the fence. (Smoking is on Estelle’s ‘Things that disgust me’ list.) I just hope Mrs Da Silva stays in the kitchen for a bit longer.

When I hear my name – well, cake boy – my ears strain so hard I forget to breathe.

It’s Janie who says, ‘What about cake boy?’

Estelle laughs. ‘Are you kidding?’

‘Why? Why not?’ says Janie.

‘He’s just not right,’ says Estelle.

Right for what?

‘We’d have to swear him to secrecy,’ says Janie.

‘I suppose he could be okay . . .’ Estelle thinks I could be okay. Yes! But what for?

‘He’s not the sort you’d suspect.’

‘The element of surprise.’ Estelle’s trying it on for size, I can tell she’s just about convinced.

‘Do you think we could persuade him?’

‘Maybe.’

Maybe nothing. Estelle could persuade me to do anything.

‘Definitely,’ says Janie. ‘He’s hot for you in a big way.’

‘Shut up.’

No, she’s right.

‘Well he never stops staring at you. I told him you think he’s a creep.’

‘I never said that.’

Ah-ha!

‘Sure you did.’

‘Janie, I did not.’

Oh, joy.

‘Well he is.’

‘Anyway, why don’t you ask him? You work with the guy.’

Hmm. She could have fought back a bit, surely?

‘Does he have it in him to kill someone, though? That’s what we need to decide.’

Kill someone? I nearly fall over. In the shocked instant I take this at face value, a range of enticing images floods through me – the thrilling possibility of Estelle using her persuasive powers to lure me, one chilling yet seductive step at a time, to life on the wrong side of the law. Could I resist, or would I turn into a compliant puppet in her supple hands? The latter for sure.

Howard comes barking his head off out the back door, heading straight for me, followed by Mrs Da Silva. I emerge from my hiding place with as casual an air as I can muster.

‘There are plenty, Dan, over here,’ she says pointing to the violets.

To her complete puzzlement I silently sprint as far away as I can from the fence before answering, ‘Thanks.’ With any luck they won’t guess they’ve been overheard.

I’m wondering what the hell they were talking about as I bring the violets inside, and register my mother has just said we are invited in next door for a drink tonight.

‘Don’t you have to cook the wake cake?’

‘Yes, but these have to soak before I can do much.’ She points at the raisins. ‘And the violets have to be washed and dried before I can start on them.’

‘Do I have to come?’

‘Unless you’ve got a compelling reason not to, yes, you do.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it’s a polite, neighbourly response to a polite, neighbourly invitation.’

Seeing my glum face, she continues. ‘The girl is in your class, isn’t she? Or your year level, at least?’

‘Yeah.’

‘When we get there, stand up straight and try not to be so morose, if you can manage it.’

We’re on their doorstep fifteen minutes later. My mother has put on lipstick. I’m trying to boost my confidence by talking to myself: ‘She doesn’t think I’m a creep, she doesn’t think I’m a creep,’ but a bracket keeps sneaking in (but she would if she found out what I’ve done . . . ), followed by another one (but she never needs to find out . . . ).

Estelle’s mother lets us in and under the introductions and greetings, I check out their house. A breathtaking contrast to Adelaide’s, it’s had the guts stripped out of it. Most of the walls are gone and everything is painted white. Just as Adelaide’s house is choking with more junk than you can imagine, this house is almost empty, except for not very many pieces of modern furniture and art. It’s warm and smells beautiful. Estelle’s mother, Vivien, is thin with very white skin and very red lips, wearing a complicated black dress that looks as though it is trying to disguise the fact that it’s made for humans. Her hair is cut into weird asymmetry. She’s a curator. In the middle of a show. Frantic! So sorry not to have been in touch earlier! The father is called Peter. I’ve never seen or heard him. He disappears soon after introducing himself, talking into his mobile and throwing a phoney apologetic look in our direction.

Estelle troops in wearing her school uniform and a resigned expression, carrying a large, shallow bowl of chips.

There’s another plate of food the mothers are nibbling from, and soon they are happily nattering away about white anchovies and an obscure restaurant they’ve both been to in Rome.

Estelle is looking at me with some concentration – perhaps wondering, is he our killer? And I’m hoping for enlightenment about that conversation. Is it a metaphor? Code language? Are they putting on a play? Do they want me to eradicate some pests?

As usual around the unattainable one, I’m confused and tongue-tied. But for a change, Estelle is interested in talking to me.

She asks me about work, and about how I like school. I manage to stumble and mumble my way through answering some questions, and then remember my dad dissing someone they know who never speaks, except in response to direct questions. He’s one of my father’s top five bores. I do not want to be like that guy, so I snap out of it.

I tell her about the op-shop, and Howard, and with a wobble of conscience, ask her about music, knowing we’ll connect over TV on the Radio and Hot Chip, and we do. So after only a little bit of plonking through wet cement in clown shoes, I’m actually enjoying myself. In fact, I feel as though I could look into those eyes – dark, stormy blue – and talk about anything forever.

The social comfort is short-lived. My mother starts making moves to go, then says, with absolutely no warning, ‘Oh, you two can go the Year Nine dance together. That’s handy.’

My deepest wish sits there on the floor, as unprotected and squirmy as a little turtle out of its shell. A rush of heat to my face feeds on itself and spreads. What is she thinking? Where did that come from?

Estelle says, very pointedly, ‘I’m probably already going with someone.’

Estelle’s father comes in just then, and they’re all looking at my face as it burns on. He walks over and picks up a thermostat remote control. ‘Bit warm in here, is it?’ he asks, pointing the thing nowhere in particular and clicking away.

My mother says, ‘I’m just talking about sharing a lift.’

Vivien says, ‘Sounds like a good idea.’

I say, ‘I might be going with someone, too.’

Good strategy: when you’re in a tight spot, dig yourself deeper.

My mother asks, ‘Who?’

‘No one you know.’

‘Well perhaps you can all share a lift together,’ she says with patronising, exaggerated patience.

She and Vivien exchange a teenagers-you-can’t-say-a-thing-right smile, and we leave.

‘Sorry if I embarrassed you back there,’ she says, when we get home.

‘I’d really appreciate it if you’d just stay the hell out of my business.’

Oh, yes, because I’m handling it all so well. Or maybe not, in light of the current crises:

1 Attic temptation.
Much as I am intrigued by the idea of Estelle as a heinous conspirator to murder, prepared to use me callously to achieve her evil goal, I am dying to know what Estelle and Janie were actually talking about. I begin to think about a third attic visit. Why not? I’d already gone all the way in the bad stakes. What was one more tiny little peek going to matter? The moral slippery slope – wheeee.

2 Money worries.
The nest-egg thing is eating me up. How can I provide any cushioning when I earn so little? Three shifts at Phrenology, crummy fifteen- year- old hourly rate as of my birthday next week, plus two shifts at the op- shop, zero hourly rate. But I can’t just dump that, at least not until a respectable interval has passed. (Three months? Six months? And how am I going to work that one out?) Not enough time; not nearly enough money. I’ve told Fred we can see a movie this weekend, but that just seems like a money- wasting activity. And I can’t keep scabbing off my best friend.

3 Mother meanness – mine to her, not hers to me.
I have to start being nicer to my mother, somehow find my sympathy for her again; I have it in theory. If someone were to tell me her story I’d feel sorry for her, no question. I just can’t find it in practice. Why is it so impossible just to be pleasant?

4 Father call.
I told my mother he’d give up calling eventually, but the idea terrifies me. The calls are a lifeline. I’m hanging on, just not ready to pull myself in yet. If he gives up, I drown. Down, down, down into the black water between our icebergs.

5 Howard limping.
Sort of a subset of the money worries category. It means a vet visit. No idea how much that costs, but I bet it’s heaps.

6 Need new clothes.
Could also be considered a subset of money worries. Arms and legs sticking out of clothes, toes jammed in shoes. Replacing them is up to me. No more visits to the uniform shop asking them to put whatever on the parents’ account. I can probs get some casuals from the op- shop, but not sure on etiquette of buying from where you work.

Problems, responsibilities, frowns. It feels like a million years ago that all I had to worry about was beating ancient games on Nintendo, or getting homework done on time.

I decide I could do worse than speak to Oliver about some of this stuff.

W
HEN YOU WATCH SOMEONE
shave, a barrier is broken down. It feels easy to talk to Oliver now.

I mostly need to ask him about clothes and money, so I’m as surprised as anyone to hear myself lead with, ‘What do you think about Estelle from next door?’

He gives me an assessing once over.

‘Out of your league, man, unless you do something about the look,’ he says.

‘You said outward stuff doesn’t make you cool.’

‘It’s definitely not
the
thing, but it is
a
thing. It’s one of those weird paradoxes life throws up – it can’t make you cool, but it can make you uncool.’

Now he tells me.

‘What should I do?’

‘Getting rid of the bum fluff was an excellent move. Now you need clothes that do you some favours, give you some edge. And the hair,’ he shakes his own svelte locks, ‘I’m gonna be brutal, it needs a total rethink.’

My hair? I haven’t even given it a think, let alone a rethink. And that, possibly, is the nub of the problem. It’s been months since the last haircut and it’s just hanging there. I do keep it clean. More or less. When I remember.

‘We need Em.’

‘Hairdresser?’

‘Girlfriend. She’s a DJ, but she’s pretty good at chopping into hair.’

‘When’s she coming back?’

‘Soon, I hope. You still working at the op-shop?’

‘Yep.’

‘Those bags over there – it’s stuff I don’t wear any more, right. How about you go through it, take what you want, and drop the rest off for me?’

‘Thanks.’

‘Forget it. You’re doing me a favour.’

Oliver thinks a new school uniform can be acquired from lost property. I dump the old stuff there and pick up whatever someone else has been careless enough to lose. Swings and roundabouts etc.

Heading off to meet Fred, I’m wearing some of Oliver’s old clothes – jeans with pockets like diagonal slashes, a jumper that’s the colour of eggplant, and a big grey jacket that Oliver tells me is made from boiled wool, by some Japanese designer. It all looks a bit weird to me, but I decide the trend guru knows more than the dag guru about what to wear.

Fred walks a full circle around me.

‘You look older, taller and cooler. How’s that possible in a couple of weeks?’

‘I’m running every day, with Howard, and pumping the doorstops.’

‘I see the results. You’ll lose that whole geeky charm thing you’ve got happening if you’re not careful.’

I give him a good solid punch in the arm.