The Good Daughter (20 page)

‘Try and get up,’ Simmo says.

When Rebecca does, Simmo slides across into her place. He grabs her by the hips and pulls her back onto his lap. ‘That’s more comfortable.’

Simmo holds her to him, lets her go, and when she moves, he hauls her in again.

It’s machine-gun-like bursts of rough behaviour, as though by doing it this way she might not notice.

She struggles.

‘Baby!’ he says, as though she’s deliberately grinding against him.

Rebecca stops. She takes a breath. It seems a mistake to play the game their way. ‘Okay,’ she says, ‘you can let me up now.’

Simmo touches her between the legs again. He can’t see himself do it – his face is behind her back – and this maybe makes it easier for him. His fingers are gone as quickly as they were there, but the touch is very much present in Rebecca’s mind.

‘If you do that again …’

He does. It’s as though she’s laid down a challenge.

Her shock is more to do with how the situation is turning to quicksand – she can’t speak, move, breathe, without each action pulling her down. Everything is twisted and used against her. This time Simmo’s fingers stay.

‘What will you do?’ he says, holding his hand to her.

Her lag in responding is because she has to consider cause and effect; it’s the same as out in the hallway, but tougher, in this ramped-up environment. It really does feel like she might dig her own hole.

‘If you don’t move, you must like it, hey?’

Rebecca tries to stand. For leverage she has to put her hand on Randy’s thigh. It’s fat and bulky beneath her fingers. His pants are loose to conceal his weight, but tighter material would have held him in – now all she feels is the jelly-like nature of his upper leg.

Rebecca pushes up. Simmo and Randy hold her down. David kneels and tucks his arms over her knees, so that her kneecaps are nestled in his armpits and his face is in her face.

‘I
will
scream if you don’t let me up.’

In answer to this, Super Boy goes across and turns up the music. He raises his thumb, as though to say,
All taken care of
.

Simmo slides his hand under her bum and begins to physically lift her, pushing her pelvis forward in an automated lap dance. With his fingers out of sight from the others, his touch grows gamer. She digs her elbow into his chest, and in a strange compromise he seems to concede his actions are inappropriate, so he withdraws his hand and puts it on her breast.

‘Get
off
me!’

This is all taking place in the space of seconds, one minute at the most – the song playing is unchanged, and it pays to realise that: it’s the blink of an eye, and how much harm, really, can be inflicted in a few short minutes?

The heel of Simmo’s hand squashes against her breast. It hurts. Rebecca says as much, but none of them are hearing what she says – they are listening, but not responding properly to her words. They laugh. When she stresses it really does hurt, and that they’re upsetting her, Randy pulls her around by the shoulders, off Simmo’s lap. It’s as though what she asked for was to get into a more accessible and comfortable position for them. They make her lean back.

Rebecca struggles properly now, although not yet screaming – shame holds her back, the idea that what’s happening is not yet worthy of a high-pitched scream, and if she does they might scoff, and the story will be what a fool she was, and how she has no idea how to fit into their fun social group. They were only mucking around …

‘Do you bite, Rebecca?’

‘Hey, she might bite?’

A hand slides down her top. It’s Randy. His big hand rests over her bra. It weighs down heavy on her breast. ‘I remember these,’ he says. He slips his fingers under the top edge of her bra. Rebecca pulls his hand out.

She manages to half sit up. She’s shoved suddenly and violently back down. The back of her head hits Randy’s knee. She can’t make out who pushed her. The hand seemed to have shot out from the boys who are standing. The aggression behind the push stills her. Her thoughts stall a moment. Her heart skips a beat. She’s aware of the cold air filling her mouth and cooling the back of her throat.

There’s a sinking feeling that it happens a lot like this – it unfolds this quickly, before you know it.

‘Turn her over.’

It’s Blake Stewart, he’s the nasty pusher – she can see that now. He has a narrowed gaze. He puts two fingers beneath her chin and stares without fear at her mouth. His own lips are slightly parted. The tip of his tongue rests against his top teeth. Her mother told to steer clear of the quiet church-going types. Looks like she was right. Blake pushes the hair off Rebecca’s forehead, and she’s never before felt a touch so cold and calculated. It causes a flu-like clammy sweat to descend over her.

He says, ‘How about you let Simmo have a proper feel, then we’ll let you up?’

The overriding thing Rebecca hears in this is
let you up
. Not –
let you go
. He wants her up, to turn her over. She has a quiet few moments in her head where she prays it’s not set down in some future book, a memoir, that this happens to her. This is not a chapter in her story, is it? Her hardship quota is fully taken up, she would have thought.

The boys from outside are filing in.

Because there is room for it (room directly above her, not around her), Super Boy climbs on top of her. This is done for the benefit of the older boys. He doesn’t look at Rebecca, he doesn’t seem aroused, he pumps his pelvis once or twice and raises one hand, rodeo-style, above his head and then climbs off.

‘What was
that?
’

‘Dickhead …’

‘Turn the music down.’

The older boys’ voices are deep and casual. They hang back, yet to be impressed.

‘This,’ Simmo says, ‘is more like it …’ He jams his hand down the front of Rebecca’s tracksuit pants.

‘Hey!’ a surprised male voice says over by the door.

Rebecca searches for the owner of this voice while twisting, kicking. She grabs Simmo by the wrist and reefs his hand out. In the space of one heartbeat she focuses all her resentment and energy on Simmo. She sneers through clenched teeth for him to
get off
. This level of intensity is impossible to maintain, though, and it’s strange, because the same song plays, it’s been no more than a few minutes. She should have more fight in her than this … although heavy metal songs do go on and on – a drum solo can last for ages. She looks again for the owner of the compassionate-sounding voice.

‘For sure she’s gotta blow someone.’

‘Turn that fucking music down.’

The music is turned down.

‘Enough!’ the kind voice says. ‘Let her up!’

She’s allowed to sit up. Rebecca breathes. But she senses it’s not over yet. It’s like being in the eye of a storm – she’s tense, waiting for the second bout of wild weather.

She looks over her shoulder towards the door. It’s not right, though – is it? – to scramble over the back of the couch and run.

‘See if she’ll do one of the young guys,’ an older voice is saying, as though this distinction is going to make things more palatable.

‘She’s not gunna.’

‘Make her.’

‘Get back from her,’ the kind voice says.

‘Pull her pants down.’

Rebecca curls her fingers so tightly around the waist of her tracksuit pants that two of her fingernails bend back. The pain vaguely registers.

‘All of you, get back!’ the kind voice says with anger.

And he’s right – they have crossed the line. This is not normal Kiona harassment. She’s been groped, squeezed, bullied, but not like this. They’ve taken it too far. Rebecca feels her rights strongly and suddenly. A return of reason sweeps over her.

They sense it, too. She’s let free. She moves angrily along the couch, away from Randy, away from Simmo. She runs her hand through her hair.

‘
Bastards
,’ she mutters.

She has to stay sitting – her legs might shake if she stands, and there are too many of them to witness it.

‘Will you blow one of us?’ David persists.

Where the scratchy couch fabric has touched Rebecca’s skin, it’s raw. She adjusts her top and jacket. The song finishes and a new one starts. The older boys chat amiably to one another; they were never much interested anyway. Rebecca could do a quick mental tally of names and faces, but it would be a drain on her energy levels. Her gaze struggles to settle on anything animate – she’s more comfortable looking at inanimate objects, like the corner of the heater, the banana skin by the skirting. She’s aware of her blood pressure returning to normal. Each breath goes someway towards settling her.

The intensity in the room is abating, and Rebecca thinks the best thing to do is to wait it out, until everything is calm, and she can ease away. She’s surprised to see her drink of Coke hasn’t spilt. It’s in the same place she left it.

Someone must see her looking at the drink. He comes forward and takes it from where it’s sitting on the floor beside the couch leg. She doesn’t know this person. He’s not a part of the group, he’s older, a man – in his thirties, maybe. He’s wearing overalls, smeared with greasy fingermarks by the pocket. His workboots are splattered with oil. He smells of degreaser and engines. Rebecca’s eyes smart – it’s too close to the smells of home. It’s only when he speaks that she realises he is the one with the kind voice. ‘Here,’ he says, passing her the drink. ‘Better make a quick exit after that.’

She takes the glass. His fingers are oil-stained. The cuticles and beneath his nails are black. He crouches down in front of her. She doesn’t mind: his inclusion seems to mean the boys will stay away.

She can tell by the way he’s looking at her that he knows her. But even after noting the
Newman’s Garage
badge on his overalls, she can’t place him.

He says, ‘Of all the days for you to be be here … Isn’t today the anniversary of your mum’s death, Rebecca? What are you doing here?’ He looks away, as though he’s said too much.

Her voice wavers when she speaks. ‘Did you know my mum?’

‘I wouldn’t hang around here.’

‘Did you know her?’

‘I know your father.’

Rebecca lifts the Coke to take a sip. As the glass touches her lips the man takes it from her. ‘On second thoughts … I wouldn’t drink that either.’

Rebecca feels foolish. ‘Oh …’ She touches her forehead.

After a pause the man says to her, ‘Do you know what these boys are like, Rebecca?’

His gaze clouds with genuine concern. He doesn’t continue. It seems to her as though he does’n’t want to come across like a father figure, preaching good behaviour. He straightens. ‘Is your dad due back soon?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m heading to the garage, but I don’t think it’s going to help you being seen driving around with a man twice your age.’

He stands there. There’s something strange about the way he looks at her. It’s as though he’s frightened of her, while trying to appear unafraid.

He continues, ‘But I can chaperone you to the door.’

He must wonder why it takes Rebecca as long as it does to get up. She can’t say herself what it is about standing and exiting that requires such reserves of strength. It should be liberating. She can leave: the boys have left the room, the front door, she sees, is open. It’s a simple case of walking out. Perhaps it’s difficult to leave because going draws such acute attention to the fact she wants to be gone. She stops first in the kitchen.

Both bike helmets are missing from the top of the fridge, Rebecca stares a moment at the empty space. Her heart contracts in a cramp-like action. There is truth, though, in Nigel telling her she’ll have to toughen up to be with Aden. If she thinks about a road trip with her mother, there’s little doubt it would have been a sordid and unorganised affair, and she has to remember to apply these same low expectations to Aden.

The man picks up a grease-covered pump off the centre of the kitchen table. He carries it to the corner and puts it down. He takes a receipt from his back pocket and tucks it in under the heavy unit. He straightens. ‘You can be my witness that I did deliver this. I can’t find Nigel.’

‘I don’t think he’d take much notice of what I’d say.’

A two-litre bottle of Coke is sitting on the sink. Rebecca sits her untouched drink down beside it. A brown paper bag is screwed up on the draining board, and two teaspoons are unashamedly tossed on top of the bag – the back of one teaspoon and centre of the other are covered with crushed bits of tablet.

‘You had a real close call,’ the man says.

Rebecca draws in a steeling breath. Any other day of the year she would have been better at this, not put herself in this position. That would be the biggest mistake of all though, to show these Kiona locals how much, today, they can hurt her. The garage man is standing by the front door. He has paused before leaving.

Rebecca walks towards the door and thinks of Joanne Kincaid, and the way, on entering the restaurant, she said,
I’m going in
. Rebecca steps through the doorway and into the midday sun and thinks
I’m getting out
.

34

Rebecca takes an obscure route through town. She walks along the train track, crosses through a paddock, makes her way across the rickety suspension bridge that spans a wide section of the river, and veers down a back street. She does it to avoid running into Nigel. He finds her anyway.

She’s not far from the town centre. She’s in the shade, under the branches of the cypress pines. He crosses to the wrong side of the road, and drives beside where she is walking. The window is wound down. He pulls into the kerb. Rebecca keeps her gaze ahead. The vehicle slows to a crawl. She glances at him. He’s looking intently at her face.

‘Are you going to the match?’ she says brightly after a moment, as a way to stick it to him, and for absolute confirmation she is fine, on top of things, unaffected.

‘I have to straighten up some business first. You wanna come?’

‘As if I’m going to go anywhere with you.’

‘Jump in.’

She laughs bitterly. ‘No way.’