Thirteen Pearls (17 page)

I
HAD BEEN ON THE
island exactly three weeks and five days before it was finally Leon's turn to chauffeur me over to the big smoke. Leon reckoned Red was trying to keep Kaito sweet so that he 'd come back and help with the seeding. I suspected he was right.

The boys had taken turns doing the shopping before my arrival, but shopping had become a pink job once again. Not that I minded. I liked being able to choose what we ate, and thanks to some halfway decent ingredients and a thirty-page print-out of recipes, my cooking was slowly improving.

The best part of this trip, however, was that we 'd be dropping Uncle Red off at Horn Island. He was flying out to Darwin on business and would be gone eight whole days! Because the fares were hiked up around Christmas, Uncle Red wouldn't be returning until 28 December, which meant that Aran would have neither of his parents (however much you could call Red a parent) with him on Christmas day.

Red had dropped it on us the night before. One half of me was doing inner cartwheels, the other (less selfish) half noted Aran's crestfallen expression and felt a surge of anger.

After putting Aran to bed and waiting for the first faint, snuffling little kid snores, I tried to tackle the issue.

‘Uncle Red?'

‘What?' he grunted, not looking up from the TV's flickering lure.

‘Don't you reckon it's a bit harsh leaving Aran at Christmas?'

‘What are you saying?'

‘He's already lost his mother—'

‘What do you mean
lost
his mother? Lowanna's not dead, she 's looking after her own mother.'

‘Well, why didn't she take him with her? He misses her. I bet he wouldn't be so hard to handle if he was with her.'

I should have noted the warning signs – Red's fingers closing tight around his beer, his face growing shinier.

‘It's weird that she doesn't write or phone or anything. No wonder the poor kid's such a mess—'

There was an almighty smash as the beer bottle shattered on the concrete a metre from where I stood.

‘Bloody woman!' he shouted. I couldn't tell if he was referring to Lowanna or me. He leaped from the couch and raged in my face so that I almost choked on his beery breath. ‘What the hell would you know? Little Miss Know It All.'

Well there was an oxymoron if ever I'd heard one.

‘You come here and think you can judge me. Just like your bloody mother. Think you're better than me, don't you? You all do, you and your dole-bludging mother and that poofter father of yours.'

He staggered, then lurched closer. I backed away towards the glass door. With a swift tug, I slid it open and ran into the night, straight into Leon.

He caught hold of me. ‘What is it?'

I shook my head wordlessly, tears streaming down my cheeks. Mum had been right about that disgusting man – I
hated
him.

‘It's Red, right? He got a call from Lowanna today when you were out building and he 's pretty cut up.'

Our trip to T.I. was largely silent thanks to the suffocating presence of my uncle and my absolute refusal to look him in the eye or address any words to him that were not strictly necessary. As a farewell, he barked at Leon, reminding him about needing to keep a daily check on the weather frequency for cyclone reports, growled a curt ‘bye ' to me and then nodded at Aran and marched away.

Aran screamed and struggled in my arms. I clutched hold of him to stop him from running after Red into the airport. After he disappeared from sight I grabbed Aran's skinny shoulders, swung him around and crouched to meet him at eye level. ‘He 's coming back, Aran. He 'll be back soon.' I held up my hands and stuck up five fingers and a thumb. ‘Only this many days and he 'll be back. And he 'll bring you presents.'

This last word had a magical effect and by the time we were speeding over to T.I. Aran had sufficiently recovered to be shrieking with laughter whenever we thumped over the bow waves from another boat.

I left Aran with Leon and beelined for the hardware store. It was soothing to dip my hands into containers of screws and calculate the length of bright yellow nylon rope I'd need. Back home, any hardware store catalogue that landed in our mailbox (the only mailbox in the street with a big hand-painted sign saying NO JUNK MAIL) was put in my room. I carted the catalogues around like a kid with a sticky-up trunked elephant and drooled over the specials in a way Mum said bordered on being indecent.

By the time I had finished at the store, I had exactly five dollars left. Uncle Red had an account at IBIS so it wasn't like I could siphon any out of the housekeeping.

I paid my last precious five dollars and logged on to the internet.

Here's my browser history:

Parenting techniques

Calculating weight distribution on load-bearing structures

Seafood Christmas menu ideas

How to make bonbons

Hotmail

Hiya,
Edie, Finished my corset. No Christmas present 4 Jason. Can u believe he hooked up with CD Brooke Gambino at the Year 12 after party? She smells like toilet deodoriser. Did the deed with hot Swedish backpacker instead. Tried to explain it was meaningless fling, but Sven keeps coming into IGA and giving me ;) looks while he buys 2-minute noodles which is appropriate seeing as how it only lasted that long. Think I'll give up boys and try girls instead. Not u – u are not my type.
Luv (not in THAT way),

Tash.