Trust (42 page)

Gabriel looked at Finn. ‘Out,’ he said, with a single jerk of his head. Finn slid quickly off the bed, and sidled past Gabriel without touching him. He went into his own bedroom and closed the door but then let it come open again, just a crack, and stood there listening, the red wool drooping from his fingers.

‘Is everything all right?’ he heard his mother ask nervously.

Silence. Then that cool slithering voice. ‘Should you be coming to Brisbane, Angie? Should I allow you to appear on stage with me?’

‘Gabriel!’ she cried. ‘Why
not
? I’ve been … Why would …’ She was so shocked, she was stammering.

‘What have you been saying to Helen?’ he asked.

‘Helen? I haven’t been saying
any
thing, Gabriel, I swear I haven’t.’

‘Lies, that’s what you tell. Lies, Angie. Should I allow a liar to sing with the Faith Rise Band, in front of thousands of good Christians?’

Finn could hear that his mum had started crying. ‘I didn’t, I swear. I don’t know what Helen said but …’ There was a sound of rushing footsteps and then Angie’s voice sounded much closer; she must be right there, in her doorway, with Gabriel, up close. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘please believe me. Please let me come with you.’

‘Why would you want to give Helen the impression that you’re a slut, I wonder? A dirty, sinful, slut? And worse: that I am a filthy sinner too?’

‘But I didn’t
say
anything!’ Angie cried, and then, ‘
Ow
,’ like she’d been hurt. Like he’d pulled her hair or something.

Go in there,
Finn told himself.
Go in there and stop him, don’t let him hurt Mum.
But he couldn’t move, he was too scared.

‘I’ve never. Touched. You,’ Gabriel said, and his voice was so clear and cold it made Finn cringe to hear it. His mum’s bed made a loud squeak, as though she’d sat down heavily on it, or been pushed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed. ‘Oh Gabriel, please, I’m sorry.’

‘Very well, Angie. One chance. I’ll let you come to Brisbane; I’ll let you sing with us. But let me never hear disgusting rumours like this again.
Whores
are liars!’

Finn closed his door with the quick stealth of fear. He knew his drawing of Robo-Boy was already safely in his backpack, along with his clothes and stuff for the weekend at Stella-Jean’s, but he checked anyway. Then he put his backpack on and stood there in the middle of his room, twitching involuntarily as he listened to the sound of his mother crying really hard on the other side of the wall.

Her parents had gone off to a party at Marcus’s place, a kind of housewarming because it had been totally redecorated. ‘I suppose we’d better get used to calling it Marcus
and John’s
place,’ Stella-Jean heard her mum say as they were leaving, and her dad said something about lashings of leopardskin, and they both laughed. Then Seb and Rory, who’d been studying together, went off with a bunch of their friends to a movie. As Finn was going through all the old DVDs piled up in a cupboard, Stella-Jean talked on the phone to Tessa about plans for their new improved market stall, and also how they could start selling stuff on etsy.com and reduce their overheads.

Now, Stella-Jean was curled up on the couch with Finn, watching
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
which she hadn’t seen for a million years. Finn, who’d been quiet as a little mouse all evening, even laughed a few times. Other than that, he only took his thumb out of his mouth to eat some of the popcorn from the huge bowlful they’d made. Stella-Jean dozed off, till Finn shook her awake for
Roger Rabbit
’s final scene of dreadful danger and wild revenge. And then they went to bed, with him on the fold-up bed that took up what little space there was in her room. But that’s where he’d asked to sleep, and he seemed to conk out the moment his head hit the pillow.

Stella-Jean sat up in bed and drew some new ideas for bags – smallish, with a long strap that would go across the body so you didn’t need to hold them.
Not bad,
she thought, assessing the sketches; her fine motor skills were improving heaps, every day. She turned out her light, punched her pillow into the shape she liked, and settled down to sleep.

‘Stella?’ It was Finn’s small scratchy voice that had woken her. ‘Stella?’

‘What’s up?’

‘Can I hold your hand?’

‘Here.’ She put her hand out from the covers, felt around, found his. ‘So what’s up, huh?’ she asked softly.

A little silence. ‘He’s just like Judge Doom,’ Finn whispered.

Stella-Jean didn’t need to ask who he was talking about. Gabriel might not look like the extremely tall, bald and scary bad guy in
Roger Rabbit
– in fact, maybe the scariest thing about Gabriel was that he actually
looked
like a nice guy – but yeah, he was Doom-like, definitely. ‘I know what you mean, Finnster.’

‘He put me in the Dip, just like Judge Doom.’

‘The Dip? You mean, like the time he tried to drown you?’ Stella-Jean held her breath. Finn had denied telling her that, ever since. She felt the two very definite nods of his head all the way down his arm.

‘He wants to disappear me,’ he said in the smallest, scaredest voice she’d ever heard.

Stella-Jean’s heart clenched. ‘Hey Finnster. Wanna climb in here with me?’ As he clambered out of the folding bed, she scooted herself closer to the wall, and he settled his skinny self into the warm place she’d made for him. Finn lay with his pyjama-clad back to her and she put an arm around him.

After a minute or two he said, twisting his head toward her over his shoulder, ‘And Stella, you can’t tell anybody, ’cause then he’ll put me in the jail for bad kids, and they’ll never let me out. I’ll
die
there.’

That’d be right
.
The bastard
. ‘That’s not gonna happen, Finnster,’ she told him. ‘Relax now, you’ve got the whole weekend here with me. We’ll figure something out.’

‘I had to tell you,’ he murmured. Pretty soon he was asleep again, and Stella-Jean lay there trying to figure out what to do. She could try talking to her mum again, but maybe she should talk to her dad. Dad couldn’t stand all those churchie people, so he might be better. But he still thought Gabriel had done wonders improving Finn’s behaviour. What about Andrew? He was such a cool guy, and he must’ve seen a lot of bad stuff, being an ambo; he knew how horrible life and people could be. But Andrew wasn’t, like, family. And besides, no matter who she told, Gabriel had Finn too terrified to talk.
That’s how child abusers get away with it.

Even if she
could
persuade Finn to talk, there wasn’t a shred of evidence, not even a mark. Just the word of one notoriously difficult child, and her, a teenager with brain damage. Oh, it was
so
frustrating!
But we’ve got all weekend
, she reminded herself, just as she had Finn.
Sleep on it.

She slept, and she dreamed. She dreamed she was in Bali again, walking down the village street. An old guy carving on his verandah waved to her; his little grandson was beside him learning how to carve, chubby hands holding some insanely sharp tool, but he was all right, nothing bad would happen. In her dream, Stella-Jean called out ‘
selamat pagi
,’ good morning, and walked on. A girl about her own age in sarong and sash was making offerings outside her house, freshly bathed with her lustrous black hair combed and looped up, her lovely face fixed on the thread of smoke rising from the incense, her graceful fingers wafting it on its way to gain the attention of the gods, making everything safe for her home and the people within it.

And there was Putu, beautiful, broad-shouldered Putu, who Stella-Jean couldn’t ever remember not knowing. She was standing in the open doorway of the sewing room, from which came the sound of the half-dozen machines and the chat and laughter of the girls who worked there. ‘
Selamat pagi
, Putu,’ called Stella-Jean, and the young woman’s face lit up.
Come, come
: she was beckoning Stella-Jean in, and Finn who, she now realised, had been walking beside her the whole way.
Come in; you’ll be safe here
.

Stella-Jean woke up. She lay there, Finn deeply asleep beside her, figuring something out.

Everything depended on them all going out: Mum, Dad and Seb, and all at the same time, on Saturday afternoon. Well, it didn’t just depend on that: it depended on a lot of things. The more unlikely it seemed that everything would fall into place, the more determined she became that it would. It
must
.

Seb went to a training session and then to catch up with Andrew. Susanna, somewhat reluctantly – ‘Are you sure you and Finn are okay, sweetie?’ – went to her studio. Dad was off to meet a client and then put in a few hours at the office.
Yes!
Three hours, at least, more like four. Stella-Jean printed out the bookings she’d made online in the middle of the night, got the bag she’d packed out of the cupboard – it was a backpack, just a small one; she could buy everything she needed once they got there – and Finn put his on, and she called a taxi.

First, to his house. Now everything depended on whether Auntie Ange still kept important things in the same place. Straight into her bedroom, to the built-in wardrobe that went all the way to the ceiling. ‘There,’ she pointed. ‘On the very top shelf. We might need a ladder to —’ but Finn was already scaling it like a monkey, from a wooden chair and up, a toehold on a shelf here, another, then clinging as though magnetised to the top one while with one skinny arm he felt around for the fabric-covered box she’d described.

‘I’ve got it!’ he squawked, winkling the box forward. He was down on the floor again in a flash. Stella-Jean took the lid off, flipping through the contents with bumbling, hurried fingers.
Passport, please let his passport be
… Yes, here was Angie’s – and this was Finn’s, and it was – she held her breath as she opened it – current for another eighteen months.

‘Ah,
sweet
,’ she said. ‘Finnbar Greenfield O’Reilly, see? That’s you, buddy. Let’s go!’

When they got out of the taxi at the airport, she reminded Finn that he shouldn’t have to say anything. ‘But if they ask you,’ she said as they went inside the big busy glass building, ‘remember, I’m your cousin. Our mothers are sisters, they’re already there on holiday, they’re going to meet us. We’ve been there before. Everything’s fine. Okay?’

They joined the check-in line. Finn was breathing through his nose in a puffing, determined sort of way. She tried to lean on the walking stick as casually as possible, like it was just some cool accessory. No problem with check-in or seat allocation. The line for security wasn’t too long, and soon they were through that too. They didn’t hang around the duty-free shops; Stella-Jean could feel herself getting tired, lurching a little more, and she didn’t want to attract attention.

Tessa was always saying how you should visualise the outcome you desired, so Stella-Jean pictured herself and Finn in their seats on the plane, buckling their seatbelts around them. Finn would listen really carefully to the safety precautions, and study the laminated cards for ages. There would be the whoosh and roar of the plane taking off. She pictured all that so clearly: no way could it not happen.

With plenty of time before boarding, they went through the big doors and into the immigration section with its maze of roped-off queues. Stella-Jean filled out the forms for both of them, very carefully. As they stood in line she whispered to Finn to stay close and let her lean on his shoulder a bit, so she didn’t look wobbly. The queue snaked slowly forward until finally they were at the front and then were called up to one of the little booths. The man in uniform looked at their passports, looked at herself and Finn, looked at the passports again.

Say, go through
, Stella-Jean willed him.
Say, go through
.

‘Just a moment,’ the man said, and called over another person in uniform, a woman. Together they did all the things the man had just done, looking at the passports, at Stella-Jean and Finn, and back at the passports. Then they both stared at the computer screen, murmuring to each other.

The woman beckoned Stella-Jean closer. ‘You’re unaccompanied minors,’ she said. ‘Where are your parents?’

‘I’m not a minor, not for travel,’ Stella-Jean said, trying with all her might to make her speech sound uncluttered, clear and confident, hoping her wobbly brain wouldn’t forget some simple word and make her look like an idiot who couldn’t be trusted to get herself and an eight-year-old on and off a plane. ‘Mum checked. I’m sixteen, so I can legally accompany a child.’ The woman nodded reluctantly, but she still didn’t tell them to go through. Discreetly, Stella-Jean crossed her fingers for good luck and gave the woman the line about her and Finn being cousins, about how their mothers were awaiting their arrival. ‘They’re meeting us at the airport,’ she said.

The woman pressed her lips tight as she considered. ‘I think I need to confirm this with a parent or guardian,’ she said.

‘Mum’s mobile doesn’t work there,’ said Stella-Jean, quickly.
That is brilliant!

‘I see. What about your father? Where’s he?’

‘He’s, um, he’s in … New York. At a —’
What’s the word? What’s the word?
‘He’s on business.’ Finn was pressing close to her side.
Go through
, she willed the woman to say,
Go through.

‘I see,’ the woman said again. She cocked her head at Stella-Jean’s bag, sitting on the high narrow counter between then. ‘Do you have a mobile phone with you —’ she glanced down at the passport she was holding in her hand, ‘— Stella-Jean?’

She could check the numbers in memory. She’ll call Mum, or Dad.
‘No,’ she said, shaking her head.

The woman tapped the end of a pen against the passports,
tok tok, tok tok.
‘Well,’ she said eventually, ‘I suppose —’

And at that moment, the mobile in Stella-Jean’s bag started ringing. Loud: incredibly, hideously, deliberately loud. They both jumped and stared at the small bag, going off like a fire alarm right there on the counter between them, then Stella-Jean snatched it away out of sight. Finding the phone by touch, she switched it off, even though the knowledge that it was too late was sitting in her stomach like a great big lump of cold porridge.