Another Night in Mullet Town (8 page)

All the fun

I hear footsteps

and turn to see Ella

walking towards me.

She's smiling.

She sits beside me

and glances across at Patrick's parents.

‘They're wearing matching white shirts,' she observes.

I look at Mrs Lloyd-Davis

with her immaculately dyed blonde hair

and high heels

and her husband hiding behind his Ray-Bans

and fondling his iPhone.

I reach into the pocket of my shirt

and pull out two five dollar notes

from cleaning Mr Lloyd-Davis's window.

‘Come on. I'll buy you a gelato, Ella.'

She smiles and says,

‘Rich people shouldn't have all the fun.'

Gelato

Ella and I walk

up the hill to the museum

and sit against the wall

looking out to sea.

She offers me her gelato.

‘A lick of lemon?' She smiles.

I shake my head,

lift my cone towards her mouth

and try to think of an alliteration

with pistachio.

‘A piece of—'

Ella leans forward

and takes a bite from my cone.

She suppresses a giggle.

‘What?' I ask.

She looks down towards the cafe.

‘When we lined up

to choose the gelato,

I made a promise to myself

that if you chose any of the pretentious flavours,

like salted caramel

or poached figs in marsala –

whatever the hell that is –

I wouldn't let you kiss me.'

She smiles and takes another bite.

‘Is pistachio normal enough?' I ask.

She moves closer and we kiss.

Her lips are soft, yet cold from the gelato.

‘You taste of lemon,' I say.

We kiss again.

‘Lemon and pistachio,' Ella says.

‘I could get used to that.'

Someone takes

They knew Mr Huth fished from the rocks

on Sunday morning.

It gave them an hour of quiet

to pick the lock on the caravan

and turn it inside out

as if they were pirates

searching for the buried treasure

of an old man's savings.

No-one heard a thing

until Mr Huth returned

and set to shouting the place down.

The cops were called

more to control the old fisherman

than to look for his money.

No-one was sure

how much they stole

because Mr Huth wasn't saying.

The snarky neighbours joked a few dollars

wasn't worth the trouble,

and reckoned Mr Huth

should learn what a bank was for.

Manx's dad

passed a hat around at the Balarang Pub

and everyone put in something

more in respect of Mr Gunn

than in sympathy.

The publican dropped twenty

even though Mr Huth

hardly ever made it to the bay for a drink.

On Sunday afternoon, Manx and I

fished from the rocks at the point

and reeled in eight whiting.

In the evening we knocked on Mr Huth's van

and left the fish in a bucket of ice on his step.

In our town, when someone takes,

someone gives.

Secret

At Monday lunch,

Angelo and a bunch of boys

bounce a basketball

and take up more space

than they're worth.

Angelo whistles

when Rachel walks past.

‘Patrick reckons you're a lucky girl,' Angelo says.

‘Maybe it'll be my turn next Friday.'

Rachel flashes a look that could maim.

‘Don't you get tired

of playing with balls, Angelo,' she says.

The boys laugh.

Angelo pretends not to hear.

He skips out of the group

and aims a set shot at the ring.

It misses by a mile.

Rachel walks away.

Angelo calls after her,

‘Come on, Rach,

Friday night in the caravan.

It'll be our secret.'

On the way home

After school,

Patrick's mum waits in the BMW.

She has gold-framed sunglasses

and, when Patrick opens the door,

we see she's wearing a swimsuit

and a silk blouse.

She gives him a takeaway coffee

as he flings his bag in the back seat.

Angelo sits in the bus shelter

and, no matter how hard he looks,

Patrick isn't offering a lift.

He's ignored,

like a fart at a funeral.

After Patrick leaves,

Angelo tells everyone who cares to listen

what he reckons Rachel and Patrick did

in his parent's caravan

parked in the back garden.

The crowd of boys

laugh and hang on every word.

Every bullshit word.

Ella and the other girls move away.

They sit in a quiet group

and wonder where Rachel is,

knowing it's a long walk home.

Angelo says he's taking offers

to rent the caravan.

He doesn't notice Manx walking up

behind him.

‘I reckon I could go—' Angelo starts.

‘And I reckon you're full of shit,' Manx interrupts.

The bus pulls up

and Angelo scrambles aboard.

No-one says a word about Rachel

all the way home.

Clean again

Under the swamp oak

I lie on my back

in the cool sand

and watch the sun drift behind Sattlers Hill.

As if on cue

the cicadas go silent,

egrets fly to the swamp

and the streetlights flicker on.

I close my eyes

and picture my dad

rubbing his face to stay awake,

the rumble of wheels

and the bitterness of distant miles,

while my mum scrubs her hands

with Solvol in Auntie Trish's sink

to remove the stink of dead fish

and the curse of eight factory hours a day.

I think of what Angelo said about Rachel.

He's a liar, but I didn't have the guts to call him that.

I remember Rachel asking Manx

to swim with her.

The evening light turns dull blue.

I pull myself up

and take one deliberate step after another

into the lake

until I can no longer stand.

I roll on my back and float

looking up at the fading sky

and wonder how long

I have to stay like this

until I feel whole again.

Rachel

On the way home

I pass Rachel's house.

She's sitting on the verandah

and waves for me to join her.

I jump the fence

and sit on the stairs.

She's wearing jeans and black riding boots.

She pulls her chair towards me,

and pokes her boot forward.

‘You could clean my boots

while you're down there.' She smiles.

‘Are you okay?' I ask.

‘I'm thinking of killing Angelo,

but apart from that I'm fine,' she replies.

‘I'm sorry.'

Rachel bites her lip.

‘I might leave school and get a job.

Mum could use the extra cash,' she says.

‘Don't,' I say.

She flashes me a sad smile.

‘Why not?'

‘No-one believes Angelo,' I say.

‘He can go fuck himself,' she says

and sighs.

‘I only walked away with Patrick

because Manx …'

She laughs bitterly.

‘We sat in the caravan,' Rachel explains.

‘I wanted to talk.

He wanted something else.'

She looks at me.

‘I'm not that desperate.'

Rachel's brother calls from inside.

‘I've gotta go,' she says.

I walk to the gate

but, before I open it, I call,

‘See you at school tomorrow.'

Rachel smiles.

‘I'll be the one wearing trousers.'

My reflection

I'm woken in the morning

by noises on the roof:

a thump and skittering roll.

I quickly pull on my school clothes

and run barefoot to the verandah.

Manx is bent over in the driveway

picking up another rock.

‘Hey,' I yell.

He smiles and tosses the rock anyway.

It pings off the iron

and lands somewhere in the backyard.

He leans his bike on the fence and comes up the stairs.

‘I reckon we should visit Tipping Point tonight

with a handful of smooth rocks.'

‘I know just the house to hit,' I answer.

He follows me inside

and I look for my shoes,

while Manx bangs around in the kitchen.

When I walk in,

he's set the table with two bowls,

a carton of milk

and a packet of Weet-Bix.

‘Other people's food always tastes better.' He smirks.

I fill my bowl and spend the next ten minutes

calling him a freeloader,

even though I'm grateful he's here

and I'm sharing breakfast with someone

other than my reflection.

Waiting

Manx and I

sit behind the counter of his dad's servo

and wait for something to happen.

We've got an hour

before school and we're

in charge of the pumps,

the liquid gas tank out back

and the cash register,

while Manx's dad

visits the hardware in town.

The highway motorists speed by

with barely a glance;

no matter how low

Mr Gunn sets the price

the all-nighter in Balarang Bay goes lower

and offers clean washrooms,

a restaurant and espresso coffee –

even if they spell it
expresso
.

I look at the percolator

on the hotplate in the corner

and wonder how long it's been brewing.

The cups stacked above

are chipped and old.

A calendar on the wall

is of a semi-naked woman

leaning across the bonnet

of a Ford Mustang.

In one hand she holds a can of petrol,

in the other a pistol.

‘I can't work out whether she wants

to shoot the photographer

or douse him in fuel and light a match,' Manx says.

He leans back

against the shuttered display of cigarettes

and closes his eyes

singing a tuneless refrain:

‘Ain't nobody stopping today.

Ain't nobody stopping,

no matter what we say.

Ain't nobody stopping today.'

An advertising sign bangs in the breeze.

Jonah thinks smart

I'm sitting against the paperbark tree

overlooking the school oval

when I hear a voice behind me.

‘Jonah sits quietly.'

Ella walks from the shadows

and sits beside me.

I shuffle across to give her room

against the tree trunk.

Ella leans her head back

against the trunk and looks down

at the boys playing force-em-backs on the oval.

Manx takes a long run

and boots the ball

clear over the school fence.

Everyone groans.

‘Why do boys always measure themselves?'

Ella looks from the oval to me.

I could answer that in a thousand words

and be talking for the rest of lunchtime.

Instead, I hold up one little finger

and wiggle it around.

Ella giggles.

‘Because we don't know what's enough,' I say.

I hold my breath, waiting for Ella to answer.

Angelo climbs the fence

to retrieve the ball.

‘Jonah thinks smart,' Ella says.

We both smile at her flawed English.

‘Jonah big chicken,' I reply.

Ella shakes her head

and I notice a small piece of bark

lodged in her ponytail.

I gently pull it through the strands of her hair.

I flick the bark away

and, for a long time,

Ella and I are both too nervous

to look at each other

or say a single word.

The sex life of caterpillars

The bell sounds

for the end of the best lunchtime

I've ever spent

saying little

but sitting close to Ella.

She stands first

and reaches down,

offering her hand

to help me to my feet.

She pulls me up

and we hold hands

for a few seconds.

Her skin is soft

and I feel the cool metal

of a ring on her middle finger.

We walk back to class

ignoring the mess of year nine boys

pushing each other at the canteen,

begging for free leftovers

from Mrs Ainsworth

who's known as an easy mark.

Ella and I have Science next period.

As we take our books from our lockers,

I say, ‘The mystery of biology,'

thinking of Mr Drake

and his enthusiasm for bugs.

‘Better the sex life of caterpillars

than stink bombs in the laboratory,' Ella replies.

I drop my textbook.

Ella reaches down to pick it up and says,

‘Jonah is nervous with the word “sex”?'

‘Not only with the word,' I admit.

‘We'll have to work on that.' She smiles.

I follow Ella into Science

my mind a million miles

away from caterpillars.

The irony of beer

On Friday afternoon,

Angelo gives Manx

double the usual amount of money for beer.

‘Where did this come from?' Manx asks.

‘Pat … Patrick gave it to me,' Angelo says.

Manx looks at Patrick

standing beside Angelo.

‘Bullshit,' he says.

Manx counts off half the money

and stuffs it in his pocket.

‘What the hell are you doing?' Angelo asks.

Manx grabs Angelo by the shirt.

Angelo looks to Patrick for help.

‘Your mate's too gutless to do anything,' Manx says.

Angelo pushes Manx away.

‘I'll buy the usual amount of beer,' says Manx.

‘The rest of the money is going back to Mr Huth.'

‘You can't—' Angelo starts.

‘I can. Regard it as a …'

Manx tries to think of the right word.

‘A donation,' I finish.

Manx laughs and looks deliberately at Patrick.

‘At least someone here has a brain,' Manx says.

Patrick shrugs and walks away

leaving Angelo to swear at us

as if all that bad language

will convince Manx to change his mind.

In the bottle shop,

I walk up to the stack of Peroni beer

and tap the case.

Angelo is an Italian name, isn't it?

Maybe he'll enjoy the irony.