Darkwater (8 page)

Seeing me, he moved away hastily and Kate too turned as I scrambled up the rock face and sat down next to them.

‘I didn't think you'd be here,' I told him.

‘Why not?' He was genuinely surprised. ‘I don't want to see luxury houses here. And besides, it matters to Dee.'

Since when had he become the sensitive, good son?

‘Wasn't she amazing?' I was still stunned by her success.

Joe too. There was a shine in his eyes and his grin was genuine.

And then I told him I had seen Stevie on my way here. ‘He was in tears. He thinks everyone reckons he was responsible.'

Kate leant in closer, trying to catch what I was saying. ‘Stevie?' she asked and she shook her head in disbelief. She pushed her bangles up her arm and knelt on the rock, agitated. ‘I hate this,' she said, and I could see she was distressed. ‘You blame yourself or you blame someone else and it all feels shitty...'

Her voice trailed off and she stood up. Her gaze was fixed firmly on a point in the distance. I glanced across and saw her too – Cherry, by herself at the edge of the rally. She was standing tall, staring straight across the crowd, her mouth set in a thin line.

‘Jesus, she must be pissed off with her father,' Joe said, shaking his head.

And I could only agree.

Fact: Amanda Clarke's family have put their house up for sale.

The sign was up on the street, a large billboard that described the property as: ‘Private waterfront with own jetty. Luxurious residence with five spacious bedrooms, well-appointed kitchen, three bathrooms and plenty of living space. Inspect now.'

It was Sonia who saw it on her way to school. ‘Do you think they're moving because it's just too painful to be here?'

We were sitting in our usual spot, under the shade of the awnings, the huge empty oval in front of us, the heat too much for anyone to brave the burnt expanse of that grass.

‘Maybe.' Cassie was plaiting leather: chocolate, black and tan strands all twisted in and out of each other. She had already made a choker for Sonia, this one was for me. She held it up for a moment, inspecting her handiwork, before carefully flattening one of the strings so that the suede sides were all in the one direction. ‘If my kid was murdered, I'd want to go and live somewhere else.'

‘We don't know for sure that she was murdered,' I hastened to correct her.

Ever since she had come up with her theory, she had become more and more convinced of its truth, so much so that it was now as good as an irrefutable fact as far as she was concerned. Lyndon had murdered Amanda, and each time she saw him, she would nudge one of us nervously, jabbing our arm with her elbow until we let her know that yes, we had seen him too.

It made me uncomfortable. Her certainty had filtered through me, so that I also felt a twist in my stomach at the sight of Lyndon. And yet there he was, a person who was part of our lives and someone I didn't want to think of as a murderer.

Sonia held her foot out and examined it. ‘Do you reckon you could make me one for my ankle as well?'

‘Even if she wasn't murdered – which is highly unlikely – I'd still want to move,' Cassie continued.

‘I can't remember which side you're meant to wear it on, though.' Sonia narrowed her eyes in thought. ‘I know one side means you're a slut and the other means you're available.'

‘Crap.' I held my hands up in despair. ‘If you reckon you can be defined by an anklet, then you're in trouble.'

‘Well I don't want everyone thinking that I'd do it with just anyone.'

I rolled my eyes and told them both I was going to the tuckshop. ‘Want anything?'

The truth was I really wanted to have a quick spy on Nicky Blackwell. We were due to meet up the next day for another skateboarding lesson, but I hadn't seen him around school lately.

Each year had different places where they hung, and then within that there were certain spots for certain groups. Nicky was a senior, the same as Joe, but they had nothing to do with each other. Nicky hung with the surfers, out by the teachers' car park, skating. I stayed back under the shade of the jacaranda, not wanting him to see me. Then, just as I was about to head off, he went over to a girl leaning against the railing. I could see her laughing as he leant in close and said something. She flicked him away with her hand, and he crouched down low, skating off before doing a rapid 360 and returning to her.

I didn't know who she was and turned away, certain now that I didn't want him to catch me watching him.

But Mr Castle was right behind me, whistle in mouth, blowing it shrilly, the sound sharp enough to pierce the sky.

‘You. Blackwell.'

And Nicky turned, sure to have seen me.

‘Here.'

He kicked his board back and walked over as slowly as possible, hands in his pockets, head held high. Caught now, I could see no point in disappearing and I tried to pretend I'd been heading this way on some sort of errand, his presence a surprise to me, but I knew my sympathetic smile looked awkward and fake.

‘Is there a reason for transgressing into the actual car park?'

Nicky looked behind him, staying just as he was for a good minute or so. ‘Did I?' he eventually asked.

‘Did I,
sir.'

‘Did I, sir?' He repeated the words as instructed, while Mr Castle waited, arms folded.

‘Now why would I say you did, if you didn't?'

I slunk back towards the gap between two buildings, feeling foolish.

‘I don't know, sir. Because you were mistaken?' Nicky kept his head high and his eyes directly on the principal.

Mr Castle's initial response was a snort of derision, and then he turned. ‘You, Blair.' He pointed to where I was trying to hide behind the corner. ‘I think we need an adjudicator.' He looked at me and then back at Nicky. ‘Blackwell here is accusing me of being mistaken. Despite the fact that this rarely, if ever, happens.'

I kept my eyes fixed on the ground, staring at the crushed figs from the Moreton Bay, the fruit smeared across the bitumen, stewing in the heat.

‘Did you or did you not see Blackwell skate into the car park?'

The truth was I didn't think I saw him cross over into the area where the teachers parked their cars, and if he did, it would only have been by the length of the board. But I knew Mr Castle didn't want to hear that, and if I tried to tell him, I too would wind up in detention for lying.

‘I didn't see anything,' I eventually said, looking straight at him as he stood, arms folded across his chest, shirt straining to contain his belly, the sweat spreading across the polyester fabric.

‘I find that hard to believe.'

I didn't even bother trying to protest.

‘You were mooning about like a lovesick cow, and you tell me you saw nothing?'

As I felt the heat spread across my skin, I wanted to kill him.

‘So did he, or did he not, venture into the car park?'

I took a deep breath. ‘No he didn't.'

Standing opposite me, Nicky smirked.

‘And yet you didn't see anything.'

I was damned no matter what I said.

‘In the little time that I glanced over, I didn't see him in the car park.' I spoke loudly and clearly. I didn't have a hope in hell of getting out of this with any kind of self respect intact and without receiving some form of punishment, so I might as well go down proud.

‘Well, well.' Turning from Nicky to me, and then back again, Mr Castle drummed his fingers on his forearm. ‘It seems I have not one liar in front of me, I have two.'

Neither of us said a word.

‘Blackwell, one week after school. Blair, two days.'

It wasn't the first detention I'd received. Last year I'd had several for speaking back in English, but this year I'd managed to avoid it, largely due to the fact that I liked Miss Ingleton and rarely felt a need to contradict her. Although I didn't relish the thought of being kept after school, it was nothing compared to the humiliation of being called a lovesick cow. I felt ill.

‘Welcome to my world.' Nicky kicked at the dirt angrily. ‘What an arsehole.' He stuck both his fingers up at Mr Castle's retreating back.

‘I wasn't spying on you.' I wished I'd never uttered the words as soon as I spoke them.

The look on his face showed he hadn't even considered the matter. He shrugged. ‘See you after school.' He raised his hand in farewell.

I watched as he turned back to where his friends waited, and then realising that I was once again behaving like I was sick with love, I quickly walked away.

Cassie and Sonia were impressed.

‘Well now you get to hang out with him more,' Cassie nodded her head in approval. ‘You couldn't have planned it better.'

When the afternoon bell went, Miss Ingleton read my name out on the list. ‘I thought you'd reformed,' she smiled, clearly aware of my reputation from previous years.

I told her it was Mr Castle. ‘He accused me of lying.'

I could have sworn she rolled her eyes.

I was the first kid there. In F Block, by the boys' toilets, the detention room was one of the oldest demountables in the school. It had only one small window and a fan that wobbled precariously as it circled overhead with a roar like a small plane about to take off. The lino floor had long sweeping skid marks, and the desks were the old ones with wooden lids that you could close with a loud thud. The one I took, nearest the door, was covered in graffiti. Initials gouged into the wood, declarations of love and hate embedded for years to come.

Mr Mulley was on duty. He didn't know who I was, despite teaching me PE every week, and had to ask my name before he could tick it off the list. Chewing gum and leaning back in his chair as he looked out the window to the slow flow of the river, he waited for the others to arrive. He could have been one of the kids in the older years, I thought. Young and wanting to be anywhere other than here.

There were five of us all up. Me, two others I didn't know, and Lyndon and Nicky.

Once the roll was marked, Mr Mulley rose and stood just outside the classroom. His voice was a low murmur as he talked to one of the younger female teachers. If I leant back in my chair a little, I could see him leaning against the wall of the classroom, muscled arms folded across his chest, his smile wry as he told her whatever story it was that made her giggle eagerly.

At the back of the room, Lyndon was tapping his foot, the slap of his sole against the lino beating out an agitated rhythm. I didn't dare turn around and look at him. But when Nicky, who was in the same row, flicked a wad of paper at me, I had to glance back. Lyndon made no pretence of doing any work, his gaze was just fixed on the front wall of the room, the stare of someone who wasn't there.

About halfway through our detention, Mr Mulley left.

‘He does it all the time,' Nicky told me. He had got up from his desk and come to sit near me. ‘Doesn't he?' He looked back to Lyndon, who just nodded.

‘The first time we pissed off.' Nicky grinned. ‘Didn't realise he actually came back. And then got two weeks more.'

‘It was your smart-arse idea.' Lyndon's drawl was slow. He stretched his legs out, gaze fixed on me now.

‘How's Joe these days?' He seemed to sneer as he spoke.

I said he was good, and then I realised how strange his question was.

‘Don't you see him any more?' I asked.

He shrugged. ‘He doesn't see me. None of them do.'

‘I reckon he's going out with Kate now.' I was talking too much, somehow wanting to ingratiate myself with him, and I didn't know why.

‘Yeah?' He didn't look that interested. ‘Guess that was on the cards.'

‘Why?' I was irritated and I knew I had failed to disguise it in my voice.

‘He always had the hots for Amanda – and she was her best friend.'

Nicky had pulled a tennis ball out of his bag and was throwing it in the air, catching it with one hand as he looked from Lyndon to me.

‘From what I heard you were the one that had the hots for Amanda.'

I wished I'd stopped myself. The soft thwack of the tennis ball as Nicky caught it broke the silence, and then Lyndon got up, the metal feet on the legs of his chair scraping through the cracked lino as he pushed it back.

‘Who told you that?' He was standing right next to me now and I could see the faint line of pimples across his forehead, I could smell the stale sweat on his skin, and I could see a stain across the place where the pocket of his shirt had been before he, or someone else, had ripped it off leaving frayed stitches and a darker coloured cotton underneath.

I leaned back in my seat, but he only stepped closer.

‘Who's talking about me?' His cheeks were red beneath the tan, and his lips curled. ‘Tell me.'

I was backed against the wall. The others on detention were watching now, curious, as Nicky told Lyndon to chill.

Lyndon glared. ‘If people are talking about me, I've got a right to know.'

‘I can't remember who it was exactly.' And I couldn't. ‘You know how it is, you just hear these things.'

‘I was her friend.' He still hadn't taken his eyes from me. ‘Tell them that next time they start talking.'

I would, I promised.

He picked up his bag and left, kicking at the flimsy wall of the demountable as he did so.

Nicky was shaking his head as he turned from the doorway back to me. ‘You're going to get yourself a reputation. Starting brawls in your first detention.'

I sat back at my desk and fixed my eyes on my homework book so he couldn't see I was close to tears.

But he knew.

‘It's just Lyndon,' he told me later when I said I didn't want to do the skateboarding lesson that afternoon. ‘He loses his cool.'

I didn't reply.

‘The cops have been on him. Everyone's talking about him and he gets worked up.' Nicky shrugged. ‘Reckon most of us would be the same.'

‘How have the cops been on him?' We were at my bike now and I flicked up the stand and wheeled it out of the racks towards the gate.

‘I don't know.' Nicky looked reluctant to talk now. ‘They called him in for another interview.'

‘They've interviewed Joe again. They're doing it to everyone.'

‘Yeah.' Nicky put his board on the ground. ‘But with him it's different. They asked him to come into the station.' The surprise on my face must have made him wish he'd never said anything. ‘Don't go telling people.'

I promised I wouldn't.

‘He tells me stuff 'cos we're always in that hole together.' He gestured back towards F Block. ‘I don't know what went on with him and Amanda but she used to meet him after detention sometimes, and on the days she did, well, he was all up. So there was something, you know? And now she's gone and he thinks everyone is accusing him. He must feel like shit.'

As he began to push his board up the hill, I stayed where I was for a moment, watching him. And then he was gone and I was once again alone outside the schoolyard, ill at ease, and eager to get out of there. I turned my bike towards the road, walking it up to the peak, before I swung my leg over and began the ride home.