Hope Farm (5 page)

Ian lived on the next farm over, on the far side of the stretch of bush. Despite being so skinny and brittle-looking he was in fact a year older than me and in Year Eight at Tarrina High, where I would soon also be going. Tarrina was a much bigger town than Kooralang; it had the train station where Ishtar and I had arrived that first morning. It was there at Tarrina High that Dean Price made Ian's life a misery. Or
misery
, as Ian said; he seemed to enjoy straining at certain words with his rusty voice, wringing out extra meaning.

‘It's
brutal
,' he said, as we sat on the damp grass, the pile of balls between us. ‘Just
brutal
. But it always
has
been. I'm pretty tough, you know. I might not look strong, but I've got resilience.' He took an apple from his pocket, bit into it, and spoke wetly. ‘They're just
brutes
, Dean Price and his …
cronies
. When they can't understand something, they just stomp on it. I've been getting stomped on for eight years now, but they'll never truly crush me. Because I —' he made a sudden, rattling noise and began to cough.

Timidly, I reached out and banged with the heel of my hand between his shoulder blades. The knobs of his spine were sharp through his jumper. He nodded, still coughing, and I banged harder.

‘Okay, okay. Enough.' He held up a hand. ‘Thank you.' He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. ‘Where was I?'

‘They'll never truly crush you.'

‘Oh, yes. They'll never truly
crush
me because I —' he looked intently at me with his still-watery eyes. ‘You're going to need to know all this,' he said.

‘I know.'

‘I have
strategies
.' He leaned back on one elbow and gestured with the other hand. ‘Three main ones. The first is
avoidance
. Simple. Keep out of their way. Know the safe places. Know their movements and plan yours accordingly.'

‘Where are the safe places?'

He held up a finger. ‘I'll get to those. But first, the other strategies. The next is
resilience
. You can't always hide. There will be situations in which you are unable to.' He paused for a moment and his face darkened. ‘Phys Ed,' he said, in a terse voice. ‘Changing rooms. Toilets.'

‘I know what you mean.'

He heaved a sigh. ‘It's unavoidable. And when they find you, you just have to endure. Don't provoke them. Don't fight back. Just put your head down and wait for them to tire of you.'

I swallowed. This school sounded rough.

Ian was looking at me earnestly. ‘You think that's cowardly? You think I'm
weak
, not fighting back?'

‘Oh no. I —'

He spoke over me. ‘I'm a realist,' he said. ‘I plan to survive, and move on. I have no desire to enter their primitive battles, to
engage
with them on their level.'

‘I didn't —'

He went on, finger upheld. ‘And now for the third tactic. This one is equally as important as the first two, in fact it's
crucial
, because it preserves morale.'

I waited.

‘Revenge.' He smiled. ‘Revenge is very important. Without revenge, you go under.'

We both looked at the heap of balls.

‘Yes,' said Ian. ‘That's what the balls are for. I have taken something from Dean Price, and I can
revel
in the knowledge that I have caused him some suffering.'

I smiled.

‘But,' he went on. ‘You must be as vigilant in carrying out your revenge as you are in practising your avoidance. You must plan, and use
stealth
. You must never take risks. It is absolutely not worth it.' He reached out and picked up the soggy cricket ball. ‘Dean Price will never know why his precious balls keep disappearing. And that's important for two reasons: one, my relative safety is assured, because if he was ever to find out it was me that was taking them he would quite possibly actually
kill
me; and two, the thought of his ongoing anguish makes my revenge so much more
delicious
.' For the second time he tried to toss the ball and catch it again, and for the second time he missed. It rolled to nestle with the others. ‘I like to picture his face,' he said, ‘as he tries to figure it out. The cogs in his head slowly crunching round.'

I tried to smile politely. But I had a vision of Dean Price, bullish and mean-eyed, with angry pimples — and stealing something from a person like that, for any reason, just sounded way too dangerous.

Ian went to the edge of the water. ‘Shall we toss this lot in again and see what happens?' he called. ‘They can go quite a way, almost to the bridge. There's a bend just before there that always stops them.'

I joined him, and one by one we threw the balls into the rushing stream. We started with the small grey-white ones, which barely made a sound as they hit the water. Then we did a tennis ball each — they plopped in satisfyingly before surging off. We watched them go, and then Ian raised the cricket ball. He stood for a moment with his skinny arm tensed, but then lowered it again.

‘What's your name?' he said, and for a moment all the old-man oddness dropped out of his voice, and he just sounded like a kid.

‘Silver.'

‘Here, Silver.' He held the ball out. ‘You do the honours.'

‘Oh, no.'

‘Oh, yes. Go on.'

‘Okay.' I took the ball. It was heavy. I lifted my arm and threw, and up it went in a long streak, then over and down and in, right at the middle. A little clear frill of splash rose and marked its entry and sank away again, and then the ball broke the surface gently and seemed to settle for a moment before commencing its slow, grand twirling, and its journey downstream.

My mother drove me all the way to Brisbane for a special mass. She didnt take Linda just me. It was there in the church pew that I felt some thing move right down low, the lightest tap. I sat still but it didnt happen again. When my mother prayed she laced her fingers and her knuckles went white. Afterwards we went to a park near the Valley. She took me to a bench. I have to go to the shops wait here she said and walked away. I watched her leave, her spiky steps. In one week I was to go to the place, the Home she called it. I didnt think about what it might be like, I kept my mind shut against any thinking but some times like now out in the light open park I couldnt help seeing what would come after, that I would be like Evie Dyer. I felt panic and the tap came in side again like a message and I wanted to get up and walk away in the opposite direction from my mother. I stood up and then I saw them. They were getting ready for a picnic putting out patterned cloths on the grass and unpacking metal pots of food from big baskets. Some had dark skin and wore robes that glowed orange in the sun but the clothes of the others were beautiful too. Most had long hair centre parted and worn loose. A man sat cross legged with a guitar and played and some women sang they all had smiling calm faces. I could smell the food and it was like nothing Id smelled before. I felt so hungry all of a sudden. I knew what hippies were Id seen pictures in the paper and some times the real thing in the city, once some had been busking when Id gone to a film with friends from school. My friends pointed and laughed and pulled me away but Id wanted to stay to see more. At home I often looked at the pages on India in my Geography book, the photos. Foreheads stained with red dye and wreaths of yellow flowers, the jewel saris of women working in a field, there beautiful slim brown arms. Patterns even in a sack of dried beans. Every tiniest thing decorated everything beautiful so far away from the plain white house of my parents its square lawn and concrete paths and the empty ugly streets I rode my bike down. I had moved from the bench to get closer and then I saw a woman, she had long brown hair down her back and tied onto her with a length of fabric a curled shape close against her chest like it was part of her. She stood near the guitar man, her eyes closed moving gently from side to side. Then I saw what it was bound to her chest because a little arm came up, a tiny hand touched her chin and she opened her eyes and smiled and held the hand and kissed it not stopping her dance. Over the grass two women came to me. One maybe in her twenties wearing robes, dark skinned her smile clear and white the other older almost my mothers age with hair in plaits over her shoulders the breeze puffing her silk blouse and long skirt making ripples in the tiny diamond shapes that covered them. They didnt speak. The younger one gave me a pamphlet but when I tried to look at it my eyes were full of tears. The panic happened again, the tears ran down. Can you help me? I said. I covered my face my ears burned. Then I felt hands touch me arms close round me. I smelled incense and perfumed skin the spices from there cooking, I dropped my hands and sobbed against them. Little girl, whispered the dark woman. Little girl. Even though I was taller than her. She wiped my cheeks with her fingers. Then she let go and over my shoulder my mother was calling my name. I turned and there she was half running in her low heels her stiff skirt waggling her hat crooked. She was shooing with her arms her shopping bags flapped. I felt the older woman take my hand. We can help you she said, If you ever need. Her warm dry hand squeezed mine and then let go and then my mother was there grabbing me pulling me away.

The whole drive home my mother didnt speak to me, two and a half hours. At home she unpacked one of the shopping bags onto my bed. Two dresses like tents one brown one navy. Two wide cotton nighties plain white. A bra with huge cups that sat up by themselves. Now I knew why she didnt bring Linda on the shopping trip or take me in to the shop with her, in case any one saw and guessed. Thats how worried she was because what are the chances of bumping in to any one from our town all that way away and in a big city like Brisbane. You wont need much my mother said Its only for while youre there, once youre back home you can wear your old clothes again. When she had gone out I opened my wardrobe and looked at everything so plain and ordinary. I thought of the silks of the woman with plaits the diamonds scattered like stars. I thought of that baby curved against its mothers chest there two bodies like one, the mothers smile no pram no Evie Dyer plodding sad and lumpy. I closed the wardrobe door again, pushed the new clothes to the end of the bed and sat down. I looked at the pamphlet and traced the image of two hands joined and pointing upwards, not like my mothers all white against the church pew these fingers were elegant the shape of freedom. Join Us On The Path it said. I touched my belly low down, the place where it was growing.

Ian and I met again the next day. He brought a pad of paper and a pen, and drew a map of the school for me, marking out the areas to avoid whenever possible, and also the safe places. There were only four days left until the end of term break, when he would have to return and I would have to begin. The library, he explained, was open before and after school hours and at lunchtime and morning recess, and you could stay in there as long as you wanted, providing you were quiet. There was always a teacher around, and anyway, people like Dean Price didn't even know it existed. ‘And — bonus — it's heated,' he said. ‘And —
double
bonus — it has its own toilets.'

We were by the creek again, near the bridge, sitting on a steep bit of bank, Ian with the notepad propped on his knees. He drew two small rectangles near the big shaded section he'd marked
Oval
. ‘So save your toilet trips for the library,' he said, and put big crosses through the two rectangles. ‘These other toilets are not at all safe.'

‘Okay.'

‘Now. The bus. There are a few oafs that catch it, but the driver's all right, he's got control, so sit near the front. Nobody else gets on or off at our stop, so you don't have to worry about that. And, most blessed of all blessings, Dean Price himself does not catch it. His
den
of
idiocy
is, I believe, in the other direction from school.'

‘Where's our stop?'

‘Just up on the main road. About halfway between the turn-off for your place and the one for mine.' Ian put the cap on the pen and clipped it to the notepad. He dropped them to the ground, drew his arms round his knees, and turned to me with a pinched sort of smile. ‘Now, this is a difficult thing to say, but I'm sure you'll understand.'

I waited. Again I felt like laughing at him, at his seriousness, his old-man speech, and funny, clumsy stork-like body. But there was pride there, too — it glowed in his thin face.

‘As far as school goes,' said Ian, ‘we don't know each other.' He gave the small, apologetic smile again. ‘We don't
speak
to each other, we don't
look
at each other — we do not
communicate
in any way. All right?'

I opened my mouth, but he spoke again, quickly.

‘It's just too dangerous. They're like sharks — you can't make any kind of splash or it
attracts
them. And when I say “as far as school goes”, I am in fact referring to any
public
interaction.' He waved in the direction of the main road. ‘On the bus. At the bus stop. In Kooralang or Tarrina, or any other town. Basically, anywhere other than
here
.' He stubbed a finger at the ground between his legs. ‘Understand?'

‘Yeah.' I did understand. I wouldn't want to be seen in public with him, either. It seemed sad that it had to be a secret, conducted under such rigid conditions, but still — and my heart lifted — it was a friendship.

‘But you know,' said Ian briskly. ‘I'll be with you, in
spirit
.'

There was a sound from the dirt road, an engine, far off but getting closer.

He jumped up. ‘Quick!' Down the steep bank and along towards the bridge he went, feet first, hands grabbing at stones and clumps of grass. He looked like a giant, spindle-legged crab. ‘Come on!'

I followed, sliding down in the same position.

The car was coming not from the main road but from the other direction, the other side of the creek. It was close now. I could hear the gravel spitting from its wheels.

‘Quick!' Ian scuttled into the space under the bridge.

I went after him.

Side by side we clung to the bank, in the cold half-light, our heads inches from the timber sleepers. The car was closer, the engine roaring, its vibration already running through the bridge. And then it was on us and we were inside the dense, thundering ripple of sound, and I thought of aeroplanes, of waterfalls, of massive machines going full tilt, and I clapped my hands to my ears, almost slipping down, and then it was over. I realised I was screaming, and Ian was screaming beside me, and the two screams went on for a while, reedy and small in the deaf silence, and then stopped — and there was just the hammering of my heart and the panting of my breath, and the soft sifting of the dust coming down between the timbers above.

He turned to me. His face was white with dust and his tongue came out and licked his lips and they showed suddenly red. ‘I'll be with you in spirit,' he said.

I woke alone in the cold room at Hope, which was bare of furniture apart from the mattress I slept on and a poster of Joni Mitchell stuck to one wall — and bare of Ishtar's things, too, now that she slept out with Miller in the mud-brick building. I lay, listening to the moan and clatter of the morning around me — voices from the kitchen, the strained jigger of someone starting one of the cars out the front, Jindi's footfalls thudding up and down, the steadfast howling of Willow's baby — for a moment not remembering, and then it filtered in, set up a buzzing under my ribs and in my fingertips. I had a friend.