Luck in the Greater West (18 page)

The school had such a different feel at night. Charlie liked to get there a bit early for his lesson and take in the atmosphere. The corridors in cool, inviting darkness, the vinyl tiles and plaster ceiling silent, the classrooms in stasis. There were kids who'd pay-him-out for coming to an extra lesson, out of school time; but he wouldn't miss these lessons for anything.

He'd started learning guitar. It had come out of him seeing a psychologist, after he had fainted that day at school. He hadn't told the psychologist about him and Abdullah, but she knew he was stressed and highly anxious about something, and needed to escape it. She didn't press him too much. But she did suggest that he get involved in something outside of school — sport, a youth group. Neither of these sounded like they'd help him. But he'd seen an MTV special on Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi when he was still off school sick. He'd never heard of him, but something about the guy — his non-rockstar, relaxed attitude, the cool way he stood on stage and delivered lightning-fast solos, and the fact that he was of Italian heritage, but not uptight and traditional like his father — impressed him. Iommi had lost the tips of his fingers in an industrial
accident, but had developed a way to play with plastic caps on them, inadvertently pioneering, a whole genre of music. Charlie had never really thought about playing an instrument, but it was in his head now. He asked his parents to buy him a guitar, an electric one, for his birthday. They said he had to have lessons though, and when he found out his father had enrolled him in these classes — at his school — it was a bit of a downer. Until the first lesson. They were one-on-one and James, the guitar tutor, was cool. But like Tony Iommi, he didn't look it. He was old — thirty-something, maybe even forty — had long hair, and smelled like tobacco and marijuana smoke. But man, he could play! And he didn't laugh or pay-out when Charlie couldn't get it right; he'd say
good, good, man, that's almost it.
He'd been a professional musician in the eighties, and had cool stories about life on the road in a rock band that, although he said they were hard years, sounded like the best times ever. Constant pranks, and travel, and insane characters who could only exist in the rock music scene. And he told Charlie that music is a religion, and that the school, a Catholic school, wouldn't let him teach if they knew he'd said that, but that he'd know when he got the religion: he'd feel it as part of himself, and he'd have faith. It blew Charlie away. Because after only a few months, he was really starting to feel it.

He looked forward to the new songs he'd learn every week with busting anticipation. James had said to bring along any music he wanted to learn and he'd teach it to him, but Charlie decided to leave it up to James. It was so much cooler to learn a song that he knew James loved. Van Halen, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and of course Black Sabbath — all these old bands, they had unsurpassable music. Charlie couldn't believe no one he knew listened to them anymore. And learning the songs was like discovering a new part of yourself.

James came into the music room. He was always late.

—Hey, bro, how ya been?

—Good, thanks, James.

—All right, have I got a song for you, he said, unpacking his '74 Les Paul. Charlie had decided he'd buy one of those instead of a car in a few years.

—Yeah? Cool.

—Metallica! But this isn't no thrash metal song. This is a masterpiece.

—Is it hard?

—It's all in the feel. Once you get that, you'll kill it. It's called ‘Nothing Else Matters' and mate, tonight, and when you practise it this week, nothing else will matter. It's a two-guitar piece, but I'll teach you both parts and you can improvise.

James was right. It was all in the feel. The main passage was quite simple — mostly open strings with minimal fret-work, but it was intense. And the accompaniment is perfect. Light trills that fitted into it, but change it quite dramatically. They jammed to it until Charlie got the feel, and then James sang the lyrics. He sang it with a tenor Charlie hadn't heard him use before, and the words, clear and powerful, seemed to make James tear up a bit. They had to stop because Charlie lost concentration. He looked down at the guitar, embarrassed — to see James like that, and for his own sloppy fingering.

—You okay, man? Sorry, did I freak you out? James asked him, the notes still ringing out.

—Um, nah, I just lost it a bit there.

—That song gets to me, man, sorry. Takes me back to a time, you know? I used to have a girlfriend, Aimee, we were together for a few years. She got breast cancer, man, and it eventually killed her.

—Oh. I'm sorry.

—But, you know, man, what makes it even worse is I treated her pretty poorly when we were together. Didn't respect her. I used to take a lot of drugs and booze, not come home, play around with other girls. Took her for granted, you know. Never got to make it up to her.

Charlie ran his hand along the neck of his guitar. He'd been able to put what he'd done to those girls right at the back of his mind, particularly when he was at guitar lessons, but here it was, at the forefront. He could relate all too well to what James was talking about. About disrespect.

—You okay, man? I did freak you out, didn't I?

—Nah. Well, a bit. But it's me. I've done some bad stuff, really bad stuff to girls too. Forced them. Made them do stuff, you know? Me and these guys I hung 'round with.

—And you feel bad about it?

—Yeah.

—Look, I don't want to know what you did, but it's good that you've realised it was a fucked thing to do — excuse the French — and you know how it feels to live with that. Man, respect the women in your life now. It won't make what you did go away, but you can make the rest of your life a better place. Sorry, man, I don't want to be preachy.

—Nah, James. Thanks.

Later at home, Charlie sat on his bed, noodling the licks he'd learnt earlier on his guitar. He glanced at the mirror. The guitar looked pretty cool. It was only a knock-off of an Explorer, and the top E kept going out, but it made him look like a pro. He didn't like to make eye contact with the guy playing it, though. Tonight's lesson had really dug-up the things he'd done to those girls. James
was right. He had to live with it. At least he was sure there was no way he'd ever do anything like it again.

He'd done it because he'd been afraid of girls, or at least unconfident and nervous around them. He thought that with Abdullah, he'd get over that. He'd be the one making the girls nervous. But it had made it worse. Much worse. He still felt terrible when he was around girls — and women. And he didn't like touching them, or them touching him. Even his mum and sister.

It had gotten a bit better, since that day he'd passed out at school. He hoped now that his guilt would translate into respect. Because he would respect women now. And he would pray that it would help erode those feelings of self-loathing over what he'd done. But did he deserve his guilt to be worn away?

Abdullah had found it a relief to be in protection when he'd first arrived at Long Bay to begin his twenty years. It was a relief to be away from all the skip convicts, and not to have to look at their heads all day like he was forced to do in remand. But after a few weeks he realised it was an added punishment. Where on the outside he'd been a leader, a gang leader, defined by his relationship with others, in here there was nothing. No relationships. Except with the guards. And they led him. And mostly ignored everything he said.

The guard led him to a different yard for his morning exercise.

—They're doin' some work in protection yard this morning, he explained.

This yard was small. You'd be lucky to fit a car in it. And it was all concrete. No grass — nowhere to exercise, even if he wanted to. The only open part was the roof, which was caged over, about six metres up. He heard the gate shut and latch, and looked back. The guard had gone back in, but there was a guy standing just to the right side of the gate. Abdullah hadn't noticed him coming in. He looked like an Abo. Big bloke.

—Howyagoin'? the guy grunted at him.

—Yeah, okay.

—Got ya in protection, hey?

—Yeah.

—Wha' for?

—Why? Abdullah asked. This didn't seem right. He'd seen a couple of guys out in the protection yard once or twice, but they hadn't spoken to him. They hadn't even looked at him, really. He assumed they were in protection too, and were told not to talk to any other inmates. This conversation, although he'd been craving dialogue, made him very uncomfortable. It was too full-on to go from nothing straight to this.

—What's ya name then, mate? the big guy asked.

—Najib. Abdullah Najib.

—So this is you, hey.

—Heard of me, huh. What's your name?

—Pete. Pete Crawford. Remember it. Not that it'll do ya any good. See, I'm from H Block. Not even meant to be here.

—What? What are ya doin' here then?

—Passin' time. Same as you. So, what they stitch ya up for?

—I dunno, mate. Why does it matter to ya?

—Don't wanna talk about it? 'S up to you.

—What are you in for? Abdullah asked him.

—You know the story. Some bullshit charge. I'll be out shortly though. Doin' the screws a favour.

—Yeah?

—Yeah —

Abdullah saw the guy's foot move forward so quickly he thought there'd been a lightning flash in the grey sky overhead. And then there was snapping in his top teeth, and the wall behind him was running him to the ground face first.

—Get up, he heard. And he realised what was happening. There was no pain though. Just a grinding sensation. He started to get up, not because he'd been told to — it was automatic. The yard seemed low and dull and he could hear the air around him blowing with force through his head. The Abo guy was there, and then Abdullah was aware that his jaw was against the wall, and he could see the guy thrusting, and feel the constant knuckles on the other side of his jaw.

The air was deafening. But for the crunch.

Sonja was loving her newly discovered creativity. She wasn't attending school anymore, but neither was she wasting her time. She'd done a test at TAFE, and had been assured that by the end of only one year of study, she'd be able to matriculate early anyway. She'd been writing, reams and reams of poetry, and stories that were linked by the common thread of pain and love. Her father, her mother, her siblings, and Patrick all inspired her now. There was so much pain and love. But mostly, she drew inspiration from herself. She was growing. It was terrifying when she'd first become aware of it, but now she couldn't wait for the future.

Sonja took a seat at the front of the bus and opened a yellowed copy of Strindberg's
Miss Julia
. She was reading, but drifting off occasionally, and thinking about Patrick. Everything she read made her think of him. There was always a character that resembled him in some way. Or was it just that these writers could charge a link in her mind that made her relate too deeply? She looked down at the pages and was soon back in the Count's kitchen and the struggle within. No, she thought, turning the stiff page, Patrick lacks Jean's manipulative edge. Sonja shifted her backpack off the
seat next to her as the bus began to fill. Distracted, and beginning to feel a little nauseous, she looked at the other passengers. Did everyone suffer the same confusions? Did they all have the same strong, but sometimes pointless and directionless will to live? Do they all fear death? This was starting to become an obsession with Sonja. She'd become awfully aware of her own mortality lately. It was something she'd never really considered before. Sure, she knew she would one day die, but it'd never really triggered deep thought. These days, no matter how much she tried to dismiss her fear of death — because it wasn't really healthy for her, especially now — it would just pop into her head when it was the furthest thing from her mind. It was the balance, she'd decided. Between life and death. There was so much life going on inside her that her subconscious felt the need to balance things out. And she valued her life more than ever now. Because it wasn't just hers.

She worried about love too. She would have the love for and from her baby, and of course that would be more than enough. But there was another kind of love, and she'd been spoiled. She had never felt anything as intense as the thing she'd had with Patrick. And she was afraid she'd never experience that again. And it hurt. Her relationship with Patrick had died. Everything dies. But do things have to die so young? Patrick would always be a part of her life but, she'd discovered, unlike what the Christian religions would have you believe, resurrection is a myth. She'd tried to picture life with Patrick again, after she'd found out she was expecting, but she couldn't find the feelings that would bond her sufficiently to him. If a love dies, even if you do bring it back, it has to have prosthetics, or even life-support to keep it going. The damaged parts can be hidden, but the surgeons responsible will always know. People go on, but are they really happy? Maybe she was too young, and
Patrick was her first love, but still, she'd had near anxiety attacks thinking that she would end up sad and virtually devoid of romantic love. Like all the adults she knew. She was sure her parents didn't love each other the way she and Patrick had. Since her father had come back from hospital, they'd seemed to have found an easy tolerance for each other though, Sonja had noticed.

She'd dreaded telling them that she'd fallen pregnant. But her mother's pessimism had cushioned the blow.

—We were expecting it, Sonja, she'd said. We knew it would happen, as soon as you took off with him, we knew.

There was no yelling or arguing or high emotion. In fact, her father had not said a word about it. Still hadn't, to her. She didn't want to push him to talk, but she was uncomfortable not knowing exactly how he felt. Until a couple of weeks after Sonja had told them, she'd heard her parents talking together, quite cutely, Sonja thought, about how exciting it would be to have a baby around again.

Her parents had started treating her like an adult, she supposed. And she was an adult now. Her childhood was gone. Not that she'd really enjoyed it. But it was most definitely gone. And it did make her a little angry. At herself, at her parents, and at Patrick.

She really would have to find something else to occupy her mind on the bus. The trip's momentum was too conducive to introspection: this was the second time she'd nearly missed her stop. On the trip back she would begin a cycle of poems concerning death, she quickly decided.

 

At the clinic, which she'd decided at the beginning to visit on her own rather than suffer her mum's cynicism or Patrick's clumsiness, she took a seat and exchanged smiles with the other young women. There was only one other really young woman there, but Sonja had
never talked to her. She seemed a bit stuck up. And she always came with a cop, probably her father. Sonja felt a wave of nausea. She hated the sight of them. She'd caught this from Patrick. Lucky she hadn't brought him. He would've ended up in the cop's cuffs somehow. Or at least made it obvious that he was a small-time crim.

Sonja smiled to herself. What a strange person he was for her to have fallen in love with. Once. They had nothing in common. Not that you have to share everything in a relationship, she was sure, but to be so different; it was a freak of nature. This baby must have really wanted to come into the world. Because what else would have brought her and Patrick together in such an intense way?

As the midwife entered the room, Sonja was sure that once her baby was born, much of her confusion would disappear. Wouldn't it?