Luck in the Greater West (8 page)

—You feeling all right? he asked his sister after some silence.

—Yeah. I'll be okay, she replied.

A plank of early afternoon sun lit Sonja's face as it broke through the sheet covering Whitey's window. She had the softest breathing when she slept, like a puppy. He moved his arm from under her and kissed her forehead. She woke and smiled. He loved that smile. It was for him, and he couldn't help grinning back, and kissing her again.

—Let's go shopping, he suggested.

He bought a longneck of Coopers and they walked through the plaza close enough to smell each other. Sonja was in her school uniform and people stared. So Whitey kissed her hair. In Panties 'n' Things he bought her some bra-and-underwear sets. He let her pick them, and was impressed by her taste. In Grace Sisters he bought her a pair of Lee stretch jeans, but was asked to ditch the beer. At Fonetastic he bought her and himself pre-paid mobile phones. They had honey chicken and beef with pepper sauce at Happy Chef in the foodcourt and then went back to his flat. Sonja laughed and tossed the shopping bags aside and then lay on top of him in her new bra and jeans.

—I love you so much, Patrick, she said. I want to move in here with you.

Whitey was suddenly aware of the stubble on his chin. He felt oldish.

—Sonja, baby, I'd love that too — but what about ya mum, and ya dad?

—They can stay where they are.

—Sonja, they won't like it.

—But I like it. I want it.

—I want it too.

—I want to stay here tonight.

He hugged her and they watched TV until they fell asleep in front of
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.
He woke in the still, black part of the morning and turned off the religious show that had been chasing his dreams, and knew that this daughter had now chosen him.

 

Sonja's eyes were something new in the morning. They were hungover from her last dream. They looked like innocence to Whitey, but also, nonchalance. Like her thoughts were anywhere but here, with him. Sonja got up to urinate.

—Good morning, baby, he croaked.

She didn't answer. She coughed and Whitey hugged her when she came out of the bathroom. There was still a lot of that dream in her eyes. She lay back down and closed them.

—Do you want coffee? he asked. Do you drink coffee?

—Mnmm.

—Okay.

He switched on the kettle and threw some powdered coffee into a couple of mugs.

—How many sugars?

—I don't know. How many do you have? I'll have the same.

Sonja sat up and wiped her mouth.

—My mum'll be freaking out, Patrick.

 

The front door was open as Whitey and Sonja got up to the Marmeladovs' flat. They walked in and Whitey could smell some of Sonja in the room. It was overwhelming, the familiarity and the foreignness of this place. The mother was sitting at the formica table. With two other people. Cops. Fuck. Of course. He'd seen the car outside, but this was nothing unusual for Brunei Court's carpark.

—Sonja! her mother exclaimed. My God, Sonja!

She stood, the mother, but didn't go to Sonja. She looked to Patrick White, who had just become too aware of his arms. He moved them and interlocked his fingers as the mother said something — in Russian, he supposed.

—Sonja, the female cop said, shifting her chair to engage her. Are you okay?

—Yes. I'm okay.

—Are you a relative? Or family friend? the cop asked Whitey.

—Um, yeah, a friend.

The male cop got up. And hitched his heavy belt.

—And what's your name, sir?

—Patrick. White.

—Let's just step outside, sir.

Just outside the door, which the cop closed, Whitey was already missing Sonja's smell.

—How do you know Sonja, mate?

—I'm her friend.

—How long have you known her?

—A while. A month. Or two.

—And your address?

—Here. In Brunei Court.

—Why don't we go up to your place, have a talk there.

On the way up to his flat, Whitey again felt something familiar and foreign. He'd been through this shit before with the cops. But Sonja hadn't. Should he lie? He'd never worried about lying to the cops before. Or keeping things to himself. What would Sonja keep to herself?

There was also the cold familiarity of incarceration. Or at least the familiarity of dealing with people trained to treat you as incarcerated.

They stood in his flat.

—Do you have some ID here somewhere, mate?

—Yeah. Licence.

—What happened to Sonja last night?

—She was with me.

—Do you know her mother was unaware of Sonja staying out last night?

—No. Well yeah, I guess.

—Are you having a relationship with Sonja?

—I guess.

—Sexual?

—I'm her boyfriend.

—And how old do you believe Sonja to be?

—She's a teenager.

—Yes, she's a teenager. And you're how old, sir?

Whitey looked at his sink. With the two coffee cups in it. He didn't answer.

—I'll just have to check your ID down at the car, mate. Stay here for a while, okay, we'll come and have a word with you shortly.

The flat was raw. Concrete walls. Sink. It smelt only of himself. Sonja had taken her scent home with her. Whitey smoked a few cigarettes. Drank tap water. Both cops came back, and told him that Sonja and her mother had decided to leave things the way they were now, with Sonja staying at her mother's place. Whitey was not to go over there and to avoid any further contact with the Marmeladovs. No charges would be pressed. The constables were aware that Patrick White had recently done some time.

—It would be a good idea to stay well away, the male cop advised him. The girl could get you into trouble.

Whitey went out for a walk. There was too much of that imprisoned feeling growing. You learn to live basically when you're in prison. You take some solace in it. But this was complex. A complex stripping of liberties. Nevertheless, it brought back his sentence. He'd been able to not think about it, to move forward. Because of Sonja. But now it came flooding back.

 

You have the basics in jail. Water. Shelter. Food. Company. The taps are like outdoor domestic ones. But stronger, and unbreakable by hand. And the water tastes like a garden tap's: tinny — flavoured by the corroding pipes. The thick walls only let in a faint, filtered figment of the elements. And though removed of choice and taste, the food was looked forward to. And you could talk. And bullshit. Or confess. Or listen, and try to work out what was bullshit. Whitey had tried, in his first few weeks inside, to think that things could be worse. He could have been destitute, or dying slowly and painfully. But it was best not to look for comparisons. Or to think too much about anything. Especially time. The way he'd been made to pay. It was an experience that would one day be over — gone with the accompanying slice of his life. Things could only be
worse if he was serving more time, like most of the other guys in there. So he kept this thought to himself and watched the other guys, without looking, or being seen to look. Whitey was thankfully excused, because of his short term there, from the bulk of the politics. There were networks of hatred. Allies. Dogs. Cunts. But they did all live together. Mostly the hatred just simmered. And mostly it was misdirected. True enemies existed outside the walls of H Block.

These bricks of memory began to mesh and set with the present. So he walked and tried to direct his mind into another stream. He hadn't drunk or smoked pot or had any speed while in jail. He hadn't really missed it either. There were drugs in there, but Whitey couldn't afford them, and no one had offered to blow him out. He'd have to be careful now, if he was going to play along with this new imprisonment, as he'd be under surveillance now. Sonja's gone. Drugs'll have to go, for a while, he thought. Or I'll have to move. Because the cops, he knew, wouldn't look away for long this time.

He did want Sonja though. And really, he was prepared to defy law and family to be with her. It all depended on her.

They both cried when she turned up later that afternoon. They cried and hugged in the kitchenette. Until Whitey broke from her, and wiped his face with his T-shirt.

—So, he said.

—I'm going to stay here, with you.

—The cops'll come and get you.

—My mum won't call them. She hates them. They weren't very nice to her before we got there this morning. She hates them anyway. So does my dad. They always have, I think. She says I made her desperate though. Now she knows where I am, she won't call them.

—What did your dad say?

—He doesn't know. Mum isn't going to tell him. Until he's better. Until he comes home.

—So you're mum's just letting you?

—Well, I won't be seeing her anymore.

—What do you mean?

—She said to make a choice. If I thought I was old enough to have a boyfriend, I was old enough to make a choice. Between her and you. And I'm here, Patrick.

—Fuck.

—That wasn't the reaction I was hoping for, she said.

—No. No, not a bad
fuck
, I mean, you know, it's heavy, but I love you. You know.

—So. Can I stay?

They hugged and kissed and had sex in the kitchenette, Whitey pulling her close to get her scent on him. Because each inward breath that caught her scent excluded everything in the world but her, and his immediacy with her.

After, they lay on his mattress, Sonja with her head on Whitey's chest.
Home and Away
was on, but it was just providing a perfect half-light.

—What about your family, Patrick, you've never mentioned any of them once. Tell me about them.

—I don't talk to 'em. Well, haven't for years. I think maybe we don't care for each other, at least not the way your family cares about you.

—Tell me why.

 

Whitey's dad had been a long-haul truck-driver. Sydney to Melbourne, Sydney to Cobar, Sydney to Brisbane. Sydney to
anywhere on the eastern side of Australia — some of the destinations sounded more like they were in Africa, or India. Whitey knew the names of places even his primary school teachers hadn't heard of. It was cool when his dad would bring one of the rigs home. The cabin — it wasn't anything like a car up there; it was like the control room from that show on the telly,
Time Tunnel
. And the dog-box in the back — Whitey had asked if they could put one on the side of the house and he'd have it as his bedroom. He'd gone on a couple of trips with his dad, but it was really only exciting for the first few hours; then Whitey would wish he was back at home, out in the yard, or riding his beat-up old BMX. His dad would wish Whitey was back at home too.

—Ya doin' me head in with that bloody moanin', kid. Put a sock in it, hey.

But really, Whitey didn't see much of his dad other than when he'd come home for a few days every couple of months. And the house would change when he was there. Whitey would be shocked to see this man, his dad, walk out of his mum's bedroom, or out of the toilet. And Whitey and his little sister would lose their mum while Dad was there. Instead of being the mother, she'd be more like another child — playing up to Dad, acting a bit silly, giggling, and spending too long in the bedroom with him. But then his dad would leave again, for Gunnedah, or the Glasshouse Mountains, and Whitey's mum was back for him and his sister.

He couldn't remember ever really getting in trouble from his mum. Couple of times for letting the dog maul the towels on the line or for teasing his sister. But life was calm and uncomplicated until that morning; or maybe it just seemed that way looking back because of how everything slid into a different world from then on.

His mum had just gotten them up for school. Whitey was in the toilet, and hadn't even heard the phone ring. But he heard his mum scream. Or howl. And he knew. He was only ten. But he knew. Dad was dead. Killed flying down the highway in his time tunnel.

His mum had held it together at the funeral, at which Whitey and his sister had had to wear clothes borrowed from the neighbours, and he was surprised because seeing the coffin — his big dad in that small box — made him spurt out sobs where he hadn't felt the need to cry at all until then. But really, from the moment they got back home after the strange party at his auntie's house, Whitey's mum was changed. The fussiness over every little grain of dust that used to drive him nuts dissipated. And the mash potatoes were watery, or were really just that: mashed potatoes — no milk, no butter, no salt. And sometimes it was just Weet-Bix for dinner. And then, a few months after the funeral, the migraines. His mum would be crawling — like that chameleon lizard he'd seen on telly — down the hallway, and vomiting and groaning in a voice so low it was like a man's. And then she'd be in bed. And she wouldn't move or answer when they'd ask if she was okay.

But one day she got a job at the doctor's as a receptionist. She was there at home when they went to school, but she wouldn't get home until after eight in the evenings. She'd never taught Whitey to cook, but he'd had to learn. And he learnt pretty quickly, although he couldn't manage more than one thing at a time. So they'd have sausages
or
mash potatoes, or chops
or
chips. One night Whitey burned the frozen shepherd's pie to a cinder, so he and his sister had a cup of white sugar each for dinner.

By the time he was in high school, his younger-by-six-years sister was starting to give him the shits. She was so clingy. He had to cook, listen to her talk about this and that girl at school, and
explain every little thing about everything they were watching on the telly. Sometimes he'd just take off on his bike, cruise around, and go lie on the cool grass up at the local sports oval.

Soon he was meeting up with kids from school and smoking pot with them, and not long after he got a job at Hedda's café cleaning up after the old ladies, and was able to buy enough pot to sell. He moved out of home one night without telling either his mother or sister. He slept on people's lounges or on mates' bedroom floors. He knew, even back then, that it was a cowardly thing to just piss off like that, but time soon filled in the feeling with a numbness, and it was two years before he had any contact with his mother or sister.