Crime

That soft tap-tap-tapping on the door: cagey but insistent. He realises that the baseball cards are still in his hand. Quickly puts them back into the sheep bag on the bedside table. It’s hot and he’s drenched in sweat. His ravaged throat just about manages to squeeze out, — One minute, as he rises to the door, opening it up and peeking round.

It’s Tianna. She has his End of the Century T-shirt on. — I borrowed this, she says, her mouth turned down in the self-loathing, apologetic manner of the morning-after drunk. — I gotta get my stuff.

— Right. Give me a second.

He shuts the door and pulls on his trousers, switching on the air-con unit before letting her in. — Okay, he says to the shame-faced girl, assailed by his own mendacious guilt as he steals a parting glimpse at the bag and considers the secrets it contains. Lennox goes outside, waits a spell, before furtively grabbing the T-shirt her extended arm passes out to him. Heading to his original room, he pauses in its doorway to marvel at the salmon- and-grenadine sky, and briefly enjoy the soft blare of truck horns from the distant freeway.

In his room he locks the door and discards the T-shirt and trousers in a heap at his feet. There is still a tiredness about him, behind his eyes, in his limbs, but he feels stronger and more together. He does a full range of boxer’s stretches and, mindful to put the weight on the balls of his hands, one hundred press-ups on the worn carpet, feeling the satisfying burn in his muscles, before jumping under the shower jet, luxuriating there till the water gets tepid. Towelling quickly, he gets dressed, catching the dusky, honeyed scent of the girl on his Ramones tee as he pulls it on.

A short time later, Tianna returns to his room. Her hands clutch the sheep bag chastely in front of her. — I wanna say sorry for last night.

— You shouldn’t behave like that, it isn’t right. Because somebody’s done bad stuff to you, you don’t make up for it by doing something bad to somebody else, he says. — Do you know what I’m saying?

Tianna sits on the bed, still gripping her bag. — I’m sorry, Ray, she says wretchedly. — You been real good to me. Her eyes go watery before they rapidly fuse in panic. — You won’t tell Momma?

Lennox looks at her. — You were wrong to do what you did, but I’m accepting your apology. I won’t be saying anything to anybody.

— Like it’s our secret?

Secrets between adults and children: nonce currency again. Lennox bristles. — Like I said, it’s between the two of us. You did a bad thing, but you were big enough to apologise, so I’m being big enough to accept your apology, end of story.

Tianna sets the bag down on the bed. She forces a strained, kindly smile at him. — See, Ray… when he, when Vince, when he touched me and kissed me n stuff… it didn’t feel right, y’know?

Lennox nods tightly.

— It felt all kinda dirty. But I thought that if I got to do it with somebody I liked, then it would feel right. Like it wouldn’t be dirty, like things wouldn’t be all weird.

— No. It’s meant to feel all strange and nasty, because you’re too young, Lennox states. — Good things’ll happen to you, but they’ll happen when you’re ready for them. Don’t let them take your childhood away. He thinks of himself at roughly her age, with Les Brodie, pushing his bike into that dark tunnel.

— There ain’t nuthin wrong with bein a kid, she says, halfway between a declaration and a question.

— Of course not. Not if you are. That’s the point of it, he says. — We start off as babies, we like certain things. You wouldn’t expect a baby to like catfish or chocolate malt or Beauty and the Geek, would you?

Tianna’s mouth forms a smile as she nods in agreement.

— But there’s nothing wrong with being a baby if that’s what you are. Then we grow into kids, we like different things. Then into adults, and it’s different things again. He watches her nod in understanding. — This Uncle Chet, can you tell me a bit about him?

— He’s my mum’s… she begins, before conceding, —… friend. He’s a friend. His granddaughter Amy is my friend. She’s real nice. Chet ain’t my real uncle. But he’s been good to us. He ain’t like Vince.

— Who’s Vince?

— I don’t like to talk about him to nobody, she says, then looks pointedly at him, adding, — only to Nooshka.

She knows that I’ve been going through her stuff. Or at least she thinks I might have and she’s covering all bases. — Who’s Nooshka? he asks coolly, in spite of the sinking feeling in his gut.

Tianna regards him cautiously before replying. — My best friend.

— She at school with you?

She shakes her head.

— A different school?

Tianna slumps back on to the bed, looking up at the ceiling fan. — I guess so. She’s just always there when I need her most. I can write her bout things.

— Like a pen pal?

She seems not to hear him, as if mesmerised by the circling fan. When she finally speaks it’s in a flat but sing-songy voice, as if she’s going through the ritual of a game she’s bored with. — You know, when I write her, things ain’t so bad after. You know, when things don’t go well and you ain’t got nobody to talk to. I can talk to Momma sometimes, but only bout certain things.

— Did you ever tell your mum about Vince?

She twists round till she is prone on the bed, then props herself on her elbows. Her front teeth push down on her bottom lip. Then she looks at him and nods slowly.

— What happened? Lennox asks, fighting to keep his voice from slipping into cop-interrogation mode.

Tianna sits up and pulls her knees towards her, holding her shins tightly. She lets her hair tumble in front of her face. After falling silent for a spell, when she finds a voice, it’s small and haunted, belonging to a younger child. — The first time I told Momma bout him, she just started to cry. Then she got real pissed at me. Said that I was wrong, and now there’s anger in her voice, — that I was a bad girl. I was jus jealous and tryin to stop her bein happy. So I couldn’t talk to Momma none. She loved those guys, I guess she needed them to love her, a bizarre, almost sanguine authority now seeping into her tones.

Them. Unease slithers under Lennox’s skin.

— What was he like, this Vince? Lennox feels his voice assume that disembodied characteristic, like it’s another self, separating from a common physical source.

That mechanism has served him well in distancing himself from unpleasantness on the job; she’s deploying a version of it too. — Vince was real nice at first. He and Momma met on the computer. He used to treat her real good, and first he treat me good too. He told me that he loved my momma. Then he told me that I was a special girl and that he loved me too. Sometimes he would buy me things or take me out to a movie. It had to be our secret as Momma would yell and think that he was spoilin me. These were the best times, she says, actually glowing in the memory. — I used to call him Pappy. He liked that, but he told me never to say it in front of Momma. Then one day he said he had to confess that he loved me more than anyone, even Momma. Said he didn’t like showin it too much in front of her in case it caused her hurt. Sometimes when we was out together, at a diner, if a waitress asked, ‘Is that your little girl?’ he would smile and look at me and say, ‘It sure is.’ It felt so good and I would have done anything for Pappy Vince. There are dark shadows under her eyes, though it’s probably just the light.

Please stop…

Lennox can’t bear to hear Tianna’s words. Yet he can’t protest; his own voice rendered silent in his starched trachea. Needs her to talk and wants her to stop. Sitting still in the green chair, paralysed, in a seemingly oxygen-free room, all he can do is wait for her to continue.

Holiday…

— Then he got us playin the secret games. Hide-and-seek, catch-and-chase. He started giving me kisses. Different to the ones he gave me before. Wet kisses that went on a long time, with his big tongue in my mouth. It didn’t feel right and I didn’t like the way he changed, her face creases in pain, — became all serious, like he was in a trance. Not like Pappy Vince at all. And the only way I could make him come back was to touch him; touch his