they say on the news that there’s been a bomb blast or something, they say, “Dozens of people were killed, including some innocent civilians.” Now what does that mean? That all soldiers are guilty, so it doesn’t matter if you kill them? That all civilians are innocent? What, do they run a check on each person’s life and then decide if he should have been allowed to live? How many of those innocent civilians were, like, drug dealers or rapists or people who don’t look after their pets properly? I guess if you or I were killed in a random bomb blast at a bus stop they’d say we were innocent civilians, but I don’t feel too innocent these days.’
I loved and needed these conversations and Lee was very good at them, but I also needed some good advice. I’d told him on the phone why we were coming to the city, but I’d only given him an outline, so now I told him the full story, including the cat. All his tolerance and wisdom immediately deserted him.
‘God, that little toad, that little toad sucker. What the hell is he playing at? Honestly, Ellie, that kid doesn’t know when he’s well off. Put him in a postbag and pack him off to… I don’t know
…’
‘Paraguay? The Philippines? Is this tongue-twister time?’
‘Yeah, any of those’ll do nicely. Patagonia.’
‘Parramatta.’
I soon realised what was happening. Lee was like the others, so caught up with his own troubles, looking after the kids and trying to study, that he didn’t have time for my problems with Gavin. It was disappointing. I could see how fair that was, but sometimes fairness doesn’t count when you want help from a friend. Although we kept talking about Gavin, it was one of those awful conversations where you suddenly realise you’re sounding like your parents. ‘These little kids, they’re so cheeky, they orta show more respect…’
Not that my parents ever talked like that, but my grandmother did, using slightly different words. She’d never have said ‘orta’.
CHAPTER 18
I could hardly eat breakfast for the nervousness I felt about this reunion between Gavin and his sister. In a way it wasn’t my business but of course it was too. Not long ago I’d told Gavin he was my brother, but I hadn’t known then that I was about to join an extended family.
When I thought about it I realised that a lot of my nervousness was to do with wanting him to handle the situation the right way. It’s hard to describe how this works but I knew I’d be upset if Gavin screwed up. I’d felt the same when I watched him at the school athletics: I didn’t want him to come last because I figured he’d feel bad. When he was with other kids, if he did anything that was uncool that had them frowning and turning away, I wanted to run over and say to him, ‘No, not like that, that’s not how you do it,’ and to say to the other kids, ‘Hey, he’s OK, you just misunderstood, he is cool really, really he is.’
I had the horrible feeling that he was going to say the wrong thing to his little sister, or the people who were looking after her, and that because of this he would miss out on a whole series of future possibilities.
If I was stressed, Gavin was a disaster zone. Not in a million years would he admit to being nervous but you didn’t have to be a psychologist to figure it out. You don’t have to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Gavin wouldn’t get dressed, said something evil to Intira that had her screaming and running to Lee, broke a cereal bowl and wouldn’t eat breakfast anyway, then told me I was a stupid bitch when I did the ‘Enough already, quit it or I’ll take you to the zoo and feed you to meerkats.’
Rather than have one or both of us explode, I got him out of the apartment and told him we’d walk to Marlon. He didn’t seem to mind that. We left so early that we could have walked backwards and still been on time, but at least he was not in a confined space. Even so, he didn’t get any better. It was weird, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something else going on, something more than his natural nerves at this big change in his life. I started trying to guess what it might be but my imagination couldn’t grip onto much. I thought maybe he was worried I’d leave him there, that once he was with Rosie and the Russells I’d nick off to the nearest bus stop and go bush. I hoped he didn’t have such a bad opinion of me, but he was an insecure kid. The thing was though, that even if he did think that, it still didn’t explain the way he was carrying on. To be honest, it was like I didn’t matter much to him that morning. His mind was on something else, something more than a reunion. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what it might be.
If I had known what it was I would have grabbed him then and there and run hard in the opposite direction.
Unfortunately I’d put the pressure on him to make this trip and he’d given in to the pressure. It would have been better if he’d resisted a bit more, even though I wouldn’t have thanked him for it at the time.
It was easy enough to get to Marlon, you just follow Fiddleback Road. It goes forever. And Gavin was confident that once we got to Marlon he knew how to find Green Street. Besides, we could always ask. But navigation was never an issue. The first clue I got that we were getting close was the North Marlon Tyre Service, followed by Marlon North Dry Cleaning, North Marlon Pizza and North Marlon Car Wash. We still had nearly forty-five minutes to go, so that was fine.
As we got into Marlon proper, Gavin nudged me to cross the road, into a big park. He said it was a short cut, and I don’t know, maybe he felt safer in a park. It was closer to the kind of environment he was used to now. But it didn’t stop him looking around even more, getting jumpier, and infecting me with his nervousness.
If it hadn’t been for that, I would have enjoyed the walk. Marlon didn’t look nearly as bad as I remembered it, and the park was seriously nice. There was an old footy ground with a grandstand just like the one in Wirrawee, but not the kind of grandstand you see in the city any more. Then we went up a bank of fairly wet earth and down into a huge flat area where people were exercising their dogs. It was quite cool: the owners hung around in groups talking, or sat on the grass reading, or lay back and looked at the clouds while the dogs partied. There must have been twenty dogs, ranging from a thing the size of a Shetland pony to a couple of large rats. Beyond that were two footy ovals, both with kids getting ready for games, and a bitumen tennis court and an old toilet block. Beyond that was a bunch of trees and a fountain, and then came the suburb of Marlon.
As we passed one of the football teams I got the first real clue that we were back in Gavin’s home territory. A boy who was chasing a loose ball grabbed it to his chest as it bounced, and at exactly the same moment saw Gavin. He looked astonished, then said, ‘Hey, Gavin,’ in a completely normal voice, which sounded very calm compared to the expression on his face.
‘Hi Lucas,’ Gavin grunted, looking a bit embarrassed, then said to me, ‘That’s Lucas Bright.’ I think the last name was Bright. Anyway, the kid said to Gavin, ‘I thought you were…’ and then paused and switched to something safer. ‘I haven’t seen you since the war.’
‘Nah,’ said Gavin, Tve been staying with her.’ He nodded at me.
‘Cool,’ said Lucas Bright. Well, I gotta get back…’ He nodded at the team.
‘No worries,’ I said, and off went Lucas.
It was always hard to tell Gavin’s feelings, and although he looked a bit red faced after the unexpected meeting, he also seemed pleased. I was hoping it would calm him down a bit as we went on through the trees towards the next street.
The Russells were two and a half blocks away. Once we’d left the park we got into a part of Marlon that was more the way I remembered it. Lots of shabby old houses, built right to the street, and lots of shabby new ones that didn’t look very well built at all. Half-a-dozen dumped cars, or if they weren’t dumped, they should have been. A couple of derelict houses, graffiti that wasn’t even funny, just off, a school surrounded by a wire fence so high that it was more like a prison camp. And in the middle of this was Green Street.
If I’d suspected Gavin was frightened before, then I was sure of it now. He grabbed my hand. Gavin holding my hand in public was about as common as dogs dancing with bunny rabbits. And the way he hung on to me, I’d be lucky if I still had a hand by tomorrow morning. I don’t think there could have been any more blood in it, the way he was squeezing it. And his hand felt so sweaty. When we turned left into Green Street he looked so awful that I stopped and said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this? We can go home and think about it some more.’
He just grabbed my other hand and said, ‘No, we got to get it over and done with,’ and let go again.
I shrugged and we kept walking. Counting down the numbers. 177, 157, 137. I could estimate where 87 would be. There was a row of houses that had little front gardens, some of which were pretty and filled with
