A Shot at Freedom

A Shot at Freedom

Kelli Bradicich

*

*

*

Ready

*

*

*

Chapter One

Brooke

From her bedroom window
, Brooke watched the lights of the distant storm. It made her wonder about all the spots lightning struck, like dots on a map, places she might one day explore. The night shadows felt like barricades, cast by clouds so thick the moonlight couldn’t reach the ground. Brooke ached to leave, to step past the darkness into a new life beyond. Free.

B
elow her, one of the shadows moved, capturing her attention. The way the figure crept, hunched over, face obscured by a scarf, gave her identity away. It was her mother, stealing around the stables, avoiding the iron drums, slipping between the sheds, sticking to a familiar path. Brooke had seen it all before.

Brooke looked at her watch. It was late.
She took the stairs two at a time, threw on her Driza-Bone and boots in the kitchen and stepped out into the night. With the hood pulled low she felt camouflaged. The wind through the trees concealed her footsteps on the gravel. The world around her scattered with stray branches, oak leaves snapping against her, freeing themselves and flying away, gathering in swirls in empty paddocks. The stud horses were all in. Her cheeks burned. She held her head low.

Past the orchards, she broke through the last row of apple trees and while the world remained dark, the atmosphere changed.
She’d crossed the invisible barrier that kept the two worlds apart, her world and David’s world. The rich green paddocks made way for dust and weeds and rusted wire fences with only the odd post still standing.

Her father had bought another piece of land
from David’s father that day in a shifty deal done with a signature and a handshake in front of the family lawyer, no doubt. As their property grew in size and power, David’s home was collapsing. His family was left with the poorest bits of dirt, no access to a dam and only an old bore with a broken pump unable to be fixed until they sold another piece of their life to someone.

As she stepped off the path into the bush a
cobweb sent fine lace across her face, sending shivers through her. She knew her mother had gone to pay David’s father a visit. The path grew rocky, and inclined before disappearing. Rocks shifted underfoot. Branches of tall trees bent and swayed. Thunder rolled miles away. The air was heavy and she could hardly breathe but she pressed on, until she broke through at the ridge, the secret place she shared with David.

Three trees in a triangle, the roots interweaving, creat
ed a hollow protective bunker where they could cower together, hide from the world and dream of freedom. Brooke sat in it, alone. It wasn’t the same without David, but it overlooked his house. When they hid there together, it gave them a view of his world. They could confirm where his father was going to be at any point. There she waited, hoping her mother wouldn’t show herself but at the same time wanting to know what she did each night she disappeared.

In the clearing, the house below was alight with gas lamps and candles
. Ragged curtains hung across windows and some of the stairs were missing leaving black holes. The kitchen was at the front of the house, where David and his mum would have to be, scratching dinner together. The door on the outhouse screeched and banged. In the pure air, she detected the faint smell of tobacco. Behind the slanted shed, she saw Mr Banks, and the glow of a cigarette disappeared. Her eyes were adjusting. A torch flashed on and off.

With her gaze firm in that direction, she left the bunker crouching
, zig-zagging through trees, until she was close enough to make out the shapes. When the wind was right she could hear them murmuring. Their shadows merged, became one, swaying, fabric flapping.

Her mother
’s way of making peace with Mr Banks made her stomach turn. Caught in an embrace with another woman’s man, it wasn’t just a hug, it was more than that. Their entire bodies connected in comfort.

Their lives were all lies.  

She wanted to leave. She wanted to go with David, anywhere but there.

She crept away, her heart skipping in her chest at the thought of what she was about to do. Skirting the clearing, sticking to the outer ring of trees, Brooke stole to the front of the house. David was with his mother in the kitchen. As though it made a difference, she held her breath and ran for the front veranda.

David and Mrs Banks
looked up in alarm when she rapped at their window. “David!”

David exchanged a look with his mother,
then waved Brooke away. “Go.”

“I’m ready,” she said
. “You know what I’m saying. I’m ready tonight. I’ll wait for the signal.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded, turned and ran back towards the trees, skipping over roots, struggling to avoid tall grass and brambles, praying that snakes were hiding from the storm. In her haste, she belted into something hard, and ricocheted into a dead stump, winded.

An arm dragged her to her feet, pressing her up against an unshaven face forcing her to breathe in bad fish breath
and stale tobacco. Her eyes clouded and every inch of her skin prickled with the rush of adrenalin.

“You don’t belong here
.”

Mr
Banks released her arm. She stumbled, steadied herself. His eyes held the same sadness she’d seen in David’s. She shook herself free from them, casting sideways glances at the wall of trees.

“G
o home,” he said gruffly.

She turned, stumbling until she found the path, setting a strong pace
. Her heated cheeks pounded with each stride, her knees ached from the impact on uneven ground. The hood of her coat flailed behind her. It was never a relief to see the lights of her home. But on this night it was different.

Clambering up the stairs, she fell through the door
way into a quiet kitchen, aware instantly of the warmth from the fire. It should have felt good, and it did but only for a moment.

Her mother stood, holding a crystal wine glass, re
d wine tilting, clashing with pink fingernails. “Where have you been?”

“You know.”

“Take a candle up to your room Brooke. It’s going to storm.”

Brooke shook her head, “You know I know. I know everything.”

“You don’t know anything. Take the candle.”

Brooke’s mouth was dry
. Watching her mother’s deceit was painful, “You’re right. I don’t know why. I’ll never understand why.”

“
Take the candle, Brooke.”

Brooke swiped the matches off the bench
. Balancing the candlestick in her other hand, she obeyed, followed out by shattering glass across the floor.

***

Alone in her room, she pulled out her UAI results from under her mattress, and looked it over one more time. Everyone was too busy to remember that today was the day her future was laid out. Her mother and father hadn’t bothered to mark it on a calendar or make a mental note. It’s not that hard to keep a tab on your own daughter’s education. All it would have taken was a moment out of life to read a newspaper. Different things are important to different people. Battling over land and bringing down a family meant a hell of a lot more.

When
Brooke really thought about it though, the score or the fact that no one remembered wasn’t that unexpected. There was actually relief about that she didn’t have to confront them with it. In a way, it unleashed her. There was no chance of getting any offers for uni. TAFE, maybe, but then she didn’t really want that enough to justify living under this roof.

The whole time
she was at school she could never see past tomorrow. Past the next few moments, the world seemed like a deep dark endless void of nothingness. She’d spent most of the year on her bed lost in the music on her iPod avoiding life, doing only enough school work to keep everyone off her back. Her mind was always so numb she couldn’t stop long enough to take anything in.

It all changed one lazy afternoon in their bunker when
David mentioned he’d like to work on an island in the Whitsundays.

“Come with me,” he’d said, tracing an outline of a series of bruises down his forearm. 

Brooke pulled his hand away and entwined her fingers in his. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how serious are you?”

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot.”

“I need a number,” she said, not allowing herself to get too excited.

“
Ummm, 9.63 today, probably.”

“What was it yesterday?”

“A definite 10. But when Dad reached for that cricket bat and I had to run like hell, I’d say it would have been 15.”

“So tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow is another day.”

“I can’t do one more day here, David.”

“You have to finish school.”

Th
e day that marked the end of school had come and gone. Brooke surfed the net, planned with a passion and daydreamed in high colour. He wanted her to wait for her results and her offers. She had the two digit score in her hand. It wasn’t high enough to mean anything to anyone.

She crumpled up the official sheet, taking it
into the bathroom, snatching the matches on the way. Standing over the bath tub, she lit the piece of paper and watched the flames climb upwards towards her finger, forcing her to let go. It writhed across the porcelain, catching the plastic on the hand soap. She slapped at it, turning the tap on, extinguishing it and swishing the black ashes down the plug hole.

It left a brown stain
, a mark against perfection.

Another reason to leave.

She was ready. All David had to do was give the signal.

***

The crunch of gravel under car tyres could barely be heard above the screeching tree branches. Headlights cast a haze of light over her windows. Brooke shifted in her bed; cuddling deeper into the sheets and feather doona offered her some comfort, in the house of ‘ice’.

She
’d left the door ajar on purpose. Her body was stiff from lying still, holding her breath, bracing against the tension. The pressure in her chest was suffocating.

Since she’d been sent to her room, the house had been shrouded in quiet
. The only noise was the soft footsteps of her mother and sporadic clink of the crystal glass. Brooke could tell by the delicate way her father opened the kitchen door that he hoped to make a quiet dash to the guest bedroom.

Their voices carried
, bouncing over the polished floorboards and up the stairs.

“You have to
give them back their land,” her mother began.

Her father cleared his throat. She heard the fridge door open
, chinking ice and a glass rattle on the marble bench.

“It was their last dam
,” her mother said. “And with the tiny bit of rain we’ve had around here lately it’s not exactly enough for their orchard. This storm will miss us again tonight.”

“Wouldn’t it be good if you
could put this same kind of thought and consideration into our household? We’ve got seven new horses retiring next week. We need the space. That land means everything to us.”

“It means that we’re the family who doesn’t give a shit about the way we make others suffer. The bigger we get in this town the more they hate us. Why don’t you ask your daughter about that?”

I’m leaving,
Brooke thought.

“Our daughter is more than taken care of.”

“You have destroyed the Banks family.”

“I think
that oaf of a man has done a good enough job of that on his own in my pub.”

“You’ve taken everything from him.”

“So it is
him
we’re talking about then. And yet again I get the blame.”

“
He has to tell his family tonight. He’s devastated.”

“Devastated or drunk?”

Brooke rocked back and forward on her bed, cuddling her knees.
I’m leaving.

“All it takes is one phone call to do the right thing.”

The clatter of fresh ice dropped into a glass. “Have another drink, dear.”

Brooke left the comfort of the bed, and threw her
bedroom door wide open. It bounced on its hinge. She charged down the stairs before she could stop herself, and flew into the kitchen, coming face to face with her parents. Her face was enflamed, and her heart seemed to beat in her ears.

“Stop it,” was all she could manage.

“We don’t need a referee, Brooke. Go to bed,” her mother warned.

“I have something to say.”

“No, you don’t,” her mother said.

“Brooke, it’s been a long day for us all,” her father tried to reason. “We don’t need to talk about this. Go to bed. There is nothing more that needs to be said.”

Brooke saw her mother’s face draw in, tight lips, squinty eyes and her nostrils closed in. She was going to explode.

Brooke strode up to the bench slamming her palms down. “Enough. Dad, give them back the land. And Mum, start getting your head around the fact that you have to live in this cold, empty unfeeling house. Every time either of you stick your noses in on the Banks’ you have no idea what happens over there. He gets mad.”