A Shot at Freedom (15 page)

Chapter Twenty Six

Brooke

An empty seat was ready for Brooke at the workers meeting. It was the hot seat. She stood behind it resting her hands on the back, hesitant to sit down. The workers’ expectant eyes were on her. She gripped the back of the seat to stop her hands trembling

“You can sit,” Josie offered.

Brooke shook her head, and started in. “I need you guys. I need help. I need a job. I need my life to be different to what it was. I don’t know if I will ever find David, but I have nothing to go back for. I stuffed up my HSC but I’m smart. I can study at night. I’m so close to scoring a job right where I want it. I just have to be here to wait for phone calls, to make phone calls, to hassle people. This is what David and I dreamed about. We talked about it every day. I know what I want. I just can’t seem to get there. I know that David has just taken his chances and gone. I’m not like him. I don’t have the money. I don’t have the guts to do it on my own—”

Harville
held up his hand, indicating for her to stop. “Wait – wait a second.” He indicated the chair. “Take a seat.”

Brooke sat, and in the tense silence, took a moment to look at each of them, Josie, Carly, Angus and the hardest one to beat,
Harville. “I did nothing wrong,” she said, evenly.

“Josie’s told us what happened,”
Harville said.

“I didn’t want the boys in the room. I didn’t plan it. Natasha and Foley were friends – more than friends – they’ve been together forever
– ”

“How interesting,” Carly said, shaking her head. “Something we didn’t know.”

Brooke stopped.

“They referred on different days,” Josie reminded them all.

“It’s been done a hundred times before,” Harville said, shaking his head. “We know now.”

“What?” Brooke dared to ask.

“We don’t take couples Brooke. Not a good dynamic in a house like this.”

Brooke felt instantly sorry for speaking about them
. “Look, I’m here for me. I don’t want to make things worse for anyone.”

“So tell us – were you in any kind of relationship here with Tyler?”
Harville asked.

“No,” Brooke said
. “No. I think he wanted to be.”

“You weren’t tempted at all?”

“I just want David. Please help me get there. I don’t know if I’ve got enough money. I’ve asked Mum but she won’t help me.”

“You’ve been speaking to her then?” Angus asked.

Brooke nodded. “I’m on my own. Until I find David again. I have nobody. I wanted some help.”

“Your parents want you home.”

“I’m not going. I just need a fare to get up there. Train or bus, whatever. If I have a job I can make it on my own.”

“We’ve got contacts,”
Harville said. “We can help you get a job on Hampton Island. It won’t be the greatest. But it will be a job.”

“
Harville, no,” Carly interrupted. “We all agreed not to do that.”

“It’s making it easy for her,” Angus added.

Harville held up a hand. “Wait a minute. Brooke’s got something to learn here. Work is hard. If she goes up there and makes an honest go of it – she may make it, but if she doesn’t then she might realise what she had at home.”

“Hang on. Hang on,” Josie interrupted.

But Brooke stopped her, pleading with her eyes. “Josie, you said Harville would be the hardest. He agrees with me.”

Josie shook her head. “I want to know what your parents think.”

“They won’t want me to go,” Brooke said.

“Let’s call them,” Angus said, getting up to fetch the phone, stretching the cord over the chairs and placing it in the middle of the table.

“A conference call,” Josie explained, as Angus flipped through Brooke’s file and dialled.

The ringing grated on her, an endless gnawing buzz. “Hello,” her father answered.

Brooke wished the walls would close in and the floor would drop away. She’d stolen from him.

Josie spoke first
. “Mr Jensen, it’s Josie and the team here. We have you on speaker phone. Is that okay?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“We’ve got Brooke here with us, and want to discuss something with you and Mrs Jensen.”

There was a cough on the other end of the line before a click and crackle with another muffled hello.

“Mrs Jensen?”

“Yes, we’re both here,” Brooke’s father
replied.

Harville
spoke up. “Mr Jensen, a decision needs to be made by the team about whether to assist Brooke to get a job on Hampton Island as a dishwasher or not. We have connections and believe she will be treated well. Before we share what we think with you we wanted to hear your opinion on it. She’s determined to get there.”

A pause on the other end of the line, made Brooke hold her breath. It went on and on. She had to hold herself back from jumping in with her own arguments. All she could do was lean forward and drop her head into her hands.

Carly spoke up. “Of course, we won’t encourage her Mr and Mrs Jensen if you don’t want us to.”

But her father cleared his throat, making no difference to a raspy voice. “No. I think she needs to go
–”

“No,” her mother interrupted. “No she is to come home. We have things to sort out here.”

“We only want her to be here if she chooses to be.” A click at the other end, as one half of the line disconnected. Brooke couldn’t tell who it was. But then her father spoke. “Otherwise she’ll come here and be as miserable as her mother.”

“Thank you
, sir,” Harville said.

“Call me anytime,” Mr Jensen said
, hanging up, leaving a residual beeping.

Angus packed the phone away, silencing the room.

“He didn’t want to speak to me,” Brooke said.

“They’re not happy with you, honey,” Josie said.

“The job we can help you get won’t be great but you can work your way up if you want or get this whole idea out of your system. If you don’t find David, my advice to you is to go home,” Harville said.

Carly and Angus exchanged a look.

“What contacts have you got?” Brooke asked, trying to swallow the fist-like lump in her throat, not wanting to think about her parents’ voices rolling through the room only moments ago or about the possibility of never finding David.

“We helped someone get a job up there a
few months ago. A dishwasher, but if he worked out they were going to put him behind the bar. He’d done a course while he was here with us. It worked out for him. We’ve kept in touch with the boss.”

“Your
Centrelink payments will come through soon, and there will be a tiny bit of back pay,” Josie added.

The nerves that Brooke walked into the room with didn’t go away. But they were good nerves. She could see things happening.

***

Brooke text
ed the news to David. Her fingers shookas she thought about him getting word
.
Got a job Hampton Island

“Come on Tim. This isn’t good enough. There’s water everywhere mate. Someone could slip and hurt themself,”
Harville raved, after what had to be the fifteenth inspection of the deck.

“It’s the best I can do,” Tim whined.

“I’ve seen you do better. Squeeze that mop out before you use it, that’s all I’m asking.”

Tim grabbed the dripping mop and ran down the back ramp
, swinging it high above his head like some kind of medieval weapon.

Brooke backed up the hallway,
a Christmas decoration in her hand, ready to fly for the front door if she needed to.

Harville
stood in the puddles on the deck and waited for Tim to slow down.

Curious as to how it was going to finish up, Brooke stopped and leant against the wall, getting a perfect view of them through the row of windows.

“You finished, mate?”

“No,” Tim sulked, holding the mop like a spear and glaring back at the worker.

“Well, keep going. I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

But Tim didn’t know what else to do, other than stand there.

“When you’re ready…”

“I’m sorry,” Tim mumbled.

“Bring the mop here, please.”

Tim obediently carried the mop up to
Harville, who swished it around in the warm soapy water, and pulled it expertly through the bucket rollers, before handing it back.

Brooke moved back into the lounge area and continued
redecorating the small Christmas tree. She couldn’t help smiling to herself. She was glad she was there, thankful, but even more grateful for the fact that she wouldn’t need a place like this forever.

She gazed back down at the phone,
agonizing over the return of the message. She tried calling the number, and a strange voice answered, a girl’s voice. She hung up and turned her mobile off.

*

*

*

Fire

*

*

*

Chapter Twenty Seven

Brooke

The small plane jolted, bounced, then glided along the landing strip. Flying out over spectacular reefs and islands gave Brooke hope she had done the right thing, but up close everything looked dry and windswept. She’d plummeted down from the sky into her new world, alone, reliant only on herself. She forced her attention to the way the wings pulled the plane back in speed.

A part of
Brooke didn’t want the runway to end. With only a book and her purse in hand, she filed down the aisle, barely able to hold it together. Stepping off the plane sent her further into the unknown. As she walked across the tarmac all she chose to think about was finding her bag, the only visible thing she carried from the past. One step at a time was all she could handle.

***

David

David lay flat on his back, arms and legs spreadeagled, like a star
; a star of David. His centre was the only part with life left, but the longer he lay motionless that glow was fading. For the first time he felt the true agony and humiliation of a beating. The bruising was so swollen his skin pulled tight making it throb. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. He knew there were broken bones, ribs and an arm, at least.

Laying there with his head pounding
made him think about the way his dad used to hit him in a whole other way. His father must have loved him enough to stop before it got to this. Those guys in the bar wished him dead. His father didn’t.

H
is father didn’t deserve to die. Not seeing cold hatred in his son’s eyes, before a trembling hand pulled the trigger. The bruises, an odd one here and there, once a week or fortnight, was all it ever was. They never covered his entire body. When he fantasised all those years about his father’s death, he never imagined he would be the one to cause it. And he didn’t believe the day would come where he wished his father was still alive. All he wanted was to close his eyes, fall back through time and have that moment again. He would let the gun fall to the ground and cop it sweet.

So this was how he was supposed to die. Like this
, spread like a star, unwilling to move, his heart working hard, skipping a beat, speeding up and slowing down.

***

Brooke

In her flatette,
Brooke sat on the bed and bounced, getting a feel for the bed springs. There wasn’t much to it, one bedroom, two beds each with a cupboard, a tiny bathroom, bar fridge and kettle. With her first pay cheque she decided she’d buy herself something for her side of the room, cushions or a bedspread maybe. Just sitting there and taking it all in was her only way of making the unfamiliar, familiar.

As pointless as it was
, she picked her phone and sent another text to David. If you need a place to stay I have on
e
. She scrolled through past messages. There was nothing other than that one message he’d sent ages ago.

For something to do, she scrolled through
the few entries in her address book, deleted some drafts, and noticed the photos icon. She hadn’t surfed through there for ages. It was never worth it. Despite her greatest efforts, David always deleted any photo she managed to take of him. It surprised the hell out of her when his image splashed across the screen. His green eyes and dark curls framed a rare smile. It’d been so long since she had seen him, she couldn’t look away. She remembered taking it one lazy afternoon, hiding out in the bunker. Nothing strong about the memory other than everything was as it always was between them, comfortable and predictable. A thought had never entered her brain about having to live life without him.

Her uniform hung on a coat hanger, as starched and freshly pressed as it
would ever look, beige and white stripes with frangipani pockets. Brooke got up off the bed, pulling her own shirt off and undoing the buttons on the uniform. Her knees were weak and she could barely swallow.

You’re scared not sad,
she reminded herself.

The door to her room burst open.
A girl with fly away hair and wearing the same uniform, the edges stained a murky grey, strode into the room and stopped.

Brooke clutched the blouse to her chest and stopped.

“Hey, I’m Dana.”

“Brooke,”
she said, shaking the girl’s outstretched hand, turning to wriggle into the blouse.

“First shift
already?”

Brooke nodded, sitting on the bed, laying her new shorts beside her.

Modelling the disgraceful state of her own uniform, Dana pivoted on the spot. “Not the best uniform for a dishwasher, suits the waitresses more. The plastic aprons help but they don’t work miracles.”

Brooke nodded to the bed across the room. It had a pink doona, matching pillow and a
fluoro green clock; otherwise it looked uninhabited. “So you’re my room-mate?”

“
Kinda,” Dana laughed. She stripped off and wrapped a towel around her body. “You won’t be seeing much of me. You can use my bed anytime if you want to push them together. I’m not here much.”

“Thanks. I’ll be fine
on this one.”

“Better get cracking anyway. Julie’s down there waiting for you. You’ll love her. She’s the kind of boss you work hard for because you want to
, not because you have to.”

Brooke contemplated
changing her shorts in front of Dana, but was too self-conscious.

“We’ll catch up later then?”

The second Dana turned on the shower, Brooke finished changing and headed for the door, tying her hair back on the way. 

She took one more look at the picture of David and pocketed the phone.

***

David

Clouds streaked the sky, stagnant while he kept an eye on them. His eyelids grew heavy and he let them close. By the time he opened them again, the formation had changed. Time was moving forward but all he had the energy to do was to follow each turn of his lungs, a slow life sustaining cycle.

As he drifted
, he was aware of his eyes closing again. It was the only part of him that moved.

When they opened, he was entranced by a
seagull soaring above him, wings outstretched, facing the horizon, webbed feet tucked in tight. The sun was still bright, shining through low clouds.

David could smell the tropical rain.

***

Brooke

“In theory, there’s a ranking system here,” Julie explained to Brooke as they stood side-by-side over the clean dishes at the end of the sink. “There’s the dishwasher, waitresses, kitchen hands, managers and then the cooks. But really, I think the waitresses are everyone’s beck and call girls. If the dishwashers don’t stand up for themselves the whole place falls apart.”

One of the kitchen hands came over and threw a knife into
the soupy sink water, and left.

“Did
ya see that?” Julie whispered, giving a low whistle. “Don’t you worry, I’ll deal with it. It’s a health and safety issue. A cut hand can set you back a good ten minutes at the very least, stitches and send us a girl short on the roster at worst. Problem is, never take on the cooks yourself, always come to me. They think they’re better than us all, and their egos have to be handled delicately.”

“I guess without food the restaurant doesn’t exist.”

Julie nodded and smiled. “That’s it sweetie. Don’t take any of this too personally. Think in your head, you’re as good as they are, but smile and do exactly as they ask just to keep this place moving. Got it?”

“I’ll do my best.”

Julie reached for a tea towel. “I’ll finish this lot of cutlery then you’re on your own. Start stacking those plates on racks. The piles are looking dangerously high.”

Brooke reached for a few on top, the pile swayed. The phone vibrated in her pocket. The dishes slipped, cascading through the coffee cups and shattering into the sink.
Brooke fished her phone out, prioritizing the text
.
At beach park, Airlie Beach. Can’t miss me.

Her eyes filled, yanked back into the disaster at hand when Julie swiped the phone from her palm
, but immediately handed it back.

“Put it away, eh
? No phones on shift. It’s a cardinal rule, especially for dishwashers.”

Brooke slipped the phone into her pocket, conscious of the weight of it, desperate to check it again, in case she read it wrong. Instead, she started scooping out broken shards and dumping them into the bin, while Julie fished around for anything unbroken.

“Don’t feel too bad about these dishes. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I expected to be bad at this at first. I haven’t washed a dish in my life.”

***

David

Light rain dampened his bloodied clothes, cooling the heat in his wounds. The tide was out. He knew it, the way the blood felt pulled to his feet, as though urging him out with it. He marvelled at the power of the moon, as he became aware of his name being called softly behind him.

Gloria sat down beside him, her back stiff and rigid. When she peered over him, he saw
her blackened eye, purple red and blue hues, hidden by a feeble make-up attempt.

“You have to leave town,” she pleaded. “You have to go and not come back.”

“I need a drink,” he murmured.

“I’ve got something.”

He parted his lips. Water filled his mouth and dribbled down his cheek to his ear, before he could activate the reflex to swallow.

“They’ll get you again. For the fun of it,” she told him. “They’re still high from the
hell they gave you.”

“So high, they had energy left over for you.”

Gloria’s eyes dipped.

“You can come with me you know. We can leave together
,” he said.

She pushed at him
. “You’re such a dick.”

A nerve
in his back pinched at her touch. “What?”

“Is that what you said to her? To Brooke? Did you lure her away and then leave her
in the middle of nowhere?”

“You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re
talking about.”

“I’ll tell you what
; I’ll make sure I don’t give Chas another reason to do this to me again. He’ll never catch me. I was mad at him and wanted him to know about you. I left heaps of clues. Stupid idiot took so long to work it out.” As she stood she strapped his missing watch to his wrist and returned the stolen phone to his pocket. “It’s better for you to go.”

The watch weighed heavy on his
broken arm. “The phone’s not mine,” he said. “Take it.”

She ignored his offer. “Brooke’s left lots of messages.
You should read them.”

He shook his head.

“One more thing,” she whispered, pressing something hard into his hand.

With a flick of his eyes, he saw the
butt of the gun. The rest of it extended down his leg. “Fuck, Gloria.”

“Chas had it. I didn’t know what to do with it. I thought about throwing it
away, but I thought some stupid kid might find it, and I don’t know much about fingerprints or where it’s been…”

“Hide it in the bottom of my bag.”

“Your bag’s not here.”

“Gloria,” David moaned.

She pushed the gun partially under the small of his back, pulling his shirt over it and gathering a small pile of leaves on top of it. “Don’t move,” she said.

He
laid his broken wrist gingerly in the pile of leaves. Gloria walked away. He tried to switch on the phone but it was dead.