A Small Free Kiss in the Dark (15 page)
I slept for hours after Billy cleaned the blood off my face. I could hardly move when I woke up; my head ached and my stomach was glued to my shirt. I was almost glad no one else was there, but I worried whenever Billy and Max were away from me. I pulled a jumper on over my shirt and went down to the beach, looking for them. We went there often during the day because we couldn’t be seen from the hotel.
Max and Tia were playing hopscotch on the sand and Billy was making castles for Sixpence. She was learning how to sit up, but every now and then she’d lose her balance and fall backwards. Then she’d lie there looking up at the sky like she’d meant to do it all along.
Max ran across the sand when he saw me. He stared at my nose. It felt as big as a rhino’s horn. ‘Will it go back to normal?’
‘I hope so.’
‘Let’s make a mermaid.’
She had seaweed hair and a Mona Lisa smile. Then the others went looking in the tidal pools for winkles to decorate her tail. I walked out and sat on the jetty, thinking about the present I was going to make for Max later on. I didn’t hear Billy come. He sat down beside me and didn’t say anything for a while. I felt a bit nervous, thinking he might be going to ask me more about that morning, so I got in first. ‘When are we taking Max back?’
Billy cleared his throat and I knew something was wrong.
‘I’ve been thinking . . . might be best if just me and Max go.’
I stared at him.
‘I mean . . . I know you’re pretty close to the little fella . . . it won’t be easy . . .’
I couldn’t speak. Billy didn’t know my mother dumped me. He didn’t know Dad wanted to die more than he wanted to stay with me. I never told him about all the foster families, the beltings, the bullying and the loneliness. But after what we’d been through together, how could he think I was weak? How could he think I’d let Max down when he needed me most?
‘Nothing’s ever easy,’ I wanted to shout. ‘Nothing in this whole bloody universe!’
Billy was staring at the water. His lips were moving and I realised he was still talking to me. ‘. . . if something happened, if I couldn’t come back, you’d be okay, Skip. You’re a survivor.’
Then I knew what this was all about. I should have guessed. I pulled myself up on my feet. My head ached. My gut burned. The world spun.
‘Liar!’ I screamed. ‘This has got nothing to do with Max and me. You don’t want me around. You never have. And you’re only taking Max to the Red Cross to get rid of him. His mother’s dead. You know she is.’
Billy lumped himself to his feet and faced me. His skin was grey, everything about him was grey. He leant back against the wooden railing. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Yes I do. You’ll go back to the city, dump Max with the Red Cross and I’ll never see either of you again.’
‘Might be better that way.’
‘Better for who?’
I burned. I tasted blood. I wanted Billy to feel my pain. I was a boxer, jabbing at him with words, dancing away, trying to land a right hook, make him pay with a knockout blow. ‘You tricked me. You said my pictures were good and I believed you. I pinched the books so I could get an education. I thought you cared. Why didn’t you just tell me to get lost? Why wait till now?’
Billy was old. His words were slow coming. ‘Thought I could do it, but I was wrong. I’m no good, Skip, you deserve better. I had a boy like you once . . .’
‘Did you lie to him, too?’
Billy’s knuckles went white. ‘You know nothing, you little shit!’
‘Did you walk out on him?’
Billy bounced off the ropes and grabbed me by the shoulders. I thought I was going to pass out. ‘I did something wrong, way back. They took my boy off me and locked me up. Never saw him again, spent my life paying for one mistake. No one wants you when you’ve been inside.’
The others were coming, racing along the beach. I ran to the sea end of the jetty and dived into the water. When I surfaced, screaming with pain, I heard them shouting my name. I swam until my arms were useless, then I floated on my back. Tears rolled down my cheeks and dripped into the sea.
I waited until the others had gone before I swam back to land. Then I sat on the beach until I was numb. I had to go to the House of Horrors to get my coat. Billy was still there. He was making soup and Max was colouring in, and even Tia was there, feeding Sixpence. I didn’t look at their faces; I couldn’t. No one said anything and I wondered what Billy had told them. I put Dad’s coat on and took my wet clothes outside, then I went and sat on the platform of the carousel.
After a while I got a feeling that someone was watching me, but I didn’t look up. I didn’t care, not even if it was a soldier. When I heard uneven footsteps I knew it was Billy. He stood there, touching-distance away. I looked at his odd shoes and his frayed pants, then I slowly looked up at his face.
He held his arms out. I couldn’t believe it. All I had to do was walk into them.
I couldn’t remember anyone hugging me like that before. I didn’t think I pulled away, even though it hurt like crazy, but I must have, because Billy opened Dad’s coat up and took a look. It was a mess in there: all puffy, purple and red around the cuts. Bits of skin hung off and pus and blood were oozing out like the inside of me had gone rotten.
‘What did you cut it on?’ he asked me.
‘Broken glass.’
‘Best thing you could’ve done, jumping in the sea,’ he said. He was serious, but I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. Then I was crying and Billy wiped his eyes on his sleeve.
‘Better get you inside,’ he said.
Tia and Max looked up. Sixpence was sleeping.
‘Tia, take Max outside for a bit,’ Billy said. ‘Don’t go far.’
‘C’mon, Maxi baby,’ Tia said and I was surprised because she didn’t usually like it when people told her what to do.
First Billy cleaned his pocketknife in boiling water.
‘This might hurt a bit,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got to see if there’s any glass left in there.’
I bit down hard on my back teeth. I felt like I was going to throw up, or pass out. I tried to imagine Tia’s face when I gave her the necklace. When Billy finished, he showed me the glass in the bottom of the red bucket.
‘Sharks’ teeth in my guts,’ I said, ‘that’s what it felt like.’
‘Hope I got it all,’ he said. He made me lie down and poured bottled water over the cuts. Then he got out a jar of honey he’d been saving until the war was over and we could buy crumpets. He warmed some of it and smoothed it carefully over the worst bits.
‘Old remedy,’ he said, ‘old as the Pharaohs. Keeps the germs away.’
After that he tore strips from the old sheets we’d found in the charity bin, and wrapped them around me. I watched his careful hands and wondered why he hadn’t already gone after what I said to him. I was nothing to him; just a homeless kid who somehow got mixed up in his life.
‘So what are we gonna do now?’ I said when I was all wrapped up like a mummy.
‘Truce?’ Billy stuck out his hand.
‘Does this mean you’re not gonna shoot through?’
‘Never said I was going to, Skip. Thought about it, but not for the reasons you think.’
‘Why, then?’
‘S’pose I’m a coward.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Every time I look at you, I think about my own boy and how I stuffed his life up. Don’t want to do the same to you.’
It was the first time Billy had given me anything from that far inside himself and I felt like I owed him. I wanted to tell him about my dad; about the times he spent all his pension money on booze and smokes and then sent me down to the Salvation Army to ask for food vouchers. And the other times when he got mad and threw things and swore at me. I wanted Billy to know that my dad gave me to the Welfare people and even after that I never stopped loving him, but I couldn’t say it.
‘Do you think Max’s mum might still be alive?’
‘Just a chance. I wouldn’t be taking him otherwise.’
‘Can I come?’
‘Do you still want to?’
I nodded, then I told him about Zombie and Pratt. I said it fast to get it over and done with because I didn’t want to think about it any more.
We heard Max and Tia outside then. So Billy gave us the soup he’d made, and acted like the rest of that day had never happened. He talked about us all going to find Mrs Montgomery, as if that’s what he’d always planned.
‘We’ll go back the way we came,’ he said, ‘but this time we’ll travel light. Just a backpack each.’ That meant no suitcase and no books.
‘Your things will be all right here, Skip,’ he said. ‘No one in their right mind would bomb a fun park.’
I couldn’t help thinking about St Mary’s and the State Library and the neat, painted houses with their golden doorknockers and striped awnings, bulldozed into a massive bonfire to make plenty of parking space for tanks and trucks and other machinery. But I never said anything, because now I knew I couldn’t protect my books even if I had them with me. Billy tried to make the trip sound like a big adventure.
‘Before we go we’ll have a slap-up meal,’ he said.
Max asked him if we could have a bonfire on the beach.
‘See what I can do,’ Billy said, and I reminded him about the wood in the water tank.
That night Billy was busy getting ready for Max’s farewell feast and the trip back to the city. The first thing he did was some more of his fancy wirework.
‘What is it?’ Max wanted to know.
‘Give you three guesses,’ said Billy.
‘A toaster?’
‘Nope!’
‘I know . . . it’s a tepee for the goose’s bride!’
‘A wigwam for a goose’s bridle, Max,’ I said.
‘Nope, it’s none of those things! Give up?’ asked Billy. Max and me nodded.
‘It’s a chicken cooker!’
‘But we haven’t got a chicken,’ I said.
I saw Max look at Billy and then Billy nodded. ‘Yes, we have!’ said Max. ‘It’s in the shed. Billy and me got it before. We put it in my backpack. We got a girl chicken, so she won’t crow in the morning. Do you want to have a look at her? Can we, Billy? Can I take Skip and Tia to see her?’
Tia was feeding Sixpence, and I didn’t really want to look at the chicken because I didn’t think it would be a good idea to get too friendly with something you are going to eat, but I went with Max to make him happy. We shone the torch through the window of the shed and I agreed with him that the chicken had a lovely face, even though I wasn’t sure she had a smile exactly like the Mona Lisa.
At last Max went to sleep and I got the rooster’s feathers out of my backpack. I cut two long strips of butchers’ paper and coloured them in red. Then I borrowed a black pencil out of Max’s wooden pencil box and I drew pictures of caribou, buffalo and wolves on one of the strips.
Tia put Sixpence to bed and whispered over my shoulder, ‘What are you making?’
‘A surprise for Max.’
‘Show me when I come back.’
I turned around. Billy was doing something to his backpack with his pocketknife.
‘Don’t go,’ I whispered. ‘I’ve got something for you, too.’
‘What is it?’
‘A secret.’
‘Can’t you show it to me now?’
I wanted to go and get the blue velvet box right then, but I couldn’t. I had to wait for the perfect time. ‘Not till Billy goes to bed.’
‘Show me when I come back, then.’
‘Don’t go,’ I said again.
‘I’ll be back soon.’
‘Please don’t, not tonight.’
After she’d gone I made myself concentrate on my drawings. I did the best ones I’d ever done. I didn’t think about Tia dancing while I stuck the feathers on the back of the paper with Max’s glue stick. I didn’t think about what the soldiers were saying to Tia. I just made sure the spaces between the feathers were exactly right. Then I pasted the other strip of paper along the back to make it strong and I joined the two ends together. When I’d finished Max’s surprise I hid it with my books and I took out the blue velvet box and looked at the silver padlock on the chain. All I had to do was wait for Tia to come back. I told myself I had to be like Max who believed with all his heart, because she had always come back before.
Tia slept late the next morning. She always did when she’d been away. All night I had kept the blue velvet box in my pocket in case she got back in time for the perfect moment. I looked at her sleeping and couldn’t be angry because Tia didn’t know I could give her what she wanted. I put her present in the secret hiding place with my books and Max’s surprise. I thought the perfect moment might come that night. I didn’t know it would take so long.
Everything seemed to take longer that morning because my chest and stomach were stiff and sore. I did all the usual things, like giving Sixpence a bath and feeding her, which I loved. Afterwards I cleaned her dirty nappy, which I hated, and I promised myself that once I gave Tia her present she wouldn’t have any more late nights and I wouldn’t have to clean any more dirty nappies.
In the afternoon I got started on the extra things we had to do for Max’s farewell, like carting wood for the bonfire and keeping out of the way while Billy caught Mona. I should have taken Max down to the beach, but I didn’t know we would still be able to hear the chicken squawking from inside the House of Horrors. Max stopped colouring in when he heard it.