Grease Monkey Jive (46 page)

“I go home every so often.” In truth he was going home every night to cook, eat, and sleep. He just wasn’t hanging around there during the days he didn’t work at the garage. But it was more amusing to let Katie think he’d turned nomad.

She wriggled onto the bench seat and tried to comb the wind from her hair with glossy black fingernails. “What’s going on with you?”

“I’m sure if I wait a bit you’ll tell me.”

“Is that supposed to egg me on?”

“Doesn’t it?” Dan grinned. He was pretty sure this visit wasn’t social, more Katie’s version of Bondi Rescue. She rolled her lips back into her mouth, a sock puppet expression; it was a face Fluke pulled too and it made him laugh.

“What are you laughing at?”

“You.”

“Yeah. I’m real funny,” her voice flared. “I’m not the one living in a van on Bondi Prom in the middle of winter.”

“Winter is almost over.”

“Dan!”

He sighed, long and heavy. There was no jollying her out of getting stuck into him.

“Fluke said you quit your job and you gave him a car.”

“I tried to, but he won’t take it. It’s taking up space in the driveway at home.”

“You’ve lost your tiny mind, haven’t you?”

“And let me guess, you’re here to help me find it.”

Katie leaned across the fold out table and glared. “Frigging oath! I’m here to kick your arse.”

“Might be tricky in here.”

“At least your eyes are clean.”

“Ok. That’s enough, Katie.” Physical distance would be good at this point, but there was nowhere to go in the confines of the van except out. Dan had to be satisfied with trying to hold Katie off verbally. “What I do with my life is none of your business.”

“Fuck off, Dan. It is my business.”

“Language.”

“Oh, fuck off!”

“When did you start sounding like Fluke and me?”

“When I found out what a fucking idiot you were.”

“Nice.”

“What happened to you? You’re like three different people. First there you were with a girlfriend. A frigging girlfriend! And she was gorgeous and you were just – wow – you were just so into her and I know she was into you because I think she might’ve scratched my eyes out if I’d hung around any longer. You were like new, improved, happier-than-ever Dan and I was jealous as.”

Dan smiled at the memory of Katie interrupting him and Alex at the club that night, the night they danced in the street and made love in the bowling club car park and he’d been happier than he’d ever imagined possible.

“Then you disappear. When you show up again, no girlfriend, no hair, and you’re thin, and you’ve got these hollows under here.” She reached forward and stroked Dan’s cheek and he closed his eyes on a slow out breath and let her. “And you’ve got women hanging all over you again and you’re trying to act all up, like it’s what you want. But you’re miserable as all hell and Fluke tells me you flipped out on Alex, quit work, went strange, and built him a car.”

Her touch had cooled his annoyance; her words had softened his frustration. “Ah, Katie.”

“Is it true?”

She’d nailed it; he nodded.

“Why?”

“There’s a lot of question in that word.”

“Why would you let her go?”

“You and Fluke – you’ll be the death of me.”

“There are worse ways to go. I’m not leaving til you tell me. I’m going to hang around and cramp your style until you tell me what’s going on.”

Katie was sitting back, arms folded across her chest, doing her best to be intimidating, but she was still Fluke’s little sister and Dan had no desire to further complicate their relationship.

“Why am I going to tell you anything?”

“Because I love you and because Fluke doesn’t know how to beg.”

He groaned. “We need coffee.” He needed to be rescued or abducted by aliens.

“We don’t. That’s an excuse. You are the master of avoiding stuff you don’t want to talk about. I’m staying til you cough up.”

“I’m not talking this out with you, Katie.”

“Then who?” She went bug eyed and when she saw his jaw tighten said, “Right, thought so. I’m it, mate. Fucking get on with it.”

Dan put his elbows on the table. “How can I tell you about this? A little unfair after what...”

“After what we nearly did? Geez, that was crazy. You’re basically my brother. That was like making out with Fluke. I used to think you were so much cooler than him – well you are, so I still do, despite the hair. Grow it back already. But you and me, what a crock. That was never on. I just wanted you to notice me and I thought I had to compete with all the other women around you to get you to remember I was alive.”

He put his face in his hands, his, “No,” a muttered mixture of disbelief and regret.

“Yeah. I was dumb and unfair to you. But you don’t need any reminders of who I am. I’m the one who’s known you nearly all your life and I friggin’ know what you can be and it’s not this, so talk.”

Dan gathered himself, closed his eyes, tried to centre his thinking to work out how to put into words what he felt. When he opened them, Katie had tears in hers.

“You did love her and you gave her up because you think you’re not good enough.”

“Fluke told you that.”

“No, I can see it. You’re such an idiot. I have idiots for brothers. If Fluke had told me that I’d have been in your face sooner. You’re an arrogant prick to decide for a girl what’s good for her.”

“What?” It was Dan’s turn to glare.

“You heard me. You just up and decided. I’ll bet you didn’t give her any say in it. Didn’t tell her what was worrying you. You just aced her out and you thought making it so she’d blame you would be a kindness to her. You did, I can see it in your face, that’s what you did.”

Dan had no idea what expression he wore, but Katie had nailed it again and it hit like the first signs of a headache, a blinding flash behind his eyes, a tightness at his temples. One of the first things Alex taught him was about bullying, that the worst kind of bully was someone who pretended they were doing you a favour while they got their own way. And this was the second time he’d done it to her – made a decision for her. He put his hands to his temples and squeezed. He was a stupid arrogant bastard, not even smart enough to learn from his own mistakes, but how could he have done anything else?

“What else was I supposed to do? I was protecting her. I am protecting her.”

“From what? From the chance to love you, be with you, make a life with you? Yeah, all criminally bad things. I can see why she’d need protection from that.”

“Katie, there’s too much of Jimmy in me to be good for Alex.”

“Oh, you are so full of yourself,” Katie’s words smacked the air. “Too much of Jimmy. Too much shit more like. It’s looks-deep, Dan. The rest is all you and it has been since you were a kid. Why don’t you know that?”

He’d heard this argument before from Fluke and, more subtly, from Trevor, but the shock of hearing it from Katie broke through. Now he had to recognise its truth. The fear of being like Jimmy had always been his driver and he was reluctant to let it go and believe in himself. That’s why he’d kept working at the garage long after he should’ve been doing something else. That’s why he’d never told anyone his dreams, least of all Alex, because they seemed crazy, unreal, and he felt unworthy of them.

“I fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Big time. It’s a wonder she hasn’t slashed her wrists.”

“She probably hates me too much to do that.”

“Then you must’ve done a real number on her to paint yourself black enough to hate. No one hates you, Dan. It’s impossible, even if you are a smartarse.”

“Not impossible. My own father hates me.”

“Jimmy is jealous of you.”

Katie snapped that off like any other indisputable fact. It was like saying Jeff is a brown dog, Fluke wipes out in big surf, or Ant will take any bet, but it’d never occurred to Dan.

“Jealous of me?

“You’re everything he’s not.”

Was this a fact or an opinion? How was it the women in his life, Alex and now Katie, could see things so much clearer than he could? “I never thought about it like that.”

“So start now. Go get her back.”

Dan’s new-found wonder fell into an immediate state of despair. “She won’t trust me again.”

Katie reached across the table and took his hand, wrapping her fingers through his. “My brother wouldn’t let a little thing like that stop him.”

“It’s not a little thing.”

“But it’s not bigger than you.”

“God.” The tightness in Dan’s temples, now a throb, echoed in his hand as he gripped Katie’s.

“I’ll send you my bill.”

He released her hand on a bark of laughter. “You would too, you mercenary little bugger.”

“No more hanging out in the van,” she instructed.

“No,” he said with conviction.

“Go get your old job back or get a new one.”

“Yeah, I’m working on that.”

“Eat more.”

“I got it.”

“Give me the keys to the Charger.”

Dan grinned. “You figured you’d just slip that in, did you?”

“Ok, I’m joking, I’m joking.” Katie put both hands up in submission. “I think I know why you built Fluke the car. It’s what you do for the hopeless one in the family.”

“Fluke has always had my back and he’s not been as lucky with money as the rest of us,” he shrugged. “It’s a mates thing.”

Katie shifted her legs out from under the table. “It’s you and your extreme favours.” She stood. Her work here was done. “Keep the crop; it’s dead sexy.”

“Katherine Dean!”

“I might be your sister, but I’m not blind, Dan.”

He swung the Kombi door open and pointed, “Getoutahere,” and when he followed her out and folded her in a hug, it was the sign of a bond nothing would break.

The idea of going to his flat felt too intimate. Alex didn’t think she could be there and not be storm-tossed by the memory of how happy she’d been with him, swamped by the feeling of what was lost and unrecoverable. So going to his flat was out. A public place, where they’d be more inclined to watch their manners, would be better.

He wasn’t at the garage and they didn’t seem to know when he’d be back. The boss laughed when she’d asked. Said he wasn’t working there any more – at least not regularly. That was puzzling; he’d loved the garage, loved his work. It would’ve been nice to think he got a better job, but the impression the boss gave her was that he’d gone walkabout instead.

In a strange way, that was another dose of aversion therapy. It settled Alex’s stomach, like the aftermath of seeing him at the club had done. Made her see him true, without the rose-coloured glasses. He was a good time boy and he lacked the ambition to make himself a better life or hold onto a job. At least on those two scores she’d not judged him too harshly.

On a whim she tried the beach and found the Kombi parked on the Promenade. It was closed up, but she could see Jeff sitting up in the passenger seat tracking seagulls. No surf to speak of and no surfers out there. She was wondering if she should knock and see if he was home or abandon the idea as a bad one altogether.

She could hear Scott calling her coward again in that scathing and self-righteous tone of voice, so she got out of the car, but before she started across to the van, the door flung open and a girl with vivid red hair tumbled out. Fluke’s sister, Katie, the one who’d knocked the competition out at the club, and Dan was hugging her long and close and tight and Alex felt like a voyeur to the emotion in that hug. This was different to the scene in the club played out in public; this was a private moment.

At least he wouldn’t have spotted her. She turned and fled back to her car. But Scott’s accusation was still dancing in her head. She was a coward. That scene had taught her no more than she already knew, even if it did make her hands shake and her eyes scratchy.

There was no problem with speaking to Dan civilly – they’d been polite, cooperative, friendly, when they were only teacher and student. She would be grown up, solve the problem of the invitational performance, and get herself a civilised goodbye.

Dan had only just closed the door against the wind when Katie knocked again. He flung it open. “No, you can’t have the keys.”

Not Katie. Dan had no breath, no way to stay semi-upright in the van without holding on to something. In the front seat Jeff went wild, whining and prancing and wiggling furiously.

Alex was luminously pale, tendrils of dark hair teased by the wind whipping around her face and her “Hi,” was almost drowned out by the roar of surprise in his ears.

His “Hi,” came out guttural and forced and he had no other words to follow it. He stood in the van, bent forward against the low ceiling, trying to take in the fact she was here. Not quite smiling, not happy to be here, but here and close enough to touch.

Alex clearly didn’t want to get in the Kombi, but the wind was cutting, so she needed to get in or he had to come out. His feet were stuck to the van’s floor.

“Dan, are you alright?”

“Come in.” He said it on a cough, moving back to make room, holding Jeff by the collar to stop him from leaping all over her.

It wasn’t lost on Dan that the smile Alex gave Jeff, the way she stroked his head and scratched behind his ear, had the warmth she once used to give him. It had to be a bad thing, reduced to being envious of a mutt.

Alex perched on the edge of the bench seat, and Dan settled opposite her, the tiny fold-up table between them. He’d obviously been expecting the girlfriend back and she’d struck him dumb showing up here. He was staring at her and she saw great dark hollows carved under his eyes that she hadn’t noticed at the club.

Now that she was here, her courage started to falter. She needed to get straight down to business and get out again before she forgot her aversion, forgot her determination to be adult and civil.

“I won’t stay. I came to let you know that we made the final round of the competition and they’ve added an invitational event as part of the evening’s entertainment. We’ve been invited to perform as an audience favourite.”

He was staring at her. He hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “Dan, you don’t seem...”

“I’m just really surprised to see you. Tell me again what happened.” This time he appeared to listen, but he still wasn’t getting it.