Hostage (7 page)

Tully’s Story

There was a time before Amanda when I didn’t speak at all. That time after Mum’s friend, Craig, came visiting at Christmas. Anyway, the school I was at made Mum take me to a doctor. I’d stopped talking but it took them a while to work out I wasn’t looking for attention. In fact, I was trying to disappear into nothingness. The doctors called it something—selective mutism. I don’t know why they made it sound so fancy. I just didn’t want to talk, so I didn’t. They said it had nothing to do with what happened, but Mum blamed Craig anyway.

We moved twice during that time, but I was always waiting for Craig to come to the front door and take me for a ride. I didn’t want to go for a ride with him again. Mum said I didn’t have to, but she didn’t stop him last time so I didn’t believe her.

School was hard. The first school was okay but the next school was small and it was harder to blend into the wall. We had composite grades, little kids in with big kids. The little kids were okay and let me be, but the bigger kids tried everything they could to make me talk. They tried bribing me. When that didn’t work they tried hurting me. They pinched me whenever they passed my desk. They would stand on my feet when we lined up for assembly. Hid my ruler. Stole my lunch.

In my head I would yell at them. I would scream so high that glass shattered. I would roar so loud that it swept things from their desks. I would speak at home—sometimes. But once I left home...

Teachers at school worried, but Mum thought they made too much fuss. She had her own problems. She only had enough energy for one person and that was her. We didn’t stay long. I was glad to move that time.

Then we moved to Amanda’s school. When I found Amanda, I found my voice. She didn’t seem to notice that I didn’t talk. And then it happened. Little words escaped from my throat like canaries from a cage. Single words forced their way through the bars of my teeth. Then whole sentences. When we were together, alone, the words tumbled out of me. All those words that had built up for so long forced their way out. It was a prison break. At first it was scary. Then it became normal. I can’t remember when I began talking properly at school.

I could still go for days not talking at high school. But it seemed that was okay, because I was a teenager. I answered if the teachers asked me questions. It was just easier that way. But if it wasn’t for Nathan I probably wouldn’t have bothered to talk to anyone else at school.

Sometimes I still have days when I find it hard to talk. Maybe that’s why I had trouble asking anyone for help when Griffin took me.

Fitzroy Police Station: 25 December, 3.17a.m.

‘Tully, could I just interrupt here?’ asked Constable Tognetti. ‘Can you give me the name of the boy you mentioned. Nathan...?’

‘Furlong. Nathan Furlong,’ said Tully.

‘And he is...?’

Tully shrugged. ‘He was my lab partner for Science.’

‘Right.’ Constable Tognetti made a note in her book. ‘Can I please ask you what happened after you reached Deer Park? After Griffin came out of the chemist.’

‘I told him I wanted to go home,’ said Tully.

Christmas Eve

Griffin had parked in a No Standing zone. Tully only realised when a grey-uniformed man tapped on her window and signalled to roll it down so he could talk to her.

‘Shit,’ said Tully.

She shook her head, but the man tapped again on the window.

‘It doesn’t open,’ Tully said loudly.

The parking inspector walked around to the driver’s side and stood waiting. Tully leaned across and opened the door.

‘Sorry,’ said Tully.

‘This is a No Standing area.’ The man pointed to the sign.

‘Sorry,’ she repeated. ‘We’re not from around here.’

Tully wondered if Griffin’s car registration had already been sent through to police stations nationwide. Even if it had, she thought, they probably hadn’t extended the bulletin to local parking officers.

‘Well, you need to move this car or I’m going to give you a ticket.’

‘He won’t be a moment. My friend had to go to the chemist—’

‘I don’t care if he had to put a fire out. No Standing means you can’t park here.’

‘Maybe you should just give him a ticket then,’ said Tully.

‘What?’

‘Could you just hurry up?’

Then Tully saw Griffin. He’d come out of the chemist and stopped dead as he caught sight of what was going on. She was reminded of the first day she’d noticed him at school. He had a slightly lost look about him. She’d seen that look before. Every day she looked in the mirror.

Griffin took a couple of steps away from the car before stopping and looking back her way. Tully wasn’t sure what she wanted him to do. If he left her now, she would be free to go. And yet...

‘Here he is now,’ said Tully.

‘Is something wrong?’ Griffin’s face was nearly as grey as the parking inspector’s shirt as he walked towards the car.

‘This is a No Standing zone,’ barked the inspector.

‘I’m sorry. I—’

‘Your girlfriend here was telling me to give you a ticket. Have you two had a fight?’

Griffin shrugged.

‘I think you’d better move this car or I’ll be giving you a Christmas present from the council,’ said the inspector, waving his ticket machine. ‘Merry Christmas,’ he added gruffly as he strode off to another car down the line.

Griffin carefully slid into the car, then he threw a plastic chemist bag onto the back seat. His bare arm touched Tully’s as he turned back in his seat and they sparked with static electricity. Tully jumped and Griffin pretended not to notice.

‘You didn’t say anything,’ he said.

Tully shrugged. ‘People in uniform are so bossy,’ she said.

‘The car looks in one piece.’ He made a show of looking at the instruments on the dash, then under the seat, then above the sun visor, but all the time Tully could tell he was checking her out.

‘So you got it?’ she asked. She nodded to the bag.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t understand. I thought ... I thought they just gave it to you on the spot.’

‘They did. It’s in the bag,’ said Griffin. He grabbed the bag from the back seat and threw it into Tully’s lap.

Tully opened the bag and pulled out a box of pills. She read the instructions. ‘It says here that you have to take this on an empty stomach.’

‘Yep.’

‘It says here that it is a treatment for acne. What does this mean?’

‘It means that it is a treatment for acne,’ said Griffin.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Tully.

‘You thought I was at the chemist for the methadone program?’ said Griffin.

Tully nodded.

Griffin laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’ said Tully.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘You think it’s funny that I thought I was driving around with a ex-druggie who needed his dose of Methadone to stay sane?’ asked Tully.

Griffin nodded, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. ‘Tully...’ he began, then stopped. ‘So, how do we get outta here?’ he said finally. ‘I need to get back to the city.’

Tully pointed to a break in the side road that led out onto the highway.

‘I’ve been thinking ... I think it will be okay,’ said Griffin. ‘If you just come and tell them what happened. The police. How I didn’t hurt you or nothing. And that guy—he charged me. I was just defending myself.’

‘I know.’

‘So it might be a crap Christmas but I think it will be okay. It was just ... I was having a bad day, you know. And that chemist woman...’

‘Yeah.’ But Tully wasn’t thinking of the chemist woman. She could see the day stretching out before them. A tedious day of police interviews and Laney losing it. There probably wouldn’t even be time for Christmas shopping.

‘It’s Christmas Eve,’ said Tully.

Griffin grunted.

‘If you could have just one Christmas Eve wish, what would it be?’ she asked him.

‘Tully—’

‘No, really. Come on. What would you wish for.’

Griffin shook his head. ‘I dunno. I guess I would wish I’d never gone to Smith Street this morning. That I’d never talked to Dad on the phone last night. He wanted to see me Christmas Day. I didn’t see the point. He was acting like he should have some kind of say in what I do. Like he had some kind of rights. And this morning I was still pissed off about it. I wish—’

‘Only one wish,’ said Tully.

‘I wish I was still in bed,’ said Griffin.

Tully nodded.

‘So, what would you ... Tully, this road’s going the wrong way.’

‘I don’t want to go back to the city,’ said Tully.

‘What? Jesus. You’ve spent ages going on about how you wanted out and now you don’t want to go back?’

‘Yet,’ she said. Tully’s day had suddenly opened up. The possibilities seemed endless. ‘My Christmas Eve wish is to have an adventure. You need to turn left up here.’

‘Forget it,’ said Griffin, changing to the right lane and heading for a set of lights and a u-turn sign.

‘Uh uh,’ she said. Tully looked out the window to the landscape. It was familiar but new houses clustered together like a crop of mushrooms, making her second-guess where she really was. ‘If you don’t take me where I want to go, well, you can forget it. Forget about that little fantasy you have of me talking to the cops for you.’

The car was approaching the lights and Griffin had slowed down.

‘You help me then I help you. I think you owe me, don’t you?’ said Tully.

‘Is that right?’ said Griffin.

Tully didn’t answer as she watched him cut across lanes to turn left at the intersection.

That’s right, she thought.

Christmas Eve

The clock on the dash didn’t work but the sun shone at a higher angle through the window, leaving Tully to guess that it had been around an hour-and-a-half since they’d left Deer Park. She had made Griffin take a detour so she could look at the house of the Angel sisters where she had lived with her mother. After a few false starts, she finally found the street and they pulled up out the front, the engine idling. The front garden was as neat as ever but the house sported striped sunshades that Tully couldn’t remember and there was no sign of life either inside the house or out in the garden. After five minutes, Tully told Griffin to drive on.

Now, the hills on either side of the road folded into each other, like bolts of brown velvet left to fall on a haberdasher’s floor. Griffin only grunted answers to Tully’s chatter. Once or twice he turned the radio up but she ignored his pointed actions and only talked louder.

‘I knew we were on the right track when we passed through Ballarat,’ said Tully.

‘Straight ahead?’ said Griffin.

‘Straight ahead,’ said Tully as they passed through a small town. ‘So like I said, I thought I’d hate it, but it’s cool living near the city. It’s good to be in the middle of things, you know?’

‘Huh.’

‘There’s always something happening. I saw this man the other day doing wheelies in the middle of the road—in his wheelchair. Wheelies! He saw me watching and asked if I wanted a go. But I didn’t. He was pretty good. I don’t think he had any legs. It makes you wonder what happened to him. Bamps says everyone has a story.’

‘Uh huh.’

‘And there’s this woman? She lives two doors down from Bamps and she’s some kind of mystic or something. Do you believe people can read minds? Or see the dead? I’d like to think so. I like the idea of magic. She will tell you your future for thirty bucks. My aunt goes to her once a month. Must be a boring visit. Nothing much happens in Aunt Laney’s life.’

‘Do you always talk this much?’ Griffin asked, slowing as they approached a railway crossing. He looked left to right then kept going, the tracks making a thud thud under the tyres.

‘No,’ said Tully. She looked down at her fingers and tore another strip off her thumb nail.

After a while, Griffin said, ‘I need some petrol.’ He slowed down as the speed limit dropped on the outskirts of another small town.

‘Um, sure,’ said Tully.

The petrol station wasn’t like the glassed-in designs from the city. A half-faded sign announced it was Joe’s Roadhouse. There were three pumps out the front, and Griffin parked next to the unleaded.

Tully tried the door handle. ‘Have you got a child safety lock on this or something?’

‘That door’s stuffed,’ he explained. ‘You need to thump it down there,’ he pointed below the handle, ‘then it should open.’

Tully shook her head. ‘You mean I could have got out of this door any time?’

Griffin shrugged.

Tully thumped a few times and the door finally opened. She walked towards the roadhouse, aware that Griffin could leave at any moment. But then, he needed her. She was sure of it. For some reason the thought of their skin touching skipped through her mind. She stood taller, without looking back, and opened the screen door. A tinkling bell announced a new customer to the man behind the counter and he gave her a nod.

‘G’day,’ he said.

Tully studied him. He reminded her a bit of Bamps, the way his compacted body met in the middle, his shirt buttons straining around his belly. His hands, resting lightly on the counter, were large and blunt at the ends, as if worn down over time. She thought he looked like a farmer. She wondered if he was Joe of the Joe’s Roadhouse sign. Her hands skimmed lightly over the magazines.
Home Beautiful
and
Woman’s Day
nestled up against
Hustler
and another magazine wrapped in brown paper. A freestanding carousel held Christmas cards that jumped from bawdy jokes to fuzzy images of fluffy animals. She wondered if she should get one for Bamps.

She took some time to consider the Tim the Toyman swivel stand. She still didn’t have a present for Aunt Laney. She narrowed her choice down to the super cap guns, the bubble blower and the animal plaster kit with paint before giving up totally on the idea. Tully felt sweat run in a trickle down the small of her back.

‘Hot enough for ya?’ the man asked.

She agreed it was and asked where the toilets were.

The man handed her a key and directed her back out the door and around to the left. After using the toilet, Tully washed her hands, then splashed water on her face and neck. She peered into the stainless steel mirror, which only gave her a fuzzy image in return.

Inside the diner, Tully cruised past the sweets section then handed back the key. A sign on the wall announced Mrs Mac’s pies were the best. Inside the counter-top warmer, a pie that looked like it had been there since last century sat alone on the top shelf. It added to the warmth of the room. A public phone stood sentry against the wall like something from a museum. Tully thought she should give Bamps a call, just to tell him she was okay, but the thought of Aunt Laney answering the phone and losing it, or the police tapping the phone line to find out where she was, made her hesitate. Finally she fished in her pocket and pulled out a two dollar coin. She lifted the receiver and slipped the coin into the slot. The sound of Bamps’s voice made her heart constrict until she realised it was just the answering machine.

‘Hey, Bamps. It’s me, Tully. Everything’s cool. Sorry I didn’t come straight home from the chemist. There was a bit of a mix up there. I’m okay. I’ll be back later.’

Tully hung up, aware that the attendant had been eavesdropping.

‘Nearly got rid of that phone a few times now,’ said the man. ‘Seems every man and his dog has a mobile.’

Tully nodded and looked around. A newspaper article of a local hero was stuck to the wall with yellowing sticky tape and Tully looked closer so she could read it.

‘My son, Des,’ croaked the man. ‘Big fella. If he fell over he’d be halfway home.’

Tully’s mouth turned up at the corners in her version of a smile.

‘Had a shot at the major footy league. Came back here, the silly bugger. Took over the farm.’

Tully nodded.

The fan overhead skipped a beat every rotation as it caught on a Christmas decoration.

‘He was on the rookie list for a while. With the Bombers. Had three senior games, but he did his knee. Waste of bloody talent.’

The doorbell rang again and Tully turned to see Griffin headed for the counter.

She left and gave the attendant a small wave as he called out a Merry Christmas to her. Back in the car, she strapped on her seatbelt and opened the packet of Menthos she’d slipped into her pocket from the sweets section. When Griffin got back into the car, he handed Tully two packets of chips and threw two bottles of water on the floor.

‘Lunch,’ he announced.

Then he moved his window down to let in some fresh air.

Tully laughed suddenly. ‘Cool. And I know the perfect picnic spot.’