Mike (2 page)

4
DUTCH COFFEE

Indoors, the house was spotless. I followed the old woman down a short corridor and into a large kitchen area.

She pointed towards the dining table. “Sit. Sit … ”

I pulled out one of the chairs and sat. The dog, I noticed, stuck close to her, watching from behind the folds of her skirt. Just like a little kid who's scared of visitors.

“You drink coffee?” I nodded dumbly, and she carried on talking; I got the feeling she would have whether I'd answered or not. “It's real Dutch coffee. Tony used to like his … I buy it from a little shop in Fairfield.”

Dutch coffee. That was the accent! Last year, just before we moved away, Nathalie Raymond's family had taken in this exchange student from the Netherlands. Sybilla, her name was. She was sixteen, the same age as Nat's older sister. And she was a knockout. I even visited Nathalie a couple of times, just to catch a look. Sybilla had spoken with the same accent.

I watched the old woman. She lifted the kettle, weighed it in her hand, gave it a little shake and nod-

ded to herself. Then she switched it on. “What's your name?” She had the cupboard open now, taking out cups, and she spoke without looking at me.

“Mike … Michael,” I stammered.

She turned and smiled. It lit her face up. “I'm Riny. Milk, sugar?”

I nodded again. “Yes, please.”

She took down the sugar bowl and a matching milk jug, which she filled from a carton she took out of the fridge. Her movements were precise. I was her visitor, she played the hostess. In our house, you'd just get the carton on the table. Especially if I was making the coffee.

While she searched through the cupboards for the cookies she'd promised me, I looked around the kitchen. Nothing was out of place — and I mean nothing. The place looked as if she spent her whole life cleaning and tidying.

The cupboards were a dark wood, and the bench surfaces were real marble, solid, not the imitation stuff we had in our kitchen. And all the accessories matched. They were dark blue and white: the cups, the jug and basin, the show plates on top of the cupboards — even the tea-towels.

When she finally found the biscuits, she put a huge handful of them on a plate and brought them to the table along with the coffee.

“I don't take sugar myself. Not any more. Diabetes. I have to be careful. It was terrible at first. But you get used to anything.” She paused for a moment, and a look passed over her face; a look of incredible sadness. “Almost anything.” Then, as if she was making a real effort, she smiled at me again. “So, Michael. Tell me about yourself. ”

The way she said it, I felt she really wanted to know. And I guess I was ready to talk. I
needed
to talk; the way I used to do with Sandy.

I know it sounds stupid, and I'm not saying that Riny had suddenly somehow become a substitute for a dog. It wasn't like that. It was just that … oh, I don't know. Talking helps; putting your thoughts, your problems, into words helps you … get a handle on them. It was what I'd always done with Sandy, and I felt I could with her, too. It's strange, but I trusted her. Right away. Not to help me decide anything, not to offer advice; just to listen.

And she did. For over half an hour.

She fed me biscuits and coffee and listened to my problems. Occasionally she asked me questions, but mostly she just nodded or shook her head.

I talked about Middleton and the move, and how I felt about living here. I talked about fitting in at school, and how hard it was to break into the groups which had all formed years before I arrived. I didn't talk about Shane Thomas. I guess I wasn't quite ready to talk about that particular problem. Not just yet.

It was only after Mum called, and Riny sent me packing — with another handful of biscuits — that I realised. I'd done almost all the talking. I'd found out zip about her. I didn't even know why she'd invited me over like that. Probably, she was just lonely. It's funny. I'd never really thought of adults getting lonely. Not lonely like I felt most of the time.

Mum, for example. I got pretty peeved now and again (actually, more often than that), that I only had a “part-time” dad. Why couldn't he be an accountant or a mechanic or a factory worker? Even a teacher! Why did he have to take a job that took him away so much and left me here to cope with Shane Thomas all by myself?

Me. Myself.

What about her? He left her as often as he left me, but it had never occurred to me before. I knew how much she loved him, but it never sank in just how much she must miss him. I was only twelve, don't forget, and I never won any medals for being incredibly bright. Maybe now you can see why.

Dinner was ready, but half a tin of butter cookies had taken the fighting edge off my appetite. Still, for her sake I struggled through the main course and forced myself to ask for seconds of the apple-and-black-berry pie she'd thawed out for dessert.

I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

5
SHANE “THE PAIN”

He looked just like a gorilla. Shane “the Gorilla” Thomas. No, that didn't have the right … ring to it. Even if it did suit him.

It was a stinking day, hot and sticky and just right for swimming in the pool (that I didn't have!) but there he stood in that stupid jacket, waiting for me near the school gate. For the first time that I could remember, he didn't have a whole crowd of his mates around him. Only Chris Walker, and he was a dork.

I fixed my eyes on a window in the main block, and stared at it as I walked past, hoping that if I didn't look at him, he'd let me pass without the usual morning ritual.

Fat chance!

I was so busy looking everywhere else that I didn't see him stick his foot out. I tripped over it and hit the ground hard. I tried to break my fall with my left hand, but all I succeeded in doing was banging my wrist on the gate-post. It hurt like hell and brought tears to my eyes. I wasn't crying, not really, but it was enough for Shane “the Pain”.

“What're you sookin' for? You want to look where

you're goin', Mikey. You could've hurt my foot, kickin' it like that.” He crooned at me like he was talking to a two-year-old.

Mikey!

Chris Walker laughed. But I still didn't look at them. I headed off for class with Shane shouting behind me: “See you at lunchtime, Mikey. I'm dying to find out what we've got for lunch.”

Eat crap and die!

Sometimes I ran through my mind what I'd like to say to the jerk. If I ever got tired of living. I wasn't
that
tired.

Not yet.

Anyway, he wasn't going to get much out ofme that day. My drink bottle had burst when he'd tripped me, and my sandwiches, as well as my books, were all soaked in orange cordial. I could feel it dripping out of the bottom of my bag and down the back of my trousers as I walked away. But maybe it wouldn't stop him eating them anyway. You never know with an animal like that. I wouldn't have put it past Shane Thomas to eat the books as well.

And so began another day.

6
THE DOG'S TAIL

The boy had had another hard day. You could see it in the way he walked up the street. Riny watched him as he dragged his feet and kicked at the small pieces of blue-metal which the landscapers had lift in a pile on the front drive of the Thompsons' home, and which the Thompsons' little boy had spread in tiny handfuls all over the footpaih.

Who'd be a kid?

There was something troubling the boy. Something more than the fact that he was a stranger in his own life, that he was living somewhere where he didn't want to be and couldn't — or wouldn't — make friends. Something he hadn't told her yet.

“Gretchen, stop it!”

The dog was standing, forepaws up on the low sill of the bay-window, clouding the glass with her breathing; watching the boy and whimpering.

“You like him, girl?” She reached out and rubbed the young dog's head. “I do, too. He's so much like Pieter used to be … ”

But Pieter was in Canada. Montreal, where they paid good money for his skills, better than he could earn here. Better for his family. For their future.

He had offered her a home with him; he was always a good son. But how could she accept? Canada was half a world away. And Tony was here. Not just in his cold grave, but here in the house he had built. The house they had shared. How could she leave him?

The boy looked up towards the window, smiled slightly and waved. She beckoned to him and he nodded. Then he tossed his school-bag onto the veranda, turned and jogged across the road.

Gretchen beat her to the door, but this time there was no growling, nor the slightest suggestion of a bark. As Riny opened the door and the boy came in, she noticed the dog's tail was wagging.

7
A DEAL

I was half-expecting the invitation. I guess I was even looking forward to it. I didn't like that hour or so before Mum got home. I wasn't scared or anything, it was just … lonely. Being on my own gave me too much time to think. And at that stage, it didn't pay to think too much. So, when she waved me over to her place, it wasn't hard to accept.

“Would you like to earn some pocket-money?”

We were halfway through the compulsory cup of coffee, and she dropped it on me without any preparation.

“Pocket money?” I always sound dumb when people surprise me.

“Yes. Tony used to do al the outside work. And I need a man to help me. I can't pay much.”

I liked the way she said “man”.

“What do you need doing?”

I'd noticed the front lawn was getting a bit long and growing over the path. But it wasn't much worse than ours. Oh, I mowed when Mum asked me — at least, on the fourth or fifth request — but our edges weren't exactly out of the pages of the
Better Homes and Gardens
magazines that Mum was always buying to make herself feel like a failure. They certainly weren't much of a recommendation, especially to someone who lived directly over the road and had to look at them the whole time. But the offer was there, and I wasn't going to knock it back.

“Do you know anything about pools?” She broke into my thoughts. “We don't have much lawn at the back, but Tony used to handle the pool, and I'm afraid it has gone a little … green.”

A little green?

She took me out into the backyard. It was much bigger than I'd expected it to be, and filling most of it was a gianormous inground pool. But green … no doubt about it. You could have mistaken it for a kidneyshaped lawn.

I looked at her. I hadn't expected her to have a pool. Certainly not one this size.

She read my mind. “We had it built for the kids when they were your age. We liked to know where they were, and a pool keeps kids — and their friends — at home.”

Smart thinking, Batman.
I know where I'd be on a hot day, if we had one of these things. If …

Bingo!

I heard myself talking, but I didn't believe my ears. “Pocket-money”, she'd said. She was offering to pay me to do what Mum expected for free. And I was saying, “I'd be happy to help, Riny. But I couldn't take any money.”

My mouth had bypassed my brain completely!

And she was saying, “No, Michael, I won't let you do it for nothing.”

And I was replying, “Okay, I'll make a deal. I help out with the garden and the pool and you let me use the pool to train in. Is that fair?”

Maybe my mind
was
involved somewhere, after all. She couldn't refuse.

Shane Thomas, watch out!

But she wasn't finished. “That really isn't a very good deal, Michael. I was going to let you swim in it anyway. It seems such a waste, just sitting there. Tony used to swim, but …no one's been in it for months.”

I looked down at the algae-farm in question. I could understand that. “Look, you don't have to pay me.” “I know. And thank you. But I would feel better …” I never was much of a fighter. We left it at that.

8
IN TRAINING

Six o'clock every morning. It was just like old times — and worth all the work.

I had to go down to the pool-shop one day after school to find out exactly what you had to do to turn green soup into the crystal-clear water they show you on all the pool ads.

Riny had given me enough money to buy whatever it was the guy said we needed. I warned her he'd probably try to sell me the shop, tell me it was all essential. But she just smiled and told me to use my “judgment”. I couldn't decide which of us she trusted, me or the guy at the pool-shop.

In the end, it didn't matter. The pool-shop owner was great. He didn't try to hassle me, and he wrote down everything I needed to do so I couldn't forget. I came back with a two-litre bottle of “shock treatment” and some tablets for the automatic chlorinator. That's the round thing that puts the stuff in the pool which stops it turning into a scene out of a horror movie. It's all very technical.

Anyway, after a couple of days and some heavy scrubbing and leaf-skimming, it began to look like a pool again, and I was ready for my first session …

I tell you, after half an hour, I was beginning to think that being “a natural” wasn't going to be nearly enough. I mean, I wasn't even pushing it and I felt like … you know that girl who swam the English Channel a few months back? I don't remember her name, but I do remember what she looked like when it was over. I bet I looked as bad. Worse even. My arms and legs felt like lead, I had a rotten headache and I was really glad I hadn't eaten breakfast yet, because I'm sure I'd have thrown it up. As I dragged myself out of the pool, I was ready to forget the whole stupid idea.

It was cold that early in the morning, even though the days were quite hot. I rubbed myself dry then climbed into my old track-suit. I was on my way out through the side gate when Riny called out to me. She was standing on the back porch with a steaming mug in her hands.

“To warm you up,” she said. I didn't feel like coffee just then, but how do you say “no”? I took a sip.

It was chocolate, hot and sweet and thick.

“My Ros used to swim. She made the State Finals one year.” Riny was very proud of her children and it showed in her voice. Rosalind was her girl. She had a boy too: Pieter. They were both in their forties now and neither of them lived anywhere near their mother. Pieter was in Canada, working for an oil company, and Ros — Riny hardly ever used her full name — had moved to Perth with her husband. Sometimes, when Riny talked about them, you could taste the loneliness in her voice. But she was still very proud of them.

“How was the water?” It was the obvious question, but she really sounded interested.

“Cold. But I enjoyed it. It's been a long time. I've got a lot of work to do if I'm going to beat —”

I pulled myself up. I hadn't mentioned Shane Thomas to anyone, not Riny, not my mother. I'd come home the day before, to find my mother, who was off on a flexi-day, sitting in the kitchen having a drink with Riny, and it didn't take a genius to figure that some of their conversation would have to have been about me.

I didn't want Mum to know about my problems; she was the type to take a day off and come up to the school to see the Principal and make things ten times as bad as they were already. You can see why I didn't want to let Riny in on my plan. More secrets have been spilled “for your own good” than for almost any other reason.

Besides, I was beginning to feel stupid about the whole thing. If I did decide to pull out and forget the idea, it was better if I didn't tell anyone in the first place. And the way I was feeling that first morning, I didn't think I'd ever be ready to take down Shane “the Pain”.

But that was only the first morning.

I did get better.