Screw Loose (13 page)

He was winded. ‘Matty, behave!' Her greeting ritual often drew a crowd – it was already starting to this afternoon – and he wasn't in the mood. He pushed her off. ‘That hurt, Mat!'

She rubbed her face against his face. ‘When do you finish?' she asked. She was crouching very close, obviously trying to smell him.

‘Not 'til eight.' He started scooping up raisins. ‘And stop sniffing me.'

‘I love your smell. It's one of my favourites.'

‘Well I don't like your sniffing, it embarrasses me.'

She was silent. ‘You're droopity. Are you hungry?' she asked.

He shook his head. ‘I'm not droopity – droopy. I've got problems. And you're one of them – I don't want to see you at the moment. Go away, now.' He tried not to look at her.

She sat on the floor and hung her head. ‘No more telling about your tongue,' she said.

‘Yes, no more. It's not bloody big!'

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry.' She looked regretful.

‘Chelsea Dean's mum and my dad are going to live together.'

She sat up on her haunches. ‘
No!
'

‘Yes. And Chelsea told her mum I got her pregnant, and her mum told my old man, and my old man went ballistic.'

‘PREGNANT!' Matilda jumped up. ‘How did you get her pregnant? You can't have babies with that throwback. I want you to have babies with
me
!' She was standing over him.

‘Shut up!' he whispered angrily. People were watching them.

Whenever Matilda appeared in public, people gathered to watch her. Now shoppers were parking their trolleys in the crowded aisle and edging closer, pretending to scan the shelves but really trying to hear something from the mouth of Dingo Girl that they could tell their families about. Well, they had something now.

‘She's
not
pregnant,' Craig mumbled to Matilda. ‘Keep your voice down, Mat. Chelsea made up the story to stop her mum and my dad getting together.'

Matilda sat back down beside him. The manager wouldn't say anything. He had Dingoes' Dinner to sell, and sales in the store increased whenever Matilda was spotted – she could do what she liked. As he went back to the spilt raisins, she was silent.

‘You'd better not have been fooling around with her,' Matilda said finally.

‘I told you, I can't stand her.'

‘She'll be at the bottom of the river by the end of the week!'

Matilda looked serious.

‘Trust me, we have never fooled around.'

‘Did you show her your tongue?'

‘No way.'

She patted him on the head. ‘There, there. Do you want your tummy rubbed?' she asked, suddenly full of sympathy towards him.

He wanted to say yes, but not on the floor of New World with an audience. He shook his head.

‘I need a
big
bin-liner.' She stood up. ‘Big enough for a girl.'

‘Matilda, you can't throw Chelsea in the river. '

‘Yes, it would be easy.'

He went back to stacking cartons.

‘Craig,' she said. ‘
We
can live together. I know where.'

He looked up. The crowd of people pretending not to listen had got even bigger.

‘At your place?' he murmured. ‘I don't reckon your mum would agree.'

‘My mum!' Matilda spoke with sudden vehemence. ‘She's so wonderful-excellent when you're around, but when we're alone she trains me.'

‘Trains you?'

‘Yes. Otherwise no royalties.'

‘You never told me.' He was shocked.

‘I have a secret place for you and me to live. I made it out of old blankets.'

‘A cubbyhouse?'

‘We can have fun and no one will find us. No more school!

No more bitches! We can hunt and sleep.'

Hunt?
He wanted to play basketball. He was a teenage guy.

A customer pushed in and grabbed a packet of dried apricots.

‘Matilda, you're famous. If you disappear it will be major news,' Craig whispered.

‘Too bad! I'm sick of Japanese photoshoppeters. I want to be private. Please come and live with me. You can bring Arnold.'

‘You sure it's not Arnold you really want to live with?' he asked.

Her big blue eyes looked hurt. She shook her head so vigorously that her hair fell across her face. He sighed – he couldn't be jealous of his own dog.

‘What if it rains?' he asked.

‘Easy – we've got plastic and a box a TV came in. We can sleep in it together.'

An interesting proposition. It was so crazy he almost wanted to do it. ‘Maybe,' he said. ‘I got to see it first, though.'

Matilda jumped on him again and licked him across the face.

The crowd clapped.

‘Lick me back, Craig!' she pleaded. ‘Please, please, please, please, please!'

‘Go on, lick her, mate,' someone said.

‘No, Matilda. Act human!'

‘Lick her, mate!'

He licked her. A quickie on the cheek.

She beamed. ‘Extra-tough bin-liners, in case she struggles.'

MYSTERIOUS
GIRL

E
XCEPT FOR A WIND
trembling the trees and the distant growl of a leaf-blower from behind a high fig-covered wall, Petworth Close was silent. Khiem Dao pressed the intercom in Chelsea's gate and waited.

‘Khiem?'

‘Yo!'

‘Enter.' There was a hum as the gate opened, and he wheeled his bike into a cool green forest. It was so quiet in here that it was creepy. On the lawn, water shot from a stone ball and trickled into a pond. The black front door swung open, and Chelsea appeared as he was putting his bike down carefully on their lawn. She looked pretty cute this Sunday afternoon.

‘Ah, my lifesaver,' she giggled.

‘Hi.'

‘I was going to get
Hire a Hubby
, then I thought of you. My mother and I need a pool boy. Come in, and don't take off your shoes; this is not an Asian house.'

Something shot through him like electricity. He hated that remark.
Move on.

She was wearing shorts. She was a nice shape, really. Cuddly.
Forget what she said.
She was always like that. He stepped inside. Their hall was like an airport terminal: it had a huge, shiny floor and a large window through which there was a view of the city. Her old man
had
to be a drug dealer.

She hurried across the terminal floor, touched a door. It glided open. He followed her out onto the balcony. ‘Mum says we can pay you what you'd get at McDonald's, and you're allowed to swim when you're finished. It's heated, so you can swim all year. My mother has become all thingy about money now, or we'd give you more than McDonald's.'

He nodded.

‘Do you know how to clean pools and test the water for pH and bacteria?'

He shook his head.

‘You don't talk much. Don't be intimidated. Lots of people have homes like this. There's more to the world than public housing, you know.'

‘I haven't said I want the job.'

‘Of course you do. You're trying to be law-abiding after a life of crime. Now follow me, Khiem.'

That annoyed him, too. But he followed her down the steps to the pool.

‘Now,' Chelsea continued, ‘you do Chemistry, so you should find this easy. I haven't a clue, but there are instructions.

Imagine you're doing a science experiment.' She looked around.

‘I wonder what else we can get you to do? You might be handy at lifting things and getting rid of spiders. I need a chauffeur, too. But you don't have a licence.'

He shook his head. ‘But I drive okay.'

She looked at him dubiously. ‘Getaway cars?' she asked.

He smiled.

‘Well, now that I don't have a father to drive me and my mother seems to be preoccupied' – she rolled her eyes – ‘and since we don't have a chauffeur, I may call on you to get me from A to B in an emergency. I'm not in favour of driving without a licence unless it's an absolute emergency. Can you drive a Mercedes?'

Of course he hadn't driven one, but who'd say no? ‘Sure.'

‘I should probably have asked if you've ever
stolen
a Mercedes.'

She laughed.

He smiled again. ‘No way. They're impossible to break into.'

The pool was sited on the edge of a cliff high above the river.

Except for the sharp ring of bellbirds, and a dreamlike distant traffic hum, everything out here was silent, too.
Paradise.
He breathed in and wished for a miracle.

Suddenly there was an explosion of laughter from an upstairs window.

Chelsea frowned. ‘My stupid mother and her – friend.'

‘Chels, sweetheart! Would you mind bringing up some ice?'

Chelsea's face went tight. ‘Yes, I damn well do mind!' she said quietly. ‘That could be a job for you, Khiem – butler to my alcoholic mother and her gentleman caller. Do you know who he is?'

He shrugged.

‘It's Craig Ryan's father! Your friend, Craig Ryan, the famous Craig Ryan with the big tongue. That's his father up there, wrecking my parents' marriage.'

‘Crap,' he responded.
No way.

‘I am telling you the truth. The man upstairs is Craig Ryan's father. As soon as my father left us, that man was around here like a shot. I just want to barf.'

She sighed deeply.

‘I may leave home. You've been homeless; you could give me a few tips on how to survive on the streets. Then again, I just may book myself into the Hilton on my mother's credit card.

They're planning to move in together – soon. I tried to stop it, but my mother just went off her head at me. Over one wellintentioned little white lie.'

Chelsea laughed bitterly and led the way round the pool, delicately dipping her toe in. He watched the concentric ripples spread across the water.

‘Now, that thing is the scooper for getting out leaves.' She lifted the leaf-skimmer up from the path and swept it over the pool. ‘Like so! And that thing is called a kreepy krauly.' She patted the water with the skimmer, indicating something on the bottom. ‘You plug it into the filter over there, and it creeps around and sucks up all sorts of yuckies.' She looked at him and grinned.

‘That's all you really need to know, except for chemicals.'

‘Do you need to get your mother some ice?' he asked.

She screwed up her face. ‘Bugger the ice! Now over here is the sauna – or the marriage wrecker.' She padded across to a little table beside the sauna. ‘This booklet here explains the pool's chemicals and so on. You can take it if you like and read it at your leisure – your homework. Any questions?'

He flicked through the instructions manual. ‘Not yet.'

‘Chelsea!' came a frustrated voice from upstairs. ‘Some ice, please.'

‘Just a minute.' Chelsea's voice was harsh.

‘Do
you
want a drink, Khiem?' she asked.

She was famous for this – offering boys booze. ‘Oh yeah,' he answered.

‘Cocktail? It's cocktail time.'

‘Cocktail's fine.' He'd never had one. ‘With an olive?'

‘No. You're thinking of a martini. I don't do martinis. I'm currently doing Singapore Slings – from your part of the world. You should enjoy it.'

He wanted to say he was actually an Australian, but you didn't debate with Chelsea Dean, and the job sounded pretty easy. It was best to just listen and nod.

‘We have a bar down here in the pool room, but let's go to the upstairs one. I'm totally over the pool room. Have you had a Singapore Sling before?'

He shook his head.

‘You need to talk more, Khiem. It's rude to let me make all the effort. Tell me about yourself.'

‘What do you want to know?'

‘Now don't turn the conversation back to me! Just start talking about your day, or what your place is like. Do you have a community pool on the estate?'

‘There was a pool of piss in the lift this morning.'

Chelsea was silent. ‘Thanks for that, Khiem,' she said quietly after a moment. ‘How do you like rowing?'

‘It's pretty easy.'

‘Getting to the river on time seems to be the hardest bit for you guys.'

They'd arrived upstairs. The room was huge: it had a giant plasma TV, entertainment system, air-conditioning ducts, the works.

‘This is great,' he said. ‘You've got it made, Chelsea.'