The Last Time We Spoke (6 page)

It was three in the morning when Ben looked at his watch. His mind swam through the half-realities nurtured by paint and several joints. It had been a good night. They’d tagged the GDBs’ turf. The next day promised war. His gang, the DOAs, was ready.

He leapt over a knee-high wall and wove through the carcasses of cars, derelict couches, and empty bottles that littered the front lawn. The lights were on and the door ajar. Music pounded.

‘Hi, Ben.’ His sister Brooke, her nappy sliding down her chubby legs and snot sliding down her chin, stood in the hallway smiling.

‘Hey, Brookie. What you doing up? It’s fuckin’ late.’

Ben scooped up his sister. ‘You stink, man,’ he said, peering into the wet folds of her nappy. ‘Let’s get this shit off you.’

He carried her down the corridor to the bathroom and sat her on the floor while he filled a basin with water. As he tugged at the nappy it broke up in his hands and bits of jellied padding crumbled to the floor. He plonked her into the water and pieces of poo floated off around her. She started to cry.

‘C-c-cold,’ she stuttered.

‘Shut it. You’re not meant to crap in your pull-ups. Ryan’ll be wild if he finds out.’

She stopped crying instantly.

Lifting her out with one hand, Ben grabbed a damp, grimy towel off the floor with the other, patted her dry, folded it around her into a makeshift nappy and carried her down the corridor.

As he eased open a door with his foot, the musty stench of human living greeted him. One of his siblings, he couldn’t tell which, coughed. He pulled back the blanket and dropped his sister into the closest bed.

‘Ben.’

‘Shhh or you’ll wake the others. Now go to fuckin’ sleep.’

‘Ben?’

‘What?’ Then he realised it wasn’t Brooke speaking. It was Lily.

‘Did you score tonight?’ Lily asked, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

‘Nah. Go back to sleep.’ He closed the door and made his way down the corridor.

The kitchen was empty. Everyone was outside in the yard. He opened the fridge and stared vacantly into the fluorescent box. He was after a feed, not a beer. He slammed the door shut, the loose bottles clanging against each other, and looked around. On the sideboard lay a defrosting packet of sliced bread. He fished out five pieces and began stacking them into a tower, spreading peanut butter between the cold white layers.

The music pounded. He could see Ryan, passed out on a couch in the backyard, some woman – not Ben’s mum – draped over him.

‘Slack-arse,’ Ben muttered, pulling up a chair and sitting down to eat.

Soon the bread had comforted the angry hollowness inside. He could feel the noose of sleep tighten around him and he headed back to the bedroom. Brooke was already making loud, grunting snores. He flicked off his sneakers and crashed.

When he surfaced from thick, drooling nothingness, someone was calling his name.

‘Go’way,’ he growled, and turned over, pulling a mound of blanket with him. ‘It’s the middle of the fuckin’ night!’

His eyes were still closed, but suddenly it felt as if a blackout blind had been peeled off his eyelids. Someone had opened the curtains and the room was all glare.

It must have been about seven o’clock, the only time the room got any sunshine. But it would be all tease; the weak warmth never hung around for long enough to dry up the dampness that trickled down the windows and crept up the walls. The shadows from the house next door would be lying in wait to bully the sunshine away.

‘I’ll fuckin’ kill you,’ he cussed to no one in particular.

‘Watch your mouth, Benjamin!’

His eyes flicked open. Only his mother called him Benjamin.

The morning light seared his eyeballs and he quickly shut them again.

‘Sorry, Ma. Thought it was one of the kids.’

He could smell her – gleaming glass, disinfected toilet bowls, polished elevators. He tried again, opening one eye and squinting at his watch. ‘What’s up?’

Before she could answer, a reminder of the other night landed with a thud in the pit of his stomach, jump-starting his day. He sat up and leant against the cold wall, his eyes darting past his mother to the door, the windows, the door.

His mother came into focus, the bruised shadow of night shift still hanging under her eyes, her long black hair scraped back into a ponytail to keep it from dipping into dustbins and buckets of bleach.

‘It’s Lily’s birthday. We gonna sing to her.’

The relief of her words washed over him, followed
immediately by the annoyance at being woken up for nothing. It wasn’t that he’d had only four hours sleep; a Red Bull could sort that. It was that sleep was the only place he could hide from the other stuff – the screaming scrape of the shovel, the sweet stench of blood. It was taking over his mind like some rampant weed, tangling his thoughts and choking his freedom, every day worse than the one before. Unexpected noises made him jump. A knock at the door was always the police. People were looking at him strangely – watching him. That whining siren, it was always coming his way.

He’d washed his jeans, scrubbing them with dishwashing liquid till the water coloured brown and a thick rim of scum clung to the basin. Police could get clues off clothes. Clothes held onto invisible secrets.

‘Jesus, Ma. Couldn’t you have let me sleep?’

His legs were itchy under the denim. He scratched his thigh and adjusted himself. His mother threaded her fingers through his knotted hair.

‘Poor you.’ Her hand slid over his head, warm and soft. As a kid he’d been fascinated by her long fingers. How they moved through the air, gripped a spoon, handled a paintbrush. It was as if they danced to a beat different from the rest of her body – swift, magical, measured. He used to imagine her playing the saxophone or keyboard, something like that, where fingers were everything.

Now her touch, the weight and warmth of her palm on his head, her closeness, nearly tricked him into telling her … He ducked away.

‘So you gonna wake him too?’ he asked, his lip curling around the thought of Ryan lying passed out on the sofa, sweat, old booze, and some random woman seeping from his pores.

His mother gave him one of her stares, which hollowed him out
like an apple corer. He felt bad for even reminding her of the loser she lived with. She had that effect on him. She could tick him off without saying a single word.

He got up, took a long piss, then sloped down the corridor after her.

It sounded like there were fifty people in the kitchen, every giggle and scream cracking his head open wider. But it was just the usual crazies – Anika, Lily, Brooke, and Cody.

Cody leapt up and ran over to tackle him at the knees. ‘It’s Lily’s birthday! Lily’s birthday!’ he cried, panting with excitement, his lips pulled back in a silly Cody grin, showing off his puffy pink folds of gum. Poor Cody. It looked like pink batting had been packed around his tiny grey teeth.

Lily was sitting upright at the table, her Kim Basinger eyes taking in all the fuss. Ben didn’t know how old his sister was, but she had two small spuds sprouting under her T-shirt. George in the gang had been the first to point them out.

‘Happy birthday, Sis,’ he said, slumping down at the table and massaging the pain from his temples.

‘Whatever,’ Lily said with a half-smile.

Their mother put down a plate in front of her. On it was a square of white bread with the crusts ripped off and hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top. A candle had been poked in the middle of it, but the bread wasn’t thick enough to hold the thing upright and the candle kept listing to one side.

‘You light it,’ his mother said to Ben, passing over the match she’d just used to light a cigarette.

Ben cupped his hand around the dying flame and leant over the candle. The match died. His mother threw him the box and he tried again.

‘Candle must be wet or the string is too short,’ he said, giving up.

Lily’s face fell.

Their mother rested her cigarette across the top of her coffee cup and tried again. No luck.

She was just about to pull out another match when she turned, grabbed Cody by his shirt, and slapped him across the backs of his legs. ‘Put that down!’ she shrieked, snatching her cigarette off him.

Cody, caught between a cough from inhaling the smoke, and crying, made a weird barking howl.

‘Smokes are not for kids,’ she yelled. ‘I’ve told you a hundred times! They’ll turn your lungs into black jelly.’

‘And your dick’ll fall off,’ Anika whispered.

‘But … but … you …’ Cody said, sobbing.

Their mother turned back to Lily. ‘Just pretend it’s lit.’

Lily sat back and folded her arms. ‘I’m not gonna pretend to blow out some candle when it’s not lit. That’s just stupid.’

Their mother gave one of her I’m-too-tired-to-fight sighs. ‘Suit yourself. Let’s sing, then.’ She started them off and everyone, except Cody, joined in. Lily tried to keep her sulky expression firm, but soon it was cracking at the edges, and by the end of the song, she was grinning.

‘Make a wish! Make a wish!’ Cody cried, forgetting about the hiding.

Lily carefully folded in the corners of her slice of bread, as if sealing an envelope. But when she picked it up, the balls of sugar started falling onto the Formica table like coloured hail. Their mother hadn’t used enough margarine to stick them down.

She took a slow, deliberate bite of her now almost naked bread and pondered her wish.

‘I want some,’ Brooke whined, pointing to the disappearing Fairy Bread.

Their mother put a plate with three triangles in front of them. ‘Here we go.’

‘How come we only get half each?’ Anika complained.

‘Yeah, how come?’ Cody said, copying his sister.

‘’Cos someone ate most of the bread last night, didn’t they?’ their mum said, giving Ben an accusing glance.

Ben dropped his head forward, letting his long black fringe fall over his eyes. Everyone was talking too loudly. It was doing his head in. He pulled at a piece of jagged thumbnail and ripped it off with his teeth. The exposed bulge of skin stung as it connected with the cold morning air.

‘What’s lungs?’ Cody asked, spraying Anika with crumbs.

‘Close your mouth when you eat!’ Anika growled, wiping her face with a dishcloth.

‘Lungs are like balloons of air in your chest,’ Lily piped up.

Cody frowned. ‘I thought they was boobies.’

A baby started to cry. Ben looked round. He hadn’t even realised that his newest sister, baby Dina, was in the room, propped up in her car seat beside the stove. His mother started rocking the seat with her foot.

‘Fuckin’ hell. Can I go back to bed?’ Ben said, pushing out his chair.

‘Cut your swearing, kid, and no, you cannot!’ His mother grabbed hold of his sleeve. ‘I’m the one been up working all night. I need you to look after the baby, and Brooke and Cody. The others are going to school.’

‘But it’s my birthday,’ Lily said, tears brewing.

‘And it’s a school day,’ their mother said, her eyes flashing. ‘I’m not having another run-in with the bloody truant officer!’

‘Since when does Cody need looking after?’ Ben complained, yanking his arm away. Cody had been retarded forever. It was nothing new. The doctors at the hospital had told his mum it was because she’d been on the booze when she was pregnant with him.
Poor Cody. He had tiny piggy eyes and a flat face, like he’d run into a wall or something. He was clumsy too, always getting the bash for knocking things over and dropping stuff.

Brooke and Baby weren’t a problem. Ben would be able to escape after giving Baby a bottle; she always slept after a feed. And Brooke could come with him to the gang pad. But not Cody. Cody would blab about everything.

‘Since I said so.’

‘Why do you bother going to work anyway?’ Ben snapped. ‘You’d get the same on the benefit.’

He stumbled backwards as he felt the full force of his mother’s hand on the side of his head.

‘Cut your cheek,’ she said, coming up close so that he could smell her empty-stomach breath.

He nearly hit her back, a reflex, but caught himself just in time.

She glared at him. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you lately, but I’ve had my fill of it.’

She moved behind Lily and gently swept up Lily’s long hair in her hands. Lily pulled away. Lily was different from the rest of them. She had their same caramel-coloured skin, but her head was a pop-up of fair curls, and she had turquoise eyes the colour of the ocean on a clear day. When she was born, Lil’s dad didn’t believe she was his kid.

‘You skank! You fuckin’ ho!’ he’d screamed as Ben’s mum had lain in the hospital bed, fending off his blows.

He got nine months for assault. That was the last they saw of him. The unfair thing was that Lily probably
was
his kid. Her fairness didn’t come from some random
Pākehā
hook-up. Ben had once seen a picture of their grandparents; Lily was the spitting image of her grandmother.

Ben’s mates were all desperate to get a piece of Lily, but she wasn’t
interested in boys. She was weird that way. While the rest of the girls in the hood hung out at the skateboard pit after school, Lil was in her room doing crafty stuff or foraging in rubbish bins outside shops, looking for scraps of material, cork, string, sequins – anything she could turn into something beautiful. Her best creations so far were a pencil case in the shape of a sausage dog, and a purple felt Barney-cum-cute-weird-monster thing, which she slept with every night.

‘Maybe Debs can give us a lift to Spotlight after school and you can choose a piece of fabric from the discount bin.’

‘Really, Ma?’ Lily said, leaping up, her face beaming for the first time that morning.

Ben kept picking at his fingernails. He knew he’d get home later to find Lil sobbing in her room. His mum never managed to keep her promises, even though she meant to. She tried to be a good mum.

Debs lived down the road. She was their mother’s best friend and Ben’s godmother. He didn’t understand the whole godmother thing, especially since no one in his family believed in God. His mother’s take on it was that God had been made up by the government to get people to think there was more to this shitty life than there really was. Anyhow, his mother said Debs was like family. Ben wondered why his mother had to make up family when she didn’t even bother with her own.