It cools down as autumn marches towards winter and the days grow shorter.
Mum and Dad score a part-time contract to clean a small office building two evenings a week. They’re always on the lookout for extra money and have done a number of these short-term contracts in the past, but when they tell Steph – who would usually help them – her response staggers them.
‘I don’t want to,’ she says.
‘What do you mean you don’t want to?’ Mum says.
‘We got this for you!’ Dad says.
‘I didn’t ask you to get it,’ Steph says.
‘For extra money!’ Dad says. ‘Money! Do you understand?’
‘I’ve got a job, and I’ve got better things to do with my time.’
‘Better things!’ Dad says. ‘Better things.’
‘This is for your future!’ Mum says.
‘I. Don’t. Want. To,’ Steph says.
‘I’ll go!’ I say.
Mum and Dad are surprised. Ash helps his dad – an electrician who wires a lot of new houses – part-time, so he’s always set for money. I don’t know where Riley gets his – probably pilfers it from his Mum and Dad. I rely on an allowance, but things like cigarettes aren’t cheap.
It’s not as glamorous as I think it would be – the location’s a three-storey building shared by accountants on the top floor, a design business in the middle and a travel agent on the bottom. Although I’ve known Mum and Dad do cleaning work, I’ve never understood what that meant until now. We empty bins, vacuum the carpet, mop floors, wipe windows and desks, wash up the bathrooms, and clean up any messes. It’s physically tiring, but leaves my head free to wonder about other things.
I also spend too much time working on Mr Baker’s ‘Identity’ assignment. I wonder if it’s the piece they’ll judge the Boland on – so far, none of the other classes have issued homework that you could consider meaningful. The Boland essays are always meaningful. So that gives me more incentive but there’s lots of false starts.
When I’m not working, I catch up with Ash, or Ash and Riley, and we sit in the creek aqueduct and smoke. When Riley’s involved, these conversations are always simpler – usually, they don’t gravitate too far from anything related to sex.
‘See Madonna in her new clip?’ Riley says. ‘Her boobs are awesome.’
Ash sits up. ‘Which clip?’
‘“Like a Prayer”,’ Riley says.
‘You don’t see her boobs.’
‘She’s wearing this low-cut top,’ Riley says. ‘She’d be awesome to fuck.’
‘How would you know what awesome sex is?’
‘I’m getting close, you know?’
Ash laughs.
‘Felicia,’ Riley says, his tone flat. He doesn’t like being made fun of. ‘She went down on me.’
‘No way,’ Ash says.
‘You see Felicia around, you think she’s up herself or whatever. But she lets loose in private. Other night, we were on the couch in her lounge. Her parents had gone to sleep, so we were making out. I had my hand down her pants. She was so wet. She gets so wet. And she came – she tensed up and moaned then shook all over. I thought she was having a fit or something. When she recovered, she unzipped my pants and…’ He shrugs.
I visualise it all – I don’t mean to, and I don’t want to, but it unfolds in my head and clashes with the way I see Felicia: that pretty, pristine, proper way she carries herself, and I can’t imagine how she could become so wild, although I guess there’s every chance she would, if she does stuff like make out with Riley in the toilets. You look at people every day and you never think of who they are behind closed doors.
‘She’s a fake,’ Riley says. ‘She’s different when we’re alone.’
‘Never thought she was a fake,’ I say.
‘I thought she was a bit of a snob,’ Ash says, ‘but not a fake.’
‘Am going for it Saturday at this party,’ Riley says. ‘Either of you want to bring somebody?’
‘Like?’ I ask, expecting Samantha’s name to be thrown out.
‘Mr Baker maybe,’ Riley says.
Riley smirks around lighting a fresh cigarette. Here’s his comeback for my Madonna joke. I don’t even think he realises it’s payback. It’s instinct with him.
‘Stupid fag,’ he says. ‘The way he looks at ya. I think he’s got something for you.’
Speculation surrounds Mr Baker’s sexuality. He can be camp, like that’s a qualification for homosexuality. And we all talk because that’s what we do. For most, it’s only talk, the way guys talk about Kat or who might win the football that week. With Riley, it’s nasty.
‘That’s not funny,’ I say.
‘Just kidding,’ Riley says quick, maybe working out he’s overstepped. He opens his cigarette packet and thrusts them towards me and Ash, so some of the cigarettes shoot halfway out. We smoke some more and retreat to safer conversations, like the new Batman movie that’s coming out that everybody’s talking about, and how the singer Collette looks amazing in tight lycra in her hit ‘Ring My Bell’. Once we’ve finished our smokes, we flick the butts into the creek and watch them sail away.
Riley gets up and pats down his pants. ‘I’m taking off,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you at this party. Felicia’s friends will be there. It’ll be a good night.’
Of course, when I tell Mum and Dad at dinner – Mum loading our plates with chops, mashed potatoes, and steamed vegetables – about the party, they tell me why it mightn’t be a good night. Steph shakes her head at Mum’s predictions of doom.
‘I saw on the News, a boy was killed,’ Mum says as she sits down. ‘They punched him in the head when he wasn’t looking.’
Dad laughs ruefully. ‘Kids drink too much, they get too drunk, they do stupid things.’
‘It’s not safe to go out at night,’ Mum says.
They’re not telling me I can’t go. Despite their ways, Mum and Dad can be liberal. Like, despite me chewing gum, I’m sure they can smell that I’ve smoked. But they let it go. And they’ll let me go out after they’ve warned me about all the risks – real, exaggerated and imagined.
‘There are always stupid people out at night,’ Mum says.
‘He’s going to a party,’ Steph says. ‘It’s normal.’
Mum scowls. Bad mistake from Steph to get involved. Now Mum broadens her sights.
‘And you, Aunt Toula rang me today,’ she says. ‘About Jim’s wedding.’
‘And?’
‘She wants to know if you’re bringing anybody.’
‘No, Mum, I’m not bringing anybody.’
‘You don’t have a nice boyfriend?’
A dangerous question. Steph’s not expected to bring just a boyfriend. She’s had boyfriends and could find somebody for the night; what she’s expected to bring is the boyfriend, the one who’ll become her husband. In fact, it’d be best if they were engaged. You don’t take a partner unless you’re serious about them.
‘Well?’ Mum asks.
‘I’ve been seeing somebody.’
‘You’re seeing somebody and you don’t bring him here?’
‘Mum, I don’t know what’s going to happen with the relationship.’
‘You should bring him here,’ Dad says.
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean “why”? So we can meet him!’
‘It’s a long way from being that serious you should meet.’
Mum pouts – her heart, her hopes, her very life, shattered. She sighs. Then sniffles. ‘People talk. They look at you and wonder why you’re not married. They say I’ve failed you.’
‘Mum, nobody cares.’
‘Your cousin Malinda is married with a baby and she’s only twenty-one – a year younger than you!’
‘Mum, she’s like one month younger than me!’
‘See her nice house. You can’t compare to Malinda?’
‘It’s not that I can’t, Mum. I don’t want to.’
‘I was married to your father and pregnant at about your age.’
‘You were ten years older!’
‘It’s the same thing.’
‘Do you want me to get pregnant?’ Steph says.
‘That’s not funny!’ Dad says. ‘You’ll get married first.’ Steph stays amazingly calm. ‘It’s 1989, you know.’
‘This is what’s wrong with this country,’ Dad says. ‘Everybody’s too stupid. They want fun and not hard work.’ His voice drops now to a whisper, the way it always does when he’s serious. ‘Do you know, in Greece, when I was saving money to come here, I walked five miles every day in the snow to work. It’s lucky I wasn’t eaten by a bear.’
‘There are no snow bears in Greece!’ Steph says.
‘Everything’s too easy for you!’ Dad says, and now it’s back to shouting. ‘We gave you that bungalow, we let you drop out of school, we pay for everything–’
‘Forget it.’ Steph’s chair grinds across the floor.
‘Finish dinner!’ Dad says.
But Steph’s already out of the kitchen. I know the beats now: back door slams; Steph’s feet thudding down the stairs; light, as the motion-activated light on her bungalow comes on; her bungalow door slams; then music – Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’. The motion-activated light goes off.
‘You didn’t have to shout at her like that,’ Mum says.
‘She’s a stupid girl.’
‘Because you shout at her like that.’
‘She should know what it’s like to work hard and have to earn things.’
I switch off. Or try to. Mum and Dad argue, a ping pong game where it’s impossible to follow who’s played what and where. I eat quick, excuse myself and close myself off in my bedroom, then pull out my schoolbooks. Mum and Dad keep shouting. I flick my clock radio on and turn the volume up to drown them out. If you saw and heard their arguing for the first time and didn’t know any better, you’d be pencilling in a divorce, but this, this is normal.
I read Mr Baker’s criteria for the ‘Identity’ assignment to distract me, pick up a pen in my left hand and push it to a blank page, but still have no idea what to write.