When She Was Good, page 13
Instead he tried to do nice things for me, taking me bike riding or to the movies and once to a farm because he said I needed to know where milk comes from.
“I know where milk comes from,” I said. “The supermarket.”
It took him a moment to realize I was joking.
“That’s the first joke you’ve ever told me,” he said, as if I’d passed some test.
I began sitting in the front seat, where it was easier to talk, but we had to be careful how much time we spent together because Mrs. Quinn was a clock watcher who kept tabs on when we arrived home. Terry used to blame the traffic and once he lied about having to change a flat tire, but he wasn’t very convincing. Not to me.
Sitting in the front seat one day, I opened the glove compartment and found a gun.
Terry slammed it closed.
“Why do you need a gun?” I asked.
“Protection.”
“Who are you protecting?”
“Don’t be so nosy.”
I remember that day because Terry took me to KFC and I had a chicken burger and an ice cream with chocolate bits. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. We were sitting on plastic chairs at a plastic table and Terry was talking about his two boys. He told me their names, but I can’t remember them. He said he didn’t see them very often, but they talked on the phone most weeks and he sent them cards and presents on their birthdays. He showed me photographs on his phone. They were sitting on either side of a woman, who had her arms around them.
“Is that your wife?”
“My ex.”
“Did she die?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I thought ‘ex’ might mean gone for good.”
“We’re divorced.”
I stopped asking questions because they made him sad.
* * *
One afternoon Terry collected me from the big house and took me on a long drive to a new city, on motorways and past a big airport where I saw planes coming in to land one after the other. I could see them in the distance, getting closer and lower and larger.
It was getting dark when we pulled through the gates of a house surrounded by tall trees. Some of the leaves had fallen and were being blown into piles by men with leaf blowers.
Terry walked me to the front door and pushed a button. A grey man answered. Grey hair. Grey face. Grey smile.
“Welcome, my dear,” he said, bending at the waist. “I’ve been expecting you.”
He put a finger beneath my chin and lifted it. His breath smelled sour. “That’s a pretty dress. Is yellow your favorite color?”
I shook my head.
He talked to Terry in a different tone. “You’re late.”
“Traffic.”
“Don’t let it happen again.”
The grey man took my bag. Terry touched my arm. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
The door closed.
“You don’t say very much,” said the grey man as he took me upstairs to a bedroom. He was eager to begin. Unbuckling his belt, he slid down his trousers and told me to leave my dress on. He picked me up and put me on the bed. I felt his weight between my thighs.
“Say something,” he groaned. “Look at me.”
I was silent.
“Look at me.”
I kept my eyes closed.
“Isn’t this nice?”
He slapped my face and jabbed his fingers into my soft bits. I knew he was going to hit me. I saw it in his eyes. A flicker. A switch. A light. A shadow. A taste in my mouth.
“This is your fault,” he said. “You did this to me.”
I heard the rushing sound—water and wind and driven snow—as the darkness bubbled up through the floorboards to my ankles, my knees, my thighs, my chest, covering my mouth. Suffocating me. I was gone by then, flying backwards in time, disappearing into the mists of my childhood, where I held Papa’s hand on a merry-go-round.
* * *
The next morning I woke curled in a ball on the floor, with my hands clamped beneath my armpits, hurting all over. A square of light shone around the curtains.
I heard voices downstairs.
“She can stay another day,” said the grey man.
“That’s not the deal,” replied Terry.
“I’ll make a call. Get approval.”
“Let me see her.”
“You’re not allowed in here.”
I heard Terry calling my name. His boots on the stairs.
“You’re trespassing!” said the grey man.
Doors swung open. Terry kept shouting.
“Do you know who I am?” yelled the grey man. “You’ll pay for this.”
A handle rattled.
“Why is this one locked?” asked Terry.
“Get out!”
Wood splintered and the door blasted inwards. Terry filled the whole frame. He knelt next to me. He touched my arm. I groaned.
“What’s wrong?”
He saw the bruises on my face and arms. His eyes asked permission to unbutton my dress. I shook my head. He did it anyway and saw the cigarette burns.
Taking off his jacket, he wrapped it around me. “Can you walk?”
I tried to stand but stumbled. He scooped me up and carried me down the stairs. I smelled his smell—the oil and the sweat and the soap. He opened the car door and laid me on the back seat, putting his coat over me.
I didn’t see what happened next, but I know that Terry went back into the house. When he returned, his knuckles were grazed and bleeding. We drove in silence until he stopped at a petrol station, where he parked away from the gas pumps and bought bottles of water to wash my burns.
“We need to find a pharmacy,” he said. “They’ll have cream. Otherwise you’ll scar.”
Terry was embarrassed about touching me. It was like his hands were too big and he might break me.
“Did you do something to make him angry?” he asked.
I must have done something. It must have been my fault.
Terry saw my face and said, “No! You did nothing wrong. He was a monster. They’re all monsters.”
We drove away and I lay across the back seat watching the lights from oncoming cars sweep over the roof and shine on Terry’s face.
“Did you hurt that man?” I asked.
“He got what he deserved.”
Terry took me to where he lived in a room with a bed and a TV and a small stove. It was on the second floor and he wanted to carry me upstairs, but I said I could walk.
He made me a cup of sugary tea, sniffing the milk first, because he thought it might be “off.” I sat on the edge of his bed while he collected clothes and shoved them in a canvas bag with a drawstring. He took a heavy leather jacket from a hanger and made me put it on. It reached down to my knees.
Terry had his motorbike parked in a laneway behind the bedsit. He put a helmet on my head that felt too heavy for my neck to hold. I struggled with the clasp. Terry did it for me, too roughly. I flinched. He jerked his hands away and looked at them as if he wanted to cut off his fingers.
He swung his leg over the seat and settled his weight on it before lifting me behind him. I didn’t flinch when he touched me.
“You OK?”
I nodded.
He started the engine with a flick of his wrist.
“You have to put your arms around my waist.”
I didn’t move.
He reached back and took my hands and pulled them around his middle so that my fingers met on his stomach and my face was pressed against his back. The black leather was cold against my face.
“Hold on. Never let go.”
24 CYRUS
I knock softly on the door of the storeroom.
“Evie?”
“What took you so long?” she replies, sounding annoyed.
“This isn’t how you get my attention.”
She ignores the comment.
“They found me,” she says, her voice shaking.
“Who?”
“You know who.”
I pause. I can hear her breathing.
“You want to come out and talk about it?”
“No.”
“You can’t stay in there forever.”
“You have to get me away from here.”
“I can’t do that if you don’t come out.”
“I’m frightened.”
“I know.”
My knees creak as I sit on the floor, leaning my back against the door.
I imagine Evie sitting the same way, with her back to mine and the door between us.
“You want to tell me what happened?”
She relates the story. Some of it I know already, having talked to Mrs. McCarthy.
“The man who came to reception, did you see his face?”
“No.”
“How did you recognize him?”
“His voice.”
“Where had you heard him?”
“At the house—when Terry died. He was one of them.”
I turn my cheek to the wood. “That was a long while ago, Evie, and you were very young.”
“Don’t treat me like a child,” she snaps. “He knew your name… and about me.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true—he can’t touch you in here.”
“You’re not listening. They know my new name.”
“This is a high-security children’s home. It’s the safest place you could be. Trust me, Evie. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
At the far end of the corridor, I see a three-man control-and-restraint team waiting to take over. They’re armed with power tools to drill out the lock and a battering ram to take down the door.
“You don’t have much time, Evie. They’re going to come in and get you. After that I can’t help.”
“Tell them to wait.”
Getting up from the floor, I try to stall them, asking Guthrie to give me more time. He thinks I’m being played.
Behind me, I hear Evie moving in the storeroom. Cursing. “Everything OK?” I ask.
“I can’t undo the knots. Wait! It’s coming.”
I hear metal shelves being pushed aside and brooms clattering to the floor. The door opens suddenly and Evie emerges, turning along the corridor as though she’s passing a line of people queuing for tickets.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“Busting for the loo,” she replies blithely. “I almost had to pee in a bucket.”
One of the control team grabs her from behind, lifting her off her feet. She yells in alarm and lashes out. A second man grabs her legs. They’re twice her size. She’s swearing, biting, and scratching. I’m shouting, telling everyone to calm down, but a third security guard bodychecks me.
“Sedate her,” says Guthrie.
“No!” I shout. “Please.”
I see the needle sliding into Evie’s arm. It takes ten or fifteen seconds for the drug to take effect. She continues struggling, her voice becoming thick and slurred as vowels are caught in her throat. Finally her body goes limp and she’s suddenly small again, like an exhausted child being carried to bed.
“That wasn’t necessary,” I say, glaring at Guthrie, who ignores me.
“She’s not your concern. You shouldn’t even be here.”
I look to Mrs. McCarthy, hoping for an ally, but she has lost control of the situation. When in doubt, she sides with her staff. Evie is being carried away, her head lolling backwards over a forearm and her eyes open, as though she’s unconsciously accusing me of betrayal.
“Someone came looking for her,” I say. “She was frightened.”
Nobody reacts.
“There must be CCTV footage. Talk to the receptionist.”
“This isn’t a police matter,” explains Mrs. McCarthy. “You have no jurisdiction here. Please leave.”
25 EVIE
Some nights are longer. Darker. Colder. Terry rode the bike for hours and I clung to him like a kitten on a sweater as the wind cut through my clothes and my fingers and toes grew numb. Sometimes he could feel me falling asleep and would reach back and pinch my thigh to wake me up.
Hours later we stopped at a motel beside the motorway with a red vacancy sign. Terry had to pry my fingers from his coat before he went inside and woke the night manager.
My teeth were chattering and I couldn’t feel my feet.
“You have to get warm,” said Terry, turning on the shower and testing the temperature with his fingers.
I couldn’t undo the buttons of my dress. Terry helped me, clumsy with his hands, but patient. He turned away when the dress slipped off my shoulders and left me in the shower. When I finished in the bathroom, he was already asleep in one of the beds. I took the other, crawling under the covers and burrowing down into the dark coolness like I was digging a place to hide.
When I woke in the morning, Terry was gone. I found a note: Gone shopping. Don’t open the door. Don’t answer the phone.
I put on the same clothes and watched TV while I waited. When I heard a key in the door, I hid between the beds until Terry called my name. He had food. Bacon-and-egg rolls in a brown paper bag, stained with grease. Terry ate two. I couldn’t finish mine.
He seemed different in the morning, as though he was having second thoughts about running away. I didn’t ask him if he had a plan. I didn’t care. This was better than where I was before.
“I want to cut your hair,” he said.
“Why?”
“They’ll be searching for a girl. You have to look like a boy.”
He took a pair of scissors from one of the shopping bags and made me sit on a chair in the bathroom.
Using his fingers, he brushed my hair and pulled it into a ponytail, before cutting it off.
“What do you think?”
“I look awful.”
“Sorry, Scout.”
He cut it even shorter and unpacked a bottle of hair dye with a pretty woman on the box. I leaned over the sink while he rubbed a paste into my hair. Later he rinsed it off and I was shocked at how different I looked.
“From now on, if anyone asks your name, it’s David and you’re my son.”
“I don’t like the name David.”
“What do you like?”
“Albion.”
He screwed up his nose.
“It was my father’s name.”
“OK, I’ll call you Albie.”
The shopping bags also had clothes—a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and underwear. He had brought special cream for my burns and a toothbrush and toothpaste.
I lifted my sweatshirt and bent over while he dabbed cream on my back. He talked constantly, trying to hide his embarrassment.
“We can’t go to the police. If I tell them what I’ve done… how I’ve been driving you around, they’ll arrest me. I’ll be charged. I’ll be blamed. They’ll say I was part of it. What they did to you—it’s a crime, and I should have done something sooner.”
“I’ll say you rescued me.”
“That won’t be enough. I’ve done a lot of bad things. I’ll go to prison and I won’t be safe inside. They can find me. We can’t trust anyone. Not the police. Not strangers.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I’ll take you back to your family.”
“I don’t have a family.”
“There must be someone.”
“No.”
Terry thought I was lying, but he’s the only person I never lied to.
After my hair was dry, he packed our clothes into the leather bags on the motorbike and counted the money in his wallet, saying we didn’t have enough. We rode to a bank with a hole-in-the-wall, but when he put his card in the machine it didn’t come out again. Terry punched the wall and screamed the worst words.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’ve frozen my account. I can’t get any money.”
He was pacing up and down the footpath, hitting his forehead with his fist, as though he wanted to knock something loose. Then just as quickly he lifted me onto the bike and told me to hang on.
“Where are we going?”
“To see my sister.”
“You didn’t tell me you had a sister.”
“She doesn’t like me very much.”
We rode for another few hours until we reached a town full of old buildings and churches and walled parks. Terry found his sister’s house and we spent about twenty minutes watching from the end of the road, making sure nobody was waiting for us.
“You have to stay here,” he said. “I won’t be long.”
I sat on the bike and leaned forward to grip the handlebars, which meant almost lying on my stomach across the gas tank. I pretended I was riding on the motorway, weaving between cars.
There was a park across the road where children were playing, doing somersaults in the fallen leaves. I watched them through the railing fence, noticing their mothers nearby, peering into prams and sipping on takeaway coffee cups.
One little girl ran over to the fence and asked me my name. I had to remember.
“Albie.”
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
I touched my hair. “I’m a boy.”
“I’m Molly.” She pointed over her shoulder. “That’s my best friend, Bella. We’re going to the footbridge to play Poohsticks.”
“What’s that?”
Molly laughed. “It’s a game, silly. I need to find a stick.”
She was kicking at the leaves.
“What about this one?”
“No, that’s too big,” she said, continuing her search. “It can’t be too big or too small. It has to be just right.”
“Like porridge,” I said.
“What?”
“Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”
“Exactly.” She found one. “Come on.”
I followed Molly and Bella to a footbridge over a small stream that cut through the park. It was shallow enough to see the bottom and had vertical brick walls covered in moss and ferns.
“You’re the referee,” said Molly. “Make sure Bella doesn’t cheat.”
Bella pouted. “I don’t cheat.”
“You always drop your stick too early. You never wait until I get to three.”
