I'll Tell You Mine Read online

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ she says. Although I think she’s forgotten about it. She props herself up on an elbow and looks at me. ‘When are you coming home?’ she asks.

  ‘I dunno. Do you want me to come back?’

  ‘I didn’t like it when you were fighting with Mummy. It’s quieter now. Maybe you should stay there a bit longer.’

  Because she’s seven, I reckon that’s the most honest answer I’m going to get.

  *

  Later, I bring my clothes down to the laundry and throw a load on. It’s just like the machines at school. Mum stands in the kitchen, watching as she slices avocado for dinner. ‘You’re washing? Your own clothes?’

  She calls Dad up from the kitchen.

  They stand in the kitchen, ogling as I close the washing machine door and start the wash, water rushing to the front of the machine in a soapy spurt.

  ‘I can do yours if you like,’ I say to them, feeling smug as I walk past. ‘That is, if you can be bothered picking your clothes up from your bedroom floor.’

  ‘Is this our daughter?’ says Dad. He grabs my arm and inspects it. ‘Nope. This is a cyborg teenager.’

  Dad and Liv’s soon to be world famous potato salad is a tangy, mayonnaisy triumph and I can’t stop eating it. I’m telling Dad about the boarding house rules and Chilli is circling my feet, hoping I will slip him some food like I normally do. I break off a piece of sausage, feeling the nibble of his teeth on my fingers.

  ‘Still feeding Chilli under the table?’ Mum asks.

  ‘He’s hungry!’ I protest.

  ‘He’s too fat. The vet has him on a dog diet.’

  My phone beeps and I check it under the table. 2nite. Coming out? U in? J Ax

  ‘Hey, we have a rule in this house too – no phones at the table,’ says Dad. ‘Or should I get a plastic bucket and confiscate all the mobiles like they do at your school?’

  ‘Sorry. It was Annie.’

  Dad gives Mum a look. It’s asking for trouble but I desperately want to meet up with Annie. I help clear the table and wait for a good moment to ask my parents if I can go out.

  ‘Daaa-ad,’ I wheedle. He’s sitting on the floor of the living room with his laptop.

  ‘Whaaaa-at?’ he answers, absorbed in the screen.

  ‘Can I meet up with my friends tonight?’

  ‘Mum and I thought you might like to spend some time here at the house. We haven’t seen you for ages, kiddo.’

  The old anger starts to bubble. ‘I just had dinner with you guys. Isn’t that enough time?’

  ‘What did you have in mind?’

  I try to think up an activity he would approve of. ‘A movie.’

  ‘What movie?’ he asks.

  My wind wheels for a recent film. ‘We haven’t decided yet.’

  ‘Right. Undecided. The Sequel.’

  Mum wanders into the room, looking for her BlackBerry.

  ‘Kate wants to go to the movies. What do you think, boss?’ Dad asks.

  Of course she doesn’t even think about it. There are only two ways she answers my requests to go out.

  A. Will there be parents there?

  B. No. Not tonight.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Not tonight.’ she says, just as I knew she would.

  That’s the final answer. It doesn’t look like I can get Dad on side either.

  ‘Why not?’ I spit. ‘It’s just a movie.’

  ‘Kate. I said no,’ says Mum. ‘Let’s drop it, please.’

  ‘That’s so unfair. I haven’t seen Annie or Nate for so long . . .’

  ‘Don’t push it, darling.’

  ‘So I have to stay locked up here for the night? Bored out of my brain.’

  ‘We thought we’d watch a DVD.’

  ‘I want to go out with my friends. It’s Friday night. Everyone else gets to go out.’

  ‘Everyone else doesn’t behave like you, Kate. You need boundaries. We’ve discussed this.’

  ‘I can’t go?’ I ask. I move closer to her and she shrinks away, flinching. Dad leaps up and puts himself between us.

  ‘I said no. I don’t want to discuss it anymore.’

  I feel myself losing control. I storm up the stairs to my room, slamming the door in a white-hot rage. ‘I HATE YOU!’

  I kick the door with my bare foot and pummel it with my fists, hoping to dent it, but I just end up with raw, bleeding knuckles and a throbbing toe. I fling myself on the bed, bury my face in the covers and cry – howling, wailing, bawling that lasts for ages. By the time I stop, my stomach and chest hurt. I look in the mirror and my puffy, blotchy reflection is even uglier than usual.

  I can’t stay here. Not tonight. Not any night. They don’t want me here anyway. Even Liv said it. It’s easier without me. I shove clothes in my backpack. I have some money – enough for the weekend. It makes me calmer to plan the whole thing in my head.

  My phone vibrates at 5 am but I’m already awake. Waiting. I’ll have to be quiet to get out of the house. Mum sleeps lightly and often works on the computer in the early morning while everyone else snores. It takes one insomniac to know another. Mum and I have always been fussy sleepers.

  We used to bump into each other in the night sometimes. She’d make me something to eat and we’d sit together, laughing at bad late night infomercials. Sometimes, in summer, we’d drive to Brighton Beach and swim in the murky grey water, drying ourselves on the steps of a candy-coloured beach box. We’d come home with sandy feet, seaweed in our swimmers.

  Normally, I would open up my bedroom window and climb out onto the branches of the acacia tree. But Mum had it pruned back when I last attempted a prison break so I have to exit via the front door. Risky.

  I move down the hall like our house is rigged with land mines. I hold my breath as I pass my parents’ door, hoping my mother isn’t up, reading with her itty-bitty book light on, glasses perched on the end of her nose. I make it past the lions’ den and down the stairs, my eyes slowly adjusting to the muddy light.

  The front door is just a few metres away. I half expect Mum’s hand to clamp down on my shoulder as I walk towards it, but the house is silent. Keeping my secret.

  I release the sturdy silver lock and pull the door open gently. It makes a muffled clunk. The sound might be enough to alert Chilli. If he decides to come out of his bed in the laundry and bark, I might as well just dig myself a grave in the back garden alongside the totem tennis pole and Liv’s old sandpit.

  Nothing. Quiet. I pull the door behind me. Then I run.

  Down the road. Across the park. Along the tall, still row of pine trees and the ghostly kids’ playground. Past the milk bar, the owner pulling in the morning papers. I’m heading for the tram stop to catch the first one of the day.

  My feet slam into the asphalt as I run from pool to pool of fluorescent street light. My big toe still aches from kicking my own door. I’m a little scared but I have a plan. And things are always easier with a plan.

  Southern Cross Station hasn’t yet woken up. It’s still wiping gritty sleep from its eyes as a few early commuters wander the dark, silent platforms. I buy a ticket from an unsmiling Indian man, rugged up in a fleecy jumper and woollen beanie. He passes it under the glass partition with a handful of coins and returns to his paper with a hacking cough.

  There’s nowhere to escape the cold so I buy a cup of bitter coffee from a cart, wrapping my hands around the foam, hoping to warm my numb fingers. I huddle up on a scratched wooden bench. Next to me a homeless guy sleeps under a threadbare sleeping bag on a cardboard box mattress, his body so still I wonder if he might be dead. He sure smells like he might be decomposing.

  Deep down I know I shouldn’t be here. I should be back in my bed in my warm room in my house in the suburbs, my sister sleeping next door. But when y
ou make a decision, even a bad one, you have to stick to it, right?

  I’ve turned my phone off because I don’t want to get hassled out by my parents. I can’t deal with that right now. Instead, I call Maddy from an orange payphone. I dial the number and hope that her phone is on. That she will let me come.

  I wait for her to pick up, trying to stay warm by jumping up and down on the spot. A group of drunk guys muck around on the far end of the platform, shouting at each other and swigging from brown paper bags. No doubt they’ve crawled out from a night of ogling girls in the nearby King Street stripper precinct. I keep my head down, hoping they won’t see me.

  Seven rings. Eight, nine. I refuse to hang up. ‘Pick up. Pick up. Pick up,’ I mutter.

  Finally Maddy answers sleepily. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hi. It’s Kate.’

  ‘Kate? What time do you call this, young lady?’

  ‘I’m at the train station.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Can I come and stay?’

  There’s a pause, and I think maybe she’s going to say no and I’ve wasted 75 bucks on a ticket to nowhere.

  ‘Um. Yeah. Course you can.’

  ‘Yeah? I’m on the 8.30 to Wagga Wagga. Will you pick me up?’

  ‘I should be able to borrow the ute.’

  I feel a rush of relief. All I want to do now is get as far away from Melbourne, my parents and my secret past as soon as possible.

  *

  The train is only a quarter full so I sprawl out in an empty cabin up front, with a window seat to myself. The conductor blows a shrill whistle as the doors close and we pull away from the station, slowly gathering speed. It’s been a long, cold wait and I’m glad to be leaving.

  I love trains. The soothing shake of the trolleys. The feeling of having nothing to do but be right where you are.

  I lean my head against the glass window and open a packet of chips. There’s not much to look at – just the backs of houses. Brick walls covered in graffiti, bits of rubbish, deserted toys, tyres and bikes that have died in the weedy grasses. It’s an express, so we don’t stop for ages, and I close my eyes and daydream about the trips Annie, Nate and I used to do.

  *

  We called it ‘Train Lotto’. It was before Nate was rostered onto weekend shifts. We’d meet at the station on Saturday morning. Usually Mum would be working anyway and I would lie to Dad and say I was going to a friend’s house or had Saturday sport or something. He’d be so busy with Liv, he wouldn’t ask too many questions.

  ‘Have you got the map?’ I’d ask Annie.

  ‘Of course.’

  She’d get out the crumpled paper and spread it on the ground. One of us would close our eyes and plunge a marker pen into a spot.

  Wherever the spot was, we’d go. If it wasn’t too far and we could make it there and back in a day. Sometimes we just went to Essendon or Sunshine and it wouldn’t take us long. That was always disappointing. I liked it when we pushed it to Geelong, Seymour, Ballarat or Bendigo. And coming home when it was nearly dark I risked another week of grounding.

  When we got there we’d either do the tourist stuff, pan for gold, take photos, buy a bag of ye olde fashioned sweets or mooch around the main street and try to blag our way into the pub.

  If there was a local river or dam we’d dare each other to swim – even if it wasn’t a hot day. Usually Nate stripped off to his undies first and bombed in, insisting that it was nice once you got in and we were really missing out. He was a hopeless swimmer, dog paddling and panting to the side.

  He’d scramble up the muddy banks to dry off and I’d try not to stare at the bulge in his wet undies, the rise and fall of his bare chest as he caught his breath.

  All the way home he’d complain that his jocks were soggy.

  But most of the time it wasn’t about what was at the end of the stop, it was about getting on the train and just going. Nate would bring his guitar and some food from work – a few rolls, cold chicken, drinks and dessert if we were really lucky. He’d make up silly songs along the way about where we were going and what we’d get up to when we arrived.

  ‘Here we go. To Bendigo. This train is slow. We need a tow . . .’

  Or he’d just do a couple of quiet, sweet covers and see if anyone in the carriage might join in with a sing-along. Sometimes people told him to ‘shut up, mate’, but mostly they didn’t mind. Nate was a people charmer with his music.

  *

  Five hours later I arrive in Wagga Wagga and tumble off the train in a daze. My bum has fallen asleep and my back aches. I’ve finished my book, am bored with all my music and all I’ve eaten is a packet of chips and two chocolate bars from a vending machine.

  Past the chocolate box station buildings, Maddy is sitting on the tray of a ute in the carpark. She waves me over.

  It’s only been a day since we saw each other but she already looks different. Her skin is foundation free and freckled, hair tied back in a messy ponytail. She’s wearing a pair of worn jeans, an oversized grey windcheater with paint flecks and a pair of grubby workboots.

  Gone is the coy hair flick and the fluttering eyelashes. She stands with her legs slightly apart, hands in her back pockets.

  ‘What happened?’ she asks.

  ‘Big fight with Mum. The usual,’ I say.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She okay?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She nods, satisfied by this micro conversation, and throws my bag in the tray on a scattering of hay and ropes. A rangy Blue Heeler sniffs it suspiciously.

  ‘That’s Bone,’ says Maddy. ‘I wouldn’t try to pat him if I was you.’

  She slams the rusty, dirt-splattered tray shut. ‘Ready?’

  Maddy starts the car with a clanking sound as I clamber awkwardly into the passenger seat, moving aside a dog leash and a plastic bag of feed pellets. I go to pull a belt around myself, but there’s none.

  ‘Hungry?’ Maddy asks, throwing a paper bag at me.

  Inside is a still-warm pie that I bite into right away.

  ‘I thought so.’ She smiles. ‘It’s a long trip. I must have done it, oh, 150 times.’

  We drive out of Wagga Wagga and out on the highway towards her farm. On the way she slows down and shows me her tiny local town.

  ‘Pay attention,’ she says. ‘Because you really will blink and miss it.’

  Maddy toots her horn at a group of guys playing football on the dry oval.

  ‘Who’s your mate?’ one of them yells.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Thommo!’ Maddy shouts back, laughing. ‘My cousins,’ she says. ‘Total dickheads but I love them.’

  She changes gears effortlessly, accelerating smoothly. I could be in a car with an adult.

  ‘I didn’t know you could drive,’ I say.

  Maddy shrugs, as if it’s no big deal – a sixteen-year-old driving on her own.

  ‘I’m still on my Ls, suppose I should have someone licensed in the car with me. I’ve been driving since I was eleven. Everyone does out here.’

  The town slides by quickly. There’s a main street, a dusty stretch with a supermarket, a pub, a chemist, a handful of shops and a Chinese restaurant. A little further out, there’s a pretty wooden church, a primary school and an old-fashioned Roxy Theatre that is playing just two movies that are nearly on DVD in Melbourne. A dented sign boasts: ‘This is rice country!’

  ‘Okay, that’s it,’ says Maddy. ‘Come on I’ll take you to our place.’

  Maddy speeds up as we head out into the open countryside, passing patchy fields and thirsty rice paddies.

  ‘It smells like the country,’ I say, hanging my elbow out the window and breathing deep.

  ‘No kidding,’ smiles Maddy.

 
Funny. Now that I’m here, I don’t feel free like I thought I would. I feel guilty and anxious that my parents will be worrying about me. I should call them.

  Maddy pulls up at a gate. I sit there, my hands in my lap. ‘Get the gate?’ she asks.

  ‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry.’

  I fumble with the heavy chain, feeling like a clueless city chick. Eventually I unhook it from around the fence and swing it open, letting the ute through. Maddy sticks her head out of the window. ‘Close it properly,’ she says. ‘Don’t want to let the cows loose.’

  I close the gate tightly and look down at my palms – already streaked with dirt and rust. I don’t get my hands dirty that much. It feels good.

  Maddy throws her boots on a shoe rack on the verandah. Next to hers is a pair of lady’s boots laced with cobwebs. She doesn’t have to say. I know they’re her mother’s. I feel sad thinking nobody can bear to throw them out.

  Inside, the house is dark, pokey and run down. I’m surprised. I had this idea that farmhouses were big, sprawling estates. The carpet is worn in places like the knees of a pair of old jeans. The floorboards creak and the air is musty. Everything seems to be coated in filmy dust. I pause to look at a photo on a side table. The family is dressed up. Lachy in a suit, hair slicked down. I get a rush of excitement thinking he could just walk in and wink at me at any moment. Maddy stands beside him in frilly dress, her haircut different, her cheeks fatter. Maddy’s mum has both arms proudly around her kids. Everyone is smiling except Maddy, who looks sulky.

  ‘I was a flower girl for my cousin. I hated that dress. It was so itchy.’ She picks up the photo and looks at it wistfully. ‘I wish I hadn’t made such a big deal about it now.’

  Maddy wipes the dust from the photo with her sleeve and puts it up the front of the table. Then she pads into the kitchen in her socks, pulling two chipped teacups out of the cupboard. She lights the ancient stove with a match and fills up a kettle.

  The table is still scattered with breakfast – a bowl of half-finished cereal, a packet of white bread, a knife stuck into a pot of jam. Maddy clears up silently, putting things into the fridge, then running a damp cloth along the surfaces.