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  I looked back at the bundle. The rope. The rope. Where would he…

  And then, in my mind, I saw another rope, old and frayed, and Shaun trying to snap it.

  ‘The creek!’ I flew off the verandah. ‘Come on!’

  I hadn’t grabbed a torch but the light from the stars, peeking through the eucalypt branches, was strong enough to guide us. I didn’t look back the whole way down the slope—sheer terror was driving me forward—and while I could hear thuds behind me I didn’t know who it was until the halfway mark. On my right, Dad sprang like an emu, leaping up and over the tall grass, and vanished into the thick bush below. Then—zoom—Trev passed me on my left. Not leaping like Dad. Tumbling. As if, when at the top of the slope, he’d decided the quickest way to get to the bottom would be to lean forward and let gravity do the rest.

  When we reached the bottom of the slope Dad led the charge across the sloshy flats, headed straight towards the giant gum that spread its limbs over the swimming hole, its upper trunk pale and ghostly in the starlight.

  Trev and I hung off Dad’s heels, only a metre behind him.

  ‘Shaun!’

  ‘Shaun!’

  ‘SHAUNIE!’

  Twenty metres from the tree, Dad broke ahead, surging forward like a racehorse with the finish line in its sights. When he reached the young she-oaks that grew round the gum he stopped in his tracks. Then he wobbled.

  Once I reached him, I looked up, following his gaze. Above the she-oaks, I could see the wide limb. Next to the remnants of busted rope from the old swing was Dad’s new green rope. The top two feet of it, all I could see of it over the she-oak branches, was taut.

  ‘NO!’ It was as if I’d been slammed in the chest with a sledgehammer. I fell to my knees. Rammed my face into the earth. Roared.

  Dad howled.

  Out of the corner of my eye I watched the lower half of Trev move past me. He was braving it. Going in.

  I couldn’t look up to see what was on the other side. I knew that whatever I did, I couldn’t look up.

  But then, in between Dad’s howling, I heard sobbing—choking, heaving sobbing—coming from the other side of the she-oaks.

  ‘Shaun! Shaun!’ Trev stomped forward, the branches snapping as he slapped them aside to gain a clear view. ‘Greg, Trysten! Quick, c’mon! He’s okay. Ah, fuck, thank fucken Christ! Shaun’s okay!’

  Shaun sat on the ground under the noosed rope. His knees were drawn up to his chest. His arms were wrapped round his legs. ‘I tried…I…I…I…tried but I…I…couldn’t.’

  Dad whooshed through the she-oaks, wrapped his gangly arms over Shaun’s crumpled body. ‘Yer right now, son. Yer right.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ Trev muttered, then flopped to the ground and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Well, fuck me fucken dead.’

  Then, before I started to shake and cry, I threw my guts up all over my muddy boots.

  Mum’s shadow stretched across the backyard.

  At the top of the slope I looked up. With the verandah light shining behind her I couldn’t see her well, but by the way she was standing, clutching the verandah post, she looked close to collapsing.

  Dad and Trev mounted the hill, Shaun slung between them. Arms wrapped round their backs. Feet dragging along the grass.

  Mum sobbed. Big gulping sobs, like she hadn’t taken a breath since we’d been down at the creek. Then, after about ten of those sobs, another noise emerged from her. A low steady moan, which grew into a growl.

  When Dad and Trev looked up and saw Mum, they let go of Shaun. He toppled to the ground, right at Mum’s shadow-head.

  Then Mum leapt off the verandah, landed without a stumble, and marched straight to Shaun.

  Shaun lifted himself off the ground onto his knees, and raised his heavy head.

  Mum moved her arm out to her side. Palm open. She was going to slap him.

  She held it there a few seconds and then swung, fast as lightning, but at the last second, an inch from Shaun’s head, she stopped and moved her hand in front of his face, pointing her index finger between Shaun’s eyes like a copper holding a gun to a crim’s head.

  ‘You never throw in the towel!’ Her voice boomed through the valley, bouncing off the hills. ‘No matter how bad things get, you never ever throw in the towel!’

  Then she grabbed Shaun’s head, slammed it into her belly, threw her own head back and wailed. She wailed up into the night sky like she wanted every single one of those stars to feel her sadness and fear her fury.

  With an empty head I sat on my bed and stared out my window watching the stars fade, the colour of the sky change to the bluish black of a bruise. A constant low-pitched whir sounded in my ears, making the noises in the house—Mum’s singing lullabies, Trev’s talking, Dad’s stomping—muffled and distant like a radio not tuned properly. Then—as the sky lightened, a pale band of blue and pink riding the ridges of the ranges, a cackle of cockatoos descending on the gum tree outside my window to catch the first rays of light—the whir grew fainter. And, as if someone was turning the dial on the radio, the sounds inside became clearer.

  Dad. ‘Think we’ll need anything else, Kirsty?’

  Mum. ‘Nope…should be it. Trev, ya right to look after Trysten?’

  Trev, slapping hands together. ‘Yep, sure thing!’

  Mum. ‘Great. Greg and I will eat, then we’re off. Sit with Shaun for a bit, would ya?’

  The whir became still fainter. Almost completely gone. But the words I heard didn’t carry any meaning; they just drifted in one ear, through my empty mind and out the other. Then, as the rays of sun speared into the gum tree and onto the chests of the cockatoos, their wings spread wide, my mind exploded with memories like wasps whose nest has been poked with a stick.

  Stealing out my window. Kissing Jessica. Downing the first Johnnie and Coke. Dancing. The fire. Barman Ricky. The fire. The fireworks. The fire. Ramming Adam into it. Driving back. Shaun’s decoy. Racing down the slope. The sloshy flats. The rope. The rope. The rope.

  I climbed out of bed. Walked slowly through the hallway, glancing at Mum and Dad, who didn’t look up from their breakfasts.

  In the lounge room Shaun sat staring at the telly that wasn’t even on.

  I stood in front of him.

  ‘Oi,’ Trev snapped from the far end of the lounge. ‘What ya doin’, Trysten?’

  Shaun looked me in the eyes, those spears blunt as anything, then down to my curled fist, then back up to my eyes. He nodded once.

  I brought my fist back, then clocked Shaun in the side of his head.

  ‘Oi!’ Trev leapt towards me. ‘What are ya fucken doin’?’

  Shaun jumped up and shoved him back onto the lounge.

  I tore off down the hallway, rubbing my busted knuckles, barging past Mum and Dad, screaming over my shoulder, ‘If you’d have gone through with it, I’d’ve pissed on yer fucken grave!’

  23

  I emptied the tin of Rex’s Texas Chilli into the saucepan and turned the hotplate up high. As I stirred the goopy mix of red beans, cubes of meat and mushy capsicum, I occasionally glanced over my shoulder to the phone on the wall.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, in the same spot he’d been since just after lunch, Trev struck a match and lit his durry. He took a long drag, exhaled a lungful of smoke up to the ceiling, and said, ‘Don’t know why yer stressin’. Even if she calls again I doubt she’ll want to talk to you.’

  When Mum’d called earlier to give Trev the update that they’d arrived in the city and Shaun was waiting to be assessed at the clinic, she hadn’t asked to speak to me. Trev said she hadn’t even asked about me. Hadn’t said a word to me before leaving, either. Not a shriek. Or a yell. Or one of her tirades. Nothing but a slight shake of the head, a half-arsed scowl, like she couldn’t even be bothered. I was getting the silent treatment, which meant I was in deep shit over the party. Deeper than ever.

  I continued stirring the chilli and tried to forget about the phone, but before I knew what I was
doing I was glancing over my shoulder again. Trev was straight onto me.

  ‘Ha! Ya look like yer about to piss yerself.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I cast my eyes over the sorry sight that was Trev. Slouching in his chair, a three-quarters-full bottle of whisky in front of him, and behind that a dozen empty tinnies arranged in a triangle pattern, like pins in a bowling alley. I didn’t know how he stomached it—drinking through a hangover. All day, up till now, I’d only been able to keep water down.

  Before turning back to the stovetop I sniffed the air. Three sharp sniffs, loud enough for Trev to hear. ‘Well, Uncle Trev, I may look like I’m gonna piss my pants, but you smell like you’ve shat yours.’

  ‘Bwahahaha!’ Trev slapped his thigh. ‘There he goes again—Mr Big Balls.’

  Throughout the day, each time I’d emerged from my room, Trev’d been goading me. Make way for the big man or Here comes the champ. Once, as I passed him in the hallway, he clapped furiously and bowed. I didn’t know what he was getting at, but I was growing fed up with it.

  ‘Bet they’re even bigger now,’ Trev said.

  ‘Huh? What the fuck are ya talking about?’

  Trev unscrewed the lid of the whisky bottle and filled his shot glass to the brim. As he shakily raised the glass to his mouth, a few drops spilled, trickling down his tobacco-stained fingertips. With a quick flick of the wrist he shot back the whisky and slammed the glass on the table, crack!

  ‘Aaah! Now, that’s the fucken ticket.’

  Trev licked the spilt whisky from his fingertips, turned the glass the right way up, poured another shot.

  ‘Figuring ya must be feeling pretty damn pleased with yerself, young man—saving the day and all. Took some balls to do what ya did, sneaking off to the party. Driving there and then back—pissed, I might add—when yer still over a year off getting yer bloody learner’s. May not’ve been the brightest decision ever, but hey, ya did what ya had to. Decided to act. And by that, well, ya may’ve just ended up saving a life.’

  Trev raised the shot glass, nodding like he was making a silent toast. He knocked the shot back, slammed the glass down. Crack!

  He stood up fast, knocking back his chair. It slid across the floor and crashed into the kitchen cabinet.

  Trev disregarded the chair, and waved his arm in front of his face as if he was shooing flies away. ‘Or…maybe not! Maybe, just maybe, that’s how it was gonna end up anyway? Ever think of that? Huh? Huh? Have ya?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Y’know, like maybe if ya hadn’t snuck off and found out what ya did, sensed he might be in trouble, something else would’ve got us down to the creek anyway.’

  Trev poured another shot. Tossed it back. Crack! ‘What I’m saying is, maybe Shaun was always gonna live. Like that’s how it was written. Yeah, and maybe Big Johnny, yeah, Big fucken Johnny, maybe it was written for him the other way. Maybe no fucken matter what happened, that poor cunt was always gonna fucken die! Yeah, that could be it. Maybe I’ve just been looking at it from the wrong angle.’

  ‘Trev, what the fuck are you talking about?’

  Trev shooed me away like he’d just been shooing his invisible flies, and stumbled jerkily towards the fridge. Just when it looked as though he was about to fall flat on his face he righted himself, becoming as straight as one of Jim Davis’s new fence posts.

  His face twisted with rage—veins bulging, teeth gnashing—he glared at the fridge. His fists flew up lightning fast, and he took one, two steps towards the fridge and let loose.

  Right, left, left, right, right, left, RIGHT. Bang, crack, crack, bang, bang, crack, crack, BANG!

  After that last right he stumbled back, sank to the floor and curled in a ball, his hands over his face. Muttering. Sobbing. ‘Ah, ya fucken piece of shit fucken mongrel fucken hell stupid fucken cunt…I’ll fucken kill ya, cunt. Ah, Jesus. Ah, fucken hell, Johnny, ah, fucken hell—Johnny, my brother…Ah, I’m sorry. I’m so fucken sorry.’

  ‘Hey!’ I rushed over, placed my hand on Trev’s shoulder. ‘Calm down, Trev. Why you getting so worked up? It’s not your fault about Johnny.’

  Trev shook his head, wiping the tears from his cheek with his bloody fingers. ‘Nah, Trysten. It is, mate, it fucken is.’

  I tucked my forearm under Trev’s armpit and hauled him to his feet. Sat him back at the table, where, with his shaking mangled hand, he reached over for the whisky and poured another shot.

  He stared at the brimming glass, head hanging low.

  ‘What ya going on about Johnny like that for?’ I crouched, tilting my head to try and catch his eyes, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. ‘Trev! Yer talking shit, hey. It wasn’t like you made him take those drugs.’

  Trev knocked the whisky back. I caught a whiff of it, but before my stomach had the chance to churn, another scent wafted in. Something not good. A burning smell…

  Fuck, the chilli!

  I rushed over to the stove. As I pulled the pot of burning goop off the hotplate, Trev spoke. Each word heavy, a massive strain to speak, like they were seventy-kilo rocks he was hauling up a hill.

  ‘Nah, Trysten, maybe I didn’t make him take those drugs. But I sold ’em to him. I fucken sold ’em to him.’

  While Trev spoke to Mum on the phone I leant against the hallway wall the same way I’d hung outside Principal Carroll’s office after the fight, waiting for my turn to be roused on. And when Trev handed me the phone, whispering, ‘Good luck,’ and wearing a pitiful look like he’d just copped an earful himself, I swallowed. It was gonna be bad. Real bad.

  When I brought the phone to my ear all I could muster by way of a greeting was a crackly, timid ‘Hello?’

  Mum got straight to business. But she didn’t go hard. Didn’t yell. Didn’t shriek. Instead, her voice was flat. No emotion at all. I couldn’t ever remember her speaking to me like that. It was fucken terrifying.

  ‘I am very disappointed in you, Trysten. I said again and again that you weren’t allowed to go to that party, and then you went and snuck off. What were you thinking?’

  ‘I…um…I…’

  ‘Christ!’ She spat the word out, like a mouthful of cold tea.

  That’s it, Mum, I thought. That’s it!

  ‘Yer in so much trouble when I get back, young man! So much trouble!’

  Now you’re talking!

  ‘I can’t bloody believe ya! Sneaking out. Driving to that party on yer own. Hitting the grog. Driving back. The list just goes on and bloody on!’

  ‘Oh, I know…I know…’

  ‘Yer not even fifteen yet, Trysten. Not even fifteen, for Christ’s sake!’

  She’d reached shriek level. I felt heaps better.

  ‘Y’know, it pains me, Trysten. Pains me to think of what might’ve happened if ya hadn’t made it…’

  Mum gasped, whimpered and breathed heavily for the next ten seconds. I guessed she was holding back the tears. Probably thinking of what might’ve happened to Shaun.

  ‘Jesus, Trysten,’ she said, ‘what if you’d crashed, flipped that car. Hurt yerself, or worse…Oh, I don’t know…I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you. You’re my baby boy. My baby boy!’

  Mum sniffled and took in a deep breath. I gripped the phone in a stunned silence. Hearing her talk like that was harder to cop than the yelling.

  I wanted it to be over. But she wasn’t done.

  ‘In between taking care of Shaun and talking with the clinic people, my mind wanders back to what happened. What could have happened. I’m still mighty pissed off, mighty bloody pissed off, about ya sneaking off like that, and I don’t want ya to think I’m condoning stupid bloody behaviour like drink driving—underage! But…well, I know things could’ve ended bad if you didn’t. Stupid as it bloody was, I guess in the end ya did what ya had to do.’

  Mum cleared her throat. ‘But yer not off the hook! For the sneaking off. For the drinking. While yer dad and I are up here getting Shaun settled, yer not to leave the property. No seeing yer friends. All
holidays. I’ve told Trev to keep an eye on ya.’

  ‘Right, Mum. Sure thing. Whatever you say!’

  ‘Good, then. Now, as well as Trev keeping an eye on you, I need a favour.’

  ‘Yep, Mum, anything you want.’

  ‘I want you to keep an eye on him.’

  ‘Hey? Why?’

  ‘I’ve just had a chat with him and asked him to watch his drinking. Cut it back a bit.’

  ‘Yeah? Really?’

  ‘Yeah. He needs to lay off it, what with the condition he’s in.’

  ‘What condition?’

  ‘Can’t say right now. I’ve got to go. Already spent a small fortune making calls on this silly mobile phone. Thought it’d be good to have, though, so youse can contact us if need be. I gave the number to Trev. Just keep an eye on him, would ya? Watch that he doesn’t hit it too hard. No more than six a day, I’ve told him.’

  ‘Okay, right, Mum. Yep, six a day. Whatever you say.’

  ‘Good, then.’

  ‘Righto. Hooroo then, Mum.’

  ‘And…Trysten…’

  ‘Yep?’

  She blurted the words out. ‘Love ya.’

  ‘Yep! You too, Mum. Yep, you too. You too.’

  If I was wearing a pair of braces that afternoon I’d have walked round the house with my thumbs hooked in ’em, my gut sticking right out and my chin up high. How the cards’d fallen! I’d gotten off near to scot-free. But then I got a call from Ricky that was the equivalent of someone sneaking up behind me, stretching those braces back as far as they could go and sending ’em flying.

  ‘Hey, brother! How are ya? Man, that was one wild night. Shaun okay?’

  ‘Yep.’ I couldn’t bring myself to tell him exactly what had happened, and what he’d tried to do, just that Mum and Old Greggy Boy had taken him to the city and managed to get him into the clinic early.

  ‘That’s a relief, hey. I was shitting bricks, too. Thought I was gonna cop it, walking into the house with a puffed-up cheek and two big shiners—thought I was gonna cop another floggin’. After I’d told Dad everything that happened he got angry, real angry. But not at me—at Adam. He started pacing round the house going Older fella like Adam laying a hand on my son and That cunt oughtta watch who he messes with. Started talking about going to Adam’s place, giving him a taste of his own medicine. Then he got out the phone book. Thought he was looking for Adam’s address, but he got his phone number, rang him up. Ya touch my son or his mates again and I’ll fucken kill ya. Ya fucken hear me? Oh, it was great, brother, thinking about Adam on the other end, dacks filling up with shit. Dad sticking up for me made me feel tops. Just tops, y’know. Made me realise that he actually…’