‘What, now?’
‘Yeah,’ Ian said.
‘What for?’ Tilly asked.
‘Never mind,’ Ian said, batting his hand in front of his face, swatting away a thought. ‘Once was enough.’
I felt lumps in my throat. If Tilly found out I’d been into her room without her knowing she’d think I was weird for sure.
‘Why don’t you all go watch TV?’ Cassie said to me. ‘Watch a video or something.’
‘Okay,’ I said. I grabbed Tilly’s wrist, wanted to get her away from Ian right away, but she pinged her hand away as though I’d electrocuted her.
‘They can stay,’ Ian said. ‘You want to stay, don’t you?’ Ian asked Tilly.
Tilly shrugged. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t do what I wanted her to, why she wanted to stay out here.
‘You know, your Grandpa Les used to live in my house as well, before he moved out here.’ He took a drag of the smoke. ‘His birthday’s coming up soon, isn’t it, Cass? April seventeenth. We should have a celebration. What do you say, Tilly?’
Tilly’s eyes flickered to Cassie’s. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Okay.’
‘Jesus,’ Ian said, letting out a laugh. ‘I was joking. What kind of a sicko are you?’ He smiled, gave Tilly a wink, but she still looked as though someone had pulled her pants down. ‘I’m only playing with you. Don’t think a celebration would go down too well with your folks.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Tilly asked.
‘Ian,’ Cassie said. ‘Just forget it.’
‘Oh shit,’ Ian said. ‘Sorry, mate.’ He didn’t sound sorry at all. ‘I forgot it was supposed to be a big secret still.’
‘What is?’ Tilly insisted. ‘Tell me what you’re talking about.’
Ian smiled, looked Tilly up and down. ‘Your Grandpa Les,’ he said, ‘fucked whores and boiled them up.’
‘Jesus Christ, Ian,’ Cassie sighed, pressing his palms to his eyeballs. ‘Shut up, would you?’
‘That’s disgusting,’ Tilly said, wrinkling her nose. ‘There’s no way that’s true. How do you even know that?’
‘Everyone knows,’ Ian said, draining his beer and throwing it out into the yard. ‘Ask anyone. Ask them.’ He pointed to Wally and me.
Ian had a crinkly smile on his face, his eyes on Tilly, who was blushing all over. Cassie didn’t even do anything. He just slouched in his chair, sipped his beer, as though this was Ian’s house and not ours. As though Ian was in control of everything that went on. After a second Ian slapped his hands on his knees. ‘Well, I’ve done my day’s damage,’ he said. ‘Lovely to meet you, sweets.’ He grabbed Tilly’s hand and kissed the back of it with his wet lips.
He reached over to slap Cassie’s hand, but Cassie stayed slumped in his chair, didn’t look Ian in the face. ‘See you,’ he muttered. He waited until Ian was gone before standing up. He went down the stairs and picked up the beer cans from the grass.
‘Tilly?’ I said.
‘I hate you,’ she mumbled. She was staring down but I could see wet tracks on her cheeks.
‘What did I do?’ I asked.
‘I hate you all and I hate living here.’
She ran past Cassie, ran over to the yellow house. It wasn’t until Tilly had slipped through the flyscreen that my anger bubbled, and then just as quickly was whisked away. My body felt drained. I kept grasping for something special and good and it kept getting yanked from me. Every time I got close, something else got in the way. I felt tears but they were stuck behind my eyes, burning. I pulled at the skin of my eyebrow until it started to burn as well. I watched Cassie walk over to the bin, cans in his arms. He buried them deep in the rubbish where Dad wouldn’t find them, hiding the evidence of Ian again.
That night Helena came over. She banged on the back door, and Dad shuffled over from the couch. He turned the verandah light on. I followed him, stood in the hallway.
‘You promised me, Colin,’ Helena said, when Dad opened the door. ‘You promised me those kids of yours were gonna keep their lips zipped.’
Dad was shirtless, in his boxers. ‘What are you banging on about?’ he said.
‘Tilly’s bloody hysterical,’ Helena said. She looked behind Dad, straight at me. ‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ She jabbed her finger at me.
‘I didn’t do anything,’ I said.
‘Christ’s sake, Helena,’ Dad said. ‘You’re drunk. Just go home. You’re embarrassing yourself.’
Dad closed the door and turned off the verandah light. He went back to the couch.
I heard a clanging from the verandah, and the next morning a chair was broken in the yard, its legs snapped and sprawled out at funny angles. I thought we’d be in big trouble, but Dad didn’t come into our room again, didn’t say any more about it.
5.
I’D BEEN TRYING TO GROW my hair into a girl haircut for ages, but every few months Mum gave us trims on the verandah and I’d be back to where I started. I was the only girl at school with short hair, and kept hoping that Mum would forget, would leave it for just that little bit longer so I didn’t look so different from everyone else. For weeks after, I’d find clumps of hair in the grass, or stiffened like fur between the floorboards. Cassie didn’t like Mum’s haircuts, did his own in front of the bathroom mirror. He always tried to look neat, ironing his school clothes when they were only a tiny bit wrinkled, and putting sticky tape around the ends of his shoelaces when the plastic started to split and the lace frayed. His haircuts looked alright most of the time—almost as good as when Mum did it—but whenever he stuffed up and cut out a big chunk by accident he wore a beanie for weeks until the hair grew out a bit.
But around the time Ian started coming over Cassie stopped cutting his hair altogether. Refused to let Mum near it. He didn’t wash it either and it grew into golden cocoons. If it was hot, he tied it back with a rubber band, but the rest of the time it hung straight down his neck with his ears poking out like white mice. I thought it looked beautiful.
‘You look like a bloody girl,’ Dad said. ‘Like a bloody fairy.’
It was like that with everything Cassie did. When he came home with a bottle of black nail polish from the cheap shop, Dad noticed his painted nails at dinner. He stared at Cassie’s fingers for a second, and then scraped his chair against the lino, went and sat in front of the TV.
‘You should take that off,’ I whispered to Cassie.
‘I like it,’ Cassie said, webbing out his fingers.
‘But Ian doesn’t even do that to his fingernails.’
‘What does that have to do with anything?’ Cassie said.
The next day Cassie didn’t come home from school. After dinner Dad waited for him on the verandah, only came inside to get beer from the fridge. When he needed to piss he did it over the railing.
When I heard Cassie’s bike come up the driveway I crept into the bathroom to spy. He dumped his bike in the grass and walked up the steps.
‘Come here a second, mate,’ Dad said. He didn’t sound mad, but there was something in his voice that was even worse than that. ‘Sit,’ he said, nodding towards the beanbag next to him. ‘Sit down.’
Cassie walked over to Dad, sat down and hugged his knees in front of him. If I were Cassie I would have run. Even from here I could tell something wasn’t right. Dad picked up Mum’s hair scissors from the table, set them in his lap.
He was leaning in close to Cassie and I couldn’t hear what he was saying. After a minute Cassie got up from the beanbag and turned to go inside. Dad shot up as well, scissors in his hands. He grabbed Cassie by the arm and pulled him back. Cassie tried to squirm away and for second I thought he was going to push Dad, hit him. But then Dad pressed the scissors to Cassie’s chest, and Cassie’s arms drooped to his sides like they were stuffed with wool and not muscle and bone. Dad grabbed Cassie around the neck with his whole arm. Cassie was floppy, as though he’d been given an injection, and Dad turned him around, pushed him onto his knees. He held the scissors to the back of his neck and hacked through the hair, just above the elastic, three or four chops before it came completely off.