‘I thought something exciting would happen at midnight. But nothing happened.’
‘Welcome to the new year, Cubby,’ Ian said, raising his glass in the air like a sword. He reached over and clinked it against my knee.
Cassie shrugged. I could see his smudged fingerprints on his glass. Cola slick above his lip.
‘Come here,’ Ian said. ‘Come hang with us.’ He grabbed my thigh, pulled me towards him and swung his arm around my shoulders. His skin was damp and smelled sugary, as though the cola was sweating out of him. Cassie watched us, a dopey smile on his face as though he was watching a funny movie he wasn’t paying any attention to, didn’t really care about. I tried to squirm out of Ian’s grasp, his rubbery fingers tight around my arm. I waited until they went slack, waited until he lost interest, and left.
I got into bed and tried to go to sleep. Ian and Cassie were loud but I couldn’t hear what they were saying; it was all a jumble, animal noises and not the sound of humans. A glass smashed, and there was a rumbling as a table was dragged along the floorboards. After a while Dad shouted something from his room, banged against the wall, and when Ian and Cassie didn’t take any notice the floorboards creaked under Dad’s feet as he got out of bed and made his way to the verandah.
I slipped out of bed too, went to the bathroom to watch. I undid the window latch and cracked it open. Dad was standing at the back door. He was wearing his boxers, bare legs smooth and brown as a table’s. I didn’t think he’d seen Ian properly since the night in the knackery. I held my breath, waiting for something to happen, but Dad just spoke as though Ian wasn’t even there.
‘I thought you’d be out tonight,’ Dad said.
Cassie shrugged, dug his finger into the corner of his eye.
‘Would’ve been a shit party,’ said Ian, stubbing out his smoke on the top of a tinny. ‘Bunch of dickheads.’
‘Well, keep it down, would you,’ Dad said. ‘I’ve got things on in the morning. Can’t sleep with all your yahooing.’
‘We’re just having a drink,’ Cassie said. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
‘Just keep it down, alright?’
As he opened the flyscreen, Ian pinged a bottle top onto the floor at Dad’s feet. ‘Nice shorties,’ he said, sniggering. Cassie made his strange nose snort.
Dad stopped, turning around. ‘What did you just say, mate?’ he said to Ian.
‘Nothing, Dad,’ Cassie said.
‘Was I talking to you?’
Dad stood there for a second and then walked slowly towards the pair of them. The flyscreen slammed behind him. He stopped next to Ian, lurching over him, hands flexed at his sides. But then he just squatted down, picked up the carton of beers in the esky at Ian’s feet.
‘Oi,’ Ian said. ‘We’re drinking those.’
Dad grabbed Ian by the jaw, He leaned his face in, as though he was going to give him a kiss him on the lips. ‘Stop pinching my bloody beer,’ Dad said slowly. ‘Do you take me for a moron?’ He let go, turned back to the door with the beer under his arm. When he’d taken a few steps his body jerked and he buckled downwards. ‘Shit,’ he said, grabbing his ankle and then lifting his foot onto his knee. He fingered his foot, looked down at the floor. ‘Christ’s sake,’ he said.
As he hobbled over to the back door, I heard Ian laugh. Dad disappeared from sight and slammed the back door, the keys rattling as he locked it behind him. A second later the bathroom light switched on. Dad towered in the doorway.
‘What are you doing up there?’ he said, squinting into the light.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Stickybeaking,’ Dad said. ‘Bad habit, that is.’
‘I was just going to the loo.’
I climbed down from the toilet seat, slipped past him into the hallway. There were dribbles of blood leading into the bathroom, dark as ants. I stood at the door as Dad opened the cupboard and took out the first-aid kit, full of tubs of finger-mucked Vicks, rusted tweezers and food-stained slings. He opened a beer and took a long gulp, and then sat down on the edge of the bathtub under the light that buzzed, can at his feet.
The next morning the key was still wedged into the back door. I unlocked it and went onto the verandah. There were cans strewn along the floorboards, yellow chip sprinkles on the tables, their metallic packets wedged under bottles. Ian was curled in a ball at the corner of the verandah. His mouth was open and his shirtsleeve was clouded with drool.
Cassie must have come inside through a window and brought Ian a pillow from his bed. Instead of putting it under his head, Ian was hugging it tight to his chest. One of his eyelids was open a fraction, like he could see me even though his brain was fast asleep. I thought about prising the pillow from his grip, holding it against his face and pressing down. Wally used to do that to me sometimes—only tricking, though. But I wouldn’t be tricking. I kneeled down, grabbed the corner of the pillow. I gave it a yank, but Ian was holding on tight, as though he knew already what I wanted to do to him.
13.
AFTER LUNCH ON TUESDAY I wheeled my bike from under the house. I’d decided to surprise Cassie at the Connolly. He’d been strange with me for days, avoiding me since I’d asked him about what Ian had done to Tilly. He knew I was on to Ian. He was just like Wally, ignoring me and trying to make me believe I was nothing but a big pain. If I did something nice like surprise him, maybe then he’d remember what a good person I was, what a good sister.
When I got to the pub there were a few men sitting at the bar, a few more spread over tables near the TV that was tuned to the dog races. Their necks were rashy as their heads tilted back to watch the TV in silence, Adam’s apples like little fists bobbing in their throats. They’d all finished their lunches, licked clean, except for the thin shreds of carrot and sprigs of parsley, the colourless knots of sucked-on gristle.
There was only one man behind the bar and it wasn’t Cassie. His beard was patchy, bits missing along his cheek, like a crusty dog. I stood up on the railing so I could see over the beer taps.
‘Excuse me,’ I said, trying to make my voice sound polite.
‘Hey?’ the man said, distracted by the screen.
‘Will Cassie be back soon?’ I asked.
‘Who?’ he said after a few seconds, barely glancing my way.
‘Cassie,’ I said. ‘Cassius. He’s working today.’
‘In there.’ He pointed to the kitchen across from the bar. ‘And tell him to come out here and do his bloody job.’
I climbed down from the railing and went over to the kitchen. The lino was a cheesy-yellow, sinks opposite the cooktops. A big, silver fridge was in the far end of the room, humming with electricity. Cassie was alone. He was standing over the sink, hair tied back in a rubber band, pouring the wet dregs from a metal pot into a plastic bag lining the bin. Cassie must have sensed me standing there because he looked over his shoulder. He was wearing a blue-and-black-striped apron over his uniform, thin plastic gloves on his hands. He sunk the pot into the water.
‘Told you not to come,’ Cassie said.
‘No, you didn’t,’ I said. ‘Why are you in here cleaning?’
Cassie pulled the pot out of the water and took a grey wad of steel wool from the bench. He scrubbed the bottom of the pan and the sound of it was like the sound of sparks. I could see his shoulders rising and bunching around his neck, the row of beady bones on his back that pocked against his shirt. ‘Just piss off home,’ Cassie said. ‘I’m busy.’
I could tell that was all he was going to say to me. I thought he’d be happy to see me, thought he’d be proud to show off his job that he talked about all the time. But I’d caught him out in a lie. I’d be embarrassed too, if I were him.