Living With Leanne Page 4

  ‘But if I don’t know this stuff how will I bring up my own kids?’

  ‘When you’re about to become a father I’ll tell you,’ says Mum.

  Which means I’ll never get to know because I’m not fathering kids, ever. Not into this crummy world.

  Everything rolls along nicely for about two weeks. Rumours are flying round the school that Leanne Studley was prancing about naked in the main street, and she’s on drugs, that she was appearing for a TV promo (betcha she spread that one herself), and that Cameron Lyon and Drenton Faberge are gay and going together (betcha she spread that one, too).

  I go to Strapper both Saturdays and Leanne goes to the hot bread shop both Saturdays. On Sundays Fern comes round and they shut themselves in Leanne’s bedroom. I try listening against the wall with a glass but all I can hear is a low murmur of voices and a few giggles. It’s almost like Beverley Hills 90210 without the money! At nights she curls up watching TV, doing her homework and playing the Gunners to her lupins. The lupins are thriving and so far hers have grown the most, which is totally amazing. Although the lupin deadline isn’t up yet some dude from the CSIRO has motored into their class and he’s so staggered by Leanne’s success that he’s setting up a test of his own at the laboratory, headphones and all. She’s a changed human being. She’s even got an A for an English essay and a B+ for Maths.

  ‘I always knew you were highly intelligent,’ says Mum proudly.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ says Leanne, yawning.

  I watch what Mum’s feeding her. Maybe she’s putting crushed-up tranquillisers in her food. But I can’t find any evidence.

  The only time Mum gets agitated is when she comes home from work to find the sink full of blood and she thinks Leanne’s cracked under the pressure of being good and slashed her wrists.

  ‘Leanne. Leanne. What have you done?’ she cries, dashing down the passage past my room where I’m doing my homework. ‘Sam! Call an ambulance!’

  Excitement at last. I drop my pen and race out.

  ‘Handle,’ says Leanne, standing in her doorway with a towel wrapped round her head. ‘It’s only “Red Flamboyant”!’

  Mum grabs the towel off Leanne’s head. Her hair looks like it’s had a bottle of tomato sauce poured over it. I’m talking red.

  Mum sees red.

  ‘We had a deal,’ she snaps, ‘and you’ve broken it.’

  ‘What? By dyeing my hair?’

  ‘The deal was no bizarre clothes, weird make-up, boyfriends or bad behaviour.’

  ‘So? Ya want me to have mousey brown hair and steel-rimmed glasses and live in a convent?’

  ‘That’s it. No Bali.’

  ‘Bali?’ I squeak.

  ‘The deal was if Leanne could get good grades and behave like a normal fifteen year old, I’d take you both for a week to Bali in August.’

  ‘Bali?’

  I’m stunned.

  ‘Thought we were poor,’ I go.

  ‘I was going to use my hot bread money.’

  Bali. The surfing capital of the world. Kuta Beach. Yes. My dream come true. The last time I surfed at Jan Juc the surf was icy cold, straight from the south pole, and I got a major ice-cream headache. And now we’re not going to Bali because of some dumb red hair dye? This is crazy.

  ‘Mum,’ I say desperately, ‘Leanne can dye her hair back to brown. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘No way,’ says Leanne.

  Mum and I both glare at her. She glares back.

  ‘Bali isn’t worth this bad trip,’ she snarls and slams the bedroom door shut.

  ‘Mum …’

  ‘Quiet, Sam. I don’t need you bleating in my ear.’

  Just then the phone goes. Mum thumps off to answer it while I reel against the wall, devastated. Bali. So close. I was practically hitting the surf. And now all wrecked because of my dumb sister. I can’t give up. I knock softly on Leanne’s door. I can hear the faint pound of the Gunners coaxing the lupins to even greater heights.

  ‘Leanne!’

  ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘But, Leanne. Kuta Beach!’

  ‘Go suck ya socks.’

  Mum. I’ll work on Mum. I go into the kitchen, climb up on the stool and rat round in the cupboard till I find her precious supply of Earl Grey tea. I boil the kettle. I can hear her voice, sort of soft and mushy, wafting down the passage. Who’s she talking to?

  ‘All right, you win, Steve,’ she says.

  Steve? Who is Steve?

  The water boils and I heat the teapot first. I get some cheese and slice it, grab some carrots and celery and cut them into neat strips. I make the tea, two scoops. I open some water biscuits and as an afterthought, snatch a tub of Mexican dip out of the fridge just as she walks into the kitchen.

  ‘Here’s a little snack for you, Mum.’

  She looks surprised then pleased.

  ‘Ah. You’re a good kid, Sam.’

  Kid! Doesn’t she know she’s talking to the future surf king of Kuta Beach?

  I sit at the opposite end of the table watching her as she sips her tea and munches on a carrot stick.

  ‘About Bali,’ I go.

  But she’s not listening. She’s got this weird look on her face.

  ‘Mum!’

  She looks at me as if she’s seeing me for the first time.

  ‘I’ve got a date, Sam.’

  A date? My mother? What is this? Mothers don’t date!

  ‘He’s been asking me for two weeks to go out with him and I’ve kept saying “no”,’ says Mum, ‘But when Leanne upset me so much and he phoned again I thought what the hell–so I’m going out to dinner.’

  I’m in shock.

  ‘Who?’ I go at last.

  ‘Huh? Oh, Steve.’

  I’ve got to be patient. I’ve heard that middle-aged women can suddenly snap and go nuts. The shock of Leanne’s blood-red hair has tipped her over the edge.

  ‘Mum. Who is Steve?’

  ‘You’ve met him,’ she says. ‘The cop.’

  The cop? Which cop? Then I remember this old dude with wrinkles and grey hair coming on to my mum on the highway and I gulp.

  ‘Mum. You can’t. He’s got kids. He’s married. He said he had a daughter like Leanne at home, remember? You can’t go trolling off to dinner with a married man!’

  ‘Was married,’ says Mum. ‘He’s divorced.’

  Oh, great. I’ve read about this, seen it on TV. He hasn’t got a home of his own because his wife and ten kids are in it so he moves out of his dinky little flat, in with us, then his wife clears off to Cairns with some guy and her kids don’t want to go with her so they all come and live with us, and …

  ‘No. No,’ I shout, banging the table so hard that the Mexican dip leaps in the air.

  ‘What? What?’ yells Leanne, charging out of her room.

  ‘Mum’s got a date.’

  Leanne gapes.

  ‘Mum’s got a date with that old cop Steve: you know, the one who was giving her the greasy eyeball on the highway while he was pretending to check out our car.’

  Leanne stares at Mum. Then she doubles up laughing, holding onto the sink.

  ‘You’ve gotta be jokin’,’ she gasps. ‘Mum? Dating?’

  ‘I don’t see what’s so funny,’ goes Mum.

  ‘I do. You? Oh, Mum, get real.’

  I can’t help it. It’s so stupid. Mum on a hot date with Steve the super-cop? I crack, and Leanne and I are both falling about holding our sides laughing. Mum sits still with her mouth pursed.

  ‘Is he pickin you up in the cop car?’ chortles Leanne.

  I nearly wet my pants.

  ‘Takin you out in the booze bus?’

  I’m rolling on the floor, clutching my stomach.

  ‘If you’ve finished,’ says Mum, rising and going over to the sink to rinse out her cup. ‘I’m going to take a shower. You guys can have baked beans on toast for tea.’

  She walks out. We both stop laughing and look at each other.

  ‘She’s re
ally goin out with that cop?’ says Leanne.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s gotta have her head read. He’s old, at least forty, maybe fifty.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, so’s Mum.’

  ‘This is disgusting.’

  ‘Yeah. What are we gonna do?’

  ‘Dunno. Short of lockin her in the house there’s not much we can do.’

  ‘Let me think …’

  We sit there in silence. Mum comes out of the bathroom and we hear her go to her bedroom. Her wardrobe door bangs. Drawers open and shut.

  ‘Wonder if she’s gonna wear her white cotton tails that take three men and a dog to lift off the clothes line?’ says Leanne. ‘Real passion killers, those knickers.’

  ‘Leanne.’

  ‘All right. All right. Only jokin. I mean, they’re not gonna have sex or anythin, are they? Too old.’

  I think about this. There was some old fossil in Tassie, eighty-five or something, who married some woman of forty and they had a kid. I’m not sure when old people dry up sexually. But Mum? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘We’re panicking,’ I go, ‘he’s probably gonna troll her down to the RSL, play indoor bowls or whatever old people do, feed her the schnitzel special and bring her home. What’s there to worry about?’

  ‘Leanne!’

  Mum’s in the doorway dressed to kill in a black dress I’ve never seen before, her hair piled up on her head, make-up for Africa, and she’s clutching the nearly empty bottle of Giorgio.

  ‘Oh-no.’

  ‘You can buy me another bottle with your next lot of hot bread money, do you hear me?’ snaps Mum.

  Leanne just nods. We’re both dumbfounded. Mum looks … well, kind of reasonable.

  The front doorbell rings.

  ‘Whoa. It’s Robocop,’ Leanne drawls.

  ‘Let him in.’

  ‘No way.’

  Their eyes lock in battle. The doorbell rings again. If someone doesn’t open the door he’ll probably call in the SWAT team and a few mega tonnes of tear gas. I go and open the door. There’s this stranger standing there, brown jacket and pants, holding a long-stemmed red rose. Then he smiles and I recognise the crinkly wrinkles.

  ‘Hi, Sam,’ he says.

  ‘Er … hi.’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  ‘Huh? Oh … yeah … sure …’

  I hold the door wide and he walks in and stands there, waiting.

  ‘Oh. Er … in here.’

  I show him the lounge room. Leanne tries to slink past but he spots her.

  ‘Hello, young lady.’

  Leanne grunts and goes to her room. The door bangs behind her. Then Mum comes into the lounge room and in the soft light she actually looks quite young and pretty.

  ‘Shall we go?’ she says to Steve, and they swan off together, just like that.

  I’ve got this awful feeling that our lives will never be the same again.

  LEANNE

  *

  That’s it. I’ve got this feeling life’ll never be the same round here again. This Steve’ll con Mum for sure, move in and make my life a serious misery. Imagine, a cop living here, busting me and all my friends for getting into Newies underage, smelling my breath for mull fumes, reading the riot act every time I go out with some guy. That is, if any guys ask me: they won’t want to know me if they know that I’m living with the Cop from Hell.

  I call Fern.

  ‘I’m splittin,’ I go.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Goin on the run. You comin or what?’

  ‘I thought you were gonna wait till the lupins finished growin but.’

  ‘Lupins? Forget them. There’s more important things in life than dumb lupins.’

  I tell her about Mum.

  ‘I think it’s kinda cute,’ she goes.

  ‘Get real, Fern. Do I need a stepfather who’s a cop?’

  ‘But they’re only on their first date, Leanne. They might be sexually incompatible.’

  ‘At their age they’ll take anything. No, he’s all set to grab Mum and she’s too dopey to see that he’s just a wrinkly on the make. A worn-out cop with nothing else to do but to crack onto my mum.’

  ‘Leanne!’

  ‘Well, it’s true. Now, are you comin with me or not?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh. Can’t we wait?’

  ‘What are we waitin for, Fern?’

  ‘Well … I dunno. Things aren’t so bad at my place right now. Let’s wait till … say … after Christmas.’

  ‘That’s six months away. Let’s not.’

  ‘Aw, I dunno.’

  ‘Chicken?’

  ‘Nah, but … the timin’s not right for me, Leanne.’

  ‘Ya know what? The timin’s never goin to be right for you, Fern.’

  I hang up the receiver with a loud crash. Well that’s it, then. I’m on my own.

  I go into my room and fling open the wardrobe doors. What am I going to take? It’s hot up north. Well, not King’s Cross, but Noosa will be, and that’s where I’ll end up. I’ll need King’s Cross gear first. Jeans. T-shirts. Undies. Socks. Sneakers. And the mini. But maybe they’re wearing long skirts with splits up there? Money. I can buy stuff when I get there. I’ve got to travel light. But how do I get there? Hitch. Dangerous, but. Some horny old wrinkly might try it on. There’s got to be some serious surfing dudes heading north. If I pick the right ride it’ll be cool. But how do I find that out? Ah. Little bro. Sam’s Forte and Torquay Junket magazines.

  Lucky. He’s watching TV so I sneak into his room and find the latest editions. I flip through. Sure enough, there’s three rides going north. One’s too late, left a week ago. One’s going in a month’s time. Can’t wait that long. Hey, one ride’s going tomorrow. This is scary stuff.

  I believe in fate. I go out to the phone and call Dial a Star. I’m Libra. The voice comes over the line clearly.

  The forceful side of your nature may spring into action without warning and confusion may develop over a proposed venture. Security will be an important provision. But ideas and ambitions you have been dreaming about will now take shape. A trip can be expected in relation to your chosen goals. You will be in touch with someone special who is far away. Be wary of those who ask favours or want to interfere with your plans. Financial gain is indicated through career, relatives or real estate, so take every opportunity. Lucky numbers 15, 23, 24.’

  Yes. I hang up. Destiny is leading me along a new path and I’ve got to have the courage to follow where it leads me. Scary, huh. I grab the Junket and phone the number before I lose my courage.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The ride up north,’ I go. ‘Is there still a seat?’

  Silence. Then the voice speaks.

  ‘Depends. Who wants it?’

  ‘Me.’

  Silence. Then the voice speaks again.

  ‘Weren’t plannin on takin a chick.’

  ‘I can pay.’

  ‘Hundred bucks.’

  ‘Get real,’ I’m starting to feel annoyed. ‘I can get the bus on concession for sixty.’

  I know this because this girl Erica went up to Brisbane to see her mum and that’s how much it was.

  ‘Sixty, then. Take it or leave it.’

  I think quickly. The bus’d be safer for sure, but traceable. This ride’s riskier because I don’t know them, but there’s got to be less chance of getting pulled up by the cops.

  ‘Fifty,’ goes the guy. ‘And that’s it. You buy your own food.’

  ‘Okay. I’ll take it.’

  ‘Leavin at ten. Where’ll we pick you up?’

  I think fast. Not at home; someone might get the rego number.

  ‘Vine Street and Montrose.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  He hangs up. I realise I don’t know his name, but as long as a vehicle picks me up and I can con the driver to go to King’s Cross I don’t care. I go to my room and pack. I won’t phone Fern and tell her because sh
e’ll crack under pressure and the less she knows the better: I’ll send her a crazy card when I get there. I look at my Strapper bag with all my worldly possessions. It seems kinda small. Like I said, I can always buy more stuff. I’ve got a hundred and thirty bucks I’ve been saving for this so money’s not a problem.

  I’m in the back of this old Holden station wagon sitting next to some guy called Mattie. Rick’s driving and Nathan’s beside him. The back of the wagon’s jam-packed with surfboards, wetsuits and bags of gear. They were ten minutes late picking me up and I was dead scared they weren’t going to show. And when they did I had major problems.

  ‘Hey. It’s a kid.’

  ‘How old are you, kid?’

  ‘Eighteen,’ I lie.

  ‘Yeah. And I’m forty-five. We don’t want no trouble with a minor.’

  ‘No trouble,’ I say. ‘All I want’s a ride to King’s … I mean, a ride north.’

  ‘Dunno. Hey, aren’t you that kid Sam’s sister?’

  ‘Nah. She’s got black hair,’ says the driver.

  ‘Am I comin or not?’ I go. The longer I stand in the street arguing there’s more chance of someone springing me.

  ‘All right. Get in. But any trouble and you’re out on your ear, got it?’

  ‘Got it.’

  So I’m sitting in the back gazing out the window. Not that there’s much to look at—towns that are real holes, and flat paddocks. We’re already over the border into New South Wales before they pull over into a service station for a late lunch. They’ve only made one brief petrol-toilet stop on the Hume Highway at Bunker’s Hill and they’re not messing round with the speedo, either. Well, that suits me fine. So far they’ve virtually ignored me except to ask my name.

  ‘Christine.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You can call me Chris.’

  ‘Yeah. Right. Chris.’

  They’re cool, eh.

  ‘Lunch,’ says Rick, as we pile out of the wagon and stretch our legs. ‘Only fifteen minutes, but.’

  ‘I’ll shout ya,’ I go.

  ‘Yeah. Right.’

  At least I don’t owe them any favours if I buy their lunches, do I? It’s hamburgers with the lot, chips, and Cokes to go. I didn’t realise travelling could make you so hungry. And so tired. They’ve switched drivers and Mattie’s at the wheel. When I wake up I’ve got my head on Nathan’s shoulder and it’s dark outside except for streetlights.