Brothers & Sisters - Charlotte Wood [83]
When I opened my right eye she was looking back at her lap.
I touched her arm. Her thin white arm.
‘Klara,’ I said. I didn’t know what else needed to be said anymore. I tried our old call sign, one of the secret codes we used together. ‘Time flies like an arrow.’
‘Very nice to see you, Natalie,’ she responded. She was supposed to reply, ‘Fruit flies like a banana.’
Squidge stood and stretched, the bones in his back cracking.
I took Klara’s hand in mine. I wanted to have the sensation of our damp childish hands clasped together under the desk one more time. But her hand was dry. Under the skin I could feel the tremor of her bones and muscles, a tremor that probably never left her.
‘I’m glad you made it,’ I told her softly, so her husband didn’t hear, so there was one good thing left between us.
She stood. Her husband held out his hand to help her and she took her hand from mine and gave it to him like a princess taking the hand of the footman from the carriage step. He held her hand high as she edged her way out from the table.
‘Goodbye,’ I said.
‘Goodbye,’ she answered.
Once, we were like sisters. But we were not sisters. She has a real sister and a brother and they are her family. And she owes me nothing.
BLOOD
Tony Birch
Tommy Cole introduced himself to Nez and me wearing a pair of tight jeans, a black T-shirt, a felt cowboy hat sweat-stained around the brim, and a pair of R.M. Williams he spent half of his time spit polishing. The day he turned up we were living in a caravan on the beachfront in Adelaide. Gwen brought him home to the van from a club in town where she was working. The next morning he took a look around the van and told Gwen that a woman of her beauty and talent deserved better, which made Nez laugh; she had decided that Tommy was funny and that maybe he liked her.
We moved out of the van that day, into a motel further along the strip. Tommy booked two rooms, one for Nez and me to share, and the other for him and Gwen.
I didn’t like the look of Tommy. He was way too friendly to be trusted. But I was happy with the move, as the motel had a swimming pool, cable TV and room service that let you order just about any meal you could think of.
The first night at the motel we watched a cop movie in our room while Gwen and Tommy went out drinking and dancing somewhere. They got back late, long after the movie was over and I’d turned off the TV, put the lights out and gone to bed.
Only a paper-thin wall separated their room from ours and they kept me awake for most of the night. I could tell by the sound of Gwen’s voice coming through the wall—she was just about singing— that she was drunk again. They played music and drank some more, while Tommy screamed out, ‘Trick or treat, baby, trick or treat,’ every five minutes or so, like they were having a Halloween party.
The next morning Gwen giggled that they were madly in love as she put her arm around Tommy’s neck and chewed at his ear. And within a day or two she was talking about marriage, although I was pretty sure she hadn’t discussed her plans with Tommy. While he was off doing some ‘business’ that Gwen would not elaborate on, she sat us at the breakfast table in the motel dining room and explained how Nez would be her flower girl, ‘A pink satin dress, Nezzie, with fresh flowers through your hair,’ while I would be giving the bride away.
Gwen then reached across the table and touched my cheek with the back of her hand. ‘You could get yourself a suit, Jesse. With pinstripes and all. You’ll look like a real man.’
I didn’t like the idea of Tommy becoming stepfather to us, but I wasn’t too worried about the prospect either. Gwen had announced that she was getting married about four or five times before and nothing came of it, so I wasn’t expecting wedding bells in any hurry.
She and Tommy went hard at it day and night for the next week or so. After breakfast each morning he’d give me money to take Nez to see a movie and eat as much takeaway as we could stuff into ourselves. When we weren’t at the movies