Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [45]
'What about a phone bill? An overseas driver's licence?' the man asks.
'So a phone bill with no photo is better than an out-of-date driver's licence?' Will is getting really mad now.
Mum shakes her head. She rubs her eyes. All Mum's points are in Declan's garage.
'This is such bullshit!' Will shouts.
'I don't make the rules,' the Centrelink man says again.
Mum takes Will by the hand. I don't think she's done that since he was five years old. She pats his hand. Her face is grey. His is red. Mum stands up. She takes my hand too and we walk out of the office.
Will sweats and swears. Mum tells him to hush. He kicks at a crumpled-up bit of paper on the floor, and swears at her, and now we're exactly like everyone else in the Centrelink office.
Outside, Mum tries to shush him again and he claims that he's all right. She still wants to take him to see a doctor. And she still needs her one hundred points.
I'd prefer to dig through boxes in the garage than sit in emergency all day, especially with Will in a foul mood, so we make a deal.
She gives me twenty dollars and I head for the bus stop.
The first part is okay. I just catch the bus that says 'City', but then as we get closer it occurs to me that the city is a pretty big place and I don't know all of it very well, just Pitt Street Mall and The Rocks and most of Darling Harbour. I know some other bits as well, because we used to have family friends at Watsons Bay, Balmain and Paddington, but I don't know where they are in relation to other parts, because I've never needed to know.
So I get off near the QVB, which I do know, because those are the only public toilets that Mum will use when we're shopping, and then I stand there looking at the bus timetables until a nice old man tells me to go up to Wynyard. I follow his directions, and I must walk ten blocks! But it isn't so bad, because the buildings are nice and there are interesting windows to look into, and I'm enjoying checking out all the office chicks' shoes. Besides, in that part of the city you don't get those people coming up and begging for money, which can happen down near Haymarket.
And then I have to wait forever for a bus. It's really longer than forever, because the whole time I'm panicking that the old man has told me the wrong thing, and I keep leaning in the doors of every bus that pulls up and asking the drivers where they're going. I have no idea how long the forever is, since I don't have a mobile phone any more, which is what I used to tell the time before, but of course that was one of the very first things to go – even before Foxtel and Mum and Dad's wine club membership.
I don't really understand how come wine club was more important than my safety, which is what a mobile is, when you come right down to it, but anyway, I finally get on the right bus and it goes back down around the QVB and up Clarence Street, so I didn't need to walk all that way after all.
The whole trip is really quite a long one, especially sitting among a whole bunch of old people and freaks. Haven't any of these people heard of deodorant? And I'm so hungry by the end, but I'm afraid to buy myself something to eat, because what if I run out of money? I could say to passers-by, 'Excuse me, I need a few bucks to catch a bus,' but nobody would believe me, because that's what all the bums say. I have to keep reminding myself that it's not just povvos, the A-listers are hungry all the time too.
The whole way to Declan's I wonder how many people I've walked past on the street who actually, truly, wanted a few bucks to catch a bus. How did they get where they needed to go? Are their mums still out at a caravan park near St Marys somewhere waiting for them to arrive?
Declan is at home having another sick day. He sees me out the window, and I can hear his feet running down the hall, but when he opens the door he's all casual. I want to hug him because I've missed him, but I'm being casual too.
'Do you ever go to school?' I ask as I saunter past him into the house.
'Do you?' he counters. 'How