Girl Next Door - Alyssa Brugman [55]
'And how much would we get if we put the whole lot on?' Will asks.
Bryce Cole scratches his chin. 'Let me see . . . times by . . . hmm – six thousand four hundred.'
'Okay. And how much will we get if this horse loses?' I ask. 'Zero. Zilch. Doughnut.'
The cleaning man saunters in. He has a rag over his shoulder, an apron with a bottle of Ajax poking out the top of the pocket and he's rubbing his hands with a Chux. He's a million years old and bow-legged.
'We got oursells a dead-un,' he tells the barman in a drawl.
I dig Will in the ribs. 'Did you hear that?' I whisper. 'Did he say a dead-un? He said a dead-un! Oh my God! It's the eck, eck, eck man!'
I can't believe I actually heard someone die.
I saw a dead person once on the side of the road. There had been an accident, and there was a body on an ambulance gurney all wrapped up in a white sheet. We were all in the car together – our whole family – and nobody said anything. Mum was driving. She had to concentrate, because they'd set out witches' hats and three lanes were all merging into one.
If Tanner and Sapph were here they'd want to hold a seance. They were so big on supernatural stuff. Sapph was in love with John Edward, even though when he talks it looks as though somebody else's lips have been superimposed on his face.
'Six thousand?' Mum repeats. She starts flipping notes onto the table.
'What shall we do in the meantime?' Bryce Cole glances towards the poker machines in the corner.
'No way!' I say, standing up. 'Did you hear what he said? Somebody died. I can't stay here!'
'We can go to the park,' Bryce Cole suggests.
Around the corner there is a park next to the railway line. It has massive palm trees in a row and a cement path winding through the middle. A few of those dirty, grey birds with the long beaks slouch around the bin. Bryce Cole lays out overlapping sheets of his newspaper on the ground and we sit on them as though it's a picnic rug. Mum has her legs curled up under her. She lifts up her face to drink in the sun and she has a little smile on her face as if she's on some beach holiday. Bryce Cole lies down. He interlinks his fingers over his chest and dozes.
To pass the time I send texts to Declan, explaining how somebody died and we left the scene, which will look suspicious, and now we're waiting in the park till it's time to spend our very last money in one go on a stupid horse, and when we get back to the pub all the CSI guys will be there, and we'll be taken away for questioning.
Come over, he texts.
Yeah, right, how am I going to do that? Walk?
Remembering my domino theory from last night, I ask Declan if he's talked to his mum yet. That will work even better! If Declan tells her about the affair, she can run screaming from the house, and then after my mum loses all our money we can go over there to stay, and I won't even be the messenger. Not that Declan's mother can have a much lower opinion of me. Assuming we don't get arrested for killing the old man.
Declan hasn't talked to her. That's too bad.
I watch Bryce Cole lying there on the newspaper. I wonder what will happen to him after this is over, because he's not coming with us to our new life. I can't see Declan's dad wanting Bryce Cole around. Besides, there is no way Mum would be friends with him if she wasn't desperate. He's like the friend you make when you're on holidays and never see again. He's the girl you sit next to when you picked a dumb elective class. He's the opposite of a fair-weather friend. He's a cyclone-weather friend.
Half an hour before the race we go back to the Plough and Peanut. There are no CSI guys. Mum lays out all her fifties on the table. I'm relieved to see the corners of a red and a blue note still in her wallet as she slips it back into her handbag.
Bryce Cole places the bet with the barman. Then we wait. Mum orders a glass of wine. Everyone's staring at the television. The car keys are in the middle of the table. I place my hand over them.
A guy in an ambulance uniform comes in the front door of the pub with a gurney. He's here to pick