The Tankermen Read online

  Finn certainly felt different, very awake and busy-minded. He walked up and down the fence fighting off a bored, waiting-for-the-shops-to-open restlessness. He wished the sun was high and the world was hard and noisy and real again. He wouldn’t leave the clothes until they dried; he didn’t want anyone pinching them, or knocking them off the railing just for the fun of it. He wasn’t going to wash them twice. They were like a trap, being so clean and damp—

  And so small. He picked up the singlet and spread it over his knee. His half-brother Alex had been a baby once, responding to Finn’s tickling and face-making with spasms of delight. And by the end of last year he’d been up and toddling, smearing his drool on the TV screen, climbing all over Finn if he lay down on the floor. Alex had liked head-banging; he’d drop his skull on your nose so you saw stars and almost cried from the pain, and then sit back and laugh like he’d won the lottery. He’d thought Finn was the coolest thing on two legs.

  For a while Alex had been enough to make up for living at his dad’s place every second year, for Janet treating him so politely, like an honoured guest. Finn had felt almost useful. He’d take Alex off Janet’s hands after school so she could have a nap, he’d wheel him around Strathfield in the stroller, read him stories at bedtime. From looking after Gran he’d gone to looking after his brother, and Alex gave him the same feeling of being essential, golden, capable of anything.

  At Alex’s second birthday party Finn had been the games leader, the centre of the whole circus. But then his father had come home and been unable to stop talking. ‘Don’t be so rough with those kids, Donny. Can you keep the noise level down a bit, son? Lois, is it okay if Donny throws Aaron in the air like that? It looks so dangerous. Don, just cool it! Someone’ll get hurt if you don’t watch out!’ His dad just didn’t know, or had forgotten, what rubbery, relaxed bodies two-year-olds had, how they could flop and fall about without hurting themselves. He was like a man who couldn’t swim, hovering anxiously at the edge of the pool while his kids porpoised around in the deep end. Finn had felt all the other parents grow more and more tense with his father, whereas before they’d been happy just sitting and laughing at Finn and the kids tumbling around the yard.

  Ah, it was bad news, that place. He’d been a dinosaur, a relic from an extinct world. His dad didn’t really want to be bothered with him, and covered it up by bothering too much, needling and lecturing and pushing every point home too far until Finn felt like a beetle pinned alive to a specimen board, squirming. Things didn’t matter that much, surely. The world was a big place. There was space in it for a messy room, for clothes with holes in them and hair that was too long, for people to dither a bit before deciding to act. But his dad was so certain he was right, it drove Finn up the wall.

  Then there was this other thing. When Finn had turned up this last time and rushed in to greet them all, Dr Finley, neatly dressed in his work suit, had stood up from the breakfast table, startled, as if about to grab a weapon and defend Janet and Alex from the intruder.

  ‘Oh. Don. It’s you.’ And he’d stuck out a hand, as if Finn were a colleague at work or something. Finn had had to stand there for half a second with his arms out ready for hugging, then drop them and submit to a formal handshake, wondering what terrible mistake he’d made, that was sending him so deeply red.

  Suddenly there was this new rule—back off from Dad. Janet and Alex still kissed him goodnight, but his father did not. Finn had tried to do what he always did with his father—keep the annoyance hidden away and go along with him—but this time it felt like too much of a concession. He could feel the hollow it had carved out of his insides.

  It must be the change in himself, he’d thought. He shouldn’t have let himself grow so skinny and gangling. He was all wrists, ankles and neck—well, that was hardly huggable material, was it? There’d been the same changes in Alex; he was a ‘big kid’ now, all traces of babyhood gone from his face. But his skin was still perfect, while Finn’s was troubled by the occasional spot. Alex still said cute, ignorant things, whereas if Finn didn’t know something his dad seemed to think he had to tell him, and tell him once and for all. This time around the lectures had been relentless and angry, the quizzing questions almost constant.

  Janet, that last day, had appeared at Finn’s bedroom door while the tidy body, tidy mind tirade was being delivered to Finn’s bowed neck.

  ‘And look me in the eye, boy, when I speak to you!’ his dad had suddenly yelled, making Finn jump. Finn had looked up and seen Janet, her head on one side, looking back, quite serious. His dad had glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘Is there something you want, Janet?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d like a word with you in private, Richard.’ She hadn’t taken her eyes off Finn.

  They’d gone off, and it was in the despairing quiet that followed, with their muted voices in the next room, that Finn had made his decision. He stuck his wallet and bank book in the back pocket of his jeans and walked out. And the farther he walked the less he was inclined to go back. He’d listened to his last lecture. It was Alex’s turn now—Alex could cop the lot. The air of late spring was mild and kind; it promised to remain so for an infinite number of nights, while the great size and the complex, grubby ways of the city claimed him.

  Finn replaced the singlet on the churchyard rail. By now his father would be up, dressed and breakfasting. He would be barely noticing the fruit salad and yoghurt he ate, scowling intently at the newspaper. Finn’s belly groaned and he shook his head free of the breakfast image. He was always hungry; as a rule, he tried to banish food thoughts quickly. When the bank opened, that’d be soon enough to eat.

  He figured he had about three hours to fill. The baby clothes would be dry and packed away in the bin by then, ready for collection. He’d be free, provided he ran into no police, and kept his eyes peeled for trouble. He would go to the bank for a fresh ten dollars, and scrounge around for some cheap food. It was Monday; this afternoon he’d sidle into the TV shop and find out what was happening on Paradise Row. The day would firm up nicely. It was only now, at the tail end of the dead hours, that there was too much time for chewing over things best forgotten and mentally fending off the future. At times like this Finn was scared of going crazy, of ending up like a lot of the old guys around this place, muttering or yelling as angry memories ran wild through their drink-rotted brains. He had to tell himself it wouldn’t happen. He tried to live entirely within the present moment, mindless as the mynah birds that strutted and swore in the sun.

  2

  Jed

  The TV shop, crammed with goods, was almost empty of people. Out of the corner of his eye Finn saw Bodgie, of the shiny blue suit and narrow tie, turn from flirting with the saleswoman to adjust himself for attack. Finn idled past the on-special fans towards the door. A dozen Todd McIntyres, some a bit greener, some a bit greyer than others, raged along the wall beside him: ‘I should never have married you! You never think of anyone but yourself!’

  Finn slid out on to the pavement. Monday nights were a chore. The other days of the week, Frank, a nice guy, let him stand and watch TV as long as he liked, but Bodgie was the ruthless type, wanting to see either your money or the back of you. He knew Finn, so Finn could only catch up with Paradise Row when he was tied up smarming with a customer or looking down Michelle’s blouse. Sometimes Finn had to spend the whole episode outside, gathering what he could from lip-reading and people’s expressions.

  The thing that held him to the show wasn’t so much the story, anyway, or even the characters, who were pretty colourless. What he liked was knowing that all the Greenlawns people were clustering around the TV up there near Casino. He liked concentrating on what they were concentrating on, losing himself the way they did in the silly dialogue and the world of cardboard sets and contrived situations. Some days he could almost smell the freshly laundered cotton-cell blanket over Gran’s knee, feel the wheel of her chair curving against his shoulder-blade, see Mrs Stanwick’s crocheti
ng idle in her lap, hear the tiny clopping sounds of Barney fiddling his false teeth with his tongue. Even from the centre of the Cross, hemmed in by specials bins and ambling customers, with the usual madness going on outside, he could escape for an hour to the dim stillness of the TV room at Greenlawns.

  But when dinnertime rolled around, Finn’s belly reminded him all too clearly that he was there no longer. He turned from the shop window, forcing away memories of watery mashed potato and peas, thin grey slices of roast beef.

  The Cross was twitchy tonight; the heat brought its hidden nastiness closer to the surface. Finn watched the bikers confabulating, all tattoos and studs and black leather, their machines in a gleaming regiment along the kerb. They spent a lot of time glancing around, over their shoulders. A girl wasn’t safe from appraisal or wolf-whistles unless she was covered from chin to ankle, and on such a hot night few girls were. Finn watched the boyfriends’ heads come up, the girls’ go down, the decision not to react to the hassling almost visible in the air around them. There were a lot of bikers, and they weren’t exactly weedy.

  Bodgie was standing at the shop doorway, trying to look as if he wasn’t paying Finn any attention. And after a moment he wasn’t, as a gaggle of women in party dresses and high heels staggered past the shop, busting out of their bodices with laughter.

  Finn would have watched them himself if he hadn’t been aware of Bodgie’s gaze running all over them like fiddling fingers. He tensed up for the bikers’ reactions and was wincing at the first shouts and whistles when he saw two giggling street kids, their eyes glazed and their limbs uncoordinated, barge out of the chemist’s next to the TV shop. They knocked over the highly polished BMW at the end of the stack of bikes, practically upended a beefy biker who’d been wandering around it admiringly, and stormed through the traffic yelling their heads off.

  Out of the pack of wolf-whistles came a loud ‘Hey!’, and an even beefier bloke leapt up and strode towards the big guy. ‘Whathafuckyathinkyadoin’, mate?’ His voice sounded like a chainsaw, and Finn felt everyone within hearing distance pause and prepare for an incident.

  The big guy stood there looking guilty as anything. ‘I didn’t do nothin’, mate. These two kids nearly knocked me over—’ He cocked a thumb over his shoulder, glancing hopelessly at the crowd on the opposite side of the street. Finn could see the two kids hanging off the kerb down at the corner, holding each other up while they looked back and laughed, but neither of the bikers noticed them.

  ‘Sure they did, ya great fuckinidiot. Don’t touch the bikes, mate, that’s the rules round here!’ He was closing in on the other guy. People got quieter and walked more slowly to catch the action.

  ‘I tell you, it wasn’t me. Why would I want to knock your bike over? I was just having a look—’ He was getting a bit pissed off himself, the guilty look wearing through to self-righteousness.

  ‘Good question, mate, good question.’ The bigger guy was ramming his face right up to the other guy’s, doing scary things with his teeth and eyes. Any minute now he’d bring up his knee, Finn knew. He’d seen this guy in action before.

  ‘Hey!’ Finn’s voice sounded high and piping, like Peter Pan’s. Hot blood pushed up into his head as he ducked through a line of onlookers to the kerb. He took a flying leap over the spilled bike and grabbed the big guy’s elbow, expecting it to crunch back into his face. ‘You’ve got the wrong bloke, mate.’

  The guy didn’t move. ‘This a friend of yours?’ he said aggressively to a point just above the other guy’s eyebrows.

  Finn tugged on his leathered sleeve. ‘He doesn’t know me. I saw those kids. They’re over there.’ Finn hauled on the elbow and fixed the two kids with a finger. The big guy turned in time to see the two of them gape, then clutch each other and dash across the far intersection against the lights. They disappeared in the crowd. ‘They were pissed as newts,’ Finn said. ‘They couldn’t see where they were going.’

  The guy’s shoulders dropped, and Finn sensed the onlookers shifting about and beginning to move on.

  ‘Here, mate, give you a hand lifting the bike up,’ said the other guy, his face slack with relief. They looked at each other warily, then Finn stepped out of the way while they grunted the bike upright again. The big bloke swore a blue streak at the dented tank and the scratches on the muffler, but he wasn’t spoiling for a fight any more. Finn and the other guy swore sympathetically and clicked their tongues.

  ‘You won’t catch ’em in a million years,’ said Finn.

  The big bloke’s mates started gathering around and trying to work out how much it would cost to restore the Beemer to its former glory.

  ‘You saved my nuts, mate,’ muttered the beefy biker into Finn’s ear.

  ‘Yep, I did.’ Finn grinned up at him. He was all red hair and ginger whiskers, with sharp blue eyes and a round bump of a nose like Santa Claus’s.

  ‘I’d shout you a beer if you weren’t under age. Can I buy you a juice or something instead?’ He held out a big red-freckled paw and Finn’s thin hand disappeared inside it.

  ‘Okay,’ said Finn. He felt tiny and slender, just a scrap of flesh and bone next to this mass of black-clad man.

  The big man bought two cans of lemon squash, and they took them out on the street to drink as they walked. Finn usually managed on bubbler-water; a soft drink was a real novelty these days. He tried not to show it.

  ‘Well, my name’s Jed, anyway,’ said the biker after the first swig.

  ‘I’m Finn.’

  ‘You live around here?’

  ‘Yeah, I hang out here. What about you?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve got a place with some mates in Darlinghurst.’

  ‘What, a squat?’

  ‘Oh no, it’s legit. We pay rent and that.’

  ‘You work, then?’

  ‘Sometimes—but not at the moment. I’m a motorbike mechanic when I can get the work.’ Jed looked down at him sidelong. ‘What about you? Still at school, are you?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Jed raised his eyebrows. Finn, flattered that the guy was even bothering with him, went on, ‘I should be still at school, but I’m not.’

  ‘Ah.’ Jed nodded. ‘You flunk out?’

  ‘Nah, I just . . . got sick of it.’ They were having to work a bit to stay together in the press of people. Someone jabbed Finn in the back with an elbow, and he and Jed turned and said ‘Watch it!’ at the same time. Finn felt companionable. His head was a mess of hopeful thoughts and warnings, all of which he tried to ignore. He hadn’t talked to anyone else today except the bank teller.

  ‘Know the feeling,’ said Jed. ‘I went to tech. Even doing stuff you like—like I was learning all about bikes—it’s hard to get motivated some mornings, hey.’

  ‘You’re not wrong.’ Finn had a sharp picture of himself striding along the street in the dead hours, and the bad air stopping him in his tracks. It had been a long time ago—he looked out over William Street from the overpass and saw the last light greening the western sky.

  Jed stopped beside him. ‘You just get sick of living at home, too?’ he said.

  ‘How’d you know that?’ Finn was put out. He’d thought he kept himself pretty clean and civilised-looking.

  ‘Just the hours you keep, for someone so young. And I dunno, there’s something about street kids. Like, I don’t think a kid coming up the Cross with his mum and dad would’ve stepped in back there, between me and that joker.’ Jed glanced at Finn’s face. ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I won’t tell anyone. Heaps of kids go on the loose these days. You into drugs?’

  Finn looked closely at him, ready to back off if he made any offers. ‘Nope.’

  ‘You pinch stuff?’

  ‘Only apples, from the fruit shop.’

  Jed laughed. ‘Well, at least it’s not smokes, I guess. I used to pinch things. A few years ago I went through a stage where I couldn’t stop myself. Stuff I didn’t need, mostly, from big department stores. DJ’s was best, sneaking stuff out past that nice,
polite doorman. It felt good at the time. I wouldn’t dare now.’ He chuckled, gazing out over the whizzing traffic. ‘I’m old now. I’m all mellow, you know?’

  ‘Sure. I noticed all the grey hairs in your beard, before,’ Finn joked, pleased—the guy seemed all right, not a kinkoid or anything. It didn’t seem to make any difference that Finn was so much smaller and younger.

  ‘Yeah, once you hit twenty-five, you go soft in the head, I reckon. You stop blaming everyone else for your own problems.’

  Finn glanced at him, wondering if that was a put-down. Was that what he was doing, blaming everyone else? Was that what his running away was all about, a criticism of Janet, Dad and Mum? He guessed they could easily take it like that, but on reflection he didn’t think it was. It was some new part of himself wanting to be heard, and he couldn’t hear it while his dad was hurling opinions around the place, while Alex was asking ‘Why? Why? Why?’, while his mum was rushing about from work to supermarket to kitchen, trying not to think about Gran.

  ‘Hey, wanna go for a ride?’ said Jed.

  Finn’s defences snapped up again. ‘Ah, what d’you mean?’

  ‘On my bike. Let’s go out to the beach. Bondi. How about it?’

  He seemed so straightforward that Finn said okay before he could stop himself. ‘Where’s your bike?’

  ‘Just along this street here. Somewhere where kids and cars won’t knock it over.’

  Finn followed him across the road, feeling, underneath his natural guardedness, more and more light-hearted. The sugar from the soft drink spun in his brain. A change of scene! He hadn’t been out of the Cross for weeks, had begun to forget there was anywhere else in the world, he’d been so busy finding out how the place operated, how to tell who was safe and who wasn’t, where to get the cheapest food, how to read the signs of approaching trouble. He’d like to see the sea again, and it would be neat to go with a new mate, on a bike.