The Best Thing Read online

  God, how am I going to get away on that Thursday night? Like he says, I gotta. Whatever happens, I’ve got to be there to see.

  Yes, there is a God. Dad’s birthday, of course, the Sunday after the fight. Let’s take dear Father down the coast for the weekend, Mum! Brilliant idea! We can muck around on the beach all weekend, and have a nice little family party on Sunday night. Also, it’ll mean the school week finishes Thursday instead of Friday, so that according to House Rules I’ll be allowed out that night. It means missing out on the weekend with Pug, but at least I’ll see him fight, like I promised. I’ll suggest it to Mum tomorrow morning while Dad’s in the shower.

  Done. All I’ve got to do is make up a date with Lisa and I’m out of here!

  PS: Mum thought it was a great idea. I nearly laughed out loud as we schemed the whole thing out so that Dad would get maximum enjoyment from it all—when the whole idea is to get me a night out!

  Mum gives the thumbs up as she comes into the kitchen in her nightshirt.

  ‘It’s on?’ I say.

  ‘Cat’s Head Point, here we come. I’ll ring up Maggie this morning and get her to give the house a once-over.’

  ‘Oh, fab-oh!’ I nearly tell her right then and there that I’m going out Thursday night (I’m so happy I’d like to tell her where, too, and who with!), but I keep control of myself.

  ‘It was like pulling teeth, though.’ Mum’s back’s to me as she starts making coffee.

  ‘Yeah?’ I pretend to care. Then I really do begin to wonder. ‘What’s wrong with that guy these days? He’s off with the fairies half the time.’

  ‘He is a bit … dreamy.’ She stares at the coffee-maker, the scoop in her hand. At the back her hair is a little bit scrunched up from sleep, where she hasn’t yet combed it. If you couldn’t see those bony elbows you’d think it was a little kid standing there.

  ‘He needs a holiday. Get him into the surf and he’ll wake up a bit.’

  ‘Yes.’ The scoop dips into the coffee tin. ‘It’s always worked before. Coffee?’

  Boy, will I be glad to get away from school early, next week. Brenner, every chance he can, bumps past me and hisses, ‘Slut!’ Sometimes he’ll even call it out if he’s with a bunch of friends. Ambra Lewis never meets my eyes, or if she does quickly glances away again. Josh sends me glances that say, You? You are dirt. You are scum. Lisa and Donna—well, there haven’t been any condoms lately, but there are notes, regular notes, stuck on the back of my jumper for Mum to point out when I get home, turning up in my bag, scribbled on the first page in my folder, thrown from nowhere behind the teacher’s back. I don’t bother reading them any more.

  I don’t understand how they can think I’m any worse than them. I know I’m not. I used to be one of them. They’re all having it off with each other, they’re all getting as much sex as they can. I’ve been with them to those parties, bodies in every corner, everyone off their faces, the music like a screen over it all, so loud you can’t talk, just do.

  And I never did with anyone but Brenner—I never swapped and changed like some of them. If we’re looking for sluts, the guys are the worst sluts, if half the stories they tell are true, of their endurance, repeat performances, girls and women they’ve ‘had’ (as if it were a con as well as a conquest). I was never quite sure what to do when those stories were doing the rounds—smile, laugh? I’m sitting here with my boyfriend’s arm around me while he says, of someone else, ‘Yep. Had her. Up against a wall behind the fish shop,’ and I’m supposed to laugh? I’m supposed to say, ‘Fish shop, that’s a good one,’ to show what a good sport I am? I’m supposed to ignore hating him, ignore wondering, When was this? Did he catch anything from her that I should watch out for?, ignore being incensed on this girl’s behalf, for her being made into a piece of flesh that a guy has so that he can tell these guys he’s had it? These people he’s dying to impress, these fantastic role models? Beside these guys, and some of the girls, I’m a saint—faithful, loyal, tame.

  I give up. This is just the lightning-strike of someone’s boredom, someone’s whim. (Donna’s, probably; Lisa hasn’t got enough imagination, and she wouldn’t keep up the pressure for so long. She’ll enjoy it while it lasts, but she hasn’t got Donna’s ill will towards everything, Donna’s hatred and complete lack of a sense of humour.) I only have to wait, and react as little as possible, and eventually the boredom will seek another target. That, or the group will come up with some kind of grand finale to break me down, some way of signing off. I see myself lying in the schoolyard, hunks of hair ripped from my head, the marks of rocks and half-bricks on my legs and arms, my eyes closed, my stillness. Melanie Dow, martyr, Patron Saint of Defection from the Group. Well … I wonder how far they would go, though?

  That acne-splattered geek Bruce Denman sits near me at lunch-time. A bunch of people are watching from under the camphor laurel on the far side of the yard, though not when I look up. I keep on eating. He eats, too, but keeps staring over at me. I’m supposed to be intimidated, I guess.

  Finally he chucks his lunchbag and can in the bin and stands over me. He’s a stupid guy, a real blockhead, but also very, very big. ‘Wesley says you’ll do it for $20.’ Brenner Wesley, that is.

  I look up and up and up, and then I say in this really mild voice, ‘Well, he’d know, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Guess he would,’ Bruce says uncertainly. ‘So, will you?’

  ‘With you, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says, with a real nonchalant little swagger.

  ‘Oh, sure, Bruce,’ I exclaim. ‘You’d better show me your money first, though.’

  Can you believe it, he tugs the corner of a $20 note up out of his jeans pocket so I can see it?

  I’m so cool. ‘Okay. Good. Now show me what you’ve got,’ I say.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Show me the goods, buster. I’ve got to check you over for diseases, haven’t I? I’m not going to ruin my professional life just because of your herpes, or crabs, or whatever you might have.’

  ‘Well, I will show you. In private, but.’

  ‘No way. Right here, mate, or the deal’s off.’

  He stares, backs off. ‘You’re crackers,’ he says. ‘You’re raving mad.’

  ‘Oh no. Brenner Wesley’s mad, and you’re mad, and all the other shitheads in this school are mad, but not me. And you can take your $20—’ Here’s where I see Mr Toohey standing at the corner of the building ‘—and stick it in your fat hairy earhole!’

  Some Year 7 kids are staring. I throw my rubbish in the bin, then head inside. I don’t know why until I get to the locker room and realise I’m getting out of that school.

  But uh-oh, Mr Toohey’s there at the door, watching me get my bag out, and the few books I keep pushed right to the back. I get ready to stand up to him the way I just did to Bruce.

  But he says, ‘You’re having a hard time this year, aren’t you, Melanie?’

  Oh God, don’t be understanding. Tell me off, give me an excuse to shout at you. ‘I’m okay,’ I say, my voice stiff, not looking at him.

  ‘School counsellor?’ he says tentatively.

  ‘Oh, no.’ I’m able to smile. ‘Telling people things is what started it all off.’

  ‘Counsellors have codes of practice. They have to keep things private, not like normal, free, individuals.’ Curse them, he seems to be implying. It’s funny, the way he isn’t bothering to chat, to soften any of this. It’s like an emergency bulletin, as if he hasn’t got much time to get through to me. He’s being nice, really. I glance at him as I shut my locker door and for the second before the tears arrive he looks like someone I might have talked to, if it wasn’t already too late.

  ‘Thanks. No.’ Head down, I go past him. I bash the tears away before I get outside, and then I go across the yard with my head up. No-one calls out anything. I know Mr Toohey has come out after me and is watching. I also know he won’t stop me.

  I walk home. Dad’s car is outside. Here we go. He’s finally
cracked up from overwork and been sent home to recuperate.

  He’s left the gate open, even though he always goes on at me to close it.

  I put my key in the door.

  From inside, Dad yells out, ‘Don’t come in!’

  I come in.

  There he is, at it on the couch with Ricky Lewis. Her little white shorts tossed aside on the carpet. One bare foot hooked on the couch back. That couch really isn’t quite long enough; Dad’s legs slew off to the floor. His white bum parked between Ricky’s bent knees, his trousers halfway down. Beyond the shadow of his balls, parts of Ricky glisten, glistening down onto our couch. And the expression on her face (she’s gaping at me over Dad’s shoulder)—well, you wouldn’t want to meet a person again after seeing them look like that. Mega-doses of guilt and fear! She hardly looks human.

  All this I take in in half a second, closing the door behind me.

  ‘Is she gone?’ says Dad in a little peeping voice, muffled in a cushion.

  ‘No,’ gasps Ricky, still staring at me over the foot she’s got in the middle of Dad’s back. She’s panting, and so’s he, from their exertions. I’m breathing hard too; the room sounds like an aerobics class with the music turned off.

  ‘Melanie, get out, darling,’ says Ricky.

  I should stay. I should sit down on the other couch and watch them pull apart, get their clothes together, cover up the horrible old bits they’ve been using, all in a big hurry, babbling explanations, or possibly in an awful silence. I should.

  I run upstairs instead and sit in my room, my blood thundering. After a minute, Ricky knocks. ‘Melanie?’ She’s still got that edge of threat in her voice, as if I’m the one in trouble. I say in a very icy voice, ‘Get out of this house.’

  I feel a fantastic explosion of virtue inside myself as I say it. Nothing I’ve ever done can be as bad, half as bad, as what Dad has done. No humiliation I’ve ever felt can be as devastating, as un-get-overable as what those two must be feeling. Beside these grown people and their gigantic mistake, I’m a mere apprentice, just toying with the edges of silliness, of harmfulness. So there’s this joy that falls with the hammerblows of harm that cancel it out—a joyless joy, a hard, cold relief.

  ‘You have to understand, Melanie—’

  ‘Come on, Rick,’ Dad says at the foot of the stairs. ‘I’ll drop you off home.’ He must know it’ll be hopeless talking to me.

  You have to understand! Boy, do I understand! All of a sudden quite a few things are a whole lot clearer. I go over and over Dad’s behaviour, and Ricky’s for the last few months, watching it all fall into place—her dropping by, Dad staying out late, Mum wondering what the fuck’s going on with him. Mum! God! How can I tell her? How can I not? When I think of Mum, that’s when I have to get up and leave, get out of that house, that ‘family home’. I’m running down the stair carpet I helped them choose; past the couch we got last year (we all sat in a row on it when it arrived, smiling self-satisfaction); past the phone table Mum sanded back and rubbed endless layers of shellac onto (I remember her serious face as she stood there looking at it, not wanting to admit it was finished, restored).

  I’m nearly frantic by the time I get to Pug’s. I knock and knock, but no-one answers, and I’m just about to sit down and start crying when I realise it’s training time. I fly across Erskineville Road to the Club, hurry upstairs. It’s like stepping inside someone’s body—all the blows thudding around me like a pulse, and the wet, wet heat on my face.

  Pug, oh Pug. You’re there, a shining body fitting the gap in front of my eyes. You don’t see me—I’m a fly on the wall. You look so serious I cross the room in my mind, dodging Justin at the bag and two other guys skipping rope. I swear I feel my arms slither right around you from over by the wall—I’m loving everything of you right down to the way you sniff, showing your top teeth in a dog-snarl. I needed to see you so badly, and now I sit just inside the door, and let myself fill right up with you. You push the day and the afternoon, that whole other life, right out of my head.

  . I don’t tell Pug anything. I’m just with him, silent, recovering.

  Okay. Now I won’t see him until he steps out into the ring on Thursday night. Flutter, flutter. As if I didn’t have enough to panic about.

  Normal life, the gruesome things it can hide. If Mum would only give her frustrated cry, ‘What is wrong with you two?’ I could point, I could say, ‘What is wrong is, he …’ But she doesn’t. She’s chirpily preparing for our weekend away. She’s so happy and lively it seems like she knows everything and is putting on a monstrous pretence of not knowing.

  I haven’t even seen Dad in the two days since. Working late, the bastard. I hear him come in and shower, knowing the reason for all those showers now. Because nothing’s been said, I look back to Monday afternoon and wonder if it really did happen. Maybe I dreamed it, my brain hunting out someone else to blame for my troubles.

  Mum looks up from her list-making. ‘It’ll be a big shop, Thursday night.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t come. I promised Lees I’d go out with her.’

  ‘Oh, rats. I finally coaxed Dad into coming.’

  ‘Good, you won’t be on your own, then.’

  ‘I thought Lisa wasn’t allowed out week-nights either.’

  ‘They bent the rules, ‘cause I’m going to be away.’

  ‘Oh, well.’ She glances down her list. ‘Dad and I’ll just have to have an intimate candlelit dinner for two. Shucks, eh?’

  I manage a sickly smile.

  I’m at the Club. Oriana’s nails dig into my elbow, the crowd of mostly men and feral children stamps, claps and calls ‘Di-no! Di-no! Di-no!’ as his team escorts him down the aisle from the dressing room. Over the raised ring, small, bare, spotlit, hang two white cards:

  Magnum Poulos is already in the ring, shedding a long crimson satin robe and a white T-shirt. He’s big and dark and tough-looking, with a black frizz of hair bursting off the top of his head. ‘Oh God, I hate him already,’ says Oriana in my ear.

  Pug, robed in hot red, looks magnificent, a warrior king coming down through his battalions. He’s a different creature from the restless, speechless person in the dressing-room, needing us there but blind and deaf to everything but Jimmy’s reassurances. Now he seeks us out in the crowd before climbing up into the ring. Right, on with the business. I’m appalled at what’s about to happen (can this be the twentieth century?), at what I’ve got myself into, caring for someone who subjects himself to this. I glance at Mrs Magnini, who sits with her handbag on her lap, her eyes on the ring. It must be ten times worse for her. The others, Pug’s dad and Oriana and Luciano, are going mental like the rest of the crowd, cheering madly.

  You can see those extra five kilos on Magnum Poulos; he’s a bit bigger all over. Pug looks unperturbed, stripped down to hot red shorts, testing the surface of the ring. Can this be the same guy, mine, the man in the green-shadowed room in the long summer afternoons? He looks horribly alone up there, despite the whistles and the crowd calling out, despite his team and the officials encrusting the edges of the ring.

  Jimmy Riley ties a pair of bright red gloves onto him. The guy with the megaphone introduces them and the crowd cheers for Poulos and goes bananas for Pug. Then the ref has his little mutter to them (what does he say? A little prayer? ‘Follow Plan B tonight, lads—it’s Magnum’s turn to win’?), and they go to their corners and wait for the bell. Oh God, I don’t want to see this. Is there a way to stop time? Clanng! No, there isn’t.

  They go straight after each other like sworn enemies, no dancing, no hanging back. Pug is up against the ropes in a few seconds, but he slips out and around and traps Magnum in a corner. Then too much is going on for me to follow; they’re locked together and trying to punch upward between each other’s fists. This is so different from training; there’s no Jimmy calling the shots, there’s no imaginary opponent. Instead, a big angry body is trying to pound Pug into oblivion.

  I can’t believe the crowd. As soon
as the fight starts the ones up the front are all shouting advice (‘Body-body-body, Dino!’, ‘Work ‘im, Magnum, work ’im! Don’t let ’im rest!’, ‘And again, Dino! Body again!’), which is loud enough, but when either of the fighters gets a scoring blow in there’s this—it isn’t a roar and it isn’t a cheer—it’s a big rush of male voice noise. A roar of joy? And then the advice goes up to a new pitch, and after the next blow and rush of noise, an even higher, louder one. Guys are practically climbing into the seat in front of them, their faces red and yelling, veins popping out in their necks—their eyes focused without blinking on the ring. It’s absolutely one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen, heard or experienced.

  I never thought two minutes could last so long. When the bell goes I’m really ready for a break.

  Oriana stops screaming and sits down. ‘How do you like it?’

  ‘It sucks,’ I say, my eyes on Pug. He’s aglow with sweat on a stool in his corner, Jimmy talking in his ear.

  ‘Don’t faint, willya?’ Oriana grins. She looks up at the ring, turns her head away sharply. ‘Now this bit sucks.’

  A little doll of a girl, dressed in a tight, tight, sequined, very short mini dress, comes tottering up to the ring on spiky heels. When she bends down to climb through the ropes whistles and shouts explode all over the hall because one half of the crowd can see down her front and the other half can see up her backside.