Henry Hoey Hobson Read online

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘How was your first day, honey-bun?’

  I’d closed my book and tossed it onto the couch as soon as I heard her Hyundai Getz pull into the carport under the house. By the time she’d clickety-clacked up the wooden internal steps, I had summoned my best hangdog expression and slumped back on the couch in the darkened lounge room.

  She switched on the overhead fluoro, lighting up her blonde hair like a halo. I quickly dropped my eyes. Looking directly at my mother was dangerous. Like looking into a fire. She could dazzle you without even trying, and I wasn’t in the mood to be dazzled.

  ‘Why on earth are you reading in the dark? We can afford electricity, you know, now that I’ve got this great new job and all.’

  I tried to duck, but my timing was a bit off and the kiss landed on the end of my nose.

  She was wearing shiny red platform heels – her good-luck shoes. Most women would get a nosebleed in heels that high. Not my mum; she’d been in them for more than twelve hours straight and wasn’t even limping. I had to hand it to her, she was shoe-fit.

  ‘Thought you were working for commission,’ I said. As usual.

  I avoided looking at her and kept my eyes fixed on her shoes. For someone so tiny, she had impressively muscled calves. Like a professional gymnast, or in her case, a professional stilt-walker. And good knees, I’d give her that. No knobbly or wrinkly bits.

  ‘Oh, don’t be such a grumpy-bum.’ Her hand ruffled my hair as she swayed past. ‘Do you know what the commission is on a one-point-five-million-dollar apartment?’ The ridiculous heels click-clacked into the kitchen.

  I closed my eyes and hunkered deeper into the lumpy old couch that had covered more kilometres in the past twelve years than the average family station wagon. ‘Thirty-eight thousand dollars?’

  The refrigerator door fwoomped open. ‘Ooh, you made pizza; thanks, hon. Make sure you take those leftovers for lunch tomorrow.’ It whoomphed shut again. ‘Thirty-eight thousand dollars – from just one sale. More than I could earn in a year working at that car dealership. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, it got us the Getz.’

  ‘Mrrgghhh.’ I muffled the groan in an old velvet cushion, kept handy for times like these. I didn’t want to talk about my mum’s lack of career options. I knew, only too well, whose fault that was...

  Hello, here’s a little surprise for your eighteenth birthday. A baby!Great news if you don’t mind kissing your life goodbye. Farewelling any chance of a university education. See ya later, bozo boyfriend, and bye-bye any hopes for a high-powered career. Hello life as we know it – trying to pay regular bills with irregular commissions while staying one skip ahead of the debt collectors.

  I snatched the pillow off my face and sat bolt upright. ‘Wait a minute, Our Lady of Perpetual Succour – it’s Catholic. That’s private, right? How are we paying for that?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, hon. The principal said they’ll send out an account in a couple of weeks’ time–’

  ‘Mum, why do you keep doing this? You know we don’t have any money. I can go to the local state school–’

  She emerged from the kitchen, waving my complaints away like she was shooing a fly. ‘It’s two buses or forty-five minutes’ walk. The Catholic school is forty-five seconds away–’

  ‘I’m not Catholic.’

  ‘You weren’t Steiner or Lutheran either, and you fitted in perfectly well there.’

  That was so wide of the mark, I didn’t even bother swinging at it. I didn’t fit in, perfectly well, anywhere. Not state, not private. Sometimes I wondered whether that had been a factor in any of our many moves.

  She balanced on one leg as she unstrapped first one skyscraper heel, then the other. ‘Hon, we’ve got a great house, in a nice street, four doors up from a school. What we spend on fees we’ll save on travel time, and I won’t have to fret about you while I’m at work.’

  She tottered over on the loosened platforms and kissed my forehead. ‘Don’t worry so much, honey-bun. It’ll give you wrinkles.’

  With that she stepped down from her teetering heels and settled with a sigh onto the couch beside me. Her blonde halo brushed against my shoulder. I shifted away from the contact. How’s a kid supposed to look up to his mum when she’s so much smaller than him?

  She shifted position and swung her legs up onto my lap. ‘Want to give me one of those world-famous Henry Hoey Hobson foot rubs while you tell me about your day?’

  Her feet were toy. And smelly after twelve hours in patent leather. Crisscrossed with ugly welts where the ridiculous shoes had cut into the skin. That had to hurt.

  She passed me the jojoba oil that lived beside the couch. The label claimed it was a natural fungicide and excellent moisturiser. I automatically doused both her feet before remembering that I was supposed to be mad at her.

  ‘Damn, that feels good.’ The tiredness was leaking through into her voice.

  I risked a quick look and noticed for the first time that there were worn patches in her smile. A cold hand squeezed my heart and I ducked my head, concentrating on her feet.

  ‘Only three days in the job and I already have a couple of prospective buyers for that old house overlooking the river.’ She poked me with an oily toe. ‘You know the one I mean?’

  I nodded. One of our old neighbours had given Mum the listing on her grandfather’s deceased estate. It had gotten her the job at a flash inner-city real estate agency. She said the house was our ‘pot of gold’, but if you asked me, it looked more like something you’d put a match to...

  I’d gone with her to the Open for Inspection on the weekend. A big sign out the front offered prospective buyers the only logical advice it could in the circumstances: ‘Demolish or renovate!’ Very helpful, seeing that no-one in their right mind would consider living in it as it was.

  She settled back into the lumpy couch with a sigh. ‘Your mumma’s going to be a thousandaire by the end of the week, Triple-H. Within six months there’ll be real-estate billboards for Lydia Hoey Hobson all over town. It’s going to happen, honey-bun. Don’t you worry about that.’

  She could have saved her breath. I worried about everything. I wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep it up. How she could work so hard, stay so optimistic ... After so many setbacks, it was beyond me. It was as if her whole life was a triumph of hope over experience.

  She lay still while I worked silently on her poor, battered feet. Then the toe poked me again. ‘So come on, tell me, how was your day?’

  Her voice had lost its energy now that she was lying down. She was always joking that she was a shark: she needed to keep moving or she’d die. I didn’t want to think of her dying, so I told her that she was more like a fox terrier, running around at a million miles an hour, except when she slept.

  I risked another quick glance. She had worked all weekend, left the house an hour before I got up this morning, and arrived home five hours after I had. She looked like she was ready to call it a day. Did I really need to tell her about mine?

  I concentrated on working the base of her foot with my thumbs, massaging up and out, pulling on each toe in turn.

  This little piggy went to market ... This little piggy stayed home...

  Some little piggies didn’t get to stay home. Some little piggies got kicked out when they were only eighteen years old and had to fend for themselves and their baby...

  This little piggy had roast beef ... And this little piggy had none–

  Some little piggies skipped dinner so their baby piggy could take the leftovers to school the next day...

  And thislittle piggy–

  I squeezed all ten toes and bowed my head. ‘School’s OK. It’s – you know – school.’

  She was right. I did worry too much. But hell, someone had to do the worrying in this family. Which reminded me...

  ‘Mr Paulson wants your new number, for the school records.’

  She was nodding off. ‘I’ll phone it in,’ she said, struggling t
o keep her eyes open. ‘In the morning. I’ve got another early inspection. Remind me.’

  It occurred to me then that maybe I should have her number too. So I could contact her, if I needed to. Just in case.

  ‘If you write it down, I can take it into the office in the morning,’ I offered.

  She nodded, murmured something that sounded like agreement. I’d have to get up early, to catch her before she left for work, and remind her again.

  Her tiny feet lay still in my lap. I gave them one last squeeze, transferred them to the couch and pushed myself to my feet.

  I stood there for a moment, watching her sleep. She was like a toy lady doll. More like little Kelly than big sister Barbie. Nothing like a mum, at all.

  I didn’t know what to do with her, I really didn’t. So I flicked off the overhead light and walked blindly into my room.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The enclosed verandah on the eastern side of the house was long and narrow, with a bank of windows running along the exterior wall. The first time I saw it I claimed it, but Mum wasn’t keen. She said it would be draughty with all those windows, that it wasn’t properly insulated, that it would be too cold in winter.

  ‘We probably won’t be here in winter,’ I said.

  She flicked me with a towel. ‘Don’t be a smartybum,’ she said. After I’d won the towel-whipping duel, she’d helped me move my bed and chest of drawers in, as well as my rickety fold-up bookshelf and the little pine table that I used as a desk.

  The windows faced east, so they copped the summer sun from five in the morning. The owner must have lived there at some point, judging by the quality of the block-out curtains. In my experience, landlords didn’t usually bother with anything so fancy. Tissue-thin, cheap prints, that’s what I was used to, and to be honest, the special block-out curtains were a bit wasted on me.

  I have this thing about light, you see. I don’t like paying for it, and am forever opening curtains and turning off light switches.

  Pounding the footpaths, delivering pamphlets, has cured me of my power-wasting ways. Hours and hours of walking the streets before and after school, slotting junk into people’s letterboxes just to pay an electricity bill, really focuses you on what is and isn’t necessary.

  After the first lot of blisters, I started turning appliances off at the wall.

  After the second, I began adding a low-wattage compact fluoro to the weekly grocery shop. When we left the last house, I unscrewed every last one of them, put back the old power-hungry ones, and took the energy-savers with me. They were our investment in a lower-cost future, and no way was I leaving them behind.

  As well as saving on power, I liked to take advantage of whatever light was going for free, be it natural or council-provided. So my curtains were always open, to take advantage of the streetlights flooding in from outside. Tonight a full moon was adding its two cents’ worth, hanging like a giant silver coin over the treetops.

  I didn’t need to turn on the light. I could see well enough to pull off my school clothes and find shorts and a T-shirt to sleep in.

  I was about to crawl into my bed when a rustle of footsteps directly outside my open windows made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  An unfamiliar scent drifted in on the night air. Sweet and musky, like the scented candles Mum lit in the bathroom when she needed to soak away her cares.

  I froze for a moment, before reason kicked in.

  The old Queenslander we had rented was set high on wooden stumps, so whoever was out there would need a ladder to get in through my open windows. The thought gave me enough courage to slide up to the window and take a peek outside.

  There were three of them, all dressed in black from head to toe. Standing not two metres away, in the front yard of the house next door. Two men and a woman, their faces pale ovals in the moonlight.

  The men couldn’t have been more different: one tall, gaunt and slope-shouldered with long, dark hair curling past his shoulders; the other squat and misshapen, damaged in some way I couldn’t identify in the half-light. And between them a woman twirling in high-heeled boots, her handkerchief skirt flying in an uneven dance about her.

  She spun to a halt, wrapping her arms around herself.

  ‘Caleb, it is perfect,’ she said, her voice shivery with excitement. ‘Is it true that there is even a place for our coffin?’

  The tall man nodded, tilting his head in my direction. I shrank back, my heart clanging against my chest. A coffin?Who were these people?

  The light caught his spectacles, turning them into twin silvered disks that obscured his eyes. ‘I wanted you to see it in full moonlight, Vee.’ A pale hand traced a path in the darkness. ‘The shadows cast by that weeping fig. The old lead-lights in their original casements...’ His soft voice faded as he turned back to the house. ‘Beautiful, don’t you think?’

  Until this moment, I hadn’t spared a thought for the vacant house on our left. An early Californian bungalow, Mum had said, nearly a hundred years old. Taking on a whole new sense of creepy, right at this moment.

  The woman moved towards the tall man, linking her arm through his. ‘We shall make a home without parallel ... When do we move in?’

  My gasp must have echoed in the clear night air. The short, squat man swivelled his head and stared right up at my window. I slunk down further, and after a moment he turned back to his companions. I thanked my tight-fisted ways that I hadn’t switched on a light, or he’d have spotted me for sure.

  The tall man dug in a pocket of his trousers. ‘All is prepared. The windows in your room have been blacked out–’ he produced a set of keys and jangled them in the air, ‘–and Manny and I have packed the truck–’ The misshapen man bowed his head in acknowledgement. ‘We move in first thing tomorrow.’

  She leaned into him, her lips and eyes dark, almost black, against the pale oval of her face. ‘I am sorry I cannot be of any help to you, during the hours of daylight.’

  He nodded and looked away. ‘I know. It doesn’t matter. I’ll have everything ready for you by nightfall. We can celebrate then.’

  ‘You are good to me, Caleb.’ She turned and placed long, black-tipped fingers on the short man’s arm. ‘And you too, Manny. Your reward for toiling while I sleep will be a full coffin, I think.’ She looked from one to the other, her inky lips stretched in a smile. ‘It is the least I can do, no?’

  The tall bloke she called Caleb hesitated. ‘You don’t have to do that, Vee, but if that’s what you want...’ She patted him lightly on the cheek, her voice husky with promise. ‘It will be my pleasure ... and tomorrow night, we celebrate.’

  An icy finger travelled up my spine.

  The one they called Manny turned his thick neck and squinted once more in my direction. I sank down below the window frame, back to the wall, heart hammering.

  A crackle of peeling paint scratched against my neck – proof that I wasn’t dreaming. Yet, what I’d seen and heard seemed impossible. Black-clad strangers talking of coffins. And moving in next door. Tomorrow.

  Geez, I had to warn Mum.

  I scrambled back onto my knees and peered over the windowsill.

  The yard next door gaped back at me, still and silent in the moonlight. The mysterious strangers had disappeared, as suddenly as they had arrived. I waited a few moments, listening hard, then stuck out my neck, craning as far as I could to the right, to the left, then back again. Nothing.

  They were gone.

  I sank back onto the bed, relief and fright making me giddy and confused. I should wake Mum. But the strange trio was gone now, and she had an early start in the morning. She needed her sleep, but I was too hyped to even close my eyes – was there any point in both of us spending the night freaked out and sleepless?

  I checked the next-door yard one more time. Still nothing. Whoever they were, they had gone and they’d said it themselves, they weren’t coming back until morning.

  That made up my mind. It was better to let Mum sleep; I’
d wait and tell her first thing tomorrow.

  I pulled the windows closed, folded my thin pillow and propped myself up against the wooden shelf of my bed. I didn’t want to take any chances; I’d stay up all night, just to be on the safe side.

  I had nothing important to do tomorrow anyway. Just another day at Perpetual Suckers. Being jerked around by Joey Castellaro and clawed at by the catty girls in Grade Seven. Falling asleep during the breaks might just help get me through the day.

  I turned round, punched my pillow – twice, for good luck – then settled back, my arms folded against my chest. Listening to the dull roar of traffic on the six-lane road at the end of our street.

  Brooding, waiting for the dawn.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I woke, face-down in a pool of yucky slobber. All the moisture must have dribbled out of my mouth while I slept; my tongue was a stiff lump of meat in the metal cage of my mouth. Dead meat, judging by the smell.

  Then it hit me. I’d slept– I jackknifed into sitting position – overslept, according to my watch. I had two minutes to catch Mum and warn her about the freaks from last night.

  I rolled out of bed, tripped over my school shoes, ricocheted off the doorjamb and fell into the lounge, just as the sound of the Getz backing out vibrated up through the floorboards.

  ‘MUM!’ I flung myself at the latch on the front door. It wouldn’t budge. Locked, dead locked and bolted.

  Mum and her security-conscious ways were going to be the death of me.

  I snatched at the keys hanging on a hook beside the door. ‘Muuuum – WAIT!’ Which one was it? None of them seemed to fit. Aaagh– rental properties, it took days to figure out the stupid keys.

  Through the front window, I could see the little silver Getz reversing out onto the street. I fumbled with another key and rattled the catch. The car swung wide, then paused before pointing its nose towards the pot of gold waiting at the end of Mum’s real-estate rainbow.