Chapter 36 #2
“It was exactly what I needed. The ocean puts shit into perspective.” The ocean was scary, but it wasn’t stressed.
It was peaceful out there, even when it was about to crush you, rip your board away, snap it in two, drown you, or eat you alive.
“No one explained to me what was going on when I gave her up. I feel like they tricked me.”
Nev frowned at the road.
“I knew I was in a shitty situation. If she was adopted, she would be safe with a family screened by social workers. She’d grow up better than I was.
I thought I could save her from something, like a real mum would, you know.
I thought she had a future with Mr. and Mrs. big house in Brissie.
When they asked if I wanted to apply to keep her with me in a different detention facility, I thought…
I don’t know what. I thought she would be better off outside, I guess.
I should have kept her with me. If they told me she would be with Maude, I would have kept her with me and gone wherever they were threatening to send us. At least we would have had each other.”
“Pull over,” Nev said.
Ronnie parked in the breakdown lane. Nev stepped out, lit up.
Maude won. She always said she would.
Not being able to protect your kid was hell. There was nothing rational about it. Ronnie had gotten better at pouring sand into a sieve. Therapy helped.
Nev got back in the truck, smelling like an ashtray. Ronnie checked the mirrors and eased out into traffic. “Sorry for oversharing.”
Nev watched the cars. “A lot of people made mistakes.”
“Budget cuts,” Ronnie said.
“Budget cuts,” Nev agreed.
“I should volunteer at a place like that, coach soccer or some faff. I would, but I’m too much of a coward.”
“It’s five hours away.”
The closest one, usually. At the moment one was fifteen minutes away.
“It’s still bad there. Kids are neglected.
When you’re inside, the world is a cement wall.
Home isn’t necessarily something you want.
The government is the ultimate arsehole authority figure.
” An abstract idea. “Queensland incarcerated you. Queensland is rehabilitating you. Queensland will give you another chance. Queensland has procedures in place to support you after your release… I didn’t want to live here.
I didn’t think I belonged anywhere. They really mess with you, make you think you shouldn’t exist.”
“You belong everywhere, Dain’y. Home is a feeling you carry inside you.”
“I know that now.” At the moment, driving in the truck with Nev, she felt fine. “I think I’m an anarchist,” she decided, eyeing the sign on the highway for the exit that led to the Youth Detention Centre outside Townsville. “Is there an organization I should join? What do anarchists do?”
“Do I look like I know? They distrust organizations. You might be an activist.”
“Greenies who chain themselves to trees?” She signaled and took the exit.
“Your dad’s an activist. Someone who protests. Usually, the work is disappointing because it fails. I’ve dabbled. They burn out. The only sustainable form of activism is singing and dancing. That way, if you lose, at least you had a hell of a party.”
“You’re more of a Pete Seeger type than I am.”
“They’re not all like that. Nobody likes being oppressed.” Nev’s head swiveled as the petrol station went past. “You missed it. There’s a place to turn around up ahead.”
“Taking a detour.”
“No,” Nev said. “None of that.”
“It won’t take long,” she promised, turning down an unfamiliar two-lane suburban road.
“Your dad will kill me.”
“Not if you don’t tell him.”
There was the sign. Behind it, a car park, flood lights, giant black metal fence, and a complex of ugly buildings made of glass, brick, and cement.
No one was outside. No sign of fire damage from the riot.
The place looked abandoned, but wasn’t. Recent reports of human rights violations inside and overcrowding.
The front door wasn’t what she wanted, so she turned the truck around and went back to the road, then drove around the far side of the complex, looking for an outdoor recreation area.
Those were always on the back side. She was considering blasting music and dancing on the roof of the truck. Kids liked that.
The layout here wasn’t the same as the one in Brisbane. The perimeter fence was set back farther from the main buildings, and the recreation area wasn’t visible from the public road. No one in sight. Pity.
Disappointed and relieved, she turned and headed back toward the Bruce highway north.
“Does it look the same?” Nev asked.
“I wasn’t at this one. They only started sending girls here in January.
Before that, they used to ship all the Queensland girls to Brisbane.
” Three days drive away. Too far for most of the girls’ families to travel.
She hadn’t had a visitor for two years. The only person who would have been allowed inside to see her couldn’t be bothered.
She swallowed. “It’s good that girls can come here now.” Instead of being sent halfway across Australia.
“There’s only one kid waiting for you, and she’s in Gordonvale,” Nev reminded her.
The tattoo-removal office south of Cairns was a brick building attached to a carwash. Ronnie signed papers, paid a few hundred dollars, then lay on her stomach on a padded table while a technician with black gloves used a laser to burn off another layer of skin on her lower back.
The laser stung like a bee. It hurt more to remove a tattoo than to get one. Tomorrow the skin would be bright red and blister. Depending on how deep the laser went, it would be wet and scab over or feel like a sunburn, peeling and itchy while new skin grew underneath.
She listened to Maori heavy metal in her earbuds and closed her eyes.
The men’s luxury clothing store was inside an upscale mall in downtown Cairns.
Ronnie tried on designer suits while Nev sat outside the changing room reading a newspaper. Mattie had arranged for the store to stay open late.
She decided on a black button-up shirt and a tailored cobalt suit that fit her like a glove.
Nev handed her a white shirt.
Ronnie returned it to the rack.
“This is court, Dain’y. The goal is to look young and guileless. The black one makes you look like you’re in the mafia.”
Ronnie snorted. “Maybe I am. I’m also wearing it to Peggy’s wedding.”
“No, you’re bloody not. We’re performing, remember? You can’t play guitar in a Tom Ford that costs six thousand dollars.”
Good point.
Her phone vibrated. Text from Mattie.
(Mattie) Nev with you?
(Ronnie) Yes
(Mattie) Make her pick one for herself. I’m buying.
Ronnie held up two colorful suits, size tiny. “This is what he likes to spend his rugby money on, women and cars. What color is your old suit?”
“If you’re the woman, I’ll be the car. Light grey. You’ve seen it.”
“It wasn’t memorable.”
“Good thing I’m not a phone number.”
“You look good in mauve.”
“What do you think mauve is?” Nev showed Ronnie a color on her phone halfway between pink and grey. “That’s mauve.”
“Fine. You look good in green.”
“I don’t own anything green.”
Ronnie sighed, exasperated. “What color is that linen shirt you always wear? The long-sleeved one?”
“Pastel Aqua. You want me to find a suit the color of toothpaste?”
Nev only tried on one—Ronnie suspected it was the cheapest she could find in her size—a baby blue linen three-piece with a tag that said ‘wrinkle-proof, no ironing.’
Mattie arrived an hour late. Sales associates crowded around him for selfies. He signed autographs and flexed his muscles, flirting shamelessly with the staff.
Ronnie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.
Stylish female sales associates laughed at everything he said while he posed in his boxers.
Mattie tried on candy-colored suits that looked expensive and tight on him. He was the same height as Ronnie, but stockier across the hips. His neck and wrists were thicker. Suits which had hugged Ronnie in all the right places would need to be tailored to fit him.
He worked the crowd, let them vote to help him decide.
The staff chose a blue suit for him that was almost the same color as hers.
A beautiful elderly woman—the owner—arrived and began hemming Mattie’s sleeves.
Mattie chatted with the owner, in no rush to put clothes back on.
One of the employees handed him a sweating tinny of beer.
“Thanks, sweetheart. This place is the best. You girls are lovely. Did you pick one?” he asked Ronnie. “Put it back on, give us a fashion show.”
“They want to go home.”
“Come on, Stinky!”
She went into one of the changing rooms and put on the cobalt suit. When she came out, Mattie catcalled and rubbed his hands together in the gesture for throwing dollars. “Damn, we have good genes!” He fist-bumped her and they did the one-armed bro hug. “What do you think? Like it?”
“I picked it out, didn’t I?”
Mattie turned to the owner. “We’ll take it wrapped. She has a big day tomorrow. It’s her wedding.”
“Congratulations,” the owner of the shop said.
“He’s full of shite,” Ronnie said.
Mattie paid for all three suits. She overheard Nev remind him to leave a tip.