Chapter 14
The banging at the car window came when Rhianna King had her tongue in my mouth, so when she screamed, I felt the sound vibrate through my lips.
She was out of my lap so fast she actually slammed into the opposite door of the Chevrolet, her knees up, staring wildly at the window beside me.
I knew who it was from the first bang, sat frozen for a good ten seconds with a terror so strong it was all I could do not to piss my pants. I was seventeen.
‘Police! Open up!’
My father banged the leather handle of his baton on the glass again. I heard Evan and Kate Englander scrambling in the Ute bed.
‘Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!’
‘It’s okay.’ I put a hand on Rhianna. The sweat on her legs, which had been blood-warm a second ago, was ice cold. ‘It’s just my dad.’
I got out and shut the driver’s-side door, and faced him.
Arthur stood back and put his hands on his police utility belt, a grim satisfaction making his features a deep, ugly mask in the cabin light from the old vehicle.
Evan hopped down from the ute bed and Kate went to Rhianna, the two girls meeting at the hood, voices high and whimpering, discussing whether or not to bolt into the tree line.
‘Don’t even think about it.’ Dad waved the baton at the girls. Kate’s bra straps were hanging around her elbows. ‘Stand right there, with your hands by your sides.’
‘Dad—’ Evan started.
‘So, you got it going, huh?’ Arthur flicked his chin at the car behind me.
The Chevrolet was a rusty 1950s beast that sounded like a building collapsing when it started up.
‘I had a feeling you two boys were fucking around with one of the cars. You’ve had axle grease under your nails for about a month, Ev. ’
‘We’re sorry,’ my younger brother whined.
‘Do me a favour, will you? Don’t go into serious crime. You’re too dumb.’
‘We didn’t use any of your petrol, or your oil,’ I said. My stomach was hard as a rock. ‘We’ve been mowing the back paddock for the school. They’re paying us.’
‘You used my tools, though. Right?’ Dad said. ‘My tools. My shed. My car.’
I felt Evan’s eyes on me. Didn’t answer.
‘And you didn’t offer me a cent of what you earned on those lawns.’ Arthur worked his jaw. ‘Here I am, out all night, a single father supporting two young men. Putting my life on the line. Not a cent, huh?’
‘Can we go?’ Rhianna asked. I winced. While Dad’s focus was on my brother and me, he might have forgotten about the girls. She’d just reminded him of their existence. ‘We have to get home. Our mums are expecting us.’
‘What galls me is that you two spend months fixing up one of my yard cars in secret,’ Arthur went on, his eyes never leaving mine.
‘And instead of using the car to blow out of this piece-of-shit town, you go pick up a couple of molls from your school so you can get a bit of a grope in. What a fucking wasted opportunity.’
‘Dad, we didn’t—’
‘Leave it.’ I shot Evan a warning look. All we could do here was let the old man have his moment and hope to get out of it without any broken bones. ‘We’re sorry, Dad. Let us drop the girls home, and we’ll talk about this back at the house.’
‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Arthur put his hands up. His tone lifted. Became dangerously light. ‘Please. You two fellas worked hard to get yourselves into this situation. Don’t let me interrupt your little smooch-fest.’
‘We really need to go home.’ Kate’s voice was heavy with tears. ‘We don’t need a ride. We can walk.’
‘I’m dropping you home,’ Arthur snapped.
I felt all the hairs on my body stand on end at my father’s words. Arthur looked at the cowering teen girls as a full-body wave of animalistic instinct came over me. ‘That’ll be after my boys are done with you both, and not a second before.’
‘What?’ Rhianna squeaked.
‘He’s joking,’ Evan tried.
‘The hell I am.’
‘That’s enough,’ I said. ‘It’s enough, Dad.’
‘It’ll be enough when I say it’s enough, my son. Get back in the car. You too, girls. Get in. Now. Evan, you and the blonde one, get in the back.’
None of us moved.
‘I get to watch.’ Arthur folded his arms. His eyes bored into my face.
‘What? You’re happy enough to do it in front of your brother, but you won’t do it in front of me?
What utter bullshit. I paid for tickets to this little spectacle, with my tools, and my shed, and my car.
With the food I put on your plates and the roof I put over your heads. Get in the car, all of you, now.’
Kate started openly sobbing. Rhianna’s eyes were huge in the moonlit bush, looking at me for help. Everyone was looking at me for help, always.
‘We’re not doing that,’ I said.
‘Yes, you are.’
‘No, we’re not.’
Arthur took a step forward. The cuffs on his belt rattled.
His nose was inches from mine. I could taste the ash on my father’s breath invading and consuming the taste of Rhianna King’s cherry lip gloss on my tongue.
‘Your decision, boy. You get back in that car and finish the job with that girl, and let me watch. Otherwise, I’ll meet you back at the house, and I’ll put on a private show, just for you. ’
I knew what that meant. So did Evan. It meant I was going to sit on the steps of the front verandah of our secluded property and watch my father beat the shit out of my little brother, as I had done many, many times before over infractions such as this.
I had to make the decision for us all now.
Either atrocity was going to be my fault.
My natural instinct was to try to minimise the number of victims, protect whoever in the equation was lucky enough not to have Powder family blood in their veins.
Contain the poison. Protect the outsiders.
‘Girls,’ I said. ‘Run.’
They didn’t need to be told twice. They took off down the dirt road leading back towards the highway.
Rhianna was barefoot. Her handbag was still in the car.
I opened the driver’s-side door to the Chevrolet while Evan hopped obediently into the front passenger seat, his eyes distant, breath fast. Arthur got in the squad car and flicked the high beams on, and rode our bumper all the way back down the mountain towards home.
In the rumbling darkness of the car, Evan was unnaturally still, his eyes on the rear-view. Dad must have been inches from the back of our car.
‘He’s right,’ Evan said. ‘We could have taken off.’
‘He’d have found us.’
We fell silent. After a while I said, ‘Sorry.’
‘Nothing you could do.’
He was right. There’d been nothing I could do.
All Dad’s choices were false choices. Still, that didn’t stop me wondering.
For years afterwards I would pick over my decision to send the girls running off into the bush, barefoot and terrified and vulnerable to whatever dangers waited for them out there in the night.
The intention had been crystal clear in my mind: get them away from Dad at all costs.
Whatever that meant for Evan and me. Whatever that meant for them.