Call Me Evie, page 6
She says something that is stolen by the wind before it reaches me. I need to get nearer. I move forward. Leaves crunch. He is speaking again, murmuring an apology. I hear evil you have brought. At least I think I hear it, but the wind is still whirling around me and my blood hums. The chill has numbed my skin, my feet, hands, and ears. I can no longer hear the sea.
A child has fashioned a sling out of his T-shirt. Is that blood running from his head? The child swings his foot at Jim, but the old woman yanks him back by the collar so his kick barely grazes Jim’s shin.
Despite the chill, sweat rises under my arms, down my back. Jim speaks again. Just a murmur from here. He offers his hand once more but they all just look at it. The woman holds the child and gestures wildly at the others to retreat.
Jim draws himself up. I know that stance. The primal hunch of the shoulders, hands clenched into fists. For a few heartbeats, no one moves. Then they all turn away and the family walks back down the hill in the damp evening air. I’m sprinting back toward the house before Jim has a chance to turn and see me.
Off in the distance, through the patter of the raindrops, I hear something. It sounds like someone shrieking; it might be the wind. I turn back to look. He is walking with his head lowered.
Inside, I drop the knife in the kitchen sink and fall onto the mat near the fire, my knees pulled up to my chest, my arms wrapped around them. Then I get up and wheel his filing cabinet in beside the desk. It has nothing inside but empty folders. I put his penknife in his penholder, the silver handle winking at me in the firelight. I’m opening the oven to dish up dinner when he enters, closes the door behind him, and slams home the dead bolt.
“The boy came off the bike and hurt his arm,” he says. His expression is grim.
“Oh.”
“Nothing really—he understood it was an accident,” he says. He sits down on a stool and leans forward, his fingers splayed on his thighs.
“Was he badly hurt?” I say.
“Does it matter?” He eyes me, his patience evaporating. “I don’t know. He had a knock, he’ll survive. Shouldn’t be out in the wet riding around.”
“Was he a local?”
“What difference does it make if he’s a local or visiting from Mars? What difference does it make?” he says. He forces a laugh. “There was an old lady there.” His eyes wander from mine to the fire. “Nice enough people, accepted my apology, shook my hand. That’s all I could do.” I watch his face for a hint of the lie but he clamps his lips closed and walks down the hall. “What’s a boy doing out on the street like that, though? These people need to accept responsibility. It’s dark and wet. It’s plain stupid.”
“Yeah,” I say, because there is nothing else I can say. I almost feel bad for him.
“I’m going to have a shower,” he says over his shoulder.
“What about dinner?”
He lets out a breath, then replies, “I’m not that hungry. You start without me.”
I place the steak knife back in the drawer, and for the first time I can remember, I eat dinner alone. He’s in his room most of the night and I can almost believe that I’m alone in that house. But when I go to bed, I hear his bedroom door open and the lock outside my door sliding into place, then his bedroom door closing once more.
BEFORE
Eight
Hold it in, suck in some air. Keep it in your lungs as long as possible.” The joint glowed in my fingers. I had smoked a cigarette but that was easier: pull the smoke into your mouth, blow it out. I didn’t like it at first, but after doing it once, the thrill of that small adult act brought on a bubbling excitement.
In the way that groups of girls are always looking for strays, I had been passed around from group to group within and outside of school, never settling too long before moving on. Willow was the only constant; I never was close to Sally again. Willow and I were enough for each other at swimming, turning away with our little inside jokes whenever Sally approached. I was surprised by how freely Willow could spit venom. At once she seemed almost aloof with her eyebrows raised, mouth pinched, then something sharp and mean would come out. Sometimes she would make small clever remarks, or sometimes she might just speak over Sally, interrupting her, suppressing Sally’s voice with her own. We never talked about Thom or about what Willow had told me. I couldn’t let them see how much it upset me.
It was easy for me to talk about Sally to Willow, but I was only bold in private. I could never look Sally in the eye when I heard her sharp intake of breath, saw her face drop. Willow, though, seemed to relish her power. The power to hurt. The power to exploit vulnerabilities. It made me fear her. I hoped I never found myself on the receiving end of one of her barbs. I became distant with Thom; I felt betrayed in a way. Then he left swimming with promises to everyone that he would keep in touch. It felt like something had been severed. It felt like I might never see him again. Why did I care so much when I had been trying to distance myself from him anyway? It should have been a good thing he was leaving; that way I could get over him faster. Willow left swimming too. She had been “over it” for months. And then it was just me.
Fortunately Willow lived close by and most days I went to her place after school—though sometimes when my dad thought I was at Willow’s, we were somewhere else completely.
That day it was the garage of a random friend of Willow’s. The smoke burrowed into the fibers of my lungs, breaching my chest, itching all the way up my throat. All the eyes were on me. A small cough started it off and I tried to contain it but it kept coming. I coughed so hard my eyes watered but coughing didn’t stop the itch. I tried to swallow it away, but as the others smothered their laughter it came on again.
Dad previously had banned me from using my mobile phone for two weeks when he smelled the cigarettes. Who gave them to you? He had asked. I blamed Sally. I wanted him to hate her.
We swam in the cloudy garage. Laughing, sitting on the tacky leather couches. The awkwardness was evaporating with the smoke. Willow propped her legs across the lap of a barrel-shaped boy and his body seemed to stiffen with the touch of her bare skin.
Maybe it was my imagination but everyone seemed to be watching her. I rolled my tongue around the inside of my mouth, smiling. It was easier to smile with the pot pouring itself over my brain. I undid my hair tie and ran my fingers through my hair, letting it fall over my shoulders.
Walking home later as the sun sank in the sky, we coated ourselves in Impulse to mask the bitter herby scent. When we got to Willow’s house we went straight to her room and fell back on her bed. The light was fading outside. We lay there together, looking up at the ceiling, on the edge of some vast crater of laughter. The fragrant aroma of dinner rose up the stairs and my mouth watered.
“Just act straight when we eat, okay? My parents don’t really give a shit. It’s best not to get caught in case Mum is in a mood.”
We went downstairs and sat at the table. I knew I was acting different but I felt untouchable. Willow moved her fork to scoop up peas, which spilled over the edge of her plate. A grin unfurled on her face. Her mum cleared her throat and her dad just sipped his red wine.
“Kate,” he said, “you’re looking particularly happy.”
I realized I was smiling. “Oh, well, I am.” Willow let slip a coughlike laugh.
“Good to hear. And how’s school?”
“It’s okay.”
Reaching for the butter, Willow’s mum knocked over a glass of water. It raced across the table and dripped onto my lap.
Her dad flicked his eyes up, gave his head a little shake.
“Good one, Mum,” Willow said.
“I’m sorry, dear,” she said to me, rising to fetch a tea towel. I felt a foot slide up my shin and looked into Willow’s eyes.
When the spill had been mopped up, Willow’s mum reached out to pat my hand. “I’m so clumsy.”
“It’s okay.”
“A little water isn’t going to melt you, is it, Kate?” Willow’s dad said with a wink so subtle I almost missed it.
I noticed the face Willow’s mum made. She looked ugly for an instant and I wondered how Willow’s parents met. He was lean, handsome in a scruffy way. She was doughy, her jeans stuffed with middle-aged fat, but you could see she had once been pretty.
The television was still playing in the lounge. I remembered something Willow had said recently: My dad has the hugest crush on you—he’s always on his best behavior when you come over. Sometimes if you bite into a joke you find a stone of truth at the center. I looked him right in the eye. His irises were a galaxy of different shades of green, his eyelashes dark and cheeks peppered with stubble. I swallowed.
After dinner, we watched CSI. Willow’s dad disappeared to the study, which was more of a studio than a study, and I could hear the melodic plucking of a guitar unwinding into the house. After some time, I went to the bathroom. Passing through the study on the way back, I saw him sitting with his feet crossed on his desk, the guitar lying across his lap. A piano stood in one corner and guitars of different shapes and sizes were in racks beside it. I avoided his gaze, staring instead at the bookshelf.
The guitar paused. “Help yourself,” he said. I turned to him. He thumbed a curl of dark hair behind his ear, then resumed plucking the familiar tune from the guitar.
“Thanks.” I tried to smile, but it wouldn’t take shape. There was something else, a tickling in my stomach.
Back in the lounge, I sat on the couch with Willow and her mum and watched the TV. The weed was wearing off.
Around nine a knock came at the door. I knew it was Dad: two curt taps. He had been away for work and was picking me up on the way back from the airport. Serious face, pants, and shirt. I tugged my hair back into a ponytail and stood to leave.
The detached feeling from the pot was gone, replaced with a washy gray ambivalence. Most men looked at my father in awe, but Willow’s dad didn’t care about my dad’s sporting accolades; he may not even have known about them. Dad was just another man.
The warm breath of the heater in the car brushed my face like fingers. Are my eyes red? I didn’t want to check. My dad steered with his fists, his arms straight. The big Range Rover wheeled around the bend. Yuppie tractor. I almost laughed. He veered through the gate and into the garage. The Mercedes was there, dark and sleek as a wet panther.
* * *
• • •
I skipped swimming again the following week to get high with Willow. This time her parents weren’t home, so we sat on her windowsill looking down into the backyard, blowing the smoke out the window and burning a stick of incense.
“Why don’t you just quit too?” she asked, handing me the joint and climbing onto her bed. I hated swimming; there was nothing in it for me now that Willow and Thom weren’t going anymore.
“I can’t, Dad won’t let me.”
“Fuck that. Just say you hate it.”
“Yeah, I should.” But of course it was not that easy.
“What has Sally been doing?”
“Nothing. She hangs out with Cara now.” I took the last pull on the joint, then coughed out the window as I emptied my lungs.
“Cara? She’s like thirteen.”
“She just turned fourteen but yeah, Sally can’t make friends her own age,” I said, not mentioning the fact that I always sat alone.
“I want to go down to the pool,” she said. “Come on—let’s go fuck with her.”
I felt anxiety thrumming below the surface of the high. There was no way I could be caught down there; I was supposed to be sick.
She rose from her bed. “Come on,” she repeated. “I’ve got an idea.”
I crushed the gray stub on the windowsill and let it drop into the garden below.
She slung her backpack over her shoulder and I followed her downstairs, along the hall, and into the garage. Willow took something from a bench, jamming it in her bag.
“What are you doing?”
“Let’s go,” she said, ignoring my question.
We made our way along the tree-lined streets. Willow strode purposefully, her wild brown hair swinging down her spine.
As we passed the shops and rounded the bend toward the pool, my skin prickled with anticipation. The familiar cars were in the car park and the bikes were in racks near the door.
“Follow me,” Willow said.
I hesitated. “What are you going to do?”
A smile played on her lips. “You’ll see.”
“I can’t go in there,” I said. “Dad will kill me if he finds out I was lying about being sick.”
“We’re not going inside.”
Willow drew her fingers through her hair so it fell down around her face. She stopped at the bicycle rack, lingering beside a white step-through bike I recognized. The lock threaded between the spokes of the front wheel and the loops of the helmet where it hung near the pedals. Willow unzipped her backpack, her eyes fixed on the sliding doors of the aquatic center. “Watch this,” she said. She pulled out a pair of sharp pliers and squeezed them over the series of cables that ran down from the handlebars. The cables twanged as they broke and curled back.
I clutched her shoulder. “She’s going to notice.”
She eyed me peevishly. “It’s just a prank. Don’t be such a Debbie Downer. She knew you liked Thom, right? Don’t get mad, get even.”
I’d been holding my breath; I let it out. “Okay, be quick.”
She glanced once more toward the entrance, then reached down and clipped all the cables at the other end. Pulling them free, she wrapped them around the pliers and dropped them in her backpack.
“Come on,” she said.
It was a joke. As we rushed away, we were giddy, cackling. The euphoria felt oddly satisfying. It still hurt to think about Sally and Thom, the things they would talk about and do. I hadn’t seen him in the month since he had left swimming, but every time I saw Sally it reminded me that he had chosen her over me.
I didn’t really understand the gravity of what we had done at the time, how a small act can have such consequences. Sally’s injuries weren’t serious. She hadn’t ridden far at all, nor was she going too quickly when she discovered she couldn’t stop. I didn’t know anyone who saw it happen, but apparently she was hurled over the handlebars onto the footpath, breaking a small bone in her wrist. It was easy to imagine other ways it could have gone; if she’d been riding on the road, for instance. Perhaps then it would have been a car and not the pavement she hit. For months afterward, I felt a strange satisfaction, a sort of power in knowing I had caused Sally some pain.
AFTER
Nine
Jim controls everything. That’s why we are here in this town. He says he is protecting me, he is protecting us both, and I have no choice but to trust that he knows what he is doing. Everything I see, everything I experience has been filtered through Jim. So when we park outside the shop and he hands me a ten-dollar note and says, “Grab some butter, won’t you?” I just stare at him, searching his face for any sign of intent.
“Me? By myself?”
He smiles and reaches out to unclip my seat belt. “You’re a big girl, Kate. I’m sure I can trust you to buy something from the shop.” He takes his glasses off and begins cleaning them on the hem of his shirt. “I need butter for the cheese sauce tonight,” he says. It’s been seven days and for the first time, he trusts me to interact with someone else without him. Is this another test? Maybe he is working with the shopkeeper.
I climb from the car and cross the car park. In the shop, the scarred woman is at the counter.
“Kia ora, Kate,” she says. Kate. “How are you?”
I look at her. She’s grinning from ear to ear. “I’m okay. But my name’s actually Evie.”
“Evie, huh?” she says with a big knowing grin. Blood rushes to my cheeks. “I must have misheard your uncle. How’s the place treating you? Settling in?”
“Good,” I say, walking around the shop. Did Jim tell her he is my uncle? The silence prods me to continue speaking, so I quickly add, “We’re settling in well. It’s very quiet here.”
“I bet. Must be weird in Maketu after living in the big smoke. What’s the story with your hair? Just like to keep it fresh and short?”
I chew my lips. “Yeah,” I say, looking over at the magazine rack.
“Have a read,” she says, kicking a stool out beside the counter.
“I can’t—my uncle is waiting out in the car.”
“Your uncle buys up loads of them. I reckon he’s my best customer.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. He loves them.”
“Yeah,” I say, frowning. “I guess he does.”
“My name’s Tiriana, by the way.” She holds out her hand and I shake it. I don’t sit, but I quickly flick through Women’s Weekly. I don’t know what I’m looking for. There could be anything in there.
A police car stops outside and I catch my breath. Has Jim seen them?
Drawing my hood lower over my eyes, I hold the magazine close to my face. An officer enters the store. Sweat rises on my chest. He nods at Tiriana, crosses the shop to the pie warmer. Is he looking at me? If I run, I won’t get far. Tiriana’s movements are jerky when she reaches to accept the money for the pie. The officer takes a bite as he strolls out the door to the street. She scowls as the car starts up outside and pulls away from the curb.
“Wonder why they’re in town,” she says. “Bloody nuisance.”
I jam the magazine back in the rack and wait, looking out through the door across the car park. I can see Jim waving me over.
