Free Golden Boys by Sonya Hartnett

turns his face to her, a blotched mask recognis­able only because they’ve seen it before. There is no kindness in it. Before anything else can happen, Declan gets to his feet. And this is new – usually his father’s chivvying drives him deeper into his seat – and alarming: Marigold’s bitten fingers fly to her mouth. ‘Ignore him, Declan,’ their mother orders, but in a dull voice Declan answers, ‘I’m not watching it anyway.’
    He walks from the room, a barefoot boy who looks small when he passes his father. Joe’s gaze follows him right to the door.
Why do you want this?
Freya would like to know, but it’s an impossible thing for a child to ask her father. Their brother has gone, and that can’t be changed. His leaving has knocked the corners off the peril they were in. She glances at Syd, who sags desolately in his chair. Say nothing, do nothing, behave as if you are unharmed and this is normal, this thudding heart, the acidic air, this evening bitterly torn. ‘Come here, Petey-boy.’ Joe pats the space between himself and Freya. ‘I’ll tell you a story. I’ll tell everybody a story.’ In a few minutes he will be snoring.
    She gets abruptly to her feet, refusing to pretend she can listen.

She goes to his room and is surprised to find him buckling on sandals. ‘Where are you going?’
    He taps the shoe into place and stands up. ‘Not to bed.’
    She knows he feels his responsibilities, as she does: they are the eldest. ‘Don’t leave. He’ll fall asleep —’
    But he shakes his head and she sees it then, the damage their father does, a kind of quicksandy pit her brother can only run from. ‘I’ll come with you,’ she says.
    They go down the side of the house that’s not overlooked by the lounge-room window. The evening is mild, a few birds still poke around the naturestrips. The gardens they pass are empty, but curtains are open to catch the last of the light and from some houses comes the sound of television, the closing-credits music of the program the Kileys had been watching. There is no evidence of children living in these houses, no tricycles on the lawns or chalkmarks on the paths – Freya likes this about these streets, how they make her uncommon. It’s mild and meek and safe here, any one of the people in the houses would help her if she went to their door. She can go from house to house and sign up swathes of sponsors for a readathon. Yet in their silence and goodness they must hear the sounds that come from the Kiley house on the very worst nights – and they keep their doors closed to that. She wonders how anybody could do it.
    They have no money to play the pinball at the milkbar, and it is too late to go to the stormwater drain. A few blocks away is a park, a wedge of leftover land with swings and a see-saw standing in a field of silvering tanbark, and they head for it, but when they arrive they find the park occupied by a man sitting alone on a swing, which seems something no grown man should do. He levels on the children an unnerving stare, and the siblings reverse to the footpath. It leaves them nowhere to go, but a destination has become important: they must be going somewhere, not fleeing something. Kids without money aren’t encouraged at the milkbar, but Declan says, ‘We can watch someone play.’
    So they turn back and walk in that direction, and after a time Freya asks her brother, ‘What would you do if Mum had another baby?’
    â€˜Nothing.’ He is wielding a stick as if it’s a blind man’s cane, the tip pinging along the footpath. ‘What could I do?’
    â€˜Wouldn’t you be angry?’
    â€˜Why would I be angry?’
    She rolls her eyes. ‘Well, for a start, we haven’t got anywhere to put a baby.’
    â€˜We’d find somewhere. A baby’s not big.’
    â€˜But they grow