Free Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield Page B

damp air, time to not think about anything, to just listen to the rhythmic hum of clothes flopping and tumbling in the dryer.
    Nobody volunteered for dinner or shopping. Only Carrie made an effort in the ramshackle kitchen. She tried to serve up healthy meals but the best she could produce was pasta with a packet of grated cheese mixed through, topped with Worcestershire sauce. It smelled good but anaesthetised my tongue for two days. Usually it was chips and bread, occasionally overheated pumpkin soup with clots of curdled cream. Our diet made me nostalgic for tuna on toast and fresh-picked mandarins.
    In the first week I was given a reprieve by Silence. He slipped me two hundred dollars and shook his head when I tried to give it back. He knew that my purse was gone and sent his poisonous looks Darcy’s way whenever she was around. I hadn’t figured out a way to earn money, a way that wasn’t illegal or immoral, or both.
    I had a soft spot for AiAi, who scampered about like an untrained pet, and Joe, who kept to himself but who occasionally let fly with his barbed wisdom. Carrie could always be counted on for laughs.
    Bree was often absent as she divided her time between her two families. Of them all, she was the easiest to be around.
    Arden was a stickler for routine and quick with her slaps. AiAi copped it regularly for not brushing his teeth and Darcy was adept at sensing one coming. I noticed her duck whenever something nasty came out of her mouth, even if Arden wasn’t around. Often there was so much talk flying back and forth that I would tune out. I learned to listen for the quiet.
    Mostly, I watched Arden. I wanted her confidence. Apart from her occasional violent outbursts, I wanted to be like her, so at ease in her skin. I felt I could absorb her energy simply by being near her, spinning in her orbit. Every morning, I woke, convinced I would move on; every evening I found myself back in that kitchen, a small part of Arden’s universe.
    On my ninth morning in the city, I got up early. Bree and Carrie were still sleeping. I went downstairs, expecting an empty kitchen, but Arden and AiAi were there.
    Arden was teaching him to tie his shoelaces.
    ‘Bunny ears. Look. Over, under, bunny ears, over, under, pull it tight. Do it again.’
    AiAi tried, but his bow fell apart.
    ‘Do it again. Hold the first bit down with your ring finger, then do the loops, otherwise it comes loose.’
    AiAi sighed and his shoulders slumped.
    Arden went through the motions again, counting each move aloud.
    I was struck by her patience, her tenderness, as she guided AiAi’s fingers in a ritual that was familiar but too distant for me to remember it clearly. Where was I when Vivienne held my small hands like that?
    AiAi tied his first bow, unaided. It was lopsided and loose, but it stayed together.
    Arden tied it off in a double-knot. ‘See? Now, stop bugging me to do up your laces every morning. Or else get Velcro shoes.’
    She spotted me in the doorway and smiled. When she did that, it was unexpected, and beautiful.
    ‘You.’ She pointed at me. ‘Me. We got a date later.’
    ‘What?’ I stammered.
    ‘I need you to do something for me.’
    ‘Why me?’
    ‘You’re small,’ she said in her cryptic way. ‘And Bree said you climb trees.’
    ‘Okay,’ I agreed, as if I’d made a choice.
    I went up to the bathroom to brush my teeth. On my way back down, Silence was standing on the stairs, reading the walls. He did that a lot. By now I’d realised that it was him, pasting the clippings to the walls, and that it was more than something he did to pass time.
    He’d started a whole new section, working his way through a pile of newspapers tied together with an old stocking. He ran his finger beneath the words as he read.
    ‘Can you show me where the uni is today?’ I asked him.
    He nodded.
    ‘What are you reading?’
    The clipping was from 1944. There was a photo of a smiling young man standing next to a bi-plane, taken not