Free Loving, Faithful Animal by Josephine Rowe Page A

bit like Ev’s old man, without the pole up the arse.
    Got recruited, after a fashion. Calling one of the quacks a reprobate.
    Know some big words, do you mate? That was Clarrie. Magpie-eyed, waving his paper over his head.
    Can’t do them things.
    Them things? Don’t act the grunt. You’re in here to think differently, aren’t you?
    You don’t scare me . So sweet, the first time, first real bad night she’d been there for. Almost dumb enough to believe her. But then the words changed their meaning. Sneaky little shits. You don’t scare me. Meaning: she was scared alright. White-knuckle scared, hand wrapped round a kitchen knife. Go on then. Do it. Do it. Fucking Do. It. Woman.
    Seven letters: Go grabbing Italian smoker in South-East Asia.
    Tried to quit a hundred times. Whenever they jacked up the price on a pouch of Port Royal. Made it to nearly a fortnight once, all going beaut. Then Ru jumped out from behind a door, Boo! Just lost it then.
    When Ev got sick. Her beautiful hair falling out. Alopecia , like the name for some exotic breed of horse. But it just meant she hid what was left under a yellow babushka scarf and looked twenty years older. Thought it would be better. Calmer, you know.
    Rooming house. Fitzroy Street. The place all full of flyspot and damp ghosts. Finch in the corner, grinning with what was left of his jaw. Hey Jackrabbit. You got twenty dong?
    Payphone and Ev singing drunk down the line, Street boy …
    Remember Lani as a tiny kid. Nervous little thing. Pick her up and she’d be trembling, throwing up when someone so much as raised their voice.
    Hey Ev, what’s wrong with this kid? She crook or what?
    Alopecian horses. Could just about see them, running golden-syrup circles round the yard. Something her father would’ve put his money into. The kind of life she should have stayed put in.
    Oh, you wonder do you? You really wonder what’s wrong? Bloody mystery, is it?
    Repat, only a week or so that time. Fella wandering around a bit frantic with this little bundle of sticks in a pot of dry dirt saying not to worry, not to worry, he could save it. He propped it under a busted rain gutter to catch the runoff and within the week it was showing green. New growth; wasn’t he so proud.
    Eleven letters: Eddie’s limbo worsened back from war.
    Shrink said to buy a diary, said write it all down. Wrote: It was hot, and we were sick of survival biscuits. NCOs assured us that the biscuits would survive, even if we didn’t. The photographs we kept on us fell to bits cause of all the rain and all the sweat. Then tore out the first page and gave the diary to Ru for scribbling in.
    Future. Couldn’t get a handle on it. Nights when the future was only what the headlights could pick up, and no further.
    You. Are. Going. To. Make. It. Up. To. These. Girls. You. Are. Going. To. Make. It. Up. To. Us. Believe you me.
    Just wanted to take her somewhere. Nice. Away from it all. Got it almost good. Almost perfect. The caravan, the Yarra Yarra where it’s still crystal, before it starts flowing arse up. Not a soul around. The girls on their own holiday at Stell’s. Waking up Ev with tea and scotch oats cooked on the Sterno. Lying in late, remembering each other. Almost something good enough to point back to and say, Now wasn’t that something. Fat lazy river slapping at its banks and riddled with glinting trout.
    Just that last part with the car running out of petrol, things sliding off the rails. Fighting in the sick light of the Mobil, knocking a chips display over, people staring. Sir, you’ll have to —yeah fucken yeah. But almost, almost.
    Ru wanting help with her grade three geography project. A hundred fucked-out, sucked-out countries they could’ve given her. Why that one ? Drew it from a hat , she says. What’s the weather like? Staple foods? How do you say hello?
    How should I know?
    They’d teach a four-year-old to pull