19

Peter walks across the main road behind the house after tea one night when tangerine clouds are stretched out like string. He’s been thinking about fishing for a while now.

Getting away from the others, and from the bully Rob has become and always from the looming Emmett. Yeah, he’s cutting out, going fishing, but first he’s got to wait for the bus to Williamstown. He sits down in the gutter with Danny’s old bag beside him.

The tin flag of the bus-stop sign holds itself in the air and he edges up a bit towards it on the gutter so he’s looking at the back of his own house across the road.

The houses opposite remind him of teeth. The service station makes a gap like a missing one and standing out boldly is the back of number fifty-five. He can see most of the yard. And there’s something hanging on the clothesline. Looks like Emmett’s second work pants. Legs kick up in the breeze now and then. From this distance, the house looks small and exhausted from the effort of containing the Browns under the harsh eye of Emmett, and watching the house makes the boy uneasy. He feels like an animal separated from the herd.

He chews the inside of his cheek, a habit he’s gotten into lately. There’s something about it that reminds you that you’re here. Then he peels a couple of flakes of dry skin off his lips, seeing how long he can get them. Draws a bead of blood. He chews on the skin around his cuticles and there’s not much left of his small white nails. In a while an old red bus lumbers into view and grinds to a halt before him. Inside, he balances like a surfer as it takes off grudgingly, all gears straining. He pays the driver, and then weighed down by the frozen bait he makes his way down.

The bus is tight with people coming home from work. Like most of the grown-ups he knows, they’re pretty sour. His rod pokes them a bit and they scowl. He pulls it back and hangs on in the middle of the bus. He’s not that tall yet but he sees out the window okay. He imagines that the houses they pass pull themselves back from the line of the road. He likes the look of most houses. Likes the safety he reckons he sees there.

Peter has the same crew-cut as Rob’s but his skin is paler and he’s still prone to little skirmishes of hives. He’s bigger than Rob at this age and this makes make him popular with Emmett. But it isn’t just his size that Emmett likes. There’s something about Pete that everyone likes. A kind of stillness. A listening. Pete doesn’t ever talk much but he’s got something that Louisa thinks of as kindness; but then you can’t say that about boys.