6

If the Browns want a shower they have to tip briquettes, small chunks of brown coal, into the top of the old briquette heater. The big tank stands about six feet tall not far from the back door and when it’s going, they place their hands on the skin of it and feel the hot water waiting inside. When there’s fire in its belly the kids open the latch at the bottom where the ash pan slides in and out and see a roaring orange place and it seems that things aren’t too bad really. But when it’s out, coldness seems to spread.

It is Rob’s job to fill the hot water tank but everyone knows he’s irresponsible, so Louisa is used to humping the hessian bag of briquettes on her back over to the heater, then climbing onto the chair beside it, heaving up the sack and tipping it. Then hearing the long slide as the coal falls.

Rob, never so fussy about showers, watches his sister go through the ritual. He’s stumped and peeved. Good, he thinks stewing on it, let her. How can she be bothered anyway? Bloody girls.

But he doesn’t say anything. Instead, as he passes on his way towards the back door, he sneers, ‘You’re such a suck Louisa. In fact, I reckon you’re a suck and a slut.’ He seems pleased with the word. He heard it at school today. He smirks and the smirk says, Top That Miss Louisa Smart-Arse.

She’s not even slightly impressed. ‘Piss off you little weed,’ she yells back louder than she means to, grunting and wondering while she lifts her load what exactly a slut is. The briquettes are so heavy she feels her legs buckle. She’s now at the tricky bit, moving the second sack off her back and into the heater and her strength is just about gone.

Rob drops his bag near the step and moves towards her. He places one hand on the chair and gives it a sharp little jolt that wobbles it and she screams, a gratifyingly loud scream. ‘Ahhh Rob, you little dickhead, cut it out, just cut it out ... what’s the matter with you?’

By the time she jumps down off the chair, she’s covered in briquette dust. She takes off after Rob and corners him by the big shed and smears black all over him. When he spits at her she scoops it off and rubs it hard into his face before she lets him go. ‘Good!’ he yells, triumphant to have riled her, and sagging against the shed, he adds, ‘Ha! Now they’ll think I filled the bloody heater.’ Louisa shakes her head in disgust and walks away from her filthy little brother, her long dark plait dividing her back. ‘Fair dinkum Rob, you can be such an unbelievable shit.’

And then out of nowhere, Emmett’s at the back door and Louisa is blabbing, ‘Hi Dad,’ and when she gauges the mood as fair, she plunges on, asking, ‘Dad, what’s a slut?’ as if it’s any other word. Emmett turns to her and, low and dark, says, ‘Who called you that?’

‘Rob,’ she answers without thinking much, because Emmett seems calm enough today and maybe even pleased she’s filled the hot water service but no, once again, she’s got it all wrong.

Emmett turns and hits Rob across the face hard enough to loosen a couple of his side teeth. He walks inside without looking back at them, saying low, but almost casually, ‘Don’t you ever call my daughter a slut, boy.’ The words fall onto the huddled child. Louisa kneels down beside Rob, tears slicing tracks down their black faces. Their careful eyes lock. ‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘sorry Robbie.’

For a twelve-year-old, Rob is pretty small but not outlandishly so anymore. Still, his size seems to be the thing that really bothers his father. His first-born son should by rights reflect well on him and here’s this boy, this puny runt of a boy. Honestly, thinks Emmett, it’s pathetic. Nothing like a son of mine should be. Nothing at all. Having a boy so small offends his sense of his own manhood which is the most important thing in the world. Without your manhood, what are you?

And fighting and manhood are twins. Emmett often comes home with chunks out of his face and red tears like angry little zips round his mouth. He’s been known to lift up his shirt to show the kids evidence of the fights. Swelling bruises bloom like eggplants all over his stomach and even across the lightening scar of a childhood liver operation.

Until he was thirteen or so, Rob always assumed the old man won most of the fights and he even took some comfort from the idea of that. Then, after school one day, he hears something in Johnno Bond’s lounge room that changes everything. Over in Harold Street, Rob hears Johnno’s dad, Billy, mention Emmett and his ears prick up – since there’s only one Emmett, this must be his. Trouble is, it’s not always easy to work out what Billy’s on about because his New Zealand accent sits heavily on words.

Billy Bond is a Maori wharfie who looks a bit like Elvis Presley. He encourages this by slicking back a thick wave of his gorgeous hair. Similarity trails off there though because Billy’s face is cratered with acne potholes. His nose is as wide as a bath plug, his teeth look like peanuts and his eyes are granite chips. His immense blue arms are teeming with faded tattoos but when he smiles, you fear not.

The door to the pale blue kitchen is ajar and Billy is chatting amiably to his wife, Shirley, a hefty woman in a floral housecoat and thongs, while she gets the tea on. It’s coming up to five o’clock on this warm afternoon. This is all strange to the boy, a man talking to his wife and no beer in sight, but Billy’s always been a bit on the weird side.

‘That Immitt Brown’s difinitely got some kynda dith wush,’ he declares. A blue mug on the table before him sighs tea fumes and his forearms surround the mug like illustrated hams.

Over at the sink Shirl takes a good quarter-inch off the surface of the carrot she holds in her red-raw hand. ‘Is he?’ she asks distractedly, keeping her eye on her youngest who’s yelling something at her about the dog from outside the kitchen window.

Billy pushes on regardless. ‘Well, he takes on enyone who’ll kick his head en and et’s pathetic. Used to be all right, least he could look after hiself. Don’t know what’s wrong with him. Bin worse lately no doubt about thet.’ He takes a gulp of hot sweet tea and, looking through the window onto next door’s sagging grey fence, reflects on life. ‘Funny old world eh?’

Shirley couldn’t care less about Emmett Brown but over in the lounge room Rob Brown certainly could. Even his favourite show The Jetsons can’t compete with gossip about the old man. Still, for appearance he waits till the show ends before he unfolds his legs from the floor and bounces up saying, ‘See ya’, looking Billy square in the eye. Then he burns home with his nugget of news.

The Bond’s flywire door is still banging by the time Rob reaches Wolf Street and bursts down the barrel of the sideway brushing past the ferns and nearly ploughs into Louisa near the clothesline. In the still of the afternoon the girl is bringing in the washing. A great pile of clothes stiff with sun spills out of the basket. He gets close enough for her to see sweat pearling on him.

‘Come ’ere,’ he spits out breathlessly, bending over with his hands on his knees, panting and sucking air in deep. ‘Wanna tell ya something.’ She’s intrigued but won’t show it. Casually she drops the pegs into the peg tin, leaves the clothes under the line and heads for the big shed, absently pulling her dark plait over her shoulder for comfort.

Inside, it’s dark except for where the old timbers on the walls are slipping. Slices of sun slash through the wall. Five teachests seem to hold up the other wall. The washing-machine tank with hoses sticking out everywhere and missio ... painted on it stands in the front, a relic from Rob’s astronaut period. Up one end, an old work bench sinks reluctantly into the dirt. The place smells of dust and mice and time and they sit on the dirt floor in the circle they have drawn to make them safe. They firmly believe in the power of circles.

Still panting slightly, Rob delivers his news solemnly. ‘The old man wants to die, Johnno’s dad said so, reckons he’s got a death wish, that’s what it means doesn’t it, that you want to die?’

Louisa stares at him through the gloom, by now she should have begun to get tea on, she doesn’t have time for this rubbish. ‘What? What are you talking about?’ she retorts as if he’s retarded. Rob stares back, calm and sure. Louisa raises her voice a notch. ‘Anyway, Dad doesn’t know anyone else, any grown-ups. How does Johnno’s dad know him?’

Rob doesn’t even have to think about that one, it’s just too obvious. ‘The pub, course it’s the pub,’ he says, feeling good and grown-up for a few seconds, but the feeling doesn’t last. What does all this really mean?

Louisa and Rob are used to working together on the subject of the old man but neither of them has thought of killing yourself, that people really do such a thing. ‘Is he going to get worse?’ Louisa asks. ‘What’s a death wish anyway?’

Rob draws a square in the dirt with a stick. ‘I told ya it means he wants to die. Means he’s like ... going to kill himself.’ He wonders how he knows this because no one has told him, he just knows it from the way Johnno’s dad looked at him before he went home. With some kind of sadness. Something he might one day name as pity.

Louisa’s eyes are enormous. She’s long thought this day would come but she’s not worried about what Emmett will do to himself. ‘Is he going to kill us too? You reckon it’s going happen?’ Rob, with the wisdom of a sage, says, ‘Could be. It could be.’