The Good Sister(39)

‘This time it’s better,’ he says, smiling. His gaze is still over my shoulder, but closer these days, almost touching my face.

We remain like that for a moment, Wally smiling at me, then, Wally sits up straight. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve been meaning to ask you . . .’ He reaches into his pocket and retrieves a folded-up piece of paper, which he unfolds onto his lap. It appears to be for a private health fund.

‘What’s this?’ I ask.

‘Changing health insurance,’ he says, rolling his eyes. ‘I’ve had to do a mountain of paperwork. And it appears I need an emergency contact person in the country.’

He holds out the page to me, and I know what he’s going to say before he says it. It’s rare that this happens to me. Under the circumstances, I should feel pleased.

‘Would you consider . . . being my person?’ Wally asks, holding out a pen.

I clear my throat. ‘I would be delighted to be your person, Wally. Truly delighted. But I feel there’s something you should know first. Something important.’

Wally looks surprised. But he nods and sits back in his chair. ‘All right. What is it?’

I close my eyes, take a breath.

‘When I was a kid,’ I say, ‘I did something terrible.’





JOURNAL OF ROSE INGRID CASTLE


After that first time at the swimming pool, Gary touched me all the time. He said if I told Mum, she’d blame me, which I’d already figured out. Mum was mad enough with me already, I wasn’t going to provide her with new reasons to hate me. It was frightening how many opportunities Gary found. Officially, Gary didn’t live with us, but you’d never know it with the amount of time he spent at our house. He was often there even when Mum wasn’t.

And so, I stuck to Fern like glue. Safety in numbers, I figured. It worked to some extent. But if Fern took a shower, if she went to the bathroom, if she just wasn’t paying attention, Gary would come and sit next to me. He was discreet. His hand could slide into my shorts or up my skirt without making a sound. I didn’t make a sound either. No matter how much I wanted to, every time I clammed up, became mute.

Sometimes, he even did it when Mum was there. We might be in the kitchen or sitting around, watching television, and he’d suggest we start a massage train. He’d be at the back, of course. I was always next, then Fern and then Mum. Since Fern and Mum were in front, they couldn’t see when he fondled my breasts and groped me. I think he enjoyed the danger of it. I couldn’t figure out if I wanted Mum to turn around . . . or if I didn’t.

But even that was nothing compared to what Gary did when no-one was around. The first time it happened was on a weeknight. We’d been watching television and I’d decided to take a shower. I locked the door and put a chair in front of it to be safe.

When I emerged twenty minutes later, the house was quiet. As I tried to walk quietly to my room, I passed Gary, sitting on the couch.

‘Your mum and Fern have gone to the supermarket,’ he said.

My blood ran cold.

Mum often had to do a late-night dash, she wasn’t organised when it came to food. Fern often went along to make sure Mum didn’t just come home with wine and cigarettes.

And so, there were Gary and I, alone in the house for god knew how long. I was wearing just a towel.

‘How about I give you a proper massage?’ he said. ‘Not just the shoulders?’

That time, I did try to protest. I said I was tired and wanted to go to bed. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it in the bedroom. It will be more comfortable’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I really think–’

‘You need to stop thinking,’ he said. ‘This will help you relax.’

He laid me down on my bed for the ‘massage’ and did things to me that I didn’t completely understand until I was much older. But I knew what he was doing to me was bad. And I figured, for him to do those things to me, I must have been bad too.





FERN


‘It happened when I was twelve.’

Wally is still smiling, but it’s fading. His eyes are showing the first hints of confusion. ‘What happened?’

‘We were camping. Billy and I were playing a game–’

‘Wait.’ Wally holds up a hand. ‘Who is Billy?’

‘Mum had a couple of boyfriends while we were growing up. She had one named Gary, but he didn’t last long, which was good because I didn’t like him. Then she had one named Daniel. Billy was Daniel’s son. We all went on a camping trip together. It was supposed to be a time for us to get to know each other better and bond.’

Wally sits forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

‘We did bond, on that trip. It was fun having another person to play with. Billy was really competitive. He spent most of that camping trip trying to hold his breath under water longer than me. I’d read a book about free diving, so I knew how to fill up my lungs completely, how not to panic under water. Billy couldn’t get close to holding his breath for as long as I could.’

‘What happened, Fern?’

I wrap my arms around myself and start to rock. ‘On the night he died, he was so frustrated. He wanted to stay under the longest, but he just couldn’t do it. Every attempt was worse than the last.’ I looked up at Wally. ‘And so . . . I helped him.’