An Endless Summer(15)
“I know, but …” I sighed. “I’ll figure something out.”
I went to take the bag from Sean’s grasp but he refused to let it go, so we stood there joined by our mutual grasps of the black garbage bag.
The last thing I needed was to get a lecture from him about how stupid that sounded. I was just about to shut this whole conversation down before he started laughing at me … but then he didn’t. He just stood there, staring, no smile, no expression at all other than a questioning frown and a firm, unrelenting grasp on his side of the bag. He didn’t have to voice the words that he no doubt thought – that I was out of my mind and pathetic for keeping secrets from my parents like a kid scared of getting caught after breaking a window with a cricket ball.
“Well, good luck with that,” Sean said. He let go of the bag. “See you around, Amy Henderson.”
That infamous crooked quirk to his lips was back before he tore his eyes away, hopped off the verandah and headed towards his white twin cab Toyota. My heart sank a little; was I actually disappointed that he hadn’t challenged me, questioned me, or insisted he help offload the rubbish for me?
I watched as he climbed into his work rig that sported his name and mobile number on the side in blue print, advertising his business: ‘Sean Murphy This N That Building’.
He put on some sunnies, fired up his ute and worked to turn the steering wheel in a cool, confident, one-handed turn. He backed it up, pulled into gear, flashed a winning smile and sounded the horn in a series of honks before he blazed a circled cloud of dust and flew down Coronary Hill.
As the dust cloud settled, I suddenly felt exhausted and alone, just me and the dilapidated Onslow. I accidently stepped on a garbage bag.
“Crap!” Correction. Just me and a pile of garbage. Oh joy.
Chapter Eight
By ten o’clock at night I was showered again and in my PJs.
Dad’s apartment still smelled like the remnants of cigarette smoke, after thirty-plus years of chain smoking. The walls were even stained, that passive yellowing smoke colour. I had scrubbed and rubbed, washed and polished, and yet the apartment still didn’t feel right. I had attacked the kitchenette with some hospital grade disinfectant, but I had yet to clean out the fridge.
I had only opened it for a nanosecond and closed it so quickly I could barely believe that such a short glimpse could have evoked such terror in me. The amount of rotting food and sludge that had pooled at the bottom of the fridge was truly repulsive and, after the day I’d had, I wasn’t ready to tackle that just yet.
I unclipped the sheets and doona cover I’d hung out earlier from the line at the back of the beer garden and basked in the sweet lavender fragrance that emitted from them. Finally, something clean and fresh. I couldn’t wait to collapse in a heap into them. I had downed a packet of nuts and another Coke that had seen me over the line, but I was so busy that I didn’t overly notice my exhaustion until I hit the wall. I didn’t think my brain could function much longer without food; I would get some supplies tomorrow.
I shuffled my bunny slippers up the stairs, my arms full of linen, when I paused on the landing. I stared wearily towards the apartment door, then turned to the opposite hallway. I flicked on the hall light, lighting the long narrow hall, and made my way to the fourth door on the right. Inside, I switched the light on and found a double bed with a navy, plaid bedspread and a poster of Jimi Hendrix on the wall. I smiled. The fourth room on the right had always been my cousin, Chris’s, room when he came to help out in the holidays. He was the oldest of all my cousins, seven years older than me and best mates with Sean. The room hadn’t changed a lot; aside from being bare. It just lacked his clothes and crap strung all over the place. I flicked the light off, shifting the pile as my tired arms began to feel weighed down with the load. At the end of the hall, last door on the right, I opened the door and revealed a room with a desk, another double bed stripped of blankets, and a washstand jammed in the corner. The room was more barren and unlived in than Chris’s, but it would always be Adam’s room, Chris’s younger brother. I’d loved having them around for the summer, although I would never admit that, but come summer again I looked forward to my cousins being back to stay and help out at the Onslow. Each summer, I had been instantly transformed from being an only child to having two older brothers. As I looked at the abandoned room, my heart swelled at all the memories of growing up here. The times we would play murder in the dark and go hide in one of the many guest rooms, or how they’d take me out on the lake waterskiing, something I had always been happy to do until that night before I was sent away. I swallowed down the memory as I clicked off the light.