Later that night, my parents relaxed in front of the TV. Dad slinked his arm around Mum and stole a wayward chip from the bowl. Mum playfully slapped his hand away. Rolling my eyes, I crept out and shut the door on their uproarious laughter as cutesy, crazy Ally McBeal fell over her own feet, again.
I switched the phone to my other ear where my friend Mary waited.
“What did you say?” I asked, lowering my voice.
“Where are you going to go?”
More laughter erupted from the lounge. My glare towards the offending sound was my usual expression these days, and with all that frowning and scowling I, too, was going to need Dr. Baritone’s Botox before too long.
I shuddered.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Anywhere but here.”
I guess I should have been happy for my parents. Most normal offspring would have been relieved that they were working things out, reigniting the flame so to speak, and I thought I would adjust to the change of Dad being a full-time presence in my life. But, to be honest, it was rocking my world. In a bad way. It was rocking a world that, since I finished school, Mum and I had lived in exclusively the majority of the time. Just us. Dad didn’t belong here, he was a country boy; his role in my life was to provide me with an escape, a place I could go for school holidays and weekends. A place to get spoilt with an endless array of raspberry post mix and limitless packets of salt and vinegar chips.
My dad was the coolest. Or he had been. To all my friends in the city, I was this rich kid with a country mansion and my own multi-roomed hotel on the lake. When I was younger, I would literally bounce on the balls of my feet at the thought of going to Onslow; I longed for school holidays where I would pack up my swimmers and thongs, don the floppy hat and war paint my face with fluoro zinc cream before heading to the lake with all my country friends. Onslow was the ultimate escape; it allowed me absolute freedom and some of the happiest times of my life.
I froze, zoning out from Mary’s chatter on the other end of the line as my eyes fixed onto a photo on the fridge door. It was a picture of me from years ago sitting outside the Onslow Hotel on a picnic table, my gangly legs hanging over the edge, and a goofy, forced smile on my face. At a guess, I must have been fourteen. I could usually tell my age in a photo. Closed-mouth smile: braces. Bright, beaming smile: post braces. By the awkwardness of this photo, I was definitely sporting a mouth full of metal, but, more disturbing than that, was I wearing a …
“Skort?” I grimaced.
“Amy? Amy? Did you hear me?”
“Oh, sorry, what did you say?”
“Seriously, you’re not thinking of leaving the city for the summer, are you? Like, where would you even go?”
My eyes never broke from the goofy, suntanned, happy fourteen-year-old me, perched alone in front of the sweeping verandah of the Onslow with its heritage green roof and cream brickwork.
I broke into a toothy grin at the thought of being alone, just like that girl in the photo. I plucked it off from under the magnet.
“Mary, did I ever tell you about my mansion in the country?”
Chapter Three
“You have got to be fracking kidding me!”
Yes, I said fracking. It’s what a life of growing up with my mother had reduced me to – compromised swear words. Even though she tried her hardest to stamp dirty words out of me with the best private, all-girl education money could buy, my sailor-mouth habit was never completely cured. It was Dad’s fault, really. All the foul language I learned was a direct result of my time spent hanging with him at the Onslow. Even though I refrained from saying the real ‘F’ word, Mum still loathed my rendition and eventually just gave up trying to stop me altogether.
Speaking of giving up, I stood outside the Onslow Hotel and stared up at the building in mystified horror. I would have thought maybe I was tired and grumpy due to the bus trip from hell, or that maybe I was at the wrong place and didn’t even realise it.
Or maybe I was hallucinating this monstrosity.
But no. I wasn’t.
I had not expected this.
My heart sank at the sight of it: the overgrown lawn, the dirty ring-stained picnic tables, cigarettes, and broken glass near the front door, a couple of empty bottles on the windowsill. The windows were smudged and grotty – even the overhanging Carlton Draft sign dangled from a snapped chain, squeaking in the faint, hot breeze that blew. I half expected a tumbleweed to roll past me and a lonely wolf cry to echo through the hills. If we had wolves in Australia. Okay, a dingo, then. The atmosphere was that of a horror movie, an eerie, deserted scene.
I shielded my eyes from the beaming sunrays and hoped against hope that what I saw before me was a mirage, a nightmarish illusion.