her up.â
âNothing you could have done. She was on edge the whole time.â After my last chance, Iâm now eager to speak. âProbably junk too. And those friends of hers â in Footscray.â âWhat?â His brow creases. âNah, I meant Mum.â He looks at me curiously for a second, then scoffs at himself. âThough her too, I guess.â
I recall a story Baby told me during her last visit, how a friend of hers in detention had collapsed from withdrawal; the male guards had grabbed her, double-cuffed her, stuck a motorbike helmet on her head for two days so she couldnât âhurt herself.â
âMum still going up to that temple?â
Heâd come back from jail and Iâd fantasised about receiving his confidences. Heâd copped the time for both of us â knowing, surely, that I wouldâve done the same. But he hadnât grown more open at all. Nor the couple of other times heâd visited. Only this time seemed different. This was the most communicative Iâd ever seen him.
âIn Sunshine? I think so.â He doesnât react, so I go on, âI think once she ran into one of the families there. I heard one of them spat in her face.â
He nods absently. âAnd you? You okay?â
The side-stepped directness of his question stuns me. I saunter my arm out along the view. âWhatâs not to be okay about?â
âListen,â he says. âCan I ask you something?â
âWhat?â
âThat stuff Mum said about you doing talks.â
âItâs nothing. Just uni stuff.â I feel myself smirking. âThey just need someone with slanty eyes who can speak in their language.â
âWhat sort of stuff do you say?â
âYou know â just whatever they wanna hear.â
âLike what?â
âLike poverty, or language issues. Cultural marginalisation â¦â
âThey donât ask about what happened that night?â
âYou mean do I talk about you.â
He shakes his head impatiently. Heâs working himself up to something and it puts me on edge. âI mean, donât they ask why? Why I did it? I mean, isnât all the rest of it bullshit?â
âWhy we did it. I was there too.â
âYeah,â he says, visibly annoyed at having been interrupted. âYouâre right. I forget. Iâm sorry.â I wait for him to go on but now Iâve mucked up his thinking. âItâs all bullshit,â he says again, struggling to recall his argument, and out of some old fraternal deference I find myself looking away. I listen to the frogs gulping for air down by the rushes. The black ducks and reed warblers. My heart is beating harder and harder. I know, of course, what heâs referring to â itâs the same thing that brings him here each time, then each time strikes him silent: the mind-boggling bullshit of me , years on, still with nothing but time, still cashing in, ever more deeply, on his time. Those twelve bullshit years piled on the back of a single nightâs spur of the moment. That night, too, Iâd felt the same sick, heady exhilaration talking to him like this â like we were friends.
âYouâre shaking,â he had pointed out. Weâd made it home and both showered; heâd scrubbed his face, I noticed, until it was bright pink. The corners of his temple lined with delicate blue veins.
âI canât piss. My bladder feels heavy as, but nothing comes out.â
Heâd frowned, then reached out and clutched my neck with one of his strong pink hands. I knew the strength of those hands. My stomach hitched. He didnât say anything, and at the physical contact I was shuddered back to our surreal, silent trip in the car; the fog descending upon the freeway canyons, the red blinking lights of radio towers blooming like blood corollas in the mist. The streets had sucked us through the city and