Jack was waiting with his mates Stavros and Billy and they didn’t seem at all concerned about the time. As she made her way slowly up St Georges Road, she could see them mucking around with a soccer ball on the footpath. Freda Carlosi’s daughter, Amelia, was with them. As always happened, Marianne felt a small tremble of sadness go through her on seeing the girl. Amelia had been born with Down syndrome, and even though she was Jack’s age, Freda and Anthony still dressed her in pink hoodies and track pants that were more appropriate for a girl half her age. The one she was wearing today had Walt Disney bunny rabbits printed on it, but her body could scarcely be contained in the children’s clothes: her breasts were enormous, her bottom fleshy and prominent. As Marianne pulled into the kerb near them, she could see that the girl was trying to get the boys’ attention. Billy, the tallest of them, was holding the soccer ball high above her head and Amelia was trying to grab for it. Her son and Stavros were laughing. Marianne pushed the button to wind down the passenger window and call out to them, tell them to stop teasing Amelia and fooling around, when the girl’s fingers hit the ball and it bounced back off her hand and flew onto the road. She felt a jolt of terror, thinking Amelia would rush into the traffic, but Bill reached out and pulled her back. The ball had gone under a car and unleashed a torrent of horns.
It was then she heard Billy’s voice pierce the noise: ‘Freakin’ hell, Meels, watch what you’re doing!’ She saw the girl’s face blush red and then she heard her son: ‘Yeah, Meels, why are you such a dumb mong?’ Stavros broke out into mocking giggles and Billy gave her son a slap across the back. ‘Mong,’ Jack repeated, even more loudly, and that was when he looked up and saw Marianne. His face broke into a grin and he grabbed his schoolbag off the ground. ‘Come on, Mum’s here.’ The traffic had come to a complete halt and Billy took the opportunity to dash across the road and scoop up the ball.
Jack and Stavros scrambled into the car, Billy following with the ball tucked under his arm. ‘Hey, Mrs P,’ ‘Hello, Marianne,’ ‘Why are you late, Mum?’
She ignored them. Her eyes were fixed on Amelia waving at them. She waved back uncertainly. She looked over at her son. ‘Who’s picking up Amelia?’
‘I don’t know — her mum.’
‘We can’t leave her here alone.’
Jack rolled his eyes and pointed to the groups of boys and girls at the tram stop, straddling the school fence, drifting down the school drive in pairs, in trios, in groups of four and five.
‘She’ll be fine, Mrs P,’ Stavros said from the back, wrestling the soccer ball off Billy. ‘She knows she has to wait for Mrs C.’
‘She nearly ran out on the road before.’
‘Mum! We’re going to be late.’
Marianne put the car into drive and hit the indicator. As the car pulled into the traffic, she could see that the girl was still waving at them. The boys ignored her.
‘I heard what you called her.’
‘What?’ Jack shrugged his shoulders. He was pulling off his jumper and white shirt, fumbling in his bag for his soccer shirt.
‘I heard what you called her.’
In the back, Stavros and Billy had fallen silent.
She could smell her son’s day-long musty pong. His boyhood sweetness was all gone. It appalled her, the overwhelming vigour of his stink.
‘I think it is disgusting, calling her names.’
Jack mumbled something.
‘What did you say?’
He was struggling to pull his soccer shirt down over his chest, his middle, wriggling in his seat, all sinewy arms and sprawling legs. ‘I said, whatever.’
I could smack you.
‘It’s alright, Mrs P.’ Stavros was leaning forward. ‘It’s just a word — she doesn’t mind. It’s like when they call me a wog.’
‘That’s right.’ Billy leaned forward as well. ‘Or when they call me a Maco dickwad.’
‘You are a Maco dickwad.’
Billy grabbed the ball off Stavros and threw it hard at the back of Jack’s head.
‘Stop it!’ It felt good to scream at them. She wished she could stop the car and order them out into the traffic on St Georges Road, force them to walk all the way to the game. She felt overwhelmed by the stench of them, the size of them, their vanity and arrogance. Billy was eyeing himself in her rear-view mirror. She glanced over at her son. He had his arms crossed and his neck and face were flushed. She had embarrassed him in front of his friends. Good. He should be ashamed. No one said a word all the way to the oval at Pascoe Vale.
•
All three boys played well that afternoon and their team won 3–1. At one point Jack took the ball all the way up the field, kicked it across to Billy, who then flicked it expertly with his left foot back across to Jack, who kicked it long and smooth into the corner of the goal. The boys wrapped themselves around her son, their screams filled the air. Jack emerged from the scrum with his hands held aloft, his eyes searching the stand for her. She looked down at her feet, pretending to studiously observe a small streak of mud on her heel. She would not catch his eye. She had wanted him to miss that goal, had wanted him to be disappointed, to feel nothing but shame.
She continued her silence on the drive home, dropping off Billy first and then Stavros. Both boys thanked her but neither apologised for teasing Amelia. Her goodbyes were short, gruff. She had not congratulated them on the game.
Jack combated her silence with his own, his eyes fixed on the world rushing past the window. As soon as she had driven up their drive, Jack was out of the car, slamming the door behind him.
She caught the word he muttered as he heaved himself out of his seat.
Bitch. He had called her a bitch. Another word not supposed to hurt.
You called her a mong. A mong? What kind of animal are you?
•
Rick was home and cooking a stir-fry. She kissed him curtly on the cheek, annoyed that he had taken the ritual of preparing the meal away from her. She’d been looking forward to the routine of chopping the vegetables, grinding the spices and chillies. Jack was already in the shower.
Rick turned to her and gestured with his chin towards the bathroom. ‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘I heard him call Amelia Carlosi a terrible name. I’m not speaking to him till he apologises.’
Rick started to laugh and then, wary of the look in her eyes, stopped mid-chuckle. He turned back to tossing the beef and vegetables. ‘You two are exactly the same.’
I am nothing like him. Nothing.
‘He’ll calm down, you’ll calm down, then he’ll apologise.’ Rick lifted the wok off the flame. ‘He’s a good kid, he wouldn’t have meant anything by it.’
‘I can’t believe you’re defending him.’
‘Can you check the rice cooker?’
Check it your fucking self. He looked over his shoulder at her, sighed, put down the wok and moved over to the cooker. He turned around with a wounded smile. ‘It’s ready.’
She knew it was childish, pathetic really, but she couldn’t help it. She kicked off her shoes into a corner. ‘I’m not hungry,’ she growled as she walked out of the kitchen.
•
She tried reading a book but couldn’t concentrate. Amelia’s blurred babyish features, the old woman’s eyes in the young girl’s face, kept appearing in and out of the words, flooding the spaces between paragraphs and sentences. She turned on the television instead. Hunger scraped at her insides but she couldn’t bring herself to leave the bedroom. In a while there was a knock. Jack walked in with a bowl of food in one hand, a fork in the other. He laid them sheepishly on the bedside table and then sat awkwardly at the foot of the bed. An episode of Seinfeld was playing, a rerun they had both seen two or three times before. ‘I’m sorry,’ she heard him mutter. She knew exactly what she should do. She should reach out to him, rub his shoulder. She should. But she couldn’t. She picked up her bowl and started eating, her eyes fixed on the screen. He sat there till the ad break, then left the room.