I was standing by the containers one Saturday, making calculations in my mind, when I saw a figure stop outside the window. I looked up. It was Ian, in his work gear: polo shirt, and the glint of his dinky name badge. His hair was longer, slicked back.
That same feeling washed over me, the exact same feeling I got every time I saw him head towards the knackery with Cassie trailing behind, every time I saw him on the verandah, his rattish face, packet of chips fused to his hand. It was chemical, like there was something fizzing in my body at the sight of him. I turned away, but a second later he was standing right beside me.
‘Thought it was you,’ he said.
I took a step back without realising, could feel my fists curl into stones.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘I won’t bite.’ He smiled, and the smile was warm, like the way you’d smile at a baby or a puppy. Someone you thought was harmless. He said he’d just finished work, that he’d seen me from the window and that he wanted to say hello.
‘How was the funeral?’ he asked.
‘It wasn’t a funeral,’ I said. I could hardly remember it. It was just us really: me, Mum and Dad, and Wally. A few of Dad’s cousins from the city. None of Cassie’s old teachers, no one he worked with at the Connolly. There was no body, no casket. It wasn’t even in a church. When we left the hall Dad’s windshield was smeared red with the guts of something feral.
‘Sorry I didn’t make it,’ Ian said.
‘You weren’t invited,’ I told him.
Ian smirked. ‘Jeez,’ he said. ‘Well, who came then?’
‘Why would anyone come?’ I said.
Ian shrugged. ‘Say goodbye.’
‘Why would anyone come after what he did?’
Ian didn’t answer. He didn’t know I knew and I wanted to keep it that way, keep the secret inside me forever so that Ian would have no reason to want to hurt me. Ian was free and Cassie was gone, but I wanted Ian to be gone from my brain too.
‘I read about what happened,’ Ian said. ‘In the paper. I had no idea. I figured he’d been depressed but I didn’t know that’s what it was about. The cops asked me a few questions as well, but I couldn’t help them.’
I wanted it to stop. I felt my hands begin to ache, spreading down my bones.
‘Do you still see them?’ Ian asked. ‘The cops, I mean. Are they still looking for more information?’
‘Information about what?’
‘About what he did to Tilly.’
I shook my head. I couldn’t speak.
‘So it’s pretty much case closed then.’ He whipped his head around to look out the window. He’d got what he came in for. He knew he was safe, that he’d got away with it, got away with everything. He reached up to scratch his nose, and my eyes narrowed in on what was dangling from his wrist.
‘What’s that?’ I said, and he yanked his hand down, wrapped his other hand around his wrist, but I’d already got a good look. He was wearing a bracelet of green and black wooden beads. Something snapped in my brain. My stomach filled with poison. ‘That’s Cassie’s,’ I said. ‘What are you doing with Cassie’s bracelet?’
‘It’s not Cassie’s,’ he said.
‘Yeah, it is.’
‘It probably just looks the same.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Tilly gave it to him for Christmas. That exact one. I remember.’
He stared at me for a second too long. ‘She gave me one as well,’ he said. ‘Went and bought another one from the shops after I told her I liked it.’ He blinked slowly. Something shifted in his face, like he was scrubbing all the expression away until his face was just a mask, covering something else.
But she made the bracelet herself, I wanted to say. I wanted to scream. ‘Did you kill Mango?’ I said instead. I was nearly as tall as him now, and stared at him hard, the same way he always stared at me.
He smiled, pulled his sunglasses down from his head and over his eyes. I could see the faded scar on his cheek where the scratch had been. He lifted his hand when he saw my eyes looking, trailed his finger along the dent.
I didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I have to go,’ I said. I could feel something rising inside me, and I knew if I stayed any longer I might kill him. I knew I might rip his head right off, done to him what he did to Mango. I knew Cassie wasn’t coming back. Ian had made sure of that. He was gone and Ian was free. He’d swept into our lives and ruined everything, wrecked every moving thing he touched, and if I stayed a minute longer I knew I would make him pay for all of it.
I went outside without choosing my lollies, could feel Ian watching me as I crossed the street to where Dad was waiting for me in the pub car park. I was hot all over from my brain being throttled. Clear and peaceful, that was all that mattered. I took a deep breath, and got to work erasing the rubbish from my mind until everything was clean and normal, for a while at least.
The sports carnival was coming up, and the next weekend I took Cassie’s joggers from his cupboard to see if they fit me. I’d outgrown my own, hadn’t worn them since the cross-country the year before, when Wally came last and I came second-last because we walked almost the whole thing when Wally started wheezing a few hundred metres in. I’d run in the boys’ race and no one had even noticed. They’d notice now, though. Mum hadn’t tried to cut our hair for months. I could pull my hair into a ponytail, and it was beautiful; the best thing I’d ever owned.
I untied the laces, sat on the end of Cassie’s bed and slipped my foot into the right shoe. But my foot didn’t go all the way; there was something hard in the toe end. I stuck my hand in and felt something mouse-soft, pulled it out. It was the green pouch. I felt the knuckles through the velveteen, the hard, familiar knobs.
I unpicked the gold cord and turned the pouch upside down, let the knuckles fall into my palm. They were cold as cement, and I touched each one with the pad of my thumb. It was like they were glowing, the most special thing, and even though Cassie had hidden them, it was as if they were hidden just for me, a present. I cupped my hands and rattled them around like a castanet, held my hands to my ear. I picked out the smallest knuckle and clicked it against my teeth.
Acknowledgements
I’D LIKE TO THANK THE judges of the Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award, and the team at Allen & Unwin, particularly Annette Barlow, Christa Munns, and Ali Lavau. Thanks to the staff at the Queensland University of Technology’s Creative Writing Faculty, especially Donna Hancox and Sarah Holland-Batt. A special thank you to Sarah, whose guidance, encouragement and insight has been invaluable and endlessly appreciated. I’d also like to acknowledge the QUT Emerging Writer’s Mentorship and Ian See for his input in shaping the manuscript in its early stages. Thanks to my many writing friends for their support, in particular Emma Doolan for her thoughtful and generous feedback on the manuscript. And, lastly, thank you to my family, to Carl and Jessica, and to Ellen, Ella, Claire and Gianina.
About the Author
Emily O’Grady was born in Brisbane in 1991.
The Yellow House is her first novel.
Copyright
First published in 2018
Copyright © Emily O’Grady 2018
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.