Mama Killed A Man

By the time I had settled into the sticky leather seats and learned that the young sir driving was the family chauffer and that his name was Jeffery, but that I could call him Jeff, I had concluded that my father was most likely a rather wealthy man.

And pulling up to a large, stately, peach-coloured house at the top of a hill called Gatsby only confirmed it.

The autumn after I was born Uncle Keith helped mum and me move into a two bedroom flat in Glenview. Mum struggled to pay the rent in that place, even when she increased her hours at Centrelink and took on a Saturday job delivering the morning newspaper. Then when I was twelve I noticed that things were finally starting to work out when mum got a promotion and left me with Aunt Denise while she went to Canberra for three weeks. To sort out the technical stuff, she had told me. When she came back I enrolled in a private school with blazers and ties and shiny house badges and music lessons, and we moved to location number three; the unit we lived in until she died.

As Graeme showed me through all twenty-three rooms of the house and finally lead me out into the backyard, equipped with a pool and pool house, I wondered what kind of callous, selfish, pitiless man I had come to live with.

Graeme must have noticed all my muscles tense up, my sharp intake of breath, the look of dry anger in my eyes, because he released my shoulder and asked me if I was alright.

“I know it must be a lot to take in,” he said gently, looking me over with genuine concern. He chewed on his lip. “I’ll give you some time alone,” and he left me, shaking on the grass.

I knew I wasn’t to leave, but the mere sight of my father’s abundant wealth made my brain throb and my face hot, so I slipped through the front gate and dumped myself on the sidewalk to calm down.

The street was lined with neat, contemporary houses, ranging in size and cubic in shape, with a rich profusion of exotic flowers pluming over garden fences. A droplet of sweat trickled behind my ear and I hastily tied my long, brown mane into a messy bun on top of my head. I then pulled off my thin cotton sweatshirt to reveal a black spaghetti strap beneath and rolled up my baggy boy-cut jeans to an inch above my knees. It had been a particularly harsh winter in Australia and I wasn’t acclimatized to the cursed Arizona heat. A fly droned next to my ear and I swatted at it lazily. It circled around a few times before settling on my bottom lip.

“Ah, bugger off,” I scowled, wiping my mouth with my arm.

The fly buzzed away and an eerie stillness rested on the neighbourhood. There was no breeze, and the heat seemed to press itself ever more aggressively upon my uncovered crown. My spine prickled and I was suddenly very aware of being watched. I scanned the street, fighting panic.

A figure, clad in a worn, white wife-beater and board shorts was paused with one hand hovering over a bright blue tarpaulin cover and the other holding a bucket of foamy water with a musty old rag hanging over the corresponding shoulder. I narrowed my eyes at him and he kept staring, squinting a little. Then he sneezed, spilling half the bucket over his leg and emitting a comic yell.

“Bless you,” I said.

He thanked me, pulling off a shoe and tipping the soapy liquid onto the driveway. I watched as he dropped the empty shoe on the floor and groaned when it landed upside down. As he hopped over to flip it back upright, the bucket handle clipped his naked toe and he gasped, cursing through his teeth in pain. That’s when the bucket fell over, rolling beneath his other foot and tripping him up. He caught himself, stumbling around on one leg.

“Fuck my life!” he grumbled, setting his other foot on the ground and allowing the fine layer of desert sand to cling to its moistness.

He wiped his hands on his pants before turning to me, “Excuse me, but could I please borrow your hose? Mum said that if I trail mud through the house again she’ll stop buying Pop Tarts.”

I told him that I wasn’t sure where the hose was, because I only arrived this morning, but he was welcome to help me look in the backyard.

“So where are you from?” he asked me as we rummaged through the pile of garden tools behind the pool house.

“Australia,”

“How long are you here for?”

It took me a few seconds to respond, and I was surprised that I hadn’t thought about this earlier.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

There was a brief silence until I looked up to wipe the perspiration from my brow, and spotted a tap jutting out of the side of the wall. I pointed this out to the boy and he ran to get his bucket.

“What?” I turned the tap down. The boy had said something but I couldn’t hear him clearly over the rush of water.

“I’m John by the way,” he smiled crookedly.

“Amberlyn,” I replied, before telling him he could call me Amber.

He looked around the backyard and up at the house, his mouth open and a look of curiosity fleeting across his face.

“So what brings you to the Hurley residence?” John asked, though his expression looked peculiarly deliberate, as though he vaguely knew what my answer would be. I quietly observed him while he turned off the tap and squeezed some green cleaning liquid into the water. I watched it spiral until he put his hand in and mixed it around; soap suds clung to his toned arm and tiny little rainbow bubbles released themselves into the air.

John was a tall boy, with long, thin limbs and straight brown hair like a haphazard bird’s nest framing his face. He had a strong, angular jaw and his skin, I observed, had a natural Arizonian tan which I longingly hoped to obtain at some point during this ordeal. With a small groan he hoisted up the bucket and began shuffling out of the yard. I scurried to catch up with him.

“What do you mean?” I asked, confusion evident in my tone.

John threw me a side-ways glance as if I’d sprouted a third eye, “You’re a musician, right?”

“Um, I p-play guitar and cello, and a bit of piano,” I stuttered, now completely confused.

“Sweet.” He placed the bucket on the sidewalk and began pulling at the tarpaulin. I went around to the other side and helped him uncover what I thought was a pretty brutal looking car.

“Nice ride,” I said, transfixed by the electric blue paint job.

John nodded an acknowledgment, looking distracted, “So what’s Klaus Hurley hooked you up with?”

“Who, sorry?”

John stared at me, eyebrows knotted together with what seemed to be a mix of confusion
and scepticism pasting his expression. I felt myself shrinking beneath his gaze.

“Ker-lows Her-lee,” He said slowly, narrowing his eyes. He looked just as perplexed as I was.

“I-I’m not sure who that is,” I replied, becoming nervous. Did my father have a brother? Did I have a brother? Or maybe there was a mix up and I was at the wrong house. Hurley was a pretty common last name, wasn’t it?

“How can you not?” John put the bucket down and wiped his wet hands down his front before angling them on his hips, “Isn’t he working with you?”

“I-I’m not w-working with anyone,” I stammered nervously. My heart was pounding away feverishly and I felt sick with panic. “I’ve just moved here to live with Ian Hurley,” I gulped, ignoring the obscure sensation on my tongue as I pronounced the name, “He lives here, doesn’t he?”

John’s face suddenly melted into a look of understanding. He looked at my expression and chuckled, resting a damp hand on my shoulder, “You’re really not from around here, are you?”

I was sure we’d already established that.