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“Let’s get something to eat. You haven’t had anything since last night.”
I don’t answer and I realise that this was all a big mistake. He takes my hand but I pull away. I’m begi
“Did you ever eat at a regular restaurant around here?” he asks.
“Jonah, who eats at restaurants?” I snap. “I’ve never eaten in a restaurant in my life. So stop asking such stupid questions.”
“I’m only asking because maybe someone might recognise you and be able to help,” he says patiently.
All of a sudden, everything about him a
I stare at him and he has that look on his face that asks, What?
“Wherever we go or whoever we meet, promise me you won’t judge my mother.”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Promise.”
“I can’t,” he says, not only irritated but dismissive. “Don’t ask me to do that.”
“That’s cold.”
“Fine. Call it cold. But you’ve told me too many things that I’ll never forgive her for.”
“Then I wish I hadn’t told you,” I snap.
“But you did,” he snaps back, “so find someone else who will love and forgive her, because it won’t be me.”
“Then why are you here?” I’m shouting now and I don’t know why, because the last thing I want to do is fight with him in the middle of a Sydney street.
He stops and looks at me. “I’m here because of you. You’re my priority. Your happiness, in some fucked way, is tuned in to mine. Get that through your thick skull. Would I like it any other way? Hell, yes, but I don’t think that will be happening in my lifetime.”
“Wow,” I say sarcastically. “That’s way too much romance for me today.”
“If you want romance, go be with Ben Cassidy. Maybe he’ll fawn all over you or play a beautiful piece of violin music. I never promised you romance. And stop finding a reason to be angry with me. I didn’t redevelop this place. I just asked if you ate at restaurants.”
For a while we walk in silence, and it’s uncomfortable and angry. We come across a café on a corner where business people are waiting in line to order coffee and two cheerful guys behind the counter are fast and efficient. Sometimes they look up at one of the customers and say, “Flat white and ham-and-cheese croissant?” before the person has even opened their mouth, and I wish they’d do the same with me. Just look up and recognise me and know exactly what I order every day.
But they don’t, because this is a whole other world to the one I lived in seven years ago. Griggs orders coffee and bacon and eggs for himself then looks at me. I shrug.
“White toast and marmalade and a hot chocolate,” he says, and it doesn’t surprise me just how much he’s taken in about me.
We eat in silence and then he buys some fruit and puts it in my backpack and we set off towards Kings Cross.
“Do you eat at restaurants?” I ask him quietly, wondering if he regrets coming with me.
“Yeah. With my mum and Daniel, my brother. Or sometimes with Jack, my mum’s boyfriend. At least once a week.”
“Do you like Jack?”
“He’s a great guy. He’s fantastic with Daniel and he takes care of my mum without trying to take over.”
“Your brother sounds like he’s your friend.”
“My brother is my god,” he says. “I can’t begin to tell you how decent that kid is.”
“I can’t imagine him being more decent than his brother.”
He looks at me and I can see his body relax a bit. He puts his arm around me and kisses the top of my head as we walk.
“Jonah,” I say quietly, never wanting him to let go. “Just say I didn’t exist?”
It’s the longest day of my life. The lack of familiarity gets worse. The main drag of Kings Cross gives me snippets of memory but not enough. I feel like it’s a foreign land. It’s cleaner and the people look different: better dressed, better looking, comfortable. It’s not as if there is something wrong about an area being cleaned up and gentrified, especially when it was famous for prostitution and drugs and corruption, but it has wiped out my history. Everything smells different and everyone walks at a different pace.
“When we lived here her name was A
“It’s probably a better reason than that. Did you hang out with any kids around here?”
“Not really. There was one kid, Simon. His father was a transvestite and he’d let us wear his clothes. We’d go to video arcades and games rooms. He was addicted to all the games. Sometimes we’d just hang out in the parks. It’s how I learnt to play chess, you know.”
“We can start there,” Griggs says.
“I don’t think I’d remember what he looked like,” I say. “And I doubt he’d still be around.”
“Where else would he go aside from the park?”
We go to a Time Zone. It’s the closest reminder of my former life so far. A couple of kids are off their faces and someone has spewed right near the entrance. Some are in uniform and I can imagine them having left that morning pretending they were going to school. But the ones who leave the biggest impression are those in casual clothes. They don’t have to answer to anyone. I ask the guy at the register if he knows Simon and he shrugs and carries on reading his magazine. “It’s a common name,” is all he says when I bug him again.
“If he comes in, can you tell him that Taylor Markham is looking for him? That I’ll be at McDonald’s across the road at six thirty tonight?”
It’s like talking to a brick wall, actually even worse because at least I could lean on a brick wall. I talk to a few other people around and I give them the same information but by the time I walk out, I accept that Simon is not an option.
We go to one of the homeless hostels in East Sydney. One minute we’re walking down a street that Griggs reckons has million-dollar properties and the next we’re turning into a lane where old men lie on the road on filthy mattresses, garbage everywhere. When I look at them closely, though, I realise they aren’t so old. The hostel caters only to men and after we ask around, we’re directed to another one on the other side of the main road. For the first time in what feels like ages, I find myself thinking of the Hermit. In my memory he was old, but now I realise that he wasn’t at all. He was like these men, who dirt and grime and neglect have made seem a thousand years older than they are.
When we get to the top of the queue at the second soup kitchen, I take out the photo of the five and show the girl serving. “Do you recognise this person?” I ask, pointing to Tate. “It’s very dated but she may look familiar.”
“Sorry, love,” she says, shaking her head.
“I really need to find her,” I say. “Could you ask the other people in there?”
What are the odds of anyone recognising my mother? What are the odds that these people have actually looked in the faces of the people who walk into this place? I glance at Griggs, who is looking around the room at everyone. I can tell he’s a bit shell-shocked. He tries to muster up a smile but there’s not really enough to keep it there.
When we’re not asking people questions or roaming the streets for any type of recognition, we sit in McDonald’s because it’s the only place where they don’t bug you to order or leave. By late afternoon I’m tired and I want to go back to my room at school and just lie down. I can sense that Griggs is exhausted, especially after driving all night. We make plans to book into one of the youth hostels in the street behind the main drag, careful of how we spend the money. We find out where the food vans are, in case I recognise someone there who might know my mother or even Simon, but my mind is a blank and I feel like there’s no way I’ll ever know anyone. Each time I check my watch I think of what Raffy and everyone else are doing back home. I have been away for not even twenty-four hours and I am homesick beyond comprehension.