Episode 8
She kept thinking about Julie and her teenage years – still fresh in her mind. There was that time that she ran away. God, that was something she hadn’t wanted to relive. The pain of that in her gut could still wrench.
Julie was fifteen and pretty as a picture and just as popular. Doing well at school and never a problem for her parents. She’d gone from a chubby happy toddler, to a slim and just as happy teenager in the blink of an eye. Not a care in the world, apparently. Therese used to feel almost smug when the other mothers went on about their unruly rude unresponsive teenage girls, who would walk on the other side of the street and studiously ignore them. That would never happen to her.
Then one day, apparently out of the blue, she began missing days at school – although she always left at the same time every day in her school uniform with all her books organised, her room tidy. She’d gone up to the school and they’d sorted it out. Months went by and then suddenly, one day, she didn’t come home on the bus. Therese stared up and down the street, asked the neighbours if they’d seen her. Nothing. She began to get worried then. She rang Michael at work and asked him to come home. She even took the unprecedented step of stepping into her room and going through her things, looking for clues, anything, that might explain her absence. But there was no need to panic yet, she might have had to stay back at school. Perhaps she should ring the principal? He was only new, and didn’t know any of the kids by name, not like Mrs Lindsay.
Mrs Lindsay had been at the school for the previous twenty years and knew every girl by name. It was unfathomable, how she could do this, but she did. The new regime at the school didn’t have the personal touch, but they certainly knew all about their guidelines and operational procedures. They made all the parents jump through hoops all the time with their rules and regulations. Surely they’d be able to help her this time. So she picked up the phone.
“I’m worried about my daughter, Julie. Can you tell me whether she caught the bus today? She hasn’t come home. I’m really worried. Is there someone there who can help me?”
“We don’t have any way of knowing in a school of fifteen hundred girls of who caught their buses, I’m afraid. There’s no-one else here at the moment, except in the gym, where they are training for netball. I could enquire there, if you like. I’m sorry”
She put down the phone in disgust. What was the matter with these people? Her daughter was missing and they didn’t even care. She ran next door, but the Millers weren’t home. Their cranky old Labrador started barking incessantly then, and her head was spinning with unnamed dread and the fear, the ever growing fear of something bad happening. She knew the neighbours on the other side would be at work too, so there was no point in even venturing there.
Her throat was dry and the panic had already started rising up in her throat when Michael’s Datsun pulled into the driveway. He jumped out and hugged her.
“What’s the matter, where the hell is she? Have you rung the school? Have you checked…” the words tumbled out of his mouth so fast, she didn’t even have time to register them all properly.
“I’ve done all that, and there’s no sign of her.”
“What about her friends? That girl she had sleeping over the other weekend, what was her name? Amanda? Weren’t her parents in the P and C? We must have their number somewhere.”
By now he was inside rumbling through the teledex, searching for numbers and names. After another couple of hours of fruitless looking up and down the street, canvassing neighbours, ringing schoolfriends and anyone else they could think of, they sat down at the kitchen table and stared at each other blankly, not wanting to name the secret dread they both had. It was almost as if they didn’t talk about it, it wouldn’t happen.
It was getting dark and they were contemplating calling the police when the front door opened, and in sauntered Julie, a scruffy looking boy behind her, looking on sheepishly.
She dropped her keys on the mantel and walked straight past them, dragging the boy behind her, to her room. The door banged shut.
“What the….?’ Spluttered Michael, springing up from his chair. “I will absolutely kill her…”
Therese got up too, more in trepidation at the rage on his face.
Once she had got him to calm down, and resolutely barred the entrance to Julie’s room with her body, standing in front of him, staring him down and hissing “don’t you dare” and steering him back into the lounge room for a soothing cup of tea, she suggested taking it quietly, not saying anything at all for a change.
“I didn’t even realise she had a boyfriend, if that’s what he is, a boyfriend, and not just some dropkick she’s picked up on the street.” Michael ventured.
“It’s news to me too. Let’s just wait and see what happens. They can’t be in there all night. At least they’d better not be.”
Neither of them could eat. Michael got himself a tumbler of Scotch and was nursing that, sitting staring at the television but not registering anything. There was no sound from the room. Eventually, as it was getting close to nine o’clock, Therese went and knocked on Julie’s door.
“Julie. It’s Mum. Can I have a word?”
The door opened a crack and Julie stuck her head out.
“I need to talk to you.”
Julie came out, shutting the door behind her, and walked straight past Therese into the loungeroom.
Michael stood up and exploded, yelling into her face.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, young lady?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean. Have you lost your senses? Who is that guy? You can’t just bring anyone into this house…”
“It’s my house too.”
“Our house, our rules. And you know what they are. You can’t just worry your mother like this, disappear for hours and then bring some stranger in here. I won’t have it.”
“Keep your voice down, Dad. Damien’ll hear you.”
“I don’t give a damn whether he hears me or not. Now, you are just going to come clean and tell us what is going on, or else….or else…”
“What are you going to do, take my straight As away from me?”
Therese jumped in now.
“What’s wrong, love? Why couldn’t you confide in me? I thought we were close. You’ve been behaving strangely lately. But to just not turn up like this, I was worried to death, I rang the school, I checked with all the neighbours…”
“Oh, God, that’s so typical, just like a mother hen.”
Michael continued.
“Anyhow, you’re grounded. And tell that young larrikin to get himself in here. I’m going to give him a piece of my mind too.” Michael added.
“Oh, you are just so….oh…I don’t know….you’re just not cool. Debbie’s mum lets her boyfriend sleep over.”
“What?”
“Yeah, what’s so horrifying about that? I’m fifteen, for Christs sake.”
“Fifteen. Yes. You’re a MINOR.” Michael strode swiftly to Julie’s bedroom, opened the door and seeing aforesaid Damien with headphones listening to music on Julie’s bed, completely lost it and grabbed the guy by the collar and dragged him out along the hall. Luckily, Michael had at least six inches on him, and quite a few kilos, having been a wrestling champion at his high school.
“Dad…you can’t…what are you DOING? You just don’t understand…I’ll never forgive you for this.”
The poor boy, his hair hanging limply in his eyes, already looked bedraggled as he stumbled into the lounge room. He seemed weighed down by the presence of Michael, who was completely in control and very aggressive, which Therese wasn’t used to seeing – her husband was usually so mild-mannered, even acquiescent.
“Michael, calm down. Let the boy speak.”
He seemed tongue-tied, his head hanging, completely cowed. Therese felt sorry for him.
“You are such an arsehole, Dad. Come on Damien”
Julie took his arm and marched right out the front door with him, slamming it behind her.
Therese was flabbergasted. What just happened?
“Michael, look at what you’ve done now. You just can’t treat people like that.”
“The little bugger, who does he think he is, keeping my daughter out and then staying in her room for hours, we don’t know what went on? What’s the matter with us? I should have gone straight in there and given him a good talking to, at the very least. Or gone to the police.”
“Oh, Mr Superman now, what have you achieved? She’s gone out again. And who knows where to? There might be drugs, or anything. We don’t know. Michael, you handled this all wrong.”
“No, I didn’t. I’m calling the cops right now.” He picked up the phone from its cradle.
“No, you’re not.” She blocked him again.
“What’s the matter with you, Therese, what do you think is going to happen now? Our daughter could be in some drug den right now, or lying in a ditch…or….”
Both of them stood there, neither ceding. The front door opened and Julie entered.
“You idiots. You could have ruined one of the best friendships I’ve ever had.”
Michael snorted. “Friendship? Who is kidding whom now? Friendship…hahaha”
“That’s exactly what I said. You are such a loser, dad.”
“I’M a loser?”
“That’s right. I’m the only one Damien can confide in. At that bloody school.”
“Is that what they call it now, confiding? It was called something else when I was at school.”
Therese took her daughter in her arms. Julie was solid as a block of ice.
“Honey, it’s alright, your dad…and I were terribly worried about you. You stay out for hours, don’t tell us and then bring this boy home and stay in your room. You can understand surely, how we’ve been concerned. Come on…”
“Neither of you understand what it’s like to be a teenager. Since it’s a thousand years since you ever went…”
“Look, I know things were different then. Everything was stricter, tougher, rules and all that, but this is the eighties now…and I’m trying to understand.”
“Well, can you understand that Damien is different?”
“Different, what do you mean?”
“He likes boys.”
Michael looked as though a bomb had just gone off in the house and he had to clean up the shards. Therese was just as shocked, but managed a weak smile, one that she hoped her daughter wouldn’t see as patronising.
