The Thrill of Falling: Stories

A GOOD DAY

It was Saturday, 8 a.m.

Maggie Dawn was awake before the alarm went off on her cellphone. She lay quietly in bed for a little while, looking at the patterns on the ceiling caused by the curtains drifting in the morning sun. Then she leant over and reached under the bed for her diary and pen.

Brushing her hair back from her eyes, she wrote: LISTEN UP, WORLD, TODAY IS GOING TO BE A GOOD DAY

‘You got that?’ Maggie Dawn called out the window.

With that out of the way, she got up and smoothed the duvet. She slipped into the dressing gown with the dragon on the back and went down the hallway to the bathroom. Although she was only fifteen, Maggie Dawn was a big girl. Skinny people walked, but calorifically challenged individuals sashayed, a kind of sideways-frontways ambulation of her most prominent feature, as Maggie Dawn liked to call her butt, switching the weight from one cheek to the other.

The word ‘sashayed’ appealed to Maggie Dawn: it brought to mind sway, sidle and sass, which were good adjectives to describe the way she moved through the world.

From the front she knew that with the right amount of sass people looked past her weight to how light she was on her toes. And, as long as she didn’t dress in jeans that moved into the crack of her butt — yew, gross — she knew they wouldn’t make any smart comments about the rest of her.

The bathroom was last down the hall on the right. There was one other bedroom in the tiny council flat, Gran’s, which Maggie Dawn liked to air as often as possible to get rid of the smell of the old lady who sometimes, well, leaked.

Maggie Dawn crept in. Gran was still asleep after returning late from the casino. Her false teeth were fizzing in a glass of water beside the bed, and her wig was on the floor. Gran was in lala-land if she thought the wig made her look attractive; whenever she wore it, it looked like a very sick cat was sitting on her head. Maggie Dawn picked the wig up and put it on top of the wardrobe where it belonged. She also sneaked a look in Gran’s purse. It was always good to know where matters stood.

Whaddya know? Gran had restrained herself! There was still a $50 and a $20 note plus some change, so she hadn’t lost all her benefit money for the week on the pokies. Good girl, Gran.

Maggie Dawn sashayed into the bathroom. She took off the dressing gown, careful not to look at the person who had now appeared naked in the full-length mirror opposite her, and sidled into the shower.

Among Gran’s cheap soaps and toiletries from the $2 Shop, with old use-by dates, she found her own personal bar of quality soap that she’d scored in the girls’ changing room at college last week. She began to soap every roll and flap, every hollow, nook and cranny, singing her favourite rap song:

Humming and bopping and feeling much better, Maggie Dawn stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around her body and, now that she was fully composed, was able to look at herself in the mirror, posing this way and that.

‘Oh-kay, bad girl,’ she said, finally. Nothing had changed. Same old same old: a kinda pretty face on a kinda nice body which was — Maggie Dawn would never have used the ‘f’ word (f-a-t) or the horrendous ‘o’ word (o-b-e-s-e) — not thin.

Maggie Dawn knew that her weight made her unattractive, but there were compensations: she had lovely brown eyes, ger-reat skin, she would never go bald with all that frizzy hair and, although she had big juicy pillow lips (so did Angelina Jolie), her teeth were white and even. Not for her false teeth in a glass at forty.

As for the rest of her, well, there was No Hope of getting all that w-e-i-g-h-t off, but if she saved up hard enough, by the time she was in her twenties she could have a tummy tuck and breast reduction — which would mean that she wouldn’t have to wait for reincarnation.

Maggie Dawn put on her XXXL bra and panties, and slipped into her XXXL jeans and pretty op-shop top. She shuffled her feet into the slip-on men-sized trainers bought from The Warehouse, snapped on her watch, rings and a couple of bangles, put some hoops into her ears and then sashayed to the kitchen.

Steeling herself against the inevitable, she opened the refrigerator door. The usual array greeted her: half a carton of milk, butter, bread, eggs, stringy piece of bacon (yay!). Not half empty: half full. It was enough to get by on.

Five or so minutes later, Maggie Dawn had Gran’s breakfast tray ready. ‘Gran,’ she said as she went into the room, ‘time for kai.’ She put the tray on the bed and tried to shake Gran awake. ‘Gran, knock, knock. Anybody home?’ Gran suffered from sleep apnoea and sometimes didn’t take a breath for ages. Her mouth was open and she looked like death.

Gingerly, Maggie Dawn poked her and Gran gave a deep gasp and her eyelids fluttered.

‘Good,’ Maggie Dawn said. ‘So you’re alive then.’

She had come to stay with Gran six years ago so that the old lady could look after her — it tended to work the other way round — and Mum could make a better job of looking after Chantelle and Roxanne Adorata.

‘Here are your teeth, and I got you a Woman’s Weekly when I was at the shop yesterday.’

Gran focused her rheumy eyes and smiled. ‘Thank you, darling.’ Her breath was stale as.

‘I have to go to Mum’s now,’ Maggie Dawn continued. ‘I’ll do the supermarket shopping on my way back tonight.’

Gran reached for her purse and gave Maggie Dawn the $20 note. ‘Can you buy me a scratch ticket?’

Maggie Dawn sighed. Scratch ticket, $3. That left $17 for the groceries. Ah well, so what else was new? She would, as usual, have to rely on the pocket money she got from Mr Singh at the local book and stationery store. He wasn’t very good at English so paid her for two hours a week to mark the new stock.

‘I’ll see you later, Gran.’ She kissed the old lady on the forehead. ‘Be a good girl.’

WELCOME TO THE ’HOOD

Maggie Dawn made a shortcut through the park.

Every Saturday she took the kids off Mum’s hands for the day — Chantelle and Roxanne Adorata had been joined by a brother, now five, named Zoltan. They were all, including Maggie Dawn, from different fathers. Oh, why was Evelyn so indiscriminate? As for the names, well, Mum chose those to represent fantasy worlds she’d never live in herself. At least nobody could say that she didn’t have any imagination. When you thought about it, not bad for a woman who didn’t finish college.

But imagination can only get you so far. When it came to raising kids, Mum was worse than hopeless.

‘Watch out,’ called a voice.

Maggie Dawn was just passing the clothing bins where some nicely dressed Pakeha ladies were piling their discarded last-year fashions. It was one of the women who had given her the warning. Before Maggie Dawn could even think, three bikes whizzed past, in a flurry of shouts and screams. One of the cyclists gave her a kick as she passed by. Maggie Dawn stumbled and fell.

Her arch enemy from college, Candace Reynolds, with her mates Teresa Crosby and Rachel Williams. ‘Whoops,’ jeered Candace, ‘did we just hit a cow?’ Laughing, they rode on towards the mall.

Embarrassed, Maggie Dawn picked herself up and slunk past the Pakeha at the bin. ‘Hey!’ she yelled at the retreating girls. ‘Can’t you read the sign? “No dogs allowed!”’ She felt anger building up inside her. Nothing could stop the thoughts that streamed through her mind:

‘Yeah think you’re better than me Candace and you may be top of the class but I’m right behind you and I will mow you down you bitch so you may be queen of the heap right now with your legally blonde act but I got brains and you honey will always be a bimbo yeah you heard me you bitch so don’t mess with me and think I don’t know how you got that job at the mall that I shoulda got your daddy phoned up head office while I was standing there I had the job in my pocket but when Ron Simpson put the phone down he said the job was already taken I needed that job bitch …’

‘No, no, no,’ Maggie Dawn said to herself. ‘Be kind, think good thoughts. Don’t let Candace Reynolds ruin your day. It’s going to be a good day.’

‘But you’re still pissed that you didn’t get that job at the mall eh go on admit that you wanted to smash Candace Reynolds’ head in.’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Maggie Dawn muttered to the voice in her head. Quickly, she plugged herself into her iPod. Into her ears went her earphones and, hey presto, zombieland. Blissed out, she joined the other living dead spasming and jerking around the park.

Mum’s place was a state house on Pleasant Drive. Call living here pleasant? Ha ha funny ha ha. The street mainly comprised women like Evelyn on some benefit or another, saddled with kids and no dads. If there was somebody around who fitted that kind of description, well, he wasn’t exactly getting ahead in his life.

As Maggie Dawn went around the back something lunged at her from the house next door: Granite, a big brown pitbull cross. She hated the dog, but at least it kept away bad muthafuckas who might want to do Evelyn and the kids over.

‘Are you home, Mum?’ Maggie Dawn yelled as she opened the back door and went in. Stupid question: of course Mum was home. All the mums round here were home unless — hey the sun does sometimes shine on (Un) Pleasant Drive — they scored the occasional job like Evelyn’s at Pak’n’Save.

Maggie Dawn heard gunshots coming from the living room. There she found Chantelle, Roxanne Adorata and Zoltan all sitting on the sofa in front of the TV. ‘Hey,’ she called.

‘Hey.’ Their eyes were wide with fear as they watched the werewolf rip off a poor girl’s head, chomp, chomp, chomp. They were dressed and all ready to be taken out for the day.

‘Mum?’ Maggie Dawn yelled up the stairs.

As Evelyn appeared Maggie Dawn felt her heart catch with love. Mum must have been on late shift. Her eyes were dazed but she smiled when she saw her eldest daughter. She pushed back her hair and fumbled in her dressing gown for her smokes. Lit one. Puffed. Sprinkled ash on the stairs.

‘Honey,’ she said, ‘Dave’s coming around this afternoon.’

Dave was the new boyfriend. He belonged to a gang. Worse, he sold dope. ‘I thought you threw him out.’ Maggie Dawn was angry. ‘He’s such a loser, Mum.’

‘Yeah … well …’ Evelyn continued, ‘I’m giving him one more chance.’ Pause. ‘Could you … uh … keep the kids with you all day? Give me and him some space?’

‘Mum, don’t do this to yourself,’ Maggie Dawn pleaded. ‘He really isn’t into you. He’s a user.’

Evelyn started to cry. ‘Baby, you just don’t understand …’

Understand? Why didn’t people credit Maggie Dawn with some intelligence? All her life she had been told that she would never be able to escape the limitations of her life, blah blah blah … Well, she refused to be a statistic. People put her down, but she was on her way up. She studied hard — sure, she was just average, but she tried. She did her homework on a kitchen table in Gran’s flat and presented it to Mr Hawkins whenever he called for it. But did she get credit for it from her classmates? No way.

Just last week when she returned to her desk she overheard Candace Reynolds trying to put her down. ‘Who does she think she is? Thinks she’s better than the rest of us, dontcha, Maggie Dawn?’ Mr Hawkins was in the middle of his lesson when Maggie Dawn, mad as hell at Candace’s remark, stood up and sashayed to the front of the class. ‘Yes, Maggie Dawn?’ Mr Hawkins was startled that she had interrupted his teaching.

‘Sir, there’s something I want to say to everyone.’ Then she turned to her goggle-eyed classmates and began: ‘I know what some of you think about me, but if I do my homework and you don’t do yours, don’t blame me for you all sitting on your arses and letting your lives go down the shithole. I’m trying my best here for myself. And all your talking behind my back’s not going to stop me, Candace Reynolds. You’ll probably have three kids by the time you’re twenty, but that’s not gonna be my world. So don’t you or any of you other bitches stand in my way cause I’m coming through. Stuff the lot of you. And Mr Hawkins, you have a nice day.’

Baby, you just don’t understand?

Not only was Maggie Dawn doing her best at school, she was also trying to educate herself. Most of her friends, like Tawhi, avoided the public library but she knew that college would only get her so far. If she wanted to go further she’d have to help herself up the ladder.

When she felt the urge, she sashayed into the library for an hour or so. Every week she liked to deploy a new word and a new phrase picked up from her reading. This week’s new word and new phrase were: ‘autocratic’ and ‘taking everything into consideration’.

She’d lost quite a few opportunities already this morning to put them both into practice. Better make up for lost time.

Maggie Dawn had also discovered that the library had some really cool self-help shit. Books about how to improve your self-esteem, your confidence, your career prospects. Some weren’t so great: about breaking the food cycle so that you would not get f-a-t.

And as for Evelyn, well, she was in a cycle too. Like the other mothers on Pleasant Drive, she was waiting for a man to take her away from all this.

Oh, Maggie Dawn understood all right.

‘Come on, kids.’ Maggie Dawn blew a kiss to Evelyn. ‘Love you, Mum.’

‘Do you need any dollars?’ Mum asked. ‘Here …’ She threw a few miserable bucks down the stairs.

Gee, do people think I’m a bank? Maggie Dawn thought to herself. Ah well, more money was required from her own savings. Maybe she could ask Mr Singh for extra hours.

It wasn’t until she and the kids were on the pavement that she realised that they hadn’t come ay-lone. Zoltan had brought a pair of wicked-looking scissors. ‘Don’t you think you should leave those at home?’ Maggie Dawn asked. He was busy cutting up the sky and snipping the sun in two. He shook his head.

Suddenly Dave turned up in his car, roaring up the road as if he owned it. He had two mates along with him. They started to take crates of beer out of the boot. ‘Wotcha starin’ at, bitch?’ Dave asked Maggie Dawn.

‘You’re such a cliché,’ she answered. Let him try to work that one out. ‘And so auto-cratic,’ she added.

‘You always like to use big words, dontcha, bitch? You bettah watch yuself or I’ll make that lip of yours even bigger.’

Maggie Dawn gave him the stare. She would have answered him back but, taking everything into consideration, she had the kids with her. She pulled them after her. Zoltan looked back, took aim and snip, off came Dave’s head.

AT THE MALL

Midday and all was well. The kids were skipping and yelling in front of Maggie Dawn, glad to have escaped the werewolf; he was still hungry and wanted to bite their heads off.

‘Where are you taking us, Maggie Dawn?’ asked Chantelle.

‘There’s a movie we can go and see at the multiplex,’ Maggie Dawn answered. ‘Would you like that?’

‘Can we get us some lollies first?’ asked Roxanne Adorata.

‘Sure.’

‘Yay,’ said Zoltan, snipping away at passers-by with his scissors.

At the mall Maggie Dawn saw Candace Reynolds helping Ron Simpson putting out the usual sign:

Ron Simpson was the mall’s security officer and he had employed Candace to assist him in the office. When she saw Maggie Dawn approaching with the three children, she giggled and said to Ron Simpson, ‘Maybe we should add No No-Hopers to the list.’

Maggie Dawn had always felt that attack was the best mode of defence. ‘I do not appreciate the insinuation in your remark,’ she said very loudly. ‘I spend my money at this mall and will not be spoken to in such a way by … by … staff.’ Then she added, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Simpson.’ He had the courtesy to look a bit sheepish. He knew she should have got the job.

The doors to the mall opened automatically, and Maggie Dawn couldn’t stop Chantelle, Roxanne Adorata and Zoltan as they rushed inside. Quickly she followed them, the doors closing fast behind her, swish swish. The children ran in and out of the shops and up and down the mall. Unconcerned, Maggie Dawn headed for New World where she grabbed a trolley, then gave a loud whistle:

‘Haere mai, ki te kai!’

Immediately the kids came running towards her. Maggie Dawn picked Zoltan up and put him in the trolley. Chantelle and Roxanne Adorata took turns pushing the trolley down the aisle towards the fruit section.

‘Oooh, grapes,’ Maggie Dawn said. ‘Are they ripe?’ She took a few in her hands and put them in her mouth. Then she turned to the others. ‘What do you think?’

The kids took a bunch each and scoffed the lot. ‘Too sour,’ they agreed.

‘Shall we try the plums?’ Maggie Dawn asked.

Down the hatch. ‘Ugh,’ Chantelle said, ‘they’re off.’

Cutting a swathe through the fruit section, Maggie Dawn led the charge to the confectionery aisle. The kids had a fantastic time filling up a plastic bag with their favourites: chocolate fish (‘One for the bag and two for us’), wine gums (‘Two for the bag and three for us’), peppermints (‘Three for the bag and a handful for us’) and liquorice allsorts (‘Four in the bag and, whoops, too many, but we handled them so we’d better eat them, eh?’).

Maggie Dawn headed for the checkout. There was a man in front of them, wearing a cap with his ponytail sticking out the back: lame.

Her cellphone ding-donged. It was her mate Tawhi texting her:

— W r u? Wt u doing?

— At th mll. Tking kds 2 mvies

— Cn I cm?

— C u 1pm mltiplx

Maggie Dawn closed her phone. The man with the ponytail hadn’t been called to a checkout counter yet … but there was something strange about him now.

Uh oh. Where was his ponytail? Maggie Dawn stared at Zoltan. He was looking at her as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

Then, behind her, Maggie Dawn heard the sound of an outraged old lady whose lovely long dress now had a huge cut in the back, showing her panties. And now a young girl discovered that somebody had cut the straps of her fake Louis Vuitton bag.

Zoltan had been busy with his bloody scissors, but when had he done the deeds? You had to keep an eye on that boy.

‘Time to get outta here,’ Maggie Dawn said to nobody in particular.

The man without the ponytail was called to a checkout counter. And then it was Maggie Dawn’s turn, to pay $1.50 for her plastic bag of sweets.

‘What the fuck …’ The man had discovered he’d been scalped. His ponytail was lying on the floor and people were gathering to look at it. Was it … could it … be a dead possum?

There were a couple of shrill whistles and Ron Simpson came speeding along with Candace in tow. He had a long pole in his hands and a baseball bat at the ready.

‘Don’t anybody go near it,’ he said. ‘It could be dangerous.’ He stabbed at the ponytail, relieved that it did not stab back. Then he was alerted by another cry.

An old man who’d been snoring on one of the benches in the mall had woken up to discover that he now had only half a handlebar moustache.

Maggie Dawn gave the man without a ponytail a bright smile as she pulled the kids around the corner. Taking everything into consideration, he looked better without it anyway.

She bent down to Zoltan’s level and gave him the look. ‘I’ve noticed your interest in sharp things,’ she said as she took away his scissors, ‘but this is where it stops before you move on to pocket knives or samurai swords — and you’re not going to become a member of any gang, you geddit?’

Zoltan looked alarmed. This was the Queen of Outer Space talkin’.

He goddit.

‘Hey, Maggie Dawn!’ A hand was waving. ‘Over here.’

Tawhi was waiting at the entrance to the multiplex.

Gee, why did Tawhi have to wave? At over six foot, she stuck out like a sore thumb. But when you were like Maggie Dawn, not thin, you didn’t exactly go with the glamour crowd. Nah, you were stuck with other odds and sods like Tawhi the tall one, Renee with the wooden leg, and Chan the Chinese boy, who was brilliant at maths.

‘Hey,’ said Maggie Dawn.

Tawhi was dressed to kill. She was looking for a boyfriend, preferably a fulla as tall as she was. She was ever hopeful: she’d read a magazine article that said it didn’t matter what you looked like, there was always someone in the world who was into your type. The secret was to put yourself out there and wait till that someone turned up and, boingggg! true lurv, baby. Not that such a boy would ever exist in this dump.

‘I got us our tickets,’ Tawhi said.

‘Did you?’ Maggie Dawn stiffened. ‘I’m not a freeloader, Tawhi,’ she continued as she paid her friend back — gloom, over thirty bucks. The way things were going, she’d soon be in the red.

‘Okay,’ she said finally, ‘let’s go to the movies.’

Shouting with glee, the kids dived through the door and went way down the front where they could see everything. They were so much fun to take to films. Maggie Dawn hadn’t told them it was in 3-D. She couldn’t help but feel so much love for them as, laughing with joy, they held up their arms to catch some of the stuff that was floating out from the screen at them. She looked at Tawhi — You’ll be my best mate forever — and then she thought again about poor Mum, her arsehole boyfriend Dave and Gran away with the fairies.

And in the dark nobody could see her shivering.

Oh, kids, how are we all gonna to get outta here?

WE ARE FAMILY

After the movie, Maggie Dawn said goodbye to Tawhi who thought she might go and hang out at McDonald’s; maybe the fulla of her dreams was there having a Quarter Pounder with cheese. The kids were jumping around and yelling, ‘Can we go too and have a burger and fries? Puh-lease, Maggie Dawn, please!’

‘No, we can’t afford it.’ More to the truth, she couldn’t afford it. There were still the groceries to get and Gran’s scratch ticket too. She had just enough cash left over for one ice cream they would have to share but, what was this? An old koro came over and told the candy-striped attendant, ‘I’ll take care of it.’ He must have been a relation or somebody.

Okay, so the next problem was this: Mum had asked Maggie Dawn to keep the kids for the day so her and arsehole Dave could have some space. She knew what that meant, but she would never understand the sex thing and why people had to do you-know-what in the middle of the day.

Yuck, way too much information.

‘Let’s go to the marae,’ she said. ‘There’s bound to be something happening down there … and kai too.’

The kids nodded enthusiastically but weren’t so keen when they saw the groups of old people in black waiting at the gate. A funeral was underway, with the callers crying to each other, ‘Aue te mamae me te aroha mo te kuia nei e!’

But Maggie Dawn looked sternly at the kids. ‘Now that we’re here we’ll pay our respects and then we’ll go.’ Noticing some lovely white flowers in a garden across the road, she gave Zoltan back his scissors. ‘Do something useful for a change,’ she hissed at him. Happily he and his sisters sped across the road. When they returned they had a lovely bouquet with them.

The children accompanied the visitors onto the marae and waited with bowed heads as the old ladies wept for the old, old lady lying in the polished box. One of these days Gran will be like that. Maggie Dawn pushed the thought away quickly — no, no, no.

They waited to pay their respects, and, when it was their turn, Maggie Dawn led them up to the grieving family and gave them the flowers. One of the women beamed and addressed the dead woman: ‘Anei, Hera, nga putiputi mo koe. Sarah, some flowers for you.’ Maggie Dawn was smothered in kisses and wet tears, and the younger children were slobbered over.

Then Maggie Dawn jerked her head to a side door where they made their escape. They sprinkled water over their heads before leaving the meeting house behind.

‘I’m very proud of you,’ Maggie Dawn told them.

‘We didn’t eat,’ said Zoltan, ‘and I’m really hungry.’

Well, they could go back to the food hall at the mall, but at that moment, Maggie Dawn saw that a wedding was taking place at the local Anglican chapel. The bride sparkled in the sun. Beside her was a handsome groom with white, white teeth. ‘There’s where we’ll get our feed, kids,’ she said.

But Roxanne Adorata, always one for making a fashion statement, said, ‘We’re not dressed for a wedding.’

Maggie Dawn remembered the Pakeha ladies who had been dropping off clothes. ‘No worries,’ she answered. Screaming and yelling, she chased the children back across the park. When they got to the bin, she upended Zoltan through the hole at the top of it; his legs kicked away as he slid inside. Next moment he started throwing things out.

‘Look at these clothes!’ Maggie Dawn said, shocked. ‘Some are really nice!’ Here was a cute button-up jacket for Zoltan, a pretty little jumper for Chantelle and what was this? A fake diamond tiara for Roxanne Adorata. And hey, a bonus: a purple silk scarf to take home for Gran.

The children raced back to the chapel where the wedding banquet was already starting. It was easy to slip in and, look, there was a table just for the little children! Seating them there, Maggie Dawn looked for an empty chair among the adults.

Ah, there was one.

Mrs Johnson, the woman next to Maggie Dawn, smiled at her, puzzled. This didn’t look like Mayoress Kelly. Not only that, but this teenage girl was Maori, surely, or perhaps a not very nice-looking Italian.

Oh dear. Maggie Dawn hadn’t realised that the wedding was full of Pakeha, not one Maori in sight.

‘Are you Joshua’s daughter?’ asked Mrs Johnson. ‘And are those charming little children your brothers and sisters?’

‘Kaore,’ Maggie Dawn replied. It meant no, but all that Mrs Johnson could tell was that it was foreign. Hmm, maybe Joshua’s daughter was from some other Mediterranean country.

The waiter came with a lovely plate of turkey. ‘Here we are then, dear,’ Mrs Johnson said, articulating carefully so that the poor girl could understand.

One more task to do before Maggie Dawn took the children home.

They skipped and ran all the way back to the mall. Into New World again to buy Gran’s scratch ticket and milk, bread, butter, sugar, bananas, corned beef and baked beans.

On the way out, Maggie Dawn saw Candace Reynolds chalking an addition to the sign at the mall:

‘I know it was you or your dirty little sisters or brother,’ she said.

Dirty? Maggie Dawn saw red. A person was innocent until they were proven guilty. Not only that, but where was Candace’s evidence?

She carefully put Zoltan’s scissors into one of the plastic bags of groceries. ‘Wait here,’ she said to the children. Sweeping past Candace, Maggie Dawn knocked on Ron Simpson’s office. When he appeared she pointed at the sign.

‘I don’t want to sound too autocratic,’ she began, ‘but taking everything into consideration I have to tell you that your staff person doesn’t know how to spell. Sizzers, puh-lease! What’s the use of a sign if people don’t understand what it says? Have a nice day.’

PARTY TIME ON PLEASANT DRIVE

Bloody hell,’ Maggie Dawn muttered.

She could hear the party from a block away. By the time she got to Mum’s house she could tell that arsehole Dave and his gang mates had taken over. The noise was horrendous, with the stereo up loud and people screaming and yelling and coming and going and giving the fingers to the neighbours.

Even Granite, the coward, had decided to call it a night and was huddled in his kennel.

‘Don’t take the kids in there, Maggie Dawn,’ one of the neighbours, Sally, called. ‘The fuckin’ animals have already had a coupla fights. The cops have been called. They’ll be here in a few minutes.’

‘The cops?’ Maggie Dawn asked, alarmed. If they found any illegal substances in the house, Evelyn could be charged. And if that happened …

‘Stay here, kids.’ Chantelle and Roxanne Adorata were clinging to each other, whimpering, and Zoltan was scissoring frantically.

Maggie Dawn barged inside.

‘Everybody out!’ she screamed. ‘Get the fuck out of my mum’s house.’

But they were so out of it, did they even hear the big black fatty as she tried to push them out any opening? Nah, they pushed back and it was her own fault if she fell down and cut her hand on glass, the stupid cunt.

Up the crowded staircase Maggie Dawn went, like a tank on the rampage.

‘Mum? Mum? Where are you?’

Not in the bedroom. There were four other people there and they looked like vampires sucking blood from each other. Nor in the kids’ bedrooms, trashed already, and stinking with smoke and booze. Trashing the house was bad enough, yes, but nobody trashed her brother’s and sisters’ rooms.

Maggie Dawn heard Evelyn screaming. Left shoulder down, she slammed the locked bathroom door apart and went through. Mum was sitting on the toilet, not screaming at all but laughing her head off, with white stuff all around her nose and mouth.

Oh, Mum.

Arsehole Dave was urinating all over her. He turned and looked at her. ‘You want some of my piss, too, bitch?’

That was it, she completely lost it.

He was smirking, thinking he’d put Maggie Dawn in her place, stuffing his cock back in his jeans and buttoning up his flies when she hit him. ‘You bastard,’ she hissed.

Quick as a flash Dave slammed her back. He pinned her to the wall with his right arm against her throat. ‘You like that, you little cunt?’ He was groping in his pockets for something. Some pills.

Maggie Dawn tried to keep her lips shut as he attempted to force some down her throat. ‘Come on, hon-ey, open up and belong to Daddy.’

Groggy and desperate for breath, Maggie Dawn tried to prise Dave’s arm away but he shoved a knee into her groin.

Maggie Dawn cast a frightened look at Evelyn: Mum, help me.

Dave’s face was right up against Maggie Dawn, his eyes red and wild, spittle spraying from his mouth. Frustrated that he couldn’t get Maggie Dawn to swallow, he put the pills back in his pocket and raised his fist. ‘You’ve been asking for this, bitch.’

He started on her. Smash, smash, smash, crunch.

Oh God. The pain. But, far away, there was the sound of sirens. The cops. Yeah, big man, keep on hitting me, that’s it, because every time you hit me will mean another year on your sentence when they send you to fuckin’ prison, arsehole, arsehole, arse …

LISTEN UP, UNIVERSE

Today was going to be a good day?

‘Are you feeling better now, darling?’

Still dazed, Maggie Dawn was bandaged up and on painkillers, waiting with Gran in outpatients for a taxi to take her home. The doctor had managed to patch her up pretty well with a few stitches to some cuts above her left eyebrow and her lips where Dave’s fists had split them. But Dave was going to go down, big time. The cops had told her after she’d made her statement.

All in all, being beat up was worth it except for two scary moments. The first was when the cops said that Mum might also be up on a charge for having drugs at the house. And the second was when the social welfare lady at the hospital started to talk about putting Maggie Dawn and the kids into care. Meantime, however, they would be looked after by Gran.

‘Evelyn’s bound to lose the house, you know,’ Gran said when the taxi arrived. ‘If Housing throws her out, I don’t know what we’re going to do. I can’t look after all of you.’

‘We’ll think of something,’ Maggie Dawn answered.

At Gran’s, Chantelle, Roxanne Adorata and Zoltan rushed out onto the street to meet them, clinging to Maggie Dawn and not wanting to let her go. ‘Can I have a bandage on my head too?’ Zoltan asked. Chantelle and Roxanne Adorata would sleep on the small couch in the sitting room, and Zoltan with Maggie Dawn in her bed.

‘A lady from Social Welfare will be coming tomorrow,’ Gran said. ‘I don’t think she’s going to like the flat. It’s too small.’

‘I’m not going to let anybody take the kids, Gran,’ Maggie Dawn replied. ‘I’m just not.’

She remembered something that might make Gran stop worrying. ‘Here’s your scratch ticket, and I found you a nice scarf. You can wear it next time you go to the casino.’ Maybe then people wouldn’t notice her awful wig. ‘And Gran, you mustn’t let those Social Welfare people take us away, okay?’

Shaking her head, Gran went to join the kids in the sitting room where they had settled down to watch television. She must have bought fish ’n’ chips for their tea, good old Gran.

Maggie Dawn sat for a while, and then cleared away the wrapping the fish ’n’ chips had come in. She limped through the kitchen and out the back where the rubbish bin was. As she was putting on the lid, she looked up at the night sky:

‘Are you trying to mess with me?’ she asked.

She gave a deep, deep sigh, went back inside, turned off the television and told the girls to go to bed. She settled Zoltan, but he sat up and suddenly began to brandish the scissors like secateurs. Then he kissed Maggie Dawn. ‘We’re safe now.’

Maggie Dawn helped Gran to her bedroom.

‘I didn’t win anything on the scratch,’ Gran said.