Circle of fight

EPILOGUE

I’m outside the gates of St Bede’s. There’s a big sign, shabby, saying ‘Holy Cross Children’s Services’ and a whole lot of other stuff. Someone has tried to scratch out ‘Holy’ and write ‘Very’ on the sign but they didn’t do much of a job: it just looks like a lot of random scratches.

Lee and Pang and Phillip and Paul and Intira — they wanted to come too. They figure if we’re going to be living together in Stratton, one big happy family, they should be here now, but we’ll meet them at Maccas later. This is between me and Gavin.

The driveway is white gravel. All the kids in this place have jobs, and one of Gavin’s is to rake the drive every afternoon, to keep it clean. It looks like he hasn’t done it in a fortnight at least.

On previous visits I’ve left the ute outside and walked up the drive and today I’m doing the same thing. But this time the driveway seems impossibly long. I can’t bear to put off the reunion any longer, so I break into a jog.

Approaching the administration building I can see the usual activity, just like on the other visits. An old man mowing the lawn; his name is Bert, I think. A couple of boys playing soccer, using a rubbish bin as a goal. A man and woman waiting on the veranda: they’re dressed in their best gear. They could be parents of one of the kids here, or applying for a job or something. Who knows?

I avoid the office, even though you’re meant to check in there. Panting a little from the run up the drive I look around for Gavin. A boy named Morris, about the only kid Gavin has been friendly with, sees me and waves. ‘He’s around the back of the kitchen I think,’ he calls.

I wave back in thanks and hurry to the kitchen block. Trust Gavin to stay near the food, even if he does complain about the quality. But he’s nowhere to be seen and I start zigzagging around the shrubs, looking for him.

No luck. It’s so frustrating. All I want to do is rush up to him and tell him the news and then march away, the two of us together, towards freedom and a new life. But it’s a bit hard to do that when there’s only one of me. I’m torn, not knowing whether to continue searching or go to the office like I should have done in the first place.

I do one last big sweep around the front of the cabins and then go up the rise towards the boundary fence. And there’s a little figure sitting on a swing, with his back to me, the swing just drifting backwards and forwards, as he drags his feet in the dirt. My eyes fill for a moment at the loneliness of him. But there is one person who can help him a little bit, maybe, with his loneliness, and so I run up the slope. No use calling his name, and I don’t want to startle him by rushing up behind him with no warning so I do a bit of a circuit that brings me into his circle of flight. He’s always had great peripheral vision. He lifts his head and looks at me, then cocks his head to one side. ‘What’s going on?’ I know he’s asking himself. ‘This is a strange time for her to be here.’

He gets up slowly. He looks vaguely pleased, a slow half-smile. He’ll never give himself away by leaping at me in delight. Gavin’s subtle. Most of the time I have to take it on faith that he loves me, because if I relied on getting day-to-day hugs and warm fuzzy comments, my life would feel like a very long drought.

I slow to a walk and keep coming towards him trying not to smile too much, trying to be cool, trying not to get too mushy and girly, knowing how much he hates that stuff. His grin gets a little wider. ‘We won?’ he asks. He’s figured it out already. My heart leaps at the word ‘we’. Such a simple word but it says everything.

‘I lost,’ I say.

But before the alarm that leaps into his eyes has established itself I add, ‘Yep, I’m a loser. I’m stuck with you permanently.’

He digests that, then finally says, ‘Hey, that makes you a big winner.’

Then he does something he’s never ever done. He throws himself onto me and gives me the biggest hug I’ve had in my whole damn life. From Gavin! Gavin! I mean, this is the kid who wouldn’t give me CPR if I were hauled out of the dam unconscious. He’d be worried about catching girl germs.

When the hug is over the two of us hurry back to his cottage. He can’t wait to get out of the place. I help him pack his stuff. It doesn’t take long because his houseparents have forced him to be fairly neat since he’s been here. I joke about how I’ll make him keep his things equally neat when we move in with Lee, but he’s had enough of jokes now, one was all he could cope with, he’s too fragile, so I remind myself not to make any more for a day or two.

At the office there’s a problem. They tell me they’ve had no paperwork yet. He’ll have to stay another night, maybe longer, until they get the clearance from the Department. Gavin looks utterly devastated. Ashen. I argue until the woman behind the counter gets cranky and I realise she’s become deaf herself, deaf to me. I start to turn away, defeated. And then I think it through. If I walk out of the place with him, then what are they going to do? They’re not going to chase us, because they know I’ve got the decision from the court, she’s already admitted that, so they’d hardly send the cops to track us down. It mightn’t impress the department too much, when they hear about it — I’ll be off to a bad start with them — but why should I wait, why should Gavin be put through any more suffering, just because they aren’t better organised? So I nerve myself and write down my address and push it across the counter to the woman.

‘I’m actually taking him away now,’ I say.

She looks totally shocked and says, ‘You’ll be in trouble if you try that.’

‘No, you will be,’ I say, ‘because I’ve got the legal right to custody of him, and if you try to stop me you’ll be breaching the court order.’

While she stands there trying to think of what to do I say to Gavin, ‘Come on, let’s go, we’re out of here.’

And away we go. She doesn’t say anything, but she heads for a phone. I grin at Gavin. ‘Don’t run, or they’ll chase us. We’ll just walk quickly down the drive. As soon as we’re out of sight we’ll run.’

He grins back. He’s loving this. There’s life in his face again. It occurs to me that this is the best thing I could have done, it’s actually a great way to leave, because it’s giving Gavin the message that we haven’t been defeated, we are up for it, we’re young, we’re in control of our lives again, we can charge into the future with confidence. When we round the corner of the driveway I take his hand and we run down to the gate together.