‘I know I don’t hate him. He’s still our dad,’ I say, but then I think about being adopted and choke on the last word. I wonder if all this makes everything that’s happened easier or harder, having another family somewhere that I can imagine. Having my unopened letter that I’m very definitely not avoiding opening. But there’s no way to know. ‘He just needs to try harder, that’s all.’
‘And he just gambles.’ There’s bitterness in Taylor’s voice.
‘He just gambles.’
‘I remember when he used to buy those scratchies on a Sunday and let us scratch them.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Was that the start of it?’
‘I guess.’ I think of Dad at the track, of running errands. ‘I don’t know. He’d buy four cards every week and that was all. But maybe we just didn’t see the rest. We were just kids.’
‘The bottom line is that it’s genetic. The gambling or whatever it is that’s wrong with him.’ Taylor shoves the photo away from her savagely. ‘Which I guess you don’t have to worry about. But I do. It’s in me, the same as it’s in him.’
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, I sneak past my parents’ bunks to get to the bathroom. Mum is curled up on her side, snoring softly. I stare at her, trying to puzzle out a way to help her, but her sleeping face doesn’t give anything away. Dad’s bunk is empty and I get that feeling of dread in my stomach.
I’m meant to be meeting Clem, but I also need to find Dad. As I walk through Fairyland, I stop and touch a bright-magenta flower that Richard had told me was a cosmos. I ground myself the way the books tell me to. There are flowers everywhere, tucked into places I never would have noticed. I think, for a moment, how much Zin will love it when she visits, except I don’t want Zin to visit. Not ever.
The four of us have been a group since Year One, but really our group’s pretty much split in two. Clem and me, Zin and Lara. Mostly, I don’t really notice. Little patterns and rituals that stitch us together. I know what’s going on with Clem before Zin does and she always knows what’s going on with Lara before I do. If someone needs to contact Lara, it will be Zin. If someone needs to contact me, it’ll be Clem. Sometimes – although not very often – there’ll be unspoken battle lines drawn up and it feels like a family where so much of what goes on remains unsaid.
I find Clem kicking his soccer ball around the oval near his house. He’s got his earphones in and looks pretty happy – pretty peaceful – so I just sit on a bench under an oak tree and wait for him to tire himself out, which takes a scarily long time.
I pull a book out of my bag. It’s about finding your goddess power. I’d seen it on Ms Huang’s desk a few weeks back and figured that reading what a librarian is reading could only be good for my career aspirations. I can’t concentrate on it, though. I keep thinking about where Dad might be.
‘How are you this fine morning, Price?’ Clem asks, wiping his sweaty face with the bottom of his top.
‘Cranky,’ I say. ‘Wearied. Apprehensive.’
‘You and your feeling words,’ he says, rolling his eyes. He bounces the ball once. ‘You wanna come in and play videogames?’
‘Nah.’ I tilt my head up towards the sky. ‘Videogames rot your brain. It’s probably why you’re so jittery all the time.’
‘You really are cranky.’
‘Anyway, it’s sort of nice out here, don’t you think?’
‘Well, you wanna stay out here while I go in and have a shower? Then we’ll go do something?’
‘Like what?’
‘Whatever you want.’
‘I’ll come in.’ I follow him inside and sit outside the partly open bathroom door, so we can keep talking. Lara and Zin think it’s weird, but I don’t. It’s not like I’m sitting in the shower or anything. It’s not like I’ve ever seen anything (as much as Zin asks me for details).
When Clem emerges all dressed, pink and smelling of vanilla, he smiles and sits down in the hallway next to me. He claps my knee. ‘So, Price. What are we doing?’
‘Let me check something first,’ I say. I send Taylor a text, asking if Dad has turned up at Fairyland. She replies immediately – Mum’s at work and she hasn’t seen Dad.
‘Right,’ I say. For a moment, I think of the photo. Judy and Charlie, on the banks of the Sutherbend River.
Clem taps the floor. ‘You worked out what we’re doing?’
‘Yeah. It’s weird, though.’
‘I like weird. Wouldn’t put up with you and your self-help obsession, otherwise.’
‘Can we go to Carrock’s Pub?’
Clem blinks. ‘Um. Alright.’
‘And the track?’
‘Sure.’ He frowns and tilts his head. ‘Why?’
‘They’re just cool places on a Saturday.’ I stand up. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Okay,’ he says, putting his wallet and phone in his pocket.
I grab onto his sleeve. ‘Oh, and one more thing.’
‘Shoot.’
‘Can we not tell Zin or Lara about going there?’
‘Wait . . . are you trying to corrupt me with underage drinking and gambling?’ he asks, punching my arm and raising his eyebrows. I wince and look away.
‘Too hard? Sorry.’
‘It’s fine.’
We walk across town to Carrock’s, my middle aching with cramps. Period cramps, I think. Although my middle goes into spasms whenever I get worried like this. We’re not technically allowed near the pokies, but I’ve worked out the best ways to peer in. I’ve had months to practise.
‘What are we doing?’ Clem asks, as I peer in the windows I know will give me a complete visual of the pokies. I like that about Clem. How I can be sneaking around the outside of a pub and he asks what we’re doing. Not what I’m doing, alone. Taylor texts me to say that the River Pub and the river itself are clear.
By the time we reach the track and slip in the gateway that I know is never properly monitored, Clem’s grown unusually still and quiet.
‘Is this about your dad?’ he asks me, but then I slap a hand on his chest to stop him walking, my breath catching in my throat. Dad. I can see him at a table in the corner with a pen in his mouth as he flips through the racing section of the newspaper.
Clem swears next to me and takes a step forward. ‘Just wait here,’ I say. I feel him tense against me. ‘Clem, just give me a minute, okay?’
He glances at me unhappily and then nods once and crosses his arms.
I get pretty close to Dad, because there’s a race starting and he immediately plasters himself to the glass and starts hammering it with his fists.
‘Dad,’ I say, just before the horses thunder through the finish flags. Running errands, I think.
He waits until the placegetters are listed on the screen before he turns around to me, and it fills me with such a thundering rage that I have to ball my fists to stop myself from hitting him.
He’s got a gleam in his eye and I just shake my head. ‘Mum’s going to be furious.’
‘I won,’ he says sort of defiantly, even as he sags back into his chair. ‘Stell, I won!’