I have to pick up groceries from the Ouyen IGA before heading home. It’s the same list every time: tins of fruit punch, bacon rashers wrapped in paper, cartons of milk… Harris Derwent’s blank hard profile lingers in my mind the whole time I’m shopping. Ten minutes past the sign for Walpeup in the warm car I catch sight of my house though the windscreen. That’s when I finally start to feel better.
Sometimes, in books, you read about a girl – it’s always a girl – described as ‘plain’. It’s kind of an old-fashioned term. It’s supposed to mean someone who has a nice personality but isn’t much chop in the looks department. Our house is plain. Painted weatherboard with an attached carport, an old picket fence with a creaky wire gate, grass growing high. An old Holden carcass sits on bricks between the carport and the fence – Dad periodically raids it for parts when he’s working on fix-it jobs.
But my whole body relaxes when I see the ramshackle yard, the dun-white walls. It’s home. It’s mine – mine and Dad’s. I never feel anxious or afraid returning to it, the way Harris Derwent felt returning to his.
I’m lucky, I realise as I pull the handbrake. Home is a haven for me. Not everybody has it so good.
The squad car is parked in the driveway, which means Dad’s home for lunch. The heavy bags of groceries make me lumber awkwardly down the hallway and into our tiny kitchen. Dad’s keys, wallet, and phone are on the table. His jacket is hanging over the back of a chair. I dump the green bags on the lino floor, grab Dad’s phone and wander out through the back door to the roofed concrete area near the outside laundry.
Dad’s got his blue uniform sleeves rolled to his elbows and an apron on. The apron is a faded pink floral number, an ancient one of Mum’s. Dad always wears an apron over his uniform when he’s tinkering – he has a terrible habit of wiping his hands on his front when he’s working on cars. I’ve tried to break him of it, but I think it’s an unconscious thing.
‘Dad, your phone.’ I stand on the top step and hold the offending item out.
‘Hey, love. What?’ He looks over and blinks. He’s got a fanbelt, like a big black licorice strap, in one gnarled hand. ‘Oh bugger. Was it on the kitchen table?’
‘Jared’s gonna have a heart attack if you miss another call. And I’ve had enough medical emergencies for today. Did you take your pills?’
‘Yeah, sorry.’ He winces in apology. ‘How was work?’
‘Oh, y’know, fine. Have you eaten?’ He’s supposed to eat with his pills.
‘Not yet. Just wanted to find a match for this bit of rubbish.’ He waggles the fan belt.
‘I’ll make you an omelette.’
‘That’d be great, love, thanks.’
Dad and I have this incredibly boring gendered division of household labour, where Dad fixes the cars and plumbing and electrics and stuff, and I do all the grocery shopping. But we both take turns making meals and doing laundry and tidying. It’s a flexible system – we both work nights at various times, so it has to be – but it seems to keep the house functioning okay. And me and Dad, of course. We function okay, too.
Once I’ve changed out of my nurse-wear and into a T-shirt and jeans, I go back and wash my hands at the kitchen sink before cracking eggs into a bowl. Dad clomps up the steps as soon as the aroma of bacon omelette starts wafting around.
‘You good?’ I watch him as he washes his hands at the sink. He’s looking a bit grizzled today, and his greying hair needs a cut. He uses the potato brush to get the grease out from under his nails, which makes me wince, but he’s obviously thinking about other things. He often comes home to tinker when he’s got a particularly knotty problem he’s trying to work out.
He kisses the top of my head as he dries his hands. ‘Yep, I’m good.’
I slip the omelette onto a plate, set it on the table. ‘So what’s going on?’
‘Ah, nothing.’ I can see that’s not true just by his expression, so I wait it out. ‘Well, something. You know, there’s always something.’
I nod. This much I’ve learned.
Dad fesses up as he shuffles into a chair at the table. ‘The Donovan boy. He’s gone missing again.’
‘But they brought him back!’
‘Well, he got hold of some more gear. I’d say Snowie Geraldson tuned him up.’ Dad sighs, picks up his fork. ‘Gavin tore up the house looking for cash and now he’s pissed off in his mum’s car. They know where he’s gone –’
‘To Mildura, to get more drugs.’
‘Yeah. But there’s about a dozen places he could be, and his father wants me to do some asking around up there. So I might be heading up this arvo.’
Shit – that means Dad won’t be home until late. And he looks peaky already.
‘You won’t get him back before evening,’ I point out.
‘I know.’
‘So why don’t you get the Mildura blokes to search this afternoon, then go up tomorrow morning?’
