Sydney: Georgio
On the twentieth of January, every year, Georgio meets up with his half brother and visits their mother's grave. She's not really his mother. She just raised him because she believed that family needed to stick together, however unrelated that family might be. Nobody else had wanted him enough to ask for him in her stead.
Domingo always brings her roses. Georgio brings her a bottle of nice wine, Brokenwood cricket pitch this year, and pours all of them a drink. Dom says he's only killing the grass and wasting good plonk but he says it out of a sense of brotherly duty rather than annoyance. They make sure to speak in Castilian the entire time so she gets to hear her native tongue. Georgio can't help but touch the pale scars on his cheek every now and then while they're at the graveyard. It doesn't matter that it's an ungrateful kind of thing to do. He knows he'd be forgiven.
He doesn't blame her or Domingo for the way things worked out. He is kind of pissed at his own mother for trying to honour his Spanish roots by giving him a name that's actually pretty Italian but that's another matter altogether.
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On the twentieth of January, every year since before he was legal, Georgio spends the evening getting plastered and picking up girls. He always makes sure one drags him off to her place. He prefers it when they talk dirty to him, when they dig their nails into his flesh. He's kind of glad he's not gay at all because if he was he knows he'd hook up with someone just so they'd tear him to shreds. This way the damage is external and fairly limited even though it stings just the way he likes it. He's not into S&M or anything, he just needs to get a little roughed that day of the year and it's more fun than picking a fight.
It helps to remind him. It feels almost the same as the strike that gave him his scars, only the marks don't bleed much before they close and they fade over time. He tells people it was an industrial accident. He worked at a construction site for a few months once, until they figured out he was under-aged but over-developed, so it's not completely unbelievable. Certainly more believable than saying that his guardian had undiagnosed, late-onset schizophrenia, became paranoid and tried to kill him.
In his more whimsical moments it reminds him of a song, "God help me, I was only nineteen." Only he'd just turned thirteen at the time. Domingo had been fifteen and very lucky to get off the manslaughter charge that had been levelled at him after he'd tried to defend his younger brother from the most important person in their lives.
He always showers before he goes home now. Zan and Hala knew the first time he stumbled home on the twenty-first of January stinking and covered in round bruises. Zan's disgust and Hala's quickly hidden shock left him sick for days. He keeps his collars high despite the summer heat and he makes sure that all he smells of is soap. They still know what he's been doing but nobody is bothered so much if he's discreet.
This year he realises he has far more in common with Jennifer than he'd thought.
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Jenny was still in hospital on the twenty-first of the first, suffering from dehydration, shock and post-traumatic stress that had been waiting long years to present itself. Her x-rays showed only healed breaks though, so she was due out before the beginning of the school year. Jenny's dad was currently being held on remand at the Silverwater Correctional Complex. Hala had told him that they weren't sure how long it would be before the man went to trial. He didn't care if it took forever. A friend had told him about how you didn't get any of the small considerations given to sentenced inmates while you were on remand. You just sat in a cell, doing nothing all day. Georgio had been sympathetic at the time and still was, really but things felt differently to him in this instance. It was the first time, even with all that had happened with his Mum, that he wanted someone to suffer.
He kept going to Jenny's room during visiting hours only to find that she wasn't really there. She didn't even call him "Goyo" anymore and he didn't have it in him to call her by any of the pet-names he usually used when Zan wasn't around. Hala had told him, without waiting for him to ask, which was kind of her, that Jenny would come around eventually. It would just take time and care.
"What if she doesn't get the time or the care?" he asked, the thought that Jen would turn out like he had filling him with dread.
Hala placed a hand over his and he shifted so he could hold it.
"She has us to look out for her." Hala said, smiling genuinely.
Georgio loved to see her smile like she meant it. Loved it even more when it was directed at him.
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Georgio did not like the tide of change. It made him uneasy.
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Georgio did not like walking to Prince of Wales Hospital with Zan. He was prickly at the best of times and the ten minute walk to the High street entry seemed to magnify his ill-humour one hundred fold. Georgio didn't even try to match his stride anymore. He just followed him like a despairing bloodhound, languishing in the silence and the rage that had filled the gaps left by his flatmate's abhorred astonishment. Georgio thanked the God he didn't believe in, every day, for the fact that domestic assault wasn't worth a news story even if you had been locked up in a darkened room. He knew in his heart of hearts that Zan would have happily killed anyone that dared bother his Jenny.
Because that was what she was now, whether Zan liked it or not, she was his Jenny.
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Georgio did not like looking at Hala more than he had to. Well, he actually quite liked looking at her but he didn't like what could be implied from liking to look at her. Not that she wasn't loveable or likeable or anything. Her eyes are really pretty and she's so frigging smart and down to earth and… It's just that she's so… And he's so… The Hijab thing was kind of confusing too, sometimes, because according to "A Current Affair" it was a way repressing women or something and Hala wasn't repressed at all, just quiet in a very scary way sometimes. Georgio didn't like thinking about this shit.
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When Jenny was allowed to leave the hospital, she didn't have anywhere to go. There was no way in hell she was going to go home. She didn't have a mother and all of her grandparents were deceased. She thought she might have had an uncle or two over in Hong Kong but she didn't like her chances at being taken in aged 17. She maintained (quietly, like she didn't want a slap for speaking out of turn) that she was better off staying in Sydney anyway. Hala had already contacted her school and fixed things so the fees wouldn't be an issue. Zan had stolen all her details one day and set up Austudy payments, so she'd be able to eat.
Georgio walked in on Zan telling her she was an idiot one day and almost chucked a spaz until Zan told her that she'd be staying with them and not going anywhere near any halfway houses or the like. Not over his dead body. Georgio stored the moment away, ready to josh them for acting like a bickering married couple the moment it became funny again.
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Georgio didn't get his new flatmate. She looked a lot like Jenny; she had the same hair, the same nose. She even commandeered the couch much like Jenny always had but... Jenny had been brimming with enthusiasm and an insane crush on Alexander "Fuck-off you imbeciles" Geddes and this girl, this changeling, was filled with nothing. She barely moved, barely reacted to touch and she only ever saw the outside world through a window. If he hadn't heard her crying in her sleep the last time he got up for a glass of water during the night, he would have sworn she didn't even have fear anymore.
He found it strange and unwelcome that he was mourning someone who wasn't even dead.
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The only times Jen showed any life was when she was with Zan. Other than that she was just the elfin being that slept on their fold-out and slightly decreased their respective rental payments. Georgio didn't know how she'd finish her last year in high school if things stayed so bad but he was the only one among them that had the ability to hope for better things.
Thus, he hoped and kept letting Jenny call him Goyo, even though he hated that particular endearment. He'd put up with almost anything to see her acting human again.
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After a while it became obvious to everyone, Georgio included, that Jenny was afraid of going outside because of the doors. Zan had it figured out immediately and he only told the rest of them about it because he wanted Georgio not to be a prick about it. Her father used to slam the door to her cell closed and flick the locks home as loudly as possible. Turns out he used to slam the door on her if she tried to get out too, which she often did even though it was futile. She was lucky that two breaks she'd suffered had been clean but unlucky that they hadn't been messy enough to attract attention at the time.
Georgio tried to imagine such darkness and the sounds of your freedom slipping away in a door slam. He didn't think he'd be too keen on risking that either. Hala's pretty face scrunched up, whether in memory or sympathy he did not know. He knew that her childhood hadn't been peachy either but he'd always hoped that it wasn't as bad as his bones felt it had been. She was no longer the person he had met five years ago but the two pictures he kept of her in his mind would always share the same untimely wisdom she wore now.
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Georgio and Hala were in the backyard the Saturday before school was due to start up again. Georgio was lying on his back, watching the trees sway gently in the breeze and enjoying the burn of the sun. Hala was sitting on a deckchair behind him and reading, even though it felt like she was watching him. He knew because occasionally he'd sit up and look around and whenever he did, her nose would be in a textbook.
At about one he started hearing voices, not raised but still sort of loud, coming from Zan's room. His window opened and he climbed out of it into the yard, glaring at the hydrangeas. Georgio opened his mouth to accuse him of being crazy but quickly shut it.
Jenny peaked outside and blinked a little at the brightness. Slowly, carefully, she extended her right leg through the window and gracefully bent her torso under the frame. Her left leg swung around and she daintily dropped onto their concrete veranda. She lifted her hands above her eyes.
"The sun," she said, even though she was looking at Zan, as though it explained everything.
Then she walked out into it.
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Almost all of the places described in this fic exist. Prince of Wales Hospital is on High st in Randwick and Silverwater gaol has a remand centre where people are sent awaiting trial. Zan and Hala probably attend the University of New South Wales because it's within walking distance of their house (they live in Kingsford). Jenny likely attends one of the many nearby high schools but I didn't want to specify. The words "God help me, I was only nineteen" come from a war song. I'd recommend looking it up but it might not be so meaningful to you if you aren't Australian. A Current Affair is a news program but only just, depending on whom you ask.
Oh yeah, Zan takes classes during summer session as well, normally they finish in November. Hala just keeps studying to get ahead, crazy academic.
Macquarie bank is a cornerstone of business in Australia and it's often involved with money-related controversy. It gets mentioned next chapter... I only split them up because the pause seemed appropriate enough for it.
Some words you may not know:
Plonk: Wine. Sometimes refers to sitting down.
Brokenwood Cricket pitch: A variety of plonk and possibly a cricket pitch somewhere.
Hijab: Muslim women wear it. Not to be mistaken with the Burkha, which does crop up occasionally, at least on university campuses but is significantly less common.
Austudy: Government payments given to young people whose parents are earning below minimum wage or are living independently, while studying full time. You can only work eight hours or less while receiving the payments, so many university students walk a fine line between paying rent and getting to eat at all.
Spaz: Derived from the politically incorrect "spastic". Can involve violence but generally just refers to making a scene or acting like an idiot (Georgio was going to participate in the former).
Josh: Pick on or mock, also a boy's name.