chapter 12

Golden glints of sunlight sparkled in the dregs of red wine left in the bottle. Carly spluttered with drunken laughter as through the bottom of the glass she viewed the blurred image of Lynn vainly trying to walk straight until she finally slipped backwards, where she remained for a long, long time, sprawled and helpless, in the sand. Carly carried on laughing, hardly aware of where she was or what was going on anymore, only aware of such an overwhelming sadness sweeping over her that she knew if she didn't laugh, she'd cry.

After a while Lynn managed to elbow herself upwards and, half sitting, half leaning, looking like she was imitating some puppet doll, rocked unsteadily back and forth, smiling a broad smile at Carly, her eyes blank. And then she turned her head and was promptly sick.

"Oh, yuck!" Carly said in disgust. Lynn retched, heaved and was sick again.

Carly's head was spinning in the heat of the sun. Didn't matter. Her life was spinning anyway. Always had been.

"Carly..." A scared little voice on the verge of tears came from somewhere far, far away.

Perhaps it was Carly's voice from long ago.

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The door burst open with brute force and her father gripped both her arms and shook her violently, his angry face so close to hers that the breath of his voice seared with red-hot hate against her skin. "Where did we go wrong? Why can't you be like Sammy?"

This was the man who was meant to love her. This was the man who, when she was very young, was meant to bathe her cuts when she fell, to comfort her when she was afraid, to scoop her up in his arms and point out the birds in the trees and the funny shapes in the clouds. Like he had done with Sam.

Sam, slim, delicate pretty Sam, who was standing outside the room, with her hands pressed against her ears, with tiny tears raining down her beautiful flawless face, begging, "Oh, make her stop, Daddy, please, please, Daddy, can't you make her stop? It's scaring me!"

This was the family that was meant to love her. This was the family that was meant to nurture her, be proud of her triumphs, console her when she failed, who were meant to laugh with her and cry with her. Can't you see? Can't you see how easy it is? Tell me you care. Just once, and I'll never, ever ask either of you to say it again. Please tell me, just once, and I promise, I swear, I'll never, ever ask you to say it again, I promise, I swear...

Wny can't she find these words, words almost without substance, words that are little more than vague feelings she can't reach, yet that are churning deep inside her soul? Why can't she say what she wants to say?

"Murderer!" Carly screams hoarsely instead, struggling to free herself, kicking and biting, but he's so much stronger. "Murderer, murderer, murderer!"

"You're every bit as insane as your mother was!" He rasps, pushing her back, and Sam, delicate, pretty Sam, is still screaming, small sobbing screams, soft and polite and almost ladylike, not clumsy and rough like her twin's furious, emotion-charged outbursts.

No! No, please, don't do this again, don't...Tell me you care, just once, and I'll never...I promise, I swear... But he grabs her by her hair and he roughly tilts her head back, cricking her neck so that she shudders with the sudden pain; and his hand presses hard against her mouth until, finally, the tablet is forced off her tongue and slides down her throat though she gags and coughs and bites and kicks, angry and helpless, humiliated and lost. And as she falls, weakened now with the overpowering urge to sleep, the last thing she sees is the contempt and disgust in her father's eyes.

This is the man who is meant to love her.

"Carly, I'm scared..." says the small, tearful voice.

It wasn't the first time George Morris had dealt with his daughter's "psychosis" by sedating her with her mother's prescription tranquillisers. But this time it was how the police and social worker, alerted by a passer-by's concerns on overhearing the screams, found her, and they who arranged for Carly to be fostered. Another family, another town, another time, another life.

"Carly, oh, Carly..." says the faraway voice.

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"No need. We trust you." Pippa said calmly. "You're fifteen and old enough to be trusted."

Carly looked from Pippa to Tom and then at the mahogany pendulum clock on the wall as though the mahogany pendulum clock on the wall were the fourth person involved in this conversation and its opinion now anticipated. She had psyched herself up for a row. She had drawn breath to scream I'm not a ------- kid so stop treating me like one! and been prepared for their shocked, disgusted, middle-class expressions when she called them a couple of do-gooding jerks and their foster home a bloody hovel. And who, when she got some weed tonight, she would take a perverse pleasure in shocking even more next time by rolling a joint in front of them. See what you do then, see how far I can push you. See how you'll never know me and see if I care.

"So...you don't wanna ring Adele's Mum to check I'll be there and her olds'll be there too?"

Tom, unaware there was a large zig-zag of white paint on his nose, looked down from the step ladder where he'd been busily stroking the roller brush across the ceiling. "This isn't a prison, Carl, and you're not out on parole. Just make sure you're back for the time we said or we'll worry. Any probs with calling a cab, ring me and I'll pick you up. And, by the way, you look a million dollars."

"Have a good time, sis!" Steven grinned, a little sheepishly, as he held the old, rickety wooden ladder steady, because he and Carly had had a minor blue earlier over Steven's channel hopping with the remote.

"Yeh, knock 'em dead!" Frank added, tearing himself away for a precious moment from gazing with justifiable pride at his handiwork of the smoothly-painted pale blue door, and watching out warily in case Pippa came close to accidentally kicking over the paint tin again.

"Watch you don't get paint on yourself, sweetheart. Enjoy the party and take care," Pippa said, leaning carefully forward to give her a quick peck on the cheek, keeping her elbows pressed against her chest because her hands and arms and face and hair were splattered with pale blue paint, Pippa being one of these people, like Frank said cheekily but making them all laugh, who could never decorate anywhere without feeling the need to decorate themselves as well.

The night air hit Carly like a cold kiss and yellow lamplight streaked through the lullaby music of gently falling rain. She hadn't had had a drink and she wasn't high, yet, strangely, the ground was rocking and blurry and Carly, yes, Carly Louisa Morris, who'd made up her mind never to cry again, realised in shock that her own tears were responsible.

She didn't know why she cried. And she couldn't understand why when, although at Adele's birthday party some of the partygoers sneaked off into the garden to smoke pot, while Adele's parents, who, despite the giveaway sickly sweet scent, still naively believed they were keeping an eye on things, ensured Adele would cringe with embarrassment for a year or more by policing the drinks and turning down the music, she refused an invitation to join them. Nor did she go with her original plan to leave Adele's birthday party early and seek out Jason, a dealer she knew slightly who she'd heard liked her, to sell her body for whatever he had. For some reason she never fathomed, she rang for a cab to get her home on time, even early, and she lay awake for hours, staring into the darkness, wondering who she really was.

"Carly, please, Carly, I'm so scared..." pleaded the small, lost voice.

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Pete and Spence weren't going to turn up. And Carly knew perfectly well that they had never intended to, even if Lynn didn't. She had always known that the small group of uni friends that she and Lynn had lately begun tagging on after saw them as nothing more than kids trying desperately hard to act older. They were a standing joke with the gang, who kept trying to shake them off without hurting their feelings. Pete was twenty, Spencer twenty-one. Nice, normal guys. But what if they hadn't been? She was playing with fire and if Carly wanted to risk playing with fire, well then fine, that was Carly's problem.

"But it's not just about you anymore. You've two little sisters to look out for now," the thought suddenly chided her, whooshing through her head like an ice cold breeze. If only she could cut through this fog of alcohol that clouded everything around her...

Sheltered in the Home, having very few friends and wrapped up in her religious beliefs of archangels and Heavenly messages, Lynn was touchingly innocent. Carly had been both amused and shocked to learn that she truly believed a girl could get pregnant just from sleeping with a guy. Nothing had to happen, Lynn explained gravely to Sally (Lynn, for some unknown reason, had taken it upon herself on this particular day to teach Sally the "facts of life" or, at least, Lynn's version of them) you could lie at opposite ends of the bed, Lynn said, and not even touch, but if you both fell asleep, then the girl would wake up pregnant.

Carly had of course educated Lynn a great deal since. But the younger girl still often took what people said at face value. It had been obvious to Carly that Pete was joking when he said that he and Spencer (Lynn blushed crimson whenever Spencer spoke to her) and Carly and Lynn should all meet up. He'd laughed and flicked back Carly's hair like he might have teased his kid sister about freckles or a poster of some heartthrob, and his girlfriend had smiled too. He'd told Carly all about his fourteen-year-old sister, Claire. How she wanted to grow up fast but what was the rush? Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, they were funny ages, Pete said. One day Claire might think she was madly in love with someone and the next day she might hate him. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, they were funny ages for boys too. That was why it was good to be with friends your own age. Carly knew that, very, very gently, Pete was telling her they were far too young to hang round with them.

But Lynn had talked about nothing else but their "dates" when they got back home. And Carly, being Carly, thought it would be funny if she let her go on believing it. Anyway, if they got all done up and distracted Sally with toys who knew what guys they might meet on the beach today? But, oh, Carly, being Carly, she had to get drunk, didn't she? And not content with getting drunk herself, she had to get Lynn drunk too!

Lynn, who now gave a strange little moan then flopped and lay deathly still.

"Carly...Carly, I'm scared..." The small faraway voice whimpered again.

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"See?" Scotty said.

Kane nodded grimly. He glanced at Milko, Deefa and Fred. They looked as unhappy about the idea as he was. "Yeh, I got it," he sighed. "But the guys think maybe we..."

"---- the bloody hallucinations, loon! Jeez, you oughta be locked up!" Scott said, kicking him over, but, still wary of the hallucinations, without as much violence as he normally used.

Kane was used to such treatment. He picked himself up and dusted off the gritty sand without comment.

"Give it your best shot," Scotty continued, as if nothing had interrupted them.

Kane cocked his head to one side and poked sand out of his ear, looking at the world, and in particular his intended target, sky west and crooked. "I don't think I'll hit 'em, Scotty. I reckon they're gonna be heaps too fast."

"Well, ------- well try, drongo!"

There was no help for it. When Scotty spoke, you did what he said or you got a bashing and then, after the bashing, you had to do what he said in the first place. With a deep sigh, Kane slowly took the pebbles Scott had told him to collect out of his pocket, and then hesitated. With a flapping and noisy fluttering of wings, a fourth sea bird had landed on the small rock isolated in the sea. Except this one didn't choose to stare out in the same direction as its three companions who stood silently watching something only they three saw out on the distant horizon. Instead it perched on the very edge of the rock and, cawing mournfully, stared back at Kane through beady, soulful eyes.

"Quick! Get the b----r!" Scott hissed in his kid brother's ear.

Jeez, it was alright for Scotty, but it actually sounded like the b----r out on the rock was crying! Reluctantly, Kane hurled the stone, making sure that it splashed harmlessly into the water and scattered the flock.

"You missed on purpose!" Scotty admonished, swiping him across the head.

"I did ----! Deefa barked and put me off!" Kane lied. But his heart was thudding, half with fear, half with excitement at a new discovery. Throwing the stones had made him feel better. Like he could unleash all his anger at the world and his father if he took the hurt out on someone or something else.

"Ssh!" Scotty ordered suddenly, with a warning thump. "Look!" He added, grinning, as a figure appeared walking towards them.

Her throat was parched but Sally thought it best if she kept on talking to reassure Mrs Martha. Not to reassure her too much of course because, as she'd already explained to the rag doll, she wouldn't be able to stay with her forever. So Sally walked along, silver tears streaming down her cheeks and falling off the end of her chin, head down, watching her feet trudge along so that she didn't have to look at the terrible sea, keeping up her muttered commentary - or she might have had to count to a million so they'd feel safe and that, Sally estimated, would take about a hundred years and they'd both be very, very tired by the end of it.

"Now I know it was very, very frightening for you when Lynn passed out and when Carly still didn't hear me though I'd said her name heaps of times before but it's really no use feeling sorry for ourselves just because we're all alone in the world (Sally gave a small hiccupy sob). It's the way it is, Mrs Martha, and if you don't like it, my dear, well I'm afraid tears aren't going to help either of us so I think you'd better stop them at once. (This was a little unfair as Mrs Martha wasn't the one crying.) Lots of people run away, you know, and we - I mean, I - have been meaning to for a long time so..."

With the oddest feeling that someone was watching her, Sally looked up and, to her horror, saw that just ahead the Phillips brothers were waiting for her, grinning ominously, each of them clutching a handful of stones...

Oh, but someone else was there too! Milko! It really was Milko, gazing out to sea, with his hands in his pockets and wearing his very best red hat! Little Sally felt as though her heart were about to burst with joy.

"Milko! Milko!" She shouted breathlessly.
And then something terrible happened. Something so heartbreaking that I wish I didn't have to tell you but this is Sally's story and not mine. Milko turned and he looked straight at Sally.

"Rack off!" He spat at her, his face contorted with hate.