The Girl with the Iron Fist

Emily Brewin

2016 Sydney Writers’ Room Short Story Competition runner-up.

In the supermarket toilets across the road from school, I pull a clear bag from my coat pocket and check Hornbag Harris has given me what I paid for.

Powder gathers at its base, gleaming white under the dull blue lights designed to deter junkies. I pinch it, feeling it crystallise between my fingers as a woman in the cubicle next door pulls reams of paper from the roll.
I turn the bag over. The skin on my wrist is translucent under the light, my veins the colour of seawater. They remind me of the ocean at Mollymook where we went when I was twelve, and the salty scent of the couch on the porch where we stayed. In the evenings, I’d lie on it with Mum and listen to Dad on his guitar. He was Elvis when he played and I couldn’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be.

I stuff the bag back in my pocket. It’s a little on the small side, but that’s what you get for refusing to sit on Hornbag’s knee. The toilet roll holder next door squeals.
‘Ya not helping the hole in the ozone layer.’
It stops.
I pick up my school bag and unlock the door. The mirror on the wall opposite is streaked and spotty with muck.
‘See ya’ I yell at the cubicle, now silent behind me. If I don’t hurry, I’ll be late for school.

My stomach rumbles as I cross the quadrangle. If I’m quick, I’ll make it to the canteen for toast. They give breakfast to the kids whose parents don’t feed them properly. They say our brains won’t function without it.
I didn’t have time for breaky today. I slept in. Dad had kept me up half the night again; his cries sinking through the wall between our bedrooms until I put a pillow on my head. When I took it off, Mum was singing in a grainy voice. ‘Take my hand, take my whole life too…’ and Dad was quiet. I said a prayer of thanks to The King, then closed my eyes and imagined I was back in Mollymook.

‘Peanut butter,’ Kealy is shouting at the canteen lady when I arrive, she shoots me a smile. ‘They’re a bit slow this morning.’
I shake my head, knowing full well she has a lunchbox full of wholesome goodness in her school bag. I don’t say so though. It’s important she looks as desperate as the rest of us. It doesn’t pay to stand out around here.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking a slice of toast with jam before following Kealy to a wooden bench on the other side of the quad.
‘Wish mum’d buy white bread,’ she says taking a greedy bite of toast. ‘I know it’s crap for you, but it tastes so good.’
I think of Kealy’s mother, slim waisted in her designer pants, carefully selecting a grain loaf to help her daughter grow. I’m lucky if mum makes it to the supermarket these days. Mostly, we live off food from the 7 Eleven on the corner. Dad’s become a full-time job.
‘You should come to mine then,’ I say, even though we both know that’s not going to happen. ‘There’s plenty of unhealthy food there.’ I imagine my Mum answering the door to Kealy’s parents, in gypsy pants more faded than her smile.
Kealy rubs my arm. ‘You’re tired.’
It makes my eyes water. We walk to class.

In history, Mr Willams tries to teach us about Japanese Samurai. Some of the kids up the back throw chewed up wads of paper at each other but most of the class just talks. I feel sorry for Mr Williams. He started the year enthusiastically enough but now he’s just going through the motions. We always break them in the end. Beside me, Kealy can’t help herself. She writes down every word he says, covering her book up when Leah leans across the table.
‘Heard you’ve been hanging around Hornbag’, she says to me.
Kealy stops writing and my hand automatically goes to the slight bulge in my pocket. I ignore her.
‘A few of us are going to the bridge tonight. You should come.’
Mr Willams gives me a look, imploring me to pay attention. Usually he can count on us. Kealy and I are his star pupils. He’s probably terrified I’ll go to the dark side.
‘No thanks.’
‘Hornbag’ll be there.’ Leah says brushing a loose strand of bleached hair behind her ear. ‘Treat him right and he’ll give ya freebies.’
I think of the old railway bridge, the filthy mattresses beneath it and the empty beer cans that litter the slope to the creek. It makes me cringe, but for a moment I consider it. Consider Hornbag’s cold hand creeping up my school dress and the free gear. It almost seems too easy.
Kealy kicks me under the table. I know what she’s thinking and I feel a flash of anger at her. She doesn’t get what it’s like, living with Dad.
It takes all my will power to sit with him. Some days his eyes are so glassy with pain and morphine he barely knows I’m there. The easy smile I used to rush home for has disappeared and I can hardly recall the sound of his voice. He rarely talks anyway. The noises he makes instead aren’t words or music. They’re hollow and shapeless like his body beneath the sheets.
‘Not long now, my love,’ I’d heard Mum say when I passed their bedroom door the other night But when she looked up and saw me, I knew she was lying. The doctors said six months, but the disease is taking its time. I bit my tongue. The drugs they gave him aren’t keeping the pain at bay.

The thought of my parents causes an ache in my chest so fierce I almost say ‘yes’ to Leah.
‘Haven’t you got basketball tonight?’ Kealy pipes up.
I nod slowly; ashamed she knows what I’m thinking. She gives me a weak smile.
Mr Williams stops talking. ‘Move,’ he says to Leah, pointing at a seat down the front. She’s an easy target.

Time drags on. Finally, Mr Williams dismisses us with a saggy wave of his hand. We make our way along the corridor to Ms Lumley’s art class. Half the kids drop off, making a beeline for the alley behind school for a smoke or a joint. They know Ms Lumley won’t tell. She just wants to teach the kids who give a shit.
She greets us with a bright smile and a stack of Howard Arkley prints.
Some of them are of suburban houses like the ones on our street, but filled with colour as if the life inside is seeping out.
Ms Lumley spreads them across a table and tells us to take a look. I can’t tear my eyes away. Their vibrancy floods my brain until the grey art room walls and the stale cigarette smell of my classmates’ jumpers falls away.
Happiness creeps in at the fringes of my body.
Arkley does portraits too. These are my favourite. I shuffle them around, examining them from various angles until I reach one called The Ritual. Then I stop. In front of me, a man in the same bright shades and black outline as the houses sticks a needle in his arm. Kealy approaches. She stares at the print too. I hear her breathe, in and out, before picking it up and moving it to another table. Suddenly, the little bag in my pocket feels heavier than it should. I walk out of the class and cross the oval.
I sit down on the wet grass behind the bike shed. I could go home, no one would care. But the thought of Mum stops me. She’s fading as fast as Dad. Before he got sick she had this way of laughing that filled our house and spilt onto the street.
‘Teenager,’ she’d tease, kissing me lightly on the nose when I complained. Her hair smelt of jasmine then. Dad said the scent reminded him of spring. Now the look of it, lank and greasy and tied in a messy knot at the back of her head, made my heart sink.
I blow warm air on my hands and shove them in my pockets. The bag of powder fits snugly in my palm. I think of the others, buried beneath my knickers in my bedside drawer like tiny sacks of snow. Hornbag Harris would think I was mad.

Last night, I’d gathered them up to the tear of Dad’s breathing in the room next door. I pictured him, stretched out beneath the quilt Nan knitted. The bright green squares of it highlighting his yellow skin.
I’m going for a shower,’ Mum had shouted from the hall. ‘Keep an eye on your Dad.’
He’s not going anywhere, I thought as I waited for the sound of the taps turning so I could see him alone.
I sat on the edge of his bed with his hand in my lap and stroked his fingers. They were the only real part of him left, long and lean with small crescent moons on each nail. I remember how they flew along the neck of his guitar, graceful as birds. I kissed one. He opened his eyes and smiled. I turned his hand over and placed the bags of powder in it, then closed his fingers.
‘Here Dad.’
His eyes didn’t leave mine. In the bathroom across the hall, mum hummed. Elvis.
‘It’ll help.’
A tear streaked down his face and for a moment I thought I’d made a terrible mistake.
I wanted to run. I wanted to take the bags from Dad’s hand and toss them down the toilet. I wanted Mum to come in, wet from the shower, and stare at me in disbelief. I wanted Kealy to tell her parents what I’d done.
The pipes hammered in the wall, shaking the house. Mum hummed on.
‘Darlin,’ Dad whispered. He motioned with his other hand. I lowered my face and rested my cheek against his. It was damp and soft, like someone had pulled the stuffing from it. ‘Thankyou.’
I kissed his forehead and took the bags back. If I let myself cry, I’d come undone.

Behind the bike shed, I hold the bag of powder up to the weak sun. I marvel at its whiteness, ready to absorb the colours of the world.
I think of Dad, sallow against his pillow and imagine the powder soaking up his pain, taking it away. Taking him away, from us.
The bell goes. Mum will be at the hospital now, getting another round of useless medication. I clench a fist like iron around the bag and breathe.
Then I get up and walk out the school gate, towards home, to Dad.

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Sydney Writers' Room

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Located in the heart of the Sydney CBD in the historic Trades Hall, the Sydney Writers’ Room is a place where writers can work in “shared solitude”.

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