Frankie by Shivaun Plozza Page B

like he’s moving. A door closes and suddenly it’s quiet. ‘I owe money. Heaps, but I’m going to pay it back. I’m not bad. Swear it. I don’t do really bad things. Sometimes you’ve got to make a choice though, hey. To fix things.’
    I look down at the t-shirt in my hand. It’s black so it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know which pile to dump it in. I let my head roll back, still gripping the damn t-shirt.
    â€˜I’m really in the shit, hey. I don’t even know if you’re listening to these messages. Maybe you’re just deleting them. Maybe you’ve written me off. Don’t blame you if you have. But I’m going to make it up to you. You’ll see. I’ve got a plan. Don’t give up on me, hey.’
    Beep.
    I toss the t-shirt across the room. The phone is getting hot against my ear. Clammy.
    â€˜Message received yesterday at nine-ten am.’
    I chew on my thumbnail, my legs jiggling. Xavier’s voice kicks in. No blues this time but he sounds breathless. Like he’s been running.
    â€˜I did it, Frankie. I got the money.’ He sounds like a kid at four am Christmas morning. ‘And it was easy too. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it already. Dickhead won’t even know what’s hit him. I’m going to pay back Dad and sort out some other stuff and there’ll even be some left over. I can get that record player, hey. Legit. We can listen to the vinyl and maybe I’ll let you change my mind about Brian Curtis.’ He laughs. I hold a hand over my chest, gripping the fabric over my heart.
    â€˜I fixed everything,’ he says. ‘I told you I would. So call me back. I’ll be at Dad’s for the next bit but anytime after, hey. I’ll wait.’
    Beep.
    I drop the phone into my lap. I don’t need to replay the message because it’s seared into my brain, on a loop. ‘I got the money. Dickhead won’t even know what’s hit him. There’ll even be some left over. I fixed everything.’
    I’m sitting there with four and a half thousand questions burning a hole in my brain, chief of which is how do you make five grand or more in under a day? Short of doing something very illegal, something very bad.
    I close my eyes, cover my face with my hands. A familiar mix of dread, fear and shame burns in my chest – I haven’t felt it for, oh, I don’t know, say fourteen years?
    Hell, Xavier, what have you done?
__________
    There’s the rotting carcass of a Commodore in the front yard of Bill Green’s house, the only B Green in the phone book living in Reservoir. Long grass grows around and up through the rusted heap. I hover by the front gate – wrought iron, painted undercoat-pink. Why couldn’t Xavier have just answered his damn phone? I’m way out of my natural habitat here and it’s not like I even owe the kid but . . .
    There’s always a ‘but’, isn’t there? The same ‘but’ that used to keep me pressed to the window, heart in my throat, waiting for Juliet to come home.
    Anger and worry all mixed up.
    Next door to Bill’s house, an old lady dressed in black is leaning against her low brick fence. Her garden is a slab of concrete. She stares at me.
    â€˜Do you know Bill Green?’ I ask.
    She straightens and steps back, shaking her head. ‘
Non mi parlare. Io non so niente.
’
    Italian – damn it. I look around but there’s no one else on the street. ‘Is he in?
Conosci l’uomo che abita qui? Sai se c’è?
’
    She waves her hands at me, a black lace handkerchief in one hand, and yells, ‘
Che alleva un cobra muore avvelenato. Aiutati che Dio t’aiuta.
’ She flicks the handkerchief at me several times before the rant lets up.
    And here was me thinking they broke the mould after Nonna Sofia.
    â€˜I’ll just knock.’ I push the gate as far open