Dusty Miller 1
By Gary Weston
SMASHWORDS EDITION
www.Smashwords.com
PUBLISHED BY:
Gary Weston on Smashwords
Dusty Miller 1 (c) 2011 Gary Weston
All rights reserved
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. The ebook contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, or stored in or introduced into an information storage and retrieval system in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This ebook is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-4659-7556-0
Formatted by Bob Houston eBook Formatting
Chapter 1
Palmerston North. (Palmy) Principal city of the Manawatu region, Lower North Island of New Zealand
Seven years ago
For as long as Dusty Miller could remember, her mother had had a steady stream of boyfriends. A few, like the last bastard, had stayed for a while. More than a couple had molested her when they had the chance. Too afraid and ashamed, she had said nothing to her mother. Now she was still only nine years old. She was home from school and the latest creep was on his own. Her mother was out shopping, he'd said, which meant buying booze. Food was sometimes thin on the ground, but there was always money for booze. This man, Darren, had lived with them for a few months. Just another bum her mother had picked up.
It started innocently enough, with him asking questions about how things had been at school. He didn't seem as bad as some of the others, so Dusty was almost beginning to trust him. They chatted at the kitchen table and he gave her a big bowl of stew. He did most of the cooking, because he hadn’t much else to do. Her mother was often too drunk to feed her, so going to bed hungry was a regular event.
Darren never seemed to go out to work. He had sat beside her and gradually, his hands got slowly closer and she was too busy eating and talking to notice. He suddenly grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. He had kissed her on the mouth and his hands were all over her. She screamed and she picked up a knife off the table and rammed it as hard as she could into his leg. He yelled out and released his grip, giving her the chance to race out of the front door. He ran after her, calling her things she hadn’t even heard before. Her mother was coming down the path and Dusty collided with her, making her drop the shopping. A bottle of bourbon smashed on the ground.
‘You stupid little devil,’ her mom yelled. ‘Now see what you’ve done.’
Darren said, 'Never mind that. Look what your frigging brat’s done to me.’ He had blood oozing through his jeans. ‘The frigging little bitch stabbed me. No reason for it, she just stuck me with a bloody knife.’
Her mother grabbed her by the hair and dragged her inside out of sight of the neighbours. The loss of the booze was bad enough, but stabbing her precious boyfriend was too much. It was the jug cord this time, again and again across her back. Dusty cowered in a corner of the kitchen, shielding her head with her thin arms, begging her mother to stop, pleading with her to stop beating her. Dusty had tried to tell her the truth, but she wouldn’t listen, lashing her with the cord while her shit-head bloke stood and watched, grinning at her. From that day on, it had been Dusty versus the world. If anyone was going to do the hurting, it was going to be her.
It was the same at school. Often picked on because she was thinner and smaller than her peers, and taunted about her drunken mother, Dusty was something of a loner and made few friends. But she wasn't taking it any more. Her back hurt from the beating, and she sat in the playground, watching the other kids play and laugh, never going to be a part of their world. And that was okay. If the world wanted a fight, it could have one. Pauline Tandy was the first one to find that out. Tandy was the biggest girl in the class, fat from the burgers and fries she seemed to live on. She had picked on Dusty for years. Suddenly the play stopped, and Tandy was standing with the ball, a heavy leather rugby ball. She took aim and it flew across the playground, striking Dusty square in the face.
'Give me my ball, back, bitch,' yelled Tandy, her hands on her hips, her friends gathering around her.
Dusty felt the blood trickling from her nose. Another time, she would have cried. Now she was all out of tears. She picked up the ball and held it under her arm. Blood dripped onto her white blouse.
'Come and get it, fatso,' she said, defiantly.
This was the first time anyone had stood up to Tandy. For a moment, the girl just stood and stared, unsure what to do. Five of her gang were around her, expecting something, waiting for Tandy to make her move. Tandy knew she had to do something, or lose face. She marched towards Dusty, the five others right behind her.
'What did you call me, bitch?'
Dusty stood tall, able to look the bigger girl in the eyes. 'I called you what you are, Fatso.'
'Get her, Pauline,' said one of the gang.
Tandy lashed out with her fist, but Dusty was ready for her and dodged the blow, kicking out hard at the girl's shin. It was a solid strike and Tandy was hopping on one leg. Dusty grabbed her hair and pulled with all her might, bringing her knee up into her face, breaking her nose. The gang piled onto her, but Dusty was kicking, thumping and biting like a human tornado. One girl went down from a hard kick to the stomach, another from being poked in both eyes. Tandy recovered, grabbed Dusty from behind and held on so that two girls could kick and punch. Dusty kicked backwards with the heel of her shoe and found her target, Tandy letting go. Dusty swung her fist at the nearest girl, catching her in the mouth, splitting her lip. Tandy was still behind her and wrapped her arm around Dusty's neck in a choking headlock, and Dusty couldn't breathe. With her elbow, she rammed Tandy in her guts and the big girl went down.
Suddenly the fighting stopped, the other girls, all sporting wounds looked at Tandy, the gang leader, helpless on the ground, Dusty facing them, her face covered in blood, ready to take them all down. Tandy made one last effort and latched onto Dusty's ankle, trying to pull her down onto the concrete, but once again, Dusty managed to break free and brought her foot down hard on the big girl's face. Tandy curled up in a ball, begging Dusty to stop. Dusty raised her foot to stomp down again, but she stopped. It was all over. The gang parted as she barged through them, and they watched her cross the playground to the school gates where with her head held high, she walked away. From that day forth, she was never bullied again at school.
Chapter 2
The house was empty when she got home, but she was used to fending for herself. Dusty looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. She had washed off the dried blood and what was revealed wasn't pretty any more. Most of her face was marked, and the finger marks around her neck were like an angry necklace. Her lips were swollen and split, but so were her knuckles. She undressed, dropping the bloody blouse on the floor. She would never wear it again. She climbed into the shower, letting the hot water wash the blood off her nine year old body, watching it run down the plug hole. She washed her hair and scrubbed her skin until it tingled. She dried herself and dressed in clean clothes and brushed her hair. The girl in the mirror was still marked, but there was something else. Something behind the bruised face had changed forever. Something behind her eyes was different, and she had a mean look she had never seen before.
She looked at her knuckles. They hurt. She had no idea she could punch like that. As she smiled through painful lips from the memory of hitting the gang so hard they had rolled on the ground in agony, she felt good about herself. Six of the bitches had attacked her and she had beaten the lot of them. That day had changed everything. That day had changed her life.
Stuffing the blood covered blouse in a plastic bag, she was about to drop it into the rubbish bin, and then she thought about her mother. If she saw the bag and wondered what it was, she might look inside. It was unlikely, but possible. Ruining the blouse would result in only one thing. Yet another beating. She had to hide it somewhere her mother would never find it. Thinking hard, she looked about the house. And there it was in the ceiling of the hallway, the cover to the loft. She had never known her mother go up the loft. She had to hurry, because her mother could return at any time, and if she had been out drinking with Darren, things would be tough enough.
She looked at the loft cover, more than four feet above her head, wondering how she was ever going to get up there. There was a stepladder in the yard. She dragged that inside, and climbed up, pushing the loft cover out of the way. Clambering inside, she sat on the edge of the hole. Above her hung the cord to the loft light and she tugged on that and it came on.
She had never been up there before, and she was amazed at the stuff stored there. The loft floor had been lined with boards to make it safe to walk on. She was about to just throw the bag with the bloody blouse into a far corner, when she noticed something, something that pulled her towards it. It was an old fashioned steel trunk. Perhaps it was the way the light from the bare bulb had reflected off it that had caught her attention. Although she knew she had to hurry, something made her go to the trunk. It wasn't locked.
When she opened it, the significance of the contents hit her right away. These things could only have belonged to one person. Her father. An old leather jacket, brown and lined with fleece. She stared at it for a moment, then she stroked it with her fingertips. Gingerly, she picked the jacket up, realising the last person to wear it had been her father. She tried the jacket on, and it was huge on her. She sat with her back, marked from beatings, against the old trunk, wrapping her arms around herself. She closed her eyes, and imagined she could smell her father from the jacket, and she tried hard to remember what he looked like. She had been just three years old when he had left them. She couldn't recall his face. Wiping the tears away with the back of her hand, she turned around on her knees and investigated the rest of the contents of the trunk. There wasn't much.
A pile of magazines about motorcycles, mostly old British types. A pair of well worn leather motorbike gloves. And a tin box. It was round and had pictures of cars and motorcycles on it, one containing biscuits or some such things. She picked it up and removed the lid. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the photographs. Knowing time was running out, she put the lid back on the box and stuffed it inside her blouse. She took off the leather jacket and kissed it, then she lay it back as if it were a holy relic, back in the trunk. One day it would fit her and she would claim it for herself.
She was about to close the lid of the trunk, when she saw another box, rectangular, in shape, made from blue vinyl with a black plastic handle. When she opened it, she found it full of old fashioned music cassettes. These were once listened to by her dad. At random, she took just one and put it her jeans back pocket. then she closed the little box, put everything back in the trunk as she had found it, fastened the trunk, turned the light off, wriggled out of the loft and replaced the loft cover. She had barely dragged the stepladder back outside, when she heard her mother and Darren entering the front door. They were noisy and had obviously been drinking.
'Here's the little bitch,' Darren snarled, limping badly.
Dusty fled to her bedroom and slammed the door.
'Come back here, you little shit,' Darren yelled.
'Leave her. She isn't worth the bother. She can go without dinner for what she did.'
Dusty sat on her bed, with the sheets that hadn't been washed in weeks. She waited until nightfall, only coming out when they had gone to bed. She went to the bathroom and then to the kitchen where she made a sandwich of strawberry jam and took that with a glass of milk back to her bedroom. From her back pocket, she took out the music cassette and studied it. On the cover was a picture of a scary looking man. She had never heard of Alice Cooper. But here was something her dad had listened to. This meant something to him. It would mean something to her, too.
Putting that to one side, she got the tin biscuit box from under the bed and placed it on the bed. She didn't open it right away, but stared at it. In that box were the only things her father had left behind. Almost. He had also left her behind.
Opening the box, she saw the old photographs. Spreading them out over the bed, she counted them. Twenty four. Most were of her when she was a baby. She figured her father had taken most of them, because they were mostly of her mother holding her. Her mother looked proud and happy then. But there was one photograph that stood out from all the others. It was not a good picture, but it was one of him, sitting on a motorbike. For the first time ever, she knew what her father looked like.
Chapter 3
Things were indeed different from then on. Throughout junior school, her reputation grew, not as a bully, but as a girl not to be messed with. She had three close friends, all of them in awe of her. She hadn't asked for their friendship, but it had grown, anyway. All three were like she had been, little wimps that the others picked on. For all three girls, she had stepped in to protect them from being beaten up, not because she liked them, she just hated bullies. Although still skinny, Dusty was taller than most of her year. The three girls stuck with Dusty into the senior school, where once again, she had to prove a few times she wasn't anyone to mess with. Most of the teachers realised she was actually a bright kid, but had to fight hard to get through her wall of attitude. Most eventually gave up on her.
By the time she was fourteen, and she was pretty and her small breasts were developing, one or two of the older boys were showing an interest. After her experiences with the male sex, from the father who had abandoned her when she was three, to the men who had molested her, they were all treated with the contempt Dusty thought all males deserved.
Dusty would never admit it, but she was lonely. She had put up barriers against the world that even she couldn't break down. As a release, she discovered drugs. One of her three friends introduced her to marijuana. It was at a party of an older kid who's parents had unwisely left him in charge of the house for the weekend, while they were visiting a sick relative in Auckland. His name was Patrick, and even Dusty thought he was nice and cute. After a bottle of cheap wine and several strong joints, she hadn't pushed him away when he made a play for her.
He had been gentle and she was from far from being his first sexual encounter. She had lost her virginity that night, but she had no regrets that her innocence was lost. What she remembered about it, was enjoyable and exciting. She had almost passed out afterwards, from the booze and the drugs, waking up in his bed alone, feeling nothing but sticky. When she had dressed and gone back to the party, Patrick was already groping another girl. Far from being angry, Dusty rolled another joint, drank some more wine, grabbed the hand of the nearest boy and pulled him along to the bedroom where this time, it was her taking someone's innocence. She was a couple of months shy of her fifteenth birthday.
By the time she was fifteen, she had toughened up to the extent that her mother didn't beat her any more, and her boyfriends gave her a wide berth, but it took a swift knee to the groin to give a couple of them the message she wasn't theirs for the taking. For money, she traded mild sexual favours for dope, selling the dope for a modest profit to feed her own needs. One afternoon, she had been reported by a rival and her locker had been raided by the headmaster, where her stash had been found. Not enough to have the police called in for dealing, but enough of an excuse for the headmaster to have her expelled from school. Her mother had been contacted, but had refused to go to the school. When Dusty got home, her mother had slapped her hard across the face, and told her no drug dealing little slut was staying in her home.
Dusty had been kicked out with the fifty dollars in her pocket, what she was standing up in and a bag of hastily grabbed clothes and belongings. Her mother had rammed things into a rubbish bag and ranted insanely at her while the boyfriend stood and grinned. She had been physically pushed out of the house and the bag thrown out after her. All this was done with a torrent of verbal abuse loud enough to have the neighbour’s curtains twitching. She had no choice but to fend for herself and live on the streets.
Chapter 4
Her only other relative in the city was her mother’s sister, Aunt Gwen and husband Moses and their five boys. She loved them to bits and they might have given her a roof over her head, but she decided that would have caused too much grief within the family so she didn’t even ask. Add the mile wide stubborn streak and it became just another chapter in the Dusty Miller versus the rest of the world saga.
In Palmerston North, (Palmy to the locals), there were a few who lived permanently on the streets. One or two were even younger than Dusty, selling their bodies for drugs and booze money. Sometimes they would do it for a meal and a night in a bed.
The first night hadn’t been too bad. A feed of fish and chips had warmed and sustained her. She had walked the streets all night, until the bag of clothes became too heavy and she was aching with the cold. A shop doorway became a shelter from the elements and she’d squeezed herself into a corner, too scared to fall asleep. A police car had stopped and the officer inside lowered his window. He stared at her for a moment, and then he drove off. To him, she was just another one of life’s victims, to be ignored until she stepped out of line.
The next car that stopped had a driver looking for something else.
‘Wanna make some money, sweetheart?’ He was old, bald and fat. He was a creep of the nastiest kind.
‘Piss off, you frigging bastard,’ she told him.
She fully expected him to do just that. Instead, he started to get out his car. He left the engine running and the door open wide.
‘What did you just call me you frigging little whore?’ He was striding towards her with malice in his eyes. On the ground and pinned up against the door, she couldn’t escape. ‘I said, what did you frigging call me, you stinking little whore?’
She didn’t answer, but that didn’t stop his boot slamming into her side. She covered her head with her arms and he kicked her again, and then suddenly he was diving into his car and racing away. The police car had doubled back. This time the officer got out.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked. He was quite young and had kind eyes.
Nursing her bruised ribs, she replied, ‘Yeah. I’ll live.’
‘You’re a new one. What’s your name?’ then he said, ‘never mind. You wouldn’t give me your real name anyway. Listen. That creep could come back and I can’t be here all night. You should get moving.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ she said.
He nodded, as if he really cared. ‘You’re right. It is. But it’s the best advice I can give you right now. Get yourself away from here and off the streets. That bastard’s bad news. Believe me. I know.’
She got up and looked up the street. One way led to the city centre, the other way out of it.
‘If you have to stay on the streets, keep central, at least for the night. Find a bench, but make sure you are in the light. We have cameras all over the place. He won’t have a go at you there.’ The police car radio crackled. ‘I have to go. Take care, okay?’
‘I’ll try. Thanks.’
She watched him drive away and she made her way to The Square. The CBD was deserted, but then according to the clock in the tower it was almost half past three in the morning. She found a bench by the Information Centre, well lit up with the street lights. She could only nap for minutes at a time, feeling vulnerable and scared. The night passed uneventfully, and as the dawn broke, the city became alive.
She survived nearly three months like that. Inevitably she had met the others that lived on the streets. At first she didn’t trust any of them, but she was amazed how easily they accepted her. They helped her through the many cold and lonely nights. The drugs helped, and she lost count of the number of times she passed out from inhaling glue out of a paper bag. And more than once she gave her body for a few dollars for food. And then it happened.
It had been raining hard. Soaked through, she noticed a parked car with its window half down. It was an old Ford, easy to get into. As she checked out the car, she found a key in the glove box. It was a spare for the ignition. She drove out of the city centre, revelling in the warmth of the heater. All she wanted to do was to find a quiet place, curl up on the back-seat and sleep for a week. Instead, she ended up in Feilding, only a twenty minute drive away. Just before the town, she found a deserted place and parked well out of sight. For the rest of the night, she slept soundly, feeling warm and safe for the first time in weeks. She was awake with the dawn and she left the car where it was and with her pathetic bag of belongings, she made Feilding her new battleground. It was a little safer than the larger city of Palmy. After a few more days of living rough, she met Baggy Bagshaw. He looked like a soft touch, big but friendly and she had stopped him in the street to ask for a couple of dollars.
‘I won’t give you money,’ he’d said. ‘That’ll only be used to get you wasted. I will buy you a feed, though.’
And Baggy did. He took her into the Rosebowl café in Furguson Street and bought her the biggest meal she had had in a very long time. As they ate, he told her about the squat and how somebody had helped him when he had reached rock bottom. Waifs and strays were always welcome. He had lived there for a few years and people came and went all the time. He said there was a room going spare. When she had told him she had no money, he chuckled and told her not to worry about it. In the squat, everybody helped each other out. He had been just like her, once upon a time. An hour later, she was having a hot shower and a young woman who called herself Jackie O had given her some clean clothes. To Dusty, she had suddenly found heaven.
Money had been tight, but in Feilding town centre one afternoon, she had bumped into Gazza, a friend from the streets of Palmerston North. He had all new clothes on and looked sharp. He told her he had plenty of money, these days. He stole cars and mates of his converted them into spares. He made two hundred and fifty a car and did nearly one a night. She had said that she could do that. He introduced her to the gang and she was in business. She only took a couple of cars a week, and that was enough to live on.
Fascinated with the efficient way the gang stripped the cars down to the last nut and bolt in just over one hour, she offered to help. She didn't get paid, but did it for fun and what she learned about vehicles was better than any apprenticeship. It wasn't long before she was as proficient at it as seasoned technicians. She learnt a hell of a lot about cars in the few months she did it. Then one night she got unlucky and was caught stealing. The gang dropped her like a hot potato but she understood that. She had gotten a real buzz out of the racket, which was why she had ended up stealing the red sports car for old times sake.
Chapter 5
Sometimes, when things got just too depressing, Dusty Miller would let rip and go a little wild. Smashed out of her skull on a mix of red wine and marijuana, she stole a car. She wasn’t sure why, because she had nowhere to go. But somebody had left the keys in the ignition and well, what’s a girl to do? The drugs may have had something to do with it. It was that little joy ride that had landed her in her present predicament.
It was a two-seater. All show and not a lot of go. She liked the blood red colour, but that was about all. Parked outside a bar on a rainy night in Feilding, she decided this car belonged to a Tracy, or a Mandy, working as a receptionist or at a call centre somewhere and her well off but not rich doting father had tied a ribbon around it for his daughters twenty first birthday and called it a classic sports car instead of the underpowered, second hand tarted up wreck it really was.
And then she saw it. The keys were in the ignition. They hung seductively from the dash with a little stuffed rabbit’s foot attached to it. Well, if it wasn’t lucky for the poor bloody rabbit, why the hell should it bring joy and prosperity to you, stupid?
Dusty ran her hands along the highly polished paintwork, feeling the cold metal on her palm. All day long she had felt like she was moving under water, cumbersomely navigating along the full length of some pea-soup filled bottomless pit to reveal the true nature of her miserable life. A harmless night-time spin in a car might brighten her mood.
She glanced up the street, this way, that way. Nobody in sight. She flicked out her tongue and teased the stud between her lips, not really fighting the temptation. Her fingers pulled on the door handle. The door opened a few inches and then she gently shut it again, but her fingers didn’t let go. This was insane; this was madness. The car was a huge magnet and she was a teenager made of iron. Resistance was futile. Somewhere, in the dark unknown depths of her mind, a decision had been made. Even as the thoughts ran irresistibly through her head, she knew it was wrong. The act of opening the door again and getting inside the car was a blur and yet there she was, sitting in it with only the vaguest comprehension of why or how.
She was brought to reality by the door of the bar swinging open and two men coming out. Her heart pounded, but these men weren’t named Mandy or Tracy. They headed away and the street became quiet again. A battle raged within her; a sensible side of her saying don’t be stupid. Get out. You shouldn’t be sitting in some pretty receptionists little love bug. But that side of her nature was weak and any fight with her darker self would have only one outcome. When she turned the key and blipped the throttle, the roar of the engine surprised her. This car had more guts than she’d realised. It was a manual gearbox and she rammed the lever into first and the thing took off. There was no going back now.
From Feilding, she drove towards Palmerston North. Ignoring the route to the highway, she kept to the back lanes, through the Bunnythorpe junction and along the airport road. Taking the Milson Line towards the city centre, she revved hard, but kept the speed to the legal limits. Adrenalin was pumping through her and she felt alive. Electrostatic fully-charged alive! She sat at the lights, undecided on which way to go, when another car pulled up alongside. It was a fat tyre Falcon, sleek and black, big bore exhaust and a wicked spoiler with mag – alloys that were worth more than the rest of the vehicle. Window rattling booming music made her look and two young men only a couple of years older than she was, stared back at her. The lights turned to green and she waited, thinking they would shoot off, leaving her behind. But they didn’t. They just sat there, revving the monstrous engine under its highly polished hood. A race was on.
Dusty smiled. The lights turned green and the Falcon did rubber shredding spins whilst she let go with a gentler touch. It was only a split second, but she was ahead. It was a fifty zone, but in seconds, she was doing one hundred and thirty. She could hear the roar of the Falcon as it chased her, coming alongside at one forty. She pulled ahead and then she slowed and stopped at the next lights and the Falcon screamed to a halt alongside. The nearest lad, sitting in the passenger seat, stared through the open window grinning at her. He winked and blew her a kiss but the lights changed and they were gone. She caught up with them at the next junction and the rear end of the Falcon twitched as it turned left and straightened up again.
Another car was coming the opposite way and Dusty had to do some hard driving not to smash into it. Headlights were flashed and the horn was blasted at her. The next traffic lights ahead were on green but the Falcon stopped anyway. This time, she pulled up alongside and it was her turn to blow kisses. The young man was a curly haired young god who stared at her and she reached out to touch his extended hand. Their fingertips made contact just as the lights changed. The Falcon was first away but there was nothing in it.
Side by side, they roared down the road, rev counters in the red zone. Suddenly, in front of them a car appeared. The elderly couple screamed in unison as the two vehicles hurtled towards them. The driver froze at the wheel and rammed his foot on the brakes, closed his eyes and prepared to meet his maker. The old Toyota shook as the two motors raced by on either side. Dusty laughed at the terrified expressions on their faces.
The black Falcon was ahead again. From behind, the inevitable sirens started. At the traffic island on Albert Street the driver of the Falcon flashed his lights and turned right. Dusty took the left, knowing it was fifty-fifty which one the police would follow. She had drawn the short straw. In the rear-view mirror, she could see the cop car gaining on her, sirens wailing, lights flashing.
Dusty wanted somewhere to dodge the car into and bail out. She just needed two seconds and she’d give them the slip. She was back onto Tremaine Avenue with a dozen side-streets into industrial sites but she had to get over the Rangitikei Street lights before she could dump the car. The police were closing in on her and she only had one shot at this. If she could hit the lights just as they were changing to red, the police would be obliged to stop at such a busy crossroads, for fear of colliding with an innocent motorist.
The little red sports car screamed along at one twenty and the lights turned to red. She hit one forty and heard the squeal of brakes and grinned wickedly as the police car came to a halt behind her. A car from the right, not slowing at all as they had the green light, had nowhere to go and the driver tried frantically to avoid the collision. It spun completely around and Dusty clipped the rear end and lost control. The left tyre hit the pavement and the car took off and all she could do was to hold on to the steering wheel and hang on for dear life. The fragile front end was no match for the iron railings of the car-yard fence.
The impact of her head with the windscreen dazed her badly, but she remained conscious. There was a smell of something burning and black smoke began billowing from under what was left of the bonnet. She could smell the petrol leaking from the fractured fuel pipe. The two police officers wrenched the buckled door open and she smiled at them. One of them grabbed her arm and roughly pulled her out, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, and made thirty metres before the car exploded behind them. A few more strides and then he stopped and gently lay her on the ground. The two officers knelt down to see if she was hurt and she smiled and said ‘Hi,’ just before vomiting all over them and she could tell they weren’t at all impressed.
Chapter 6
Dusty Miller flicked out her tongue and felt the stud that pierced it with her upper lip. It was a little habit she had whenever she was angry. Right then she was angry with everyone and everything. She hated where she was, the too familiar courthouse, the police officers, the social workers and Magistrate Gilbert Lingham. He had that peculiar way of looking down at her over his bifocals with his colourless eyes, and that big bulbous nose that he wrinkled up as if she was the bad odour he could smell.
She'd had the lecture about how she had endangered innocent lives with her reckless behaviour and if it hadn't been for the heroic police officers, risking their lives to save hers, she wouldn't be alive today. He was whispering to the social worker who was nodding and glancing over her shoulder at Dusty, smiling in agreement with the esteemed magistrate. Finally, the social worker returned to her seat and started collecting the papers in front of her, stuffing them into a large manilla envelope which in turn was rammed into a battered brown briefcase.
‘Miss Miller,’ said Lingham. ‘This is the fifth time I have had to deal with you in this courtroom. You are less than four months away from your seventeenth birthday and that fact alone saves you from a custodial sentence. I suspect you are only too aware of that fact. I warn you now, Miss Miller. Continue along the path of lawlessness and antisocial behaviour and inevitably you will end up in prison. I have seen your school records and prior to your expulsion from school, you actually showed promise and a capable mind. I sincerely wish you would utilise your intelligence to improve yourself before you end up in prison. It isn’t too late, you know? You don’t have to throw your life away. But only you can make that choice.’
Dusty stood impassively waiting for Lingham to pass sentence. He took off his glasses and carefully placed them in the tortoiseshell case and snapped it shut. This, she knew from experience, was the signal for him to tell her her fate.
‘Six months community service. You will be instructed where to serve and you will be expected to comply without excuse or complaint for the duration of your sentence.’ Lingham stood up and everyone else in the courtroom did the same. ‘Do not let me see you in here again, Miss Miller.’ He took a final long, sad look at the girl and sighed, fully expecting his words to fall on deaf ears, and then he marched out of the room.
Five days later on the next Wednesday, Dusty entered the stuffy office of Mrs Dianne Gilmore, manager of the Silver Lining residential rest home on the outskirts of Feilding. Mrs Gilmore continued flicking through papers on her desk and then turned to the laptop and keyed in a few words. Dusty sat down and waited.
‘Did I ask you to sit, Miss Miller?’ Mrs Gilmore said without looking away from her computer.
Dusty stood up and impatiently rolled her studded tongue around in her mouth. Finally, Mrs Gilmore turned the laptop off and closed the lid. She studied the girl, who was of above average height and thin, her wild uncombed hair was streaked with black and blue, and she had studs in her ears, nose and heaven knew where else, purple eye shadow with lipstick to match, and had a strange red design on her left cheek from the corner of her eye. She also had a permanent scowl on a face that said sod you. Her clothes had the appearance of being chosen randomly from a garage sale by a blind person.
‘Now you may sit.’
Dusty did as she was told and waited in silence.
'Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Miss Miller. You are the very last person I want in my establishment.’ She said the word establishment as if it meant kingdom and that she was the queen of it all. And indeed, she had that imperial look about her. Carefully coiffed brown hair cut short and brushed back. Too much mascara gave her eyes a dark and piercing quality that many would find intimidating. On the wrong side of fifty, her lips were thin and the dark lipstick she wore didn’t help at all. ‘However, I have agreed to find you useful work for the next six months. Dear God. Do I really have to have you for that long? Oh well. So be it. Right. These are the rules. I expect you to be ready to start work at eight every morning, apart from Mondays and Tuesdays. They are your new weekends. I expect you to be of clean and tidy appearance. Most of your duties will involve cleaning and helping in the kitchen. You will report to the duty manager of the day for your instructions on arrival each morning. You will have breaks at the allotted times and not at other times. You will not leave the establishment before four thirty, unless you have permission from either myself or in my absence, the duty manager. Have you any questions?’
‘No.’
‘The correct response is no Mrs Gilmore.’
'No, Mrs Gilmore.’
'That’s better.’
There was a knock on the door.
‘Come in.’
'Is this the young lady, Mrs Gilmore?’
'Yes, Janet. Miss Miller, will you please go with Mrs Willis. She will issue you with your uniforms and give you a locker to use. Just do as Mrs Willis asks you to do and you will get along just fine. Off you go.’
‘Okay, I mean yes, Mrs Gilmore.’ It was an effort to be polite, but Dusty had decided that compliance was the easiest option. For the time being. She followed Mrs Willis out of the office who then led the way to a small storeroom. A dozen grey steel lockers lined one side and a series of wooden shelves covered the rest.
‘She’s not as bad as she seems, Mrs Gilmore. Keep on her right side and you’ll be just fine.’ Janet Willis looked Dusty up and down. ‘You are about my daughter’s size. She could do with more meat on her bones, too.’
From the shelves, she selected three white tunics and handed them to Dusty. ‘One to wear, one ready to wear and one in the wash. All laundry is taken care of, just be sure to put the dirty ones in the basket over there at the end of each day.’ From her pocket, she took out a large bunch of keys and opened one of the locker doors. A spare key was inside the empty locker. ‘Keep this safe. You can put your personal belongings in here and they will be all right.’ Mrs Willis placed two tunics in the locker and handed the third one along with the spare key to Dusty. She smiled a pleasant smile that was infectious and Dusty found the scowl disappearing for a fleeting second. Shorter than Dusty, Willis was several kilo’s heavier. She had a smell of soap and cleaning solutions about her. Dusty was surprised to find herself liking the woman.
‘What are you like with old people, Dusty?’
'Dunno. Okay, I suppose. Don’t know many of ‘em.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to, not a girl of your age. How old are you, sixteen?’
‘Nearly seventeen.’ She was determined she wasn’t going to be treated like a kid.
‘You are the same age as my Beverly. Well, this place is full of old dears. Lovely, most of them. A few are a bit crotchety, but you get used to them; just take no notice. Mostly, you will be on light cleaning duties, so you won’t have to worry much about them. Just try to be nice and understanding with them and you’ll be okay. They are all in bed by nine thirty, so it goes really quiet around here then.’ Mrs Willis checked her watch. ‘It’s smoko in five minutes. You change into this, lock up your stuff and come and meet the rest of us in the staff room. It’s just along that corridor, last on the left.’
Feeling odd in her crisp white tunic, Dusty entered the staff room. Mrs Willis was there with four other women and man in his fifties. They all had mugs of tea.
‘Come on in, Dusty. Everyone, this is Dusty Miller. This is Mary, June, Mavis and Elaine and Elizabeth. And this old devil is Harry Potts. He’s supposed to fix things, or so rumour has it.’
They all said hi and Harry said, ‘Never mind what Janet says. I keep this place from falling down and on a shoestring budget as well. Nice to meet you, Dusty. Help yourself to tea and biscuits if you want a couple.’
Dusty made a cup of tea and had a biscuit. She sat down in an old armchair next to Janet.
‘We’re a friendly bunch,’ said Harry, ‘Apart from Grizzle.’
'Harry, behave,’ Janet told him. ‘He means Mrs Gilmore. Harry calls her Grizzle Gilmore. He wouldn’t dare call her that to her face, though.’
They chatted for a few moments, and then Mrs Willis declared it was time to make a move. Harry picked up a tool belt off the floor and put it on and the others went off in all directions. Dusty followed Mrs Willis to the supply cupboard in the locker room. It was organised and stacked to the top.
'Let’s see, now. You’ll need these.’ She handed Dusty a pair of yellow rubber gloves and some plastic bags. ‘Come on.’
They started at the nearest corridor of rooms. Several elderly men and women shuffled along in various directions, one or two saying hello as they passed by.
Mrs Willis had kind words for everyone, it seemed. ‘Hello, Sonia. You are looking a lot better today, dear.’
‘Not too bad, Janet, thank you. The new tablets seem to working. I’m a lot more regular now. And what’s your name?’
‘Dusty.’
‘Now that’s a good name for a cleaner,’ said Sonia with a giggle. She was still chuckling as she walked slowly away, leaning heavily on her stick.
'All these rooms should be empty, but knock anyway. Nice and loud because some are hard of hearing.’ Mrs Willis rapped hard on one of the doors and waited. With no reply, she entered. ‘The beds have already been made. You will be expected to do some of that before long. This is just to get you familiar with the routines and the layout. Put the gloves on. You never know what yucky things you’ll find lying around. Right. Now see the waste paper basket? Take one of the large bags and put the rubbish bag in it. Then put a clean liner in the basket. But have a look around and see if there is any other rubbish to pick up first.’
Dusty picked up some rather unpleasant tissues off the floor and the small dressing table and dropped them into the basket. Seeing the green and yellow mucus she was glad of the gloves. Finding nothing else, she gathered up the liner, placed it in the large bag and replaced the liner with a new one.
‘See? Nothing to it. Just be very careful of their personal belongings. Some often forget where they put things and we all get accused of taking them. Then they find them in an old dressing gown pocket the next day. Last week, I got accused of stealing some old chap’s false teeth. It goes with the job, I’m afraid. Right. I have to go somewhere. Can you do the same for the rest of the rooms? Same procedure, just follow the corridor round.’
‘Yeah. No worries,’ said Dusty.
Mrs Willis left her to carry on. Dusty thought if this was all there was to it, the next six months would be a breeze. She found all the rooms empty and collected the obvious rubbish. On one dressing table she saw some very nice old jewellery. A heavy gold ring caught her eye. ‘And just who’d get the blame if that went missing?’ she asked herself. Ignoring it, she went into the next room, number eleven.
‘Oh, sorry. I did knock,’ she said.
The old lady didn’t answer.
'Deaf as a post,’ Dusty muttered. ‘I’m just collecting the rubbish,’ she said, speaking slowly and raising her voice a little. ‘Don’t mind me.’
The woman didn’t seem to notice Dusty was even in the room.
‘I’ll carry on then.’
Dusty collected the liner and a chocolate wrapper off the bedside table. The old woman just moved around the small room as if looking for something. She turned to face Dusty, and an odd expression crossed her face. It was as if she had noticed Dusty for the first time. Her mouth opened to speak but although her lips moved, no words came out. She frowned in obvious frustration and tried again. Still Dusty couldn't hear anything.
‘Are you alright?’ Dusty asked. The woman shook her head apparently annoyed with herself. Then she seemed to give up, turned away and disappeared into the tiny bathroom. ‘Whatever,’ said Dusty.
She left the room, closing the door behind her. By this time, the large bag was getting full and she was just wondering what she was supposed to do with it, when Mrs Willis appeared.
‘You’ve been busy, Dusty. Come on, I’ll show you where that goes. Any problems?’
‘No. I’m not too sure about the old woman in here though. She looked a bit confused.’
'Really? I’ll take a look.’
She knocked on the door and then entered. ‘Are you alright Mrs Henderson? Are you sure this is the room, Dusty?’
‘Yeah. I just came out of there.’ ‘Well, there’s nobody in there now.’
Dusty shrugged. ‘She must have gone out the back way.’
‘I doubt it. There is no back way. This is the only door. Was she a big woman with dark hair?’
‘No. She was little and fair. She didn't notice me at first, and then when she did see me, she couldn't seem to get her words out. She went into the bathroom and I came out.’
After knocking loudly on the door, Mrs Willis checked the bathroom. It was empty.
'She definitely went in there,' said Dusty.
'Ah. I see. Yes. I'm sure she did. A small blonde lady, you say?’ Mrs Willis smiled. ‘Hmm. Not to worry. Come on; let’s get rid of the rubbish.’
‘But…’
‘This way. Things to do.’
Mrs Willis led the way to a rear exit where a small skip stood. ‘Just chuck it in there.’
Dusty lifted the heavy rubber lid and dropped the bag inside. Mrs Willis was lighting a cigarette.
‘Want one?’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘Good on you. Keep it that way if you can.’ Mrs Willis leaned against the wall drawing hard on the cigarette.
Dusty asked, ‘That blonde woman. Who was she, then?’
Mrs Willis pinched out the cigarette and dropped it into the skip. ‘Just somebody hanging around. Nothing to worry about. They should all have had their lunch by now, so we can have ours. At least we don’t have to pay. Not many perks with this job, but that’s one of them. Come on.’
The large dining room was clear of residents apart from one gentleman who was sitting in an armchair, staring at Martha Stewart on the television. He had pushed the chair nearer to the screen because it was an older type CRT model, not one of the big plasma ones. He seemed contented enough, Dusty thought.
In one corner, seven ladies and Harry Potts were already seated at a couple of tables they had placed together. Harry had taken his cap off as a mark of respect to the women. Apart from a very bad comb over, he was completely bald. The meal mainly consisted of leftovers with a few fresh bits to bulk it up. Nobody complained; it was free after all. Although she was the new girl, the crew made her feel at home and they were soon chatting to her as if they had known her for years. She relaxed and had a fairly decent feed. The rest of the day passed without drama.
Chapter 7
When Dusty arrived back at the squat where she lived, Jackie O was the only one in the place. She had done nothing but question her about what she’d been up to at the home. Looking at the chaos that filled the squat, Dusty could see nothing much had been going on in there, especially cleaning. She was damned if she was going to clean all day and all night. Jackie O and the other two doped up bastards could rot in their own filth if they wanted to.
‘Well, it’d make me friggin’ puke. It gives me the friggin’ creeps just thinking about it.’
Jackie O never thought twice about giving her opinion. The idea of spending all her waking moments with the elderly was as repulsive as it got, in her book. Jackie was a good looking woman in her early twenties with curly brown hair and a good figure. Considering herself to be so much more sophisticated than Dusty, she barely tolerated the girl unless they got stoned together which was when they became a little friendlier to one another.
Dusty told her, ‘I didn’t have much to do with the old farts, as it happens. I just had to do a bit of cleaning up. It was easy, really.’
Jackie cringed. ‘It would be like the land of the walking dead, if you ask me. I’m just glad it’s you and not me. There’s some left over leftovers in a pan somewhere, if you’re hungry. Lentils and pork or something. Blame Baggy Bagshaw. He was doing something in the kitchen. Careful though, it’s been there awhile.’
Dusty took the lid off a large pan and peered cautiously inside. It was a congealed mess of something indescribable. A few brown and green bits poked out of the crusty surface. It looked like something NASA had found on Mars. She stabbed a spoon into it and it stood up as if stuck there with super-glue. With a shudder, she decided it was unfit for human consumption and replaced the lid.
‘It’s okay. I had something at the home.’ If nothing else came of all this, at least for five days a week, she could have a good meal. ‘Where’s Josh and Baggy?’
‘They went off to score dope. Baggy knows a bloke who owes a favour.’
Dusty closed her eyes and thought of lighting up one enormous joint when the lads returned. She had a carton of cheap wine stashed away under her bed, but that wouldn’t do it. After the day she’d had, she needed a real blast of something mind blowing. Until Josh and Baggy got back, she thought the wine would have to do in the mean time. Rather than spend a couple of hours with the pathetic Jackie O and her mindless banter, Dusty took off to her room and locked herself in. Dragging the carton out from under the bed, she shook it optimistically. There was enough for a couple of drinks, she thought.
Filling a grimy glass with the cheap red wine, she settled back on the bed. The wine wouldn’t do much for her, but she liked the taste. She sipped at it slowly to make it last as it could be a long night. She noticed a spider busy in a dark corner, energetically making a wispy web.
To relieve her boredom, she got up and stared at the spider as it worked. ‘Not a lot in here for you to eat, mate,’ she told it. Unimpressed, the spider continued its weaving. She thought there was something quite pretty in the delicate strands that glistened in the sunlight from the window. Sipping the wine, she marvelled at how the tiny creature produced such an amazing construction. Finally content with its efforts, it stopped and waited.
‘Hang on a minute, mate,’ she said.
On the ledge of the window, not cleaned in years, was a collection of dead insects. Choosing the fattest, freshest looking casualty, she picked it up by its wing and took it to the spider. Throwing it at the spider, the dead fly stuck to a strand of web. The spider hesitated a second and then pounced on the fly.
‘Would you like fries with that?’
She hated the room which was small and awkward with low wooden rafters, purple painted brick walls and a once white ceiling with weird stains of bizarre colours from where the roof had once leaked. She sometimes imagined all kinds of shapes from those stains. Elephants heads, clouds, the devil in one rusty tinged mess in one corner. Six months she had called the squat home, shared with a dozen others that came, stayed a while and drifted on. Jackie O, Josh Webb and Baggy Bagshaw were the only original ones since she’d arrived. None of them had regular employment, but together they muddled through by pooling their resources.
Jackie O sometimes pulled pints at a local pub when they were short-handed. Josh had an uncle on the other side of town who ran a furniture removal business. Josh helped him a couple of days a week and with his benefit he got by. Baggy did anything and everything. He had a knack with computers and electronics. He would buy old broken items cheap from garage sales and fix them up, selling them for a reasonable profit. A mate at the local dump put anything he thought salvageable to one side for him and a few beers were enough payment for that little favour.
It was also dirt cheap to live in the squat. Everyone who came and stayed awhile all called the place the squat, but in truth, in legal terms, it wasn’t. A squat is a place taken over by people without the permission of the legal owners.
There was a landlord, of sorts. He was an old Indian man called Patel, but those who knew him, called him Petal. She had only met him a couple of times. The first time was after a small fire that had been put out by the occupants; but he didn’t appear until the fire brigade had paid a visit and gone. He had waited until the coast was clear and only then had he gone inside. He was a tiny man who never smiled and who wore very old clothes that smelt of spices. Relieved that the fire damage had been minimal, his main concern hadn’t been about the people living there, but the fact that he hadn’t fully insured the place and he was worried about the possible consequences.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-30 show above.)