‘Got a gig at a nice private school. Teaching Australian History,’ Paul had told them one evening while the news was on. They always watched the news, wherever they were. Sophia was waiting for them to appear on
Crime Stoppers
; they never did. They only robbed banks every six months or so anyway.
‘Where is it?’ Nina asked.
‘Up the east coast. Town with a lot of old folks. Nice pace. Friendly.’ Nina knew this was code for
never-ending retirement village
. Not much more than a place people go to die. A nice place to die all the same—good climate, a plethora of shopping centres, suburbia extending as far as the eye can see.
‘You hate Australian history. Convicts building huts and spreading disease and British wankers being British wankers.’ Tom always cut to the chase.
‘Don’t use that word, Tom,’ Sophia called out from the dingy bathroom.
‘That’s what Dad says! I’m just quoting him!’
‘I only have to teach it for four months, thank God, while the usual History teacher is on maternity leave,’ Paul smiled. ‘And I’m teaching ten-year-olds, which means I can stick with reenactments. Burke and Wills, those sorts of things.’
‘Didn’t Burke and Wills die in the end? Sounds like a depressing re-enactment.’ Tom never gave up.
‘Better than having to mark thirty essays on it.’
This is how it works: Paul has his teaching jobs, Sophia cases her banks. They never stay in one place longer than six months. Nina usually rationalises it as an exciting way to live—travel, varied experiences, meeting new people. But, more than anything, she feels homeless. Even if they weren’t doing the casual bank robbery on the side, she’d feel disconnected.
‘Did I tell you about the apartment? It’s on a river, on the fourth floor, really nice,’ Sophia says. She tucks her dark hair behind her ear and smiles at Nina in the rear-view mirror. Nina pretends not to see her.
Nina takes after her father, with her fair skin, dark-blonde hair and grey eyes. Tom takes after their mum—olive-skinned, with dark-brown hair and eyes. People comment that Nina is pretty (actually they constantly and annoyingly say it to remind her of her ridiculous surname) and in photos her father looked handsome when he was younger (perhaps he’s still considered handsome?), but Sophia and Tom are striking. You could easily pick Tom as Sophia’s child, and Nina as Paul’s, but you wouldn’t guess they were all one family.
It isn’t just the way they look. Nina has always been closer to her father than to Sophia, and often she feels bad about thinking that she loves her dad more than her mother, the one who gave birth to her. But Nina and Paul are alike in personality, too: shy, introverted and nervous. She wonders whether teaching helps her father overcome this somehow. Sophia is fearless and outgoing. And Tom is only twelve, but already he is so much like their mother it scares Nina.
Paul is older by a decade than Sophia—she was only eighteen when Nina was born, sixteen years ago. Nina doesn’t like to dwell on the fact that she’s almost as old as Sophia was when she had her.
When she was little, Nina used to think her parents spoke in code. Surely people who robbed banks for a living didn’t have such inane conversations. But as she grew older she realised that only on TV were criminals glamorous, almost a higher life form than ordinary people. In reality, outside of a bank, Sophia and Paul are average, ordinary people. Well, perhaps not Sophia all the time. Maybe life would be glitzier, maybe they’d have flashy cars and a mansion with a moat around it, if they were mob people.
The apartment building is a huge, horrible, yellow thing, with an aquamarine roof she is sure could be seen from outer space. Inside, the apartment has beige carpets and white walls and the rented furniture is very minimalist. Nina doesn’t like it. It feels cold, despite the climate here being warmer than anywhere else she has ever lived. She’s lived in a lot of different places and she wishes that Sophia would at least consult the rest of the family about where they’ll live and how they’ll furnish the place before they move in. She certainly doesn’t consult them about whether or not they want to break the law. Nina should get a say in something, shouldn’t she? Even if it’s just the upholstery on the couch.
She dumps her bag in the bedroom she is to share with Tom, and kicks off her shoes. All of her possessions, every single thing she owns, fit into a suitcase small enough to carry on a plane. She doesn’t mind that, not much. She’s persuaded herself that she doesn’t need material possessions. Nevertheless, she can’t help feeling that she’d love a real home, a place to live in for years, not months. Somewhere she knows she’ll always be safe, that she won’t be leaving at a moment’s notice.
‘Do you like it?’ yells Sophia from the shiny, stainless-steel-and-marble kitchen, a smile in her voice.
Nina wants to yell back, ‘No. It’s soulless. Just like you!’ She doesn’t, obviously. She could never be so harsh to her mother, so ungrateful. ‘Sure. It’s great,’ she manages to say, with practised false enthusiasm.
‘I
hate
sharing a room,’ moans Tom. They’d had rooms of their own in other houses, but sharing in motels had always been a nightmare. He chucks his bag on his bed. The zip is long broken, the bag held together with gaffa tape. Clothes spill out and a hoodie lands by Nina’s foot. It’s a tiny room, in a tiny apartment.
‘Your mother reckons it’ll make you closer,’ says their father, leaning against the doorway. It doesn’t sound as if he shares her opinion. ‘Besides, you’ve got that park across the street, the beach a stone’s throw away, shops within walking distance, you’ll barely spend any time at home.’ He winks.
‘You sound like a real estate agent, Dad,’ says Tom.
Nina glances out through the venetian blinds, down into the backyard of the house behind them. Two young girls are sitting cross-legged on a trampoline, talking. She looks away. These sorts of things, these normal things, make her feel so sad. So separate. As if she can never really get to know anyone, never relax and be comfortable, never stop having that constant loop in her head of
Do they suspect anything? Don’t tell them anything about yourself.
This is her life, this is her lot in it, and she needs to accept it, she knows that.
Build a bridge, Nina
, she tells herself. She’s been trying to build a bridge for about five years now. She’s not making much progress.
‘So are we going to the school across the road, or your flashy one?’ Tom calls out to Paul. He leaps on his bed, already getting comfortable, making sure his stink permeates everything.
‘I thought we’d leave it up to you,’ says Sophia from the next room. Nina hears her turn on the TV. ‘I’ve got all the information on the dining table, if you’d care to read up, Tom.’
‘
I’m
not reading anything,’ says Tom, as if he can’t believe his mother even suggested it. Nina’s the reader in the family—she doesn’t own any books herself, she doesn’t have enough space in her bag, but she loves libraries. She’ll find the nearest one soon, get a card, and spend as much time there as possible. Sometimes books feel like the only thing that keep her sane. Actually, she
knows
that they’re the only reason she’s still even vaguely okay right now. That’s what she clings to: reading great books and seeing great films and, for as long as she’s immersed in them, being able to forget, if only for a short time, about the reality of her own life.
‘All right then,’ says Paul. ‘You’re coming to the shops, Tom.’
On her way into the apartment building, Nina had seen the school across the river. It’s a state school. Usually Sophia is very picky about their education, making sure she enrols them in the best school possible at every new place, even if they’re living in a humble house (humble so as not to arouse suspicion, naturally—everything is done with the intention of being as inconspicuous as possible, rather than actually living comfortably). Nina allows herself to think that perhaps her mother is becoming a little more relaxed and is actually going to let them make their own decisions. She only allows herself to think this for a second.
They’d arrived that afternoon after driving all day, and kids were out of school, still in their uniforms, looking for shells on the river bank. Once again, Nina thought about how much simpler their lives were than hers. Sure, things probably felt complicated to them but if she could swap with them, life would be bliss. She wouldn’t be scanning all the cars on the street, and their occupants, sussing out whether any of them could be plain-clothes police. She wouldn’t be constantly making sure she wasn’t attracting too much attention to herself. She wouldn’t be checking for security cameras out of habit. She wouldn’t be feeling an overwhelming sense of guilt about the five-year-old boy wailing in his mother’s arms at the bank they’d robbed two weeks before, as she’d taken all the money from the till. And about so many people before him.
Nina unzips her bag and starts putting clothes in the drawers, folding and re-folding. An assortment of jeans and T-shirts, a few hoodies, a cardigan. Nothing too special or showy. When her life is so much at the mercy of her parents—well, Sophia—she needs to be in control of something. She’s very particular about her few possessions, her room. Small things matter when you don’t have control over the big things.
She has a notebook, too—it’s nondescript, small and black and spiral-bound. Not a diary or journal, they could never risk that. The thought of detailing her life is so ridiculous, so dangerous, so dumb, Nina almost laughs. Pointless trivia, useless facts, that’s what she records in the notebook. Things that will never come in handy, but that are helpful because they are distracting. As long as her head is filled with facts she can’t be overcome with guilt, she can’t worry, she can keep her mind off the bad things. A giraffe’s heart can weigh up to ten kilograms. The smoke detector was invented in 1969. Polar bears can run at up to sixty kilometres per hour.
It’s not a question of whether they can afford the private school or not, or whether the school will have places or not. With the money the Prettys have, anything can be bought, although offering school principals exorbitant amounts of money to enrol kids in the middle of the year would probably arouse more suspicion than living in a decent-sized house. But Nina doesn’t bring this up with her parents. She’s grown used to her mother’s irrationality.
She doesn’t really care where they go to school. She used to, when she was younger, and she’d invest a lot of thought into making a good impression on everyone, making friends. But it’s only four months this time. Even if it were longer, she’d always know that it was only temporary.
She still makes an effort with schoolwork because once she finishes school, she can escape. Then she need never rob another bank, scare another person out of their mind, or steal anything ever again. She’s counting down, now. Only four hundred and fifty-four days until she’s eighteen. Only four hundred and fifty-four days until she can escape.
Tomorrow, it’ll be only four hundred and fifty-three days until freedom. The fifth of July next year, she turns eighteen. In eighteen months. Not that long at all. It’ll be over in a blink.
Nina sits on the couch, staring out the sliding door onto the balcony, watching the river slip past. The sky is darkening and the lights in the windows of distant skyscrapers sparkle like a million stars. She imagines the people working there, or living there, all with their own dreams and wishes and fears and struggles. There must be so many people whose lives are even more difficult, more complicated than hers. She should be grateful that she has food to eat and a family who loves her, even if they’re possibly psychotics and definitely criminals. Just like she is.
Right now Nina feels as if happiness is just a story people tell, rather than something that actually happens. Because it’s not happening for her.
‘We’re going to the private school,’ Tom announces, as he and Paul arrive home from the supermarket. Paul goes to the kitchen with the box of groceries, while Tom slumps across the couch, thrusting his feet in Nina’s lap. She shoves them off.
Sophia turns away from the TV—she’s been attempting to find stations, with no success. Her eyes light up and she smiles. ‘Private? Really?’
‘I saw some kids with the uniform on,’ says Tom. ‘It’s purple.’
‘You’re a fan of purple?’ asks Paul, not looking up from unpacking the vegetables. ‘Since when?’
‘What shade of purple?’ asks Nina.
‘It’s Cadbury-chocolate purple,’ says Tom. ‘And, Dad, purple is a lot better than the puke green the other school’s got.’
‘Well that’s that then. I’ll call them first thing tomorrow,’ says Sophia. ‘You happy, Nina?’
How could she be happy? Why should she even care? What difference would it make?
So she says, magically keeping the sarcasm out of her voice: ‘How could I not be? I’m going to have a Cadbury-purple uniform.’
That night Nina lies awake in bed and listens to her parents’ hushed conversation in the living room. What are they talking about? In spite of how much time she spends with her parents, they still feel like a total mystery to her. Her father’s ordinary, law-abiding parents live on the west coast, and don’t have a clue about the robberies. Her mother’s parents are dead. What motivates them now? Does Sophia only think about robbing banks? Does her father only work as a teacher as a cover for their crime? Does he not enjoy teaching at all? Do they ever have doubts? She’s trying to work herself up to asking them one day—well, asking her father; Sophia is not someone who would ever admit to doubts.
‘I met this girl,’ whispers Tom from his bed three feet away from her. So he wasn’t asleep either.
Nina turns on her side to face him. His hair is a mess and he’s staring at the ceiling. There’s a pause as they listen to the rumble of a plane overhead, impossibly loud, so close. Nina imagines herself on the plane, flying away from here. The sound fades. The thought leaves her mind with it.
‘Does she go to this private school?’ Nina asks.
Tom looks over at her, frowning with surprise. ‘How did you know?’
‘Easy. You always hate going to school where Dad’s teaching,’ she says.