Deep Wate - Sarah Epstein Page 0,5

job. Saturdays and two afternoons after school. And we’ll have a car. It’ll really help out.’

He said this part carefully – this was what had sold it to her on Thursday – but he couldn’t remind her of that now or she’d likely flip something over and slam out of the house. She didn’t like being told about things she’d said or done and didn’t have the brain cells to remember. And it wasn’t worth the paranoia afterwards, her watching him like a hawk, as though he might rob her or ditch her or murder her in her sleep. Like he might burn this termite-ridden shithole to the ground.

It’s not like he hadn’t thought about it.

‘Why’s he giving you a car anyway?’ his mother said, abandoning her hunt for a lighter. She hauled herself out of the chair and shuffled towards the gas cooktop, bathrobe sagging across her bony frame. ‘What’s he want in return, huh?’ She gave him the once over, her smirk as cruel as a pinch.

Mason bristled. Stu Macleod was a good guy who’d made the mistake of spending the night with Ivy one drunken time five years ago. Now she’d tell anyone who’d listen that he was a creepy perve because he had the sense to get away before she poisoned him too. She was like a sickness, his mother, one that took hold slyly and wore you down, one that starved you of anything good. It’d taken four years before Wayne, Mason’s stepfather, had managed to cut her disease out of him, once she’d drained his bank account and his liquor cabinet and his will to keep trying. Wayne had moved to Sydney almost a decade ago and never looked back. Mason didn’t really blame him.

Though he hated him for it all the same, the selfish prick.

‘Mr Macleod wants me to work in return for the car,’ Mason said. ‘That’s the deal. Come and work for him to pay it off.’

‘So you’ll work three days a week for no money? What’s the point of that, genius?’

The car, genius, Mason thought. My freedom from this dump. Having something of my own that you can’t destroy.

‘Just until it’s paid for,’ he said calmly. ‘Then he’ll pay me per shift.’

It was probably safer that way anyway. It occurred to Mason that Mr Macleod was a pretty smart guy. He probably knew Ivy would sniff around for any cash Mason brought home; this was the only way he’d ever be able to save for anything. He barely had a chance to buy groceries and pay the power bill before his mother sank their welfare payments into the pokies. And he had no idea whether Wayne had ever sent child support for Henry.

Ivy was already tuning him out, fiddling with the knobs on the cooktop. A gas burner caught alight with a quiet whump. Blue flames flickered dangerously close to her face as she hunched over, cigarette pinched between her cracked lips. How easy it would be to clamp a hand around her bird neck and slam her face into the hotplate.

Mason’s palm itched and he turned away.

‘We’ll talk about this later,’ he said, putting distance between them.

He’d missed his window, he could see that now. He should have caught her half an hour ago before the headache kicked in, before her half-eaten breakfast threatened to shoot back up. That crystal hour after sleep and a shower before meanness resettled in her bones. He could have reminded her about the job and been out the door before she had a chance to stomp all over it. Just once he wished she’d let him have something without making him grovel like a dog.

‘I have to go,’ he told her.

‘I’m out today. Be back here at lunchtime to feed your brother.’

Mason paused in the doorway. ‘He’s thirteen. He can make his own lunch.’

‘Be here.’

White-hot fury shot up Mason’s sternum. It ricocheted inside his ribcage, his chest burning, ears wailing, as he struggled to keep it contained.

‘Why?’ he snapped. ‘Why can’t you do it? Why does it always have to be me?’

Ivy slid back into her chair and took a drag of her cigarette, eyes narrowing. ‘You know why.’ She exhaled in his direction. ‘You owe me.’

Yeah, and it was a debt like a gaping sinkhole. Didn’t matter how much Mason tried to fill it, the walls kept collapsing.

But it was enough to make Mason drop it. That argument went nowhere and he had no intention of getting into it now. Tom was