Neighbourhood Watch by Rhonda Mullins (best feel good books txt) 📗

You comfortable?’

Roxane backs up a little, body stiff.

‘She’s scared of me! She’s scared of me, for chrissake!’

Roxane’s mother opens a beer. Phsst. The sound. Just the sound ties her stomach in a knot.

‘I’ll be back, Mom, I – ’

‘Go on, run away. Go back to your little world. It’s so much nicer there than here, isn’t it?’

Louise takes a swig. She wishes Roxane would stay there with her, rolling cigarettes, watching TV. She takes another swig.

* * *

Rue Aylwin. Night falling.

Kevin drags his feet through the snow. It leaves tracks, like he has super-big feet. Imagine being kicked by feet that big. Kevin walks backward, looking at his giant footprints all the way home.

His key is hanging around his neck; he looks for it under the umpteen layers of his snowsuit, finds it. Opens the door – it’s dark inside – turns on the TV.

Steve is there, sitting in the dark, beer in hand.

‘Dad?’

Steve takes a swig.

Kevin doesn’t take his eyes off him while he takes off his snowsuit. His father looks unhappy. That much he knows. What to do about it he doesn’t know. Kevin sits on the floor, at his father’s feet. Slips a game into the PlayStation – PLAY – and hands Steve a controller.

‘C’mon, one game with me.’

A moment goes by while Kevin hopes. Steve puts down the beer and grabs the controller. Kevin suppresses a wide grin and grabs the other one.

* * *

Sitting on her bed, Roxane tears photos from the red book. In addition to the paper tearing, she hears the regular sound of gunfire coming from the wrestler’s apartment next door. But it’s in her own living room that war preparations are underway.

She sticks images to her bedroom walls. A map of Russia and, beside it, the Kremlin in winter. She also has a picture of a skating rink in the middle of Moscow with crowds of tiny people. There’s probably music playing, you can see it, practically hear it. It’s obvious. There is music in this picture. Roxane glues Anastasia beside her bed.

She flips through what’s left of the book. A few pictures left. A river, wide, calm, gentle. It’s pretty. That’s where she would go with her boat.

Roxane cuts, concentrates, glues.

The Volga runs through her bedroom, its whitewater foam masking the shouting that gradually takes over from the living room. Roxane holds her breath and dives, body and soul, into the Volga.

* * *

‘AHHHH! Jesus H. Christ, you’re good!

‘Yeah, but Dad, I play all the time! It’s your first try! Oh, shit! You did that on purpose! You distracted me!’

The two of them are standing in the dark, bodies bent over the light of the screen. Kevin’s shining eyes dart quickly at his dad. He’s almost making him happy.

‘Let’s go, let’s go.’

* * *

Shostakovich, beginning of the record. Roxane puts on her headphones and lies down on the bed. She loses herself in Moscow, a big white city with its rows of snow-covered roofs. ‘From the Es-pla-nade of the Krem-lin, the view of Mos-cow stret-ches before you. You are in a differ-ent world … ’

BANG! The door opens, the light hits Roxane, her mother is yelling, but Shostakovich is there, between them and her. He is protecting her. Her stepfather grabs her mother from behind by the hair. Roxane can make out screams underneath the sultry bow. Roxane, a hostage of the scene, takes in the absurd choreography.

Her mother, on the floor, face contorted, is having trouble getting up. He’s got her by the neck. She bites, he hits, she screams.

Roxane is petrified.

The music.

Her mother’s face.

The music.

Her mother getting up off the floor.

Him going to the kitchen.

Her, screaming, following him.

In the kitchen, knives.

Shostakovich can’t protect her against knives.

Roxane runs.

In pyjamas in the storm, Roxane walks by the prostitutes.

Just one or two of them. The storm has hit everyone.

Roxane runs along the river. Snow in her eyes, a scream in her head.

On the shore of the Volga, Roxane waits for a boat that doesn’t come.

Roxane is bundled in a wool blanket under the fluorescent lights of the police station. Snieg, dymn, toumann, louna, zima, oblako – like a story just for her that tells no tale, where there is nothing to understand, where nothing hurts – snieg, dymm, toumann, louna, zima, oblako. Snieg, dymm, toumann, louna, zima, oblako.

‘It’s okay.’ Roxane is trembling. ‘It’s okay.’ Roxane is rocking.

They picked her up in the street. It’s not the first time. They’re waiting for her to warm up, then they’ll take her home.

* * *

It’s midnight. The two of them are bare-chested in the living room, sweating as if they had done battle for real. Kevin is eating a hot dog, looking outside.

‘She ran away again.’

Downstairs, Roxane gets out of the police car, escorted by two men in uniform.

‘Dad! The neighbour ran away again.’

‘Mmm.’

Steve is eating his hot dog, head in the clouds, butt on the sofa.

Kevin stands in front of him.‘Dad?’

‘Mmm?’

‘I want you to teach me to wrestle.’

Steve laughs, but Kevin insists. ‘Seriously, Dad. I’m serious.’

‘Oh, come on, have you taken a look at yourself?’

‘I WANT YOU TO TEACH ME!’

* * *

Louise at the door, a bit drunk, exchanges a few words with the officers.

The smell of chaos lingers in the apartment, but a ceasefire has been signed for the night.

Roxane goes to bed.

* * *

‘Ouch!’

Steve holds Kevin on the floor. Kevin strains to get up.

‘Now, you fake. You move your head over like this, and – bang! – you get up.’

The two of them are standing in the kitchen.

‘And then – schlack! – into the ropes, hard, with everything you’ve got!’

Kevin throws his tensed little body at his father. Steve plays along and, as if he were blown backward, hurtles to the other end of the room and falls to the floor.

‘Ah! I’m out!’

Kevin lifts his arms in the air.

‘AND THE WINNER IS!’

пять

5

Roxane’s bedroom.

Looks at the clock. Fuck.