Page 114 of Queenslander
“I know that now.” At the moment, driving in the truck with Nev, she felt fine. “I think I’m an anarchist,” she decided, eyeing the sign on the highway for the exit that led to the Youth Detention Centre outside Townsville. “Is there an organization I should join? What do anarchists do?”
“Do I look like I know? They distrust organizations. You might be an activist.”
“Greenies who chain themselves to trees?” She signaled and took the exit.
“Your dad’s an activist. Someone who protests. Usually, the work is disappointing because it fails. I’ve dabbled. They burn out. The only sustainable form of activism is singing and dancing. That way, if you lose, at least you had a hell of a party.”
“You’re more of a Pete Seeger type than I am.”
“They’re not all like that. Nobody likes being oppressed.” Nev’s head swiveled as the petrol station went past. “You missed it. There’s a place to turn around up ahead.”
“Taking a detour.”
“No,” Nev said. “None of that.”
“It won’t take long,” she promised, turning down an unfamiliar two-lane suburban road.
“Your dad will kill me.”
“Not if you don’t tell him.”
There was the sign. Behind it, a car park, flood lights, giant black metal fence, and a complex of ugly buildings made of glass, brick, and cement. No one was outside. No sign of fire damage from the riot. The place looked abandoned, but wasn’t. Recent reports of human rights violations inside and overcrowding.
The front door wasn’t what she wanted, so she turned the truck around and went back to the road, then drove around the far side of the complex, looking for an outdoor recreation area. Those were always on the back side. She was considering blasting music and dancing on the roof of the truck. Kids liked that.
The layout here wasn’t the same as the one in Brisbane. The perimeter fence was set back farther from the main buildings, and the recreation area wasn’t visible from the public road. No one in sight. Pity.
Disappointed and relieved, she turned and headed back toward the Bruce highway north.
“Does it look the same?” Nev asked.
“I wasn’t at this one. They only started sending girls here in January. Before that, they used to ship all the Queensland girls to Brisbane.” Three days drive away. Too far for most of the girls’ families to travel. She hadn’t had a visitor for two years. The only person who would have been allowed inside to see her couldn’t be bothered.
She swallowed. “It’s good that girls can come here now.” Instead of being sent halfway across Australia.
“There’s only one kid waiting for you, and she’s in Gordonvale,” Nev reminded her.
The tattoo-removal office south of Cairns was a brick building attached to a carwash. Ronnie signed papers, paid a few hundred dollars, then lay on her stomach on a padded table while a technician with black gloves used a laser to burn off another layer of skin on her lower back.
The laser stung like a bee. It hurt more to remove a tattoo than to get one. Tomorrow the skin would be bright red and blister. Depending on how deep the laser went, it would be wet and scab over or feel like a sunburn, peeling and itchy while new skin grew underneath.
She listened to Maori heavy metal in her earbuds and closed her eyes.
The men’s luxury clothing store was inside an upscale mall in downtown Cairns.
Ronnie tried on designer suits while Nev sat outside the changing room reading a newspaper. Mattie had arranged for the store to stay open late.
She decided on a black button-up shirt and a tailored cobalt suit that fit her like a glove.
Nev handed her a white shirt.
Ronnie returned it to the rack.
“This is court, Dain’y. The goal is to look young and guileless. The black one makes you look like you’re in the mafia.”
Ronnie snorted. “Maybe I am. I’m also wearing it to Peggy’s wedding.”
“No, you’re bloody not. We’re performing, remember? You can’t play guitar in a Tom Ford that costs six thousand dollars.”
