It’s about fifteen minutes before they stop. One of them opens the boot but Martin’s putting up a good fight in the back seat, so he pushes it back down to help his friends contain him. I stop the boot clicking shut at the last minute. I’m free but I can’t run. I’m not leaving Martin and anyway, there’s nowhere to run. I was right. We’re at the stretch of road that runs along the docks.
Packing crates are behind us, a double lane freeway in front. There are a few warehouses spread out along the road on the other side, but that’s about it. Apart from that it’s deserted.
There’s enough time to send a dropped pin to Rachel and a help! text while I’m waiting for them to come back. Out of respect, I close my eyes when they start to strip Martin of his clothes. I can hear him put up a good fight, though. It takes a while for them to get everything off him. I open my eyes when they’re winding the tape around and around his body, securing him to the pole. They’ve got a couple of rolls of the stuff so they’re not stingy with the amount. He’s wrapped up tight when they stop.
And then it’s my turn.
All of them haul me out of the boot and throw me on the ground. They tell me to strip and they kick me when I don’t. I’ll admit I give up pretty quickly. ‘If you want to see me naked so badly, Greg, who am I to ruin your night?’
The comment earns me another few kicks and then a siren sounds in the distance and they let me get on with the stripping. I’ve always been fairly sure I don’t look good naked but I solve the problem by not looking in the mirror when I don’t have my clothes on. I don’t have to look in a mirror today, but I do have to put up with my ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend filming me for YouTube.
‘You fucker,’ I say, as he takes the gaffer tape and winds it around and around me and the telegraph pole again and again and it crosses my mind that there are some parts of my body that will never be the same after I rip that tape off.
Once Greg’s satisfied that I’m taped sufficiently, he films me some more, and says I can find myself on YouTube under ‘dickhead’. I suggest to him that surely the ‘dickhead’ is the guy who strips another guy naked and tapes him to the pole. I am clearly the dickhead-ee.
‘Fuck, I hate you,’ Greg says.
‘Believe me, the feeling is mutual.’
He’s about to make off with our wallets, our mobile phones, the bookshop keys, when I call out that taking those makes this a robbery, not just a joke. ‘Can you practise law with a criminal record?’
He comes up very close and does some more filming before he throws our valuables on the ground and gets in the car. I’m fairly certain Greg is the kind of guy with a great internet plan, so we’ll be up for all to see before they’re pulled out from the curb.
‘What kind of guy does this to another guy?’ I ask Martin when we’re alone.
‘The kind of guy who’s taking revenge for a ruined suit?’
‘Is it really the same thing? This seems so much worse.’ I look down at myself. ‘So much worse.’
Martin takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
‘You’re mad,’ I say.
‘I’m naked and gaffer-taped to a pole. That’s what I am. It’s not your fault. I’m not angry with you. I helped you squirt him with the hose. I want to concentrate on how we get free, that’s all.’
‘I sent a dropped pin to Rachel,’ I tell him. ‘We just have to wait.’
People drive past us but don’t stop. I don’t hear car horns so I don’t think they even notice us. ‘At least it’s warm,’ I say.
‘You’re an optimist,’ Martin says after a while.
‘It seems important to be, considering the reasonably regular shitness of life.’
‘But I mean, why isn’t George an optimist? There’s this guy who’s been writing to her in the Letter Library for three years now and she’s pretty sure she knows who he is, and she’s sure she likes him, so why hasn’t she done anything about it?’
‘What guy?’ I ask, and he reminds me it’s the guy he told me about at the party, someone who’s been writing to her in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. ‘He’s been writing to her for three years and she’s almost certain she knows who it is, so why hasn’t she done anything about it?’
Three years is a long time to write to someone. That’s commitment. That’s romantic. I think about George sitting in the window of the shop, acting cynical about love, when all the while she’s falling for a secret admirer.
‘He might not even be the guy she thinks he is,’ Martin says. ‘He might be a psychopath.’
‘All the psychopaths are on the internet now,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘More potential for victims, I guess.’
‘No, why wouldn’t George want to meet him? If she really is so sure about who he is?’
‘Scared,’ I say. ‘She’s shy.’
‘She doesn’t seem shy. She seems hostile and aggressive.’
‘It’s a cover,’ I say, working something out about my sister as I say it.
‘Good cover,’ Martin says, but I think he’s worked it out too because some of the anger’s gone out of his voice.
I look around for Rachel’s Volvo, wondering if my text got through.
‘With a bit of luck, Amy might call the police,’ Martin says.
I love Amy, flaws and all, but I know, without a doubt, that she won’t be calling the police. I know that she didn’t call them after I disappeared in the boot. She didn’t take down the numberplate like Rachel would have done. She didn’t get into a taxi and say, ‘Follow that car.’
It’s Rachel we’re waiting for. Rachel I texted. Rachel who’s coming to save us.
Rachel
it’s a soft nuzzling at air
Towards the end of dinner, I get a text from Henry – help! Along with it, there’s a dropped pin on a map showing me his location.
I’m relieved that I have a reason to go early. Relieved too, that I can tell Mum it’s an emergency and I’m not going dancing with Henry. ‘He’s in some trouble,’ I say, and kiss her and Rose goodbye.
I call Lola when I get outside, because I’m not driving to the docks alone. Before I even say hello, she tells me in a rush that I was right. ‘Your idea was perfect. We’ve pooled our money and my grandmother kicked in too, so we can rent a friend’s studio for a brilliant rate and we can record all our songs, from the first to the last, every song we’ve ever written, so we can sell them at our last gig and maybe keep selling them after.’ She takes a quick breath, but not enough to let me speak. ‘Are you looking for Henry? I saw him with Amy and Martin earlier, near the bookshop.’
The fact that he’s talking to her doesn’t necessarily mean anything and even if it does, Henry hasn’t done anything wrong. He hasn’t made any secret about the fact that he loves Amy. He’s selling the bookstore to get her back. I know this.
Still. I think briefly about deleting Henry’s call for help and going home. But he’s my friend and friends save each other and I can’t not save him because he’s got terrible taste in girls.
‘Rach? You there?’ Lola asks.
I quickly fill her in, and her voice shifts from excited to worried. She puts the phone away from her mouth and tells Hiroko. ‘Tell her we’ll cancel Laundry and go with her,’ Hiroko says from the background, but Lola’s not all that keen on the idea. ‘Ask George to go with you,’ Lola says, coming back to the phone. ‘And if she can’t, then call us back and we’ll come.’
I drive to the bookstore, park, and text George from the car, letting her know that I need her help with Henry. It’s not that late, but she’s already in her pyjamas – blue ones with clouds – and she doesn’t bother going back in to get changed.
She takes my phone, looks at the dropped pin, and directs me through Gracetown, in the direction of the city. We don’t bother with music, we’re too wired to listen. I’m worried about Henry and since George is unusually quiet, I assume she is too. ‘Through these lights and then take a left,’ she says, and we hit a heap of Friday-night traffic.
I’m watching a group of girls walk in front of the car, girls my age out for the night in short dresses, long boots and glittery skin, when George blurts out that Martin asked her on a date and she told him she’d meet him at Pavement.
‘Where?’
‘Pavement,’ she says again.