Steve’s house had two storeys and it was close to the beach. We had never lived anywhere like it. There was a boat on a trailer in the driveway. In the garage he had a late-model ute and a four-wheel drive and a jetski and a dirt bike. The lounge room had a huge couch and a big television. Upstairs, there was a whole room filled with electric guitars and amplifiers, and another room had an exercise bike and a set of dumbbells with dust on them.
Steve led me to a room with a new bed that hadn’t been assembled yet and an empty wardrobe. It was my first ever bedroom. Steve asked what I thought, and I couldn’t say anything because I was so shy and overwhelmed. Later, my mum pulled me aside and told me to be more grateful because Steve was saving us. When I thanked him, he said loudly that it was his pleasure. I think he liked that he was helping us out of a rough place. He talked about it all the time.
I heard them having sex a lot. The first time it happened I ran down the hall when I heard my mum crying out. I thought Steve was attacking her. I charged into their room and I saw my mum on her knees and Steve behind her. I ran up and pushed him and told him to stop. He shoved me away really hard, and I hit my head on the nightstand.
My mum picked me up and took me to my room. She calmed me down and told me Steve wasn’t hurting her, and I should never enter their room without knocking again. I crept back down the hall after she left, and I heard her apologising to him.
My mum fell in love with him really quickly, and she wanted me to feel the same way. I told her I didn’t like Steve and that I wanted to go back to how things were. She slapped my face, which she had never done before, and told me I didn’t know how lucky I was. I had never had a father figure, and now there was somebody who was prepared to help raise me. She wanted us to be a family.
Later, she told Steve what I had said about him, and that hurt more than the slap.
Steve tried to win me over. He bought me a computer. He picked me up from school and asked how my day was. He took me to the park and tried to teach me how to kick a football and play cricket, but I was bad at all of it. If my mum was there he would be patient and encouraging, but if it was just the two of us he was hard on me. He told me I was too soft because I had been spoiled my whole life and he was going to make a man out of me. He told me I needed to cut my hair and stand straight and toughen up. He made me try sit-ups and push-ups on the playground equipment.
One day at the park he asked me if I liked boys or girls. I didn’t know what he meant, so I shrugged and said I didn’t really like anyone. He pointed at a woman jogging past in tight-fitting activewear. She was really pretty. He asked me if I liked her body and I said yes. He smiled and told me I was a good boy.
He took us fishing on his boat. I hooked a skipjack one time and Steve crowded me and shouted and I panicked and lost the fish.
‘Why did you stop reeling? I told you, pull up and reel down! It’s easy!’
‘I’m sorry.’
My mum was wearing a straw hat and drinking prosecco. She was nice about it.
‘It’s okay. You’ll get the next one, Honeybee.’
Steve lost his temper.
‘Stop treating him like a baby.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Stop coddling him. He messed up. He needs to learn.’
‘Don’t tell me how to raise my son.’
Steve snatched the fishing rod out of my hand.
‘My parents didn’t raise a son, they raised a man. Calling him fucking Honeybee and protecting his feelings isn’t going to help him grow up.’
‘Well I’ve been doing this longer than you.’
‘Fine. Keep wrapping him in cotton wool. I don’t give a shit.’
Steve started the boat and took us back to shore and didn’t speak to either of us for the rest of the day.
After that, she never called me Honeybee again.
I wanted to show Steve what I was good at, so I cooked dinner a few times. He never seemed impressed, and sometimes didn’t finish what I had made. He didn’t have much interest in nice food or spices. I only ever saw him eat burgers and pizza and pies and Chinese takeaway.
My mum stopped going out at night. She almost never left the house. She sat on the balcony and drank wine and smoked cigarettes and tanned her legs and read magazines and sketched pretty dresses in a notepad. She had hundreds of designs. She could draw really well, and she was really stylish and creative. I wished that I could talk to her about clothes and tell her my secret.
She didn’t see her friends anymore. Steve didn’t like them. He told her she needed a fresh start and better guidance. He should be her inspiration, he said. He had come from nothing. His family were poor and lazy. His brother was in jail and he had cousins who were patched members of motorcycle gangs. His old friends were addicts and criminals and dealers and losers. He could have been trapped in that world, but he learned a trade and worked hard and now he was rich and successful. He had to leave his family and friends behind, because he knew they would drag him back down.
Steve was a boilermaker. He worked on location up in the mines. He would fly out for two weeks and then come home for one. I was always relieved when I saw him packing his bags. When he came home he was tired and moody for a couple of days. He sat on the couch and played Call of Duty and my mum would bring him beer and potato chips and crawl up beside him like a pet cat. She was a different person when Steve was home. She treated him like a king. It made me jealous. She cleaned all the time and did his laundry and agreed with everything he said.
Once I brought one of Steve’s Gibson guitars downstairs so she could play and sing. She got embarrassed and said Steve was much better than her, which wasn’t true. When she took the guitar back upstairs, Steve grabbed my arm hard and told me never to touch his things without his permission. He let me go when she came back down. One night I heard her crying. I got out of bed and watched from the stairs. She was sitting at the table with Steve, holding a piece of paper. The police had come to the house and given her a court summons for default payments and unpaid fines. They warned her if she didn’t attend she would be sent to jail. I almost ran to her when I heard her say that, but I knew I would be in trouble for listening.
Steve wanted to know about her debts. My mum was ashamed and she cried for a long time. Finally she admitted to all her unpaid rent and her credit card debts and her court fees and her fines for driving an unregistered car without a licence. She owed tens of thousands of dollars. She said she had ignored it because it was too stressful, and the problem had got worse.
Steve was annoyed that she hadn’t told him. My mum said she was scared he would leave her. Steve put his hands on her shoulders. He was really calm. He told her he was an expert at personal finances, and he did all his own taxes. He knew all the tricks, and he would help her get through it. He offered to pay her outstanding fines, and after that she would have to apply for bankruptcy. He said the agency collectors would still chase her, but they were easy to ignore, and after three years all her debts would be erased. She wouldn’t owe anything, except to him, but he would never hold it over her.
We had never needed help from anyone before. We had always found a way together. I wanted her to refuse, but she gave in. She cried and Steve put his arms around her. He was the most important person in her life now. I knew that she would never leave him.
I felt so alone. I watched Julia Child videos on my new computer and it made my chest settle down a bit. I pretended she was talking directly to me.