Chapter 2

“I know all about hell,” she shrugged, “my mum’s Catholic even when her marriage broke up,” she eyed the remains of her meal, “besides, I’m on the other side now.”

“What do you mean by that?” Casey glanced up from her phone.

“I’m, um, gay,” she glanced at Linda and Diane.

“And?” Casey’s mouth twitched, “why should that put you on the other side?”

“It says so in the bible, I remember that from high school.”

“Not really,” she replied, “there’s a verse in the Old Testament that actually came from the Hebrew Torah, so it’s not actually Christian and some verse from one of Paul’s letters that is condemning the Greek practice of pederasty. What Christians forget is that God is a god of unconditional love, so you can’t suddenly whack conditions on God’s love based on your prejudices and bigotry. He’s either a god of unconditional love or he’s a god who has conditions. It’s like being half pregnant, you’re either pregnant or you’re not, you can’t be both.”

Charlie blinked and Linda winked.

“Absolutely, couldn’t have said it better myself,” she glanced at her watch, “so, are we heading for the car or do you want to hang around the city?”

“Home I guess,” Charlie shrugged.

Charlie roused herself from a reverie as Linda pulled up next to a red 1970s Holden Monaro, parked in the church carpark just opposite the station. She’d seen the classic car twice in the last couple of months but was surprised when Casey pointed to the coupé.

“That’s my car there,” she undid the seatbelt.

“Now that’s a classic car,” Linda mused.

“Yeah, it was my uncle’s car but it was left to me in his will.”

“I’d be afraid to drive it on the road,” Linda replied, “in case I had a bingle.”

“Oh it has a few little dents,” she replied, “but they’re pretty robust cars.”

“You’ll have to take me for a ride one of these days,” Charlie stared at the car.

“No time like the present,” Casey opened the rear door a little.

“Go ahead,” Linda glanced over at Charlie, “I can drop you here and I’ll see you tomorrow night for the Box Hill meeting.”

“Okay,” she reached down for her handbag, “thanks for taking me in there.”

“All part of the service,” Linda chuckled, “but I’m bagging a lift next time,” she glanced at the rear view mirror.

“No worries,” Casey replied.

The exterior of the car might have been stock standard but the interior had been remodelled with a modern stereo system that included bluetooth and USB connections. A dashboard mount held her phone and then she noticed the aftermarket steering wheel with buttons for controlling the volume. The sound was pumped out through the door speakers and two larger speakers on the rear parcel shelf. Casey managed a crooked grin as she tapped her phone.

“I love my music,” she found a hard rock playlist, “my uncle was an auto electrician, he had to make up his own wiring loom for the steering column.”

“How did he die?” Charlie glanced at the phone, “if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Cancer,” their eyes met briefly, “it was a hard time for all of us, he was my favourite uncle but at least he had his family around him at the end.”

She started the car and nudged the accelerator.

“It runs on gas though, so there’s a slight drop in performance but at least I’m not continually filling the tank up.”

Little more was said as they headed back to Charlie’s place but as they pulled into her street Charlie glanced over at her.

“So, where’s this street ministry you do?”

“We work out of the Uniting Church where I was parked,” she replied, “but it’s only open on Friday and Saturday nights. The rest of the time it’s unused, but it was open for a few months as a drop in centre for the unemployed. There was talk of using the computers to help them write resumes and job application letters but then they hit a snag with software licensing fees, so the computers are still sitting there unused in a small room out the back.”

“A shame, I was using Windows but it was crashing my computer so Linda installed Linux on it and it runs without crashing. It’s a great system, it’s free to download and install apparently.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere before,” Casey glanced at her, “where to now?”

“Um, three doors down,” she pointed to her house, “that’s my joint there.”

“Well, that’s a nice size for a house,” she pulled into the driveway a moment later, “no car?”

“I’m halfway through a twenty four month suspension,” she replied, “I had to sell the car to pay the fine, I used what was left to buy an old computer.”

“That’s a long time to go without wheels,” Casey turned the volume down, “especially this far out, how do you get to work?”

“I get a bus to Ringwood, I work out at a car dealership.”

“Yeah, it is now. I was working out at Cadbury in Ringwood but that contract ended after three months but then the agency found me another job at the dealership and when I was coming up for my three months they offered me a part time position. Three days a week but at least it keeps the wolves from the door and I can still do a couple of days with the agency.”

“And they’re okay with that?”

“They are,” she pictured Zoe’s face, “the staff are helpful.”

“It’s good when that happens,” Casey glanced at her phone.

“Maybe I’ll drop into this coffee shop thing.”

“Sure, you’re more than welcome, I have to get going now but if you’re interested I could swing by and pick you up on the way through but you’d have to hang around until closing time. I won’t be on the premises for most of the night though so it might be a boring night. I’m usually at the railway station or Eastland and sometimes the lake.”

Charlie hesitated as she weighed up her options. A night in front of the idiot box or the computer or a night out at some Christian drop in centre, eventually she nodded.

“Seven thirty,” she replied a moment later, “what’s your number?”

After Charlie had given Casey her number the other woman sent her a text.

“Okay,” she replied to the text, “so, I’ve got a couple of hours to have dinner and get changed.”

“Yep, although it’s just casual clothes, so leave the high heels at home.”

Casual clothes, Charlie mused a few minutes later as she sank into her couch.

“What are you doing?” Charlie muttered, “are you a glutton for punishment?”

The memory of Zoe rose in her mind’s eye, the failed seduction attempt when Zoe turned the tables on her. It had hurt at the time, particularly Lisa’s smartarse comment and whilst she’d managed to get over that resentment there were still times she found herself mentally criticising her at meetings but as she stared out the window Charlie felt almost helpless.

I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.

Charlie looked around the small hall, it was next door to a much larger hall that according to Casey was used more often but this smaller room had been through various iterations over the years from prayer room through to a yoga room. More recently it had been a temporary crèche while the usual crèche was being renovated. It shared a kitchen with the larger hall next door, which had basketball lines painted on the floor. There were half a dozen tables arranged in rows with a bar closest to the kitchen, the smaller room Casey had mentioned earlier was at the other side of the room behind a locked door with No Admittance in bold text on the door. Casey opened the door to show her the benches that ran around three sides of the room, there were a dozen computers, most had the old CRT screens but two had newer flat screens.

“So these are the old computers,” Charlie tapped a keyboard, “they look newer than my one.”

“They came out of a local school,” she replied, “but because the licence was only for that school the hard drives were formatted so right now they’re just sitting there with nothing on them.”

“So, this place stays empty most of the time?”

“Pretty much,” Casey stepped out of the room, “I’ve been talking to my line manager at work about doing something with this room because it’s a community resource but it’s all a bit tricky when it comes to assigning money. It’s a possibility but for now it’s out of reach,” she closed the door and led her through the coffee shop to the short corridor connecting the two halls.

“Two toilets here, they only have one toilet in each because they had to provide enough room for disabled people, so there can be a bit of a queue at the best of times,” she then led her into the larger hall as she continued.

“This hall gets a bit of use though, they have after school sports here,” she nodded at the portable soccer nets, “even five a side soccer if you can find enough people for a couple of teams,” Casey took a ball from a basket and stepped in front of a basketball ring attached to the wall.

“So, what do you want to do? Hang around and drink coffee or help out?”

Charlie frowned as Casey threw the ball against the board.

“Wouldn’t you have to be a Christian?”

“Are you kidding me?” Casey grinned as the ball dropped through the net, “this is the Uniting church, they’re pretty laid back when it comes to helping out. There’s only about three of us who are from this group, the rest are pretty much Sunday only Christians,” she bounced the ball and took up her position again.

“The leaders aren’t entirely happy with the setup but it’s a hall and the church has agreed to step in and help out with extra help. They might be a little bit right wing but they won’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” she tossed the ball again.

“What’s the bet I can do three in a row?” Casey grinned as the ball dropped through the hoop.

“What about my, you know?”

“Sexuality?” Casey bounced the ball, “you know what they say, if you can’t smell them you can’t tell them. They won’t ask embarrassing questions and you won’t have to feel like a square peg in a round hall,” she tossed the ball again and then raised her hands in the air for the third goal.

“Result,” she moved forward to catch the ball as it bounced towards her.

“So, what do you say? You want to help out?”

“Sure, why not? As long as I don’t have to talk about Jesus.”

“You won’t have much of that here, it’s pretty laid back,” she tossed her the ball, “here, shoot some hoops and I’ll go through and tell Hannah,” and with that she was walking out of the hall leaving Charlie wondering just what she’d volunteered for.

I’m not a fucking Christian, she eyed the basketball hoop.

Nevertheless, Casey was as good as her word. The five people working the coffee shop were only too willing to have a volunteer and Charlie soon found herself serving coffee and washing dishes. Hannah was a pleasant twenty something woman with an amiable outgoing personality, she was in a relationship with Tom who belonged to the church and then there was Michelle, John and a guy called Peter. The latter two were from this other group. John teamed up with Casey and Peter was with Michelle, two went out first to find some ‘customers’ leaving the other two sitting around talking.

It was a slow night though, there were some thirteen and fourteen year olds who weren’t street kids early on in the night but they soon headed back home after about an hour or so. There was a good hour and a half with not much to do but sit around and talk, watch tv or play with phones. But then Casey and Peter turned up with three girls and a guy, all were either drunk or high. Charlie found herself talking to a heavily-tattooed girl named Vivian. She’d been drinking but she’d obviously been using heroin because she kept rubbing her nose and when she decided to use the toilet, Charlie followed at a discreet distance to ensure she didn’t do something stupid.

That was the pattern for the next three hours before it was time to close up and in that time Charlie discovered that Casey could more than hold her own against some pretty tough clients. She used a combination of feminine charm and a streetwise sense of survival to deflect the overt advances of a couple of the guys. However they were soon calmed down by their companions, who it seemed had a lot of respect for the Sydney girl.

“I know them all quite well,” she told Charlie as she drove her home sometime after midnight, “the only one who has ever given me trouble was Gus but he’s been a bit on the quiet side after he got out of rehab.”