by Paula Hayes
CHAPTER TEN
Butterflies, Bullets and Brown St
“Look at me, I’m shaking like a jellyfish going cold turkey.” Jacqui put forward an unsteady hand and watched her small freckles wobble.
“What would a jellyfish be addicted to?” pondered Anna.
“Separation from the other jellyfish? Maybe they are co-dependent … and I’m feeling all quivery and queer too, if any one is interested.”
“As if … shut up Dylan,” snarled Jacqui.
Anna shook her head. She wasn’t feeling scared. She was secretly looking forward to seeing Leo’s beautiful face and his twinkly blue eyes.
Anna hesitated as she turned the door handle, she knew that it was selfish but she didn’t want to share Leo yet. Everyone always liked Jacqui the best she didn’t see why a dead guy would be any different. She had popped her head into the green room on her way to Dylan’s earlier that afternoon and had already felt Leo wasn’t back from wherever it was he had to return to. Her heart raced but it wasn’t from the psychic pull. It was from sheer excitement.
Right now, her chest was burning. Get a grip she thought as she said, “He is here,” pushing open the door.
Jacqui gave her hand a squeeze and threatened Dylan with narrowing eyes.
The room was quiet and warm. The curtains had been opened and the last watery sunlight rays filled the air and caught the dancing dust. Anna felt like she was cast back in time.
Leo was standing in front of the photograph memory wall. He was staring intently at a formal group portrait. It was the McNamara family. Les stood on one side and brother, Dan stood on the other, and in between them stood their sisters Veronica, Agnes and little Charlotte in plaits. He was lost in memory.
“Veronica was the salt of the earth, Aggie was a pain in the arse and Charlotte the kid, fancied she could sing. She was always trilling and squeaking out a ditty, got on the nerves a bit.”
“Really? Charlotte was my Great Nanna, she was always belting out a tune … where is Daisy, the third sister?”
“Dunno.” He turned abruptly and faced Anna. “There were other sons as well but they were much older with their own families. Les was back from the war and Mary Ellen was celebrating his safe return with a family photo … I was there you know, that day, well in spirit.” He grinned at his clever remark but his smile faded, “Mary Ellen saw me … and was obviously ‘displeased,’ ” he mimiced Mary’s Irish lilt. “She told me to move on and to leave well alone. Hadn’t I done enough damage to her family?” He touched the frame and became silent.
“Is that why she has such a happy look on her face, looks like she has smelled poo … or you.” Anna tried to keep him talking but she felt as if he were drifting back to a place and time she could not follow.
“Yes, her eyes flickered in recognition and then hardened when she saw me. I was overjoyed to make contact. I had been out of my mind with confusion and anger. If you look closely at this one you can see Agnes has been weeping. She saw me too.” Another long silence followed as Anna examined Agnes, she had never noticed the sadness that seemed to radiate out of her and now felt a pang of sorrow for Agnes.
“She tried to ignore me, it was hard for her at first. She seemed to want to talk but her mother had forbidden it and I was so lonely and afraid. I really couldn’t understand what had happened to me.”
“You died Leopold.”
“Yes, you smart Alec, I know that now.”
“It is highly likely you experienced a very violent and sudden death and your unresolved issues precluded you from entering into a new dimension of being,” offered Jacqui, nervously picking up the thread of the conversation.
“What the hell is she talking about?”
“Is it possible you have stuff you needed to take care of? Things that you never got the chance to work out before you carked it,” offered Anna.
“Yes, it is.” He hesitated, “I followed Les home from France.” Leo paused.
“Your mother is right, I have been hanging on to the McNamara’s coat tails for well over one hundred years now. When Les was injured I followed him from hospital to hospital. I couldn’t stay with him all the time. He was so injured and ill. It was his legs, his legs.” Leo faltered, “It felt like forever. I was weak too.” He smiled as he remembered his freshly dead self. “I was such an amateur. And Les, he just wasn’t getting better. Infection was rife,” he dropped his voice to a hoarse whisper, “when he finally was discharged they gave him a set of crutches and sent him home in a truck like an animal left over from market. He had to be helped down and … slowly Les hobbled down Brown Street. Terrible, bloody terrible.” Leo’s eyes glistened and he pulled frantically at his hat. Anna could sense him fading, the thought was too painful for him.
Anna studied the photo intently, trying to find something light hearted to say, “Apparently Aggie grew a beard in her final years, if that makes you feel any better.”
Leo smiled weakly, “I know and being toothless never suits a lady.”
Dylan and Jacqui stood glued to the spot. They both felt slightly ridiculous not knowing where to look. “Are we all on the edge of some wild group hallucination?” remarked Dylan, “we didn’t even get to enjoy the drugs. Pity!”
Since they had entered the room, Anna had not stopped gazing rapturously at Leo. Dylan stared at Anna. “You are beautiful,” gasped Dylan. “Even without my masterful eyeliner technique—”
Leo looked up and smiled at her. “Tell your funny looking friend with the black glasses on, he is right. I wouldn’t have thought he cared for a good-looking-lass. What is wrong with his eyes? I don’t recall him having those blind man glasses on last night.”
Anna was stunned, “No, he is in character, Dylan is a thespian.”
“Is that what you call it nowadays,” sniggered Leo.
“He is an actor,” replied Anna angrily. Dylan went to open his mouth.
“And you can shut up Dylan,” she added. What is wrong with him? Dylan was usually too entranced by his own beauty to notice any one else.
Jacqui coughed and said sweetly, “Annakins, would you mind introducing us to your new friend.”
“Or at the very least, point us in the right direction,” wheezed Dylan. “This is terribly awkward and it is making me a titch anxious.” He touched his puffer in his pocket compulsively. Leo put his hand on his hip and started waggling his bottom in a very rude imitation of Dylan.
“I am sorry,” giggled Anna.
Anna tried to get back in control of her schoolgirl self. Who am I? Anna wondered again, she detested feeling like this.
“I am so sorry, this is Jacqui Van Eeden, my very good friend and this is Dylan, formerly known as Deepayan Roychowdhury.”
“Crikey, that’s a mouth full.”
“But he shortens it to Ray, Dylan Ray.
“Aren’t I one of your very good friends as well?” asked Dylan.
“Of course Dylan and here is Dylan, he is somebody I tolerate,” she smiled viciously.
“Very pleased to meet you sir,” said Jacqui. She flicked her hair nervously off her face and it scattered golden sunbeams in the dying sunlight. Not again with the mane churned Anna.
“Your friend Jacqui is a real looker, isn’t she, but she isn’t a patch on my girl.” Leo paused, “Or you.”
“Your girl?”
Leo shrugged.
Anna was flummoxed, another compliment in twenty-four hours. This one felt particularly sincere.
“Leo says you are very pretty Jacqui.” Jacqui giggled and said that Leo cut a fine figure in his photo and perhaps she could take a photo of him soon once she worked out how to and if Anna agreed.
“What about me?” demanded Dylan.
“He thinks you’re very pretty too.”
“I DO NOT. I am not one of those. I met one in France, he wrote poems. They
were meant to be pretty good. He was a Pommy fellow, a Tommy, a nice enough chap … he was an officer. Les said he would read one of them to me when we got back home.” Leo stopped and was silent.
Anna was concerned that thoughts of Les’ injuries would weaken and demoralize him again and so she pressed on.
“Why would Les need to read it to you?” she teased brightly.
Leo looked mortified. He put his finger on his lips and nodded his head in Dylan and Jacqui’s direction.
“I can’t read,” he mumbled.
Anna’s face fell, “I am so sorry, I didn’t realise.” The image of Leo playing with the University projector flashed through her mind. He didn’t read. He would have thought he was just having a lark and flipping the bird to the teacher as he made the words, meaningless to him, jiggle on the Professor’s fat belly.
“I’m not stupid or anything, it’s just that I didn’t get to school much. I was helping Ma and working, well … I can sign my name and I know quite a few words.”
“You didn’t realise what? What is it that you didn’t realise? What is he saying or should we just leave you two lovebirds alone. I am feeling particularly excluded. Plus I am feeling racially persecuted, did I hear sniggering at my name?”
“Oh Dylan, please shut up,” said Jacqui.
“Right, Leo you are a very lucky fellow because you have two of the finest brains plus Dylan at your disposal.” Anna took out her list.
“I have an IQ of one hundred and forty seven,” sulked Dylan.
“Try using it for a change,” she sniped back and then hesitated. The compliments had unsettled her. Jacqui felt Anna falter and quickly said, “I’ve had another sparkly gem of an idea. Perhaps you can ask the questions and relay the answers to Dylan, who can type in Leo’s responses. I will keep abreast of historical facts and unusual language and that sort of thing.” Jacqui placed her trembling dainty hands at the ready on her tablet, looking up at Anna with sincere enthusiasm.
“Right, good idea,” said Anna biting down nervously on her pencil as she pulled out her notepad. An awkward silence scuttled into the room and Jacqui filled the void by sitting down and saying, “Please do take a seat Mr Leo,” in her charming airhostess voice, pointing to a chair near her. Leo put his hat on the table and motioned Anna to come closer. Not too close, she prayed. My heart is about to cascade out of my chest as petals, butterflies and red M&M’s
Leo dragged his attention from Dylan’s black fingernails to Jacqui. “Nice looking lass, highly strung but kind. And there is something else.” As Leo stared at her, he realized what it was … it was sadness.
“There is nothing else!” barked Anna.
“Well anyways, please convey my humblest apologies to Miss Van Eeden. She appears to be a lovely girl. I am so sorry I poked her in the ribs and touched her skirts. She was standing there like she was the Queen of Sheba with her head up her arse and I was so angry. I get angry. I was wishing she was someone else.”
“Leo says he is sorry he poked at you but you seemed rather aloof and distracted and he was just trying to make contact with the real world, he was desperate for attention,” lied Anna.
“Think nothing of it, my good sir,” replied Jacqui and she curtsied. Anna felt the bulldog tugging and groaning inwardly.
“So what’s happening now?” asked Leo, staring hard at the smooth cold tablet.
“I am going to ask you questions and Dyl is going to type your answers into this, it’s a computer. Then Jacqui will research your answers on her computer.” Anna picked up both tablets.
“What is a computer?” said Leo confused. Anna faltered again.
“Computer?” he crouched down and looked at the laptop’s cool smooth plastic. “It’s shiny, so shiny … I have never seen anything like it.”
COMPUTER! How do you describe a computer to someone born at the turn of the century? Should I start with the binary code? Anna panicked.
But Leo thought for a moment, “So that flat thing is like a typewriter and a book,” he said, pleased with his perceptiveness.
“Yes, kinda, that’ll do.” Phew!
Leo pulled out the chair. It dragged along in mid air making Dylan’s jaw drop. He realised this was not a dress rehearsal, the stage was set and the curtains were parting. Dylan sat down and pulled his own tablet out of his bag. He flicked it open like an efficient librarian and pulled out a sharp pencil, placing it behind his ear. He had made a classic error with his detective ensemble. Now he was officially Captain Ray with the British Army.
“Jacs remind me to go home via St Vinnies, I want to get some khaki cargo pants, it will help me get into character and take a bit a pressure off the old chums,” he attempted to rearrange his testicles through the blood stopping denim of his jeans.
Leo sniggered and Anna felt her face bloom with pinkness.
She looked down at her list and watched her words swimming in love hearts and stars. They darted around the page in a swoon. She squinted at the paper and fell silent. Dylan looked up into Anna’s sweating face. He typed a few words and said officiously, “Name?”
“What?” said Anna.
“Pardon?” said Jacqui.
Leo stood up and stepped back. He clicked his heels in military precision. The chair fell to the floor with a clatter. Captain Ray tried to hide his terror as he watched it clunk to the ground. “One can’t let the lower ranks see how a chap is really feeling. And this one is feeling terrified … I’m not skeered, la la laa,” he sang under his breath.
“Private Leopold Reginald Nolan, Sir,” barked back Leo.
The last dust motes were shimmering in the fading sunlight. The green room had become dream like and transparent, a cosy little cocoon. Anna sucked in her breath and realized she was playing translator to a ghost. What would happen next? For every remark Leo made, she echoed it to Dylan and he zealously tapped and typed in his bumptious manner.
But she hated feeling like this, this twittery out of control feeling. She remembered Miss Scott’s piercing eyes looking into the face of drippy Mr. Trigwell as she listened to his earnest uneasy chat. Her anger at his appalling lack of knowledge regarding the history of WW1 softened. Perhaps it would help if she sent him some relevant reading by email before each class. After all, he had shown remarkable mercy to Jacqui and he did say he was open to suggestions and to contact him anytime if students were having concerns. I am concerned you are a complete idiot sir.
Dylan continued to bark at Leo.
“Thank you Private, good Irish name son, except for the Leopold bit. You’re not a nasty little Fritz are you lad? Not a double agent eh man? Can you speak German?”
“No sir, mother was German and my father was straight from County Clare, Ireland sir. I can only say hello and good bye.”
“Good fellow, you can’t help your family, bloody Germans eh lad?”
“Yes sir.”
“At ease fellow … Good man, still nasty business this war eh?”
“Very nasty indeed sir, especially if you were in it.” Leo winked at Anna.
“Are you being impertinent, lad, because I can have you shot at sunrise tomorrow just like that.” Captain Ray slammed his fist down on the table.
“Ouch,” winced Dylan, “I forgot to take my pinkie ring off and that really hurt, could I please have an ice pack?”
“No, Dylan,” sighed Jacqui, “you will be fine, my big brave lad.”
“But it really hurts.” Dylan’s bottom lip wobbled.
“Permission to speak sir?”
“Granted, is it a remedy to help an ouchy pinky?”
“No sir, but you would have had no authority to shoot me at dawn at all sir. I am Australian,” he puffed up proudly.
“He is right,” interjected Jacqui, her fingers blurred as she researched to keep ahead of the conversation and Dylan’s typing. “Insubordinate British soldiers cou
ld face the firing squad but the Aussies were court marshalled. The Brits tried to get the rule changed but failed. The Australians said ‘any man who volunteered for hell couldn’t be faulted, or shot because he had enough.’ ”
“Fine, fine you Australian thug. Look, my little finger is twice its size and I can’t get my ring off. I am feeling quite claustrophobic. I can’t get it off, it’s swelling. Help me.”
“I remember the fellows talking about it,” grinned Leo ignoring Dylan. His grin faded, “I remember a couple of lads from Liverpool. They were shot at dawn after a farce of a trial. The boys weren’t allowed to speak for themselves and their comrades were dead. They had seen … what they had seen … well it changes you. They weren’t cowards,” he bristled and shook his head.
“You were only sixteen, weren’t you scared? Didn’t you think about running away, seems like a very normal reaction,” said Anna quietly.
“I saw a lot of boys throw down their rifles and begin to cry. Of course I was scared shitless every minute of the night and day. Scared shitless. But I had Les, Les kept me going. He was my mate and he looked after me. I was one lucky bastard to have Les keeping an eye out for me. He would give me one of his smokes and say, “Take it easy mate.” He would put his hand on my arm, “Be out of here soon and back in Brown Street with a couple of quid in our pockets.”
“Good old Les,” whispered Jacqui as she looked up Brown St on Maps.
“We should totally go there, like a pilgrim to Graceland,” said Dylan.
“It’s in East Perth, only a bus and a train and a bus away,” sighed Jacqui.
“That’s right, East Perth … you are a clever clogs … Les never smoked but the army gave cigarettes to all of us like they were tins of bloody multivitamin lollies. Les said they would rot your lungs and I wasn’t to smoke them around my Ma when I got home. Then I would think of Ma back in East Perth.”
“Les sounds like a very perceptive guy,” said Anna.
“Yes he was but I got hooked on them,” he responded sheepishly.
“Is she okay?” he whispered and nodded in Jacqui’s direction. Jacqui was engrossed with reading an Internet article. It was the stories of young underaged boys who had run away from home to join the army. Some just leaving behind a note. A note, her eyes pricked with tears.
Anna glanced dismissively. “Yes. Why?” Her inner bulldog grunted. She is a thespian as well. She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily.
Leo shrugged his shoulders and continued to watch Jacqui with growing alarm.
Jacqui swallowed down the pain in her throat and attempted to sound breezy.
“Over three hundred soldiers were shot at dawn for cowardice and insubordination. Most of those were privates … some were underage.”
“Jacqui, you really are a font of fun facts.” Dylan stopped typing and examined his nails nervously.
Dylan typed on with one finger from his uninjured hand. “Slow down,” he shouted, “I’m wounded.”
“Geez, he is a big girl’s blouse.”
“And what is that supposed to mean, how dare you compare our gender to that screaming sideshow,” retorted Anna. She checked herself. Now was not the time or place to lurch into her favourite diatribe.
“Who are you calling a sideshow? I am not a sideshow. I am the star attraction,” shouted Dylan.
“Dylan, deep breaths, deep breaths,” cooed Jacqui.
“Deep breathing peeps, not you of course Leo,” blushed Jacqui.
“I thought I was doing a great job of remembering to breathe,” laughed Leo.