Singing My Sister Down and other stories

by Margo Lanagan

  The giant plunged after it, still howling. It will not fool him long, Oll thought. He will come back and search here. And she crept down and slipped into the marsh’s edge and found a place where she could crouch and rest her head against a hummock, to look like another hummock. It was shockingly cold, that water, but she must hide. And when she was hidden, if she kept very tight and still, wrapping her arms about her bent legs, there was a small amount of warmth that she could harbour there, and her feet and ankles warmed their mud socks just a tadge, and she would not quite die.

  She lifted her head. She was in the Kellers’ upper room.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ said fat Anya without turning over.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ said Ollyn, timidly.

  But then all the Keller kids got up at once, and their faces were mud, and their nightwear was soaked with it and they trooped wetly to the stairhead, mud sliding from their hanging fingers, trailing mud behind them on the floor, and they slopped downstairs to Ma Keller who was frying something and calling them in her fluting voice.

  Oll woke under the stars. It was quite warm in the water now. The shivering had stopped. She did not want to move; certainly she did not want to feel that night air on her wet skin. Besides, if she were not carried by a giant, she could not get across the marsh without drowning. She must wait for daylight and find a way, hummock to hummock, somehow.

  She opened her eyes. Sparse golden leaves on black branches moved against a blue sky. She was a warm baby, at home, without thoughts or cares. Voices somewhere spoke of everyday matters, quietly so as not to disturb her, without urgency or anger.

  Her eyes blinked open. The stars had tilted in the sky. Other lights, midsummer lights, flashed and moved on the marshwater. Voices spoke, the voices from her dream, nothing to be afraid of. She laid her head against the hummock again; perhaps she could sink back into that dream?

  They were raising her from the marsh – her corpse, for she was surely dead; she could do nothing with her legs and arms, only feel them hanging off her like quartersacks of grain.

  ‘He killed me, then,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that, Olliepod?’ Huvvy’s head was huger than a giant’s against the stars.

  ‘She spoke?’ said Pa somewhere.

  ‘He threw me on the pile,’ Oll managed. ‘He . . . he cut off my eyelids for his jar, for his own.’

  ‘Ollie, are you in there?’ said Huvvy, frightened. ‘Is our Ollie in there, or is she bewitched somehow?’

  She did have eyelids; they drooped across her sight. She was wrapped like a baby in rough, dry cloth. She was shivering, shivering. The shivering shook her whole body and almost all her mind. She was cold against her pa. He was chafing her arm and shoulder back to life through the blanket.

  ‘Did you go into his house?’ she said through her shivering jaws. ‘Did you see all those babies?’

  ‘That house there?’ Pa pointed and she saw the mound fading into the moonlit mist.

  ‘Did you cleave it?’

  ‘What’s that, my darling?’

  ‘Did you break it like that, the top of it?’

  ‘It were broken all along, Ollyn. It were rotten wrecked when we found it. And no babies inside, loved one. Nothing inside at all but earth. I saw it myself, and Huv and his lamp. Because we looked good and hard in there. Your ma said you might well be in there, buried. But we dug it apart and you weren’t. Then and then only, when we were spent and giving up, did you move yourself, and make that cry in the marshwater.’

  ‘Like a little cat,’ said Daff, rowing. ‘Miou, miou.’

  ‘I don’t remember,’ said Oll.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Huvvy. ‘You were just about insensible.’

  Ollyn and Ma scoured the pots, down by the stream. It was Ma’s first outing since the baby. They were both numb-fingered with scrubbing, and the wind blew unpredictably, buffeting them off balance and twitching their hair.

  ‘How did you know?’ said Oll.

  ‘Know what?’ Ma slapped a fresh handful of sand into the rinsed stewpot.

  ‘Where to find me. Where to tell Pa and Huvvy to go that night. And to get a boat. How’d you know about that man?’

  Ma scrubbed. ‘Everyone knows about that man.’

  ‘Pa didn’t. And “How’d she get there?” says Huvvy. And I told them and they said, “Ooh, sounds like Romany Tom” or someone. They would have guessed and guessed, and gone out and had someone thrown in the gaol, if you didn’t shut them up.’

  Ma scrubbed on. There was a stubborn set to her.

  Well, Oll could be stubborn, too. ‘So not everyone knows.’ She was back on her heels now, not even pretending to scour. ‘How’d you know any of it? Pa says you woke him and told him where to go if I weren’t at Kellers’, where to look. Kellers didn’t even know I was gone from bed until he knocked them up.’

  Ma gave her head a little toss. With the wind, her hair clambered back into her eyes, as busy and black as duelling spiders.

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘What.’

  ‘Well?’

  Ma lifted the wet sand and let it dribble into a turdy pile in the pot: blat-blat-blat, blat-blot. ‘All my babies,’ she said. ‘They wake in the night? I wake. I knew it were you in a minute. The way you carried on about going up to Kellers’, I knew you would not stay put.’

  Oll laughed. ‘How could I wake you, halfway across the town?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Ma bent to scrubbing again. ‘There must be a sound you make, your eyelids opening. It carries to my ears.’

  Oll watched Ma’s wayward hair, her determined shoulders, her white and purple feet with the toes digging into the sand. These sights satisfied her like a solid meal in her belly. ‘But what about those other children, the dead ones, on the pile? Does not every mother hear that eyelid sound?’

  Ma bunched up her mouth in thought. She rinsed the pot in the stream, holding it out wide where it would catch the clearer, faster water. ‘I don’t know’ – she swirled the water in the pot – ‘how it is for other mothers. I can only say how it is for me.’

  Through the fiddle and rush of the stream they heard the baby’s thin cry. They sat straight to see over the bank, up to the house. Daff was carrying her down, her tiny fists and feet awheel in his awkward arms, her blanket dangling.

  ‘Oh lord,’ sighed Ma. ‘Take her, Ollyn, while I finish here. Wrap her tight and walk her up and down. Behind the house, where I can’t hear her noise so well.’

  Oll climbed the bank. The sunlight dazzled her after the shadowy stream-bank; the earth was warm underfoot; the grass sprang high all up the hill and weedflowers nodded and lounged in it yellow and red and pale purple. Daff waded through them fast with the crying baby, and Oll went to meet him, almost laughing, he looked so frightened of the tiny mewling thing.

  ‘HAVE YOU GOTTA DO that?’ It was my first time out with Jelly; I was used to quiet.

  But Jelly had class, and all the allergies that come with that. He hawked and gobbed in the corner one last time. ‘Yeah, or it chokes me. Whaddaya see?’

  ‘When I can concentrate . . . nothing yet.’

  In the circle of the sights, the wet banner sagged. Of Jeux des Bouffons, I could only read Jex Buffs, and the face beside it was folded across the middle, so it wasn’t even red-nosed.

  We were up high, in the nuns’ palace. No one had slept here since the old girls got torched for wowserism, so it was a good hide. And it gave this brilliant view of the Lyric. When I took my eyes from the sights, the banner was a faraway blob, the Stage Door light a white pinprick among the buildings; we had great distance. No one would ever spot us from down there. And we didn’t have to be anywhere near a real buffoon.

  The rain was only a spot here and there now, but this morning’s storms had given all the gargoyles black beards, and hung drops from every stone leaf and berry. Rain-filled potholes glinted along the streets. We were crouched inside, in a mist of our own breath, the draught chilling our eyeballs. The fil
thy window was cracked open just wide enough for the muzzle of the Fioreschiacciare.

  ‘She’s a beautiful weapon, all right.’

  Jelly cocked his head, clicked his tongue in agreement, and kept fumbling in his jacket pockets.

  I stroked the curved clips remaining in the canister, awed at myself, how far I’d come. A top-of-the-line Fiore. Famous for her precision work during the Lemonade Wars, she was matt black, with the slender, high-haunched build of all the weapons Benato designed for Fiore. And totally focused on the job – no engraving, no mirror-plating, no fussy walnut work. The only mark on her was the serial number stamped into her barrel.

  Jelly dragged out a pouch and papers. I snorted. ‘With your lungs.’

  ‘Always feel like a ciggy after a good cough. For the dragging feeling.’ He flattened a hand to his chest and pulled in a breath of must and fog, pretending to swoon. Then he began the serious slow business of rolling a smoke.

  I went back to the sights. The view was as crisp and coloured as a spring morning; the Fiore’s cross-whiskers reached back through my eye to focus my very brain-stem. She had everything but a pulse.

  ‘We don’t want to drop ’em right there on the step.’ I tried to sound businesslike instead of excited. ‘Or no one else’ll come out. We want to get ’em along the boulevard, or once they hit the park there.’

  Jelly manoeuvred his back up the wall and squinted out the window-crack. ‘Hmmm.’ He slid down into his squat again, clinked open a lighter and set the rollie going. His eyes were puffy and bruised like a gangmaster’s, and his fingers had tiny shakes. He didn’t make the auditions, this Jelly bloke, Dogleg had told me. But that’s all I know about him. ’Cept that now, his heart’s in the right place. You don’t need to worry about that. ‘Some of them’ll just hang out there, for a smoke or some Dutch courage. On the step. Gabbing.’

  ‘Yeah, like Red Enjin, and Harry the Lair, and the ones in a troupe, like the Bangers or the Russian guys – they hang about together.’

  ‘We could do them all, last off,’ said Jelly. ‘Send a rocket in. Blow our cover and be gone.’

  ‘Except how would we know it was last off? Say we take out the Bangers – maybe Otto and his Atlantics were about to pop out for a smoke. It’d be a sin to miss them.’

  Jelly sucked on the rollie. ‘When we feel satisfied.’ He tapped his chest. ‘That’s when we’re finished. When we’ve made a dent in the program. When there’s enough gone to give us a warm fuzzy feeling.’

  ‘If you say.’ I didn’t often get those, myself. I got colder with every hit. Colder and more steely.

  Right on twelve hundred, a little flock of bouffons burst from the door, pulling out puffers and pill-bottles and chequered handkerchees. I startled – they were suddenly so close, I could see the sweat beading through their pancake.

  ‘They’re all in a clump, but moving,’ I said. ‘There’s Dugald, and Tiny Robins, and a few amateurs – do we want amateurs?’

  ‘Why not? Hobbies are the pros of the future.’ Jelly scratched his scalp energetically. Psoriasis lurked along the hairline, ready to run out and pink-and-white his face any second.

  ‘Well, they’re still all togeth— Hang on, they’re splitting. Tiny’s off by himself. He’s in a hurry somewhere.’

  ‘Tiny’s a good one to start with. Start off small, eh. Start off tiny. Geddit?’ Jelly didn’t laugh.

  ‘I will.’ I panned after Tiny along the boulevard towards rue Bleu. I knew he’d go up the little alley just before it, because Bleu was bad with the gangs. As soon as he turned in, where his pink and gold silks wouldn’t be seen from back down the street, I squeezed. The Fiore thunked softly, like a high-class staple gun. Tiny starfished, fell and curled up like a prodded caterpillar. ‘He’s down.’ The relief was a spout of iced water in the middle of my back; I’d wanted a good start.

  ‘Dugald. Ugly mug. Pokes kiddies, too.’

  ‘They all do, if you listen to some people,’ I said quickly. I didn’t want him to start on those stories, thank you. ‘There he is, peeing on a tree.’

  ‘Excellent. Get him like that.’ Jelly scrambled around to look.

  Thunk. In the sights, Dugald arced over backwards, and his pee arced after him. He planted his face in the soft earth and lay still. ‘See the backflip?’ crowed Jelly. ‘Even I saw that!’

  ‘So I’ll get the hobbies?’ I hunted through the sights.

  ‘Naah, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s not waste ammo on ’em. Let’s only go for name brands, hey?’ He cackled and got out his notebook and pince-nez and push-pencil. ‘Ones we know and love,’ he added in an acid, upper-crust voice. He’d come a ways, too, only downwards.

  Jelly wrote the two names carefully in the book. He had quite a list already. ‘How’s it looking?’

  ‘Someone in white. Big.’

  ‘Could be Parrot?’

  ‘I thought Parrot was all colours. Um, like a parrot?’

  ‘Not these days. He went ironic, didn’t he?’ I could almost hear Jelly’s eyes rolling. ‘Set up a dialogue, you know? An opposition? Between signifier and signified? Tedious.’

  ‘Well, he’s got a green wig.’ I sensed there were a lot of rants and raves ready to run out of Jelly and pin back my ears.

  ‘Oh, it won’t be him, then.’

  ‘It’s written on him . . . Mint Patty.’

  ‘Course. Yeah, brrr. The ukelele man. What a gimmick. Yes, we have no bananas. I’ve got a luvverly bunch of—’

  ‘And Mista Glista.’

  ‘Blast him out of his sequins.’

  ‘They’re going off together, down towards the Palais.’

  ‘Anyone else with ’em?’

  ‘No, the others must be going to Nero’s. You rapid-fired with this thing?’

  ‘You bet. No problem for the Cha-cha to take ’em both out.’ But they lined up so neatly I got them in one. ‘Will you look at that?’ I stepped back so he could check through the sights the puddle of white silks and orange sparklies, dropped neatly round the bend in the boulevard.

  ‘Very nice,’ he said smokily.

  I quite liked the smoke smell, and I could see what he meant about the feeling when you breathed it. I could take it up myself. But there were too many other things to spend money on right now. The borrow of this weapon, for a start. Tools to improve the world with. Tools for doing good.

  ‘Oh, look, they’re flooding out!’ Jelly was still at the sights. ‘Blackbird, Prince Prawn, the Tumblin’ Dice. Wouldn’t I like to put a rocket into that lot! Ants ’n’ Pants . . . Look, a Flying Orologio Brother! What a colourful band of beloveds. Which one’ll I pick off?’ He dialled with his cigarette hand, the smoke muddling the air around his fingers. ‘Ah, Your Highness. Not a good idea to split off to the pie shop today.’ Thunk, said the Fiore gently, as if it knew it had to stay secret. ‘And Blackety Blackbird, lighting up at the park gate? I don’t think so.’ Thunk. Could I ever be patient enough to save up for a Fiore of my own?

  Jelly stood back, coughing. ‘Here, you better get those Dice – they’re heading Dugald’s way. Any old sec they’ll turn and run.’

  ‘I’m onto it.’

  I caught them in the cross-whiskers just as they stopped and baulked. Thunk-thunk.

  ‘And then someone’ll see them,’ grumbled Jelly, ‘and someone’ll see that someone, and before you know it we’ll have a trail of ’em leading out into the open and the rest’ll go to ground.’

  ‘Yeah, but we’ll have got so many.’

  ‘But we won’t have chosen. We’ll just have dropped anyone who happened by.’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s all good deeds.’ I didn’t care, as long as painted people were falling.

  ‘I guess.’ But he sounded unhappy.

  I got back to work, as much as I could. Most of the bouffons were gasbagging in groups on the boulevard, though one bunch of smartypantses were in the park swapping juggling secrets. There were just too many, all within sight of each other. ‘My mouth’s actual
ly watering,’ I laughed to Jelly. ‘Imagine picking off Miam-Miam! Is it worth risking, d’you reckon?’

  ‘We’ve got the whole week. Let’s not get ’em really worried ’til, say, Thursday. Or they’ll all bunker down and we’ll sit here on our freezing bums wasting rental money. Who was that last one?’ he added, pencil poised.

  ‘Enigma. I popped ’im in the canal.’ With my bare eyes I could just make out the ballooned black cross of him, twirling slowly down the silver stormwater. ‘So, no more big names today?’

  ‘I’d say.’

  The sun came out, just the one patch cruising along the boulevard like a travelling spotlight, picking out the shimmering silks, the fright-wigs, the tinsel-cloaks, the red noses like an outbreak of pox. The buffoons did what you’d expect when the limelight hit them: spread their arms at themselves, kowtowed, cartwheeled and sprouted flowers.

  ‘Aw, gawd. It’d make you sick.’

  ‘Foul, eh?’ Jelly was leafing through his notebook.

  ‘Here come the Yellow Jerseys for the day. With a bottle. They’re cracking it.’

  ‘Blow ’em awa-ay,’ jeered Jelly. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Dunno— Hang on, it’s shaved into their hair. TAT . . . and . . . Tat and Tit?’

  ‘La-ame! Take ’em out!’

  ‘I can’t. They’re in a crowd. Everyone’s congratulating them, slopping fizz around.’

  ‘Rocket time! If only. No, maybe Thursday we’ll treat ourselves to a little mayhem. But we could pick off the Yellows every day. So by Wednesday they’ll know: if they win the Yellow, they’re worm-food. They’ll go pale under their pancake when they’re announced. Ha! Tit and Tat, eh?’

  ‘Tif. Tat and Tif.’ The names were the only hair the two had, in black on pink. The elastic of their giant white beards dug lines across their shiny pink scalps. ‘Frikkin’ . . . Santy Clauses or something.’