Mr Romanov's Garden in the Sky

by Robert Newton

  ‘Of course not, I just want to . . .’

  ‘You want to what? You want to be that little girl in the snow dome? You want to get a bucket and spade and build a few sandcastles with your dead dad and junkie mum? Sorry to burst your bubble and all, but Surfers Paradise is a shithole anyway. I looked it up on the internet.’

  ‘Screw you, Davey.’

  It was the other part of me that said that, the part that hadn’t surrendered to Davey Goodman in the car park of the Beechworth Correctional Centre. I turned around and sat there like I was broken in two.

  ‘Ouch. Tell me that didn’t hurt?’

  Miranda? It wasn’t possible this far from home but the voice in my head was unmistakably hers.

  ‘Hello, Lexie.’

  ‘What are you doing here? You can’t . . .’

  ‘You didn’t think I was just going to let you go, did you?’

  ‘But, I don’t understand. You’re supposed to be . . .’

  ‘On the wall? Yeah, I know.’

  ‘So how come I can hear you, then?

  ‘Because I’m in your head, Lexie, I always have been. See, I’m the other part, the sensible part.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yes, Lexie. One of us has to be. You thought he was going to be different, didn’t you? You thought that maybe you’d found someone nice, someone you could depend on. But they’re all the same, I’m afraid. Soon enough they let you down. It’s the way people are and if anyone should know it’s you.’

  ‘Shut up, Miranda. Just shut up. I don’t need you here.’

  ‘Oh but you do, Lexie. You need me more than ever.’

  Davey began to make noises in the back, sucking noises as if he was cleaning bits of food from between his teeth. All the ugly things he’d said came rushing back and I felt the words stab like needles through my heart. Then I saw Worf on the dash.

  ‘Go on, Lexie, do it.’

  I hated Worf. I hated the way Davey had used him to make me feel stupid, Davey with his spazzie eye and his trumped-up, I-know-everything grin. Worf wasn’t even supposed to be there.

  ‘Do it, Lexie. You know you want to.’

  I wasn’t me anymore. I was a puppet and Miranda was working my strings. She moved my left hand to the window and wound it down, then she moved my right hand forward, plucked Worf from the dash and tossed him out.

  ‘Hey! What the hell?’

  Davey grabbed the back of my seat then turned and looked back.

  ‘Stop the car, Mr Romanov.’

  Mr Romanov must have sensed the urgency in Davey’s voice. All of a sudden he hit the brakes and the rubber tyres began to squeal and smoke. The burning rubber smell bit at my throat but did nothing to hide the sweet taste of victory. I turned around, went to throw Davey a satisfied smile but something down the road had grabbed his attention.

  ‘Is that a truck?’ he said.

  Mr Romanov looked back.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That is truck. Big truck.’

  ‘Well, don’t just sit there,’ said Davey. ‘Pull off the goddamn road.’

  As soon as we’d stopped on the gravel shoulder, Davey bundled out and bolted back along the road. Despite his frantic pace, he had no hope of making it. He was running down the middle of the road, running along the white lines straight towards the oncoming truck. I jumped out and yelled a warning.

  ‘No, Davey. Get off the road.’

  He didn’t hear me. I didn’t hear me. As soon as the words left my mouth, an air horn gobbled up the words. From where I was standing it was hard to know how close the truck was, but I guessed it was a hundred metres away, maybe more. I grabbed hold of Mr Romanov’s arm and the last thing I saw before I dipped my eyes was Davey, still running, dwarfed by the thundering truck.

  I screamed when the truck rumbled past and whipped my hat off. I screamed at the top of my lungs and clung to Mr Romanov’s arm. I didn’t want to look up but it was like the day Boris died. Something forced me to look and when I ran my eyes along the white lines, through the cloud of dust I saw Davey, standing by the side of the road. When the cloud thinned he stepped onto the bitumen then bent down and began to gather up bits off the road. When he was done, he straightened up and looked into his hand. He glanced our way, just for second then ambled off into the sea of yellow flowers in the lush green paddock by the side of the road.

  Despite the urge to go after him, I knew it was best to leave him alone so I sat in the car with Mr Romanov, rolled my window down and waited. I couldn’t believe what I’d done. Tossing Worf out the window was spiteful and cruel, something a four-year-old might do when they didn’t get their way. But part of me had wanted to do it. Part of me had wanted to hurt Davey in the meanest possible way.

  ‘It is not easy for Davey,’ said Mr Romanov.

  It was the first time Mr Romanov had said Davey’s name. It sounded strange.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

  ‘A boy without his father is not so easy.’

  ‘And a girl without her father is?’

  ‘No. I did not say that, cowgirl. But I think he did not mean those things he said.’

  ‘Yeah? Well he said them.’

  ‘Yes. But I think you two are not so different.’

  ‘Me and Davey?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re nothing like each other. Davey is infuriating. He’s a know-it-all. He talks and talks. He . . .’

  ‘Like I said, cowgirl, not so different.’

  We sat there for what seemed like forever until the sound of crunching gravel made me sit up. It got louder and louder, slower and slower, and then it stopped. A shadow covered my face, blocked out the sun, and when I turned my head I saw Davey standing by my open window. He looked awkward and sad.

  ‘I got you these,’ he said.

  Davey bit his lip then lifted up a bouquet of yellow flowers and handed them through the window.

  ‘I think they’re daffodils,’ he said. ‘Maybe canola.’

  I snatched a quick look at Mr Romanov beside me then raised the yellow flowers to my nose and breathed them in.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Davey. ‘I didn’t mean any of that. And I’m not exactly sure why I said it. I guess I was angry and, well, you were just there.’

  I let the sorry sink in while Davey climbed into the back and closed the door.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have meddled. How is he, anyway?’

  Davey raised his hand up and showed me the bits of Worf.

  ‘Decapitated,’ he said.

  ‘Oh. That’s not good. Maybe I can fix him.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Davey. ‘I know you don’t like him.’

  ‘No, I want to. I can stick his head back on with blu-tack.’

  ‘You’re just saying that.’

  ‘No, really. Hand him over.’

  Mr Romanov steered the Merc back onto the Hume and after pinching a few bits of blu-tack from the dash, I got to work and managed to make Worf whole. When I was done I pressed him down onto the dash and smiled.

  ‘You’re wrong, Miranda,’ I whispered. ‘Davey’s different.’

  To make up for the time lost napping in a picnic stop, we went hard that afternoon. We drove and drove until the sun began its descent towards the hills to the west.

  Mr Romanov wasn’t used to sitting all day and began to shift about behind the wheel, as if he was trying to find a comfortable way of sitting. As you’d expect, our trusty navigator in the back seat was all over it.

  ‘Red cross alert,’ said Davey. ‘Change of plans. I’m bringing dinner forward, people. Town called Gundagai, another fifty kilometres, according to the map. I reckon we should find a place to sleep first, somewhere cheap. Then we can grab some dinner.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘What about fish and chips? God, I could murder some fried flake.’

  It was something new, making up after a fight. When my mother and I went at it, we were never able to make things right. The words we’d s
aid stayed with us. You couldn’t see them of course, but you knew they were there, like discarded wrappers down the side of the couch. No one had ever given me flowers before.

  ‘There’s something I need to tell you both,’ I said.

  The words seemed to come from nowhere. I waited for someone to say something, but no one did.

  ‘It’s about the garden,’ I continued on. ‘Look, I know it was supposed to be a secret and everything and I know we promised not to tell, but I . . .’

  ‘You what?’ said Davey.

  ‘I told someone.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I’m really sorry. I should have asked you both first, I know, but the garden, it’s just so precious, and after all the work you’ve done Mr Romanov, carting all that soil, I didn’t want to just leave it without anyone to look after it.’

  Mr Romanov snatched a look my way.

  ‘Who did you tell, cowgirl?’

  I turned my head to the window and spoke to the glass.

  ‘I told Ramesh.’

  ‘I told Ramesh also,’ said Mr Romanov.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So did I,’ said Davey.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  ‘So why the hell didn’t either of you say?’ I asked.

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ said Davey.

  ‘I just did. And here’s me feeling bad for keeping it a secret. We’re supposed to be friends, you know. What else haven’t you two told me?’

  I hadn’t expected an answer but Davey broke the silence a few seconds later.

  ‘I got on Brainstormers,’ he said.

  I swung my head to the back.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘I got on Brainstormers,’ repeated Davey.

  ‘You did not.’

  ‘I did. I applied online six months ago. Anyway, I went in a few days before we left and had to do a heap of tests with all these other kids. It was general knowledge stuff, mainly. Anyway, I got on.’

  ‘You got on Brainstormers?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. I’m supposed to go into the studio in a week.’

  ‘And what? You didn’t think of telling me?’

  ‘I just did, Lexie.’

  Unlike Davey who seemed remarkably calm, I was buzzing with excitement. In fact, I was having trouble processing what he’d had told me so I did what I normally did in situations like these. I started rambling.

  ‘Did you hear that, Mr Romanov? Davey got on Brainstormers. You know what Brainstormers is, right? It’s this quiz show on the ABC where a bunch of brainy kids have to answer questions on a whole lot of topics. It starts off with heats, okay, and if you win the heats you go through to the head-to-head and if you win those you go to the final four. That’s massive, but not as massive as winning obviously. If you happen to win they crown you Brainstormer and give you five thousand dollars. Oh my God.’

  I couldn’t stop so I took a quick breath and kept going.

  ‘You’re going to be on TV, Davey.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘On TV, Davey. You do realise what that means?’

  Davey cocked his head then looked back blankly as if he hadn’t thought things through.

  ‘What does it mean?’ he asked.

  ‘It means makeover, Davey. You can’t go on TV looking like that.’

  Davey dipped his head and gave himself the once over.

  ‘What’s wrong with the way I look?’

  ‘What’s right, you mean.’

  My head began to fill with possibilities – a haircut, fawn chinos, a black shirt and a pair of white Converse. Finally, when the transformation was complete, I saw Davey sitting behind a desk, battling it out with three other kids in the final round.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I said. ‘The Arts.’

  ‘What about the Arts?’ asked Davey.

  ‘It’s one of the categories.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, you don’t know anything about them.’

  ‘Yeah, I do. I know heaps about the Arts.’

  ‘I’m talking about books, Davey. Stories. Real life. Fluff, I think you called it.’

  ‘I know enough, Lexie.’

  ‘Really? Okay, who wrote Pride and Prejudice, then?’

  ‘Pride and Prejudice? They won’t ask me that. I’m thirteen.’

  ‘They might. You’re supposed to know stuff.’

  Davey took a moment, racked the files in his brain but nothing came.

  ‘It was Jane Austen, Davey.’

  Despite the exciting news, Mr Romanov had sat quietly through the entire discussion. Too quietly.

  ‘So what about you?’ I asked. ‘Is there anything you want to tell us, Mr Romanov? This’d be the time to do it. It’s going to be hard to beat Davey, though, Brainstormers is huge.’

  Mr Romanov shifted in his seat again. He looked guilty.

  ‘Aha, I knew it. Hang on, let me guess . . . You’ve got a girlfriend, right?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Okay, then, you’re Russian royalty, you’re like a prince or a duke or something.’

  ‘I have the dementia, cowgirl.’

  Davey drove his foot into the back of my seat. Everything slowed down and the grey came back and gobbled up the colours outside. All of a sudden Mr Romanov looked old and frail.

  ‘What does that mean, exactly?’ I asked.

  ‘It means I don’t remember.’

  ‘But you remember the important things,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes, yes.’

  ‘You remember Izabella,’ I said. ‘You remember the first time you met and how you waited outside the ballet with ice on your nose. You remember that.’

  It was as if Mr Romanov hadn’t heard me. He followed a buzzing fly across the windscreen and tried to squash it dead with the back of his hand.

  ‘I need vodka,’ he said. ‘We will stop soon, yes?’

  I didn’t know much about dementia but I guessed like all diseases it affected people in different ways. Mr Romanov’s dementia seemed kind of random. Now I thought about it, I realised sometimes he was able to remember things, even the specifics, but other times it was as if his mind had shut down completely. Whatever it was, he deserved better than that. After everything he’d been through, he deserved a pile of memories, rows and rows of them like books on a shelf to keep him company when he sat at night in his battered chair. I would have given anything to help him remember but I was pretty sure dementia didn’t work like that. His past seemed to be fading fast and although I could do nothing to stop it, maybe I could help him enjoy the now and the things that were to come.

  Gundagai was a postcard, painted crimson by the dying sun. As we motored into town past the rows of pretty weatherboard houses, Davey started a tour guide routine in the back.

  ‘You know there’s a famous story about Gundagai,’ he said. ‘I came across it on the internet when I was mapping out the itinerary. It’s about a dog, Mr Romanov, you’ll like it.’

  I looked up at the green collar, hanging from the rear-vision mirror in front.

  ‘There was this bloke, right,’ continued Davey. ‘A bullock driver, he was, driving a team through the countryside or whatever. Anyway, this bloke leaves his dog behind to guard his tuckerbox. That’s another name for a lunch box, apparently. Turns out he gets bogged at a river crossing or something and takes forever to get out. I’m not sure why exactly, but for some reason this bloke never goes back and his dog just sits there, guarding his lunch, sits there for days until it dies.’

  I turned my head and snatched a look at Mr Romanov beside me.

  ‘It is a good story,’ he said.

  ‘But why didn’t someone give it some food?’ I asked.

  ‘According to the story, it was nine miles out of town,’ said Davey. ‘Maybe no one was around.’

  ‘So it just sat there and starved?’

  ‘Yeah, I s’pose.’

  ‘God, that’s sad.’

  A blue vacancy sign outside
a motel on our left grabbed Davey’s attention.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ he said.

  Mr Romanov caught on and pulled the Merc up by the side of the road.

  ‘The Golden Palms Motor Inn,’ said Davey. ‘Looks all right, in a cheap and nasty kind of way.’

  Cheap and nasty was probably the way to go, given our limited funds. What’s more, it beat sleeping in the car.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ I said. ‘Anything that’s not grey is fine by me. Let’s check in.’

  I’d never stayed in a motel before, not that I remember, anyway. When Mr Romanov steered the car around a circular driveway and stopped under an awning draped with fairy lights, I bundled out and walked a few steps to get the blood pumping through my legs. Not long after, the others got out, arched and stretched, and then the three of us headed up the stairs to reception. Davey reached for the door handle but stopped for a moment and turned around.

  ‘Let me do the talking,’ he said.

  I was too hungry to argue so I nodded my head and followed the others inside. After closing the door, we heard voices drifting through from the office behind the reception desk.

  ‘Quinoa? What the hell is quinoa?’

  ‘It’s a grain, Brian. Just eat it.’

  ‘But I thought we were having schnitzel.’

  ‘Well, you thought wrong.’

  It was clear they hadn’t heard us come in so Davey reached a hand out for the bell on the desk and tapped its small metal pin with a finger. A few seconds later, a lady with a friendly smile dressed in walking gear appeared in the doorway with a Weight Watchers book in one hand.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘We’d like a room, please,’ said Davey.

  ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place,’ said the lady. ‘Let me see . . .’

  After ditching the book onto the desk, the lady picked up a pencil and ran its tip down a column in the reservations folder.

  ‘I can offer you number seven,’ she said. ‘It’s a double and a single. Perfect for a family of three.’

  Like me, Davey seemed to be giving the sleeping arrangements some thought.

  ‘Nothing else?’ he asked.

  ‘Nothing, I’m afraid. What’s wrong? Don’t fancy sleeping with Grandad?’

  ‘Grandad?’ said Davey.

  The lady looked my way. She sized me up with a familiar double take then turned back to Davey.