Max

by Michael Hyde

  This stuff called suicide.

  15

  THEY HAD DECIDED on a nine o’clock start. Mai and Max in his father’s old powder-blue rapid rider, now a family heirloom, chipped and scratched with a hairline fracture in the fibreglass hull.

  ‘What story did you tell them this time?’ asked Max.

  ‘Working in the library again. Anything to do with study and my parents are happy. I told them the school was opening its library for Senior students on Saturday mornings.’

  ‘Won’t they check up? Ring the school? Or do they trust you?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. But they wouldn’t ring up because of their English. They’re not confident.’

  ‘Anyway, what’s so wrong? You’re only going for a paddle.’

  Mai stopped paddling and dragged her fingers through the water. ‘Don’t worry about it, Max. You wouldn’t understand.’ She looked up at the dripping mistletoe hanging in thick clumps from the trees. ‘I’ll try to explain one day. Let’s not talk about it.’

  Pulling hard, they slid out and into the hush of the Maramingo. Sleek black water hens with orange-red beaks scratched in the mud, only pausing for a minute in their morning ritual as the canoe surged and then glided, surged and then glided.

  ‘He might not be there, you know. The old bloke I was telling you about. This time of the day he’s sometimes hard to find. Hard to find the island as well. For some reason.’

  ‘I don’t care. This is good enough.’

  ‘Oh, you would care. He’s pretty interesting in a mad sort of way. You’re the first person I’ve ever taken to the island. Lou wouldn’t go. I don’t take Woody and Dad’s never seen him.’

  Mai smiled. Grey-tinged cumulus clouds ambled across the sky. Mai and Max dipped their paddles into the calm current, a soft wind pushing at their backs.

  ‘If your back hurts, reach further out to the front of the boat and only drag it back as far as your bodyline. Otherwise you feel like your paddle is heavy as a bucket of water.’ Max sat at the back, scrutinising Mai’s paddling.

  ‘OK. OK. God, you’re bossy. It’s my first time, you know! I thought I was doing pretty well, actually.’

  ‘You are. You are. I was giving you a few tips, that’s all.’ He grinned. ‘Another thing – I’ll say this and then I’ll shut up – it’s usually better if you alternate the side you’re paddling on. About ten strokes to each side.’ Then he added, ‘But you’re right. You’re doing fine. I don’t know why I’m going on like this. I guess I’m a bit stressed. School rang Dad – and the cops called him as well.’

  ‘Did your father go mad at you? Did he lose it?’

  Mai concentrated on the chipped plastic blade as it cut into the water. The old bulky canoe moved up the river like a barnacled whale heading out to sea.

  ‘No, not really. He just – well, he did kind of lose it. Didn’t shout too much, considering. Drank a bit, though. He sat on the end of my bed as though he really didn’t have an answer.’

  ‘An answer to what?’

  Mai stopped and turned around, resting her hand on the deck behind her. Max kept on paddling, staring at her. ‘She’s really beautiful,’ he thought. ‘Why didn’t I notice her before?’

  ‘Answer? Oh, I don’t know. An answer for me. Maybe an answer for himself. He thinks a lot – takes a lot of things to heart.’

  ‘No wonder,’ laughed Mai, turning to her paddling once more.

  A capful of wind helped them along. The air was still crisp enough to chill the tip of your nose. A line of rocks jutted out in a curve. Around the bend the paper mill slid into view, looking stolid and ugly with no hint of the mystery it possessed at night. A gaping drain, big as the mouth at Luna Park, dribbled a constant flow of warm water over a dark green mossy concrete shelf. A rat, furtive and gimlet-eyed, faced their canoe as it passed and then darted back into the cavernous dark of the drainpipe.

  ‘So who’s the man we’re going to see? Is he really a hermit?’

  Mai felt the muscles in her arms warming, her forearms beginning to ache, blood coursing through her veins. She was aware of her arms and shoulders as if she had just discovered them.

  Max stared at her back, her neck. It was good sitting behind her. He could watch for ages, unnoticed.

  ‘I feel as though your eyes are boring into me,’ she said. ‘What are you doing back there?’

  ‘Nothing – just watching the river.’

  There were lies. And then, there were lies.

  ‘Yeah. Nick’s a hermit. But sometimes he’s not there. It’s difficult to know.’

  ‘You weren’t joking, then? What happens to him and his island? Does it disappear or do we have to say a magic spell?’ she said mockingly.

  ‘You’ll see. C’mon, paddle. Otherwise we’ll never get there,’ Max bossed.

  Another bend and there was the island. Plain as day, bathed in more light than Max had ever seen. The canoe slid up onto the sand, the hiss and crunch of the waterlogged gravel disturbing the crows who began cawing like a raucous choir.

  They found Nick mooching around his camp, cradling his little crow. ‘I am this bird’s foster parent,’ he started, as though they had been there for hours.

  ‘Hi, Nick,’ Max said but Mai held back. She cast a look around the camp and the island. ‘This is Mai. Hope you don’t mind. Can’t exactly call you up and let you know that I’d be bringing someone else.’ Then, to state the obvious, ‘She’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘A friend?’ Nick walked over, holding out his hand to Mai. ‘How amazing you are, Max. Fancy paddling with a friend. And what kind of friend are you, Mai? A friend who’s a girl or a girlfriend?’

  Neither spoke nor looked at each other.

  ‘Ah, you don’t know yet,’ Nick grinned and pointed a finger at Max. ‘But I think he is hoping. Here, Mai, come with me. I’ll show you my island.’

  Max had never seen him like this. It was as if Nick had put on the uniform of a tourist guide. The old man took Mai’s arm and guided her along the path, leaving Max to dawdle behind.

  Nick couldn’t stop explaining his theories or his philosophies on life. He pointed out landmarks, explained why he had fences, expounded on his ‘life line’ – a thin steel cable that ran from his island to the trunk of a tree about five metres up the bank. It was his invention, designed to save his life in the event of a flood. He also had a raft made out of remnants of packing boxes that he’d stashed in some bushes. When the waters rose, he intended to stand on his raft and pull himself hand over hand along the rope to safety, well above the flood line.

  Mai murmured encouragement. She was having a lovely time. Max considered returning to the half-dead fire but decided to hang around. When they found themselves at the dilapidated, matchstick jetty the old man turned to him and said, ‘Why don’t you go and make us all a cup of coffee? I’m sure your friend could do with one.’

  This time Nick was a maître d’, ordering his staff around.

  Max felt like pushing the old guy into the water.

  ‘Alright. Would you like one, Mai?’

  She smiled ‘yes’ and almost burst out laughing at Max’s face.

  When he returned, they were still sitting on the end of the jetty, Mai swinging her legs. Nick’s charcoal-black bird hopped around the base of a giant red gum that housed the flock of crows. Fifty of them sat in the branches, watching, making mental notes of scraps and leftovers to be scavenged later. They were more like a tribe than a flock.

  ‘Thank you very much, Max. Most hospitable of you.’

  Now Nick was behaving like the landed gentry treating Max like one of his serfs. He was giving Max the shits. ‘The crow, Mai – it is the most misunderstood bird. Look at them all!’ He pointed to them, jostling for position on the branches, some knocking their blunt- nosed beaks on the wood.

  ‘Some people think the big brown hawk and the wedge-tailed eagle are the birds of spirit. They call the crow a scavenger, a tip bird. I tell you – go to Mount Koscius
ko, to the trails across the highlands. You know what you find? Crows! Wheeling and flapping. You see how they walk – like an old man with arthritis in his hips. They don’t walk as well as other birds. They prefer to fly – and they don’t just flap, flap, flap.’ Nick moved his arms up and down, mimicking the crows. ‘They glide too. What’s more, they do not attack humans. Once I saw, just along up there, a crow snatch a tiger snake swimming across the river. Its little head waggling just above the surface and whack,’ Nick smacked his hands together, ‘the crow has it in its beak. But that is rare, eh, Max?’

  ‘If you say so,’ said Max, swishing a stick in the water.

  Snake-catching crows, he thought. There’s no end to his stories.

  ‘Yes, I do say so,’ Nick was irrepressible. ‘So the crow is the spiritual bird for me. It likes to glide but it knows it has to flap hard sometimes to survive. If crowman survives, then he has the chance to glide – the opportunity, at least. Even my little foster bird might have a chance.’ He threw the dregs of his coffee towards the crippled bird. ‘What about you, Max? Have you been flapping or gliding? How did you do that to your head?’

  Max’s fingertips felt the sewn flesh and the raised red welt. He thought of Fatman, Dave, Lou, Woody, his mother. Pictures of the trestle bridge, the tunnel, abseiling down the face of the school. Suddenly he felt very foolish. So foolish that he wanted to unload his story. Not to impress Mai nor to bring attention to himself. The urge to tell them what had been going on came from somewhere else. He was hoping to find some wisdom to help him back, to help him glide instead of flap.

  So he told them. All of it. The graffiti, the school, the cops, the tunnel, everything – well, nearly everything. He said little about the words on the walls and the Da Vinci man. What could he say about that, when he himself didn’t know where they came from? All the time he spoke, he felt as though he was flapping without direction or purpose.

  The May sun had shifted west, covering the island in mottled shadows. Nick waved goodbye from the tiny beach. The crows squawked above the trees as clouds began to gather. A headwind blew, buffeting the canoe.

  ‘You OK, Max? Thanks for trusting me – and for taking me. You feeling alright?’ Mai kept her head to the front.

  Since telling them almost everything, Max had drawn a protective covering around himself. Spilling his guts had made him feel better and more foolish all at once. ‘I suppose so. I mean, I’m not going to kill myself or anything.’

  ‘It seems like that’s what you’ve been trying to do. Is that what you were trying to do when you went through the tunnel?’

  It was a good question, and made him stop for a minute.

  ‘I’m not sure what I’ve been doing, to tell you the truth. When I did the graffiti, I guess I was doing the things I did with Lou, but they just got out of hand. And the tunnel – it seemed like a good idea at the time. I was angry, all messed up in the head. I just did it, thought it might help.’

  ‘Did it help? Did it make you feel better?’ Mai asked. ‘Y’know Max, I don’t want a dead boyfriend.’

  He stopped paddling and rested his paddle across the deck. ‘Boyfriend?’

  Mai giggled. ‘Sorry. Can’t you take it? Am I being too pushy?’

  ‘No. No!’ He could hardly conceal his delight. ‘It surprised me, that’s all. Boyfriend, eh? Sounds good. Does that make you my girlfriend then?’

  ‘Not if you’re dead, it doesn’t.’

  The canoe moved through the water as sweet as honey.

  ‘Sometimes you feel like you can go forever, all the way down to the Falls,’ Max said.

  ‘Is this where this part ends up?’

  ‘Yep, sure does.’ A crow cawed downstream and a light rain began to fall, pin-pricking the water’s surface.

  ‘It was interesting, that stuff he said about crows,’ Mai was enjoying the rhythm of their movements. ‘My father told me that a crow sat on their boat when they were escaping. Sat on top of the cabin where they steered the boat. He said some people were superstitious, thought the crow was bad luck. But one time they were chased by pirates and the crow flew off. Soon after, the pirate’s boat broke down and they got away.’

  ‘So?’ said Max.

  ‘So the crow came back and they all believed it made the pirate boat break down.’

  ‘Really?’ Max said, feeling a genuine sense of awe. ‘Did your parents come here like that?’

  ‘Yep. Refugee boats and camps in Malaysia – all that. So I suppose I can understand why they want me to do well.’

  ‘A crow?’ mused Max.

  Needles of rain began to fall, soaking their clothes and running down their faces. For years after they would both remember the kiss they gave each other, standing on a pile of muddy autumn leaves as the rain pattered. The canoe resting in the thick dark green creeper that grew along the path.

  They would both remember their bodies’ first touch, that first pressure of breasts and bellies, of mounds and thighs – a kiss that allowed Max to forget for a moment.

  16

  FOR A WEEK OR SO, life became increasingly pleasant. Dave spoke to the principal and the police and officially backed up Max’s story, for which Max was eternally grateful. Woody had been happy since he learnt that he was to visit his mother in the next holidays. Max had spoken to his mum on the phone and, as usual, the conversation had tumbled along nicely.

  ‘No, I don’t think I’ll come up as well. There are a few things I have to do,’ he said.

  ‘Oh. You mean you’ve got a girlfriend?’

  ‘What do you reckon, Mum?’

  Despina came over and cooked a meal. Moussaka and rice in vine leaves. Woody had been disappointed that she was not into bottling jam and wasn’t exactly crazy about ants either. But when she said she would teach him all she knew about Greek cooking, that sealed her place at the table.

  Mai was allowed to go to the movies with Max. He met her father and, although one was extremely uncomfortable and the other, extremely suspicious, Max had managed to appear like a normal, polite young man, not a crazed graffiti artist.

  Max was riding on a smooth spring current.

  An unknown car was parked outside the house. Although the well-cared-for little white car rang some bells.

  Walking in the front door Max heard his father talking to someone in the loungeroom. He saw Dave sit forward, looking intently at whoever.

  Max walked in. A black-haired woman with grey at her roots and temples, dressed in a sensible dark blue work suit, sat opposite Dave. She smiled wanly at Max, dabbing her eyes. Those eyes. Yes, he knew those eyes.

  ‘Mrs Petrocelli,’ Dave said.

  ‘We met once or twice, didn’t we, Max? At home. Not as often as he came here, apparently,’ said the woman.

  Max sat down in an armchair, holding a pillow on his lap. ‘Yes. Hello, Mrs Petrocelli. How are you?’

  Immediately he felt pathetic again. How are you? What was the poor woman supposed to say? I’m terrific, except I’ve just got this little problem of my son killing himself. I’m OK except that I can’t sleep too well because I keep on imagining my boy, all blue in the face, hanging gently in the breeze while emergency crews try to haul him up from dangling in mid-air. What could she possibly answer?

  ‘Not bad,’ she replied, tugging pitifully at her sodden handkerchief. ‘Mr Petrocelli, he didn’t come. Couldn’t. Can’t face it, really. He just sits – doesn’t understand. He’s a good man but he doesn’t talk much. Can’t let it out. But he did do things for the kids – Lou and his sister, when they were little.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Max.

  ‘No. You shouldn’t be sorry – about Lou’s dad, I mean. He never understood Lou or the graffiti and Lou never tried. Well, he wasn’t too talkative himself.’ Mrs Petrocelli smiled bravely. ‘Like father, like son?’

  Dave touched her arm and offered her another cup of tea.

  ‘No, thanks. I really should be going. Thought I should drop over and say thanks for coming t
o the funeral. We saw more of Lou’s friends there than we’d ever seen before. Not that he had many. Although we did meet his girlfriend Mary at one time. She stayed out on the footpath and wouldn’t come in. Lou kind of introduced us from the front porch. She was a strange girl. Looked as skinny as a rake. She paced up and down smoking cigarettes like they kept her going. I found all that very hard too.’

  Lou’s mother caught a sob and swallowed. She turned her head quickly and looked out the window, sitting in a room where her son had once been.

  Max followed her gaze. He saw the little funeral once more. A few kids from school, their year level co-ordinator, a couple of graffiti writers they knew, Mrs Petrocelli, and Mr Petrocelli, all stiff and grey, somehow holding in all that grief that must have been like a wild sea inside him. Lou’s sister wasn’t there and Mary the space cadet couldn’t make it – her next hit was probably more important. The best thing that happened was Woody, who walked over to the grave and threw in a favourite old blanket of his – ‘To keep him warm on his journey,’ he said. Nobody laughed. But in some ways it made as much sense as anything else.

  Lou’s mother stood up. ‘In any case, I shouldn’t keep going on like this. I actually came to give Max something.’ She unclipped her large black handbag and pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘Lou wrote this a couple of years ago. I’m sure you know about it. You were such good friends. He would have liked you to have it. I didn’t get a chance to say anything to you at the funeral. Wasn’t in a good state, really.’

  Max held the leaf of paper in his hands, as though it would dissolve if he clasped it too tightly.

  ‘So there. Drop in if you’re near us sometime. I’d – we’d – love to see you.’

  They said goodbye to her out in the street. Just before she got in, Mrs Petrocelli turned to Max, hesitated, then threw her arms around him, her words coming in great heaving sobs. ‘I don’t understand. It’s not the way it’s meant to be,’ she cried. ‘Parents aren’t supposed to bury their children. It’s meant to be the other way around. If only he’d talked to me – if he had problems or felt worried – that’s what you’re supposed to do, isn’t it, talk to your mother?’