I Am Out With Lanterns

by Emily Gale

  ‘This is Chantal. Chantal, this is my daughter, Adie.’

  Chantal shakes my hand like she’s removing a tissue from a box.

  Dad carries on with a monologue, while he moves the armchair out of the doorway and back into the kitchen, about how he met Chantal (the pub, huge surprise) and what got them talking (she’s a photographer). And then he stops and gets watery-eyed as he says, ‘Adie’s the only one who hasn’t left me.’

  Does that mean Dara has? He hasn’t painted her for so long. Now I guess he’ll paint this keen old crow. Chantal goes to him. They look at each other as if there’s something special between them and I’m a stranger at a bus stop, except they actually just met and this is actually my house and that’s actually my dad. This is how it starts. Woman after woman so far back that I can’t even remember where my mother ended and the next woman began.

  ‘Dad, I need to ask you about something.’

  ‘Can Chantal stay while you ask or is it …’ he whispers, ‘a private matter?’

  Jesus Christ.

  He collapses into the armchair and Chantal staggers over to sit on one side, draping herself over the back of it.

  ‘I need some money, Dad, so I can get to a party tomorrow night with some of my new friends. I had three fifties but they’ve all disappeared.’

  Dad tuts and says to Chantal in a low voice, ‘Dara. Little thief. What did I tell you?’ He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a fat wad of notes. I dread to think where that came from.

  I take what he holds out to me and thank him. When I get to my bedroom, I count it. Three hundred dollars. So that’s fifty for me, and two hundred and fifty to stash in a safe place for when he comes raging at me about needing it back.

  But at least it was Dara who took my babysitting money. I hope she never comes back.

  At half-past eleven, there are noises coming from Dad’s bedroom that make me want to rip off my ears. I walk loudly through the house, out the no-door to the garden, into the studio.

  On the easel is his new portrait. I stand in front of it, in front of her – the artist’s muse. Me. But not-me.

  Early on Saturday, Mum says she’s playing tennis with her friends all day, Dad’s on a site visit and then catching up with ‘the boys’ for golf. Sophie’s being Sophie in her bedroom, with loud music. She’s started to wear a lot of eyeliner and the other day I found my Docs in her room.

  Around ten o’clock the music stops and she barges in. ‘I can hear screaming. I thought it was the song, but … listen …’

  I hear it too – and a man’s voice, shouting. More screaming and yelling.

  Our footsteps pound down the hall towards the front door as the screams continue, punctured by a single word in a different voice: ‘Milo!’

  Wren.

  The latch of their gate won’t open. Sophie’s hand knocks mine out of the way. She opens it and we run down the side of Wren’s house.

  The glass doors are fully open all the way across the living room. Wren has a broom in her hands. Her face is a mask – I’ve never seen her look like that.

  She’s pointing the broom towards the coffee table – a large trunk on wheels – where the dog is cowering. Summer’s on the far side of Wren, gasping, ‘Help us! Do something!’ Cece has her by the shoulders, stopping her from going any closer. I can’t see what’s wrong.

  ‘Snake,’ says Wren.

  Almost camouflaged by the dark grey rug is a tiger snake poking out from underneath the trunk. It’s in between Wren and Bee. The snake slides out a little further to the sound of Summer’s escalating screams. And stops. It must have been sleeping under there. Bee whimpers. She’s a smart dog; she knows danger.

  ‘Should I, Milo?’ says Wren, pretending to stab the snake with the broom.

  I shake my head and put my finger to my lips. She nods. I try to focus. Everyone must keep quiet and still.

  Doug comes limping across the room, wielding a large kitchen knife in his bandaged hand.

  ‘Doug, no!’ I say firmly. ‘Have you been bitten?’ I point at his foot raised off the ground.

  ‘I tripped over a rug a few days ago – this house is jinxed at the moment. Now, move, mate, so I can kill this thing.’

  ‘You can’t. There’s a better way,’ I say. If he were any other dad, I wouldn’t have the guts to say this. But Doug likes me and I like him. ‘Has it bitten Bee?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Wren says.

  Summer’s crying, looking from me to Bee with her hands cupped over her nose and mouth.

  ‘It’s a tiger snake. They bite when they’re scared – don’t use the knife, Doug.’

  ‘But I’ve got to bloody kill it!’

  ‘Just hang on.’

  It’s a fairly small snake for the breed. Female, I think. Lost its way. There are some bulges in its middle – possibly something it’s digesting, possibly babies. Doug moves forward.

  ‘Wait!’ I shout.

  ‘Listen to him, Dad,’ says Wren.

  Doug stands still and nods, but he’s braced to go again. ‘You’ve got ten seconds, mate.’

  Too many bodies in here, too many sounds. I need to think rationally, put everything else behind a wall for now. ‘Summer, you have to be quiet. Everyone, be really quiet.’

  It’s just the sound of our heavy breathing and Bee’s whimpers. The room crackles with fear. The snake hasn’t moved. Sophie’s holding on to the back of my shirt.

  I reach around and take her hand to gently pull her behind me, into the room, so the doorway is clear. ‘Now, step back slowly. Give it room.’ I sense everyone back away, and risk a glance at Bee. She’s looking at me as if she’s realised I’m in charge now. ‘Good dog. Stay.’

  ‘I can’t stand this much longer, mate,’ says Doug. ‘Got to do something. We love that dog.’

  ‘More people get killed by snakes if they go on the attack,’ I tell him. ‘The snake is scared. She needs to find the exit.’

  ‘How do you know it’s a she?’ says Wren.

  ‘Educated guess.’

  ‘Do you actually know what the bloody hell you’re doing, Milo?’ says Doug.

  ‘You know he does, Dad!’ Wren snaps back.

  ‘Okay, okay. Sorry, mate.’

  ‘Stay calm,’ I say. ‘Bee’s nice and still. Good dog.’

  All I need is for the snake to feel the breeze from the wide open doorway. To realise that there is a quick and easy escape.

  Come on.

  Please.

  At the left of my vision looms a dark figure.

  ‘Don’t come in,’ I say, without looking. ‘Snake.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus!’ My dad drops his golf bag in the doorway and draws out a club. ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Don’t be stupid, Milo.’ Dad shoves me in the chest. ‘You’re not a flippin’ snake charmer. Stand back, everyone!’

  He gingerly steps over the doorway. Doug grabs the broom out of Wren’s hands and both men advance. The dog starts barking and I try to yell at the dads not to hit the snake, but the noise in the room has started up again. I put my hands over my ears. There’s a stone in my belly telling me the moment has slipped out of my control, there’s no getting it back. Wren looks at me, one hand on her forehead.

  I can’t give up, because it’s her.

  Seconds later there’s a yell of pain. Panic explodes, hitting every wall. I reach for a nearby phone and run outside to the garden. I wait for the voice of the operator as the snake slides over Dad’s golf bag and straight past me, six feet away, through the long grass.

  A glimpse of the tip of her tail as she disappears through a hole in the back fence, and she’s gone.

  The room is still in turmoil. I talk myself through things to keep out the noise and stay in control – you know what to do, you know the answers. I’m rocking slightly back and forth from one leg to the other. Dad doesn’t like it when I do these things in public, but I have no choice. It feels like I’m underwater and the phrases
I can hear are bits of detritus floating around me.

  Are you bleeding?

  I’ll get some hot water.

  I read somewhere that you suck out the venom.

  Let’s get them onto the lounge.

  I finally snap to the moment. ‘Don’t do any of that!’ The correct rules scroll in my head. Do not wash the area. Do not suck out the venom. Immobilise. Stop lymphatic spread. Bandage. Splint.

  Wren crouches next to me. ‘What do you want me to do, Milo?’

  ‘I need bandages. And I really need them all to shut up.’

  Wren delivers on both counts and I get to work.

  The paramedics arrive in minutes. Heavy boots cross the floor and the weight of the room seems to ground itself too.

  ‘This your son?’ one of them says to my dad. He hasn’t said a word since it happened. ‘The boy’s done a good job here. Now, let’s get you blokes to hospital and have you properly checked out.’

  The dads are lifted into the ambulance. Us four kids stand at Wren’s gate. Cece pauses, one foot on the first step going up to the ambulance. She’s looking at her house.

  ‘What, Mum?’ says Wren.

  Cece shakes her head. ‘Second time in a week we’ve called triple-O, that’s all.’ She climbs into the ambulance. After the doors close, it pulls away.

  Wren links her arm through mine, and Summer puts her arm around Sophie. I take my first deep breath since Sophie ran into my bedroom.

  ‘Will they be okay?’ says Summer. Her breath is still shaky. I think that question was for me.

  ‘Snakes don’t really want to bite humans. They do it when they have to. They’re nowhere near Australia’s most deadly animal; they just have the worst reputation.’

  ‘That’s not what she asked, Milo.’ Wren squeezes my arm. ‘Are our dads going to be okay?’

  ‘Sorry, I was getting to that. When snakes bite defensively, they don’t always use venom. That’s what the hospital will be looking for. If there’s no venom, they’re okay; and if there is, I think they’ve got them in early enough. So, I’d say that, all things considered … yes. They’re going to be okay.’

  The house feels different when Summer and I walk back in, as if the walls hold the aftershock of what just happened.

  Bee goes from room to room sniffing the ground. Summer follows, looking into every crevice. Milo says he saw the snake leave, so that’s good enough for me. He and Sophie are riding their bikes to the high street to find Julie because she’s not answering her phone and the tennis club said she hadn’t been there all day.

  ‘Do you feel like getting out of here?’ I ask Summer.

  ‘I want to wait for Mum to call.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s called a mobile for a reason.’

  ‘The band’s coming over as well. Stay here, Wren.’

  ‘I can’t breathe. This place is making me restless. I’ll go to the river or something.’

  ‘Don’t! There are hundreds of snakes by the river.’

  ‘And there always have been. We hang out there all the time; I’ve never seen a single snake.’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  ‘You think I’m going to be attacked by a snake on the same day that Dad was? Not very logical.’ She shrugs and looks sweet and sad. ‘I’ll be fine, Summer.’

  We worry about each other in a way that we never did when Floyd was alive. If anything, back then we wanted to kill each other. Or maybe that was just me.

  I go upstairs to get a hat and sunnies from my room. I don’t know where I’ll go, but it feels better to have a purpose even if it’s only to get away. Adie catches my eye from her spot on the wall. I stop what I’m doing. What is it? I ask her.

  At first I walk one of Milo’s routes, but at a junction I choose an unfamiliar turning. And after that, more deliberately, I make turns into roads I don’t know. They’re only safe, suburban roads, but I like this feeling.

  Up ahead there’s a church and a group of people standing outside. We’ve never been a church family, but I always thought church was on Sundays, so maybe it’s a wedding or a funeral. I stop for a moment when I recognise someone in the crowd: Hari. She’s standing with a much shorter woman, dark-haired and striking like Hari but very conventional – I’m guessing it’s her mum. I think Hari sees me, so I slow down, hoping she’ll break away from the crowd to speak to me. Instead she turns a little so that I can no longer see her face.

  After that, being out of place feels more like hard work. The sun’s too intense; I’m anxious about Dad. I head into a rundown newsagency with a large, bright fridge near the entrance and a shopful of gloom that seems to extend back to infinity. I stand too long with the fridge door open, trying to cool myself down, and find a drink that costs less than the four dollars twenty I have in my purse.

  ‘Can you close that, please?’

  I squint towards the back of the shop for where the voice came from. To my surprise, my eyes lock onto Adie’s. There’s a moment that feels like everything’s stopped, until she moves back and there’s another figure behind the shop counter.

  ‘I said can you close it, please?’ says the woman.

  ‘Sorry.’ I take out a can of lemonade and hold it to my chest, which is thudding like a bloody kick drum. Adie has her back to me and she’s paying the woman. She might not recognise me from school – and if she does she’ll probably walk right past me and carry on with her day – but this is my chance, isn’t it? I looked at the portrait on my way out and now here she is. The universe doesn’t line up things like this to have you ignore them.

  She takes her change and turns.

  ‘Hi, hey,’ I say. Which is the worst. But she smiles.

  ‘Hey. English class.’

  ‘Right.’

  Nobody moves. Including the woman behind the counter.

  ‘Um, I’ll just pay,’ I say, walking past Adie, hoping with every single cell that she doesn’t leave. I fumble with the coins and drop a fifty-cent piece. The woman holds out her hand and gives me a look I’ve seen hundreds of times. Evidently not a huge fan of goth. Too bad.

  Adie’s still there.

  ‘So, you live around here?’ I ask.

  ‘Pretty close. You?’

  ‘Not really. Well, not that far.’

  ‘I was looking for an op shop – are there any good ones close by?’

  ‘I know a great one. Hang on, let me check where we are.’ Google Maps says it’s twenty minutes away. ‘It’s a bit of a walk but worth it. I don’t think I can describe how to get there, but I could come with you.’

  ‘That’s okay, I don’t want to be a pain.’

  ‘You’re not. I love the op shop. I go there all the time.’

  ‘You’ve probably got other stuff on.’

  ‘I’m waiting for a call, but I’m trying to keep busy. Trust me, you’re doing me a favour.’

  We’re quiet, walking along the river path. It’s like dancing to a new song; I don’t know our rhythm. Adie seems shy, which I didn’t expect.

  ‘So are you from Melbourne?’ I say.

  ‘Not sure, really. I’ve always thought of this as home. But I’ve been away for such a long time. Europe for years and then Tassie. Since we’ve been back, I’m always trying to remember if I’ve been to this or that place before.’

  ‘How long were you gone?’

  ‘About nine years. I thought I’d remember more. But I just remember all kinds of irrelevant stuff.’

  ‘Memory’s pretty random, especially when you do a big move. I’m from London.’

  ‘I could tell. Your accent.’

  ‘Oh, sometimes I forget that bit.’

  We look at each other and laugh a little.

  ‘So is Melbourne home now?’ she asks.

  ‘I can’t tell. In some ways it is. Like, the longer I’m here, the more I can forget that this isn’t where I’ve spent most of my life. But then something will happen that reminds me I’m out of place.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Don’
t laugh … but the other day we watched a TV show that was set in the English countryside, and the second I saw the green fields I felt tears welling in my eyes.’

  She giggles.

  ‘And I’m not even from the bloody countryside!’

  She thinks I’m funny. Her smile is ludicrous. This is more than a crush; it’s a spell.

  At the op shop, Adie is a pro, like that woman Milo told me about who found twenty-one four-leaf clovers in her backyard. She finds two pairs of black jeans that fit her perfectly, shoes in her size that look like they’ve never been worn, and two books she’s been desperate to read for ages. One of the books is The Bell Jar. I’m dying here; she’s perfect. I follow in her wake, unable to concentrate on anything except what she’s doing.

  In the coats aisle, Adie lifts out a moss-green velvet jacket, size fourteen: my size. ‘This would look amazing on you.’

  I watch my hand go into one sleeve. Adie brings the other side around me and my back feels the skim of a light shiver. The sleeves have a satin lining. Some of the seams are frayed and the second button is loose, but it fits perfectly. But …

  ‘It’s not me,’ I say.

  ‘Up to you.’ She drifts away from the coat rack. I follow past the clothes section and into the general junk. There are golf sets, cooking pots, highchairs and a whole tub of telephones from back when people had landlines. Who’s going to want those now? The shelves are crammed with junk and, by the way Adie picks through everything, I’m sure she’s done this a thousand times before.

  ‘Must be weird coming back to a place you lived in for almost as long as you were away,’ I say. ‘There’s not much of my life on this side of the world. All my memories of being a kid are thousands of miles away.’

  ‘That’s how I feel.’ She stops browsing suddenly, like she’s touched something hot. There’s a stack of framed pictures leaning against the wall. The one in front is a picture of a child around five years old. The child is crying and her eyes are so sad. It’s instantly unnerving.