by John Larkin
‘You want cats to think the gnomes are people?’
‘Why not? It works for crows.’
Eric had always thought his father was a strange man. At least now he had concrete proof.
‘Okay, where is it?’ yelled Eric at anyone who happened to be in the lounge room after he had finished slamming the front door.
‘Don’t come in here slamming doors and yelling at people, Eric!’ said Mrs Underwood.
‘Mrs Suede just told me that Iggy wrote me another letter.’
‘No! He only sent you one letter. Old Rainbow-Fish must have been confused. She’s good at that.’
‘He wrote another letter as well to tell me that he wouldn’t be coming home ever again.’
Suddenly Mrs Underwood understood Eric’s anger.
‘Somebody has read my letter and hidden it from me.’
Mrs Underwood, Eric, Jenny and Paul all had their own ideas just who that somebody was.
‘Have you got Eric’s letter, Jenny?’ Mrs Underwood was taking the bull by the horns.
‘So what if I have? It’s only from that weirdo Iggy Suede.’
‘You’re the one who’s weird, you grease sniffing bush pig! Iggy’s really intelligent and stuff.’
‘Yeah right, and I’ll get you for what you just said, Spaghetti Legs. Anyway, Mum,’ said Jenny, turning away from her seething brother, ‘Eric read my diary.’
‘This is different. Eric’s friend has written what is obviously a very important letter. You on the other hand leave your diary around for everybody to read.’
‘Read it have you, Mum?’ said Jenny sarcastically.
‘Don’t be smart with me, girl! As big as you are I can still put you over my knee,’ said Mrs Underwood, resorting to a bit of postwar childrearing philosophy. ‘Get to your room! And give Eric his letter!’
Neither Eric nor his mother trusted Jenny on this issue so they followed her as far as the hallway.
‘Here’s your stupid letter, loser.’
Eric snatched the letter from Jenny’s hand, but she kept quite a tight hold, so all he was able to snatch was half of it.
The years of being picked on, abused and generally ignored by Jenny welled up inside him. His blood boiled, his nostrils flared, he carefully drew back his fist and clobbered her.
It was one of those punches that starts at your ankles, makes its way over your head and usually lands nowhere near its intended victim who, by this time, has usually walked away. But Eric wasn’t so lucky. It whizzed past Jenny’s chin, but the immense follow-through got his father right in the gut. He’d wandered in from the garden to see what all the racket was about and went down like a sack of potatoes.
‘I hate all of you,’ yelled Eric gathering up his shredded letter from the floor. He charged into his room and slammed the door behind him, breaking the loudest door-slam record previously held by Jenny.
‘What was all that about?’ asked Mr Underwood, not unreasonably. He’d arrived latest on the scene and come off worst.
‘Let’s go into the lounge room for a chat, shall we?’ he said to the rest of the family. ‘You too, Jenny!’
‘No way, I’m going out with Stevo.’ And with this Jenny charged into her room, picked up her bag and raced outside just as Stevo the Rev came screeching around the corner.
When Stevo’s Monaro could no longer be seen or (more importantly) heard, Mr and Mrs Underwood went into the kitchen and made a cup of tea in an attempt to calm themselves down.
‘I feel really sorry for Eric,’ said Mrs Underwood.
‘Why?’
‘He broke up with his girlfriend, Ian’s family have moved and left no forwarding address, and now he’s just found out that Iggy’s not coming home.’
‘I never knew he even had a girlfriend.’
‘Yeah. She’s called Sunflower Fox.’
‘The old son of a gun,’ said Mr Underwood, giving his ego a pat on the head.
‘He didn’t talk about her much. Well, you know what Jenny’s like.’
‘I certainly do.’
‘Anyway, she’s going to a different high school, so that’s that I’m afraid.’
‘Well, he’ll meet lots of new girls at Pendle Hill.’
‘I know, but he’s had his heart broken and on top of that he’s lost his two best friends.’
‘I think sometimes we forget the little guy. Well, I know I do.’
‘Me too. I think we spoil Jenny because she’s the eldest and Paul because he’s the baby. Poor old Eric often gets left to do his own thing.’
‘What can we do?’
‘Well for a start we can make him a big gooey chocolate cake.’
‘That won’t solve his problems.’
‘No, but it might cheer him up a bit.’
So as Mr and Mrs Underwood busied themselves cracking eggs and whipping cream, Eric read Iggy’s sticky-taped letter, secure in the knowledge that his outburst had ensured him, amongst other things, at least a bit of privacy.
In the letter Iggy told Eric all about his plans and how he didn’t mean to deceive him. He was doing it for his mother, who had once been a promising young author but was now forty going on sixty. Iggy promised to keep in touch, gave Eric his address in London, and asked him to pass on his best wishes to his family and Ian.
Eric would have liked to pass on many things to Ian, including his own address, but the logistics of the whole business were beyond him at this stage. He’d looked in the white pages under the heading Champion, but according to Telecom they were still residents of Toongabbie. Maybe they’d be in the next directory.
At least he had Iggy’s address so he’d be able to write often.
A couple of hours later Eric’s parents came into his room. He looked up from the book he was reading and saw them standing over him with a huge chocolate cake. Paul was hovering in the background, obviously hoping for a piece.
‘What’s this for? It’s not my birthday.’
‘We know you’ve had a bit of a hard time of it lately, and we haven’t always been there for you,’ said his mother.
Eric wanted to cry. Instead he said, ‘Thanks, I’ll come out for some later.’
As far as Eric was concerned the school holidays were over the day he found out that Iggy wasn’t coming back. After that he’d spent the last week of the summer vacation listening to his walkman and playing computer games. He only left the house twice. The first was when he went for a ride around to his auntie’s house for a scone attack, and the other was for a visit to the creek.
In a moment of total boredom he’d wandered down to the creek for old time’s sake. But it had changed. It was no longer full of secret places and interesting insects. It was now just a storm-water outflow. Part of his past now, he wanted nothing more to do with it. He was about to turn around and wander back home when he saw a puff of smoke halfway down the bank. Eric wasn’t sure whether Billy Nelson and Greg Fern knew about Iggy’s departure but he wasn’t taking any chances and overtook the milk truck hurrying to get back home.
On the last Sunday morning before school started back, Eric was woken by his sister’s sobbing. Still with his doona wrapped around him, he staggered out to the lounge room. ‘What’s the matter with Jenny, Dad?’
‘She’s broken up with Stevo. Didn’t you hear all the racket last night?’
‘No.’
Jenny and Stevo had called it quits around midnight the previous night. Jenny wanted more from the relationship than drag races and drive-ins. Stevo just wanted more of Jenny.
After slamming the Monaro’s door shut, Stevo screeched up and down the street just to let everyone know who they were dealing with. Unfortunately he chose to do this in an area where the Neighbourhood Watch was highly motivated, thoroughly trained and heavily financed, coming under the expert guidance of retired army officer, Colonel Loader. In next to no time the negotiating team had Stevo sitting in the gutter crying his eyes out without needing to bring in the helicopter or the dog squad at a
ll.
‘Good morning, Eric.’ Mrs Underwood was coming out of Jenny’s room.
‘Is Jenny okay?’
‘Yeah, she’ll get over it. She’s not going back to tech though.’
‘What’s she gonna do, Mum?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you go and see her?’
‘No way. I’m not going into the dragon’s lair.’
‘Go on, she’d like to see you.’
‘Are you kidding? Is she sick or something?’
‘Eric, go and see your sister!’
‘Okay, Dad. But if she kills me, it’s your fault.’
Eric nervously tiptoed towards Jenny’s bedroom like a mouse approaching a home for stray cats. Normally to be caught in Jenny’s room would be punishable by death. But these were not normal times. His sister was hurting, and having felt the icy hand of separation three times himself these holidays, he wanted to help.
He gently prodded the door open and half expected a pride of lions to leap on him. He even considered taking a chair in with him to help fend her off. But there was not even a whimper coming from the sad creature lying hurt underneath the covers.
‘Hi, Jenny.’
‘What do you want, Eric? Come to gloat have you?’ Her tone was harsh but lacked its usual sting.
‘No I just wanted to see if you’re okay.’ He was going to say something about Stevo the Rev being a complete and utter moron but, as he was new to this situation, wisely decided to keep his foot out of his mouth. If there was going to be any abusing done, Jenny should be the one to do it. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘No thanks.’ Jenny turned towards him and Eric could see she was hugging her Sweepy Bear that she’d been given for her first birthday. ‘You never liked Stevo did you?’
‘He was okay.’
‘Oh come on Eric! Your nose is getting bigger.’
‘Well he left me at the shops that time.’ Eric was referring to the time that he and Jenny caught a train in to Parramatta to do their Christmas shopping. They’d bumped into Stevo the Rev at McDonald’s. He wasn’t Christmas shopping but generally hanging out. He’d given Jenny a lift home but Eric had to catch a train on account of Stevo having Mr Sheened the back seat the week before.
‘I guess that was pretty slack.’
‘I got over it. You’re not going back to tech?’
‘You must be kidding, I failed grease and oil change one.’
‘What are you gunna to do?’
‘Dunno. I’m thinking of going back to school.’
‘Yeah that’d be great. We’d be at the same school.’
‘Of course it does have its drawbacks.’
‘Would you repeat year eleven or would you be able to catch up?’
‘I think I’d be able to catch up.’
‘Yeah your three unit needlework class couldn’t have moved too far ahead,’ said Eric, finding another use for one of his father’s priceless quotes.
‘Eric?’
‘What?’
‘You stink.’
‘So what, you caused it.’
‘Come here, Eric!’
‘Why?’
‘I want to give you a hug.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘Yes you do.’
As Eric hugged his sister he had never felt so close to her in all his life, and had to work hard to fight back a tear. The honk of a car horn caused them to separate.
‘Who’s that?’ Eric immediately knew that it wasn’t Stevo. It was a simple honk, not the sound of a reggae band coming from under the bonnet.
‘It’s probably the puke police coming to arrest us for being so schmaltzy.’ Jenny was not normally given to emotional displays amongst the family, but her reply made Eric smile.
‘Oh no. It’ll be Mrs Suede. She asked me if I wanted to see her off at the airport.’
‘How will you get home?’
‘She’s paying for a taxi.’ And with that Eric bolted out of Jenny’s lair and quickly threw on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.
‘Eric, take a jumper with you. It gets cold at the airport.’
‘It doesn’t get cold at the airport, Mum. You just say it gets cold everywhere.’
‘Take a jumper Eric, just for our sake,’ said his father.
‘Okay but not the one with sheep on it.’
‘What’s wrong with the one with sheep on it? It used to be your favourite.’
‘Yeah, Mum, when I was five: I’m almost thirteen now. The sheep one’s embarrassing.’
Mrs Underwood disappeared into Eric’s bedroom and came back with a jumper that had moo cows and horses on it. Eric felt that his mother had missed the point but took the jumper anyway as Mrs Suede was going to wear the horn out any minute.
On the way to the airport Eric chatted non-stop about Mrs Suede and Iggy’s new life in London and how he looked forward to visiting one day. For once Mrs Suede shared Eric’s enthusiasm and talked eagerly about the novel that she’d started work on since they’d last spoken. She looked about ten years younger.
Eric had a question about Mrs Suede’s car slowly formulating in his head. But when they got to the airport car park, Mrs Suede got her luggage out of the boot, threw the keys into some bushes and simply abandoned it.
‘I was wondering what you were going to do with it,’ said Eric.
‘I’d give it to your sister but it failed rego a couple of years ago and I haven’t really bothered with it since. And besides it only has first and fourth gears.’
‘Is that why we were jumping around so…’
‘Yeah, is your neck okay?’
‘I’ll put some Dencorub on it when I get home.’
The airport was weird. It was mostly people arriving, people leaving, people crying, and people consuming vast amounts of alcohol. Eric couldn’t quite work out the connection, but he was fairly confident that the people crying were the ones who weren’t actually going anywhere.
After kissing Mrs Suede goodbye and making her promise to make Iggy write, Eric bought himself a family block of dark chocolate, went out onto the observation deck and fell in love.
Standing out on the tarmac with its four engines purring and a big kangaroo on its tail was Eric’s future. Although his parents had once taken him to see his English grandparents, he was only two years old at the time and could not remember. As far as he was concerned this was the first time he’d seen a 747 up close.
His eyes panted, his tongue watered, and while his body was obviously in a confused state his mind was functioning perfectly as he looked in awe at the machine he swore that one day he’d pilot.
Eric didn’t care if people laughed at him when he put on his horse and cow jumper. And although it was freezing cold out on the observation deck, he just wanted to be left alone with his future.
He spent the next hour watching various arrivals and departures and when Mrs Suede’s plane taxied out a few minutes later he gave it only a cursory wave as there was another bigtop on its final approach.
Eric arrived home quite late in the afternoon. He’d rung home earlier and said that Mrs Suede’s plane had been delayed and that he wanted to wait until it had taken off. The truth being though that Mrs Suede was probably halfway to Singapore by the time he waved to his last plane and jumped into a taxi. Eric had to show the driver Mrs Suede’s thirty dollars before he would agree to take him anywhere.
After Eric had finished telling the family all about the planes and how he intended to become a pilot, he was immediately jerked out of his aviation heaven in no uncertain terms.
‘Eric can you try and make your pyjamas last a bit longer? I seem to be washing a set every other day.’
‘Yes, Dad.’ Eric immediately slunk off to his room. He’d dreamt about Liz the night before and it had happened again.
‘Roger? Did you say you were washing a pair of Eric’s pyjamas every second day?’
‘Well almost. Why?’
‘Well maybe it’s because…’ Eric didn’t h
ear the rest of what his mother said because he’d closed the door and was busy looking for a hole to die in.
Eric was surprised five minutes later when his father came into his bedroom. ‘You know what I was saying before about making your pyjamas last? Well, forget it. Put as many in the wash as you like. In fact I don’t think you’ve got enough. There’s some on special at Big W at the moment and I’ll buy you ten new pairs if you like.’
‘Okay thanks, Dad.’
‘Yeah. You put a couple of pairs into the wash each day if you like. Five, six, eight pairs, it doesn’t matter to me or your mother.’ His father had quite clearly lost it.
Eric couldn’t understand what was behind his father’s anxiety. He was just glad that whatever it was he appeared to be off the pyjama hook.
With the load of damp pyjamas lifted from his mind, Eric opened his curtains and jumped onto his bed. He had a wonderfully relaxed nap, his body bathed in glorious sunshine.
The Underwood household was chaotic at the best of times, but reached new levels of bedlam on the first morning of the new school year.
‘Have you got your paste, Eric?’
‘Mum, I’m going to high school. I won’t be needing any paste.’
‘What about your crayons?’
‘I’ve got them.’
‘Mum, where’s my Snoopy drink bottle?’
‘In the freezer, Paul. You don’t need it yet. C’mon, Jenny, get up! You don’t want to be late on your first day back.’
‘Don’t I?’ said the half-person-half-doona from the second bedroom.
‘Roger, can you help? At least get Paul sorted out and put the kettle on!’ said Mrs Underwood to her husband.
‘Okay, Beth. Give me a broom and I’ll sweep the floor as I’m walking around as well.’
Eventually some order was dragged from the chaos and the three Underwood children, who were all at their own educational crossroads, were despatched to their various schools.
Eric’s parents had taken the day off work to get him started at high school, and Paul at kindergarten. Jenny decided not to accept the offered ride and had chosen to walk, feeling that to be seen arriving at school with the oldies would bring mega embarrassment.