The Whole Bright Year

by Debra Oswald

  After Sheena had broken up with The Dickless Wonder for the last time, she’d returned to Sydney and collected her mail that was supposed to have been forwarded. Most of the envelopes had little holes where snails had chewed the paper while the mail sat in the letterbox for too long. There was nothing from Kieran – not that she had any reason to expect he’d suddenly take up letter-writing. Or that he’d want to make contact with his bitch sister at all.

  She had landed a factory job in Blacktown, filling shampoo bottles. It was as boring as batshit, but then again it was probably wise to take a break from dealing with the public. Sheena had always been good at reeling in work and earning her own money. This time she was determined not to repeat past patterns by also reeling in a boyfriend who would happily sponge off her earnings.

  Then two days ago, she received word that some guy was trying to track her down, phoning various places she’d lived, leaving messages. When she rang back the number, it turned out the guy looking for her was Joe.

  ‘How are you, Sheena?’ he said, putting the beers on the table between them.

  ‘Okay. I was up the Gold Coast for a few months. Back here now.’

  Joe drew breath to ask Sheena a follow-up question. She didn’t want him to feel obliged to make chat and show some phoney interest in her life, so she quickly said, ‘How’s Celia going?’

  ‘Not good.’

  That poor woman must be going mental. Joe had explained on the phone that Zoe was still missing, with no calls, no messages, nothing.

  ‘Have you had any contact with Kieran?’ Joe asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘If he does contact you, I hope you’ll —’

  Sheena jumped in, ‘Yeah, der – course I’d let Celia know straight away.’ She was offended he thought she was the kind of low-life who didn’t care enough about people to do the right thing.

  ‘Yes, yes, I know you would,’ said Joe. ‘I was going to say, I hope you’ll let me know if I can help. If Kieran needs legal advice, call me.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ Sheena could feel herself stuck in guarded mode and her voice came out sharper than it should. ‘Don’t feel like you owe me anything.’

  ‘Your brother might need help. I’m able to offer some. That’s all.’

  ‘Okay. Thanks.’ Sheena felt like an idiot. She’d forgotten about Joe’s nice-guy manners and she had slapped his kindness away ungraciously. She should stop doing that.

  There was an awkward silence, which Joe filled by saying something even more awkward. ‘Heather – my wife – she and I have separated. I’ve moved out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It was a long time coming, really.’

  ‘Fair enough. Still, I’m sorry if the thing with you and me – y’know . . .’

  ‘Please don’t worry. It wasn’t your fault in any way. I would say the thing that galvanised my decision to let the marriage go was – well, part of it was listening to the mean-spirited way Heather spoke about Celia. She was gloating about her suffering, you know? Being judgemental and uncharitable about it. I couldn’t stand hearing it. And I couldn’t stand being married to someone who speaks like that about people.’

  ‘Sure, I get you,’ said Sheena. She took a punt that a sly comment might be allowed at this point. ‘Roza would be stoked to know you share her opinion – about Heather being a hard-hearted witch.’

  Joe laughed. ‘Ooh yeah, Mum would love to hear me say that.’

  They both smiled and it suddenly felt intimate between them, there in that grotty pub. It struck Sheena that he’d asked to meet because he wanted to pursue something with her. She was thrown off balance, trying to decipher her own feelings about this prospect. But before she had a chance to think, Joe changed gear, getting down to the real reason he was here.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I’m planning to stay in Sydney for a while. See if I can find any trace of Zoe. Any information is going make things easier – easier for Celia.’

  She heard the way he said the name, concentrating all his energy and yearning into the word ‘Celia’, and it was instantly clear he had no interest in Sheena beyond a kind regard. She registered a flicker of disappointment in herself. Surprising. In some pathetic back pocket of her mind, she must have nursed a fantasy about being with someone like this man. But a second later any soppy disappointment was cauterised – Sheena knew how the world worked and her place in it.

  Looking at Joe sitting in front of her now, Sheena was sure the guy was helplessly in love with Celia. He loved that woman without any expectation she would ever love him back. And he would do anything to save her from suffering. Someone in the world looking out for you – everyone wanted that.

  ‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up about finding Zoe,’ Sheena said. ‘Seems like she doesn’t want to be found. But look, I can check out the palaces my brother crashes in.’

  ‘Thanks, Sheena. I really appreciate it. I’m working out of an office in town for a while.’ Joe passed her a card with a Sydney phone number on it. ‘You can always leave a message for me here and I’ll call you back.’

  It took Sheena a few days, several annoying phone calls, two trains and one bus trip to track her mother down. When she found the place, she had to check the address on the piece of paper. No way her scrag of a mother could be living in this posh suburban pile with its ostentatious portico. It was in a cul-de-sac of equally grandiose, recently built houses, all the construction so new and fake, you could smell the concrete and glue and paint.

  When Sheena’s mother opened the front door, she appeared startled to see her eldest child and only daughter standing there.

  ‘Oh . . . uh . . . oh,’ she mumbled. The woman had never had a lot going on in the social-skills department.

  ‘G’day, Dawn,’ said Sheena. From the age of six, Sheena had called her mother by her first name. She’d never acted like a ‘mum’, so there was no way Sheena was going to offer up that word.

  The two women didn’t hug or kiss. Dawn had always been keen to paw and be pawed by whichever man she was with at the time, but she’d not been much of a cuddler of her children. And Sheena figured it would be hypocritical to introduce physical affection into the equation now.

  ‘Can I come in?’ Sheena asked.

  Dawn laughed nervously and wiggled her head in a little display of I’ve forgotten my manners. ‘Yeah, yeah, come inside. Just a shock to see you here. Come in.’

  Sheena was surprised Dawn looked so pulled together. Her hair was bleached to a brittle frost but with no dark roots showing, and it was smoothly brushed. She was wearing make-up – even home alone in the daytime. Sure, the foundation was too thick, slapped on with a trowel, and someone should’ve told her to go easy on the clumpy coats of mascara and shiny pale lipstick. But still, she was making an effort.

  Sheena followed her mother into the house. Dawn was wearing mauve velour pants that snugly packaged her bum, and a tight embroidered top that showed off the fact that she had a neat little waist. Sheena knew Dawn’s figure was more or less identical to the body shape Sheena herself walked around in. It was upsetting to face the biological link to this person. She hated the idea there was shared genetic code ticking away in her body.

  Inside, there was a lot of reproduction French-polished furniture, gilt-framed mirrors, stiffly upholstered chairs, velvet curtains with tassels. The kind of interior design that says, Did you not know I’m a duchess? Hanging over the main living room was a chandelier. A chande-fucking-lier.

  Sheena would hate to live in a place like this but even so, it annoyed the shit out of her that Dawn had scored this house. How was it right that her mother had stumbled her way to a cosy deal after creating so much havoc and populating the world with her screwed-up children?

  ‘Let’s not sit in here. When I’m in here I always feel . . .’ Dawn shrugged. She was never good at retrieving words, on account of marinating her brain in booze for too many years.

  Sheena finished the thought for her. ‘You always feel like
you’ve got a stick up your bum.’

  Dawn giggled at that. A woman of forty-six, mother of five, giggling like a brainless schoolgirl.

  She led the way through the vast new kitchen and waved her hand at the fridge. ‘Can I get you anything?’

  How about a decent childhood? Sheena thought, but she didn’t say it aloud.

  ‘Nothing for me, thanks,’ she said.

  Dawn ushered Sheena into the casual living room at the rear of the house, where the decor suddenly morphed into modern and space-agey with a white leather sofa, chrome-and-glass tables, white shag rugs and huge sliding doors opening onto a patio and a lawn so newly laid you could still see the squares of turf.

  ‘Fuck me dead, Dawn. You landed on your feet here.’

  Dawn giggled. ‘I know! Oh, but probably won’t be here long. Sal says – oh, Sal’s the guy I’m . . .’

  ‘The latest guy you’ve found to make all your dreams come true?’

  Dawn registered the sour note in Sheena’s voice – the woman was dim, but not that dim – but she ignored it, to avoid getting more of a mouthful from her daughter. ‘Sal’s in the building trade. Once he gets the right price for this place, we’ll be moving.’

  Sheena nodded and scanned the property, as if doing her own quick real-estate valuation. Dawn was looking over at her through mascara-clumped eyelashes, wary. Sheena knew her mother was worried she was going to blame her for something or ask something of her. And it was true that Sheena’s guts were clenched for a fight. She could envisage how the scene would go: her snarling abuse about Dawn’s selfishness, while her mother spluttered out justifications, scrunching up her face tightly, as if that could stop Sheena’s words going into her brain.

  For the moment, Sheena controlled her tongue and asked, ‘Do you know where Kieran is?’

  ‘No clue. You’d be more likely to know than anyone else in this family.’

  ‘And why would that be, do you reckon?’ snapped Sheena.

  ‘Yes, okay, Sheena. Oh . . . but there’s something here I should . . .’

  Dawn moved across the room to a buffet where there was a pile of loose papers and mail. She stumbled a little in her rainbow-stripe heeled slippers, maybe because the tiles were polished to a treacherous gloss. But then Sheena saw her mother reach out to steady herself on the edge of the buffet – the kind of fake casual manoeuvre people use to hide their pissed condition. It was eleven in the morning and the woman had already been into the Bacardi or whatever was her current drink of choice.

  Then Sheena noticed the marks on her mother’s upper arm – finger marks from being yanked around by a big builder’s paw. And there was bruising across her cheek, which explained why Dawn was wearing so much foundation.

  Traditionally, Sheena would have used the bruises as a cue to lay into Dawn about her stupid life management. But she felt too tired to crank up that speech, so tired she even felt a glimmer of pity for this floundering woman who happened to have given birth to her.

  Sheena decided to give herself and Dawn a break by not launching into that argument today.

  Dawn waved a piece of notepaper with a cartoon kitten on the top. ‘A cop rang here looking for you.’

  ‘For me?’

  ‘The police found your car. Out Dural way, where those five-acre places are. The guy said it’d been stripped.’

  ‘Well, Kieran had my car. Did the cops say what happened?’

  ‘No. They asked me a lot of questions about Kieran, but said they want to talk to him. He’s in some trouble, I think.’ Dawn did an apologetic wince, as if the duty to do something helpful about her son’s fucked-up life was a minor task she had naughtily neglected.

  In that moment, Sheena could easily have reached across to grab one of the glass-and-chrome side-tables and smash it over Dawn’s head until her mother’s blood spattered out all over the white tiles. But what would be the point.

  Dawn held out the notepaper. ‘There’s the number of the cop, anyway. I suppose you should ring them. Oh, wait, let me just . . .’ She scribbled something next to the cartoon kitten. ‘And this is our number at this place. Oh, but, y’know . . . I don’t know how long we’re gonna be here.’

  Sheena took the notepaper with her mother’s temporary phone number, and the number of the policeman searching for her brother. That was the nearest the woman could come to maintaining connection with her offspring.

  ‘Ta,’ said Sheena, as she pushed the note into her pocket.

  Roza walked along a corridor of sunlight on her way up to Celia’s house. The way the light fell between the trees around midday at this time of year, this section of the path was always a warm patch. She was carrying a paprika-chicken dish in a round earthenware pot covered with aluminium foil. It felt heavy and she looked down at the loose skin on her chickeny wrists. She did not enjoy being so woefully old.

  Passing close by the cabin in the orchard, Roza heard a small clunk, followed by a louder clunk. She stopped still, to hush the crunching of her shoes on the winter-dry grass. She waited, listening for more odd sounds, but it was quiet except for the swish of the windbreak pines. ‘The dementia is getting you now, old chicken,’ she said to herself.

  Then, as she reached the garden of Celia’s house, Roza looked behind her and caught a flash of blue in the orchard, near the shack. Either someone was down there or her mind had slipped off the rails. She put the earthenware pot down on the edge of the verandah and yelled towards the window.

  ‘Celia! You should come! Someone is here, I think. By the cabin.’

  Roza hurried back towards the orchard, calling out, ‘Hello? Are you there, someone? Or are you an animal?’

  If someone was there, they made no response.

  Celia was squinting against the daylight as she walked down from the house. ‘What’s going on?’

  Roza pointed to the cabin.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Celia called out. ‘Zoe? Is that you?’

  Celia ventured close enough to push open the door of the shack. Roza could see how much she was hoping. Sometimes it was dangerous to hope so much.

  The cabin was empty, and Celia let the door swing shut again. ‘Both of us are imagining things that aren’t there.’

  Celia turned to walk away, but then a thumping noise from behind the shack made her spin round. ‘Who’s there?’

  She picked up a lump of wood from the ground as a weapon. Roza wasn’t sure a lump of wood would be much protection if there was a treacherous individual behind the shack. But Celia looked fierce as she held it out from her body, like a woman who would at least put up a fight. ‘If someone is there, come out now!’

  There was a rustle in the weeds around the footings of the building and then Kieran stepped into view.

  Celia demanded, ‘Is she with you? Is she with you? Is she with you?’

  The boy shook his head. He was filthy, the sleeve of his blue sweatshirt torn open to reveal an ugly gash on his shoulder, but it was the face that shocked Roza. Two dozen or more small wounds sprayed across his neck and face, some of them scabbed over, others with the scabs torn off and freshly bleeding. Would a person do this to themselves? Would an animal shred a man’s face like that?

  ‘Is Zoe here?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t you bullshit me. Tell me where she is.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Kieran said feebly. ‘I thought she’d come home. Is she here?’

  ‘No, she’s not. When did you last see her? Did she tell you she was coming home?’

  He was shaking his head – saying no, but also trying to shake things clear inside his skull. ‘I don’t know where she is. That’s why I came back here. Fuck. Fuck.’

  Celia took a step closer to him, still holding the wood like a weapon. ‘Listen to me, you piece of shit, you tell me right now where I can find her.’

  Kieran scrunched up his face, afraid she would clobber him. ‘I don’t know. Really.’ Blood was beading on his forehead and temples where the face-scrunching had torn open the little cuts.r />
  ‘Where did you last see her?’

  ‘Sydney. Well, near Sydney,’ he said. ‘But then we lost each other.’

  ‘Give me a list of places I can look.’

  Kieran was shaking his head. ‘I already looked every place I could think. If I knew where she was I wouldn’t be here.’

  He whimpered, then rallied a little and fixed Celia with a desperate look. ‘Wait. Wait. You’re trying to trick me – asking me . . . She’s really inside, isn’t she. She’s in there and you won’t let me see her.’

  He shouted up towards the house, ‘Zoe! Zoe! It’s me!’

  But a moment later, he crumpled back to a pleading mode. ‘I just wanna talk to her. Please. Let me talk to her. She’s inside. She’s asleep in bed, tucked up in bed in her old room, isn’t she.’

  ‘No.’

  This time, he heard the misery soaking through Celia’s voice and he understood she was telling the truth. ‘Oh. She’s not here.’

  Celia didn’t answer, so Roza said, ‘No, she’s not. The last time you saw Zoe, she was okay? She was in one piece?’

  ‘Yes. Yes. But now I don’t know. I’ll wait for her. She’ll come back home. I’ll wait.’

  Celia growled at the boy, ‘You get off my property. I don’t want you anywhere near this place.’

  Kieran was agitated, his limbs overtaken by the fidgety movements Roza had noted the first day he appeared in the packing yard. ‘You hate me,’ he said to Celia. ‘I get that. Fair enough. But I can’t go. I have to see her.’

  ‘If you don’t get off my property right now, I’ll ring the police.’

  ‘That might make trouble with the cops for Zoe,’ Kieran countered. ‘I know you don’t want that.’

  Celia stabbed the hunk of wood in the air towards the young man and Roza thought she might really hit him this time. ‘Bugger off, you little shit. I don’t want to look at you. Get away from here!’