One morning there was no milk for breakfast so Aunt Fud told Ginny and me to go down to the shop and buy some. Aunt Fud wouldn’t go down to the shop anymore because it meant walking past the new neighbour who was always out in his front yard tending to his orchids and talking to people as they walked past his fence. Beneath that hypocrite smile, she knew, he was a heathen or an atheist or worse, and she didn’t know what he was playing at, but she knew he was up to no good. She said she could smell his evil deeds floating like a fart around his butt.
‘What’s his name?’ asked Ginny.
‘How would I know?’ said Aunt Fud. She told us the story of how he left a pot with an orchid in it on her front porch when he moved into his house; trying to ingratiate himself, no doubt. She wrote a note—polite, of course—thanking him but saying that she couldn’t accept his gift. Aunt Fud explained how she’d only have in the house flowers that were symmetrical, like daisies and sunflowers. Orchids made her anxious because they were only symmetrical lengthways, like a human face. She couldn’t stand seeing them there, their heads held stiff on long spikes, as if they were staring at her. When Ginny and I went down to the shop, the neighbour was not outside so we stopped by his fence and looked at the orchids. It was true that, if you looked close at the middle, you did kind of get the feeling they were staring back at you, but I thought they were more pretty than scary. I also thought it wasn’t really very nice to give back a gift that someone had given you, though I kept that particular opinion to myself.
* * *
Aunt Fud had a skinny little dog called Trevor that slept on her bed and licked her feet for hours. She said it helped to soften up her corns. His mouth got all frothy and he panted when he got out of breath and it made me want to retch. Aunt Fud laughed and said, ‘He’s washing my feet like Jesus.’
Ginny and I took Trevor out into the backyard to do his poos once a day and he barked at the big black dog next door and Aunt Fud would yell, ‘You tell him, Trev!’ She said the black dog slobbered like it was rabid, and at night when she shone her flashlight over the fence, she could see his fiery eyes and hear his rattling chains, like the proper hellhound he was.
‘What’s a hellhound?’ asked Ginny and Aunt Fud answered, ‘Satan’s incarnation.’ Then she looked at Ginny and whispered, ‘Some say it’s a portent of death.’ Ginny had no idea what all that meant, but she refused to come out in the yard with me after that when Trevor needed to do his business.
On Good Friday, we watched the children’s hospital telethon on the TV and saw the babies with their feeding and breathing tubes and children in electric wheelchairs getting Easter eggs from footballers and the Easter Bunny. Aunt Fud kept shaking her head and telling us that there were some children that were never meant to be. ‘Those doctors have no business playing God,’ she said. Ginny and I just kept quiet and ate our toast. The rest of the day Aunt Fud told us to play out in the yard, but it was cold and Trevor’s poos were all over the lawn so we just stayed on the path and bounced our rainbow rubber balls to each other.
When we woke up on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, we had some cereal for breakfast and watched TV for a while. When we went into Aunt Fud’s room later on, she was standing on her bed and she was swaying slightly, backwards and forwards. It was probably just difficult to keep her balance on the mattress, I thought, but it looked spooky as hell. She stared down at Ginny and me and whispered, ‘I see angels.’ Ginny smiled up at Aunt Fud with her sweet-as-pie smile, but I wasn’t so sure the angels were us. Aunt Fud looked me square in the face and her eyes were big as hard-boiled eggs. ‘I see Asian angels,’ she said, ‘with golden skin and shiny black hair.’ I could see Ginny out of the corner of my eye but I kept looking up at Aunt Fud. ‘I see Moslem angels with coffee-coloured skin and shiny black hair,’ she said. ‘I see Negro angels with ebony skin and curly black hair.’ I looked sideways at Ginny and she wasn’t smiling anymore. Aunt Fud leaned back against the wall and her shoulder bumped the Jesus picture. ‘It’s not a hallucination,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a mental illness.’ Ginny turned her head to look at me, and I could see she was scared out of her mind. I smiled at her and then up at Aunt Fud.
‘We’re going to make some sandwiches for lunch, Aunt Fud,’ I said. ‘You want some peanut butter sandwiches?’
Ginny and I went to the kitchen for just a few minutes and when we came back, Aunt Fud wasn’t in her room anymore. We heard her down the hall, heading for the front door, so we put the plate of sandwiches down on the bed and ran after her, but the front door banged and she was out on the steps in her nightie and bare feet. I was in front of Ginny so I’m the one who saw her stumble, all stiff and jerky like an ironing board falling down the stairs. She looked like she was moving in slow motion and I could see she was going to hit even before she got to the last step. Her head pitched forward and her arms were not out in front of her. They were straight out sideways like Jesus on the cross, so she slammed headfirst into the great pyramid letterbox that Uncle Bevan had built. She hit her head on the edge of the pyramid and broke off a bit of white plaster, and then she just fell on her side with her head in the flowerbed and her eyes half closed.
‘She’s dead!’ screamed Ginny, coming up behind me, and I told her, ‘Shut your face! She’s gonna be fine,’ though I had no idea if that was true. I told Ginny to run and get the neighbour and I kneeled down next to Aunt Fud. I licked the back of my hand and held it under her nose. There was cool air on my skin so I knew she was still breathing. I put my fingers on her neck, just below her jaw and I was pretty sure I could feel her pulse. After a minute her eyelids started fluttering a bit and when I looked up, the neighbour and Ginny were walking fast along the sidewalk towards me. When they arrived, the man had to yell at Aunt Fud and shake her a bit to wake her up. He spoke to her loudly and up close. He told her she needed to go get her head checked out in hospital, but Aunt Fud told the man that her head was just fine and that if she didn’t want to go, there was no one who could make her.
When the man sat Aunt Fud up and pulled her hair out of the way, there was not that much blood, but the bump on her forehead was huge. The man and me stood either side of her and she hung her arms over our shoulders and we walked her ever so slowly back to her bedroom and tucked her into bed. Lying there with her eyes closed, she looked like she was falling asleep or about to wake up. I stood there next to her and watched her eyelids fluttering and wondered if she was dreaming or if she was seeing angels again. The man asked us where our parents were and we explained. He asked if we wanted him to stay overnight with us and help out with Aunt Fud, but I told him I was used to looking after things on my own and that Aunt Fud would probably just sleep it off.
Ginny and I spent the rest of the day watching TV and playing poker with matches and for dinner we ate grilled cheese sandwiches and ice-cream with chocolate topping. We went into Aunt Fud’s room after we’d finished eating, but everything was quiet and dark, so we closed the door and let her sleep.
* * *
The next morning it was Easter Sunday, and Ginny and I woke up early and went to see how Aunt Fud was doing. Ginny didn’t feel it, but as soon as I walked in the room, I knew she wasn’t breathing. I told Ginny to go let Trevor out of the laundry, where I’d locked him up for the night. While she was gone I pulled the blind up to get a better look. I tested Aunt Fud’s breathing with the wet back of my hand and, sure enough, there was no air coming out. Her eyes were closed and she looked just like she was sleeping, so Ginny didn’t get a fright when she came back in. Aunt Fud’s hand was on top of the blanket where it was when we tucked her in, and when I touched it, it was cool—not from the outside air like a living person, but cool from the lack of warmth coming from inside. I told Ginny to come over to the side of the bed and prepare herself for a shock, but as soon as she saw Aunt Fud’s face, she said straight out, ‘I think she’s dead.’ We looked at each other and I nodded and that’s all we said. Ginny touched Aunt Fud’s cheek and so did I, and then we touched her
hair and then I said, ‘Okay, that’s enough,’ and I covered up her face with the sheet like I’d seen done on TV.
‘We have to pray for her soul,’ I told Ginny. ‘Aunt Fud told me that’s what we had to do when she died.’
Ginny didn’t look too happy at the thought.
‘If they take her body out and her soul’s still in it, then she’ll be tormented forever,’ I explained.
‘How long does it take to get outta her body and outta the house?’ asked Ginny.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. My heart was pounding fast like I was a secret agent on a mission. We opened the windows and the front door to help Aunt Fud’s soul get out of the house, but it was cold outside and we didn’t have our robes with us. We ran to our room and put on sweaters and socks and came running back down the corridor to Aunt Fud’s room. I slipped on the polished floor with my socks and almost smashed into the wall and Ginny tried not to laugh so much she got the hiccups. It took us a while to calm down and I started the praying by myself while Ginny held her breath. I said the Lord’s Prayer with the words Aunt Fud preferred and then a Hail Mary.
‘Ginny, pray with me!’ I said when her hiccups stopped.
Ginny slapped her palms together and put her nose right up against her thumbs and we prayed together to God for the repose of the souls of Uncle Bevan and Aunt Fud.
‘How will we know when she’s outta the house?’
‘I’ll tell you,’ I said, though I had no idea at all. I told Ginny that we should pray in our heads for a while and I told her to close her eyes to make the time go faster.
‘I made a rhyme,’ said Ginny a minute later, opening her eyes. ‘Uncle Bevan who art in heaven.’ She giggled behind her hands. I turned my face towards her and she continued. ‘Hail Mary, full of grace. Aunt Fud be with you.’ Ginny pounded her thigh with her fist and laughed till her hiccups came back. I told her to stop laughing or she’d go to hell. She stopped but said she wasn’t going to pray anymore.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Ginny. ‘Do you think her soul’s outta the house yet?’
‘No. It’s still in here and it’s watching you,’ I said. I’m not sure why I said it, because I didn’t believe it myself.
‘It’s a soul. Not a ghost,’ said Ginny. She asked how long it would take it to get to heaven.
‘How would I know?’ I said. ‘Weeks probably. Or months.’
‘Is it further than the moon?’ she asked, in that way seven-year-olds have of asking questions. ‘Is it further than the solar system?’
‘As long as it’s out of the house, it’s not our problem anymore,’ I said, hoping to shut her up.
‘What if she’s not going to heaven?’ she asked. ‘What if she’s going to hell?’
I asked her why on earth Aunt Fud would be going to hell.
‘I don’t know,’ said Ginny and I could see she felt bad about thinking it.
She asked if we could go get the neighbour yet and I said no, just because I felt like annoying her, even though I knew it was high time we told someone. Ginny looked up at the photo of Jesus.
‘Are God’s eyes blue too?’ she asked.
I was getting hungry and running out of patience with her questions, so I told Ginny we should go look for the Easter eggs that Mom said she’d left for Aunt Fud to give us. I knew it wouldn’t be polite to eat them once we told about Aunt Fud, so it was probably a good idea to eat them first or they’d just stay hidden in a cupboard and go off. I didn’t know where Aunt Fud was keeping them so we started in the kitchen. Ginny did the bottom cupboards and I stood on a chair to look in the top ones. Then we moved on to the bathroom and the linen closet in the hallway. We figured they probably wouldn’t be hidden in our room, but I had a look under the beds and in the wardrobe all the same.
Ginny was still looking in the laundry, so I went back into Aunt Fud’s bedroom. Trevor had jumped up on the bed and pushed his way under the sheets. I could see his head moving and hear him licking Aunt Fud’s feet and it made me feel sick, but not really any more than when she was alive.
Then, I’m not sure why I thought to do it, but I leaned right over Aunt Fud lying under the sheet and pushed my hand down between the bed and the wall and there were all the foil Easter egg wrappers folded up into little squares and squeezed down tight in a row. I pulled them out and there were four egg wrappers—purple, gold, red, pink and two bunny wrappers. I didn’t know when Aunt Fud could have eaten them. We were always together, except when she sent us down to the shop or when we were asleep. She must have done it then. Ginny came back in but I hid the wrappers behind my back and said, ‘There’s no point looking anymore, Ginny. I reckon Trevor must have found the eggs and buried them in the yard.’
She looked at me like she was getting tired of looking and didn’t really care that much anyway, so I said, ‘We may as well go get the neighbour now.’ Ginny said she’d go and I stayed there with Aunt Fud and Trevor. I closed the bedroom window so we wouldn’t have to explain the cold to the neighbour and I threw the foil wrappers in the bin under the kitchen sink.
When the man came back with Ginny, he hugged us and said he felt so bad he hadn’t insisted on taking Aunt Fud to the hospital. I said, ‘Don’t feel bad. She’s in a better place now,’ or something along those lines that I’d heard people say, and the man put his hand on my head and smiled a sad sort of smile.
* * *
When Mom came home from hospital, we had Aunt Fud’s funeral. She was buried next to Uncle Bevan. Mom said she couldn’t look after Trevor and he was so old that we had to have him put down. I don’t know why, but that made me sadder than Aunt Fud dying, and I remember when we buried him in the backyard of our house more than I remember Aunt Fud’s funeral. It’s strange the things that stay with you. Ginny, who goes by Virginia now, says she’s not even sure she remembers Aunt Fud’s death at all.
For the Life of Me
They’ve promised a cool change but it hasn’t come yet or, if it has, it hasn’t reached its way up to the top floor of the nursing home. Down below, there’s a passenger liner leaving Station Pier and it sounds its departure like the final note of a sappy song.
I put down a yellow ‘Draw 2’ card on the pile and wait for Brett to react. A sudden gust of wind, still warm and heavy, lifts the terylene curtain and sucks it back flat against the flyscreen. Brett pulls his red-and-white Sydney Swans beanie down over his ears and scratches the side of his nose. I take two cards from the top of the pile and slide them into the twenty or so already gripped tight in his hand. The passenger liner is manoeuvring away from the dock and it sounds its siren again, as if to say—It’s been great, sweetheart, I really have to go.
‘Aren’t you hot with that beanie on, Brett?’ I ask.
Brett keeps his eyes on his cards and they bend in the middle with the pressure of his fingers. ‘I don’t understand this game we’re playing, Tim,’ he says.
* * *
It’s the first time I’ve seen my brother in a year and I’m sitting here sipping on a cup of tea that tastes like it’s been brewing for days and trying to let him beat me at Uno. And Brett looks like it makes no difference to him at all if I’m here or not. It’s true he has nowhere better to be. Nowhere else he can go, in any case.
He’s seven years older than me, but he looks way younger. Despite all the drugs he’s put through his system and what he went through on the streets, the bastard still looks better than me. He’ll outlive the lot of us probably. At least if he does I won’t be around to have to give the eulogy at his funeral and work out what to say about him and what he did with his fucked-up life.
I imagine Mum and my older sister Kay have done their fair share of thinking about what could have helped and maybe blaming themselves, or maybe not. I don’t know. I have no idea what Brett thought while he was doing all the shit he did, or if he just let things happen without much thinking. Not that he has the wherewithal to think about it now, but I reckon it was Dad’s death that was probably the start of thi
ngs coming undone for him.
I was pretty young and my memories of that time are sketchy. I remember Brett picking me up from school in grade one on his way back from high school. He was tall and thicker in his limbs than most of the other boys that age and he would always be wearing shorts, even on freezing cold days, and bouncing a footy. All he’d say was, ‘How was your day?’ and I’d say, ‘Good,’ and we’d walk the rest of the way home in silence. I watched the way the ball speared down and back into his hands every time and his eyes weren’t even watching it, just pointing relaxed out in front of him along the street, and I remember the sound of the leather ringing under the concrete footpath.
I know from Kay that Dad used to do heaps of sporty stuff with Brett—footy and dirt bikes and surfing—and after he died, Brett had to give that all up. Mum wasn’t going to do it with him and there weren’t any uncles to step in and fill the hole left by Dad. And there was so much going on with Mum and having to sort out the financial stuff that Brett not having anyone to take him to footy was the least of everyone’s worries.
He was thirteen and, looking back, that’s a pretty crucial time for a boy. You don’t really think about it as much as you do for girls, but it’s the start of laying down the foundations for becoming a man, really. So from then to about sixteen, when he left school, it was a pretty messy time as I recall: getting into strife with teachers, drinking, being the tough guy, bashing kids up. And then he started hanging round with this guy called Frog and that’s when he started getting into trouble with the cops. Stealing, getting wasted, crashing his motorbike. Mum used to get calls at all hours of the night to go pick him up from hospital or from the police station.
And then somehow he got the money to go overseas for a few years. No one really knew what his plans were. I was still pretty young, just starting high school. We didn’t go out to the airport to see him off, but we had a family dinner the night before. Kay and her fiancé came and Mum made a fancy trifle and after we finished eating it, she pulled out a wrapped-up present and handed it to Brett. It was Dad’s old Swiss Army knife, for opening cans and cutting his nails, she said. Brett gave Mum a kiss on the cheek and said he would take good care of it. Then he punched me in the arm and said, ‘You be good, kid,’ and he promised to bring me back a souvenir from somewhere.
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