Then she starts to cry, because she knows she has sinned.
The Johnsons do not normally use the word sin but the Kellys do, and Stella has been influenced by them. She plays with the Crazy Camel Train for another ten minutes, not enjoying herself.
Linda calls that it’s time to go and pick up Jo. Stella stuffs everything back into the drawer.
When they all get home and are getting out of the car, Linda says: ‘Oh, don’t forget the cocky.’
‘I won’t,’ says Jo. But she does forget.
Linda, Jo and Stella lie on the floor, reading books, colouring and listening to music. They eat jam wafer biscuits and stay up late.
The next day, the Sunday after the Moon Landing, there is shrieking and squabbling as Jo discovers Stella’s raid on her possessions. There is a missing bedpan! Linda doesn’t intervene. She sits at the table chain-smoking, drinking coffee, leafing through a pile of yellow-bordered National Geographics. This tribe, that river. She says her headache is even worse than it was yesterday. She has to be reminded about lunch.
Eventually, when it’s almost dinner time, Linda says: ‘Where are they? They should have been back by now.’
Jo suddenly remembers the galah. How could she have forgotten? She dashes into her room to change: Brown Owl has said all Busy Bees must be performed in full Brownie uniform. She uses a safety pin to attach a homemade paper Brownie badge to Stella’s dress. She and Stella slip out of the back door, praying to Jesus that the galah is alive.
As soon as they glimpse the cage, they know something is not quite right. There is the perch, but no galah. As they get closer, they see that the galah is now lying on its back on the cage floor. Its claws are curled, its eyes closed.
They are too late. Cocky is dead.
Stella and Jo look at each other, eyes open wide.
Jo reaches in through the small wire gate and pokes at the bird. It doesn’t move.
Stella begins to cry.
‘Shhh,’ says Jo. ‘Promise, cross your heart, Brownie’s honour, you won’t tell.’
‘Brownie’s honour,’ whispers Stella, holding up three fingers in the Brownie salute.
‘Let’s say the boys let the cocky out,’ says Jo. ‘I’ll give you the economy-class camel and monkeys.’
‘Okay,’ says Stella.
Jo reaches in and tugs the galah across the bottom of the cage by the tail. She gently lays it out on her handkerchief. Jo and Stella press their palms together prayerfully.
‘Hail Mary fulla grace our Lord is with thee,’ whispers Jo.
Jo props the cage door open. She fills the water bowl, the seed bowl. She folds the galah in her Brownie skirt, holding up the hem to form a pouch in front of her. Then she sets off down the driveway, walking as quickly as a person can with a galah in her skirt, Stella trotting alongside.
They walk to the end of Clam Street and turn left, and at the end of that block they turn right into Oyster Street. They never come this way. The street seems foreign.
As she walks, Jo rehearses her lie: ‘When I got there the cage was empty and the door was open. Boys must have opened the cage door and let cocky out.’ Older boys, eleven-year-old boys – nasty things. They could easily be blamed. She rehearses her lines over and over, the way she learned her Brownie Guide Promise off by heart. She alternates it with a prayer: ‘Please, God, don’t let anybody find out. Please, God, I will be good from now on.’ The ways in which she can be good flash through her mind: making her bed, picking up her toys, sweeping the kitchen floor, perhaps baking butterfly cakes.
‘Is anybody looking?’ asks Jo.
‘No,’ says Stella, peering up and down the street. The sun is setting.
They crouch down and Jo pushes the galah deep into the shade under a shrub with glossy green leaves.
Now that she has deposited the galah and she is walking freely along Oyster Street, Jo brings her lie to life, imagining boys lifting the little gate, the galah flying off on a spree, then flying home again, popping itself in through its little wire doorway, having a drink, something to eat.
As they turn the corner into Clam Street, Stella and Jo see a police car parked outside their house. A policeman is slowly approaching the front door. He glances at the Johnson girls, clearly disappointed in them.
‘Run,’ says Jo. They’re on the lam.
***
The house had never been empty before. There had always been someone in there, someone to come out and feed and water me or simply go to the toilet, making the journey out – flush – and back without even looking at me. That was something. But now there was nobody at all in that silent house. No sound of a vehicle pulling up, a car door slamming. I began to shriek and howl and rattle my cage. I’m not sure what I was trying to achieve. Was I trying to attract attention? Was I hoping to finally raise those people in the middle house between the Kellys’ and the Johnsons’, have them come running over with entertainments for a young galah under stress? I lashed out with my claws, beat my wings. I managed to slop all the water out of my dish.
There was nothing to drink. Hours went by in dry silence. Knowing that I couldn’t drink made me thirstier. Shouting only dried out my throat. I succumbed to depression. I sat on my perch, motionless, tasting bitterness.
The next day continued without food, water or hope. I fancied I could feel myself getting lighter, light-headed. I felt my claws loosen from the perch and allowed myself to drop, softly, like a fluffy, air-filled feather, to the bottom of my cage. My vision blurred and darkened. I had fallen off my perch.
And then.
I see the scene from above: my inert body on the floor of the cage; a small hand unlatching the square wire door of the cage, reaching in. Being dragged by a tail feather, folded into a brown skirt.
I wake to the sensation of cool water dribbling down my beak, down the side of my face. It is pleasant. It occurs to me that I am not in fact dead.
Cautiously, I open my eyes. There is an old brown face and concerned black eyes. Beside the face, in thin brown fingers, there is a plastic syringe with a drop of water at the end of it. I close my eyes again, feel a squirt of water hit the back of my throat.
Eventually, I roll over and get to my feet. I rasp a barely audible Dance, cocky and conduct the merest shadow of a dance – just a slight movement of the neck – to show my gratitude.
‘Good girl!’ says Lizzie.
The hand of fate – dressed as a Brownie – has brought me to no less than Port Badminton’s premier bird fancier.
Under Lizzie’s expert care, I make a rapid recovery. I can’t be housed with the other birds. Their endless chatter drives me insane. I scream and peck at them. Lizzie brings me inside to live with her. She names me Lucky, for obvious reasons.
The first time Lizzie sat down to afternoon tea in my presence, I slid across the table, heading for the biscuits.
‘Want a bit of tea, Lucky?’ asked Lizzie.
I held a bit of Milk Arrowroot in my claw and nibbled while Lizzie looked up, speculatively, at a shelf on the wall. There was a ceramic donkey and cart up there, and a teacup.
She took her chair over to the shelf, climbed up, and carefully lifted the cup from its spot. It had no handle, just two stumps where it had broken off. Lizzie washed it using warm water and detergent and then she wiped it with a tea towel.
She poured a little bit of tea into the bottom of the cup and filled it with water out of the tap. She put it on the table in front of me.
My own cup of tea.
Lizzie held the cup steady as I dipped my beak into the pale amber fluid. It wasn’t quite to my taste but I was determined to participate in the ritual I had watched, over and over, and had been excluded from. Mrs Kelly sipping tea. Mrs Kelly offering Mrs Johnson tea. Mrs Kelly saying, ‘I’ll pop the kettle on.’ Mrs Johnson saying: ‘That’s lovely, Marj, I needed that.’
<
br /> I made small, contented noises as the fluid travelled down my gullet. I was greedy for it.
‘You like tea, don’t you, Lucky?’ said Lizzie.
I was doing my best not to cough. I nodded vigorously, lifting and lowering my crest expressively.
We sat in contented silence for a moment, enjoying each other’s company, the sea breeze just starting to freshen the air coming through the back door.
Lizzie washed and dried our cups. She put mine beside hers, on the bench, ready for next time. Hers was a white enamel mug with a thin navy stripe around the rim. Small areas of the enamel were chipped off, showing the dark rusted metal beneath.
I could not bear to be separated from Lizzie. I hated it when she left the house to go shopping. One day, as she was preparing to go, I dug my claws into her shoulder and refused to climb down onto my perch. We always went shopping together after that.
Every now and then on our early walks I’d see a Kelly and try to go incognito. I’d quietly turn and face the other way in case they recognised me. Later, I realised they had no idea that the bird riding so comfortably and casually on Lizzie’s shoulder was the same one that had sat in the cage between their own toilet and back door. (It helped that galahs were a common Port Badminton pet, and that people thought we all looked the same.)
The first time I stepped out on Lizzie’s shoulder, I was aware of a strange, low sound, perhaps a buzz, that came into my skull. Over the next few outings, the buzz gradually became more directional, more focused somehow. I became aware of words. Eventually, I heard it loud and clear: How’s the tube, Jerry? Real good, Dick, real good. Eventually, I understood that it was the Dish, sending signals, and it was up to me to interpret them.
***
Susan Kelly picks her way over hard, sharp, complicated rocks to the edge of the blowhole, the roar and crash of the Indian Ocean in her ears. These rocks are no good for bare feet. There are rounded indentations in them, made of loose, swirling stones grinding over millennia. Some of the rock pools are quite deep, up to the knees to stand in. These larger pools, crystal clear, are full of marine life. There are purple sea urchins covered in long waving unicorn horns, clams with thick blue lips and bristly moustaches, green sea plants. There might be cat’s-eye shells with round knobbly backs and spiral faces. Susan keeps a look out for tiny things to decorate a tiny imaginary house: a dead baby crab; a little bit of sponge; a frill of seaweed.
She watches the water suck back, back and then hears the flute-like sound, a roar, as the water comes crashing in again, sending a giant white fountain into the air. It drops and chases itself back down its lair in streaming white foam rivulets. The gurgling, sucking noises are thrilling. Directly below, the water churns like a washing machine. From here, you can look down the coast to the sweep of white sand where tiny people are swimming and playing. In the other direction, raw rock cliffs battle it out with the smashing ocean. There are narrow ledges there, slick with water, where men cast their lines out over the crashing waves. They’re reeling in pink snapper with high foreheads, spiny crests raised like cockatoos’, scales in perfect scallops along the flanks. There will be fresh fish for dinner, cooked over an open fire. Back at the campsite, there is a burbling diesel generator keeping a fridge going that will take some of the catch back to town.
And there are oysters. Susan picks her way over the spreading land of oysters that forms a bridge all the way from the beach to a small island where an osprey lives in a big messy nest on the ground. The sharp edges of the oysters are frilled like the lids of a thousand small pies. She is carrying a large stone in her hand, almost too heavy. She squats down and smashes it over an oyster shell, splintering it and caving it in. She levers the remains of the lid off the bowl, picking out a plump oyster that has somehow retained its shape. It just needs to be dragged through the salt water to rinse it off.
‘Go on, eat it,’ says the voice of Kevin Kelly, who is standing behind her. She looks up to see him dangling his own oyster between thumb and forefinger. He puts his head back and drops it into his mouth.
Susan puts her own oyster into her mouth, tasting its strong flavour, noting its slithery texture. She punctures the membrane with her front teeth, releasing the shocking viscosity. She decides to like it, and starts work on another.
Evan Johnson is not quite himself. He has a haunted look about him, easily interpreted as a once-in-a-decade hangover. Uncharacteristically, he will begin one task – the sorting of fishing tackle, perhaps, or the tying of a rope – and leave it half done, moving on to the next in an agitated manner. His mind is untidy; the lids are off and contents are leaking in all directions.
On the Sunday morning after the Moon Landing, the sun rises softly, gradually lightening the sky, creating long, mild shadows over the collection of tents and cars circled on the sand. The generator hums in the background. Children are already awake, playing quietly.
Evan Johnson seems more purposeful today. He carries his fishing rod in one hand, an army surplus bag of tackle slung over a shoulder. He wears an old pair of sandshoes without socks, good for rock-hopping in the surf. He and his colleagues spread out along the rocks. He keeps walking, further still, and begins climbing up the cliffs that are reddish with iron. The ascent is extremely steep, but the fishing perch he wants, where a ledge protrudes over the spume below, is worth the effort. He feels it in the muscles of his calves. They are getting a workout. They have lost some condition over the months he has spent sitting at his console. The tops of his ears go pink and burn in the sun. For years, he has been in the constant company of his colleagues – whether physically nearby or elsewhere, in Houston or in outer space, all connected by transcendent purpose, all communicating in the same acronyms. Now he is suddenly alone, entirely alone, in this giant landscape sweeping off forever in all directions: rock, sea, desert and sky. He is disconnected, moving or being moved through Loss of Signal. He hears someone breathing. It could be his own breath in his own chest. These might or might not be his own mouth, his own eyes, his own ears. He is not certain about that foot that comes into view, the other foot, the first foot again. How does one proceed at a sane pace? He has forgotten. A kangaroo hop, a kicking of the leg out to the side?
His fishing rod, terminating in a tiny circle to guide the translucent line, flexes in the wind. The sea roils below. He bends back to gather the energy to cast. His spine and his rod are one and the same thing, arching back, gathering energy. Then all are freed at once: all feet, all hands, all line, all bait, all hooks and sinkers. Evan Johnson, still attached to his fishing rod, is falling into the sea.
He looks about quite calmly. He sees geology, atmosphere, currents. He sees humpback whales in the distance, pink snapper swimming just under the surface. He notes the rippling, endless ocean glinting in the sun.
It is Monday, exactly one week since the day of the Moon Landing. Evan Johnson’s neatly mated socks sit in his untouched drawer. The twelve-seater van comes to Clam Street, but not for Evan Johnson. He is Missing.
The Johnson girls, eventually apprehended near the seawall, are at first confused. They are in either a lot more, or a lot less trouble than they thought. Nobody wants to hear about the galah. Instead, everyone is talking about how Evan has gone missing, like a sock or a piece out of a jigsaw puzzle. How can a whole grown man go missing?
Jo soon catches enough of the hushed scraps of conversation to piece the story together. Her father has slipped on the rocks – she knows how slippery they are – and has been washed out to sea. Science and religion present competing frames for this information. Anyone can slip on a rock; that’s simple cause and effect. But what if she, Jo, is being punished by God for failing to feed and water the galah? Nobody will let her talk about this. Cocky doesn’t matter, they insist. She is hugged by many different ladies.
Jo concludes that there is reason to hope. Evan is a good swimmer. He could be holding on to debris, the way s
hipwrecked people do. People are out in boats, looking for him. They’ll probably find him.
The phone begins to ring all the time. It is a searing, demanding sound that slices through the grim silence. It’s the police, or tracker wives, or relatives in Melbourne.
Jo doesn’t have to go to school. She opens her book about the stars. The sun is a star. It is more than a million times bigger than the earth. It is made of gas. But the gas doesn’t escape like air rushing out of a balloon. It sticks together, held fast by gravity.
For a moment, just a moment, Jo forgets that her father is missing. She’s simply reading a book, just like she did yesterday. Before.
After three nights, Jo gives up hope. She calls Stella into her room, makes her sit on the bed. She says: ‘The tadpoles are dead.’
‘No they’re not,’ says Stella.
Jo goes over to the plastic ice-cream container on her dressing table. She picks it up and brings it to show Stella. Stella doesn’t want to look, but she does. The water has evaporated. There is a line around the plastic giving its former level. The cabbage leaf is smelly. There are four lumps in the silty bottom of the container. These are the bodies of the tadpoles.
‘Daddy is dead like these tadpoles,’ says Jo. She is not being horrible; she is just trying to work things out and categorise them, as Evan himself might have done.
‘No he’s not,’ says Stella.
Marjorie comes to the door with a pressure cooker full of pea soup. Linda is unable to quell a sudden, unexpected revulsion towards Marjorie. She hates the simpering, sympathetic look in Marjorie’s eyes. But she says thank you and takes the soup and invites Marjorie in. The two women sit at the table. Linda is slowly lighting a cigarette, exaggeratedly nonchalant, as though nothing is amiss. Marjorie sits, blinking and nervous, trying to think of something to say. In the end she quotes from the Bible, Matthew 5:4: Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. This is a mistake.
Linda starts raving on about all the problems that religion has brought to the world, how Marjorie is an uneducated person unable to think for herself and how she has no idea what is really going on and no imagination either.
The Lucky Galah Page 18