Things a Map Won't Show You

by Pam Macintyre

  ‘We’ll still see each other, man,’ I said, genuinely believing it. ‘I’ll still live in Toony.’

  Lynchy reassured me that had nothing to do with it. It was his mum’s idea as a kind of repayment for all the food my mother had fed him. I nodded with approval. I had never been to his house, despite our long friendship. I longed to fulfill my wish of tasting the mouth-watering promise of his family’s rissole, the delicate balance of mince, breadcrumbs and egg. I asked the local milk bar about it, but they said they didn’t cook it anymore. At last, my dream was to come true.

  And besides, the creek had dried up.

  I didn’t even bother going home, but walked towards the train station to Lynchy’s white weatherboard house. There was a front patio where his father used to sit and read car magazines, but it had been empty for months. I had often walked past it and had seen his mother watering the garden, which consisted of a handful of azaleas in a zigzag.

  She smiled but always looked like she had bigger worries in her life. His elder sister, Stacey, never paid much attention to me, once telling me that I was too short for any girls to like me. Her comment helped me become a loyal sidekick to Lynchy’s lead role in the Stacey complaints commission. ‘Er, Stacey’s face is a zit factory’ or ‘Stacey is meeting her boyfriend at the parole office.’

  That afternoon Stacey was busy at her work as a hairdresser. Only Lynchy’s mother was home. His father no longer lived there. Daryl had told me recently and I was confused and asked dumb questions about why. He told me about his parent’s divorce a few months ago, while we sat by the creek and gave each other horsey-bites, slapping each other on the leg. It was a rare tender moment between two boys entering manhood, except I had no comprehension what the hell divorce was. He said his parents fought a lot and his mum thought it was better they lived apart. I didn’t get it because as far as I could see, my parents had nothing in common and barely had a relationship that I could tell of. My father would just work in the garden and tell me to go and study while my mother did the housework and made my little sister and me eat all the time. My parents fought a lot too, yet they seemed to have no problems staying together.

  But I worked out that it wasn’t a topic to dwell upon. Lynchy and I sat at a breakfast table and we were served green cordial. His mother asked me to call her Bridget. She had weathered reptilian skin like many older Australians who had spent too much time in the sun. Her droopy eyes and furrowed forehead gave her a melancholy edge. I just thought she looked kind of sad. She patted me on the head like my mother did to Lynchy. I liked it. She told me I must be really smart and wished me well at my new school. My parents never told me I was smart. I was thrilled.

  I had been to very few houses where non-Bangladeshis lived. My other friends were also from overseas from countries like Turkey and the Philippines. Aussies were definitely different, I thought to myself. Lynchy’s house had pets and smelt a bit like the dog, a big German shepherd that intermittently sniffed my shoes. They had an air-conditioner and a sodastream machine. I was amazed. My parents would never buy such a wonderful thing as the sodastream. Bridget sensed my awe and offered me a fizzy orange drink from the machine. She dropped two ice-cubes into a glass before I was allowed to taste a piece of heaven.

  We continued our conversation while his mother spoke of her garden and how hard it was to keep her azaleas alive in the heat. I was riveted. Daryl sat beside me quietly, looking as embarrassed as I felt when he was friendly with my mother. He rubbed his fingers through his hair and gloated about being checked for head lice at school but coming out clean. Bridget patted him on his head before asking me questions.

  ‘Have you been back to Bangladesh, Tanny?’ she asked. Daryl had told her of my origins, after lengthy lessons at my place showing him where the country was on the map and how it had been formed after repeated war with India and Pakistan.

  I told her yes and mentioned how I got diarrhoea all the time, but still enjoyed village life more than the crowded, dirty cities. Bridget laughed and said she wished she had travelled more. I looked at her short cropped hair with interest. My mother always kept her hair long.

  ‘Daryl’s father never had any interest in the world beyond, only his tools.’

  Lynchy bowed his head and a frown appeared. I felt embarrassed and sad for him as the jovial, friendly mood turned sour for an instant. Bridget patted him across his crewcut again and motioned to some food on a plate.

  ‘I put some rissoles in sandwiches for you two. Dig in.’

  Lynchy motioned towards me, a smile replacing his momentary sadness. He grabbed two and handed me one. We bit into them while sipping our sodastream manufactured softdrink. A rush came over me as I tasted the spice-free rissole bursting across my tastebuds. It was worth the wait.

  I saw Daryl a few more times that year, but we became more distant as our worlds grew apart. By the end of the year, his mother decided to sell their house and move to the North Coast. I never saw him again.

  After gentle urging on my part, my mother taught herself how to cook rissoles, although she would mix pieces of chilli and turmeric paste into them.

  When Mary was merely a very small girl

  Unable to read or to write

  She engaged in an act of incongruousness

  Quite startling – and most impolite.

  When her parents (of which there were no more than two)

  Were stating, ‘She’s very well-bred’

  Without prior warning she turned upside down

  And proceeded to stand on her head.

  They studied a medical book on the shelf

  While pouring large glasses of sherry

  ‘Could our child have a case of the Festering Worm?

  Rodent Ulcer? Sheep Rot? Beri-Beri?’

  An appointment was made with a doctor – the best

  In the care of small children to date

  He examined poor Mary from head to both feet

  Quizzed her parents about what she ate.

  He consulted X-rays, he frowned and he coughed

  ‘It’s not right at all,’ he concluded

  ‘Are there any unusual genes in the line?’

  (They wondered to what he alluded.)

  Could he know about Mary’s great aunt who ran off

  To fly a trapeze in the States?

  ‘And don’t mention my brother,’ hushed Mary’s mother

  ‘He lifted incredible weights.’

  ‘It can run in families, you see,’ said the doc

  He put on his glasses and mumbled

  ‘The problem with standing upon one’s head –

  It results in the brain being jumbled.’

  ‘In one still so young, it’s remarkably odd

  To develop impractical ways

  Of perceiving the world with one’s upside turned down –

  You’re in for some difficult days.’

  The doctor prescribed his own tonic, and then

  He prescribed an indefinite stay

  In the Heaven Scent Hospital – Children’s Ward C

  ‘Where parents are best kept at bay.’

  After months, he announced that he’d cured her for good

  And he showed the fine folk to the door

  But almost as soon as his bill had been paid

  Mary’s feet lifted clean off the floor.

  ‘A behavioural problem!’ the specialist cried

  As his fingers were writhing with glee

  ‘I’m afraid Drastic Measures will have to be called

  It’s a syndrome – and I hold the key.’

  ‘Unusually rare is this spectrum disorder

  Please understand – little is known

  You must take her away to the desert – at once!

  And leave her there – alone.’

  ‘Leave Mary alone!’ her poor parents proclaimed

  ‘In the desert? We’re most alarmed.’

  ‘People do it quite often nowadays,’ he replied

 
; ‘She won’t be unduly harmed.’

  ‘Just the place for a child,’ the specialist chortled

  ‘And only for two or three days

  One has time to reflect in the desert,’ he added

  ‘Time to mend one’s ways.’

  A physician revered in the field, he was

  And keen on behavioural disorder

  Those unfortunate parents thus took his advice

  And deserted their dear little daughter.

  Night one in the desert was cold and unpleasant

  Night two was respectively better

  Mary found she could amble wherever she liked

  There was nobody there not to let her.

  She stood on her head and she walked on her hands

  It was really remarkable fun.

  She rode in the dip of a camel’s round back

  As he flew by an upside-down sun.

  They located her later and brought her back home

  (She’d appeared to survive rather well)

  ‘Now that must have cured her,’ they said in hushed tones

  But Mary seemed sad for a spell.

  ‘School! Education is what the child needs

  To eliminate fanciful ways’

  And so a solution was firmly prescribed –

  School – for the rest of her days.

  At Mary’s fine school there was only one rule –

  Do everything everyone said

  And rule number two, introduced by Miss Poole,

  Was NEVER to stand on your head.

  Miss Poole called her ‘Rude!’ said, ‘How Impudent!’

  And expelled Mary right on the spot

  Fortune had it the camel was waiting outside

  They made off at quite a fast trot.

  He carried her back to his place in the dunes

  Conducted a tour of his house

  She met a large lizard who lay in the sun

  And a charming marsupial mouse.

  Mary quickly made friends with the reptile and mouse

  Sharing honey, warm berries and bread

  They possessed some fine qualities, one of them being

  Not to mind if one stood on one’s head.

  In fact they were curious, keen to chat more

  ‘I like to run backwards sometimes’

  The camel confided to Mary, and then

  ‘The lizard – now watch how he climbs.’

  The name of the mouse was Edwina-Marie

  The camel called himself Hugh

  The lizard could not quite remember his title

  So Mary thought Mister would do.

  They drank from a well that the camel had found

  (’Twas deep underground in the cool)

  Watched the moon rise in the brightest of skies

  Slept under the stars as a rule.

  Galumphing through sand dunes that melted away

  At the edge of the spearmint sea

  Mary’s life felt complete, the air tasted sweet

  With her soul mates – of which there were three.

  They met other people, some quaint little folk

  Who’d travelled the sea in a sieve

  They’d turned round and round yet were never once drowned

  And discovered their own way to live.

  She forgot all about her lost parents, which seems

  Unfortunate in the extreme

  Did they call out the name of their sweet only child?

  Were they waiting for her to redeem?

  They never once saw their young daughter again

  Though they searched half the desert, I’m told

  But in their own dreaming their child would return

  A fabulous sight to behold.

  One must remain silent, one’s eyes search the shadows

  Of darkest, most infinite blue

  Imagine her smile, watch her dance through the night

  You’ll see Mary, or sense her, it’s true.

  You’ll see Mary

  Or sense her

  It’s true.

  When I was small, all I wanted was to fly. I wanted to soar through the air, the wind in my ears, up, up, up, higher and higher, until I could see the world from above, like an eagle. I wanted to fly the way superheroes flew. The way birds flew.

  At the bottom of our garden there was a tall tree. I used to climb the tree until I could see beyond our fence and our street, to the park, and in the distance, the ocean. I would lean forward from my branch, spread out my arms and feel the wind in my face.

  ‘Get down from there, David!’ my mother would shout from below.

  I remember bushwalking. There was a wooden viewing platform at the top of the mountain. I saw trees, a river running through a valley, many mountains, the sun setting broad and golden behind them. Wind blew around my head as I leaned over the railing, my arms wide.

  ‘Come back from there, David!’ my mother cried.

  All I wanted was to fly. In my dreams I flew – around the sun, beyond the moon into the starry universe. I could go wherever I wanted. But when I woke in the morning I was back in my bed, my head heavy on the pillow.

  At school my teacher, Mrs Staples, asked us questions. What country is this? How many are left? How do you spell NEVER? I stared out the window at treetops, clouds, birds.

  I remember the day I tried to fly. It was raining. I remember looking out the kitchen window up to dark clouds. My mother was asleep in her bedroom at the other end of the house.

  I went out the back door, pulling on my gumboots by the step. Water dripped down my cheeks and the back of my neck. I walked to the shed at the bottom of the garden. I pulled open the door and dragged out the old ladder. It bumped against my shins as I pushed it against the side of the shed. Rain was in my eyes. My heart was pounding. Today I will fly, I thought. Today I will visit those dark clouds.

  The ladder shook beneath my feet as I climbed. Rain soaked my jumper. Rung by rung, higher and higher. At last I was on the roof, my gumboots slipping on the metal. I looked back at the house across the garden. Behind the kitchen window, I saw my mother standing at the sink.

  I stood on the edge of the roof, imagining my cape billowing out behind me. I looked up to the clouds, at the sky too wet for birds. I spread my arms, my powerful wings. ‘I want to fly!’ I called out to the sky.

  And then I jumped …

  The ground came at me, hard and angry. Something snapped. My mouth was full of dirt.

  I heard my mother crying, ‘David! David!’ I heard her boots slapping through the mud. I felt her arms tight around my body as she picked me up and carried me into the house.

  I couldn’t go to school for many weeks. I ached as I lay in bed, my broken leg wrapped in plaster. I felt heavy as a bird born without wings. I didn’t do anything but stare out the window, watching as a spider made her home in the outside corner.

  One day my mother came home with a package from Mrs Staples. There were pencils, paints and a sketchbook with a card that read, ‘For David, get well soon.’

  I looked out the window at the grey sky and the rain that kept falling. I picked up the sketchbook and the pencils. I drew ladders, arms, wings, rain, feathers, trees, mud. My pencil moved quickly across the page.

  Next I wanted colours. I mixed the paint together – paint on my hands, paint across the sheet, paint across the paper.

  Wings, bones, clouds, moon, a galaxy – I painted faster and faster, higher and higher, until I was soaring through the air, the wind in my ears. I dived down, touching the ocean, and up up up, circling the sun until I was warm again. Then I flew beyond the sky, into a universe of stars.

  As the pictures flowed from my brush, for the first time I was flying. As far as I wanted, as high as I wanted, wherever I wanted. I could see the world from above, the way an eagle sees. I was flying. I had learned how.

  Let these two worlds combine,

  Yours and mine.

  The door between us is not locked,

 
Just ajar.

  There is no need for the mocking

  Or the mocked to stand afar

  With wounded pride

  Or angry mind,

  Or to build a wall to crouch and hide,

  To cry or sneer behind.

  This is ours together.

  This nation –

  No need for separation.

  It is time to learn.

  Let us forget the hurt,

  Join hands and reach

  With hearts that yearn.

  Your world and mine

  Is small.

  The past is done.

  Let us stand together,

  Wide and tall

  And God will smile upon us each

  And all

  And everyone.

  The year I was ten, a long time ago, the twenty-sixth of January fell on a Sunday. I woke late, sitting up in bed next to my sleeping brothers with a sensation of disaster brought on by the smell of roast lamb and potatoes. I remembered that my parents had invited a guest for lunch, our neighbour, Mrs Banks.

  Mrs Banks was a childless widow. Her husband, Mr Banks, had been killed, she said, in the war, although she did not specify which one. She arrived for lunch at two o’clock, by which time we were all desperate. As there were only five chairs around the table, and I was the youngest, I yielded my seat to our guest and perched on an upturned fruit box.

  Mrs Banks bolted into her meal, and began entertaining us with the driving interest of her life that we were all familiar with – ants. Her interest was neither scientific nor sentimental – she saw them purely in terms of how many there were, and where were they coming from? Or even worse, where were they going? And if there weren’t any, where were they, then? Their absence being yet more ominous than their presence.