by Scot Gardner
‘Just needs a new front end,’ Mal said. ‘I priced one from the wreckers in the city. Should have it on the road for under two hundred dollars.’
Mal had a new toy. It was broken, but that fact had no impact on his mad smile. He was keeping with the recent tradition in the Rainbow household of being unaccountably happy, a tradition that finally explained itself that evening.
Both Larry’s parents came to tuck him in that night.
He knew something was coming.
‘We have some news, Larry,’ Mal whispered.
‘Good news,’ Denise said.
‘Very good news.’
‘I’m pregnant,’ Denise said. ‘I’m going to have a baby.’
FANTASTIC
BROTHER
IT WAS 12:06 A.M. when Larry looked at the clock. He hadn’t slept. Hadn’t even come close. He was going to have a little brother or sister – they didn’t know which – around 26 February next year. Five months. It seemed like such a long way away. He wished they hadn’t told him until the day before it was due. Or maybe just surprised him as if it was Christmas morning: here, Larry, here’s your new brother/sister. He thought about a new brother versus a new sister and couldn’t decide which he’d prefer. He thought about what they might name the baby. He imagined how happy his friends would be when he told them the news. Jemma would squeal and spend three hours making a card for his mother. Guillermo would hug him and congratulate him, even though Larry had nothing to do with making the baby. Then he almost made himself sick thinking about what his parents must have done for his mother to become pregnant.
Larry ran with Vince again on Wednesday and when he heard the news, the old man had to stop and sit on the low log fence that marked the edge of the breakwater.
‘That’s incredible, Larry. A miracle. Fantastic, fantastic news. Your mother and father deserve that after all these years. After the fantastic job they’ve done with you.’
He reached out gently, found the boy’s head and messed his hair. ‘You deserve it, Larry. You’ll be a fantastic brother.’
Tears spilled from the old man’s eyes and splashed onto his shirt.
Larry took his hand. ‘What is it, Vince? Are you okay?’
Vince shook his head and drew him into a hug. Part of a sob escaped – big and black and lonely – but Vince held his breath and shook faintly as he tried to swallow it. Larry hung on tight, didn’t know what else to do, then Vince was drawing away, rubbing his face, wiping tears on his sleeve.
Larry’s muddled brain had already come to a conclusion: Vince was sad because he wouldn’t see Larry’s little brother or sister born. Vince was dying.
‘What is it?’ Larry asked again.
Vince couldn’t see the boy’s wrinkled brow but he could feel the confusion in his voice. He sniffed and reached for the boy’s hand again.
‘Sorry, Larry. I’m happy, I really am.’
‘What?’
‘It’s not about you. I’m happy. So happy for you and your mother and father.’
‘Tell me,’ Larry demanded. ‘You’re my friend. I know there’s something wrong, so don’t lie to me.’
Vince laughed, eyebrows raised. He patted Larry’s hand.
‘Where’s the rope? Come on, let’s run.’
Larry sighed and trailed the rope across Vince’s lap. For a second, his frustration with his neighbour overwhelmed him and he considered dropping his end. He thought about running off and leaving Vince to find his own way home. But the old man stood, wiped his face with the front of his shirt and began jogging on the spot. ‘Lead on, Larry. Lead on.’
They were halfway to the bridge when Vince spoke again. ‘We are friends, aren’t we. More than just neighbours. More than oddly paired running buddies. You’ve become my eyes, Larry, and I trust you more than I trust the sand. Can’t run on the beach any more . . . broken glass . . . needles. It’s not safe.’
‘Crack in the footpath,’ Larry said automatically.
Vince lifted his toes and felt the unevenness of the fracture under his heel. ‘See! See what I mean. That’s the sort of trust you need in your fellow man. Blind faith.’
Larry huffed.
Vince growled and shook his head. ‘I don’t hate much about this world, Larry, but I do hate going blind.’
Larry was so relieved that Vince wasn’t dying that it took ten long strides for it to sink in. The old man wasn’t going to die, but he wouldn’t see Larry’s brother or sister. Sleep eventually came easier to Larry.
Mal was neck-deep in a project installing a beer fridge under the house, apparently – and worked on it into the evening; sawing, hammering and drilling sounds came from beneath the lounge-room floor. Larry found the industry soothing.
He still thought about his little brother or sister cooking away in his mother’s tummy, but the thoughts were older and wiser now.
His mother was tucking him in tight on a chilly September evening when she discovered Guillermo’s rubbish – the magazine – under his mattress.
Larry had forgotten it was there. He watched his mother flick the pages and saw her face contort. Her mouth hung open.
‘Oh my goodness,’ she whispered and dropped it as if it was lava.
She bumped the doorframe on her way out. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she hissed. ‘Malcolm!’
He hid under the covers but he could still hear her ranting like Muriel Hammersmith. He cupped his hands over his ears and hummed a single confused note to himself until the covers were gently drawn away from his face.
He blinked against the harsh light.
His father seemed to be smiling. He had sawdust in his hair.
‘Where did you get this?’ he asked, holding the magazine as if it was a library book, not molten rock.
Larry lifted himself onto one elbow. ‘I found it. Found it in the park.’
Mal nodded and flicked through the pages one by one. When he got to the last page, he closed it with a flourish and shook his head. He was definitely smiling.
‘Your mother and I don’t approve of this sort of thing,’ he said, theatrically loud. He closed the door quietly. ‘And she asked me to come in here and talk to you, but I don’t think I’m going to say the things she’d want me to say, so let’s just keep this between you and me, okay?’
Larry nodded.
The conversation that followed variously fascinated and horrified Larry. He had been collecting shells of information all his life and their ‘little talk’ was mostly a chance for him to help arrange those shells. They turned them over together and examined them under the light, asked straight questions and told straight answers. There was no mention of birds or bees, and twenty red-cheeked minutes after they began, the conversation came to a comfortable landing on the magazine that had started it all.
‘Just a tip,’ Mal said, in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘If you want to hide something from your mother, don’t put it anywhere near your drawers or your bed. She’s in those places all the time. That’s one of the reasons we have a shed.’
He winked, kissed his boy’s cheek and turned out the light as he left. Larry heard the garbage bin open and close and he bade the magazine good riddance. So much more trouble than it was worth. No wonder Guillermo had reacted strangely when Larry had caught him with it. He rolled over and buzzed for a while, but the gentle sounds of activity coming from under the house eventually lulled him to sleep. ‘You don’t even care,’ Denise growled at her husband as she made dinner on Thursday evening.
Larry was staring at the television, biting his thumbnail and listening to their stifled but heated conversation.
‘Rubbish. Of course I care. It’s just . . .’
Denise scoffed. ‘You say that, but your actions say something else. Why do you need a motorbike all of a sudden? Why do we need a refrigerator under the house and a beer tap in the lounge? What about somewhere for a new baby to sleep?’
‘It’s . . . it’s just not real for me yet.’
‘Not real? Ho
w real does it need to be? Should I be vomiting on you in the morning instead of the bathroom sink?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m not being ridiculous, Mal, I’m trying to prepare.’
‘You’re counting your chickens.’
Larry didn’t understand what chickens had to do with it.
Denise knocked a plate to the floor as she charged past her husband. The plate shattered but she didn’t stop. She slammed the bedroom door and it made Larry jump. He looked to his father. Mal shrugged, then bent to pick up the pieces of the plate.
Larry, his heart drumming, helped Mal collect the shards.
‘Would you like an egg for dinner?’ Mal asked.
‘Yes, please.’
‘I probably should . . . can you make it yourself?’
‘Yes. I’ll be fine.’
His dad tentatively entered the bedroom.
Larry thought, as he successfully cracked the egg into the pan, that if Guillermo came for lunch again, he could make egg on toast for him. No meat.
He washed and dried his dishes and got himself ready for bed. He could hear his mother sobbing through the bathroom wall. He could hear his father’s soothing voice but couldn’t make out what he was saying. He heard a knock at the front door.
It was Vince. Vince with an enormous bunch of flowers from his garden. ‘Hi, Larry. Is your mother in?’
‘Um, yes. She’s in her room. With Dad.’
‘Oh.’
‘Are the flowers for her?’
‘Who else?’
‘I can give them to her if you want. They’ll cheer her up for sure.’
‘Would you? That would be great,’ Vince said. ‘Is everything okay?’
Larry could only be honest. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is there anything I can do? I mean . . .’
‘Dad’s with her. I think she’ll be okay.’
Larry took the flowers and Vince said goodnight. He turned on his heels, and then stopped. ‘I hope everything’s okay.’
Larry nodded and closed the door.
But everything wasn’t okay.
Denise started bleeding early on Saturday morning.
Mal called Stan’s brother and told him he wouldn’t be making any deliveries that day. Vince looked after Larry while Mal and Denise took a taxi ride to the hospital. Denise didn’t come home that night, or the next, or the next, and deep in the starless night of Tuesday 11 September 2001, the baby was born. Months before its time, without struggle, without life.
Malcolm held his wife’s limp hand. There was no rage left in her. No tears. No fight. She sat up in her hospital bed and stared at the TV mounted on the wall. Mal wanted to leave her there and get a taxi home to free Vince of his babysitting duties. The old man was as faithful as ever – simple, honest, reliable. He was also nearly blind. But Mal couldn’t let go of his wife’s hand. What if the universe really was so fragile that his comment about Denise counting her chickens before they’d hatched had tipped the balance? What if his momentary lapse of faith was enough to topple the house of cards?
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
If she heard him, she didn’t respond.
The ads were interrupted by a bulletin showing footage of a smoking building. Somewhere in America, a light aircraft had crashed into a high-rise.
An elderly woman in the next bed asked Mal – the only visitor left at that hour – if he would please turn up the volume.
New York. Not a light aircraft but a commercial passenger jet. One of the iconic towers of the World Trade Center was on fire.
The old woman in the next bed began talking to herself. ‘That wasn’t an accident. There is no way that was an accident. Some crazy individual with a . . . Oh, my goodness.’
As they watched, another aircraft ploughed into the burning building’s twin. Pieces of the plane seemed to go straight through the concrete and steel and spin off into obscurity like vast skimming stones. A fireball so big that it seemed to ignite in slow motion swallowed the top of the building. It flashed sun-bright and gold and left in its wake a baleful black cloud.
A single fat tear idled down Denise’s face and plipped onto the bedclothes.
The world would never be the same again.
BRANDY
PART OF DENISE died with the baby. Perhaps it was the timing of the loss – more than three thousand others died godless deaths that September day – but it hit her in ways that the miscarriages before Larry’s birth had not. The grace drained from her life overnight. She couldn’t bear to be touched. Her emotional spectrum became a palette of greys. Mal and Larry lived under her cloud and hungered for sunlight, spoke in whispers and were happiest at work and school.
Denise made lunches and washed clothes; she couldn’t laugh but couldn’t cry either. Sympathy cards arrived from Mary Holland and two of the church ladies who scarcely rated as acquaintances. She put the cards together on the top of her computer monitor but quietly resented the fact that her most private grief had been shared around like chocolate cake.
Vince drank tea with her and barely said a word for three days in a row. He didn’t pretend to understand or try to jolly her along, but his comments about the garden and the weather gently bathed her wounded heart.
‘Vince?’ she called, as he was leaving on a scented afternoon.
He propped with one hand resting on the gate and stared expectantly but vacantly towards the house. He could feel her heavy steps on the path, then her shadow was there in front of him.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
He felt for her hand and squeezed it.
In the angry days after the attacks on the twin towers, the world appeared to be fraying at the seams. There was talk of war. Somebody posted letters containing anthrax to media and government officials in the USA, and some died as a result. Malcolm Rainbow, for the first time in his life, began to question the safety of his job. He wore leather gloves and handled airmail letters and parcels no more than he needed to. He played his music loud in his headphones in an attempt to drown out the maelstrom of inky thoughts in his head. He came home from work exhausted, but home offered no respite. The news showed a world with its jaws clenched, and Mal’s tiredness grew.
Scarcely a month after the baby and the twin towers died, the USA and Britain began dropping bombs in Afghanistan. It looked like war on the little screen and Larry couldn’t watch it. He had to leave the house at news time. News time became run time – with Vince or Gilligan, along the inlet.
The end of the inlet was miles from home and from the drip-feed of horror coming from the computer and the television and his parents, but a good run was still less than an hour and the news found him in other ways. Everybody seemed to have a creative idea about what to do with Osama bin Laden once he was caught. Except Guillermo. Guillermo wasn’t convinced they were getting the full story. Why, he asked, were they bombing Afghanistan if the men who hijacked the planes were mostly from Saudi Arabia?
‘And why would those hijackers waste their lives attacking freedom and democracy in another country as President Bush has suggested? That would be like paying the ultimate price while trying to blow holes in the ocean. Futile. America has been stung by a wasp . . . but I think she may have been kicking the nest for many years.’
‘How can you say that?’ Jemma argued.
The three of them were lolling on the swings in the park after church.
‘Those men were violent and evil,’ she said.
‘Violent, no doubt. Evil is a matter of perspective.’
‘You sound like your mother,’ Jemma scoffed. ‘Don’t let Mrs Kennedy hear you say that.’
‘Why?’
Larry knew what she was talking about. ‘Mrs Kennedy’s second cousin was killed on September eleven.’
Guillermo shrugged. ‘So were three thousand or so others. Innocent people. Knowing America, I’d say ten times that many innocent people will die on the other side. That’s what happens when you sting the
tough guy.’
As if on cue, Clinton appeared, skulking like a seagull hunting food. He hadn’t worn an eye patch for a long time and his eye itself seemed completely normal, but the purple-bubbled skin on his face and neck was hard to ignore.
He threw and caught a white golf ball. ‘Anyone for a game of brandy?’
‘I’ll play,’ Guillermo said. ‘What is brandy?’
‘No!’ Jemma squeaked, and grabbed Guillermo’s arm.
Clinton chuckled. ‘It’s where you run and I throw my golf ball at you.’
‘Sounds like fun,’ Guillermo said. He got out of his swing seat and rubbed his hands together.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ Jemma said.
‘What’s the worst thing that could happen?’
‘I could hit you in the head and kill you,’ Clinton said.
‘Is that all?’ Guillermo said. He put his fists on his hips. ‘I’ve had worse.’
He darted off like a rabbit, ducking and weaving towards the road. Jemma squealed and ran after him, her hands clamped around her head.
Clinton gripped the ball.
‘Don’t,’ Larry growled.
Clinton took aim, but before he’d got a shot off, Guillermo disappeared behind the power pole. Jemma, still squealing, hid with him.
Clinton swore under his breath.
There was a commotion at the power pole and Jemma’s squealing turned to manic laughter. When they reappeared, Guillermo had hold of her from behind, an arm locked around her waist. He lifted her off the ground.
Clinton bent close and whispered in Larry’s ear. ‘Guillermo’s hot for your girlfriend.’
Larry frowned and stepped out of his swing. He walked towards the power pole, offended and more than a little confused. Jemma was a girl and she was his friend, but she wasn’t his girlfriend. Guillermo wasn’t Larry’s boyfriend, either. But Guillermo and Jemma seemed more complete every time Larry was with them. Sometimes, even when they were just talking, it was hard to break into their bubble. When they were together like that, Larry wanted to change the channel.