Borrowed Light

by Anna Fienberg

  I was continually nervous. It made my mouth dry, all this inventing, and I licked my lips a lot. They became chafed and an ulcer bloomed on the tip of my tongue. It’s hard kissing with an ulcer. It hurts, and you feel like a leper. But I didn’t like to say no.

  On Sundays I went to the beach with Tim and ‘the guys’. I usually wore a T-shirt over my bikini. I explained that I had a family failing. Skin cancers popped out on our backs after five minutes’ exposure to the sun.

  I sat on the beach for hours, sweltering, while the guys surfed the waves. I didn’t like to read, because I might miss one of Tim’s best ‘tubes’. He always asked me afterward if I’d been watching. When they were finished, the boys would race back over the sand, surfboards cradled under their arms like awkward pets. Tim would leap upon me, all dripping and slippery, with his cold wet lips on mine. His hips pressed into me, digging us into the sand.

  The cold of his skin was welcome, but I could hear the sniggering of his friends behind us, and I died quietly of embarrassment. Gently I’d nudge Tim off my bones, and he’d sit up and hunt around for a beer.

  José often brought his dog Tito to the beach. But he had to be careful about taking it onto the sand. There was a big sign near the toilet block with a picture of a dog and a great red slash through it. One Sunday José brought his spray can and splashed the sign with purple. When he’d finished, I told him the dog on the sign looked like an alien from Mars. ‘No Aliens on the Beach’ he wrote happily along the top. So José brought his Earth dog down to the shore.

  Tim laughed with the rest of us, but I could see that he was worried. When a lifesaver jogged up an hour later, Tim stepped in. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, ‘but my friend José here doesn’t read English. His dog came out with him from Chile.’

  ‘Well, it’s a two-hundred-dollar fine for a dog on the beach,’ warned the lifesaver. ‘So you better tell your friend. Okay, guys, hasta la vista!’ He waved in a friendly way to José, and jogged back up the beach.

  ‘Hasta la what?’ said José. He was angry with Tim. He’d been dying to tell the lifesaver all about alien dogs. But Tim just caught him in a headlock and they wrestled to the sand.

  Tim was different like that. He drank till he was legless, he surfed in electrical storms and acted wild at parties. But he liked things legal and tidy. His parents were quite strict. I had never met them, but he told me many stories of his mother and her Hygiene Household. It sounded as if she scrubbed and vacuumed and dusted and washed for eight hours a day. She sat down to dinner with a Wettex in her hand. She was washing up before the family had finished dessert. Visitors had to sit on special covers laid carefully over the sofa, so as not to soil the brocade.

  ‘Does she ask guests if they’re toilet trained before they come in?’ I only wanted to make him laugh. But he didn’t. He frowned at me, and his lips clamped together.

  ‘She’s not that bad. She’s just house-proud. My father says the best thing about the day is coming home to a tidy house. So I suppose she makes him pretty happy.’

  After that I didn’t say another word of criticism about Tim’s family, even if he was railing against them. I suppose I wouldn’t like it if Tim started going on about my mother. And he had enough material, all right. When he came to pick me up for our first date, Mum answered the door with beetroot juice all over her nose. He didn’t say anything, but she must have seen him looking. ‘It’s a cure for sun cancers,’ she explained, ‘it works wonders.’

  Later, when we were driving away—we were going to José’s house to watch a video—Tim didn’t mention my mother. I thought that was very decent of him. He never made beetroot jokes or anything. She must have looked so weird, standing there like the victim of a dog bite. It’s strange how you can go about detesting your own family, but if anyone else criticises them, it’s like a knife in your heart. I learnt a lot of things from Tim.

  But I was always nervous. I don’t know why. The trouble with my breathing started then. I was constantly breathless. I developed bronchitis, which wasn’t very attractive because it made me bark like a dog. Often I’d come down with it the night before a big party. With my hollow chest and barking cough, I could have been someone in an opera dying of consumption.

  Since real disaster has hit, these anxieties look tiny, like ants at a distance. You’d think I’d have enjoyed being popular for once. But I felt like someone in a bad disguise. Any minute I would be discovered.

  I suppose I am superstitious, like my mother. Deep down I think something terrible will happen if you go against the divine order of things. Moons shouldn’t dress up as stars, even if it is only pretending.

  IF YOU REALLY want to know, there were some parts of going out with Tim that I didn’t like. But when I came home, I’d fall on my bed and lie there for hours. I’d watch the room floating with moonlight and scenes from my life would be silvered. Here on the bed I could change things. I was like a film director, freezing some scenes while I had a good look at a particular expression, a certain gesture. I played the first kiss scene over and over again. I felt Tim’s hands stroking my face, his tongue tickling my ear, the music beating its way into my body. It made waves rise up in my belly like the tide coming in. I’d wanted that song to last forever—‘Fire’, it was, and I’d never forget that, no matter what disasters happened later. I wanted that moment to last, to freeze that frame. Tim with his arms around me, shining down on me while I quivered in his light. I could feel his heart hammering hard against mine, the music vibrating through the floor, running like sap through my toes.

  On my bed, I’d replay that scene until I was exhausted. I was a star actor in a million-dollar movie. Then other moments would creep in. I’d chop the film there, letting the bad scenes fall into the dark. I’d grind my heel into those. I’d crush them down into the bottom of my mind, until no crack of light was emitted.

  SOMETIMES, WHEN I was lying on my bed at night, Jeremy would wake up. He had a piercing cry, like a car alarm. ‘Aargh, aargh, aargh!’ he’d scream, and I’d run panting across the hall into his room to save him from mortal combat. Usually he’d be dreaming about Batman caught in a meteor shower, or Robin falling off the moon.

  That Wednesday night, following my discovery at the doctor’s and Jeremy’s fight about the helmet (he’d wanted to wear it to bed, just in case), he had fallen asleep in about five seconds flat. He stopped fighting exhaustion and helmet removal, and turned over. ‘Batman out,’ he said, and closed his eyes. He became as limp as seaweed, letting the tide suck him in.

  I’m amazed at the way small children fall asleep like that. They just give in, like little animals without backbones. I wish I could.

  Anyway, there I was on my bed, panicking in my own world, when I heard his cry. I ran into his room, and saw him sitting up straight in bed. His fists were clenched on the sheets, and he was mumbling something. I crept over to him. ‘You’re not the boss of me, scumbuggit!’ he hissed. ‘This is an extortion rain!’ I smiled at him, even though he was asleep. Jeremy’s had ‘glue ear’ for ages, and he doesn’t always hear the exact Batman dialogue, but he certainly gets the tone right.

  I tucked my hand under his shoulders, and laid his rigid little body back under the bedclothes. It was like trying to fold a plank.

  I went back to my bed. There were books strewn all over it. I was supposed to be studying for a history exam. But I kept thinking about Jeremy’s glue ear. There were little hollow plastic things you could put into the Eustachian tubes, I’d found out, which widen the area and let it drain. Grommets, they were called. I’d told Mum all about it—it was only a minor operation, it took about fifteen minutes and it would stop Jeremy looking so intense all the time. When you talk, he watches your lips like mad, so he doesn’t miss anything. How ever is he going to act cool in high school and look as if he doesn’t care when he’s there hanging on your lips?

  But Mum won’t take him to the doctor. She doesn’t believe in them. I keep telling her, doctors aren’t like wit
ches or giants, they do exist, and her ignoring them isn’t going to make them go away. She just shrugs and points to catastrophes like thalidomide that left thousands of babies crippled, and ‘rests her case’. Grommets are hardly thalidomide, I say, for God’s sake. But she just continues to experiment with five drops of juice from an onion whenever Jeremy gets an earache. So now he smells of onion as well as looking intense, which is a very nerdy mixture, if you ask me. Poor Jeremy, I think he is destined to be a star, but he’ll have to fight the clotting dark matter of his family if he’s ever going to get there.

  Jeremy’s like me—he worries about a lot of things. Things that will probably never happen. I’d hate to tell him that reality is often even more dreadful than anything he could imagine.

  That afternoon, when we were sitting in the kitchen, whispering very quietly, Mum tiptoed out of her seance and told us to go away. ‘Where?’ said Jeremy. ‘Wherever,’ waved Mum. So I took him down to the Swimming Centre.

  We strolled down there in the afternoon sunlight, and we both cheered up a little. I bought Jeremy an icecream and he sat on the edge, dangling his feet in the pool.

  I watched his legs moving like scissors through the water. When he’d made enough foam he drew his legs up under him, and rested his chin on his knees. I counted three grazes and one bruise.

  ‘Why won’t your mind do what you want it to?’ he asked.

  We both looked down at his toes, while we considered. Bubbles clung to invisible blond hairs, like beads.

  Jeremy often asks questions that philosophers have been pondering for centuries. He has a very high IQ, I think. He says it only gives him more room to worry.

  ‘What don’t you want to think about?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh nothing, let’s not talk about it. Batman out.’ He finished his icecream and sat, hanging onto the stick. His mouth was slightly open, as he gazed at the other children zipping in and out of the pool. He had a cold and I supposed he was breathing through his mouth. His ears would play up again soon, for sure. When Jeremy laughs, his black eyes disappear into two crescent moons, and his whole body wobbles like jelly. But he wasn’t laughing then.

  ‘Calling Robin to Batman, come in, over,’ I said.

  Jeremy swung round, lit up and wired. ‘Batman here, what’s happening on planet Jupiter, Robin?’ His whole face changed. Batman and Co. were the only beings on earth that could deflect his attention from meteors and gravity. He began to giggle, tapping his leg in a private rhythm of excitement. This was The Game, and it was never long enough for Jeremy.

  ‘Well, Batman,’ I said in my rocket radio voice, ‘I’ve heard there’s a problem on planet Earth, but I can’t see what it is from up here. Could you zoom in and have a look around?’

  Jeremy sprang up and searched the horizon. He narrowed his eyes and sighed. ‘The sun is shining, and the children are playing, over.’

  ‘That sounds good, Batman. A typical Earth summer afternoon, over.’

  ‘Yes Robin.’ Jeremy crouched down and whispered hotly in my ear. His breath was sweet and chocolatey. I wanted to hold him for a moment. The water was making me think of the lungfish. I kept seeing the doctor’s face, wrinkling in concern for me. He would have stroked my hand. I didn’t want to think about that. I just wanted to hold my little brother. Jeremy would never stand still long enough. He always wriggled away to get on with The Game, dropping a kiss or a smile as an offering, the way a lizard drops a bit of his tail.

  ‘I’m not being Batman now, okay?’ said Jeremy breathlessly. ‘Because Batman knows everything, see. I’m Jeremy just while I ask this, and then I’ll be Batman again, right? Well,’ he drew a deep breath and his eyebrows furrowed so that he looked quite old and tired, as if he’d been carrying a very heavy package around. ‘Well, the sun is shining now, that’s for sure, but how can it keep burning? You said it’s always losing weight. Grandma said it uses four million tonnes of hydrogen in just one second.’ His voice broke. ‘What will happen when it’s all burnt up? Imagine, Cally, the world all dark forever.’

  He squinched up his eyes, trying to feel what it would be like. He stood up and walked with his arms stretched out in front like a sleepwalker. People were looking at him. He fell over a rubbish bin and came back. ‘Could we go and live on Mars? Do you think there’ll be civilisation there by then? Would Mum come?’

  I put my arm around him. He let me. ‘Four million tonnes is nothing, Jeremy. That sun is one big ball of fire. There’s enough fuel to keep burning for another five billion years.’

  Jeremy breathed out, and grinned. ‘That’s even older than Grandma, isn’t it. So, you could practically say that the sun will shine forever, just about.’

  ‘Just about.’

  ‘Good.’ Jeremy stood up and stretched. ‘Now I’m Batman again, and you’re Robin. Or maybe, I’ll be Poison Ivy. She’s really bad. She’s got green fingers and she grows Deadly Nightshade, too. If she just touches you, you get a rash. Ooh, watch out, my hand nearly got you, look out!’

  I made a terrified face and began to scratch wildly. ‘I need the anti-rash, the anti-rash!’ I cried in agony.

  A young lifesaver hurried over to us. ‘Do you need any help? Is there anything wrong?’

  Jeremy looked at the young man huffily. ‘I’m saving her already, scumbuggit. I got here first.’ He bent down to me and whispered, ‘I’m Batman now, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ I whispered back, ‘but don’t be rude.’ I blushed madly and tried to smile politely at the lifesaver. Then I turned to help Batman, who was slathering anti-rash cream all over my legs.

  WE PLAYED BATMAN at the pool until six o’clock. Normally I find super-hero games have a use-by date of about ten minutes. But that afternoon, I really got into my character. I was Poison Ivy—Jeremy wistfully gave her to me, acknowledging that she’s a girl and so am I. But he loves her ‘long orange hair’ and he does a wicked sexy walk.

  I personally think he can be Poison Ivy as long as he wants, but he says he’s a big boy now, and he can’t be her in public.

  I flicked back my long orange hair with dangerous allure, and wiggled along the deserted concrete. Jeremy whistled, and flexed his steely biceps. I only hoped the lifesaver had gone home. I cowered before the biceps of Batman. I smiled wickedly at him. I didn’t want to think about anything nasty. I wanted to be Poison Ivy, who was green, not pregnant, and whose biggest problem was an antisocial rash.

  On the long walk up the hill toward home, we watched the sun spilling its radiation all over the rooftops. Jeremy was still chattering away, but I could only hear the doctor’s voice. It was smooth and warm, like freshly planed wood. I polished it over and over in my mind until it became silky and thin, but it wouldn’t stop. Oh why won’t your mind do what you want it to do?

  AFTER DINNER I read Jeremy a story. It was about space rangers who discovered life on Mars. There were alien bacteria and amoeba with teeth, but Jeremy got stuck on the poor astronauts needing oxygen tanks on their backs. ‘What if they get a hole in the tank? What if they run out of air? What if they float away from the spaceship?’ Horrible noises of slow strangulation burst from his throat. He leapt about the kitchen, the veins in his neck standing out, rehearsing the drama of drowning in space.

  ‘Will you keep it down in there?’ Dad called out from the bedroom. ‘I’m trying to concentrate!’

  I could just imagine it. He’d have his three suits and nine shirts laid out on the bed, pressed and perfect. Underpants and cotton singlets would be in a separate pile, with pairs of socks folded into each other making neat colourful balls on the pillows. David May, business manager and father of two was catching a plane to South Africa in the morning, and he wanted to have everything ready that evening.

  I crept down the hall and stood outside his door, spying. Jeremy’s shrieks arrived in his room like animal life from another planet.

  ‘Place is a madhouse!’ Dad muttered to himself. He set the alarm and put it on the bedside table, just near enough to reach,
not so close to the edge that it would fall.

  He sat down on the bed for a moment, finding a vacant spot near the pillow. He stared into space, with a little smile on his face. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking of the clean, five-star hotel that awaited him, with the soap in packets and the towels thick and soft. He’d have just one glass of French champagne after take-off, to celebrate, as he usually did, and then he’d read through some notes. ‘This is the life,’ he’d say.

  He must have remembered about earplugs then, because he sprang off the bed like a rocket and extracted them from a drawer. He placed the plugs in a little plastic box next to the socks. Hmm, yes, there’d be time for a little snooze before Perth. Best to get some shut-eye. He smiled to himself as he decided about shoes, humming a tune that blocked out the tragedies occurring deep within the universe of the kitchen.

  My father is a dealer in African art. My mother describes him as a ‘wheeler dealer’. She says it with a little laugh in her voice, but if you knew her well, you’d hear more suspicion than admiration in her tone. Dad makes regular trips to South Africa. He’s been to Johannesburg and Soweto and the Orange Free State. He’s even been to Umtata, near the Indian Ocean, where Nelson Mandela was born. Dad said the country is beautiful there, green and luxurious even in winter, with its maze of rivers and deep fertile valleys. I’d like to go one day, but I wouldn’t travel the way my father does. His little comforts are like a cushiony set of blinkers around his eyes, I reckon. He travels business class. He can afford to now.

  My mother sniffs at him about the business class. She looks just like Grandma when she does that. Mum says, ‘You must be so proud of yourself, David. You’ve made all that money out of people who can’t even pay their electricity bills.’

  I hate to think of that. I hope it isn’t true. Dad gets furious with her. He shouts, and his face goes all mottled and red like salami. It makes you want to squish him. ‘With all the money we give them,’ he yells, ‘those artists can now afford to pay their electricity bills.’