by Scot Gardner
‘That sounds real. It isn’t just a dream, is it?’ she said. ‘Look! I’ve got goosebumps. How much of it is real? Is the blood real? Who is she?’
‘Enough,’ I hissed. ‘It’s a dream. I should have known.’ ‘What? Should have known what? That I wouldn’t stop?
What do you think I am? I’m a—’
‘—Kid. Yes, I know.’
‘I was going to say “girl”. It’s in our nature, you know. Talk, talk, talk. Ask a thousand questions. Comm-uni-cation. I thought robots were programmed to communicate?’
‘Too much communication,’ I rattled. ‘Must . . . shut . . ..down.’
Way off in the distance, a voice bellowed.
Skye swore, covered her mouth and apologized. ‘It’s my dad,’ she whispered. ‘See you!’
Her shoulder hit the sliding door as she ran through. She apologized again but didn’t break her stride.
It was after eleven when I snuck to the empty shower block and brushed my teeth. The lights seemed friendlier than I remembered. I stopped brushing to listen – footfalls on the path outside. It was too late to hide.
I stooped over the sink. Westy entered my peripheral vision and stopped. It wasn’t an abrupt stop – his limbs seemed heavy and loose.
‘Rowie, Rowie, Rowie,’ he said, tutted and shook his head.
I didn’t look up or acknowledge his presence.
He moved swiftly, with fabricated poise. He grabbed the hair at the back of my neck and butted my head into the mirror. The glass cracked obligingly but he didn’t let go. I tried to shake free. He turned my head and slapped the side of my face with his free hand. My ear rang as it had in my dream. He slapped me again and toothpaste-spit sprayed us both. He shoved me off in disgust. I caught hold of a sink and remained upright in the corner against the shower stalls.
Westy unzipped his fly and hauled his penis out. He stretched it and flapped it from side to side, took aim and relieved himself on the floor, on my leg, my hip, my stomach. I’d turned to stone. Cold, hard stone. He rolled up onto his toes and his stream reached as high as my chest. I closed my eyes until the flow diminished to a series of squirts accompanied by little grunts.
He spat, hitting my shoulder, and then left.
I stood there, dripping, his vapour hot in my nose.
Pea on the floor.
Two steps into a shower stall and a battering of ice needles. It took ages for the water to warm up and even longer for the smell to leave. Someone had stashed a bar of soap on top of the wall between the stalls and I shed my clothes and scrubbed until the only smell rising in the steam was bogus lavender. I padded back to the van barefoot and naked, unseen and unheard, and dumped my wet things in the rubbish.
I couldn’t live like that any more. I lay on Mam’s bed and caught bites of party noise from van 57 that set my heart on a wild gallop. What had I done to unleash the mindless wrath of Westy? I didn’t touch his cash. Without the distractions of work and caring for Mam, I had nowhere to hide. If it wasn’t for the total numb exhaustion I would have run. Wherever. Forever.
25
A single red eye is hovering in the shadowed doorway. It shakes, as if bitten by rage. I have stared at it for a lifetime but in the dream it is scarcely a second before it suddenly blinks and floats to the height of a man. The eye is the glowing tip of a cigarette. The smoker inhales and the glow sketches the figure. I know him. It is the man she calls David.
Dawn on the laundry bench. I’d fashioned a pillow from forgotten clothing and woken with a crowd of thoughts protesting in my head. David? The dream was no longer a single scene. It had morphed and taken on new dimensions, and the fear I felt had multiplied, too. It now had a face – one I didn’t want to remember but somehow did. I knew that if I let my thoughts rest there, the face would crack and release a buzzing swarm of memory.
I showered and walked the foreshore to the café strip. The day shimmered, the air still and bright. I felt strangely rested, as though the shift in my dream denoted that I’d surrendered to my fate, whatever that might turn out to be.
I bought a cooked breakfast and ate it on an al fresco table beside a woman with a newspaper, a boyish dog and a cigarette. She sent me a smile and I lobbed one straight back.
‘Magnificent morning,’ she murmured, her words thickly accented.
‘True,’ I said.
At the sound of my voice, her dog stepped as close as his lead would allow and pressed his nose to my thigh. He watched my face with his hazel eyes, searching. I scratched his head and whispered a greeting.
‘Wally, get down,’ she said – definitely French. ‘The poor guy doesn’t want you slobbering all over him.’
She reached under the table for Wally’s lead.
‘He’s fine. The attention is always welcome.’
She smiled again and tugged on his collar anyway. ‘Yes, he’s not exactly the perfect gentleman but he is the friend of the entire world.’
I held that thought for a mere slice of a second – friend of the entire world – and my eyes flooded. Not with television tears, but silent, hot things that dripped faster than I could wipe, that made my nose run and fuzzed my vision.
‘Are you okay?’ the woman asked. Her chair scraped and she handed me a serviette.
I thanked her, nodded. I squeezed my nose on the paper towel, mopped at my face and sat there. Meet the incredible crying boy. See him feel something before your very eyes.
The woman went back to her paper, polite enough to not make a fuss and brave enough to sit there as I melted. Perhaps tears were commonplace in her life? The crying lasted less than a minute but it left me feeling as though my lungs were bigger than they were before.
The woman bade me farewell with a smile.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
She nodded and tugged Wally’s lead. Her high heels clicked loud on the pavement; the dog’s claws clicked soft.
Mam’s hospital bed had a blue seatbelt. It had been drawn across the blankets over her hips. It was loose enough that she could slip out if she wanted to but tight enough to remind her to stay put. Her good arm wore a tight circular bruise I hadn’t noticed the day before. Her face wore a grin for me.
‘Here he is!’ she sang. She’d blanked on my name completely; I could see it behind her eyes. ‘Give me a hug.’
I did as I was told and there was kindness about her touch that took me back to childhood. Just for a breath.
‘What have you done?’ I asked, gently stroking the purple mark on her arm.
‘Oh, it’s nothing. Not even a scratch.’
‘No, it’s a bruise.’
‘Nothing.’
A nurse entered, one I’d not met.
‘Here she is,’ Mam said. ‘Come and give me a hug.’
The nurse, to her credit, took the embrace sincerely but with a smile. ‘Can’t get enough of them,’ she said. ‘Do you need the toilet at all, Mrs Rowe?’
‘Fine at the moment, thank you.’
The nurse tugged on the belt, tightening and then loosening it as if to remind Mam of its presence. She made a quick check of the machine beside the bed and left silently.
‘I knew you’d come,’ Mam said, and patted my hand.
‘Of course. Can’t let you have all the fun.’
‘You remind me of my son,’ Mam said.
‘Astonishing coincidence,’ I mocked.
‘True,’ she said. ‘Your eyes, particularly.’ ‘And what is your son’s name?’
She looked at me, her face suddenly empty. ‘You know.’
‘Do I?’
She slapped my hand and it reminded me of the petulant Skye. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘If you don’t know, I’m not about to tell you.’
With that fragment of conversation, I knew the scales had tipped. Mam had gone and probably wouldn’t find her way back. Perhaps she’d gone home? She’d done her work. She’d schooled me in life the way an institution never could. She’d made me think long and hard about everything and anythi
ng, answered every question I’d ever asked and many that I hadn’t. She’d fed me, washed me and clothed me until I could do it for myself. Until I could do it for her. She’d grown old and now she was growing young again, all innocence and hugs. It seemed to have happened so fast, but if I stopped to think about it there had been years of incremental decline, faithfully denied by us both until – paf, like a blown globe – she’d finally let go. Until that moment, when I’d let go too.
What is life without a memory? Is it death? Sometimes memory was death – slow and painful, eating away at your insides, reeking of decay. Losing your memory would save you from that; wipe your slate clean. But the good would be swept aside with the bad. All the fine things to build a life on would be lost, leaving you just one thing – that moment. No dreams and no history. The ultimate expression of living in the now. There was nothing sweet or philosophical about holding Mam’s hand, however. She’d known she was going to prison. One without walls or bars where she’d be bound to forget and bound to ask the same questions over and over until she forgot how to ask. Forgot how to speak. Forgot how to eat. Or live.
Out of nowhere, Mam began to cry. Her face crumpled and she bowed her head and rocked.
‘What is it, Mam? Are you okay?’
‘It’s nothing,’ she sobbed. ‘Not a scratch.’
My arm over her shoulder, I wept for the second time that day. Wept for the future. Wept for the past. Wept for the nothing in between.
All the objects, sights, sounds and smells that once coalesced to make Home broke apart and reformed while I was away that Sunday. I could not settle. Being lost within the borders of the familiar was the scariest thing I’d ever experienced. What was once a cocoon now felt like a cracked shell.
The racket spilling from van 57 fuelled my restlessness. The music was loud, but the voices punching through were louder and as sharp as razor blades. Something bad was going down, worse than usual. Maybe I was hearing them clearly for the first time.
Getting ready for bed, I wondered if I could second-guess my subconscious by bedding down someplace irrational to begin with – beneath the bushes along the beach, under the stairs at the lookout, behind the charity bins in the supermarket car park. If my dream-self arose in an unfamiliar bolthole, perhaps I’d head for the caravan. Yes, and perhaps I’d head for van 57. I imagined what it would look like to a casual observer, seeing a strange, lean figure in pyjamas stepping over the fence and bedding down in the coastal heath with the windblown rubbish. Vagabond of unsound mind – which didn’t seem too far from reality. I understood how a homeless person might evolve. It wasn’t necessarily some grand calamity that displaced you to the streets, it might happen gradually over a lifetime, with each step along the way making sense. It made perfect sense to me, and I would have slept out that night if the air hadn’t been so cold and damp. Ah, my kingdom for a bed with a seatbelt and a nurse to lock me in.
26
His cheeks are wet. His lips move but I can’t hear his voice. My ears are still ringing. He limps awkwardly from the shadows, leaning heavily on a crutch. He is naked. Claw marks score his chest and thigh, some weep red. His teeth flash as he speaks. He takes a long drag on his cigarette and shakes his head. His crutch is a shotgun.
So cold.
‘Sir? You okay? Sir? Can you hear me?’
Somebody shook my shoulder and I leapt to my feet, sucking air.
‘It’s okay. We’re here to help.’
The hand was back on my shoulder again, comforting now, warmth seeping through to my frozen skin. I rubbed my eyes frantically.
Policewomen – two of. I’d woken on the pavement in front of the café where I’d eaten breakfast the morning before. I couldn’t feel my bare toes but in the feeble light I could see they were covered in sand. I’d walked the whole way – more than a kilometre, and certainly a personal best.
‘Can you tell me your name, sir?’ the woman with her hand on my shoulder asked.
‘Rowe. Aaron Rowe.’
‘Have you been drinking, Mr Rowe?’
‘No. Sleepwalking.’
They looked at each other.
A violent shiver sluiced down my spine.
‘Here,’ the other woman said, handing me her jacket. ‘Just put it over your shoulders.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Where have you come from, Mr Rowe? Where’s home?’
‘The caravan park.’
The woman who’d given me her jacket laughed. ‘Are you serious?’ Constable Nadine Price, her name tag said.
‘Can we give you a lift home?’ the other – Constable Kim Something-with-too-many-letters – asked.
‘Thank you,’ I said.
They swapped the jacket for a soft grey blanket and helped me into the back of the divvy van. I shivered all the way home and thanked them as they let me out at the pedestrian gate.
I handed Constable Nadine Price the blanket, shaking.
‘Will you be right?’
I nodded. ‘Shower.’
‘Good idea. Might want to make an appointment with your doctor about the sleepwalking. Hate to see you mown down by a truck.’
I summoned a smile and left.
The best thing about the weekend turned out to be going back to work on Monday. In one tempestuous week, the funeral parlour had become my sanctuary. The smell of air-freshener flowers had become linked in my mind to the cool stillness of death, and death was my new best friend – someone I’d only just met but felt I’d known forever.
John was on the phone in the office. He greeted me with a grin and a salute. I bowed and headed for the mortuary. If Skye had been right about the pick-up, there’d be a new body to prepare.
Two new bodies, in fact. Both elderly, both female, both wearing pyjamas. The kindest way to go. Even if they’d been ill and suffering for months or years before, death in bed seemed like the gentlest surprise. It wasn’t hard to imagine them surrounded by their families as they did the last of their breathing. Said their goodbyes. Kissed cheeks. No luggage to check in. Leave your body with us, I thought. We’ll look after that.
I had a sudden longing. It was as clear as daylight and the longer John spent on the phone, the stronger it became. I wanted to clean. Something. Anything, really. I checked the public areas and found them spotless but the urgency turned to action and I cleaned the toilets anyway. I was hanging the mop up when John emerged, whistling, from his office.
‘Self-starter,’ he said. ‘That’s what I like to see. Morning, Aaron.’
‘John.’
‘Good weekend, I trust?’
I shrugged. ‘Happy to be here.’
‘Where’s your tie?’
I plucked at my collar. ‘It was . . . damaged. Bit of a long story.’
‘Damaged or ruined?’
‘Ruined.’
‘Ah, I see,’ he said.
He left the air empty. I had no inclination to fill it.
‘I have another. One other,’ he eventually said.
The room grew still again and I found the words he needed to hear right on the tip of my tongue.
‘Sorry, John. It won’t happen again.’
His brow bunched, ever so briefly. ‘No matter. Come.’
I followed him through the building.
‘We found some coveralls for you at the weekend. Mrs Barton figured out your size from suit measurements she remembered off the top of her head. Let’s see how clever she is.’
A sound stopped me in my tracks between the garage and the house. John kept walking.
There it was again – a small squeak. Insect or rodent. I followed it across the yard to the nest of pot plants and found the cat, on its side, damp with dew, panting. I moved pots and tentatively stroked its head.
‘John?’ I called. I’d never used his name like that and the panic was audible, even to me.
He was there in a flash, eyes big.
‘Oh, no,’ he said gently. ‘There you are, sweetheart. Are you okay? Moggy?’
He picked her up, her body spilling limply over his hands.
He groaned. ‘Moggy? Ah, you poor thing. You’ve had it, haven’t you darling?’
There were tears in his eyes. His mouth buckled and straightened. He forced it open, as if to call his wife, but no sound came out.
I jogged to the door. ‘Mrs Barton?’
‘Yes dear?’
‘We found Moggy. It doesn’t look good.’
She hurried to her husband, hand to mouth. She stroked the cat and Moggy’s skin quivered. She’d stopped panting, stopped breathing altogether it seemed.
‘Is she dead?’ Mrs Barton asked.
John gently laid the body on the grass beneath the clothes line. ‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Poor thing,’ Mrs Barton said, and walked back inside.
I watched her go, unable to believe she’d just walked away.
John was still for a long time, sniffing quietly and staring at the cat.
‘Deal with death every day of my life . . . in one way or another. You can never tell when it’s going to bring you undone.’
He pinched his nose. ‘Skye will be devastated.’
I had to wonder if he knew his daughter as well as he thought. Her nonchalance about death seemed as natural as her school uniform.
‘Would you be so kind,’ John said. ‘There’s a shovel in the corner of the garage.’
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Did you have a place in mind?’
‘Behind the pot plants there. In the garden bed. Just a hole. I think Skye might like to pay her last respects in person. I’ll fetch your coveralls.’
A smallish wooden box rested on the bench beside the stand of long-handled tools, the kind a special bottle of port might be sold in. It contained a collection of little shed things – assorted washers, screws, plant tags and string –- and would make a fine coffin for a small cat.
John saw it in my hand and laughed out loud. ‘Perfect. What did I tell you? You’re a natural!’
He took the box, emptied it on the bench and blew the dust out.