The Nest

by Paul Jennings

  ‘Verushka’s leaving at the end of the year. She’s been saving up to get a deposit on a rented flat.’

  ‘Not her, the other one who came to tea.’

  ‘Charlie? I was wrong about her.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’

  ‘Yes, she’s nothing to me,’ I say as I glance upwards at the ceiling.

  ‘You’re a little li …’ he begins but as he follows my gaze he erupts.

  ‘That bloody swallows’ nest. Still there. I’ve been waiting to see how long it would be before you did what you were told.’

  He grabs the icepick from its place on the wall and then drags our stepladder over to the swallows’ nest. The legs rock dangerously as he scrambles up and hacks away, furiously sending crumbs of mud and straw flying into the air. I feel like I’m going to explode as my head starts to fill with dreadful images. He takes one last vicious swipe with the icepick. The nest comes free and drops to the floor but the pick continues its swing and unbalances him. The legs of the stepladder suddenly collapse.

  ‘Arrgh,’ he yells.

  He desperately snatches at the air and manages to grab one of the steel trusses that support the roof. He drops the icepick to the floor and hangs in midair, kicking his legs, trying to find the rungs that aren’t there.

  ‘Quick, get the ladder,’ he screams out.

  The icepick is lying at my feet. His hairy belly is showing between the buttons of his boilersuit. A stinking snake strikes and an image flits across my mind. It’s gone as fast as it came but I’m terrified. Of myself. Of what I might do.

  I leave him dangling from the ceiling and run out of the workshop door. The happy skiers and the distant mountains are lost on me as I crouch down outside. I tuck my hands under my armpits to make sure they don’t take on a life of their own. I’d momentarily seen myself gutting him with the icepick.

  I hear a scraping sound and the clatter of the metal ladder hitting the concrete floor. There’s a strangled cry from the workshop and then silence. After a bit I hear a dragging sound followed by my father’s limping appearance at the door.

  I look at him in horror.

  He’s staring at me, glasses askew, waving the birds’ nest. ‘You imbecile. You left me hanging there. What were you trying to do? Kill me?’

  If only he knew. I’m not trying to kill him. I’m trying not to kill him! I’m petrified that something out of my control will take possession of my arm and make one of my horrific images come to life.

  He throws back his own arm to fling the nest in my face. But he stops and then stares into it. He freezes, looks at me aghast and starts to tremble. I wonder what he’s seen. It’s almost as if he’s caught sight of his own twisted face in a mirror and grown ashamed.

  The world seems to have stopped turning for us both. One silent tear rolls down his cheek as he opens his arms and beckons me over. What’s happening? I climb to my feet and obey, hesitantly. He lets the nest fall to the ground and holds me close. He’s never hugged me before. I don’t know what to feel but I can’t bring myself to hug him back, so I stand there like a sack of wheat, letting him embrace me.

  ‘Sorry, Robin,’ he chokes out. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  He releases me and picks up the nest with trembling hands. He seems at a loss for words.

  ‘It’s okay, Dad,’ I whisper.

  He attempts a smile. ‘It’s just a nest.’

  ‘Sure, Dad. It’s just a nest.’

  ‘We need a holiday,’ he says. ‘We’ll go up north and get some of that warm, tropical sun. We’ll have a great time. You’ll see.’

  He’s being nice to me even though I panicked and left him hanging from the ceiling. I try to sound enthusiastic.

  ‘Great,’ I say.

  I know we’ll never go. Thank goodness.

  The incident with the birds’ nest shakes me. I ran off and left the old man dangling there. It’s not far from actually harming him.

  It’s hard to know which is worse – having the stinking images or worrying about them after they’ve gone. The more I think about them the more likely they are to strike. The more often they strike the more likely I am to think about them. I can lie on my bed and imagine a wonderful life – finding my mother, becoming a writer, making love to Verushka. But the delight that these imaginings bring is always ruined by the one thought: Robin, you are insane – something might snap and you’ll kill your father or even someone else. Who can say what I’m capable of?

  Verushka wants me to write a horror story but I know that writing one will just feed the snakes. For three nights in a row I sit down at the computer but I just can’t describe violent deeds. In the end I write a story called Cereal Killer which is a comedy about a guy who sells addictive cornflakes.

  The visit to Verushka’s is the one bright spot on the horizon. I’m spinning out thinking about what might happen there and what didn’t happen after she got mad at my reaction to the paintings that night. ‘One day soon you’ll get what you want.’ That’s what she said on the bus. Well, I’m not going to get her angry again by showing her the story as soon as I arrive. It’s a worry though – Verushka’s not one to be put off.

  Finally it’s Saturday night. Dad is watching the wrestling and already on his second stubby. He knows where I’m going but doesn’t raise any protest. ‘Have fun,’ he says with a hint of sarcasm. Since the episode with the nest he’s been preoccupied and vacant and unusually polite to me. Very strange.

  I put on my leather jacket and make my way to the youth hostel. Verushka’s flat has its own set of outside steps that lead up to a small platform with a door in it. I can hardly bear the suspense as I knock quietly. The door is thrown open. She has on the exotic silk dressing-gown I saw in the art studio. She’s excited about something. A thrill runs through me.

  ‘Quick,’ she says. ‘Come see what I’ve got for us.’

  This is a good start; she hasn’t asked to see the story. I drop my pack inside the door and enter the small kitchen-lounge which is lit by flickering candles. There’s a door off to one side which I imagine is the bedroom but she leads me over to a couch piled with cushions. We sit down and my heart drops a bit as Verushka tosses a small, tightly sealed plastic bag onto the coffee table. This isn’t exactly what I expected.

  ‘What is it?’ I say, though I think I know. She looks like a little kid with a bag of lollies.

  ‘Something very nice,’ she says in her sexy voice.

  She opens the package and places what looks like a small piece of horse poop on the table. It’s brown and hard like a golf ball. ‘Hash,’ she exclaims.

  ‘Marijuana?’

  ‘Yes, well, sort of. This is the real stuff. The best, really hard to come by and expensive.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’ I say, stalling for time but not really wanting to hear the answer.

  ‘Oh, just a guy I know, actually. A new ski instructor, Danny, just back from Amsterdam where this stuff’s legal. I had an idea that he might be a smoker. You can tell, but I didn’t know him well enough to ask until now. Anyway, he had a few drinks over lunch last week so I asked him and he admitted it. And, I got this off him.’

  ‘How much was it?’ is all I can think to say. ‘I thought you were saving up your money to get out of here.’

  Verushka hesitates for just a second, pulls the silk dressing-gown closed where it’s been gradually drifting open and says, ‘If you must know, he gave it to me for nothing.’ For some reason this makes me anxious.

  There’s a small tin on the table which she opens to reveal a number of joints. ‘I’ve already rolled them,’ she says as she holds one out to me.

  I shake my head. ‘No thanks, but you go ahead.’

  ‘All the more for me then,’ she says happily, lighting up and taking a slow puff. Her eyes become even sleepier than usual.

  ‘What’s it like?’ I ask.

  ‘Mmm. It’s good. Everything is slower and better. Food’s better, music is better, jokes are funnier … You
think wise thoughts, but in the morning you’ve forgotten what happened. Haven’t you ever tried it before? You’re such a dummy. Give it a go and see.’

  Think wise thoughts? Now I’m interested. Maybe, just maybe, this wisdom could be the cure: wise thoughts driving out horrible pictures.

  ‘What the hell,’ I say. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Two puffs each and then pass it back,’ she says. ‘But the person who rolls the joint gets three drags first off – that’s the custom.’

  She’s already had a couple of drags but she takes another three anyway. ‘You know, Robin,’ she says dreamily. ‘You should write something about me.’ She seems to have forgotten all about the horror story she asked me to write. ‘Put me in one of your stories.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say doubtfully.

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise,’ I answer. I think again how beautiful and soft she looks with that gown slipping open.

  I puff away tentatively but nothing happens. Verushka laughs when I cough. As we pass the joint between us I relax back into the cushions with her and my mind starts to wander … I remember how she gave me that book about how to be cool … I thought it was because she cared. But she doesn’t really. She couldn’t … Why did I even think she did? I mean, I don’t know anything. I’m dumb next to her … She’s always telling me what I’m doing wrong. ‘Dummy’, that’s what she calls me … My stories aren’t right either – just like she says … And when she looks at me with those eyes of hers she must be thinking I’m a moron. All I’m good for is to put her in a story. That’s all … I feel like crap.

  It occurs to me that she can read my thoughts … This is crazy but I can’t stop thinking it … I have to stop thinking it … but I can’t because the idea has taken hold of me … Maybe she knows about the unwanted pictures I get in my brain …

  I’m doomed. I’m a person who can’t stop thinking about what I don’t want to think about. It can be a bright sunny day and then out of nowhere the clouds appear and it’s raining lemon juice …

  I can sense Verushka’s warm body next to mine, but neither of us has anything to say. When is this dope going to kick in? It doesn’t work for me … Nothing works for me … My life is one miserable thing after another … I don’t have a mother … I’m stuck with a pathetic bastard of a father who just wants to control me and who carried on about a stupid nest that I forgot to knock off the wall … And Charlie wants nothing to do with me even though I sold my mother’s ring to give her the money … It’s no wonder I feel like shit most of the time … We’re on the third joint and I’m not feeling wise and that everything’s better like Verushka said. You can’t believe anything she says … She just gets off on playing around with me … Why am I even here? She doesn’t want to look at my story … She’s no better than my father.

  I suddenly get a flash of me sticking the burning end of the joint into my own eye. I make to get up but the cushions are too soft.

  ‘How is it?’ says Verushka sleepily. ‘Good stuff, huh?’

  ‘Nothing’s happening,’ I tell her. ‘It’s not doing anything.’

  ‘You have to take it right down,’ she says. ‘Don’t just puff. Don’t you know anything?’

  I draw twice right down into my lungs but it’s no good … Everything’s the same as usual, my mind’s in turmoil with it all … I know now that if I don’t leave this mountain I’ll kill my father. I won’t be able to stop myself … Something’ll click in my brain and my hand and the icepick will do the rest.

  My stomach’s heaving and I lean over the coffee table.

  ‘Now what?’ says Verushka.

  ‘You don’t really like me,’ I say. ‘You’re just messing with me.’

  She laughs. ‘You’re getting paranoid,’ she says. ‘Dope can do that.’

  ‘I feel sick,’ I moan.

  Verushka jumps up. ‘Oh no. You’re greening out. Quick, take deep breaths. Really deep.’

  I’ve never felt so sick in my life. I breathe in and out, gulping down the air like a drowning man.

  Gradually my stomach settles down and I lie back on the cushions again and change the topic. ‘That’s a really lovely dressing-gown,’ I say. ‘But it’s a bit big for you.’

  ‘It’s Ryan’s,’ Verushka tells me in her matter-of-fact way. ‘You should get one like it. They’re cool. I love a sophisticated man who wears one after a shower or after …’ She doesn’t finish the sentence but sits there in the candlelight lost in her own thoughts.

  Who does she think I am? As if I’d ever wear anything like that. If she wants me to be another Ryan then I’m out of here. ‘I don’t think I’ll have any more dope,’ I say as I push myself up off the sofa. ‘I don’t think it’s my thing.’

  ‘I made them too strong,’ she says. ‘I forgot that you’re still just a kid who works for his father.’

  The word father makes me tremble. The horrible images of the icepick flicker in my mind like the light from Verushka’s candles. It’s never been this bad before.

  ‘I’m giving it a miss,’ I say as I fumble my way to the door. ‘But you smoke it whenever you want,’ I add, snatching up the bag containing my manuscript.

  ‘Thanks very much,’ she says from her bed of cushions. ‘How generous of you.’

  I go out and throw up in the snow.

  When I get back home I’m still a little nauseous and have a bit of a headache but it’s not too bad. Gradually I settle down enough to think about writing. I sit at the computer to write a story about Verushka like she wanted. I’m not going to follow any prescriptions. I’m the writer and I do whatever comes into my head. I’m going to write something true. The way I see it. Yes, I know what I’ll do. I give a chuckle and start to tap away on the keyboard.

  I change names and places so that no one else will know it’s her – that’s only fair. It takes me nearly all night to write the story and by the time I finish the lights are going out on the freshly groomed ski slopes.

  The ice on the window reminds me of the image I saw there of Mum. I jump up and take her hairbrush out of the hiding place under the bottom drawer. Then I just lie in bed, holding it and letting the thought of her wash away all the negative feelings about Verushka.

  After a bit I put the brush on the bed and get dressed. I print off my manuscript and head outside into the cold air. My footprints are the only ones in the virgin snow as I make my way back to Verushka’s flat and slip the story she asked for under her door. As I return home I see that a few early rays of sunshine are stealing the darkness from the long cold night.

  The Jacket

  Mate, I tell ya. I loved me old bomber jacket. Okay, it was from way back when and the leather was worn on the elbows like a monkey’s bum. But you could tell that it had had a life. A hard life but a good life. You know – patina – cracks and lines on it like a warrior’s face.

  Sometimes I would imagine the blokes who had it before me. Maybe one was a stunt pilot. Or maybe the leader of a bikie gang or a general like Montgomery or Monash from years back in the Second World War. It had history written all over it – definitely a real man’s jacket. They sell new ones like it in posh Collins Street shops but the wear is artificial and you can tell it’s not the real thing. You can’t buy experience. Ya have to earn it, if ya know what I mean.

  If anyone tried to nick that jacket, mate, I’d have gone through them like a dose of salts. Me and that jacket were brothers. Never to be separated.

  Where one goes the other goes.

  It suited me image too. Just the shot for a muso. What with me working man’s boots, me black T-shirt, me brass diving watch and the cool sunnies, I was the lad to be like. Okay, a bit wild looking with long hair and a beard. I was a bit on the hairy side. But hey – I was in a rock band. When I sat behind those drums I was somethin’ else, I can tell ya.

  Well, that’s what I reckoned at the time. Bein’ young an’ cocky I thought I knew it all. But the truth was that me and the lads had only played at one gig a
nd that was at a mate’s party and we didn’t get paid a cent for it. But we had hopes. Hopes but no money. But ya can’t eat hopes, can ya?

  Look, I’ll come clean at the start. In the end we did make it big. Not as big as AC/DC or Paul Kelly. But nearly. Money, travel, fame. The lot. But in the early days it wasn’t like that. No way. You never know whether yer going to make it big or not.

  Anyways, I was on the dole. I lived over a fish-and-chip shop for nuthin’ except that I had to do the dishes every night. Me girlfriend’s name was Emily and she used to stay overnight with me off and on.

  Gees, I had the hots for her. She was a real babe but no wimp, if ya know what I mean. Like she was strong minded. Right from the start she told me, ‘I’ve got a friend called Michael. He works in a bank. Now don’t go getting jealous. He’s just a friend. We have lunch together every week. There’s nothing more to it than that. Nothing physical.’

  Well, I have to say that I did get a bit jealous. I only met the guy twice. He was just the opposite to me, ya know. Like, he wore this pin-striped suit and a coloured business shirt and tie. He had shiny, pointy shoes and wore a gold watch. And he went to the hairdresser’s every week – I mean really. And he sported one of those slick haircuts and was shaved real close, like. Smooth as a baby’s backside he was. Not a hairy bloke at all. Me, I was covered in the stuff.

  Also, and at the time it was a worry, I can say that now, Michael had a few bob to spare. He traded shares and stuff and could take Emily out for a slap-up meal. Gees, all I was good for was a pie and sauce after the footy. She liked this guy, Michael, I could tell. She lent me this book of his all about nerds and what they wore and what the cool ‘metrosexuals’ wore. It was supposed to be funny but it sucked, to be honest.

  One morning when we were in bed all soft and warm and that, Emily says, ‘Hey Gordon, you’ve got hair in your ears.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ I say.

  ‘You should pull them out.’

  ‘It’s a bit hard to see,’ I say.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ she says.

  So she gets a pair of tweezers and pulls out the hairs in my ears. One at a time. It hurt a bit but not much – I mean I’m no wimp either. Once I said ‘ouch’ and she laughed. She had a lovely laugh. God, I loved it.