Then, because of the open curtains and windows, I was woken up by the cheerful Christmas sun way too early in the morning, when not even Clover was out of bed. I lay there, looking out at the breaking dawn, the haze of the promise of a hot day, blinking for a bit, just coming back from sleepytown, dreamland and into reality.
Back at the start of the year I’d had everything planned. Then there was no plan at all; escape was enough. And now maybe I wasn’t going to get into a uni course right away. I should have put more effort in if I’d really wanted it. I still nursed my bruised and battered pride and I wished I had realised just how much I had wanted it – how much I had expected it. I felt so stupid at how much I’d thought it would just happen, and how well I’d convinced myself I didn’t want it.
Big picture. People always told me to look at the big picture. So if I zoomed out, if I put on a wider lens, the big picture of my little life was this:
[this space is left intentionally blank]
Actually I didn’t really know anything about the big picture. But I knew that I wanted to go and see things that I’d only ever read about. I wanted to meet new people, have new experiences. I wanted to use my tiny bits of German in Germany.
I also really, really wanted to talk to Jarrod. I wanted the chance to explain, and to see what his thoughts were. It had been a really long week of feeling terrible and terribly guilty.
I tiptoed down the hallway, dark and cool. I peeped into Clover’s room, careful not to squeak the door. She was fast asleep, her little fists clenched with the determination of dreaming, her mouth open for extra air. Mum’s door was closed. I wrote Ho Ho Ho! Back Soon. Love A. on a piece of scrap paper in the kitchen and let myself out of the house.
It took me fifteen minutes on my bike, flying down the gravel road towards the Foreman place, my sandals scraping every now and then on the ground and jolting me a bit. Very few cars came past, though there was the occasional farmer out in their paddock doing the rounds – checking the sheep and the water, before they’d go back inside for Christmas morning.
I had hoped to sneak in without being noticed, but as I was lowering my kickstand Jarrod’s mum came around the side of the house with a bunch of assorted veggies in a bucket.
She didn’t jump when she saw me or anything, but I could see a tiny bit of surprise in her rocky face. ‘Bit early to be visiting, isn’t it?’ she asked and moved the bucket to her hip and assumed a more stoic stance with her other hand on her other hip. ‘It’s Christmas Day, you know.’
I imagined her calling me ‘young lady’, but she didn’t. She probably didn’t think I was ladylike enough. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. My bike toppled over with a slight crash. We both looked at it.
I spoke in a weird perky voice. ‘Ah, well, that’s me, Mrs F, up at the crack of dawn, lots of things to do …’ I started for the front door. ‘Just have a question for Jarrod, a bit of a query, you know.’
She just stood there. ‘He’ll be asleep, you know.’
‘Oh,’ I said, as loftily and airily as I could. ‘Oh, he won’t mind at all.’ I wasn’t exactly sure who this character was that I’d started playing. Some cheerful yokel perhaps. ‘Merry Christmas.’
I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit to myself as I walked as quietly as I could through the house.
Down the dim hall I leaned against Jarrod’s door and knocked softly. ‘Hellooooo,’ I half-whispered, half-hissed (like some demented Parselmouth). No sound from within. I scratched at the door.
‘WHAT?’ came a sound from inside that could only be described as a holler.
‘Wow,’ I said, as I opened the door and slipped through, closing it behind me. ‘Quit bawlin’!’ I leaned against the closed door so as not to get too close. I didn’t know how this was going to go.
Jarrod was sitting up in his single bed, looking at me with his hair bedheaded so outlandishly he looked like a sulphur-crested cockatoo. A big red pillow mark ran down the side of his face. ‘What are you doing here?’
I wasn’t sure if he was angry, morning-grumpy or confused.
‘Merry Christmas!’ I said. ‘I slept with the curtains open to let my bad mood out and woke up super early.’
‘What time is it?’
I held up my bare wrist and showed it to him. ‘About 7.30.’
‘For f—’ He fell back on his pillow.
I bounced on my toes. ‘Do you mind that I’m here? I need to apologise to you.’
‘For waking me up?’ He crossed his arms across his face, blocking out the light, and probably blocking me out a little bit too.
‘For what I said to you. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that.’ I had practised a bit of a speech on my way over. ‘I’m sorry for freaking out. For not enjoying the moment and for getting distracted by some version of the future that doesn’t necessarily exist and that I really, really should not be focusing on.’
He moved his hands a little and I could see one eye looking at me; the look had a serious (though slightly cycloptic) feel to it. Maybe he was thinking about our relationship, thinking about me, and what he wanted for us. But maybe he was just thinking about what he wanted for breakfast, or his dream, or how he wished I would leave.
‘I was being dumb about school and I forgot for a bit that it doesn’t really matter. I’m sorry that I forgot there’s more than one way to skin a cat and I’m really sorry I said those things down at the river. I like you. I like you so much that sometimes it’s scary. I don’t want us to break up.’
‘Okay.’
‘Okay?’ That little weird shiver of joy or sunshine started to spread through my veins. I couldn’t prevent a smile from working its way onto my face.
He also seemed to be unable to control his smile. ‘Yeah, you’re okay, Longley. We’re all good.’
I leaped onto the bed (with a flash of memories of childhood stacks-on games) and my early-morning sun-warmed skin met his bed-warmed skin and I kissed his mouth. He brushed my hair away from my face with his hands. ‘I just don’t want you to think I’m a complete deadshit. Not you too.’
I shook my head, my heart breaking. ‘You are so not a deadshit. Not even close.’
There was a short rap on the door. ‘Some of us prefer a family Christmas morning.’
I shook my head, smiling wryly.
‘You can’t choose them, can you?’ he said.
‘Come round later, okay?’ I said, climbing off the bed and heading to the door.
When I opened it, his mother walked off towards the kitchen, a tea towel dangling from her hand. I leaned into his room and said (loud enough to be heard down the hall), ‘I think you’re magnificent.’
He blushed and smiled and put his arms back across his face. ‘Get out. See you later.’
I collected my bike from where it had fallen on the grass and pedalled home past the houses and farms. By now there were more cars on the road. People going to church and to visit their families and to bring cheer with them wherever they went, et.cet.er.a. I rang my bell and waved to them all.
I flew home, buoyant and Christmas-cheerful.
I leaned my bike up against the shed and patted Tim on my way to the back door. He had some blue and silver tinsel wrapped around his headstall. I hoped I had made it back in time for presents.
In the kitchen, Mum was loading the whizzer with strawberries, sugar and just a drizzle of Grand Marnier.
Clover stood on a chair, swaddled in an apron, and watched. She tried to pop one of the hulled strawberry tops into her mouth, her chubby fingers grasping the green leaves that were already curling in on themselves. No sooner had it touched her tongue than she spat it out again, a fizzy bit of drool slopping onto the bench.
‘That’s yucky, isn’t it?’ said Mum, and handed her a whole strawberry to try, before leaning across the bench to give me a kiss. ‘Merry Christmas, m
y grumpy girl.’ She smelled like pine needles and coffee.
I couldn’t help but smile. ‘Not so grumpy today,’ I said. ‘Merry Christmas, Mama. Merry Christmas, Bubsy. Has Santa been?’
Clover’s eyes widened as she remembered. ‘Yes! Yes, he did come.’ She tried to hurry off the chair and fell on her knees, the strawberry falling from her mouth onto the floor. She just grabbed it, shoved it back into her gob and hoisted herself upright again. ‘Come see, come and see what Santa bringed me.’
In the lounge room there was a small smattering of presents under the tree, but my Christmas stocking – which doubled as a pillowcase during the rest of the year – was promisingly lumpy. Clover’s stocking lay limp and discarded, and an array of books, toys and clothes were spread across the floorboards.
‘Look,’ she said.
‘Wow. You’re so lucky.’ I pulled her onto my lap and reached over to haul up my pillowcase of presents. ‘Want to see what Santa brought me?’
She nodded and popped her thumb in her mouth. Mum had pinned Clover’s wild hair off her face with a bunch of colourful clips. She was Christmas and birthday presents rolled into a girl. I couldn’t help giving her a couple of big noisy kisses on her chubsy cheeks before having a look in my pillowcase.
‘Sorry, Santa didn’t have any wrapping paper left.’ Mum was leaning against the doorframe.
That smile I tried to keep under control peeked back out. ‘That’s okay. I’ll do it like this …’ I held the pillowcase away from my body and turned my head in the opposite direction, reached my hand in and pulled out a gift. ‘Oh, what could it be? It’s hard, it’s a rectangle. Oh, it’s a book!’
Clover giggled and patted my face with her slimy, sucked-thumb hand.
Mum put the turkey on. Even though it was going to be boiling hot, my grandparents expected a turkey on Christmas Day. Never mind that our ancestors came to the southern climes one hundred and fifty years before. Old traditions die hard, I guess.
‘What can I do?’ I asked.
Mum looked around at the half-prepared dishes and the piles of things in the kitchen. She pushed a chopping board towards me with a vegetable peeler and the big knife on it. ‘You could do the spuds. And maybe get us a glass of bubbles for our troubles?’
I laughed and got the champagne out of the fridge and glasses from the shelf. I gestured the bottle towards her. She held up her hands like she was surrendering, both hands covered in some kind of food gunk.
‘You can do it,’ she said.
I’d never opened a champagne bottle before. Other people seemed to enjoy the unpredictability of the cork and weren’t so likely to break windows or put holes in the ceiling.
Mum must have sensed my hesitation because she stopped what she was doing and gave me instructions. ‘Take the foil off and undo the wire. Just twist it around and pull it off. Now hold the bottle, make sure you’ve got a good grip and, with your other hand, just twist slowly and steadily.’
The cork went off like a rocket but I didn’t drop the bottle. A strange success, if a somewhat small one. Then I overfilled the flutes and we had to suck up the champagne fizz from the tabletop. We couldn’t stop laughing.
Mum and Clover had a lie-down before my grandparents arrived, so I got to work on atmosphere and decorating. I dragged the table down to the bottom of the garden. Laid out the fancy lace tablecloth – smelling of lavender and sunlight – I had got from Mrs Dobbs and had originally thought I would make into a dress, but quickly realised I could most certainly never cut up. I got into a rhythm of ferrying plates, glasses, the antique silver cutlery with the bone-handled knives, the little salt and pepper bowls with their tiny matching spoons.
It was cool under the trees. Still and peaceful.
I’d thought I would get changed before everyone arrived, but I went to my room pleased at the aesthetic I’d created in the garden and read only half a chapter of my book when I heard Gran call ‘yoo-hoo’ from the front gate. Like the wise men, they were bearing gifts – cake tins and a wicker basket full of presents in Christmas-themed paper – so I ran out to help. I ended up just wearing my cut-offs and a t-shirt and it didn’t matter at all.
We popped crackers, wore paper hats, told stupid jokes and poured champagne cocktails. Clover put a hat on Tim, his head nodding, Eeyore-style, over the fence. We roared with laughter and he huffed and ate the hat.
Jarrod turned up and no one asked questions. Gran gave him a cold drink and pushed a plate of food towards him. Across the table from me, he looked the right amount of daggy and beautiful and the way he looked at me – just for a flash – made me feel exactly those things too.
Later, while we were doing the washing up, Mum put on music. She made me dance with her to The Pogues – ‘This is the best Christmas song ever!’ – and we hopped and jumped around the kitchen, each taking it in turns to spin the other. We were timeless, we were infinite, but we were moving in time. My mother, so girlish, so happy in her skin, so content in her life. Even Grandad tapped his foot to the tune and Gran held Clover’s hands and jived with her.
Jarrod was leaning against the kitchen bench in his white t-shirt, shorts and with his hairy bare feet and I wanted to dance with him, but the song was coming to an end.
And even though in my perfect world, in my life-as-a-film, it would have been the only way to end this day, this day was pretty damn near to perfect already and I wasn’t about to ask for anything more.
The morning of New Year’s Eve I went for a run. I’m not a runner. But there was a part of me that wanted to be, and so on occasion I would get into a bit of a holier-than-thou jogging thing. Plus I was feeling way too over-indulged from Christmas; my cut-offs were tight against my tummy. So I put my t-shirt, sports bra, shorts and runners on and I took off, with music buzzing in my headphones. I always had ideas of doing some great thinking as I ran, but usually I ended up just concentrating on my breathing, which after five minutes tended towards wheezy and erratic. As I clomped down the back streets, I was fairly certain my face was luminously red. It was only about eight but it felt ominously hot. I ran along Farm Road towards MacArthur Street. The paddocks were so dry they were golden, but not in a good way. They were bleached, like Raychel had been out to do their roots, and it all felt like just so much tinder.
When a bushfire comes through it’s awful and razes so much in its path, but fire is like a cleanse for nature. It gets rid of the undergrowth that’s starting to clog the bush. It pops open seeds and helps trees to grow. And the bush always comes back better than ever, even if the trees wear mourning for years, their black trunks reminders of what was lost.
The lactic acid pinged around my body and brought on a stitch so I veered off the road and lay down, crossed my arms over my face and breathed and puffed.
I stared at the sky – a blue so light that it bled into the white smear of fairy floss cloud. I let Jarrod’s face enter my thoughts. Not his face so much as his arms, his laugh, the revving of his car – oh, wait. That wasn’t in my thoughts.
‘Need a lift?’ he asked, leaning out the driver’s-side window.
‘No. I’m running,’ I said, as I propped myself on my elbows.
‘Yeah. Looks like you’re really going somewhere,’ he said, and smirked.
‘Hey, I’m popping open like seeds after a bushfire, you know.’
The ground was hard, the dirt packed and arid. The grass was spindly and poked fiercely at me. It was all of about five seconds before I got to my feet and walked around to the passenger side.
‘We’re all going somewhere,’ I said.
I went to put my seatbelt on, but he stopped me. He pulled on the handbrake, took the car out of gear, unbuckled his own seatbelt. He leaned towards me and, in a move I swear I had only seen in Hollywood movies, put his hands gently on either side of my face – his big hands with the oil-stained fingers – and he kissed me.
&n
bsp; ‘A new year tomorrow, hey?’ he said. ‘Sounds pretty bloody good to me.’
I loved the simmering feeling of New Year’s Eve. And this year I was going to the famous Emyvale street party. The year before I’d refused to go, and babysat Clover at home instead and ate everything in the fridge. And the one before that, I stood practically glued to Mum and only talked when spoken to. I’d avoided Jen, who was going out with Sam at the time, and I was jealous. I made up something about a boyfriend. Well, I didn’t make anything up, I just made a little bit more of the awkward kisses at school dances and crushes from afar.
This year I wasn’t on the outer. This year I was in it.
The main street had put on its glad rags and everybody, it seemed, had gathered. Even people from neighbouring towns were there. The whole mess of them: the dreamers, the lost souls, the compromisers, the old and young. Clover marched along the middle of the road, wearing a tutu over her overalls and a paper crown on her head like she was the queen of New Year’s Eve.
They’d blocked off the street and everyone had brought tables and chairs and set them up – taking ‘bring a plate’ to the next level. We could see our families pulling containers out of eskies and hauling bags of meat towards the line of barbecues outside the pub.
I spotted Bill, and waved. He was looking very festive with his hair slicked back, though his shorts were still hoiked up to his armpits.
‘Hello, Miss Adelaide,’ he said. ‘Meet my father, Leigh Crawford. Dad, this is young Adelaide, who I’ve been telling you about.’
‘Hello, Mr Crawford,’ I said.
His dad’s head bobbed a little, his body moving against the restraints on his wheelchair. Bill leaned over to wipe dribble from his dad’s face and I felt dreadfully sad for a moment. Bill smiled. ‘We’ve got to go home now. But pop by the museum a bit later, won’t you?’
‘Okay. I will.’ I watched them head towards the church carpark, Bill pushing the chair and nattering to his dad the whole time, pointing things out.
Untidy Towns Page 18