The Boy from the Mish

by Gary Lonesborough

  ‘We do, though. Don’t we?’

  I study his face. I think he’s blushing. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but he probably feels the awkwardness I’m feeling, which has now replaced the fear in my stomach.

  ‘I just want you to know . . .’ he says, cringing at his own words. ‘I just want you to know that I know. And it’s okay. It’s not a big deal, just like you said.’ He speaks quickly, like the words are just bursting to breach his mouth.

  ‘Are you surprised?’ I ask.

  ‘I was,’ he says, taking another sip from his beer, ‘but then I wasn’t. It sort of made sense, thinking about when we were little.’

  ‘How?’ I look back to his gaze, which is veering off to the backyard.

  ‘Like when we were little, you put on your mum’s bra and told me to call you Jackie.’

  I burst into laughter, like it’s been boiling inside me for years, just waiting for the perfect moment to escape. Kalyn laughs too.

  ‘Shit, I forgot about that.’

  ‘It was funny as fuck,’ he says. ‘You put on her high heels and fell over and sprained your ankle. And I had to get you out of her stuff before I went to get help.’

  We laugh and laugh and laugh, and it’s exhausting.

  ‘But dressing up in Mum’s clothes didn’t mean anything. We were just playing. It didn’t mean that I was . . . you know?’

  ‘Yeah. I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, did you know then?’ Kalyn takes another sip from his beer.

  ‘I knew I was different,’ I say.

  ‘So . . . I mean, are you . . . you know . . . gay?’ He struggles the words out of his mouth.

  I dwell on the thought for a moment. Gay.

  The word doesn’t feel like what I am, if there is a word for what I am.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m still figuring that out, I guess.’

  Kalyn sits forward and looks at me again. Our eyes meet and he’s forcing back a smile.

  ‘Well, whenever you figure it out, don’t worry about anything. You’re my cousin. I don’t care if you like different things. What matters is we’re here for each other, like we’ve always been.’

  Kalyn takes another sip from his beer and finishes it. He goes inside to get another, and I let the smile come to my face while he’s gone. I could cry from the relief and the happiness he has given me with those words. I don’t want him to see me cry, though, so I quickly wipe away an escaping tear.

  Kalyn returns through the sliding door and places a beer in front of me. I twist off the lid and it is so cold when I pour it down my throat.

  ‘Does Jarny hate me?’ I ask.

  ‘I dunno,’ Kalyn says. ‘Jarny’s just Jarny. He’ll get over it.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t?’

  Kalyn takes a sip from his beer. ‘If he doesn’t, then fuck him.’

  ‘I just don’t want to lose anyone,’ I say. ‘I’m not ready for people to know anything.’

  ‘I know,’ he says. ‘He’ll get over it.’

  A lightbulb lights itself and explodes inside my head.

  ‘Wait,’ I begin, sitting forward, ‘did you ask me if you could go for Tesha because you saw me kiss Tomas on the canoe?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘I figured you’d be okay with it.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I chuckle. ‘I mean, I still like girls, I think.’

  ‘Really?’ Kalyn looks at me with those puppy-dog eyes.

  ‘I think I might. I dunno.’

  Kalyn takes another sip. ‘I won’t keep seeing her if you don’t want me to.’

  ‘No,’ I say, almost giggling, ‘no, it’s fine. I could never go all the way with her anyway.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Kalyn says. We both laugh a nervous kind of laughter, and I worry he now knows the size of my flaccid penis. I take a sip of beer and let it relax me.

  ‘What if Jarny tells everyone?’ I ask.

  ‘He won’t.’ Kalyn is quick to reply. ‘I told him not to, so he won’t.’

  ‘You sure?’ I look to his eyes.

  He thinks for a moment, taking a sip from his beer. ‘Well, if he does, we’ll just have to kill him.’

  We both laugh again. We finish our beers then move on to another one each.

  ‘You should come back to school next term,’ Kalyn says. ‘It’s just one more year to go.’

  ‘School? I can’t be at that school, being Aboriginal and gay!’ I chuckle as I say it.

  ‘Well, you don’t have to tell anyone. And besides, things are a lot better these days for the LGT . . . B . . . people . . . I’ll be there, anyway. If it does turn into a problem, they’ll have to go through me first.’

  I sip my new beer and shake my head. ‘I’ll think about it. I just don’t think I can do another year.’

  ‘How am I meant to survive Geography alone with all the white people?’

  We laugh again.

  ‘Yeah. I guess if you need me to carry you to the HSC, I’ll think about it.’ I take another sip. ‘And I think it’s LGBTQ . . . fuck. I know there’re more letters!’

  We sit there for hours, drinking and talking, then I stagger home. The thunder rumbles and the rain starts bucketing down again, heavy and freezing.

  I burst through the front door of my house. The water drips from my body and splashes onto the floor. Aunty Pam wakes on the couch when I close the door. I give her a nod as I pull off my shoes and socks. I stumble up the stairs and into the shower. The water streams down over me, so hot, and I feel it wash away all the panic and the worry, because Kalyn’s okay with me.

  I dry myself and stumble to my bedroom. Tomas is sitting on his mattress. I close the door and see he is examining the pictures I’ve drawn into the panels he’s marked in his sketchbook. He looks up to see me as I stumble across to my tallboy.

  ‘These are so good,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The drawings are perfect. They’re almost exactly what I imagined.’

  ‘Almost?’ I say, dragging the word as I gently tackle him on his mattress.

  He slides the sketchbook to the floor and positions himself to let me lie on top of him. I kiss him and he kisses me back.

  ‘Have you been drinking?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where was my invite?’

  ‘You were snoring your brains out,’ I say, teasing him.

  ‘So just wake me up.’ He gives me a playful jab in the stomach.

  I start to laugh, and he pushes me back. He forces me onto my back on the mattress and kisses me again. It’s a deep kiss, and I let him in. I’ve never wanted to stay stuck inside a kiss so badly. He grabs my wrists and pins them over my head. His lips smack as he takes them away from mine. He catches his breath on top of me and releases my wrists.

  ‘Aunty Pam said we’re leaving in two days,’ he says.

  ‘Two days?’ I rest my hands on his waist. Sadness returns to my stomach in a flash.

  ‘Yeah. I’m sorry we couldn’t go on your perfect date.’ His face has fallen. He looks like he’s about to cry.

  ‘Hey, we can still go on that date. I want it to be with you.’

  ‘The storm’s meant to last until at least tomorrow, though.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I snap, though it’s not all right. ‘Next time, then. You can come visit, after the judge sees your work and decides you’ll be fine. Or I’ll come visit you. It’s only a fifty-dollar bus ticket.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. It’ll be okay.’

  ‘What if you forget me? Like all the caseworkers and foster families? What if you find someone better?’ A tear escapes his eyelids. It rolls down his cheek.

  ‘I won’t,’ I say, and I’ve never been surer of anything, though I’m not sure that he won’t forget me.

  I rest my head on Tomas’ chest. I feel embarrassed about my plan. My perfect plan. Now the basket is just soaked at the river. The skins of the nectarines have probably washed away. Maybe the river fattened and ate the whole basket. But fuck
it. I can’t just give up without trying. I still want that perfect first time. I want it with Tomas, and I want it now. Why should the rain stop us?

  ‘I still want that date,’ I whisper. ‘Remember when I told you about how the Land Council would do that walk up the mountain? Wanna go tomorrow? No one ever goes up there anymore. Screw the rain.’

  ‘Up the mountain? Yeah, okay. Tomorrow.’

  21

  The clouds are looming large and grey in the sky when I wake. The morning sun can hardly break through. The silence is amazing, though. There’s no more rain bashing down on the roof, no thunder roaring above.

  ‘It’s gonna storm,’ Aunty Pam says downstairs during breakfast, interrupting me and Tomas talking about the walk we’re about to take up the mountain.

  ‘So we’ll take an umbrella,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ Tomas says, backing me up. ‘We’ll just take an umbrella.’

  Aunty Pam sighs. ‘And rain jackets.’

  ‘It’s like a hundred degrees,’ I chuckle.

  ‘It’s a long way up there,’ Aunty Pam says, looking at me with her wisdom eyes, ‘long enough to get sick in the rain.’

  I just roll my eyes, and Tomas forces back a laugh.

  Mum and Aunty Pam load all the kids’ clothes into the washing machine and load the washed clothes into the dryer. I sneak a bottle of wine into my backpack and take two fancy wine glasses from the cupboard.

  I rummage through my tallboy to find my rain jacket. Then Tomas takes Mum’s umbrella and we head out the front door. The bottle and the glasses rattle in my backpack, so I take off my rain jacket and wrap the glasses in it. We walk along the main street of the Mish in our singlets and short-shorts, thongs on our feet. The clouds still roll across the sky at speed. They grow darker every minute.

  We pass Kalyn’s place, head downhill, then I take Tomas through the bush, onto the pathway to the mountain. The pathway isn’t flawless, just a scattering of wooden planks on the ground, which act as stepping-stones. They weave through the bushes and trees, which cover us in darkness as we walk.

  My legs are burning as I lead Tomas up the incline. It grows steeper and steeper, and the dirt and fallen twigs crackle beneath our feet. The brightness of the grey sky comes through as we trek higher. Bird sing in the trees around us, as do the insects. The mosquitoes bite at my ankles, but I just swipe them away.

  We arrive at the wooden stairs, which are really just wooden planks stuck in the ground. I climb first and Tomas follows. The steps wiggle beneath our feet. I tread carefully; there are no railings to hold onto.

  Rocks stick out from the mountain. I know they probably extend deep under the surface. We climb past the tree line and higher still. Tomas stops to turn around, and the tops of the trees surrounding the Mish look like a green, hazy sheet. He stares for a moment, so I wait.

  ‘It’s so pretty,’ he says. Then he roars out across the view, and it echoes over the trees and bounces from the neighbouring mountains in the far distance. He turns back to me with a smile and then roars to the landscape again, as if he’s replying to his own echoed roar.

  ‘Jeez. If you like this, just wait till you get to the top,’ I say.

  I continue climbing and Tomas picks up his speed, passing me and leaping from step to step.

  ‘Careful!’

  He doesn’t listen. He jumps his way up the mountain, and I watch the steps wiggle under his weight. But he doesn’t care. It makes me smile to see him having so much fun. He howls ahead of me, like a wolf looking for a mate. I howl back and he laughs. And fuck it. I start to leap too, jumping from step to step.

  I try to catch up to him, but he’s disappeared past some bushes that hang over the path. When I duck underneath them, I see Tomas resting on the steps ahead, with his hands on the back of his head.

  ‘Hurry up,’ he shouts, and it echoes into the atmosphere. A raindrop lands on my face, right on my black eye.

  We reach the end of the stairs, which peter out onto a flat surface covered in dirt and fallen leaves, less than twenty metres from the very top. This is as far as we can go; it’s too steep from here. The trees on the peak above hang over us, their green leaves rich with colour.

  A metal fence has been put up around the edge. Tomas stands there with his hands on the railing. I catch my breath and join him as he looks out over the distance. The houses of the Mish on the ground look no bigger than blocks of Lego. Tomas walks to the other side of the lookout, leans against that railing, and again I follow him. We can make out the cars travelling through the main street of town below, and the specks of bodies on the beach. The drop below us is so definite: a straight fall into the trees below.

  ‘You know,’ I say, ‘we could just jump. Then we won’t have to go to court and we won’t have to face anyone. You won’t have to go back to Sydney.’

  Tomas looks to me with a smirk on his face. ‘We wouldn’t be able to have your perfect date then, would we?’ he teases.

  Another raindrop falls onto my head. Then another, and another, and then it’s bucketing down. Tomas laughs as we run to the cover of the arching mountain peak hanging over the lookout. My hair is all wet and so is Tomas’. I have to catch my breath again.

  I release the backpack from my back and pull out the bottle of wine. Tomas sits on the dirt with me while I pull out my rain jacket and unwrap the wine glasses.

  I pour the wine into our glasses and hand his to him. He holds it with both hands.

  ‘Cheers,’ I say. We clang our glasses together and each take a sip.

  ‘This is fucking disgusting,’ Tomas says, screwing his face into a fold of wrinkles.

  I just chuckle, rest my hands back on the dirt and feel the stress in my muscles fade away. ‘I’m sorry there’re no nectarines or mandarins, or a picnic blanket . . .’

  ‘Or a picnic basket,’ Tomas interrupts.

  He takes another sip from his glass, clearly forcing the wine down his throat. I do the same. We finish off our drinks as the rain beats down on the dirt. The wind sprays the rain into us for a moment, then goes away again.

  ‘So . . . we just have sex now?’ Tomas asks.

  Nervousness begins to churn in my stomach again. My throat dries and my heart starts to race.

  ‘Um,’ I cough, ‘yeah. I mean, if you want to.’

  I stare at Tomas as he nods. He doesn’t really look at me or speak or wear any expression on his face. He’s just blank and quiet, staring at some point in the middle distance. I spot his pulse on his neck and realise his heart is racing as fast as mine, if not faster. I place my hand on his thigh, slow my breathing. He looks down at my hand, then he places his hand on top of mine and holds it. His palm is sweaty.

  I shuffle myself across the dirt, closer to him. I aim my lips for his and we kiss. I can’t help but hear the rain falling around us, feel its drops splashing from the dirt up to our bodies.

  Tomas kisses me fast. I slow him down and his lips are so soft on mine. I reach for his singlet. I pull it over his head and I hate that moment we have to stop kissing while I get it off. We kiss again and he grasps my singlet. He takes it from my body and drops it on the dirt.

  My arms tremble as I crawl on top of Tomas. He lies back, and I position my waist between his legs. I rest into him as I kiss his chest.

  ‘Fuck,’ he says.

  I stop kissing. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘This dirt is fucking rough,’ he says. ‘It’s stabbing my back.’

  I move my hand behind his head and pull him up. We switch positions and I lie on my back. But he’s right. This dirt is fucking rough as hell. The tiny rocks are jabbing me and it feels like my skin is peeling as we kiss and move our bodies against each other.

  ‘Maybe if we stand up,’ I say.

  Tomas sighs and pulls me to my feet. We continue kissing, standing there under the rock. The sharpness of his facial hair grazes against my skin, and the warmth of our bodies combines as we hold each other so tight.

  I reach for the wai
st of Tomas’ shorts, but as I tuck my fingers inside his shorts, I have to stop myself. I stop kissing him and take my hands away.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this standing up. It’s not . . .’

  ‘Perfect?’ Tomas interrupts.

  I just nod. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Tomas smiles and hugs me. He gives me a kiss on the shoulder and rests his chin there.

  ‘There’s still time to take Aunty Pam’s car,’ I whisper. ‘We can still run away.’

  Tomas chuckles. We just hold each other, and I realise how it feels: it feels perfect.

  ‘You know what? I . . . I don’t really think I’m ready,’ he says.

  ‘You’re not?’

  He shakes his head, and he honestly looks like he’s about to break down and cry.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I ask.

  ‘You had this perfect plan,’ he says. ‘And I know you wanted to do it before I leave. I didn’t want to ruin it, but I’m just not really ready. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ I smile, planting a kiss on his lips.

  He holds me again and I just want to stand in his arms at the top of the mountain forever, as the rain falls around us and traps us here.

  We don’t even bother to drink any more of the shitty wine. As soon as the rain eases, we start back down the stairs. Their wooden boards are slippery in the wet, so we go slowly. The rain comes again, and we climb off the stairs and crawl backwards down the dirt and leaves that cover the mountain, continuing beside the steps that way until we reach the pathway at the bottom, which has turned to mud. The backpack has gotten heavier on my back and I worry the rain has got in there.

  ‘Great idea bringing me up here,’ Tomas teases. He unleashes the umbrella as we walk along the pathway through the bush. I huddle close to him under its cover. The thunder roars and lightning strikes from the clouds. ‘And now we’re gonna die by lightning!’

  I just laugh as we powerwalk through the bush. We make it back to the road and start for home.

  ‘Next time, I choose where we go,’ Tomas says. I laugh at him again as he examines his mud-covered feet and thongs.

  Back in the Mish, I notice Owen’s car is parked in front of Kalyn’s ute. As we approach, Owen and Jarny make a run for it from Kalyn’s front door to the car. Jarny spots us and stops in the rain. He looks like he’s just seen his long-lost father for the first time or something.