Almost a Mirror

by Kirsten Krauth

  The bird does its ch-ch sound and it takes a while but others in the gang start to appear, landing around it, symmetrical.

  She sees the small body resting in grass by the side of the road, under the tree where the birds sit.

  One by one the birds land beside her and walk, not to the dead bird but to the middle of the road, the spot marked by a feather.

  Are you worried about your little galah?

  His tall frame startles her from behind.

  He’s wiry, old shoulders, but a voice full of life.

  I brought a shovel but it’s already been done, she says.

  I was going to move her along this morning. She was near the road here, but if I put her in the paddock there’s the track, the train, foxes …

  You mean she was alive then? Mona asks.

  She was just wandering about the side of the road.

  I was trying to stop the other birds being hit but they keep returning. She was little?

  His eyes look at her face. Resigned. Seen it all. A comfort.

  When they bring their chicks up to that age, it seems cruel, he says.

  I’d better move my car. Is this your driveway?

  He waves her words away and goes back in the gate.

  Ro directs Mona from Ross Drive with his hand pointing out the window, stabbing at the gum trees as they flicker.

  Up the sharp Wheeler Street hill and past the high school until they plateau and hit the 80 k zone.

  Eighty, Mama, eighty! Why do you drive slower than the other cars?

  I’m not Lightning McQueen. It’s not a race. Those numbers on the signs, they’re called speed limits. You don’t go over them.

  See where the red and yellow flags are? You go in there! Here!

  The station wagon bucks the guttered driveway and parks beside a suburban house with a low verandah.

  A pug stares out the screen door.

  That’s Pug!

  They call it Pug?

  I do. That’s my name.

  Where’s the pool?

  Ro points to a steep cement driveway.

  Race you to the top!

  She lets him have a head start, pretending that he needs it. That she could beat him if she really tried.

  He runs with his head angled back towards her so he nearly hits the fence.

  At the top he stretches on matchstick legs to reach the latch of the gate. Not yet.

  Hey, Mama Bear? Can you lift me up?

  You’re a bit big for me these days.

  She bends her knees and as she unbends he doesn’t really feel much heavier than when he was a toddler. Long and thin as a greyhound, slippery and warm.

  Do we go in the boys’ or girls’ to get changed? she asks.

  Dad always takes me in the boys’.

  I can’t really go in the boys’. Do you want to go in the boys’ by yourself or come in the girls’ with me?

  He peers into the girls’ change room to see if it’s empty and stands on the wooden bench pulling at his school shorts until they’re knotted around his ankles.

  Are you taking your undies off?

  I always leave them on.

  But they’ll get wet.

  He puts his Hawaiian surfie board shorts over the top.

  She wonders what his penis does in the water when it’s just in bathers and not pinned down. She imagines it’s a nice floaty feeling.

  But not for Ro.

  You won’t have any undies to put on when you get out.

  That’s okay. I’ll just wear shorts with no undies.

  The pool is small, ten metres at most, and sticky with heat.

  She sits down the far end, deep end, where a fan bears down, pushing humid air around.

  A mother and toddler sit in a fenced-off corner full of bright plastic balls and it’s hard to hear Louis’s instructions over the girl’s shrieks.

  The pool walls are painted pastel blue, ocean theme, with octopus and turtle, misshapen. Mona’s hands fidget to do some touch-ups, fix the dimensions.

  Ro’s lips look cold and it must be 35 degrees in here. He has his red cap pulled over his ears with orange wispy bits sticking out. A sea lion.

  Louis adjusts the cap so his ears are showing and Ro can hear him.

  When Ro floats on his back he sags in the middle, an inverted corkscrew spiralling down to the bottom.

  Chin up! Head back! If you don’t put your chin up, you’ll sink!

  Louis looks up at Mona. She wonders about his skin, pruned, in the water all day.

  Ro’s all muscle. You need to feed him more chocolate, get some fat on him! Hard for him to stay afloat. When he goes down, he goes down fast, Louis says.

  The other mothers lined up along the bench have their phones, scrolling with their thumbs. It’s hard to remember their names. Kids’ parties and the school gate and randomly at the supermarket.

  She’s better at remembering kids than their parents. Those years of teacher training. A whole classroom of students in a few days. She wonders how she managed it.

  A rogue kickboard is drifting about and Ro plays with it for a while.

  Louis takes it off him but Ro grabs it again.

  Ro’s at the end of the line of kids, closest to the shallow end.

  The kickboard floats away down the length of the pool and he follows it around in the water, holding on to the ledge.

  The kickboard moves into the centre, just out of reach, and Ro floats towards it.

  Mona looks at Ro and waits for Louis to threaten the naughty wall.

  But Ro is playing now with his head under the water, blowing bubbles.

  Mona feels her voice rising.

  It’s only when Mona stands up to yell that she realises something is wrong with the way Ro is moving.

  His hands are flapping backwards and forwards, fast and loose, but his body is not even breaking through the surface of the water.

  His body is twisted.

  He’s making no sound.

  Louis’s back is turned and she doesn’t have time to call out.

  In the six metres it takes, the seconds, she sees that the ledge Ro has been hanging on to is no longer there.

  He can’t even touch the bottom in the shallow end.

  He’s flailing to get his head above water.

  A water jet under the surface is pushing him away from the edge.

  Even with his fluoro board shorts on, it’s hard to make out the dark shape of him.

  She can only see his fluttering hands and his red cap.

  She runs and grabs his wrist and pulls him out by the arm in one lift as if he weighs no more than the air around him.

  As his feet hit the concrete he lets out a big cry.

  A breath.

  He jumps and throws his legs around her waist, wet body clinging to her dress.

  Louis looks up at the sound.

  What happened?

  She’s too tired to explain it.

  I missed it. I’m sorry. I missed it. Is he okay?

  The other mothers, sitting right in front of Ro. They missed it too.

  She nods and holds Ro on her lap for the rest of the lesson, her dress soggy with the drips from his body.

  It’s probably a good idea if he comes back in, Louis says.

  Mona eases him back down.

  Ro gets down onto the ledge and wiggles into the water backwards, his eyes aimed at Mona.

  He puts his goggles on and turns away.

  Louis reaches over and raises his hand to Ro.

  High five!

  Ro whacks it hard and puts out his other hand in turn.

  Down low!

  Louis tries to hit it and makes an exaggerated miss as Ro draws it back in.

  Too slow!

  Louis holds his hands out together to Ro, bowl-shaped, a peace offering.

  In the pool.

  Ro laughs and slaps him.

  You’re cool.

  THIS IS THE DAY

  Castlemaine, 2015

  It’s wra
pped in plastic, water damage on the back cover, edges thin and flicked up at the corners like Princess Di’s hair.

  A large yellow houndstooth cover.

  Pasted on the front, record labels from the band’s limited-edition singles. Boys Next Door’s ‘Riddle House’ on the flip side.

  A snap of Guillaume and Connie. Dark and ferocious.

  Small articles cut from newspapers, half falling off, needing glue.

  A magazine article on James Reyne with two broken arms. They all hated James Reyne.

  Connie had made the scrapbook as the relationship, and the band, played out. Everything neatly dated, labelled. Everything ever said about The Funny Girls. The four years in chronological order from St Kilda to London to the States and back.

  Beñat flicks through the pages, the print too small to read without his glasses.

  The Band Most Likely to Make It.

  The Fitzroy Street hamburger place, asking for one with the lot. The aim was to stay awake but not get twitchy. Getting the balance right worked at first.

  Then it began.

  One night at a party Beñat walked a girl around, carried her, pressed a washcloth to her face, wanting her to wake. He didn’t even know her.

  He was the only one who could drive, drugs fuel for getting through. The all-nighters on the road and the small accidents and turning up in Sydney with no accommodation and the shitkicking surfies.

  The straight road on to Brisbane, ‘Take It to the Limit’ blasting. The bands you screamed along to but never mentioned. The fights with Joh’s police after seeing The Go-Betweens, those scary fuckers.

  The EJ Holden with two bench seats and nine people shovelled in and the cop stops and a pretty girl’s foot on the fucked brakes the whole time.

  The Funny Girls Fly Stand-By and Stay at Bates Motel.

  Only in Tasmania could you advertise where the band was staying and no one would rock up.

  The blue light disco in Essendon where the kids cheered when Guillaume announced the last song.

  The photos of the band in black-and-white, perfectly blended. They rehearsed more than anyone to make it seem spontaneous.

  The suits bought at op shops, all the pants too short. The sound of the sewing machine whirring as his mum struggled to take the pant legs down.

  The eyes always drawn to Connie.

  High Fashion, New Wave.

  The time lag between Richmond Recorders and waiting for something to happen. The Mushroom Records and the starvation and the dotted line leading to nowhere.

  The Stiff Label motto: If they’re dead, we’ll sign them. The Suicide Label motto: If we sign them, they’re dead.

  The blackened saucepans and the gas cooker. The fry-ups of bacon. He was the only one who ever washed the dishes.

  I Just Hope It Gets Us on Countdown.

  A page falling out.

  A busload of friends came with them. Small, blurry polaroids at Tullamarine Airport. Red carnations in their jackets. His mum put one in his buttonhole, something to remember her by. His mum standing with her back to the camera. Saving her tears for the drive home.

  Guillaume’s soft fluffy hair and colour. So much colour. A high school boy in profile, decked out in checks and out of focus.

  After More Farewells than Melba, They Are Finally Going.

  The band didn’t turn back to wave. They knew where they belonged and it was in New York. Melbourne’s version of the fucking Velvet Underground.

  Each time they returned something had shifted.

  Someone else to do the load-in up those Ballroom stairs.

  The proscenium arch removed for the big bands. Midnight Oil. The Angels. Turf war.

  The audience getting bigger, pretending to be old fans.

  The posters Guillaume ripped off electricity poles. The font size of The Funny Girls half that of the others. Cold Chisel. Even worse, The Flowers.

  The mirrors, gone.

  The red velvet curtains, gone.

  When they left, they were freaks on the street, running from skinheads out the front of Flinders Street station, hiding in the night.

  The tribal warfare defined them.

  We look like this. We dress like this.

  When they returned, everyone on the street looked Ballroom.

  At some point their friends started dying and Melbourne seemed somehow thinner, got darker earlier.

  The place became nowhere anyone wanted to return to.

  THE LOOK OF LOVE

  Castlemaine, 2015

  Searching for Easter eggs in the bungalow, Ro finds it first. Wrapped in lined paper, inside a pair of muddy red Nikes, inside a parcel marked Katoomba.

  When she bought the shoes she thought Jimmy would never wear them.

  Ro rips the paper off and sheds it on the floor like he’s playing pass the parcel.

  Ro holds the cassette in his palms like a small bird.

  What’s this?

  She picks up the paper from the floor and smooths it out, hides it in her dressing gown pocket.

  She traces the thin lines of Jimmy’s handwriting with her fingers as she moves through the rest of the day.

  Look, Mama, I’m falling. With style!

  Ro throws Buzz Lightyear across the room and he bounces off the wall. It leaves a scrape.

  Mona’s too tired to choose to notice it.

  Can you please take me flying?

  She lies on the ground with her legs in the air and touches his strong stomach with her feet.

  He holds her hands and launches himself aloft until her legs start to wobble and they both crash to the ground.

  Let me go, he says.

  He wraps himself around her in a sushi roll.

  No, I’ll never let you go. Oh, okay then.

  She releases him and they both pretend that he’s going to leave and then she grabs him tight.

  Let me go!

  And this time she does.

  Ro asks in that voice of his that is hard to turn down.

  Can you get in with me?

  They play. Animal-guessing games. I-spy by colour.

  She no longer can guess his animals. He’s moved on to the vampire fish and the goblin shark, the deep-sea creatures that he’s too scared to look at.

  Ro likes to trace her body with his fingers.

  Did you hear that?

  She pretends she hasn’t.

  I just did an Edward Woodward!

  He likes to sit between her legs, both of them facing the plug.

  One day he eyes a nipple and puts it in his mouth, looking at her, experimenting with its weight.

  Stop or go.

  She needs a new word for this.

  It is the language, its failings. They probably have a word for it in Japanese, in German. The way she longs for her child’s body, to see and touch and smell it.

  Ro picks up the delicate cardboard box, small enough to fit in his hand.

  Whenever Mona goes to empty the recycling into the wheelie bin, he appears, as if he’s been conjured from the plastic containers.

  Ready to scrounge, pulling things out, coming up with schemes. Adding to the piles of keepsakes that have no place to live in his room.

  Can I keep this? What does Carefree mean? What’s this for?

  He perches the box on his palm, opening and closing the lid like a muppet mouth. Mahna mahna.

  I don’t have any time. We’re late for school.

  The box is pink with purple flowers, cursive writing blowing in the breeze.

  Like a politician, she’s learned to talk in sound bites, but he won’t forget.

  It’ll be another conversation for the car.

  Ro has three large cushions under his head so that he is almost sitting up in bed. He says it stops him coughing in the night.

  When she checks him later, he has usually rolled off, arms flung out and legs twitching as if he’s dreaming the cross-country. Head at an odd angle, Buzz Lightyear doona shucked.

  The hot water bottle in his arms
.

  Time for special kisses!

  She leans into him. One funny kiss has morphed into two and then three and then a lullaby from Beñat on the flute and then a drink of water and the bear light turned on.

  Each year a new step and each night a new kiss.

  On some nights she’s not up to it. The endlessness of the routine that he needs.

  She just wants to get out of there. A few hours of TV and wine before bed.

  But each night she returns.

  I’ve got a good one!

  He leans in and rubs her nose with his and then does a loud raspberry on her ear.

  Your turn!

  She tries to copy it but the raspberry is a poor rendition and he slaps his leg laughing.

  On the second one he does a dog lick from her chin up the side of her cheek, the minty saliva drying cold.

  Yuck, I hate those ones! But at least I know you’ve brushed your teeth.

  And – wait for it!

  She crouches down and tenses. The third funny kiss is always the same and she’s ready.

  Ro laughs and squirms before it’s even begun, letting his head fall back so his neck is exposed, a wiry kitten.

  His hard, strong fingers scratch under her arms and she lets him go before cutting off all his flailing limbs with her knees and elbows and making him scream.

  She looks at the joy, the helplessness, on his face and can’t recall it. This look. This surrender to being tickled everywhere.

  As a girl it quickly got to not being funny anymore, laughter with an edge. The slippery feeling of escape just out of reach, those clawing fingers.

  But Ro comes down on the side of pleasure.

  It’s always Mona who has to call off the tickling Olympics and sometimes he’ll ask her to lie down next to him in the Lightning McQueen bed.

  She’ll give him a pat and he’ll roll over and turn to the wall while she taps his back in an echo of the rhythm she used when he was a baby.

  And sometimes, when she feels lost, he’ll roll back over and pat her on the back too, and they’ll lie there doing laps, hands fluttering like flags at the finish line.

  And sometimes she so wants him to hold on to this, to touch someone else like this, that she clutches him hard.

  Then he mumbles.

  Mama, you’re hurting me. It’s okay, you can go now.

  The book is coffee-table heavy and Mona can’t get in a position where she can read it in bed. At Stoneman’s bookstore she turned away from the shelves and other customers while she browsed, anticipating the black penises and S&M.