Ro likes to yank his clothes off. As he slithers and slides and star-jumps on the trampoline, she aims a jet stream at various parts of his body, experimenting with the hose’s nozzle.
I like Shower best. The others are too hard! Again!
She stands back, snapping on her phone as the hour gets more raucous.
Ro takes great delight in bending over away from her and grabbing his toes, dancing bum in the air.
Shake that bottom round, he sings.
She shows Beñat the images later, Ro frozen in unadulterated spread-eagled delight. She wants to treasure them. His joy contagious.
But this time Beñat doesn’t laugh.
Do you think you should keep those ones?
She ums and ahs through the night. Thinks about others scrolling, Instagram-uploading, Facebook-spreading.
As she ticks the images to delete, the feeling lingers, of banishment.
As the files disappear, a small twinge of the heart – that she is losing something of herself, of her son, in the process.
I GO TO SLEEP
Castlemaine, 2016
It’s the first day of spring and the cold will cling on for weeks. Mona’s recent polaroids are all daffodils and blossoms. A desperate plea for warmth.
Beñat checks the road to Poverty Gully but there’s no sign. He walks up to where the bush closes in. But he’s pretty certain it’s the other direction.
It’s Mona who thinks of the railway tracks.
Beñat’s never sure whether to walk on the left- or right-hand side of the steep curve down Ross Drive. It’s a blind spot with no place to manoeuvre if you need to.
The guerilla planters have been out at night, pulling out the gorse and replacing it with a long line of eucalypts.
Mona’s started talking about moving into town.
She wants Ro to walk to school like she did. She loves the camellias and the leaves changing colour.
She comes back from the nursery with her arms full of plants that won’t make it through the frost or the heat. She wills them to thrive with love. Beñat can’t tell her they’ll never survive.
The yellow sign has been painted so it looks like the kangaroo is on skis. The same person has been touching up all the stop signs in Castlemaine.
Stop: Hammer Time. Stop: In the Name of Love. Stop: Collaborate and Listen. Mona and Ro love stopping because it gives them the chance to sing.
The mob of kangaroos is down in Dawson Street.
When Mona first moved in to Ross Drive, she would photograph them on frosty mornings, grazing or racing up the street, leaping over wire fences, the small ones entangled.
At the bottom of the hill, the railway bridge is sturdy brick and stone.
He walks along the bumpy track that follows the railway line. He can’t imagine Beanie coming this far. She’s deaf and blind now. But she still has a good nose and she’s always liked to roam.
Once she’s out, it’s hard to get her back.
The embankment is much steeper than he imagined, rocky. Difficult terrain. She’s become clumsy in her old age. He has to lift her into the car now. But her breed is trained for hunting in mountains. Steep slopes.
A striped deckchair has been abandoned in the scrub.
Even though he’s waiting for it, the speed still shocks him when it flies past. He didn’t hear the train approach. He stands and watches it disappear down the tracks towards Melbourne.
As he walks further into the wattle, the raucous birds above lead him to a clearing, a railway light on red and a signal box, where the ground levels out.
This would be the place.
He can walk straight onto the tracks here.
And then he knows before he sees her. The remains of her, scattered on the opposite side, off the tracks.
Her soft red fur unmistakable.
The remains of a kangaroo further along.
He can’t bear to move closer.
He sits on the ground. The clearing is surrounded by tall dead gums, still standing, pale skinny limbs severed. They stand silent as if in judgement.
Another train flashes past in the opposite direction.
Her remains are still there.
He heads back, framing the way he’s going to say it. To Mona. For fuck’s sake. To Ro.
Three women joggers cross the railway bridge and he puts his sunglasses on, plucking the tears with a finger as they run past, smiling and waving at him.
Mona uploads the photo of Beanie lying in a sea of fuchsia flowers to Facebook.
She feels comforted by the responses. Possible sightings, wellwishes, offers of search parties. The town may fight over politics but it rallies together when it comes to dogs.
Beanie’s been away for a day before but never two nights.
Mona argued with Beñat about it when they first moved in. Beanie’s tendency to roam.
Mona wanted a fence built, an enclosure, to stop her dog going on the road. But Beñat liked the idea that she was free in her old age, wandering the neighbourhood.
Calculated risk.
Since Ro came along, all Mona does is make calculations.
She hears Beñat’s boots coming up the driveway and jumps up. He stands in front of her and takes his sunnies off. He looks wrecked, his eyes red-rimmed.
She’s gone, he says.
Mona collapses back onto her chair. She watches Beñat flinch as she fires her questions.
Was she on the tracks?
She would have been killed instantly. She wouldn’t have seen or heard the train coming.
Beñat takes his T-shirt off and finds a clean one in the laundry basket.
Did you bury her?
He looks away.
You can’t really dig a hole there. Just rocks.
Can you take me down to see her?
You don’t want to, Mona. She’s not really recognisable.
Did you cover her up?
Beñat won’t look at her.
Mona grabs the car keys.
I don’t want her to be lying exposed like that, she says.
Beñat takes the keys from her.
I’ll go back and do it if you want me to.
Mona runs a washcloth under scalding hot water and puts it over her face as she gets into bed.
She stays there until school pickup.
Beanie was such a calm dog. A dog for a cat person.
Jimmy always wanted a dog. He drove Mona over the ACT border from Sydney to pick up Beanie as a pup. Mona had done the research and it was a breed that didn’t bark. Didn’t shed hair.
Well, that was a lie.
She sat in the back seat, holding the fluffball up so Beanie could see out the window.
She rolls over onto her side. Pets allow it. This loss.
Ro will want to have a funeral when he gets home. They can pretend she’s under the earth. Near the flowers where she loved to lie in the sun, where she’s left the impression of her body.
He’ll ask so many questions.
She sees the dog out of the corner of her eye, the shape of all the love that Beanie absorbed from them.
She has to drive over the railway bridge to pick Ro up from school. She thinks of the impact. Of train meeting flesh. An image she can’t fight.
She should stop the car and help Beñat cover her dog with rocks.
She wishes there was another way into town.
CARS
Castlemaine, 2016
Mama, knock knock.
Who’s there?
Little Old Lady.
Little Old Lady who?
I didn’t know you could yodel!
He waits for her to laugh again like she did last time.
That’s a good one.
He sings the punchline for a minute, smiling out the window.
It’s from the joke book we got at the library. Mama, listen to this! What do you call a cat mixed with a fish?
A cish?
A fat! And what do you call a fox mixed with a hen?
&
nbsp; A hox?
A fen!
I don’t get it.
And what do you call a fish crossed with a duck?
A fff …
This is hilarious, Mama. Wait until you hear it!
I’m thinking …
A dish, Mama. A dish!
Mama, look at this!
I’ve told you before, I need to concentrate on my driving.
Just this one time.
She checks him in the rear-view mirror.
He licks his hand and reaches down his shirt and puts it under his arm, flapping. It makes a wet squelchy sound.
It’s a chicken farting! I’ve been practising!
I hope you don’t do that all day at school.
We just practise at recess.
Why have you got crap all over your uniform? You just put it on.
Ro pauses.
Well, I didn’t put my finger in porridge then spread it all over my T-shirt.
Well, that clears that up then.
What do you mean?
Nothing, it doesn’t matter.
Whatevs.
Whatevs?
That’s what you say to Dad when you’re cranky.
I just say it as a joke.
Yeah, whatevs.
Mama, can I ask you something?
Yes.
Call out punctuation to me.
What do you mean?
Like, call out, Full stop!
Okay, full stop!
Ro raises his fist and punches in front of him so he nearly bashes her seat.
Another one!
Question mark!
He does a soft curve with his hand like he’s patting a cat and then punches again.
More!
I bet you don’t know this one. Ellipsis!
He raises his fist. Punch-punch-punch!
Semicolon!
Punch. Soft curve.
Exclamation point! Curly quotes!
His hands work fast in code.
It’s called Kung Fu Punctuation! It helps me with my ninja training!
Do you do that in class?
We had to show the preps the other day and they took a video of me for the school website because I remember all the codes.
And they say that young people these days don’t know their grammar.
What’s grammar?
Mama, can I ask you something?
Yes.
Nanna Kaz says she doesn’t believe in God.
Well, some people believe in God, and some people don’t.
Do you believe in God?
No, I don’t believe in God.
I do.
Yes?
He’s real. I saw him.
Really. Where?
At the Castlemaine kinder fete.
What did he look like?
He had face paint and people were throwing water balloons at him. If you got a direct hit, you got to pick a jelly bean from the jar.
Did you get a direct hit?
No, but I took a jelly bean anyway.
Why do you think this man was God?
He had grey hair and was really funny and he looked happy when people hit him with the balloons.
You should have gone up and asked him about the meaning of life.
But I would have got wet!
It would have been worth it, to talk to God.
He told me that I should stop taking jelly beans from the jar because it was someone else’s turn.
Mama, guess what?
What?
The other day I nearly ate an ant.
How did that happen?
Well …
Yeah?
I was squishing an ant and then I put the ant up my nose to see if it fit, and then I went to put my finger in my mouth and forgot the ant was on it.
Did the ant taste good?
It was disgusting. I spat it out. It was dead.
That’s probably a good reason to stop picking your nose.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Did you hear that? Ro asks.
Where did it come from?
Dad bought me this shirt from Target. Look, if you press here, it plays the song from Star Wars.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
It’s got Darth Vader on it and he’s holding the red and black lightsaver.
Lightsaber.
Yeah. The one I got from Target.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
I really want the doona cover with Darth Vader on it. I saw it at Target.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Okay, I think I’ve had enough of Star Wars now. Do they have other songs?
Frozen.
Do they have PJ Harvey?
Only Star Wars for boys and Frozen for girls. If you could wear any shirt with a song, what would you wear?
It would depend on my mood.
What’s your mood?
You know, like happy or sad or tired. I could have ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ or ‘Don’t Stand So Close to Me’ or ‘Four Seasons in One Day’.
I know that song. Crowded House. Track seven.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Maybe Dad could get you one at Target.
If we all had T-shirts like that, we might never need to talk to each other. We could be an orchestra.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
Do they have batteries? How do you put them in the washing machine? Mona asks.
You might have to take the batteries out and recharge them.
Damn, life is getting complicated.
You said the d-word.
How many of these words are there?
There’s the s-word and the f-word and the b-word and the i-word.
What’s the i-word?
Idiot.
And the f-word?
I’m not allowed to say that one.
It’s okay. I want to check we’re talking about the same word.
No, I don’t want to say it.
He reaches down and strokes Darth Vader, holds the shiny material out from his body.
You press it here, like this.
Da da, da da da daaah daaah.
A HAZY SHADE OF WINTER
Melbourne, 2017
Mona and Kaz walk from Batman station down past the lake to meet all the grannies. Kaz wants Mona to take their photos. A fundraising calendar.
Liz’s hand-drawn sign says WELCOME TO OUR HOUSE. The pink and light blue curtains, abstract, a child’s swirl on an Etch A Sketch, flicker as they all walk in.
The women are standing around a huge trestle table on wheels like surgeons before an operation, unified by a shady sea of purple. Beanies, cord trousers, velvet pants, handknits, runners, jumpers and crepey scarves draped, the occasional strip of hair.
Liz’s house is more a long series of rooms divided by walls, behind a shopfront. A single bed with a striped blanket, a painter’s floor with sheepskin rugs, clothes rack over the heater.
The women unpack materials, Blu Tack, barbed wire, cardboard in all sizes, glue, Sharpies, sticky velcro dots.
I’ve got a big piece of masonite in the car. You can get melamine at Bunnings too. They cut off a piece for four dollars, Liz says.
You’re remarkable, how you know what to get, Kaz says.
I like Officeworks.
Kaz laughs. I walk in there and it freaks me out.
Chris sits back down with her arms crossed.
Now, Liz, I need to be told what to do. I’m not crafty. You’re the artist. What’s your suggestion?
Using black on purple is a bit dark. How about we all use purple and white?
Chris starts cutting out the letters. She talks as she steers the scissors.
Just don’t make me do anything with Contact. I’m having nothing to do with laminate or sticky things.
Mo
na looks at the walls. There’s no wall space. Artworks clash against each other, trays on a hotel trolley. Canvases stacked in cascading order against the wall.
She turns to Liz and points at the paintings.
Are you the artist?
Most of that work is other people’s, Liz says.
Chris stops cutting and points her scissors at Kaz.
You know, Shorten won’t see us. His office is completely inaccessible. There’s a narrow bit of pavement out the front, and if you step off it you’re into traffic.
Kaz holds up her sign and the other women stop working.
WE ARE STEALING THEIR CHILDHOOD.
Chris steps back to look at it.
That’s a good one! How did you do that?
I made these letters on my computer, Kaz says.
Aren’t you clever?
I’m quite pleased with myself.
GetUp has a downloadable sign too. You can just print it out, Liz says.
Chris gets out a huge ruler and starts measuring out space for letters on the cardboard.
She laughs.
Remember in the sixties, when we had to scribble on the blackboard? All that chalk dust. I used to put black chalk around the edge to make things stand out.
Which school, Chris? Kaz asks.
I was at Coburg High for three years and then I had my daughter. There was no childcare then, really.
After Mona was born, I became an emergency teacher. It was in the mid-seventies and the principal just came up and asked me. I wasn’t even primary-trained. When I told him about Mona he said, just bring her with you. All the American teachers had come in then.
Kaz perches by the window in front of the light.
Mona, can you read this sign if I stand here? Is it legible from a distance?
Chris comes over and peers through the viewfinder of Mona’s camera.
You’ve got a good eye, Kaz. That’s a beauty! You can see it from a mile away. That really stands out with the red and black.
Mona lifts her head from the camera.
It’s very clear to me. But some people have trouble with red.
How about taking a photo of me holding it so we can use it on social media?
Mona switches to her phone and takes some quick snaps.
All the women lean their heads in, daffodils on delicate stalks, as Mona puts it on Facebook.
Chris sits back down.
I’m not sure about a slogan. How about TIME TO SOLVE NAURU?
That’s too complicated, Liz says.
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