Joyous and Moonbeam

by Richard Yaxley

  No different to people, he once said. We’re all made up of bits and pieces, some we know, some we don’t. Real-Dad was like that, kind of wise and teachy but never in a forced way. If he had a new thought about the way things were in the world – whether it was our little world or the bigger version, out there – he’d share it, softly and politely. Always politely. Listening to him was like … like tasting something at a restaurant and either loving it and craving more, or thinking, I wouldn’t eat this myself – but I respect people who can and do.

  I miss him so much.

  The highlight was drag-netting on the incoming tide. Number one rule, keep legal-length whiting or flatties but nothing else. Enough for a feed, he’d say. That’ll do nicely. Don’t need to be greedy. Of course, this meant getting the other fish and creatures – crabs, sometimes even a small ray – out of the net and back into the sea. Real-Dad was funny about this. He’d happily catch, gut, fillet and eat whiting or flatties but other fish were off limits, particularly big fish. He once told me about a time when he’d gone out in a boat with some mates and they’d had this massive hit on a light line. Apparently a small fish had taken the bait then been swallowed by a huge cod which had managed to hook itself through the lip. He told me that his mates were stoked about capturing such a monster but he’d been sad because – and these are his words – the fish was old and she deserved respect. Respect for a fish? It was weird but I got it, I really did. That night his mates cut the cod into chunks and barbecued it. Dad refused to have any which his mates didn’t like but he stuck to his guns, no doubt softly and politely, because that was what he used to do.

  Used to.

  This is how it went: we’d get the net and its long plastic poles, bunch the net into wrist-to-elbow folds and walk down to the flats. The sand was full of shellgrit and tiny jigsaw cuts of coral, but because we’d go there early-morning or at dusk it was still cool and soft like margarine just out of the fridge. We’d walk into the water, me as anchor and real-Dad as the sweeper. My job was to wade out thigh-deep then walk my pole slowly backwards, along the tide-line, while real-Dad got deeper and quicker, unfolding the net as he went. On his command I’d slow to baby-steps and he’d sweep the net in a broad arc. When he was level with me we’d reverse into the shore, making sure that our poles stayed clicking along the sand as we dragged the net and its haul. Hungry seagulls would flap and squawk overhead and the waves would regularly gather the net in fistfuls, as if they were trying to reclaim their own.

  Legal-length whiting or flatties were dropped into a bucket half-filled with seawater. Anything else was quickly rescued and returned to the sea. Often the small fish would have the net trapped in the grooves of their gills so real-Dad would part the strands with his fingers then use his other hand to gently push the fish forward, away from danger. Crabs could be fiddly and I wasn’t allowed near the rays. Real-Dad would use an old towel to clamp the base of the stinger, pick up the animal then carry it carefully to enough depth for it to flutter away.

  It was simple and clean and gentle, exactly how real-Dad was, before he gave up and turned into nothingness. Before all that, he was the man who liked the ABC news and books by Elmore Leonard and Pop Factory, his favourite CD, made by a band he saw once in Tasmania. He was the man who showed me how to do algebra, made balloon-animals at my kiddy birthday parties and rode an elephant in the Thai jungle. He was the man who told me to wear purple because it was the colour of royalty, not only knew the words to ‘American Pie’ but knew what they meant, and spent Saturday afternoons playing his lovely old sax in front of the footy, and Saturday nights making the best chicken korma ever. He was all those things and more, my real-Dad, and I can’t believe that he’s not like that anymore. I miss him so much, sometimes I think that he might even be –

  No. Don’t allow it. Bad thought. End now.

  MARGARET

  Joyous, My Special

  This is my third letter and I hope these writings are helping you to understand how things came to be the way they are.

  Moving to the city was very hard for you, I know, but what I wanted most of all was for you to gain some independence. Joyous, I have not been the best mother I could have been, despite trying, but some people are just better at it than others and I am one of the lesser ones. Motherhood is a skill and I haven’t been strong enough, which doesn’t mean that I don’t love you because I do with my utmost heart. It just means that I wasn’t always able to support you in the best way possible. I still feel guilty about that, in particular where Sammy-K is concerned, so that was another reason why I wanted you to gain independence so that you could free yourself. It hasn’t quite worked out in the way that I wanted and I blame myself for some of that.

  We were filled with hope upon first arriving in the city and, as you know, for a long while, well, some months anyway, things went okay. Yes, it was hot and cooped up and on the small side and there was the matter of the no job and money going out at a rate of knots but we always felt there would be an opportunity or two just around the corner. Then the winter came and we had more costs, what with heating and coats and pieces to keep us going and not sick and Sammy-K being very frustrated at how his dreams weren’t becoming real and taking it out on you, My Special. I know I should have done more to stop him, I know it deep in my soul of souls, but it just became part of our lives didn’t it? The hitting became as much how we were as other things like watching TV and meals the same way every day.

  This was my hardest time since the loss of my dear husband and the time, Joyous, when things changed for me and I gave away some hope and the spirit of Thomas Bowen finally left me so I was stranded, a bit like Tom Hanks in the Cast Away movie. But not on an island, of course, I mean as a person with no thought of what to do or where to go. I was looking into the future and seeing little but this apartment and Sammy-K with his anger and drinking and you feeling let down by your bad mother so this is when I started to put on The Weight. It happened that winter without me really knowing and once it starts, Joyous, there is nothing stopping The Weight, it just increases day by day until you forget what you once looked like and just imagine this is how it must always have been. The Weight is not something that is just in your body, it sits on your mind like a stone that grows heavier and heavier and makes you feel depressed about not just you but pretty much everything. The Weight is a misery that makes each day a long and grey one. What made it worse was that Sammy-K didn’t mind, he should have stopped me or helped but he didn’t and once in the early days of The Weight he even said, I like a bit of beef on my woman. But this was no comfort and there has been many nights before and since the accident when Mamma woke with a start having been dreaming about Thomas Bowen passing by at the Kinsville church and seeing myself in the blue cotton dress and hat with flowers and seeing how skinny and pretty I was, how filled with hope and trust and the glow of the future. But that was before The Weight came so many years ago and unfortunately it just keeps on coming no matter what I do, or at least staying the same and never going away. So, Joyous, I am so grateful for your lack of shame in me with The Weight being my great burden.

  Since that winter it has always been my main hope, Joyous, that no Weight will hold you down, that you might fly to the beat of your own beautiful wings. What you must understand is that Mamma’s life is set now and because of circumstances it is pretty messy with little prospect of change. Of course, looking back, we probably should have stayed on the farm and been true to ourselves but who was to know? It was all new and exciting, an opportunity, and looking back, my hopes were too high for what could happen. I was not thinking properly. Mamma has always been a dream person rather than a real person and this is my greatest fault. I know too that I misjudged Sammy-K and thought he might be more trustworthy than what he was. But as I’ve said before, it was better to tolerate him because he was in those days mainly beneficial, and all that Mamma had, outside of My Special Joyous, of course. Like I said in our chats, the thing with Sammy-K was his
Fear. He was full of Fear. He had the Fear of what he wanted to be versus what he was and that hurt Sammy-K because the two were so separated, and so the drinking and so the accident. Looking back I can see now that I had The Weight and he had The Fear and this made it hard for all of us.

  The thing is too that cities are lonely places, Joyous, more lonely than islands or farms in spite of the people everywhere, because they all do for themselves and there is no spirit of being together or community. They are also noisy, busy places and this wears you down more than you realise. I have often thought that the only sounds we should hear are nature and music and silence, which you never get in the city but we did at the farm in Kinsville. Many is the time I have dreamed of going back but you just can’t do that because it’s impossible and silly to dream, as I have said and I have to keep reminding myself. Please remember this, Joyous, there is no going back, but lots of ways forward, lots of different ways which is real thinking. You just have to search for them, keep persisting and not blocking your mind which I think you might have done over the years and that is certainly my fault. I needed to be a better mother and teach you.

  The point is that for Mamma the die is cast, as they say, but for Joyous things can still change and be better. I know that you haven’t seen much different for a long time now, what with us and this place and Mr Santorini who has been so helpful, but that does not mean it can’t be so. I wrote earlier that I wanted to see you gain independence and I still want that more than anything. But, Joyous, you will have to find it for yourself because Mamma can’t do it anymore. If you remember the family of ducks at the farm, sooner or later the little ones have to break free of their mother and make a life of their own, breathe in their own space. It’s the same with all living things, including people. This is what I want you to think about, My Special, because I want to see you free and with the happiness that this can bring. Mamma can’t get away now because The Weight holds me down like an anchor and there are also the Secrets, several of which I will tell later, but Joyous can, you can fly and you must for your sake and for mine too.

  With all my love, Mamma

  JOYOUS

  Go back, you say, mister, go back. But Joyous never did like going back to school after warm and quiet holiday days because of all that shiny concrete that is hurting my eyes and the hard pieces like the cruel boys like Matthew Berrings so always try to be remembering my dadda’s advice and Mamma who did be saying the importance of a good education. And I do recall I was being on the bus and ignoring the throwing things and badness words but it was not the easiest of times so I did take pencils and pad and open to doodles on the bus. Which was being fine and dandiful until Troy Smee did lean down and be ripping my pad and breaking my pencils, particularly my favoured burned-orange-sunset one and laugh at my doodles which were ducks and Sasha and Mamma and the farm. And one day they did take my pad and be hiding it and laughing fit to burst at the seams then the next day someone did pin my drawing of Mamma to the board cork on the canteen wall next to Daily Notices and write swearing about her beautiful hair and be drawing underneath a horrid shape of body which was hard to work around a little but I did be imagining in my head and then I did be telling Troy Smee that Mamma was a picture in a gallery and who can say better than that, eh? Who can say better than that?

  At school my bestest teacher ever for all time was Mrs Swain who was a lady. Joyous is saying lady instead of woman because even though Mrs Swain was both she was more of a lady who was never angered and always be saying, Good morning, Joyous, in the nice way, the Moonbeam way of white light bouncing off dark water. Mrs Swain did be showing Joyous his favoured subject which was maths and I was being good at, especially numbers tables and fractionals called arithmetic in my head without writing. After a short amount of time Mrs Swain became Joyous’s only teacher of all day which was the bestest time of all forever because she did be telling me I was being put into the special needs of categories. So Joyous could be with Mrs Swain in a special room with good colours and soft music like lifts in the big shops and soft bags of beans all the time except for lunchtimes which was for Mrs Swain’s coffee and also when the cruel boys did be coming to find me in a big circle like lions and play tricks which was not dandiful. But always I was trying to be respecting of Mamma’s words and be feeling sorry for them which was not easy when Joyous was being tripped into the stinky ditch of mud and having burned cigarettes pushed into my arms and legs.

  So that was my day-to-day, mister, until the job with Mr and Mrs Ickiewicz. Joyous was going to school for good lessons with Mrs Swain then be coming home to watch TV and sometimes be helping Sammy-K with odd-jobs when he wanted me to help but not when he was resting with Mamma of a dark afternoon and the door closed and, Get going, Mong! So Joyous would be taking Sasha for walkies in the favoured park. Which was a goodness because Sasha is a most bounciful dog who likes to be sniffing the air and licking hands and always reminding me of my dream about the farm where Mamma used to live and her favoured church and Thomas Bowen, my namesake. And when Joyous was saddened and not able to work things around a little, like times when Sammy-K had been hitting after the angry and the drinking and saying, Shut up, Spazzo! Shut up, Dumb-dick! then Sasha was muchly a friend though still a dog with a big red tongue and galloping habits. So that’s the plain and simple kookity end of that.

  The day after Joyous did become fourteen years and nine months of old Mamma did be seeing Mrs Swain and said to her no more of the cruel boys because Joyous was leaving school to be a hard worker in a corner shop with Mr and Mrs Ickiewicz. Which I was happily enough about though missing Mrs Swain who was a friend of mine and a lady who did give me a goodbye gift of a book of puzzles and was especially dandiful at numbers and fractionals called arithmetic in my head without writing. So that sunny and pleasant afternoon of change Mamma did take me to the corner shop which was three streets away but easy to find by staying left then left again cross at the lights and it was made of white boards and some red bricks which were crumbly and a blackboard in the front with Specials which was dandiful seeing as it is Mamma’s favoured word for Joyous. And suddenly, just like that, lo and behold, I was being a man with a badge and a uniform, though no gold braid and I was secretly saying to Mamma, What about Sammy-K? And she said, Don’t worry, My Special, I’ll sort it out. Though I was being worried because I had the badge and uniform, white with blue curled letters and Sammy-K didn’t on account of him not walking out any more except for the drinking and anger.

  Yes, mister, Joyous did love to be working at the corner shop because it was mainly beneficial. Mr and Mrs Ickiewicz became new friends to Joyous and be showing me how to do my job. Soon I was putting the apples in neat lines on those cardboard trays and unpacking bags of potatoes to wash and bananas throwing out the black ones but not too many, mind, and a special treat was a strawberry or three, or a navel orange depending on the daily taking and be loving of mangoes for the smelling sweet. Then before the sun was being over the yard-arm I was helping the milkman Col and the juice man Mikey who called me old buddy old mate which was a good bit, not Mong or Spazzo, and the bread and pastries man Al who sometimes was holding out a Doughnut Delish and this would be putting the milk and juice in the fridge on the right shelves, cans of cordial and then the bread properly on racks so that it didn’t be squishing out of the squares and pies in the warmer along with other savouries smelling yum. And Mr Ickiewicz was saying, You’re a good worker, Joyous, I’ll be teaching you the till soon, and we all did laugh in a googlish way about that, Mr Ickiewicz teaching me the till and Mrs Ickiewicz saying, Watch your back, Stan, that boy will be taking over the shop! Which was another honkingly good belly-laugh that I was having with my new friends indeedy-do.

  And mister, Joyous is swearing to the Great Lord Almighty and his son Jesus who walked onto water to this day forever and ever amen that he never did be stealing a thing or two from the corner shop because there is no memory of it so it must have been someone else like a stealing
thief or perhaps someone of badness. Though Sammy-K did be saying he found things in my bedroom, three silvered lighters and some packets of Winnie Blue to sell to snotty kids and be making money which could not have been so because Joyous did not know the snotty kids but he was showing them to me and to Mr and Mrs Ickiewicz and I was in confusion so I said yes and Mr Ickiewicz did be saying how I was a let-down and a disgrace to my Mamma and myself and he had no choice but the sacking. Pack your things, leave the apron behind, hurry now, go. So Joyous did be leaving with my head bowed in downwards like the peeing day and heart split like a log and the last thing I did see was Mrs Ickiewicz standing near the pie warmer and she was crying in a truesome manner so I did feel worse at being the cause of such agonies and this was the hardest thing of all to be working around a little and is still a quiet cry from time to time alone.

  At home was a badness on account of Sammy-K being angered with his hard hands until Mamma did be saying, No more, no more! Then there was no TV just being in my room having concentration on not being a nuisance to anyone, you disgrace, common thief, after all we’ve done, bloody Mong. Then days later Mamma did give me back my coat and a second chance which was starting to work things around a little so we did be walking in the rain and visiting Mr Santorini at the working shop and he was a nice man, googlish like Mrs Swain, and he said I could come along for a time of trial so I did and have been since ever.

  JOYOUS and MOONBEAM

  Hey, Joyous.

  Moonbeam is being here in the park where Joyous is being!

  Sure am.

  Joyous has not been seeing Moonbeam in the park before on a Tuesday my favoured.