No. No, I decided … I had a day off. School.
Is this being a holiday day?
Yeah, that’s it. Sure. Holiday-day.
And now you are being here with Joyous in the park my favoured.
Now I am. Is that okay? I don’t want to interfere.
It is an okayness. Joyous is honkingly good-happy to be seeing Moonbeam.
Thanks. Um, where’s the poo-dog? Don’t you normally –
Sasha is being resting on account of a wearisome bout of doggy sickness.
Sorry to hear that.
Yes. But Sasha will be dandiful in time and rest.
Good. That’s … good.
Moonbeam?
What?
You are in sadness.
Yeah, I guess so. I’m sad. Frustrated. Angry. Peed-off with everything.
Moonbeam, be telling Joyous for working it around.
If you like.
Joyous is liking.
Okay. Shit. What happened was, this morning we were having breakfast, just Mum and me. I think my father was still in bed. These days he’s always … anyway, it was the usual, dreary silence, cold toast, cold tea, then she said – she said –
Moonbeam? You are crying big tear-drops.
I know. I’m sorry. Sorry. It’s because – because she said, she accused me – she said, the way we are, our family, it’s nothing to do with the past, it’s now, it’s you. She said, We’re trying, what about you? Then all this other shit – my behaviour, not helping out, the party, the library – I mean, those things were wrong, of course they were, but my parents, the way they are, it’s them! She said, if I wasn’t such a trial, so ungrateful and difficult – I mean, it’s a lie, she can’t possibly think that –
Moonbeam, be sitting down here on this bench with Joyous in restful quietness.
Yeah, okay. Sorry. Didn’t mean to crack up. I just – it took me by surprise. I thought we’d finished with – but the suddenness of it all, and her anger, it was –
Would Moonbeam be liking of a lollipopsicle?
Are you having one?
Not before morning tea at ten o’clock in the morning. Joyous is not wanting to spoil –
Okay. Get it. Um, I’ll have lime, please.
Lime is being good for days of sadness.
I guess. Ta.
So, will Moonbeam be telling Joyous more and maybe –
Work things around a little! I know. I know. Just give me a minute, okay?
It is an okayness. The sun is brightly this morning.
It is. Joyous, um, sorry I came here like this, I probably shouldn’t have …
Joyous will not be telling Mr Santorini in case he is saying no about visiting at the park on Tuesdays and Moonbeam can’t be going to the working shop anymore.
Good idea. You’d better not tell, they’d probably ban me.
Joyous is not to be wanting Moonbeam banded.
Me either, big guy. But this morning, I had to get away. Not just from them, from the house, school, everything. Had to.
Mm.
Joyous, you should know, I’m not – I’m not the great person you seem to think I am. I did something bad, Joyous, really bad. Actually, a couple of bad things. And I know they were wrong, terrible, but I wasn’t thinking straight and – I wish, I wish I could take it all back, have those times over and be different but –
Time is not for the taking back, Moonbeam. Like Mamma is saying when she is thinking of Thomas Bowen and the poorly judged whip-around, Oh well, we can’t be turning back time, Joyous, now can we?
No, of course not. Good old Mamma.
Now to be telling Joyous.
Okay. Last month I decided to have a party.
Parties are honkingly good! Joyous has been seeing fun and happy parties on the TV shows. Did Moonbeam be blowing up the balloons?
No. It wasn’t that kind of party. It was supposed to be – small, but I was in a bit of a mood so I stuck the invitation onto Facebook and heaps of people came who shouldn’t have and – anyway, they trashed the place. Which was bad but I – this sounds horrible – I was kind of happy about it. I even watched them doing it. Stood back and didn’t interfere, didn’t do a thing. I guess I wanted it to be a wake-up call for my parents. Like, hello? You think this is a mess, what about the messes you’re making of your lives? Not to mention mine! And I thought, at least if Dad gets angry then that’s something – more than what there has been. But he didn’t. He just waited until everyone left and then he cleaned up. Went around like a robot, picking up rubbish, sweeping and hosing til it was back to normal. I couldn’t believe it. Mum went off her head but even that was fake. Turn on the switch, rant and rave, turn off the switch. She didn’t care, not really.
Moonbeam –
My father cleaned up. It was unbelievable. He looked at me like – like he didn’t recognise me, then he cleaned up.
Joyous is being happy to be helping with the clean-up.
I’m sure you are, big guy! So, anyway, that’s how it was. Had the party, house got trashed, house got cleaned up, no real response. Fair enough, I thought to myself, fair enough, gotta do more. Gotta hurt them. See, irrational? Normally I’m not like that. But stuff changes in your head, crazy thoughts, and before you know it –
Moonbeam’s head is still looking the same pretty and being nice to Joyous.
Well, thank you, but I can assure you that on the inside, it was a different story. Was? Is? Who knows? School was a bitch that week because I couldn’t be stuffed. Hated it worse than usual. Hated the fakeness most of all. Pretending to be normal. Pretending to care while the teachers blithered on about exam week and priorities and being a role-model. Pretending to be interested while my so-called friends blithered on about this new boy called Jesse Williams and how hot he is and stupid stuff like, Are you coming to Kadie’s on Saturday because it’s going off? And, Last weekend was awesome, I was so drunk it was so cool! Bunch of lamers. And home just went back to the same, whatever that was –
Moonbeam.
Mm?
Please be talking more softly softly. The lady with the pram-baby is trying to be pricking up her ears.
Oh, sorry. I get carried away. Shush to me. So, that Thursday afternoon I stayed back after last class. Deliberately missed the bus. Knew I was going to do something but didn’t know what. Wandered around in a kind of daze, you know, this weird sort of … zone. Hung around behind buildings so no one would spot me and ask questions. Didn’t feel much, didn’t even feel alive. I suppose I was preparing – mentally. Then, around five o’clock, I went into the library. It was unlocked so I should’ve realised that was unusual and there could be a problem but I wasn’t thinking properly. No logic, just cold and hard. Went into the library, went up to the front desk, and that’s when I did it. And I’ve regretted it ever since, truly I have, and I do want to work things around, particularly with Bracks, but I just don’t know how. I don’t.
Moonbeam, Joyous is forgetting, what is Bracks?
Mrs Bracks. She’s the principal at my college. As in head-honcho. Lady in charge.
And Moonbeam is feeling the sorrow for Miss Bracks?
Sure am. Bracks is tough but she’s good to me. Likes me, apparently. Can’t see why.
Joyous is also liking of Moonbeam so much to be happy.
Thanks, big guy. You’re a legend.
Moonbeam.
Mm?
Once, when Joyous was to be telling something wrongful, a tiny lie, to Mamma and she was mostly upset, I did take some paper and write her a nice letter explaining.
Good for you. Did it work?
Yes, it was working. Letters aren’t being hurtful. Letters have words that I am wanting and words that I am rubbing out so good. Speaking has no rubbing out. So Joyous did be writing the letter.
That’s true. About the rubbing out, I mean. Did your mother like your letter?
Yes. She did be keeping it as a momentum.
Memento?
Yes, as well.
So you’re saying that I should write Bracks a letter.
Yes, that is being Joyous’s idea.
And that’s better than talking to her because at least I can make sure I only say the right things, not the bad stuff.
Moonbeam will be rubbing out the badnesses.
Yeah. Hey, I’ll think about it, okay?
It is an okayness.
Warm today, isn’t it? Warm and sunny. Hey Joy-ous, thanks for the lollipopsicle. And the chat. I needed it.
Welcome, Moonbeam. Cool.
ASHLEIGH
I love libraries. I do. Some people might find that hard to believe (like poor Mrs Cheney, our school librarian) but when I said it to Bracks she just nodded and said, I know, Ashleigh, I know. God, that woman. Where does she get off being so reasonable?
We strike out at the things we love. Another Bracks-ism. Followed, of course, by the inevitable explanation, Ashleigh, we hurt those who we love because they’re closest, and that makes the pain more real. If it’s more real, it’s more noticeable. Other people see it. Yes, Miss. It’s also more easily stopped.
Yeah, all right. Whatever.
I’m still not sure what took me into the library that afternoon. Some strange force. Maybe I went there because libraries are safe, like churches. Sanctuaries for people who don’t fit in anywhere else. No one harms or gets harmed in a library. Do they?
Some strange force. Maybe I wanted to destroy all that knowledge, those trillions of words sitting on their shelves. You can’t escape words. They’ll always find you out and track you down, no matter how much you ignore them.
Maybe I went into the library because everywhere else was locked and it was open.
The rest I remember like a series of cartoon strips.
In the first strip I see myself wearing my oh-so-delish green-and-white checked uniform, mousey mass of hair pulled up, but still a mess, wisps over my ears and eyes. My lips are pale, really pale. I’m wearing joggers with Texta coloured-in bits, white socks and a bunch of (banned) anklets. Black cardy pulled up to the elbows, one pocket bulging, paint-scraps on my fingers, a gold locket at my throat.
That locket was a birthday gift when I turned thirteen. My favourite girl becoming my favourite lady, Dad whispered. But don’t tell Mum I said that. Inside is a tiny picture of the three of us, big grins from our Sydney holiday the year before. We were on the ferry to Luna Park and Dad asked this bloke if he wouldn’t mind taking the picture, with the bridge in the background, clouds like vapour-trail overhead. It’s a good photo. We’re happy, our boggy future stuck on hold.
You still wear it? asked Bracks. Yeah, I do. So what? She looked at me long and hard like she does, with those ultra-blue eyes, as penetrating as arrows, and she said, Come on, Ashleigh, you know what. You still wear the locket.
Okay, point taken. I still wear the stupid locket.
Cartoon-strip. There I am, small and a bit blurry, a fugitive in the school library. I leave the foyer with its glassed-in trophy cabinets and gold-lettered honour boards, turn a corner and wander past the first set of shelves, fingers trailing along the spines of the books. This is Reference A – M. Pull out a book, open it to Fungus, read for a moment, close the book, drop it on the floor. Turn, do a lap of Reference N – Z then move into Fiction. Pull out another book, kiddy story, fox on the white cover. Hear something – a cough, scrape? Stop, listen, drop down, lie on the floor. Wait, close my eyes, smell the mangy carpet, listen some more.
Nothing. Stand up, check the nearest window. Outside is more night than day. Very carefully, quietly, I rip pages from the fox book, pile them on the floor. I am smiling while I do this. Look at me, I am actually smiling.
There are still some ceiling fluoros on, plus illumination from the green Exit signs. I pick up the pages and move to the front desk. There are stacks of returned books as well as a thin box of biros, two computer screens, an empty plastic bin and note-pads scrawled with codes and phone numbers and reminders.
Why did I choose here? It’s the gateway, I suppose. Entry-exit.
We strike out at the things we love. Shut up, Bracks, you know too much. I drop some pages in the bin. Drop some more into piles under each screen, add pages from the note-pads, crushed into balls. I am still smiling.
Second-to-last cartoon-strip; I reach into the bulging pocket, bring out a lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Alpine Supremes that I stole from my mother – didn’t know why at the time, beyond the satisfaction of stealing from her. The lighter is red plastic, micro. Its flame is mostly blue. I take a cigarette, place it between my pale lips, lift the flame, inhale. Blow smoke then hold the orange tip to each pile of paper. They ignite, one by one. When all are lit, I drop the smouldering cigarette into the bin. Step back and watch. Smiling.
Why didn’t I leave? Why didn’t I run to the shadows that hide the fence-line, to the next bus away? Don’t know. I really don’t.
Ashleigh, said Bracks, if your aim is to destroy something, you want to see it destroyed, don’t you? There’s no value in hearing about it afterwards. You want it confirmed.
Guess so. I’m not used to destruction.
Last cartoon-strip. Small flames building into bigger flames that lick the computers like hungry cats. Smoke curling and rising. The smell of burning plastic, chemical and nasty. Then – the sudden shock of an alarm and a greater shock – voices close by, a chorus. People rushing from a room, faces I know and don’t know. Adults, men in jackets, women with hand-bags.
And words, the words that I tried to kill off, cutting across like old saws slicing logs, Get the fire extinguisher! What happened? Who is it? In the bin! Watch the girl. Is she …? The bin!
Last frame. I’m standing, mute and crazy-looking, and there’s Bracks with me, pushing me away from the anger and questions, it was a parents and council meeting, of all the luck. She’s taking me to the door, to the pathways and dark lawns and I’m still smiling like this clown I once saw at a circus, one of those touring ones, Big Top on the local footy field, a white-faced clown playing dumb, tip-toeing through the good and not-so and grinning at the stupidity of it all.
We strike out at the things we love. Our house is close to a hill, on the edge of a gully between suburb and bush. One year the bush burned. It was an autumn fire, the sparks fanned by new winds on the back of a long, dead summer. The grass and brush were crisp and combustible. They got the fire before it got us but the stink stayed for months. Early in September Dad said, Come for a walk. So I did, the two of us picking through the black remains of the burned bush, the charred stumps and insect corpses, the empty floor. At first I thought it was depressing and gloomy but then I looked closer, like you have to sometimes, and I saw green buds breaking through – lime-green shoots and small flecks of green carpet, even the beginnings of flowers. Dad said, Regrowth. Not long and it’ll be good again. He touched a new petal, used the same hand to touch my hair.
Looking back, I think that was the first time that I understood fire and understood love, understood them both as destructive forces, and as means of starting over.
MARGARET
Joyous, My Special
I have tried to get across to you in my letters how precious a life can be and what a gift it is. Any sort of life, even one like some people have, I suppose, where things have not gone how you would want or where the sadnesses have been more so than happiness, as it is for Mamma. That is to say Thomas Bowen was definitely right in what he wrote on your birth certificate and I truly believe that no matter what occurs, be it anger or accidents or just plain bad luck, we have to make sure that when we wake each and every day we remember the precious and unique gift that is life, to be cherished until death do us part.
After the bad boys at your school and special needs with Mrs Swain and the job gone, then Mr Santorini, I felt like I had let My Special down. I was especially sad about the job at the shop because I was so certain that it would work out and you would find your place on the road of life which can be difficult at
the best of times. We’ve never really talked about it since because I don’t know what to say. Mistakes were made and the price paid which was a great disappointment to me and you also, of course. I still struggle to believe you stole anything, it was so out of character, but Sammy-K did insist and the evidence was there so I don’t know, and I guess I never will. All I can say is that I haven’t been to that shop since, although I believe Mr and Mrs Ickiewicz have left and new owners have spruced it up with blue paint and pizza take away. But I cannot bring myself to go there because it was a bad episode that no one needs reminding of.
To other matters, and now it is time for me to share one of my Secrets with you. So here it is, my first Secret of several.
Seven years ago Mamma was out buying seedlings from the nearby nursery on the corner of James and Harrington when a lady who was hosing ferns in the nursery started talking about the best ones to grow and how. She was a very nice lady going by the name of Alison McDowd and Mamma very much enjoyed our chatting, knowing that I didn’t have too many people to chat to at that time or any other time really. We chatted about many things and in a very friendly fashion. I will admit after that I started going to the nursery more than I really needed to because of my chats with Alison McDowd, a lovely lady filled with grace. Pretty soon after we were leaving the nursery and stopping for coffee and I will admit I started to become a little deceitful at this point, always making sure I went to coffee when Sammy-K was out and about and not there to question. I felt badly about that but there are times, Joyous, when, as they say, the ends justifies the means, as you will soon see.
After some months of chatting over coffee Alison McDowd invited Mamma to come with her to a special place where only a few lucky people are invited. Now this is my Secret, Joyous, because I had been going to this same place ever since until recent times and it gave me such strength, hope, joy and happiness. Its name is The Church Of The New Apostolic Creed and it is a lovely white-painted building over in a different suburb, two connecting buses away, and perhaps one day when things change for the better you may like to see it. You would most certainly like the colourful carvings and beautiful old fashioned pictures of Jesus and Mary and scenes from the Bible, I think, such as the Ascension. So instead of going to the nursery or coffee I used to go to The Church Of The New Apostolic Creed with Alison McDowd and many other people who I soon called my friends. This was important to Mamma since there hasn’t been too many of them in past times. Every so often, if Sammy-K was busy, I could even go during your park time of a Tuesday, or Saturday workshop, that way I was able to go to the special services which were the most beneficial of all.
Joyous and Moonbeam Page 6