Didn’t take long for that particular delusion to get whacked into reality. Two mouthfuls of Perfect Bean Salad combined with Perfect Pork Cutlet then she makes The Announcement – and that peed me off big-time, the way that it was such an Announcement, like they’d written the script together, rehearsed it, set the scene, prepared for the performance.
Ashleigh, I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but your father and I have decided to get a divorce.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, once she’d finished, he weighed in with this classic: It’s okay, chicken, it’s for the best.
Chicken? Best? And you are – who? Oh, that’s right. My ex-father. I think.
They went back and forth then. It was like a tennis match between two boring baseliners. Serve: lots of reasons. Return: grown apart. Forehand: different priorities. Backhand: different interests. Lob: new directions. Smash: out of love.
That last one really got to me. How do you become out of love? Unless maybe – maybe you were never there in the first place.
Uh-oh, there you go. Welcome to the thought that continues to hammer giant holes into every single part of me. What if my parents never actually loved each other? What if I was the product of nothing more than biology?
It adds up. They were never in love. Crap-crap-crapola, this is unnerving. Like I don’t belong. Just a bunch of atoms, formed by accident.
Those nuns who visit our school every term drone on about the lack of basic human rights in Asia or Africa – food, water, shelter. Being born from love, I’d slot that one into the list as a basic human right. No matter where you live.
Take Joyous. Disabled, dodgiest existence imaginable, the big guy’s got nothing – except love. He genuinely loves his mother and by the sound of it, she loves him back. Whereas my parents … never in love. Meaning that Jamie was – what? A mistake, like me? Or worse, some kind of stupid, too-late attempt to make their marriage real?
Anyway, after ten minutes of tennis I left the table, got the back-pack out of Dad’s wardrobe, stuffed in a few things of my own, walked back out and said, I’m going. They were still sitting there. Hadn’t moved, hadn’t touched the Perfect Pork. The whole thing was like a painting, the kind you glance at before moving away to find something better.
She said, Ashleigh. Nice, she knows my name.
He said nothing. I didn’t bother taking a key.
Wandered around the burbs for a while, ended up at Kadie’s. Rote response. I used to go there a lot when we were younger and friendship was less complicated. It’s different now which is inevitable, I suppose. I asked if I could maybe stay the night but her Mum said it wasn’t ‘convenient’. They were having ‘family time’. Me too, I told her. That’s why I’m here. She held onto the front door like it was going somewhere and said in this deeper, I’m-the-adult-here voice, Go home, Ashleigh. Just … go home. I walked away and then I heard Kadie say, Careful, Mum, she might burn down the house. So I turned and called her things and Kadie yelled back, Why don’t you stay with Bracks? You two make a great couple! Then the door was shut and it was dark again, just me and the street and someone’s whinging cat.
For years, Kadie McIntosh was what I always thought a friend should be – someone to hang out with, share jokes, talk about stuff, other girls, fat girls, ugly girls, girls who hadn’t had a boyfriend, girls below us, all that mush. Not anymore, and I’m glad. I don’t want friends like her.
I got to the main road and caught a bus into town. Usually I like the city at night. There’s a kind of weightlessness, and the energy of all the lights and sounds sweeps you along like you’re caught in an ocean current. But this time, it seemed that I was still and everything else was moving around me, rather than with me. It was weird and a bit scary but at least it was anonymous. No one spoke to me or seemed to notice me. Thought I was just another wayward kid, I suppose, staring blankly into the shop windows and grimy alleys.
Somehow, around midnight, I ended up at school, which means I must’ve crossed the river via one of the footbridges, gone along the main boardwalk, past the cliffs then up the hill. I don’t remember doing any of this but that’s where I found myself.
Schools at night are spooky because they’re deserted, but they’re also sort of comforting because the shapes and places are familiar. You hear things too, things you don’t normally hear, like wind wrapping around the eaves and claws scraping when birds land on the guttering. If the wind stops and the birds settle, you can even hear the sound of your own heart, knocking away like a madman.
I sat on a bench beneath a huge tree. It was the same bench we sat on throughout the second half of grade eight. Six of us squeezed into a huddle – Kadie, Sog, Ally, Gem, Jules and me – sharing sausage rolls and fruit poppers. Besties-4-ever. If they’d tattooed it onto our wrists, we wouldn’t have minded. It would always be that way, wouldn’t it? We whispered to each other in our dreams – us versus the world, us winning The Fight because we had each other. We had each other, what more could we need?
Lots. Oh shit, lots and lots.
I must’ve dozed because I remember being woken up by a noise and feeling that immediate rise of nausea when the unknown is about to reveal itself. I heard the noise again – metallic, or an animal clearing its throat. This time it was closer, directly above me, so I looked up and the moonlight drew me to a small possum with marbles for eyes and cute gold speckles in his tail. We watched each other for a moment and I wanted to reach up and maybe stroke his back but he clambered to a higher branch and used it to swing across to another tree, before disappearing. I could hear him rustle around and that was nice. By the time he’d gone, I figured that I should probably do the same.
Food, water, shelter. Forget about love. There’s an old boatshed down by the river. It used to belong to the school rowing team until they got upgraded to a Colorbond monstrosity. Last year, usually after Wednesday maths, Kadie, Sog and I would sneak down to the boatshed, bust in through the back door – the lock was off its screws so you could jiggle it open – and share ciggies. Kadie’s mum used to buy them in cartons so it was easy for Kadie to take a packet without her mum knowing. The taste was gross but we didn’t care. We’d puff away in the boatshed, doing way-cool poses and laughing at Sog going blue while she tried to perfect the drawback. One afternoon Sog skipped maths and turned up at the shed with a half-full cask of wine that she’d conned out of her brother in return for not telling on him for taking their parents’ Merc for a spin. That was my first experience of drinking, and being drunk. I ended up staying at Kadie’s, eating heaps of hot chips with gravy then throwing up all over her favourite doona-cover, which pissed her off big-time because she had to wash it herself without her mother finding out.
Maybe that was the signal. Beginning of the end.
Anyway, the night of The Announcement, that’s where I slept, inside the old boatshed. I put on some extra clothes, curled up on the boards and used his back-pack as a pillow. The morning light was white and sharp and it stung my eyes. I was stiff and cold so I left the boatshed and walked back along the river, watching the rowers and getting passed by fitness-freaks jogging or cycling or weaving about on rollerblades. It was near eight o’clock when I returned to the city, bought a can of Coke, an apple turnover and some sandwiches from this hole-in-the-wall bakery, went up to the Transit Centre info-board to check out bus timetables then headed off to the park to see Joyous and say goodbye. It was clear and windy, a Tuesday, so I knew he’d be there eventually.
MARGARET
Joyous, My Special
This will be my second to last letter to you because I only have this very big secret about the long ago past and then one letter with a secret from now. This letter and then my last shall be the most difficult of all.
Before I go on I want you to think back to what I have written and maybe even re-read so you are totally clear on how much I as Mamma have loved you and continue to love you. There is no love like a mother for her child not even the Love and Faith for
God and you must understand that I have never thought of you as anything less than my own flesh and blood despite what I am about to say. It has not been a web of lies so much as growing up together from a fresh start due to circumstance and necessity, as you will see. It will come as no surprise to you, I’m sure, to discover that everything began at the same place it ended, with the passing of my dearly beloved Thomas Bowen. Let me explain and please forgive me as I hope and pray the Good Lord has already done.
My biggest Secret of all, Joyous, is about my sister Jennifer. You are not aware of her and only knew Jennifer for a very short time and I would love to show you a photo but the only two I had were burned with the petrol by Sammy-K that time he was angry. Even though they were hidden, somehow he found them. So there is no photo but I can tell you that my sister Jennifer was a beautiful girl, tall and lovely and filled to the brim with love and energy and people going to her in joy because that’s the kind of person she was. Jennifer was younger than me by two years so had she lived she would be 52 today and no doubt still as lovely and loving as ever. While it is a tragedy for me that my only sister died so young and I have no photo I am still fortunate because I see her each day. I see her softness and her gentle nature and feel her warmness all the time. I see and feel these things in you, My Special, because you are a constant reminder to me of Jennifer, my sister, your mother. Yes, it’s true, your real mother she was, so help me God, now it is out.
Please understand, it is so so important that you do. Let me tell how it happened that I was given the gift of you, my sister Jennifer’s wondrous son, and then judge me as God has no doubt done but know that I never wanted anything but the best for My Special Joyous.
At the age of nineteen my sister Jennifer was pregnant. The man, your biological father, was a fellow passing through, a picker of crops, his name was Joe and going from town to town in search of work. He was at Kinsville for four weeks, or near enough, on the tomatoes during which time Jennifer, who was working as a cook at that property, got to know him and imagined herself to be in love. She was a young romantic girl and very easily swayed in the heart. So Joe, your biological father, had long gone when my Jenny knew that she was pregnant and besides which she was not interested in tracking him down having realised that it was just a passing fancy although pleasant enough in his own way for the four weeks at least. At that stage it was just her and me and my beloved husband Thomas Bowen on the farm, our parents having passed on within six months of each other some time before, one of cancer, the other of sorrow, which can happen when two people are so loving. The three of us had a chat and we agreed Jenny’s child shall be all of ours raised in a place of love and togetherness and everyone was happy with that. Thomas and me also thought that the gift of children would come to us soon enough and there would be playmates for Jenny’s little one, that is you, My Special. So that made our decision easy too.
Thus we were looking forward to a beautiful family on our farm but it wasn’t to be and this is an instance that God, I know, works in his mysteries that we must do our level best to understand. So it was that my dear sister Jennifer gave birth to you and what a wondrous boy you were, smiling and giving us so much pleasure. Then Thomas Bowen wrote on your birth certificate, as you know he did, on behalf of us all and we laughed with happiness beyond what we could have believed and your lovely mother, my Jenny, said, That is his name then, my dear little Joyous. And so the next decision was made. I know I have told you he was your dadda and it was his philosophy but, you see, I had to invent that he named you, or tell of Jenny, your mother, which I haven’t been able to do and I am truly sorry for this misleading but it is and always was what is known as a white lie, done for the purpose of goodness. Besides, in a way it was true because if everything had gone to plan Thomas Bowen would have been like your dadda on the farm with Jenny and me, we had all agreed that this would be so.
But who could have imagined the heartbreak that followed? Jenny and you were soon well enough to come home so Thomas Bowen went to fetch you in his car while I was back on the farm making a welcome home supper. Scones, as I recall, with homemade apricot jam. But that afternoon, soft light and white, perhaps hazy, with some drizzle, is when fate intervened and Thomas did (said the police, I can’t always believe it) his poorly judged whip-around. It was an awful accident that, as you know, killed him and now you know also killed your mother, my beautiful sister Jennifer, as well as badly hurting the truck driver. But somehow you survived, probably because of the special baby seat. That in itself was a miracle, something to be grateful for in the whole horrid mess and wreckage. So as your only relative, you became my son and my link to those happy times of Thomas Bowen and Jenny and me at the farm together. The other point to know was that the doctor discovered you had a little head injury from the car accident which he said may cause a few little problems throughout life and this is why you have had trouble with school and words and understanding the ways of the world. But as I have always said, who cares about those things small and of no matter at all when I have been given the gift of such a wondrous and loving caring person in my difficult life.
You are probably thinking, why Mamma? Why did you not tell me this before? Joyous, there never seemed to be any reason to tell you because nothing could have changed. They were both gone from our lives and we only had each other, so we had to be together. This was the way of things and I know I should have told you because it is your right to know, but I didn’t. Perhaps part of me was also scared of losing you, seeing as I’m not your real birth mamma, and thinking maybe you would want to leave and find your biological father Joe, the picker of crops, which would be impossible. But despite it all, I hope I have been a real mamma to you anyway because it is not just about birth, though that is important, but love, support, belief, being there and giving you a place in the world to have and to hold. I have tried to do that, not always well as you know, and many regrets with Sammy-K especially, but trust me, I have loved you as my own and hopefully as Jenny’s too, and done my best and it is certainly true that you have the inner beam of Thomas Bowen, even if he is not your real dadda. So please, forgive me.
Joyous, I sincerely hope that this and my earlier letters have explained all that has come to pass to make us the way we are. As I said before, there is one more Secret to go. More of the future than the past. Please know that part of my Faith has been to be cleaned of past mistakes and to see one’s life in the light of God’s benevolent love. So with this act of the letters I hope for two things, that you have now an understanding, and that I have the hope of coming properly to the flock when my time finally arrives.
With all my love, with all my hope for you, and being eternally grateful, Mamma
JOYOUS
Go back, you say, mister, go back – to yesterday which was being the bestest day ever of Joyous’s time on God’s green earth. When Moonbeam did be saying about going on the blue bus it was a time of great happiness and being proud to be sitting on the back seat like a cool guy legend. And the city was gone after a time and we did see the long grass wavy in the wind and horses and sheeps be eating and northbound back to the country which was googlish and radio songs ‘Hey Mister Postman’ and Moonbeam did be asking Joyous if he was a happy guy and I was saying, yes, yes, oh yes.
Bestest of all we did be going into Kinsville which I do know because there was a population 742 sign so we did leave the blue bus chugga-lugging away and be walking along a river-path to find Mamma’s farm. Which was gone away but instead the kingdom tree of Joyous’s being a child bigger than pictures in my head. And in the quietness I did be seeing it and pointing and Moonbeam was saying cool words like, wow, awesome, and running with Joyous which was dandiful the most ever! Nearby the kingdom tree was tall and making me think of a city building looking up so we had swinging on branches for fun then Moonbeam was asking, Hey, Joyous, want to climb up? And I did be nodding then we did shinny up like way back in history times when I was five or six or seven except it was harder be
cause Joyous has growed so muchly to 190 centimetres and 108 kilograms on Mamma’s special scales so Moonbeam was quick and helping with her fingers and taking Joyous’s hand for easiness. Soon we did find a branch each and be having red petals in our hair alongside the wind and the smell from the river like softly onions in cutting so it was a good bit and Moonbeam did be saying, This is cool, which is a word I like to say now since Moonbeam was teaching me like Mrs Swain.
What was the bestest bit was looking at everything about like the colourful playing ground with a yellow swing and pretty girl with hair on the red seesaw and the place called Kinsville population 742 and in the long away distance some black-and-white patchy cows and smooth farming paddocks then a hill shaped like a bread-loaf which was things I had in pictures for all my life so that was cool, honkingly so. After a few times and enjoying the sunny face Joyous was thinking about living here in Kinsville near the kingdom tree like Mamma and I used to be doing after the poorly judged whip-around and not to be in the apartment in the city which is hot and no room. And I was thinking some more how it would be mainly beneficial and then I was to be having an independent streak in me like Mamma always says she is wanting so I was deciding that this is what we will do in our futures. Because now Moonbeam has been showing Joyous how easy to be on the blue bus travelling to the country northbound having done it because near the kingdom tree and the softly onion river and the bread-loaf hill is where we belong, Mamma and me.
Then we did share sandwiches which Moonbeam had in her back-packer and mine was egg-lettuce and it was honkingly good to eat in the tree above the world with the wind and the sunbeams then the crusts were wrapped and put away for later. In the cool clean air I did tell Moonbeam more of the story of Thomas Bowen and Mr and Mrs Ickiewicz and the cruel boys and Roscoe in heaven which is a sadness but working it around, then we did shinny down from the tree because Moonbeam was checking off time and said we should be sitting by the river before the bus back for Joyous. So we did walk along and be sitting on the grass and the water was gleamy and dandiful and Moonbeam was saying that I had to be on the three o’clock bus to get back into the city by four-thirty then walking home for tea, Is that okay, Joyous? Or Mamma would be worrying which we did never want because she is so loved.
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