The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley

by Martine Murray

  ‘Barn, you’ll break that chair,’ said Mum.

  ‘So I missed the black swan chapter then?’ I said, pulling the crusts off my toast.

  ‘Ah, now that, that’s very repeatable,’ said Barnaby, and I could almost see his mind sail far away out of the kitchen and back in time. It made his eyes go soft and his smile go slow and dreamy, and I had to roll my eyes and chuck the Wettex at him, which made him laugh.

  ‘And why didn’t you tell us where you were?’ I demanded.

  ‘Why don’t you kids eat your crusts?’ said Mum, frowning for a moment as she spread the Saturday papers over the table, taking up all the room.

  ‘Ah, Mum, you know, crusts are for Rita and Door. They love ’em more,’ said Barnaby, chucking the crusts in the compost bin. ‘Hey, Cedar, you should have an egg, for protein, so you feel strong tonight.’

  ‘Don’t wanna egg. I gotta go now, anyway.’

  ‘Shall I walk you there?’

  ‘Okay.’

  We walked up the street, and Barnaby asked about the Lebbos and Ricci and Caramella and even the Bartons.

  ‘And how’s Harold Barton; what new toy has Harold got?’

  ‘He’s got the latest Play Station,’ I said, and Barnaby chuckled. He gestured to the boys’ nice satisfied house and said, ‘And do the fancy-pants still think we’re ferals?’

  ‘Yep,’ I said proudly, because even though Mum didn’t like it, I couldn’t care less if they thought we were wild like foxes. Anyway, Robert still helped me with my broken rib, so he wasn’t bad, just a snob.

  We walked along the Merri Creek. It smelt muddy and old and the water was rushing milky brown because of the rain. There were brown ducks getting borne along, whether they wanted to or not, and we could see a Twistie packet twisting and turning as it was swept downstream. I said, if I was a Twistie packet, that’s how I’d like to end my days—dancing gloriously and quietly in a merry creek. Barnaby said that if he was a Twistie packet, he’d be tucked away in the pocket of Walt Whitman or Bob Dylan, and he’d be travelling around America, looking out and listening. ‘But Walt Whitman’s dead,’ I said, and he said, ‘So is a Twistie packet.’ Stinky barked at the ducks, but the ducks just kept on doing their duck business, which was mainly just body surfing the rush, hoping a fish might float near their mouths.

  ‘Where will they end up?’ I said.

  ‘In another duck country,’ said Barnaby.

  We saw the rabbit man in the distance, but we didn’t talk to him. We were too busy talking to each other. We went and sat under the cooing bridge and I told Barnaby about my Pat and Gary theory, and then we worked out that Barnaby had been away for sixteen months, which is more than a year. Mostly he’d been in Western Australia, where he had lots of different odd jobs—only for getting by, not for anything else, though once he got a job working for a documentary film maker who was making a film about tortoises, and he liked that. We walked on.

  ‘Why did you go to Western Australia, anyway?’ I asked.

  He paused and frowned and looked at the ground, though there was nothing on the ground except lines which you should tread on if you want good things to happen to you.

  ‘Well, I guess because there were things I wanted to find out.’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘About our dad. His brother lives there.’

  ‘I didn’t know he even had a brother.’

  ‘No, there’s a bit you don’t know.’

  Aha, I thought, here we go. The serious topic at breakfast. Did I want to know? Barnaby seemed pained. I felt a bit anxious and fuzzy. I had to know.

  ‘What things?’ I put my hand on my tummy.

  ‘Look, Mum really wanted to explain this all to you later, after the show, but since it’s come up now, I can tell you now if you want me to.’

  I stopped walking and stood still in a serious kind of stance. I put on my low, almost adult voice.

  ‘Barnaby, I know stuff. I know about the skateboard. I know you didn’t steal it. Harold hid it in the hole. And I know Dad was a leftie.’

  ‘How did you know all that?’ Barnaby smiled and I felt a bit better. I told him how I knew, and he laughed a lot. Then we sat on the grass and he told me what he found out from our new uncle in Western Australia.

  Barnaby said there were things Mum never told us, because of the problems between her and Dad. For one thing, Dad wasn’t a musician, like I thought he was, not seriously anyway; he just fooled around singing. What he was really passionate about was saving trees and forests, but that caused a lot of problems between Mum and him because he wasn’t at home much. He was always off organising protests and trying to stop logging, working for the Wilderness Society. Mum believed in what he was doing, but she also felt let down by him, because he seemed to care more about the forests than his own family. He sometimes went away for weeks, staying at demonstrations in the Otways. If he was chained to a tree, she couldn’t contact him at all. When I was born, he was away, in the mountains or having a meeting with the government or something. Granma had to take Mum to the hospital, and Barnaby had to be looked after by the neighbours because we couldn’t afford a babysitter for the thirty-seven hours that I took in coming out. Mum had me all on her own.

  So, though he was a good guy in one way—yes, in a very big and right way, as Barnaby put it—he painted himself into a picture of such admirable and epic proportions that he had no paint left to work on the small details. Like the little family that needed him. So it was a noble painting which lacked depth. Barnaby said he just had a job which demanded more than regular jobs, because what he was doing was urgent. But my mum always felt second-best. So they fought a lot, even though they did love each other, and he did love us, too. When he had time.

  And then, when I was only about one or something, I went and crawled off the edge of someone’s balcony and landed in a garden. Mum rushed me to hospital, because she thought I might have brain damage. (Praise the heavens that Barnaby didn’t get hold of that one when we were kids.) She was distraught (of course), and while I was having tests she rang our father, who was in the Otways, and said he had to come home now because she needed him. It was a crisis. She wasn’t coping on her own. Well, he came straightaway, but he was tired from being up all night, and it was a curly drive around the mountain. That was really how he died—not of a heart attack, but from an accident. No one knows what happened exactly, but his car went off the side of the road. And my mum suffered terribly; not just from grief, but also from guilt, because she felt she shouldn’t have demanded that he come back. But she was so tired of always having to manage on her own.

  We sat there in silence on the grass by the creek. The first clear thought that came to my mind was that I was going to be late. But I couldn’t quite move. I felt as if the inside parts of me were being slowly rearranged; as if the structures in my mind, all the framework that I’d been leaning my thoughts and feelings on, were being rearranged. It was a heavy, slow feeling, like what a house must feel when one of its walls has been smashed down and another kind of wall is being built. Amidst all the hammering and smashing I could only make out that one clear pillar of thought—the thought that I’d be late—because everything else was in shambles. My mind felt like a cloud of dust hovering over a mess of broken plaster walls.

  So my dad was good and bad. I guess it always depends on who’s looking and from what angle. After all, everyone has their own angle to look from, and no one has perfect corners to be looked at, except maybe Jesus Christ or Mother Teresa or Marge Manoli, the Op Shop mother, but I bet even they did one or two questionable things along the way. Anyway, I didn’t want to worry about my dad’s corners, because he wasn’t here. My mum was here and she had to work hard to look after us. No wonder she was often tired and cranky, and boy I loved her for sticking around. I really did. And with that thought, I felt tears balling up in the corner of my eyes.

  ‘Why didn’t Mum tell us? Why did she say he had a heart attack?’ I wiped my ey
es with my finger.

  Barnaby was looking out at the creek, pulling at the grass with his hand.

  ‘Because at the time it was simpler. I was five years old and you were only a baby. She thought it was too complicated for me to understand, or too traumatic. Besides, she wanted to move away from it. That was when we moved in with Granma, and Mum started a new life. She wanted to move on. She always planned to tell us when we were old enough, but then it never came up, till now, because I found out.’

  ‘I’m not mad at her. I’m mad at our dad.’

  ‘Yeah, I know, but you gotta remember he was young. He was only twenty-five; that’s only six years older than me. And he helped save a lot of old growth forests—that’s important—that’s something to be proud of. He couldn’t have done that if he was always at home. And he was good when he was around. I remember that. He used to sing to us. He was funny.’

  ‘I’m going to be late.’

  ‘I know. You okay?’

  ‘Yep.’ Was I? I stood up and the ground felt the same as always. I was glad about that. But I had an angry feeling inside me. It was as if my mind had rolled itself up into a big stone poised and looking for a place to fling itself. But at what? At the mountain curve my dad drove off; at my dad who was coming home because of me; at me for causing a crisis; or at life for not being one straight unbumpy road, but always throwing you a bend you can’t get round?

  And since I couldn’t throw that anger anywhere, it started crumbling a bit and faltering, and my head dropped, and I saw my feet in their grubby sneakers standing there on the path. I rocked up on my toes and back on my heels and back on my toes. I kept rocking like that for a long moment. I was deciding . . . I don’t know what I was deciding. I just had a feeling that I could tip one way or another, and it was up to me.

  At least I thought, it was clear now. It was as if some murky part of me had just gone clear, like an open window. I could see out through it properly, and I knew how things were, how they looked and felt. I didn’t necessarily like the view (well, I never would have chosen that view) but at least it was something that wouldn’t go or change or die. And Barnaby was back, and Mum was at home reading the Saturday Extra, like always, and Kite and Ruben and Caramella and Oscar were all waiting for me, and we were still the Acrobrats, no matter what my dad did or didn’t do all those years ago.

  As they say in the movies, the show must go on!

  When I got there, we did a couple of walk-throughs and then Ruben gave us each a pair of socks with our names printed on one side and Acrobrats printed on the other. He said it was a tradition to give presents to the cast before a show. Caramella had two packets of biscotti from her mum, for us to share. There was also a big bunch of flowers for us all. Purple irises with a card which said ‘Thank you, from Ricci’.

  Oscar stood up in his new socks, and we thought he was about to make a little speech, but all he said was, ‘I enjoyed the commotion.’

  Ruben said, ‘Hear, hear,’ and I clapped, and Kite rolled backwards and yelled. Then we ate some biscotti, and Ruben said we should all go home and rest, and then we had to come back for a five o’clock call.

  Caramella and I walked home together. I told her Barnaby was back. I didn’t tell her about my dad, not yet.

  ‘No way! When did he come?’

  ‘In the middle of the night. He came to see the show.’

  ‘That’s amazing. How did he know?’

  I told her the whole story.

  ‘God, are you nervous?’ she said, grabbing my hand.

  ‘Yeah, are you?’

  Caramella didn’t have to do anything too acrobatic in the show. Nothing too hard anyway. Only things she felt physically confident doing, like supporting and acting out parts. But still, she was in it. And she was the designer.

  ‘Yep, I think so. I can’t tell if it’s nervousness or excitedness.’

  ‘No. Me neither.’ I thought about Kite and about Barnaby and my dad and my mum and love and black swans and noble paintings and thigh stands and I thought there were so many things happening all at once it was no wonder I couldn’t tell which feeling was what. Maybe that’s just what happens when you grow up; everything gets more so.

  I went and tried to nap, but it didn’t work. Too many things to think about. So I got that old daisy out of the sock drawer. Maybe there was one thing I could clear up. I stood at the window and pulled the petals off, one by one tossing them into the air, as if I was throwing hankies off a ship in a dramatic farewell scene. When it got near the end I slowed down and looked ahead. I can’t help it. I’m impatient. There were three left.

  He loves me . . . He loves me not . . .

  He loves me.

  I kept the last petal on and stuck it under my pillow, sentimental fool that I am. Did I believe it? Could I really trust a daisy, after all? And maybe I missed a petal. No, I was going to believe it. I was.

  I went into Barnaby’s room and I sat on the end of his bed, just like I used to. He was sitting there, leaning up against the wall and playing his guitar.

  ‘Hey, Barn.’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘So . . . Tell me about your black swan.’

  ‘Lisa,’ he said, and put down the guitar.

  ‘Was it all three parts?’ I said. He laughed, and his hand stroked his chin and he nodded.

  ‘I guess so. All three, yep. Mind, body and soul. She laughs like a waterfall. And she smells good.’

  ‘You gonna see her again?’

  ‘Hope so. I sure plan to.’

  ‘Does she live in WA?’

  ‘She’s thinking of coming here, to visit, maybe study. She’s got a job now—maybe when she gets some savings.’

  ‘What does she do?’

  ‘She wants to study.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sculpture, I think, or history. She’s a vego, like you.’

  ‘What are you going to do, Barn? You going to study, too?’

  ‘I reckon. I wanna study music.’

  ‘So you’re in love?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  I heaved a big sigh and then he ruffled my hair up, and then we had a tickle fight. (Boy am I glad he never fell in love with someone like Marnie Aitkin.)

  Then it was time to go.

  ‘Chookers,’ said Barnaby.

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘I dunno. It’s just what you say to someone for good luck before a show.’

  I went and said goodbye to Mum. She was gazing out the kitchen window, with a dreamy, sad look on her face. I’d seen that look so many times, but I’d never really understood it before, never known what kind of sadnesses lurked around inside her.

  ‘I’m going now, Mum.’

  She turned towards me and smiled and her face was soft. I went and hugged her. I don’t know why I did that. I just wanted to. I buried my head in her shoulder and closed my eyes and I could smell the familiar smell of her, the smell of warmth and comfort and safety and everything that continued. It was probably about the deepest, quietest, best smell I knew. I wanted to tell her that, but I didn’t. I just breathed it in. Deep breaths of mum smell. I whispered in her shoulder that I knew about dad and it was okay. She squeezed me tight and patted my back, and I felt her nodding. But she didn’t speak. I thought maybe she couldn’t. I think she might have been crying, but I didn’t look. It was better like that. It was better to let the feelings just melt through, direct from one body to another, no translations, just a big bare sense of us, together. Mum was patting my back. My eyes were closed. We were there like that for a very long time.

  When I left she came with me to the door and said, ‘Break a leg, darling.’

  People say funny things to you before you get ready for a circus.

  Ruben was seating people, and Mr Zito was taking money, because he’s an accountant. Kite, Caramella and I were waiting in the laneway behind the garage, and poor Oscar was all alone, waiting in the dark on the stage. We could
hear people coming in and sitting on the chairs. We had put cushions on the floor, too, because we couldn’t fit in that many chairs. Caramella kept peeking in the garage door, and running out to the back lane and reporting who was there and how many people.

  ‘Oh my god! Harold Barton is there, and so are Marnie and Aileen. Your brother and mum are in the front row, Cedar, and Ricci’s with them. There’s about fifty people, I swear. It’s packed. Full House!’

  That was when I really felt nervous. I kept having to go and wee, and my tummy felt funny. I was thinking about my family, my whole family, being there to watch me. I liked to say that word, Family, because now that Barn was here we weren’t just a pair, Mum and I. We were a group. Barnaby had come back to see me. That proves we were a real family with ties and love and history and a dog. Even if there was no dad, there was still all that. It felt incredibly good to have a whole family. They were here for me! (Oh yeah, and Bambi.)

  I kept jumping up and down to keep warm. The voices hushed, and we could see a faint glow coming from underneath the door. That was our cue. It meant Oscar had lit up like a lamp and we would be going on in ten seconds. I looked at Kite. He grabbed my hand and looked straight ahead at the door. Under his breath he was counting. Then he dropped my hand and began to open the door. The music started. We were on.

  I didn’t look at the audience at first. I was concentrating. I couldn’t bear to look. I could hear Oscar’s whistle. Each time he blew it, I knew what to do—walk fast, change direction, dive roll over Caramella, she rolls over and over, Kite walks on his hands, I back into him and hold his ankles, I bend forward, flipping him up the right way. There is clapping. I hear Oscar’s deep wobbly voice ringing out, only it sounds almost sturdy now, with just a faint theatrical tremor . . .

  . . . often the roundness of life is sacrificed to the rule of the line which is always progressing upwards and onwards,

  (I climb up on Kite’s shoulders. Standing up, I reach higher, as if I want to keep climbing. Kite grips my ankles and I drop my heels.)