‘Yeah,’ he says finally. ‘It’s since the accident.’
‘But the guy’s okay now—Mum told me ages ago. The pins are out of his leg and he’s pretty well back to normal, she said.’
‘Yeah, Ally, but it took its toll. It affected her quite deeply.’
I remember. It really knocked her around. She was pretty out of it for a few days. We thought something was wrong, but the doctor said it was shock. It was like she’d changed a bit, afterwards. She was less ... relaxed.
‘Wasn’t she just in shock, though?’
‘Well, yes, but it went on, and the doctor reckons it triggered something. Ever since, really, she’s been feeling very up and down. Mainly down. I don’t think she’s ever been this bad, though.’
‘Will it go away?’
‘I bloody hope so—but it might take some time.’ He twiddles a drill-bit between his fingers.
‘Well...’ I feel a bit desperate now. ‘Can we do anything to make her better?’
He begins to shake his head and then stops himself. ‘Ally, this is a particularly bad spell, you know. She doesn’t ... she doesn’t want to go out or anything.’ He looks at me.
‘What do you mean, “go out”? Like where?’
‘Anywhere. She doesn’t want to go outside the house.’
‘What? Not even the garden? She was out there a couple of days ago—she was fine!’
‘I know. But this has been going on for a while, Ally.’
‘What, even in Perth?’
‘Yeah, even in Perth. When she’s having a really low patch, she can’t face dealing with anything at all—even the garden.’
Jesus. I have to take this in. Mum doesn’t want to go out? How long will she be like this?
‘I’m taking her to the doctor tomorrow.’
I look at him. ‘But that’ll be going out. Won’t she ... spin out?’
‘Shit.’ He puts his head in his hands.
Shit.
SCRAMBLED EGGS
I wanted to come down to the beach earlier than this, but the torch is upstairs and I’d have woken everyone with my creaking about on the wooden floors. So I held tight till 5.30, when the first grey glow of the day whispered the arrival of morning.
I am deliriously tired. Things that are not moving are moving. The sand dunes are jittery and the reef’s shifting in the water.
Last night was bad. I couldn’t sleep. I tried reading my book and playing Little Birdy and leaving on my bedside lamp and all that stuff, but my head would not stop. This thing with Mum is weird. Staying in bed. Not talking. And Dad’s spooked too—that’s what’s really making me scared. Since we got down here, apart from that one time I found her in the garden, crying—and that puffy-eyed time after the whale beaching—Mum’s seemed okay ... Well, that’s what I thought. I guess it just goes to show: from the outside, you have no ideawhat’s going on for people. Jerry never said anything, either, radar detectors and all. It makes me realise how obsessed I’ve been with how I’m feeling.
Anyway, these are the thoughts I’ve been having all night. I thought maybe getting up would help them go away, but it hasn’t. They’re all still there, swimming around so much I almost feel dizzy. Mum’s freaking out, and Dad’s got to take her to the doctor today and I’ve got to go to school. Well, I’m meant to. But, shite, surely not today! No, I’m not going, no way. I can’t face everyone with this bizarre stuff happening.
I look at my phone. I can’t even bring myself to tell Shel. How would I explain it? I still haven’t replied to a text from her a few days back and I can’t now: if I don’t mention this thing with Mum, it’ll feel like I’m lying.
I’ve kept my boots on. The sand’s cold this time of day. I feel like making a fire, to keep me warm. I’ve seen Dad make fires heaps of times, when we’ve been camping down south. (What do I mean, ‘down south’? I am down south.) I check around me for wood and sticks. There isn’t anything. Seaweed is all, and I hardly think that’s gunna make a lot of heat. This beach doesn’t even have driftwood. I give up on the fire idea and shove my hands in my pockets instead. My empty pockets. It’s not like I have any matches on me, anyway.
The morning sky has school-uniform blue streaking through it now, and a strand of yellow over the horizon. The waves break half-heartedly, and herring dive the wrong way, up into this world for a few stupid moments.
Good move, I say under my breath when they disappear again.
I look down the beach. There’s just terns and sky and rocks and great lumps of weed and heaps and heaps of grainy sand. And me.
It’s only when I’m stomping up the stairs that I realise it’s still really early. Dad comes out, squinting into the morning. I stop like a burglar.
‘Hi,’ I whisper, too late.
‘Hey, Ally.’ He heads off to the loo and then turns back to me and croaks, ‘What are you doing up so early?’
God knows, I think, but I say, ‘I thought I’d make some scrambled eggs for brekkie. Want some?’
His eyes light up. ‘Scrambled eggs? With toast?’
I nod. Yes.
‘I’ll make us a pot of tea, then. I’ll just go to the loo.’ He’s fully awake now. ‘Maybe Mum’d like some, too,’ he says, looking hopefully towards the bedroom.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Maybe.’
I go in, in to the fug that Mum’s room has become. She doesn’t want any scrambled eggs. She doesn’t want any toast, either, or tea, even though I offer her chamomile (gross). In fact, she hardly acknowledges my existence. I don’t think she wants me in there. I’ve got a feeling some of this is to do with the hissy fits I’ve been throwing about this shitty town, this shitty school, this shitty life. It might even be my fault that Mum’s gone like this. Because I’m not—let’s face it—because nowhere in me is Angelgirl. I made Mum cry that day out on the driveway, and now I’ve pushed her to the edge. The edge. It really is an edge, too: you can fall off it if you go too far. Is Mum on this side of it or has she fallen over to the other side? Lying in a bed in her own fug, not caring about anything or anyone, when she cared so much—about organic vegies and consuming no pesticides and being community-minded and keeping the place clean and always letting us go fishing, whenever we want, and hoeing the garden beds and making compost from the kitchen scraps and making her own self-raising flour ... Jesus! How can that have just disappeared? Maybe I should go and turn the TV on really loud and watch it for the next six hours straight and see if she comes out to tell me off—to see if anything is left.
I can hear Dad. He’s taken the phone into the next room so McJerry can’t hear while he’s having his porridge (he won’t eat eggs, in any form), but I can still hear him. He’s virtually whispering to the doctor’s receptionist. I hear him say, ‘No, not homeopathic, home visit.’
I cringe. They obviously already know Mum pretty well.
‘What about our lunch? Who’s gunna do that?’ Jerry says to me, wide-eyed.
I think for a moment. I run downstairs into my room and rummage around for my wallet. My pocket money—haven’t had a chance to spend it yet. Five bucks should do it. I run back up. Jerry’s looking down into his bowl at the porridgey milk he can’t get up with his spoon. He’s pretty good: even though no one’s around, he still doesn’t tip the bowl to his mouth, like I do. Mum chucks a spaz when we do that.
‘Here, take this. Buy a couple of sausage rolls and an OJ, or something.’
He looks up at me. ‘Really?’
I nod.
‘Thanks, Ally. Cool.’
For a moment, his day is slightly better. He almost cracks a smile, but he’s sad behind it—anyone can see that.
‘Mum’s going to the doctor today. He’ll know what’s wrong with her, for sure, and give her some pills, or something. She’ll be better soon, Jez. Don’t worry about it too much, okay?’
He nods.
‘And don’t miss the bus, hey?’
‘Whaddya mean? What about you?’
‘I’m not coming. I’ll stay and h
elp Dad.’
‘What? Why?’ He looks like he might cry.
I grin cheekily at him. ‘Just so I can get a day off school, you geek. It’s a good excuse, hey?’
Dad’s still whispering away. I usher Jerry down the stairs before Dad realises what’s happening and makes me get on the bus, too. The gravel’s hard beneath my Blundies as I walk down with Jerry. There’s a nuclear cloud at the end of the sky, at the end of our street. It looks as grey as hell.
It’s on the way back home that I see Rel coming up the road. I can tell it’s him because I can see his funky red sneakers. He’s got the suede ones with the white skate logo on the side. Furry. He wears them with no socks, even though Mr Fisher tells him off about it most days and sends notes home to his mum about shoes and socks being school dress policy.
Right now, I can’t believe my luck. How much worse can things be? I mean, is this some kind of sick joke? Of course he’s gunna ask why I’m going in the wrong direction. ‘School’s that way, Queenie,’ I can hear him saying. I look around, but there’s no escape. I have to keep walking, and then I have to say something believable when he asks me what I’m doing.
I don’t slow down too much as we approach. I try to appear to be in a hurry, like I’m doing something important, eyes not quite on him.
He’s watching me. My body goes into daggy gangly robot mode. Even though I couldn’t care less what he thinks of me, I still feel a hundred metres tall. He’d never get called short, but I’m still taller than him—a bit. Even with my trick of bending one knee and slumping at the hip, but keeping the other leg stretched out in front. It drops you a good seven to eight centimetres. It sounds complex, but it’s my standard pose.
He grins. ‘McQueen.’
I nod, let out a small snort of recognition.
And then he’s gone. I’m still walking, and when I twist my head, ages later, he’s heading down the road, down to the bus stop. I nearly laugh out loud. Nothing. No questions, no Spanish Inquisition. No sarky guesses. I almost smile. A couple of rabbits scurry across the road, from one saltbush to the next. I tuck my hair behind my ear. For a moment, I almost like the guy.
MUSICAL WORRIES
While everyone’s out, I crank up Triple J and sit in the middle of the lounge with a packet of extra salty, extra vinegary Red Rock chips. I reckon I need them after the ordeal of having to coax Mum out to the car so Dad could get her to the doctor. She was more than reluctant. She put her sunnies on, even though it’s cloudy today, and insisted on sitting in the back seat. Like Dad was a taxi driver, or something! So embarrassing. And it was upsetting to see her like that, too. She didn’t even seem to notice that I wasn’t getting ready for school.
I cram chips into my mouth. The things I need to think about are:
Mum
Dad
Shelly
Ms Carey’s assignment
Rel
I feel sick when I think about Mum. Somehow the mulberry tree keeps coming up when I think about her. I know she’d like that tree. I can almost hear her now, raving on about gardens that provide. I’m gunna have a bowl of them on the counter for when she gets back. I’ll wash them and everything. I know Dad’ll like them, too, so that’s two things off the list for the time being—Mum and Dad.
Shelly texted again this morning.
Just checking in on u! xxx
I fiddle with the phone.
Sorry, Shel, stuff going on at home.
I press the back-delete button till the screen is blank again. My thumb hovers weakly. There’s what’s happening here, and there’s what’s happening there. I know that everything’s still going on in Perth without me. But I’m out of the loop now about who’s going out with who, and who’s been dropped—all that stuff. The weird thing is that when I think about it now, I almost don’t want to know. And how could I explain what it’s like down here? I break out in a small prickle of sweat. It’s too weird. I almost wish I wasn’t friends with anyone back there now; I have a new life. And there’s something kind of ... independent about not telling anyone, about being on my own down here, that I almost like.
Shel, sorry 4 silence. Things OK, but a bit intense. Will email/call this w/end.
That’s fine. I press send.
Next? I’m gunna have to get an extension for my assignment. There’s no way I can get it in by this arvo. I won’t even be at school. Which means I’m gunna have to tell Ms Carey what’s going on at home. Or I could lie and say my grandma died, but how many grandmas can you have? If they checked with my old school, I’d be totally busted.
There’s still a couple of things left on my list. Shite. There’s too much to think about, too much to worry about!
I shut the front door behind me and stick my feet into Dad’s thongs, the only ones there. We often thong-swap; his are almost the right size for me. A giant oaf. Why couldn’t I be a pretty little thing, with jeans that always hang over my heels and size five shoes, and be able to sit in chairs without my legs falling flat on the floor? I fairly lumber over the road, my hands twisting a plastic bag, and tilt my face to the sun, and the mulberry tree.
WINDCHANGE
Ms Carey’s floating towards me, her legs somewhere beneath the layers of her beautiful purple skirt. She’s looking down, like she’s concentrating. I look at the tree next to me, like I’m suddenly interested in tree bark, or something. I know what this is about. One of the little freckled suckhole chicks told me this morning that Ms Carey failed everyone who didn’t hand in their assignment on time, i.e. yesterday, and where was I? I looked at this chick for a moment, at her dry red hair in a perfect plait, and I couldn’t help it; I said, ‘At children’s court in Perth. Got busted shoplifting. And you?’ She went red, so red, it was hilarious. But I just felt like a loud-mouthed loser. LAM, LAM, LAM. Or is that SAM, SAM, SAM? Whatever. I don’t care what she tells all her stupid friends, but why am I like that? That’s what I hate the most, because it’s not what I’m really like, not when I’m on my own, like on the beach or fishing with Dad and Jerry. Everything’s good then, everything’s fine. I don’t want to stay like this. I’ll grow out of it, or something, won’t I? Otherwise I could end up like that kid in the story who pulled faces and then the wind changed and he was stuck with the worst face forever. That’s why I have to concentrate on Angelgirl.
I put my sandwich down, squash the lid back on the box. Plain Vegemite’s pretty boring.
‘Hi, Alison.’
‘Hi, Ms Carey.’ I wince into the sun, which is right behind her head, like some kind of halo.
‘You weren’t at school yesterday.’
‘Nope. I wasn’t.’ I can’t think of anything else to add to that.
She moves her lips, looks away for a moment. ‘Well, you know the assignment was due yesterday.’
‘Yeah, I know. Sorry.’
A group of kids is watching from the oval. God, this is tiring.
‘I’m going to have to fail you if you don’t hand it in.’
‘Yeah, I know. One of the other girls told me.’
‘Right.’ She’s looking pretty awkward, and I’m feeling like a complete carrot, but what am I going to say? Can I have an extension because I just found out my mum’s a loony?
I push my feet under my schoolbag. ‘Can I hand it in a bit late? It’s...’
She’s looking at me.
All I can manage is: ‘There’s a good reason.’
Her bangle is loose against her wrist. The silver is almost white, like a sunny-day cloud.
She nods loosely, gives me a grin, like she’s a pushover, or something. ‘Only till Monday, though, unless you’ve got a note, or something.’
‘Okay,’ I say. (Yeah, I’ll just get Mum to write me a note. My apologies that Alison was unable to attend school on Thursday the 24th. She was busy looking after me while I quietly lost my mind.) ‘I’ll get it done on the weekend and bring it in on Monday.’
WORDS
Dad, Jerry and I are finishing off the m
ulberries for dessert. It’s weird, having dinner without Mum. Knowing she’s just lying in the next room, in the dark. Dad’s trying to make it less weird by asking us things about school, but that’s worse than when we’re not saying anything at all, which is the rest of the time. No one’s asked where the mulberries came from. I wouldn’t tell them, anyway, but that’s just how odd it is here tonight. The wind’s gusting in through the sliding doors, but it’s not cold. I’ve got Mum on my mind, and an assignment to write by Monday. Shite.
‘Know anything about political correctness, Dad?’
Have You Seen Ally Queen? Page 5