Have You Seen Ally Queen?

by Deb Fitzpatrick

  He looks up with the eyes of someone far away, and Jerry and the wind and I wait for him to say something.

  ‘Political correctness, hey?’ He grins, coming back to normal.

  Jerry sits up a bit in his chair. ‘Isn’t that when people go ... chair person instead of chairman and stuff?’

  I giggle. ‘But that could just be anti-discriminatory, though, couldn’t it? I mean, if the chairperson’s a woman, it’s not really fair to call her chair man, is it?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ Dad says, ‘but isn’t PC more when people say things like vertically challenged instead of short, or’—he laughs— ‘person of substance instead of fat?’

  Jerry says, ‘What, like intellectually disabled?’

  Dad pauses. ‘Well, that’s where it all started, with phrases like that. No one wants to be called retarded.’

  I snort. It’s still a funny word. ‘What about domestic executive for housewife?’ I offer, and laugh out loud. That’s insane. I heard it on TV one night when Mum wasn’t around.

  ‘Your mum’d straighten out anyone who called her that!’

  We all grin at the thought.

  ‘What about poofter—is that why no one says that anymore?’

  Dad and I turn to look at Jerry. I try not to laugh.

  ‘Poofter! Jez, you can’t say that anymore, mate, that’s just plain rude!’ Dad’s really laughing, though. ‘No, isn’t political correctness when it’s a bit ridiculous? Like personhole instead of manhole, or—’

  ‘Mentally ill instead of crazy?’ Jerry shouts out.

  We all kind of stop then. Thankfully, I’ve still got a couple of mulberries left to chase around my bowl.

  Jerry presses on in the quiet. ‘Isn’t that one?’

  Dad’s shifts his gaze to the nearest window. He’s taking in the view of the sky.

  I say, ‘Not really, Jerry. Let’s clear the table, hey?’

  Poor Jez looks like he’s going to cry, so I tell him where to put the dinner things and then we go downstairs to my room, leaving Dad on his own with the last sliver of daylight coming in over the verandah, and that word hovering like a ghost in the room.

  LIAR, LIAR

  I’m in my favourite seat on the bus, about two-thirds back and next to the window, looking out at the dunes and getting quick blues off the morning ocean, when I feel someone plonk down next to me. Shite. I hate having to share the seat. There’s never enough room for my legs and it’s just embarrassing. I squash my bag under the seat and take in a quick right—and that’s when I see Rel’s huge stupid grin.

  Before I know it, Horrible Ally is out. ‘Practising for a Colgate ad?’

  ‘Oh, sorr-eeee for smiling. So where were you the other day, anyway?’

  I play dumb. ‘The other day? When?’

  ‘When I saw you going home at eight in the morning. You know, when you’re meant to be getting on the bus. What were you doing, coming home from a party, or something?’

  ‘A party, round here? You gotta be kidding.’

  He kind of laughs. ‘Yeah.’

  There’s a break then, and I know I haven’t answered his question.

  ‘So, where were you?’

  Shite. ‘I was crook.’

  ‘Oh, crap, you looked fine!’

  ‘No, no, I was, I was sick.’

  ‘Right,’ he says sarcastically.

  ‘I was sick. Girl problems, you know.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, charming.’

  ‘Well, you asked.’

  ‘Yeah, but...’ He’s looking the other way now.

  ‘Mister Nosy gets what he deserves,’ I say, grinning.

  ‘You’re gross, Queenie.’

  The bus hauls up at a tin bus stop and covers the waiting kids in limestone dust. Utes and panel vans and road trains overtake us loudly, probably going twice the distance in half the time as this old rust bucket.

  ‘I know you weren’t sick,’ Rel says quietly.

  I’m a bit surprised he hasn’t let it go, but manage to keep it together.

  ‘Think what you like.’

  He gets up eventually and moves to the back of the bus, where his stupid mates hang out. A chorus of woo-woos follows him, with the odd Whad she do, mate, drop ya?

  The bus driver changes gears clunkily. I try not to move my head, just keep looking out.

  HERBAL REMEDIES

  The rocket’s going to seed. Even I know that. I’ve heard Mum talk about it so often—how easily the stuff goes to seed if you don’t pull the buds off in time. Mum, Dad and I really like it, especially in salads, but Jerry hates it; he says it tastes hot, like pepper. Dad says his tastes will change as he gets older, but Jerry reckons the stuff’s poison.

  So I’ve got a paper bag and I’m gunna pick a whole lot of stuff from the garden for Mum. Right now there’s rocket, basil and the first tomatoes. I pull a stick of rosemary off the bush for her, too. Rosemary smells so great, and it can grow anywhere, even down here in the coastal sand.

  Dad’s taking us to Aunty Trish’s, in Mandurah, to see Mum. Surprise. Dad took her there yesterday for a few days’ break. A break from what though? Us?

  Mum and Aunty Trish are really close, even though Trish is Dad’s sister. Mum has her own sister but she’s a real old crow.

  Dad comes into the room with some clothes he’s chosen for Jerry.

  ‘What are they for?’ Jerry says.

  ‘Clothes for you. Thought you might like to look your best for Mum.’

  Jerry’s offended, big-time. ‘But I like this T-shirt!

  And these shorts!’

  ‘Orright, orright!’ Dad says, backing away.

  A few minutes later, Dad comes in again, this time freshly shaved. (He often skips a day or two, and Mum doesn’t like it. Calls him Sandpaper Man.)

  Aunty Trish is pretty cool. I asked Dad about her one time, why she’s not married, and he said that she enjoys her own company, and doesn’t want a bloke messing up her life again. Some people are meant to be alone in life, and that doesn’t mean they’ll be lonely, he said. He looked at me and said that I don’t have to get married or even have a boyfriend if I don’t want—that I shouldn’t be worried about what other people do, just follow my own heart. I just wish I knew what was in my own heart, though. It sounds so easy—just be yourself—but how can you do that when you don’t know who you are in the first place? Or who it is you want to be?

  I’ve got my green cargo pants on, and my Chuck Taylors, and my Good Sammy shirt, the one that Dad says is seventies but Mum really likes. I’m ready to go, but Jerry’s nowhere about and Dad’s trying to find the right set of keys in the basket of crap on the kitchen counter. There’s everything in that basket: paperclips, rubber bands, coins, bits of paper, important phone numbers, Superglue, keys, pieces of wire and nuts that don’t seem to belong anywhere. There’s keys in there from other houses, I’m sure of it.

  ‘I’ll go find Jerry,’ I say to him.

  ‘Thanks, Ally, yep, we’ve gotta get a move on.’ He takes his hand out of the basket and says vaguely, ‘You haven’t seen the car keys, have you?’

  Jerry’s sitting on his bed when I go in. He’s flicking through a 200-page Dick Smith catalogue.

  ‘Ready?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘Whaddya mean?’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  This is news to me. ‘What? Why not?’

  He’s fiddling with the pages of the brochure. ‘’Cos I’m not.’

  ‘Jerry! Don’t you want to see Mum?’

  It takes him a minute to answer this one. ‘Dunno.’

  God, this is painful. I nearly call out to Dad, but Jez is looking so pathetic that I try again. I sit down.

  ‘What are you gunna make next?’ I nod at the catalogue.

  He looks up, surprised. ‘A solar-powered fan.’

  What the hell is that? ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Just need to save up,’ he says.

  ‘Mum’d like that, a solar-powered fan. You could
show her tonight.’

  Nothing.

  ‘She wants to see us, you know.’

  ‘She hasn’t rung or any thing!’

  I take a breath. ‘Jez, she’s sick. Sick people don’t talk on the phone all day—we’re meant to ring them, or visit them, which is what we’re doing tonight. Not the other way round.’

  ‘Well, if she’s sick, why isn’t she in hospital? She can’t be that sick if she’s just at Aunty Trish’s.’

  Shite. This is getting hard to explain.

  EINSTEIN

  I got a B+for my English assignment. B+! Even though it was late, and everything! I read Ms Carey’s comments over and over, and even had to use the dictionary for one of the words.

  Alison, this is really good work, mainly because of the lateral approach you have taken. You manage to address the theme in an original way. Well done!

  It takes quite a lot of restraint not to run around the joint during recess, flapping it about at the red frizz-ball girl, but I keep cool and just put it in my bag. You star, Ally, I think. The idea of answering the question in the form of a poem worked. I look around for Ms Carey, but she’s not on duty, and anyway, choosing to talk to your teacher might not be that cool. So I settle down under the peppy tree at the edge of the oval with my yoghurt-covered muesli bar—the only ones worth getting; the others are like big dog biscuits—and check out the scene. It’s the same every day. The same girls sitting in the same rings, giggling at gossip they made up themselves. The same muscleheads kicking the footy around. The same weirdos wandering around between them all, eating curried egg sandwiches.

  I wonder what Jerry does at recess? I guess he’s got a few geeky little mates to swap computer thrills or electronics magazines with, or something. I ended up having to get Dad to talk to him last night—we had to really convince him to come and see Mum. We were late; Dad was beside himself. But it was cool. Aunty Trish was so nice. She’d made a huge yummy vegetarian lasagne and we had vanilla bean Connoisseur ice-cream: sex! (Not that I’d know, but anyway.) Mum didn’t have dinner with us ‘cos she was tired, but we all went to her room and saw her, and she seemed okay, apart from how she looked, which really spun me out. Sunken. Really big glossy eyes. I couldn’t believe it when I went in there, and I don’t really want to think about it. This whole thing is too bizarre: here I am at school, like everything’s normal, and I feel kind of normal—at least, when I’m not thinking about Mum I do, but that makes me feel guilty that I’m not thinking about her 24/7. I mean, Mum’s not at home and she’s staying with Aunty Trish for a while—even Dad doesn’t know how long—and she’s lost about ten kilos and her eyes are all golfballish and spooky, but she still talks the same and she’s still Mum, but she’s sick, but not sick enough to be in hospital, but too sick to be at home with us. God ...

  A wattlebird lands on the tree above me and checks me out. It bounces gently with the branch.

  Shel texted again this morning. I haven’t replied. I can’t, somehow.

  Everything is strange. I am strange, life is strange. But everything carries on the same. Get that.

  SEASNAKES

  A perfect Killer Python, cordial green and attentiondeficit-disorder red, swings into view just in front of my face. I have to change my focus. This is a particularly fat and succulent python, definitely not from the dry, barren shopping landscape of Melros.

  ‘Want some?’

  Rel sits down beside me with a paper bag that looks fairly squirming with edible reptilia. He crosses his legs and tucks his skate shoes under his knees.

  ‘Are they real?’

  He looks at me like I’m a chop short of a mixed grill and says, ‘Well ... no, Ally, hate to break it to you like this, but no, they’re stuffed, actually.’

  ‘No, no, I mean, they’re great Killer Pythons—where’d you get them? The ones at deli are dry and cracked, and their caramel buds are past their use-by date.’

  ‘Ah. Well, you’ve just gotta know the right spots, hey.’

  The sun’s shining down through the trees and I move so I’m leaning against one of the rough trunks, a perfect backrest. Killer Pythons, I think, and Mum’s in her own personal hospital so she can’t tell me off and offer me a piece of fruit instead. Seriously, fruit does not compare to any good snack; it is entirely unsatisfactory.

  Rel’s waving one in front of me again. ‘Hello, hello, are you with us, Queen Alison? What’s going on in there, anyway?’

  I look at him and for a moment I like his messy hair and too-big smile.

  He says, ‘Is everything cool with you, or what? You don’t tell anyone anything, do you? You’re like a bloody hermit.’

  Behind him are all the kids from the school, moving and running and shouting and talking, and I feel about a hundred kilometres away, looking at them through a telescope.

  Rel’s looking pretty confused, poor guy. What kind of weirdo does he think I am? I need to clear my head. For once, I know exactly what I want to do.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I say, looking around for teachers.

  He stops eating, tries to look cool. ‘Where do you wanna go?’

  Somewhere where things feel normal, I think. I know a couple of places like that. My places. I snatch up a python. ‘You’ll see. It’s a surprise. Coming?’

  Rel shoves the snakes bag into his shorts pocket and says, ‘Ally, you are one weird chick.’ He leans down to adjust his shoelaces and tries to look relaxed. ‘Yeah, I’ll come. But you can write the notes from our oldies, all right?’

  MY PLACE

  I have to make Rel cover his eyes after a while because he keeps saying, ‘I know where we’re going, I know where we’re going.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  ‘I know round here like the back of my hand.’

  ‘You sound like my old man. Just shut up and wait, will you?’

  ‘Oooh, sorry, Adolf.’

  Adolf. Shit. Adolf. That just about sums me up, doesn’t it? He’s right. I glow red and keep my eyes on the sand track. I’m glad he can’t see me—I’m cut. Why am I like that? Why can’t I be sweet and demure like other girls, like Ms Carey? Why can’t I be pretty and funky and gently-spoken? Why can’t I be Angelgirl? Why can’t I? I can be whatever I want, can’t I?

  ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ he asks into my silence.

  I try my sweet voice. ‘Nearly.’ I sound like a mum singing to her children.

  ‘Are you being sarky?’

  Jeez. Why don’t I just swim out into the distance like that prime minister did and end it all now? This is turning out to be a really fun afternoon. ‘No,’ I sigh. ‘We’re here, actually.’

  He moves his hand from his eyes and looks around. ‘What, here?’

  This is really awful. This whole thing was going to be so much fun and it’s not; it’s a complete flop.

  I feel like a dickhead. ‘The mulberry tree,’ I mumble, half pointing. ‘Do you like...?’ Ah, what’s the point. ‘It’s got lots of fruit on it,’ I say lamely.

  Rel’s laughing like I’m doing some kind of stand-up comedy, or something.

  That’s it. I turn around to go home. ‘I can see this is way above your brain capacity, so I’m going. Bye.’

  ‘No, no—Ally.’ He’s trying to catch up on his breathing after so much laughing.

  Some ants are crawling over my foot and I slap the living shit out of them. I look up at him, pretending to be bored. ‘What?’

  ‘This is my place. This is my mulberry tree.’ He starts laughing again, and hiccups. ‘Mum planted it’—he changes voices— ‘fifteen years ago, that’s how you make things happen, Rellard, “from little things, big things grow”—that’s what Paul Kelly says. Paul Kelly! Mum loves him, she loves him, pours herself a glass of wine while she’s cooking tea and cranks up the stereo— my stereo!—with that ... urine.’

  The cicadas have gone super quiet. One of them tries a chick-chick, but then clams it again. I’m staring at the tree, his tree, and all I can say is, ‘R
ellard? That’s your name?’

  ‘Yeah, I know, don’t say it.’ He does quote marks in the air. ‘It’s interesting. Or different. It was my grandfather’s name. It’s a family thing.’

  ‘So you’ve been here for like—’

  ‘Ever.’

  ‘Jesus. I mean, wow. You must really ... like it.’