by Colin Dray
She elbowed the boot closed, a bandaid curled in her fingers, and led Sam inside to the petrol-station counter. The news on the radio was warning of a strict fire ban. The man at the register hadn’t shaved. His black stubble was flecked with silver. His hair was white. Sam noticed his bloodshot eye as he punched in their bill. ‘That’ll be seventeen forty-eight, darlin’.’
He smiled at the top of Dettie’s head as she fished in her purse for change. When he noticed Sam behind her, he nodded.
Suddenly, Sam realised he wasn’t wearing a shirt and crossed his arms over his chest. The muscles in his legs tightened up. There were goosepimples standing out on his skin, bubbled and hard under his fingertips.
The shopkeeper’s eyes flickered to Sam’s neck. The smile drained from his face. It was a gesture that Sam had become familiar with: the whip of a stranger’s face from curiosity to alarm. Each time, at first, people thought his vent was some kind of strange necklace; only then would the shock register. The shopkeeper dipped his head as Dettie counted coins into his palm. The radio trumpeted out of its news report and into the weather.
Newly self-conscious, Sam wandered out of view to the magazines. Most had women in bathing suits arched over motorbikes or kneeling stiffly on rugs. On the shelf behind them were the comic books. He fanned them out and flicked through the covers. There were dog-eared copies of Richie Rich and several different faded Phantoms. There was a Mad magazine, some Archies and a digest of reprinted newspaper strips—but no copies of Batman. No Justice League.
There was one comic that caught his eye. It was called Tales of Fear. On the cover a horde of zombies was tearing open a car, exposing the terrified passengers within. He slid it from the rack.
Dettie and the man behind the counter was listening to the weather report sign off. In its place a syrupy country song unsettled the store with a nasal twang.
‘Fires are a worry,’ the shopkeeper was saying. He dug his thumb in his one red eye and rubbed. ‘You heard about all that? They reckon it’s kids. Bloody hooligans. Should round ’em up to be shot.’
Dettie hummed and snapped shut her purse, still sucking on her finger. ‘Do you sell any clothes?’ she asked, gesturing towards Sam.
The shopkeeper ambled across to a rotating display of souvenirs tilted in the corner. Dettie followed him over and began spinning the rack past key rings and hats and stuffed koala toys. None had price tags.
‘How much for a singlet?’ she said.
‘Oh, let’s see what we can do, darl.’ He clicked his tongue and drummed one hand on his thigh. ‘How about a fiver?’
The zombies pulled at a woman’s yellow hair and bit into her face. She was kicking at them, screeching. The word Heeelllp!!! spilled out of the panel, inflated and shuddering. Sam turned the page. Another zombie, in a tattered business suit, had torn a mouthful of flesh from the woman’s neck. It swung from his teeth like shreds of torn fabric. It reminded Sam of the dead kangaroo. But drawn like this, colourful and exaggerated, it wasn’t scary so much as exciting. The damaged flesh didn’t look dry or leathery. Here, even with blood spraying everywhere, the wound was pink and clean. He lifted the comic closer until the colour separated into tiny red dots. He traced each line around the woman’s ripped neck, her wide mouth, the dark hollow of the cavity in her throat.
Back outside, Sam pulled on the new singlet and tucked it into his shorts. It was yellow across the shoulders and green on the chest where Australia was spelt out in thick white letters. It was snug around his stomach, and he wished it were something with a collar.
Dettie stopped sucking the cut on her finger and wrapped a bandaid around it. Telling the children to wait, in the car, she ducked back into the toilet to rinse the juice out of their clothing, and returned, laying each article on the floor of the boot to dry. She tucked the first-aid kit away in the back of the car, slid into her seat, fastened her seatbelt, and paused with her hand above the ignition. In the phone booth, near the shop, a teenage girl was giggling into the receiver and scribbling on the wall with a pen. Dettie looked at the dashboard. She was staring at the small St Christopher magnet standing on top. The glue beneath his feet was stretched. He was leaning back awkwardly, held up by the windscreen and faded by the sun. Her shoulders tensed, clutching the keys. Waiting. Staring at his lopsided, placid face. Finally, with a huff, she let out the breath she had been holding and turned the ignition.
‘We’re off!’ she said, and the engine kicked to life.
21
Over by the register a fat golden cat sat winking. One beckoning paw swung back and forth in a small robotic motion. It was inched up to the very edge of the countertop alongside a large bowl of complimentary fortune cookies, each wrapped in glittering plastic. Its painted face smiled. Smiled and winked and waved. Sam wondered if it was supposed to be waving goodbye. Back turned to the customers who came in from the street, it instead looked into the restaurant, peering out, one-eyed, over the room, taking in the red decor and the golden trim, the line drawings of mountain villages and yellowed photographs of koi fish. Looking in at the families gathered in circles around their steaming plates, watching over it all. Winking and waving.
Somewhere near the door to the kitchen a tape of Chinese pop songs was playing. The sound was cheery and bright, even if Sam couldn’t make out what any of it meant, and every time the waiter entered with new dishes to deliver it was muffled, until the door swung shut.
‘Sammy, you’ve barely touched your dinner there.’ Dettie gestured with her knife.
He poked his fork back into his plate of oyster beef, weighing up which bit of curled onion or withered green leaf to try next. He’d actually wanted honey chicken, but Dettie had misinterpreted what he was pointing at on the menu, and he hadn’t realised until the meals were delivered and it was too late to correct. Katie had ordered sweet and sour pork, and was now chasing bright pink pieces of carrot around on her plate with a spoon.
Dettie, who seemed wary of anything too unusual, had ordered an omelette, and spent much of her time slicing out anything suspicious before lifting each bite to her mouth.
‘Eat up. We’ve had a long day, but it’s going to be even longer tomorrow.’
She sipped from her cup of black tea.
‘In fact, that’s what I want to talk to you children about,’ she said. ‘We need to get straight what’s going to happen. Okay? Because it’s a long way to Perth. A very, very long way. Days even.’
‘Days?’ Katie set down her spoon. Her jaw hung open, her lips stained red.
‘Yes. Days, Katie. It’s going to be very tiring for us all. So we’ll all have to be on our best behaviour. We don’t want any attitude. No complaining. No getting upset. It’s just the three of us, travelling together for days, and if we don’t help each other out it’s not going to be much fun at all.’
Katie harrumphed and sagged in her chair.
‘I’m going to need all your help. But at the end of it we’ll be back with your daddy again. Won’t that be nice?’
‘When’s Daddy going to meet us?’
‘At Perth, silly. He’s got a whole house set up for us. Bedrooms for both you kids. A big backyard. Bigger than your little place in Sydney. My goodness. Houses in Perth? You’ve never seen anything like it.’
‘Is that why he moved there?’
Dettie prodded a piece of grey meat off her fork and into a pile on her serviette. She was shaking her head.
‘Well, he got his job, didn’t he, sweetie? So he could take care of you. It just took your mummy a little while to see that, that’s all.’
‘See what?’
‘Katie, this really isn’t our business. That’s Mummy and Daddy’s concern. All we need to know is that they’ve sorted it out—thank goodness. And now it’s just like the old days.’
While Dettie was talking it struck Sam, all at once, that his father hadn’t seen him since he lost his voice. When they met again, he wouldn’t even be able to say hello.
At
the next table, a pretty girl, around twelve, in a green tartan dress, sat eating dinner with her family. She and her family were Chinese, and Sam was struck by her beautiful thick black hair, cut straight and framing her face; she was like something from a magazine. She was partly the reason Sam hadn’t corrected the mistake with his order. Although her family were all sharing their dishes, the girl had given herself a large portion of something that looked very similar to what he was eating, and she seemed to be enjoying it. He watched her from the corner of his eye, blushing.
She was quiet too, but unlike Sam, who felt like he was twisting inside, she appeared to be very relaxed. She took small portions of food and chewed them up, wiping her lips neatly. When her parents and grandparents spoke to her she smiled, but rarely replied. He was nervous about his stoma, and tried to hide the vent with his napkin. But when she finally looked over and noticed him, she smiled.
It felt wonderful. Even in his dorky singlet. Even with the faint aroma of vomit still in his nostrils. She smiled at him and he felt his cheeks glow.
Katie was asking about Roger—what was going to happen with him and their mother?
Dettie reacted as though she had swallowed something vile. ‘That was nothing,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about all that. Roger and your mother were just friends. I’m sure he’s happy for them both.’
Katie was turning the lazy Susan, watching the soy sauce bottle spin in place. ‘Mummy said she liked him.’
Dettie waved the comment away with her knife. ‘I’m sure they got on very well,’ she said. ‘He seemed like a nice fellow. But these sorts of relationships don’t work out.’
‘What sorts?’
Dettie swallowed her mouthful of omelette. ‘You’ll realise this when you’re older, kids, but people are attracted to what’s familiar. Roger might have been lovely—who knows?—but he comes from a very different background. Different from us. Now I’m not saying bad—but different. Different values.’
Sam remembered overhearing what his mother had said to that. The disgust in her voice. He was sure it wasn’t true. His mother had broken up with Roger because of their father—not because he was Aboriginal. People could be attracted to things that were different.
The girl with the lush hair scooped more white rice onto her plate. He watched Dettie eating the rest of her omelette, dissected until it was just boring old eggs, then looked down at his own meal. The meat and vegetables were a mural of colour and texture beneath the brown sauce. Carrots cut into little stars. Red and green strips of capsicum. And even though his meal had cooled, he relished loading up his fork and filling his mouth. For his mother, for the way the pretty girl at the next table made him feel in his belly, he savoured its salty tang.
‘Your mother and father have a history. That’s what it is.’ Dettie adjusted herself in her chair. ‘Did I mention she told me on the phone that it was just like old times? Her and your father. Just like old times, she said.’
The black-haired girl’s family rose from their table and gathered their things. They made their way to the door, her father speaking warmly with the restaurant staff as he settled the bill. When the woman at the cash register offered, the girl reached up to take a fortune cookie from jar. Her shoes, a black patent leather, glistened as she stretched. She unwrapped her cookie and snapped it open, unfolding the slip of paper. As she read her future she moved her hair out of her eyes, tucking it behind her ear and revealing the cream plastic of a large hearing aid. It was so thick that it actually pushed her ear forward slightly as it wrapped around the lobe.
Was that why she was so friendly towards him? Had she only smiled because she saw that he had a handicap too? Was Dettie right? Were people only attracted to what was familiar?
He heard his aunt scratching through her purse beside him, preparing to pay for the meal, and was vaguely surprised by the wad of cash she withdrew from a zipped compartment. It was more money than Sam had ever seen in one place before, but he didn’t think much of it; instead he watched the girl’s family file out into the street, each squinting at the last of the sunset bathing the footpath a ruddy orange. As the girl left, she smiled at him one final time—perfect teeth, straight and white—and stepped beyond the glass. He waved, but she was already gone.
Only the fat golden cat remained, waving back at him. Silent and winking.
■
It was almost midnight when they pulled into a rest stop off the highway. When he opened his eyes, Sam was surprised by the darkness. His arm felt fuzzy where it had been pressed against the doorhandle. His mouth was dry and he still felt the heat of the day on his skin. Katie had curled her legs up and squashed the side of her face into the back of her seat. Hair stuck to her lips. She’d drooled all down her seatbelt.
The car drifted to a stop beneath a tree, its engine rattling slightly before it sighed into silence. Dettie pulled on the parking brake and flicked off the headlights. Sam heard her scratching in the glove box before the ceiling light came on. Dettie’s face was lit orange as she leant over her seat, stretching, to tug the cushions out from under the back window.
‘Oh, are you awake, Sammy?’ she whispered. She passed him a pillow and hunted beneath Katie’s seat for a blanket.
Sam nodded and closed his eyes. The pillow cooled his cheek. He heard the sound of material being tugged free, and Dettie’s grunting. Dust tickled his tongue as he felt the blanket fall across his body, up over his shoulders.
Another car hummed by on the highway. Through the glass Sam heard leaves being stirred by the wind. They seemed papery and distant in the back of his ears, hushing him back to sleep.
■
Still night. Breeze. Smoke. Feet stretched against the door. A buckle digging into his back. Sam opened his eyes. The ceiling light was off and a strand from the blanket tickled the inside of his ear. Dettie’s door was open. She sat with her legs out of the car, thumbing a cigarette. There was moonlight tangled in her hair. She was whispering something—a prayer? a song?—her mouth barely moving as she stared into the dark and let the smoke peel from her lips. A whistle started in Katie’s nose. It sounded far away to Sam, echoing, like a squeal coming over the hills.
All afternoon he had been reading about zombies. Every time he finished his comic book, he would immediately turn back to the first page to start over. Even though reading it in the car had made him feel nauseous again, he would drink in a few panels of each page before looking up at the scenery until the queasiness passed. And now, in the middle of the night, Katie’s nose shrieking softly, zombies were all he could think about. Brightly coloured zombies that crawled out from the bushes and ripped apart cars. He could still picture each image of the undead, now stretching their rotting fingers towards him. Breaking through glass, through upholstery. Punching metal. Snarling. Tearing skin from silky white bone and snapping at his throat. He could almost feel his old stitches—long healed now—pulling against his flesh.
Sam tucked his feet under the blanket and wondered when the sun was going to come up. The darkness made it hard to read his watch. He held it to his eyes and strained to make out the digits. The clock face had been scratched the week before he’d gone to hospital. Carrying a bowl of tomato soup out onto the veranda, Sam had tripped on one of Katie’s shoes and it had scraped on the concrete. Dettie and his mother had been outside talking, and when he fell they hurried over to gather him up. The bowl was smashed, and at first he hadn’t noticed his watch for the pain in his knees. He remembered his mother later spraying the soup away with a hose.
He tilted his watch towards the window. The scratch across its face glistened in the light, but beneath it the numbers were an indistinguishable black.
Sam closed his eyes, nuzzled down on the seat. No more cars passed on the highway. It was still and quiet. A strange, familiar quiet. The scent of cigarette smoke crept in through the window. Dettie went on puffing quietly, muttering into her hands. Trying to banish the ravenous zombie hordes from his mind, Sam thought about his
mother and couldn’t sleep. How far behind them was she? And what had his father said to convince her to come back?
22
The lounge room had seemed emptier somehow, as though there was furniture missing or rearranged. He remembered the walls felt more exposed, barren—although actually only a couple of his father’s jackets and a pair of shoes had disappeared from beside the phone stand. The curtains were closed and the sun behind them washed the room a thick red. From his position on the couch, resting through his latest migraine, Sam had heard a patter of laughter from out on the street, and a familiar exchange of dogs barking three houses down. In the kitchen his mother and Dettie were sitting opposite one another at the table, staring into two cups of untouched tea.
‘What—what did he say exactly, Joanne?’ Dettie’s voice had jerked and cracked.
Sam’s mother was rubbing her forehead. ‘It doesn’t matter, Dettie. He said nothing. Nothing. We just talked. He said what he felt. Everything that he felt. That’s it.’
‘But it might not be—I mean, he might—’
‘No. That’s it. It’s done. He was perfectly clear. Horribly.’ His mother fiddled with the handle of her cup. ‘And anyway, I couldn’t.’
‘And he just—’ Dettie clapped her hands together and held them out open in front of her, empty.
Sam’s mother watched the ribbon of steam lifting from her cup. She turned the handle absently and nodded.
‘It’s just—it’s despicable,’ Dettie shook her head, scratching in her handbag. ‘To just come home from work—To drop a bombshell—’
‘It’s been coming for a long time.’ Sam remembered that his mother had sounded tired. She’d seemed unable to stop staring at things with a surprised expression, her eyebrows raised, frozen on her face. ‘I knew,’ she said. ‘We both—I think we both saw it coming. The bickering and the brooding. Snapping at each other all the time. Every little thing. When they offered him the job…Well, there was nothing…He thought there was nothing—’ Her voice had sounded tighter, and she paused a moment, breathing. ‘It was time,’ she said.