Sign

by Colin Dray

  He explained about his time in a place called Noosa, just after he first arrived in Australia, where a group of fruit pickers had shown him the proper way to cut up a mango. There was a trick. It was lateral thinking, he said. He lifted the fruit from the bag, looking it over. It was the one Dettie had been trying to peel, before she gave up. The skin was more withered than it had been the day before, indented with small abrasions. There was a long mark down its side where Dettie had traced her fingernail. A thin brown discolouration like a scar.

  Katie had snatched some plastic knives and forks from the takeaway counter, and offered those up too. Jon slipped a knife free, tipped the fruit onto its side, and cut lengthwise along the line that Dettie had left, carving off a third of its mass, straight through. The flesh inside was bright orange, and still looked quite firm. He placed the section skin down on the bonnet of the car, its wet surface shimmering slightly in the sun, and sliced off a similar piece on the other side. He now had two portions, like two halves of a boiled egg, and a strange disk shape, surrounded by a thin strip of skin, that must contain the seed.

  Having slammed the boot shut, Dettie wandered over, jangling her keys and tutting to herself. ‘For goodness sake,’ she said. ‘We don’t have time for this now.’

  ‘Take but a second, love.’ Jon held the third piece in his mouth, between his teeth, while he took up both convex portions and scored a crisscross pattern into their flesh.

  ‘What are you—?’ Katie was up on her tiptoes.

  ‘Here we go, darlin’,’ he said, and suddenly pushed his fingers up from underneath, turning the mango inside out. Its innards unfurled in two bright, crosshatched fans. ‘Right,’ he said. He set them down on the bonnet of the car, two glistening orange turtle shells of cubed fruit, perfectly sectioned and offering themselves up as though spread on tiny serving plates.

  Katie sighed with delight. Even Dettie looked impressed. Her arms were still crossed, but she nodded. Everyone crowded closer, and they stood together for a time, leaning against the vehicle, picking off squares of mango and letting them dissolve, wet and syrupy on their tongues. Jon ate the middle slice. He worked the knife around its edge, removing the peel in a long strip, and chewed it down to the seed. The breeze blew hot and dry, and a scent of petrol gave the sweetness a slight tang.

  As they lingered, chewing silently, enjoying the flavour, Sam suddenly had the urge to laugh. It didn’t make sense. He had no real idea of where he was; he wasn’t sure how long it would be until they got where they were going. He was tired, and still blistered. He couldn’t even laugh if he’d wanted to. And yet somehow, all of that just made the whole situation funnier. At that exact moment, as a fat chunk of mango sat in his mouth, as the four of them, still full from lunch, ate fruit off the bonnet of a car, he was beaming. A big, dopey, wet grin.

  Jon smiled down at him. He sucked his thumb and index finger clean and then pointed back at his own chin. He kept doing it. Over and over. One hand holding the remains of his mango, the other tapping twice on his chin. Sam thought he was telling him there was food on his own mouth that needed wiping off, but that wasn’t it. Jon seemed to be asking him something. Or testing something.

  Two taps on his chin, his eyebrows raised. Nodding.

  ‘Tasty,’ he said, finally. ‘This means tasty. Sign language.’

  Sam’s body tried to laugh, but couldn’t, so he went on smiling instead. It was tasty, he thought, and swallowed, the flavour of sunshine tracing its way down his throat.

  41

  ‘Close. That’s good, lad, but just…’ Jon showed him again. He lifted his hands and gave his palm more of a smack. Two quick, firm slaps with three fingers. ‘With more of a whack,’ he said. ‘Like you mean it.’

  Sam looked down at the limp tangle of his own hands, one curl of digits collapsed inside the other.

  Over in a small patch of grass beyond the toilet block Katie and Dettie were picking yellow daisies. The tension of the argument at lunch had finally faded, and now, after another couple of hours of driving and an early dinner of hamburgers, the two of them had been to the toilet and decided to take a walk while they waited for Sam and Jon to finish up. It felt to Sam like they’d been eating all day, but while he was stuffed full, Jon still seemed ravenous, hunting for every last hot chip in the corners of the paper wrapping.

  Sam watched as Dettie and Katie searched among the bushes. Amid the haze of hot air, the colours of the scene seemed to bleed over one another like a comic-book page, vibrant but blurred and pulpy. Several long, sweltering hours had passed. He barely remembered the glimpse of the ocean they had caught outside Ceduna, and now, apart from the occasional sprout of small flowers, the land was tawny and orange. It was like the surface of an alien planet. Up in the food van, the cook was whistling along to the radio, the tiny fan above his grill just pushing steam into the back of his neck.

  ‘Give it another go,’ Jon said.

  Sam opened his hands again, holding them up as if he were waiting to applaud. They still felt rubbery and weak. Still soft. Still timid. He inhaled.

  With his left hand lying open he hooked his right pinkie over his left:

  S.

  With his index finger he pointed…

  Jon smiled, reminding him with his eyes.

  Sam pointed at his thumb:

  A.

  And with the final move, he slapped three fingers down on his palm:

  M.

  S. A. M.

  ‘Good work, lad,’ Jon said. ‘Perfect. There you are. Sam. That’s the way.’

  Pinkie fingers, thumb, palm. His name. His own name. Not hissing across his tongue, not scribbled out on a page, but acted out. It felt almost like a code. Or the special signals he’d seen in baseball movies—the guy catching the ball sending little clues to the one about to throw. Except that this didn’t feel pretend. Jon nodded along. He made it real. Sam put his finger like this, and Jon knew what it meant.

  He’d said something.

  Not said exactly. Not spoken. But—

  Well, maybe it was. Maybe he had spoken. It was a word. It was letters. It was him. Not in his mouth, or his throat. Not even in his chest, or through some puffy whisper. In his fingers. His skin. Through the jolt in his arms. He’d pressed it into the air.

  Pinkies, thumb, palm.

  Sam.

  ‘That’s it,’ Jon said, leaning down to take another bite of his hamburger. With his mouth full, he tried to lick a dribble of beetroot juice as it ran down his wrist.

  Sam thought of Tracey again. Her shaping his limp hands into position. Back then it had all seemed so overwhelming. Like an impossible set of strict rules. Morse code or flag signals. In her cluttered house, surrounded by ghastly electronic voiceboxes and her peculiar burp-speaking, sign language had seemed alien and baffling. The hopelessness of learning it all had smothered him. Literally choked him up. Left him gasping and terrified. But here, with the sweet vinegar tang of tomato sauce still on his tongue, watching Jon’s gnarled knuckles, the stubble on his face, his fingers stained vibrant purple, it seemed less detached and abstract. Jon would grimace or grin along with the gesture. His whole body seemed to weave and duck into whatever he was expressing. It looked natural. Not a substitute for words, but an extension of them.

  Sam practised some of the other terms Jon had showed him again, trying to move more forcefully.

  Good?

  A fist with his thumb up; one pump forward. That meant good. It didn’t feel so silly anymore.

  Good. Good Sam.

  From his perch on the picnic tabletop, Jon stomped his heels on the slats of its seat, trying to swallow faster, nodding. ‘Smashing,’ he said, mouth full, still chewing.

  Sam clapped, twice, his right palm on top of his left.

  Happy.

  ‘Good stuff. Happy. Well done.’

  Sam held his arms up, trying to remember—then tightened his right hand into a spear, running his index finger down his chin.

  Sad.
r />   ‘You got it, lad. Sad. Perfect.’ Jon made the good signal, rocking in place, swallowing. ‘Well done. You got that sorted right quick.’

  A palette of sauces was swirled in his burger wrapper. He crushed the remains into a ball and set it aside. ‘What else, what else, what else?’ he said, rubbing his wrists down his thighs, clucking his tongue. ‘Oh! Of course—’

  He held his right hand up. Palm facing his neck. Fingers touching his chin. Then he lifted it and moved it down in a short, graceful arc.

  ‘This is thank you,’ he said.

  He made the gesture again. Fingertips on chin, lifting them away. Slower this time.

  ‘As in, thank you for this trip, lad. To you, your aunty, your sister. Thanks a lot.’

  Sam smiled, and tried it too.

  Thanks.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Thanks. You. Good.

  Jon nodded. ‘My absolute pleasure, lad,’ he said, and smiled again, fishing the last two chips out of their paper and tidying the rest of the rubbish into a pile. ‘Now, is there anything else you can think of I can try to remember?’

  Sam looked over at his sister and aunt. They appeared to be squabbling again. Katie had found a tennis ball that she wanted to take with her; Dettie was wresting it out of her hand.

  ‘You don’t know where it’s been,’ she said.

  ‘You don’t know where it’s been!’

  ‘I know it’s been sitting on the side of the road. Sitting next to a public toilet. So no, you are not bringing this thing with us in the car.’ Holding it aloft with the tips of her fingers, Dettie hurled it off further into the scrub.

  For a moment, it seemed like old times—the two of them bickering over how long Katie was allowed to stay up and watch television, or how big a slice of cake she could have before dinner. It had a familiar rhythm to it. But then Sam thought of the last few days. He remembered Dettie disappearing on them. The shadow outside the window. The scraping on the metal. He remembered the phone call to his father at the railway station. That confusion on the other end of the line. Dettie’s face, flushed and furious. He remembered her pacing the highway in the moonlight, prattling to herself and hissing, shrouded in smoke. He remembered standing over the dead kangaroo, its flesh stripped, its teeth exposed. The heat and the maggots and the buzz in his head. What word did he want to know how to sign? He reached for the crossword puzzle book Dettie had left behind. He unfastened the pen, found a new, unblemished page, and printed six letters along its edge:

  Scared.

  Jon took a last swig of his soft drink and leant forward to read. Squinting at first, a look of surprise flickered across his face. He glanced at Sam, curious. He opened his mouth to ask something, but Dettie and Katie were wandering back to the table, already recovered from their spat. Dozens of small flowers were gathered in the front of Katie’s shirt, and Dettie cleared a space for her on the table, helping her empty them all out onto the wood. Sam turned away, dissolving the word beneath a cloud of scribble.

  ‘So what are you two up to, then?’ Dettie asked. ‘Secrets?’

  Jon wafted the air. ‘Just having a chat.’

  ‘Chat?’

  ‘Learning a few words—aren’t we?’

  Dettie’s smirk froze. She eyed them both carefully as she directed Katie up onto the seat. ‘Words?’ she said.

  ‘Yes. Sign language. I used to use it a bit,’ Jon said. ‘Back in the day. Thought I might try and dig some up out of the old vault.’ He pointed to his forehead. ‘See what my mate Sam here can use.’

  Dettie blinked, her eyes rolling ever so slightly. ‘Oh. Well, he won’t want to do that,’ she said. ‘We tried once. It didn’t work out.’ Her lips pressed tight.

  Sam stared at the remains of his burger, tipped over on its paper. The lettuce wilting into the cheese. A fly crawling across a pale sliver of tomato.

  ‘He’s taking it up marvellously.’ Jon’s hand clapped over Sam’s shoulder. ‘Quite the prodigy he is.’ He gave Sam another pat and then swung himself off the tabletop onto the ground. ‘Mind you, it’s the sign language we use in England,’ he said. He began crushing all the rubbish into a single bag and winding it closed. ‘It’s probably a bit different here. But it’s something to be getting on with. Bit of fun, anyway.’

  Dettie hummed. Katie was paying no attention. She was threading daisies, one through the other, into a chain, methodically splitting each stalk with her fingernail and sliding the next one through. She shielded the pile of waiting flowers as Jon came by to tidy up.

  ‘Like what?’ Dettie said.

  With the table cleared, Jon wandered over to the nearest bin to toss their mess away. ‘What’s that, love?’ he said.

  ‘What are you teaching him exactly? What words?’ Dettie picked at the strap of her handbag. ‘Why?’

  ‘Just whatever I can remember,’ he said. ‘Hello. Boy. Girl. Mum. Dad. Happy. Nothing too strenuous. I’ve forgotten most of it.’

  ‘Dad?’ she said, tilting forward. ‘Show me daddy. Sam, do you know that one yet?’

  Sam shook his head almost imperceptibly.

  On the walk back over Jon hiked up his pants and wiped his palms on his hips. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Okay. I think—’ He raised his hands, wiggling his fingers. ‘Okay. Yeah.’

  With his index and middle fingers of both hands pointed, Jon crossed one over the other, right knuckles lying on top of the left. He tapped twice. He waited. Sam, still sitting in place, copied the move.

  Pointed fingers. Right crossed over left. Two taps.

  Dad.

  ‘Well, that’s lovely!’ Dettie laid her hand on the back of Sam’s neck. He tried not to flinch, but it was tender. It tickled. She was too close. ‘Katie, look at what your brother has done.’

  Katie shrugged, still focused on her strand of flowers.

  ‘That’s just wonderful,’ Dettie was going on. ‘Oh, your father is going to be so excited to see that. He really will. Good work, Sammy.’ She opened her handbag and scooped out her keys. ‘You’ll have to show me more in the car.’

  ‘So. We’re off?’ Jon rocked on his feet.

  ‘If everyone has had enough to eat. If we’re all ready.’

  ‘Couldn’t eat another bite,’ he said. ‘Beetroot and pineapple on a hamburger? I don’t know if you Australians are mad—or geniuses.’

  ‘Yes. Well.’

  ‘Let me just run to the lavatory,’ Jon said.

  ‘Hurry up. This was longer than I thought we’d be stopping.’

  ‘Will do. Sorry. Sorry, love.’ He started off towards the toilet, then stopped, turning in place and catching Sam’s eye. With his right hand held closed he traced a circle, clockwise, on his chest. ‘That one means sorry,’ he said, and did the gesture again.

  Sam nodded, tracing the same circle on his own chest in reply.

  Sorry.

  ‘That’s it,’ Jon said, and gave him the thumbs up. He turned again and jogged away, disappearing into the darkness of the corrugated toilet block. Dettie watched him leave before directing her attention back to Sam. She stood beside him, the leather of her handbag squeaking beneath her fingers, her smile lingering too long. Taut and strained.

  42

  In the dream a pair of galahs were following a twisting fence across the ocean. They hopped from one foot to the other along the barbed wire, and every time they tried to fly they fell fluttering and exhausted into the water. There was another bird too, a brighter one, like a rainbow parrot with sprays of coloured feathers, but as Sam woke the images started to fade and he couldn’t remember what the other bird was doing.

  He and Katie were in the back of the car resting while Jon and Dettie sat in the front seats talking. Outside the sunset was coming on and the edges of the clouds were seared orange. Jon had his legs crossed, clutching his shin with one foot up on his knee. Sam liked the look of his shoe. Its faded blue canvas was stripped white at the heel and it had different coloured laces tied together with a double knot.
The sole was worn through to a thin honeycomb pattern in the rubber and Sam wondered how far Jon had walked in them before they’d picked him up.

  ‘It’s getting a touch stuffy.’ Jon was lifting his beard so that the vent could hiss on his neck. ‘Would you mind if I cracked open a window, love?’

  Dettie winced, and slowly nodded.

  ‘Just a fraction,’ he said. ‘Promise. I feel like I’m basting here.’

  She clicked the fan to full power and turned both the vents above the radio towards him. ‘I’d rather not if we can help it,’ she said. ‘There’s all manner of bugs and fumes.’

  He chuckled. ‘Bugs and fumes? You are a mad old bird, aren’t you?’ His foot wiggled as he grinned at her.

  Sam was surprised that Dettie didn’t scold him or pull over the car. Instead she smiled tightly and shook her head.

  ‘So what’s got the lot of you headed out to the Nullarbor exactly?’ he asked. ‘If not for the air? I got the sense you’re meeting up with family?’

  Dettie straightened the paddle-pop stick boomerang still hanging from the rear-vision mirror. ‘We’re going home.’ She sat up in her seat. ‘The children are my brother’s and it’s time he was with them again.’

  Jon nodded. He watched the way she fiddled with her wedding ring. ‘So where’s your old man in all this?’ he asked. ‘Waiting up ahead? Or watching over the home fires?’

  Dettie stiffened. ‘He’s dead.’

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, love.’ Jon dropped his leg and sat up. ‘Recent, was it?’

  ‘A few years ago.’ She sniffed.

  They were silent. Jon mopped his forehead with his shirtsleeve. The car rocked as they descended a hill. Sam’s eyelids were easing shut.

  ‘He liked to travel,’ Dettie said, raising her chin. ‘Ted, that is. My husband.’ She splayed her fingers to glance at her ring. ‘We used to go on trips. Up to the Blue Mountains. Tasmania. Once to Tahiti. He was very high up in business. Had meetings all over Sydney. All hours of the day.’