by Sarak Kanake
A gentle knock at the front door. ‘Dad?’ David stepped through the doorframe. A sour-looking boy shadowed him, tucking his small body into the narrow space beside his father. Another lad waited behind them.
‘Stay,’ Clancy said to Queenie, who growled but didn’t move.
‘Hello, Dad,’ said David.
Clancy nodded. His son looked much the same, a bit thinner maybe, but still easy on the eye. His hair had remained dark like that of Clancy’s da, but David had his mother’s complexion, fair and freckled. There were some changes, of course. David wore city clothes, a white button-up shirt, blue jeans as if he still wanted to fit in, and a pale yellow suit jacket with rolled-up sleeves. Reminded Clancy of the blokes he sometimes saw on magazines at the petrol station.
‘These your boys?’ said Clancy, made aware of his saggy trackies and old cardigan. He pulled his long, freshly showered hair back from his face and shoulders, and tied it at the nape of his neck with a rubber band from the washstand, being careful not to disturb the phone book or letters hiding the ditty box.
‘Say hello,’ said David, but the sour-looking boy beside him wouldn’t even glance up. He was like David, with his pale skin and short dark hair, but when he finally did raise his eyes, Clancy saw they were almost black, like River’s, or the pelt’s.
The other boy smiled from behind his dad. ‘We’re here,’ he said, as though it was big news. He was larger than his brother and broader. He had long hair the same colour as Clancy’s had once been, and despite their strange almond shape, his eyes were like Essie’s, blue-green and ready for fun.
Hard to believe they were twins, thought Clancy.
Jonah’s dad pulled him through the front door by his elbow. ‘This is my youngest,’ he said, though he knew Jonah hated it when he called him that. Like his dad was saying he was less. ‘And this is Samson.’ Samson took a step forward and almost knocked Jonah out of the way. He held out his hand, but Clancy didn’t take it. ‘Boys, say hello to your granddad.’
‘Hello,’ mumbled Jonah, his cheeks burning.
‘Hi, Granddad,’ said Samson.
David dropped Jonah’s elbow. ‘I hope we aren’t early?’
Clancy shook his head and pointed to the mudroom.
They hung their coats in silence, then all three followed Clancy into the kitchen, sitting around the table. Jonah took the chair nearest the wall. He didn’t like having his back to the window. Clancy lowered himself down and stretched his leg stiffly out in front of him. The old man’s hair was very grey and wet. His ponytail had left a streak of water down his back. David had never said much about what Clancy would look like, but he definitely wasn’t what Jonah had expected.
Clancy was tall – taller even than his dad or Samson – with a big beard and long hair. His skin was the same colour as the boots waiting at the back door, and his leg, which was badly swollen and veiny, was just visible beneath the cuff of his trackies. His eyes were sunken, and his shirt had stains down the front like he’d dropped more than one breakfast and not bothered to wash. The more Jonah looked, the shabbier his granddad became. Even his old cardigan was frayed at the sleeves. He could see where Clancy’s hardness might have been once, though now he just looked old.
Clancy shifted his leg again, but this time he winced.
‘Is your leg sore?’ Samson asked.
Jonah jabbed his brother in the ribs. ‘Shut up.’
‘It’s alright.’ Clancy waved Jonah’s hand away from his brother. ‘It does get sore from time to time.’
Jonah pulled his chair in, and something growled under the table.
‘Never mind her,’ said Clancy. ‘That’s Queen Elizabeth. She takes a while to warm up.’
Samson’s head dipped beneath the table. His body followed.
Jonah bent down to remind his brother that they weren’t supposed to touch strange dogs in case they were dangerous, but Queen Elizabeth was already licking Samson’s face. ‘She likes me,’ he said. Jonah made a face and sat back up to find his dad and Clancy silently staring at each other.
‘How have you been?’ asked David.
‘Fair to middling,’ said Clancy. ‘Good drive?’
‘Fine.’
‘No worries finding the place.’
David looked away. ‘The house hasn’t changed much.’
‘You’d be surprised.’ Clancy tucked a loose strand of oily-looking hair behind his ear.
‘So, Dad,’ said David, and Jonah was struck by how strange it was for his dad to have a father of his own. ‘The boys are really excited to be here. Aren’t you, boys?’
Clancy glanced over at him. ‘Are they?’
Jonah gazed down at his feet.
A thump sounded under the table. Samson laughed. ‘No licking.’
Clancy whacked the tabletop with his fist, and both Samson and the dog fell silent.
The pause felt awkward to Jonah, but David smiled. ‘You’re looking good, Dad,’ he said.
‘I look like shit warmed up.’
‘Um-ah,’ said Samson quietly. They weren’t allowed to swear at home.
‘Alice sends her love. Doesn’t she, boys?’
Clancy snorted.
‘I said no licking,’ said Samson.
David popped his head under the table. ‘That’s enough.’ His voice was a pot of water about to boil over. ‘Get out from there now.’
Samson came out, dragging his bum like a dog with worms.
‘Why don’t you tell your granddad about our drive?’ David prompted.
Samson flapped his hands. Jonah had refused to learn sign language, and Clancy didn’t seem to understand either.
‘Not like that,’ said their dad, and he looked at Clancy even though the comment was meant for Samson. ‘With your words.’
‘The drive was okay.’ Samson spoke as if everyone but him was stupid.
‘Is he deaf?’ asked Clancy.
Samson shook his head. ‘I have Down’s Syndrome.’
David cleared his throat. ‘Why don’t you boys go find your new rooms?’
Finally, Jonah’s first real bedroom. No partitions or room divides or bunk beds. No shared drawers or wardrobes. He would finally have some privacy. He and Samson had always shared everything. They’d shared a crib when they were babies and a bedroom when they got older. The house in Queensland had three bedrooms, but their dad needed an office. Jonah and Samson were given the big third room, and their mum divided it down the middle with an accordion partition. ‘King Solomon’s bedroom,’ said their dad sometimes, as a joke.
‘Hang about,’ interrupted Clancy. ‘There’s only one room.’
‘Where will dad sleep?’ asked Samson, but everyone ignored him.
‘I thought you had two spare bedrooms,’ said Jonah.
‘I told you there might only be one,’ said David, and he put his hand on Jonah’s shoulder.
‘One’s closed up,’ said Clancy. ‘They can’t sleep in there.’
David nodded as though he knew something Jonah didn’t. ‘Boys, go get your bags and bring them in. You can have my old room. Won’t that be fun?’
Jonah shrugged his dad’s hand away. ‘So we do have to share,’ he snapped. ‘Even though you promised.’
‘I didn’t promise. I said it might not be possible.’
Clancy pointed down the hall. ‘It’s the first on the right.’
Jonah stood up from the table too quick and sent his chair scooting backwards. The red dog snarled near his feet. Jonah pulled away, almost tripping. He didn’t like dogs, not even nice ones.
David laughed. ‘He’s never normally clumsy.’
Jonah steadied himself against the wall. His fingers tingled as if they were passing through sunlight. He took a step back and looked at the wall over the table. A dark amber stain reminded Jonah of the shadows he would often see on the beach in Queensland. Huge pelicans that seemed almost too heavy to fly would pass over him one by one, casting long dark shapes. Jonah turned his head sidewa
ys and stared up at the skylight. There were no birds flying over Clancy’s house.
Jonah looked at his dad and granddad, wondering if they could explain.
‘What’s that from?’ asked Samson, pointing to the shadow.
‘Nothing,’ said Clancy.
Jonah turned back to the wall. Four legs, a long straight tail, a head like a dog almost, but skinnier.
‘Yes, it is,’ said Samson. ‘It is something. Look.’
‘Samson!’ said David sharply. ‘Knock it off.’
Samson stepped back from their dad, startled. He didn’t get in trouble much.
‘Sun damage from the skylight,’ said David. ‘In a funny shape, is all.’ He nodded as though he could convince them all.
Four legs, a long straight tail and head like a dog. Jonah had read of people mounting heads and skins, but he’d never seen it done. Had Clancy killed an animal and hung it up? And if there was a skin somewhere in the house, where could it be hiding?
‘That’s enough,’ said their dad. He wiped a thin layer of sweat from the back of his neck. ‘Go get your bags.’
Samson poked Jonah in the side. ‘Come on,’ he said, but Jonah hardly felt his brother’s fingers or his voice. He was still thinking about the shadow on the wall and wondering where the animal skin could be hiding.
Clancy waited in the kitchen with his son. The twins bickered outside about who would carry what bag into the house.
‘It’s good of you to let the boys stay,’ said David, clearly trying to cover the noise of his sons. ‘High time you got to know them.’
‘What about Alice? Where is she?’
‘Gone,’ David admitted. ‘We haven’t seen her in a month. I told the boys she’s trying to find a house for us in Brisbane. She won’t mind that they’re here.’
Clancy nodded. He knew what his son meant. As far as kids were concerned, he and the mountain didn’t have a very good track record.
‘Should I take the couch?’
Clancy nodded again. The last half an hour had been more talking than he’d done in years.
‘I can make dinner if you like. The boys aren’t fussy.’
Clancy shook his head. ‘Murray’s coming, and he’s bringing his lady friend. Tilda usually makes tea when they visit.’
David didn’t respond.
Truth was, Clancy hadn’t had the heart to knock Tilda back when she asked if she could make them all a meal. She wanted to meet David and the boys, even though it had been news to her that the twins even existed. Clancy rarely shared anything about his life, and Murray never talked about the years when David lived on the mountain. Those years were painful for all of them to remember, and even if Murray had filled Tilda in, Clancy was sure he wouldn’t have told her the whole story.
‘So Murray came back,’ said David.
‘Years ago.’
‘Not sure I’ll be much company after driving all day.’
‘They’re used to me.’
‘Must be good, safer, having Murray around.’
‘No more than me on my own.’
David shrugged. ‘Less lonely then.’
Clancy didn’t answer.
‘Does he live here?’ asked David. ‘With you.’
Clancy shook his head. ‘He built a yurt where the shack used to be.’ He thought again of its tin roof overturned in the creek, the leaning broken walls, the scattered pots, pans and chairs that had once been so carefully placed.
Then he saw River’s muddy footprints and felt the twinge of an old pain buried deep inside his chest.
‘Did he say why?’
‘No reason to stay away anymore,’ said Clancy, and they both knew what he meant.
Samson came back through the door first, a suitcase in each hand, wearing a port on his back and a wide straw sunhat on his head. Clancy heard Jonah slam the gate.
‘He’s in a mood,’ said Samson, as most of the luggage fell from his body to the floor.
Queenie’s tail started to thump again.
‘Don’t drop those there,’ said David. ‘Inside.’
Samson clumsily gathered up the suitcases and continued down the hall. The sunhat slipped over his eyes, and he almost walked into a wall.
‘He’s not what you think,’ said David, after Samson was gone. ‘He just needs … guidance, occasionally.’
A few seconds later, Jonah came struggling through the same door dragging one suitcase with both hands and wearing a port on his back as well. He didn’t stop or look at them, following after his brother without a word.
Samson dropped his suitcases, pushed his mum’s gardening hat back from his face and took a look around his new room. Before he could shotgun, Jonah pushed past and claimed the bed under the big window that faced the front of the house, leaving Samson the bed in the corner, wedged up against the wardrobe. He had a window too, but only a sliver. He looked out and saw the two huge metal water tanks sitting side by side. It wasn’t much of a view – not like back home in Queensland, where he could see the beach and ocean from his part of the room.
Samson sat on the edge of his new bed. It creaked. He ran his hand over the sheets, crisp and smelling of washing powder. A pile of blankets was folded neatly at the end of his bed, and he wondered if it ever got cold enough to use all of them at once. He tilted his head back and looked out the window again. Everything was upside down, but he could still make out the crest of his mountain over the trees. The curtains moved listlessly on either side of his face. There were red, black and yellow cowboys all over them. His mum hated curtains. She said they kept the breeze and the sunshine out.
Samson took a deep breath and shifted his weight on the mattress, but the springs didn’t move with him. The iron bedframe groaned like an animal waking from a long hibernation.
Jonah pulled back the sheets on his bed and lay down. His bed was quiet.
‘Comfy?’ asked Samson.
His brother rolled into the wall under the window and didn’t answer.
‘Yeah,’ said Samson. ‘Mine’s not comfy either.’
Jonah pulled the covers up over his head.
‘Hey?’ said Samson, but his brother didn’t move. ‘Hey.’ He picked up one of his pillows and hurled it across the room. The pillow hit his brother on the head. Samson smiled.
Jonah pulled back his covers. ‘Rack off!’
‘No!’
‘Hey, you two,’ yelled their dad from the kitchen. ‘Knock it off.’
‘Close the door,’ said Jonah to Samson, who did what he was told.
He sat back down on his bed. It creaked again.
Jonah groaned. ‘Just shut up.’
Samson sat in silence for a while. To keep himself company, he made the sign for house and gradually turned it into home, which was a hand going up one side of a mountain and down the other. It looked easy enough, but Samson knew real homes were never that easy to reach.
‘I can hear you flapping,’ Jonah growled.
Samson dropped his hands into his lap.
Usually when Jonah was stressed or angry, Samson would press his cheek against the soft ridges of the accordion wall that divided their room and read from one of Jonah’s favourite books. Sometimes his favourite was White Fang or Animal Farm, Peter Pan or Call of the Wild. The books Jonah liked changed over time, all except for The Jungle Book. It didn’t matter how many times they read The Jungle Book, because word by word the stories would always take shape again and become like islands floating in an ocean between them. They discovered many of these islands together.
The island might be a barnyard, or an endless field of ice. It might be a jungle. Shere Khan ruled that island. Neverland was also an island, along with The Wild, where all monsters lived, and any boy could be King.
Samson saw The Jungle Book sticking out of the top of Jonah’s port, next to his bed, and immediately knew how to bring his brother out of hiding. He tiptoed over, reached into the port and gingerly removed the book. The bed creaked again. He paused and waited, b
ut Jonah didn’t move. Quietly, Samson opened the book and started to read. He went slow at first, so he didn’t muck up any of the words. Jonah hated it when he made mistakes, especially with his reading.
‘What of the hunting, hunter bold?’ Samson looked over the top of the book to check, but his brother didn’t stir, so he read the line again. ‘What of the hunting, hunter bold?’
This time, from under the blankets, Jonah answered, ‘Brother, the watch was long and cold.’ Jonah didn’t need to see the words to remember them. They were already inside.
Samson smiled and kept reading. He got louder and felt more confident. ‘What of the quarry you went to kill?’ He said ‘you’ instead of ‘ye’, because ‘ye’ made him laugh, and their dad said it was an older version of the same word.
‘Brother, he crops in the jungle still,’ said Jonah.
‘Where is the power that made your pride?’
‘Brother, it ebbs from my flank and side.’
‘Where is the haste that you hurry by?’ Samson read. He waited, but this time Jonah didn’t answer. ‘… Jonah?’
All of a sudden, the blankets spun up into the air. Jonah leapt out from underneath.
He laughed. ‘I will not go to my lair to die.’
The bed changed. Sheets turned to rolling hills, bedposts into tall fir trees. Each pillow became a fat, soft stepping stone. The bed creaked, and the room filled up with screeching jungle birds and screaming monkeys. They were on their own island. The story island where White Fang and Shere Khan and Peter Pan came to play, and Jonah was jumping, growling and baring his teeth like a Wild Thing. ‘I will not. I will not. I’m a TIGER!’
It had worked again. Samson’s brother was out of hiding, and maybe everything was going to be different, better. They would spend more and more time together on their island, and Jonah would get happier every day. Maybe their dad would even learn where to find them.
The sound of the twins bickering rattled down the hall, like tin cans tied to the back of a runaway truck. ‘Knock it off, ’ shouted David, cutting the racket off. The bedroom door clicked shut in response.