Candelo

by Georgia Blain

  Reckon she’ll give us the car? Mitchell asked.

  Don’t know, and Simon stretched, lazily.

  Reckon we should go and ask her now? and he looked at each of us, wanting our opinion.

  We could hear her typewriter. She had only just started again. It was not a good time to interrupt her.

  Better to wait, Simon said.

  Just for a while, I told him.

  He drummed the tabletop with his fingertips. He picked up a glass. He put it down. About an hour, you reckon?

  About an hour, we told him. In unison.

  Outside it was hot. Midday heat that burnt the grass white, flat and colourless.

  With his back on the concrete, Mitchell lay on top of the low wall that bordered the verandah, his shirt off, letting the sun soak into the smooth brown of his chest. With his arms behind his head, I could see the curls of underarm hair, golden in the light.

  Ever had a girlfriend? he asked Simon, and I saw Simon shake his head.

  Me neither, not a proper one, and I watched as Mitchell swung himself up, as he leant against the verandah post, his body outlined by the bright blue of the sky.

  But jeez, I’d like one, and I watched him stretch; I watched his back as he stared out across the garden. Not just someone to, you know, and as he turned, as he looked at me, I saw Simon look down, tearing a strip of rubber off his thong, staring at his feet.

  What about you? and it was me he was asking this time, and I was good at the bravado, good at the game.

  A girlfriend? and I raised my eyebrows as Mitchell looked at me. Boyfriends . . . and I shrugged my shoulders to signify the countless thousands I’d had.

  But Mitchell had turned away, away from both of us.

  I’d like to be in love, he said, but not to us. To no one in particular.

  And I picked a cobweb, sticky and fine, off my leg and rolled it into a tight ball between my fingers.

  I’d like to have kids, he said. You know. Kids and a wife.

  Simon pulled himself up slowly from where he had been sitting. He did not look at me and he did not look at Mitchell.

  Don’t know when it’ll happen, but, and Mitchell turned slowly to where we both were, there behind him, to me watching him and to Simon looking down at the ground, one hand on the doorhandle, one foot inside, one still outside.

  He had been about to go back inside. To disappear, without a word. But as Mitchell had turned, he had stopped.

  I could hear a fly buzzing near my ear, but I did not move, and in the silence that had descended, I thought I could also hear it again, the low rush of the wind coming down from off the mountains, sweeping across the paddocks.

  Mitchell’s voice broke the quiet. So, you reckon an hour’s up?

  Simon looked at his watch. No, he said.

  Let’s ask her anyway, and Mitchell pointed out towards the horizon, towards where he imagined the beach was. Let’s go. Take your board, and with his arms outstretched, he pretended to surf, the excitement sparking in his eyes. Reckon she’ll say yes?

  With one hand still on the doorhandle, Simon looked at Mitchell. They smiled at each other in a moment that I later knew excluded me.

  Maybe, he said.

  And as the door slammed shut behind him, as he went to ask Vi for the keys, Mitchell started humming surf tunes. Badly.

  nineteen

  Because he has been a bus driver for such a long time, Simon can get whatever shifts he wants. Although you earn more on nights or weekends, he usually gives up his highly valued hours to anyone who asks him, the needs of others always taking precedence over his own.

  Sometimes I catch one of his buses home. I sit on the seat behind him and we talk awkwardly in between stops. The buses he drives are always crowded. He cannot bear to close the door on passengers, to drive past people, despite the fact that he is now prohibited by government regulation from having more than a certain number standing.

  You can’t fit any more on, I sometimes say to him.

  He does not listen, and as the doors shut, everyone seems to have miraculously found a space.

  I do not know what Simon thinks of his job. I can only guess. He simply takes the money and drives, never talking to passengers, never swearing angrily at other drivers, just doing what he is paid to do.

  He has been driving since he was eighteen. Two years ago, he accrued three months’ long service leave and took it. I was surprised, even hopeful that perhaps he was planning some change to his life, but he just spent it at home, lying in the darkness of his room watching television.

  It’s all right, he says on the few occasions when I ask him whether he likes what he does.

  Sometimes I am tempted to challenge him, to ask him whether there is anything else he would like to do, but I stop myself in time, not wanting to open things up, not wanting to see him look away, uncomfortable with my question, uncomfortable with me.

  Simon took up bus driving two years after he gave up on school.

  Vi had tried to talk him into going to a counsellor. It was not so much that he had refused; he had just never turned up for any of the appointments she made. Or if she drove him there, he would go in and not say a word. He would just sit there, completely impenetrable.

  At first, the school was also anxious about him.

  They, too, tried talking to him, but it was no use, and eventually they gave up.

  There’s not much point in keeping him here when it’s so painfully obvious he has no interest, they told Vi.

  He had not handed in a single piece of homework for the entire term. His highest grade in a test had been an E. He no longer talked to any of his friends. He had given up all sport. They didn’t know what to do.

  Perhaps a year off, the headmaster suggested, although his tone made it clear that it was more than a mere suggestion. He has obviously been very disturbed by what happened, and he looked away, not wanting to mention the accident, not wanting to mention Evie’s name. School may only be adding to the stress.

  Vi did not fight.

  She, too, didn’t really know what to do. Lost in her own grief, she just took the first concrete suggestion that was handed to her.

  When Bernard heard, he offered to take Simon out for a man-to-man chat.

  He picked him up with Sarah, his girlfriend of the time, and took him sailing. No doubt they would have spent the day on the harbour, drinking champagne and eating prawns, with Bernard tossing Simon the odd cheery comment about what a truly magnificent afternoon it was, losing interest in the response before he had even finished speaking. Simon came home drenched and as silent as ever.

  When Vi asked why he was so wet, Bernard laughed. He’s a silly idiot, and he laughed again, but he looked perplexed as he explained that Sarah’s dalmatian had jumped off the boat for a swim and Simon had been convinced she was going to drown. Fully clothed, he had followed her in, trying to save her before they could stop him.

  Then Bernard slapped Simon on the back and told him to cheer up. I don’t know why youre looking so glum, he laughed. An entire year off – sounds like bliss to me, and with that he was gone.

  So Simon left school.

  And he didn’t go back.

  For the next two years, he stayed at home. Reading, smoking, watching television and eating.

  Vi would ask him what he was going to do with his life and Simon would ignore her.

  At first her questions weren’t so frequent. She was more absorbed in work than ever; having buried herself in causes since the accident, fighting every fight she could, we barely saw her. But after eighteen months, she began to notice that he hadn’t moved and seemed to have little intention of doing so.

  Rushing out the door to get to a meeting, she would tell him that he shouldn’t just waste his life away. Looking up as he tiptoed through her study, trying not to be noticed, she would ask him if he’d thought about going back to school. Or even a job? Cleaning out a pile of dirty dishes from his room, she would tell him they needed to talk. About
what was up.

  He would glance across at her. Caught suggesting something that they both knew she was unlikely to do, she would quickly look away.

  When I get back, she would say.

  Soon, she would add, and she would sigh, anxiously, as she rolled herself another cigarette and tried to work out what to do next.

  It was Dawn, one of Vi’s old friends from the Equal Work Equal Pay Task Force, who eventually got Simon out of the house. An ex-counsellor for troubled adolescents, she took Simon in hand. And to everyone’s surprise, Simon appeared to listen to her.

  Vi had been leaving piles of job advertisements inside the door to Simon’s bedroom, research positions, political work, youth work; they all remained where she left them, until eventually she would scoop them up and throw them in the bin.

  Dawn told Simon the Department of Transport was recruiting and training drivers, and he agreed to go for an interview.

  I am sure that Vi was secretly distressed at the thought of Simon, her son, becoming a bus driver. When he came home and said he had been accepted, she asked him if he was sure this was what he wanted. Really?

  She tried to console herself with the thought that it was bound to be a temporary measure, until he got through this difficult phase.

  But it wasn’t.

  Twelve years later and Simon still drives buses. Five days a week.

  We had arranged to meet at the depot when he finished his shift.

  It was still raining and outside the airconditioned office the evening was steamy and unpleasant. Feeling ill from the champagne I had drunk over lunch, I half wished Simon wouldn’t turn up and I could go home, but he was there, waiting for me, a copy of the afternoon paper in one hand (a paper that Vi hated) and a cigarette in the other. He was standing under an awning, but apart from that one small concession, he made little attempt to keep dry. I watched as the rain sluiced down, soaking into the newsprint, dripping onto his hair, his arms, and into his shoes. He did not seem to notice.

  You haven’t changed your mind? he asked me anxiously, and I knew he was referring to the funeral.

  I told him I hadn’t.

  Then why did you want to see me?

  I asked him if we could sit down and he led me into a small cafe opposite.

  As he pulled out a chair, I saw the heavy perspiration stains under the arms of his shirt and around his neck.

  He lit another cigarette.

  How do you survive, I asked him, for all those hours on the bus when you can’t smoke?

  He just shrugged his shoulders and looked towards the door, the bell ringing as it opened and closed behind a young woman. She had a baby in a pram, and was heavily pregnant with another. He shifted his chair awkwardly as she tried to push the pram past us. There was no room.

  Are you going to eat anything? I asked him, and as I reached across the table for the menu, the baby started crying, the noise high-pitched and insistent.

  Simon put his cigarette in the ashtray and leant over. I watched as he pushed the pram back and forth, gently, soothingly. The woman also watched. Waiting up at the counter, she had turned at the first cry and I had seen her about to come back but then stop as Simon reached across. The rocking was working, the baby seemed to be quietening, and as she sat down, she thanked him.

  He looked down, embarrassed, apologetic for having acted.

  No, thank you, she said again.

  And the blush spread further across his face as he scratched at a stain in the formica, head bent, eyes on the table, making me want to reach out and still his hand; making me want to tell him it was okay, he had done the right thing.

  He lit another cigarette and I told him I had seen Bernard for lunch. I told him we had talked about the funeral.

  He didn’t speak.

  Why do you want to go? Because I had lowered my voice I was leaning forward, across the table, and as I moved towards him, he pulled back. I am worried about you.

  The waitress came and I ordered a coffee. Simon ordered a Coke and a chicken sandwich.

  I’m thinking of quitting.

  I looked at him, surprised. Why?

  He was staring out the window. Do you ever think about that time? he asked me, not wanting to meet my gaze.

  I told him I did.

  He scratched at the table again, lifting a piece of food with his fingernail and rolling it into a ball.

  You know, it wasn’t your fault, I said. The police had to take him away.

  He still wouldn’t look at me.

  Do you ever think about him much? Mitchell? and he said his name hesitantly, wanting to say it out loud, but unsure, still scared of the effect it would have.

  I told him I did. Quite a bit. Lately.

  My coffee was cold. Weak and milky. I pushed it away.

  You can’t feel bad about it all, I said, wanting to reassure him. It was just one of those things, and I was staring at the ceiling, remembering, imagining, seeing it again: the road, the night, Mitchell.

  It was the police who decided what happened, I told him. Not us. You can’t feel guilty.

  I hadn’t been there, but I could see it as though I had.

  There was a ring of Coke on the table, circling the base of his glass. Black and sticky. Ants. This is what happens when it rains. Thousands of them.

  We don’t have to go, I said and I wanted him to listen to me. I wanted him to hear me. You know that, don’t you? In fact, it would be better if we didn’t. They won’t want to see us. There’s no reason for us to be there, and I was leaning forward again, trying to make him look at me.

  He did.

  You’re still coming?

  I sat back. There was no point.

  Yes, I promised.

  And he looked relieved. I just don’t want to be alone, and he scratched the back of his hand nervously. It’s just, and he shook his head as he looked away, not wanting to go on.

  It’s just what? I asked.

  He took the last bite of his sandwich and moved his chair back.

  Nothing, and he heaved himself up. I’ve got to go.

  And knowing that any attempt to make him talk was useless, I told him I’d walk with him.

  twenty

  When I remember Simon at Candelo, I see him sitting on the verandah with Evie. It is early morning and they are side by side, hip to hip, on the top step. In the sunlight, Simon’s hair is blond and his skin is the colour of gold. They each have a bowl of cereal balanced on their lap, soggy with milk, and a glass of juice on the step below them. When Simon takes a spoonful, Evie takes a spoonful, when Simon reaches for his glass, Evie reaches for her glass, when Simon shades his eyes from the sun, Evie shades hers as well, copying each of his movements faithfully.

  She reads him jokes from her book, halting over each difficult word.

  Why did the tomato blush?

  Simon looks suitably perplexed.

  Because he saw the salad dressing, and Evie slaps her thigh and laughs uproariously although I am sure she would have had no idea what it meant.

  After the fifth joke, I would have told her to shut up.

  But Simon doesn’t.

  He listens until she has had enough.

  I see him as he finally gets up and stretches, tall and slim in the clear morning light. Stretching each limb with a grace and lack of self-consciousness that I now find hard to imagine.

  Evie does the same.

  Simon takes three steps down towards the garden and Evie follows. But when he steps out into the long thick grass, she stops.

  It is the snake.

  She does not want to go beyond the safety of those stairs. She does not want to move.

  Wait, she calls after him and he does.

  He turns back towards her. He holds his arms out but she does not follow, although I can see that she wants to, more than anything.

  It takes him a few moments before he realises what she is frightened of, and he comes back through the grass, shouting loudly, stomping a flattened path, dark a
nd sparkling with dew.

  This is what you do, he tells her and he picks her up so that she is perched high on his shoulders. You make a lot of noise and you make a path.

  She screams wildly in unison with his shouts, waving her arms in the air as they make their way from one end of the garden to the other.

  But when he puts her back down, safe on the stairs, it is clear that she is still worried.

  What about tomorrow? she asks. And the next day?

  He sits next to her. And I hear him as he promises they will do it again. Each morning. They will do it together.

  Promise? she asks.

  Promise, he says.

  I didn’t really expect Vi to agree. I didn’t expect Simon to come out of the house, the keys glinting in the sun, as he held them up high for us to see.

  But he did.

  I was sitting on the verandah wall, side by side with Mitchell, learning the art of the perfect smoke ring, practising while we waited for Simon. With his mouth like a fish, Mitchell let each ring form, floating off, invisible in the glare of the day, before passing the cigarette over to me. And with my head arched back, and all my concentration focused on showing him that when it came to smoke rings, I was no fool, I did not hear Simon until he was there, right behind me, the keys held high in one hand.

  Got ’em, he told us, and then, seeing me, he looked confused.

  I put the cigarette out, hastily stubbing it against the bricks, the tip ground down to grey ash.

  You don’t smoke, he said.

  She’s learning, and with his head thrown back and one leg stretched out in front of him, Mitchell imitated me, mercilessly.

  I punched him, hard, on the arm.

  And he grinned at me.

  So, are we going? Simon asked, ignoring us both.

  You bet, and Mitchell leapt down onto the grass below, seizing the keys from Simon’s hand.

  I did not think that Simon would leave me behind. It was not what I would have expected from him, but when I came out with my swimmers in one hand and saw them both laughing, secret jokes on the verandah, I knew they didn’t want me with them.