‘Oh,’ I said. Cain slew Abel and that is brothers.
‘He doesn’t understand why I want to stay here.’ I drew the shape of a brother with my finger across the wire. He had a stick like Abel’s. In my drawing the brother held the stick high and said, ‘Be careful.’
‘I can’t explain it to him. He thinks it should be him in here. He says, “You’re not living, Norma”.’
‘You’re not living, Norma,’ I said.
‘Harrison is coming soon.’
‘Who is Harrison?’
‘My brother. He’s coming on Monday.’
‘When is that?’
‘On Monday, silly.’ Mary flickered through Norma’s eyes.
‘Keep walking?’ Norma asked.
‘Keep walking,’ I said. We walked round and round with the rope that wasn’t there tying our feet together. When Air Time was over I could still feel the rope.
I lay on my bed, first with my eyes open, looking for cracks in the ceiling in the shapes of wings, then with my eyes closed. I drew the tree of Boot growing down my arms and along my fingers until it broke through me, knocking me down. I drew handle and spoon. They spoke to me again for the first time since Sack turned my paintings into birds and they flew away up the chimney. My friends tickled my ears. It was all whispering; I couldn’t hear the words. I drew the thin stick of Sack’s body bending in, walking more on one side than the other. I drew the grey shadow pathways that ran under the skin of her hands. I drew the pink spider under Sack’s eye changing from spider to fly.
Norma sat on one side of the morning room, I sat on the other; the cloud of smoke hanging between us. Norma lifted her hand, put the white stick to her mouth and sucked. Through the cloud of smoke, her little fire glowed hot. I lifted my hand, put the white stick to my mouth, and sucked. My little fire glowed hot. Her hand went down into her lap. My hand went down into my lap. We watched each other, our eyes never looked away.
Every day we did the smoke dance and the rope that wasn’t there around our walking feet, tied itself around our insides and bound us to each other. Pictures ran in between. It was Mary and Norma, both.
At breakfast I never drank my pink tea. I did a switch with Rita who couldn’t see, or I tipped it in my slipper when the blue shoes was at the trolley. All day my slipper was sticky but I never drank the tea; Norma said not to.
Nurse Clegg said, ‘Pool visit.’ It was under, where the hanging room should have been. The ladies walked in a line down the steps all slippery on the sides. Black birds sat along the railings leading down. If you made a sound it came back to you. Rita shouted, mup mup mup. It came back, mup mup mup. Blue shoes gave us white short pants and a top for the hills. Water was in a box. The ladies climbed into the water like John the Baptist going under.
‘We live in a sea home. We sleep in sea beds. We have a sea baby,’ Norma said, flipping like a fish when the Red Sea parted. ‘Swim, Hester!’ The sound bounced around the walls, swim Hester swim Hester swim Hester.
It was Monday and Norma’s brother was coming to visit. A visit is when you go for a while and somebody is there and you see them and then you come back. It’s what I did with my grandmother. Visits end and you walk home and draw pictures of the things you saw. Sometimes the ladies here get visits. They go to the visiting room to get them. ‘Is Cain coming?’ I asked.
‘No,’ said Norma. ‘Harrison might bring Harvey, but if he does, Harvey will stay in the car. Sometimes he nips.’
‘Who is Harvey?’
‘Harry’s dog.’ Norma told me how she lived close to the bush when she was small. She said Harrison and her made a flying fox that took them across a river. She said you hung on and the tyre flew along the wire. She said that the trees were filled with parrots like bright lollies hidden in the branches. Every time you saw one you got a sweet surprise. They called to you and the chatter was a chorus of bells. Harrison and Norma made a secret place in an old wombat hole and they hid there when their father came and then one day Harrison got stuck by his foot and Norma rescued him with a car chain and all he had was a sore foot and he said it was worth it because he saw wombat bones and treasure. When she asked to see the treasure Harrison said it was guarded by a pirate with a hook for a hand. Norma’s face broke into tiny drawings when she told this story. If she had laughed for longer I would have had time to look closely at every drawing to see what the pictures were. Then she said, ‘I have to go to the visiting room. Will you be alright?’
‘What is alright?’ Three black birds dived down. I shut my mouth tight.
‘Your questions drive me crazy.’ Norma laughed. She was the happy sun. ‘I will tell Harrison about you.’
I sat in front of the television and waited. A man read a story about an army in the dust and a bear being born. When Norma came back the sun was behind clouds. She sat down in a chair beside me and closed her eyes. A picture of Norma waving goodbye to her brother came down the rope to me. Norma didn’t talk for the rest of the day. She stared straight ahead and sometimes she lifted up a corner of her mouth, but not to smile – to stop something.
I woke up to the scream of Norma travelling along the rope and into my ear. In the black eye of Norma’s scream I heard a hot need. I got up from my bed and shouted loud. I kept shouting until I heard blue shoes coming to my room. I stood behind the door and when the blue shoes opened it I knocked them hard so that they fell behind me and I ran down the rope to Norma. I ran through a long worm, dark on all sides, Norma’s scream pulled me on. I opened three doors and ran through. Blue shoes were behind me. They were chasing me but I was faster because I had to get to Norma.
She was in a room with other beds. The devil was on her, his black-scaled head bent in her neck, his flaming tail whipping back and forth. He wanted to eat her.
Norma was trying hard to get away from him but the devil was strong. He was biting her and growling in her ear.
‘No!’ I said to the devil. ‘No!’ He lifted his head and showed me his sharp teeth. I came close and stood between Norma and the devil. ‘No,’ I said again. ‘Get away from Norma.’ The devil put his head on the side. ‘Get away!’ I said. The devil left, hungry and low on his legs.
I got on Norma’s bed, I whispered, ‘Norma K, Norma K, Norma K is for Kyte but you don’t fly it, you only say it if you want to, Norma Norma Norma.’ She went quiet and soft as a pillow in my arm. Her breathing slowed. She looked in my eyes. Her face was shining wet. The devil was gone. Blue shoes were on us; they dug a needle into the bone of Norma K and they took me back to my room where they dug one in me. The needle scratched the bone until it made a hole, and when the hole in the bone was big enough the blue shoes gave a push and in went the mud, thick and heavy.
Norma wasn’t in the smoking room in the morning. I asked a blue shoes, ‘Where’s Norma K?’
‘In love, are you?’ said one.
‘Norma K’s getting the royal treatment,’ said another. Tina did a royal curtsey and ladies laughed. The royal treatment was when the King came downstairs and ordered the death of Christ. Norma wasn’t in the games-without-the-games room, or in front of the television, or in the Airing Court. Norma K was nowhere. I waited and with my eyes closed I drew pictures and sent them along the rope to Norma. I sent the green leaves on the other side of the wire, I sent our two feet walking and I sent water from the pool visit.
Boot, why won’t you look into my eyes? In a night visit you looked into my eyes at my full face, you put your mouth over mine, and then, after I woke up with blood flowers on the sheets you never saw my eyes again. You saw Cat, you saw the pots and pans, the sink, the toilet, the bed, the walls, the Bible, the hanging room, the bucket, the axe, the pile of chopped wood but not my eyes. Boot, if I came back would you look?
A man inside the television said, ‘Drink this and you can sit in a pool of water with me.’ A lady in the water said, ‘Touch me,’ and an orange sang, ‘I am the sweetest juice.’ I watched a spider on her web in a high corner of the smoking room.
‘Sweep away the web, Hester,’ Sack would say, holding out the broom. I stood on the upside-down bucket, reached up with the broom and broke the home of the spider. No broom for me here, no Sack saying, ‘Sweep.’ A fly came and stopped on a strand of the spider’s web for a rest from all that fast-flying. When she went to leave her feet were stuck, it didn’t matter how much she pulled. The spider came walking slowly across. He could see the fly trying to get free from the sticky strand of web. He smiled, put out his feet to the fly and spun his web around it. For a while fly wriggled, and then she stopped. You couldn’t see her after that because she was part of the spider.
Sack’s eyes came to me in my room at night – two blue plates spinning with the pink spider waving underneath. What was it that spider wanted me to know?
After breakfast Pebblinghaus said, ‘You have a special visitor today, ladies, a student of psychology. Aren’t you lucky?’
A lady with pink on her cheeks and eyes brown as tea without milk said, ‘Hello, I’m Alice Plow. You can call me Alice.’
‘Call me Alice,’ said Rita.
‘Call me Alice,’ said Linda.
‘Call me Alice! Call me Alice!’ said everyone in the room. Alice Plow tried to smile. Rita jumped up and down and screamed Alice Alice Alice. Blue shoes took Rita away and the room went quiet.
‘How do you want to start this?’ Pebblinghaus asked Alice Plow.
‘I want to begin with painting.’
‘Painting? That will be interesting,’ said Pebblinghaus, with a small laugh. The laugh was a stick in Alice Plow’s eye.
Alice Plow left it stuck there and tried again. ‘Yes, it’s proving to be a useful technique. Deconstruction of the images can really tell us things.’
‘What things do you want to be told?’ asked Pebblinghaus.
The pink in Alice Plow’s cheeks turned to red. ‘It’s a useful technique,’ she said. ‘Will you help me to distribute these?’ Pebblinghaus closed her mouth and gave everybody a paintbrush. Alice Plow put colours on a tray – red, blue and yellow. I looked at the shining colours with my back against the wall. Mrs D threw her paintbrush at Pebblinghaus. Annie put hers in her pants. Everybody else sat, like me, backs against the wall, on a chair.
The wooden brush that I was holding tightly in my hand spoke to me. ‘Hold on,’ it said.
Alice put paper on the table.
Nan said, ‘Bugger off.’
Alice smiled and it hurt her face. ‘I want you to paint the way you feel today,’ smiled Alice Plow.
‘Bugger off, Alice Plow!’ shouted Linda.
‘Bugger Alice! Bugger Alice!’ Again the room was full of shouting. Pebblinghaus hid the devil’s laugh behind her closed teeth. Linda stood, picked up the tray of colours and threw them at the wall. Red, yellow and blue splashed against the wall. A painting of a red lion trapped in a pit, covered a corner. His tail dripped. There was shouting and running in the room. The blue shoes took Mrs D away too. I kept my brush in my hand and held on.
Alice Plow picked brushes up off the floor. She looked at the colours on the walls. What were they telling her? ‘Perhaps we’ll start with something else,’ she said.
‘Whatever you like, dear,’ said Pebblinghaus as she wiped up paint.
Alice Plow wanted to go back on the other side of the fence with the high thorns.
Norma came back. She was in the television room with a grey blanket around her shoulders. She wasn’t looking at the box of tricks, or tapping her fingers or pinching the person beside her, or smoking; she was looking at the wall. I sent her a picture of me waving but the picture got caught in a knot. Norma looked at the wall and I looked at Norma. I had a question for her. A black bird flew past the window. The blanket fell over one of Norma’s shoulders. I walked to where she sat, one eye on the hungry bird. I stopped beside her chair. The bird’s eye shone as he flew past. Norma was the sad moon. I pulled two white sticks from the elastic in my pants. I took a deep breath and asked my question: ‘Smoke, Norma?’ The bird stopped flying and watched me. His beak could break the glass. I asked my question again: ‘Smoke, Norma?’ She looked at me, very slow. Her face had a shadow and a cut and some of her hair was gone. I asked the question one more time, the bird outside tapping at the glass with his beak. ‘Smoke, Norma?’ I held out the white stick. She didn’t take it. I put both white sticks into my mouth, struck the match against the box and lit two fires. I put one white stick between Norma’s lips. ‘Suck, Norma,’ I said. ‘Suck.’ Norma sucked. The fire glowed hot. She closed her eyes. God’s peace was on its way. When she opened her eyes again she smiled at me through the smoke that curled from her nose and her mouth and I saw the dark gaps of her missing teeth behind the smoke. I smiled back. ‘Norma K,’ I said. When I looked up at the window the bird outside had flown away. Norma sent a picture of herself waving, hello, I’m back, down the rope to me, and this time there was no knot in the way.
It was Air Time and Norma and me walked the same steps, our feet tied together. The sun warmed our heads and the green leaves danced for us on the other side. Two white chariots passed on the road; I watched until they disappeared. Norma scratched at her wrists. ‘The devil always comes after I see Harrison. He had me in the bed but when you came to me he went away. He was gone before I got the shot.’ She stopped at the wire so I stopped too. ‘Nobody ever got him to go away before.’ We held on to the wire. ‘They zapped me anyway.’ Norma winked at me. Her green butterfly sat against the side of my hand.
I was in the pool with the ladies. None of them had faces; only Norma floating beside me had a face. A man wearing short pants and white socks stood on the side of the pool and put his arms over his head. Music played. Nurse Clegg said, ‘Do as Mr Wills,’ and lifted her arms too. Some of the ladies without faces lifted their arms and some didn’t. Norma splashed me, she was laughing. I splashed her back; white water filled the air. Some of the ladies turned slowly like Mr Wills. Mr Wills didn’t have a face either; no nose or mouth or eyes. Air went into him through his skin. Norma jumped on my shoulders and we went under. I opened my eyes. Norma was laughing under the water. She was soft at the edges as she moved. We stayed under there for a long time. When we came up the ladies and Mr Wills and Nurse Clegg were sleeping on the shore. The breath went slowly in and out through their skins because they had no faces. Norma and me were in our own land; it was a water land where you never had to lift your arms or make a smooth transition. We ran over round black stones and then we grew fish tails and dived into the water.
Nurse Clegg gave us cleaning duties. I got the job of washing around the sinks. Brown sticky sink dirt was caught under the taps and it was my job to take it away. I put the sponge in the bucket and then I wiped under the taps. The brown dirt came off the white tiles and went into my sponge. The small holes in the sponge were little round beds for the dirt. The dirt moved from one place to another place. It was my job to move it. My sponge had changed colour now that it was a house for sink dirt. How would you ever get the dirt to go away for good? It never goes away it just changes houses. ‘Get on with it, Hester.’ A blue shoes came close. I kept wiping.
We were walking around the Airing Court. Norma talked while I kept watch for black birds. ‘I can do a lot of things in the outside world; I mean, I used to.’ Grey clouds filled the sky. ‘I could drive a car and work in a shop. I worked on a boat once, with my brother. I cooked. I had my own money – but I could never tell when the devil was coming. It’s better to be here then out there. He could really get me out there, and I never knew when.’ Soft rain began to fall. ‘I tried to kill myself. More than once, I tried. That’s why I’m here. I don’t have to be here. I can leave any time. I could be living with my brother. He lives near a river and he fishes. He used to live in the city, but he had a breakdown, because of what happened when we were kids. It happened more to me than him. When I see him it reminds me. But I can’t stop seeing him. He’s my baby brother. I’ve got money from when the house was sold. My brother has it saved.
I told him to spend it. I told him I’m never leaving here. I’ll go to hell if I leave here.’ Norma’s face was red. ‘You saved me the other night. You are my saving angel.’ Her eyes were a mirror and in the mirror I could see myself. I was made of light and I flew through the rain like Gabriel with a message.
I woke up; handle, axe, spoon, broom, stairs, tree and table all called to me at once. Their voices filled the room. I wanted to answer them, but because they all spoke at the same time it was hard to know who to talk to, or what they were saying. The room was full of whispers, then shouting, then back to whispers. ‘Handle,’ I said, because he was my first friend. ‘What are you saying?’ Handle went to answer but spoon jumped in, and then broom; they laughed and whispered so that I couldn’t hear handle. ‘Quiet!’ I told them. ‘Handle, what are you saying?’ When he went to answer the wood going into the red wood stove called out to me so loud that I had to cover my ears with my hands. I went to sleep; when I woke no light came through the square cut out of my door. I couldn’t hear the talk of blue shoes in the hall, I couldn’t hear the television in the nurse’s quarter, or the shouting of ladies lost and looking for a hanging room. It was a black and empty space between other spaces. Something just for me was coming. It was one voice made of all the voices I’d ever heard. ‘Go home.’
I kept the brush from Alice Plow’s visit hidden in my pants. On the end of my bed I painted Norma and me on the spoon-boat. We were all yellow and made of stolen breakfast yolk and we sailed through the neck of the bottle together.
‘What do you want, Hester? I want to give you something.’ Norma sat beside me while dogs jumped through hoops in the box of tricks.
‘What is something?’ I asked.
‘Something I can do for you,’ she answered. The dogs jumped through the highest hoop. The hoop was on fire.
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