Bull and Louisa James shared their table with me and would have shared it with others, too.
‘Why don’t you ask some friends home, Manny? Invite them for dinner.’ These are the kinds of things they said to me. And when I told them that I did not have any friends yet, Louisa James said, ‘What about the boys you play football with?’
‘I do not think those boys are my friends,’ I said. That was a fact. That was what I thought and that was what I told Louisa James.
‘Maybe if you ask them around, you’ll get to know them better.’
But I was not listening. I was thinking about a table for twenty. I was thinking of how long it took to build and how quickly it burnt when the soldiers set fire to it.
‘Well, just think about it. When you’re ready.’ The voice of Louisa James was gentle and her eyes were the colour of the sea, and I hoped that some day I could tell her about my father’s table.
32 ALICE
my grandmother’s chest
joey stopped asking me whether i wanted to go dancing. i guess it seemed like i was getting harder than ever to understand. not the sound of me, but the things i did or didn’t do. running away from manny, the boy i clearly wanted to be near. the only boy who’d ever asked to hear my voice. joey wasn’t the only one who was confused.
i didn’t miss ballet lessons but i missed joey urging me to come. i missed wrapping my arms around him, feeling his body move as he pedalled, and the laughter that followed us. i wondered if i would ever hold someone like joey again. someone who knew everything about me and loved me just the same. or rather, if someone like that would hold me.
i never saw joey in tights again after that first day. but he still left at the same time on wednesdays. still said he was going to ballet. but he never said anything about tilda. or manny. it felt like another silence was growing. i wanted to stop it by telling him my idea about the table.
‘you could bring tilda.’ i’d say it like inviting people to eat with us was something we did all the time. ‘we could have real spaghetti. the kind that doesn’t come in cans. and you could make your famous bolognese sauce,’ i’d tell him, although he’d never made it for anyone but me. there’d be billy buttons on the table and unchipped plates. i never thought about my own silence or what would happen if i did speak when tilda’s perfect elbows were almost touching mine. thoughts of seizures didn’t trouble me. i’d be home, safe; bear beside, lion’s paws beneath.
‘maybe gram’ll make apple pie,’ i’d say. blanking out the shortness of her breath, the slowness of her walking.
one wednesday, when it was time for joey to leave, i watched from the verandah.
‘what’s up?’ he said throwing his leg over the bike. for a second i wanted to climb on behind him. sit on the parcel rack like nothing had changed. wondered if fifteen was hard for everyone, or just for people like me.
‘you can come with me if you want,’ he said. i shook my head and went inside. filled a flask with tea and made cheese sandwiches.
‘c’mon, gram,’ i said. ‘come with me while i bait the shrimp nets.’
‘long way down there.’
‘no it’s not. c’mon, i made tea and sandwiches.’
gram was slow. it took us much longer than i thought. we sat on the rocks in the sun, gram and bear and me. when gram’s breathing steadied, she cut chunks of soap from a yellow laundry bar. i wrapped them in gum leaves, put them in the nets and dropped them into the river. when they were all done i poured the tea and we shared the sandwiches. the food and drink loosened gram’s tongue.
‘good job you done of the table,’ she said. ‘shame ol’ charlie’s not here to see it.’
‘it’ll still be there when he comes home,’ i said. i’d given up asking when we could go and see him again.
‘that’s if he gets outta there alive.’
‘he’ll come home.’ i said. inside i wasn’t so sure. ‘maybe we should use it,’ i said.
gram blew small brown ripples across her tea. sucked in a few slow sips. i didn’t expect her to answer.
‘it’s too big for three. ’minds me of all the others who should be there.’
‘we could ask other people. to fill the gaps.’
‘no one would come,’ she said.
‘why not?’
‘because we’re not like them. we’re different.’
‘you mean they’re not like me, crazy in the head. is that why you won’t let me ask anyone – because i talk funny? because of the fits?’
‘of course not. it’s nothing to do with that.’
‘what then?’
‘people talk about us.’
‘tell me one thing they say that matters. one thing.’ gram didn’t answer.
‘so, if i ask someone and they say they’ll come, that’s okay?’
gram looked at me, kind of desperate, then she said, ‘there’s my chest.’
of all the excuses she could have made: my weirdness, her drinking, old charlie, the falling down house – she’d chosen her chest. her chest! if she’d said, ‘because i’m sick, because my lungs are ruined’ or ‘because i’ve got emphysema,’ i would have replied, ‘we’ll do all the work. joey will cook, i’ll clean.’ but gram said, ‘there’s my chest,’ and i surprised myself. as smart-mouthed as any teenaged girl, i said, ‘what about your chest? is it too small, too big, too saggy?’
laughter bubbled out. i couldn’t help it. i laughed and laughed and it felt good. even better when gram joined in. we lay on our backs on the lumpy rocks and wobbled and hollered. sweet, salty tears streamed from our eyes, down our cheeks, and vanished behind the lobes of our ears. when we were done, when we both got our breathing under control, i said, ‘what the hell, gram! i met a boy and i’m going to ask him to come and sit at old charlie’s table and he’s not going to take any notice of your chest!’
i never thought to mention colour.
33 ALICE
a question of colour
when bear and gram and me got back to the house i made iced tea with lavender, lemons and honey. i told gram it was a potion for her chest. and we smiled at one another. but the laughter was gone. i went upstairs and put on a blue dress. i never wore blue. hated the dress. one of the country women’s ladies gave it to gram for me. it was a hand-me-down of her daughter’s.
‘tell her blue goes well with red hair, gloria,’ the woman said, as though i wasn’t there, as though she couldn’t see me standing beside gram. ‘those bright pinks and reds she wears aren’t really suitable for a redhead.’ then she looked at me. ‘i see she has green eyes,’ she said, ‘but i shouldn’t worry about that. no one else will notice.’
the day i got that dress, i took old charlie’s shaving mirror to my bedroom and held the blue dress under my chin. it looked like i was pretending to be someone else. should i have known the rules of colour? were they something else i had forgotten? i stuffed the dress in a drawer and took out my book of flying. then i climbed on the roof and took a bird’s eye view of the world before i wrote down my questions on colour.
who can tell me if
the tail of a peacock
is incorrect or
who messed with grapefruit?
ruby flesh?
orange rind?
and anyway
whose idea was it
to make grass
green and sky
blue?
furthermore is evil
always black?
or does it come in blood
red?
on the other hand if black is
only wicked
shouldn’t someone change the colour
of midnight or
is that what
stars are for?
and just one final thing, is that girl
with crazy wiring the only one
to think
autumn is beautiful and that
the rainbow is a work
of genius?
i had always wanted to us
e the word furthermore.
34 ALICE
in a field of significant weeds
i remembered that poem and the reason i’d written it as bear and me walked towards charlotte’s pass, the long dry grass catching at the hem of the hated blue dress. i’d left gram in the living room, snoring invisible clouds of lavender-scented breath. at teddy’s grave i put a piece of garden china and a feather in the angel’s broken fingers. then i tucked the hand-me-down dress into my underpants and crawled up the cutting. bear made a dog-nest in the grass and i, in my dress of invisibility, fitted into the couch like the last blue piece of a jigsaw puzzle.
joey and me had talked about how the couch got to where it was. sitting near the top of the cutting, hidden from the road by the safety barrier. he said it might have fallen off the back of a truck. maybe the driver didn’t know. or maybe he did and couldn’t be bothered dragging it back to the top. or maybe someone just dumped it there, joey said. it had been there for as long as i could remember. the midnight blue faded to the colour of forget-me-knots. the soft pile, the difference between ordinary cloth and velvet, wore off. sunlight and rain bleached the wooden armrest white as horn. but still you could see it wasn’t an ordinary couch. at one end was a curved, cushioned back. it held you like an arm around your shoulder. the other end had no back at all. it was a couch properly made for putting your feet up. an elegant couch.
in spring, thistles covered the walls of the cutting with purple heads the size of tea cups. woolly grey leaves folded over like rabbit’s ears. the thistle had a proper name, recorded in the book of significant weeds. it is onopordum. the elegant couch also has a proper name. it is chaise longue. if heaven exists and if there are couches there, i think they will be chaise longues.
sometimes when planes fly by
i imagine the pilot and
his passengers among them
a truck driver jetting
his way
to the forty-ninth
parallel or to london where
the weather is mostly
grey
his drowsy holiday
eyes turning towards
a window catching
a fleeting glance of his
long lost
couch caught like
a scrap of sky in
an amethyst sea
of significant weeds.
one long-ago morning, when mist made the rabbit-ear leaves almost invisible, i flew over the amethyst field. over the forget-me-not couch. over teddy’s angel. a helicopter rotor chop-chop-chopped urgently at the clotted-cream clouds. and i inside, heard nothing, saw nothing. i was on my way to a hospital in the city. no one in bridgewater knew how to help a girl like me.
i came home by train in summer. stopping all stations. the steeps of charlotte’s pass rising up outside our window. sun-dried thistles strewn like the rib cages of dead animals at the feet of the elegant couch.
but almost four years have passed since then. on this day, i lay on the couch watching what was present and waiting for what was to come. i wished for manny to come. to sit beside me at old charlie’s table. lie next to me on the couch, our hearts held close by its one curved arm, our legs twined together down its blue narrows.
but wanting manny to sit with his elbows touching mine would not make it happen overnight. i remembered how long the god of flying things had made me wait till manny came that first time, and tried not to think of how i ran away from him.
i might have mentioned before, how gram had a saying or a song for every occasion. one of her favourites went something like this:
‘god sometimes likes you to take the initiative.’
joey said that was hedging your bets. he said gram invented it because she wouldn’t admit there was no one up there to answer her prayers.
that day, in the hand-me-down dress that clashed with my eyes, i gave gram the benefit of the doubt and god three weeks. the furniture and i were ready. i was shouting on the inside. a fist raised to the sky.
35 ALICE
anthem
a flock of cockatoos rose like rags in a dust devil. i heard the bridgewater bombers before i saw them running towards the tarpit. i felt invisible on the forget-me-not couch. its faded arm was around my blue shoulders. the footballers far away, ran circuits up around the barbecue and down again carrying bricks. one in each hand. in small towns like bridgewater, people make do. manny ran with them. even from my distant perch on the couch i could tell it was him. i wished he ran alone. boys in bunches sometimes dare. sometimes call down ravens like sorcerers call down spirits. maybe manny was more like other boys than i’d thought. i imagined a wall made of forty-four bricks. wondered if it would be big enough to keep me safe.
there is courage and there is caution, gram says. when you are twelve until forever it’s hard to know which is which. so i waited while the bombers trained, scared to leave, scared to stay. not sure if i was brave or stupid coming here in the first place, hoping to speak to manny. gram said we should learn from our mistakes. i was twelve years old when i made my biggest mistake. it happened the night i went shrimping, when i stayed on the hill to watch the stars above oktober bend instead of following papa and joey to the river.
at last the bombers threw their bricks in a heap and the coach left. i willed the others to go with him. wished manny would look up. but the sun was low and i couldn’t wait. i had to be home before dark. when i stood up someone shouted. one of the footballers stabbed his finger in my direction. others turned, shouted some things i couldn’t hear and some i could.
‘moron! slut!’ they yelled and laughed.
i wanted bracken tunnels to swallow me up in their darkness. wanted to disappear myself down a wombat hole. but the bridgewater bombers stood between me and those secret places that only me and joey knew. i dragged myself the short distance to the top of the pass. found my feet and ran along the horizon, close to the burning crack between heaven and earth, near to the light. bear ran with me, her breath warm and loud on my heels.
fear swelled inside me. fear i’d be followed. the railway station lights winked on. the train pulled in. bear and me rounded the waiting-room door. people were everywhere. i slid down the wall. hunched in a corner. alone in the crowd. bear and me. the grass-stained skirt of my dress had ripped away from the bodice. i wiped my eyes and nose with it. pulled it down over my knees. joey wasn’t there to keep them together. bear barked. the birds were coming. sometimes she heard their flapping wings before i did. i opened my mouth. a raven’s voice scraped at my throat,
‘fetch joey!’ it said, ‘fetch!’ and bear ran.
light stroked the lids
of my eyes and i
wondered if i
had fallen
into the crack between
heaven and earth that place
where the sun is
swallowed up between
the violet lips
of dusk.
i know a song about cracks. i heard it when i was in the rehab hospital. most people there were old, but the lady in the bed next to me was about my mother’s age. she was like me . . . her electrics were shot. they said she’d had a stroke. with me it was words. i knew them but found it hard to say them. with her it was arms and legs and smiles. the messages from her brain didn’t get through. her smiles were stuck on the inside, and one side of her worked and the other side didn’t. with the fingers that worked she pressed a button. played the same songs over and over.
the song about cracks was my favourite. it’s called anthem. i wasn’t sure what the words meant. but the song is a poem and poems mean whatever you want them to. in rehab i told myself that the message was about how things aren’t always perfect but they can still be beautiful. even broken things.
anthem was playing in my head. someone was stroking my arm. the frosted ticket window was shut. the waiting room was empty. no one was waiting for trains to come or go. but manny was waiting. he was waiting for me. i wanted to ask him if he kne
w the song about cracks.
36 ALICE
heroes and villains
joey came, fetched by bear. frightened, i imagine, to see bear’s loneness at our door. he confronted us at the orchard gate. glance as sharp as glass, took in my face, torn blue dress, filthy knees.
‘where have you been? what have you done?’ his hasty words accused.
weariness swayed me. i could find no voice to explain the tear-tracks, the ripping and the filth. looked to manny. dusk all around him like a hero’s cloak. venus, the evening star, bright as a medal over his shoulder. boys did not rescue girls like me. till then old charlie and joey had been my only heroes.
manny explained about my falling down in the railway waiting room. he did not speak of the couch on the cutting. i was grateful that he kept the secret of my stupidity. wondered if he had guessed that i had done it for a glimpse of him, for a chance to speak to him again. now we were in league, manny and me and wise bear, who sat in a comfortable heap at my feet. i trusted joey would see reason; villains did not take their victims home. they prowled like wild dogs, taking what they wanted, leaving the rest lying under the stars.
into the house manny came, with joey holding the door. my grandmother sat in her chair by the stove. closed her hand around manny’s. while she looked him up and down and in his eyes, i scrubbed my knees in the wash-house. ripped off my torn clothes. dressed again in watermelon pink and tied up my tangled hair. when i came back manny was on the verandah, talking on a mobile phone. telling someone called louisa james that he’d be late. the door to the stove was open. the coals were red as hell. gram was toasting thick slabs of bread with a wire-handled fork and joey was frying green tomatoes and poaching eggs. i set the table. no cloth, just feathers in a jar and paper placemats; sheets of music from my book of flying. bird songs in case there were silences to be filled. wanted manny to see papa’s engravings, wanted him to know that we nightingales were once like other people.
The Stars at Oktober Bend Page 8