The Stars at Oktober Bend

by Glenda Millard

  when manny finished reading the small red story he said, ‘you are gold, alice nightingale. you are truly gold.’ and i laughed because now i knew that gold was excellent and also because i had learnt to write much better that i did then. manny laughed too. it is hard not to laugh with someone when their laughter is made out of pure happiness. our voices became part of the deep humming universe. when we came down again we lay on my bed and twined our legs together the way i had once imagined we would on the narrows of the blue couch. and manny looked so beautiful that i told him the legend of lucifer and asked him if that was his real name.

  ‘my mother called me emmanuel,’ he said. ‘it means god is with us.’

  then he leaned close and pressed his lips to mine. i was not sure if he was telling the truth about his name and its meaning, but i was almost certainly fifteen.

  45 MANNY

  Two Heads One Heart

  I went many times to Alice’s house in the school holidays. But one night when I was going home, there were two boys leaning against the wall inside the railway waiting room. It was very late and there were no more trains coming or going and no passengers waiting. Only those two boys were there. It was Tilda’s half-brother, Lucas Stewart, and Hamish O’Leary, that is who it was. They stopped leaning against the wall when I came in and I could see that it was me they were waiting for. They stood very close to me. So close that I had to stop.

  ‘Where have you been?’ That is what Lucas said to me.

  I did not think it was a good idea to tell him where I had been, so I said that I had just been out running. O’Leary laughed. It was not a happy laugh.

  ‘As if!’ he said.

  ‘Next time you see Joey Nightingale, tell him to keep away from Tilda,’ said Lucas.

  ‘But Tilda likes Joey,’ I answered.

  ‘Tilda thinks she likes Joey,’ O’Leary said. ‘Her old man’s a copper, and he wouldn’t want his daughter getting mixed up with scum like the Nightingales.’

  ‘Why don’t you tell Joey, Lucas?’

  It was only a question. I thought that it was a polite question, but Hamish O’Leary did not like what I had asked his friend. He stepped closer to me and grabbed a handful of my shirt. I remembered the dagger and the drops of blood. If it had been a real knife I could have reached around and severed his spinal cord in seconds. I had seen it done. I had been made to watch. His lips curled back like a snarling dog’s.

  ‘Listen smart-arse,’ he said, ‘just tell him, right? And tell him that if he doesn’t, it’s payback time’

  I had still not grown used to asking people for advice. But on this night I knew that I should speak to kind Louisa James. Perhaps if I told her a little more about Alice I would find it easier to ask her whether or not I should be worried about Hamish O’Leary’s warning.

  ‘What is it?’ Louisa James asked me before I had spoken a word. She was truly gold.

  ‘I am not certain,’ I said.

  ‘Then perhaps we can work it out together. Shall I make cocoa?’

  My heart felt lighter then, the way it used to when I was a small boy and my mother would hold my hand and say, ‘Two heads one heart, Emmanuel.’ So I told Louisa James.

  ‘There is a girl, the one I told you about a few weeks ago. Do you remember? The one I took home.’

  ‘You mean the one who had a seizure in the railway waiting room?’

  I should have said, Yes, but she is much more than that, Louisa James. Instead I nodded.

  ‘Her name is Alice.’

  ‘Yes, I remember. And you’ve met her again since then?’

  ‘I went for a run near the river and she was there,’ I said. ‘Now I have met her many times.’

  ‘So Alice is a friend now. Good, good.’

  ‘Yes, Alice is my friend,’ I said, and in my heart I knew that I was right to tell Louisa James.

  ‘But there’s more?’

  ‘Yes, there is more. There are boys from school who say very bad things about her.’

  ‘What sort of things?’

  ‘They use words I cannot say in front of a lady, Louisa James.’

  ‘Do you believe they’re true, Manny?’

  ‘I know they are not.’

  ‘Do you know these boys?’

  ‘Yes, I know them. They play in my football team.’

  ‘Are they your friends?’

  ‘I do not want to be friends with them.’

  ‘Because of what they say about Alice?’

  ‘Because of that and other things.’

  ‘What other things, Manny?’

  ‘One of the boys has a step-sister. They want me to tell Alice’s brother to keep away from her.’

  ‘Did they say why?’

  I could not tell Louisa James what Hamish O’Leary really said, and although I had seen the way he looked at Tilda Cassidy and heard the things he said to her, I would only have been guessing if I said he was jealous of Joey.

  ‘I asked them why and they said her father would not like it.’ That is what I told Louisa James.

  ‘Then the father should speak to his daughter. This has nothing to do with you, or those boys. Do you hear me, Manny?’

  ‘Yes, I hear you, Louisa James, but should I tell Joey?’

  ‘Joey?’

  ‘The brother of Alice.’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with you. Don’t get mixed up in it.’

  I did not want to be mixed up in it, but that did not stop me wondering. What revenge was Hamish O’Leary planning to take if I did not do what he said? And who would he take it on?

  46 ALICE

  july

  short days

  school holidays and sky

  the colour of a gun

  joey and the dancing girl

  in the house

  gram dozing

  by the fire wheezing

  her way through winter

  not looking for trouble

  in tilda’s eyes

  manny and me

  under them all under

  old charlie’s table under

  the house under

  the floorboards under

  dusty chandeliers of

  spider silk under

  a quilt of patches

  in the blue painted noah boat

  our salvation

  in times of flood

  two of every creature

  female and male

  his french knots upon

  my pillow

  holy pages in my hands

  and manny unaware

  of the killer in the corner

  the colour of july.

  in july, manny and me went on a voyage of our own while bear was in the bath. it was joey’s turn to wash and brush her. we took manny’s music player in the boat. one bud in my ear. one in his. buds that blossomed into songs, not flowers. powerful music that drummed in our ears like breakers crashing. drove us through the storm. we drifted where the four strong winds and currents took us. light fell like god-rays through the cracks in the kitchen floor above us. at the forty-ninth parallel we dropped anchor and listened to a piece of music that my mother played. an exquisite, melancholy melody. i wondered if she had played it to me while i was in her belly. if she knew even then we would be parted. wondered, too, if manny’s mother had sung sad songs to him.

  i should have waited. but i had told manny secrets, our legs had tangled in the hills and valleys of my bedding and many times now his lips had touched mine. i imagined that gave me the right to answers to my questions. he sometimes mentioned the people he lived with in the house of windows. kind louisa and bull james. talked about school and football. but i wanted to know more. wanted to hear about things that had touched him and left their mark.

  ‘did your mother leave you?’ i asked, still under the spell of the music.

  ‘yes,’ he answered, staring over the bow of our boat like he was searching for distant lands.

  i should have sensed how close to the rocks we were. should have
seen the darkening sky. felt the waves dash themselves against the flimsy sides of our boat. but i did not. i was like post-office-hattie with her cold eyes and sharp questions. i wanted to know why other people’s mothers left them.

  ‘was she young and talented? did they tell you not to stand in her way?’

  ‘my mother is dead,’ said manny.

  words abandoned me. i was ashamed.

  i should have known that death was another reason for forsaking. i slid my right hand between the boat’s curved ribs and manny’s shoulders. held it with my left to make a never-ending circle of arms around him. tried to draw him close but he stayed frozen. stayed where he was, still as teddy’s angel.

  ‘i cannot touch you, alice’, he said, ‘not the way i want to.’

  ‘you said that i was gold, manny.’

  ‘i did and i meant it.’

  ‘it was those boys, wasn’t it? you heard the things they called me. but i am not what they say.’

  ‘i do not listen to what they say.’

  ‘then what is it?’

  rain sheeted down beyond the stumps of the house. the river gathered speed. manny said nothing for the longest time and i waited, afraid he would tell me he was mistaken; that i was not shining and precious at all, i was dirty and worthless. at last he spoke but not in a voice i recognised.

  ‘my mother was murdered. they all were. my whole family,’ he said in an elsewhere voice that seemed saved for telling unsayable truths. there was no forgetting in manny james, no short-circuiting electrics, no learning again to speak and write. every awful second of what had happened was stamped clear in his mind.

  ‘in my country, the soldiers did terrible things to girls and women. that is what they did to my mother and sister. i was there. they made me watch. i cannot forget. and now when i close my eyes, i see you too, alice. i see you when you were twelve, what those men did to you.’

  manny’s tears fell, and i howled with rage, ‘may they all rot in hell!’

  when my throat was raw and our tears had dried to salt, i whispered, ‘don’t let them hurt you, too, manny. let us not look back. let us see only what is here and now.’

  at last manny’s arms went around me. we lay in the belly of the boat, seeking refuge from ourselves and for ourselves in each other. our bodies fit together, soft and hard, giving, taking. and i shed twelveness like a skin.

  that night i opened my book of flying and began to write a story: the true story of a boy called emmanuel james and a girl called alice nightingale.

  ‘the peaches were pink as angel’s cheeks,’ i wrote, ‘when manny james began to love alice.’

  all i had written there before was mostly longings, wonderings or imaginings; shining things to keep the dark at bay. these new words hungered me for things i had never dared want. what might become of us, i wondered? would love and peaches be enough to satisfy our hunger and make us whole again?

  47 ALICE

  the game

  spring was the usual time for big rains in bridgewater, but july rained steady for a fortnight. on the last saturday of the school holidays ribbons of sun, pale as old straw, leaked through the morning clouds, lit my window and seemed like a foretelling of better things. bear pulled her feather-boa tail close. stayed where she was at my feet. i pulled the blankets to my chin, pressed my back to the chimney. downstairs joey made morning sounds: filled the kettle, dumped wood on the hearth, stoked the stove.

  when the chimney heated up, i went down, kissed gram and cooked a tower of pikelets. we gobbled them like a celebration of the sun, sprinkled with sugar and squeezed lemon juice. afterwards we carted barrow-loads of firewood from under the house to the verandah. joey stopped when tilda appeared, bright as a robin. red-coated, black-booted.

  ‘we’re going to the footy,’ joey said.

  ‘football?’ i couldn’t remember joey ever going to a match before.

  ‘i only go to make dad happy,’ tilda said. ‘why don’t you come with us, alice? you should see manny, he’s a star. heaps better than anyone else on the team.’

  gold, manny was gold, of course he was! he and i had only ever been together in my world. i wanted to see him in his. did i dare? the bombers would be on the field. i would be only one in a crowd of many spectators. no one would know i was there, i told myself.

  ‘how long does it take to play a game of football?’ i asked. ‘not too long,’ answered joey.

  ‘what about gram?’ i asked, but perfect tilda had thought of everything.

  ‘i brought this,’ she said, opening the flaps of a cardboard box. ‘it’s a vaporiser.’ she showed us how to fill the reservoir with water. where to put the drops of eucalyptus oil. ‘then you plug it into an electricity outlet and it makes steam. it might help your grandma breathe.’ then she looked at me like she could tell i was worrying about something. ‘don’t worry, no one will know it’s missing,’ she said. ‘i used to get croup when i was a kid, but we haven’t used it in years.’

  we set the steamer going, stoked the stove. i put my arms into my raincoat and my feet into two pairs of socks, and wondered exactly how much nightingale business tilda knew. then i thought about manny and the things i had told him, and for a breath i thought it would be easier if it were just me and joey again. when our love for each other was enough.

  we can never go back to that, alice nightingale, because now we have secrets from each other. i did not know how to name the feeling inside me. i could not tell if it was fear or sadness or excitement, or a mixture of all three.

  by the time we left, the sun had gone again. joey rode his bike through the drizzle with tilda on the handlebars and me on the parcel rack thinking about manny.

  tilda had free passes for her and joey. bear and me got in under the fence behind the visitors’ change room. i hurried to where the others stood near a fire drum just around from the goals at the foundry end of the ground. we waited for the teams to run on. the home team jogged onto the field first. striped with black and red, like tilda. they kicked the ball to one another and passed it with their hands. high and low, quick and slow. practising.

  ‘i can’t see manny,’ joey said.

  ‘maybe he’s starting on the bench,’ said tilda.

  ‘why would they start their best player on the bench – unless he’s not fit?’

  a man was standing near us, warming his hands at the fire. he heard joey and tilda talking.

  ‘manny james is on loan to the opposition today. they’re three men down.’

  ‘why would the bombers let manny go?’ asked joey.

  the man shrugged his shoulders. ‘they reckon it was captain’s choice.’

  ‘which captain?’ asked tilda.

  ‘bombers of course. they don’t have to do it, but the cheetahs are struggling this season – can’t field a team most weeks and haven’t won a game since the second round. nice gesture by the bombers, but i dunno why young stewart would give away his best player.’

  ‘he’s up to something,’ tilda said, after the man had walked off towards the bar.

  ‘what do you mean?’ joey asked.

  ‘lucas wouldn’t do anything to help another team, i know he wouldn’t. he was awarded best and fairest three seasons in a row. but then manny came and he’s so much better than everyone else. i think lucas is jealous of him.’

  ‘even if he is, it doesn’t explain why he’d loan manny to the cheetahs.’

  i heard but didn’t understand. football was a mystery to me. then tilda said something that caught my attention. it wasn’t her words but the way she said them.

  ‘unless . . .’ she said, then she shook her head and looked at joey. ‘oh god, i hope they don’t do anything stupid.’

  ‘they?’

  ‘lucas and hamish.’

  ‘it’s a game of footy, tilda, there’s umpires out there – and rules. they can’t just do whatever they like.’

  ‘what are you talking about?’ i said. my chest tight.

  ‘it’s not
important,’ joey said. ‘look, they’re tossing the coin. the game will start in a minute. i s’pose you’ll be barracking for the yellow and blacks!’

  ‘for manny,’ i said.

  i didn’t care who won or lost. it was only manny that i watched. his limbs seemed unhinged like a cat’s. he moved with grace and strength and speed. at times he soared above the others to catch the red ball in the wide grey sky. though he was dressed in yellow and black, even the bridgewater supporters gasped at the sight of him.

  halfway through the game the players left the ground. tilda, joey and me went to the canteen and bought hot sausages and onions wrapped in bread. we ate them with our backs to the fire drum and licked sauce off our fingers.

  the players came outside again and the umpire in his long socks and shorts. the ball was tucked under his arm. a silver whistle dangled from a cord around his neck. i remembered what joey said. there are rules and there are umpires. players cannot do whatever they please. i told myself this meant that nothing bad could happen to manny.

  the game was almost at its end. the umpire bounced the ball. i watched it rise and fall. saw it spill out between the cheetahs’ legs. hands reached in, passed the ball to other hands. fast as lightning to a boot it fell, and i looked from it to manny who leapt above them all. sky was in his hair and on his shoulders as he grasped the flying prize. his hands closed around it. kept it safe and pulled it down with him. down through the cheers until his boots touched the green. his arms held up the trophy for all to see. from the corner of my eye i saw a movement. an arm raised high and late. too late.