o’leary’s arm. down he brought it like a sledgehammer on the back of manny’s head. the siren sounded. manny slumped and fell forward onto the field. could not stand up to take his kick. two men in white jackets raced across the ground, looked into manny’s eyes, slid a stretcher underneath him and carried him to the changing rooms. i didn’t see the umpire give the ball to another cheetah player. didn’t see the ball slew sideways from his boot, bounce across the sodden grass, over the boundary line far from the goal. didn’t see the umpire turn o’leary around, write down the black number, stitched to his back, on a pad that he took from his pocket. didn’t care that the bombers had won by the smallest of margins.
i turned my back on it all. ran to the gate to meet the stretcher-bearers. joey and tilda behind me. i made myself look at manny’s head to see if it was split open. there was no blood on him, only mud and blades of grass stuck to the bottoms of his boots where his feet, so fast and graceful, had touched the ground. manny james looked perfect, but his eyes were closed and i wanted him to open them, to look at me and say in his proper way, alice nightingale, i am so glad that you are here today. and I wanted to answer, you were gold, manny james. pure gold.
but manny didn’t open his eyes or speak and i wanted to cry out, is there anyone here who knows about acquired brain injury? fear fastened my tongue and we could only watch as they rushed him by.
family could go inside, they said. and we were not, so we waited at the door in the mud and the drizzle while other people went in and out. the bombers were still in the centre of the ground with their arms around each other’s shoulders, singing a song about themselves as though they were gold. but when they reached the gate in the fence, tilda was waiting for the captain.
‘you planned this, lucas!’ she hissed at him. ‘i know you’re jealous of manny but you’re too gutless to do anything yourself, so you got your stupid mate o’leary to do it for you.’
‘i dunno why you’re all worked up,’ her step-brother said. ‘it’s only a game of football.’
‘you’re right about that. it is only a game and there’s no place in it for thugs.’
‘careful, tilda,’ her father said, as he waited outside the clubroom door for his players to file through.
o’leary swaggered close. ‘listen to your daddy, sweetheart, and by the way, what’s a lady like you doing, hangin’ around with trash?’ he turned towards joey and me. cleared his throat and spat on the ground in front of us. then he laughed.
perfect tilda was even more perfect than i thought. quick as a heartbeat, she landed a right hook. o’leary’s nose went sideways and blood sprayed everywhere. i could have hugged her.
48 MANNY
A Little Reminder
‘You have a concussion, Manny.’ It was the worried face of Louisa James that I saw first when I opened my eyes. Bull was beside her. They came to every game. On fine days, Bull reversed the tray of his utility in close to the fence and they sat on deck chairs in the back and ate sandwiches and drank tea at half-time. Bull boasted that his utility was a grandstand on wheels.
‘You should have seen Lou run onto the ground when she saw you go down, son,’ Bull said.
I opened my eyes again and saw the honour board that hung on the wall above Bull’s head. His name was there, painted in golden letters.
‘She ran that fast I reckon the Bombers should recruit her,’ he said.
The smile on Louisa’s mouth did not match her eyes. I wanted to ask her what had happened, but my lips would not move. The golden letters floated away and I felt myself falling again. Floating and falling, that is what it felt like when I was lying on the stretcher with all those people looking at me.
When I opened my eyes again I was in bed in the house of windows and there was only Louisa James looking at me. She was sitting in a chair beside me. It was dark outside. Clouds passed in front of the moon and small branches scraped at the glass walls of the house.
‘Go back to sleep,’ whispered Louisa James. When my alarm rang at 6.30, she was still there.
‘No running and no school. At least for a couple of days,’ she said. ‘Stay there and I’ll make you a drink.’
It was raining again and I thought about the boat under the house at Oktober Bend and about Alice. Any other Sunday I would have gone to see her. Would she wonder why I had not come? I hoped she believed me when I told her that I took no notice of the things that Lucas Stewart and Hamish O’Leary said about her.
I had not told her how they had stopped me in the railway station waiting room and told me to warn Joey away from Tilda. That was something she did not need to know. Louise James said it was none of my business either and I believed her then. But things were different now. I knew that something was very wrong but I could not remember what it was. I sat up and put my feet on the floor. That is when the walls seemed to move. I began to shiver and sweat dripped off my face. I knew I had been hit in the head and I remembered falling down. Then I remembered what Hamish O’Leary said to me before his fist connected with my skull. That is when I vomited on Louisa James’s shining floor.
In the afternoon, I could sit and stand without feeling dizzy, so I went down to the living room. I did not want to stay upstairs by myself, trying to decide what I should do about Hamish O’Leary and about Alice. It was not a good thing to think about by myself. I sat down at the table and Louisa James sat opposite me. That is where she sat when she wanted to look at me properly.
‘How are you feeling?’ she said.
‘My head is not spinning now,’ I said. Louisa James was very good at knowing when I lied.
‘That boy O’Leary won’t get away with what he did to you,’ she said.
A few weeks not playing football, I thought, but what about the other thing he threatened to do?
‘Bull’s very proud of you, Manny, but it wouldn’t break his heart if you didn’t want to keep playing.’
I remembered the honour board at the club rooms. Five times Bull’s name was painted on it, for the five times he was the Best and Fairest player of all the Bridgewater Bombers.The three true sons of Bull James were not golden boys of football. They were best and fairest at other things; banking and business and medicine.
I played the game because it made Bull happy.
Louisa James’s voice was gentle, but I did not want to talk about football. I did not want to think about Hamish O’Leary or what he had said. I wanted to talk about Alice. The sound of her name in the bright warm room would make everything right. That is what I was thinking when Louisa James put aside the peas she had been shelling. She reached across the table and put her hand over mine and that is when I thought I was in trouble.
‘Manny,’ she said, ‘at the game yesterday, there were some young people waiting at the gate when you were carried off the field. They seemed very upset. I thought they might have known you.’
‘Was there a dog, a very big dog?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I was so worried about you that I didn’t notice much else. All I can remember now is that one of those people was a girl with beautiful hair. Reddish and curly. Very long.’
‘Alice,’ I said, ‘it must have been. Red is the colour of Alice’s hair.’
‘I wondered if it might be her. Perhaps you should ring and tell her you’re okay.’
‘There is no phone at Alice’s house,’ I said. I wanted to hear her voice more than anything else.
‘Oh well, I guess you’ll see her at school in a couple of days.’
‘Alice is not a student,’ I said. ‘Not at Saint Simeon’s,’ I said that part quickly and then I kept talking because I had made a mistake.
‘She is very clever, Louisa James. She is called The Fly-maker of Bridgewater and she makes trout lures that are so beautiful that some people collect them the way other people collect paintings or other valuable objects.’
I had read those words in a fishing magazine that Joey showed me and I learnt them by heart. Once I started tellin
g Louisa James about Alice, I could not stop.
‘Even the labels that Alice makes for her lures are very beautiful. Alice herself made the paper and she draws all the lettering and pictures with a pen dipped in ink. That is what she does.’ I wished I could have shown Louisa James the things that Alice made. Then I remembered the poems. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the two I carried with me.
‘She also writes poetry,’ I said, and I pushed them across the table. Louisa James read the first one.
‘I don’t know much about poetry,’ she said, ‘but this is lovely.’ Then she picked up the seed packet and I watched her face as she read.
‘They’re very good,’ she said, ‘but this one seems so . . . sad for a girl so young. How old is she?’
‘Almost sixteen.’
Louisa James read the poem again. Her face was serious.
‘What did you say her name was?’
‘Alice.’
‘No, I mean her other name.’
Louisa James knew many of the people who lived in Bridgewater; some she had helped into the world, others she had nursed back to health when they were ill. If I tell you that Alice is a Nightingale, you might remember holding the hand of a young man as he lay dying, and you might know the name of the old man who caused his death.
That is what I was thinking while Louisa James was looking at Alice’s poems. I should have trusted her. She had given a new home and a new life to a boy who had done many wrong things. I should have known that a person who does such things does not judge other people. But before I could speak, my phone began to ring. I took it from my pocket and stared at it, wondering who might be ringing me. It was not the coach and it was not Bull James, mover of mountains, and Louisa James was sitting in the same room as me.
‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’
‘Hello?’ I said, and I thought I heard the sound of coins falling.
‘Hello? Manny? It’s me . . . Joey. Hold on a minute . . . ’
‘Manny?’
‘Alice?’
‘Are you okay?’
Joey had taken Alice to the phone box outside the post office. When their coins ran out, I switched my phone off and put it in my pocket. My heart was beating very fast.
‘It was Alice,’ I told Louisa James. ‘It was her you saw at the game.’
‘What’s wrong, Manny?’
‘She just rang to see if I was all right.’
‘What is it you’re not telling me?’
‘It is nothing,’ I said, but Louisa James knew that it was not nothing.
‘At the game yesterday, they stopped play while the stretcher was being brought out and I ran onto the ground. The O’Leary boy said something to you and I’m sure he wasn’t apologising. Did you hear him? Do you remember what it was, Manny? Is what he said worrying you?’
I shook my head. That is when the table began to slide into the floor. I gripped it tightly and closed my eyes.
‘Never mind,’ said Louisa James. ‘It might come back to you later.’
I could not tell her that it never went away. I could not tell her that I could hardly think of words to speak to Alice on the phone because of what O’Leary said.
‘That was a reminder,’ he had hissed in my ear. ‘Tell Nightingale to keep away from Tilda, soldier boy, or somethin’ nasty will happen to his sister.’ That is what he said.
49 ALICE
mountain climbing
tuesday morning. undressed birches tapped their bony fingers on my stick-and-nail balcony. it rained all night and still it rained. even with my window closed i heard the low growl of the river swelled wide. scraping its belly over rocks, surging through sedge, bulrush and willow, gobbling wrens’ nests from drowning melaleucas. the chimney bricks had lost their heat. the window panes were pearly with breath that escaped me in my dreams. i drew a crooked heart on the misted glass, speared it with cupid’s dart. wrote manny’s name and mine inside. cleaned another pane with the sleeve of my pyjamas. looked down on the yard all runnied and silvered with slip. a door slammed, the house shook. joey’s feet flew fastly up the shuddery stairs and there he suddenly was, his blue-fingered hand on the brass knob of the far flung door, dripping all over my floor.
‘the river’s over the elephant rocks,’ he said, his hasty breath hot in the shivery room. ‘c’mon, we gotta get the boat out, just in case.’
bear watched through the screen door while joey pulled the winch cable out as far as it would reach into the yard. we picked our way, careful as tomcats, across the slippery ground till we reached the river end of the house where the boat was kept. i fetched the book of kells and the cadbury’s roses tin.
joey filled a plastic garbage bin with water
lowered the propellor of the outboard
motor into the bin
opened the choke
primed it
pulled the cord and swore
when it didn’t start
did it all
over again exactly
like old charlie did
including the swearing.
joey left the motor idling. fetched the snake gun. wrapped it in rags and plastic. tucked it in the boat, careful as you would a baby. killed the motor, lifted it in beside the gun, pulled a tarp over everything. fastened it tight, knotted a rope with a truckie’s hitch. wedged two steel pipes under the bow and rolled the boat forward till the pipes were at the stern. shifted the pipes from back to front till the boat was close enough to attach the cable hook. we took turns to wind the slippery winch handle. hauled the boat across the wet clay yard, up the steps and onto the verandah. padlocked it to a post with a length of chain.
i kicked off my mud-caked boots at the wash-house door. hung my sopping coat to drip dry. joey sat on the step towelling his hair.
‘you can have first shower,’ he said. ‘i’ll get the fire going.’
i stayed. sat beside him.
‘what are we going to do about gram?’ i said. ‘what if the rain keeps up? she can’t even walk up the stairs. how will we get her out?’
joey stared into the drizzle. quiet. i thought he was going to be mad at me for nagging about gram. finally he opened his mouth.
‘ever felt like you were right on the edge of something big, alice? like you’re clinging to the side of a cliff, you’ve done all the hard work, your fingernails are busted, your guts are red raw, your knees are bleeding, but you’re so close that all you have to do is throw your leg over the top. then you hear a voice and you look up and someone’s beaten you to it. you meet their eyes and you think they’re gonna give you a hand, but instead they stomp all over your fingers and turn their back as you fall, and you know that no matter how many times you pick yourself up and climb that rock face, the same thing’s gonna happen.’
i had never heard joey talk that way before. never heard him say that many words together. my little brother was always the one who made me feel good. made me feel like i could do anything. i didn’t know what to say. writing was easier for me than talking. it gave me time to find the proper words. put down the things i felt. made me understandable. i felt twelve all over again, squatting beside joey, squeezing the wet brown hems of my pyjama pants, trying to find the right words.
‘what about tilda?’ i said. ‘tilda is a very good thing.’
‘she won’t come no more,’ joey said.
then i understood his black mood.
‘why not?’
‘i went to see her, yesterday, after school. her brother and o’leary bailed me up, said her old man warned her to keep away from me. she won’t come back, alice. she can’t, even if she wants to.’
was this forsaking? would other people forsake us too? not just family? i thought of tilda in her red coat, bright as poppies in our winter garden. kind tilda with an invitation for me and a vaporizer for gram. brave tilda with her true words and perfect right hook.
‘she will come, joey,’ i said and i believed. but joey shook his head.
&n
bsp; ‘there’s always someone who thinks we’re not good enough.’
i took a shower as hot as i could stand it. lightning fanged, the sky rattled. i sat on the broken orange tiles. wrapped my arms around myself and cried for joey. i had found ledges of safety. small pockets of happiness had blossomed on my rock face: a kiss, a kindness, a rare comeuppance. with these i was content. each step was a triumph. i’d never imagined arriving at the top. never wondered if someone waited there. to help me up. or tread my fingers into the dirt. now i wondered if manny’s people waited there.
i remembered the strangeness in manny’s voice on sunday. but for joey, i would never have gone to the phone box. i hated telephones. the person on the other end could not see me. ears were all they had and ears could not hear the movements of my mouth or the straining tendons in my neck. ears had no way of knowing of my fight to break the silence. joey fed coins into a slot and dialled the numbers. then manny spoke and all the shining queens and kangaroos tumbled in the darkness. the phone was in my hand, waiting, empty and i had to find words for manny. and he for me. when he spoke he did not sound like the boy who had listened to my secrets and told me his.
at the end of our awkward conversation, i knew a little more and a lot less. and now, because of that, i wondered if someone had seen me at the match.
watching manny fly
watching him fall
and me
running and running to
the low latched gate to
the stretcher where he lay with
my arms not around him and
his eyes not looking
did they hear my broken voice cry out,
‘does anyone know . . . ?’
did they?
did they tell manny james to keep away from me? or was he more broken than he told me on the phone? because now it was tuesday and still he had not come.
The Stars at Oktober Bend Page 13