joey was in the kitchen when i came to get dressed in front of the fire. gram was as gray as the clay in the yard and felt the same – cold and damp. there was just us three again and we did what we had to do.
joey said, ‘you gotta walk, gram, else your lungs will drown.’
‘so you think you’re a doctor now?’ she wheezed.
‘i looked it up at school,’ he said, ‘c’mon.’
we upped her from her cot, together again, the way we were before tilda and manny. me under one shoulder, joey under the other. this was our rock face, our nightingale business.
‘river’s up,’ joey said.
‘think i can’t hear it?’ said gram, sliding her knitted slippers along the floor like she was skiing across the forty-ninth parallel.
‘we got the boat ready, gram,’ i said.
‘me and charlie used to go fishin’ in that boat.’
‘maybe when you’re better we can go again. you, me and joey.’
‘that’s enough,’ she said and stopped. ‘i’m all out of breath.’
‘once more,’ joey said and we lumped her round the kitchen again, slow as a month of wet sundays.
gram leaned herself against the sink to catch her breath. i brushed her hair slow and smooth while we stared out. behind the orchard where our bonfires once burnt, the river spread her creamy petticoats. i wondered if gram was remembering old charlie pulling me and joey in the billy cart, wheeling our homemade angel to her fiery death. wondered if her superstitious mind believed that burning the angel had let to all our troubles, to cliffs that none of us could climb.
my fingers parted her hair into tributaries and streams. wove them under and over and under again. tied the ends with a scrap of wool and wound the finished braid around her head like a crown. fastened it with bobby pins.
‘you look like a queen, gram,’ i said. it was ten o’clock and the smell of frying eggs was in the air. i held a mirror to her face, but she pushed it away.
‘who’s that i see comin’ through the orchard?’ she said.
joey left the eggs and me and gram. and he, not yet showered, barefoot and still in pyjama shorts, magicked himself across the muck without a slip to unlatch the orchard gate. inside me and gram laughed to see him, nearly naked in the pouring rain, holding the pickets so gentlemanly for the girl he thought would never come.
50 ALICE
precious
only the tips of the garden gate’s pointed pickets were visible on wednesday morning. looked like a dinosaur’s back zig-zagging through the muddy water. half a dozen red hens roosted on the kitchen windowsill. we could almost have dived off the verandah at the river end of the house. the other end was built on bedrock. we could have climbed out the window and stepped onto the ground there.
‘we’ll be fine,’ joey said, ‘the distance between the floor and the water’s gotta be at least two metres, and anyway, it’s stopped raining now.’
i didn’t feel fine. ‘what if it starts again?’
‘i’ll come home. promise. the boat’s ready now, all we gotta do is get gram onboard. don’t worry.’
joey went to school and i fed the hens leftover porridge that i couldn’t eat because now it was wednesday and still manny had not come. i built a newspaper hen’s nest in the bottom of the boat, washed the dishes and stoked the fire. after i bathed gram and helped her change her clothes, i went upstairs. put all my papers, labels and the book of flying in plastic bags.
gram went to sleep after lunch and i opened the dresser drawer and searched amongst the shoelaces and string, the blackout candles, the deck of cards, the matches, torch and rubber bands. found papa’s metal tape-measure and four new batteries. stuck the end of the tape through a knothole in the kitchen floor and measured the distance between the floor and the water. it was still more than two metres and it wasn’t raining. maybe joey was right. maybe we’d be fine. i took the radio off the mantelpiece. searched for spiders in the sleeves of my raincoat and filled its pockets with everything i needed. then bear and me went walking.
the river track was under water so we took our secret route to the railway station. the way i had showed manny. when we passed the place where i had held back the fence, i remembered how manny held my hand and would have taken me with him. but his world was not mine. not then and not now. maybe not ever. we followed the fence along the road until we came to the place where the couch fell from the back of a truck, tumbled to the edge of charlotte’s pass and buried its silver casters in the weeds.
the soupy river swelled out below me. it had guzzled the rope above the tarpit and the limb from which it hung. but the barbecue, the concrete picnic table and teddy’s memorial were still well above the water. i slid down the slippery sheep trails. bear followed, nimble as a mountain goat. i wrenched out tufts of grass and dead thistles from beside the angel’s feet. scraped and scrabbled with my hands, burrowed like a rabbit in the dirt, down amongst the living things, roots and worms and memories. my nails were torn.
my fingers stung where thistle spines pierced them. but there was nothing to be found. nothing left. there couldn’t be. i knew that.
i turned the radio on. took the chisel from my raincoat pocket and the tack hammer that old charlie used when he banged new heels on our worn out boots. began to chip carefully at the soft sandstone under the angel’s feet. three o’clock came quickly. news headlines then the weather report. i did not need to be told more rain was coming. gunmetal clouds parachuted onto the hills. i stood back to look at my finished work and suddenly there came manny, rushing downhill like the wind.
‘alice!’ he said. ‘i’ve been everywhere looking for you. i was worried. what are you doing down here?’
i stared at him. at his face, his head, wanted to make sure he was okay after what o’leary did. wanted him to smile at me. he did not. manny saw the tools in my hand. then his eyes went to the letters i’d marked on the stone. he looked for a long time. then knelt and traced the letters with his fingers.
‘precious nightingale,’ he said softly. ‘was there a baby, alice?’
‘i don’t know,’ i said. ‘no one can tell me. gram said little girls don’t have babies. but what if she’s wrong? what if there was? if it existed at all, for a day or an hour, it shouldn’t be forgotten, should it?’
51 ALICE
in which manny has come to warn me and joey
lightning split the southern sky. gram’s radio spat and crackled. i put it inside my coat. manny grabbed my tools.
‘home, bear, home!’ i yelled above a thunderclap. she stayed close as we ran. constant companion, never forsaking, not even in a storm.
clouds gutted themselves on the radio tower behind the fire station. the first fat drops spat at our heels as we reached our hole in the fence. i ran faster, heart thumping, feeling guilty, needing to be home. to measure by eye the distance between river and floor. stopped when i saw the house was safe, a peninsula of land still surrounding it.
manny grabbed my hand, held me back.
‘before you go inside, is there somewhere private we can talk? just you and me?’
‘i should go in to gram . . . ’
‘joey and tilda are with your grandmother. i came here first when i was looking for you. please, alice, there is something important i must tell you.’
the rain was pouring now. we needed to find shelter quickly. ‘under the house?’ i said, hoping it was still dry up the high end. manny nodded.
i spread my raincoat on the ground. manny’s eyes lit on me for a moment, as if to measure whether i could bear the weight of what he had to tell me. then we huddled together, shivering. heads almost touching the wooden beams above us. bear shook her coat, flung water everywhere, then curled up close to me.
i heard joey’s muffled footsteps and faint voices in the kitchen at the other end of the house. when manny spoke, his voice was almost a whisper. ‘there are things i should have told you before,’ he said, and my stomach coiled like clock sprin
gs. ‘in my country, i watched soldiers burn villages and murder and torture people. i saw my mother and sister bleeding on the ground and i did nothing to help them. when everything i had was gone, the soldiers kept me safe. when i did as i was told, they gave me food and cigarettes. then they gave me a gun. if they had ordered me to kill a man, i think i would have. i was ten years old and i was like them, a soldier.’
anger exploded inside me. i wanted to shout. not because manny had told me things i didn’t want to know, but because they had happened. did he think holding a gun made a boy a soldier? did he think being raped made a girl a whore?
‘do you think this will change the way i feel about you?’ i whispered. do you think it will stop the skip of my heart when i see you? do you know why papa is in jail? do you think what he did made me love him any less?
‘i was wrong not to tell you,’ he said. ‘you deserve to hear it from me, not from someone else.’
people do not speak to me, emmanuel. only you tell me things you do not want to say. only you listen. ‘who else knows?’ i said, ‘louisa james?’
‘louisa james knows almost everything about me, that is true. but she would never tell anyone else. that is not the kind of person she is.’
‘who then? please, not joey.’
‘no, it is not joey.’ manny shook his head. ‘but i must also speak to him about this.’
‘you have told me. that is enough. you are not a soldier. and my brother doesn’t need to know everything about his sister,’ i said, suddenly glad manny shared his past with me before others changed his history into something it was not.
‘i must tell him,’ manny said again, and i saw his troubled eyes. was this what gram had seen?
‘what’s wrong, manny?’ i said.
‘the person who found out about the things i did, says i must tell joey not to see tilda anymore, and if i do not, someone will get hurt.’
‘you mean mister cassidy? tilda says her father said nothing. she says o’leary’s a liar for telling joey that.’ manny’s expression did not change.
‘now that i have told you,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t really matter who else knows what i did before i came to bridgewater. but it is not the coach who found out. and even if it was, it is not me that i am worried about, or joey. and that is the truth, alice.’
‘i don’t understand.’
i crept an arm around his shoulder and leaned my head against his chest. the knitted stitches of his damp jumper pressed plain and purl patterns on my cheek. beneath them beat the steady rhythm of manny’s heart.
‘tell me everything, manny.’ his arms closed me in.
‘alice, there is someone who might hurt you.’
‘hurt me? who might hurt me?’
‘it is hamish o’leary. he said that something would happen to you if joey did not stop seeing tilda. that is why i have to talk to joey. that is what i have to tell him. that is why hamish punched me at the game. so that i would know that he was serious.’
i had seen the way hamish o’leary looked at tilda. it was clear why he wanted joey to stop seeing her. but i didn’t understand why he had threatened to harm me, not joey.
‘when did he tell you this?’
‘at the football match.’
‘when he hit you. i saw him say something to you.’
manny nodded. ‘so you see, i must tell joey.’
‘you can’t, manny.’
‘but he loves you, alice, and . . . ’
‘that’s why you can’t tell him. he’s already done enough for me. i’m going inside now. you can come with me but you can’t say anything to joey.’
52 ALICE
the o’leary question
joey saw us coming. met us on the verandah, furious. i’d been away too long. gram had pissed in her bed and cried because she’d done it. i cried when joey told me. cried for gram because she was old and now her waterworks were buggered as well as her lungs, and because i hadn’t been there to help her out of bed onto the bucket and wipe her bum and tuck her in. i cried because i could tell the river was higher without sticking papa’s tape measure down the hole, and because i knew joey was worried. and maybe just a little bit because of what hamish o’leary said to manny.
‘i am sorry,’ manny said. ‘it was my fault. there was something important i had to tell alice.’
‘it’s just possible that our house might float down the river sometime in the next forty-eight hours – what’s more important than that?’
‘i am sorry, joey, i really am,’ manny said.
i wiped my face on my sleeve. glared at manny, afraid he was going to tell joey about o’leary. tilda saved me.
‘let them come inside, joey. you must be freezing,’ she said linking her arm through mine. joey breathed out. calmed down.
gram called out, ‘what are you all doing, standing around out there? come inside. what’s a woman have to do around here to get a cup of tea?’
‘i’ve told her we might have to leave,’ joey said. ‘she won’t hear of it. see what you can do, alice.’
‘we’ll put the kettle on,’ said tilda, ‘come on, manny.’
‘how bad is it really, joey?’ i asked.
‘emergency services say it should peak around midnight. they’re predicting we’ll be safe here at bridgewater. but i think we should all to be ready to go, just in case. it’s just after 6.30 now, so we should have plenty of time.’
tilda was sitting on the table doing something with her phone. manny was pouring tea.
‘manny and i have invited ourselves to stay here tonight,’ tilda announced. ‘because we’ve got phones and you might need them. i just let dad know i’m staying at a friend’s house,’ she said.
joey and i made scrambled eggs on toast for everyone. when gram finished i said, ‘i’ll put some warmer clothes on you.’ i rubbed her back with vicks, zippered old charlie’s fleecy fishing jumper over her nighty, pulled on two pair of socks and tracksuit pants over the top.
‘that’s enough,’ she grumbled, ‘i’ll get too hot.’
‘we might have to leave the house later on and go somewhere safer, gram. they say there’s a lot of water coming down.’
‘they don’t know what they’re talking about. i’ve never seen the river flood in july.’
‘best to be ready, just in case,’ i said. tucked her in tight.
while gram dozed we packed our precious things
in plastic bags
photographs of daddy and us
on his knees
and in the air above
his strong brown
arms and
smiling face.
the dictionary full
of words and
gram’s bible
lures and labels
pens and nibs and inks and pages
empty and full and the tea
caddy bank.
upstairs we went. arms laden with small treasures. bear and me stayed behind, a moment longer than the others. i opened my window out into the dripping, moonless dark. saw the river run by, fat and black as molasses. slammed the panes together hard and ran down. ran everywhere. flicking switches, turning lights on, making our small world brighter, safer. safe with gram snoring and the fire burning and the radio playing weather reports, emergency bulletins and the 8.30 news of places near and far away.
‘let’s play truth or dare,’ i said when news of the world was finished and we knew the temperature in rome and in paris and madrid. i didn’t want to think about how close the river was to the floor of the house for the next five hours or however long it took before we knew if we were going to be safe or not.
‘yeah, let’s do it,’ tilda said.
‘want to have a look outside first?’ joey asked.
‘not me,’ i said.
‘me either,’ said tilda.
‘i’ll come,’ manny said.
joey lit a hurricane lantern and he and manny went outside onto the verandah. tilda, bear and me watch
ed from inside. light flickered across the endless ocean. bear whined and put her head in my lap. manny took his phone from his pocket.
‘this is manny,’ we heard him say. ‘is bull there?’ bull james was the man who built the house of windows. bull james moved mountains. i’d seen it written on all his tipping trucks and on his yellow caterpillar machines that pushed the rocks of bridgewater around as though they were popcorn. manny talked for a while, then passed his phone to joey. when the conversation was ended, the boys came inside.
‘all the reports say that we’re in no immediate danger, but bull says he’d like to get us out as soon as possible,’ joey explained. ‘he says they’ll use sandbags to build a breakwater in the shunting yards, so the current’s not so strong. then they’ll set up a floodlight. once that’s been done he’ll ring manny and the emergency services rescue boat will come across to get us all.’
‘why can’t we just go now – in our own boat?’ i asked.
‘bull’s worried the motor’s too small. and besides, we’d have to make two trips.’
we began the waiting game. and our game of truth or dare. but no one was very interested because of the creeping water circling us and because we were waiting for manny’s phone to ring. when it was my turn to ask joey a question, he chose truth. i couldn’t think of anything interesting to ask, so i said, ‘what are the names of the boys who got killed on the bridge?’
joey didn’t answer straight away. everyone went quiet, waiting for him to say something.
‘what difference does it make who they were?’ he said.
‘nobody ever told me who they were. i just want to know.’
‘this is supposed to be a game, alice, not a bloody interrogation!’ he laughed awkwardly. looked embarrassed.
‘tell me, joey.’
‘geez, alice, this is family business. ask me about it later. not here, not now.’
‘i need to know now. it might be important.’
‘what do you mean?’
‘just tell me.’
‘what’s it matter who the bastards were? what difference does it make now?’
The Stars at Oktober Bend Page 14