‘i have a right to know.’
joey kicked his chair back. it clattered to the floor. bear sprang to her feet. came to heel beside me. joey ignored her. strode across to the sink and stared out the window into the blackness. silent seconds ticked by before my brother spoke to his reflection in the window.
‘it was joel ellis,’ he said.
‘and the other one?’
‘liam. his name was liam.’
‘liam who?’
i was ready this time. no ravens, no cross-wired electricals. just me wanting to make sense of my past, my present and my future. joey spun around to face me.
‘shit, alice, what are you trying to do?’ bear’s ears lifted.
‘i’m not the guilty one.’
manny watched me. didn’t try to stop me. joey sat down beside tilda and put his head in his hands.
‘o’leary. it was liam o’leary, hamish’s older brother. he was twenty when he and the other bloke . . . attacked you. old charlie tried to stop them getting away. he fired at the ute. it flipped and went over the bridge. ellis was killed instantly. o’leary’s neck was broken and he died in hospital. the car was nicked, they were both over .05 and o’leary never even had a license. if you’re looking for the reason why hamish o’leary threatened to hurt you, it’s probably because, in some weird twisted way, he thinks it’s your fault his brother’s dead.’
‘you knew?’ i said. ‘you knew hamish threatened me?’
joey groaned, ‘yes, i knew.’
‘who told you?’
‘he did. he said if i didn’t stop seeing tilda, he’d get you.’
my mind spun. joey knew and didn’t tell me. knew and yet he still kept seeing tilda. this was too much for me to understand at once.
‘look alice . . . maybe we can talk more about this later. right now there’s more urgent things to deal with.’
‘no!’ said tilda. ‘you need to settle this thing now. don’t blame joey, alice. you need to hear my side of the story. after manny got hurt, joey thought he should take o’leary’s threat seriously. he told me he couldn’t see me anymore. said my father warned him off. i didn’t believe him because my dad’s not like that. you’re lucky, joey’s the best brother and the best friend anyone could have. it’s me you should be mad at, alice. i couldn’t keep away from joey even after he confessed that he’d lied to me. and to you. i understand why he did it. but i just want you to know this, alice. joey told me what happened to you when you were twelve. those blokes were cowards and so is hamish o’leary. my dad says that if we let people like them stop us from living the way we want to, we let them win. but i think you already know that, don’t you, alice?’
joey disappeared outside and tilda, perfect tilda, went after him. manny and i stared at one another. gobsmacked, dumbstruck. she took my breath away. if we weren’t about to be washed away, i think i would have got up on papa’s table and danced. in that moment, i felt like i could do almost anything.
then manny’s phone rang.
53 ALICE
the traffic on tullamarine freeway
it was 10.50 on thursday night and bull james was on the phone. the emergency services boat had been dispatched. but not to us, bull told manny. to a small town ten kilometres upstream where a car carrying three passengers had been washed off a bridge. we’d have to wait until the boat and crew returned, bull said. he didn’t know how long it would take. i shook gram awake. helped her across to her chair by the fire. made coffee.
forty-five minutes later, the rescue boat still hadn’t arrived. joey stuck his finger through the knothole in the floor and touched the river.
‘shit, where are they?’ he said.
bear leaned against my legs and whined. i stroked her ears while manny rang bull and told him about joey’s finger in the knothole and the river underneath.
‘we can’t wait any longer. we’re coming in joey’s boat,’ manny said.
‘what’s going on?’ said gram.
‘we’re leaving,’ i told her. ‘the river’s nearly up to the floor.’
‘not on your nelly,’ said gram. ‘i’m not going anywhere.’
‘you can’t stay here, gram. put this on. quick!’ i tried to stuff her arms into the sleeves of a waterproof jacket. her arms hung limp and heavy. dressing her was almost impossible.
‘i been through floods before. lord jesus will look after me. take me upstairs, nearer my god to thee.’
‘you’d never make it upstairs! if you stay here you’ll drown.’
tilda came to help. finally, we got the jacket on. gram lay back down on her bed.
‘the night air won’t do me chest any good,’ she said, wheezing. stubborn. maybe scared.
i smelled two-stroke and heard the outboard motor kick in, then die. heard joey swear and try again. looked out the window at the boys up to their knees in water. wished it was possible to tow the whole house to high ground.
we all knew there’d have to be two trips. the plan was to take gram first. joey knew the river better than anyone so he would steer. he needed crew: someone to hold the lantern and watch for hazards that might upend the boat. the other to mind gram. to help keep her calm. make sure she didn’t try to stand up or jump out.
‘come on, gram. you and papa used to love the boat, remember?’ i tried to coax her. ‘we’re not going far. it won’t take long.’
gram refused to walk. they had to carry her. manny at her shoulders, joey at her feet. her eyes stubbornly shut. tears dribbling down the gullies of her face like a flood of her own was leaking out. i held the door ajar while they took her through.
the motor and the rain both steady now. joey walked down the steps as far as he could without gram’s back touching the water. tilda and i held the boat against a verandah post. tried to keep it still while the boys lifted gram over the side. she lay there with her eyes shut, bum and back on the bottom of the boat. knees bent up and over the seat. i pulled off my windcheater to cushion her head. tried not cry on her rained-on face.
‘take alice and tilda with you,’ manny said.
‘the girls aren’t strong enough to stop gram if she struggles . . . if she tries to get out,’ joey said.
‘you go first, tilda,’ i said. ‘there’d be no room for bear and i can’t leave without her.’
joey didn’t argue. handed me the gun.
‘keep it here,’ my brother said. maybe because it was nightingale business that he didn’t want to have to explain to someone at the other side. maybe not. maybe it was to keep me safe. i didn’t ask.
‘go upstairs when we leave, and stay there till i come back,’ joey said.
tilda pressed her phone into my hand. showed me where manny’s number was and triple zero. how to make it work.
‘i didn’t bring my charger, but the phone’s been turned off, so here’s hoping it will last for a little while.’
she hugged me. then stepped into the boat. cradled gram’s head on her knees. gentled the hair away from her forehead maps, carved deep by sickness and sorrow. part of me wished it was me sitting there with joey. bear at my feet, gram’s head in my lap. but part of me was glad because manny and tilda felt almost like kin.
manny lifted the lantern down, passed it to tilda. then in front of them all he gathered me close and kissed my lips. joey opened the throttle a little and closed it again, like a polite ‘ahem’.
manny whispered, ‘my sister was called precious.’ then he turned away. stepped into the boat.
he sat on the middle seat beside gram’s knees. he was the arms to hold her tight in case she tried to climb out. tilda was the light to show the way and joey was the tillerman to steer them all to the other side. he opened the throttle. the motor turned the tiny propeller. it was like watching an egg-beater in an ocean. i shivered. bear barked into the night. then we ran upstairs.
i stood the gun in the corner of my room. dragged pillows and a blanket to my rain-spattered window. made a nest for me and bear. burrowed into her
softness and warmth while we watched tilda’s light bob. wondered when i would see it come back again. unpicked the moments before the others left; the looks on their faces, the things they had done, the words they had said. asked myself why manny had chosen that moment to tell me his sister’s name. why he hadn’t waited until we were safe. all safe. was this another goodbye? was that what manny thought? i slid my thumb inside the blanket’s worn satin binding. rubbed my cheek with it, the way i did on the day of my daddy’s leaving. the way i had for months of night-times after. tried not to close my eyes. when i did i thought i felt the house move.
the man on the radio said it was 5.45am and city traffic was light on eastlink and on tullamarine freeway, and all lanes were open on the westgate bridge. after that i listened to the news from far away. the announcer didn’t mention a town called bridgewater or a flood at oktober bend. he had probably never heard if it. so i took my finger out of the blue blanket satin, turned the radio off and listened to the rain on the roof for a while. when i looked outside again the rain had stopped. the sky behind the slaughter-yards was the colour of a bruise and our house was an island.
‘rain before seven, fine by eleven,’ i told bear to jolly her. she smiled and we wandered downstairs like we had all day to do it. then up again we sped as fast as lightning strikes. me fumbling for tilda’s phone. trying to remember which numbers to press. wishing for a voice in my ear saying yes, it’s manny here. and him listening while i tell him all the awful things that bear and me have seen.
i cannot poke my finger in the knothole, i would say, because the lion’s feet are off the floor and old charlie’s table and gram’s bed are almost knock, knock, knocking on heaven’s door. traffic is light on eastlink and on tullamarine freeway and all lanes are open on the westgate bridge but where is our little boat, emmanuel? and when is it coming to oktober bend to fetch bear and me?
but tilda’s phone had gone to sleep in the night. the little window stayed black. there were no numbers to press, no voice in my ear, no one to talk to. i took my calm pills and sat on the bed with my arms around bear.
54 MANNY
Sailing Away
Precious is a very good name to give a child, even one you have not held. Especially one you have not held. That is what I should have said to Alice.That is what I was thinking when I was in that tiny boat on the very wide river.
My sister was brave and beautiful. She would not tell the soldiers where our mother was. They raped her and still she would not tell them. That is how brave she was. Then they took her tongue. They laughed and said she would not need it. I left Precious lying on the ground. I left Alice at the drowning house. It was not a proper way to say goodbye. I am the one who left them both. That is who I am.
That is what I was thinking when the light that Bull James promised failed us. There were many clouds that night and we could not see the moon. All that we had was one small lantern. It was not enough to show the way. We could not even see where the river ended and the land began. No one saw what hit our boat. We could not tell what hidden thing had spun us around. It dipped the stern and raised the bow.
The metal tool box slid out from under Joey’s seat. The lamp was torn from Tilda’s hand and dashed against the seat, and Mrs Nightingale cried out. I shone the light from my phone onto Alice’s grandmother, who lay very still in the bottom of the boat. There was a gash on her forehead.
‘It looks like she might have hit her head on the tool box,’ Tilda said. ‘Is there a first aid kit on-board? Joey?’
I held my phone up high. And that is when we saw that only half of Joey was in the boat. His head and shoulders were below the water. I pulled him back into the boat. He coughed many times and then he sucked air into his lungs.
‘Get the oars! Quick!’ he said. ‘The motor’s gone, I couldn’t hold it. Whatever we hit has ripped it off. We’ll have to row.’
‘Joey . . . ’ said Tilda.
‘Help me find the oars.’
Tilda was very stern.
‘Shut up and listen, Joey!’ she said. ‘Your Gram’s been hurt.’
I phoned Bull James. It was the only thing to do. The current was too strong to row against.
Bull said it was the wind that brought the light down and smashed it on the railway line. ‘Give us five minutes and we should have another one up and running,’ that is what he said. I told him that we did not have five minutes. Our motor was gone, oars were useless against the current, an injured lady was lying in the bottom of the boat, and Alice and Alice and Alice . . .
We drifted in the darkness. We could not tell how fast or slow, only that we were moving. I opened my phone again. Ten minutes had passed since I last spoke to Bull. I shone the light on Grandmother Nightingale’s face. There was a cut, high up on her forehead. Joey had pinched it shut with his fingers to stop the bleeding. He knelt in the bottom of the boat, talking to his grandmother. She was very pale and was not moving.
‘It’s all right, Gram, we’ll have you home soon.’ Joey whispered small lies into his grandmother’s ear to comfort her. Then Bull’s light came on. It shone a pathway across the water and we could see the thing that hit us. It was a large shed. A hay shed. The walls and the roof and all that was inside it. Sheets of iron, wooden poles and hay. Hundreds of large round bales of hay. Our boat was surrounded by them. My phone rang. This time it was Louisa James.
‘This is Manny. I have put you on loudspeaker, Louisa James.’
‘We can see you. We’ve given the SES crew your position and the boat’s on its way. Can you hear me, Manny?
‘Yes, we can hear you. Please tell them to come quickly.’
‘Listen carefully. You’ve drifted past the breakwater, but that debris you’re caught in has really slowed you down. Bull says as long as the mass of bales doesn’t disperse, you’ll be fine. He’s waiting on the bridge with a sling on a crane. If the SES crew doesn’t make it before you reach him, he’ll lower two men in harness and they’ll put a sling around your boat and try to take the whole thing up. Do you understand?’
‘Yes. Please tell them to hurry. Tell them Mrs Nightingale is injured and –’
‘We know, Manny. An ambulance will be waiting. I have to go now. Bull’s on the radio.’
‘Wait, Louisa! Alice is not with us.’
‘Where is she? What’s happened?’
‘We could not all fit in the boat. Alice stayed at her house. You must get someone to go there.’
‘They’ll never stop us if we get past the bridge,’ Joey said, and I wished I had stayed with Alice. We might have been safer there. And if we were not, at least we would have been together.
55 ALICE
submarines and sirens
our house was the only one in bridgewater built on the flood plain. gram said there once were others. some had been demolished. some got washed away by other floods. soon there would be none. our place was listing now. leaning to the west. i felt like our house. cast adrift in an unfamiliar landscape.
bear and me went outside. sat together on the balcony that papa made with love and sticks. our tank slid sideways off its stand and floated past the wash-house like a stubby submarine. i thought about the handprints on the concrete, underneath the water. our daddy’s and his baby sister’s. it was all we had of them, except for a few photographs. who would tell papa when everything was gone? where would we go? where would papa go when it was time for him to come home? i put my arms around bear’s neck. tried not to think sad thoughts while we waited for our rescuers to come, or not.
the foundry whistle blew for smoko. startled us. reminded me that life went on as usual for people whose homes weren’t on the flood plain.
‘oh where, oh where has our little boat gone, dear bear,’ i sang to constant companion to comfort her. to cure her of her fear of sirens and submarines. to pass the time.
a tree floated by with a cow, a small cupboard and clothes line caught in its branches. lodged itself on the roof of the wash-house. the drowned
cow stared at me over the clothes line. i looked away from her sad brown eyes. down i looked and saw the river, already licking at the sticks and nails put there to keep me safe.
and i
because bear could not climb onto the roof and
because i would not leave her alone and
because i could not think of prayers
or poems
or proper words to say
cried out into the large and empty air
send the bloody boat, god
please, send the bloody boat!
56 ALICE
shipwrecked
it drifted, small as pea-pod, on the misty grey horizon. vanished behind vast tree canopies made to look as small as bouquets by the floodwater, and i wondered if the boat i’d seen was only a mirage, a cruel trick, or the memory of a ghostly boat . . .
filled with joy and us
gram and me and little joey
with fishing rods and
red water wings around
our spindly arms and
our daddy’s safe brown hand
steady on the tiller
papa up the pointy end watching
for submerged snags.
i almost cried for joy when it reappeared. then with disappointment as it came closer. it was a toy, puffed up with air. a rubber boat to use on long, hot summer days when the river was clear and quiet. wondered what fool had sent that small and orange boat. clearly no match for a river that eddied and swirled, fat with cows, cupboards and clothes lines and whatever else had taken its fancy. despite its eggbeater motor, papa’s boat would have been a better choice by far. this plaything might not even hold us all: its captain, bear and me.
but i told myself that any boat was better than none. even this one that sat low in the water and went wherever the river took it instead of charting a course direct to us. i took off my yellow raincoat. waved it madly. the captain raised both his arms in response. crossed and uncrossed them above his head. marked the cold grey sky with giant kisses again and again, until i understood. he had no means of steering. no oars, no motor. he was as helpless as i.
The Stars at Oktober Bend Page 15