The Stars at Oktober Bend

by Glenda Millard

  reckless, the boat approached our house. fast, too fast. sucked in by rips and currents that licked and swirled around walls, through smashed windows and flapping doors. bear whined and i held her collar tight, afraid she might leap into the water and swim to meet the boat.

  ‘watch out!’ i yelled. but there was nothing the boatman could do. the river spun his craft around, swept it into the wash-house tree. branches pierced the rubber and the dead cow’s horns tore it to ribbons. the young man clung to the drowned tree, draped limply as wet washing over limbs and twigs. i saw a tattoo where his neck burst from his shoulders. a dagger and drops. black drops, drip, dripping down his back with the floodwater. then he turned and looked at me.

  into his shipwrecked eyes i stared. he was not a captain, just a boy. a boy who blamed me for the death of his brother. that young man who’d almost killed me.

  ‘why have you come?’ i said. brave and stupid. as if he would tell me that. ‘i know what you told my brother and manny. that’s why you’re here, isn’t it? to pay me back.’

  he looked away. didn’t answer. hand over hand, on the leafless white limbs, he moved towards the house, towards me.

  ‘talk!’ i yelled. angry he had come now. now when i was alone. now when there was no ground to put my feet on. nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. ‘what do you want?’ but he said nothing. saved all the fight that was in him to bend his cold blue fingers around the branches and hold tight. the water curled around him, sucking and pulling.

  i shortened bear’s lead. took her with me through my window. away from the water and o’leary. backed into the room. nudged something in the corner with my elbow. turned and saw the gun. was this why joey had given it to me? in case hamish came? surely my brother wouldn’t have left me if he’d thought this might happen. surely he never meant for me to fire the gun?

  i backed away from it. my heart thumped, my blood raced and my head spun. then the house moved. the ceiling tilted and my bed began to slide slowly towards the back of the room. i sank to the floor, clung to bear. afraid the birds were coming, that my wires were crossed. she whimpered, nuzzled my neck with her nose. i opened my eyes, saw water seeping beneath the bedroom door. it was real. the house had come undone from its foundations. water was rising inside.

  we ran towards the window. flung ourselves through. slammed it shut behind us and huddled together outside. every tiny movement was magnified. i prayed the house would not turn again. would not roll over on its back with its belly in the air and sink. when i dared open my eyes, my window no longer faced along the valley towards the footbridge and charlotte’s pass. it jutted up obliquely to the sky like a small observatory. below my little balcony, the wall of the house sloped away into the water. i was afraid to look inside the house. afraid it would be like looking through the side of an aquarium. kept my eyes fixed on the wash-house, on the cow and on the clothes line sailing downstream. felt bear’s sides move. felt her belly swell with rage. when i looked down, her ears were flattened to her skull, her lips drawn back, waiting for a word from me. her eyes and mine locked on the shipwrecked boy. clinging to the bottom of the balcony.

  ‘why do you hate me?’ i said, hardly knowing i’d spoken out loud. needing to hear it from him. not that it mattered. not if we were both going to drown.

  it might have been minutes or hours that we stared at one another. it might have been seconds.

  ‘because i miss him,’ groaned hamish, like the words were a confession. his face was pinched, his skin was ash.

  grief was in him and in me. it was the price we paid for what others had done.

  years after our daddy died, gram said, ‘death sets you free. it takes you to a place where there is no pain. no suffering. no grief.’

  i heard the timber slat crack. saw it give way in o’leary’s hand.

  ‘help me?’ he asked like he knew the answer would be no. i was cold, tired and wet. i felt forsaken. hamish’s words could have meant anything right then. help me die, help me live, help me forgive or forget. put an end to my grief.

  i could have helped him put an end to his grief. there was a loaded gun inside my door. a dog at my side, constant companion, awaiting my command. i could have stomped on his tired hands and watched him float away. no one would ever know what happened. i leaned closer to o’leary, so he could hear what tilda’s father said.

  ‘if we let cowards stop us living the way we want to, we let them win. i won’t let you win, hamish,’ i said.

  there’s courage and there’s caution, gram’s voice was in my head. i took bear’s lead off. knotted it around the window latch, leaned my back against the wall, braced my feet against the balcony and dropped the looped end to o’leary.

  ‘now pull!’ i yelled.

  his freezing fingers gripped. the leather strap pulled tight and o’leary dragged himself up the side of the house. collapsed on his stomach and lay there, shivering, shaking.

  ‘you are crazy,’ he said, when he had breath to speak. ‘really crazy. i mean, i could push you overboard. you couldn’t stop me.’

  it might have been because i was cold, wet, tired and forsaken, but it almost sounded like o’leary meant crazy in a good way.

  i nodded at bear. she snarled and bared her teeth.

  ‘i don’t think so,’ i said. ‘and anyway, the boat’s coming.’

  the rescue crew wrapped us all in shining cloth to make us warm. bright as the stars at oktober bend we were, bear and me and hamish o’leary.

  57 ALICE

  love letters to gram

  amongst the little crowd of faces i saw them: brother joey and my truest friends. emmanuel and perfect tilda. smiled to greet me. reached out to hold me.

  an ambulance was waiting. paramedics slid me and hamish in on beds with wheels. a voice i didn’t know said, ‘medical assistance dog’, and bear leapt up beside me.

  ‘we’ll meet you at the hospital,’ yelled joey before they closed the doors. and only then i saw the empty space.

  ‘where’s gram?’ i said. ‘where’s gram?’

  ‘the old lady in the boat,’ hamish told them.

  ‘mrs nightingale – she’s at the hospital. it’s standard procedure after a rescue. once they’ve checked you over, you can ask to see your grandma.’

  at the emergency department, they checked our vital signs. blood and breath and pulse and heart. talked amongst themselves about shock and hypothermia. said that we should stay for observation. hamish in the men’s ward. me and bear in with the kids. i was too tired to point out their mistake. to tell them i was twelve no longer.

  two nurses took away my yellow raincoat. peeled my sopping pants off and my jumper. tucked me in between the sharp-edged sheets and primrose blanket. plumped the pillows. spooned something sweet onto my tongue to help me sleep. then swished the curtains back, as though they were unveiling something special. better than a work of art, a mona lisa, a marble bust. something rescued from the flood. a girl alive!

  when they told me gram was safe, i closed my eyes. i cannot say how long i slept, how long they stayed. but every time i woke, i saw someone there who loved me. manny, tilda, joey, bear.

  then someone else crept in. into my dreams he came, stood beside me. stroked my hand. i kept my eyes squeezed shut because i knew he wasn’t real. couldn’t be. then he whispered in my ear, ‘it’s okay, birdie, papa’s here.’

  i sat up. flung myself into his arms.

  ‘papa! papa! oh papa!’ and all the cold dammed up inside, all my freezing floodwaters flowed out and out and out.

  and afterwards, it took us only minutes to reach gram’s room. but already she was far away. angel nectar falling from on high, drip, dripping in her arm. far-off summer breezing gently through her mask. it wasn’t just her lungs. the cut the toolbox left was small. but blood had blossomed like a rose inside her head. gently papa told me there was no cure for gram.

  we learnt that we were not forsaken, me and joey. nightingale business suddenly became the business o
f others. but that was okay. tilda’s dad knew what to do to get an old man out of jail. compassionate leave to visit his wife in hospital. ten days was all they granted papa. i did not ask, why ten? is that how long it takes, to get to where gram’s going? neither papa nor the nurses would have known. the best that we could hope for was the journey would be short.

  mr cassidy was not the only one to help us. manny’s kind louisa james and bull had offered us a place to stay. papa and joey, me and bear. an apartment that they owned. just down the street from them. with a garden out the back and a bus stop in the front.

  louisa cooked for us. sent manny down with soups and sweets and casseroles. so that papa, me and joey could spend as much time as we liked with gram. sometimes we went together. sometimes we visited alone. i tried to keep my feelings separate. the joy of papa’s presence. the sadness of gram’s absence. the fear that when ten days had passed, i would lose them both.

  there was nothing at the hospital for me to do. someone else brushed gram’s hair, changed her undies and her nighty. smoothed ointment on her lips. while i watched gram sleep, i talked to her. reminded her of little things and happy days i thought she might enjoy. like the time we’d laughed about her chest. there were other things i couldn’t speak of. these i wrote in letters and left them folded on gram’s bed. hoping she might wake and find them when i’d gone.

  on the second day, i took inks and pens and pages with me. sketched gram while she was sleeping. drew her world all around her: papa and the garden. plum trees. beans and birds and butterflies and bees. clipped it to her charts when i was leaving. looked back from the door and read what i had written underneath.

  this is my gram

  she is glorious

  please be kind to her while i’m not here.

  on the fourth day i went alone again and wrote:

  can’t talk about the ‘d’ word, gram. tried to write about it once or twice. then crossed it out again. wish i could do that in real life. cross out the ‘d’ word. love alice.

  i folded the paper into an origami heart. left it on her tea tray.

  day six.

  i’m worried about papa, gram. not that he’s said anything, but i think he blames himself for a lot of stuff that’s happened. like how you’ve had to look after me and joey by yourself. how there was no one to look after you, when you got sick. it would be good if you could bring yourself to tell him it’s okay. i know you probably can’t talk much, even if you were awake. the nurse told papa that there’s water in your lungs. they didn’t say how it got there. maybe from the flood or from all the times you wanted to cry, but couldn’t because you had to look after us. anyhow, if you could just squeeze papa’s hand sometime. even once, i think he’d know exactly what you meant. love alice.

  on the seventh day i wrote:

  just wanted to tell you that i’m sorry for all the times that i was mean to you. i love you gram. alice

  day eight.

  you did a great job, gram. i’m going to be fine. but i’ll miss you. love alice.

  i didn’t want to wake up on the ninth day. i stayed in bed with bear till joey came. he knocked on the door. pushed it open, smiling. hands behind his back, hiding something.

  ‘ta da!’ he magicked a flourish of tulips. yellow as a duck’s bill.

  ‘for gram?’ i asked. he shook his head.

  ‘for you!’ he said and put them in my arms.

  ‘from you?’

  ‘nope!’

  ‘manny?’

  ‘if they were from manny, he would have brought them himself!’ he teased.

  ‘who then?’

  ‘you’ll never guess. it was hamish o’leary’s mother. she came to the door. i didn’t know if you’d want to see her, so i said you were still asleep.’

  joey sat down on my bed. suddenly serious. took his time to speak.

  ‘she told me what happened at the house, birdie. i can’t believe how brave you were. how brave you’ve always been.’

  he put his arms around me. but not before i’d seen his eyes fill up.

  ‘i just wish gram knew what you did. she’d be so proud of you,’ he said.

  i lifted up the blankets and we cuddled up in bed till joey needed cheese and pickle sandwiches and bear needed to pee.

  ‘where’s papa?’ i asked.

  ‘he left early. wants to spend as much time with gram as he can today.’

  when the sandwiches were eaten, joey said, ‘how about you and me go to the hospital together? and afterwards i’ll take you to see manny. he misses you.’

  and i missed manny. but i couldn’t figure out how to be happy and sad at the same time. how to be – at all. i looked at the pointed yellow buds. fiddled with the thank-you card, the thin green ribbon around the stems.

  ‘it’s the ninth day,’ i said. in case he hadn’t noticed.

  ‘i know,’ he said. ‘but we never had a chance to say goodbye before. not when our father died, not when our mother left. this time it’s different, birdie. it’s hard . . . and i’m scared, but you’re the bravest person that i know. please come with me.’

  when we arrived, gram was holding papa’s hand.

  after words

  gram’s journey ended on the eleventh day.

  two weeks later, papa was granted parole. he spends most of his days down on oktober bend. on the river flats where our old home used to be. on tuesdays and on thursdays he teaches boys who’ve been in trouble with the police how to grow things. together they’re making a garden out of mud and sun and seeds.

  i wrote to my mother. thought she should know about gram and the flood. about papa and the garden. so far i have received no reply.

  manny has made me a website where people can look at my lures and labels and order them. hattie fox at the post office is busy sending them all over the world. ‘you must take after your mother, alice nightingale. so talented,’ she says. ‘you mustn’t let anyone stop you.’ and i look into her ice-blue eyes and think of gram. of all she gave up for me and joey.

  bull says i have already moved mountains, but next summer i’ll face another challenge. i am leaving oktober bend. manny and louisa helped me collect a folio of my drawings. sent them to an art school in the city. the people there offered me a scholarship. granted bear permission to come with me.

  papa is a little nervous about my leaving. but i tell him, it’s okay, the school is not as far as the 49th parallel. just a train ride away. and i’ll be home at weekends. and anyway, no matter what happens, i am the girl who loves the stars at oktober bend. always will be.

  from the author

  The idea that started me on The Stars at Oktober Bend was gleaned from a newspaper article about a homeless girl who sang, and in doing so earned a scholarship to study music at a prestigious conservatorium. I began writing with the intention of telling the story of a girl who sang as a means of escaping a tragic past. But as usually happens, the story became more complex once the character began to evolve and other information came to hand. My daughter was studying for her Masters in Speech Pathology at the time, and I became aware of language disorders, their causes and effects, and this information impacted on my story.

  Initially I wrote in the third person, but felt like an observer. So I rewrote it all in first person. Giving Alice a voice empowered me to use a means of expression unique to her. And although her syntax was somewhat unfamiliar, especially in the early stages of the novel, that was when my writing began to flow. Alice thinks of her writing as a means to freedom beyond her circumstances – to flying. ‘Words, caught me by surprise,’ she says, ‘took me in their rushing updraught, took me from the page into the clear mid-air.’ That is what recording Alice’s thoughts felt like to me – a breathless leave-taking of all that was known and familiar.

  about the author

  GLENDA MILLARD is a highly respected author who writes for children of all ages. Her novel A Small Free Kiss in the Dark was the Winner of the 2009 Queensland Premier’s Award for young a
dults, Honour Book in the 2010 CBCA awards for older readers, shortlisted for the 2010 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, and included on the Honour List for the 2012 International Board of Books for Young People. Books from her popular Kingdom of Silk series have also received individual awards. Her novel, The Novice, was chosen for a White Raven Award in 2006. Glenda has also written many picture books, including The Duck and the Darklings, illustrated by Stephen Michael King.

  glendamillard.com