Making Laws for Clouds

by Nick Earls

  ‘Tanika? Yeah, hopefully. She’s my girlfriend. Why wouldn’t she be there?’

  ‘What is she trying to do to you? This is what I hoped would never happen. Hoped it and hoped it. Look at yourself, Kane. This is how it always starts. Look at you. Fornication and gambling and reckless behaviour. This is where it starts, but where does it end? Where does it end?’

  ‘What do you mean? I don’t know what you mean. That thing before Christmas is totally sorted out. We did our time. We’ve got clearance. We’re semiofficial. And you can’t blame her for anything. And so what if I’m going somewhere with pokies? It’s not like I was planning to play them. And even if I was you should trust me. You don’t even know what this level two means.’

  ‘Trust you? Trust you? I’ve been through that kind of talk before and that’s a mug’s game. And don’t you go shouting at me about your fancy level two. I don’t even know what it means. All I know is that all of a sudden we’ve got you buying stupid amounts of food and coming in here and big-noting yourself and setting off for a night on the town. And don’t you dare go telling me not to worry about that. Not to lie awake all night worrying about that.’

  ‘It’s cool, Mum,’ Wayne says. This is Kane. We can always trust him. It’s only pizzas.’

  And she’s still leaning against the wall and breathing noisily through her nose and not really looking anywhere. Taking a few words in, maybe, holding her glass low down by her side at an angle, but it’s practically empty. ‘The Simpsons’ comes back on after an ad break. There’s a thousand things to say, but I’m saying none of them. There’s not one’d get into her head right now and do any good.

  ‘Which one’s the Meatosaurus?’ Wayne says, and then he works it out by smell and slides the box out and takes it into the lounge room.

  Mum goes after him, but for no particular reason – it’s like she’s just drifting along and that’s where things are going – and I go down the hall and into the kitchen. I get us three plates. It was supposed to be a special occasion, bugger it, they could at least eat off plates. I serve us each a slice of the other two pizzas, and I pour three Cokes. No more rum for Mum while I’m here tonight, if I can help it.

  She doesn’t look away from ‘The Simpsons’ when I set her plate down in front of her. She just stares ahead at the TV, and Mum doesn’t have a clue about ‘The Simpsons’.

  ‘Good on you, mate,’ Wayne says when he sees I’ve given him a couple of big bits. They never cut pizzas evenly, so there’s often a debate about who gets what. ‘What’s a level two?’

  ‘It’s a promotion.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. And it’s not an automatic one either. It’s an earned one. And not one you usually get when you’re eighteen.’

  ‘And more money?’

  ‘Yeah. And training. Maybe a truck licence. Maybe heavy vehicle. Or maybe something to do with plants.’

  ‘Well . . . well, good for you. And lucky for us, hey? Lucky for us that Kane’s on the job.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. Thanks.’

  Mum’s still hearing none of it, even though I said it loud and clear. Wayne and I both look at her, she stares at ‘The Simpsons’.

  Mum’s been different since the incident before Christmas when Tanika and I got involved up the back of the bus. That’s what occurs to me when I go into the kitchen to get my plate. With all the other things that’ve been different, that’s the one I didn’t notice. And now that they’re all coming good, it’s there to see. I’m working hard and, the harder I work, the edgier she gets. It’s been a lesson in consequences, all of that, even though it didn’t really have to have any. There was all this talk of how we’d ‘strayed’ but, when we worked it through with Father Steele and he knew our feelings, he said everyone at the Blessed Virgin could get used to it being us ‘getting involved in a manner that was briefly inappropriate but now totally above board’.

  The pizza boxes are next to the phone. I call Tanika. I’ve got to get out of here.

  ‘How was today?’ she says, straight up. ‘How was your meeting?’

  ‘Good, pretty good really. I didn’t get an increment this time. I got put up a level.’

  ‘Put up a level? That sounds good.’

  ‘Yeah. It’s better than an increment. It’s a good result.’

  ‘Excellent. And no surprise, might I add.’

  ‘Well, thank you. So a few of us were thinking about going out for a couple of drinks in a little while. Up to the surf club at Mooloolaba. And Steve was reckoning you should maybe join us, if you’re okay hanging out with our lot from work.’

  ‘I reckon I can handle them. What are they like?’

  ‘A cut above our lot at home, I can promise you that. ’Cause that’s not promising a whole lot. So, I thought I might have a shower and get on up there.’

  ‘Okay. I’d pick you up but I’ve still got a couple of things to do. How about I see you there in an hour?’

  ‘Yeah, no worries.’

  ‘And that’s good about the level two, hey? You should feel pretty proud about that.’

  That’s better. Just a bit of that wouldn’t have gone astray earlier, a bit of that a little closer to home. That’s what I’m thinking when I’m in the shower, washing off all the sweat of the day and telling myself I’m washing Mum’s shitty attitude off with it. Standing under the shower with cool water powering down on my head, because I can’t face picking up my plate full of pizza just yet and going back into the lounge room where I’ll want to get angry.

  And I’m telling myself to forget it, forget it, she has her bad days and her other days, and on one of the other days we’ll talk about the level two and I think she’ll be proud of me. But tonight I’ve got to get out of here. Tonight shouldn’t be working out this way.

  Me, Tanika Bell, a drink or two, and maybe some time when it’s just us. A walk on the beach, a look up at the stars, no guys from work, no nothing. That could be soon, not much later tonight, and it’s so much better than this.

  That’s when Mum comes in.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she says. ‘You don’t understand.’

  ‘I’m in the bloody shower. That much I understand for sure. I’m in the bloody shower, right?’

  And with the water in my eyes and looking out through the fogged-up glass, this first full-colour picture of Mum for tonight is blotchy and blurry, and her voice is blurry too with the water pounding on my head and on the walls of the shower.

  She’s got the TV remote in her hand and she’s standing in the open doorway and saying, ‘No, Kane, you don’t understand.’

  ‘And you don’t even listen. Get out, Mum. I’m in the shower. I’ll talk to you later. Get out and eat the bloody pizza before it gets cold. I bought you bloody pizza.’

  ‘Mum.’ It’s Wayne’s voice from back in the lounge room. ‘We have to change channels. You’ve got to get in here. It’s bloody “Neighbours” now.’

  Then she’s gone, with the door still wide open, the door forgotten like the last stupid idea that entered her head and then left while she wasn’t looking. I shut it when I get out. There’s a lock on it, but it’s been broken all my life. We give people privacy in the shower, that’s a rule here. You don’t just barge in on them. If the door’s shut and the shower’s running, that’s all the information you need.

  I dry myself and I get dressed, and I go back to the kitchen to get my plate. I feel spectacularly clean. That’s what I tell myself – spectacularly clean, and with a collared shirt and long pants and shoes that aren’t work boots. I’m already participating in the night out beyond this stupid house. That’s what I’m telling myself.

  Mum’s in the kitchen, waiting for me, and her face is red and she’s leaning on the bench. ‘Look, what you don’t understand is my life.’ That’s what she says. ‘That’s what I meant before.’

  ‘Yeah, well I couldn’t tell that because I was trying to tell you something about my life. Something good about my life that happened
today.’

  ‘Yeah, but you don’t understand. That was my point.’

  ‘What point? Understand what?’

  ‘It’s this stuff you’re getting into. This life. This spending money and the business with the girl.’

  ‘Yeah, so what? If you’d listen, you’d know the money situation was okay. And part of my news, but you don’t listen. And you’d know the situation with Tanika. You should really know that a lot better than you do. One thing went wrong two months ago, particularly in the eyes of certain people, and we haven’t put a foot wrong since. We’ve been playing by a bunch of other people’s rules and we haven’t broken one of them for two bloody months, so everybody else is now starting to cut us a bit of slack.’

  ‘Yeah, but . . .’

  ‘There’s no “but”. There’s no “but” to that. The people – people you respect – people who get out of their houses and do things during the day and see what the world’s like are starting to cut us a bit of slack.’

  ‘“What the world’s like?” What would you know about that? What would you know about the world? You’re eighteen and you can’t know anything about the world, and you’ve gone and got yourself all these big ideas. And that’s when it started. It started two months ago, and I dread to think where it’ll end.’

  ‘It could end somewhere good. How about that for a possibility? It might not end at all. Did you ever think that there’s just the remotest chance that things might keep getting better? That one day, they might add up and amount to something? Did you ever think that?’

  ‘Jesus, Kane . . .’ She shakes her head, as though I’ve just said the stupidest, most dangerous thing I could.

  ‘And did you ever think that what’s happening between me and Tanika might mean something. That it wasn’t just an impulse? That it’s lasting a bit longer than that, and still getting better?’

  ‘What are you saying? What are you saying, Kane? You scare me with talk like that. Nine times out of ten those things end in disaster, those kinds of thoughts. Love’s a luxury, Kane, a complete luxury. If love’s the kind of word – kind of thing – you’ve got in mind. It’s never played a part in my life, not that kind of love anyway. You and your fancy ideas. I blame TV. That morning television’s full of opinions, and it’ll do you no good. Do you know how much they pay those people? They aren’t like you. If you want love, mate, if you want any kind of choices, you’ve got to make a mess of nothing. That’s why what you did in the bus scared me. What you did with Joe Bell’s daughter before Christmas.’

  ‘What about Dad? What about Dad? At least back ages ago? Things with you and him, back when they started.’

  ‘That wasn’t love, Kane. And when did anyone tell you otherwise? Love’s for TV, and maybe for people who are planning not to wreck their lives and who don’t have their lives wrecked for them. We messed up, I got pregnant. If you’re going to be the man about town – the man with the ladies and spending the money – you should know those things now. I was stupid and young. He was kind of suave and my friends reckoned he was excellent. That’s more like how things happen. And you end up as a thing they call a de facto or a common-law wife and you don’t get that big fairytale day with the white dress and all that.’

  ‘Got pregnant?’

  ‘With you, Kane. With you.’

  And it’s as blunt as that. The feeling of hunger in my stomach changes to a feeling that I might be sick, the feeling of my stomach falling away from me, out of me.

  ‘So that’s why I worry,’ she says, as if the new information puts all the right on her side. As if it makes any sense right now. ‘Things can happen so easily. But don’t get me wrong. You’re the good part of all that. I went through a lot of crap, but you were always the prize at the end of it, remember? You, and then Wayne.’

  She’s really drunk now, properly drunk as far as I can see, but maybe she has been all along. She’s slurring and looking past me, looking all over the room. There’s no point going on with this.

  ‘I’ve got to go. I’ve got people waiting for me. People from work. I’ll be careful. Really careful. No pokies. We could talk another time about this, maybe.’

  I don’t want to cry in front of Mum, or anyone in fact. I can’t take this like a kid, because I can’t be a kid. I bring the money in here, most of it. I go out, I work hard, I get promoted and I very rarely make mistakes. Because we can’t afford it, and no one knows that better than me.

  She shouldn’t be telling me stuff like that. I bet it isn’t even true. Not really, not completely. She’s bad on her bad days, very negative. It makes her say things. We were a good family once, when I was very young. I’m sure about that. I remember good times. They must have been real.

  I’m on my bike going down our street, and maybe it’s Mum’s voice shouting something out behind me, maybe it’s not, just someone else’s TV up too loud. It’s someone shouting, back that way I don’t know who. I just keep pedalling and I block it out, every word. My hair’s still wet and I’ve got a piece of Meatosaurus in one hand, the biggest piece. Wayne gave it to me on the way out and I told him things’d be okay. We’d had a minor misunderstanding in the kitchen, Mum and me, and that was pretty much it and now I had people to meet and I was already late. So I’d see him later. And he should keep her away from the rum, or at least try to.

  I’m steering with one hand, but it’s no problem. I can ride with no hands if I need to. I’m stuffing Meatosaurus pizza into my mouth, losing pieces of meat of three types all over the road. It’s worth the extra buck sixty-five, undoubtedly, but best not eaten on a bike.

  I get as much into my mouth as I can and then I throw the crust to a crazy dog that chases me all along its fenceline.

  I can’t believe there was never love involved, just bad luck. I can’t believe I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for that. Me, on this bike, turning right at the lights and taking my place on the Nicklin Way between two cars. I can’t believe that Meatosaurus is so excellent but so hard to swallow, and I might not keep it down at all.

  But I paid good money for those pizzas and I’m not going to bring it up now. Not just because of her and the things she says because of the rum.

  I don’t want to go to the surf club. It’ll be too bright and too busy. And it turns out my parents might not have meant a lot to each other after all. It wasn’t that things went wrong. It’s more that they were never right. That’s the story, the true story. The version that comes out on rum, true or not.

  There’s too much in my head right now, whizzing round. Too much. But I’m going to see people soon, work people and Tanika Bell, and I have to lift my game.

  I focus on the ride, on the wind blowing my shirt back and blowing into my face, on avoiding parked cars. It’s all too much, for sure, but it boils down to one simple idea: the whole world has changed since the day began. Even if it hasn’t changed at all.

  part one: friday afternoon

  Suddenly, there’s shade. My skin burns less. There’s a cloud between me and the sun. Not for long, but there are one or two more blowing in.

  I stop for a water break and I crouch down beside the truck to keep the sun off me for a while at least. Cars pass at seventy or so, people cruising by in air-con, talking on phones, shouting at the kids in the back on the way home from school.

  Then it’s into action again with the Whipper Snipper, whacking the weeds down to ground level, keeping it interesting by pretending I’m one of those old buggers with a metal detector, checking the beaches for whatever it is they check for. Or that I’m out on the World War Two artillery range sweeping for shells, for ordnance. What is about the old signs that say ‘ordnance’? Ordnance sounds like something you could do with at a council meeting, or in court. Not much like bombs. The new signs say ‘ammunition’, I think.

  On the other side of the fence, the new canals are going in. They’re cutting back into the old swamp and piling the dirt up high for houses. So, there’ll be more roads with weeds for us to deal
with soon enough.

  There’s another cloud, a bigger one this time.

  They did a story on clouds on the ‘Today’ show this morning. Clouds and skydiving. There’s a law that says it’s illegal to skydive into a cloud, and I didn’t know about that. Wayne was making his breakfast at the time, so I shouted out to him about it, something like, ‘Hey, Wayne, did you know that for skydivers they make laws for clouds?’

  It’s long been a view of mine that we should talk through current affairs in the mornings, or there’s not much that’ll get Wayne ready for the world beyond school.

  And Wayne said, ‘Laws for clouds? How do you make laws for clouds? And why should the skydivers care about what the clouds are supposed to do?’ Okay, maybe I wasn’t totally clear with my presentation, and Wayne’s known for being a bit of a slow waker in the mornings, but . . . ‘How do clouds understand that kind of thing? They’re just water, aren’t they? And, like, what if the clouds were really bad? Would you set the law on them and chase them all around the country and put ’em in jail? How do you lock up a cloud?’

  ‘That’s a fair point, mate. I don’t think you do. You know those little packets of crystals you get that stop bags getting mouldy? You just blast a few of them up their way and that pretty much nukes ’em. Sucks the clouds right up and then they just hit the ground like a bag of wet socks.’

  ‘But I like clouds. People like clouds, Kane,’ he said. ‘They’re in poetry, and that.’

  I set him straight, of course, the second he said, ‘Come on, Kane, what’s it really about?’ But I kind of like the idea – laws for clouds – even though it’s actually to do with the skydivers. We both preferred the other version – big huge lawless clouds, drifting over us, doing whatever they want, maddening people by raining too much or not enough. And not even listening to the weather forecasts, let alone rules and isobars and the southern oscillation index.

  There were three good stories in that half hour on the ‘Today’ show. First the clouds, then a space guy talking about Mars (but a space guy of the beard and brown pants and big telescope variety, not the astronaut type), then a shark they’d pulled in up north that had a human thigh bone in its stomach. Wayne had to finish his breakfast on the verandah – moaning away and going, ‘I think I’m going to gag, Kane, I’m thinking about the bone’ – but it was a good story.