by Sofie Laguna
‘Mind your business, Denise,’ said Gavin. ‘Get back inside and feed Derek.’
‘Doesn’t the kid need some breakfast before he goes?’
‘Don’t you worry about my kid.’
‘Suit yourself. See you, Jimmy,’ said Denise, her mouth a tight purse, all the creases headed for the clip.
I walked along the highway behind my dad. Trucks roared past, not slowing, almost crushing us. We followed the yellow stripes of paint along the road until we came to the service station, its electric lights glowing with the energy of petroleum and oil. We went in and Dad bought a coffee, an orange juice and a pie with sauce. We walked back outside and Dad took me to the low wall that ran along the side near the parked cars. He said, ‘Sit down and drink the juice.’
I sat on the wall and tipped the juice bottle up over my mouth and down went the juice.
Dad watched me. ‘You came here all by yourself?’ he asked.
I nodded.
Tears came out of his eyes with no other signs of crying. The tears travelled in messy zigzags down the skin of his face, getting spread in the hairs and the corners of his mouth. What was generating them?
‘Bloody hell, Jimmy. Bloody hell.’ He kept shaking his head, as if it was the only move he was sure he could make. He sat down on the wall beside me. He looked at his watch, then he crossed his arms. Cars drove in and out of the station. He said, ‘You got to leave me out of the picture, Jim.’
I smelled Cutty Sark vapours when he talked; the whisky was using my dad as a channel.
‘Yes, Dad,’ I said. ‘Yes, Dad. Out of the picture.’
He took a sip of his coffee, his hand shaking around the cup. He shook his head and threw the rest of the coffee onto the grass, then he got to his feet. He sighed out. He walked across the concrete towards the road, then he came back. He sat down again next to me and we kept waiting as the sun rose higher and grew stronger over our shoulders. There were no words between us. Cars came and filled up on fuel. I saw their owners go inside the petrol station jangling keys, buying cigarettes and Mars Bars and newspapers. The wall felt hard and cold beneath me.
Dad checked his watch again. We kept waiting. My legs grew stiff. Neither of us moved. Time kept passing. Dad began to rock forward and back, forward and back. A rocking that could barely be seen by the naked eye, only felt. He looked at his watch one last time, then he said, ‘It won’t be long now, Jim. Just stay here and wait, okay? Don’t move until they get here. You won’t go anywhere will you, Jim? Until they get here?’
‘No, Dad. I won’t move, I won’t go anywhere.’
‘It won’t be more than an hour,’ he said. He looked at me, then he took my arm and held it tight, just above the elbow. ‘Jimmy . . .’ he said. I felt Dad’s clamp, like pliers, its hardness, but there were no messages coming through. ‘Jimmy . . .’ And then he let go, got up off the wall and walked across the black of the service station ground, his thongs slapping against his heels. I watched as he walked back onto the highway and I saw my only chance leave with him, sitting on his shoulder like a parrot on a chain.
I stayed on the wall and looked at tiny lights sparkling in the concrete at my feet, but there was no pattern; I didn’t need to search. When I had to go to the toilet I went inside and I didn’t look down.
You have to aim, Jimmy! You have to look. It’s getting on the seat.
No, Mum! I don’t want to look! I don’t want to see! No, Mum, no!
Come on, Jimmy. For Mum. Please look.
No! No! Mum! No! No!
Alright, alright, love, don’t shout. You don’t have to look.
You look, Mum, you look!
Alright, love. I’ll look for you. Mum will look for you.
There was a knock on the door so I put my hands under the tap then I opened the door and walked back to the wall. I don’t know how long I waited. I wasn’t counting. I closed my eyes and made a picture of the silver pathway made by the moon. I didn’t change positions. I stayed sitting, my legs hanging down from the wall. Car after car, hour after hour. Nobody saw me, as if my outline had been lost. Every time I blinked I saw the pathway. If I left my eyes half-closed it shone, beckoning me. I looked up to its leader, the glowing moon, then back down at the path.
Anne White and Jake drove into the station. When the car stopped near the wall where I was sitting, Anne White opened the door and came to me. She looked more tired than ever. ‘Thank God, Jim.’ She squeezed my hand. ‘Get in the car.’
I climbed into the back seat and Anne White shut my door and climbed into the front. ‘I am glad you are okay. What were you thinking, Jim? Why did you run away? Why did you come here?’ Anne White turned around to look at me as she waited for the answer; there was none. She faced the front again. ‘This is it for us,’ she said to Jake. ‘No more.’
Jake drove the car out of Point Paradise.
When we got back to the house Anne White sent me straight to my room. ‘You’ll need a rest,’ she said. ‘You can eat in here tonight. I’ll bring your dinner.’ I heard the door click when she left. Anne White had locked me in.
I didn’t look at anything: not the wall of fathers or the poster or the cupboard where the red suitcase lived. I was the body without the network. There was nothing left in the world for me to do. I didn’t move.
Anne White opened the door and came back into the room. She carried a tray with a bowl of soup and an apple and a piece of cake on it. Steam rose from the bowl of soup. I tried to see when the steam disbanded to become air but my eyes missed; it was impossible. Anne White placed the tray on Liam’s desk, then she turned on the desk lamp.
‘Come and sit down,’ she said, patting Liam’s chair. I sat down. She touched the tray. ‘I just think it’s easier for tonight if you stay by yourself, Jim. Give you a bit of time to think about things. Liam can bunk in with Deirdre.’
She touched the apple on the tray. ‘I’m afraid you’ll be leaving us soon, Jim,’ she said. ‘Please don’t think it’s because you’re not a very special boy, because I can see that you are.’ She was trying to talk but there was a wave washing up through her throat. ‘I’m just . . .’ She looked towards the window. ‘You’re a good little boy, Jim. I’m sorry.’ She walked to the door and opened it. ‘Jake and I were very worried,’ she said. ‘Something bad could’ve happened. Something very bad.’
She left the room.
I didn’t touch the soup or the apple or the piece of cake. What bad thing was it that hadn’t happened?
I turned off the light on the desk and I lay on the bunk and watched day turn to night. After a long time I heard somebody trying the lock. Click one way click the other. The door opened. It was Deirdre.
‘Jimmy,’ she said, coming to the bed. ‘Jimmy.’ She took my hand and kissed it.
I rolled onto my side. ‘How did you get in?’ I asked her.
‘I took Anne White’s key,’ she said. ‘I’d do anything for you, Jimmy.’
Did crying start at the upper most or the lower most? I didn’t know.
Deirdre kneeled beside the bed in the dark. ‘What did he say?’ she asked.
‘Leave me out of the picture.’
She crawled in beside me and put her leg over mine, then she tucked Melanie against me. ‘Hey, Jimmy, Liam and I never told Anne you were going to find your dad. Even when Anne said, You should have kept a closer eye on him, Deirdre, I never told her. They were going to call the police – they didn’t want to, they were scared of the negligence – and then you called.’
‘Thank you, Deirdre, thank you,’ I said.
‘They’re sending you away, aren’t they?’ she whispered. ‘Into Stateside?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. ‘You can hide me in your suitcase and when we get there you can cut my hair and they’ll never know I’m a girl.’ She put her arm across my chest. It was warm. I could feel her blood going round full of messages, but I couldn’t feel my own.
> Soon Deirdre got out of the bed and left the room. Melanie was still on my pillow.
In the morning Anne White unlocked the door and said, ‘Time to get up, Jim.’ I ate breakfast at the table with everybody else. Deirdre kept her foot against mine. Jake didn’t look at me, as if I wasn’t there. There were sparks coming from the ends of Liam’s hair, like he’d been electrocuted while I was away. Anne White said to keep to our routine. My chore was sweeping the path and Liam’s chore was raking the leaves. Anne White hung up washing and kept an eye on us.
She went inside when the telephone rang and as soon as she was gone Liam stopped raking and said, ‘What happened? Did you see him?’ His eyes were wide and scared, as if his life depended on my answer.
I didn’t say anything.
‘Come on, Flick, don’t act like a retard. What did he say? Did he tell you to fuck off?’
I nodded.
He picked up a roof tile that was lying against the fence and he threw it on the path and it shattered. He picked up another one and did it again.
Anne White came back out and she said, ‘Do you want to go to Stateside with Jim, do you, Liam? Is that what you want?’
‘Fuck off, Anne,’ he said, picking up another tile.
‘Don’t speak to me like that, Liam,’ said Anne White. ‘You know not to speak to me like that.’
‘Get fucked, Anne! You’re not my mother! You’re not anybody. Fuck you!’
‘Liam!’ Anne White came charging towards him and he said, ‘Fuck you!’ and raised his hand. He was quick, his hand so fast you could barely see it, up towards her face, as if he’d slashed a thousand faces.
Anne White cried out, ‘Jake!’, her hand to her eye, blood coming from under her fingers. Jake came running. Liam and me stood, neither of us moving. Anne White pointed and said, ‘Liam!’
Jake saw the tile in Liam’s hand and he grabbed it and twisted Liam’s arm behind him and pushed him inside.
It was our last week; Liam, Deirdre and me were all leaving. Anne White told Jan Watts over the telephone that she couldn’t manage.
‘Not even me?’ Deirdre asked her when she got off the telephone.
‘I’m sorry, Dee Dee.’ Anne White pulled away. Seven stitches ran under her eye like a trench to catch the colours. Her eyes had no blue left; you could see through them. Jake couldn’t go to work because he had to make sure nothing else happened with the fosters.
It had been raining for days; everything was drenched. We watched television while we waited for the end. Anne White spent a lot of time with her church group or upstairs in her room. She let us do more things and eat more chips. Jake had to give the orders. After Anne White cooked the dinner she took hers upstairs on a tray – only Jake ate with us and he kept the television on.
I only moved if an adult applied force. I tried to see how little I could breathe and Liam sulked and trained and did his chores if Jake’s hand was around his neck. Deirdre pulled off all her dolls’ clothes and painted green arrows between their legs. The rain fell and fell.
My blood ran slowly around my network; I knew the quiet floating world was coming closer.
Uncle Rodney called the house. I heard Jake telling him I was going to be transferred and that Jan Watts would explain.
‘We can’t keep him anymore, Rodney, so if you aren’t here by then he’ll be going into Stateside and you can contact them . . . it’s not going to be our concern anymore.’
Jake came into the living room and said, ‘Your uncle is coming for you today, Jim.’ Next he said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid before then.’
The only time Jake wasn’t there, guarding us, was after he dropped Liam back from training.
‘I’ll be an hour, Anne,’ he said. ‘I have to give one of the boys a hand at work; I’ve got no choice.’
‘No longer than an hour, Jake, please,’ said Anne White.
After Jake had left, Liam said, ‘Can we go outside, Anne? It’s not raining.’ He had mud up his legs and across his cheeks and on his top.
Anne White looked through the window. ‘Yes, yes, you can all go outside,’ she said, then she left the room to go upstairs.
Deirdre got up and followed Liam out the back door. I stayed sitting.
Anne White came back downstairs and saw me in the lounge room not doing anything or getting any fresh air or letting off any steam.
‘Go on, Jim, you too. Outside with the others.’ She lifted her arm to show me where the door was, and I got up and walked outside. I stood beside the lemon tree heavy with lemons almost ready, not much longer now, and closed my eyes so that only the sounds could enter. I narrowed it down to birds and leaves and a car.
Liam found me; he said, ‘Come with me, Jimmy.’
I followed him to the bottom of the yard. Deirdre was there throwing stones into the three drums, which were all overflowing with water. I listened to the stones land with a plink. ‘Hello, Jimmy,’ Deirdre said, smiling.
‘You stand next to the drums, Jimmy,’ said Liam, ‘and tell us whose stone lands first.’
I went close to the drums and waited.
Liam stood behind the line made out of a stick and threw. A stone hit my cheek.
‘What did you do that for?’ Deirdre asked Liam.
‘I didn’t mean to.’
‘Yes you did.’
‘No I didn’t, I was aiming for the drum.’
My cheek stung where the stone had hit, but as if it was hurting someone else and not me. Who was that person? Why was he here?
‘Come on, Deirdre,’ said Liam. ‘Go again.’
They stood behind the stick that was the line and threw again and a stone hit me in the forehead.
Deirdre squealed. ‘Liam!’
‘Shut up, Deirdre,’ Liam said, walking to the drums. He looked in over the top of the end one. ‘It’s the deepest it’s ever been,’ he said to me, pulling a crate over to the drum. ‘Have a look, Flick.’ He touched the crate.
I stepped onto it and looked into the water in the drum and saw myself moving on the surface.
Liam stirred the water with a stick and the different parts of me rippled and separated, like waves in miniature. I couldn’t stop looking into the water, as if the water was the magnet and I was the metal. It drew me to itself.
Deirdre pulled me off the crate by the back of my shirt. ‘Remember the cat,’ she said to Liam.
He turned on her. ‘I never put the cat in,’ he said, his mouth twisting.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘It fell from the branch.’ She looked up at the tree leaning over the drums. ‘Jake cut the branches back after that, didn’t he, Liam? After he found the cat.’
‘I didn’t do it.’ Liam’s face flushed.
‘I didn’t say you did.’ Deirdre stood, feet apart in the mud. ‘Did I?’
‘Yeah, you did. Why don’t you fuck off?’
‘Why don’t you?’ Deirdre’s feet squelched and mud curled up around the ends of her gumboots.
‘Why don’t you?’ Liam poked her in the chest with his stick. She stepped back. He poked her in the cheek. Then he put the stick under her chin and lifted it.
‘Stop it!’ she said.
‘You stop it.’
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, pulling the stick away with her hand.
‘Doing what?’
‘Why are you being so mean?’
He threw the stick at her feet. ‘Fuck off.’
Deirdre shouted, arms stiff by her side, ‘He caught the bus and he went all the way there and he saw his dad like you said, he tried but the dad didn’t want him! His dad said, “Leave me out of the picture.” He didn’t want him!’ She started to cry. ‘He didn’t want him! His dad didn’t want him, Liam!’
‘I said fuck off!’ They were both shouting now.
‘There was no more he could have done, Liam. He tried! The dad didn’t want him. So what?’
Liam pushed her hard and she landed on her backside and her hands gripped the mud beside he
r. ‘So nothing!’ he said. ‘Leave us alone!’
I watched as Deirdre got to her feet. ‘Come back inside, Jimmy. Don’t stay out here.’
I didn’t move.
‘He doesn’t want to go inside, do you, Jimmy?’ said Liam.
‘Jimmy, come on.’ Deirdre took my hand and pulled. ‘Don’t stay out here.’
‘He’s not a little girl. Deirdre. He wants to stay out here with me, don’t you, Flick?’
‘Don’t you?’
I nodded.
Deirdre hit me in the chest with her fist. ‘I hate you, Jimmy!’ she said. Then she turned and walked up to the house – her skirt, her boots, her muddy hands, the back of her head, her dark plait, its blue ribbon frayed at the edges, all had given up.
‘Come and check this out,’ said Liam, looking into the drum. ‘Here’s where the cat was.’ He banged on the drum with his fist, bang. ‘It was raining then too. It was a white cat with bent whiskers and it was always at the back door. It didn’t belong here or anywhere but Anne felt sorry for it so she gave it milk and then it came back and she said to me, “I always end up with the ones nobody wants.”’ Liam banged the drum again. ‘I picked up the cat from the back step where it waited for Anne and it scratched my cheek.’ He pointed to a place near his ear. ‘Right here,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t let him go. I walked down to the drums. I held the cat tight; there was no way I was letting him go. I decided. If you decide then that’s it – the cat could have scratched out my eyes and I wouldn’t have let go.
‘I got to the drum and I threw in the cat and when it tried to come up for air I pushed its head under. It kept coming up and I kept pushing it under. It bit my fingers and it tried to swim but I kept pushing it down. I could see the whole of the inside of its mouth. It was bright pink and it had row after row of teeth like a shark’s. Its whole mouth was open, trying to breathe, and then when it went under its eyes never closed – even when it was dead its eyes stayed open.’