Through your sound, your hearing picks up others. ‘Not again,’ you hear. ‘Just another one.’ ‘Can’t he shut up?’
You can’t, but you have to move. They come and cover him up and put him in the back of a white and red car and it all happens fast, with a practised routine, a feeling of just another night in the city. You stay. Howl on; as long as you smell him still, you will cry. When the sound stops, all tangible proof of him will cease to be apart from you – and who can you tell your memories to? Instead, you cry them out, forcing them upwards to counter the rain coming downwards.
A while later, though, and your throat cracks and your sound stops. The rain has stopped. You need water. You don’t know how. You lie down, and think about his hands pouring you water from your big bottle. Your stomach hurts. Inside is black and burnt. Outside feels the same.
Then a man; not him, but another man from up the street – he beckons. He has a bowl of water and some crusts. ‘Come,’ he says, and though the fear of man is still there, though your fur stands on end, everything is dulled and you can’t distinguish kind from cruel anymore. You go, because there’s nothing more to do, and you don’t want to sit in his fading essence anymore.
You limp, slowly, cracked limbs and lips and an aching self, lost, but still where you are, still on Queen. You limp to the doorway, and look up at the man. ‘Come,’ he says. ‘There’s room here.’
You find yourself led through to an outside storage room with two walls, a sort of lean-to, a tiny space that protects nothing more than a few boxes of toilet paper and an old tarp. There’s a very small gap you can squeeze through to get back to the alley off Queen, and you’re skin and bone anyway. You look up at the man and he looks down at you. He puts the bowl of water down and leaves without a word more than ‘here’.
You sit and stare at the two walls that are half of what you and he deserved; half of a pipe dream for half of the pair. You look at the shelter offered to you that was never offered to him, and you think about the fact that perhaps it took his going for you to be accepted as any more than a blight, a tear in Melbourne city’s fabric. You look underneath, and you know there would have been room for two.
You go and sit on the tarp, and you start again, back where you’ve always been, but far from comfort and what you know. Queen houses you still, and better than it did when it was both you and him. You’re dry, and you’re watered. There is kindness still, in some places, but there’ll never be touch again.
Stay. You’ve a place to rest your leg and your weary throat. But his smell is gone now, and your ribs and organs ache as they try to compensate, to fill holes inside that’ll keep continually emptying. You’re still on Queen, but you’ve lost your way home. So you sit.
About the author
Katherine Hayes is a freelance writer based in Melbourne, and ‘Queen Street’ is her first published short story. She considers herself a feminist and a dessert-fiend, and her favourite writers are Caitlin Moran and Miranda July. One day she’ll manage to sit down and write a whole novel. She lives in Brunswick with some friends and a perpetually dying herb garden.
Colours
Eleanor George
Winner, Young Writer
Dear Mum,
Maybe you didn’t realise it when you were alive, but here’s the thing: people live their lives as colours. If I look carefully enough, I can see them everywhere. Yellow for deceit. Blue for sadness. Red for anger, and green for envy. And black, for those times when they feel so lonely that it’s hard to breathe.
Red is what I was feeling this afternoon in last period, when Mrs Peters was yelling at me because I didn’t finish my homework. Red with pent-up frustration and anger. Red with annoyance at Mrs Peters, because that was the second time she’s yelled at me this week. And it’s only Tuesday. The truth is, Mum, that I’m really falling behind at school. What with working extra hours and looking after Dad, I don’t really have time for my studies – but Mrs Peters doesn’t agree.
‘No more excuses, Grace!’ she shouted. ‘Your homework must be completed by tomorrow, or I will see you in detention!’
Which is easier said than done, because I have about two weeks of homework to catch up on. I guess I’ll be going to detention at lunch tomorrow.
‘The old hag,’ whispered Maddie, who was next to me. ‘Tell her where to shove her homework, Gracie.’
It’s a golden feeling to know that you have a friend, that you’re not alone. But I didn’t say anything, because even though I was red inside, I didn’t want to get into more trouble. I’ve become good at that now, Mum. Hiding what I really feel under a grey, emotionless shell.
Dad was on the lounge when I got home, eating his lunch and listening to the footy on the radio. He’s an expert at knowing what time it is now, especially during the day. If I ask him what time it is, he’ll usually get it right, give or take a half hour. And he listens to the radio, which announces the time pretty regularly. But sometimes, like today, I find him eating lunch at 4:30. And sometimes when he hears me walk in, he’ll say, ‘Did they send you home early, Gracie?’
Tonight while we were eating our dinner, Dad started asking me about colours.
‘What does blue look like?’ he said.
‘The ocean,’ I told him. ‘The sky. Your eyes are blue, Dad.’
‘But what does it look like?’
‘Um . . . sort of calm, but melancholy at the same time. And patient, you know? It’s kind of . . . deep.’ He nodded, processing this information. He says he’ll never forget what everything looks like, Mum, but I can tell it’s getting harder for him to remember. I think after almost two years of seeing nothing I would forget too.
Dear Mum,
I stayed up until two in the morning to finish my work for Mrs Peters, so I’m really tired. This afternoon I had to walk Dad to his check-up at the doctor’s. He’s good at walking now, he says he lifts his feet up higher so he doesn’t trip. He still doesn’t want to get a guide dog, he thinks if he does it’ll wreck the flat and leave mess everywhere. We got some funny looks from a few people on our street when they saw us walking slowly and carefully, arm in arm, but they don’t bother me as much as they used to. And most of our neighbours are really friendly, like Mrs Dimopoulos who lives next door.
I talked with Dr James after the appointment, without Dad.
‘Grace, I think your father needs to move into a home, where there are specialised people to take care of him.’ I don’t want Dad to be put in some place where everything is bright white and sterilised, and all the nurses look at you with too much sympathy in their eyes.
‘I think we’re doing fine now, in the flat,’ I said. Dr James sighed, like he didn’t have time for a fifteen-year-old girl telling him off.
‘I know you’re taking very good care of him now, Grace, but think of all the opportunities he’s missing out on!’
I couldn’t think of any.
‘And what about you, hey? I know it’s been hard for you since your mum died.’
I felt like knocking his glasses off his face. How could Dr James, who was usually really cool, use that to persuade me to give up Dad?
‘If you just let someone else take care of your dad, just for a bit, then you could catch up at school, do sport or music . . . go out with your friends.’
I looked at my feet. The truth was black, and staring me in the face.
‘Grace, it’s not fair on any teenage girl to be taking care of a forty-year-old blind man. This is the right thing for both of you.’
I felt torn, Mum. Like a person accustomed to seeing blue skies, then suddenly glimpsing blue on the horizon. But I knew what Dad would want.
‘Sorry Doc,’ I said, ‘but we’re not leaving home.’
He shook his head and sighed again, but this time the sigh was sort of amused. ‘You’re as stubborn as your father, you know that?’ he said.
When we were walking home, I felt a little blue. I think Dad sensed it, too. But I know I did the right thing f
or us . . . I hope. I wish the accident never happened, Mum, so you could be here to make all the important decisions. You would’ve known what to do when Dad’s glaucoma started coming on. You would have made him go get his eyes checked, not let his stubbornness get in the way like I did. Then, maybe, none of this would have happened.
Dear Mum,
Mrs Peters wasn’t even that nice when I handed in my work to her. She just sort of went ‘hmph!’ and took it from me. No doubt she’ll find something that’s horribly wrong, and force me to redo all of it. I feel a bit sorry for Mrs Peters, though. I don’t think she has many friends. She’s a beige kind of woman.
Maddie turned sixteen today, so we had a bit of a celebration at lunch – and Michael Brown came over and sat next to me. I can’t wait until I turn sixteen, because then I’ll be able to drive Dad to all his appointments. Maybe we could even get out of Sydney for a day or two, have a holiday. But first I need to save up enough for a car, and right now we’re still struggling with the rent.
Mr Armstrong said he’d let me work extra hours this weekend, which is great. He knows about Dad, so he usually lets me work late, even when he doesn’t need me to. He’s pretty cool, Mr Armstrong. He says I should call him Len, but I don’t because it feels weird to be calling my boss by his first name. He always wears funny ties, colourful ones with crazy patterns. He says to me, ‘Gracie, tell your father it’s about time we caught up for a beer.’ And so I tell Dad that Mr Armstrong said hi, because Dad doesn’t really like going out these days. He reckons people stare at him. Like he would know. But if Mrs Peters is beige, Mr Armstrong is bright yellow, a yellow that makes you want to laugh just by looking at it.
Tonight Dad and I watched TV for a bit. He likes to watch all the singing shows, because you don’t really need to be able to see for them. I think they’re boring, though. They’re all the same to me. When they’re doing blind auditions, Dad likes to tell me whether he would choose the singer for his team or not. Usually it’s not.
‘Is this girl trying to sing, or quack?’ he asked me tonight.
‘I think she’s pretty good,’ I replied, smiling.
‘Hmm, good for a duck.’
‘Maybe if you listened to something other than Cold Chisel for once . . .’
‘Ha,’ he said, ‘I don’t need to. That’s the only good music around here.’
Dad’s obsession with Jimmy Barnes is almost religious. He’s not fond of my favourite music, but then he’s not fond of any other kind of music.
Michael Brown texted me tonight. I know it’s ridiculous, but every time my phone lights up, I get all excited. He probably thinks I’m weird for answering all his messages immediately after I receive them, but then his last message read:
Good night Grace <3
It probably means nothing, Mum, but when I saw that heart, I felt all rosy inside.
Dear Mum,
Thank goodness it’s the weekend tomorrow, Mrs Peters has given us a pile of homework high enough to climb the Harbour Bridge on. But tomorrow I’m working until midday, and I have to take Dad to another eye check-up.
Michael sat next to me again at lunch. Maddie was making eyes at us and pretending to gag, but it was still great. His hand brushed against mine a couple of times. Could it be a coincidence, Mum, that his surname is a colour? Brown is such a steady, earthy kind of colour, too. Am I in love? Because if I am, love isn’t just one colour. It’s an entire palette, a whirl of colours. But what if Michael doesn’t like me when he finds out I have to spend most of my time looking after Dad?
Dad was sitting on the lounge listening to the radio when I got home from school.
‘Careful if you go into the kitchen, Gracie. I spilt some water on the floor, and I think it’s still a bit wet.’
‘Okay,’ I said, kissing him on the cheek. I put down my bag and walked into the kitchen. It was a disaster. There was water on the benchtop and on the floor, along with shards of glass. Dad had obviously tried to clean it up, because there was part of a broken cup in the bin, and some waterlogged paper towel. I sighed, and began to mop up the mess, but I stopped when I heard a sound at the door. It was Dad.
‘I’m sorry, Gracie,’ he said.
I stood up and hugged him. We stayed like that for a long time. I think both of us were crying.
Later this evening, we sat in front of the TV. Dad was listening to the singing, and I was texting Michael.
‘He sounds like he swallowed a foghorn,’ Dad complained. I laughed.
We sat quietly for a few more minutes. I could tell Dad was thinking about something.
‘Gracie,’ he said suddenly, ‘do you want to move out of the flat? I mean . . . you know, to a place where there’ll be someone else to make sure I don’t get myself into trouble instead of you all the time. Just . . . if you want . . .’
I felt really blue, a dark, sad blue. Dad had always been too proud and stubborn to even consider this, but now he was. For me.
‘Dad, it’s fine, really,’ I said. ‘You know I’m happy here, with just us.’
He smiled, and I could tell he was relieved. ‘What colour is happy?’ he asked.
‘Yellow,’ I said. ‘Bright, vibrant, strong yellow.’ My voice cracked when I said that, and I felt a big lump in my throat. Because yellow is not what I am feeling, Mum. And yellow is also the colour of a liar.
Dear Mum,
I woke up at six to walk to work today. I walked past Mrs Dimopoulos’s bright, green painted house, wondering why anyone would choose such a bizarre colour. There were only a few cars, because it was early, and I stopped on the footpath for a few minutes just to enjoy the peace.
I worked until midday at the chemist, and who should show up just as I was leaving but Michael Brown! I flushed bright red and ducked behind a stand of hand moisturisers. Despite my desperate measures, he saw me and came over.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Oh, hi Michael,’ I replied. Stupid, I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Then, ‘What are you doing here?’ Another completely ridiculous thing to say. What do people usually do in a chemist, Grace?
‘Oh, I’m just getting some stuff for my parents,’ he said. ‘You?’
‘I work here, but my shift just ended, so . . . I’m leaving.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know you worked here.’
I just nodded, and there was an awkward pause.
‘Hey Grace,’ he said suddenly.
‘Yeah?’
‘Um, do you want to go to see a movie today?’
My heart started tap dancing. ‘Sure. What do you want to see?’ I was surprised at how steady my voice was.
‘Whatever you want. I’ll meet you there at three?’
I nodded, grinning like an idiot. ‘See you there,’ I said. I walked home feeling lighter than air. The rosy feeling had returned, a pink glow of happiness. At three o’clock, I was going on a date.
I vacuumed and mopped in a happy daze, thanking God that our flat isn’t very big. As I dusted, I wondered what I was supposed to wear. I had no idea, but I supposed Maddie would know. I decided to text her later. And then, at 2:24 exactly, I remembered: Dad’s appointment was at half past three.
I sat down on my bed and started to cry, Mum. I felt black. Black with frustration, and anger at myself for forgetting. But most of all, I was black with disappointment. I called Michael.
‘Hi Grace,’ he said.
‘Hey, Michael. Um . . . I’m really sorry, but I can’t make it at three. I have to take my dad to an appointment at the doctor’s.’
‘You can’t come?’
‘No . . . Michael, I’m really, really sorry . . .’
‘It’s okay.’
There was a silence for a few seconds.
‘So . . . I guess I’ll see you at school?’
‘Yeah. See you, Grace.’
‘See you.’ And then he hung up.
I was silent as Dad and I walked to the appointment. I think he knew something was wrong,
but he didn’t say anything. I was glad. During the check-up, I sat outside and had a staring competition with the grey wall. The wall won. We walked home, once again without talking. Mrs Dimopoulos was outside gardening as usual, weeding her sunflower bed.
‘Good afternoon, Grace. Good afternoon, David. How are you both?’
Dad faced in her direction to be polite. People freak out sometimes when he talks to them when he’s facing a different direction. ‘Great thanks, Paloma. How are you?’
‘I am wonderful, thank you for asking. Aren’t my sunflowers lovely, Grace?’
‘They are, Mrs Dimopoulos,’ I said. ‘Have a nice day.’
Her eyes followed us all the way up to our door, then she waved to me when we entered. I waved back.
I went into my room and didn’t come back out until it was time to make dinner. Dad knocked over a vase of flowers, and some of the water spilled onto the carpet. I didn’t know how else to clean it up, so I used a hairdryer. We didn’t watch the TV tonight. Michael hasn’t answered any of my messages, and I feel rotten. I want to cry, but I don’t want Dad to hear me. I’ll just have to hold it in.
Dear Mum,
Nothing really happened today. The sky threatened rain and reflected our moods with its impenetrable grey. Dad sat moodily by the radio all day, and I slept a lot. I have homework to do for Mrs Peters, but I haven’t done it. And I don’t care, either.
At two o’clock, I dragged myself out of bed to go to work. Mr Armstrong pays me double time for Sundays but he tells me not to say anything to any of the other employees. I guess it’s to help out with Dad and stuff. After work, I did the groceries and went home. Dad was on the lounge when I came in. He was asleep, but as I got closer I could smell something bad. For a moment I couldn’t pick it, but then I realised what it was. Alcohol. Dad hasn’t drunk much since you died three years ago. I guess things are getting hard for both of us.
Dear Mum,
I woke up early, determined to do something that would make things better. Dad didn’t wake up by himself, so I woke him up before it was time for me to leave. I was purposefully cheerful for him. I made him some breakfast, then kissed him goodbye and left for school. I knew he was hungover, but I pretended not to notice for his sake.
Hope: An Anthology Page 4