by Peter Rix
No, Tom!
Ayyyy!
It was hardly even a touch, but she squealed and grabbed his wrist.
Tom pointed. Hey, great tatt. He pulled his arm free and hauled back one sleeve. How do you like mine? I did them all myself. My aunty bought them for me.
Chances were she hadn’t expected to be laughing out loud so soon after take-off. Somehow, she and Tom made the joke last all the way to Rome, in between loud games of Uno and the colouring competition he organised for his section of the plane.
In Rome, Tom was quickly bored by the galleries and museums. They’re all dead people, Dad.
He was happy enough, though, in the piazzas and cafes keeping an eye out for hot babes while Jim and Fran wandered past the works of the ancient and famous. By the second week, Jim was joining him more often than not. One afternoon, they were waiting in a little piazza surrounded on three sides by apartment buildings, a little chapel tucked away for Fran to explore. He and Tom were sitting on a low stone wall that framed the steps of the chapel. Jim made notes on a pocket organiser while Tom watched the only other occupants of the square, an old, black-clad nonna and three young boys. Jim gave him a nudge – the boys had a skateboard.
Tom pulled away like any teenager whose father has stepped over a line. I know, Dad. I know.
That skateboard of yours, Tom, did it ever turn up?
I don’t, really don’t know.
Jim returned to his notes, checking on Tom every few minutes; there was always the sense that, some place, some time, he would look up to find the boy gone. Tom’s attention had moved from the skateboarders to the far side of the piazza, where the grandmother and the third boy were. She’d set up her guard post on a wooden chair, and the boy sat on the pavement leaning against the wall, beside him a pair of aluminium crutches, the modern alloy type with blue plastic handgrips and shoulder pieces. Parents always made comparisons – degrees of difficulty.
The other two boys jostled for turns on the skateboard. It must have been tough for the one on the ground not able to join in. He took up his crutches then and waved extravagant circles like he was directing the other’s game. They struggled briefly for possession, and when the bigger boy sat down hard they both collapsed into laughter. His friend grabbed the skateboard and tore off on a full circle of the piazza, the wheels beating a rhythm on the paving. He leapt off and flipped the board into his arms, dropped into an extravagant bow and offered it, still laughing, to his companion. There was a rapid-fire exchange of gestures and insults, full voice, and the boys doubled over, arm in arm.
Crack!
They all spun towards the noise. The boy on the ground had smashed his crutches onto the paving. The metallic echo ricocheted around the square.
Basta. Cut it out!
The old woman’s bark just set him off again. He brandished the crutches above his head then whacked them onto the stone. Again, again, again. She went off completely, and the other boys were yelling too. Then the boy on the ground took one crutch and hurled it across the piazza. Before it had even come to rest, the other one followed, skittering across the flagstones to clatter against the opposite wall. It stunned them.
Jim could hear the sound of murmuring from the chapel. The old woman clasped her hands to her face. The skateboarders stared, the smaller boy still with his foot on the board. His older brother took a few steps across the square, arms out wide, head thrust forward in the classic Italian gesture. Tom’s eyes never left the boy on the ground. He was up in an instant, too fast for Jim to grab without making more of a scene. He trotted to the crutches, gathered them to him like lengths of firewood and crossed the square. He knelt to lay the crutches by the boy, one to each side. Tom must have said something; the other boy’s head jerked forward until their faces were only inches apart, Tom’s calm, impassive, the other still disfigured by the shock of his own violence. Suddenly, Jim was struggling for breath. Was it this painful for the other boy’s family to watch? Tom spoke again, and the boy glared at him and raised a clenched fist.
Jim jumped to his feet. The boy punched down hard onto his own leg. Tom didn’t flinch. He leant closer and placed a hand on the boy’s leg, then stood and walked back towards the chapel steps. Jim took his hand and headed into the chapel.
It’s no use talking to them, Tom. They can’t understand our language.
That night, when Tom was getting ready for bed, his father asked, What did you say to that boy?
Tom froze. I don’t, really don’t know, Dad.
I’m not angry. It was a nice thing to get his crutches. I just wondered what you said.
I told him he would need them when it was time to go home.
Was that all?
I told him I can’t do skateboarding either, Tom said. That’s all.
Jim tucked his sheets in tight.
My friend Karen tried crutches like that boy, Tom said, but she fell over on the ground, so now she has to stay in her wheelchair. It’s not fair.
Well, some people have to –
I put my hand on her knee, Tom said, so she could walk too, but it didn’t work. I can do anything, but I can’t do miracles.
Miracles are very hard to do, Tom.
But you have to keep trying, that’s what Mum says.
I’m not sure … Time for sleep now.
But Tom was not ready to let go. Why are Down Syndromes different, Dad?
I wish I knew, little mate. It’s just how they’re born.
James was born, Tom said. He isn’t different. I don’t like being Down Syndrome any more, Dad, because I can’t do things. Like when James got his driving licence …
An only child, Jim had never been able to fathom the relationship between James and Tom. Those driving lessons …
It’s not funny, you little perv, James had yelled at Tom. He jumped out of the pool and chased his brother down to the back fence, grabbing him hard by the neck. Tom’s cackle from behind the pool fence turned to tears. James clipped him behind the ear.
How many times, shithead? Perving is not cool. It’s for dirty old men.
You look at those movies in your room, Tom wailed, and as always James was unable to hold out against Tom’s distress, or his logic. He hauled Tom back to the pool to apologise, and soon they were clowning around in the pool together – Tom, James and his girlfriend. Tom insisted on coming when James drove her home. He watched the couple kiss goodbye.
It’s not fair about disabilities people, he said quietly when the girl had gone.
James gripped the steering wheel. Come on, he said, hop over into the front. I’m not your bloody taxi driver. And that’s how they ended up in the deserted car park, Tom in the driver’s seat, kangaroo-hopping through the gears.
It’ll be easier in my new ute, James promised. It’s automatic. But Tom was already convinced of his driving prowess and pestered more lessons from his big brother. It went on for three weekends in a row, until Tom forgot it was supposed to be a secret from their parents.
It’s difficult for Down Syndrome people to drive, Tom, his father said, tucking the boy in. It was very dangerous. James should have known better.
Then Tom’s mum came in to say his dad’s coffee was ready. She sat down on the bed too, which Tom always loved, having both his parents with him.
Aren’t you a lucky boy, Tom, being in Rome, his mum said, pointing to the window, and they listened together to the sounds of people walking and talking in the street below.
Rome’s okay, Mum and Dad, but I just want to choose some things in my life for me, Tom said. James does everything, like driving and uni and real girlfriends with sex and everything.
Bloody hell, Tom, his dad said in a loud voice, but his mum put her hand on his arm and he didn’t say any more.
You do have to stop spying on James, his mum said in a quiet voice.
But it’s not fair, Mum. I only get to do disabilities things.
Well, none of us can do everything we want to, his dad said. I can’t, Mum can
’t, not even James.
More than me, Tom said.
Actually, Tom, his mum said, there are lots of things you can do.
What lots of things? Tom asked her.
Lots of things. How about go to sleep now, and tomorrow you and I will get a big piece of paper and we’ll make a list.
Jim reached to turn off the light.
It’s all right about that boy with the crutches, Dad, Tom said. If you speak with your voice that you have, people still know.
Tom forgot about the list the next day, and all the next days of the holiday, but on the plane home he decided it was a great idea. He took out the paper his mum had given him with Tom’s List written on the top. On the trip over, she’d said he was the most popular channel on the entertainment program, but now he had to say sorry to the people in his row.
I have to do work.
Swimming was on Tom’s list, and so was scoring more than a hundred at ten-pin bowling, catching trains, making speeches and collecting things. His mum added, with her own special pen, Making people happy. At first, he put in, along with the swimming, being able to go underwater further than James, but then he crossed it out. That was just James letting him win, because another day, when his brother’s girlfriend was visiting, Tom watched him swim underwater up and down the pool for a very long time. At home, Tom pinned the list on the noticeboard in his bedroom and brought it out to show visitors, and he forgot about skateboarding and driving licences. It still made him sad when people weren’t all right talking to him. Especially when they spoke loudly, or told him stuff over and over. Like he was stupid just because he was a disabilities person.
Twelve
The Flying Dolphin Resort in Port Halliburton. Young Campbell had mentioned it. The twenty-first. As Jim drove into Port, the place was hard to miss along the foreshore strip, certainly more neon in the service of its flashing sign than the other resorts. He hadn’t thought of it until that moment but it lifted his mood. Even if he didn’t make contact again with the young hitcher, just to be here seemed to make the overnight stop, the trip itself, more bearable.
He pulled in past a bronze water feature complete with leaping dolphins. This is what big chunks of the coast had become. Imitation Waikiki or Gold Coast. High-rise and low rent, a million cubic metres of concrete, pincushioned with transplanted palm trees that lasted just long enough for the developers to grab the money and run. No wonder Andy had hidden himself away on the lake.
The receptionist handed him the swipe card. Room 1106, Mr Campion. You have a wonderful view from up there. We’re letting everyone know there are cocktails in the Oyster Room in a few minutes, then dinner in the Hibiscus Ballroom at nine.
He’d already begun to turn away. I’m not with the Baxter group, he corrected her.
She ran a finger down a list on her desk. Oh, it was just that you asked …
He’d asked her to check if Campbell had arrived.
No problem, he said and headed for the lifts.
In the room, he hung up his coat and stepped onto the small balcony that looked out over the bay, flashing black under the lights of the high-rises. He grew up knowing the ocean – beaches and point breaks, sandbanks and bomboras – the surfer’s knowledge absorbed like salt through the skin. Out past the breakwater, he could not make out the division between sea and sky. He stood, peering down from the balcony, his mind full of the day’s drive, the hitchhiker, Andy and the dog. The fragments slipped in under cover of darkness to keep him there, sensing more than seeing the water lifting itself towards him then subsiding, again and again, a slow, rhythmic pulse from a distant heart, the soundless movement of air above the surface an almost imperceptible sighing in the dark.
He waited. Time stalled. A voice drifted in on the night zephyr. His fingers cramped on the railing. He peeled them back, one by one, and leant out, the pressure of the top rail against his belt.
Dad? What does disability mean?
Why, Tom? Did someone on the beach say that to you?
What does it mean?
It just means someone who can’t do things as easily as other people, like if they only have one arm, or maybe … maybe their brain doesn’t work so well.
Am I disability, Dad?
You know you were born with Down Syndrome. That’s like disability.
The exchange was as clear as if they were talking right then. No chance Tom was going to understand seven-hundred-to-one odds.
James wasn’t born Down Syndrome, was he, Dad?
No, mate. He wasn’t.
You weren’t?
No.
Not Mum.
No.
Only me.
Yes, mate. I’m really … yes, only you.
Tom pondered the answers for a moment then left his collection of rocks on the sand to climb into his father’s lap. From the balcony, Jim searched the dark to find the boy’s face. There were many images out there, too many, and he took himself up onto his toes to reach further out, reckless, hanging there, peering through the gloom to fix the place, the date, the time, this Tom face … Sunday morning, years ago, autumn’s first big ground-swell wrapping itself around the southern point, thirty or more surfers cutting it to pieces, James among them, Jim on his mal, too, until he caught sight of Tom waving frantically from the sand. On his next wave, he took the shore break then helped Tom ride foamies on a protected sandbank. As always, there were a few lessons: never let the board get sideways between you and a wave; watch for the sets – if it’s too big, then forget the board, dive and stay down until the turbulence is gone. Tom tired quickly, and they sat on the beach to watch for James, Tom nestled in between his father’s knees.
Tom? I want to ask you something, Jim said.
The boy paused in his task of covering their feet with sand and looked up at his favourite father, who always had the answers. Now his face was in clear view.
Does it make you sad? You know, that you’re Down Syndrome?
Tom knelt to run a hand across the stubble on his father’s chin.
Sometimes it does, he said. Not in this time right now, though, because I’ve still got you. But how long do I have to wait, Dad? Do I have to wait for a short time or for a long time?
Wait for what, little mate?
To be like you.
It took the breath away. Tom, all folds and bulges in James’s hand-me-down wetsuit, salty-faced. There was hope in this Tom face. And something else.
Tom, you have to understand, you’ll never …
But the boy had already turned it into a game, burrowing down between his dad’s body and the board Jim had dug in along its edge to cheat the wind.
I don’t … really don’t know, mate. I’m sorry. I don’t know how long.
Minutes of nothing, then Tom’s head popped up, one cheek sand-coated. Anyway, Dad, it isn’t only me. My friend Virginia was born Down Syndrome, and she’s got two arms. So have I. See?
Tom waved his arms about until his father had no choice but to close his eyes.
Jim came in off the hotel balcony and made a quick tour of the room – complimentary newspaper, TV with in-house movies, mini-fridge, room-service menu – then took the lift down to a bar on the mezzanine level. The hotel was apparently pleased with the obligatory seaside motifs in the lobby and hallways and bedrooms, but at least this alcove held itself in check. The subdued lighting and muted brown furnishings suggested a little corner missed when the interior designers swept though with their palms and frangipani. Several dinner-suited young men were in the bar as he entered but were quickly rounded up by a severely coiffed matron and herded back towards the ballroom along the corridor. Jim raised his eyebrows to the barman.
Escapees, the fellow grinned. There’s a big twenty-first on here tonight. Put up a couple of hundred of your nearest and dearest in this place for the night? What do you reckon, about what I earn in a year?
Jim took his time with a Scotch, then ordered a crumbed-calamari bar snack, a glass of wine and called it
dinner. The barman found him a newspaper – the headlines and finance, Test-match scores. Jim let the evening take care of itself.
Later, on his way back to the lifts, he passed by the double doors leading into the ballroom. The room looked to be set up more for a conference dinner than a party – round tables on the ballroom floor, a long head table on the raised stage, speaker’s lectern, laptop computer and data projectors. White damask tablecloths were set off by tropical floral displays in their centres. Up above, gas-filled balloons matching the table flowers jostled for position on the air-conditioned breeze.
He glanced up towards the head table and there was his young hitchhiker, patently unhappy in black tie, sandwiched between a formidable-looking woman whose jewellery glittered even from this distance and a white-maned fellow who was tugging at his collar as if it were a noose. The speeches were in full swing, a couple of young men entertaining the crowd with a slick multimedia presentation. It was a masterful performance and Jim could not resist the temptation to hover by the doors. Tightly scripted, split-screen audiovisuals, edited pieces of home video interspersed with slides and mementos, episodes of a young man’s life. The guest of honour was praised and rubbished in quick succession. At that moment, they were telling a story about a lucky escape, the birthday boy in a chair before them and fitted with a lapel mic. He moaned in mock horror.
Oh, no, don’t go there.
The presenters worked it like professionals. Excitement surged around the tables. Chiacking calls washed in waves from the floor towards the lectern. Each tirade was welcomed by bursts of braying laughter. In the room’s great, colourful swirl, the crowd revelled in its brilliant potential. It was one young man’s night, but the guests gratefully shared in his illumination; it shone on their faces, the capacity of every person in the privileged room to be ahead of the game.
The speaker encouraged the crowd. And is our young Justin daunted? What do you think, ladies and gentlemen?