Good question.
‘It’s kind of a long story,’ I say, and sit down. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
At recess, Hildy and I talk and talk. Some of the other girls listen, but they realise we don’t want them to hear everything, so they go away.
‘But why’d you leave in such a hurry?’ I ask her. ‘You didn’t even get your stuff from school. We thought you might’ve been – like, well, kidnapped. Or, ah, something even worse.’ Well, a certain girl called Cass thought that. I didn’t. ‘You know, you just disappeared into thin air. Kind of.’
Hildy nods. She looks worried, even now. Her face isn’t as round as it used to be, I notice.
‘My dad was coming with a lawyer,’ she tells me. ‘To try and get me to go back to America. But Mum wasn’t going to let him, so we left. I didn’t want to run away from him, but my mum said we had to go, so we went. It was scary. We ended up in Canberra. It was weird.’ Hildy smiles, her braces sparkling in the sun. ‘But it’s okay now. He’s coming out here to help build a new chairlift on the mountain. He’s not going to live with us, but I’ll be able to see him heaps.’
‘Well,’ I say, and I feel a big smile start somewhere around my heart, ‘that’s fantastic.’ And I mean that – because I’m becoming an expert on what’s a good situation for kids from broken families.
Hildy smiles, showing me even more silver squares, and some gummy little elastic band thingies way up the back.
‘At least you didn’t have to run away,’ she says. ‘But it’s okay now. Mum and Dad even talk to each other. And no lawyers or whatever they are. So that’s good.’
I nod. I laugh. ‘Yeah, that is good.’ The sun feels warm on my head. Things seem so much better when you have someone to talk to who knows exactly what you’re going through. And to see Hildy, right here with me and happy, and in my class – well, it’s the coolest thing that’s happened all year.
‘Wait till I tell Cass you’re here,’ I say. ‘She’ll go MENTAL!’
Prepare for take-off
We’re at Melbourne Airport. It’s big and busy and I don’t have a clue what to do. I stand in a line with Dad, Nathan and Cass, and shuffle towards a counter. I’m nervous. No, I’m not – I’m scared! A guy walks past in a dark blue jacket with gold wings on the front pocket. He looks important and carries a briefcase and a hat. Cass elbows me.
‘Pilot!’ she hisses. ‘And you know what they say about them.’
‘What?’
‘They fly planes.’
Suddenly my bag has disappeared, my ticket has been checked, and I’m on my way to Gate Lounge Six. Through the Security Area we go and I decide it’s lucky that they only x-ray bags and not people, or they’d see my heart beating so fast they’d probably call a doctor. I’ve never done anything like this before.
We find Gate Lounge Six and sit. Nathan is rapt because there’s a TV showing a football match live from the MCG.
‘I wish I was going,’ Cass says again, staring out at the red and white tail of a gigantic plane.
‘I wish I was,’ Nathan says. ‘I should be. I will be.’
Dad changes the subject. ‘Hey, Nathan. Look, a jumbo jet.’
Nathan looks, hands on the window. He wants to get out and touch the plane. Looking at things is never enough for him. He’s excited. I haven’t seen him like this for months. It makes me happy, then sad, and then I start to cry. I don’t feel all that bad really, it’s just that I’m the only one who’s going to see Mum when I think the … whole family should be.
‘Hey, it’s all right, Tiff.’ Dad squashes me with his arm. ‘You’ll have a wonderful time. Here.’ He gives me a little square present wrapped in silver and blue paper. ‘Open it on the plane. But don’t leave it there.’
I sniff as I poke around for a tissue.
‘I won’t,’ I say, hoping no one is looking at me sniffling and blubbering.
There’s an announcement. People start moving. Cass poses like a teapot.
‘Please present your boarding pass,’ she says sweetly. ‘And turn off ya mobile, thick head. Now you better get goin’, Tiff. Or they’ll take off without ya.’
I give her a hug, and for the seventeenth time she says she wishes she was going. And for the seventeenth time I tell her I wish she was, too – but I guess there are some trips that you have to make by yourself. And this is one of them.
The plane moves out slowly across the runway, and as it turns I see paddocks and trees. I didn’t expect the airport to be in the country, but it is. Or it’s right next to it. And then the plane starts to go.
I’ve never felt anything like this. It’s as if the plane is in a huge hurry to take off. It races up the runway, and shoots up so fast it feels as if the back of my head has been left far behind. Now everything catches up and my forehead seems to have gone floating way out in front. I shut my eyes but that makes it worse – so I look out the window and see the ground way down below. It looks like it’s slowly turning. We’re really high already.
The world is tilting and my blood seems to be shifting from one side to the other. I’d like to ask the lady next to me if she’s feeling this, but she seems more interested in her magazine than taking off. Man, she is missing out! Right next to us are massive clouds like fairytale castles, and below in the distance the city pokes up like a spiky island. It’s brilliant!
I rest my forehead against the glass. It feels like we’re going slowly but I know we’re not. And now it’s sunny. There’s blue sky everywhere and the land below is a cool dark green. I’m alone, but I’m not lonely. In some ways it’s actually quite nice to be apart from everyone else for a while. Maybe this is why Dad likes to climb mountains. I listen to the hum of the plane. It’s a steady, calm, reliable sound. This plane is a good plane.
I remember my present, open it, and find two little black and yellow cameras – those throwaway types. Usually my dad tries not to buy anything disposable, but I guess this is a special case. I hope I can work out how to use them. They seem to only have one button, so I’m thinking it shouldn’t be all that hard.
A flight attendant helps me get off the plane and into the terminal. This lady has blonde hair and walks with a very straight back. Her white shirt doesn’t have any wrinkles and she wears gold rings and a bracelet. She reminds me of my mother! Then I do see my mum.
She’s by herself, wearing a long cream-coloured dress. Most of the other people waiting are brown like biscuits, but Mum glows like gold.
‘There she is,’ I tell my helper. ‘Thanks. Bye!’ Then I scoot off past everyone, get to Mum, and hug her so tight my face gets pushed sideways.
She smells like flowers, coffee, soap, herself, and I’m so happy I’m out of words – but here I am in Queensland.
Welcome to a sunny Saturday afternoon in SURFERS, BABY!
In the distance
We drive to Mum’s place. It’s weird to be in a car I’m used to, but to be in a completely strange place. The road is wide and busy and everybody’s got summer clothes on. It’s hard to breathe. I can’t believe how warm it is up here.
‘Where’s the sea?’ I ask, because all I can see are buildings.
‘Just down there.’ Mum points down a street that heads off between some enormously high buildings that have balconies from top to bottom. ‘We’ll go after you’ve had a rest.’
A rest? What? I just got here.
At the end of the street I can see sand dunes but no water. What a weird place this is. How can there be high-rise buildings just about right on the beach? Anyway, there are, and I can smell the sea. It’s like someone has sprinkled damp salt right under my nose and it tickles. So what happens if great big waves come in? Did anyone think of that? You come out to get the mail and spa-lash, you’re washed down a drain.
‘So, Tiff,’ Mum says, and pulls into the driveway of some flats that have a tiny strip of garden. ‘Here we are. My little boxy home.’ Mum looks happier than I can remember. ‘I still can’t quite believe it.’
Me neither, but I guess I might as well start trying.
‘Let’s go to the beach,’ I say. ‘And then I have to ring Cass.’
Am I dreaming? Over a small hill of sand is the beach. It’s wide and there are waves for as far as I can see up and down. Some are breaking, some are building up, some have turned into foamy wrinkles. The sound is loud but restful, close but far away, and makes a kind of a low booming shhhh that fills me up completely.
‘Well, this is it.’ Mum looks at the water as if she’s surprised to find herself here, too. ‘It’s lovely, isn’t it? It’s incredible.’
I nod. ‘The waves are big,’ I say, like some dummy. The waves are big!
‘Let’s walk.’ Mum takes off her sandals. ‘It’s a great place to clear your head.’ She looks at the water, her face open and welcoming, which is a way that she never looked in Tilgong. ‘And it’s twice as good now that you’re here.’
We walk. The sand tickles. I hop around. My feet are too sensitive and soft. I run down close to the water, where the sand is solid and cold. Mum follows, holding her sandals and my runners.
‘So Nathan is all right?’ she asks again. ‘He is okay, Tiff, isn’t he?’
I roll up my jeans and go into the shallows. It is not warm. The water drags out over my feet and that tickles, too. My feet sink down. Uh-oh, quicksand! Only joking.
‘Yeah, he’s okay,’ I say, watching the waves break. ‘He’s got some friends. Football kids. He’s not sad,’ I add. ‘He looks at the photo albums a bit. Dad bought him another golf club. That cheered him up. A nine iron or whatever.’
Mum doesn’t answer. She’s worried about Nathan. I mean, she knows he’s a tough, roly-poly sort of a kid – but he is only a kid. In fact, some school mornings Dad has to spend a fair bit of time just trying to get him out of the house – but I won’t tell Mum that. What’s the point? What’s she going to do about it?
‘And how is your dad?’ Mum asks this politely, but not with a lot of interest.
‘All right.’ I look out at the blue water, thinking about how Dad has to do all the cooking, most of the housework and lunches, his own work, then his correction, look after us, and all the other stuff. ‘He goes to bed at nine-thirty. Sometimes nine. He’s a legend,’ I add, even if he does yell more than he used to.
Mum nods, holding back her hair with one hand. She looks modern, as if she’s in a magazine. She doesn’t look Tilgong, as Cass would say. She looks beachy. And free.
‘And Lane?’ she asks quietly. ‘Have you seen him?’
I stamp a few footprints.
‘Not since we went fishing.’ I stamp a few more. ‘He’s all right. I don’t mind him,’ I add. ‘And Hildy’s dad has come over from America.’ Mum knows all about Hildy turning up – I rang her the day it happened. She was shocked but happy, like everyone else. A mystery solved! ‘He’s got like this severe accent. And a blond moustache.’ I watch a wave draw itself up as if it’s pushing its chest out, then it trips over its feet. I wonder if there are any whales out there. Probably.
Mum and I sit. I can see just how skinny and white my legs are. Everyone tells you how dangerous sunbaking is, but boy, I wouldn’t mind a few layers of brown right now.
‘I’m glad things have worked out for Hildy,’ Mum says. ‘That’s wonderful news. And yes, Lane’s a nice guy. But I don’t know, Tiff. Not for me. I lost faith in him over the Warrigal River thing. That was the last straw.’
I scoop sand, crush it, and make a shape like a shell that falls apart. Mum seems separate from most things. It’s as if she’s always slightly lonely. My dad never seems lonely, and I don’t think he would ever be, not even if he was on top of a mountain by himself in a storm – actually, there, I think, he’d be quite happy!
I think Mum’s happiest when she’s busy working on her ideas. But when I watch her looking out at the ocean, her hair blowing, I feel a sort of way-off sadness that I don’t understand. Her eyes have a far-away look. Sometimes it’s hard to believe she’s my mother – and that’s not only because she looks young.
She pulls me close to her.
‘The world’s never going to be perfect, is it, Tiff? But it’s still a beautiful place. And we’re lucky to be who we are and where we are. Try to remember that, mouse. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re not too bad, either.’
‘If only it wasn’t so far away from Mitta,’ I say. ‘But it’s like forever.’ I look around. The buildings behind us block the sun. God, they’re big. ‘Dad says we can get a dog,’ I add, because he did. ‘When we get everything sorted out.’ Mum doesn’t like dogs.
‘Your dad has far more patience than me,’ Mum says. ‘I won’t deny that.’
I want a dog that’s a good listener. Cass’s dog isn’t. How could he be with a name like Wally? Cass has to yell at him to make him do anything. I don’t want a dog like that. Instead of a Seeing Eye dog I want a Listening Ear dog!
‘I’ll design a coat for it for winter,’ Mum says.
‘It’ll have to be a DrizaBone,’ I say. ‘It’s gunna be a country dog.’
One glass penguin
Mum and I have fun. She’s been allowed to take a couple of days off work so we do lunch, hit the beach, and check out the shops. I don’t like shopping much. I get sweaty trying stuff on, but it’s okay. I prefer to eat!
Every day we walk and talk on the sand. Lots of people do. And when we’re walking we don’t seem to get stuck for words. We don’t argue, either.
‘I don’t miss those mountains, Tiff,’ Mum says. ‘The beach makes me feel –’ she lifts her arms up and out wide. ‘Well, happy and sexy. And free.’
Sexy? STEADY ON – but the sun and water does give you a different kind of energy.
The mountains make me happy in a different, deeper-down, kind of way. You have to go out and find the beautiful things in the mountains; like the rivers and birds and trees and things. I get the idea, though, that if I’m going to stay here, it’s going to have more to do with me wanting to be with Mum than just liking fish and shells.
But I do like this place. Once you get down here away from the buildings it’s fantastic. Pity I can’t surf. I wouldn’t mind doing that. It looks a bit like snowboarding. Imagine me as a surfer girl? Well, I guess anything’s possible. And this is the place to do it.
Walking back I check out some girls about my age. Most of them have blonde hair and tans. They look nice, but I don’t know if they are nice. Maybe I wouldn’t fit in because I’m not blonde and I don’t go all that brown.
The girls who live here seem to like living here. Mum knows some of them because she sees them going to school. They look at me and I look at them. They seem more grown-up. All of them have got on certain sorts of bracelets and anklets.
As we walk off the beach I see a boy sitting by himself in the sand. He’s got bare brown feet and is wearing faded jeans and a soft grey T-shirt. He doesn’t have a towel, but he looks like he’s pretty much at home here. I keep looking at him. He seems familiar. His hair is black and his fringe flickers in the breeze. I know him.
It’s Jordan – from the snow. And his friend’s name was … um, Angus!
He glances at me, so I say, ‘Jordan?’ I’m just about blushing already. This could go off the scale for me making an idiot of myself if I’m wrong. He blinks, grins, and stands.
‘Oh, yeah. Tiffany.’ He looks pleased, which is good. ‘From the snow. Ah, Mount Kennedy. Wang-ga-ratta. Whatever.’
That, of course, makes me laugh. I nod and smile. My heart’s going boomp, boomp, boomp. Apart from anything else, as I said, he is quite handsome!
Jordan brushes the sand off his jeans.
‘Are you on holidays?’ He seems to belong right where he is. He seems relaxed, unlike myself.
‘Sort of,’ I say. ‘My mum lives here. I came to visit.’
Mum takes a step forward and holds her hand out.
‘Hi,’ she says. ‘I’m Sian Porter. Oh, Sian McLeish, really. Now.’
> McLeish? What the –? Oh, yeah, that was her name before she was married. It sounds strange to hear her say it, though. It hurts.
Jordan shakes her hand.
‘I’m Jordon Taylor. My dad lives up here, too. In those apartments.’ He points to a building that stands near the dunes like a huge white rocket. ‘Lotus, they’re called. I live in Melbourne, though. Mostly. With my mum. I come up here during the holidays.’
Now STOP everything RIGHT there.
I can’t believe Jordan’s telling me just about the same story I was going to tell him – except it’s kind of in reverse. Geez, I have to talk to him about this. I have to. I have to find out how he’s survived and what it’s like now and if he’s happy and … everything.
He looks at me, squinting a little. His sunglasses, silver-grey, are folded over the collar of his shirt. He slips his feet into a pair of old white thongs.
‘Are you staying close to here?’
I point. ‘Mum’s flat is in that street right there. Flat six at number eighteen. Come and visit.’ God, Cass wouldn’t believe I said that. She’d be so proud.
‘Okay.’ He grins, with his head to one side. ‘I will. And you can come and visit me up where I am.’
I look at Jordan’s building. It’s one of those places, I think, that is ugly on the outside but might be very nice on the inside. It’s really modern.
‘Apartment two-one-nine,’ Jordan says. ‘Twenty-first floor. Buzz the buzzer down the bottom and I’ll let you in. It’s easy.’ He smiles again.
I bet I’m going to forget all this. God, I think I have already. Mum hands Jordan a yellow and white business card.
‘It’s all on there, Jordan. You’re most welcome to call in or ring. I’ve got a pen somewhere –’ she fishes around in her beach bag. ‘And we’ll write yours down, too, so that no one will get confused.’
My mother the hero!
I sit on the couch from Tilgong and cradle the glass penguin that also used to be at home. It’s nice to be on the couch again. The fabric is light yellow with olive stripes and is cool on my bare legs. I think about our house in Tilgong. No one lives there at the moment, although I think it has been sold to someone from Albury – which is just down the road from Wang-ga-ratta, actually.
Tiff and the Trout Page 10