Digging to Australia

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘Mama told you. I was walking.’

  She looked enormous and mottly in my bright painted bedroom. Her eyebrows were heavy and dark and she was wearing a too-tight dress that emphasised her chest. It had big orange flowers splattered all over it, there was one on each side just where her nipples must be.

  ‘Pull the other one,’ she said. ‘I know you. You had some plan, didn’t you? That’s why you left.’

  ‘I left because you’re such a liar.’

  ‘Am not. Im-ag-in-ation, that’s all it is. Vivid, Mum says.’

  ‘What’s a lie then, if it isn’t imagination?’

  ‘What’s this then?’ She picked up Alice in Wonderland.

  ‘A story,’ I said.

  ‘Lies.’

  I paused, considering this. I thought it quite a good point, for Bronwyn. ‘Don’t be daft. It’s not pretending to be true. That’s the point.’

  ‘Nor was I.’

  ‘You were!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Was not.’

  ‘Were.’

  ‘I never thought you’d believe me! A big twerp, that’s what you are.’

  I opened my mouth to reply and then closed it again. It was no good. She had it all worked out so that she was in the right. I picked the book up and put it in its place on my shelf.

  ‘So where were you?’ she insisted.

  ‘I could tell you anything,’ I said. ‘I could make up any story I like. How would you know if I was telling the truth?’

  ‘Go on,’ she said.

  ‘I have a friend who is building a huge pair of wings so that he can fly. He lives in an unholy church. I slept there all night, and in the morning I found human bones buried in the floor.’

  Bronwyn pulled a face. ‘Stop mucking about,’ she said.

  ‘It’s true,’ I said. ‘Truer than gangsters and America and all that.’

  ‘I didn’t want to come here,’ Bronwyn said, looking away from me and chewing viciously on a fingernail. ‘Mum made me. She wanted us to make it all up. Be friends again. She likes you for some reason.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to come,’ I said. ‘It was Mama who invited you, not me.’ I went to the window and stood looking out at the damp garden.

  ‘Don’t care,’ she replied, and we were silent for some time. I could hear her swallowing and shifting her weight about. Cooking smells drifted upstairs.

  ‘Where’s the toilet?’ she said at last. I told her and she went out. I heard the lavatory flushing and then her exchanging a couple of words with Bob on the landing. She came back into my room with a scarlet face. ‘He’s naked,’ she squeaked. ‘I just saw your granddad, starkers!’ and looked at me as if she expected shrieks of glee.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So what?’

  ‘I saw his, you know …’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s my first real one.’ I heard Bob padding across the landing and closing his door.

  Bronwyn flopped down onto my bed. Her stomach rumbled. I knew she’d tell someone at school. If she could find anyone to talk to. Such information was hard currency in the playground.

  ‘Have you really started?’ she asked.

  ‘Started what?’

  ‘Periods of course.’

  ‘No. That was a lie,’ I said.

  ‘Well I have, really,’ she said. ‘Shall I prove it?’

  ‘Tea’s ready, girls,’ Mama called gaily up the stairs.

  ‘Come on,’ I said. Bronwyn followed me out onto the landing and put her hand on my arm.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Lying. I won’t do it again.’

  ‘Don’t care if you do.’

  ‘I won’t though.’ I looked at her sceptically. How could I possibly believe that? It was probably a lie itself.

  ‘Honest.’

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘Friends again then?’

  ‘S’pose so.’

  Bob wasn’t at the table. ‘He’s off colour,’ Mama explained. ‘He’s gone to bed.’ She didn’t look at me. Bob was never ill, it was one of his boasts. He hadn’t seen a doctor for years, had never in his whole working life had a day off sick. Bronwyn didn’t know that, of course. She munched her way stolidly through heaps of bubble and squeak, and three helpings of apple tart. I was glad Bob wasn’t there to be embarrassing although he’d done his bit just by plodding naked from bedroom to bathroom, but Mama was bad enough on her own, chattering away in an animated girlish way that made me curl up inside. I wouldn’t look at Bronwyn in case she was aiming to set me off again. But she showed no sign of it. She behaved properly, listening to and answering Mama and taking her seriously in a way I had never seen her take her own mother. Mama was impressed, I could tell.

  We helped Mama wash up and then there were still two hours to go before Bronwyn could go home. We went back upstairs to my room but there was nothing to do.

  ‘What did you do last night?’ Bronwyn began again. ‘Honestly. I’ll never tell.’ She licked her finger and held it up. ‘See it wet. See it dry. Cross my heart and hope to die. You haven’t got a boyfriend, have you?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t. I told you what I did.’

  She hugged herself voluptuously and moaned. ‘I can’t wait to have a boyfriend. I can’t wait to do it. I’m a nym-pho-maniac.’

  ‘I know. You told me. Actually I haven’t got a boyfriend, but I have got a manfriend – Johnny – the one I told you about, the one in the church where I spent the night.’

  ‘You spent the night with him?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t there.’

  ‘Oh.’ She leant forward. ‘Have you ever … you haven’t ever …’

  ‘Not yet,’ I said. ‘I could though, any time I wanted to with Johnny.’

  ‘Really.’ She looked at me wide-eyed, and I had an idea.

  ‘Shall I prove it, about Johnny and the church?’

  ‘And the wings and the bones? All right then, prove it.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I went downstairs and persuaded Mama to let us walk round to the newsagent’s for a bar of chocolate. She looked uneasily upstairs at the door behind which Bob was either ill or skulking.

  ‘Well all right,’ she said. ‘Straight there and back. Promise?’

  ‘We won’t be long at all.’

  ‘Where are we going?’ Bronwyn asked breathlessly, buttoning her coat as she hurried to keep up with me.

  ‘To the church, of course.’

  ‘How are you going to prove you were there?’

  ‘I had my charm bracelet on yesterday, remember?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I think I dropped it in the church last night. We’re going to look.’

  It was busy and light on the main road and Bronwyn hurried quite happily along beside me. It wasn’t until we were off the road and through the archway into the cemetery that she began to hesitate.

  ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘Not scared are you?’ I walked boldly between the graves.

  ‘It’s a bit dark …’

  ‘It’s all right. I know my way about.’

  ‘But it’s not safe … what if a murderer …’

  ‘There’s no murderer here.’

  ‘What about the man?’

  ‘Johnny? He wouldn’t harm a fly.’ My voice sounded foolishly loud and bright. I wished I knew whether Johnny was there. If he wasn’t, it would be simple. All I had to do was find the suitcase and my bracelet and run home. If not … well, it depended on Johnny.

  ‘Jenny, I …’ began Bronwyn.

  ‘Shhh,’ I hissed. We reached the side door and I knocked, but my knuckles against the thick old wood made scarcely a sound. We waited for a moment. I was frightened, but Bronwyn’s panicky breathing behind me made me stubborn. I pushed the door and it opened with an alarming creak.

  ‘I’m
going,’ Bronwyn said and retreated a bit but then jumped forward again. ‘Jenny! I saw a ghost …’ She started to cry.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ I said, looking round anxiously.

  ‘There!’ And there was a faint wisp of something pale and moving. I blinked hard and my heart stuttered. And then I saw what it was.

  ‘Puss, puss,’ I whispered, and I crouched down and held out my hand towards the cat. I knew it was the cat that had led me to the playground, bigger now and as grey as a moonshadow, its fur cold under my fingers. It rubbed against my legs and purred, but when I bent to scoop it up, it slunk away and melted into the night.

  ‘Ghost!’ I scoffed.

  ‘Let’s go back,’ she pleaded, grabbing my arm.

  ‘Shut up,’ I said, and wrenched myself free. ‘Follow me. It’s all right.’ I edged along the wall with increasing confidence. It was perfectly dark and silent. It seemed that Johnny was not there. We could hear the traffic growling on the road and as our eyes grew accustomed to the dark we could see the looming edge of Johnny’s construction.

  ‘That’s the wings,’ I whispered.

  Bronwyn said nothing. She was sniffing and snivelling. We reached the place where I judged Johnny’s things to be and I felt for the suitcase. And I touched skin.

  ‘What the!’ A figure jumped up. It was Johnny.

  Bronwyn shrieked and tried to run but tripped over the stretching tip of a wing.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said, struggling to keep my voice even. ‘It’s only Johnny.’

  Johnny lit a candle and held it up. ‘You,’ he breathed. ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘There’s something I need. Something I dropped.’

  Johnny examined me for a moment, held me with his eyes, and I felt like a butterfly on a pin. His eyes were cold, sharp points.

  ‘Who’s this?’ Johnny approached Bronwyn with the candle. She cringed on the floor, her back against the wall, whimpering.

  ‘It’s Bronwyn,’ I explained. ‘She didn’t believe in you. I’m proving that you exist.’

  ‘Ignorant bloody kids,’ he said slowly. ‘Are you trying to get yourselves killed?’

  ‘I just want my bracelet. I dropped it in your suitcase.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘Last night. You weren’t here.’

  ‘But you were.’ The candle lit his face from underneath and flickered eery shadows on the wall behind him. There was a smell of whisky. I noticed that he needed a shave, his bristles glistened like sparks.

  ‘Where’s Mary?’ I asked.

  ‘Gone,’ he replied shortly. He turned back to Bronwyn. ‘Get up. Don’t be scared.’ He helped her up and gave her something to wipe her eyes with. He watched her for a moment and then put his arm round her shoulders in a way he’d never done with me, in a man-and-woman way, and she soon stopped crying and shot a smug look at me through her wet eyelashes. ‘What you need is a drop of this. For the shock,’ he explained, unscrewing the top of his flask and handing it to Bronwyn. He didn’t offer it to me. She gave a little gasp as the whisky hit the back of her throat. ‘All right now?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ she sniffed, almost snuggling up against him.

  ‘You’d better find your bracelet,’ he said, turning to me, his voice hard. ‘I credited you with more sense than to come here at night. Or to bring friends.’ I knelt down and moved my hand cautiously around inside the suitcase, fearful of the blade. I was close to tears now, but wasn’t going to let Bronwyn see. I found my bracelet, which had fallen into a cup, and when I turned back I saw the way they were looking at each other, as if there was heat flowing between them. Bronwyn’s face had the look it had when she gazed at her reflection, when she pushed her breasts together with her elbows, and wriggled and sighed. I looked away into the framework of Johnny’s wings, and now, looming above me, it looked more like the wreck of a wooden ship.

  ‘Were you asleep when we came in?’ Bronwyn asked.

  ‘Just having forty winks,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry we disturbed you. It was Jenny’s idea. She said you wouldn’t be here.’

  ‘I did not,’ I said.

  ‘Jenny eh?’ he said, holding the candle out to see me better. ‘Well Jenny should have known better,’ and I remembered that he knew me as Jacqueline. I shrugged and looked away.

  ‘She says you’re going to fly,’ Bronwyn said, nodding towards me, her voice making it – me – sound ridiculous.

  ‘Do you think that’s possible?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘Well then,’ Johnny said. My face burned, but all the same I felt a sort of pride. I knew he thought it was possible. He had shown me the beauty of the rippling silk. He was only humouring Bronwyn, and she was lapping it up, blinking besottedly at him in the candlelight.

  ‘We’d better go,’ I muttered.

  She tore her eyes from Johnny and looked at me as if I was a tiresome child. ‘Oh I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Jenny’s nan will be worrying,’ she explained.

  ‘Off you go then,’ Johnny said, turning away. ‘Mind your step. And Ja … Jenny, don’t come back again.’

  ‘But …’ I wanted to ask him whether he liked my poem. I wanted to ask him when he would fly. ‘I’ve still got your book,’ I objected.

  ‘Which book would that be?’ he asked, and I wanted to hit him. He must have known which book it was. We’d talked about it. He had shown it to me specially, because of our conversation. He had talked to me about epiphany.

  ‘Portrait of …’

  ‘Keep it. Compliments of the season,’ he said, smiling past me at Bronwyn.

  ‘Don’t want it,’ I said.

  ‘Bye-bye,’ Bronwyn said as we left. Johnny grinned, and as soon as we’d opened the door he blew out his candle.

  ‘See?’ I said, when we were well clear. ‘It was the truth.’

  ‘I didn’t see any bones,’ was all she said, and then she was quiet. Her eyes were bright and glazed, from the whisky I guessed. Her face was tight and smug.

  I wouldn’t take Bronwyn upstairs to my room when we got back. I wouldn’t give her the chance to gloat. Instead we sat downstairs with Mama and played Scrabble until it was time for her to leave. I chose Scrabble because I knew Bronwyn would be useless – which she was. She couldn’t spell at all, or think of any words with more than four letters, but she didn’t care. There was a bright flush on her cheeks, and she laughed at everything. I half wished Bob was there to emanate scorn. When her mother rang the doorbell, she came out into the hall with me to fetch her coat. ‘He didn’t say I couldn’t go again,’ she murmured. I wanted to kill her then. I knew just what she wanted to happen. She wanted to do it with him. And he might, too. There was never that sort of tense heat in the air when he looked at me. There had been the day he’d scrubbed the lipstick from my lips and drawn it back on again. Slippery lips. That day I had felt a tremble in my belly, and that night I had slept with my long plait wedged between my legs as a sort of comfort. But I didn’t want to do it with him. I didn’t want to do it at all, not yet, perhaps never. I didn’t think I did. But it wasn’t fair that Bronwyn should have him. I had found him. He was mine. I wanted him to be mine. I wanted to talk to him about flying and to know what he thought of my poems. I didn’t want him to be Bronwyn’s.

  In the morning I returned to the church to see Johnny. I took back his book, despite his having told me to keep it, as an excuse, although I had never finished it. I couldn’t believe that he had really sent me away. I wanted him to be mine. I would have done whatever it had taken to make him mine. I went filled with a strange resolve. I saw my body moving forward as if it was something separate from me, something that could be used like a piece of equipment. I went with a womanly smile upon my face. But Johnny was strange, that day. There was a rank foxy smell surrounding him. I saw myself walk up to him and saw him flinch. I stood very close to him. I willed him to kiss me. His teeth were greenish. There were scraps of dried sleep
in the corners of his eyes.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re playing with,’ he said.

  And I said, ‘Fire.’

  It seemed in the gloom that his breath was yellow. He didn’t kiss me. He wrenched his head round and pushed me, roughly away. I sat down. And then I was myself again, surprised at myself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I … I suppose I wanted you to kiss me.’ I was mortified to hear myself say this and my face burned. But Johnny didn’t seem surprised.

  ‘I only kiss Mary,’ he said.

  ‘Only ever?’

  ‘Mary is the only one who understands.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you kiss Bronwyn?’

  ‘You tell that bitch to stay away.’

  ‘I thought you liked her.’

  ‘I like no one. Now go.’

  ‘Bronwyn says she’s coming back.’

  ‘Tell her no. Please.’ He sounded suddenly weak as he said that, almost as if he was afraid.

  ‘All right,’ I said. I kept my eyes very carefully focused on Johnny and on a small area of space around him. I did not let them wander towards the place where I’d stumbled upon the bones. I did not ask Johnny about them.

  ‘I’m on the brink of departure,’ he said, and I laughed, relieved by his pomposity. He sounded for a moment as if he was about to revert to the Johnny I knew, who played with words and sang.

  ‘Flying?’

  He jumped then as if he had been lashed by the end of a whip. He put his hands over his face, so that instead of his features I could only see the sinewy length of his fingers with the strangely sharp nails. I had the feeling that he might cry and I was interested and repulsed. I thought if I could comfort him, then he might be mine.

  ‘Shall I make some tea?’ I suggested. But he made a noise, like a growl, or it may have been the word go.

  ‘Did you read my poem?’ I asked. But he took his hands away from his face and stepped towards me suddenly and I was frightened by his face. The flesh on his cheeks was drawn back into the bristly folds of a sort of snarl and the upward curve of his open mouth was not a smile.

  I tried to laugh but there was no joke, and so I turned and fled. I dropped the book as I went. I dropped it open on the wet ground. He let me go. He could have got me if he’d wanted. He let me go.