by Tony Birch
‘I have something else.’
Sophie again reached into her bag and brought out the box of ashes. She placed it on the bench with the identification label. Paul Foley reached into his shirt pocket, brought out a pair of reading glasses and studied the faded ink on the label. He took a step back and stared at the parcel with genuine puzzlement and even a touch of fear. Sophie looked from the ashes to Paul and back again several times before the question came to her.
‘Were you a twin, Paul?’
‘No,’ he answered. ‘I’m an only child.’
‘Are you sure?’
He didn’t answer, but didn’t look sure of himself at all. Sophie noticed that a crimson rash had broken out on his neck. Paul was clearly agitated. He went into the hallway, where he opened a cupboard and retrieved a leather case. Returning to the kicthen he placed the case on the bench, slowly opened it and brought out a pale blue baby suit. It was slightly worn and stained. The top button was missing.
‘This was mine,’ he whispered to Sophie.
He reached into the case again and delicately held a second baby suit in his hands. He laid it alongside the first suit. They were identical, except that the second suit was new. It had never been worn.
PAPER MOON
Carol sat in a window seat on the bus clutching an unopened box of Minties. Seated next to her, her mother fidgeted with her white gloves, slowly pulling the tip from each finger, removing it from her hand, before replacing it and repeating the process. Carol looked down at the toes of her scuffed leather school shoes. The night before the long ride to the hospital she’d been ordered to clean them. They’d been left on the windowsill in her bedroom. Before getting into bed Carol picked up the shoes, examined them, then replaced them on the windowsill and looked outside at the full moon sitting low in the sky. At one time she’d been fearful of a full moon. She would watch each night as it became fuller and heavier, convinced that eventually the moon would sink into the earth and not rise again. Her father had heard Carol crying one night and she’d told him about her fears. He attempted to reassure her that the moon was not about to disappear. Unable to convince her, he made a papier-mâché moon, painted it yellow, drew a smiling face on it and, using a length of fishing wire hung the moon above her bed. Looking up at her moon she’d listened as her father explained that as long as it remained full, the moon in the night sky outside her window would also be safe. She did not doubt her father at all, and slept peacefully from that night on, full moon or not.
The bus slowed and stopped at an intersection. A small dog sat alone on the street corner. It leaned forward, studied the rush of traffic and lifted its rear end from the kerb. A truck charged through the intersection. Carol closed her eyes, sure the dog was about to race into danger. It didn’t. The dog patiently sat again and looked right, left and right, just as Carol had been taught to do in school. She slumped in her seat, relieved. The traffic lights changed to green, the bus moved forward and the dog skipped across the intersection, obviously pleased with itself. Carol turned to her mother whose gloved hands were clenched together. She smiled and nodded her head slightly, a gesture Carol knew well even though she was only ten years old. She undertsood that her mother was doing all she could to convince her daughter that they were going to be all right, while not convinced of it herself.
After a few more stops the only other passenger left on the bus was a woman who looked to be a few years older than Carol’s mother. She sat directly across from them. Her generous head of hair was shock white and she carried a carton of cigarettes in one hand and a dressing gown in the other. Carol noticed that she remained perfectly still, staring at the empty seat in front of her. Carol looked to the woman’s chest, expecting to see it rise and fall as she took a breath. It didn’t move at all. She began to imagine that the woman was dead, and that when the bus reached the end of the line the woman would remain in her seat for the return trip. She might never leave the bus, Carol thought, conjuring her own version of Purgatory.
Carol knew all about Purgatory. She understood that Heaven was the home of saints and those fortunate to be free of sin. Hell was a straightforward matter. It was hell. From the age of five, when she’d first entered the high walls of Saint Anthony’s, she’d been constantly reminded that Hell was a place of eternal suffering and pain, punishment for the sins committed during life. If Carol didn’t love God, she certainly feared him. She also realised the extent of his power and cruelty in creating Limbo, a place where young babies, both pure and marked by the stain of original sin, drifted for eternity, never to be reunited with their mothers. It was Purgatory that held the girls’ attention. With no clear guidelines about how many prayers would grant leave from Purgatory, all the students of Saint Anthony’s could do was pray, and pray some more, in the hope of eventual salvation. In recent months Carol had been praying vigorously for her father.
The bus turned off the highway into the hospital forecourt. Carol pressed her face to the window and looked out at the fortified red-brick building. The Australian flag hung limply from a pole next to a wide stairway at the entrance. As the bus came to a halt, Carol’s mother stood up and took her daughter by the hand. Stepping from the bus, Carol was surprised to see tall trees, wide stretches of rich grass and garden beds bursting with brightly coloured flowers. Walking towards the entrance she noticed a woman wearing a floral dress sitting on the stairs nursing a plastic doll. The woman’s dress was hitched high around her thighs, exposing her underwear. Carol knew she should look away but was shocked by the sight of deep bruises and scratches on the woman’s legs. Walking up the stairs, she brushed against the woman and looked down to see a bare patch on the back of her skull. It appeared to have been shaved.
The foyer of the hospital sparkled. The tiled chequerboard floors had been mirror polished and the stark white walls held the sunlight pouring in from high windows along a spacious corridor. Carol sniffed the air. The scent of disinfectant, familiar to her from the school toilets, tickled her nostrils. They passed several people sitting quietly outside open doorways. Her mother stopped at a lift and pressed the button. Carol heard a cough, turned, and noticed that the woman who had been sitting out the front had followed them inside and was now standing behind her. The woman shuffled closer, the soles of her shoes squeaking against the tiles. She lifted her arm and rested her hand on Carol’s shoulder. Too afraid to move, Carol closed her eyes and held her breath. The doors opened and she rushed into the lift. The doors jarred, jumped and finally closed.
Carol’s father was sitting on a wooden bench in the far corner of a gymnasium. He wore pyjamas, the top buttoned to the neck. The room was littered with exercise equipment – barbells, stationary bikes, a rowing machine and several large plastic balls. A young man wearing an open gown and floral boxer shorts skipped along one side of the room, skilfully dribbling a soccer ball. Carol’s mother paused, released Carol’s hand, and straightened her dress. She gritted her teeth, smiled, and walked over to her husband. She kissed him on the forehead and touched the back of her gloved hand to his cheek. Carol studied her father’s face closely as she approached. He was wearing a new hairstyle. The sides of his head were shaven and a fringe sat across his eyes. He looked up at Carol, fixed on her in a moment of recognition and turned quickly away, his cheeks flushed.
‘Say hello to your father,’ Carol’s mother said, coaxing her forward. ‘Look, Paul. I’ve brought Carol to see you.’
He focused on Carol a second time, smiled but said nothing.
‘Come on, Carol,’ her mother urged. ‘Sit here by your father.’ She tried clicking her fingers together. The gloved fingers silenced the action. ‘She has some sweets for you, Paul.’
Carol was nervous. She placed the box of Minties in her father’s lap. They fell. The three of them looked down to the floor. The young man dribbling the ball weaved it between Carol’s left foot and the Minties. Carol picked up the packet and held them in fro
nt of her father.
‘For you, Daddy,’ she whispered.
He took them and picked at the cellophane wrapper of the packet, one hand shaking slightly. They sat together in silence, watching the young man lap the room. One of the other patients began to applaud. Carol’s father handed the Minties back to her and brought his hands together as if he was about to applaud also. Instead, he crossed his arms over his heart and stuck a hand under each armpit. Carol’s mother nervously jumped from the bench. ‘Let’s go outside. Come on, the three of us. The air is so still in here. I need to get some fresh air.’
Carol walked beside her father. Although he moved slowly, he didn’t shuffle as badly as some of the other patients. He’d always enjoyed a walk, and although she often had trouble keeping up with him, Carol had always followed in his footsteps. The family lived near the river and early each morning before heading off to work, her father would leave the house by the back gate and follow a track down a steep hill to the riverbank. He would walk the track until he reached a second hill, which he would climb to the street above to buy the newspaper. Back home he would turn on the radio and listen to the morning news as he made a cup of tea for himself, and one for Carol’s mother. He would take a cup of tea to his wife in bed and drink his own at the kitchen table, reading the paper.
When Carol was about five years old, she woke early and listened for her father getting out of bed. Determined to join him for his walk, she put on her dressing gown and slippers and marched into the kitchen.
‘What are you doing up so early?’ he asked. ‘Come on. Back to bed.’
‘No, Daddy. I want to go with you.’
He was putting on his jacket that hung on a hook behind the kitchen door. ‘But I’m going along the river. It’s too far for you to walk.’
She refused to listen, and shook her head from side to side. ‘It’s not far. I want to come with you.’
He leaned forward, until the pair were looking directly at each other, eye to eye. ‘Can you keep up with me? I won’t be able to carry you if you’re tired.’
‘I won’t be tired.’
‘And you can walk all the way?’
‘All the way, Daddy.’
He pointed at her slippers. ‘You can’t wear those. Your mother will murder us both if you get them wet. Let’s get your gumboots on and keep your feet dry and warm.’
The air outside was fresh. They walked down the lane towards the river, an earthy scent drifting up the hill. Carol could hear birdsong all around and searched the trees above. Along the path a choir of frogs croaked from one bank to the other. On their return Carol began to tire. She didn’t say a word to her father, and skipped along trying to keep up with him. It wasn’t until they were halfway up the hill that her legs finally surrendered. She stopped to gather her breath. Her father walked on, and for a moment Carol thought he was going to leave her behind. He stopped, turned and walked back down the hill, squatting alongside her.
‘You know what happens now, honey?’
She wasn’t sure, considering the order he’d given her in the kitchen. She shook her head. ‘No, Daddy.’
He touched the end of her nose with the tip of his own finger. ‘I think it must be piggyback time.’
Her father carried Carol on his back to the top of the hill and through the streets to their front gate. She rested her head in the middle of his back, feeling the air rise and fall in his lungs.
When Carol and her parents exited the lift on the ground floor her mother noticed a man standing in the foyer talking to a nurse. She placed a hand on Carol’s shoulder. ‘Honey, can you take Daddy out to the garden.’ She opened her bag, took out her purse and handed Carol a two-dollar note. ‘Buy a drink for both of you and wait for me by the cafe. There’s a table and some chairs. I need to speak to your father’s doctor.’
Carol’s father looked at his wife but said nothing. Carol took his hand. ‘Come on, Daddy. Let’s go.’
She led him outside and through the garden to the cafe. Carol’s father stopped on the path and anchored his slippered feet to the ground. She tugged gently at his hand. ‘Mummy said to get you a drink.’ She pointed in the direction of the cafe. ‘We can sit down under the tree. Do you want an ice cream instead of a drink?’
Her father squeezed her hand. ‘I want to go.’
Carol felt immediately embarrassed, assuming her father was telling her he needed to go to the toilet. She had no idea where the toilets were.
‘I want to go,’ he repeated. ‘I want to go home.’
Carol didn’t know what to say. She also wanted her father to come home. From the first night he’d been away, when her mother was unwilling or unable to explain where he’d gone to, Carol had prayed he would return to them. When her mother finally told her that her father was sick in the hospital, although she had been upset, she was also relieved. Her closest friend at school, Shirley Latimer, had gone through a similar experience with her father. He went into hospital for an operation and was back home within a week. When Carol’s mother couldn’t explain what her father’s sickness was, or if he’d had an accident or an operation, Carol became anxious again. She confided in Shirley the next day at school.
‘She won’t say what’s wrong with him.’
‘I don’t want to say so, Carol, but maybe he’s not in the hospital. He could be a runaway and your mum doesn’t want to talk about it,’ Shirley offered. ‘One of my uncles did that. He ran away with a lady who wasn’t his wife. And he never came back to his children again.’
Carol couldn’t believe that her father would run away. He fixed broken dolls for her. He stopped her worrying over the sinking moon. He talked to her about birds and trees and flowers. He made the world safe. That night Carol desperately needed certainty from her mother that her father had not abandoned them, and told her what Shirley had said at lunchtime.
‘Of course he hasn’t run off,’ her mother said. ‘Don’t be silly. I told you. He is in hospital, sick.’
‘What sort of sickness?’ Carol asked. ‘When will he be better?’
‘Well, it’s difficult to say, with the sickness he has …’
Carol watched closely as her mother stopped mid-sentence and moved around the kitchen, nervously wiping the benches with a sponge. Carol thought again about what had been said to her in the schoolyard and wasn’t convinced that her mother was telling her the truth.
‘If Daddy is in hospital, will you take me to visit him?’
Her mother sighed with resignation and threw the sponge into the sink. She turned and leaned her weary body against the bench. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Yes.’
‘Very well then. Tomorrow you can come with me to the hospital.’
Carol coaxed her father to a nearby bench and sat next to him. A patient walking past, stopped and asked Carol if she’d seen his missing dog.
‘I’ve lost him,’ he explained. ‘Tommy. He’s this high,’ he gestured with an open palm. Before Carol could answer the man had walked on to the cafe and was asking the same question to people sitting at the tables. Carol could not take her eyes off the man, who was repeating the question over and over. He appeared stuck in a place he would never be free of.
Carol looked across to her father, realising they had to escape. ‘It’s time to go, Daddy. If you like?’
‘Where?’
‘Home.’
She looked over her shoulder and saw her mother on the far side of the garden speaking with the doctor.
‘Hey, Daddy, remember the walks we used to take along the river?’
He looked at her and nodded.
‘Well, we have to walk quicker now, like you told me to do. At the river.’
She took his hand. They walked past the cafe, skirting under a row of silver birch trees. When they reached the bus stop they sat in the shelter and waited. Carol was desperate
for her father to say something that made sense, to show her he wasn’t sick, and that returning home was a good idea.
‘Daddy, do you remember the walks to the river? The first time we went you said I was too small. But I wasn’t.’
She waited for him to reply. He leaned his head to one side, as if he might be hard of hearing.
‘I was wearing my slippers and you said to me that I had to put my boots on or Mummy would get angry with you and we would be in trouble.’
She waited. The bus pulled into the stop, the doors opened and passengers got off, each of them wearing a face of apprehension. The bus driver looked at Carol and smiled.
‘We walked,’ her father said, slowly but purposefully, raising one arm and tracing a journey in the air with his index finger. ‘I didn’t think you would make it. But you did. Up the hill. Almost.’
Carol was so overjoyed she laughed. ‘And then you carried me on your back.’
He squinted, as if straining to remember. ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘I carried you. On my back.’
Carol took her father’s hand, hopped on the bus, handed the money her mother had given her to the driver and asked for two tickets. The driver looked her father up and down.
‘Where are you taking him?’ he asked.
‘Home,’ she answered, without hesitation. ‘We’re going home.’
‘Home?’
Carol stepped forward. She could not have been closer to the driver without touching him.
‘Two tickets please.’
The driver handed Carol a pair of tickets and some coins. He looked at his watch. ‘Take a seat. We don’t leave for another five minutes.’
The pair walked the empty aisle and sat on the back seat. Carol slipped her arm through her father’s and held on tight. He looked anxiously out of the window. They waited.
THE GOOD HOWARD
I’d always slept well, until the weeks and months after my fiftieth birthday. I’d wake during the night with my heart racing, aware that I’d been dreaming, although I could recall none of the details. Too embarrassed to confide in my wife I decided to talk to one of the other managers at the office, ‘Fabulous’ Phil Ryan. I quickly realised I’d made a mistake. Phil told me that I should keep a pen and pad near the bedside, so that when I woke I’d be able to document the dream before it vanished. ‘You put down the details while they’re fresh in your mind,’ Phil explained. ‘And the next morning you go over them, you know, dream interpretation, they call it. I read about it somewhere.’