Tigerfish

by David Metzenthen

As we walk, the reserve and Sky Point to our right, Kaydie looks at me for one split second. Then she points to a flock of big black birds passing low and slow, birds that I thought were crows.

  ‘Currawongs,’ she says.

  I look at Ariel, who looks at me. Her eyebrows do a little dance.

  ‘Our dad knew a lot about birds.’ She hitches her Kealoah flower-power bag higher on her shoulder. ‘He was always looking up. A bit of a dreamer, I guess.’ She looks at Kaydie, who looks nowhere. ‘He loved them all. He knew them all.’

  ‘Good,’ I say. ‘I like them, too.’

  We walk on and I feel as if our friendship has expanded – that I can see things a little more clearly, that Ariel has allowed me to take another step into the frame.

  ‘Speakin’ of gas heaters,’ I say.

  ‘Which we are now,’ she says. ‘I guess.’

  This is embarrassing for both of us, but tough shit, because I’ve felt the heat from a house fire one hundred metres down the road and you would not believe what turns out to be highly flammable. Basically it is everything, including pets, kitchens, couches and you, if you get in the way.

  ‘Eric’ll be over on Saturday mornin’,’ I say optimistically. ‘Free of charge. As I said.’

  Ariel looks towards houses that are basically square and little, like Monopoly houses. Then she sighs as if she’s beaten, as if she reluctantly accepts that the judge’s decision is final, and no correspondence will be entered into.

  ‘I’ll make it up to you, Ryan.’ Then she nods at Evan. ‘You, too, Evan. I promise.’

  I can see Evan slipping Ariel’s words like Floyd Mayweather Junior slips punches. He pulls the brim of his hat lower, his grey eyes dark in the shadow.

  ‘You don’t pay back something that was never owed.’

  I look at Ariel. This morning she looks like some rock-star gypsy, wearing clothes of all sorts, and round gold earrings like circles of sunshine.

  ‘Evan’s right,’ I say. ‘We don’t do stuff to be owed. We do it because –’ I look at her and I can’t help but smile. ‘We like you guys.’ And I can’t be more honest than that.

  Elmore Larkin is not at school and no one misses him. I hope he’s been hit by an Airbus A380. I hope his whole family has. There’s something up with them that’s kind of unmatched in Templeton, as if there’s a fault in the whole batch and quality control can’t work out what it is. I know I certainly can’t offer any solutions.

  The entire school breathes a sigh of relief. The pressure goes down and the mood goes up. Every class is a happier place with Elmore absent, as they say around here. Each teacher stands straighter, and gets on to things. If it wasn’t so bizarre it’d be funny.

  It’s like Elmore thinks he can control the world with fear. Perhaps he’s making up for his old man being held prisoner in that riot? Or he’s letting people know that if they pick on his sister, Eden, revenge is guaranteed. There’s also a rumour floating around that a little brother of his got killed in England, and it had something to do with him. I’m not sure about that, but whatever the truth is, he seems to have enough fighting fuel to last a hundred years – which takes us to about 2114.

  But I don’t think I’ll have to wait that long for something to happen.

  After school I take Deed out into the old paddocks. It’s okay before dark, but at night it’s a place you enter at your own risk. Stuff gets stolen from yards, stuff gets dumped, and that kid got murdered and buried. Lately there are too many reports of this prowler, this Night Stalker, to all be wrong. Someone’s out there with something on their mind. And I’ll bet it’s not something good.

  It’s like the last urban frontier out there – a place where people think they can make up their own rules. But they’d be wrong if they think that no one’s watching. We are, because everyone remembers the kid who has gone forever.

  There are plastic flowers where she was found, a white cross and a coloured photo under plastic that’s fading to grey. It’s the loneliest place in the world, flat and rocky, the grass hissing and thistles rattling in the wind. I imagine it at night in the rain, and I bet the cops, like everyone else, wish the stones could talk.

  I would not go down there again.

  I ring Eric and he tells me to be at Ariel’s on Saturday at ten. Then I watch a footy show to see how the Bulldogs are shaping up for the weekend. They look all right, Boydy and the boys heading out for training on the Western Oval, a place that can seem like a killer of coaches and dreams. It’s cold and wet, stuck in the middle of train lines and roads, whipped by winter winds and baked by summer sun. But it hasn’t killed Boydy’s dream, and it hasn’t killed mine, either. We want that flag.

  ‘Go, you Dogs,’ Jude says, as she does the ironing, wearing jeans and leopard-print slippers. ‘Work hard.’

  Slate comes into the lounge room, hair slick, wearing his black jacket, on his way out to work at the Bonnyview pub. He stops to watch the Doggies and I can tell that he still rates them, which is good, because these days he seems to see most things through different eyes.

  Out driving, he’ll say what shit cars guys have got, what dickheads they are, and that they need a good hiding. Then he’ll call girls skanks when they’re really just normal chicks wearing normal things. You can feel the aggro coming off him like electricity, pushing people away.

  ‘I’ll see yers later.’ He steps outside. ‘I’m off for a walk on the wild side.’ He closes the door with a click.

  Jude stares at the empty doorway, holding the iron.

  ‘Be careful, Slate.’ It’s as if she can wish safety onto him from a distance. ‘Silly boy.’

  I know Jude liked it best when Slate had just one job and was going out with Naomi. She was a grown-up girl with nice clothes, a car and a smile every time she came around. But it seemed Slate simply got too tough for her, which is strange, because you wouldn’t think that would be a drawback around here, but guess what?

  It is.

  It’s all heating systems go for Saturday morning. I’ve cleared it with Ariel, who’s worded up Jill, and Eric the plumber is ready to weave his gasfitting magic at ten. So far, he’s fifteen minutes late and I’m counting.

  I stand in Ariel’s driveway, killing time until I hear the front door open. Ariel comes out with Kaydie, the kid in her dressing gown, carrying a blue-and-pink cloth rabbit. They walk towards me holding hands.

  ‘Boy, your hair’s nice, Kaydie,’ I say. ‘Look at all those plaits.’

  Kaydie’s hair soaks up the sun – fifty silky little plaits tied up with fifty little coloured ribbons. I see her tiny perfect ears, and I know she hears everything that’s said, but somehow it all goes in and nothing comes out. She’s stuck somewhere back up the country, I guess, where she lost her dad, house, horses, cattle and dog. And that’s a lot for a kid to lose.

  ‘Jill does it,’ Ariel says. ‘She’s a hairdresser.’ Ariel rests her hand on Kaydie’s head. ‘And she’ll work at it again, won’t she, Kayd? In a little while. When she’s got over things.’

  Ariel looks at Kaydie as if she can read the kid’s mind. It’s as if she can see all the things that won’t be coming back and how Kaydie’s trying to deal with it. Kaydie simply looks at the playground as if it’s a picture, not real, nothing to do with her.

  ‘Here’s Eric, Kaydie,’ I say, as he pulls into the drive in his old white Econovan. ‘He’s gunna get the gas heater going properly for you guys.’

  And that is exactly what Eric does. He lifts off the front of the thing, replacing bits of brass and copper, tightening up stuff in the guts of it before putting it back together in fifteen minutes flat.

  ‘Should be right as rain for another couple of years.’ Eric gets his tools together, standing there in old blue overalls, smokes in his pocket, lighter in his hand. ‘Well, one, anyway. Yer don’t wanna push it.’

  Ariel brings him a mug of tea and Kaydie watches from the corner of the couch, pressing the ear of her cloth rabbit against her nose. Jill stays in
the kitchen until it gets too much for her, then she bolts, thanking Eric on the way out. Not that Eric’s fazed – he’s used to all sorts of people and all sorts of houses, because like my dad, he’s been doing this kind of work for thirty years.

  ‘Young Ryan’s all right,’ he tells Ariel, extracting a smoke from the pack but not lighting it. ‘I offered him an apprenticeship once. Knocked it back.’

  True story. I don’t want to be a plumber. Pipes and trenches and other people’s toilets aren’t me.

  ‘I’m still thinkin’,’ I say, looking at the heater purring away, the flames like two perfect rows of blue and yellow birthday candles. ‘But thanks, Eric. It’s goin’ like a train.’

  ‘Too easy.’ Eric hands his mug back to Ariel. ‘All done.’

  And it is, apart from me cleaning Bobby-boy’s truck. Still – everyone here is now ten times safer, day and night, than they were. So I say Ryan Lanyon now goes to the top of the leaderboard, if only for a short while.

  Ariel and I organise Sunday’s beach trip over the phone. We’ll catch the train from Tempy to Southern Cross then tram it to Port Melbourne, and boom! We’re at the beach – ships, sand and all. We agree to meet at ten-thirty at Templeton station.

  ‘The weather’s supposed to be sunny,’ I add. ‘See you there on platform one.’

  I leave the phone on the kitchen bench, then head out, on my way to Evan’s for the evening. He’s got a movie lined up, something pirated I’ll bet – but a good enough copy to catch the action – because that’s Hollywood!

  After the movie, which was relatively cool and funny with Mike Tyson, a smoking monkey and a tiger, Evan says he has something to show me. So it’s hoodies on and outside we go – a few stars shining, the cold air grabbing your throat. I was thinking this thing might be in the shed, but we bypass that and head out into the paddock – but not before we each pick up a hardwood garden stake that Evan has cut down and bound with black tape. He calls them Night-Stalker sticks.

  ‘We’re off to visit the Larkins.’ He leads the way out into the paddock, his hat bobbing along like a black cork. ‘They’re not expectin’ us.’

  ‘Oh, really?’ I follow, the stake hard and solid in my right hand, the grass brushing soft and damp against my jeans. ‘I thought we might be goin’ around for a game of Trivial Pursuit and fish ’n’ chips.’

  Evan spits. ‘Imagine that.’

  I have a fair idea where Elmore lives. His house backs onto the paddock a kilometre or so away. It’s on the edge of Templeton, where there are no new houses, just crap old ones that nobody really wants. It’s an area a fair way from anything and anywhere and I would not want to live there.

  ‘And then?’ I ask. ‘What then?’

  Evan shrugs. ‘Not a lot.’

  We walk, the track winding around rocks and clumps of twisty old trees, home to snakes, I bet, hibernating now but sensing us as we go past. I imagine them down in their holes, forked tongues testing the air, their brains applying snake logic.

  It is best to stay alert. They’re not wrong there.

  We stop at the back of a house with a broken fence, an empty-looking bungalow in the yard and an old clothesline crashed to the ground. There’s a burning smell, of smouldering milk cartons maybe, the stink hanging low and unhealthy. A few lights glow sickly-yellow, and a hotch-potch collection of curtains and blankets hang over the windows. In the driveway an old Toyota Camry is parked, headlights like two blind eyes.

  ‘The Larkin estate,’ Evan says. ‘Nice, isn’t it?’

  Crap lies all over the yard. There’s a broken wheelbarrow, plastic milk crates, a washing machine, and a guinea-pig cage or rabbit hutch with the wire pushed in and the door hanging open.

  ‘The bungalow’s full of catalogues that should’ve been delivered,’ Evan says. ‘And an old lawnmower. And busted chairs and wood. A fire hazard, I’d call it.’

  A shadowy feeling crosses my mind. As I said, Evan is not someone you want to tangle with. He’s one guy who makes up the rules as he goes along.

  ‘No one sleeps in there?’ I ask. ‘Do they?’

  In the dark, his eyes hidden in that hat, Evan reminds me of some skinny and scary voodoo cat from Haiti, or wherever they hang out.

  ‘Nope. Not unless it’s in hay. Like pigs.’ He shrugs, watching the place. ‘There are a couple of rotten old bales of that in there as well.’

  Shouting comes from inside the house. It’s Elmore’s old man – has to be, that accent flattening words so they can be spat out hard and fast. Other voices join in, streams of swearing going in all directions. I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to have anything to do with other people’s trouble. Evan listens like a scientist observing rare animals.

  ‘There’s no place like home.’ He looks at me, his eyes shining, and laughs. ‘Nothing like a quiet old family night. Man. Listen to that.’

  The shouting has lifted, as if in any minute there’s gunna be blood on the walls. I’m not scared. I just don’t need to have my nose in family business that seems to be drawing poison from everyone and everywhere.

  ‘Split.’ Already I’m turning away. ‘Leave ’em to it.’

  Evan follows, strolling along casually, smacking at the grass with his baton.

  ‘So there it is. Don’t think I’ll go back anytime soon collecting for the RSPCA. What d’you think?’

  We’re back in the cold darkness. The houses behind us are nothing but a broken strip of dull lights and hard-up families. All that’s in front of us is night and open ground. High up, a plane heads out, yet all I can hear is silence. It’s like listening to the unknown, the breathing of the universe, and the endless possibilities of things. Good and bad.

  ‘Can’t say I got a lot out of it,’ I answer.

  ‘I did.’ Evan turns onto another track. ‘Knowledge. The best thing of all.’ He stops, one hand up, one finger up. ‘Shh. Someone’s comin’. Get off the track. Get down.’

  We slip off the track and crouch, holding our batons. A figure walks down the track, a really big and bulky figure, dressed in black, mumbling and murmuring. This guy is Slate-sized, and carries something shiny like a freakin’ sword – long, heavy and dangerous-looking. It is definitely not the Night Stalker, who is supposedly small and fast.

  We wait until he’s well and truly gone before we stand and look down the path into the wall put up by the night.

  ‘Armed and dangerous,’ Evan says, pleased, as if this only makes things more interesting. ‘Like a grizzly bear, man. A freakin’ yeti.’

  The air seems to eddy like water in the wake of a killer whale. That big guy is out here for a reason, a pretty strange reason, and it would be fair to say he scared the hell out of me. If I was to guess what it was he was carrying, I would say it was a broadsword, a heavy weapon from a long time ago that requires bulk strength to use. Only a maniac would carry one these days. Cut your head off with a single swing.

  ‘What the hell,’ I say, trying to drag my breathing back into a more normal pattern. ‘This place is turning into a nightmare.’

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ Evan grins. ‘Let’s go.’

  We leave, moving carefully, like explorers who have suddenly stumbled into unknown territory, and the drums have started beating.

  Evan and I meet the girls at Tempy station. Kaydie is hugging her rabbit and Ariel is holding a backpack, looking like a chick you’d see swinging on a farm gate in an ad for living the country life. She’s wearing a long skirt the colour of a cloudy sky, an old Lee denim jacket and girls’ desert boots – soft-looking, worn down at the heels.

  I wish we could make a break for the bush instead of heading into the city. I imagine Ariel and me walking along a dirt road holding hands, among paddocks and trees . . . But that won’t be happening today. I watch Kaydie looking up the railway line, a silent little trainspotter holding a rabbit with ears like dreadlocks.

  ‘She’s never been on a train,’ Ariel tells me quietly. ‘She’s probably only seen about three.’ T
hen she laughs, a happy laugh, like she’s remembering their old life – her dreamy dad looking up in the trees and telling them about the birds, horses hanging by the fence, the peaceful times on the farm. ‘We went to school on the bus. The train line closed down. Although I think it might just have opened up again.’

  This is the first time Ariel’s mentioned that she ever went to school, and I can’t say I can imagine her slaving away over an essay. It’s like she’s moved on, done with it forever. Now she works to support the family – and lives in the real world of bills and broken shit.

  ‘Did you like school?’ This is a dumb question, I guess. Who really likes school? Well, some kids must. ‘You know, when you went. You did go, didn’t you?’

  She smiles, but I can see I’ve stopped her in her tracks. It’s as if this is something she hasn’t thought about for a long time, and now she doesn’t know what to say, or how her answer will sound, even to her.

  ‘Yeah.’ She looks at me steadily. ‘Yeah, I did like school.’

  Some people, certain people, give me the feeling that they’re light years ahead of me – that they got the wake-up call early, knowing what has to be done, and they’re going about doing it. Whereas I just kind of mosey along, hoping something’ll turn up in the long run, one day. This I think I might call the Lanyon Theory.

  ‘Look, Kaydie.’ Ariel points down the line towards the city. ‘Here comes a freight train.’

  Two massive diesels – dirty red and grimy blue, coupled together and roaring – come gliding into the station with no intention of stopping. Together they’re dragging a long line of shipping containers like a giant baby’s blocks, the sound of steel wheels squeaking in the middle of a one thousand tonne rumble. Then there are freezer cars, bright blazing red and shiny refrigerator-white. Kaydie watches as the train passes then shrinks into the distance, trees by the track like a crowd at a parade.

  ‘Man, how was that, Kaydie?’ Evan asks.

  Kaydie’s eyes are still on the train, what she can see of it.

  ‘Long,’ she says. ‘Loud.’