Queen of the Night

by Leanne Hall

  ‘I don’t need anyone.’

  ‘Not true. You need me and I’m going away.’

  Lupe comes over to me at the table. She pulls my head into her stomach and pats my hair. I feel numb. This is what it feels like when people leave. I close my eyes and a memory plays across my lids.

  The car is laden to the roof as if we’re going on a family camping holiday. My dad slams the car boot, shutting the door on their old life. It’s the day my parents left Shyness. The sun has been stuck at half-mast for weeks, but everyone accepts it’s only going to get darker. But for now, every day burns with a dim orange haze, like there’s a bushfire coming. When the car pulls away, I’m left standing on the front doorstep, watching it go. That night Paul comes over to the house and cooks me dinner, wearing my mum’s apron, and talking in a falsetto to cheer me up.

  The less I sleep, the less I dream, the more vivid daydreams seem to get.

  I flick my eyes open and pull away from Lupe.

  ‘You must promise me that you will call the wild one, and that together you will watch over Paul. I do not trust those blue people.’

  ‘How far away will you be? How will I contact you?’

  ‘Henny Penny,’ says Lupe. ‘Do you know this story?’

  I shake my head. Conversations with her can turn cryptic in the blink of an eye.

  ‘She thinks the sky is falling. Do you see my meaning?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Sometimes you have to let the world end, so you can build a new one.’

  I think about the last time Paul and I really laughed together. I get a flash as well of Wildgirl’s green-glittered eyelids, and the dead tarsier curled up like a comma on my kitchen bench. Purple in parts of the sky where there should be black. Signs of the world ending.

  Lupe pushes me away so she can look at me properly.

  ‘This blackness inside,’ she says, thumping my chest. ‘You think you are trying to get rid of it, but you hold on more than ever.’

  ‘The sky is falling if you’re leaving.’

  ‘My boy.’ She clutches me close once more, so much that the breath is squeezed out of me. ‘I will miss you the most.’

  seven

  Birds In Winter is dark,

  except for a faint glow on the first floor. Behind the building the last shreds of a Panwood sunset are scattered low in the sky. Sometimes I like being in other parts of the city at night, to see that they look almost the same as Shyness for at least half of a twenty-four-hour cycle. It makes the way we live seem more normal. But it doesn’t work tonight.

  I was meant to be here at six-thirty to babysit, but now it’s after eight. I insisted on waiting with Lupe until Janek came to pick her up. And then I stayed to board up the caravan and make it secure.

  Every instinct tells me to go home or go out all night, run away, but I don’t. I turn my key in the lock and drag my feet up the stairs to my execution. The gargoyle I salvaged swings heavily in my jacket pocket.

  Ortolan must have heard me come in because she’s leaning against her big work table, arms crossed, waiting. I stop once I reach the landing. I see from her face that I was wrong about how pissed off she would be.

  ‘You ruined my night,’ she says in a flat voice. She’s worse than angry, she’s disappointed.

  ‘Yes.’ I did ruin her night. Ortolan’s wearing an old jumper and slippers but she still has eye make-up on, and her hair is shiny. I look past her to the corner, where Diana’s sitting on her bed, jamming her toy giraffe in her mouth. Her eyes are puffy and her nose is running everywhere.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ It’s not like Diana to cry. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It doesn’t look that way.’

  I go to walk over to Diana’s bed and comfort her, but Ortolan blocks my way.

  ‘It’s under control, Jethro.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Flopsy,’ I call out. ‘We can make pizza another time.’

  Diana barely hears me. She’s got that blank look she gets when she’s up past her bedtime.

  ‘That’s not it,’ Ortolan says.

  ‘Well, what is it then?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ Ortolan chews on a strand of hair.

  I know it won’t mean anything but I say it anyway. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I know I’ve stuffed up.’

  ‘I hope you’ve been having fun, whatever it is that you’ve been doing.’

  I could offer an explanation, but I don’t. All the words are piled up in my mouth and won’t come out. I was so focused on trying to make things right for Lupe, I clean forgot about Ortie and Diana. There must be something wrong with me if I can’t keep more than two things in my head at the same time. It’s not that difficult.

  ‘There’s no point telling you how important tonight was to me’—Ortie’s voice wobbles only slightly—’because I don’t have the right to ask you to do anything. You don’t have to do any of this.’

  She’s wrong. How can I tell her that I do have to do this, I do want her and Diana to depend on me, after I let her down?

  ‘I don’t mind if you don’t want to help out, but if you say you are going to do something, then I expect you to do it.’ The last sentence has exhausted Ortie. Her shoulders droop inside her oversized jumper. ‘You should go home, Jethro.’

  Diana is sucking her thumb. She’s almost outgrown the habit and only does it when she’s really upset.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. Looking at Ortie again is not an option. I wait a few seconds to see if I miraculously have something useful to say, but I don’t.

  I’m halfway down the stairs when Ortolan calls out. ‘Are we still on for dinner tomorrow?’

  Ortolan doesn’t take up much space in the frame of the doorway. Sometimes she doesn’t look much older than me, even though there’s six years between us. But she’s light years ahead of me in knowing how to live properly.

  ‘I have a gig. Is early okay?’

  ‘Early is fine.’ Ortolan is unsmiling. ‘Go home, Jethro. I know you won’t, but I have to say it anyway: go home.’

  She’s right, I don’t go home. The night in my veins keeps me awake, keeps me moving. I’m full of the things I should have said, all the things I couldn’t say without feeling like I was making excuses. How can I be sure I won’t keep letting her and Diana down? I didn’t mean to ruin her night but it didn’t stop it from happening.

  I cross Grey Street, straight back into Shyness, looking skywards as I walk. The roofs are clear and the lampposts are empty too, so maybe all the tarsier are dying. I think about Ortie standing at the stop of the stairs. This is what I’m scared of. If you don’t promise anyone anything then you can’t disappoint them. I don’t know how many things I can juggle and not fuck up.

  I keep walking past my house. It’s only a short distance to the cemetery. The cemetery is one of the few places in Shyness that hasn’t been vandalised. Even delinquents have their limits. I never see anyone else here. I don’t know why. There’s nothing scary about it. It’s no darker than anywhere else. In here there are only narrow paths and headstones, tinder-dry pine trees, barely standing, and monuments to the past. There’s no life in this place. I’m only scared of the living.

  Gram’s ashes are stored in a wall, stacked together with the ashes of hundreds of other people. A filing cabinet for the dead. I close my eyes. My other hand goes to my chest, where his lighter rests at the end of a chain. Ortie soldered it for me after I told her how close I came to losing it.

  In movies people always crouch by graves and have conversations with their dead loved ones. I don’t do that. I cough instead, feeling a howl rise in my throat. I didn’t keep trying to call Wildgirl. Thom is too busy for me. Lupe has left. Ortolan is angry. And if Lupe is right, Paul is as lost as I am.

  I swallow against the howl, forcing it down, and distract myself by running through my promises to Gram and myself in my head. I’m fooling myself, but the plaque feels warm under my fingers. I promise to take care of D
iana, I promise to look out for Ortie, I promise not to make the same mistakes he did. I promise not to let life beat me the way it did him. The whole time I make these promises I wonder if I’ll be able to keep them.

  The rickety sound of wheels on tarmac jolts me out of my reverie. I follow the sound to the edge of the cemetery, leaning over the low stone fence. A long procession of Kidds travels down the road, maybe fifty of them, with stolen shopping trolleys. The older Kidds push the trolleys and the younger Kidds ride inside, sitting on cardboard boxes holding clothes and toys and games consoles, all their worldly possessions. There are no tarsier to be seen, and the Kidds don’t even look at me as they pass, so bleak is their mood. I want to chase after them, but I suddenly feel exhausted. My eyes are sluggish, as if I’m trying to open them under water. I should go home.

  I look back into the graveyard. The headstones and obelisks and crypts make an irregular city skyline in miniature. An empty city for the dead, with me the only living person in it. I’m sick of being on my own.

  The very act of pulling my phone out of my pocket makes my heart pump so hard I’m surprised Gram’s lighter doesn’t jump off my chest. My fingers call up her number easily. I’ve had enough practice.

  I let my finger hover above the green call button. This is usually where I chicken out. My finger drops.

  The phone rings for a long time with no answer. I’m about to hang up when voicemail clicks on, and the sound of Wildgirl’s recorded voice fills my ear.

  8

  I wake up with a sandpit

  mouth, in the wedge of sunlight piercing my bedroom window. My skin is hot and baked dry. A book slides off my chest and onto the bed. Urgh. I’m still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

  ‘Mum?’ I yell out, but I know it’s futile. She’ll be out on a regular job, cleaning an office building. She gets paid good rates on a weekend.

  There are two missed calls and two voicemails on my phone. The first call is from Helen and the other is from an unknown number.

  ‘Nia, darling, just letting you know I’ve rejigged the rosters so you’re only working Saturdays. School starts this week, doesn’t it? I’ve given you the longest shift I can. You can pick up some extra hours in the holidays, okay? And don’t forget Shopping Night. Look sharp. You’re an asset to the business, honey.’

  I smile at those last very unHelenlike words. That’s one less thing I have to worry about. I’m filled with an unexpected whooshy, sunshine feeling, until the next message starts. The voice is so quiet I have to bring the phone close to my ear.

  ‘Nia…this is Jethro. Please don’t hang up. Hear me out…’

  There’s no danger that I’ll hang up. I’m so busy listening to the low rumble of his voice and picturing his blue, blue eyes, that I don’t really listen to what he’s saying. He talks to the end of the message, cut off by the beep midsentence.

  Hating myself already, I hit repeat. The whooshy sunshine feeling turns feral. I don’t know whether to be pleased or mad.

  ‘…hear me out. I know it’s been a long time. There’s a lot to tell you. Lupe’s left Shyness, that’s one thing. It seems like the right time to call. I…I hope you’ve been well…I’m worried about Paul…’

  Okay, make that mad. I choose to be mad. His voice is echoey and whistling, as if he’s calling from an open space.

  ‘…I have a gig on tomorrow night. I know it’s short notice, but you’ve never seen us play, and I really want to see you in person to tell you that—’

  And this is where the line beeps and cuts him off. Message over.

  My bedroom suddenly feels the size of a shoebox. I kick my doona to the floor. Who does he think he is? He ignores me for six months and thirteen days and then calls expecting me to come hear his stupid band? I want to call back and say exactly this. I’d scream except if you scream in the Commons, it’s inevitable someone will call the police.

  I can’t stay here or I’ll go crazy.

  Plexus teems with the usual Saturday crowds. Normally the influx of tourists annoys me, but today I don’t mind getting lost among people. I don’t want to spoil the last weekend before school starts with a bad mood. As if I’d call him.

  I join the power walkers, sun junkies and pram pushers on the beachside path, where it juts into the sea. The sun still pelts down but the wind carries away its heat. I lean out over the sea wall. My arms get all goosebumpy with the wind’s kiss. Ahead of me is the unknowable ocean, stretching further than I can see.

  Tomorrow I go back to school and for once the thought doesn’t fill me with dread. Things are going well. The universe has hit a delicate balance and I’m trying to keep it that way.

  My eyes water from the relentless gust, so I rest my head against my arm. The sea wall is warm against my forehead. Without meaning to, I tune in to the conversation of a group of girls standing a few metres away. It’s pretty hard not to listen. They all have high, annoying voices and keep talking over the top of each other.

  ‘Mrs Briggs,’ says one girl. ‘What a bitch. I can’t believe I have her again this year.’

  The name catches my attention, and then the voice. I know those voices.

  The loudest is Beth Mahoney, but I also recognise Naomi Tran. That means the other two girls must be Ellen and Matilda.

  I freeze right where I am, bent over the wall. If they look to their left, they’ll see me.

  I never found out for sure that they emailed the fake photo of me doing things I’ve never done to a guy I’ve never met, to the entire year level. Mum reported it and all four got called separately to speak to the principal, but there was no evidence. I moved schools soon after.

  They’re going to recognise me any second, and then I don’t know what they’ll do. Play nice, as if it never happened? Pick up the bitchy comments from where they left off? Part of me used to like the verbal wars, both parties slashing away at each other, with the meanest words we could think of, but I’m not that person anymore.

  I get a strange flash of memory, a snippet of Shyness rushing at me. Standing at the top of an Orphanville tower with Wolfboy next to me, looking out at the dark suburb and the starry sky overhead. Feeling as if I had my whole life ahead of me, glittering and mysterious. The opposite of what I’m feeling now.

  I straighten up and walk away, expecting my name to be called out at any moment. My legs are shaky. Soon I’m a hundred metres up the path, and when I turn around, the mean girls are coloured specks in the distance.

  I cut across the nature reserve to the main road, breathing in exhaust fumes from the cars. The photo was the final way of telling me I didn’t fit in at that school, and never would. That everyone else in my year level believed it so easily meant they already thought I was that kind of person anyway. And what had I done to deserve that? Grow up in a rough area? Did being from Plexus Commons automatically mean I was a slut?

  But then following that was the night. The night in Shyness that seemed to be the start of everything working itself out. And maybe, if what Ortolan said is true, it was the same for Wolfboy.

  He sounded endearingly hesitant in the voicemail. And Lupe leaving is a big deal. She’s one of his closest friends. And he said something about Paul. Paul was nice. I shake my head to clear it. No. No. No.

  Cars whiz past me, and a guy leans out of a Valiant and whistles. I hold my head high, pretending I’m on the side of the road in America, or Spain, or Iceland, and I’m about to hitchhike somewhere really cool. You’d be amazed how I can make myself believe my own fantasies. The road wobbles and shimmers ahead.

  nine

  Diana waits for me at the

  door of the shop, as if everything is normal. She’s covered from head to toe in flapping shreds of colour: mostly red, but with touches of yellow, blue and green. A peaked red hood covers her head. My stomach is jumping. I don’t know if Ortolan has really forgiven me for failing to show up on time last night.

  ‘Jet-ro!’ Diana hugs my legs, her face turned up to me. ‘Where will you
live when the moon goes away?’

  I pull a face to make her giggle. ‘I’ll live with you on a boat, Flopsy. We’ll be pirates.’

  ‘Silly!’ she says approvingly, and drags me up the stairs.

  She lets go of my hand and squawks around Ortie’s big work table, flapping her arms up and down. Her cheeks are flushed.

  ‘What are you, Flopsy? Are you a superhero?’ But she is already too caught up in her game to answer. She leaps and then flaps, leaps and flaps.

  ‘I’m in here!’

  Ortolan hunches over the kitchen bench, wrestling with a tin of tomatoes. The kitchen is full of the smell of onions and olive oil, and clouds of steam. Diana’s drawings on the fridge are curling up at the edges. Ortie breaks her cooking to kiss me hello. ‘So, I had to quickly sew what you see out there, because today Diana decided she needed to be a bird of paradise. I don’t think she’s ever seen a tropical bird, but there you go. She’ll probably sleep in that tonight. I hope pasta’s okay. I didn’t have any time to go shopping, so I’m making dinner from whatever’s in the cupboard.’ She hands me the tin and a can opener. ‘Here. This thing has defeated me. Maybe you’ll have more luck.’

  I’m grateful to have something to do with my hands. The can opener is rusty, but I get it going.

  ‘Good day?’ asks Ortolan. Other than talking a million miles an hour, she seems fine.

  ‘Quiet day. I went over some songs for tonight. Blake and I had a funeral in the backyard.’ I put the open tin of tomatoes down on the bench.

  Ortie throws me a worried look. ‘Funeral?’

  ‘I found a dead tarsier and Blake insisted on giving it a proper send-off.’

  ‘You as well?’ Ortie peeks into the studio to see if Diana is listening. ‘We found one too, behind our rubbish bins. Well, Diana did. That’s why she was inconsolable last night.’

  ‘Oh. I thought I’d upset her.’

  ‘No, it was nothing to do with you. She wanted to bury the tarsier in the backyard as well, but I wouldn’t let her. I made her put it in the bin.’ Ortie tips the tomatoes in the pan. ‘Am I a bad mother? I should have let her have her ritual. It’s the first time she’s seen anything dead, but I didn’t want foxes to dig it up again.’