Burning Eddy

by Scot Gardner

  ‘Yeah,’ I shouted. ‘They live together.’

  Chantelle waved to the Fishers. ‘But Mr Fisher’s in . . .’

  I nodded and opened the door. ‘See you on the bus tomorrow.’

  She smiled. ‘You mongrel.’

  I chucked my bag on the back seat. Mrs Fisher started driving before I’d closed the door. I waved to Chantelle from the back window. She did a couple of star jumps. Full body waves.

  Michael turned to me and his eyebrows jumped. ‘Did you really scratch her name into your arm?’

  I nodded and looked out the window. Pulled my seat-belt on.

  ‘She’s good value,’ he said, and looked through the back window. He smiled. ‘Oh, Mum, this is Daniel. Dan, this is my mum, Donna.’

  ‘G’day, Mrs Fisher,’ I said.

  ‘Donna will do,’ she grumbled. ‘Are you fellas sure you want to do this?’

  Michael looked back at me.

  ‘Yeah,’ we chorused.

  I said ‘Yeah’, but I wasn’t sure. I could see Fish’s leg rocking from side to side.

  ‘Orright,’ she said, and turned the radio on flat out. Fish’s head started pumping to the music. The speaker behind my head was broken. I was happy about that. My eardrums might have been damaged by the music but at least they wouldn’t bleed.

  The Milara Detention Centre smelled like sweat. Stale sweat and disinfectant. Not a strong smell but enough to make my nose wrinkle. Donna came into reception and made sure it was okay for us to see our dads. She talked with a short cop through a hole in a Perspex window. She told Fish she’d wait in the car. She kissed him and his face reddened. He hugged her. Another cop came to a side door and unlocked it with a clank. He invited us in. I had to leave my bag with the cop behind the counter, and the other bloke led us through some security doors to a room with a desk. There were no windows, only glaring fluorescent tubes behind steel-mesh cages. I could hear my heart beating.

  ‘You guys don’t have any weapons or drugs of any kind on you?’

  ‘Nup,’ I said.

  Fish was quiet. He dug into his pocket and pulled out his Swiss Army knife.

  ‘Got this,’ he said, and the cop tutted.

  ‘I’ll hang on to that until you get out. Next time, leave it at home. Unless you’re hunting or fishing, it’s illegal to carry a knife like that.’

  ‘What? Even a Swiss Army?’

  The cop nodded.

  ‘That’s a bit . . .’

  The cop shrugged. ‘It’s the law.’

  Michael’s hand shook as he handed the knife over. The policeman put it in a bag and sat it on the desk. ‘Which one of you is here to see Mr Fisher?’

  Michael put his hand up like he never does in class.

  ‘So, you’re young Mr Fairbrother?’ he asked me.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘Right, you’re in room three, Mr Fisher. And you’re in room one.’

  He unlocked another door and led us along a corridor to our rooms. Room one had a small wired-glass window in the door, three chairs, one of those mesh-covered fluorescent lights and a table. I nodded to Fish. He flashed the gap between his teeth and waved with one finger. ‘Good luck,’ he said.

  ‘Someone will bring your dad up shortly,’ the cop said, and closed me in the room.

  My toes scrunched in my boots. I stared at a leg of the table for what felt like half an hour. If he gets nasty, I thought, there should be plenty of cops around to give me a hand. I shook my head. Dad wouldn’t have a go at me again.

  It was a quiet place. Not quiet and alive like the bush but quiet and sort of dead. I tapped my foot on the carpet and the sound pinged off the walls. I wished they’d hurry up, and then I heard them coming along the corridor and I wished I’d never come. There was no air in the room. I breathed deeply and the door swung open.

  ‘There you go, Steve,’ said the cop. ‘Just yell out when you’re done.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Dad said, and the door closed behind him.

  He smiled. His lips, his cheeks, his eyes were smiling. It wasn’t a pretend smile. He wore a blue uniform like the ones he wore to work, only this one had never been covered in coaldust.

  ‘G’day, Dan,’ he said. ‘Geez I’m sorry, mate.’

  I held out my hand. He took it in his paw and pulled me into a hug. I almost squealed. My nose scrunched into his shoulder and he rocked me from side to side. I patted his back and he eventually let me go. We sat on opposite sides of the table. Dad folded his hands on his lap.

  ‘How’s your mum?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Angry.’

  He rubbed his chin and nodded. ‘That’s fair.’

  He crossed his arms.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s a long story,’ he sighed.

  ‘I’ve got a long time,’ I said.

  He looked at me. ‘Maybe when you’re a bit older.’

  I clicked my tongue and stood up. ‘Right, I’ll be off then. I’ll come back when I’m a bit older.’ I strode to the door and yanked on the handle. It was locked.

  ‘Hang on a minute, mate. Wait on. Sit down.’

  The cop came and opened the door. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Dad said. ‘Come on, mate, sit down.’

  I sat down and the cop closed the door. Dad sighed and rubbed his chin. I tapped my foot on the carpet.

  ‘One of the guys at work tried to steal a truck.’

  I scoffed. ‘Stick it in his pocket and walk out the gate?’

  ‘Sort of. Filled it with briquettes and drove it out the side gate.’

  This is a joke, right? ‘What’s that got to do with you?’

  ‘I signed the form to let security know that it was okay. He was going to sell it and give me some of the money. He had a buyer and everything. They were going to ship it off to Perth.’

  ‘It didn’t work.’

  He leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms. He shook his head. ‘The security guard wasn’t as dumb as he looked. He phoned the police and they caught Dick driving through Handley.’

  Steal a truck? How stupid was that? I could imagine the other guys in jail laughing at him and calling him an amateur.

  ‘Not just any old truck,’ he said. ‘Brand new Mack. Half a million dollars’ worth. I would have been able to retire.’

  That was a scary thought; Dad grumping around the house all day, every day. In a way I was glad he’d been caught. Someone laughed in the corridor.

  ‘How long will you get? You won’t have to go to jail for long, will you?’

  Dad shrugged. ‘It’s more complicated than it seems.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He stared at his hands. ‘You’ll find out . . . when the time’s right.’

  I stood up.

  ‘Sit down, Dan.’

  ‘Nah, stuff you. I’m sick of your friggin’ secrets. I’m off.’

  I reached for the door handle and gave it a rattle.

  ‘Dan, stop,’ he shouted. ‘Sit down. It’s stuff you wouldn’t understand.’

  ‘What? Try me. What can’t I understand? My dad steals a truck so he can retire early. I’m fifteen, Dad. I’m fifteen and I can understand that that was bloody stupid. Come on, try me!’

  The cop didn’t come.

  Dad’s mouth opened but his teeth stayed closed as he spoke. ‘Stop your bullshit. Sit down. Listen.’

  I crunched into the chair and crossed my arms and legs.

  ‘If a word of this leaves this room, I will kill you,’ he snarled. ‘Do you understand?’

  I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Do you understand?’

  His brow had bunched and his eyes were cold and humourless. It was the old Dad back again.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘This is between you and me.’

  I crossed my fingers in my armpit. And maybe Eddy, I thought, if it’s too big to handle. God, what did he do? Maybe I’d hear what he had to say and wish he’d never said i
t. A secret like that would make me sick.

  He put his head in his hands. ‘Thank you.’

  He took a huge breath and sighed.

  ‘When I was seven there was a bloke who lived down the road from me in Watson. He was a friend of my mum and dad. His name was Barry. Barry was my babysitter.’

  He was breathing hard. His hands screwed into fists.

  I uncrossed my arms and sat forward.

  ‘Barry did things to me that you wouldn’t do to a dog. Again and again. Mum would drop me off and tell me not to cry. Barry would do . . . he would do what he wanted, then make me so scared that I couldn’t tell my mum or dad. I hated my parents for it. I wanted to kill Barry. I wanted to kill him since I was seven years old.’

  There was a tear hanging on the side of his nose. His fists were shaking. He sniffed hard.

  Sweat tickled down my back. My throat squelched as I swallowed. I wanted him to stop. I could guess the rest of the story and be satisfied.

  ‘I met him in the pub when you were little. He invited me back to his place and I killed him. Drowned him, in his own bath. Drowned him, then turned on an electric heater and threw it in with him to make sure. Sick bastard.’

  Dad coughed and his face went red. He pushed his chair away from the table and hung his head between his arms. He spat on the carpet. He wiped his face on his sleeve.

  ‘They fingerprinted me after the truck incident. There’s a national register of fingerprints. Mine came up as an exact match with the ones they’d taken from Barry’s bathroom.’

  He sniffed again.

  ‘So that’s why we left Watson.’

  He nodded. ‘Your mum doesn’t even know about that.’

  I felt my own rage at Barry. No one deserves to be killed though, I thought. ‘And that’s why you’ve been grumpy.’

  ‘Nah, that was years ago,’ he said, and flicked his hand at me.

  ‘You’ve been grumpy for years.’

  He chewed on his lip and shrugged.

  We fell quiet, like a kettle that has been taken off the boil. Not an uncomfortable silence. It felt like he’d said what he wanted to say.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, and stood up. ‘Thanks for telling me straight.’

  He stood up and I hugged him. My nose didn’t get crushed this time and he sniffed in my ear.

  ‘Thank you. Thanks for coming to see me.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Come again? When I find out where I’m going?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Sometime soon. Got a fair bit of stuff to do at home now.’

  Get the phone connected, I thought. Play music loud. Get a proper TV. And a Playstation Two for Toby. Work out a way to tell my old man that he would feel better if he stood in a wet paddock and yelled, ‘I forgive you, Barry. I forgive you.’

  I grabbed my bag from the cop at the front desk. I almost forgot the parcel. The parcel I’d made for Dad. I took out a big yellow envelope and handed it to the cop.

  ‘I forgot to . . . Can you please give these to my dad?’ I said.

  He opened the envelope.

  ‘Just photographs and that. I thought he might . . .’

  He flicked through the photos from Dad’s drawer in the shed. I guessed they wouldn’t mean anything to the cop; most of them didn’t mean anything to me. Every one of them meant something to Dad.

  The cop looked at me and smiled a gentle smile. ‘Sure. Can do that.’

  We didn’t talk on the way home. Fish had been crying. Toby scrambled outside as I pulled in the drive, waving with both hands, then wiggling his bare bottom at me. I smiled and tooted.

  Mum and Kat dragged me into the lounge room and gave me a full interrogation. I told them about Dad trying to steal the truck. They muffled their laughter with their hands.

  ‘Not a very convincing crook,’ Mum said.

  I didn’t tell them anything else. Dad would tell them in good time. He’d have to. I’d make sure of it. I didn’t want any more secrets.

  I lit a fire that night. A safe one in the middle of the paddock with the hose standing by. One of the good things about living in Bellan is how isolated it is. Sometimes we do as we please.

  I grabbed a cardboard carton from Dad’s shed and took it into the cubby. I moved Eddy’s tape and filled the box with magazines. They were a secret that I didn’t need anymore and the stash became the base for the fire. Toby and I dragged a heap of old timber together, added some more empty boxes from the shed and lit the lot. Toby whooped as the flames licked at the night sky. Mum broke open the liquor cupboard and necked a bottle of port. Tina and Graham drove up in a mild panic about the smoke, then sat and shared Mum’s port.

  I sat on the grass with my little brother asleep on my knees. I stared at the last of the fire. I turned my face skyward and whispered to the stars, ‘I forgive you, Dad. I forgive you.’

  seventeen

  F A I R Y

  Kat and I played kick-rock with one stone all the way to Tina’s. Tina had a headache but wore a smile. She said the port had been a bit rough. We teased her, talking louder than we needed to and mostly about nothing. She told us we could walk.

  Fish patted the seat next to him at the back of the bus as I walked up the aisle. Amy sat near him but against the window with her arms crossed.

  ‘Dan, my man,’ Fish said, and slapped my leg. ‘How are ya?’

  ‘Good, Fish. You?’

  ‘Not bad. Not bad at all.’

  I felt like a different sort of fish sitting in silence with them on the back seat. One that was suffering water deficiency. Chantelle sprang onto the bus. Her mouth hung open and she stared at me as she walked along the aisle.

  ‘Shove over, Dan,’ she said. ‘Let me in.’

  She dropped her bag in the aisle and sat next to me.

  ‘His name’s not Dan, it’s Fairy. Isn’t it, Fairy?’ Amy said, and uncrossed her arms.

  ‘No. I like Dan.’

  ‘See, told you,’ Fish said.

  ‘How do you spell Chantelle, Fairy?’ Amy asked.

  ‘C-h-a-n-t-e-l-l-e,’ I replied, and held my breath.

  ‘Ha! See, bloody idiot.’

  My face grew hot and I shrugged. I thought about moving forward a few seats.

  ‘That’s right,’ Chantelle said.

  The bus lumbered through another gear and we were silent.

  ‘Bullshit. It’s S-h-a-n-t-a-l.’

  ‘Nup,’ Chantelle said.

  Amy crossed her arms. ‘Youse don’t know how to spell it,’ she said, and we all screamed. Well, all of us except Amy, who crossed her arms and looked from under a wrinkled brow at the world dashing past the bus.

  I didn’t play four square at lunchtime. Chantelle and I sat in the shade of the smokers’ tree and I told her the story of my dad. How he’d tried to steal a truck worth half a million dollars and got caught. The bigger reason Dad was in jail sat quietly behind my words. I didn’t have to tell her. I didn’t have to tell anyone. For Dad and me it wasn’t a secret and everyone else who needed to know would find out in time.

  Kat and Jake walked across the oval. Well, not really walked; floated. Hand in hand. They sat with us beside the tree and it was easy for me to be happy for her. My sister looked at me with a warm knowing in her eyes and I felt like I wanted to hug her. Get up and dance with her and whoop and scream and laugh.

  Fish and Amy smoked and argued behind the tree.

  ‘Isn’t love grand?’ Chantelle whispered, and nodded at the tree. Her eyes were smiling.

  I sighed and shoved her off balance. My whole body was smiling, prickling inside and out with delight. ‘Yes. It is.’

  She chuckled and sat up.

  ‘Is there a word between like and love?’ I asked.

  Chantelle thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Don’t think so. What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I like my car and I like my friends and I like where I live. A lot.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’

  ‘And I like you more th
an all those things put together. More than a lot. More than heaps.’

  ‘Okay . . .’ she said. Her foot tapped on the grass and she nodded.

  ‘So, Chantelle, I guess . . . I must . . . love you.’

  She shoved me and I toppled. I lay there smiling. She stood up and brushed the grass from her school dress. She held her hand out to me and her face went the colour of a home-grown jonathan apple.

  I took her hand and she pulled me to my feet.

  ‘You’ve got no idea, Dan.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re supposed to hang around and be a pain and after a few weeks ask me if I want to go out with you, and after we’ve been going out for a couple of weeks, then you tell me that you love me.’

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ I said. I couldn’t tell if she was for real or stirring me up. She was still holding my hand.

  She brushed invisible grass off her dress and looked at her runners.

  ‘I’ve been a pain forever,’ I said.

  She grunted and nodded.

  ‘So, does that mean I can ask you out?’

  She threw my hand down and looked across the oval. ‘Hopeless,’ she said. She was smiling.

  ‘Hey, Chantelle,’ I squeaked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Will you go out with me?’

  She held her chin and tapped a finger on her lips. ‘S’pose.’

  ‘Serious?’

  ‘Yeah!’

  ‘Cool,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, cool.’

  ‘I do love you.’

  She shoved me and laughed. ‘Bonehead.’

  I whistled all the way to Eddy’s. The sun had lost its sting and she was watering the front garden. At the sight of me she turned the hose off and wiped her hands on her apron.

  ‘Come here, Dan-ee-el. It is so good to see you, schat,’ she said, kissed my cheek and hugged me. I hugged her like we’d been friends forever. We had coffee and laughed. I told her I’d been to see my dad and she leaned forward. I told her about trying to steal the truck and she scoffed. I told her that Dad had been abused when he was a boy and tears came to her eyes. She held her fingers to her mouth.

  ‘Poor child,’ she said.

  I told her that Dad was going to jail for killing the man that had abused him. I told her that Dad had said he would kill me if I told anyone, and that I’d wanted to tell her. It was worth the risk. Felt like I had to because we didn’t have any secrets and I wanted it to stay that way.