‘Are you mad? He’s asking you to go up there and you’re claiming he doesn’t love you. Why on earth would he suggest you audition if he didn’t want you to be in the circus?’
‘He knows I won’t be allowed to audition. Mum wouldn’t let me.’
At this she tilts her head the other way and again she reminds me of a bird. She considers for a minute, puts her hand to her mouth and stares upward. Then she sits down opposite me and in a slightly conspiratorial way she says, ‘Listen Cedar, where there’s a will there’s a way, and if it’s really, really what you want to do then you will find a way. But first you have to think about it and make sure it’s really, really what you want.’
I nod and then I say, ‘But why didn’t he put a kiss at the end?’
And that’s when she stands up, goes back to chopping and says, ‘He could be too shy. Men often are.’
‘Men?’ I say.
‘Men and boys. They’re similar.’
‘Did Ruben write kisses on Mum’s letter?’
‘You’ll have to ask her that, Cedar.’
‘Yeah, right,’ I say as I slide off the chair and skulk off towards my own room for some extra pondering. I wonder if she’s right about Kite just being too shy. I must be convinced (easily done when you want to be) because, before I can stop it, I’m already turning my mind to something else. Do I really, really want to do the audition?
Chapter 13
Of course that night I ring Caramella, read her the letter and ask her opinion. She agrees with Aunt Squeezy that there’s no sure sign that Kite has another girlfriend, and says I’m definitely over-interpreting, especially since the small hints of jealousy are there. But she’s not sure about the audition.
‘For one thing, what’s the point, because your mum is never going to let you live in Albury,’ she says.
‘I know, but maybe if I did the audition and got in, she might be so proud of me she’d change her mind. Anyway, at least it would be a good excuse to go up there and visit, even if I don’t get in.’
‘Scary, though, doing stuff in front of people. All those kids up there, they’d be really good.’
‘True, but you can’t let fear get in your way, can you?’
‘I can.’
‘Yeah, but remember, you were scared of joining our circus, but once you joined you liked it.’ At this she pauses to consider.
‘Yeah, but that’s different.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that was friendly; the Albury circus is serious.’
‘Still…’ I say. And then I don’t know what else to say.
Later, I ask Barnaby. I don’t show him the letter, because boys don’t bother with interpreting. I just saunter into his room and hang in the doorway expectantly. He is lying on his bed, propped up by pillows, with headphones on, foot tapping. When he sees me, and when he sees I mean business, he pulls his headphones off and leans over to hit the pause button.
‘What’s up?’ he says.
‘There’s going to be an audition for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus in Albury in December, and Kite thinks I should try out.’
‘Does he?’
‘Yep, he does.’
‘What about you? Do you reckon you should?’
‘I think so. Be pretty cool to be in a real circus, don’t you think?’
He heaves himself up into a sitting position and screws his face up a bit, as if in a deep think. ‘You’re already in a real circus. With Oscar and Caramella. Remember?’
‘Yeah, but I mean really real. I can’t exactly be learning new tricks with Oscar and Caramella.’
‘If tricks are what you want to learn, you can go do a class, can’t you?’ He’s looking up at me again, but he isn’t smiling, he isn’t enthusing; in fact he seems confused, or disappointed, I’m not sure which.
I frown. I would have thought Barnaby of all people – Barnaby who runs away from school and hitchhikes across the desert to the other side of the country, and who never obeys the rules and always does exactly what is interesting to him, despite what people think – I would have thought he’d be the one to say, Go! Go follow your dream.
‘What’s your problem, Barn? Why don’t you want me to go? How come it’s okay for you to run off when you like but not for me?’
He laughs as his palms fly in the air, as if he just accidentally touched something too hot. ‘Hey, it’s your life, Cedy, you decide. I just reckon you’re already in a really cool circus. I reckon it’s the coolest circus I ever saw.’
‘Hmph,’ I say as I perform a stylish swivel and leave him to his rock’n’roll. I go brush my teeth and then hop into bed, and this is what I think.
Barnaby is just saying that ’cause he’s jealous of me possibly becoming a real circus pro. He just wants me to stay here, stay small-time. I try to imagine what it would be like to be in a real circus. I see myself in costumes, doing startling things on a trapeze, but when I fall asleep I dream instead that a polar bear is weeing on me, and Oscar is there but he doesn’t help.
Chapter 14
The next day I only just manage to get through school without getting caught doing some very glorious circus daydreaming. And then when I get home Aunt Squeezy is ready and waiting to whip me off to volunteering. I was hoping she might have forgotten or let me off because, after all, it was in my hour of weakness, before the letter arrived, that I’d been persuaded to do it. But she hasn’t forgotten and she isn’t letting me off.
On the way there we see Oscar in the distance. He’s unmistakeable because of the slow, leaning way he drags his body along. He’s ahead of us, edging down the street carrying a white plastic bag stuffed with something so that it’s bulging out and lumpy. I yell out to him and he turns, raises his arm slowly and waits for us to catch up. I tell him about my weeing polar bear dream and he likes it. He doesn’t seem to care that he didn’t help me in the dream; he’s too amused at the thought of a polar bear weeing on me.
‘Did he wee on your head?’ he asks.
‘I can’t remember where he weed,’ I say and then, not wanting everyone to linger on the image, I change the topic. ‘What’s in the bag?’
‘Pieces of blue.’ His eyes remain blank and wide, even though he has said an odd thing.
‘Pieces of blue?’ says Aunt Squeezy. ‘What are they for?’
Oscar opens the bag and pulls out a cut up bit of blue T-shirt. He holds it up as if it’s an amazing thing.
‘I’m going to wrap some rocks in blue. The ones that come down the hill, by the bridge. A blue stream of rocks.’ He pronounces this slowly and then tucks the blue piece back in with the others.
‘Wow, a blue stream of rocks,’ says Aunt Squeezy. ‘Oscar, it’s like concrete poetry!’
‘You must have been collecting them for a while?’ I say.
‘Yes, quite a while.’ He looks ahead, and his head is wobbling and his eyes look as if they are searching, doing a big internal search for the right information. But he’s quiet. Then he stops walking and looks at me. ‘Since the circus stopped,’ he says.
I take a deep breath and I stop too.
‘Since Kite left,’ I say, but I’m not looking back at Oscar, because I can’t. And after that all three of us walk to the end of the street in silence and that’s where we part, Oscar wobbling off to the creek with his pieces of blue and us waiting for the tram to take me into the world of volunteering.
Aunt Squeezy doesn’t say anything about Oscar and the circus. She probably wants to keep me on-side, since I’m already a reluctant passenger. She’s chattering on instead about my new job as a volunteer, but my mind isn’t really on the job, it’s on Oscar, all alone, sitting on a cliff, wrapping rocks in scraps of blue. I hardly take in what she’s saying.
So I’m surprised when we arrive because it isn’t at all what I expected. For one thing, the place we enter isn’t a building amidst buildings, it’s an old brick kindergarten on Napier Street. And also, it doesn’t have the atmosphere of an office. It’s not
one bit quiet or organised or formal; it’s more like a mad boarding house, only no one there’s mad, they’re just kind of comfortable and loud. Well, Eliza is. You can tell instantly that she’s the main one; she’s the boss, though she seems more like the head of a family. She’s standing, large and smiling, all bosom and blonde curls, a sheet of paper in one hand, the other hand waving around, leading her attention from one thing to another: from Maude, a small neat woman in a green suit, who manages the office and is trying to fix up someone’s dentist appointment; and then to the man who has come to fix the leak upstairs; and then back to Maude, who has someone on the phone who can’t speak English well; and then to a young man with dark hair who appears to have no idea what’s going on. She gathers him close, and gives him a huge grin and says to us (we’re loitering in the hall, apparently waiting for her attention to fall on us), ‘Oh, Tirese, this is Farid. He’s from Afghanistan. We’re his new family. Have you seen Inisiya? We need her to translate.’
‘I’ll go check the computer club. This is Cedar, my niece, she’s come to help,’ says Aunt Squeezy, pushing me forward.
I immediately feel ashamed of my very small and self-centred life in front of Eliza, who has in one blow revealed herself to me as some huge-hearted, masterful conductor of this international orchestra of other people’s needs. But at the same time I can tell she doesn’t care how small my world or anyone’s world is. She grins at me, just as she grins at anyone, and puts her hand gently on my shoulder.
‘Good. Can you use a computer?’ She waves her hand in the air, before I can answer. ‘Doesn’t matter, as long as you can speak English you can help just by getting them to practise their English. Why don’t you go with your aunt to the computer club?’ Again she can’t even wait for me to speak because Maude has rushed up to us with something for Eliza to sign, and two more men enter with an older woman. Eliza excuses herself and swoops Farid off with her to greet them. I look at Aunt Squeezy, who says,‘Welcome to the Fitzroy Learning Network,’ and leads me up the hallway towards another room.
‘What is this place?’ I say.
‘Well, as far as I can make out, it was started as a kind of community centre that was set up to help women return to work by teaching them work skills. But, ever since the refugee crisis, it’s had to adapt and become a place for helping refugees.’ She stops and looks at me inquiringly, probably because she has already explained this to me on the way here but I was distracted then.
‘How did that happen?’ I say.
‘Because the housing commission flats, where a lot of refugees live, are just up the road and there was a sign out the front of the centre saying free English classes. Apparently, a man from Afghanistan turned up one day and asked about the class and ever since the place has been flooded with all kinds of refugees who need to learn English, and how to use computers, even just how to catch trams, deal with the unemployment office, all that.’
‘Wow.’
‘But, even more importantly, from what I can see, what the centre really provides is a base, a place the refugees can come to and join in, feel connected, supported.’
I didn’t know much about refugees, only that they came on boats because the countries they lived in were making life unbearable for them and they needed to live somewhere else. But Australia hadn’t treated them well. They’d been made to stay in detention centres.
‘Where are they from?’ I ask, but before she can answer we’ve opened the door to a large room buzzing with voices. There’s computers along the wall, and a large table in the middle, and hanging around everywhere are all kinds of kids. It’s a bit like a classroom without a class going on, so instead of doing something dull, like maths, everyone is having fun. There’s two giggling girls in the corner taking photos of each other and then printing them up. One boy rushes over to the teacher, beaming. He’s done a silly portrait of her. She laughs at him just as if she’s one of the kids. Then she leans over a quiet boy and helps him colour something on the computer. This boy is the only one who doesn’t look excited or interested, even though he’s somehow focused and determined. I feel a bit sad, watching him, because he doesn’t seem to care.
I’m standing there, shyly watching, because I can see straightaway that I’m the odd one out. I hadn’t expected kids. Kids can be scarier than adults, because they’re not polite; they say exactly what they think. So I’m not sure what to do.
I’d heard people talk about refugees, but I never had a picture in my mind that went with the word ‘refugee’. So it was a word without a face; a word that got talked about and dealt with by other people. But once a word gets a body and a face that speaks, then it begins to be real to you and you begin to have feelings for it. Once I saw those kids, leaning over the table and helping each other out and laughing, I understood that word with my heart, not just my head, and it made me see that the closer you get to something the more it will mean to you, and then the more it will matter to you, and then the larger your life will become for having to reach out like a big embracing arm to hold it all.
I’m watching a tiny girl whose hair coils in little fuzzy knots on her head. When I smile at her she laughs and then runs away, and I laugh too.
‘Come and meet Inisiya, she’s about your age,’ says Aunt Squeezy, pulling me towards the corner where a girl sits at the computer. Inisiya’s dressed in jeans and a green zip-up sloppy-jo, and her long black shiny hair is tied back in a ponytail. I feel shy and wonder if she really wants to meet me, but Aunt Squeezy is already talking to her.
‘Inisiya, Eliza needs you to translate. And I want to introduce you to my niece, Cedar. Inisiya’s from Afghanistan.’
Inisiya pushes her chair back and turns around. She has large dark eyes which blink as she smiles at us. I recognise her immediately. She’s the skinny girl who got out of the Abutula’s van. I don’t know if she recognises me. She simply says, ‘Hi.’ Then I say, ‘Hi.’ She stands up and asks Aunt Squeezy if Eliza needs her now, and then she wanders out to help. But I know then and there that we must have been meant to meet, and that I will find a way to talk to her. Already I can’t wait to tell Caramella.
Chapter 15
When Mum comes home that night, she plonks herself down on the couch next to me. I’m watching The Simpsons, but it’s a repeat so I don’t mind her interrupting. At first it seems she has come in to talk about volunteering.
‘So, how was the Learning Network? Did you enjoy it?’
‘I did, actually.’ I have to admit it, even though I hate to let her know that she was right about it being good for me. But I don’t give her too much. She presses me for more, of course.
‘Well, tell me, what did you do?’
‘Oh, mainly I was just meant to talk to kids who need help with their English.’
‘Ah,’ she says, and by the look on her face I can tell her attention is drifting. I wonder then if this could be the right moment to bring up the audition. You have to pick the absolute optimum moment when asking for something that you know is going to be a very enormous ask. If you ask too early, it’s like opening the oven door on a cake and making it sag. I decide first to enthuse a bit about my new position in the world as a volunteer; puff up the moment with examples of me as her wonderful, deserving child.
‘I met this great little boy called Sali from Sudan in Africa. He has the most beautiful laugh. His dad is driving cabs here. Also, there’s this older boy who has no bottom teeth, because he comes from a tribe where all teenage boys have their teeth removed to prove they can bear pain and become a man. Now Eliza is trying to organise a dentist to replace them because here he feels self-conscious.’
‘Oh God, I can imagine.’
‘But guess who else I met?’ I take her foot and remove her shoe.
‘Who?’
‘The girl who Mr Abutula brought here with her mum and brother. We saw them arriving, remember? The night Kite left.’ I’m massaging her foot and she is closing her eyes slightly.
‘Oh yes,
I remember. What was she like?’
‘Well I haven’t really spoken to her yet, but I will next time.’
‘So you’re going back again?’ She smiles as if I’m an angel. So I’m almost ready to land it on her.
‘Yep. I’m going back next week.’
Silence for a while.
‘Mum?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Kite asked me to go do an audition for the Flying Fruit Flies.’ There, I said it. It’s landed.
First she sighs (bad sign). I let go of her foot and she shifts a bit on the couch. She turns to face me.
‘Cedar, it’s wonderful he asked you. He and Ruben must have a lot of faith in your abilities. But you know we can’t move to Albury. I have my job here. Can’t you join a circus here, love? Or wait until you’re a bit older and clearer that circus is really what you want to do? You’re still so young.’ She pats my leg and sighs again.
I know she doesn’t like to disappoint me, and I experience a tiny second of understanding for her, but then I quickly move on to the more important issue of me. Why does everyone think I’m still too young to know what I want? Anyway, how can I know what I want until I try it out?
‘I’m not too young to know what I love doing the most.’ I look at her pleadingly, even though I know it’s useless. She looks back at me with a look so full of sympathy and sadness that again I almost feel bad for making her feel bad about making me feel bad.
‘How much do you think this is really about the circus and how much is it because you like Kite and you want to do what he’s doing?’
‘It’s about the circus.’ I’m looking at my hands, which are squirming on my lap. I’d hate anyone to think I’d do something just for the sake of a boy, and not because I wanted to do it myself. I’d even hate myself to think that, so I deny it out loud, straight away, and then I try very hard to believe it. My hands are still squirming. Mum says nothing. And then slowly it seems that we’re both watching The Simpsons again, though I’m not concentrating as I am trying very hard to banish that thought and I’m not sure I’m succeeding. Would I want to go to Albury if Kite wasn’t there? Yes or no? I try to think of something else. After a while Mum starts up again.
The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley Page 6