by James Roy
'Since you came in and told Dad to call the ambulance. I thought it was me that caused it.'
Mum was out of her seat in an instant, and coming around the end of the table to slide into the booth beside Harry. She took the deck of cards from his hand and placed it on the table before throwing her arms around him and squeezing. Her body was shaking.
'I just thought you were angry with me, because you left me to look after him.'
Her reply was muffled by his shoulder, and by her own tears. 'Harry, it wasn't your fault that Dad's phone went flat, or that Joel was out of hospital too soon, or that he was sick to begin with. And it definitely wasn't your fault that your brother was sick while you weren't.'
'It could have just as easily been me with CF, though, couldn't it?'
'Yes, but it wasn't. You can't feel guilty about any of it – the medicine, the CF, or surviving while Joel didn't.'
Dad was slipping into the other side of the booth and picking up the cards from the table. 'What's going on?' he asked. 'I turn my back for five minutes and it's all hugs and ... Oh,' he said, seeing that tears were involved. 'My misunderstanding.'
'We've all made a few of those,' said Mum.
Twenty-Three
Harry still liked to be tucked into bed, and Mum had promised she'd be in, just as soon as she'd had a shower. So now he lay and waited, finally heard her coming along the hallway, with Joel's sign tapping against the door with each step. It didn't hurt as much now, to hear that sound. It still took his mind to a difficult place, but it was difficult for its sadness, not for its terrible guilt.
He heard the sign bump a little more as Mum opened the door to Joel's bedroom. A moment later it closed, and he saw her silhouette against the hall light. From her hand swung an item of clothing. 'All in and ready to sleep?' she asked.
'Yep.'
'Bag packed for school tomorrow?'
'Yep.'
'Good.'
'Mum, when are we getting Daisy from the kennel?'
'I'll pick her up tomorrow.' Mum lifted the hanger. 'Now, I know that this isn't your colour, but I couldn't find a blue and white one. So will red and black do?'
Harry propped himself up on his elbows. 'Is that Joel's Holden jacket?'
Mum nodded. 'You don't have to wear it in public or anything like that – I know how much that would hurt a diehard Ford fan like yourself – but would you like to have it, just to hang in your wardrobe?' She lay the jacket on the bed, across Harry's legs. He fingered the fabric, then picked the jacket up and held it to his face, breathing deeply. Yes, it smelt like his brother.
'Are you sure, Mum?'
'Yes, I'm sure.'
'Then yeah, I'd love it,' he said. 'Can you hang it on my door handle?'
'You don't want it in the wardrobe?'
He shook his head. 'No, on the door.'
Mum hung the jacket on the doorknob, before sitting on the edge of Harry's bed. She stroked the side of his head. 'I'm glad you're safe. And you mustn't think I wasn't proud of what you did today. I was. But I was terrified, Harry, even though I only found out what you'd done after you did it. But I was scared looking back, if that makes sense.'
'Yeah, it does.'
'And I'm so glad that Luke's mother didn't lose her boy. One lost son is enough, I reckon.'
'Yeah, I think you're right. Mum, how would you feel about me going to Nyngan next holidays?'
'To Nyngan? To stay with Trent?'
'Yeah.'
Mum puffed out her cheeks as she thought. 'I think that might be another one of the things I'd prefer to find out about after it's happened. But sure, we can talk about it. Is it OK if I don't say yes just yet?'
Harry nodded. 'I haven't even decided if I want to go, but he did suggest it again when I said goodbye to him.'
'Well, like I say, it's something to think about. But there are more pressing issues at the moment. Do you have anything planned tomorrow evening?'
'I don't know. Homework?'
'Nothing important, then?'
Harry smiled and shook his head. 'I don't think so. Why?'
'I need you to give me a hand with something. It might require a bit of lifting and moving of furniture.'
He was reading her thoughts now. 'What kind of furniture do you mean – wardrobes and dressing tables and beds, maybe?'
'Yes, and desks and filing cabinets and computers. It's time, Harry.'
He struggled to hold back his smile, but in the end he couldn't, so he didn't even try any more. 'That's good, Mum. I'd love to. Is Dad going to help as well?'
'No, tomorrow night he's going to be checking out the poker comp at the bowling club. Like I said, it's time, but not for everyone. I don't think he's ready to move furniture just yet.' She leaned down, kissed his forehead and flicked off the lamp. 'Sleep tight.'
He knew he would.
Harry checked the top of the little brick wall for dew. It was pretty dry, so he sat on it, digging his hands deep into his pockets to shield them from the cold morning breeze. 'So, guys, how was it?'
'How was what?' Michael asked.
'The go-karting? The party? Remember?'
'Oh, yeah. It was OK. Yeah, it was good.'
'That's right,' Ricky agreed. 'It was pretty good.'
'Huh.' Harry nodded slowly. 'Well, that's ... good, I guess. It doesn't sound like I missed much.'
Michael and Ricky couldn't hold back their enthusiasm any longer. 'It was awesome!' Michael said, his face breaking into an enormous grin.
'Man, it was un-be-lievable!' said Ricky. 'That is a wicked fast track, and those karts are monsters!'
'Monsters,' Michael echoed. 'They go like a scared possum.'
Their excitement was infectious, and despite his sudden envy, Harry couldn't help but grin as well. 'We'll have to go again, some time when I'm not stuck in the bush watching oldies get married.'
'Yeah, so how was that, anyway?' Michael asked.
'We had a flash flood.'
'Really? Anyone get washed away to their death?'
'No, no one got washed away to their death. It was just a lot of rain, and this stormwater drain started to fill up pretty quick.'
'But no one drowned?'
Harry shook his head. 'No, everyone was fine.'
'So why even mention it?'
'Don't know, really,' he replied with a quick shrug.
'So you didn't get to shoot anything?' Ricky asked.
'Nope.'
'Not even a rabbit?'
'Not even a rabbit.'
'Were there even guns there?'
'Rifles, yeah.'
'So did you fire one?'
'Nope.'
'Not even one shot?'
'Nope, not even one.'
Michael and Ricky shook their heads in disgust. 'Man, that's lame,' Michael said. 'You could have at least told us you shot a roo or something.'
'Yeah, I could have, but I didn't. Oh, but there was this old army jeep that Frank's restored, and he has this caravan on the property –'
The other two were staring at him blankly. 'A caravan,' said Ricky.
'Yes.'
'Sorry if we don't get too excited about a caravan.' Michael bounced his footy twice, then handballed it at Ricky. 'Come on, let's have a kick – I'm freezing.'
Harry watched his friends running towards the middle of the oval, handballing back and forth, laughing and screaming like idiots. They looked back at him, still perched on the wall. 'Harry, are you coming?' Michael called.
'No, I've got to go up to the library.'
'All right, we'll see you later.'
He smiled and stood up, pushed away from the little wall, and began to walk around the edge of the oval, thinking about what he was going to say to Mrs Ransome. She'd made him promise to come and tell her how his weekend with the Vietnam vet had gone, and he would. But he particularly wanted to talk some more about her theory on hobbies. He was going to tell her that over the last three days his understanding of the subtle art of ill
usion had moved ahead rather dramatically.
That afternoon Doug was on the station platform again. It was only a few days since Harry had last seen him, but it felt like much longer. He was sitting on his usual bench, his broken-zippered bag at his feet, his mouth moving behind his beard in a leftover reaction to some event or bad habit in his long-gone youth.
'Hey, you are here,' Harry said, stopping by the bench. 'How's it going?'
Doug looked up, his eyes stern, prepared to growl or snap at whomever had dared to bother him. Then he saw it was Harry, and his face softened a little.
'Hey, sport.'
'Um, this is going to sound weird,' Harry began, 'but ...'
'But what?'
'Well, I had a pretty weird kind of weekend.'
'Is that so? Why? What was weird about it?'
'Oh, it's a long story.'
'I've got plenty of time. My train isn't due for ... well, years.'
Harry checked his watch. 'It's not the kind of thing I can tell you just like that, though.'
Doug seemed disappointed. 'Oh, I see. Well, never mind.'
'But I did want to say something to you. My Great-uncle Frank got married on the weekend.'
Doug raised his eyebrows. 'Congratulations to him.'
'Yeah, well, who knows how long it'll last. But anyway, the thing is that he was a bit like you.'
'Like me how?' Doug asked.
Harry cleared his throat. 'Look, I'm not trying to get you to talk about it or anything, but I think he had some of the same experiences you had. I mean, he didn't fight or anything, but he was still there. And I just wanted to say that I'm starting to understand, and if you ever did want to talk, maybe I could –'
Doug interrupted him with a raised hand and a slight shake of the head. 'Sorry, but what is it you think you're starting to understand?'
'Well, that guys like you and Frank possibly saw and did stuff over there that you find hard to talk about, maybe because it was awful, or maybe because it wasn't what other people thought you were doing.'
Doug looked away, stared along the tracks for a long moment. When he finally turned back at Harry, the confused frown was still there. 'What, exactly, do you think I was doing "over there"? Over where?'
Great, Harry thought, I'm going to have to come out and say it. Brave, like a big boy. 'In Vietnam,' he said at last.
Doug's face was frozen for several seconds, which made Harry feel fidgety, made him want to pick up his bag and run. Then Doug dropped his chin onto his chest and began to chuckle, deep down. Very quickly, the chuckle became a laugh, which built and built until he was holding his belly and rolling his head back with guffaws that made the other passengers on the platform scowl in their direction.
'You think I was in Vietnam?' he said, once he'd pulled himself together.
'Weren't you?'
'No! I've never been to Vietnam, not even for a holiday. Why would you even think I was there?'
'When I first met you, you saw the book I was reading – the one with all the photos from the Vietnam War – and you were all, "You weren't there, how could you know what it was like?"'
'Well you weren't there, were you? So how could you know what it was like?'
This was getting pretty weird. 'But you said that you had a head injury when you were overseas,' Harry explained.
'Yes, I did, but it wasn't what you obviously think it was.'
'It wasn't?'
'No! I was cycling through the south of France and got hit by a car, which probably serves me right, because I went over there trying to avoid the draft. I was stuck in a hospital bed in Lyon for over four months, although I only remember one of them. And when I got home, I was no good for anything.' He chuckled again. 'You thought I was a vet?'
Harry felt his face heating up. 'Yeah, I did,' he admitted. 'After what you said, I just thought that's how it was.' In that moment, Harry suddenly found himself wondering what else he might have got terribly wrong. He looked at Doug's beard, his beaten-up Ford hat, the shirt hanging loosely over the grease-grimy jeans, the cheap department-store sneakers, and he immediately asked himself a question that he knew he'd never be able to ask the man himself: was he in fact homeless?
'Listen, sport, I've told you before, you shouldn't assume anything.'
'Sorry about that,' Harry said.
'Honest mistake,' Doug said, giving another brief chuckle, like an aftershock. Then a train horn sounded from along the track, and he glanced up. 'Well, here's your ride, sport.'
'Aren't you assuming that's my train?' Harry asked, and Doug smiled.
'Well, let's look at what we know. You're on a railway platform, a train is coming in, and you catch a ride from here most afternoons, which I know because I've seen you with my own eyes. So I imagine you're about to get on this train. Some assumptions are safe to make, wouldn't you say?'
Deep in his pocket, Harry ran his fingers along the scuffed edges and corners of the card packet, and watched as the train slowed into the station. Several passengers stood waiting on the platform, gathered in small, ready groups where the doors would open once the train stopped. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps some assumptions were safe to make.
'Maybe today I just came to talk to you,' Harry said. 'Or maybe I am heading home. Or it might be neither.'
'True enough,' Doug said, nodding, a curious smile lurking behind his beard as he fixed Harry with his flinty eyes. 'So, sport, which is it?
'