‘Are you going to have a party?’ I asked her in the kitchen. My mother stood at the stove minding breakfast. She lifted the pot of porridge and placed it in the centre of the table. She took a bowl from the pile that balanced like a leaning tower and slopped in a spoonful and placed it in front of my sister.
‘I don’t want a party,’ Devin said.
‘We could have a cake and candles.’
‘I don’t want anything.’ Her voice was strained and she didn’t look at us. She stared at the spoons so intently that I thought she might pick one up and begin eating her porridge, but instead she brought her feet up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees.
‘Put your feet down, Devin,’ my mother said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I said so.’
‘Do I have to do everything you say?’
My mother placed my bowl aside. She put one hand on her hip and scratched at her forehead with the tips of the fingers of the other. Her voice slowed and softened. There might have been anger there or an attempt at patience; I couldn’t tell. She closed her eyes as she said the next thing: ‘It’s not our chair.’
‘Say his name!’ Devin spat, and my mother’s eyes opened and widened. There was some kind of force in my sister like the wind that came off the top of the mountain in the winter months. ‘I hate him,’ Devin said loud enough for us both to hear. ‘Screw him. I’ll walk on every piece of furniture he has in this house. Screw him and his stupid house.’
‘Go,’ my mother said. Flat. There was no more reason in her voice. ‘Get upstairs. You can stay there until it’s time to go to school.’
Devin put her feet down hard. The skirt of her uniform was visibly shorter than it had been when my mother first bought it. Her legs were bare and hairless and they’d grown longer – people were already telling her she could be a model. A new slouch had crept into her shoulders and it went with frequently downcast eyes, a bottom lip drawn in and bitten red between her teeth. She went from the kitchen and I finally had my breakfast handed to me. Devin went to school without eating that day, and I wondered who had won, her or our mother.
My father dropped us a block away, on his way to work, and every morning we walked a short distance to the school gates.
‘Bye Dev,’ he said, then, ‘bye Monkey.’ He cupped my chin in his left hand and I studied the mottled iris of his eyes. He looked into mine in return but did not kiss me, and as we walked we heard the engine roar.
From the playground a girl in my class waved to me and I lifted my hand in return, but Devin said nothing. Her legs moved back and forth beneath her short school pinafore and my legs worked harder to catch up. At the gate of the school a row of trees stretched along the fence to the left where they marked the end of the school property. Devin stopped when we were just inside the gate. ‘I’ll see you on the bus,’ she said.
‘Aren’t you going in to school?’
‘The bell hasn’t gone yet. I’ll wait here.’
‘Jeez, Devin. We’re not allowed to go near the trees. We have to wait near the door so the teachers can see us.’
Devin took her bag and moved beneath the tall trunks that cast nets of shade on the sandy ground and she sat down on a rock with a surface as smooth as her face. She didn’t look at me. She put her head into her hands as though she was tired, as though she could wipe the feeling away with her fingers. ‘Please Cat, go away. I want to be by myself.’
I shifted on my feet, then wiped my shoes on the back of my socks to shine them up. I looked at my sister. ‘You can get into trouble, I don’t care.’
‘I won’t get in trouble. And you don’t care anyway.’ She moved her hands away from her face. This time she looked at me square on.
‘It’s your birthday tomorrow, Dev,’ I said. I thought I saw a half-smile haunting the side of her mouth, and I chipped away at the weak spot. ‘I’ve got you something nice. You’ll like it.’
‘I know what it is. You always get me a book.’
‘You don’t know what kind. Did you look in my cupboard?’
She shrugged, leered at me with a full knowing that the withholding of such knowledge had the power to taunt me all through the day, to drive me crazy, to distraction. But then something else caught her attention. She moved to the base of a tree and crouched there, her hands cupped around a small bird, a juvenile dove that stared and blinked with jet-black eyes, jerked its head and made a single, soft sound from its throat. The feathers were tattered and downy; it was a creature that could not yet fly.
‘The ants are attacking it,’ Devin said and held it up. We both peered at the clawing and helpless feet.
I ran into the school building and found a cardboard box in the classroom storeroom. The classroom was empty and I knew that we were not allowed in until the bell rang, but I knew also that Devin would stay outside forever holding the dove, unless I provided a temporary home for it. In the bathroom I pulled streamers of toilet paper from the roll, scrunched up fistfuls of the cheap greyish fibre, and when I had enough, I lined the bottom of the box as a bed for the bird.
‘Make holes in the lid,’ Devin said when I handed it to her. I took a stick from the ground and drove it again and again into the thick cardboard lid. The bird would sit in that dark box all day while we had our lessons. It would look up at the bursts of light and believe that it was night, that all was well in the heavens while it gazed up at the stars. As though it had become a small world, Devin picked up the box and carried it carefully into the school.
Later we caught the bus home and my sister took a whole seat for herself, placing the box with the small bird in it on the space beside her. The bus was full; most of the kids had seats they claimed as their own for the daily trip home. ‘Find another place,’ Devin told me. ‘The bird needs to be still. I need this space.’
I stood in the aisle as the bus lurched forwards. There were two boys late and running alongside it and the bus stopped briefly, allowing them time to climb aboard.
‘There are no seats,’ one boy said. Old blood oozed thick and dark from a graze on his knee and his shirt hung out. His hair was cropped short at the back and a long fringe formed a curtain across his broad forehead. The other boy swore loudly behind him. ‘Get out the way, rat,’ the first boy said to me, and in my fright I froze. My school bag clung to my back like the shell of a tortoise and it made me cumbersome, clumsy; if I wanted to run, there was nowhere to go.
‘Leave her alone,’ Devin said.
‘I’m not touching her. She’s in my way!’ The boy moved forward hard and forced his weight into me. My light frame offered no resistance and I toppled over alongside my sister. I felt the cardboard box give way beneath me. I felt the small shape inside shift with the weight of my body and then my head landed against the window, my shoulders resting in Devin’s lap.
‘The bird!’ Devin screamed. She pushed at my small body but it had become an enormous and uncontrollable weight on top of her and on top of the box with the bird inside. There was nothing I could do. I shifted to right myself and felt the small lump of baby bird crunch further beneath my hip bone, my bare legs across the path in the centre of the bus with those two boys looking down on them. My hands pressed against the softness of my sister’s lap and the bright sky from outside burned in my eyes. I pushed, faltered, I pushed again and stood. Devin grabbed the box beside her and opened the lid, removing the masquerading stars that had lit the small bird’s dark cardboard world. The creature lay still, its eyes black and blinking. One wing stretched out far and useless across the length of the box and now the bird looked twisted, its body sunk in the middle like it was broken inside, and it didn’t move. Devin screamed. The boys crowded over me, peering over my shoulder.
‘It’s back is broken,’ Devin said.
‘It’s a frigging bird! Check, it’s still trying to hop!’
‘Look what you’ve done!’ Devin started to cry. Her mouth twisted long and angular like the bird’s misshapen body. I had
never seen her like this and her sudden grief frightened me.
The big boy pushed at my shoulder, moving me aside. He grabbed the bird before Devin was quick enough to get to it and he held it in the air, its broken wing hanging down from his fingers. He grinned with a half-broken tooth as he pushed his way to the back of the bus, and his friend followed.
‘No!’ Devin screamed, but her voice was lost above the din of the other kids chatter.
‘Open the window!’ the boy said and his friend leapt ahead of him, forcing himself between two girls sitting side by side on the back seat. He stood on the stained green Vilene and unclasped the window lever, forcing the grubby glass open. ‘Let’s watch this birdy fly!’
Devin was sobbing now, clawing at the boy’s shirt with her hands. He was taller than she was, stronger, and even as she jumped, she couldn’t reach his hands and the small bird in them that sat so still, broken and blinking, awaiting its fate. The other kids stared at the furore.
It was quick.
‘Please!’ Devin begged. Her voice was soft.
‘Birds need to fly,’ the boy said. His head turned for the first time to look at her. His hands paused in the world on the other side of the bus’s window. That bird was finished, whatever side of the window it was.
‘Don’t. Don’t!’
‘It’s just a stupid pigeon in a stupid cardboard box.’
‘You broke its back!’
‘Your sister did that, not me.’
‘No!’
‘It’s a stupid bird and it wants—’
‘Please!’
‘… to fly—’
‘Please!’
‘… FREE!’
His cupped hands opened. His fingers parted, hands separated, and the bird was released and free in space for that one second. And then it broke, gravity claimed its own. The tiny thing dropped like a stone onto the tar. It disappeared beneath a car, and was gone.
Devin gasped and her tears dried. She turned away and went back to her seat.
When we climbed from the bus there were butterflies in the air and on the breeze that filtered through the branches of the high trees. The bus rumbled away from us and I held my breath to avoid choking on the fumes. Two grinning faces were framed by the rear window. It was still at an angle, open just enough to fit a small bird through the gap.
‘I’m sorry, Devin,’ I said. Tears filled my eyes and ran down my cheeks as the mucous congested in my nose. ‘I didn’t mean it. I swear I didn’t mean it.’
Devin stamped on towards the house ahead of me. The trees of the suburb arced over us, a ceremonial passage that marked our path home. ‘That’s what everyone says,’ she said. Her head was straining forward, her eyes watching the ground that came before each step. ‘Nobody ever means it.’ She sniffed hard. ‘No matter how much they hurt things, all anyone ever says is that it was just a stupid mistake.’
When Devin woke the next day, I was already up and had gathered all the presents and placed them at her door. I peered into the room. It was a Saturday and I was ready for a celebration. My sister lay beneath the bedcovers and did not move. I cleared my throat. Still there was no sound from her.
My mother came up behind me and placed her hands on my shoulders. I looked up and into a rare moment: she smiled at me with her face soft. ‘Let’s wake her,’ she whispered.
We tiptoed into the room and leapt on the bed. Devin emerged grinning, as though she’d been awake and waiting all along. I fetched the pile of presents and brought them to her while my mother hugged her and kissed her head, and wished her a happy birthday.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Devin asked.
‘He’s had to go to work to sort something out. He’ll be back later, hopefully for lunch.’
Carefully and without tearing the paper, Devin unwrapped her gifts. There was a book about dolphins and a set of glitter pens from me. My mother’s gift was a pair of winter pyjamas for the upcoming cold season and my father had bought her a tiny box painted with roses with a hand-sewing kit inside.
Devin paged through the book, looking at the strange species of dolphin that came from seas and rivers other than ours. She put the pyjama bottoms to her face and rubbed the fabric there. ‘They’re so soft,’ she said.
‘And isn’t this a beautiful box,’ my mother said, picking up my father’s gift.
‘It looks old-fashioned,’ Devin said. ‘He must be mad. I’m never going to sew.’
‘When he comes home, I want you to thank him properly.’
‘It probably cost two bucks from a Chinese shop.’ She took the box from my mother’s hand and opened it and stared at the needles and thread inside and her mouth twisted. ‘He’s prob’ly not even at work. I bet he’s gone to the casino or something.’
‘Devin!’
Suddenly the doorway darkened. Marshall stood with a tray in his hands, an attempt at the smile that he seemed to be constantly practising played on his lips. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said, as though to all of us, and stepped forward without an invitation. It was his house. Even this room was his and we were in it. There was nowhere to back away from him. Devin dropped the sewing box and pulled the covers up beneath her chin. My mother stood and I remained on the bed, fixed. On the tray was a cup of steaming tea and a muffin so large it looked like it came straight off the tables of rich people, and beside the plate was a small present wrapped in gold paper, and a glass half-filled with water that held a long and thorny-stemmed rose. My mother clutched her hands together and made a noise of delight as though the tray and all it carried was meant for her. She took the tray from the big man’s hands and lowered its weight upon my sister’s knees. ‘Devin, look at what your uncle has done for you.’
‘Thanks.’ It was barely audible; a whisper. Her eyes were on the present and afraid of what could not be seen.
‘Happy birthday,’ Marshall said again. He backed off into the frame of the doorway and I felt Devin’s relief that there was no expectation of a kiss. Marshall hesitated. He seemed unsure of his place in our small picture of female family, even of his place in the house itself. And then he turned and left, because without my father there was nothing to link him to us.
‘Open it, Dev,’ I said, eyeing the gold-wrapped present on the tray. Devin lifted the tray off her knees and placed it on the floor beside the bed. She scrunched up the empty wrapping paper from the other presents in her fists and aimed it at the bin. She threw, and missed, and the paper fell to the floor.
‘Thank you for the presents,’ she said. She leaned over and gave my mother a short kiss on the side of her face. My mother smiled, pleased and embarrassed; it was a rare gesture from Devin. The gold gift remained on the tray beside the cup of tea, the muffin and the long-stemmed rose.
‘Let’s see what Marshall gave you,’ my mother said.
Devin gave her a look that I didn’t know and in her eyes was something hollow and pleading. If my mother caught it at all, she must have misread it.
With cautious hands she tugged at the sticky tape, releasing the contents of the small package. It fell on her bare legs, a soft cotton dress that flowed with the imprint of tiny blue flowers. My mother grabbed at it, held it up to the light. ‘It’s beautiful!’ she said. ‘Put it on, it’s your birthday dress. Oh, how wonderful of Marshall! This is a very expensive dress!’
‘Not now, Mom,’ my sister said, her voice low. ‘It’s too cold.’
‘Oh Devin, please. Why is everything lovely such an issue for you? Why can’t you just enjoy this, be happy about what you have?’
‘She’s a teenager now,’ I said from the side. ‘Teenagers are meant to be difficult.’
The blue dress fell on the bed, dropped from my mother’s hands. She leaned down and plucked the muffin from the saucer there. She broke it in three, and handed me a piece. I broke it further, put one piece in my mouth and chewed. It tasted delicious, the raisins breaking sweetly on my tongue. I stuffed the rest of the cakey substance into my mouth while Devin put her piece back
on the saucer. Her eyes were gone and far away, staring intently at a space between the flowers on her new dress.
Nineteen
‘Where is Devin now?’ my daughter asks me, as though I haven’t told her a thousand times before.
This time I say it differently. ‘Devin is everywhere.’
Hayley wanders off distracted and I berate myself for evading the truth. Her long legs frighten me. The way her hair curls to the base of her back reveals too much, but the tiny yellow string top makes me want to rush at her with scissors and cut it all off, to wrap her in robes and feathers and keep her to myself. I want to retard her physical development and make her look like I did at that age. But she’s already through the door and the image that remains in my head reminds me again: I don’t have to go far in order to find my sister. Devin lives in Hayley too.
Modern shopping centres convince me that the world is a bigger place than I was ever born for, but the low neon hum of the bookstore lights always draws me in, and Hayley too. It’s the place we go to on Saturday mornings when rain clouds cover the sun and drain its strength, on days that are too weakly sunlit for the beach. I select books, a mystery novel for myself and a book on birds for Auster.
I go to sit at the small open coffee area on the periphery of the shop while my daughter browses through the young-adult section. I can see the top of her head above the pale stained shelves that separate us across the store. I order a cappuccino for myself and the usual white hot chocolate for Hayley. Both cups steam on the flat gloss table. I watch her head. The untouchable thoughts and the innocence that I can only dream might stay forever. I wonder what her choice will be now – a book on horses, or dolphins and whales, or has she been drawn to the world of teenage romance, fashion and music? She appears around the corner and finds me quickly, her eyes darting, seeing everything. She holds up two books with covers of intense colour, her eyebrows lift in questioning arcs. I smile and nod, hold up both my thumbs. I point at the cup of chocolate sitting opposite my coffee. Her face tilts, breaks into a pleading grin. She transfers both books into one hand and holds up the index finger of the other in a coquettish request for just one more. I nod and she disappears again.
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