‘That the kid?’
‘Yep.’
‘What’s his name?’
Elton introduced Shaun and Jess glanced briefly at him before turning her eyes on Elton again.
‘Why the fuck we going to the park?’
‘The kid likes the bush, don’t you Shaun? He lived way up in the country in the middle of nowhere. He doesn’t get the city yet. Mum thinks he needs a bit of grass and stuff. It won’t take long, we don’t have to stay all day, do we Shaun?
‘No.’
Jess gave the boy a second, cursory glance. ‘He looks like Atreyu.’
‘What?’
‘Not the band. That little kid in The Neverending Story.’
Elton tried to imagine it. ‘Come on,’ he sighed. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
They sauntered along the footpath, Shaun holding his exercise book, the one he always carried. Jess bumped against Elton. ‘Haven’t got a loosie by any chance?’
‘I don’t smoke.’
‘God you’re boring, Ello. What do you do?’
‘I don’t know. What do you do?’
‘Whatever. I do whatever I like. I don’t have any don’ts …’ She turned her attention to the boy. ‘What do you do, Shaun?’
He thought for a minute. ‘I look at stuff.’
‘What for?’
‘So I can think about it and write it down.’
‘Write it down.’ Jess said it flatly; it wasn’t a question.
‘In my journal.’
‘See, I told you he was weird.’ Elton dropped behind and Jess walked beside Shaun with a bouncing gait which, she imagined, gave the impression of complete indifference.
‘Where the fuck did you get that horrible brown jumper?’ she asked.
‘It … it’s my dad’s.’
‘A bit big, isn’t it?’
‘It’s alright.’
She registered the exercise book that Shaun was clutching. ‘Okay, so what do you write stuff down for?’
‘Because, that way you see things.’
‘I see things. What sort of things?’
‘Everything. That car,’ he pointed to a shiny BMW. ‘It’s got a long scratch on the side.’
‘It’s been keyed,’ Elton announced.
‘Yes, it isn’t an accident. Someone did it. So I think about who that might have been. A boy, I think, not a girl. He is angry or upset about something …’
‘Maybe, he’s just a loser?’ Jess said, hoping to end the exchange.
‘He wants something,’ Shaun continued. ‘And he doesn’t know how to get it. Maybe he doesn’t even know what it is.’
Jess rolled her eyes at Elton. ‘You have one kinky cousin here, Ello. Better watch he doesn’t get in front of a bus.’
The park began where the houses finished and ran down the slope towards a long line of scrubby green rising from a deep cutting where the creek would likely be found.
‘So that’s supposed to be a park?’ Jess ventured, barely registering the field of undulating grassland, lightly wooded with ornamental trees.
‘It used to be a quarry,’ Shaun said. ‘It’s where they got all the bluestone to build the laneways. And the bridges and the buildings.’
‘Well, that’s a bit of welcome news,’ Jess said.
‘Then it was a rubbish tip, to fill the big hole in again. Then they put dirt over it. So now it’s a park.’
‘And how, may I ask, do you know this stuff?’
‘It’s on the internet,’ Shaun said. He detected a distant birdcall that sounded remarkably like a Grey Butcherbird. At the very top end of the park he recognised a large English tree, a huge sprawling elm that had somehow survived all the changes, the leafy tips of its lower limbs brushing the earth far from its gnarly trunk. Shaun wrote in his book, One Elm. Check its Latin name.
At the lower end of the grade, he noted that landscapers had dug out and shaped a large pond. Now it was completely overgrown with European bulrushes, the water only visible in small patches turning a topaz yellow-green with the leeching of heavy metals, an index of the tip-site that once existed. The trio followed the footpath beyond it to the deep scoured-out channel and found their progress halted. They stepped across a paved bike track to an iron railing that prevented them from falling down the embankment. At the bottom, Merri Creek idled over chunky blocks of basalt split by dynamite. Leftovers from the original quarry, Shaun imagined.
He leaned on the metal rail and surveyed the cutting. The bank was overgrown with thistles, hemlock, ivy and nightshade, and it dropped steeply to the water’s edge where blackberry bushes trapped an array of plastic debris, bottles and bags, a marker of the storm-induced flood that had come before the drought. Now, only the run-off from gutters and drains caused the water to stir, a slurry of brown filling the scooped pools where obese European carp wallowed, their dorsal fins fanning the surface. Across the channel, through peppercorns and poplars, a golf course could be seen, patches of Lycra green between the grey foliage.
‘I like it,’ Shaun said, cheerily.
‘Like what?’
‘This spot.’ Shaun smiled and Jess assumed a puzzled look.
‘Why?’
‘It’s pretty.’
‘Pretty stuffed if you ask me. You should try psychoactive drugs, kid; they could really make this shit look rosy.’
Unexpectedly, a bike hummed past on the concrete behind them and it startled Elton. ‘Let’s go back now,’ he said.
Shaun frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because there’s nothing here, that’s why.’
‘He’s right, Shaun. It’s just weeds n’ bugs n’ shit.’ Jess slapped her arm and inspected her skin.
‘Let’s go into the park,’ the boy suggested.
‘Park? What park?’ Elton was already backing away from the others. ‘It’s just a paddock, Shaun. There isn’t anything there.’
‘Can’t I … can’t we just …?’
‘Come on, Ello, let’s take the kid onto the grass. He just wants to play a bit, don’t you Shaun?’
Jess led the boy between the trees, up the grade and across the open field. Elton followed at a distance, sticking to the concrete path that skirted around them. ‘Watch the dogshit!’ he yelled. ‘How far you intend going?’
At last they stopped and both Shaun and Jess sat down on the grass. Jess felt a little disappointed that Elton had abandoned them, unwilling to venture off the paved walkway. He obviously had no interest in her.
‘Come on Ello, don’t be a scaredy. There’s not that many snakes.’
‘I’ll wait here,’ he yelled back.
‘Come on,’ she called again. ‘Don’t you want another root sometime?’
Finally, Elton stepped gingerly across the turf in his cream vans and stood before the prostrate duo. ‘Don’t talk like that in front of my little cousin, okay?’
‘Oh, don’t be such a ditchbrain, Elton.’
‘A what?’
‘Shaun knows what a root is, don’t you Shaun?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell him then, explain it to your big cousin.’
Shaun cleared his throat. ‘It’s mating,’ he said.
Jess laughed. ‘Yeah, you do it with your mates.’
‘Only one mate,’ Shaun added. ‘A special mate. Some creatures mate for life.’
‘Hah! Not me!’
‘Why not?’
‘Why would I?’
Shaun pondered the question. ‘Because you want someone to love you.’
Jess looked at the boy in the oversized brown jumper, the sleeves rolled up to expose his nutbrown hands. ‘What if I don’t want someone to love me?’
‘Everybody wants to be loved – that’s what my Dad said.’
‘Well I don’t.’
‘Why not?’
Jess rolled her eyes. ‘Fuck, I don’t know. Why do you ask so many stupid questions?’
‘Everything wants to share its life. That’s what my Dad said.’
<
br /> Jess considered mocking him – That’s what my Dad said – but thought the better of it, considering the man had recently been incinerated.
‘Yeah well, I don’t share mine.’ Her face tightened as her own words seemed to suck the life out of the moment. She slumped forward and fell silent.
Elton remained standing and adopted a bored look which seemed to suit him. Shaun sat cross-legged and sighed. At least he’d found some greenery, though there seemed to be little left of anything indigenous. He closed his eyes and for a moment glimpsed the forests of home. To him, the city was the other side of Australian life: as black is to white, so the city was to the country, and away from the stormwater creek nearby there was nothing of nature, in its truest sense. But he liked the city. It was neatly defined, rigid and demanding, while the bush was mercurial and compliant.
Far off through the willows he watched a man swing at a golf ball. He heard his cry, carried on the light easterly: Fuck it!
He noticed a flyaway balloon tossing in the air. A girl had lost that balloon, Shaun decided. It’s her birthday; she has just turned ten and she’s having a party. Hardly any boys are invited. Near the creek, the pink balloon lifted over the rail and plunged out of sight. A silly rubber sack of someone else’s breath – the girl’s parent’s no doubt. He thought of his own birthdays and, without warning, a powerful sense of desolation rolled in: no parties, no balloons, his parent’s breath all gone. He pressed moisture from his eyes and wrote in his book. Pink balloon. Girl’s party. Wind direction, north-west. A lot of rubbish in the creek.
ARMAN ARRIVED home to discover that the rear paling fence had vanished and that the backyard was now a receptacle for several tonnes of used bricks. Nick was standing nearby, admiring the blocky brown mountain as though it was a remnant of the Acropolis.
‘What d’yer think?’ he asked Arman. ‘Got the lot for a song.’
A very reasonable trade, Arman decided. His landlord picked up a single brick, inspected it, and placed it back carefully.
‘Came from Berrick Street, where they pulled the old shop down. There must be at least two thousand bricks in that pile. I’m gunna build a new double-brick fence right across the back. What d’yer think of that?’
‘Yes. It could be a good –’
‘’Course we have to clean all the mortar off them first. Want a job? I asked Benton but the man doesn’t want to get his ’ands dirty. I’ll pay you ten cents a brick to chip the mortar off. That’s ten dollars a hundred, a hundred dollars a thousand. What do you say? Want some easy money?’ He poked his thumb into his left nostril.
‘I don’t know.’
Nikos paused, hoping that the idea would take root. ‘Tell you something you don’t know: Armani is a brand of very flash clothes. You aware of that? Only the richest people wear ’em, the best suits money can buy.’ He appraised his tenant. ‘Just think about the job offer and the cash, Arman.’
‘Okay, I think about it.’
‘Well, don’t take too long or I might offer it to somebody else.’
Shaun saw the bricks arrive from his window. Earlier, he had been attracted by the first loud crash as Nikos took to the old fence with a sledgehammer, and he watched him smacking off the palings with a degree of joy rarely seen in an adult. Later, the man tied a rope to each post and pulled them from the ground with his Toyota ute. He’d only just finished when a two-ton truck arrived, backed into the yard and dumped the first of several loads of bricks. The man supervised the whole operation, and soon after, the one who drove the taxi arrived, but he did not seem particularly impressed. Then the doorbell rang and Shaun went downstairs.
Stef touched her hair, drew in her stomach and pressed the button a second time. That other woman – whatever name she went by – seemed forever in her life, like some recurring skin irritation. If she wasn’t bumping into her, she’d suddenly appear at the shops, on her evening walks or even outside the hairdresser. Under normal circumstances she could just hate her from afar. But they shared a party wall which meant something had to be done. Shaun answered the door.
‘Is your mother in?’
‘No.’
‘When will she be back?’
‘She won’t be back.’
Stef studied the lean child standing passively on the step.
‘You mean not today?’
‘Not ever … You want my Aunty Adele?’
‘Adele … yes, that’s the one.’
When Adele saw Stef she caught her breath. Their eyes met and it was immediately clear that an amicable conversation was unlikely; even a greeting seemed inappropriate.
‘Would you like to come in?’ she said.
In the front room they both faltered nervously before sitting down on opposing couches. Adele asked Shaun to make them a cup of tea.
‘I won’t be here that long,’ Stef said soberly, but Shaun went out anyway. ‘You know why I’m here?’
‘I think so.’
Stef could not help comparing their differences. Her short brown hair contrasted unhappily with Adele’s long, leather-black glossiness; it was the first thing she noticed. Adele had applied no make-up and wore a loose T-shirt and jeans, her bare feet confidently planted in the fluffy carpet – at least she’d had the good sense to wear a bra. Stef resented that well-crafted casual look; she could adopt it herself if she chose to – in fact she often wore bare feet. The woman certainly didn’t seem younger, but not older either. What did her husband see in her? The bastard. For one thing he’d ruined her sex life; in the short term she wouldn’t be going near him.
‘What interest do you have in my husband?’
Adele’s expression tightened. ‘I’m very sorry, Stefanie. It was very stupid of me – an awful error of judgment.’
‘I’ll ask you again: What interest do you have in my husband?’
‘None at all, none at all. Which makes it indefensible, I know. I should have realised –’
‘How can you say you have no interest when you went to Sydney with him?’
‘Because they were the terms. When Simon hired me –’
‘Hired you?’
‘Yes. I’m a professional companion … for social events, formal dinners, presentations, that sort of thing. When he hired me I didn’t know him at all and certainly had no romantic intentions.’
‘What a load of shit!’
‘It’s not. I swear. I have no emotional ties whatsoever.’
Stef knew it could be true. She knew that the issue was really with her husband and if this woman hadn’t lived so close by, she wouldn’t even be there making a scene of it. She’d had it out with Simon minutes after the incident on the corner, as soon as they were alone. He disgusted her, she said; he made her sick; he never ceased to appal her. But in truth she knew him well enough. He’d never been a conventional man: he abhorred dogmatic principles and what he called ‘Victorian values’. Of course he did; it gave him room to enact all sorts of indiscretions. Stef was used to rescuing some poor girl pressed into a kitchen corner at a house party or pursued into the darkness of a host’s backyard. At social events she’d often interrupted his monologues aimed at some unfortunate in appreciation of her astounding beauty, regaling her with alcohol-induced flattery as though the girl were standing naked. In simple terms, her husband was a letch – but she had known this from the beginning. Yet right now it annoyed her that Adele seemed so reasonable – she would rather have encountered resistance; something to rail against, to justify a round of hostility, a raised voice and a storming out the door. It was some sort of closure she was angling for.
‘You telling me my husband paid you to go to Sydney with him?’
‘It was a commercial arrangement. I –’
‘End it! You will end your … commercial arrangement with my husband immediately.’
‘Of course, of course, I already have. And I am sorry, Stefanie. You can blame me entirely and my silly bloody idea of a job as a professional companion.’ She inspected her manicured
nails.
Stef wondered what might have become of the woman’s partner and Adele seemed to read it. ‘I’m divorced,’ she volunteered. ‘Randall cleared out about eighteen months ago. No loss – if you want the truth.’
They were not aware of it, but through the doorway Shaun had taken some interest in the exchange. He came in with a tray, balancing cups of tea and a milk carton. Adele caught sight of him.
‘Stefanie, this is my nephew, Shaun. He’s come to live with us. He’s taking a couple of months off school. He’s just come through a dreadful experience: that horrible bushfire.’
Her neighbour’s attention turned to the boy and Adele breathed a little easier. ‘There’s not much around here for him to do, unfortunately,’ she added. ‘He wants to earn some pocket money, don’t you, Shaun.’
Stef observed Shaun still standing with the tray and Adele noted it. Spontaneously, a new idea came to her. ‘Your husband said you were an artist, Stefanie. Under the circumstances … naturally I don’t expect any favours, but I don’t suppose you’d have anything for Shaun to do around your studio?’
Stef looked visibly thrown. ‘Are you serious? A minute ago we were discussing your relationship with my husband.’
‘There is no relationship, Stefanie. It was a simple … business deal – and a terrible professional mistake on my part.’
Shaun accidentally rattled the drinks tray, which drew the attention of both women.
‘Shaun, this is Stefanie from next door. She’s an artist.’
‘Yes, I know. Jess’s mother. Jess is a friend of Elton’s. I saw a painting on your wall. A big blue one with a cliff and water and a tiny boat.’
‘That’s a very old painting.’
‘Did you do it?’
‘Yes, but a long time ago.’
‘It’s very lonely,’ Shaun said.
‘What is? The painting?’
‘Yes. The boat looks lost and no one else around.’
Stef kept her eyes on the boy. ‘It’s called Solitude,’ she said.
‘Shaun is incredibly diligent, Stefanie. If you had anything for him to do I know he’d appreciate it – and he’d love to learn something from an artist.’
‘I’m finding it a little odd that after all we’ve said you’re now asking me to do you a favour.’
The Colour of the Night Page 13