Hey Brother

by Jarrah Dundler

  ‘Saw Dr Roberts,’ she said. ‘Sorted Shaun out with some medicine to help him rest. Booked him an appointment to see a specialist at a clinic in the city. Won’t be till after New Year’s, though. Till then he needs to rest. Take it easy. Have someone keep an eye on him. So, Greg, if ya want to go back down, then get out of here now, would ya?’

  ‘No! No, Kirsty. I want to stay. Help out, if you’ll let me.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mum. ‘Good. I’ll take ya up on that offer. Till we get Shaun up to the specialist I’ll need all hands on deck. I’ll nurse Shaun, make sure he rests up, but I’ll need some help in the background.’

  ‘Right,’ said Dad. ‘Sure thing.’

  Mum yelled, ‘You got that too, Trysten?’

  ‘Huh? What? Got what?’

  ‘Ah, c’mon—I’m not that daft. I know ya been listening. All hands on deck, right?’

  ‘Aye aye, cap’n.’

  ‘They’ll be back later this arv, they still want him to rest there for a bit longer, do some obs and stuff. Everyone can sort themselves out with some food, then we’ll all rest. Right?’

  ‘Right!’

  ‘Right!’

  ‘Oh, and not a word to anyone outside the family about Shaun, right?’

  ‘Right!’

  ‘Right!’

  19

  Mum quarantined Shaun in the shed as if he had some infectious disease. And like a hard-working nurse, every hour or so she’d ferry him trays of food: leftovers from the Christmas lunch we never properly got to, sandwiches, apples, bananas, and freshly squeezed orange juice with ice and everything. She’d conduct checkups and report back to Trev, who had driven all the way to the Big Town library the day after Boxing Day and borrowed a stack of textbooks about mental people. After spending an afternoon flicking through the books with a strained and sometimes befuddled look on his face, he seemed to consider himself some kind of psychoanalyser. He had a different air about him, too. He was getting round with a straighter posture, higher chin and shiny eyes, like someone’d given those sinkers a thorough spit polish. After Mum’s checkups on Shaun, she’d sit down with Dr Trev at the kitchen table for a team meeting. The meetings were serious, secretive affairs—all hushed tones, earnest nodding, pen-gnawing, note-scribbling—like they were on the verge of a breakthrough in their patient’s case. They didn’t let me (the ward cleaner) or Old Greggy Boy (the maintenance man, who had been handed a list of jobs that was as long as his arm) in on the finer details of Shaun’s progress. They only fed us dribs and drabs. We weren’t even allowed visitation rights.

  I understood why they wanted to keep Dad away from Shaun. When Shaun’d arrived back, wobbly eyed and bowlegged, like he’d just copped a four-by-two to the back of the head, Dad’d marched over to him, hand extended for a shake. When Shaun didn’t extend his, Dad halted and said, ‘Well…welcome home.’ Then he just stood, staring at Shaun, looking real awkward for what felt like a long time until Shaun mumbled something and trudged off down the hallway. I reckoned Trev and Mum were worried about Dad setting Shaun off. Worried about Shaun flipping out again. Throwing things. Breaking things. Hurting someone. And because I’d already set Shaun off they were keeping me away from him too. I reckoned they were overdoing it, but. Keeping him locked up like a prisoner; how could that be good? And after a few days of being kept at arm’s length I was itching to be more of a help and to get up to the shed to see him.

  ‘How ’bout I deliver Shaun his food this time?’

  ‘Ah, sorry, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Don’t think he’s up for visitors yet. Why don’t you help yer father with his jobs?’

  Groaning, I headed into the lounge room where Dad was standing on a stool patching up the hole in the ceiling.

  ‘Need a hand?’

  ‘Thanks, mate, but I should be right. Reckon I’ve got this sorted.’ Using the trowel, Dad spread a clump of plaster filler onto the jagged edge of the hole. The plaster stuck for a couple of seconds, then started to peel away. Quickly, Dad rammed the trowel back on it. ‘Stay there, you piece of—’

  ‘Sorted, hey? Sure looks like you could use some help. Some advice maybe?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yep!’

  ‘Okay, smartypants. Garn then.’

  ‘Now, I’m no expert bu—’

  ‘No, Trysten, yer n—’

  ‘But I reckon that hole might need a new sheet of plaster. Reckon it might be a bit too big for just Spakfilla, hey.’

  ‘That right? And what makes ya say so?’

  ‘Fact that the hole’s the same size as it was an hour ago when ya started and ’cause of all those clumps of filler lying round on the floor down here.’

  ‘Oh, ho ho ho! Yeah, yeah. Good on ya.’

  ‘And come to think of it, shouldn’t you also be replacing that rotting joist up there?’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘On second thoughts, nah. You probably won’t want to do that. You’ll probably want to leave it till later, hey. Few months or so. Like you left fixing the roof after that hail storm, which is probably what made the joists rot in the first place.’

  ‘Tell ya what, young man. Ya want something to do? I got an idea.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  Dad pulled the trowel away from the ceiling. ‘Why don’t you go and—’ he pointed the trowel at me and then at the door ‘—bugg—’

  The clump of filler broke away from the edge of the hole, fell and plopped on his head. It balanced there for a couple of seconds, then rolled off onto the carpet.

  ‘Bugger,’ said Dad.

  ‘Hahaha!’

  Dad frowned at the hole. Frowned at me. Frowned at the pieces of plaster that littered the carpet like ancient dog turds.

  Then his eyes lit up. He climbed off the stool, and stalked towards me. Hunched shoulders, narrow eyes, hands rubbing together like a villain hatching a plan.

  ‘You know what, Trysten. I do have something for you to do,’ he whispered. ‘Something real important.’

  ‘Yeah, what?’

  ‘Reckon you can go down and check on the caravan? Check how bad the flood got her.’

  ‘What? Had enough of it up here already, have ya?’

  ‘Shhh! No, no, no—it’s not like that. Just want to check on the damage. Garn then. Scram. Get outta here. Have a break. Enjoy the fresh air.’

  With only a single cloud chugging along the sky it was easy to almost forget we’d just copped so much rain. The creek flats sure bore the signs, though. The sloshy grass was coated with stinky mud and silt. Cracked tree limbs—some round as my head—lay scattered about, their freshly splintered ends red and orange like flames of a campfire. Clumps of reeds and vines clung to the branches of the small she-oaks on the creek bank, and the trees themselves were brown and bent like they’d been trodden on by a giant wearing muddy gumboots. After Trev and Shaun’d returned from the hospital the rain kept falling. Harder even than the day before and the day before that. Dad’d kept ducking out to the back verandah to gaze down the slope. And despite what he’d said to Mum about staying, whenever he came back in he wore a pained look on his face.

  Barefooted, I squelched across the flats, the warm mud squishing up between my toes, swatting away the swarming mossies, thinking how even after all that hullabaloo with Mum and after saying he was back up for good, Old Greggy Boy was still in two minds about the whole thing.

  ‘Well, too bad, ol’ fella,’ I said when I reached the van, ’cause it was well and truly fucked.

  The top third of the caravan, having copped all those days of rain, was spotless. Cleaner than I’d ever seen it. But the bottom two-thirds were covered in a thin layer of silt and big blops of mud.

  I opened the door. A few buckets’ worth of murky water cascaded out and down the steps and drenched my feet, rinsing the mud away. I stuck my head inside, looked round.

  ‘Pwhaarr.’ All that water trapped in there for days made for a wicked stench. The corners of the foam mattress on Dad’s bed drooped.
The legs of the kitchen table and chairs were warped. And the plastic edging of the tabletop was peeling away to reveal the plywood centre, bulging and puffy with the water it’d soaked up. It was a mess. A big, stinking mess.

  Dad would be gutted. I decided to explore the flats and see what other damage there’d been before heading back up to break the news.

  A bit further down from the caravan was a pool of water about ten metres across, left from when the creek had risen. Flanked by three grand old gums, it looked like a little billabong. In the upper branches of one of the trees sat a pair of crows, their cunning eyes tracing the water’s surface.

  As I waded into the lukewarm water there was a splash out in the middle of the pool. I moved in further to peer beneath the surface at what the crows were spying on: catfish.

  I waded out of the pool and returned with one of the smaller tree branches with the splintered ends. I waved it back and forth above my head.

  ‘Fuck off, crows!’

  ‘Fark fark fark!’ they said back, but then they flapped their wings, lifted, and then whoop-whoop-whooped over to the trees along the creek bank.

  Didn’t take me long, chasing those catties into the shallower water and then ramming the end of the stick into ’em, to catch three decent-sized fish.

  I took off my shirt and bundled the dead fish up in it and began my journey back up.

  I’d done pretty good. Mum’d be stoked. She’d be able to fry the fish for Shaun. More fresh food for him. Way I saw it, once Shaun picked up a bit more I’d be allowed to visit. Way I saw it, once Mum saw other people weren’t flipping him out and that he’d come good, she’d think it wasn’t a bad idea for him to get out and about. Way I saw it, getting out and about would do him a world of good.

  Old Greggy Boy winced like I’d just pricked him with a needle when I told him about the caravan. He looked like he was going to say something about it, but then Mum stepped out onto the back verandah and he moved quickly on to another topic.

  ‘Good thinking.’ He knelt down, examined my catch. ‘Better than letting the crows get ’em.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I reckoned.’ I turned to Mum. ‘Batter ’em up. Fry ’em. For Shaun! That’s what I was thinking.’

  ‘Good work,’ she said. ‘Good work, mate!’

  ‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘Do him a world of good. I might be able to go up there later, hey.’

  ‘Well, we’ll see. Maybe.’

  ‘In a day or so he might even be ready to get out and about himself. Y’know, before he heads off to the Big Smoke to get fixed up and all. See his friends, maybe?’

  ‘What? What are you talking about?’ Her voice rose a couple of octaves.

  Dad dashed back inside. ‘Better get back to me jobs.’

  ‘New Year’s, remember?’ I said, raising my eyebrows, grinning. ‘The party?’

  ‘Party? Gah! Shaun won’t be going to any party. And neither will you. I need you here. Don’t you get it, Trysten? I need everyone here.’

  And she wandered back inside, shaking her head, tsk tsk tsk, leaving me feeling stupid and crushed and pissed off all at once.

  ‘What d’ya mean?’ Ricky shouted down the phone. ‘Course you’re coming, brother. You’ve got to! I talked to Jade this morning, and she’s been talking to Jessica, and Jade reckons Jessica won’t shut up about you and how she can’t wait for the party. She’s counting how many sleeps are left, like it’s Christmas again. Only one to go!’

  ‘Shit, Ricky. Don’t tell me that! Didn’t you hear what I just said? I can’t go!’

  ‘Yeah, I heard you, brother. But why? You ain’t said why.’

  I scanned the hallway, listened. The house was empty. Mum was up doing obs on Shaun. Dad was down the front paddock, sussing out which fence posts needed replacing, and Trev was in the dairy sinking beers and studying to be the world’s greatest head-doctor. Even so, even with the house to myself, I told Ricky everything in a whisper, listening for approaching footsteps, remembering how intent Mum’d been about keeping it in the family.

  ‘Shit, brother,’ Ricky said when I’d finished. ‘That’s heavy. Real heavy. Whoa, poor Shaun, hey. But it sounds like the worst of it’s over. He’s getting help now, you said. I reckon he’ll come good, hey. He’s Shaun! Tough as!’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon so too. He was looking heaps better even after coming back from seeing Dr Roberts. Bit woozy, but he sure was calmer. I don’t know what Mum and Trev are thinking. Keeping him away from everyone, like he’s a danger to ’em or something. Sure, it was spooky when he flipped, real spooky, but he’s taking all this medicine to calm him. I reckon getting out and seeing his friends would do him a world of good.’

  ‘Yeah! And you too.’

  Down the phone line I heard Ricky’s old man shouting.

  ‘I gotta go,’ Ricky blurted. ‘Dad needs to use the phone. Don’t worry, though, brother—I got a randy-voo with Jade this arv. We’ll suss out a plan to get youse to the party. Bust youse out or somethin’.’

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Ricky. But I don’t think it’s gonna happen, hey.’

  ‘Sure it will, brother. You know what they say? When there’s a will there’s a way!’

  I spent the rest of the afternoon in my room looking at The Annual, staring at the picture of Jessica. Recalling our kiss, remembering her laugh, her smile, how her lips moved when she spoke. And as much as I thought about what I could do or say to convince Mum to let me go to the party on my own, I couldn’t come up with an idea that seemed half decent.

  When the phone rang I tottered out to answer it, thinking it’d probably be Ricky calling back to announce some harebrained scheme to bust me and Shaun out. I answered the phone with a gruff ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Hey, Jade!’

  ‘Huh, Jade? Nah, this is Tryst…oh, hi, Jessica!’

  ‘Yeah, ya goose, it’s me,’ she whispered down the phone line. ‘What’s going on? Jade said Ricky said you couldn’t come to the party anymore.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I changed tack as Mum passed me in the hallway, looking at me suspiciously. ‘Nah, Ricky. I told ya I can’t.’

  ‘Fuck! Really, babe? Ah, man. That sucks balls!’

  ‘I know. I’m gutted.’

  Mum came back out of the kitchen, looked at me again.

  ‘Listen, Ricky,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. But I gotta go!’

  ‘Yeah, Jade.’ I could hear footsteps coming down her phone line. ‘Me too. See ya soon, babe!’

  I hung up, took The Annual out from under my arm, opened it up to our year’s picture and went back to my room with the sound of her voice saying babe playing over and over in my head.

  One way or another, I decided, I was going to that party.

  The phone rang again that evening.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ I raced from my bedroom.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Mum yelled. ‘Won’t that thing shut up?’

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hey, little fella.’ It was Adam. ‘Can I talk to Shaun?’

  ‘Sorry, Adz. Can’t.’

  ‘What?’ He kind of snapped it, like he was worried or something. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s…having a rest.’

  ‘Oh, okay. When he wakes up, can you tell him I called?’

  ‘Yeah, sure, Adz.’

  ‘Ya promise?’

  Promise? What the fuck was up with him? ‘I just bloody said I’d tell him, didn’t I?’

  ‘Okay. Good.’

  I wondered if Ricky had gone and blabbered to Jade about Shaun and word’d got round. Small chance of it. But he could have.

  ‘Thanks, then,’ said Adam. ‘See ya—’

  ‘Wait!’

  ‘What, is Shaun up?’

  ‘Nah. Hey, Adz, ya going to the New Year’s party that Trace is putting on?’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon I might be.’

  ‘Cool,’ I said. ‘Cool. ’Cause, I dunno, I’ve got the feeling Shaun’s gonna pike or something.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. If he says he
doesn’t want to go, put the pressure on, hey. Drag him out if you have to.’

  ‘Ah yeah. Okay Trysten, we’ll see.’

  ‘See ya, then.’

  ‘Right, see ya.’

  I walked into Mum’s room. She was on her bed leafing through a magazine.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘That was Adam on the phone.’

  ‘Okay. And?’

  ‘Wants to speak to Shaun.’

  ‘What’d you say?’

  ‘Shaun’s resting.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Ya gonna tell him Adam called?’

  ‘Huh?’ Mum tossed her magazine aside. ‘I’ll tell Shaun what I reckon’s good for him.’

  ‘Right. ’Cause I reckon Adam’s keen to get him to the party, and I—’

  ‘Oh, Trysten, lay off, would ya? Enough about the party. Shaun’s not going. You’re not going. Enough! Can’t believe I ever agreed to let you go to a party with all those big boys anyway.’

  I skulked off to the lounge room and switched the telly on. A few minutes later Mum marched through the hallway, glancing at me on the way past and shaking her head. She went to the kitchen, grabbed the phone book and flicked through it, then picked up the phone and dialled.

  ‘Adam…Yes, it’s Kirsty…Yes, he’s resting…Yeah, think he’s coming down with something. Flu maybe, not sure…Yes, I know, bad time to get it…Yes, thanks, I’ll tell him…Oh, no, a visit won’t be necessary. That’s sweet of you to think of it, though…Okay, I will…Yes, and you too.’

  Mum marched back down the hallway. ‘That’s that settled then.’

  Fuck!

  ‘Oi.’

  ‘Oi yerself.’ Trev eased out of the seat of the old cane chair that he’d pinched from under our house. He leant forward and placed his beer and the book he was reading on his coffee table—a shonky construction made of besser-block legs and our old bathroom door for the tabletop. The book, The Complete Drug Guide, a big chunky thing like an encyclopedia, was the one library book that he seemed unable to keep his nose out of. Must’ve read it front to back a few times already.