by Jessie Cole
‘I hung my stuff over the railing,’ he said. ‘Left the soap out there.’
I nodded, holding out Mum’s clothes. ‘This is all I could find.’
‘Thanks.’ He looked around for somewhere to change.
The rain on the roof was steady, a constant thrum.
‘Get dressed in the bathroom if you like. Take a candle, though.’
I pointed down the hallway, and he crept away, the quiver of his hands making the candlelight jump.
We had a gas stove, so that was useful in a blackout. Mum had made dinner—rice and some kind of curry. I spooned out two servings and got us both a drink. He was back out in a few minutes, holding the towel awkwardly, like he wished he knew where it should go. I took it and chucked it into the corner. No point doing anything else till the rain stopped and the power came back on.
‘Eat.’ It had taken a good part of the day for Bessie to birth her calf. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and as I sat down at the table, my stomach growled.
He stood there, gripping his forearms, as if his body was locked and he was trying to force it open. I pushed his bowl along the table towards him.
‘It’s good. You’ll feel better.’
He trembled a little as he spooned food into his mouth, so I didn’t look at him for a bit—let him get his bearings. The curry was good, and the quiet in the kitchen made me think of when I was little and we hadn’t got electricity yet. There was always a lull in the evening around dusk. A turning. It didn’t matter what action had gone on before, there was this long moment of quiet when the day changed into night. Now we just switched the lights on and kept moving with the rhythm of day, but back then it was as if everything slowed. Sometimes we’d all sit in the kitchen together and wait for it to come. Maybe at first there’d be chatter, but after a few minutes the quiet would engulf us. Eventually Mum would rise and start lighting the candles, and it would be like waking from a very deep sleep. The hassles we might have had falling away in those long moments of waiting. They were special, the days before the lights.
‘Thanks for this food.’ He broke into the quiet. The neckline of the jumper I’d found him was wide and it kept slipping down his shoulder. His exposed skin was pale in the candlelight, like he didn’t see much sun. He pulled the material up and even in the flickering light I saw him redden, as though he’d been caught naked. Blushes always made me giggle but I tried not to smile. Figured he was having a tough enough time already.
‘Do you think I could use your phone after this?’ he said. ‘See if I can work some stuff out?’
‘Sure.’ I pointed to the wall behind him. ‘It’s just up there.’
He glanced around and then back at me.
‘That the only phone you’ve got?’
It was one of those old-style ones with the twisty cords. No point having a cordless up here when the power went out every time it rained.
‘Yep. That’s it. Works fine, don’t worry.’
He looked doubtful but didn’t say anything, just kept eating his food. So far, he wasn’t much of a talker. When he was finished I stood up and took the bowls to the sink.
‘You’re hurt,’ he said, noticing my limp.
‘Nah, I’m fine.’ It was always a thorny moment, explaining about my foot.
‘You’re limping. You need some ice or something?’ He looked around helplessly, as though he’d like to take charge but didn’t know where to start.
‘I have a club foot. It’s the way I was born.’ There was no easy way to tell him.
‘Oh, right.’ The rain on the roof seemed suddenly loud. I could see he was making himself hold my eye, like it mattered to him to be a certain sort of man. ‘I didn’t notice out there in the rain.’
It pained me that such a small thing like my foot could make people so uncomfortable.
‘We were both lurching around, don’t worry about it.’
I don’t think about my foot when I’m in the midst of things. I forget I even have it. Why wouldn’t I when it’s always been this way?
‘What’s your name?’ he asked. Introductions. We were doing everything backwards.
‘Mema.’
My real name is Artemesia, but there was no way I was telling him that. ‘Yours?’
‘Hamish.’
‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, laughing and reaching out a hand for him to shake. I felt like I was in a play. A silly stage production. Formality makes me nervous. It’s hard to carry off. He hesitated a second, looking down at my hand as though it was a foreign object, but then he shook it, gently.
‘I thought you were a kid.’
‘Yes, I’m kid-sized. A biggish kid!’
‘Yeah.’ He nodded, looking uneasy.
‘But I’m twenty-two, twenty-three in June.’
There was still some water left in the pipes and I turned around to fill up the kettle for some tea.
‘I thought I could cross,’ Hamish said from behind me. ‘Thought the car was high enough. But the water started coming up out of nowhere.’
‘It’s flooding.’ I shrugged, sitting back down. ‘That’s what happens.’
He looked at the table, deflated.
‘You’re not from around here, how would you know?’ It was always newcomers who got washed away in the floods.
‘I know about floods. I just thought I could cross.’ He glanced up at me and I could see he was mortified. ‘Stupid bloody tourist, hey?’
I didn’t know how to respond. Sometimes the most dangerous mistakes are the simplest. Smiling, I tried to change the subject. ‘Bessie was so stubborn. I can’t believe she gave birth right into the water.’
‘You saved my life, Mema.’
This made me feel a little queasy. Who wants someone’s life on their hands?
‘No, I—’
‘The window was jammed. I couldn’t open it.
‘You smashed it in the end.’ But I knew he’d been close, close to going under.
‘I had to use my fucking laptop,’ his voice was strained. ‘It’s the only thing I had in the front. My suitcase was in the boot.’
I hadn’t thought of how he’d broken it.
‘See, you saved yourself.’
‘No, it was you. You had the branch.’
‘You could have swum out by yourself.’ I didn’t know that for sure, but I preferred to believe it.
‘That water sucked my shoes off. And my socks,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think I would have gotten out without something to cling onto.’
I looked away, tapping my fingertips against the table, thinking of Bessie’s big dark eyes. It was disconcerting that she’d give birth into an overflowing creek. Instincts gone awry. Sometimes I wondered whether humans made animals that way—domesticated them to the point of idiocy. But most days Bessie didn’t seem stupid. She had a mysterious way about her, and I trusted her more than a lot of humans I knew. She wasn’t going anywhere fast.
‘Well, you saved the calf’s life, so let’s call it even,’ I said finally, glancing across at the water on the stove to see if it was boiling.
‘A man for a calf?’
‘Yes. It’s a fair trade.’ It seemed like a joke, but really, I meant it.
I got up and poured the hot water into some mugs, scanning the jars of tea in the candlelight. We didn’t have much black tea left. Thought I’d better save the real stuff for the morning.
‘Peppermint or camomile?’
He looked mildly perplexed.
‘Camomile’s supposed to be relaxing.’ I was dubious myself.
‘Okay, I’ll give that a go.’
I handed him the steaming mug and he put it on the table.
‘You want to use the phone?’ I was beginning to feel tired.
‘Yeah.’ He stood up patting his thighs, searching his pockets.
‘What you looking for?’ I asked, sipping my tea.
‘It’s just …’ he rubbed his hand across his collarbone restlessly, ‘… without my phone I don
’t think I know any of my numbers.’
I didn’t have a mobile. Wasn’t any point without reception. Round here we all had the same first five digits, so you just had to remember the last three. I knew all of them from childhood. Nothing ever changed.
‘What about your home number? You could call that maybe and get some others that you need.’
‘I don’t know it. Not off the top of my head.’
‘Oh.’ I was nonplussed. ‘Okay.’
‘I mean, I know my old home number from when I was a kid, but no one lives there anymore. I know my mate Dave’s number from way back, but he’s living in Scandinavia. I don’t know, I just don’t need to remember numbers anymore.’
This seemed peculiar but I was distracted thinking about whether to scrounge him up a doona.
‘When the power comes on I’ll do it via email.’
I sipped my tea and felt my nose crinkle. ‘We don’t have a computer.’
‘What?’
He looked as though he actually thought he’d heard me wrong.
‘Well, we used to have one, but it hasn’t worked for ages. You can only get dial-up out here and it’s not really worth the hassle.’
He smoothed his hand across his shorn hair.
‘I’ll just have to go into town then. Tomorrow.’
There were some crocheted blankets in a basket in the corner. They’d have to do. It was summer so it wasn’t exactly cold. I walked over and pulled one out, laying it over the couch.
‘Look, when it’s raining like this you can’t get out. You just have to wait for it to stop and the water to go down.’ Even in the candlelight I could see him go pale. ‘It’s okay. It happens a lot this time of year. We’ve got plenty of food and stuff. You’ll be right.’
‘I won’t be able to get out tomorrow? I could be here for days?’
I knew he didn’t understand flooding, what it was like, but I was tired. I felt Rory’s warm little sleeping body calling me.
‘You’re lucky you didn’t get stranded between bridges. Sometimes that happens. You get stuck between two creeks where there isn’t even a house to shelter in. That’s if you’re silly enough to be driving around.’
He patted his pockets again and then crossed his arms over his chest. Even though he was a man, he looked suddenly like a little lost boy. I hadn’t meant to be unkind.
‘Alright,’ he said, gaze on the floor.
I patted the rug basket. ‘There are more blankets in here if you need them. You’ll have to snuggle up on the couch.’ I walked around the house blowing out candles until there was only the one left flickering on the low table by his makeshift bed.
He stood in the centre of the room staring at me.
‘’Night, Hamish.’
‘Goodnight.’
3.
Being an insomniac meant I had plenty of time to think. The rain was still pounding on the roof and I lay awake in the early morning hours imagining my brothers and what they might be doing now. I’m the youngest of six, the last one off the assembly line, and when I was little, puberty hit the boys one by one, morphing them into unrecognisable beasts. Their shoulders grew wide and strong, their knees large like bowling balls. Fluff grew on their faces, the only softness left. The house could no longer contain them and they’d bang their heads together like giant clumsy antelopes, knocking into furniture and damaging the walls. My mother’s angry voice was drowned out by their constant bickering, and oftentimes they shoved past her when she tried to peace-make between them.
I don’t know what is meant to happen to turn wild boys into men, but my brothers seemed overtaken by a force so completely out of their control that instead of growing up they just grew wilder. There was a closeness in the house once, but when the wave of adolescence came it seemed to wash the boys out to sea, and the distance between them and us became vast. At first my mother fought hard to hold them. Tying down their sails, penning them into corners, but in no time at all they got bigger than she could manage and simply broke through the fences and ran. Every now and again Jonah or Sunny will come back, just for a day or so, but we haven’t seen Max or Caleb for years. They don’t even ring to let us know they’re alright.
The dawn light was seeping into my bedroom and I knew Rory would wake up soon. It was still raining outside, but not quite as heavily. Thinking of my brothers made me sad. How completely they’d shaken us off and disappeared into the world. I watched Rory sleep for a bit to soothe myself. He was peaceful, mouth slightly open, dark hair wisping around his face. Rory’s dad was one of those crazy mixtures. Part Scottish, part Maltese, with an Italian grandmother and Dutch grandfather on the other side. Not a local boy—he’d blown in from some other place. He used to say he was a mongrel, and considering recent events it was hard to disagree. So Rory had come out dark, and the new baby had come out fair, and neither of them looked much like Sophie. I guess you never really know what you’ll get.
Soon as it got light enough I went to check on Bessie and the calf. Crept out before Rory woke up and hounded me for breakfast. You’d think Rory was starved the way he’d carry on. We called him ‘the Ibis’ ’cause he constantly scabbed for food. If you didn’t watch him he’d steal the dog’s breakfast from right beneath her nose. Poor old thing, having to fight for every morsel with a two-year-old. She’d just sit back and watch him, looking at us with her big sad eyes, hoping we’d intervene.
The rain was drizzly and light, but I slipped on my dad’s raincoat anyway. Dawn is my favourite time of day, the sky so light and pale and clean you can almost forget how dirty the world is. When it’s not raining I like to go out early and watch it turn a proper blue, but what I could see through the spitting clouds was grey and shapeless.
The ground was sloshy underfoot and I wished I had gumboots. When I got to the tree near where we’d tethered Bessie, I could see that the calf was feeding and Bessie was munching on grass, as though nothing had changed. I walked over and held out my palm. The farmer who owned Bessie before us used to feed her treats now and again, so she was always curious about what I might have. Sometimes she’d charge at me from across the paddock like a dog welcoming home its master. Bessie at full trot could be intimidating, even for me, but I was used to her now. I didn’t have any treats that morning so I just let her nuzzle my palm, searching. It was a nice feeling, wet and warm in the gentle rain.
The calf still had that trembly look about it, all big eyes and ears, sucking away at Bessie’s teat. It was remarkable that an animal as large as that could have been tucked up inside her yesterday. The step between being in the world, or yet to be, seemed suddenly inconsequential. The calf had been there all yesterday too, just taking up a different piece of space. I thought about this for a little bit, but I didn’t come any closer to understanding it.
The chickens had woken up too and I could hear them doing their morning clucks, ready to face the world. Chooks are funny like that, up at first light as though it’s the most exciting thing. No matter the weather, they bolt out of their coop soon as you open the gate, all muscular legs and eager beaks, charging out to see what the day might bring. A few worms, some insects, lots of scratching around. They were the most enthusiastic creatures I’d ever known. When I got to the chicken coop they were waiting for me, slick with rain and bright-eyed. I opened the gate and they pushed out past my legs. Ready to forage—rain, hail or shine. The flood had made a mess of the coop. It was time to lay down some fresh straw. I didn’t much feel like stepping into the muck to look for eggs, but if I left them there the chooks might go clucky. Start thinking they could hatch them.
The mud squished up between my toes, but once I got to their undercover hutch it was dry. When you think about it, eggs are miraculous things. I mean, whole, perfect creatures hatch out of them. When I was little it was my job to gather them up, and it always seemed somehow magical. Every day there would be fresh eggs, warm and perfectly oval. Just the right size to hold in my palm. Sometimes I’d sneak one into my pocket
, sure if I kept it warm all day it would hatch. I didn’t understand that you needed a rooster for them to be fertilised. For the first few hours I’d guard my egg, diligent and careful, but eventually I’d get distracted. Eggs are fragile, and by the end of the day it’d always be cracked and I’d be heartbroken. Mum started boiling me one in the mornings and then I’d carry it round like a talisman. It was safer that way, I guess.
After I let the chickens out, I figured I better go back in, see if Rory had woken the house. I trudged across the mud, pulling my raincoat off at the door and wiping my feet as best as I could. Keeping quiet in case everyone was still sleeping, I popped the eggs into their basket. In the lounge room Rory had the flood guy all bailed up in a staring competition. He looked like one of those territorial cats. Giving Hamish the evil eye—coming closer and closer, while keeping an unblinking gaze on his face. Hamish was lying flat, wrapped up in the blanket, like he thought burrowing was his best defence against the toddler.
‘Rory, this is Hamish.’ I stepped into the room, reaching out to my nephew for a hug.
‘Hi, Rory. Nice to meet you.’ Hamish looked relieved that I’d come in.
Rory didn’t answer but bounded over to me instead. I picked him up, sniffing his babyish head.
‘Who’s he?’ Rory asked me accusingly.
I realised I didn’t have much of an answer.
‘Hamish. I told you,’ I said. ‘He’s stuck here while it’s flooding.’
‘He is not my friend.’
I looked over at Hamish and smiled. Rory was the rudest of the lot of us. ‘Not yet.’ I could only agree.
It felt odd being all cooped up in the house with a complete stranger. Everything that happened seemed magnified. Rory’s tantrums, my mother’s pronouncements, Sophie’s silent, stilted sorrow, Old Dog’s constant scratching on the door to come in. The ratbag cat was playing up with the rain, knocking things off the shelves, chewing up boxes, making himself out to be a lunatic. Even the new baby’s bird-like cawing sounded unnatural under the stranger’s gaze.