“Al-right,” she says, finally. “O-kay. But only if you’re done before seven. I don’t want to drag myself out at night if I’ve got to get up that early in the morning to put you on the bus.”
I’m done by 6.45, bag zipped and extra snacks for the two and a half hour trip stowed away in a lunchbox as well, and present myself to Mum.
“Can we go?”
“Fine,” she says. “Let’s get in the car. But I’m not staying long, okay? Fifteen minutes max.”
It’s a 12 minute drive to Gabby’s place, across town and into the new housing estate. Mum listens to one of her 90s music evening shows on the radio while I alternately check my phone and stare out the window. I want to ask her about Ice-cream Beard Guy. He’s been popping into my head on and off, just pressing tiny little question mark buttons in my brain, but I can’t say anything because, obviously, I’m not supposed to have been there. But what would I say anyway? Hey, Mum, do you always have company when you go to get the office coffees?
“She probably just dropped her phone in the loo or something.” Mum breaks into my head.
“What?” I say.
“There’s probably a really good reason for her not calling,” says Mum. “Or else she cracked the screen and had to put it in for repair. Like you’ll have to do unless you buy yourself a proper phone cover.”
I make a face at her.
“Well, it’s just weird,” I say. “Hey, it’s the second on the left here.”
Mum glances at me, annoyed. “I know. How many times have I brought you here?”
She pulls into Gabby’s street and up to the house. It looks different. The blinds are all pulled down.
“That’s funny,” I say. “Her mum usually has them up.”
Mum shrugs. “Maybe they’re out,” she says. “They could have gone away for the weekend.”
I get out of the car. The house seems quieter for some reason, even without the blinds, but I can’t pick why. I walk up the path and knock on the door. Twice.
No answer.
When I try to look through the crack between the edge of the window and the blinds, Mum yells at me from the car. “Jaz. That’s rude.”
I shrug. “I can’t see anything anyway. Do you have any paper and a pen? I’ll at least leave her a note. Then she’ll have to call me, right? Maybe I’ll give her Grandma’s number too.”
Mum digs around in her bag and produces a tiny scrap of old shopping list paper and a stub of a pencil. I write carefully, leaning against the glove box.
Gab. Where are you? You have to phone me. I’ve gone to my Grandma’s for holidays. 88456243. Call me!!!!
I push the note through the letterbox and stand for a second, looking at the house. Then I screw up my mouth in frustration, breathe out sharply through my nose, turn on my heel and get back into the car.
“Home?” says Mum.
Home, I sign.
We’re silent in the car and quiet through the front door at home. But for once, I want to talk. I want to say, all in one outpouring, that I can’t wait, that I’m dying to see Grandma, that I can’t believe this, this thing, of me on a bus, travelling, bounding into my grandma’s arms after more than four whole years, is actually happening.
I want to say it, but Mum’s happy (at least I think she is) and I don’t want to wreck it. If I start on about Grandma, her face will go tight and she’ll say things like “mmm, good,” without actually meaning them.
I look across the kitchen at Mum. Her back is turned; she’s making her evening cup of tea. I want to ask her why. Why it happened, why we moved away without so much as a visit or a look back. Why hasn’t Grandma been in touch for all these years?
Why can’t the two women I love the most in life just sit down and talk to each other?
My head is full but my mouth is empty. “I’ll head to bed,” I say.
She swivels slightly. “Good idea.”
And then it’s time for all those little before bed rituals, the teeth, the glass of water, the kiss on the cheek goodnight. I hold my face next to Mum’s for an extra second.
“Do you mind?” I say, in an almost whisper that I can’t even hear.
Mum pulls back so she can see into my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
I turn my head a little so I’m half hiding from her gaze. “Do you mind that I’m going?” I say. “To see her. I mean… you know.” But I still can’t say what I want to say.
“She’s your Grandma,” Mum says. “And it’s not your fight. It’s between me and her, not you.” She shrugs. “I hope you have a really good time.” She turns to point to my bedroom. “But now? Get some rest.”
I don’t.
At two am I’m running away from more things that want to kill me. Seriously? Again? If this wasn’t so scary I’d be bored. I’m tired beyond words and all I want to do is give up but they’re getting closer, and I know that, as usual, if I don’t run I’ll be dead.
And then, in my dream, my brain clears; the fear and terror melt away and it’s as though I’ve never understood the most obvious truth in the world.
“If I just ask the monsters to stop chasing me,” I say, “we can all just live our lives.”
It seems so simple. Why did I not think of this before?
“You’ve got your own things to do,” I call, my words tumbling into the darkness. “Don’t chase me anymore. I’m tired of it. I won’t bother you if you won’t bother me.” I wait, straight-standing and expectant in my dream landscape, ready for some kind of sign.
But there’s nothing.
“Hello?” I call again. “Are you there?”
I hear the tiniest rustle behind me. It’s the sort of noise I could never hear if I was awake, but for some strange reason, I’m never deaf in my dreams. I look around quickly but there’s nothing to see in the dark. My body turns to terror and I know there will be no agreement, no peaceful ‘you go your way, I’ll go mine’. There’s no way out of it, this endless running, no matter which way I look.
I wake up crying.
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The place where you catch the bus in our town is nothing like those crazy-busy bus terminals you see in movies. It’s a too-small shelter on the side of a road with not even an office behind it. We’re 15 minutes early and I’m worried it’s the wrong place but then a car pulls up and an old man in shorts and long socks with a small black suitcase gets out of the passenger side. He adjusts his grip on his case, moves to the other side of the shelter and nods to us. Mum makes a quick face back at him, one of those grimace smiles that says, “Yes, we’re in this together.” She checks the time on her phone and then moves to the edge of the footpath to see if she can catch sight of the bus.
“I’ll miss you,” I say, when she comes back to sit next to me.
She glances over at my knees. “Me too. I mean, I won’t miss myself.” She smiles. “I’ll miss you.”
“What are you actually going to do while I’m gone?”
She shrugs. “Not much. Work, mostly. You know.”
“Nothing different at all?” I ask.
“Maybe a few things,” she says. “I might go out with a friend.”
I’m genuinely surprised. It’s the first time I’ve ever heard those words from her lips.
I sign to her. Who will you go out with?
Work people, she signs back. Just some people from work.
“What are their names?” I ask. I want to know. She’s never gone out with people from work before. I want to say, “Do they have beards?” but have to hold my tongue.
She shrugs again. “Just people.” Checks her phone. “Only four minutes until the bus comes.”
The work friends disappear into the background as a pinch of excitement grabs my stomach. It’s followed by a burst of worry. I’ve never left Mum before. I mean, not ever, except to go to school. I even managed to get out of the overnight school excursions that started from about Year Four, mostly by ‘forgetting’ to take
notes home until it was too late, but occasionally by coming down with an illness that lasted about as long as the excursion.
Now I’m leaving, by choice, for two whole weeks. I grab Mum’s hand, tight. She looks startled.
“You’ll be fine,” she says. “You’ll have fun.”
“Maybe we should just go home,” I say. I’m breathing heavily now. My stomach is a hard ball inside me. “Why is everything in life so scary?”
Mum looks at me and narrows her eyes. She reaches down between her feet and pulls her handbag up to her lap.
“I should probably give this to you,” she says, unzipping the bag and bringing out a blue envelope. It looks old; worn and a little soft around the corners.
I take it in my hand and turn it over. Whatever’s inside feels firm, like cardboard.
Like a photograph.
I tip the flap and half pull what’s inside into my hand, and there, staring, smiling up at me are four faces. Me, about six years old, in a yellow sundress and with my hair in pigtails. I have no front teeth and my smile looks even wider with the gaps. Mum is standing behind me in jeans and a white t shirt. Her hair is long and straight. And blonde. I’d forgotten how she used to dye it. Next to her is Dad, in his moustache phase. His arm is draped around Mum’s shoulder and the two of them are tipping their heads toward each other with happiness. My eyes move to his other arm. It’s tucked around another woman, wearing an orange and turquoise shift and a huge amber necklace. Her hair is short and red, to match her shoes.
It’s Grandma.
And she’s smiling right at me.
I gasp. “I remember this,” I say, turning to Mum. “It was my birthday. We had a picnic in that park. And Grandma gave me a really funny present. Hiking boots. I just kind of looked at them and thought, ‘what the heck?’”
Mum grins wryly. “I can’t remember that. But it sounds about right.” She looks at me. “Do you still want to come home?”
I sit up, pulled up straight, like the old man’s socks.
I shake my head. “I’m going,” I say. “I have to see Grandma again.”
There’s a rush of wind and a flurry of dust and the coach pulls up. Mum stands up and pulls at my clothes. “You’re just a bit scruffy,” she says, adjusting the collar on my t-shirt. “There. Got everything?” She hands me my ticket and I swing the backpack on my shoulder.
“Okay, bye,” I say and kiss her on the cheek and she kisses me back and holds me in a hug for an extra second. I pull away and go to step onto the bus but the old man is there before me and I don’t want to be rude. A thought pops into my head and I have another mini-panic.
“Mum!” I say. “Can you water my garden? I forgot to ask.”
She nods quickly.
“I mean it. The new plants will die if you don’t. Especially if it’s windy.” I make the sign for die.
She nods again and signs, Okay. I love you.
You too, I sign back.
And then I step onto the bus and walk up the stairs and the doors close behind me with a clatter. For a moment I feel disoriented, like I’m nowhere and then I think, Okay, just find a seat, and I’m sitting down on blue patterned velour with maroon swirls. The bus pulls away and soon, outside the plastic, sound-proof window, streets and trees and houses are flashing by, and it’s just me who’s here, on my own, flying through the crazy world in a velour-coated capsule. My fingers realise they’re holding something and when I look down to see what it is I remember the photo and Mum and Dad and Grandma’s smiles and the hiking boots and I smile back.
It’s not just me here, I think. It’s me. And my family.
I’m supposed to put my bag in the overhead thingy but I’ve stuffed it down by my feet instead. It’s easier to get what I need out of it. And right now I need something I haven’t used for a few days.
It’s my journal.
I skip past the drawings of monsters and scary ghouls-of-the-night. Better not to think about them when the sun is shining and the sky is blue. A new page, somewhere towards the middle of the book is where my fingers land. It’s white and clean. Shiny, even. I hold the photograph of gap-toothed me and happy parents and non-fighting Grandma so that it’s in the middle of the page, like I’m working out where to glue it in. And then I lean down again and scratch around in my bag for a pen.
Weird how you can go from writing words to drawing pictures to express how you feel. When I first got my journal I was all about writing letters to Dad and finding the right words to say. Now I’m sketching the things I need to think about; the things that mean something to me. It’s different in some ways; the same in others.
I’m drawing Grandma; her short, cropped fringe; her twinkly but determined eyes; her flash of a smile. I need felt tips or pencils or something that will give her colour but even just with a black biro I can imagine her brightness. Even on the bus, with the aroma of plastic and long-distance passengers, I can smell her perfume.
The glare through the window is getting harsher. Outside the town has disappeared and all I can see is road and grey-green, scratchy bushland flashing past. I close my eyes to block out the speed but the light and shadows still flash across my face and I can feel every sway and jiggle of wheels on bumpy road. Across the aisle, the man with the long socks is reading the paper and behind me are two older ladies who look like friends. Maybe even sisters. When I get up to visit the tiny toilet at the back their heads are close and I can see them chatting over a magazine.
By the time I’ve eaten, read and drawn in my journal, the two and a half hours of the trip are nearly gone and before I’m ready signs begin to flash into view. Car dealerships, hardware barns and then the beginnings of cafés and barbecue chicken shops. To the left a green arrow points the way to a beach and a harbour.
The gnawing in my stomach is back with a vengeance. I look down at the drawing of Grandma on my page. I’m sure it looks nothing like her. She’ll have changed, or I’ll have changed. Will I even be able to recognise her? Am I doing a completely stupid thing, going to spend a whole fortnight with someone who hasn’t wanted to speak to me or Mum in four years? Does she even want me now?
The driver makes an announcement across the loudspeaker. With the dull hum of the bus in my brain I can hardly understand a word but then the brakes come on and the bus slows down and it hits me.
This is it.
This is really it.
The engine goes into an idle and around me people are standing, stretching, searching for their stuff. The old man with the socks lifts his bag carefully down and nods politely to me. I smile back tentatively. People are filing off the bus slowly, all crowded together, elbows and knees jostling for space, but I haven’t joined them yet. I’m huddled with my bag in my seat. I know, though, I have to get up. I have to get out. And when the line thins, I join the end and shuffle out into the daylight.
My eyes blink in the brightness. The coastal glare is something you never forget. Immediately I’m five again, getting out of the car at Grandma’s place, blinking and blinded, but happy to be there.
And then I see her. As she is exactly the same as she was when I was five, smiling, half clapping her hands, bobbing up and down on her toes, waiting for me.
I stop. My feet are on concrete but my head is in the clouds. A smile spreads from one ear to the other and then I can’t help myself. I throw my bag down and I run full tilt towards her, towards Grandma, towards the smell of plum blossoms and the promise of safety.
“Jazmine.”
It’s just one simple word but it sounds like flowers and excitement and adventure and I love you.
I have no words. All I can do is hug. She grabs me tight around the shoulders and hugs me back and it feels like home.
Chapter 14
Grandma’s house is out of town, heading up a winding, bumpy road towards the escarpment. It’s not where I remember.
“Did you move?” I ask.
“I sold it about four years ago,” she says. Easily.
; “Do you miss the old one?”
“Wait until we get there.”
I wait. And then we turn a corner into a dirt driveway and immediately I understand. Grandma’s new house has a view. And it’s not just any view. From her verandah she can see for miles up and down the coast.
“It’s amazing,” I say and she smiles.
“You always loved the views from the lookouts when we used to go walking,” she says. “When I saw this place I knew it was right. And it has a great garden.”
My heart jumps.
“Can I see?”
She takes me around the back of the house. “It’s mostly around here. I’m working on the front more now. I’ve put in all these cuttings from…” She turns to look at me. “Oh. Are you okay?”
I’m crying. That is to say, there are tears coming out of my eyes and slipping down my cheeks. But it’s not from sadness. It’s because finally I’ve seen what a garden should be, what it could be. Sweeping trees, extravagant roses and cheerful, bobbing flowers in beds. A vegetable patch with a blueberry bush.
And now I get it. I understand why my character, Mary Lennox, changed so much in the play of The Secret Garden we did last term.
I’m not crying because I’m unhappy. I’m crying because I’m delirious.
Grandma puts her arm around me and we stand together and take in the scent of the blossoms.
“Yours are still out,” I say, wiping my eyes and pointing to a pink plum tree. “At home they’ve all fallen off.”
“It’s always a little later than most, that one,” she says. “And speaking of later. I need a cup of tea.”
The house is as small as our terrace at home but for some reason it feels bigger. It might be the way Grandma’s furnished it, with new, simple furniture and big colours. Or it might just be the light that pours in from the glass doors. Our house is old and dark. Sometimes Mum describes it as cozy, but maybe it’s actually just poky.
There’s another difference. In this house there are no piles of paper, no knick-knacks, no bits and pieces. Not like our cluttery cupboards. Also, there are no pictures in frames. But there’s no time to think about that because Grandma is showing me to my room.
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