At Yellow Lake

by Jane Mcloughlin

  This made her laugh so hard she started to cough. She sat up, looked at the hairy fat man, and coughed even louder. I don’t know if it was because the man was so hairy or because he’d heard what she said, but she laughed and coughed so much I thought she’d wet her bikini bottoms.

  It was always like that. It didn’t matter if she liked him or not, or even if she knew him or not – whenever a man came into the picture it would wreck things for us.

  Like Kyle was about to do.

  It took me a while to realise that Kyle was no accident. I felt stupid about that later. Of course he was the reason we moved to Welmer. Why else would she have packed us off to such an out of the way place? Of course Mom had known him for a long time – her version of a long time, anyway. He must have latched onto her back in Minnesota, when she was a waitress, or met her at some bar when she was out with her previous boyfriend.

  Cole and Jesse didn’t hang around for long – Jesse had to train with his Air Force reserves unit and Cole missed the girlfriend he’d left behind. So, it was just Mom and me.

  And Kyle.

  At first I didn’t see much of him. He’d come by on Friday nights. Mom would drag herself back from her longest shift of the week and hop in the shower, scrub off the sweat and grime. She’d put on clean shorts and a cute top, do her hair up, slap on some make-up. Only they’d never go out – they’d just stay in, watching TV.

  She got touchy when I asked her about it. ‘He brings the pizza, don’t he? He buys the beer. Ain’t that better than nothing?’

  Sometimes he’d come early, before she was ready. He’d sneak up the steps, open the door so quick that before you knew it, there he was – sprawled out on the couch, feet on the coffee table, like it was his place, like he was the boss.

  He didn’t bother me, though. He just watched TV. And like I said, Mom seemed ten years younger when she was with him, so I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. He seemed relatively normal. Maybe I could relax for a change.

  We had a good month, Mom and me – nearly all of August.

  And then it happened.

  PETER

  Before he got to the station, Peter was sick – twice. The first time he brought up the Weetabix. The second time, nothing, just thin, orange liquid. It was the same when he got to the airport. Inside the terminal, he rushed into the toilets and heaved so loudly that a cleaner knocked on the door.

  ‘You right in there, mister? You need help?’

  Peter opened the door so the man wouldn’t think he was a druggy who’d taken an overdose. He shook his head, teeth chattering, body trembling, eyes watering.

  When he got to the check-in counter, a bored woman questioned him about his luggage. ‘Yes, no.’ He knew the drill. Then she put his passport into a scanning machine. She watched the screen, blinked once, gave it back. That was it. No panic, no alarms, no flashing lights.

  At security, the story was the same – a scan, a glance, a nod through to the other side. No one seemed startled by the rumbles and growls that were coming from inside him. No one looked scared of the pale, zombie face he’d seen in the toilet mirror while he rinsed out his mouth.

  Finally, he stepped onto the plane and took his seat next to the window. The man beside him nodded and grunted as he squeezed past, then retreated into his newspaper. The relief – the feeling that he was actually on his way – was almost overwhelming. Peter took in deep breaths, laughing to himself as the threat of tears stung his face. Bloody hell. Wouldn’t that be just like something he’d do? Start crying when he’d nearly made it? Cause a fuss, arouse suspicion, get chucked off the plane?

  Minutes later, though, he was flying through the air. He watched the cars, the rooftops, the streets of London fade, then disappear. The 747’s engines shook his insides. Finally, it was happening. He’d done it. He looked out of the window at the green fields and rolling hills far below him. When the plane slipped into a mountain of grey and white cloud, the England he’d always known vanished completely.

  JONAH

  It rained all day, in sharp, heavy spits, like a spray of tiny knives. High in the trees, a cluster of crows was squawking. It was as if his mother were up there, cackling out ridicule, waiting for him to give up and accept defeat. Well, he wouldn’t.

  Gradually, the wigwam took shape. It took a while, as if the wood had needed time to get used to his hands. But eventually the saplings stayed where he put them, secure until he could bind them with twine he’d bought from the store.

  By noon, Jonah was soaked to the bone, and the wigwam was still hours from being finished. His hands were rubbed raw from handling the wet bark. All the stooping and stretching was making his back hurt. Maybe he should take a break, just for a few minutes, go back into the cabin. It would be dry inside, warm.

  No. He had to hold out. What was the matter with being wet? Nothing! The rain wasn’t cold. The air was still warm. The only thing wrong with being wet was the soaked clothes – the jeans, the shirt – acting like a heavy second skin, dragging him down.

  He stopped work, dropped the knife, let go of the twine and the green sticks. He looked up, opening his mouth, tasting the rain. His face to the heavens, he took off his shirt, peeling it away from his body. He pulled off the T-shirt underneath, feeling the cool drops on his bare skin. It wasn’t enough. He loosened his leather belt, unbuttoned his jeans and shook them to the ground.

  Barefoot and nearly naked, he walked down to the lake. The rain got heavier, riddling the sandy beach’s damp skin with tiny pock-marks. The lake was a white-capped sheet of grey, but to Jonah it looked as inviting as a tropical pool.

  He waded in. The smooth stones and soft sand felt like velvet under the soles of his feet. As he walked deeper and deeper into the lake, the cool water covered his calves, his thighs, and strands of seaweed tickled his body. When the water came up to his chest, he stood still and listened to the raindrops on the water. Gradually, the waves calmed. The clouds broke up, forming new clusters and shapes, showing blade-thin strands of sunlight. Then, coming from behind the tall line of trees that straddled the shoreline beyond the beach, a huge bird – like a giant hawk – swooped toward the water.

  Jonah watched, open-mouthed, as the bird flapped its mighty wings – once, twice – and soared in a wide arc over his head. His heart pounding, Jonah reached his arms to the sky, as if he could touch the creature, as if he could run his fingers through its soft underfeathers.

  The bird made one last loop – its magnificent head white and brilliant against the dull grey sky – and flew back to land.

  Tears stung Jonah’s eyes as he watched it disappear.

  An eagle, he thought – the greatest symbol of the spirit world. Had it been looking for him? Had it been sent to him – a sign?

  He scanned the treetops for another glimpse, but the eagle was gone. Never mind, he thought. There’d be another one. He stretched his arms again, lifted his feet from the sandy bottom and dived across the surface of the lake. The cold water numbed his body, but as he swam towards shore he felt protected, as if the lake itself were a warm cocoon.

  He stepped out of the water and onto the sand. He trudged up the hill and back into the forest. He stood in the clearing, admiring the ash wigwam. Something came to him – he could feel it in the air, hear it in the swaying trees, see it in the clouds. And as he looked up to see if the eagle was perched on a branch above him, Jonah knew. . .

  He’d be safe here. In this forest. On this lake.

  Chapter Four

  ETTA

  On some stupid talk show, fat couples with perms and mullets were finding out if the mullet guy was the real father of the perm lady’s ugly baby. I was sure I’d seen this episode before. At the end of each nail-biting segment, just before the commercials for glycerine suppositories or acid reflux medicine, the host would drawl, ‘Randy, you are the father,’ or ‘Darnell, you are not the father,’ which would usually get lard-assed Darnell out of his seat to do a little victory whoop and dance.


  It was during Darnell’s celebration that Kyle knocked on the door. That was the first weird thing – he knocked. Usually when he came by he just barged right in. So why the politeness this time? Why did he wait for me to answer the door and let him in before he asked, ‘Your ma at home?’ And why did he ask, when he knew damn well she wouldn’t be at home, that it was a Tuesday, one o’clock in the afternoon, and her shift wasn’t over for another two hours. Why? Because he thought I was stupid.

  And I suppose I was, not to have slammed the door in his face and told him to get lost. No, I just let him in.

  ‘So where is she?’ He smelled of cigarettes, covered up by Doublemint gum.

  ‘Work.’

  ‘Oh.’ He poked his head around the open door, double-checking that the trailer was empty, that there really was nobody at home except me.

  ‘You mind if I wait, then?’

  Here comes my second mistake. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Come on in.’

  He sat on the couch, next to where I’d been sitting. I plopped down on a chair, as far away from him as possible. I wanted to get out of there and go tell Mom that something was up with her boyfriend, and I could just about guess what it was. Instead, I fiddled with a hole in the upholstery, trying to organise the frayed threads at the edge of the hole into a nice, neat pattern.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ On the TV another supersized couple was fighting about who was responsible for their chunky child’s fat genes. ‘Jesus,’ Kyle snorted. ‘Imagine going on a show like that. Hanging out all your dirty laundry.’

  I didn’t tell Kyle, but I could imagine going on a show like that, if the title was something like, ‘My mom brings home a series of creepy, inappropriate or downright dangerous boyfriends.’ I saw programmes like that all the time, but usually the titles were written in shorthand – ‘My mom’s a slut.’

  A commercial came on for a product I’d never heard of before, a pill that was for women who don’t like sex. You could go to your doctor and get a prescription. Three women were talking about it – two blonde women who looked happy, a brunette one who didn’t. The two blondes figured a couple doses of that stuff and the brunette would be rocking and rolling in no time. I played with the frayed threads, tried not to listen.

  ‘Guess that’s why blondes have more fun, huh?’ Kyle said.

  For the first time in my life, I was glad my hair wasn’t any colour at all, not even mousy brown, more a dull, khaki beige. I was also glad that Mom had left the air conditioning on all night so I had on my grey sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt.

  ‘So what time you say your mom gets back?’

  ‘Any minute now,’ I lied, staring at the armchair hole. Straightening out the frayed threads wasn’t getting me anywhere, so I started pulling out tiny bits of the cottony upholstery that were showing through.

  ‘Got any smokes?’ He got up and started walking around, agitated, opening drawers, digging under the couch cushions.

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Don’t smoke, eh?’

  ‘Nope.

  ‘A good girl, huh?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess.’

  ‘You guess? You mean you don’t know?’

  I pulled more white fluff out of the chair. If I concentrated on that hard enough, maybe Kyle would just disappear. I heard him fidget on the couch, making the sagging springs squeak underneath him. He got up again, like he was too wired to sit still, like he was impatient, waiting for something.

  Then his phone went. The ringtone was some lame oldie – ‘Takin’ Care of Business’. Kyle looked at the flashing number, pressed a button and put the phone to his ear, listening.

  After a few seconds of grunts and mmm-hmms, he looked over at me.

  ‘Fine,’ he said, ‘Kid’s here, though.’ Then he was quiet, while the other person talked.

  I looked over at the TV again. Another commercial. A white-haired lady was singing the praises of her incontinence pants. Kyle kept watching me, so I stared at the screen, as if nothing was more interesting than adult diapers.

  ‘We’re gonna have to wait on that, Charlie. We gotta teach them Chicago guys a lesson. Show people around here we mean business.’

  Chicago? What was he talking about? Business? As far as I knew, he didn’t even have a job.

  ‘We ain’t got a choice, Charlie. That’s the only kind of language these people understand.’

  Kyle was pacing back and forth in the kitchen, squeaking his shoes on the nice tile floor. He stopped talking, though. A few more ‘yeps’ and ‘nopes’ and the call was over. He came back into the living room. I smiled at him, a big stupid grin, like the ones Mom used around men when she needed to play dumb. I wondered if Kyle could tell from the doorway how hard my heart was pounding, how dry my mouth was.

  ‘Want a beer, Etta?’ He walked over to the chair. God, he was tall. Way over six feet.

  ‘No, thanks.’ Thanks? What was the matter with me?

  Then he bent over me, got real close, like he was talking to a deaf person or a little kid. I thought he was going to say something about the phone call, about how it wasn’t how it sounded, how he wasn’t another low-rent criminal like those other guys Mom went out with. That wasn’t what was on his mind, though.

  ‘I won’t tell your ma,’ he whispered. The Doublemint had lost its war with the cigarettes.

  I looked down again, my smile all gone. I could see the wood frame of the chair under the big hole I’d dug in the fluff.

  ‘We can do anything we want, you and me. Smoke. Drink. Whatever, you know? I ain’t gonna tell.’

  What I wanted to do was get the hell out of there – away from Kyle, away from whatever it was he was thinking of doing. But where would I go? Who did I know?

  Kyle’s breath was hot on my face. Was he going to kiss me? Spit on me? Finally, I came to.

  That’s it, I thought. I’ve had enough.

  Why was I just sitting here, taking this crap?

  ‘Leave me alone, Kyle.’ I tried to get up and push past him, but he grabbed me by the shoulders and shoved me back down in the chair.

  ‘Leave you alone,’ he said. ‘That’s a good one.’ He was kneeling, face right up close to mine. The smell of his breath was making me feel sick. ‘You’re the one who ain’t leaving me alone. You been coming on to me, anybody could see that.’

  I tried not to look into his eyes. The corner of his mouth had a tiny cut in it. There was pus around the edge of the scab.

  ‘Your ma warned me about you, girl. She said you’d have a go with anybody, even her own mother’s boyfriend.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Said you didn’t care where you got it from, long as you got the attention.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ I hissed.

  He had me by the arms now, and was pressing his fingers into my skin, hard enough to leave a mark.

  ‘She told me everything about you, how she had to move you up here to get you away from all the stuff you were getting up to over in Minnesota.’

  ‘That’s not true. I wasn’t getting up to—’

  ‘You calling her a liar? Your own hard-working mother?’

  Finally, I stopped struggling. It was no use. Like a baby, like a weakling, I was about to cry. Then Kyle loosened his grip. He stroked my arms with the palms of his hands, giving them a nice gentle rub, like he was trying to smooth away the pain. Instantly, my nose dried up. The tears didn’t fall either. Funny, that.

  ‘Sorry if I got rough,’ he said. ‘Didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just what you said, you know, it kinda pissed me off.’

  He walked away from the chair, away from the living room. Strolling into the kitchen, he casually opened the fridge door and took out a beer.

  ‘Don’t say nothing to your mom, and I won’t say nothing either.’ He opened the screen door. ‘That’s the deal. You got that? Nothing.’

  The door closed behind him and he stepped onto the porch.

  ‘Hey, that’s quite a collection you got there.’ He wa
s talking to somebody outside, his voice light and friendly, a good guy voice. It must have been the weird lady who lived next door and kept a whole display of plastic lawn animals in her tiny yard. She treated them like babies, washing them every day, re-painting the bits that were chipped or faded, taping together any parts that had broken off. She acted like a real mother. How fair was that? Plastic bears and deer had a better parenting deal than me.

  ‘I’ve had most of these critters a long time.’ The neighbour lady was stuttering, surprised by this sudden attention from a charming young man. ‘They’re part of the family, I guess.’

  Curled up in the chair, my throbbing arms wrapped tightly around my body, I listened as the door of Kyle’s fancy car opened and closed, as his engine purred and his tyres crunched on the gravel driveway.

  ‘Been great talking to you, ma’am,’ Kyle shouted to the lady.

  Like he was a nice normal man. Like this was a nice, normal day.

  PETER

  The passport control area was teeming with armed police and huge Alsatians straining at leather leads. Peter’s heart raced. There’d obviously been some sort of security scare – had it involved him? Maybe someone at home had raised the alarm on his credit card fraud. Maybe the bank had spotted something dodgy in the way he’d typed in his dad’s password on the computer. Were they able to do that? He knew his father would find out soon enough that he was gone, and how he’d paid for the ticket. But that wouldn’t be for days, would it?

  The queue moved slowly. When it was Peter’s turn he shuffled up to a burly woman in a tight-fitting blue uniform, who forced out a smile. He expected a barrage of questioning and had spent much of the flight time rehearsing his answers. He was visiting his uncle, he’d tell them. That wasn’t exactly a lie. He was travelling alone because his mother had just died and his father, well, his father wasn’t really up to much. Yes, it was cancer. Yes, she was tragically young. His throat had tightened when he’d thought up that line, and he’d imagined a kindly immigration officer wiping away a tear. No, of course he hadn’t used his dad’s credit card in a fraudulent manner to obtain any financial goods or services. What did they take him for, a thief? Why, he was just a poor, nearly-orphaned fifteen-year-old.