Dreaming of Amelia (14 page)

That's another link between my dad and black holes: my dad makes some great spaghetti pastas.

WEEK 6

This week at my school there was a Shakespeare festival and a cross-country race.

I know this because I just looked up the school's online calendar.

I have no memory of either event.

I do remember one helluva party at that mad mansionhome I was mentioning.

The party was on a Wednesday night, and I remember it in pieces.

There's one piece where I'm in the living room chatting to my buddy, Emily, and out of the corner of my eye I see
Amelia and Riley. They'd just arrived, I think. Those two have the most intense gaze you ever saw. If this were a story about aliens, I'd say their eyes were artificially enhanced.

I shifted a bit, to see what it was that had attracted that laser-vision stare.

It was Lydia, on the couch.

She hadn't noticed them.

I don't know why, but something about that moment made the goosebumps rise up on the back of my neck.

Then I happened to see that Lyd was sitting next to her exboyfriend, Seb. A space between the two of them about the size of a plank of wood. Made me sad. Those two used to be the real thing. And that got me thinking about spaces between people who are meant to be together. From Amelia and Riley, watching from shadows, standing as close as two people can get without touching, to Lyd and Seb, a hand's width apart on the couch, to my mum and dad, a whole state apart — and then to Tom and Maggie, oceans, countries, hemispheres, destiny between them.

That piece of the party disappeared into a couple of beers.

One last piece: a conversation in a closet.

Maybe ten of us in that closet, trapped in the dark. (Don't ask.) Had a few bottles with us so we were fine. And at one point somebody, I think it was Amelia but it might have been Riley — those two are sometimes the same person — anyway, one of them started a conversation about shadows.

We talked about shadows for three hours.

I thought so hard and deep about shadows that night. I mean, a shadow is something that's there but
isn't
there. Your shadow is real, you can see it on the ground or on the wall, but it's actually nothing. It's only there because you're there, because of your
presence
. But, guess what, it's also only there
because of
absence
— your shadow shows up because you're blocking out the light.

A shadow is the absence of light
.

You remember the history of Ireland? I said that Ireland was a country of fairy folk, and as far as I could figure, the fairies were actually real?

Well, one of the ‘fairies' I read about was something spooky called the Fetch.

You know what the Fetch is? It's a shadow.

It's the shadow of any real person. You see the shadow wandering around without its person. It's like, there's your mum across the street, hi — but then you realise, no, it's not your mum, it's just her shadow. You go cold all over when you realise it. Then the phone rings in your pocket and it's somebody telling you your mum's just been in an accident and they're not sure if she'll make it — at which point you go even colder.

The Fetch is an absent presence: it comes to warn you someone's going to die.

So, I remembered the Fetch while I was sitting in that closet, and a chill ran straight from the base of my neck down my spine.

Then my mind bended in half and I got another link — you remember I said that a black hole is a prison and nothing can escape? That includes light. Light can't escape and that's why a black hole is black.
A black hole is the absence of light
.

Wait.

Black Holes

A black hole is the absence of light.

So, a black hole is a shadow. A Fetch is a shadow. It was
happening again:
black holes and Irish history slipping back and forth across my mind
.

And sitting in that closet, I realised that this was not intriguing.

It was horrific.

Why had I not seen it before? Those Irish fairies, bringing news of death; those black holes, sucking you in, stretching your limbs, locking you forever in a big, dark, silent absence. It's all part of one long chain of horror. Irish peasants getting hanged, drawn, quartered, thrown onto ships, chained up in rotting black holes beneath the deck.

Then they arrive in Australia and it's a black hole of its own. They work all day, they can never escape, do anything wrong they get whipped. Here's a couple of lines I found in a logbook of people who got flogged:

William Hughes, refusing to work, 25 lashes, back much lacerated, but very little blood; appeared to suffer great pain during his punishment but did not cry out, having stuffed his shirt in his mouth
.

That image — a guy stuffing his shirt into his mouth so he won't cry out while they thrash him — I can't get it out of my mind.

And somehow it all seems connected to my dad. Like this great dark shadow that no one can escape is sitting in my house and trapping him.

It's like
I
brought the shadow into my house with my research.

I realise that makes no sense.

The timing is upside down. Dad's a black hole, according to Mum, and
then
I did the research.

But time, in that closet, was distorted. I knew for a fact
that it was my fault that Dad was a black hole — I turned him into one by reading about Irish history, Irish fairies, and black holes.

I brought the shadow home.

WEEK 7

This week I remember stopping.

I mean, I got tired.

Went to school but not to any more parties. Took a break from schoolwork. Stayed home and watched my dad. (He was working from home this week.)

I watched him through windows. Watched him mow the lawn. Give the neighbour's car a jump-start. Peel some old, wet junk mail from the bottom of the mailbox.

I watched him through doors. Frying garlic in the kitchen. Hunting down a tin of tennis balls from the closet. Carrying a cardboard box.

He looked fine.

I mean, he looked bored as hell mowing the lawn, but he joked around with the neighbour about jumper cables. Sang to himself while he cooked dinner. Told me a long and complicated story about that cardboard box. Something to do with a mistake at work and how Dad was going to fix it. It made him laugh his arse off: the mistake was not serious, but funny, apparently. I didn't really listen. I was watching him.

And, like I said, he looked fine.

Except for the shadow.

Even when he laughed, he was in shadow. Like a film where the lighting has gone wrong. You can't make out the characters' features.

Or was I imagining that? Because of my obsession with black holes?

That's what I couldn't figure out.

So there I was, watching him carry that cardboard box — he'd stopped and was framed by the study door, the box under one arm (he's a big guy, my dad) — and he's telling his dumb-arse story about work while I squint my eyes to see his features — and a memory flashed into my mind.

Dad carrying boxes, three years ago.

See, he helped Mum when she moved out. He was telling stories then, too, laughing at himself, taking heavy boxes right out of her arms so she wouldn't hurt her back. I remember Mum was so relieved. She stepped onto the street to take a call from her boyfriend and I heard her say, ‘It's going much better than I thought. He's fine.'

She's supposed to be the smart one in the family.

To me it was clear as day that this was just Dad's strategy. He was thinking, if I stay sweet and funny, even while she leaves me, if I help her carry boxes, it's dead certain that she'll change her mind. How could she leave a guy as great as that?

That's what he was thinking.

Right up to the moment when he pressed down on the boot of her car, testing it to make sure it was closed — right up to that moment, he thought she'd change her mind.

But I guess Mum must have missed that.

She drove away smiling in a sad, apologetic way, but smiling.

We stood on the kerb and I looked at Dad's face and for as long as I live, I never want to see an expression like that again.

Anyhow, back to the present, and Dad had finished his funny story about work and was waiting for my laugh. I gave it my best shot. He went into the study, still chuckling himself, and I looked over at a print of purple flowers on the living room wall.

It belongs to my mum. (She's into purple.) She left it behind when she moved out that day.

In fact, she left a lot of stuff behind. Some of her favourite novels are lined up on our bookshelf. Humorous(ish) coffee mugs. Her CD collection (including a couple of great compilations that I made for her myself).

In the months after she left, I think it made Dad happy, noticing these things around the house. It meant that this was only temporary. She wouldn't have left
those
things behind for good. They were her home, we were her home, these things were her warm, woolly slippers. She'd be back any day and slip back into them.

But the months went by and she didn't come back and put the slippers on.

I guess she didn't need them. Brisbane is warm. (Ha ha.)

She didn't even
ask
us for her things. And that was a different kind of shock. Turned out she
really
must have wanted to escape. She'd sacrifice all that just to get away?

Dad and I didn't talk about it though.

Just walked around amongst her things.

If you look at my house closely, even today, she's everywhere. Family photographs on the sideboard. Magnet on the fridge listing the qualities of Capricorns (that's her star sign). The giant wooden ‘M' with hooks for keys that hangs in our front hallway (her name is Megan). She's even on our computer — a folder in the Inbox called ‘Meg'.

It's like the past is still here. We live in it.

Which reminds me:

Black Holes

They make time collapse. The faster you run towards the exit, the further you get from it. So your future falls back into your past. It's a curving of time.

(I don't get it either. Ask a science nerd.)

See, it's linked again. My dad's shoulders curving as he watches television — time curving inward, our future collapsing right into our past. It's all here in our house at the same time — all in this moment — our lives right now; our lives as a family with Mum; there's even the life of an Irish convict named Tom. It's all here, all at the same time.

Mum is everywhere. She's absent but she's present. She's a ghost in a way.

A presence that hasn't crossed over — an absent presence.

She's a shadow.

You know what? She's the black hole.

WEEK 8

Oh yeah, this week, on the Monday night, Dad goes on the blind date with Roberto's friend. He brings her back home for the night.

This is not the first woman he's been with since Mum or anything. There's been quite a few. They all seem like nice, funny, sad, kind women to me. But the same thing always happens.

He forgets their names.

Seriously.

I mean, not in front of them, but later in the day. I ask what he thinks and he
never
remembers their names.

The other thing is, he's weird.

I have breakfast with the two of them on Tuesday morning, and I watch him talking to this woman. He talks like a freakin'
maniac
. He talks about himself, about work, about me, about goldfish, flying foxes, sugar cubes. Anything.

I sit still. I sit there staring straight at him, thinking,
Who is this freak in my kitchen?

Then, when the woman finally gets a chance to talk herself, for a moment or two, he looks down at the table, seems like he's concentrating hard, says, ‘Yeah, yeah,' then right away he gets agitated. Picks up the milk, nearly drops it, puts it back down. His ‘yeah, yeahs' keep coming but at all the wrong places, cutting right through her sentences. He looks up, his eyes flicker around the room. He picks up the cereal bowl, looks underneath it like he's checking where it was made. Next thing he's tipping piles of sugar onto the table, taking out his credit card and using it to split up the sugar.

I got out of there as soon as I could.

Left the poor blind date sitting at the table watching him. As I reached the front door I heard her ask quite clearly, ‘Did you do a lot of drugs growing up?'

I don't think it was just the way he was cutting up the sugar like cocaine. It was the fact that he acts like his brains are fried.

I've said to him in the past, I've said, ‘Dad, you just have to listen. Women like you to listen to them.'

And he's said to me, ‘Tobes, you're absolutely right.'

But then he's exactly the same.

The funny thing is, he doesn't seem to need my advice. The women always like him anyway.

He's a big guy, like I said, and I get the impression that a certain kind of older woman likes a big guy. Maybe they think he's a bear that's going to keep them warm?

(I'm kind of a big guy myself, but girls my age are not as turned on by this.)

(At least I know they'll like me when I'm 40.)

Fact is, the women give him their number, leave little notes with drawings of flowers, say they hope he'll call. He never does.

Still, it looked for a moment like things might end up different with this one.

Tuesday night, Dad and I are watching TV and an ad comes on for one of those antiperspirants that make women tear your clothes off.

‘You reckon that really works?' Dad says.

I thought he was kidding around.

Wednesday night, he says, ‘You think I should dye my hair to cover up the grey?'

Once again, I thought he was having a laugh.