Forgetting Foster (16 page)

‘Fossie!
Please!
'

Aunty heaved the words at Foster unexpectedly loudly. He could hear the pieces of mirror chinking about in the newspaper parcel Aunty was making. He didn't go and find something to do though. What was he supposed to do? He had just discovered that a room spattered with blood has a rusty smell that clears out the senses and coats the tongue. He didn't think he could play right now.

‘Get me a plastic bag from the kitchen, Fossie?'

He was going to. He could see himself walking in there, opening that bottom drawer, pulling out a squeaky bag or two, returning to the bathroom. But he hadn't moved. He realised he hadn't moved when there was a firm knock at the front door. In his head he was holding plastic bags for Aunty. In his body he
was empty-handed, being knocked on as surely as if he were a door itself.

‘For fuck's sake,' Aunty muttered. Then looking up, ‘Foster, get me a plastic bag!'

‘Are you going to answer the door?'

‘No.'

Foster was walking to the kitchen for real this time when the knock on the door happened again. He didn't think about it. He just opened the door. It was the normal thing to do.

Miss Watson was wringing her hands in a way that gave Foster goose flesh. She looked down at him, then past him down the hall, before saying, ‘Go and get your mum.'

‘She's not here.'

‘You're not home alone?'

‘No, he's not,' Aunty said, walking up behind Foster. ‘Can I help you, Myra?'

‘I came to see if I could help you,' Miss Watson said.

‘Thank you. No.'

‘Is that blood?'

Foster turned around to see what Miss Watson was seeing. Aunty was looking down at her shirt, her hands. But the blood was on one knee of her jeans. Perhaps she hadn't noticed. Perhaps she hadn't heard
Foster when he told her about it. So he pointed to it. ‘There,' he said.

‘Is someone hurt?' Miss Watson asked.

‘No,' Aunty replied.

‘Yes,' Foster said. He felt Aunty's fingers grip his shoulder. Just like the old lady's church grip. He didn't care. ‘Dad broke a mirror and cut himself. There was blood
everywhere
. Aunty and me are cleaning it up.'

‘Not really a job for a child,' Miss Watson said to Aunty.

‘What do you want, Myra?'

‘What do you want, Myra?' Foster hadn't known he was going to repeat it until the words were out of his mouth. Miss Watson looked shocked. It felt good to him. Aunty squeezed his shoulder more firmly.

‘Cheeky!' Miss Watson said.

‘Cheeky,' Foster repeated.

‘Fossie, stop it!'

Foster turned and looked at Aunty and said, ‘Fossie stop it,' straight back at her, but without the distress he could plainly feel in her grip and tone.

‘Myra, I have to go,' Aunty said, pulling Foster back from the open door.

‘There's something wrong with that child,' Miss Watson said as the door swung closed.

‘There's something wrong with that child,' Foster said. Aunty leaned her back against the front door, hands on hips.

‘Plastic bag?' she said.

my stranger, my self

Foster stood for a long time in front of the mirror in his bedroom. It was the only one that hadn't been turned to the wall. So far. The big mirror with the fancy frame in the lounge room had been taken down. The small one in the hall that Mum used to check her face before going out had been turned around. That had been easy to do because it hung on a little chain. The miniature cheval mirror Dad had bought Mum as a birthday gift was tucked in the bottom of her wardrobe. With her shoes. She had another long one in their bedroom that was bolted to the wall. That was covered with a sheet that draped in long, stiff meringues of shiny cotton, ghost-like. It bothered Foster even when he wasn't looking at it. He just had to imagine it. Foster thought there was something unpleasant, wrong even,
in covering mirrors. Rooms looked darker, unlived in. It was like putting away pieces of Dad himself.

A boy at school had said that when his granddad died they had to cover all of the mirrors in the house in case his granddad's soul got trapped in one and couldn't get to heaven. Foster had said that was stupid. But now he felt nervous and helpless watching Mum treating mirrors as if Dad was dead.

So he stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom, which he was allowed to do so long as he covered it with a tea towel afterwards in case Dad went in there. He tried to imagine seeing a stranger there instead of his own reflection. He squeezed his eyes shut for so long that when he opened them he had to rapid-blink his face into focus, but it was still and always his own face. He turned his back to the mirror and spun around to see if some other person peeked out of the mirror while he wasn't looking. It didn't matter what he did, he only ever saw himself. He even touched the mirror, something Mum hated because they were so difficult to polish. He wondered how hard Dad would have had to punch the stranger he saw in order to shatter the cold, hard surface. He liked the way the mirror felt, and Mum wasn't likely to be polishing the mirrors now anyway.

Everyone said it was a mistake – that Dad just hadn't recognised himself and that this was a part of his illness. When he thought he saw a stranger in the mirror he'd been frightened. Foster heard them all talking about it when Dad came home from the hospital. James was there, and Aunty, and another person he hadn't seen before. It was this other person, a chubby woman, who suggested covering or removing the mirrors. Mum had made some tea and they were all sitting at the kitchen table. Including Dad.

‘If Dad punched the mirror because he thought it was a stranger, why isn't he punching you?' Foster asked Chubby Lady.

Everyone looked at him. His voice seemed to have the ability to startle people lately. It was powerful to be forgotten.

‘That's inappropriate, Fossie. Apologise,' Mum said. Aunty was smiling though. Chubby Lady leaned forward.

‘He's not frightened right now. And he knows I'm here to help,' she said.

‘How do you know he knows that?' Foster asked.

‘Well, he's quite happy, isn't he?'

‘He's doing his imaginary sewing. He does that when he's not happy,' Foster said.

‘That's enough, Foster,' Mum said, reflexively resting her hand on Dad's to still their busyness.

Chubby Lady continued talking to Mum. ‘You may find the worst time of day in terms of distress is late afternoon. We're not really sure why. It's fairly common though. “Sundowning” they call it, and there are—'

‘I think he was scrying,' Foster said.

‘You think he was crying?' James asked.

‘Scrying! Dad told me about it. Mirrors are magic. Dad told me a story about Nostril Dumbass who lived hundreds of years ago. He used mirrors and bowls of water to see into the future. And other people did too. Witches and queens like the one in Snow White. That's why we shouldn't cover the mirrors because Dad was scrying. We need to know what he saw. Has anyone just asked him what he
saw
?'

Everyone was looking at him. Foster swallowed hard to push his heart back down to where it was supposed to be. ‘People did it before they went into battle even! Just to decide what to do about stuff and find out what other people were doing and if you had some dragon's blood—'

‘Enough!'
Mum shouted. She wasn't usually a shouty person but Foster had noticed that lately she
wore the kind of sour face that smacked of a whole lot of stuff rolling about just beneath the surface. It was the sort of face Dad would say was begging a good scrying. Foster had also noticed that most of the time she spoke to him lately it involved her being spitty and him being humiliated. He didn't like being shouted at, especially in front of strangers who should be being punched, not invited to the table to talk about Dad as if he wasn't even in the room.

Foster knew that breaking the mirror proved that the General was still in there. That he still had his great powers. No one else understood and he couldn't make them understand if they all looked at him like they'd been slapped upside the head by a wet fish and then became shouty. There was no cavalry in this room. The peg basket was getting tighter and tighter around the captive. Foster could almost see the imprint of its hard plastic edges on Dad's face. That snarl of lines around his eyes was his skintight prison getting choky close.

No one said anything for a while. There was just tea-sipping and contemplation. When James reached across and took hold of Foster's hand under the table Foster slapped it away because that one act of kindness might make him go bonkers.

‘I think we need to talk about all of these things you are worried about, Foster,' James said. ‘But probably not now. A bit later.'

‘I'm not worried,' Foster said.

‘Have you thought about getting some help for the boy?' Chubby Lady said this leaning across the table to touch the back of Mum's hand. The touch made Mum raise her eyes and look directly at Foster. ‘We can help organise some counselling for him. He seems slightly detached from reality. There are support programs for the children of—'

Foster hadn't climbed the jacaranda in a long time. He began to feel the familiar flurry of tickly, papery wings in his chest that always made him want to climb. But it was dark outside. There was a moon tonight. It had risen into the top left corner of the kitchen window and glazed everything nicely. Foster liked the moon. He liked its predictable changing from nothing to fullness. He liked the way its light was put out every month and then came back. He knew it was called wax and wane. Dad had told him that. Dad had even sung him a song about it. Foster tried to remember the words to the song now but the only thing he could keep in his head was the song about a bullfrog called Jeremiah. So he sang that instead.

tender meat

‘What are you thinking about?'

Mum had been asking Foster this quite a lot lately. Dad used to ask him that too. But Mum asked it differently to Dad. She asked as if she had no real curiosity. She asked as if she had been told to ask him because asking would show interest. She was never looking at him when she asked. She was always busy with something else, her hands and eyes constantly moving. If there had been a stillness to the question, Foster might have welcomed it. But he had an awful feeling that Mum wanting in on his thoughts was just a trap he'd better not step into. Saying what he thought hadn't gone too well for him lately. His shift from the ancient tradition of using frogs and toads in scrying to Jeremiah was a bullfrog had made Mum
burst into tears and earned him an appointment with a special doctor who also spent most of the time asking Foster what he was thinking about. So rather than feel relieved that he was being seen and his thoughts valued, Foster just felt bossed around.

When Mum asked ‘What are you thinking about?' her face said she was far, far away. Maybe even back in her castle. Mostly Mum seemed tired. The strange thing was that it wasn't a normal tired. It didn't look like the kind of tired that follows hard work or a long time concentrating on something important. Mum didn't roll her shoulders or yawn or get up to put the kettle on like she usually did when she was feeling tired. This was a moody tired. It made her unpredictable and Foster heard her complaining to Aunty on the phone about headaches. Her words became a bit slurred, and she seemed to cry more easily than she used to.

A couple of times Foster came across Mum with her head drooped, rivulets of drool greasing her chin. He learnt quickly enough that she was not comfortably napping and she might swing from this inactivity to crossness without warning and with even less grace. Whenever Foster came across her in this state of dozy instability, he played quietly and watched the clock waiting for Dad to come home.

Dad was spending more time during weekends at day care. When Dad was in the house Foster felt a single purpose. To tell him stories, read him picture books, and watch his face. Foster was sure that even if Dad wasn't talking he was listening, so he behaved as if rescue was always imminent.

Dad was always more responsive after day care. Foster felt it a shame that Mum seemed to miss out on Dad's best hour because she was already very tired when he got home. Aunty usually drove Dad home from day care because Mum had already had a few tired wines. Foster reckoned that probably helped her when Dad wasn't very nice to her. It certainly helped her not bite back, which everyone said she absolutely must not do. But then one day Mum did bite back in a way that shocked everyone.

This particular afternoon Dad was really chatty. They were all gathered around the kitchen table apart from Mum, who after checking Geraldine was still in the yard, started peeling beetroot at the sink. Aunty encouraged Foster and Mum to join in, to try to be involved in the stories Dad was remembering, even if he didn't seem to be making much sense. Foster was happy to sit holding Dad's hand while Aunty tried to steer him towards things that had happened
a long time ago. That was his best place, his happiest place. The long ago. So between all the hissing and harrumphing Dad sprayed in Mum's direction, he had periods of nonstop banter and giggling with Aunty and Foster. It reminded Foster of that Christmas when Dad had had four glasses of blueberry port with a beer chaser. There was the same joyous temper in his tone and his eyes. Every now and then he would bawl at Mum for a few seconds, his irritation increasing when Mum didn't respond. But Aunty would bring him back to point with a distraction, a question, a memory.

Foster didn't notice Dad become quiet right away. He was watching Mum deliberately doing the lazy-peel on the beetroot. She said beetroot-peeling had to be done quickly and efficiently to prevent skin-staining. Foster had always liked watching her do it. But this time she was doing it slowly, haphazardly rolling the bulbs in her palms, deliberately smearing herself with the purple juice. It bothered him in the same way it bothered him when Mum dressed Dad in clothes that didn't match. He was about to walk over to her and ask if he could help when he noticed Dad staring at her in a peculiar way. Then Dad said, ‘The gall of that woman.'