Happy as Larry (2 page)

The midwife looked disbelieving, but Mal knew what he'd seen: a smile as big and true as the rising sun.

TOES

T
HE NAME
L
AURENCE
had been Mal's idea. It was a serious name that met Denise's wish to counterbalance the frivolity of Rainbow. Mal considered, with an inward smile, that his friends would probably call the boy Larry. Larry Rainbow. A name that stood out on a stormy day, that rolled off the tongue like a favourite poem and that captured within its simplicity a smile.

My mate Larry. Larry with the toes that gripped his father's finger like another hand.

‘How would you feel about Augustine as a middle name?' Denise asked, tentatively.

Mal regarded his wife. Sometimes she seemed as fragile as a wounded wren. Indeed, it was this vulnerability that had attracted Mal to her when they'd first met.

Augustine was her father's name. He'd been a Christian missionary and filmmaker who Mal knew only as a flickering image surrounded by dark-skinned people all dressed in white. Augustine had been the cornerstone of Denise's life. For her first fifteen years, he'd been the rock to her dead mother's sand. Like Mal's own father, Augustine had died tragically in a car accident and too young, although Denise's dad wasn't driving drunk when his car left the road.

Denise had told him the truths hidden behind the white-toothed smiles in her father's movies. He'd built churches and libraries, community halls and gardens that turned to rubble and ash under the weight of the people's indifference. Then his beloved wife died. Just as he'd started to escape from her memory, just as his life was becoming his own again, he fell asleep at the wheel. All that was left was the car, the tree and pieces of the man.

For Denise, giving her son his name honoured him in a way the mortal world never would.

‘Okay,' said Mal. ‘Laurence Augustine Rainbow,' he sang, and lifted the child above his head.

His wife smiled.

Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, and Laurence Augustine Rainbow was christened in a quiet ceremony attended by a few postal workers and a small flock of the ladies from Denise's church. As a keen new father, Mal took to jogging home from the post office. He was already lean and hard from his daily ten-kilometre round – on foot – and the jog home barely raised a sweat. With a beer on hand and his boy in his arms, he'd hang off every detail his wife could recall about their day together: from the time and duration of Larry's sleeps and feeds to the contents of his nappies, Mal didn't miss a word.

There was a story, however, that Denise tried to forget.

The Rainbows didn't own a car. Mal and Denise agreed that it was better for the environment, their savings and their health and wellbeing if they could do without, and on the whole it worked. Except on shopping days when there was so much to carry on the pram. Larry travelled serenely in the baby capsule aboard the shopping trolley. He would never sleep in the capsule, but his temperament made shopping an unhurried and uncomplicated endeavour.

On the ill-fated day, Denise found her husband a gift she knew he would love: a home-brewing kit. It made sense on every level. The man loved to tinker and potter and fiddle; the house they'd rented for four years in Fishburn Street was testimony to that. He was a man who sought the company of men many years his senior – father figures, Denise surmised, knowing how much he'd endured living with an alcoholic single mother – and he bathed in their wisdom and practicality. Like Mr Montanetti next door, who in a single afternoon got Mal hooked on growing vegetables.

Mal and his friends drank beer and none of them brewed their own. If he made two batches, the kit would pay for itself.

Denise paid at the checkout and carefully balanced the box on the pram. With two bags wedged on the lower rack, the pram had a satisfying equilibrium and there was a hint of happy pride in Denise's step as she donned her sunglasses and rolled out into the blue-eyed springtime.

She was more than halfway home with the wheels of the pram
tock
-
tock
-
tock
ing kindly over the lines in the pavement when the feeling of having forgotten something crept up on her.

Butter. No.

Milk. No.

Eggs. No, got eggs.

It ticked like a time bomb in the suitcase of her mind.

Nappies. Plenty.

Shavers. Fine.

Toothpaste. Uh huh.

And then it exploded.

Baby!

Larry was still strapped in the shopping trolley.

She left the pram and the shopping in the middle of the pavement and ran. Her flat shoes slapped on the tar in the carpark and a woman in a big four-wheel drive braked hard and stalled when she realised Denise was not going to stop for her bullbar.

Denise was moving so fast that the automatic doors at the entry to the supermarket didn't have time to fully open. She hit one with her shoulder, generating a bang that made every shopper and staff member turn and look.

‘This must be Mum,' came a matronly voice. ‘Over here, Mum! Everything's okay, baby's fine.'

Denise tore her sunglasses from her face and saw the woman waving. She was in her fifties, at a guess, her hair short and dyed bright red. There was a pinched empathy about her smile that even in this most embarrassing first meeting seemed comfortingly familiar.

She jogged the last six paces as the woman rolled the trolley towards her.

‘Everything's okay,' the woman said. ‘We've been having a lovely time, haven't we, beautiful baby?'

Denise fumbled with the straps, her whole body glowing with shame.

Larry recognised his mother's face and smiled.

‘God, child, do you ever stop smiling?' the woman said, and chuckled. ‘Lady-killer, this one. What's his name?'

She stepped in and helped Denise unloop the straps from Larry's arms.

‘Larry. Well, Laurence. We call him Larry.'

‘Happens all the time,' the woman whispered. ‘Don't feel bad about it. Takes a bit of getting used to, doesn't it?'

Denise couldn't look at her face. She read the name tag. Anita. She nodded thanks and ghosted from the store.

While the thought that she'd forgotten her baby wouldn't budge from the front of Denise's mind, the whole incident slipped from the day's reportage. Mal was too enamoured with his brewing kit to sense the guilt that still clawed at his wife, and he'd brought her a gift too. A video cassette. Apparently Stan Ward's wife was part of a foreign-film club in Villea and had access to a collective library of over a hundred titles.

After dinner, when Larry had been fed and put to bed, Mal retired to the garage to set up his first brew – ‘A pale ale reminiscent of the effervescent Canadian Blond' – while Denise propped her feet up on the couch and watched
A Bout de Souffle
(
Breathless
) directed by Jean-Luc Godard. They both prickled with delight at having discovered something new. They both swooned with the potential pleasures incumbent in the new ideas. The movie reminded Denise of her father; the brewing reminded Mal of his friends. They were blind to the seeds of pain and upheaval they'd incidentally sown in each other's lives.

FISHING

L
ARRY WAS SIX
months old when he missed his first church service. He was teething, and the grizzling and dribbling had pushed Denise to the point where she felt he would ruin the service for other parishioners. Mal offered to take him fishing. Denise, at first reluctant, warmed to the idea a little when Mal dragged from the garage a metal-framed baby backpack. It had been bequeathed to them by Dominic Evans, fellow postman and local hairdresser. It had wheels and a fold-out handle, and could be worn as a backpack or pushed as a rudimentary stroller. Half unfolded, the handle became a kick stand that would allow Larry to be propped in one spot, upright and secure. The backpack also had a fold-out sun visor.

As much as she loved Larry, Denise secretly wanted the break. Secretly wanted a slice of her life back, whatever that was. Or just a few hours for herself in which to dream.

With the boy on his back, Mal found the trip to the long jetty was only two minutes longer than normal. He pointed out the sights as he walked. Being only six months old, Larry didn't understand a single word his father said, but rocking about so high above the ground and the sheer colour of that January day filled his little body with a sense of adventure, a feeling that over time became seamlessly associated with the coarse blue fabric of the backpack, the softness of his father's hair and the smell of fresh bait.

Sundays quickly found a ritual and rhythm. Everything Mal caught, he passed by his son for inspection. From the slimy toadfish to the pearly-skinned trevally, the baby just had to touch it and – if at all possible – stuff it in his mouth. Mal gave him a lustrous, weather-softened piece of abalone shell and Larry used it as a teething rusk for more than an hour and cried inconsolably when he was asked to give it up. Mal tucked it in the pocket of the backpack and brought it out those Sundays when Larry got restless while the fish were still biting.

Salmon, Tommy rough, flathead, bream, King George whiting were all on the cards, but mostly they caught inedible toadfish. The menu was set for Sunday night – Denise's fish curry and rice. If Mal had been lucky, the fish was fresh; otherwise it came from the freezer in the garage where he'd squirrelled away extras from the Sundays he'd caught more than they could eat. Larry purred as he ate, stuffing handfuls of fish – that had been meticulously crumbled to eliminate bones – mostly into his mouth.

One Sunday evening, shortly after he turned nine months old and the Europeans ended their sanctions against South Africa, Larry discovered home-brew. He'd been lowered from his high chair and came across a quarter-full longneck resting against the table leg beside his father's boot. He drank quietly as his parents chatted and ate, oblivious. He drank, and was savouring the last fizzy drops as his father reached beneath the table for the bottle. Instead of the cool brown glass, Mal found the rounded softness of his son's head. He rose in a panic and Larry dropped the empty bottle. It made a musical plunk, then a tenor rumble as it rolled across the polished floorboards. Larry smiled.

Mal could find no puddle, other than that on his son's bib. ‘Did you drink . . . ?'

Before Mal could finish his sentence, Larry's body bucked and a fountain of beery fish-curry vomit erupted from his rosebud mouth. He vomited until there was nothing left in his stomach.

His parents stared, open-mouthed.

Larry burped, grinned, and toppled sideways.

BIRTHDAY

W
HILE THE MONTHS
of the pregnancy had felt like an eternity to Denise, Larry's first birthday seemed to arrive on wings. He'd taken his first unassisted step at the age of eleven months and four days, the very day the South African parliament repealed its apartheid laws. By his birthday, his record was thirteen unaided steps in a row – the full width of the lounge. His party was a rowdy affair attended by a surprising number of church ladies and postal workers. They sampled Mal's latest home-brew and polished off all the fairy bread and cocktail frankfurts. Mr Montanetti from next door and Dominic Evans, the hairdressing postman, turned the rendition of ‘Happy Birthday' into an operatic extravaganza that had one of the church ladies swooning and calling for more beer. Stan Ward (postie) and his wife Anita arrived just after the cake had been cut. They, like all the others, had brought gifts, and Larry went from owning one stuffed rabbit to owning a veritable ark of stuffed animals, a toy piano and a red plastic tractor with blue wheels. Red-headed Anita Ward looked familiar to Denise but it wasn't until she started talking about her work as a manager at the local supermarket that Denise realised why.

While leaving her son behind had been a significant moment in Denise's life, it seemed not to figure in Anita's consciousness. She showed no glimmer of recognition. She did talk passionately and knowledgeably about international cinema, however, and Denise found herself agreeing to attend the next meeting of the Villea Foreign Film Club.

When the guests had left and little Larry was asleep, Mal and Denise slumped onto the couch and held hands. Denise's sigh said it all. It may not have been a significant moment in the history of the world, but Larry's first birthday felt to her like a huge milestone. They had food on the table and money in the bank. They'd started to count Larry's life in years, not months. They'd all survived.

CLEAN
WHITE
TEETH

O
N
W
EDNESDAYS, WHEN
Denise went to film club, Larry and Mal would play hide and seek, chasey and pillow-fights until bedtime. One particular Wednesday, when Larry was two, slipping around on the polished wooden floor in bedsocks evolved into a kind of toddler bowling. Larry, in pyjamas, would be cast by his father the length of the lounge room on his belly, only to be dashed against a foam couch placed in front of the wall. He laughed so hard and so long after each impact that he would see stars.

But from every riotous game there was a descent into calm, a brushing of teeth, a retreat to the nursery and a story before sleep. There was a full bookshelf in Larry's room, but he only liked one book:
Maurice the Mower
. Again and again.

Shortly before Larry's fourth birthday, while Hutus were slaughtering Tutsis in Rwanda, the Rainbows' world took an unexpected blow.

Larry woke in the night, as he occasionally did, and instead of putting himself back to sleep, he slipped out of his big-boy bed and felt his way along the darkened hall and into his parents' room.

‘Mal?' he whispered. ‘Daddy?'

His father snored on, but Denise sprang like a mousetrap at the sound of her little boy's voice. She almost toppled the bedside lamp, grabbed it by the neck and lit up the room.