Meatloaf in Manhattan (5 page)

‘Ny,' he says, ‘I am an old man and you are a young boy.' Ny looks up inquisitively into the kindly face of his guardian. ‘Your life is ahead of you and mine is behind me,' says Luc, looking deep into the flames as they twist and twirl and vanish into the night air. Ny sees something altogether different in the act of combustion, the mixing: something of the energy diffused, the elements combining. ‘You are a very talented boy. Your gifts must be spread beyond an old man and a flower stall.'

Luc glances at his young charge, who stares back, so trusting, so vital.

‘Ny, you should go to school. Live with a family, be with other children.'

Ny smiles, maybe at the idea, maybe at something he has deduced from the flames.

‘You want to go to school, Ny?'

Ny smiles and nods.

‘I will arrange for it,' says Luc, the pain shooting up his spine, hotter than the centre of the flames in the fire. ‘With my nephew and his family in the city.'

Ny stops chewing and looks up at the old man.

‘They will love you, as I have loved you.'

Later that night, lying side by side in the little attic room, Old Man Luc, sensing the thoughts of Ny whispers.

‘I look up at the stars sometimes and I think, Ny, that your mother might have had to go to where she went. To leave you behind to be found by me. So that I can send you to the care and protection of my nephew in Ho Chi Minh City. And then, who knows how wide your wings will spread, how far you will fly? Wherever she is now she will be happy that you are safe and well and will be learning. You need to go to school. I will be here at my stall and I will watch every night for her to return. I will go to the platform and tell her of your progress and she will smile and be at peace.'

He looks into the eyes of this boy that he loves more than he can easily express. He puts his hands on the boy's shoulders and kisses him tenderly on the forehead.

‘You have had a difficult life, my dearest boy, but remember the ancient proverb I taught you.
Cái khó bó cái khôn
. Adversity brings wisdom.'

And so it came to pass that some weeks later the old man and the young boy make their way to the train station, passing by the shuttered flower stall and into the bustle and flurry of the ticketing hall. Ny carries a small bag of his possessions and on his head he wears the silken hat of the wise old man who once graced these parts. There, on time, is the night train to Ho Chi Minh City. They walk along the platform to the spot where Ny's mother had disappeared. They climb up the steps to the carriage and settle together on the hard wooden seats. Ny sits exactly where the man with the bad-luck-red-hat had jeered and scoffed at Chi. Looking out the window on to the platform, Ny takes himself back to that night and sees his mother through the hiss and steam. Her hand outstretched. Her face pleading. But in her ghostly expression, drifting in and out of the wall of smoke, he senses a tranquillity, a letting go. And then she is gone, the platform is empty.

Presently, the train rumbles into motion. As the journey progresses Ny marvels at this his first ride on a train. He is beguiled by the myriad sights that pass by, the colours, the movement, the smells. As night darkens, Ny sees patterns on the wind, shapes in the twists of trees, shimmers in refracted light that will unravel mysteries to one day dazzle and set the world afree. He rests his head on the bony shoulder of his beloved guardian and, drifting into sleep, dreams deeply of larva flows, spider webs and rainbows.

Yes, this boy was born from darkness and cold deep water, but as the first light touches the hem of the clouds he awakens to see something of everything in all that surrounds him. The colour of light, the train on the track that whistles and steams, and the droplets of rain on the glass of the window between him and the world beyond.

THE VISIT

‘Mother. It is me, Michael.'

They sit around the wall, slumped in chairs. Some with baby bibs to catch the dribble, others in outsized carpet slippers, for they have nowhere to go. A big television, the size of a sideboard, shows an afternoon game show. Lights flash on the screen as buttons are pressed by excited contestants. Around the room heads nod in and out of sleep, full of wisdom and hundreds of years of life, waiting for a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit.

I sit opposite the woman who is my mother. Her hair, long whitened by the twist of her mind, is now yellowed by surrender. I hold her hand. It is as cold and fragile as the body of a dead bird. She responds to the touch, looking up and through me as if I am made from glass.

A nurse appears and tells us we can go into the garden if we wish.

‘That'll be nice,' I say to her, looking at my mother. ‘Let's go into the garden, where we can talk better.'

She doesn't seem to understand, so the nurse eases her up by her elbow.

‘Come on Mrs Daly. A nice stroll in the garden with your son who's come all this way to see you,' says the nurse.

My mother clutches her handbag to her chest and takes my arm.

‘Okay, okay,' she says. ‘I'm not stupid. I know who I am.'

We walk along the long high-windowed corridor to the doors leading out to the lawn. My mother wears a peppermint-coloured cardigan, a long brown skirt and tomato-red woolly tights. She'll be warm enough. I guide her towards a bench overlooking a small lily pond. We sit down together. Overhead, clouds scurry across the sky, rushing to find a new horizon. Leaves play leapfrog on the lawn, the surface of the pond ripples at the behest of the wind.

‘Not too blowy for you, mother, is it?'

She looks at me, holding out her handbag, ignoring my question. I recognise it from the old house. It is soft brown leather with a gold metal clasp. I remember playing with it when I was a child, loving the feel of the clasp and the sound it made when you shut it.

‘Your handbag,' I say. ‘I used to like opening and closing it when I was little.'

She smiles. Her lipstick is smudged, making her mouth look larger and crooked, her smile more needy, more disturbed. She seems so much older. So different. Once, though it feels like an age away now, she was tall and strong and as sharp as a pin. Back then she could outride any drover and outwit and outbid the smartest cattle men in the state. When they saw her at auction they turned to each other and whispered warnings. Some pretended to dismiss her, but each secretly watched her as she moved through the stock. The slap on a hide; a glimmer of interest. Subtle signals that she had seen something others had missed. Some scribbled cryptic notes to themselves, others looked away, as if they'd seen nothing, but storing away the memory nonetheless. How I loved being with you then. To see the look of admiration on the faces of the gnarled old farmers when you closed the deals. Their respect was grudging, but it was real, and some of them would tell me what a rare and fine woman you were, a battler. It made me proud to listen to the things they'd say, to tell me something I vaguely knew. What with it just being me and you and no man to hold us together.

As I grew up we talked more and more. Sitting by the fire after another long day in the fields or the cowsheds. We were close. Not like the gossips said, as if we were some odd kind of married couple. No, we knew who we were, what we meant to each other, what we were aiming to achieve. We knew well our purpose in life. I look at you now and it seems so long ago that I heard your voice, strong and clear and full of intent. I see you standing tall on the edge of a field of wheat. I see you looking up to the night sky, watching out for the weather, reading the stars. And here you are now, playing with the clasp of your handbag and you seem so far away, so absent.

Mother. How can I tell you what I need to say? The doctor told me it might disturb you too much, that the news will upset you. Even though you are forgetting so much, the doctor said that if I tell you it will come back to your mind and then disappear, only to return. And that the nurses will see you crying, sobbing. Yet when they come to give you comfort you will have forgotten what it was that troubled you so. But you and I are all we have. All we've ever had. I have no one else to tell that will understand, that will comprehend the details. It is to you I have told everything. You were always the one. The one and only.

My earliest, clearest, memory is standing in the paddock above the creek. The sky was so big, so blue all around us. The huge gum trees, hundreds of feet tall. We were just a small boy and his mother, two specks in an immense world. You won't remember that day. It wasn't so special to you. I looked up at you, you were saying something, the sun was behind you and I could barely make out the details of your face. But you were beautiful and you were mine and in the immensity of the world I felt safe and held. I squeezed your hand as hard as I could and you looked down at me and the sun caught the flash of your smile and I could feel the soft skin of your palm.

Once, years later, when the crop failed and you looked so worn and worried, you said to me, as we stood together in the barn, that we'd be fine, that the two of us together would be strong and we'd pull through. We hugged, I was only ten or eleven, but I knew I was the man in the growing and that our life was our life. And the flattened crops could be cleared and the soil tilled and seeds replanted. So how can I not tell you now, when we have told each other everything all these years long?

‘Mother, are you warm?'

She smiles, hearing but not listening.

She is still looking past me, over my shoulder. I turn around. What is it she is seeing?

‘Mother, I found Trailer's old leash the other day. You know the one with the metal studs. It made me think of how he used to chase those big goannas away from the chookhouse, barking like crazy. Those dinosaurs scared the life out of me, with their shoulders like bulls and teeth that would rot your arm if the bite got into your blood. But he'd square up to them any day. You used to say we were the three musketeers. Me, you and that dog without an ear. Do you remember him, Mum?'

In one of those rare moments of lucidity her eyes light up and she sees me as her son. Maybe she even remembers the old dog, but she doesn't say so. Just smiles a little.

‘The barn,' she says. ‘the old coppper kettle in the barn.'

She stares at me. Into my face, as if for the very first time. Then she is lost again. Her eyes are distant, as if they are tired and have given up, as if they recognise nothing of this day, of this place.

‘My mammy said he called by today, after his shift,' says my mother, from somewhere deep in the past. ‘But I was out playing tennis. He'll call again. He'll call again, soon. He's to call again to take me out walking on the promenade. We'll take a turn together around the sweep of the bay.'

She looks at me, surprised at what she sees.

‘You're not him,' she adds. ‘No you're not him. You look nothing like him and you're far too old.'

So I hold her hand and stroke her arm and we sit in the fading sun on the bench. Every now and then an old man or woman walks by, separate and deep in their own world, far, far away. I look into your face. It is the face of my mother, but a shadow has been cast between us. Breaking a bond. I grip your hand, but you don't respond. So we sit together on this bench and that, for now, will have to be enough.

So maybe it's for the best that I don't tell you what has happened. Anyway, it is all so strange, even now. After the events. There were warnings. On the radio and from the folk in town. Old Barry Davies drove up the hill in his battered ute to check I'd heard what was in the offing. You staying? he said.

I guess so, I replied. What else is there to do? It was like nothing we'd seen before. So much rain. Day after day, until it got so dark with the deluge of it all that you couldn't tell morn from night. Then when it came it was as if the world had exploded. The wall of water and the trees crashing and the mud and the machinery and the bits of houses and animals all at once. It engulfed everything. The barn just upped and washed away and the cattle, swirling and screeching, big eyes trying to stay above the whirlpools and the crops and trees all uprooted and swept away. I had climbed to the top of the silo and could see the whole landscape transform before my eyes. As if I was the last man left in the world.

All we'd worked for ripped away in a flash. I saw a huge croc swim by just below my feet and snakes and lizards and all manner of animals drowned and drowning and wriggling in the flow. All helpless together. So I just waited there. Thinking about the long life we'd had, me and you and how it was all being swept away beneath our feet.

Sometime later on in the night the rain stopped and the torrent slowed. It was almost peaceful. I just sat on top of that silo watching for the sun to rise, which it did. As if nothing untoward or remarkable had occurred. As if God had turned his back for a while and had missed the show.

Around mid-morning Barry Davies came by in his old tinny. He circled around where the house had been, his oar barely making a sound. Then he saw me atop the only structure still standing and headed my way. We nodded at each other and he asked me if I was okay and I said I was. Then he told me to get in the boat and we rowed in silence back to town. Eventually the water gave way to higher ground and we tied the boat to a post. Then we walked through the mud and the slop to a shelter that had been set up by the railway station. Not much more than a plastic tent, but everyone was there and it was kind of reassuring to see those familiar faces from town, no matter they all looked so sad and lost, everyone sitting quietly in their grief and bemusement.

I'm glad you were here up-country and away from it all. The doctor said it was on the news, but you took no notice, even though the old high street was shown blown away. Once the flooding subsided I went back to see what could be salvaged. But everything's gone. All the topsoil's been washed away, just leaving bare rock. It's like the present has been peeled back to reveal the past. Just a couple of huge trees and all that rock. And that's when I saw Trailer's leash, the studs glistening in the sun. Wrapped around a branch like a snake warming its cold body in the midday heat. I hadn't seen that leash in years. No idea where it came from, but that's about the sum of all that's left. Mother, I'm not sure what I'll do now. I'm on my own I suppose.