Sing Fox to Me (13 page)

Samson followed. ‘Jonah?' he said, as he opened the door.

His brother was kneeling on the floor with his hands under his bed. Samson wondered if Jonah was praying like the Other Samson. Jonah's hands darted out. Maybe he didn't know how to pray. Samson had seen it in pictures. ‘That's not how you do it,' he said.

Jonah turned around and stood up. His jacket was unzipped, and his hands were shaking by his sides as if trying to flick something away.

‘I can show you how.'

‘Shut up.' Jonah was breathless, and a long black feather was stuck to his arm.

Samson stretched towards it, but Jonah pulled himself sharply out of reach. ‘You have a feather,' said Samson.

Jonah brushed it away. ‘Mind your own business.'

‘You hold your hands like this,' Samson explained as his hands moved into the shape of a triangular temple in front of his face.

Jonah didn't respond.

Samson dropped his hands. ‘I'm hungry,' he said. ‘Can you make me a sandwich?'

Clancy had almost finished cleaning up the pelt when he saw Murray pass by the laundry window on his way to the house. ‘Hooroo,' called Clancy. He folded the skin and tucked it up into the arm of his cardigan.

Murray stopped and came round to the laundry door. ‘What're you doing out here?' he asked, because they both knew it'd been years since Clancy had done any washing. Murray's face fell as soon as he saw the state of Clancy's clothes. ‘Shit, mate. You alright?'

‘Yeah, just washing up.'

‘You're lookin' pretty rough. Where you been?'

‘Just for a hike,' said Clancy.

Murray eyed Clancy's leg suspiciously. ‘You still up to that kind of walking?'

‘What're you doing here?'

Murray shook his head. ‘King's missing.'

Clancy's stomach dropped. He knew how much that bloody kookaburra meant to Murray. They'd saved each other, really, Murray and King. Chosen each other, known what each other wanted, and conjured an almost secret world between them. Just like Clancy had with Queenie. Something deep in Clancy's gut told him not to tell Murray about his dog being gone too. ‘Bloody rotten luck. Has he shot through before?'

‘I don't reckon he
has
shot through.'

‘How you mean?' asked Clancy. The tiger moved inside his sleeve again.

‘Seems a hell of a coincidence, doesn't it. Your grandsons arrive … then my bird disappears. The smaller boy –'

‘Jonah?'

‘Yeah, him … he was pretty keen on King the night me and Tilda came round for tea.'

‘Animals go missing all the time in the bush,' said Clancy. ‘You know that.'

Murray shook his head, as though there was something Clancy just wasn't getting. ‘Not King. He's old as the hills, and he can't bloody fly.'

Clancy wanted to laugh. He wanted to say that he didn't know how flightless animals got lost, and if he did, he might've found his daughter years ago. He thought of the running girl in the bush, and he wanted to tell Murray that something had changed on his mountain. The boys were waking things up, stirring life back into old death. He wanted to tell Murray that anything could be next, and there might be a price to pay. But, mostly, Clancy wanted to tell Murray to grow up and pull his head in. Instead, he said, ‘You look tired.'

‘Not getting much sleep, with Tilda getting close to due.'

Clancy nodded.

‘You know, she's pretty upset about King. And she's none too happy about the twins hanging around.'

‘I'll keep an eye out for King,' Clancy said, and he patted Murray on the arm as he passed. The tiger moved inside his sleeve.

Murray looked up, right into Clancy's eye. Neither of them said anything, but they both knew what was hiding in his old cardigan.

Murray turned and walked away from him silently.

Clancy had left a muddy print on the back of his shoulder.

four

J
onah Fox lay in bed staring at the ceiling. His granddad was outside on the lawn, calling for his missing dog like he had every morning for a couple of weeks. Occasionally Jonah would hear his brother, like an echo. ‘QUEENIE!' Clancy would shout. ‘Queenie,' Samson would repeat.

Jonah rolled over and tried to ignore both of them, but the morning sun had pushed through the threadbare curtains. It probably wasn't even breakfast time yet. Jonah wriggled to the edge of his bed and bent over the side. First he pushed his dad's satchel out of the way, then he slid the shoebox from under his mattress and opened it. King was inside, bent, hard, almost naked in a nest of his own feathers. The smell was gone, and it hadn't been easy to conceal the scent of rotting flesh. Fortunately the bird was small, and Clancy had plenty of unused pine air fresheners at the bottom of his bathroom cabinet.

Jonah replaced the lid, pushed it under the bed behind his dad's satchel and rolled onto his back. King wasn't working anymore. He didn't get the same thrill from touching the bird's moulting, hardened body. He wanted something soft, malleable. He wanted something that could bring him comfort, but not decay and disappear over time. Jonah wanted something that could never, ever leave him.

Just like the fox in the Brisbane Museum.

He had seen the fox as soon as they stepped off the escalators. It was in a display decorated to look like the highway at night. There were Pepsi cans, empty bags of McDonald's, a twisted black car tyre, some used toilet paper and a kangaroo carcass being picked apart by three big black crows. Every now and then, lights flashed and the sound of a truck would seem to rush past.

The fox was towards the back of the display, watching the disfigured body of the kangaroo and the three bickering crows. Jonah put his hands on the glass. The fox bristled and then shuddered, like a dog shaking off after a bath. Jonah pressed himself harder against the glass. The fox straightened up and looked at him.

‘Come on, Jonah,' said his mum. The fox shrank back into its watchful, frozen pounce. ‘Samson wants to find the koala. Don't touch the glass, darling.' She grabbed his arm.

Jonah shook her hand away. He hated it when his mum treated him like a little kid. ‘I'm looking at the fox.'

‘You've seen it. We've been waiting.'

‘I'm not done.'

‘I'm taking Samson to find the koala, and then we're going for spiders. Do what you want.' She walked back over to where Samson was standing by the entrance and took him by the hand. Jonah's face burned. They both looked like retards.

Samson loved the taxidermy koala because every time they came to the Brisbane Museum with their mum, the koala had moved. Once they found it clinging to the pillar in the front entrance, and another time it was hanging from a guardrail over the dinosaur egg display. Jonah said it ruined the display because koalas didn't even exist yet, but Samson didn't seem to care.

That day they found the koala in a room filled with other taxidermy animals. There was a bear, a tiger, mice and even a kangaroo. ‘Look at the bear, Mum,' said Jonah, as he pointed to a huge, angry grizzly frozen inside a glass case. The bear was up on its hind legs, rearing back, ready to swat some smaller animal with one of its huge paws. The jaws were open, baring its teeth.

Mimicking the shape of the bear, Jonah turned around and growled. He didn't realise Samson was behind him, also trying to see the bear. When he saw the terrified look on his brother's face, Jonah froze, his fingers still curled into claws. Samson started to sob.

‘You scared him.'

‘Sorry.' Jonah dropped his hands. His bear claws recoiled into his fingertips.

‘Jonah,' said their mum. She hated it when Samson cried. ‘You know how to sign an apology. Do it, please.'

Sorry
, he signed.
Sorry
was the only sign he'd ever needed to learn.

Samson sat at the kitchen table, his hands in his lap, waiting for someone to make him something to eat. He wanted toast, but he still didn't know where the toaster was kept because most days he ate cereal or waited for Jonah and Clancy to cook. But Clancy was taking forever, and Samson was supposed to meet Mattie. She'd said she had something special to show him.

A noise down the hallway. Jonah slunk out, still wearing his pyjamas, a copy of
The Jungle Book
tucked under his arm. He sat down opposite Samson but didn't look at him
.

‘I'm hungry.'

Jonah didn't glance up from his book. ‘Wait for Clancy.'

Samson sighed. ‘I can make it,' he said.

Jonah shook his head. ‘No, you can't.'

‘I don't mind.'

‘Leave it! It's Clancy's turn.' Jonah turned back to
The Jungle Book
.

Samson coughed, but Jonah kept ignoring him. ‘What part are you up to?' asked Samson.

His brother shushed him.

‘Good morning,' said Clancy to Jonah as he walked into the kitchen.

Samson sat up eagerly. ‘We're waiting for food.'

Closing his book, Jonah looked over at his granddad calmly. ‘It's your turn.'

‘Righto,' said Clancy, and he cracked six eggs into the frypan before he turned on the heat.

‘Eggs,' said Jonah, ‘again.'

‘I like breakfast,' said Samson.

‘
The Jungle Book
, aye?' Clancy pointed to it.

‘Yep.'

‘That copy belonged to your dad.'

‘How do you know?'

‘I got it for him.' Clancy turned on the burner under the kettle. ‘He loved to read, your dad.'

‘I know,' said Jonah.

Clancy nodded. The eggs hissed in the pan.

‘Did you read it?' asked Jonah, after a pause.

‘I have,' said Clancy.

‘Who did you like the best?'

‘Can't say I remember it all that well.'

‘My favourite is Shere Khan.'

‘That's the tiger, right?'

Jonah nodded.

Clancy stopped. His bent leg propped up against the kitchen bench. ‘You like tigers?'

Jonah shrugged.

‘I like the Grey Brother,' said Samson, because he could feel the anger boiling beneath his feet, the same as when his parents argued.

‘Do you?' Clancy asked Jonah, and his eyes were narrowed like in the picture of Bagheera the panther.

Jonah shrugged. ‘Not especially,' he said, but Samson could tell his brother was lying.

Clancy turned around and started serving up the eggs. ‘Either of you want to visit your grandma with me?'

‘Not me,' said Samson. ‘I have … well, I have some stuff to do.' He watched the eggs slip one after another onto the plates. His stomach growled.

‘What about you?' said Clancy, without turning around.

‘Can't,' said Jonah, as he turned a page of his book. ‘Reading.'

Clancy glanced down at the bunch of flowers in his hand. The tiger stirred inside the sleeve of his cardigan as if trying to smell them. The flowers looked as though they'd been through the wood chipper. He'd never been good with flowers, and they were always a dog's breakfast by the time he got them to her grave.

Essie had asked to be buried in the highest gully on the mountain where, twice a year, the earth above their house was a veil of white daisies. Maybe she wouldn't have made such a romantic request if she knew how difficult it had been for him and George to carry her up and dig the hole. But, maybe she still would have. Clancy had wished there was some way he could bury her with her hair, but her red curls were long gone. Taken by the cancer and the chemo.

She gave a single auburn lock to Clancy and one to George before it was all gone. George wove his into a long flat band and wore it around his neck.

The path came to an end at a furrow behind the waterfall. Warm midday sunlight trickled over the surface of the churning water. Everything looked as if it had been dipped in gold. Essie had loved the waterfall. On school holidays she would take the kids swimming almost every day. Some days, Clancy found time to join them, watching them swim from the bank. There was never much play between them. It was more deliberate, meditative, as though the water could bring all three of them back to a time when David and River were still swimming inside Essie's belly.

Clancy had never completely fit with the three of them. He looked over to the edge of the waterfall where they all used to lie down their towels.

Clancy and Essie were lying on a blanket, with River on her back between them. David was on the other side of the creek, stretched out on his towel, reading. River kicked her legs and blew bubbles from her mouth as if she was already swimming.

‘She has your eyes,' said Essie, and she tickled her daughter's feet. River kicked her mother's fingers.

‘My eyes are blue,' said Clancy.

‘That's not important,' she said.

‘It is to me.'

‘She has your inside.'

‘What does that mean?' he asked.

Essie looked up from her daughter and caught his eyes. She was still so beautiful. Her eyes were green. ‘Don't push so hard,' she said, ‘or Rivy and I might roll all the way down the mountain, and you'll never get us back.'

River laughed.

Clancy stood up and walked to the edge of the creek. Sunlight danced through the surface of the water like thousands of tiny firebugs caught in a spider web. He took a deep breath. Mud folded into the falls and fell with the clean water from the spring. The creek slowly turned brown.

‘I'm still your wife,' Essie said. Her voice still echoed across the water.

Clancy shook his head and stepped into the clearing, good leg first. The tiger shuddered inside his sleeve.

He stopped. There was a man in the clearing beneath the rocky overhang, crouched over Essie's grave. The man stood and turned around.

Samson tried not to feel afraid, but he'd never seen the inside of a cave before. Everything seemed small and sharp and trapped, but somehow enormous as well.

I come here all the time
, Mattie signed.

Samson took a step forward. His clothes felt thin and his skin felt thin. Even his long, Other Samson hair felt thin. Behind him was the opening to the cave, and in front of him was another kind of opening, darker and more of a tunnel leading into something he couldn't see. Mattie said this cave was special. It was daylight, but the sun was getting further and further away. Inside, the cave smelt damp and musty like socks, and dirty like freshly overturned garden soil.

Mattie beckoned him in, but it was dark.

‘I can't see you,' said Samson, even though she couldn't hear or see him.

His voice echoed across the walls. Every sound he made was swallowed up by the rock and spat back in ghoulish echoes. His footsteps were louder than thunder. His hands, reaching to steady himself on the wall, sounded like thousands of scratching rats, and his breathing was the surf after a storm.

There was a drip. It might have been somewhere behind him, or in front, but when Samson tried to pinpoint it, the noise jumped and was everywhere. Every rock was dripping into every other rock, and every sound could dissolve into every other sound.

Samson held his arms out, searching for Mattie in the darkness. He found her neck. Her hair was soft. His hands travelled down her long, curly ponytail as though he was searching for a light switch on the wall of a dark room.

Mattie took his hand, and the inside of his palm burst like firecrackers.

He'd held hands with girls before. Probably more times than any of the boys in mainstream school, because everyone held hands at Special School. His mum always held his hand, worried he'd wander away. Even his dad still held his hand when they crossed the road, because his mum said it was important.

With Mattie, it was different.

Then she dropped his hand and turned on the torch.
Click
. Light burst from the centre of her hand.

It faded into a dim twilight as his eyes adjusted. The cave was small, but the ceiling was so high that he couldn't see the top. The air felt light and heavy at the same time. Mattie pointed over her shoulder to a smaller archway behind them, leading into another, narrower tunnel filled with darkness.

Samson shook his head.

Mattie didn't try to convince him. She crouched until her body made an L shape, and she moved along the side of the cave, down through the second arch, feeling her way with her right hand and holding the torch with her left.

Samson didn't want to go. He probably wouldn't even fit through the tiny entrance, but he made an L shape and followed the darting torchlight anyway. Almost straight away, he wanted to go back, but his shoulders were too big to turn around. His breathing was wet and deep.
In. Out. In, out
.

The light from the torch darted sideways. Samson couldn't see the outline of Mattie anymore.
In, out
, he thought, but this time it didn't help.

He felt like a rat passing through the body of a snake.

‘George?' asked Clancy, and the man standing over Essie's unmarked grave nodded. ‘What … what are you doing here?' Clancy reached for a nearby boulder and slid himself into a sitting position.

‘Same as you, I reckon.'

‘I'm looking for my dog.'

‘Up here?' said George. ‘With those?'

The wildflowers shivered in Clancy's hand. ‘When did you get back?'

‘I saw David leave,' said George.

A hard, bone-like lump formed in Clancy's throat. ‘Seen your boy yet?'

‘I'm here for
you
, mate. But looks as if you've been pretty busy with them boys.'

‘They're my grandsons.'

‘What you doing, looking for Queenie? She must be getting on now.'

‘Nearly nineteen,' said Clancy. ‘She just disappeared.'

‘You trust them?'