Sing Fox to Me (6 page)

I do it at home
, he signed.

‘Why don't you take a seat?' she answered with her voice.

Samson sat at the kitchen table and played with a smear of tomato sauce beside one of the plates. ‘How come you sign?'

‘It's just something I picked up,' she said, as she sorted the dishes for washing.

‘Does Murray sign?'

‘He will.'

A story was tucked inside her words, but Samson couldn't reach it. Sometimes his extra chromosome was so heavy, it weighed his arms down like a bucket of rocks. The casserole dish was still in the centre of the table. Samson peeled a piece of hard cheese off one of the lasagna slices.

‘Hey,' said Tilda, swatting his hand away. ‘No picking. It spoils the leftovers.' She took the dish and put it away in the fridge.

Samson frowned. His mum always let him eat whatever he wanted. ‘My mum's coming here soon,' he said.

Tilda closed the fridge. ‘Is she?' she asked, without looking at him.

‘She's finding us a house in Brisbane right now.'

‘That sounds really great.' Tilda's hands dived back into the soapy water. She started with the cutlery and didn't talk while she washed.

After a while, Samson stood up and walked over to the back door. It was open. Murray and his granddad were outside, talking. Samson wasn't sure where Jonah was. He'd stood up from the table as soon as Clancy and their dad started yelling. Jonah didn't like yelling. Neither did Samson, but sometimes his legs weren't fast enough to carry him away in time.

He turned and looked through the archway between the kitchen and living room to the front door and verandah beyond. David was sitting alone on the front steps, his back towards the house. Even though Samson wanted to join him, his dad was sulking, and when his dad sulked that meant he wanted to be alone.

‘I'm going for a walk,' Samson told Tilda, because at home he was supposed to tell his mum whenever he went outside.

Tilda pulled the plug in the sink and turned to face him. ‘Are you allowed out by yourself yet?' she asked, wiping her hands with the tea towel.

Samson shrugged.

‘Didn't your mum teach you it's rude to shrug?'

‘A shrug is like a sign,' he said, with his voice and his hands. ‘It's like saying I'm not sure, and it's not rude not to be sure.'

‘I suppose that's right.' Tilda folded the towel over the side of the bench and, for once, Samson felt he'd won. He thought about the leftover lasagna in the fridge and decided he would pick off all the cheese and eat it as soon as Tilda had gone home.

Jonah lay in the long grass on the other side of the fence surrounding the house. He stared into the slowly inking sky. The stars were all new. Each one burned hot white and more brightly than any he'd ever seen in Queensland. It was way past his usual bedtime, but still light enough to see. Time moved differently in Tasmania.

The back door of the house opened.

Jonah rolled onto his stomach and peered back through the long grass. He closed an eye. The grass looked like bars. Clancy, Murray and Tilda walked out together, followed by the red dog. Jonah hunkered down further in the grass. The last thing he wanted was for Queen Elizabeth to see or smell him. He'd sat all through dinner with his feet crossed uncomfortably under his bum. Just to avoid her.

Jonah watched as Clancy thanked Murray and Tilda for the dinner. Tilda hugged him, but her belly stuck out between them. Clancy seemed awkward, as though he didn't actually want to hug her back. Jonah understood that – he didn't like being touched by anybody, either.

Murray put his hat on, gathered his black kookaburra from the verandah rail and nudged him back onto his shoulder. Jonah raised himself up on his forearms for a better look at King. Murray took Tilda's hand, and the two of them walked away from the house. Jonah ducked down. They'd have to pass right by him.

Clancy stayed on the verandah, Queen Elizabeth silent and still behind him, until Murray and Tilda were out of sight. Then he went back inside.

Jonah waited. After a few minutes, he followed the two of them.

It didn't take long for him to catch up. Murray and Tilda were slow, probably because Tilda was waddling like a goose. Jonah kept to the edge of the dirt road, ducking behind trees and around rocks. He was careful not to step on sticks or unsettle stones that might roll towards them or clack together.

‘Are you sure you don't want to tell her, bub?' asked Murray. ‘She'll find out eventually.'

‘You can't force kids to be friends,' said Tilda. ‘Mattie's
only
deaf. It's not the same.'

‘Not different, you mean.'

Tilda moved her hands to the base of her stomach as if she was already carrying the baby outside her body. ‘Did you like being forced into playing with David when you were a kid?'

‘No,' said Murray.

The air around them faded to grey, and Jonah could feel the night coming. He didn't want to be out after dark. What if he couldn't find his way back?

‘How's it any different?'

‘Cause David was a dickhead.'

Tilda laughed.

‘Samson's not like that. He seems alright to me.'

Jonah's ears turned hot at the mention of his brother's name.

‘He's not a good friend for Mattie,' said Tilda, frustration in her voice.

‘Come on, bub, I'm not asking for them to spend every waking moment together, but it might be nice for her to have someone to sign with.'

‘Sign's not a magic wand. Samson can only sign what he can say – and that doesn't seem like much to me.'

‘I understood him,' said Murray. ‘It's not good for kids to be alone up here.'

‘Oh yeah? From what you've told me, it's not good for kids to get too close up here.' Tilda's voice crackled with sarcasm like a newly lit campfire in the dusk light.

Murray was silent for a few moments. ‘I didn't tell you about River so you could have a go whenever we disagree.'

Tilda flung her hands out, and Murray reached towards her as if she might fall, but Jonah knew better. He'd seen his mum make gestures like that. Bids for attention, his dad called them.

‘I'm sorry,' Tilda said. ‘I shouldn't have said that. I wasn't trying to have a go. I don't want Mattie getting
stuck
with disabled kids just because she's deaf.' The trees stirred overhead. Jonah felt like shushing them. ‘She's not …
disabled
,' finished Tilda. ‘She's a smart girl.'

‘Alright, alright.' Murray wrapped a long arm around her small shoulders. ‘Just an idea. Don't get worked up.'

Tilda stopped, and so did Murray. Jonah darted behind a tree trunk on the side of the drive. Murray turned to face her. ‘What's up, bub?'

‘She's a smart girl.'

‘I know, I know. Here, let me help you down.'

Peering around the tree, Jonah watched as Murray lifted Tilda off the edge of the drive and down into the bush on the other side. Jonah stayed where he was, listening as Murray and Tilda moved further into the bush. He could follow them and keep listening. He might even get close enough to pat King again.

Jonah looked up at the sky. The last of the strange late Tasmanian light was almost gone. How long had he been following them? He wasn't sure, but it would probably take twice as long to get back, and his dad had been very clear about wandering off. Jonah came out from behind the tree, turned and started up the mountain. Darkness fell quickly, the drive all but vanishing in front of him.

‘Jonah?' his dad called from somewhere towards the top. ‘Jonah?'

He followed the voice and smell of smoke from the fireplace until he saw the lights of the house.

‘I said no wandering off, ' said David, holding the gate open. ‘Where have you been?'

‘Nowhere,' said Jonah as he walked through it.

‘Shut that behind you,' called Clancy from the verandah. ‘We don't want anything else wandering in during the night.'

Clancy waited on the verandah with Queenie until Jonah and David went inside. He wondered how the boys would handle falling asleep before nine. He was used to Tassie's long days and didn't mind going to sleep with the sun still in the sky, but they were Queenslanders. If there was one thing he knew about their lot, it was that they hated daylight saving. ‘Come on, girl,' he said, and the old red dog stood, turned and stared up at him. ‘Time to turn in.'

David was sitting in the living room with the thick drapes pulled shut behind the couch. He was staring at his feet as though any minute they would jump up and walk him somewhere better. All so familiar and foreign at the same time. Clancy coughed, and David looked up.

‘Have you got everything you need?' asked Clancy.

David glanced at the stack of guest linens that Clancy had laid out for him on the couch. ‘Those are Mum's good ones.'

Clancy couldn't remember the last time someone had mentioned Essie.

David eyed the black tapes piled up next to the telly. He cleared his throat. ‘I don't mind what you watch … but, you know, the boys are still really young –'

‘They're
not
dirty movies. They're tapes of the bush. Surveillance.'

David nodded slowly before turning back to the guest linens. ‘Sorry about the boys, Dad.'

Clancy wanted to tell his son he ought to save his apologies for all his shit-stirring at dinner, but David never seemed to see when he was in the wrong. ‘Sorry for what?'

‘Earlier. All that tiger business, in the room. The boys don't know anything … I never told them.'

‘What's to tell?'

David looked at him carefully. His eyes narrowed like those of a cat about to pounce. ‘Plenty, Dad. I say there's plenty to tell them.'

‘They honestly haven't read your book?' He imagined the twins bent in over his son's poetry, devouring all the lies David had written about Clancy, River and his mountain.

‘Alice didn't let me keep copies in the house. I had a few boxes at work, for interested students and signings, but the boys never came there. They're kids. They don't care about my work.'

Queenie glared at them both from her place at the hearth. The red dog never slept in Clancy's bedroom, preferring to twist into herself in front of the coals, but he suspected she moved to the couch in the cold early morning hours. She tucked her tail between her legs, away from the flames. She didn't like having to share.

The boys were silent. Clancy reckoned he'd given those poor lads the fright of their lives, bursting into David's room and hitting the roof. It wasn't their fault, not really. Truth was, he'd heard River's voice shouting the same words. Sometimes he still heard it as he slogged his way through the scrub or laid his head down to sleep. ‘Tigers, Dad! Tigers …'

One of Essie's sheets billowed into the air, and David settled it into place over the couch. He was almost finished making up his bed.

‘How long you reckon you'll be here?' asked Clancy, thinking about the tiger and River. He'd have to keep his hunts short while they were staying. He might not even be able to go at all.

David thumped a pillow into the arm of the couch. ‘Not sure … Does it matter?'

‘Didn't take you long, did it?' Clancy challenged.

His son turned to face him, and Clancy saw something of the old David in his face. The selfish, bookish boy who made it clear every day that he thought Clancy was a thug and his life on the mountain was a waste. ‘What's that?'

‘Didn't take you long to start giving me lip,' said Clancy, and something of the old him returned as well. ‘I could still backhand some manners into you, son.'

David turned away again. ‘You owe us, Dad,' he said quietly.

Clancy wanted to tell David that he didn't owe him anything. He wanted to slap the boy's face and tell him to sort himself out and get the fuck out of his house. But he'd already done that, turning David and his pregnant wife away when they'd come for help. Back then, his blood had still boiled at the thought of David's book. The sight of his son had turned his stomach. Everyone in town seemed to have a copy, and not because anyone gave a shit about poetry – they cared about the infamous disappearance of River Snow Fox, and the implication of Clancy's involvement.

Clancy'd only read it once, but he remembered every word.
There's a Fox den stink to his tiger tale.

Queenie growled like she knew what Clancy was thinking, and agreed with him.

Clancy watched his son pull back the blankets and get into bed.

‘Goodnight, Dad.'

Turning, Clancy went down the hall to what had been David's bedroom. The twins had left the door ajar. He looked in. Jonah was in a ball, buried beneath his covers with a slice of his face and a few fingers showing. It reminded Clancy of Queenie sleeping in front of the fireplace. Samson was spread out like a starfish, one leg pressed up against the wall, the other dangling over the side of the bed. He wasn't wearing socks.

As babies, the twins had looked a lot like they did now. Alice and David didn't know that Clancy had come to see them in the hospital.

He closed the door. In his room, he dragged the curtains closed and switched on the lamp. He stepped out of his trackies, then ran his hand over his thigh. Even though he'd been sitting for most of the night, the veins
still
looked like dozens of bulging blue-black streams just beneath the skin. Clancy undressed and lowered himself onto his unmade bed. He'd forgotten how exhausting kids could be, not to mention his son.

The wireless was on his side of the bed. He flicked it on.

‘– and more on the February election –'

This was the time of day when Clancy missed his wife most. If she were still with him, Essie would have been washing her face or slipping into her nightgown. Instead of sitting buck-naked on their bed, Clancy would've been showered and dressed in a clean pair of pyjamas. That part of their routine was separate, but it always came together over the bathroom sink while they were brushing their teeth.