The Eye of the Sheep (26 page)

‘Strawberries don’t grow here, dickhead,’ said Liam. ‘They need farms.’

‘Don’t call me a dickhead.’ Deirdre pulled out her finger and threw dirt onto Liam’s shoe.

‘Then don’t be one.’

‘I’m not being one.’ Deirdre picked a stone up from the ground. ‘Wherever this lands is where I’ll plant the first strawberry.’ She threw the stone and it landed in a corner of the square.

‘You’ll be gone before you see a strawberry in that dirt, Deirdre,’ said Liam. ‘Anne doesn’t want to keep you. You wet the bed.’

Deirdre screwed up her face. ‘You shut up, Liam. Your dad can’t even walk. You’re the one who needs a nurse to teach him how to read.’

‘You’re the one who needs a nurse to show her how to piss in the toilet,’ said Liam. His smile only lifted half, as if the other half was damaged.

Deirdre stuck out her bottom lip and she shook her head. She turned and walked back up to the house. ‘See you at tea, Jim,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I’m helping Anne serve.’

Liam sat down on the wooden frame around the square of dirt. He picked up a stick and dug a hole, flicking fresh dirt onto the grass. ‘A Chinese man blew both my dad’s legs off in the war so I had to live with my Aunt Leanne and her boyfriend Gary when I was just a baby. Gary’s whole wall was made of beer cans; every time he finished a beer he’d keep the can and add it to the wall. But then my cousin Tyler took
a rifle out of Gary’s gun cupboard. Aunt Leanne reckons the gun cupboard was locked and she told the courts that, but the time Tyler took me to see the guns it wasn’t locked. The courts didn’t believe her, anyway. Tyler left jam on the door. He’d been eating a jam sandwich. Then Tyler shot the neighbour, Mrs Connelly, in the neck and even though her son did mouth-to-mouth on her she ended up in intensive and never came out. I wasn’t allowed to live with Aunt Leanne after that. Tyler went to Stateside. He doesn’t speak to me anymore.’ Liam broke his stick in half.

‘Aunt Leanne said my dad should get more than just sickness benefits; he should have got a medal because he probably blew off a few men’s legs before he lost his own. My mum ran away with a man called Dave who had both his legs. Aunt Leanne said my mum had two faces; one for my dad and one for the devil.’

Liam got to his feet. ‘Come with me,’ he said. I followed him behind a shed. He pointed to a row of three iron drums that stood against the fence. ‘They hold a hundred gallons each,’ said Liam. ‘One is for burning, one is for weed poison and one is for water.’ He knocked against the side of the drum for water with his fist. ‘One day the cat fell in,’ he said.

‘Jim! Liam! Tea’s ready!’ Anne White called from the house.

‘Coming, Anne!’ Liam shouted back. He picked up another stick and trailed it across the end of my shoes, bumping it up to my ankles, then down again and across the ground. He drew an X into the dirt then turned and walked up to the house. I stayed for a moment longer, looking at the row of drums – one for burning, one for weeds and one for water – then I followed him.

•

When I went inside Anne White said, ‘This is Jake.’

‘G’day,’ said Jake. Jake was as big as a double fridge. His stomach pushed out the top of his trousers. There was only hair round the sides of his head, not on the top.

‘You can sit there.’ Anne White pulled out a chair for me. ‘Beside Deirdre. Deirdre, you are helping me with tea tonight, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, Anne,’ answered Deirdre. ‘Then I get a tick on the chores and rewards board. Only seven more to a star.’ She stood in front of a poster filled with empty boxes going down.

‘You won’t get a tick if the food is cold,’ said Anne White. ‘Come on.’

Deirdre brought meat and pumpkin and chips and peas to the table and a jug for the gravy.

‘I hope you like roast lamb, Jim,’ said Anne White, smiling at me.

Deirdre put a glass of water near my plate. ‘I hope you like water,’ she said.

Anne White frowned at her. ‘Sometimes after kids stay with us for a while they call Jake Dad,’ she said. ‘You just take your time, Jim, and when you’re ready you can call him Dad too.’

‘Dad,’ said Liam putting a chip in his mouth.

Jake stopped eating his lamb. ‘You watch yourself,’ he said.

‘Oh, he’s alright, aren’t you, Liam?’ Anne White put her hand on Liam’s arm. ‘Did you show Jim the backyard?’

Liam nodded, his eyes on his plate.

‘I showed Jim where the strawberries will go,’ said Deirdre. She turned to me. ‘Anne White’s is the best foster home. I went to another one and you had to do jobs all the time like cleaning out the garage and that’s where the father went. He kept all the things he liked the most in there. He liked it in there more
than the house even though there was no heater or fan. I didn’t stay there long, did I, Anne?’

‘No you didn’t, Deirdre. Would you like some more peas?’

‘No thanks, Anne. I’m leaving room for dessert.’

‘Good girl.’ Anne White turned to me. ‘Jim? Not hungry? At least try a chip.’ She turned my plate around so the chips were the closest. ‘Go on.’

I picked up a chip.

‘Good boy,’ said Anne. ‘Wasn’t so hard, was it?’

I turned the chip in half-circles. I kept both directions even, turn turn turn.

Jake looked over Anne White’s shoulder at the television playing in the other room as he ate. Liam didn’t say anything.

When the telephone rang Anne White got up from the table and answered it.

‘Hi, Rodney.’ She looked across at me and smiled. ‘He’s settling in fine. No problems at all.’ She held the telephone away from her. ‘It’s your Uncle Rodney,’ she said to me, then she spoke back into the receiver. ‘Oh, he’ll be really pleased when I tell him. In three weeks? How lovely. Well we’ve got him eating chips, so that’s a start. Yes . . . oh yes . . . I’ll tell him. Thanks, Rodney. Bye.’ Anne White hung up the telephone. ‘That was your uncle,’ she said to me. ‘He’s already planning a visit. Isn’t that lovely?’

Later I lay awake in the bottom bunk, under Liam. In the darkness I held my hand up to my face, then away from it, then close to it. I could only see the shadows of my fingers; my fingers
were hardly there. Everybody else was asleep. The streetlamp outside communicated the only light. There wasn’t much, as if the source that supplied it was running low.

I got out of the bed and went to the cupboard. Liam rolled over in his bunk. As quietly as I could I pulled open the doors. On the top shelf I saw the dark outline of the red suitcase. I pulled the case to the ground and sat beside it. I felt the sides of the case with my fingers. Then I unzipped it and pulled back the lid. I got inside, making myself small. I reached outside the case, pulled the lid closed over me, and zipped up what I could. The zip squeezed against my skin. I touched all sides of the case. My head pressed against the end. The suitcase held me; I was contained within it. At last sleep infected me.

In the morning Liam unzipped me and the light came in. ‘Good morning, Matchbox Boy,’ he said. ‘Sleep well?’

Rain fell from the sky the whole day. Anne got out the games from the cupboards. ‘For you boys,’ she said, taking Deirdre’s hand. ‘You can bake biscuits in the kitchen with me, Deirdre.’

Liam watched the television and didn’t play any of the games. I stood at the window and looked up to where the rain came from. I traced the pathway of a single drop. It was falling fast; I had to train my eyes. It didn’t touch any of the other drops on the way down. The water knew its direction; the instructions were inbuilt.

‘Jim?’ Anne White stood in front of me. ‘Jim? Earth to Jim?’ She shook the towel she held in her hands. ‘Don’t you think it’s time you had a bath? Come on, before dinner.’ She leaned
down and held out her hand to me. ‘Come on. I don’t want to have to carry you – my back would break.’

I stood up. She took my hand and led me to the bathroom. She turned on the tap. ‘Here’s your towel, there’s the soap and there’s a face washer. I’ll leave you to it, okay?’

I nodded.

When she left the room I watched water running from the tap. The pipes led to a pool under the house. Moss and algae grew up the sides. It didn’t matter that Jake poured in bleach, the moss kept growing, turning the walls of the pool soft and dark. Green tentacles reached out, waving.

The bath was slowly filling, steam rising. I got in. There was nothing contained inside my skin. I had vision but I wasn’t made of solid material. I closed my eyes and rocked to the sound of the water falling into the bath. I felt her strong arms lifting me. My hand rested against her chest. She was there when I called. Sometimes I called just to see if she would come. She always did. When Robby was at school and Dad was at the refinery she put on Doris and danced with me across the carpet, space between our faces as she smiled and sang.
I see your eyes in the starlight, I hear your laugh everywhere, I feel your touch in the sunlight, I know your voice in the air.

The water kept filling the bath. My shoes and jumper and trousers grew heavy. I lay back and let the water close over my face, hot enough to burn. I held my breath. I could hear knocking from under the surface. I began to spin, water rushed into the spaces, as if I was a ship full of holes out at sea. The water came higher and higher – it was going to sink me. I held my breath. I was on a pathway deep under the ocean, heading towards the light in the sheep’s eyes. ‘Mum! Mum!’ I called.

‘Jim? Jim? What on earth?’ It was Anne White pulling me
from the water. Liam was behind her, sticking up his thumb at me, and Deirdre was staring from the corner of the bathroom, Melanie gripped to her chest.

‘Let’s get you out of these for heaven’s sake.’ Anne White started to take off my clothes. She didn’t know that it was my clothes holding me together, that beneath them was cold skin and the root and the hole under the root and beneath that, nothing at all. I twisted and struggled against Anne White.

‘Calm down, Jim. Calm down. You can’t take a bath with your clothes on.’

I opened my mouth to speak but there were no words, only
water water water
in a long hard stream into her face, blasting her to liquid mercury, hot with my temperature. ‘
Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
’

I kicked her as hard as I could in her chin, then in her blue doll’s eye, then in her leg. I bucked and went as hard as a board and I bit at whatever was close to my mouth.

‘Jake! Jake!’ Anne called. ‘Help me! Jake! Deirdre, get Jake! Quickly!’

Jake came and held my arms beside me, and Anne White pulled off my clothes until I was only the skin. There was nothing binding me. I was in pieces, stripped. I vomited bathwater onto the floor at Anne White’s feet.

‘Help me get him into bed,’ she said.

Jake carried me. I let him. I didn’t belong to myself.

‘I’m sorry, Jim. There’s been a lot of change.’ She smoothed the sheet across my chest. ‘But you need to learn that no matter how hard things get, you have to treat others with care.’ She touched her chin where I had kicked. ‘It’s never acceptable to hurt someone.’ She got up and switched off the light.

•

I got out of the bottom bunk, pulled the suitcase from the cupboard and climbed inside. I zipped up what I could. The sides of the case held me in like a membrane. I could hear my own breathing
in out in out
as if I were the lungs.

In the morning Liam unzipped me. ‘Morning, Matchbox Boy.’

Anne White sent Deirdre, me and Liam into the yard to pick lemons. School was starting soon; these were our last days of leisure. Anne White told me that I would be in the same class as Liam.

‘Lucky you,’ said Liam, pulling off a green lemon.

‘They kept you back two years, didn’t they, Liam?’ said Deirdre.

‘Yep. Because I told the teacher to go fuck herself.’ He picked another green lemon and threw it on the grass.

‘What did she do?’ asked Deirdre.

‘She said “Where did you learn language like that?” and I said “From the fuck-off dictionary that my dad kept as a coaster for his beer glass.”’ Liam pulled off another green lemon and threw it at the fence. ‘The other kids laughed but the teacher said I couldn’t stay.’ He kicked at the bricks that were going to be the edge of the vegetable patch. ‘Nobody wants the older kids.’

‘It’s true,’ said Deirdre. ‘When I turn nine nobody will want me, but by then my nan will be back from her holiday and she’ll take me to live at her B & B.’

‘Bullshit and bullshit,’ said Liam. He picked up a loose brick from the top of the garden wall. ‘Put your finger under here, Flick.’

I didn’t move.

‘Don’t do it, Jimmy,’ said Deirdre.

‘Go on, put it under here,’ Liam said. He pointed.

‘Don’t do it, Jimmy – he’ll hurt you,’ Deirdre said.

‘Go on, Flick. Just because you can’t talk doesn’t mean you’re a chicken. This is what the kung-fu men do. It doesn’t hurt. You just think it won’t hurt and it won’t. Go on.’

I listened to the wind blowing the trees. It had come all the way from outerspace, generated by the tides when the moon turned its face.

Liam grabbed my fingers and he put them on the brick and he put the other brick down on my fingers and he pressed.

‘Stop, Liam, you’ll hurt him,’ said Deirdre.

Liam kept pressing down on the brick.

‘Don’t, Liam, don’t,’ Deirdre whined.

‘
Don’t, Liam, don’t
,’ Liam sang back. ‘It doesn’t hurt you, does it, Flick? You’re a kung-fu man, right? You can’t feel anything, can you, Flick?’

The wind from outer space first blew past the stars, gathering their dust and sending it in clumps to planet Earth. The end of my fingers tingled.

‘Stop, Liam!’ Deirdre shouted.

Liam’s smile tore open his face and I saw a red crack. Inside it was the gun that shot Mrs Connelly and the son doing mouth-to-mouth.

Liam pressed the brick down harder. Deirdre screamed and pulled my hand out from under it. My fingers were bleeding and scraped and squashed. The nail of one was pushed into the skin. Deirdre was crying.

‘Shut up, Dee Dee, crybaby,’ said Liam.

Deirdre cried louder. Then she picked up a handful of dirt and threw it at Liam’s face.