The Eye of the Sheep (33 page)

‘Leave me out of the picture.’

She crawled in beside me and put her leg over mine, then she tucked Melanie against me. ‘Hey, Jimmy, Liam and I never told Anne you were going to find your dad. Even when Anne said,
You should have kept a closer eye on him, Deirdre
, I never told her. They were going to call the police – they didn’t want to, they were scared of the negligence – and then you called.’

‘Thank you, Deirdre, thank you,’ I said.

‘They’re sending you away, aren’t they?’ she whispered. ‘Into Stateside?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. ‘You can hide me in your suitcase and when we get there you can cut my hair and they’ll
never know I’m a girl.’ She put her arm across my chest. It was warm. I could feel her blood going round full of messages, but I couldn’t feel my own.

Soon Deirdre got out of the bed and left the room. Melanie was still on my pillow.

In the morning Anne White unlocked the door and said, ‘Time to get up, Jim.’ I ate breakfast at the table with everybody else. Deirdre kept her foot against mine. Jake didn’t look at me, as if I wasn’t there. There were sparks coming from the ends of Liam’s hair, like he’d been electrocuted while I was away. Anne White said to keep to our routine. My chore was sweeping the path and Liam’s chore was raking the leaves. Anne White hung up washing and kept an eye on us.

She went inside when the telephone rang and as soon as she was gone Liam stopped raking and said, ‘What happened? Did you see him?’ His eyes were wide and scared, as if his life depended on my answer.

I didn’t say anything.

‘Come on, Flick, don’t act like a retard. What did he say? Did he tell you to fuck off?’

I nodded.

He picked up a roof tile that was lying against the fence and he threw it on the path and it shattered. He picked up another one and did it again.

Anne White came back out and she said, ‘Do you want to go to Stateside with Jim, do you, Liam? Is that what you want?’

‘Fuck off, Anne,’ he said, picking up another tile.

‘Don’t speak to me like that, Liam,’ said Anne White. ‘You know not to speak to me like that.’

‘Get fucked, Anne! You’re not my mother! You’re not anybody. Fuck you!’

‘Liam!’ Anne White came charging towards him and he said, ‘Fuck you!’ and raised his hand. He was quick, his hand so fast you could barely see it, up towards her face, as if he’d slashed a thousand faces.

Anne White cried out, ‘Jake!’, her hand to her eye, blood coming from under her fingers. Jake came running. Liam and me stood, neither of us moving. Anne White pointed and said, ‘Liam!’

Jake saw the tile in Liam’s hand and he grabbed it and twisted Liam’s arm behind him and pushed him inside.

It was our last week; Liam, Deirdre and me were all leaving. Anne White told Jan Watts over the telephone that she couldn’t manage.

‘Not even me?’ Deirdre asked her when she got off the telephone.

‘I’m sorry, Dee Dee.’ Anne White pulled away. Seven stitches ran under her eye like a trench to catch the colours. Her eyes had no blue left; you could see through them. Jake couldn’t go to work because he had to make sure nothing else happened with the fosters.

It had been raining for days; everything was drenched. We watched television while we waited for the end. Anne White spent a lot of time with her church group or upstairs in her room. She let us do more things and eat more chips. Jake had to give the orders. After Anne White cooked the dinner she
took hers upstairs on a tray – only Jake ate with us and he kept the television on.

I only moved if an adult applied force. I tried to see how little I could breathe and Liam sulked and trained and did his chores if Jake’s hand was around his neck. Deirdre pulled off all her dolls’ clothes and painted green arrows between their legs. The rain fell and fell.

My blood ran slowly around my network; I knew the quiet floating world was coming closer.

Uncle Rodney called the house. I heard Jake telling him I was going to be transferred and that Jan Watts would explain.

‘We can’t keep him anymore, Rodney, so if you aren’t here by then he’ll be going into Stateside and you can contact them . . . it’s not going to be our concern anymore.’

Jake came into the living room and said, ‘Your uncle is coming for you today, Jim.’ Next he said, ‘Don’t do anything stupid before then.’

The only time Jake wasn’t there, guarding us, was after he dropped Liam back from training.

‘I’ll be an hour, Anne,’ he said. ‘I have to give one of the boys a hand at work; I’ve got no choice.’

‘No longer than an hour, Jake, please,’ said Anne White.

After Jake had left, Liam said, ‘Can we go outside, Anne? It’s not raining.’ He had mud up his legs and across his cheeks and on his top.

Anne White looked through the window. ‘Yes, yes, you can all go outside,’ she said, then she left the room to go upstairs.

Deirdre got up and followed Liam out the back door. I stayed sitting.

Anne White came back downstairs and saw me in the lounge room not doing anything or getting any fresh air or letting off any steam.

‘Go on, Jim, you too. Outside with the others.’ She lifted her arm to show me where the door was, and I got up and walked outside. I stood beside the lemon tree heavy with lemons almost ready, not much longer now, and closed my eyes so that only the sounds could enter. I narrowed it down to birds and leaves and a car.

Liam found me; he said, ‘Come with me, Jimmy.’

I followed him to the bottom of the yard. Deirdre was there throwing stones into the three drums, which were all overflowing with water. I listened to the stones land with a
plink.
‘Hello, Jimmy,’ Deirdre said, smiling.

‘
You stand next to the drums, Jimmy,’ said Liam, ‘and tell us whose stone lands first.’

I went close to the drums and waited.

Liam stood behind the line made out of a stick and threw. A stone hit my cheek.

‘What did you do that for?’ Deirdre asked Liam.

‘I didn’t mean to.’

‘Yes you did.’

‘No I didn’t, I was aiming for the drum.’

My cheek stung where the stone had hit, but as if it was hurting someone else and not me. Who was that person? Why was he here?

‘Come on, Deirdre,’ said Liam. ‘Go again.’

They stood behind the stick that was the line and threw again and a stone hit me in the forehead.

Deirdre squealed. ‘Liam!’

‘Shut up, Deirdre,’ Liam said, walking to the drums. He looked in over the top of the end one. ‘It’s the deepest it’s ever been,’ he said to me, pulling a crate over to the drum. ‘Have a look, Flick.’ He touched the crate.

I stepped onto it and looked into the water in the drum and saw myself moving on the surface.

Liam stirred the water with a stick and the different parts of me rippled and separated, like waves in miniature. I couldn’t stop looking into the water, as if the water was the magnet and I was the metal. It drew me to itself.

Deirdre pulled me off the crate by the back of my shirt. ‘Remember the cat,’ she said to Liam.

He turned on her. ‘I never put the cat in,’ he said, his mouth twisting.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘It fell from the branch.’ She looked up at the tree leaning over the drums. ‘Jake cut the branches back after that, didn’t he, Liam? After he found the cat.’

‘I didn’t do it.’ Liam’s face flushed.

‘I didn’t say you did.’ Deirdre stood, feet apart in the mud. ‘Did I?’

‘Yeah, you did. Why don’t you fuck off?’

‘Why don’t you?’ Deirdre’s feet squelched and mud curled up around the ends of her gumboots.

‘Why don’t you?’ Liam poked her in the chest with his stick. She stepped back. He poked her in the cheek. Then he put the stick under her chin and lifted it.

‘Stop it!’ she said.

‘You stop it.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, pulling the stick away with her hand.

‘Doing what?’

‘Why are you being so mean?’

He threw the stick at her feet. ‘Fuck off.’

Deirdre shouted, arms stiff by her side, ‘He caught the bus and he went all the way there and he saw his dad like you said, he tried but the dad didn’t want him! His dad said, “Leave me out of the picture.” He didn’t want him!’ She started to cry. ‘He didn’t want him! His dad didn’t want him, Liam!’

‘I said fuck off!’ They were both shouting now.

‘There was no more he could have done, Liam. He tried! The dad didn’t want him. So what?’

Liam pushed her hard and she landed on her backside and her hands gripped the mud beside her. ‘So nothing!’ he said. ‘Leave us alone!’

I watched as Deirdre got to her feet. ‘Come back inside, Jimmy. Don’t stay out here.’

I didn’t move.

‘He doesn’t want to go inside, do you, Jimmy?’ said Liam.

‘Jimmy, come on.’ Deirdre took my hand and pulled. ‘Don’t stay out here.’

‘He’s not a little girl. Deirdre. He wants to stay out here with me, don’t you, Flick?’

‘Don’t you?’

I nodded.

Deirdre hit me in the chest with her fist. ‘I hate you, Jimmy!’ she said. Then she turned and walked up to the house – her skirt, her boots, her muddy hands, the back of her head, her dark plait, its blue ribbon frayed at the edges, all had given up.

‘Come and check this out,’ said Liam, looking into the drum. ‘Here’s where the cat was.’ He banged on the drum with his fist,
bang. ‘
It was raining then too. It was a white cat with bent
whiskers and it was always at the back door. It didn’t belong here or anywhere but Anne felt sorry for it so she gave it milk and then it came back and she said to me, “I always end up with the ones nobody wants.”’ Liam banged the drum again. ‘I picked up the cat from the back step where it waited for Anne and it scratched my cheek.’ He pointed to a place near his ear. ‘Right here,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t let him go. I walked down to the drums. I held the cat tight; there was no way I was letting him go. I decided. If you decide then that’s it – the cat could have scratched out my eyes and I wouldn’t have let go.

‘I got to the drum and I threw in the cat and when it tried to come up for air I pushed its head under. It kept coming up and I kept pushing it under. It bit my fingers and it tried to swim but I kept pushing it down. I could see the whole of the inside of its mouth. It was bright pink and it had row after row of teeth like a shark’s. Its whole mouth was open, trying to breathe, and then when it went under its eyes never closed – even when it was dead its eyes stayed open.’

He looked at me. ‘Climb in,’ he said. ‘Come on, let’s see if you can stand.’

I knew I couldn’t stand because when I was on the outside of the drum it was much taller than me. I stepped onto the crate and I pulled myself up. Liam helped me. The water was cold on my legs when I swung them over.

‘Lower, come on,’ said Liam. ‘Go lower – hold on to the sides.’ He watched as I went lower.

When I was all the way in I held on to the sides with my fingers. I looked up into the sky and I saw that it was made of water, as if the sky had turned to sea, and it was falling in my eyes.

Liam banged at my fingers with the stick where they gripped the edge of the drum. ‘Let go, Aqua Boy! Let go!’ he said.

I moved my hand away and gripped on with the other but then he hit that too.

Whack!
‘Let go, Aqua Boy!’
Whack!

I kept changing hands and kicking with my legs and the rain was beneath me at the same time as it was over me.

I felt Liam’s hand on the top of my head push me under as if I was the cat and it was me who kept coming back, me drinking Anne White’s milk, me nobody wanted. I went under then I struggled and his hand came off for a second and I grabbed at the air but I couldn’t get it in. My passages filled with water; I coughed and gulped and more water came in. I could hear something roar, like a shout, but it wasn’t from outside of me, it was from somewhere deep in my own network.

When I came up again I saw Liam’s face and all the features were sharp and serious, every cell and fibre working hard towards the one thing as if there was no other thing more important than this. He had decided.

I came up for air only to give him something to push against. Then I was under and I couldn’t feel the sides of the drum anymore; there was nothing to hold. Every part of me hurt; my chest, my eyes, my throat, my back, my ribs, my face and stomach, legs and arms were all bursting with the pressure of the water filling every space.

I saw my mother, her body a bridge in the bed as she arched. I saw her mouth open, fighting for air, as if she’d always been at war, the battle keeping her starving no matter how much she ate. Now we were in the same fight. Tighter and tighter and hotter and hotter, my mother before me, her eyes rolled back as she fought, and then suddenly nothing hurt at all. The
fight was finished. Everywhere was quiet and soft, and in the darkness of the barrel I saw particles of the light that burned in the eye of the sheep.

The tiny lights drifted like dust, bouncing from my fingertips when I reached out to touch them. The sides of the drum disappeared as the water spread; there were no sides, everywhere was soft and soundless. The water was a cool safe home around me. I surrendered to the floating world: all of my parts underneath, my root and the hole left behind, my cells, all drifted in the light from the eye of the sheep.

Part Five

And then I heard shouting and calling, and I was in the mud on the hard ground, no longer drifting or weightless, and there was a face over mine, covering my mouth, blowing air deep into my passages. I struggled against it but there were no limits to its force. The air knew what it wanted and where it wanted to be and it kept coming and coming, insistent, sure, as if in the final seconds it had made up its mind. It was Liam breathing life back inside me.

I coughed and coughed and when I opened my eyes Liam was shaking my shoulders, and his face was white. ‘Jimmy! Jimmy!’ he cried loudly. It was full of sound and breath, like choking.

But it was too late. My epidermis was here but all my living inners were in the light. I closed my eyes and found myself drifting again. Somewhere there was shouting and calling. Was it Jake? I heard a siren; the same one that called for my mother was coming for me. I was joining her. My skin was shaken, there was a mask over my face. I let it. I let it all. There was no
one and nothing to fight; the fight was finished. I breathed and it both hurt and it didn’t. I was observational only.