The Lost Child (28 page)

‘Poor little Bertie. Her first litter, wasn't it?'

‘It was my fault,' I say quickly, not looking. ‘I should have'—
Kept her in the bed. Got her out of the shed
—‘looked after her. Better.'

‘That's probably not true,' she says, pressing coins into my hand. ‘Not everything is our fault.'

Her words make me look up, but she is gazing back at Tania strapped onto her swing, at Joe pushing her higher and higher. ‘We'll get Tarnie a kitten from somewhere,' she says. ‘It's the least of our worries.'

I walk home, trying not to hear kittens crying. Trying not to think of rats and cats and mice and mousey me. Yes, mousey me. I should have made her leave Bertie inside with her kittens. Made her. Made her!

Fake tan and short skirts. Kenny and his mates parked near the goal posts having a good gawk. Thumbs on wrists. Left, right, left, right. I'm not sure I even want to be a marching girl; I can't think why I let Lizzie persuade me. And while everyone's stepping out in new white boots, I'm strutting around in my school shoes with Faye out front, whistle stuck in her mouth, blasting out turns and
atten-shuns
like a sergeant-major.

Afterwards, Denver asks if I'll have my boots in time for the Muswell Pageant. I tell him they're coming.

When I get home, the power has been cut off because Mum hasn't paid the bill. Again there's toast and tomato sauce for tea. We've only just begun eating when there's a loud knock at the door. ‘Ssshhh.' Mum pinches out the candle flame and creeps to the blind. ‘Denver Boland,' she whispers. ‘What's he want?'

Another loud knock. And another. He knows we're inside. He can see the smoke from the chimney; he can hear our breathing. His knocking seems to shake the house on its hinges. ‘Damn,' says Mum. She flounces to the door and Denver almost falls into the kitchen, fist raised for another good knock. ‘I've had the power cut off,' she says. ‘That's why Sylvie hasn't got her boots.'

Denver's neck pokes about like a tortoise. ‘Why didn't you say things were this bad, Nella?' He looks at me and lowers his voice. ‘What about Mick…?'

‘Hasn't paid a thing in three years.'

‘I'll take care of the boots,' says Denver.

‘It's work I need,' says Mum, sounding ungrateful, ‘not boots.' Denver opens his mouth but Mum gets in first. ‘I've tried the butter factory at Rendelsham. The fish factory. There's no work anywhere.'

Denver says it's the credit squeeze, businesses going bust everywhere. He says oil's the answer; they're pumping it from Moonie to Brisbane, why not here? If they hit the jackpot it'll bring back the glory days when the train came every day, wool lined the wharf and ships called twice a week.

I can see Mum doesn't want a history lesson. She eases the door closed.

Next day, the power is reconnected. Again we're having toast and tomato sauce for tea. Again there's a loud knock on the door. This time Denver is carrying a large cardboard box and he has Mousie Tibbet standing behind him with more boxes.

‘Got a bit of a surprise, Nella,' says Denver, and before Mum can ask them to take off their shoes, they're at the table emptying out Lions Club Christmas cakes, IXL jam, tins of Camp Pie, Lipton's tea, Arnott's assorted biscuits. And a big red bottle of White Crow tomato sauce.

Denver looks pleased with himself, as if he's the hungry one who's just had a good feed. ‘That'll keep you going for a while.'

Mum stares at the sauce for a long time, too long. Doesn't she know she's meant to say thank you? Eventually she does. ‘Thank you,' she says. Once.

Denver and Mousie look as if they're expecting more. To make up for Mum, I smile at Mousie and try to look grateful. Denver says: ‘Anything you want, Nella, anything at all, don't be too proud to ask.'

When they'd gone, Mum puts the food away quickly, hides it out of sight in the cupboards. Then she takes out her tin of Wunderwax and rubs polish into the lino where Denver and Mousie have stood. From the fury of her polishing, I know she's thinking the same as me:
I'd rather eat toast and tomato sauce. I'd
rather starve.

*

She's making toast on top of the stove.

‘You said you'd go.'

‘I can't.'

‘I'm getting two prizes. No one else is.'

‘I'm not feeling well.' She spreads the toast with scrapes of butter that melt in straightaway.

‘You don't look sick. Where are you sick?' But even as I say it, her face turns an oily white. She slides my plate across the table. We've eaten all of Denver's food and it's toast and tomato sauce again. If she won't go, I won't eat. I slide the plate back. And I won't beg. In the bedroom, I tie a perfect Windsor knot and I leave for Lizzie's house without another word.

Rattling along the Rendelsham road, I catch Mrs Winkie watching me in the rear-view mirror, pretending she isn't. Soon darkness creeps inside the car and makes me numb: I'm the fish-factory freezer with the door closed tight. The pine plantations near Muswell are black walls against the night sky and soon we're driving through the outskirts of town, porch lights, street lights, car lights.

People are milling in the town hall foyer. Faye's mother. Roy's mother and father. Even Chicken's grandma has come to see him win the footy prize. We sit with our class in the front rows, parents behind. The choir sings ‘Michael Row Your Boat Ashore'. The headmaster's speech is boring and long. When the prizes are presented, I manage to get onto the stage without falling over my feet.

I've chosen
The Complete Works of Wordsworth
and
I, the
Aboriginal
. An excellent choice, said Mrs Truman when I returned from Ivy's Books and told her what I'd selected. Seated again, I open the covers and read:

Sylvie Meehan, Dux of 3A
.

Sylvie Meehan, Intermediate English Prize.

When I glance up, Mrs Truman is smiling proudly at me from the steps near the stage, but I can tell from the look in her eyes that she knows there's no one there to see me receive my prizes. I open
Wordsworth
and read a line over and over:
Her eyes are wild, her
head is bare / The sun has burnt her coal-black hair…

‘Your mother would be very proud of you,' says Mrs Winkie on the way home. ‘It's a shame she couldn't come.'

Her eyes are wild, her head is bare / The sun has burnt….

In Burley Point, the sky is black with no stars and only a smudge of moon behind cloud. Mrs Winkie drops me at our side gate. As she drives off, the clouds move, exposing a full yellow moon that shines on the lagoon like a lantern. But the clouds are fast moving and, as I walk down the path, the moon fades, leaving a strange glow on the surface as if the moon has disappeared under water.

I sit on the step in the darkness for a long time, holding my books to my chest, hoping she's lying in bed worrying about me. But of course I get too cold and have to go inside. And although I thump around in the dark, although I tread on her legs as I climb into bed, she doesn't really wake up. Yet still she reaches over. I wriggle away and try to throw off her arms, but in the end—because I'm cold—because it's easier—I change my shape to fit hers and let her cuddle me to sleep.

*

A few days later, a strange thing happens as I'm walking past my old school. It's a steamy hot afternoon with cicadas shrilling all down the street. A sudden gust of wind slaps them into silence. As if he's right there beside me, I hear Dunc saying they've been stuck underground for anything up to twenty years and wouldn't you sing up a storm if you were finally free?

I lean on the school fence and my eyes travel from the big old red brick building to the shelter shed and tennis court, the basketball hoops. And suddenly there's a memory of running across the playground on another hot day, perhaps in my first year of school. I feel myself falling, sprawling, the softened asphalt oozing black beneath my hands. And as clearly as if it was happening before me, I see Dunc hurrying to help me up. ‘You're all right,' he says before running off with Pardie.

The cicadas start up again in ear-splitting splendour. But something is different. And after a while, I realise what it is: I'm not waiting for Dunc to come home anymore. He is right here with me.

After Christmas, Roy's cousin comes from the city. Phil has long arms, horrible sunburn and terrible pimples. He looks like a Daddy-long-legs, spotty and scabby. He says he went to the Beatles concert and next day had the best possie outside their hotel, right behind a cop. When they ran for their car, he reached out and touched George.
With this finger
, he says, holding it up like a prize,
this very finger
.

Walking home from the beach with Roy and me, he sees my father's jeep parked outside the post office. ‘Is it for real?' he asks and he's off, half-running, half-hopping, trying to stay in the shade of the pines so the soles of his feet won't burn. It's a scorcher. When we catch up, he's sliding his hand along the bonnet, practically drooling. ‘It's in really good nick. You know whose it is?'

I'm about to tell him when I see my father standing just inside the post office door, his back to the street, Uncle Ticker facing him. Dad is half a head taller than Uncle Ticker and, although my father is older, Uncle Ticker has more grey hair. At first I think he's talking to Uncle Ticker and I'm so surprised I just goggle. Then I realise Dad is deliberately blocking Uncle Ticker's path, and Uncle Ticker is deliberately blocking his: it's a stand-off. Dad's not shifting, and Uncle Ticker's not shifting either.

Behind Uncle Ticker's head, the big black hands of the post office clock are pointing to one twenty-three. Mrs Patchett hesitates on the steps as she enters: everyone knows Dad and Uncle Ticker haven't spoken for years. I cringe behind the telephone booth, my face hot and hurting. And now my father leans in close and says something that makes Uncle Ticker's eyes flit around as if he's afraid someone might hear. Suddenly, unexpectedly, Uncle Ticker steps aside and Dad pushes into the post office as if he's just won the lottery.

Uncle Ticker crosses the street and climbs into the Bindilla truck. Dad returns to the door and yells after him, ‘Done the dirty on anyone lately? Ya gotta be family for that?'

When I look back, Dad's face is puffed up and purple. It's the first time I've seen him since the day at the church and I can't believe his splotchy cheeks and pocky nose. ‘Keep your pimply fingers off that!' he bellows at Phil before disappearing inside.

When he comes out a few minutes later, Roy is trying to drag Phil away from the jeep. ‘Is it for real?' asks Phil again, staring at Dad.

Dad drops a parcel onto the front seat. ‘It's not bloody plastic, if that's what you mean.'

Back at the mailboxes, he stabs his key into a box and bends to peer inside. ‘Ya finished sorting?' he yells into the opening. After a moment, he slams the box closed and wrestles with the key, pulling and jiggling. Suddenly he stops and curls against the wall, his head on his chest. Roy looks at me as if I should know what to do. I shrug like I'm not embarrassed out of my mind.

‘You okay, Mr Meehan?' says Roy, stepping closer.

‘Course I'm bloody okay.' He eases up, his voice thin and reedy.

‘You don't look okay,' says Roy.

‘Mind ya own business.' Turning back to the box, he reaches for the key and begins jiggling again. ‘De-e-e-e-ll! How many times have I told you this lock needs oiling? How many bloody times?'

He's still hanging off the key when Dippy Dell appears at the door. She's called Dippy because even before you've asked a question, she nods; even if the answer is no, she nods. When she sees Dad at the mailbox, her head threatens to nod right off her neck.

‘Some of them are a bit temperamental, Mick, it's best not to…'

‘Tempra—bloody—mental! It's needed fixing for months.' He steps back unsteadily. ‘Go on. You get it out.'

Dell steps around him as if he might bite. Reaching up, she gives the key a delicate wiggle and it comes free, easy as that. Without a word, Dad takes it. His face is grey and sweaty and he leans against the wall, breathing heavily. Dell's head dips furiously. ‘You…you don't look well, Mick. Would you like me to…to telephone Layle?'

‘What for?' He pushes off from the wall. ‘Get the lock oiled before tomorrow or I'll do it myself.'

Phil is still at the jeep, stroking the metal rail behind the passenger seat. ‘Did you get it in the war?'

I'm afraid Dad will blast him right off the street. ‘Afterwards,' he says, climbing in. ‘They were selling 'em off cheap.'

‘It's in good nick.'

‘Doesn't get much use, driving around here.' He turns on the motor and raises his voice above the roar. ‘Maybe take ya for a spin. If I get time. If I don't cark it.'

22

‘Why do I have to go? Why didn't you tell me before?'

‘Because I didn't,' says Mum.

What sort of answer is that? We're on the way to the Mount
to sue the pants off
my father. As the train crosses Stickynet, we see the
Henrietta
bobbing about on her mooring and we watch it slide out of sight.

In the court house in Muswell, I'm the star exhibit, which I only discover when Barry Hodge, who left school a year ago and now works in the court, announces in a voice that's loud enough to be heard on the street:
Meehan versus Meehan.

After Mr Drewe, Mum's solicitor, tells the whole world about our case, he nods at me to stand. ‘The young lady in question is in court today. She is fifteen years of age and excels at the local high school where she is in Form Three. If she is able to stay at school, she has potentially a very bright future. Mrs Meehan submits that her daughter should not be denied such opportunities as can be provided by a father's support.'