Yesterday's Dust (32 page)

Then all that light outside but Daddy still down in the dark, lost in the dark, except his little cigarette light that makes his face show up orange when he puffs.

‘Get her out of here!' A screaming wild face.

Annie running from the door into the hot sunshine and everything looks just the same as before, all bright white light and the sun way up high and the house still looking like
a magic Camelot palace. Sam and Liza are having a sleep, that's all. Aunty May will make it fixed up, because she always can make everything fixed. She's a very good lady.

Daddy walking out Liza all floppy in his arms.

‘Get the cops, I said. Tell the bloody world what I've done, May.'

Aunty May not doing what Daddy says like Mummy always does what he says very fast. Aunty May just standing
there, watching Daddy take Liza to the rose garden where there are millions of flowers. Then Daddy falling down on his knees like Mummy does in church. It looks funny. Daddy never goes to church.

And May, just staring at the cellar. ‘He's booked on the six-fifteen flight to Brisbane, Jack.'

‘Well, he won't be catching the six-fifteen flight, will he? He won't be raping babies in bloody Brisbane
tonight, the dirty mongrel dog. Cancel his membership to the diseased dogs' club.'

‘Think, Jack. Think.'

‘Where is she?'

Annie backing away. Backing a long way away. Backing until her back is hard on the wall, and watching, listening.

‘He has to go up to Brisbane.' Aunty May's words like thinking words again. Like we have to get things fixed up. Like this is hard
to do but I can get it done.
‘It's my guilt, Jack. It's my fault.'

‘Ring the cops. I told you what to bloody well do.'

Cops were policemen. They put bad people in jail. They might put Uncle Sam in jail. And Liza.

‘This is my world. Here. This is my life. I've got nowhere else, nothing else, Jack.' Then May looking around. ‘They're working at Hargraves Park. There is no one here. They won't be here today.'

‘She's bloody
well here, isn't she?'

Then staring at Annie, staring at each other, like frightened faces, and looking around the paddocks. Just the horses and two crows on the lawn.

‘Go and watch the television, sweetheart.'

But Annie not doing what she's told first-tell, just pretending to, walking along the house until they stop looking, then hiding behind the cellar door.

Aunty May with a shovel, pushing
it at Daddy. Daddy digging up Uncle Sam's special Peace rose, and he's going to be very, very angry. May holding the rose up while Daddy makes the hole big – big enough for Liza.

Johnny dug a hole for the kitten when it was dead, and he put the dirt back in and Annie put some flowers on it
.

May bringing the water pipe from the cellar and Daddy hammering it in with the back of the shovel.

Liza
is always bad. She poked the kitten's eye out with a stick
.

May stomping the dirt down, stomping all the dirt in Liza's eyes because she was a bad girl and if she didn't bite Aunty May and turn on the television, well, Aunty May wouldn't have got angry. And Sam is a stupid bad man. He shouldn't have forgot to buy the bread.

No one is thinking about Annie any more. No one knows where she is.
She's the best hidey player, Johnny said. When they play hidey at home, no one can ever find her, and she watches them look for her and she peeps out at them and giggles and sometimes they find her by her giggles.

She's peeping out at the roses, red ones and pink ones and yellow ones and orange and some with pink and yellow and orange all in together. Thousands of them, and her eyes are making
them all go into like a carpet, like a magic carpet that you can fly on when you dream in bed.

Then Daddy is in the cellar and carrying out a big, big roll of old carpet, that's nearly too heavy for him. Throwing it in the boot of his car then running to the house. And Annie seeing May take the shovel into the cellar. Everything is so fast, but Annie is so slow to walk from her hiding place to
the top of the steps.

Sam isn't down there any more, but she didn't see him come out.

In dreams people are there, then they are in another place. May is doing silly dream things too, like scraping up a bucket full of dirt from the cellar floor, like Johnny digging for worms so they can catch some fish for dinner. Then May is walking up the steps with dirt. And she must think she's got something
except dirt in the bucket, because she starts to throw it on the garden, and then she changes her mind and digs a hole and puts the dirt in it.

And that would be a very silly thing to do if it wasn't a dream, so it must be a dream.

And Daddy. He's wearing Uncle Sam's clothes and looking very funny, so dream Annie giggles at him. What a silly dream she is having. When she wakes up she'll be in
Mallawindy and she'll tell Johnny all about it.

Old crows caw-caw-cawing waiting for the crusts from the picnic while Daddy and Aunty May move lots of old furniture and boxes of apples to the wrong place in the cellar, move an old table from the wall right into the middle. And the old couch gets moved too. Mummy cat is watching them, her tail up, like she's very worried about her kittens.

‘You
can't take her with you.'

‘I can't leave her here by herself, Jack.'

‘You bloody left her before. You left her with that mongrel
bastard – '

‘Don't, Jack! Don't! The Murrays come to clean the house tomorrow morning. Ted comes here for his lunch.'

Annie listening. She likes Mr Murray's dog, because he's a very friendly dog.

‘Then tell the bloody Murrays not to come here.'

‘I can't. I never
do. I'll leave them a note. I'll tell them we're dropping Sam at the airport, then the girls and I will be spending the night in Toorak. It will be all right. She'll sleep in the car.'

And Aunty May turning, seeing Annie and her voice changing. ‘Doesn't Daddy look very funny, Ann Elizabeth?'

Annie nodding. Nodding.

‘He didn't bring any clothes because he wasn't supposed to come here today.
We won't tell anyone that Daddy came here today, will we? We won't say a word.'

‘We won't say a word.'

‘Promise, sweetheart?'

‘I promise, Aunty May.'

In dreams you can't ask about things. In dreams you see funny things, like Liza trying to fly off the roof and landing in the river. One time Annie dreamed that. And like last night, dancing with some kittens, holding their hands and the kittens
all turning into snakes. That was an awful dream.

She looks at the crows and they say caw, caw, caw.

‘We better shut this door, Aunty May. Johnny said crows pick out baby lambs' eyes. They might pick out the kittens' eyes.'

And May staring at her. ‘Yes, sweetheart.' Aunty May looking at Daddy, then back to Annie. ‘I wonder who will look after the kittens for me. I have to go to Toorak for a
little while.'

‘You can't leave her in there either, you stupid bitch.'

‘Get my car out, Jack. Get his wallet and spare glasses. They'll be in his room. Pack a case. There's money in the left-hand desk drawer.' Then her arm around Annie. ‘Would you be big enough to look after the kittens for me, sweetheart? If Aunty May made you
lots of sandwiches?'

‘Banana ones, for the picnic?'

‘You're stark
raving mad, you bloody fool of a woman.'

‘Do as I ask, Jack. Don't fight me. Ann is going to wait in the cellar with the kittens until I get back.'

‘Uncle Sam isn't in there.'

‘He's gone to Brisbane. Remember? We bought him a ticket to go on the aeroplane to Brisbane.'

‘Did he go yet?'

‘He's gone. Come. We'll have a look, just to make sure.'

And they looked, everywhere, in the old wardrobe
even, and he wasn't in there.

‘Did a taxi man drive him, Aunty May?'

‘Yes.'

‘Did he take Liza too?'

Aunty May shaking her head, her eyes, like thinking hard, then smiling, but not like a proper smiling face. ‘Remember that man who came here on his old motorbike that day, sweetheart?'

‘What are you bloody well doing?'

‘A red herring. Leave it alone. Get the car out, Jack. Get it out!'

Mummy
never talked like that to Daddy, and Annie was very frightened and she moved close to Aunty May, but Daddy went inside.

‘What's a red hairy?'

‘He's the man who cleaned out the fish pond. Remember? And we gave him some money. Now what was his name, sweetheart?'

‘I don't know. The man on television was a red hairy, and he talked very funny, Aunty May. And he had a motorbike with a funny little
car on it and he took the little girl's dog away.'

‘Perhaps he took Liza for a ride on his bike.'

That was a very funny thing to say, so Annie just shook her head. But Aunty May did lots of talking about the man who came from England while she made sandwiches in the kitchen. And the crows knew about the sandwiches; they waited on the lawn for Annie to give them the crusts.

‘One for sorrow,
two for joy,' Aunty May said to Daddy, then she smiled her funny smile at Annie. ‘Ted Crow. That was his name, wasn't it? Now I remember. It was Ted Crow, and he was older than Daddy.'

And later, sitting behind the old couch in the cellar with the kittens and Aunty May putting some kerosene in the lantern and making a little circle of light for the cellar, and kissing Annie and saying, ‘I'll
be gone for one dark time, and one more light time, and then I'll come back, sweetheart. I promise you. You mustn't touch the light, because it's dangerous, and you must be very quiet when Mr Murray comes, because they'd think I was a very bad lady leaving you all alone.'

‘But I have to look after the kittens, don't I, Aunty May, 'cause I'm a big girl?'

‘You're my very best girl in the whole
world. Promise me you won't touch the light?' And the kissing, and the sharp, hard sound of the door closing, and the key going in and scratching, and the cars going away. Aunty May's car first, like purring, then Daddy's car with its big vroooom vroom-vroom, which was nearly like Red Hairy's motorbike on the television.

And quiet then. Eating a sandwich because Aunty May had made lots of sandwiches
and they are all wrapped up separate, two for lunch, and two for dinner and two for breakfast and two more for lunch and then Aunty May would be back and that wasn't a very long time. Banana sandwiches are the best sandwiches in the world.

And wandering the funny old room with its window up very high inside but nearly on the ground outside. And finding Uncle Sam's bag of lollies and eating one
and smiling because she could eat the whole bag full and didn't even have to kiss him to get one.

Sam, Sam the dirty man,
washed his face in a frying pan,
combed his hair with the leg of a chair
and told his mother he didn't care.

Saying that poem lots of times and saying
Mary, Mary, quite contrary
. And saying
Wee Willy Winkie runs through the town
. And counting to one hundred then eating
another lolly, and counting to one hundred again, then eating another one.

It was very thirsty eating lollies and all the counting was very thirsty too. Lucky that Daddy had made the lemonade bottle-top loose.

And afterwards, after a long, long time, finding a really giant apple, the biggest one in the whole box, and biting it and the juice running down her chin. They are the best apples, the
best in the whole world, and she got the biggest one and Liza didn't get it.

Liza is . . .

Liza is . . .

Aunty May left some books, and coloured pencils. Annie drawing pictures of five kittens and making the names, and writing the words in her best writing. Smoky and Spotty and Sleepy and Silly and Sucky. She liked making Ss. Johnny said she made very good Ss.

Sleeping then because she's all
full up and heavy with apples and lemonade and lollies. And the dreaming on the old couch and waking up and it isn't even proper dark time yet outside the window and it is taking a very long time for the dark to come. Aunty May said one dark and one light and she promised.

Then dreaming again of kittens and they don't turn into snakes but they've got dirt in their eyes and Liza has got a big
stick and she's digging.

Waking up fast and frightened because now it is proper dark time and the kerosene light is flickering and dying and flashing and dying because Aunty May didn't put in lots of kerosene. And then the light dying and no more flashing. And black dark. Silly Aunty May, she should have put in lots and lots and lots of kerosene.

Waiting in the dark, very quiet, like a mouse,
only inside her she's not quiet any more. Inside she's like loud thump, thump, thump. Sitting on the couch like a big girl, but inside she's very,
very little and waiting for the light to come back to the window.

And she has to do wee, very bad.

How come Aunty May didn't think about that? How come?

Waiting then for a very long time, then doing wee in the corner under the stairs and maybe it
would all soak into the dirt and no one would know.

Everything got soaked into dirt, even blood.

Liza is . . .

Counting then. Very fast counting. Counting tiny star lights outside the window and counting apples in the box and eating more apples in the dark. Apples smell like they taste. Just the same.

Liza couldn't have any more apples, ever, because she's in the ground.

And shaking her head
very, very hard. No she is not, Annie. Liza went for a ride with Red Hairy. On his motorbike.

But he didn't put her in a bag, like the dog. She just went to get some lollies. He will bring her back after, like the little girl on television will get her dog back after. In the end of television stories there is always happy ever after.