Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking (2 page)

Today she wants to stop and
pick mulberries from old Drake’s bushes. The old man has mulberry
trees growing all along the fence line bordering the path that
divides our properties. He knows about us, picking his mulberries,
his
mulbees
as Starling likes to call them, but he doesn’t
seem to mind. He watches us picking the fruit; hides in the bushes,
pops up from behind the chicken wire every now and then with a
silly expression on his horse face, but stays on his side of the
fence and never comes any closer. He just stands there, looking.
Sometimes, he’d wave, smile, nod. Sometimes, I fancy I see him
drool. Course he would, wouldn’t he? I keep telling myself the old
dude is harmless but there’s a whiff of the village idiot about
him.
Them
should never be underestimated. So I don’t. I stay
on our side of the fence; he stays on his. And we don’t tell a
soul.

Still, Chris knows. He knows we
pick the old dude’s
mulbees
and he doesn’t like us doing it
chiefly because he doesn’t want us near his old man or his
property, for reasons he’s never bothered to explain. So we never
see old Drakey, only in passing, as one would any neighbour sharing
a boundary along your fence. It’s weird and a bit sad, but what can
I do? —Exactly. Old Drake has been a bit of an enigma, but only
just, and only because he keeps to himself. I suspect there’s not
much more to learn there than how to successfully grow dope in the
bushes behind your shed, but I could be wrong. When we first moved
in, Lilian had wanted to see the old man, for Starling’s sake, but
Chris vetoed the idea and she wasn’t even allowed to go over there
on her own, let alone with Starling. So we’ve not got to know the
old man much. To be fair, he doesn’t seem to mind the lack of
effort and that suits us just fine. Each to their own, I say.

He likes to potter around in
his garden behind his house. Whatever he does behind there he does
it quietly and out of view. Well, course I know what he gets up to
over there in that leafy hidey hole behind his shed. Chris knows
about the dope, course he does, cause he smokes it sometimes, late
at night when he thinks we’re all asleep. I don’t know how he gets
it but I have a feeling he steals from his old man; they have that
sort of relationship. Anyway, it turns up at our house. Lilian
doesn’t like it but she doesn’t say anything. She hasn’t a leg to
stand on, obviously. In any case, Chris and her talked about the
old man quite a bit when we first moved in, behind closed doors, of
course. They worried about him coming over to see us, to try to get
to know us God forbid, us the children, us the family, and they
argued about how they should handle such a situation. Really, they
made such a fuss, and over nothing. But that was a long time ago.
Two years have passed since our wobbly start here and it’s all
behind us now. We’ve settled into Sliver Moon Bay, and into our new
lives, quite well.

‘Stop, Salah! Mulbeee!’
Starling’s kicking her little legs into my back. She’s spotted a
fat bunch and she wants to get them. I take her out of her basket,
take her helmet off and put her little hat on. Starling hurls
herself on the bush; she’s grabbing mulberries and stuffing them
into her mouth. She’s dribbling juice down her chin, staining her
dress. Just as well we couldn’t find the pink one; she wouldn’t
like getting it dirty.

A sudden noise bursts out of
the bushes to my left. Starling and I instinctively crouch.
Something’s going on in old Drake’s yard. I hear the dog. I hear
bushes moaning, crackling with indignation. They don’t like to be
disturbed. We don’t like to be disturbed. Then I see what’s
happening. It’s Chris, running along the fence line with old
Drake’s Assassin hot on his heels. Chris jumps over a fence post
and disappears amongst the trees, heading for the beach. Assassin
is going mental along the fence until Starling pops up. Then he
stops in his tracks, goes quiet, wags his tail.

‘Doggie,’ she points. ‘Doggie
happy.’

Assassin slinks away. I’m left
to wonder what this shit was all about. Chris should have been at
the harbour by now. So what’s he doing here? Stealing dope, that’s
what. He’s getting some weed on the sly. And old Drakey’s nowhere
to be seen. How is that possible with Assassin going nuts like
that? It’s hard to believe the old dude doesn’t know. Maybe he
doesn’t care. And I shouldn’t either. It really has nothing to do
with me.

So we filled Starling’s basket
with the mulberries and went down to the beach.

The beach is, as usual, all
ours. Of course, we share it with the shore birds walking in the
dunes and the seagulls circling above. I leave the trike at the end
of the path where I always park it and take Starling’s sandals off
of her feet. She’s very particular about that. Can’t stand the
thought of them getting sandy. So we leave the sandals in the
basket and go barefoot, tumbling down the dune. Starling goes
running around on the sand, intent on disturbing the birds, chasing
after them, right to the water’s edge.

‘Look, Salah!’ she cries. ‘I’m
a birdie!’ She spreads her arms and runs around, flapping her
imaginary wings, like a real starling.

I chase after her, flapping
mine. Bigger arms, bigger wings, bigger beak. I can’t be a
starling. I have to be a hawk.

‘I’m going to catch you,
Starling, and when I do, I’m going to eat you!’

Starling squeals with laughter;
it’s her favourite game. And I pump up the volume: ‘Catch you,
Starling! Catch you!’

So we ran all along the beach,
Starling laughing and stumbling and finally she face-planted on the
wet sand and cried.

I picked her up for a
cuddle.

‘You want to build a
sandcastle, honey?’

She does. She’s nodding.

‘Okay, sweetie. Let’s go get
your bucket and spade.’

Starling sticks her bottom lip
out, shakes her head, crosses her arms. ‘You go.’

So I’m climbing up the dune, to
get her bucket and spade. Then I smell smoke. It can’t be. So soon?
But it is. He’s there, smoking a cigarette in the bushes above me,
staring. But is it really him? It could be a tree branch swaying
over the edge of the cliff. Is it? —I can’t stop to think about it.
I’m not stopping. I’m getting closer. I’m almost under him. Another
second and he can slam his foot down on my head. And then what?
—Exactly. But I’m spared my horrible imaginary death cause he
panics and makes the first move, this time. He kicks into the sand
under his feet. I close my eyes a split second too late. I’m
blinded, unable to breathe. Round two, lost. My goodness, that’s
disappointing. And it’s only a bit of sand. How would I go in hand
to hand combat? He’s twice the size of me, for Christ’s sakes. And
no-one to help me. I have no choice right now. I’ll have to let him
live for a little while longer.

When I reach the top, it’s game
over. He’s gone. I get the bucket and the spade, and Starling’s
towel to wipe the sand from my eyes. Right. That was nasty. We’re
taking it up a notch, then. Maybe it’ll get interesting now. Either
way, he won’t scare me. I’m onto him.

3

It started to rain. I persuaded
Starling to go home. She didn’t want to cause she likes rain and
she likes to watch raindrops hit the water but I knew Lilian would
worry. She’d wake up now the rain’s falling; the sound of it
plopping on the roof always roused her, so I told Starling I’d get
her ice-cream and she agreed to go home. We went back up the dune
and got the trike. I fastened Starling’s sandals on and put her on
her towel in the basket, then pushed the trike up the path. It was
slow going but at least we weren’t getting wet, here under the
trees. We proceeded quietly; Starling was getting sleepy as she
tends to do after we’ve had a run along the beach.

In the quiet I thought about
him. He’s come again to watch me. It’s definitely on, then.

‘Look, Salah!’ Starling points
excitedly. ‘Look! Birdie!’

It is a birdie. A baby starling
lying on the ground. About to take a last breath, by the look of
it.

‘It sleeping!’ Starling cries,
climbing out of her basket. ‘I want birdie!’

Okay, we’re going to have to
take this birdie home. I pick it up. It feels like a blob of
chewing gum, like a cotton ball that’s wet. I blow on it and it
opens its tiny beak. Take pity on me, it seems to be saying, so I
do.

‘We take birdie home,’ I say to
Starling.

She climbs back into her seat.
I grab a bunchful of leaves and put them in Starling’s lap.

‘Here, darling. Hold birdie,
okay?’

She nods, puts her little hands
around the leaves. I place the bird in there and Starling hovers
over it, preciously. I push the trike up the path. Starling doesn’t
take her eyes off of her starling.

4

Starling woke up Lilian. She
showed her ‘her’ little birdie and Lilian agreed to let her have it
then went back to sleep. So now we were alone, free to do as we
liked for the rest of the day. So we went into Starling’s room and
made the birdie a cotton ball nest in a shoe box. It lay there,
looking sleepy.

‘Birdie tired,’ says Starling
and goes away, to the kitchen to have something to eat. She grabs a
chocolate bar from the pantry, climbing up on a box to get it from
its secret hiding place on the second shelf where Lilian puts
treats, out of Starling’s reach. We share the chocolate bar between
us. We talk about the bird and Starling decides to keep a little
bit of chocolate for later, to share with her birdie when he wakes
up. It’s a cute idea. And who knows? It might just work.

So goes the afternoon. We draw,
we talk, later we watch a movie about fairies. And Lilian sleeps
the day through.

5

‘Sarah-honey, I’m going out for
a bit. Homework now and bedtime ten o’clock, okay?’

The door closes behind her and
she’s off. She’ll be gone all night, dancing at the Moon Pocket,
with her friends. The girls she’s got to know over the years;
fishermen’s girlfriends, the ladies from work, the shop where she
packs groceries twice a week for a few hours, single mothers all,
passing a lonely Sunday night with a country band. Chris knows she
goes; doesn’t like it but she still goes. And why shouldn’t she?
He’s not here. Ever. It wouldn’t make any difference if he were.
He’d be in the caravan thinking, or in the shed, tinkering with the
scooter or the dinghy. She’d go to bed, early, despite all the
daytime naps. Later, he’d still be there, doing his thing. In the
dead of the night, long after me and Starling go to bed. And
everything would be quiet. Until later still.

When she’d be knocking. On the
shed door out there in the yard. In the stillness I’ll hear every
word.

‘Chris? You coming to bed
now?’

‘Not now, Lilian.’

‘I want to talk to you.’

‘I’m busy, Lilian. Can’t it
wait?’

‘You’re always busy. I’m coming
in.’

—

‘Open the door, Chris! For
fuck’s sake open the fuckin’ door for once!’

‘Go to bed, Lilian. I’ve no
interest in talking to you when you’re like this.’

‘I’m not drunk! Open the
fuckin’ door!’

—

‘Open the door now, Chris!’

‘Lilian. Lilian, calm
down.’

‘What are you doing in
there?’

‘I’m working.’

‘Let me in. I wanna see.’

—

‘Chris! Open the door!’

She rattles the door handle.
She kicks the door.

‘Stop it, Lilian. Go to bed.
I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

—

So Lilian goes to bed. I lie
awake thinking of her. I know she’s crying. But I can’t help her.
She doesn’t want me to. So I don’t go to her anymore. She’s in a
black hole. We all are. It’s tearing us apart, little by little but
eventually it will swallow us whole. Nothing is going to change
that so why worry?

—

‘Sarah-honey, I’m going out for
a bit. Homework now and bedtime ten o’clock, okay?’

‘Okay, I heard you, Mum.’

She goes, gets on the scooter
and disappears into the darkness. Starling and I stand at the door,
waving. Bye, Mummy. Bye. Starling looks out into the night. At the
full moon rising. In a little while I manage to put Starling to bed
and I do homework. Tomorrow’s school and I might get to go. So it’s
a good idea to do my homework.

At half past eleven I’ve
finished my English essay. Now there’s only my maths to do. But I’m
tired. I’ll get up early and finish it in the morning. So I turn in
for the night. Then Starling starts. She’s having a bad dream.
She’s crying; she wants a drink. She goes back to bed, but soon
she’s up again, and she’s wet herself. We change her in the
bathroom. And she won’t go back in her room. So she comes to me. By
now she’s not sleepy at all. She’s got her elephant pyjamas on and
she’s counting the rows of them. But she can only count to five.
One efelent, two efelent, three efelent, four efelent, five. One,
two, three, four, five. We count, over and over, and I’m hoping
she’ll fall asleep. But she’s not sleepy at all. She wants to check
on her birdie. So we go check on her birdie. It lies there in its
cotton nest.

‘It sleeping,’ says Starling.
She’s looking at it very closely, at its little bald head and
scrappy feet.

‘Yes, it’s sleeping,’ I say.
‘You should be too. Come sleep with Sarah, okay?’

She runs to my room and jumps
on the bed, burrows under the blanket, into my pillow. I crawl in
after her. It’s half past two in the morning.

6

But tomorrow is not a school
day. Tomorrow is Looking-After-Starling day cause Lilian’s in bed,
asleep.

‘Mummy tired,’ whispers
Starling.