The Lost Child (14 page)

‘Hurry!' says Pardie, helping me up. ‘The tide's coming in. We've gotta get outta here.'

Running and hopping, I follow across the rocks, the sea lapping behind, its wicked tricks. Back on the beach, we collapse against the kelp and shiver into our fright. Gulls shriek at the sight of us. Pardie bunches his jumper and wrings water onto the sand. His freckles are so bright they must have been washed clean by the sea.

‘I could've drowned,' I say through rattling teeth. ‘You saved me, Pardie.' Then I remember his fish. ‘Where's your rod? Your bucket?'

‘On its way to the South Pole, where do you think? You should've listened when I told you to get outta here. That was my best rod. It's your fault. All of it.'

I grab my case and run along the beach. I run from knowing that I am the fault of everything.

At Stickynet, I leave the beach and push through the tea-tree to Cele's place. I think of Grannie saying Cele has to have rocks in her head to squat in a humpy in the dunes when she could live in the city and be part of the society set with a bank manager husband instead of travelling to every tin-pot town in the state with that no-hoper photographer, and now that's fizzled out what's she got?

She's got the best magpie. Before I'm even out of the scrub, Fred hears me coming, ‘Faack orf. Faack orf,' he squawks from his cage.

With Fred carrying on, there's no need to knock and I'm already in the door when I see my father at Cele's big table, head bent over a paper.
Why didn't I see his jeep?
Too late, he flicks a look at me.

‘Drowned rat at your door,' he tells Cele, going back to his paper.

‘Sylvie-ie-ie,' sings Cele from the kitchen. ‘Well timed. I've made spider biscuits.' She gives me her big dimply smile and for no reason that smile makes my eyes sting. ‘Day off or wagging?' she says, running her fingers through my stiff hair. She doesn't seem to care which so I don't reply. ‘Come on, I'll find you something dry.'

Cele has the best house. The roof beams used to be telephone poles and a pelican skeleton hangs over her bed. She has a driftwood chair that she made herself, and there are photos in frames on the walls and stacked on the floor, photos from her exhibition in the Mount. Nobby Carter looks like an old turkey gobbler; Jude Moon a bleached out Bambi; Bridie Maguire with eyes like black cherries. Cele buttons me into her shirt and I notice a photo of Dunc and me has sad cherry eyes too. What is wrong with Cele, finding sad eyes everywhere? She drapes my clothes next to the stove and asks if I want something to eat.

I want to leave but I am trapped at the table with my father and no clothes. Cele's biscuits are bumpy yellow lumps, some with spider legs and others without.

‘Eat the ones without legs first,' says Cele.

Dad sniggers behind his paper. ‘I wouldn't if I were you.'

‘They're good for you,' says Cele, flicking her tea-towel at him.

‘All Bran and curry powder. Not too much sugar.'

They are revolting. When she returns to the kitchen, Dad looks at me, looks into my eyes, then opens his mouth and pretends to choke. I nibble spider crumbs and a feeling of gladness creeps over me. When Cele returns with a beer for Dad, she pushes the plate towards me. ‘More?'

‘My sandwich,' I say, opening my case. Dad widens his eyes at me, sharing the secret of Cele's spiders.

Cele asks about school and when I tell her about Mr Allen, she says new teachers can be a pain, she hated most of hers.

‘I've got my report,' I tell her as I find my sandwich.

She reads it right through. ‘Your daughter's a brain, Mick.' She slides the booklet across the table. ‘Look how well she's done.'

Dad sets his paper down and has a swig of beer. ‘Remember how smart I was? Didn't do me much good.' Cele stares at him. ‘What?' he says, jutting his jaw.

‘I'm thinking it's not about you. I'm thinking you need more than brains.'

‘Like?'

‘Like it's what you do with what you've got that counts.' She pours beer from Dad's bottle into a glass for herself and licks off the froth. ‘Use your brains, Sylvie. Do something with them. Not like us.'

‘Speak for yourself,' says Dad.

‘I am.'

‘There's not one thing I've done my whole life that I regret.'

Cele shakes her head. ‘That's so much piffle and rot. Everyone regrets something—'

‘That's what I'm telling you. I don't.'

Dad flicks the pages of his paper like a fan. Cele just stares. He still hasn't read my report. He hasn't looked at me again. I chew on my sandwich crust with the gladness seeping out of me. Parrots screech past the window and Fred tells them to ‘Faack orf—faack orf'.

‘For God's sake, Mick,' says Cele at last, ‘you've got to regret an argument with a brother that's gone on for twenty years!'

The paper drops. ‘Don't mention that bastard.'

Dad and Uncle Ticker don't speak because the hurt is too deep: Cele told me this before. Mum says it's a pig-headed kind of hurt and the Meehans are famous for it. Cele looks at me and shakes her head. ‘All because of a stupid squabble over a few hundred acres of land.' She rocks back in her chair. ‘At least on the surface of it.'

‘What else?' says Dad, jutting his chin.

‘There's always something else,' says Cele with a sad kind of sigh. ‘Always the same old things hiding underneath.'

‘Don't talk in riddles,' says Dad, hiding in his paper again.

‘That's the point,' says Cele. ‘Life is a riddle.' Dad looks over his paper and taps his head as if Cele has a screw loose. ‘Mick, I'm six years older than you—'

Dad grins. ‘Easy to see who's got the wrinkles.'

Cele pokes out her tongue at him. ‘I remember how you used to follow Grandpa Pat around like a bad smell. When you were learning to walk, he used to tie you to a lead and you toddled along beside him like a puppy. And when he got sick—I must have been about ten so you were what?—four?—you wouldn't leave him… not for a minute…'

‘So?'

‘So'—she rocks forward and takes a sip of her beer—‘when he died, you wouldn't come out from under his bed. Not for three days. And after Brendan—'

‘That's enough.'

Again Dad hides in his paper. I remember Grannie telling me about Rosie and Brendan, her babies who died. But what's that got to do with Dad? When he lowers his paper to have some beer, Cele is still staring. ‘What?' he says with a big innocent grin.

Then I notice Cele's eyes are soft and glassy. And behind Dad's silly smile, I can see a sad clown with droopy eyes; but just as quickly the sadness is gone and I wonder if I saw it at all because now he's wearing his clown face and I don't like that face at all.

‘No,' says Cele, pushing back her chair, ‘I don't think you let yourself think about any of it, let alone regret it.'

Dad's beer is close to my report. Suddenly I don't care if he reads it or not. I don't care if he walks past me in the street and looks up at the clouds, not at me, as if there's a hole in the sky with no birds. I bump up from the table and ask Cele if my clothes are dry.

‘Almost,' she says, handing me the scrap bucket to feed Fred.

Fred's cage is as big as a shed. I empty the bucket of food scraps through the side flap. He is not very grateful. ‘Faack orf,' he tells me, flapping crazily. ‘Faack orf.'

Fred was a baby when Cele found him with a bent wing. As he flaps amongst the scraps, I think he must have more brains than most maggies because he's smart enough to learn how to talk, yet he's stuck in a cage telling everyone to ‘Faack off'. What sort of life is that for a maggie?

The path is covered with sand from the dunes and I make no sound crossing the porch. Dad is still at the table. My report is in front of him: I can't remember if I left it open or closed.

Before I'm halfway across the road, Mum comes pushing out the gate. ‘What's wrong with your hair? Where've you been?' And then she's hitting me, right there in the street. ‘How dare you.'
Hit. Hit
. ‘Don't you think?'
Hit. Hit
. ‘I've got enough.'
Hit. Hit
. ‘To worry about?'
Hit. Hit
. ‘Without.'
Hit
. ‘You.'
Hit
. ‘Too?'

At first I just stand there holding up my case but her arms are everywhere, hitting and puffing, and I'm bending and ducking. She's never hit me before, not like this. Between hits, I can see Lizzie watching from under our tree and I know she's told Mum that I wagged. I see Mrs Shorty on a ladder, clipping her hedge, turning to look. But I don't see Mrs Bloomers' car stop at our gate until she's running towards us, grabbing Mum and pulling her off.

‘Stop it, Nella. Stop it. What's happened?'

Mum clasps her arms across her chest as if to keep them from hitting. ‘She wasn't at school,' she tells Mrs Bloomers. ‘I was worried sick. Anything could've happened.' Her shoulders are shaking and I can see bones pushing through the skin at her neck. She looks as if she might break. ‘She's all I've got. All I've got.'

12

When the telephone rings, Mr Bloom turns off the wireless, making the newsreader squawk. He hands Mum the receiver and kisses Mrs Bloomers on top of her head. He tries to kiss Penny and Poppit but they cover their faces with their hands and duck their heads, so he pretends to be a bear and creeps up behind them. When he catches them with a kiss on the back of their necks, they scream and wipe off his kisses. Mr Bloom laughs and takes his hat from the peg on the wall. When he opens the door, cold air creeps in, making me shiver and hug myself warm.

We are staying with the Blooms on their farm called Clovelly because Mum needs a rest. Mum is still on the phone, listening, not saying anything. Penny and Poppit are fighting over the soldier in the Cornflakes packet, snatching and hiding it, teasing each other. Mrs Bloomers tells them to
Stop It
. Penny and Poppit make faces and mouth words behind her back. The kettle hisses. Penny's cat slicks down its coat. Mum replaces the receiver and sinks against the wall.

‘Everything's gone. Everything.' Clutching her knees, she slides down the wall and curls in a ball on the floor, rocking, rocking.

Mrs Bloomers stops buttering the sandwich bread. Penny and Poppit stop their bickering. Even the cat stops licking and looks up as Mrs Bloomers brings a cup of tea and lowers herself onto the floor next to Mum.

‘Drink this,' she says, holding the cup under Mum's nose. ‘Drink this, Nella. And tell me what's happened. Come on, tell me, what is it?'

‘All gone,' says Mum, rocking. ‘Nothing left. Nothing.'

From the table, Penny and Poppit stare down, their mouths two soggy cereal holes gaping at our mothers on the floor. Outside, the gum trees are wearing swirling skirts of fairy mist. The mist comes closer and peers through the heat-streaked windowpane.

‘What'll I do?' says Mum. ‘What'll I do?'

‘Tell me, Nella,' says Mrs Bloomers. ‘Tell me.'

Suddenly Mum sits up with a straight back, head cocked as if she's listening to something far off, maybe as far as Bindilla, which is not far down the road, maybe as far off as Burley Point. We listen too. The cuckoo comes out of the clock and cuckoos seven times. Outside, the tractor coughs and splutters into life.

‘Morgan's his mate,' says Mum. ‘Of course he'd say it was an old house, needed rewiring, no need to investigate.' And suddenly her mouth is full of words. ‘They're drinking mates. He's covering up for him.' She looks at us with wild eyes. ‘The divorce has come through. He hated the judge giving me the house. He's been biding his time, waiting for us to be out of the place. Give him that, at least he didn't torch it with us in it.'

Mrs Bloomers heaves her bottom off the floor. She takes Mum's cup and puts it on the table. Then she lifts Mum under her arms. Mum is a rag doll, her arms and legs flop and bend. Mrs Bloomers sits next to Mum and moves Mum's hand to her cup of tea. ‘Come on,' she says to Penny and Poppit. ‘Clean your teeth. Get a new handkerchief. Where are your lunch boxes? Hurry up or you'll miss the bus.' I start to follow. ‘Not you, Sylvie, your mother needs you here.'

I want to tell her it's my day to be blackboard monitor, the day I get to clean off the old date and write the new one with yellow chalk. But Mum is staring into her tea, gone off into her bubble again. I climb back onto my chair. The cornflakes soldier is sticky with jam.

In the back of the Blooms' black Buick, I am safe from old-man gum trees with peeling skin and twisty limbs that grab at me as I walk the long track to and from the school bus. I am safe from snakes, from having to watch my feet in case there's one under a branch or a piece of bark. The tyres roll and crunch, breaking backs, killing snakes. I try not to think of Penny telling me of snakes thrown up under cars, clinging to the axles, slithering inside through the engine, crazy mad creatures that attack the driver and stab the passengers with needle-fork tongues until the car runs off the road and crashes into a tree and everyone is killed.
Except the
sssssnake
, Penny hisses when she's walking next to me.
The ssssnake
alwaysssss getssss away
.

We drive across the cattle ramp and onto the main road, bucking over corrugations, past the soldier-settler farms where Mrs Bloomers says their rough-cleared land is hardly good enough to scratch a living from. When we pass Bindilla, I peer out the window, hoping to catch sight of Grannie down near the chook run. But dust follows the car like a horse's tail, hiding everything in sight.

In front, Mum is telling Mrs Bloomers what Grannie said: ‘Stay with him and I'll support you all you can. Leave him and I won't lift a finger to help.' Mrs Bloomers says: ‘She's full of hot air, Nella. And you don't know if he had anything to do with this or not. You're just guessing.'