And so I did. But my cornflakes were disturbingly loud and Pat didn’t talk to me for the rest of breakfast. When he put my bowl in the sink he turned around and said, ‘What happened?’ So I told him about the clouds but he just shook his head and said, ‘No, no, no, no. No!’ Clasped his hands together and said I shouldn’t have been up the tree, if only I hadn’t climbed the bloody tree. I didn’t know if he was praying or was gonna hit me so I put my boxer hands up just in case. Pat was the one who looked scared, like I’d just appeared out of nowhere. When he moved towards me I ducked to the left and ran out of the room.
Hid in the wardrobe for the rest of the day and counted to 100 again and again and again. Mathematics is a discipline that keeps everything in line. At 7.47 pm my little sparrow friend came to visit. He only has one foot so I knew it was him. That’s what happens when someone dies, people come to pay their respects. He watched as I made and ate my grilled cheese sandwich that was not grilled. Put his head to the side like he was saying, ‘Just watch me. I am light and bouncy.’ As I ate my night-time lunch I laughed and said, ‘Hey, Mum, he’s back!’ Then everything slid away like a wave rolling back into the sea. I called it the never-knowing: when your mind pretends it’s never known that awful thing ever happened. There was another kind of never-knowing, which was all to do with Pat and his phone calls. He said he was making arrangements that DID NOT CONCERN ME but I was very concerned indeed. When people mumble on the phone I am always concerned because sometimes the next day things have changed for good.
On the fifth night Pat came into my room and sat on the bed then walked around, pulled the curtains shut and sat on the bed again. He said the funeral was in the morning so I should pick out a pretty dress to wear because we were saying goodbye to Mum. I said, ‘Where will we be?’ And Pat said, ‘Well…we’ll still be here. You’ll be…’ He stopped and looked up like he was counting cracks in the ceiling. ‘I got a lotta things to do and I can’t do more than that, you know?’
Even though I didn’t know, I nodded my head because I think that was the answer he wanted. One without words.
The night before we buried her I had a dream Mum was the one stuck up the tree and I had to rescue her. I couldn’t climb up because the tide was coming in. Water swirling around my feet with a sea swallowing me slowly, creeping higher and higher. Then the whole tree lifted out of the ground, roots ripping and tearing like a tooth extraction. The tree just whooshed up into the air and blew away light as a feather.
At the bottom of the hole was my snow globe. I knew that if I went into the hole I might never come out again but I had to get it so I put one foot in and stumbled down, dirt going into my mouth and under my nails as I tried to hold onto the side, but I just kept slipping as the hole got deeper and deeper until the sky disappeared. A rumbling avalanche of brown snow fell on top of me. I screamed and screamed but no one could hear. Then Pat was shaking me awake. Sometimes dreams bring messages about what you have to do in your real life. And I knew that Mum was telling me she still had to get back home and it was my duty to navigate her spirit across the sea to Paris. I just had to find where the boat and her spirit were.
•
I felt sick all through the funeral. Pat had put Mum in the dress she’d worn when they first met. Made it all about him, and I felt thunder in my chest. Death is like the last glass of milk when there is no more in the fridge and the shop is closed ’cause it’s late Sunday arvo. When Mum went in the ground she should have been in something timeless but Pat said it was too late. I told him there’d be a royal commission and he’d be called as a witness. Pat apologised, but I said life was about deeds not words and told him to put it in the bank for safekeeping because I did not want to cash his sorry cheque right now. Then I walked into Mum’s room and folded her silk scarves. They were thin just like paperbark. I wrapped them all around, covering myself in swirly softness of light and colour. I was a butterfly. New and fresh from my chrysalis. Why do pretty things die so quickly?
6 Barry
‘All right, keep ya shoppin’ list in ya head.’
Now I’m back in the car. On the road with Pat. I’ve been talking to myself with the mute button on. For how long, I wonder? Memories drag you into the past whenever they like—I wish Pat knew that. He winces and shakes his head at me.
‘It’s a bloody distraction all that whisper talkin’.’
I look out the dirty window; the freckles of dust look like a science riddle only Stephen Hawking could solve. And then I’m thinking about time again. Wish I could chuck all the hours left down a black hole. I want to be far away from the stinking heat and bloody blowflies, rattled nerves and desperate times where everyone is parched. Waiting for something to break, turn, shift and come good again. Out here this land is endlessly unforgiving. You think you can put a road through it and make it your own, but the bush will swallow you up whole if you get too cocky. It takes people in until they’re too deep to be found. I’ve been in their dreams too. Stumbling over rocks and caked in red dust. Following a dry riverbed to a sea they’ll never find.
Sometimes I think Pat would like to disappear that way too. You see, that was the fight he had with Mum the night before she died. He didn’t want to go anywhere, especially not with me. But Mum always said we were a package deal and if he wanted to be with her, he had to learn how to love me too. The whole world was waiting for us if we stuck together. In Paris we’d eat chocolate éclairs at the top of the tower. Count the people below, dressed in their Sunday best even on a Tuesday, scuttling about being important and mysterious. Or watch the cafe tables on the footpath, where people blow smoke into each other’s faces and whisper secrets. No one would know I was black ’cause I’d speak their language too.
Pat sure was surprised when those strangers with sweaty armpits came knocking on the front door a couple of days after Mum died. Thought they were God-botherers at first.
‘We’re sorry for your loss.’ The lady spoke so slow I thought there must have been something wrong with her.
‘Don’t do that, pretend like you know,’ Pat says with his right leg jiggling up and down under the table. I had to go outside and play while they ‘discussed matters’. That’s what adults say when they want to talk about the things you have done. Or what will be done. For your own good.
When they were leaving the woman crinkled her eyes at me and talked real slow again like I was deaf. ‘You’re a very brave girl.’
Pat made a lot of phone calls after that. I can tell you now, that wolf inside me knew what he was up to. It whispered soft enough so only I could hear: ‘Remember to forget kid, remember to forget. Now is not the time for unspoken truths.’ He was right. I didn’t want to know what was down the road, around the corner, where my ever after would be and who I might turn into once I got there. I worry about the things I don’t know yet. Surprises aren’t always fun. Like a birthday party no one comes to. Or when you find your dad asleep on the footpath one afternoon holding his own front tooth in his hand. To avoid any surprises like that I didn’t ask who Pat was talking to on the phone. I just decided to stick with the plan I’d made with Mum. Pat didn’t believe she had a spirit. Said God and the afterlife was a con for people too weak to see life for what it really was.