PART I:
NEW MONSTERS
Coming in on Time
Barry Whittle asked, “Is she coming in on time?”
Old Man Gove, the loading officer, said, “Aye.”
“Good weather today,” Barry said.
“Aye,” Old Man Gove said.
“Nothing to hold her up,” Barry said.
“No,” Old Man Gove said.
“She’ll not be long,” Barry said.
“She’ll not be long,” Old Man Gove said.
Barry stepped back, looked out across the channel. Saw the Sapphire cracking the flat table of water. Coming fast like it always did. Once a day, here in the morning, and back again in the evening. Tourists and locals, all of them squashed together, in and out of their cars. The ferry would spill them onto the slip soon. Just wait.
Barry watched.
He didn’t know if today was library day or not. He wasn’t good at telling the days yet. Mum had been teaching him: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then . . . Barry wasn’t sure. He always got Saturday and Sunday mixed up. Without Mum to help, he couldn’t say them all in the right order, even if he counted on his fingers.
Barry thought there had been three sleeps since Mum went. And he thought the last day he’d seen her had been library day, when the van came off the ferry and stopped in the small car park. Mum had brought Barry on board that day, like she always did, and let him take as long as he wanted to look at the books.
Josie, who worked on the van, sometimes read books to him. The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Winnie the Witch, The Gruffalo. She would sit on the floor, her legs folded to make a nest for him, and he would let himself be swallowed by her. He liked the way she smelled, and the feel of her breath on his cheek when she leaned in close and read the words, her fingertip following the letters that he didn’t understand.
He knew some words and letters. Mum had been teaching him. He could recognise DOG, Duh-Oh-Guh, and CAT, Cah-Ah-Tuh, and some more. Numbers too. But not well enough to read all by himself. Not yet.
Mum would sit at the back of the van, reading grownup books. Or sometimes Josie would leave Barry to look at the books on his own and she and Mum would talk in low voices, their heads close together. Then, when it was time to go, Barry could choose six books to keep until the van came back. Mum did the same, and they would walk home to their house on the other side of the island. Sometimes, if they were too heavy, Mum would carry his books for him.
Mum didn’t say bye-bye. No kisses or anything.
“She left,” Dad said.
Barry had come downstairs after waking up. Normally, Mum would come and get him, but not that morning. So he had walked into the kitchen, still in his pyjamas, the floor cold on his bare feet. Dad was sitting at the table. He looked like he’d been crying. He had taped some tissue to his hand, across his knuckles. The paper was stained reddish brown.
There was broken glass on the floor. Barry was careful not to step on it as he moved farther into the kitchen.
“Where’d she go?” he asked.
Dad didn’t answer, so Barry asked again.
“To the mainland,” Dad said.
“On the ferry?”
“How else would she get there?”
“When’s she coming back?”
“Dunno,” Dad said. Then after a while, he said, “Soon.”
Dad smelled funny. He always smelled of beer and cigarettes, but that morning there was something else. Something Barry couldn’t name. He had dark stains on his shirt.
“You want breakfast?” Dad asked.
Barry nodded.
“Toast? Cornflakes? What?”
“Mum gives me Weetabix,” Barry said.
Dad got up from the table, fetched a bowl and spoon from the dish rack, placed them on the counter. He opened one cupboard after another before asking, “Where are they?”
Barry pointed to the cupboard beside the washing machine.
Dad found the box, put two biscuits in the bowl, took a bottle of milk from the fridge.
Barry opened his mouth to tell Dad he always had warm milk, but it was too late. Dad poured cold milk into the bowl, dropped the spoon in, then set them on the table.
“Can you turn the TV on yourself?” Dad asked.
“Yeah,” Barry said.
“I’m going back to bed. Don’t make any noise.”
Dad left him in the kitchen to eat.
Barry thought about Mum. He wasn’t surprised that she’d left. Not really. The way Dad hit her when he was angry and had been drinking beer. Sometimes he hit Barry too. Dad’s hands were hard and heavy. They sometimes knocked Barry off his feet.
It happened more often now that Dad didn’t have a job anymore. Barry used to like the mornings when Dad was out working on the fishing boat. He and Mum had the house to themselves, and they would cuddle and read stories, and Barry would touch her bruises and kiss them better.
Why didn’t she say bye-bye? It was okay that she left because she didn’t want to get hit anymore, but why didn’t she say bye-bye? Why didn’t she take Barry with her? He supposed it was because she left late at night and didn’t want to wake him up.
But the ferry didn’t go in the middle of the night, did it?
When he finished his breakfast, Barry dressed himself and left the house without telling Dad. He went out the back door, which was never locked, and walked around the house to the patch of gravel and weeds that was their front garden. He knew the way to the ferry slip, so he didn’t need Dad to take him. Not that he would, even if Barry asked.
It felt like a long time, that first morning when he walked there alone. Old Man Gove asked if his parents knew he was there, so Barry lied and said yes. He remembered the things Mum would say while they waited for the ferry: Is she coming in on time? The weather’s good. Nothing to hold her up. And Old Man Gove grunted the same replies.
Barry knew the library van wouldn’t be on the ferry that morning because it had been just the day before, so he didn’t bring his books. But anyway, that wasn’t really why he walked to the slip. He went there in case Mum came back. If she came back, he knew she would be happy that he was there waiting for her.
But she didn’t come back. Not that morning, or the next, or the one after that. He had gone to Mum and Dad’s bedroom while Dad lay snoring and gathered up the books she had borrowed. One of them had her favourite bookmark still stuck between the pages, so Barry slipped it out and put it on the bedside locker. He took the books and put them in a plastic bag along with the ones he’d borrowed and carried them all the way to the ferry slip. This was the third morning he’d done that, and they were so heavy, but he did it anyway because he wanted to bring them back to Josie so she could read some more to him.