Sugar Town

by Robert Nicholls

  She waggled her eyebrows, like: ‘weird, but true, kiddo!’

  “And like, what kind of advice did your communing ever get you?” I pressed. “Turn your lemons into lemonade? Be happy ‘cause everything happens for a reason? Toughen up and take it on the chin? Useful stuff like that?”

  “Sometimes, yeah.” Despite my sneering, she laughed. “I guess that’s as complicated as some people want to handle. But look! I just wanted you to know that, given the chance to climb up there again and look at the notes again – especially yours – I wouldn’t. It was insensitive and stupid of me and I’m sorry I intruded.”

  And suddenly, though she’d clearly and carefully skirted the mud pit of my anger and humiliation, I found myself eager to drag her back and in.

  “He’s been gone eight years, you know?”

  She tilted her head and made a little frown, which I didn’t know how to interpret, so I took it as a ‘So what?’ kind of reaction from someone whose father experiences were probably much pleasanter. It surprised even me to find I was suddenly standing at the intersection of Bawling and Fighting Streets. I don’t like bawling. But fighting is harder on friendships. Nonetheless, I chose the more testing option.

  “That’s eight years Bridie’s been stuck with me and the idiot! Maybe while you’re being sorry, you can be sorry for men like him! What did she do to deserve that! What did any of us do? All that crap in that letter about ‘spreading the Word’! You read what he’s really up to – romping in the jungle with ‘Agnes’! His new . . . whatever-she-is! How does he get the right to tell us stuff like that and use the same mouth to ask for our support, eh? What kind o’ man is that? What kind of a father?”

  She didn’t pause or ruffle up in the least. “I know a little bit about men, Ruth. But I’m the last person to ask about fathers. It’s a whole, mysterious different state of being, from what I can gather.”

  I’d known from the start that I was off on a topic she couldn’t possibly relate to. So I scrambled for another; something / anything that might provoke her because, suddenly, as I seemed always to need with Bridie, I needed her to fight – to want me out of her house and out of her clean, simple, unencumbered life! I needed her to give me an excuse to storm off and keep her from wandering any deeper into the shallow, pathetic boneyard that was me and my family.

  “You were the last one to read it, you know! Garlic ate it! Did you know that?”

  “Did he? No, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. But maybe – if it upset you this much – maybe it was a suitable end to it! In any case, it wouldn’t have been anything personal, Ruth. He was blind, after all.” She slid a selection of candles across the table toward me. “That’s the thing I know about men, by the way; in case you were wondering. They go and they do. They come back or they don’t come back. Because they see with their appetites; not with their hearts.”

  If I have a talent for provocation (and I do), I was a blunt amateur compared to Amalthea. When you wanted her to fight, she backed off. When you wanted her to back off, she ducked straight in and whacked you. Like the ‘if it upset you’ comment! Of course the letter upset me! It was proof that my father was a liar and a cheat; and I wanted to keep it as evidence! Or the ‘fathers being mysterious’ thing! What’s mysterious about selfishness? Or the ‘men seeing with their appetites’ thing! Easy to find an example to prove her wrong! Kevin! Or maybe Johnathon Cranna! I didn’t even get a chance to challenge her about her note on the Grand Gourd: ‘We follow. Now we follow.’ What was that about? (Though to bring that up, I’d have had to expose Bridie as a thief. And I wasn’t going there!) All that potential for argument and, by the time I’d sorted my thoughts, she was gone, back into the living room, chattering to Asael and Rosemary. I hate it when people won’t stand and fight.

  * * *

  I helped arrange the candles around Garlic’s corpse, seething the whole while about Amalthea’s elusiveness and also about Asael’s dedication to brushing that dead goat, as though somebody’s life depended on it. Eventually we stood back and she made a show of mumbling to Rosemary.

  “Mmm, yes! That’s what it is!” And to us she explained, “It’s a wonderful start! But Rosemary and I were thinking we’d slip out and look for some flowers! Garlic was crazy for flowers!”

  Rosemary licked her lips, obviously sharing Garlic’s craziness, and Asael shot to his feet, practically wetting himself in his need to be obliging.

  “I’ll go!”

  I sighed. “We’ll go . . . together! And when we’ve finished looking, we’ll go home. Okay As’? You know how worried Bridie’ll be if we’re late!”

  The yard was bare and empty, of course, cropped to the roots by Rosemary and Garlic. Beyond the rusting mesh fence that enclosed it, there was rampant growth – a lushly green headland, backed by a three-metre high wall of cane. None of it flowers!

  Okay, I thought. That’s that; we tried. And my thoughts turned toward Bridie and the hospital and Johnathon Cranna. Asael’s, however, as was happening more and more often, turned in a completely different direction. I could tell by the way he started shifting his head this way and that.

  Even from her place, the air was distantly full of the whiz, pop and whistle of Sideshow Alley; the cries of the spruikers and the look-at-me squeals of girls on skirt-lifting rides. The ping of bells, the honk of horns, the continuous rant of loudspeakers and the shouts of men at the beer tent. As the crow flew, we weren’t that far from the showgrounds. And from what we could hear, despite the catastrophe of the lolly drop, the celebration had lifted to a kind of manic intensity!

  On a normal day, Asael would sooner have eaten a spider than consider going back there at night. If it had been me or Bridie asking him, he’d have flopped over with his legs in the air and refused to budge. But it was Amalthea asking. And the day had not been normal.

  “Shrouded!” I heard him mutter. “Absolutely shrouded!” And when I forced myself to ask, he reminded me of the parade floats, now parked and abandoned. So many of them shrouded in flowers.

  Would he dare steal flowers? Once, I’d’ve said definitely not! Was I willing to test him? No way! What if he pricked his thumb and got septicaemia? What if he pricked his conscience and became permanently gaga? What if he got caught? I’d never forgive myself! So I scolded, threatened, pleaded and finally offered to go myself, if he would promise to stay with Amalthea.

  “But you have to promise! And promise you’ll come with me as soon as I get back! Okay? The very minute I get back! Okay?”

  As soon as I’d made the decision, I knew it was a good one. Crazy days come and go, but there’s never enough alone-time. Tipped up against the Poinciana was a wheelbarrow which, judging by its squeaky wheel, was not happy about being shifted by a flower flogger. Nonetheless I took it and, though it would soon get used to me and stop complaining, I could hear Asa’ back in the yard, imitating its sound: eek, eek, eek!

  The street, of course, was empty and, breathing a sigh of relief, I let my thoughts drift over the day’s events. The Tiger Moth was the major thing: sailing past, cutting the air like a huge, blunt sword, with Johnathon Cranna looking down at me. His lips had moved. What had he said? And then of course, I fancied his lips had moved again, when I kissed him! Had he known he was being kissed? Did he know it was me? How would I explain it if he asked?

  “Sorry, Mister C’! I’m a sick, sad, desperate piece of work with a fetish for crash victims!”

  The real reason, I knew, was that sometimes you do things just because you can! An impulse. A reflex. The mingled smells of pumpkin, petrol and a man’s cologne! And not just any man’s cologne! Johnathon Cranna’s cologne! Me conscious, in control and a person raised in the company of loonies: him unconscious, in need of help and smelling like danger! So what’re you whinging about? One sneaky smooch from a scrawny kid is hardly a biggie, mate! Especially when you consider the alternative!

  Imaginary arguments – the one thing I hate about alone-time! It took a real e
ffort of will to bring my focus back to the job in hand. Get into the parking lot, rip off some greenery and squeak away – five minutes! Simple! But the day had worn on me and the smells, the sounds, the steam and the smoke-laced lights soon had me gagging with nervousness. If I got caught, Bridie would die of shame! She’d kill me a thousand times, then she’d die of shame.

  “So what, so what, so what!” I was growling at myself as I parked the barrow beneath a bush at the edge of the lot. “Shut up and leave me alone!”

  It was just on dusk. Fifteen minutes of waiting would do it. Fifteen quiet, uneventful minutes!

  * * *

  Five minutes later, a pair of boys I knew from school appeared. They drank hastily from a bottle, peed on a tyre and sauntered away, back to the grounds. Five minutes more and a vehicle rattled into the lot. Doors slammed and voices floated across to me! One of which was almost as familiar as my own.

  “If something ever happened to me,” Bridie once said to me, “and you needed someone to put your trust in, you couldn’t do better than Kevin Truck!”

  And with all my heart, I knew that to be true. Which was why, with all my newfound criminal intention, I really didn’t want to show myself. Stealing is stealing is stealing! Even if it’s for a goat-funeral!

  It quickly became clear, though, that he and whoever. . . a woman? . . . weren’t on their way into the grounds. They were lingering in the lot. Why? And I didn’t recognise her voice! Who was she? Thus (as Kevin would’ve said) doth curiosity tempt the cat to leave its squeaky barrow behind and creep out amongst the densely packed cars.

  Peeping carefully over bonnets and around bumpers, I finally got a view of them. He was tossing remnants of the exploded Grand Gourd into the back of his van; which answered my first question. Grand Gourd scones were still going to be on the town’s menu, despite Johnathon’s careless landing!

  As to the other question, the woman he was talking with was a complete stranger to me. I squinted, I strained to hear, got none the wiser and, deciding that my and Kevin’s friendship deserved a better effort than this sneaky evesdropping, I began a retreat. I’d have made it too, if weren’t for the one word I clearly heard both of them say. And that word, my own name, drew me out into the open.

  He saw me straight away. “Ru’! What the . . . ? What are you doing here?”

  The apparent answer was, surprising the hell out of him!

  “I mean . . . why aren’t you down on Sideshow Alley, running amok? Where’s As’? Hey, sorry I had to leave you with poor old Garlic, earlier! How’dja go, dja get him home alright? My God, you startled me, popping up like that! Hey, you don’t know where Bridie is, do you? Could she still be at the hospital, d’ye think? Bin tryin’ to find her all afternoon!”

  Babbling Kevin! This wasn’t a persona I’d come across before! And it made me even more curious about the woman who, maybe more so because of the sharp shadows, seemed a sombre, grim, worn looking thing. About Kevin’s age, I guessed, but wearing stuff that belonged to some other era entirely. Dark, ankle-lengthed, sewn with bright stars and brocade. It looked like part of a costume. Like she was an escapee from a 1960’s gypsy parade!

  My manners aren’t always very flash. But I did my best, as I mumbled empty answers, to check her out in a sidewise, inoffensive kind of way. She, on the other hand, let her eyes crawl over me like worms and made no effort to hide the fact that she was unimpressed. Rude old cow, I thought; and my surreptitious glances rapidly morphed into a ‘what’s-your-problemish’ kind of stare.

  Kevin, giving credit to his breeding, did his best to avert a confrontation. He wrapped an arm about her shoulders and spoke to her slowly, softly, the way I sometimes spoke to Asael when he was being particularly, aggravatingly (as Amalthea’d called him) ‘special’.

  “It’s been a long time, Bess. She won’t remember you.”

  But as soon as he said her name, I did remember her. And if I hadn’t already been as annoyed as hell about so many things – having to lurk in the parking lot to steal flowers for a dead goat was not the worst of them – that name alone would have ruined the rest of my weekend. Nonetheless, nothing emphasizes someone’s bad manners as sharply as showing good manners, so I bit my tongue and boiled up a smile for Kevin’s introduction.

  “Ruthie, I’d like you to meet the famous clairvoyant, Madam Zodiac!” He launched into a spiel that I’d probably heard a dozen times before, on Sideshow Alley. “She remembers your past, she knows your future! She’ll astonish and ama-a-a-ze wi . . . !”

  “Can that!” she snapped and the introduction halted, though both his smile and mine teetered on.

  “Sorry, Bess. Just a professional courtesy, love.” He winked at me and reached a hand to my shoulder. “Ruth, this lady who’s gracing us with her company is Bessie Crampton. You might not remember Bessie, but . . .”

  “I remember.”

  It was a bit bitey-er than I’d intended but, for starters, it wasn’t the first time that day her name had come up, so I already had a freshly re-minted awareness of her in my mind. And in the second place, she had long been, to me, just one more of the people who’d abandoned Bridie – the most recent one, in fact! And in the third place, I was none too happy with the sense that whoever was in charge of ‘Life’ appeared to be playing silly-buggers with mine! What the Fairy Ferkles was going on?

  Kevin paused thoughtfully, nodded and soldiered on.

  “You do? Excellent! Well! I’d thought, what with it being so long ago . . . !” He was speaking with that sort of eyebrow-wagging exaggerated emphasis that people use when they want you to read between the lines. “So, you’ll remember too, then, won’t you, that Bessie was a great friend of your parents? And your grandma? Bessie knew them for many years. In those very same years you and I were talking about this morning! Remember?”

  I nodded shallowly. She had stayed with us all those years, it was true. Even after the Reverend left, when we’d needed her so badly. But then, like all the rest, she’d gone. I was seven that year and, for Bridie and for me, it had been like another death.

  “Bess,” he finished up gamely, turning away from me, “I’d like you to re-meet Ruthie MacFarlane.”

  I switched off the smile. Sometimes people presume they have a right to hug you, and I wasn’t going to risk seeming to invite it. But she thrust out a hand instead. I looked at it long enough to let her know that, whatever distance she was imagining between us, she was still underestimating it by half. In all the years I’d known her, I’d never called her anything but Bessie. Okay, maybe sometimes Auntie Bess. Right, and I suppose I might even, once or twice, in moments of extreme vulnerability, have called her ‘mum’. But it wasn’t heartfelt! I reached out and took her hand.

  “I remember you . . . Mrs Crampton.”

  Her grasp was as swift and surprising as a turkey’s peck. But a turkey that hangs on. She stepped straight into me, twisting my wrist so my hand lay atop hers and began rubbing the skin with her thumb, squeezing the meaty edges and fingering the knobs of my knuckles. I was so startled! I tried instinctively to yank myself free but she moved her grip up to my wrist and held on, spreading my fingers, pinching the webbing between and muttering crazily to herself. I tried a second time to twist free and, in response, she clutched the hand to her breast and turned her glaring attention to my face.

  Kevin, meanwhile, put on a show that would have distracted a hypnotist.

  “What a day, eh Ru’? You’re a hero in town, did you know – risking your all for old Crash Cranna? Folks’ve been looking all over for you! And for Bridie! She won the Queen contest! Lyle’s been calling your names over the loudspeaker! Just to congratulate you, you know? Bess and I, we went over to your place looking for you both. You know, so Bess and Bridie in particular could have a catch-up! Missed her though! We were already back here before I thought o’ the hospital! Surely Bridie wouldn’t still be there, would she? With Johnathon? Has she called you?”

  I was embarrass
ed to realise that I not only had no idea where she might be but I was going to resent it mightily if she’d spent the whole afternoon with Johnathon! Not that she didn’t have every right to!

  “Yah, yah!” I struggled to find a suitable lie. “She’s fine! You know her – just hates the limelight! She’s just – laying low!”

  “Good-oh. Well! Great! What a memorable festival this one’s gonna be, eh? Goodbye to the dreary old past and hello to a . . . a bright new future!”

  And as though she’d remembered where that bright new future was to be found, Bessie cranked my hand through a hundred and eighty degrees and began analysing my palm.

  “Hey, and so, you got Garlic home all right?” Kevin continued with barely a pause. “What a shame that was, eh? He was a good bloke, Garlic was! Focussed! ‘The Force is Gathering’! Wouldn’t leave home without that sign, the old bloke! Couldn’t trick him with something else, either! Couldn’t even slip Rosemary’s sign on him. No way! That was his mission in life, carrying those words. A rare and lucky gift, that would be, eh Ru’? To know your mission in life? Yes indeed! I’m gonna miss that little billy. But there you go! Life changes, doesn’t it? I’ll get around to Thea’s tomorrow, after the scones. Just to see she’s okay. She’s good value, her, don’t you think? Haven’t known her all that long. What’s she been here – three, four months? But what a breath of fresh air, eh? Never hurts to breathe some fresh air, I always say!”

  Listening to him was like being pounded with a pillow. But it did the trick! When he ran out of chat, though, my hand was still stuck in Bessie’s bull rider’s grip and I was seriously regretting leaving my possie under the bush with my barrow. Thankfully, Kevin put an end to it. He didn’t actually have to judo chop her or anything, but he did gently break her hold on me, a finger at a time.

  “Come on now, Bess! Let her go. You’ve seen enough. Here! Give me your hand.”

  He got one hand free and the other jumped into the air, fluttering like a moth before coming to rest with its mate in Kevin’s strong black ones.

  “Go on then, Sweetheart,” he said softly. Like he was encouraging a confused old workhorse to tend to its oats. “She’s grown up beautifully, hasn’t she? And she’s clever as a whip! Why don’t you tell her?”