by Robin Klein
‘Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. Your house is on fire and your children all gone,’ chanted Angie, aping his troubled voice with a degree of malice he didn’t know she possessed. ‘Listen, Seymour, you stay out of this! Lynne and her casual conversation…she’s been at you, hasn’t she? Telling you lies. You don’t want to believe anything she tells you, she’s just plain jealous of me having a flat of my own and being independent…’
‘Angie, you sort of promised them you’d go to Lakeview…’
‘Lakeview, where the hell’s that? I don’t know any place called that! Mum just popped in to clean my flat and that’s all there is to it! Got it all ready for me to go back to, because I was sick…I asked her…I’m not going to…They all seem to think…Hey, come on, let’s change the subject. You know what I thought of buying for my flat? One of those gorgeous big prints, they cover a whole wall. I saw this fabulous one like a forest scene—tree trunks and light coming down in a shaft…It will look great up on that wall behind my dressing-table.’
‘People ought to keep promises.’
‘Let’s change the subject!’ Angie said with taut desperation. ‘Visitors are supposed to talk about nice things in hospital. I’ve been sick, really sick, you know. I got a kind of pleurisy on top of that flu. Pleurisy’s serious, people can even…If you’ve just come here to hassle and nag me like everyone else, Seymour, talk me into…Oh, forget it! I don’t feel like visitors anyway! Why don’t you just nick off home?’
Seymour remembered the gift he’d brought her and handed it over in defeated silence.
‘Oh, a present—it’s lovely,’ Angie cried. ‘You’re sweet, bringing me a present. I’ve always loved this stuff, too, though I can’t remember what it’s called. It’ll come in really handy. Did I tell you I’m thinking of getting stuck into making things and selling them at craft markets? Little boxes with pine-cone lids, fabric picture frames, you know the sort of thing. I could use this—what’s it called…fennel? No, that’s not right. Oh, God, I hate it when I can’t remember things! You might be able to help me out at those craft markets, be my assistant. We’d have fun…’
‘I go back to school next week. I’m moving tomorrow with my mum to the new place.’
‘Where is it? I never knew you were moving…’
‘Honest, Angie, you and your rotten memory,’ Seymour said, thinking how far away that unknown suburb had looked on the map when his mother had pointed it out to him. ‘I already told you about Carrucan a million times.’
‘Well, I’m no good at names and dates and stuff. Here, write down your new address on this paper the dried flowers were wrapped up in, then I won’t have any excuse for forgetting next time. Carrucan—that’s way out past the airforce base somewhere, isn’t it? Never mind, no worries. I’ll be able to buy another car with what I make from my craft market sales. Something really jazzy, a little four-wheel drive, maybe. I’ll whizz out to Carrucan and pick you up and we’ll go on safaris. Oh, don’t I wish I had that car right now! I’d be out that gate and away, right to the edge of the map and off!’
Seymour glanced around at the other patients. Most of them were young, like Angie. He studied the faces of the visitors. They chattered brightly, ribbons of cheerful sound festooning the air like bunting, but it somehow sounded false and laboured. The eyes in the bright faces of the visitors didn’t somehow link with the chatter. Sad, worried eyes…everywhere he looked.
‘You’re always talking about…about nicking off to places,’ he said jerkily.
‘So what if I am? Any law against it? What’s the matter with you, biting my head off like that?’
‘It’s true. It’s the way you always carry on. I bet even if you did have that car, the nurses wouldn’t let you take off in it. Your hands are all shaky. You couldn’t…’
‘There’s nothing wrong with me!’ Angie said rapidly. ‘Just a little bout of flu, that’s all it was. Why, I could have stayed home in the flat and got better all by myself. It was just everyone fussing—you know what parents are like. I’m feeling fantastic now, really I am. I still look pretty. I look terrific, don’t I? Come on, Seymour, you’re my pal, don’t you reckon I look terrific?’
‘About as terrific as everyone else in here,’ Seymour said, carefully not looking at the other patients and their visitors.
‘Them? What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t look a bit like them! They’re all absolute no-hopers, that lot—that skinny guy over there, he’s in and out of this place like a yoyo! And Samantha, that twit with the frizzed up hair, she’s nothing but a…Some friend you are, saying…Specially when I never even asked you to barge in here and poke your nose into my affairs, you little twerp! Bothering someone in hospital…Go away! Go on, nick off!’
‘Okay,’ Seymour said. ‘No point in hanging around if you just jump down my throat every time I say anything. I’ll go, then.’
‘Good! I’m certainly not stopping you!’
He gathered the small stems of dried flowers together. Angie with her restless, agitated hands had messed them up and they no longer looked like a neat, shop-assembled gift. Seymour wrapped them again in the tissue paper.
‘That’s a lovely present,’ Angie said distractedly. ‘Did I thank you for it? I’ll be able to use it in dried-flower arrangements when I get my florist shop. My goodness, all this fuss about a little attack of flu and pleurisy, you’re just as bad as my parents…I’ve forgotten what this dry stuff’s called—it’s not fennel, is it? I’m well enough to get up and walk right out of…Bracken, that’s not it, either…Oh, I wish I would remember the names of things!’
‘It’s called honesty,’ Seymour said and suddenly felt very tired, too tired to bother about the bouquet. He dumped it next to her, not caring that the fragile moons scattered fragments of themselves into the dusty grass. ‘That’s what it’s called—honesty. Geeze, Angie, you go rattling on about bronchitis and flu, but we both know what…The flat, that’s all over and done with, there’s nothing left there now. You can’t go back there.’
‘There are other places! I’ve got friends…’
‘They all want you to go to that Lakeview place, you know they do. It’s some kind of home where they help you get off…drugs, isn’t it? You promised them you’d go there. Your dad’s coming in to pick you up.’
‘I won’t be here when he does! They can’t make me go if I don’t want to! It’ll just be like all those other times I tried—a waste…it never ever works out…’
‘Maybe you never give it a chance to.’
‘Don’t you dare start preaching at me! I’ve got enough to worry about. Got to find somewhere else to…Samantha reckons it shows now. They don’t like renting flats to people with kids, neighbours complaining…poor little baby…poor little thing. Oh, God, what a mess! I wish now I’d just…just…’
Seymour suddenly thought of the baby he’d seen all those years ago, remembered clear eyes gazing peacefully into his face. He felt sick with distress.
‘Any kid of yours is going to have a great time, isn’t it?’ he said stiffly, getting to his feet. ‘A real lovely time it’s going to have! You falling asleep every time you come down with…with flu, and it can just bawl its head off. You probably won’t even hear, Angie. Falling out of its cot and you won’t hear that, either! You reckon you like little kids—all those times we went out and you saw a pram, you’d stop and have a look and go all clucky. Talk about a big act!’
‘I’m good with kids, you ask anyone! I’d never…’
‘You’ll be falling asleep with a cigarette burning the place down. It’s okay, I’m going. I don’t want to stay here any more and talk to you. You make promises and don’t…They booked you into Lakeview and your dad bought the plane ticket. They’re all trying to help you…All you’ve got to do is bloody go there wherever it is and stay for a while!’
‘Get lost, Seymour!’
People were turning to look. An older woman with a tired, concerned face hesitated and half rose
from a bench, but he didn’t care. For the first time in his life he didn’t much care if people turned to gape at him if he were causing ripples. He felt angry enough to wish that the ripples would surge into a whirlpool large and powerful enough to swallow up the whole mess, take Angie away, cover up the frightened eyes in the garden, swirl away the whole sad, terrible business.
‘Babies can smile really early, did you know that?’ he said bitterly. ‘Yours probably won’t have much to grin about, though. Where’s it going to grow up, Angie? You haven’t even got anywhere for it to live. Oh, I forgot, there’s that posh house on Gresham Avenue, isn’t there? Or maybe in the back room of your florist shop…’
‘You rotten little creep! I never asked you to come in here and lecture me! You get the hell out of here—I didn’t want to see you, even! I never even…liked you!’
‘Well, I don’t like you much, either, Angie,’ Seymour said and turned to go, but something was dragging at his wrist. He tore at the knotted handle of the plastic bag and let it fall into Angie’s lap. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You might as well have it. Little girls like playing with dolls.’
He went away, not looking back, not able to look back, and walked numbly through the intricate streets to the railway station. The air shimmered with heat. Waiting for the train, he found himself blinking and screwing up his eyelids, for the sky seemed to be filled mysteriously with white-hot, silver flecks. They flickered like miniature rain and dampened the backs of his hands when he touched his eyes.
No little winged horse, he thought, looking up into the sky, trapped in the numbess that wasn’t, after all, free from pain. He blinked the illusion of silver rain from his eyes. There would never be any little winged horse plunging splendidly from the sky to land at your feet and carry you away from things not to be borne. That was something you had to learn to do all by yourself.
Lakeview
Hi, Seymour!
Guess you’d never thought you’d get a letter from me after all this time, hey, specially after that big fight we had. You should be so lucky, pal! (N.B. Note the above address. I’m just about the oldest inhabitant—four whole months, strewth, someone oughta give me a medal!)
So, how are things going with you? You learned to swim yet, you lazy nerd? I’m as well as can be expected (as the saying goes). I was going to nick off that many times when I first got here, you wouldn’t have believed it. (Or maybe you would.) Once I hiked all the way to the nearest station (like travelling over the Sahara Desert, no kidding). Just my terrific luck when I got there—next train wasn’t due for another two hours! Nothing to look at except gum trees and I was feeling a bit wobbly and peculiar after that long walk. (Or maybe it was the baby giving me a good kick, who knows. It’s obviously going to be a bit of a nagger, like you.) Anyhow, the thought of looking at gum trees for two hours didn’t seem all that fantastic, so I turned round and came back here.
I’m staying on for a couple of months after the baby’s born (got to make sure I’m really and truly recovered from flu and bronchitis and pleurisy and that!). Then we’ll both be going to live with Mum and Dad for a bit. Back home.
I’m getting along fine, Seymour. (Honestly.) I think maybe I’m going to make it this time around. Just thought I’d tell you. When things get a bit tough I go for walks—only not in the direction of the railway station. The lake’s full of little silver fishes. (THEY can swim, you dill, so why can’t YOU?) They’re so pretty to watch I sit there for hours on end. It’s peaceful.
I didn’t get around to thanking you for bringing Juliet for me that day, did I? Well, thanks. She got a bit battered the first few weeks here. I used to get so depressed I’d scrunch her up in a ball and practically chew bits out of her. But that part’s all over now. I made her a new dress and new plaits of wool and washed and ironed and starched her. She just sits on my dressing table now, looks like a new woman!
The baby’s going to be fine, too, the doctor said. They did this ultrasound—that’s kind of like a moving x-ray picture—and I saw its little feet and it moved a hand and sort of waved to me. God, it’s so tiny, though you won’t think so from the photo I’m putting in with this letter. I look like I’m going to have triplets!
Seymour, it won’t ever be crying in its cot because I’ve fallen asleep, truly it won’t. You don’t ever have to worry about that now.
You should see all the cute things I’ve knitted for it (while I’m down talking to the fish in the lake).
I hope you get this letter and you haven’t moved on to some place else. And that things turned out OK for you at the new school and no one’s giving you a hard time. You know I never meant it when I said I never liked you. That was just me feeling sorry for myself and hitting out at the nearest thing which just happened to be you. I thought you were an ace kid (even though you wore that daggy shirt!). I hope I see you again some day. Hey, how about writing to me? It gets a bit lonely up here. Sounds silly, doesn’t it, when there are so many people here—sometimes we even have to have two shifts for meals in the dining room. But it’s spooky, like climbing a big mountain all by yourself in the fog. Still, I reckon I’m nearly up to the top, now. When I get there, I’ll tell you what the view’s like!*
Love from Angie
* If Morris Carpenter’s got anything to do with it, the fog might be just as thick up at the top! (Joke.)
P.S. Please write to me, love. I really miss you. Be my friend, keep me comforty, OK?
POSTSCRIPT
Dear Angie,
I got your letter and the photo—it was great to hear from you! Lots of times I wanted to write, but I didn’t even know where you were—could have been Saturn for all I knew. Angie, I’m glad it’s not.
Carrucan’s not as bad as I thought it would be. My mum seems to like it, too. Her job was only supposed to be for six months, but the other lady went overseas. We’ve got a really beaut flat underneath the house and Mum bought me some wallpaper to do up my room. I’ve got posters and that stuck up, too. You should see it. Mum sort of bosses the old bloke who owns the house around a lot, but he’s pretty deaf and doesn’t seem to mind. He really likes her cooking and the way she keeps the house looking so tidy. I reckon we might be staying put for awhile.
Hey, guess what, I’ve got a terrific job here in Carrucan, two days a week after school and all day Saturdays. There’s this kid at school I’ve got friendly with, Martin, and his dad runs a plant nursery. Mart and me get paid for watering the plants and carrying things out to people’s cars and stuff like that. I even got a promotion yesterday at where I work. Marty’s dad says, ‘Hey, Seymour, you’re such a good worker, I’m moving you on to bigger and better things.’ I say, ‘Wow! What?’ He says, ‘You can stack all those bags of fertiliser in the shed today instead of sweeping the paths.’ (!!)
He’s OK, though. We went to this airforce show last weekend, it was unreal!
Angie, I’m glad you went to Lakeview and you didn’t nick off. I’m glad you’re staying there till the baby’s born. I used to get these dreams, you know, about how you’d manage and what it would be like. They were pretty awful.
Anyhow, you can’t very well nick off anywhere in your condition, can you? Honest, I didn’t laugh at the photo you sent. You look OK in it, Ange. You look nice. I like that name you gave that dress, too, Barnum Bros Circus. It suits you looking…well, sort of chubby.
This present I’m sending—I carved it out of soapstone. Sorry the horses are a funny shape—Mart reckons they look more like flying kangaroos, but he helped me stick the hook things on the backs. You don’t have to wear them if you think they’re weird, but you like daggy earrings, so maybe you’ll like these.
My dad came down to see me a couple of months ago. It was all right this time, he stayed in the motel and took me out a few times. He’s got some kind of job with a mate of his who drives a truck, so he’ll be moving around a fair bit. He says he’ll send a postcard from all the different places. At least now he knows where to send it! I hope Carruc
an’s going to last longer than all those other places. I think it will.
Mart and me go down the pool a lot, it’s a heated one here. I still can’t swim very well, but I can sort of get around in the water now without drowning.
Let’s know as soon as the baby comes, and when you get back home, we’ll take it to the zoo to see the orang-outang. Lots of places we can take it.
You hang right in there, Angie!
Love from Seymour
P.S. At the airforce show they were handing out things like showbags, and they had these little silver badges in them (well, not silver, I guess, only plastic). They’re like those badges people get when they learn to fly. When you get back home, maybe I’ll give it to you as a medal. But I’ll have to wait and see.
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Copyright © Robin Klein 1989
Introduction copyright © Simmone Howell 2017
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First published by Penguin Viking, 1989
This edition published by The Text Publishing Company, 2017
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ISBN: 9781925410600 (ebook)
Lines from the song ‘From the Inside’ by Artie Wayne.
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