Robbie looks at me, and his face flickers with something I can’t read. He opens his mouth as if to say something, then shuts it again. Shakes his head.
‘Sorry, Ruby.’ He pulls his keys from his pocket and clicks open his car. Then hesitates before fishing in his pocket for his wallet. For one god-awful moment, I think he’s going to throw some cash my way. His parental contribution. He takes a couple of steps towards me. In his hand is a card. ‘Take this,’ he says. ‘If you ever want help, call me.’
I take the card with trembling fingers.
‘I’m not all she has left,’ I say to him. ‘She has her music. Her friends. You don’t know her as well as you think you do.’
He nods and gets in the car, but he looks unconvinced. The throaty growl of his engine breaches the silence. Dust spits out from his tires as he revs away.
I stand in the amber sunshine, watching the orange smudge of his car grow smaller, the dust clouds billowing bigger, until his car is swallowed by them.
I hate that he’s right.
I stand there a moment, dumbly swiping at tears. I don’t want to go inside. I don’t even know why I’m crying. Is it because the guy who drove off is my father? I never cared about having a father before. I turn the card in my hand. Robbie Vetter: Lead Guitarist/Vocalist/Song Writer/Music Producer. It doesn’t say Ruby’s father.
As the noise of his car fades, I become aware of another. Soft sounds from inside. A noise I’ve heard before, but only once. It breaks me from my trance. I wipe my own face clean with my hand and lunge at the front door. I’m inside before I can even think.
Mum is crumpled in her chair, one hand to her face. The other clutching her stomach.
‘Mum,’ I breathe.
She looks up, makes an attempt at a smile, which crumbles. ‘Ruby?’
I rest my hand on her back. Feel the ridged bumps of her spine.
‘What are you doing home?’
But I have no space for her questions, there are so many of my own competing for space.
‘I heard everything.’
‘Ruby . . .’ Mum is gasping like a fish on land.
‘You said you didn’t know . . .’
‘Ruby . . .’
‘You never told me about Robbie. Barely even mentioned his name. Why would you lie?’
She clutches her stomach with both hands now, like it’s physically painful to be her. And without hiding her contorted face, she allows the tears to cascade freely. For the first time in my life, I watch Mum’s pain turn into a public beast. She whimpers, her body convulsing, tears dripping off the end of her chin onto her lap.
My disciplined, feisty little mother in pieces.
‘Oh, Ruby. Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me.’
She bites her lip, which is trembling uncontrollably. ‘You can go with him, follow him if you want . . . just, please, don’t hate me.’
‘Why would I do that, Mum? Robbie’s a virtual stranger.’
‘Because he’s charmed you too. I saw it. And because he’s right about helping you. He can offer you things I never can, Ruby. He knows everyone I left behind. I’m not good enough to help you find a way out there anymore.’
Nobody says my maestro mother isn’t good enough.
She’s like the wizard in Fantasia. The one who conjures up all kinds of twisted wonders. The magic never went away.
‘I don’t want Robbie,’ I say. ‘I want you. But I need the truth. I deserve a history.’
‘You have a history with me, with Nan . . .’ But then she stops, takes a deep breath and my heart trips. ‘I’ve never lied to you, Ruby. I want you to know that. But I did tell you some partial truths.’
My heart thuds irregularly. ‘I thought we told each other everything,’ I say. ‘Is he really my father?’
But I already know the answer. My chest rises and falls rapidly. This is about the fibre of who I am. Who made me.
‘You were a baby, then just a child. Then, suddenly, you weren’t anymore and the history books were too dusty to reopen. And I thought, what if you pinned your hopes on him being your father and he didn’t behave like one? What if he didn’t care?’
‘Shouldn’t I get to decide if I want to risk that?’
Mum’s silent and still for a moment. Then she looks up at me and says in a quiet voice. ‘I’m sorry.’ She touches a hand to my cheek and I hold it there.
My mother is offering me her apology. The same mother who risked everything to keep me. I don’t want her to apologise for her choices. Especially choices she made to protect me. Even if they were messed up. I need to understand them.
‘Were you in love with him?’
She doesn’t answer immediately but after a few deep breaths, she says, ‘He gave me his love, and I took it, Rube. He was exciting and manic . . . a total genius. And we made an incredible duo. But then he left. Nobody could be in love with that.’
Mum has talked about men before, but love? Never. I’m numbed by it. And he told her he loved her. I heard him.
‘Do you think he was in love with you?’ I ask.
‘Oh, he said he was. Of course he did. They all do,’ she says dismissively. ‘But love . . . love is so much more than a word, Ruby. Love is what you do. And Robbie, he wasn’t cut out for fatherhood. Not the kind that changes nappies or paces the floors or can be pinned to a regular dinner time.’ She gives a little laugh, and turns her head to smile at me. ‘He was like a cat. Robbie wasn’t dependable, came home only when it suited him. Not keen on social conventions. I know it’s hard to understand why I didn’t tell you, but I was protecting you. Life’s a lot more intricate than you can fathom at seventeen, my sweet girl.’
‘But couldn’t you have tried? Given him a chance to try? If you loved each other . . .’
Mum sighs. ‘Honestly, Ruby. This is hard to say, but when I found out I was pregnant I knew he wouldn’t want me to keep you. When I decided to, I didn’t want to give him the chance to reject you. You didn’t deserve that. And after you were born, I traced your petite, sculptured face, touched that downy ginger hair, and you were more perfect than any music I could make. Nobody was going to tell me I should give you up. The day you were born, I decided I would be enough for you and you would be enough for me. So I let Robbie and the band go. It was the best thing for everyone. And now look at him. How well he’s done.’
‘And you?’ I say.
‘I still played. It wasn’t the same, but in Newtown with our friends – those were good days,’ Mum says softly.
‘And then there was the accident.’
It’s the thing we never talk about.
Slowly, she moves to the piano. Lifts the lid, hunches over, hands limp in her lap. The afternoon sun catches the golden cracks running through Alex’s vase, and I suddenly understand why Mum feels a communion with it.
The piano lid slams shut. ‘I have nothing left to give.’
‘Yes, you do. Nothing can take away your music,’ I say. I reach for her shoulder, but she shrinks from my hand.
Then she turns and goes slowly down the hall.
‘Mum,’ I say feebly.
She doesn’t respond. Probably didn’t even hear me.
And once again, we have a day without music. Not a note, not a sound.
By evening, my cramping has subsided, the bleeding not so heavy. I take some Panadol, soak the blood out of my uniform in the laundry sink and change into my loosest pair of shorts. The house is quiet, and I know better than to call Mum out for dinner, so I run my fingers lightly over the ivory keys of the Steinway.
Has anybody loved a piano as much as this one? Has anyone played music with the same desperate sorrow? Why is she blind to the beauty of that? I think of Frida Kahlo. Wasn’t her art made only because of her paralysis? And what about Artemisia Gentileschi? She became one of the most important painters of her time.
My phone buzzes on the dining table. I stand up, wipe my face, and reach for it.
The number is unfamiliar. I open
the message.
Pilot looking for co-pilot. Night circuits. Feeling brave?
My heart stops for a second. Then beats again, rapidly.
Tonight, on zero notice?
I open the glass door to the back deck. The heat has loosened its grip and the ripple of a breeze flutters against my skin. Twilight is melting the sky shades of indigo, the first stars twinkling above the tree line.
Feeling brave?
Once upon a time I would have gone on any adventure with Erik, any at all. I used to dare him to try and tame me. ‘It’s too far to jump from that ledge,’ he’d say. And I’d do it. ‘Careful, that branch is really high.’ I’d climb higher. ‘It’s too cold to swim in the falls today.’ I’d strip down to my underwear, dive in. Then, of course, he’d follow. He had to.
Now he’s asking whether I’m feeling brave. Maybe tonight, I am. Maybe under the cloak of darkness, I can put on my old self and be that fearless girl again.
When? I text.
Pick you up at 20.00.
One hour.
Mum would freak. She’d say flat out no. But then I remember Erik’s warm hand on my shoulder. Our fingers brushing together on the chair’s handles. His smile at me across the crowded room at Grandad’s party.
Another text comes through while my fingers are still hovering over the screen.
Or you can sit at home while I buzz over your roof.
It’s the sort of taunt that would have made me punch him in the arm as a kid. He thinks it still has the same effect. But it’s not just about me. Is it selfish to do this? Who would be here for Mum if something went wrong? Grandad says aviation history is littered with the bodies of great pioneering men and women who went down in small planes: Amelia Earhart, Charles Kingsford-Smith, JFK Junior. And it’s not just the pilots. There are plenty of passengers too. Incredible musicians like Buddy Holly, John Denver, Aaliyah.
But I’m tired of being afraid. A fierce desire rises inside me. I want to be the girl Erik remembers – maybe I am still that girl if you dig deep enough.
To hell with caution. There’s a plane waiting for me.
Destination unknown.
Destination I don’t give a shit.
Destination anywhere but here.
I write a text and hit send before I can change my mind.
I’ll come. You’d better not kill me.
I text Erik to stop short of the house. I can’t risk Mum hearing the ute pull up.
I ease the front door shut behind me. On the front step, from beneath our dim yellow porch light, the forest is a pool of darkness. The trees have lost all shape and colour, they merge as one with the sky. Only I am illuminated. I imagine eyes tracking me from the dark, waiting for me to leave the safety of the house.
As I walk down the road, the bushland beside me rustles. A heavy noise. Too big for a possum. I freeze. I feel properly afraid out here in the open. Vulnerable. I hear Frank’s words. ‘They’re getting that brazen.’
The crunching comes closer, and I turn to face it. Catch a glimpse of mottled fur along the edge of the woods. It lumbers to the edge of the road, moonlight sheening off its wool-like fur. Not a dog – a koala. They’re around, of course. We often spot round fluffy lumps sleeping high in a gum tree, or hear them at night, but I’ve rarely had one walk by. The koala looks at me curiously before padding its way slowly across the road on all fours. I watch it disappear into the dark forest on the other side.
A low rumble, and Hal’s ute rolls towards me. No headlights. Gravel crunching softly beneath the tyres as it comes to a stop.
The driver’s door opens, and Erik climbs out.
His hair is blacker than midnight, and the light from the ute’s cabin reflects in his eyes, making them luminescent. He looks like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland.
‘Hey,’ he whispers, giving me a one-armed hug.
We click our doors shut as gently as we can. He does a U-turn and drives slowly towards the main road.
I tell him about my encounter with the koala, and then his lights pass over the dead dog, still dangling from the fence. It looks more gruesome lit up.
‘When’s somebody going to cut that thing down?’ he says. ‘Creeps me out.’
When we hit the Old Ghost Road, both of us fall silent. My mind is spinning with doubt. All the things that could go wrong.
He parks the ute on the asphalt outside the hangar. The aerodrome is more lonesome by night and lit by yellow floodlights that give it a hazy aura. It’s hauntingly beautiful, like that movie Pearl Harbor where the girl gets taken flying at sunset by a fighter pilot. Afterwards, he takes her to the parachute hangar, and they make love beneath the chutes. It was all so romantic.
I look quickly at Erik in the seat next to me. Shake the idea firmly out of my head.
I’m not interested in that.
In fact, the longer I look at the airfield from the ute window, the more it starts to look like the set of a horror film rather than a romance. I think of what happened with Joey and I’m amazed at how stupid I am to be here at all. After the party, all I could think was how everyone would blame me for being so naïve, for being drunk, for going to the end of the yard with him. If anything happened here it would be the same. ‘What was she doing there?’ they’d say. ‘Why would a girl go with a boy to a place like that? Why did she sneak out? Why wasn’t she more careful?’ They should ask why anyone would harm a girl to begin with, but they don’t.
‘You okay?’ Erik’s looking at me. ‘You nervous?’
I’m about to say ‘I’m fine’, but pretending hasn’t been working for me lately.
I’m not fine. I don’t have to tell him why.
‘A little,’ I confess.
Erik stays in his seat, hands on the wheel. He turns and looks me right in the eye.
‘We don’t have to do this. I can take you home if you’ve changed your mind.’
I think about it for a moment. Going home. Spending the night safely in my bed like I normally do. But how will I feel if I miss this chance?
‘No, I want to,’ I say. ‘I’m a bit freaked out, but I want to know what it feels like.’
Erik looks straight ahead.
‘Ally told me this would be an act of faith for you, so it’s okay if you don’t trust me to take you up yet. I was just teasing about the being brave stuff.’
I’m silent for a while. Do I trust him? Do I trust any guy anymore? This feels different. I did trust Erik once. I feel safe with him. And his own life is on the line too. What’s the worst that could happen? Dumb question. The answer is crashing to our death in a fiery ball of metal.
‘It’s not just me I have to think about,’ I say. This is something I never say out loud. ‘Mum needs me.’
‘No problem. I’ll drive you home and we’ll never discuss it again.’ He reaches for the keys in the ignition.
I catch his hand. ‘Wait.’
I can’t be grounded just because of Mum. What kind of life will I have if I never take a chance? Even Mum tells me I need to start living.
‘Are you trained for things not going right?’ I ask.
He nods. ‘I know the emergency drills inside out. If something goes wrong, I’ll do everything right.’ His voice doesn’t waver.
‘Okay.’ I nod. ‘I trust you.’
And I can’t believe those words just left my mouth.
There’s not another soul at the airport, but I keep checking over my shoulder. As much as I don’t like the forest at night, I’m equally not a fan of big spaces with shadows broad as monsters’ backs.
I shuffle closer to Erik. But thoughts of Lukas flood my mind. The punch to Kyle’s stomach. Him twisting my wrist. Wanting to hurt me. Control me. When I try to push those thoughts aside, I think of my grandad hitting Nan. Is it wrong to feel protected in the company of a guy? Is it an illusion? Men are bigger and stronger, and they’re the ones most likely to cause us harm. Even the ones we trust. So I shouldn’t feel sheltered by Erik, safer by his side.
Even he had his fists clenched when he confronted Lukas.
Erik half turns, giving me a funny smile for being on his heels. Understands nothing about being a girl.
Then he opens the hangar door, and it groans its familiar protest. He reaches for the switch, filling our world with brilliant fluorescence that obliterates every shadow. In here it could be daylight. Here, sitting as patiently as always, is the Bluebird.
‘You get to know her.’ He nods at the gleaming plane. ‘I’ll go log a flight plan.’
He jogs up the metal stairwell to the office as I run a finger lightly across the fuselage. Not smooth and shiny like a car. Rivets along every join in the aluminium, dried remnants of dead bugs stuck to the paintwork. I do a slow walk around the plane. Touch her wings. Low-set and unassuming, they rise up as they push out from her body. These are the wings that carry her to great heights. She has the kind of sureness I can only dream of.
Cupping my hands against the window, I remember how the passenger side is on the right, the opposite to a car. I peer into the cockpit – a cramped, carpeted space with two steering wheels and a ton of instruments on the dash.
The stairs groan as Erik makes his way back down.
‘You ready?’
I smile nervously.
He does a quick walk around the plane, like the one I did moments earlier, but he’s checking rather than admiring. He touches different air vents and tubes, gives the wings a good wobble. What would happen if they snapped off?
Don’t think about it.
He climbs onto the wing of the Bluebird, unscrews a cap and pulls out a dipstick. Holds it up to the light, screws the lid back on, dusts his hands on his pants and jumps down off the wing. He slides the roller door of the hangar across and the cool night air rushes in.
Erik takes the yellow chocks out from beneath each wheel of the plane and opens the passenger door for me.
‘Ladies first.’
It’s a gesture that would make Mum flinch. She’d say it’s condescending, but I actually kind of like it.
I step up onto the base of the wing, and over into the cockpit, where I sink into a worn-out leather seat. There’s a headset on the dash, and the smell of metal and avgas.
Ruby Tuesday Page 17
