by Meg McKinlay
I’m not going to ask.
We watch I Dream of Jeannie and then Gilligan’s Island. Bits of them, at least, depending on what Newt’s doing at the time.
When Get Smart starts, I look up at the clock on the wall. Mum should be here by now. Every time I hear a car I think it’s going to turn and pull in but it’s always someone going past.
At twenty past five the phone rings. It’s out in the hall so I can’t hear what’s being said but after she hangs up, Kat’s mum sticks her head in. “Slight change of plans. Your mother’s going to meet us at the drive-in.”
Kat frowns. “How come?”
“Something came up at the hospital. She needs to stay a bit longer.” She nods at me reassuringly. “Such important work. I’m glad we can help.”
Kat rolls her eyes again, but I don’t feel like smiling this time.
Seven
After dinner we head straight to the drive-in so we can get a good spot. This is very important. You don’t want to be so close you have to crane your neck all the time but you don’t want to be right up the back either.
There’s half an hour before the movie starts, so Kat and I go and hang out at the playground near the kiosk. Newt doesn’t want to come – firstly because he doesn’t like playgrounds and secondly because he’s busy reading a week’s worth of newspapers.
He spotted today’s paper on the bench as we were leaving Kat’s. It was the big photo of Skylab that caught his eye, the headline that read Only Twenty Minutes to Duck. When Kat’s mum said he could bring it, he asked if they had any others and she grabbed them for him. Hopefully they’ll keep him busy until Mum comes, save him trying to connect his coathangers to the speaker or something.
There’s no one else at the playground so Kat and I go down the slide a few times and then sit on the swings. We glide lazily back and forth, trailing our feet through the sand. After a while she stands up on the seat and looks back towards the front gate.
“I wonder what time your mum will get here.”
“Shouldn’t be long,” I say. Cars are coming in steadily now and the place is starting to fill up. It must be nearly 6.30.
Some little kids drift over and I can tell they want the swings. We jump off and steady the seats for them, then head to the kiosk.
“Reckon it’s too cold for a choc-top?” I ask.
“Never.”
“Medium popcorn and a choc-top, then.” I hand over my one-dollar note, crumpling Queen Elizabeth between my fingers. I suppose it’s a big deal, getting your picture on all the money, but it doesn’t seem that great to me, having people buy stuff with your face.
I take my change and am shovelling coins into my pocket when it occurs to me. “Maybe I should get something for Newt.”
Kat frowns. “He’s not staying for the movie. For all we know he’s already gone.” She passes a two-dollar note across, asking for Fantales and a choc-top.
There are mixed lollies on the counter, already made up into bags. Ten cents and twenty cents. I’ve got enough.
“Come on.” Kat takes her stuff and turns, already heading off. I hesitate, then follow. Newt’s fussy about lollies anyway – when we go to the milk bar, he never buys the pre-made bags. He takes ages choosing and then goes back and forth endlessly, saying, One of those and two of those and one of those, no, wait, maybe two – until Mr Rayner’s smile starts looking like it’s been painted on.
As we approach the car, Kat slows. “I guess he’s still here then.”
The light’s on inside and Newt’s in the back seat with Kat’s mum. She’s knitting and he’s flicking through the papers. There are some on the seat on either side of him – the papers on one side still sitting on the front page, the others folded open to pages on the inside.
“There’s so much Skylab stuff!” he says when he sees me looking. “Hey, did you know that it was launched on my birthday?”
I turn my attention to a drip that’s making its way down the side of my ice cream.
He picks up a sheet of paper from his pile. “It says the 14th of May but that was in America, which means the next day here, because of the time difference and everything. So it would actually have been the 15th for us.”
I know all this, because Dad explained it. Officially, he said, it wasn’t the same date. But technically, it was the same day. Which made it better. Which made it almost like a secret.
A secret it’s taken Newt no time at all to work out.
“Pretty cool, huh?”
“If you say so.” I slide into the front passenger seat and nod back at the papers. “You can’t just take those, you know.”
The click clack of knitting needles stops. Kat’s mother waves a hand. “Oh, that’s fine. I said he can have them. They’ll only be lining our bin otherwise.”
Newt raises his eyebrows at me and I turn back to the front. Kat’s in the driver’s seat, working steadily on her choc-top. We won’t start the Fantales or the popcorn until the movie has started. This is a rule that must never be broken.
It won’t be long now. The spots around us are all taken and most people have settled in. The family next to us has reversed their station wagon in and put the tailgate down. The kids are lying in the back with pillows and blankets. It looks fun, sort of like camping, and for a second, I wish that was us. But then the big screen flickers to life and even though it’s only the ads at first, I lean back and breathe out. It’s almost my favourite part – this feeling you get when something’s starting, when it’s about to pick you up and carry you for a while and there’s nothing you need to think about or worry about or …
“LOOK OUT!”
There’s a loud bang on the roof. I jump, bashing my knee on the glove box. Ice cream smears down my front and popcorn spills everywhere.
“What on Earth …?” Kat’s mother clutches at her chest.
Faces appear in the window. It’s Jeremy and Dale, grinning.
“BOOM!” Jeremy says. “Skylab’s coming!”
“Get lost!” Kat yells, but they’re already backing up.
As they run off, laughing, I wipe ice cream off my shirt and try to salvage the popcorn.
“Unbelievable,” Kat mutters.
“At least it was only the ads.” As I speak, the screen goes blank. A few seconds later, dramatic music crackles through the speaker and the movie starts.
“The boys probably missed the first bit,” Kat whispers.
“Serves them right.”
Kat’s mum turns around and glances towards the entry. “Gosh, your mother really is late, isn’t she? It’s lucky this happened tonight, when you’re with me. Imagine if you two had been home by yourselves all this time.”
I glance at Newt, but his attention is fixed on the screen.
“Yeah,” I say. “Lucky.”
We watch in silence for a bit, chasing drips on our choc-tops, dipping in and out of the popcorn.
On the screen a fireball rockets through the atmosphere and baby Superman crash-lands on Earth. He climbs out of the crater and holds out his arms.
“I wonder if that’s what Skylab will look like,” Kat says through a mouthful of popcorn.
“You mean with a baby climbing out of it?”
“I mean like a fiery rocket thing.” She frowns. “But actually … what will happen to the people in it? I mean, it’s a space station, right?”
“It’s not that kind of space station.” Newt’s face appears in the space between our seats. “That’s only on TV – people in silver jumpsuits and space shuttles and stuff. No one lives up there. It was launched by a rocket and they control it by computer.”
“Oh, okay. That’s good.”
“Astronauts have been there, though. I read something a minute ago …” There’s a rustle of paper as he reaches behind him. “Here it is. It says three crews have visited Skylab on Apollo spacecraft, spending a total of–”
“Not now, Newt,” I whisper. “We’re trying to watch.”
“One hundred and
seventy-one days on board,” he finishes, without missing a beat. “They came back to Earth by splashdown, but not like Superman. Did you know–”
“Okay, Newt.” I say. “We get it.”
“Skylab’s much bigger than Superman’s spaceship too. Only he isn’t Superman when he’s in his spaceship because he hasn’t started being a hero yet. He’s Kal-El when he comes to Earth. That’s his Krypton name. Did you know that, Frankie?”
Beside me, Kat stiffens and takes a deep breath.
“Just be quiet and watch.” I lean in front of him so he has to sit back in order to see. He stops talking and I hear Kat exhale slowly.
About half an hour later, we’re deep in the movie – seats back, stretched out. A noise has woken Clark Kent up in the middle of the night. He goes to the barn, where the remains of his spaceship are kept, and there’s a strange light inside. It’s a glowing green stick and he reaches down and down for it as the music swells and then …
BANG!
There’s another thump on the roof of the car. A blinding light shines in the window.
Kat moves fast. She jerks the door open and scrambles out, yelling. “I said GET LOST! GO AWAY!” Then her voice lowers. “Oh! Sorry, I thought–”
“QUIET!” someone calls from behind us. “We’re trying to watch the movie.”
“Yeah,” someone else adds. “And sit down while you’re at it!”
There’s muttering from all sides, people flashing lights towards us.
“Sorry! I tripped!” It’s a familiar voice now, a shape ducking down into the window. “So sorry,” Mum says. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” She beckons to Newt. “You ready, love?”
By the time he gathers his stuff and gets out, then comes back twice because he forgot the newspapers and one of the coathangers fell out of his bag, we’ve missed a whole chunk of the movie and neither of us is sure exactly what’s going on.
Kat sighs heavily as Newt disappears between the rows of cars for the third – and hopefully final – time.
“Sorry,” I whisper. I know it’s not my fault but it feels like it is.
Eight
The next day it’s Mum who says sorry. She says it over and over.
She says it to Kat’s mum when she and Newt come to pick me up.
“Oh, no problem at all!” Kat’s mum waves her hands as if she’s shooing away a fly. “I’m glad I could help.”
She says it to me in the car on the way home.
When I don’t reply, she says it again, then adds, “You know what it’s like, love. There’s always something that needs doing.”
She wants me to tell her not to worry, that it’s fine. And then she’ll ruffle my hair and say how mature I am, that she doesn’t know what she’d do without me.
Only I don’t feel like hearing that stuff right now, so I turn my face to the window and sort of shrug instead. After a while Mum stops apologising and keeps her eyes fixed on the road, and it’s such a relief I almost feel guilty.
“Hey,” Newt says as we head onto the highway. “Did you know that Skylab is the heaviest man-made object ever to orbit our planet?”
I glance into the back seat. He’s brought the pile of papers with him from last night. I turn back, press my face against the window again. Not that there’s anything much to see. Tree, I think. Tree, tree, small bush, slightly larger bush, tree.
“That satellite thing again?” Mum says.
“It’s a space station,” Newt says. “Only not like in the movies. Did you know that it was launched on my birthday?”
“Was it?” Mum smiles absently in the rear-view mirror.
“Technically but not officially.” Newt rustles papers as if he’s on urgent business. “Because of the international dateline and all that. Actually …”
There’s more, but I don’t hear it because suddenly there’s a break in tree, tree, small bush, tree – a sign flashing past, a turn-off coming up. It’s the road that leads to the cemetery and there’s nothing special about that. We pass it all the time, let it blur past without a second thought because why would you think twice about a road you’re not taking?
Only it feels different now because all at once it hits me … that it’s today. May 19. The day Dad was on his way home in that tiny, unlucky plane.
Stop thinking, I tell myself. Tree, tree, bush.
It’s not like the date means anything, anyway, because no one knows exactly when Dad died. Because even though they found the pilot, still strapped into his seat like he was fine and just having a little rest before he started the engine and took off again, they never found Dad.
Slightly larger tree, slightly smaller bush.
The second sign. The actual turn-off.
It flashes past. We flash past.
Mum doesn’t even turn her head.
***
Later, Newt’s in his room and Mum’s gone to work and I’m sitting at the table. I’ve got out my pencil case and an exercise book and I should definitely be working on my Fantastic Futures talk and if I’m not doing that I should probably be starting on my Storm Boy project. And if I’m not doing either of those things I should be thinking about dinner because the last thing Mum said as she rushed out the door was that she’d meant to take a casserole out of the freezer but sorry, love, is there any way you could do beans or spaghetti or maybe even that apricot chicken you’ve been talking about I think there’s some chicken in the fridge but maybe give it a quick sniff test okay love you bye.
Three choices. All I have to do is pick one.
Instead, I’m thinking about tree, bush, road sign, turn-off.
I’m trying not to think about a polar bear.
It’s not that I want to go to the cemetery. We used to, but it was kind of a relief when we stopped. Everything about it had felt wrong somehow.
Maybe it was because we knew Dad wasn’t really there. Because all we had was a silver plaque set in marble on the grass and nothing about it even felt like him.
Charles Avery
November 12, 1942 – May 19, 1973
For one thing, his name. No one ever called him Charles. He was always Charlie, if he wasn’t Dad.
And for another, the date. Like someone just picked one and said, “That’ll do.”
Whoever did that, it wasn’t us. It wasn’t me.
“What are you looking at?”
Newt’s in the doorway, a tangle of wire and coathangers in his hands.
I’m staring out the window, I realise, towards the top of the hill. But it’s tree, bush, tree up there too. There’s nothing to see.
I flick my gaze back to the table, to the books. “Nothing. Just thinking.”
He goes over to the TV. “I have to test some things.”
“Okay.”
He fiddles with the knobs and the wire, stopping every now and then to write in his notebook. And I watch, pretending I’m not. I wish I could focus like Newt. Once he decides to do something, it’s that one thing and nothing else. It’s like he spins a little world and disappears inside it.
I push my chair back. I’ll sort dinner out. That’s what I’ll do. Then I’ll come back and make a start on Storm Boy. Or Fantastic Futures. One of them, for sure.
Except Newt’s left the door to the hall open and as I walk past, the bookshelf catches my eye. The album, with the photos, with Dad.
The next thing I know, I’m sliding it out. There’s a sucking noise as the plastic cover sticks to the books around it, but then it slips free. I sink to the carpet, cross-legged, my back against the wall between the bookshelf and the phone table. The album’s on my lap. I watch my hands turn the pages.
Baby photos and little-kid photos and photos of the first house we lived in, a place I don’t even remember. Then … oh.
The mantelpiece photos, the ones Mum took down.
There he is, right there. There we are, all of us.
And I get it, I do. I understand why Mum put the photos away. Because looking at them makes you sad. I
t makes you think, He was here and now he’s gone.
But the thing is, it makes you happy too.
It makes you think, He was here.
There’s a sheet of plastic covering them, holding them down. I work my fingernail under the corner, peel it back. Am I just trying to see more clearly … or maybe to touch them?
I trace my fingers over the photos, pick one up and hold it to the light. Another. Then … this one, where Dad’s roaring with laughter because he almost fell over trying to make it back before the timer went off and Newt’s wriggling out of Mum’s arms and she’s lunging forwards, trying to grab him and I’m–
“Frankie!”
My hand freezes. Something crashes in the lounge room. The sound of something falling. Many somethings.
“Frankie! I need–”
I’m on my feet, shoving the album back onto the shelf.
I’m spinning on my heel, running into the lounge room.
“Oh, Newt.”
He’s okay. I mean, the cabinet near the window has half-fallen on him, but he seems to be holding it for now. He’s at full stretch, his arms pushing back against it, his skinny legs braced.
Braced and trembling, actually.
He turns his head slightly. “Help?”
The photo’s still in my hand. I slip it into my pocket and hurry over, taking the weight of the cabinet.
We push it back against the wall, bend down to pick things up off the floor. Books. An old clock. A vase. A complicated tangle of wire and coathangers.
I pick up the wire and look him in the eye. “What happened?”
He shrugs. “The antenna needs to be higher. I thought–”
“You were climbing it?”
“I didn’t know it was going to fall over.” He looks thoughtfully at the cabinet. “Maybe if I–”
“No,” I say firmly. “No furniture climbing. Ever. Got it?”
He looks around the room. I can practically hear his brain searching for some technical loophole.
Finally, he nods. “No furniture. Got it.”
I hold his gaze as I hand him the antenna. “Write it in your notebook. Don’t forget.”
