Metal Fish, Falling Snow

by Cath Moore

  He looks me over and wonders if I’m the real deal or not. ‘This yours to sell?’

  I nod and we hold each other’s gaze. Not sure how he could understand what was going on, but his eyes crinkled up at the sides like my cat had just run away and I was putting up posters hoping someone had found it.

  ‘Yeah. That’s the way it goes,’ he says.

  I don’t know if he rips me off like wrapping paper at Christmas but I feel in my bones like a fair and honest deal has been done. I pocket the money and piss bolt back to the police station. Run across the road and get morse-coded by a car swerving to miss me. BEEP, BE-BEEP, BEEEP!!!

  And then I’m inside again, running through the corridor, sharp turn past the water fountain and up to the front desk where dirty Darren is finishing off a packet of Smith’s salt and vinegar chips. The worst flavour of all, of course.

  ‘Oh. We have decided to grace this humble establishment with our presence again.’

  Him trying to be a wordsmith won’t throw me off my game. I burn through his smarmy smile with a steely glare and run my fingers over the money in my pocket, soft and smooth with a rubber band holding all those notes together. I flick that band one, two, three times over, all while I stare that copper down. Flick, flick, flick.

  I don’t want to touch Darren in case he stains my soul so I chuck the money on the desk.

  ‘A woman of independent means, are ya?’

  Pat yells out, wants to know what’s happening, but dodgy Darren is like a kid in the All American Candy Store off Chambers Street, eyes lit up wide like he’s got a Babe Ruth bar, four Reese’s peanut butter cups and a bag of corn candy all to himself. He takes the rubber band off and slowly flicks through the notes, licking his finger with a slimy goanna tongue.

  ‘’Bout eighty bucks short, luv,’ he says, smiling. ‘Come give us a kiss and we’ll call it a day.’

  Thinks he’s got one over on us.

  Pat starts shaking the bars and breaks that swear jar all over again with his &*%$$#@@**&&%$#$@. But quick as lightning that memory-horse bolts through my mind and brings me something useful.

  ‘He saw you, that man across the street.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘Your neighbour, the one with the wooden leg.’

  ‘What do you know about Prossie Paul?’

  I know Darren’s neighbour is nicknamed Prossie Paul on account of his prosthetic limb. Like false teeth for your legs. And now that copper looks uneasy, knows I’m onto something.

  ‘He took some pictures one time, when you were wearing that dress you said was for Aunty Sue.’

  He’s got that gobsmacked mouth ’cause I’ve found his secret.

  Everyone knows that dressing up is fun and there’s no harm in that. And dresses aren’t just for women because men in Scotland and Fiji wear skirts just to get a litre of milk down the shops. So if Gobby McRobby here wants to wear a short lilac number that’s fine with me. But Darren’s face goes red like an ox-heart tomato, and that uniform he wears so tight and cocky means nothing now. He keeps shaking his head trying to pretend he doesn’t know what I’m on about. Fumbles through his keys and opens Pat’s cell fast as he can.

  ‘Sick. The both a youse.’

  But he never looks us in the eye. Just crawls back into his badge the only way he can.

  We make it to the front door but in the reflection of the window I get a shock. Never come face-to-face with a gun before. Darren’s hand has gone all gerry-hat-trick and shaky. And his face is pouring with sweat, stains under his armpits too. We are frozen to the spot, don’t even want to breathe in case the butterfly effect makes his finger pull the trigger splattering us all over the walls. Do you feel lucky? Well do ya punk? Suddenly the phone rings and I’m dead sure Darren’s gonna panic.

  At the same time a scrawny man with straggly grey hair comes in wanting to know if anyone’s found his pet cockatoo, Dolly, who’s been gone the best part of a week. It’s only then he sees what’s going on: the phone ringing off the hook, drongo Darren and his quivering gun and us. Hands half up in the air, feet spread like we’ve had an unfortunate bowel incident in the middle of the playground. And while this old fella is trying to put it all together in his mind, we piss bolt out of there. I don’t know if he ever found Dolly, but sometimes when I see a bunch of cockatoos fly overhead, I think of him and deadbeat Darren decked out in his frilly lavender frock.

  19 Creatures below the surface

  Running back to the pub I picture us dodging bullets while Darren shoots at our feet. But the whole street is dead quiet like everyone has packed their bags and left town. Maybe Darren goes troppo every second Tuesday and people have to bunker down just in case there’s a shooting spree.

  I’ve never been so happy to see Pat’s junkyard of a car. We skid out of town with every body part intact. But then Pat lets loose: ‘What was Darren going on about being eighty bucks short and what did lavender frocks have to do with anything?’

  When you get out of the crazy, you don’t step back inside and pick it apart. You breathe a sigh of relief, say, ‘Well that was nuts!’ and move on. So I don’t say anything. I do wonder where we’re gonna sleep tonight, since we were supposed to stay at Lawrence’s pub.

  ‘This has done it for sure, you know that?’

  I did know. I’d mucked it all up for him and his job. Absconding with droopy-boobed nanas, moving Pat’s car into the right car space but the wrong Holden ute, turning off pokies and making witches money hungry. Even though I always have the best of intentions, sometimes my stupid smarts make it all go wrong. Everything feels washed away: a watercolour landscape fading further into the background. Life less real every second we move forward. I don’t know anymore about the boat or Mum’s spirit. And God, if you are listening, you made me cruel either way—leaving those baby birds in the tree to die or keeping my mum alive. So I’ll thank you not to punish me anymore. You win.

  Pat pulls over to answer his phone, walks up and down in front of the car kicking the dirt with his boots.

  ‘Yeah, you see…I understand that, but…it was just…this is not…’

  And he’s pulling faces trying to keep all the shouting he wants to do from going into Ray’s ear. At the end he nods, not because he agrees with his boss but because he’s given up too. When it gets too hard, sometimes that’s just what you have to do. I take out the old letters from my bag. Maybe little-kid Dad kept writing ’cause he thought William would come back if he just asked the same question over and over, believing things could change. But in the very last letter, Dad doesn’t ask at all. He’s figured out you can’t change anything when you’re a kid and the only thing you get when you keep asking to be loved, is a bruised heart.

  Pat drives as far and long as he can, lips moving silently all the way. Makes me think about homeless Ian who rides the bus all day, then sits in the library reading Indian cooking magazines until they throw him out because he’s not even ethnic. Pat is mumbling about the money we’ve lost. He’d even given the wrong Tina his boot notes—last-resort cash stashed in his left boot. I hope it stank so bad all the currency slid off like that Dali man’s melty watch.

  The sun rises and sets in the blink of an eye. Now it’s dark Pat’s bones are tired, aching for a break.

  ‘Why don’t we just park ourselves under the stars tonight?’ Pat was trying to put a positive spin on poverty, like it would be fun to have a sleep-out. In the middle of the bush full of spiders, snakes and midnight noises that have no name or face. But I know in that moment he needs a sidekick.

  ‘Yeah, that’s a great idea, Pat,’ I say like I’m going to the circus for the first time.

  We make a campfire and chicken noodle cup-a-soup. How do they cook the chicken until it turns into a powder? I sing a Tina Arena medley (‘Heaven Help My Heart’—‘Chains’—‘Wasn’t it Good’) until I think Pat has gone to sleep. But the fire has drawn him back into the past. It’ll do that if you stare into it for long enough.

  �
��He used to dangle me over the water, just let me hang there. Couldn’t have been more than a scrawny four and Stu was twelve but you wouldn’t bat an eyelid if he said sixteen. And I could see the shadows of all these creatures below the surface, all these sea monsters coming up from the bottom to grab me with their mouths full of jagged teeth. Said he didn’t mean no harm, but he did. Called our sister chubby checkers and she still takes those diet pills, always a fat little eight-year-old. He made people feel shit ’cause he felt shit about himself, ya see?’

  Thought Pat might throw his head back and howl at the moon. Not just for all that stuff in the past. He is sorry for something that hasn’t happened yet.

  ‘It’s not a colour that makes you do bad things,’ he says. ‘It’s something deep down inside.’

  Pat stokes the fire and tiny embers dance through the air. I want to open up my chest and back-burn the black so the badness inside of me never gets a chance to grow. But I just wriggle into my sleeping-bag and watch those embers float higher and higher into the sky. Night-time in the bush is a loud kind of quiet. Crickets and nocturnals scampering around with their night-vision eyes on. But it isn’t just the animals. The air is filled with Pat’s other memories trying to be heard. Some fall into the fire, they screech out with pain as they die. Others make a run for it hoping Pat will forget about them all together. One of them dances over the fire and flickers into my dreams.

  Pat’s a boy no more than seven. It’s a good day to be proud; he’s been chosen. By God, no less. New clean shirt and a blue tartan tie. It’s hard to get the knot right, but important things take time. Pat cocks his head. Feels nice to have his dad so close without the smell of whisky on his breath and a cutting hand across the cheek. ‘Up and under, pull it tight.’ Makes it seem so easy. He takes a step back and says, ‘Smart, you are.’ And smart Pat feels. Mum’s not coming, that nerve in her back is pinched again and she’s on the couch, hand on her tummy like she’s trying to stop the pain from moving. But she’s made a cake, tells Pat to take it with him. There’ll be a special morning tea. What about Stu? He’s nowhere to be seen, more like a boarder than a brother. Maybe Pat and his dad will make a special day of it, get a pie on the way home. But when they pass the doggies his dad nips inside: ‘Gotta drop something off to a mate real quick.’ Pat thinks nothing of it because today he’s called into God’s service and taken into his care. Sits on the kerb and waits. And then he realises his dad’s not coming back. It’s not even race day but there’s always something going on inside. Blokes to see, bets to be lost and won. Monies owed collected, one way or another. So he walks to church himself. Peers in the window but can’t bear to go in alone. No one to place a hand on his shoulder with sentimental pride.

  Pat legs it to the park round the corner, sits on the bench and opens the cake tin. He breaks a piece off and shoves it into his mouth, trying to let the sweetness take all the pain away. But it can’t cause he’s only seven and the world is unforgiving when you hurt like this. He leaves that cake on the bench and sits on a swing. Watches a swarm of seagulls scamper over and soon there’s only a mess of crumbs left. Pat pushes himself higher, higher, hoping that God will reach down out of the clouds and take him anyway. Just as he is.

  New days don’t wipe the slate clean. Come morning, embers in the pit are still glowing under the grey powdery ash and I’m glad I didn’t jump into the fire, watch my skin melt together like the top of hot milk. Pat’s already awake, staring at me hard. For a moment all I see is that little boy pushing himself higher towards the sky.

  ‘Do you believe in God?’ I ask.

  ‘No matter what they tell you, we’re not all the same in his eyes. Some are chosen, some get left behind.’ I know that’s the end of that, ’cause he’s still thinking about what I’d done to get him out of jail. Some people say they have eyes on the back of their head but only so little kids don’t cause trouble. Pat has eyes on his ears. Even though he couldn’t see me pay dirty Darren, he’d heard me throw that bundle of money down on the desk. Even though we came from different family trees Pat was suffering from a kind of guilt only someone who shares blood can. Even though he’d cursed me under his breath a million times, we’d been threaded into each other’s story with the same needle.

  ‘You should’na done that. I can’t get it back. I just can’t.’

  You know that snazzy toy some businessmen put on their desks to help them think? The row of silver balls suspended from thin wires? You pull the first ball back and let go, watch as the energy passes through and pushes the last one up in the air, then back again. Tap, tap, tap. That’s me and Pat. Pushing each other into the past and back again, just to slow the future down because we’re both scared of what’s to come. Bad things can suddenly happen. Time and love are always being lost and you can’t do anything about it. That’s how the wolf got inside of me: found a big gaping hole just waiting to be filled. I’d been lying to myself about where I am going. But only because I know it is going to tear me and Pat apart when we finally get there.

  20 Trickling through the cracks

  Next morning we sit in the McDonald’s car park eating our egg-and-bacon McMuffin. The girl had to cut it in half ’cause Pat only had enough coins for one. And a coffee; he has to have a coffee with milk and three sugars to kickstart his heart.

  ‘Dylan, you’re old enough to know that sometimes things don’t work out like you planned. So we gotta set things straight.’

  Well fancy that. When it suits him, I’m too young to understand the lay of the land and the ways of the world, but now I’ve evolutionised enough to be let down, turned around and gutted like a fish.

  ‘It’s my birthday today,’ I say which isn’t true but when my head gets overheated with emotions I say it is and people usually forget why they were being mean or selfish or rude. Besides, I have a right in and outside of the law to be angry with Pat for what he is about to say.

  ‘I didn’t mean to let it get this far without telling you. But…the way you see things is complicated.’

  The only thing I see is how spineless Pat has become, shifting blame instead of owning it. There’s a little river of runny egg moving south down Pat’s chin and he wipes it off with a napkin. Then, he folds the napkin as many times as he can.

  Finally, he says, ‘What you imagine and what exists in real life are not always the same thing.’

  I thought E.T. would come and visit me when I was ten just like the boy in the movie, and for my whole year of being nine I was so excited about turning into double digits. But he never came. So maybe Pat is a little bit right.

  ‘Dylan, you know when your mum went in the ground, she had to stay there. She can’t come out.’

  I should have built a net with my words to stop Mum from falling: ‘I love you bigger and further than the moon, beyond time and past all eternity.’ But I said nothing. Heard the snap of her neck as it broke. Dead just like that.

  ‘There is no boat,’ Pat says. ‘You know there never was.’

  I slap him hard across the cheek. Crack like a whip and it’s stinging red! He sucks his breath in fast, not quite believing I could do such a thing. Everyone wants the dream world to be real and the real world to be a dream. If you don’t then you’re lying. But when the worlds collide everything all falls apart.

  I get out of the car and run towards the bush.

  ‘Maman, arrête!’

  I want to change the story and choose another path; turn the wheels and cogs around again. Please, don’t leave me with him.

  But then I stop dead in my tracks. It covers the sky, light as a feather. On a forty-one-degree day in the middle of Australia, snow is falling. And if that isn’t a miracle, I don’t know what is. I open my mouth and wait until a single flake lands on my tongue. So cold it feels hot, melts away quick into water. I swallow that little peace offering. No matter how many times grief cuts into my heart Mum saves me again. Spinning my arms round and round, the paddocks in the distance disappear under a blanket of wh
ite.

  I step outside of my body and watch from afar. Watch as my skin sheds, falling to the ground behind me in strips like bark. Laid bare, the truth rises to the surface. A smaller version of Dylan crawls into the backseat of the car and lies down, legs tucked up to her chest trying to become even smaller. She puts herself to sleep under the longest of spells hoping that when her eyes open she’ll be back in Beyen. The bumps in the gravel road soothe like a lullaby and heavy eyes sink to the back of my skull.

  •

  Two hours pass in a second and I jolt awake with wind fresh on my face like cold tap water in the morning. But this air has salt on its back. It’s a sea breeze. We’ve found the water. Not just a dirty puddle by the side of the road or a fifteen-second sunshower. But the source of all magic, wonder and imagining you can ever know. It creeps over me like a big tribe of ants, tingling and pinching my new skin. And then there’s a low sounding buzz in my ears, slowly building as it brings me closer.

  We’re driving the coastline, weaving along the water like a sea snake. The bushy windbreakers clear away and then I have it. People always remember the first time they tried cheese fondue or heard Eddy Grant’s ‘Electric Avenue’ because they are both life-changing experiences. But do you remember the first time you saw the sea? The first time you heard waves tumbling over each other up the sand before rolling back into the ocean’s sun-scorched belly?

  The sea pierces my heart with joy that day, stains it with a happiness so deep I wonder if we’d all been baptised and born again. But I’m lost and found at the same time. That joyful heart of mine is bled dry by betrayal when we turn the corner. Away from the water. Into suburbia, and down a quiet street lined with weatherboard houses pretending to be pretty.

  Then I see them. Standing on the footpath like they are waiting for a late bus. My chest burns as that wolf inside of me howls with laughter. He’s been waiting for this moment the entire trip. ‘You can’t run from what you are, you silly, stupid girl!’