Metal Fish, Falling Snow

by Cath Moore

Now all the noises are talking over the top of each other and I’m losing my invisibility. I want to get out and am glad (I admit it) when William opens the back door. ‘I’m sorry, madam, I’m so sorry,’ he says to the lady.

  If you get swallowed by chaos look for detail—let it suck up the noise. When William holds out his hand I look at it closely. His fingers are long and narrow and the skin is rough with rivers of veins cutting this way and that. But I take that hand and when he squeezes it around mine I feel how soft his palm is, warm like a hot-water bottle. And I go with him because in that moment my heart says it is safe to.

  Back in Cecilia’s car, she yells at me and crunches the gears something chronic ’cause people were beeping her as well.

  ‘You can’t do that, Dylan! That was a really dangerous thing to do!’

  I was human-trafficked back to William’s house with stupid fish logs and plain crinkle-cut chips ’cause there were no barbecue shapes. Not even pizza flavour. And wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we get back Cecilia marches inside and is shouting at Pat demanding to see my doctor files. Before I retreat to my room I shout at her: ‘MY BLOOD MAGIC IS NOT YOUR BUSINESS!’

  Through the wardrobe I can hear her saying bad things to Pat about Mum.

  ‘She was supposed to bring Dylan here. Dad sat in the car park for two hours waiting! And she never showed! Nothing!’

  Well, I don’t know anything about that. Maybe Mum had accidentally driven to another car park and maybe we had been sitting there waiting too!

  ‘So it’s only when there’s no other choice, huh? Then suddenly it’s all about family?’ Cecilia’s voice goes up at the end of her sentences.

  ‘She lost her mum! That’s all I know. That’s all there is for her right now,’ says Pat.

  ‘Juliet made her afraid of who she is!’ cries Cecilia.

  ‘Your brother did that!’ Pat wishes he could pull those words back on a string and shove them into his top pocket.

  Even though he’s swirling a glass of whisky in his hand, William says, ‘How about some tea?’ And then there’s nothing but the sound of a soft whistle, slowly climbing higher as the water boils. Tinkle, tinkle of teaspoons in the cups. And everyone is just sipping away, taking their thoughts out the window, over the back fence out and down to the sea where they blow far out of sight.

  Dinner is strange and all awkward. Pat tells me off for eating all the mash and leaving the peas.

  That’s not mucking around, that’s having an established order to proceedings. ‘White before green,’ I say to Pat. ‘You should know that, you’re like thirty times older than me.’

  But Pat says I can’t behave like that anymore. I can feel a tear creeping up but I hold tight, shield my eyes from everyone with my left hand and start to stab the peas with my fork. Those poor little buggers, caught in the crossfire.

  Then William clears his throat and says sometimes he likes to eat dessert before mains because he has a sweet tooth.

  ‘Which one?’

  He opens his mouth and points way up the back. I see gold in there too.

  ‘Well, I’ve got five sweet teeth,’ I say. And I do: one up top and four down the bottom.

  Pat’s staying one more night before he heads home to what’s left of his job and house. His whole life’s turned into a runny egg heading south. After I have eaten the cheap imitation fish logs Cecilia says that things have been difficult for everyone on account of my dad and all the problems he caused. Other people will visit during the school holidays and then I’ll see what a nice big family I’m a part of. But she doesn’t get it, none of them do. How I look is not who I am. None of these strangers can see past the skin I’m in. I must have been dreaming when I saw it all fall off my body like strips of bark. Now I’ll have to do it for real.

  3 am. I stick the photo of me and Mum sitting in the Beyen hand onto the bathroom mirror, her beautiful silky-smooth white skin, hazelnut freckles that dot her nose. My skin is a lie.

  In the laundry through the other bathroom door I find all these tins of paint under the sink. The brushes are hard and dry. I take the smallest one. It’s scratchy but I use it to paint my hands the colour Mum gave me. The paint smells strong like a hospital or factory and makes me feel dizzy when I breathe it in.

  Stroke, stroke, rectify, stroke. I hold my hands up to the mirror. They look like gloves, like I’m just playing dress-ups. My heart sinks, this is not how I feel or who I am. Silly girl.

  I look at Mum in the photo and she’s still smiling at me even though I feel strange in my head. Suddenly a tiny drop of water drips from the tap into the basin. Travelled through all those underground pipes from Beyen, just to comfort me. I put a finger on the rim of the tap and another drop of water slips out onto the tip of my white, gloved finger. I’m listening to the night through that tiny drop of water. The animals outside are calling me: bats, possums, night owls too. I ask them, ‘What do you see? Do you see the white girl trapped inside of me?’ They sit in the palm of my hand and the drops of water from the sink start singing them a lullaby. The song drops turn into one big ball of light and drift into the air, glowing a night-time yellow, floating higher and higher until they touch the roof. They’re trying to get out so I open the window and watch as the ball of light floats away on its own melody. The night air hits me in the face and cools down that strangeness hovering behind my eyes.

  Mama, Mama, who am I really? Only you know for sure. I can see it in your smile, in the photo.

  The bathroom door opens and Pat comes in. At first he only sees my white, gloved hands but then he says, ‘Dylan,’ and reaches out slowly. When he touches my arm he knows it is not a dream and that I am still there under my whiteness, still flesh and blood.

  ‘Dylan, where do you go? In your head?’

  A million miles away. Where I am in the middle, not on the side or way behind at the back of the line like I am in everyone else’s world being squished into a space that doesn’t fit.

  Pat doesn’t have any more words of his own. They’ve all gone, spinning around his head filled with a why, why, why that is written all over his face. I know that Pat has to take the paint off me now. And that it will hurt. He blinks the tears from his eyes and finds some other bottle below the sink. He puts some of the stinky liquid onto a face cloth and rubs the white off my hands, making messy streaks as he goes. And every touch says sorry, for the things he cannot change.

  I stop pretending, because he’s seen me inside out. I knew all along we’d be damaged goods by the end of our time together. And now it’s come because Pat is going.

  We’ll be in different worlds when the morning comes and he will drive through night after another night hoping to forget what he has done and how he saw me trying to find my way out of the blackness. He thinks if he can just get back, something will finally crawl out of his mouth like a wailing cow that has been hit by a truck and left by the side of the road, a hurting that has been hidden under his tongue all this time. He wants to lock himself away and let that wave of loneliness ride through him once and for all. Because sometimes the only person you can be with is yourself.

  23 Cutting the cord

  There are different birds here, with new songs. Could be they’re showing off but I think they’re just happy to have such a fine voice and beautiful morning melody to share. Magpies are the same wherever you go—hungry for worms and loud about life. They’re warbling it to me: ‘No time to sleep, can you see what a day we’ve found for you? Sun with not a cloud in the sky so how ’bout it? Up and Adam.’

  What they’re really offering is a distraction from the night before, but as soon as I sit up and look outside it all comes back.

  ‘Don’t sing. I have to remember,’ I say and so the magpies stop.

  Pat put me to bed after cleaning the paint off my hands. Tucked me in and asked if I was warm enough. I was hot but I didn’t say that, just so he would keep fussing about. He leaned close and whispered that he’s not strong enough for what I need him to
be. Brushed the hair off my face and kissed me on the middle of my forehead. I don’t know why but I closed my eyes when he did.

  Maybe I wanted to remember what I felt, not what I saw in those last moments. I don’t understand why you have to be strong to look after someone. Mum was as soft as a summer peach. We’d cuddle in the hammock under the verandah and I’d lean myself back into her, take her arms and wrap them round me, head resting in the crook of her arm. Sometimes it felt like we were already on our boat rocking back and forth as we sailed across the sea, letting the waves navigate while we slept.

  I know, even though I might have said the opposite, that Pat is all bark and no bite. I could have worked things out with his boss, smoothed things over like caramel. ‘Look here,’ I’d say, resting an elbow on Ray’s desk like we go way back. ‘Pat’s a good egg, a top bloke, straight shooter, diamond in the rough. Bottom line, Ray’—I’d be leaning in here, staring him straight in the eye with my truest words yet—‘he’s a keeper.’ But now I wouldn’t be able to explain to Ray that most of the glitches during the trip were my fault because I hadn’t read the signs right. I couldn’t explain to Ray that crossed wires sometimes wrap themselves around me and make trouble.

  I’d tried to tell Pat it could be different now we were by the sea, so wide and deep and full of the right kind of magic that could heal him a little bit, but it was too late. So now we are fractured. Cracked right down the middle and you can’t patch something like that together again.

  While I appreciate the birds trying to distract me this morning, I’m even more of a loner in the world than I was the day before and have to sigh and groan when I get out of bed. I watch the tiny little pieces of dust in the light. Do they think about anything at all when they float through the air? I wonder if I’ll ever see that Pat O’Brien again.

  Old people are loud and you can’t tell them to tone it down because then you’re the rude one. William is banging and crashing around with pots like he’s in a hotel kitchen and has no idea where anything goes. There’s a whole lot of frozen chicken pieces near the stovetop. William looks up as he chucks them into a big pot.

  ‘I remember one winter back in my university days, I woke up—bitter cold it was—and found a rat on my front doorstep. Frozen solid. The cat had left it there as a present. Can you imagine that?’

  I really can’t so I just pour myself some Rice Bubbles and focus on the snap, crackle, pop. This is difficult because then William starts talking to himself, diluting my powers of concentration.

  ‘Now, do I let them thaw?’ He looks up at me again like I care. ‘Thought I’d do a casserole, make some room in the freezer for your fishy fingers.’

  ‘They’re called Timmy’s Fish Logs.’

  ‘Okay.’ William smiles and lights the cooker. There’s one single rice bubble on the floor. I step on it just to make a mess. Maybe I’m becoming a delinquent. With my French heritage, perhaps I could upgrade to an anarchist or a revolutionary before the week was out. See how William likes having me around then—marching down the street waving a flag singing my freedom songs.

  I can hear the moon sending waves in and out round the corner, down the bend, up a hill and through the dunes. It’s saying, ‘Why are you there when you could be here?’

  Maybe I should just let myself be wrapped up in the cold, deep water. But there is something caught. Like a loose thread hooked on a splintered doorway. And then I think that maybe I’m scared. I’ve never been close to the sea before and when you want something that much it can frighten you. When it’s finally there, the whole thing is bigger than you thought and too much to take in. What if the moon pulls the waves so far back it all disappears over the horizon, swallowed up by the setting sun?

  I tell William about the black man in the middle of nowhere. ‘Did you send him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ he says, stirring those chicken bits. He’s looking deep into that pot and he tells me it doesn’t work like that. Not all black people know each other and what a silly idea that is to start with.

  Of course he’s gonna deny it. That’s what guilty people do: ‘I never saw him before in my life, Judge! Honest ta God.’

  I stay in my room for the next few days and write letters of complaint even though I don’t know where to send them. Wednesday’s letter is devoted entirely to fruit and hairs. William only has tinned fruit salad and I don’t think that fruit should come in small squares. Also he’s got really long white nose hairs and I have to sit on my hands to stop myself from pulling them out. By the time Friday comes around I am really in the swing of it and I write a letter to William himself:

  Dear William,

  You are not me and I am not you. Dad stole my whiteness and you are his father so the buck stops here.

  Mum had sunlight under her skin. She was the colour of an angel and sometimes when she stood in front of the window her blonde hair would glow. The only light I’ve got left is in the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet. That’s why I can’t get into heaven. Who’s ever seen a black angel? My wings would be made of metal and I’d fall out of the sky.

  I mostly want to be like Tina Arena when I grow up. I can close my eyes and frown with immense pain. Good singing has to hurt. And when people are sad they need someone to sing the sorrow away.

  I did that once to my cat Ashtray who’d gotten himself run over. He was still breathing but all broken and twisted like he was trying to look back at his tail, making little breaths in & out, in & out. I held Ashtray and sang Johnny’s ‘Burn for You’. I sang away his sorrow. Then Mum took him to the vet and she was crying even though she hated it when Ashtray crawled under the house and howled like he was crazy wild. The vet turned him into ash, which is ironical. But the point is I think I’d be a very good singer in Paris, because they have lots of cats there.

  Yours in disrespect,

  Dylan.

  All this time William’s been in the old wooden bungalow out back hunched over these cardboard boxes. He comes out, lights up a cigarette and leans against the door watching all the smoke float up into the air. What are the chances? William gently tapping his ash into a saucer on the window ledge while I’m writing about Ashtray being turned into ash. He looks up at me, startled out of his smoko and quick as a flash I’m inside one of his memories.

  There’s a sizzling sound like sausages in the pan, only it’s skin that’s burning. There’s my dad. He’s the same age I am now but already he’s full of fury. Dad takes William’s cigarette, holds down his arm and burns him with it, and then he walks away like nothing’s happened. I’m going past that moment now. Back, way back. William’s holding his newborn son, rocking him softly to sleep. My dad is just a baby, and William has hopes and worries for him in equal measure, sure he’s the most precious creature God’s blessed anyone with yet. Way back then he is afraid for him, not of him. Quick as I see his story it’s gone.

  William stubs the memory out, blows one more mouthful of smoke into the air and goes back inside the bungalow. Through the door I see boxes full of paper and old files in manila folders. William leans over the desk writing notes and ticking off scribbles he’s made. Maybe he’s a spy for another government. Like Nigeria. They’re always trying to get money in and out of the country. I keep one eye closed so he can only see me half as well. But even though he doesn’t look up he can tell I am there.

  ‘It always catches up with you. Spend your life dealing with other people’s paperwork and forget about your own. Until you retire,’ says William.

  Mum used to say you should never make decisions when you’re emotional and I was both angry and sad so I threw the letter in the bin. Besides, it was mostly about cats and Paris and not really about how I felt. But then my hands start acting on their own and before I can stop, they’re rummaging around in my backpack.

  I walk into the bungalow and shove the old letters into William’s hand. For a while he just frowns, trying to figure out what he’s reading. Then smack bang he realises they’re from
someone who he used to know but who disappeared a long time ago. He leans back on a filing cabinet.

  ‘What did he tell you?’ William says to me, even though he’s still looking at the letters.

  ‘He didn’t tell me anything. He ran away.’ I rip into him about all the times Dad hit Mum because inside he was still a little boy whose father had left him in the middle of the night. That dad bottled it up and let it out on the people who cared about him most.

  ‘You hurt my dad, and then my dad hurt us. And the only person who was always beautiful is gone.’

  Thought I’d feel stronger by setting him straight but I don’t feel right at all. My gut is all twisted up inside. William looks at me like I’m a hundred feet tall and my shadow would turn him to dust if he fell under it. He’s got no words and even if he did there’s nothing that can change what’s done and dusted. Adults always think they know how teenagers feel ’cause they had once been the same age and ‘have the benefit of hindsight’, but he was never me. William’s a stranger and it’s too late for anything else. Now he’s just fiddling with that gold cross on his necklace. Back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. One day he’s gonna rub it into nothing. I look at my reflection in his eyes and realise they’re full of tears.

  ‘I need to have a lie down,’ he says, stepping out of the shed. His foot lands heavy on the grass, knee takes the weight and for a second I think its going to buckle. But then he straightens himself out and walks to the house. Doesn’t turn around once.

  I’m not sure where to be now, so I sit in the bungalow for a good little while longer. The breeze skips in to inquire about the situation, wants to stir things up a bit. It ruffles through the papers. ‘Catch me,’ it says, but I’m not in the mood. I close the door before any of the papers fly off but by then the wind has gone looking for someone else to play with.

  William didn’t come back.

  •

  That night I’m the one scraping my fork around the plate because something has changed. We’re eating spag bol and William’s got a bit of sauce on his chin but I don’t tell him. I think he’s stifling a dragon roar and I don’t want him to burn my face off. Maybe we’d be like a TV family that just sits in silence and lets the heat of harsh words slowly evaporate like steam from a boiled kettle.