‘Hey.’ She looked at him with suspicion.
‘Watcha doing?’
‘What does it look like?’ She waved her book in the air. Arthur smirked.
‘Dad and I found some rabbits.’
Miriam looked interested at that. ‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah, and I was thinking, you might like one. You know, for a pet.’
Her eyes gleamed and she dropped her book on the grass beside her. ‘Really? You did that for me? You got me a rabbit?’
‘Yeah.’
Miriam stood then, a smile blossoming across her face. ‘Where is it?’
‘Here.’ He whipped his hands around and threw the skinned head at her. Miriam had put her hands out automatically and dropped them with a scream.
‘I hate you.’ She ran back towards the house. ‘I hate you.’
He laughed. God, she was pathetic. She made it far too easy.
Two days later his father showed him how to salt the rabbits down. As his father placed them in the fridge, both cats followed his every move. Arthur had never believed cats could salivate until that day.
‘Go wash up, boy, then grab your old man a drink.’
His father was pleased with him. Finally.
‘Where’s the stuffing?’
His mother dumped a bowl of breadcrumbs, onion, bacon, and herbs before her husband, her mouth pursed. Miriam stood in the doorway to the kitchen, her eyes wary.
‘The men are cooking tonight, not me.’ Arthur’s mother turned Miriam around and shepherded her from the room to keep her from watching. ‘Let’s stay out of their way.’ Arthur observed his father as he prepared one of the rabbits, stitched it up, and tied its legs together. He placed it into the large cast-iron baking dish his wife had gotten out.
‘Your turn, lad.’
Father and son worked in silence, and when the four rabbits were laid out in the midst of the dish, Arthur’s father reached for a large knife.
‘Spuds.’
Arthur set to washing and peeling the potatoes. His father said nothing, just held the knife, moving it idly from hand to hand. When his father started to cut, Arthur looked at his father’s hands. Those hands had held the rifle, pulled the trigger, fired the shot that had spun past his son’s ear and into the wriggling body held aloft. Those hands could skin a rabbit and chop vegetables with the same ease with which they would clip Arthur over the ear. A man’s hands. His father arranged the potatoes in the baking dish, then roughly chopped an onion before dropping that in as well.
‘How did you learn how to cook?’ Arthur dared ask.
‘It’s not like it’s hard.’ Arthur thought he heard his mother make a noise in the lounge room. She wouldn’t be game to come in here and say something to her husband’s face, Arthur was sure of that.
‘Salt and pepper.’ His father held out his hand. He added those and some water and, as he’d hefted the dish into the oven, he’d allowed himself a rare smile.
‘Nothing like it, my boy, killing and cooking your own food, nothing in the world.’ He left the room then, leaving the washing up. That was women’s work. Arthur stood amazed and proud. My boy. His dad was speaking to him man to man. Arthur’d fired the gun. He’d killed. And it felt good.
Miriam’s face blanched as her plate was placed before her.
‘Hey,’ Arthur whispered across the table, ‘it’s your bunny.’
Their mother set Arthur’s plate and her husband’s down, then returned to gather her own.
‘Dinner’s ready.’
The two children sat in silence waiting for their father to come to the table. When he was seated, their mother sat.
‘Shall we say grace?’ She bowed her head, but lifted it when her husband spoke.
‘Ahh, nothing like it.’ He took his eyes off his plate and pointed at Miriam. ‘You can give thanks to your brother and me for dinner tonight.’
‘I can’t,’ Miriam sounded on the verge of tears. ‘I don’t want any.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’ll say grace.’ Their mother spoke up.
‘No.’ He held up a hand, his eyes not leaving his daughter’s face. ‘What did you say to me, girl?’
Miriam’s face and neck were turning red. ‘I don’t want to eat any. I don’t want to eat rabbit.’
‘Too good are you? Huh?’
‘No.’
‘You’ll eat it. You’ll eat every bloody mouthful.’
‘Just try it,’ their mother interjected once more, but was silenced at a look from her husband.
‘I just… I don’t want to. I can’t.’
‘You ungrateful little brat. You eat this or you get nothing.’
Miriam made eye contact with their father. ‘Nothing.’
‘Go to your bloody room. Now!’
Miriam stood and hurried from the room.
‘Let me fix her something,’ their mother stood.
‘Sit down!’
She sat. Arthur watched his father pick up his knife and fork.
‘You women have ruined a bloody good meal.’ He speared a piece of potato with his fork. ‘Ungrateful.’ He’d shaken his head, then glared at Arthur.
‘What’s your problem then? Eat up.’
Arthur scooped up a mouthful of vegetables.
‘You too good for rabbit, too?’
‘No, sir.’ Arthur looked at his plate. He wondered if this was one he’d shot. He pictured that first rabbit he hadn’t killed, the one that had squealed as it had tried to crawl away, its spine broken. He wanted to believe, as his father did, that eating the animal he’d killed would prove something, mean something, make him a man. He wouldn’t be weak, not like Miriam. Arthur caught his father’s eye and willed himself not to choke. He sliced into the tender flesh. Bile rose to his throat as he pictured the rabbit writhing on the ground. He’d bitten down and swallowed.
‘Good lad. Good man.’
He’d learn to savour every bite. He would.
Daddy had finally gone to work. Left her alone again, left her to fix herself up after the night before. He’d been drunk and rough, pounding the hateful love between them with every thrust. He’d laughed at the sparse hairs that had started growing between her legs and under her arms. She’d lain awake after he had fallen into his drunken sleep and with every grunting, guttural snore she had pictured herself creeping to the kitchen and coming back with a knife, thrusting it deep into his chest, his belly. Then across his darkly stubbled throat. She knew where the blood pulsed. She had huddled next to him often enough and watched that steady throb on the side of his neck. She’d known instinctively this was the place. She could draw the blade across, but she hadn’t. She hadn’t been able to move. She had just lain there next to his thick, sweaty body with silent tears coursing down her cheeks, choking her throat. She couldn’t kill him. What would she do without him? Who would she be without him?
When she had heard the sound of his car fade away and was sure he wasn’t returning, she stopped washing the breakfast dishes and limped into the bathroom. His razor was lying on the side of the basin. Stray hairs littered the sink. Something else he had left for her to clean up. With the blade in her right hand, she had traced the word no in the air over her left arm. The anticipation of the first cut, of the blade slicing her skin with silvered, sharp pain, the heightened delay before the delicate pools of crimson would seep to the surface. The delight of pain she could control. Applying pressure, she had carved the word into her upper arm. NO. The word she couldn’t say aloud would stay with her forever, even as it bled its way out of her skin.
There was a thunderstorm late afternoon. Even inside, Ellie had felt the change in the air and known it was coming. Before the first heavy drops of rain had started to fall on the roof, she’d turned on the light in the lounge room. A temporary rep
rieve from the gloom. She needed more light to colour by. She’d done her chores; it was her time. It was late in Daddy’s working week and she’d assumed he would be home late. That he would go to the pub or the club or wherever it was he went, to return home stale-mouthed, belching, and stinking more than ever of beer and cigarettes. No one would notice the light on. Not for a little while.
When she had heard the first distant rumble of thunder, Ellie wished she were outside in the yard. Wished she could see the immense bleakness of the sky and feel the power in the air that caused goose bumps to erupt along her flesh. She’d seen storms in the past. The clouds had been deep purple bruises staining the sky. She grabbed a purple pencil and started pressing heavily on the page. She’d bring the weather inside.
The storm came in fast, the air crackling around the house with unspent force. What would happen if those clouds met the cliffs? Would it be the end? Would it be the rain to end all rains, like Noah’s? She’d seen the pictures in the Bible. The humble wooden ark and the dove carrying a branch. If everything flooded, would the house float with her inside? Would she be able to climb to the top of the cliff face? Would she be safe? Finally able to escape Daddy? She trembled. There wouldn’t be any doves—she’d never seen one—but perhaps she’d be joined by a seagull or pelican bearing witness to her survival.
Lightning split the dark, the flash visible even through the papered window and blind. She pictured it revealing the world beyond the black. Viscous clouds and a barrage of rain, reckless and relentless, screamed from the sky and thundered onto the roof. She pictured the roof caving in and the water drenching her clothes, her skin. Real goose bumps became mountains on her flesh. A howl of thunder had made her jump and she’d dropped her pencil and stood, her mouth and arms open wide to embrace the storm from inside her carpeted cell.
It was as if a sky-born tsunami were falling on the ocean and the bush and Ellie was trapped in the middle. When she was little, she’d been afraid that one day the cliffs dominating Coalcliff would come tumbling down on top of her, burying her alive whilst crushing everything around her to dust under mountains of rock. She had feared it and wished for it all the same. Now she wanted it.
‘Take me.’ The unrestrained, unleashed storm was upon her. She could feel it. The baying, clawing wind, the intense bursts of light, the noise, the chill… Nature’s dogs ready to tear her apart. She had raised her eyes to the ceiling, but only saw sky. The last storm this ferocious had brought trees down and a blackout that had taken days to fix.
Daddy had been so worried that a tree might fall on his shed or the dogs’ enclosure, he’d been unbearable. Ellie had wondered if the storm would tear open the house and leave it all exposed to the world, leave her exposed to the world. She had cowered in fear. Daddy would never have allowed that. He might already be on his way home, eager to secure his precious shed.
Pellets of rain struck the roof hard with such force she pictured hail stones.
‘Move.’ She had to turn off the light. Daddy would come home and see that she had turned the light on. Someone might see. Someone might wonder why a light had come on in a supposedly empty house. The sky was snapping outside, angry teeth piercing the branches. Dead bird, dead bird—there were voices in the wind: Come play with me, Ellie—Mummy loves you very much. The tremendous vision of water and noise flooded her senses. Were those his headlights cutting through the torrential stream? Was that his car coming up the drive? She couldn’t move. Another burst of lightning. She’d left her pencils, her papers, on the sofa. She was meant to colour only in her room. The light was on and still she could not move. Ellie pictured Daddy’s stern face illuminated by the lightning as he hunched over the steering wheel, a dark crow of a man. Soon he would be at the door. Move, move. But it was too late. He would have seen the light. He would know. For now she had the storm on her side. The storm would keep the rest of the world tucked indoors. No one would see. She’d barely heard his car door shut before the sound was quelled by thunder.
She should have turned off the light. She should never have turned it on. Some days she didn’t know what it was she had done to make him so mad, but this time she would.
‘Move, move,’ she whispered. Just one foot. One step. But the impulse to embrace the storm and hope the night would take her away had been too strong. Lightning flared across the sky once more and this time she saw him, silhouetted in the doorway, and fancied she saw his eyes blaze red. He hadn’t yelled. He hadn’t done anything that might have alerted the neighbours. He’d taken his boots off at the door and as he strode towards her, his sock slipped on the floor. She had watched him right himself in slow motion. She had a vision of his body, lying on his bed, the eyes cloudy and white. She had blinked and he was before her, his hand reaching out to grasp her arm in a steely grip.
‘What the fuck do you think you were doing? Turning the bloody light on. Someone could have seen.’
She hadn’t answered. There was nothing to say. The sky had come down, but not the cliff. She wasn’t dead yet and neither was he. Daddy was home.
That night he had left her alone and she had dreamt she was about to fall off the edge of the world.
Ellie found an old jacket of her father’s in his wardrobe and turned towards the bed.
‘Daddy, can I please…?’ she started to ask, before pausing. He wouldn’t have given permission—she wouldn’t have been allowed out anyway—but now she didn’t have to ask. ‘I’m going to take this.’ The jacket had a hood and a pervasive smell of years of tobacco and sweat. When she put it on, it threatened to engulf her entire body, and the sudden overwhelming presence of his scent caused her heart to beat at a frantic pace. He’d always made her heart beat faster; he’d always kept her on edge.
‘I’m safe.’ She tried to believe it. It was colder tonight and, if she wore this, she could spend longer on the beach without the chill air nipping and biting her. It would also ensure no one would see her body and, more importantly, her face. No one would see. She might just appear to be an ordinary person out walking, not a freak. Not a scarred monster. Just another anonymous shadow in the night.
She looked in the lounge room before she left the house. Ellie could picture Daddy sitting in his armchair as he did every night before bed. It would look like he’d fallen asleep, except now his swollen tongue would loll out of his mouth.
‘I’m going out again,’ she whispered and the vision faded.
She locked the back door and put the keys—Daddy’s keys—in the large pocket. Nothing could get in and nothing could get out. Daddy was locked in. Her new possessions on the floor—the box, the case, Mummy’s things and her shells from the night before—were all safe. The bones were still soaking in the laundry. Nothing could disturb them now.
She hesitated at the side of the house and waited for the sky to darken further. It was cooler now, cool enough that she wouldn’t overheat in the heavy jacket. When she walked down the path she felt awkward, too large, too bulky in her disguise. Her arms swung against her sides and the coat rustled. Yes, it was saying with each swing of an arm. Yes, yes, yes. You are out. You are free. Yes.
Ellie ducked her head. Her pulse quickened as headlights illuminated the pointed leaves of the banksias before disappearing around the bend. She could hear the engine fade as the car travelled up the hill towards the main road. She felt her heartbeat return to normal. It was heading out of Coalcliff. Away from her. She was safe. No one would see her. Besides, she was heading in the opposite direction. Down towards the water was the favoured location in town—the only location really. You couldn’t get much closer to the bush than their house, Daddy’s house. He had bought up towards the escarpment where the land grew steeper, the bush grew thicker, where it was more secluded. No blasted beach day-trippers parking outside his house, no way. Daddy had cursed each new house that went up, cursed every tourist or ‘weekender’ he’d seen, had told Ellie she
had to be quieter, always quieter.
‘Quiet.’ She mouthed the word. Cold night air tickled her tongue. She smiled and stepped out onto the nature strip with its domestic patch of humble grass and token tree. Her hand fluttered to her jaw to make sure the hood was securely tied. Scars concealed, she could walk once more in the dark world, inhaling the tantalising scents of the ocean and the native bush.
In the next street, one of the houses was being renovated. There were big windows along the front, the blinds open wide, and from her position in the shadow of a tree, Ellie could see a large colour screen.
‘Wow!’ There were people on that screen, bright people, a man and a woman, their mouths moving. Ellie wished she knew what they were saying. The scene changed to a busy road with lights and tall buildings. The woman lit a cigarette. ‘Oh!’ Women smoked too? She had always thought that was a Daddy thing, something men did. ‘Huh.’
‘C’mon, boy, hurry up.’ She froze as she heard a man’s voice. She craned her neck, trying to catch a glimpse past the boundary of the hood. She was too afraid to push it back, simultaneously afraid of being seen and of what she might see.
‘Come on.’ It was a man walking a dog. The dog had stopped to relieve itself on a tree further along the nature strip, and the man tugged impatiently at the leash. ‘Oscar, c’mon.’ The man jerked the lead and the dog trotted forward, tail springing madly from side to side. They were on her side of the street. No. Her stomach plummeted. They were too close. She had spent too long looking in the window and had lost awareness of her surroundings, hadn’t heard the man and dog coming up behind her. Her hand flew up to cup her mutilated features. She didn’t know whether to run or stay hidden in the shadows. It was too late. The dog had picked up her scent and barrelled towards her. Ellie couldn’t move. She could smell its fur and fervent breath, that moist, matted heat. She pictured teeth bared, white points in the dark night, remembered the pain. The dog barked and Ellie jumped. Her breaths were harsher, shorter, louder, and her vision narrowed beyond the confines of the hood. She moaned. The dog’s owner leaned forward, peering at the bulky shadow beneath the branches. Men couldn’t be trusted—they only wanted one thing; Daddy had told her that. Daddy hadn’t let anyone see her; she was too ugly and yet she’d still had to be kept safe.
Path to the Night Sea Page 24
