As Stars Fall

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As Stars Fall Page 8

by Christie Nieman


  Her dad?

  ‘A child,’ Seth had called him, because of the way he orbited around their mother. Her dad was intelligent and insightful. He had a way of being interested which made you feel like the centre of things – well, for Delia, for their mother: never for Seth. This foggy distance she now feels from her dad, this is what it must have been like for Seth forever. There was always only distance for Seth, and disregard, and neglect. Except for the times when there was anger. When once or twice, their father had slipped back into his old ways and finished a bottle, and there was violence. And now, without their mother, her dad drank all the time. He had folded in on himself, he had imploded into a vacuum of need without an object, and if you ventured in beyond the fog, you could feel the pull, the suck, the explosion waiting to happen. You could feel the danger.

  Not her dad.

  Seth? Seth, defender of her against the world. Seth, celebrator of Delia . . .

  . . . Seth, on the railway platform, pushing her away; Seth pulling back his burnt hand.

  Not Seth.

  Sonya? Sonya didn’t know her. Sonya would just think she was crazy.

  The sun has gone down, she’s alone in her room, and then comes the sound: the Bush Stone-curlew in the parklands. Robin saw it. It is really there, and it is really real. Delia’s last hypothesis was right – about it being a curlew.

  Doesn’t her dad hear it? She could ask him, but she wouldn’t know how to begin.

  She has to think of someone to give the folder to, and quickly. Someone has to tell her she is wrong – this time, this hypothesis, this question – then she won’t have to ask the next question which is already clamouring away at the back of her mind, already asking itself: Was it there when . . .? Why is it here now?

  we are all made of the same stuff

  Looking at the photo and listening.

  Looking at the photo, curlews looking back.

  There is only one other person. Only one.

  Robin

  I was coming home late, because I’d been in town buying shoes like everyone else’s – an errand I was actually allowed to go on. I think Mum was feeling a bit guilty. I think she’d cottoned on to the fact that a paisley key and a ‘light and fresh’ couch weren’t really lifting the old spirits, so the ‘right’ shoes and a solo trip to the city were a bit of a concession.

  And I think she felt ashamed about crying last night – ashamed, or embarrassed, or . . . something. We hadn’t even talked about it at all. I didn’t really want to talk about it. We put a band-aid on her finger and that was the end of it.

  Delia had been back at school. She hadn’t said anything about where she’d been. Sitting next to her in form room I said, ‘What was it, the flu?’

  ‘Bubonic plague,’ she said.

  ‘I thought the only cure for that was death.’

  ‘It’s amazing what a few days away from the Creature can do for someone with the Black Death,’ she said. ‘Perks them right up.’

  And she’d smiled because I’d laughed at her gag. It had been a real laugh, too. It was funny: the plague, the Creature. Delia could be alright when she lightened up, behaved like a human. Actually spoke a complete sentence.

  And then, when the Creature said, ‘How are you feeling, Robin? Better, I hope?’ and I wondered why he hadn’t asked Delia – she’d been away too – I realised how neatly Delia had dodged my question. I still didn’t know where she’d been or what was wrong with her. And she did look kind of crap – pale and tired, like it was possible maybe she had had the plague, or at least a nasty cold.

  Also, there was a certain smirk in the way the Creature asked me, like he knew I wasn’t really sick, in which case he knew far too much about me for my liking, and I wondered if my mother had been ‘talking out of school’, so to speak. I’d have a word with her when I got home. I’d let her know that I was not happy with her talking about me like I was a little kid, and that she needed to be more respectful of my privacy.

  On my way to the train station at the end of the day, something happened. After closing ranks against me the other day at school, Natasha and Linda came up to me as I walked along – well, Linda came up to me, Natasha kept walking just behind with one of their other goons, listening in. I have to say, hearing Linda talk is like listening to someone scrape their fingernails down a blackboard. She’s got a really scratchy voice, and she talks with a constant upward inflection, like everything’s a question, even when it isn’t. She said to me: ‘So you know how you’re new, and how you’re hanging out with Delia? Well, we feel like, because you’re new, that it’s really our responsibility to warn you about something? So maybe, we think that maybe you shouldn’t hang around with Delia? Because, well, like, she’s always been weird, and really quiet, and well . . . weird, but this year, since, well, since you know, since what happened, she’s being even weirder. Like really weird? So we tried to give her a welcome-back-to-school present, because of you know, and she just totally lost it at us? Totally stood up and yelled at us? And the way she was sarky at Mr Krietcher? About you? Well she would never have done that last year. Yeah, she’s trying to be all tough. We think she’s trying to be cool to impress us. It’s a bit sad really. We all feel sorry for her. Because of what happened. But she’s being really freaky, and we just thought you should know, because you can’t hang out with us if you’re hanging out with her, you know?’

  I said, ‘Yeah, sure, okay, whatever,’ and because she’d talked pretty much all the way to the train, I didn’t have to say anything else before the train doors closed between us and the train slid off. Through the window I watched Linda return to the girl huddle on the platform, presumably to discuss me.

  What the hell was that? God, these girls were intense. Yes, Delia was unusual, clearly – any idiot could see that. But had Linda looked in the mirror lately? Holy shit.

  After that, slipping into the anonymity of the city by myself after school was a real pleasure. I got to wander around and not be ‘new’ or ‘different’. It was a relief. And some of the old buildings in the city were really beautiful, really grand, like nothing you’d see at home. And then I got hungry, so I bought some food, some Vietnamese, from a street-side counter. My God, it was delicious. I know I sound like such a small-town dag, but that’s what I am. The whole thing made me feel a bit excited about the city. It was fun. And because it was fun, I was quite late coming home, so when I opened the door, ready to give Mum a ticking-off about talking about me at school, I knew she’d be there already. What I didn’t expect was to hear the Creature’s voice.

  ‘. . . terrible what happened to her mother. Oh, yes, really too terrible for a girl her age. And there is supposed to be an older brother floating around somewhere, but he seems to –’

  ‘Robin, daughter! You’re home.’ State-the-obvious Mum cut him off very quickly, which of course aroused my interest.

  ‘Robin, yes,’ the Creature said. ‘Yes. Lovely to see you.’

  What do you say to your form teacher in your own home? My first response was: What the hell are you doing in my house? I went for the second response. ‘Who were you talking about?’

  They both seemed lost for words for a moment. Interesting.

  Mum said, ‘Oh, just somebody . . .’

  ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Robbie, honey, guess what? We’re going to the ballet.’

  ‘I don’t like ballet.’ What was he doing here?

  ‘Oh dear, no – sorry, love. When I said “we”, I meant Thomas and I.’

  Thomas!

  The Creature looked awkward at that, and it was almost worth it to see his face when I raised my eyebrow.

  He said, ‘It’s kind of a spontaneous thing.’ He stopped. Like that explained everything.

  ‘Thomas won tickets in the staffroom raffle, and he asked me to go. I love ballet.’ She smiled ridiculously at him.

  ‘Thomas’ looked very awkward and I had a terrible moment of feeling embarrassed by my mother, that she was
behaving this way in front of him. And then I felt awful, like I’d betrayed my mother and my father by feeling like that. Mr Krietcher should feel embarrassed. I mean, how dare he? How dare he move in on my mother? He doesn’t know anything about her, or about my dad. He doesn’t realise that he is galumphing in on something. He obviously never asked. No wonder he’d started being nice to me at school. No bloody wonder. Get in good with the kid, and then get in with the mother. I wasn’t having it. I glared at him. He looked even more uncomfortable. Good.

  ‘Ah, Roberta? The little boys room, if you please?’

  ‘Of course, Thomas, let me show you down the hall here.’

  Thomas, Roberta, Thomas, Roberta. Spare me.

  Mum came back up the hall. I just looked at her.

  ‘Robin, I don’t want to hear what you think right now.’

  ‘Mum, it’s the Creature!’

  ‘I said I don’t want to hear it. And don’t call him that, it’s rude.’

  ‘Well what am I going to do tonight then?’

  ‘Homework, I hope. And there’s dinner already, left over from your burst of creativity last night. You’ll just have to heat it up.’

  ‘What about Dad?’

  Mum looked at me, a really hard look, and I felt my scalp prickle, like when you know you’ve done something really wrong, really gone too far, and there’s no going back, and you’re about to cop it.

  But then the phone rang and she just said, ‘That’ll be Amber – she rang earlier and I told her to call back.’

  I picked up the phone as the Creature returned from the bathroom, rubbing his hands.

  ‘Hello?’ I said.

  Mum handed him a drink, a golden-brown drink in a short glass, with ice.

  ‘Hello, stupid,’ said Amber’s voice down the line.

  Mum had the same drink in her own hand. They clinked glasses, looking stupidly at each other as the ice rattled.

  ‘Yo! Nimrod!’ Amber could get very impatient, very easily.

  ‘Oh, hey, idiot, sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘Um, bit distracted.’

  ‘Hey, guess what? Pen-dog and I went for a walk yesterday, and there’s someone camping on your property. Right near that spot in the corner of the bottom paddock, near the shiny log, by the creek there. I didn’t see them, but they look like they’ve got a pretty good set-up. I reckon your dad should come back and kick ’em out. Bobs? Yo! Hello?’

  Looking at the two of them in front of me, and hearing Amber talk about what she did with Pen-dog, my Pen-dog, and someone camping down by the creek, my creek, made me feel as though someone had cut a line in the air around me, pulled me out of my own life, and stuck me down like a paper cut-out onto the page of someone else’s life, someone who had absolutely nothing to do with me.

  ‘Yeah, hi. Sorry. God! Everything’s shit.’

  ‘That’s what I was calling to say, Bobs: everything is shit. I miss you, so bloody well come up this weekend, and we’ll take Pen-dog and go and fish the stinking carp out of the creek.’

  ‘Hang on, I’ll ask.’ I looked up to catch Mum with her head thrown back in the horsiest laugh I’d ever seen her do. She was practically neighing.

  ‘Mum, can I go home this weekend? Amber wants to know.’

  Mum collected herself, and put her ‘Mum’ face back on. ‘Oh, I don’t know, things are pretty tight, I’m not sure we can afford the train.’ She looked at ‘Thomas’, who was sitting on the tiny couch with his knees too high in front of him. They exchanged a glance, and her ‘Mum’ face fell right off again. ‘Actually, I’m sure we can scrounge enough somewhere for a mental-health weekend.’ They exchanged another smirking glance. I hated them.

  ‘Are you going soon, or what?’

  ‘Robin!’

  I got back on the phone, ignoring Mum’s apology to the Creature.

  ‘I can come.’

  ‘Awesome. What the schming is going on there, by the way?’

  ‘You’ll never guess. I’ll tell you when I get there.’

  ‘Okay, nothing else to report. Get the early train in the morning, and me and the bro will come pick you up. Right. Bye, stupid.’

  ‘Ciao, idiot.’

  I hung up. Mum and the Creature were collecting their things. So smug somehow. There was nothing I could do to stop them laughing so loudly. I wanted to tell Delia. I really wanted to tell her. It was surprising. She was the only one who would fully comprehend the horror of what I was witnessing. Mum looked fantastic, and when the Creature touched Mum’s shoulder, ever so lightly, but like he knew he could, I just wanted them gone so badly. But finally, when they left, Mum kissing me outrageously fondly all over my face, and the Creature giving the most awkward little wave I’ve ever seen an adult give – ‘See you tomorrow in form, Robin, prompt as a German train, ho ho ho’ – and the door closed, I felt like the house was relying on me alone to give it some warmth and life. And I felt incapable of giving it. Homework could wait, I needed voices. Dinner in front of the TV.

  After dinner I got the piece of paper with Dad’s number on it from the secret space in my roll-top desk. It was a mobile number. He’d never had a mobile before. Mum had always had one, but Dad never did because he said everybody always knew where he was anyway. It was disorienting, pushing the buttons of this strange new number, and not having a picture in my head of where he was when he picked it up. He was in Queensland, I knew that, but really, he could be anywhere. I wanted to ask him about the curlew I’d seen in the park, and whether he thought it was possible. But mostly I wanted to hear him talk. But when he picked up I felt shy, like I was talking to someone I didn’t know very well. I didn’t tell him about the ballet, and about Thomas – for obvious reasons. And I didn’t tell him what Amber had said about the campers on our block. I don’t know why. It was like we all had nothing to do with the place anymore, like it was just a beautiful dream I’d had: a dream that no-one else shared and now, having woken up into everybody else’s real life, I was the only one who missed it. He asked about school and I asked about Queensland but he dodged that one.

  And then I asked him about the curlew I had seen here by the creek in the parklands.

  ‘Nah, love,’ he said. ‘You’re losing your touch, too much time in the city. Must have been a pigeon that ate too much and grew tall. Ha! Seriously though, kid, maybe a heron, maybe a dirty heron so you got confused by the colouring or something, maybe one of those night herons they have down there, but definitely not our Willaroo.’

  Dad liked to call Bush Stone-curlews ‘Willaroos’. It was an Aboriginal name for them. He knew a fair deal about them and I knew I should believe him, but I wasn’t convinced. It had seemed so real. ‘Why couldn’t it be?’

  ‘Well, let’s just say this: if it’s a Willaroo, then it mustn’t have been there long, because it couldn’t survive there long. If it’s a Willaroo, then it’s in the wrong place: it’s dangerous there – dogs, cats, heaps of foxes there in the city, too. And people – people can be the most dangerous. There’ll be nothing for it to eat, and the creek is probably polluted. It will get dehydrated and sick. My bet is that it’s something else. Maybe some cra-a-azy city mutant. That’s what happens if you spend too long in the city, kid. You’ll become a cra-a-azy city mutant.’

  ‘It’s already started. My feet are getting soft.’

  ‘Ha! Exactly. So, what you up to tonight, you girls? You and your mum settled in for a big night of cra-a-azy city television-watching?’

  ‘Um, yep. Something like that.’

  states and

  transitions

  Selina

  Lecture notes for Ecology: 271–203 Selina Antonella

  Learning areas: Disturbance; Impact and aftermath; States and transitions; Thresholds; Resilience and regeneration; Restoration

  Ecosystems aren’t set in stone. They change over time. They are dynamic systems. We used to think that they changed like that because they were heading to a point of perfe
ct balance, a point where all the species would be in ‘equilibrium’, and then the ecosystem wouldn’t change anymore. But when we tried to study ecosystems like that, watching over long periods of time, we never saw this point of balance. Why? Because disturbance always happened first. Fire or disease or storm or drought, or even a small thing, like a tree falling down, always happened. Disturbance always came along and changed things. And so we got to thinking: maybe disturbance is part of ecosystems. And that made us think about ecosystems in a whole new way.

  So now we say that one ecosystem can actually ‘be’ in a few different ways. It can actually exist in several different states, and it goes from one state to another and back again. And the thing that makes these transitions happen is disturbance.

  Let’s take a piece of box-ironbark woodland as our example, and think of some things that might happen in that ecosystem. What if there is a lot of rain one year? This might make lots of grass grow, and also many tree seedlings. When the tree seedlings grow up, they’ll make so much shade that the grasses won’t be able to grow anymore, and then we will have a dense shrubby woodland. This is a ‘state’. But what if, instead, when the tree seedlings are still young, there is a fire? Most grasses grow back well after fire, but tree seedlings are usually killed. Then we’d end up with an environment that has more grass and fewer trees. We’d have a grassy woodland. Another state. Shaped differently by different disturbances, these two environments may look a bit different, but they are the same ecosystem, just in different states. And depending what happens then, what new disturbances occur, the ecosystem will go from one state to the other and back again.

  That is, unless something happens that makes it cross a threshold.

  When an ecosystem crosses a threshold, it stops being that ecosystem. It passes into being something else entirely. And it never goes back.

  Imagine if our box-ironbark woodland suffers a number of fires, with season after season of tree seedlings killed. Those trees never grow up, the tree seeds in the soil run out, the adult trees get old and die, and then what do we have? A grassland, not a woodland at all. Never a woodland again. And most of the plant and animal species that thrived in the woodland can’t live there anymore. And if any of those woodland species are rare, and there are not many other woodland ecosystems for them to live in, then this is a very bad outcome.

 

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