As Stars Fall

by Christie Nieman

  ‘Christ.’ He feels dizzy with the realisation.

  He looks at the windows of the house. No movement. With shaking hands he pulls Delia’s envelope from the letterbox. In Delia’s neat handwriting the envelope is marked ‘Flame’ Robin Roberts.

  Flame. Flame Robin.

  He is frozen. He can’t move. He stares at the name. It’s her name. He heard it, when he was here, before, in this street, as the bird, on the factory roof. His breath leaves him as full comprehension comes rushing in.

  Either this is not real, him here now – or he was here before.

  He leans quickly against the high wooden fence, feeling faint, putting his shoulder against the sun-baked timber, steadying himself inside and out. He stays there, not moving, trying to gather a sense of himself, groping for reality. And as he waits, leaning there as still as he can, the gentle heat of the fence radiates onto his body, slowly flowering from the wood, through his shirt, and onto his receptive skin: warm, substantial and real.

  Delia

  It is hours before Seth arrives back home. She doesn’t know where he’s been. He was still in bed when she left early in the morning on her errand. At least she thought he was: she’s having trouble keep track of the members of her household; they waft in and out like ghosts.

  She’s been sitting in the backyard since she got home. She likes the company of the chooks; they are predictable, solid, tangible. They expect things of her: food mostly, water, the opening and closing of the gates at the right times. She can do these things for them, and that loosens the tightness across her stomach. She has her dictionary open on the concrete in front of her. She has flipped to S and is trying to get a handle on what she reads there: Subjectivity n. quality proceeding from or belonging to individual consciousness or perception; imaginary, partial, distorted.

  She has her mother’s cardigan on. It’s a big woolly one, scratchy and uncomfortable and hot. The sun bounces back from the white concrete and nearly blinds her, and her skin creeps with sweat under the wool.

  What happens now? Should she have put her name on the folder? Her mother’s surname will mean nothing to Robin; it is not the same as Delia’s and Seth’s and their father’s. She doesn’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Maybe it’s neither good nor bad. Maybe it’s just a thing. Either way, she feels a bit lighter, like she has been carrying around a heavy pocketful of precious stones, and she has just given one away.

  She hears the front door close and Seth’s step in the hall. She expects him to go straight from the door to his room – that is his habitual trajectory these days. Him and her dad. And her as well, she supposes. The rest of the house is becoming sadly neglected. No-one uses the kitchen much anymore, except for tea and coffee and when Seth makes dinner, which has been happening less and less. And no-one uses the family room at all. It has a layer of dust, even on the couches.

  So she is surprised when she hears his footfall on the back step and looks up to see him standing there, hesitant, as if he’s unsure who she is. He has a cigarette rolled and ready to go in one hand. He slides it into his pocket. He doesn’t like her to see him smoke. But she does see him: in the backyard, and in the parklands sometimes.

  He leans against the doorframe, not stepping outside.

  ‘Aren’t you hot, Delly-Dee?’

  The nickname drops strangely from his mouth. It is one of the many names for her that used to pour forth with ease: Delly-Dee, Dee-Dee, Elly the Eel, and one from when Delia was small and just learning to say her own name: Eeya. But this time it sounds like his tongue and lips don’t recognise the words. Like he’s trying to pronounce an ancient forgotten language.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Very.’

  He steps uncertainly into the backyard, walks over and sits down next to her on the concrete edging of the path.

  ‘The dictionary? Scintillating reading, sister.’

  Delia flips the book shut with her toe. ‘For homework,’ she says.

  The chooks trot over to investigate Seth for new food, turning their heads on the side, sussing him out.

  ‘Any eggs today?’ Seth asks.

  ‘Only one. Slasher’s gone off the lay.’

  Disenchanted, the chooks saunter off, investigating the ground instead with eyes and scratching toes. Seth nods and, to fill the strange silence that follows, Delia continues, ‘Which is probably not so bad, since no-one’s really eating the eggs anyway.’

  She’s gone too far. She’s strayed too close. It is an almost-verbal acknowledgement of how things have changed. Now they won’t be able to help thinking of the accumulation of eggs which is taking up two shelves of the fridge and part of the fridge door, and remembering past Saturday mornings when those eggs became omelettes, eggs Benedict, or a big pile of shared pancakes in the middle of the table.

  The unspoken observation invites a gaping emptiness into the afternoon. She hears Seth swallow into the silence.

  He says finally, ‘Dad home?’

  ‘No. Well, I don’t think so.’

  And then to her horror Seth puts his head in his hand and rocks it there. ‘Fuck,’ he says quietly. And then thumping the heel of his hand against his forehead, and pushing the word out again, but longer and louder to drown out the catch in his voice. ‘Fuuuck!’ Delia doesn’t know what to do, so she does nothing but sit frozen, and Seth says as a croak into his hand, ‘Del, I think I’m going crazy.’ She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to say anything. She doesn’t want to have this happen out loud.

  Seth lifts his head and looks at her, that questioning look again. She stands up quickly and goes and shoos Ripper out of the decrepit vegie patch, and Seth looks down at his hands. Don’t ask it, she wills him. Don’t.

  ‘Delia?’ he says.

  It seems unavoidable. They’ll talk about the curlew. She’ll have to tell him what she thinks. ‘Yes?’

  He holds his other hand up, the burnt hand with the skin red and weeping from the wrist to the fingertips. He turns it around and she can see that in the centre of his palm there is a deep red welt, the exact shape and size of a cigarette end.

  ‘I can’t seem to bandage it on my own,’ he says. ‘Will you help me?’

  Delia watches him lower his hand and cradle it in his lap like an injured animal. She can barely breathe, but somewhere she finds the air to put behind her words.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Of course I can. Come on.’

  Robin

  Dad’s face was thin and his mouth was turned down at the edges. And I recognised the tent now. It was the one we used to take camping and all three of us sleep in. Even though we had a bigger one, we didn’t like it as much. And I recognised the magpie, and my heart leaped. Amber was starting to stand up in the grass.

  ‘Um, wait,’ I said and pulled her back down.

  ‘Why? Come on, let’s go say hi.’

  Hi. How could I just waltz up to my dad, who I hadn’t seen in almost two months, who didn’t know I’d been spying on him and who looked like death, and just say ‘hi’?

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘Robin.’ Amber got her schoolteacher voice on. ‘Things like this don’t just happen. Just say hi.’

  That’s how I guess.

  We stood up and climbed over the fence and began to walk across the uneven ground towards him. Was I angry at him, or was I pleased to see him? I didn’t know. I had warring impulses going on inside me. Did I want to punch him so hard that it hurt, or hug him so hard he could never get away? I still hadn’t decided by the time we were quite close and he looked up from patting Penny’s head.

  He saw me. And I said, ‘Hi, Dad.’

  Dad’s face burst into the biggest smile.

  ‘Kiddo! It’s my little Flame Robin!’

  He picked me up and turned me upside down, then slung me over his shoulder in a backwards fireman’s carry, ran around the paddock with me on his shoulder shrieking at him to put me down but really loving every minute of it, and eventually going farter-over-laughe
r, as Dad called it, into the dirt. Amber nearly wet her pants laughing at me.

  ‘Don’t you look so smug, young Ms Dooley, or it’ll be your turn next,’ said Dad. And I hugged him, hard.

  And then I crouched down and held out my hand. ‘Mo,’ I called. ‘Moey.’ After a moment’s hesitation the magpie trotted over to inspect my palm. But on seeing that it was empty of food he took off to sit in a distant gum and chortle to himself quietly and perform his toilette. I was so relieved I felt like my guts were smiling.

  ‘Dad, what are you doing here? When I spoke to you last night you were in Queensland.’

  ‘Hmm, yeah, well, no. Sorry, love. I was here. I was going to tell you and then, I dunno, I just . . . It seemed a bit complicated. I’ve been back for about a week now.’

  ‘Why aren’t you up in the house?’

  Dad shifted his feet in the dirt a bit. ‘I just . . . It’s not quite . . . I dunno – without my two girls there, I couldn’t stomach it.’

  ‘Are you staying here, or . . .?’

  ‘Well, I have a bit of a crazy plan for something . . . anyway, we’ll see. Hey, can you ladies stay for lunch?’

  Amber stood up from the log she was sitting on. ‘Nah, Mum’s got plans. But you should come, Mr Roberts.’

  ‘Nah, nah, I’ll be right. Bit scared of your mum right now, Amber, truth be told.’

  ‘Aren’t we all, Mr Roberts.’

  ‘So I’ll let you go only on the condition that you both come back down here later on and I’ll cook you up a camp dinner. I’ve got a bit of a surprise for you, Flame.’

  ‘Deal,’ Amber said.

  ‘Deal,’ I said.

  *

  Dad fed us an awesome meal, just like the ones we used to have when we went camping. He’d dug a camp oven and out of the glowing coals we fished the foil-wrapped potatoes, the smoky whole chook. And camp-style is the best way to eat vegies; grated carrot, zucchini, corn and broccoli, mixed with egg and flour into vegetable fritters and fried in a cast-iron pan. Mo had vanished, put himself to bed in some tree somewhere. Dad told us about the birds in Queensland, up near Cairns.

  ‘Ah, Flame, you wouldn’t believe some of the colours up there.’

  He told us about the Crimson Finch, the Magnificent Riflebird, the Shining Flycatcher, the Yellow-bellied Sunbird.

  ‘But they’re all a bit showy for me, these Queensland birds. I really missed my Victorian birds, and I don’t just mean you and your mother.’

  I was trying to hold my heart steady after the leap it did when he said he missed Mum. Careful of that hope there, Robin, careful.

  ‘And there were Bush Stone-curlews. Lots of them, just running around in city parks, and nesting under people’s patios. It was a beautiful thing to see, Flame. They’re not so endangered up there as our poor Victorian variety. They haven’t stuffed them around like we have. Which brings me to your surprise. You’ll never guess what it is, so I’ll tell you. Our old mate the curlew’s come back.’

  ‘What, back here?’

  ‘Yep. One of the real ones, not like your city figment. Ha! Yeah, it’s only one this time, but still . . . You girls probably walked right by it today. I reckon if we’re quiet a bit later on, we might get to see it.’

  *

  The sun went down. The fire went to coals. Amber went silent and when I looked over I saw her swaying by the fire, her head nodding, drooping; when those Dooleys got tired, they got tired. Dad chuckled. Amber’s head snapped back up again and her eyes flicked open and she looked at both of us looking at her.

  ‘What?’

  Dad laughed again. ‘I better do my gentlemanly duty and walk you ladies home, eh?’

  Amber stood up and stretched and said groggily, ‘No, no, Mr Robzt. I’ll walk myself home. You two should stay up and enjoy the fire. Bobs, see you back home in a bit. G’night, Mr Robzt.’

  Amber grabbed a torch and tottered away up the hill and Dad and I listened to her receding footsteps and then sat quietly as the coals brightened and dimmed, and burned until they tumbled.

  ‘What happened, Dad? What happened in Queensland?’ It was a question that was a lot easier to ask in the soft light of the coals than in the hard light of day. Dad obviously felt it was easier to answer that way too.

  ‘Well, you know, I wasn’t really sure I wanted to go, but your mother made it clear that – no, that’s not fair. Anyway, I went. I thought about coming back, but then all of a sudden you and your mother weren’t here, and . . .’ he paused, deciding, ‘. . . and, well, things didn’t really work out with my friend there, and I guess I knew they wouldn’t. Ah, sweetheart, I really screwed things up. I’m sorry.’

  Dad poked the fire with a stick. Little sparks lifted themselves into the black and spiralled off.

  ‘Are you going to stay here for a while, Dad?’

  ‘Yeah, I reckon.’

  ‘Can I come home then?’

  ‘Dunno about that, love. Maybe we should just let things settle as they are for a bit. See what your mother reckons.’

  I sighed. I didn’t want to know what my mother reckoned. I was sick of what my mother reckoned. I sighed again. Dad put his hand on my shoulder for a moment, and then let go. He kicked a bit of dirt with his boot.

  ‘You going back tomorrow, kiddo?’ he said.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You got time to come visit your old man in the morning, say goodbye?’

  ‘Of course.’

  And then we heard the cry, softly undulating. As always, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and goosebumps ran down my arms. Dad got his torch out and flicked it on, lighting up the ground directly in front of us. There was only a momentary lapse in the calling as he turned the beam on the curlew. I could see then, as it moved in the torchlight, that it had a limp, and that some patches of its feathers looked all messed up, while other patches were bare.

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘I dunno. Maybe it got caught in the fire. If that’s true it’ll probably be okay, seeing as it’s survived this long. That’s partly why I’ve camped down here, to keep an eye on it, hatch my plot.’

  ‘What plot?’

  ‘All in good time. Penny’s been coming down here too, keeping the foxes away like she used to with our chooks.’

  Penny thumped her tail on the ground when she heard her name. She was lying with her back to the curlew, with her chin on her paws, but her ears forward, listening to the night and the things that might be in it. It was exactly her chook-guarding position.

  ‘That would explain her disappearing-dog act from the Dooleys’, then.’

  The curlew had gone silent. Dad moved the torch away from it. The curlew stood up straighter, and then it turned and showed us its other side.

  ‘Dad!’ I almost shouted. ‘Put the torch back on it, quickly.’

  He swung the torch back. It was true; there were leg-tags.

  ‘Good eyes, Flame. Tags. Here, use my binoculars – can you read them?’

  I could. I read them. ‘They’re red, yellow, black. From bottom to top.’

  *

  I woke in the night. Silence. I opened my eyes. Nothing in front of them. Slowly, a ceiling, and a sigh and a slight movement underneath. I was on the top bunk in Amber and Steph’s room. I could make out Amber’s form in the bed by the moonlit window, and Steph’s little sleep-wriggle below shuddered up through the top bunk again. I felt it now – the bone-aching tiredness from coping with the last week, the last months. It was weariness, but it wasn’t sleepiness anymore.

  I slipped down the ladder of the bunk, literally slipping, and stubbed my toe on the floorboards and clapped my hands over my mouth to stop from shrieking. I needn’t have bothered, though; one thing those Dooleys could do was sleep. It used to infuriate me when Amber stayed over. I’d want to talk, but there she’d be, flat on her back, one arm flung out – a corpse until dawn and no amount of poking or shouting could change that.

  I found Steph’s ugg boots and cocoa-smelling dr
essing gown by my feet at the bottom of the ladder, and despite the squeeze, stuffed my feet into the boots and slipped the dressing gown on over my PJs. It tied up just under my breasts, and went down only as far as my hips. Feeling like I’d eaten something magical that had made me a giant in tiny clothes, I went out into the hallway and out the front door onto the creaking porch. I had never noticed before that the porch was creaky, but I guess I’d always been on it in the bright noisy day.

  I stood on the porch in the moonlight, looking out onto the road and the paddocks beyond. Pen-dog and Pickles came to see what night-time fun I was having without them. Pickles bounced his one-legged hindquarters over to me and whined and licked his chops. The sound was really nice in the night, really homey or something. Penny, always smarter than Pickles, had recognised that I wasn’t dressed for night-adventuring, and she sat quietly next to me, her head leaning into my leg. Pickles followed her lead and sat on the other side.

  The night was so still. The full moon had moved over to the west and was turning the whole sky a deep bright indigo. The stars were shimmering frantically. Dad had told me they shimmer more in summer, something about mild air and atmosphere I didn’t understand. But it felt right, what he’d said.

  Penny had her snout pressed into the palm of my hand. And then she suddenly sat up, ears up and pointed down the road.

  ‘What is it Pen-dog? A Nargun?’ She dropped her ears and looked up at me briefly, to acknowledge I had spoken – she was nothing if not a polite dog – but then went straight back to ‘alert-dog-with-pointed-ears’ pose. And then I heard what she was listening to. The curlew at Willaroo corner was crying again. I heard it only faintly and only a little before it faded away, but the night seemed suddenly emptier after it had gone. I stood on the porch a bit longer and listened to the other night sounds. I felt so happy and so sad at the same time. I felt so happy that a curlew had decided to come back to our land, and so sad that it wasn’t really my land anymore. I scruffled Penny’s ears, and for the first time noticed in the moonlight the grey around her nose and eyes. She was an old dog now.