Bookmark Days

by Scot Gardner

  ‘His name’s Nathaniel,’ I said.

  ‘Better check him out.’

  I know she was just being funny but she said ‘check him out’ as if she was going for a perve, not a medical examination, and it set my teeth on edge. I turned away before I saw her touch him.

  ‘What’s he like?’ Dad asked.

  ‘He’s all right. For a Carrington.’

  Dad chuckled. ‘He can dance.’

  I looked at my father. He wore a smirk and a look of cheeky satisfaction. He’d seen us at the Show.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘He’s not bad.’

  He patted my shoulder with his bloody hand.

  I grabbed his fingers and inspected them. ‘Hope that’s not your blood.’

  ‘No. That’s fresh Junior.’

  ‘Better get it off before the evil eats into your bones,’ I said.

  He laughed and held his hand in the stream of rainwater coming off the side of the ambulance. He scrubbed at the red spots.

  ‘What’s it all about, Dad? All this feuding stuff?’

  Dad raised an eyebrow, then sighed. ‘I honestly don’t know. Les and I were talking about it while you guys were away. The perfect opportunity, really. I was feeling sorry for him and he was happy to see me. There’s a first time for everything, I guess.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We couldn’t find a single reason to hate each other. I punched him in the mouth when we were young but he said he deserved it. Said he was drunk and had been deliberately stirring me up for hours. I couldn’t even remember what the fight was about. We laughed. I actually had a laugh with Junior. Our dads had never been mates, but something happened between them in 1969, around the time of the bushfires.’

  ‘Yes, but what?’

  Dad slowly shook his head. ‘No idea. The fires were over the road and Mrs Carrington couldn’t get through. She slept with Junior out in her car. Right in our driveway. I remembered that much. She wouldn’t even come into the house.’

  A bark of pain cut through the noise of the rain and machinery.

  Dad straightened. ‘His leg’s crushed,’ he whispered. ‘Real mess.’

  The paramedic dragged Nathaniel away from the car. She had her hand on his shoulder and she spoke right into his face. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Nathaniel nodded reluctantly and let her lead him back to the ambulance. Dad and I made room.

  Nathaniel had his cap in his hand. He smiled through his worry and pushed the cap onto my head.

  ‘Nathaniel, this is my dad, Lance.’

  He stuck out his hand and Dad shook it warmly.

  ‘Crap place to do it,’ Nathaniel said, ‘but it’s great to finally shake your hand.’

  ‘Likewise,’ Dad said. ‘Bit sorry it hasn’t happened before today.’

  The paramedic did her work and I watched them intently. It hurt my eyes to see her touch him. Stupid, I know, but I couldn’t help what I was feeling.

  ‘Are you sore anywhere?’ she asked him.

  ‘Just my ribs, here,’ Nathaniel said, and held his side.

  She helped him take his shirt off.

  My face caught fire. Not literally, but I was glad to have Nathaniel’s hat to hide behind. I mostly hid but the battle going on in my mind was ferocious. On the one hand, the goody-goody Avril, respectful, concerned and proper, did the right thing and looked at the ground, the car and the workers going about their business. My other side, newborn as she was, could smell his clean sweat, and in one glance (okay, more like nineteen glances) swallowed every beautiful detail. Saw the clean lines of his chest, his singlet tan, the two freckles above his left nipple and the neat trail of copper hair that led from just below his belly button to . . .

  She asked him to breathe deep. His face twisted with pain.

  The more she touched him, the better I felt. Her touch was clinical and matter-of-fact. They weren’t dancing, that’s for sure. He wasn’t resting his hand on her back between songs. When they were done and he was dressed again, he didn’t hug her, he just said thanks.

  ‘Bit of bruising on the ribs, probably from the seatbelt. I reckon you’ll be sore tomorrow. Just take it easy. If it gets bad, come in to the hospital or go and see your doctor.’

  There was a commotion at the ute. Nathaniel’s grandad was in a shoving match with two firemen. I hadn’t seen him arrive.

  ‘It’s my son in there!’ he yelled. ‘My son!’

  Nathaniel excused himself and jogged to the old man’s side. He put his hand on his grandad’s arm, but Les Senior shrugged him off then pushed him in the chest. Nathaniel stumbled backwards holding his side. Two police officers descended on Les and dragged him clear.

  ‘We probably should get going,’ Dad said. ‘Your mother will be worried sick.’

  ‘I . . . I’ll just . . . probably should . . .’ I stammered.

  Dad nodded. ‘Meet you at the car.’

  Nathaniel had his hands on his knees, his face tight with pain. Les Senior was still shouting and swearing.

  ‘Nathaniel?’

  He looked up and forced a smile.

  ‘We have to get going. I . . .’

  He nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and straightened.

  ‘You get away from him,’ Les Senior shouted. It took a second to realise he was yelling at me. ‘You just get back to your side of the fence, you little harlot.’

  ‘Grandad! Shut up! Just shut up, will you?’

  Les levelled a finger at his grandson. ‘Don’t you start,’ he snarled. ‘You’ve got no bloody idea. You’d better remember whose side you’re on, quick smart. Throw your lot in with that pack of bastards and you won’t have a hope in hell. Turn your back on one of them, next thing you know, there’s a bloody knife in it.’

  ‘I’d better go,’ I said, my heart racing. I stepped closer and took off his cap and jacket.

  ‘Don’t worry about them’ he said. ‘I’ll get them later.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. I laid them on the rough grass and left.

  CHAPTER 15

  It stopped raining on the way home, but there were stormclouds in my head now. From where I sat I couldn’t imagine how we’d meet again. I thought I’d used up all my ‘chance encounters’ and if it didn’t happen by accident I couldn’t imagine how else it would happen. He lived next door but it could have been another country. I’d need a passport to jump that fence. And a disguise. I knew I was being stupid but I couldn’t stop the thoughts. Truth was, whatever we’d found dancing in the rain was fragile.

  The final nail in the coffin was dealing with my cousin when we got home. If Mum (or anyone else in the house for that matter) was worried sick, then they were worrying in their sleep. I made sure the blanket was tight on Katie’s lap as Dad carried her into my room. I was going to tuck her into bed like that but she stirred as I tugged the blankets from underneath her and I noticed the chunks of vomit stuck to the front of her top.

  ‘I feel sick,’ she said.

  We bumped the wall as I helped her into the bathroom. She sank to her knees in front of the toilet and burped a few times but nothing came out.

  I ran the shower. ‘Come on,’ I whispered.

  I got the temperature right and pushed her under the stream – fully clothed – and she was immediately sick on the wall. She splashed it clean and the combination of the shower and the stomach-cleanse lifted her spirits. She started undressing.

  ‘You going to be okay?’ I asked.

  She nodded.

  She was in the shower for a long time. If Mum had been awake, she would have banged on the wall and told her not to run the tanks dry, even though they’d probably overflowed during the storm.

  I was too tired to shower. I couldn’t smell the spew any more. The rain had mostly washed me clean anyway. I left the light on but I wanted to be in bed when Katie returned, facing the wall, asleep.

  No such luck.

  ‘Avvie?’ she whispered.

  I ignored her, so she shook my shoulder.

/>   ‘Av?’

  I rolled over. ‘What?’

  She was wrapped in a towel and had her hair turbaned in another. She was sunburned. There were also marks on her neck and chest – big, purple-black love bites: one at her nape, one way too far down her cleavage.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Just get to bed. I’m tired.’

  ‘Can I borrow some pyjamas? My others are in the wash.’

  ‘Fine. In the second drawer.’

  ‘And some knickers?’

  ‘Top drawer.’

  I heard a rooster crow. Another day was on its way. I went to sleep thinking that whatever happened on this new day, it wouldn’t be as wild as the one I’d just lived.

  I woke just after eleven that morning. Katie was still asleep but the rest of the house was eerily empty. The cars were in the shed, the tractor and the bikes were gone. I ate, saddled up Zeph and headed out. Didn’t know where I was going, just out. Away from Katie and if I was lucky, away from those heavy clouds of crap thoughts still hanging in my head.

  The day was steamy and warm. The sun had found its edge again and I couldn’t look straight at Carringtons’ canola field. It was too bright for my morning-after head. I had a hangover. Not from alcohol – the kind I hoped Katie would have – but from a few too many feelings in one hit. Emotional hangover. It took ages to dissipate. The easy rhythm of Zeph’s walk as we travelled along the boundary was the right medicine. Clip clop. Nathaniel really did seem to be enjoying himself while we were dancing. Clip clop. And that hand on my shoulder wasn’t an accident. Clip clop. That hug was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever felt. Clip clop. I wonder what his skin tastes like?

  The creek had come up overnight. What used to be a meagre black streak was now a swirling drain, bubbling over the exposed rocks and barely contained by its banks. I dismounted and pinged rocks into the current. It looked inviting. When I caught a whiff of beer vomit on my skin, I stripped off and waded knee-deep for a wash. It was cold enough to make me catch my breath but it was medicine too. It made my skin tight and when I flicked my wet hair off my face and it slapped on my bare back, I squeaked and puffed at the shock of cold. I stayed until my ankles ached, then sat on my jeans in the sun. My feet and hands were numb but something was better inside. After my splash in the creek, I could feel the sun going right into my core and frying the shadows that had come to rest in there. If Les Senior had a problem with me, it was his problem and there was nothing I could do about it. If Katie wanted to live her life as one messy lie after another, then that was her choice. I’d live my life differently.

  There was one problem that wouldn’t come clean. No matter how I held it in the light of that new day, I couldn’t find a way to casually hook up with Nathaniel. Those parting words were still hanging there. We’d met by accident more times in the last week than we had in our entire lives, but I wanted to see him again and couldn’t wait for chance. I couldn’t just turn up at his place on the horse, unless I was clad like Ned Kelly or disguised as a religious salesperson. I couldn’t ring and expect a happy greeting unless he happened to answer the phone. Four to one odds against that happening, although if Marilyn answered . . . hmmm. With his father out of action he’d be working every daylight hour and then some. I could write a letter, but they probably checked his mail. The sorts of things I wanted to write could get a Carrington killed if they fell into the wrong hands. Colluding with the enemy, they called it in the war stories. Maybe I wouldn’t have to find him. Maybe he’d come for me. It would be so totally sexy and so totally embarrassing if he found me beside the creek wearing just my skin.

  I couldn’t sit still after that. I kept imagining eyes on me, even though I was several kilometres from houses and people. If Nathaniel found me it would be one thing, but if my little brother found me it would be something completely different.

  Eeeew.

  CHAPTER 16

  ‘Seems like you guys had an eventful night,’ Mum said. Her hands and forearms were powdered white with flour. I could smell bread baking.

  ‘That’s one word for it,’ I said.

  Katie entered the kitchen. Her hair was wet from another shower and I couldn’t look at her face. At some level, she disgusted me.

  ‘Here she is!’ Mum sang. ‘How you feeling now, Katie?’

  ‘Fine. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Sounds as though you had a fun night.’

  Katie nodded and changed the subject. ‘Uncle Lance said there was an accident?’

  ‘You don’t remember?’ Mum asked.

  She shook her head. ‘Should I?’

  ‘I thought you were part of the rescue team?’ Mum said.

  ‘She was asleep in the car the whole time,’ I said. I didn’t mean it to sound so bitchy. I was talking about Katie as if she wasn’t even in the room.

  ‘I see,’ Mum said. She washed her hands and vanished into the lounge. She quite literally cleared out. It left me and Katie and this big, awkward silence alone in the kitchen.

  ‘Sorry,’ Katie whispered.

  ‘I wish you’d stop apologising,’ I said aloud. ‘What are you sorry for now?’

  ‘For everything.’

  ‘Everything?’

  She nodded, solemnly.

  ‘What, for dumping me so you could get drunk with strangers? Don’t worry about it. Happens all the time.’

  The sarcasm was wasted on Katie. She was laughing under her breath.

  ‘For disappearing when it was time to go? For initiating a manhunt in the rain then turning up half dead and half naked in the carpark? For vomiting on me? For what?’

  ‘I vomited on you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Seriously? Oh, Avvie, I’m sorry.’

  ‘Shut up with your sorry. You’re not sorry. You’re not sorry about anything. You don’t think about anyone other than yourself.’

  I looked at her then. I don’t know what coloured lightning bolts were coming from my eyes, but the smile melted from her face.

  ‘It was a bit of fun,’ she said. ‘Should try it some time, you might like it.’

  She turned away. We were just so different. The more time I spent with her, the more I realised it was true. Katie’s idea of fun and my idea of fun were as different as sheep and chickens.

  ‘Have you seen my phone? I think I lost my phone.’

  ‘That wasn’t all you lost.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Well, you had underwear when we left but you didn’t have any when I found you.’

  She laughed into her hand. ‘Woops!’

  ‘Have you tried calling your phone? Perhaps whoever has your phone also has your underwear.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Avvie.’

  ‘How was it then?’

  ‘I had . . . a little accident.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’d had . . . a bit . . . to drink and I left my run to the toilet a little late. I hadn’t counted on a queue, that’s all. I washed my knickers and put them in my pocket with my phone. Now they’ve both disappeared.’

  ‘And . . . the bruises?’

  ‘Bruises?’

  I pointed to the love bite staring at me from her neck. She fake-coughed and pulled up her collar.

  ‘Golfing accident,’ she said.

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘We got sprung before it got serious. We went back to the beer tent and his mates were leaving so he went with them. I remember looking around the carpark for your dad’s car but I couldn’t find it. Next thing I remember is being sick in the shower here.’

  At some level, it was a relief to know I’d been wrong. On another level I felt Katie was just telling me what she wanted me to hear. She was the master of giving her life a new shape with lies. I wanted to say something about what Dad had told me, but now wasn’t the time. We were just too far apart.

  She phoned her mobile but it went straight to message bank. When she eventually told her mum that she’d lost
it, a phone search started. My mum phoned the lady she knew on the show committee who phoned the bloke in charge of the clean-up in the morning. Apparently there was a whole box full of wet lost property but no mobile. Katie went into a big sulk, as if her favourite dog had been run over by the tractor. She lay on her bed and listened to her CDs and only came out to eat. Dad teased her and threatened to tickle her but she grumped her way through dinner and complained about being tired at about eight o’clock. Can’t say that I was bitterly disappointed when she went to bed. I was tired too, but I really enjoyed the space from her mess.

  Hoppy and Nan were having a cup of tea when I woke the next morning, though it wasn’t a quiet cuppa. I could hear them grumping at each other from my bedroom, not what they were actually saying but their sharp tone. Nan was all extra-sunny-cheer when I entered the kitchen and Hoppy kissed my head as he left.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I asked Nan.

  ‘All what?’

  ‘You and Hoppy arguing.’

  ‘Arguing?’ She was about to deny it – I could see it in her face – but she sighed and poured me a cup and another for herself. ‘Don’t miss a trick, do you, love?’

  I smiled and thanked her for the tea.

  She leaned in and whispered. ‘I suggested Hoppy offer a hand next door. They’ll be running themselves ragged with only the two able bodies and a harvest due any day. It would be the neighbourly thing to do.’

  I laughed out loud.

  ‘Yes,’ Nan said. ‘That’s what your grandfather thought of the idea, too.’

  She got up from the table and fussed at the sink.

  Then I had a brainwave – we didn’t need to persuade Hoppy to swallow his pride and help out the neighbours; I could do it! My perfect excuse. I could drive a tractor or harvester or whatever they wanted. Not only would it be a noble and good-neighbourly deed, it might give me the chance to see Nathaniel again, and that was what I most wanted in the whole world. In fact, if I didn’t see Nathaniel, didn’t get to brush against him, hear his voice and smell the manliness about him, then I was going to explode. I needed to know that last night wasn’t a dream, and this was the perfect way to make sure. I knew it would have to be done on the sly. If Hoppy knew that I was working for the enemy, he’d disown me. He’d tie my hands and feet with baling twine and toss me in the big dam. He’d . . .