Mr Romanov's Garden in the Sky

by Robert Newton

  Driving at night was different.

  During the day, when you could see the landscape around you, the paddocks and hills and the road ahead, the kilometres seemed to tick by slowly. But with everything splashed in darkness, the driving seemed easier, faster somehow. Cath was a demon behind the wheel. She planted her foot on the straight bits of highway, tore around the bends like a rally driver and overtook the sluggish cars in front. It was the cop part of her, I guess, and as I sat in my seat, staring out the window into the black of night, Surfers Paradise got closer and closer.

  A working radio was a bonus. After an hour or so of blues, Cath switched the channel to something more mainstream. A series of late-night songs, perfect for driving, piped through the stereo speakers and tried their best to carry me off to sleep. But I wasn’t ready for sleep. Not yet. I looked at Cath beside me and saw her grooving to a song on the radio I hadn’t heard before.

  ‘Do you think I’m selfish?’ I asked.

  She stopped moving and glanced my way.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Not going back, to Mum.’

  ‘It was your call, Lexie.’

  ‘I know, but I’m her daughter.’

  ‘True. But I’ve seen what it does, heroin. I’ve seen it ruin lives and turn normal people, beautiful people, into monsters. But I haven’t had to live with it like you.’

  ‘It was my father,’ I said. ‘When he died, I mean. That’s when she started.’

  ‘Maybe it was your mother’s way of handling it, then.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  ‘I’m not saying it was right, Lexie. She made a mistake and unfortunately you got caught in the middle. What was it like before? Before she started using, I mean?’

  ‘I can’t remember,’ I said.

  ‘You must remember some things.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve tried to remember. I’ve tried to go back but there’s nothing there.’

  ‘So maybe that’s your way of handling things. Maybe you block things out and forget. And maybe the good things got lost with the bad.’

  ‘Lost, you reckon?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. And maybe you need someone to help you find them.’

  ‘Someone, like who?’

  Cath craned her head to the stereo and threw me a smile.

  ‘Katy Perry, Lexie, that’s who.’

  She reached a hand out, cranked up the volume and began to groove about in her seat again.

  ‘Firework, Lexie. You with me?’

  ‘I don’t think so. I don’t actually . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, you do. You do if you want to get to Surfers Paradise. Come on girlfriend, let’s dance.’

  And I did. We did. We zapped down the windows and sang at the top of our lungs. We shoulder-danced in our seats, waved our arms and made stupid sexy dance faces to each other. We went mental and brought it home with a bang, and when it was over, the two of us shrieked with laughter and sat back in our seats.

  Katy Perry. Who would have thought?

  The three remaining hours seemed more like one. We talked nonstop about all sorts of things, things I’d never talked to anyone about before. I learned that after Alexis died, Cath and her partner split and she joined the police force because she had nothing better to do. It was just a job at first, she said, a pay cheque to pay the rent, but much to her surprise, she came to love it more than she thought she would.

  Soon enough, the one-pub towns grew bigger. Houses appeared in clusters and began to share the roadsides with factories and shops. More and more signs popped up on our left and I snatched what I could as we flew past – Ballina Bypass, Tweed Heads, Southport and Robina. We were getting close now, I could feel it.

  As Cath slowed the Honda and steered it right, I reached for the backpack by my feet and zipped it open. I retrieved the postcard I’d bought, the one I’d had stuck to the wall above my bed and angled it Cath’s way.

  ‘This is it,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, classy. A bigger bikini might be in order.’

  I pointed to the meter maid in the middle, the one with the bulging breasts.

  ‘I wanted to be her, you know.’

  ‘Her? Why would you want to be her?’

  ‘I’ll give you two reasons why.’

  ‘Oh God, Lexie, please. Are you for real?’

  ‘What?’

  Cath shifted sideways in her seat, reached a hand up and flipped my visor down.

  ‘Look hard,’ she said.

  ‘What at?’

  ‘At you, Lexie.’

  I glanced up into the rectangular mirror and saw myself reflected back.

  ‘So?’

  ‘So? You’re incredible.’

  ‘I am not.’

  ‘You are, Lexie. And that’s just the outside.’

  I slapped the visor closed and showed Cath the postcard again.

  ‘I actually meant the beach, Cath. I have to walk on this one, on the sand. That’s my dream. Do you know where it is?’

  ‘Yeah, I do. Everyone knows the silver arch. That’s the main beach in front of Cavill Avenue.’

  I glanced out the window and looked up at the sprinkling of stars in the wide, black sky.

  ‘And I have to see it,’ I said. ‘Properly, I mean. I hate to ask after everything you’ve done but can we wait until morning?’

  ‘Of course, we can. It’s going to be a cracking sunrise.’

  Surfers Paradise was a sea of high-rise towers, apartments and shops. We veered off the highway and drove towards the sea, down darkened streets, left then right and right then left. Cath buzzed the window down and breathed in the salt air. She continued driving as if she was following her nose, and somehow managed to find a park down a side street not far from the beach. I was too tired to stretch my legs, so the two of us stayed in the car and chatted about how things might play out. I would lie, of course. When I handed myself in at the police station after my walk on the beach, I’d tell them I’d hitched a ride from Coffs Harbour to Surfers Paradise. I’d tell them the whole trip had been my idea from start to finish and that if anyone was to blame, it was me.

  The thrill of being there kept me going for a bit, and even though I wanted to keep talking, I quickly ran out of steam. I was exhausted. Cath suggested we recline our seats, so I lowered mine down and lay back. I sank into the soft leather upholstery and I closed my eyes and surrendered.

  Surfers Paradise was every colour you could imagine. It was brilliant blues and dazzling greens and it was blinding yellows, just as I imagined it would be.

  Cath wasn’t beside me when I woke. She was sitting on a waist-high sandstone fence a few metres from my window.

  I wiped the sleep from my eyes, then opened the car door and walked over.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Got yourself a beautiful sunrise.’

  I turned my head and saw a golden sun, yawning through the fronds of a palm tree.

  ‘It’s perfect,’ I said.

  Cath didn’t look like she’d just woken up. She dipped her eyes to the ground and jiggled her legs.

  ‘Are you okay?’ I asked.

  ‘It just hit me,’ she said. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve had to say goodbye to someone special.’

  I stepped across the concrete path and sat on the fence beside her.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be forever,’ I said.

  As soon as I said it, Cath turned her head and looked at me and somehow we both knew.

  ‘What is it with you, anyway?’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you always do this to people? We’ve only known each other for what, four hours? And look at me. God, I’m a mess.’

  Two joggers trotted along the footpath and looked down at us as they passed. Cath wiped her eyes with a hand and pushed herself up off the fence. She craned her head towards the beach again and managed a smile.

  ‘You must be busting,’ she said. ‘Come on, we’ll get your things.’

  After gather
ing up my gear, I closed the passenger-side door. I put my hat on and turned to Cath behind me. The rippled sun inched its way above the palm trees and splashed her face with gold. She held her arms out, and when I walked towards her, she wrapped them around me and squeezed me tight. Goodbye didn’t seem like enough.

  ‘You would have been a brilliant mum,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you, Lexie,’ she said. ‘And I hope Surfers Paradise is everything you dreamed of.

  They loved their sprinklers in Surfers Paradise and, by the looks of it, morning was the time to sprinkle. Behind every second fence and apartment wall there seemed to be a hissing noise. Water trickled from hidden lawns and gardens, across the footpaths and into gutters. It took me back to our own garden up high on the roof, to the day we planted the flowers and herbs. It had only been a few days, and as much as I wanted to be here, I couldn’t wait to get back to see if it had grown, to sit on the chairs and read our magazines and books.

  ‘Faraway eyes.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Faraway eyes, Lexie, someplace else. You’re just like your father. What happens when the dream is over, when you finally get to walk on the sand? What then?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I suppose I’ll find out.’

  ‘Well, let me break it to you. Nothing happens, Lexie. You go home, is what you do. You go back to your old life, back to being you, and you climb aboard the merry-go-round and all of it starts again.’

  ‘You’re wrong.’

  ‘No, I’m right, Lexie. It’s what I’ve been saying all along. This trip changes nothing.’

  ‘It changes everything, Miranda. It already has.’

  Surfers Paradise couldn’t have been more different to Fitzroy. Early morning swimmers, brown-skinned surfers, walkers and joggers headed to the beach for a taste of Paradise itself. I soaked it up and after a short walk, the street I was on came to end at Cavill Avenue, like Cath had said.

  As soon as I turned right, the sea panned out in front of me – the blue of the water and the foaming, fizzing waves.

  I kept walking and saw the silver arch, which looked smaller in real life. My legs were like jelly and my heart began to flutter in my chest. I crossed the street and dodged a shopkeeper’s hose, spraying the cigarette butts from the concrete outside his shop. Tourists breakfasted at tables and took photos without thinking. The McDonald’s at the end of Cavill Avenue surprised me. The golden arches looked hideous and seemed horribly out of place against the backdrop of blue. I tried to ignore them and kept walking.

  Ten metres and I was there. I got my postcard out, just to be sure, and shifted a little left so that I was standing on the very spot where the meter maids had been. I stood there tingling, angled my face to the sun and its rays felt warm against my skin. The smell of sunscreen drifted up from the beach and I breathed it in and felt dizzy with delight.

  It still didn’t seem real. After all the years of dreaming, after all the years of grey, two flights of stairs was all that was left. I walked slowly under the silver arch and down the first flight to the landing. If Davey had been here, he would have bolted onto the beach, but I had no desire to hurry. If anything, I wanted to slow things down, so I sat on the landing and slowly pulled off my red leather boots and socks.

  I heard someone squeal and I ran my eyes down the beach towards the sound. A little girl in a pink bikini was building sandcastles in the sand. She was sitting where the sand was wet, her legs splayed out to the sides, with a bucket and spade nestled between them. Her grandfather was helping her build them, relaying buckets filled with water from the shallows further down.

  I watched them for a bit, old and young, and as I sat there watching, I went hurtling back to that rainy day on the rooftop when I stopped Mr Romanov from jumping. I saw us sitting, drenched against the ledge wall, engulfed in an eerie quiet as if we were the only ones alive. I saw him as if he was sitting right next to me now, his rippled forehead and the deep grooves that scoured his face. All of a sudden, everything became clear. I reached for the handrail on my left and got slowly to my feet.

  I stood there for a moment and breathed Surfers Paradise in. I adjusted my cowgirl hat then walked slowly down the steps, one by one. When I got to the bottom, to the very last strip of concrete before the sand, a kaleidoscope of colours flashed before my eyes.

  For the first time in my life, I felt alive. Something surged through my veins, and as I looked out across the sand, I realised I’d got it wrong.

  I didn’t save Mr Romanov that day. He saved me.

  She didn’t say much on the phone when we spoke, but I had the feeling Cath had worked some of her magic back in Coffs Harbour. People lined up to lecture us and tell us about the chaos we’d caused, but in the end we hadn’t done anything illegal so the police had no choice but to let us off with a stern warning.

  Not surprisingly, Gordo and Nate didn’t fare so well. They got done for drug dealing, not the first time apparently, and were shipped off to juvie somewhere in the eastern suburbs.

  A week or so later when things died down, Ramesh helped me organise a party near our garden on the top of the commission. It was supposed to be a secret, family mostly, but somehow word got out and the numbers swelled.

  There was my mum of course, Mr Romanov, Davey and his mum and brother, Ramesh and Shanti, the Nguyens, Brenda, Christos, and the security guy called Walter. Piles of treats, savoury and sweet, covered two trestle tables and beside it sat a TV that Walter had wheeled up and managed to plug into a secret power source in one of the rooftop sheds.

  It was a celebration of sorts, a kind of welcome home party that just so happened to coincide with the final episode of Brainstormers.

  Although Davey had made it through to the end, he’d been sworn to secrecy by the ABC and refused to tell anyone who’d won. Usually I’d be able to pry it from him, but on this occasion he wasn’t giving anything away. No hints. No maybes. Nothing.

  My mother looked better. After six days in rehab getting clean, she spent most of her days now up on the rooftop, sitting in the sun with a cup of tea and a book. We’d spoken more in the last few weeks than we had in the previous two years. We’d spoken about my dad and the drugs and the things that mattered, and while there was still a lot of healing to be done, it seemed as if the two of us were making a little progress. We’d even been to the movies together.

  I was standing beside one of the trestle tables, tossing up between a lemon slice and a cupcake, when she walked over with something in her hand.

  ‘I got you something,’ she said. ‘It’s a birthday present. A bit late, I know.’

  ‘Mum, you didn’t have to.’

  ‘Yeah, I did, Lexie. I’m . . . I’m sorry. For everything.’

  Sorry still felt hard to take, but now that she was clean it sounded kind of different.

  I looked down at the present in my hands and turned it over. It was big and irregular in shape.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Open it and see.’

  I undid the string first, then tore at the silver wrapping and uncovered my present inside.

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘I love it, Mum. I really love it.’

  ‘It’s a proper one, made of felt. I thought tan would suit you best. Try it on.’

  After handing my mother the wrapping, I lifted up the cowgirl hat and placed it on my head. I pushed it down a little so that it sat just right then tugged at my floral dress and curtsied in front of her.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said.

  She reminded me a bit of Mr Romanov, now that she’d stopped using. I could see her digging, clawing at the past but there were too many blanks, too many pieces that didn’t fit.

  ‘You got so big,’ she said. ‘You got so big and I missed so much. ’

  She reached a hand out, and as she touched the side of my face, Davey’s brother, Nick, called us to order.

  ‘Righto, people. He’s on.’

  My
mother put her arm around me and we joined the others gathered around the TV screen to watch the Brainstormers final.

  The background music began to play and the host, Michael Jenson, appeared, sitting behind a table.

  ‘Four kids . . . the best of the best . . . head to head . . . in a battle of the minds . . .’

  The camera panned to the contestants and hovered for a moment on a handsome but nervous looking Davey second from the right. A mighty cheer went up and I turned to him behind me and threw him a smile.

  ‘Only one winner . . . and a prize of ten thousand dollars . . .’

  Davey did well in the first few rounds and it soon became clear that his likely challenger was the well-dressed girl to his left. Halfway through the competition, four became two and the battle began to heat up. Neck and neck and point for point they went. At the final ad break, I looked for Davey again but he wasn’t behind me anymore. He’d taken himself off and was standing with Mr Romanov beside the garden.

  I walked over, and when I shuffled in between them, Mr Romanov looked up at me and smiled.

  ‘Ah cowgirl, you see your rose, he is doing well.’

  Someone roared in the background and Davey craned his head towards the TV.

  ‘Don’t you want to see what happens?’ he asked.

  ‘I already know,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘You win.’

  ‘You sure? She’s pretty good, that girl.’

  ‘Yeah, she is, but she’s not as good as you.’

  Davey shrugged.

  ‘Comes down to the last question, you know?’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. An arts question. Books.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘I’m serious. Who wrote Wuthering bloody Heights.’

  ‘Get out.’

  Davey half smiled then drove his fingers into the soil.

  ‘Why haven’t you said anything?’ he asked. ‘Why haven’t you told us anything about it?’

  ‘Anything about what?’