The Things We Promise

by J. C. Burke

‘That was dumb.’

  ‘It was true.’ I closed my eyes because I was searching for the words. Somewhere, so close, was a thought. It’d been spinning away since the moment I’d found the photo of Saul painted up as a zebra. It was catching threads, here and there, and growing bigger. ‘It’s not just AIDS in the burbs. It’s not that simple,’ I began. ‘It’s AIDS at home. It’s the way it spreads everywhere. It’s like it’s infected my life. It’s infected me, the way I see people, the way I see the world. I’ve lost my best friend and I don’t know what’s right anymore. And there’ve been days when I’ve been so angry, I don’t even know who I am. I’ve been the one who didn’t want Dad to know. Yet I wanted Zane’s dad to know, so badly. Thank God I never posted that letter to his family, because it was none of my business.’ A sob escaped. Ralph gripped my hand harder. ‘Whenever I think that things can’t get worse, they do. It’s like this bottomless pit of sadness.’

  That day while I tried to stay awake in class, studying onomatopoeia and similes, why Germany invaded Poland and the life cycle of bacteria, Mum and Billy were conspiring. Making a plan. Deciding how it was going to be.

  Really, it was Billy making the decisions and Mum surrendering because he’d worn her down. He’d even managed to get the doctors and nurses on side.

  No chemotherapy. Billy was coming home just with oxygen. Pain relief, if and when needed, and a few other tablets that’d keep some germs away for some of the time.

  Apparently his lymphoma was everywhere and as devastated as Mum and I were about the news, Billy seemed unfazed. Casual. Almost bored. As though he’d prefer something lightning-fast and spectacular.

  My mother had endured the day from hell and I hadn’t slept at all the night before. So when we arrived home from the hospital that night we were both ready to collapse. I’d actually been worried about Mum falling asleep at the wheel.

  Once we’d pulled in to the kerb and parked outside our place, it took us a few minutes just to collect ourselves and drag our bodies out of the car and up the stairs to our front door.

  No baths. No showers. Not even a cup of tea.

  We slept together in her bed. We held each other tight as though we were one another’s hot water bottles, trying to soothe away a pain that was close to unbearable.

  ‘Are you awake?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m scared, Mum.’

  ‘I know, sweetheart.’

  ‘Billy doesn’t seem scared.’

  ‘That’s because he’s not.’

  ‘But how could he not be?’

  ‘I don’t know, Gem.’

  ‘Do you think it’s because he wants to be with Saul?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Mum? Why aren’t we enough?’

  28

  SEPTEMBER

  6 weeks to formal

  ON MONDAY MORNING WE MET AT THE BACK of the school. All of us, minus Andrea. I had prepared myself for her to be a no-show. Louise and Vanessa had been making excuses all weekend for why she couldn’t be there. But truthfully, I had a tiny bit of hope that Andrea would miraculously appear.

  ‘The Fink’s here,’ Ralph announced. ‘I just saw him drive past.’

  I felt Vanessa’s hand on my shoulder. ‘Simon Finkler is the least of my problems,’ I told them. ‘As long as he doesn’t bash up Ralph, there’s honestly nothing he can say or do to hurt me.’

  ‘Exactly!’ Louise said, linking her arm through mine. ‘Let’s go.’

  Ralph picked up the box and off we marched.

  ‘I promise Andrea has sprained her ankle,’ Louise whispered to me. ‘I spoke to her mum this morning. She couldn’t even make it to the phone.’

  ‘Really? Okay.’

  ‘Honestly, Gem, she was totally up for this. She even asked me to reserve a medium and small for her – so she could see which one looked better.’

  That made me chuckle because that was Andrea all over.

  When we arrived at the locker room it felt like everyone had been waiting. In a second, a crowd had gathered around us. Some people were waving money, others shouting over each other asking what sizes we had and if we were only wearing them at recess or wearing them for the whole day.

  When Louise held up a T-shirt to show everyone, there were claps and cheers and someone said that it was the coolest T-shirt ever.

  Then suddenly, like a spell had been cast over us, the room went silent and everyone turned.

  Simon Finkler, bag slung over shoulder and a sneer so sharp it cut the air, was standing in the doorway. His foot tapped as he sized Louise up.

  ‘Is this a little do-gooders get-together?’ he said to Louise, who’d started to roll the T-shirt up into a ball and hide it behind her back. ‘What a joke, Lovejoy. As if anyone’s going to wear that.’

  He stepped towards her. Louise hit the ground as though she’d sensed a punch coming. She crouched on the floor, fumbling as she tried to stuff the T-shirt back into the box. I wanted to go up to her and tell her that he was a nothing.

  But then he took another step towards her and the room of people sucked in their breath.

  ‘Hope you didn’t get one printed for me?’ he barked.

  Louise stared at the ground, Simon Finkler’s fat hairy legs almost in line with her flattened nose.

  ‘Did you hear what I said, Lovejoy?’

  Slowly, Louise stood up. She straightened her back and, with grace, raised her face to look at him. Then in the calmest, sweetest voice you’ve ever heard, answered, ‘Sorry, but they don’t make an extra, extra, extra, extra large.’

  Before I could stop myself, a half-choked laugh shot through my lips. A second later the entire room had erupted into hysterical, belly-aching, thigh-slapping laughter. A laugh for every horrible thing he’d ever done to anyone in that room. Suddenly we had all the power and Simon Finkler just disappeared.

  Our place was starting to resemble a hospital. Mr C had lugged the spare bed from their flat down to ours, setting it up in the living room. Now Billy had two rooms he could rest in.

  There was a small oxygen cylinder in a trolley that Billy pushed along if he was on the move. Also in the living room and his bedroom were huge tanks, almost as tall as me, that I couldn’t even lift. There was tubing everywhere: one of us was going to trip and break our necks on it for sure. But that was the least of our problems.

  Billy’s thrush had returned. Not as bad as it had been before, but the potatoes and pumpkin were back boiling on the stove, along with broccoli, this time, so that Billy got his greens. Each time I walked in the door, the smell hit me. Broccoli had now made the list along with pumpkin and purple jubes.

  Each day Billy seemed to get a little smaller and a little weaker. When he walked across a room he’d have to stop several times even with the nasal prongs delivering him the oxygen.

  Billy’s new thing was that he liked to sit up high, awake or asleep. If he was on the couch or in bed, whoever was closest would have to prop him up and rearrange the pillows around him. It seemed impossible to ever get it perfect. ‘A bit to the right, further to the left, down a little more,’ went the endless commentary. Then Billy would say, ‘Oh shit. Don’t worry about it.’ And we’d start laughing.

  What I hated most was the coughing and then the hoicking and dragging up spit and whatever else was down in his throat. Some days it’d be really loud and just keep going and going. What I found weird was that everyone’d keep talking, pretending they couldn’t hear. Even I did it.

  The coughing at night was the most punishing. Billy would move into the living room so that he wouldn’t wake Mum and me up. But of course, we were usually already awake by then.

  Some mornings I was in such a sleep-deprived fog that it was hard even getting ready for school. My homework would be piled up on my tiny desk because it was too hectic studying in the kitchen and the continual smell of boiling vegetables made me want to chuck all the time.

  ‘Mum?’ I ran into my mother’s bedroom. I was la
te. Ralph had already been up and knocked on the door and now he was patiently waiting in the car. ‘Mum! I need a ribbon. It’s seniors’ assembly today.’

  She was still in bed with her blinkers on but she pointed to her handbag on the floor.

  I emptied the contents of the bag onto the bed. Out spilled coins, a hairbrush, three white candles and Mum’s favourite photo of Billy as a baby with Uncle Roddy.

  ‘What’s this picture doing in your bag? Why is it out of the frame?’ I asked, still digging around for a ribbon. ‘And what’s this latest obsession with white candles? Have you joined some weird cult?’

  ‘Hand me the photo,’ Mum said. Her eye mask was on top of her head now. She took the photo from me, gazing at it like she was remembering that day. ‘Uncle Roddy moved to New Zealand.’

  ‘What? How do you know?’

  ‘I asked your father,’ Mum answered, slipping the photo into the drawer next to her bed. ‘Apparently Roddy’s a grandfather.’

  ‘When did you talk to Dad?’

  ‘August or July. I can’t remember.’

  This time Mum didn’t answer me with a question. But I got her drift.

  29

  OCTOBER

  11 days to formal

  THE SCHOOL HOLIDAYS WERE ALMOST OVER when one night, about 10 p.m., Billy started coughing. Mum had gone to bed early with a sleeping tablet. I had a History essay to finish so I’d told her I’d keep an ear out for him.

  I heard Billy get up and make his stop-start journey to the bed in the living room. I began to think about the pillows and how he wouldn’t be able to fix them on his own, so I got up.

  ‘Sorry, Gem. Did I wake you?’ Billy asked. He was sitting on the end of the bed, trying to muster some energy before his next move.

  His pyjama shirt was open and I could see his ribs rise and fall with each breath. They seemed to stick out of his pale skin and all I could think of were the curves and ripples along a sand dune, because that’s the pattern his ribs made jutting out across his shrinking body.

  I started to fasten the buttons, telling him that he shouldn’t get cold. Not the truth, which was that I couldn’t stand looking at him like that.

  I’d developed a new system to get around the visuals that was starting to spook me right out. If I had to talk to Billy face to face, I’d centre my eyes at the point where his forehead and hair met. I’d imagine that I was talking to his real face, not the one he was wearing now because that one didn’t belong to the real Billy. In just a matter of weeks he had become some sucked-up, fossilised version of a man I used to know.

  ‘Fix the pillows up, will you, Gem?’

  Aunty Penny stacked them up into a pyramid so this is what I’d started doing too. ‘Eleven days till the formal,’ Billy said, nestling back into my work of art.

  ‘How do you know?’

  He winked. ‘Can you ask Louise to come over soon? Jonathon sent me some new brushes. They’re a Japanese make. I want to give them a try. I think they’ll be easier to use.’

  ‘What? For you or on Louise?’

  ‘I’ve picked your lipstick too.’

  ‘Wow, you’ve been busy.’

  ‘What do you reckon I do all day when you’re off with lover boy? I can’t watch TV with Marcello forever. He commentates every second of every show we watch! Like I’m the one who doesn’t understand what’s going on.’

  That made us laugh. Then that made Billy cough. For quite a while.

  ‘I love Mr C,’ I said, over the noise.

  ‘There’s only one of him, that’s for sure. Now’ – Billy paused as he waited for his breath to catch up with him – ‘do you want to know … about your lippie?’

  ‘What colour is it?’

  ‘It’s called Snow White Red. It’s the colour of blood.’

  ‘That sounds disgusting.’

  ‘It’s beautiful. Go to my top drawer and bring me the black-and-gold striped make-up bag.’

  When I opened the drawer, all I could think about was the letter to Dad. He’d have to have it by now. And surely he’d have the phone message too. I was always checking the answering machine to see if he’d called. If Mum was in her room chatting on the phone and the door was closed, I’d loiter outside, trying to catch a word here and there to work out who was on the other end. The way I used to listen in when Billy would called from New York.

  Before I closed Billy’s drawer, I had a quick snoop and shuffle to check there were no other letters to anyone else. Perhaps Uncle Roddy in New Zealand? Or Saul’s mother? But all I could see were a multitude of different-coloured make-up bags. I pulled the black-and-gold striped one he’d requested and went back to the living room.

  Snow White Red was beautiful and it was the colour of blood. Billy delicately wiped a brush against the smooth tip of the lipstick. Then he drew a fine line of red across my wrist.

  ‘Always use a brush,’ he told me. ‘Especially with a colour this bold. Start in the middle of your lips, then work outwards and fill in the rest. Be careful not to paint over the edge, especially your bottom lip or your mouth will turn down and you’ll look like Sulky Suzy or a big, stupid clown.’

  ‘But won’t you be doing it for me?’

  Billy smiled. ‘I hope so.’

  My pyramid of cushions was falling sideways. I built it up again and Billy lay back, closing his eyes and sighing. ‘Lovely,’ he whispered.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I said, kissing him on the forehead.

  Before I left, I took one last look at him. My beautiful brother, the swimmer, who was now disappearing into the pillows just like Maurice Goldsworthy had.

  On Saturday, it was all happening at our place.

  Louise was having a tour through Billy’s new Japanese brushes and Ralph had been summoned to help carry the new oxygen cylinders up to our flat. They’d been dumped at the gate. The man wouldn’t bring them upstairs because he’d found out the patient had AIDS.

  Poor Ralph had to carry each cylinder down the pathway, through the entrance, then up to our place. His muscles were bulging out of his T-shirt. I had to keep my hands behind my back so that I wouldn’t accidently reach out and touch them. I couldn’t risk him dropping a cylinder, especially when it had DANGER written all over it.

  Once he had the last one through the front door, he collapsed onto the couch, sweating and panting. In the kitchen, Billy was giving Louise a lesson on how to use the new make-up brush.

  ‘Sweep the powder along the bone then work up from the jaw,’ Billy was telling Louise in a sing-song voice. ‘Always up, up, up. Never down.’

  ‘I’ll never be able to do this,’ Louise moaned.

  ‘You will,’ Billy told her. ‘It’s like following a recipe.’

  ‘I should write it down,’ she said.

  Mum appeared. She was holding a handful of gold braid behind her back.

  ‘Ralph, that last cylinder needs to go into Billy’s room and the one in there needs to go downstairs for collection on Monday.’

  I waited to hear Ralph groan. But he just said, ‘Sure, Mrs Longrigg.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I mouthed.

  He rolled his eyeballs, flexed his muscles like he was Popeye and jumped off the couch.

  When he was gone, I snapped, ‘Mum, he’s not a slave! It’s so embarrassing the way you’re ordering him around.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she answered. ‘But I just needed to quickly measure this gold braid on you, Gemma.’

  ‘You don’t have my dress out, do you?’ I said as Mum wound the braid around me. ‘Just say Ralph goes into the kitchen to get a glass of water and sees it in your workroom?’

  ‘Neuta and the dress are back in the cupboard,’ she told me. ‘I’m not a complete idiot.’

  Mrs C appeared in her black apron with a tray of freshly baked cannoli that actually outsmelt the boiled vegetables Aunty Penny was mashing in the kitchen.

  We ended up all having afternoon tea in the living room. Our sounds of mmm, mmmm, mmmmm were even louder than the ra
dio. It was the only noise I could possibly make when I took that first magical bite into the crunchy pastry, the ricotta cream squirting onto my tongue. This would be my last meal, any day.

  Of course Billy couldn’t eat a whole one. Instead Mrs C was digging out the filling and feeding it to him on a spoon. ‘You like? You like, Bill?’

  ‘Can I have the recipe?’ Louise asked.

  ‘Oh, Louise, you shouldn’t have asked that,’ Aunty Penny joked.

  ‘There is no recipe,’ Mr C said, wagging his finger at her. ‘It is long, long family secret. Carmella learn when little girl. When she watch her nonna.’

  Ralph’s fingers were reaching over to the plate. ‘Could I please have another one?’

  ‘Take, take,’ Mrs C told him.

  ‘Yes, you need muscles for the lifting,’ Mr C said. ‘You eat as many as you want.’

  I helped myself to a second one too (my health kick didn’t count on weekends) then sat back and watched. At the start of the year, I never could have believed that this scene would take place in our living room. It was as great as it was terrible.

  What made it great was the two new faces in the room. Ralph and Louise. The two most unlikely candidates to ever be having afternoon tea in our little flat.

  What made it terrible was there, in the centre of it all, was a strange version of my brother. Sitting up in a bed in the living room, Mrs C feeding him the cream of the cannoli because it was all he could stomach.

  But in its own way it was amazing too. We were chatting and laughing. The radio was playing happy songs because it was Saturday afternoon and most people were getting ready to party. If you were a stranger and walked in here, you’d never know that underneath it all was a really sad scene.

  ‘Gemma? Gemma?’ Billy and Aunty Penny were calling. Ralph was going to the radio and turning up the volume. It was Salt-N-Pepa.

  ‘Come on, Gem.’ Billy clapped his hands in time to the song. ‘Up you get. Come on. I want to see your and Andrea’s dance for old time’s sake.’

  ‘Up you get!’ Aunty Penny echoed.