Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 3, Issue 4

by Melina Marchetta

  Amelia picked them off the top of the fridge. ‘Mum! Did Chris tell you?’

  Jessie snatched the keys out of her hand. ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘Mr Fitzgerald came over last night.’

  For the first time that afternoon, Amelia had her mother’s full attention.

  ‘Well, why didn’t you say something earlier?’ Jessie asked, her voice sounding like it had been scraped out of her throat. ‘Not leave it ’til the bloody last minute.’

  ‘I thought Chris would have told you. But he must have been asleep. He probably doesn’t know.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your tongue?’

  ‘You weren’t up this morning before school, so–’

  But Jessie had already left the room, the house shaking with her footsteps. She rattled down the back steps, leaving the screen door to slam shut behind her, right in Amelia’s face. Amelia didn’t bother opening it, just watched through the mesh as Jessie disappeared through the doorway of the shed.

  Amelia’s step-father had declared the shed off-limits on the day he’d arrived home from town with a safe the size of a microwave. He’d cemented the safe into the shed floor, tipping it on its end so that you could still open and close the door, and he’d been really pleased with himself when he’d done it. Nobody would be able to steal it now, he reckoned, not unless they had a jackhammer, in which case he’d hear them and make them sorry they were born first.

  Ray never told them what he kept inside the safe. Instead, he gave them a typical Rayism: It’s a hard world and I’m a hard man, so I like to be prepared for hard times–or for good times, I’m not fussy. He didn’t laugh when he said that last bit. He just looked fiercely around the room as though they had a couple of jackhammers stashed away and were waiting for their chance.

  Amelia used to daydream that he’d spend whatever was in the safe on fixing up the house, buying some nice furniture and a new car for Jessie, so that they could live like townies. Maybe even move them to town, away from the red soil to a place where everything was clean and normal–in Amelia’s fantasies, life in town vaguely resembled life in the Ford Cobra poster.

  After a while, though, Amelia realised that whatever Ray had, he wasn’t going to share. The only person who was in on the secret with him was Mr Fitzgerald. Strangely, when they had both been working at the prison they never saw each other outside of work. But since Mr Fitzgerald had retired, and Ray had taken over his position as the Trust Accounts Officer, the two of them now kept in regular contact.

  Mr Fitzgerald would always ring first to let Ray know he was coming. And he never came to the house. When the dogs started barking to announce his arrival, Ray would get up from the kitchen table and head straight down to the shed. He’d open the double doors so Mr Fitzgerald could drive inside, and then close and lock them after him, along with the door nearest the house. They were the type of doors that could be bolted from within.

  Sometimes Jessie listened outside. But Amelia doubted she overheard anything useful. When Ray returned, Jessie would stare at him from her chair on the other side of the lounge room, her eyes squinty and hard like she hated him. And Amelia knew that the day she worked out how to get into that safe would be the day she left. Sometimes she thought that’s why Ray had put the safe there in the first place. To keep her around.

  * * *

  Jessie didn’t come back inside, but stormed out the front to the station wagon. Only after she’d gone, and the car’s dust tail had faded away completely, did Amelia return to Chris’s bedroom. She opened the curtains and sat on the edge of his bed, wrinkling her nose at the smell.

  ‘Did she get you walking today?’

  ‘Nuh.’

  ‘You want to try it?’

  Chris turned over, the plastic underlay beneath him crackling as he started to manoeuvre himself into a sitting position, grabbing hold of Amelia’s arm to pull himself upright. He was now so pale that even his freckles were fading, and he was far too skinny, but Amelia didn’t feel the pang she normally got when she looked at him. It was because he seemed eager. Excited. For some reason it was easier to be good to him when he was subdued.

  ‘I guess I’ll do your sheets then,’ Amelia said, resentment souring her voice, because she was only twelve and far too sensible to be a martyr. She loved her brother, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sick and tired of washing his sheets and wiping his bum. All she wanted was a normal life, with a normal family. Instead, she had a step-father and a mother whose marriage was a weird Mexican standoff, and a brother who was one in a hundred thousand–which were the odds of contracting Guillain-Barré syndrome; not a lottery you wanted to win.

  Normally, Chris would snap back at her, but he didn’t. Probably because he didn’t want her to change her mind about getting him out of the room. Instead, he lowered his voice to a deep growl. ‘Well, girl, if you’re gonna shit in your own nest…’

  ‘Make sure some other bastard cleans up the mess,’ Amelia said, completing the Rayism. Then she giggled, suddenly feeling lighter. ‘Sorry. I know you can’t help it.’ She considered things for a moment. ‘I’m glad it’s not a poo, though.’

  ‘Aw, you love ‘em. The little men in brown suits.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m collecting them. In a box. I’ll give them back to you when you’re better.’

  She was rewarded with a snort.

  Amelia arranged Chris’s legs so they were hanging off the side of the bed, and then she pulled his walking frame over. With a bit of effort, he was upright. Getting him out of the wheelchair and onto the walking frame had been a win. The hospital had been really happy with that bit of progress. Chris’s legs could support his weight now, but he was yet to make them move.

  They started on the laborious journey to the back door. Every time Chris needed to step, they waited to see if his leg would do it of its own accord. Sometimes there were signs of hope–a twitch, a small scuffing movement. Mostly, though, Amelia had to move them for him.

  ‘How’d you stop her taking the books?’ Chris asked after a while. He sounded strained, which meant he was getting tired.

  Amelia did her imitation of their step-father, trying to keep Chris’s mood up. ‘Well, boy, if you want someone to look the other way…’

  ‘Give them something to look at,’ Chris finished. ‘Did she find anything?’

  ‘Yep. He’d left the safe open for her. There was all this money inside, and a note saying, Happy Anniversary.’

  ‘That’s nice.’

  Amelia waited, but Chris said nothing more. ‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I checked it?’

  ‘Nuh. It’s probably just full of hot air anyway.’

  Amelia was squatting, about to take hold of Chris’s right calf, but that statement made her look up at his face. Lately, he’d dulled–that was the only word for it.

  In the beginning, Chris had been mildly curious about what was inside the safe. That was back when he could walk, before he caught the flu that the doctors said was the start of his body going haywire and attacking its own nervous system. After his legs went numb, finding out became an obsession, and Amelia humoured him by trying the different combinations he thought might open it, including the ones that were way too obvious–birthdays, their phone number–although she was careful to always leave the dial exactly as she’d found it.

  The fact that Chris was no longer interested frightened her. If Chris gave up on that, what else would he give up on? Because if he stopped caring about things, Jessie would slowly suffocate him, in the way that a strangler vine kills a tree–Amelia had learned about strangler vines in the course of her rainforest project; they were greedy for light.

  ‘Come on, hurry up,’ Amelia snapped, worry making her voice sharp. ‘We’re not there yet.’

  Finally, they reached the back steps, and Amelia half-lifted, half-dropped Chris into a sitting position. He stretched his arms out, looking like he was trying to hug the world in front of him–the sky, the shed, the chook house, the clothesline,
the stubble and red dirt, the car carcasses in the paddock behind the shed, where nothing thrived but lantana–or maybe just trying to fly.

  ‘Chris?’ Amelia asked in a voice that was much quieter than her normal one.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When you’re better, you won’t just leave me here with them, will you?’

  ‘Nuh. Weeds stick together.’

  That’s what they were: weeds. They’d learned that the day Amelia had overheard some of the other kids’ mothers discussing them at their school sports day. Yeah, it’s sad, isn’t it? Some kids are just weeds, bringing themselves up.

  Amelia untied the dogs from under the house, and they immediately ran to Chris, snuffling and licking him in a way they wouldn’t dare if Ray was home.

  The pigeons watched Amelia with interest, cooing and making whirring noises. She returned to the steps and took a seat below Chris, ignoring the dogs, who kept whacking the back of her head with their tails.

  ‘You know what I don’t get?’ she said. ‘Those birds. They poo in their nest all the time. How come he’s okay being the bastard who has to clean it up?’

  The pigeons were Ray’s hobby. He ate them.

  ‘What if I don’t get better?’ Chris asked.

  Amelia was quiet for a while. Then she said, ‘Trevor wants to come over again.’

  It was a lie. Trevor had been scared off after last time he came to visit. He’d biked over, only to run into Jessie, who’d got up him, yelling that Chris needed full rest to recover. Even though they’d been a grade apart when Chris was still at primary school, their school was such a small one that things like that didn’t get in the way of you being friends. Trevor had missed Chris like hell when he’d gone to high school.

  ‘He can come over at night,’ Amelia continued, thinking things through as she talked. ‘Mum won’t know.’

  ‘What about Ray?’

  ‘As if he’ll care.’

  ‘No, what if he tells her?’

  The fear in Chris’s voice worried Amelia more than everything else put together. Once, it had only been her who was afraid of their mother.

  Once, she would have lied to make him feel better.

  ‘She’s going to do stuff to you anyway. You might as well have a bit of fun.’

  * * *

  For such a coarse-looking man, Ray was a careful eater, deftly using his knife and fork to separate the flesh from one tiny drumstick. The backs of his hands were covered in thick, black curly hairs that made them seem unclean. The same hair covered most of his body, with the exception of his scalp, which was partially bald.

  Amelia was sitting at the kitchen table with him. It was the only place from which you could see the television–he’d turned it around so that he could watch Sale of the Century while he ate. Ray was a big fan of the Sale. He looked strange out of his warder’s uniform, Amelia thought. Smaller, somehow, in a striped cotton shirt and a pair of dark blue jeans with sharp creases running down the front of them.

  Becoming aware of her scrutiny, he glanced at her. ‘You want to try one?’

  The thought of eating one of his birds made Amelia want to spew. She couldn’t even handle seeing their little naked bodies bagged up in the freezer. She shook her head.

  ‘You sure? They’re good eating. People pay a lot of money for them in those expensive restaurants. They call ‘em squab.’

  Ray said this every time he ate one, and Amelia wasn’t expected to offer a response, so she didn’t. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She was wearing her nightie because she’d been worried Jessie would realise something was up if she’d dressed in normal clothes after her shower.

  ‘Legs down at the table,’ Ray growled, and she quickly lowered her legs.

  Ray finished eating and took his plate over to the sink, scraping the carcass into the scraps bucket. When he presented the scraps to the pigeons that he hadn’t eaten yet, he’d remove the bones and put them in the bag of stuff meant for the dump, which was up on a hook in the shed so the dogs couldn’t get into it.

  Then he washed his plate and dried it. Ray was meticulous about things like that. He’d never do anything to help with the cooking, or the rest of the washing up, but he’d always wash and dry his own plate and cutlery, and he always took out the scraps. He didn’t use the belt on Chris and Amelia, but he didn’t hug them either. Unlike the pigeons, they were not his concern.

  Clearing his throat, Ray disappeared into the bedroom, where Jessie was getting ready.

  ‘What about money?’ Amelia heard Jessie ask him.

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t got any, have I? I’m short this month. Those two eat it up like no tomorrow.’

  ‘I’ll buy your drinks.’

  ‘Hah! Like I want to hang around you all night.’ This was followed by furious spraying noises–hairspray, or Impulse, or both.

  ‘What makes you think I want to hang around with you?’

  Ray reappeared, holding his good shoes and looking pleased with his retort. Really, he was a bit of a dag. The sad thing was, he was only going to the Christmas party to keep an eye on Jessie. He didn’t like it when she got together with the other people from Coles. They’d be fighting by the time they got home for sure.

  Amelia was starting to think she shouldn’t have told Trevor to come over that night.

  Ray took his seat at the table, and started threading thin, black socks over his pale, hairless feet. His feet were strangely delicate and didn’t go with the rest of him. Eventually, Jessie emerged from the bedroom, wearing tight jeans and a halter top that showed off her belly button and the bones that lay between her two small breasts. Amelia was reminded of the pigeon carcass.

  ‘You’re not wearing that,’ Ray said. ‘Get changed. What you had on before.’

  ‘I’ll wear what I want, thank you very much.’

  ‘I’m the man you’re dressing for, and I don’t like what you’re wearing.’

  ‘Maybe you’re not the man I’m dressing for, then.’

  Ray rubbed at his bottom lip. Jessie’s eyes glittered. And the two of them left the house in a silence that was worse than the bickering that had preceded it.

  The dogs started barking not long after they’d gone, so Amelia didn’t have time to get changed. She walked to the front door in her nightie. Trevor was already coming up the steps. Behind him, the western sky was lava-coloured, so beautiful it hurt her eyes, and a black river of flying foxes headed towards the coast. At this time of day the country showed you its flesh, and you realised that all that red soil was really just dead fire.

  ‘How’s it goin’?’ Trevor asked, looking uncomfortable in his jeans and boots. His red hair was damp with sweat, and his jiggling belly had already busted through the lower snap-buttons on his Western shirt, as though it was looking for cooler air.

  Amelia thought: He’s dressed up to visit, how nice is that? Then she realised he hadn’t come alone. There were two bikes lying at the end of the laneway, and Megan Doolan, his cousin, was following him up the steps.

  Trevor brushed past Amelia, continuing down the hallway to Chris’s room. Megan stopped, and the two girls looked each other over. Like Trevor, Megan was in Amelia’s grade at school, but that didn’t mean the girls were friends. Amelia was a square, and Megan was scornful–of that, and most other things.

  Chris’s machine-gun laugh reached them. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha. ‘I wanna be a cowboy,’ he sang. ‘And you can be my cowgirl. Go, Trev! Tryin’ to impress Amelia, eh? You want me to put in a good word?’

  ‘Aw, piss off. Hey, we should put mag wheels on this thing.’

  ‘Nah, I don’t use it anymore. I’m on the walker now, man.’

  ‘Is that what that is? I thought it was a stool. Is it good?’

  ‘It’s great, Trev. Nearly as good as counting curtains. How’d you get out?’

  ‘Mum thinks I’m at Megan’s, and Aunty Cathy thinks she’s at our place.’

 
‘Megan? Is she here?’

  Megan had dressed for the occasion, too. There was a sizeable lacy, white bow in her hair–which, unbeknownst to her mother, had been cut from the sizeable lacy, white wedding dress that had been carefully stored away in the hope that Megan or her sister might wear it someday. A large crucifix dangled from her right earlobe and she sported a collection of O-rings on her left wrist.

  ‘Who are you supposed to be?’ Amelia asked in a hostile voice, feeling sick at the thought of having to step aside and let those cold blue eyes assess their house.

  ‘Madonna.’ As an afterthought, Megan added: ‘The singer. Not the Virgin Mary.’

  ‘I know who she is. Everybody knows Madonna.’

  ‘Bet you don’t know all the words to “Borderline”. I do. And “Like A Virgin” and “Dress You Up”. And I can do the “Holiday” dance.’

  ‘Big whoop,’ said Amelia. ‘What are you even doing here? He’s not some freak for you to come and laugh at.’

  Incredibly, Megan dropped her gaze, and Amelia felt a surge of power. Righteousness.

  ‘I know that. I just thought…’

  ‘That you’d come and gawk?’

  ‘No! I thought it might help him, that’s all.’

  In the silence that followed, they realised that the boys were also quiet. Listening.

  Then they heard Chris say, ‘Quick! Bitch fight out the front. Get me out there.’

  ‘No way, man. You can use your walker.’

  Amelia and Megan looked at each other with pinched mouths. They wanted to laugh, but each of them felt like it would be a loss of face.

  ‘Anyway,’ Megan said, in a voice that tried to be tough but failed. ‘I brought you something.’

  Amelia blinked. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Megan pulled a small glass jar out of her pocket and held it up to show Amelia the black stuff inside. ‘Molasses. It gets rid of warts.’

  * * *

  Megan perched beside Chris, riding the bed side-saddle, looking beneath the sheet he was holding up.

  ‘They’re so skinny,’ she exclaimed, her top lip curled up as though she’d tasted something strange.