Review of Australian Fiction, Volume 3, Issue 4

by Melina Marchetta

  Chris let go of the sheet and it slowly settled back over his legs, like a parachute returning to earth.

  ‘Yeah, there’s nothing wrong with them, but,’ Trevor said. He was sitting in the wheelchair, rolling it forward and back, forward and back, but it wasn’t this that made him sound slightly out of breath. He always sounded like that. ‘They’ll go again.’

  ‘You reckon?’ Chris asked, and the eagerness in his voice made Amelia’s heart hurt. She was hovering in the doorway, not quite in, and not quite out.

  ‘Yeah, for sure,’ Trevor said.

  Megan ripped the top sheet back. ‘Can you feel this?’ She placed both of her hands on Chris’s white thigh and rubbed them back and forth vigorously.

  Amelia took a step into the room. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Chinese burn,’ Megan said.

  ‘Don’t.’

  ‘It’s all right, Meals,’ Chris said. And then to Megan: ‘Yes! I can feel it! It hurts! Are you happy now?’

  Megan stopped, staring down at Chris’s legs with a mad sort of intensity, as though the solution to making them work again was written on them somewhere.

  ‘Wouldn’t get too close,’ Chris told her. ‘I might piss on you.’ His laugh rattled out as she sat up in a hurry.

  She rapped at his knee with her knuckles. ‘We need one of those hammer things.’

  ‘No, you know what we should do?’ Trevor said. ‘We should, like, get a candle. And then hold it against your leg, and then you’ll be shittin’ yourself so much you’ll have to move.’

  Chris shot him a look. ‘Nice one, Trev. Go burn yourself.’

  They fell silent.

  Chris leaned forward and covered his legs with the sheet again. ‘You know what? I’m getting a bit sick of–’

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ Amelia said, taking another step into the room.

  The other three turned to look at her.

  ‘It’s from that book you had on Indians,’ she told Chris. ‘I was reading in it, about how they believed in the power of circles? Like a lot of things in nature are circles, and they used to put all their tepees in a circle around the fire at night, and… Well. I just thought we should try making a circle.’ She stopped there, in case Chris reacted badly.

  He didn’t, though. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Hold hands,’ Megan said. She blinked and focused her peculiar blue eyes on Amelia, who nodded rapidly.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Amelia. ‘And we all think about you walking again. Just concentrate on that. Send energy to your legs. Just… believe.’

  Her voice was fiercer than she meant it to be, and she stopped talking again, expecting them to laugh at her.

  No one laughed. Maybe because at that moment a curlew started calling, and the eerie noise seemed like an omen. It called four times and then stopped.

  ‘I don’t want to hold hands,’ Trevor said.

  ‘Shut up, Trev,’ the girls said in unison.

  ‘You know what she did today?’ Chris said, as though they were midway through a different conversation. ‘I’m starting to know when I want to pee, right? I can feel it now. I couldn’t before, but now I can. And I told her that, because it means I’m getting better. But today, she took that stupid vase thing–the thing I pee in–she took it away. And I kept asking her for it. And she was pretending she hadn’t heard me. She was going, “What? I didn’t hear you, Chris.” And my stomach was all cramped up, and I was sweating, but I just didn’t want to pee myself again. Not when I didn’t have to.’ He glanced at Amelia and his eyes were like two holes punched in his face. ‘She played her little game until I pissed myself. Then she made me lie in it all afternoon. She said I was a filthy pig, and I should have told her that I needed to go.’

  The only noise in the room was Trevor’s breathing.

  Then Amelia said: ‘You can’t bring her into the circle. If you do, she’ll poison it. We can’t even think about her. We can only think about you. Like, how good it’s going to feel for you when you can walk and jump and run again. We should imagine you doing those things.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m in,’ Megan said, getting up. ‘Let’s do it.’

  Trevor watched Chris, and only nodded after Chris did.

  ‘I’ll get a candle. The Indians always had fire,’ Amelia said, rushing from the room.

  When she returned, Megan and Trevor pulled the bed away from the wall, while she cleared a space on Chris’s dresser for the emergency candle she’d got from the pantry–blackouts were common in Jarmoya. She lit the candle, and then turned out the light, waiting a moment for her eyes to adjust before making her way over to the others.

  Megan and Trevor were kneeling, one either side of the bed. Amelia positioned herself so that she was sitting cross legged at the foot of the bed, just below Chris’s feet. No one spoke. Megan took Chris’s hand, and then Amelia’s–Megan, as she’d suspected, had cold hands. When Trevor took Amelia’s hand, she was surprised to find that his palm wasn’t sweaty, but warm and comforting.

  ‘Oh, Trev,’ Chris moaned, taking hold of Trevor’s other hand.

  ‘Blow it out your arse, Coady.’

  ‘I think we should close our eyes,’ Amelia said. ‘Otherwise you guys are just going to be stupid all the time.’

  The others were quick to obey, as if suddenly embarrassed by where an already odd visit had taken them–sitting around, holding hands. Amelia was the last. She tried to think of Chris, to direct her energy towards him, make him better. But nothing came. All she could think of was how much trouble she was going to be in if her mum came home and found them in here.

  What followed was a period of silence so acute, so embarrassing, Amelia thought that if one of the others didn’t break it, she would. But as she opened her mouth to speak, the curlew started calling again, the otherworldly noise cutting through the night, making the skin on the back of her neck tighten. She remembered then that curlews had long, stick-thin legs. A fact that seemed so significant under the circumstances, that it helped her to focus on what they were trying to do.

  It helped her believe. And the way she did it was to remember: Chris winning the one hundred metre sprint; Chris walking to the bus stop in front of her, throwing stones at the mail box; Chris pedalling his BMX so fast that his legs were a blur, picking up speed to go over the jump he’d made from an old door…

  And outside, there wasn’t just one curlew calling, but many. They were growing closer, the noise getting louder, until it sounded like the house was surrounded, and their calling filled her head.

  Amelia panicked then, opening her eyes. As she did, the noise stopped, and she realised they were somewhere else. It was completely dark, but she could see. And she knew where they were. They were inside the circle.

  * * *

  Ages later, there came a slamming noise that jolted Amelia back into consciousness. She opened her eyes to see Megan, Trevor and Chris, muted in candlelight, all of them seeming as confused as she felt, flushed and blinking as though they’d been asleep.

  Jessie Coady’s voice floated down the hall. ‘You’re psycho, mate, that’s what you are. I wasn’t doin’ nothin’. Just talking to the guy. And you know what shits me? You going on and on about loyalty. You aren’t loyal to me. If you were, you’d tell me what’s in that safe. It’s half mine, anyway. That’s how I see it. You’d better learn what a marriage is, or you’ll be sorry, you mark my words.’

  ‘Better to be sorry than safe.’

  ‘Aw, shove your stupid sayings up your arse, Ray. You think you’re so smart? Well, I’ve figured it out. I reckon you’re diddling the prisoners’ trust accounts. Skimming them. All you have to do is take two bucks a week. You probably do it when their dole payments go in. Four hundred prisoners makes it–what? Forty thousand a year? Fitzgerald must have started it when he was in the job, and he was doing it for ten years or something before you stepped in. Might be half a million bucks the two of you are trying to move out.’ Jessie’s voice was steadily rising, as thou
gh Ray was moving away from her. ‘And you do it bit by bit. I don’t know how yet. But don’t think I haven’t noticed when he comes over. It’s always just after someone’s released!’

  They heard the bang of the back screen door hitting the side of the house.

  Jessie screamed: ‘Yeah, you take those scraps out to those birds! You care about them more than me!’

  Why didn’t we hear the dogs barking? Amelia thought. Why didn’t we hear them come home? She moaned, her jaw clenched tight, her eyes wide and panicked. She tried to pull away from Trevor, but he held her hand tight.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he told her, his chubby face seeming oddly calm, almost beatific. ‘They can’t get us like this. We’re safe.’

  Down the other end of the house, something smashed. Then Jessie yelled: ‘You’re sick, Ray! Sick! Well, make the most of them, mate. ’Cause one day you’ll come home and find me wringing their fuckin’ necks.’

  Again, Amelia tried to pull her hands free.

  ‘Mealy, don’t worry,’ Chris said. Amelia looked from him to Megan to Trevor, wanting to shout at them to wake up. They were all acting like they’d been drugged or something.

  And then the florescent tubes overhead flickered into life, filling the room with their alien white light.

  ‘What the hell is this?’ Jessie swayed in the doorway, bringing with her the sickly sweet smell of rum. Her hair was messy and her lipstick was smeared in a big clown mouth.

  Only then did they unpeel their hands.

  Jessie’s bleary eyes focused on Trevor. ‘You! You fat, little shit, I told you–’ She stepped forward and grabbed a handful of his hair, trying to reef him to his feet. ‘I told you to stay away from him, didn’t I?’

  Unable to move Trevor, Jessie started slapping him over the head instead.

  ‘Don’t!’ Amelia shouted, climbing off the bed. She tried to catch hold of her mother’s flailing arms. ‘Mum, don’t!’

  ‘Amelia!’

  It was Megan who’d cried out. She was pointing at Chris. Under the sheet, his knees were rising slowly, and Chris stared at his legs, his expression a mixture of fear and wonder, as though they were being pulled by invisible strings.

  ‘It worked,’ Megan told him, pulling the sheet back.

  ‘Get away from him!’ Jessie gripped Megan’s shoulders and pulled her backwards. Megan stumbled, hitting the dresser and knocking over the candle.

  ‘What the hell is going on in here?’

  Everybody froze as Ray blocked the doorway. His gaze went to Chris, who had risen from his bed and was standing. He took two, quick tottering steps towards Ray, before collapsing on the floor.

  ‘About time,’ Ray said. He looked at Jessie and laughed. ‘One more thing you won’t be getting, sweets.’

  * * *

  After that, Chris’s recovery was swift. In a month he was walking unaided, and by the start of the summer holidays he and Amelia were riding their bikes over to Trevor’s place on the weekends, where Megan joined them. The four of them swam in dams and creeks, did burnouts in Trevor’s old bomb down on the salt flats, tried camping, tried smoking, went fishing for catfish down at Alligator Creek, watched videos, and sometimes they talked about what had happened when they made that circle. They agreed they’d been somewhere very dark. Sort of like in space, said Trevor. They agreed they all felt small. You didn’t matter at all–you were just a speck, said Megan.

  But the more they talked it over, the more recall they seemed to lose. Maybe that’s why they stopped talking about it. So there’d be something left.

  They talked about the safe instead. Everything Jessie had said that night made sense. The only thing that wasn’t completely clear was how Ray and Mr Fitzgerald got the money out. Chris reckoned that they’d probably invented a couple of prisoners. But Amelia pointed out that the most money Ray had ever talked about a prisoner holding in his account was thirty or forty grand. So if they had a lot of money, they’d need a lot of invented prisoners. And their paperwork would come under scrutiny.

  At the prison, people were checked and balanced all the time, she knew that from listening to Ray whinge about red tape. That was part of the reason he’d wanted to be the Trust Accounts Officer. To stop having to answer to the dickheads down in Brisbane. By its very nature, the prison had to account for its inmates. Just not necessarily their money.

  If Jessie was right, and Mr Fitzgerald’s visits coincided with a prisoner being released, then it made a lot more sense. Amelia didn’t know how they held the money within the system in the meantime, but if someone was coming up for release, Ray could shift money into that prisoner’s account, and on the day of exit, make one payment to the prisoner’s nominated account for the correct amount, and pay the surplus into a separate bank account. One held by Mr Fitzgerald, but in another name.

  Figuring out what might be going on was one thing, but finding the combination was another. For a couple of weeks, they spent the time between Jessie leaving for work and Ray coming home trying different combinations. But they gradually lost interest.

  The other thing that changed after the night they made the circle was that Amelia’s warts started to shrink, eventually disappearing altogether. Maybe it was the molasses, which she painted liberally on her knees at night, covering them with band aids–Megan had assured her that she wasn’t taking the mickey, but was deadly serious about its healing properties.

  There were changes in Jessie, too. She no longer bothered to listen outside the shed when Mr Fitzgerald came to visit. And she no longer hassled Ray about the safe. She didn’t go back to her regular job, though. She stayed with the stackers, even when Ray told her that she should be home at nights with her family. Maybe it’s not much of a family, she said. Aside from that, it seemed like all the fight had left her. But sometimes Amelia would see a look in her eyes that suggested otherwise. She thought her mother was a wounded animal, sheltering in a cave. She’d retreated, but sooner or later something would bring her back out. She hadn’t given up. If she had, she’d already be gone.

  * * *

  Like Amelia, Megan wore their high school’s unofficial uniform for girls: a Perm-A-Pleat skirt, T-shirt, Converse socks and Adidas tennis shoes. But Amelia’s shoes were slightly pink looking–even though she bleached them every weekend–while Megan’s were neon white. And where Amelia was skinny–which was covetable at their high school; the skinnier you were, the better–Megan had boobs and a butt. And you noticed them, too, because she was swaybacked, with a proud walk–shoulders back, chin up, meeting the world head-on. Fearless.

  Somehow, whenever they were together, Amelia would end up walking just slightly behind her. Slipstreaming. And that afternoon, as they made their way along the concrete path in front of the school, about to board the bus home, it made it easy for Chris to push in front of Amelia, and walk beside Megan, so close their shoulders pressed together.

  He murmured something and Megan laughed.

  Amelia stopped walking, about to protest. But neither her brother nor her best friend waited for her–Megan was already making her way up the steps onto the bus, followed by Chris, who had his eyes on her skirt.

  How the fuck did that happen? Amelia thought. She draws a frigging circle, and suddenly it’s all on?

  Ignoring the jostling from the other students as they pushed past her, Amelia felt around inside her backpack for her Walkman. She was breathing quickly, already mortified, because she knew she’d have to sit by herself. She put her headphones on, pressed play, and only then did she make her way up the steps.

  As Amelia had suspected, Chris had taken her place beside Megan. Ignoring the wincing face Megan was giving her, Amelia narrowed her eyes at her brother. Chris was alight, his hazel eyes sparking, sunlight trapped in his dirty-blond hair.

  He winked at her, giving her a thumbs up. ‘Thanks, Meals.’

  ‘Shove it,’ Amelia snarled, sweeping past them.

  She heard Megan say, ‘Oo-wah. You’d better go.’
>
  ‘No, leave her. She’ll be right.’

  Amelia swung into a seat a couple of rows behind them, placing her bag on the seat beside her so nobody else could sit there. Then she leaned against the window, staring at the world outside with unseeing eyes, feeling betrayed and abandoned. Later Megan would call her, and she’d say, ‘I’m so sorry. It’s just… I really, really like him.’ They’d been through this before, every time Megan had a new boyfriend–and Megan had had a lot of boyfriends.

  But this time it was different. Weeds were supposed to stick together–not steal each other’s friends.

  Music didn’t help. Amelia never usually listened to her Walkman during the day. It was for night time, when she lay in bed, hunting songs on the radio. Every now and then she came across something that caused a craving in her she could hardly stand. When that happened, she’d buy the Cassingle and play it over and over again, until it lost its power. ‘‘Sleeping Single’’, ‘‘Janie’s Got A Gun’’, ‘‘Waiting For A Star to Fall’’–these were all songs she’d hunted down and killed recently.

  Right at that moment, watching Megan and Chris, Amelia could feel those nights howling inside her. She was angry. Furious, in fact. Not at Megan, and not at Chris, but at the fact that she was going to waste.

  The bus passed through Parkhurst and someone pulled her bag off the seat and slid in beside her. It was Trevor. Amelia glared at him, and then turned away, trying to pretend he wasn’t there–which was difficult because he kept bumping against her while he positioned his long legs so that his knees were wedged up on the back of the seat in front of them.

  He left her alone until they were near The Caves, and then he jabbed the stop button on her Walkman.

  She exhaled, taking her head phones off. ‘It’s not Noah’s Ark, Trev.’

  ‘Hey?’ The way Trevor managed to stretch this syllable irritated the shit out of Amelia.

  She scowled at him, creating space between them by leaning back against the window. ‘We don’t have to pair up just because they are.’