The Whole Bright Year

by Debra Oswald

  ‘That was only one time,’ Kieran protested. ‘Oh . . . well, twice . . .’

  ‘Mick had gone into business for himself since I’d left Sydney,’ Sheena went on. ‘Dealing speed. He’d got Kieran frying his brains, plus using him as a runner. Mick’s in business with bikers.’

  ‘Those guys are pretty big in the speed business,’ Kieran added as a helpful note.

  ‘And now Mick was boasting to me how he’s got a shotgun in the house. I didn’t have to be Mystic Sheena to see someone’s gonna go to jail or end up dead. And chances are it’s going to be my little brother.’

  Kieran struck a pose for Zoe and she spluttered into laughter. If the girl was laughing out of embarrassment or shock or admiration, it was hard to tell.

  ‘So, anyway,’ Sheena continued, ‘I found Kieran in one of the back rooms.’

  Kieran wiggled his fingers around his head in a scrambling gesture. ‘I was far away down a pixie hole.’

  ‘I dragged him out the door, his feet all cut up and bleeding. Shoved him in the back seat of my car and drove off. As far away from Mick and Sydney as I could get him.’

  Zoe turned to Kieran. ‘And what did you think about that?’

  ‘Oh well, I slept the first ten hours.’

  ‘But when you woke up, what did you do?’

  ‘I started whining, didn’t I, Sheena?’

  ‘Yes, you certainly fucking did.’

  Kieran laughed and flopped onto his back, so he could do an exaggerated demonstration of how he’d behaved in the back of the car. ‘My feet hurt – ow, ow, ow! What are you doing to me, Sheena? How come I’ve got bandages on my feet? Where are you taking me? You’re not the boss of me, Sheena!’

  ‘Why didn’t you just run off?’ Zoe asked.

  ‘I tried.’

  ‘His feet were so cut up to begin with, he couldn’t walk properly,’ said Sheena.

  ‘I couldn’t. I was her prisoner in the back seat of the car. I go, “You’re kidnapping me. This is an actual crime, you know, Sheena.”’

  Sheena rolled her eyes. ‘Driving me mental.’

  ‘So, you know what she did?’ he said, sitting up. ‘Pulled up outside a police station, and you know what she says to me?’

  Sheena jumped in to play herself in the scene. ‘Okay then, pop inside and tell the cops I’m kidnapping you.’

  Kieran grinned at Zoe and shrugged – What could I do?

  ‘But once your feet healed up, why didn’t you take off then?’ Zoe asked him.

  Sheena answered for her brother. ‘Because we’d been away from those deadheads long enough for Kieran to think straight. And now he needs to stay away from guys like Mick long enough to grow a brain in his thick skull.’

  Sheena got to her feet, to make it clear the storytelling session was over. It was good to give the princess a bit of a scare, but no need to tell her more than necessary. ‘We need to get dinner organised while there’s still some light. Let’s go.’

  *

  Zoe was expecting Kieran to jump up and follow his sister straight away. Instead, he lay on his back again and adopted the joke whiny voice, as if he were still in the back of her car with cut-up feet. ‘Gimme one more sec off my sore tootsies. Please, please.’

  Sheena groaned, but then she headed up the bank. ‘One sec. Then come.’

  Once Zoe was sure Sheena was far enough up the slope to be out of earshot, she asked Kieran, ‘Do you mind your sister bossing you around?’

  ‘Oh, well, she doesn’t always boss me around.’

  At exactly that moment, Sheena turned back to bellow down at them. ‘Kieran! You said one sec. Get back up here! Now!’

  Kieran gave a thumbs-up to indicate he was coming, but then he turned to Zoe. ‘The thing you gotta understand, Zoe, is Sheena’s always looked after me. Even when I was in kindy. Like, if she was picking me up from school and she found out kids were monstering me, Sheena would belt across the playground like Super Sister and yank their arms behind their backs. I had my own bouncer.’

  Zoe laughed, easily picturing that scene. She was scared of Sheena but admired her ferocity. When Sheena was telling the blood-on-the-floor ketamine-kidnapping story, Zoe had never seen her so animated. It was a glimpse of the other ways Sheena could be, a sign she could be fun if you caught her in the right mood. But the main thing Zoe had felt, listening to the two of them, was envy. Envy that Sheena and Kieran had each other and could tell a story together as a double act, as brother and sister. And envy that they had a story to tell that was real and intense, like something out of a TV show.

  Sheena was near the top of the slope by now but the screeching pitch of her voice was loud enough to make Zoe’s ears hurt. ‘Kieran! I can see you still sitting there on your fucking arse!’

  Kieran didn’t flinch. He just looked at Zoe and said fervently, ‘Sheena’s a good person. She deserves better than she gets.’

  Again, the shrill voice from above them. ‘Kieran!’

  He bellowed up towards his sister. ‘Yeah! I’ll be up there in a minute! You have first shower!’ He spun back to Zoe. ‘Better get up there soon, I s’pose. Before Sheena rips my balls off.’ But even so, Kieran made no move to leave.

  Sheena scowled down at them before she walked out of view.

  ‘Sheena’s cranky with you,’ said Zoe. ‘Because of me.’

  ‘Well, my sister is worried you’re after my money.’

  ‘Perhaps so. But she’s also worried that you’re just too immature and silly.’

  They both nodded slowly, with mock gravity, until Kieran suddenly lunged sideways and scooped a handful of water from the creek to flick onto Zoe’s legs. She squealed with the cold shock of it and then splashed him back, scoring a direct hit in the face. Kieran threw his upper body into the stream to swing his arms through the water and drench them both.

  The splashing assaults escalated into a full-on water fight, the two of them scrambling over the rocks, laughing wildly, clothes and hair sodden again, until they eventually collapsed onto their backs on a grassy stretch.

  For a few moments, all Zoe could hear was the sound of Kieran breathing and her own breaths loud in her throat. She was aware of his body, stretched out at a slight diagonal to hers.

  ‘What are you thinking this second?’ Kieran asked.

  ‘Oh . . . you don’t want to know.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Um, yes.’

  ‘Well, if you must know, I was thinking about how I think about things too much. Like, in my imagination I watch myself doing something before I do it and then I think about all the reasons it might be a bad idea and don’t end up doing anything. I wish I could just . . .’

  Zoe squeezed her eyes shut, flung her arms out wildly and made a yowling noise that bounced off the sides of the gully. ‘I wish I could throw myself into things before I get a chance to . . .’

  She opened her eyes to see Kieran staring at her. She dropped her arms, twisted up her face with self-mockery. ‘You think I’m a fruit loop.’

  ‘No! No, no, you’re – uh – uh – uh . . .’ Kieran thumped his fist against the side of his head, as if he could shake loose the word he was looking for.

  Zoe laughed. ‘Are you having a seizure?’

  ‘No. I’ve gotta find exactly the right word. Ah! Yeah! You’re spectacular.’

  ‘Shut up. Don’t take the piss out of me.’

  ‘Don’t you take the piss out of my word. I had to dig around in my scrambled brain to find that word. Spectacular.’

  Zoe held her breath. She wanted so much for that to be true, for him to mean it, but the wanting it so much was almost more than she could bear. ‘A spectacularly sad case, you mean.’

  ‘Fuck me dead, you’re beautiful.’

  And that was enough to suck the breath out of Zoe’s lungs so she was unable to bat him away with some comment. Kieran slid closer, close enough to kiss her. But then he stopped, waiting for permission. Zoe was going to have to make
it clear she wanted him to kiss her. She was glad the sun had shrunk back out of the gully – it was getting close to sunset. The dim light meant it was possible Kieran wouldn’t be able to see how nervous she was. She wrenched up the courage to lean towards him, and they kissed.

  Zoe and her friend Mandy had practised pashing oranges when they were in Second Form. But she had never pashed a person – unless you counted kiss-chasey games in primary school that only ever resulted in giggly or disgusted pecks on lips. Zoe had imagined pashing Kieran many times over the last seven days – often during the daytime and even more at night.

  It was good, a bit tentative, but good. Way better than kissing an orange. But Zoe was anxious, with no way to tell if she was doing it right from her side of the process. How much tongue? How much pressure? How much moving of the head? Was she doing it all wrong, revealing herself as an inexperienced kid?

  Then Kieran made a small noise in his throat and Zoe felt the vibration on her mouth. Surprised, she drew back a bit, and Kieran smiled at her – what? She didn’t want him to think she didn’t want him to keep kissing her, so she dived for his mouth again, determined not to let anxiety twist and strangle this opportunity. After that, it was better. Much better. And then it became something else – more intense and dizzying. All they were doing was kissing but her whole body was humming with a glorious energy, as if she had finally been activated for the purpose she was ever in this body.

  When they came up for air a few minutes later, Zoe didn’t want to look at her watch, but she had to. It was dinnertime and she didn’t want to give her mother grounds to worry – at least not until there was a chance to think this through.

  She tugged her shoes on, threw Kieran a quick affirming smile, then scrambled up the side of the gully and ran back to the house.

  In Roza’s estimation, there was a choice about how to look at it – ‘it’ being the sight of Kieran and Zoe on that Christmas Eve, kissing, laughing, whispering, scampering between the orchard rows to kiss some more, so intoxicated with this kissing that they didn’t care who saw them.

  A person could have viewed it through a patronising and jaded filter. Oh, those young lovers are too immature and foolish. Or someone might have looked with bitter eyes. How dare those young people have such rapture. But Roza made what she considered a selfish choice. She saw herself as feeding off the energy that radiated from their passion. She was a geriatric vampire. When there were so many painful things in a life, why not let your eyes linger on a beautiful thing and soak in a little of its vitality?

  Roza was aware that neither Sheena nor Celia was happy about the kissing going on in front of them through the day. Celia’s reaction was to be expected – to see this boy, this wired-up, aimless, tattooed, stray young man with his arms around Zoe would ignite her anxieties like a spray of kerosene on a fire. Why Sheena looked unhappy was less certain. Perhaps it was simple envy – there was no one here for her to canoodle with, no man gazing at her the way Kieran was gazing at Zoe. Or perhaps Sheena noticed Celia’s disapproval and she was worried this threatened the stability of their employment. Or it could be some deeper concern about her brother’s emotional state. But neither woman said anything about it – not in Roza’s hearing, anyway – they merely frowned at the young pair whenever they caught sight of them.

  Kieran seemed unaware of the spiked glances fired in his direction by his sister and his employer. Zoe also appeared oblivious, but Roza knew that would not be so. That girl understood what her mother’s reaction would be to this development. Which didn’t mean Zoe’s infatuation with Kieran was not authentic. From what Roza could tell, she was truly swept away by this young man.

  In the late afternoon, Josef drove out to Celia’s farm, bringing papers to be signed or whatever errand was the excuse for this visit. He always brought fresh milk and any other items from town he thought Celia might need. Roza was satisfied that she and Sandor had brought up their son to be a considerate man who would think about someone’s need for milk.

  When Joe pulled his car into the yard, Roza could see he was tired, tired into his bones. When he stooped to kiss her cheek, she grabbed his face in both hands so he couldn’t escape close scrutiny.

  ‘Show me your eyeballs,’ she said. ‘You have a deficiency.’

  ‘What is it this week, Mum?’ he asked. ‘Vitamin B? Iron?’

  It was, in Roza’s opinion, a deficiency of the spirit, but she controlled the urge to point this out. Roza well knew that it was not easy being the son of a mother like her. Josef stood before her with that resigned smile of his and she decided now was not the time to destabilise the fragile truce he had made to get through his life. Instead, she planted robust, smacking kisses on both his cheeks. Some days that was the best you could do for your child.

  ‘Sheena. Hi,’ said Joe.

  Sheena had ventured close to the packing shed to collect an empty bin. ‘Hi.’

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked.

  ‘Okay.’ She shrugged and shifted uncomfortably. Even so, she lingered, in a spot where a wedge of shade fell across the yard by this time of day.

  ‘Listen, I spoke to the mechanic,’ said Joe. ‘The parts came for your car. It’s ready to pick up whenever you’re ready.’

  ‘Whenever I get the money together,’ Sheena snapped back. ‘We don’t all have eight hundred bucks lying around.’

  ‘Sure. Right. I know it’s a sizeable chunk of money.’

  Sheena winced, acknowledging how rude she sounded. ‘Sorry. Sorry . . . I’m just . . .’

  Joe shook off her apology with a smile. ‘You’ve got a lot on your plate. Oh, hey, I grabbed you and Kieran some stuff in town.’ He walked back to his car to fetch a supermarket box from the boot. ‘Just some cold bits and pieces I thought you might be running out of. Especially with the shops shut for the next couple of days. Give me a yell if there’s anything in particular you guys need next time I come out.’

  Sheena jerked a smile and took the box of food from his hand – clumsily, as if she had never been handed an object by another human being. ‘Ta. How much do I owe you for all this? I haven’t got cash on me here but I could run down to the cabin and get some.’

  ‘No rush. Whenever. Or never. It’s just a few bucks’ worth,’ he assured her.

  Roza wasn’t surprised to see Joe being so kind to this spiky woman. Living with a dissatisfied creature like Heather for more than ten years had honed a special capacity in him to manage difficult people graciously. It was like a superpower he used at home that he felt obliged to exercise in other personal interactions.

  Sheena was clearly puzzled by his kindness. ‘How come you’re being so nice to us? That’s your job in town, is it? Being the nice, helpful guy.’

  Yes, thought Roza, that was exactly the role Joe had established for himself. Sheena was more astute than a person might think just from looking at her.

  ‘Eh?’ responded Joe, thrown off balance.

  ‘Oh – no, I don’t mean . . . sorry,’ stammered Sheena. ‘I mean, shit. Look, y’know, thanks. I’ll shove this stuff in our esky.’

  Sheena seemed glad of the excuse to flee, heading down to the cabin with the box of food. Josef also looked relieved that his awkward encounter with the woman was now over.

  As Celia walked across from the house, she saw Joe and called out to him. ‘Hello!’

  Joe swung his arm to indicate the row of fruit trees where Kieran and Zoe were working. ‘You guys seem to be moving through the pick okay.’

  ‘We’re getting there,’ said Celia.

  She and Joe stood side by side in the doorway of the shed, looking out into the orchard, just as there was a fresh outbreak of passionate kissing between Kieran and Zoe.

  ‘Oh,’ murmured Joe.

  Celia nodded. ‘Mm.’

  Before Joe could summon any more of a response than that initial ‘oh’ of surprise, the phone extension rang, reverberating through the shed. Celia answered the call, then mouthed ‘Heather’ to Joe.
He whispered a quick ‘Sorry about this’ as he took the receiver.

  ‘Hi. How are you? I’m just —’ he began, before Heather cut him off.

  This was how it so often went whenever Roza heard her son’s side of a phone call to his wife, a woman apparently incapable of allowing another person to finish a sentence.

  ‘No, I haven’t rung them yet because —’

  There was more yapping by Heather, then Joe managed to get a few words out: ‘Sorry. But I thought we decided it was better to leave it a few —’

  Heather then launched into a longer stint of talking, during which Joe nodded, capitulating to whatever position she was pushing. ‘Okay. I will.’

  Finally, his voice fell into a defeated cadence, the way these phone calls often ended. ‘I’m sorry. I said I’m sorry.’

  Roza should not have been eavesdropping on her son’s call – out of respect for Joe’s privacy and to spare herself the frustration of hearing him like this – so she moved away, out of the shed and into the yard, to avoid catching anymore.

  Josef drove back into town the minute the phone call was over. According to Heather, there was a big list of Christmas Eve jobs not yet done.

  ⃰ *

  Celia had noticed the flirting earlier in the week, given she wasn’t sight-impaired or dimwitted. What she hadn’t expected was that the flirtation would turn into anything physical. Zoe was by nature a cautious kid, so this brazen display of kissing had come as a surprise.

  Surprise kept Celia’s mouth shut when she first saw Zoe and Kieran together. It was so early in the morning, there was barely enough dawn light for the two kids to find each other’s faces. As the kissing interludes continued through the day, what could Celia have said? What are you doing? It was obvious what they were doing.

  Zoe had dodged any possibility of speaking privately with her mother, and then at the end of the working day, she ran ahead to the house. By the time Celia caught up, Zoe had showered and was in her bedroom, the door closed.

  With anxiety fermenting in her belly, Celia dropped her sweaty clothes on the bathroom floor and stepped into the shower. She needed to hold her neck under the clear, cool stream of rainwater so she could think clearly and coolly.