Like a House on Fire

by Cate Kennedy

  I said what is the favour? I kept looking at my sandals. I liked them when I got them in Target because they had small pressed-out daisies on the top but now they just looked stupid and babyish. My toes were hanging out over the edge all grubby. I swallowed down the foil taste.

  He told me what it was and it’s like the words he’s saying don’t make sense, like they’re broken up in a box and I can’t start sorting through them to put them back together. And the stone shifts and slips and I feel sweat on my skin because my heart jumps up into the back of my mouth.

  He says Tyler, I need you to piss into a cup and give it to me. I know it sounds crazy but it’s just a surprise trick I’m playing.

  All the muscles go stiff on my face and Shane is smiling so wide his mouth is big and stretched. He says hey, you’re blushing. It’s just for a surprise. You can’t tell anyone.

  I say why not Mum? and his face closes up like a window and his lip gets that mean look and he says I thought you were my friend, I thought you would be a good person to ask, because you can keep a secret. But can you, Tyler? I say yes I can. He says you have to do it in a special cup, with a lid. Well, so the piss doesn’t spill out and so that I can carry it. I just put the lid on OK?

  I say OK again and my mind is picking up one piece, searching, searching for another piece to make sense. And Shane looks at the time on his phone and says do you need to go now, Tyler baby? Because if you can go right now for me that would be great and I can get the surprise going.

  I get up and take the cup, walk out with my jigsaw-box head and my foil mouth. Ellie tried to tell me to watch out for him but not for this, not going to the toilet. Not sitting trying to catch the wee that gushes out of me, seeing my white legs jiggling on the toilet seat. I go back and his hand is already stretched out waiting for me with the fingers going come on come on come on. I give him the cup and I see the face he makes when he feels it’s warm and I get really small and a thread is pulling through me like I am one of the dolls stitched up tight and stiff.

  He says that’s perfect, I owe you one, Tyler babe, and he screws on the lid and runs out of the house. I am putting this in my journal for Mrs Carlyle because she said it’s good to write about things even if they make us feel ashamed or like we want to cry. Now I don’t want to write anymore.

  My mum has worked out how to make the overlocker do blanket stitch and she says check this out, girls, I’ve got a sweatshop going here. She says it’s so much quicker now, Tyler, and if you can just help me do the hair and the faces I’ll be able to do stacks of them. She has put colour in her hair and it is a red-brown colour. Vermilion plus Burnt Umber. The internet is back on for the computer so Mum says there’s no reason why Ellie has to hang round to use the ones in the school library which means I won’t be able to stay there with her after school and read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the beanbag in the story corner.

  This morning Mrs Carlyle said now my dearest 6Cs, I’m going to put this box here on my desk and if anyone would like to take the opportunity to put their journals in so I can read them, I would be so happy and honoured.

  I am just waiting after school for Ellie to walk across from the senior campus to come and meet me and there’s no one else here so I’m going to put mine in.

  I’ve checked in the box already and it’s empty but maybe Mrs Carlyle has already taken the other ones out.

  On Monday night and last night I didn’t have my journal to write in and it felt strange, like waiting for a phone call with news to tell the person but they don’t ring. Now it’s Wednesday night. I want to tell Ellie about Shane making me do a wee but just thinking about it makes the stone come up into my chest and neck and it jams my throat shut so I can’t talk.

  My journal was back inside my work folder this morning and when Mrs Carlyle asked me to stay behind the same thing happened. She said she had to make an appointment for me to be interviewed by someone and I couldn’t speak, just shook my head, because my throat felt all squeezed up. She said it’s about your journal, Tyler, and I kept shaking my head and she said, your mother …

  I felt everything go blurry then because it would be the police, like what happened with Tegan that Ellie told me about, and I just said flat out no.

  She said what are you doing this afternoon? I was meant to go to the mall and wait for Ellie to finish an after-school shift because Mum was going to her Centrelink course so there would be nobody home except Shane. So I said the mall.

  Mrs Carlyle said would you like me to give you a lift to the mall then? And I said OK. We walked down the empty corridor to the teachers’ car park and it felt really strange. I stopped and she said would you rather I drove you straight home and I said no, not home, and this sounded so stupid but the thought of Shane sitting there watching cartoons made the stones grind together so that I just couldn’t move or make myself get into the car. Then Mrs Carlyle was crouching down next to me and she was saying, Tyler, if you could go anywhere now where would you like to go? My voice came back and I said I want to go to your house and see the budgies. It just came out in a rush because it was exactly what I did want.

  She was quiet for a minute and then she said right let’s do that. That’s how I ended up visiting Mrs Carlyle at her house. She had a great front door with a big knocker on it like a hand and you had to hold the hand to make it knock back and forth, tapping on the door. I said I love that and she said so do I. We had Milo and biscuits in her kitchen and then she showed me the spot in the back garden where the budgies lived. It was not like I imagined, I thought they would be in a little cage, but it was a big space with a net around it. It took up almost the whole garden. Mrs Carlyle said she wanted them to have an aviary because she didn’t like to think of birds not being able to fly around. The nest inside was made out of a plastic milk bottle cut open and stuffed with soft hay and feathers just like she told us. She said the mother bird is in there, Tyler, so we’d better not disturb her. But it means there are eggs and I haven’t forgotten my promise to you.

  We sat on a seat in her garden under a tree and I wished I had one of those too. She said do you think we should ring your mother and let her know where you are, Tyler? and I said no, she won’t be home. I said if it was OK she could drop me back at the mall and I would go to meet my sister to get the bus. She said that’s Ellie, right? and I felt all hot thinking she had read that in my journal. For a long time we didn’t say anything then Mrs Carlyle said I just want to do the right thing by you, Tyler, I just don’t know exactly what that is. She reached over and took my hand and said the school rules are so insane, I’ll probably get reprimanded by the school board for even bringing you here, it’s the department’s policy. I felt the stones squeeze up remembering what Ellie had said about the department. I don’t want to get taken away I said, and my voice was all stupid and high and squeaky like a cartoon. I won’t tell anyone we came here to your place. Mrs Carlyle kept holding on to my hand and said that won’t happen, Tyler, but I’m bound by mandatory reporting so I don’t have any choice. And I felt my stomach gulp like I was one of her birds swooping through the air in their big home she had made for them. Their aviary. She said do you trust me, Tyler? and I looked in at the milk bottle nest cut neatly open and tied so carefully onto the post inside and the tray of soft straw and grass she had found for them to use and I said yes. I said if I put my hand into the nest now would the mother bird bite me? And she looked so sad at me and nodded. We fed the birds and then she drove me back to the mall.

  I was in our backyard. It was funny but when I’d been at Mrs Carlyle’s I’d kind of imagined my backyard to be different. Like it had trees where I could nail up netting in a corner and make a kind of aviary so I wouldn’t have to put my bird in a tiny cage. But I’d remembered it wrong and there were no trees. Just bushes next to the fence and the clothesline and the paving. Mum was inside working on finishing off the dolls. On Thursday night she
had come home from her Centrelink course with a sort of artist’s smock her case worker had given her, she said it’s a real tailor’s apron for people who work in fabric and she showed Ellie and me the pockets at the front where the scissors and cottons and pincushion went and Shane came in and said well, lookie here it’s Doris Day and burst out laughing and Mum stood there for a minute then she laughed too and pulled the apron off and said you’re right it’s stupid.

  I said, Mum, that colour is a Derwent colour and it’s called Pale Mint and she just nodded and went into the kitchen. But she had the apron back on today because Shane wasn’t here. I was standing looking at the bushes and the fence wondering how I’d remembered them so wrong and thinking about the weekend and I didn’t know it but it was the last minute of everything being the same.

  Ellie was in her room and I could hear her voice through the window just very softly singing along to the song she loves playing on her iPod, Three Little Birds, she was up to the chorus where the words go cause every little thing is gonna be alright, and then I heard the front door slam and Shane’s voice shouting where is she? where the fuck is she? Then Mum shouting what? what? but her voice not angry enough, not enough to stop him, and Shane saying I’ve had my parole officer on my back and that dumb-arsed brat of yours has fucked everything up for me because she ran and told her fucken teacher. I could hear him going down the hall and I heard his voice say I’ll kill her. And Ellie screamed and that’s when I ran into the laundry and climbed into the clothes basket. It is a big cane basket with all the week’s dirty washing in it and I pulled some clothes over me and lay still. Everyone was screaming now and I thought, all jumbled up, of Mrs Carlyle telling the principal and Aunty Jacinta’s phone number folded up in the box on my chest of drawers and how my mobile phone was lying on my bed with a flat battery so I couldn’t of rung the police anyway. My whole stomach was full of stones now gritting heavy together and I shut my eyes and thought Cloud Blue Kingfisher Blue Oriental Blue Iced Blue Prussian Blue Indigo. I heard Mum say she’s not here and Shane said bullshit and Mum said OK, OK, calm down and her voice was all scared and hopeless and I knew she wasn’t going to be any good to me. I just hated her then and I went to burrow down deeper into the clothes. I felt something sharp sticking into my hip as I curled up my legs tight and I put my hand down very carefully without making a sound and felt around. It was something hard and plastic in the pocket of the shirt my mum had worn the night before to her class and I could just see it, a square white badge that said Student of the Week. I thought Grey Green Sea Green Light Sand French Grey Rose Pink and my breath was coming out funny and then I got up out of the basket and even though my legs felt like jelly I walked into the living room.

  Right, said Shane when he saw me. You. I’ve breached my parole conditions now thanks to you, you interfering little bitch.

  I looked at Mum and she just stood there in her green apron and I could see her shoulders hunching and her face closing up and Ellie stepped in front of me and said good, because I already called the police, and Shane turned around to her and grabbed her and threw her hard against the wall and I heard her head bang against the plaster and it’s not true what happens in cartoons, people don’t leave a person-shaped hole in the wall when they hit it.

  She falls on the floor, my sister. But as soon as she does she stands up again grabbing onto a chair and Mum says in a voice like something far away, don’t touch my kids.

  Shane turns back to her and his mouth goes scary and he says I should have known, everyone told me I was crazy to get involved with you. Everyone. They all know you’re fucked in the head.

  Mum is like one of the dolls without enough stuffing, loose and floppy, her hand on the bench to help her stand up. She’s going to fall over and then we will have to see what he does to us. All the things she doesn’t see, she will see them now but she will be too weak to stand up.

  I feel Ellie behind me now, I smell her Oil of Olay and her lipgloss. My sister.

  And this one, Shane says pointing behind me at her. This little prickteaser here, she’s going to turn out just like her mother, that one. Just like you. Five bastard kids to five different blokes, can’t look after any of em. And too dumb to charge for it.

  Mum is still hunched up with her mouth open like she can’t make it say anything. She’ll be a chip off the old block, he says to Mum. Ellie doesn’t say anything and I know why. I can hear her in my head, saying Tyler, let him just spew it out, don’t say anything or he will hurt us. I hear her voice like when she is singing in her room, small but clear.

  Mum turns and stares at us, Ellie and me. Then words come out of her mouth again, tired and cold. You’d better get out of here now. I think she means us to run and get away but I can’t move with Shane watching us, holding us frozen there.

  Look at her, says Shane, pointing at Ellie. Crawling up to me. She hates you. Don’t you, Ellie?

  I turn around and Ellie shakes her head no no no. Tears fill up her eyes. Mum just stares at Ellie and I feel everything rock for a minute, back and forth. Then Mum flinches and blinks like something has just brushed across her face.

  I mean it, out right now or else, she says. But she’s not saying it to Ellie, she’s saying it to him. A quiet voice. And she’s reaching into her apron pocket and she brings out the big silver scissors, the good scissors.

  You’ve got to be fucken joking, says Shane, laughing like she’s just said something stupid. On the bench is the big square knife and he slides it into his hand and now the stones in my stomach are so heavy I just want to sink down and sit on the floor because he does it so easily, you can see he’s not scared at all of just sticking it in her.

  I’m warning you, he says, you’re making me have to defend myself. His wrist comes up and he’s pointing to the small blue tattoo on his neck, just a blue and blurry smudge. See this? he says. That means I done this before and believe me, bitch, I got no problems doing it again.

  He did that himself, I hear Ellie say inside my head. He’s never been in jail. What sort of loser boasts about jail, and it isn’t even true. Sad bastard with homemade tattoos. I’m right behind you, Ty. Right here.

  I warned you too, says our mother and she steps forward with a little sigh as if it’s all finished for her and she wants him to do it, but it’s like my mum’s arm has got strong hauling up the sewing machine every night and lifting all those rolls of material onto the table, she swings quick and easy like she’s pushing the car door closed then she steps back again and the scissors are buried in his stomach, just with the handles sticking out.

  Shane looks down amazed. Here’s the part I don’t understand, Mrs Carlyle, he could have still stabbed us all to death then but he didn’t even look up. He just started crying. Then he sat on the floor with his head down and held his stomach crying and my mum said, Ellie, time to phone the police for real now. And she wasn’t like a doll anymore. Someone had come along and put the white dots into her eyes and they were bright as black glittering glass and her mouth was like the line you cut in the felt, one hard snip straight across the pattern, across the exact right spot. She held out one arm and Ellie went into it.

  Look, Mrs Carlyle, I am writing this in Prussian Blue. Guess what Ellie got me for Christmas. Yes! It was the Derwents and all the blue ones are still my favourites. When you told us to write the journal you were still my teacher but I missed the last two weeks of final term when I went up to Aunty Jacinta’s place after all this happened. My mum asked me where did I want to go and I said her place and Mum didn’t even argue, she said I think you’re right, we all need a holiday. When I opened my present there at Christmas and saw it was the pencils I nearly cried and Aunty Jacinta showed me something I’d never noticed before. She said, look at that drawing of the bridge on the tin, Ty. The artist has drawn it so carefully you can see how all those stones fit together to make that arch over the water, and then she opened the tin a
nd said, look, on every single one of your new pencils they have stamped the word artist.

  I only realised later that next year, when school starts again, I will be in secondary school across the road so you won’t be my teacher anymore. But when you gave us the books you said it didn’t matter where we started and finished and maybe the journal will never be finished but it doesn’t matter. I kept writing mine these holidays so that you will know you were right. I have been thinking and thinking about when we went to your house to see the budgies and they ate seed out of your hand and you said, Tyler, our true friends never ask us to do favours as a test and you looked so sad. I want to say I hope you are not sad now because you helped me and I tried to be brave like you said and now I think I’m going good.

  I still remember where you live. I’m going to put this in your letterbox. I hope that is OK. I hope you are still living there. If your budgie’s eggs hatch please will you call one of the babies Alicia. One day I will get an aviary and then I will come and get her, Mrs Carlyle. That’s my promise.

  Acknowledgements

  To name just a few people I am indebted to, thank you David Dore, Robin and Margie Hemley, Hal Wake, Kate Rotherham, Terry Jaensch, Hannie Rayson, Yiyun Li, Willy Vlautin and David Francis. I have experienced nothing but support and warmth from those who make Melbourne the city it is for a writer from the sticks, namely Michael Williams and the staff at the Wheeler Centre, Steve Grimwade, and of course Henry Rosenbloom at Scribe, and Ian See. Thanks to those stubborn and dedicated people who have given some of these stories a home in a time of huge uncertainty for literary journals, magazines and anthologies. And, as always, thanks to my terrific publisher and editor Aviva Tuffield — still loyally in the car I seem to be driving, still holding the thermos.