Rocks in the Belly

by Jon Bauer

  ‘Patricia. She’s the one I’d argued with that night. She only showed up to be nice.’

  I keep my face held, Reg looking at me.

  ‘Well, you wouldn’t catch me arguing with her. She could have her way with me.’ He sucks air in over his false teeth. ‘Not that she’d want anything from yours truly. But back in the day …’

  ‘I’ll put a word in for you, Reg. How’s that.’

  ‘You can stop dismissing life’s goodness, son. How’s that.’

  There’s a small crunch of a gear change then, Mum’s coffin looking at me from the hearse.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘But I just can’t work it out.’

  ‘What?’ Here we go.

  ‘What’s eating you. I mean, pardon me for speaking out. You’ve certainly got your hands full, nobody’s taking that away from you. But there’s something else. Can’t put my finger on it.’

  ‘I’d rather tell you another day, Reg.’

  More silence, such as it is with the passenger window gone, Reg picking at a little square of tempered glass still wedged in the door frame. Me fidgeting in my seat at the thought of telling him. Wincing at the fact that he even knows there’s something to tell.

  ‘Are those scratches on your hands from the car accident?’ he says, gesturing to the missing window.

  ‘Gardening.’

  His face lights up. ‘I’ve got a jungle of a garden I could use some help with. I’d pay you.’ He pats Rocket but gets a face full of tongue that he pushes away. ‘How much per hour for gardening my jungle then, Tarzan?’

  I spy the crematorium chimney before I see the crematorium. No smoke coming out of it and I wonder if they burn them at night in one batch. Otherwise you’d be turning up for a service with smoke rising out from the last. Like a surgeon coming to see you with blood all over him.

  We park in the car park, the hearse going round the back. Deadman’s entrance.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’ Reg says, the engine stopped and everything silent suddenly.

  I stare ahead at the brick crematorium chapel — boring, square, functional. Built in the 60s or 70s when architects were too busy wearing tight trousers and taking drugs to care about aesthetics.

  ‘I think I’ll go in alone.’

  ‘You don’t have to do it on your own, you know,’ he says.

  There’s a man to greet me inside the building. Frankenstein in a suit — cordial and creepy.

  ‘Are you a relative of the deceased?’

  ‘Her son,’ I say, feeling like it.

  ‘Are you expecting others?’

  ‘No.’

  I wonder how many loners he’s burnt. The forgotten old people from nursing homes. Or those found at home only once their decay disturbs the neighbours. One of the many signs the world’s outgrown itself.

  ‘I’m licensed to give a short service, if you’d like?’

  ‘No, thank you. I’d just like some time with her, then …’

  He nods.

  One of the undertakers appears beside us. ‘That’s us then. If there’s nothing else you need, we’ll be off.’

  ‘Thank you. Really.’

  His hand is warm when he shakes mine. I watch him go, even though Frankenstein is eager to get me in and out again.

  I follow him into the mock chapel — all leadlight windows and plywood ceiling. Religion in a box.

  He leads me up to the front and she’s already there on the conveyor, a curtain waiting in front. He takes me right up close, her coffin hurting me.

  ‘When you’re ready, just push that button, then come out and I’ll have you sign the documentation and you can come back tomorrow to collect her. I’ll need you to have finished by half past so I can ready the room for the next service.’

  He puts on a smile that only makes him uglier, then slips away through a side door.

  You’d have to be a certain person to be attracted to a job associated with death. Just like you have to be a certain person to foster children. And to be able to love properly.

  And to forgive.

  I run a hand over her coffin then give the lid a tug, seeing if it’ll open. Wishing I could lay her lungs out on the front pew and find out for sure whether I hurt her again.

  The lid’s down fast so I wander away, take a seat in the second pew from the front, the light changing in here as the sun goes behind cloud.

  My cough echoes around me and I can’t help but wonder who would come to my funeral. A thought which stands me up, walking back to the front, to the head of the coffin. I lean over and peek through the curtains she’ll go through, this brief idea in my head that there’ll be heaven and angels and Dad and Robert waiting down there but it’s just a conveyor belt and a square view of another room on the other side of that wall.

  Now seems as good a time as any so I push the button. Nothing happens for a moment. I wipe my eyes and push it again.

  Eventually there’s a whirring and with farcical solemnity her coffin moves off, stuttering into the curtains, more and more wood disappearing into the tunnel. I reach out for her one last time and my touch hits that hard coffin exterior.

  The curtain drops against my hand and she’s gone.

  The sound of the machinery stops and I peek through at her, just down there in the other room. I let the curtain fall.

  That’s it then. From now on she’s going to have to be the way I tend her in my mind — depending on which parts of my perspective I water, and those I allow to wither. That careful distinction between what is plant and what is weed.

  I walk out of the main chapel and loiter in the foyer.

  Heavy, gunmetal cloud has assembled outside, the first drops of rain. Reg stubbing out a smoke and taking shelter in the Volvo even though the window’s missing. Rocket cocking his leg on the only other car in the car park but the rain picks up pace and he runs back to Reg.

  The downpour’s drumming on the chapel roof now, a daytime darkness having descended.

  I recognise this moment I’m standing in. This is the moment before. This is that breath you take before you go on. Even if a bit of me is so tired of going on — a dejected part that’s had enough of being dragged through the dirt behind this other, hell-bent, angry version of me.

  Robert’s funeral wasn’t like today’s. His wasn’t a celebration of a life because he hadn’t had one. There was nothing to celebrate that day, only greyness. Mum sniffling but managing a smile as she watched the video of them strapping Robert up — his face full of gangly smiles towards the video camera. His played-back face looking right at me. Someone making a comment about how great he looks in his orange outfit.

  Then his hair was fluttering on the screen, a man behind him in goggles. Robert all tongue and teeth and movement, his trembling brain fidgeting him with excitement.

  There is a rough edit.

  His hair is blowing and he’s strapped to the man in the goggles and screeching with delicious fear as they shuffle him on his bum.

  From the movement of the camera you see Robert, then the aeroplane walls, Robert. Then, through the open door, the clouds. Great, billowing clouds in a vast sky. The camera panning to an altimeter on a wrist. Robert McCloud at 14,000 feet.

  ‘1’

  His tremors are still there, his eyes smiling. The man tells Robert to put his head back and his exhilaration erupts as a squeal.

  ‘2’

  He is totally still. I remember the whole room stopped too, everyone who’d come to bury him held their breath.

  ‘3!’

  And the cameraman, Robert and the man he’s strapped to are plummeting. We see the sky the cloud the sky the cloud, then Robert, his body totally still, his face billowing and moving up towards his hair and he’s plummeting. Mum, me, Dad, everyone was crying, the buffet food congealing on the trestle table and Robert falling and falling.

  Suddenly the screen is completely white.

  Coming through the whiteness you can make out a little bit of orange and hear a lot of R
obert’s delight. We’re all in the clouds with him, Robert of the Clouds. He’s falling through them in orange overalls and goggles, his damaged brain firing and firing with joy. Nothing but a white screen and squealing.

  After a few prolonged seconds everything’s blue and brilliant again, cloud moisture glowing rainbow on the camera lens, picking up rays of sun, filtering them into colour. Robert laughing and laughing despite the air rushing into him and rain moisture all over his face. Everyone in the room laughing with him now, except me. I started sobbing.

  And that was when Mum gave me one of those rare hugs. Despite what she believed. Despite what we all did to each other. She held me and my tears, my face burrowed into that neck of all necks — enveloped by her, my arms wrapping round her too, her grip squeezing tighter. And through her hair and its smell of cups of tea and hot baths, I could hear Robert laughing on the screen.

  Then the man pulled something and Robert was gone, floating under a brilliant white canopy.

  THANK YOU

  Wholehearted gratitude to Sam and all at Serpent’s Tail. It’s a dream to have this book published, especially by a publisher that epitomises everything I celebrate about independent publishing.

  This book owes much to Marika, Cherry and Julie who rolled up their sleeves with me long before a publisher came along. And my gratitude and respect to Aviva, Henry and everyone at Scribe.

  Juliet, Linda and all at A P Watt have truly championed my writing (and put up with a dash of eccentricity). Thank you. Sincere and warm thanks to Elena Lappin (you can find a picture of her in the dictionary under ‘chutzpah’).

  I wonder if I’d be writing at all without my sister’s early encouragement in the days when my output could only really be congratulated for its font and paper stock. She supports me still. This book is dedicated to you, Jo.

  Thanks also to Jane D who read the original short story and uttered a tiny remark that led to such a big journey; Karla and family for the afternoon we had talking about something so personal; Jodie and B for keeping me on the straight and narrow regarding fostering; the Wilkinsons, just because; and so much gratitude to Glen, who helped me into my skin.

  Plus a kind army of readers, writers and artists who have supported this book in some other generous way: J M Coetzee, David Malouf, MJ Hyland, Cate Kennedy, Peter Goldsworthy, Peter Straus, Andrea Goldsmith, Kate Holden, MP Gracedieu, Tom, Lisa, Gemma, Ruby, brudder Zac, Phoebe, Tash, Hazey, Michelle, Nicole, Moo, Mal, Derek, Anne, Pierz, Stefania, Convery, Trudi, Jackson, Sahar, Jess, Dan, Helene, Mankymarkcuthbertyson, the Vampires, Margot, (deep breath), and finally, thanks to my old man.

  May this novel be of sustenance for those who carry their childhoods still.

  x x x