The Best Australian Stories 2011

by Cate Kennedy

  And it was, until she arrived and blew it apart.

  We could do six months in each place, she’d say, when I’d fly down to visit. Take a year off. Just be with us. Take some leave, fix your place up and we’ll come up. And with every coaxing, every push, I’d pull out the same card, slap it onto the table like the winner that it was. The job. I can’t leave the job. I’ve got to work. That’s when the river became more than it is, more like a life raft. I clung on so tight, nothing was gonna wash me off, not even a newborn son.

  I tie up to the jetty and help the passengers out onto the wharf. Mike, the American, slips a bill into my pocket. I think it’s a hundred and we nod silently, like two conspirators. I busy myself with the boat, coiling ropes, checking the fuel, stowing the life jackets. She is still standing on the wharf, the woman who was sitting at the front of the boat, the one that’s been asking all the questions all afternoon.

  So, she says.

  So, I reply.

  We size each other up. Her – English, slim, fortyish, no ring. Me – just turned fifty-seven but fit, always fit and strong in a brown-skinned, nuggetty kind of way.

  So, what would a male be doing, after dark? she asks with a smile.

  He’d be going back to the river.

  He doesn’t hang around, then? Doesn’t stay close?

  I don’t even hesitate. Nope, I say, without looking up.

  Shame.

  Well, he’s got things to do.

  Like what? She sits down on the end of the jetty, long legs swinging.

  Defend his territory.

  She bursts out laughing. Is that the croc or you you’re talking about?

  I stop and straighten suddenly. Look at her directly. My house is on the river, I hear myself say. No one for miles.

  *

  I walk to the letterbox. The sweat beads on my skin and slides down as a sheet, my whole body drenched and soaked through. January. Worst month of the year. It’s not too bad if there’s cloud cover. You can work outside if there’s cloud. But if the sky is clear, the heat is relentless. You can almost feel your flesh cooking. If I’m off work, I can’t even get out into the garden. Just have to sit inside and watch TV, the fan on full, waiting for the sun to go down. Hoping for a storm.

  You can feel the build-up of a tropical storm way before you see it coming. There’s this kind of static in the air and a peculiar smell. Some summers the weather builds and builds, sometimes for weeks. The tension of it is unbearable. And then, suddenly, it breaks. It’s like the whole sky is cracked and torn and you wonder if it’ll ever mend, ever be blue and whole again. And it just rains and rains and rains, so hard you can’t see through to the other side. That’s the wet. That’s how it is.

  I stop and stand for a moment under the mango tree. Absently I reach up for the closest, tweak its stem and the fruit falls into my hand. Perfect – the skin yellow-green, a bright blush of red across the shoulder. I lift it to my nose and the smell is sweet and strong. It’s a Kent, first one of the season. Way better than the Bowens they go mad for down south. I hold the mango to the light, twist it around in the sun and let it drop into my palm. It feels like I am holding a hand, warm and comforting, as I walk down the driveway to my letterbox.

  There is an envelope inside. It’s her writing and on the top corner, written in neat print, it says, Photos – do not bend. It’s the letter that I had stopped waiting for months ago – so much worse when your guard is down and you’re unprepared. What am I thinking? If the letter had come in August, it would have been different. But January – a man can’t be expected to think clearly and rationally in January. I carry the envelope inside and sit down to open it.

  Inside is a note, typed, the paper cut neatly across and folded in half. She’s only written a few lines.

  He is well and happy.

  Please send Xmas presents this year to the following address.

  PS I’ve enclosed some photos as requested.

  She doesn’t sign her name. I push the note aside and reach for the pictures, my guts all strange and tight.

  I try and flick through the photographs. The humidity sticks them together and I can’t get them apart. I feel like crying, fumbling at the prints, trying to hold the fucking things.

  And then I have them laid out on the table. One, two, three.

  I get my glasses and sit in front of the photos. It’s like magic. He’s here, in the world, smiling, clutching a toy car. And then this one, his face up close and the blue of his eyes – they’re like sea glass, and I’m swimming and drowning in them at the same time. And this one now, tumbling about on the grass with two mates, head thrown back laughing. That’s my son! That one there. That’s him! I want to go to him now, rush over and pick him up, cover him in kisses, hold him to my chest, take his hand, walk down the street, kick a ball, buy him an ice cream, take him fishing, show him the crocs, the reef. Pick him a mango. I’m in a fever for the phone, for her number, her mobile – does she check her messages now? I dial it – what will I say? What will I say? Then the answering machine cuts in, not even her voice, and my mouth is working but nothing is coming out and I listen to the silence until the recording cuts out and then I hang up. I sit there, staring at the wall until the midges and mosquitoes sting through the pain of it all and I get up and roll a smoke. Suck hard until everything is thick and white and there is nothing to feel at all.

  *

  There are slide marks in the mud and I know it’s the big saltie. I putter past, in my boat now, and then I turn the engine off and drift downstream with the current. Lay back in the hull and light a cigarette.

  I quit once. When she was pregnant. And I started again the day he was born. Smoked half a pack, one cigarette after the other, on the drive back from the hospital. Six months on a tightrope and all undone in one lousy fifty-minute drive. I can remember the smell of the eucalypts as I wound my way up the mountain, cold wintery air blasting through the car. When I arrived at her house, I lit the fire and sat there, smoking the rest of the pack, reliving the birth of my son and building the flames up until I couldn’t bear the heat of it.

  What I remember most, though, is the feel of him in my arms. And his smell, like fresh-cut hay. I have this memory of sitting in half-light, half asleep in the hospital chair, my head bowed down with my nose against his hair, smelling and smelling, like an animal might, as if I could burn his scent into my brain. I could feel the warmth of his foot resting against my finger and in that moment I felt charged with everything that being a father might mean. I held him to my chest and if I could have, I would have licked him clean, like an old wolf, claimed him as my own. Growled at anyone who tried to take him from me. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know where that feeling went.

  I imagine sometimes that one day he might write to me or phone. That one day I’ll be in my garden, planting, weeding, tidying the yard and the phone will ring and I’ll race in and pick it up, my hands covered in dirt and sweat and she’ll say he wants to talk to me. And I’ll jump at it. Wherever the bar is, however high she raises it, I’ll jump. Like that old river croc. I know I will.

  I shift my shoulder up against a life jacket and stretch out. The boat is caught up in the mangrove roots and I can feel the water eddying and pooling around the hull. I’ll head in soon, fire up the boat, cruise back to the ramp. For now there is just the river, the fug of a low tide, mangroves creaking in the wind. I give myself over to it, to the sweet river sound, to the whine of the mosquitoes, and tell myself I am home.

  The Life You Chose and That Chose You

  Izzy and Ona

  Favel Parrett

  Izzy is wearing his best shirt and long pants. Grandma pressed them hot this morning and the shirt is stiff, the collar tight around his neck. But he does not mind. He is happy he looks smart. He is happy his mother will see him all dressed up.
r />   A big boy now. Just as smart as Ona, his brother.

  Only his shoes let him down. His worn blue plastic sandals are covered with dust. Ona has proper shoes. Black leather shoes with laces and as he stands, he shines his shoes on the backs of his trousers one foot at a time. He is looking ahead. He is waiting for the plane to come, just like Izzy.

  It is dead and stuffy in the open-door airport, and it is crowded. Just one big room with two ceiling fans that barely move the air. All the seats are taken. All the tourists are waiting for their flights away from here to other places in his country. But Izzy only knows this place. And Izzy does not want a seat. He is happy to stand. He will see his mother and he will run. He will beat Ona. He will be the first to fall into her softness, the first to kiss her, the first to greet her.

  He is always the first.

  Now Baby is crying. It is the heat, or maybe she is hungry, but Izzy does not look at her. He keeps his eyes fixed on the glass doors that lead out to the runway. The doors he will see his mother come though. The doors he has watched her come through every four months for as long as he can remember.

  Grandma is stretching her back. She puts Baby down. Now Izzy wishes that there was a seat, one for her. For his grandma. He wishes that the tourists would leave and give her a seat. Can’t they see that she is old and that her back is hurting her? They seem dumb, these people. Melted by the heat – pink necks and pink faces.

  Izzy doesn’t like to look at them.

  Baby walks to him. She falls over but she does not cry. He tries to help her but she gets up on her own, pushes past him with her chubby arms. She walks to Ona. He looks down at her. He takes her hand and she stands quietly with him.

  Baby will do anything Ona commands of her. She will listen more to Ona than to anyone. She looks at him like he is the leader, the man of the family. But he is not the leader of Izzy. He is not the boss. Izzy is old enough to have a pair of shoes of his own. His mother is going to buy him some good shoes with the money she has saved and they will go into town. They will go into Maun and get some shoes fitted. Black shoes better than Ona’s. Because he will need them for school. He will have good shoes for school when he starts in three months. And then no matter how Ona beats him he will not be bossed. He will stand tall and think, Don’t you even try to boss me with your mean eyes. Don’t you try and boss me anymore!

  Grandma walks over. She picks up Baby.

  The plane is here.

  People are laughing as they come through the doors. And there is shouting and calling. They are happy. They are home. It has been a long time.

  Izzy keeps his place at the front, but his mother is not there.

  People are hugging, gathering luggage, moving out of the airport and onto the street outside. Many are wearing the same uniforms as his mother. Light khaki pants and shirt, with a little emblem of a steenbok on the pocket, its two tiny horns pointing up to the sky.

  Still his mother is not there.

  Ona moves forward, as far as he can without crowding the tourists, and he looks around. A man comes over. He is tall and he shakes Ona’s hand. He speaks to Grandma.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he says. ‘Mma Nancy is delayed. The replacement cook took ill and it may be a week or two before another can be found.’

  Grandma nods at him. ‘Thank you, Rra,’ she says.

  The man looks down at Izzy. He pats him on the head.

  ‘Do not worry, little man,’ he says. ‘You will see your mummy in a week or two. She will still have her twenty days. You will not be cheated.’

  And the man laughs like it is funny. Izzy turns his face away.

  The doors to the runway are closed now. There is no one left to come through. Grandma rests one hand on his shoulder. She is standing behind him, the weight of her there for him to lean on.

  ‘OK. OK,’ she says. ‘Let’s go. We have a long bus ride. Let’s go.’

  Izzy makes himself walk.

  *

  The bus stop is crowded. Many people from his mother’s work are there. They are chatting with friends, hanging onto family, holding their babies. The man who laughed at him is not there and Izzy is glad.

  They wait.

  There is no shade and the sun is beating them hard. Grandma drapes a cloth loosely over Baby’s head and face. She is asleep again. A concession man walks over, a blue and white cooler box strapped around his neck, and people start buying drinks. Izzy can hear bottles and cans being plucked from the ice cubes. It makes him feel cooler that sound, the sound of the ice clinking on the glass and against the cans.

  He listens.

  A lady is speaking to Ona. She tells him she knows their mother.

  ‘We are good friends,’ she says. ‘She is a great cook. We all love her. We all love chef Nancy.’

  Ona nods and he thanks the lady. She buys two cans of Coke Cola and she gives one to Ona.

  ‘Share it with your brother,’ she says. ‘It is too hot for water.’

  Ona looks up at Grandma and she nods her head. It’s OK.

  He opens the can with a crack and takes a gulp. He takes another and holds the can out for Izzy. Izzy can hear the fizzy drink inside but he shakes his head.

  ‘Take it,’ Ona says quietly, his eyes wide. ‘Don’t be rude!’

  Izzy can see the beads of condensation running down the can. He wants the feeling of coolness inside him, but he can’t make himself do it.

  His chest hurts too much and something is wrong.

  He stands with his arms by his side and tries hard to breathe. He looks down at the dirty concrete, his dusty sandals. His mother is not coming. She is not coming and he will not see her. She will not hug him and kiss him. She will not be there to make him his favourite cakes. She will not be there to sing him to sleep.

  They are going home without her.

  *

  The bus is already crowded and full when they get on. Grandma and Baby take the last seat. Izzy stands in the aisle and holds onto the seat railing. Through the open window he sees a small plane take to the air – a tourist plane full of those people with shiny sunglasses and matching clothes. And maybe they are going to his mother’s camp. Maybe they are going deep into the Okavango, a place he has never been and is not likely to go. And they will eat his mother’s cooking, the lunches and the dinners, and she will make them cakes and biscuits, the ones that he should be eating.

  Someone taps him on his shoulder. He turns and Ona shoves the can at him.

  Izzy takes it in his hand. The outside of the can is already warm but there is at least half left inside. And it is still good. Izzy lets his jaw fall loose with the sweet liquid – the Coke Cola.

  He nods his head to Ona, his brother.

  Home

  Catherine Cole

  The government has given Ahmed a house to the west of the city, a stone’s throw from Rookwood cemetery. His friend, Bert, brought him here. As Ahmed’s official visitor, Bert brought sweets and books to Villawood. He took Ahmed some new black socks once and cigarettes, though neither of them smoked. Bert’s eyes are an odd blue and when he laughs, lines fan from them. There is a gap between his front teeth. ‘Now we are unofficial,’ Bert said on the day of Ahmed’s release. And Ahmed nodded, grateful to have a friend at last.

  ‘Nothing special about this place,’ Bert said when he opened the front door. ‘Fibro. But it’ll do till your papers are ready. And it’s very quiet,’ he joked, pointing at the house’s only neighbours – two monumental stonemasons with work yards rarely used, two other dingy houses, the dead.

  When Bert left, Ahmed inspected the peeling paint, the large garden at the back, the outdoor laundry. Hiding in Baghdad with neighbours he’d read old National Geographic magazines. London looked very big, Paris elegant. He didn’t like the thrusting New York skyline or Singapore’s clipped blandnes
s. He was sorry his house was a long way from the wicked blue of Sydney Harbour, the curve of the Harbour Bridge, painted one end to the next over and over, he’d read, as the great Greek Sisyphus had laboured with his rock.

  *

  Now he’s been in his house a month, Ahmed goes into the city to look at the harbour, returning on silver trains that carry the desperate scents of a long working day, of someone’s dinner of precooked chicken or fried potatoes, the callers on mobile phones telling people where they are … nearly home, they say … I’m nearly home.

  As soon as he gets home he likes to walk slowly into the cemetery, the visits allowing him time to regain something of himself, some sense of a purposeful past from the rows of neglected graves. Gone are the train trip’s greasy takeaways, the sweaty underarms, the sweet plastic smell of school children. All is grass and loam, the scent of decay and sun on stone.

  He often worries that the silver trains run too close to the cemetery for eternal rest, the clatter of the carriages pulsing deep into the earth. In his country the dead are buried beyond a city’s walls, where it’s quiet and too far away for the spirits to walk back into town. Here they mingle with the living and a few times now he has seen a phosphorescent haze above his street, ghosts straying beyond the cemetery walls, he presumes. This is when he feels his difference most keenly. What could he say to these wraiths? In Rookwood the steaming souls like to see smiling faces, he decides, to gather some happy images of the living world to fortify their darkness. What use are thoughts about rich and poor, migrants and generations long gone, the venerated whose mausoleums are dotted here and there?

  *

  Flimsy or not, Ahmed thinks, the house at least offers a quiet space from which to watch the street pass, the trains slowing for Lidcombe station, the Orthodox church on the other side of the tracks. It is the view from the back of the house he prefers, the garden with its shrivelled old lemon and unpruned roses just like those at home. He lost his wife, Feroza, to cancer in 1996. His son and son-in-law were taken away to be tortured one night four years ago. Ahmed and his friends searched everywhere for the boys while his daughter wept into the hair of her newborn son. Then a neighbour came to say he’d seen the bodies thrown into a trench on the outskirts of town. Ahmed had gone looking for the grave but he never found it.