Starting from Scratch

by Penelope Janu

  CHAPTER

  2

  Matts and I don’t touch as we walk up the slope to the paddock, but he stays close by my side as if afraid I might fall any minute. I’ve wrenched my shoulder. Every step hurts because of the bruise on my hip, but I’m determined not to limp. I pull up my hood in an attempt to keep the cold from my cheek.

  ‘You might as well tell me why you’re here, Matts.’

  ‘You’re hurt. It can wait.’

  ‘You said you wanted to warn me.’

  ‘I’m also here for work.’

  We skirt around the dam. The water, ochre in daylight, in moonlight is sepia brown.

  ‘What work?’

  ‘You’re a teacher, aren’t you?’ I feel his gaze on the side of my face as, holding my hip to support it, I step over a ditch. ‘And the chair of Horseshoe’s Environment Committee.’

  ‘Did you look me up?’

  ‘Have you heard of the Ramsar Convention?’

  ‘It’s like a treaty between governments, isn’t it?’

  ‘It focuses on the conservation of wetlands. I’m the European representative on the secretariat that administers it.’

  ‘What did you study?’

  ‘Environmental engineering. I specialise in wetland biodiversity.’

  The moon, bold and dark yellow, peers through the clouds again. Matts, who used to take one step for every two of mine, is walking deliberately slowly. If I close my eyes and open them again, will he still be here? What do I feel most intensely? Hurt? Pain? Betrayal?

  When our arms bump, I skitter away. Fear?

  I clear my throat. ‘The creek leads to the Macquarie River, which runs through Horseshoe Hill. There are wetlands at the end of the river, aren’t there? The Macquarie Marshes are on the convention’s Ramsar List.’

  ‘They form part of our study. We’re consulting to your federal government.’

  I push my hands into the opposite sleeves of my jacket, hoping to warm them. ‘My father is a member of parliament. Is there a connection?’

  ‘To my work, no.’

  ‘What’s the warning about?’

  ‘Something that happened when we lived in Buenos Aires.’

  I skirt around divots made by sheep and cattle hooves as we walk in single file towards the perimeter lights that mark the fence of the school. An owl hoots. Matts looks down. The scar on his chin is silvery now.

  ‘Do you want to rest?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m fine.’ When we near the end of the track, where the clearing is wider and the walking is easier, we step side by side again. ‘Argentina was such a long time ago.’

  ‘Not to me,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Did you do your year of military training?’

  ‘Most of it in military intelligence. I hated it.’

  ‘I live at the old schoolhouse, but I guess you know that already.’

  ‘Buenos Aires, Sapphire. I’ll come back tomorrow. What time?’

  ‘I don’t have good memories of it.’

  ‘Because of your mother?’

  I don’t want to lead him through the shortcut to the schoolhouse, so I take the path to the road that leads to the town. We pass the ironbark tree, the trunk thick and rough, the leaves long and thin.

  ‘And other things.’ I step carefully over tree roots. ‘How did you know I was in the tree?’

  ‘I saw a light. Why were you hiding?’

  A brushtail possum steps onto the power line that runs from the road to the school. He crosses the span as if he’s on tiptoes before he leaps onto the roof of the school hall. His claws scratch and scrape as he scampers along the gutter.

  ‘Is the warning about my father? I have little to do with him.’

  ‘You changed your surname.’

  ‘I didn’t want to be a Beresford-Brown any more.’

  He runs a hand roughly through his hair, thick and straight like it always was. ‘You’re still running,’ he says.

  When an aching tightness snakes up my chest, I walk to the school sign and grasp the post. I speak over my shoulder. ‘I’ll be at the farmhouse tomorrow afternoon. You will have passed it when you drove into town. Can we meet at five o’clock?’

  I feel his eyes on my back as I walk up the steps of the original schoolhouse to the porch. As I kick off my boots, I lean against a timber desk, marked with stains from fountain pens. A century ago, children would have hung their hats, coats and satchels on the rows of brass hooks on the opposite wall. Tumbleweed, meowing loudly, leaps up the steps and jumps onto the desk.

  ‘Hey, puss.’ When I take him into my arms, he purrs against my neck. ‘You’ll never guess who I saw tonight.’ My eyes sting with sadness as I stroke his fur, the stripy shades of brown fading with age. We pass through the living room and into the kitchen, built at one end of the verandah that overlooks the school grounds. He waits on the threshold as I walk gingerly down the back steps and along a crumbling concrete path to the toilet, a slightly modernised version of the old outhouse.

  My muscles have stiffened even more by the time I return to the schoolhouse, holding the door open for Tumbleweed to follow me through. When he curls up on the rug in front of the fireplace, I pick him up and lay him on the couch in his favourite spot, covering him with a mohair throw. He looks at me balefully before curling up again. ‘Sleep tight.’

  The bathroom is a prefabricated unit, slotted between the living room and bedroom. I flick on the light. The graze on my face runs from my cheekbone to my jaw. It’s not deep, just messy and dirty. I soak a cloth in warm water, holding it against my face as I pull the elastic from my plait and unravel my hair. My face is pale; my eyes are navy.

  I was Sapphire Beresford-Brown. Now I’m Sapphie Brown.

  It’s after eleven o’clock by the time I sit on my bed in pink pyjamas, my laptop on my knee, a glass of water on my side table and a packet of frozen peas, wrapped in a handtowel, pressed against my face. The bed is only a double. Even so, it’s impossible to get anything out of the cupboard without closing the door to the living room first. I pull the quilt more firmly around my waist and open my browser.

  Matts Laaksonen.

  How many times have I got this far? Typed his name but never hit return? He no longer had a place in my life.

  He has no place in my life now, but he’ll be back again tomorrow.

  He did an undergraduate degree in Oulu and postgraduate studies in Helsinki. With his Ramsar work he’s based in Switzerland, but seems to travel all over the world. He has no social media presence, but there are plenty of images attached to his name. In some photos he’s dressed in boots and a warm winter jacket. In others, he’s wearing jeans with a T-shirt, his face and arms tanned. He’s in mountainous regions in France and Italy. He’s thigh deep in a Yorkshire bog—with a lift in his lip that could be a smile. He’s lying on his back with an arm across his eyes, one leg bent at the knee, on a grassy slope in Finland. There’s a village in the distance, multicoloured houses and a bright blue lake.

  Occasionally, he’s wearing a suit. At the front of a lecture theatre. At a horseshoe-shaped table at the UN offices in Geneva.

  When the peas soften, I put them on my side table. I gingerly touch the graze as I scroll through more images.

  There are photographs of Matts with a number of different women—beautiful and leggy with curvy silhouettes and nicely rounded breasts. Holding hands, arms linked.

  When salt stings my cheek, I reach for the tissue box, pluck out tissues and press them against my eyes. I sniff, swallow and wipe my eyes again.

  ‘Why did you have to come back?’

  When we met, I was seven and Matts had just turned ten. He told me later I had pigtails in my hair. One was higher than the other, but when he tried to even them out, I pushed his hand away and said I liked them as they were. Our fathers both worked in Buenos Aires. Leevi Laaksonen was the Finnish ambassador to Argentina and my father was a bureaucrat from the Australian Department of Trade. Matts’s house was white with a t
erracotta roof in a hundred shades of orange, and my house was yellow with a kaleidoscope of colour in the garden. We lived in the same tree-lined street and attended the same international school. Our mothers became best friends.

  Matts was thirteen when his mother died. My father thought I was too young to go to Inge’s funeral, but Matts insisted he wanted me there. After the service, the mourners were directed to the embassy gardens and Matts took my hand. He held my fingers so tightly they hurt. He walked so quickly that I ran to keep up. He pulled me into the shade of a jacaranda tree, the canopy heavy with soft purple blooms. When his shoulders trembled, I stroked his arm. He swallowed a sob and I gave him my tissues. He blew his nose.

  I rubbed his back.

  He wiped his eyes.

  ‘Don’t scrub so hard,’ I whispered to him. ‘You’ll make them go red.’

  When he gave the tissues back, they were so soggy and torn that they fell apart in my hands. I rolled them into a tight little ball and hid them in my pocket.

  We were always together.

  We cared for each other.

  Kissa. A cat. Kotka. An eagle.

  CHAPTER

  3

  I’m yawning as I unlock the door and let in the morning sun. When I see Barney sitting on my fence, I double back to the kitchen for my mug and shove my feet into sheepskin boots. I jiggle the string of the teabag as I walk down the path towards him.

  ‘You’re up early,’ I say. ‘It’s not even seven.’

  He pulls his long legs free of the railings and jumps to the ground. When he kicks a patch of dirt where the grass doesn’t grow, his shoe disappears in the dust. His blond hair is sticking up like he’s just got out of bed.

  ‘Reckon it was you who binned them,’ he mutters.

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  When he looks up, his mouth drops open. The swelling in my cheek has gone down, but the graze is fiery red.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I fell at the creek.’

  ‘Were you climbing?’

  ‘The marijuana, Barney. That’s what I’m concerned about.’

  His shoulders sag. ‘I shouldn’t have moved it behind the tomatoes, miss. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Sorry you moved it, or sorry you grew it at all?’

  ‘My mates gave me the seedlings months ago. They’ll want what the plants were worth.’

  ‘What mates?’

  ‘It was only weed.’

  ‘You did it for your Dubbo cousins, didn’t you? They’re older than you. Why don’t they grow their own illegal substances? Were they planning to sell it? That’s dealing, Barney. You’d be in serious trouble if you were caught.’

  ‘My mates couldn’t do it at home. They were worried about the cops.’

  ‘The police come to Horseshoe too, you know. And you’d be the one in possession. You’re fourteen now. What would your mum say about juvenile detention? What about Archie?’

  ‘Mum would be gutted. Archie too.’

  ‘You’re right about that.’

  Archie, Barney’s younger brother, is eight years old and has been in my class for the past two years. Shelley, the boys’ mother, is raising her sons on her own and works at a factory in a neighbouring town. Archie is very bright, but has ADHD and struggles socially. The brothers are close.

  ‘Will you go to the cops?’

  ‘That’s not all you have to worry about. You could be expelled from school.’

  ‘I have to do another two years to get an apprenticeship.’

  ‘Assuming you’d get one with a criminal record.’

  His face is flushed. ‘I don’t know what to do. If I don’t get some money to them, my cousins, their mates, they’ll kill me.’

  The kids know I support them, that I give second chances, and third ones and fourth. They know I do what I can to protect them when they’ve done something wrong. Some take advantage of that, but others do better in the future. I sip from my mug. The steam rises, stinging my cheek.

  ‘Your mum could talk to her brothers,’ I say eventually. ‘Let them sort it out.’

  ‘No! My cousins—they’ll think I dobbed them in.’

  ‘Just tell the truth: that I found the weed, destroyed it and blamed you. With any luck, your cousins will think you’re not much good at crime and leave you alone in the future. And if you’re upfront, your mum will see you’re taking responsibility for your mistake. Reassure her it won’t happen again and she’ll be relieved you’ve learnt your lesson. Shelley works hard for you and Archie. You’re old enough to help her out, not make things more difficult.’

  He lifts his chin. ‘When I’ve finished my apprenticeship, I’ve got stuff I want to do for her.’

  ‘She’s told me about that, how you’re going to build her a house.’

  ‘Reckon I can, when I run my own business.’

  ‘I think you can too, Barney, provided you keep out of trouble. You’re great with Archie, you don’t muck up at school and you work hard in the holidays. Your mum cares about you a lot. She trusts you.’

  He shuffles his feet. ‘Your mum’s not around, right?’

  ‘My mother’s not relevant to—’

  ‘You were talking about my mum before.’

  I blow out a breath. ‘Mine died eight years ago, when I was nineteen.’

  ‘She was a druggie, wasn’t she?’

  When we moved to Buenos Aires, Mum was sociable and vivacious. She enjoyed the expatriate life, caring for me and supporting my father. But after Inge’s death, even though Matts and his father went back to school and work, Mum was tearful, unsettled and anxious. She rarely laughed, and only entertained when she couldn’t get out of it. She wasn’t the woman my father had married.

  At his insistence, she went to a doctor and he prescribed sleeping pills. Maybe she took more than she was supposed to? One night when my father was away, she fell. I found her in the hallway between our bedrooms, disoriented and unable to speak. She’d injured her neck. Physiotherapists. Naturopaths. Chiropractors. Doctors. Painkillers.

  She tried to get off the drugs too many times to remember. Or maybe not, because I think I remember them all. Withdrawal. Pain. Relapse.

  I blow on my tea a few more times before I answer Barney. ‘My mother had a drug addiction, yes.’ I take a sip. ‘Where did you hear that, anyway?’

  ‘School. That’s why you’re a foster kid, why you went to the Hargreaves.’

  ‘When I was sixteen, but … I was better off than a lot of other kids. I wasn’t abused. I could have gone to England with my father.’

  ‘You’re against drugs because of your mum.’

  ‘You sure it’s carpentry you’re passionate about? You don’t want to be a psychologist?’

  ‘What do they do?’

  ‘They snoop into other people’s lives.’

  He grimaces. ‘I wasn’t saying your mum was on meth or heroin, nothing like that.’

  ‘My mother abused painkillers and other drugs. Some she got on prescription, others she didn’t. But addiction is addiction. It’s brutal and dangerous—for you and the people you care about.’

  Two stitches down, four stitches across.

  Matts was sixteen when he got the scar on his chin. It wasn’t long before our families left Argentina for Canberra, Australia’s capital city, and Mum was worried she wouldn’t be able to get everything organised without the drugs she’d run out of again. Matts had followed me along the backstreets of Buenos Aires and down to the ports, and refused to leave without me. When an argument started between the dealer and Matts, the dealer pushed Matts from the wharf.

  When I saw Matts the next day, his arm was in a sling and he was propped up in bed. He couldn’t eat because his face was swollen and he could only drink through a straw. It was painful for him to move, but he shifted on the bed to face me. He never raised his voice, even when he was angry.

  ‘You’re thirteen, Kissa,’ he said. ‘If you do that again, I’ll tell your father.’
<
br />   ‘You wouldn’t!’

  ‘You’re growing up now. There are many ways the dealers can hurt you.’

  ‘Mum needs my help.’

  He must have clenched his jaw, because he winced and held his good hand against it. ‘I need you too.’

  I walked to the side of his bed and picked up the glass. ‘Please, Kotka, don’t say anything. I promise I’ll be careful.’

  He frowned. But when I held the straw to his mouth, he covered my hand with his.

  ‘What happened, miss?’ Barney kicks his shoe against the fence. ‘Did your mum take an overdose?’

  ‘She bought pills on the street in Canberra.’ Clearing my throat, I focus on the long strappy leaves of the kangaroo paw I planted near the gate. ‘The coroner couldn’t work out whether she took too many or the batch was bad, but she became disoriented and ended up in the middle of a road. She was hit by a car, but it wasn’t the driver’s fault. End of story.’ There are no buds on the kangaroo paw, but perhaps it will flower in the spring.

  ‘Sorry about that, miss.’

  ‘You have to tell your mum what I’ve told you about my mother. Otherwise, I’ll have to do it.’

  ‘I’ll tell her.’ He stands a little taller. ‘But not my mates.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I throw the rest of my tea into the garden bed. ‘And while you’re talking to Shelley, how about you own up about the weed? I know she’ll do what’s best for you.’

  ‘I hope she don’t kill me.’

  ‘Trust me, she won’t.’

  ‘Well if she does, it’ll be your—’

  ‘Hey! Quit while you’re ahead.’

  He scuffs his feet. ‘Are you going to the farmhouse now, to your horses and flowers and stuff?’

  I look over the paddocks to the fuzzy outline of the sun in the distance. I can’t see the farmhouse from here, only a glimpse of the trees either side of the creek. ‘It’s not mine yet, Barney.’

  ‘But it will be one day, right? That’s what Mum says, because of all the work you put in.’

  It was only after I was given a permanent position at the school and had financial security that I applied to the council for an option to buy the farmhouse. But when the youth centre needed somewhere to run its activities, I pushed back the purchase. Delaying also gave me more time to save up, so I wouldn’t have to borrow as much from the bank.