Pieces of Sky

by Trinity Doyle

  ‘So, um . . .’ He moves to walk past me, pointing his Pringles at the counter. And I realise I’m blocking the way.

  ‘Oh, sorry.’ I step aside and our arms brush in this aisle that’s only one and a half persons wide. ‘Are you—’

  ‘—There are other things I’d prefer, like sitting naked on a nest of bull ants.’ I turn around as a punk-looking girl walks in. ‘Oi, Evan!’ she calls past me. ‘Bluey’s just opened. We’re grabbing scallops. You coming?’

  ‘Yeah, hang on,’ says the guy behind me.

  ‘What’s going on, Lucy?’ She smiles at me, her hands on her hips.

  ‘I, uh . . .’ I blink at her. ‘Steffi?’

  She grins, all teeth.

  Her usual long blonde hair has been bleached to almost white and cut short, one side shaved close to her head and the other skimming her chin at a sharp angle. I know I’ve been a hermit these past few months but last time I saw her she didn’t look like that.

  ‘Nice hair,’ I say, walking past her and pushing my way outside.

  ‘What are you up to? Gonna ditch school today?’ she says, following me.

  I keep walking.

  ‘God, if I was you I’d take the whole year off.’

  I stop. Turn. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  She folds her arms and shrugs. ‘No one’s gonna care what you do. Should take advantage.’

  My jaw tightens and I open my mouth to argue, then I clock Jeremy Haines behind Steffi with a cigarette between his teeth. ‘Are you insane? This is a petrol station, do you want to blow us all up?’

  He holds it out to me. ‘It’s not lit,’ he says, smirking. Steffi cracks up and heat flushes through me. The guy I was talking to, Evan, comes out to join them and I storm off towards school.

  Steffi Greggson used to be my best friend. Back in primary school when her hair was normal and she cared about going to class.

  When I reach the school gate I’m hot, sweaty and have almost emptied my drink bottle. I check my phone—still got thirty minutes before school starts. My life is entirely screwed up and it’s not even 8am. The edgy panic claws back at me and I slug down the rest of my water. Then I head to the toilets to throw up and change into my uniform.

  Crowded.

  The buses pull up and the students stream in. They fill up the quad, the brick breezeways, the stairwells. A tiny Year Seven girl gets lost in a pack of Islander guys, emerging on the other side neck craned and eyes wide. Fist bumps, squealing hugs, grasping arms, laughter, shouting, cursing. Teachers shaking their heads.

  I watch the first day of school unfold from the top of our table in the quad.

  A few people look my way, their thoughts all over their faces. That’s his sister. Oh my God, how awful. Should I say something? What would I even say? She’s looking at me! Smile, keep walking.

  I take out my phone and grab my ear buds but I don’t play any music, my head’s too full already.

  I couldn’t get in the water.

  I couldn’t do it.

  Why? I know I’m not going to drown—I know it. But my face going under, my breath going away—it would come back—I can’t do it.

  ‘Lucy!’ Alix runs over and chokes me with a hug. ‘Are you okay? Where did you go? What happened?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say, wriggling out of her hold.

  She sits next to me. ‘We were so worried.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say again as Megan comes over.

  ‘Sure,’ Megan says, folding her arms.

  ‘I have something for you.’ Alix grabs a round plastic container from her bag. ‘For your mum from my mum.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, taking the klepon. Al’s mum is Indonesian and cooks the most amazing things. Out of all the containers of food given to us by friends and neighbours, hers are the ones I’m saving for when I can enjoy eating again.

  ‘Oh, and I’m to tell you that she used the good sugar.’

  ‘Right.’ I smile and tuck the container into my backpack. My mum’s been standing between our family and refined sugar for as long as I can remember.

  The bell rings and people head to the auditorium for assembly. I spot Steffi, Jeremy and Evan.

  ‘Did you have a panic attack?’ Megan says as I stand to go.

  ‘Megan!’ I say as my heart rate picks back up.

  ‘Maybe it was too much pressure,’ Alix says.

  ‘But you’ve always been good with pressure,’ Megan says.

  ‘Maybe it’s different now,’ Alix suggests.

  My mind races through the possibilities and I’m dimly aware Alix is mentioning Cam.

  ‘But why would that make a difference?’ Megan says, hoisting her bag higher on her shoulder.

  ‘Megan,’ Alix scolds, placing her hand on my arm. ‘What if we tried again, just us?’

  I meet her earnest brown eyes. She’d do anything she could to help me.

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say as we get swallowed up in the crowd of students.

  Mum’s door is closed when I get home. I touch a crack in the white paint. No one else is home but her door is a thick barrier between us.

  Did she miss me this morning?

  I escape to my room, close my door and lean against it. I love my room. It’s on the side of the house shaded by a massive jacaranda tree so it’s cooler in here than anywhere else. It’s smaller than Cam’s but I have a sliding door that leads out to the deck and his doesn’t. Everything is white except for the right side wall, which is painted a cool blue. My low double bed takes up one corner, fairy lights I strung up last Christmas then decided not to take down and photos from my trip to New Zealand—Team Australia Under 15s—make a collaged bed head. My desk is up the other end near the sliding door to the back deck, and next to it a white wooden ladder holds my medals, trophies, ribbons and plaques.

  I sit at my desk—swimming achievements burning a hole in the side of my head, I should be at the pool right now—and stick my new timetable inside my folder. I take my time, making sure it’s straight and the sticky tape is exact, then I unzip my pencil case and use highlighters to colour code each subject.

  There’s washing up in the sink. I should go do that.

  I make maths pink, making it look friendly, and my impulse is to make English blue but I go against it and make it yellow—a feeble victory over my instincts.

  When I’m done, my subjects are an ordered rainbow.

  I spin in my chair, trophy shelf flicking in and out of my eye line. Auntie Deb should’ve washed up—that’s why she’s here. I reach over and grab a medal. Gold: State, fifty-metre backstroke. I rub my thumb over the edges of the swimmer, arm raised, mouth open. Running the blue and white ribbon through my fingers, I wind it around my thumb until the tip turns white, then unravel it and let it hang limp.

  Everything worked that day. I hung onto the wall and swam the length in my mind, flawless. I felt connected to the water, to the pool, to the starting buzzer. I felt the edge of the win but didn’t let myself think it—once you think it then you’ve lost. I pushed off from the wall and everything else faded.

  I miss winning, competing. It’s a metallic taste in my mouth, muscles tense for something that’s not coming. I close my hand over the medal, grab a box of old school books from my cupboard and place it inside. I grab the rest and shove them in there too.

  Grabbing my laptop, I sit on my bed. It opens to the last thing I was looking at: Ryan’s blog. I hit refresh as if it might’ve changed in the last twelve hours when it hasn’t changed in the last twelve days. The same photo reloads: a ribbon of dark blue ocean against a lighter sky. I scroll through the others and stop before I hit old ones of Cam. From here I’ve worked out Ryan’s somewhere off the coast of Queensland. I get my phone out and type a text asking him when he’s coming home. Then I delete it. Just like all the other texts I haven’t sent to Ryan. Because my brother’s best friend, who spent more time living here in the past few years than at his mum’s, who’s more like family than the
auntie currently sleeping in his old room, didn’t tell me he was going anywhere. After the funeral he hugged me so tight I couldn’t breathe, and then he just left.

  I pull up iTunes and scroll through Cam’s playlists. Funny how some things can change: a couple of months ago all I wanted to listen to was dance tracks and stuff to pump me up while I worked out or before a race—despite Cam’s best efforts to educate me—and now I’ve taken all my brother’s playlists and I blare out the loud, sad songs he loved. I’ve found a connection in his music I’ve never felt before, and it keeps stabbing me in the heart.

  I press play on PJ Harvey and stretch out on my bed. At first the music washes over me and I’m not paying attention, but then I’m looping ‘This Mess We’re In’ and the notes are running through my veins, making me all at once heavy and light.

  And in that state I let myself miss my brother. Just a bit, just a small amount that I can take out of myself and inspect. To say, ah, yes there’s that shard of glass constantly in my side, that’s the one.

  ‘Nice music.’

  I scramble up and close my laptop. Mum’s leaning in my doorway, the makings of a smile on her tired face.

  ‘Hi.’ I breathe out. ‘Did I wake you? Sorry, Mum.’ She gives a slight shrug like it was nothing and walks down the hall. I follow. The heat in the front of the house is stifling. I open the windows and turn on the ceiling fan.

  Mum slumps at the breakfast bar and flicks through the junk mail, piled up on top of the Bluetooth speaker she used while she was cooking.

  ‘Crank it, Mum,’ Cam would say, turning the volume up. He’d pick Mum up from behind, and she’d laugh and bat at him with her wooden spoon. He’d take her hand and spin her round the kitchen to Fleetwood Mac.

  ‘You want a cuppa?’ I ask now. She doesn’t respond but I pull out her mug anyway.

  She stares at the IGA catalogue and runs her fingers over her short dark hair. She cut it the day after the funeral. I came to the door of the bathroom to find her standing there with these huge scissors, the evidence of her once-long hair in the sink.

  She looked almost satisfied.

  Auntie Deb didn’t say anything. She took the scissors from Mum and led her out of the bathroom. I stood there examining my own long brown hair, thinking maybe I should do the same.

  She looks up at me and I wonder if she’ll look at me like that for the rest of her life: all hollow like she’s been dug out by a spoon.

  I fill the jug and switch it on. Then, because I’m here now, I fill the sink and start doing the dishes.

  Mum didn’t grow up here. Her family lived on Sydney’s North Shore and she met my dad when they came up for holidays. It gives her this different look, as if she’s a bit exotic. Or maybe that’s just me.

  Everyone says I look like my mum, but they only say that because I look nothing like my dad. Cam looks—looked—like Dad: blond hair, blue eyes, skin that goes brown in the sun. I wish I looked like Mum. Where her skin is fair and bright, mine is washed out and pale. Her hair is thick and rich, dark brown mixed with copper. Mine is thin and limp. Her eyes are clear and green, mine sit on the yellow side of brown. Although now she’s faded. Now she’s starting to look like me.

  The jug flicks off and I make us both peppermint tea. Mum likes to give us a running commentary on the benefits of different herbal teas: lowers cholesterol, detoxifies your liver, cures memory loss. She made me drink green tea when I went to Zone last year; not sure it made me swim any faster.

  On the far wall behind her hangs the last piece she made before Cam died—before the coffin. An oil painting of the stormy sea. The waves are drawn in a Japanese style and all the boats are upside down. If I squint at her it looks like the white tufts of waves are exploding from her head.

  I’ve always been jealous of her art. I’m lucky if I can make stick figures work. Cam got Mum’s genes; his sketchbooks were filled with monsters, distorted portraits of his mates and made-up characters.

  I place the mug next to Mum’s hands and she looks up at me. ‘So.’ I drum my fingers against my cup and have nothing else to say.

  ‘Did you train this morning?’ She wraps her hands around her mug and looks into her tea.

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘How was it?’

  ‘It was okay.’ I shrug. A small smile tugs at the corners of her mouth.

  The front door opens and Dad walks in. Mum stiffens.

  ‘I’m home,’ he says, like we can’t already see that, and grabs a beer from the fridge.

  ‘How’s the shop?’ Mum asks but without any interest.

  ‘Still can’t find anyone who knows the difference between a Phillips and a flathead,’ Dad says. ‘It’d help if Ryan’d come back from wherever he’s run off to. What’s for dinner, Norah?’

  ‘Whatever’s in the freezer,’ Mum says, hugging her elbows.

  Deb walks in and plonks two bags of groceries on the bench. She levels a glare at me. ‘Where were you?’

  I frown at her.

  ‘I went by the pool to get you. You weren’t there. I’ve been ringing your phone the whole way home.’

  I look between Mum and Dad, my skin feeling like it’s a size too small. ‘I got a ride home with Megan.’

  ‘You couldn’t have let me know?’

  ‘You know better than that, Lucy,’ Dad says.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I lift my hands, ‘I forgot you were picking me up.’

  ‘Okay,’ she says, tapping out a cigarette from her pack. ‘Tell me next time.’ I nod and she heads to the front door for her smoke. ‘Making rissoles for tea,’ she calls.

  I grimace—yuk.

  ‘Oh,’ I say to Mum, remembering the klepon from Alix, ‘I’ve got something for you. Hang on.’

  I head back to my room and grab the container from my bag. I run into Mum in the hallway.

  ‘Sorry,’ she says, ‘I’m not feeling great.’

  ‘Okay.’ I hand her the container. ‘Here.’

  She takes it and goes back to her room, closing the door. If she eats even one I’ll take it as a win.

  Later that night I lie awake in bed.

  For two weeks in June my brother didn’t sleep. Most nights, when my parents thought he was in bed, he was out. I’d catch him sneaking back in at five in the morning when I was getting up for training. The other nights he’d be painting in his room. Bent over a canvas on his ink-stained carpet, noise-cancelling headphones blocking out the world. His room stank of oil and metho.

  That was when he threw his major work out and started again, when he told me he was channelling the spirit of Salvador Dali and everything had to be melting.

  One night I woke up to a loud bark of, ‘Fuck you, Dali,’ and he started again.

  I tried not to pay attention to him—winter training was already kicking my arse and I was about to leave for a week-long swim camp in Sydney. When I got back, Cam had been asleep for two days.

  Tonight the house is dark and quiet. Empty.

  In the hallway a crack of light comes from under my parents’ door. I stand next to it and listen for sounds, for anything to assure me they’re still there.

  When I was little, I stood here once because I’d had a nightmare. I wanted to call out for Mum but I panicked, thinking maybe they’d yell at me. I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I gasped Mum’s name until my voice returned. That’s how I feel now. My stomach in my throat, blocking all my words.

  I imagine Mum huddled under the blankets: shut down, turned off, collapsed. I need her. I need her to stroke my hair and tell me everything’s going to be okay, it’s just a nightmare, go back to sleep.

  I stay for one more minute, but behind my parents’ door there’s nothing but silence.

  Taking a deep breath, I continue down the hall to Cam’s room. I need to talk to him about Mum; I need to ask him if she’s going to be okay.

  I open his door, wincing at the creak of the hinges, and slip inside. This is where Cam exists to me. Here on the walls of his stupid
, dumb room. Where he would smoke cigarettes out of the window and blast punk music until Dad hammered on his door. His walls lined with surfing and skating posters, his wardrobe covered in band stickers. Now it’s all unused and smells damp.

  I sit on the carpet and lean against the wall. The moon lights up his room at odd angles, making menacing shapes out of the shadows. I picture his face: he sucks on a cigarette and tells me with certainty none of us are okay. Then he starts speaking in some made-up French-sounding language about the moon.

  My mind always dresses him the same: grey jeans and white Dinosaur Jr T-shirt—he lived in that shirt. I used to find myself staring at the young girl printed on the front with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She couldn’t have been more than ten but seemed so much older; she’d already seen it all, done it all and knew exactly who she was.

  I crawl over to his wardrobe and make myself a nest among his shoes. His clothes tickle the top of my head. I tug his shirts from their hangers and let them cover me. Cam, in my head, calls me a weirdo. I move his shoes around, trying to get comfortable, and lose my balance. My head whacks the back of the wardrobe, something hard lands on my foot. Ow. Crap. I keep still, trying to be quiet, listening hard for any signs of movement, but the house is silent. I move my foot, stretching out my toes one by one—God it hurts.

  Getting out of the wardrobe, I feel along the wall for the light switch. The brightness stings my eyes and I blink until my vision adjusts.

  An unmarked black box sits on the floor. I narrow my eyes and suck in my bottom lip. I bet it’s full of Playboy. Please don’t tell me I was struck by porn. I open it. Not dirty mags—well, one copy of FHM buried at the bottom. It’s filled with drawings, heaps of them.

  Monsters: crows with distorted human heads, people with crow heads, dogs with too many eyes, their tongues jutting from their open mouths. It’s no secret that my brother’s art creeps me out; it creeps Dad out too. Then there are others I haven’t seen before. Charcoal drawings of hands, Ryan looking pensive with his skateboard on his shoulders. My insides buzz with each discovery. I lay them out, being careful not to smudge them.