Checkers

by John Marsden

  I took a pause then and got out of bed and went to the window. There’s not much to see from here but I like it OK. At night I think of it as an ocean, with islands between this building and the road, a hundred metres away. There’s half a dozen islands, each one created by a spotlight. The lights are pretty strong: you can see every blade of grass, looking dry and lifeless in the glare. But outside the pools of light it’s all dark, like the ocean, black and secret. To reach the road, oh, to reach that road, that strip of life with its busy whizzing cars, with normal people rushing through their lives . . . That’s our aim. The life that we once lived in so easily, so effortlessly. We lived it like we breathed it—in, out; in, out—not knowing that the time would come when every movement of our lives would be an effort, when we’d have to think about every step, every word, every gesture. Nothing’s unconscious for me now, everything’s self-conscious.

  There are some things that once you’ve lost, you never get back. Innocence is one. Love is another. I guess childhood is a third. I’ve lost all of those, these last few months. I don’t know how to replace them. I don’t know if there is anything that can replace them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Checkers and I watched television together the day the contract was announced. Checkers had grown into a four-legged lunatic. He just lived to party. While I was watching TV, Checkers was watching me, hoping I’d start something—preferably a fight. His favourite activities were walks and eats, but fights came a close third. To start one, all it took was for me to grab his snout and hold his mouth shut for a while. The moment I released him, Checkers would leap away and come back with eyes flashing and jaws snapping and spit flying. If I wouldn’t play, he’d stretch out his front legs and drop his head, then, with his bum up in the air and his tail wagging like a metronome, he’d bark and bark.

  If I did keep it going we’d roll around the floor like wrestlers, me grabbing for his nose and Checkers snapping at my hands. He had amazing timing. Not once did he bite me. He’d often catch my hand and hold it in his teeth as I tried to get it back but he never broke my skin, never spilt my blood.

  That’s more than I can say for Mark.

  We used to fight so much. Blood noses, corked arms: he even broke my finger once. The last year I started beating him though: he wasn’t so keen then.

  When he—Checkers, that is—was little his teeth were like rows of needles. They were so sharp! He was a canine acupuncturist. When he held my hand then, I’d end up with red dots all over my skin from those little sharp points.

  But the day we watched the contract being announced Checkers just had to lie there depressed, because I wanted to see Dad and the others looking beautiful for the cameras. I saw it on two different news programmes and two current affairs shows before I got bored: it was the same sort of stuff on each one. No-one else was home: Mum had gone into the city to join Dad for another celebration—the official one this time—and Mark was at Josh’s. So there was no-one to share it with, no-one to see how I felt, no-one to talk to about what it was like to sit on the floor and watch Jack lie so publicly, so professionally.

  ‘What were your impressions of the tendering process?’

  ‘Very fair, very thorough.’

  ‘How did you feel when you found out you’d won?’

  ‘Well, terrific, as you can imagine. We’ve been celebrating all day, and we’ll be celebrating tonight, too, I can tell you. But tomorrow, tomorrow we’ll be straight down to work, planning stage one.’

  ‘Is this contract just a licence to print money?’

  ‘Oh no! No way! Who have you been talking to? This is an enterprise like any other. It could succeed and it could fail. Obviously it’s our assessment that we can make the project viable at our tender, but we’ll have to work very hard to ensure that it’s a success.’

  ‘How much did Rider Group tender?’

  ‘Well, that’s still a confidential matter, as you’d appreciate. It’s a question of the commercial sensitivity of the figures.’

  ‘What do you think gave Rider Group the edge?’

  ‘Obviously price is the big factor. But the Commission was authorised to take other aspects into account, such as the quality of the design and what it would contribute to the city, the level of offshore investment, and the integrity of the tendering company. I’d like to think that we came out well on all those counts.’

  Dad only spoke on one of the shows. On ‘Tickertape’ he and Jack were interviewed, and Dad talked about the share prices and the level of debt to equity, stuff like that. Because it’s a financial show they got into the kind of heavy details that I don’t really understand. It’s when ‘Tickertape’ finished that I switched off the TV.

  As soon as I did, Checkers’ head came up eagerly and he looked at me with wild hope. So I teased him a bit, walking casually towards the front door, but not saying the magic word, the word he was sweating on. He followed eagerly, almost on tiptoes, quivering with optimism, till I felt sorry for him, and said it.

  ‘WALK.’

  Then, as always, it was a matter of getting the door open so that this yelping, turbocharged, hysterical mutt could explode onto the park, scattering birds, leaves, puddles and other dogs.

  I loved the joy Checkers had. The way he rushed at life. If he’d been a high diver he would have run to the end of every board, and leapt off with tail wagging, barking enthusiastically, soaring through the air, sniffing all the way down, not caring what he’d find at the bottom till he arrived. That was the way he approached everything.

  The park was so lush and full of life, compared to these hospital grounds anyway. It’s something to do with the kind of world I’ve always lived in, I think, that I’m used to things being lush and rich and perfect. Luncheons are always beautifully arranged on elegant plates, bathrooms are always white marble with huge black towels, people never slop around with their hair in rollers and their feet in carpet slippers.

  The park had beds of crocuses and daffodils, stuff like that. Rhododendrons. A special rose garden.

  The hospital grounds could have been grassy and flowery too, but no-one had taken the trouble. When Marj tried, we didn’t give her much support.

  No-one else at the hospital had taken much trouble with anything. They’d painted the corridors off-white and light brown, but they hadn’t repainted them for quite a while. Near the nurses’ station there’s a noticeboard with posters about AIDS and smoking and breast cancer and cheerful stuff like that. Guaranteed to brighten up the lives of the psychotics, the demented and the terminally depressed. There are four postcards too, from staff on holidays, and three thank you cards from ex-patients. I smiled to myself when I heard Oliver and Daniel talking one day, and realised that we both knew all seven cards off by heart: we’d read them so many times, waiting for our medication.

  Along from the noticeboard is a bunch of art-work done by previous patients of the Adolescent Unit. They’re sort of posters, a bit like CD covers, all pretty aggro and heavy metal, except for one that’s more gothic. Most of them are full of knives and blood and stuff, with slogans like ‘School Sux’, and I think they’re there to show new admissions to the Adolescent Unit what a trendy cool place it is. Marj denies that, of course, but it’s what I think.

  There’s nothing else in the corridor, and nothing special in the wards either, except for a painting in each one. Like I said, in mine it’s a picture of a dog by a fire.

  Yes, no-one’s taken much trouble with things. Some of the staff take trouble with people, but no-one takes much trouble with things. Marj planting trees is about the only exception.

  I feel sad to think that a day of my life has passed the way today did, with so little happening, nothing being achieved. I’ve been alive for 5675 days, which is quite a lot, but I still don’t feel good about wasting any of them. Today really was hopeless. We had school this morning, or baby-sitting, as Daniel calls it. I’m sure they gave Mr Coe the job here because he couldn’t handle a regular class in a scho
ol, and someone at the Education Department thought he should at least be able to handle a small group in a hospital. But he can’t handle us. A class of seven shouldn’t be much of a problem, but then we’re a pretty weird class. Cindy’s so rude to him, Ben pesters him with questions, Oliver just does whatever he feels like. Daniel and Esther and Emine and I, the ones who’ve been here the longest, are meant to be doing correspondence, but Esther spends her whole time looking at art books.

  I finished a Maths assignment this morning. That’s something, I suppose, but I went there determined that I’d do at least three assignments. I just frittered the hours away, listening to Oliver and Cindy swapping jokes and goss, feeling a bit jealous maybe.

  Then Mr Coe put on a video of Macbeth for Emine, and I was half watching that. So the morning dawdled off into the distance.

  Lunch was a watery chicken noodle soup, then chicken and macaroni. Bad day for chickens. Then we had Group and Marj got angry at Daniel for mucking around and not taking things seriously. She keeps using the word ‘work’ for what we’re doing. ‘You worked well today.’ ‘There’s a lot of work to be done on that yet.’ ‘We’ve been working on this for quite a while.’ I don’t know if it’s work. I don’t think it’s what my father, or Jack, would call work.

  We were meant to be focussing on Ben, but we didn’t get far. Cindy was hopeless: when we’re not talking about her she’s not interested. Esther was slumped in a chair. I don’t think they’ve got her medication right yet. Normally it’s Oliver and Daniel and Emine who do the ‘work’, but today only Oliver seemed willing to put much in. Of course Ben was nervous as hell, all over the place, like he always is when the pressure’s on him. He wouldn’t say much about his family—he never does—but he talked about his school.

  ‘They’re all such dickheads there. I hate them.’

  ‘Why do you hate them, Ben?’ Marj asked.

  ‘I don’t know. They’re just real wankers. All they ever talk about is what they want to do with girls, and stuff like that. They’re so boring.’

  ‘Don’t you have any friends, Ben?’ said Cindy, as if she didn’t care whether he did or not—or worse, as if she already knew he didn’t and despised him for it.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘So what’s your problem?’ Oliver asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t ask to come here.’

  ‘How have you all found Ben in your time here?’ Marj asked. ‘Daniel, why don’t you start? How do you find Ben?’

  ‘I just look around and there he is,’ Daniel said, laughing hysterically at his hilarious joke.

  No-one else bothered. Marj was as patient as ever. She just waited, looking at Daniel, till he got the message and calmed down.

  ‘Daniel?’ she said again.

  ‘Oh well, you know. He’s a bit selfish sometimes. But I don’t mind him. He doesn’t bother me.’

  There was a long boring discussion then about Ben being selfish. It was mainly about how he won’t let anyone change channels on the TV, which is an annoying habit of Ben’s, but no worse than anyone else’s annoying habits.

  ‘Cindy, how do you find Ben?’

  ‘He’s a cool guy. He’s really funny.’

  This was so obviously a lie, but no-one called Cindy on it. She just said it because she was too lazy to say anything else.

  ‘Emine?’

  ‘Well, I think Ben’s kind of sweet?’ Emine says everything like she’s asking a question. ‘He’s always nice to me, you know? But I don’t know, I feel sorry for him sometimes. He doesn’t seem to have many friends? He seems kind of lonely?’

  ‘Why do you think that’s so?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know exactly. He’s just different to everyone else.’

  ‘Everybody’s different to everybody else,’ said Daniel.

  ‘Oh really?’ said Cindy. ‘What I want to know is, why can’t we smoke in Group?’

  ‘Cindy,’ said Marj, ‘I understand that you’re feeling resentful and angry today, but I’m going to ask you to be patient for a little while longer, till we finish looking at ways we can help support Ben.’

  That’s the way they all talk in here.

  ‘Oliver, how do you feel about Ben?’ Marj asked then.

  ‘I like him but he drives me crazy.’

  Marj started salivating. She loves comments like that.

  ‘You find him irritating?’

  ‘Yeah. Look, Ben, what I want to know is why don’t you just sit down and talk properly, like normal people? It’s like the moment we start talking, you’ve got to go somewhere. Are you on something, or what?’

  ‘We’re all on something in here,’ Daniel said.

  ‘It’s because I’m attention deficit hyperactive,’ said Ben.

  ‘Say what?’ said Cindy, who always tries to sound American.

  ‘And what the hell is that when it’s awake?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Talk English,’ Oliver said.

  Marj interrupted. ‘It’s true that Ben has been diagnosed as attention deficit hyperactive,’ she said. ‘That does account for some of his restlessness. But there’s a lot more to your problems than that, Ben, as you know—and I don’t think we can dismiss everything as being a result of the syndrome. Now, Oliver, you were saying?’

  ‘Oh well,’ said Oliver, ‘it’s just that he seems so damn nervous all the time. You can’t have a proper conversation with him because he never seems to want to talk about anything for more than thirty seconds. And when we’re playing basketball, like, two on two, he keeps mucking around and stealing the ball and stuff. Like last night, Ben, you went for that two hundred metre dribble right around the carpark. You thought it was pretty funny . . .’

  ‘It was,’ said Ben, giggling and squirming with delight as he remembered his moment of glory.

  ‘Yeah, for you maybe, but not for everyone else. And even when we all got mad and we were yelling at you, you still wouldn’t bring it back.’

  Ben was trying to stop giggling, but not because he felt embarrassed at being so juvenile, only because he knew he’d get in more trouble with us if he didn’t shut up fast.

  That’s what I mean. Discussing Ben taking the basketball was the most important achievement of the whole day. It’s so frustrating. I can’t stand it sometimes. I was in quite a good mood last night, but today was kind of marginal.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Things went along so calmly for so long. I copped a lot of envy from other girls: they didn’t say much but I saw it in their eyes. When they did say anything it was usually as a joke, like ‘Oh, you can afford it,’ or ‘Does your father want a personal assistant?’

  We hardly ever saw Dad. He’d always worked hard; now he doubled it. He took to going to the office at five o’clock in the mornings. He said he got more done then, because no-one else was in and there were no phone calls. But he worked late into the evenings, as well. The subject of our presents didn’t come up again for quite a while, although it was sort of understood that Mark would get his motorbike. No-one mentioned my idea at all. I thought it was actually a seriously good one. We could all be together in the country, having picnics under trees, swimming in the river, riding horses, everyone happy. But maybe they thought it was just some dumb teenage spur-of-the-moment junk. Probably Dad had been so pissed that night he’d forgotten it. I couldn’t be bothered bringing it up again.

  Apart from Dad working the much longer hours, I didn’t see much change in our lives. It wasn’t what I’d expected. At one stage I’d thought that we’d be living in total luxury, in some huge mansion where we wouldn’t have to do any work, just lie by the pool all day drinking from golden goblets. But no, it wasn’t like that.

  Oh, Checkers, he was the other big change of course. Not always for the good, either—I mean, he caused heaps of trouble. Our neighbours—well, the Sykes weren’t a problem but the Whites hated him, right from the start. They complained every chance they got. And Checkers seemed to sense that. How else could you explain t
he way he acted around them? And having no fence between the houses meant he could cause a lot of aggravation. Whenever Checkers wanted a crap he went to their back lawn. It was like he saved it all up for their place. He never crapped anywhere else. And, to save aggravation, I used to go and shovel it up and bury it. I hated that job. Really hated it, I mean; not just the way people say ‘Oh I hate doing that,’ and giggle. It made me sick to my stomach. Those moist little heaps, different shades of brown, the fresh ones still glistening, the older ones drier and darker—see, I can make myself sick just by writing about them.

  I could never be a mother because I could never bring myself to change the nappies.

  Anyway, Checkers. Some of the things he did to the Whites were quite legendary. They had a cat, Muggins, stupid ugly big thing that was a sort of purple colour. It looked like the hair on an old lady after she’d had it dyed. No, I’m exaggerating. It was a blue-grey colour and could trace its ancestry back to Henry the Second or someone. Of course Checkers, who had a bit of hunting blood in him (I think he was part cocker spaniel), thought that Muggins was provided purely for his amusement, or to keep him in practice. He spent half his life chasing Muggins, who had to change from a ground dweller to a tree dweller if he wanted to stay alive. Mark and I made things worse by deliberately sooling Checkers onto Muggins whenever the Whites went out and we saw their heap of purple fluff prowling round the place. It got so that all we had to do was say, ‘Muggins, Checkers, Muggins,’ and he would detonate into a frenzy of barks, rushing around looking for a victim to tear limb from limb.

  One afternoon I was in the garden studying for a Biol test when I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up in time to see a streak of blue-grey doing about one-fifty across the lawn. Checkers was in hot pursuit, siren wailing and lights flashing. Muggins skidded around the corner of the Whites’ pool, raced along the end section, turned again and made for the gazebo. Checkers, seeing where he was headed, decided to go for the short cut and took a flying leap across the pool. He got about a third of the way over before belly-flopping, in a great splash of spray. But he wasn’t bothered. He paddled forward bravely, looking for the cat. Only problem was that when he got to the other side he couldn’t get out; I had to leave the Biol books and go and rescue him.