The Boy from the Mish

by Gary Lonesborough

  Tomas sits down beside me. ‘Do you need healing?’ he asks.

  ‘Sometimes,’ I reply.

  Uncle Charlie calls us all to gather. We leave our paintings and come together at the bank. We sit in a circle on the sandy dirt, Tomas beside me. He edges his knee towards mine, and I can feel our hairs touching each other so slightly.

  Uncle Charlie wears his buttoned blue shirt and broad-brimmed hat, which is decorated with an emu feather. He holds his bucket in front of him, which he’s filled with gum leaves.

  ‘It’s been a tough year for a lot of you boys,’ he says. ‘We’ve lost people, we’ve gotten into trouble and gone through some bad times. But each of us turning up here today, that shows our strength. That shows the importance of this group, and how we must stay together and stay united. If not for us, for the little ones.’ He points to the younger boys, who are all painted up now. ‘Don’t these fellas look deadly? They are our future. We need to show them the way, because our culture isn’t getting any younger, but it can always get stronger.’

  We are all silent. We always shut up and listen to Uncle Charlie when he speaks.

  ‘What’s your name, son?’ Uncle Charlie asks, turning his eyes to Tomas.

  ‘Tomas,’ he says, and his voice is so light and croaky.

  ‘Where you from, Tomas?’

  ‘Penrith,’ Tomas says.

  Uncle Charlie smiles. ‘Do you know the country where Penrith is?’

  Tomas shakes his head.

  ‘Do you know your totem?’

  Tomas shakes his head again.

  ‘When you go back to Penrith, you should spend time with your elders. I won’t tell you to do it, that decision has to come from you, but you should go to your elders. You should ask them about your country and your totem. Because that is your identity. A blackfella with no identity is a lost blackfella. He don’t know where he belongs.’

  ‘I don’t know my elders,’ Tomas says. The whole group is quiet. ‘I don’t know my mob.’

  ‘You don’t know your mob?’ Uncle Charlie asks.

  ‘Nah, not really. One of my caseworkers tried to connect me with things, but I didn’t care. None of that really mattered. I just wanted to have fun, then I ended up in lockup.’ Tomas’ voice is so tender, it could break in the wind. ‘When I got out, they put me with Jackson’s Aunty.’

  ‘She’ll show you the way, Tomas,’ Uncle Charlie says. ‘You just have to ask, and when she answers, listen to her. You been in trouble, done the wrong thing, made mistakes, but that doesn’t have to be who you are. We all make mistakes. It’s just a part of life, and we all grow a little bit every day.’

  As I listen, I begin to think Uncle Charlie should write a book or something, or go on a speaking tour.

  ‘You just have to make that decision,’ he continues. ‘You can make a better future for yourself.’

  Tomas doesn’t respond. The rest of the group stays quiet. Uncle Charlie pulls a matchbox from his pocket. He ignites one of the matches and drops it into the bucket of gum leaves, which crackle with the fire. Smoke starts to bellow from the rim.

  ‘Come through the smoke, Tomas,’ Uncle Charlie says. ‘Let it cleanse you of the bad spirits.’

  Tomas stays sitting for a moment, but stands at the encouragement of Lionel. Uncle Charlie stands to greet him in the centre of the circle. He places the bucket on the ground.

  ‘Do what I do,’ he says to Tomas. He uses his hands to wash the smoke over his body. Tomas imitates him, washes the smoke over himself. He walks back to his seat and smiles, though I can see he’s trying not to.

  ‘That was pretty cool,’ he whispers to me.

  One by one, the rest of us take turns stepping through the smoke, waving it over ourselves and letting the smell sink into our skin. Then Uncle Teeter starts a little fire and we have a feed of sausage sandwiches.

  Tomas yarns with some of the men. They joke around and I watch the smile on his face. It’s new. It’s bright and has reach – it reaches me and almost forces a smile onto my face at the sight of it.

  A little before sunset, the men begin to leave with their sons. Uncle Charlie leaves with Uncle Rex, after a private chat with Tomas.

  ‘You lads can go ahead without us,’ I say to Jarny and Kalyn. ‘We’ll stash the canoe in the bushes.’

  Jarny and Kalyn set off onto the lake. Tomas is quiet as he gets into our canoe. I push it into the water and climb inside and the canoe rocks back and forth, then steadies as I begin to paddle.

  ‘Wanna just float for a while?’ I ask. Tomas nods.

  The air is cooler as the sun begins to lower in the sky. I stop paddling when we reach the deepest section of the lake, at the centre. The water looks almost black beneath us. Tomas shifts around so he can face me.

  It’s so quiet on the water. So peaceful. The kids from the camping ground have gone back to their campsites and we don’t hear their voices or their laughter, only the sound of the water splashing against the side of the canoe.

  My heart begins to race as I catch Tomas staring at me through his sunglasses. He takes his gaze away when I catch him, then I do the same when he looks back at me. I beg myself to muster the courage to tell him what I’m feeling as he sits so close to me. I’ve never been able to say those kinds of things, not even to Tesha. At the same time, I don’t think I want him to know. It scares me.

  I look away again. I don’t want to feel that need to say something, because maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m so far wrong that he would hate me for feeling what I’m feeling. But at the same time, it kind of excites me. To know that another boy could feel such feelings for me, any boy, would be enough. Even if he didn’t, I would smile and say everything is okay.

  ‘You know how long you’re here for?’ I ask.

  ‘Not sure. I think Aunty Pam said we’ll head back to Sydney after New Year’s,’ he says.

  ‘So, you’ll leave in a few days?’

  ‘Yeah, probably. A few days.’

  The silence falls between us again. I gaze at Tomas’ chest as he pulls off his shirt. There are hairs sprinkled on his chest, just a few, like mine. My eyes wander to his stomach. I want to trace my fingers along the trail of hair that runs from his bellybutton to his shorts in a perfect line.

  ‘Did you have sex with Abby?’ I ask.

  ‘Tried.’ He blushes. ‘Couldn’t get it up.’

  ‘Did you like Abby?’

  ‘She was different. I dunno. I guess she didn’t really do it for me.’

  My eyes find their way to Tomas’ legs, which are bent slightly, knees facing his chest. My fucking eyes have a mind of their own. They are being mischievous, but they know I want to feel his legs, feel his legs’ hairs against the palm of my hand.

  Tomas turns away and looks over the water. He knows. I’m sure he knows.

  ‘That’s all right,’ I say.

  There’s a pause, and he is so still.

  ‘Did you love her? Your ex-girlfriend?’ he asks, staring directly into my eyes from behind his sunglasses.

  ‘I dunno.’ I stumble on my words. ‘I liked her. In a way.’

  ‘In a way?’

  ‘Yeah . . . in a way,’ I repeat, and I realise I’m speaking as though I’m reading from poetry, or studying my own words. I shrug my shoulders. ‘People like different things in different ways . . .’

  ‘Different ways?’ he asks.

  Our feet are so close on the canoe floor. I could reach out and touch him.

  ‘Yeah, different ways.’ We both burst into laughter, just for a moment. Tomas rests back. His feet brush mine as he pushes them past my legs. The sweat is growing on my skin as I lean back as well. My shoulders rest against the sides of the canoe near its pointed end.

  I see him staring above my head, then watch as his eyes descend to meet mine. He giggles and looks away. There is an unspoken set of guidelines that boys have to follow when attempting to flirt with girls, but no one’s ever egged me on to flirt with a boy before. I know of no guidel
ines to follow when flirting with boys. But there is only us. No one else. We are floating somewhere on the lake. Alone.

  I push my foot under Tomas’ leg. I rest it against the skin on the outside of his thigh, between his leg and the canoe wall. I try to stay still. His thigh is warm against my foot. He moves his foot past my leg and rests it on the outside of my thigh. It feels like we’re playing a game of hide-and-seek. I gently brush his skin with my big toe. I see he is trying to hide a smile.

  I reach my fingers to the side of his foot and tickle. He laughs and pulls his foot away. I smile and sit up, lean forward and look at him. His mouth curls at its sides. The growing line of hair above his upper lip curls with his mouth. I want to kiss him, so I can feel that hair tickle my upper lip. I want to brush it with the tip of my index finger.

  The sky is growing darker. The silence comes again. Tomas is avoiding eye contact again, but so am I.

  ‘You know, I wouldn’t have come down if you didn’t want me to.’ Tomas leans in.

  ‘I wanted you to,’ I say.

  ‘Really? Didn’t seem like it.’

  ‘I didn’t think I wanted you to. But really, I did. I just wasn’t sure.’

  ‘You weren’t sure?’

  ‘No,’ I say, turning my gaze from Tomas. ‘But I know now that I wanted you to, so you could see the culture we have and didn’t think we just get drunk and party on the Mish.’

  ‘I knew that already,’ he smiles. I see it from the corner of my eye, so I turn back to him. ‘I have fun with you.’

  I chuckle. ‘You have fun with me?’

  ‘Yeah. You’re different to the other boys I know.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You’re just . . . I dunno . . . just different.’

  The cooling breeze blows over my arms as I start paddling us again and the canoe moves through the water. Tomas catches me as I stare at him, but this time, I don’t look away. I want him to see me staring.

  Tomas rests his arms over the canoe walls and lowers his fingers into the water. He flicks a splash into my face, landing it in my eyes and laughing like a little kid who just farted in their sibling’s face. I wipe the water away and splash him back with the paddle. He rests back and pushes his feet between my legs while I continue paddling. He moves his feet to my inner thighs. So gently, he brushes his toes against my skin and reaches to the cuffs of my shorts. He wears a cheeky smile as I stare at him.

  ‘People are gonna see what you’re doin’, you know?’

  He just shakes his head. ‘I don’t care.’ He sounds so determined, still rubbing my thigh with his toes as we glide across the lake.

  I ease my arms, letting the paddles rest on the side, and the canoe slows its journey. I can feel a fire inside me. It’s building and growing and I can’t stop myself from doing what I’m about to do.

  I pull the paddles in beside me, shuffle onto my knees, crawl to Tomas. He looks into my eyes, no blinking, as the canoe rocks. My heart races faster. The blood rushes through me. My hands are shaking. Tomas leans forward and kisses me. I press my lips against his and I kiss him back.

  Time stops forever for a moment.

  I pull my lips back, but Tomas grasps the back of my head and pulls me closer. We kiss again. His lips are so soft, but we kiss hard. I’m having my first kiss all over again. It could be morning, night, noon, any time of day. We could be anywhere at all. It doesn’t matter. There is nothing else that matters anymore. There is just me and him.

  10

  The sun is setting over the mountain as we return to the Mish. We pass Kalyn’s parked ute, Tomas staying close behind me, his bare feet smacking on the ground. We’ve hardly said a word to each other since we made it to the lake’s shore and stashed the canoe in the bushes. I replay our kiss over and over in my head. It was unlike any other kiss I’ve had.

  We make it through my front gate and into the house. Mum is just serving dinner, and the smell of the lamb chops and gravy invades my nose. Tomas follows me upstairs and I grab my phone from its charger. As Tomas gets in the shower, I go back downstairs and take a seat beside Henry at the table. He bangs his fork on the plate, anticipating his dinner.

  Aunty Pam sits in the chair opposite me, which leaves the chair next to me vacant for Tomas. I watch the staircase, waiting for him to appear. I take one of the stacked plates and fill it with two lamb chops and a bunch of vegetables and then pour gravy over it for him. Then I rest it on the table in front of the empty chair beside me. I start to eat when the kids start. They throw their food into their mouths like they’re starving to death.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket. I check to see a message from Kalyn.

  Can I ask you a question?

  No worries. Sure, I reply.

  The phone doesn’t make it back to my pocket before it vibrates again.

  Would you mind if I asked Tesha out?

  My stomach feels like it’s emptied itself and my heart has stopped beating. I reread the message, then text back.

  Why would you even ask that?

  My whole body becomes hot and I feel like I might choke on my food as I try to swallow it. My phone vibrates and I check it again.

  We been talking, and I wasn’t gonna do anything.

  Another message comes.

  But I thought you’d be ok with it.

  I start to write a reply – an angry one. Why the hell would I be okay with it? She’s my fucking ex. The steam is almost puffing from my ears, like in one of those cartoons. But in the end I send him a different message.

  I’ll think about it.

  I turn off my phone and go back to my dinner. The taste seems bland now. The gravy doesn’t have the richness it did before Kalyn’s texts. When Tomas comes down, I barely look at him.

  After dinner, I pile on the couch with Mum and Aunty Pam and Tomas and all the boys, who spread out on their mattresses while we watch Robin Hood – the animated one where he’s a fox. Tomas goes upstairs early, but I don’t want to follow him. There’s some sort of strange awkwardness between us now. I hope he doesn’t expect anything more from me. It was just a weird moment. It was pretty good, but it didn’t mean anything. Right?

  All the kids fall asleep one by one as the movie plays on. I follow Mum and Aunty Pam upstairs when they call it a night. My bedroom door is ajar, and Tomas is on his mattress on the floor. He’s on his stomach and turns to see me walk in.

  ‘Goodnight,’ I say as I crawl onto my bed. I adjust my head until I’m comfortable on my pillow. I wait for Tomas’ snores, but we are both so quiet. I can hardly hear myself breathe, let alone him.

  ‘Are we all right?’ he whispers.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say.

  I roll onto my side, away from him, and the moonlight shines onto my face. I close my eyes and I swear I can hear his thoughts. He wants me to ask him onto my bed. He wants me to invite him up next to me. I can feel his eyes on me, anticipating the words. But I can’t say them.

  I wake to Tomas’ snores. I stumble out of my bedroom and downstairs to find that the boys are all gone. Mum tells me Aunty Pam has taken them for a drive.

  ‘She’s left you some money,’ Mum says, ‘to take Tomas to get some clothes in town.’

  I’m not rolling my eyes, but I feel like I am. I just stuff the fifty-dollar note into my pocket and dig into my Coco Pops. Tomas is still asleep when I go back to my room to get my clothes and towel for the shower.

  When I’m done showering, I hear Tomas’ voice. He’s talking to Mum downstairs. Maybe he’s telling her we kissed. I listen for a moment in worry, but he’s not outing me. He’s telling her about juvie – something about boys climbing onto the roof and making it onto the news.

  I go into my room and pull on some socks and shoes. I realise my blue T-shirt has a stain on its chest, right in the centre, probably from spag bol. I pull it off and put on a clean singlet.

  I go downstairs and Mum’s started playing Charley Pride at a low volume for Tomas. It’s ‘Someone Loves You Honey’. She tells
him it was playing from the cassette player in my father’s car as I was being conceived, which is just fucking lovely to know. Then she sings along with the chorus while she sweeps the floor, and I want to crawl into a ball on the floor and scream.

  ‘Aunty Pam wants me to take you clothes shopping,’ I say.

  Tomas finishes his breakfast, rinses his bowl in the sink and places it on the dish rack. He gives me a slight smile as he trots past, and I catch his gaze again as he starts up the stairs. Watching his long, brown legs climb each step, I wonder if he’s teasing me somehow.

  Mum rescues me, turning up the music, drawing my attention away from Tomas’ legs. She continues singing along to Charley Pride, as the skateboards and scooters roll along the road outside and the warmth of the day leaks inside through the open front door. A sweat is growing in my armpits.

  I swear, nearly an hour’s passed by the time Tomas comes downstairs again, dressed in my shirt and my short shorts.

  ‘You know, we have to pay for that water,’ I say as he lands at the bottom of the stairs.

  He just smiles.

  Outside, the sun stings us. There are no clouds in the sky at all, and my skin’s heating up like the lamb chops I ate last night. Tomas follows me onto the road, past the Mish kids rolling around on their skateboards and scooters. Some other kids kick a football to each other. We land at the bus stop outside the community centre. It’s shaded, thankfully.

  Tomas sits beside me on the bench, but it feels like there’s so much space between us. There’s nothing I can even say to him – not that I want to, really, say anything at all. We don’t need to talk.

  I check my phone for the time – the bus should be along any minute – and a message appears as I stare at the screen. It’s from Kalyn.

  Thought about it?

  I just put my phone back in my pocket and stretch my neck.

  The kids rush from the road as the bus comes along the main street of the Mish. When it stops, I hand some change to the driver and Tomas follows me into the air-conditioning. There are only two people on the bus. Tomas sits a few seats from the front. I take a seat in front of him.