Elegy

by Jane Abbott

He shrugged. ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On whether you believe.’ He kept his voice soft, beguiling, and her eyes narrowed a little before she laughed.

  ‘Okay, I give up. How do you do it?’

  ‘Can’t tell you that.’ It was his stock answer – the one he gave to everyone who asked – but, really, he had no idea.

  It had never worried him too much, this ability he had. Discovered not long after moving to the farm, he’d accepted it with the same dispassion as he’d borne all the other changes in his young life. It was just something he could do, almost without thinking, certainly without questioning, like breathing – and what was unnatural about that? No one else seemed too bothered by it either, maybe understanding that once a thing was explained, once it’d been opened up and dissected, the magic was gone. It was the mystery that kept them all coming back for more – except Cait.

  He watched Jenny grapple with it, and for a second he thought she’d demand more, but then she nodded, as they all did, conceding the trick for what it was: sleight of hand, illusion.

  Instead she told Michael about her life in Melbourne, the friends she’d left behind, her last school, the annoying little brother, the parents she couldn’t forgive. She didn’t mention any boys and he didn’t ask. In turn, he fed her stories about the district – probably more accurate than the ones she’d heard from Sophie or the other girls – who to watch out for, who to befriend. He warned her about the worst teachers at school and told her the best places to go as well as the ones to avoid.

  ‘Why do you call it Short Town?’ she asked.

  Michael grinned. ‘’Cause no matter what you want or expect from Kincasey, you’re always going to come up short. Can’t remember who started it.’

  ‘Sounds about right,’ she said, suddenly bitter. Michael didn’t comment. ‘You don’t talk much about yourself, do you?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not much to know.’

  Jenny placed a hand on his chest; his heart thudded. And he knew she felt it too, because she smiled and tugged at his T-shirt.

  ‘Why black?’ she asked, twisting the material in her fingers. ‘I thought all you farm boys were into flannel shirts and big hats.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe on TV.’

  She laughed. ‘Still.’

  ‘Don’t know why,’ Michael said. ‘Haven’t ever thought about it.’

  ‘Okay, next question: is your sister really crazy like everyone says?’

  Michael paused then, and his reply was slow. ‘No and yes.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, no, she’s not really my sister. And yeah, she’s completely nuts.’ But that wasn’t true and he felt a rush of guilt. Cait wasn’t crazy. She was just … sad.

  ‘What do you mean she’s not your sister?’ Jenny asked.

  ‘Well, she is, kind of. Stepsister, I mean. I don’t know, it’s complicated,’ he said, although it wasn’t at all. Cait just made it feel that way.

  ‘But you have a brother? That’s what Kylie said.’

  Michael nodded, trying not to show his irritation. He hadn’t planned on talking about Cait and Gabe. ‘Dad skipped out after I was born, and Barb – that’s my mum – she met Jim later. Gabe and Cait are brother and sister, so I guess that makes me the step. Only I’m not really, at least not with Gabe.’ He sighed. ‘You know what? It doesn’t matter. Let’s just say Cait and I don’t get along too well.’

  ‘Okay. Sorry.’

  ‘Just never had to explain it before.’

  She laughed again; Michael thought he’d never tire of it. ‘Which is the polite way of saying butt out?’ she asked.

  He shrugged again, and she rubbed her hand slowly across his chest. Kind of teasing, kind of not.

  ‘How come you have the same last name then?’ she asked. ‘If you’re only a step?’

  ‘Barb did it when I was still a kid. Jim didn’t care either way, but she thought it’d be easier for me. She was right too.’

  ‘So where’s your dad now?’

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t care.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She went quiet for a minute and Michael watched her think it over. Or perhaps she was thinking about her own family and how her life didn’t suck quite as much as she’d thought. ‘What’s it like living on a farm?’ she asked, moving to safer ground.

  Michael laughed then. ‘Not as much fun as you probably think.’

  Jenny drummed her fingers on his chest while his heart did the same from the inside. ‘More information, please.’

  He leaned back against the windscreen and her hand followed, staying with him, small and warm. ‘Mostly it’s hard work. Dusty. Dry. Hot in summer, freezing in winter. I don’t know, it’s just home, I guess.’ Reaching up, he touched the crucifix. ‘Religious?’

  She looked sheepish. ‘No. Catholic.’

  ‘Yeah, my dad was one of those. When it suited.’

  She looked at him in that way girls do, searching for some masked pain, but there wasn’t any to see. ‘Well, that explains your name,’ she said. ‘Funny you ended up with a stepbrother called Gabriel.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not Gabriel. Just Gabe.’ He glanced up at the sky and grinned. ‘At least Dad was ambitious, right? Better Michael than Judas.’

  Another laugh and she followed his gaze, bending her head back to look up. Her neck was long and slender, her throat smooth and pale. ‘It is beautiful out here,’ she admitted at last, as though coming to terms with her fate. ‘All these stars. You don’t see so many in the city.’

  ‘Do you really miss it?’

  ‘Not so much now,’ she confessed, looking back at him, suddenly shy. Under the lights, her eyes had been the warm brown of melted chocolate, but there in the shadows they were as dark as his. Darkness had a way of doing that, he thought, of turning everything into itself. He could see her watching him watch her, and she smiled slowly and her mouth was, well, it was –

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she whispered.

  He pulled her closer until she was pressed against him, her hand trapped between their bodies. She was pliant and soft and his heart raced, pushing blood to his temples. ‘I’m thinking you still haven’t paid for your boots,’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t know there was a price.’

  Her skin smelled like sweet cinnamon, her hair faintly of apples; he slid his hand beneath the silky weight of it. ‘There’s always a price.’

  He kissed her then, deeply and for a long time.

  He wanted to stay there, but Jenny insisted on checking in with Sophie.

  ‘She’s actually been pretty nice to me. I need to let her know I’m all right.’ There was that word again: nice.

  ‘If she sees you with me, she’ll never speak to you again,’ Michael said, only half joking.

  ‘That’s a risk I’m willing to take.’

  He rolled off the bonnet and helped her down. Laughing, holding hands, they wandered back. They passed other couples, some doing what they’d done, others much more, and Michael could sense their energy, like electricity, sparking and jumping, charging the air. Charging him. He inhaled, absorbing it, and silently cheered them all on. Glancing at Jenny, he wondered if she felt it too, then realised she was trying not to notice. Maybe it was a guy thing.

  ‘Mate!’ Pete cried, staggering over and throwing a sweaty arm across Michael’s shoulders. His voice was thick with beer. ‘Am I rich yet?’

  ‘Shut up,’ Michael said, shrugging him off. Pete drank too much. The night was hot, but he never needed an excuse.

  Jenny glanced at Michael. Again, one eyebrow arched.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he was quick to reassure. ‘Right, Pete?’

  Pete peered at Jenny, trying to focus. ‘You treat him nice,’ he slurred. ‘I got a lotta money riding on this one.’

  Michael wanted to punch him. But the others were just as plastered – how long had he been gone? – all of them sniggering like idiots, and Michael realised, too late, that it’d been a mistake to
come back here. Jenny wasn’t curious any more; she was confused. He grabbed her hand again. ‘Let’s find Sophie.’

  ‘Hey, Webster!’ The words were shouted, and Pete and the rest of the guys were no longer the problem. Dropping Jenny’s hand almost as quickly as he’d seized it, Michael turned to face Casey.

  He was the taller of the two, but Casey was big, bulked with overworked muscle. Except for his head – that was the one muscle he never seemed to use. It was no secret the two hated each other, but they were happy enough in their mutual animosity to keep their distance. Michael couldn’t have said why he disliked Casey as much as he did. He just did, and it had nothing to do with the way he pestered Cait – she could fight her own battles. Nor was he alone in his scorn; Casey was as popular as a fly at a barbecue.

  ‘Where’s your sister?’ Casey was as predictable as Pete.

  ‘At home. Guess she heard you’d be here,’ Michael shot back. And maybe that was the answer right there: Casey always brought out the worst in him.

  Bunching his fists when the group laughed, Casey dropped his lovelorn quest and got down to business. ‘I hear I’m going to be down a hundred bucks thanks to your little stunt.’

  Michael shrugged. Only Casey would’ve placed so much money on such a stupid bet. Rule number two.

  Pete lurched forwards. ‘Aw, come off it, Casey. You wouldn’t have bet on Michael anyway.’

  Casey ignored him and stared at Michael. ‘That’s not the point.’

  No, thought Michael, the point was Casey didn’t like to lose. At anything. To anyone. His family might once have been the district’s first, but they’d dwindled with every generation, each more pig-headed than the last, and all of them about as inbred as it was legal to be. Down the tube and right around the S-bend, Michael had always joked. If he was honest, Todd Casey was probably the only excuse Michael had ever needed to adopt the town’s nickname.

  ‘So?’ he said, trying to keep his cool. Trying to ignore the knocking that had begun inside his head, at his temples, tapping his skull.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  ‘So I reckon it’s time to level the field,’ said Casey, switching his attention to Jenny.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  She made a sound, nervous and high-pitched. She wasn’t stupid, and even before she’d worked out the details, Michael could see she was piecing it together. But he could also see she didn’t want to believe it. She stepped between the two of them. ‘Michael, what’s going on?’

  ‘Yeah, Michael,’ Casey mimicked. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Fuck off, Casey,’ Michael said, then faced Jenny. ‘Nothing. Nothing’s going on.’

  TAP, TAP, TAP.

  The knocking was louder now, stronger, and with it came a sudden pain; a thousand pickaxes tearing at his head. Oh God, get out, get out!

  ‘Go find Sophie,’ he told her, stifling a groan. ‘I’ll catch up.’

  But Casey shot out a paw, grabbing Jenny and spinning her around to face him; she was too startled to struggle. Michael wanted to knock him flat but he couldn’t move; his feet were leaden, legs like string. He could barely breathe.

  ‘See, we had this little bet going,’ Casey sneered at her, cruel and mean. ‘About you.’

  ‘A bet?’ She turned to look at Michael, at Pete and the rest, then back to Michael. ‘Is that true?’ Her voice was thin, like sound heard through a wall, muffled and indistinct, and Michael felt her pain because it was his pain too.

  The pickaxes were gone, replaced by giant clubs, smashing the base of his brain.

  THWAMP, THWAMP, THWAMP.

  Casey didn’t seem to hear the noise. None of them did. Michael groaned; any moment now his head would shatter.

  ‘Webster thought it’d be fun to put himself down as a late contender and upset the odds. I don’t like it when people do that.’ Casey squeezed Jenny’s arm, pinching the flesh, and she fought then to free herself.

  ‘Let her go,’ Michael gasped. He was gripping his head now, holding his skull so it wouldn’t burst and spill onto the dirt. Oh, fuck!

  THWAMP, THWAMP, THWAMP.

  ‘Let go!’ he tried again, but it was more of a moan.

  ‘Make me,’ Casey scoffed. It was a stupid, childish taunt.

  Michael could hear Pete and Tom, but they were veiled and distant, dancing on the edge, away from him and just out of reach. And he kept it that way, kept them far.

  There was just Michael and his pain, throbbing and beating

  and Jenny, so pretty, so hurt,

  and Casey.

  Just Michael and Jenny

  and –

  THWAMP

  – Casey’s thick hand gripping Jenny’s arm, and his strength, like a snake’s, muscle on muscle, coiled springs –

  THWAMP

  – and Michael saw past that strength, below the flesh, behind the muscle, to Casey’s bone, grey and putrid and rotten –

  THWAMP

  – and he spoke a single word that wasn’t a word, in a voice that wasn’t his.

  The knocking stopped. The pain vanished. And everyone heard the bone snap. Casey shrieked and let go of Jenny; she screamed and fell back.

  ‘Oh my God …’ She stared at his arm, limp and oddly angled. Then she glanced at Michael, incredulous, horrified. He didn’t say anything – he couldn’t. There was only the relief that it was Casey’s arm that had burst and not his own head, relief that the noise had dulled and the pain had gone. And then she was gone too, pushing past the people who’d come running.

  Casey, shouting and threatening, was helped by others who stared, bewildered and maybe a little afraid. Even Pete hesitated for a moment before stumbling away, Tom and Buzz with him, the rest dissolving into the throng.

  But Gabe made his way to his brother’s side and gripped Michael’s shoulders to steady him. ‘Bloody hell, mate,’ he muttered. ‘You’ve done it this time.’

  The hope I dreamed of was a dream,

  was but a dream; and now I wake

  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI, ‘Mirage’

  III

  When Michael gave the girl boots, encasing her feet so deftly that she didn’t even notice, Cait was angry. When he kissed her, she cried.

  She’d always felt Michael’s kisses – the awkward pecks in the primary school playground, and the later, more passionate explorations. She’d felt the warmth of his embrace and the strength of his body yet he’d never touched her that way. It wasn’t vicarious or perverted; the kisses didn’t matter. She didn’t spy on him, waiting to catch him out. The day she’d attacked him by the toilet block, where he and Sophie inched closer, it wasn’t about the kiss. It was about the butterfly.

  Sophie had screamed through a mouthful of blood, ‘You freak! You freak!’ but Cait ignored her. Sophie wasn’t important, and perhaps even Sophie had realised this, because she ran off, sobbing and clutching her battered mouth, while Michael had rounded on Cait, his eyes black with hatred.

  ‘You idiot!’ he’d yelled, wiping the blood from his face.

  ‘You have to stop, Michael. You have to stop doing that!’

  ‘Why? Are you jealous?’ he taunted. But he didn’t understand.

  ‘The butterflies. The tricks. Everything. Just stop!’

  ‘Shut up! It’s none of your damned business what I do,’ he shouted. ‘It wasn’t even real, for chrissakes!’

  Cait shoved him again, sent him staggering back. ‘It’s not a game!’

  He wanted to hit her then; she could feel his menace, like a heavy storm, and the two of them glared at each other, both panting, eyeing each other warily, until he finally uncurled his fists and turned his back. ‘Get a life, Caitlin.’

  They were the cruellest words of all.

  The night of the party, Cait lay alone in the dark. Her room was small but it suited her. There was comfort – and safety – in being entombed upon such a vast, unending land, a shadowed place where she could fold away the world and all its troubles. Boxed downstairs, in a far corner of the house
, she would often lie there and listen to the boys in the attic; she’d learned to discern Gabe’s heavier tread and Michael’s low voice, Gabe’s bright laugh and Michael’s soft chuckle. But that night, with the two of them gone, there was only the murmur of the television in the living room for company. Jim would be asleep in his chair, his head lolling to one side, snoring, and Barb was already in bed; their routine never changed.

  Cait’s eyes were closed when she’d felt the first brush of Michael’s lips and his breath on her face. Except it wasn’t her face and she couldn’t respond to his caress as it deepened, urgent and burning. Only the girl could do that. But this kiss wasn’t like any before. It was potent and compelling, triumphant and joyous, grievous and wretched. When she cried, it wasn’t just for herself but for him too. She wept for the opportunities missed, the lives wasted, the time endured. She mourned their endless remaking, lamented their doom, cursed their fate and begged for hope. Later, when he unleashed the word, she stilled, stifling her sobs and straining to listen; beyond the silence was the familiar air of a weary orchestra.

  The floor awaited; their dance had begun.

  ii

  There was no denying Michael had done plenty of weird things, stuff Gabe had long given up trying to understand or work out, most of them stupid pranks that’d been nothing but annoying. Even the few times when it had got out of hand and brought them unwanted attention, Gabe had never been afraid of his brother or of the things he could do. But that night, when Michael broke Casey’s arm without laying a finger on him, Gabe was shit scared for him.

  He bundled Michael into the ute and they bolted like criminals. Except Gabe wasn’t exactly sure of the crime; he hadn’t been there to see it. All he knew was that Michael had pulled another one of his stunts and pissed off a lot of people. And around Short Town, where everyone made it their business to know everything, that wasn’t the smartest move.

  ‘No illusion,’ Michael mumbled, dazed and bleak, when Gabe laid into him. ‘Not a trick.’

  Gabe pulled off the main road, skidding onto the gravel, and slowed as they passed through the gates and neared the house, not wanting to wake anyone – especially Cait. After what’d just happened, she was the last thing Michael needed. But he shouldn’t have bothered, because she was already standing by the garden fence, her long white T-shirt luminous in the headlights. It was as though she’d been expecting them. How the hell could she have known?