We Were Not Men

by Campbell Mattinson

  At the end, the race over, hanging in her lane, staring up at the board, O’Neill didn’t look like a devastated swimmer. She looked like a disbelieving one. She hung there by the rope, squeal after disbelieving squeal bursting from Hyman, two lanes down.

  O’Neill didn’t look like a devastated swimmer but she was. There was no next race, they couldn’t go again, it wasn’t a best of three.

  I read this letter differently to the others because now I had a voice in my head and it was Geri’s. Suddenly instead of a neighbour she felt like an auntie, the kind who might send us postcards from her travels. I thought for a second then how good it would feel to take this letter back to her and say, No, I’m okay now, I’m winning again, I don’t need this one. I would have enjoyed that and I thought Geri might too.

  *

  We trained harder and harder again and we were like the container ships in the channel by The Warmies with the world in our sights, though I kept wishing that I could turn in the direction of Carmelina. We went to different schools and she had a part-time job and it was easy for us to pass weeks without seeing each other. This was okay at first but then it wasn’t. And then I started to know because I just did. We were drifting apart or she was. I tried to see her and we couldn’t and as this time passed I felt myself sinking heavier again in the pool.

  Finally we agreed to meet at the train station at Newport. I hoped we’d get on a train and maybe see a movie in the city. As I approached her I noticed a toothpaste stain on the front of my hoodie. We walked into the subway tunnel and started talking. We never made it to the train.

  ‘You’re cut?’ she said.

  ‘A bit,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  ‘Are we over?’ I said.

  ‘We’re not over,’ she said.

  ‘What’s happening then?’ And I didn’t want to sound annoyed but I did.

  She looked upwards or away and I noticed that the dirty old concrete walls of the subway had been decorated with impressions of spanners, screwdrivers and pliers. The pattern of these tools was irregular. There was daylight at each end of the tunnel but we were in the middle.

  She looked at me and we could have gone on but instead she spilled over. ‘You know,’ she said.

  There was a long pause then and what it did was ramp things higher.

  ‘You press so hard,’ she said.

  I didn’t think of the neon blue of the zapper in the souvlaki shop but I thought of the colour it had cast on her mum’s headband when she’d come out. Carmelina’s dark Maltese skin always seemed to shine in the sun but the shadows in this subway made her almost seem blue.

  ‘You’re this big strong swimmer,’ she said, ‘but it’s like you’re broken in some way. I don’t know. Every time I look at you I feel as though you’re about to burst.

  ‘That’s okay,’ she said, suddenly apologetic. ‘You’re worth it, I know.’ But then she said, ‘Do you know how that is for me?’

  I thought she’d stopped but she looked up then and added, ‘I’m sixteen years old. I’m not going to be perfect.’

  She took a few steps away, as if she was going, but I knew she wouldn’t. She was Carmelina and I loved her. She turned back to me then without coming any closer. When she next spoke she seemed to arch her body as if she had to set herself properly. She said, ‘I’m trying, Jon.’

  And she turned, she actually did; Carmelina turned and walked away.

  *

  I didn’t expect her to call but she did. Later that very day Carmelina called and said, ‘My brother says that you should wait.’

  I held tight to the phone. I didn’t know what to say or even what she meant.

  I said, ‘Carmelina.’

  She said, ‘Just wait.’

  She sounded bright, as if this was good news or at least not as bad as it could be.

  I said, ‘Are we still together?’

  ‘Not for now,’ she said.

  ‘But I should wait?’

  She said, ‘I want you to.’

  *

  Carmelina and I were not flat like open water, we were messy.

  *

  One morning at training not long after, I watched Eden do sprints as the sun reached through the wall of windows but instead of the pool being bright and glittering it seemed dark and flat as if the blacks and the blues had merged. All I could focus on was Eden and the white spray of water. I thought as I watched that Eden was the only thing keeping me there. I’d never thought this before. As I watched, he drilled down those laps as if he was starving hungry for speed. I wondered as I looked at the pool and at the way he ravaged those laps if I’d spent all my time striving for things that I didn’t want like he did.

  *

  At the supermarket we bought brown rice, beans, spinach, sweet potatoes and kitty litter. When Eden went to get chicken I said to Bobbie, ‘I’ve stuffed up again.’

  ‘If you’re not making mistakes,’ she shot straight back, ‘you’re not trying hard enough.’

  ‘Not like that,’ I said.

  ‘Six weeks ago you were fast enough for the Olympics,’ she said.

  ‘When I look at the water now I wonder if my heart’s still in it,’ I said.

  ‘That girl turned hope into belief,’ she said. ‘And then back again.’

  As she said these words I felt energy drain from me as if my life was in past tense but that I had to live now.

  *

  ‘I’ll get her to come,’ Eden said back at the house.

  Before I knew what he meant, he took my phone and without asking he typed a message to Carmelina. He did it right into my phone. He told her Hey this is Eden and then he asked Carmelina to come up to Flowerdale. As soon as he’d typed those words I sat bolt upright. I wanted her to see Bobbie’s place and the creek and for us to roast potatoes in the coals of an old tree or something.

  I said, ‘I’m not seeing her now.’

  He said, ‘Watch.’

  They texted to and fro. The messages appeared in front of me. She said yes, I don’t know why but she did.

  ‘Fuck me,’ I said. I did not ask why he’d done it because I was rapt, that’s what I was.

  ‘I need you to swim with me,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll swim,’ I said.

  We headed right then for the creek and it wasn’t training, it was fun. I knew that I shouldn’t but I allowed myself to spark. I felt hope. I stripped off and dived into the water and as I sank into the cold all I saw was light. I knew straight away how much I had riding on this visit even if my chances were minimal. I would ask Werner to come too because with him there I’d feel stronger. As I swam my mind buzzed with thoughts of Carmelina but then everything was always about Carmelina.

  ‘Don’t act sad, act happy,’ Eden said as we pulled from the creek.

  ‘I’m happy,’ I said.

  ‘The day she comes,’ he said.

  Eden told Bobbie what was happening when we got back to the house.

  ‘It would make more sense in Newport,’ she said.

  ‘The stars are lighter here,’ I got in.

  ‘The stars used to be like this everywhere,’ she said.

  *

  That Saturday afternoon when Carmelina stepped from the train at South Morang station, we were in the car waiting. Bobbie and I were in the front with Eden in the back. Carmelina walked out and looked for our car and the sun caught her. She wore brown or mushroom and the sun soaked into her instead of bouncing off and as she walked she looked honeyed. ‘There she is,’ I said and half-stepped from the car. I should have gone to her but I was so nervous that all I did was sit back down and close the door.

  I thought as she walked towards us that her dad had been Maltese and that she looked it too. She looked like summer. We were quiet as we sat and waited for her to reach us. It was warm and still inside the car. I was painfully aware that my chance to be with Carmelina would not last forever and that it may already be over. I knew that Bobbie would be the one w
ho broke the silence and I could hear her breathing and it was slow and I might have held mine I’m not sure.

  Bobbie took a deep breath and almost seemed to sigh and her eyes were on Carmelina and then she turned to me. As she turned I leaned against the door as if the car was spinning and I had no choice but to press against its side. Bobbie followed me with her eyes. Once I’d stilled she spoke to me as if she really wanted me to hear. ‘You’re buying at the top of the market,’ she said.

  Carmelina stepped into the car and she had a bag and she put it between her and Eden. I’d sat in the front because I’d wanted to be the first to see her but then I wished I was in the back. As we pulled away Bobbie turned the radio on and a Fleetwood Mac song came on. ‘You Can Go Your Own Way’. Carmelina must have had perfume on because suddenly the car smelled of lemon and lychee. Bobbie wound her window down a little.

  ‘Stevie Nicks is one of us,’ Bobbie said. ‘Crazy, but one of us.’

  ‘You should be back here,’ Eden said as he kicked the back of my seat.

  *

  I was in the kitchen when Werner arrived. He came in and his face looked like mine and I knew straight away that this was a big night for him too. I looked at Carmelina and at Bobbie and she’d already opened wine. Bobbie offered some wine to Carmelina even though she wasn’t yet seventeen. Bobbie never seemed fidgety or nervous but she must have been close. These first moments with Carmelina in the house at Flowerdale, with Werner having just arrived, with the kittens scampering about, with Bobbie being Bobbie and with Eden watching quietly on. It was as if time didn’t tick or even hurry along but instead did the opposite; each second was slowly and awkwardly unpeeled.

  *

  Bobbie introduced Carmelina to Werner and leaned in and said, ‘He’s a bit of a dividend junkie’. Then she said, ‘He looks like a Belted Galloway in that jumper’. I knew then that Bobbie was drinking her wine faster even than normal.

  Carmelina said, ‘You were a stockbroker?’

  ‘I still broker,’ Bobbie said with a twinkle.

  ‘I never thought I’d meet one of them,’ Carmelina said.

  *

  Bobbie had wanted to make Mars Bar slice but I’d said that I’d make custard. ‘You can’t beat banana fritters,’ she’d said.

  We’d made a no-knead bread and had potatoes in the oven. We had green beans, topped and tailed, ready on the bench. Werner had promised to bring Maryland chicken in a stew of tomatoes but when he opened the pot it smelled of paprika and eggplant. We’d just laid things out when Bobbie asked Werner to dig up more wine from the cellar. He hesitated only fractionally and she said she’d do it herself. As she walked towards the cellar she said, ‘What’s the use of having a dog if you have to do the barking yourself.’

  ‘She’s unpredictable,’ Werner said to us. ‘I think she might have a bit of the old bi-polar.’ He’d meant to say this when Bobbie was out of earshot but he’d timed it wrong. ‘It’s called enthusiasm,’ she said from the cellar.

  I checked the oven as Bobbie and Werner grabbed their glasses. While there was still light all of us then walked outside to show Carmelina the farm. We walked near the vines and the plot of potatoes and then through the apple trees where Grandpa Jack had died and then across the open paddock to the creek. The three of us were ahead with Bobbie and Werner behind but I must have been listening out because I heard her say to him, ‘I’m still getting buried with Jack.’ I knew that Werner wanted to get with Bobbie and when she said that I knew that Bobbie was fully aware too.

  When we reached the creek, we pointed out where we swam and how we’d raced this stretch forever. As we stood there I saw our creek through Carmelina’s eyes and it looked smaller.

  ‘It’s such a beautiful creek,’ Carmelina said. I felt then that we’d spent our whole childhood carefully painting this scene in the hope that one day someone like Carmelina would come and say these very words to us.

  ‘It’s practical,’ Bobbie said.

  ‘I’d love to watch you race here one day,’ Carmelina said.

  ‘Careful,’ Bobbie said, ‘or you’ll have them stripping off.’

  Before I’d had a chance to respond, Bobbie turned to Carmelina and said, ‘Has your family always lived in Melbourne?’

  ‘We used to live in St Albans,’ she said.

  ‘There’s just something a bit New South Wales about you,’ Bobbie said. I noticed that Bobbie’s wine glass was empty again. ‘The Maltese,’ Bobbie then said, ‘are the unsung heroes of Australian immigration. I’ll say that.’

  We headed back and got the meal ready and then sat down at the kitchen table. I wanted to show Carmelina the front door bell and how it doubled as a water pistol and to tell her that Bobbie called the pantry the fat cupboard and that Werner had a great wall of tuna. I wanted to tell her that Eden and I still sometimes climbed into bed with each other and that some nights I still reached for my night-light and that someone had once wondered who would smack our bottoms. I wanted to lie bare at her feet but I knew it wasn’t what she wanted.

  We began to eat and it was quiet but then Werner started.

  ‘When I was a kid,’ he said, ‘there were these two sparrows that used to come to my bedroom window every morning. This was back in Germany. I got so fond of them that every night I started bringing a piece of bread to my room. I’d wake up and I’d hear this tap tap tap and I’d open my window and crumb the bread out for them. It was freezing cold, snowing sometimes, but I’d sit in my pyjamas with the window open and those two sparrows were so used to me that they’d virtually eat from my hand.’

  He paused to see if he could go on. ‘One morning I woke up and there was only one sparrow at my window. It tapped at my window but not in the usual way, it just kept tapping nonstop. I opened the window and there’d never been only one of them but I crumbed the bread out as I normally would. But the bird didn’t eat any, it just kept hopping up and down and doing these little flutters as if trying to tell me something. I kept asking it what the matter was and where its mate was but obviously it couldn’t tell me.’

  He took another mouthful of wine. Bobbie refilled her glass. ‘Eventually I had to get ready for school. When I walked out the front I heard the chirping straight away. I looked around and there was my sparrow circling and chirping overhead. On the road below it, there were feathers and I knew that the other one had been run over.

  ‘You know,’ he said. ‘That was over fifty years ago, closer to sixty. But I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve never stopped worrying about those two little birds who used to wake up each morning and eat their breakfast with me. And about that poor little sparrow who lost its mate and had no one else to tell.’

  *

  Bobbie excused herself and headed for the toilet and, just as the creek had earlier, the house then seemed smaller than normal. Werner stood and went after Bobbie and I looked at this unfold and thought to myself that I was battling for my life to save things with Carmelina but that whatever happened it would go on, it would never stop.

  *

  ‘I might be post-menopausal but some days, I mean it, just don’t,’ we heard Bobbie say. They were in the bathroom but we heard them from the table.

  Their voices were mumbled but we knew they were still talking and then Bobbie must have turned in our direction or had maybe started to walk back because we heard her say to Werner, ‘Are you sure you’re not just in love with opportunity?’

  *

  ‘He reckons,’ Bobbie said as they returned to the kitchen table, ‘that he’s never been to a toilet on a plane.’

  She wore a jumper but as soon as she sat down she started taking it off. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said, ‘I’m not going to go all Flashdance on you.’

  Werner stood up again and left the table and if Carmelina hadn’t been there I would have followed him. Bobbie said, ‘He’s got little trees in tubs in his fridge.’

  ‘Conifers,’ she said, even though none of us had shown interest.

  ‘Heaps
of them,’ she said.

  ‘He wants them to think it’s winter,’ she said.

  She stopped and took another gulp of wine and then she said, ‘If he doesn’t ease off I’ll give him winter.’

  Eden and I gathered the plates and took them to the sink. ‘They’re a peloton of two,’ Werner said of us as he came back in.

  I had water running over the plates when Bobbie turned to Carmelina. She said, ‘We’re not always right about ourselves.’ I liked her saying that and turned to see Carmelina’s reaction and noticed that Werner was staring hard at Bobbie as if he really wanted to say something but couldn’t.

  *

  As I was separating eggs for custard one of them dropped to the floor. Its yellow face looked sad against the lino, or it did until the kittens got to it.

  I’d never made custard from scratch before. I was nervous about how it would turn out but fresh custard made with a vanilla pod, milk and the right amount of sugar was a speciality of Mum’s. I wanted to make it for Carmelina.

  I knew it could go wrong. I planned to cook it slow. I had Mum’s custard recipe blu-tacked to the wall. I got out our newest saucepan, turned the heat down as low as it went, slit the vanilla pod and scraped out its seeds. I let the vanilla seeds and the pod rest in the milk. Once it had warmed I took the pod out and combined the milk with the yolks. I put it all back on the heat again.

  I stood then and stirred and listened to them talk. I watched the custard like you would a newborn. The mixture stayed milky and skinny. I tasted it with my finger and the flavour was soft and scented but it was flavoured milk and not custard. I kept stirring. I wanted to turn the heat up but I was too scared. Bobbie’s apricot pie was already out of the oven. Eventually I took the saucepan from the stove and called out for Eden.