We Were Not Men

by Campbell Mattinson

  *

  Eden could swim poorly and still win races but his times were slipping. He was like I was at the end of Grade 6. He’d go to Rio but instead of storming there he’d sneak in. I watched him as he swam and he sat high in the water but when he should mow them down he slowed. He did this in three or four races and in each one he made perfect position but then his body baulked. He started doing extra weights and Pilates sessions at night. I worried that he was swimming for both of us and it weighed on him.

  ‘Is it me?’ I asked.

  ‘Forget it,’ he said.

  ‘We’re not one, we’re two,’ I said. Eden was my brother and it mattered to me and if he’d wanted me to race again I would have.

  ‘Hey,’ he said.

  He took a deep breath but he didn’t hesitate and I noticed that straight away. ‘Are you finished with Carm?’

  ‘Finished?’ I said.

  ‘Has it ended with Carm?’ he said.

  ‘I didn’t keep Carm,’ I said. I only used that name for her because he had.

  ‘I want to know,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not with Carmelina,’ I said though I knew I didn’t need to.

  And then he emphasised it and it sounded strange even at the time.

  ‘For definite?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said and I was annoyed at him then too.

  *

  There was a race then just shy of the National Trials when Eden went out there and smashed it. He did what he never did and led at the first turn. His competitors scurried to keep up but as they did he flew out further. His second lap was faster than his first, his third lap faster again. When he turned for home the field was streeted. He did not ease up then, he blew higher and faster as if he could pour on speed like a bottle emptied from a height. He got to half-way down the final lap and I rose from my seat. I waited for the moment to see if there was sadness or a hill of it, but if there was he swam straight over it and down the other side. This was the dream day when the water was air. All that swimming against the current in creeks and channels had made my brother strong to the point of magnificence. Whatever had held him back these past few months was gone; he was back and he was better. The crowd rose then because a record would be rewritten but as they did I sat down. He wasn’t just my brother, he was the other half of me. He swam so fast and so beautifully that it was as if he was swimming us home. He touched the wall and climbed from the pool and strode the deck. I looked at him and thought of Mum and I knew that he would be thinking of her too. In one fast swim he’d flown us closer to her too. I stood then and he looked up to the stands and when he found me I mouthed a word to him. From a distance it might have looked as though I had said the word Mum but what I had said was ‘Man’ because I thought then that he was sixteen, nearly seventeen, and that he had in that swim become one.

  *

  That week. After school. Eden went to do weights or Pilates and I was home and Bobbie wasn’t there. There was a yelp from outside and through the front window I saw a blur of cream-coloured fur and I knew it was the afghan dog, Little Ronnie from next door. I didn’t know if Fuzzy or Geri or even Nectar was home. It was sunny but cold and I only had my school shirt on but there was no time to grab a jumper. I hurried outside and looked down the street and Little Ronnie was already a long way off. I jogged past next door and there weren’t any cars in the driveway and that was when I bolted.

  Little Ronnie could run. His hair was flowing and I wasn’t good at running but I threw myself down the street because I had to. I ran past the vacant lot where the playground with the see-saw was and past all the new townhouses to the place where there was a miniature railway. There was a dirt road there. It ran between the railway line and the golf course. If you followed the road all the way it would take you near the refinery. I ran down this road and it was as if someone had emptied a car boot full of rubbish because it was strewn with papers and bags, clothes and bottles. As I ran past this rubbish I thought that it looked like a re-creation of the night of our accident and then I saw that two cars had been dumped and the impression was worse. Sour grass in full yellow bloom ran down the edges of the road and Little Ronnie had disappeared but I’d seen where he’d gone. I followed him. He’d gone down to where the stormwater drains were. I saw on the other side of the railway line a building with the words Keep Sweet written on it. The stormwater tunnel was open and graffitied. A red-brick railway bridge ran across its three tunnelled openings. As I ran down the side walls of concrete I scared a duck and three ducklings. Their baby feathers were so pale that they looked yellow in the sun. These ducklings flapped and busied as though they’d just recovered from when the dog flew past. I dodged to make sure I didn’t tread on them and took the left-hand tunnel and kept running. The stormwater drain had a curve to it so I could only see so far. I knew that Little Ronnie was down here but I didn’t know which way he’d gone and so once I’d run the bend and still couldn’t see him I turned. I looked back towards the bridge with the three openings and the three ducks had waddled back through with their mother by their side. There were weeds and dried-brown thistles and the wind was dusted with orange and I scanned for the flowing hair of an afghan dog but when I looked back at the red rail bridge I saw none of that. Instead I saw something incredible and shocking. It was something I’d never been brave enough to imagine.

  *

  On the other side of the railway bridge in one of the stormwater tunnels where no one was likely to see or find him was my twin brother Eden – in the arms of Carmelina. She had a scrunchie on her wrist and her hand in his hair and she was still in school uniform. They stood and I stared at them and then I turned away because I could only look for so long. I looked out then and the refinery was in my face and a bright yellow-orange flame blew out from one of its towers. I turned back to Eden and Carmelina even though I didn’t want to. The dog wasn’t with them. I didn’t want to look at Carmelina, I only wanted to look into the pool of Eden’s eyes, but they were standing so close that it was impossible not to take them both in at once. As soon as I took them in this second time though I felt my stomach buckle and before I knew it I vomited. The ducks were coming for me and there was the wind and so I turned my head as I vomited in order to avoid them. This put an arc to my spray which made some of it land more loudly in the stormwater drain. There was a splatter. I looked up at the refinery flame as I wiped my mouth and I knew if I turned back to face my brother that I would have to say something. The sun was low and hazy and everywhere I looked it seemed that yellow, russet and brown were all the colours I saw. I knew even as my mind spun on many different axes that yellow, russet and brown were the colours of cowardice and of the emergency lights they’d used to illuminate our accident. I knew also though that these were the colours of childhood and honey and of our mum’s hair.

  *

  I loved my brother and I felt then that what I loved to do most was to look out for him and then follow where he went. I wanted to rush to him but he stood there with Carmelina and so I couldn’t. I thought that if I took a single step towards my brother that I might crack right up the middle like an egg being split or separated. I thought then that I had followed my brother forever but that what he had done was follow me. This thought made me turn and run as if I was custard and I had just scrambled. This time I did not run in search of the dog or even for home but instead I ran for nothing other than for my life.

  *

  I ran past fences, long wire fences, rusted. I ran along the top of the drain and past the refinery and through an industrial estate to Kororoit Creek Road. I crossed and ran past the soccer oval and through a set of old fishing shacks and then there was mud and then there was water. I stepped on what looked like dry brown cracked mud but as I did I sank. Immediately below this mud there was oil. I hadn’t known until I’d stepped properly on it but I knew then that this entire shore of dry cracked dirt was contaminated by the refinery’s black. I slugged through this black oil-mud and hit the water and the surface h
eld a film of oil but the water below was silken. I had shoes and school clothes on but I swam downstream and out towards the bay. There were plants on the shore, black rocks, water birds, grass. There was a wetland there, I knew it; that one troubled night with Carmelina, I was on the other side. I reached the bay and kept swimming and I could swim for miles and so I did. I swam far enough out and then turned right. I went past a mangrove trial, a dog beach, the groin of a boat ramp. I saw a short wooden jetty and I turned in and climbed a ladder and then I sat on the jetty’s end and shivered.

  *

  I had not said anything to Eden but if I had I would have ungritted my teeth and said, ‘It’s our day.’ We were sixteen, nearly seventeen, and we’d fought so hard and these days were not just the crux of us, they were meant to be our closest.

  *

  The shadows in Jubilee Street were from telephone poles and council trees. They were not cast by sun but instead were born of street lights and flames. The railway line was raised and I walked along it and the lines themselves danced with orange. I ducked down side streets and cased for police cars or for Bobbie or Eden. It was night now and I’d been missing for hours and I would not be found. I crept below fence level and stood narrow in the shadows and I was so frightened of being seen that instead of walking straight I described a clef. I made it to our house and slithered through the bushes at the front and Bobbie’s car sat dead centre at the back of the drive. I rolled straight in and lay beneath her car. There was a bed of pampas gone wild to the side there and if Bobbie came to her car I could roll back out and hide. There were lights on inside the house and I lay beneath the car still wet and shivering from fear and cold. I heard footsteps then and I looked from beneath the car and they were Eden’s and his feet were dirty and bare. He’d come from the street and he must have been looking for me and when I saw him my whole body shook as though he’d strapped on frayed leather gloves and hit me. He spent only a minute or two inside before he headed back out and he didn’t like being out late but his feet had an urgency as if he was in a race to find me. I could not bear to hurt my brother and yet I was hurt even more and I had no face or pride to hang onto and again he’d gone out looking.

  *

  Eden had not been gone long when Bobbie stepped out into the dark and she knew, she always knew, she knew me like no other.

  She stood by the car and she must have leaned down because I could hear her clear but I could not see her face.

  She said, ‘I don’t know,’ as if she didn’t know though we both knew that she did.

  She said, ‘So hang on. She was going out with one twin. And then she went out with the other. And it just happened, no discussion or anything?’

  She said, ‘Is that insider trading?’

  She said, ‘That girl’s pollinating our family.’

  She said, ‘You two are Z and Q on her Scrabble board.’

  As Bobbie spoke I felt warmth coming from the metal of the car engine and I was so desperately cold that I held my hands up to the metal and it wasn’t too hot and so I pressed them to the car and its warmth bled straight into me.

  *

  Bobbie headed inside but soon after I again heard footsteps and I thought it would be her or maybe Eden but these steps had the pad of slippers. I saw a white nightie float near the car and I didn’t know who or what but then I heard the voice and it was tiny and then I knew exactly. It was Geri. Her voice was as small as usual but that night for the first time I noticed that her voice had a husk to it even though it was tiny. She cushioned herself against the car and all she said was the name ‘Marjorie’ and she let that name rest in the air as if she was waiting for the sun to come up and hit it and then she said, ‘I couldn’t save her.’ I saw the forefinger of Geri peep below the edge of the car as if she wanted to point it directly at me but she didn’t quite have that in her. Geri then slapped her hand firmly against the flank of the metal car in a way that did not sound like a thing Geri would do but then her hand slid slowly across the metal and that noise did. I didn’t realise then that she had written something in the dust on the car but later when I got out I saw that she had drawn the words KEEP TRYING.

  *

  I slept, I must have, though when the side gate clicked I was wide awake and it was Eden. He wheeled his bike out to ride down to The Warmies and he’d been out late but still he would swim. I waited for him to be gone before getting my bike and following him. I rode slow and I did not go down Champion Road but instead I headed along Market Street with the railway line to my right. I passed through the subway at Newport station and I wanted to run my hand across the concrete spanners on the walls but I didn’t because I was in a hurry even though I wanted to go slow.

  I did not know what I would do once I reached The Warmies but I wanted him to be in the water when I got there. I stopped at the top of the hill beside the power station but I couldn’t wait so I rolled down to where he’d be. I reached the pontoon and looked down the channel and he was not there or anywhere I could see.

  ‘I thought,’ I heard him say, ‘you would be the only one who would understand me.’

  He was there, I don’t know how, but he was there behind me.

  I did not turn, I just kept looking along the channel up to where the hot water came out. The power station itself had a huge long tower with red stripes at the top and also a light that flashed red.

  I did not turn around but I said, ‘Right.’

  ‘You think you’re all you’ve got,’ he said.

  ‘What I’ve got,’ I said, and as I did I turned around. I had not known or even suspected but when I turned it wasn’t just Eden but Carmelina was there too. I looked at her. She looked like summer but the end of it. I thought she might mouth the word sorry even if it couldn’t be said out loud. I looked at Carmelina and knew how much I had invested in her. The ground where we stood was flat but I wished that it was steep downhill between us so that without any will or effort I could just tumble down to them and roll to their feet. ‘What I’ve got,’ I repeated, ‘I’ve lost.’

  It was me who’d said this but again I felt as if Eden had strapped on those frayed leather gloves and hit me. I widened my stance to help keep my balance. I felt myself well up and I had not cried since Mum and Dad died and I came out first and I did not want to lose my brother. I thought then that if either of us stepped towards each other I would raise my fists and hit him. He surprised me by striding towards me at such speed that my hands had no chance to move. My brother was beautiful and efficient even when in crisis. Before I knew it, he had grabbed me, and his chest and his arms and even his neck were sinewy and strong. He was so close, my eyelashes made noise like footsteps as they brushed his face and the sound of footsteps was the sound of leaving. He pulled back then and faced me straight on and his hands were on my face. This did not make me soften, it made it worse but I clung to him because I had to. I could hear my heartbeat in my chest. I thought I had no more words but as he held me I said, ‘I don’t need to be hugged.’

  ‘It’s not for you,’ he said, ‘it’s for me.’

  I allowed myself to tremble then. When I trembled, Eden did not flinch but I felt his head turn a fraction and I knew he was checking for Carmelina. I pushed at him then. I pushed him a second time and this time towards the water. This annoyed him and he looked for Carmelina again except this time in the open and in front of me. As he did I felt my legs go all runny as if they’d melted. I rushed then and scuttled him so that he bashed into the water like a bomb.

  I knew I would run then but before I did I looked at Carmelina just as Eden had. I don’t think she had planned to say anything but me looking at her seemed to force her and so she opened her mouth and spoke.

  ‘We are sixteen,’ she said as if the universe could be laid flat by a three-word sentence.

  *

  I looked at Carmelina then and the sun had risen properly and the power station loomed. I turned as if swirling. I felt unstable. I helped Eden rise in a blaze from the
water and just like me he stumbled as he walked, as we circled as the sun burned over the top of Carmelina’s brown hair and lit her up all yellow and orange as if she was power and as if she was our sun.

  *

  I said to Eden, ‘You stole the hair that was stuck-down and I want it back.’

  And he said, ‘What hair that was stuck-down?’

  And I said, ‘The russet-brown one.’

  And he said, ‘I don’t know any hair that was stuck-down.’

  And I said, ‘It was under the toilet seat and it was Mum’s.’

  And he looked at me as if I was unscrewed and I said, ‘It was stuck-down,’ and I knew that I was lost.

  *

  I told Bobbie that I had to leave and that she had to take me to Flowerdale. She stood as I spoke but she sat down in front of me and said, ‘Well,’ and she tried not to look hurried or fussed, ‘I’m having myself a buttered bread roll.’ I pulled wet towels from my bag and jammed clothes and my laptop in and it was too early, Eden hadn’t even gone to school yet, but I went out to the car and sat in it alone because I did not know what else to do. Bobbie came out and sat in there with me and she smelled of honey and buttered bread roll and she said, ‘This is worse than worst-case scenario.’ It was the kind of thing that Bobbie would say but I felt as though she meant it this time more than usual. She moved slow and as if she was calm but before she looked in the rear-view mirror she glanced at me and I thought that her eyes looked scared.

  *

  Eden rode in on his bike and went straight into the house and Bobbie said, ‘Thicken your blood,’ and when I didn’t respond she said, ‘There’s nothing quite like being locked out of your own house.’

  I said, ‘Can we just go?’

  And she said, ‘You’re really going to do this?’

  And I said, ‘Yes.’