by Cowley, Joy
Lissy is fussing with her hair. “Will, let me have your swim goggles? Please.”
“No.” I’m fitting the goggles firmly in place. “You should have brought your own.”
“That’s not fair,” she says. “I have to be Grandma’s guide dog. You know I do. I can’t get salt in my eyes.”
“Then I suggest you shut them,” I tell her, and I slide like a torpedo under the surface. Instead of heading out deep, I swim across the bay. The water is so clear, I can see rocks with clumps of mussels, shells slightly open, shoals of small fish that flash away in a shower of silver sparks, and red and green seaweed. There are no big fish. But I glimpse an arm in a screen of bubbles and see that Lissy is swimming near me. I come up and tread water. “Here! You can have my goggles. Don’t lose them.”
“Are you sure?” She stretches out her hand.
“If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t offer them. I’m going up now. You and Grandpa can help Grandma.”
She grabs my swim goggles. “You haven’t been in for very long.”
“I’ve got something to do,” I tell her, and I go back to the shore.
Now that I’ve cooled off, I want to finish the job on the tree before Grandpa gets back from his swim. I know he thinks I’m a city kid who knows fat zero about zilch, but I’m going to show him I can finish the branch. “I’ll do the rest from the ladder,” he had said, making a fuss about it being too dangerous for someone inexperienced. Inexperienced? Excuse me, please? Who was it spent more than an hour sawing at a branch that’s about as thick as he is? I need to finish it. I have to make the last cuts and see that massive log crunch to the ground because, who knows, it might be as close as I ever get to felling an entire tree.
I don’t stop for a towel or shirt, don’t even change the wet shoes, but squelch back to the macrocarpa and the spread of sawdust that lies under the branch. I already cut three-quarters of the way through before lunch. Now the weight has caused it to split again, so that arrow-shaped fibres are sticking up. The bush saw is clean and sharp. I put it over my bare shoulder and climb back to the nearer branch. It will be easy to cut through the splintered wood, and after that, there isn’t much left.
I have the knack of this now: light cuts, the saw slicing without resistance, dust falling, fibres parting. I imagine Grandpa’s face when he sees the massive branch flat on the ground. He might get mad, but I’m ready with an answer about the difference between dead smart and living smart.
The tree creaks. More fibres spring up and then the saw gets caught in a cage of splintered wood. As I try to wrench it free, there is another creak that extends in volume to a loud crack. Fortunately, I let the saw go and swing my legs over to the other side of my branch. I don’t know what makes me do that but it is just as well, because the cut branch gives way in unexpected fashion. Instead of dropping, it rolls towards the place where my legs just were. There is another crack and it falls, tearing bark off the tree. Whump! It hits the ground. I’m shaken. I just sit there. What would have happened to my legs if I hadn’t moved?
It’s a while before I think about the saw. Where is it?
I climb down, look into the mess of wood and branches and see it underneath, Grandpa’s bush saw bent like a paperclip.
I don’t think I need to tell you what he says when he comes back from the beach. His face goes red, then purple. When he opens his mouth, he doesn’t stop long enough for me to explain.
“You realise you could have bloody well killed yourself? Do you? Young jackanapes! You’re as much use as tits on a bull. Didn’t I tell you to leave it?” He stabs his finger at the air with each word.
Enough is enough. I yell at him, “Vieux imbécile!”
He is so angry he doesn’t hear me, just goes on letting off steam like one of those whistling kettles. I walk back to the house, pretending I’m as deaf as he is.
I see him go into the bedroom and guess he and Grandma are changing after their swim. He’s not mad now. He’s laughing. His voice comes through the wall. “You know what? He called me a silly old fool, in French.”
She laughs too, very loudly.
I’ve had enough of their craziness. I go back to the beach to talk to Lissy.
Day three. Seven days to go. Grandpa and Will have got over being mad with each other about the tree, but I haven’t stopped feeling sorry for Will. He was only trying to do a good job. It’s amazing that a little kid of eleven can cut down a branch nearly as big as a whole tree. “You did well, poo-face,” I told him, and he said, “Thanks, slime-brain.”
We should be used to odd things happening in this place, but day three starts with a different kind of strange. Yesterday, it was the bellbird chorus that woke us, this morning it’s folk music somewhere outside the house, and at first I don’t know who’s making it.
You get to know people’s voices by the way they talk. When they sing, it’s a different sound. So it’s a while before I work out that our grandparents are having a duet in the backyard. When I open the door I see them over by the stream. They’re in their pyjamas, sitting in those funny old metal deck chairs, playing their guitars and singing a song about a Spanish captain who had a lady in every port. And you know something? It’s awesome. They can really play, like proper musicians. Grandpa flicks his fingers through the strings and rattles them on the wood. Grandma picks the melody. Their voices are a bit whispery but the song still carries right into the house. Will joins me in the doorway. It’s very early, the sky is that grey colour before the sun hits it, and there are pillows of mist on the hill. Grandma’s got a blanket around her shoulders. Her walking stick lies across her feet. She sings, “Put your shoes under the bed, the noble lady said, and we’ll dance the night away.”
I’m not sure if Grandma understands what that means, because if she did, I’m sure she wouldn’t sing it, but her voice is amazing for an old lady. I glance at Will. His mouth is hanging open, like, is this crazy or is it crazy?
Grandpa sees us and raises his hand.
Will is in his shorts. I’m still wearing my sweetheart pyjamas with their pattern of flying pigs, and my hair is a mess. We push our feet into sandals and walk over while Grandma does some fancy flamenco chords to announce our arrival. Then they stop playing to talk to us. The bellbirds take over, chiming across the bay.
“We didn’t mean to wake you up,” says Grandma. “We came away from the house.”
“Oh,” says Will. “I thought you always played out here.”
“Didn’t want to disturb you kids,” Grandpa says. “We couldn’t sleep and the gee-tars were all tuned up ready to go-yo-ho.”
A sandfly lands on my ankle and I slap it. “Sing something else. Please!”
Grandpa strums a chord. “Name it!”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Anything. Whatever.”
Will says, “Sing something Dad liked when he was little.”
So that’s when they start “There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly.” Of course I recognise it because Dad used to sing it to me and Will, but I’ve never heard it with guitar accompaniment, lovely little arpeggios in the breathing pauses, string squeaks at the dramatic moments. The singing is good too, although the breaths come often, and Grandpa’s chest makes a huffing sound. The music gets right inside me. I feel like I’ve just discovered a really interesting book that’s been on the shelf all my life and I never knew it.
Grandma says to me, “You want to learn guitar?”
“Yes,” I nod, and then add, “When my fingers are better.”
“Me too,” says Will.
We help Grandma back to the house. She’s not wearing her glasses. I suspect she can’t see a thing, and that all her playing is done from feel, which means she could play on a moonless night. Wouldn’t it be something to perform like that? How much can you learn in seven days, I wonder?
Grandpa says he’s so hungry he can eat
an elephant, so Grandma gets out the cereal. “We’ll have breakfast in our pyjamas,” she says.
“I’d prefer mine in a bowl,” says Will, trying to be smart.
While they are laughing at my brother, I set the plates and spoons on the table. “I think I’ll buy a guitar.”
“You might pick one up second-hand,” says Grandma. “No point in getting something fancy until you know it’s your thing.”
I remember what she said about my hands being like hers, and I know, I just know I want to learn. “When do we get paid?” I ask.
Oh. I’ve said it. Will looks shocked. He sits up straight and turns to Grandpa. I put my hand to my mouth.
“You already have,” says Grandma.
“What?” I remember manners. “I mean, I beg your pardon?”
Grandpa reaches for a bowl. “Your money went into the trusts last Friday, one thousand dollars each, and more when we can manage it.”
“Trusts?” says Will.
“For your education.” Grandpa looks at Will, then me, and he frowns. “You didn’t think you’d get that amount of money to fritter away on rubbish, did you?”
We don’t say anything.
Grandma sits down. “We’ve set up trusts for your future, one thousand dollars each. We’ll add a bit here, a bit there. By the time you’re ready for university it will have amounted to something.”
I can’t speak. My tongue won’t work.
It’s Will who says, “Do Mum and Dad know about this?”
“We talked it over with them,” says Grandma. “I assumed they’d tell you the details. By the way, if you two want to learn the guitar, you can have mine. But that means you’ll have to share it.”
Will puts down his spoon. “Trust!” he mutters to me. “It’s called a trust! What irony!”
Plainly, our parents hadn’t told us the details, because if they had, we wouldn’t have come. So this news only adds to their degree of rotten, low-down guilt.
To say I’m annoyed is to call a hurricane a breeze. I mean there are degrees of anger, and when you have so much steam it wants to pop your eyes out, you have to do something about it. I can do nothing, nothing… except go outside with the axe and hack off the smaller branches from the big one I felled yesterday. I’ve never had an iPad – bash – or my own skateboard – bash – and now that will never happen – bash – bash.
“You watch your feet there, chico,” Grandpa calls.
“My name is Will,” I mutter, swinging the axe. Crack!
“You’re chopping in the wrong place,” he yells. “Aim at the underside of the branch, not the vee. It’s easier.”
Nothing in this place is easy, so I keep on chopping my way until he goes back inside.
I more than anticipated that iPad – I visualised it, worked with it in my head, bought apps for it, until it came into existence as already mine. Dad knew the money was going into a trust when he said “You’ll be paid,” and Mother-of-the-hundred-eyes, no, I mean lies, she knew about it too. No language has been invented to describe how I feel about their betrayal.
Melissa has come around to thinking the trust is a good idea, probably because she was going to spend her money on rags, anyway, and because she wants to go to a fashion design school which costs money. She wouldn’t be Melissa if she wasn’t thinking about herself.
My plans for the future are uncertain, but I may become a biologist or a meteorologist and go and work in Antarctica. Penguins and the weather are more predictable than my family.
“You can still get an iPad,” Melissa says for the third time. “You just have to save for it.”
“Stand back,” I tell her. “I don’t want to chop your toes off.”
“Stop being a horrible little fart,” she says, and goes back inside.
By mid-morning, that big branch has lost all its small branches, and its lower end is bare with sap bleeding out of a thousand axe cuts. There are still a few bigger branches at the thick end, but those will have to be cut by a saw and I fear the bush saw has outlived its usefulness.
I plan to take a walk by myself up the stream, so I can check on the water intake, but Grandpa comes out jiggling the car keys. “Want to come for a ride?”
My inclination is to choose a walk to the stream, but I look back at the car and become a swinging voter. Well, not for long. It’s the car that wins, because there is a chance, a real chance – but that doesn’t mean I am happy about bending my principles.
“We’re going to Hoffmeyer’s farm,” says Grandpa. “He’s killed some meat. Has a leg of lamb for us. Not only but also, he’s got a fifteen-foot runabout on a trailer and says we can borrow it for a day. Like to do some fishing?”
He gets in the driver’s seat and gives me a couple of plastic bags to hold, but as soon as we turn out of the gateway and onto the road, he stops and gets out. “Move over,” he says.
I move over in one quick bounce and grab the wheel.
“It’s a private road,” he says.
“I know.”
He laughs. “No pedestrian crossings, no traffic lights, no cop cars. Just watch out for wild goats and pigs and an occasional landslide.”
“Shall I put it in gear?”
“You’ve done first and second. Now you can try third. That’s about top for this winding road. But you’ll have to shove her back to second on some of the uphill bends. I’ll show you when we come to that. Off you go, Stirling Moss.”
“Moss? What does moss have to do with driving?”
“He was a racing driver before your time,” says Grandpa.
I put my foot on the clutch that now feels very familiar, and find first gear without looking. Clutch slowly out. The car rolls forward without a single jerk. I feed it more gas, then it’s foot off the accelerator, clutch in, second gear, clutch out, accelerator, pick up a bit of speed …
“Now third,” says Grandpa.
Easy-peasy, into third gear and we are cruising along the dirt road, which doesn’t mean I am driving carelessly, far from it: there are ruts and potholes to be avoided and the occasional big stone that has dropped off a clay bank. I need to watch out for things like that. The road is narrow but there are curved clearings at the edge where I can pull over, in the unlikely event of another car appearing.
Driving is such a good feeling. I say to Grandpa, “Would you call this living smart?”
“I would, laddie, but don’t tell your father.”
I have no intention of saying anything to Dad. I have learned the sobering lesson that my parents can’t be trusted.
Of course I’m disappointed, but it’s not like the money has been taken away from us, it’s been invested for the future, which is sort of old-fashioned and sweet of them. Rather like the photos, meaning they’re thinking of a time when they can be with us in another way. I wish Will would understand this. He can’t, and maybe I’m expecting too much from a little kid. Because he talks big, I forget he’s only eleven. He is pretty upset, I can tell. He says this holiday is a “dunger”, a word he picked up from Grandpa, and that he’s never coming here again. But I noticed that when Grandpa mentioned the car, he changed his tune. Bet you anything he wants to drive.
It’s photos again this morning, sorting them one by one. This picture is black and white: a man in tight swim-trunks with bulgy bits, on a diving board.
“Does he have glasses?” she asks.
“No. He’s going to dive, Grandma! He’s pretty cool, and he’s got something around his neck.”
“Shark tooth?”
“I don’t know. Could be.”
She takes the photo from me and holds it against her glasses. “Stone the crows, girl, that’s your grandfather. Put down the date – 1956.”
Grandpa? That is so embarrassing! I recognise some of the other pictures. The little kid sitting on the beach with a dog is my d
ad, I can tell by his hair – Dad’s hair I mean – and the big boy in school uniform is already the serious adult who wants to solve all our problems but usually makes them worse. I find pictures of Dad playing cricket, Dad on skis, Dad and his parents by a campfire, and one of Dad on a beach with a weird surfboard. It’s just a wooden plank, round one end and curved in at the other.
“It’s all we had in those days,” Grandma says.
Most of the photos are of people that neither Grandma nor I recognise, which is just as well because we throw heaps out and soon the box is nearly empty, the job almost finished.
We stop, and I help her make a cold lunch. Not too difficult: lettuce salad, rice salad, hard-boiled eggs and watercress sandwiches. When I’ve set it out on the table, she says, “We’re nearly out of bread. Do you want to make some new loaves?”
I think about it. “Yes, I would.”
“Nothing much to it,” she says. “If you do it now, it’ll be risen after lunch when we light the fire.”
It turns out that, like scone-making, there’s nothing much to bread. What she calls a smidgen of salt goes into the flour. The yeast and sugar are stirred into warm water out of the tap, and for the third time she tells me I have her hands. Well, I have to say this, short fingernails are better than long ones when kneading bread, and I do like the touch of it. She tells me to put oil instead of flour on the bench to prevent it from sticking. Over and over it goes in a smooth white lump.
“Knead it until it feels like your thigh,” she says.
Sounds odd, but that’s the texture, although if my legs were as pale as this I wouldn’t get into a bikini. I grease the bread pans and put two balls of dough in each.
She makes a clicking sound of approval. “Two big loaves. One for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow, and the other to take out fishing.”
“Fishing?”
“It’s not just the leg of lamb they’re after.” She jerks her head towards the road. “They’re bringing back Hoffmeyer’s boat. Your Grandpa’s all set on us doing a day’s fishing tomorrow.”
