Bird North and Other Stories

by Breton Dukes

  Coral rang two nights ago while I was doing the dishes. I knew something had happened by the way Dad sat with the phone. Real tense like his whole body was listening. They didn’t talk for long and then Dad called Grandad. He didn’t even know Carl had left – apparently Carl often stayed the night at a mate’s place. Dad made Grandad go to Carl’s room and that’s where he found the note. Grandad’s a bit blind. He was finding it hard to read all the words and Dad was patient to start with, but then he got angry. Carl’s had a few bad patches over the years and Dad would have been worried there was something in it about suicide. Still, that doesn’t mean he should talk to his father like that. I went into my room and sat on my bed for a while. When I heard him hang up I went back into the lounge. Dad looked small – sitting with his knees together and his hands on his ankles. He usually fills a fair bit of space. It’s the same when he drives: arm out the window – even in winter – and whenever we pass another truck he does the finger wave. I do the same thing when I drive.

  I get out of the pool and lie on the concrete. It’s almost too hot already. Dad’s staring at something on the table.

  ‘How’s the pool,’ he says.

  ‘There are little spiders on the surface.’

  He looks at me but doesn’t say anything. A lizard zips down the wall of the house and up onto the barbecue. It stays there for a moment and I think about telling him, but then it disappears down the side and into some pot plants.

  We left for Christchurch after the phone call. It was strange in the truck. We were wearing normal clothes and for some reason Dad had shaved so there was the smell of shaving cream. When we got to Grandad’s he was in the kitchen, but the radio wasn’t on and there were dirty dishes in the sink. The note was on the table. Dad read it standing up, still holding onto his bag. After he’d finished he let out a long breath and sat down.

  ‘McDonald’s rang for him today,’ said Grandad.

  ‘McDonald’s?’ said Dad.

  ‘The restaurant people. He’d applied for a job as a cleaner.’

  ‘A year at university and he wants a job at McDonald’s?’ Dad put his hands over his face. He still had the note and it was hard to tell if he was reading or crying. Grandad cleared his throat and asked me how the planting was going. I told him what we’d been doing and then Dad slid the note across the table. It said he was sorry for taking off and that he was going away. At the end it said he loved us. I guess that’s what made Dad upset. Even though Carl’s pissed around a lot, he is the youngest, and I don’t know if this has anything to do it with it, but Dad’s the youngest in his family too.

  We sat around the kitchen for a while, then I got worried Grandad might cook us something and went to bed.

  Dad’s voice woke me. It sounded like he was watching a rugby game. I got out of bed and went halfway down the stairs. Carl and I used to pretend the staircase was a hydro-slide and at Christmas we’d wait there for Santa.

  ‘I don’t like living in that tiny bloody house, but I’m trying to give him a start. He’s a bloody dreamer.’

  He’d never call Carl a dreamer. Even after all his cock-ups. I heard pots clatter and the tap going on. Grandad would be getting the porridge ready. He soaks his oats overnight. I heard him cough and he must have said something because Dad said, ‘Freedom? It didn’t do me much good did it?’

  I’ve seen a photo of Dad when he was nineteen. We look pretty similar, though back then he had a beard. It went quiet in the kitchen then I heard a chair slide back and the radio was suddenly loud as the door opened. I went back up the stairs, but Dad must have heard me.

  ‘Phil?’ he said.

  I just got into bed real quietly.

  A phone’s ringing next door and it’s got the kookaburras working even harder. Dad puts his pen down and closes the phone book.

  ‘What’s the time?’ he says.

  ‘About eight.’

  ‘No, what’s the exact bloody time? I want to start calling these places at eight o’clock.’

  ‘They’re open all night,’ I say, standing up and walking towards the house.

  ‘Phil!’ he says.

  But I go inside. It’s cool and dark with a low ceiling and blinds over the windows. At the sink the tap is a swivelling lever and after I’ve filled a glass I give it a good smack to turn it off.

  I woke up this morning thinking I was still in Palmerston. Then I heard the birds. Out the window the sky was clear and pale. There was a park across the road. A jogger was running along a path that went into the trees. She was wearing one of those sports bras. I put on my shorts and running shoes and went quietly down the stairs and out the front door. It was warm already and the grass in front of Coral’s house was like a mattress to walk on. I crossed the road and started to run. The eucalypt leaves crunched under my feet. I went past the woman and then swerved off the path and started side-stepping the trees. I almost fell over a kangaroo. It was huge and orangey and it looked around and then took off – travelling fast and low to the ground. In the distance there were others: waiting in a clearing with their heads over the grass or bounding through the trees. It was like another planet.

  ‘Watch out for their shit!’ said the woman, as she jogged past. She had blonde hair that flicked up when she ran.

  ‘Been for a run?’ Coral said, when I got back to the house. She was sitting by the pool in a blue robe.

  When she drove us from the airport I’d sat in the back looking at all the cars on the motorway and then the signs on the shops. She and Dad were talking about Grandad’s glaucoma and what had happened to Carl. Sometimes I watched her mouth in the rear-vision mirror.

  ‘I saw some kangaroos,’ I said.

  She took a cigarette from a box on the table. ‘There are a few of those around,’ she said, smiling. ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘It’s warmer than Palmerston.’

  ‘Do you like it?’ she said, ‘planting trees with your Dad?’

  ‘It pays the bills,’ I said.

  Dad’s started ringing the backpackers. Talking in the voice he uses when he’s making a doctor’s appointment. The first five or six turn up nothing and I get back into the pool and sit in the chair. Then Dad straightens and holds the pen over the paper. ‘He left New Zealand without telling anybody. We just want to know if he’s all right.’ He must get put on hold because he looks at me with his hand over the bottom of the phone and says, ‘Phil,’ like he’s about to tell me to do something, but then he raises his finger like he wants me to be quiet and starts talking again. There is a lot of noise from the birds and insects. It’s different from the hill. Sometimes a lark might come flitting over, but usually it’s so quiet you can hear the motorway which is miles back towards the coast.

  ‘Found him,’ Dad says, standing up. ‘They’re going to ask him to ring me.’ He squats by the pool running his hand back and forth through the water. Dad’s started carrying weight in the same places as Grandad. We’ve all got the same crooked nose.

  ‘Eh?’ he says.

  But I didn’t say anything.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower and get myself ready. Have you had some breakfast?’ he says.

  I roll out of the chair and dive back under the water. I kick to the end, turn around, and do another length. When I come up for air he’s gone.

  Most mornings there’s more farting than talking in the truck. We can go for whole days without saying much to each other. On the hill we get our gear together and go our separate ways. At morning tea Dad sometimes goes on about a hare he’s seen, but mostly we sit, eat, drink tea and get back into it. Lunchtimes I pretend I’m having a snooze and in the afternoons we talk about what we need from the nursery or what’s for dinner. Then we drive home, eat, watch television, go to bed, get up and do it again.

  I lie on the concrete beside the pool. My arms smell of the chlorine and sometimes what I think are leaves turn out to be more lizards, but I only know for sure when they dart away. I start getting hot. When I stand up my s
hape’s there. It starts disappearing from the outside in and the last bit left is the rectangle of my shorts.

  ‘Phil! Jesus! Get yourself ready.’ Dad’s standing by the barbecue, rubbing sunscreen into his ears. ‘He could call at anytime.’

  I go inside and put on some clothes. Dad’s in the kitchen when I come down the stairs. There’s an empty glass beside him and when he sees me he holds it up. I shake my head and go out to the table by the pool. Dad comes after me holding the phone and carrying the glass of water. I can’t remember the last time I saw him wearing a shirt. ‘Don’t get dehydrated,’ he says, putting the glass beside me.

  I ignore him and the water and after a while he goes back inside. I can hear a television next door. I was eight the last time we were here. I can’t remember much. There was a rollercoaster that Carl wasn’t allowed on because he was too short and a cereal ad with a talking toucan. One day after we’d been to a cemetery and it was pouring with rain we saw thousands of little black frogs hopping along a gutter.

  Dad comes out and right then the phone starts ringing. He points at it like I’ve never seen one before and when he answers he doesn’t say hello or anything. ‘Carl? Carl?’ he says. ‘It’s Dad.’ He’s got his hand out in front of his body like he’s expecting to catch a pineapple. He looks scared and Carl’s obviously not saying anything cause Dad says his name louder this time and then looks at the phone. He holds it back to his ear and then stands up like he’s grabbed an electric fence. He looks over at me and starts to talk, but then Carl must have said something to shut him up. ‘He wants to talk to you.’ He gives me the phone which is white with a pink knob at the end of the aerial.

  ‘Hey,’ I say.

  There’s no response. ‘It’s me,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah,’ says Carl.

  ‘Me and Dad are here.’

  I hear him sniff.

  ‘Ask if we can see him.’ Dad’s standing behind me. I sit back and feel his fingers against my shoulder.

  ‘Can we see you?’ I say.

  There’s more silence. I can hear Carl breathing then there’s a sound like he’s put his hand over the phone.

  ‘Do you like it here?’ I say.

  ‘It’s hot,’ he says.

  I laugh. ‘No shit.’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Dad says.

  ‘We’re at Coral’s place. She’s got a pool.’

  ‘Is he pissed off?’ he says.

  I look over my shoulder. Dad reaches for the phone, but I keep hold of it. ‘He’s just worried.’

  ‘I’ll meet you at two, at the Swan. It’s a pub in the city,’ he says. ‘It’s beside a sports store.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘See you Phil,’ he says.

  I hand the phone back to Dad and stand up.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Two o’clock at a pub called the Swan.’

  Dad takes my wrist and looks at my watch. ‘How did he sound?’ he says.

  ‘Like Carl,’ I say.

  Dad shakes his head. ‘Jesus,’ he says

  Dad has a bum-bag for his documents and money. When we get on the bus he spends ages digging around for the change. It turns out he’s only got twenties and the bus driver says in a thick accent, ‘You gotta be joking.’

  Dad goes red and starts turning out his pockets. I’ve got some coins and after a while I step past and say, ‘Two to the city.’ I can tell Dad’s really angry so I sit in a single seat and Dad stands there glowering until more people get on and he has to move. I look out the windows: there are men wearing cowboy hats, and cars with the steering wheel on the left-hand side, there are women in suits with sunglasses and high heels, and barefoot Aborigines in football jerseys. Any one of them beamed over to Palmerston would draw a real crowd.

  We get to the pub just before one thirty. Dad was worried we wouldn’t be able to find it or that we’d get lost so we left Coral’s with plenty of time to spare. There are tables on the footpath. Dad sits down and I get the beer.

  ‘Schooners mate,’ I say, putting the beer on the table.

  Dad takes a gulp.

  ‘Do you remember when we saw the frogs?’ I say.

  ‘Frogs?’

  ‘In the gutter, there were thousands of them. We’d been at a cemetery.’

  He looks at me kind of strange but nods and he even manages a little laugh when I tell him about Carl not being allowed on the roller coaster. ‘I had to buy him that platypus,’ he says, looking up and down the street.

  It’s two o’clock and Dad’s already sent me into the pub to check if Carl’s magically popped out of a pokie machine. At two-fifteen Dad tells me to go back inside and make sure that the pub is known as the Swan and not by some other nickname. I point at a sandwich board on the footpath and at the huge writing on the pub itself. When Dad says that there might be another Swan in town, I point to the sports store next door.

  ‘So what?’ says Dad.

  I tell him what Carl said about the pub being next to a sports store and of course he gets pissed off again. We sit for another half hour without talking. There are lots of people coming and going on the footpath, but none of them is Carl. After a little longer Dad goes to a pay-phone and rings the backpackers. Carl’s checked out. They have no idea where he is.

  I’m in the pool. Dad’s on the phone updating Grandad. He’s sitting forward and looking at the ground. The plate-sized bald spot on the top of his head is red and burnt looking.

  We ended up staying at the pub until four o’clock – in case I’d heard Carl wrong – and the sun was right over the top of us. Dad would usually have done something about it, but he just sat there.

  When he’s finished on the phone I say, ‘Reckon we might have a barbecue later?’

  ‘Jesus Phil,’ he says. ‘This isn’t Club Med.’ Then he goes inside.

  I wasn’t being smart. Dad likes barbecuing. I thought it might take his mind off things. I float around in the pool for a bit and then I hear the garage open and close. Coral appears in the kitchen. She’s singing and going through the mail. When she comes out to the pool she gives me a wave. ‘A beer?’ she says.

  ‘Yes please,’ I say.

  She bows like she’s on stage then goes back inside. I get off the chair and sit on the side of the pool. Coming back from the pub Dad told me that when we were last here we hadn’t visited a cemetery. ‘You two were too young for that sort of thing,’ he said. I asked about the frogs and he said in a quiet way that he did remember the frogs, but that that was after we’d been at a mini-putt in the city.

  Coral’s wearing a yellow bikini. There are white spots on it and lines of creamy white skin around the edges. It’s strange to think that when I first saw her I thought she was a little girl. She sits down beside me and hands me a can and a thing made with wetsuit material. I look at it. She holds her one up to her ear. ‘Hello? Hello?’ she says. Then she slides it over her can. ‘Bloody Kiwis,’ she says, smiling at me. ‘So? How did it go today?’

  I tell her about calling the backpackers and waiting at the pub.

  ‘What’s plan B?’ she says.

  I shrug. ‘Dad’s inside.’

  The can’s big in her hand and her elbow brushes my forearm when she takes a drink. ‘Poor guy,’ she says. I don’t know if she’s talking about Dad or Carl so I don’t say anything. After a while she points at my empty can and says, ‘Another one?’

  I get two more and when I come back out she asks me to get an ashtray and to bring her cigarettes which are on her dresser.

  Her room is quiet and the wooden floor is cool under my bare feet. There’s a mirror above the dresser and everything is neatly arranged. Photos, a box of jewellery, and then a little stack: a book, her cigarettes, a lighter. The room smells good as if someone’s been stirring flowers and the sheets on her bed are smooth and black. I hear footsteps on the stairs and grab the cigarettes and go out of her room. Dad’s in the hallway. He frowns and I hold up the cigarettes. ‘Coral wanted these,’ I say.r />
  ‘Don’t you bloody drink too much,’ he says, staying in the middle of the hallway. He’s got his arms out to the side and his face is red from the sun. For a moment he seems huge, and I have to get side on to get past him, but then, when we’re face to face, his expression changes. ‘He’ll be all right, won’t he?’ he says, and it’s like everything drains out of him. Before I can think of anything to say he goes into the room he’s been sleeping in and closes the door quietly, and then, as if he’s afraid of anything fast or loud, he slowly returns the door handle to horizontal.

  I give Coral the cigarettes and sit down. She lights one and when she inhales something moves in her neck. After a while she knocks me with her little body and says, ‘Hey, cheer up,’ and then, ‘What are you making me for tea?’

  I take a gulp of beer and then without smiling say, ‘That’s the woman’s job.’

  ‘Oh, listen to this.’ She reaches into the pool and flicks water into my face.

  I wipe my face and watch the surface of the pool go calm.

  ‘How about a barbie?’ she says.

  Dad comes outside. His hair is sticking out like he’s been lying down and he’s holding up a can and pointing at it like he’s on a beer advertisement. ‘All right if I have one?’ he says.

  It’s dark now and Coral and I are climbing the eucalyptus tree. She said we would be able to see the city. I had to give her a boost into the first branch, but after that she kept ahead of me. The bark is white and shiny and I can hear frogs going.

  After Dad came out to the pool we all drank a beer together and then he and Coral went off to the shops. I wondered what Carl was doing and when they came back, and after we’d had some more beer, I said that to Dad. He was standing beside me and he shifted a chop on the hotplate then he drank from his beer and said to Coral, ‘Never have children.’

  Later on Carol raised her can and said, ‘To finding him!’ and I took a long skull and ended up with the hiccoughs. Coral told me to stand on my head and Dad told me to drink a bottle of water upside down. Just before he went to bed he put his hand on my neck and said, ‘Thanks for your help today.’