Sign

by Colin Dray

  Dettie rose, crossed the floor and dropped the rest of her breakfast in the plastic bag hanging under the sink. Turning, she dusted off her hands and adjusted her wedding ring. ‘It seems to me you’ve already made up your mind, Joanne,’ she said. ‘You’ve been seeing this fellow for months now. He’s sat at your table. Does it really matter what any of us think?’

  Sam let the same bite of crust sit in his mouth. Katie wiggled her toes so that her slippers slapped on her heels. Dettie’s breath shook.

  Their mother was blinking heavily. ‘Of course it—’ She took a breath. ‘I am trying—’

  ‘Oh, I know what you’re trying to do,’ Dettie turned her back to her and started clattering dirty dishes into the sink, twisting the tap on. ‘If you really want my opinion, you should call your husband,’ she muttered.

  The pipes squalled in the walls and water blasted over the cutlery.

  Their mother gathered up her purse, her mug, and her keys from the fruit bowl, and threw a Chapstick into her handbag. ‘Oh, I’ll call him,’ she said. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll be talking to him today.’

  On her way to the door she kissed both Sam and Katie on the forehead. ‘Mummy’s going to be a little late,’ she said. ‘Be good. Listen to Dettie. And don’t dawdle on your way to school.’

  When the front door had closed and their mother was gone, the radio went on chattering, louder in the quiet, and the apple tree in the backyard rustled against the flyscreen.

  ROAD

  17

  There was an hour until school, so Sam helped Katie brush her hair into a ponytail while they watched cartoons together in the lounge room. On the screen, colourful bears shot rainbows out of their bellies, and Katie wiggled excitedly on her cushion. Dettie, meanwhile, fumed. She stood up from her armchair. She sat down. She rose again, looked out the window, then settled back into her seat. She lit a cigarette—something their mother never allowed in the house—and smoked it all the way down, ashing it in her empty teacup. She stared straight ahead, breathing heavily. Sharp, shallow, fast breaths. Sam watched her as he fixed Katie’s hair tie in place, remembering his own breathing attack at Tracey’s house, wondering what was going on in her mind. Dettie was nodding. She seemed to be working herself up to do something. She smoked a second cigarette. Then a third. Sitting and nodding. Finally she blinked, and the tight expression on her face went slack.

  ‘I’ve got to make a phone call,’ she said, raising herself up again. ‘You both wait here until I call you.’

  ‘Can I have a chocolate?’ Katie asked.

  ‘Just wait here!’ Dettie snapped. She stuffed her cigarettes into her handbag and stomped out into the hallway.

  For a moment it was quiet—someone in Katie’s cartoon was learning a lesson about forgiveness or something—until Sam heard the thudding of the push-button phone being dialled.

  ‘Hello! Yes! Hello, Joanne!’ Dettie called out. ‘Now, Joanne, I want to talk about this morning. I was very upset.’ She was talking loudly, her voice carrying down the hall as she paced the length of the phone’s cord. ‘You wanted to talk too? Very good. I’m glad.’

  Katie leant closer to the television, trying to hear over what, from Dettie, was almost shouting.

  ‘Oh, you called Donald, did you?’

  Both Sam and Katie turned at the sound of their father’s name.

  ‘That’s wonderful news! I can’t wait to tell the children!’ Dettie leant into the room, holding the receiver away from her ear, to give them both a big wink. When she saw the children’s gaping expressions her face lit up with a smile. She disappeared back into the hall. ‘Yes, Joanne, that’s fabulous! I knew you two would work it out!’

  Sam’s heart was beating fast. Katie was clutching her shoes and socks in front of her, motionless.

  Their father?

  Their mother and father had talked?

  But they never talked.

  ‘Go now?!’ Dettie was saying. ‘Of course! How exciting! What a wonderful idea!’

  Sam was tingling with sweat. He stood, but couldn’t bring himself to walk out to Dettie in the hallway. Instead, he watched her shadow shifting on the wall.

  ‘Yes, of course we can go now! All right. That sounds good. See you soon. Bye!’

  She slapped the handset down with a clang. The tone of the bell inside the phone reverberated around them all.

  ‘Change of plans,’ Dettie said, returning to the room. ‘We’ve got to get moving. We’re going on a very exciting trip.’

  She ushered them both into their bedrooms to get changed out of their school uniforms and stuff another set of clothes each into plastic bags. Their mother had just called their father, she explained. She’d gotten to work and phoned him up, and once the two of them had spoken for a little while, they realised what a big mistake they had made when they split up. They said right then and there that they wanted to be back together. They wanted the whole family back together. As soon as could possibly be.

  So everyone was going to Perth.

  That was what their mother had just told her. In all the excitement Dettie misspoke, saying that it was their mother who had phoned home, when, of course, Sam knew it was Dettie who had called her, but in any case, it was all being arranged.

  ‘Where’s Perth?’ Katie asked.

  ‘You’ll love it,’ Dettie said. ‘And we’ll be there in no time at all.’

  Dettie, Katie and Sam were to leave immediately, in Dettie’s car, to get a head start. Their mother would stay behind to fix up a few things—the house, her job, bank accounts—and would be along in a day or two with the moving van.

  ‘Can’t we wait for Mummy?’

  ‘Oh, no, dear,’ Dettie said. Their mother would be far too busy getting everything done. If they stayed behind it would just delay everything, and their father was desperate to see them both again as soon as possible. He missed them terribly.

  His father’s face flashed into Sam’s mind suddenly, more vivid than it had ever seemed to be. He was going to see him again? He wanted to be with them all? The photograph of him holding Katie, the tape recording of him and Sam singing ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’, their mother’s wedding ring, which hung on a hook at the front of her jewellery box. It all merged together. Maybe he’d never really left. Not forever. Maybe it was just a strange pause while he went to get settled in Perth. That was probably why he hadn’t visited or called. He was too busy setting things up. Hoping they would join him.

  He knew that Dettie spoke to his father—she said they often phoned each other. They must have been hoping for this the entire time. And now that his mother and father had made up, it was all going to happen. The question of Roger flashed, momentarily, into his mind, but was forgotten in the rush.

  Sam barely noticed what he had gathered together—a T-shirt, a change of shorts, a spare vent and the cleaning supplies for his stoma.

  ‘Hurry, hurry, hurry!’ Dettie sped through the house clapping her hands. ‘We’ve got to get going! Fast as you can!’

  They left the dishes, unwashed, in the sink, stepped over their schoolbags, still packed with books, in the hallway, hastily snatched some snacks from the cupboards, and in minutes they were in the car, snapping their seatbelts on as Dettie frantically searched the rear-vision mirrors, reversing down the driveway. With a quick stop at Dettie’s apartment to grab her chequebook and medications, and an even faster visit to the bank, where Sam and Katie waited in the car, they were soon passing through the thinned-out morning traffic, watching commuters in suits and dresses sing along to their radios. After two or three suburbs Sam stopped recognising places he knew, and started wondering, vaguely, if they would ever be back again.

  When they turned onto the highway Dettie let out a loud sigh she had apparently been holding for some time. They settled into the overtaking lane and began passing long trucks with rattling mudflaps and cars with pokey caravans attached. The shape of the city faded away behind them. The posted signs began listing towns hundreds
of kilometres away. Sun nuzzled on their necks and the road stretched west.

  18

  As they met a patch of cracked asphalt on the highway, the lolly wrappers rustled on the floor. Sam had been steadily growing nauseous the more the car shuddered over potholes and swept around bends. Outside, crushed foxes and dead kangaroos lay on the side of the road. Katie was watching out the window whenever one slipped by, boosting herself up on her arms.

  ‘Just kick the back of my seat if you get too hot back there, Sammy. I’ll open up another air vent,’ Dettie said, peering back at him through the rear-vision mirror.

  Sam nodded with his mouth open and his forehead rattling on the window. His thumbs were hooked in his shorts, trying to relieve the bloated feeling in his stomach.

  ‘You want me to switch the radio on?’

  He didn’t respond, so Dettie skimmed through the stations. There were snatches of conversation and squeals of static until finally the car throbbed with a wail of pipe organs and drums. Dettie’s foot tapped a beat on the pedal, and the car surged along with the percussion.

  They’d been driving for hours now, and as the sun had risen higher in the sky the air had dried out, until the wind blasting through the vents simply pushed the heat around. Dettie’s driving was much looser than his mother’s, sweeping over rises in the road and gliding heavily around curves. Katie, in the front seat, was fine, but in the back it made Sam’s stomach churn.

  Katie was still staring outside. ‘Why are there bags on the road?’

  Dettie tried to hum the melody but didn’t know the tune.

  ‘Aunt Dettie?’

  A car flashed by, and Dettie complained about people crowding the road.

  Katie turned to Sam. ‘Why are there bags?’

  Even if he hadn’t felt so ill, Sam wasn’t sure how to convey to her what they were. What they had been when they were alive. He shook his head.

  From his position slumped down in his seat, the sky was bigger than Sam had ever seen it. Thin clouds hung like silky scars on the horizon, and birds lapped across it in wide, heavy arcs. The horizon seemed so low—unblocked by buildings or trees—that the undulating hills looked like a great green ocean frozen in place. Sweat dampened his skin, and he tried to position his face beside Dettie’s seat to catch the breeze from her vent. Her breath smelt of smoke and the liquorice allsorts she’d been snacking on, and the scent of it, blown back over him, churned in his belly.

  A roar of air drowned out the radio as Katie started winding down her window.

  ‘Katie, I told you to leave the window alone,’ Dettie snapped, leaning over and clicking her fingers. ‘Now put it up. Quick smart.’

  ‘But I’m hot.’ Katie waited, still holding on to the handle.

  ‘Look, I’ll turn up the fans a bit if you’d like.’

  ‘I want the window down.’ Katie’s voice was sleepy in the heat. Sam felt the wind whip on the back of his head, cool beneath the sweat in his hair.

  ‘Katie, I said put it up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you know how many impurities are in the air out there?’ Dettie covered her nose with her wrist. ‘How much pollen and car fumes? The insecticides these farmers use? And us travelling at this speed? You could breathe in a bug, or goodness knows what else.’ She let out a couple of little coughs, frowning. ‘Now I’m tired of explaining myself, just put it up.’

  Katie rolled her eyes and puffed out her flushed cheeks. ‘It’s too hot,’ she said, winding up the window slowly, letting the air hiss through a small gap at its top for a few seconds longer. When their aunt glared at her she turned it shut.

  Sam’s hair fell flat again. He felt wet and queasy. The velcro strap for his vent was already soaked with sweat. Something seemed to be swirling in his chest.

  Katie leant towards the air vent, opening her mouth and sucking deeply in and out. She waggled her jaw, watching Dettie from the corner of her eye.

  ‘Will you stop being silly and settle down?’

  Katie turned her attention back to the road, stretching up in her seat. ‘Aunt Dettie, what are the bags on the side of the road for?’

  ‘Nothing. Never mind.’

  ‘Are they blankets? They look like bags.’

  ‘Don’t worry about them.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  They rumbled on, passing several fields dotted with grazing cattle, a vineyard and a couple of dams so low they looked like craters dotted with chocolate milk. The occasional house, nestled beneath the shade of spreading gum trees, vibrated by.

  ‘How long is it to Perth?’ Katie sat up on her hands, scanning the road ahead, her face knotted with concentration.

  It was as though Dettie had not heard her. She pursed her lips and pushed a little harder on the accelerator.

  Katie pointed to another brown lump approaching them along the road.

  ‘That one looks like—’ She leant forward, pressing her face to the glass. ‘What are they?’ He voice quivered slightly. ‘Are they blankets?’ she said again, already clearly certain that they were not.

  Dettie exhaled. ‘They’re not blankets,’ she said, and lowered the volume of the radio.

  19

  The engine ticked as it cooled. Cars swept by along the road. Sam’s legs were heavy and his shoes scraped in the dust and loose gravel. Waves of heat rippled from the ground. He shuffled closer to his aunt and sister. They were already standing over the lump of matted fur, looking down at it, and Katie shook, weeping. The sight of the animal, its brown mass, was too much for Sam to take in all at once. His mind seemed to break it apart into pieces.

  Dettie was waving flies away from her face. She bowed her head, took both children by the shoulder, and hugged them to her hips. ‘This, Sammy, is what I was always talking about. You remember? What lies on the other side of that fight to survive. When you give up.’

  Flies were squabbling in its baked blood.

  Katie choked, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

  ‘Oh, now don’t be upset, little one,’ Dettie said. ‘This is just what happens out here. Out in the wild.’

  Spikes of matted fur were encrusted with dirt.

  ‘It’s dangerous. That’s why we all have to stick together. Keep each other safe.’

  Strips of skin, like carpet, hung back from its pearly muscle.

  ‘Aw. Don’t feel bad. See how peaceful he is? So still? You’d almost think he was sleeping.’

  Her thumb was burrowed into his shoulder, but Sam was only vaguely aware of it. He wondered what his aunt was even talking about. Peaceful? Giving up? It had obviously been hit by a car. Its chest was crushed and bloodied by the impact. Its front paws were twisted. It didn’t look at peace. It hadn’t just laid down on the road and decided to die. A tingling feeling was crawling up his skin. The animal’s mouth was torn up in a ragged sneer.

  ‘But that’s not us,’ Dettie was saying. ‘We’ve got a long trip, and we’ve got each other, and we’re not going to let anything stop us. Are we?’

  An exposed pupil bulged through its rubbery eyelid. Lightheaded, Sam leant his face against his aunt’s blouse and inhaled her thick scent of smoke. Blotchy ripples drifted across his vision. A fly crept across the animal’s eyeball.

  Katie howled.

  Dettie’s voice was fading to a murmur. ‘We can all pray for him if it’ll make you feel better.’

  Ants, swarms of them, rippled beneath it on the gravel. At first Sam thought it was a shadow, but they surged, dark and liquid. He could feel them. It was as though they were covering his own body, crawling, swirling. The twisted head. Its rigid, bent arms. The long motionless tail. The stench. All of it swarmed over him at once. It was roadkill—or that’s what it was now. Before, it had been a kangaroo. Now it wasn’t. Now he was staring down at it, rotting on the side of the road.

  The spit in Sam’s mouth went slack. His sight blackened and the oxygen drained from his head.

  20

&
nbsp; Standing bare-chested in the women’s toilet, Sam watched the door as Dettie scrubbed cold water into his T-shirt. He could smell old urine, his own vomit, and the wet lemon towelette she’d used to wipe his lips. Dettie’s hands knifed through the water, wringing out the material so hard that the neckline stretched. A sliver of yellow soap was smeared in her palm, excreting feeble bubbles. ‘How are you feeling now, Sammy? A little better?’

  He flinched as a gust of wind entered from the open ice freezer outside.

  ‘You let me know if you feel sick again. There’s an ice-cream container in the car if you need it.’

  Each breath was cold, straight through his neck into his belly. His hands shook.

  ‘This doesn’t look like it’s coming out. I might—’As she spoke the tap gouged her ring finger, spitting red into the porcelain bowl and over his T-shirt. ‘Blast it!’ she yelped, and sucked the cut, taking soapsuds into her mouth.

  Snatching his T-shirt from the sink, she led Sam back through the door and out to the car, leaving behind a trail of dribbling water. ‘We may as well get you something else to wear,’ she said, and tossed it over the bonnet.

  Dettie popped the boot and fished through their spare clothing.

  ‘Oh, blast!’ she said again.

  One of the juice boxes they had packed had been crushed and leaked all through the plastic bags. It had left a sticky, pulpy purple mess, its sweet aroma soured by the heat.

  Katie rolled down her window. ‘We should have packed more,’ she said.

  Dettie dropped the bag onto the ground and pulled out a first-aid kit from beside the spare tyre. ‘Katie, I said that your mother is going to be bringing all your clothes with her when she comes.’

  ‘When can we see Mummy?’

  ‘When we get there.’ Dettie picked through bandages and ointment. ‘We’ve discussed all this. We’re going on ahead. She’s going to meet us.’

  ‘How long is it to Perth?’

  ‘Katie, will you stop holding me up?’ Dettie’s thumb was pressed to the cut to stop the bleeding. ‘I have to get your brother a new shirt or he’s going to burn to a crisp. Is that what you want?’