Marsh and Me

by Martine Murray

  Over breakfast I say, ‘Who knows about Serbia?’

  Dad is trying to brush Opal’s hair for school. Opal is making faces. Mum is eating muesli. ‘All I know is when I was a kid, there was a war there,’ Dad says.

  ‘What’s Serbia?’ Opal says.

  ‘It’s a country, in eastern Europe,’ says Mum.

  ‘Did you put date balls in my lunch box again. I don’t like them,’ Opal groans at Mum, who gets up to rinse her bowl. This seems to be the end of my conversation. I kind of hoped Dad might show some more interest, but maybe the morning is the wrong time to bring up important conversation topics.

  I google Serbia instead, but even though I can see there was a sort of civil war, which must have been the reason Marsh’s parents left, it doesn’t really shed much light on Marsh. But it might explain the war in her story of the plains.

  I would like to invite Marsh to come to our house, but I don’t know if she would come. When I picture her at my house, sitting at the dinner table in her long white dress with her black hair and blazing eyes, it looks strange. If I picture Digby there, stooped over some spaghetti, it works. If I picture Kenny Lopez or any of the other guys there it embarrasses me straightaway, not that I would ever invite them over. I’d be too afraid they’d say no, or, if they did come, that they’d be bored, that they wouldn’t really want to hang around with me, since I don’t play cricket or ride a skateboard… And if they saw my guitar, then they would all know I fancy myself as a guitar player.

  But Marsh? What would she say? Who would she boss around in my house? What would she talk about?

  Mum would try to talk to her about school or her friends or her home. Opal would ask her if she has a dog. Or if she’s allowed to watch television, something Opal would be so envious of. Dad wouldn’t know what to say—he’s not a big talker.

  What is Marsh’s home like? By the way she ate up that muffin, I wonder if she gets enough to eat. Is her mum there? She never talks about her mum.

  What if I could get Marsh to invite me to her house? How could I do that? Best way is to be straight up and ask her, I guess. But if she won’t even say her name, I don’t like my chances.

  Still, I can go in there and try. It’s what you have to do. Be prepared to fail.

  At school, there’s a footy match on at lunchtime. The guys are all playing, except for me and Digby. Digby is watching a trail of ants. So he isn’t talking. I am sitting in the sun, half watching the guys, half wishing I was one of them, half glad to just be sitting there and not showing how bad I am at ball stuff. I know that’s a lot of halves, but that’s what it’s like inside my mind. It doesn’t add up neatly.

  ‘Hey, Digby, what’s the chance that this’—I point at the footy field as if it pongs—‘is not all there is?’ I think out loud at Digby.

  ‘High chance,’ says Digby. He peels a banana and examines the stringy bit, dangling it in the sun.

  ‘Even this world here, of school,’ I continue thinking out loud. ‘All it amounts to is just one slab of grass with a concrete toilet block and a whole lot of classrooms swarming with kids. That’s all. It’s the tiniest of worlds. It’s nothing really. A speck on the planet’s surface.’

  Digby looks at me as if this is so obvious that it is hardly worth pointing out. He elaborates anyway. ‘Well, when you think that Earth is just a tiny pale blue dot in the vastness of space, that makes school and everything in it too insignificant to even rate a blink of concern.’

  Digby blinks to show just how insignificant.

  It’s easy for him. He isn’t the one wishing he could join in. It’s me who wishes that. But sometimes I get free of it.

  ‘Yeah, it’s all just a moment in the long unwinding of a life,’ I say. I suddenly feel light like a speck of air myself. The freewheeling piece of air that I become, just keeps going. ‘Even being in the Battle of the Bands would mean nothing in the long run. Can you imagine Kurt Cobain talking about it, if he ever even won a battle of the bands competition when he was at school?’

  Digby nods as if even this is true too. I realise then that even Digby, my best friend, knows nothing about how much that would mean to me. If I can’t be honest with him, what kind of a friend am I? A faker?

  It’s about time I come clean and just admit that I do want to be something and I am afraid of not being good enough, but before I even open my mouth, Pim Wilder sits down with us. He has never done that before. He must have sensed an interesting conversation.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he says.

  I’m half flabbergasted and half flattered and half alarmed. I know, three halves again. What do I tell him?

  What I want to say is, Well, Pim, you see how all those guys there are playing footy, well who cares about it, who even knows about it? Who will even know about it in ten years’ time? Maybe one of them will get a silver trophy and put it on his mantelpiece where no one will really notice it anyway, unless he points it out.

  Instead, I say, ‘You probably don’t want to know.’ I’ve reverted to my timid self before I can even kick myself. What happened to being prepared to fail?

  Pim shrugs and stands up. ‘Wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want to know.’

  He walks off before I can even try again.

  I don’t care.

  I do care.

  I don’t care.

  I do.

  It’s a shame that I didn’t just say the truth, that I didn’t just say what I was thinking. And it’s disappointing that I didn’t rise to the occasion because, really, I’m in the mood for it. The mood for rising up.

  After school, Mum is in the vegetable garden. I raid the pantry for food for Marsh, and stuff it all in a shopping bag. Grapes, rice cakes, almonds, hummus, a couple of bread rolls and some cheese. I slip out before Mum comes back in. I leave a note. It says, Gone to Digby’s, won’t be long. Another little lie. I don’t like writing it. I’m not sure how long I can keep Marsh secret, but maybe I don’t have to. But everything about her seems so hidden from the real world that I feel like I should keep her at a safe distance from my world. Maybe my real world would just clobber her make-believe one. At dinner last night, Dad asked me how my metal project was going. For a moment I forgot I’d told him that lie. I nearly blew it.

  I stumbled. ‘Oh, we’re finished with that project now.’

  ‘What was it about?’ says Mum, pretending to be interested. Mum drifts off when people start talking about cars, football or technology.

  ‘We were acting stuff out about history, about how people made their weapons,’ I lied again.

  ‘Did you shoot arrows?’ says Opal, with her mouth full of apple crumble.

  ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, Opal,’ says Mum. ‘Who were you with, Joey?’ Mum is checking to see if I’ve made any new friends. I wish she wouldn’t do that. There are some things, like not having loads of friends, that I don’t need to be reminded about.

  ‘It was just me and Digby.’

  ‘So you don’t need a shield, then?’ says Dad.

  I almost grinned. I did need a shield with Marsh. But not that kind of shield. Just a shield of tough skin. Dad can’t make that, only life makes that.

  I take the food stash and head up the hill, as determined as any thin-skinned explorer can be. Even Black Betty seems to sense a certain determination in my stride. She runs ahead to clear the way.

  What I like about the hill is how it gives perspective, how it gives a sense of the smallness of self in the largeness of the world. Back at school it’s a different story. School belongs to the smart guys, the sporty guys and even the geeks. But the hill belongs to me. Or us. Me and Marsh. What we look out over is completely open, wild, and as big as space. Nothing snags your eye down to the small, common goings on, like what’s going on in the schoolyard.

  I feel larger with each step.

  I call out before I get to the treehouse. And when Marsh pops her head out, I give her a hearty wave. She disappears immediately.

  I cl
imb up. She is sitting in the corner, just like last time. She is wearing a long embroidered yellow shirt dress this time, and sneakers. Her hair is plaited and wound around the top of her head like a wreath. I thrust the bag of food towards her.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Don’t you want it?’ I ask.

  ‘First, we have to sing.’

  ‘But I don’t want to sing. I’m no good at it,’ I say. I plonk myself down in the opposite corner. I hate having to do things I’m no good at. Here I was, ready with supplies, a plan and a twinge of raw courage, and now I’m suddenly deflated.

  ‘So? I don’t care if you are no good at it. It’s the deal.’

  ‘I don’t need anything in return for the food though.’ I open the bag, take out the grapes and the cheese, trying to tempt her. I know it won’t work, but I do it anyway. Marsh won’t back down. She sees the food, and lifts her chin away from it.

  ‘I have a song to teach you. First, we will just sing the notes with an ahh sound. I will sing a line and then you copy.’

  As she opens her mouth to start, I am shaking my head. How did I get myself into a treehouse with a girl who is making me sing? How? I am about to be a complete failure. It’s not that I don’t like music, it’s the exact opposite—I have so much awe for music that I don’t want to crash my voice up against it. I know when things sound good and when they don’t, which is why I never try to sing. I only sing in my head. I’d never sing out loud. I would ruin the music.

  She is waiting.

  ‘I don’t sing. Sorry. That’s the way it is,’ I say.

  ‘You’re just afraid,’ she says.

  We lock eyes. It’s as if we are banging up against each other.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ I say.

  ‘Prove it, then.’

  It feels as if we are in a fist fight except it’s words we are flinging back and forth. I remind myself that I don’t have to prove anything to her. I’m not sure whether I’m angry or amused. And then, before I know what I feel, my mouth opens and I push out a long loud note of pain right back at her.

  She laughs. ‘Okay, you’re not scared, but did you mean to sound like a cow?’

  Because she is usually so serious, when Marsh laughs, it’s like rain just fell on the desert, and because I want more rain to fall, so to speak, I throw away all my resistance and do it again. This time I try for some sort of human tuneful sound. It’s not so bad. It’s not good, but it’s not so bad.

  Marsh nods. She is neither impressed nor disappointed.

  She sings the next line.

  I roll my eyes.

  She sings it again.

  I can’t win this one. But maybe winning isn’t always the best move.

  I shrug. I let out a sound.

  She smiles and nods. I smile too. This feels good. I’ve had my private win. I’ve got us smiling at each other.

  We go like this for a while. Then she sings two lines and I copy. I stop caring how I sound. It isn’t long before I know the tune, and then we sing it together. We ah la laaa it together. It doesn’t sound bad. At least, I don’t completely wreck it.

  I can’t sing it like she can. She soars. I aim for the note and don’t always land on it. But by now, all my shame has been used up. I just try again. I even start feeling lighthearted.

  Marsh looks at me, as if she can see me pumping my chest up. She takes the cheese and breaks a bit off. She opens the bag, pulls out a bread roll, breaks it open, shoves the cheese in and takes a big bite. ‘I think you can do better than that,’ she says through her mouthful.

  I just laugh. Let’s face it, if Marsh had been pleased or encouraging or warm, it would have been a shock. But I don’t need Marsh to say anything complimentary, because I’m glowing on the inside.

  I look up at the wind telephone sitting up there on the tree trunk behind her. ‘You don’t really hear people, do you?’

  She is busy eating now. She is examining the contents of the bag, pulling out the nuts, sticking her finger in the hummus. (I forgot to bring a knife.) She looks at me and frowns for a moment. She chews, staring at me, blankly.

  ‘You know, Joey, your ability to hear things and see things depends on whether you believe you can. I believe, which means I hear. Do you want to try?’

  She reaches up, grabs the phone receiver and passes it to me. I press it to my ear. I hear nothing. But I don’t want to admit it. I consider faking a conversation but, of course, she sees through me.

  ‘Don’t you have someone you want to talk to?’ she says.

  I shake my head. No one comes to my mind.

  She pouts. ‘Well it’s no good then. The wind telephone is for talking to someone you want to talk to. You can say whatever you want to them, maybe things you can’t say to anyone else. The wind carries it all.’

  Maybe I would like to speak to Kenny Lopez. Maybe Pim Wilder. Maybe I could ask Kenny if I could join his band.

  ‘Show me then.’ I pass the receiver back to her.

  She plonks it back on the hook. ‘I only talk in private,’ she declares, standing up. ‘Come on. I’ll teach you something else.’

  It annoys me that Marsh assumes she has so much to teach me. One thing I could teach her is how to learn stuff from other kids. It’s enough that she has taken command of the hill. It’s enough that I had to back down and let her stay. Now she expects me to let her take charge. I change the subject, just like she does when she doesn’t feel like answering.

  ‘Were you born in Serbia?’

  ‘No, here.’ She stomps her foot as if to indicate the spot.

  ‘So are you Serbian or Australian?’

  Marsh screws up her nose, as if this question has a bad smell to it. For a moment I expect she will ignore it, but then she sighs. ‘Both. But sometimes it feels like I’m not really one or the other.’ She frowns, but then she drops to her knees and touches the yoyo, which is suspended above a jar lid of water. Then she brings the belt buckle to the water. When she looks back at me, she says, ‘Did you hear her? Eugenia?’ Marsh touches the yoyo again.

  ‘No,’ I say. I have the feeling she is just showing off now. ‘Who is Eugenia?’

  ‘She is an empress, who ruled over Serbia. She wrote poems. And she became a nun.’

  ‘How has she become a yoyo, now?’

  Marsh looks surprised that I would ask her this. ‘She is not a yoyo. This is just the thing I use for her. It is about seeing with your mind’s eye.’

  ‘What did she say to you?

  ‘I can’t tell you what she said. Not everything is communicated in words. Sometimes it’s just feelings.’

  I must look dumbfounded or disbelieving, because Marsh frowns at me. I can tell she thinks I’m some sort of blockhead who isn’t capable of following her dream logic.

  Before I can prove her wrong, she jumps up.

  ‘I’m going to show you something,’ she says.

  Something I might be able to see, I hope. I don’t want to be taught anything, but I guess I don’t mind looking at something. At least this is something I’m okay at. I’m okay at being open to whatever comes next.

  Marsh takes me to the supermarket. This isn’t what I was expecting. I thought she would take me somewhere a bit wild and secret, somewhere a bit hidden and unusual. I was not expecting the supermarket.

  But in we go with no explanation. Marsh just smiles mysteriously.

  I hope no one I know will see me here with a girl in a yellow dress embroidered with lilac-and-green flowers, a girl who looks like someone from the cover of one of my mum’s old psychedelic records. Marsh doesn’t appear to care who sees us. She seems almost unaware that there are other people in the supermarket, even in the world.

  I know it will ruin the mystery, but I ask anyway. ‘Marsh, why are we here?’

  ‘What is a special treat for you?’ she says. ‘Ice-cream? Doughnuts?’

  It’s hard to imagine she has money to spend on this kind of stuff.

  I shrug.

  ‘Gold
en Gaytimes, actually. But you can’t buy them here and even if you could, I haven’t got any money.’

  She snorts. ‘I like doughnuts. In Serbia they are called krofne. And I like salted chocolate, too.’

  I am still confused. We go to the chocolate section. We look at the flavours. I suggest cherry. Unsurprisingly, Marsh takes the salted one.

  ‘Come on,’ she says. I think she is about to take me to the doughnuts, but she heads for the cash registers. She picks up a newspaper, turns to me and says, ‘For my dad.’

  Pim Wilder is in the queue, holding a can of dog food. Of all people to see, Pim is the best and the worst. He isn’t the type to snigger, but he is the person I least want to shame myself in front of. He sees me. There is no avoiding him.

  ‘Hiya, Joe,’ he says.

  ‘Hi Pim.’ I turn towards Marsh. How should I introduce her? I don’t even know her real name. ‘This is Marsh,’ I say.

  ‘Hi,’ says Pim.

  ‘Hi,’ she says. She seems shy for once. Maybe because Pim is so relentlessly relaxed.

  If he thinks she looks funny, he doesn’t show it. He just says, ‘I’ve got a friend with a hungry dog,’ and he holds up the can.

  ‘We’re here for chocolate,’ I explain, but as soon as I say it I realise we haven’t got any chocolate, we only have a newspaper. I glance at Marsh to check, in case she does happen to be holding chocolate and can make sense of my claim, but all she has is a newspaper wedged under one arm.

  ‘What’s the dog’s name?’ she asks. At least she turns the attention away, even if it is a bit of a strange question.

  ‘Maude,’ says Pim, smiling. Marsh has that dog tag with Maude’s name on it. She doesn’t flinch though. If she realises it, she doesn’t let on.

  ‘Good name,’ she declares. I catch myself hoping she won’t show her wild-girl side, and then I feel ashamed for having been so small.