Queen Kat, Carmel and St Jude Get a Life

by Maureen McCarthy

  ‘It’s not that bad, you know.’

  ‘Here’s to it.’

  ‘Yeah. To the success of our mission.’

  ‘The next mouthful tastes even better,’ she said, after taking another gulp. That made me snort. We slammed the door behind us and took off into the night. We’d both rugged up well and planned to walk the whole way, about two kilometres, to Fitzroy. But we’d only gone about half a block when a small car pulled up alongside us and tooted.

  ‘Just keep walking,’ I said. ‘Don’t turn around.’ We quickened our stride and stuck our noses in the air, trying to suppress the giggles that were threatening to explode. The last thing that was going to intimidate us was some creepy guy wanting to pick up a girl. The car tooted again. I half looked around. Someone was getting out. Then the car door slammed.

  ‘Hey, is that you, Jude? Carmel?’ My heart gave a leap. I recognised that voice. A tall figure was moving over towards us, curly hair sticking out from under one of those stupid bright knitted beanies. Eduardo. Jesus! I gulped and suddenly felt very shy.

  ‘Er . . . hello,’ I said uncertainly.

  ‘Hello. Hello!’ he said warmly. ‘I thought it was you two. I was passing, saw your light on, and then noticed you walking off.’ He started to grin. ‘Where are you off to at this time of night?’

  ‘Where are you off to at this time of night?’ Carmel threw back at him.

  ‘I was looking for you two, of course,’ he joked, and then gave me a warm smile that made my knees melt. ‘Can I give you a lift anywhere?’ he asked.

  I looked at Carmel and she looked at me. Then she nodded warily.

  ‘Well, yeah. If you’re going down Fitzroy way,’ I said.

  ‘I’m going exactly the opposite way,’ he said. ‘But hop in anyway and I’ll drive you.’

  ‘But you see, Eduardo,’ I said, feeling stupid, but determined that he should understand that our mission was a secret. ‘We have to . . . er, do something. So you’ll have to let us out before we get there because we don’t want anyone to . . . er, know what we’re going to do.’ He was quite near us now and staring down at me, laughing. God. I’d never felt so dumb in my whole life. Carmel didn’t help at all. She burst into loud, semi-hysterical giggles; then, when she wouldn’t stop, I started.

  ‘Hell, this is getting really interesting,’ Eduardo said, opening the door for us. ‘Are you sure I can’t stay to see what you’ve got planned?’

  ‘Positive!’ Carmel spluttered.

  ‘Absolutely!’ I snorted.

  ‘But I’m the epitome of discretion,’ he protested. ‘I swear, I won’t tell a soul.’

  ‘No!’

  All the way he kept throwing guesses to us in the back seat. We’d promised earlier to tell him if he was in any way warm, although behind his back Carmel and I had agreed that we were not going to give anything away, even if he guessed exactly. ‘You going to dig up the pavement?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Shoot a cop?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Pinch something?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Chuck a bomb through someone’s front window?’

  ‘No. No. No!’

  We made him stop in a nearby street. It was a pitch-black night, and there hardly seemed to be any traffic around. Just all that gloomy, hard electric light glaring down onto bleak concrete.

  ‘We’ll be right now!’

  ‘Thanks for the lift, Eduardo!’ we chorused. The door was impossible to open, so he ran around to open it for us. Carmel got out first. As I was following her, Eduardo grabbed my hand, helping to pull me out. When I was upright he didn’t let go. I stood silent, not looking at him, my heart pounding, not knowing what to say. Excitement swept through me like fire. He was still holding my hand. I turned, our faces were only centimetres apart. We looked at each other through the darkness. Then he leant forward and ran one of his hands over my spiky short hair, pulled me to him, and kissed my mouth, quick and hard. I gasped in shock, it was as if he’d stung me. I was filled with a surge of fierce, hard joy. I wanted to shout and jump up on the roof of the car and dance around, hold my arms out to the dark sky and draw it into me. Embrace everything. But I couldn’t move, I couldn’t say a thing. Eduardo went back quickly to the driver’s side.

  ‘See you both then,’ he shouted jovially, as though nothing had happened, ‘and good luck!’

  ‘Thanks!’

  ‘Guess I’ll read about it in the papers tomorrow if anything goes wrong, eh?’ he laughed.

  Then the car spluttered to life and with a sudden roar he was gone.

  By the time we got to Anton’s street we were half drunk and so giddy with laughing that we could hardly stand up. Carmel had found a suitably large brick in a nearby neighbour’s front yard and insisted that she be the one to throw it.

  ‘Carmel.’ I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to me. ‘Why don’t we just go home now, eh? I mean . . . let’s not do it.’ She pulled away, stared down at the brick in her hands, then lifted her face to me. There was a resoluteness about the way she stood there, her big body filled with a kind of furious pride.

  ‘You can go if you like,’ she said. ‘But I’m going to do this.’

  I hid behind a nearby tree opposite the house and watched. She stole quietly towards the wrought-iron front gate and crept into the yard. Everything was quiet. The big white house was in a wide dark street, well populated with trees, and there were other big terrace houses on either side. I saw her raise her arm and then tilt it towards the window. The brick flew out of her hand. I hid my eyes just before the smashing sound. There was a muffled male yelp and then a short, high-pitched scream. Then silence. Carmel ran back to me, panting heavily.

  ‘Come on!’ she said. ‘Let’s cut!’ We took off, running as hard as we could and taking cover near buildings and under trees.

  It’s amazing how your body takes over when you’re really scared. After all our giggling and joking, I think we were both suddenly aware that we’d just done something serious, not to mention very nasty. No laughing now as we flew down the small, cobbled side streets and up and around corners. Dreading the moment when the headlights of a car would come cruising out of the darkness behind us. Or hearing someone’s feet pounding along the footpath, steadily catching up.

  After running for several blocks, we ducked up a dark lane and stood puffing under an overhanging branch, listening for any sound. There was a creak, then muffled voices, a man shouting something about the next day, a slammed door, and a yell from a kid. We hardly breathed as we waited. Was that eerie thumping noise feet? Or was it someone banging something? After about half a minute it faded away altogether. Nothing. Off we went again, not speaking, through another laneway and into Rathdowne Street.

  On this wide, well-lit street, with lots of traffic, we at last felt safe. We stopped running, and our breathing gradually slowed as we walked through to Brunswick Street and then up all the way to the Edinburgh Gardens. Their gloominess was enticing at that time of the morning. We walked through the iron gate and on to the narrow path that encircled the gardens; other tracks spread out like tiny webs across the lawn. The enormous trees stood silent and shining wet in the light, an army of liquidambars and cypresses, poplars and beeches, clustered in groups across the lawn, their branches drooping low and wide and welcoming. Still we didn’t talk. We linked arms and walked slowly through the different pathways. When we got back to the main gate, we set off again along another track in a different direction. There was only the scraping sound of our boots as we trudged along, and the far-off noises from the surrounding streets that had nothing to do with us. Vast circles of yellow light from the tall Victorian lamp-posts spilt out around us like fine dust. Every few metres there was another one, and behind each the murky darkness of bushes with shiny leaves and old-fashioned garden beds surrounded by spiky wrought-iron fences.

  ‘Do you feel better?’ I asked at last.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she said.

 
; By then it must have been about three in the morning. We headed across the grass towards the small rotunda in the middle of the gardens. I remembered the bottle in my pocket, but when I pulled it out I saw there was nothing left.

  ‘Damn it.’ I threw it with a clatter into a nearby bin.

  After climbing the dozen or so steps we walked around the small interior of the solid stone structure a few times, dragging our fingers along the blistered paint of the balcony edge and looking out over the gardens. I could be anywhere in this world, anywhere in the world. I watched the sky as a huge mass of cloud slowly rolled away, revealing a bright, almost-full moon. Very quietly Carmel started to sing a Spanish song we both loved: ‘Canción de cuna para un niño vago’ (Lullaby for a Homeless Child). It was one of the first sad songs I’d sung to Carmel in Spanish, and I remembered how I’d felt sort of exposed, as though she might think I was being maudlin or overly sentimental. But she’d listened as though the words in this language that she didn’t know somehow made sense to her. And then she’d asked me questions. What did this word mean? And that one? And why did the song talk about a river when it was about a homeless child? I’d explained how most of the year the Mapocho River, which runs through Santiago, has a flat stony bed, strewn with litter and rubbish, and that this is where a lot of dogs and homeless children hang out. Heaps of children, some as young as six and eight, huddle together and sleep under the bridges at night, surviving by begging or stealing. Carmel had asked me to write out the words in English and in Spanish. Then, after we’d sung it a few times together, she’d gone to her room and had set about learning it. I’d listened to her practising the Spanish phrases over and over, every now and again coming in to my room to ask how something went or how it was pronounced. Tonight she sang it so simply, her rich voice trembling over the deep notes, making light play of others. She was looking at the moon, but I knew she was singing it for me.

  The moon in the river flows through the city. Underneath the bridge a child dreams of flying.

  The city shuts him in, a cage of metal. The child grows old without knowing how to play.

  How many like you will leave their homes? With money it is easy for love to exist. Bitter are the days when there is none.

  Sleep quietly, my child, nobody will cry out. Life is so hard, you must have your rest.

  Another four children will keep you warm. The moon in the river flows through the city . . .

  From that song we went on to others. Some lighter. Some just as sad. In Spanish and in English. We hardly spoke at all. I don’t know whether it was the still night, or the way we felt, but I couldn’t remember us ever sounding better. Of course it was mainly Carmel’s voice, but I was finding the harmony in each song easily. Because there was no one else around, and we had no accompaniment, we were able to invent, be totally at ease as we made our voices sob and shout; both of us were flattened out in a way. It was the saddest time and the happiest. By five o’clock our throats were dry and our voices were exhausted. We got up from the cold stone of the rotunda and, rubbing our numb behinds, set off for home, still singing.

  We rounded the corner into our street and saw that the front light was on. I looked at Carmel. Her mouth had clenched into a tight, grim line.

  I knew she was thinking what I was thinking.

  ‘If she’s in there . . .’ Carmel said under her breath.

  ‘Listen. Do you want me to go in first and check it out?’ I said. ‘But you’ll go crazy.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ I said, meaning it. ‘I won’t say anything if you don’t want me to.’

  Carmel stopped when we got to the front gate and made me look at her.

  ‘Jude, I don’t ever want to talk to Katerina about it,’ she said. ‘I really mean that. I never want to talk to her, Anton, or that . . . that Kara again. Ever.’

  ‘That’s okay by me.’

  We let ourselves in and walked tentatively down the hallway. I went in first. I pushed open the door into the lounge room and saw a handsome young guy, whom I didn’t recognise, sitting half asleep in an armchair. He blinked a couple of times, smiled a little apologetically, and rose to his feet.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Er, who are . . .’ Carmel, who’d stopped in her room to put her bag away, came in behind me.

  ‘Vince!’ she exclaimed, rushing past me and throwing her arms around him. ‘Vince! How did you get in? Where have you come from? It’s great to see you!’ He was dressed in worn jeans and a heavy woollen jumper. As they were hugging each other I saw that he was so much like her and I wanted to laugh. The same eyes and colouring, the same shape of face. Carmel was radiant when she turned to me.

  ‘Jude, you remember my brother Vince?’

  ‘I sure do!’ I smiled at him. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good! Good thanks, Jude!’ His smile was warm, but he looked very tired. ‘Listen, I hope I didn’t give youse a fright or nothin’, coming in like this. But the door was open . . .’ He looked from one to the other of us, smiling. ‘You always leave your bloody door open, or what?’ Carmel and I looked at each other.

  ‘I thought leaving my truck right outside the house might have told you it was me.’ Carmel and I giggled with embarrassment. We hadn’t noticed any truck. We’d been too busy singing.

  ‘Oh God, Vince,’ Carmel groaned. ‘We’ve been having the most . . . terrible time. Both of us. Oh my God!’ She looked at me and laughed. ‘Where do we start?’ She ran over and hugged him again. ‘What a great surprise to see you, though!’

  ‘It’s good to see you too, sis,’ he said warmly, rubbing her back with one of his rough hands. But I could tell that his mind was on something else. Carmel was so excited that she hadn’t picked it up yet.

  ‘I bet you’re hungry,’ she said. ‘Come on, let’s make a big feast. Eggs and toast and stuff . . .’

  ‘Yeah, I could do with something . . .’ Vince smiled. Carmel bounded off towards the kitchen, but stopped at the door and turned around.

  ‘Vince,’ she said. ‘It’s five a.m.! What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Carm . . .I ’d better . . .’ His eyes shifted uncomfortably to the poster on the wall. ‘I gotta tell you something.’

  ‘What?’ The animation drained from her face.

  ‘I’ve been home . . .’ he said.

  ‘And they’ve sent you here to talk me into coming back,’ Carmel snapped. ‘Oh, don’t start, Vince, please! I just can’t! Do you understand?’ She walked back into the room and stood in front of him. ‘All that money I owe you. Well, I’ve saved half of it. You can have that. I’ve been working, Vince. And I’ll get the rest! I promise you . . .’

  ‘Nah, sis. It’s not that,’ he cut in. She stopped. He was looking away again, at the poster of Allende on the wall, frowning. ‘Well, what is it?’ she asked. He sighed deeply.

  ‘Mum’s real crook . . .’ he said, looking at her.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Carmel said.

  ‘Well, she’s got cancer,’ he said slowly. ‘Breast cancer . . . She’s fucked, Carm. Completely. She’s gunna die . . . maybe only . . . weeks to live . . .’

  Carmel was absolutely still for a couple of seconds, then she sort of shuddered, as if she was trying to push something terrible off her back.

  ‘So they asked you to come and tell me that so I’d go home?’ she flew back at him.

  ‘Nah . . .’ her brother said softly. ‘It wasn’t like that. It was my idea to come and tell you.’ Carmel sniffed. I’d never have believed she’d be like this, so cold and furiously unsympathetic. It must have been the shock.

  ‘Is she in hospital?’ I asked. Vince turned to me, relieved to deal with a practical question.

  ‘No. Not now. She went in for a lot of tests two weeks back. But there’s no point. She’s way beyond any treatment. Wasn’t picked up early enough. They’ve got a nurse coming . . . every day. Mum doesn’t want to be in hospital.’

  ‘But that’s stupid,’ Carmel said loudly. ‘Why didn’t she come to Melb
ourne? They can do all kinds of things now . . . there’s all kinds of treatments . . .’

  ‘It’s too far gone, Carm,’ Vince said again, ‘and the specialist she saw was from Melbourne. He goes up to Manella every fortnight to see patients.’ He looked at me and I could tell he was very upset. ‘She didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t want anyone to know. He told her that they can’t do anything. It’s gone into her bones. She’ll be dead in a couple of months. That’s what he told the old man . . . maybe less, maybe just weeks.’

  We cooked breakfast and ate it more or less silently. Then Vince and I helped Carmel pack up her things. She left me with a few numbers to call. Juan for starters, and then the guys in the band. They’d have to do the gigs without her.

  We clasped hands before she got into the truck with her brother.

  ‘I’ll get up there as soon as I can,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, thanks, Jude,’ she replied. ‘Come as soon as you can.’ Vince started the engine and they were off.

  I went back inside and had a shower. I’d missed nearly two weeks of university already, and one very important test. I’d had no sleep. I was tempted to take another day off. After all, by mid-afternoon I’d be ratshit with tiredness. But something stopped me from deciding to do that. It would be so easy to get behind. Too bad about feeling tired! Too bad about lectures being the last thing I felt like. Too bad about feeling devastated about Carmel leaving, worried for her, and anxious about what was going to happen to her mother.

  I turned off the hot tap and gasped as the water quickly turned icy. I made myself stand under it for a good minute, until my blood had cooled right down. I would go to university that day. Get hold of the notes I’d missed. Ask the lecturer if I could sit the test late. Make up some excuse.

  I will sit in class, I will participate and I will learn!

  After all, I was Carlos’s daughter.

  And Cynthia’s, too.

  A sob broke away inside me, surging up my throat like an enormous angry green wave. White-tipped with fury. And love. Cynthia. My mother. My mother, who’d saved my life. At that moment I felt I knew nothing, except that I was going to be a doctor.