Making Laws for Clouds

by Nick Earls

  There’s sweat running down my legs and into my socks. You don’t stop sweating on days like this, and the weight of the bottles doesn’t help. But my mother’ll be glad of them. She’ll be ready for a rum now, sitting on the verandah doing what she calls ‘looking out to sea’, but that’s just another one of her jokes. She says we’re only about two storeys down from a sea view, but if we had a sea view – if we lived on a hill instead of in a dip – we couldn’t afford the place.

  So much for Bob Kotter. I used to think having ‘a Bob Kotter home’ amounted to something until Tanika set me straight. I shouldn’t be such a fool for advertising. ‘Life’s a breeeeze in your Bob Kotter home’ (also patented, with all four Es). Well, it’s not. Most days the breeze, like the sea view, is two storeys up, and we get hot still air and views of the swamp and the lagoon and the bare patch of land that they used for artillery practice during the war. It had signs up about unexploded bombs until a couple of years ago. It’s now the Recreation Council Camp. They cleared it, but my mother says to mark her words and her words are, ‘One day a kid’ll go off in there.’

  My words to Tanika, after trying to impress her with all my council talk, went something like, ‘I’ve kind of moved out of home, you know.’ Another thing I wish I hadn’t said. It’s the most impressive way – but not the most honest way – of saying Mum and Wayne sleep upstairs and I sleep in a hammock downstairs. I’ve got some old sheets hanging to mark off my bit down there, and I’ve got a bar fridge and a radio. It was my father’s workroom, not that it’s a room, and not that he did much work (according to my mother). But at least it means there’s a bar fridge, a sink, and a jar of something green and slimy that, for the nativity play, will do for myrrh.

  It’s a good place, a good space. I had a T-shirt once that said, ‘Everyone needs their own space’ and that’s where I got the idea for it. Plus, it gives Wayne his own room upstairs, so everyone’s happy. Everyone really has got their own space. And my space is semi-outdoors but livable. I’ve got a couple of posters up, and I can do what I like down there. I’ve got Diet Coke in the fridge, I’ve got some African violets growing in pots next to the sink and a selection of magazines. I’ve got my own space where I can hang out nude if I’ve got the inclination, and I’ve got a box of tissues to go with those night thoughts about Tanika Bell (or Pamela Anderson).

  My mother thinks I’m tidy, just because I own tissues. She says, ‘See, you were brought up right.’ My mother says that people who can’t look after their own noses can’t look after much. You’ve got to start somewhere, and your nose is as good a place to start as any.

  She also says you don’t bear grudges in this life. She would have helped out at rehearsals if Mrs Bell had asked her to – the way Mrs Marcuzzi used to, every summer – but she didn’t ask and that’s that and you don’t bear grudges. That’s my mother. That’s her take on the world.

  She sees me coming down the road, sees the rum and the Diet Coke and she shouts out, ‘Good on you, Kane,’ when I get to the gate. ‘Are the Cokes still cold?’

  ‘Just bought ’em.’

  ‘Good on you.’

  She can’t turn much because her back’s bad – she says her pension report reckons she’s lost at least thirty degrees of turn – so it’s easy to sneak the spare rum by her, particularly since she knows I’m going straight into the kitchen to get a round of drinks happening. I usually drink my Diet Coke neat, because I think it’s cool that you can use the word ‘neat’ when referring to a drink, and because I don’t like rum. Alternatively, I go for ‘on the rocks’. I bought my mother a couple of ice trays last Christmas, which means we can do ‘rocks’ any day we like in summer, as long as we remember to keep filling the trays.

  Wayne, it turns out, likes ice. He doesn’t drink much of anything, so finding out he liked ice worked out well, really. It’d work out better if he’d remember to fill the trays once or twice, but that’s Wayne. I can hear him now, in the backyard. He’s doing catching practice. That’s when he stands near the jacaranda tree and pings a golf ball at it and tries to catch it when it ricochets back. Wayne can do that for hours and then come in and suck only a couple of ice cubes. He’s pretty low-maintenance in a lot of ways.

  Mum wants it on the rocks today. We both do. She holds the cold glass against her face and says, ‘Beautiful.’ Slowly, like she means it, like it’s a thing of actual beauty. ‘Could you wet me a face washer?’

  Wayne says no to a drink, but yes to a cupful of ice. He puts a cube in his mouth and starts his catching practice again. He takes a dive to his right and nearly chokes on the cube when he hits the ground, but it clears. He crouches in the dust catching his breath and trying not to be sick.

  I don’t know what Wayne’s going to do with his life. That’s what worries me. Not everyone can get trained on a work-for-the-dole scheme and end up at the council. Not everyone’s got it in them to end up with some kind of expertise about edges. But I don’t know what to say. I know he wants to field at second slip for Australia, but he can’t bowl and batting scares him – so, face it Wayne, it’s not going to happen. It could be time to live in the real world. Okay, so he’s only fourteen, but you’ve got to start thinking about these things. I was fourteen four years ago, and I had a few ideas about where I wanted to head by then.

  It’s Wayne’s night for dinner and he does spam-burgers, which is what he usually does. Cut the right way you get three burgers to a can, so it’s okay. I can smell the spam frying while I’m in the shower. We’re eating early again tonight because of rehearsals.

  With Wayne, advice can be good sometimes but you have to go about it gently. You have to pick your moment.

  ‘Hey, those were pretty excellent spamburgers.’ That’s what I tell him, since a compliment’s not a bad way to start. We’re waiting for the bus, and there’s a thing or two he needs to hear before the others turn up. ‘Remember how last time – after the last rehearsal – I said you looked a bit too much like Wayne up there? Well, that’s okay, but if you want to end up a Magus one day, you do have to put some work in. If you want to create the right impression as a shepherd, you have to have sheep on your mind. Get it? That’s acting.’

  Wayne sits there picking at the scabs on his knees. I sit there in one of my mother’s old dresses with a long piece of rope wrapped around me three times, since I think that’s what they did for belts back then.

  ‘See, you don’t think I feel exactly like a wise man in this, do you?’

  Wayne laughs, picks a bit more at a scab. Puts his finger on the drop of blood that comes out and turns the knee away from Mum.

  ‘You get what I mean? I’ve done four of these now, and you learn something every time. Like, just sitting here getting ready for the rehearsal, I’m getting used to my Magus gear again and I’m giving a bit of thought to my myrrh. See, it turns out I’m a wise man who chooses to express himself through his myrrh, and that’s got to mean something. Something specific’

  Wayne frowns. He’s not there yet.

  ‘Okay, paint me a picture, Wayne. That’s what they say sometimes. Paint me a picture. You’re a shepherd, you’re on the job. Now, what can you see?’

  ‘Okay,’ he says, staring across the road and hopefully visualising the Holy Land. ‘There’s a swamp. And bombs.’

  ‘Wayne, it’s a rocky hillside outside Bethlehem. Acting is about making stuff up, getting beyond your own little world. You’ve seen that TV ad about thinking outside the square? That’s what it’s about. You know what that means?’

  ‘No.’

  That’s when the bus turns up. At some stops Joe Bell gives a couple of toots of the horn, but not ours since I always make sure we’re ready early. There are only a few people on it tonight, because it’s just for cast and crew. Cast and crew and Mrs Bell, on account of the catering.

  I try not to stare at Tanika on the way to the bus. Tanika in the front row with her gingery Magus beard, trying – if I’m getting it right – not to stare at me
. Or maybe it’s just that her beard’s not on straight.

  ‘I’ve never seen a bomb,’ Wayne says when we’re getting on. ‘So I made that bit up. I just know they’re out there.’

  ‘That’s good Wayne. That’s the way’

  Old dresses and sandals are pretty much the go for most of the people on the bus but my dress’d be the biggest, since I’ve got the biggest mother. It’s bunching up when I go up the steps, and I have to lift it like a queen going over a puddle. Very elegant. Mum gave Wayne a bathrobe for his costume, and he got to cut the bottom off but he still catches a sandal on it and headbutts me in the back.

  ‘What is it with you shepherds and your bathrobes?’ That’s what I say to him, to stop us both looking too stupid, and Tanika laughs. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh into her beard, and I quite like it.

  ‘Hey,’ she says when I sit down.

  ‘Hey back. Bearded lady’.

  ‘Nice dress.’

  ‘Thanks. Don’t know about the hibiscus pattern, but maybe I’m just that kind of Magus.’

  ‘Cool,’ she says, and laughs again. Her beard is stuffing from an old mattress stuck on a piece of cardboard and attached by fat ginger sideburns to sunglasses that’ve had the lenses knocked out. Not a bad job at all.

  So I say, ‘Nice burns,’ and I’m tempted to give them a tug but I don’t since her mother’s there (even though she is facing forward). ‘You’re very resourceful.’

  ‘My mum made it.’

  ‘Yeah, well, she’s pretty resourceful too.’

  ‘I’ve got my frankincense,’ she says, and holds up some incense sticks. ‘They’re musk flavour.’ I show her my myrrh jar and I open it so that she can see the goo inside and she says, ‘Oh, yuk, what’s the baby Jesus going to do with that?’

  We all laugh – except her mother – and I tell her, ‘Grease axles or something. He could do worse than get himself a trade, you know.’

  The bus gets to the Blessed Virgin all too quickly, and we have to get down to business. Wayne goes off with the other shepherds and I go with Tanika to find Mattie Hartley. This is a Father Steele strategy – get together in your groups first and talk through some of the issues.

  Mattie’s down the back, drinking a cup of cordial and eating as many biscuits as he can fit in before we have to get started. He’s found a packet somewhere. No surprise.

  Clearly it’s up to me to take the initiative and I’d rather do that than watch Mattie Hartley crack biscuits open and lick the cream out (and then sometimes stick them together again and put them back in the packet), so I kick our Magus meeting off by saying, ‘Okay, what have we found out since last week? I’ve found out that myrrh is a resin, and it comes from trees. I reckon I’d have been the kind of Magus who would have been wise enough to have a few myrrh trees in the yard at home.’

  Tanika goes next. ‘Okay, mine’s frankincense, right? So I looked it up in a dictionary and it said it was old French for . . .’ she checks a note she’s written on her hand ‘. . . luxurious incense. So I thought musk.’

  ‘And the wise part of it?’

  She gives it some thought, a lot of thought, and then says, ‘I bought it when musk was cheap. And now it’s not.’

  ‘Good one. Mattie?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got the gold, so I reckon I’d be the richest Magus. And that’s what my dad reckons too. Also the smartest, since I’ve got the gold.’

  Some of us don’t actually like Mattie Hartley. We decided that a while back.

  ‘The other thing I found out,’ Tanika says later when Mattie Hartley’s getting his beard fluff re-glued, ‘is that the star in the east – the one we follow to get to the baby Jesus – that was probably Venus. That’s the planet of love, technically.’ Then she goes bright red and looks the other way and says, ‘I’m off for a loo break before we go on.’

  Steelo rounds us up as soon as she’s back. We, the Magi, have two scenes and our first one’s early on.

  Herod’s Palace, Jerusalem.

  Mattie Hartley: ‘Where is he that is born King of the Jews?’

  Tanika Bell: ‘For we have seen his star in the east.’

  Me: ‘And are come to worship him.’

  Herod: ‘Why, I have it he is born in Bethlehem of Judea. Go and search diligently for the young child and, when ye have found him, bring me word again, that I may come and worship him also.’

  Herod turns and swishes his gold cape at that point, then he stops and looks at Father Steele. ‘How about an evil laugh? How would that go then?’

  ‘You probably don’t need it,’ Steelo says. ‘And you probably don’t need the turn either. Not that it’s a bad move, but you are the king. You’re already in the position of power, remember.’

  ‘Righto. Got it. Puff up the chest a bit?’

  ‘Why not? Good. Now, let’s keep moving. Let’s have Matthew turn and do the next Magus One line, and then the Magi can depart.’

  Mattie Hartley: ‘Behold, our star, our guiding light. Off in the east. Bring frankincense and myrrh, and I shall bring him gold.’

  Steelo nods. ‘Good. And if we could have you all looking in the same place to behold the star . . . How high do you think it’d be in the sky? Matthew? Kane?’

  ‘Low. You can’t see it at our place at all. We’re in a bit of a dip.’

  ‘All right. Thanks Kane. Low. Good.’

  That’s us done for the moment, so Steelo moves on to the next scene. Back in the stable. We walk through the shepherds backstage and I check that Wayne’s okay before going outside.

  He nods but he doesn’t look happy about me asking in front of people. He glares at me like he wants me to go away. I notice the blood from the picked scab has trickled down to his ankle.

  I ask him if he’s got a tissue and he says, ‘I’m a shepherd on a rocky hillside outside Bethlehem.’ He really, really wants me to go away.

  So I just tell him, ‘Good work, Wayne,’ in a mate-to-mate kind of way, and I leave it at that.

  Mrs Bell has the cordial and biscuits out on the table. The cordial’s in cups already, so Tanika and I take one each and walk away from everyone else, including Magus One Mattie Hartley.

  That’s better,’ she says. ‘Better with just a couple of Magi, hey?’

  ‘Yeah. What’s his story? It’s just cause he’s got gold. And a couple more lines than the rest of us.’

  ‘Yeah. I never liked him anyway, but. Is that bad, not liking him anyway?’

  ‘No, it’s fine. I never liked him and I’ve known him for years.’

  ‘I want to be Mary,’ she says. ‘I wanted to be Mary, but they wouldn’t even let me try out for it.’

  ‘That’s the way it goes here.’

  The last church dad worked at, they reckoned I’d have a fair shot at being Mary this year. And the Mary we’ve got here is such a bitch to me. I don’t know why. I hope she’s not a friend of yours if I’m calling her a bitch.’

  ‘No way. And it’s her problem, babe. All her problem. You’d be such a good Mary and she knows it, I reckon.’

  ‘I hate all this moving. You’ve got to keep starting again. And people don’t like you and there’s all that business about who sits where on the bus.’

  ‘Yeah. That’s all sorted out fine now though. Your dad’s entitled to some conversation. Everyone’s okay with that. So the bus is fine and hopefully you’re all settled in and it’s feeling a bit more like home here. Everyone’s got to have their own space, and you get your space and then you keep it. That’s how it should be. You should be here for a while, shouldn’t you?’

  ‘Hopefully.’

  ‘Yeah. I mean, there’s your job at Bob Kotter Realty. And stuff. You’re not just some kid who can be picked up and carted around any more. You’ve got some responsibilities now.’

  ‘Well, not really. But thanks. I hadn’t thought of it that way.’

  Then the break’s over. We’re backstage again, waiting for our next scene. I’ve never seen the girl who�
�s playing Mary being a bitch, to Tanika or anyone. Maybe there are women’s issues going on. The roughness of the beard makes Tanika’s skin look particularly smooth. That’s what I’m noticing when she shuts her mouth again and looks at the floor.

  Steelo claps his hands and says, ‘Tableau,’ which is the signal for the nativity people to freeze as we come to the edge of the stage to do ‘voices off’.

  Mattie Hartley: This looks like the place, though all the rooms are given up to others.’

  Tanika: ‘Not all the rooms.’

  Me: ‘There are stables too, and people staying there, the inn keeper says.’

  Knock knock knock. Tableau comes alive, shepherd opens door, the Magi are welcomed.

  ‘Exceeding great joy,’ Steelo says. ‘Let’s see exceeding great joy. This is Jesus, remember. You’ve just walked into a stable and found Jesus.’

  Mattie Hartley: ‘We have followed the star and it has brought us here.’

  Tanika: ‘To you, Christ Child and Blessed Virgin Mother.’

  Me: ‘We come bringing treasures, Lord.’

  Mattie: ‘Of gold.’

  Tanika: ‘Of frankincense.’

  Me: ‘Of myrrh.’

  Steelo claps his hands. ‘What’s that myrrh, Kane?’

  ‘We had it at home, Father. I think you get oil off your hands with it.’

  ‘We might have to look at that.’

  ‘But I’ve looked up myrrh, and I think this is about the right consistency. It’s green too. Green wouldn’t be bad for myrrh.’

  ‘All right. Maybe a new jar though. I’m sure someone round here would have a spare coil pot, or something like that that’d be just right for a myrrh jar. Leave it to me. Move on, depart, tableau for the nativity people, Magi out the door and Magus One . . .’