by Nick Earls
Mattie: ‘But, lo, I had it in a dream that we should not return to Herod and should make our journey home another way.’
Exit.
I’m a bit annoyed with Father about the myrrh, to be honest. If he was going to chew me out about the myrrh jar he could have done it later, in private.
The bus takes us home via the Christmas displays at Bokarina, but I’m over the whole nativity thing right at the moment. Dune Vista Drive is already full of cars and minibuses, and some of the houses in the side streets have amazing numbers of Santas and lights and shit but a guy I don’t know says, ‘If you’re such a wise man, what’s going to win the fourth at Eagle Farm on Saturday?’ and I’m just not in the mood.
‘Venus is pretty low down sometimes,’ Tanika says when she comes up beside me. ‘You were right with that. And how can anyone say exactly what kind of jar myrrh would’ve come in back then?’
‘Yeah?’
‘All you’ve got to do is take the Vegemite label off before the first performance, and you were going to do that anyway. I bet you were.’
‘For sure.’
That’s when she holds my hand and says, ‘There we go.’
Tanika Bell is holding my hand in this night not long before Christmas in the best summer of my life. I should get over the jar. People around us get excited and I wonder if they noticed Tanika’s move. Then I hear hooves.
We turn around and Mary comes past us on a donkey – an actual donkey – led by Joseph. She sees us and smiles at both of us, but it’s like a smile in an old painting – a smart-arse smile half held back, like the Mona Lisa.
Tanika looks at the ground and says, ‘Fuck,’ down into her beard as everyone else says, ‘Ooh, Mary.’
We go back to the bus, just the two of us, and we’re still holding hands. I almost say something about the Mona Lisa and that Mary’s up-herself smile, but I don’t. We look around for Venus, but maybe we’re in a bit of a dip here too or maybe it’s behind a house.
She takes her father’s lighter and she lights an incense stick and says, ‘You can see it from my place. We’re up on Battery Hill. You could come over and see it from my place some time, if you wanted.’ She waves the musky smell around.
‘I thought that stuff was expensive.’
‘But I’m wise. I own it all, so I can do whatever I want with it. Whatever I want.’
‘Yeah?’
I kiss her then. I move to kiss her on the mouth, slowly, but when I get there she pulls away.
‘What’s wrong? I thought . . .’
‘My mouth.’ She looks away from me again. ‘I hate my teeth. And my nose is bent on the inside. It’s okay from the outside, but the bit in the middle is bent so I mainly breathe through my mouth. So that’s a problem. And if I kissed you and you didn’t like it . . .’
‘It was only the beard that had me wondering. I’d be fine about kissing that mouth.’
And I do, and this time she kisses me back.
I don’t sleep till well after midnight. I’m nude in the hammock and tonight there’s a breeze coming through the slats, bringing in wet salty swampy smells. I can remember every second of how Tanika’s rough teeth felt on my tongue. And my neck, and my ear. And the taste of blood in my mouth that time when she gave my tongue a bit of a gouge without meaning to. She’d be quite an eater, I’d reckon.
I didn’t tell Tanika about my mother’s views on the importance of looking after noses as one of the basics. Tanika, like Wayne and the birth incident with Mum’s parts, started life a little behind and you know what? I like her all the more for it.
I can hear my mother upstairs not sleeping either, but that’s the rum. No one sleeps well on rum. That’s just how it is. She’s talking, louder, arguing. That’s how it goes in Mum’s dreams. Then there’s Wayne’s feet in the hall, and he’s talking her down. I should be less worried about Wayne. He’s a good guy, and not everyone has ambitions. ‘Lofty ambitions’ – that’s what one of my teachers called them just before I left school and I told him I wouldn’t mind working in a plant nursery one day.
I can’t believe I pashed Tanika Bell. I want that to be the last idea in my head tonight. Not my mother’s messed-up dreams. Me, Tanika Bell and the night sky from Battery Hill. That’d do me. That’s my lofty ambition for now.
Sometimes we get a Blue Nurse in to dress my mother’s ulcers. This week the doctor lines that up for Thursday, and you can even smell the fresh bandages when I get home from work.
‘Looks good, Mum,’ I tell her, for a bit of encouragement.
‘Good on you, Kane,’ she says, and she gets me to fix her a rum and Diet Coke.
‘Rocks, Mum?’
‘Yeah.’
For tonight’s rehearsal Tanika is actually in the driver’s seat when we get to the bus, and Mr Bell is nowhere to be seen.
‘You didn’t know I could do this, did you?’ she says when we’re getting on. And she’s got one hand on the gear stick and the other on the steering wheel, and she’s sitting there like a complete expert. ‘If you’re lucky I might let you borrow the front seat. Give the driver a bit of conversation.’
‘Does that mean Wayne has to pray at the intersections?’
‘I really hoped no one had noticed Mum doing that.’
At that point Wayne trips coming up the steps and headbutts me in the back again. I shouldn’t have stopped.
Tanika shakes her head and says, ‘Bloody shepherds.’ And she tells us she’s already dropped a carolling group off at a shopping centre, and her parents were part of it.
So tonight there’s no Mum, no Mrs Bell, no Mr Bell, and I watch Tanika driving, driving the bus. We’ve come a long way in a few months. It wasn’t so long ago that I only got to watch the back of her head, and she was a passenger then. To think I showed off about operating heavy equipment, and she can drive a bus and she didn’t say anything.
And it stays different tonight at rehearsal. I’m not a good Magus Three this evening. All I can think of is Magus Two and her mouth, and I’m never ready for my lines. I make a mess of my lines, and that’s not like me. There are several things I want to say to Tanika Bell, but I don’t know what they are.
Tonight the rehearsal started early and we break for dinner at the halfway point, after we’ve gone through the whole play once. I didn’t get my shit together as far as dinner goes either. We’re supposed to bring our own. I managed to find enough in the fridge to put together a left-over package for Wayne, but I might have to make do with biscuits.
Which makes it more embarrassing when Tanika says, ‘Hey, want to eat together?’
And I have to tell her, ‘A couple of biscuits’d do me, I think.’
‘Oh.’ It’s like I’m turning her down.
‘No, I had a big lunch.’
‘Oh, okay.’
‘All right, I ran out of stuff at home, stuff that was in the fridge and ready to go. I didn’t get home from work in time to make anything new.’
‘You can have some of mine. It’s back in the bus.’
‘Back in the bus?’
We look at each other and then she says, ‘I’ve been thinking about you since Tuesday night. Nothing but.’
‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’
We start walking to the bus, and our arms end up around each other. I kiss her on the cheek, just in front of one of her big gingery sideburns.
It’s a surprise and she takes a breath in and says, ‘There’s people . . .’
‘Sorry.’
‘No, don’t be sorry. I was just saying there’s people.’
We get to the bus and she takes my hand and leads me up the steps. And it feels like it’s her bus now, now that she drives it. I’ve been a passenger on this bus all my life – three changes of seats, gradually moving forward – but I’m with Tanika Bell tonight, and her first seat was the front row and her second seat was the driver’s. That’s the kind of woman she is.
‘It might be down the back,’ she says. ‘I don’t rem
ember. There might be a bit of searching to do.’
She walks ahead in the dark, and I reach out. My hand finds her shoulder and I move it down to her side.
‘Mmmm,’ she says, ‘are you helping me find dinner?’ She pushes back against me. Takes my hand in both of hers and moves it up to her breast. She half turns her head and our beards rub together. I get a mouthful of fuzz and she pulls her beard off, then mine and says, ‘No more wise men.’
Then our mouths are together and I can feel her tongue, her teeth, hear the air whistling through her nose. She leads me down onto the back seat, then climbs onto me, crouches over me with the moonlight coming in the back window and onto her face. She moves so she’s lying on me, and we’re kissing again. I can feel her back, her thighs through her dress, and she’s rummaging around in mine which is just one fold after another down there. She stops to breathe, and it becomes a laugh. Just a small laugh.
‘I’ve never had this kind of trouble with a dress before,’ she says. She lifts it up, fold by fold, slides her hand into my underpants. ‘So, what have we got here?’
‘Watch out. Or I’ll . . . it doesn’t need much encouragement.’
‘I wouldn’t mind some,’ she says and puts my hand where it’s never been before. ‘There. Just there . . . but not that hard . . . yeah.’
Her breathing changes, gets heavier. The moonlight comes in on her closed eyelids and I lift my head up to kiss her eyes. She makes a noise, and it almost pushes me over the edge.
‘I have to tell you, I’m close.’
Back home this is round about when I’d be reaching for lots of tissues.
Tanika says, ‘Yeah,’ like it’s all under control, and she still doesn’t open her eyes. She reaches into her bag, pulls out a small packet, bites the end off. ‘Here.’
I feel the condom go on, her fingers unrolling it, and I have to bite my lip and take the Lord’s name in vain. Then she moves on top of me again, rubs me up against her and suddenly I’m somewhere else and then . . .
Then Father Steele appears on the steps of the bus just as I let it go. I hear myself going, ‘Aaagh,’ like someone who’s just had a tooth pulled without a needle, and Father Steele makes the same noise as he slips back down the steps.
Tanika lies on top of me, very still, puts her face down against the base of my neck and says, ‘Shit,’ quietly.
Outside the bus, Father Steele clears his throat.
Tanika lifts her head and looks at me, looks right into my eyes.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll sort it out.’
We move. She pushes herself up and away from me and my dress falls back into place, almost, and I take the condom off. I can’t go and talk to Father with it in my hand, so I give it to Tanika and I don’t know what to say so I say, ‘Sorry.’ It seems appropriate.
When I leave, she’s sitting there holding the condom like it’s an undersized fish that’s given up the fight.
‘So, Kane . . .’ Father Steele says when I get out of the bus, and the next line is up to me.
‘I know we’ve done the wrong thing, Father. I know it’s things like this that can spoil Christmas for everyone, and I know we’re out of the play now. You don’t have to tell me that. I know that neither of us deserves to be a Magus after this, and that’s just the way it is.’
‘That’s a very mature approach, Kane,’ he says, and we start walking. Father Steele always likes to pace when he’s thinking about life’s dilemmas, and I don’t mind it either. I think I picked up the habit from him.
‘I’m eighteen, Father, it’s about time for a mature approach. And I could have done better tonight. I know that, in that bus, Tanika and me, we succumbed. We were weak, Father.’
‘Yes, you were. I know you’re eighteen, and she’s eighteen too, isn’t she . . .’
‘I think so.’
‘I hope so. You’re eighteen and you have to make your own decisions, I know that, but this . . .’
‘I do love her, but. Does that . . .?’
‘It doesn’t fix it completely. It’s not the whole answer in the eyes of God. Love’s a fine thing, but there’s also holding back. There’s restraint of these urges. But maybe it’s some consolation, unofficially. And she . . .?’
‘I don’t know. We haven’t said all that stuff yet. But I’m pretty sure I love her. Even if it’s just, you know, recently.’
‘Well, we should talk. Not this evening, but tomorrow maybe.’
‘That’d be good. Um, my mother . . . you don’t have to tell my mother do you?’
‘Oh, no. I think this is between you and me and God. And Tanika.’
‘Just the four of us then.’
‘Just the four of us, as long as we can sort out the nativity play part of it smoothly.’
‘Good on you, Father. And you know something? When you’re looking for a new Magus, you could do a lot worse than young Wayne. Mum’d like it if I stepped aside for Wayne occasionally, I reckon. Can’t hog the limelight every time. It could help bring him out of himself, you know? And we’ve been practising at home, so . . .’
The last bit’s a lie, but if it gets Wayne bumped up to Magus it’s not a bad lie, I don’t think.
‘That’s very good, Kane. A good suggestion. And maybe we do have more shepherds than we need. So you’ll be off now, the two of you? And Tanika will be back later to drive people home?’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘And the two of you could talk this through in the meantime.’ He leads me back to the bus but, just before we get there, he stops and says, ‘Was there, um, protection?’
‘Yeah. That seemed to be . . . organised.’
‘Well done.’
On my way up the steps, he pats me on the shoulder.
‘And so, life’s next challenging phase begins,’ he says.
‘But, lo, I had it in a dream that we should not return to Herod and should make our journey home another way,’ Tanika says in the bus and laughs madly as she changes down gears for a hill.
‘We got off lightly with Steelo. I’m pretty sure that counts as fornication where he comes from. How are we going to explain being out of the play? What are we going to say to people?’
‘We’ll come up with something. I’m feeling . . . optimistic. I don’t often feel optimistic, so let me.’
How could I not be crazy about Tanika Bell – bus driver, optimist and, it’s turned out, woman of the world.
Back at her place, she gets sausages out of the downstairs freezer and tells me she never wanted the sandwich in her bag anyway.
‘We’ll do them on the deck,’ she says. ‘On the barbecue. And we’ll find Venus out there somewhere.’
We go up the stairs, pick up bread rolls and sauce in the kitchen, and she takes me outside. Venus is just above the trees, the cold white dot of Venus, bigger than the stars. Just big enough, if you look hard enough, to be distinctly round, to amount to something with a shape.
‘Venus,’ she says, and kisses me again.
She fires up the barbecue and gets the sausages going. She says the light out here is blown, but if it wasn’t she’d keep it off tonight anyway.
‘I watch the stars from out here sometimes, if I can’t sleep,’ she says. ‘When I was just a kid, I used to think my name was Tinkerbell, but no one else could say it right. So I thought I’d fly up there, with the stars, one day when I worked out how to. What an idiot.’
‘You’re not an idiot. You’ve got to have dreams. And anyway, did you know there are places now – cities – where, when it’s night time, you can’t see anything in the sky that’s smaller than the moon, there’s so much junk up there in the air? I saw that on TV. We’ve got a great sky here. Specially up on the hill.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Remember what I said about the council? The position of responsibility?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, it’s a bit of an exaggeration. I have to admit that. I pretty much just do verges. On the road crew.’
>
‘I know. But how would we get anywhere if plants grew all over the Nicklin Way?’
‘I guess.’
‘Anyway, Dad says you can always tell Kane’s verges. They’re neat as.’
‘Your dad notices my verges? What are we going to do after tonight?’
The sausages are already spitting and she turns them with tongs.
‘Jude chapter seven,’ she says. ‘Sprung giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh.’
‘Are you telling me there’s a problem with these sausages?
She laughs, and turns the barbecue down a notch. ‘The next bit of the Jude quote’s something to do with hell. Something to do with the vengeance of eternal fire.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t be worried so much about the fire. My mother says hell’s to do with chafing. So that’s what we’re up for then. You and me and chafing. Don’t worry. We’ll talk to Steelo. He’s good, really.’
‘You reckon he’ll tell our parents?’
‘He said he wouldn’t, and he’s a man of his word. He knows how my mother’d go off her nut if she found out we’d done it in the back of the church bus in the middle of nativity play rehearsal.’
‘I guess we’re probably out of the play for next year too.’
‘Yeah. I was hoping for Joseph, but . . . Did you know that, back in Steelo’s early days my mum was lined up to be Mary. Then she got pregnant with me, of course. She wouldn’t have been showing by Christmas but people knew, and your chances of Mary – or anything – are done for after that. She didn’t go back to school either. She thought about it for a while, but it never happened. Probably too old now. She’ll be thirty-six in April.’
‘She hasn’t had an easy time.’
‘No, she hasn’t. But she’s made what she can of it. Wayne and me, we’re okay.’
‘Yeah.’
She turns the sausages again, and I look out at Venus. There’s not a cloud in the sky tonight.
‘I’m going to make something of my life, you know,’ I tell her.
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘No, really. I’m . . . determined to. That’s the word. Determined. To. I’ve applied for a job in Parks, for a start.’
