Making Laws for Clouds

by Nick Earls

  ‘Done enough for you?’ she says, lifting a sausage with the tongs and holding it up into the light from the lounge room.

  ‘There was this lady once, years ago, who ran the cafe at Currimundi and she had this big hair and the longest nails. She used them for tongs sometimes, turned sausages with them. Now, that was worth looking at.’

  She laughs. ‘Is that allowed, or does it count as touching them?’

  ‘I might open a nursery one day, actually.’ All of a sudden, there it is – my Year Ten ambition, out of me and turning loftier without me meaning it to. ‘A plant nursery. Native trees. Bottlebrushes and that. I might open one of those. Or work in one anyway.’

  ‘That’d be good. Better than real estate,’ she says, and rolls her eyes as if real estate’s the stop on the road to hell just before chafing. ‘Let’s do it. One day. Let’s save money and not tell anybody and one day just do it.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  the stormy deluxe

  (january)

  Harbo’s boat went up on New Year’s Eve, and they say you could see the flames from a mile away up the canals. He tried to put it down to fireworks but no one was going to buy that, particularly the council. He’d got it all wrong, they reckoned – the time, the place, the prevailing wind. Along at the wharf they thought it was part of the show, just going off early, but then they heard the sirens.

  ‘It was a gust,’ he kept saying. ‘A flamin’ gust.’

  But from the way the Stella Maris burned it was pretty clear the gust had started on the inside. Lucky he’s one of the flock.

  tuesday

  Sometimes I come here on my bike, sometimes the bus, but with each day’s work we get a little closer to putting the Stella Maris back into the water, and Harbo back with it. He doesn’t like the land much. He reckons it rocks. He’s a boatie through and through, and water’s like the land to him.

  I’m sandpapering. That’s today’s job, yesterday’s and today’s. We’re still on the coarse stuff so it’ll be a while yet before it’s done.

  We’re all chipping in, money or time. That’s how we do it at the Blessed Virgin at Wurtulla. Even those of us who might have been mighty deep in the poo for about three weeks and four days now. That’s me. I’m on the outer, and that’s all there is to it. It’s a complicated state of affairs but, suffice to say, I’m not exactly crowded out up here, standing on a plank between two trestles at the starboard side of the bow.

  They passed the hat around after Harbo’s boat went up. First to get it lifted off the bottom, then to get the experts in for major structural repairs. Budgeting for that pretty much emptied the hat, so that’s when Father Steele really went to work, talking charitable acts out of all kinds of people – two colours of paint, a second-hand gas stove, a bit of space at the corner of Brown’s Slipway where the Stella Maris could be hoisted up so we could fix her.

  I’m sandpapering outside and Tanika Bell’s sandpapering inside, as far as I know. I can see her there, imagine her exactly. There’s the thickness of new wood between us, nothing more, but it might as well be miles. It’s like one of those prison scenes in movies where the people put their hands flat up on the glass and line them up with each other. Except the glass is wood and our hands have got sandpaper in them, but there’s a few seconds sometimes when all the big machines shut up and I can hear the sanding going on inside. Tanika Bell, back and forward, back and forward, down near the bow, starboard side. Her hand and my hand, as close as they’ve been for three weeks and four days.

  But the sun’s setting and the bus is here. Mr Bell’s calling out to us – to everyone in general and some people by name, but not me. There was a time when my name would have been one of the first, a time when I was famous round here for my hard work, always the first to pitch in and lend a bit of muscle to something. Bugger it, those days are gone. I’m pitching in harder than ever, but they’re still gone.

  I give my arms a shake but the dust from sandpapering sticks to the sweat. I’ll have a bath when I get home, a shower to wash it off and then a bath. Just me lying there in cool water floating my tired arms and my tired legs and getting less annoyed. These days are long and hot and hard – work for the council, work on the boat. And we don’t even get to talk now, Tanika Bell and me.

  Mr Bell’s at the door of the bus, but he looks down at the ground when it’s my turn to get on. Word wasn’t supposed to get out but of course it did, despite Steelo’s plan. You can’t sack two Magi from your nativity play ten days out from Christmas and not expect talk. Rumours and speculation, then specific questions and it’s out there and there’s no stopping it. No stopping it turning from just a story going round into some great big deal.

  So Tanika doesn’t turn round on the bus any more, and my whole family got demoted. Wayne, Mum and me – we’re two rows further back now, and everyone knows your position on the bus is some kind of sign of your accomplishments. I was the one who had to break it to Wayne. Not that I broke all of it but, since he’s the quiet type, no one else would have told him anything and he might have taken it internally. Father Steele’s been onto that one for a while – Wayne’s tendency to take things internally. It makes a mess of his guts and puts him off his food.

  If there’s a difference between having Wayne around the house and having a pet, I’m not always sure what it is. No, that’s not fair. Wayne’s Wayne, and Wayne’s all right. And most pets don’t live as long. I had a lizard once.

  ‘It’s all down to me,’ I told him straight up, as an example of how to take it like a man or, alternatively, like an adult. ‘We got bumped a couple of rows because I kind of racked up a negative accomplishment. My behaviour standards took a bit of a tumble at nativity rehearsals.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘You’re usually the one who’s Mr Too Cool For School.’ And I think he even smiled, so at least one of us got something out of it.

  Tanika gets on the bus, and she stares out the window as though not one of her fellow passengers exists. So many things have changed, and not for the better. She’s looking out at the sea, across the park and through the she-oak trees with their branches swaying around in the onshore breeze. There’s not a boat in sight, not a thing out there, just the darkening water and sky, night coming down. And the water would be cool and clean and I’m caked with sweat and sawdust, and if we swam down there it’d be just the two of us, goosebumps coming up on Tanika’s skin with the first shock of how cold it was.

  ‘So how’d you go with the sanding today, Wayne?’ It’s not one of life’s big questions, but if I don’t say something the silence’d get me thinking the wrong things. You usually start off with sins of thought before moving on to word and deed, Father Steele tells me.

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘The wood’s hard but. So I did my shoes.’ He pulls them off and shows me, and he’s sandpapered both heels completely flat.

  ‘That’s good Wayne. They’re more moccasin-style now, and that’s pretty interesting. You’ll probably be ready for the wood tomorrow then, hey? I’ve got to say it’s a neat job though. Those heels are flat as.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘See, this could be useful for you, so you should keep at it. If you can do that to timber, well, the ability to use coarse sandpaper could be the first step on the road to you having a marketable skill. “Job-ready”, Wayne, that’s what you could be. In a while. When you’ve picked up what you can from school.’

  Tanika Bell – I can see the back of her head over Mrs Vann’s shoulder. I can see the back of her head and remember how her hair felt when I slid my fingers into it. A few rows back from here, a few weeks ago. And how her mouth felt and how other things felt in that amazing second before Father Steele appeared at the top of the stairs. And we were gone, out of the nativity play right away, never to return. Fornication.

  We’re not even supposed to talk to each other now. Not a word. That’s down to Mr Bell, mostly. Steelo says these things take time. Everyone gets a second chance as far as he’s concern
ed, it’s just that sometimes there are other people who don’t want them to get it right away. The day will come, he says, when Tanika and I can talk again, but it’d be best to have a good and proper purpose.

  The water’s not that cold now anyway, thinking about it. Not cold enough for goosebumps. That’s just how I’ve imagined it on some of these nights.

  wednesday

  Harbo’s hands got burned in the fire and he’s still got the bandages on. Up to the wrist on one side, most of the way to the elbow on the other. I’m onto the fine sanding when he shows up. Apparently they’ve started painting inside and he wanted to see.

  He stands at the gate of Brown’s Slipway, sizing it all up. This is all he’s got, the Stella Maris, all he’s got in the world. His bandages are so white they practically gleam. It’s like he got dressed up in his best bandages to come and see how she’s going. There’s a bandage on his head as well, and one around his right leg. He sees me looking, and he gives me a wave.

  Steelo brings him over and I ask him how he is.

  ‘Oh, no worries, mate,’ he says. ‘Coming along fine. But don’t let me stop you working. You don’t want to waste your time yacking to some old idiot who can’t fix his own bloody boat.’

  ‘You’d do the same for me.’

  ‘Yeah, but don’t you go looking like this.’ He lifts his hands up, as if I wouldn’t have noticed the bandages otherwise.

  ‘Come on, it just looks like strapping. Like you’re about to slip them into a couple of boxing gloves and go a few rounds.’

  ‘A round or two for a pound or two,’ he says, and he crouches, fakes at jinking back and forward, throws a couple of soft practice punches.

  ‘Come on old guy,’ Steelo says to him, ‘we should get you inside before you start getting big ideas. Old salts, Kane, they never forget the scraps they got in when they were youngsters. Hey, Harbo?’

  ‘Never lost one, mate. At least not how I recall it.’ It’s a big claim, but he laughs as soon as he says it. ‘Nah, I’m a lover, not a fighter. That’s what they say, isn’t it?’

  And he gives me a wink and his whole ugly old face crinkles up. Steelo smiles, gives a bit of a laugh himself, like a man who’s heard a few of Harbo’s stories in his time, and they leave me to the fine sandpapering of the bow and head down the back. Harbo goes up the ladder first, and not quickly, but Steelo’s hands are both there waiting in case things go wrong.

  Harbo’s been laid up at someone’s place, convalescing. He can’t even roll his own smokes at the moment. They say he hasn’t been doing so well, so Steelo told us he’d be dropping in from time to time for a ‘morale boost’. He used to run some pretty big ships, years ago. Freighters, all around Asia. He spent a few years working a Brisbane River ferry too, not that that seems like much after time in international waters. He’s been up here at least ten years now, retired at the coast, him and the Stella Maris. And he makes things out of wood for church fetes – boats and trains and things – so he’d hate the bandages, I’d reckon.

  ‘Hey.’ It’s Tanika’s voice, saying ‘hey’ quietly like it’s still in my head, like it’s one of all the bits of her voice I’ve stored up to think about these past three weeks and five days. ‘Hey, chippie, you with the sandpaper.’

  She’s on the deck, right above me. When I stand back on the plank, as far back as I can go, she’s there, leaning over the railing and looking right down at me. Tanika Bell, in sunlight, late afternoon light, making her cheeks look brown and her hair all kinds of colours.

  ‘I’m looking for paint,’ she says. ‘They’ve sent me out to get more paint, so I thought I’d check and see if you had any.’

  ‘Good idea. So, what are you looking for? White or blue?’

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘None at all. Just sandpaper. But if I find some paint, you’ll be the first to know.’

  ‘And if I need some sandpaper . . .’

  Then someone shouts out, ‘Found some.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she says, still looking down at me.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I . . .’ She looks around. I think there’s no one there. ‘I miss you, you know. Heaps.’ She looks around again, then back down to me. ‘And this isn’t over.’

  Then she’s gone. Maybe I can hear her feet on the deck, maybe I can’t. She’s a quiet walker. She saves her energy for when she means it.

  She misses me. And it isn’t over. Tanika Bell. We had ten seconds there, ten or twelve, and she didn’t waste them. That’s her all over. Much more dynamic than most of these people realise and, one day, that’ll give us an edge. Tanika, up there in the light, coming for paint she knew I wouldn’t have, folding her arms on the railing and leaning over, showing us both twelve seconds of how things might have been if the past month hadn’t happened. How things might be, when enough time’s passed. Maybe.

  These might be early versions of the thoughts that Father Steele says are lustful thoughts, but they might also be the kind that he said were quite okay. We did some counselling after the incident, and that was supposed to see me right. That was Steelo’s plan. It was only when Mr Bell got wise to what had happened that it all turned bad and I ended up on the outer. So did Tanika. She didn’t see the outside world till Christmas, other than work and groceries and the trips to church for her sessions with Steelo.

  Mum said I was an idiot and I could spoil it for the whole family and hadn’t I learned anything? Anything from the past, from her and dad, and me coming along when she was seventeen? Didn’t I know how that kind of business could wreck your life?

  And, sure, she had a point to make but thanks very much Mum, by the way. Sorry for wrecking your life, and that. Mum, who would be a millionaire rocket scientist now if I hadn’t come along then, right? Mum, who would have invented Microsoft and been prime minister by now if I hadn’t come along. Mum, who’s bigger than doorways and spends her days dealing with fungus and rum and the heat of summer.

  If only Kane hadn’t come along and wrecked all those plans that she never got round to having. Kane, who does his best and answers to the call of lust no more than once. And answers to it with Tanika Bell, of all magnificent people.

  Forget the lust. I also have the ‘clean thoughts of meaningful attachment’, and what about those? Steelo said those were fine, but where’s the attachment when Mr Bloody Bell stands in the way, looking at the ground, waiting for you to pass like you’re a bad smell and he’s downwind and he’s had a faceful of you already.

  I can do without him in my head. I lean in against the boat, get back to sanding. It’s Harbo I’m here for and it’s worth remembering that. This is about getting Harbo sorted out and back in the water.

  My father had a boat. The Stormy it was called. We had a couple of good years with her. I’d already been around a while and I’m pretty sure Mum’s life wasn’t wrecked at that stage, despite the version we’ve been getting lately. We had Wayne too by then, so Mum had lost the downstairs parts but other than that things were hardly wrecked at all. She got a scar from Wayne, and a big one since they had to go in quickly to get him out or to sort out the damage. Something like that. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it. She always wore a one-piece to the beach from then on, back in the days when she went to the beach.

  I can remember a few trips out on the Stormy. Dad liked nothing better. The Stormy heading out past Point Cartwright was like Christmas morning for him. And Wayne was okay when he was lying-down size, but he was a goner as soon as he grew and got vertical. Wayne threw up so much on the Stormy that Dad got him his own permanent bucket and he said that, if he wanted to be a seafaring type, he had to tough it out. But by the time Wayne was four, or maybe not even four, the Stormy was gone and Dad was gone and that was that.

  I hadn’t thought about those days for ages, but Brown’s Slipway smells like varnish and paint and diesel and the sea, and that can only say boats. So to me it says Stormy. They were good times.

  ‘Hey, what’s the story
?’ Wayne says when Mum’s in bed and we’re watching ‘The Best of the X-Files’ summer repeats.

  ‘Well, a lot of it gets back to what happened to Mulder’s sister,’ I tell him. ‘Or what might have happened. You see . . .’

  ‘She was taken by aliens, dickweed. I’m not stupid. What’s the X-File on you and Mr Bell’s daughter? That’s the one they’re really talking about.’

  ‘Who’s talking about? Who’s been talking to you about that?’

  ‘No one. No one talks to me. But that doesn’t mean I don’t listen sometimes. You were sprung up the back of the bus, that’s what they reckon. And you might have been nude. And people found out, so . . .’

  ‘We were not nude.’

  ‘Oh. You’re sure?’

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you. We were mostly clothed.’

  ‘Mostly? Then what’s the story?’

  ‘We were showing poor judgement. We answered the call of lust.’

  ‘Really? Cool.’

  ‘No, it’s . . .’

  ‘Oh my god. My god. You mean you did it. That’s what you mean. Like, “it”. The big “it”. Up the back of the bus. With a girl. That was your answer to the call of lust. Doing it. The call of lust actually said “Kane, do you want to do it?” and you said “yep”.’

  ‘Yeah, look . . .’

  ‘What was it like? How did you know how? How did you know how to do it? It’s got a few steps to it, hasn’t it? You don’t just set the ferret on her straight up.’

  ‘Wayne, this is more than you’ve spoken the past two years. It can’t be good for you to try and get all these words out at once. You’ll only hurt yourself.’

  ‘God. God. Getting in trouble for doing it.’

  ‘And that ferret talk. I don’t know about the company you’re keeping . . .’

  ‘Slung out of the nativity play for doing it. You went and did it in a play that’s about the little baby Jesus. And you got slung out. Awesome.’