Being Here

by Barry Jonsberg

  She tugged at her mother’s hem and asked – in a very small voice – if she could get changed out of her new clothes. Her mother, who was talking to a man in a dark suit, said she could.

  ‘How can I explain this to her?’ she said to the man. ‘When I can’t begin to explain it to myself.’

  But the man only shook his head and glanced at his polished shoes.

  ‘We must trust in the Lord,’ her mother continued.

  He nodded.

  When the girl had changed, she didn’t feel like reading. For some reason, the low rumble of conversation that carried into her room felt like a stain. She wasn’t sure she could kiss worlds into existence against that background hum. So she stepped onto the verandah. Pagan uncurled himself from beneath a chair and sat beside her. He flicked his eyes up to hers and his tail thumped softly against the dusty boards. But he didn’t try to lick her legs. The apple trees stretched into the distance, blushed now by a dipping sun. The day cooled. A light breeze brushed her cheek. She stepped off the verandah. Grass whispered against her shins.

  The trees formed avenues. The girl allowed her eyes to drift over the rows until they settled on one, to her right. It wasn’t a choice, as such. She never chose which avenue to explore. Her eyes fixed on one and that was the one she followed. And if she had been asked why she did this she wouldn’t have been able to tell. There was no difference between the rows. They looked the same. They led to the same destination.

  Pagan trailed her through the avenue.

  The boy sat in the branches of the fifth tree on the left. She could see his scuffed boots dangling. But she kept her head down right up to the point when she came level. Then she stopped and turned her eyes up. He sat like an exotic fruit. His face was heavily freckled, his eyes large, brown and almond-shaped. His hair still stuck out at wild angles.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  The boy didn’t speak, but he smiled. And when he smiled a light turned on in his face.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked. The boy shrugged. She sat cross-legged at the base of the tree and pulled out a blade of grass. She ripped it carefully up its spine, frowning as she did so. Pagan lay in a pool of dappled sun.

  ‘I will call you Adam,’ said the girl. ‘Do you like that name?’

  The boy shrugged again and pushed off from the branch. His boots landed a metre from her face. She didn’t look up. She continued shredding the blade.

  ‘Do you like stories?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t know,’ said Adam. ‘Never heard one.’ He sat opposite her, crossed his legs and pulled a blade of grass. For a minute they were both absorbed, working fingernails into green flesh.

  ‘My favourite,’ said the girl, without looking up, ‘is about a cold land surrounded by mountains. There is a castle. A beautiful castle. It is the first thing travellers see when they come to the peak of the mountains. It is nestled in a green valley, where the cold can’t touch. It is golden with sun. Everyone is happy there.’

  She discarded the split blade of grass and plucked another. The boy did the same. Another minute passed.

  ‘I’ve seen that place,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  Adam used the blade of grass to point. His arm stretched further down their avenue of trees.

  ‘There,’ he said.

  ‘Show me?’

  Adam walked on one side of the avenue, the girl on the other. Pagan padded between them. The sun slid behind the earth and shadows grew from trees and changed the landscape. Darkness sprouted from the ground and the trees thickened and crowded. It was as if the path they trod narrowed so they were forced to come together. Branches drooped, the leaves and their shadows merged with one another. Dark walls rose.

  Adam stopped. The girl glanced over her shoulder. She could no longer see the pathway through the trees. There was no sound, except their own breathing and Pagan’s slow panting. Their breath misted against the darkness. The air was tingly with cold.

  ‘Here,’ said Adam, reaching forward and parting the darkness. He stepped through. She followed. Leaves caressed her as they parted. She burst into light.

  They stood on the summit of a mountain. A dizzying drop yawned beneath. On all sides, ice and snow glittered. The girl glanced at her feet, a step from the brink. She shuffled backwards. The sky was powdered blue, dusted with wisps of cloud. The sun was swollen gold.

  The mountains ranged on all sides, but her eyes were drawn from them. Down, down, down into a patch of green in the valley below. A winding road, delicate as a pencil line on green paper, led to a castle, its walls buttery in light. A thin ribbon of moat sparkled. The turrets, four, five, six, pointed towards the heavens. Each was capped with red. From this height she could see no movement, but the girl narrowed her eyes and thought she saw the thin lines of windows in the walls. She knew that people moved there and she knew they were happy.

  ‘Is there a way down?’ she asked.

  Adam brushed her arm. He pointed to their right where a pathway sliced through ice and snow and rock. It curved down, became lost in the bends, re-emerged lower in the valley. After a while, her eyes could no longer follow its descent.

  ‘It’s as beautiful as I imagined,’ she said.

  A voice came to her, faint as a memory. It called her name.

  ‘I have to go back,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ said Adam.

  She turned and the leaves were behind her, a wall of darkness. As she reached out, she thought for a moment she would encounter something that would not yield. But the leaves parted and blackness spilled out. The girl stepped through. She could feel Pagan’s presence but she could barely see him. He was a shadow within shadows. She walked. And with each step the air became warmer. Breath stopped misting in front of her face. Within a minute she saw the outlines of trees, an avenue opening. The voice was louder now. Her mother’s voice, calling.

  Halfway along, she turned. She could no longer see Adam but she felt him there in the shadows.

  ‘Don’t leave,’ she whispered. ‘Don’t leave.’

  There was no reply, but she knew he had heard. She turned again. Through the thinning trees, the yellow lights of home glowed. She ran towards them, Pagan at her side. The darkness fell away.

  When everyone had gone, the girl and her mother ate a simple meal. Afterwards, the girl was bathed and tucked into her mother’s bed.

  ‘I need you with me tonight, my angel,’ said her mother. ‘Just until we … get used to things.’ Then she read her a story. But for once the girl didn’t pay attention. She examined the walls of her mother’s bedroom. Nothing had changed. The large wooden cross still floated over the bed-head. The pictures of the man with the bleeding heart and the crown of thorns. But change was there, all the same.

  She thought about her father, but he was fading. It had only been five nights since he had slept in this very spot, but she could feel his presence drifting away. He seemed no more than a shadow now. Less solid than a story. Because a story could become dimmed, but it never died. It slept. Before too long her father would have no substance. He didn’t sleep. Already, she could barely remember his face.

  After the story, they knelt next to the bed and prayed. The ritual felt good. The coldness of floorboards against her knees. The recitation of words she didn’t understand.

  Later, the girl woke. The house ticked. Metal shrank in the cool of night. She felt the warmth of her mother’s body next to her. She knew that if she turned, her mother’s eyes would be open, that she would be trying to fix a face into the darkness. But she didn’t turn. She kept her gaze on the far side of the bedroom. The moon was thin through curtains. All she could see were blocks of darkness stacked in random patterns. But as her eyes adjusted, the shapes resolved into a chest of drawers, the outline of a chair.

  Adam sat in the chair. His legs swung, to and fro.

  The girl smiled and closed her eyes.

  ‘I am tired,’ I say. ‘I want to stop now.’

  In
truth, I have almost forgotten the child. Chasing ghosts along labyrinths of memory does that. It becomes difficult to distinguish what is real and what isn’t. So when I focus on the now, when I tear myself from the then, it is a dislocation. The residents’ lounge is leached of life. I feel ripped from a world of colour into something pale. As insubstantial as a thought.

  The girl – I have forgotten her name – presses a button on the machine and the red light fades and dies. For a moment I wonder if I have spoken any words at all or if they’ve echoed only in my head.

  ‘Hey, thanks, Mrs Cartwright,’ she says, with unnatural cheerfulness. ‘That’s … great. It’s just …’

  ‘Yes?’

  She bundles the machine back into her school bag, brushes a hand through her hair.

  ‘Well … it’s not quite … not quite what I need. For my project, you know? I mean, it’s interesting and everything, what you said. But Miss Jones – my teacher – she’s given us all these criteria. I’m meant to research social history. And what you’re giving me is … well, a story. Which is great for English. But not for Soc Ed. You see what I mean?’

  I have disappointed her. I can’t find it in myself to feel sorry. But I nod.

  ‘So next time I’ll ask you questions, like a questionnaire,’ she continues. ‘Make sure I hit those criteria.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘You won’t.’ I shift in my seat. Why does everything hurt? ‘The only good thing about being old is that I can make my own rules. And stories are what I am interested in. What I’ve always been interested in. I do not have to do what anyone tells me. I please myself.’

  She frowns and for a moment I think she is going to argue. But then a smile wipes her face clean. I am given another flash of her braces. It is as though she is chewing a rainbow.

  ‘Make your own rules?’ she says. ‘I wish I could. I guess being old has earned you the right.’ She delivers the cliché as if it’s a profound truth.

  ‘Being old,’ I reply, ‘earns you nothing.’

  Her smile falters. She gets to her feet and shrugs her bag over one shoulder.

  ‘If my story’s not what you need, Carla,’ I say, ‘then I suppose I won’t be seeing you again.’

  ‘Carly,’ she says. ‘I’m Carly. And, hey, Mrs C, I’d like to come back, if that’s okay with you. I’ll talk to my Soc Ed teacher. We’ll figure something out.’

  Mrs C?

  ‘As you wish,’ I say.

  ‘What? Oh, right. It’s just, if you want to tell a story, then hey. That’s okay. Your rules.’

  My nurse is here, tidying the residents’ lounge. She has red hair and a husband whose eyes wander. I see him when he picks her up at the end of her shifts. He watches the other nurses. Sometimes he licks his lips. He is wrong and she knows it. But it never stops her smiling.

  ‘Call first,’ she says to the girl. ‘Leah … Mrs Cartwright, well, you have your good days and your not-so-good days, don’t you, sweetheart? It’s best to check.’

  She’s right. Some days I’m buried so deep I cannot find the surface.

  The girl moves around the table and puts her hand on mine. It is soft and lambent with youth.

  ‘In your story, the boy, Adam?’ she says. ‘He’s an imaginary friend, isn’t he? Did I get that right? That’s cool. One of my mates had an imaginary friend when she was little.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I say. ‘You don’t understand. Adam wasn’t imaginary. He was real.’

  * * *

  I lie in sheets that smell of old people. The faint tinge of urine, sweat and hopelessness. I listen to the intake of breath. One after the other.

  Sometimes I wish I could just stop.

  CHAPTER 2

  ‘IHAVE DECIDED,’ SAID LEAH’S mother. ‘I will not wait. I refuse to wait. Today, I will start my story. Do you remember, my angel? I said I would write a story that would be perfect, about a place where we would want to live forever.’

  She washed the breakfast dishes. Energy poured from her. The air shimmered with it.

  ‘So, I am going to write for three hours every day. Every day. And in the afternoon we will do our chores around the farm and play games. What do you say?’

  The girl nodded.

  ‘But Mummy will need quiet. Mummy will need peace and quiet to build her story. So while I am writing I need you to play by yourself. Do you understand?’

  Leah nodded.

  A little later, Leah gathered a pile of books and stepped out onto the verandah. Her mother sat at the kitchen table, crouched over a sheet of paper, a pencil in her hand. Her brows knitted as she stared at the expanse of white. She settled herself in the chair.

  The girl closed the front door quietly. She sat on the steps and spread her books out. Her brows wrinkled too. Finally, she selected one. She opened it and the familiar picture was before her. Already, she could feel the people and the animals and the world stirring. They were asleep on the page, but her eyes were tickling them to life.

  She read to Pagan. He lay in the dust at the foot of the stairs, one ear cocked as if to hear more clearly. The inside of his ear was white and stiff with wiry hairs. It was the story of the girl in the forest and the red house and the small animals that lived there and the threat brooding in the forest that would come when the sun dipped beneath the horizon. And though the girl knew how the story would end, she was never fully sure until she got there. Because she felt change was possible in any story, but the act of reading kept things the same. Her voice ensured everything turned out the way it should.

  When she finished, Pagan twitched his ear.

  ‘I have seen that place,’ said Adam. He sat on the railings of the verandah. His legs swung, to and fro.

  ‘Show me?’ said Leah.

  The days of summer flickered past. After a while it was difficult to see the joins. Routine smoothed them out.

  Every morning after breakfast, Leah took her books outside. Or, if it rained, she took them to her bedroom. She read for three hours. Sometimes, when she tired of reading, she walked among the apple trees. But never far from home. Her mother had made her promise never to go far. She met Adam there. He would be sitting in a tree, or sitting on the grass, splitting blades. She read him stories. And Pagan, whose love was unconditional, was always by her side.

  At midday she returned to the house. Her mother folded up her writing materials and placed them carefully in a box which she locked. Then she prepared food. They ate on the verandah and talked.

  ‘Can you read me your story, Mummy?’ the girl often asked, but the response was always the same.

  ‘Not yet, angel. Not yet. It takes a long time to write a story and even longer to make it perfect.’

  After a month, the girl stopped asking.

  In the afternoons, they usually did chores together. Housework. Tidying up the orchards. Cleaning out the chicken pens. Sometimes they cleared the kitchen table and took out thin brushes and jars of water and pots of colour and large sheets of creamy paper. The girl liked this the best. It was a form of story. She imagined a world in her head and then brushed it onto paper. Most times, it didn’t match the picture in her mind. But she didn’t care.

  Once a week they walked the three miles to town. It was a bright and busy place. People moved quickly and made a lot of noise. Leah kept close to her mother and held her hand tightly. She watched people from the corner of her vision. Once or twice someone caught her eye and smiled, but she ducked behind her mother’s legs.

  Part of her was glad when they made the hot and dusty journey home, their arms clutching brown paper bags filled with groceries. Part of her was sad, but she didn’t understand why.

  And on Sundays they repeated the journey, this time in their best clothes, which always felt damp against the skin when they arrived in town. They sat in the coolness of the church and listened and prayed.

  In the evenings, after dinner, they washed the dishes together. Sometimes Leah’s mother talked of Leah’s father. She told tales of a stranger. A young
man who had travelled the world in a soldier’s uniform and had returned tired and broken. A man who had seen a pretty young woman sitting bolt upright in a church pew, her eyes sparkling with a life that had shrivelled within him. After the service, he had approached her and introduced himself as the man she would marry. Her mother laughed when she told this part. And then she cried. Afterwards she hugged her daughter, dabbed a foamy sud from the sink on the tip of her nose.

  ‘Just you and me, now,’ she’d say. ‘Just you and me.’

  Then Leah watched evening settle over a parched landscape and counted stars as they freckled the night. Sometimes she sat at her mother’s side and listened to her read from a thick book. The stories were difficult to understand and she couldn’t see the life in them. Then her mother put her in a tub near the fire in the front room, wrapped her in thick towels that smelled of flowers, tucked her into the big bed and read her a fairy story.

  After Leah’s mother closed the bedroom door, Adam came. Leah lay in the dark and felt him arrive, though she never quite saw the moment he appeared. They talked quietly, though Adam rarely said much. He sat on the end of the bed and listened as the girl wove stories into the dark. She never heard him leave either. But when her mother opened the door later and carried Leah to her own bed, he was always gone.

  There was safety in routine. The nights of summer flickered past.

  One evening, Leah’s mother didn’t read her a story at bedtime.

  Instead, she lay down next to her. Warm air wrapped itself around them.

  ‘Leah,’ said her mother. ‘I want to tell you about a special book. You have heard stories from it. Every Sunday, when we go to church and sometimes in the evening. It is not a book you’ve read by yourself yet, because it’s too old for you. But you will. It tells wonderful stories. And it teaches us wonderful things.’

  Her mother felt underneath the covers and took her hand.