Burning Eddy

by Scot Gardner

  I was still looking at Kat with my mouth hanging open when Chantelle darted past to sit on the back seat. I watched her pull her dress over her knees. I wanted to see her pat the seat but she just smiled at me. There was a thump on the window beside her. She stood up and opened the vent and tried to stick her head out. It wouldn’t fit. I could see Amy what’s-her-name jumping up and asking for something. She wasn’t in uniform and she didn’t look very sick — bad news. Chantelle looked at Wayne, then handed her bus pass to Amy through the window — bad news. The next thing, Amy was on the bus and thumping along the aisle to sit next to Chantelle — very bad news.

  I waited until the bus got moving, then I slipped in beside Kat.

  ‘What happened to you today?’ I asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. She had a dreamy look in her eyes.

  ‘Why did you get called up to the office?’

  She looked at me and screwed up her nose. ‘None of your business. Nick off.’

  I shrugged and went back to my seat. I guessed that the nice Kat had died again during the day. Caught up in something that I’d find out about in time if it was important.

  There was a roadblock on the road to Henning. An RTA car was parked over the white line and a bloke who looked like a half-baked policeman was directing all the traffic down the road to Handley Dell. Wayne had a few words to the bloke and turned towards Handley.

  ‘Der. Where are you going?’ Amy shouted at the window.

  ‘All the traffic is being diverted. There’s a fire,’ Wayne said, matter-of-fact.

  ‘Good one,’ Amy muttered.

  We had to drive around the Handley high-level storage dam and the smoke wafted across the water like a grubby mist. We’d just crossed the dam wall when Wayne pulled to the side of the road and turned the engine off. He tried to start it again and I realised that he hadn’t stopped it; it had just died.

  ‘What is it now?’ Amy whinged.

  Wayne cranked the engine again. Whir, whir, whir. Nothing.

  ‘We’re going to stop here for a minute while we get another bus,’ Wayne said. ‘This one’s broken.’

  A collective moan.

  ‘I need a volunteer,’ Wayne said, and a few kids shouted ‘Me, me’.

  I stuck my hand up. Drive while he pushes? Crank the engine while he’s at the back looking at the motor? Keep everyone under control while he goes for help?

  ‘You,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘Fairy, isn’t it?’

  ‘Daniel,’ I said under my breath.

  He waved me to the front of the bus.

  ‘I’m not allowed to leave the bus,’ he began. ‘And I need someone to nip down to the next house and call the bus line for me. You reckon you can handle that?’

  I shrugged and nodded. ‘Easy.’

  He scribbled the number on the back of an old ticket. ‘Now is the time when I wished I had one of those stupid mobile phones. Probably wouldn’t work here anyway.’

  I huffed a laugh as he handed me the ticket.

  ‘Hurry, Fairy,’ Amy shouted. ‘I don’t want to be sitting here all afternoon waiting for you.’

  ‘Kindly put a lid on it or you’ll be walking,’ Wayne said.

  I could see the roof of the house from the bus; the rest of it was obscured by garden. It was about a kilometre off and I jogged the whole way. There was a blue car under a steel carport but it wasn’t until I’d knocked on the door that I recognised it. Eddy’s friend. It looked like . . . what’s-his-name’s car.

  The tall man with the scruffy grey hair answered the door. I remembered his name.

  ‘Hello, Luke,’ I said, and smiled.

  ‘Ja, hello. I know you! You’re Eddy’s friend. The nature boy. Daniel, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah!’ I said excitedly. It was good to be remembered.

  Luke sniffed the wind. ‘There is a fire?’

  I nodded. ‘Just near the intersection on the Carmine road.’

  ‘Jaaa?’ he said, and looked across the dam. ‘Pretty safe here. Has to jump across the dam before it can get to my place.’

  I looked across the dam and thought that he had a postcard view from his front door. Smoky postcard.

  ‘Come in, come in. Why are you here? How can I be helping you?’

  I stepped inside. The house was tidy and well lit but it smelled like dog. It smelled so much like dog that my nose wrinkled and I had to rub it.

  ‘Our bus has broken down. The school bus. Just near the dam wall. I was wondering if I could use your phone to call for another bus?’

  He stood beside me, smiling, with his hands by his sides. ‘Sure!’ he said. ‘Here is the phone in the lounge room.’

  A dog let out a muffled bark from another part of the house.

  ‘Shush, Diamond,’ Luke growled. ‘It is only Daniel.’

  He ushered me into a room that was more like a hothouse than a lounge room. There were indoor plants in pots on every shelf and benchtop. Large palms stood beside the couch and several pots hung from the ceiling above the television.

  ‘Do you have the number?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Yep,’ I said. I found the phone amongst the greenery on a side table and called the bus company. The woman who answered listened intently, asked where we were, then said thank you, twice. She said another bus would be there in fifteen minutes. I thanked her and she thanked me again.

  ‘All right, Daniel?’

  ‘Yep, all arranged,’ I said. ‘Fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Ah, good. You can come and see my place.’

  ‘I have to get back to the bus.’

  ‘Ja? What for? You have done your bit, haven’t you?’

  ‘I . . . I have to tell the driver.’

  ‘Come. Look for five minutes then I’ll drive you up. They won’t be going anywhere.’

  I chuckled and shrugged.

  Luke led me into the kitchen and through to the back door. He let his dog out, a smelly old hunting dog that sniffed at my ankles and held its tail straight. One step from the back door and we were in the vegetable garden. Neat rows of lettuces and tomatoes with green fruit on them already. It was twice the size of our garden and we always had enough vegetables for the five of us. Now we’d have more than enough for the four of us.

  ‘Beautiful garden. What do you do with all the vegetables?’

  ‘Give them away to my friends, mostly. Always have enough for me and Diamond to eat, and for Zwarte Piet.’

  He raised one eyebrow and put a finger to his lips. ‘Listen,’ he whispered. Then he said loudly, ‘Ja, where is my Piet? Piet, where are you?’

  I listened. From beyond the vegie garden came a snuffle and grunt. Grunt, grunt, grunt. Luke strode along the path through the middle of the garden and stopped at a low fence that housed his pig. It was huge. I could have saddled it up and ridden it. It snuffled against the wire as Luke scratched the back of its head.

  ‘Daniel, this is my friend Zwarte Piet — Black Peter. Santa’s little helper. I bought him to have for Christmas dinner. That was nearly ten years ago.’

  Piet looked up at me and wagged one of his floppy ears. I scratched him on the back of his head as Luke had done and he sniffed at my wrist. We’d never had pigs. Dad said they stunk. Black Peter didn’t stink. Well, not as much as Diamond.

  ‘Are you going to eat him?’

  ‘Nay. What do you reckon? Could you make bacon from one of your best friends? Nay, he turns all my scraps into beautiful compost.’

  Yeah, pig medicine; turn everything into a resource.

  We walked back along the path and I admired Luke’s celery, growing with newspaper wrapped around them to keep the stems pale and tender.

  ‘Do you give Eddy any vegies?’ I asked.

  ‘Ja, she is my best customer,’ he said, and laughed to himself.

  I looked at him. Eddy grew more than enough vegies for herself.

  He sighed. ‘She is a beautiful, beautiful woman, that Eddy.’ He stared at his work boots. ‘You can see the love in her eyes.
’

  I nodded, though I didn’t really get what he meant. I saw wisdom and understanding in her eyes, and generosity and a sort of all-knowing glow. I didn’t see love. Maybe I didn’t know what love looked like.

  I thought about my family and my stomach clenched. ‘I have to get going. I can walk back to the bus.’

  ‘Nonsense. I will drive you,’ Luke said, and led me by the elbow along a path that took us down the side of his house to the carport.

  The kids were everywhere when we arrived. Wayne sat in the shadow of the broken bus and smoked. Luke introduced himself and said that we’d used his phone to organise another bus.

  ‘Good lad,’ Wayne said, and kicked at my boot.

  ‘Did you get lost, Fairy? What took you so long?’ Amy shouted from a vent window at the back of the bus. Her arm hung outside.

  Luke and Wayne looked at her. She pulled her arm in. Luke started chatting to Wayne about the bus and the fire. I wandered to the dam.

  Kat was with a few of the year sevens on the rocks at the edge of the dam. She had her dress up, her runners off and her feet dangling in the water. She still had that blissed-out look on her face. It scared me. It wasn’t the sort of look I would have expected to see on the face of someone whose father had just been taken away by the police. I guess my face wouldn’t have looked much different. They took my dad away and I went to school. I sat on a rock beside Kat and pulled my boots off.

  ‘Why are you so happy?’ I asked.

  ‘Your feet stink,’ she said.

  I thought about dipping my toes in the water but my heart started beating hard and I felt like I was going to fall in. I slipped my boots back on again and hopped to higher ground. Kat smiled.

  Chantelle appeared beside me. Amy hopped across the rocks and stopped next to her.

  ‘You going in, Fairy?’ Amy asked, and laughed.

  ‘Nah, too cold,’ I said, and shaded my eyes from the smoky sunlight with my hand.

  ‘You’re not supposed to swim up here,’ Chantelle said.

  ‘Me and Michael do all the time,’ Amy said. ‘We went skinny-dipping last summer.’

  Kat looked over her shoulder and grunted at Amy.

  ‘What?’ Amy asked. ‘Not like you’ve ever been skinny-dipping, hey, Katrina?’

  Chantelle shot Amy a look.

  ‘What?’ Amy asked again. ‘She wouldn’t have. She’s got no friggin’ life, like Fairy here. Runs in the family, doesn’t it, mate?’

  I looked at her and wanted to spit. I wanted to shove her into the water. Into the bottomless black-blue of the Handley dam and pelt her with rocks until she went under.

  Amy stepped across and grabbed my wrist. ‘What does it say here?’

  I’d forgotten my scratched tattoo. I tried to snatch my arm away but she’d already seen it. She’d read the word. She’d caught a glimpse of a part of me that was so private, I hardly knew it existed.

  ‘Haa!’ she squealed, and looked at Chantelle.

  I started walking to the bus.

  ‘Did you see it? Did you see that? He’s got your friggin’ name scratched into his arm!’

  She squealed so loud that a few people who had stayed near the bus looked over.

  ‘Whooo! Fairy’s hot for you, mate. You wanna know what the piss-funniest thing is? He spelt your name wrong. He can’t even spell your name. Haa!’

  She was squealing laughter and hooting. I wanted to stop her. I wanted to hurt her. Break her. I felt sick.

  One step then the next across the rocks and into the shadow of the bus. I could hear the rumbling of a diesel engine and the replacement bus appeared across the dam wall.

  ‘Ja, here she comes,’ Luke said, and rattled his keys. ‘What happens now to this bus?’

  ‘Hopefully there’s a mechanic on board. Hopefully the problem is something minor. Hopefully he’ll be able to get it going,’ Wayne said.

  Kids were thumping onto the busted bus to get their bags and stuff. Kat hopped over the rocks barefooted. Amy was giggling to herself and shaking her head. She tripped up the step and slammed into the door. Ended up on her knees, groaning in the stairwell. I looked at Chantelle. She had her hand over her mouth and her eyes were smiling. I didn’t laugh. Well, not out loud.

  This day was going down in the Daniel Fairbrother hall of fame as one of the worst on record. I sighed as I climbed into Graham’s car. He’d waited for us in Henning for almost an hour. He’s good like that. The first thing he asked Kat was something about the police. She signed something at a million miles per hour and I only caught one word — the letter ‘f’ signed twice. Father. Graham’s mouth dropped open and he shook his head. Kat nodded. Graham touched his lips and moaned like a sick cow. He signed something else and Kat shrugged. It hadn’t been a breakfast nightmare. It was real. If Graham had seen the police, then my dad had definitely been taken away.

  There was crazy laughter coming from Graham and Tina’s kitchen window. Crazy little-brother laughter. Tina’s ute was in the drive. We followed Graham up the front stairs and he looked back at us, puzzled. We normally just head home. Graham couldn’t hear Toby laughing but somehow he knew what was going on. He nodded and pointed inside.

  Mum asked where we’d been and the hand holding her cup of tea shook.

  Toby had an emu chick in his arms. Black stripes and grey downy feathers, oversized beak and haunting brown eyes. Its beak hung open and its neck puffed and flattened.

  ‘I think we’d better put it back in its box now, Tobe,’ Tina said.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ Kat said. I’d never heard Kat use the word ‘gorgeous’ about anything. ‘Where did it come from?’

  ‘One of the guys at work found it on the side of the road at Milara. Its dad was hit by a car,’ she said.

  I almost laughed at the irony of it. I wondered if it was a police car that had killed it.

  ‘Poor thing,’ Toby said, and snuggled his face into its downy back before putting it into the cardboard box from a TV. ‘It smells like fruit. Where’s its mum?’

  ‘Don’t know, mate,’ Tina said. ‘The mum clears off after the eggs are laid. The dad does the sitting on the nest, incubating, and looks after the chicks once they hatch.’

  Just like our family, I thought. Not! Mum’s lips smiled but her eyes looked older and grey instead of blue. She hugged Kat and apologised in her ear for what she had said that morning. Kat patted her back and said that she’d forgotten about it.

  We walked home in the eerie orange light of smoke shadow. A bushfire afternoon. I walked on one side of Mum, Kat on the other and Toby ran ahead singing ‘Where is Pointer?’ to himself and doing the actions. Mum told us that she had spoken to Dad on Tina’s phone.

  I held my breath. I think Kat did too.

  ‘He’s not coming home. Not yet, anyway. They’re still interviewing him.’

  Kat sighed. I couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad. Probably both, like me.

  ‘What did he do?’ Kat asked.

  Mum shrugged. ‘Who knows? He’s certainly not telling me.’

  ‘He knew he’d done something wrong,’ I suggested.

  ‘You reckon?’ Kat asked.

  ‘He didn’t fight. He just let them put him in the back of the van.’

  Mum and Kat were quiet. Toby sang.

  ‘It certainly explains a few things,’ Mum sighed.

  ‘Yeah,’ Kat said, and took Mum’s hand.

  ‘What things?’ I asked.

  ‘You know, why he’s been behaving the way he has. He hasn’t always been like that. He wasn’t always a total grump.’

  Kat grunted. ‘Yes, he was.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I remember when he took me fishing when we were in Watson. I remember it like it was last week. He laughed. He told me fishing stories.’

  ‘Yeah? I don’t remember anything like that,’ Kat said, and flicked the hair over her shoulder. ‘Are we going to be okay?’

  Mum grabbed my hand as well and shrugged. Her face cramped. ‘I don’
t know,’ she said. She stopped walking and sobbed. Kat hugged her. I squeezed her hand.

  ‘We’ll be okay, Mum. We’ll find the money that we need and I can do the stuff that Dad did, like getting firewood and that,’ I said. ‘We’ll be okay.’

  ‘He might be back tomorrow. Who knows?’ Mum said.

  It was like Kat hadn’t heard her. ‘Things are going to change, though. We’ll play our music loud and, when we can afford it, we’ll get a TV.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘And get the phone connected.’

  ‘I want a Playstation Two,’ Toby yelled.

  Mum laughed and wiped her nose. ‘What’s a Play-station Two, Tobe?’

  He came running back. ‘I don’t know but Damon’s got one. Damon at kinder. They’re the best.’

  I took Toby’s hand and jogged up the driveway. The birds in Dad’s aviaries were chattering and flapping against the wire. I told Toby to wait on the drive. Next to the car. The P76. Dad’s car. I ran into the house and called, ‘Dad?’ Loud enough so anyone in the house could hear but not so loud that Toby would. The house creaked in reply. I chucked my bag on the lounge-room floor and ran into Mum and Dad’s bedroom. The sheets were pulled back and the bed was empty. Dad’s keys sat on the bedside table. Reflected orange sunlight from somewhere made them glint and I took them in my hand. I felt their weight, jingled them, then covered them with my hand. Stuffed them deep into the pocket of my school shorts. They sounded like Dad. I bolted past Mum and Kat in the hallway. Tobe was still waiting by the P76.

  ‘What are you doing, Dan?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ I yelled, and waved over my shoulder at her.

  I asked Toby to come with me and we sat at the door of the first of the four aviaries.

  ‘Dad’s gone away, mate,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. I know. Mum said. She said he mightn’t be back for ages and years and years.’

  ‘Are you okay?’

  He poked his bottom lip out and shrugged. ‘Yeah. Fine.’