Burning Eddy

by Scot Gardner

  I was picking my way up an eroded gully, finding tendrils of smoke and spraying them, sizzle, paf with my knapsack, pumping the nozzle and making clouds of ash that stung in my nose. I’d almost run out of water when I spotted the wall of a dam. I kicked through blackened grass as I climbed the wall, hoping like anything that the dam would contain enough water to fill my knapsack and save me the long walk back to the firetruck.

  The dam did have water in it. I shrugged my knapsack off and saw something floating on the other side. Something dead. I screamed as the memory that had been so tightly locked away in my mind began playing. I couldn’t stop it. In the breath of that scream, I saw it all again. The kids hunting skinks amongst the sun-hot rocks. Me and Chris Gemmel. Chris smiling at me, telling me it was time for a swim in the dam. Me agreeing, then spotting a fat stripy skink vanish into a crevice between two football-sized rocks. Chris’s gumboots flapping against his bare legs as he ran to the dam. The squeal of delight. The splash. Me rolling the rock aside only to see the stripy tail slink just out of reach. Moving more rocks, and more. Finally holding the cool lizard in my hand and running to show my friend. My friend floating, face-down, hair like weed. The muddy water around him without a ripple. His body still.

  I knew I should save him, drag his body from the water, but that boy with the lizard had turned to stone. I couldn’t move. I remember thinking that in order to save him I’d have to lose the lizard. Back then the boy couldn’t make a sound. I’d stared at the lizard, watching the glossy scales behind its front leg puff and flatten as it breathed.

  The stone boy now crumpled. Years later, on the edge of a different dam, the spell was broken. ‘Nooooo.’

  In my blackened clothes I plowed into the dam. A whoosh of spray. I was quickly out of my depth, teeth bared and swimming hard. I grabbed the body and dragged it ashore. Cradled the head with the purple tongue and the ashen eyes. The limp body of a baby goat. I held it to my chest and cried. A mournful wail for the dead. Tears for Chris, for Dad, for my whole mixed-up life.

  Tina and Graham ran around the wall of the dam and I cried. Mum and Kat and Tobe arrived beside me and I cried. Mum cradled my head, my sister patted my back, my brother stroked my arm and I cried. Filled up the dam with my tears.

  I cried until there was nothing left but aching ribs, a runny nose and shaky sobs. I put the goat kid down and washed my hands and face in the dam. The fire must have panicked it. Probably ran around in the smoke bleating madly until it stumbled into the water. Poor critter.

  Someone got a shovel and we buried it beside the dam in funeral quiet. I almost laughed when one of the firemen crossed himself. It was a goat for Godsake!

  I told Mum that I’d walk home. She pointed down the hill to where the ute was parked, shrugged and nodded. Toby wanted to come with me and I told him I’d race him back. He could go home via the road and I’d walk through the bush. Kat took his hand and he started dragging her down the hill.

  ‘C’mon, Katty. We’re going to win, aren’t we?’

  Kat chuckled and stumbled behind him.

  Mum looked at me for a long time. ‘Be careful.’

  ‘Always,’ I said, and turned my squelching boots east, down the hill, towards the cool green of the rainforest that bordered the edge of Penny Lane’s blackened property.

  I sat in the heavy shade of a gnarled old myrtle beech. The canopy above me was alive with scrub wrens and treecreepers. I dug my fingers into the cool humus beside me. I shook my head. Ten minutes’ walk up the hill would put me in the middle of a dead black moonscape. Sitting against that huge tree, I could taste the life in the air. I filled my lungs over and over and thought about how symbolic my day had been. It was like a poem about me. Going from a charred place to somewhere green. From old ghosts to sitting in the shade of a tree that may be ten times older than any person who has ever lived. And still growing strong. I felt like someone had taken a fire hose to my insides. It was red and tender in there but it sure was clean. Hope. I felt hope.

  My shorts were almost dry. The insides of my pockets were still wet. Eddy’s tape! I jumped to my feet and frantically turned my pockets inside out. I remembered I’d left it at Tina’s place and let out a rush of air like a punctured tyre. I realised then that I wouldn’t let her down. I’d be there at her funeral to play the tape while they burnt her body.

  The bracken in the shadow of the big tree was parted by a track. It was pockmarked with the tread pattern of dirt bikes. Yeah, I thought, dirt bikes are one way to get around. I walked.

  I found a pocketknife on my way home. Red. Swiss Army. Would have been a great find except there was a name engraved on the biggest blade, ‘M Fisher’.

  Mum and Kat and Tobe had shifted back home. I could see Toby’s sleeping-bag hanging on the clothesline. I found them in the lounge room watching a game show on a crackly black-and-white TV they’d borrowed from Graham and Tina. The phone call that morning, the one that had shaken Tina’s house awake, had been the police. They’d found Dad. They were going to keep him until his trial. Mum didn’t take her eyes off the telly as she told me and although I heard what she said — that Dad wasn’t going to be home that night or any time soon — I still lay awake half the night, listening.

  fourteen

  O W L

  I was frightened from sleep in the graveyard dark of early morning by knocking and scratching at my window.

  I knew.

  I shot from the bed and turned on the light, my heart drumming in my throat. There was nothing at the window.

  It had been a dreamless sleep but I knew.

  Toby snorted and sighed. Made my skin prickle. I dressed like the house was burning.

  I knew without a doubt.

  Knock, scratch, knock again. I grabbed at the front of my shirt. A feathered face at the window. Curved beak and night-time eyes. An owl. Boobook owl. Its head swivelled to look along the driveway, then it was gone. I held my breath and pulled on my boots. I thought about waking Mum but how would I have explained it? Mum, I just woke up and there was an owl clawing at my window. Yeah, an owl. And now I have to go to Carmine.

  Eddy’s dead.

  fifteen

  F R O G

  I was jingling my car keys as I opened the door — shaking like a magpie in a birdbath. I couldn’t help it. It took me a minute to find the ignition and another minute to find the switch for the headlights. It was misting rain and I found the switch for the wipers and cleaned the windscreen. It was easy to roll my car down the drive. After that it got hard.

  The starter motor whined but the engine wouldn’t start. ‘Come on,’ I said to myself. Whir, whir, whir. Nothing. The lights grew dimmer and the engine sounded sicker each time I tried. I turned off the lights and sat there in frustrated silence. I thought about walking home and crawling back into bed, getting out on the right side in a few hours’ time and starting the day again.

  Eddy.

  I put the accelerator to the floor and cranked the key again. The engine coughed, then stopped. Again. Cough, stop.

  ‘Come on.’

  Cough, start.

  The engine spluttered and popped for half a minute, then purred like the first time it had ever been run. I whooped at the rain-spotted windscreen, then ground the gears as I tried to engage first without the clutch. I was already driving like Graham. What an awesome teacher! I smiled and pressed the clutch to the floor. Select first. Rev, rev, stall.

  ‘Come on,’ I cursed. ‘Concentrate.’

  I started the car again and used more revs. The wheels coughed on the gravel and it stalled. Handbrake off. Try again.

  Houston, we have lift-off.

  I thought later, as I came to a shuddering halt in front of the mayor’s house in Henning, that driving instructors probably have a lower life expectancy than, say, gardeners or park rangers. I’d changed gears successfully, up and down. I hadn’t run over anything. I’d stayed mostly on the designated roadway. I’d done all that with my heart racing; breathing like I�
�d just run the length of the Bellan road. Just sitting next to a learner driver like me could give you a heart attack. I started the car again and indicated left but turned right. Thankfully there were no police doing pre-dawn patrols on the Carmine road.

  I hugged the left of the road, occasionally drifting onto the gravel shoulder and correcting so hard that I’d end up over the middle line, panting and swearing to myself, resolving to slow down and take it easy. On a long straight stretch of the Carmine road, near the constellation of lights that is Hepworth A power station, the speedometer read eighty kilometres per hour. I felt like I was flying, with the windscreen wipers thud-thudding the rain away. That’s when I saw the lights in the rear-vision mirror and my stomach dropped into the bottom of the bucket seat. Red and blue, flashing. They were some way behind me but I’d already made the decision to pull over and tell them the truth. Maybe they’d come with me to Eddy’s and see for themselves. The car chugged to a halt on the shoulder of the road. The lights on the dash shone red. The wipers stuttered. My mouth was dry and I fumbled with the door handle.

  The police car sped past. Wailing like a kinder kid with a grazed knee, it seemed to be only fleetingly in contact with the wet road. They were in a hurry but it wasn’t to catch me. I rested my head on the steering wheel and panted, mouth open.

  The front wheel thudded into the gutter and the car stalled again in front of Eddy’s place. I left the keys in the ignition. Rain drummed on the roof. I threw the door shut behind me and it half-closed on part of the seatbelt. A little dog yapped and snarled at next door’s fence. I ran along the drive to the front door of the cottage. There was a light on inside. I could hear the TV. My fist hung in the air in front of the door. I didn’t want to knock. Inside, someone sneezed. I thumped on the door. The TV went quiet.

  ‘Hello? Who is it?’ said Eddy’s voice. ‘Is there someone there?’

  ‘It’s me, Eddy. Daniel.’

  ‘Dan-ee-el. Is that you?’ she asked, and I could hear soft footsteps. The porch light flicked on. The door opened a crack and one of Eddy’s grey-blue eyes looked through the gap. The door swung open.

  ‘It is you! What are you doing here at such an hour in the morning?’

  ‘I . . . I . . .’

  ‘Come in!’ she said, and grabbed my hand. She led me into the lounge room.

  ‘Eddy, it’s so good to see you,’ I said, and hugged her. Her body stiffened and she patted the middle of my back.

  She pushed me off to look at my face. ‘What is it, schat?’

  I shrugged. ‘I woke up and I thought you were dead.’

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yeah. There was an owl at my window.’

  ‘An owl? A bird told you I was dead?’

  ‘Yes. No. Not really. It was a symbol.’

  She stared at me for a long time, then her breasts began to heave with silent laughter. ‘Do I look dead to you?’

  I hung my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Nay, I am not dead. Sometimes an owl is just an owl. You came all that way? How did you get here?’

  ‘I drove my car.’

  ‘Oh, ja, of course. But you are not old enough.’

  ‘No.’

  She took my hand again and slapped my knuckles playfully. ‘Naughty boy. You want a cup of coffee?’

  I nodded and sat on the leather couch. On the TV someone was selling a cultured pearl necklace for one hundred and ninety-nine dollars. In the bottom corner of the screen it had the time. Five-oh-seven. I rested my forehead in my hand. I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Next time, schat, use the telephone,’ she said with a smile as she handed me my cup.

  I nodded. There had to be a next time. Eddy would die. When her time came, she’d just go. It was guaranteed. The only thing in life that’s guaranteed: death. If something is born, then somewhere along the line it has to die. I looked at the old woman with the half smile on her face and thought that she was my best friend in the world. I wished for my sake that Eddy’s death would come later rather than sooner. Much later, so I’d have time to find the words to tell her how I felt. How much I liked being around her. How she had opened my mind with her stories and made me laugh when she broke wind.

  Eddy sipped her coffee and put it on the table beside her chair. ‘It took courage, Dan-ee-el, to do what you did. To drive all that way. To listen to your feeling. Great courage.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Bit stupid really.’

  ‘Nay. Not stupid. Never stupid. What if I had been dead? You would not run away, hoor. You would tell someone to get rid of my body. Thank you. I feel honoured.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘It is a beautiful thing. You are like an angel in my life. You come to me to make my garden beautiful and you listen to my stories. And not fall asleep!’

  I thought that it wasn’t all one way. Eddy had taught me heaps without trying to teach me anything and she’d got me a great price on my car. I opened my mouth to tell her. I opened my mouth and the words came out.

  ‘Eddy, if I’m honest, I’d have to say that I don’t like you.’

  Her head rocked into the chair behind her head and she frowned. ‘Ho?’

  ‘No. I love you. There’s no word in our language between like and love and what I feel in me is much more than like. It must be love.’

  She slapped the armrest of her chair and squealed with laughter. She laughed so hard that her dentures leapt from her mouth and clattered into the leg of the coffee table. I lost it. She had one hand over her mouth and the other on her stomach. Her eyes filled with tears.

  ‘Nay. Thtop, thtop,’ she gasped. ‘No more or I’ll pee my panths.’

  I laughed harder and she doubled over.

  ‘Nay, too late!’ she squealed.

  She laughed and no sound came out. Her toothless mouth hung open and the sight of it cracked me up again. I had to sit on the floor for fear of falling there uncontrollably and smashing the table in the process.

  Eddy got up from her chair and waddled to the toilet, laughing and coughing. When she returned, she was sighing and wiping her eyes with a fold of toilet tissue. She picked up her dentures and wiped them. They rattled as she slid them into her mouth.

  ‘Had to change my pants,’ she grumbled.

  I sat in the chair and she held my face with both hands and kissed my cheeks.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Lachen is gezond. I haven’t laughed like that in twenty years. More. Laughter is good. And, my darling, I love you, too.’

  Eddy jabbed at the remote for the TV and the picture shrank to a point of light. She moved her coffee and lifted the lid on the table beside her. It was an old record player. She lowered the needle onto an album that was already on the turntable. The speakers popped as the needle landed, then crackled. She sat in her seat and closed her eyes.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable. Listen.’

  I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. Classical music. Mellow heartbeat bass and soaring violins. It made my eyes water. There were times when my skin crawled. Sometimes the music fluttered like a blown leaf, other times it tumbled like a waterfall and my whole body tingled like my toes and arms and neck were listening.

  I sighed when it finished. My body had been swallowed by the couch and I was in no hurry to open my eyes.

  Eddy spoke like her words were prayer. ‘May the music always cut to our core, chase away the shadows and fill our bones with hope.’

  I whispered, ‘Amen.’

  ‘Do you have a tape player at home?’ Eddy asked.

  ‘No,’ I moaned as I stretched.

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘Oh, my sister has. We’re not allowed to . . .’

  I opened my eyes to find that daylight had begun to paint the world outside the window in blues and grey. The colours would come with time.

  ‘You’re not allowed to what, schat?’

  I realised that in some part of my mind, Dad was still at home. Force of habit.

  ‘My dad doesn’t . . . didn’t
like music at home. He’d go off at Katrina if she had her music on when he was at home. He’s not home anymore.’

  ‘Oh? Why is that?’

  ‘He’s in jail.’

  She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Godverdomme. What did he do?’

  I shrugged and lifted my shirt to show her my bruised side.

  ‘He did that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Accident?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then he should be in jail. Wie zijn billen brandt, moet op de blaren zitten. If you burn your bum, you must sit on the blisters.’

  I sat forward and crossed my arms. Eddy didn’t even know my dad. That was no great surprise; I didn’t know my dad. Sitting in Eddy’s lounge room that morning, I wanted to know my dad. I wanted to know what he’d done. What had gone wrong? Maybe I did the wrong thing letting his birds go. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone into his shed. He’d chucked a wobbly at me so many times before and never hit me. Never kicked me. He hardly ever raised his voice. He didn’t have to. I wondered what was worse, a kick in the guts or a week of the grump from hell.

  There was a gentle thud on the window beside us. Eddy moved a leaf on the indoor plant and looked at the glass. ‘What was that?’

  I could see the pale underside and suction-cup feet of a tree frog. It stuck to the glass effortlessly.

  ‘Can you see it?’ I asked with a smile.

  ‘Oh! Isn’t it beautiful. A froggie!’

  She put her hand on mine and looked at me. ‘It’s trying to tell you something, Dan-ee-el. It is a symbol!’

  ‘Yeah,’ I grumbled. ‘It’s raining.’

  She slapped my hand and laughed.

  sixteen

  F I S H

  I arrived home just as Mum was getting Kat up for school. I saw the light flash on in her bedroom and the curtains opened enough for Mum to see me chugging up the drive.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she asked. She was smiling. Maybe she hadn’t heard me leave?