The Anatomy of Wings

by Karen Foxlee

  Inside the house a group of girls banged their hips into Beth as she passed. They were big girls, grade 10 girls, with black bands on their arms and blue ink tattoos. She tried to ignore them. They stared at her from where they sat in a circle on the living room floor. She drank the beer Marco gave her. A John Cougar tape played in the tape recorder in the kitchen. Miranda and Beth lit their cigarettes and they were glad they had practiced.

  Outside I found three burning beans, which was a good find. If you rubbed burning beans very hard on your clothes they heated up and you could put them on someone else's skin to burn them and they were a good weapon to have in case you ever met a stranger who was trying to kidnap you.

  “What would you do if a stranger pulled up in a car and asked you to get inside and said your mother wants me to bring you home?” Mum often asked us.

  “No thank you,” we said.

  “And?”

  “Keep walking,” I said.

  And burn him with a burning bean.

  “And what if he said he had lost his kitten and could you help him find it?”

  “No way, Jose,” I said.

  “Good girl,” said Mum.

  “What if he really had lost his kitten?” said Danielle.

  “Don't start,” said Mum.

  Inside the house the beer wasn't cold. Beth forced each mouthful down. It tasted warm and rich, like drinking earth. Marco stood beside her. His little mustache twitched every time he smiled at her. She flicked her cigarette on top of a full ashtray and some of the ash fell on the floor.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “Don't be stupid,” said Marco.

  She put her fingers up to her lips, which were tingling.

  Her cheeks flushed.

  She felt like part of her was vanishing.

  Inside the house long shafts of afternoon light fell through half-open venetian blinds. She passed her hand through them, through the slow-turning dust motes. She watched her cigarette smoke scroll its way to the ceiling. The tough girls watched her from the floor.

  Marco gave her another beer.

  “Yum,” she said, and he laughed.

  He had skin like marble. It gleamed in the kitchen. His black hair fell across his eyes. He pushed it back with his hand. He stood in the slab of sunlight and was illuminated.

  Miranda sat on top of the kitchen bench. Tony was telling her again about his car: the upholstery, the wheels, the wings, the side detailing. How fast it would go. From zero to one hundred. The tape player.

  “No, I'm not kidding,” he said. “A tape player.”

  Beth listened to his voice. She watched Miranda. Miranda kept pushing her long dark hair over her shoulders and looking up at Tony. She was telling him about the horse her stepmother's boyfriend had promised her. She was excited. She described in detail what colors the horse trailer would be. But Tony didn't look that interested. He told her to come outside and look at the car.

  “You better come with me,” Marco said, motioning with his eyes to the girls in the circle on the living room floor, “or they'll beat the shit out of you.”

  Outside I found a feather that could have been from the wing of a whistling kite. I needed to take the feather to the town library because Mum wouldn't buy me A Field Guide to Australian Birds, volume 1 or volume 2. It was a long feather that was honey brown. I immediately looked in the sky to see if the bird was still around but instead there were just two very plain sparrows.

  The whistling kite has a very distinctive call. It sounds like it is asking the question “Where you?” It even sings the question in a proper tune. It sings Where you? Where? Where? Where? Where? It sings it higher as it goes. It is my sixth-favorite bird in the world.

  There was a mirage at the end of Amiens Road hovering glass blue above the pavement but the closer I walked to it the farther it moved away. I went back to my bike and sat down.

  Inside Marco closed his bedroom door and put the chair in front of it. His teeth were very white. They shone inside his mouth. Everything was overflowing in the bedroom. Clothes spewed out of open-mouthed drawers. The sheets tumbled onto the floor. Newspaper stuffing erupted from half-unpacked boxes. He lay on the bed beside her.

  A lady came out of the house behind me. She was about my mother's age but brown-haired and very plain. She had no lipstick on. She had dark-rimmed glasses like Nana Mouskouri's.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, thanks,” I said, and I picked my bike off her footpath because I thought maybe she was angry at me because she had nice grass almost like on a bowling green. My mother would have liked her lawn because, after Hobbytex and dancing, watering the lawn was her third-favorite passion.

  “Are you waiting for someone?” she asked.

  She didn't sound angry.

  “My sister,” I said, and pointed to the house across the road.

  “Oh,” she said. “Do you want to wait inside? It's very hot out here.”

  I fingered the burning beans in my pocket and tried to imagine burning her but it didn't seem right.

  “No, thanks.”

  “Well come onto the porch and I'll bring you a drink,” she said, and I followed her.

  On the front porch there was a tile on the wall that said HOME SWEET HOME. The lady went inside and I stood outside and waited and she came back with orange soda in an old Vegemite glass, which was comforting because that is exactly what our mother did with old Vegemite jars. We sat on the steps together.

  “How many sisters have you got?” said the lady with Nana Mouskouri glasses.

  “Two. And five cousins but only one that lives here. She is only a little bit retarded.”

  “Oh,” said the lady.

  “She's pretty normal really. Only sometimes she has rages.”

  “Oh.”

  “And my other sister just got curvature of the spine and has to wear a Milwaukee back brace twenty-three hours a day even though she is trying to find a cure.”

  “I see,” said the lady. “This sister here?”

  “No,” I said. “That's Beth. She's normal. Only last year she fainted at the lake and my nanna said she may have seen an angel.”

  Inside Beth felt scared. She was scared by his glowing kisses, which were small. It was like being nibbled by a fish. He kissed her all along her jaw and lightly on the mouth. His whiskers tickled her face like a feather. Whenever he stopped he drew his head back and looked at her with a half-puzzled smile. The sun shone through the blinds. His face was crossed with lines of light and shadow. Sometimes the shadow fell upon his eyes. Sometimes across his mouth.

  He was shaking hard. She tried to push him off but he held one arm across her chest. His breath burned her skin. He pulled down the red corduroy pedal pushers. She watched the white ceiling. A dirt-colored cloud moved slowly between two slats of the blinds.

  When he had finished he lay beside her.

  “You're not supposed to cry,” he said. “You're supposed to enjoy it.”

  In the backyard Miranda waited beside Tony's car, which had no wheels. After a while Beth came down the back steps and waded through the long grass toward her.

  When she came out of the house on Amiens Road that day Beth's eyes were bluer than I had ever seen them. She smelled like Winfield Greens and Dad's beer and something else.

  “I didn't think you'd still be here,” she said after she called me down from the Nana Mouskouri lady's front steps.

  We rode the long way to the corner shop. She bought chewing gum and a bag of lolly hearts and she gave me a packet of candy cigarettes. My first lolly heart said YOU’RE COOL. Miranda's said the same. Beth's said BE MY SWEETHEART.

  “It's a sign,” said Miranda.

  “No it isn't,” said Beth.

  “You did it, didn't you?” said Miranda.

  “Yes,” said Beth.

  I lit up a candy cigarette, which is a practicing cigarette for smaller children.

  My second heart said YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL.
/>   “And you are,” said Beth. She tucked my hair behind my ear.

  We left Miranda at the gate to the caravan park and then wheeled our bikes home. We crossed Campbell Road and entered into the back of Memorial Park. I kicked a rock with my foot. I counted my steps. Beth didn't say a thing. She didn't say don't tell Mum.

  That side of the hill always made me feel lonely. The path was rocky and choked in parts by lantana. Campbell Road disappeared quickly even though we could still hear it. The bush closed in along the path to get a better look at us. Crooked rain trees bent over and rattled their seedpods softly above our heads. Cicadas changed their tune as we passed. The only noise was our bike tires and our feet crunching on the path.

  When we turned into Dardanelles Court the sun was only just starting to set and Mr. O'Malley was singing while he swept his front yard. He sang “Botany Bay” very slowly; each word hung in the hot summer air and then dissolved. When Mr. O'Malley saw me he put out his hand and I sang a few lines with him from where I stood in the middle of the road but Beth walked ahead like she couldn't even hear us.

  She went straight to her room and lay on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest. Mum came and stood at her door.

  “How was Tiffany?” she asked.

  “Good,” Beth said.

  “I think it's really nice you're still friends with Tiffany,” said Mum. “Even though you've got this new friend. You always need more than one friend.”

  “Yes,” said Beth.

  “Did you play with Tiffany's sister?” Mum asked me.

  She seemed extra nosy.

  “No,” I said, “but I found this.”

  I held up the possible whistling kite feather and twirled it.

  “Don't bring that inside, please,” said Mum. “It could be covered in bird lice.”

  She tried to take it off me but I dodged her and took it into my room. I opened my cupboard and took out my box marked FEATHERS, and put the feather inside. She didn't try to chase me.

  “Come and wash your hands, Jennifer,” she said.

  Mum came to my door and I closed the cardboard lid.

  “You know small children who handle bird feathers can get terrible diseases and some of them have even died,” she said.

  “Show me the facts,” I said.

  She made an annoyed noise.

  We heard Beth go into the bathroom and turn on the shower. We heard her slide the lock. Mum went away and then came back. The shower had been running for a very long time.

  “What are you doing in there?” said Mum with her ear pressed to the door.

  “Nothing,” Beth said. “I'm coming out now.”

  “Are you all right?” said Mum. “You look very pale.”

  Beth looked at her like it was a difficult question. A dangerous question. She crossed her arms. That she hadn't been to Tiffany's house was burning in painful letters all over her skin. She looked at Mum like she thought she already knew. Mum was trying to trick her. She could read the writing.

  “I just feel sick, that's all,” she said.

  She lay down on the bed and let Mum stroke her hair.

  I sat in the hallway with a pile of magazines and started ripping out pictures.

  “What are you doing?” Mum asked.

  “I need pictures of animals with fur,” I said. “I told you it was mammal week.”

  “Well don't rip them,” said Mum. “It's too noisy. Cut them with the scissors. Don't you know your sister is unwell?”

  I was cutting out a picture of a wombat when Beth sat up and vomited over the side of the bed. The vomiting caused a wild commotion. Mum went running for a bucket. She wanted to call Dr. Cavanaugh. She wanted to take her to the hospital.

  “It's so colorful,” said Danielle, looking at the spew. The pastel shades of intermingled lolly hearts.

  I looked for messages.

  “I hope you don't die,” I said.

  After vomiting she fell asleep. We were allowed to have a look at her before we went to bed. She was sleeping on her side. The moon was gazing serene-faced through the window and illuminating her cheek, with its one mole.

  It was only in the morning that I realized part of her was missing.

  THE MISSING PART WAS A SECTION OF HER EASY LAUGH, THE BIT WHERE SHE TILTED HER HEAD BACK, HELD ONE ARM ACROSS HER STOMACH, AND CLOSED HER EYES. That had vanished. She had the same blond hair, the same almond-shaped eyes, the same constellation of freckles across her nose, the same mole on her cheek just like mine. But she was different. On the outside no one noticed it. Not Mum. Not Nanna, who noticed everything. Beth still held me down and tickled my ribs but sometimes when she did it she stared right through me at something else.

  Beth grew suddenly beautiful. It surprised us, the speed at which it happened. Her eyes were a deeper shade of blue. Her lips were rose-petal smooth. She moved with a new grace. Everywhere people could not tear their eyes from her or could not look at her because of her beauty.

  The grade 9 boys couldn't look at her. They averted their eyes when she moved past them like a vision. The grade 9 girls fell at her feet. She sat with them in their tight circles at lunchtime with Miranda at her shoulder like a shadow.

  She used their language, copied their wide-eyed innocence. She tried on their giggles and shrieks. She slouched her shoulders. She wore her hair in one plain braid. She tried to blend in but she was different. Everyone smelled it.

  Grade 10 boys followed her like a pack of dogs wherever she went. The grade 9 girls watched her in amazement as she dealt with them. How did she know what to do? How did she know how much to give and how much to not give? The boys followed her down to the laneway beside the science block. She rested her back against the wall. She brought her braid over her shoulder and touched it as she talked to them. She fiddled with the rubber band like she might undo it.

  They waited for her on the footpath outside the bike racks but she rode straight past them with a smile over her shoulder. They followed her and Miranda, a small flotilla, home along the straight highway.

  Dardanelles Court became steadily crowded with bikes. Boys rode up and down the cul-de-sac hoping for a glimpse of Beth. Some with older brothers came in cars. They did burnouts at the entrance to Memorial Drive. Marshall Murray unwound his garden hose and threatened to wet them.

  “Get,” he shouted. “Leave her alone.”

  Mrs. Irwin called her three girls inside.

  Miss Frieda Schmidt opened her venetians with two fingers and shivered.

  Mr. O'Malley sang to his new audience; he sang songs about tall ships and sea spray and storms.

  At first Mum was unaware. She sat at the table doing Hobbytex. She opened up the blue Hobbytex tin and took out all of her colors and arranged them in a neat line. Then she clipped a T-shirt with the iron-on transfer stencil onto the work frame.

  She had made me a T-shirt that said GOING MY WAY, which had a big purple thumb beneath it, and a T-shirt that said DADDY’S LITTLEST ANGEL. She made Danielle a T-shirt that said COOL, which was big enough to go over her Milwaukee back brace, and when Danielle said she wasn't going to wear it Mum said she was extremely ungrateful.

  “I don't want a T-shirt that says COOL,” said Danielle.

  “Well what do you want?” asked Mum.

  “One that says WORLD’S BIGGEST RETARD,” I said.

  “Jennifer,” shouted Mum. “Don't say retard.”

  I couldn't stop laughing.

  “Shut up, arsehole,” said Danielle.

  “Arsehole,” said Dad, and that made him. laugh. He was reading the form guide with a pencil stuck behind his ear.

  His T-shirt said WORLD’S BEST DAD.

  “Put those scissors away from your mouth,” Mum said to me.

  “They weren't even near my mouth,” I said.

  “They were,” said Mum. She took the scissors off me.

  “That's how children die,” she said. “They slip and the scissors go into their brains.”

  “Cool,” s
aid Danielle.

  Mum leaned over and opened the blinds. She looked out at the boys on bikes going round and round in circles.

  “Where are all these boys from? They don't live in this street.”

  “They're from the high school,” said Danielle. “They're all Beth's boyfriends.”

  Mum put down the color she was using.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “They're the boys who love her, only her real boyfriend is Marco,” said Danielle.

  I started going through the Hobbytex catalog pretending I wasn't interested and that I knew nothing about anything.

  “Is he outside?” asked Mum, her voice rising just a little.

  A quiet fell over the room. In the quiet I could hear Mum's breathing and the cap of a Hobbytex tube being screwed on and the sound of bicycle wheels circling on pavement.

  “I doubt it,” said Danielle, casually leafing through her perm scrapbook. “He doesn't go to school anymore.”

  “Are you listening to this, Jim?” shouted Mum.

  Dad looked up from the paper.

  “Hey?”

  “Where's Beth now?” demanded Mum.

  She looked at Danielle and then slapped a hand on the catalog so I had to look up as well.

  “Where do you think?” said Danielle.

  Beth and Miranda had been riding to Marco's house in the afternoons after school. After the first time it wasn't so bad. It didn't hurt so much. She took three drags on a thin joint in his messy bedroom. She coughed violently and while she coughed he laughed and then she lay back on the bed with her long hair hanging over the edge. Marco kissed her. He didn't shake as much. His breath didn't burn her cheek. He didn't hold her down with one arm across her chest. She watched his neck and his chin moving above her. Afterward he lay on his back beside her with his eyes shut. He reminded her of a statue, he lay so still; he was like a marble saint with a carved face.

  After Danielle told on Beth she was supposed to meet us each afternoon to ride home from school. We waited at the back side of Memorial Park, shielding our faces from the sun. Danielle and Kylie always got sick of waiting. Kylie said her mum knew Beth was going to be nothing but trouble. They went up through the rain trees and over the hill into the park.