by Stephen Orr
Jay climbed from the old man’s car proudly wearing the pants and Lindisfarne College blazer, and a pair of black leather shoes. Mel and Chris stood and came towards them.
‘You his dad?’ the old man asked Chris.
‘No,’ Chris replied.
Then to Mel, ‘You his mum?’
‘Yeah.’ She looked at Jay. ‘Where the hell did you go?’
He shrugged.
‘We told you to stay in your room.’
The old man, who had a neatly trimmed moustache, said, ‘He was in his underwear, on a busy road. He was nearly knocked over.’ He stared at Mel and Chris.
Mel approached her son, knelt down and grabbed him by the lapel. ‘You know how worried we been? What the fuck were you thinking? You know better than that.’
The old man looked at her—at the tattoo on her shoulder, her black fingernails, a cigarette glowing between her fingers. ‘I should’ve taken him straight to the police.’
‘He would’ve come home,’ Chris said.
‘He wouldn’t have made it home, son. You’re just lucky it was me.’
‘Thank you,’ Mel said. ‘But we don’t need no lecture.’
‘I think that’s just what you need.’
Chris stepped forward. ‘Watch yerself, old man. You oughta be careful, pickin’ up kids off the street.’
The old man clenched his fist. ‘In you go, son,’ he said to Jay, messing the curls he’d tried to comb flat with his wife’s old ivory-backed brush.
Jay went inside, through the mess, to his room. They’d bought him a Happy Meal, and left it on his bed. He unwrapped the cheeseburger but it was cold, and with a belly full of the old man’s vegetable soup he didn’t feel like eating it. He just examined how someone had sewn a picture of a book onto the pocket of the blazer. Then he looked out of the window and could see the three of them arguing. Chris pushed the old man and he fell back, steadying himself.
He tried the French fries, but they were cold too.
22 December
The next morning he watched a movie about a girl who’d lost her dog. During a commercial he checked to see if Chris and his mum were still on the porch. He quickly darted into their room, closed the door, placed a chair against the built-in robe and slid the door open. There, on a high shelf, were the presents. He reached up and rummaged, turning the parcels into the light to read the tags.
To Chris, Merry Xmas
To my One and Only Muscle Man
To Jay (and he shook it, and felt it, but had no idea)
To my old Hen, Mel—You know what it is!
Mel
He kept searching. There were probably more towards the back, he thought. One of the presents dropped and he jumped to the ground to retrieve it.
To my darling Chris
He threw it back up but another fell out. He retrieved this one and slipped it back on the shelf. Then he heard a car in the driveway, a door slamming, voices. He slid the robe shut, replaced the chair and ran back into the lounge room.
‘G’day, killer,’ his dad said.
Jay ran to his father and wrapped his arms around him. ‘You’ve come?’
‘Course I have. Here, an early Christmas present.’ Sean Foster handed his boy a small stocking packed with an assortment of chocolate bars, balloons, plastic toys and a whistle.
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Jay said, examining the stocking but returning to embrace him.
Sean Foster was short, olive-skinned and brown-eyed like his son. He had hair that fell in curls, too, but he’d cut it back to stubble. He had broad, muscled shoulders that came from his job lifting crates at a fruit market.
Mel was standing behind him with her arms crossed. ‘Want a coffee?’
‘That’d be good.’
‘I’m goin’ the pub,’ Chris called from the porch.
‘He’s not feeling sociable?’ Sean asked his ex-wife.
‘Don’t start,’ she replied, walking into the kitchen with her arms still crossed.
Sean led his son to the couch and they sat down. The television showed a choir singing ‘Silent Night’ beside the makeup counter in a department store.
‘So, what is it?’ Jay said to his dad.
‘The big present?’
‘How big?’
Sean smiled. ‘Let’s just say, it barely fits in the boot.’
‘Is it heavy?’
‘Very.’
‘Do you need to plug it in?’
Sean knew the game. ‘No, that’d be giving too much away.’
‘Come on,’ Jay pleaded.
‘No.’
‘Does it make any noise?’
Sean noticed his son’s arm. ‘What happened?’
‘I burned it.’
‘How?’
‘I was making noodles, and I fell, and the kettle fell on me.’
He held his son’s arm. ‘Does it hurt?’
‘No.’
‘What was he doing with boiling water?’ he called to Mel.
No reply.
‘Mel?’
‘What?’
‘What was he doing with boiling water?’
Mel appeared in the doorway. ‘He didn’t ask us,’ she said. ‘We had no idea.’
‘You should be watching him.’
Her brow creased. ‘Fuck off.’ She returned to the kitchen.
‘Is it bad?’ Sean asked his son, but the boy’s face was blank.
He noticed a series of small bruises on his son’s neck, as though someone had held him. There were more bruises on his legs and thigh. He took the boy’s hand, led him to the kitchen and showed Mel. ‘What the fuck’s this?’
‘He’s always falling over,’ she said, busy sugaring the coffees.
‘That’s bullshit. How do these come from a fall?’ Indicating the fingertip bruising.
‘He plays with other kids.’
Sean led his son back to the lounge room and they sat down. ‘Tell me,’ he whispered. ‘How did you get these bruises?’
Jay was biting his lip; his head was shaking.
‘Was it Chris?’
Jay could see into the kitchen. His mum was listening. ‘I just fell over.’
Sean stood, walked into the kitchen and said, ‘He looks a mess.’
She shrugged.
‘What kids is he playing with?’
She turned on him. ‘What’s your fucking point?’
‘If your mate touches him, I’ll rip his throat out.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Try me.’
She tipped his coffee down the sink. ‘Visit’s over.’
Jay laid awake in bed. He looked at the blazer hanging on the back of his door. He remembered the old man’s smell, the top of his singlet showing towards his neck, his ironed pants (with a crease down the middle) and the way he sanded his feet with a sort of shrunken cheese grater. Remembered him telling him about his own son, as he flicked through an album showing him in the same blazer, overalls (three months into his apprenticeship), the suit he hired for his wedding, his bathers and a Santa costume for his work picnic. And he remembered the old man saying, ‘You got problems, you come and see me.’
As he smiled.
‘What I mean is, if they’re not looking after you.’
Jay watched the shadows the trees cast on his curtains. They were twisting, shortening, lengthening as they moved with the wind. One branch was a mop; another a giraffe’s head; another a book opening in the wind; and yet another, Chris, with his ball-and-socket shoulders, standing in the dead peas and pumpkins under his window.
He moved back against the bed head and pulled the cotton sheet up under his chin. He saw Chris’s shaved head and big ears, his square jaw and beefy neck.
Jay, the shape whispered. Come over here, you little fucker.
He closed his eyes. ‘Fistful, fisticuff, fistula … Dad?’
He heard his mum switching on the telly: ‘Hark the Herald Angels sing, Glory to the Newborn King,’ he sang, drifting back to his dic
tionary: ‘… kingdom, kingpin, kink …’ He heard Chris’s car in the driveway; the door; footsteps.
‘Where you been?’ he heard his mum say.
‘Where do you think?’
‘Thought you were coming home for tea?’
‘I thought hubby might stay.’
‘I pissed him off.’
‘Why?’
Their voices dropped, whispering. Jay listened intently. He slipped out of bed, crawled across his floor and opened his door to hear more.
‘Sean … what do you think I said?’
And then Chris shouting. ‘If that little cunt’s said anything.’
Jay jumped back into bed and pulled the sheet up under his chin.
‘Quiet!’ he heard his mum say. ‘He didn’t say anything. Christ, what’s the issue, we didn’t burn him.’
‘Then y’ got FACS on your door in the morning.’
Silence.
‘Little fucker.’
Jay was shaking all over. He slipped from his bed to the floor, then crawled to the wardrobe and got in, shutting the door as the voice grew louder and louder. He held his legs, trying to still them.
‘Idol, idyll, ignite …’
There were footsteps in the hallway and his light came on.
‘Where are y’?’ Chris shouted.
The wardrobe door opened and a hand reached in for him. Grabbed his neck, launched him across the room, leaving him sprawled on the floorboards. He tightened his body into a ball and covered his face with his hands.
‘What did you tell him?’ Chris shouted.
‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing,’ Mel repeated, standing at the door. ‘Leave him be, Chris.’
Chris knelt down and pointed his finger at the boy. ‘If there’s any fucking trouble …’
‘Chris!’
Jay could smell alcohol on Chris’s breath.
‘What did you tell him?’
‘He wanted to know about my arm.’
‘And you told him it was us, didn’t you?’ Chris raised his open hand and slapped the boy across the face.
‘No,’ Jay pleaded, shaking violently, finally wetting himself.
‘Get off,’ Mel said, stepping towards her boyfriend.
‘Shut up,’ he shouted, without looking at her. Then he took the boy by the shoulders and started shaking him.
Jay felt faint. He closed his eyes. Mel reached over to stop him but he pushed her back. She landed against the wardrobe and old toys fell on her head, and on the floor. Then she stood still. She folded her arms and started sobbing.
‘So?’ Chris said to the boy.
She ran from the room.
Jay was mostly unaware of what was happening. His eyes closed, then opened, and he saw the shadows on the curtain.
Then he felt a boot kicking him hard in the side. He rolled over, clutching the spot, searching for the pain that was like a hundred kettles burning him at once. Thinking, Galoot, galore, galosh, as the twelve days of Christmas drifted in from the lounge room.
He couldn’t sing, speak, think or feel. There was just pain, and piss cold on his legs.
Jay woke in bed in the darkest, quietest part of the night. Someone had placed his stocking on the sheet that had been tucked in across his chest. He opened his eyes and noticed an empty coat hanger casting a shadow on the back of his door.
‘Mum,’ he called.
He sat up, removed the sheet and managed to walk across to the window. Opened the curtain and in the half-light of a clouded moon studied the red mark on his side. He touched it and it was sensitive. Dropping to the floor, he rested on folded legs, leaning forward so that his head almost touched the ground. ‘Mum.’ He stood and, leaning forward, shuffled from his room. Walked slowly, so the floorboards wouldn’t creak, so he wouldn’t wake. He stood at the door to the front bedroom and saw Chris, naked, lying diagonally across the bed. Then he moved to the lounge room and saw his mother, fully dressed, asleep on the couch.
‘Mum.’ He pressed her arm with his finger but decided not to wake her. Finally, he went to the toilet. It was painful taking a pee, and when he’d finished he noticed there was red in the water. He returned to bed and curled up in a small ball. Small. Smaller than anything he could imagine.
23 December
He woke tired. It was after ten and Mel had opened his curtains, letting in bright light that settled to the sound of sirens, a chainsaw and an old fan clunking. He closed his eyes and turned towards the wall.
‘In three weeks you’ll have your own sixpack,’ a voice promised.
He felt his side, the area below his stomach, his skin and whatever plumbing was inside (that’s how he imagined it, like the pipes under the kitchen sink) and it was raw and sensitive. ‘Mum?’
Mel was in the front yard watering an apricot tree. She loved apricots—loved the juice on her wrist as she bit into them, loved them on her cereal, and best of all, in a fruit salad she ate doused with whipped cream.
Then, with a flash of flesh and limb, there was a small moon face standing at the gate. ‘Can Jay come out to play?’
‘Hi, Harrison.’
The boy was shorter than Jay, browner, wearing an old Hawaiian shirt. There was snot under his nose, spread across his top lip, and what looked like the start of school sores.
‘You should wipe your nose,’ she said to him.
‘So, can Jay come out?’
She watched the water soaking into the ground around her apricot tree. ‘No, he’s not feeling well.’
‘What about later?’
‘No.’
‘Okay.’ He walked up another three houses and went in someone else’s front gate.
Mel turned off the tap, went inside and crept into her son’s room. ‘You awake?’
He tried to look at her. ‘Yes.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘My tummy.’ Grimacing.
She lifted the sheet and looked at the red mark and swelling on his lower abdomen. ‘You’ll be alright.’
‘It stings.’
‘It doesn’t sting. Bees sting. You’ve just got a bit of a gut ache.’
She looked around the room, remembering the previous evening. The toys were still on the floor, the lamp beside his bed had fallen, and the globe had broken.
‘Come on, up for breakfast,’ she said. ‘The day’s half gone.’
He twisted his body to lift from the bed but then dropped back. He was biting his lip, and taking short, shallow breaths. ‘Can I stay here?’
‘Get up.’
He tried rolling from his bed. His legs dropped to the ground and he attempted to straighten his body. ‘I can’t.’
‘Christ, drama queen … Get back to bed, I’ll get you something.’
She watched as he climbed back into bed. She wanted to call Chris and get him to sort it out. Get him to fetch food and drink all day, read stories, bath him, dress him and generally fix whatever problems he’d created.
When she returned with toast and cordial a few minutes later he was asleep again. She put the plate and glass on the ground and sat beside him. Moved hair from his eyes and studied his fine features: the little bags under his eyes; the red in his cheeks and the crease between the tip of his mouth and his nostrils; his red lips, dry now, and Sean’s button nose. And then, for a moment, she felt bad. She didn’t know why. None of this was her fault. Stuff just happened. They’d all move on, and Chris and Jay would be the best of mates.
Chris was at the door. ‘I’m out of fags.’
‘So?’
‘So—go get us some.’
She refused to speak, hoping he’d leave the room. But he just stood there, at one point picking something from his teeth. ‘What’s your problem?’
She turned on him. ‘What do you think? Look at him.’
‘So?’
‘Look.’
‘He’s always sick. I’ve never seen a kid like him.’
There was another long pause.
‘So?’ he re
peated.
‘What?’
‘Are you gonna get my fags?’
Jay turned down a jam sandwich for lunch, despite Chris saying he should be made to eat it. Mel settled him on the couch in the lounge room with a pillow and Coke, and a Jungle Book DVD that Sean had given him the previous Christmas.
Jay was awake long enough to watch his hero swing through the trees, ending up in a sort of high-rise homette in a giant fig; he watched him talk to monkeys and reason with elephants; drink from coconuts and battle a fast-flowing river to rescue a potential jungle girl. He could imagine retreating to the privacy of his own tree fort with the girl—they could share books and salt and vinegar chips, juicy apricots, picked from their own forest, and they could swing from the engine hoist that Sean had set up years before in their shed.
Jay drifted in and out of sleep. Chris’s brother dropped by and Chris showed him the boy on the couch. ‘So, this is Sean’s kid?’ he heard the brother ask.
Jay was awake, but he kept his eyes closed.
‘She looks after him, as you can tell.’
Jungle Boy was followed by Bananas in Pyjamas. When Mel came in she saw her son smiling and felt better. ‘How is it?’
‘They’re funny.’
‘I gotta go out for a while.’
‘Where?’
‘The doctor.’
‘I don’t need anything.’
She stared at him. ‘It’s for this mole on my shoulder. You never know with moles.’
‘Why?’
‘They can be cancerous.’
Jay looked back at the television. ‘Who’s looking after me?’
‘Chris.’
He retreated into the images, silently.
‘Anything you want?’
‘No.’
After she’d gone he went to the toilet and managed to sit down in a way that caused least pain. When he pushed it hurt more, and more, until he was doubled over with his head between his legs.
‘Chris,’ he called. ‘Chris …’
He walked back to the couch, his body bent in half. Sat down, and his eyes engaged the screen, although he didn’t really know what he was hearing or seeing.
It would get better, he guessed. It always did. The pain would go and the bruises would fade.
‘Mum’—the pain intensified and he curled into a ball. ‘Mum.’
