How the Light Gets In

by Hyland, M. J.

‘That way,’ I say.

  ‘I’m the other way,’ he says, ‘Well, I’m not really the other way, if you know what I mean!’

  This is a stupid pun, a lame joke, and smarmy too, but he laughs like a person should, and when he finishes his eyes are swimming with water and his cheeks are red.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I know exactly what you mean. Oh, here’s your camera.’

  Tom puts his hand on my arm and says, ‘I have an idea. There’s about ten pictures left. Why don’t you take some and then when I get the film developed there’ll be some of me and some of you and I’ll get a great surprise and you get to keep your pictures if you like them.’

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ I say. I don’t care that I know he made the audition up. I don’t care that he is vain and pretentious. I don’t want to go home. I want to keep feeling good. So, I give him a playful shove in the chest and walk away. I turn back and he is still standing there, looking at me.

  12

  Two weeks later, a Saturday, and James and I are in the kitchen. I hand him a freshly laundered tea towel. It smells of the backyard autumn sun.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘I hate washing.’

  ‘Good,’ I say, ‘I hate drying.’

  ‘How’s school?’ he asks.

  His thin, juvenile moustache has been shaved off, his skin is almost clear of pimples and, except for a raised smear of dried blood on his chin, he looks quite handsome. We are alone together in the house for the first time since the vacation.

  ‘Okay,’ I say.

  He stands close to me and twists the tea towel through his hands, ‘You have Mr Caldwell for history,’ he says. ‘He probably loves you. Does he love you?’

  I run my tongue across my teeth and watch James’ fingers squeeze the tight rope he has made from the tea towel.

  ‘Shut up,’ I say.

  ‘Okay,’ he says.

  We are silent, but James is looking hard at my face.

  ‘How about you?’ I ask. ‘How’s the old southpaw coping with advanced everything?’

  James lunges and puts the tea towel around my neck.

  ‘Argh,’ he says, as he pretends to choke me.

  His face is close and laughing. I do nothing, my hands dead, limp by my sides.

  ‘Argh,’ he says again, which is the sound I am supposed to make; a gurgling protest.

  I lift my hands and put them on top of his hands but I make no sound and I do not look into his face.

  He wraps the tea towel tighter around my throat, to see my face bulge and redden. My fear is suddenly real. James is pulling too tight, desperate for a sound from me, dying for me to scream, or to touch him.

  I put my hands between the tea towel and my neck.

  ‘Don’t!’ I say.

  I break away and run around the kitchen table. He comes after me and grabs hold of my waist. He pulls my chest against his, his heart pumping. I put my face next to his, my cheek against his cheek. I do not want to see his eyes.

  ‘Argh,’ he says, pressing himself against me and rubbing sideways.

  I am stronger than he is. Much stronger. I resist every push and pull and so we do not move. He stops pushing me, just holds me. My arms are limp but they want to touch him. I count to ten. I want to touch him because he is a boy and I am a girl, but he is the wrong person to touch.

  Still, I want to let everything happen. I count to ten again and listen to his breathing in my ear. I am staring at the fridge and wonder what he is staring at. He has an erection. His eyes are probably closed and I am in there somewhere. I want to see what would happen next if I let it. I count to ten one last time. He has put his hand into his trousers. I wait for him to finish what he has to do. I am not a part of this any more.

  When he’s finished, he holds onto me as though I might slip through a hole in the floor, and as he holds me, he makes a muffled noise, a soft snort and then a groan. I groan softly back, then pull away.

  The front door slams. Somebody is home.

  ‘See you later,’ says James.

  ‘Yep,’ I say, ‘see you later.’

  James is taller than when I first arrived.

  I decide to borrow Bridget’s bike and ride into town. I want to find an old Catholic church like the one around the corner from my high school at home; a church with a tabernacle, a refectory and a nave, a church that’s at least one hundred and fifty years old.

  I want a church where people genuflect and whisper their prayers. A church with the Stations of the Cross around the walls. I want to find a church and see what the stations are. I’ve forgotten them. I want to pay more attention to the detail this time.

  I want to light a smooth white candle, one the size and shape of a finger, with a wick where the fingernail should be, and squeeze it tightly into the slot; line it up with all the other candles, each of them signifying a prayer.

  I’d like to put coins in the collections box the way that you’re supposed to; to pay a debt for all those candles I’ve lit without giving any money.

  I wonder how much I owe; perhaps, at five cents a candle, I owe God about thirty dollars. That’s not much. Maybe I should pay some interest.

  I find a Catholic church and go straight to the candles and light four of them. I don’t exactly pray when I light these candles, or say a novena. I merely sit and stare at Mary’s statue and watch a lady move in and out of the confession box.

  I like it when people climb inside the confessional and shut the door as though they are climbing into a pantry to be with jars of jam and boxes of cereal. I like knowing that the priest will whisper behind the red curtain. It makes no difference to me that the Catholic church is shot to pieces with sleaze and sex scandals. Once I’m inside a church I feel calm.

  I especially like the church near my school back in Sydney. I like that it has passages and alcoves and places you can’t see when you are standing in the middle.

  I sit and wonder if I should pray for something or someone. Maybe the woman who works at the school crossing opposite the church near my school at home.

  She’s one of my favourite people: a ‘lollipop lady’ who wears a white waterproof jacket with a fat orange diagonal stripe through her middle and a matching white waterproof hat with orange stripe around the brim.

  We used to talk together and she’d ask me why I wasn’t at school but she didn’t ever get officious about it.

  She took time out from working the crossing and hid behind a Moreton Bay fig tree so that she could jam her face with packets of chips and hot dogs she’d bought from the 7-Eleven around the corner.

  As I crossed the road, I could see her white waterproof jacket bulging out from behind the tree, equal slices of white jacket on either side of the dark grey trunk, and I’d watch her fat white arm moving up and down to her mouth like an earth mover.

  I should have told her that nobody would mind if she sat on the bench outside the church, where she could have eaten openly and without rushing. I wish I could say this to her now, so I close my eyes and talk to her as though she is dead and I am talking to her in her grave.

  After dinner I go to my room to study but can’t concentrate on reading and am desperate for a cigarette. I have developed the habit of taking a break from study at about eight o’clock and going for a walk around the block, finding a place in the supermarket parking lot and having a few cigarettes crouched behind the shopping carts.

  If I had the right kind of friend, I’d ask them to push me around the car park in a shopping cart and we’d ride around like this for hours. If I had Tom’s phone number, I’d give him a call.

  I go to Henry’s study to ask him if I can borrow some money. The door is open and he is hunched over the desk.

  ‘Hi,’ I say.

  I look at Henry’s face and I wish that I had come for another purpose. I want to act like a nice person. Maybe I should say I just stopped by for a chat; ask him if he feels like a break, a cup of tea or a game of chess.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, a smile
so big it looks like he thinks I’m going to give him a present.

  I don’t know what to do with my hands, so I put them on my hips.

  ‘Margaret forgot to give me any pocket money this week,’ Isay.

  Henry points to a seat, as though he is a doctor and I his patient.

  ‘I thought she might have spoken to you about that.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘Well, maybe we should discuss it when Margaret is here.’

  I do not show my panic.

  ‘Can’t you tell me?’

  Henry puts the lid on his pen and thinks for a moment.

  The telephone rings but he doesn’t lift the receiver. He waits for somebody else to pick it up on the other line. It’s probably Bridget talking to the same mysterious person she speaks to every night in her bedroom for exactly fourteen minutes. The Harding phone-call limit on school nights is fifteen minutes.

  ‘Margaret will want to clear this up herself, but she thinks that since you have all the clothes you need, and there’s always plenty of food in the house for lunches, and since you rarely go out, it’s probably better if you ask for money as you need it, or on special occasions.’

  I’ve cried only once since turning thirteen. Now, to my astonishment, is the second time. The last time I cried was when Steve told me he’d seen a tomcat rape my kitten. I knew it wasn’t true. It was the fact he was lying, and that he had waited until I was alone with him in the laundry, that made me cry.

  This time I’m crying because I can’t have what I want, when the whole point of my being here is to get everything I want and I’m standing in a big house where everything should not only be possible, but easy to get.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, turning away from Henry.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  The tears hit me in the jaw and I know that if I speak I will not be able to stop myself from gasping. I also feel the sad rush of pleasure that comes with the heat and uncontrollable nature of tears. I head for the door and as I do, Margaret comes in.

  ‘That was your father on the phone,’ she says to Henry. ‘Your mother’s had a fall. We need to get over to the hospital right away.’

  There is something peculiar about the way Margaret speaks. It’s as though she is enjoying the drama; as though she relishes the gravity and urgency of being suddenly needed in this way.

  Henry does not speak. His eyes swell and redden and his mouth goes slack. He takes his cardigan from the back of the chair.

  Margaret does not look at me and appears not to have noticed that I’m here.

  ‘Get Bridget and James,’ she says to Henry. ‘We’ll take the van in case we bring your father back here with us.’

  I walk towards her. ‘Should I come too?’ I ask.

  She seems surprised by the question.

  ‘No, I think it’s important that you stay here and look after the house.’

  Margaret plays with the rings on her left hand. I still have tears rolling down my cheeks and I want her to notice. Some people look good when they cry.

  Bridget and James hurtle down the stairs, ready to leave in an instant.

  ‘What’s wrong with Granny?’ asks Bridget, already crying.

  ‘She’s had a bad fall and she’s in the emergency room at the hospital,’ says Margaret with maximum gravitas, enjoying the suspense her voice creates when she could so easily tell Bridget and James that their granny is going to be just fine.

  Henry’s mum is sure to have broken her hip getting out of the shower or running to the phone, like my Aunty Sally, and be back on her feet, with a new hip, in a few weeks.

  James is angry and grabs his father by the elbow. ‘Come on! Let’s get moving.’

  I walk with them to the door and catch Margaret as she fumbles around in the key basket for the right keys.

  I want her to see my face still wet with tears, one of them so plump and full it is running all the way down my neck like an animal.

  ‘Is it true that I can’t have any more money?’ I ask.

  She stops rummaging. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘I know it’s not a good time …’ My tears have dried up and my voice is too calm, no longer sodden with water or constricted by a pleasant and awful misery in the chest and throat. ‘But I need some tonight,’ I say. ‘I’m going out with a friend to the movies.’

  Margaret is red around the neck, something I’ve never seen happen to her before.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ she says. ‘I just don’t understand you.’

  She turns away from me, reaches into the basket and finds the right keys while I adjust to the shock. I’m wondering what she means and whether I should speak again.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere tonight,’ she says. ‘And if we’re not home by ten o’clock, please go straight to bed and if you must smoke, please never, ever do it in my house again.’

  She is happier in this particular moment than she has been for a long time. Bridget is standing behind Margaret and she, too, looks satisfied.

  ‘What about Henry?’ I say. ‘He smokes!’

  It never occurred to me that I’d be found out, caught like this, and I can’t bring myself to apologise.

  Margaret opens her mouth to show her bottom teeth: a shocked snarl.

  ‘Henry is an adult and you’re not. End of story.’

  ‘Fine,’ I say, instead of sorry.

  I go to my room as soon as they have left and lie on my bed feeling lousy and guilty. Although the light is on, I fall asleep and do not wake until James stands in the doorway and softly calls my name.

  ‘Lou?’ he says.

  ‘Hi,’ I say through my drowsiness.

  ‘Do you want the light off?’

  ‘What time is it?’ I don’t need to know the time; I just want to speak to him. He is better than nobody.

  ‘It’s nearly midnight.’

  The light goes off and I turn on my side to look at him, but he has gone.

  Although I have slept easily with the light on, waiting for the Hardings to get home – just as I can sleep on the couch in front of the TV, especially when Henry is in the room – I cannot get back to sleep now that it is time.

  It must be two hours later when I stand outside Margaret and Henry’s room. The door is ajar and when my eyes adjust to the darkness I can see their shapes in the bed. I can also see Margaret’s slippers and Henry’s jug of water.

  I want to go inside and sleep at the end of their bed or on the floor near the central heating duct. I fantasise about being there on the floor when they wake up, lying on the carpet without pillows or a blanket.

  I imagine them finding me there and lifting me up from the floor. I would say, ‘I couldn’t get to sleep on my own.’ And Margaret would say, ‘You poor dear thing. Here, get into our bed. Sleep for a while. You can go to school late today.’

  I would sleep in their bed while they showered together in the ensuite and I would drink the coffee Henry leaves for me on the bedside table in a perfect white coffee cup.

  Henry moves, so I leave their room and go to James’ room. His door is wide open. I have no intention of going in at first, but then I see him move and I wonder if he is awake.

  ‘James?’ I say. He groans straight away and I am sure he is awake.

  ‘Hi.’ I wonder if he can tell my voice apart from Bridget’s.

  ‘Good morning, Lou,’ he says with affection so deep I want to touch him. He must love me, I think.

  He moves to the edge of the bed, and pulls the blankets back, so that a large white triangle is formed, neat and white and empty. But when I see his grinning face, I remember just who he is, change my mind and want to keep things as they are. I do not climb into his bed. I get down on my haunches by the bed so that he can see my face, so he can remember who Iam.

  ‘I just wondered if you wanted to talk about your granny,’ I say. ‘I was too sleepy to talk before. Now I’m wide awake.’

  He brings his hand out from under the
covers and hangs it over the edge of the bed so that it touches my arm.

  He groans.

  ‘She’s okay,’ he says. ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  ‘No,’ I say, ‘I’m fine.’

  He moves across in the bed so that he is pressed up against the wall and pats the space next to him.

  ‘I’ll be good,’ he says.

  I climb in and lie on my back.

  We lie shoulder to shoulder, the backs of our hands touching, but not holding, and talk until the dawn; until the birds start up and it is becoming too light and I worry about seeing his face, about him seeing mine. I worry about the light and the way that it will make us conscious again.

  ‘I better go back to my room,’ I say.

  James rolls onto his side so that he has his back to me.

  ‘Goodnight, Lou,’ he says, in that same affectionate voice.

  I look at the clock and see that it is not yet six o’clock.

  ‘Sleep for an hour,’ I say. ‘I’ll see you at breakfast.’

  It’s Monday. American History class. The fat girl is sitting alone. The fat boy she has been holding hands with every day is sitting away from her; has swapped desks with somebody. I stare at her and try to tell her telepathically that I am sorry for her and that I hope she and her boyfriend can make it up.

  I want somebody to talk to in this place.

  At the end of class I decide to follow her. She goes to the cafeteria and eats some breakfast: scrambled eggs and bacon. I sit near the entrance where the one-armed boy eats his tomato sauce on white bread. I watch as she eats. She finishes every mouthful. She walks to the library and I follow her.

  She goes to the large-books collection and pulls out a hardback volume about Jim Henson and the Muppets. She takes the book to a study room. The study room is small and brightly lit with three walls of glass. She sits down to read and look at the pictures.

  I wish I had met Jim Henson. Ask me who I would bring back to the earth if I only had one choice, and it would be him. I’d ask him if he could take me to his muppet studio and I’d watch him work. If he liked me, and we got along, he might give me a muppet that I could be the voice for. He would teach me to work and he would give me a job on ‘The New Muppet Show: A Revival’ looking after some of the smaller muppets, thinking of story lines and song lyrics.