Girl Running, Boy Falling

by Kate Gordon

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  But that night, I dream of him.

  The dream begins with me sitting on my bedroom floor. I’m alone and my room feels too cold; too small; as if the walls are closing in on me. I climb up on to my bookshelf and push at my bedroom ceiling.

  And it flies off into the sky.

  I can see clouds through the hole where my ceiling was and miles of empty grey.

  Then the sky is all around me.

  I’m at the footy ground. I’m still in my pyjamas, but I’m standing in the bleachers of West Park Oval.

  And in the centre of the ground is Wally. He’s not surrounded by other players. He’s alone and he’s not dressed in his guernsey, shorts and long socks. He’s all in black. And, beside him, there’s a fountain. And he’s throwing in coin after coin.

  He’s making wishes.

  His mouth is opening and closing, but the words forming are muted.

  ‘Wally!’ I yell out to him. ‘Tell me what you’re wishing for.’

  He can’t hear me, or he pretends not to. He just keeps throwing more coins; making more silent wishes.

  I try to run towards him, away from the bleachers, onto the grass. But something is holding me back.

  Someone.

  I turn and I see that Melody and Mrs Koetsveld, each hold one of my hands. They are trying to drag me away from Wally.

  ‘Let him go!’ they yell at me. ‘Move on. Let him go!’

  I shake them off. I have to get to Wally.

  He still hasn’t seen me; he’s looking at the clouds. Wally raises his arms and I see they’re not arms anymore—they’re wings. Seagull wings. Then Wally leaps into the air and disappears.

  In his place, on the ground, she lands. And she has wings, too, but not seagull wings. They’re golden.

  She’s wearing a white hospital gown. The sunlight makes a halo of her long brown hair.

  She smiles at me and says something but again, I can’t hear it.

  Then she’s running.

  ‘Don’t go,’ I whisper. ‘Don’t go, Mummy.’

  And then the whisper becomes a screaming. A howling. I feel as if my insides are pouring out of me all over the grass.

  The howling lasts for years before it becomes a whimper. She’s gone completely by then.

  Or was never there at all.

  I wonder when she’ll kiss me again.

  And then, from the sky, comes rain.

  Only it isn’t rain, really. It’s hundreds and hundreds of pages, and on every one of them, written over and over, are the words:

  Dear Mum.

  Dear Dad.

  When I wake, the light feels like paper cuts.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘But I was going to make us dinner,’ Melody says, looking confused. ‘I had a recipe all picked out. One of Mum’s—beef noodle soup—and I thought I could make some sticky rice for dessert. I’ve been reading more, too. Mum’s textbooks. About dealing with grief. And I took heaps of notes after my session with Megan. I’m all organised. Why are you bailing, Resey?’

  I shrug; try to sound casual. ‘I just forgot about these plans I had with Rhino from work.’

  ‘Rhino?’ She wrinkles her forehead. ‘The Indian guy with the big nose?’

  ‘Indian-Malaysian,’ I correct.

  ‘Whatever. Why do you have plans with him? Seriously, you can cancel, right? We had plans first. You’re coming over to talk about Wally, Resey. You can’t just—’

  I hold up a hand. ‘I can. It’s not what I need, Melody.’ In the background the bell for end of lunch rings. ‘Sorry. It’s just not what I need. Why don’t you go over to Peter’s instead? He’s the one who needs help.’

  ‘He’s back at school today,’ Roz says, standing up as I do. ‘He seems okay. The footy boys are being awesome to him. Even Pedda. Way nicer than when Wally was alive. Hey, you remember how Wally—’

  ‘No,’ I say, more firmly than I mean to. After all, this is Roz. I never snap at Roz. Roz is the kindest, sweetest person I know, and she gets enough aggro at home. I never want to treat her the way her parents do.

  But I’m tired of her going along with whatever Melody says.

  I’m tired of them both. I’m tired of talking. I’m tired.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about Wally.’ I walk, purposefully, across the grass. ‘Not now, not tonight, just … I just don’t. Yeah? It’s not helpful for me. I just need to get on with it.’

  Melody and Roz stop walking; I feel their eyes on me as I march away. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to talk.

  I just want to go with Rhino to the beach.

  And then, tomorrow, I’ll go to musical practice; and on Thursday I’ll work; and on Friday I’ll go to band; and then get my homework done for the weekend.

  On Saturday I’ll go to the footy.

  Just like I always do.

  Life has to go on. It went on when I was a baby. It went on when I was three. It has to go on now.

  Wally is a memory. Memories can’t harm you. They’re only thoughts and nothing and empty sky.

  Melody cries out, ‘I know you’re angry, Resey. But you’re not angry at us. You’re angry at Wally.’

  I keep walking.

  When I get to the edge of the oval, I start to run.

  The rhythm of my feet at first sounds just like his name:

  Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick.

  I speed up, so it goes away. So the word changes.

  Angry, angry, angry, angry.

  I run past Emma Houston. She catches my eye. I look away.

  Angry, angry, angry, my feet say.

  ‘Therese?’ Emma Houston calls.

  The rhythm changes again, as I speed up.

  Leave me alone. Leave me alone. Leave me alone.

  Dear Mum,

  I understand now,

  The running thing.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Rhino and I are walking in the water, our jeans rolled up to our knees and seaweed wrapping around our ankles. Above us the sky is heavy with stars. Seagulls fight on the beach over a wilted chip. Someone’s walking a dog, and they call after it, ‘Mulder!’, telling it not to run too far.

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’ I ask Rhino.

  ‘When was the last time you went to the beach?’ he counters.

  ‘I can’t remember.’ It’s a lie. I can remember. I came here with Wally.

  ‘When was the last time you did anything other than practise something or work on something or watch football?’

  ‘I like doing those things,’ I say, feeling like a song on repeat. ‘They make me who I am. I’m not just one thing. I’m all of those things.’

  ‘You’re not just “Tiger”?’ Rhino asks.

  ‘Are you just “Rhino”?’

  He answers without hesitation. ‘Yep.’

  ‘What do you do after school then?’ I ask. A wave rises behind me, soaking the back of my jeans. It feels kind of nice. Cool. Tingling.

  ‘Whatever I want,’ Rhino says, as the wave reaches him. He laughs as it soaks him too. ‘I don’t go much for extra-curriculars. I just do whatever I feel like. Unless I have to—tragedy—go to work. But that’s not really too bad, either. I mean, you’re there. And Flo. And the Jamienator is amusing and there is my pastry adventure to focus on … But apart from work, nup, I don’t do all that much.’

  ‘Your resume must be banging,’ I say, laughing.

  ‘I actually don’t care,’ Rhino says. ‘Life is about the things we don’t plan, not the things we do.’

  I didn’t plan for Wally to die.

  ‘What do you say, though?’ I ask, to keep the thought away. ‘You know, when people ask what you do.’

  ‘People ask that when you’re seventeen?’ Rhino looks incredu
lous. ‘Nobody asks me that. They just assume I’m a student. What else would I be at this age?’

  ‘Is that enough? To just do nothing?’

  The water is turning from cool to cold now. Rhino feels it, too, and we stride from the waves onto the gritty sand.

  ‘I never said I do nothing,’ Rhino says, reaching into his satchel and pulling out a towel for me to wipe my legs. ‘Is this nothing?’

  I shake my head, looking down at the ripples. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing it for me, though. We never really do stuff outside of work.’

  And I hope with all my might that he won’t mention Wally and the letter and the secret. Because he must know. He has to know. Everyone knows.

  ‘I thought you could do with some time on a beach,’ he says, simply. ‘And then maybe fish and chips?’

  I breathe again.

  I can breathe now with Rhino.

  ‘Fish and chips sounds good. I just need to text Auntie Kath.’ A thought occurs to me. ‘Hey, Rhino, won’t your girlfriend mind you taking me to the beach and out for dinner?’

  Rhino shakes his head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘She must be awesome. The girl who has your heart.’ I smile at Rhino.

  He looks away. ‘She is awesome,’ he mutters. ‘The girl who has my heart.’ He elbows me. ‘Now go on. Text that rad auntie of yours, so we can get going. I swear my stomach is about to stage a revolt.’

  So I send Auntie Kath a message and she sends one back, saying, ‘Have fun, Tiger!’ Then, we walk together to Fish Frenzy, and eat flathead and beer-battered chips. Rhino tells me all about the rivalry between nineties boy bands, The Backstreet Boys and N’Sync.

  His voice is like a lullaby.

  Chapter Thirty

  Auntie Kath is still up when I get home, working on a sculpture, listening to ‘No Doubt’.

  ‘How did it go?’ Her gaze drifts down to my jeans. ‘You’re wet.’

  ‘I walked in the water,’ I reply.

  Her face drains of blood.

  ‘With Rhino,’ I say, quickly, because I know what she’s thinking. We read Virginia Woolf together not long ago. ‘It’s okay, Auntie Kath.’ I put my hand on her arm. ‘It’s okay.’ She nods. She looks hopeful but not convinced. ‘It was bloody cold, though,’ I go on. Talking normally. Being normal. ‘I might actually take a shower—’

  ‘Have you thought any more about talking to Megan?’ she calls after me, as I walk towards the bathroom.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I call back.

  After I’m showered and in pyjamas, I open my box and I put inside it a shell and a piece of driftwood. They’re memories of an adventure. And they show that there’s more to me than school and work. I think she’d be proud of that.

  I try to concentrate on homework—maths and science. My least favourite.

  But then I think of Rhino, and how he reckons life comes before homework. And I do something that I haven’t done for ages.

  I set up my easel, in the corner of the room, and I start painting.

  I think of her as I paint: in her floral blouse, speckled with blue and white and red. I think about how she was so many things.

  I paint a unicorn and an elf.

  I write below them in curlicues:

  Run with me

  To faraway places.

  Breathe in the sky,

  And fall.

  When I go back downstairs for some juice, Auntie Kath is still working. She has a glass of cider now and the music has changed to some early nineties ska.

  ‘Was she clever?’ I ask. ‘I mean, like, was she a square at school, like I am?’

  Auntie Kath sets down her chisel. ‘She was,’ she says, slowly. ‘When it suited her. Why? Are you having trouble with your homework?’

  ‘I’m not actually doing my homework,’ I admit. ‘I’m painting.’

  ‘Always doing something, aren’t you?’ Auntie Kath shakes her head. ‘You never stop, do you, little Tiger?’

  ‘I do,’ I protest. ‘I’m stopped now. You’re not stopped.’

  Auntie Kath wipes her hands on her jeans. ‘Now I’m stopped. Want a bickie?’ She takes the biscuit tin from the top of the fridge. It’s full of the ANZACs we baked together. Mine are amber-coloured and chewy. Hers are pale and tough.

  She forgot the golden syrup.

  I take one of my biscuits and one of hers (so she doesn’t feel bad), and we walk together to the couch.

  ‘Tell me more about her at school,’ I say.

  I lean my head on Auntie Kath’s shoulder and she tells me how my mum hated maths, but was good at art and English and photography and philosophy. She won awards. She had her photo in the paper. But she nearly failed Grade Ten science.

  ‘She said she hated it and didn’t see the point of it, if she was going to be an artist. She only passed because your grandma did half of it for her,’ Auntie Kath says, laughing. ‘You should’ve heard the argument, though—a daughter of Therese Geeves, failing at science!’ She shakes her head. ‘But then, in Year Eleven, just to prove she could do it, she took biology and physics and she aced them, without Grandma T’s help. She wanted Mum to know that she could be good at science, if she tried. Birdie could be good at anything if she really set her mind to it.’

  ‘She was brilliant.’

  Auntie Kath nods. ‘She was the brilliant one. I always did well, but not remarkably.’

  ‘You’re a remarkable artist.’

  Auntie Kath rolls her eyes. ‘Years and years of bloody hard slog have made me a passable artist—’

  ‘Remarkable,’ I correct her, firmly, gesturing to the sculpture—the awestruck, ecstatic face beginning to emerge from nothing. Auntie Kath can make magic from emptiness. She is remarkable.

  ‘Yeah, well …’ she mumbles.

  ‘You have pieces in the National Gallery in Melbourne,’ I remind her.

  ‘And one in London; two in Spain …’ she concedes.

  ‘If it wasn’t for me, you’d be internationally famous,’ I mutter, looking down at my paint-splodged hands.

  ‘If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have a heart; wouldn’t have even a tiny wafer of the happiness I have now,’ she says, gripping my arms. ‘Don’t you ever start to think I’d be better off without you. Don’t you ever.’

  She shakes me so hard that tears spring to my eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, letting me go. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  I shake my head, blinking back the wetness. I will not cry.

  ‘Tiger—’

  She has that look on her face again.

  ‘I should go back up,’ I say. ‘I should finish my science work. Oh, and tomorrow I have an extra practice for the musical. And I did actually say yes to another shift and—’

  ‘See? You never stop,’ Auntie Kath says, again. Her brow is furrowed. She bites her lip.

  ‘I did stop,’ I remind her. ‘I went to the beach tonight.’

  ‘Good.’

  And maybe she thinks I’m too far away to hear the next thing she says, but I do, and it makes me shiver.

  ‘Please stop, Tiger. Please don’t run away from me.’

  Dear Mum,

  You got it, didn’t you?

  If you keep moving,

  Nothing can ever catch you

  Long enough to drag you down.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  I avoid Melody and Roz at school. I avoid Mrs Koetsveld. I volunteer in the canteen at lunch times instead, even though it’s not my month.

  Nothing is empty. Every minute is bulging.

  I write about my days and I put them in my box.

  I don’t look at Wally’s guernsey stuffed in my drawer. I don’t think about him.

  When I walk the rhythm never has his name.

  Sometimes I dream about him, but in t
he dreams he’s dead. I wake sweating and shaking. But it’s better, somehow, to dream of him like that.

  On Saturday I go to the football. I’m alone. Melody and Roz aren’t there, because I didn’t tell them that I was coming. When I line up for coffee I’m served by a lumberjack-bearded boy in a fedora, not the blonde girl. I wonder if Melody would have come today if the blonde girl was working. I wonder if she only ever came to flirt with her.

  I wonder if she ever cared about Wally at all.

  I’m not here for Wally.

  Peter comes but he sits behind the interchange, chatting to the players. He waves and nods. I wave back and smile and then I’m alone again.

  Some of the footy fangirls walk past and they say, ‘G’day’. There’s pity in their eyes.

  I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t care.

  I’m just here to watch the football because it’s one of the things I do. Going to watch the football is part of me.

  At half time, they have a minute silence for Wally.

  Outside, I’m quiet, because it’s how I’m meant to be.

  Inside, I’m screaming, Stop it. Stop it. Stop the quiet. Fill the world up again.

  It ends.

  I breathe.

  I see Hannah sitting behind the interchange too, but further back from Peter. I wonder if she’ll keep coming to the games.

  Her photo was in the Advocate yesterday. Her eyes were red and she held a pair of Wally’s footy boots in one hand, a picture of him in the other. The headline read, Mother and Town Grieving Over Golden Son's Death.

  At the bottom of the article there were a bunch of numbers for Lifeline and Headspace and Beyond Blue. I stared for a long time at the numbers; memorising them. Not because I will call any of them. Just because it was something to do with my brain.

  I’m glad the numbers are there. But I don’t need them.

  The Hawks win, and they say it’s for Wally. I wonder, if he were alive, if he’d even be playing today.

  Maybe he would have gone already to the mainland; spirited away to train for the draft and next season.

  I wonder if he would have asked me to go …