A Little Wanting Song

by Cath Crowley

I’ll sing it so it’s heard

  A million miles away from here

  Sing, canary moon

  Let me steal a little tune

  And you won’t even notice that it’s gone

  Rose and I sit in the shade of her porch and eat ice. It’s the twenty-seventh of December, and instead of counting the days till I go I’m wishing there were more days I could stay.

  “You must miss Dahlia,” Rose says.

  “Yeah, but she rings me a lot. She e-mails, too. The first weekend I get back I’ll sleep over at her place, talk about the summer. We might see a band that weekend.”

  “I wish I’d been born in the city. I should have been. Mum was in London when she found out she was pregnant.”

  “I don’t know where Mum was when she found out about me,” I say.

  “You two look serious,” Dave calls from a little way up the street. “Cheer up. Come for a ride.” Rose points at two bikes lounging on her lawn. She grabs hers and turns circles around me.

  “It’s been a while since I rode. You two go; I might help Dad in the shop.” I haven’t been on a bike since mine rusted in the shed. “Time to get back on,” Mum says.

  Rose gets off her bike and holds out a helmet. “Hop on.” I search for balance and all the time I’m swaying Rose runs behind me, holding the back of the bike. I nearly drag her through the gravel, but she keeps up and runs till the rhythm becomes mine and I’m hypnotized by the shaky shapes I’m drawing. She lets go, and I glide. “You’ve got it!” she calls.

  I’m not exactly sure what she thinks I’ve got as I jerk around the road, but whatever it is, I love it. I love the sound of the wheels purring like they did when I was a kid. “Miss me, miss me, miss me,” they still say, but it’s not sad. It’s fast and full of blue sky whirring in the background.

  All the sounds of the day mix together as I ride: Dave and Rose clapping, wind singing past my ears, laughter. My laughter. “There you go!” she yells as the wheels stop shaking. “That’s it. Keep going. You’ve got it!”

  “What exactly has she got?” Dave asks.

  “I don’t know, but I hope it’s not catching.”

  He covers his eyes. “Is she doing a wheelie?”

  “Not on purpose. She’s funny, isn’t she?”

  “You just noticing that now?” he asks. I guess Dave’s been watching her longer than me.

  “Let’s take her to the falls.” The words are out of my mouth almost before I’ve thought them. The falls is the only place that’s not quiet here. Dave and Luke don’t know it, but sometimes I go there on my own. I go to scream. I go to tell the world to get lost under the run of the water. I stand till I’m drowning in something other than this place.

  “Why, Rose?” Dave asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say, and that’s not a lie. “It feels like a place she should see.” Charlie veers to the left in front of us, then straightens out at the last minute. “You make her ride to the falls, she’ll kill herself,” Dave says.

  “Relax a little,” I call.

  “It’s okay, Rose.” She takes one hand off the handlebars to wave.

  “Don’t take your hands off the bars!” I yell too late. A rock kicks at the bike and sends her spinning across air with nothing to hold on to.

  “Mayday, Mayday, she’s going down,” Dave laughs, and I close my eyes along with him. I can’t look as she’s forced into a tailspin and collides with the ground. “Maybe she should ride on my handlebars,” he says.

  “I think that’s a very good idea.”

  “We should wait for Luke.” He leans down to test the air pressure in his tires. “He finishes work in an hour.”

  “Not enough time if we want to get there and back before it rains.” The three of us start out across the fields. Dave doesn’t say a word as we ride into what we both know is a cloudless sky.

  “Hold your feet higher, Charlie,” Dave says, pedaling up the hill.

  “Maybe I could walk and meet you there?” My voice jumps with the bike over stones and dirt.

  “It’d take too long. Just keep your feet off the ground.” I turn to nod. “Shit, Charlie, no.” He swerves sideways and hits a rock. The side of my arm slides across gravel and my front tooth sinks through skin.

  “You two okay?” Rose calls back.

  “I’m fine,” I say, and haul my aching arse back onto the bars.

  About halfway up the hill, Dave works out how to keep us steady. Instead of trying to ride in a straight line and hold the bike upright, he angles us toward the ground and swerves all over the road. “That’s it,” he says. “Perfect.” Perfectly crooked. It’s all in the way you look at things, I guess.

  We make it to flat ground and he gets his breath back. “So, have you finished my CD?” he asks.

  “Almost.”

  “How about you sing me one of the songs on it to pass the time?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You’d say no to a guy who’s busting his arse to get you up a hill? That’s cold, Charlie.”

  It is cold to say no to Dave. He does stuff all the time for people, like riding up hills and carrying Christmas trees. He even came to Gran’s funeral with his mum and dad. I turned around before the service started and saw him sitting there. He didn’t pull at his tie or scratch where his shirt itched him like some of the other guys. He was so still, staring at his hands. Afterward he stood beside his parents and nodded when they said sorry.

  “I’m waiting,” he tells me.

  “You sing me a song.”

  “I’m pedaling,” he says, but then he starts like a dog going crazy at the moon.

  “Okay, stop. I’ll sing.”

  “Too late. I’ve started.”

  “You sound like you’re in pain.”

  “I’m pedaling up a hill with a girl on the handlebars while I’m singing. I am in fucking pain. No, don’t laugh. Don’t, you’ll tip us. Don’t. Shit.”

  We hit the ground again. “Bad things happen when you sing like that,” I say.

  “You’re not wrong. I think I pulled a hamstring. Let’s rest a bit before we climb to the falls.”

  “Climb?”

  He points toward a figure on the edge of the hill waving to us.

  “She’s going up a cliff?”

  For about five minutes, I try to walk upright and keep a safe distance between Dave and me. After the first fall, dignity goes out the window. I stumble over rocks and tree roots. Dave doesn’t complain. He keeps catching me and saying it’s not far. By the time we get to the top, we’re covered in dirt.

  Not for long. I stand under the waterfall while it smashes at rocks and skin and memory. Gus and Beth take me to bands when they can, when it’s underage or they know the people running the gig. You walk inside, and the music’s so loud the world shatters and the things that didn’t make sense before still don’t make sense but they don’t have to while you’re in there. That’s what it’s like here. The water makes everything ice and cracks it. I’m standing under bits of falling me. Dave and Rose are screaming, but I can’t hear them. I scream back all the things I want in this world that I can’t have. The water’s making me cold and Dave’s making me burn and I’m writing songs played with strings of sun and ice and honey.

  “The best bit’s not over,” Dave says after we climb out. “Get on the bike and hold on. And don’t think too much about it.”

  The three of us speed down the hill, Rose ahead and me on the bars of Dave’s bike. I write a little tune on the way down that I call “The Screaming Song” because that’s the only sound in it. “We’re flying!” Dave yells as we move. “We are flying.”

  Charlie’s screaming under the falls and Dave’s yelling and I can’t hear a word they’re saying and it doesn’t matter. All that matters here is letting go. Fuck boredom. Fuck being stuck in the middle of nowhere. Fuck being born with MADE IN THE BACK OF A HOLDEN stamped on your back. Fuck paddocks and plastic chairs.

  I leave Charlie and Dave under t
he water and stand on the grass shaking my head, watching the last bits of the falls hit the air. I did an assignment on water at the end of this year. Luke and Dave were my partners, and I was doing most of the work, but Luke still complained the whole time. “Why do we have to do this? I already know about water. You drink it. End of story.”

  “Some people use it to wash occasionally, Luke,” I said. “Which might be helpful for you to know.” But then I tried to explain to him why I was so interested in it. “See, the water molecules are attracted to each other so much that they hold on for as long as they can. They grip at each other till they’re too heavy and then they break. It’s why water falls in tears.” I wanted him to get it. I wanted him to see what it had to do with him and me. “Tell you what, Rosie,” he said. “You finish the assignment and I’ll go get us some fish and chips.”

  I ride down the hill in front of Charlie and Dave, the last of the water flying as I go. This bit’s almost as good as the falls. It’s the closest I can imagine to leaving.

  We’re dry by the time we hit town. We drop Charlie off and then Dave and I ride into my yard. Luke’s waiting for us. “Where’ve you been?”

  “We took Charlie to the falls. I think Dave likes her,” I say, and Dave blushes.

  “Right. She bent my handlebars.”

  “Isn’t it about time a girl bent your handlebars?”

  “Shut up, Rose.”

  “Maybe if you’re nice to her, she’ll let you bend her handlebars.”

  “Not interested.”

  “Liar. Here. She left her hat at my place.” I throw it at him. “You should take it back to her.”

  “Why didn’t you wait for me?” Luke kicks at the dirt. Dave doesn’t tell him I said it would rain and I’m glad. The day’s too bright for my lie. “We didn’t think. I was so excited about taking her there. I didn’t want to wait.”

  “I don’t get why you two are all worked up about a chick from the city,” he says, and storms off across the yard.

  “What’s wrong with him? He’s been to the falls a million times.”

  “You ever been without him?” Dave asks.

  I don’t tell him I go all the time, without either of them. “It looked like rain.”

  “I have to go, Rose,” he says. He’s leaving to see if Luke’s all right. They won’t talk about me; they’ll play video games until Luke laughs again.

  The first spits of summer rain land on my face but stop as soon as they begin. “See, I didn’t lie,” I call out, but it’s too late. I’m already alone.

  Sometimes I wonder why I love Luke so much when he makes me this mad. But then I remember how I felt when he kissed me in Year 6. He didn’t do it again until Year 8, and he only did it then because I told him to.

  I’d been waiting and waiting for him to ask me to the social. “Well? Are we going together?”

  “What? I don’t know. Yeah. We go everywhere together.” I was so pissed off. “Unless you ask me, I’m going with Michael Howsware.”

  “So go with him.”

  “I will.” Idiot. Stupid idiot. “I’ll let him kiss me, too.”

  Luke snarled. “Do whatever you like.”

  “Rose, you look beautiful,” Mum said before I left that night; I didn’t care, though. What did it matter if I had to go with Michael? We walked in and Luke was dancing as close as the teachers would let him with Andrea Cushifsky. Andrea Cushifsky.

  I danced next to Luke and grabbed Michael tight. I held on even though I was gagging on cheap aftershave. I tried so hard to remember how I’d felt when Luke kissed me and to feel it for Michael; but he wasn’t the one who sat with me all Sunday at the edge of the freeway. He wasn’t the one who bought me tiny cars for Christmas. “Just a car,” Luke said. “You don’t have to get so excited.” But I was excited because he’d noticed what no one else had.

  Luke and Andrea disappeared about eight-thirty. Most kids made a stop at the back of the sports equipment shed sometime during the night, but I couldn’t believe Luke would take Andrea there.

  I waited till Michael went to the toilet, then I slipped outside. I leaned forward as far as I could without being seen. And there they were. Sitting at opposite ends of the fence, staring separate stares across the oval.

  Luke was such an idiot. If I hadn’t come round the corner, he would have pretended he’d kissed Andrea, and loved it. I watched till she got sick of waiting and went back inside. Then I walked round the corner in my fantastic dress and sat on the end of the fence.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for Michael.” I smiled. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

  Luke looked so hurt that I let him get away with stuffing up my first dance. “You idiot,” I said. And I moved close to him on the fence, swinging my legs while the wood caught at my stockings, making holes in them. The leaves blew off the trees and scattered color. In the light from the gym they looked like tiny pink tongues.

  * * *

  I climb into the old tree. Its branches are thick enough to sit on, but I’ve never done it before. I can see the whole of Charlie’s yard from here. I never knew the garden next door was so green, so overgrown. She’s sitting outside holding her guitar and smiling. I’ve never seen her relaxed like that.

  “Rose?” Luke calls from the back door. “You out here? I’m sorry I got mad.” I curl my legs up in the leaves and hold my breath. Part of me wants to go down and talk to him, and the other part of me holds tighter to the tree. “She’s not out there, Mrs. Butler!” Luke shouts, and I stay till I hear the front door close.

  “Rose?” Mum calls from the living room as I come inside. “Luke was looking for you. He said you weren’t in the yard.”

  “Didn’t hear him. I must have been dreaming.”

  She stares at me for a second. “Be careful, Rosie. People hurt easy.”

  “You don’t have to worry about Luke.”

  “It’s not him I’m worried about,” she says.

  Mum and I have heaps of almost conversations these days. She almost asks me what’s wrong and I almost tell her. What would I say if I did? That I can’t decide what’s worse, the dreams I have where I can’t find her or Dad or the dreams I have where I’m crying because I can’t get away?

  “You don’t need to worry about me, Mum. I’m fine,” I say. And we both keep pretending that I am.

  Dave rides me to my door after the falls. He and Rose leave and I sit in the garden, singing my song about the day. About an hour later he comes back. “You left this at Rose’s,” he says, holding out my hat.

  He stands there, rolling his bike back and forward, and I want to ask him in. For a girl who doesn’t talk all that much, strangely I have a million or more things I want to say to Dave. They’re not even important things. It’s stuff like Grandpa ordered in some Muppet Show toothbrushes, and I’ve been using one even though it’s too small because I really like Fozzie Bear. But then I stopped using it because I wasn’t sure if it was a sign of respect to use Fozzie that way.

  That’s the stuff I want to tell him but I’ve been talking to him all day and Louise says guys don’t like it when you act keen. I’m not acting keen, I think, looking at Dave. I am keen. But Louise says if you’re not absolutely gorgeous, you should play hard to get. “Play hard to get, Charlie,” she said once. “Act cool. Sometimes you look a little desperate.”

  So I don’t tell Dave about my Fozzie Bear toothbrush dilemma. I thank him for my hat and close the door. Sure, I want to open it straight back up and yell his name but I don’t. I draw a line between me and uncool and I don’t cross it.

  Instead I put on a Fiona Apple CD and turn her up loud. I told Gus once about Louise and how she treated me and he said, “Some people are hard to understand, so you gotta understand yourself.” He played some Fiona. “It’s what Beth listens to on days when she says I am not the biz.” That music folded Louise in two and put her in a drawer.

  I dance to my loud music. Oh yeah, I’m sassy. I’m hard t
o get, that’s what I am. Hard. To. Get. Cool. I slide to the fridge and grab a Coke. I slide back. “What are you up to?” Grandpa asks, walking into the kitchen.

  “I’m being sassy. Playing hard to get. Cool. Not desperate.”

  “Dave Robbie’s riding his bike around our front yard. Any idea why?”

  In case of fire, it’s good to know we can all get out of the house in less than five seconds. I take a breath and open the door. “Hi. Did you forget something?”

  He shakes his head. “I just didn’t want to go home.”

  Fuck cool. Cool is overrated. “You want to stay for dinner?” He throws his bike down and follows me inside.

  “Hi, Mr. Duskin,” he says to Grandpa. “What’s up?”

  “Well, you just missed Charlie doing her sassy dance.”

  “He’s old,” I say, pulling out pasta. “Losing his mind.”

  “I wasn’t the one sassy dancing. What’s news with you, Dave?”

  “We went to the falls this afternoon.”

  “All the way up there? Tell your dad that, Charlie. He and your mother lived at that place when they were teenagers. ‘Up to no good,’ your gran used to say.”

  Dad’s not back by the time we eat, so it’s just the three of us sitting in Gran’s garden. “How’s the shop going, Mr. Duskin?” Dave asks. And the two of them talk about cars and drought and Gran and footy. Dave’s got being cool without being cool down to an art.

  After dinner Grandpa shuffles off to watch TV. Dave helps me clean up. His tattoo of a bird flaps its wings against the crease of his wrist. Gliding and dipping while he washes the dishes. The inside of me glides and dips with it. I think about a song I might write, one where I’m washing dishes next to Dave and his tattoo. Parts would be fast, like I’m feeling inside, but parts would be slow and quiet like Dave is tonight, taking time to talk to Grandpa. It would have wings, feathers tickling under my skin, flying all the way to my throat.

  Dave washes the last pot, and I worry about what we’ll do after we finish. I’ve only really liked a few guys before. There was Ayden Smith, who I told to piss off. Alex Martin, which ended, you know, at the bottom of a pool. And Leo Gordon, one of the popular guys that Louise hangs out with.