Sheerwater

by Leah Swann

  ‘It’s dawn. You can’t ring anyone now.’

  ‘I just want to know where it is. It’s a simple thing, Tillie. I just want to know where the damned phone is.’

  ‘Well, I told you, I put it back on the hook.’

  ‘It’s not there now, though, is it?’

  ‘That is evident,’ his wife replied. The patience in her voice was only just this side of sarcasm. ‘Why don’t you look around?’

  Gerald went off to look, and soon returned, unsuccessful. ‘Can’t find it.’

  ‘Press the button on the side of the base,’ Tillie said. ‘The phone should beep.’

  Gerald pressed the button. ‘I can’t hear any beeping.’

  ‘Well, sometimes it’s muffled. You have to hunt for it, listen for the beep.’ Explaining it to Gerald as you might to a child.

  He stomped out of the bedroom and along the carpeted hall, opening and closing doors. Not quite slamming them. After a few minutes he heard the shower running; his wife had got up, probably resigned to the fact that there would be no peace until the phone was found. He searched the study. Turned over his armchair cushions with unnecessary vigour. Lifted The Age from where it was spread out on his desk, open to the crossword; he was stuck on a seven-letter word meaning ‘mirage,’ third letter ‘i’. The clue said the word had Greek origins. He spent some minutes pondering this clue as he lifted papers and the cushions on the armchair again until he heard Tillie coming down the corridor to the kitchen to make the first of what would be three or four pots of Earl Grey tea for the day. The toaster filled the house with the smell of burning crumbs.

  Gerald left the study and headed to the back room. He couldn’t hear a beep anywhere. Probably the phone was dead. Not that his ears were in the best condition; he had to have the television turned all the way up. That’s why it should be Tillie out here hunting for the phone. Her ears were in better nick. He stepped outside into the bright coolness and examined the outdoor table. Yellowing newspapers stacked at one end, a bunch of plastic plant pots now empty because they’d planted the seedlings in the beds, a tea-stained mug. He looked towards the garage. Was it possible he’d taken the phone to the garage yesterday? It was not at all likely. The signal to the garage was intermittent at best.

  There was an overturned chair by the back door. He righted the chair and went down the steps to the backyard where the ute was parked, listening to the dog scrabbling indoors at the locked dog flap. He was approaching his workbench when he thought he heard something. Where was it coming from? He turned and turned, his ears primed. The yard was empty. A breeze shifted the bottlebrush. The dog was scrabbling and yelping. A magpie in the lemon tree warbled its sweet song.

  ‘Hush,’ he said, and glowered at the bird. He glanced at the ute.

  He’d moved the ute yesterday. Was it possible he had the phone with him, laid it down somewhere? He couldn’t remember. He glanced in through the side window to the empty front seat and then made his way to the back.

  What he saw gave him pause.

  First he saw the phone, lying on top of the dog’s blankets. Then he noticed that the blankets had been laid out one on top of the other as if to make a bed. Was that the impression of a body in it? Had someone been sleeping here? He touched the blankets. They were warm.

  ‘Where are you, scoundrel?’ roared Gerald, picturing a vagrant in his ute.

  Gerald would sort him out. When he heard a small human yelp and saw the bushes against the fence moving, he gave a shout and sprang forward. Despite arthritic knees and a bad back, the one-time forward for the local footy club was still lightning quick over short distances. He reached and grabbed and found himself holding someone’s collar; not the homeless man he’d pictured but a small boy squirming and squealing.

  A second boy stepped out of the bushes with his hands held out in front of him as though to ward off an attack. This bigger boy was awkward looking, with rough hair and a desperate gleam to him. The mix of hunger and defensiveness in his stance reminded Gerald of the poor kids in his own childhood, skulking in the shadows, often searching for a coin or a crust. Those kids had been skinny with bony knees jutting out under threadbare shorts. This boy was well built and strong.

  The boy spoke, throwing his voice out loud but looking scared as hell. ‘That’s my brother. Let him go.’

  The squeals had brought Tillie out onto the back verandah, to Gerald’s relief. She’d know how to talk to boys like these. He had no idea. He let go of the t-shirt and the boy fell with a thud and scurried towards his brother on all fours.

  ‘What on earth?’ Tillie said.

  ‘They were sleeping in the ute.’

  ‘Sorry,’ the bigger boy said. His voice was unsteady. He was crossing his arms over his chest, taking a step backwards, almost into the bushes.

  ‘Oh my Lord, Gerald,’ said Tillie, staring. ‘Oh my Lord.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s those boys.’

  ‘What boys?’

  ‘In the news. The missing Bain boys.’

  The small one clung to his brother and both looked up at Gerald. They seemed frightened. He wished they weren’t. He saw their condition: dirty, rumpled and as fearful as little bush creatures in a trap.

  ‘By God, I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘What are your names?’

  ‘Max,’ said the older one. He pointed to his brother. ‘And Teddy.’

  ‘That’s them,’ said Tillie. She shook her head in astonishment.

  ‘Well, boys. Max. Teddy. We won’t hurt you. You come inside; we’ll get you something to eat.’

  ‘We have to ring Mum,’ the one called Max said. He was watching Gerald very closely. Gerald understood that the boy didn’t trust him.

  Max repeated: ‘We have to ring her up.’

  ‘Yes. I see. Let’s get you inside where the phone will work.’

  Gerald handed Max the cordless phone as a sign of his good intentions. Tillie descended the stairs from the verandah, stately in her soft trousers and shirt, her white braid draped across her left shoulder. The lovely, sensible woman. He watched his wife smiling at the boys and felt the motherly warmth unfurling from her, and saw the two children relax into that instinctive knowledge that they were with someone safe. She took their hands and led them back up the stairs.

  What would they like for breakfast – pancakes or porridge? The little one was already confiding in Tillie about the scrape on his leg. Well, she’d get a bandaid for that, no trouble, they always kept bandaids in the cupboard, a bandaid and a cool squeeze of Savlon cream, and that horrid old scrape would be right as rain! Her gentle chatter was putting them at ease. Thank goodness for Tillie. She always looked after everything.

  AVA

  I haven’t stolen anything. I haven’t hurt anyone. I haven’t lied or kept secrets. I made careful plans. I wasn’t stealing the children from Lawrence; I was protecting them. I would have let them see him. My actions were reasonable. I was trying to do the right thing. I had to leave. He hates me. He was hating me to death with his line of Rumi’s that he applied to me so horribly: The wound is the place where the light enters you. By now I should be as radiant as Venus. Sometimes he’s not real, or more than real, a poltergeist making noise in my head. Reading my mind. Anticipating my next move. What is he? What did I love in him? His seeming affection, his seeming vulnerability, his beautiful words, his tender expression, shimmering like an oasis: all promise, no substance. He’s near, I can feel him, I can hear him whispering: I’ll do what will hurt you the most. It’s driving me insane. And if I am not innocent, at the very least Teddy is innocent, and Max.

  Soft light was coming in through the window. Simon’s jacket was still on the chair. His keys were on the bedside table beside her charging phone. Suddenly Ava thought of the pilot she’d pulled out of the cockpit two days ago. He was in this hospital somewhere too. Alive because she and Simon had stopped to help him. What kind of equation was at work here? No, no, no, there were no equations – only co
nnections.

  She got out of bed and trod on a set of keys. They were Vanessa’s. She recognised the key ring. She pushed them to one side with her foot and walked to the bathroom. She was shaky. Everything hurt. In the stark white bathroom she lifted the lid of the toilet and sat. She glanced up and saw herself in the mirror; under the fluorescent lights she looked freakish with her cuts and bandages. The red feather earrings made her face seem strangely colourless. When she’d flushed the toilet and washed her hands, she went back into the room and zipped her hoodie over her nightgown. She took four ibuprofen from her handbag and swallowed them. She went out into the hallway and saw someone sleeping on a bench further along the hallway and thought it might be Simon. She made her way towards him. About halfway there she stopped to lean against the wall. Her body seemed too tightly wired for movement.

  The hospital clattered and glared around her. She was no longer the person she had been even two days ago. The lucidity she’d once taken for granted had dissolved. The world was a wavering mist continually losing shape. In this mist things were most true, most real; it was not the hard and literal line but the soft edge she must trust in and learn from; she was being educated in its nature. This edge was an invitation, pulling her in deeper, to some new myth, some endless secret pattern that was a part of the universe and unique to herself. She heard a call resonating somewhere: how deep can you go?

  A boy was sitting nearby, plucking a guitar on his knees, and the sound of the strings cut, thin yet fresh, through the mash of other sounds, the minor chord giving voice to something sad and beautiful and inescapable: the mortality of all human life. She saw it was indeed Simon asleep on the bench at the end of the corridor. She continued towards him and paused, sensing something; another sound, familiar, wanted – the sound of news. She closed her eyes to concentrate.

  Her body shifted, anticipating, confused, and she realised the noise was coming from her own phone, the ringtone that Teddy had chosen after they’d listened to all the ringtones, a series of liquid trills that he’d wanted to hear again and again. She patted her body for the phone out of habit even though the sound was too distant, and then, compelled by a conviction that it was Max calling, she turned and hurried back towards her room, every step jangling through her bruised limbs and a strange sense that the phone was still ringing but fading out, getting weaker, as though it was tired, as though it simply could not keep on ringing.

  When she reached the room, she saw the cord plugged into the wall where the phone had been charging – but the phone was gone.

  MAX

  1

  That morning Max had woken in fright to the sound of the back door sliding open.

  Teddy was already awake and looking at him out of his big eyes. Max pressed a finger to his lips.

  ‘Quiet as a mouse, Teds,’ he’d whispered.

  Together they’d scrambled down from the ute and looked around for somewhere to hide. When they heard someone coming down the stairs they’d flung themselves into the bushes. The man had made a big roar and grabbed Teddy by his t-shirt, but then he didn’t hurt them. And the woman, Tillie, with her fluffy white plait and rosy face had been very kind to them.

  And now they were inside the same kitchen he’d looked at from the outside and the room was so, so warm and cosy and food was coming and he couldn’t wait; he was so, so hungry, he couldn’t remember being so hungry ever in his whole life.

  ‘You want to ring your mum?’ the old man Gerald said to him. ‘You can use the wall phone.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Max. ‘Do you have a letter?’

  ‘A letter?’

  ‘With your address on it. So I can tell Mum. I need the number and the street name.’

  ‘I can tell you all those things. I live here.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Max. His cheeks went hot. He was back in the normal world where adults did things and knew things and he didn’t have to scrounge around in his memory for clues about what to do next.

  ‘But you’re absolutely right. You know your mum’s number?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Gerald helped Max up onto a chair so he could use the phone with the curly cord. It was dark green with a silver dial and Max had to concentrate to remember the sequence of numbers. It felt odd dialling the numbers slowly instead of tapping them in fast.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me the numbers and I will dial them,’ said Gerald.

  ‘Okay.’

  Gerald put the phone to Max’s ear.

  ‘Okay. The first number’s zero. Then what?’ Gerald’s lumpy finger was hooked in the silver circle. He snapped it down and let it go and the dial whizzed backwards.

  ‘Four.’

  ‘Okay!’

  Again the dial snapped and whizzed.

  Over at the sink, Tillie was washing Teddy’s hands, rubbing a soapy scrubbing brush under his filthy nails. After carefully drying each finger with a tea towel, she sat him on the benchtop and put a glass bowl beside him and told him to crack the eggs into it. Teddy was grinning. He just adored cracking eggs. It was one of the jobs they fought over at home.

  Max’s own hands were stiff like the dead starfish that he’d hated at Kirsty’s house. He could hardly hold the phone. He heard it ringing. Again and again. Why wasn’t she answering? Where was she? Then he heard a tiny click.

  ‘Mum?’

  And then the sound of someone’s breath, but no-one spoke. He pressed the receiver harder to his ear, straining to hear. There seemed to be a soft, windy sound.

  ‘Mum? Mum? Are you there?’

  ‘Who is speaking?’

  Max got a shock at the sound of a man’s voice. Could it be Dad? No, it couldn’t be. Dad wasn’t with Mum. Anyway, Dad would have known it was Max. This wasn’t normal. He felt afraid. His lips parted and no words came out. He looked up at Gerald.

  ‘Let me speak, son.’ Gerald took the phone from Max. ‘Gerald King here. We’re looking for Ava. Have we got the right number?’

  He paused and listened to what the other voice said. He put a comforting hand on Max’s shoulder. ‘I see. Well, Constable, we have her sons here . . .’

  Gerald was nodding and smiling down at Max. A few more details were exchanged, including the address. When he’d hung up the phone, Gerald knelt down in front of Max and said: ‘Everything’s going to be alright. That was a policeman who was looking after your mum’s phone. The police are coming to get you and Teddy and take you to your mum.’

  ‘Why can’t Mum come?’

  ‘She’s in the hospital. But she’s alright, the policeman said. She can’t wait to see you both, Max. You’ll be seeing her very soon.’

  2

  A joyful mess had broken over the kitchen. Tillie was flipping pancakes and Teddy was laughing with delight as the circles flew upwards with one side lightly browned and landing dough side down in the pan. Butter sizzled gold and smoky and delicious.

  Max couldn’t wait to tell Mum about the flour sifter. He and Teddy had both had a turn. They’d never seen a sifter and this one shone pale pink and seemed magical the way it let out waft after waft of white clouds.

  Tillie sent Gerald out to get lemons from the tree and Max went with him. They saw some of the big dark birds in the sky and Gerald told him they were short-tailed shearwaters, sometimes called moonbirds, sometimes called yollas. Mostly they were called muttonbirds, because a long time ago people ate them and said they tasted of mutton. Others said they tasted like salty duck. Max had no idea what mutton or salty duck tasted like but he nodded as though he did.

  ‘My old mum used to cook them,’ Gerald said. ‘They were a treat then. I think it’s illegal to catch them now, except in Tassie. My dad and mum liked to eat them plucked, but I liked them better skun.’

  ‘What’s skun?’

  ‘Well . . . Mum would clean the bird and she preferred to leave the fat on – that’s called “plucked”. She used to stuff them with apple and breadcrumbs. I preferred them with the fat off. That’s skun. People used to use the
oil for all sorts of things.’

  ‘I think it’s nicer not to eat them,’ said Max, watching them fly.

  Gerald laughed. ‘Yes, you’re right, son. Hold these, would you?’

  They picked five yellow lemons and took them back inside. Together, they squeezed the juice over the hot pancakes and shook white sugar over the juice so it turned into creamy-lemony syrup.

  Tillie told her husband to set the table. ‘Watch this,’ she joked with Max and Teddy. ‘He never sets the table. Let’s see if he can find the knives and forks.’

  The two of them grinned as Gerald opened and closed drawer after drawer. Tillie pressed a finger to her lips. ‘No helping him.’

  Gerald looked more and more grumpy. Finally he found the right drawer, and Max couldn’t help it, he let out a huge guffaw and then a snort as though to suck it back in again – he was never allowed to laugh at his father like that – and Gerald looked up.

  ‘Look at you in cahoots! Laughing at me, are you?’ he said, shaking the knives and forks at his wife. But he was smiling. ‘Thought I wouldn’t find them, didn’t you? Well, I did!’

  ‘It’s your own kitchen!’ said Teddy, catching on.

  ‘The best kitchen is the kitchen where I don’t have to know where anything is!’

  ‘So he doesn’t have to do anything,’ Tillie laughed, tearing pieces off the first bungled pancake and feeding them to Max and Teddy. Max felt the warm lump of food sink straight to his empty belly.

  ‘If Tillie went into the garage, she wouldn’t know the first place to find a spanner,’ grumbled Gerald.

  ‘That’s true,’ Tillie said. ‘But I’d find it faster than you found the knives and forks! Now boys, wash up ready for breakfast and sit up at the table. I reckon you’re ready to wolf these pancakes down, but if we eat like savages we might as well be savages, that’s what I think.’

  They got down from the bench and Gerald led them to a little bathroom lined in tiny glittering mauve tiles. They washed their hands with soap and dried them on lace-edged towels and hurried back to the table, each taking a seat in front of a three-deep stack of pancakes dripping with lemon syrup.