‘What’ve I done wrong? She could just tell me. Why the silent treatment?’
‘If you’d done something wrong she’d tell you, Lockie. Your mum’s a straight shooter, you know that.’
‘Well, I don’t get it.’
‘Everyone has a bad night. Ask the sheep.’
‘Sarge.’
‘I’m off to bed. Get some shuteye.’
‘She keeps talking about her baby.’
‘Oh?’ The Sarge paused.
‘Sometimes I think she means something else.’
‘Not Blob?’
‘I dunno, Sarge. She’s not making sense.’
‘Okay. Orright. Go in and get some rest.’
But Lockie didn’t sleep. He lay awake in his room with Phillip snoring and tweeting and lip-smacking over the sound of the frogs grumping out in the swamp. About three in the morning he heard sobbing from his parents’ room and he knew that something serious was going on. He thought of Egg whose parents bickered day and night before their separation. He couldn’t stand the thought of that happening in his own family. Lockie wanted his life to stay the same. He didn’t want trouble. But any idiot could see something was up. Something bad.
hen Lockie woke, Phillip was pulling wet sheets off his bed and sniffing back tears. It was nine o’clock and Lockie’s eyes felt gritty and sore.
‘You orright?’
‘No.’
‘It’s just a wet bed.’
‘Another wet bed,’ said Phillip through his teeth. He wiped his face on a dry patch of sheet. ‘I’m eleven years old. It’s not s’posed to happen. Anyway, it’s not that.’
‘What then?’
Phillip leant against his Simpsons poster and looked at the floor. ‘It’s Mum. She’s saying weird things. She keeps on counting Blob’s fingers and toes. Mine too. She said . . . ‘Phillip sucked his lips in, trying to speak without blubbing.
‘Said what?’
‘Oh, she thinks everyone’s gonna die. She says you’re already dead.’
‘What?’
‘I said you were just sleeping in. But she said no, you were dead. Didn’t you hear it all? I kept coming in to see if you were breathing. It scared me.’
Lockie was stunned. Just hearing this, it hurt. Lockie couldn’t believe it. His own mother saying he was dead. He lay back on his bed and watched the sunlight flicker on the walls.
‘The Sarge looks shockin’. He’s been up half the night. He took Mum and Blob for a drive.’
Lockie got up and pulled on some shorts. ‘Let’s get out of here for a bit. Get your skateboard.’
‘I better wash these,’ said Phillip holding up his sheets.
‘We’ll do it when we get back.’
Phillip didn’t look sure. The poor kid looked sick with worry.
‘C’mon, let’s get out for a while.’
‘But why?’
Lockie found his things. ‘I don’t wanna be here when Mum gets back.’
The day was cool and cloudy with a foul breeze blowing off the harbour. Lockie and Phillip walked up through the winding streets around Mount Clement until the roads petered out and they had to bushbash their way to the summit. From the top of Mount Clement they looked out over Angelus with all its beaches and bays and fingerlike roads that spread towards farms in the distance. Lockie thought for a moment of the first day he came up here with Vicki Streeton, when he was in love for the first time and the whole world felt like it would last forever and always be perfect. That was nearly a year ago. Lockie felt older and no wiser and nowhere near as happy.
The breeze cooled the sweat on their faces. The two brothers stood there a long time without speaking.
‘D’you think Mum and the Sarge’ll get a divorce?’ said Phillip in the end.
Lockie was taken aback. He was secretly thinking the same thing.
‘I don’t know.’
‘When wives are miserable there’s always a divorce. You see it on telly all the time. And there was Egg’s mum.’
‘I dunno, Phillip. I’m dead, remember. How do you like that. I’m dead all of a sudden.’ Even as he spoke, he got a silly idea he couldn’t ignore. ‘Speaking of death, you ever skated the Zig-Zag?’
‘Garry Pooley has. Ten kids saw him.’
‘Why don’t we?’
Phillip grinned nervously. ‘Zig-Zag? That’s a hell-ride. Like, past vertical.’
‘Garry Pooley is a dweeb and a drongo.’
‘A wacker, actually.’
‘So what d’you reckon?’
‘We’ll get pulverised. Even if we make it the oldies’ll kill us.’
‘Hell, Fm already dead.’
‘You’re s’posed to be the responsible one, Lockie,’ said Phillip, getting a dose of the giggles.
Lockie felt all feverish and mad; he felt reckless and stupid and hurt and exhilarated all at once. Right now he really wanted to do something major, to max out completely.
‘Today’s the day, Phillip. We’ll call it Big Wednesday.’
‘But it’s not even Wednesday.’
‘Shut up and follow me.’
The Zig-Zag was the kind of street that only a true space-case could design. It was only a hundred and fifty metres long but so steep and hairpinned that it would give a mountain goat a migraine. People hated driving down it and simply refused to drive up it. Even the yuppies who lived on it gripped the wheels of their Saabs and BMWs with ivory knuckles every time they nosed out of their cobbled driveways. The Zig-Zag ran like a ragged lightning bolt down the harbour side of Mount Clement and ended in a T-junction. On the other side of that junction was a slope of thick bush and trees all the way to the septic shores of Angelus Harbour.
Lockie stood at the top. He spun a wheel of his skateboard with his hand and listened to the ball bearings hiss. It looked worse than he remembered. His left leg started to wobble a little.
‘Is this dumb or what?’ said Phillip, hugging his skateboard to his chest.
‘This is dumb like no dumbness you’ve ever known.’
‘Should we leave . . . you know, like a suicide note?’
Lockie chuckled. ‘No, too sensible.’
‘Geez, Lockie, you’re such a good influ—’
Before Phillip could finish his sentence, Lockie was gone. He launched himself out and down like a slalom skier in the Winter Olympics. Phillip saw the wind streaming in Lockie’s sunstreaked hair, heard the terrible scratchy roar of the wheels on the asphalt; he wondered if this really was the best way to get a bedroom of his own. Having your older brother die to get it seemed a bit extreme.
Extreme is more or less how Lockie saw things as he zigged into a turn that made his knees shudder and his skateboard creak with stress. He missed the first letterbox by a good metre and stayed clear of the deadly kerb but he could feel himself picking up speed second by second.
The road did a murderous switchback the moment he came out of the first turn and then the whole Zig-Zag became a frantic, mindblowing blur. Trees. Parked cars. Blow-waved lawns. DANGER. CAUTION. STEEP INCLINE. Everything ripped by and the road howled beneath him. Lockie simply aimed out of instinct; he couldn’t even tell where he was going anymore. He was more interested in the sound he made as he shot down the hill. It was a truly odd noise, rather like the whistling that an artillery shell makes before it lands unpleasantly in someone’s backyard. Lockie discovered that if he closed his mouth the whistle died away. He opened his mouth again and there it was: eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! That shriek was the wind going through him. He was a bassoon, an oboe, a clarinet, a flute, a plummeting piccolo. What a sound you could make with wind coming out your ears, your pores, your every embarrassing orifice. Well, you learn a little every day.
And then before Lockie could even decide how he was going to manage the hellish final turn into the T-junction of the Angelus Scenic Drive, he found himself already there, safely slowing down in the gentle uphill slope where everything was calm and quiet and sane. Lockie pulled a
long broad turn to brake himself and then stepped off his skateboard. His legs were so trembly he could barely stand. He couldn’t believe what he’d just done. He’d survived the biggest hell-ride in Angelus. But there was no rush of triumph. He just felt like a stupid, thick-brained idiot for even trying.
‘I am a LUNATIC!’ he bellowed. His knees knocked. He wanted to be sick.
He looked uphill to where Phillip stood shunting his skateboard back and forth underfoot.
‘Don’t do it, Phillip. Just walk down!’ Lockie waved his arms crazily, jumping on the spot like a cheerleader. ‘Walk down!’
Phillip waved or shrugged and then heaved forward. Lockie stopped jumping and let his skateboard roll to the kerb. No! Absolutely, positively NO! His little brother came scorching down the bends, uprooting letterboxes and council signs, setting off car alarms and collecting rear view mirrors like a cyclone.
Lockie watched Phillip’s eyes get big as soup bowls. He heard the roar of wheels and the flapping of Phillip’s tee-shirt as he barrelled miraculously down towards the junction.
‘Turn, Phillip!’ he yelled in awe. All Phillip had to do now was make the final turn and be safe. ‘Go now, go now!’
But Phillip came out of the last zag with a serious case of the death wobbles. There was no way he’d make another turn. He’d be lucky to stay upright for more than a few more seconds. As he careered past, Lockie made a lunge but couldn’t get more than a fingertip to him. A moment later the board hit the kerb and stopped dead. Phillip, however, did not stop at all. He flew quite silently across the grassy verge and into the treetops down the slope.
Lockie started to run.
I’m a fool, he thought, a mad, insane, lunatic idiot. I should be locked up and fed dog biscuits. I’m a damned disgrace.
Lockie crashed blindly down the slope through scrub and trees, scrambling over boulders and burnt-out logs. There was no sign of blood or major organs, which was encouraging.
In the end he came to a tree that had his little brother dangling from it like some hyperventilating fruitbat. A branch had ripped through his Rip Curl tee-shirt. Only 100% COTTON and some nice screen-printing held him up there.
Lockie clawed up the trunk and picked his way across boughs until he got close.
‘You orright?’
‘Will I land soon?’
Phillip’s eyes were still soup bowls. His skin was grey-on-white. Lockie braced himself to grab him, but just as he reached out, Phillip’s shirt gave way and he was gone. Lockie heard the crash in the undergrowth below.
‘I think you’ve landed.’
‘Thank you.’
‘No worries.’
‘Can we go home now?’
rom the end of the drive Lockie saw that the rusty, asthmatic Falcon was back. As he helped Phillip limp barebacked down the ruts towards the house, Lockie wondered how he could explain his brother’s cuts and bruises. There was also the matter of a shredded shirt and an entirely knackered set of skateboard wheels. Lockie was in deep doo and he knew it. The Sarge would handcuff him to a passing bus.
The house was quiet inside. The boys crept in uneasily. They found the Sarge at the kitchen table staring at a cup of tea. Blob sat on the floor with a Weetbix box on her head. She sounded as though she was gnawing her way out.
‘Where’s Mum?’ said Lockie.
‘Asleep.’
‘Oh, okay. Everything . . . everything alright?’
The Sarge pursed his lips, as though considering his response. Then he slowly shook his head.
Lockie stood there waiting for the Sarge to notice the shape Phillip was in. His little brother looked like he needed a visit to the panel beater but the Sarge didn’t notice. He was staring at that cup of tea. After a few moments he took a sip at it but found it was cold. He pushed it away from him. He looked pale and worn out and the pouches under his eyes were big as teabags.
‘I took your mum to the doctor. He gave her some . . . medicine. She’s . . . well, she’s upset. I think she’s depressed.’
‘I get depressed all the time,’ said Phillip, trying to sound understanding.
‘You get sad, Phillip,’ said the Sarge with a sigh. ‘Miserable, even. But depressed, that’s different. She can’t cope.’
‘Mum always copes,’ Phillip said.
‘It’s a shock, I know, but right now she can’t face anything. We’ll have to pull together a bit this week until things look better. She probably just needs a rest.’
Lockie couldn’t speak. A terrible feeling had come upon him. He remembered last night yelling at her to ‘Get a grip!’ as though his poor mum was fooling around, as though she was bawling her eyes out just to cause Lockie some inconvenience and get a bit of attention. Geez, what a pig of a thing to do. He hated himself. He was a dickhead. His mum was having some kind of meltdown and he was stamping his foot like a complete buttface. What was wrong with him?
‘I’m taking the week off,’ the Sarge said. ‘We need to give her a huge rest, some peace and quiet.’
‘Okay.’ Phillip’s lower lip quivered.
‘Lockie?’
Lockie struggled up out of the tangle of his thoughts. ‘Yeah, Sarge. No problem.’
‘We’ll get on top of it,’ said the Sarge pulling the box off Blob’s head. ‘Things’ll come good in a few days.’
But things didn’t really come good at the Leonard place. Not the next day, nor the day after that. Lockie and Phillip and the Sarge tiptoed around the sagging house doing their absolute best to keep things running smoothly that week while the rain roared on the tin roof and the swamp swelled and gurgled around them. The boys worked without complaining, taking turns with Blob and the endless housework, helping the Sarge with washing and cooking and keeping things calm.
Blob’s cot was moved into the boys’ room. She shook its bars at dawn to get them up and she didn’t stop being Blob all day. She made spaghetti out of Lockie’s tapes and gnawed Phillip’s basketball cards into compost, but neither lost his temper. Lockie’s back ached from carrying her on his hip and Phillip’s face hurt from smiling. They piggybacked her, rolled on the floor with her and built entire planets out of Lego and Duplo and Play-Doh. They watched ‘Play School’ with her and laughed themselves sick at all the jokes. Out in the shed they found an old shopping trolley and they pushed her around the verandah in it like she was the Pope in the PopeMobile. They played Thomas the Tank Engine’, doing all the dopey English voices. They took turns at being Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy. They did it all like heroes.
The Sarge hung wet washing in every room and along the verandah because of the endless rain. When he got desperate he dried nappies with a hairdryer and salad tongs. The only meals he could cook were curried sausages and fried rice. Blob liked to spit the rice all over the joint and all week little puffy grains of it turned up on the wallpaper, between someone’s toes, or in the toaster where it promptly caught fire. Sarge ironed and vacuumed, dusted and dabbed with a grey look of worry never leaving his face. The phone rang every hour or so with some problem down at the station. Lockie watched him roll his eyes and spell words out slowly to the constables at the other end, casting looks now and then toward the closed door of the bedroom where Mrs Leonard stayed day and night.
For a couple of days they all worked so hard the house started to look fairly civilised, and while all the novelty lasted Blob was happy as a lark (if you can imagine a lark looking like a pint-sized Buddha with seven and a half teeth and a passion for gobbing rice great distances). But then there suddenly weren’t enough hours in the day. Lockie kept falling asleep in the middle of ‘Bananas in Pyjamas’. He caught himself tossing nappies into the kitchen sink and hoiking food scraps into the nappy bucket. When things went wrong the Sarge started to get panicked and cranky. The rain drove everyone crazy and the situation began to get on top of them.
At first Mrs Leonard stayed in bed, pole-axed with tranquillisers. Blob scraped at her door and banged on the wall, too small to understand. W
hen their mum woke up and came out it was as though she’d gone somewhere else behind her eyes. She stared out of windows and cried quietly. Sometimes Lockie stood in the hallway to watch her walk in slow motion to the bathroom. Phillip and Lockie caught each other watching and shrugged and said nothing. Lockie went through every day in a state of shock that just wouldn’t wear off.
‘She’ll be right,’ said the Sarge, tucking them in at night as though they were still two little boys in Bert and Ernie pyjamas. There was a desperate, hopeless sound in his voice that scared Lockie. ‘Don’t worry, fellas, everything will be okay.’
It went on all week until everyone was exhausted and the house was a pigsty again and Blob cried half the day and bashed on Mrs Leonard’s door. The phone never stopped and the Sarge shouted into the receiver like a man about to burst into flames.
On Friday morning, for no reason he could think of, Lockie woke at dawn with a start. His heart slapped madly inside his ribcage. He checked Blob and Phillip who were still asleep, both of them in their warm, wet sheets. He went to the window and pulled back the curtain to see his mum on the driveway in her nightie in the pelting rain.
Slipping straight out through the window, he stood on the verandah a moment and waited as she pushed Blob’s pram through the mud on her own. Her hair hung down in strings. Her legs were like sticks in the bleary light. Lockie sprinted up the driveway in a splatter of mud. It was cold. At the end of the drive Mrs Leonard stood with the empty pram, singing quietly.
‘Mum?’
Hair hung all over her face. She hardly looked like his mum. He glanced back at the house. It looked like a rusty old junk floating down a muddy river, floating away from him, leaving him behind. Lockie touched his shivering mum on the arm and knew for sure that everything was not okay at all, not by a long shot. And something told him that things would get worse before they got better.
ater that miserable day, Lockie watched the Sarge come splashing down the drive in the Falcon. Alone. Sometimes when you have a hunch you’d much rather be wrong. Back in the loungeroom he could hear Phillip trying to explain the planets of the solar system to Blob. She wasn’t quite catching on but Phillip wasn’t the sort of kid who gave up easily. The Sarge stomped up onto the verandah, his face speckled with tears of rain.