‘I know,’ Sophie answered. ‘Old photos are just old photos. My family and relatives show me pictures of Greece. I don’t know any of the people. I don’t know what to say. It will be better once I’ve been there too.’
‘You’re going?’
‘When I’ve finished school.’
He was entranced by her confidence.
‘Will your parents let you?’
‘Oh yes. They want me to go,’ she said. ‘But first they want me to finish school.’
Matthew thought of his own mother and her expectations. He wondered if she wanted anything for him at all.
‘It’s damp,’ she said, sitting down suddenly. He sat anyway. ‘Why do you want to get away?’
‘My mother and Dave . . .’ He stopped. There hardly seemed to be enough words in the world to explain. ‘They don’t give a damn.’
‘My father is ambitious for me,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I think my mother only goes along with him.’
‘My mother works in a shop. When she comes home she just cleans the house or fights. She just works all the time.’
‘But so does my mother,’ Sophie said, surprised.
‘All the time she complains about how tired she is and how lazy I am. I can never say I’m tired or sick because she’s always tireder or sicker. She’s the tiredest, sickest person in the world. And she hates everybody.’ He stopped, astonished at the things he had said. ‘Once she told me her mother was a real slob. Her house was a mess all the time and when she got old she went mad. She thought everyone was stealing off her. Maybe my mother thinks the dust and the mess made her mad.’
He breathed in, his skinny buttocks growing numb unnoticed on the damp pier. He breathed in the smell of the girl and her serenity.
‘And what about your brother?’ she finally asked.
‘Dave?’ Again he hesitated. He thought of Dave drunk and Dave knocking him around. He thought of Dave yelling at his mother. There was not much to be admired in Dave and plenty to hate. Yet he did admire him. He was one of the world’s survivors, leader of a gang, always just out of reach of the police. Dave had got out of school young and worked for a while in a supermarket. He had wanted to be a mechanic but after a while he just quit and stopped talking about becoming anything. ‘He thinks I’m a creep.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t belong, so I’m a creep,’ Matthew said, and there was something battered in his eyes when he said that.
‘No.’
‘If my father hadn’t left . . . When I find him, I’m gunna ask why he went. I used to think it was because of me. My mother told me he didn’t want another kid.’ He looked at her. The gathering darkness made of her face a curious plain of light and shadow, almost not a face at all, yet he thought he saw a glint of pity in her eyes and was embarrassed for them both.
‘Anyway . . . why do you want to go overseas?’
‘To see the people and places I’ve heard about. It sounds so good. After that there are other countries.’
Her eyes on the bay were disparaging and Matthew could see the murky bay was no match for sunlit waters and green islands.
He had walked home with her after that, pretending it was not out of his way. Her father owned a fish and chip shop. He was a big muscular man with crisp hair and a wide smile. Sophie gave him a little parcel of chips, pretending to put money in the till. They grinned at one another, sharing the crime. After that first time they had met often, sometimes by accident but always on the pier after rain. The fishermen never spoke of her to him, so he guessed she did not mention him at home. In his turn Matthew did not talk about Sophie to anyone. He had an odd certainty that would change everything.
His mother called Dave’s girls sluts, and Dave, who hated wogs worst of all, what would he say? NO. It was better to keep his secret. It was unlikely his friendship with Sophie would survive the touch of his family.
Two nights ago his mother had brought home a Sara Lee cheesecake and some chips for Dave’s birthday. Dave had got home drunk and late with the help of a girlfriend and two mates. The visitors wolfed down the pathetic feast while his mother watched with tight lips. Matthew had been fascinated by the girl, who was unimaginably thin with a homemade tattoo. He was struck by her eyes which reminded him of brown beetles scuttering madly.
In the play wrestling that followed, the remainder of the cake ended up on the floor with a broken plate. Later Dave passed out when the visitors had gone. In the morning Matthew heard his mother march into Dave’s room and tell him to pack and go live with his animal friends. Dave sounded sluggish with his hangover and unresponsive. Matthew pulled the blankets over his head, knowing what would happen next. The door slammed open. She had been cleaning; he could smell the Ajax. She always scrubbed out the bath and toilet when she was mad. He sighed but lay still.
‘Don’t think I don’t know you’re awake,’ she said.
Matthew jumped involuntarily.
‘Huh?’ he feigned.
‘Don’t think you’re going to laze around here during the holidays like that brother of yours. He thinks he’s so great! One day he’ll go just like your father.’
‘Jeez. It’s the first day.’
‘There’s no holidays for me. I work here and then I go out to work.’
‘No one asked you to,’ Dave croaked in his hangover voice, passing the door on the way to the bathroom. He looked awful.
‘Asked?’ She seemed lost for words. Matthew was surprised to see the glitter of tears. ‘No one ever asked what I wanted.’
‘Look here, I said I was sorry about last night. I was drunk so I acted a bit off. So what? It was my birthday,’ Dave said, his voice caught in mixed emotions.
‘Sorry,’ she snickered.
Matthew was vainly trying to look invisible. She glanced back at him.
‘You try and get a holiday job.’
‘Like me, Mum?’ Dave asked. ‘I got a job. You were glad of it then. Now I’m a no-hoper.’
They stared bleakly at one another.
‘It was the least you could do . . .’ she whispered.
Dave shrugged and shuffled away. Matthew thought of her lugging the chips and frozen cheesecake home for his birthday. Even the good things they tried to do were somehow rotten and hopeless. He felt a rush of pity for his mother. What was there for her now? She was old and worn out, ugly and uninteresting. There would be no other man for her. Even she knew that. Alongside her, Sophie was a radiant creature, full of laughter and promise. Full of dreams.
‘And clean up your room,’ his mother said as she went out.
He heard her follow Dave and start again. Matthew wished Dave would lose his temper and crack her head open or cave her face in. Anything to shut her up. He could not even take the responsibility for his own anger, yet he was aware his own fury held a capacity for violence far deeper than Dave’s brief flares. His anger went underground and became a subterranean force, unseen and infinitely more ugly. It was a force as subtle and obscure as voodoo. Matthew understood that the ugliness was in him too.
‘Are you listening to me?’ she snapped.
Jesus God, thought Matthew, when will she stop? Then he heard the door slam and the house was still. He lay there full of his impotent anger.
‘You’re a weak shit, you are,’ said Dave easily, coming to lean in the open doorway. ‘Why don’t you stand up to her?’
Matthew curled his fingers tight. Dave was right. He was weak. He should have told her to piss off, like Dave did. He felt a rush of loathing for himself that nothing, even the thought of Sophie, could erase.
‘So . . .’ Dave said languidly, picking at a scab on his elbow. ‘What are you gunna do?’
‘Dunno,’ he answered sullenly.
Dave always made him feel like that when he was unexpectedly friendly. Those occasions were so rare and brief it was better to ignore them. Yet there was a yearning despite everything, to end the barrier between them. To get somehow close enough to make it last.
/> ‘Dunno,’ Dave mimicked. ‘Well, Miffy boy . . .’ The nickname Matthew hated. ‘I guess you’ll never grow up. You’ll be listening to her nag forever.’
Matthew ground his teeth together until they hurt. Shut up shut up shut up! he thought. Dave suddenly flung himself across the room, landing on him.
Matthew’s breath came out in a barking grunt and he lay there winded. His hands were pinned under the blankets. Dave leaned close and made a mock swipe. His breath smelled foul.
‘Yeah, that’s about it too. You dog. You dog turd,’ Dave sneered.
This was the way they fought. They liked it, he realised suddenly. They liked fighting because it got rid of the rage that burned a hole in you. And when it was over, they were always calmer. Dave paused, the leer fading. Matthew felt he was actually waiting for some response, like a secret code. Only I don’t understand the game, he thought. He made a queer strangled noise.
‘What?’ Dave asked, looking closely at him. ‘What?’
‘Nothing! Nothing! Nothing!’ He screamed so wildly that Dave jumped. Matthew felt a hysterical laugh in his throat but when it got to his mouth it was a strangled sob. Tears of shame and rage forced their way onto his cheeks. It was the final humiliation. There was a heavy silence and Dave let go. Matthew kept his eyes squeezed shut.
‘You sure are a weirdo,’ said Dave in a mildly surprised voice. ‘You sure are.’
‘I can’t do it. I can’t be like you two. I wish I could . . .’ Matthew said in a low desperate voice.
There was a long silence again and finally he opened his eyes. Dave was looking at a chink of sepia-coloured light where the curtain was crooked. He looked remote.
‘You sure are weird,’ he said again finally, but there was no mockery in his voice. ‘I dunno how you came to be this weird. Maybe it’s my fault. You were always such a mouse, such a little weed.’
For Dave, that was a long speech. Matthew saw then that Dave too had felt the barrier between them, perhaps been repelled by it. That surprised him and for a second the two brothers looked at one another like strangers just met. Matthew thought that Dave looked like a sort of warrior, tough and a bit war worn, but somehow still undaunted. A survivor.
‘Maybe that’s it,’ said Dave the warrior. ‘I thought you wanted to be out of it. I didn’t know. I could’ve showed you how to get along better.’
Matthew saw himself being sized up as a raw recruit. Dave’s eyes seemed to measure him.
‘You take everything too hard. You gotta be cool. She’s not such a bad old cow. But she’s dumb, see? She thinks being honest and keeping the house clean is all there is. She’s a pleb, y’know? Someone who thinks they’re nothing. You gotta get the right way of thinking about things,’ Dave said. ‘She was better before the old man pissed off. She’s just all soured up over that. Don’t take her so hard.’
Matthew saw himself being gathered up and there was a sweetness in that, but there was also something frightening. But maybe that was what belonging meant?
‘I guess you better come with me to Monk’s this arvo,’ Dave said, his eyes crinkling.
There it was at last. Matthew had not known until that second how desperately he wanted to belong somewhere. Yet he hesitated. Deep down he had always known that Dave and Dave’s way must mean a submersion of him. He had said nothing to Dave then, but the offer was there and it would not come again. Somehow he knew that too. And when they passed Sophie in the street. later that day on the way to Monk’s, it was as if fate had presented him with its betrayal. A feeling of dismay came over him. Dave hated wogs and for the first time Matthew saw that Sophie was a wog.
He looked out at the sea. The paper run waited. He recalled how she had stepped back and the acceptance in her eyes: the smile fading and eyes flickering to Dave. Dave. In Dave’s world there would be no place for dreaming and for watching ships come and go. Perhaps there had never been a choice, not really. He had been part of it all for too long. The voices were in his head forever. I’m not strong enough to fight the world for a dream, he thought. That’s worse than any dragon.
His bike waited. He felt as though the last ship had gone. The bay was empty. But suddenly two seagulls flew overhead, their wings like big dark claws against the yellow sky. He watched until they had disappeared out to sea.
THE WITCH SEED
Riding back to the old neighbourhood felt like I had come a lot further than a few suburbs, maybe back in time. I found myself thinking of his mother, the witch queen, wondering if she would tell me where he was.
The familiar streets were oddly quiet around me. It struck me that neighbourhoods grew up too. Kids get older and leave home, parents just get old. No more kids yelling in the street on weekends, no more dogs barking, no more street games of cricket or water fights, and even the telephone box on the corner hasn’t been vandalised.
No one knows I’ve come. It would be no good telling my mother. I tried to tell her once about the next-door neighbours, when I read in the paper Lily had died. She got that vacant look on her face and lit a cigarette in her quick fussy way, as if the cigarette was the only thing that made talking to me bearable. ‘What can you do?’ she asked. So I dropped it.
Our old house looked smaller.
Next door was the same brooding mansion with its frowning eaves and sullen drooping willows, still infested with her poisonous magic.
I was startled to see her sitting on the mouldy sofa on the porch, baggy old skin sucking at her big white teeth. All the better to eat you with, her eyes seemed to say: goblin dark and glistening as if they had been dipped in olive oil.
She watched me come up the overgrown walk with the suspicious malevolent look old people get after a while, as if they’re looking through you, to make sure death isn’t lurking behind your eyes.
The Eskimos had a better way of it, sending their old people out onto an icefloe to die quick and clean. Better than leaving them to go mad waiting for it, like my old gram.
On the way, I had seen a woman rummaging in the rubbish bin.
As I came level, she whipped her head up and stared at me, clutching an old tea cosy to her scrawny chicken’s neck. ‘Did you see my baby?’ she asked.
I didn’t turn around. I mean, she might once have found a baby in a rubbish bin, abandoned. Or put her own illegitimate baby there. I’d read of that kind of thing happening. A woman doesn’t want her baby, so she puts it in the bin. the bin.
Some kids would be better off dying in a rubbish bin.
‘What is it? What do you want?’ Mrs Gedding asked in a scratchy, frightened voice. I could tell she didn’t know who I was. was.
‘I’m looking for Paul,’ I said.
I think I have been looking for Paul for years, because the questions that fill me began with him. Underneath everyday things, I kept thinking about him and the others: Lily and poor Bo and Luke. Sometimes I wished I could get them out of my head, stop myself coming back and turning it all around, trying to understand. It’s like I’m stuck in a groove, hearing the same line over and over. That’s partly why I decided to come back.
My mother hated the old neighbourhood, blamed my father for our having to live there. She felt we didn’t belong and tried to barricade us in with threats when she went off to work at night. She used to tell Bubba and me to stay inside or the welfare would get us. For years I thought the welfare was some sort of monster. Then later, when I was too old for monsters, I thought the welfare was a domestic spying service. I thought there was a whole government department devoted to watching our house, making sure we didn’t go into the street at night. Kids believe anything.
I spend a lot of time trying to understand the why of things. My mother says I was born asking why and drove everyone crazy demanding reasons. Sometimes I had to be slapped to make me shut up.
That must have been why I started keeping things inside, turning thoughts around like a Rubik’s cube, looking for clues. People are always comparing me to Bubba, wondering why I am so dull.
It was Bubba who told me my eyes were too close together. He said you were supposed to be able to fit an imaginary eye between your two eyes, like a cyclops. More than enough space for a third eye meant you were stupid, too little meant you were secretive.
I am secretive. I like knowing things no one else knows.
After he told me that, I used to imagine I did have a third eye that saw things ordinary eyes couldn’t see. It would only work when the two normal eyes were closed. I spent most of my time looking through the secret third eye with its distorted truths.
My mother said I get the secretive aspects of my nature from Gram, whom I used to hate and often think of murdering. I hated my mother a little too, for her weakness in taking the old dragon in.
‘She’s old and she’s my mother,’ my own mother said defensively, as if I ought to take a lesson from that.
Gram was crazy. Sometimes she refused to eat because she was certain my mother was trying to poison her. And my mother would look hurt and try to cover it with smiling. I hated her for wasting the time, for wanting love from Gram instead of from me.
‘Alex will be back to get me soon,’ Gram would whisper, mistaking me for an ally. My Human Studies teacher told me it’s called a Persecution Complex, and lots of old people get it. But I had never seen a mad man like that. Mad men murder and shoot guns and kill themselves or go to gaol. It seemed to me women suffer a different kind of madness. Something darker and more cruel. And being afraid is part of it.
Gram was always thinking people were watching her, shop girls, the milkman, bus drivers. Even if the phone rang or someone knocked at the door, she would get that hunted look in her eyes.
But maddest of all was his mother. Sitting on the porch, she was worse than Gram making my mother beg for love like a dog, worse than my mother for taking Gram in. But now she looks scared too.
And what makes them afraid? I used to think it was death. At the end of all the mad fears was the biggest fear of all. Gram keeping watch for the poisoner of poached eggs, the icefloe messengers, watching for death in all its guises. I reckon you ought to be glad to go when you’re that old and ugly. What’s the point of living when you can’t do anything but be scared? And yet how they cling to life, sticking their cracked fu manchu nails into the crevices, hanging in there.