Are You Seeing Me? (22 page)

I feel the seismometer being placed against my left wrist.

“We weren’t ready…”

I feel
Lost in Katrina
nudge my right shoulder.

“Weren’t ready…”

My voice trails away; only shallow breaths are left behind. Mum kneels down beside me. “Do you mind if I touch you?”

The muscle tension begins to ease. Clenched fists open. Fingers spread. I feel her arms slide through the spaces between my shoulders and the pavement, my armpits settling in the crooks of her elbows.

“Is that okay?”

I turn my head so the left side of my face is exposed. I keep my eyes closed. “Yes.”

“Would you like me to help lift you into position?”

“Yes.”

Her arms heave back. My chest is levered off the hot street. My spine curves. Cobra pose is held while the PNE continues, the people walking past, the rides twisting and wheeling, the sun inching closer to the horizon.

JUSTINE STANDS IN THE CENTER of the living room rug, holding her face. She yells, stamps her feet. She glares at Mum again as she drinks more of her alcohol.

“Oh my god! I. Cannot. Believe it!”

“Justine, please—”

“I thought things would be different!”

“It’s not what you think.”

“But I’m an idiot, aren’t I? Marc tried to convince me to stay away from here. He said you couldn’t change, you’d let us down. And I defended you! I defended
you
and pushed
him
away!”

“You’re not looking at this clearly. The only reason I told you what happened was because I wanted to be up front, totally honest. I could’ve kept everything to myself and you wouldn’t have been any wiser. I didn’t do that. I didn’t hide from the truth. And it all worked out okay. C’mon, Just Jeans.”

She advances toward Mum, index finger pointing. “You do not call me that! Okay? You have not earned the
right
to call me that!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Justine!”

Jus is mad for several more seconds, then drops her hand. She hurries to the bathroom. The sound of running water is followed by splashing and the whip of a towel. She comes out again and collects the half-glass of wine on the sideboard and gulps it down. She starts pacing on the rug like one of the impatient customers at Troy’s Car Care.

I can’t look directly at the fighting. Staring at the pictures and the tiny statues on the mantel keeps it in my peripheral vision. I would like to go upstairs, maybe finish the last half hour of
Drunken Master II
, but I don’t have enough energy to get out of the armchair. What happened at the PNE has taken my core away, leaving only the crust. I am like one of those chalk outlines of a body they draw on the ground.

Mum pours another drink. “At first, I couldn’t think,” she says. “I could hardly breathe.”

“So, it was all about you then, was it?”

“I couldn’t help Perry the way I was. I needed some distance to pull myself together.”

Justine’s face pinches. “Don’t give me that crap.
You walked away from him
.
You left him.
He was face down in the middle of a street, surrounded by friggin’ voyeurs, unable to fend for himself. And what did you do? The same as you’ve always done—
you abandoned him
.”

“It wasn’t the same.”

“Of course it was.”

“No, it wasn’t the same.”

“Okay. Tell me then. How was it different? Because it was five minutes instead of fifteen years? Because it was ten meters instead of ten thousand? Because it was a grown man instead of a child?”

Mum puts her drink down on the table and enters the living room. She moves in front of a bowed Just Jeans and hunches low, trying to make eye contact.

“I came back,” she says. “That’s the difference. I came back.”

Justine nods once, looks up. I’m only using peripheral vision, but I can tell her eyes are red. Her face is like a stone mask.

“I don’t think you’re going any further.”

“What do you mean?”

My sister ignores the question and heads upstairs.

“What do you mean, Justine?”

Mum moves into the corridor and holds the banister for support. I can hear the sounds of packing—suitcase
thumps
, coathanger
clinks
, drawer
slams
—from the bedroom.

“ANSWER ME!”

Two minutes later, Justine drags our suitcases and my backpack down the stairs. I hear her dump them at the door, then pick up the phone. She talks to someone about an overnight reservation. She says thank you and makes another call. It’s for a taxi. When she hangs up, she addresses me. “We’re not staying here tonight, Pez. Okay? We’re staying in a nice hotel before we fly back to Brisbane tomorrow.”

I lift my chalk-outlined body out of the chair and shuffle through the living room. In the kitchen, Mum grabs Justine’s elbow, forcing her to stop. “You’re abandoning him, too,” she says. “This moving out to the Fair Go—you’re letting him walk away.”

Justine scoffs. “You’re pathetic.” She jerks, trying to wrench her arm away. Mum holds on.

“You’re the reason he’s going, Justine.”

“
I’m
the reason?”

“He wants you to have a proper life, and he believes he’s standing in your way. When he’s gone, you’ll be happy. You’ll be free.”

“Jesus, Leonie, is this the booze talking? Where are you coming up with this rubbish?”

Mum glances at me. I move toward the door, head down, hands behind my back. I wish I wasn’t a chalk outline right now. I wish Ogopogo would appear at the back door to give me a solution to this problem. I don’t really want to leave. I want us to stay with Mum tonight, to use conflict-resolution skills, to do
Surya Namaskara
together in the living room before bed. I want to confirm to Just Jeans that Mum isn’t lying or talking with her booze. I’m moving to Fair Go because I love my sister more than anything and I want her to be free and it’s the right thing to do. But it’s too late. The instability I felt, the quake I feared…it’s under way.

“It’s a logical conclusion,” says Mum.

“Ha! Logic—your strong suit!”

“Your brother’s not interested in his own independence, Justine.
He wants yours
.”

Through the blind, a green car eases to a stop outside the door. The taxi. Its
pip-pip
horn bounces off the townhouses opposite.

“If you want a pen pal from here on out,” Justine says, pulling her elbow away, “write to Perry. He’s quite capable.” She pauses, thinks about something else, shakes her head one last time. She moves in beside me, murmurs in my ear. “Let’s go.”

I open the front door and drag the luggage outside.

The shaking and breaking can’t be stopped right now. Even if Ogopogo did appear at the back door, he couldn’t help, because the only solution to this problem is to wait. We have to find a safe place until it’s done and the earth has gone quiet again. Then we can look through the rubble to see what was damaged and what survived unscathed. And rebuild. It might take a long time, but you always rebuild.

Just Jeans tells the turban-wearing cab driver, “Hilton by the airport.”

Before the front door closes, I hear Mum cry out, “Ask your brother, Justine! Please! Ask him before he’s gone!”

And then we’re gone.

OUR SILENT ARRIVAL AT THE hotel is followed by a silent elevator ride up to the room and a silent sharing of room-service fish and chips. Eventually, Justine asks if I want to watch a DVD. I tell her, “No, thank you.” Instead I tune the TV to the History Channel. There is a show on about the War of 1812. I watch the story about Billy “The Scout” Green, who fought the Americans at the age of eighteen and was given twenty dollars for his service at the age of eighty-two. It helps me forget for a little while about what happened at Mum’s house. While I’m watching TV, Jus opens
Robinson Crusoe
, and then the book Mum gave her. She sighs and shifts in her chair, flicking through the pages rather than properly looking at them. I suspect she is thinking rather than reading. Then, around eleven o’clock, I know for sure.

“You think I overreacted?”

I turn the sound of muskets shooting and cannons firing down to zero.

“Was I being unfair to her, Pez?”

I turn toward my sister. “I think we should’ve stayed, used conflict-resolution skills and done
Surya Namaskara
together in the living room.”

“She failed at the PNE. She walked away from you. You can forgive her for that?”

“Of course. It wasn’t for long. And sometimes walking away is necessary.”

“Necessary.” As she repeats my word, Just Jeans pulls a face I don’t understand, something combining a frown and a squint. She massages her wrist where she used to have her rubber band, then sits down beside me at the table. “Was she telling the truth about Fair Go? Are you walking away because you feel it is necessary for me?”

“I want to say no.”

“But you can’t, can you?”

“No.”

“It’s not in your nature to lie, is it?”

“I have a disability. A brain condition.”

“The brain condition has nothing to do with it. You’re just too good a person.” She pulls me close, hugs me for nearly one minute. “Why the hell didn’t you say something when Mum mentioned it?”

I flick my hands and watch a loose thread hanging off Jus’s sleeve sway in the air-conditioned breeze. “Because we weren’t prepared. We weren’t ready.”

Justine swears, closes her eyes and lets her head fall forward. She rests a hand over mine. “God, Perry, I never wanted you to go.”

“I know that.”

“I only agreed because I thought you wanted more independence.”

“I know that.”

“I am always free with you next to me, with us sharing our lives.”

“I know that now.”

She sucks in a deep breath, blows the air out hard. She looks up at the ceiling. “Dad, you arranged this business with Fair Go. Whatever your reasons, I know you were taking care of us. But you’re gone now. We’re on our own.”

She drops her head and looks at me. I narrow my eyes, but only a little.

“I am focused. Just Jeans, I am seeing you.”

“And I am seeing us. Together.”

She hugs me again, stands and moves to the desk in the corner of the room. “So, what happens next?”

“We rebuild.”

Jus nods slowly, then with increased size and strength. Three big nods. She writes on the Hilton Hotel notepad, tears the page out and folds it in two. She hands the paper to me, then enters the bathroom. When I hear the shower water running, I open the paper and read the small to-do list she has made.

Hug Perry (done)
Check status of flight
Call Mum and apologize
Call Marc and apologize
Cancel Fair Go
Rebuild

The list is very good, although the call to Mum must happen before checking the status of the flight. I get the feeling we need to contact her as soon as possible.

There is no
Cry in the shower
on the list. It should be there because I can hear Jus’s small, sad yelping noises over the sound of the stream. And I feel the seismic wave building in my feet and my stomach and the backs of my eyes. But the feelings are not as painful as they usually are. They’re still intense, but they’re wider, more spread out. Spread out beyond my body and into the hotel room. The small table trembles. The coffeepot jumps and dances and breaks into three pieces. The bedside lamp topples onto the floor. The TV moves in and out of the cabinet on its swinging tray. And there is a shout, then a crash in the shower. Not a crash of metal or plastic. A human crash. A body. A heavy bag of bone and muscle and organ.

Just Jeans isn’t crying now. She isn’t making a sound.