Burning Eddy (17 page)

‘Yup,’ Chantelle and I chorused.

When Fish saw us getting onto the bus together the following morning, he made lots of
whoo-hoo
noises. Kat hadn’t caught the bus. I looked up the Bellan road and wondered how her sleepover had gone.

Fish couldn’t believe that I’d stayed the night at Chantelle’s place. He asked me what had gone on and I smiled and shrugged. He laughed and coughed and called me a sly prick. He wouldn’t have been able to understand how, when you really love someone, sometimes just being with them is enough. You don’t have to
do
anything. He wouldn’t believe that a boy and a girl who are in love can lie beside each other and talk for three hours in the dark of a winter’s night — about Eddy and camping and school and music and dads — and be satisfied just holding hands. Well, holding hands until they are almost frozen, then falling asleep.

He’d know about the wanting. He’d know about that dream of smooth, warm skin against skin. The smells. The taste. The tingling touch. There’d be no mysteries for him. There’d be no mysteries but I wondered if he knew about love. I laughed to myself — Mr Expert on love. How would I know what love felt like for Fish? God, it felt good to me
and the four of us on the back seat felt like a sort of club.

The bus stopped to let the Johnson kids on. Amy sat in the corner of the back seat next to Fish and ate some red fruit jelly with a plastic spoon. As I watched her, she gagged and spat a mouthful of the fruit stuff back into the container.

‘That’s totally off,’ she groaned, and slapped the spoon in the cup and tossed it onto the floor.

‘What?’ Fish asked. ‘Mouldy?’

She kicked the container under the seat in front of her and spat on the floor.

‘Charming,’ I said.

She pointed out the window.

We stood up to get a better look and Fish groaned.

A calf had just been born. Right beside the fence.

‘How beautiful,’ Chantelle sang, and I had to agree. Death and birth. It made me smile.

As the bus lurched off, I could see the cow licking and chomping at the afterbirth that covered her black-and-white baby. Afterbirth the colour of red fruit jelly.

Had to laugh.

Luke arrived on time and stayed in the car while Chantelle and I talked with Daryl about the service. He gave me a small ornately carved wooden box, not much bigger than a long-life milk carton. I could hold it in one hand.

‘That’s it?’ I asked.

Daryl chuckled good-naturedly, and nodded. ‘Doesn’t seem like much, does it?’

I thought about opening the lid. Chantelle pulled on my sleeve. I thanked Daryl and we left.

‘That place was freaking me out,’ Chantelle said. ‘Did you see the side room? Coffins everywhere.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. Luke’s car had a bench seat in the front and we climbed in beside him. ‘It’s their display room; you know, choose a coffin.’ I wondered if they had mannequins in the boxes.

‘Where to?’ Luke asked, and started the car.

Chantelle looked at me. Her eyes were smiling. She was ready for adventure.

‘Bellan,’ I said.

‘
Ja
?’

Chantelle nodded.

‘Okay,’ Luke said with a shrug, and drove off.

We were quiet until we reached the outskirts of Carmine. Luke shifted in his seat and sighed. ‘Eddy made me the one to look after her will. I went to the solicitor this morning and they read it.’

Chantelle and I looked at the lanky man.

‘She left everything to charity; World Wide Fund For Nature, RSPCA, Greenpeace, World Vision. Her house, everything.’

I slapped my thigh and laughed. ‘Fantastic.’

‘
Ja
, I think so too. Fantastic.’

Even after she’s dead, I thought, she’s still trying to save the world.

Chantelle looked at me. ‘What about Timmy?’

Timmy the cat. The stray that stayed.

‘Timmy disappeared,’ Luke said. ‘I went to feed him the day after Eddy . . . I went to feed him and he was nowhere. I put the food out for him and the next day it was still there. So I asked Mrs Vos down the road and she tells me that he’s shifted into her place. Sleeps on the front doormat. Cats are pretty smart.’

Luke’s car skidded as he turned onto the dirt Bellan road. It had become potholed and rough as it did every winter and Luke pointed to the ‘Summer Traffic Only’ sign.

‘Sure it’s okay down here?’

‘Yeah, I live down here.’

‘Where are we going?’ Chantelle asked.

‘You’ll see,’ I said, but in my heart I was undecided. I’d thought about finding the remains of Eddy’s old place, but that is in pine forest now and the pines are too much like a graveyard with their heavy shade and the way the wind whistles through their needles. I wanted to scatter Eddy’s ashes somewhere strong and happy.

Luke kept driving, dodging puddles and holding tight to the steering wheel.

‘Almost there,’ I said as we drove past the remains of Penny Lane’s house. The grass had grown with the autumn rains and now her place was the greenest in Bellan. Yes, I thought. Death and birth. ‘Just stop near the fence here.’

Luke pulled over but stayed in the car.

I asked him if he wanted to come and he shrugged.

‘I’ll wait,’ he said, and crossed his arms.

I held the barbed wires apart for Chantelle and she did the same for me. I still managed to hook my school pants on the wire and put a small tear in the crotch. We walked up the green hill, then into the forest beside the dam. Down to the little gully and the huge myrtle beech tree that had sheltered me after the fire at Penny’s place.

‘It’s beautiful here,’ Chantelle whispered.

A lyrebird called from the other side of the gully, its voice so loud that I felt like covering my ears. Whistling and chortling, pretending it was a rosella, then a kookaburra, then a shrike-thrush, then a whipbird. Chantelle
and I stood frozen, listening. A creaking cockatoo, wren and then chiming like a currawong. Then a sound like sharpening a knife on a stone. It finally stopped singing but we could hear it scratching through the leaf litter.

‘This is where fairies live,’ Chantelle whispered.

‘No,’ I whispered. ‘They’ve got a house just up the road.’

She grunted. I held the wooden box up and looked at her. ‘How do we do this?’ I whispered.

She shrugged. ‘Open the lid and tip it out?’

‘Do we have to say anything?’

‘I dunno.’

I opened the lid. Inside looked like the scrapings from the firebox on the wood heater. Grey and white ash. I put the lid in my pocket, and Chantelle held my hand. I moved to the gnarled roots of the old tree and upturned the container. The ash tumbled out in a cloud and settled on the bark of the roots. It settled on the moss, it settled on the fallen carpet of small gold and green and brown leaves. Some seemed to hang in the air and I realised as I pulled Chantelle closer that it had settled on a tiny but perfect spider’s web, giving it form.

‘The web of life,’ I said.

Chantelle put her hand to her mouth.

‘That has to be good medicine.’

The leaves above our heads began to tick with rain. Soon the ash would be washed into the earth, I thought, and Eddy’s ashes would become part of the tree. I sighed.

It was over.

The lyrebird sang again. Our uniforms were spotted
dark with rain, and crystals of it hung in Chantelle’s hair as we walked slowly back to the car.

‘One day, when I’m feeling a bit stronger, you’ll have to show me where she is,’ Luke said.

I handed him the empty container. He looked at it for a moment then slipped it into the glove box. He nodded and bit his bottom lip.

On the way to Chantelle’s place I kept filling my lungs and sighing. It was over. On the outside, it had been the hardest time in my life. My dad had gone to jail, my beautiful friend had died, my life had been turned upside down, but on the inside I felt free.

I squeezed Chantelle’s hand. She smiled and kissed my cheek.

We stoked the wood heater at Chantelle’s place. There was no one else home. We sat beside the fire and said nothing. I stroked her hair and she rested her head on my chest. The flames flickered behind the glass front of the heater and it would have looked like we were watching TV. It was the best movie I’d ever seen.

Mrs Morrison arrived with Lauren and I knew it was time to go. If I was going to catch a ride home with Graham, then I’d have to get to the bus stop. I grabbed my bag. I’d make it if I jogged.

Mrs Morrison said she’d drive me down. I said I’d be right but she insisted. We bundled into the car and rode in silence to the bus stop. Mrs Morrison smiled at me when I kissed her daughter goodbye through the window.

Lauren went psycho. ‘She kissed him! Mum, did you see that? He kissed her!’

Chantelle smiled and waved. I felt like I could fly.

Kat stood watching from the bus stop. I didn’t see her until she waved to the Morrisons. She had a smile on her face. She was smiling and looking at me. I wanted to hug her. My sister. I wanted to hug her first but I didn’t get a chance.

She hugged me. Kissed my cheek.

I hugged her back and we didn’t let go.

‘Hey, Dan. Haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘Donkeys, Kat. How’d you go last night?’

She let me go and ran her fingers through her hair. Her face lit up. ‘Orright.’

We laughed and sat next to each other in the bus shelter. She had a packet of chips left over from lunch and we shared them.

Apparently, Mum really liked Jake. So did Toby. Jake had slept on my mattress on the floor of Kat’s room. Well, he’d
laid
on my mattress. They hadn’t slept. Kat giggled and I could see the tired lines under her eyes.

I wanted to hear more. I wanted the whole story. What was being in love like for her? Graham arrived in Tina’s ute and the spell was broken.

‘Did you hear about Dad?’ she asked as she grabbed her bag.

‘What?’

‘He got seventeen years . . .’

‘Yeah, Mum told me.’

‘Don’t you reckon that’s a lot for trying to steal a truck?’

I shrugged. Mum would tell her.

I decided to take my life into my own hands. I needed to feel the cool air on my face. I got Kat to ask Graham if it would be okay to ride in the back of the ute.

He grunted, held his hand out and looked at the sky.

I nodded. I didn’t mind getting wet. If it rained, that would be a bonus.

He shrugged and I jumped in.

The wheels spun as he took off up the track and the skin on my face tingled. The wind roared in my ears. My teeth got dry and my lips stuck to them in a smile that came from deep, deep within me. As we pulled into the burnt gully of the Lanes’ farm, Graham braked hard. I almost flew over the bonnet.

On the edge of the track sat two wedge-tailed eagles. They’d been tearing at the carcass of a road-kill wallaby. At the sight of us they skipped along the road and unfurled their gigantic wings. Wingtip feathers outstretched like fingers. Graham took his foot off the brake and we coasted underneath them. I felt the air from their wings on my face. I saw the look in their eyes. An all-knowing powerful stare. I stretched my arms. I thanked them. I whooped and the ute took me home.

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