Burning Eddy (5 page)

Toby was awake when Katrina and I were about to leave for the bus. He’s usually still asleep. I whispered to Mum about the dead chickens and she sighed with both hands on the sink. She apologised. She said she’d forgotten to close their little cage. She hadn’t heard a thing. I took Toby out and showed him the chicks.

He didn’t cry. He poked at one with his bare toe. ‘That’s a bummer, isn’t it, Dan? Poor chickies.’

We dug a hole at the edge of the vegie garden and buried the headless body of Henrietta and the stiff corpses of the chicks.

‘There were only seven, Dan.’

He was right. I remembered the one that had torn off into the vegies.

‘Did the fox eat one?’

‘Mmm. I think so, Tobe.’

He was still picking around in the vegie garden when Kat and I left for the bus. As we got to the road, I heard him squeal.

‘There’s one still alive, Dan! I found a live chickie!’

I shouted that he should take it inside to Mum and he whooped and called out to her. Lucky chick.

Dad waved as he drove past us on the road between Tina’s and our place. He waved like he didn’t really know us. He waved with one finger off the steering wheel like everyone who lives in the bush does. I waved back with my bruised hand. It didn’t look like he noticed the gravel rash on my face. The skin on my cheek and nose had gone scabby and dark. My eye was mostly open and the bottom lid had gone the colour of ripe blackberries.

Tina didn’t ask me about it until we were halfway to the bus stop, and I told her the story I’d told Mum. Fell down a rock ledge. She sucked air through her teeth. Kat said I’d cut myself shaving and Tina laughed. It wasn’t until I was sitting in the bus shelter — with its graffitied walls and stink of piddle — that I realised how stupid it had been making up a story. In about three minutes I was going to get on the bus and Michael Fisher would look at me and howl with laughter so that I could see his gappy teeth and the little punching bag that hangs down at the back of his throat. Then he’d tell everyone what really happened — at the top of his voice — and good old Fairy would be the butt of everyone’s jokes for another month. They wouldn’t miss me if I didn’t show. I got up to walk home and the bus rumbled over Ammets Creek Bridge. I
realised that I’d have to run to miss it and that seemed like too much effort. Too much effort and then I’d miss school. I held my breath and stepped onto the bus as twenty pairs of eyes looked at my face. Some — like Ben, a little year-seven kid — stared, open-mouthed. Some looked on with mild interest, some glanced and looked away again. Michael wasn’t on the bus. I smiled to myself and my face cracked and hurt. Michael wasn’t on the bus.

Michael wasn’t at school either, and when Aiden, Robert and the Davids caught up with me at the four square court I found myself telling them the truth. Telling them how I‘d thrown the stone at the shack and how the pigs had chased me down on a motorbike.

‘Well, Dan, I think that earns you an A-plus for bravery and an A-double-plus for stupidity,’ Robert said.

We laughed and then played. It hurt my hand to slam so I had to play smart.

Amy what’s-her-name stopped at my table as she came in for English after lunch.

‘What happened to your face, Fairy?’

I shrugged. ‘Cut myself shaving.’

She grunted. ‘You’re such a friggin’ loser.’

I smiled and swallowed hard. I thought she might have been right. I collected my books and walked out. Walked out of the school and into the rain. My heart beat in my neck and my guts ached. I couldn’t breathe properly. My lungs wouldn’t fill. I walked, with rain tickling behind my ears, to Eddy’s place.

There were two cars parked at No. 4 Concertina Drive. An old blue Holden wagon in showroom condition sat on the nature strip. A neat white Toyota sedan was parked awkwardly in the driveway, water beading on the bonnet. I walked past it and up to the front door. Bursts of laughter leaked through the closed windows and door. I couldn’t knock. I wasn’t there to meet Eddy’s friends. I thought about getting to work on the apple tree but all the life had leaked out of my wet body. I shivered and sat in the old armchair on the small front verandah. I picked at the soggy scabs on my cheek until they hurt. They were still a bit fresh and I managed to draw blood. I heard a cat mew. A tiny, high-pitched meow beside the front step. From under the apricot tree crept a full-grown cat, a ginger tom with teeth flashing as it stared at me and meowed again. It didn’t have a tail. The poor thing was half-drowned and I called it and patted my thigh. It sat down in the rain and meowed its pathetic meow. Someone inside coughed and the cat started. With renewed confidence it jumped onto the verandah and shook itself. It smelled my boot, then sat and licked the back of its paw, ears flicking at the bursts of noise from inside. I spoke to the cat gently and it eventually sniffed at my hand, then climbed onto the arm of the chair. It let me pat it — well, wipe the rain down its back, anyway. It tentatively stepped onto my lap and began purring like a not-so-distant helicopter. It vibrated on my knee for a while, then curled into a ball. My hand was covered in wet cat hair and I wiped it on the side of the old chair. The chair was covered in ginger fluff. It was Eddy’s cat and I was sitting in its chair. It didn’t seem to mind.

I had started to warm up again and think about what Amy had said. It made me feel like I’d eaten too many plums. It was quiet inside the cottage and I looked up, wondering what they were doing. Four pairs of eyes stared at me smiling from the front window. I waved, felt my face get hot and smiled back. One turned inside and said something in Dutch. Eddy came to the window, pulled off a pair of narrow glasses and beamed.

‘Oh my Got,’ she said through the window. ‘It’s Dan-ee-el. Hello, my sweet.’

She waved and the cat looked up. I waved back and the cat darted off my lap and behind the apricot tree. Eddy was gagging and spitting in Dutch to her friends. She opened the door.

‘Come in, darling. Why are you here in the rain?’

I shrugged. ‘Came down to pull out that apple tree for you.’

‘
Ja
, but it is raining. You can’t work in the rain.’

I shrugged again and stepped inside. ‘I don’t mind the rain.’

Eddy grunted. She turned to the linen closet and grabbed a clean old towel for me.

‘What happened to your face,
schat
?’ she whispered.

‘It’s a long story,’ I mumbled.

‘
Ja
?’

‘I’ll tell you later.’

She nodded, led me into the lounge room and introduced me with a wave of her hand. ‘Luke, Annika, Claar and Tedi. This is my friend Dan-ee-el.’

Luke shook my hand, his long fingers almost touching
his thumb around the back of my hand. The ladies nodded.

‘The nature boy,’ Claar said, smiling.

They laughed.

‘Nature boy?’ I asked.

‘
Ja
,’ Luke began. He was a tall man with a scruff of thick grey hair. ‘Eddy has never been able to pat the cat. Her Timmy. He always runs away.’

‘True!’ cooed Eddy. ‘He is stray. For two years he has been living under the house. Sometimes sleeps in the chair. I feed him but I have never been able to touch him. Always so frightened.’

Eddy spoke to her friends in Dutch. I listened hard. I couldn’t understand a word she was saying but I knew she was talking about me.

Luke raised his eyebrows. ‘
Ja
, real nature boy.’

Annika’s hair was dyed flame orange and her nails were painted the same colour. She looked me up and down. ‘Now we must be going. Nice to meet you, Daniel.’

They nodded their goodbyes and hugged Eddy before scuttling into the rain. The three ladies hurried into the white Toyota with Claar behind the wheel. Luke went to the Holden. I thought he’d probably had it since new. He let it idle on the nature strip for a full minute before taking off.

Eddy ushered me into the lounge room and closed the door. ‘Your face, darling. Who did this to you?’

She sat in her lamb’s wool and looked at me with her eyes pinched.

‘Bit of an accident really.’

‘Bah,’ she said, and flicked her hand at me. ‘Your face is scratched but your heart is bleeding, Dan-ee-el. What happened?’

The way she just looked right through me, through my thoughts, made me feel as though it would have been pointless to try to keep anything from her. That, and the feeling that I wanted to tell her everything. I stumbled with my words. God, I always stumble with my words. I couldn’t work out where to start.

‘From the beginning, Dan-ee-el. Start at the beginning.’

‘There’s this kid I go to school with . . .’

‘
Ja
, what is his name?’

And I told her the story of my game of ‘terrorise the tourist’ that went bad. Of getting my face mashed into the gravel.

She held her hand to her mouth. ‘Have you phoned the police?’

‘No, it was nothing really. Something that I asked for, in a way.’

She was quiet for a full minute. Her eyes were locked on mine, sea blue and unforgiving. ‘No one asks to be hurt like that, Dan-ee-el.’

‘I really have to sort it out myself.’

‘What? To be more hurt?’

I shrugged. I felt like smacking Michael in the head with a shovel. He’d have to be quick to hurt me again. I wouldn’t run the next time.

‘In Dutch we say,
je kunt geen vuur met vuur bestrijden
. It means you can’t fight fire with fire. Always there will be someone ready to hurt you or steal from you or
rip you off. That doesn’t mean you have to do the same. Sometimes you have to close the door on all the muck.’

I nodded and fantasised about meeting Michael in the bush. In the dark. A car
shhh
ed past outside on the wet street. Timmy the stray meowed his pathetic meow.

Eddy smiled. ‘You know, to see you with Timmy just now was a miracle. You can not
believe
how timid he is. When I open the door he is already under the house. How did you do it?’

I shrugged. Maybe I’m part cat. ‘Just called him.’

‘
Ja
. You really are the nature boy. Do you love animals? Of course you do. Animals know that. They can sense it. Feel it. Like the bird. When you were here the first time I saw a bird . . . little yellow bird . . . land on the broom in your hand. Just like you were a tree, but they know. They know you are friendly. They can feel the love.’

I looked at her and she looked out the front window. Her eyes lost focus.

‘Like my dog, Ziggy,’ she began. ‘Ziggy was a sausage dog. With little legs and big ears. We lived on a farm at Bellan. You know Bellan?’

I nodded. ‘
Ja
. I mean yes. We live in Bellan.’

‘
Jaaa
? Of course . . . near Tonio. Anyway, Kasper worked at Hepworth and he left early. One morning it got to maybe ten o’clock and I couldn’t find Ziggy. He was always with me. Always. And if I was inside he would wait on the mat until I came out. So, when I couldn’t find him I got worried and I started to call, “Ziggy, Ziggy. Here boy.” Nothing. Not . . . a . . . thing. There were foxes everywhere out there and Kasper decided to set some traps
after a fox killed one of his beautiful peacocks. Killed her in the nest.

‘I don’t like traps. They are horrible mean things and I thought maybe Ziggy got, you know, caught in the trap. So I looked around the fence where there were traps and
ja
, there was Ziggy. My poor beautiful dog with his leg caught in a trap. His front leg. He was biting at the trap and crying.’

Eddy’s eyes glistened and she swallowed. I wriggled in my seat.

‘I didn’t know what to do,
hoor
. I had not the strength in me to open the trap — it is hard for a man, impossible for an old woman. All the blood. Kasper would never be back until maybe five o’clock and by then poor Ziggy would be dead.

‘And then there was a miracle. I prayed to Got, “Got, what can I do?” and the trap . . . I pushed the trap with my hands and it opened like a book. Like a book, and Ziggy, he scrambled away into the bushes. When I found him he was laying on his side and panting
huh-a-huh
with his eyes wide open, and I could see white bones poking out of his leg and I think that he is sure to die. I have not a licence to drive a car and it is so far to town. I could hardly lift him. I couldn’t carry him. Ziggy looked up at me and I prayed to Got again, “Got, help my Ziggy,” and I put my hand on his leg and closed my eyes because I think I’m going to be sick, and there was a miracle. Another miracle. Ziggy licked at my hand and in one minute . . . one . . . minute . . . he rolled onto his feet. I thought he will make it worse, the break, so I try to look at his leg under my
hand and he licks at me again. I took my hand off and I thought, You stupid old woman, you have put your hand on the wrong leg. This one is fine. No blood, no bones poking out. Nothing. But I turn him around and his tail is wagging because he thinks I am playing with him. The other foot was fine too. Not . . . a . . . mark. And Ziggy walked home. Miracle. Praise Got.’

I thought she was crazy. Part of me thought she must have skipped her medication or something but another part of me wanted to believe. And God? God was something that lonely people believed in so they could sleep better at night. I’d never been inside a church. Not once. Never been in a hospital and never been in a church. The few times church people have come to our place trying to sell us stuff, Dad has gone right off at them. He swears at them and tells them to bother someone else. Graham and Tina have a sign on their front gate that says ‘No Jehovahs’. Dad has never made a sign. I think he likes going off at them.