Forgetting Foster (8 page)

‘Can a man with no legs have itchy feet then?' Foster had asked.

‘Oh yes,' Dad had said. ‘It's called a phantom feeling. This is how remarkable your brain is, Fossie. It can recreate the feeling of something it knows should be there, but isn't. Your brain can fill in all sorts of holes. Make you experience things you thought were gone forever. Like telling a story.'

Foster hugged his knees, back against the closed bathroom door, and listened to his parents' voices on the other side. He imagined Dad's profile, half a face that looked a bit empty lately, and felt a stab of ghost feeling. A funny ache that told him the stories were still inside Dad somewhere, like an amputated foot that still itches.

‘Fossie?' Aunty stood in front of him in the hallway. She held out her hand and said, ‘Well, we didn't get to stay for cake, did we?'

‘Was there cake?'

‘There's always cake.' Aunty pulled Foster to his feet and gripped his chin between thumb and forefinger. Her hand smelled sharp and robust, like the cleaner Mum used on the kitchen sink. ‘So,' she continued, ‘want to go get some cake?'

‘Why did Dad pee in church?' He hadn't been sure he was going to say it until it was said. He had a feeling that it wasn't something that he was supposed to ask at all. Nobody had mentioned it. Foster thought someone should at least mention it. He felt speaking it out loud had halved the thing already, and placed the blame squarely where it belonged. He could still feel the old lady's talons.

‘He just got confused,' Aunty said.

‘Did he think he was on the loo?'

‘Sort of. It's nothing for you to worry about.'

Mum had said that a lot lately too. It's nothing for you to worry about. Foster found this response unsatisfying. It was the way a grown-up said they didn't want to talk about it. At least, they didn't want to talk about it with him. He knew they talked about
it later, away from him, in places he used to be invited and now was not. Like the bathroom.

‘So,' Aunty said. ‘Do you want to come with me for cake?'

Foster wanted cake very much, but he eased his face out of Aunty's fingers and said, ‘No.'

When he got to his room he slammed the door.

There was cake later. Aunty went and got it and when she came back the three of them, Mum, Dad and her, sat at the kitchen table and ate it. Foster cracked his door open just a bit, so it didn't make any noise. He could hear the rustle of cellophane and the chink of forks on china and the low voices and no one came to get him. Even though he'd sent himself to his room he felt the exclusion like an arrow.

cake and class news

Somehow it got to school. Someone had been at the church, some grown-up Foster didn't know. But that grown-up knew someone who knew someone who had kids and all of a sudden Foster found himself on the receiving end of some peculiar attention he couldn't account for. Boys would sniff him as they went past and then giggle. There were some jokes about restricting fluids from the older boys. Foster laughed along at first because everyone else was laughing and he didn't understand. He didn't want to be kept outside the joke. He had been kept outside a lot lately, so if there was a joke, and people laughing, he was happy to laugh along too. But then Jack, who got picked on a lot because he was smaller than everyone else and had a facial tic, told Foster, ‘They're
laughing at you. They reckon you peed your pants in church.'

‘I
know
that, stupid,' Foster replied. But he hadn't known. The knowledge stung, but he wasn't about to make his humiliation worse by admitting he was stupid as well. ‘It wasn't me, anyway,' he continued. Foster tried to sound casual and hoped his sudden breathlessness didn't make his panic show.

‘Who did then?'

‘Dad. He's sick, you know.'

‘I thought he was just mental.'

‘He's not mental!' Foster said, thinking about the smell in the car. ‘He just got confused.'

‘About what?'

‘Where he was.' Foster turned on the tone Aunty used. Firm and instructive.

‘Did he think he was on the loo?'

‘Sort of,' Foster replied. ‘It's nothing for you to worry about.'

‘Not worried,' Jack said. ‘Don't care. You're the one with the mental dad.'

Foster was going to say something but couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't make things worse. He was wretched about the whole thing. He concentrated on the cake he hadn't been invited to
share, because it gave him something real to be cross about.

When they walked into class and sat down, Foster saw Jack lean over to Blinky and whisper in his ear. Then both boys turned around laughing, Blinky's eyelids fluttering like a bee's wing. Foster felt bad-dream breathless, made all the worse because he knew he was already awake.

Dad had once told Foster a story about a queen who was part bee and part lady. She had wings that beat so fast their thrum was like the ping of a harmonic on a guitar string. Her name was Melaina, a name Foster thought as musical as the sound of her trembling wings. She lived in the underworld, probably the same place Mum's moat serpents came from. Dad didn't actually say that but Foster imagined the underworld to be full of dark things that trap princesses and inspire heroes. But Melaina was very sad. After dark she would take flight among sleeping humans and bring them a draught of honey laced with her melancholy. Dad said that's where bad dreams come from. And when she finished whispering her sadness into the ear of a soundly sleeping boy she would leave a fine dust of golden pollen on his eyelashes, like a sticky gauze. That's why it was so hard to
wake up from a nightmare, Dad said. She was not to be feared, but pitied. Dad sat on the edge of Foster's bed on the night of that story until he fell asleep again. Dad didn't sit on the edge of Foster's bed much anymore.

‘Foster Sumner!'

Blinky and Jack were still looking at Foster but so was the whole class now. Mr Ballantyne was looking too.

‘Yes?' Feeble, but it was the first thing to come out of Foster's mouth.

‘Wakey-wakey, Foster, I said,' Mr Ballantyne continued. ‘It's your turn to give class news. What would you like to share this morning?'

Foster had forgotten about class news. Usually Mum helped him think of something to bring to class that he could talk about. Once he'd brought in a praying mantis the size of Mum's palm. She'd found it sunning itself on the kitchen windowsill and scooped it up, fingers kinked to gently tent the twiggy limbs. It rocked back and forth on her hand, its huge head thrusting like a pigeon breast. Mum had put it in a shoebox with some leaves from the garden and said, ‘Now that's news, Fossie.'

But Foster didn't have any news today.

‘I don't have any news today,' he said. That's when he heard someone quietly say, ‘Oh, he's got news.' Everyone started to laugh. Foster had to hold hard to that untasted cake to stop himself from crying. He hadn't cried at all, not really. Not even at the most terrible things, like Dad going missing or the church puddle.

‘Settle down, everyone. No news at all, Foster? That's all right. Maybe next week.' Mr Ballantyne moved on to the next person, who had shells that used to be the home for living things. Sometimes the thing inside died, and sometimes it got too big and had to move into a bigger shell. You wouldn't know the shell had nothing inside unless you got right up close and gave it a shake.

By recess, everyone knew it was Foster's dad who had forgotten where he was and wet his pants, and although Foster was in the clear, so to speak, the snickering and nasty jokes continued. He began by laughing along with it all, as if he didn't care what they thought or said. But the laughing along didn't feel good, and Foster felt if he laughed too hard he might break open. He needed something else. So from his sadness and his desperate need to hide from everything, Foster pictured his dad eating cake, while
he himself had to go to school. The result was anger. Foster decided his best way through the day was to join the ranks of the bullies against the real cause of his humiliation: Dad.

‘It really stank!' he said, the small crowd around him beginning to grow. ‘I was like, “Put the window down! Put the window down.” ' Boys around him were shrieking with laughter. ‘Mum sat in it. She had it all over her dress . . . he just stood there like a baby. Mr Wet Pants!' Boys echoed the phrase, a sing-song slur bouncing off shiny concrete verandahs.

‘What'd you do then?' someone asked.

‘Got out of there, stupid!' Foster said. Suddenly all the boys were laughing at the stupid one who didn't know what Foster did then.

Soon the small gathering broke apart as boys headed to the after school pick-up area. Still the chuckling and repeating of the story as smaller and smaller groups of boys hurried away to waiting cars, taking the news of the General's greatest battle loss further and further afield. Foster now a part of the laughter instead of the object of it, popular by choosing the side of disgust over shame. He was one of the group again. It should feel better than this. Foster couldn't understand why it didn't feel better.

Foster was the last one to be picked up. Mum was often late these days. As he waited, one of Jimmy Maher's friends spun past on his bike and called out, ‘Maybe next time he'll shit himself!'

Foster laughed hard, and waved. When he was finally alone, he cried. For the first time. He'd turned the tears into something else by the time Mum pulled the car up next to him though.

not-so-nice necessities

Foster didn't like it when Mum had a weekend shift at the meat factory. He knew she preferred nights to weekends because the money was better and Aunty was available, but she took the shift because she wanted to get ahead. That's how she explained it to Foster. ‘We need to get ahead a little,' she said as she picked up the phone to call Miss Watson.

‘Not Miss Watson,' Foster said.

‘Oh, Fossie, please,' Mum said. ‘I know she's boring but it's just for a few hours.'

‘Why do you pay her? She doesn't do anything.'

‘She keeps you safe,' Mum replied. ‘Please, help me by not arguing.'

The phone call to Miss Watson was always a long one, or at least longer than Foster thought it needed to
be when Mum was only after a yes or a no. Miss Watson seemed to do most of the talking. Mum seemed mostly embarrassed and way too grateful. Especially given Miss Watson always came. Once again Miss Watson arrived within the hour. With her book.

She sat in the lounge with Foster and Dad while Mum did those final little things Mum always did before leaving the house. There seemed to be more and more of those little things lately, and it all seemed a bit haphazard, as if she was delaying leaving until the last possible moment. She checked things twice, sometimes three times over: the back door lock, the kettle, the stovetop. She opened the fridge several times. She said ‘Yes, yes, yes' to herself as she did these things, then stood in the centre of the room and smiled with a puffy sigh. Foster grew more and more anxious as Mum completed her little things before leaving. Every safety check another step closer to him and Dad being left alone with Miss Watson.

Miss Watson had often explained Dad's demeanour after having spent time with her as confusion and just missing Mum. ‘He's just missed you today, that's all' she would say when Mum would return home to find Dad pale with distress. He would be harder to settle, harder to distract. And Foster would watch Mum
stare questions at Miss Watson as she shoved payment for her time into her knobby fist, wanting something from her other than what looked like judgement of her own battle between necessity and guilt.

Being watched by Miss Watson was far worse for Foster than it was for Dad. Dad would forget. Dad lived in his right-now moment, every moment. Foster often imagined it would be lovely to step into the next moment without the shadow of the previous moment following. He knew that feeling when he played with his soldiers or got lost in one of Dad's stories. But lately Foster found himself carrying both his own distresses as well as the ones his dad had forgotten. So when Miss Watson eased herself into the lounge chair, book in hand, while Mum did her puffy-sigh last-minute reconnaissance of the house, Foster felt desperate. He grabbed Mum's arm as she grabbed her purse.

‘Miss Watson isn't nice,' he whispered.

‘Fossie, not now, please. Just do as she asks,' Mum said, but Foster saw the creasing of her good eye where her mascara was smudged. Mum never used to go anywhere with smudged make-up. ‘We'll talk about it when I get home. I'm late.' Mum leaned down and kissed Foster hard on the top of his head.

‘Thank you, Miss Watson,' she said, leaning over
Dad and touching his face. ‘Malcolm, I'm off to work for a few hours. I won't be long.'

‘Okay,' Dad said. ‘I'll wait here, then. Have a good day.'

Then Mum was gone. Just for a few hours.

bullying and broken things

Miss Watson opened her book and began to read. It was the same book she had brought last time. It wasn't a big book. Foster wondered if their lounge room was the only place she read. Dad was watching television, his fingers stroking the fraying threads of the armrest as if he were reading Braille. Foster watched Dad's fingers. There was grace in them. Foster was about to go to his room and get out the General when Miss Watson said, ‘Turn off the TV. Go play in your room.'

She didn't look up from her book. She waited just long enough to be sure Foster had not moved before casting her eyes over her spectacles and saying, ‘Foster, I said turn off the TV and go and play in your room.'

‘Dad likes the TV,' Foster said.

‘And I'm trying to read,' Miss Watson replied,
leaning forward and seizing the remote. She pressed a couple of buttons before landing on the right one in an irritated way. Then she tossed the remote onto the couch beside her. It took Dad a few seconds to register the loss of picture and sound. He turned to Miss Watson and said, ‘Is it broken?'