Have You Seen Ally Queen? (9 page)

A wattlebird lands on the tree above me and checks me out. It bounces gently with the branch.

Shel texted again this morning. I haven’t replied. I can’t, somehow.

Everything is strange. I am strange, life is strange. But everything carries on the same. Get that.

A perfect Killer Python, cordial green and attentiondeficit-disorder red, swings into view just in front of my face. I have to change my focus. This is a particularly fat and succulent python, definitely not from the dry, barren shopping landscape of Melros.

‘Want some?’

Rel sits down beside me with a paper bag that looks fairly squirming with edible reptilia. He crosses his legs and tucks his skate shoes under his knees.

‘Are they real?’

He looks at me like I’m a chop short of a mixed grill and says, ‘Well ... no, Ally, hate to break it to you like this, but no, they’re stuffed, actually.’

‘No, no, I mean, they’re great Killer Pythons—where’d you get them? The ones at deli are dry and cracked, and their caramel buds are past their use-by date.’

‘Ah. Well, you’ve just gotta know the right spots, hey.’

The sun’s shining down through the trees and I move so I’m leaning against one of the rough trunks, a perfect backrest. Killer Pythons, I think, and Mum’s in her own personal hospital so she can’t tell me off and offer me a piece of fruit instead. Seriously, fruit does
not
compare to any good snack; it is entirely unsatisfactory.

Rel’s waving one in front of me again. ‘Hello, hello, are you with us, Queen Alison? What’s going on in there, anyway?’

I look at him and for a moment I like his messy hair and too-big smile.

He says, ‘Is everything cool with you, or what? You don’t tell anyone anything, do you? You’re like a bloody hermit.’

Behind him are all the kids from the school, moving and running and shouting and talking, and I feel about a hundred kilometres away, looking at them through a telescope.

Rel’s looking pretty confused, poor guy. What kind of weirdo does he think I am? I need to clear my head. For once, I know exactly what I want to do.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ I say, looking around for teachers.

He stops eating, tries to look cool. ‘Where do you wanna go?’

Somewhere where things feel normal,
I think. I know a couple of places like that.
My
places. I snatch up a python. ‘You’ll see. It’s a surprise. Coming?’

Rel shoves the snakes bag into his shorts pocket and says, ‘Ally, you are one weird chick.’ He leans down to adjust his shoelaces and tries to look relaxed. ‘Yeah, I’ll come. But you can write the notes from our oldies, all right?’

I have to make Rel cover his eyes after a while because he keeps saying, ‘I know where we’re going, I know where we’re going.’

‘No, you
don’t.’

‘I know round here like the back of my hand.’

‘You sound like my old man. Just shut up and wait, will you?’

‘Oooh, sorry, Adolf.’

Adolf.
Shit. Adolf. That just about sums me up, doesn’t it? He’s right. I glow red and keep my eyes on the sand track. I’m glad he can’t see me—I’m cut. Why am I like that? Why can’t I be sweet and
demure
like other girls, like Ms Carey? Why can’t I be pretty and funky and gently-spoken? Why can’t I be Angelgirl? Why
can’t
I? I can be whatever I want, can’t I?

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ he asks into my silence.

I try my sweet voice. ‘Nearly.’ I sound like a mum singing to her children.

‘Are you being sarky?’

Jeez. Why don’t I just swim out into the distance like that prime minister did and end it all now? This is turning out to be a really fun afternoon. ‘No,’ I sigh. ‘We’re here, actually.’

He moves his hand from his eyes and looks around. ‘What, here?’

This is really awful. This whole thing was going to be so much fun and it’s not; it’s a complete flop.

I feel like a dickhead. ‘The mulberry tree,’ I mumble, half pointing. ‘Do you like...?’ Ah, what’s the point. ‘It’s got lots of fruit on it,’ I say lamely.

Rel’s laughing like I’m doing some kind of stand-up comedy, or something.

That’s it. I turn around to go home. ‘I can see this is way above your brain capacity, so I’m going. Bye.’

‘No, no—Ally.’ He’s trying to catch up on his breathing after so much laughing.

Some ants are crawling over my foot and I slap the living shit out of them. I look up at him, pretending to be bored. ‘What?’

‘This is my place. This is
my
mulberry tree.’ He starts laughing again, and hiccups. ‘Mum planted it’—he changes voices—
‘fifteen years ago, that’s how you make things happen, Rellard, “from little things, big
things grow”—that’s what Paul Kelly says.
Paul Kelly! Mum loves him, she loves him, pours herself a glass of wine while she’s cooking tea and cranks up the stereo—
my stereo!
—with that ...
urine.’

The cicadas have gone super quiet. One of them tries a
chick-chick,
but then clams it again. I’m staring at the tree,
his
tree, and all I can say is, ‘Rellard? That’s your name?’

‘Yeah, I know, don’t say it.’ He does quote marks in the air. ‘It’s
interesting.
Or
different.
It was my grandfather’s name. It’s a family thing.’

‘So you’ve been here for like—’

‘Ever.’

‘Jesus. I mean, wow. You must really ... like it.’

He nods. ‘It’s cool. I get to surf and fish—on my own, half the time. And I can go up to Perth whenever I want, for weekends and stuff. Got some all right cousins up there. But normally I just hang out here, ‘cos, I dunno, I like it.’

My mouth drops open and I look straight at him. ‘Were you ... down there the day the whales got beached? Were you helping out?’

‘Yeah,’ he nods. ‘Were you there, too?’

I try not to smile too wide. ‘I thought I saw you,’ I say quietly.

The sky’s dipping down on to us, way blue. I knew he lived around here, but never
this
close, and it hadn’t clicked that it was
him
that evening on the beach with the whales. Before I know it, Rel’s gone inside and got an ice-cream container, and we’re filling it with mulberries, together, and the day has changed all over again.

I want to go and see Mum. On my own. There’s no point asking Dad if I can; he’ll just want to come, too. So I press the button on the phone for Aunty Trish (Mum’s filled up all the memory buttons, even has 000 saved in case we can’t remember that) and wait while it rings.

‘Trish Queen.’

‘Aunty Trish, it’s Ally.’

‘Ally! Well, won’t your mum be glad that you called. How was school today?’

‘Fine, boring. Actually, I was wondering if it’d be okay for me to come over and see Mum.’

‘Oh, I can’t see why that’d be a problem, as long as your dad says it’s okay.’

‘He said it’s fine.’

‘Great, so when will we see you?’

‘Well, that’s the only problem. I kind of ... need a lift.’

I can almost hear her smiling over the phone. ‘No problems, possum, I’ll be round in half an hour.’

Half an hour—cool. Dad’s meeting a new client today, so he said he’d be late home, and McJerry’s at some McNerd’s place, designing electrical boards, so I’m in the clear. I race down to my room to get changed. If I’m quick, I can still make it to the beach before Aunty Trish gets here. I’m gunna collect some shells and cuttlefish and one of those brown sea sponge things for Mum. Reckon she might need a surrogate bathroom collection while she’s away. There’s no way I’m picking up an old blowie skeleton, though—that’s just wrong. She’ll have to do without until she comes home. She
will
be coming home soon; I’m sure of it.

Aunty Trish is so cool. She has Triple J playing on the car stereo when she rolls up. She reckons Mum is getting better, a bit every day, and that she misses us heaps.

‘Tell that to Jerry,’ I say, as the trees blur past us, blown away by Aunty Trish’s driving. ‘He’s not so sure.’

Mum’s reading a magazine when I go into her room, and she gives me a big cuddle on the edge of the bed.

‘Since
when
did you read those
trashy
magazines?’ I say, grinning.

She looks embarrassed. Mum reckons it’s really important for people to practise what they preach. Well, usually.

‘Yes, fair enough, Ally, I er...’—and her voice drops to a whisper—‘I found it in the loo. Trish likes them. I’m not really reading it, just looking at the pictures.’ She laughs palely. ‘How’s everything? How’re Dad and Jerry?’

‘Fine. Missing you, though. When do you ... When do you think you’ll be able to...’

She looks at the bedspread. ‘I don’t know.’

Now we’re both looking at the bedspread. I know that was the wrong question. What was I
thinking?
Stupid idiot. I start talking to try to get rid of it.

‘Oh, it’s okay, it doesn’t matter, Mum, we just want you to get better, that’s all—don’t worry about us. Hey, get this: Dad cooks us brekkie every morning and Jerry even makes cups of tea and stuff now.’

She’s grinning again. ‘You’re kidding.’

‘Nup. Here, I brought you some things from the beach.’ I pass her the plastic—oops—bag and she peers inside. ‘I thought it might remind you of home. You could put them next to your bed, or something—you
know, smells of the sea.’

‘Oh, Ally.’

Her smile’s bending downwards and her chin pulls in the tiniest bit, so I start talking again. I tell her about the mark I got for my English assignment (but not the one I got for maths), and what Ms Carey said about it, and how cool she is, and about stuff that Jerry’s doing at school. Then there’s a bit of a pause, but not a sad one, so I think, okay, now’s my chance, and as she’s turning over the shells in her hand I try to say the right words in the right tone and I end up with:

‘Mum, can you—I mean, could you sort of explain to me why you’re sick? I mean, ‘cos I don’t really understand—because no one’s said
why,
really, and I think it might ... help, a bit.’

Shite, that was terrible. She’s gunna tell Dad about this, for sure, and then I’ll be in trouble.

Instead, she looks at me and says, ‘Oh, Ally, there are lots of reasons.’ She sounds tired. She fingers the bag of sea stuff. ‘I’ve ... found things hard for the last year or so. I don’t fully understand why ... I wish I did.’

‘Is it ... to do with the accident?’

‘I think so. But I was probably always a bit like this.’

‘No, you weren’t,’ I say.

She sits up a bit then and says, ‘Have you heard of
capitalism? Have you done that stuff at school yet?’

Uh-oh. Oh, no. This sounds like the old Mum, with the volume way up, times a hundred.

‘Capitalism?’ I squeak. ‘Not really.’

She takes a breath. ‘Well, it’s the system of economics that we live by here in Australia. Money has become people’s priority. People aren’t happy just to be happy, they have to prove to everyone around them that they’re happy, so they work huge hours in order to have a big house and car and boat, and it’s not until they’re my age that they realise they’re actually having a terrible life.’

Mum’s eyes are kind of staring at something that isn’t there. I look over: it’s just the wall. I shift a bit on the bed, but she goes on.

‘They’re locked into working for the rest of their lives to pay it all off. They don’t have time just to
live
—to spend time with friends and family, or to explore places they’ve never been, or help people less fortunate than themselves, and, usually, they regret those things when they’re about eighty and it’s way too late. But if they change the way they live, people think they’ve lost it—“gone feral”, don’t you kids say?’