Heaven Eyes (16 page)

“Yes, Grampa.”

“I has hidden many things from you.”

“Yes, Grampa. Many many things.”

“And there is still many things waiting to be shown.”

He turned his eyes to me.

“Your friend does understand,” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I understand, Grampa.”

He sighed and lowered his head.

“Heaven Eyes?” he whispered.

“Yes, Grampa?”

“Is there great wrongness in this hiding things?”

“There is no wrongness, Grampa. You is Caretaker. You is been only trying to take care.”

He sighed.

“Yes, little one. I is Caretaker. I has been only trying to take care.”

He sighed again, deeply. He looked old, so old. He looked at me, at January, at Mouse.

“These is your brothers and sister, Heaven Eyes? These is your brothers and sister come back to you again?”

Heaven Eyes whispered.

“Will you be my brother, Mouse Gullane?”

“Yes,” said Mouse.

“Will you be my brother, Janry Carr?”

“Yes,” said January.

“Yes,” said Heaven Eyes. “These is my sister and my brothers come back to me, Grampa.”

“Lovely,” he said. “Lovely as lovely.”

He focused on my eyes.

“You will now take care of Heaven Eyes?”

“Yes. We will now take care of Heaven Eyes.”

“And will you tell her the things that needs to be telt?”

“Yes.”

Tears trickled down the black mud on his cheeks.

“There is also truth,” he said. “There is truth that I did find you lying on the black Black Middens in the moony night, my little one. There is truth that I did
bring you out and care for you.” He lowered his eyes. “I did find your little treasures with you, wrapped inside your pocket, and I did keep them hid from you, my Heaven Eyes. I did think that this would keep you happy in your heart.”

“And I always has been happy, Grampa. Happy as happy.”

He stroked her cheek. He reached down and stroked the saint’s cheek.

He whispered, quiet as quiet.

“Mebbe now the time is come when you must cross the runny water to the world of ghosts, my little one.”

“Oh Grampa,” she said. “Oh my Grampa.”

They held each other tight.

I lifted my head and listened. Not too far away, the great clanking and roaring intensified.

I
WENT BY MYSELF
through the ancient alleyways. I walked away from the river, went beyond the printing works, through the ruins of warehouses and sheds and factories and offices. I scrambled across collapsed walls, beneath teetering roofs. I leapt across great cracks and potholes. I read faded signs telling of metalworkers, shipwrights, ropemakers, bootmakers, coal merchants, ship’s suppliers, nail and screw and wire manufacturers, tea importers, spice importers. Rats scuttled here. Mangy dogs watched timidly from the shadows. Skinny cats hissed and arched their backs and bared their teeth. Pigeons flapped and cooed. Crows scavenged. Outside it all was the city’s low deep endless din, and nearby the roaring, the clanking. And then I saw it, the huge crane making its way toward this place from the city’s edge. I
sheltered in a doorway and watched it come. It moved slowly, gracelessly. The ground cracked beneath its great metal tread. A huge metal ball dangled from its jib. It squealed to a halt fifty yards away from me. A young man in jeans and T-shirt and a red helmet jumped down from the cab onto the metal tread. He lit a cigarette, pulled a newspaper from his pocket, sprawled there in the sunshine and waited. I watched. I waited too. And then the next crane loomed out from the city’s edge and ground its way toward us.

I hurried back to the printing works. In the office, Grampa was in his uniform. He scribbled in his great book. He murmured about the saint, about the great treasure found by Mouse Gullane in the black Black Middens. Heaven Eyes and Mouse were feasting on Milk Tray and Hob Nobs. January knelt on the floor. He had a heap of Grampa’s notebooks, a little pile of newspapers. He was placing them in one of the boxes from the high shelves.

“Where you been?” he said.

“It’s all going to be cleared away,” I said.

I told him what I’d seen, what I expected.

“Can’t be today,” he said. “Too late to start today.”

“No. But tomorrow.”

We looked at Heaven Eyes and Grampa.

“What can we do?” he whispered.

I shook my head. We shared a packet of Hob Nobs. We listened. We watched the door. We expected workmen
to come in at any moment, wearing hard helmets. They didn’t come. The afternoon wore on.

“And Heaven’s brothers and sister is come back to her at last,” Grampa murmured as he wrote. “And they will take her cross the runny water to the world of ghosts.” He scribbled on, he murmured on. Soon his hand began to slow. “And Grampa’s taking care is done,” he whispered. “Love. Grampa an Heaven Eyes. Love, love, love …”

The pencil fell from his fingers to the book.

He looked down at Heaven Eyes.

“Lovely,” he whispered. “Lovely as lovely.”

Then he closed his eyes and lowered his head to the book.

“Grampa,” said Heaven Eyes, turning suddenly to him. “Grampa. My Grampa!”

And she leapt to him.

But Grampa was still. Still as still.

E
VERYTHING WOULD GO
. The printing works, the warehouses, the factories, the offices and sheds. The great printing machines bearing eagles and angels would be put into a museum. The rubble would be hauled away. The ground would be broken up and bulldozed. Shining new offices would appear. There’d be pubs and clubs and restaurants. There’d be lawns and little hills with plaques showing how things had been. There’d be cycle tracks and walkways. There’d be jetties where little sailing boats would be tethered. The sun would shine down and this beautiful new place would glisten beneath it, beside a glistening blue river, and people would wander at ease on broad pathways. We saw it all, January, Mouse and I, late that afternoon,
when we left Heaven Eyes alone with Grampa for a time. We saw it on the great billboards that had been put up beside the waiting cranes. We stood there and wondered, lost in the mystery of Grampa and his death, the mystery of the saint, the mystery of this new world that would soon appear.

When we went back to her, she sat on the floor beside her box of treasures. She was calm and smiling.

“He did tell me this,” she said. “He did tell me that one day he would be still as still and I must cross the runny water.”

She held my hand.

“How did you know that this was the time to come for me?” she asked.

“I don’t know how we knew,” I said. “It was January who made his raft and made us come.”

“Janry Carr,” she said. “Janry Carr, my brother.”

We didn’t know what to do with Grampa. He lay there on his book. We laid his pencils beside him. We tidied his shovels and buckets. As evening came on, we lit candles and placed them near him. We said prayers. We said that he was a good grampa, that he had truly taken care.

I sat with Heaven Eyes with my arm around her.

“Grampa is gone,” she said.

“Yes, Heaven Eyes.”

“He is gone but he will keep staying in my heart.”

“Yes, Heaven Eyes.”

“And I will cry much for him, but I will be happy for him in my heart.”

We looked at her photographs, her family.

“You must whisper ‘Mum. Mum,’” I told her.

“Why is this?” she asked.

“Just try,” I said. “Mum. Mum.”

She took a deep breath.

“Mum,” she whispered. “Mum. Mum.”

She bit her lip.

“Does feel that funny in my mouth,” she said. “Mum. Mum.”

“Just whisper it,” I said. “Just try it, Anna.”

Her mum smiled out of the photograph at us.

“Is a lovely mum,” said Heaven Eyes.

“Yes,” I said.

“Mum. Mum.”

“Say it gentle as gentle,” I said.

“Mum. Mum.”

I felt her spirit relaxing, and I felt the new excitement entering her.

“What is this new funniness in mine head?” she said.

“Funniness?”

“Funniness when I whisper, ‘Mum. Mum.’”

I smiled at her.

“Mebbe this is your mum,” I said. “Mebbe she’s finding a way back into your heart and into your head.”

“Oh, Erin. She is whispering to me.”

“She whispers ‘Anna. Anna.’”

“Yes, Erin. She does whisper ‘Anna. Anna,’ just like in my sleep thoughts.”

“But these are not sleep thoughts.”

“No, Erin. These is waking thoughts and thoughts as bright as day.”

D
EEP INTO THE NIGHT
. Deep into the dark. The moon poured down through the broken rafters. No one slept, but our minds trembled, drifting through truth and dreams and imagination. Jan and I nibbled Hob Nobs and orange creams and wandered over the printing floor. We talked about the raft and about tomorrow.

“We’ll have to leave Grampa and the saint here,” he said. “We’ll have to leave them for the workmen to find.”

“No room on the raft,” I said.

“No room on the raft.”

We put candles around the man we’d dug out from the Middens and we sat with him.

“What will they say,” I said, “when they find them here?”

He smiled.

“All kinds of weird tales’ll be told, eh?”

“Can’t wait to read them,” I said.

I picked at the metal letters on the floor. I laid out the name:

“That’s the story they won’t be able to tell,” I said.

“It’s our story,” said Jan.

“That’s right. Even the bits that we don’t know and the bits we’ll never get to know.”

“Truth and dreams and bits made up.”

We laughed.

“Wonder what Heaven’ll put in her Life Story book,” said Jan.

He told me about the newspapers.

“There are names for all of them,” he said. “The mother, the father, the sister, the brothers. Their boat was washed up on a beach. No bodies were ever found. The whole family was lost at sea.”

“Except Anna.”

“Except Anna.”

“Washed into the river on the tide, washed onto the Black Middens, found by Grampa.”