Juno of Taris (19 page)

‘You weren’t there, Zanin. Being there – feeling the hate. That made the difference.’

Dad got up and half turned away. My hands flew to my mouth. He couldn’t withdraw, not my own father. Not from us, his family. But he slapped a hand onto a wall. ‘You’re wrong, Sheen. It’s unthinkable. Evil. What sort of society are we living in if that’s even halfway true?’ He came back and knelt at her feet. ‘Don’t turn from the accepted ways, my love. Don’t wreck our family.’

I cringed back into my chair. This was my fault. I’d done this to my family – split it down the middle.

Mother leaned forward and kissed him gently on the forehead. ‘Let’s ask our parents to dine with us tonight.’

Dad jerked his head away and stood up. ‘This is our problem. Ours and our daughter’s.’

I sat with my head bent. I couldn’t bear to look at him for fear of what I might see in his face.

He knelt down in front of me next and looked into my eyes. ‘You will not go to the bay with Vima any longer. I forbid it.’

‘Dad – you can’t …’

Mother whispered, ‘I do not forbid it.’

My stomach clenched as he stared at her, stricken. I ran to the bathroom and vomited into the sink. All I’d wanted was hair. It had split my family. Cleaved us down the middle as surely as any axe could have done. I thought Mother would run to me as she always did when I was ill, but she didn’t. I heard the sound of their voices – Dad’s urgent and hers steady.

I rinsed my mouth. I’d go back and tell them I would comply. I wouldn’t grow my hair. I wouldn’t go to the bay with Vima. I looked at myself in the mirror but it was as if I didn’t see my own bald head: instead I saw Hera squirming and yelling as Nixie tried to shave off her hair. I saw her being crushed, always in the wrong, people constantly withdrawing from her. All because she, too, would not fit the mould. And it was my fault she didn’t.

I went back to my parents. Mother smiled at me. ‘You are better, my daughter?’

She was so brave, so sure. ‘Yes. I’m better.’ I wanted to go to Dad, to hug him, but he stood with his arms folded across his body and his face granite-hard. I drew in a ragged breath. ‘Dad – I’m going to the bay.’

He turned from me. My own father withdrew from me.

Mother and I ate our lunch at the table. Dad took his outside. I ate half a piece of bread. Mother managed a little more, but not much. We didn’t speak.

Two people withdrew from Vima and me as we jogged to the bay. Shallym’s mother didn’t – she didn’t notice us. Tears were streaming down her face.

Vima looked after Hera for me once we arrived. ‘Go and swim. Swimming’s good. It settles the mind.’

I swam until surely I must touch the walls of our world. I raised my head. Not even close. I came back and lay on the sand. ‘You want to give up?’ Vima asked, her tone neutral.

‘Yeah. I do. But I’m not going to.’

She gave a crack of laughter. ‘My feelings in a nutshell.’

I told her what had happened, about Dad withdrawing. She didn’t say anything, she just wrapped both arms around me in a tight hug and let me bawl my eyes out.

The grandparents all came to dinner that evening. Mother must have prevailed on Dad, or maybe they decided to come because of the news of our rebellion. I didn’t ask.

We went through the routine of the evening meal. It was a sombre occasion. We focused our attention on Hera, who was subdued and clingy. We ate, we cleared away and washed the dishes. The small talk of our existence dwindled into silence.

‘I’ll make drinks,’ Dad said as we slotted the last dishes into their places. ‘Then we’ll talk.’

I chose not to sit beside my mother on the sofa. I wanted Dad to sit there. I wanted them to be united, the way they’d been for all the days of my life. He brought in the drinks. He didn’t bring one for me. He didn’t sit beside Mother. He brought a kitchen chair and set it apart, waiting to see which side the grandparents would choose.

I hurt right through with pain worse than Hilto’s digging fingers.

‘You know the story,’ Dad said. ‘And you know, too, that this meeting isn’t at my request. But let us begin.’

Dad’s parents spoke first. Bazin said, ‘It’s a serious thing to buck the system.’

Leebar got up, fetched a chair from the table and set it down beside Dad. She put a hand over her son’s, but she looked at me. ‘Juno, can’t you see? What you’re doing is wicked. You’re causing a rift between your mother and your father.’

Tears shone in my mother’s eyes. I had to stay strong – all over Taris, this same scene would be happening in thirteen other houses. ‘I have chosen my path. I have made my decision.’

Bazin snapped, ‘Then there’s nothing to be done. You’re determined to wreck all our lives. Go ahead. Do it. Grow your hair and may it choke you.’

This was my grandfather. My beloved grandfather, glaring at me with hate in his eyes.

Grif and Danyat said nothing. I couldn’t read their faces. Inscrutable. I’d heard that word from Grif herself.

Mother hugged her arms around her body. Dad had tears tracking down his face.

I kept my eyes on Hera. She turned over from her back to her front, crawled four wobbly steps before she flopped down again. It was the first time she’d done it. Nobody noticed. I looked at Bazin and spoke without thought. ‘What was it like to have hair?’

The silence froze around me. Dad broke it. ‘Juno, you’re losing your mind.’ He sounded as if he hoped that that was what was wrong with me.

Bazin got to his feet, his face suddenly looking a hundred years old, instead of less than seventy. ‘You know the story, Juno. I’m disappointed in you. Deeply disappointed.’ He headed for the door.

I screamed after him, ‘Well, tell me the truth then!’

Leebar got up and followed him. Dad called, ‘Wait! I’m coming with you.’

He strode from the room, not glancing at me, not farewelling my mother. In the silence of his leaving, Grif and Danyat looked at each other, and seemed to agree on something unspoken before they too, headed for the door.

I wanted to scream and rage, but my voice came out in a squeaking choke. ‘You’re cowards. All of you!’

Danyat turned back. He gripped my shoulder. ‘There are decisions to be made, Juno. We must not act hastily.’

I wrenched away from him.

Grif grabbed me as I tried to run from the room. She held tight to my shoulders, her hands pressing on the bruises Hilto had left. ‘There are different kinds of courage, my child. Yours is one kind. Ours is another. Don’t judge what you can’t understand.’

Mother stared in bewilderment. ‘What are you talking about?’

Danyat thought for a moment. ‘I will not say the words. Not yet. Words can never be recalled. Remember that, Juno.’

I stared at him, trying to fathom the meaning of what he’d said. ‘And actions can never be forgotten.’ I could barely speak above a whisper.

‘Or suppressed it would seem,’ Grif remarked. She smiled at us, her devastated daughter, and both of her upset granddaughters. ‘This is not the end. We will consider what is best to be done. We will talk to Leebar and Bazin.’ They left Mother, me and Hera alone and without Dad for the first time in my life.

Hera wound up to a full-blooded yell of anguish. Mother didn’t respond, she didn’t seem to hear her. I picked her up. It took ages to calm her, then I handed her to Mother to feed her.

‘She crawled,’ I said.

‘And we missed it.’ She didn’t say anything else. Not while she was putting Hera to bed, not when she came back into the lounge. She collapsed onto the sofa and stared into the distance.

‘Mother?’ I sat beside her. I wanted to touch her, but I was afraid to – scared she’d turn on me and accuse me of breaking the bond between her and Dad.

But she patted my hand absentmindedly. ‘They had hair. My parents had hair.’ She shook her head. ‘I wish Zanin was here. I wish …’ She bent over and wailed. It was the sound of heartbreak. I crept away and cried myself to sleep.

I woke early in the morning to Hera’s wailing that the new day had arrived and she was hungry. I lay still, waiting till Mother went in and picked her up. My mind played over the scenes of the day before. My father had gone – had withdrawn from us, and it was my fault.

I curled up and hugged my knees. Who was right – him or me? I believed I was. I believed still that this whole drama was about more than our hair. I knew another thing as well – I knew that my childhood was over.

D
ad came home early in the morning to collect some clean clothes. I heard him come in. I slid from my bed and crept to the living room. He stood at the table, folding a tunic. He looked as though he hadn’t slept. I wanted to run to him. I wanted him to pick me up, hug me and tell me all was well.

He looked up, stared at me for long moments, then went back to his task.

‘What did they tell you?’ I hardly recognised my own voice.

He ignored me.

But Mother appeared through the door of their bedroom. She went to him, walking as if her feet hurt. ‘Zanin, don’t do this. We are your family.’ She clutched his arm.

I thought he’d fling her away, turn from her, storm out of the house, but he didn’t. He sighed, right from the depths of his being and lowered himself to a chair. He propped his head in his hands. ‘Sheen,
I’m
not the one destroying our family, endangering the entire five hundred of us.’ He lifted his head and looked in her eyes. ‘It’s our daughter doing that. And you are supporting her. I can’t …’ he shook his head.

‘I
have
to! She’s my child – our child.’ Her wail of anguish shivered into my bones. ‘And you weren’t there. You didn’t see Hilto’s madness. He’s not trustworthy, Zanin – he’s not! You have to believe me.’

He didn’t answer her. He reached for another garment, folded it and placed it carefully in the basket at his feet. Mother sobbed.

Something bumped my leg. I looked down. It was Hera. She’d crawled from wherever it was that Mother had left her. She was silent, her face was screwed up with determination. I moved aside and she wobbled on into the room.

Dad stared, watching her. She got about a metre into the room before she flopped down for a rest. He put his head on the table and wept.

Neither Mother nor I could move. Hera got up on all fours again and headed for him. She managed it, collapsed again, but batted his leg with a fist. He reached down and picked her up. He held her close and rocked back and forth.

I tiptoed to the table, pulled out a chair opposite him and sat down. ‘Dad? What did Leebar and Bazin say?’

He didn’t answer. He put Hera back on the floor, bundled up the remainder of the clothes and walked out the door.

Mother’s face lost every hint of colour. I thought she would faint. I felt that I would. Hera sobbed.

But it was Saturday. I had to help with the manual work of the island. ‘I can’t go,’ I whimpered. I dug a fist into my gut to stop the pain. ‘I can’t do it.’

Mother didn’t seem to hear me. I watched Hera. She’d turned onto her back and she was crying – sobbing.

I had to go on. For her, if for no other reason. I picked Hera up and put her in Mother’s arms. ‘I have to go to work. Will you be all right?’

She seemed to come back from the frozen place where she’d been. ‘I’ll be all right. Be careful, my daughter.’

Yes. Don’t go anywhere alone. Today we’d been assigned the task of preparing Heskith’s house for whitewashing. He was Irian’s friend and too old to do it himself. I waited on the verandah, looking for somebody to walk with. Eelo came past. He saw me and turned away. Oh. How stupid; I’d forgotten that people would withdraw from me. If Silvern hadn’t left already, I could walk with her. I darted down the path behind Eelo and waited outside Silvern’s house. She saw me through the window and came running out, slamming the door behind her.

We passed a string of people. We heard hisses as we went. We raced past a group of Vima’s stratum. ‘We’re with you. We’re joining the hair movement too.’ That was Prin. Wellin held her hand and grinned at us – Prin’s comment had stopped us in our tracks. The other three laughed. ‘Yep. All of us.’

Well! Silvern and I looked at each other. I don’t know what she felt, but I knew that I’d just been thrown a lifeline. I might survive the storm. ‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘Yeah,’ Silvern added. ‘Whew!’

We walked after that. ‘Your house a disaster area too?’ she asked.

‘A nuclear bomb site.’ I gave her the bones of what had happened.

She whistled. ‘Jeez! And I thought I had problems.’

‘We might be the only ones turning up today,’ I warned her.

She sent me a sudden grin. ‘I didn’t think you would.’

I pulled my mouth down. It was only because of Hera that I had.

Erse was waiting at Heskith’s house when we arrived in a dead heat with Marba and Paz. I relaxed slightly. We weren’t alone.

Erse rapped out instructions. We’d have to work unsupervised because he wasn’t going to have anything to do with Unshavens.

So. We now had a name. We were the Unshavens.

He laid out brushes and scrapers – enough for all fourteen of us – then we watched him walk away.

‘Looks like it’s just us,’ Paz said.

Heskith hobbled from his house. ‘Get on with it and no talking. Troublemakers.’ He creaked over to a garden seat where he could watch and glare at us.

Marba ignored him. He took down the ladder leaning against the wall, lay it on the ground and examined it.

‘Get on with it,’ Heskith ordered.

Marba picked the ladder up and slapped it back against the wall. ‘No booby traps today,’ he remarked.

I drew in a sharp breath. I wished more of us had come. Safety in numbers. Strength in numbers.

We’d scraped down half the front wall when Fortun, Yin and Brex arrived, puffing from running. ‘Sorry we’re late,’ Fortun said. ‘Bit of drama. For all of us.’