Sliver Moon Bay: The Looking (15 page)

‘Sarah-honey, I’m going out for
a bit, okay?’

I nod. I won’t open my eyes
cause I don’t want Lilian to see how disappointed I am. She’s
ruined it. Who knows when I’ll get the chance to see Fairy again.
Ah, well. No use blaming Lilian. She’s clueless at the best of
times.

‘I won’t be long. Love
you.’

She goes.

We don’t see each other until
the performance at school, for which she’s just a tad late. At
least she looks happy. She’s snuck in after we’ve started and now
she’s looking for me. It takes her a whole chorus of Jingle Bells
to figure out where I am and then she waves. Course, I can’t wave
back; I’ve got these stupid actions to perform, like we’re in
preschool. Course, everyone finds it delightful and it is quite
funny. Lilian’s certainly enjoying seeing me clowning on the podium
with a pair of antlers stuck to my forehead. If only Starling could
see me now. She’d choke on her lollipop. She’d be sitting on
Chris’s shoulders, licking and laughing at the same time.
Oh,
Starling, how I miss you, my little birdie.

We leave after it’s all over.
We walk out into the night. Everything is calm. Snowflakes whirl
noiselessly about, in the absence of wind. It’s beautiful how they
dance under the streetlamps. I wish we could walk home. But we’re
only walking to the scooter.

A man comes out of the shadows.
He’s a big, strong dude huddled inside a sheepskin coat, with a
beard and red curly hair curling out from under his beanie.

‘Hey,’ he says, giving a
half-wave to us, a half-smile.

‘Hi,’ says Lilian. She’s
breathless. But we’ve only been walking a few minutes.

The man takes a step towards
us. He’s big, towering. We reach the scooter at the same time.

‘How was the show, Lilian?’

The dude nods, looks down at
her, with a smile in his eyes. He’s a handsomely rugged, virile
man. So that’s what she’s been up to.

Lilian nods, looks up at him
with a smile in her eyes. But she’s nervous cause I’m here. And I
have power. Some.

‘Bruce, this is my daughter
Sarah,’ Lilian looks at me pleadingly. She’s asking me to behave.
Of course, I will. Why wouldn’t I? Does she seriously think I’m
gonna make a scene, right here this very minute, out of some
misguided sense of loyalty to Chris?

Bruce and I shake hands.

‘Nice to meet you, Sarah. I’ve
heard a lot about you.’

Have you now? Pray tell…Course,
outwardly I only grimace, nod.

‘Bruce and I work together at
the supermarket, honey. Bruce co-ordinates all the deliveries.’

I swear Lilian is perspiring so
she must really like this dude.

The dude laughs.

‘I just drive the truck,’ he
says. ‘I don’t co-ordinate anything. I dump the stuff where they
tell me to.’

Oh goodie. Finally, a man who
can follow instructions. I like that. And he’s got good teeth.

‘Nice to meet you, Bruce,’ I
manage.

I’m lying, of course. There’s
nothing nice about meeting this guy. What’s going to happen when
Chris comes back? —Exactly. And he will. Dad will come back when
he’s ready. Sometime soon this dude must be made to understand
this. Lilian, as well. But not tonight.

‘I’m tired, Mum. Can we go
home?’

‘Of course, honey. It was nice
seeing you, Bruce.’

They smile at each other. I get
busy putting my helmet on. I wish Starling were here. She’d have
stuck her tongue out at Bruce. She’d have grasped the dude’s after
her Mummy. And that’s not right. But what is right in our world
these days? —Exactly.

59

I think about Dad a lot. I
can’t help it; it’s Lilian who makes me want to see him. Cause
she’s changing, too fast, and not in a good way.

‘Sarah-honey,’ she starts when
she’s getting ready for work. ‘We’re having Christmas drinks at the
pub tonight. So I’ll be a little late, okay?’

Seriously, Lilian? I give her a
look. But she won’t give up. ‘There’s chicken pie in the fridge for
you for dinner. All you have to do is warm it up.’

Oh, Lilian, you fool. There are
other things I have to do. You’ll see. For now, I’m nodding. Okay,
Mum. I’ll have the pie. I’ll watch a movie. Early bedtime cause
we’re going Christmas shopping tomorrow. Sure. It’s gonna be
fun.

She leaves for work.

I call her after lunch. ‘I have
this pain, Mum,’ I’m telling her. ‘I can hardly move. It’s in my
belly.’

She freaks out, but
cautiously.

‘Sarah-honey. It’s probably
your periods.’

‘Mum, I’m not due for at least
two weeks.

I hear her thinking. She’s
ticking, alright.

‘Make some camomile tea. It’ll
make you feel better. And take your jeans off. Are you wearing your
skinny’s?’

‘I’m in my pyjamas, Mum. My
tummy hurts.’ I’m putting on a bit of a whine, Starling-like.

But she’s not giving up without
a fight.

‘Lie down, honey, and have your
tea. Rest, maybe watch a movie. It will take your mind off it,
okay?’

‘Okay, Mum.’

‘I’ve got to go, sweetie. I’ll
call you on my break.’

She hangs up first. Tsk, tsk.
That’s not like her. Whenever Starling complained of the littlest
thing, Lilian would freak, for real. Not half-assed like she just
did for me. This sort of attitude could really make one angry,
couldn’t it?

She calls in an hour. I moan to
her, convincingly this time cause she’s starting to freak out for
real. She’s talking appendicitis, ambulance. So I talk her down and
she promises to call no-one but she’ll come home as soon as work is
over.

Ah, finally, I can enjoy myself
a little. I’ll watch something, a Christmas comedy, by the look of
it. Ah well, it’ll have to do.

In a little while I’m bored
with it. So I’m gonna have me a little sleep.

I wake up when it’s dark. My
neon Fairy clock shows it’s 8 pm. It’s a weird time to be waking
up. There should be a little noise going on next door in the
kitchen. Cooking noise, washing dishes noise, background tv noise,
sipping tea noise. But the trailer is quiet. Dark. Maybe there was
an avalanche while I slept.

Lilian? You here, Mum? I roll
out of bed, listening. I’m peering out the window into the darkness
outside. I’m looking at me. Here, in this window, and in hers. The
picture couldn’t be clearer. We’re taking it up a notch.

I slide around the trailer in
my bed socks. They’re pink and fluffy, like a little duck that’s
been coloured. Starling chose them for me. It’s best I keep them
on. To remind me. Of what I’ve lost. Starling is keeping me
focused. She would have had fun on a night like this. With me.
Unlike Lilian who’s having fun on a night like this without me.

I really don’t know what is
going to happen with us. We’re falling apart, obviously. Dad gone,
Mum going and where does that leave me? I don’t know.
Oh,
Starling, I wish you were here. We’d still be a family
. Of
sorts.

At half past twelve she comes
in. The scooter’s headlight signals me through the trees, in and
out, in and out, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin and out, like the
Morse code. Chris explained it to me once, showed me with his
flashlight how it works but that was a long time ago and I don’t
remember any of it. Still, it looks like she’s telling me
something, just riding the scooter home. Well, she is telling me
one thing. She’s home. Late.

She sneaks in, quietly.

‘Good morning, Mum.’

‘Sarah-honey,’ she’s looking at
me, not knowing what to say next. Looks like a naughty girl caught
with her hand in the cookie jar. Yeah. Like that. And
that
is my mother, standing there like a fool, stuck for words.

Course, I have no such problem.
I have plenty to say to her. But for now I’m looking at her,
waiting.

‘You okay, honey?’ She’s trying
to deflect, obviously. ‘How’s your tummy?’

‘Terrible. How was your party?
Did you have a good time?’

‘I did, yes. Oh, Sarah-honey,
I’m sorry. Time got away from me. And you didn’t call. I just
assumed you were feeling better. I’m sorry,’ she’s pleading with
me, hugs me, kisses my hair. It used to work on Starling. And it’s
working on me now. I just can’t move even though she reeks of
cigarette smoke and alcohol and aftershave. After. Shave.

‘I love you, honey.’

‘I love you too, Mum.’

Sometimes it’s just best to
take a break. From the world. And it’s snowing tonight.

We put on a brew of chamomile
tea and sit around the pull-out, talking. She’s telling me gossip
from work. I tell her some shit about school. It feels so normal
I’m imagining Starling in my bed, sleeping, and Chris out there in
the shed, putting the finishing touches to a surprise Christmas
present. Something for me and Starling to enjoy. But there won’t be
a new tricycle this year. Ah, well, sometimes you just have to go
with the flow. I won’t mention Bruce tonight.

60

Our world is fucked, that’s for
sure. But it gets worse when Lilian suggests we should have lunch
with Bruce, on Christmas day. So it’s confirmed. She did spent time
with him at the Christmas party. This has got to stop right now! I
can’t run this show like this. Despite all my resolution,
determination and gritted teeth, I can’t. I’ve got to let her
know.

‘You’re fucked in the head,
Lilian! Do you seriously expect me to have Christmas with that
clown? What about Dad? Who is he having Christmas lunch with? What
about Starling? Who is she entertaining out there, alone in her
hidey hole, on Christmas day? Bugs? Worms? The Boogey Man?’

‘Sarah! How dare you!?’

She charges at me. But she’s
about to learn something new.

SLAP!

Her hand flies up to her cheek.
She staggers backwards, away from me until the kitchen pull-out
stops her. Tears spring to her eyes and she collapses, falling on
the sofa. She’s acting this out really well. And she hasn’t even
watched a soppy movie in a while. She’s been too busy romancing
Bruce.

Ah, that fucker’s next. And
it’s time she knew that.

I open the kitchen drawer. It
squeaks and she leaves off snivelling, instantly. She lifts her
head off the sofa. She’s watching me pulling the knife out of the
drawer. It’s a big knife, the biggest one we have.

‘What are you doing,
Sarah?’

She’s scared, stiff. So I was
right. This is what it’s going to take.

‘I’m warning you, Lilian. You
bring him here and you’re gonna regret it.’

I’m turning the knife from side
to side in front of her. In a silly fashion, I must say. It’s kinda
funny; her huddling on the sofa with a fist in her mouth and me
parading a knife right there, in her tearstained dial. As if— But
she doesn’t know that. It’s for the best that she imagines I would.
And Chris will understand. Eventually, when he gets over his anger
of me scaring her. He’ll know that she deserved it. Asked for it,
didn’t she?

Course, she did.

She imagined she had a choice
to make. But there’s no moving on from the consequences of your
actions. You do something wrong and you will pay for it. Karma will
always catch up with you. So we’re all stuck in this. For however
long it takes. There will be no respite. No Bruce, no new life. No
walking away from this, for you, Lilian, however much you’re sorry
now. Get it?

Looking at her, I don’t think
she does. She’s a babe in the woods, after all. It’s not fair to
blame only her. All she ever wanted is to be happy. She just went
about it the wrong way. And Karma caught up with her.

Chris got it, I believe. That
is why he left. He understood that there’s always a price to pay.
For the mistakes you’ve made, for the decisions the consequences of
you’ve learned to live with. He understood that and I’m quite sure
he’s figured out that I understand it too. So that just leaves
Lilian. But I’m too tired now to go on instructing her.

I throw the knife in the sink.
It makes a jarring, clanking noise and Lilian jumps, like, two feet
in the air.

‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry. I
didn’t mean to hit you.’

I throw myself at her. She
throws her arms around me. We cry. And that’s how fucked up our
world has become.

61

We walk in the forest on
Christmas day. The weather threatens to turn horrible but we’re
out. We’re doing it for ourselves, and Starling. We don’t want her
to feel alone, at a time like this. She loved Christmas. She always
helped me decorate the tree, even when she was a baby. Last year
was especially fun. She ran about with the baubles and she put a
whole bunch on the lowest branches and then she had me lift her up
and she put the star on top all by herself. And then we sang songs
and danced about when the tree was finished.

‘
I’m a little snowman, short
and stout. My nose is a carrot, my coat is white… Starling-sweetie,
are you following Sarah?’

Oh! So it wasn’t Fairy! It
wasn’t Emily! It was me. Me and Starling sang this, acted it out,
last year when we put up the tree.

Okay. I’m confused. And so
disappointed. I really thought Fairy was back. But it was just me,
dreaming, wishing. Conjuring what is not there. Ah, well, at least
Starling’s here now.

‘I’m a little snowman, short
and stout. My nose is a carrot, my coat is white…’

‘What are you singing, Sarah?
It is one of Starling’s?’

Lilian stops, turns to look at
me. She looks happy.

‘Go on, don’t stop. I remember
this. Starling loved doing the actions, didn’t she?’

So we sing the song, do the
actions. It’s a good thing. We’re spending time with Starling on
Christmas day.

‘Let’s go make snow angels on
the beach, Mum.’