The Best Australian Stories 2010 (5 page)

Brisbane

Josephine Rowe

And she had this way of swivelling her head round like an owl to talk to you as she drove, except not like an owl because the skin of her neck creased up in folds and she looked so old when that happened, though she wasn't, not then, and Luke would lean over and say Watch the road, Mum.

And what I'll remember of this time is split vinyl and continental breakfasts, fights about who gets the passenger seat, a wallaby cracked over the head with the jack handle and none of us talking till Lismore even though we know she's done the right thing.

We pull in silent to the motel, a low, sandy-brick L shape, with all the doors facing onto the car park and the car park mostly empty, mostly dark. Our room is number seventeen and there is a TV that only gets two stations and one double bed which my brother and I fall into fully clothed with only our shoes kicked off. But something wakes me a few hours later and I panic, forgetting where I am. I go over to the window on shaky legs and see her from the back, standing out by the road. A blonde in denim pedal pushers and white tennis shoes, standing in the light of the motel sign, like the ghost of 1967. Ghost of her younger self, holding a slim beer bottle down by her hip, fingers round its throat like she wants to swing it at something.

In the dark of the room I find the bar fridge and take a bottle of cola from inside the door. Luke lifts his head from the pillow and says Eli, don't you drink that. Those cost like four times as much as they do in the shops, and I say Shut up I'm not going to, and I go back to the window. Try to stand the way she does, the bottle dangling loose from my fingertips. Like I don't care if I drop it. Like I don't care about anything. She stands like that for a long time, just looking out at the road like she's waiting for someone to come pick her up.

In the morning there are flecks of rust-coloured hair dye in the bathroom sink, and Luke takes one look at her and says That's not going to change anything, Mum, because he's older and sharper than I am but he still gets a slap for it, so we're all silent in the car again, all morning, and I wish the radio still worked.

When we get to Brisbane, she's telling us, you won't even remember. And I don't know if she's talking about Dad or the slap, or the wallaby or Victoria or that she was ever a blonde, but in any case I know she's lying, cause she's got her lips pressed into a pale line and her eyes fixed hard on the road.

Small Room

Armadillo

David Kelly

The three of us sit in the orange bucket seats in the foyer of the Newcastle Children's Court. My arse is numb and my sister's hair needs a wash. Her husband has two ugly sweat stains descending out of the armpits of his air-force uniform. He's flown halfway round the world to get here, but I don't know where from. He won't talk. Each time I try, he masquerades as a dead airman, head down, shot clean through the sides.

I think he suspects.

To our right an old woman appears out of a utility room and cranks open a small table like it's an ironing board. She might be a fortune-teller, or a laundress, but instead of a crystal ball, or an iron, she re-emerges carrying an electric kettle, canned coffee, and a sign.

Coffee and Care. A Volunteer Service. A Donation Would Be Appreciated.

I give her a moment to arrange her table.

‘May I have a cup of black coffee, please?'

She nods.

While she levels out a plastic teaspoon of ash-fine coffee, I imagine her wondering how such a polite young man ended up in a place like this. Maybe she thinks I'm a court reporter, or a lawyer. Or maybe, because she doesn't ask anything, it's like in prison where it doesn't pay to ask.

‘I bet you've seen it all here, huh?' I say, giving her space to display the care quota of this transaction.

‘You could say that,' she says, counting her tea bags.

I wonder what secrets she keeps buried beneath her blouse. I want to grab her and tell her about mine – the one lurking beneath my shirt – how I used to walk like an ape because of the rashes, an unfortunate consequence of the aluminium-rich rollon the doctor prescribed for my hyperhidrosis. How the doctor said injections of botox into my glands, or surgery to remove them, would stop my excessive sweating. But both options were expensive: too expensive on my wage.

I imagine telling her about my invention called
Armadillo
.

You can't see this
, I'd say, making a slow turn with my arms outstretched,
but beneath this average, long-sleeved, collared shirt, left
casually open at the neck, I'm wearing three T-shirts that I've cut deep
Vs into, that when pulled on, stretch open to the sternum.

And here, I'd stop my slow spin, and adopt a carefree attitude; slip my hands lightly into the tops of my trouser pockets, and tilt my head.

This means I can wear my outer shirt unbuttoned without revealing
my collection of undergarments below. Thereby presenting a completely
fresh and relaxed look no matter how close I am to the point of nervous
collapse
.

Well how about that!
I imagine her response.
How did you ever
think of such a thing?

It wasn't easy
, I'd say, and go on to describe my first failed attempt. How I'd scissor-snipped a V from one collarbone down, and then back up to the same spot on the opposite side. How the V speared obscenely past my belly button, like an outrageous leotard. How I understood why male acrobats grow huge moustaches and cultivate their chest hair, because on me, the modified T looked awfully feminine.

At this point she would titter, but then realise the extent of my painful journey, and would lean past and give my sister a fierce glare.
Don't feel too poorly. The ones that end up here usually
deserve it
.

Thank you
, I'd say.
You are very kind
.

And the Armadillo name?
I imagine the old lady asking.
Where
did you get the name?

The idea came from the cotton edge of the V rolling over on itself from
the scissor cut, which is what armadillos do when they're threatened. Right? And also because of the words, arm – armour – armadillo. See?

Without Armadillo to mop up the sweat
, I'd say laughing.
I'd look
like a contestant in a wet T-shirt competition, but without the tits.

She hands me my coffee without a word.

Holding the Styrofoam cup I donate twenty cents and walk to the windows. I watch myself in the reflection, blowing lightly and making black wrinkles.

I used to blame my sister, but now I blame the government. They move young couples from one military installation to the next all over the country, and expect them to cope. And then they separate them. There are others here standing about in defence-force uniform. One middle-aged couple sits next to a belligerent-looking teenage boy, and I can see another mother and father combo arguing with a girl in the car park. Both fathers look like they've flown back in the same plane as my sister's husband.

I remember my first visit to my sister's house, stepping out of the car and being enveloped by the sound of gigantic bowling balls rolling across the sky searching for pins, and the fighter jets coming in low overhead. Seeing a white horse in a paddock across the road watching, ears twitching, first one way, then the other, sending me coded signals.

My sister lived in one of six modern bungalows backed onto bush. None of the dwellings had front fences, as if fences were rude.

I checked the house number and pressed the buzzer.

‘Hey,' my sister said, like we'd seen each other the week before, instead of the years since Mum's death.

‘What's with the planes?' I asked, by way of greeting.

‘There's a bombing range in the bush out the back.'

‘Jesus, isn't that dangerous?'

‘Dummy bombs.' She looked at me like I was stupid. ‘They're doing target practice.'

The house was floored in white tile that sounded hollow beneath her heels. The air in the house was three degrees hotter than outside and smelt strange. Milky. There was a framed picture hanging on the living-room wall of a toddler with a faraway smile. The rest of the pictures were of fighter planes in formation, and men in blackface and camouflage. I recognised her husband grinning down.

‘How long is he gone for?'

‘Three months,' she said, sighing. ‘He'll be back in another two.'

We walked into the kitchen. There were open bags of rubbish about the bin. The combination of heat and smell pushed me to the kitchen window. The sink was stuffed with dirty dishes and dotted with baby bottles half full of curdled formula.

‘Do you mind if I open the window – let in some air? I'm really hot.'

‘Just a bit – I can't stand the sound of the jets.'

I forced my hand through the vertical blinds for the window latch. Through the glass I saw a flurry of guinea pigs being herded by an invisible force into the corner of their pen. I couldn't see anything scaring them.

‘Guinea pigs,' I said, feeling the breeze seep into the room. ‘They're spooked by something.'

‘Snakes from the bush. One killed the dog.'

The breeze started shuffling the vertical blinds like cards.

She was standing by the dining table when I saw the rope, taut like a tightrope walker's practice wire, stretched between one of the table legs and the knob of a nearby closed door. I decided it must be an indoor clothesline she'd rigged up. Leaning against one wall of the dining room was the skeleton of a child's bed, down on its side and missing the mattress.

‘Can I make a cup of tea or coffee?' I asked, because it didn't look like she was going to offer.

‘I don't drink tea or coffee,' she said, looking at me as if she was making an important point. ‘I have to sleep.'

‘What do you give visitors?'

‘I don't have visitors.'

‘Well you've got one now!'

She dismissed me with a fairy wave of her hand. ‘You're my brother,' she scoffed.

I tutted and turned, made a real show of leaning my tailbone back against the sink, buying myself time.

There was a photo of our mother magnetised to the freezer door, taken before her diagnosis. She was smiling a ghostly smile and I remembered the last thing I said to her.

‘Yes,' I had cried, on my knees beside her bed. ‘I promise to look after my sister.'

‘Isn't it funny that we should end up in the same part of the world?' I said, pushing the memory aside.

Silence. I changed the subject.

‘Where's your little boy?'

I expected to hear her say the words
day care
.

‘Sleeping in his room.' And then she looked at the closed and tied door.

All of a sudden, over the hot stink of milk and rubbish, I could smell myself.

Mum, help me
.

‘Why do you have rope tied?' I asked carefully, without alarm.

‘To stop him getting out.'

My sister pressed her ear against the door like it was a game.

‘Why?' I wanted to add, but my sister, she closes down like a nuclear power station in meltdown mode if she senses criticism, and I won't be allowed in. It got worse after Mum died.

‘Is he awake?' I asked.

‘I can hear him now.'

‘Can I see?'

My sister suddenly acted like a sulky guard at a border crossing.

‘Oh, go on, darling,' I said, remembering how sweet-talk sometimes worked with her. Or it used to. ‘He's your gorgeous son, and my lovely nephew, and I've never met him before.'

She loosened the knot and peered in through the slight gap. It worked.

‘Yup, he's just lying there with his eyes open. You do that for hours some days, don't you sweetie?'

I looked in over her head, expecting to see a tangle of coloured mobile strings and hanging felt animals, but saw only empty shelves and bare walls. My sister unravelled the rope and pushed the door open. The stale sweet smell, even more concentrated, flumped out.

A little boy, naked except for a disposable nappy, sat on a foam mattress under the window. No curtains, sheets, picture books or toys. Nothing. His blond hair looked clean enough and he seemed unharmed: until I looked closer. There were small, grey curls all over the mattress and carpet. Not shit, but until I lifted my eyes to the window, unidentifiable. The window ledge was scalloped, where he'd been sucking, biting and spitting. The curls about him were wood and paint, like something a dog would do, but the dog was dead, bitten by a snake. The little boy turned his face up in our direction, and with eyes closed, sucked air noisily in and out of his nose as if to get our scent. My shirt stuck to my sides as if I was being vacuum-sealed.