The Lost Child (22 page)

I'm not listening. When I blink, I can make Cele disappear in a blur. Jude tilts her head back to drink and tiny blue veins shine through her pale lids; she looks like Pardie, a pale freckled angel without wings. On the wall behind, there's a photo of Pardie and Dunc, and one of me too. Blink. Now there are two Pardies, two Duncs, two faces of me looking back at me. There are two Celes filling four glasses, and no more for me.

‘…hiding under Grandpa's bed…and then Brendan…'

Without looking at the photo on the wall, I try to remember Dunc's smile. It is a blur. He has been gone too long. Will he ever come home? I try to think of Dad's brother called Brendan, but the thought gets muddled with the photos on the wall and, although I blink and blink again, I can't think who is here and who has gone, and who is the lost child? I lower my head and look at the table where two Judes are stroking two Celes with too many fingers on too many hands. When I look up, Cele is smiling at Jude as if I'm not there.

Jude smiles too, soft and pretty. ‘It's getting late,' she says, glancing at me. ‘Time for Sylvie to go, or Nella will have us for dinner.'

How would Mum know? I won't be telling her.

‘Wait,' says Cele, swivelling her chair to the dresser. Then a camera is on the table in front of me.
Brownie Hawkeye Flash
, I read as she leans forward and hangs the strap around my neck. ‘For you.'

‘Me?'

I look down at the camera against my chest and recognise it as hers. Why is she giving it to me? Sudden tears fizz into the space behind my eyes but I force them to leak down my throat. And all at once, I know she's wrong. He
is
a monster. He burned down our house. That's the whole point. That's why Dunc's disappeared. Can't she see?

Cele's voice drones on about shutter speeds and bubble lenses. ‘There's a new roll of film in it. When you've used it all, I'll show you how to develop it.' She pats my hand and in a bleary kind of way I think: He should be punished; he should be made to pay.

Outside, they wave me off. I wobble about on my bike, suddenly happy and giggly in the cool air. ‘Faack orf,' screams Fred.

I'm pedalling around the lagoon when Roy shoots past, does a wheelie and almost falls off. ‘Hi,' he says as he rights himself. Then he thrusts something at me. When I look up, he's peddling away, his bike rocking from side to side as if it's a boat bobbing about in a storm.

A present? I tear off ribbon and paper. A bottle of 4711 perfume.

This means Roy's in love with me. I like Roy but I'm in love with Mr Kerford. Not that Mr Kerford even knows I exist. Not that I ever see him, except for Maths, and when he's on yard duty, and when he drives the school bus. But never on weekends when he's in Muswell, probably taking Miss Warner to the drive-in; I've seen her smiling in the corridor and flicking her widgie black hair at him. And I don't see him in the holidays because he goes back to the city. And who knows what happens there?

I ride on home thinking of Mr Kerford's tight curly hair and pipe tobacco smell, his tweedy jacket with the leather elbow patches, the way his green eyes twinkle at me as if he knows I exist but only in a cute funny way and not as a girlfriend you'd take to the drive-in.

Next day, Roy and Chicken are waiting outside the Institute when Lizzie and I arrive for the Saturday matinee. I thank Roy for his present and he turns beetroot red. Then he punches Chicken and Chicken punches him and they dance around each other like a couple of dingbats. Inside, they sit up the back but as soon as the lights go out, Roy steps over two rows of seats to sit next to me. Chicken follows and when Roy Rogers gallops across the screen, we stamp our feet and chant:
Roy-Roy! Roy-Roy!
Then Roy stands on the arms of his seat, hooting and yelling, pretending to be riding Tigger like the real Roy.

Mr Stevens flashes his torch and yells that he'll stop the film if we don't shut up. When we quieten down, Roy's arm sneaks along the back of my seat like a night owl coming out of its hole. His fingers wriggle onto my shoulder, circle and swirl. My throat tightens, everything tightens. Next to me, Lizzie tries to read her Fantale wrapper in the light from the screen. I can hardly breathe. The Institute is stuffed full of sweaty matinee smells, Roy's Juicy Fruit breath, the breath of dead soldiers from the Roll of Honour on the wall behind our heads. Gradually Roy leans closer until our heads are almost touching. Lizzie gives me a poke. I kick at her feet and glance at Roy, who's staring at the screen as if his fingers have a mind of their own and he doesn't know they're slithering lower. Should I stop him? If he goes any lower, he'll know I don't wear a bra. His fingers spread out like a fan and my whole body tingles. But right then, the film breaks, Roy's arm slides back into its hole and he boos and stamps and screams along with everyone else and doesn't even look at me.

When the film is fixed and the lights dim, I wait for Roy's hand to return. I wriggle around to let him know I'm still there. I know I'm not in love with him. But I like how it feels when he wants me.

In Min's Store, Mum heads for the discount table. Min sidles up, tall and thin with two pointy cones like Jayne Mansfield, though not as big. ‘Can I help?' she says.

‘Just looking,' says Mum.

‘Just ask if you need me,' says Min, drifting off to dressing-gowns where she waits, ready to pounce when Mum's finished fossicking. It doesn't take long. She surfaces with two bras and Min rushes over. ‘Brassieres for your daughter, dear? Would you like me to fit her?'

‘No,' says Mum, ‘these'll be fine.'

Outside, she looks all pleased. ‘That didn't take long, did it?'

‘Show me, show me,' says Lizzie next day on the school bus. She has been wearing C cups for almost a year. ‘Where did you get them? What cup? What colour? You didn't get falsies, did you?'

We've just heard that Marilyn Monroe has died; everyone's talking about it, some of the farm girls are crying, so I make Lizzie wait until we're changing for Phys Ed, then I give her a flash. She frowns: ‘What's that at the front?'

‘Hooks. Where it does up.'

Lizzie is bug-eyed. ‘That's a maternity bra. My sister wears one like that to feed her baby. Girls' bras do up at the back, not the front. That's why it's wrinkly and doesn't fit properly. Didn't your mother have you fitted?'

She is so keen to tell the whole world that she doesn't wait for an answer. Not that I have one.

Nor does Mum. When I get home from school, she's at the well, pumping. ‘I thought they'd be easier to do up.'
Pump.
‘You shouldn't worry what Lizzie Campbell thinks.'
Pump.
‘It's comfort that counts.'
Pump.
‘You'll appreciate that one day.'
Pump.

‘They're too big!' I yell as she runs off with her bucket. Bert From The Bush—a stray from the lagoon who's decided to live in our yard—purrs around my ankles as if he knows all about bras. ‘They're wrinkly too,' I tell her when she returns. ‘They should be smooth.'

‘You'll grow into them.'

‘I'm not wearing them. I'm thirteen! I'm not having a baby! Can't you see? Can't you see anything?'

She stops pumping and looks at me. I am hot everywhere, face, hands, under my hair. But she is cut-up cold with tight lips. ‘I can't get anything right with you, can I?'

On Fridays after school, I babysit Tania, mostly pushing her around the streets in her pram, sometimes taking her onto the jetty and walking her all the way to the end. I began babysitting her a few months after I met up with Mrs Marciano in the street. It was after I found out about thalidomide, after everyone knew. I made myself go to see her. It was Easter Saturday and Mum was being ratty again, hardly speaking to me one day, snapping like a shark the next.

Tania was lying on the sunroom floor. Her arms were not as bad as I feared. One was a short little stump mostly hidden under the sleeve of her dress, the other more like a small arm ending at the elbow with a two-finger hand on the end.

Mrs Marciano didn't tell me she took the drug for morning sickness. She didn't have to: if you told one person in Burley Point, you told the whole town. ‘We're lucky,' she said, looking down at Tania, kicking and gurgling on her rug. ‘There's a little boy in the Mount with no arms or legs. Imagine how that would be? What would you do?'

I would die, I thought, I would want to die.

She reached across to straighten a curtain. Her sunroom is light and flowery, yellow curtains and cushions on a cane lounge with two bucket chairs where we were sitting. ‘So many around the world…' She seemed to forget I was there so I shifted my feet and crossed my legs. ‘Except in America. They had enough sense not to approve it.'

Her voice wobbled on the last bit. I couldn't look at her because while she was talking I was feeling wobbly too. Then she bent over and swooped Tania off the floor. ‘Five months,' she said, bouncing her on her knee. ‘Hasn't she grown?'

Tania gave me one of her gummy grins and kicked her chubby legs as if she wanted to run in the air. Her little arm waved furiously too and I tried not to stare. ‘Would you like to hold her? While I make some tea?' And before I could say—
No! I don't
know how, I might drop her
—she was in my lap and Mrs Marciano was showing me how to support her in the crook of my arm. ‘You're a natural,' she laughed.

‘Don't be long,' I said.

Tania felt small and warm, like Bert From The Bush when I patted him on my lap, but she squirmed and gurgled more than Bert ever did. Mrs Marciano had no sooner gone than Joe's ute pulled into the drive. She called out something from the kitchen, a car door slammed, the back door opened and Joe's voice roared through the house.

‘Where are my two gorgeous girls?'

Tania almost leapt off my lap.

‘
Three gorgeous girls!
' he said from the door. ‘How are you, Sylvie? Marg told me you were cutting up frogs. Have to get you on to my bait.'

He kicked off his boots, dumped his jacket on a chair, then knelt in front of Tania and me. He smelled fishy and salty like my father used to smell. ‘So, Sylvie Meehan, whaddya think of my little princess?'

‘She's lovely,' I said shyly.

‘She's more than bloody lovely!' He tickled Tania's toes with his big fingers and she wriggled ecstatically. Then he lifted her from my lap, held her high in the air and swung her about in circles like an aeroplane. ‘She's bloody
bellissima
beautiful. Aren't you, Tarnie? You're bloody beautiful, and I just love you.'

‘Don't swear in front of Sylvie,' said Mrs Marciano, returning with a tray of tea things.

‘Heard worse than that, haven't you, Sylvie?'

With his laughing teeth and suntanned cheeks, Joe seemed to fill the room like a warm summer storm. He leaned over and kissed Mrs Marciano smack on her lips. I looked at my feet, my fingers; I didn't know where to look.

‘Joe, you stink,' said Mrs Marciano as he tried to kiss her again. ‘Go and have your shower.' But her eyes were laughing and proud, as if being with Joe was the same as being with a class of Grade Ones and Twos, just as wacky and fun.

‘I'd better go,' I said, shifting forward on my chair.

‘No, you don't,' said Joe. He plumped Tania on my lap and within minutes we could hear him singing in the shower, the ‘Que Sera' song, over and over, the words splashing under water.

Mrs Marciano poured tea and asked if I might like to take Tania for a walk in her pram sometime; she said it would give her a chance to catch up on a few things. She asked if I'd thought of babysitting and getting paid for it, that she knew Bev Carter was looking for someone to mind Robert and Jimmie after school. She said I'd be good at it. What did I think?

I thought how nice it must be to marry someone like Joe.

18

After almost a year of searching and surveying, Esso decide to sink a wild-cat well on Uncle Ticker's land, the low-lying bit on Lake Grey's eastern edge. The school bus is held up for almost an hour because of the derrick being hauled down the road, with a truck either end, as slow as two soldier beetles shifting a twig. At Charlie Parsons's fence, half the town is hanging out, watching the trucks corkscrew down the lane, lumping their load over the low hills. I slide into the window seat next to Mr Kerford, but he's more interested in trucks than in me.

At the cafe, we push and shove to get off the bus and then grab our bikes and race each other out to the lake. Already I think I can feel oil underground, sloshing around, waiting to be found. Mr Kerford has stopped on his way back to Muswell and is watching the derrick being hauled onto the site. Why does Chicken have to ride so close to me? He bangs on the door of the bus like a ninny. ‘Give us a ride, sir, or I'll report you for loitering.'

Loitering? I'm surprised Chicken knows what it means. He rides off down the lane, no hands like a circus clown.

Roy yells after him. ‘You can't go in there. It's private land!'

‘It's public!' Chicken yells back. ‘Anyone can!'

Roy tells him it belongs to Bindilla and my uncle will give him a flea in the ear if he's seen. Sure enough, Chicken's hardly gone any distance when he comes back wheeling his bike. ‘Mud's too soft.'

Roy kicks at his front wheel. ‘Chicken's chicken.'

‘Ask your dad,' says Chicken to me. ‘It's open to anyone.'

My father's at the fence with Augie but I'm watching Mr Kerford reverse onto the Muswell road, hoping he'll wave.

‘Loiterer!' yells Chicken. I give Chicken a look to burn through his brains. ‘What?' he says, pinking up.

‘You know nothing.'

But Chicken knows about oil. One of his brothers works on the Moonie rig in Queensland, so Chicken knows about generator sheds and storage tanks, rotary rigs and spudding in. And when the workers move into Hannigan's, he knows the name of every job: mechanics and tool-pushers, drillers, muckrakers and roughnecks, enough men to work the rig twenty-four hours a day.