Burning Eddy (6 page)

‘Hard to believe, huh,
schat
? I know, I know. That is my experiment. You have your own experiment and I have mine.’

‘Experience,’ I said.

‘
Ja
, experiment. We are different but we are the same. Sometime you will know something or see something and you won’t be able to explain it. There are many, many things from my life that I can not explain.’

I wriggled forward on my chair, then stood up. I thought that if I didn’t get going on the apple tree soon I’d miss my ride with Tina. The leather beneath my legs had
turned dark with the water from my clothes. I wondered if it would stain.

‘Nay. It is fine. Here, sit on the towel. The rain is too heavy for you to work today. Today we talk. Sit. You want coffee?’

I arranged the towel and sat down. She knew my thoughts long before they’d come out of my mouth. She moved into the kitchen. ‘I’ll pay you to keep an old lady company,’ she said, and chuckled.

She made me a coffee — white with two sugars — and sat it on the coaster in front of me. Two windmill-shaped biscuits on a small plate. I had never had coffee before. Mum and Dad drink tea. To Eddy I wasn’t a kid. To Eddy I was just another friend. I sat back on the towel and sighed to myself. She was paying me for this?

‘So, Dan-ee-el, how old are you? You live in Bellan,
ja
?’

I told her my life story in two minutes. Told her about my grumpy dad and my mum in her vegie garden and my little brother who shares my room. Oh, and Kat. My big sister who lives in another world. Almost forgot her.

‘It is good that you have a family. Families break up all the time now. They have forgotten how important it is to bring up kids. The mum or the dad, they go when they get an itch. I feel for the children growing up.’

I thought about my dad and how I wouldn’t miss him if he took off. It would be like a huge weight off my shoulders. And Mum’s.

‘Oh, but you would miss your father if he wasn’t there,’ she said, as if my thoughts had been words. ‘Just because you don’t think all the time the same, doesn’t mean that
you aren’t good for each other. Sometimes those people that are hardest to be around teach us the biggest things in life.’

I shrugged and the thought flashed through my mind before I could stop it: how would you know?

She reached for her coffee cup and slurped noisily from the edge. A hint of a smile hung on her lips. She patted her cobweb hair.

‘We lived on the Bellan road. Near to where that poor man died under the tractor. Do you remember that? Last year?’

‘Mr Lane? That was three years ago at least.’

She snickered. ‘
Ja
, it probably was.’

‘Who bought your house? Was it Graham and Tina?’

‘No. Our house was burnt to the ground twenty years ago. There is nothing left. It’s all pine trees now.’

I looked at the mental pictures I had of that pine forest — I’d walked through there a hundred times — and I thought I remembered a concrete slab. Yes, a slab and a few broken bricks. I knew where she had lived.

‘Skippy saved us. I used to look after animals. All the baby animals off the mothers who were dead by a car. One little baby joey we called Skippy — we called all the baby kangaroos Skippy, after the TV program. You remember? Nay, it was before you were born. Skippy was to be put down the next day because his back legs wouldn’t work. When his mum was killed his back was hurt but Kasper and I fed him and looked after him. He slept in an old jumper in the lounge room, hanging on the arm of the chair. He couldn’t hop and we decided before we went to
bed that night that we would take him to the vet in the morning to be put down.

‘Kasper and I were asleep in the house and during the night I heard
hop
,
hop
,
hop
down the wooden hallway. I’m thinking to myself, “
Ja
, I’m dreaming,
hoor
.” And it came again, the sound
hop
,
hop
,
hop
, so I am getting up to find Skippy bouncing in the hallway. It is a miracle and on the ceiling is all smoke. The stove flue had caught alight in the roof while we were sleeping. I wake Kasper and there is a crash from the kitchen and I can see the flames from the bedroom, so I am grabbing Skippy and we’re climbing out of the bedroom window and watching the house burn like a big bonfire. True,
hoor
.’

I believed her. I had no reason to, but I believed her. No reason except the tears in her eyes and how her breath caught in her throat. She believed.

‘These are my experiments. One day you will have an experiment the same and you will know. You will know that there is more to life than skin and bones and trees. That is how we understand spirit, from experiments. Church teaches people about spirit but they can’t really know until they have an experiment of their own.’

I had to go. The gold clock on the cabinet was screaming at me. If I didn’t leave right at that moment, I’d be walking the forty kilometres home.

‘
Ja
, take a biscuit. Come back again when it is not so raining and work some more,’ she said, and stood up. She pulled an envelope from her pocket and handed it to me.

‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘
Jaaa
. You turned up. Take it. Do you think if you work
for McDonald’s and nobody comes through the door that they will not pay you? Come again, huh,
schat
? Come and work some more in my garden.’

I took the money and felt guilty about it until I reached the shining street. The sun had poked its watery head between a few heavy clouds and lit up the neighbourhood with a triumphant shine. It had stopped raining and the air smelled wet and alive. The white car with the ‘For sale’ sign in the window was still sitting on the nature strip. I read the phone number. I ripped the envelope from Eddy open, counted fifty dollars and thought that I might buy that car. Eight hundred and fifty dollars. Would blow a steaming great hole in my savings, but would the water bead like crystals on the bonnet of a car that hadn’t been looked after?

It started raining again. Hard. I said the phone number over and over as I jogged to Tina’s work. By the time I made it to the ute I was soaked again, but I was singing the phone number over the din of the rain like a madman. Tina was rattling her keys and hurrying from the office with her head bent and eyes squinting. She stopped short of the car when she saw me.

‘G’day, Dan. You been for a swim?’ she shouted, and laughed.

We dived into the ute.

‘Pooh. You smell like a dog,’ she said.

I thanked her.

She grunted and looked at me as though I was wearing a possum on my head.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘I do believe I heard you make a joke, Daniel.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘Nothing,’ she said.

‘Then shut up and drive.’

She roared with laughter and saluted me. ‘You in love, Dan? You’ve got a smile on your face. Your eyes are sparkling.’

‘Not likely,’ I grumbled. ‘I like the rain.’

Tina looked at me sideways.

I struggled not to smile and looked out the window. I forgot the phone number.

Michael Fisher had glandular fever. That’s what Amy what’s-her-name said on the bus. She was talking to Chantelle but everyone could hear. ‘The kissing disease’, she called it. She said that she might have it. I hoped she did.

She didn’t turn up for the bus the next day or for the rest of the week, and by Friday the scabs had started falling off my cheek. It looked like I’d taken an electric sander to my face.

The bus trip seemed quiet without Amy and Michael. Chantelle had the back seat to herself. We were heading home on Friday afternoon, hurtling past Carmine Cemetery, and she caught me staring back at her. I turned, but I thought I saw her pat the seat beside her. She must’ve been desperate. My gut tingled. She was looking out the
window. It gets on Wayne’s nerves when kids walk around while the bus is moving.

Chantelle patted the seat. Was she looking at me? I glanced around but there were only a couple of year sevens and Kat on my side of the bus. Kat was elbow-deep in a copy of
Dolly
with the radio blaring in her headphones. Chantelle
must
have been looking at me. I pointed to my chest and whispered, ‘Me?’

She nodded and waved me over. I glanced at Wayne and skidded through to sit beside her. Well, on the same seat as her. Could have squeezed another three bodies between us.

‘Hey, Dan, what happened to your face?’

‘I . . .’ I couldn’t decide which story to tell her. I cut myself shaving? I got assaulted in the bush? Maybe a new one. A car accident! ‘I fell down went boom,’ I said.

She chuckled. Her earrings jingled; little horseshoes on chains. ‘How? Did you stack your bike? You got a motorbike?’

‘No, I haven’t got a bike. Wouldn’t mind one though. I was running.’

‘Yeah . . . And?’

‘And someone jumped on my back.’

‘Jumped on your back?’

‘Yeah.’

‘While you were running?’

‘Yeah, oh, from a motorbike. They jumped on my back from a motorbike.’

‘Fair dinkum? That’s a bit vicious. Who?’

I shrugged. ‘I dunno. I was mucking around and they took it all a bit seriously.’

‘They?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, and my throat squelched as I swallowed. ‘Michael and James Sheffield and a few of their mates.’

Her mouth dropped open and she looked at me, wide-eyed, as I told her the rest of the story.

‘Too much testosterone. That’s what Mum reckons,’ she said quietly. ‘Did you tell your mum and dad?’

I shook my head.

‘Why not? They could have had a word with Mr Fisher.’

I shrugged. The conversation fell into a hole. I wanted to explain why I didn’t tell Mum and Dad but the words wouldn’t come together. I gripped the seat between my legs. I almost stood up.

Chantelle squinted at me. ‘You’ve changed,’ she said. ‘It’s like a light went out when you were in year six. When Chris . . .’

‘Yeah,’ I said, before she could finish. ‘You’re probably right.’

I stood and headed for my seat. Wayne was frowning at me in the rear-vision mirror, pointing for me to sit down. I waved an apology and thumped onto the vinyl. I stared out the window. The sun had started to bake the tall grass flowers on the roadside. The farmers on the flats were bailing the last of the silage. The rain earlier in the week had given them a sense of hope on the radio, but the sun had come out again and they’d gone back to talking about a long hot summer and the whole country burning. I remember them saying the same thing the year
before. No matter what the weather is like, they’ve always got something to complain about. It was unusually hot. It was abnormally dry. A few more hot days and they’d be cutting rough hay before the end of November. That was early.

I picked at a rip in the seat until it was time for Kat and me to get off. Chantelle waved from the back window. She said something to the glass that I couldn’t hear. I waved and started walking home. Kat shrugged her pack onto her back and walked to the bus shelter. She’d rather wait for Graham than walk.

Antonio tooted and pulled up beside me, the tyres of the white Commodore hacking on the dirt and covering me in dust. He still looked out of place in a suit and tie. Whenever we worked together he wore the grungiest jeans and old paint-splattered T-shirts.

‘Hiya, Dan. How are you? Gawd, what happened to your face?’ he said, and stuck his hand out the window.

I laughed and shook his hand. ‘Fell down went boom.’

He tossed his head in a silent laugh. ‘You want some work? Got a bit of stuff to do at my place when you’ve got time.’

‘Oh, yeah. Suppose.’

‘Have you got a minute? I could show you if you like.’

He moved papers and a mobile phone off the passenger seat and I jogged around to get in. I shouted to Kat that I was going to Antonio’s place and she waved with the back of her hand.

We cruised into his driveway and parked in front of the house. The gardens looked okay. Nothing much poking
through the mulch. Beside the pond was a branch of cypress that had broken off a huge tree and smashed one of his garden statues. It was probably five cars long and as thick as my waist at the splintered end.

‘Yep, cut all that up and drag it down to the pile of dead blackberries and burn the lot for me. There’s gloves and fuel for the chainsaw in the shed. Jen and I won’t be home on Saturday but you don’t need us to be here, do you?’

‘That’ll be fine. Looks easy enough.’

‘Can you do it this weekend?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘Good lad,’ he said, and slapped me on the arm.

Graham’s old red Mazda pulled up at the end of the drive and tooted. I waved to Antonio and ran to the car.

Graham is a wild driver. Fast and all over the road. He doesn’t wear a seatbelt. Kat and I always do. The driving is made worse by the fact that Kat and Graham get on better than Kat and anyone else I know — except maybe Mum. Graham taught Kat how to speak sign language when we shifted up to Bellan and they have long dangerous conversations when we’re heading home. I can finger-spell and mime a little but couldn’t get my head around signing. Graham and I write notes to each other. Graham and Kat are a blur of hands and over-the-top facial expressions. Graham steers with his knee a lot and there have been times on the winding Bellan road when I’ve wanted to bail out. Thank God his car is an auto. He’s never crashed into anything while we’ve been in the car, but the duco is spotted with panel beater’s undercoat — proof enough that it’s only luck it hasn’t happened.

I remembered the phone number. I thought about the Mitsubishi Scorpion and remembered the number. I asked Kat to see if I could use the phone at Graham’s place before we went home and he wanted to know what for, then got all excited when I mimed that I wanted to buy a car.

‘What do you want a bloody car for? You can’t drive. I’m going to have my licence before you do,’ Kat growled.

I shrugged. It was a bargain. I wasn’t going to be like Mum and never drive. I wasn’t going to be like Kat and wait until I’m twenty before I think about getting my learner’s permit.

‘Graham said he’d come and check it out for you if you want,’ she said flatly.

I patted him on the shoulder and he shrugged and smiled.

A husky-voiced lady answered the phone. She had the shadow of an accent in her words. The car had been her husband’s. He’d had a heart attack and died in hospital almost a year before. She said that it was in perfect condition and that I’d be welcome to take it for a test drive. I told her that I didn’t have my licence, and for a moment it all seemed like a silly idea. It would be more than a year before I could legally drive it on the road.

‘Graham said he wants to come with you and check it out,’ Kat shouted from the kitchen.

The lady on the phone said to come over on Sunday. She said she’d be at church in the morning but home in the afternoon. Kat shouted that Sunday would be fine.
I thanked the lady and hung up. I thanked Graham and he shrugged. I thought that there would still be time for me to pull out. I wrote him a note that said someone else might be able to take me on Sunday. He barked like an Alsatian and jabbed a finger at his chest. I shrugged and signed ‘Okay’.

Dad was home on Saturday morning and as grumpy as hell. I told Mum about the car and asked her not to tell Dad. I forgot to tell Kat though, and later Dad thumped on the door of the cubby. Tobe and I had been hiding inside while he had his breakfast. The thump made Toby squeal. I stuffed my magazine away and unbolted the door.

‘Kat tells me you’re thinking about buying a car.’

I shrugged and nodded.

‘That’s a bit bloody stupid; you can’t drive for another year. What are you going to do with it, watch it rust?’

‘I was going to work on it and that. Get it really nice. Kat can get her Ls now. You could teach her in it.’

He grunted. ‘Won’t be really nice for long with your bloody sister driving it.’

I opened my mouth to stick up for Kat and thought that it would have been useless. Dad had made up his mind that it was a stupid idea and I knew I couldn’t change that.

‘Your bloody money. Better than pissing it against the wall,’ he said, and his keys rattled as he walked to the door of his shed.

‘Dad?’ I yelled.

‘What?’

‘Would you be able to drop me at Antonio’s place? I’ve got some work to do there.’

‘Not now. Maybe this afternoon,’ he said.

I listened as he unlocked the door and clomped inside. He bolted the door closed behind him. The curtain screeched as he closed it. I heard the other lock
rasp-clink
open and the drawer slide. The rustling of paper. I knew what was in there. I knew he had a collection of girlie magazines. I’d never seen them, but I knew. I knew that he’d rather read his stick books than be with us.

Toby looked up at me from his table and I felt sick in the guts. The poor little bloke had tears in his big eyes. I knelt down and hugged him. He wiped his face on my shoulder.

‘What is it, Tobe?’

‘Nothing,’ he mumbled into my neck.

My little brother is so beautiful. So perfect. I couldn’t understand why Dad would want to be anywhere but with him.

Mum made hot dogs for lunch. I ate seven. Dad asked Toby if he wanted to come for a drive into town and Tobe’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.

‘Can I come?’ Kat asked, and Dad smiled.

‘Maybe next time,’ he said.

Kat huffed and went to her room.

Toby ran ahead and Dad told him to watch where he was going. ‘You coming?’ he said to the wall.

‘Me?’ I asked.

He nodded. ‘Didn’t you say you wanted a lift?’

I jumped from my chair and slipped into my boots on
the way to the car. Mum waved from the kitchen. Kat pulled her curtains closed.

Dad dropped me at Antonio’s driveway and said he’d be back in a couple of hours. Toby grabbed me by the shirt and kissed my ear. ‘Have fun, Dan.’

The key for the shed was under the pot plant beside the front door. The chainsaw barked into life second pull. I had half a smile on my face as my boot disappeared under white cypress sawdust. Chainsaws are sensible tools. Good tools. The right tool for the job. I’d cut the big bits up and sawn off all the branches in twenty minutes. Cypress cuts like cheese with a nice sharp saw. Sharpened it myself and it didn’t look like it had been used since.

The hot afternoon turned sweaty as I dragged the sweet-smelling branches past the old poplars, straight as goalposts, to where I’d stacked the blackberries before winter. The stack had rotted a bit and all the leaves had fallen off, leaving a giant bird’s-nest of thorny stems. The cypress squashed the mess some more but by the time I was ready to light it, the pile was twice as tall as me. I looked at the bits of the broken statue. It was busted beyond being glued.

Antonio is a pyro. He keeps kerosene for lighting little fires. He and Jennie rake up all the leaves from the poplars and oaks in autumn. He doesn’t believe in composting and feeding his garden with rotting leaves. He burns everything, and rather than set one big pile alight, he’ll set seventeen wheelbarrow-sized clumps ablaze so the creek and the little valley choke with thick smoke. I couldn’t find the kero so I used a bit of the two-stroke for the chainsaw.
About a litre, splashed over the top of the pile so I could see it dripping onto the blackberries. I had played with petrol and matches at home. I knew what would happen. I stood a good distance away and lit matches and threw them at the rainbow-coloured wet on the edge of the pile. The first six matches must have been out by the time they got to the pile, me edging forward with each unsuccessful throw. Lucky number seven. Lucky number seven ignited the fuel and the explosion made me stumble. I felt my shirt flap with the force of it. I could smell burning hair, and there wasn’t much on my head to burn. I thought they would have heard it in Carmine. Maybe even felt it. I looked up at the road and around and cursed myself. How stupid was that? Crazy.

The pile was well alight; chugging white smoke into the hot air, crackling and whistling as the branches gave in to the heat. I stared at the flames and thought that they must have been invented for staring into. Off in the distance I could hear the wail of a siren. It was getting louder. Sounded like an ambulance. Maybe a cow cocky had hurt himself. Happened all the time. Then the siren stopped and I could hear a big diesel engine revving hard. It swung into the Bellan road and skidded on the gravel. It was one of the Henning CFA tankers. Hulking red and flashing lights. Must have been a bushfire up our road. It came into Antonio’s driveway. Came down the drive and pulled across the neat lawn. Parked right next to me. I heard scuffling in the tall poplar behind me and turned to see a big brush-tailed possum clinging to the trunk, its eyes watering from the smoke. I’d smoked it out of the tree. It didn’t look happy.