Burning Eddy (16 page)

My eyes started to melt. My body shook and I stood proud in my pain. Something beneath the coffin gave a little
clunk
and it sank slowly into the pedestal. By the time it had vanished from sight some of the people were crying louder than the music, and I desperately needed a hankie.

We went to Tedi’s flat and I stood in the sullen little garden with Mum and Chantelle, while a succession of old people offered us plates of sandwiches and congratulated me on my speech. I shook cold hands and thanked them awkwardly. I stuffed myself until I could hardly walk, not wanting to disappoint any of the tray bearers.

Daryl told me that Eddy’s ashes would be ready to be picked up the following morning. Not at the crematorium, at their office in Chandler Street. Why was he telling me? Maybe I
had
become her son. Her next of kin. Grandson, maybe. Whatever. Luke had disappeared and no long-lost relatives had come out of the garden for the funeral. She really had been alone. Alone but never lonely. She left behind good memories and friends. All she had left to do in life was die.

I sat in the back seat with Chantelle on the way home. We didn’t say much. The sky had darkened and the wipers stammered as they dragged a light mist from the windscreen. It felt like Mum was chauffeuring us and we held hands. Her fingers were like ice to begin with, but
by the time we pulled into her driveway they were warm and alive and I didn’t want to let go. Not then or ever. Maybe it was a sense of losing someone you love and maybe it’s contagious. I’d lost Chris and Eddy, now the thought of losing Chantelle was skulking around in my head. I shook and forced myself to smile. There’s enough heartache in the world without dreaming more into existence.

Outside the car, the dogs were going crazy so Chantelle opened the door. Rabbit jumped in and put pawprints on Chantelle’s skirt. He jumped across the seat with his tail cutting the air and licked my mouth. I pushed him off and got out of the car. I spat on the gravel and wiped my face on my sleeve. Chantelle laughed and I felt like grabbing her and tickling her until she couldn’t breathe. I stepped around the car and she ran off a few paces and smiled. She rubbed at the pawprints on her skirt. She growled at Rabbit but there was too much smile in her voice and the dog wagged his tail harder.

‘Do you want to stay at my place tonight?’ I asked her. I asked before I’d thought about it and Mum wound down her window.

‘I think one friend sleeping over is enough for tonight, Dan. Can you make it another night? I’ve got to get home,’ Mum said, and I remembered that Jake was coming home on the bus with Kat. What was the big hurry?

‘You could stay here,’ Chantelle said, and my toes curled in my shoes.

Mum looked at me and shrugged.

‘Would it be okay with your mum?’ I asked.

‘Dad. Mum’s on night shift so Dad’ll be home. I’ll give him a call and find out.’

‘We’ll make it another night. Don’t worry about it,’ Mum said. ‘C’mon, Dan.’

‘Nah. It’s no trouble. Won’t be a sec,’ she said. She ran to the front door and kicked her shoes off. Rabbit and Stacey followed her but bolted back to me when she closed the door in their faces.

Mum looked at me and shook her head.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘You kids grow up too quick.’

I shrugged. ‘Can’t help it.’

‘Yeah, well stop it anyway.’

Chantelle ran back outside in her socks. ‘Yeah, that’s fine with Dad. He said it’ll be an early night though, so we can still get up for the bus tomorrow.’

I wanted to scream and jump up and down like Toby does when he’s excited. I held it in. It was hard work and some of the joy leaked out of my eyes.

‘What is it, Dan? You okay?’ Mum whispered.

I nodded. ‘My uniform,’ I said.

‘I’ll drop it off — and your bag — when I come in to get Tobe.’

I hugged her through the window and thanked her.

‘You sure you’re okay?’

I nodded. ‘Just smiling so hard inside that it hurts.’

She scruffed the fuzz on my head and kissed me before parping on the horn as she drove off.

The sun came out as Mum left. It made a faint rainbow in the east. Chantelle and I watched it without making
a sound. I took her hand and grunted a laugh when I realised she was standing on the wet driveway in just her socks.

‘What?’ she asked.

I pointed at her feet.

She shrugged.

I could understand that shrug. Some things are more important than others. What was important right then was that we were together. Together and alone. There were pictures in my head, pictures about some of the things we could do together and alone, and my underwear suddenly felt uncomfortable. I was thankful that the pictures weren’t on the big screen for the whole world to see. Chantelle looked at me with her eyes part closed. She put her arms around my head and we kissed. All tongue and lips and breath. On and on. Could she feel that? That burning where our bodies met? She broke from the kiss and pulled my hips to her. She moaned into my neck and I knew she could feel it. Maybe she had pictures of her own?

Chantelle snorted like a pig, then shook with a silent laugh. ‘God, how embarrassing.’

I looked over my shoulder. Rabbit had mounted Stacey and was humping on her front leg. My face got hot.

Chantelle hid against my neck and continued to laugh. ‘Bloody Rabbit. Always got to get a bit of the action.’

The heat between us vanished and left a glowing feeling of closeness. One day, I thought, when the time is right, we’ll love each other senseless.

‘Mum’ll be home soon,’ she said. She led me inside and made us both a Milo.

My mum and Chantelle’s mum arrived in quick succession. Mrs Morrison had been shopping and had picked up Chantelle’s sister from school on her way home. Lauren dragged her bag along the ground and stopped in front of me. She looked a bit crazy. ‘Have you been kissing again?’ she asked.

Chantelle scoffed. ‘Mind your own business, Lauren.’

‘I knew it,’ she said. She laughed, dropped her bag and ran to Toby. She heaved and lifted my brother onto her hip. He hung on around her neck for a few paces then he wriggled and Lauren dropped him on his feet. He ran and jumped into my arms. I hugged him and he licked my cheek.

‘Gross, keep your tongue in your mouth, slobber dog.’

Tobe jiggled and I let him go.

Chantelle’s horse thundered to a halt by the gate, whinnied, snorted, then threw her head around.

‘Hello, April, you missing out, hey? Something going on?’ Chantelle yelled.

Tobe walked to the gate and held out his hand to the horse. April sniffed at him then nibbled his fingers with her lips. Tobe squealed and backed away laughing.

Mum and Mrs Morrison said hello to each other. Mum didn’t have my bag. She looked greyer — her hair, her skin.

‘I phoned Dad,’ Chantelle told her mum. ‘I asked if Dan could stay over tonight.’

Mrs Morrison’s eyebrows jumped. ‘Oh, did you?’

‘Nothing concrete,’ my mum said. ‘They’ve got school tomorrow.’

Nothing concrete?

‘How was today?’ Mrs Morrison asked.

Chantelle shrugged. ‘All right.’

‘What did your dad say?’ Mrs Morrison asked with a sigh.

Chantelle nodded. ‘He said it was fine . . . if it was okay with you.’

I held my breath. I think Chantelle and Mum did too.

‘That’s fine. Just don’t go . . . stupid.’

Chantelle nodded and jiggled on the spot. I let go of my breath.

Mrs Morrison turned to Mum. ‘Sounds like this has been a long time in the planning.’

Mum’s lips pulled tight. ‘Yeah. I hope they’re not . . . I hope they don’t cause you any headaches.’

Mrs Morrison shrugged. ‘Rick’s home tonight. I’m working. Won’t bother me!’

Mum grunted and crossed her arms.

Mrs Morrison looked hard at Mum. ‘They’ll be fine.’

‘Give me a call if there are any hassles.’

Lauren was inviting Toby inside. Tobe looked at Mum and she told him they had to get going. Mrs Morrison asked Mum in for a cuppa and Mum shook her head. She looked at her shoe and said she’d have to keep moving. Her lips were still pulled tight and it looked as though she was going to cry. She ripped open the back door of the Scorpion and grabbed my school bag. She wiped her nose on her wrist and handed me my bag.

‘Luke phoned,’ she said.

I looked at her face. ‘Is he all right?’

‘Yeah. He wanted to talk to you. Did he call here?’

I shrugged and shook my head.

‘I gave him the number.’

Mum looked all tangled up behind her eyes. Maybe she couldn’t cope with me being at Chantelle’s. I put my bag down and hugged her.

She breathed the words in my ear. ‘Your dad phoned as well.’

Suddenly all the shakiness about her made sense. He hadn’t phoned for months. He’d been transferred to Fulham — nearly two hours away — and I hadn’t visited. Hadn’t really thought about him. Until then. I felt a wash of guilt and my gut fluttered.

She pulled back and looked into my eyes. ‘He got seventeen years.’

Seventeen years? That news was like a fox in the chook pen of my mind. My thoughts flapped about in my head and banged into the wire. Seventeen years was longer than I’d been alive. Toby would be twenty-three when Dad got out. In myself I didn’t feel sad and I thought that maybe I should have. I felt sad for Dad. What a waste of a life. Two lives. He was my father — I had no choice in that — but Mum had married him. Mum had chosen to be with him.

‘You all right, Mum?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. Bit of a shock. He’d been a stranger for a long time. I didn’t realise how much I didn’t know about him.’

I could tell by the beaten look in her eyes that Dad had told her about things. About the things he had to suffer as a boy and the ugly justice he had found for himself. She wasn’t angry with Dad anymore. Something had burst.
With that news, she now knew the answer to so many of the questions in our lives. Like why Dad was so angry, why he couldn’t be gentle for even one minute, why he struggled to smile. Why he couldn’t laugh.

She called my brother over. ‘Come home soon,’ she said to me.

I nodded and hugged her again.

She bundled Toby into the front seat and tooted as she left.

Chantelle and I helped make tea. I felt at home. Mr Morrison kept patting me on the back. He patted me on the back when I cut the onion, and again when I got all the pasta into the boiling water without splashing a drop. In all the months I’d been going out with his daughter I’d never really called him anything other than Mr Morrison. That night he wanted me to call him Rick. It felt awkward but he pulled a face every time I called him Mr Morrison.

‘Just call him Dad,’ Lauren said as we dried the dishes. ‘We do.’

‘Call him Dad?’

‘You talking to me?’ Rick said, and flicked me on the leg with the tea towel. Without thinking, I flicked him back and it cracked against his hand. He chased me through the lounge room and dragged me onto the carpet in the hallway. He dug his fingers into my ribs.

‘Barley, barley!’ I panted, and eventually he let me up.

He puffed and smiled. ‘Wuss.’

He was a good dad. Maybe even a great dad, but not my dad. Rick might be a good name to call this man.

We watched
Home and Away
and
The Simpsons
.
Chantelle rested her legs on my lap and Lauren sat beside me and talked the whole time.

‘Lauren; teeth, toilet, bed,’ Rick shouted from the kitchen.

Lauren groaned, but didn’t move. Next thing her dad’s in the doorway and she’s scampering along the hall.

‘What are we going to do about sleeping arrangements?’

‘Easy,’ Chantelle sang. ‘Dan can sleep in my bed.’

Rick grunted. ‘And where will you sleep?’

‘In my bed.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Rick said. ‘Wouldn’t be much sleeping going on.’

His tone was friendly and innocent but when he crossed his arms, the skin on my head got prickly and hot. My heart was rattling away in my chest like it needed an oil. Maybe I could sleep on the couch? Maybe I could sleep in the shed with Rabbit and Stacey? I know Rabbit’s a good kisser . . .

The phone rang. Lauren garbled through a mouthful of toothpaste that she’d get it.

‘There are double bunks in Lauren’s room,’ Rick suggested.

‘Get real, Dad, he’s not sleeping with Lauren.’

‘Well, it’s one of the options. Come on, think of some others.’

‘Dan,’ Lauren sang. ‘It’s for you.’

I looked at Chantelle. ‘Who is it?’ she shouted.

‘It’s Luke Van Den Dribble or something like that.’

Rick smiled. Timing, I thought. They could work out
where I was sleeping and I’d just sleep there. I took the handset from Lauren.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Daniel. Luke here. How are you?’

‘Luke! I’m fine. How are you?’

‘
Ja,
I’m okay. Your mum said I might catch you there. I . . . I wanted to say sorry for today,’ he said. He sounded old and beaten.

‘Sorry? There’s nothing to be sorry about. You did . . . you did the best you could.’

Silence. I could hear his dog barking in the background. Stinky old Diamond.

‘If there’s anything I can do,’ he said. ‘Please. Call. You got my number?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Okay. I’ll let you get back to . . .’ he mumbled.

‘Nah, no hurry,’ I cut in. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

‘Nothing much. Washing. Making some soup if I get time. Maybe.’

‘We’re going to get Eddy’s ashes at lunchtime. Do you want to come?’ Chantelle and I decided that it wouldn’t be a big walk from school to the funeral director’s office. If we took off at lunchtime we’d make it back to catch the bus.

‘
Ja
, that I could do.’

He offered to pick us up from school. We organised a time and a place, and before he hung up there was a lightness in his voice again.

Chantelle was smiling. ‘It’s all arranged,’ she said. She
grabbed a sheet and a pillowcase from the linen cupboard and skipped to her room. Rick had dragged the spare mattress in from Lauren’s room and dumped it on the floor beside Chantelle’s bed.
Right
beside her bed.

‘Leave the door open. Please try to get some sleep.’