Happy as Larry (6 page)

‘My heart goes out to the people in Japan, it really does,' Mal said. He'd set up a salvaged pedestal fan beside the TV. It rattled quietly and created a warm breeze that smelled faintly of his sweaty feet. ‘But short of getting on a plane and flying over there, there's nothing much we can do.'

As soon as the words had passed his lips, a message flashed on the screen: the Red Cross Hanshin Earthquake Appeal. There was a number to call and Denise wrote it down.

Malcolm melted further into his chair.

Denise held the piece of paper high and pleaded with her eyes.

‘How much?' Mal asked.

‘A hundred dollars. Just a couple of hundred dollars.'

Mal bit a sigh in half and raked his fingers through his sweaty hair. ‘There's no guarantee that the money will get there . . .'

‘Just one hundred.'

He nodded and exhaled, and after Denise finally got through on the phone and gave their credit-card details, she slumped beside him and the night didn't seem as hot.

Maybe the part of the world he could change was bigger than he'd thought.

There was talk of a thunderstorm that weekend, but Saturday morning showed no mercy.

Someone had backed into the passenger-side door of Stan's truck during the week, and Denise had to slam it three times before it would close properly.

Mal shook his head. The truck was a bit of a joke. Like a bus, it had no seatbelts, and in places the stuffing of the single bench seat burst out as if the seat had been gutted with a blunt filleting knife. The clutch squeaked like a lonely kitten every time it was pressed, and there were hills up behind McAllister Weir that the truck flatly refused to climb, even without a load.

Thankfully, the Rainbows got the joke. Larry giggled with every press of the clutch. With the windows down and the accelerator to the floor, the truck rattled along the Cradle River Road at its top speed (when loaded) of seventy-nine kilometres per hour. They made a delivery, then picnicked beside the weir in McAllister Park. Lazy bodies sprawled beneath umbrellas along the sandy beach. Kids floated and splashed and paddled.

A whole mob of kangaroos from the national park lay in the shade of a huge willow, motionless in the heat as if they were spectators at the weekend regatta. They became active when Mal sat down on the picnic blanket and Denise began to unpack lunch. They didn't hop towards the blanket, just reached their taloned forelegs forward, pressed them to the ground and levered their powerful hind legs and heavy tails in behind them.

Larry gripped his father's leg as the first of the group approached and stopped just out of arm's reach, sniffing at the air. Denise talked to them in a soothing voice, peeled off a crust and threw it onto the grass. A brief but fierce scrimmage ensued until the crust had been eaten. Emboldened, the roos pressed closer to the blanket.

‘Maaaal,' Denise said, and shuffled towards her husband.

Larry was holding so tight he was tearing the hairs from his dad's leg.

Mal drew himself to his full height and growled as he shooed them off.

The largest of the kangaroos, inflamed by the small victory of the crust, stood its ground.

Mal surged at it and waved his hands.

The roo reared onto its hind legs and tossed its head defiantly. Its lungs filled with air and it emitted a sound that made the hair on Mal's neck stand up. It was somewhere between a contemptuous cough and a guttural growl.

Standing upright, the beast was eye to eye with Mal. They stared at each other for three seconds that felt like a full minute to Mal. There was no expression in those mahogany eyes, no barometer of intent, but its sickle-like claws and posture of sheer indignation made Mal doubt the kangaroo's commitment to vegetarianism.

He was ready to run when the roo turned on its tail and bounded off towards the willow tree.

Mal puffed his chest and dusted his hands. Denise and little Larry applauded and they ate their lunch in peace.

Larry took the last quarter of his sandwich to the edge of the lake.

‘Don't go near the water,' Denise called.

The beach at McAllister Park was sandy and shallow. It would have been perfect for a swim, but there were deliveries waiting and they hadn't brought swimming costumes.

Larry nodded his understanding, and Denise stretched out beside her husband. She knew Larry would be safe. He listened to what she said. He'd never been smacked. Mal and Denise agreed that smacking would be a last resort and they'd never found reason. Denise had never been hit by her father. Mal's mother had smacked him raw every other day since the age of two.

As a father, Mal had decided to do it differently.

Thankfully, Denise thought, Larry was a good kid. Or maybe not being smacked had made Larry a good kid.

Mal sat up suddenly and Denise got a fright.

‘Larry?' Mal called.

Larry's familiar figure was not among the crowd on the foreshore.

Denise was on her feet and running, scanning the water for a floating corpse. ‘Larry?'

Children stopped and stared. Parents leaped from their towels to join the search. Before the panic had sunk its teeth in, Mal heard a muffled squeal and found him.

Larry was in the phone booth beside the carpark, crying. Outside, pressed against the glass panel of the door, was the big kangaroo. It was scratching at the hinges. Mal scooped up a handful of gravel from the carpark and pelted it shotgun-style at the beast and roared.

The roo levelled an arrogant stare at Mal before it bounded into the scrub.

For a frustrated second, Mal couldn't work out which way the door opened, then he was inside the booth with Larry sobbing and clinging to his neck. He'd wet his pants.

‘Shhh. It's okay, Larry. He's gone now.'

Denise forced a frown over her smile of relief and stroked Larry's hair behind his ear. ‘Nasty kangaroo wanted to eat your lunch.'

They washed his pants and his little bottom in the weir and bundled into the truck. As Mal pointed it towards the exit sign, another big kangaroo dragged itself into their path. Mal tooted but the animal showed no sign of having heard. Mal revved the engine and feathered the squeaky clutch.

He looked at his boy. ‘Should we run him over?'

‘No!' Denise yelled, and grabbed the dash.

Mal made the truck lurch again and Larry had to grab the seat to avoid sliding into the footwell.

‘Hang on, Larry, I'll get him.'

Mal beeped a rhythm on the horn and surged forward again.

Larry was laughing now and standing with his fingers curled into the vent. He chuckled through his tears as the truck hopped out of the carpark and up to the roundabout.

Mal looked in the cracked side mirror as he swung through the corner, keeping an eye on the kangaroo, which had stopped to watch him.

‘We showed him, didn't we? Hey?'

Larry was patting Mal's knee.

‘Yes. Nasty kangaroos won't bother us again.'

Larry was slapping him now, insistent.

‘What?'

Larry pointed to the vacant seat beside him.

Denise was gone.

Mal stomped on the brake. The passenger's door bounced against its hinges and shut, revealing an image in its side mirror. An image of his beloved wife stumbling along the roadside, frantically waving her arms above her head.

‘Woops.'

Denise tore open the door and hoisted herself into her seat. She slammed it with an almighty heave that set the cab rocking.

‘I'm so sorry, Denise,' Mal said, almost under his breath. ‘Are you hurt?'

Denise tried to look at her elbow. She rubbed her knee and poked out her bottom lip for sympathy.

Larry chuckled.

It was just a little ripple of laughter to begin with. It washed over his mother and she snorted. She smiled and shook her head, and Larry was off: great cackling, pulsing waves of mirth that rolled from squeal to red-faced breathlessness and back again. Whenever the belly-laugh seemed to slacken, Larry would glance at his mother and be struck by a new attack.

Sometimes, for Larry at least, life was a cartoon.

A PEG AND
A PENIS

T
HE HEAT WENT
on but the thunderstorm did eventually arrive. Pent-up towers of cumulus appeared over the hills to the west. Initially honest and white, the closer they got to Villea, the more sinister they became. Cadaver-grey, they brought a premature evening that bellyached with thunder.

‘Come on, Hughie, send it down!' Mal prayed from the kitchen window. He was gripping his third beer and he felt the thunder in his chest.

The first raindrop hit the roof like a stick. Mal shed his sweat-soaked T-shirt.

Denise chuckled. ‘What are you doing?'

‘Having a shower.'

‘In the kitchen?'

Mal nodded at the back yard. ‘Coming, Larry? Get your gear off.'

Larry stomped his shorts and undies into a pile on the floorboards. Denise helped him out of his shirt.

Thunder detonated right over the house. Denise squeaked. Larry giggled nervously and danced on the spot. Big tropical drops were now playing the roof like a snare drum.

Mal stood at the back door in his underwear, wide-eyed and grinning. ‘Ready?'

Larry nodded.

Mal opened the flyscreen and felt the ionised breath of the storm on his face. The rain came down with the force of a waterfall. He shed his underwear and charged naked into the back yard.

With his face and arms raised to the heavens, he whooped and danced in a tight circle. Larry jumped on the spot, exultant, the rain slapping at his head and shoulders and stealing his breath. They were holding hands and stomping in the puddles that had started to form as the deluge filled the gutters and cascaded over the eaves, all the while hooting and screaming like madmen. Larry broke away and ran a lap of the yard, arms pumping, his father growling after him like a dog. The little boy ran and giggled until he had to stop. He lay down in a puddle beside the vegetable beds and his father flopped beside him. They were staring at each other, grinning and panting, when they felt footfalls and heard squealing – Denise with her shoulders hunched around her ears, smiling, her white bra darkening as the dots of rain joined and then ran like tears over her pale skin.

The boys – grass-flecked and muddied – cheered, and the three of them danced in circles until Denise's orange knickers, waterlogged and loose, began to fall down. She hoicked them up with a squeal and the boys flopped onto the wet ground again.

Larry found a clothes peg and clipped it onto his foreskin. He shrieked and ran another lap of the yard, his ornamented penis flapping about proudly.

Mal and Denise, winded by laughter, clapped and eventually cheered. Mal attached a peg to his own penis and began a tribal dance that involved a lot of stomping, yelping and pelvic thrusting in the general direction of his wife.

In the general direction of the Hammersmiths' back fence.

Mal spotted the floral dome of a shower cap and the narrowed eyes of Muriel Hammersmith staring at him over the palings.

He froze.

Denise wheeled to see why he looked so aghast, sucked a breath and covered herself with her wet arms.

Muriel Hammersmith stared.

With a primal
yawp
, Mal rolled his eyes back into his head, punched his fists into the air and pelvic-thrusted his way to the fence, his penis slapping rhythmically against his belly. When his eyes rolled back into place, Muriel Hammersmith had gone.

Mal turned to his wife and shrugged, but Denise was already heading for the back door. He looked to his son, who stood with his arms by his sides, hair shiny with rain, and shrugged again.

Larry punched his little fists into the air, squealed and waggled his penis until the clothes peg let go. The pair of them laughed and laughed, until the laughter had gone and only sighs remained.

Later, as Mal towel-dried his hair in the kitchen and the rain continued to lash the house in waves, he heard Betsy bark once. It was a pleading yelp as if she'd been locked out. Mal looked to the back fence and saw the top of Muriel's head over the palings. The floral shower cap had gone and her normally curled hair had been rain-plastered to the top of her head like a doily. Muriel's head appeared to be rotating around the yard. She was waltzing with herself. Waltzing in the rain. The postman smiled.

SATISFYING
BRUISES

L
ARRY LOVED SCHOOL
and school loved Larry. In the beginning, at least.

While the big world continued to tear itself apart in 1996 with suicide bombings in Sri Lanka and Israel, mad cow disease in Britain and a spate of horrific air disasters, Larry's little world came together. He couldn't have been happier. He was in class with Jemma Holland every day. His teacher, Mrs Smythe, was like a grandmother to him, and she kept a box of dried fruit in her desk to reward her clever students. Larry ate a lot of dried fruit.

For Denise, it was another story. Weeks passed before she could watch him hang up his schoolbag without sobbing.

‘Sometimes it's harder on the parents than it is on the children,' Mrs Smythe counselled Denise. ‘You need to find an outlet, volunteer for Meals on Wheels or do something creative. Fill your days.'

Mal had said the same thing. Then one night, watching a lifestyle program, they stumbled on a solution: Sookie Dolls, Peek-a-boo Dolls, Time-out Dolls, Tantrum Dolls, Corner Kids, each made with a simple wood-and-wire frame, padded with cotton wadding and dressed in second-hand children's clothing. The head was a single white polystyrene ball covered with a stocking, ornamented with artificial hair from the craft shop and topped with a cheap broad-brimmed hat. The dolls didn't need faces, as they were designed to be propped against furniture or rested in the corner like sulking children.

Denise's first effort – using a kit from the craft shop and some of Larry's old clothes – was so lifelike that she caught Larry having a conversation with it.