My Brother’s Keeper (19 page)

A
PRIL
2005

Sunny

T
he day Falcon drowned, Mum had the yips really bad. She’d been hanging out for her drugs all day. I hated her when she had her drugs but I hated her even more when she didn’t. It was Falcon’s birthday and I felt sorry for him that he wasn’t having a normal birthday with cakes and party hats and games and other kids. Falcon didn’t have any friends. I had friends, but I knew not to bring anyone home. I knew Mum’s drugs and her yips weren’t what other mothers had and I knew if I said anything about it to anyone, we’d all be in terrible trouble. It was a family secret that was so secret even the family didn’t talk about it. I hated the weekend days because it meant we had to spend the
whole time trying to keep out of Mum’s way. Usually Falcon would just do what I said and I could protect him, but something was funny about him that day. Gran had sent him money for his birthday. He’d never had real money of his own before. He kept hassling Mum about taking us to The Warehouse to buy his present. He kept asking Mum if she was sure he had enough money to buy a PlayStation. How did she know how much it cost without ringing up the shop to ask? When were we going to go and get it? That sort of thing, the sort of thing that would really wind Mum up. It didn’t take much to wind her up when she had the yips. And on Falcon’s birthday she had the yips worse than I’d ever seen.

When the car was filling up with water Falcon kept saying ‘I’m scared, I’m scared’, and then he undid the seat belt on his booster seat and put his arms around my neck because I was in the front seat. The car was floating down. It kind of tilted head-first, which made my ears pop like on the plane that I went in once with Dad when we going to see his granddad, or maybe it was his dad.

I told Falcon not to be scared and I sang ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’ to him because that was the song he learnt at kindy. It was his favourite, even though Dad said it’s not really a boy’s song. Falcon joined in singing with me but then he started to cry again and put his face in my neck. I told him it was okay. I told him he was going to heaven where it would be his birthday every day forever. A real birthday with presents and a cake and party games, not the shit birthday Mum was giving him. I told him that heaven was a bit like Rainbow’s End, only better, and that he’d be allowed to go on all the rides. He said he wanted to
go to The Warehouse with Mum and get his PlayStation but I knew Mum had spent his birthday money on her drugs and she wasn’t going to The Warehouse at all, she had just been saying that to shut him up. And when he cried more, when the water came gushing in from the tops of the windows, I promised him he’d get his very own PlayStation in heaven and it would be far better than any PlayStation Mum could get him. That it was called PlayStation Zillion because it was so flash. I told him we were going to go to heaven together and that I would look after him. And I was — I wanted to. But the man saved me and it ended up that I didn’t go with Falcon. I didn’t want the man to save me. I wanted to go to heaven with Falcon and get away from Mum forever. That’s why I took the handbrake off when she got out of the car to have a cigarette. I knew that when she went into that house with the scary dogs tied up outside and blinds all down, then when she came out again with her eyes looking like the white rabbit in
Alice in Wonderland
, I knew she had used Falcon’s birthday money to buy her drugs. I knew we weren’t going to The Warehouse to buy Falcon’s PlayStation. But he didn’t know that.

The man who pulled me out of the car made me sit on the grass next to all the swan poo. He told me to stay where I was and he dived straight back into the water again to try to get Falcon. But his arms came up through all the weed and then his head popped back up out of the water and he was gasping in big gulps of air but he didn’t have Falcon with him.

Mum came and put a blanket around me that smelt like a dog and she sat beside me like she didn’t notice all the swan poo
and we watched all the other people diving into the water. All those people scared the swans away. I heard people say ‘She’s in shock’, but I didn’t know if they were talking about me or Mum. And then ages later when the ambulance was there, two men came out of the river with the water pouring off them and one of the men was carrying Falcon in his arms and he had green slime all over him and he was white and very wet. They tried to push the water out of his stomach with their hands.

Afterwards, when I was in the hospital, it was nice. Everyone wore shoes that squeaked on the floor. The nurses were kind to me and gave me green jelly cut up into squares and strawberry ice cream. They wouldn’t tell me if Falcon was dead but I knew he was and then later Dad came in with his eyes all red and told me the doctors hadn’t been able to save him.

When Mum sat beside me on the grass with all the swan poo and put the smelly dog blanket around me she made me promise never to tell anyone it was me who took the handbrake off. She said I got it wrong. She said I hadn’t done that. She said I’d imagined it. Mum said that she had killed Falcon, that it was her fault he was dead. And she was so sure about it. And in a funny way, I believed her.

T
HURSDAY
29 N
OVEMBER
2012

D
espite the cool shuddering breeze that had blown up, all the windows of Salena’s BMW were wound down. Had Sunny done that so the car would fill up quicker? So it would sink faster? It wasn’t until I was halfway down the street that I could confirm it was indeed Sunny in the driver’s seat. Approaching as I was from behind the car, it took longer to identify Neo hunched down in the front passenger seat, his fine, blond curly-haired head coming only halfway up the seat. Four sneakered feet waggled on the dashboard. Both heads were bent over, their attention focused on something below the dashboard. The handbrake? Heart pounding, I slowed my step and listened for their voices above the hum of distant traffic and the plaintive honking of the black swans.

Justin had parked at the top of the street and reluctantly agreed to stay out of sight while I approached Salena’s car on foot. He knew it was safer for me to talk to Sunny but he hadn’t found it easy to trust me and from where I stood, halfway between his car and Salena’s, I could still see him pacing back and forth nervously. It was Justin who had guessed Sunny would come here. That he’d been right about it was a shock to me. I continued to walk slowly towards the car, conscious of the need to keep calm so as not to alarm either of them.

The BMW was parked at the bottom of the dead-end street, the nose of the car parked right over the footpath. A wide muddy lawn directly in front of the car sloped steeply down to the lake. Even from where I stood I could see the lake was alive with waving tendrils of lake weed. A noisy gang of black swans congregated around the car, honking and hissing loudly at each other. A fight broke out as something flew from the driver’s window and several of them attacked each other with wings outstretched and necks extended. A couple of pukeko high-stepping across the muddy lawn turned to see what the commotion was all about.

Fear purled in me as I walked slowly towards the passenger window. When I saw Sunny’s fist punch out between her and Neo I quickened my step. Was she reaching for the handbrake? As I neared the window, Neo wrapped his hand around her fist and they both laughed. They were playing rock-paper-scissors.

The swans screamed their objections with much flapping and screeching but reluctantly made way for me as I squatted down with one elbow casually on Neo’s open window.

‘Hey, you two.’

Sunny had spotted me approaching and feigned disinterest. Neo offered his wide open face to me and smiled. A spread of fish and chips lay open across the handbrake between them. That’s what their attention had been focused on.

‘What happened to your “I only eat white food” thing?’ I said, ducking my head to better see Sunny’s face.

‘Fish and chips are white,’ she said, biting the end off a chip and holding it up to me as proof. ‘The tomato sauce is for him.’ Neo rammed his chip into a blob of blood-red sauce tipped into the middle of the paper and held it up in front of her face mischievously. She mugged back at him. The swans squabbled around my ankles, annoyed with me for getting in the way of their fast food delivery. Keeping an elbow casually angled on the open window I closed my fingers around the door handle. If Sunny let the brake off I’d have the door open and Neo dragged out before the car started its steep pitch to the water’s edge.

‘Neo, your dad’s here,’ I said calmly. Neo spun his head around to check out the back window. Keeping to our agreement, Justin was still out of sight. ‘He’s parked up at the top of the street. How about you go see him. He’s worried about you.’

Sunny turned away and disinterestedly threw a chip to the posse of swans gathered beneath her window. They screeched their approval.

‘I don’t want to see him,’ Neo said, studying Sunny’s profile for approval. ‘Not after what he did to Sunny.’

A swan made a move on my laces. Keeping one palm on the door handle I flung the other arm out to ward off the aggressive bird. The whole gang of them went into hysterics, honking and hissing at me. Sunny and Neo grinned at each other, enjoying
my discomfort at being ganged up on by a pack of stroppy oversized birds.

‘Sunny.’ I waited until she looked directly at me. ‘It wasn’t your dad.’ She went very still. ‘Justin didn’t take those photos of you.’

She looked at me for a long time and then turned away to watch the pukekos prancing on the lawn. Neo studied her nervously.

‘Go on.’ She turned back to him with a smile and bundled up the parcel of fish and chips in her hands.

‘You can take them,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough.’ When he hesitated, she leaned over and pushed the door open for him. It almost toppled me into the raucous gang of swans. ‘Go see if Dad wants some.’ Still he hesitated. ‘Go on!’ she said, giving him a shove.

He clambered out of the car and then leaned back in, scattering fish and chips all over the seat, to kiss her awkwardly on the cheek. He nodded at my instructions to stay on the pavement and, gathering his diminished package of chips, meandered off towards where I knew Justin would be waiting for him.

When he was out of hearing Sunny spoke. ‘Are you totally sure Dad didn’t take those photos?’

‘Yes.’ I brushed chips off the seat to the screaming crowd of swans, climbed in and slammed the door shut on their delighted shrieks. Sunny had angled the rear-view mirror to watch Neo. She shook her head, smiling as we both watched him drop a chip and bend to pick it up out of the gutter. In the process, the remainder of his chips tumbled out onto his feet. He squatted
on his haunches and started gathering them up, one by one.

‘Who took them, then?’ she asked, her eyes still on the mirror.

‘Salena.’ I thought it best to leave Ned out of the equation for now.

She turned an incredulous look on me. ‘Seriously?’

I nodded. She closed her eyes, taking this in. ‘Okay. Well, I’m pleased it wasn’t Dad,’ she concluded. ‘They’re totally useless, you know? Parents.’ She was watching Neo again through the rear-view mirror. I craned my neck to watch out the back window as Justin approached Neo and shook the regathered chips from his hand. Clearly irritated with the boy’s clumsiness, he took the package off him and threw it in the gutter.

‘Adults shouldn’t have kids.’ Sunny said, shaking her head in disgust. ‘They’re useless at it.’

‘This is where it happened, isn’t it? Where Falcon drowned.’

She dragged her attention from the mirror and stared down towards the water. ‘Yeah. The car went in right there. From here it doesn’t look all that deep, but it is.’ She pointed to where a duck was settling itself contentedly under a pohutukawa. ‘And that’s where I sat with Mum while they were trying to get Falcon out of the car.’

The lake looked idyllic. Postcard blue and decorated with the delicate question-mark necks of the black swans. They’re horrible birds really but they do look beautiful. A breeze rippled across the water. Only the beckoning fingers of the lake weed looked sinister and that was probably because I’d imagined the rescuer striding from the water with Neo in his arms. The pale, limp little body draped in the possessive slimy lake weed.

‘Why’d you bring Neo here, Sunny?’

She shrugged. ‘Dad would never bring me here after it happened. But Falcon and me used to love it here. Before he drowned, I mean. We always had such a cool time when we came here. We used to love chasing the swans and we used to pretend this was our very own front lawn; we even pretended that we’d live here in one of those rich people’s houses one day — you know, just me and him — and we’d spend all day here, just hanging out with the swans and having picnics and everything. When I was a kid this was the only place where I was happy.’ She stopped, embarrassed at having given away so much. ‘We didn’t have stuff, you know, like toys or a dog or anything like that. I adopted a stray cat once but it wasn’t supposed to come inside and Mum wouldn’t let me feed it. I don’t know what happened to it …’ She stared off towards the horizon, remembering. ‘We never had any money. It all went on the drugs, I suppose, but I didn’t really understand any of that when I was, like, seven.’ She looked at me frankly, without guile. ‘I just thought Neo would like it here too. Like Falcon and I did.’

‘It was you who let the handbrake off, wasn’t it? Not Karen.’

She looked out again to where the sky met the water. ‘I meant for us both to die. But the guy dragged me out first. Falcon’s foot was trapped under my seat. I think it got twisted up in the seat belt. The man went back for him but he was already dead by the time they got him out.’

‘Why did Karen take the blame?’

‘She told me it was her fault and, I don’t know, I just kind of believed it and then after a while, I just, well, I kind of forgot it was me.’

She continued to stare out towards the horizon but her hand hovered near the handbrake. She was reliving that moment seven years ago when she had pulled it towards her and then released it. I looked at the long sloping lawn leading to the lake. The car would have rolled slowly at first and then, gathering speed, it would have rushed headlong down into the lake. I imagined it floating. For how long? Seconds? And then it must have tipped, the weight of the engine tilting it forward, and then silently sunk into the water, claimed by those long waving arms of lake weed.

Sunny’s pale skin was even whiter than usual. ‘Gran knew,’ she said, her eyes blank as she remembered. ‘She came round to our place the day after it happened. The day the police took Mum away. When we were alone, Gran said she knew I killed Falcon, but that Mum deserved all she got. She said she wouldn’t tell but she never wanted to see me again. She said she’d always loved Falcon more than me.’ She shrugged. ‘I screamed and screamed at her but I don’t blame her for hating me.’

She was surprisingly calm. I reminded myself again that she’d lived with these horrors for most of her life.

‘What did Manny say to you? When you saw him outside your gran’s place. What did he tell you?’

She smiled to herself before answering. ‘He said Mum was frightened for me. That she thought carrying the guilt of killing Falcon and the guilt of her taking the blame for it would eventually, you know, destroy me. She wanted me to tell the truth. To confess.’

I remembered Karen had said something similar to me on the phone the night before I was to meet Sunny and Justin. Something about the importance of taking responsibility. That it was
the only way you can forgive yourself. I had assumed she was talking about herself, and maybe she was. But now I realised she had been talking about Sunny, too.

She looked at me directly, her eyes clear and untroubled. ‘I don’t know if she meant I should confess to, like, a priest or a minister or something. Or if she meant the police. I guess I’ll never know that now.’ She turned that delicate neck to stare at the horizon again. ‘She was going to stand beside me when I did it.’

Suddenly, Sunny’s door was flung open. We both startled.

‘Get out of the car, Sunny.’ Justin was dealing with this situation in the same way he dealt with everything: with anger.

‘Leave her alone, Justin. I’ll drive her back …’ I stopped myself from saying ‘home’. I didn’t know where that was any more. Sunny probably didn’t either.

He ignored me and bent down to yell in Sunny’s face. ‘What the fuck did you think you were doing with Neo?’

Her head dropped. She answered calmly but her lips and voice trembled. ‘You never see what’s really going on, Dad. You never saw it with Falcon and you never saw it with me. You never looked out for us. You’re the same with Neo. You and Salena never see what’s going on for him. You’re all the same; all parents are the same. You only think of yourselves. I just wanted to get him away from that shit for a while.’

She was brave, this girl. I’d thought it the first time I’d met her.

‘But why the fuck did you bring him here? Why here?!’

She choked back a sob. ‘I would never hurt him, Dad.’

Justin reached in and grabbed her arm. He pulled her out
of the car. She let herself be manhandled by him. I leapt out my side, scattering outraged swans in all directions. Justin stepped back from her, his hands held up. She remained just where he’d put her. Her arms hung loosely at her sides. Sunny’s passivity seemed to frustrate him. I lurched around the bonnet towards them just as he leaned forward and yelled right in her face. ‘It’s where he fucking died!’

I pulled up beside them.

Sunny tilted her face up to him. ‘You think I don’t know that!’

I hovered nervously, ready to step between them if Justin so much as put a fingertip on her.

‘Falcon was the only person in the world who loved me,’ she yelled at him. ‘You and Mum didn’t care about us. And when he died I was completely alone.’

Justin took a step back from her anger.

‘I’m going to lose Neo now, too, aren’t I? You and Salena are going to break up and I’ll never see him!’

Justin opened his mouth to speak and then shut it.

Sunny’s anger seemed to dissolve. Her voice broke. ‘I’ve lost you, too, Dad, haven’t I?’

I thought he’d put his arms around her. I thought he’d tell her she would never lose him. He didn’t. They stood like that, facing each other, not touching. He walked a few steps away and then, before I could do anything, he spun on his heels and walked back. He stood in front of Sunny, shuffling from one foot to the other, trying to find the right words. She waited, her eyes enormous from the tears. When he did speak, it was straight to the point.

‘Look, Sunny, I wish I was a bigger person and all. But the fact is, I’m not. I can never forgive you for killing Falcon. That’s just how it is. It’s better that you know that.’ The heat was gone but that just made it all the more devastating. With one final immense shrug that said all the things he was unable to say with words, Justin turned and walked away.

Sunny stared dry-eyed at his departing back. Then she turned her gaze to where a satisfied duck squatted beneath the pohutukawa. It was the same place she had been sat, seven years old, bedraggled, half-drowned, to wait for her brother’s body to be lifted to the surface. I put my hands on her arms and pulled her little body towards me. She was even lighter than I imagined. I drew her into my arms and she stayed there. Over her shoulder I could see Neo watching. Justin had his back turned, mobile phone to his ear.