The Best Australian Stories 2014 (21 page)

*

The school bus collected Miss Munro and then me. We were the only ones on the bus until Jackson and his sisters who lived about a quarter way off the bottom of the mountain got on. The bus driver's name was Kevin. He was a sleaze. He was always looking in the rear mirror at Miss Munro. I think she was relieved when I got on. When she first started teaching she sat up front, to be polite probably and chat to Kev, but later she sat towards the back of the bus. She gave me a big smile when I got on, patting the seat in front of her for me to sit there, placing me between her and Kev's mirror.

*

She liked travel brochures. ‘I love going into travel agents,' she once said. ‘It's like going into a newsagent but all the magazines are free.' Brochures on Egypt, New York, the Aztecs, the Great Barrier Reef, Switzerland, Rome, African safaris, she had them all. With a pair of scissors she carefully cut the photos out and pasted them into a scrapbook. Scrapbooking was big around here. In the city it was all about making slideshows and movies on the computer. At school, the popular kids were always holding auditions and filming at lunchtimes before commandeering class time for special screenings in which they'd give each other standing ovations. But here, it was scrapbooking. There was a shop in the main street that sold only scrapbooks, glue, pens in different colours, puff paints, stickers, patterned borders, sachets of glitter and sequins. One Saturday, while Mum was in the supermarket and Dad was watching her from the footpath, I looked in the shop through the window. It was full of women, bustling with their purses and bags. There were scrapbooks on display in the window – pages filled out with photographs of grandchildren and babies, tiny handprints and paintings by five-year-olds. Others were scrawled with family trees and histories, and old black and white postcards. One had a pair of booties sewn onto the front cover. None were like Miss Munro's.

If the glue was dry, Miss Munro let me flick through the scrapbook. The pictures bubbled where the glue hadn't been put on properly and some of the pages stuck together. She had a map of the world at the start with dots made with a purple marker showing where she wanted to go. There were pictures of lions, great big turtles floating in blue water, black people with the whitest teeth and houseboats on old brown rivers. She had a section for places to stay. Fancy hotel rooms with fridges and minibars, thatched huts on an island somewhere. Even then, the scrapbook had seemed to me a bit of a dream. No way was she ever going to be able to afford those classy hotels and big cat tours. But even though it felt a bit like play-acting, I liked our time on the bus. When there was a good photo on both sides of a page, she asked me to decide which was best. I liked the discussions that went into that decision. ‘I like this zebra,' I'd say, turning it over, ‘but this picture of the village could be handy when you're there.' Or, ‘The beach looks better in this picture, but you don't have the hut in the background.' Or, simply, ‘The rodeo or the burger and fries?'

Sometimes Miss Munro handed me the scissors and covered her eyes with her hands. She was the only adult I knew who had no rings on her fingers.

‘You decide, Gerry, I just can't choose,' she'd say. I'd nod solemnly, silently making my decision. Then after cutting out the picture, Miss Munro would take her hands away and beam. ‘Good choice, Gerry, good choice.'

It got to the point that I started dreaming too. Dreaming of going places, though not the places Miss Munro mostly marked out on her map, places where the people looked strange and the food looked like it was still alive. I wanted to go to America with Miss Munro. I lay awake thinking about the big plates of chips we'd order, and burgers with thick buns and heaped with pickles and tomato sauce and melted cheese. The cowboys – men who looked like my dad but they smiled easy – would take one look at me and decide that I had talent. They'd come over to us in the diner, their jeans held up by belts and wide metal buckles, walking as if they had invisible horses between their thighs, and we'd finish our burgers and then we'd go to a ranch. I'd have my own horse and the cowboys would ruffle my hair as we rode out together. Sometimes I dreamed so hard I could feel their fingers in my hair, catching on the odd knot, my head tingling.

Miss Munro started to save the brochures on America for me. ‘It's not just cowboys,' she'd explain. ‘There's cities with famous buildings and celebrities. Mountains too, like we have here – but bigger.' I nodded, fingers holding the glossy pages tight, but my eyes kept shifting back to the middle of America where I knew the horses and the cattle and the cowboys were. I put the brochures in my bag carefully and took them out again at night, looking at the photos in bed as the TV blared cop shows from the front room. Sirens and guns and yelling got in the way of the
clop-clop-clop
of horseshoes, the spit of whips and ‘whoa, whoa' of cowboys. Usually I kept an ear out for footsteps so I could hide the brochures and pretend to be asleep but one night Dad came in quietly. The TV was going and I was staring at a picture of a cowboy on a horse trying to corral a cow back into its herd. ‘What's this?' he said, grabbing a corner and pulling it toward him. I looked up at him, mouth open. I didn't even hear him come in. He started to flick through the brochure and stopped at the page where the tours were listed with prices. I'd circled the three-week tour, which involved sleeping out with cowboys and riding alongside them.

‘$4320,' he said slowly, ‘plus taxes.' He looked at me. ‘Who gave you this?'

‘It's for school,' I said, stammering slightly.

‘And you think you're going to go? Leave your mother and me while we work and pay for you to have a good time?'

I shook my head. I was going to pay for it. I was going to find a job.

‘You reckon you could earn this kind of money, do you? You reckon someone would give you money? To do what? What can you do, Gerry?'

I shrugged.

‘No, really, Gerry, I want to know. What do you think you can do?'

I looked out the bedroom door into the hallway. I heard the volume go down on the television. I could feel Mum sitting up straight on the couch, straining to hear what was happening.

‘Answer me, Gerry. What. Can. You. Do?'

I smelled grass. Cow shit. I could see the red and white chequered shirt of a cowboy, his flanks sweaty with horse. I saw Miss Munro sitting beside a campfire.

‘Nothing, Dad. Nothing.' The smell disappeared. The cowboy too.

‘You got any more of these?' asked Dad, holding up the brochure. I nodded and reached under my bed. I pulled out the other brochures Miss Munro had given me and handed them to him. Again he flicked through them and again he stopped at the pages where I'd circled what I'd planned to do. He laughed and walked out of the room with them. I lay there staring at the black rectangle of the open doorway.

In the morning when I stepped outside, Dad was chopping wood. I watched as he swung the axe high over his head, his jacket riding up and showing his white back, and his legs bowed like a cowboy's. He stopped when he saw me and leaned the axe up against the porch. He bent over and pulled the brochures out from behind the chopping block. Then the bus pulled up. Not saying anything, he walked towards the bus, Kev opening the doors and looking out, confused. I followed slowly. Dad nodded at Kev and stepped onto the bus. He looked down the aisle at Miss Munro. She looked up at him. Dad held up the brochures.

‘This what you're teaching my son?'

Miss Munro opened her mouth but Dad wouldn't let her speak.

‘That life is just about holidays? That while the rest of us are breaking our backs working, he can gallivant around the world?'

‘No, Mr Colpitt,' Miss Munro started. ‘It's about understanding different cult—'

Dad cut her off. ‘Don't give me that bullshit. It's about leeching off the rest of us who are busting our balls trying to make a living.' He looked at Kev. ‘Right, Kev?'

Kev had his hands on the steering wheel. They were knotted white around the plastic. He stared at Dad and nodded. Miss Munro peered around Dad at me. I looked at the floor.

‘Don't give my son any more of this bullshit!' Dad flung the brochures at the floor near Miss Munro's seat. ‘Teach him something fucking useful.' He turned around and I was in his way. I panicked, my schoolbag getting jammed against the seats. Eventually I tugged it free and moved to the side.

When Dad was off the bus, Kev cleared his throat and looked back at Miss Munro but she avoided his eyes. He closed the door and let out a low whistle, trying to catch my eye in the mirror. I looked away. The brochures lay on the floor until we got near Jackson's house. Then Miss Munro leaned over and picked them up, and put them in her bag.

The scrapbooking stopped after that. Well, my helping out did. I could hear Miss Munro cutting out the pictures with her scissors and gluing them into her book, but she never asked me to help her choose a photo. From that day on I sat closer to the door and Kev went back to glancing at Miss Munro in his mirror.

*

The mornings got lighter and the snow beside the road melted away. Dad started working on our car in the driveway. People stopped needing chains for their tyres and he took ours off, hanging them on a hook on the side of the porch. He let me stand and watch while he worked under the bonnet so I'd learn something useful.

He showed me how to change the oil. As the days got hotter, Mum would bring us cold drinks. She'd sit with us as we drank them and she and Dad would smile. He would drain his glass and tip it at me. ‘You better appreciate your mum, Gerry,' he'd say, ‘Ain't another one as good as her.' Then, ‘Got any biscuits, honey?' and Mum would run inside and return with a plate of biscuits. Sometimes the man next door would lean on the fence and try to chat. Under the bonnet Dad would roll his eyes at me and I'd grin. Once I even made as if I'd fallen asleep at the man's boringness and Dad laughed out loud. Then one Sunday it was so hot that sweat poured off Dad's face as he leaned over the engine trying to tighten a bolt that kept slipping out of the spanner's grip. The man next door leaned on the fence and peered over at us.

‘Hot enough for ya, son?' he asked me.

I turned to answer him, then heard the spanner slip again and Dad swear. I looked back and Dad was out from under the bonnet, his face shining with oil.

‘Would you stop leaning on the fucking fence, you fat fuck?' The man looked at Dad, startled. ‘Well that's a bit—'

‘It's not gunna hold you every goddamn day.' Dad bent down and scooped up a burnt-out spark plug from the ground. ‘Fuck off,' he yelled and threw it at the fence. The man ducked and disappeared. I started to laugh but then Dad walked up to me, whacked me over the head and went inside.

*

It was Mum's small tight smile that warned me, her eyes shifting to the side like a horse's do when it gets skittish. I was in my pyjamas, standing in the corridor when she stepped out of the kitchen to look down the hall at me. I could hear Dad in the bathroom, his belt shifting on the floor as he sat on the toilet and smoked. I stood there for a moment. I needed to pee but when I heard him flush, cough and the mirror cabinet door slam shut, I quickly stepped back into my room and hid behind the door. I listened to his footsteps go past and into the kitchen. I dressed and went to the toilet, trying not to breathe in the stink of shit and smoke.

In the kitchen I kept my head down, only looking at him sideways. His eyes were black. It was as if he was growing in his chair, gathering and growing and getting darker by the second. Mum looked at the floor as well. She carefully placed his toast on a plate at the edge of the newspaper, but it was either going to be her or me. I poured the milk over my cereal, careful for none of it to splash over the side of the bowl. I balanced the spoon on the inside rim of the bowl where there was no chance of me accidentally knocking it out of the bowl and splattering cereal on the table. I made sure my schoolbag was out of the way so he couldn't trip over it. But then, as I was leaving I took an apple out of the fruit bowl for lunch. It was the last one. I don't think I'd ever seen Dad eat an apple.

‘What about the rest of us?' Dad snarled, looking up from the paper, his top lip curling. ‘Ever consider that someone else might want that apple?' I looked up, the waxy soft not-worth-it apple in my hand. Then I felt something snap, like the jaws of a trap, or the clasp of an elastic band. Dad had found what he was sniffing around for. And something else snapped into focus. I realised it didn't matter what I said, it didn't matter if I opened my hand and let the apple fall back into the bowl, none of it mattered. Dad had made his choice and set his sights on me. So I dropped the apple into my schoolbag, hefted it onto my shoulder and ran.

It all went fast and slow at the same time. I heard him leap up, tipping the chair onto the floor while Mum let out a low moan. I pushed open the door and jumped off the porch, over the steps. I could see the bus pull up at the kerb, its engine shuddering as Kev, not seeing me, wondered if he needed to shut it down and wait for me. I hollered to get his attention, and kept running.

Dad was behind me. I could feel his weight, the bulk of him, the jangle of his belt, his keys and lighter and coins, his shoes on the gravel, the rasp of his breath and the sound of something else, something heavy clunking along the ground. I looked behind me and his face reared up like a wolf, his features all jumbled, mouth torn, eyes twisted, nose flared. And in his hand, the axe. He'd grabbed it on his way. I felt everything catch, the air in my throat, my legs against my shorts. My stomach heaved. I somehow lost time, the rhythm of my running, two steps became one. The bus doors were open and I scrambled in, falling on my hands and knocking my chin against the gearstick.

‘Go!' I yelled at Kev, who was staring past me at Dad. ‘Go, go go!'