The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley (11 page)

I decide to write back to Kite. Until I can make a decision, I need to keep my options open.

Hi Kite,

Use the same greeting as he used – keep it equal.

Thanks for writing.

Resist temptation to get mad that it took him a while.

I was beginning to think you might have injured your hand.

Still, must let him know that it took a while.

All those trapeze blisters, I guess?

Dig it in a little.

My hands are softer than ever,

Dig it in even more, but in a surreptitious way.

but I have a new aunty who has come to stay and she is pregnant.

Just so he doesn't think my whole world stopped when he left.

Haven't been doing any hedge walking or bat pole positions.

Still must gather some sympathy.

But maybe I should start if I am going to audition?

If you show me that you care, then I will practise.

What would I have to do?

Don't let on yet that Mum has said no – must keep the option alive somehow…

Do you think I would have a chance?

Come on, Kite, tell me how good I am and how quickly I learn.

Aren't the others you train with really, really good?

Opportunity for him to let slip information about the other girls, the ones who are better than me.

I'm sure Stinky would like the trees. Oscar is making pieces of blue to wrap rocks in. Caramella is sad that there is no more circus here.

This is the ruin you have left in your wake.

I am trying to find a way to get The Acrobrats going again.

But see what a good person I am, see how I am a hero. (Hide the fact that I have tried nothing and collapsed entirely.)

Anyway, fly hard, Kite, and stay warm. Love Cedar.

What I really want to say is don't forget me, but you simply can't ask that, so instead I must act nonchalant.

X

Add a kiss. Recklessly.

PS Say hi to Ruben.

Quickly deflect attention from kiss.

Then I write a letter to Caramella:

Dear Caramella,

I understand how you feel and I want you to know that I am sorry for making you feel that way. (True.) I definitely don't plan to desert you. Both circuses are really important to me and I want to find a way to have both in my life. (Obviously impossible, but it's what I want.) I really want to learn more acrobatics with the Flying Fruit Fly Circus but I am also completely committed to our circus, because it 's ours, and because we made it ours. (Well said, I think.) Anyway, I plan to do some thinking about our circus and see what we can come up with to keep it going, because now you've made me think about it I realise that I do miss it.

See you soon?
Your friend, Cedar

Then I write a short note to Aunt Squeezy:

Dear Aunt Squeezy,
Mum told me you're pregnant. I think that's great. Just wanted to tell you that. I hope you have a redhead baby!

Chapter 18

The next day is Saturday, and I have to say I don't feel great. I feel diluted, like once I'd been a strong colour and now I'd gone pale and insipid. Because I haven't been concentrating, I've been spreading out and trickling and not pouring my full undiluted glory into anything. One moment I'm thinking about The Acrobrats and Caramella and Oscar, and the next I'm wondering how can I go do that audition, and then I'm thinking that I'm not getting anywhere with either of them because they both seem to cancel each other out.

So I decide to take action. First, Stinky and I go to Caramella's and slip the letter under her door. Unfortunately, Ricci is on the prowl.

‘Hey, why don't you just go in? They're home,' she shrieks. She's squinting at me suspiciously, nosing the air like she might catch a whiff of something.

‘Because I just want to leave a letter,' I say.

‘You like my new shoes?' she cries, obviously more interested in her shoes than in my letter. They're orange slip-on sneakers. She points her foot at me.

‘They're great. Where'd you get 'em?' I'm relieved she isn't quizzing me, but just to make sure I keep her on the shoe topic.

‘Savers, of course. You should see. They've anything you want there.'

‘How about a new circus trainer for The Acrobrats? Do they sell them?' I try to make a joke, but actually that's what I think I need most of all, more than sneakers.

‘Circus trainers!' she shrieks again. ‘But you're a circus trainer. You can do that, Cedar. Why don't you?'

‘No I can't, I don't know enough.' I shake my head but she has bent down to coo over Stinky and she's already distracted.

‘We're off to the post-box,' I say.

She snorts and lets Stinky go, but as I walk off she yells out, ‘But Cedar, you can do anything if you want to. So no excuses.'

I laugh and I wave at Pablo, who is sweeping the leaves off his driveway. I wonder why people bother sweeping up the leaves. Leaves always make the pavements much more colourful and much less official when they're lying around where they feel like lying. I don't say that to Pablo; instead I say, ‘Hey, your garden's looking good.'

He frowns and scratches his head. ‘Do you think so?'

‘Yep.'

‘It needs a good weed, really.'

‘No it doesn't. All gardens need a few weeds in them just to remind you of all the weeds you've got growing out of your own head. That way you know it's natural to be a bit out of control.'

Pablo laughs and I notice that I'm feeling better already. Sometimes you just need to get some air into your head, and then mix that with some nice neighbourly banter, and you lighten up. Easy!

Stinky and I head up towards the shops so we can post Kite's letter, and I'm even beginning to feel a bit sprightly, as if I might just have to do a cartwheel. But I hold back, since I'm wearing a skirt and I don't want to flash my undies, which is lucky because as I round the corner I practically bump into Harold Barton. Imagine if he'd seen that. To tell you the truth, he isn't looking happy. He isn't even really looking. He's obviously thinking hard about something because he nearly bumps into me.

‘Hey,' I say, ‘watch where you're going.' He looks up and stops dead still, staring at me as though I'm an officer of the law and he's just murdered someone.

‘Are you all right?' I say.

‘Yeah,' he says, eyes still boggling.

‘You don't look it.'

‘Hey, Cedar, did you ever know your dad?'

‘No, not really. You know he died when I was a baby.

Why?'

He blushes and looks away and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Nothing,' he says. ‘Just wondering.'

We both stand there. It's awkward and heavy but there's something different. It's not a fight. It's not him against me. It's weird. I'm not used to it. I'm not even sure I can handle it.

‘Oh well, see ya.' I start squirming off.

‘Bye,' he says, and he drags himself off without even saying one smart-arse thing.

I shake my head in wonder. You never know, I say to myself, and I feel that it's the profoundest thought I've had all day. Because just when you think you
do
know someone, or you've got something all figured out, life makes sure you have to un-know it a little bit. Otherwise we'd all be big know-alls, and no one would ask questions anymore or leave gaps in their mind for new stuff. I certainly had a few gaping gaps in my mind that day, because after the entirely weird Harold Barton experience, who should come walking up the street but Inisiya, the mysterious refugee.

Chapter 19

‘Hello,' I say.

Inisiya stops and looks at me with a questioning frown. Obviously I'm not as memorable as she is, or maybe she just isn't such a sleuth. She has a cool old canvas bag hanging from one shoulder and her eyes are shaped like almonds.

‘I'm Cedar. I met you last week at the Fitzroy Learning Network. And I saw you once before in the street at night. You went into the Abutulas.'

She nods and her expression becomes friendlier. But she doesn't speak, so I go on. ‘I live in the same street as the Abutulas. How do you know them?'

‘The Abutulas?' She shrugs. ‘They help us. My family, when we first come to Melbourne. We have today been having lunch, but now I am going to buy chocolate because everybody wants chocolate.'

Her accent is odd, every word sounds Australian but the order and the rhythm of them is different. She has some kind of other sound in her voice, a more round and deliberate sound.

‘They want chocolate? Maybe I'll come with you. I'm going that way, for a stamp,' I say, even though its probably obvious to her that I'm going in the opposite direction and have already posted my letter. Was I being a shonky detective? Would she guess I was on a mission of discovery?

‘Okay,' she says, and you can tell she isn't one bit suspicious.

So, as we wander back up the street, I begin to gently prod her with questions. First of all I ask her how she finds Australia, because I can't even imagine what Afghanistan is like. I think of pale yellow ground and palm trees and houses made of stone.

She laughs. ‘Oh, Afghanistan is a beautiful country. Very beautiful.' As she says this you can tell she's picturing it in her mind, and it's as if whatever she's seeing makes her sad because she seems to hold the memory quietly, then bends her head forward to shelter it.

‘Why did you leave?' I know this is a big question, and one you maybe shouldn't ask because it must be painful to have to leave your country, but the question just popped out before I could catch it and hold it back. She turns towards me with a frown.

‘You've heard about the Taliban?'

I nod. She shrugs and tilts her head. ‘You know what they do? They stone you to death for nothing; even if you read a book that is not the Koran.' I hold myself back from prodding, because it doesn't seem right to prod now. It feels too big.

After a moment she sighs and says, ‘There is no life in Afghanistan for a girl. I was not free to go outside. Girls are not allowed. You get stolen or you get raped. Sometimes I prayed, “Just make me a boy so I can go outside, at least, just not stay inside all the time.” It is really hard there. I get here and I think,“How lucky they are – the women, the ladies – at least they get to have a life.” In Afghanistan the women have to go to the rule of the husband; women do not have any choices. Men can do anything they want to – they can hit them, they can make them have this much children. Women are just nothing, they are just to work, clean, look after men.'

She has become quite fierce and intense, as if it's important that I understand. She shakes her head sadly. ‘I feel sorry for my people. They grow up being spiteful.'

‘Yeah,' I shake my head with her, ‘that's bad.'

She smiles, but it isn't a cheerful smile, it's an accepting smile, like when someone gives you something you don't want for Christmas, like a pair of pink shorts; you smile because that's just the way life is. You have to act as if you're okay with your shorts, even if you're not.

I change the topic to what I hope might be a happier one because I don't feel I know enough to talk well about extreme situations, and I am ashamed of how little I know.

‘How long have you been here in Australia?'

‘Three years now. At first when we arrive we are in Baxter detention and then we live in Adelaide. But we do not like Adelaide, so now we come here.'

‘What was it like, in the detention centre?'

‘Oh, you know, compared to how we live before we are glad to be there, at least we are alive and we have showers and food. For us it is not as bad as it is now because we come earlier, before the Tampa, and they are not so crowded, and we stay one year instead of for many years, and we are not separated from each other.'

I wonder what it must have been like for her before, if it was worse than being in detention, but I don't want to ask her about something that might bring back bad memories so I just say that I'm glad she has made it here to Australia, even if it isn't as beautiful as her own country.

She looks at me as if she is really looking, for the first time, to see who I am or at least what sort of a person I am. I look at her right back in the eyes; I'm not afraid of being seen, because I mean it, I really do. She doesn't say anything for a while and neither do I, but just before we part she bursts out:

‘You know here some people tell me I am a geek. But I think,“You have the opportunity to get education, why not use it – instead you waste it?” I see girls, they just talk and talk, they do nothing else. I talk too, but I do my work. Like in our country, girls are dying for some education. Here people just waste their time.'

‘Yeah,' I say again, as if I've never wasted time myself. But she's on a roll anyway; she keeps going,

‘I feel bad, you know, because you have got such a good country and you do not feel grateful. Here people are so fortunate. They get to have everything. I mean, what else do you want?'