The Slightly Bruised Glory of Cedar B. Hartley (22 page)

‘That doesn't mean you have to like it!'

I lift my head up from the bed. She smiles and gently pushes the hair off my face.

‘No, it's rotten when it comes, but you have to be ready to let it go and move on as well.'

Move on? That was exactly the problem. Where? Now I'd never see Kite and he'd run off for ever and my whole career as world-touring acrobat would be over. I stop sobbing as I pause to wonder which is worse: the loss of Kite, or the loss of career.

As if hearing my thoughts, Mum says, ‘Anyway, you mustn't think of it as the end. There are always other opportunities, and you'll find them. If anyone can find an opportunity, you can.'

I shake my head dismally, mainly because I'm just feeling feeble and shaky and don't even want to look past the place where my life has stopped.

Aunt Squeezy, of course, takes a similar approach: that same character-building line of reasoning. She even says, ‘Don't worry, losers are much more interesting people than winners.'

I'm appalled. ‘Are you saying I'm a loser?'

‘No, no, I'm just saying now you've had the experience of losing something you wanted. That's a great opportunity life has presented you with.'

‘I would have preferred the opportunity of touring the world in a circus.'

‘Sure, but this doesn't mean you don't get that opportunity, it just means you have to work harder for it. You have to trust, now, that there's a good reason. You just can't see it yet.'

It isn't until the early evening that I eventually drag myself up off my bed. I take Stinky down the creek. The sun is sinking and the trees are sighing in relief. It's been a slow, hot day, but now the shadows are long and the air has loosened and the sky has relinquished its relentless blue hold and let a dirty pink flush creep in. I sigh too. It seems that something is giving way. Not just the long, hot day of sobbing, but my holding on to it. I even notice a little glad thought, like the short pealing song of a bird sheltering in the shade. As I watch Stinky's hairy bum happily trotting towards the creek, I think that at least I won't have to live away from him now. Or Mum. And even Barnaby.

And then I begin to try to think about what Ruben had said on the phone, about how it was between me and one other girl and we were both as good as each other, only since she'd been training with the circus group she'd learned a specialist skill. That was the only difference. So I was very, very close, and there'd be more auditions next year.

Next year, I thought to myself, would I still want it? And just as I wondered this I walked onto the bridge and saw a wobbly, trickling line of rocks wrapped in blue, spreading down the bank.

Oscar's rocks.

It quite stopped me, hushed my thoughts, because it kind of asked you to look at it. To smile at it. This quiet tumble of blue looked like a moment caught and offered, like a spectacular sentence basking on a sunny ledge, unaware of its own significance. There was a whole bank of rocks, but simply by being wrapped in bits of blue – old shabby blue T-shirt, used tea towels, a blue curtain – a procession of them had been transformed into royalty, into something that was majestic in a home-made way. Just by standing out from the rest, they looked special, even though they were dressed in rags. Maybe also because they were a team; all of them together, holding their heads high and laughing down the hill.

The Acrobrats.

I thought of them, our new team of refugees. Their acrobatic skills were as shabby as those old blue rags, but they were a special team. They stood out like those blue rocks because they were different from the rocks they'd found themselves amidst. They had different cultures and histories and languages and experiences. It was as if they'd been plucked out of their land of blue rocks and plonked in a land of mud-coloured rocks. The Acrobrats might never be able to do back flips, but they were always going to have a story to tell.

I felt like rushing over to Oscar's house and telling him, because there's this thing about Oscar: I never know if he knows how much he knows, or if he just senses things but doesn't need to explain them, not even to himself. He just makes pictures or poems of things that reveal his own unique Oscar way. I felt like saying, ‘Hey Oscar, I get it now, I get the rocks.' But I'm not sure he'd like it explained in words. I think he wouldn't like it worked out as if it was a riddle rather than the mysterious, beautiful thing that it is.

What's more, when I think of Oscar I feel ashamed of my misery. He's someone whose life was once partly rubbed out in a huge and forever way, and yet he's never given up. He goes on with his brain injury; goes on with more courage than I have. What would he think of me if he knew how I thought my life was over just because I didn't get selected? Oscar wouldn't think anything. He'd probably just laugh and clap his knee.

Chapter 39

As far as I knew, Caramella and Oscar didn't know about my three-day tragic adventure to Albury, and since I was back in time for Acrobrat training there was no reason to tell them – except that I felt I had to. Otherwise, I'd be hiding something from them (not a little thing but a rather huge thing), and it would be like trying to build a house together while not telling them that some of the floorboards had holes. Let's face it, if there are holes, everyone who's in the room should know where they are.

So, before training I meet up with Caramella. We sit in the gutter outside her house. She has a new top on. It's a pale blue sleeveless T-shirt with a purple swirly drawing of Janis Joplin on it. I've never seen Caramella wear anything kind of rock'n'roll before, let alone without sleeves, so I can't help commenting.

‘Hey, nice top.'

She smiles shyly. ‘Thanks. It was a present. But I chose it.'

‘A present, who from?'

‘Just Mum and Dad. For my birthday.'

‘It was your birthday? On the weekend?'

‘Yeah. I rang you to see if you wanted to come to the city with us. We went to the gallery. But you were away.' She drops her face and sticks her hands under the T-shirt.

Oh boy, I think. What kind of friend am I?

‘Caramella, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I wanted to tell you I was going, but I was scared you'd think I was deserting you because I went up to Albury to audition for the Flying Fruit Flies. It was something I felt I had to do – ' Caramella interrupts me. ‘Don't worry about it. I understand. Your Aunt Squeezy explained to me when I rang up. You know, if some great drawing school asked me to apply, I would too, no matter what was going on. So don't feel bad.'

I feel a great rush of relief, which makes me look up at the heavens and breathe out, then I turn to Caramella.

‘You know Caramella, you're the best.'

She laughs and draws her knees in close under her chin.

‘And you look great in that T-shirt.' I really mean that, because all of a sudden she looks more comfortable; more as if she's sitting in her own skin, as if it's a good place to be.

And in the end that's what makes something good, the way you can like it or love it or accept it and wear it. She rocks back and forth, mouth on her knee, large eyes peeping over the little fleshy mountains of leg as if they're half hiding and half venturing out.

‘You don't think I look fat?' she says, taking her mouth off her knee.

‘Nope. You look sexy.'

‘Really?'

‘For sure.'

She smiles her famously sweet, beaming smile and I feel myself beaming back because that's what happens when Caramella beams; you can't help getting all warmed up by it. I think to myself, This is great, this is really great. Who would have thought I could feel so great just one day after my glorious failure?

As we make our way to training I tell her about how I didn't get selected; how I almost did, but I didn't.

She doesn't seem concerned. ‘But you'll get in. You'll get in next time.' And she just grins like it's no big deal.

‘Yeah,' I say, and I kind of go along with her and act just as if it is no big deal, and the funny thing is I almost believe it myself. Because when I look around, the neighbourhood looks okay: houses are sitting as they should, all higgledy-piggledy and solid and old, the sun is out and everything is beaming beneath it, and I'm walking along with Caramella, who's my best friend. So I puff myself up with the gleaming goodness of the day and I say, ‘I kissed Kite.'

She opens her eyes wide and grins. ‘I knew it! I knew you would.'

‘It was a real kiss. Went for ages. On the steps.'

‘So, you in love?'

‘I guess so. I'm not sure if he is, though.'

‘Why?'

‘Well, for one thing, there's this other girl called Lola and they seem pretty close. I don't even know if something's going on or not. Also, I haven't heard from him since I found out I didn't get in.'

‘That was only yesterday.'

‘Still.'

‘Why don't you just ask him? I mean about Lola. Ring him up and ask.'

‘Yeah. Maybe.' I sigh. That would really be giving the game away. But then again, isn't that what I decided I wanted – to just talk straight?

When we get to the Network, Caramella goes and talks to Mohammed, who is sitting at a computer. I see her give him something. He doesn't smile, he just nods approvingly and looks at her with a serious, shy look, then pins it on the wall next to his picture of some Bollywood movie star. It's the drawing of him that she did.

In the hall, Inisiya and Nidal are already practising a bluebird. I can hear their shrieks and giggles before I even enter the room, and it makes me feel happy. Despite myself I feel happy to see them falling out of balance and laughing their heads off.

Chapter 40

After training, I tell Oscar that I saw his rocks and that they made me feel better about life.

‘Did they inspire you with their blueness?' he asks, pitching his shaggy eyebrows at a startling angle. He's sitting on a chair, peeling an orange, and looking quite deeply concerned.

‘I'm not sure if it was the blueness or the togetherness or just the way something as ordinary as a blue tea towel transformed them, but whatever it is I think you're really great, Oscar. You're a transformer.'

‘Why, thank you. I like to be a transformer.' He relaxes his brow and holds out a piece of orange for me, then frowns again. ‘Can't seem to transform my handstands yet.'

It's true. It's unlikely that he'll ever be able to do a handstand, and yet he never gives up. I had always marvelled at how he kept trying and trying, even though it was useless. But right then it made sense because Oscar just didn't see it as impossible or even unlikely. For him, everything is always possible, even a handstand from someone who has trouble balancing on his two feet. That was what really made Oscar different. More than his brain injury, it was his belief in something other than what we know. He believed in something else; something beyond, some wild, invisible, shimmering possibility that sung out to him in the tones of magic.

‘You will one day. I bet you'll transform the whole idea of what a handstand is,' I say.

‘Yes,' he says. ‘Of course, let's see. A handstand is a way of seeing the world tip upside-down. It's to clean the soles of your feet with air. It's a body's willing flip into unfamiliarity…' He begins to gesture broadly as if delivering a speech, and I laugh.

Seeing all the action, Caramella comes over. ‘What's so funny?'

‘Oh, just Oscar holding forth on handstands. But actually,' I say, ‘there is something strange I need to tell you both.' With that I launch into the story of Harold Barton, including his hard life and his juggling ambitions.

Oscar says, ‘I think it's magnificent. Harold Barton. A juggler.'

Caramella doesn't say anything for a while. She frowns and seems perplexed. Of course Harold Barton had always teased her a lot and called her Zit-face. She more than any of us would never want to trust him. After a while she says, ‘Is he good? Can he really juggle?'

‘I don't know, but I guess he must be okay because he knows all the names.'

She nods and says nothing more, at least not until we get home. The whole way there she's been quiet and thoughtful and I'm worried that I really disturbed her by bringing up the monstrous Harold Barton, so I try to reassure her by saying that if he did get into the Flying Fruit Fly Circus at least we wouldn't have to see him round here anymore.

‘But I'm thinking about Mohammed,' she says, frowning and shaking her head.

‘Mohammed?'

‘Yes. This might be a crazy idea, but I was thinking that maybe Mohammed is scared of all the physical stuff in the circus. Maybe he's just not good at that stuff, like me. But juggling is something that boys can learn, isn't it?'

She looks at me with worry in her eyes, but I'm not sure what she's getting at. She finally says it. ‘Couldn't we get Harold Barton to come to training to teach juggling?'

I stop dead still. So she's not scared of Harold Barton. She's even prepared to invite him in.

‘God! It's a great idea, but wouldn't you hate that?'

‘I'd put up with it.' She sighs and seems to relax, as if just saying it has given her the courage.

‘You never know, it might transform Harold too,' I say, and I think to myself that transformation is obviously my new thing. That, and compassion. I give Caramella a hug.

‘You know, Caramella, you're so forgiving, you're already a Buddhist, I think.' And then I go home to ring Harold and also to wait for Kite to call. Surely he'll call tonight.

Chapter 41

I ring Harold Barton, leave a message on his answering machine and then lounge around waiting for Kite to call. The first time the phone rings it's an Indian man trying to sell us a holiday to Noumea. Mum yells out, ‘Tell him we can't afford the flights.'