Yellowcake (11 page)

‘Here.’
The screen door slapped closed on a gust of cold air. Dad swooshed a bundle of greenery onto the table. ‘Make something of that.’

‘What?’ Marcus was on the point of finishing his maths homework. He’d been looking forward to packing up and going to bed.

‘One of your neck-laces,’ said Dad, shutting the back door. ‘Though there’s no flowers to be had.’

Both of them looked at the gerberas in the vase on the table. They were a cheerful, shouty pink. ‘We can’t use those. They’re from Josie next door,’ said Marcus. ‘She visits just about every day. She’ll notice they’re gone.’

‘She’ll notice
Mum’s
gone a whole lot more.’

‘I suppose.’

The gerberas shouted some more.

‘Gotta be better than just green,’ said Dad.

‘They
are
nice and bright.’

Dad took the vase to the sink, pulled out the flowers and emptied the water into the plughole.

Marcus closed the maths book and pushed it away. He dragged the whippy green vine-stalks towards him. ‘Are you worried about her, then?’

Dad rinsed the gerbera stems hard under the tap, then wiped them with a tea-towel. Mum would have used the kitchen paper. But then, if Mum had been here, the flowers would never have left the vase.

He brought the gerberas back to the table. ‘Stalks are pretty thick.’ He eyed Marcus’s hands, which were already binding vine-stems together. ‘Won’t be a problem, will it?’

‘Where will she be, though?’

‘Swathes, she told me. I always make her tell me. Just in case of exactly this.’

‘Do you have a feeling?’

‘No. Just a clock.’ Dad nodded at the microwave. ‘And a phone that says she can’t be reached.’ He patted the phone in his shirt pocket.

Can’t be reached
—a little stab of fear lit through Marcus’s belly. He pushed a gerbera into his face. ‘These don’t have any smell.’

Dad sniffed one and pulled his mouth sideways. ‘It was roses last time, wasn’t it?’

‘Roses and lavender.’

‘Lemme think.’

Dad went into the bathroom. Marcus began to plait stems, listening to him clink things around in there.

Dad came back with the black bottle of aftershave that always sat behind everything else in the cupboard. ‘This,’ he said with a grin. ‘What I smelt like when we first met. If that doesn’t wake her up, I don’t know what will.’ He unscrewed the lid and put it under Marcus’s nose.

‘Phew. It’s stronger than roses and lavender.’

‘Isn’t it, though. We all went round stunk up with the stuff. She liked it back then. All the girls liked it. Or so we told ourselves.’

‘All right.’ Marcus was plaiting the green stems, loosely so as to leave room for the gerbera stalks. Swathes in town, is she? Or Swathes at Eastlands?’

‘Town,’ said Dad. ‘Or somewhere on the way. Or she might walk in at any minute, and think it’s funny that we’re worrying. Keep going, though.’ He set off through the house to the front. Marcus heard him on the porch, on the path, heard the gate. He heard, almost, Dad’s head turning as he checked up and down the street. Plait, plait. This would be an interesting wreath—a bit odd-looking, but it would hold together well, these good strong stalks with their regular sprouts of little leaves along them. In springtime they had yellow flowers, funny shaped,
like some kind of pea-flower
, Mum had described them once, but it was winter-time now, and they weren’t even beginning to bud up yet.

Dad came back. ‘We taking the train in?’ said Marcus.

‘I thought we’d drive. Be quicker this time of night.’

‘That’s not the way she would’ve gone, though.’

‘I figure, we’ll go up the railway station, ask if there are any delays on the line, then drive into town and check Swathes.’

‘You reckon she’d stop the train?’

‘Someone’d press the emergency button, for sure. Don’t you reckon?’

It was a shame to have to wake Lenny and put her in the capsule, but she settled back to sleep pretty quickly once they started driving. Marcus sat in the back with her; he didn’t want to take Mum’s seat in the front. He just put the gaudy wreath there, in its cloud of aftershave. The smell had got on his hands and stuck there, despite a quick scrubbing with soap-in-a-bottle (lavender, chamomile and orange). Now his hands carried two little clouds of powerful scents, and felt slippery-dry.

It was a long drive; he could have slept, but he wanted to keep Dad company, so he made himself sit up straight and watch the suburbs tumble past, the freeway roll smoothly by. It was a fine clear night, and everything looked cleaner under only streetlights and neon, kinder, more mysterious. The lights went over Lenny’s sleeping face like cloths stroking her, her woolly hat, her fanning eyelashes, her mouth so small and perfect, like the bud of some strange flower, or maybe a faun’s hoofprint in snow. Marcus laid his perfumed hand on the blanket tucked over her stomach, and watched out the windscreen as the night and lights rushed on at them.

The first time, only Dad had been there—well, Marcus had been, but he’d only been tiny, so he didn’t remember any of it.
Scared the geewhillikers out of me
, Dad said. It had been in the laundry, which in the old place—Marcus knew that house as another land, the land of his babyhood, entirely built of Mum and Dad’s stories—had been a separate little hut, in the back yard. Dad had gone looking for her, and at first he hadn’t checked in the laundry,
because she always made a good racket out there, and once it started, of course, she was dead quiet.
When he found her he’d called and called,
panicking
, he said, and hung onto her, and finally she’d softened, and floated down and landed beside him,
and let out this big sigh
, Dad said
. She could have been glad to be back or sorry—I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know.

Marcus had nodded when Dad told him this. That was his instinct, too, to stay closed-lipped about it. Not just to not-mention it to anyone except Dad—
that
went without saying—but to not bother Mum, either, with all those questions that bubbled up. They’d had their talk about it; they were taking action; there was no need to bring it up at all, with Mum or with Dad, no need to worry aloud. He’d taught himself to banish the thoughts from his mind if he ever felt too worried, at night or on bad days.

The last time it happened—ages ago, more than a whole year—he’d been right there with her; she’d been pregnant with Lenny then. It was a rainy day, and she was showing him how to make a wreath, from her days in the florist shop. She’d stood up quietly, preoccupied, and he’d kept on poking the lavender-stems among the plaited circle of potato-vine and making them firm, and the next time he looked up she’d risen and was motionless on the air, and the room was full of a wonderful peace. She’d looked so comfortable. The bump of Lenny wasn’t bothering her, wasn’t squirming and kicking her under the ribs and making her gasp. Marcus remembered how unafraid he’d been. He could see that she was happy. Not that she was usually
un
happy; it was just that her happiness usually showed in smiles and hugs and such, going out to people; this happiness had flowered inside her, and was held completely within her, and went on and on, smooth, uninterruptable.

And Marcus had been happy too, because Mum was, and everything felt so right and in place. He’d continued with the flowers, as she’d just taught him. He was rather glad, in fact, that she wasn’t there giving him more advice; he was sure he could work it out for himself; he knew what looked right, and how to space the flowers out and mix them evenly.

And then Dad had come in, and the sight of Mum, and the feeling she gave off, certainly hadn’t made
him
happy.
How long has she been like this?
He’d thrown his work bag down. If Marcus had been able to be frightened, there within the cloud of Mum’s happiness, Dad’s face would have frightened him. He’d never seen such wide eyes on him before, such a ragged-looking mouth, like a baby’s squaring up to cry. Dad’s voice would have frightened him, all high and thin like that.

I suppose you’re wondering what that was about, what happened yesterday,
Mum had said to Marcus next day, as they set off for school.

I suppose I am,
he’d said, because he could see she wanted to talk about it. Although he
hadn’t
been wondering. He’d closed it away in his mind along with all the other mysterious things grown-ups did, and he didn’t particularly want to take it out and look at it.

I was being called,
she had said.
From afar. From above.

He’d waited for more, but none came. Her face had glowed, a little the way it had glowed the day before while she hovered.
Who was calling you?
he’d asked.

Her usual, thinking self had slipped back into place behind her face. Marcus had felt bad to have dismissed the glow from her, the lovely memory.
Who?
she’d repeated.
It wasn’t really a who. Or it was so much bigger than, you know, than a single … than a
person.
Than any-old-person down here.

Why were they calling you?
He’d taken her hand, even though way back at the beginning of kindy he’d told her he was too big to hold hands with her, now that he was a school boy.

I don’t know. They thought I could help somehow.

Help with what?
And then he’d said something she often said, in quite her own tone of voice:
You’ve got enough to do.

She’d looked down and seen how frightened she was making him.
That’s right.
She’d squeezed his hand and swung it.
You lot keep me busy enough. And soon there’ll be another one of you.
And she’d patted her Lenny bump, and they’d walked on into the normal day.

But he’d heard her talking to Dad in the kitchen one night as he passed the closed door on the way to the bathroom.
There’s a place for me there
, she’d said.

There’s a place for you here!
Dad had said.
With me! With your kids!

But I could do so much more from there, and not just for you and Marcus and Lenny. It’s bigger. It’s more. It’s closer to the centre of things—I don’t know how to explain. It’s another level.

I want you on
this
level, darl. I want you to stay here, and to be able to touch and see you, and
talk
to you, and the kids to be able to too, and—

I won’t be
going
anywhere. I’ll still be
here
. The air you breathe, the water you drink, the weather, the ground—

Marcus had let the bathroom door close with its usual loud click. He’d crossed to the toilet, and tried to drown out any sound of their voices with as rattling a pee as he could manage.

Dad had been good; he would wink at Marcus if he caught his eye; he would wrestle the same after tea on the lounge-room floor. (
You boys—
Mum would pretend to sound tired—
Why do you have to be so
boysie
?
And Dad, pinning Marcus down and laughing, would say,
We just do, darl. Don’t we, mate? Don’t we? Don’t we?
With every
don’t
he would dig his big strong fingers into Marcus’s side. Marcus hated it, loved it, didn’t quite know how he felt.)

But Dad had bought the phones, and some of their talk about the phones, and the rules about them, had leaked out where Marcus could hear. He remembered the importance in Dad’s voice:
At all times, all right?
And Mum saying,
I heard you the first time
, crossly, as if Dad was making a fuss about nothing.
It’s not going to happen, I tell you. I’ve got a baby coming.