Luka, page 12
The darkness only lasted a few steps before it gave way to a soft light. The light spilled out from the house onto a small patch of grass. In the middle of the grass was a huge mango tree that reached up and over the tin roof. Ray was standing behind the tree’s trunk, peering into the house. I walked over, careful to stick to the shadows, and stood behind him, peeking out to look into Leah’s house.
There was a man standing at the sink below the window that looked out onto the backyard. He was washing pots and a big frying pan. Behind him, at a small dining table, was Leah, hunched over books and a notepad.
The window was open. There was the sound of the pots being scrubbed in the water, and Leah’s voice as she tried to explain some part of homework to the man at the sink, who must have been her father. The sweet, spicy smells of the dinner that had been cooked drifted into the yard.
‘I knew it,’ Ray said softly to the trunk of the tree.
‘You knew what?’ I whispered into the darkness.
‘He hasn’t come back.’
‘How do you know that? He could be anywhere in the house.’
‘Look at the table, dummy, how many plates?’
There were two plates opposite each other on the table.
‘He might have had his dinner earlier or had it in his bedroom.’
‘Doubt that.’
I sighed at Ray’s stubbornness. ‘If he’s not here, maybe it’s just because he’s pissed off. He’s had a fight with his dad, and he’s pissed off, that’s all.’
‘Pretty hard to be pissed off.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When you’re dead.’ Ray turned and walked back into the darkness, slipping out the gate.
Ten
The next morning when I woke up, there was the sound of a tap running in the bathroom, cupboard doors being closed in the kitchen and the jug bubbling to a boil. I pulled the blankets up over my head and stared into the grey, gloomy light. It was the most alive the house had been since the bombing.
School Memorial Day. I didn’t want to go, so much that I was finding it hard to breathe. It was as if someone had wrapped a thick rubber band around my rib cage and was slowly tightening it, making each breath harder to draw in.
I didn’t get why I had to go. Why I had to sit out the front of my whole school and show them how sad I was. How was that going to make anything better? It wasn’t going to bring Mum or Jazzie back. It wasn’t going to make Dad happy again, or me, or Ray.
I pushed the blanket back off my face and forced myself out of bed. I twisted open the slat blinds: grey drizzle, tiny raindrops pricked the surface of the pool. The deck around the pool was wet. Snap was curled up in a tight ball at the back door where the rain couldn’t reach him.
Rain! For a moment, the possibility of the whole day being cancelled leapt into my mind, but then it just as quickly left. The principal at our school, Ms Nielsen, was not the sort of woman to let a bit of rain scare her off. She’d simply say that was what raincoats and umbrellas were for, or she’d move the whole thing into the gymnasium.
I pulled on a pair of shorts and an old Rip Curl t-shirt of Ray’s that I’d had on yesterday, then I started to list off all of the things that might keep me away from the ceremony: car accident, house fire, simple case of high temperature, broken wrist from when I slip on the wet steps, vomiting, temper tantrum, tying myself to the bed. My chances of pulling off any of these and having Dad agree that I could stay home were zero.
Everyone was in the kitchen. Dad was at the table looking at a bowl of muesli with yoghurt, Uncle Scott was doing dishes, and Ray was standing at the toaster waiting for toast to pop.
I sat down and picked up a Tracks magazine from the chair next to me.
Uncle Scott turned around from the sink. ‘You can’t wear that,’ he said.
‘Wear what?’
‘What you’ve got on.’
‘Why?’
‘It’d be disrespectful, that’s why.’
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t intended on wearing the shorts or t-shirt to the ceremony.
‘Luka?’
‘What?’
‘Did you hear what I said?’
‘Yeah, I heard you.’
‘Well, go and find something decent to put on: shoes with laces, and a belt. A collar would be good, although you’re probably just young enough to get away without one, if you haven’t got one.’
I waited for Dad to say something, to tell Uncle Scott to piss off, that he wasn’t my dad, but he didn’t look up from the bowl in front of him. I flung the surf magazine back down on the chair and went back to my bedroom, where I laid on my bed with my arms folded across my chest, staring up at the planes.
I felt like a little kid again. The kid who had laid here with Mum that summer after she’d strung up the planes. The kid who had tickled Mum until she called ‘uncle’. And it was all I wanted. Mum. To be lying there next to me, or sitting on the edge of the bed, pushing my hair back from my forehead, asking me what was wrong, making me laugh, telling me everything would be okay, it would all be over before I knew it. Instead, there was no one.
The thought of pulling on my black jeans and blue button-up shirt made my skin crawl. I couldn’t even begin to imagine myself walking out the front door, climbing into the car, being driven to school. It set off a tremor in my bones.
Dad didn’t knock before he opened the door. He came straight in and sat next to me on the bed. ‘I made you some breakfast.’ He held out a milkshake cup with one of the metal straws Mum had bought after she watched a program on the ABC that said every year we used the weight of 540 Boeing 777 in plastic straws. ‘You can’t even begin to imagine it,’ Mum had said. ‘Actually, Scott made it. I just brought it in,’ Dad admitted.
I shuffled up in the bed, leaning against the wall. ‘What is it?’ I peered into the cup.
‘I don’t know. One of his super-duper healthy things, you know what he’s like. Some sort of smoothie or other. Knowing Scott, it’s probably got tofu and sesame seeds blended in it.’
I laughed, and Dad, for the first time smiled, although the smile didn’t stay on his face.
It smelt of banana, honey, and yoghurt – there was no hint of tofu or sesame seeds.
‘Go on, drink up. Scottie said it would be good for you. He said it’ll give you all the strength you need to get through today.’
‘I don’t want to go.’ The glass was cold in my hand.
‘I know. None of us do. But we have to.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s the right thing to do. Because sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.’
‘That’s just stupid.’
Dad looked out at the rain that had become harder. Drips of water now running down the glass. ‘Look, I can promise you two things. One: it’s going to be awful, but I will be there right beside you. As soon as it’s finished, we’ll leave. There will be no hanging around and talking to people and eating pikelets.’
‘Pikelets?’
‘Yeah, little ones with jam and cream. They’re always there at this sort of thing.’ He half-smiled again.
I sipped at the smoothie. It was cold enough to make the back of my eyes ache if I drank it too fast. It was sweet and thick. ‘And what was number two?’
‘What?’
‘You said you could promise me two things. That was the first one, what’s the second?’
‘Oh, yeah. There’s going to be another ceremony, a big national ceremony, government officials and all that stuff, even Tony Abbott – enough to make you want to stay away. They’re doing it up at the big church on the corner of Eagen and Taplin streets, you know the one. Your mum would have hated it, a big fuss by people who didn’t even know her and Jazzie. A lot of money spent when it could have been going to help some hospital or school, or to feed some struggling family. If you go today, you don’t have to come to that one.’
‘You going to go to that one?’
‘Probably, don’t know, we’ll see. Still got a week to work that out.’ Dad stood up to go. ‘So, you going to drink Scottie’s concoction? Do I need to stay here and supervise, to make sure you don’t throw it out the window?’
‘I’ll drink it … you can go.’
‘Okay. We leave in half an hour. You’ll be ready?’
‘Yep, and thanks.’
‘For what?’
I wanted to say for coming and finding me, for making sure I was okay, for sitting with me and making me feel better, for saying you will be there for me today, but instead I just said, ‘For the smoothie.’
‘Like I said, Scottie, not me.’
By the time we arrived at the school we were late. Mrs Hershey, my old English teacher, was waiting for us at the front gate. We followed her into the school – Dad and Uncle Scott in suits with ties, me and Ray, with button-up shirts and laced-up skate shoes. I’d wanted to get there early so we could get to our seats before anyone else arrived. So, we didn’t have to walk past anyone, talk to anyone. Instead, when we walked into the quadrangle where all school assemblies are held, we were confronted by the whole school – students, teachers – and all the parents who’d come. I’d never seen so many adults at the school, not for awards nights or parent-teacher interviews.
No one was on the microphone yet, so there was the normal pre-assembly noise and carry-on: kids chatting and laughing; the occasional piece of screwed-up paper being thrown; teachers pointing fingers and staring, trying to get kids to be quiet and still.
Today, seats had been dragged out into the quadrangle, so no one had to sit on the ground. The parents who’d come for the ceremony took up the first rows and then school kids were behind them.
As we walked to our seats up the front, the quadrangle got quieter and quieter until no one was talking anymore.
I pushed up against Dad, so our arms were touching, and kept my eyes down on the asphalt. My face was burning. I didn’t want to see anyone I knew. Not even Tom. Dad grabbed my hand. Normally, I would have been horrified and pulled my hand away, especially at school, but today I was glad of his firm grip. He held my hand so tight that my knuckles hurt. He was already crying.
When we reached our seats and sat down, there was a scraping of chairs behind us, a shuffling of feet, as everyone else sat down. It was the quietest I’d ever heard the school.
There was a pool in front of us, one of those rectangular blue plastic wading pools with a steel frame. It had been converted into a pond with pot plants around the edges of it and in the water. A couple of large rocks and some loose seaweed-looking plants had been added to the pot plants in the pool.
Dad let go of my hand once we were seated and put his arm around my shoulder. His arm was heavy, like a weight that was keeping me in my seat. Ray sat on the other side of Dad, picking at his fingernails. Uncle Scott was on the other side of Ray.
Ms Nielsen stood at the microphone, dressed in a black skirt and jacket, her grey hair in a loose bun. ‘Good morning, students, teachers, friends and families,’ she said. ‘A week ago today, our beachside suburb was changed forever. A week ago today, our innocence, our ability to trust that it would never be us, would never happen here, was brutally ripped away in the most barbaric way possible: the taking of young, innocent lives. Our sincere condolences and sympathy go out to those who have lost loved ones.’
That was when I stopped listening, making a soft humming noise that filled my ears and offered a distraction from what was being said. Every part of me wanted to get up and run. The only thing that kept me there was the weight of Dad’s arm on my shoulders.
There seemed to be endless speakers. A man whose picture I’d seen in the newspaper but didn’t know who he was – someone important. Two women who got up and spoke together, one with a floral skirt that she had to keep grabbing and holding when the breeze got underneath it. The other, a bigger woman, who kept reaching for her handkerchief that she had tucked in her bra. A few of the teachers spoke, then both the school captains read awkwardly from scrunched-up pieces of paper in their hands.
There were other families in the front row, other people who had lost someone in the bombing. No one I knew, but I wondered if Mum had known them. She would have spoken to other mothers when she was dropping Jazzie off and picking her up. It was possible that one of the women sitting in the front row might have spoken to her that morning, might have waved and said, ‘Have a great day,’ as they both walked off to their cars.
Everyone in the front row looked as bad as us: dark circles under their eyes, pale skin, shirts that weren’t tucked in properly, hair sticking out. Some of them were crying, others were just staring, blank-eyed, maybe trying not to listen also. The difference between those families and ours was that they all still had a mother.
The mothers looked the worst of all. As if they were just a shell and there was nothing left inside. For the first time since Mum died, I wondered if maybe she’d made the right choice to be blown up with Jazzie. Maybe she’d known what being left behind would look like.
My humming didn’t block the music that was performed between the speeches. The school choir sang ‘Bright Eyes’, a song I didn’t know, but Dad and Uncle Scott obviously did. They were both crying by the end of the first verse. After that there was a string quartet performing the introduction from a piece called ‘The Lark Ascending’. Then a girl from my grade, who Tom had had a crush on in primary school, Lucy Halshaw, got up and played the flute. ‘Vivaldi’s Four Seasons,’ she said. It was beautiful, somehow soothing, as if the flute notes were going through my skin, into my body, calming me.
The final performance was by Matt Harris, a good mate of Ray’s. He sat in front of us, looked straight at Ray and nodded. Then he plugged his guitar into a small amp, adjusted the microphone, and then without any sheet music, he started. I knew the song straight away: it was one of Mum’s favourites – ‘Hallelujah’. She used to love it because it made her cry. Mum was strange like that. She said you could hear the sadness in every word, the devastation in every note. She said sometimes when a person was so sad, all they could do was speak their truth; sometimes, she said, that was when the very best music was made.
Matt had one of those deep voices that got straight in under your skin and made it goosebump. I tried not to listen, tried to put the hum back in my ears, but nothing was going to keep Matt’s words out. I bit my bottom lip and tried to make it bleed. I held my breath that wanted to explode through my chest, wanted to rip out through my mouth in a huge and terrifying scream. I didn’t look, didn’t watch, started counting how many pebbles I could see on the asphalt.
Dad had taken his arm from around my shoulder and was now hunched forward, his forearms resting on his knees, his chest heaving, tears falling to the black asphalt below. Uncle Scott and Ray were crying too. My tears were going to come, but I so desperately didn’t want them to. Not here. Not now. Not in the messy way they were going to come. Not in front of everyone. I looked over at the library, trying to imagine I was in there looking for a book, running my finger along the spines on the shelf, trying to find a novel to read, anywhere but here, listening to Matt.
No one else saw the pelican land in front of the library, in a wobbly run that looked like it was going to tip her forward onto the asphalt and send her skidding along on her white-feathered chest. It was only me who saw her slow her unbalanced run down to a dignified walk. Everyone else was watching Matt. Everyone was crying.
The pelican headed straight for the paddle pool, not a bit perturbed by the singing or the tears. Ms Nielsen was the first to spot it. She watched with a look of irritation as the bird clambered over the edge of the pool and plopped itself into the water that was just deep enough for its feet to not touch the bottom. It drifted into the middle.
Ms Nielsen waited until Matt was finished and then went over to Mrs Hershey and Mr Werner discreetly, obviously instructing them to shoo the pelican. Then she came up to the microphone and kept talking as if the pelican wasn’t there.
The teachers walked over to the wading pool and waved their hands, thinking they could move the pelican along like they might a seagull, but the pelican had no intention of going anywhere. It stayed in the middle of the pool and opened and closed its beak at the two teachers, in a gobble-gobble type of action, as if to say, ‘Come any closer and I’ll swallow you down just like I do fish!’
Ms Nielsen was saying something about the year eight art class and the great job they’d done with the paddle pool. She was holding up a basketful of white lilies and describing how the school had thought it would be nice to throw flowers into the pool and let them drift away, which seemed ridiculous. The pool was tiny. There was no current in it. Nothing was going to drift anywhere. Just sink to the bottom.
Mr Werner had taken off his shoes and socks, rolled up the cuffs of his pants and stepped into the wading pool. He walked slowly towards the pelican, gently shooing it with both of his hands. The pelican stayed just far enough away so it couldn’t be touched while the teacher followed her around the pool. After several laps, Mr Werner gave in and stood in the middle of the pool with his hands on his hips, clearly frustrated. The pelican must have thought this was its signal to become the chaser. It turned, made the gobble-gobble action with its beak again and came straight at Mr Werner, its wings fully spread and flapping. Taken by surprise, Mr Werner stumbled backwards and slipped on the plastic, falling into the water.
I thought only the first few rows could see what was going on, but when Mr Werner landed with a splash, the whole school erupted into laughter. As if a pressure valve had been released. Ms Nielsen’s face went red, and you could only just hear her talking sternly into the microphone above the noise, but she managed to get the words ‘show the respect that the occasion deserves’ heard, and the laughter died down. The mood of the quadrangle had shifted, though. The heaviness had been shaken, tossed up in the air and then allowed to fall back over the crowd in bits and pieces, letting a lightness prick its surface.
