Growing Up in Flames, page 12
Usually when I come home, she’s in the bedroom with Deli on her finger, singing to her. The bird bobs up and down, dancing like Ava used to. The bird’s the only thing that makes her smile.
‘The doctors say he’s never going to walk again,’ she announces from the floor as I walk in to change out of my work clothes. ‘His back is broken too badly.’
‘How do you know?’ I take my shirt off. She doesn’t even look at me.
‘His mum told me. I went back to see him.’
She can’t make dinner or do the dishes—she’s too tired—but she can drive into town to visit him. Every conversation is about Alex now—somehow, from his hospital bed, he’s forced his way into our house. He lives here.
I hate it.
This place was our freedom. Away from my waxwork mother and my dad’s belt. Away from Ava’s brother’s scarred leg and her father’s disappointment. Away from Alex. She’s brought it all into our home.
I slam the wardrobe door. Ava flinches, ducking her head as if expecting me to hit her. Deli squawks and flaps her wings.
‘Stop it! You’re scaring her!’ Ava yells.
‘You went back there?’ I ask, daring her to tell me more. I want this fight. I can almost feel the belt in my hand.
She ignores me instead, calming Deli and putting her back in her cage. I leave her. I’ll make dinner for myself. She doesn’t need it anyway.
This diary belongs to Ava Olsen
Alex is awake now. It’s my fault he’ll never walk again, and he doesn’t remember any of it. The grazes are healed, and he holds my hand when I sit next to his bed and ask him what he had for breakfast. Mr and Mrs Kahn say they’re so happy their son has such a good friend. It makes me feel sick. I feel like puking all over the floor when his mum hugs me and says thank you. He’ll spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, and it’s all my fault.
Kenna
Present Day
I lie on my bed, staring at a kaleidoscope of sunlight reflected off my phone. In each streak of colour, I see a different portrait of Mum: a girl on a lawnmower, screaming for help; a woman holding her toddler on her hip under the stars; a dancer trying to cover her bruises with makeup; a mother burning alive. The images blur and stretch as I angle my phone to catch the dying sun.
Finding James Faulkner only left me with more questions. I’m no closer to knowing why Mum left, or why she never came back. It seems like she started going off the rails after the accident with Rob, but that doesn’t explain everything. She won every year at the Easter Show and then suddenly she stopped dancing and ended up covered in bruises. She couldn’t ride a motorbike properly, but she took Faulkner’s and landed herself in hospital. Then she disappeared.
Dr Kahn said that people who change are either running towards something or running away. Which was it for her?
The springs in my mattress creak. A hand taps my knee. I push myself up to sitting and look down the bed: Iggy, nervously holding his specialbook in one hand and a plastic cup with a blue bendy straw in the other. He moves away from me, then offers me the drink. I take it and sip lukewarm water through the straw.
‘Thanks.’
‘Mummy said to bring it to you.’ Iggy fingers the leather strap around his book.
So Abbey’s still trying. She and Rob haven’t given up on me yet.
‘What’s so special about that thing?’ I point to the book. He’s stroking it like a puppy.
‘I found it.’ He cracks a toothless grin. ‘In my room. It was hidden in a special place, and I found it and then Daddy said I can keep it because finders keepers.’ He nods seriously, as if the legalities of this situation are a matter for careful consideration.
‘Can you show me where you found it?’ I suck through the straw until the cup gurgles empty.
Almost bouncing off the bed, Iggy takes my hand and pulls me across the hall and into his room. The rug next to his bed is cluttered with toys arranged in a scene of bloody carnage. A Power Ranger lies crushed under a monster truck driven by a small green army man while half the cast of Star Wars watches. What goes through boys’ minds?
Iggy leaps dramatically over the toys. I step over them and take a seat in front of his wardrobe, following his lead. In a sea of flat-pack furniture, the wardrobe is different. It looks old and solid, like it belongs to the house rather than the family.
Iggy gestures me to move back so he can pull out a drawer from the wooden frame. Undies featuring a variety of cartoon characters are arranged in rows—presumably Abbey’s work.
He turns and gives me a gappy smile.
‘That’s it?’ I sigh.
Iggy giggles, then pulls the drawer out further until it falls off its tracks and thuds onto the floorboards. I look back at the door, expecting Rob or Abbey to investigate.
Iggy points into the dark cavity where the drawer goes. He reaches in, flattening his cheek against the wood as his hand searches at the back of the space. With a triumphant grin, he pulls out an object that he quickly hides with his other hand.
‘Hands out.’ He holds his mystery prize tight to his chest and waits, chin jutting.
I roll my eyes, but I hold my hands out. He places something cold and metallic in them, then closes my fingers over it. We share a covert smile, and I almost burst out laughing as he pokes his tongue through the space between teeth.
I uncurl my fingers. It’s a pocketknife; a little red one. I click out the blade and scrape the edge across my thumb. It’s sharp.
‘I found that too,’ Iggy whispers. ‘With my specialbook. They were in the hiding place. Mummy and Dad don’t know about that one, though.’
He looks up at me seriously, and I understand: this is our secret.
I’m not sure what to do. I ought to ruffle his hair and say thanks, or open my arms and give him a cuddle. But one rogue thought is circling my mind: some people don’t deserve to be happy.
I can’t unthink it. It eats through my brain like acid, melting the smile off my face. She’s dead and I’m here, in the house she grew up in, feeling happy. Feeling like I might belong.
‘This was my mum’s room,’ I think aloud, and I can tell Iggy doesn’t know what to say. I squeeze the handle of the knife in my hand and see uncertainty creep into his face. He reaches forward to take it back from me.
I don’t give it to him. Instead, I snatch the book from under his arm and stand up.
‘Mum!’ He calls out for help as he reaches for his book.
‘No.’ I step away, putting my other hand between us. The hand holding the knife.
Iggy’s eyes snap wide in fear. ‘Mum!’ He screams bloody murder down the hall. ‘Kenna’s going to stab me!’
I hear chairs screeching along wooden floors in the dining room. I fold the knife away and stuff it in my pocket. Then I run, and I take his book with me.
Because the shadows of his parents are rushing down the hall to protect him. Because he’s never lost anything. Because this was Mum’s room, and the book was hidden in here.
I’m out the back door in a second, just as Rob and Abbey arrive. I take the stairs three at a time into the yard, barely noticing the mosquitos that have emerged from the shadows. I shove Iggy’s book into my mouth to free up both hands. My fingers grip the top of the fence as a shadow blocks the floodlight on the back verandah, plunging me into darkness. I leap the fence and land hard in an irrigation trench, water up to my ankles.
A jarring pain goes through my left knee. I bite down on the book and climb out of the trench and into the cane field, pushing through the stalks with my whole body. I’m rushing, and the leaves cut me. I push on, not sure where I’m going.
Some people don’t deserve to be happy.
I hate Iggy for making me smile. For a second, I felt like I could belong here with this new family and let go of my anger, my pain. It’s not his fault. He’s just a kid. I rip the book from my mouth so I can scream. The sound that comes out is strangled and dull.
I hit the edge of the field and emerge from the cane to a clear view of the sky. I stop just short of another trench, chest heaving. There’s blood smeared over my forearms, but I wipe my nose with them anyway.
I can’t go back.
They’re not my family. They don’t even like me. Why would they? Even Mum never trusted me enough to tell me what happened to her.
I’ve pushed everyone away, I know what I’ve done. And now I’m finally alone.
A tiredness hits me like I’ve never felt before. My bones are heavy, and I sink to my knees in the prickle of weeds and native grass. Mosquitos swarm on me; I can’t be bothered to wave them away.
Might be nothing left of me when they find me.
I can smell a fire burning somewhere not far away. Maybe one or two fields over. Ash falls around me like crow feathers, only visible just before they land. They mix with my sweat and blood: I smear the mixture, painting my skin. I trace spirals and scratch lines in it. I’m as dirty as I feel.
This is how it must have been the night Mum died. When a bushfire is close, the ash falls like rain, choking the sky and coating the streets. It piles up on windscreen wipers like in some apocalypse movie. It goes everywhere—kids aren’t allowed outside. If you do go out, ash finds its way into eyes, ears and mouths. It’s like being slowly buried alive.
That’s not what kills you, though. The ash—that’s just a warning. When the fire is really close, a gust of wind is all it takes. Embers fly in every direction like fireworks. They sail through the air and stick to cars and wood and brick. Most of them die, but it only takes one. I’ve seen it in videos. Pot plants flaring, gutters melting, flyscreen shrivelling like a spider web above a lighter.
I used to do that—burn spider webs when I found them in the bush.
Did I do it that day?
The book is still in my hand. I drop it on the ground in front of me and pull at the straps. The knot holds firm, so I use Iggy’s little red knife to cut it.
Iggy found the book in his room, stashed behind a drawer in a piece of furniture that looks like it might have been there before everything else.
Yes: one sentence written on the inside of the front cover.
This diary belongs to Ava Olsen.
The air goes out of me. Spit bubbles on my lip as my breath shudders. It’s not enough. She deserves more. I make an effort to cry properly—to force tears that would track through the ash on my face.
This was Mum’s.
As the fire crackles and roars somewhere in the distance, I sit on the ground by the trench, smeared black, and read by phone-light. I’m the star that fell from the sky, alone and shivering.
By the time I’m done, the ash has stopped falling but my fingers have left black smears and prints on the pages of the book. I stand, and my toes squelch in my shoes. Beneath the grime, my skin shows in goosebumps.
With the smoke gone, the stars are clear. They don’t seem as close as they did in the mountains, but they’re brighter. I close one eye and track with my finger: try to pick the dark spot that Mum always pointed out.
I can’t find it. Without her, it all looks the same.
My thumb leaves dirty smudges on the screen as I dial Noah’s number. It rings out to voicemail. There is no recording—just a computerised voice telling me to leave a message.
‘Hey, Noah…it’s Kenna.’ I take a shuddering breath. ‘I found something. A diary—I think I know why she left. The boy—Alex. The one they left in the cane. It was Doctor Kahn. He got hit by a car while walking home.’
Through my sobs I tell him what I’ve put together. He’s the only one who’ll understand. Kahn, Faulkner, Mum—the whole mess of it. No wonder she left. She was running away.
‘She’s the reason he’s in a wheelchair.’ I don’t even know if I’m talking to Noah anymore. ‘How did she live with herself?’
There’s no answer. Just a beep and an offer to re-record.
I hang up. Noah might understand the question, but he doesn’t have the answer.
Only James Faulkner does.
Noah
Present Day
The automatic doors to the Chisholm Residential Care Centre rumble open. Behind a glass window, a middle-aged woman looks up from a computer screen. Her lips go thin when she sees me.
I pull my hood back and smile apologetically, distinctly aware of the fading bruises on my face. ‘Sorry, just came for a visit.’
She looks behind me, and I follow her gaze to a clock on the wall.
‘It’s quite late.’
It’s half-past seven, and the sun hasn’t fully set, but saying so won’t get me anywhere. I give her an exaggerated wince, as if I just stubbed my toe on the time, and nod. ‘I just got off work,’ I lie. ‘I’ll try to make it quick.’
She rolls her eyes at me and gestures to a clipboard on a table underneath her window. ‘Sign in, please.’
I scrawl a made-up name in one column and the time in the next. Under ‘purpose’ I just write ‘visit’. When I look back up, the unfriendly woman has gone back to her computer. She speaks without looking at me.
‘Do you know where you’re going?’
I take a quick look at the room. It’s a big space, filled with mismatched armchairs around small coffee tables. There’s a TV on at the far end. A slack-jawed man in a bed on wheels is watching a game show with big, black headphones on, drowning in pillows and blankets. He won’t do. I need someone more portable.
Alone in an armchair sits an old woman. Patches of pink scalp show through her white hair. She’s wearing large, jewelled earrings—plastic, I guess—and a beaded necklace makes a clacking sound like dominoes as she moves her head. Her hands are covered in woollen mittens tied at the wrists.
‘Yes, thanks. I can see Nanna over there.’ I cross the room without looking back.
The old lady looks over at me with a purple-lipstick smile and a clatter of beads. Her eyes narrow behind thick glasses, as if she’s struggling to focus on my face. She leans in to get a closer look. There’s a smear of purple on her front teeth.
‘Hi. How are you going?’ I take her mittened hand with both of mine and speak in the soothing voice I save for Mum’s worst days.
Her smile widens and her shoulders relax. ‘Benjamin? Is that you?’
I nod and pat her hand. ‘Yes, it’s me. How are you feeling?’
‘Wonderful.’ She gazes adoringly at me and I wonder who Benjamin is. Grandson? Husband?
‘Wonderful. Wonderful,’ she repeats. She’s stroking a stuffed dog on her lap like it’s real. I wonder if I should get something like that for Mum. Not a real pet of course, but something to keep her company.
‘That’s great.’ I keep smiling at her. ‘No pain in your chest?’
She’s still silently mouthing the word ‘wonderful’, and I know that I need to speed things up before the unfriendly reception nurse asks me to leave or this old lady falls asleep.
‘Is your chest hurting?’ I say again.
‘Yes.’ She nods, still stroking her toy.
I look at her seriously. ‘How much is your chest hurting?’
Her smile fades and she pulls her dog close to her. ‘A lot.’
‘Do you think you need to tell someone?’
The old lady whimpers, and I feel sick. ‘Benjamin, I need a doctor.’
It’s all I was waiting to hear. I drop her hand and stand up, looking around the room for a nurse. ‘Excuse me?’ I say it loudly enough to turn heads. The reception nurse’s face reappears in the window across the room. ‘I think she needs a doctor. Now! She says her chest hurts.’
The old lady is whimpering like a little kid and hugging her dog to her chest. I feel awful. My eyes are stinging and I feel like I might throw up. Think about the plan. We need this.
The reception nurse appears through a door, bustling across the room. A man follows her, pushing a wheelchair in front of him.
‘Beth?’ The nurse pushes me out of the way and crouches over the old lady, holding her shoulder. ‘Can you hear me?’
Beth nods, shushing her stuffed dog as if it’s making too much noise. ‘My chest hurts.’ She places a shaking hand just under her collarbone.
‘Okay, sweetie, we’re just going to help you into the wheelchair so we can take you to see someone.’ The nurse nods to the man, who places the chair next to where Beth is sitting and flips a lever to lock the wheels in place. ‘All right, here we go.’
Together, they lift Beth and her stuffed dog into the wheelchair. She looks as light as a feather in their arms. The reception nurse takes a blanket from a nearby chair and spreads it over Beth’s legs before they wheel her towards the automatic doors. I walk with them.
‘I’m sorry, we’re going to have to take her down to the hospital,’ the nurse says, as if it’s the end of a conversation. I see her name tag for the first time. Alison.
‘I’m coming.’
She steps between the automatic doors to stop them from closing so the wheelchair can get through. ‘No. I’m sorry—’
‘Benjamin!’ Beth reaches a hand out for me and I take hold of it. God bless you, Beth.
‘I’m coming,’ I repeat.
When we walk up the path and onto the street we get a clear view down the hill, over the town of Kimba and the river that runs through it. There’s a fire somewhere on the other side of the water. In the cane fields, not too far from home. The sun melts into a line of flame. The smoke is smeared in orange and grey across the horizon.
Chisholm Residential Care Centre sits on top of Kimba Hill, so close to the hospital that they share a car park. I’ve walked up this hill a few times, sometimes dragging Mum, sometimes myself. I’ve never taken in the view before.
I walk on one side of Beth and Alison-the-unfriendly-reception-nurse walks on the other, occasionally shooting me a look that says ‘You shouldn’t be here’. I ignore her.
‘We’ll be there in just a minute, love. They called ahead from the centre, so we’ll go straight in.’ The male nurse, his name tag says Ross, speaks gently as he pushes the wheelchair.
