adelaide sprawls

It put Pip off his search.

The little boy’s grave.

1972-1983.

Black with gold inlay.

And the father’s name scratched out.

He wondered how he had not noticed it before. This little boy’s grave. With the father’s name scratched out, but its shadow left behind. And Pip stood in front of it for some amount of time between three minutes and a year, his hands in his pocekts, the autumn sun on the back of his neck and the gentle shuffling sounds of the other kids’ whirligigs whistling through his ears.

A parrot.

A crow. Two. Three.

A lorikeet.

Cars at ten kilometres an hour.

Pip needed to make his decision today and so he tried not to see the mother dressed in purple and black, her back hunched and her shoulders curled as she cursed the rising sun which lit the shadow of the name. The name etched more deeply into her heart than into the stone.

The sound of her frantic scratching ripped through the drying grass. The sound of her sobs dripped from the trees. And the stench of her anger gave life to his own, so that once again it snaked its way out of his bones and coiled itself around him head to toe, and wound itself in and out of the days that would come to make up weeks that he would come to waste on deep breaths and sharp words and bitten fingernails.

And the search he thought today would end had only just begun.

‘She wouldn’t be quite so annoying if she wasn’t quite so short,’ she said.

She scratched her head and pulled her hair behind her ears in the way that she always did. He looked down at the table and closed his eyes for a second longer than a blink.

‘Like the cardigan she was wearing was a perfect fit, except for the sleeves, and so she’d made a cuff which was four rolls thick.’ She cleared her throat and he knew that if he looked up now he would see her biting her lips.

She blew on her cup of tea. Had her blows always been so loud?

‘At least four rolls.’

Pip put his cup down, picked up the pen, pulled the newspaper closer, began drawing a moustache.

‘And she giggles when she can’t reach things,’ she said.

She took a sip which became a slurp.

Pip added glasses to the face he had moustached.

‘And I don’t mean suitcases on the wardrobe or cobwebs on the cornice…anyone can get a stool and reach those kinds of things.’

Devil’s horns. A moustache, glasses and devil’s horns.

‘But no, she can’t reach the salt.’

Snot drips out of the nostril.

‘Can someone pass the salt she says and then she giggles. Every. Single. Time.’

And now the other one.

‘Like she thinks it’s funny having arms that short.’

Earwax! God, how long had it been since he’d drawn wax dribbling from ears? Twenty years? At least.

‘She could wear heels,’ she said. ‘No-one needs to be that short.’

Pip put his pen down, picked up his cup. It wasn’t the one he liked. It was all right for coffee, but not for tea.

‘Heels wouldn’t help her to reach the salt,’ he said. He brought the cup to his lips. The tea had cooled enough to drink.

She looked down at the things he had drawn, then up again.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘You know what I mean.’ She scratched at her head again. ‘And do you have to swallow like that when you drink?’

He put the cup down, picked the pen up. The next time they had this conversation Pip promised himself that he would say you’re only five foot two.

If Sharon thought about it, she could remember she’d had her rags, one at sports day and that’s why she didn’t win the 800 metres or the hurdles or any of the sprints. And there was one in Charities Week, because that was the day the blood had shown on her skirt, and she had to pretend she had sat on a chocolate ice cream, and she’d gone home at lunch time and she hadn’t gone to school for two days until the school rang Dad, and he said I thought those days were over, love so she went back, because she hated to make him sad.

Had there been another one since then? Yeah, another one, or maybe two. Enough. There was no need to feel scared.

Sharon started to count. From now. Because it didn’t really matter, because nothing would go wrong. It was just for something to do.

She checked. Four days, a week, three weeks, a month. Over a month. Two. Shit. Shit and fuck.

She went to the toilet when she woke up, after breakfast, after her shower, when she got to school, at the end of lessons, at the beginning of lunch, halfway through lunch, at the end of the lunch, after school at school, after school at home. With no sign of blood on her knickers or on the paper, she stuck her fingers up there. She stuck them up, and she wriggled them back and forth a bit until it almost hurt. They came out again without a sign of blood. Shit. Shit and fuck.

She said to Pip ‘my rags haven’t come.’

He looked scared and he said shit and that was the moment when she knew he wouldn’t stay.

She tried to pretend there was nothing wrong, she told herself it couldn’t be true, she prayed to God. She filled her prayers with promises and bargains she told herself she’d keep. But why would He listen? He never had before.

She burnt the tea and she burst into tears.

‘What’s wrong, love?’ Dad said. ‘Is it exams? Are you worried you won’t know enough?’ She thought of a million different things to say, of different ways to get the words out, but in the end, she just said ‘I’m pregnant. I’m having a baby.’

‘There’s a bit of a sing-a-long in the dining room tonight, I’m afraid,’ Yvette said. ‘Vi’s been practising Tipperary all afternoon. You’ve probably heard.’

Pip had. That and what a friend we have in Jesus. Songs he had never expected to learn.

He gave one long, slow blink.

‘Wouldn’t be so bad if she could remember the bloody words,’ Yvette said, then she laughed. It was the kind of laugh that meant no harm.

Yvette fussed with the newspapers. She picked them off the bed section by section, folding them neatly, putting them in a pile.

The papers had been there since ten o’clock when Coral had put them down, told Pip she would be back in a moment. Just need to powder my nose is what she said.

Pip didn’t mind that Coral had never come back. Coral’s voice grated and she stumbled across commas, took no notice of full stops.

It would be good when Rose came back from Queensland and started doing the newspapers again. Rose had a voice which was soft and light and you could tell that she was thinking while she read.

Pip couldn’t remember how long Rose had been gone. People didn’t write that kind of thing on his calendar. They had asterisked Christmas and highlighted new year’s eve. Mum had been through and written all the important birthdays in red. But no one had written Rose back into one of the squares.

‘We’re not supposed to leave you in in your rooms tonight,’ Yvette said. She folded the newspaper into neat sections. ‘We’re supposed to make you all join in. Because of New Year’s Eve.’ She folded the final piece of newspaper back into place, then looked up and as far into Pip’s eyes as she could. ‘So it might be a bit late before I get back. It might be eight or so before I can see you again. Is that OK?’

Yvette nodded before she looked away. She took a few steps towards the door and put the folded newspaper on the chair by the door. ‘Yeah, anything’s better than another bloody sing-a-long, I reckon.’ Yvette closed her eyes and took a deep, but silent breath before she turned to face Pip again.

There was nothing like New Year’s Eve for turning lonely into lonelier.

She took the few steps across the room so that she could be closer to him. She bent down so she was looking directly at him. Her knees clicked loudly as she squatted.

It means you’ll get arthritis. That’s what Karen Fenn had said when they were still at school. Yvette could still see the way Karen Fenn flicked her ponytail as she spoke. She could see the blue eyeliner Karen Fenn had used every day and no teachers asked her to take it off. She could see the short skirts and the even tan. Karen Fenn was allowed to put colours through her hair.

Yvette ran the fingers on both her hands through her hair, pulled her hair back from her face and off the back of her neck. She should have worn it up today. She should have made an effort. Even if she had to work it was still New Year’s Eve.

‘D’you remember Karen Fenn?’ Yvette asked. ‘Tall she was. Married Marco Turci. That’s Dino Turci’s brother.’ She looked at Pip then shook her head. ‘Before your time I s’pose. She moved away years ago.’ She smiled at him. ‘She had lovely long fingers and her nails never seemed to break.’

Karen Fenn wouldn’t be working in an Old Folks Home on New Year’s Eve, Yvette thought. Karen Fenn wouldn’t care about the triple time and she wouldn’t offer to do the shift because she knew she wouldn’t have anything else to do anyway and you were better at work than you were down the pub where everyone else would be kissing the love of their lives.

Yvette let her hands and her hair fall. She wished she didn’t still think about Karen Fenn. As if Karen Fenn ever thought about her.

‘You’ve already had enough of sing-a-longs, haven’t you, mate?’ Yvette asked Pip. She put her hand on his. His skin was softer than it had ever been.

She pulled her hand away, then stood up, crossing her arms over her chest.

At moments like this she always used to say I know, love, I know. She used to say that to him a lot. I know. But she just nodded at him now.

Yvette smiled at him then stood up. ‘I might turn that off,’ she said. She flicked her head at the television. There were too many nurses and too many visitors left the television on. ‘It makes a racket, doesn’t it? And there’s nothing on the bloody thing.’ She reached up to the television and turned it off. ‘There’s no company in a television,’ Yvette said.

It was something she would have left as a thought in any other room.

‘You look nice today,’ Yvette said. She squinted as she looked more closely at him. ‘Is that shirt new?’ She stopped talking, nodded and smiled. ‘Thought so. That blue really suits you.’ She squinted.

‘Oh, hello,’ Yvette said. ‘Look who’s here.’ She stood up, wiped the palms of her hands down her uniform. It was looking bloody grubby now, wasn’t it?

She should have done the washing last night. You couldn’t wear a uniform two days in a row.

‘Is it still hot out there?’ Yvette asked.

Sue nodded. ‘Scorching. Gauge at our place says forty one. And that’s in the shade.’

‘Better off in here, aren’t I?’ Yvette said and she was sorry as soon as she said the words. It was a stupid thing to say in front of him. In front of his mother.

Apologising would make it worse.

‘I’ll leave you two in peace for a while, shall I?’

Pip blinked. Once for yes. Then blinked again.

Which must have been a mistake or maybe she’d seen it wrong.